Cracked Lenses

by L J McIntyre

  “Well.” I cross my legs. “Before I left Nesgrove I’d realised that no one had actually hurt me, and in fact, Annie was probably taking care of me, so I knew you weren’t all one-dimensional evil beings.”

  I notice Gerald’s lips curl up into a subtle smile.

  “I also realised that Annie had encouraged me a few times to tell our story on Facebook, so I knew the internet was important to you somehow. When I got back to England,” I continue, “I remembered a petrol station worker down the road mention the Marksons, and that seemed to fire off a chain reaction of memories that must have been bursting to get out. In the convenience store window there was a newspaper with the headline, ‘Lecturer’s Play Delights Auckland Critics’. You told me you were a lecturer in Auckland so I knew the headline was about you and guessed you probably taught drama. Was the whole idea yours?”

  “Not at all. It was Sally Adams, bless her soul, who first came up with it. The Marksons happened upon the town one day with their escape room attraction thingy. They were all dressed the part and putting on their best Shakespearean English. They parked right up on the field behind the petrol station—”

  “I walked across that field. That’s where I found a torn piece of paper with a riddle of some sort. It was torn right through a word, the first few letters were ‘Mar’. I thought the word was ‘Martyrs’ but obviously it was ‘Marksons’.”

  Gerald smiles. “Well, a lot of people in town were curious. We’d heard of escape rooms but nothing like that ever existed in Nesgrove. So, many of us gave it a go. And I must admit.” He runs his hand through his hair. “It was a lot of fun, not that we managed to escape within the hour time limit. It was rather difficult.

  “After the Marksons left, Sally came to me and pointed out that Nesgrove was, to any passer-by, a lot more terrifying than that escape room. She had a dark side, you could say, a morbid fascination with certain things, and she told me all about something called Narco tourism where folks go over to places like Colombia and visit the spots where famous drug barons died or conducted their infamous drug deals. She even told me about zombie apocalypse runs, I believe they’re called. What she was getting at was that there was a new brand of tourism where people pay good money to be frightened or immersed in the dark and mysterious.

  “The idea, Sally said, was to make Nesgrove into one living museum of death, darkness and mystery. I mean, it wasn’t hard of course, because…well…you know the history of our town.”

  “That’s why plaques are everywhere,” I say. “Tamati said it was so that the younger generations knew how the town had suffered but really it was backstory for tourists.”

  “Exactly.” He nods. “You have to understand, Jack. New Zealand draws in scores of tourists every year. But we as a town had been rotting for decades in the shadows. We’ve suffered true poverty, no work, no hospital, no tourists, nothing. New Zealand and Your Coal had forgotten about us. To describe our situation as desperate doesn’t do justice to how harsh our lives had become.

  “Our children were dying. Drug dealers had moved in. We felt as though we had nothing but each other until Sally floated her idea to use the only other thing Nesgrove did have—suffering—to create some sort of industry, to tap into that rich vein of tourism.” He looks me in the eye, bends forward and touches my wrist. “Sadly, you took the brunt of that decision. You really were our sacrifice. But let me tell you, it wasn’t an easy decision to take—”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself. I get it, I really do.”

  He leans back and nods.

  I look out the living room window, see the people outside still having their photos taken by the hanging tree.

  “The tourists came flocking in the end,” I say.

  “A few.” He nods. “Not enough to drag us out of poverty but we’re getting there, thanks in part to your book. Truth be told, the tourists can be a little annoying at times, and a few have found a touch of bravery and asked us about you, about your story, but we won’t take them for granted.”

  “So, you basically choreographed and directed the whole thing?”

  “That’s right. My biggest theatre production. For a long time, after the Marksons left, we toyed with Sally’s idea. Then we put up the plaques and left meaningless riddles around town and in the forest. They were there just to stoke up curiosity and mystery. Nothing more. But for months the tourists just didn’t come. A lot of people in town saw this as the last chance for Nesgrove to survive. We were losing heart.

  “When you wrote on Facebook that you were coming here, we felt this would be our only opportunity to make this work. A drug dealer had recently found his way here after the last two dealers—” he looks at me. “Well, let’s just say the last two stopped coming. But now this new fellow started spreading his diseased wares about town.”

  “The guy who attacked me.”

  “That’s the one.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anyone so willing to hurt another human being. I suspect he thought you were another dealer trying to move in on his patch, as they say.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He woke up in the next town along with a very sore head, I’d imagine. When we knew the date of your arrival to town, I was appointed director of production. You had so many followers on social media that we needed you to experience the horror of the town. All we wanted from you was that you posted your experiences on Facebook, let the world know how weird and screwed up Nesgrove was. We thought that would be enough to get those first few morbid tourists through the door and get the ball rolling.”

  “Basically, I was free advertising.”

  “Right. But apparently not. No matter how much we pushed, how much Annie encouraged you to write on Facebook, you refused.”

  “Bad timing. I was right in the middle of social media burn out.”

  “When you were about to delete your social media accounts, we cut the Wi-Fi.”

  “How did you know I was about to do it? A listening device?”

  Gerald laughs, says, “No, no, nothing fancy like that. We had someone in the room next to yours listen to you the whole time. Those walls are paper thin.”

  “And I guess when the guys were outside my window at night, they ran into the room next door before I had a chance to confront them. That’s how they disappeared so quickly.”

  He nods. Then his face drops. He looks down at his hands. “We had no idea you have anxiety issues—”

  “Had,” I correct him.

  He raises his head, smiles at me. “Maggie returned your bathroom bag as soon as we realised what the pills were for. We just wanted to make sure you had nothing in the bag, like a razor, that you could hurt yourself or other people with.”

  “I have a question: why didn’t you contact me before I got to Nesgrove and explain your idea of turning Nesgrove into a tourist spot? I might have been open to advertising it on my social media.”

  “Look at us, Jack. We could barely afford fresh fruit. How could we pay advertising fees? And let’s be frank, we needed the experience to be authentic so that what you wrote didn’t come across as cheesy marketing. There are plenty of scary looking towns in the world, but we figured the best way to get people here is if we created a narrative, an adventure, a faux escape room experience for you that implied there was something deeper below the town, something that would stir up the imagination and get people flocking.”

  “There are two things I still don’t understand,” I say, “the first is the meeting in the pub on that final morning. You were angry with Ben. He’d given you a laptop for some reason.”

  Gerald grins. “That, my friend, was a rehearsal that you weren’t meant to see. I was playing the part of you. You see, this whole thing was never meant to go as far as it did. After you saw the child ghost in Tragedy House we were certain you’d head straight to Facebook and recount your experiences. After which your car would have magically re-appeared in the car park. But no matter what we did, you refused to write a sin
gle word. As the morning wore on we grew more uncertain, we were running out of ideas. In truth we had no definitive ending. No Rebirthing.”

  “You told me to think of the Rebirthing as a full moon party.” I say. “Well I’ve been to a full moon party in Thailand. Cash-rich tourists spend a fortune at these events. Was that your plan?”

  “Indeed. The Rebirthing was exactly that. A kind of publicity stunt. A time of year when tourists would congregate and celebrate through the night for no real reason. We’d hoped it would catch on, as these things do.”

  “And did it?”

  “It’s getting there. We had a hundred or so here last year, partying on the main street. Next year we’ll mow the field, set up some open fire pits, make it a good party spot for the young ones. It’s a work in progress, let’s say. But I digress, in the pub that morning we were getting prepared for you and what we expected would be the final confrontation. If you decided to go to the cabin, we would have intercepted you, persuaded you to come to the pub and hear us out. There we would explain everything to you, make you understand why we did what we did. It would be one last crack at getting you to advertise the town on Facebook. When you saw us, I was playing the role of you. We’d anticipated that you’d be angry so that is how I was acting, and Ben was preparing for his role as town mediator. The laptop he gave me was the same one he would have given you. He would have asked you to log into Facebook and write something about us.”

  “Okay, I get it now. That’s why all the gruesome pictures were on the wall. They were there to show me visually what the town had been through.”

  Gerald nods.

  I smile, reach over to the table and take another drink of water.

  “What was the second thing you didn’t understand?” he asks.

  I put the glass back. “I couldn’t figure out why you used Nathan Lithglow’s sons as the man in black.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Well, as far as I can see, the only tragedies in Nesgrove that you didn’t glamourize, if that’s the right word, were the two backpackers. There are no plaques or mention of them in town. I’m assuming that was out of respect for the living family members of the two girls.”

  Gerald nods.

  “I looked up their murderer, your uncle, Nathan Lithglow, online, and he looked exactly like the man in black. It took me a while to guess that he must have had twin sons who now look like he did around the time of the murders. That explains how the man in black appeared outside the motel as I was leaving to go scout the lake, but was then on the far side of the lake just as I arrived. One brother was in Nesgrove. One already by the lake. I’m assuming the man in black was supposed to be the physical representation of the demon.”

  As I was talking, Gerald had tilted his head to one side, a soft expression on his face.

  “Jack,” he says, “I read about the man in the black pinstripe suit in your book, but that was the first I’d heard of him. We didn’t cast a man in black. He wasn’t here. My uncle didn’t have any sons. Just a daughter who died ten years ago. I’d assumed you’d used a touch of artistic license in adding him to the story, make it more colourful.”

  I shake my head. “No, he was here. I saw him with my own eyes.”

  Gerald leans forward once more and pats me on my arm, says, “Maybe now you know why folks here are so superstitious”. Then he sits up quickly. “Oh,” he says, “I just remembered something. Wait right here.” He gets up and walks out the room leaving me more confused than before I entered the house.

  He comes back with my old backpack that I’d left in the motel. He hands it to me. I put it by my leg.

  “It’s got everything in there. Laptop, camera, everything.”

  “Thank you. I just have one more question.”

  “Of course.”

  “Sally Adams. What happened to her?”

  “Sally went out to the lake and took her own life the night you arrived in Nesgrove.”

  “So, the attacks on my Facebook—”

  “Improvised.”

  “They weren’t planned at all?” I ask.

  “No. You see, everything else was planned. Brett and Liam were the two men you encountered in the forest that morning, although I believe you only saw Brett.”

  “Grey hair and beard?”

  “That’s him. They were there to scare you and plant the rope and other items in your car. They were just some props to frighten you. But just a few minutes before you arrived, they saw Sally’s body in the water. Poor fellas didn’t know what to do, so they stuck to the plan then called Ben once you’d gotten in your car. Ben told the rest of town about Sally that morning. What we did after that might look awful to an outsider, but the poor girl was one of many kids who’ve died tragically in this town at the hands of drugs. And we decided she wouldn’t die for nothing like the rest. This whole thing was Sally’s idea, and we have no idea why she chose to end her life when she did, but I believe we honoured her memory by using her death the way we did.”

  Gerald clears his throat.

  “We all thought you’d see the body, tell the police and drive off as quickly as possible. Turns out you missed it. And when you published the photo online, we improvised, ran with it.”

  “And Annie?”

  “We told her about Sally’s death that morning. Told her she could walk away from this whole thing, but she refused, and instead knuckled down and got on with it. The girl was a mess once you left Nesgrove, but she’s had plenty of time to grieve since.

  “Oh,” he says, “Before I forget, there’s one more thing.” He walks over to the bookcase, pulls out a book, my book, walks back to me and offers it to me. “It’s signed by every adult in Nesgrove.”

  I open the book. The first few pages are chocked black and blue with signature upon signature.

  “Every one of those signatures is a thank you and an apology, Jack. We were planning on mailing it to you.”

  I nod and close the book. “Thank you.”

  “I think there’s someone else in town who’d like to see you.”

  “Annie?”

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  I stand across the street from the café and watch Annie serving coffee. She’s dyed her hair, or perhaps returned it to its natural colour. It’s dark brown and long down to her elbows. I remember the first time I saw her. She had the look of a sad, lost girl, but now she’s smiling as she pours coffee into a mug. She lets out a big laugh as the young guy she is working with, the same one who fluffed his lines, whispers something to her. She hits him on the top of the arm. Even from here I can see that beautiful blue sparkle in her eyes.

  She looks happy. I don’t want to ruin that. In truth, I’m not sure what I expected, what I hoped to achieve by speaking to her. The time with Annie taught me that being alone wasn’t working for me anymore. So, this past year, I went on a few dates, and while none of them led to anything, they all re-enforced the idea that I was ready for a relationship, ready to share my life with someone again. Just seeing her now, healthy and happy, gives me a sense of closure I suppose I was looking for.

  There’s just one thing left for me to do. The real reason for me coming here. I have to go into the cabin. I walk to my car, throw the backpack in the trunk, give a brief wave to Maggie who returns the gesture and start the engine. I go to reverse the car, but the rear parking sensors begin beeping.

  A figure swings around the front as I put the brakes on. Annie smiles at me through the driver’s window. As I get out of the car, she wraps her arms around me. We hug for a while silence.

  “Hi, Jack,” she says as she loosens her grip, her eyes growing red.

  “Hi, Annie.”

  “I’m so sorry for everything. I can’t tell you—”

  “It’s okay.”

  She looks at me with those large eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “I forgave you over a year ago.”

  “You’re a better person than I am.”

  “I doubt tha
t.”

  “We were horrible to you.”

  “It’s true I was angry for a while, but Nesgrove saved my life, Annie, and my career. I’m a different person now. I’m happier. I’m no longer glued to my phone, looking to others for validation. I feel like I’ve finally emerged from a thirty-year black hole.

  She flashes me a toothy smile. “I’m glad you’re happy now. I’ve hated myself for the last two years for what I did to you.”

  “You don’t need to. I promise.”

  She tucks her hair behind her ear and nods and looks at me. “Stay for a while, Jack. Just a couple of days. Meet Nesgrove. Meet me.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got book signings.”

  “Will you come back one day?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I understand.”

  For a moment we look at each other, unsure of how to say goodbye. So I lean forward and hug her one last time.

  I say, “I hope things start looking up for the town. And for you, Annie.”

  “You’re always welcome back, Jack.”

  I climb into my car and as I manoeuvre out of the car park, Annie smiles and waves.

  I drive along the main street, watch Nesgrove pass by my windows, watch the crumbling town of timber out of my rear-view mirror, and wonder if their plan worked, if enough tourists will eventually carve a worn path to Nesgrove. I drive out of the town for the final time and bump my way along the road until I turn off onto the narrow road to the lake.

  At the end of the road, I park the car behind a little camper van and in front of that is a shiny silver Mercedes. I get out and start hiking along the trail which hasn’t changed a bit in the last two years. At the end of the trail I spy the lake, the nectar that lured me here in the first place. Two people are lazing on the grassy bank, loose line dangling from their fishing rods in the water. I turn right, up along the second trail, see the triangle symbol carved into the tree trunk. Further on I follow the trail, again the trees have been trimmed back here—their wildness tamed for the camera-happy tourists—until I reach the clearing and lay my eyes on the cabin.