Blackwater Lights

by Michael M. Hughes

  Lily’s hands snaked around his chest from behind. He turned and she smiled at him, her hair fanning out around her head and glowing purplish. Tiny, pearl-like bubbles escaped from her mouth. Her breasts floated weightlessly, in synchrony. She pushed Ray toward the surface.

  The air stung like ice. Burning, invigorating ice. “Oh my God,” he said. “Every inch of my body is …” He couldn’t finish, but started laughing.

  “Told you it’s good,” she said, swimming in place. “You look beautiful in this light. So … pure. And vibrant.” She slid her hands over his chest and brushed her foot against his. “Oh, wait.” She pushed off, propelling herself backward. “I promised I wouldn’t touch you. I must have lied. I’m a bad girl like that sometimes.” She backstroked to the shallow end of the pool.

  He followed, as if chained.

  Lily climbed up the steps out of the pool. Her skin glistened, each drop of water shooting off bright threads of light. And he wanted her. He wanted nothing else. He wanted more than anything to rub his hands and his tongue over that smooth belly, to press himself against that dark, warm place between her legs. He felt like he’d die if he didn’t.

  “I’m going in the greenhouse,” she said. “It’s warm in there. We can lie on the grass. You want to come with me?”

  “Yes,” he said, stumbling on the pool steps. “Wow. I’m really fucked up.”

  “Yes, you are. Your eyes are opening up.”

  She was splitting into two, then three, phasing in and out.

  “They’re wide open. It’s like every bit of you is right there in front of me. You’re wide open, Ray—all your defenses are down.” She steadied him. “Look into my eyes. Let yourself open up. No, stop the wiggling. Focus on my eyes. Let yourself fall into them.”

  With effort he steadied his gaze. Lily’s face expanded, filling his visual field. Her pupils enlarged, growing bigger than her irises, bigger than her eyes, and kept growing. She’s swallowing me. She’s eating me. And then …

  He’s walking down a twisting path, a dirt road deep in the woods. There are ruts, and he has to pay attention to the ground because it’s night. He turns and looks behind him, and Kevin stares. He’s smiling, pretending like he’s not scared, but his eyes give it away. He’s scared shitless.

  There are more kids in front of him and behind him. And men leading them and following behind them.

  The light at the end of the path is brilliant white. They’re all being marched toward it. He wants to turn around and run, even if he can’t find his way back to the camp, because the light makes him want to scream. It’s so bright it hurts inside his head. He threw up the last time.

  As they get closer he sees more details. The lights are movie lights, mounted on stands. Cameras as well, big, bulky things. A few adults are fiddling with the equipment, but one man in a suit waits for them.

  Dr. Green. His name is Dr. Green.

  The doctor leads them, only the boys now, into the center of the bright circle of light. Ray has done this before, and he falls into practiced formation. One by one, the boys align themselves on their backs in the grass, feet together in the center, bodies arrayed outward like the petals of a flower. They all stare into the sky.

  The movie lights lower and now it seems almost dark.

  Nothing happens for a long time. Ray does what he was instructed, his heart hammering in his chest.

  Above him, the stars begin to move.

  “Oh my God,” Ray said, his head snapping back. “What did you just do to me?” He stumbled, and she grabbed him. The world tilted on an extreme angle, then reversed itself. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Shhh, Ray. It’s okay. You’re tripping hard.”

  “No … Jesus. No. You looked into me, somehow. You fucked with my head.” He was shaking. This was getting to be too much, way too fucking much.

  “Relax. Relax, Ray. You’ll be okay. Let’s go in the greenhouse. It’s warm in there. You’re shivering. You’re probably dehydrated, too.” She took his hand and led him slowly down the path. The drug blasted him now, fragmenting his panicked consciousness. His head swarmed with chattering insects.

  The trees morphed into shadowy faces, some leering, some smiling beneficently, all of them watching as he stumbled through their secret world. He staggered. The stone path was rising to meet his motionless feet, so how could he be walking? But he was moving along, somehow.

  God, help me.

  But there was no God here. There was power, and poison, and regeneration, and death, ancient and cold. The faces of the trees followed him, turning in unison as he passed, whispering in inscrutable tongues.

  She walked in front of him, opening up a rippling hole in space, her red hair bleeding into the sky. The sky was alive. She pulled him along, slowly, like he was a child learning to walk. She turned her head to look at him, but he couldn’t—wouldn’t—look into her eyes.

  They moved inside, and it was wet again, dark, and fragrant with the thick odors of flowers and pollen and ripe earth. He looked up and understood he was inside an organism: a giant white membrane, plastic and breathing. It wasn’t a greenhouse at all—he was inside a living being.

  She helped him to lie down, down into the grass—soft, winding, dewy green blades that twisted in tendrils on his naked flesh. Inside a circle of flickering candles. She poured something into his mouth, salty and bitter, and the warmth washed through his limbs as he swallowed uncontrollably. And hands were touching him, electric hands, skillful hands, moving between his legs. Her face moved into his, red serpentine hair hanging like ropes, and she was speaking but it didn’t make any sense. Just sounds, meaningless syllables. Her voice turned into colors and objects and danced in front of his face as she chanted.

  Then she was gone. She walked away into the darkness, leaving a ghostly white trail of dripping afterimages in her wake. He was alone, in the circle, in this alien place. Yet he wasn’t alone, not nearly; he sensed the spirits, the intelligences, the essences of all the energy around him, all focused upon him with their mix of curiosity, love, and desire.

  And then she was back, on the ground in the circle next to him, naked flesh pressing against his, breasts brushing against his belly. But as the face moved into his vision, it wasn’t Lily. Not Lily. It was a face he knew, knew but couldn’t remember, a face beautiful and young and knowing.

  “I know you,” she whispered in his ear. She flicked the tip of her tongue along the side of his face.

  Crystal. Dancing, frightened Crystal.

  His eyes closed and he slipped quickly into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Seven

  Ellen’s eyes widened when she saw him. “What’s wrong?” She sat in the booth across from him. “Are you all right?”

  Ray shook his head. He needed coffee. Or better yet, a Coke—something to settle his stomach. Maybe a coffee and a Coke—his old college hangover standby. “I’ve been better,” he said.

  “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Are you sick?”

  “No,” he said. “Just had a really bad night.” He wiped his eyes. They hurt as if he’d been crying. Swollen from lack of sleep. “I’ll take that coffee.”

  She stood. “Sure.” Her eyes sized him up. He knew he looked like hell. He’d looked like a zombie in the mirror, pale, face drawn, purplish bags under his eyes. “Hey, you want to take a walk? I’m going on my break in about ten minutes.”

  He looked up. She wasn’t really asking. She had been a nurse, William had said, and he could tell. “Okay,” he said. He had no choice. If he couldn’t tell someone the truth about what was happening, he’d snap.

  They sat at a picnic table in the municipal park beneath a lush, spreading oak. Ellen had made them both Styrofoam cups of sweet iced tea. She drank from hers and looked up through the leaves. Shadows flittered across her face. A perfectly fine face. Not the kind of face that would catch your attention across a room, but soft, comforting. She was normal, thank God. Normal—and that was such a beautiful,
sane, perfectly agreeable, and wonderful thing.

  She turned to him. “So, what happened to you?”

  He sighed. Where to start? “The thing is, I’m not really sure.”

  “I have forty minutes,” she said. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? Like why you’re here?”

  She listened. He told her everything—the camp, the recurring nightmares, Kevin, meeting Lily, the party, Crystal naked in the yard. Even seeing the lights. But he couldn’t bear to look at her as he let it all pour out. Any trace of doubt in her eyes would have shut him up and that would have been the end. As it was, he couldn’t imagine anyone believing him. Telling it to her made it seem all the more insane—the ranting of a drug-addled, paranoid schizophrenic. So he stared at the wood grain in the table, at his hands, at the grass.

  “And I can’t remember anything—anything at all—after I got in the pool. It’s like the rest of the night is just spliced out.” He looked across the table. She didn’t look like she was going to run and scream for the police, but she was scared. Her mouth had tightened.

  “And you’re convinced the dreams you had—the dreams you’re still having—are the result of something that happened to you? Something real?”

  “I know it was. Believe me, I’ve tried to tell myself nothing happened. Lisa—my last girlfriend—told me I was obsessed, so I just stopped talking about it. I suppose she was right. But how could I not be obsessed? Do you know how maddening that is? It’s been nagging at me since Kevin and I were kids, and it’s always there, in the back of my mind. Torturing me.”

  “Wasn’t there anyone else you could ask about it? Your mom? Your dad? One of the other kids?”

  Ray shook his head. “My parents were no help at all. My dad was a workaholic and I wasn’t that close to him. I definitely couldn’t talk to him about bad dreams—he would have just told me to buck up. He was old-school like that. My mom said all she remembered was that after I got back from camp I said I never wanted to go camping again. She remembered me having bad dreams afterward but figured it was just some kind of stage I was going through. I was a quiet kid. It’s frustrating. I didn’t know any of the other kids except Kevin, and my uncle isn’t around anymore—he died in some nursing home about twenty years ago.”

  Ellen swallowed. “I have something to tell you. About a year ago, a guy your age came into the diner. He didn’t eat anything, just sat drinking coffee for a long time.” She reached into her purse. “I’m sorry—I need a smoke.”

  “Please. Go ahead.”

  She lit a cigarette, glancing behind at the diner, and took a long drag. “I’m trying to quit,” she said. “But I need one right now.”

  Ray felt his breath catch. The closer he got to answers, the more he worried that the truth might be too much to handle.

  “He asked me about a camp. If I knew of a camp from back in the seventies. Said he’d been here as a kid.”

  Ray’s stomach contracted. He lifted the iced tea to his mouth. His hands were shaking.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away. I’d completely forgotten about him until I met you.” She blew a cloud of smoke over her shoulder. “I told him I didn’t know of any camp. Just like I told you. He seemed disappointed. Just like you.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “No idea,” she said. “Never saw him again. But he had the same look as you. I don’t know how to describe it. Excited, I guess. But spooked.”

  “So then … that means I’m not nuts. I mean, if it was just me and Kevin, I could suppose we were both feeding off each other’s delusions. But if someone else is involved … then it can’t be a delusion. Right? All of this isn’t just me going crazy.”

  She shook her head. “Well, you might be a little bit crazy.” She held her palm against the side of his head. “But I believe you. And if half of what you’re saying is true, anybody would be more than a little crazy.”

  Her fingers were warm and smelled of cigarettes. “I swear. It is true.” He reached up and held her hand.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you’re telling the truth.”

  They sat silently. A crow cawed in the tree above them. Ray breathed deeply through his nose. “Thank you for listening to me. I needed to get that out.” He closed his eyes. “It’s so nice to sit here in the sunlight. Everything seems so bright and safe and normal.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said.

  He wasn’t so sure. But it did seem like it would be okay, at least temporarily.

  They both jumped. A football bounced off the picnic table and wobbled at their feet.

  A long-haired kid in sweatpants walked toward them. “Sorry,” he said.

  Ray handed him the ball. “It’s cool.” The kid tucked the ball under his arm and jogged back to his friend.

  Ellen looked at her watch. “Shoot. I’m fifteen minutes late.” She stuffed the cigarettes and lighter into her purse. “Listen, do you want to get together and talk about this tonight?” She opened a pack of gum and tossed two white squares into her mouth. “I can meet you somewhere.”

  He nodded. “Sure. Oh—wait. I can’t. I promised the librarian I’d meet him.”

  Her eyes widened. “Denny Huffington?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “Sort of. He was a couple years ahead of me in high school. I think he thought I was just a little dumb blonde. But William loves him. He convinced Denny to carry his robot book. Two copies, in fact.”

  “I can cancel. It’s no big deal.”

  “No. Did you tell him about any of this?”

  “No. Well, some of it. He was helping me look for the camp. But we didn’t find anything.”

  “Then why don’t I meet up with the two of you?”

  Ray shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  Ellen smiled.

  Denny was waiting when Ray arrived at the Purple Burro. “I think I found something,” he said. “Well, maybe. It’s not much, but I wanted you to see it.” He pulled several sheets of paper from a folder. “This was from the local paper. May 1972. Which also happens to be one of the biggest years for the lights. Lots of sightings.”

  Ray’s stomach tightened.

  Denny handed him the paper. “A woman named Dottie Walker had a column, ‘Dottie’s Dotings.’ It was as bad as it sounds—mostly so-and-so had their sixth baby, or gee, wasn’t the church pancake breakfast the finest ever. But check it out.” He pointed to a neatly bracketed paragraph on the photocopied page.

  People around town are all stirred up by the convoy that came through this past weekend, a line of white semi trucks and vans and even some yellow school buses with Maryland and Virginia tags. Pouty Bickle says a few of them gassed up at his station, but they weren’t in a mood to gab. Some folks seem to think the vehicles were taking kids to see the big telescopes at Green Bank, but others think it’s some top-secret project to defend us all against the Russians. I suspect the mysterious convoy caught wind of next week’s Clogging Festival down at the Odd Fellows hall and they’ll all be dropping by for Sally Pennington’s famous biscuits and gravy.

  Ray realized he was holding his breath.

  “Does that ring any bells?” Denny asked.

  “Maybe. Is that it?”

  “No, no.” He held up another piece of paper. “Same column, two weeks later.” His breath smelled like peppermint. “Here.”

  Well, the mystery convoy is a mystery no more, thanks to Sheriff Thornton, who tells me it was heading to a camp for what they call “gifted” kids somewhere up north of town. Sheriff says they don’t expect to be bringing the kids around, so don’t go looking for a smarty-pants youngster to balance your checkbook for you.

  Denny stared at him expectantly.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.” He pulled at his beard. “But it’s a start. I’ve started looking through property records. It’s weird—I thought I knew everything there was to know about this place, and I’d never heard anything like this.”

>   “Do you have any idea where this camp was? Do you have a map?”

  “Sure.” He unfolded a map of the town. Ray reread the “Dottie’s Dotings” columns. A camp for gifted kids. He’d never been singled out as gifted and only made decent passing grades until high school. But the camp she wrote about had to be his camp—the year was right. And the school buses …

  It had been hot, nasty hot, and he and Kevin had been sitting in the backseat, bouncing high into the air with every bump in the road. Kevin had been sticking his cupped hand under his armpit and making fart noises. Ray had laughed so hard he thought he’d pee himself.

  “Here.” Denny spread the map. “This is from 1978.” He drew a circle with his finger. “This is Blackwater, along this squiggly road.” The town was surrounded by a nearly solid expanse of green ink, with a snaking river alongside it. “You can see why we don’t get a lot of through traffic.”

  “What’s north?”

  “Not much. State road winds through here. National forest is here, the rest is a mix of state and private land.”

  Ray studied the map. He had driven along that curving, hellish road to Crawford’s. “So the camp had to be somewhere off the road, if that many vehicles needed to park. Is there anything out there? Houses? Farms?”

  Denny nodded. He moved his finger along the curving road. “Up here is the only African American church within … gosh, I don’t know. Probably a hundred miles or more.”

  The preacher with the X-ray eyes. An old man, certainly old enough to have run a summer camp for gifted children. No one suspected preachers of bad behavior back then.

  “You okay?”

  Ray refocused his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. What can you tell me about the church? I think that might be important.”