Paradox Lake

by Vincent Zandri

  “I have an idea,” he says. “But you’re going to have to help me, Rose.”

  I don’t hesitate to make my way to him in the stern. Pulling a blue kerchief from his back pocket, he then unscrews the cap to which the rubber hose is attached. He stuffs the kerchief inside the hole.

  I gaze at Tim’s boat. It can’t be thirty feet away from us and gaining.

  “Mama, do something!” Anna cries, her face a mask of panic and fright.

  “We are, baby,” I insist. “We’re trying like hell.”

  “Okay, Rose,” Tony says. “When I give you the word, we heave this gas tank overboard and into Tim’s boat. You understand?”

  For the first time, I see precisely what he’s going for here. He’s talking about turning the gas tank into a bomb—an oversized Molotov cocktail.

  One eye on the incoming boat, the other on him. “You realize we could all be blown to bits, Tone?”

  He digs out his Bic lighter, thumbs a flame, touches it to the kerchief. The now gas-soaked rag immediately lights up.

  “Any better ideas, Rose?”

  The boat coming closer, Tim’s mangled but determined face lighting up in a brand new flash of lightning.

  “Anna!” I shout over my shoulder. “Drop down onto your stomach.”

  “But, Mama …”

  “Do it now!”

  Eyes back on Tony.

  “Wait for my command,” he insists.

  “Won’t we still get rammed by his boat?”

  “Chance we gotta take.”

  Tim’s boat is now maybe fifteen feet away.

  “Ready, Rose?”

  “Ready, Tone.”

  We both pick up our separate ends of the half-full gas tank. The boat’s bow is just about to ram us.

  “Heave!” Tony shouts.

  Together, we toss the gas tank into Tim’s boat. Then comes the explosion and …

  CHAPTER 53

  I FEEL THE rain pelting my face and my body submerged in the cool lake water that’s collected in the boat. I spring up fast.

  “Anna,” I say.

  “I’m right here,” she says, trying to stand. “I’m okay.”

  “Tony!”

  He’s on his knees, only inches from where the bow of Tim’s boat rammed our stern, smashing it to bits so that we’re now taking on water, big-time. I shake the cobwebs from my brain only to notice that Tony is glowing in firelight. That’s when my eyes refocus onto Tim’s boat. It’s entirely engulfed in flames. Tim is standing in the middle of it, despite the rain, his body is going up like a piece of dry kindling. Entirely engulfed in red/orange flame, he’s screaming a high-pitched cry that makes my stomach go tight and my mouth go dry. He’s spinning around and around on the balls of his feet, like a top. He’s hugging himself and trying to pat himself down when there’s an entire lake at his disposal. Finally, he falls overboard and all I can make out is a loud hiss and a groan. His body sinks under the choppy surface. Just like that, the monster is gone.

  For what seems like forever, all three of us just stare at the burning boat. Until Tony turns to me.

  “So that just happened,” he says while exhaling a long breath.

  “He was a real bad man, Mom,” Anna says.

  “I sure know how to pick ’em,” I say. Then, turning to Tony and placing my hand on his wet thigh, “That’s supposed to be a joke.”

  He looks at me, reaches out and takes me in his arms. He squeezes until I can’t breathe. That’s when Anna crawls over to us and joins in on the group hug. We’re sinking on Paradox Lake, but I never want to let go.

  Tim’s boat doesn’t remain engulfed in flame for all that long what with the rain and the wind. But the light that’s coming from the fire must be enough to alert the Paradox Lake authorities. Soon we can make out the sound of rotor blades cutting through the air along with a bright sodium search light that strafes the choppy lake surface. All three of us start waving our hands in the air as if on cue. It doesn’t take the helicopter long before it’s hovering over us and a basket is being dropped by a cable.

  Anna goes first, of course, then me, then Tony. We sit inside the helicopter, buckled into our seats, the helmeted rescue team providing us with blankets. They don’t ask us what happened out there on Paradox Lake nor who owned the boat that crashed into us. They don’t ask us what happened in the Paradox forest or what went on in the basements of the two old houses. They don’t ask us about the murdered priest. Their job is to save us. The many questions will come later.

  I’m sitting in the middle, in between my daughter, and my boyfriend. I take hold of their hands and squeeze them as tightly as I can.

  You did good, Rosie. Proud of you.

  Thanks, Allison. I know you were there for me, for us, the entire way.

  You’re a survivor, Rose. The best wife and mother ever. I love you always.

  I love you too, Charlie. The both of you.

  We speed over the lake, faster than a speeding bullet, or so it seems, the dark sky lighting up in bursts of brilliant electric light. It’s a wonderful sight to witness through my tears.

  EPILOGUE

  Three Months Later

  THE ALBANY ART Gallery is kind enough to grant me a one person show. I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the quality of my new sculptures, or if it has everything to do with my new-found fame as the woman who, along with her daughter and fiancé, survived a harrowing ordeal on Paradox Lake. In any case, it’s quite the affair with the local press showing up and even a few members of the national media. After all, who doesn’t love a “We survived a psycho madman!” story? In this case, it was two psycho madmen, one of whom convinced himself he was the Big Bad Wolf from out of Little Red Riding Hood.

  The show is one I’m especially proud of. Believing that simplicity is the best policy when it comes to art show titles, I’m calling it “Paradox Lake.” Minimal, grounded geographically speaking, but thought provoking at the same time.

  The busts are the best I’ve produced in my career thus far, but then I just might be slightly biased about that. Okay, very biased. The sculpted heads that make up the first portion of the show are, in no specific order, Charlie, Allison, and Anna. There’s also one of myself—I guess you could call it a self-portrait—completing my original family. The faces are young, vibrant, and full of hope. Anna’s face is based on the very first picture taken of her in the hospital maternity ward, moments after she was born without her father or big sister in attendance.

  The gallery space that Part One takes place in is more like a big dark box. Everyone is asked to gather inside it and, at the appointed time, slides of my family, from the moment Charlie and I came together, are superimposed over their busts and against all four walls and even the ceiling. The sound that’s pumped in through super-clear Boss speakers is part voice recordings, part music that we loved, part times of sadness, like a small recording of a distraught Charlie giving Allison’s eulogy at her funeral. The presentation is intended as a visual feast for the senses, even if it does end on a sad, if not dramatic, note.

  Part Two of the show is of Anna, myself, and Tony. It’s the same deal. A second space has been prepared, and once Part One is over, the patrons are asked to gather into this second box. Again, a slide show that represents our lives in the form of slides, short videos, music, and voice-overs accompany the busts. It begins with mementoes of our lives after the deaths of Charlie and Allison, and around the time we met Tony, and continues all the way up until the day Anna and I left for Paradox Lake.

  Part Three is the most shocking and, from what the critics have written thus far about the installation, has been the most controversial. The busts are not only of Anna, me, and Tony. They are also of Ed and Tim, not only as they looked alive, but as they appeared in death. In the case of the latter, I created a black, fire-consumed skull. Also added to the collection of busts is Sarah Anne Moore, both as she appeared when her seventh-grade yearbook photo was taken—the one that appeared in
the newspaper back when she was abducted—and also her death face, which I was able to receive in photographic form from an old reporter who wrote about the case thirty years ago.

  Also included is a bust of Sarah’s mom, who, it turns out, was raped and strangled by a young Tim Ferguson, her body then dumped in the lake. Since the police department is still prohibited from sharing records of the case, the old reporter—who will go unnamed here now that he’s enjoying a peaceful retirement in Florida—has provided a plethora of information. It was he who researched Tim’s actions, and although there wasn’t sufficient enough evidence for the Essex County DA to pin anything on Tim Ferguson at the time of Mrs. Moore’s demise in 1991, the reporter knew better. When a diary was dug up at Tim’s apartment above the general store after his death, which includes not only a confession of the rape and subsequent murder, but also locks of Mrs. Moore’s hair and pubic hair, DNA tests were conducted and it was case closed for the county sheriff and the state police who were called in to investigate the entire ordeal posthumously.

  The last two busts are the most shocking since they are reproductions not only of Father O’Connor when he was alive and preaching at the Roman Catholic Church in Paradox, but also the severed and skinned head that Tim or Ed placed on my sculpture platform. It is such a shockingly realistic reproduction that some visitors have gotten visibly ill and had no choice but to exit the space.

  My humblest apologies if you are one of them.

  The photos, video, Super-8 film, music, newspaper clippings, and music that are projected inside Space Three begin when Sarah was abducted in 1986 and continue right up until the present day, including crime scene photos that were made public of the Moore house after Theodore “Ed” Peasley skinned Father O’Connor’s body as if it were a freshly killed deer. My gut instinct served me correctly when I surmised that the skins hanging on the rack behind Ed’s house were not only those of the wild animals that lived in the Paradox forest—they also belonged to human beings, some of them men, women, and children who had gone missing ages ago and who were held captive in the monster’s basement.

  According to the old reporter, Ed and Tim’s partnership probably worked something like this. Tim would spot a likely victim and manage to abduct him or her, either by sheer force, or as in mine and Anna’s case, by seducing them with his charm. Once a trust was accomplished, Ed would be called in to do the dirty work, which Tim would observe with relish since, from a psychological point of view, it provided him with a perverse sexual pleasure. And that’s putting it pretty mildly.

  So what now?

  Anna has been seeing a psychotherapist for PTSD, but she’s getting along fine, or so it seems. Her physical injuries turned out to be nothing serious, although she did receive a series of tetanus shots due to Ed’s filthy mouth, teeth, and fingernails. Her grades are good, and after a period of sleepless nights due to recurring nightmares about drowning and being chased in a dark forest, she’s back to her old, sarcastic self. You know how resilient kids can be—how they can rebound so quickly, God bless them. She’s even getting along great with Nicole and, get this, attending the eighth-grade Snow Ball with Jake Walls. I should note that he is still a head shorter than she is.

  Tony is still Tony and I love him for it. Since his bush jacket pretty much got wrecked during that night when he saved our lives in Paradox, I gladly bought him a new one. He’s planning a research trip to North Africa in order to, in his words, “break it in properly.” In the meantime, he’s been offered a small book deal by a true crime imprint that was just begging for the rights to our story.

  In a move entirely unlike the Tony I’ve known and loved all these years—despite my taking that love for granted more recently—he kindly asked that Anna and I coauthor it with him.

  “We can write it as a family,” he said, not without a proud smile.

  But we gladly declined since, even though we are two of the main characters, he’s the real writer of the family and therefore the book is entirely his. We are to be married next September in a small ceremony that’s to take place on a beach near Hyannis Port in Cape Cod. I can only hope the weather is good.

  Charlie and Allison continue to talk to me and gift me with their advice. They are like my invisible family, but at the same time, so very real and so very much in my head at all times. I love them like no other and I know they will wait for me when it’s my time to see them again in another place far away from here. And yes, they are very happy about my impending marriage to Tony. In Allison’s words, “You just needed to figure out how much you really loved him, Rosie. Nothing wrong with that.”

  As for me, a strange thing happened to me just the other day. I received a package in the mail marked “Personal and Confidential.” I opened the bubble-wrapped padded package having no clue what it could possibly be or who it was from, since there was no return address printed on the envelope. When I discovered that it was the rare edition of Little Red Riding Hood, and that it must have been rescued from the fireplace in the Moore house, I was more than a little taken aback. In fact, a cold chill ran down my spine.

  Who could have sent this to me? Was it the local sheriff? Was it the new renters of the place now that it had been cleaned up of its blood, and once more listed on the Airbnb site? But digging further into the envelope, I discovered a short, handwritten note. Unfolding the note, I read,

  Dear Rose,

  I found this in the fireplace at the house you rented from me and my brother in Paradox some months back. It pains me to know you and your daughter will never come back here. It pains me more to know it’s entirely my brother’s fault. My brother and his partner, Ed, that is. When Tim and I purchased the Moore house almost 20 years ago now, I never could have dreamed something so terrible could happen there. Something so evil. I hope you believe me when I tell you I had no idea just who and what my brother really was. I spent decades feeling horrible about what happened to Sarah Anne, and when my brother and I purchased the house together, I was under the impression we could once more bring happiness to the precious little house on the lake. My God, how wrong I was. I’m not a psychologist, but I’d say he was waiting for the day Sarah and her mom would return. When you showed up, he and Ed got their wish. That said, I just wanted to apologize on behalf of my late brother, and I pray that one day, you will find enough forgiveness in your hearts for us and for Paradox Lake. I also pray that you and Anna will pay a visit—the cheese and macaroni will be on me.

  Peace and love,

  Kathy Ferguson

  I read the note again and again, and the words never change. My stomach cramps and my mind recalls the events of that horrible night. They replay in my brain at lightning speed, like a video being fast-forwarded. From the moment Tim attacked me after drugging me in his pickup truck on the gravel road that led to the Moore house, to the moment he burned up in his boat. That he and Ed were evil creatures, there is no doubt. That my heart aches for Kathy, there is also no doubt.

  But I will never again visit Paradox Lake. Not in this life anyway. My guess is that Anna will never go back there either. We’ve put the entire ordeal behind us. Rather, we’re trying to put it behind us. But I’d be a fool to think we’re ever going to forget about it. It will forever occupy space in our heads. But life goes on, even when you’re gone. Charlie and Allison are evidence of that. So is Sarah Anne Moore.

  There comes an end to all things, or so they say. In this case, in the very end, it all comes down to good versus evil. One can either dive headfirst into the evil, or one can fight on the side of the good. What would become of us if not for the good?

  I now surround myself with the good. My family is my rock, my foundation. They are my heart and my soul. I’ve sculpted them from the most delicate clay. They are all I have left in the world, but they are everything. All of them, alive or departed. They are forever.

  I am a sculptor and I am a survivor, but I will be haunted by ghosts until the day I die.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE<
br />
  We hope that you have enjoyed Vincent Zandri’s Paradox Lake. As you know from the front pages of this book, Zandri has written over forty novels and novellas, won many awards, and frequently appears on best-seller lists. So, if you have not read his fiction, where to start?

  We suggest The Girl Who Wasn’t There, one of his more recent thrillers. Here the forces swirl around a missing young girl—good forces and extremely evil forces. Again, as in Paradox Lake, Zandri has captured the style and the mood and the desperation of another young girl, eleven-year-old Chloe in The Girl Who Wasn’t There along the shores of beautiful Lake Placid in the midst of the Adirondack Mountains.

  After that there are many more chilling-to-the-bone thrillers to read. They’re listed up front in this novel just before the title page. You can also check them out on the author’s website:

  www.vinzandri.com

  Warning: you may not be able to put them down and may lose sleep!

  Oceanview Publishing