Beneath Still Waters Read online

  He didn’t sit.

  “Chief, there are four people gone, down in that reser-

  voir. Four people in four days. And you don’t have a good

  goddamn clue what the hell it is. Do you?”

  Rogers just stared.

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  “Do you?”

  The police chief shook his head.

  “This might have some answers, some clues. Maybe

  there’s some weird current in there, some fatal design flaw in

  the dam . . .” He tried to keep things as acceptable to Rogers

  as possible. “This diary may have some of the answers.”

  Rogers looked at the soggy book, now in three pieces.

  “Sit down,” he said quietly. “Please.”

  He sat. And watched Rogers look at the tin box . . . and

  the book.

  Rogers started speaking, slowly. “There’s a man in

  Hawthorn. He works with ephemera. Old magazines, books,

  all the stuff collectors like to restore. From time to time the

  local police in the towns around here use him to work on dis-

  tressed material. Stuff that’s been burned, damaged, or wet.

  Like this.”

  “Call him,” Dan pleaded. “Tell him to drop everything

  and work on this.”

  Rogers looked at Dan. He picked up the telephone.

  “Okay. But I want you here.”

  Dan smiled. “Am I under arrest?”

  Rogers didn’t smile back. “You could be. You bulldozed

  your way past my men to a restricted area.” He paused.

  “But let’s just say you’ll hang around here. Till I’ve got

  some of this diary back . . . if any of it does come back.

  Agreed?”

  Dan nodded.

  Rogers’s secretary came onto the line.

  “Sally, get me Wilson Smith.”

  T W E N T Y

  James Morton stood to the side and admired the great Stu

  Schmidt at work. Schmidt kept up a constant barrage of or-

  ders aimed at his now very lively workers, telling them ex-

  actly how to move the heavy PVC tubing down into the

  dam wall. Stu himself carried two of everything to their

  one, even the great coils of plastic tubing over his shoulder,

  like they were so much fishing tackle.

  But even Stu Schmidt was a bit subdued inside the cav-

  ernous dam.

  “It’s worse than you told me, Jimmy. The water’s com-

  ing in fast. Too fast. I want to get this pumping started be-

  fore we try to get a temporary cap on the leak.”

  He was right, of course. It was coming in a lot faster

  than the previous day. From a trickle to a spray to . . . now

  this—like a small fire hose left half open.

  “Will you need any more help?”

  Schmidt grinned. “Nah. We’ll manage here all right.

  We’ll just take a bit longer. You hear that, boys?” he

  shouted at the two workers, going off for more equipment.

  “We’re talking overtime here. Just don’t drag your fannies

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  too much.” His eyes twinkled as he looked back at Morton.

  “Good kids. Just like everyone else these days, though.

  Lazy.”

  He watched Schmidt arranging the coils of tubing.

  “We’ve got ten, maybe twelve hours of solid pumping

  here, Jimmy. Won’t be able to use any concrete until it’s

  been dry down here for a few hours. I told Eddie up there to

  hold the cement truck till tonight. We’ll let them know

  when we’re done.” Schmidt looked down at the sizable

  pool at his feet.

  How deep was it now? Morton wondered. Ten . . .

  twelve feet? That’s a lot of water, and a lot of pressure for

  the outer wall.

  He watched Schmidt crouch down close to the water, as

  if he were trying to look into it. “There’s only one thing that

  bothers me, Jim.” Schmidt turned and looked right at him,

  then gestured at the dam wall. “Just how strong are these

  walls? They’re more than fifty years old. They weren’t built

  for this kind of treatment.”

  Morton took a step off the landing, down the spiral

  staircase, closer to Schmidt. “Oh, I imagine they’ll hold all

  right. There’s a lot of stone and concrete down here.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.”

  He heard Schmidt’s workers coming back down the

  stairs.

  Schmidt stood up, surveyed the tubing. “That should be

  enough to start pumping. If—”

  Morton felt the vibration. Like electricity, he thought.

  Yeah, like when he was a kid and touched a socket—just to

  see.

  So faint, it tickled the bottom of his feet.

  “Hey, what’s—” he heard Schmidt start to say.

  Then the vibrations started to grow, seemingly rising up

  from his feet, up from the water, spreading until everything

  seemed to be slightly out of focus. Jittery.

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  “A quake,” Morton said, too quietly to be heard. Then

  louder.

  But by then it was all too obvious. He tumbled back,

  then down onto the metal floor of the landing. Schmidt’s

  great bald head turned left and right, looking, looking . . .

  The leak widened. One, two, then three inches. The wa-

  ter shot straight out now, rocketing across the pool. It hit

  Schmidt square in his bowling-ball face and knocked him

  against the far wall.

  Morton tried to stand, but his right arm just wouldn’t

  move.

  Someone screamed above him. Then another voice.

  More screaming above the noise of the water.

  Why can’t I get up? he thought. What’s the—

  He looked at his arm.

  Like tumbling into a mousetrap, he’d fallen back onto the

  landing, his arm dangling up into the staircase leading up.

  Somehow the metal staircase had twisted, groaned, and

  corkscrewed, imprisoning his arm.

  “Stu . . .” he yelled. “Stu!”

  But Schmidt had tumbled into the water. Maybe he’d

  been knocked out by the jet that had gushed out and pushed

  him against the wall.

  The two workers. Surely they could help. “Hey, guys!

  Get down here quick. Hurry!”

  But the only answer he heard was some more pained

  groans, just barely audible over the sound of—

  The staircase, loose, away from the heavy bolt that kept

  it attached to the twin walls of the dam. Loose, twisting,

  like it was alive.

  I can’t feel my arm.

  He could see it. It was there, all right.

  Just—hah, hah—no . . . can . . . feel.

  “Stu,” he said again, helplessly.

  The water rose.

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  Fast now, lapping at the steps below, then climbing,

  visibly climbing as it started to fill the base of the dam.

  It reached his feet, lying just a few inches below his

  metal pallet.

  I’m trapped.

  In that moment he thought of his wife, his kids, mowing

  the lawn, taking a nap on a Sunday afternoon. A cold beer.

  He closed his eyes.

  He f
elt the water at his back.

  And a sound.

  (Someone’s coming! Yes, he heard a sound, above the

  moans of the workers. Yes, they must be trapped also.)

  It was the door leading down to the dam! Yes, it was

  moving! Moving!

  Shut. It slammed. A loud, final noise. The light bulb

  sputtered on and off, then off.

  The water was at his shoulder, his ears, his cheek. Cold,

  clammy water.

  He prayed.

  She tossed the last flower in: a yellow mum. Then she

  watched them drift, floating, slowly moving away from the

  shore.

  Out to where Tommy had died.

  She felt naked now without the flowers. They had given

  her a purpose for being here. Now other feelings started to

  move through her. And questions . . .

  How had Tommy died? He’d been a champion swim-

  mer, one of Ellerton’s stars. A cramp?

  She looked down at the flowers, swirling, swirling.

  Faster, now, it seemed to her. Moving in a circle, picking

  up speed.

  A rose sank beneath the water.

  Plop.

  Just like . . .

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  243

  “I have to go, Tommy. I’ll be—”

  It happened as soon as she spoke.

  The ground shook, and the flowers in the water seemed

  to blend together. She reached out to balance herself. She

  grabbed a small tree.

  But then the ground lurched again and she fought to

  keep her balance. The angle of everything seemed wrong,

  as if she were on a hill.

  She reached to the left, but there was nothing there to

  stop her from falling onto the mossy ground. Onto the odd

  little plants, black, mushroomy things that filled the ground.

  The rumbling stopped.

  “Thank God,” she said, knowing now it was just another

  earthquake like the one from a few days ago.

  (An earthquake. She remembered that from her geology

  class. Made it somehow sound all safe, just to name it. An

  aftershock. They can go on for days.)

  And it was over.

  She started to get up.

  She was stuck.

  “What the—”

  Emily looked down at her hands, at the small black

  things she had popped. Now she was tangled in something,

  something like a blackish vine. She pulled back with one

  hand, knowing that surely it would come snapping up.

  It didn’t move. Nor, when she tried, did the other hand.

  Her legs, tan, bare, also were covered with the blackish

  stuff. “Oh, shit,” she said, and she wriggled back and forth,

  pulling on the stuff.

  “Great. Now I’m going to have to wait here until some-

  one gets me out of this . . . this junk whatever it is.”

  She looked around. There were hundreds of them, thou-

  sands, stretching from the edge of the water all the way back into the woods.

  It was like being in a spider web.

  She grinned at the image.

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  “Well, might as well start hollering for help now.” Sooner

  or later someone would hear her. No problem there. None

  at all.

  She felt the tendrils tighten.

  “What?” She licked her lips.

  But nothing more happened. It was like taking a notch

  up in a belt.

  She heard movement in the water.

  A boat! Great! Now I’ll get out of this—

  But the sound came from out in the lake.

  Out there.

  The sound of someone swimming.

  She turned her head and looked out at the water.

  Stroke, stroke, stroke. It was someone swimming toward

  her with a nice, steady, smooth style. A sleek Australian

  crawl, a fast swimmer.

  A swimmer like Tommy.

  The swimmer reached the shore, stopped. And looked

  up at Emily.

  Tommy.

  (She was crying now. Saying his name through her gasps

  and tears.)

  “Tom—mee—”

  He stood up.

  Still wearing the electric-blue Speedo bathing suit. And

  outside of a few very obvious nicks and gashes in his

  body—like three-day-old bait that’s been chewed by some

  cagey crab—he looked pretty well intact.

  Except for his face.

  It was a gray, sunken thing. With eyes shrunk to tiny

  pricks of blackness. And the mouth—so rubbery, fishlike.

  He stepped close to her.

  She could smell him.

  Her stomach heaved, spasming over and over as he came

  closer.

  He opened his mouth.

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  245

  (Like a spiderweb.)

  “Tom—mee!” she screamed.

  “Don’t open the door,” Samantha ordered. “You know

  what Momma says.”

  Joshua stood at the door.

  “Don’t. Until Mom comes back.”

  She watched him to see if he’d really do what she said.

  “But where is Mommy, where is—”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she had to go to the store.”

  Joshua’s lower lip began to quiver, a sure sign that he

  was about to cry. “But . . . but that was a long time ago . . .

  a long time.”

  And it was. Samantha still measured such things by TV

  shows, and she and Joshua had watched cartoons all morn-

  ing until they gave way to the talk shows for stay-at-home

  mothers.

  The cereal they had both wolfed down seemed like a

  long time ago.

  “Still, Mom says never open the door when she’s not

  here. Never.”

  “But where is she?” he wailed, crying now.

  She went to him. Gave him a squeeze.

  “C’mon, scuzzbucket, she’ll be back soon. Sure she

  will.”

  Will she? Samantha wondered. Every car she heard roar

  past she hoped was her mom’s. But none of them slowed.

  “Let’s go watch some more TV.”

  “You . . . you could call someone.”

  He was right. They had a list.

  A special list. People to call, it said in big letters. In case

  anything happened. To Mommy. Or Daddy.

  People to call. For help.

  “Okay, I’ll call. But I bet Mom will be mad that we just

  didn’t wait, you know, like big kids would.”

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  She imagined that she was Joshua’s sitter. Yeah, and her

  mom would be so proud when she got home.

  Such a big girl!

  She walked, with Joshua trailing behind her, to the

  kitchen phone and the list.

  “I’ll call Elaine,” Samantha said, pointing to the first

  number, her mom’s best friend’s.

  She could reach the phone easily now—a relatively re-

  cent accomplishment. She picked up the receiver and held

  it next to her ear.

  She started dialing the number.

  She heard nothing.

  You were supposed to hear a sound. A hum. Then those

  little beeps. Sure.

  She hung up and tried again.

  Nothing.

  “What’s wrong?” Joshua asked.

  Samantha shrug
ged. “Dunno. It’s not working.”

  Then an idea, a brainstorm. “That’s where she pro’bly

  went . . . to tell someone to come and fix it. That’s why she

  had to leave. Couldn’t call, now could she, Joshie-washie?”

  He raised his tiny fist to her, a warning against using his

  most hated nickname.

  “And you know what she’d want us to do?”

  “What?”

  “Be good . . . keep the doors shut tight.”

  “Right.”

  There, she’d solved that. Now all we have to do is watch

  TV and wait for Mom to come home.

  Which she hoped was real soon.

  “Whaddaya say, sprout? Bored enough yet?”

  Claire shook her head, then smiled at her.

  She’s so serious, Susan thought. Claire was curled up

  on a padded secretary’s chair—somehow maintaining her

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  balance. It was just a cubicle, her office, with a couple of

  cheapjack coatracks on the particle-board divider, a small

  two-tier filing cabinet, and the ever-present computer ter-

  minal.

  All morning Susan had been checking the computerized

  morgue for other towns that had fallen under siege,

  hostage to either some maniac or some wandering sicko.

  She accumulated a hefty file. None of it, unfortunately,

  seemed to shed a bit of light on what was happening to

  dear old Ellerton.

  Despite her annoyance, she didn’t mind having Claire

  there—not really. It was soothing to see her curled up with

  a book, watching her mom at work. Sure, they’d have to

  deal with Claire’s nightmares eventually. But for now, this

  was okay.

  She sat down and opened a photocopied file just sent up

  from the press library. It contained the most recent reports

  on Tom Fluhr, crazy Fred Massetrino, the two divers (with

  an addendum on Dan Elliot, listing some of his published

  credits).

  She felt guilty about how she had let him have it the

  night before.

  Right between the ears.

  It had just been the wrong time for him to lay any of that

  paternalistic macho bullshit on her. She was a reporter—

  no, a writer—and the last thing she needed was someone

  playing Indiana Jones to her damsel in distress.

  She smiled. Perhaps she’d been a bit too hard. She liked

  him. He was different, fun, and he turned all the right

  switches—a rare occurrence these days.

  She’d call him later, perhaps invite him over. After

  Claire had gone to bed. Her smile broadened.

  “Mom, what are you laughing at?”

  She tossed her head, shaking the imaginary wisp of hair