The People in the Lake

by E Randall Floyd

  “He was nice.”

  “Oh? That's good. What was his last name. Do you remember?"

  "He never said."

  "I see. Can you tell me anything else about him, like what he looked like?”

  Bit thought for a moment. “He talked real funny, and he wore old-looking clothes that were kind of dirty and torn. He had nice brown eyes. But they were sad.”

  “Nice eyes, huh. What else? Did he tell you where he lived?”

  Bit hesitated, then giggled. “He said he lived in the lake. I told him that was silly, because people can’t live in a lake.”

  Whit had Bit open her mouth so he could look inside. “So he lives in the lake, huh? Sounds kinda fishy to me," he joked. The doctor checked her pulse, then uncapped a syringe and tapped it with his finger.

  Laura was struck by how kind his voice was, how reassuring.

  “This might sting a little,” he said to Bit, “but it’ll make you feel a whole lot better.”

  He gave her the shot, put away the syringe.

  Bit winced, but hardly felt a thing. Surprised, she asked, “Is it over?”

  “Yep. All done. Just need to clean it up a little and put on a new bandage.”

  He started cleaning out the wound with a pad. “Did Mason tell you how long he has he lived in the lake?”

  Bit grimaced. “Always. At least since he was a little boy.”

  "I see," Whit replied casually. He dabbed a sweet-smelling ointment on the wound, closed it up with a clean dressing. “There you go,” he added. He put his things back in his bag and stood up. “You’ll be as good as new in a couple of days.” He gave her a wink. "My doctorly advice to you, young lady, is to stay off those rocks. They can be dangerous.”

  Bit smiled. “That’s what Mom said. I should have listened to her.”

  Whit tapped her on the leg and said, “You should always listen to your mom.”

  Laura asked, ‘Will she be all right?”

  Whit stood up, gave Laura a small bottle of pills. “She’ll be just fine. Give her two of these every four hours with a glass of water,” he said. “That should take care of any infection.”

  Laura took the pills and stuck them in her pocket. “How can I ever thank you?” she asked.

  Whit smiled. “I’m just glad you called me,” he said. “That was the right thing to do.” He gave Bit another wink and said, “I want to talk to your mom now. You just lie there and get some sleep. You’re going to be good as new now.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “WHAT ELSE DID she tell you about the boy?” Whit asked Laura point-blank.

  They were relaxing on the sofa in front of the fire. Laura had made them tea from the last two bags of Earl Gray in the house.

  “I take it you already know something about my daughter's mysterious young friend,” Laura said.

  Whit took a sip of tea, then leaned back. “I’ve lived up here in this valley a long time, remember? I’m a doctor. People tell me a lot of things.”

  Laura hesitated, then asked, “Do they tell you about ghosts?”

  Whit hesitated. “Sometimes.”

  Laura let that sink in before continuing. “Do they ever mention anything about a family up here, an entire family that was massacred by the people who built this lake?”

  Whit gave a knowing smile. “I see where you’re going with this."

  "Then you know about it?"

  Whit gave a casual shrug. "I've heard all the old stories."

  Laura put down her cup and fixed her gaze on the doctor. “Is it true, Whit? Did those people really slaughter that poor family in cold blood, then bury their bodies out there where the lake is now? If so, it sounds like the perfect crime was committed here a long time ago."

  Whit tilted his handsome head toward the ceiling and closed his eyes for a moment. “In some ways.”

  "It's hard to think of those…those poor people lying out there all these years, undisturbed in their watery graves, while life goes merrily along up here."

  Whit finished his tea and started to say something, then looked away.

  “What about you? What do you think happened?” Laura persisted.

  Whit rubbed his beard. “Do you want to know my professional opinion or just my gut feeling?”

  “Either would do right now.”

  “You first. What about you? What do you believe, Laura?”

  Laura stared at the crackling logs on the fire. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I believe anymore.” She looked at Whit and blurted, “All I know for sure is that my daughter does not lie. And,” she added, her voice trailing off, “I have seen them too.”

  Whit did not seem surprised at Laura’s words. That struck her as odd. In fact, he had not even flinched when she told him she had seen the apparitions with her own eyes. What kind of doctor would not react to such fanciful observations?

  “I suspected as much," Whit finally noted, with hardly a trace of emotion. He stared into space for a long moment. "Well, Laura, you asked what I think. All I can tell you is this: Something really bad did happen up here in this valley a long time ago, something they’ve been trying to keep quiet ever since.”

  ⸙

  “BUT WHY? AFTER ALL THESE years? What's the point?"

  Whit shrugged. "Old secrets die hard."

  "How can they keep something like that covered up all this time? It was murder, cold-bloodied murder, and those responsible were never punished!”

  Whit waved his hands. “I know, I know. It was a great tragedy, but the fact is, not much can be done about it now. Not all the people who did it still walk the earth.”

  Whit's choice of words left Laura with a strange feeling. Did he mean that some of those behind the crime were still alive? But that was impossible. The murder happened almost a hundred years ago.

  "I didn't say any of them were actually still alive," Whit made clear.

  Laura sat quietly for a moment. “If they're not alive, then what you're trying to tell me is that some of them are…are…ghosts?”

  Witt gave no answer. Instead, he sat gazing into space, eyes wandering the room as if he was sauntering through some distant galaxy. Finally, he spoke: “I can not provide you with the answers you seek, Laura. I am a doctor, a scientist, but I have been around these people and these old mountains long enough to know that there are many things that science and medicine can not account for."

  "Like ghosts," Laura quipped

  Whit smiled. "I used to be just as skeptical as you. But my position has changed, Laura."

  "You've seen them, too."

  Whit’s smile vanished. "Let's just say I know they're real. They're as real as you and me sitting on this sofa.” He glanced around the room, as if afraid someone might be listening. “But there’s something else you should know.”

  Laura suddenly felt faint, as if the room were spinning. Were there more revelations in store for her? She didn't know if she was strong enough to handle another shock.

  She looked across at Whit, waiting, as if trying to process the meaning of the doctor's cryptic words.

  “I don’t know if I should be telling you this, Laura, but I'll say it anyway. You should not be up here alone up here, just the two of you. There are…things…you don’t know about, things you can’t possibly comprehend." He paused, looked straight into Laura's eyes. "I don't want to frighten you, my dear, but, believe me, you—and your daughter—could be in grave danger."

  Laura slumped. Something deep inside her stomach turned over. “What kind of danger?” she asked, her voice faint and scratchy.

  “It's kind of hard to explain, especially to an outsider. Just know that things up here in these old hills might not always be what they seem.”

  “You mean like ghosts floating around.”

  "Things far worse than ghosts, Laura." Whit took Laura’s hand and held it. “Go home, Laura. Get your daughter and go back to Atlanta as soon as you possibly can.”

  Chapter Forty-three

 
; LATER THAT NIGHT Laura lay in bed listening to the storm rattle around the house and thinking about everything the kind doctor had told her. It sounded like so much unconnected gibberish. Old Stories. Phantoms living in the lake.

  The line that intrigued her most was—how had he put it?—“There are dangers up here far greater than ghosts," or something to that affect.

  What was the good doctor trying to tell her? Was he deliberately trying to scare her?

  If so, he'd have to better than that.

  None of it made sense—especially coming from the kind, handsome physician from Florida who had raced out into the storm, at great risk to his own life, to save the life of a little girl he hardly knew. Nor did it resemble the same brave man who had saved her from a ravenous bear.

  No, Doctor Whit Anderson seemed far too nice a man than to try to frighten her with silly ghost stories and veiled warnings.

  Yet he seemed to know far more than he was willing to let on. Several times, as they had sat talking on the sofa, so close she could sense his masculine warmth and strength, he had come close to saying something else—something that hinted at a darker, more sinister purpose behind the strange happenings.

  Before leaving, Whit had promised to come by the next day and check on her and Bit. But he warned her not to expect power to be back on for several days. “There are some places back up in these hills the power crewmen just won’t go,” he explained. “That usually means it takes a lot longer to repair the lines.”

  She had thought about asking the doctor if he would drive them down to Greeley, or perhaps all the way to Dahlonega where the phones were working and she could call her husband to come get them. But the last thing she wanted was to get Whit involved with Brad, too. She shuddered, recalling how angry he got about Paul—even threatening to kill him!

  She flopped on her side and thought about Brad. Maybe she was judging him too harshly. If he were really so terrible, if he were really the monster she had built him up to be in her mind, then why did she still long to hear his voice? Why did she still yearn for him, to have him hold her close and make all the bad things go away?

  Maybe she should stop tormenting herself and just pick up the phone and try to call him again.

  If only she could get through.

  For the first time in her life, Laura felt alone, utterly alone. Surprisingly, she even found herself missing Atlanta.

  Unable to sleep, she got up and sat on the side of the bed. She stared into the darkness, her mind blank, an empty slate.

  “Damn you, Brad, where are you?” She asked aloud in the dark. “You’re such a bastard for leaving us alone for so long.”

  She stood up, lit the kerosene lantern and watched the shadows skitter away like hooded dragons. She grabbed a quilt off the bed, wrapped it around her shoulders and stalked around the room in circles, thinking.

  Minutes later she found herself standing in front of the sliding glass doors.

  ⸙

  LAURA STARED THROUGH the dusky wall of darkness toward the lake. Rain whooshed and slashed across the wave-tossed water. Bursts of lighting raked the endless black sky, followed by rolling rashes of thunder. She drew the quilt tighter around her shoulders.

  “Who are you?" she heard herself whispering into the darkness as she gazed across the lake. "What were you like when you were alive?"

  She pressed her face closer to the glass and asked, "What do you want with us?" She wiped the foggy condensation away from the glass with her hand. “Whoever you are, whatever you are, I hope to God they did not make you suffer too much before you died.”

  She suddenly felt drowsy. Yawning, she walked back toward the bed. Before lying down, she noticed something white sticking out from under the bed. Curious, she leaned down and found a folded up newspaper—the same copy of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Brad had left behind on his last visit. That was strange. She distinctively remembered putting it on the table. Somehow it must have gotten knocked off to the floor where it lay, unread and un-opened until now.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the paper. In the dim light of the lantern, she could make out a bold headline, just below the fold on the front page: Atlanta Slasher Strikes Again.

  “Oh, no,” Laura moaned. She didn’t really want to read the story but found herself scanning the first few paragraphs anyway:

  ATLANTA – The grisly remains of another young woman were found late last night in a wooded lot across from an upscale condominium complex, the tenth victim this year allegedly slain by what police are calling the Atlanta Slasher.

  The woman, who was in her mid-twenties, had been raped repeatedly before she was beaten and stabbed to death and her throat slashed. Investigators theorize the killer had used a large knife or machete to partially decapitate the victim.

  Forensic evidence indicates the woman was raped several more times after she was dead, leading police psychiatrists to speculate the assailant suffers from a condition known as necrophilia—the desire to have sex with the dead.

  A spokesman for the Roswell Police Department warned all young women in the area to limit their travel at night and to keep their doors locked at all times.

  “We're dealing with a sick individual, someone deeply disturbed who is certainly suffering from multiple personality disorders and criminal pathologies that make him clinically insane," the spokesman said. "Our best advice is for young, single women is stay inside wherever possible, travel in groups when going out, and, most important of all, keep your doors locked.”

  The latest victim, identified as Monika Ellen Landhurst, 24, had been clubbing with friends on the night she was killed, police said.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  LAURA SLEPT LATE the next morning. She had got up around five to check on Bit, saw that the wound was okay and that she was sound asleep, so crept back into her own warm bed.

  She rolled over and was startled when she saw the black face on the bedside clock—then she remembered the power was off. She crawled out of bed, fumbled around on the dresser until she found her watch and noticed the correct time: 11 a.m.

  How could she have slept so late?

  Her heart sagged when she thought about Bit. What if she had gotten out of bed, bleeding knee and all, and gone back out on the rocks to play with her new-found spectral friend?

  Laura stumbled down the cold tiled hall, freezing in her bathrobe and slippers, and peeked in on Bit. Mercifully, she was still sound asleep with her dolls. During the night, Laura had finished drying off Teddy and taken him in to her while she slept and placed the cuddly little bear next to Anastasia.

  Jesus, the house was freezing.

  Since the heating system operated on electrical power, the only way to warm the place was by keeping the kerosene heaters filled and the fireplace going full strength. Thank God the rock fireplace worked so well. The stones, she remembered Danny saying, had been hauled out of a nearby river and chiseled into shape along the massive hearth.

  Too bad her brother-in-law had not bothered to install a backup generator. Isn't that what all good "preppers" did these days?

  A wave of intense hopelessness washed over Laura. What if the power did not come back on? What if Brad never returned to get them? How would they get back home? In the cruel sanctuary of her paranoid mind, Laura saw Bit and herself wandering around the house, worn, frail and thin as bones, hollow-eyed and starving—much like those ghosts out in the lake.

  Laura drew the thick flannel bathrobe tighter around her neck and went into the living room. She lit the kerosene heater, then got down on her knees in front of the fireplace and built up the fire. She added a couple of soft pine logs so the room would warm up faster.

  Rubbing her elbows, she wandered over to the sliding glass doors and stared out. The late December sky was slate gray, the color of moldy old tombstones, and a cold gloom seemed to have settled over the landscape. Thick, dark clouds drooped menacingly over the blue-tinged mountains in the distance. A stiff wind zipped
across the lake, creating whitecaps that resembled vanilla ice cream cones.

  Then it started sleeting.

  Groovy, Laura mused, borrowing Danny's favorite adjective from the sixties.

  She filled the kettle with water and hooked it on the iron frame over the fireplace. While waiting for it to boil, she fumbled around the cabinets searching for tea. Ironically, her brother-in-law had thought of stocking up on everything but tea. She finally found a loose bag, stuck behind a bag of sugar. Elated, she dropped it into a cup and waited for the kettle.

  She glanced out the window and was amazed to see a solitary dark figure slouching in the trees about a hundred yards away from the house.

  This figure was no ghost.

  The man she saw was real, solid flesh and blood—no see-through wisp of smoke, no shape-shifting specter. She watched him through the window. He stood perfectly still in the sleety, dappled shade, gazing back at her with an intensity that caused her spine to tingle.

  Laura couldn’t tell much about him because he was simply too far away. From what she could tell, he wore an old-fashioned hunter's cap, pulled low over his eyes, and a thick red flannel coat that swallowed up his thick torso. He was a big man, a giant, really, and the bushy black beard combed down over his stout chest made him seem even bigger.

  Laura almost jumped out of her skin when the steam kettle screamed in the hearth.

  Steadying herself, she shrank back from the window, still wondering who the stranger was at the edge of the woods. More to the point, what was he doing out there in this kind of weather—hunting? That would have made sense had he carried a gun. But as far as she could tell, he was not toting a gun of any kind. Perhaps he was a utility worker searching for downed lines. That thought seemed to lift her spirits.

  She grabbed a pair of mittens and hurried in to the kettle, eased it off the hook and filled her cup with boiling water. where the singing kettle was going crazy. Cup in hand, she sat down by the fire and relished her first sip of hot tea.