by Laird Barron
It was an impulse she had acted on before in this place.
Instead, she left the cottages and followed the curve of the lake, all her past selves walking with her, seeing things each with their own eyes. Trees loomed like great towers, settled down to more realistic proportions; some became old and twisted or were felled. Wooden, hand-painted signboards on stores gave way to printed vinyl, streetlamps grew in height and brightness, roads became potholed, were resurfaced, crumbled slowly and started the cycle again. People’s clothes changed, dhotis and lungis became rarer, heavy flannel trousers gave way to jeans gave way to cargo shorts and track pants, saris made room for salwar-kameez suits, skirts became more common, and then became shorter.
She reached the old boathouse. It had changed very little over the years. It had already been abandoned and decrepit when she first had seen it. Her grandmother had warned her not to go in there, the boards were old and rotten, she could do herself an injury, maybe even fall through into the water. Over the years she found out that it used to be the private boathouse of a maharaja whose family still owned a massive bungalow near the lake. The bungalow was now a tourist lodge and there were occasional murmurs about fixing up the old boathouse, but nothing had been done about it for decades.
Everything seemed unchanged. Her selves converged, the chatter of memories stilling as she shouldered through the broken door, across weeds and rubble out to the warped, rotting pier. The same old half-sunken boats, the rusted boat hooks, the reeds growing out of the shallow water at the shore, the squelching and creaking. Everything much as it had always been, except for the dark, ominous patch on the boards where she had once lit a fire.
She’d dragged him there, had dragged Ravi there after what had happened in the cottage. Things had been building up for a while. For the last few months, Ravi had been pressuring her to marry him, or at least to have a child with him. She’d hoped a change of scene would give them a chance to reevaluate things, start afresh. Indeed, after the first few days in Kodaikanal, he’d dropped his demands. They had spent long hours walking around aimlessly, not quite trekking, afternoons rowing on the lake – he’d picked up the knack quickly – and a satisfying amount of time just snuggled up in the cottage with only paperbacks, cigarettes and each other for entertainment. Then he’d taken to spending an hour every night by the lake, just peering into the water. He spoke to her of ancient things glimpsed in the depths. She laughed at him, told him it was an artificial lake, put in by the British. She dug around in the library at the Club, and showed him a photograph of the engineer who had overseen the project, a man from the Severn Valley region in Britain. It didn’t matter to Ravi. He continued his Narcissus-like vigils at the shore, every night just after sunset. Yes, he’d stopped pestering her about commitment, but he’d also slowly dropped out of their activities, begging off from walks and spending long hours soaking in the bathtub, a quart of whisky at hand, rather than in bed with their ashtrays and piles of books.
Then, he started scrounging around for scraps of paper, tearing endpapers out of books, ripping cigarette packets open, pulling old bills out of pockets and scribbling on them. One afternoon, as Ravi floated in his lukewarm isolation, Ratna collected as many of these jottings as she could find and read them all. She read about the thing that he thought lived in the lake; ancient, wise, vile. Worse, she read that he was convinced he had entered into some kind of pact with this thing. He still wanted a child, still wanted to be united with Ratna in some permanent way, but these natural, even commendable desires had not been in abeyance, as she thought, but had been busily festering into something deeply pathological. She remembered meeting his father, senile before his time, and wondered if there was a history of mental illness in Ravi’s family, if the man was crazy, if he was dangerous. She read on, found where Ravi had written about taking her into the lake, to become immortal, to become transformed. They would live eternally in darkness, and she would bear him the child he wanted. She had once, despite her current unwillingness to commit to the idea, thought that Ravi was the kind of guy who would make a good father, had entertained a fleeting vision of them vacationing by the lake, a small child between them. She figured everyone had these kinds of thoughts; unlike Ravi, she was just not convinced that she wanted to act on them. And now the man had built some impossible, obscene fantasy in which he could make it happen.
When Ravi unexpectedly emerged from the bathroom to find her poring over his papers, she was astounded by the force of his rage. Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth, his hands balled into trembling fists and he paced up and down, the cottage suddenly shrinking to doll’s-house dimensions against his towering anger. He loomed over her, his soft, paunchy form suddenly grotesque, menacing. He raised a hand above his head. Before she could think what she was doing, she leapt up, grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, flung him face-first into the wall. He was screaming at her, screaming obscene threats in an unrecognisable voice. Ratna found all her love transformed into its opposite and she fell upon Ravi with all the rage of disappointed love.
This boathouse, this was where she had dragged him afterwards, under cover of darkness, that same night. He was heavy, but she had found a space of strength within herself and she was not going to let it go. Ratna did not need to rely on the forking of consciousness to see the events of that night clearly. She had brought his bottle of whisky along with her, poured it over him, over the thing that had been him, and set it on fire. He had burned surprisingly quickly and with very little odour. When it was over, she had swept the smouldering residue into the water. There was little she could do to clean up the greasy, burned patch where he had lain, but she did not fear this place being investigated.
Indeed, it looked for all the world as if she were the only person who had been to the old boat house in all the time since that night when Ravi had died, and so had all her old real and imagined selves. She had come here on the bidding of one of those selves. A fond and contented Ratna, sleek with happiness, cradling a child, holding Ravi’s hand. She had never met anyone who suited her as well as Ravi, the original Ravi, before he had become that nightmarish, obsessed thing in the tub. Her life was not very bad; it was not especially good. Her life was a big emptiness. She knew that there were many ways that she might have filled her life and not all of them involved Ravi, or marriage, or motherhood. She also knew that all those possible paths had sealed off ahead of her the night she killed Ravi. Nothing new and good was welcome in her life. She rejected it, because any clemency that was allowed her would be tainted by the memory of her crime.
So she sat by the water, sat on the old pier and thought about the things she had never had and never lost. She stared into the water, Narcissus-like. Something may have moved in the water, something may have pulsed and loomed in the depths, something with wisdom and scorn and deceit, something with spiked gifts and ancient promises. Most likely, it had all been madness, madness turning Ravi into something that hadn’t really been himself anymore when she had killed him. A kind of communicable madness, maybe. Something that manifested in visions and hallucinations, something that could reach out and claim her from the lands of gone-forever and never-was-at-all. She closed her eyes as the two others slid out of the water onto the old, warped planks. Did not turn as two sets of footsteps squelched their way toward her. She was almost certain that reality had lost its grip on her, but she kept her eyes closed as someone settled into place on either side of her, as a soft, plump hand and a small, slim hand gripped hers, one on each side, and two bodies leant in on her, as something spiked through her and pulled her through.
Wishes are granted, she thought to herself, as all her selves fused into one and were subsumed. Wishes are granted, she thought to herself again, as she slipped into darkness and deepness. Wishes are granted, but we do not know whose they are.
I CAN GIVE YOU LIFE
by Paul Michael Anderson
Charlie was a rookie, so he puked, but he was still a Virginia State Troope
r, so he made sure to do it in the woods to the side of the highway, as far from the crime scene as possible.
(how do you know it's a crime scene?)
(what else could it be?)
Wiping his mouth, he stomped back to the road, trying not to trip over an errant tree root. His stomach sloshed with his footfalls, although he couldn't for the life of him imagine what could still be in there. The tree line was a few yards away, the shadows in the ditch beside 526 eastbound deepened by the twisting red and blue lights—
(wait)
There shouldn't be blue lights.
(blue lights are county aren't they? this is highway)
He clambered up the ditch with as much dignity as he could manage, stumbling and scraping his left hand against the rocks puncturing the topsoil, wincing at the wire-thin pain. Clips of voices drifted over, resembling beat poetry.
"Getting bad...run the plates...got an idea...exits already closed from Linden to 81...getting worse, is what it is...shouldn'ta run out like that...like that fucking matters..."
The patrol cars—both State Police and Anbeten County—were parked willy-nilly across the closed lanes, framing the configuration of metal and glass in the center of the lane that might've once been a Ford Galaxie station wagon—the extended back was still in approximate shape—but wasn't any longer. The entire frontend had been flattened to the shattered windshield and what remained of the passengers resembled ground chuck, pressed into the vinyl seats.
(how? how does that happen? how is this a crime scene? what does that?)
He approached the officers, grouped by gray or tan uniforms. Most looked up, their faces tight and gazes unreadable; men of varying ages, hair colors, and complexions but sharing enough similar traits—the wideness between the eyes, the thin lips—to mark them as local. He was the only Trooper in Area 13 who hadn't been born in either Anbeten, Frederick, or Warren County.
"Trooper," one of the county boys said, nodding his head slightly.
"Brooks," Harrigan, Area 13's Master Trooper, said, his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows drawn together. He didn't look up and his eyes were distant. The other troopers stood behind him, all Trooper IIs; Charlie was the only probie. "You and Trooper Caldwell are going to Schlossen. That's where the folks—"
"Temoin family," a trooper behind him said. He was slightly pudgier than the others, his lank blond hair longer.
Harrigan nodded. "Thank you, Caldwell. That's where they called this in from. They're staying at the Cool Harbor Motel. Go there to get their statement."
He looked up and studied Charlie. His eyes were sharper, but his eyebrows were still bunched. "I'm under no illusions that you expected this on your third day in Area 13 and this is a delicate matter—" The tip of his tongue darted out, wetted his lips. "—and the academy didn't train you for it. Caldwell is lead. Understood?"
Charlie nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Dick and his boys are going to handle this." Harrigan inclined his head to the man who'd addressed him. Dick planted his thumbs in his Sam Browne belt. There were fewer county boys than State Troopers, but they seemed to set their feet more firmly, take up more space on the road.
Charlie's eyes cut back to his superior. "Sir?"
"They'll maintain the road closure until public works has cleaned the mess," Harrigan said. He gestured at a tight clutch of VDOT workers, their orange jumpsuits giving them away, on the far side of the accident. They crowded behind a wiry bald man, his head thrust forward like a strutting cock. His hollowed eye sockets resembled a skull.
Questions piled up in Charlie's head, the questions anyone new would ask and feel stupid for doing so because the answers must be obvious, but he looked away and said, "Yes, sir."
Harrigan lifted his chin. "All right, gentlemen. We all know our jobs."
The two groups dispersed—the Troopers to their Fords, while the county boys spread around their sheriff.
(welcome to the illustrious life of a virginia state trooper, charlie brooks!)
And then, a softer voice, a voice he knew but refused to acknowledge:
(isn't this what you wanted?)
Caldwell said, "C'mon, probie," and started for a patrol car, the blue detailing made black in the emergency lights.
Charlie followed. The other officers glanced at him as they walked around the incident—the strange knot of VDOT workers openly gaped at him—but Charlie resisted hunching his shoulders. He was a Virginia State Trooper now; he had his certificate—even if the ink hadn't fully dried yet—and his assignment to prove it.
But he still felt their eyes on him
(outsider-outsider-outsider-outsider)
and he hunched his shoulders, anyway.
~
"I vomited my first on-scene, too," Caldwell said. He settled into his seat, kept the cruiser humming at a steady sixty. "This one's at least respectable. Mine? Jack-knifed chicken truck." He shook his head, grinning in the radium-glow of the dashboard lights. "Man, I couldn't eat chicken for two years, and I like chicken."
They reached the top of a rise and the Shenandoah Valley spread out before them, heavily sketched in darkness. Route 526 was a black vein running through it. Above, a smattering of stars coldly and indifferently twinkled. The openness made his skin itch. He was from the southeastern coast of Virginia; if people didn't come for the history, they came for the water, and the area had built up accordingly. Here, you might see an errant farmhouse light, but not many. Some homes, he knew, still weren't on public power.
He looked away, down at his left hand. The minor cuts still felt tender.
Caldwell punched his arm, lightly. "C'mon, probie. Relax. We all puke."
"Right." Charlie rubbed the patch of flesh above an eyebrow. "What was that back there? I mean, Jesus, it's—"
"—not our problem," Caldwell said, and his tone lost some of its warmth. "We just gotta check on some John Qs and—"
"Why?" Charlie asked. "Why are we just going to do this statement? Why was county there? Why was Harrigan there? What the hell was that back there?"
The cruiser topped another rise and now Charlie could see more pricks of light in the darkness. Schlossen, alone in a sea of black.
Caldwell sighed. "Listen, prob—Charlie. We do things a little differently out here, okay? We might be only a hundred miles west of D.C., but that's like the distance between the Earth and the moon. This is country. Before there was State Police, there were county and town police, and we respect that. We follow traditions. One day, it won't be like that—hell, the state's talking about building an Interstate that runs east-west, like they're doing with 81's north-south run." He glanced at Charlie. "But that's all in the future. We're in transition here. You understand?"
"I'm not going to lie," Charlie said. "I don't."
The lights of Schlossen were closer, and Caldwell cut the Ford down to forty-five. "You're new and we haven't had a new kid in a long time; most cops want to go where the action is—Richmond or Alexandra or Hampton."
Charlie looked away. "That's not any interest of mine."
Caldwell slowed, turned onto Route 17, a regular two-lane black top.
"My point is, just play along," Caldwell said. "Harrigan lets Sheriff Dearborn run Anbeten County because—hell, Anbeten's so small, anyway. One less postage stamp to watch over. We have everything else in NOVA. You understand?"
Charlie struggled not to shrug. Maybe it was the night, maybe it was what he'd seen, but everything seemed slightly off, like a radio between stations and the voices overlaid. He saw the shape of what Caldwell was saying, but he didn't think he was seeing it perfectly.
(or caldwell's not showing it perfectly)
(why was harrigan there? what WAS that?)
"I get it," he said.
"Good," Caldwell said, and the warmth returned to his voice.
~
Crossing over the town bridge—passing a woodcut sign that welcomed travelers to Schlossen and pointed out that not only was Schlossen one of the "Gateways to
Skyline Drive" but that it was also "the canoe capital of Virginia"—you were greeted immediately by the grazing fields for cows, followed by a diner, a mechanic, and a small motel. Another farm, and then more businesses. The town crept up on you, putting you in its gut before you noticed.
It was late, and most of the stores were dark, but more than a few businesses had soaped windows, FOR SALE signs. The farms, set far back from muddy and denuded fields, looked dark and foreboding, abandoned monarchs overseeing ruined kingdoms.
"You're staying here in Schlossen, aren't you?" Caldwell asked, turned off the main drag and away from the street lights.
"Uh-huh."
Caldwell pulled into the parking lot of a large, rambling white clapboard building. THE COOL HARBOR MOTEL, the red-and-blue neon sign on the roof said.
"Nice place," Caldwell said, pulling into a parking spot. "I have family here."
He shifted to Park and killed the engine. "It's sad, though. Since I-81 opened up, not enough traffic comes through. The farms are going down—a mixture of bad seasons and not enough customers. This place is a shadow of what it used to be. People don't wanna talk about it, but it's dying."
Charlie couldn't fathom such a thing. People had roots; they stayed close to them.
(except me right of course stop it)
"C'mon," Caldwell said, grabbed a notepad from on top of the dash, and got out.
The older woman at check-in directed them to Room 17, on the second floor. Her gaze unnerved Charlie, although he made sure to keep his face neutral. Her eyes were pale-blue, matching the rinse in her hair, and peered at them peevishly over the top of heavy reading glasses. Her gaze lingered in Charlie's mind long after they left the lobby.
Caldwell knocked on Room 17, two sharp raps.
"Who is it?" a woman asked. Her voice sounded phlegmy, as if she were in the midst of crying.
"Virginia State Police, ma'am," Caldwell said.