Crescent Lake

by David Sakmyster

  It beckoned sweetly.

  And Nick, his past trauma receding, now at ease in this element, set his hands upon the rocky bottom. He crawled toward the thing. Slowly, deliberately, Nick pulled himself forward, closer, closer until he was almost right on top of it.

  He held a hand in front of his eyes, warding off the glare. Tearing his eyes away, he risked a glance upward and saw how the effervescent hues danced and shimmered their way to the surface and refracted like a prism across the barrier between water and air. Every color of the rainbow winked at him from above, spinning and swirling and twisting in a kaleidoscopic tapestry.

  Mesmerized, he wanted to stay and stare forever. How long he remained on his knees watching the fabulous light show, he couldn't estimate. Time ceased to have any meaning down here. All the rules had changed.

  But one persistent thought remained, stuck like a thorn in his foot.

  Audrey.

  She was in danger, imminent danger. And he loved her.

  As if sensing his urgency, the crescent shape dimmed for a moment before surging again, blinking on and off to draw him back to the task. Nick returned his attention to the object, scanned its body. It must have been sixty to seventy feet at its diameter, assuming it was circular.

  But what was it?

  Nick reached out through the water to touch it, but drew back at the last moment, suddenly and unspeakably afraid. He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, trying to clear the overpowering sense of wonder. He had to think, had to understand this thing. There was no way to breathe down here, but the water itself was soothing, relaxing. It served to calm his mind and his thoughts.

  Now, Nick thought to himself as he began to crawl again, around the edge of the crescent. Where was that section...? He had seen something earlier, when he had first opened his eyes. A dark blur on one portion. It could have been a root or a tree branch.

  There it was. Nick crawled toward it, faster. He noticed the earth around the object was soft and split, and seemed to be dissolving very slowly before his eyes, as if the thing were burning its way out of this underwater tomb, but slowly and patiently.

  Following the bend, Nick crawled on his bare knees to a spot close enough to see that the thing drawing his attention was no natural anomaly, nothing so mundane as a fallen branch or a dead aquatic creature. He peered closer, trying to focus despite the distorted, brilliant hues emanating from the metal. The crescent dimmed suddenly, as if sensing his problem and offering a hand.

  It seemed eager to have him learn. Desperate, in fact.

  Nick's vision cleared. And the image imprinted on the metal shell took on an all too familiar shape.

  Underneath the faded, painted depiction of the American flag was the name:

  Terra II

  Stunned, his mind slipping away from comprehension, Nick lost his balance. Fell forward, hands out. An instant before contact, the satellite glimmered ecstatically, pulsing with an almost human anticipation.

  Audrey braced herself for the impact. The background noise had dwindled to a withering static, then faded altogether, leaving only an anemic hum.

  Steady, steady. She knew it was coming, heard it picking up momentum. Building up steam, ready to explode before her eyes: that which she'd been repressing, hiding from for eight years. It was released now, hungry. Tearing and biting through layer after layer of her subconscious.

  The wave rolled in on a flash of blinding white fire that seared away the image of the church and the grinning Reverend and left behind a more terrifying scene. A long and surreal corridor stretching into the shadows. Polished smooth floors. White walls. Doors. Hundreds of doors.

  A squeaky cart wheeled along somewhere in the crisscrossing halls. She stood with a doctor before a closed door. The name on the wall tag read: HARPER, ANTHONY.

  The doctor, a tall skeleton of a man with sunken eyes and a pale complexion, rested a hand on her shoulder. He looked around, nervous. "It's okay," he whispered, his lips moving in slow motion. "And, I'm sorry that there's no other way," he continued. "This is illegal, but I sympathize..."

  His face suddenly shifted, altering into a hideous mask of wickedness, a red light burned in his eyes, his teeth were like glistening fangs, and his fingers had turned to talons digging into her shoulder.

  "–and I know how much you really want to kill him. Want to pull the plug and watch the old man die!"

  Audrey tried to pull away.

  "...and I'm sure God understands, Ms. Harper. I know it's a difficult choice..." The doctor was pale again, trembling, normal.

  "One that you probably labored over while eating an omelet and drinking coffee this morning. Go in there – your father's waiting. I'm sure he's proud of what you've become..."

  No. Audrey was shaking. "No!" She was frozen in place, terrified to go in.

  "A killer!"

  "NO!"

  Shoved through the door, she stumbled forward, crashing against the single bed in the room. A cackling laughter followed her inside before the door slammed shut.

  The room was dark, the air oppressive. A single bulb glowed with a sickly pallor inside the closet, behind the half-open door. Ghoulish shadows congregated over the bed. They seemed to be whispering. Come on pretty one. He sssssuffers.

  Audrey involuntarily stepped around the side of the bed, toward the set of machines that beeped and whirred at her. Tubes and wires extended from the devices, pumping her father full of nutrients, regulating his heartbeat and his pulse, expanding and contracting his infected lungs, forcing his digestion and excretion. Tubes in his nose, another down his throat, wires strapped all over his body. He looked like a shriveled puppet, a sad character too ill to live, too stubborn to die.

  Tears in her eyes, she reached for his hand where it lay like a dead fish at his side. She tried to calm her pounding heart; she had to see this through, had to experience it all, let it go through her, to feel every emotion she'd ever locked away.

  She looked at his hairless, splotchy skull and felt she would cry again. Her fingers brushed against his cold, clammy skin.

  And his eyes flew open; he sat up in bed and gripped her wrist in a motion too fast for her to follow. Her father grinned through a mouthful of tubes. He squeezed her wrist harder.

  "Nice of you to visit," he said in a gurgling voice that carried the scent of decay. He spat out the tube from his mouth. His eyes were wide and shining. "I think, he said, moving closer so that his cracked lips were only inches from hers, "That I'm getting better."

  Audrey stifled a scream, tried to back up, but he held her too tight.

  "Don't go anywhere, dear." He winked at her. "I'm not through teaching you yet. So much to share. Please stay."

  "No. Dad..."

  Her father pulled her closer and held out his other arm, clasping her around the shoulder. "Ah, the love of a daughter. You always were reliable, Audrey." He closed his eyes, let go of her and leaned back, easing back to the pillow.

  He coughed and gagged, his chest heaved. "I'm getting better, love. Much better."

  "Dad–"

  "Always so reliable."

  "Please–"

  "I never told you about the time I had to kill a suspect. Didn't think you had to know about that, yet."

  Audrey shivered, backed away.

  "Maybe I should have. Should have taught you a little something about death."

  She closed her eyes, tried to block out the illusion, insisting it was all in her head. But it was too real. The smell of antiseptic and old bed sheets, the hum of the machines, her father's wheezing breaths. Authentic down to the last detail.

  "But," her father continued "I guess you figured you knew it all."

  "No," Audrey whispered, shaking her head. "Dad–"

  "Knew so much that you'd try it first on the old man."

  "Dad, you were suffering so badly–"

  "YOU DON'T THINK I SUFFER NOW?"

  Audrey shrank back, the tears flowing. Now she remembered: that particular fear had
plagued her for months after his (murder) death.

  He pulled himself up again and glared at her with a face of pure hatred and loathing. "What do you know of what's beyond the gates? You sent me from one hell into another!"

  Audrey shook her head violently. "No, I can't believe–"

  "How did you know I even suffered at all? I hadn't been able to speak or move in two months! Maybe I was beyond pain, above it all, just waiting for the chance to recover, waiting for the radiation and the medicine to work..."

  Her legs gave out and she dropped hard onto the floor, head in her hands, weeping.

  "How did it feel, sweetheart? When you pulled the switches, turned off the power–"

  "No! Don't!" Audrey screamed and tried to cover her ears. A distant part of her consciousness tried to make itself heard: this was it, her most vulnerable essence. Deep down, she knew it; she understood with deadly clarity that this was the turning point. In a church far away, in another life, the final act had begun. If he reached out to her now, in this state...

  "Did it feel as good as the next time you killed? Do you like the power? To end a man's life just like that?" Anthony Harper snapped his shriveled fingers in the air – once, twice before the sound emerged.

  But she was losing, couldn't concentrate. Suffocating under the weight of guilt. Too heavy... He was right. She hadn't given the doctors enough time; her father was a strong man; he could have recovered, pulled himself through with the strength of his will.

  She had killed him, plain and simple, and then she had clouded her act in a spurious mask of compassion. Sent him onward before his time; he wasn't ready. There was more he wanted to show her, more to tell...

  She was on the floor at the side of the bed, her face buried in the mattress; sobbing, apologizing to her withered shell of a father as he continued to rain accusations and threats upon her.

  And, far removed from the inner crevices of Audrey's mind, Reverend Zachary Bright towered over her. She lay whimpering in a fetal position on the church floor; her fingernails clawed at the concrete. The congregation had taken up a low chanting, a hymn of coming glory and imminent transition.

  Zachary dropped to one knee. His hands, flickering with a pale blue light, approached Audrey's forehead.

  The shock ripped through Nick's body, electrifying and relentless. His skin took on the color of the glowing satellite, and a hazy aura flickered around him like a cushion of light. His hands were seared onto the metal shell, his legs quivered and kicked at the ground. His eyes flew up, under the lids.

  And he saw through another eye.

  High in the night sky, above the forest.

  He was looking down on a cataclysmic sight: a tortured path through snow-covered treetops, branches on fire, trees split and smoldering. And a colossal crater right where the lake should be. Smoking and sparkling in the November air.

  And his consciousness drifted downward, spiraling toward the crater, to the bottom of the fresh hole, where the satellite had come to a rest, still red and searing, twisted metal fused and, in places, torn inside out.

  A burst of all-encompassing light...

  And the scene shifted. He was back underwater, in the scarlet-tinged glow, hands molded to the satellite. The image of the metallic outer layer seemed to dissolve as he watched, yet he knew it was still there; his hands still pressed against the hard shell as it now became transparent. He could see the outline of the satellite; it was cylindrical, or had been. Under the earth it was now twisted and broken; only the circular top remained, a portion of which offered the crescent impression.

  On a shelf inside the satellite, in a compartment of sorts, hung an object of indescribable beauty – the source of the light and the radiation. It was huge and jagged, a mesh of brilliantly colored crystals, a chunk that seemed to have been broken off of a greater, more intricate object.

  Staring at the twinkling crystals, Nick understood what it was. He knew, and had always known. The knowledge came from some deep, primeval corner of his subconscious. He knew what it was and had, somehow, been waiting for it to come. And just as surely as he understood the timeless mystery, he knew this chance would come but once, a singular opportunity that would knock briefly, and then depart, never to return again.

  In the midst of comprehension, his mind whisked away once again and he found himself above the newly-formed crater, floating south, towards a small farmhouse and the tiny silhouettes on the front porch.

  And then he was inside Nate Innis, watching through his eyes, in wonder and astonishment. He covered his head, heard a tremendous thundering noise like the grinding of tectonic plates, a planetary rumbling. And then: a thick trail of smoke that compounded into a twisting, ravaging fire, then expanded into a blinding, searing orb of light from which sprang a fireball, its tail pointing skyward.

  Suddenly Nick understood that he was seeing the impact in reverse. Watching through Nate's eyes as the satellite pulled itself from the earth and the fire, and rocketed backwards out of the forest and through the sky, a blistering streak across the starlit heavens, dwindling as it arced up and out of sight.

  With a flash the scene transitioned again, and he was on the satellite itself, as if clinging to its fin while it hurtled backwards, seemingly riding its own flaming tail. Its shell was overheated, scalding and blood-red. Below, the western seaboard shrank at an alarming rate as the Earth swelled. A giant orb, cosmically beautiful, breathtaking in its perfection.

  The satellite's fiery tail dissipated, and TERRA II drifted slowly backwards (or forwards) in space, toward a distant, dark shadow. In time the shadow grew more distinct, developed ridges and thin protrusions. Closer still, and the shadow slipped in front of the moon and then glittered in the light of the sun.

  It was an object made entirely of crystal. Complex geometric shapes – many of which defied any human comprehension. Its jutting formations sparkled with every color and hue as it loomed ever larger, easily five miles across and at least several thick.

  Closer and closer it came. And Nick realized that in the proper time sequence it was not moving to Earth's satellite, but TERRA II was moving toward it. The crystal structure was just passing through this system, Nick realized. Making the rounds of this remote section of the cosmos.

  In 1957 the first satellite, Sputnik, had been launched and successfully orbited the Earth. And six years after man had conquered planetary restraints and escaped the earthly threshold, this thing had come.

  Perhaps as a welcome to the new frontier.

  A small group of the brightest scientists, with the help of the government, had been monitoring the crystal form's progress since 1959 when it cleared Pluto and had moved steadily past the orbit of each successive planet.

  Nick saw all this, just as clearly as he saw TERRA II's outer hatch open and the arm stretch out, extending. Pincers clasped a chunk of crystal, breaking it off and neatly returning into place, the hatch closing. The arm drew back, along with the satellite.

  Abruptly the scene reversed itself and Nick watched it all again, this time in the proper sequence. After the crystal had been collected and stored away, the cold, mindless visitor sailed on its way, through the icy wastes of space, off to its next destination. Its function fulfilled, its duty carried out.

  A flash of light.

  And Nick was inside the Innis farmhouse, back in Nate's body. Electrodes were strapped to his head and he sat in a metal chair. Equipment packed the room: wires, computers, digital terminals, printers, monitors. Four men in white coats nervously ran about.

  Henry lay on a table in the back of the converted barn. He was strapped down, screaming in agony. He was shirtless, and the flesh on his chest crawled with bulging, twisting shapes. His mouth was wide open and blood trickled from his eyes.

  Nate, secured to a similar metal slab at the other end, looks down at his arms, sees his skin buckling. Terror-stricken, he glances at the nearest monitor, watches the green line zigzag across the screen. He screams and screams. His skin
bursts, smokes. The straps catch fire, burn away.

  And he is free. But his mind has snapped, the pain too intense. In agony he flails against the equipment. Sparks and explosions light up the room. A scientist tries to restrain him. Nate grabs him by the throat and the man instantly burns into a charred husk.

  In the rear, Henry breaks free. Two of the scientists try to run past him to the back door – but Henry, his face a mass of boiling, bubbly flesh, catches them both and savagely rips them apart.

  The last scientist runs for not for the door, but to a row of seven-foot high canisters against the eastern wall. Henry and Nate are too caught up in the metamorphosis to chase him. They scream and writhe on the floor as he opens the valve on all the canisters. Holding a rag over his mouth, he staggers to the main console and makes an urgent phone call. Over the anguished wailing of Henry and Nate, he delivers a rushed, frantic explanation. And sends a terrible warning.

  Before he can finish, one of the sparks from the shattered computer consoles ignites the escaped hydrogen and the farmhouse explodes into a brilliant orange fireball...

  Nick hurtled from Nate's incinerated body and was thrust back into his own, kneeling on the satellite, his hands tightly pressed against its skin. A wave of apologetic light pushed through the metal, into Nick's hands. It was a soothing feeling and somehow imparted the idea that the event he had just witnessed wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

  Another image rose to meet him and filled his mind's eye: Henry and Nate Innis, huddled in heavy winter coats and thick boots, trudging through the forest; they stepped out of the snow and walked up to the edge of the smoking crater.

  They walk forward, gingerly treading along the burnt path. They begin to sweat halfway to the glowing object. Their gloves and parkas are off before they come within ten yards of the satellite's tip. And once there, Henry holds the boy back a step while he moves in, mesmerized by the kaleidoscopic vision. Awestruck, he stands inches away from the shining hull, holding out his palms as if warming them before a fire.