He refused to budge. His friends prayed desperately that he wasn’t already locked in some sort of deluded, mental state—or on the verge of a breakdown. Could he bring one on by willing it true? Were his fears of developing mental illness a self-fulfilling prophesy?
Zack spoke sternly this time. “Daniel, look at me. We have to talk about what happened out there. Holly and I have some theories…”
Daniel finally brought his face around slowly and met his friend’s eyes. He didn’t speak, but at least Zack had his attention. That had to be good.
“Holly and I wonder if maybe you got caught up in a tree branch out there?”
“What?” Daniel cried, struggling to sit upright and watching Zack through wounded, accusing eyes. He knew they were doubting him. Probably thought he was crazy. Well, he wasn’t. He knew that now. He wasn’t crazy. “Tree branch? There wasn’t any flippin’ tree branch. Didn’t you see her, Zack?”
Zack spread in hands in a gesture of frustrated apology. No. He hadn’t seen any girl. There was no girl. He refused to play into some ridiculous fantasy. He and Holly had developed theories—very real possibilities as to what had happened on that lake. Daniel was talking nonsense. Daniel was talking crazy.
Daniel saw the pity on his friend’s face. He shook his head furiously and swiped at his eyes. “It wasn’t a damn tree branch. It was a girl! She was staring at me.” He shivered, and Kendall hurried to get him a second blanket off the bed. She draped it over him, but he only shrugged it off.
“Daniel…” Holly said softly, moving to join Zack in front of their friend.
Daniel saw the doubt in Holly’s eyes too. “I saw her, damn it! She was looking at me. She was so sad. She was so strong!”
Suddenly, his eyes widened and he leapt from the chair, nearly hitting Holly in the face with his knee. Fortunately, Zack acted quickly and pulled her out of harm’s way.
“Listen!” Daniel cried, but took his voice down several notches. He spoke quietly, measured now. He was in control of himself. “She was so strong.” His eyes narrowed this time with apparent understanding of some truth known only to him at the moment.
“Daniel,” Zack said softly. “What are you trying to tell us?”
“SHE WAS SO STRONG!” he cried, and then broke into a knowing smile. “She could have pulled me under! She could have. But she didn’t. She just kept staring at me. She wanted something from me. She was desperate. She wanted my help! She has unfinished business. You’ve seen the television shows! You’ve seen the movies! That’s it, guys! She has unfinished business and needs my help.”
Daniel’s friends exchanged worried glances at one another. Had he already gone off the deep end, or was he on the precipice? Either way, they had to bring him back.
“Danny Boy,” Zack said softly, rising to his feet and taking him by the shoulders. Listen to yourself. There’s no girl in that reservoir. It’s an impossibility. She would drown. Come on, think, buddy. Please.”
“Damn it, Zack!” Daniel roared. “Aren’t you listening to me? That girl is already dead!”
***
The lengthy silence that followed Daniel’s declaration was interrupted by the ring of the antiquated wall phone in the equally antiquated kitchen. Holly shook herself, to restore some semblance of calm to her mind and body, and then hurried to answer the phone.
“Hello.”
“Hey, honey, it’s Mom. How are you doing?”
“Uh, I’m fine.”
“Honey, you don’t sound fine. Hey, I tried your cell phone earlier. I figured you’d be out on the water.” Curiously, they’d always had service while out on the reservoir, but no service on its backs.
“Mom, I…”
“What?”
“I lost my cell phone. I was taking pictures and it fell out of my hand and into the lake.”
The confession was met with stony silence. Finally, her mother spoke in a stern voice. “You know what this means?”
“I know. I’ll pay for a new one with my own money. I can’t believe it happened either.”
“Well, okay then,” her mother said, apparently satisfied with her daughter’s contrition and willingness to pay for another phone without arguing. “Aside from that, how is everything going? Did your friends arrive all right? You know, I did ask you to call me as soon as everyone arrived.”
“Oh, Mom, sorry. We were so excited to see each other, my memory went by the wayside. I really am sorry.”
Her mother was silent for a moment, probably trying to discern who this obliging girl was at the end of the phone line.
“Well, okay then. I do expect a call every evening. Oh, before you go, since you don’t have a cell phone, give me your friends’ numbers.”
Holly obediently listed the numbers, and then yawned purposefully. “Wow, I think I’m about ready for bed.”
“So you did go boating? I know how it tires you out.”
“Mmmm, yes, sure did. And I’m exhausted.”
“Okay, then, hon, I’ll let you go. Remember, I’m trusting you. Girls in one room, boys in the other. David and Harry say ‘hi,’ by the way.”
“Okay, Mom. Hi back to the boys. Talk to you tomorrow.”
Click.
Suddenly, Zack was at her side. “You handled that well,” he said with admiration in his voice.
To demonstrate just how wrong he was about her reputed calm, she held a hand out to him, and he couldn’t miss the tremor. “I nearly cracked,” she admitted.
He took her hand and held it close to his chest. “We’ll get this sorted out.”
“We will?” she said, smiling tremulously and meeting his earnest gaze. “You do understand your best friend is convinced there’s a dead girl at the bottom of the reservoir? Wait, no, not at the bottom, but floating somewhere near the surface, and sometimes in the shallows, and sometimes in the deepest water, in order to communicate something to unsuspecting visitors. Well, Zack, frankly, I have no interest in meeting this girl.”
“Yeah, I get that. I’m with you on the last part, for sure. I’ll forgo a face-to-face too. But, uh, Holly, come here…”
He still had her hand as he lead her over to the recliner, where Daniel was once again sitting. He was no longer wild-eyed, but instead, calm and apparently about to drift off to sleep. In contrast, Niqui and Kendall looked wide-awake and horribly frightened. They huddled together in a blue plaid chair that had also seen better days.
“What is it?” Holly asked, meeting Zack’s eyes.
“We need you to see something.”
“What?” she asked, puzzled.
“Danny Boy, show Holly your leg.”
Daniel roused himself and stuck his leg out from beneath the blanket. Holly gasped. There was a perfect imprint of a hand on his ankle.
“Oh, my goodness,” Holly said, glancing heavenward for support. She felt her knees go weak. “What could have caused that? Besides a hand, I mean?” Her voice rose with each syllable, until Zack pulled her onto the couch beside him. He draped an arm over her shoulders. She leaned into him for support, without realizing she was doing so.
She felt her whole body trembling with fear. There had to be a logical explanation for that imprint. Surely there was a logical explanation.
“Holly, we need to talk,” Zack said. He urged her up and through the door to the bedrooms. He sat her down on one of the twin beds in the smaller of the two rooms. Shaking with fear, Holly drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them—as if she expected something to reach out from under the bed and grab her legs.
Zack sat down beside her. The bed springs groaned under their combined weights. Zack ignored the sound, but instead, pulled Holly close and offered soothing words. She let him comfort her for a moment, but then she rallied, pulling away from him. There simply had to be a logical explanation for everything that had happened out on the water. There had to be.
“Okay, Zack,” she said, rising to her feet. She felt unsteady for a few seconds, but s
till felt the need to pace. If she engaged in some activity, her mind might possibly clear enough for her to make sense of that hand imprint on Daniel’s leg. Suddenly, an idea came to mind. “Zack, could he have done it to himself? In the shower! That has to be it.”
Of course, that theory didn’t portend well for Daniel’s sanity, but it nullified grabby, ghostly apparitions.
Zack emitted a long, weary sigh. “We considered that, of course. We had him put his own hand against the imprint.”
“And…?”
“He was angry we doubted him.”
“Yeah, okay, but did his own hand match?”
“Not even close. The imprint was too small.”
“Wait. Could one of the girls have left it on him when they were pulling him into the boat?”
Zack had already considered this possibility and tested the theory. He shook his head. “The imprint didn’t match either one of the girls. We compared them. Niqui’s hand was a little too big, and Kendall’s a little too small. Besides, they had a hold of him by his vest. Neither one remembers grabbing his ankle.”
Holly sighed loudly.
Zack raised his own hand, which was much too large to be a contender.
“I don’t know,” Holly mused aloud. “People bruise differently. Maybe Kendall grabbed a hold of his ankle but doesn’t remember in all the excitement. Maybe bruising expands.” She ran a hand through her silky blond hair. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“It’s all good thinking on your part,” Zack said with admiration. “But none of it explains this…”
He held out his arm for Holly to see. Her eye’s widened. There was a perfect imprint of a hand on his wrist. The bruising was deep and already turning black and blue. Holly reached a tentative hand toward the imprint. Was it her hand? She had made a grab for Zack in order to try to help him back into the boat. But she was certain she had grabbed his upper arm, not his wrist.
She held her hand above the imprint, hovering tentatively, afraid to touch it. Finally, she laid it against the imprint, aligning finger with finger, palm to palm. It didn’t match.
It didn’t match.
Chapter Seven
“How’s Daniel?” Holly asked Zack. She was at the kitchen sink, washing their dinner plates. The group had been so wound up over the day’s events, they had nearly forgotten that they hadn’t eaten since lunch time, with the exception of Niqui, who had made a sandwich earlier.
“Daniel’s still pretty uptight, but he’s no longer carrying on about being crazy. Of course, now he thinks the rest of us are crazy for trying to apply a logical explanation to an illogical scenario.”
“You mean a potentially supernatural scenario.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s how he sees it.”
Holly winced. “Poor guy. We’re deluded because we don’t believe him. Zack, that doesn’t sound good—him thinking we’re nuts now. I remember reading somewhere that people who are crazy often don’t have a clue they’re crazy.” Holly paused for several seconds. “Of course, a couple hours ago, Daniel was convinced he was crazy.” She shook her head to clear it. Things were getting confusing. “But, there is the matter of those handprints,” she remembered aloud. “How do we dispute the physical evidence? I can understand Daniel being frustrated with us, considering the writing’s on the wall, er, the handprints are on the ankle and wrist.”
Zack conceded the point of a nod, and sighed heavily. He was silent for a moment, processing. “It’s probably better when a crazy person doesn’t know they’re crazy, if you really think about it.”
Holly shuddered, as if trying to shed the dark cloud of worry that had descended over the group. “Let’s not—think about it, that is. Did you give Daniel some Tylenol tablets? It might help him sleep.”
“He wasn’t eager to take them, but finally swallowed them to get me off his back. Frankly, I took a couple too. I’m doubtful any of us are going to do much sleeping tonight.”
Holly glanced out the kitchen window. Her eyes panned the reservoir. She spied the moon twinkling on the now smooth-as-glass surface. “Wind has died down,” she commented, and then her eyes lighted on the dock. She could just make out the wooden form, with the boat tied beside it. For a fleeting second, she worried about having left the boat out there without having buttoned up the canvas covers, but thankfully, it didn’t look like rain was coming. Earlier, she had believed a storm might be brewing.
She startled when Zack wrapped an arm around her waist.
“Oh, sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She turned her head toward him, noting he had bent toward her and brought his face close to hers. Their eyes linked and a silent communication passed between them. She nearly leaned in and kissed him, but common sense prevailed. If their friends saw them kissing, it would only add another unsettling element to the events of the day.
Holly feared Kendall might also have a bit of a crush on Zack. She had never said so, but sometimes when Kendall liked a guy, she showed it by giving him a hard time. Kendall was forever razzing Zack, so it was likely she had feelings for him.
Sometimes, sorting out who liked whom among friends could be so complicated. It was the primary reason Holly had a strict policy of never dating within her group of close friends. A breakup could potentially signal the end of more than a romance—it could mark the end of a friendship if there were residual hard feelings. But…
She liked Zack and had for a long time. Maybe, just maybe, their solid friendship could withstand a stab at something more even if something were to go wrong.
Holly was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Zack chuckling softly beside her. “Wow, the wheels are definitely turning in that head of yours.”
“Hmmm?”
“Where’d you go just then?” he asked, nuzzling his cheek against hers. He stepped away from her and reached out to gently smooth a tendril of her hair away from her face so he could see her eyes.
She only shook her head in response and smiled. “Nowhere. Are you going to dry these dishes, or what?”
“‘Or what’ sounds more fun,” he quipped, but she silenced him with a warning glance. He chuckled in response and contritely picked up a dish towel. He began drying a plate, glancing out the window as he did. Suddenly, he dropped the plate. It landed with a crack at Holly’s feet, breaking into a hundred sharp pieces.
Holly turned toward Zack. He seemed oblivious to the plate, oblivious to her, but was hypnotized by something outside the cabin. Holly eyed him curiously for several seconds, and then turned to follow his gaze. She screamed without realizing she had.
There was a girl at the dock, but not on the dock. She was actually hovering several feet above it, her hands spread wide. Even from a distance, Holly could see the girl was not a solid form, but instead, a quivering, undulating human-shaped mass of liquid. Her golden locks flowed away from her head, like a gelatinous version of static electrified hair. From this distance, Holly could not see the girl’s eyes clearly, and on some level, was grateful. But when the girl brought her hands in front of her as if praying, Holly took a quick step back, hardly registering the shard of glass that pierced her foot.
She glanced down distractedly, saw the blood, and then came out of her fright-induced stupor. “My foot!” she cried.
Her tone snapped Zack into motion. Thankfully, he was still wearing his tennis shoes, but immediately took note that Holly was barefooted. “Ah, hell!” he muttered, scooping her into his arms in order to prevent her from further injuring herself. “I’m an idiot!” he berated himself as he carried her to the small dinette table nearby and deposited her on a chair.
“Where’s the first aid kit?” he asked, glancing around as if hoping it would suddenly materialize.
“In the bathroom,” Holly told him, and then watched his retreating form as he ran out of the kitchen, through the narrow room, out the back door, and into the weirdly-placed bathroom. He was back in a flash, having already opened the kit.
&
nbsp; He pulled out a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. “This is going to sting,” he murmured with a wince, and then dumped a bit of the disinfectant onto the wound. He followed by dumping more of the alcohol onto his own fingers to sanitize them, and then carefully pulled the shard of glass from Holly’s foot.
Still in shock from seeing the girl, Holly sat quietly. She hardly noticed when Zack dumped more alcohol into the wound, dabbed it with antibiotic cream, and then applied a bandage. “I hope you don’t need stitches,” he muttered worriedly.
“Do you think it might?” Holly asked, catching his gaze.
“It could really go either way,” he said. “I wish we had a butterfly bandage.”
Holly shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine. If need be, we can pick some up from the store.”
“I’m so sorry, Holly,” Zack said, rising and dropping heavily into a chair beside her.
“For what?” she said, watching him curiously.
He shook her head in disgust. “Fat lotta good I was back there,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“What are you talking about?”
“If I hadn’t dropped that plate…”
“Uh, Zack, all things considered, we’re lucky we didn’t drop.” She searched his face. “So … you saw … what … I saw?”
He nodded, his eyes widened in stark terror. “And, all I could do was stand there like an idiot.”
“I did too,” she said.
“At least you screamed.”
“What does that mean?” Holly said, eyeing him curiously.
“Your voice didn’t abandon you.” He dropped his head in shame.
“So?”
“Everything abandoned me—my voice, my ability to reason, my ability to take a step… I didn’t even register that I dropped that plate—hence, you cut your foot. Yeah, I’m great in a crisis,” he muttered morosely.
“Yeah, well, it’s not everyday you see a ghost.” She reached for his hand. “Besides, you are great in a crisis. You’ve proven it time and time again. If you’ll remember, when Daniel was in the water, screaming for help, you jumped in to save him without any thought for your own personal safety. You didn’t even hesitate. Zack, I’d say you’re great in a crisis. Frankly, during any crisis, I’d want you by my side.”
The Reservoir Page 5