Black Water

by Jon Fore

  Ethan rushed to her as he pulled off his flannel. He began wiping the black from her face as it mixed with the reddish color of the child’s blood. When he uncovered her mouth, she sucked in a huge breath and screamed in pain, her eyes squinted shut against the invading blackness.

  Shannon made a huffing sound that ended in a short scream. Ethan looked to her and saw another of the appendages extending just in front of her. Her eyes were wide in shock and her face twisted in agony. The arm thing suddenly drew itself back into the lake with a soft plopping sound, and Ethan could see her insides begin to ease out of a clean slash across her lower abdomen.

  She looked at him with a grave sadness and then dropped to her knees. The impact forced her intestines out with a rush as she fell backwards, her legs bending painfully. This time, Ethan screamed, completely drowning out the crying child lying before him.

  “Leave them, shit head! We have to get out of here!” the bum screamed at him.

  “Come… Ethan…”

  Chapter 35

  Ethan lifted the child and carried her the short distance to Shannon. She lay prone, bent at the knee, and her breath ran in and out in short bursts. Her hands held back the urging tide of her innards and her eyes had rolled backwards, deep into their sockets so only the whites showed. Ethan laid Kayla down beside her and began rummaging his pack for more water.

  “Leave them!” the bum shouted, becoming less hysterical but more desperate.

  As Ethan began pouring water over Shannon’s draining insides, a hissing sound drew his attention back to the black lake. There, a tendril began to sprout from its darkness followed by more wispy lengths of black that sprung up randomly around the surface of the lake. The chaotic twisting lengths made the lake appear as a large weed bent to its own strangling growth, and Ethan felt like a fragile plant about to succumb to the thing’s ravenous life. The hole through which the Culture had spoken was now gone, given over to these new abominable extensions.

  Even with the swamping fear, Ethan turned back to his task. He pulled the gallon jugs from his backpack to fish from it a shirt he had packed from the drug store. With this, he gently wrapped Shannon’s spilled organs and placed them on her stomach, again soaking the bundle in water.

  “I really wanted to have children, Ethan. Maybe just one, a little girl…”

  “Shannon, try and stay still. I will get you out of here.”

  “I wanted to name her Kylie… She would have had blonde hair…”

  “Shannon, don’t try to talk. I can’t give you anything to drink.”

  “Behind you!” the bum’s voice called from the edge of the lake.

  Ethan spun around to see the tendrils drifting towards him, searchingly. They whipped about in slow motion, twisting and overlapping each other like toiling snakes. The walls had run clean of the black coating, the Culture having pulled itself together to extend in this searching way. He instinctively tried to step back, but his heel bumped into Shannon, a corpse-like reminder of what held him.

  “The tunnel! We can escape the cave now! Run!” the bum shouted as he backed away from the searching appendages.

  “Kayla, can you walk?” Ethan asked as he began to gather Shannon in his arms.

  “I can’t see! I want my daddy!” she sobbed, still clearly in pain. Her nose and lips had stopped bleeding, but her face had begun to swell, and Ethan was sure she was turning dark around her eyes and mouth, but it was difficult to tell with the black water still there.

  “Leave them!” the bum demanded savagely.

  Ethan felt something grab onto him, wrap itself tightly around his thighs. He released Shannon and grabbed at the thing. It was slimy and bone-chillingly cold, black beyond the glare of his flashlight. He began to tear at the thing as it grew taunt, ripping fists full of the ilk, when another found his ankle. He dropped his flashlight and began using both hands to tear at the thing, but it yanked his foot out from under him, and he fell hard to the stone floor.

  “You stupid fuck!” the bum screamed, having gone back to his former hysterics.

  The lake began to draw him in like some slow angler, Ethan securely hooked. He clawed with his hands at the rough floor, searching desperately for a handhold. His fear ran towards his instinct to survive, and his mind ran clear of thought.

  The filthy man that had plagued him since childhood rushed the glistening tentacles and began tearing at them himself, trying to free his host lunatic from the depth of Black Water Lake. The surreal fact that the bum had made physical contact with Ethan’s reality disturbed him back into thought as his clawing hands found one of the jugs of bleach.

  He worked the top off quickly and splashed it on the two taunt tendrils. They immediately parted, a popping and hissing reaction burning rapidly in both directions. The Culture shuddered violently and drew itself back into the lake leaving the smoldering lengths of itself on the shore. Ethan watched the other run up and around his body leaving little more than moisture behind. The effectiveness of the bleach stunned him, but he quickly recovered long enough to grab the next jug.

  “Run! Now’s your chance, run!” the bum screamed frantically.

  Ethan was now afraid of the filthy man—not as a child afraid to see the horrors the bum liked to show him, but as a man plagued by another who could now do violence.

  “Ethan, take Kayla and go. I’m not going to make it anyway…” Shannon said as loudly as she could muster.

  “Yes, go!” the bum shouted.

  Ethan uncapped the second jug of bleach and turned towards the lake. If he could get this bleach in there, he might be able to kill the Culture for good. He began to work up the courage to charge the thing, run towards what he so desperately feared.

  The bum understood his intent and stepped between Ethan and the lake. “Don’t even think about it! Just get the fuck out of here before we both die!”

  The bum suddenly surged forward as countless fingers gripped him in their long segmented grasps. The bum’s yellowish eyes burst wide open and he screamed. He suddenly raced towards the lake and vanished beneath the surface.

  Ethan felt a sharp, ripping pain race through his mind. He fell to his knees, his intent lost to the agony of having the bum forcefully torn from him.

  Even with the blinding rage of pain, Ethan was able to keep his grip on the two jugs as he squeezed his eyes against the ache. He knew that the lake would take him next, and in the same violent way. He had to do something now.

  He brought one leg up and heaved one of the jugs of bleach like a World War II soldier storming an enemy trench. The jug tumbled and splashed bleach as it went, but found the surface of the lake as the tendrils began to break the surface once more.

  The jug broke through the surface, and the reaction started again. The lake began to boil and surge around the hole that the jug had made, and the waters pulled together tightly around it. The same acrid stench began to rise from the lake and burn his eyes and nose, but the lake drew tighter and tighter, finally forcing the jug to the surface where it bobbed and rolled in the violence of the reaction. More and more of the bleach gushed from the opening, extending the reaction further and further.

  Ethan finally found hope, hope for survival, hope for freedom, hope for the destruction of this wicked Culture. It gave him the strength to rush the lake with the final jug of bleach and upend it over the surface. He had come just short of entering the lake himself, not being able to see it well without his flashlight, but caught himself at the last step. As the bleach splashed over the membrane-like surface, he was immediate assailed by the acidic steam as it rushed from the water. He closed his eyes tightly and held his breath as the jug jerked up and down from the bleach pouring out from within.

  When it was empty, he quickly returned to the girls, lifted Kayla with one arm, and began to drag Shannon by the collar of her thick coat. Shannon screamed at the pain, but clenched her teeth together and held her voice. The little girl continued to sob, still rubbing at her eyes and mouth with one hand
but holding onto Ethan with the other. It seemed to take forever to bring them to the cave’s opening, and the air continued to become less breathable. His own lungs burning from the acrid vapors, Ethan knew he had to get them out of the cave.

  A wind was forcing its way into the cave through the opening, but to Ethan’s dismay, it was not fresh air, but the same rotted stench of the smog outside. However, it did not burn his lungs; just made it difficult to inhale deeply. He brought Kayla through the opening and leaned her against a boulder near the opening, then returned for Shannon.

  “What’s happening? Ethan, is it over?” she asked weakly, her mouth dry.

  “Not yet; I have to get you to a hospital first,” he replied as he worked his arms under hers. He began to pull her through the wind-swept opening, avoiding the hanging rocks and snagging surfaces. He had to stop twice and readjust the moist package resting on her stomach. She winced and sucked breath each time, but held her voice from screaming.

  When he was free of the cave, he continued to drag her until she was close to the still-burning but dangerously-shallow fire. He returned and brought the sightless little girl to Shannon, then stoked the fire using wood from the other piles that remained unlit. He remoistened Shannon’s wrapped intestines and washed more thoroughly Kayla’s crying face.

  “I’m so thirsty, Ethan. I need something to drink…” Shannon murmured.

  “I can’t give you anything, Shannon. You’re not supposed to drink anything.”

  “Something, please. I am not going to make it, anyway…”

  “Yes, you will,” Ethan said with authority as he placed a moistened cloth in her mouth. “You’re just opened, Shannon; nothing looks damaged. We just have to get everything back in is all. I just have to get you to a doctor.”

  “I can almost see,” Kayla said having finally stopped crying.

  “That’s great, sweetie,” Ethan encouraged. “It will come back in a bit, just hang tight.”

  The smog that had so entrapped them was now rushing into the cave at incredible speed. The Culture seemed to be trying to draw itself back together, perhaps make good its escape. Ethan did not care its intent any longer; he had hurt the thing. Whatever it was, it was a living thing and as apt to be wounded as each of them. He just could not yet start down the mountain to get Shannon to the doctor because visibility was nonexistent, the forest around him obscured by the rushing gray, and any attempt he made would lead to further injury. He would have to wait until the smog was clear.

  “It was evil, wasn’t it?”

  Ethan had returned his thoughts to the bum and the aching rip still present in his mind, the shallow burning along his scalp. “Yeah, Shannon, I think you were right. Whatever that thing is, it is evil.”

  “It’s a virus or a germ, I bet. It had grown unchecked in that cave for so long, evolved beyond God’s intent. I think I might throw up,” Shannon said thoughtfully, her voice clearer now that her throat was wet.

  “You won’t. It’s just the sensation, I am sure,” Ethan said without knowing. “I wonder how it became intelligent, became able to speak like it did,” he pondered as he took her hand into his.

  “I don’t know… I just know it was true evil.”

  “I guess you were right then, yesterday, when you said that stuff about ridding the world of an evil or whatever.” Ethan’s voice betrayed the exhaustion he was trying to conceal.

  “That would make me a martyr, huh?” Shannon asked sadly.

  “No, you’re not going to die. I can already see pretty far; we will start towards the road in just a bit.”

  She lifted her head to look into his face. She could see not only the bone-weary exhaustion on his face but the determination he had to keep her alive. This gave her the hope she needed, and she let her head down to rest once more on the thick collar of her coat.

  Chapter 36

  There were no more votes, no more shared decisions among the Culture or its council but a simple and murderous fight for escape. The burning liquid that Ethan had poured onto it had eaten so quickly into the Culture, killing millions upon millions that the populace fell into hysterics. Where a common respect had been for thousands of years, there now resided self-preserving chaos, and for the first time in the Culture’s ancient memory, violence broke out amongst itself.

  As factions developed around the more strong-willed and quick-thinking, it began to break apart. Each impromptu leader made their own choice and ignored the collective decisions of the elders. This unchallenged government quickly dissolved under this new threat, and the council watched in vain as millions died.

  Deeper and deeper, the Culture pushed, seeking out refuge within the bedrock, seeking a place the hateful, burning fluid would not find it, but always the bleach followed, slaughtering the Culture with its burning. The eternal Culture had finally fallen to ruin, a tale told by its soothsayers for generations, and its escape flawed resulting in its own death.

  * * *

  Even though the smog was now completely gone, the forest was still suffering the vapor’s effects. Ethan finally found two limbs from the dead and rotting forest that were strong enough to bear Shannon. He was able to make up a skidding gurney to place her on and drag her out of the forest.

  Even with the unimaginable pain, Shannon remained in positive spirits, even joking with Ethan about his preparations and their journey down to the lake. Here, he replenished their low supplies of water and remoistened the cloth holding his lover’s insides. They had to remain wet and untwisted if she was to survive this journey, and Ethan meant to see that done.

  Kayla did as she could, and as Ethan asked, wanting nothing more than to help. It was difficult for her to keep up with the man as he almost jogged through the forest, dragging the woman with him. He would stop and wait if she fell too far behind, but that was not often. If she had to run to keep up, she would. She did not want to see the woman die now, not after coming this far, doing so much.

  When they made Mr. Brighton’s home, they found him rocking slowly on his porch in an aged rocker, sipping at more of his lemonade. He regarded them as they tracked through his fallow fields. When they reached the gravel parking area, he stood slowly and hefted the long double-barrel shotgun he had inherited as his father had. “I see you’re back, young man.”

  “We need an ambulance!”

  “What did you do this time?” the old man asked sarcastically.

  “Call an ambulance, God damn you!” Ethan screamed at him as he laid Shannon gently to the ground.

  “Don’t say bad words!” Kayla shouted in her little girl’s voice.

  “We will start with the police…” Brighton trailed off as he reached through the door to the phone hanging just inside. “I told you kids to stay out of the cellar, didn’t I?” he accused as he began dialing on the phone. He brought the handset to his ear for a moment. “The phone’s dead,” he said flatly, not a bit of concern in his voice or eyes.

  “The car! Throw me the keys to the car!”

  “Throw me the keys to the house,” the old man shot back.

  “I don’t have them!” Ethan shouted as he began walking towards Brighton.

  The old man lifted the shotgun and leveled it on Ethan’s face.

  He stopped where he was. “Please! I have to get her to a hospital!”

  The old man stared at him from over the length of the pitted and rusty barrel. He finally began groping again around the edge of the doorframe and tossed Abby’s keys to him. “You’re not welcome here anymore, ya hear? Don’t ever come back here,” Brighton said angrily then stepped back into his house and closed the door on them.

  Ethan put Shannon in the back seat and belted Kayla in the front. He took off like a shot, rushing towards the next town some eighteen miles away. The cop who pulled them over ten minutes later brought an ambulance with his radio and tried to take statements about how Shannon came by her wound and exactly where these strange and dirty people had really come from.

  Kayla, in h
er true innocence, tried to tell the truth and spun as much of the tale as she could in her little voice. The officer just arched his eyebrow at Ethan as she continued. In the end, the officer escorted them both to the hospital where Shannon was already in surgery.

  * * *

  GNS News, Your Global News Source

  Town Dies under Mysterious Circumstances

  Tim Lynn, AP news.

  The small town of Black Water Pennsylvania is no more. The population of this small suburb is either dead or missing. Scientists from three universities have begun investigating the mysterious circumstances that took place and, as of today’s report, cost some 2,815 lives.

  FEMA director Marshal Cummins has promised the full cooperation of Federal resources as well as the National Guard to keep loved ones, looters, and the curious out of the small town as the investigations continue.

  The President said in his speech this morning, “This tragedy, as devastating as it is, must be investigated. The first lady as well as I wish to express our sorrow for this country’s great loss, and ask only that all those families directly affected by this disaster bear with those fine scientists and security forces as they seek out the root of this tragic event.”

  The President continues by saying…

  * * *

  “… and the Prime Minister departed without any further statements,” the petite brightly-garbed woman finished.

  “At a loss for words, was he?”

  “Yes, Paul, the pie gag just took the wind right out of him,” the pretty anchor said with a grin.

  “I bet it did. Now on to more sobering news. The cleanup of the town of Black Water Pennsylvania is almost complete. Scientists seem convinced that some form of virus had run through the town in just a couple of days, killing most everyone, driving others to some wild dementia.