Crescent Lake

by David Sakmyster

  It wasn't supposed to crash, Nick realized. Someone at NASA or the Air Force, or wherever, messed up. Lost control of it. Or maybe the crystal interacted with the piloting device. In any case, the first people to be introduced to the crystal were not prepared. How could they be, when the scientists themselves knew nothing about it? Nothing except the logical deduction that it was somehow a gift.

  A gift that was soon discovered to have devastating side effects.

  The FBI didn't kill Henry and Nate in order to silence them. It was a tragic culmination of a series of errors made on both sides. Man, for not properly bringing the satellite to a controlled area, and the crystal for being unable to adapt quickly enough to its host species.

  Henry and Nate had gotten there too fast, before the crystal had time to adjust its parameters, to study humans and judge their tolerance levels. The Innises had taken the full brunt of the emissions, and the effects had been devastating. Since then, and after brief encounters in later years, it had developed a better understanding of human biology; and so Nick was relatively safe from the intense mutations. He was closer than anyone had ever come, but the crystal was holding back now – Nick could sense its restraint.

  This understood, the apology given, Nick's consciousness was abruptly pushed out and thrust again into a floating position above the crater. This time it was daylight. Still winter, but the land was bustling with activity. Bulldozers drove over the hills, crashing into homes, flattening barns, digging up the foundations.

  And a colossal digging machine camped by the side of the crater. Its jaws were full of dirt and rocks which rotated over the crater and released its heavy load. Three more hauls and the satellite was effectively buried. Next, he saw dozens of explosions in the hills where his house would be built. Detonations erupted in the bedrock around the springs. An extensive network of freshly dug canals routed the released spring water into the crater. For three days, the springs were bled to fill up the crater and create a new lake. Finally, the springs were sealed, the canals dismantled and the earth replaced, the ground smoothed over. The lake was populated with a variety of fish. Trees and grass were planted; and then the State withdrew from the forest and lake, the concealment complete.

  In two years the homes of Silver Springs were finished and the new residents gradually filtered in, all of them unaware of the entombed presence in the forest; the gift that lay helpless, but patient. Forever separated from its purpose, like a deserted machine. It pulsed and glowed at regular intervals, for several hours each night, as its program directed. It sent off powerful emissions in a limited radius, as was its function, and also the function of any portion of the crystal. For it had been made to be broken, shattered and pulverized if needed. Even the smallest fragment was capable of storing all the necessary information and performing the required tasks; every molecule held the proper codes, just as every human cell contained the DNA characteristic of the whole.

  In this manner was the gift to spread among the whole population.

  –To reach out and advance our race. Evolution on a grand scale. The monthly rays were tuned to react with the brain, stimulating the dormant areas and invoking the capabilities and skills that would not have otherwise developed for many tens of thousands of years, if ever.

  Once buried, only the fish and the inhabitants of the lake were radiated and advanced, transformed into mindless and horrifying mutants.

  All this information rapidly pumped into Nick's mind. He knew the characteristics of the gift: ESP, telepathy, heightened reflexes, advanced sight, clairvoyance, quickened healing, immunities... the possibilities went on and on.

  Nick felt a pang of despair when he thought of the years the gift had been concealed from the world, the doors it could have opened. How many lives were wasted in the meantime? How many senseless wars and preventable deaths?

  The FBI had correctly reacted to the situation; they had discovered an alien presence too threatening to the safety and security of the nation (and the world itself) based solely on their experience at the Innis home. After that, no one dared approach the crater except to fill it. Luckily, the men who knew the full details of the operation were very few, and all sworn to secrecy; the builders and contractors didn't know a thing. All the scientists had died; and the astronomers were paid a handsome sum; they told a perfect lie about the satellite blowing up in orbit due to a mechanical malfunction.

  Case closed. Life proceeded as normal, evolution to take its sweet old time.

  Another flash of light – and Nick was back on the lake bottom. A quiet hum radiated from inside the satellite, echoing dreamily and vibrating up through Nick's arms. His hands were gently released, and he began to rise amidst a shower of graceful bubbles. The light blinked and swirled, dimmed in intensity. The water surged out of his lungs, bursting free from his mouth in a massive underwater exhalation.

  He was five feet away from the surface, gazing through the multi-colored barrier, when he saw the young face on the other side staring back at him. The blond pig tails were muddied by an entire day of frantic hiding. But the bright blue eyes blinked and silently urged him to hurry.

  "Aren't you going to turn off the machines?" Audrey's father hissed. He was sitting up again, leaning close, breathing a foul breath onto her hair. "I want to watch you do it, see for myself what you're capable of. Let's see if you can kill me when I'm awake and watching."

  Audrey clawed at his mattress. She was caught in a maelstrom of guilt, with repentance roaring its way into the foreground of her mind. Nothing else mattered but that she was sorry, infinitely sorry for her heinous sin – for patricide.

  "Your own father! Not some animal you ran over in the road but didn't quite kill! You don't turn me off like that, young lady!"

  Audrey's head snapped up. Her eyes were wide, mouth open. She stared at her father in astonishment, and in the brief respite from his verbal tirade she seized on one thing, an almost-forgotten memory he had just inadvertently stirred up.

  And then she had it.

  "Dad!" She brought her knees onto the bed, and crawled forward, over to her father's gaunt legs. Now was the time to see if she could actually say it, say the words she never dared utter while he was alive: "You're wrong."

  He blinked and gave her a crooked, toothless yawn.

  "Wrong," she repeated, and thought she heard a murmur of confusion just beyond her veil of consciousness. Brushing it aside, she continued. "Daddy, listen. Please." She tossed her hair back, then touched his bony shoulders. They felt light and cold, manufactured.

  "Do you remember the St. Mary's Carnival we went to every July until I was fourteen?"

  Her father growled at her and pushed her hands away. "Killer."

  Audrey went on. "The fourth year... I was nine. You took me on the Ferris wheel. It wasn't much as Ferris wheels go, but it might as well have been Mount Everest for all I knew." She looked around, suddenly conscious of the time.

  "Murdering, no good–"

  "Dad, listen! Don't you remember? That year we got stuck up on the top. The gears broke or something. We were stuck up there for two hours before they fixed it. At first I cried and believed were both going to die. But after the first half hour I wasn't scared anymore. Do you know why?"

  "Because you're evil."

  "No. Because you talked to me."

  "Killer."

  "You talked to me, Dad. About death." She took a deep breath. "You just contradicted yourself earlier. You did teach me about death. For almost two hours alone on that Ferris wheel you taught me about death."

  There was a pressure on her forehead, distant, almost imperceptible. She pushed the sensation away. This was more important; she was close, so close.

  "Guess what you told me about death?"

  "That it was something my daughter liked to dish out?" He lifted wire-encrusted arms toward her throat.

  "Goddamnit, Dad!" Audrey knocked away the grasping hands. She bent in close and spoke right into his decomposing face. "You said
it was a natural process. Life and death were peaceful neighbors, partners even. You pointed to the sparrows circling overhead; you pointed to the people gawking at us from the ground. Everything, you said, was here for a short time, made its mark, then passed on.

  "And death, Daddy, was not a tragic thing to avoid and fear all your life." She brushed a heavy tear from her cheek. "You said when it came for you, you would know it, and there came the time to accept it and take its hand. Death was an adventure, you said, and it had sounded so twisted back when I was nine, rocking on a rusted seat fifty feet off the ground. I didn't feel much like accepting anything just then.

  "But, Dad, don't you see?" She shook her head at him, and a wide smile broke through her drying tears. "You never would have opposed what I did. I didn't turn you off, Dad."

  She let out one more sigh, then softly put her arms around the bedridden specter. "I plugged you in. You were reaching for something to help you along to that next adventure. The machines were holding you back, keeping you from your destination. The coin was trapped in mid-flip, at neither life nor death."

  Why did it take me so long to remember this? Why did I spend all those years dwelling only on the guilt, imagining terrible scenarios that had no truth, and repressing all my love and compassion? She hugged him tighter–

  –and was amazed to feel his arms sliding over her back, slowly at first, then gently holding her close.

  "I set you free, Daddy. Out of love."

  She pushed away, stood, and turned from the desperate figure on the bed – her father, reaching out to her with sad, but forgiving eyes.

  "I hope," she whispered softly, directing the words up through the ceiling, "that the adventure is everything you dreamed of."

  The bed creaked and was silent. A slight breeze kicked in, ruffling her hair and cooling her wet cheeks.

  The pressure on her forehead increased. Dazed, she slipped to the ground and shut her eyes against the pain. A wave of sensation crashed over her. Sounds – awed murmurs and whispers. Smells – cheap perfume, aftershave, incense, candles.

  She opened her eyes–

  And stared directly into the pale eyes of Zachary Bright. She smelled his breath, almost felt the prickly contact of his silvery beard. Thumbs on her forehead, fingers around the back of head, squeezing. A trickle of sweat dropped from his brow and his upper lip curled in frustration.

  He took his eyes off hers and risked a glance into the pews. The people were confused, impatient.

  Zachary glared back at her.

  And Audrey forced a smile and said, "Go to Hell, asshole."

  With an anguished yell, overcoming the startled chattering in the congregation, Zachary drew back his arm and slapped Audrey hard across her face. She was knocked free and tumbled to the floor. Immediately she sprang to her feet, hoping to spot an exit and make a break for it, but the two men quickly snatched her up again, effectively pinning her arms and legs.

  Zachary snarled and stormed up to the altar. "Outside!" he roared. "To the ring of stones where this unrepentant witch shall taste the full wrath of God!"

  As soon as Nick's head and shoulders cleared the surface the girl threw her arms around him. She was kneeling on the water, balanced on its surface, floating like a duck. Nick pried himself free, turned and coughed up the remaining water from his gorged lungs; he took his first free breath, cool and pure, as refreshing as an ice cold drink on an August afternoon.

  "Theresa," he said, and wrapped his arms around her. In his grasp she seemed to lose control of whatever property allowed her to stay on the surface. She gradually sank until she was pressed against his chest, arms locked behind his neck as he treaded water.

  She was shivering. "Mom..." she whispered and began to sob.

  Nick held her tight, ran his wet hands through her hair.

  "I know, Theresa. I know." I just lost my parents, too. "But you have to be strong."

  He lifted her up and looked into her tear-stained eyes. "You hid here all day?"

  She nodded. "They couldn't find me. I stayed in the reeds and talked with my friends."

  "Friends?"

  Theresa looked over her shoulder, at the sickle-shaped light. She pointed. "Look! Here they come again."

  Dark, sinewy shapes came, swaying the glow. Moving in definite rhythms and patterns. "They're beautiful," Nick said.

  "They like the pretty light."

  "I'm sure they do." Nick studied the girl. Why had she apparently escaped the more terrifying side effects of the lake's intensity? Was it only because she was so young and able to adapt to the changes, or had the crystal taken care of her too?

  "How do you talk to them, Theresa?"

  She lifted her shoulders. "Don't know. I just do." She coughed, then stared out over the lake, into a murky section to the east. "Same way I talk to her."

  Nick's spine froze, his legs almost forgot to kick and he slipped under for a moment. And in that second his most recent nightmare came back to him.... caught underwater, ankles bound. Trapped, reaching for the surface.

  "Theresa? Who..."

  The girl met his glance. "She's very scared. Been there a long time."

  She wasn't dead, Nick realized with a blinding flash of understanding. And suddenly he knew who it was, just as sure as he knew that she hadn't been completely dead before he dumped her. Isaac hadn't buried them all. One he dumped into the lake...

  "She doesn't say much, and she's not much fun to talk to. It's like she's not all there, you know?"

  Nick started pushing away from the light, heading in the direction of the deeper shadows. "What does she say?"

  Theresa frowned at him. "Would it help if I walked there? You're going too slow."

  Nick stopped, gasping for air. "Yeah. That'd be great." She ascended, dripping, out of the water until her feet rested, apparently on a cushion of air over the black surface. He was going to ask how she did that, but he had the feeling it was a talent that would come only through time and patience, if ever. The crystal hadn't been as strong for him, or maybe it hadn't transferred all of its power. He was able to see better, at least. Away from the glare of the satellite, his eyes adjusted and he was amazed to learn he could see a great distance in every direction, through the trees, into the shadows themselves. He saw everything to the end of the lake, and now thought he could make out a shape in the water ahead, near the bottom, a dark figure moving with sluggish grace.

  Nick started to swim faster, splashing alongside Theresa as she walked.

  "Oh!" she said. "Now I remember."

  "What?" Nick said through a mouthful of water.

  "I remember what she said. One word, over and over."

  "What was it?"

  "A name, I think. It took me a while to figure it out. At first I thought she was just saying she was sick."

  Nick looked at her for a moment, then almost broke out in laughter. "Isaac?"

  "Yep. That's all she ever says. Got real boring. Even the fish tell better stories." She stopped and pointed. "There she is. She does look sad."

  Nick treaded water above the figure. "Her name's Deborah," he said.

  "That's pretty," Theresa said. "Look! She sees us. Sort of. Like I said, her mind's kind of empty. There she goes. Saying ‘Isaac' again. I think she misses him."

  I bet she does, Nick thought with a shiver. In the next few seconds he formed a plan, a way out of this. If there was enough time. He looked at his watch, thankful he had bought the waterproof type, even though it was a cheap Penney's sort.

  It was 12:20. Services had already begun. Hopefully the Reverend would hold off the Ceremony for a few more minutes.

  If not...

  Then, I'm praying for you Audrey. Yes, actually praying. Make it through, please.

  "Are you going to help her?" Theresa asked, and Nick was unsure if the girl read her mind and knew about Audrey, or if she meant Deborah.

  He answered, "Yes," to both questions. Held his breath and dove under, swimming deeper and deeper; he felt
the pressure swell in his head. At last, he tried not to look at the body – the grisly, bloated thing that writhed like a dying snake. Down he went, to the bottom, to the algae-encrusted cinder block with the rotting rope coiled around it, and again around the woman's swollen, split ankles.

  He reached for the knots around the feet. The skin was broken and torn, as if the fish had been picking at her slowly, nibbling when they wanted a snack. Nick tugged at the knot. It was brittle and rotted, and if Deborah had more life left beside whatever spark had been reignited by the satellite's emissions, she might have crouched down to undo the knots herself. But as it were, only enough of the brain was stimulated – enough synapses recharged – to provide the basic commands for life, and to awaken a sole purpose.

  "Isaac."

  He released the knot, yanked the rope free. Slowly her feet separated, spread, moved together. She was pushing herself up, drifting to the surface.

  Nick didn't want to adjust again to breathing underwater; his air was almost gone, his chest pounding with alarm. Desperately kicking, he hurtled past the rising corpse and cleared the surface, gulping a huge breath of air.

  Theresa had backed up. She was scared and didn't want to see what Deborah really looked like. But, as a flurry of bubbles announced the imminent rising, something else drew Theresa's attention. "Come on!" she yelled to Nick, almost hysterical. She pointed through the forest, toward the town. "They're doing it again. I see them. The stones! We have to hurry."

  As Nick swam, harder and faster than he had ever attempted in eighth grade, the surface behind him broke and a blackened, withered face cleared the water. Hollow eye-sockets locked on Nick and Theresa and noted their path. The head swiveled and peered toward Silver Springs.

  Ichor-colored water gushed out of Deborah's mouth, along with a stream of algae and weeds.

  In a bubbly voice, as she slowly began to swim to the bank, she said one word, and then repeated it again and again.

  "Isaac."