Shivers 7 (2 page)

Red Rover, Red Rover

Norman Partridge

Everyone says the lake is haunted, but the boys have been looking all summer and they haven’t seen one ghost.

Until now.

Of course, it’s not a ghost in the conventional sense of the word, though the boys can’t understand that yet. Right now it’s just a man. The boys are in the cattails, trying to catch a couple frogs when they first notice him standing there with a canvas bag in one hand on a little scab of beach across the lake.

“Hey,” Jason says. “What do you suppose he’s got in the bag?”

“I don’t know,” Bill says.

“I know you don’t
know
, numbnuts. I just asked what you
suppose
he’s got.”

“Pipe down! The guy’s gonna hear you if you don’t. He’s probably some kind of nut, like that bum who hangs out in Miller’s Woods. He hears you, he’ll probably be over here in a minute shaking us down for pocket change.”

“He doesn’t look like a nut,” Jason says.

Bill snorts a laugh. “That’s what you think, genius.”

Both boys give the stranger the eye. They’re best friends. Jason’s the bigger of the two. He just turned eleven a couple days ago—August 1, 1969 to be exact—but he could pass for thirteen easy. Bill gave Jason a board game called Clue for his birthday. They’ve been playing it for a week, solving murder mysteries while the old black-and-white TV in Jason’s living room drones on in the background and Jason’s kid sister Molly begs them to play Candy Land with her. That’s a laugh. Bill and Jason don’t care anything about Candy Land. They ignore Molly completely. She says, “All you care about is Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick and Professor Plum in the kitchen with a rope. That’s a
stupid
game. Everybody just kills everybody else!”

Bill and Jason don’t see it that way. They’re pretty good at Clue. They figure they’re ace detectives—that’s why they’re here at the lake in the first place, to see what’s up with all the ghost stories going around the neighborhood. And now there’s a stranger here, and they want to find out something about him. It’s like another mystery they have to solve, and they’ll solve it together. Like I told you, they’re best friends.

Keeping his head down so he won’t be noticed, Bill peeks through the cattail curtain. The sun is setting behind the trees, and it’s hard to see the stranger on the other side of the lake when you’re staring into the sun that way.

So Bill can’t see the mystery man’s features very well, but there’s other stuff he
can
see that tells him something about the guy. Like the fact that he’s clean-shaven and his clothes look neat and new. The man is wearing the kind of stuff Bill always thinks of as “Dad’s day off” clothes: khaki pants and a plaid short-sleeve shirt and some kind of loafers... probably Hush Puppies, Bill figures, because every dad he knows owns a pair of Hush Puppies—

“Hey, look what he’s doing!” Jason says.

With one hand, Bill shades his eyes against the sun for a better look. The man’s holding the canvas bag by the knotted end, pivoting in a circle as he swings the bag, taking little Hush Puppie steps as he turns ’round and ’round and ’round.

“Jesus Chrysler!” Jason says. “This guy’s a human tilt-a-whirl!”

For once, Jason’s right. Bill can see that. The man must be getting dizzy. He misses a step, nearly trips. He’s close to the water’s edge now, out of tree-shadow and into setting sunlight, and the stark brightness catches his sunglasses and Bill thinks he can see the man smiling for a second and he thinks:
Yeah, he’s gotta be a nut, smiling like that, spinning ’round and ’round and ’round in his Hush Puppies like that.

The man lets go of the bag. It sails out over the lake... and the man watches it... and Bill watches it... and Jason watches it....

It’s completely quiet. Just for a second. And then there’s a big splash as the bag hits the water. The mystery man just stands there watching. He’s not smiling now.

And the bag starts to sink. And the canvas ripples. There’s something inside the bag, thrashing around.

Something that barks, then squeals.

“It’s a dog!” Jason says. “That creep put a dog in that bag! He’s gonna drown it!”

“Shut up!” Bill says. “You keep yelling, he’s gonna hear you for sure!”

Bill looks across the lake to confirm his suspicions, but the mystery man isn’t there anymore. In the couple of seconds Bill spent staring at the canvas bag floating out there in the lake, the guy has vanished.

Bill stares across the lake for a couple more seconds, just to be sure the stranger’s really gone. Nothing moves over there on that little scab of a beach. There’s nothing under the trees but shadows.

“Hey,” Jason says. “How’d he disappear so fast?”

Bill doesn’t answer.

He peels off his T-shirt and tosses it on the shore behind him.

He dives through the cattails, hits the water, and starts swimming.

Bill is a good swimmer.

And fast.

* * *

It’s a hot day. Been hot for a week now. Pushing a hundred degrees every day, and no breeze at all, and about six kinds of miserable if you’re not eating an ice-cream cone or sitting cool and cozy in an air-conditioned movie theater. So the water feels pretty good to our friend Bill.

Or it should. After all, the water’s cold, like that August sun up there in the sky doesn’t bother it at all. Cold enough to raise gooseflesh on your skin. October cold. You’d think more kids would be at the lake on a day like this, because it isn’t that far from town. It’s just a mile or so off a country road which is a mile or so from the tract-house neighborhood where Bill and Jason both live.

Yeah. You’d think more kids would be here today, relaxing in the shade beneath the old oak trees, taking a cool dip in the heat of the late afternoon. But no one comes to the lake much anymore.

To tell the truth, it was never really good for swimming anyway. First off there are the cattails, which rim most of the lake. They’re like some kind of wall, and the little scab of a beach where Bill and Jason spotted the stranger is one of the few places where you can actually wade straight out into the water if you want to.

You do that, you find out PDQ that the lake bottom is slimy muck. Kind of stuff that sucks at your feet like it wants to gobble ’em up while you wade through it. You get out a little further, to a place where it’s actually deep enough to swim, you run into clots of water lilies. They blanket big sections of the glassy surface and they’re cold and slimy and they make Bill think of dead fish floating belly up. He can’t stand them.

So the lake’s no good for swimming. Oh, maybe kids might try it once in a while. Maybe they’d come here and swim across the lake... but only on a dare. And as far as dares go, it’d have to be a double-dog after that little girl drowned last year.

It’s her ghost that kids have been talking about all summer. Some say they’ve seen her walking along the country road at night in wet cutoffs and a T-shirt, trying to find her way home. Others—mostly older kids, teenagers who visit the lake to drink beer—say they’ve heard her voice soughing through the cattails with the evening breeze. Sometimes Bill believes those stories and sometimes he doesn’t. Either way they scare him, and like any good detective he wants to know the truth. That’s why he and Jason came to the lake today with sleeping bags, canteens, and knapsacks packed with dinner. They’d planned to camp out tonight and find out for themselves if there’s really a ghost or not.

One thing’s for sure—if there is a ghost, Bill and Jason are bound to recognize her, because the drowned girl was in their class. Her name was Cheryl Ann Rose. She took a dare from her friends last summer, tried to swim across the lake on a hot August afternoon. Liza Rycott said Cheryl Ann was doing fine until she hit one of those clots of water lilies. She went under and that was the last they saw of her. Took the cops three days to find Cheryl Ann’s body down there in that cold black water, down there in the mud with only a blanket of water lilies to keep her warm—

No. Bill’s not going to think about Cheryl Ann. He can’t afford to do that now. Because he’s closing in on the bag. If he starts thinking about Cheryl Ann, he’s going to start thinking that every plant that brushes his foot is her ghostly hand, trying to pull him under.

So he thinks about the bag instead, and that’s all he thinks about. As he raises his head for a breath he can see that the bag is mostly underwater, but the knotted end and a couple three inches of canvas still break above the surface. The material isn’t entirely saturated with water yet, and since the bag’s still floating there’s got to be a pocket of air trapped inside. Bill’s thinking that if there’s an air pocket in there, the dog might still be okay.

Just then the bag bobs in the water. Movement. That means the dog’s still alive. At least right now it is... and right now Bill’s just ten feet away.

He raises his head for another breath, then keeps on stroking. Behind him he hears Jason splashing along in his wake. Jason’s not much of a swimmer—he’s a big kid, already has a set of shoulders that tell you he’ll end up playing football in high school.

If he lives that long
, Bill thinks. And just that quick he shakes the idea out of his head. Because he’s really not thinking of Jason at all. He’s really thinking of Cheryl Ann Rose.

He won’t do that now.

Not when he’s so close.

Not when he’s
right there
.

Bill grabs the bag and starts treading water. The bag’s not very big at all. He rolls onto his back, pulls the bag up on his belly and holds it there with his hands. He glances at Jason behind him, just to be sure his friend is okay. Once he’s certain of that, he starts kicking toward shore, doing a modified backstroke.

He kicks through clutches of spidery plants that scrape at him from the mucky bottom, and he doesn’t think of the drowned girl’s hands once. Instead he tells himself that he’s going to keep kicking until he hits that little scab of beach on the other side of the lake.

Bill feels other legs kicking, too.

They’re kicking against his chest.

The dog in the bag. It’s still alive.

Bill hears it whimper. The poor thing must be terrified.

He swims on, advancing through the cold dark water.

He doesn’t make a sound.

* * *

Bill’s been on shore for a couple minutes, the open bag at his feet, when Jason comes slogging out of the water onto the little beach.

“All right!” Jason says. “The dog’s okay!”

Bill doesn’t say anything. Jason’s right, of course. The rust-colored terrier is fine. The runty pooch barks and wags its nub of a tail. It’s soaked straight through, shivering on little chopstick legs while it trots around in shadows cast by a couple of old oak trees. But Bill isn’t looking at the dog. He’s looking at the canvas bag—

“Hey, Bill, are you okay?”

Bill doesn’t answer, because he’s got the pocket knife he used to open the bag in one hand, but in his other hand he clutches a tangle of colored ribbon that had sealed the bag.

He hadn’t noticed the ribbon when he first grabbed the bag out there in the lake. He’d been too intent on getting the dog to shore safely. But he notices it now, because a good detective has to be observant. There are two intertwined strands of ribbon, royal purple and dark valentine red, the kind of stuff you get at the five-and-dime when you want to wrap up a present. The ends of the ribbon have been scored with a pair of scissors or a knife, making curlicues that wrap around Bill’s fingers. He can’t imagine why someone who wanted to drown a dog would use gift ribbon to close up the bag, or why they’d score that ribbon with curlicues. He can’t imagine why the man who threw the dog in the lake would do that, but the fact that he did scares Bill, even though he really can’t explain why.

Jason sweeps the mutt into his arms. The pooch nuzzles under his chin with its nose, then licks his cheek, and Jason can’t help but laugh while he scratches the dog behind one ragged ear.

“Hey,” Jason says. “This mutt’s got a tag.”

And he’s right. There’s a leather collar around the dog’s neck, with a silver tag dangling from it. Jason sets the dog on the ground. Bill kneels, takes the tag in his hand, and reads one side:

MY NAME IS:

RED ROVER

And then the other:

I BELONG TO:

CHERYL ANN ROSE

(707) 641-8734

Bill swallows hard. He lets go of the tag. Red Rover barks happily, wags that nub of a tail and nuzzles Bill’s hand, then barks again.

Bill stares down at the wet mutt. He’s Cheryl Ann Rose’s dog. Cheryl Ann drowned in the lake last summer. She drowned, and it took the cops three days to find her down there in that cold black water, down there in the mud with only a blanket of water lilies to keep her warm. And now someone has brought her dog here, brought him here to drown in a canvas bag wrapped with gift ribbons of royal purple and dark valentine red, brought him here like a present for a dead little girl—

It all starts to make sense to Bill. Like Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick, like Professor Plum in the kitchen with a rope...

The dog cocks his head toward the shadows and growls.

Bill reaches down and grabs Red Rover’s collar.

He hears the footsteps before he sees the man step from the shadows.

Hush Puppies... khaki pants... a plaid short-sleeve shirt... and sunglasses.

The same man who threw the dog into the lake.

Cheryl Ann Rose’s father.

Dad’s day off...

Bill can see the whole picture now.

Mr. Rose... at the lake... with the canvas bag...

Mr. Rose steps onto the gritty beach. Bill holds tight to Red Rover’s collar. The little mutt barks at Mr. Rose, but the man only smiles.

Mr. Rose stares at Bill from behind his sunglasses.

“Give me that dog,” he says.

* * *

“W-we can’t do that,” Jason says, his voice shaking like it’s a loose part he’s ready to cough up and spit out.

Mr. Rose laughs. “You can and you will. That dog belongs to my daughter. Her name’s Cheryl Ann, and the dog’s name is Red Rover. Just look at the tag if you don’t believe me.”