What Lies Below

by Mark Lukens

  THIRTEEN

  The next morning, after a breakfast of pancakes prepared by Rita, Pam took Sarah out on the rowboat as promised.

  They rowed out to the middle of the pond, and then they just let the boat float along the water.

  “How was breakfast?” Pam asked Sarah.

  “Good. The pancakes were awesome. Rita made some chocolate chip pancakes for me.”

  Pam feigned shock. “The pancakes were better than the ones I make?”

  Sarah giggled and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” Pam said and saw the relief on her daughter’s face. “I know Rita’s pancakes are better than mine.”

  Pam leaned back and enjoyed the sun on her skin. It was such a nice day. There weren’t a lot of clouds in the sky, and it was even a little too warm underneath the sun’s rays, but not uncomfortable yet. Her eyes drifted over to the woods at the far edge of the pond. She stared at the trees in the distance for a moment and then she jumped up into a sitting position, rocking the boat.

  “Mom,” Sarah shouted as she grabbed on to the side of the boat. “What’s wrong?”

  Pam didn’t answer. She stared at the trees. She could’ve sworn that she’d just seen a man standing in the woods near the pond, staring at them.

  But he wasn’t there now.

  “Mom.”

  She’d only seen him for a split second, but he had looked like an older man with a slight build. He wore tan pants and a dark shirt, and he had a floppy fisherman’s hat shoved down on his head, keeping much of his face in shadows.

  “Mom, what are you looking at?” Sarah asked and twisted around in the boat to look at the trees.

  “Nothing, honey,” Pam finally said and forced a smile on her face as she looked at her daughter.

  “Did you see something?”

  Pam shook her head no, trying to think of a lie. “I … I thought I saw a deer.”

  Sarah was suddenly interested. She turned around in the boat again and studied the trees standing along the far side of the pond.

  “Where?” Sarah asked.

  “Uh … I don’t know. In the trees somewhere. I think it’s gone now.”

  Pam searched the trees.

  But there was no man there now.

  Had he even been there at all? Or had she imagined him?

  “I don’t see a deer,” Sarah said as she turned back around in the boat. “I wish I would’ve seen it.”

  “I’m not even sure I saw the deer,” Pam said as a chill wormed its way through her body underneath the hot sun. “I might’ve been dozing off for a moment.”

  Sarah studied Pam for a moment like she was trying to decipher if her mother was teasing her, and then she smiled.

  They didn’t stay out in the boat too much longer. Even though Sarah had been excited about taking the boat out on the water, she grew bored quickly.

  After they rowed the boat back and pulled it up onto the shore with some effort, they went back inside the house. Rita asked Sarah if she wanted to help make some lunch and Sarah accepted without hesitation.

  Pam left the two of them alone. She thought about going upstairs and sitting with her father for a while—that’s why she had come here. But after last night’s unnerving nightmare, she felt hesitant. She knew it was just a bad dream and she shouldn’t let it keep her from spending time with her dad, but it had affected her on some deep level that she couldn’t understand.

  She had spent fifteen minutes beside his bedside this morning before breakfast, so Pam decided to wander around the house instead of visiting him again.

  Moments later, she found herself in front of the door that led down to the basement.

  She hadn’t been down in the basement in such a long time.

  Pam opened the door and stared at the wooden stairway that descended down into the darkness. She couldn’t help shivering a little bit, and she wasn’t sure why.

  She flipped on the light switch just inside the doorway. A light at the bottom of the stairs came to life. To turn on any other lights down in the basement, she would have to go all the way down to the bottom of the steps and flip up the bank of light switches bolted to the concrete wall.

  After taking a peek behind her to make sure no one else was around, Pam went down the basement steps. She reached the bottom and flipped on all the lights quickly. The rows of fluorescent lights bolted to the ceiling flickered for just a moment before bathing the basement in light.

  The basement was as big as she remembered—nearly as big as the floorplan of the ground floor of the house. A wide open space in front of her branched off into small rooms and areas that still seemed to be hidden in shadows even though the lights were on. There was a lot of storage down here that had been collected over the decades. There was furniture stacked against the block walls, some of the pieces covered with white sheets. There were rows and rows of metal filing cabinets that Pam guessed held old case records from when Dad was a private psychiatrist and had his own practice. Metal shelves held old and outdated computer, recording, and printing equipment. There was a collection of old bicycles. Some of them were her bicycles from when she was a child.

  There were other toys of hers, but what drew her deeper into the basement was the doll house.

  She had forgotten all about this doll house, which was strange because she was sure that she had ventured down here to the basement at some time or other over the last fourteen years on her visits to Dad’s house. But now, as she stood in front of the doll house, it felt like she hadn’t laid eyes on it since she’d been a child.

  A lot of the miniature furniture that went to the doll house was still tucked away inside, and a lot of the rooms were still decorated. The doll house was huge, nearly chest-high to her right now. The house had three levels, and it had a garage big enough to fit a Barbie Corvette inside. The rooms were also big enough to accommodate her Barbie dolls. This wasn’t a store-bought doll house, and she remembered now that her father had hired a craftsman to build this doll house specifically for her. It was one-of-a-kind. When had that been? She guessed she would’ve been seven or maybe even eight years old when she got it as a birthday present. She got it right before her mother left. The happier times.

  Pam inspected the doll house more closely. She saw that there were no dolls anywhere inside the rooms of the doll house.

  It felt weird, but just seeing this doll house again seemed to be triggering some kind of memory inside of her, a memory that was struggling to surface.

  Like that pale thing just underneath the dark water.

  But she couldn’t force the memory to the surface.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t like being down here in the basement, but she wasn’t sure why. But there seemed to be a … a reason to be afraid. There was something about this basement … about this doll house … about her dad’s blue book …

  Pam opened her eyes. No matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t remember. She decided she would forget about it for now, let her mind relax, and definitely write about it in her journal—just one more clue in the “clues” that she had gathered so far.

  Just then a rustling noise from deeper in the basement startled her. She stood very still beside the doll house, listening for the noise again.

  But she didn’t hear anything else.

  She ventured farther into the basement, walking past the stacked-up furniture. She rounded a corner and came to the back wall of the basement where a heavy armoire stood against the block wall among other boxes and crates.

  It seemed like the noise had come from back here.

  But there were no more noises now.

  Maybe it had been a rat.

  No, the noise had sounded too loud to be a rat, she thought. It had sounded … heavy.

  Maybe a ghost, her mind whispered.

  A sudden chill raised goose pimples on her skin, and Pam felt an overwhelming urge to get out of the basement.

  She hurried back through the basement and stoo
d at the foot of the stairs. She shut off the light switches and looked back at the darkness of the basement. Then she ran up the stairs to the basement door and walked to the kitchen. She found Rita alone.

  “Where’s Sarah?”

  “She said she was bored and she wanted to go play.”

  Pam nodded, but she felt a pang of fear in her chest.

  Why should she be afraid if Sarah wandered off to explore the house? She used to do it all the time when she was Sarah’s age. Still, she was afraid of the pond. Sarah knew how to swim—Pam had taught her a few years ago in their backyard pool—but Sarah still wasn’t the strongest swimmer.

  A picture formed in Pam’s mind of Sarah trying to push the rowboat out into the pond by herself. If she somehow managed to get the boat into the water, what would happen if she floated out towards the middle of the pond? What would happen if she fell over? She wouldn’t be able to swim all the way back to the shore.

  There’s a pale thing floating in the water …

  Pam bolted out through the kitchen door, out onto the backyard patio. She looked around, her eyes darting quickly. The shadows were growing long across the back lawn and towards the pond. The sun was setting low on the western horizon.

  How long had she been down in the basement?

  “Sarah!”

  No answer.

  Pam ran across the backyard and checked the pool. Sarah wasn’t in the water. She ran down to the pond.

  She couldn’t help thinking about the old man she’d seen in the woods. Yeah, he had been old, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t be dangerous.

  The rowboat was still on the shore where they had left it, nestled among the reeds and weeds that grew along the edge of the pond. Pam looked at the trees crowded together on the other sides of the pond—the beginning of the woods that stretched all the way to other vast properties. But it was already too dark in the woods to see anything there.

  Pam ran back to the house and Rita met her at the door that led to the kitchen. She had a big smile on her face.

  “Maria said Sarah is up in your father’s room,” Rita told Pam.

  “Sarah’s with my dad?”

  Rita nodded and wiped her hands on her apron. And then her smile faltered a little as she stared at Pam.

  “What’s she doing up there?” Pam asked, and then realized that the question not only sounded a little silly, but possibly accusatory.

  “Visiting, I guess,” Rita answered, but then she looked a little unsure, like she may have said the wrong thing.

  “Thanks,” Pam mumbled and brushed past Rita.

  Pam hurried upstairs and found Sarah in Carl’s room just as Maria had said. Maria wasn’t in the room—maybe she was giving them time alone together.

  Carl sat at the edge of his bed with his back to Pam; he was facing the line of plate-glass windows that looked out onto a world which was darkening quickly with the coming night. His IV tubes were stretched across the bed behind him, his IV pole pulled tight to the bed on the other side.

  Sarah was sitting right beside Carl in the bed; they were so close to each other that they were almost touching.

  Pam began walking towards the bed, but then she stopped for a moment. Neither one of them had turned around when she entered the room. It looked like they were both staring at the rows of windows in silence.

  A thought occurred to Pam. She had just been down by the pond moments ago calling for Sarah. They had to have seen her frantically searching the pool and around the pond. Why hadn’t Sarah come to one of the windows and pounded on it to let her know she was okay?

  Carl leaned over to his right, leaning towards Sarah a little. He had his hands in his lap in front of him and Pam could see the knots of his spine through his thin nightshirt. Even though she couldn’t see her father’s hands, they seemed to be moving, like he was gesturing as he whispered to Sarah.

  He was saying something to her.

  And Sarah was listening intently.

  Pam exploded into action. She ran towards the bed, racing around the foot of it to face the two of them.

  They both looked up at Pam in surprise when she stood in front of them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Pam yelled, surprised that her voice was so loud and so accusatory.

  Carl’s stare turned blank, his shoulders slumped and his hands became lifeless in his lap. But for a split second, Pam had seen life in those eyes, awareness, comprehension. But now they were the dull blue that she had come to know so far since she’d been here at this house.

  Sarah smiled sweetly at her mother. “We’re just playing a game that Grandpa taught me.”

  “What kind of game?” Pam snapped, and again she hated the accusation in her voice.

  “It’s a secret.”

  Pam’s mind went white with rage for a second, and she grabbed Sarah and pulled her up from the bed a little too hard.

  Sarah cried out in pain.

  “Get away from him,” Pam heard herself growling at her daughter.

  “Mom. What are you doing?”

  Pam glanced at her frozen father as he sat on the edge of his bed staring at the windows like he was catatonic now. And then she looked down at her daughter’s face which was shiny with tears, her mouth crumbling as she cried.

  “You hurt me, Mom.”

  “Sarah … I …”

  But Sarah didn’t stick around for an explanation. She bolted out of the room.

  Pam looked back at Carl who was still sitting on the edge of the bed in the exact same position; he hadn’t moved a muscle or looked away from the windows. She knew she should get him back into bed, but she chose to run after her daughter.

  When Pam got to the bedroom door, she practically collided with Maria as she was entering the room.

  “Is everything all right?” Maria asked.

  “No, everything is not all right,” Pam snapped at her. “My father is sitting on the side of his bed and he was in here with my daughter. Don’t you ever leave my daughter alone in here with him.”

  Maria looked shocked, but she nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I didn’t know.”

  Pam brushed past Maria and ran down the hallway. She found Sarah in her bedroom, curled up on the bed. Maybe she was still crying, but it didn’t sound like it. Pam sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t mean to yell at you. I didn’t mean to grab you like that. I didn’t mean … didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  Pam could feel her own tears coming now, and she didn’t trust her voice not to crack with emotion. She had no idea why she had reacted like that just now, but she was more sorry than she could express. The last thing she wanted to do in this world was hurt her daughter. She never flew off the handle like that towards Sarah.

  She touched Sarah’s back, and then smoothed her hair. “Baby, you believe me, don’t you?”

  Sarah turned around and stared at Pam. Her face was red and puffy from crying, but she nodded and jumped up and gave Pam a hug.

  “I’m so sorry, Sarah,” Pam whispered. “I’ll never do that again.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, and Pam didn’t think that her daughter had completely forgiven her yet.

  “Come on, let’s go downstairs and get some dinner.”

  “And dessert,” Sarah said. “Rita made a cake and I helped her.”

  “Then I can’t wait to have a piece of cake.”

  FOURTEEN

  It took Pam a while to fall asleep that night. She asked Sarah if she wanted to sleep with her in Mommy’s bed, but Sarah declined. It hurt Pam’s feelings a little, but she figured that Sarah was still upset with her for pulling her up from the bed in Grandpa’s room. But maybe she was more upset with the way Pam had yelled at her like she’d done something wrong.

  Pam finally drifted off to sleep and the dreams started.

  She woke up with a start after what seemed like only minutes of sleep, but she knew it was already morning because she saw the light shining in through the blind
s of the bedroom windows.

  Her dreams through the night came back to her in a rush as she lay there looking at the ever-brightening ceiling. It wasn’t really like a coherent dream like her nightmares had been recently, this dream seemed more like random pictures and scenes that had lasted all night, running together and melting into different images. The images she saw were scenes and possessions from her past, she guessed. She wasn’t sure because she didn’t recognize everything in the dream.

  She recognized the Barbie dolls in her dream; they were the dolls that belonged to the dollhouse in the basement. But then she saw other things in her dream that didn’t make sense. In one segment of the dream, she saw a bunch of flowers that died rapidly, like they were on a time-elapsed film.

  In another segment of the dream, she was in a dark room that a yellowish, greenish light glowing from somewhere. She looked above her and saw what looked like hundreds of gold keys tied to strings hanging down from a ceiling that was shrouded in darkness. She reached up for the keys, but she wasn’t sure which one was the right key. She knew she needed to select the right key, it was important—like things are important in dreams—yet she didn’t know why.

  In another part of the seemingly long and continuous dream, she saw a flowing white sheet that fluttered in the darkness almost like someone was underneath it. She heard the sound of something scratching in the dark, like long fingernails clawing at a wall or a door. She saw and heard these things over and over again, but everything else in the dream was hidden in shadows, and any voices were only mumbling whispers.

  Pam tried to mentally shake off the dream. She pulled the covers back and she felt something underneath the sheets touching her bare leg, something clinking lightly against each other.

  With an explosion of panic, she jumped out of bed onto the floor, tearing the covers back down to the end of the bed. She stared down at the bedsheets with her breath caught in her throat.

  There were two naked Barbie dolls on the bed with her. They were both dirty and stained with mud, like they had been buried and then dug up again. All around the dolls, mud stained the sheets. Both dolls had blond hair, but the hair was caked with dirt and mud now.