The Reservoir

by Rosemarie Naramore

  He hesitantly raised his head and met her eyes. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Really? You mean that?”

  “I do.”

  A genuine smile creased his face and he leaned in and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, but full of promise.

  Suddenly, Holly remembered their friends. She had screamed only moments before, yet, no one had come tearing into the kitchen to check on her. “Zack, where is everybody?” she murmured fearfully.

  Suddenly, his eyes widened with understanding. The twosome turned slowly, frightened of what they might see. Had some ghost appeared and carried their friends off? Holly wondered fleetingly, but dismissed the notion as quickly as it had come. She was being ridiculous. Her friends were fine.

  Her friends were fine. Daniel was in the recliner, somehow having managed to pull it back into its reclining position. Holly couldn’t help wondering how he’d managed it, and if he’d done irreparable damage to a chair that was already on its last leg. Niqui and Kendall had retrieved blankets from one of the bedrooms and had spread them out on the floor. The two were currently lying parallel to one another, only inches apart and a few feet from Daniel’s chair. Holly couldn’t blame them for wanting to stay close to each other.

  “I can’t believe they managed to fall asleep,” Holly said with wonder.

  “I’m glad,” Zack said, giving an audible sigh of relief. “Daniel needs his rest and…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t feel much like rehashing our ghostly encounter with them right now.”

  Holly gave him a hesitant glance. “Do you mind talking with me about it?”

  “Of course not,” he told her.

  He took her hand and together they walked back into the kitchen. “I need to clean up this mess,” he said, gesturing toward the broken glass on the floor beside the sink.

  “I’ll get it,” Holly said, rising to retrieve the broom and dustpan.

  “No, I’ll get it. I made the mess. I’ll clean it up.”

  Holly sat down at the dinette table and watched as he pulled the broom and dust pan from a small pantry. He first picked up the largest pieces of glass with his fingers, carefully avoiding the razor sharp edges. He suddenly glanced up and frowned. “This isn’t glass.”

  “Nope. That plate’s actually supposed to be unbreakable. The commercial’s tout it as indestructible. Guess they’re wrong.”

  “Huh,” Zack muttered, and then swept the smaller pieces into the dustpan and dumped it into the trash below the sink, finally giving the dustpan a good tap against the trash receptacle. He rose up, and Holly didn’t miss the apprehensive glance he sent toward the window. He paused briefly, and Holly could see he was surveying the property out front.

  “See … anything?” she asked.

  “Uh, no, nothing,” he said, the relief evident in his voice. After putting the broom and dustpan away, he crossed the room and took a chair beside her. “How’s the foot?”

  “Oh, it’s fine.”

  Wordlessly, Zack rose again, strode into the living room, and retrieved the Tylenol he’d left beside Daniel’s chair. He uncapped it and tipped out two tablets. “Here. Your foot’s going to throb if you don’t take them.”

  She waved off his concern about her foot, but took the Tylenol when he insisted. She settled into the chair, taking a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves. Zack suddenly rose and grabbed a soda.

  “Are you sure you want the caffeine?” Holly asked him. “Didn’t you say you probably won’t do much sleeping as it is?”

  He only shrugged in response and then reached across the table to take her hand. She realized he was as frightened and on edge as she was. She hated to bring up the ghost—hated to add fuel to the fire of their fear, but they really needed to discuss what they had seen.

  Was there a logical explanation for the ghostly form? Had the trees cast unearthly shadows on the dock? Was something reflecting off the water? Was a large bird hovering over the dock?

  When Holly presented Zack with each possible scenario, he rejected each like a goalie deflecting a ball. He recognized she was desperate to find an explanation, one that didn’t lend credence to Daniel’s supernatural theory, but in his gut, he knew what they’d seen and he knew what it was. And he knew, so did Holly.

  “Maybe one of the neighbors happened to walk down to the dock,” she suggested hopefully. “Maybe a tourist got confused and didn’t realize this is private property. It could happen…”

  “Show me a tourist who can levitate and make her hair jut out of her head like that, and I’ll show you a…”

  “Dead tourist,” Holly said wanly.

  Zack laughed without humor. “What do you think she wants?”

  “Who?” she said obtusely, and Zack laughed. He squeezed her hand and chuckled at her attempt at a joke. “I wish I knew what she wants,” Holly muttered. “And, why was she praying?”

  Zack shook his head in puzzlement, his brows drawn low over his eyes. “I don’t think she was praying, exactly. It was more a gesture—you know, like she was imploring us to help her.”

  “Zack, that’s what Daniel said! He insisted she needed his help. Remember?”

  He nodded, but soon shook his head uncertainly. “What could a ghost possibly want from us?”

  Holly shrugged this time. “And what’s she doing in the water?”

  “Maybe she drowned,” he speculated.

  Holly’s eyes widened. “Or … maybe somebody killed her and disposed of her body in the reservoir!”

  Chapter Eight

  Holly tossed and turned as she lay on the floor in the living room. She and Zack had spread out two blankets, side-by-side, like Niqui and Kendall had done earlier. Holly knew her mother wouldn’t approve of her sleeping so close to Zack, but it couldn’t be helped. She was terrified and needed her friends within close proximity. All of them. The fact that Zack held her hand across the divide between them served to quell her rising panic in a way nothing else or no one else could.

  Despite the warmth of the late summer evening, she was freezing. A frightening thought struck her. Had the temperature suddenly plummeted because the ghost had entered the cabin? Isn’t that what always happened on television? A ghost in the room equated to a cold room. Terrified by the prospect, Holly bolted upright. Her hand slipped from Zack’s grasp.

  She glanced around her frantically, groping for the flash light she had stowed beside her. Unable to find it, she nearly cried out, but she somehow managed to stifle the noise by biting down on her lower lip. It wouldn’t be fair to wake her friends, who thankfully, were getting a good night’s rest.

  She turned toward Zack, surprised to see he had propped himself up on one elbow and was watching her. She could just make out his heavily-lidded eyes in the dark.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. I can’t manage to fall sleep.”

  Holly sighed. “I can’t find my flashlight.”

  “Do you need it?” he asked. “Do you need to go to…?”

  “No,” she said, glad he hadn’t seen her face turn red. “Something scared me. That’s all.”

  “That’s all, huh?”

  She watched his face, attempting to read him, but the darkness veiled his expressions. What little light there was danced off the planes of his handsome face, creating a fascinating study in blacks and muted grays. Holly found herself entranced by the beauty of his long lashes as they cast shadows on his cheekbones.

  “What are you staring at?” he asked her, his voice husky with fatigue.

  “You.”

  “Oh, yeah?” His voice sounded slightly lighter.

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me what scared you,” he urged in a gentle voice.

  She shrugged and he took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Me? Did I scare you? Do I snore? Talk in my sleep? Did I try to take a bite out of your neck?”

  Holly gave a ner
vous chuckle. “Just what we need. Another blood sucker in the room,” she muttered.

  Zack gave her a perplexed glance. “What?”

  “Each and every one of those mosquitoes humming around us is a tiny blood sucker,” she pointed out, slapping her hands in a futile effort to keep them at bay. “Stupid broken screens.”

  “Try not to think about the mosquitoes,” he urged, sending shivers up her arm when his thumb began working slow circles on her palm.

  Holly struggled to keep her wits about her. “Uh, I thought you said you weren’t sleeping before,” she reminded him. “If you weren’t sleeping, how could you snore or … talk in your sleep?” She smiled. “Or take a bite out of my neck?”

  “I’m a multitasker. Holly, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  “What’s right?” she quipped. “I mean, really, what’s right about this trip so far.”

  “I can think of two things,” he said. “You … and … me.”

  Holly couldn’t force back the smile from her lips.

  “You’re smiling…” he said in a sing-song voice. “Now tell me, what frightened you?”

  “I got really cold all of a sudden, as if…”

  “It gets cold up here at night,” he said. “Even during the summer.”

  “Oh,” she said with relief. “I figured the ghost had decided to join our slumber party.”

  “If that were the case, you would have heard the sound of a diesel truck engine roaring to life…”

  “Yeah, and I’d be on the seat beside you.”

  “Where else would you be? I’d never leave without you,” he said matter-of- factly. “Are you cold now?”

  She shivered. “Yeah. I don’t know why. I have plenty of blankets.”

  Suddenly, Zack rose slightly and pulled her close, settling her body against him. He wrapped a strong arm around her and whispered in her ear, “Extenuating circumstances. Your mother will just have to understand.”

  Holly felt her heart tumble, and his warm breath against her cheek sent sensations fluttering against her nerve endings. But admittedly, these sensations were far more conducive to restful slumber than abject terror. Well, maybe…

  ***

  Holly and Zack heard the sounds of voices in their respective sleep states. In Holly’s semi-awake state, she wondered, who do those voices belong to? Girl ghosts? When she felt a kick against her foot, she stirred and muttered a protest. Had the ghost entered the cabin and kicked her? It wasn’t a very polite thing to do, even for a ghost.

  It was a ridiculous idea, contemplating a ghost’s manners, or the lack thereof, but she just wasn’t thinking straight. She hadn’t slept well at all, despite Zack wrapping her in his protective embrace. Zack was tall, muscular, and strong, but according to him and Daniel, that girl ghost had a grip of steel.

  Holly’s thoughts were a muddled mess, until a second kick brought some measure of clarity to her brain, particularly when the kick connected with her wound.

  She bolted upright and clutched her foot. “Owww!”

  Zack bolted upright. He glanced around frantically, and then his eyes lighted first on his friends, and then back to Holly. He gave her a tired, loopy grin.

  “Dudes!” Niqui cried, “what’s going on here?”

  “You two didn’t…?” Kendall murmured, letting the implication of her words hang in the air.

  “Of course not!” Zack said testily, quick to defend Holly’s honor. “Holly was scared, and frankly, so was I. While you all drifted off to La-La land like this place is some sort of ghost-free zone, we had a semi-close encounter with Daniel’s dead girlfriend.”

  “Wha—!” Daniel cried from his place at the dinette table in the kitchen. “You saw her? You believe me!” Daniel charged into the living room and stood at Zack and Holly’s feet. “You really don’t think I’m crazy anymore?!”

  Zack ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, we believe you.” He stuck out a hand toward Daniel, who accepted it. They shook hands, Daniel watching Zack quizzically. “Congratulations, son, you’re not crazy.”

  Zack rose from the floor then, doing a quick side-to-side stretch, before reaching for Holly’s hand. “Did you manage to get any sleep?” he asked her, pulling her up in an easy motion.

  “More than I would have if…”

  “Zack hadn’t wrapped you in his tender embrace,” Kendall cut in, failing to keep the displeasure from her voice.

  Holly briefly watched her friend, attempting to read her. Sometimes it was hard to gauge Kendall’s true feelings. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time or the inclination to try right now. Courtesy of Kendall’s kick to her foot, it was throbbing and now bleeding through the bandage. “Shoot!” she muttered. “I’m going to get a shower and clean up my foot.”

  “How did that happen?” Kendall said, her eyes widened in stunned surprise at the sight of the injury.

  “You just did it when you kicked her,” Zack said. “You probably shouldn’t go around kicking people.”

  “Holly, I’m so sor—”

  She waved off the apology. “You didn’t do it. I stepped on a broken plate.”

  “When?” Daniel asked, and Holly was glad to see he looked and sounded like his old self again.

  “We’ll tell you all about it after Holly and I get ready,” Zack told them. He turned to her. “Need any help getting to the bathroom?”

  She shook her head and hobbled toward the back porch.

  “I need to get something from my truck,” Zack said, and jogged off.

  Their friends glanced at one another, eyes narrowed in speculation. They sensed the shift in their friends’ relationship, and weren’t sure how they felt about it. They knew as well as Holly that it could alter the smoothly functioning dynamic of the group if things didn’t go well.

  “I’ll start cooking breakfast,” Niqui said, spurring the others into action.

  “I’ll help,” Kendall said.

  “And I’m … going down to the lake,” Daniel said.

  “Daniel, no!” Niqui cried.

  “I don’t get you, Daniel,” Kendall groused. “Why would you go down there, considering how scared you were yesterday? Need I remind you, you were fully convinced you’d lost your mind until a few minutes ago. Frankly,” she added drolly, “we were pretty convinced you’d lost your mind.”

  “Well, news flash! I haven’t. Call me when breakfast is ready.”

  ***

  Daniel left the cabin and dropped down the dusty path to the water’s edge. He scanned the surface and saw nothing out of the ordinary. He took a hesitant step onto the dock. His heart began to drum in his chest. “If she had wanted to hurt me, she would have,” he told himself. He repeated the words like a mantra.

  Finally, he managed to work up the nerve to walk to the end of the dock. He stood silently, listening to the soothing sound of the waves as they lapped against the dock and shore. Although it was early, the sun shone bright and the day promised to be warm.

  Daniel glanced out across the lake. Already, a few boats were speeding across the water—some pulling skiers and others pulling single and double-ride towable tubes. A couple small boats dotted the shoreline, anchored, and with anglers fishing over the sides. In another nearby boat, a couple with young children allowed the youngsters to frolic in water Daniel knew to be both deep and … ghost infested.

  He shuddered at the thought of the children encountering the girl in the water. He wanted to warn the couple, but knew that to do so would definitely lead to speculation about his sanity. He envisioned the conversation. Hello, there, folks. Nice day. Hey, you might want to get the tots out of the water, because as it happens, there’s a ghost down there. Turns out too, she has a mighty impressive grip. Those babies of yours might end up fish bait if you don’t pull them out of the water and soon. Have a nice day.

  Nope, probably wouldn’t be in his best interest to have that particular conversation.

  Daniel wondered, had the ghost made herself known to others?
Or had she singled out him and his friends? But if she had shown herself to others, was that perhaps the reason Yale Reservoir wasn’t as crowded as it typically was during mid to late summer?

  Did the locals know anything about a missing girl? Had there been sightings of said missing girl hovering over the myriad docks along the shores of Yale? Would there be a way to have that particular conversation with people? If he framed his questions properly, he felt could obtain information. He was sure of it.

  He inhaled a deep, lung inflating mouthful of air. He promptly sneezed. His allergies had been acting up all summer. He suddenly remembered his allergy pills, left behind on the table beside his bed at home. “Great,” he muttered aloud.

  “What’s great?” Zack said from behind him. “Or rather, what’s not great?—as is indicated by your sarcastic tone.”

  “I forgot my allergy pills.”

  “Shoot, Daniel, don’t you take those things twice a day?”

  He nodded his head. “I’ll manage to live without them.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Zack muttered doubtfully, and then studied his friend’s face.

  “What?” Daniel snapped.

  Zack shook his head and gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t get you. You’re standing out here on this dock as if you’re totally unconcerned about the fact that a girl ghost might suddenly reach up and pull you into the water.”

  Daniel glanced around nervously at the prospect, but remained standing at the end of the dock. He turned to Zack. “Right back at ya.”

  “Good point. But I can’t very well leave you standing here alone, can I?”

  “You would never leave me standing here alone. You’ve never left anyone standing alone. You’re a Boy Scout, Zack. If I jumped off a cliff, you’d jump too and try to beat me to the bottom to cushion my fall.”

  Zack eyed him curiously, and then shrugged his shoulders. “And what are you trying to tell me exactly?”