Beneath the Lake Page 26

  Colt is crying again, Ray sees. Her voice begins to crack.

  ‘And when I woke up, he was still there. The door… the door wasn’t even broken. He’d picked the lock. Like a burglar. That’s how intent he was.’

  ‘You don’t have to go through this again,’ Ray says. Bad enough they are walking all night. Mom. She has to endure this too.

  ‘I do, though. I do. I never told anybody this part, not even my psychiatrist. I always said he was just slapping me around.’

  Colt draws a deep breath and wipes her eyes. Ray wants to offer her a break, get her to sit down on the side of the road, but she is moving faster now. It’s fueling her along. Maybe stopping wouldn’t help her at this point. The sky is veined with gold, the few clouds turning silver. Goddamn it, where’s the highway?

  Then he sees it, a few hundred yards ahead and off to the right, in the grass. Not the road, but the shack. The little pointed top of the ranger station. They are very close now. He’s about to point it out to her when Colt resumes her confession.

  ‘My wrists were tied around the toilet base. I was on my stomach and my dress was torn up. I couldn’t breathe very well because my underwear was in my mouth. I thought someone had broken into our home and that Simon was hurt. He must be dead, lying back there in the hall or down in the kitchen. I tried to look back, see his face, the man who was doing this to me. Killing me. That it was rape only crossed my mind later, near the end. I only knew then I was being cut in half. Divided. And I was right about that. Because after that night, part of me went on living our lives, what was left of them, taking Sierra to day care and shopping at D’Agostino’s and Saks and eating lunch with my girlfriends because I had to show them nothing was wrong, and the other part of me was busy doing something else. Not dying. But not living. The other girl, she was preparing to get away, transfering funds without leaving a trail. Covering her tracks. Because I saw it all, what I would do, and how it would be so easy once I did it and left the city.

  ‘He cried afterward. Falling on me in a heap while my blood pooled on the floor. He took the wad out of my mouth and he kissed me and cried and said he was sorry. I’d figured it out before then, of course. The sounds he made. I’d never heard them before, and yet I recognized them. It was Simon, the beast version. The animal inside my husband. He untied me, taking the scarf with him. I never saw that again and I used to imagine him stuffing it down the garbage chute out in the hall. He waited in the bedroom while I showered. He was drinking a glass of scotch there in his black socks and his T-shirt and shorts. Some of the blood was still on him, and I told him so. He looked embarrassed and said, ‘Oh, thanks’, and got up to shower. I checked on Sierra again and she was sleeping. I thought I had been screaming the whole time, but I must not have been. Probably that was best, to keep her away. I went to bed and Simon slept somewhere else in the house that night. He tried to come back a few nights later, to the bed with me, and I said no. Quietly. That was all it took. No. Because he’d gotten what he wanted. And he’d shown me his ugliest self, and there was nothing left to do after that.’

  She adds nothing more to it. Simultaneously, Ray wishes he had met this Simon, so that he could put a face to the monster, and he is glad that he never did, because he doesn’t want it to be any more real than it already is.

  ‘Colette,’ Ray says. ‘Colette. What are we going to do with Colette?’

  ‘It’s okay. I’m okay. I made it out. That life is over now.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Gone forever,’ she says. ‘I sold everything. Even the apartment. Sierra and I have the car, some clothes, and our bank accounts. The rest is history.’

  ‘I wish I had known. I would have come to New York.’

  ‘I know. But I had to do the hard part on my own.’

  ‘So. What happens after this? Where will the two of you start over?’

  Colt looks at him strangely, blinking as if the question had never occurred to her. She looks away, drawing deep breaths, and then offers him a false smile, trying to put on her normal face again. All for his benefit, he can tell.

  Ray is about to invite her to come back to Boulder, to stay with him and Megan, until she figures out the next move, or to make a new, permanent home close to her brother, when he notices the dust. They are only a couple minutes from the ranger station and there is a cloud rolling over the weeds, drifting from the bend in the road. He can hear the engine now, very faint but growing louder, coming closer.

  ‘See that?’

  ‘Whuh?’ Colt is lost in thought, moving slowly again.

  ‘Someone’s coming. Our ride is almost here. We’re going home.’

  Colt raises her weary head and squints into the morning sun. ‘Oh, that’s nice. Our lucky day.’

  Ray crosses the road and takes her arm. He hugs her tightly, holding her tangled hair as he kisses her cheek.

  ‘I love you, Coco. More than I ever said.’

  ‘I know.’ She is rigid in his embrace. Too thin, her arms and back like stretched cables. He wonders if life will ever let her be soft again. ‘I love you, Ray.’

  When they release one another and turn into the sun, the truck has already come clear of the bend, not going fast but rumbling at a steady clip. Its single headlight blinks three times before shutting off. The windshield is grey in the dawn, shading the driver.

  Ray begins to wave his tired arms overhead.

  Colt just stands there, disbelieving or no longer able to care.

  The truck slows. It’s green, faded almost yellow, the color of key lime pie, and when it swerves just a little, sliding on the loose dirt, he catches a glimpse of the brown badge on its door. His eyes dart to the tiny wooden shack off in the weeds, a silver-orange glare of sunlight catching on the dusty window, obscuring that which hangs inside.

  The driver downshifts and edges onto the shoulder. Colt is bent over, hands on her knees, mumbling a thank you to whoever has answered their prayers. Before Ray can find the words to express the trepidation that has crept into his belly and is now firing undiluted primal terror through his nerve-endings, it’s too late.

  The bad ranger is here.

  Dust

  ‘Run,’ Ray tells his sister, before the truck comes to a halt. ‘Go, now.’

  She only stares at him in tired confusion. They have walked all night and buried their mother along the way. Plus a therapy session starring Simon.

  ‘Something’s wrong. I can’t explain it right now, but you need to get away from here, Colt. Go, go!’

  ‘Run?’ she says. ‘You think I can… we need help. I…’

  The truck’s engine turns off. The tracked up dust swirls and spirals low across the road, into the wild grass. The engine ticks and creaks. The nearest trees and bushes, the only places to hide, are several hundred feet across the field.

  ‘He’s bad,’ Ray says in a low voice. The figure behind the windshield is visible now, and seems very small, as if a child has stolen the truck. ‘I don’t have the gun. I can stall him while you get a head start. Please, turn around, leave!’

  She turns her back to the truck and looks at Ray with her sad blue eyes. ‘Why are you doing this? This is our only chance. Please, Ray, don’t make me run.’

  ‘You have to,’ Ray growls, waving at the truck, making a shoo-fly motion. Go away, go away, we don’t need your help. ‘There’s something wrong with him. Always has been. Goddamn, you, Colt, listen to me —’

  The truck door opens with a squeal of metal. Colt turns to have a look. Ray steps around her and stands between the truck and his sister, one hand behind him warning her to stay put.

  A pair of worn-down moccasins settle on the gravel. Dirty white denim cuffs. A hand on the door, pulling himself up and out of the cab. The driver is as short as an elementary school child, four feet nine at most, but he is not a child. He is eighty years old if he is a day, and ninety is within the realm. He is not dressed like a ranger or any other kind of official. His grease-stained chambray shirt is
half tucked and a plain red baseball cap rests on his narrow head. He looks like a man who spent more of his working years selling popcorn at a carnival than enforcing the law. He smiles at them cautiously, squinting one eye, even though the sun is behind him.

  ‘Morn-eeng,’ the fella says, his voice not nearly old enough for the body. ‘How you folks farin’ to-day?’

  ‘Fine, thanks,’ Ray says, studying the pockets and small hands for any sign of a gun or knife. But the old guy isn’t holding anything.

  ‘Didn’t know anyone was campin’ out here. Or maybe you having you-selves an early hike?’

  ‘Our cars broke down,’ Colt blurts, stepping out from behind Ray.

  ‘Wait —’ Ray begins.

  ‘We need a ride, mister. We’re in bad shape, stuck like you wouldn’t believe.’

  The little man tilts his chin up and pushes the bill of his hat back with two stubby fingers, sizing her up. ‘That so?’

  ‘Are you the ranger?’ Ray says, unable to help himself.

  The old man leans back as if stretching, then lightly stamps one foot. He glances back at the truck, the open door, the faded brown badge. He coughs once.

  ‘Truck belonged to my brother. I’s a metal fabricator for forty-three years, retired now.’

  ‘Do you have a phone?’ Ray is not ready to get in a truck with this seemingly harmless old coot, but they are desperate for some kind of help. Borrowing a phone would seem a good compromise.

  ‘A phone?’

  ‘A cell phone.’ Ray reminds himself to smile, speak naturally. For reasons he can’t pinpoint, revealing the level of panic and depth of their problems seems like a bad idea. ‘Or maybe you could send someone back for us. We need to get in touch with a towing company.’

  ‘The lake’s closed to visitors,’ the old man says, amiably enough. ‘Ain’t even worth fishin’ anymore. You’d sooner pull a flounder outta here than a walleye.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, we’re stranded,’ Colt says. ‘Our family is stuck here. We lost —’

  ‘Colt, stop,’ Ray says.

  ‘You’re lost?’ the old man says, looking from Ray to Colt, as if he’s not sure who’s in charge.

  ‘We’re not lost,’ Ray says. ‘Our phones aren’t working. Our car battery went dead. All we need is one phone call.’

  Colt tugs on his sleeve before addressing the man directly. ‘For God’s sake, Ray, ask him for a ride. Please, sir. My mother needs a hospital.’

  Hospital? Was that intentional or is she slipping?

  The old man passes the cuff of his shirt under his nose. ‘You can use my phone, sure enough.’ He walks back to the truck, in no hurry. Or too old to hurry. He leans into the cab and rummages between the seats.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Colt says under her breath.

  ‘This was too convenient, him showing up out of the blue. What’s he doing out here? Retired but not fishing?’

  ‘What choice do we have?’

  The old man comes forward, a thick black cell phone in his left hand. The phone is at least five years out of date. Looks more like a walkie-talkie than a smartphone.

  ‘Reception out here ain’t worth a sow’s ear,’ he says. ‘Had to go back to my old Qualcomm. Made in America. Transistors in them new Chinaman phones don’t cut the mustard.’ When he is close enough for Ray to shake his hand, he offers up the phone. ‘Help y’self.’

  Ray hesitates, but what else is there to do? He takes the phone, very much doubting it was made in America and that it will work any better than their phones did as soon as they arrived.

  The man lowers his arm and pats his hand over his white jeans. Not really white, though. They used to be blue, Ray notices, but have been washed a thousand times, or never, merely bleached by the sun. And then – who’s he supposed to call?

  ‘What’s the nearest repair shop?’ he asks. ‘Anybody who can send a wrecker.’

  The old man nods. ‘Nine-one-one.’

  ‘Emergency,’ Ray says. How does the old man know they’ve had one?

  ‘No towing company’s gonna come out here. I don’t know the number for the local police station. But give dispatch a call and they’ll send someone for you.’

  An obvious and logical solution, but something about the way the old man said nine-one-one is not sitting right with Ray. He holds the phone, feeling the old man’s low eyes press into him.

  ‘Ray, come on!’ Colt says. ‘What’s the hang-up?’

  ‘No, no! Don’t hang up,’ the old man says, using his red cap to scratch his nearly bald head. ‘If you get through to mission control, do what you gotta do quick or else you might lose all contact. Air waves out here is slippery.’

  Ray frowns at the phone. The outdated gray screen shows 87 per cent battery life and four bars of reception. He punches 9-1-1 and TALK. He puts the phone to his ear and absently wipes his hand on his shirt. The phone is not ringing. There is a single click, then more flatline.

  The old man looks away, off toward the lake.

  Colt watches Ray with prayers in her eyes.

  The phone still isn’t ringing. Ray pulls it away from his ear and looks at the screen. It shows the same things as before, plus the word CONNECTING…

  Alongside the phone, Ray’s thumb is black, as if he just pressed it to an ink pad. He opens the rest of his fingers and sees they are smudged in the same way. He looks down at his shirt, where he absently wiped his hand a moment ago, and sees more black ink. Grease? But when he switches the phone from his right hand to the left and rubs his fingers together, the black stuff feels grainy, silty like fine sand, or ash. The phone seems to hover ten feet away, as if Ray’s arm has grown four times its normal length.

  ‘Ray?’ Colt’s voice is remote, thick.

  He turns, but she is not by his side. He turns the other way, and she is there, hands clasped at the waist of her denim shorts in nervous anticipation. Her face is contorted, almost scowling. Her hair seems to glow with sun, the thin strands dancing as if charged with static. Ray’s right ear and cheek are tingling, not unlike the sensation that follows a Novocaine shot at the dentist’s. His fingertips are tingling as well.

  ‘My hanths,’ he says. ‘Some-fing… –un! R-run!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Colt says, walking toward him.

  The old man shifts his gaze from the lake and returns. His left hand is out again, palm up, as if to say, hand me that stupid phone, I’ll show you how to do it. Two very long steps later he is staring into his own hand with the fascination of a child who has found his first ladybug. The soft brown moccasins make shush-shush-shush sounds on the road and to Ray’s tingling ears they sound like rattlesnakes.

  ‘Col-ut, un, oh God, rrrruuuuuhhhhh,’ Ray tries to scream but produces less than a whisper. His legs feel stuffed with feathers, and the fields and the truck and the sky are turning, wheeling around him.

  The old man steps to her, raising his open hand, and blows.

  Black silt blooms, and a terribly drawn out moment later Colt recoils, gasping in surprise, inhaling deep. She slips from Ray’s field of view, coughing violently.

  The old man turns to Ray in a blurred ballet. His hand is still up, the palm open, and Ray has time to see the small thumb, bent in a perfect, knuckleless arc, curled back on itself as if it is nothing but nail and bone, the pink flesh hardened to a little chapped horn. The thumb-horn lengthens, becomes the focus of everything, and something pointy grazes Ray’s cheek. The scratch is like the cold burn of dry ice. Then the old man retreats with his phone, the thumb encircling it like a worm.