In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn

by Coleman Thompson

  “Imagination is only good for so long,” Mary preached. “Eventually you’re gonna need the real deal. And the real deal is always better.”

  Anthony cocked the lever to open the rifle’s chamber; Mary then dropped the bullet into place. As the chamber closed, the sound seemed to echo through the surrounding woods. The gun was ready to fire; the gun was going to fire. Anthony had never fired a real weapon before, and he was determined not to disappoint Mary, or himself.

  “There you go,” Mary spoke as she walked backwards away from Anthony. “You’re now armed and dangerous. Remember everything I just told you and send that stupid stone back to the hell it came from!”

  Shoulder first, Anthony told himself. He dug the rifle tightly into his shoulder; the gun was going to kick this time. He was unfazed by this realization and went on in remembering Mary’s teachings. Keep both eyes open; align the sights; focus on the target. Again, it took a moment for Anthony’s eyes to adjust, but eventually they did. He feared he was taking too long. Better to be patient and accurate than quick and messy. Mary would’ve been proud of that ambiguous tidbit of knowledge, Anthony declared silently. Breathe in deep and breathe out slowly; then squeeze the trigger. That part was easier said than done now that the rifle was loaded and ready to fire. The anticipation of the shot was too much on Anthony’s first breath, so he had to take in another. He was still anxious, but this time he was going to make it count. As his exhale winded down, his aim steadied and the target came into focus. The rifle fired.

  The kick he hardly felt, but the noise made Anthony’s ears ring. The birds in the trees were not pleased with the racket either as they all scattered at the sound of the gunshot. Anthony shook off the shot and looked into the distance to where the rock was placed. It was now gone.

  “Well done, little brother!” Mary praised.

  “Did I get it?!” Anthony inquired eagerly.

  “More or less!” Mary overly extolled. She then walked by Anthony and headed towards the downed tree branch. Anthony followed.

  As they reached their destination down the trail, Mary knelt down next to the branch and pointed out a small hole in the wood about two inches below where the rock was sitting. Anthony reached behind the branch and retrieved the rock he had missed.

  “Damn, I thought I had it.” Anthony examined the rock indignantly. He was not entirely disappointed though; his shot was close. Mary shared his latter sentiments.

  “That was a hell of shot, babe – way better than I was expecting.” Mary stood and removed the rifle from Anthony’s arms. “If that was a person you were shootin’ at, you wouldn’t’ve got him in the heart, but you would’ve nailed that bitch right in the stomach… and for some people a slow death is better than a quick one.”

  “I guess that’s true.” Anthony tossed the rock back to the ground. He would have preferred to deal the rock a quick death, but a slow death to the tree branch was okay, too.

  “You did very well; big sister is very pleased,” Mary put her arm around Anthony and led him further down the trail. “We’ll keep practicing; though I do believe you might be a natural.”

  “Maybe you’re just a good teacher.” Anthony added.

  “Yes,” agreed Mary. “There is that, too.”

  The clouds meandered above in a steady rush over the mountains. They were dark-gray and occasionally blotted the sunlight at brief intervals as they made their broken journey across the clear, blue sky. Serena watched them overhead as she sat against the front wall of the Lake Tahoe Historical Society. She had no reasoning in choosing this place for a rest stop; she only wanted a brief respite and this place happened to look as welcoming as any other.

  Serena closed her eyes to the clouded sky. God, I’m a horrible mother, she censured herself in thought. I’ve known that girl for two days; she’s obviously out of her mind. I watched her kill four men right before my own eyes… yet I leave my son alone with her. Why would I do something so stupid? Crying helped little, but sometimes a little was enough; though not very often for Serena. Tears only made her feel weak. Because she can protect him better than I can, that’s why. He’s safer with her than he is with me. Anthony might endure a few inappropriate references and pick up some new ways to say some old, dirty words, but other than that Serena trusted Mary to do right by her son. “Enough with the pity-parade,” Serena said as she wiped away a few rough tears. “This is accomplishing nothing.” She stood from her place against the wall and walked to her car which was parked right in front of her.

  It felt so much safer inside her vehicle than it did in the outside world. In this car Serena was fast, agile, and strong: qualities she feared she did not possess on her own two feet. The vehicle remained silent; Serena did not start it up just yet. Instead, she reached over to the passenger seat and took Amy the Axe into her hands. “Where do you get your strength?” Serena asked Amy. Amy made no reply. “You don’t fear death do you? You have nothing to lose, but your own life.” Amy’s stainless steel was oddly warm to the touch, and her blade was viciously sharp. “That’s not right; you do fear death. You’re too smart not to fear it. So where does your strength come from? I’d really like to know.” Amy remained silent.

  Serena chuckled as she smoothly placed Amy back onto the passenger’s seat. She then started up her car and proceeded on her way. The police department, gun shops, electronics stores, and the local hospital were all on Serena to visit list, and she now had an odd urge to look for something specializing in arts and crafts as well. She did not want to dally too long though. Rain was on the way.

  The trail Mary and Anthony traveled upon eventually led them down to Vikingsholm castle: a Scandinavian style mansion built in the late 1920s. Mary gave Anthony a brief tour before continuing on to Emerald Bay. The birds had returned with their oddly comforting cacophony of sounds, bringing noisy joy to the calm, emerald waters. The tree covered mountains were picturesque and beautiful as Mary and Anthony viewed them from below. The white sands of the beach were briefly grayed by the clouds above, but the bay was still ever majestic in its own subtle ways. A short distance down the beach was a small pier with two boats anchored nearby. Anthony had a dreadful feeling that getting into one of those boats was likely to be in his near future. He was not wrong.

  Mary chose the smaller of the two boats. She jumped into it, set down the rifle, and then began trawling something out from underneath a dull, brown tarp lying in the floor of the little boat. It turned out to be a fishing pole. Mary acquired it and presented it to Anthony, who still remained upon the pier.

  “Ever used one of these before?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah,” Anthony responded despondently. He wasn’t feeling in the mood for any boat rides. “My dad and I use to fish sometimes.”

  “Really? Good!” Mary tossed the pole to Anthony. “Then you can show me how it’s done.”

  Anthony stepped into the boat with the fishing pole in hand. He searched around for a tackle box, which he soon found, as Mary loosed the rope holding the boat to the dock and then went to work cranking the motor. The motor started and the boat was swiftly on its way. Mary might not have been knowledgeable in the art of fishing, but she could handle the boat very well. Anthony had hoped that she would stop somewhere within Emerald Bay, but those hopes vanished as Mary piloted them towards the mouth of the bay.

  The blue waters of Emerald Bay soon vanished and the dark waters of Lake Tahoe closed in. Anthony pondered quietly: these waters can’t really be so dark, can they? Mary continued on, leaving Emerald Bay far behind – the shores growing smaller and smaller as the lake seemed to swell all around them. Anthony’s anxieties swelled, too. What if the boat fails?! He silently shouted. What if we run out of fuel?! Anthony looked over the side of the boat and into the water. He knew it was not really there, but still he could see it – a giant, skeletal hand emanating within the depths of the lake, reaching up for him and Mary. Anthony held his peace for as long as he could, but eventually it was just too much. Someth
ing was there, he knew it was.

  “Do you feel something?” Anthony implored hoarsely, still looking into the water.

  Mary slowed the boat and then brought it to a quiet slumber. “Do you feel something?” Mary returned the question.

  Anthony looked to Mary. He knew that she knew that something was wrong. “I do,” Anthony answered. “I think I do.”

  “I think you do, too.” Mary did not seem surprised. “It might mean something and it might not, but never deny your feelings. Our instincts and intuitions differ. I know this place bother’s you, little brother; it’s pretty damn obvious. I’d like to know why.”

  “I’m sorry, this lake’s just…”

  “Don’t apologize.” Mary interrupted; she then moved closer to Anthony and took a seat on the edge of the boat. “I just wanna know what you feel.”

  “It’s hard to say,” Anthony tried to say. “It’s like there’s something dark and ugly here.”

  “This whole place?” Mary questioned sympathetically.

  “No, no on land I feel okay. Even the bay isn’t that bad. It’s just this lake, this spot where we are now…”

  “Close your eyes and tell me what you see.”

  Anthony reluctantly did as Mary commanded. He couldn’t see anything other than darkness at first, but his mind had a very distinct scene playing over and over again in his head. “Hands… dead hands all around the boat reaching out of the water.” Anthony felt like a fool for saying it, but he confessed his vision to Mary.

  “Good,” Mary spoke with a strange hint of pride. “Very good.”

  Anthony opened his eyes and looked at Mary. “Why is that good?”

  “I’ve seen those hands myself, honey… you’re no crazier than I am.”

  “Nice to know,” Anthony did feel a sense of relief. “What do they mean? The hands? Where’ve you seen them before?”

  “Carson City, Salt Lake City, Denver… were your hands reaching or pointing?”

  Mary’s question was disturbingly strange, but Anthony closed his eyes anyway to try and recall the image. It was mostly gone now, as were most of his fears, too, which was a relief. He still felt uneasy about the lake, but his anxieties no longer overwhelmed him. “Reaching, I think.” Anthony answered. “I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Okay, awesome.” Mary spoke with odd glee. “Reaching is good.”

  “I think they were reaching. Why? Why is reaching good? And what does pointing mean?” At the point Anthony started to channel his inner mother and began questioning the sanity in Mary’s vision reading skills.

  “Pointing is a warning,” Mary answered. “Reaching is just a faded-fated, jaded memory: a little haunt stuck in time wanting to be noticed.”

  It might have sounded foolish, but Mary’s strange ways did have a method to them. Anthony did not question her sanity – only her logic. Still, he appreciated her crazy notions, as they often brought him comfort. “How do you know all of this?” Anthony still had his uncertainties on the matter.

  “Jodelle,” Mary answered. “She knew things; she understood things; she could see things other people couldn’t. I know she was a lunatic, but still… she was right about the hands, amongst other things.”

  Anthony took some comfort in the fact that Mary’s interruptions of this fear were not actually her own, but were instead the musings of her clinically deranged former lover. It had a peculiar poetry to it that he kind of adored. His adoring comfort began to wane though as he noticed Mary undoing her pants.

  “What are you doing now?” Anthony asked, unsteadily.

  “Takin’ a swim,” Mary kicked off her shoes and then tossed her pants into the floor of the boat. She was wearing checkered boy shorts beneath her pants for which Anthony was greatly relieved. “You catch us some lunch, and I’ll go see what those hands are tryin’ to tell you.”

  “Mary, please don’t.” Anthony didn’t care to know what those dead hands wanted him to understand, assuming there was any truth to Mary’s meanderings. Even worse, he did not want Mary to leave him.

  “I’ll be near, little brother,” Mary replied as she started undoing her shirt. “Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.” Mary stood and turned away from Anthony and let the flannel shirt fall next to her feet. Serena would probably still disapprove, but Mary did do her best to remain semi-modest in front of Anthony. She stepped over to a blue and white water-cooler, opened it, and removed some diving googles and a large, submergible LED flashlight. Anthony remained humble himself; he avoided looking at Mary in her current state of undress as best he could.

  Mary put on the googles and dove into the lake. She quickly submerged and then resurfaced. “Wow, this motherfucker is COLD!” She cried out; her voice echoing across the water. She then began taking hyper-quick breaths as she gripped the side of the boat.

  “Are you okay?” Anthony went to the side of the boat and grasped Mary’s hand.

  “Yep,” Mary replied between breaths. “Hyperventilating myself… hold… breath… longer.”

  “Oh,” he was relieved to know that Mary was not in immediate danger, but Anthony still did not like the idea of her being in the lake. “Please, you really don’t have to do this.”

  “I know… but I want to.” Mary continued her short, quick breaths. “I can hold my breath… very long… four minutes sometimes. Don’t be worried… if you don’t see me for a while.”

  Mary’s reassurances did not help ease Anthony’s worries. He released her hand as she pulled away from the boat. The water was cold, so Mary stayed afloat a moment more to get accustomed to the temperature. She continued her hurried breaths, slowly tapering them back to normal.

  “See ya soon.” Mary declared as she took one last deep breath and then plunged herself beneath the water. It was an eerie, blue nothingness all around her. Despite being calm and clear, the lake provided no visuals – the light of day was Mary’s only guide. She and Anthony had travelled more than a mile out into Tahoe’s waters. Mary had never bothered diving into Tahoe’s depths, but she had swum in the lake on other occasions. Lake Tahoe was more than sixteen-hundred feet deep; Mary was well aware that there was no way she would ever get anywhere near that depth. Something closer to seventy to a hundred feet would be great for her. What exactly she intended to find at that relatively miniscule depth was beyond even her maniacal mind.

  After a minute and a half under the water Mary still felt like she was in good shape; her lungs did not hurt and the abyss below her was not too intimidating just yet. Her small, muscular body treaded through the water at a quick pace. Her lack of clothing helped, too, but her long hair was a mild hindrance. At around seventy feet below the surface Mary turned on the large flashlight; it did not seem to help much at first. Even though she felt fine, both in mind and body, Mary decided to dive no further. It was too dark and the bottom was too far. Also, she felt guilty for leaving Anthony back on the surface. She knew the boy was afraid. Her idea was to quell his fear by proving that the lake was safe, which she should have accomplished by now. Mary turned off the flashlight and arched her path to gradually round her way back towards the surface. The sunlight was clearly visible in the distance. Mary looked above to try and spot the small boat, but it couldn’t be spotted this deep even with the goggles on. The goggles helped with seeing things directly in front of her, but they limited Mary’s peripheral vision. Although she was no longer diving, Mary did not swim directly to the surface yet. That, along with her lack of peripheral vision, and being distracted by looking for her boat, caused Mary to swim directly into something right in front of her.

  The initial shock, along with the collision, nearly knocked the remaining breath out of Mary, which would have been bad at that depth. What the fuck? This is not suppose to be here! Mary nearly spoke aloud. She quickly turned her flashlight back on. A giant, metal object stretching beyond sight into Tahoe’s depths stood directly in front of her. A sunken boat was Mary’s first thought, but this metal was different, yet familiar, and this
vessel was far too large. Mary remembered where she recognized it from: the downed alien spacecraft lying dead in the Nevada desert. However, this ship was different from that one. It was incredibly long, but much smaller in size. The hull Mary had swum into was broken off, and she suspected that there was probably a great deal more of this ship somewhere at the bottom of the lake. The excitement of the find caused Mary’s blood to run a little faster – using up her oxygen in the process. Before she turned to return to the surface, she peered down into the dark, broken vessel. The realization of her find suddenly came to her. She knew exactly what this thing was.

  Back on the surface Anthony waited impatiently. He had no devices to tell him the time, so he counted the seconds that Mary was away. Just as his count hit two-hundred, a commotion thirty feet off of the portside of the small boat ended Anthony’s count. Mary was back from her dive. After taking in a few quick breaths, she swam over to the boat and folded both of her arms over the side. Anthony was ecstatic to have her back, but the look she was giving him put him at little on edge.

  “Are you all right?” Anthony timidly implored.

  Mary pointed to Anthony and then declared, “Never question your sanity!”

  “Okay, I won’t,” Anthony replied with less timidity this time. “Are you okay? Did you find something?”

  “Yeah, I did.” Mary replied as she tossed the flashlight and the googles into the boat and then climbed in with Anthony. He picked up her flannel shirt and held it out so he wouldn’t see anything his mother might not approve of. Mary slipped inside the shirt and wrapped it around her.

  “What did you find?” Anthony was eager to hear what mystery Mary had discovered that would exonerate him from his seemingly irrational fear of Lake Tahoe.

  “You know how the Sayona got here, don’t you?” Mary asked as she wrung her hair out into the boar.

  “The invaders left them here.”

  “Yeah, but do you know how they physically got them here?”