Spider Lake

by Gregg Hangebrauck

  He will arrive back at the expected time in the expected car with the expected mileage with all his ducks in a row. Old man Rule can look at every angle, every document, and he will see that his buddy Butch has done just as he was told. What old man Rule doesn’t know, is that his old buddy Butch will also be back at the ranch with both of his eyes wide-open, watching where the old cuss goes when he lurks around all alone in the middle of the night up at Spider Lake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Homecoming Part Three ( Present Day )

  en rolled out from the resort driveway onto Spider Lake Road and headed his motorcycle east. In a mile and a half he would be where Spider Lake Road met Crystal Lake Road. As a boy growing up on a remote resort in northern Wisconsin, the tiny little business district was the doorway linking Ben to the outside world. The small subdivision of shacks and cabins which sprouted up along the northern shore of Crystal Lake had their start as lodging for the many lumberjacks who kept the Rule sawmill supplied with timber.

  Later, when the primary industry transitioned from logging to tourism, the tiny homes were re-purposed as summer homes for the bourgeoisie middle class in the suburbs of Chicago and Milwaukee. The subdivision was as quiet as a ghost town during the winter months with most of the cabins being closed for the season. There were a small amount of year-round residents and some cabins housed the occasional deer hunting crowd, but the little community really sprang back to full life each late spring with the onset of summer weather.

  As Ben was turning his motorcycle on to the small frontage road that was so familiar to him as a boy, he could sense the death of the place. He pulled his motorcycle into the tiny parking space that he had parked his bicycle or his wagon full of pop bottles so many times as a boy. The Nerroth’s Spot Light was boarded up just as it was in his dream.

  He walked up to the front window of the tiny little store. He looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching; feeling like he was trespassing by being so close to the old place, but the street was empty. He pressed his face into the front window, shading the ambient sunlight with his hands. There was a small separation where he could see inside where two boards were hastily nailed up. Sadly, the old place was being used as a warehouse filled to the ceiling with old dusty boxes and what looked to be junk.

  Ben backed away from the glass. He looked again up one side of the street, and down the other. The street was still deserted. He didn’t want to linger there for too long. The old Spot Light was obviously being used by someone, and he didn’t feel like explaining why he was so interested in the place. He walked back to where his bike was parked. He sat side-saddle on the seat, thinking about the old days when he used to turn the bottles in with his friend Matt.

  His memories were rich with the sights and smells of his childhood. He closed his eyes and could almost feel what it used to be like. In the spot where he was parked, he used to rinse out the mud from the dirty pop bottles with Nerroth’s garden hose before the old man would take them. He could smell the pine tree that used to litter the tiny parking lot with cones. He remembered each time you entered the store you would smell the familiar cigar smoke, and Nerroth would always pull out his home-made wooden case filled with penny candy.

  Jaw breakers, gum balls, dots, tootsie rolls, bazooka gum, root beer barrels, red hots, turkish taffy, there was so much to choose from. When Ben’s mother would send him here on occasion when she needed a missing ingredient such as a pound of sugar or butter or navy beans, he would always get a bonus of twenty-five cents for making the bicycle trip. The quarter was always used to purchase twenty-five pieces of penny candy. Sometimes when he had extra, he would buy a comic book. Ben thought about when it was that he had last had a jaw breaker. He wondered if they even made them anymore. His boys were eating an entirely different menu of modern candies, many of which were so sour he wondered why they even liked them.

  He climbed back onto his motorcycle, and drove slowly down the street. It was just as it was in his dream of the night before. He was expecting it to be. There were no new surprises. He was just going to see how the whole odyssey plays out. He would take it easy today— ride out to the campground, have a burger at the bar for dinner, drink a couple of draft beers, and see what happens when the real fun begins tomorrow.

  He passed Les’s Lounge on his left and rolled up to where the frontage road met Crystal Lake Road on the other side. He cranked up the cycle’s rpm’s and let it breathe up the curvy road. He was done sight-seeing. The magic of the boyhood place was gone, leaving a deteriorated amoral shadow in its place. He would never come back here. Seeing the current facade again would only etch even deeper the bad stain it had already left where the good memories had once been.

  As he rode, he tried to live in the now. He needed to put all his past and his future out of his thoughts. Living in the now was the only way he could keep himself happy. He accelerated the performance machine to a safe speed of ten miles an hour above the posted speed limit. He watched for gravel in the turns, policemen in his mirrors, and leaned the bike deep whenever the road allowed. In only a few minutes, he was back at the campground.

  He parked the bike at his camp site, and attached to the post which held the electric outlet and his site number, was a note. He opened the folded piece of paper, and it read; Mister Fisher, please come up to the campground office when you get a chance. Also, your wife called our office and asked that you call her as soon as you get this message.

  Ben took his cell phone from his pocket, and like always, it needed a charge. He plugged it in to the outlet on the back side of the post. He walked up the hill to the convenience store. Normally, he would look forward to talking with his wife, but these were not normal times. He wondered if the message was to inform him of more bad news at home. His lengthy unemployment and subsequent foreclosure problems had him feeling pangs of paranoia each time he heard the sound of the local mail man’s truck, or the sound of a FedEx vehicle rolling up the street.

  He thought about his paranoia of delivery vehicles, how he knew their distinct sounds, and wondered if he had ever told Doctor Levine about it. He couldn’t remember. Even the occasional letter from his lawyer gave him so much anxiety that he had to have Jill open it. He tried to get the paranoid thoughts out of his head. It wasn’t easy living in the now, when so much of the past was bouncing around in his head, and so much uncertainty was in his future. Ben was a mess when he felt this way. He walked up to the counter.

  “Hi, I’m Ben Fisher. You left me a message at my site.”

  “Oh yes, just a second Mister Fisher— do you remember which site are you on?”

  “No, I am sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I am in the pines—”

  “Okay, now I remember. Yes, you are at number twenty-one, and we were wondering if you were going to stay another night, and your wife called and asked if you could call her right away.”

  “She didn’t say what it was about did she? Did she say it was an emergency?”

  “No, she sounded okay, she just said she tried your cell a few times and couldn’t get through.”

  “Okay I will call her when my cell is charged. Thanks for leaving me the note, and yes I will be staying one more night.”

  Ben paid his site fee in advance. He looked around the convenience store for a jaw-breaker. There wasn’t one to be found. He decided to leave well enough alone, and headed back to his site. He made the call to his wife with his phone still plugged in to the power at the post. He waited for several rings and got her answering service. He decided not to leave a message. He would call her again in a little while when the phone was fully charged. The day was warming up and he decided to take a shower.

  When he got back to his site his phone had six messages on it. All six were from Jill’s cell, so he deleted them and called her back. Ben’s stomach was feeling sick with anxiety with each ring of the phone. There was no rational reason for him to be feeling this way, and he knew that he was feeling sick because of the
mortgage trouble, but sometimes he just couldn’t turn the anxiety off. On the fourth ring she answered.

  “Hi Jill. Is everything alright?” He closed his eyes tightly and winced, waiting for the reply.

  “Yes, I was wondering why you didn’t call me this morning.”

  Ben felt no relief. She hadn’t started with any terrible mortgage news. She wasn’t being thrown out of the house today. He still felt sick for some reason.

  “You scared me. You called six times, and the campground left a message. I am feeling sick.”

  “Why are you sick?”

  “Anxiety.”

  “I’m sorry Ben. I should have left a message that things were alright here. I just wanted to know how things are going, you know— with the dream business.”

  Ben was still not feeling any peace. He hated the anxious feelings when they swept over him. His worse nightmare was becoming a reality. He had always had a fear that he would lose his home, and now that it was coming true, it seemed that there was nothing he could do about it. He had been on a few interviews in the last few months, applying for jobs he knew he would smoke the competition at given the chance, but the children doing the hiring didn’t choose him because of his advanced precambrian age. He thought, “Thanks a lot America. Thanks for the frigging age discrimination. This country is going down the tubes. Let’s all race to the bottom.” He had to remind himself again why he was here. The whole dream business still felt like just that— a dream. But he had to see for himself if it was real.

  “Ben, are you still there?”

  “Yes, Jill. Sorry—I’m not feeling well. I’m feeling the anxiety pretty heavy right now like I want to throw up. Are you sure everything is okay?”

  The phone was quiet a little too long, and then Jill began to sob quietly. Ben felt the irrepressible sinking feeling wash over him like a heavy, thick wave. He wanted to be strong for his wife. He sucked in some air and held it in his lungs. He held his breath as long as he could. He felt like he was underwater. The noises around him at the campground became muffled as his ears began to ring. When it got this bad he would begin to hear the crickets; the crickets that were in his head. He let the stale air out and sucked in another deep breath. He had to hold it in or he would surely drown. Jill continued to sob almost inaudibly a few hundred miles to the south in the temporary home they would soon be losing. He had to get control of himself.

  “Jill, everything is going to work itself out. God never allows more than we can bear, and he always gives us a way out. We have to believe that.”

  “I know it will be okay Ben. It’s just that we got another FedEx package today from the chase you out of your home people, and we have to come up with more money for our lawyer.”

  Ben was feeling stronger from the very words he had just told Jill. He felt in his heart that there would be a way out. He also knew if he took each day as it comes, he would be able to suppress his anxiety to a manageable level. He had to face his problems head on. Lately he was not doing a very good job at that, but he would try. Avoiding the problems only delayed the problems. It never solved them.

  “Jill, I had another dream last night. Not the same one, but a different one, and I think it was trying to tell me something, just like the recurring one was. Things are going to accelerate tomorrow. I don’t know how or why, but I can feel it. I think it is going to be good for us. We will tackle our problems when I get back. Maybe it will only take a couple of days.”

  Jill knew how much money she had saved for the trip. Judging from the amount of money she saved, she already had a pretty good idea of the length of time her husband would be staying.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Night of the Fire Part One ( 1968 )

  ohn Fisher just barely navigated the runabout safely back to the dock. By the time he was halfway up the tiny bay which led to his resort, the waves had nearly tripled in size. He heard the twister before he actually seen it. The deep moan reminded him not of a freight train, as some have said, but rather a giant pair of giant lungs gasping for air. He ran the engine at the fastest speed he could, deciding that ramming the front end of the boat into shore would give him the best chance at getting his passengers there safely. He yelled at them to brace themselves, and picked a place on the shoreline. Luckily, the boat met shore where the back end would be forced by the wind and waves into the dock. He helped the young couple from the runabout to the dock and ran up the embankment to the clearing.

  When John reached the clearing his resort guests were milling around outside their cabins wondering what the strange noise was. Many of them were looking up into the tumultuous sky as if in a stupor. Most of the adults had beers or drinks in their hands. One man was manning a grill with two oven mitts on, holding it on each side as sparks flew southward; trying in vain to keep his steak dinner from blowing away. Another particularly drunk fellow was asking in slurred speech if the noise was a moose. John stood for a second in wide-eyed disbelief, taking in the ridiculous scene. He knew that the tiny cabins would not provide sufficient safety for his guests, so he yelled for them to make for his house.

  “It’s a twister! Get your children and make for the house! Now!

  He ran from cabin to cabin, urging the guests to head for the shelter of his house and the basement. Converting the happy albeit dull, relaxing guests from vacation-mode to survival-mode was more difficult than he had expected, but the word tornado carried sufficient weight to snap them out of their slumber. The young man he had just rescued in the runabout was fully sober, and he was doing all he could to help John rustle people from the six cabins.

  Allie was at the door of the screen porch, frantically looking across the clearing for her son. She called out to her husband: “Where is Ben John?”

  “Allie, make sure these people get down the steps and into the basement!”

  “Where is my son John? Where is Ben?”

  John was running towards the station wagon. He yelled to his wife just as he made it to the car. “I am going for him Allie! Make sure these people get to the basement!”

  She was frantic. She watched the charcoal grill half bouncing, half flying as it made it’s way southward across the clearing. She thought that the grill with its flame and sparks reminded her of a Chinese new year celebration. The only thing missing was the sound of fire-crackers. Why had her husband not found her son? John was still yelling at her as he climbed into the wagon: “Allie, it is a tornado! I know where Ben is! I am headed to the Rule estate! Call the police! Tell them about the tornado! Now!”

  He climbed into the station wagon and punched it throwing sod and sand and gravel. He fish-tailed the heavy wagon across the clearing as fast as he could safely drive, dodging large branches which were beginning to fall from the sky. He flew down the driveway and turned right on the gravel road, very nearly missing the ditch on the opposite side. He punched the gas-pedal to the floor, which only had the effect of slowing the vehicle.

  His wipers were set on their highest setting, and John still needed to crane his neck just inches from the windshield to try and see where he was steering. Any other time, the weather would have been bad enough to cause him to pull over.

  When he reached the place where the forest thinned enough to see the lake, he strained to see if he could get a glimpse of the yellow boat. Then, right before his eyes, he seen a sight he would never forget. Out of thin air, a funnel of water composed itself and became visible, starting from the surface of the lake and continuing upward to the cloud in a matter of seconds. It lifted off the water in a skipping fashion, and as it did much of the water it contained fell back out of the sky, returning to the lake and causing a huge wave which nearly reached the road.

  John feared that if his son was still on the lake, his chances of survival would be small. He did his best to perish the thought, and to think for the best. Just fifteen minutes ago it had seemed the yellow boat was very near the shore. He couldn’t be sure of its real proximity to shore due to the diminis
hed visibility caused by the choppy water, but he hoped that his son had made shore. He continued racing the Nomad wagon up the gravel road. The darkness which came next was startling. He pulled the light switch on the dash to open his headlights. He pressed the bright switch on the floor, but quickly switched back to the dims when the rain reflected the light limiting his visibility even more.

  He was just finished dimming the headlights and rounding a corner, when suddenly right in front of him, in the time it took his wipers to move one half cycle across his windshield, he saw a set of stopped brake lights, and what looked like a tree laying across the road. He knew there was not enough time to stop his vehicle on the gravel surface. He slammed on his brakes, causing the Nomad wagon to pitch and slide sideways in the gravel. John braced for the inevitable collision. The impact would be on his side. He hoped that the person in the other vehicle was in a place that would protect them from the impact. Was it brake lights he saw? Or was it running lights? Just before the impact, John defensively ducked towards the passenger side, a move which may have saved his life.

  Butch McCann was sitting in the front seat of the forty-nine Ford he had recently purchased, eating a Hostess Sno-Ball, and waiting for darkness to fall. He had parked the rust-bucket out at the airport for the last couple of weeks. He knew it wouldn’t be conspicuous to anyone there. Many of the fly boys in Chicago or Milwaukee kept their second hand cars at Oneida field so they would have ready ground transportation available to them after making the short flights to their vacation homes.