Monster Lake: A Thriller

by J. D. Crayne

  "Wait here," Dr. Orloff said, getting up from behind his desk and moving across the room with an ungainly limp. He went though a blackened oak door and closed it behind him.

  "I don't like this!" Sancy whispered.

  "Well, I don't either," Steve said, "but maybe the old buzzard can do something for us."

  "Or to us!" Sancy said with a whimper.

  The minutes passed.

  Presently the door reopened and their host returned, dragging behind him a stuffed, dog-sized, hairy black and white something.

  "Euuuue!" Sancy said with disgust.

  "What is it?" Steve asked, eying the long menacing claws, shaggy hair, and beady little glass eyes.

  "Giant anteater," Dr. Orloff said shortly. "I shoot him myself."

  "Very nice," Steve, said nodding with insincerity, and eyeing the thing's brushy tail, which was covered with odd, coarse, black stuff that hardly looked like fur at all. "But I don't want to deprive you of a treasured trophy..."

  The doctor waved a deprecatory hand. "Fifty years ago, I shoot him. You cut him up. Hair and claws for your show."

  There wasn't much Steve could say after that but a rather weak "thank you." With some difficulty he managed to pick up the trophy, sneezing from the dust and wrinkling his nose at the smell of mothballs that clung to its coarse fur.

  "You must be doing fascinating work here," Sancy said brightly. "Just what kind of work is it?"

  "I am a biological researcher," Orloff replied, staring fixedly at her. "But my true mission is in the world of life beyond death,"

  "Oh?"

  "When my beloved Tina died, I swore that I would dedicate my life to conquering death!"

  "Really?" Sancy said weakly.

  "Someday I will succeed," the doctor murmured, "and then my Tina will return to me."

  "How lovely!" Sancy said with a nervous gulp.

  "Ah, to have her at my side again," Orloff went on as if to himself. "Just the two of us, running joyously through the fields and forests together!"

  Sancy nodded mechanically, looking at the doctor with undisguised disbelief.

  "Tell me, Doctor Orloff," Steve asked abruptly, "could a biologist like yourself make a real Big Foot? You know, with gene splicing, or something?"

  The Doctor's shoulders hunched, and the tic next to his left eye was even more pronounced. He gave a little high-pitched laugh. "No, no. You have seen too many movies. Not possible. It would take years if it could be done at all. No one would try such a thing!" He scuttled around in front of Steve and pulled the door open, bowing slightly as Steve and Sancy want past him at a near run.

  "I told you he was a mad scientist!" Sancy hissed, as they dashed down the stairs, through the dim corridors, and bolted through the front door, letting it slam behind them.

  "Maybe he's not exactly mad," Steve said, breathing hard but trying to be charitable, "definitely a bit off-kilter though!"

  "Off-kilter! I've never met such a wacko in my life! He belongs in a home for the mentally bewildered – preferably one with bars on the windows and friendly attendants in white coats!"

  Steve was stuffing the giant anteater into the back seat of his car, when a red-headed youngster came around the corner of the house wheeling a bicycle.

  "Mickey!" Sancy cried out, "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at the bait shop?"

  "Oh, I quit that," the twelve-yr-old said cheerfully. "Hi, Steve! What have you got there? Wow, that's something else!"

  "What do you mean, you quit?" His sister demanded.

  "I mean, I'm working for the doc now," Mickey said, staring into the car at the giant anteater. "I sweep up his lab. You know, like one of those assistants in a horror movie." He lifted one shoulder, crossed his eyes, and let his tongue loll out of the side of his mouth.

  "It's cool. Better than scraping up fish guts in the bait shop, and they give me an after-school snack too."

  "Snack?" Sancy asked, in a hollow voice.

  "Yeah! Mrs. Kimberley is a super cook, and she makes chocolate chip cookies every afternoon."

  Steve and Sancy stared at the boy and then at each other.

  "I wouldn't have associated Mrs. Kimberley with chocolate chip cookies," Sancy said carefully.

  Mikey grinned. "Oh, she's okay! When she's done with the housework she goes up to her room, eats chocolate bonbons, and reads romance novels." He got up on his bicycle, waved cheerfully, and headed off down the drive, swerving to avoid the potholes.

  "Whoever would have thought it?" Steve murmured.

  * * *

  After he dropped Sancy off at her house–with a renewed promise to tell his mother they were going to get married–Steve drove over to Dresden Bait and Tackle. He was carrying the stuffed giant anteater into the shop when Hubert Pigott, in a natty light brown sports jacket and dark brown slacks, started to come out the door and stopped abruptly.

  "Damn!" Pigott said with a grin, looking over the dusty specimen cradled in Steve's arms, "you sure have some interesting wild life around here. Or is that one of your kids?" He stepped aside and waved Steve through the door with an exaggerated bow, then walked away, laughing raucously.

  Steve muscled the stuffed giant anteater inside and propped it up against the front counter.

  "What the hell did Pigott want?" he asked.

  "Never mind Pigott," George said with wide blue eyes. "He's just trying to buy me out again. What in the world is that?"

  He walking around the counter to peer at it.

  "It's our monster fur and claws, just like the Council suggested."

  "But... golly, Steve! I thought you'd just go over to The Perky Pooch dog groomers in Ukiah and get some clippings and a handful of combings! That is... is... I don't know what it is!"

  "It's a giant anteater," Steve said, and added with pardonable pride, "I got it from the mad scientist over by the fish hatchery."

  George scratched his head. "Well, it ought to confuse anyone who tries to have it tested, that's for sure."

  "Can we put it in your storeroom?"

  "Yeah, I guess so, but let's turn it toward the wall, I don't like the way the damned thing is staring at me."

  They lugged the moth-eaten and dusty artifact into the back room, shoved it into a corner, and covered it with an old tarp for good measure.

  "That'll do," Steve said, wiping off his hands. "It'll be safe here until we need it."

  George sneezed, his fishy blue eyes squinting from the dust and mothballs. "I don't think anyone could really need something like that. Say! Maybe Berquem could rig up something special with it."

  "Paul? What would he do with it?"

  "Well, he's a real whiz with electricity. Fixes toasters and things. Maybe he could fix it so the eyes light up. Get the tail to move, put some kind of sound effects in it..."

  "No, George," Steve said firmly. "Solitaire is not Disneyland. We're just going to cut off some of its fur and a couple of those big claws."

  "Then what are we going to do with them?"

  "I hadn't got that far," Steve admitted, staring at the shrouded form of the long-dead anteater. "Set up some kind of museum somewhere, I guess. Who's got a spare room?"

  George sucked his teeth. "How about Janey Reitz? She's got that long room over at Lead 'N Liquor that she doesn't use for much, since the neighbors made her take out the shooting gallery."

  Steve nodded. "Sounds good. Talk to her about it, will you? Oh, and see if you can scare up some fuzzy snapshots and something to make footprints with." He turned toward the door, and then looked back at the musing bait shop owner. "How did you make out with Mrs. Briolette this afternoon?"

  George shuddered. "Don't use words like that! The woman is a menace!" His face puckered up and tears came to his prominent blue eyes. "I want my wife back," he said with a whimper. "I want Martha to come home!"

  "Now, George," Steve said soothingly. "You know that Martha needs a little time to find herself, that's all."

  George wiped his streaming
blue eyes on his sleeve. "I've tried to be an understanding husband, haven't I? I've given her all the personal space she wanted. I didn't complain when she ran off with that propane salesman from Ft. Bragg, did I? No, I did not. I figured it was only a phase she was going through. When she came back and moved in with Carolyn Brunswick, did I complain, even when it made me look like an idiot? No, I did not. I knew she was just having identity problems."

  "You've been a model husband," Steve agreed.

  George snuffled loudly. "I went over there last Tuesday night and stood under her bedroom window, reading The Compleat Angler to her."

  "Very romantic," Steve said.

  "She poured a pot of ice water over my head."

  "Oh."

  "She did the same thing last month," George said dolefully. "Twice."

  Steve cleared his throat. "I'm sure you'll work things out in time," he said bracingly. "Look, I've got to go, okay? I need to see a man about an indian legend."

  CHAPTER 2

  Ernie Shah's tiny cabin was at the end of a rutted dirt road, with the dried remains of a patch of indian corn rustling in the wind next to it. His four pack horses stood hip shot in the corral, nose to tail, flicking off flies. An old brown and white hound lying in the shade of Ernie's rusted Ford pickup yawned widely at Steve's approach, thumped his tail on the ground before closing his eyes again, and went back to sleep.

  Steve rapped loudly on the door jamb. "Hey, Ernie!"

  A chair creaked inside and a voice called back, "Yo!"

  After a moment a tall lean figure appeared and pushed open the screen door. "Come on in. You want a beer?"

  "Sure, why not?"

  Ernie got two cans of Dos Equis out of the small kerosene refrigerator, handed one to Steve, and then went back to his narrow bed and flung himself down on the striped wool coverlet. Steve propped himself gingerly on the one chair, which had a short leg and tended to pitch.

  "Cheers," Ernie said, taking a swig out of the can. "So, what's up?"

  Steve considered his friend's well-worn jeans, cracked boots, faded red checked shirt, and beaded headband.

  "I need an indian legend."

  Ernie took another drink out of his beer can. "What kind did you have in mind. I know a great one about an old indian shaman. You see, a Huchnom father always names his kid for the first thing he sees when he leaves the lodge after the baby is born, and this shaman..."

  "Forget it!" Steve said.

  Ernie shrugged. "Some people got no sense of humor."

  "What are you going to do now that the tourist season is over?"

  "What do I do every year? Stow the headband and get a job at Wal-Mart in Ukiah, I guess. I won't get another pack trip until maybe next April or May."

  "Which puts you in the same fix as the rest of us," Steve said, hunching forward, but mindful of the short chair leg. "The Council met today, and we came up with an idea to extend the season. Maybe to year 'round. How would you like that?"

  "If you can swing it, I'll put you up for sainthood!"

  Steve explained what the Council had in mind. "So you see," he finished, "I figure we need some kind of old indian legend to kind of support the idea, if you know what I mean."

  Ernie nodded. "I get you. You need to see my Uncle Hank."

  "I didn't know you had an uncle."

  "Oh sure, I got uncles, aunts, and cousins coming out of my ears. Most of them live out on the rancheria. Uncle Hank is on the wrong side of sixty and remembers all that old stuff."

  "But does he remember any stuff that will do us any good?"

  "Suuure, he does," Ernie said with a wink. "Hell, for twenty bucks he'll remember the Indian Love Call for you." He scratched his chin. "Too bad we don't have any real cliffs around here. One of those Lover's Leap spots might help. You know, gorgeous young Huchnon maiden, betrayed by evil white man, flings herself off of the cliff and into the jaws of the monster."

  Steve stood up, pried Ernie's fingers off of the beer can, and set it down on the table. "Let's go see your uncle," he said firmly.

  * * *

  Ernie's Uncle Hank lived five miles away via the county road, but a mere half-mile by way of the narrow deer trail that started at the rear of Ernie's stable and cut across country to the rancheria. It was warm for a walk, but the day was fine and Steve enjoyed the stroll. The path came out of the woods between a couple of corn and bean plots, now yellowed with dry stalks and leaves.

  The cluster of little rancheria houses was unprepossessing, with gray cinder block walls and tin roofs, but scraggly patches of fall flowers bloomed in the front yards, and the playing kids looked plump and happy. A couple of them yelled to Ernie, who grinned and waved back. He led Steve to a house at the end of the row, where chili peppers and bunches of herbs hung drying in clusters from the eves of its ramshackle front porch.

  "Hey, Uncle Hank!" he yelled, ducking under the swinging wad of cotton, tied at the end of a string, which hung in the open doorway to keep out the flies.

  Steve, following along behind him, found himself in a pleasantly cluttered little front room; filled with boxes, lined with shelves holding dozens of jars, and furnished with odd pieces of furniture. It smelled comfortably like an old-fashioned herb and candle shop.

  Uncle Hank, whose official name turned out to be Henry Cross, shook hands, smiled broadly, and shoved some boxes off of a couple of chairs so they'd have a place to sit down. He was a thin little man with a wrinkled brown face and long iron gray hair, wearing brown leather trousers, a blue shirt, and a twisted length of blue cloth tied around his forehead as a sweat band. A silver bead necklace with turquoise hung around his neck and there were beaded moccasins on his narrow feet.

  Ernie looked at him critically. "Uncle Hank, the tourist season is over."

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I was over in Redwood Valley this morning. Picked up thirty bucks posing for photographs, from tourists getting ready to leave the camp ground." He lifted the necklace off of his shoulders and dropped it down on a table. "What brings you out this way?"

  "We wondered if you know any legends about Lake Mendocino," Steve said.

  Uncle Hank cocked his head to one side. "What kind of legends?"

  "Tourist-attracting type legends," his nephew said. "Steve is this year's Mayor of Solitaire, and they're looking for something to spice up the Chamber of Commerce brochures. Right, Steve?"

  Steve nodded. "Yeah, sort of. Of course, we'd be happy to reimburse you for the time and your insight."

  "He means he'll slip you a twenty if you can come up with something believable," Ernie said.

  Uncle Hank rubbed the side of his nose with one finger and thought. "I remember. My grandfather's father told of the time that a great whirlpool formed in the middle of the Lake and the waters rushed down, leaving the bottom bare, and when the Huchnom men walked out into the lake bottom they found strange stone idols and gifts of gold."

  Ernie shook his head. "No good. That's Crater Lake, up in Oregon. Except for the stone idols and the jewels, I mean. I think that's South American."

  His uncle frowned at him and muttered, "Damned know-it-all." He closed his eyes and remembered again. "There is a legend that something dwells in the Lake–a god of the lake creatures–that must be honored so that the fish will swim into the traps and the people not starve. Every full moon a beautiful young virgin..."

  "Watch it!" Ernie said.

  Uncle Hank coughed. "Ah... every full moon the people send a raft out into the middle of the Lake, where a fair young maiden casts offerings into the waters to soothe the soul of the great god ... Tlaklot."

  "Migod, I can't even pronounce it," Steve groaned.

  Uncle Hank shrugged.

  "Well? What do you think?" Ernie asked.

  Steve pulled out his wallet.

  Uncle Hank folded the bills and stuffed them into his back pocket. "You need a floating sacrificial platform," he said.

  "A raft, you mean," Ernie said. "We can get a couple of empty butane tanks
from Marlow White; use 'em for pontoons."

  "Couldn't we just have the maidens toss the stuff into the water from the bait shop dock?" Steve asked.

  "Not as photogenic," Uncle Hank said succinctly.

  "He's right," Ernie said. "Besides, you don't want people diving off the dock and picking up the stuff the girls just tossed in."

  "Good point," Steve said, "but how are we going to get it out into the lake? Pull it out to the middle with a motor boat?"

  "You know, you've got a crappy feel for tradition," Ernie said. "Motorboat! What you need is a couple of good strong guys with paddles. It would look better to pole it out, but the Lake's too deep for that."

  "Around a hundred and twenty feet up by the dam," Steve said. As the town Mayor, he was responsible for knowing things like that.

  Uncle Hank began ticking off items on his fingers. "That's one floating sacrificial platform, two strong men with paddles–Ernie, you can be one and your cousin Zed can be the other–three beautiful young maidens..."

  "Three?" Steve asked.

  "The Moon Maiden, the Wind Maiden, and the Maiden of the Great Basket," Uncle Hank said smoothly. "It's traditional."

  "Gotta uphold tradition," Ernie agreed, trying to keep a straight face.

  "Ritual costumes," the old man went on, "and transportation for the participants and the Sacrificial Platform."

  "I'll have to write you a check," Steve said glumly.

  "When are you going to do this?" Ernie asked a few minutes later, as his uncle admired the numbers on Steve's check.

  "At the full moon, I guess," Steve said with a shrug. "We can't put it off too long, or all of the tourists will be gone."

  "Make it the nearest weekend to the full moon," Uncle Hank said, carefully slipping the check under a quartz paperweight. "You'll get a better audience, and the beautiful young maidens won't have to cut school."

  "I suppose everyone is going to go along with this?" Steve asked casually. "I mean, there will be other people who... err... remember this ceremony from their grandfather's day, or something?"

  "No fear," Uncle Hank said, with a casual wave of the hand. "As tribal wise man, I will see that all is revealed unto my people."