Quarry Lake

Seeing ghosts is so passe anymore. What if the dead desperately needed something other than communion with the living though? What if there were consequences for ignoring them? Deadly consequences.

“Quarry Lake”

 

By

 

Kelson Hargis

 

      Ghosts beset Whit not long after the loss of his brother, though only fragments of their summer day at the Quarry Lake remained for him. The memories could be better called pictures. They pervaded his recollections in the same way that the presentations of his childhood lessons did before there was a television in every classroom. The slide shows with poorly acted narratives and a tone to change the slides. His reflections conjured a slide show displaying the unblinking hysteria in John's gaze as his visage slowly slid beneath the dark, still water.

 

 John's body was never found. Only much later in life did Whit discover that Quarry Lake was ridiculously deep in the center. The shallower perimeter is piled with garbage beneath the surface. Every family in the county dumps everything there, refrigerators, box springs, cars... Something must have snagged John before sliding off into the deeply submerged catacombs. Whit stood at the tall edge not even wet yet on the record hot day paralyzed by fear in his jean shorts. John seemed immediately to be taken by something from beneath the surface upon jumping in. Monstrous serpents and fish stoked the fear of Whit's imaginings as he stood there, sobbing, calling John's name over and over again until dusk.

 

He could still feel the sting of his father's slapping, upon finding him, then the heat of his weeping over him in the night before they even knew John was gone yet. “Where's Johnny!” Dad yelled over and over again, holding Whit's face in both hands, gazing accusingly into his eyes. Flashlight beams emerged from the woods raking the quarry clearing and chain link fence. All Whit could manage was a mute gaze out over Quarry Lake as others gathered around. A couple of the men wanted to jump in to search for John. There was an argument about the darkness and the junk in the lake. But his father, grasping his pain and confusion, just rolled from his knees before Whit, sitting. He wiped his face with both hands, mouth agape, gazing out over the dark lake with a look not unlike John's last. And he cried.

 

That was the extent of Whit's whole memory of his older brother. He didn't even remember what John looked like immediately after. Not until Whit saw him from his bedroom window upstairs the following summer. John smiled, soaking wet, beckoning Whit in the dark of a cloudy night. Whit never followed John without knowing why. John pervaded his dreams that night doing all of the things older brothers do. A whole childhood was relived for Whit. A tense unease filled the kitchen the next morning as his parents quietly fumbled through their routines.

 

Until Whit just blurted it out, “Saw Johnny last night...”

 

His mother spun from the kitchen counter, knocking pancake batter to the floor.

 

“Sonofabitch!” His father exclaimed, jumping up, wiping the remnants of it from his hip with a napkin. “What?” He asked.

 

Heat flushed Whit as the blanched, confused, and pained expressions of his parents bore into him.

 

Whit's psychiatrist wasn't surprised that it was one year to the day after the drowning. He assured them all that it was a positive development. John was re-emerging into Whit's consciousness in a very healthy and natural way. That is until over many sessions Whit kept describing his sightings of John. The way John never spoke. The way John coaxed him out onto the roof one rainy night. John beckoning Whit from across a busy road was the last straw. That was when the medicating started. Whit hated the way it made him feel so much he just stopped talking about John.

 

And Whit was positive that mentioning Sarah's appearances just like John's was a bad idea. Sarah eventually spoke to him unlike John. She had drowned in the very same waters decades ago though she was never wet when she appeared. At first she too was mute staring at him from afar. Her eyes darted over him as if disbelieving, he existed. Sarah bolted every time he moved toward her. He felt as if he were the one mysteriously encroaching on her reality. Until she whispered into his dreams always just far enough from behind so he couldn't see her.

 

He wondered if she still wore the weird pink and white checkered one piece that looked so like a sleeveless jumper he didn't even realize that she was wearing a bathing suit. “I know where John is in the lake,” were her first words to him. “The lake is so still he's usually not far from me. It gets real narrow at the bottom and stuff has piled up over us.” Her visits were always the same only growing more frequent as he aged.

 

Until, frustrated, he learned how to dream lucidly just to make it stop. Whit expected a demon, corpse, or the monster of the lake, the first night he was able to turn on her. But there she stood as always in that ridiculous suit.

“Stop! Just stop it! I know where he is. Why should I care?” He said.

 

She just shook her head like an angry girlfriend, disappearing. She returned to his dreams with a little more patience, “because of what happened. That's why you should care; it's not right.” She said.

 

Only many nightmares later when he summoned the courage to return to the lake in his dreams, diving in, did she explain.

 

“Something we don't understand happened with you and John. You carried something away with you that night Whit. Everyone here has sensed it, becoming restless,” she said, “it's never going to change as long as John is with us and you aren’t.”

 

That was about right, Whit thought with a chuckle many years later. Now, with mom and dad long gone after years of the binge drinking that losing a child seemed to cause, Whit, middle-aged himself, was positively lousy with spirits. Years refining lucid dreaming allowed the ghosts to crowd his sleep with messages to the living. The most terrifying one was a hideous Native American woman overpowering his dreams. She never really explained what she wanted. But she was there in his home too. He smelled her. Felt her chill. Then accidents would happen. The most terrifying misfortune being a kitchen fire threatening to rage out of control before suddenly subsiding.

 

“This is wisdom?” She once asked from beneath an angry crow, dressing him down with her dark gaze from the far edge of his doctor's parking lot.

 

As always, a long blink and she was gone. Whit thought that the crow would be too. But it wasn't. The crow remained perched high in a tall oak, cawing, and flapping its wings at him until he sped off in his worn out Jetta. Only when he stopped charging fees for his readings did her visits subside somewhat. Though she still did appear every now and then holding a black feather. John and Sarah visited less and less over the years too. Others still came and went. Some talking. Some not. The spirits always kept their distance though so they couldn't be reached. Except in dreams wherein the specters swirled about him, hovering like the musty odor of the aged, he thought.

 

That's why Whit stood, poleaxed, his heart aching when Sarah and John appeared again together in the large, wooded backyard of his childhood home...with a new girl between them. She avoided his gaze, dripping; arms extended down and entwined, pivoting side to side slightly in shorts and a tee reading “Love Pink.” Her long, soaked hair was wrapped around her throat for some reason. John and Sarah were both dry now in the same attire as always. Whit blinked to break the spell. He wondered as usual what it was about the spirit world that impeded the change of fashion.

His subconscious kicked and screamed as he wondered from his garden back into the home that he inherited for his laptop.

 

A yearning arose in him as he perused countless internet pages of missing persons. The fear of uncertainty palpitated his heart. He deeply wanted to stay the creepy old man that lost it when his brother died; the guy that conversed with the unseen in public occasionally. Whit wanted his home to stay the one bereft of children on Halloween. Yes, he even wanted to stay the pauper who lived on a modest inheritance and even more modest grief counselor's donations.

 

Then, there she was. He thought her hair was darker. But it was wet. Tara Luke stared back at him from a classic grade school photo with bright eyes and two missing teeth. Yes, she was local. Tara was eight. She was also missing less than a week. Whit wondered how the Amber Alert escaped him. He rose trembling. He surveyed the loud trappings of his dining room. It had changed little by little over the years.

 

Each new girlfriend adding her touch until, exasperated by his nightmares and obsession with death, they moved on. The parade of bad taste produced a hodgepodge of colors and shapes. Tara, that was her name. He couldn't concentrate. His childhood of serious meds was exacting its toll again. He'd helped on missing person's cases before"just never proactively.

 

That is why he was shaking. He couldn't tell anyone where Tara was. The first time he told cops that he knew someone had passed"and how"was the last. Whit became the prime suspect briefly. (He learned then too that his story grew into an urban legend that he had pushed John into the lake from the highest point.) His latest psychiatrist was also obliged to inform Whit, he too was interviewed. Whit was seriously screwed up. But he wasn't a killer is the way he imagined the conversations going.

 

But was that the reality? He had killed Tara hadn't he? He combed foggy memories for dreams of Sarah from years ago. She certainly blamed him for something even if he couldn't recall what exactly. Then it struck him. All of these years he'd never thought to do it. He had to find out more about Quarry Lake.

 

“Uh, hello...?” Whit said as brightly as he could manage to no one before a shiny, faux wood counter top at the back of the awkwardly small Saint Joseph County Library. Shortly after a tall, lissome lady of about his age peeked out from a doorway behind it with a chuckle. Her long, strawberry blond hair, ankle-length, flowered sundress, and sandals rather reminding him of a hippy. She bore squarely into his gaze with a big smile wrinkling the crow’s feet of her blue eyes. “How are you?” she asked, her bright volume quickly dashing any preconceived notions of a quiet librarian. She actually startled Whit enough to make him glance around until the panicked moth in his abdomen calmed its wings.

 

“Great!” He lied.

 

Then, his awkward silence prompting her, “What can I do for you?”

 

“Oh!” He said. “Where would I find the local history section?”

 

“Ah,” she said with a sly grin, “Ghost hunter, huh?” Then, Whit's astonishment lost on her, “Oh come on...” she said, still smiling, “I've seen all of the shows. They always send the lackeys, usually girls unfortunately, to go research the properties they're investigating. What most people don't know” she said, leaning toward him to speak quieter, “Is that it is always done before the show. They just bring the cameras in for a few moments on their way out of town.”

 

Just how haunted is this burg, Whit thought.

“Here, let me show you something,” she said, quickening from around the counter upon noticing Whit's quizzical expression. She waved him after her toward a single, slender bookcase in the corner. Whit's heart sank upon noticing that it was only about the height and width of a tall man's reach. The librarian waved her hand over the case, “This would be it.” She said still gazing over it. Whit lingered for a moment in her scent unable to place it, not sweet, more incense-like, but not unpleasant. “What exactly are you looking for?” She said, breaking the spell.

 

“I need information on Quarry Lake,” he said.

 

“You're in luck.” She said, raising an index finger before dragging a tomb from a high shelf. “I'm also the local historian"director of the library"librarian"local historian,” she said as if it all made perfect sense. She motioned for him to take a seat opposite of her while plopping the tomb down on a small table between them.

 

He noticed that the dark volume read, Saint Joseph County Register 1954, before she quickly set to perusing it.

“Thanks.” He said to the top of her head. Silent moments later he added, “I'm not a ghost hunter...” Awkward moments later still, “...Or a lackey...”

 

“Of course not,” she said, still engrossed. “You're not a cute little coed.” She said, finally looking up with a twinkle. “I'm afraid there's not much. I took an interest in the place years ago when I overheard my boys talking about sneaking out there.”

 

Whit's heart sank further despite noticing that she didn't wear a wedding ring.

 

“I couldn't place why I got so angry with them until I remembered that a boy just a little older than me drowned there when I was a kid.”

 

Whit looked away embarrassed by the coloring, he was sure was in his face.

He noticed that the library, dead when he arrived, was filling up with people milling about. They kept such a distance, he wondered if they were alive.

 

“I lost my husband a little while ago. But I could never imagine losing a child. My mom's sister disappeared too when she was growing up. She said grandma and grandpa were never the same.”

 

Whit's heart leaped into his throat, his expression driving her gaze away from him. She noticed the other patrons. A smile brightened her face again.

 

She turned the book toward him. “My book club, sorry,” she said. “There's a two or three page chronology of property ownership there. Wish I could be more help.”

 

“Sharon!” One of the single guys there said, waving.

 

She left Whit with, “Don't hesitate to let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.” And she was gone, enfolded into her circle of friends, leaving Whit slightly jealous of her for it.

 

His quick review of the pages proved fruitless. The land surrounding the quarry was owned by the same company since 1874, Living Rock Ltd. The land use purpose being “...the mining and wholesale distribution of quartz.” Whit examined a few other promising volumes on the book shelf for anything pertaining to Living Rock Ltd. Perhaps some notable citizen would be cited as owner, anything. Until, frustrated by the hopeless search, he slinked out so Sharon wouldn't notice him leave.

 

Sarah haunted his dreams for the first time in a long while that night. Her pink and white checkered swimsuit seemed to swell at her breasts. Her hair lengthened, darkening ever so slightly as she swirled around him with the same aroma Sharon had. Then poised beside his ear as when she first entered his dreams, he actually felt her breath. Her fuller, redder mouth lingered at the corner of his eye as she caressed his neck. Pangs of guilt filled him at the faint memory of the little girl she used to be. She whispered, “Stay away from my niece,” raking her nails across his throat.

 

Whit sat bolt upright, flailing, knocking the clutter from his desk, the skin of his throat searing. He gasped, eyes darting over the shadows of his lamp lit office. Then amid the dozens of unread emails from area funeral homes and the fruitless continued search for Living Rock Ltd. on the laptop screen, Whit caught the reflection of three long, red streaks rising on his neck; it wasn't just a dream. He froze, heart jerking upon seeing something else there"the distorted, blurry face of someone peering into the window behind him.

 

Whit bolted onto the large front porch breathless from his office at the opposite end of the house, as the screen door banged shut behind him. He ran to the porch edge, grabbing the post to leap the railing as he did so often as a kid. Then ready to run the length of the house he froze, shocked. There stood John smiling as always. He suddenly reminded Whit of Tom Sawyer standing there in the dead of night bare except for jean shorts. John's smile broadened into a boisterous laugh. He laughed so long Whit found himself joining him. There they stood laughing at each other in the dim lights of the windows.

 

Until John finally broke it, “Great job numb nuts.”

 

Whit collapsed to his knees, coughing before becoming speechless, unsure if he should weep at finally hearing his brother's voice again or bolt in terror. Whit tried to speak.

 

John cut him off. “I didn't have anything to say. Said it all the first night, I came back.” After a long silence John tilted his head smiling again with, “She's had a crush on you since you first noticed her. You're the only one that has"any of us.” John seemed to be making up for lost time. “But it's never what people like you think Whit; it has nothing to do with seeing us. It's the dreaming where we really get to live again. Hell. We don't even know why you can see any of us unless that's part of the dreaming thing.” John stepped forward a little. Whit quickly rose, stumbling back.

 

John shook his head, grinning, “Don't worry, I'm not going to kiss you.” John stepped into the full light of the window as Whit, wading against a torrent of adrenalin, stood his ground. John was different. His face was sagged and creased by age. He looked as Whit would imagine him alive today. Whit realized that he wasn't looking at John as he really was now but as he imagined him to be; as manufactured and mercurial as a dream. Whit wondered if that was why spirits kept their distance. He also wondered if the beckoning John of his youth was John at all. He was the only victim he knew of until Sarah.

 

“They're lonely, Whit.” John said reading his mind. “Many of them have been there a very long time. And something about us, about you, allows them to wonder now searching others out to fill the void.” The gravity and wisdom of the aged hung on John's humorless face. “I can give you what you've been searching for little brother. But first you have to promise me something. Promise me that no matter what you'll stop it.” John bore his eyes into Whit's as he had in youth when angry or demanding the fidelity of brotherhood. “And that you'll forgive me.”

 

Whit, confused, shook his head. “This isn't John Glenn Middle School Whit. I won't be able to protect you. Just be strong.” John said. Then he bolted. John beckoned him with a sweeping arch of his arm without turning, once again the little boy Whit knew in life. Whit ran after him.

 

Long minutes passed as Whit followed, first through the neat sprawling yards of neighbors in the sparsely populated subdivision. The neat lawns gave way to rougher, hilly terrain. The terrain was eventually broken by train tracks meandering out into the infinite darkness. Whit, lungs and legs burning, stood at a break in the woods beyond the tracks. A gibbous moon hung high in a blanket of stars over a quilt work of farmlands. There was just enough light to make out the varying shades of different crops and enormous, square, steal towers suspending power lines above them. They glinted, faintly, endlessly out over the distance of the huge valley separated by vast uniform distances. Whit marveled at the beauty of it despite his fear of being totally lost.

 

　

　

　

　

He caught the pale image of John's chest and face just above the crops gazing back at him, appearing for the first time as the ghost, he actually was. Then, as if sensing that Whit's breath had caught up to him, John took off again. Whit, positive that he would never make it to the other end of the valley, followed anyway. But he did make it to the other end where the curve of the valley, marked by a thicket of trees, sloped upward again. As he gazed up he knew. They were at Quarry Lake. He had no idea that it was this far"miles from home. They had ridden their bicycles from town as boys, entering through one of the seemingly dozens of overgrown, dirt roads leading to it.

 

Whit had been back only once before accidentally. He followed his father on one of his late night biking excursions, never at risk of being caught due to his struggle just to keep up. Whit didn't even realize where they were until he found him there, hands above him, hanging on the tall chain link fence surrounding the lake, speaking to John. Whit decided to hang back and not reveal himself. He struggled to hear what his father was saying but couldn't. He raced home scared in the night taking an alternate route so as to not be caught. He climbed the lattice sneaking back into his bedroom unsure if his father had beaten him home.

 

The memories of it cluttered his mind as clearly as yesterdays once he crested the embankment to a dawning sun not yet raised over the horizon beyond the lake. The surrounding beauty overwhelmed him despite the rusted, decrepit fence and signs reading, KEEP OUT, DANGER, and, TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. His gaze lingered over the landscape, the water, sheer cliffs, and sparse woods to the North and South. John was nowhere to be seen. Then standing sweaty and achy in the sunrise, a song began to fill his consciousness, low and soothing at first. The hum of the song permeated him like a weak electrical charge.

 

Until the humming grew louder and louder. Whit's head and limbs tingled. The world began spinning out of control. His eyes seemed to rest on the woods whenever he momentarily reigned in his vertigo. The darkness of the trees before the rising sun writhed like a serpentine mass. As he concentrated the mass separated into the shadows of people, dozens of them. They were varying shapes and sizes but definitely people. The buzzing rose into a cacophony of hymn growing clearer and clearer.

 

The shadow people moved closer, some even exiting the woods though still shadows to Whit somehow. Dread filled him as their intent became obvious. They were moving to surround him. Each one shouted above the other to be heard first, shattering the hymn their voices began with. Others screamed unintelligibly for attention, or were unable to form words. Whit covered his ears, stumbling on the embankment that he had climbed as he backed away. Then as the shadows encircled him, blocking the dawn... darkness...

 

The world heaved to and fro beneath Whit, bouncing, moving side to side as if in a great earthquake, panicking him further. His skin burned in the piercing, relentless sun, stabbing his eyes, blinding and baking him from high above. Creaking and banging accompanied slams to the back of his head as it slipped from some hard, granular surface.

 

“Still got both n*****s and eyes son? ...Looks like you still got all your digits but that's about all I'm checking!” Some disembodied voice shouted from a distance before fading with laughter. Then, sweet, cool darkness swallowed the sun again.

 

“Tachycardia” said, a man in green scrubs with little more compassion than many of the others visiting his hospital bed other than the nurses.

 

They were astounding, always offering more than disruption of his nightmares, food, and meds. Still, he did feel more relaxed and cared for than he had in a long time. The sentiment somehow made him lonelier than ever. He wondered if it was real or just too much Atavan.

 

“Tachycardia means, we don't know what the hell caused such an elevated heart rate and blood pressure. The good news is your heart isn't damaged. The radio isotope we did confirms that.” The man continued as Whit's consciousness rediscovered him there in the room. His name tag read, Dr. Logan, “Your blood pressure is back to normal; though your heart rate is still a little high. We suggest an immediate follow up with your family physician. I'll get your release ready. Just take it easy for a while...” Logan trailed off noticing Whit's slip back into self reflection.

 

“Hey.” Logan said to Whit, grabbing his attention again. “I noticed your address and where they found you. That's got to be eight miles or so. How did you get there?”

 

“I ran.” Whit said.

 

Logan chuckled. “I figured. You were pretty scratched up and bruised. How often do you run...how far?”

 

“I don't.” Whit said.

 

“That explains a lot.” Logan said resigned, turning to leave, pausing as he opened the door. Then, turning back, “I saw the medications you listed. It's pretty apparent what they're prescribed for. I suggest that you have a follow up visit with the doctor that prescribed them as well.” Logan finished with a smile upon leaving.

 

The taxi ride home was living hell. Whit prodded the driver to hurry more than once until at each stop light, he felt he would bolt from the cab, running home. The foreign driver would just nod, holding the palm of his hand up to the rear view mirror that a substantial portion of his reality undoubtedly shrank away in. Whit wondered about the karma of it until noticing an elderly lady of the same ethnicity as the driver in the mirror sitting beside him.

 

“Aaarti said she wants you to get your a*s out of this cab and start using your degree,” he said a little more harshly than intended, throwing two twenties at the astonished driver, bolting from the cab.

 

His house was still blocks away but he needed the walk.

 

It seemed only short moments after retrieving his phone, laptop, and car that he was back at Sharon's library, unsure of what he intended to accomplish, but certain he was supposed to be there. The open, high, yet small space was bustling compared to his last visit. The patrons were quite young. Tables of books filled the center with signs on each reading, Required reading 4^th Grade, Required Reading 5^th Grade, and so on, all junior high grades represented. Finding Sharon took a little more work this time.

 

She turned from directing a couple of tween girls to a shelf. “Hey! It's you.” She said upon noticing him, trepidation casting a shadow across her face upon taking him in. “Uh, are you okay?”

 

Whit nodded, trying a smile.

 

“You're pretty pale and sweaty, and...” she trailed off motioning to the scratches on his face and neck.

 

Whit glanced at the girls behind her giggling, noticing something beyond them... another one remarkably like Sarah walking past the end of the isle.

 

“Oh! Yeah,” he said. “"Stupid landscaping accident. I fell down an overgrown hill in my yard.” He said, laughing a little too loudly. The giggling girls fell silent, moving off with a cautious eye on him.

 

“Okay.” Sharon replied lightly.

 

“Okay.” Whit parroted, then, “you seemed pretty knowledgeable about ghost hunting.”

 

“I guess.” Sharon said. “It is kind of a hobby of mine. I pretty much have a P-H-D in useless information after years of this.” She said, lighter still while motioning around the library.

 

“Great.” Whit replied. “I could really use your help with something, I can't quite explain.”

 

“Try.” She said.

 

Sharon took the explanation of his ghost sighting at Quarry Lake much better than Whit expected. He enjoyed leaning in toward her to share the Mac screen at the information desk where he first met her, pleased with himself that she didn't seem to mind.

 

“See.” She said. “Many investigators believe that places rich in certain types of minerals like granite or quartz are haunted more.”

 

“That's amazing. I wonder how several tons of copper, steal, motors, and magnets would affect that sort of thing.” He said.

 

“What's amazing is what you saw there.” She replied intrigued. “You saw them?”

 

Whit nodded, “Yeah. Just shadows though.”

 

“Still that's common too. They're called shadow people. There's lots of circumstantial evidence of them appearing in other very specific areas of the country"places like prisons, dams, rivers... Places a lot like Quarry Lake.” Whit basked in her excitement. “Hang on.” She said, hurrying off through the doorway behind the counter, leaving Whit shocked, trembling, and breathless as his vertigo returned.

 

...Her dash away revealed Sarah behind her not six feet from him. She stood dripping wet this time. Her gaze bore into him from deeply set darkly shadowed eyes. She was thinner"emaciated"her skin loose and waxy. She seemed far more solid, dead than before, rotting before him.

 

 “What's changed Sarah?” Was all he could manage as the room spun. He thought that he caught a faint smile at her purple lips. “Something changed after I followed Johnny back out there.”

 

“I'm sure it did.” Sharon called from the room, reemerging confused, “Who's Johnny?” Sharon slowly moved back to the counter oblivious to Sarah who side stepped her, still gazing at Whit. He gripped the counter for support. “...I just grabbed the card of a ghost hunting television crew that came through town. I thought that this may be big.”

 

“They're gathering Whit, more and more every day. You're quite the celebrity.” Sarah said smiling wickedly, exposing browning teeth, one dropping out.

 

“Do you want it to stop?” Whit said to Sarah.

 

“What to stop? The haunting?” Sharon said, concern growing on her face.

 

“I want her to know!” Sarah shouted, her voice rising into the painful shriek he heard at the lake.

 

“No Sharon. No.” He said, stumbling upon trying to cover his ears. He paled in a soaking sweat again.

 

“Whit!” She said, grabbing for him, steadying him by his arm. “Something's wrong. I'm calling an ambulance.”

 

“No!” He and Sarah shouted simultaneously, shocking Sharon who seemed to hear both.

 

“You're pale and sweaty; it's frigid in here.” She said, holding herself now, noticing the fog of her breath with stark realization.

 

Huge, cankerous sores and deep lacerations began appearing all over Sarah's skin now, her smile never waning. “She needs to make her own decisions based on the truth... Just like you need to about what I really am... Tell her!” She finished with the same deafening shriek.

 

Whit blurted out “I'm a medium!” The gravity of some unseen realization hung on Sharon's face, goose bumps rising on her exposed shoulders. “The boy, you remember drowning at Quarry Lake was my brother.”

 

“I'm so sorry...” Sharon said. Whit stayed her with an extended hand.

 

“Your aunt, she didn't disappear. She drowned there too.”

 

“Okay. Okay.” Sharon said with a waning smile. “I should've seen this coming. Good show. Sorry but, I don't have any money, or...whatever it is, you need... sick satisfaction. I' don't know. But it's time to go.” She said, grabbing keys from beneath the counter, moving out from behind it. She strode to the large front double doors flanked by tall windows now darkened by night.

 

Whit didn't follow.

 

“Tell her Mom"Grandma"loves the cobblers that she brings to the home but not to eat. She doesn't eat them. She gives them away to bring you back sooner.” Whit did.

 

“Oh. So you're following me now.” Sharon said disgusted. “That helps.” Whit turned back to Sarah who seemed confused now.

 

“Tell her that Mary Ann didn't steal Mom's cameo. I did. I was trying to impress the boy I was going to meet the day I died.”

 

Whit obliged again, freezing Sharon in her tracks. She turned back to him hurt and confused.

 

Sarah continued this time Whit speaking as she did. “Dad was right. I was going to meet a boy, Red. But he didn't do anything to me. He never showed up. I got angry and kicked the picnic basket into the lake and ripped the cameo from my neck, throwing it in too. I jumped in right after it as soon as I realized what I'd done. I hit my head on something.” Sarah trailed off, crying. “Tell her I know that Mom never forgave Mary Ann, thinking that she was jealous that Mom wanted to bury it in my memorial. ...And that Mary Ann never even saw me though I was there when she died of cancer when Sharon was nineteen. I don't know why. I'm sorry. For everything...”

 

And with that Sarah was gone. Whit, steadying himself with his back against the counter, slid to the floor, sitting, holding the sides of his head with both hands. Sharon slowly moved back to Whit as he breathed deeply through his nose, exhaling through his mouth.

 

 “What do you want from me? What does she want from me?” She said.

 

“I want it to stop. She's gone. I think that she got what she needed. But I want to do it right. I have to go back. But I can't go back alone. I can't. And I don't want to sneak onto that property again.”

 

Long moments later Sharon extended her hand to him. “I'm sure that you got to the hospital somehow. The police report will have that. They have to share it with you because you're involved.” She said. She was right.

 

“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. They 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...” he said.

“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 his 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. “S**t. 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 felt Virgil turn his glance from him, pinching his brow in guilt with that one.

 

“People finally stopped dumping their s**t 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 it's 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 practically 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 him 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 fifteen 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 s**t 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.

 

“Aw s**t!” 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 a*s 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 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; his 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 alive 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 said moving 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 cast 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 making him think 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.

　

Author's Note

Okay I lost all formatting when pasting this in. I did a quick pass at posting and will do others to make sure that the formatting is right; it is 9000 words though!

Reviews

[Dee Okolotowicz]

This was one of the more riveting stories I've read here. I read all 9,000 words, and I'd have to say overall it was captivating and kept my interest all the way through. I would mention that there were one or two "slower" parts of the story, but they were well written and provided interesting background information. I'd have to say that it some ways the story is slightly on the macabre side, but again, the tale keeps you reading all the way to the end.

The end was surprising. It's apparent from the tag line description you wrote, that ignoring the ghosts definitely had deadly consequences, even though it seemed like it was Whit's choice to comply with them.

[Kelson]

Thank you so much for the kind words Djokolot! I greatly appreciate the feedback. I know this is long. Thanks for the macabre statement. That is what it is supposed to be--a little creepy, perhaps even scary without being too campy or graphic.

[Dee Okolotowicz]

Then you succeeded 100%, Kelson! Good work!