Dead Lake

by Coates, Darcy

Still, the missing-person cases bothered her.

  Sam stretched to shake some of the soreness out of her shoulders and back. The candles were doing a poor job of lighting the cabin, and cold night air was starting to creep in. Sam was acutely aware of how lonely the night felt, so she turned on the radio while she lit the fire.

  Uncle Earnest was back, his scratchy voice introducing his eclectic range of songs and talk shows. Sam was tipping a tin of minestrone soup into a pot when he said, “Don’t forget, if you have a tip or a news story you’d like to share with our listeners, you can call us on—”

  Damn, wish my phone had reception. I bet he’d be more than happy to share what he knows about the missing hikers.

  “Or,” Earnest continued, “if you have a two-way radio, you can reach us on the following frequency...”

  Sam gasped. She might not have a mobile, but the radio was two-way. She shoved her dinner onto the bench and ran to the black box.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam managed to connect just as Earnest finished introducing a bizarre disco song. She turned the radio’s volume down and held her breath.

  “Well, hello!” Earnest said after a moment. He sounded delighted. Sam wondered how often he had callers. “How’s tonight treating you, darlin’?”

  Could be better. “Fine, thanks. Uh, I’ve been listening to your show, and yesterday you said something about the police calling off the search—”

  “For Ian McKeller? Yes, yes, that’s right. Dreadful tragedy. Are you familiar with him?”

  Just as she’d hoped, Earnest was keen to talk. Sam mumbled a vague question, and the radio host happily launched into his story.

  “Oh, yes, he’s the fifth one this year. Only this year, mind. There were another four last year, and the rangers’ office won’t tell me how many there were the year before. It’s a dreadful thing. Often they’re inexperienced hikers, see, but not always. Ian, for instance, had been bushwalking for decades. I watched an interview with his family. They say he was very cautious about where he went. I suppose he hadn’t heard the rumours about Trail T-1.”

  “Trail T-1?” Sam prompted.

  “That’s the trail that loops down the southern side of Harob Lake. It’s where almost all of the disappearances have happened. Apparently, the council cordoned it off when Ian didn’t return, though it’s technically no more dangerous than any other trail over the mountains. The rangers say it’s a string of bad luck.” Earnest snorted to show how little he believed in luck. “Want to know what I think?”

  Sam’s knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the table. “Yes, please.”

  “Hold on, the song’s finishing. Be back in a moment, darlin’.”

  Sam gritted her teeth and waited for Earnest to finish introducing a new song. When he came back, his voice was muffled as though he had something in his mouth. Is he eating his dinner?

  “Right, so we were talking about Trail T1, weren’t we? Yeah, well, these missing person cases only started about eighteen years ago. Before then, it had been decades since a soul had gone missing around that part of the lake. Then Michael Paluhik and his friends went off the trail.”

  There were slurping noises as Earnest drank. Sam wanted to believe it was only soda.

  “Michael was one of those intense kids, y’know? From what I can gather, he was bullied as a child, but did okay for himself during his teenage years. He had trouble holding down jobs. Some people say he was fired five times in three years, others say it’s three in five, and still others say he wasn’t fired, but quit every time. Either way, he ended up unemployed at age twenty-six and organised a backpacking trip with two of his friends. They’d only been at it for two weeks when they decided to take a detour and hike through one of the iconic Harob Forest trails. Can you guess which one?”

  “Trail T-1,” Sam breathed, the image of the swinging warning sign fluttering through her mind.

  “Bingo. Michael and his companions were seen entering the trail, but they never came back out.”

  “Wait.” Sam rubbed at her eyes, which were becoming dry and irritated in the fire’s light. “How come you use Michael’s name, but not his companions’? What’s special about him?”

  “Because they never found his body,” Earnest said patiently. “His two buddies, Troy and Evan, both turned up after three weeks. Badly decomposed, of course, and mostly eaten away by scavengers and insects. They were found a long way off the trail, but even though searches for Michael continued, his body remains lost. Oh, damn it—I missed the song’s end. Hang on. Gotta get the botany interview set up.”

  Sam found it increasingly hard to be patient as her eccentric host spent two rambling minutes discussing his love for hyacinths before starting the pre-recorded interview. He paused to take another long, loud swig before saying, “Sorry, what were we talking about, again?”

  His voice was definitely starting to slur. Sam suspected the drinking was a nightly ritual for him. She wondered how long he normally managed to maintain the show before becoming completely incoherent.

  “They never found Michael’s body?” she prompted.

  “That’s right,” he said, a little too enthusiastic. “And that started a spate of missing people. And missing bodies. What I mean to say is, the people went missing, and their bodies couldn’t be found.”

  “Right,” Sam said, trying, and failing, to follow his logic. “And you think it’s all tied to Michael—”

  “It’s all because of Michael, darlin’! Don’t you see? His soul can’t rest as long as his body is missing. He’s become a, uh, not a regular ghost, but one of the over-charged ghosts. What do you call them? Poltergeists. That’s it. He’s become a poltergeist.”

  “Ah.” Sam squeezed her lips together as she tried to decide whether she wanted to laugh or groan. “Of course.”

  “I’m glad you have an open mind,” Earnest said, completely missing the disappointed note in Sam’s voice. “A lot of people baulk as soon as they hear the word ghost. But it explains everything. Have you heard the rumours about a mysterious, shadowed figure that stalks through the woods? They’re not just rumours. I bumped into one of the rangers at the pub last week. Nice guy, y’know, but he looked pretty shaken up. After a bit of prodding, he told me why. He’d been helping look for Ian McKeller. The search parties were all called off at sundown—it’s too dangerous to be stumbling through the woods in the dark, yeah?—but this ranger had stayed on a bit longer. He knew the pathways well enough and had enough hiking experience to keep reasonably safe, so he continued searching until just after night had fallen. He said he was on his way back to the base when he saw a dark figure watching him from between the trees.”

  Sam frowned at the radio. She wasn’t sure what to make of the story; Uncle Earnest was clearly a good way to being drunk, but he also sounded sincere.

  “Well,” the radio host continued, completely oblivious that the brief gardening interview had ended and his station was broadcasting silence, “he said it was the shock of his life. He called out to the figure, but it turned around and—these are his own words, mind—melted into the trees. For a moment, he thought it might be Ian, so he followed, but pretty quickly realised it couldn’t be the missing hiker. Ian had red hair, y’see, and this stranger’s was salt and pepper.”

  Sam reflexively turned to the painting behind her. The sallow man stared back, his salt-and-pepper hair an unkempt mess.

  Then she remembered Brandon, the ranger she’d met on the trail, and the brisk, clipped note that had entered his voice when she’d told him about the stranger on her dock. Brandon couldn’t be the ranger Earnest met in the pub, could he…?

  It made sense. Brandon hadn’t told her about the figure he’d seen during the search—of course he couldn’t have—because it was just that: an obscure figure. His boss, the brisk lady at the ranger’s office, probably would have told him he wasn’t supposed to alarm the visitors. But it had worried him enough to give Sam his walkie-talkie. “Better safe than
sorry.”

  Sam wet her lips. “And so… uh… you think that Michael’s ghost is hanging around the lake?”

  “It’s possible it’s a ghost,” Uncle Earnest said, clearly enjoying having a captivated listener. “But I think it’s more likely a poltergeist. They’re the stronger type of spirit, y’know? They can move stuff and throw stuff. They could even push you over the edge of a cliff, if they wanted to.”

  “Ah.” Sam finally caught up with her friend’s mind. “You think he’s killing the hikers.”

  “Absolutely,” Earnest said. “Why else would so many hikers be going missing on the same trail? I’ll bet Michael’s body’s lost in a gully somewhere, and when strangers pass by his resting place, he’ll give them a shove or throw rocks at them or something, so that he’ll not have to be alone anymore.”

  It’s a ridiculous idea, Sam told herself, clenching her fists in her lap to stop their trembling. Laughable, really.

  “Welp.” Uncle Earnest sounded relaxed and a little sleepy. “I’d say it’s about time to wrap up this radio program. Thanks for the chat, darlin’. It’s always a pleasure to find someone equally interested in the supernatural. Call me up again another time, and I’ll tell you about the giant panther that’s currently plaguing Pleasantview.”

  “Sure thing,” Sam said, trying to smile. “Thanks.”

  “Any time, darlin’.”

  Sam turned off the radio. The fire had nearly eaten through its wood, so she added two new logs before sitting back in the chair and letting her thoughts consume her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sam woke with a jolt. She wasn’t in the plush armchair anymore, but was standing in front of the easel. Her left hand held a pallet filled with swirls of well-blended paint, and her right was clasped around a paintbrush that barely touched the canvas.

  She took a shaky breath and stepped back from the image. Though well painted, it shocked her deeply. That came from me, she realised, glancing at the vivid red paint soaked into her brush. I created that.

  The man crouched on top of a shadowed, limp figure. His grey eyes, which were turned towards the painter, shone in the same way a wolf’s did when it savoured the blood of a freshly felled victim… which was exactly what the painting depicted. The man had a bloodied knife clenched between his teeth. Red ran over his lips and dripped off his chin. More blood coated the front of his grey flannel shirt and had smeared up to his elbows. He looked victorious, energised… and ecstatic, as though his whole reason for living centred on the gore dribbling over his tongue.

  Sam felt as though she might be sick. She’d tried her hand at a lot of styles while practicing her art, but she’d never created anything so violent. She turned away, struggling to breathe.

  More paintings stood propped against the furniture, all facing Sam. It was an onslaught of images: a shadowed shape barely visible between dense trees. The man, his pose stiff and somehow unnatural, stood at the end of the dock—Peter’s dock—and watched the rippling water below. A single finger, detached from its hand, rested on the forest floor.

  Sam couldn’t bring herself to look at the rest. The paintings all showed frank, unrestrained violence. And the sallow, grey-eyed man loved it all.

  Sam stumbled to the sink and gagged, but nothing came up. Her mind felt choked and frantic. She’d never dealt well with gore. She couldn’t believe her subconscious was creating those scenes.

  The fire spat, shaking Sam from her stupor, and she raised her head from the sink as she became aware of her surroundings.

  The pot sat on the bench, empty except for the dregs of the minestrone soup. Did I eat it while I was asleep? Behind her, the fire crackled, having been fed recently. She must have tended to it for hours while she created the paintings. And to her left, a single empty mug stood on the bench, its handle directed towards the canvas.

  First three, then two, now just one. It’s almost like a countdown.

  She couldn’t stand looking at the paintings, so she moved through the room and turned each of them around. Including the four she’d created previously, there were nine in total. Just how long did I spend painting?

  It was pitch-dark outside the window. Sam guessed it was somewhere between three and four in the morning, which meant it would be at least three hours until dawn showed over the tops of the mountains.

  A bleating, wailing noise cut through the night air. Sam jumped and turned towards the door. It’s just an animal. We’re in the middle of a forest, remember.

  The noise had sounded close—almost as though it had come from the lake. Sam had never heard a sound like that before; there had been something unnatural about the way it hung in the frosty air, almost as if it were filled with notes of grief.

  I need more light.

  Only one candle still burned, placed beside the canvas to provide light for her work. Between the nearly melted nub of wax and the fire, about half of the room was lit. Shadows filled the rest.

  Peter left a torch, didn’t he?

  Sam opened the cupboard where she’d found the radio. Sitting near the back, beside a stack of spare batteries, was a large halogen torch. Sam turned it on. Its light, a brilliant white, was much cooler than the glow from the fire, and the beam cut through the darkness beautifully.

  Sam crossed the room in five paces and undid the front door’s latch. She was trembling, almost uncontrollably, as she nudged the wood and glanced outside.

  The ground immediately in front of the cabin was empty, so Sam pressed the door open farther. The air stung her nose and cheeks. She raised the torch, passing it over the slope leading to the lake, then swung it across the shore in both directions. Mist had developed, but it wasn’t yet thick enough to block her view. The shore was empty.

  Sam turned the torch on the dock, and her heart fluttered like a trapped bird. At the end of the pier, clear in the torch’s light, knelt the man.

  His back formed a severe curve as he sat on his haunches, hands clasped on the edge of the dock, and stared into the water. Sam thought he looked a little thicker than he did in the paintings, though it was hard to tell when he was hunched over. His hair was longer, too; it hung around his face like a limp curtain.

  The man’s shoulders trembled, and his spine, deeply exaggerated, poked against his skin and dark shirt. Sam inhaled sharply, then clamped a hand over her mouth. No healthy human’s back looked that desperately skeletal.

  The man heard. He shouldn’t have been able to at that distance, but he had. He swivelled his head to stare at Sam, and the light reflected off his eyes, making them glint like a cat’s. Then he began to move, oddly, like an insect. Each limb twisted in an unnatural motion as he lurched forward, scuttling to the edge of the dock. Over the edge. Under the dock.

  Sam collapsed to her knees as the scene branded itself into her mind. The man had lurched over the edge of the pier, reached one bizarrely long arm forward, and somehow grasped the underside of the wood. The rest of his body had followed smoothly, effortlessly, and he disappeared underneath, like a spider hiding from an intrusive stranger.

  That’s it, her mind gibbered. I’m done. Hang the Heritage and hang Peter’s generosity. I’m not staying a second longer.

  Sam sucked in a shaking breath and dashed into her cabin. She scrambled through the messy table until she found the car keys, then she ran back outside, waving her torch in erratic arcs to ward off the shadows. Her mind felt blank, as though it were incapable of processing what she’d just seen. All she cared about was getting to a road with actual streetlamps and houses. Her clothes and art supplies could stay in the cabin. I’ll come back for them another time, when it’s broad daylight and I’m accompanied by the police or the FBI or whoever’s in charge of dealing with weird stuff.

  The car was waiting for her in front of the shed. Sam skidded to a halt beside it and shone her torch through the windows to make sure the interior was empty then threw herself inside. She didn’t realise how badly she was shaking until she slammed the door and foun
d herself incapable of fitting the key into the ignition. Sam closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, and took long, slow gulps of air. The vicelike sensation around her chest gradually loosened as her nerves calmed, and she slotted the key into the ignition.

  Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.

  Sam turned the key, but the motor failed to turn over. She bit at the inside of her check as fresh terror crawled up her spine.

  No,” she muttered, trying to control her breathing, and turned the key again. Then a third, fourth and fifth time. The car wouldn’t start.

  The motor’s cold, that’s all, she told herself, even though she knew it wasn’t true. The car had never failed her before, not even when it snowed.

  She tried again. The car’s motor churned but failed to tick over. “Come on, come on, come on.”

  Sam sat for a moment then turned her torch to the windows. The glass was fogging up, but she was alone as far as she could tell. She pressed the button to release the hood and scrambled out of the door, her heart thundering as she rounded the car to check its engine.

  The problem was immediately obvious: someone had cut the fuel line—not just cut it, but cut it twice—and pulled the loose section of piping out to lay it neatly on top of the motor.

  Someone doesn’t want me to leave.

  Instinct told her to turn off the torch, so she did. The only light came from the moon, which hung near one of the higher mountains, and the golden glow from inside the cabin.

  Sam tried to calm her panicked mind and think through her options. Brandon would help her, she was sure, but the ranger’s office was certainly closed at four in the morning. She had a two-way radio and codes to contact the police and emergency rescue team, though. They would take hours to reach her, but it was better than nothing.

  Sam cast a final wary glance at the dock then began to slink towards the cabin. I’ll be safe inside, at least. I can lock the door, and I’ll have the axe, and–