by Joe Stanley
3
What happened over those few days was a living nightmare.
One by one the houses went dark and stayed that way. People seemed to be leaving, but no one could say they saw them go. They just vanished.
The most terrible tragedy happened in full view of several witnesses. A younger man, one Jim Anders, capsized his small boat. He was a good swimmer, by all accounts.
He disappeared below the surface and never came back up. They brought in divers, but after two days of searching failed to find his body.
The water gets murky a few feet below the surface. The divers reported numerous caves and a strong under current that could have carried him anywhere around the lake.
They could only hope that he would surface naturally.
Every evening, I watched the blooms rise from the depths, hoping there would be some answer.
Lester had been right. Jim had been swallowed.
With this I recalled my notes and tore into them with new eyes. I went through them, highlighting what seemed most relevant then compiling them on a new page.
As I studied the quotes, I wondered if they could really be saying what I thought they were saying. Was I just reading into them or was I really on to something.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Lester since he made his prediction. Stepping away, I walked over to Reggie and Mary’s house. I thought they would be able to help me check on him.
As I walked up their driveway, I saw that their car was full of boxes as if they were moving out.
But their house was dark and silent… and empty. After knocking and peeking inside I turned and went home. I picked up the phone and began to call the sheriff.
Then I stopped. What was I going to say? I could report them as having disappeared, but there was no way I could report what I really thought was happening. Instead I called the property manager.
The phone rang and rang and my heart sunk. Was yet another lost? Then, to my great relief, there was an answer.
I had as much luck with him as I might have had with the Sheriff. He told me he’d look into it. He cautioned me not to worry about the car, because people often carpool, he explained. Then with a cold and robotic voice he told me, “I have to go now, they’re calling me.”
I hadn’t even said goodbye before the phone hung up. I realized that the disappearance of Jim probably weighed on his mind and he just didn’t want to think anymore about it.
I turned back to my notes, hoping to find an answer there.
A pattern did emerge, though I found myself thinking of it in terms of symptoms.
“I’ve never felt so good or had so much energy than I have in the last few days. I worked in my garden and it has never looked so great!”
“I finally rebuilt the engine on that old antique. I had thought she’d never run again, but listen to this!”
“I write, myself, and I just sat down last night and wrote a great little short story! I never just do that!”
And so on. The people in question were among those missing now. With a shudder, I looked at the stack of notes I had gone through. What should have taken me days of work…
Then the next symptom.
“Oh and I’ve been having the best dreams! It’s like being a kid all over again! Though last night one was too vivid, I guess. I nearly woke up screaming!”
“Well, I’m off to bed early tonight, I’ve been having a series of dreams that just seem to follow each other. Everything’s so vibrant, feels so real…”
“I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I keep having bad dreams. I guess I’ll learn someday to not have anything with mustard on it before I go to bed!”
I recalled my own dream and the bodies I saw in the water… and the splash. I cursed myself for not turning. If not before, now I wanted to see and know.
And right into the next.
“It’s strange, but I feel like I’m on the edge of understanding something wonderful, maybe that’s why I have all this energy?”
“I’ve had questions all my life about life and the world. Sometimes they really bother me, but lately I feel like I’ve been asking the wrong questions. Once you ask the right questions, the answers just come.”
“Yeah, this homework was such a chore, so hard and tedious… but now it all makes sense and it’s almost like I can see beyond it, somehow. It’s like I’ve almost figured it out.”
What was I doing now, but trying to figure it out?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.