Whisper Down the Lane

by Clay Chapman

  Every time he asked his mother where they were going, she avoided the question. Pretending she didn’t hear him, humming along to the radio instead. She was playing her own game. Without him. Acting as if everything was perfectly normal when nothing was normal at all. As if driving in the middle of the night was normal. As if wearing his Sunday clothes on a Tuesday—it was a Tuesday, right?—was normal. As if leaving everything behind, their house, Miss Kinderman, school, was perfectly normal. But it wasn’t. None of this was normal.

  Mom wasn’t normal. Not anymore. She had been getting worse and worse. She shielded her son from every passing stranger. Shouted at people who stood too close in line at the rest area. Always grabbing Sean by the arm and tugging him away from anyone who said hello.

  Always driving. Sleeping in the back seat. Waking up somewhere else. A different back road. A different town.

  The engine heaved. Sean could hear the strain just under the music, pushing the car further along. It pushed him deeper into his seat.

  Sean wanted to take it back. Take it all back. He wanted to tell his mom he had lied. That it wasn’t Mr. Woodhouse. It was never Mr. Woodhouse or any of the other teachers at school.

  A game. It was just a game. Just for the two of them to play together.

  All for you, Mom, he thought. I did it all for you.

  “It’s not true,” he managed. The words were barely there, but he’d said it. He had been so scared of the truth. What would happen if it were to finally come out that he’d been lying all along? They would take him away, wouldn’t they? Just like Mom said? The adults in their neckties would finally swoop in and separate their family? “I made it all up, Mommy…”

  The car was moving faster. He couldn’t tell for sure, but he sensed the momentum all around him, thrusting him against the door as the station wagon propelled itself forward.

  “I made it up…” He said it louder now, fighting the music. “I lied, Mommy…”

  Mom’s head turned slightly to her right shoulder, as if she’d just heard something in the car. But the moment passed, and her focus drifted back to the windshield and the darkness ahead. Nothing Sean said seemed to penetrate that dense shield of music, so he told her he loved her. It was all he could say anymore, all he could think to do. To help save them.

  But she never heard him.

  “I love you, Mommy,” he said again from the back seat of the car, trying it once more. Just in case. That these magic words might break the spell his mother was under and bring her back, let her foot off the accelerator, slow the car down to a stop and come back to him.

  Mom merely nodded to herself, smiling her pained smile, her eyes focused on the darkened road outside the windshield, humming even louder to the song. Blocking Sean out.

  The road disappeared.

  The headlights brushed over a black sheet of glass. It was so smooth at first. It seemed to reach into the horizon, that glass, farther than the car’s high beams could ever reach.

  The station wagon dipped. It felt like they were on a roller coaster, suddenly plunging forward. The front fender pushed through that blackened glass. The impact thrust Sean forward. He folded over, his head tapping his knees. Without his seatbelt on, Sean tumbled into the footwell, his body slamming against the back of his mother’s seat. He scrambled back up, grabbing hold of her headrest and pulling himself into his seat again. When he looked out the windshield, at the churning shadows surrounding them, they looked like wraiths drifting by the car, swallowing it in a cloud of muck. Sean gasped.

  Water. That was water outside the car, he realized. The headlights branched out into the brackish expanse, swirling around the hood.

  A boat ramp. The station wagon continued to roll down the concrete slope, forcing its way into the vast expanse of black surrounding them.

  The hood was gone. Water lapped at the windshield, slapping against the glass.

  The radio was still on.

  Every breath you take…

  Sean could hear the thin trickle of water reaching inside.

  Every move you make…

  The water was now in the car. Pooling at his feet.

  Rising to his ankles.

  Filling up the footwell until he pulled his legs away.

  Reaching for his seat.

  Mom merely kept her hands gripped on the steering wheel, holding on so tight her knuckles turned white. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator. The car heaved. The engine bay filled with water, muting the motor’s rev.

  We’re going to drown, Sean thought. We’re going to drown!

  “It’s going to be okay,” Mom said, never looking back. She was still driving through the night, on a highway that led their family to safety. Soon. They would be there soon.

  Sean glanced out his window. There was nothing to see but a whirling blackness enveloping the car. Glancing into the spacious rear compartment of the station wagon, he saw the last of the night sky disappear beneath the river’s surface as the water lapped at the glass.

  They were underwater now, the entire car submerged. Mom hadn’t moved. She kept on driving, humming along to the song. That was the worst part. The scariest part to Sean.

  Hearing her hum.

  Sean gripped his window’s handle and started to roll it down. A fresh rush of water smashed against his temple. It smacked his cheek, his ear. The water wanted to come inside.

  Coughing, Sean rolled down the window until there was enough of a gap to slip through. Water filled the back seat. The leatherette was slippery, like eel skin.

  His body lifted from where he sat, levitating.

  When he screamed, water rushed into his mouth. He choked on the cold.

  Sean took a deep breath, bringing in as much air as his lungs would allow, and slipped under the water’s surface. It was far too dark in the car to see anything. He had to run his hands over his mother until his fingers eventually brushed against her seatbelt and found the buckle.

  Sean pushed the button and—

  It wouldn’t unlock. Wouldn’t release her.

  Sean pushed harder. Harder. But nothing seemed to work. The seatbelt wouldn’t open.

  Mom remained behind the wheel, still driving. Her hair fanned through the water like spaghetti radiating around her head.

  Sean’s lungs felt as if they were filled with broken glass. He needed air.

  Needed to escape.

  His mother never looked back, never turned her head to see her son swim through the cracked window and rise to the surface. She kept driving, driving, running away from those invisible forces closing in. The evil presence that had been chasing them for months. Hunting them down wherever they ran. They would be safe here. They could hide down here. Hide all the way at the bottom of the river with the kelp.

  His last image of his mother was of her humming underwater, the thinnest ribbon of bubbles issuing from her mouth. When the song ended in her head, she parted her lips and let the water in.

  DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

   RICHARD: 2013

  Sean is screaming in the back seat. I wake to his voice, shrieking from the rear of the car.

  That’s Sean, isn’t it? It has to be.

  Everything inside the station wagon has gone dark. The world beyond the windows has disappeared, lost in churning water.

  Mom drove straight into the river. I remember seeing the bridge’s embankment, a rusted guardrail separating the road from the water below. The car smashed through the feeble partition, free-falling through the air before plunging under the water’s surface.

  Wait—that’s not how it happened. I can’t fight off the fog enveloping my head. Everything in my body has slowed down. I can feel my blood thrumming through my veins, thickened to a sludge. I can’t lift my arms without straining. It’s all too heavy.

  Mom’s head smashed against the windshield
. A halo of cracks radiated around her skull, a sunburst, bright and blinding. It stung my eyes to look at her. I watched her skull ricochet off the windshield before my own head met the glove compartment and then—

  Then everything went black.

  Wait—that’s not how it happened at all.

  What’s going on here?

  There’s water at my feet. The car is filling fast. The sun is gone, barely reaching through the murky sheen of the enveloping river. The slightest hint of green branches out around us, a forest of stained glass. Light. That has to be sunlight.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious. My forehead stings. I can’t see. I bring my fingers to my temple and touch something wet. Blood. There’s blood running down my face.

  Is this really happening? Is history repeating itself? Am I watching the movie of my life?

  Mom is slung over the steering wheel. Her body is limp, a puppet without a hand to animate her. Her eyes remain open, unblinking, staring at me. She’s not moving. Her breathing is so shallow, if there’s breath at all.

  This isn’t how it happened. Someone’s rewriting the past, revising the way I remember it. I can’t get my bearings. A searing pain slices through my neck when I turn to the back seat.

  There I am.

  I see Sean next to the gray boy. They’re clinging to each other, kicking their feet at the rising water. They’re screaming. The water laps at their feet. They can’t kick it away. Can’t stop the rising tide. The blackness fills their laps, swallowing their legs. They won’t let go of each other. Sean embraces the gray boy as the hungry river closes in. It’s going to swallow them whole if they don’t escape.

  I try to fast-forward the VHS tape a bit in my mind. Try to remember what happens next.

  How does this end? I can’t recall. It’s all black to me. My skull is throbbing. Cracked open. I feel my memories bleeding out and pouring into my eyes, stinging me. Blinding me.

  I can’t remember how this story ends. It’s my story—I should know, but I can’t trace it.

  “Dad,” Sean cries. “Daddy, please!”

  But it’s not Sean.

  Not me.

  Those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.

  My brain clicks in just in time. It’s Eli.

  Eli is in the back seat. I struggle to unbuckle my seatbelt and climb into the back. I fall into a lopsided bathtub. The cold water cuts through the fog, helping me focus.

  “Hold on to me,” I manage to say as I try to unbuckle their belts. The gray boy—no, not a boy—Sandy, it’s Sandy—immediately levitates from her seat as soon as she’s free. Her arms flail about, unsure how to stay afloat. She never learned to swim. Didn’t her mother teach her?

  There’s no handle for the window. Last time this happened, there was a handle. It’s gone. This window is controlled by a button. I press down and—

  Nothing happens. I reach over to the other door and try that window.

  Nothing.

  The windshield. I have to slither back to the front seat. I can’t tell if the vehicle is leaning forward or backward. There’s nothing to orient my sense of direction. There’s no light. It’s all black outside the windows and now it’s seeping in, ready to swallow us all.

  Mom’s head—

  Jenna.

  That’s Mom, isn’t it?

  No, it’s Jenna.

  Jenna’s head made impact with the windshield, fracturing the glass into a cobweb. I have to embed myself into the seat next to her, inches away from her limp body. Her arms are tangled in the steering wheel, neck bent.

  I bring my legs up until my feet press against the cracked windshield and push as hard as I can. The windshield bulges, fracturing further under my heels, but it doesn’t break.

  I have to kick. Each time my heels strike the glass, I feel a pang ring up the bones in my legs, like a tuning fork striking a hard surface. The pain reverberates through the rest of my body.

  I have to keep kicking.

  Harder.

  Water finally begins to dribble through the cracks.

  Harder.

  I kick again.

  And again.

  Again.

  The windshield folds open under my heels and swallows my feet. Glass digs into my ankles, sinking its fangs in. This fresh sensation sends a surge of pain through my body.

  The car is alive. It’s going to eat me. Devour us all.

  The river forces its way in. The sheer pressure of water forces open the glass until it shatters completely. A flood smashes against my chest, rushing inside and swallowing us.

  “Breathe,” I shout through the surging water. “Breathe now—”

  But it’s too late. There’s no air anymore. It’s all gone. Any trapped oxygen drifts off in these tiny pockets along the car’s ceiling, rolling toward the windshield and escaping.

  Whatever breath is left in our lungs is all we have.

  I spin around, trying to find Elijah and Sandy in the dark. Their bodies have been forced back by the rush of water, pushing them deeper into the car. I falter through the water, grabbing them both. I hold on to them, each tucked under an arm and pressed to my side, as I kick up—or down—through the windshield. Jagged teeth slice at my back. The glass rakes across my skin, opening fresh channels along my flesh, but I push harder.

  I have to pull us from the mouth of this leviathan. All I want to do is scream from the stinging pain, but I know the water is waiting to come in, just like it had waited for my mother. It wants me to part my lips and give in.

  Elijah and Sandy writhe about in my arms. I pray they have more air than I do.

  Once we’re free from the car, I can’t figure which way is up. There’s a burning in my chest, the oxygen already dissolving from my lungs. There’s no more air. Nothing to breathe.

  All I can do is kick…

  Kick…

  Kick…

  The water darkens. Not from the lack of sunlight, but within my head. Shadows percolate in the corner of my eyes, eclipsing everything, until there’s nothing else to see.

  It’s all going black.

  I keep kicking. The surface has to be close. Has to be just on the other side of one last kick. Just one more…But I can’t see. Can’t feel anything other than the singe in my lungs. My throat. Everything within my chest feels like it’s on fire, while my skin is now pleasantly numb.

  Where is the surface? Where is the air?

  Where is…

  I’m sorry, Eli. I brought this darkness with me, inside our home. I brought it straight to you. It’s always been in me, hiding. I never would have entered your life if I’d known. I wouldn’t wish this upon anyone, I swear. Believe me. Everything else is lies. Most of them mine.

  There’s no hiding from this. Who I am. These shadows have always been behind me. No—not following me, but inside. I’ve always been the gray boy. An indefinable shape. An absence of light, hollow and featureless. I have nothing to call my own. I am nothing. No one.

  I lied. I lied to you. Your mother. I lied even when I didn’t realize I was lying.

  I lied to myself.

  What happens if you believe in a lie, believe it with every fiber of your body? Does it become real, somehow? Does the lie become the truth? Your truth?

  I was born from my own lies. Richard Bellamy never existed.

  I’m not even real.

  DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

  This is the version of the story that fits best.

  Miss Levin had come to our house, luring Eli outside with promises of a game.

  We’re going on a road trip, she’d told him.

  She gave Eli something sweet to drink. Too sweet, he said. His head felt fuzzy and he quickly drifted off.

  Jenna had drugged her daughter as well. We were all meant to b
e in that car together, our road trip to the river bottom.

  Because she was trying to kill us, wasn’t she? That had been her plan all along. The puzzle pieces fit.

  This is the truth that makes sense to me. You just have to look at it from my point of view.

  You have to believe.

  The authorities didn’t believe me at first. Detective Merrin thought I had kidnapped Elijah and Sandy. He speculated I had “done something” to Miss Levin.

  But Elijah backed up my story. He said when he woke up, the car was already underwater. The river would have taken us all had it not been for me. I couldn’t save Miss Levin, but I saved him and Sandy. I was the hero.

  It sounds good, doesn’t it? Who would believe that it was actually Eli who pulled me and Sandy from the car? That doesn’t sound right. Those pieces don’t fit. The story doesn’t fit.

  I should be dead right now.

  In some ways I am.

  I like to believe Richard Bellamy drowned and Sean Crenshaw emerged from the water, crawling back into this life.

  That’s my story. The death and rebirth of Sean can now finally come to a close.

  Full circle.

  * * *

  —

  It took a hydraulic crane to haul Jenna Woodhouse’s car from the Rappahannock. A regular tow truck couldn’t reach it, so the police had to bring in a telescoping boom truck, positioning it on the bridge where the car had rammed through the rusted abutment. Divers tethered the crane’s hook to the rear bumper and slowly hauled it up.

  Sandy stood at the water’s edge, watching her mother’s car twirl in the air. A paramedic draped a wool blanket over her shoulders, but she wouldn’t move, transfixed by the sight of the suspended car. She was waiting for her mother.

  Jenna’s body dislodged itself, slipping through the windshield and washing downstream. Sandy didn’t see the divers carry her mother out of the water. There must have been a part of her that believed she had escaped somehow. It’s easier to believe things like that.

  I would, if I were her.