Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers

by JeanNicole Rivers

A blast of air from somewhere must have nudged the door open, Regina thought to herself, desperately trying to make the incident rational.

  … But from where, damn it, from where?

  Regina steeled herself against the fantastic thoughts that gripped her. In the movies, these were the times when she always yelled out at the stupid woman for not screaming, for not calling out to someone, but being in the moment herself now, she realized how silly it felt. There were just no such things as ghosts. She walked confidently toward the open closet door, listening to every sight and sound of the night with every step. She took a moment after she got to the door and stood in the shadow of the darkness, then she grabbed the door knob and opened the door wide, hoping there was nothing, but still expecting…she held her breath …

  Nothing

  The small walk in closet was the same quiet quarter it had been when she had taken blankets from it earlier that night, but she had to be sure. In order to quell her fears altogether, she released the doorknob and stepped into the pit of the cave. She stood on her toes reaching for the thin silver chain that dangled from the naked light bulb. The chord made a tingling noise after she pulled it and released it back into the air.

  “Damn,” Regina cursed forgetting that the power was out. The door behind her began to creak to a slow close and Regina lunged for the door holding it open and keeping the slivers of platinum moonlight in the closet from receding anymore. Quickly, she stepped out and turned and closed the door. Once again, she was alone in the hall. Regina returned to her bedroom and upon reaching the threshold of her door, she did not turn to see, but could hear the closet drag open once again. Paralysis struck her. In the mirror on her vanity, she saw the dark shadow slip out of the opening of the closet door. Every muscle in Regina’s body tensed so violently that it was almost painful for her blood to flow.

  Please God, please God, please God. Regina turned on the ball of her foot in a tornado of apprehension, not wanting to see what she was sure that she would see when she turned the second time. She peered down the hall once again.

  Nothing

  Regina sprinted down the hall and slammed the door closed. She turned back to her room and an unidentifiable sound escaped her vocals as Lola’s rotting corpse stood at the threshold of her bedroom.

  “You called?” the corpse retched in a surly voice that sounded amplified in the long stretch of hallway.

  “No.” Regina cried softly to herself. She closed her eyes praying that the sight would disappear, but when she opened her eyes Lola was inches from her face and Regina could smell the stench of rotting flesh. She screamed violently, hoping to wake her parents who should have been asleep just down the hall; she stumbled back falling right out of the grip of the dead girl. She grabbed the side table that was against the wall, making it tumble to the floor while helping her to get to her feet again. Regina could feel the fingertips of the corpse grasping her shirt as she ran toward the stairs; the corpse reached her just as she found the top of the stairs. Regina grappled to get a grip on the banister, but the force from behind propelled her out over the stairs before she could steady herself and she tumbled down helplessly. The first blow to her bones was a harsh crackling of her skull and after that, she could no longer feel anything. Regina’s vision was a broken montage of the staircase, the front door that lay at the bottom of the staircase and the angry dead that stood watching with satisfaction from the top of the landing. Regina’s mangled body came to an abrupt stop somewhere at the foot of the steps.

  She opened her eyes and light streamed into the slits upon first blinking into consciousness. In waking from her nightmare, bits of dream and reality floated like lost puzzle pieces through her mind before she spotted the figure that was emerging from her closet with a cloak of darkness before it.

  “Is this what you’re wearing?” Her mother asked holding up a black wool dress. Regina blinked a few more times before being able to discern her surroundings; she dug her fingertips deep into her eyes in an attempt to wipe the sleep away.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Her mother held up the dress and reviewed it with narrowed eyes.

  “OK, well, I am going to knock some of these wrinkles out. You need to be getting up soon; the wake begins in an hour and a half,” her mother said as she left the room with Regina’s dress. Regina turned over, lifted the alarm clock, and pulled it close to her eyes.

  “Nine thirty,” she spoke to herself sleepily; she shot upright in the bed looking around and touching the parts of her body that had been broken in the dream fall. Relief swept her. Soreness plagued her body, but nothing was broken, she was still alive and had survived another visit from Lola.

  Her eyes wandered toward the window and she hopped out of bed, the hard wooden floors were cold. She stumbled to the window surprised to see the black truck in the same place it had been the night before. Regina dug under her bed and pulled out a pair of house shoes. She crept to the stairs and before descending, took a long look down the hall to make sure that her parents were still in their room. Down the stairs and out the front door, Regina slipped soundlessly. On the porch, she stopped herself and walked back into her home to make sure that Nikki and Natalie were not asleep on the couch, to ensure that they had never been there the night before, the séance, the hellish ghost had been only a dream. The living room was empty and she was relieved that her night had ended when she went to bed after her talk with her parents and with Barron stationed in his truck, where he stayed all night.

  Outside the air smelled clean and was brisk and prickly on her skin, she broke into a jog across the lawn and froze up as if the wind had penetrated her skin and surged right to the bone when she saw Barron’s body slumped over the steering wheel.

  “Barron?” she cried out softly. Her heart pounded feverishly in her chest as she pressed her palms up against the window and brought her face closer to get a better look, his body was cement. “Barron!” Regina began to bang her palms against the window when his limp body jerked to life. His tired eyes looked at her as if she was a stranger. In the next second, he jerked the door open and leapt out of the car looking around.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, pulling her close to him. His eyes darted around touching several points in every direction.

  “Nothing, nothing. I just…I just thought…nothing, everything is fine.” She confirmed with embarrassment.

  “You sure?” He asked still looking around, his chest poked staunchly into the air.

  “Yes…I was just surprised to see you still here.” She lied. Barron took a few deep breaths.

  “Yeah?” he asked as if she should have already been aware that he would stay the entire night. “Well after you got attacked last night there was no way that I was leaving you alone.”

  “You look tired,” she said, pressing her fingers gently against the bags that were beginning to form underneath his eyes. “I’m about to get dressed for the wake, are you coming?” she asked.

  Barron leaned against the truck, not speaking. He completed a quick mental inventory of himself before he answered her. “I don’t know. I’m tired and my back is killing me. I may have to sit this one out.”

  Barron’s face was ragged and the texture of the steering wheel was imprinted on his cheek. Regina felt terrible that he had slept in his car just to keep watch over her.

  “OK, I understand. I’ll call you later.” She said as she wrapped her arms around him and buried the side of her face into his broad chest. He squeezed her tight and she relished every moment.

  “Thank you for staying,” she said.

  “No problem,” he assured her. “That’s what ex boyfriends are for.” He laughed.

  “Thank you for everything,” she told him, lifting herself up to her tiptoes to kiss his lips. He was surprised, but delighted by the unexpected show of raw affection. Regina was pleased with the fact that she had been able to please him and her mind briefly shot to the end of this ordeal and she wondered how it would work for them a
nd if she would have to leave Barron again, her stomach wrenched and she pushed the thoughts of the culmination away.

  “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later,” he said as he climbed back into the truck. He watched her grab the newspaper, wet with the morning dewdrops, from the lawn.

  “Hey, Regina,” he called to the woman from the open window, he had forgotten something. Regina turned to face him. “Send my condolences to the Rushers,” he said.

  Regina nodded, watched him pull away, and then headed back toward her front door.

  “Regina” She heard a strong voice speak her name with a boom. Nausea washed her from head to toe when she turned to see the white police car slowing to a stop at the curb.

  “Sheriff” Regina greeted. She glanced back at the house to make sure that her parents had not come out.

  “How ya this morning?” he asked. He smiled in a failing effort to disarm the young woman.

  “Fine.” She returned the concocted smile of a blameless girl.

  “You got a few minutes?” he asked, turning off the car. Again, she looked back at her calm home.

  “OK,” she agreed, not actually answering the question asked.

  “Should we go inside?” he asked as he emerged from the patrol car.

  “Probably not,” Regina answered. “We’re getting ready for the wake and the mood is pretty thick.” She reasoned with surprise at her quick thinking.

  Sheriff Handow grinned sympathetically. “Of course. Well, just a quick question.”

  Regina nodded impatiently.

  “I was speaking to Mrs. Landcaster yesterday and I don’t know how, but we got to talking about Lola’s disappearance,” he informed her, and then allowed a chilling silence to linger in the air.

  “OK,” Regina spoke, knowingly taking his bait, hating him more and more by the moment for now trying to do something that he should have done years ago. She spoke every word with the reserved precision of chess master fingering a chessman before moving it to a square elevating his leverage in the game; one step closer to victory. Regina swept her short hair back behind her ear.

  Sheriff Handow eyed her carefully and swept his fingers across his lips in a deliberate movement before he answered.

  “Well, she says that she saw Nikki Valentine’s car pass by her house that night, as if it were coming here.”

  Regina let her eyes fall to the grass for a split second before looking into the eyes of her interrogator.

  “She probably did. I told you years ago that Nikki dropped Natalie and me home that night.” Regina spoke perfunctorily.

  “You did tell me that, didn’t you?” he confirmed quietly as if he were speaking to himself.

  “But you told me that you girls left the party at about 10:00 p.m. that night.”

  “We did.” Regina shrugged and relaxed her shoulders in an effort to release the tension that had built up inside of her and was now coming out in a frustrated voice that she knew would hardly serve her.

  “Mrs. Landcaster said that she saw Nikki’s car coming up the street at two in the morning.” He repeated the information that he had gotten from Mrs. Landcaster with no hesitation. An invisible fist the size of Mississippi punched through her abdomen.

  Checkmate.

  Seconds seemed like hours while the world spun around her and she was no longer inside of her own body, she floated above the scene watching herself standing face-to-face with Sheriff Handow on the misty morning of Lola’s wake.

  “She’s mistaken,” she asserted devoutly. Sheriff Handow’s expression turned serious, his eyes burned into Regina. Regina giggled girlishly then spoke again.

  “Now if Mrs. Landcaster would have told you the sky was blue you would have denied it just because…well…because, you know…she’s a little…whoo hoo.” Regina gave the animated sound effect while rolling her eyes into her head playfully. Her breath was coming shorter now, she could feel the tremendous blow of every heart beat so far into her chest that her neck began to ache. Time moved so slowly in those seconds that Regina was sure it was moving backward.

  Sheriff Handow laughed just a little before agreeing with Regina. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Anything else? I really should be getting dressed.” She informed him as she began to step back toward her home.

  “No, that’s all.” He assured her with a nod, but refused to remove his eyes from his subject.

  Regina turned and began taking long strides across the cool grass when she felt her legs buckle at the sound of Sheriff Handow calling her name once again.

  “Regina.”

  The woman turned without saying a word. She could see the question forming on his lips, everything was about to fall apart, collapse right in front of her.

  The uniformed cop let the thought swell in his mouth and Regina was sure that she would faint until she sensed his momentary vacillation.

  “Yes?” Regina answered standing as tall as her bones would allow.

  “Nothing,” he said quickly before getting into his car and pulling away from the curb. Regina stood on the lawn unable to move until the police car had disappeared into the thick fog of the disturbing morning.

  Regina gasped as she entered the house and encountered her mother in the doorway facing her, dead-on, as if she had been anticipating a face-off.

  “There you are; I’ve been calling you. What were you doing?” Mrs. Dean asked her daughter. With a trembling hand, Regina held up the plastic-covered paper with a smile in answer to her mother’s question. “Oh, Charles, the paper is here.” Her mother called up the stairs. “Your dress is ready. Hurry, I’m going to make a quick breakfast, but we have to be going if we don’t want to be late,” Mrs. Dean told her daughter.

  “What is it?” Regina asked when her mother stood still for a moment inspecting the foyer.

  “It’s odd.”

  “What?” Regina asked.

  “It just feels like spring instead of fall.” Mrs. Dean told her daughter.

  “Spring?” Regina asked. Her mother shrugged with a quiet laugh that infected her daughter.

  “Lately, it always smells like roses in this house.” She added as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  20

  “Who has a wake on Halloween?” Patricia Dean asked as they pulled up to the Eternal Peace Funeral Home. The Dean family was almost late and only had a precious few moments to converse with the other guests before they were being herded into one of the rooms to be seated. Regina examined the crowd of darkly dressed mourners of melancholy mood hoping to lay eyes on one of the people she termed loosely as friends. Her hopes that Barron would show were unfounded, but it was Nikki that she needed to see, it was Nikki who still owed her a good explanation. Regina’s mind still ran crazy with wild explanations for why Nikki had been keeping company with Glen DeFrank and why she had lied about it. Her mind would not rest, nor would her soul until she had the answer to every question that was unfolding at every point along this journey in the microcosm of obscurity called Black Water.

  Voices of sorrow and words of comfort died into a swell of whispers that surged through the room and left behind only silence. Regina sat in the second row behind the Rusher family. Leo Rusher held his son in his lap. The room smelled sterile, but dusty. Mrs. Rusher’s eyes were swollen, stained with the tracks of tears and red from the constant friction with tissue paper. Mrs. Dean put a loving hand on Mrs. Rusher’s shoulder, which caused the grieving mother to moan even louder. Guilt rose up in Regina’s throat as the scent of Mrs. Rusher’s perfume sailed into her nostrils making her feel the urge to vomit, she put her fist to her lips in an attempt to fight back the puke. Regina felt a slight palpitation in her heart, and sensing something, she turned in her chair. Nikki was sitting on the other side of the aisle a couple of rows back, her father sat next to her holding her hand. Nikki was watching Regina and their eyes met when Regina turned in her seat to scrutinize the dismal room. The girl gave a weak smile and held her palm
up to Regina, wiggling her fingers weakly. Regina returned no gesture of greeting to Nikki, she just lay her hand on the pocket of her dress where the torn photograph lay hidden. Regina turned farther back to glance at the audience once more and saw Natalie standing against the far wall of the room. Regina’s eyes widened in disbelief, she assumed that Natalie’s insensitive words on the subject of Lola’s death were a sure sign that she would not be paying her respects, but obviously, she had been mistaken. Natalie’s eyes met Regina’s and she shifted them snappily, training her focus back on the preacher at the front of the room. Prayer began the ceremony and it went on at length, encompassing Lola’s vibrant life, the snuffing out of her youthful light, the hopes that the evil person that committed this crime would be caught and the wish for peace for all of her family and friends. It was several seconds after the prayer ended that Regina was able to lift her head, she noticed the vibrancy of the flowers, bouquets and wreaths that speckled the room, colors of crimson and violet with bursts of yellow and orange that seemed so out of place among the faces of the dejected. Inside of the funeral home it was spring, a season of life and color and awakening, despite the dreadful fall that was a reality outside in the real world filled with brown and stiff dying leaves and naked, fragile easily broken trees.

  A wake, Regina thought, was an absolutely miserable ceremony to have to be subjected to after the death of a loved one; it was like having two funerals, a pre-funeral and then the final funeral, two heartbreaks, two floggings, when one was enough.

  “Dad?” She whispered. “Why do people have wakes?” Regina asked her father under the resounding voice of the fat lady in a maroon colored suit that was now singing. Her father reacted with surprise, no one had ever asked him that question before and she would have not even thought to ask it if this experience had not been so wretched to endure.

  “Well,” he started, scrunching his face, deepening all of the wrinkles that were activated when he was thinking. “Long time ago medical science was nowhere near what it is today and when a person was thought to be dead they would lay the body out so that people could come and view the body to be sure. Loved ones would take turns sitting with the body all hours of the day and night to watch and wait.” He explained.