Crescent Lake

by David Sakmyster

  "We go in a few hours before midnight," Grant said.

  "What?" Audrey said, through a mouthful of chow-mein. "Why wait until night? Why not go in around ten in the morning, while they're all in church? No one will see us."

  Grant shook his head. "I can't tell you why. I just know that being in the town when services let out will be suicide. I had the same premonition earlier this evening. That was why I left with you. We stay," he said, determined. "At least until nightfall and then proceed under the cover of darkness. The more people asleep the better."

  "And what do we do all day tomorrow?" Audrey asked.

  "We wait," Grant responded. "Sleep late. Watch a movie. Nap. Whatever."

  "Prepare," Nick said. He scratched his chin. A thought just came to him. "Maybe we could make a visit to the Darrington library and look up some records on Silver Springs. There's some more I'd like to learn about the town."

  Grant set down his chopsticks, in the use of which he was quite proficient. He wiped his lips with a paper napkin. "What do you want to know? Don't forget, not only am I the librarian, I'm one of the oldest residents of Silver Springs."

  "When was it founded?" Audrey asked, to start the ball rolling.

  Grant frowned. "Well, now that's a toughie. You see, there were two Silver Springs."

  Nick stopped chewing. "Two?"

  "Yep. First one just sort of developed – or maybe a settlement was always here, once colonization pushed this far west. Probably started as a small camp for gold prospectors. Anyway, the remaining folks turned to farming. They tended small plots of land and rode into other towns to sell their crops. I think in those days there actually were some springs out in the woods. Fresh, clean water for the people and their livestock.

  "The town never did grow too much. Probably not more than fifty residents at any time. That was up until... 1963." Grant paused and dug back into his rice.

  "What happened then?" Nick asked. He sat next to Audrey at the foot of the first bed. They had been stealing glances at each other throughout dinner, and he was feeling increasingly nervous.

  Grant seemed oblivious, lost in the past. "From the end of 1963 until spring of 1966 there was no town, no Silver Springs. The State moved in and began a large-scale restructuring project. This was early in 1964. They wiped out all the homes and barns, dug up the fields. All to set up the present structure that you've seen."

  "They just moved all those people?" Audrey was astounded.

  Grant nodded. "Oh yeah. They paid 'em good, though. I knew one of the farmers. Young man back then. Said the government just handed him twenty-five grand for the house and the land and told him to get out. He took it, moved in with his brother in Seattle, and invested the twenty-five. He made a killing.

  "Anyway, the new Silver Springs took only two years to complete. And then the word leaked out. Affordable homes were available in a tranquil setting. The idea attracted a certain audience. Decent, hardworking people who savored the country life and enjoyed a certain element of privacy." He smiled. "Like myself, for instance. I came in with the first batch of new settlers. In May of 1966."

  Nick looked thoughtful for a moment. "That would explain it," he said at last.

  Audrey cleaned up her tray. "What?"

  He looked at her. "At the dead end where you picked me up. There were bricks and pieces of wood in the clearing, like there used to be a home there."

  Grant coughed. "No. Now that old place was something else. The State didn't wreck that one, as far as I recall." He looked off into space, as if trying to picture a long-lost vision.

  "What is it?" Nick asked, leaning off the edge of the bed. "You remember something."

  "Yes," Grant said, but still looked perplexed.

  Audrey gathered up the empty cartons and shoved them back into the paper bag. "What happened there?"

  Grant looked at her. "It's not so much what happened, as when it happened. There was a farmhouse there. I remember because I did some checking when I first got to Silver Springs. I had taken a drive down that road, and had seen where it simply ended at a field. This was before your place was built, Nick, so they didn't even have the road out that way yet. It simply ended at this clearing with the burnt-out wooden beams and the charred bricks strewn about.

  "I researched old Darrington newspapers and finally came across an item that explained it. The home belonged to a Henry Innis and his twenty-year old son Nate. They'd lived there all of Nate's life. His mother had died in 1953.

  "Well, on a brisk November night – I can't remember the exact day – the farmhouse went up in flames. Nate and Henry were inside. They never made it out."

  "What's so special about that?" Nick asked.

  Grant put his hands together. "It happened in 1963. Maybe two months before the State began 'Evacuation Silver Springs'."

  Nick felt a chill rush down his back, tingling each bone in his spine. He wanted to get up and turn off the air conditioner, but he knew it wouldn't help. "So," he said, pondering this latest piece of the puzzle, "what does this mean? That the government moved everyone out of the town because of something that happened at the Innis farm?"

  Grant shrugged. "Maybe something they saw–"

  Audrey threw up her hands. "What are you saying? There's a cover-up of something every townsperson may have seen?"

  After no one said anything, they started eating again, chewing into fortune cookies. Finally, Nick decided to prod in other directions. "What about Zachary? When did he arrive in Silver Springs?"

  A thin smile played on Grant's lips. "According to my theory," he said, "just as there are two Silver Springs, there are two Zachary Brights."

  He let the words sink in. "Consider the facts: Reverend Bright appears in the spring of 2005, from out of the blue. Yet, we know, at some earlier time, he must have taken a plunge into the lake to have been transformed into what he is now.

  "Now, how much do you know about the story of your house, Nick?"

  Nick rubbed his greasy palms on his jeans. "Not too much. Stan said something about its history to me on the way down there. I wasn't really paying attention." Now he wished he had taken Silver Springs a bit more seriously from the first moment he'd arrived. "When was it built?"

  "In 1967 by a family that also moved in fairly early to the new town. Although there were many fine homes left on the main track, these newcomers wanted a higher degree of privacy. They wanted to be left alone.

  Grant scratched his head. "I remember they were the subject of gossip for a couple of years, until the tales got dull; and then the war started and gave people something else to talk about."

  "Who lived there?" Audrey asked, snuggling closer to Nick, partially to keep warm.

  "A woman," Nick said, suddenly recalling Stan's words, "And several kids."

  "Right. Deborah was her name. She was a strong woman. Had to be to raise four of the biggest, toughest kids you've ever seen. A lot of stories flew about her husband. How he'd abandoned them all one day. Just up and left her one morning because, some speculated, Deborah was so overbearing, so downright set in her ways that he just couldn't stand life with her. She had the kids reined in tight, though. And after the husband left and they moved to Silver Springs, she ruled them with an iron fist. Three boys and one girl she had. None of them, as far as anyone knows, had any friends, played any games outside, or did anything social.

  "Together with only one advisor from the outside, they built that home in less than seven months. We never saw much of them. Once a week one of the boys, usually the oldest one, Isaac, would come into the grocery store to buy enough food and milk for the week."

  "Didn't they go to school?" Audrey was curious.

  "Not until three years later," Grant replied. "It took a dedicated schoolteacher named Thomas Brendan to actually go out there and see if he could talk sense into the woman. She was, after all, breaking the law.

  "After putting up the most hellish battle, she finally consented to permit the boys only to attend school
. Surprisingly, Brendan found that the children were especially bright. They had apparently been taught out of encyclopedias. But," Grant said with a sly grin, "where they really excelled was in Bible studies.

  "Isaac once told Brendan that his mother had them study and memorize entire chapters at a time. He could quote phrases with an alarming perfection. Frightening, Brendan said, because the child really didn't understand what he was saying. He was just speaking the words and phrases without getting at the meaning. It was something Deborah had been unable to instill in her children. She seemed so intent on outward appearances that she disregarded anything deeper."

  The room was silent for some time. Next door, the occupants were watching some violent show, with loud cursing and gunfire that erupted every few seconds.

  Grant began again. "In the summer of 1997, something happened. John Frakes went out to Deborah's house to collect on the grocery bill. By this time, the children were all in their twenties or thirties, but still lived at home. And still no one ever saw them. No one dared visit, except John Frakes. Nothin' would stop John from collecting the tab. So this day he goes out there and finds the place empty. Even their stuff is gone. He checks with everyone back at town but no one has seen them leave. He can't figure it out, and suddenly it's the new talk of the town: what the hell happened to Deborah and her reclusive kids?"

  Nick could see where Grant was heading. "You think Zachary killed them, either before or after taking the plunge in the lake."

  Audrey's eyes widened. "No. He wasn't Zachary then," she said.

  "Isaac?" Nick whispered.

  "Exactly," Grant replied, smiling. "It all fits. His intensely fanatical religious background, the seclusion, the isolation. These aspects alone would be enough to warp an individual for the rest of his adult life, and would make any psychologist's wet dream. Add the power of the lake to those traits and just imagine the nature of the final product."

  "But how," Audrey asked, "did he just appear without anyone recognizing him?"

  Grant raised a finger. "The silver hair, the aged face. He was subjected to quite an experience while he was submerged. His features were altered substantially. That, plus the fact that no one had seen Isaac in several years, makes it very possible."

  "So," Nick said, "he snapped or something, killed everyone in his family, buried their bodies and probably all their stuff to make it look like they packed up and left. Then what? He hung out in the woods for a couple years until the time was right?"

  "Seems that way," Grant said. "Although, remember the house was vacant. He could have stayed there without anyone knowin' it. Then, when he was ready, he just showed up one day in vulnerable Silver Springs, and the town offered him its throat. Yes. Isaac – now Zachary Bright, has been here since the beginning. Something snapped, as you say, inside of him long ago. Blame his childhood, blame his spineless father or his sadistic mother. Whatever, but now, Zachary is what he is, and we're in a heap of trouble."

  Nick squeezed Audrey's hand tighter, and looked into her eyes. She seemed lost in the vision of the past Grant had painted.

  "Well," Grant said, rising. "Enough local history for one night. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a long walk. Don't wait up."

  He bent close to Audrey. "And you," he said softly, "Dear lady. I believe there's something you have been putting off telling Mr. Murphy."

  Audrey blinked at him, and realized he was right. This was the time. As she looked in Nick's inquisitive eyes, she knew she had to tell him. The door closed behind Grant, and Audrey and Nick were left alone in the somber room. A warm draft insidiously crept inside from Grant's departure.

  "Tell me," Nick said with trepidation. He gripped her hands, tenderly stroking her fingers.

  She pulled one hand away and touched his cheek. "Nick..." She looked away. How could she tell him? She was the bearer of such horrendous news. Now she knew why doctors were paid so much: they had to do this every day, had to walk out in the waiting room to somehow tell the desperate relatives.

  Audrey closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to hurt him, and yet every second she withheld the truth...

  "Please Audrey. What is it?"

  She gave him an apologetic look. "Your parents..."

  His mouth opened. He looked away, his eyes blinking through a forming layer of tears. "I… thought something was wrong," he said. "It sounds weird, but I sensed it."

  She put an arm around him and pulled him close. "I'm sorry, Nick."

  He held her, but his eyes glared through the wall. "Was it Stielman?"

  She slipped her other arm around his shoulders. She liked the feel of his body against hers. She felt his heartbeat increasing, pumping to an elevated beat. "Yes," she said. "Friday night. Lloyd didn't get anything out of them, so he hit Director Walker at the FBI on Saturday. And through Walker he traced me." She pulled away and met his eyes. "And through me..."

  Nick put a finger to her lips, and pushed the sandy hair away from her face. "Hush," he said in a whisper. He was so close, dangerously close. "Don't apologize."

  "Why?" she said. "I blew it. Left him a map, for God's sakes." Her heart was thundering.

  "Doesn't matter," Nick said, inching forward. "He can't touch us. You'll protect me."

  Audrey felt his warm breath on her lips. His eyes moved out of focus as they drew closer. She looked down at his lips and imagined the sensation of being locked against them, to feel them part and allow her to explore inside, and then to offer herself to his curiosity.

  "I will," she murmured, and their lips met. They melted against each other, opened. She pressed herself to him and their heartbeats hammered together.

  Then she quickly pulled away. Not now. Not like this, not after delivering such horrible news.

  "Sorry," she said, still locked in his gaze and squeezing his hands.

  Nick took a deep breath, nodded and stood up. He started pacing, holding his hands under his chin, thinking. Remembering his parents, saying goodbye to them. And planning, focusing on Lloyd. On O'Neil.

  Only Audrey's presence calmed him down, and finally they sat together in the dark, talking quietly, talking about his parents, his childhood, his memories and his dreams.

  In the early hours of the morning, lying fully dressed, side by side in the queen-sized bed, Audrey turned over and rested her head on Nick's chest. Half-asleep, his arm circled around her shoulders and held her close. His lips whispered her name, and she drifted into a deep and blissful sleep.

  Outside, in the park, Grant Wilson had been wandering, gazing at the stars. In time, he strolled to the jungle gym, walked under the monkey bars, and took a seat on one of the swings. He gradually pushed off and pulled back, swinging higher and higher. Gripping the chains, he pulled harder and gained greater altitude. As the minutes progressed the chains began to take on a phosphorescent aura, glowing like hot coals. The hues changed from a fiery red to a sparkling violet to a shimmering orange and finally a verdant green. And still Grant swung, bathed in transcendent radiance, his mind and his intellect far away, reliving a day deep in the past, a day and an event that remained forever pierced against his heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Silver Springs

  Sunday

  Theresa Angetti awoke screaming and crying. Her sheets – quilted fabric with lines of Sesame Street characters – were again muddy and streaked with dirt and pebbles. Sunlight pushed through the pink curtains, stabbing at her heavy blue eyes and glistening off her dirty tear-streaked cheeks. On a tiny wood desk beside the window sat the round clock her father had bought her in Disneyland three years ago. Mickey Mouse sheepishly grinned at her and pointed with both three-fingered hands to 7:45.

  Still sobbing, Theresa covered her face and tried not to remember her dream. She wished it would fade quickly, like when she'd had good dreams and tried to recapture them only to feel the memories slipping away like a fine sand through her fingers. But pieces of this nightmare came back with frightening clarity. She had been running,
always running. Barefoot through the forest in the trees behind the church. She had glanced over her shoulder, back at the towering structure framed against the night sky; she saw the sliver of the moon pierced by the church steeple. And on the lawn, chasing after her, were a pack of slavering black dogs. Razor sharp teeth gnashing in the wind, tongues flapping, eyes blazing with a murderous rage.

  At the top of the hill stood the Reverend; he had been holding a group of leashes in his hand. These he tossed to the ground, then dutifully stalked back into the church.

  The dogs gained on her, snorting and snarling, their paws thundering on the ground like hooves. Desperately, Theresa ran, weaving around trees, jumping over fallen branches. She looked for a suitable tree to climb – anything to get her far enough off the ground when the pack swept by. She madly leaped toward a low branch – it broke off in her grasp and she tumbled hard to the ground, scraping her legs and arms.

  She dared a look behind her. But the darkness was too thick, and the dogs were black. She would see their eyes before anything else. The earth suddenly lurched under her. The ground under her arms became soft as freshly-turned dirt. It swallowed her hands up to the wrists, and then sealed over and hardened like concrete. Manacled to the earth, she turned and helplessly waited for the beasts to arrive.

  The barking began to take on a different quality, and Theresa was suddenly able to discern voices – human voices – enmeshed in the wild snarls and growls. Familiar voices, those of the townspeople.

  "Blood..." they said. "Blood of the devil-child."

  Theresa tried to scream but her mouth was full of leaves and dust, choking her voice.

  "Weed out the evil."

  She tried to flee but the ground wouldn't yield. Terrified, giving into despair, she wished she was in the other dream, at the lake, the glowing lake, with her friends. They would protect her. They–

  The thundering paws, louder, deafening. Snarls mingled with voices.

  "Weed out the devil-child!"