Quarry Lake

by Kelson Hargis

  Chapter 5: Quarry Lake

  “Virgil Elmore?” She said beside him in the Jetta, periodic trees breaking the sunlight of early morning filling the car as she examined a sheaf of papers. “You're sure, you're okay to drive?” she said, placing her hand on his thigh. A long overdue warmth radiated from it into his groin and chest.

  “Yeah,” he said with a big smile, Sharon matching it.

  “You look much better.” She said before checking a digital camera and sound recorder. Whit gazed upon her a bit longer than recommended for the drive, causing her to look back.

  “What?” she said with a laugh, snapping a picture of him.

  “This isn't about Sarah or even you now you know” she said convincing herself as much as him. She continued, “This is bigger than us. This could be huge. If something really is there then we owe the world proof. People need to know about these things.”

  He glanced over at her smiling, shaking his head, relieved more by hearing another live person's voice instead of the dead.

  She grinned back... “And I fully expect any and all distribution rights to all evidence.”

  He said, “I've got all of the evidence I need.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “But there'll be books, an internet site, and guest spots on all the ghost shows.” She shuttered as if already exasperated by it all. “I just can't believe this guy's frontage is almost a mile away from the lake. I don't know what I'd do with over six hundred acres. Do you?”

  Whit shook his head, whistling. “Out of site out of mind I guess,” he said.

  “We're almost there.” She said. “Pear road should be coming up on the right, head down it... He has to make it out there sometimes though. How else did he find you? The police report reads that he's the one that called them out here to his place.” She finished.

  He said, “You're excited” with another grin. She matched his with a sly one, hitting his shoulder.

  “I just can't pass up a good mystery,” she replied, head swiveling as a group of Emus behind a barbed wire fence came into view.

  An enormous pole barn, Quonset hut, and opulent old home grew in their view on the right. Hundreds of acres of corn tall with the season spread out endlessly to their left.

  “God it's beautiful,” she said.

  Whit pulled into a long, gravel drive marked by a brick mailbox with the numbers they were searching for on it. Two black dogs worn by a life lived outside ran up to the car, barking incessantly. Whit hesitated to get out.

  “—You gon’na let a couple of mangy dogs scare you off after what you've been through?” she said, immediately getting out.

  The dogs sniffed her diligently as he followed suit. They came around the Jetta inspecting him as well.

  “Guinness! Dugan!” some unseen voice shouted at the Black Lab, mutts from afar. They took off passed an old Ford pickup with oversized tires, a bed full of feed, rolled wire fencing, and steal stakes, disappearing into the Quonset hut.

  A stocky, short man with a blue plaid shirt, worn khakis, boots, and leather fedora emerged from the wide double doors of the Quonset hut. He instantly reminded Whit of a late forties Hollywood star with a pencil thin, black mustache, deep, blue eyes, and a red bandana around his neck. He actually even had a six gun hanging high and squat from his belt. His ruddy, dirty tan, sun weathered face and disposition conjured images right out of the Gable, Monroe movie, “The Misfits” for him.

  “Lost?” he said casually wiping his hands on the sides of his khakis.

  “Not really.” Whit said, causing an anticipating glance from Sharon. “Are you Virgil Elmore?” Whit said a little more accusingly than he wanted.

  “Yeah,” was Virgil’s reply. After a moment of awkward silence then, “Wait a minute... “Oh!” he said, walking toward them hand extended. “You're the trespasser.”

  “I guess so,” said Whit, taking his hand. Virgil offered a congenial smile while switching handshakes from Whit to Sharon.

  “Look...” he said after a long moment of genuine reflection causing Whit a moment of unexpected sympathy. “I didn't press any charges after learning who you were. I mean, your daddy used to come out a lot and I never said nothing. I am real sorry about what happened but it wasn't my doing. I've done all I can. I can't control everybody you know; it's a big place.”

  Whit, astonished by Virgil’s honesty was speechless.

  Sharon said, “Mister Elmore, we're a little more interested in what happened to Whit when he was out here is all,” putting on her Podunk librarian charm.

  “Hell if I know.” He said, smiling at Whit. “There was a crowd of crows all over you, circling, pecking you. Swooping onto the property here,” he said removing his fedora, waving it over the land as if that was where it happened. “Shit. I thought something got a hold of one of my Emus when I saw them circling over you like that. ...Weird” he said, placing his hat back on his head.

  Whit noticed that, for his advanced age, he had little gray hair. Virgil was becoming more mysterious by the minute.

  Whit caught another knowing glance from Sharon whom he'd shared everything with by now including the “crow squaw story” as she called it.

  “Had you seen flocks of crows out here like that before?” Sharon asked.

  Virgil just shook his head after a reflective moment.

  “Look, sorry but these birds ain't going to feed themselves folks and I really don't know nothing other than what I've already said—”

  Sharon cut Virgil off with that twinkle in her eye, she could use on any man. “—We understand Mister Elmore. I guess what we're really getting at is we'd like your permission to go back out there and poke around—”

  “—Na” he said with a shake of his head steeling back the conversation. “I think there's been enough of that for a whole lifetime...”

  Whit, well versed in pain by profession, recognized the genuine kind in Virgil's expression, deepening his empathy for him.

  Virgil took their silence as invitation, “...I just don't understand the goddamned infatuation of it all. I'm always finding beer cans and condoms out there. I'm always chasing kids off.”

  Whit noticed Virgil turn his glance from him, pinching his brow in guilt with that one.

  “People finally stopped dumping their shit there after decades of it when I put the fence up. But I still find sections torn off the posts now and then.”

  Sharon was less patient than Whit, “Kids love a good mystery Mister Elmore. I mean why be so mysterious about it. We couldn't find you, just a Living Rock Limited. You're almost a mile from the quarry. People don't even know, its private property—”

  “—Yeah they do!” he said removing the hat, waving the inside at them again as if it held his thoughts. “There are signs everywhere” he finished with an arrogant grin.

  Sharon actually blushed as he continued with her against the ropes now. “This is Living Rock Limited. I'm the third generation owner,” Virgil waved the hat over all they could survey. “And it's my privacy... Now good day ma'am.”

  Virgil placed his hat back on his head, abruptly turning to go about his chores as if they'd already left.

  She whispered “Go ahead...” to Whit. He looked baffled. “Do to him what you did to me,” she whispered again.

  “It doesn't really work like that. They have to come to me. Not vice versa.” He said.

  “Do you want it to stop?” She shouted at Virgil. He paused just as exasperated as her.

  “This? Yes.” He said turning to them.

  “Everything,” she retorted.

  Virgil said, “That would be a damned miracle.”

  “I will do everything within my power to stop these kids from coming out here if you just let us go back there one last time for a little while. And believe me. That is a lot,” she said.

  He started strolling back to them.

  Sharon continued reeling him in, “I know every school kid within a sixty mile radius practical
ly by name. I run the only library in the county.”

  “I know who you are,” Virgil said, looking away.

  “I have seen some of them go through all twelve years of school.” She said. “And I can do it while protecting your privacy.”

  Virgil shook his head, wincing, then, “Follow me in your little V-W there. I'll send you on out the other side after you pay your respects or whatever.”

  Sharon, almost giddy, started for the Jetta.

  “No,” he said to her. “You ride with me. I want to hear how you plan on doing that.”

  Sharon quickly briefed Whit upon arriving at the lake. She'd invented an awareness campaign for Virgil on the fly. There would be posters with a picture of the lake and how dangerous it was at the library and schools where she knew everyone. It wouldn't be damning, or blame oriented, or tied to Virgil in any way. Virgil opened up to her as well. He related how his grandfather, not knowing anything about quarrying, jumped on the property for practically nothing, believing there was quartz there which was in demand then for glass windows.

  “The most plentiful goddamned mineral on Earth and he never struck it,” Virgil had said. And his grandfather went mad and broke trying. He eventually got some “Chinamen” killed along with him, blasting and digging well into his old age.

  Virgil's father found out it was terrible ground for farming too when he inherited it after WWII, well before the boom of agricultural science. Then right out of high school, Virgil convinced him to get into the livestock business instead of selling it off.

  Whit strolled over to Virgil on his way back to his pick up after inspecting the fence while Sharon related the story of the drive.

  “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  Virgil just smiled at him, apparently relaxed after a few minutes with Sharon. “Why haven't you done anything here other than the fence?”

  Virgil thought for a moment, then, “You ever have a dog growing up?”

  Whit nodded.

  “Your parents ever make you clean up after it?” Virgil said, smiling.

  Whit matched it despite himself, about to relate something until, Virgil cut back in.

  “Then you know there are some piles of shit you just can't clean up, trying just smears them out, making matters worse.”

  Whit nodded toward the lake when responding. “You could fill it or something. There's got to be a way.” He said.

  “Be my guest,” Virgil said, the smile dropping from his face as he tossed wiring and pliers back into the bed of his pick up. “The estimate was fifty thousand dollars thirty years ago when you lost your brother.” He said with the same knit of his brow when bringing it up before, crossing his arms, leaning against the pickup bed.

  Whit retrieved Sharon, guiding her to where he saw the shadows, under Virgil's watchful eye from the side of his pick up. He wondered about the light unsure if it would happen again so much later in the morning. Sharon eyed the woods, producing the digital camera, snapping pictures.

  “I'm not really picking anything up,” she said. “A lot of ghost hunters will bring along a medium to get them stirred up. Or they provoke them—not sure that's a good idea though after...you know.” She finished, eying him.

  Whit, grasping her point, thought about how he felt the morning it happened. He was exhausted then having not slept very long.

  “Whoa, whoa!” she said, holding the camera up for him to see.

  There might have been the outline of someone there in the woods. He wasn't as sure. But he kept meditating on that morning and the way he felt anyway, making himself feel vulnerable and open.

  “Okay,” Sharon said, “Keep it up. I swear, I'm picking stuff up Whit. This is amazing!” She produced the small recorder. “If you wish to communicate with us you can. Just speak into where this little light is on this recorder and we'll be able to hear you.” She said to no one.

  “Awe shit!” came a reply.

  They turned startled by Virgil sneaking up on them. “You can't be serious.” He said, once again, genuinely pained. “I trusted you Sharon. I thought you were taking pictures for what you were talking about. I've had kooks like you out here before. You're just going to draw more of them like flies!”

  “Virgil—” She said as he cut her off.

  “—Get the hell out of here. This isn't what I agreed to.” Then after a moment of her ignoring him, “give me that damn camera!” he said one hand extended.

  “Take it” she said with a side glance at Whit who noticed Virgil's other hand resting on the butt of his gun.

  Virgil's gaze met Whit's and he removed his hand from it, pointing at them now.

  “You can't take pictures on my property without my permission. I'm calling the police.”

  “Go ahead” Sharon said, “I'll have them uploaded to my email account on my phone by the time they get out here.”

  “Really?” he said with the same triumphant grin as before while producing a cell phone.

  Sharon ignored him, talking to the dead like small children Whit thought as Virgil thumbed keys.

  “This device can pick your voices up. Don't let the bad man scare you. Please speak to us,” she said.

  “Paul,” Virgil said speaking into the phone now, “it's Red, which of your deputies are closest to the Eastern entrance of my property right now, by the lake?”

  Sharon gazed at him in disbelief.

  Whit grabbed his shoulder spinning him. “What!?” he said.

  Virgil just gazed up at him confused, his free hand back at his gun.

  “Red?” Whit said.

  “It's none of your damn business.” Red said, raising the phone again. “Okay. Well, send his ass out here with the cherries spinning! I got a couple of kooks again. One just laid his hands on me…yeah!” he said into the phone.

  “It's your tan—the Native American in you.” Whit said without understanding why.

  Red lowered the cell phone astonished a moment then, smiling.

  “Couldn't find out who I was, huh?” He said. “Your tricks ain't working on me boy.”

  Then it happened: The same lyrical sound Whit heard before was back. His head buzzed. Primal emotions of anguish, hostility and loneliness welled in him. He gave Red a hard shove.

  “You know she's out here!” he said pointing back out at the lake.

  “Watch yourself boy!” Red said until Whit's words dawned on him. He tried smiling, a tremor in his head becoming visible. “I don't know who you mean—”

  “—Sarah!” Whit yelled, cutting him off. And he might've just as well slapped Red who stumbled backward a little toward the truck.

  “You found something of her's and didn't tell anyone...” He continued shocking Red further.

  “I don't know what the hell you're talking about,” Red said.

  “Her bicycle that she rode here with her shoes in the basket,” Whit said.

  “Whit...” Sharon called, approaching them.

  “...And you saw her ghost after she drowned too, in the pink and white checkered swim suite, later but when you were still young.”

  Whit continued marching toward Red, backing him closer to the truck; Red’s hands shaking slightly now like his head.

  “Whit!” Sharon yelled, marching up between them with tears in her eyes. She extended the small recorder, “Is this her?” she said.

  “Stop!” rang out the faint but distinguishable voice of a girl from it.

  Red fell against the truck, dropping the phone in shock. Whit heard someone on the other end shouting for Red. Distant sirens began growing closer. Red clutched his left arm now, nearly breathless.

  “I didn't...I didn't do anything to her, I swear. I didn't do anything wrong...”

  “No? You let her family go on believing that she was missing when you knew she died in your father's lake.” Uncontrollable anger began welling up in Whit. “There weren't any fences, or signs, or anything else then was there!”

 
“Whit...” Sharon said, placing her hand on his shoulder.

  “Your worthless father was afraid of losing everything and threw the bike and shoes into the lake, didn't he? Then he ‘knocked some sense into you' when you protested. And for decades since people have wondered out here to die. That's why you hide behind your grandfather's company. You're scared to death someone will find out. Well they have. Sharon's her niece!”

  Sharon yelled, “Whit! Look at him. Look. You need to leave him alone. Mister Elmore...?”

  She moved to Red, steadying him as he slid against the truck, sweating and breathless to the ground, clutching his chest.

  “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

  “Don't Red, it's okay, we know it wasn't you,” she said tears falling from her eyes now. “Just relax; it's going to be okay. Just breathe deeply and relax. Okay...?”

  He did, then...

  “How does he know? How does he know all about me and her?”

  “Because he talks to her, Red.” Sharon's awe with the whole ordeal glowed in her face as if she had been given something that she needed deeply.

  Red's eyes rolled in his head as his breath became more labored. Sharon said, “It's not the end Red. It's not the end for my mother, or husband, for any of us. They're there. He talks to them.”

  Whit turned from them, an anger and hopelessness not his own still burning inside him. He gazed out over the lake to clear his head and saw... John poised upon the highest rocky outcrop there. He glared at Whit, arms folded, head back, with the same stare he had when making Whit promise to stop it 'no matter what.' The whole world Sharon and Red inhabited bled away from Whit until he felt a chasm of darkness extending out behind him. He saw the writhing shadows of the woods on either side just as before, no, more clearly than before. He heard voices reverberating off of the lake. All of them seemed to be hanging back afraid to approach when he was so close to Red and Sharon.

  He began walking toward the fence as if drawn by gravity. Shadows seemed to change their caste drawing nearer to his approach despite the angle of the sun. Whit continued until at the fence. He glanced back to see if Sharon was looking. But she was still engrossed with Red. He quietly climbed the fence, easing himself down onto the other side. He stooped, scrawling something in the loose dirt on the edge with his finger.

  The shadows left the confines of the wood moving along the ground toward Whit like running water until casting a pall over him. Whit looked out over the lake as the sound of a siren grew deafeningly close then stopped abruptly. Then as if the finality of silence signaled something, he dove into Quarry Lake. Sharon turned abruptly from Red upon hearing the splash.

  “Whit?” She said.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  A county deputy appeared, handgun leveled at Sharon, shouting, “Back away from him!”

  “I'm trying to help,” she said while doing so.

  The deputy moved to Red, placing a hand on his neck. He then spoke into a radio mic hanging from his shoulder, “We're going to need an ambulance and back up.”

  “Whit?” Sharon called again, jogging to the fence around the lake this time, gripping it.

  “Hey!” The deputy called after her.

  She glanced down seeing something scrawled in the dirt there, "Sorry. Only way to stop it. See you on the other side."

  Sharon glanced back up noticing a faint wake toward the center. “Whit!” She screamed, climbing the fence in earnest.

  The deputy reached her, grabbing her legs just as she crested it.

  “Hey! No way lady!” he yelled.

  “Someone's in there! Whit's in there!” she screamed, becoming breathless as she vainly struggled against the deputy.

  He pushed her to the ground, his knee in her back, glancing out over the lake with a grim shake of his head.

  “Where in the hell is my back up? Some crazy jumped into Red's god forsaken lake!” he shouted into his shoulder mic even as sirens grew louder.

  “Whit! Don't! ...Sarah!” she screamed, going hoarse under the pressure of the deputy's knee as he struggled to cuff her.

  Whit thought he caught the faint sound of Sharon calling out to Sarah as he struggled to go deeper before losing his nerve. A faint regret for never swimming after John drowned wafted over him. He clawed through decaying metallic objects in the rust murky water, pulling himself deeper. He dislodged something intricately jagged and large; it swept over him, snagging his clothing and skin, pushing him onward down the sloping, rocky sides. He struggled to see in the murk. Images of John alive and dead filled his mind. He suddenly knew it was John's struggle to free his ankle from an ancient farm shareplow that dislodged it, dragging him to the bottom.

  Whit panicked, struggling to free himself as his lungs burned. He felt Sarah's soft hands on him. He felt another grasp somehow understanding it was John's. A thin, crystalline brightness surrounded by flecks of light grew in the gloom below. He thought of the Milky way the night, he followed John. Red's grandfather had finally struck quartz just before burying himself alive. Darkness like disturbed soot swirled about him becoming the cold hands of all the others, caressing him, welcoming him. They clung on to sink toward the light with him eagerly anticipating the dreams to come as he grayed out, surrendering once again to the sweet, cool darkness.