by Nye, Laine
Steve did not know what the boat was for. He didn’t want to find out. He believed it would be something very dangerous or deadly. He began to squirm wildly trying to break free of the rug and the van but before he had accomplished anything of real consequence a person entered the van from a side door and jabbed him with a needle again. He was furious. He wanted to attack them now. But what good would it do him if he were to fall back asleep right after he had them subdued. No. He had to be able to make a clean break. They said something about tonight at midnight. He wished he knew what time it was right now. He knew that by twelve tonight he needed to be awake and ready to attack them.
The drug started working on him again. But this time it only seemed to be putting him in a kind of twilight sleep. Good. He would pretend to be fully out. He would not let them know he was partially awake.
Maybe he could still get out of this and go home to his parents. Start college in the fall.
At eleven-fifteen Charlene stopped the car at the bottom of Chapel Hill Drive. At that same time, Jeff’s crew were nearing their destination near Monticello Dam which held back the waters of Lake Berryessa. They stopped on the side of the road near the dam. Quickly, Dan and Josh got out and started cutting the chain link fence that separated them from the Lake. Had to hurry. Didn’t want anyone to see what they were doing. The greater portion of the rocky shoreline was a mini-cliff. It was only ten to fifteen feet to the water, but it would be far too difficult to lower the boat they had prepared into the water from that high up since their intent was to place Steve into that boat.
There was one part of the bank that was not as much a cliff as it was a slope. Steep though it was, it was negotiable there to put both the boat and Steve into the water at that location. That was where they were cutting the fence.
∆∆∆
Jeff Rowley had met up with his sister, Sherry. Jeff, the two bikers he had hired, and Sherry were all in the car and almost to Chapel Hill Drive.
∆∆∆
Before Jeff arrived at the meeting place, Brad and his father had quietly stepped out of the car at the bottom of the hill looking around intently to make sure no one was watching them. Brad walked up to his father. Standing real close, he then lifted both-of them off the ground. He carried them high into the air. Then, using the chapel at the top of the hill as his anchor point, Brad began to pull his father across the distance until they were above the chapel. Then Brad focused on the parking lot behind the church at a diagonal angle and pulled his father and himself over to it, away from the church and landed on the pavement. Brad’s father immediately ran into the bushes on the opposite side from the road. He got himself positioned in the darkest spot where the parking lot lights could not cover him.
∆∆∆
Jeff’s heart was pounding. He wanted to be here to watch Brad’s expression when his whole-world would turn upside down. Just like Jeff’s had. He had a second reason to be here instead of at the lake though. His second reason was the cause of his pounding heart. Jeff was terrified of Lake Berryessa after what had happened to him when he was only nine years old. Jeff was afraid of the glory hole, as it was known.
∆∆∆
The so-called glory hole sat a couple hundred feet back from the dam. It was a spillway. There were not a lot of spillways in the world like this one. It was the largest of its kind. The glory hole was a massive cement funnel that protruded from the water. When the water got to a certain level, it would naturally spill over the giant funnel on all sides. The hole was seventy-two feet in diameter at the top. It tapered off as it went down under the lake. The base of the hole was only about twenty-eight feet in diameter, and it fell into a tunnel that led out from under the lake at a right angle, under the dam and into a creek known as Putah Creek. The length of the funnel known as the glory hole was around two hundred-forty-five feet top to bottom. So, if one were to fall into the funnel; If they were sucked over the edge by the force of the water flow as it neared the glory hole, then they would fall with the water into a very dark and very water filled tube that went all the way to the bottom. Survival was impossible.
He had been on the water in a boat with his aunt and uncle and their eleven-year old son. He had been spending time with his cousin over a couple of weeks while his parents had returned to Utah. Jeff’s uncle was reckless, wild. Even Jeff knew that, and his uncle got way too close to the cable that was stretched across some buoys to create a barrier; A fence as it were to keep people back from the funnel. At the last possible second, his uncle had swerved the boat violently away from the cable barrier laughing the whole time. Jeff and his cousin were thrown completely out of the boat and over the cable into the danger zone.
The boat sped away and was a quarter mile away before either his aunt or uncle realized that they were not in the boat.
The boat swung around and headed back for them as fast as it could move. Jeff’s uncle tried to jump the boat over the cable using some higher waves to try to clear the barrier. The waves were strong because of a wind that was blowing across the lake toward the dam; Toward the glory hole. His jump attempt failed. The boat screw was caught on the cable and stopped the boat dead. Throwing both passengers headlong into the controls where they were dazed.
Meanwhile, instead of swimming away from the hole which is what Jeff wanted to do, his cousin Rex was swimming toward the hole laughing as he went.
“Rex. Stop.” Jeff had yelled.
“I want to look-into the hole.” Rex yelled back.
Rex and Jeff were both wearing lifejackets. Jeff found it harder to swim in his lifejacket although it was keeping him afloat. He began to turn back toward the cable when his uncle yelled to him from the boat.
“Jeff. Stop him. He’s going to fall in.”
So, Jeff turned back around and swam towards his cousin again; Back towards danger.
“Rex. Please stop.” Jeff yelled to him while his uncle pushed him to swim faster to catch Rex.
Jeff had fallen back about twenty feet from Rex.
Then Rex made it to the edge of the giant funnel.
“I’m just going to take-a look into the hole than I am coming back.”
He grabbed the edge of the funnel and lifted himself part way out of the water and bent over to look in. That was all it took. He was too high up; Too high over to ever reverse the bad choice he made. If he had not grabbed the spillway, and kept himself back from it several feet, it would have still been the same result. The power of the water flow pushed him in rapidly, violently, and he fell over the edge.
Jeff froze. He saw his cousin disappear and could hear him screaming distantly. Jeff was powerless in the face of the trauma. He could not get himself to react as he was drawn ever closer to the circular abyss. He was not even aware that his uncle was screaming at him to swim away. Get away.
A woman in a different boat had seen the whole thing happening. She had pulled her boat up to the cable and jumped in the water. She swam with strong powerful strokes. Her lithe body and graceful movement caused her to cut through the water like a hot knife in butter.
Jeff bumped up against the edge of the cement orifice. He was aware of the roar of the water as it tumbled over the lip on all sides and started its long fall to the bottom. He didn’t know he was screaming. He felt the sensation of being slowly sucked closer, higher so that he would follow the water over the lip and disappear into the ravenous monster, the horrible dragon hole.
The woman caught up to him. She threw her arm around his chest; His life jacket, and she began to kick away from the monster that had been about to swallow Jeff. She pulled him all the way back to her boat and then she climbed in and pulled Jeff in with her. She had saved him from certain death but not from the trauma. He suffered his nightmares for many years after that terrible day…
∆∆∆
After that, they moved the safety cable further away from the glory hole.
∆∆∆
As he approached the rendezvous point. His sister wat
ched his anxious face closely. She knew what he was thinking. She knew how much the accident had traumatized him. She said nothing.
When Jeff pulled into the parking lot, Brad was standing in the middle of it waiting for him. Jeff grabbed a large cell phone almost too big to hold onto. But it was what he needed to give Brad the maximum horror show. Sherry stayed in the car for a brief time. Brad did not see her in the car. He was too focused on Jeff and it was very dark.
“Hello Jeff.”
“Hello Bradster.”
“Where’s my son?”
“Oh. He’s over at Lake Berryessa. Nowhere near here. But you will soon see him on video.”
“I want him back Jeff. Unharmed.”
“Well then, I’m sorry to disappoint you Brad. It’s not going to work like that.”
Sherry got out of the car and turned to face Brad.
“Hello Brad. It’s been a long time.”
“Sherry?”
She nodded. “You really hurt our family Brad. You deserve this.”
“It was a date Sherry. Only a date. I even told you that I loved you that night.”
Sherry snorted. “Yeah. Right before you dropped me out of the sky and injured me.”
“It was an accident. You know that. A lot of people have been accidentally hurt while on a date. I cared about you Sherry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Tears welled up in Sherry’s eyes. Her face softened, and she looked beautiful again. She nodded her head.
“I know. I cared about you too.”
“Sherry.” Jeff barked at her.
“It’s the truth, Jeff and you know it. You even encouraged me to date Brad.”
“Yeah. And look where that got us.”
Brad spoke to her. “Sherry, please have your brother, my old friend, release my son.”
She slowly shook her head no.
“Why, Sherry?”
Then her face turned hard again. She was no longer beautiful. The tears were wiped away angrily.
“Because you murdered my father.” She screeched at him.
“I didn’t know that boulder would fall on him. I flattened him to the ground along with the others because they were shooting at us Sherry. I was defending us. Brent and Allen. Both-of them had already been shot. I had to do something. I had no idea when I forced your father and his goons to the ground that the boulder would come loose and come rolling down the mountain. How could I have known? That too was an accident.”
She looked uncertain, but the hate was still there in her eyes and her countenance.
“Enough of this.” Jeff said. The guys have everything in place and it is time for you to watch your son Brad.”
∆∆∆
A drone was brought out of the back of the van by Adele. It was his baby. He had it equipped with a camera that could see in very low light conditions. It also had a transmitter to send the video signal as far as he needed it to go. It worked the same as a cell phone. Bright LED lights on the bottom helped it to light up a night scene so visibility was maximized. He sent the drone up about 15 feet hovering over the lake between the shoreline and the glory hole. It was illegal to use a drone within four hundred feet of the spillway. That didn’t seem to be a major issue to the people who planned the kidnapping and the subsequent violence.
Several large holes had been drilled into the bottom of the boat so that it would fill with water
and sink not long after landing on the lake. The boat was put into the water. Steve had already been tied up before he was cognizant enough for him to resist. That had been an hour ago. Now he was placed in the boat. The electric motor was started that would push the boat towards the glory hole. Steve was tied up hand and foot, still partially under the effects of the drugs though it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The Dexedrine had helped a lot. But he was not as helpless as they believed he was. He just did not understand what they were doing yet. Did not know if this was the optimum time to strike out at them. He felt himself getting wet very quickly.
Once Josh knew what the real plans for Steve were, he did not want anything to do with it. He was standing on the opposite side of the van leaning against it. He knew now they planned to kill Steve by having the boat push him out to the hole. The boat would sit too low in the water to go up and over the lip. Hence the holes in the bottom. The boat would sink. Steve would be carried over the edge into the darkness of the vertical tube from whence he could not survive. The whole thing was to be on video, sent over for Jeff and Steve’s father to watch. The drone camera would record the event clearly and send it to Jeff live.
Steve knew something very wrong was happening when he felt the boat filling with water. He could hear the sound of rushing water getting closer, louder. Then the boat slammed into the funnel.
∆∆∆
Brad, Steve and Sherry had been standing about twenty feet apart. Jeff turned his large cell phone toward Brad, so he could see. Brad stepped forward tentatively looking at the video screen. He immediately recognized his son in the boat as it was pushed away from the shoreline. The picture moved out into the water away from Steve briefly. Brad could see the giant hole that the water was pouring into. Then the view was pulled back to his son. Brad knew then that Jeff had planned all along to get Steve to that location to kill him by having him fall into the spillway. Jeff orchestrated the whole thing to make Brad witness the death of his son in a horrific way.
Suddenly Sherry shot into the air about three-hundred feet. She was shrieking all the way up.
“Your sister for my son, Jeff. That’s the way It is.” Brad said with a tremulous voice.
Jeff was shocked at how his sister had rocketed into the air. He never saw Brad do that before. He was stunned momentarily.
Then his face became harder than ever. “If that is how it is to be, then so be it. My sister for your son. Are you watching Brad? He’s about to die.” Sherry couldn’t hear his words. He spoke quietly. Besides, she was too busy screaming.
Now Brad was shocked. Jeff was willing to allow his sister to die just so he could get his revenge. Brad knew at that moment that Jeff was beyond redemption.
“If you lift me off the ground you will be shot.” Jeff warned Brad. “There are two men with guns hiding in the bushes waiting to see if you attack me. You’re going to watch this, and after it’s over I’ll let you keep this cell phone as a souvenir.”
Just then there was a grunt of pain and a yelp immediately after that coming from the bushes where Brad knew his father was at. He knew what it meant. It was why he had brought his father. Jeff had positioned his men in the bushes before-hand. But they hadn’t counted on Brad’s father being there.
“Only one man with a gun now, Jeff.”
Jeff looked toward the bushes with concern growing in his expression.
“You brought someone with you.” He accused Brad.
“So did you.” Brad retorted.
Brad’s anger was growing to a murderous level, just like it had done so long ago in Ogden when the police and Sherry and her evil friends and Sherman Greene had all been chasing him, everyone but the police trying to kill him. He was that angry again.
Jeff still stood there with an ugly smirk on his face holding the cell phone, so Brad could see it. Then Jeff saw a look of relief cross through Brad’s expression. With a hateful smile growing on his mouth, Brad spoke. “You better take another look at that video of yours, Jeff.”
Jeff slowly looked down at the screen and his eyes grew wide.
“No.” He said quietly.
∆∆∆
Steve had felt the water rising in the boat steadily, rapidly. When the boat bumped up against the edge of the cement spillway, the roar of noise was like a large waterfall. The boat was sinking. Steve understood what was happening. They meant for him to be swept over the side of the funnel and disappear and they were recording it. Probably so his parents would see it, but he didn’t know why they were doing it. Terrible fear raced through his body as he thought a
bout being swept into the hole that was draining such a large quantity of water.
Then rage took over and in his usual impulsive way, he launched himself out of the water, the boat came out of the water with him for about 10 feet then it fell back into the lake. Using the land just a few feet away, he pulled himself to the shore rapidly with a trail of water rising below him then falling like a long fountain after he passed over. He landed on his feet though they were still bound. Kept himself on his feet. At the same moment that he landed he swept up the group of guys that were standing there watching him in awe. He swept them up and sent them flying out over the water. More than one began to panic at that point. He had used the glory hole as his anchor point for the forced gravity. He kept them there hovering about ten feet above the funnel. The drone was hovering above the men and the hole in the water. Adele had sent it up to about twenty feet above the spillway for a bird’s eye view for when Steve was supposed to drop into the circular abyss.
Adele was a very courageous, even ferocious individual. Right now, he was a very panicked individual. His fear of the funnel had been palatable when he was on the shoreline. Being put right over the top of it albeit above the rim had turned him into a completely unreasonable, terrified man.
He grabbed a hold of Dan as if he could be his anchor point and save him from his terror. In so doing, he had riled up an already frightened Dan Rowley who began to wrestle his way away from Adele.
“Let go of me he yelled in the loudest possible voice as he pushed Adele. Adele’s muscular frame caused that it was Dan who moved instead of Adele. Dan was pushed out over the hole where there was no gravity control. Not when the bottom of the hole was two-hundred forty-five feet below. Dan screamed as he realized too late his mistake. He grabbed outward and connected with Bob Stout. Instead of his grip on Bob stopping him from falling in the circular abyss, it actually-caused Bob to be dragged over the open space as well. Both men fell into the glory hole making as much noise in protest that they could. Two men lost to the devouring monster; The nightmare of Jeff’s dreams.