“Oh yeah, I remember…and I wanted to build a fire.” Nikki inserted carefully, watching Regina for approval.
“I told you it was silly.” Regina released a laugh that spread to Nikki, but not to the sheriff. The laughter faded and the three stood in a thick pool of tension, trying to move but getting nowhere.
“You have a good memory, Regina.” Sheriff Handow stated as a matter of fact.
And Regina countered him with a strong reply that held honesty in every word.
“It was the most memorable event of my life. I will never forget it.”
“I imagine you won’t.” He said as he tipped his hat and disappeared inside the door of the Rusher home.
Nikki’s body collapsed against the porch railing.
“Do you think he knows?” she whispered.
“No, but if he talked to me and now you, that only leaves one more …” Regina answered.
“Natalie.”
Both women leapt off the porch running directly into the last set of arms they expected.
21
“Carter!” Nikki was startled with his sudden presence in front of them like a wall.
“Hey, where are you going?” He asked.
“We’re going to check on Natalie.” Regina told him. “Yeah, she kinda freaked at the wake,” Nikki added.
“I saw you talking to Sheriff Handow.” Carter said. Regina was not sure if he was making a statement or asking a question.
“He just had a few questions.” Nikki added.
“Like what?” Carter pushed.
“Just stuff, Carter. Why weren’t you at the wake?” Regina asked changing the subject.
“I was there, but I was in and out, you know. Those kinds of things give me the creeps,” he told them.
“Where is Barron?” Regina asked.
“Home, he was out cold when I left.” Carter answered. “I just wanted to tell you guys that I’m really sorry about Lola. I know how much she meant to you and this has got to be really hard.” Carter told them.
“Thank you.” Regina responded expressionlessly.
“Well she was your friend too, Carter. There’s no reason to apologize. We were all hurt by everything that happened, not just us.” Nikki told him. “I know. I really cared for her and I still miss her even today.” Carter said.
“Ok” Regina said. She made a swift move to maneuver around the man when he grabbed her wrist tightly.
“I’m…really…sorry.” He murmured; his grip on her wrist so tight now that the webbed skin between his thumb and index finger was going white from the drain of the blood. Regina winced and leaned forward in order to whisper to Carter.
“Carter, do you know something?” She asked, feeling a morbid excitement rising within her at the thought of possibly bringing this ordeal full circle without taking one more step.
“No!” Carter immediately released her wrist almost throwing it away from him. All three of them stood back in order to inspect one another. Regina pushed past him and began jogging toward Nikki’s car. Nikki shrugged her shoulders at Carter and hurried after her friend.
“Regina? Wait!” Nikki called out as she ran down the tree-lined street with golden yellow leaves crunching angrily under each footfall.
“Regina! Regina!” Nikki spoke loudly to her friend who was now only several feet in front of her. Regina came to an abrupt halt and turned to face Nikki.
“I just don’t know who to trust anymore!” Raising her arms and then throwing them down once again in an expression of frustration.
“I don’t know who to trust and it is just driving me crazy. I feel like I am losing my mind.” She confessed feeling the edge of sanity inching toward her.
“I understand. We are in this together and we’re gonna figure it out,” Nikki promised.
“I don’t know about this one, Nikki. I just have a bad feeling.”
Natalie’s street was decorated with thin trees whose branches canopied into one another blocking out the sun with the imitation fire of flaming orange leaves that fluttered to the ground with every strong gust of wind. Despite the brilliance of her community, Natalie’s home was dark. The two girls seemed tiny standing in front of the intimidating home. Desperately, the walls needed to be power washed and the front lawn was even more choked with weeds than it had been the day before.
“You’re dead!” Someone yelled. Regina turned at once to see two costumed children, one chasing the other down the street in a spirited game of some sort.
Regina shielded her eyes from the cold rays of the sun as she turned back to the house.
“Do you think she’s home?” Nikki asked.
“Only one way to find out.” Regina responded. The cement walkway that led from the street to the front door was broken and lifted in places as if an earthquake had disturbed the once new and perfect workmanship. They stepped onto the porch that was bare except for an old chair with a broken leg and a beat up tackle box. Regina knocked hard on the front door. Nikki walked over to one of the draped windows and peered inside, there was a gap and she could make out a shadow on the couch in the living room.
“She’s in there.” Nikki said.
“You see her?”
“Yes.”
Regina knocked again.
“She’s not moving.” Nikki said. Regina made her way over to the window; she put her hand on the glass and placed her head up against it in order to shield her eyes from the reflection of the sunlight as she looked in through the window. Regina knocked on the pane of glass, but the figure still failed to move.
“Natalie! We are not leaving until you talk to us. So come over here and open the door.” Regina yelled. After a few moments, the body shifted almost unnoticeably. The figure placed something down, got up from the sofa, and came over to the door. Regina and Nikki walked back to the front of the door where they heard locks clicking and suddenly the door flung open wide, revealing a visibly depressed Natalie standing there, still in her wake dress.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Are you OK? We were worried,” Nikki said.
“Can we come in?” Regina asked. Natalie could put up a fight no longer. When the girls walked in they saw her laptop, open, on the couch where she had been sitting.
“Natalie, we need your help. Has Sheriff Handow come by here?” she asked.
“No.” Natalie responded. “Why would he come here?”
“He’s just been asking a lot of questions is all.” Regina began. “Someone attacked me twice and someone has been following us. Have you noticed anything strange?” Regina asked. Natalie’s chest sank for a brief moment before she looked back to the girls.
“No,” she responded.
“Do you know anything about what’s going on?” Regina asked more directly without quite accusing her.
Natalie snickered maliciously.
“No, I didn’t attack you. No, I didn’t go back and cut Lola up and no, I did not bury her on the DeFrank estate, but even if I did do those things, what does it matter Detective Dean?” Natalie asked resolutely.
Nikki sat looking nervously back and forth at each girl as if she were watching a brutal tennis match.
“What do you mean?” Regina asked.
“Does it really matter Regina? I killed her. Who cares who cut her up and put where she was found. In case you haven’t noticed, the major point of this story is that she is dead!” Natalie told her. Regina’s eyes lit up.
“… But don’t you see? We have to know the truth.” Emotion flooded her voice as she became caught up in the whirlwind analysis. “If someone hurt her after us, maybe she wasn’t dead after all. Doesn’t that make you wonder, doesn’t that give you some kind of hope? What if she wasn’t dead? She got up and ran into someone in the woods and they killed her. What if when we left her in the park she was still alive?”
Natalie chuckled arrogantly at the ignorance of her friend, ”but don’t you see?” Natalie mocked Regina.
“Even if she was alive when we put
her there and someone came after us, it is still our fault! We killed her just the same! It is our fault that she was there and met up with this phantom of absolve that you have created. Once she got into the car that night our fate had already begun traveling toward the gruesome end that we didn’t see coming and were powerless to stop. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters!” Natalie spoke again. Nikki’s face fell into her palms, her hopes of somehow abdicating responsibility dashed by Natalie’s keen reasoning. Natalie took a seat again in front of the canvas that was in the room and began painting.
“Over the years I’ve thought about this a lot,” Natalie told them.
“About Lola?” Nikki asked. Natalie whipped her neck glaring at Nikki sharply.
“About how evil we are.” Natalie replied.
“Evil? Us?” Nikki questioned.
“We’re NOT evil.” Regina interrupted.
“Aren’t we?” Natalie asked. “Ever since that night I have been trying to figure out what happened out there, that night, in the garden. There are many theories, but I think that I have figured it out.”
“It’s the devil.” Nikki offered her simple theory.
“Precisely, darling; gold star for Nikki. But the question is why? Why would an all powerful God allow the devil to tempt us to evil in this way?” Natalie left a gap of silence allowing the anticipation to build in her story telling.
“I told you the story of the devil, right?” Natalie probed, never removing her eyes from the new perverse masterpiece that she was composing on the innocent white canvas.
“Just get on with your story, Natalie,” Regina commanded.
Natalie smiled cunningly.
“As I told you before, God created the devil, Lucifer, the angel, and told him that he must serve man, but Lucifer refused, therefore God cast him out, but did not destroy him and in fact calls upon him every now and then to do his bidding.” Natalie told them. Regina sighed at the surprised expression that dominated Nikki’s face, an obvious indication that despite the countless days that Nikki had spent in church she was ignorant of the last part of Natalie’s tale. Natalie noticed too.
“Yes, my dear Nikki.” Natalie continued. “Lucifer is one of God’s children and God just cannot bear to destroy him, therefore he allows him to go about causing mischief because God knows that in the overall compilation and progression of the earth, life and space that this is really of little consequence.”
“No,” Nikki whispered as she caressed the crucifix that hung around her neck.
“Yes” Natalie insisted with a sneer. “Like a mother and father with many children, but the one child that is an absolute fuck up and always the center of mischief. Do the mother and father turn him out? No. In fact, they usually give him more attention in all of their wickedness because what mother or father, full of love is able to destroy their own child, even when he causes pain to others, even his siblings? Very few. In the great scheme of things…our suffering is petty. Regina, I am surprised that you of all people are working so hard to try to put this sin upon another person. What we did was wrong and it was our sin, no one else’s. We birthed it and now it’s ours forever.” Natalie’s words were haunting.
It took Regina several moments to process all of Natalie’s religious ravings and put them in context.
“I am not trying to put this upon anyone. We did what we did and I will never, not accept responsibility for my part in that, but if there was someone else involved I want to know. Someone else had some hand in this. Someone tried to hurt me last night and let me tell you it was not your mischievous devil!”
“Did you tell anyone?” Regina asked.
“No!” Natalie snapped with such fierceness that Regina had no problem believing her. “Maybe it is just your guilty conscience that is haunting you.”
“This was real!” Regina stood up unable to control her anger. Natalie was still sitting calmly.
“Regina, the devil is playing tric …” Natalie began, but Regina’s loud roar truncated the sentence that Regina was sure would be ridiculous and unnaturally long. Regina knocked the painting and easel to the floor in a wild thrash.
“THERE IS NO DEVIL AND THERE IS NO GOD NATALIE. IT IS JUST US, RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, JUST US!” Regina’s chest was heaving up and down through her black dress.
“We owe it to her to figure out what happened! You can sit here with your haunted house paintings, spouting your ridiculous religious, philosophical crap, but you and I both know that you loved her. You can hide the events of that night under some divine supernatural cloak of evil, but what happened out there that night was not evil; it was just a terrible, TERRIBLE mistake. We were her friends or don’t you remember that!” Regina finished.
“SHE WAS MY FRIEND!” Natalie yelled back standing to face her friend, but suddenly calming. “I loved her, just like you. I never wanted what happened that night to happen! I never wanted her dead. Never! I know what happened, but I just…can’t…figure it out.” Natalie sniffed hard trying to keep mucus from running down unto her lips.
“I know, Natalie, but just help us,” Nikki pleaded.
“Why? What do you need me for?” Natalie asked.
“Because we were the only ones that we know of that were there that night, every detail, anything that we remember could be the key,” Regina explained.
“What do we do?” Natalie asked.
“We have to go back to the DeFrank house, to where they buried her.” Regina was sure.
The dreadful procession to Lola’s burial ground faired to be the most solemn occasion yet. Nikki drove while Regina climbed into the backseat in a desire to be alone and Natalie was forced to take the passenger seat. Quietly, Regina admired the innocent landscapes of Black Water that passed her window mockingly. With every mile, the friendly atmosphere of Main Street mutated into the forsaken stretches of I-48. Massive trucks barreled by them every couple of minutes going to and thru the place they were trying to escape. The long cement highway seemed never ending as it curved into a canopy of trees, heaven painted in yellows, greens and reds. Black Water Lake sparkled underneath the deepening afternoon sunlight and glittered luxuriously as if it were covered in millions of floating diamonds. Far back on a hill the old McNally barn sat in a state of disrepair, the two windows at the top were tired eyes, those of a wise man giving warning about the brutal realities of life that sat waiting for us around each unsuspecting corner. As they turned onto Culliver Parkway, Regina noticed that the gas station was abandoned early with no other explanation but the vague sign in the door that read “closed.” A swinging tire hung from a strong tree in the front yard of a modest home they passed. Two little girls and a baby boy played wildly around the swing laughing and smiling and throwing leaves. Their mother, a thin, pale woman in her thirties emerged from the front door and called for them to come inside. A strike of envy seared through Regina’s chest as she watched, wishing to be those lighthearted children. Regina eyed the fragile woman again and saw the deep lines in the woman’s face and the emptiness of her eyes and she could not help but wonder what the woman’s secrets were, what she feared, what lie in the darkness just beyond her front door and Regina felt her invidiousness dissolve. None of the girls looked up as they passed the DeFrank home. They pretended that they did not see it, pretended that they had never seen it before.
“Up here, right?” Nikki asked.
“I think so, there’s a turn off somewhere right here.” Natalie answered. Nikki turned off unto the unfinished side road that served as one of the perimeters of the DeFrank property. The dirt road was broken and they bounced violently around the car, down the path toward the end of the tunnel of trees with no hope of light at the end.
“Look, up there.” Regina pointed out a few small remnants of yellow tape that had been previously hanging from trees; they flapped frantically in the wind that bristled through the forest. Nikki brought the car to a stop and they became fixed on the small opening between two trees that led to Lola’s burial g
round. Regina felt discombobulated in a way that made her bones soft, her body wobbly, she slithered out of the car and it was difficult to locate the balance to stand on her feet. Natalie ejected herself from the car and stood with her two friends facing the mouth of the forest. Nikki took the first step forward, Regina tried to move her feet but realized that she had gone from wobbly mess to statue and she was unable to lift her heavy legs in any attempt to move forward.
Nikki turned to face her immobile friends. “Well are we doing this or aren’t we?” She asked sternly. Regina and Natalie took a quick look at one another before following Nikki and being swallowed by the trees.
“I cannot believe that we are doing this,” Natalie huffed.
“What exactly are you expecting to find?” She wanted to know. “I don’t know…anything.” Regina answered as she worked to keep the branches of small trees and bushes from slapping her in the face.
“Anything like what?” Natalie pushed.
“Natalie, I don’t know. We may find something and we may not, but if we don’t look we find nothing.” Regina explained.
“This is creepy shit and …” Natalie began.
“Guys?” Nikki, who was in front of them, came to an abrupt stop. Regina and Natalie both looked up to see that they had come to a clearing in the trees. They were so soundless and rooted to the ground that a bulldozer plowing the forest would have been impotent to move them. The shallow hole in the ground captivated their imaginations. Nikki brought her hand up to her mouth, trying to entrap the gasp of horror.
“Oh my God” Natalie called out. Terror surged through them like lightening. The thought that Lola had been out here alone made Regina feel a pain that she could not describe, when it was dark, when it was cold, when it rained, when the mysterious sounds of the forest rose up in thunderous waves and covered everything, she had been alone.
“She must have been so scared out here.” Nikki read Regina’s thoughts aloud.
“Let’s just hurry up and look around you guys so that we can get the hell out of here.” Natalie broke into the conversation. The girls broke out into three separate directions. Regina began walking the perimeter of the wide hole, keeping her eyes glued to the ground in the unlikely hope of possibly finding something that the police had missed. Nikki found it hard to concentrate and could not take her eyes off the morbid cavity in the ground. Untamed shrieks of the wilderness rang out all around them and the wind hissed incessantly.
Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers Page 25