Blackwater Lights

by Michael M. Hughes

  Kevin’s face drained of blood. “That’s why I asked you to come here. It’s going to take a while for me to explain.”

  “Fine. Start explaining,” Ray said. “I’ve waited almost forty years. No need to rush.”

  Kevin blinked. “I need another drink.” He refilled his glass. “I didn’t understand it for a long time. Then I realized why I was here and all the manipulations that went into drawing me back to this place. How Crawford convinced me to buy this piece of land, and how he worked behind the curtains setting everything up. I knew that it wasn’t just my coding skills he was after. And then one afternoon, not long after he did that thing to the bird, he took me for a long walk in the woods. I was sure I was a dead man. And I saw that horrible place again.”

  “The Hand,” Ray said.

  Kevin nodded. “And I just figured it out. It all came back at once. Everything. What happened to us. I lost it, just fell apart. And I looked at Crawford, and he was smiling. I was screaming and whimpering in the dirt and the motherfucker was just laughing at me.”

  The phone rang.

  “Hold on a minute.” Kevin picked up the phone and walked to the window. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” He licked his lips. Ray couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line, but Kevin nodded. “Okay. Yes.” He hung up. Rain pelted the window.

  “Who was that?”

  He waved his hand. “Webcam girl. Asking for more money.” He walked back to the window.

  “So why are they messing with me? What happened to us?”

  Kevin turned. His gaze was stony.

  “They’re not going to leave me alone, are they?”

  Kevin turned back to the window. He spoke quickly, clearly, in a whisper, but with an edge that said I’m not fucking around. “Ray, go to the back door and get out of here. Now.”

  “What?”

  Kevin stared into the darkness beyond the window. “Leave—out the back door and run. Go.”

  “What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Kevin spoke without turning. “Get out of here now.” A shaft of light crossed his face. Headlights.

  A car door slammed shut. Then another.

  Kevin turned, his face covered in tears. “I love you, Ray. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened. But there’s nothing I could do.”

  “What? Kevin, you—”

  Kevin hurled himself backward into the kitchen table. A chair upended and slammed into the wall. Glasses rocketed off the table, crashing onto the floor, popping and exploding. He stood up and threw himself against the refrigerator, sliding to the floor. He punched himself in the face with a pale fist. And again. A bubble of blood blew out of one nostril, then a fine spray. “Go,” he whispered. He punched himself again, and his face erupted in red.

  The front door buckled outward—someone strong was yanking on it. Ray ran out the back door as the front door snapped off its hinges.

  “He jumped me,” Kevin was saying. “He went out the back.…”

  The darkness made full-on running impossible. Ray’s feet sank in the rain-saturated earth. He stumbled, holding his hands in front of his face—if he ran blindly, he’d smack his head into a tree, shred his face, or impale himself on a sharp branch.

  His foot twisted, throwing him into the dirt. Leaves stuck to his face. “Shit,” he said, and then choked. Best to be quiet.

  Voices. Moving closer.

  He scrambled around to his feet and stumbled onward, downhill, away from the house. A thin, whiplike branch snapped and sliced his cheek. No time to think. Just run. Lily laughed in the distance.

  Ray staggered. Fire shot through his ankle with every step. He must have twisted it when he fell. A flashlight beam zigzagged behind him. Two flashlights, searching like bright eyes. If he didn’t keep moving, they’d be on him in minutes.

  Laughter again.

  “Ray! Oh, Ray!” Crawford’s voice, high-pitched and mocking.

  Water roared ahead. The river?

  “Ray, why are you running?”

  The sound of the river grew louder. He was getting close. But what then? His ankle twisted again, and he couldn’t choke back a cry of pain.

  The flashlight beams converged on him, casting his shadow in two directions.

  Crawford called out, “Ray, come on. Stop running. Let’s go get dry and have a hot cocoa, shall we?”

  “Fuck you,” Ray whispered to himself. He hobbled on his aching ankle.

  The Blackwater River. Flooded and out of control, rushing by in front of him, splashing against the sides of the hill on which he stood.

  The flashlights blinded him. “Ray, take it easy. Let’s get out of this rain and talk about this like grown-ups.”

  Ray looked at the shadowy water below. Dark shapes bobbed by, carried by the swirling floodwaters. A river full of rocks, swollen with days of rain, bloated with fallen trees and branches. He turned to look behind him and the flashlight burned into his eyes. Purple and red blobs danced in his vision. “There’s nowhere to go.” Crawford had slowed.

  And then he smelled her perfume. “Ray,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. Come with us.”

  He turned and jumped, closing his eyes and falling through the nothingness below him.

  How cold it was, and how strong, and terribly dark. Something—a stick or a sharp rock—tore into the flesh near his buttocks as he sank below the surface. The harsh, oppressive current flipped and rolled him. If he didn’t get air soon he’d be smashed to pieces and drown in the blackness. He flailed, his hands paddling and clawing. Nothing. He couldn’t even tell which way was up.

  Keep your legs in front of you, because it’s better to have broken legs than a broken skull. A cute, tanned rafting guide had explained that to him years ago when Lisa had convinced him to take a trip down the Youghiogheny River. Her advice was good, but at the moment the river determined where he was going, which direction he faced, and whether it would wedge him against a tree under the water until he drowned or just hurl him face-first into a boulder. He grasped in all directions, feeling nothing. His chest ached, and water pushed into his nose like insistent fingers.

  His arm snagged something—a branch? Bigger. A log. He grabbed it, his hands slipping on the slimy bark, and pulled it to his chest. Finally some buoyancy. He rolled, and the log rolled with him, and he felt air on his face. He coughed, his lungs sucking in a deep breath, and the log rolled again, dumping him back beneath the surface.

  His leg slammed into something hard, and his knee snapped. He screamed, his mouth filling with water. Gritty, cold, foul water. Water of death.

  And then he was propelled up and into the cold air. He landed in a clump of brush lodged between a half-submerged boulder and the muddy riverbank. His lungs rejected their first inhalation, spewing out the water that had started to fill them. He retched violently, the river water blowing out in grunting spasms. He tried to stand, grasping at sticks and clumps of grass, but screamed as his knee buckled beneath his weight. His good leg sank into mud.

  He found a tree root sticking out of the bank and wrapped his fingers around it. His other hand found a cleft in the root. He pulled. His injured leg popped audibly—whether it was cartilage or bone, he couldn’t tell—and tiny, dancing sprites swarmed his vision. It would be so easy to just slip back under the water, to close his eyes, to settle down into the muck and sleep and erase the pain.

  He pulled again, his good leg sliding out of the mud. Another pull, and he rolled, careful to keep the weight off his injured leg, and rested on his back. The rain pelted his face, but he was out of the river—and alive.

  Now what?

  One of his shoes had come off in the mud. His hand ran up and down his injured leg, flinching as he pressed gently on the knee. Maybe it was broken—it was hard to tell at the moment, but it was going to be next to impossible to walk. His fingers probed higher up and touched sticky, hot blood. Something had ripped a gash in his leg near his right buttock. He pressed against it, hoping pressure wou
ld stop the bleeding. He had no energy to do much more at the moment but rest.

  If Crawford and Lily found him now, he’d be at their mercy.

  Rain splattered against his face, beating a rhythm against his closed eyelids. How long could he lie here? Crawford might assume he’d been swept to his death—as he almost had been. But probably not. They could just follow the river to find him.

  And even if they didn’t show up, how long could he expect to last? He was bleeding, his leg was out of commission, and he could barely move. He’d read enough about hypothermia to know that he’d die if he didn’t find warmth, even with temperatures far above freezing. And he was sodden, lost, and probably close to shock. The cold, thick mud felt almost … welcoming. He could sleep, just for a few minutes, in this mudluscious bed. Just a quick catnap.

  He sat up slowly, needles of hot pain spreading in his knee. His eyes rapidly adjusted to the darkness, but it was still impossible to see much beyond the outlines of trees. The water churned next to him. Had it risen even higher in just the last few minutes? It was hard to tell, but it would be best to get as far away as possible. He could crawl, at least, or pull himself along on his backside, and maybe find some kind of shelter. If he could make it through the night without getting hypothermia, he might have a chance of getting to a road, or to a house, anywhere he might find help.

  The only alternative was dying alone in the woods, or waiting until Crawford and Lily found him. Right now they could be torturing Kevin for letting him escape, filming everything as they committed unspeakable violations. Had Kevin’s sham—throwing himself into the kitchen table and punching himself in the face—actually worked? Crawford seemed too sharp to fall for such a lie.

  Kevin. How deep did his ties to Crawford go? The phone call he’d gotten before he’d told Ray to escape had been Crawford saying he was on his way. That meant that Kevin had known Crawford was going to come—for Ray—and hadn’t said anything until the car pulled up outside.

  His face stinging with rain, Ray pulled himself away from the river, his backside dragging in the mud, into the darkness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It seemed the rain would never stop.

  The violent shaking had started. Ray’s hands were cut from twigs and numb from digging into the cold, wet soil as he dragged himself along. He’d long since forgotten the direction of the river; for all he knew, he could be sliding around on his ass in circles. He had tried crawling on his stomach, but his throbbing knee wouldn’t allow it. It didn’t matter anymore where he might be going. The object was to move. Without movement, the scant heat his body generated would be sucked out by the cold, the rain, and the wind.

  His teeth chattered so hard it seemed they would break into pieces.

  The shivering felt like a dance. The dance of the holy, of Pentecostals overcome by the sweet ecstasy of spirits. Was shivering like this the final stage of hypothermia? Did one die feeling blissful, at one with the universe, like people rescued from drowning or a heroin overdose? Hadn’t Jack London written about that—after his character contemplated slitting open his dog and shoving his frostbitten hands inside its carcass?

  Hands dig into earth. Arms lift, pull backward. Legs drag. Fall back to earth. Again. The rain falls. Hands dig into earth. Arms lift the body.

  The rain slowed but didn’t stop. The spastic shivering had stopped, but the time he needed to rest between each painful move increased. He didn’t dare lie on his back—he was too weak to sit back up. Instead, he leaned against a wide tree, which provided cover from the lingering raindrops.

  He could go no further. His arms were numb from his hands to elbows, and his shoulders felt disengaged from his torso, as if they’d been pulled out of their joints in a sadistic game of tug-of-war. His knee looked like a melon, and the gash in his buttock was caked with mud. He tucked his icy hands under his armpits.

  Something crawled into his lap. It took him a long time to realize it was the cat—the scraggly orange cat, rat-skinny from the rain. It meowed at him, a sad cry, and settled down beneath the shelter of his heaving chest.

  He wept until he no longer felt anything at all.

  The pain returned—bone-deep aching. A radiating fire from his knee, which for some reason he couldn’t move. A heaviness of the body.

  But where?

  In a bed, in a room; a small, dark room. A fire in a woodstove, casting shadows. No windows. Something crept up from between his feet, and the orange cat’s face appeared. It licked his eye, then the corner of his mouth.

  “Off,” Ray whispered, his voice hoarse. The cat tilted its head, staring into his eyes.

  “You should be nicer to him. He saved your life.”

  Ray turned. The cat jumped off the bed. An IV line ran from a drip into his arm. A man sat in the shadows, leaning forward on a cane.

  Micah, the old black preacher, in his absurd white suit. “Now, just relax, friend,” he said. “No one’s going to hurt you. We’re going to take care of you.”

  Ray wiped his eyes. “What’s going on?”

  Micah smiled broadly. “Soon, Ray. You need to sleep now.” He slid his warm, rough hand over Ray’s eyes. “Sleep. Close your eyes. Sleep now.”

  As if unable to resist his command, Ray fell asleep.

  When he awoke, he felt much better, and more conscious, but still sore all over. The preacher stood over him with his bodyguard, Mantu.

  “You look much better,” the preacher said.

  “I feel better,” Ray said.

  “Mantu, get him some tea.” The younger man left the room. “You’re a very lucky man. You were dying. If your little friend hadn’t come running up to us, we might not have seen you.”

  “I … thank you. But how did you find me?”

  Micah sighed. “I’ve been trying to help you. I knew who you were getting involved with. So we have been keeping a very close eye on you.”

  Mantu returned with a mug of tea and handed it to Ray. Its heat warmed his arms and spread to his chest.

  “Anything else, Chief?” Mantu asked.

  “No, but stay close.”

  Mantu nodded. He left, closing the door behind them. Ray sipped the tea—it tasted like ginger, but earthier and more astringent. And spicy, like black pepper.

  Micah pulled his chair close to the bed and laid his cane across his knees. The cane, black wood, was capped with a lion’s head carved from white marble. “It would take me years to explain everything to you. And we don’t have much time. So I’ll let you ask questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them.”

  Ray shook his head. “I’m not even sure what to ask. So much has happened.”

  Micah nodded. “Indeed.”

  “They were trying to get me. To take me back with them.”

  “Yes. You are extremely valuable.”

  “Because of what happened to me. When I was here, as a kid.”

  “Yes.”

  Ray breathed deeply. The tea was mellowing him. “What did happen, anyway? What makes me so important?”

  Micah indicated that he should drink more tea. “That’s a very long story. But, very simply, you were used by some evil men to further their desire for knowledge. And power.”

  “Government men?”

  “A subset of the government. More like an exclusive club, really. Men interested in things outside the norm.”

  Ray shivered in spite of the growing warmth from the tea in his chest. His eyes were feeling heavy. “But what did they do to me?”

  Micah’s face tightened. “I’m not sure about the specifics. Most of what they were doing was never committed to paper, or if it was, the documents were destroyed long ago. From what we’ve been able to piece together, their primary goal was using children as conduits. For establishing contact. They used the tools of their time—drugs. Psychotronics. Ritualistic abuse techniques.”

  Ray closed his eyes.

  “There’s more we can discuss, but you need to rest. The tea will help you sleep.”


  “Wait. Who are you? What are you?”

  Micah smiled. “I’m looking for the Truth, like yourself.”

  Ray’s eyes were closing of their own accord, but he forced them open. “I need to get out of here.” He suddenly wanted to see Ellen more than anything.

  Micah looked at the floor.

  “I can’t take this anymore. Any of it. I need to get back home. Away from here.”

  Micah shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible right now. Unfortunately, you’ve become a player in this game. You’re not safe from him anywhere. His reach is long.”

  “You have no right to keep me here.”

  Micah stood. “We’re keeping you here for your own safety. Crawford will hunt you down. You have no idea how much danger you’re in, my friend.”

  “Oh, I know.” Ray lifted his right leg over the side of the bed, then his left. They had dressed him in baggy white pajamas. He tried to stand, but yelped as a bolt of fire shot up from his knee, and fell back onto the bed.

  “Your knee isn’t broken, but you won’t be walking on it much for a few days. At least until the swelling goes down.”

  Ray grimaced. “Look, I appreciate the fact that you saved my life. I do. But as soon as I can walk, I am getting out of here, getting in my car, and going back home.” And he’d grab Ellen and William on the way out, whether they liked it or not. His eyelids drooped, then closed. “I’m going home.” He was slurring. Damn, the tea was potent.

  When he awoke, the fire in the stove was brighter. He felt light and free of pain. How long he’d slept he couldn’t guess. Hours, probably many hours. Someone had removed his IV and taped a square of cotton to his forearm. He hopped on his good leg to the bathroom. His urine was dark, like weak tea. Not good. He opened the medicine cabinet—nothing. Not even an aspirin. He hopped back to the bed.

  The door opened and Mantu walked in.

  “You feeling better?”

  Ray nodded. “Never felt better. But I didn’t get a mint on my pillow.” Mantu sniffed and handed him a bowl of oatmeal. “Eat up. It’s good, man. Lots of nutrients.”