Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers

by JeanNicole Rivers

  “Please, someone help me!” she shouted, and with that call for help he appeared at the end of the block, he was tall and strong and his arms were outstretched to her. She plummeted forward and leapt into the man’s arms. He grasped her tightly and spun her around. Momentarily, a deep sense of relief settled over the girl; then she realized that she no longer heard the shoe tapping behind her at a runner’s pace, she moved her hands on the man’s back and realized that he was wet. He felt slimy to her. She slid off him, backed away from the man and stepped out of his shadow into the white light of the moon and looked down to see that the front of her night gown was covered with blood, her arms were coated with the red liquid and the intense smell of iron filled her nostrils. As blood ran down her legs and was beginning to dry on her feet, she looked up; a thunderous cry escaped her when she saw that she had run into the arms of Glen DeFrank.

  “Glen,” she spoke. He looked down but never spoke, not one dead man’s word. Regina stumbled backward and turned to run, but was met by the corpse girl. Regina faced forward, only to see Nikki and Natalie waving to her from the porch of a house in front of her, their faces stretched in the unnatural grins of circus clowns, fit only to entertain in the rings of hell and Regina knew that she could not even run to her friends. Evil met her at all three corners and left her no avail but the forest. The trees of the Langford woods loomed tall behind her as she stared at the people who watched her. She looked over every one of them, unsure of where to turn, frightened by all of them.

  “What do you all want from me?” she screamed frantically.

  The corpse girl took one step forward, causing Regina to turn and race into the mass of trees. Regina ran deep into the woods until the street was no longer visible. Nothing made a sound behind her. Wild branches attacked her as she pushed through the trees. Her eyes narrowed when she spotted shades of orange color. Smoke filled the air in a clearing that lay just in front of her. Perspiration dripped through her thick hair as she jerked her head back to look over her shoulder, thinking that she had heard the pitter patter of the squeaky shoes behind her. She gaped into the darkness, but there was no one. Her nose began to burn with smoke and reminded her to focus her attention back on the scene that lay ahead of her. Girls were bent at the knees, their foreheads to the ground, their naked backs rounded against the night. Some danced, twirled, and jumped around the fire, looping and weaving in and out of the girls that remained bent to the ground in undistracted devotion. They danced to the music of their bare feet pounding the ground. The fire was noisy with its seething whistle and the night air that had begun whipping intensely around them. For the first time Regina felt cold despite the fact that she stood just in front of a blazing fire that reached up almost as high as she stood. Past the fire, she could see the massive, snarling animal and upon laying eyes on him she knew that she must be in the grips of a terrible nightmare, but it served as no relief and failed to alleviate the terror that filled her chest and was rising into her throat. Her eyes followed the long arm of the beast high into the sky where she saw that he prepared to devour a young girl that he dangled over his throat. The pounding of the dancing girls’ feet grew louder in her ears and mixed with their delighted laughter as their naked forms paraded before her, behind her, all around her until she became caught up in the festival of heinous chaos, completely consumed by it. Regina stared at the girl that prepared to be gulped. The meal of a girl was still, with her eyes closed, but something was not right. This girl should have been familiar to her and for some reason she was not until the moment that her feet began to disappear into the bizarrely wide throat of the monster when her eyes popped open, their eyes met, and Regina realized that she was staring into her own soul.

  Regina’s eyes popped open and blinked rapidly against the brilliantly offensive sunshine that was pouring in through her bedroom window. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, the birds were tweeting uncontrollably, and daylight had never seemed more welcoming. She blinked several more times and with every passing moment the details of the dream became less clear until they were just a series of vague, strange and sporadic images making no sense and telling no complete story. Regina lifted herself from the white sheets and sat up in bed when she noticed a red smear across her pillow. She reached out a shaky hand to touch the pillow, and her eyes widened at the sight of her hand. She wrenched the other hand from under the pillow and was unable to make a sound as she looked down at her hands covered in dried blood, the purple blood was caked under her short fingernails, she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

  11

  “Regina,” her father called as he stepped into the bedroom. The sound of her name shocked her. Regina turned to face her father lifting her blood-covered hands up into the air with her palms facing him so that he could see the terrible thing that had happened.

  Warmly, he smiled at her, came over, and slapped both of his hands against hers in a double high-five. The shaken girl gawked at her father, then back at her hands; clean hands, nails covered in metal blue nail polish, she turned the palms to face her and the blood was gone completely, she balled them into fists and thrust them against her forehead gently in frustration.

  “You OK?” her father asked.

  She waited before she answered. “Yes, I just have a headache,” she lied.

  “Breakfast is ready. I will have your mother get you some aspirin.” He left the room and stood in the hallway thoughtfully for a moment before poking his head back into his daughter’s room. “Do you want to go to church this afternoon? I’m just going to go and put in a prayer or two.” He smiled.

  “Maybe tomorrow, Dad,” she countered still not fully recovered from her hallucination. He started to speak, but stopped himself and departed.

  Regina sat for a moment listening to the birds chirping spiritedly before the ringing phone interrupted them. She dragged her fingers through her tousled, sweat-matted hair. Reaching across the bed, Regina grabbed the receiver of the phone she had used when she was a teen.

  “Hello?” she spoke.

  “Good morning.” She recognized Barron’s melodious voice.

  “Hey.” She smiled. At the sound of his voice, Regina could feel the anxiety in her stomach melting away.

  “You still sleep?” he asked, apparently hearing the grogginess in her voice.

  “I just woke up. Don’t judge me,” she joked. “Is this how early they wake up in Hollywood?”

  Barron laughed. “In Hollywood and the rest of America, I think people find 10:00 a.m. a good time to rise and shine.”

  “What?” She croaked as she craned her neck to see the alarm clock. The small screen showed the time at 10:12 a.m. Regina moaned in disbelief. “I can’t believe I slept so late again. But, what the hell? I’m on vacation. A gruesome vacation, but a vacation nonetheless.”

  “You wanna do something today?” he asked, finally getting to the point of his early morning wake-up call.

  “Yeah, sure. Maybe we can get some coffee or something,” she suggested.

  “You still need your coffee every morning?”

  “Of course. Do you remember how you used to bring me coffee every morning in high school?”

  “Your mother stopped making it because she said you were too young to be drinking coffee.”

  “Lola would frown on it every morning saying that it would stunt my growth.” Regina laughed out loud. “I was already five seven.”

  “I remember.” Barron spoke as if he were reminiscing the moment in his thoughts. “Those were the good old days.”

  The phone fell silent while they allowed the past to float back to the space in the backs of their minds where it should be.

  “I can’t wait to see you.” Barron told her. Regina felt the butterflies awakening and taking to flight in her stomach.

  “Me too,” she added.

  “Hey?” Regina spoke, a thought suddenly taking hold of her.

  “Yeah?” Barron answered.

  “Can we go by the p
olice station first? I just want to see if they have learned anything new.”

  Regina felt the hesitation on the other end of the phone.

  “Honestly, I don’t think that they will be able to tell you anything new, but if it will make you feel better, let’s do it,” he relented.

  Regina realized how much she had missed Barron. When Lola vanished and everyone went their separate ways, not only had she left Natalie, Nikki, her parents…she left everyone, including Barron, in her selfish need for distance from the tragedy. Since Barron, she had hardly dated, but she had definitely not dated anyone who was as caring, sensitive, and devoted to her as he had been.

  “I’ll be over to pick you up in about an hour,” he said

  “OK, great.” Regina held the phone until it clicked to a dial tone.

  After some insignificant puttering around her bedroom, Regina made her way downstairs. Her mother was leaning against the counter in front of the coffee machine in her oversized yellow terry cloth bathrobe sipping from a black mug.

  “Good morning.” Regina eyed her mother, carefully studying her aging features under the bright light of the late morning sun. Her skin tone was that of rich cherry wood. Mysterious coffee bean pupils centered in almond shaped eye sockets under thick batting lashes.

  “Good morning,” Mrs. Dean responded.

  Regina made her away across the kitchen and poured herself a steaming cup of coffee before sitting down to take it at the table.

  “I see all the mirrors are back up.” Regina commented.

  “Things are not like that anymore,” Patricia assured her daughter.

  “I’m just making a note of observation, Mother.” Regina challenged.

  The two women eyed one another carefully as if they were coming to the dramatic end of a duel as mothers and daughters often did.

  “Things haven’t been that way for years, I told you that.”

  “I know what you told me. I was just saying…is that OK?”

  “I suppose,” her mother said as she took a seat at the table.

  “So you’re better now?”

  “I am much better and I never did apologize to you for what happened,” her mother said.

  Suddenly, Regina felt remorse at ever bringing up the sordid subject. She wanted only to make sure that her mother was OK and had no desire to have to confront this situation yet again.

  Both women looked up as the garbage truck came rattling down the street.

  “You don’t have to …” Regina began, but her mother raised her hand and cut her off swiftly.

  “I do. I did, and I do need to apologize for everything, but especially for what happened that day. I know it frightened you…it frightened me. It was an awful, awful thing.”

  Regina could feel her limbs stiffening and her eyes began to sting with tears that threatened to overflow. In the years that she had been away, she had never had to confront these issues, never had to feel these emotions and that was the best part of being away.

  You are twenty-four years old, Regina. Don’t cry about this! It is over, it is in the past. Don’t let this get you upset.

  “I’m sorry, Regina. Can you forgive me?” her mother asked sincerely.

  “Yes, yes, of course I forgive you. I told you there was no need to apologize in the first place.” Regina said, rapidly wiping the flowing tears away from her eyes. She hated to get emotional. Especially, she hated to cry about things in the past and she was ashamed that they still pulled at her heart as they did. It felt sinful to continue to hold on to matters of history.

  Mrs. Dean could see the pain that this conversation was causing her daughter and thought it best not to push. She reached out and touched her daughter’s hand, which Regina pulled away to wipe more tears.

  Regina’s father came bumbling into the kitchen in his pajama pants and white T-shirt with a newspaper in hand.

  “Now that I have taken care of the after breakfast duties, I can sit down and read my paper,” he said, rubbing his rounded belly.

  Regina cringed.

  “You don’t have to make an announcement every morning, Charlie,” her mother snapped. Regina’s father stopped and looked up as if contemplating his wife’s statement.

  “No, I don’t. But I like to keep you informed.” He laughed at his own stale wit.

  His laugh was contagious and soon his wife and daughter could no longer hold out and were laughing along.

  “Gross,” Regina stated.

  “You want to see a matinee with your father and me today?” Mrs. Dean asked.

  “Oh. Barron is on his way over to pick me up; we’re going to get some coffee or something.”

  “You’re having coffee now,” her mother said, pointing out the obvious.

  “Yes, but having coffee with my mother and a father that announces every bowel movement that he has is not quite the same thing as having coffee with a handsome, starving Hollywood actor, now is it?” she questioned, her father’s jovial mood infecting her as it usually did.

  “That does sound more glamorous.” Charles Dean told his wife. Mrs. Dean rolled her eyes at her husband almost automatically before returning her focus to her daughter.

  “Regina, you have not been home in years and your father and I have hardly had any time at all to spend with you. I know you miss your friends but …”

  “I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I’ll be home early and we can do something.”

  “The Halloween parade is tonight, we can go to that.” Mr. Dean offered a solution to his girl’s dilemma.

  “Great. Sounds perfect, I feel like a kid all over again,” Regina exaggerated as she swallowed the remnants of coffee in her cup and hopped up from the table.

  “You don’t want any breakfast?” her mother asked vexingly.

  “No thanks, Mom. We’ll get something while we’re out. I need to take a quick shower before Barron gets here,” she said as she jogged up the staircase.

  Barron was driving his mother’s gray Suburban. Regina wondered why she still had such a big car considering that she no longer had any small children in the house.

  “Nice catching up with you, Barron.” Regina’s father gave his farewell from the front door as the pair made their way down the front porch stairs into the chilly October day. Regina had decided to follow her mother’s advice this morning and she wore a thick sweater over her long-sleeved gray T-shirt. She felt warm and comfortable under the winter clothes.

  “You too, Mr. Dean.” Barron flashed his white teeth, the skin crinkling deeply at the edges of his eyes as he threw his hand up in a stylish farewell gesture.

  “My mother wants to see you,” Barron informed her as they climbed into the truck.

  Regina laughed. “Your mother was always so funny, I love her. I may come by tomorrow.”

  “Please do because she won’t stop asking about you,” he said. “So how did things go with Natalie yesterday?”

  “Not…well.” Regina answered, her mood suddenly dampened.

  “She’s terribly angry at Nikki and me for leaving after Lola died. I had no idea what to say to her. What could I say? After what happened…I just…I just had to get away,” she reasoned.

  “You can’t blame yourself. Natalie was a big girl,” Barron told her.

  “No,” Regina responded. “She was broken, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anyone, only what I needed.”

  “Everyone responded differently. Hell, you were broken too. We were all hurt and you dealt with it. It may not have been the best way, but it was the best way you knew how,” he stated.

  “Yeah…but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel terrible about it.”

  The two sat in silence for the rest of the trip to the small police station that was at the far end of Main Street, just on the outskirts of downtown.

  This day had been much colder than the day before and Regina wrapped her arms around herself as she departed the truck. The station was an old brick two-story building with the police station on the fir
st floor; the second floor served as a storage space. A dirty red awning hung above the entrance and a pole just above it jutted out from the bricks and from it hung a swinging sign, Police. The sight was frightening and comforting at the same time, either the town was so safe that the police station was barely used or the police force was just a weak authority that no one in Black Water paid much attention to. Barron held the door open for Regina as she walked into the drab building with its shabby inside.

  “Lawson,” Regina recognized Sheriff Handow’s son sitting behind the front desk with his freshly polished shoes propped up on one of the desks.

  “Regina, I heard you were in town. Long time, no see,” he said, getting up and coming from around the desk to hug her.

  “Barron,” Lawson greeted the man in a more conservative manner.

  “Lawson, good to see you.” Barron extended his hand before Lawson tried to follow through on the embrace it seemed he was preparing to give.