Shivers 7 (20 page)

Agnes was only vaguely aware of the drought that had spent the last seven years slowly squeezing the life out of the surrounding area. She dimly recalled hearing snatches of conversation about the subject during her stay in the convalescent home, and she understood that the condition must be severe, or else she wouldn’t be standing where she was—in the middle of a town that had laid at the bottom of a lake for nearly forty years. But that was the extent of it. To her, the drought was merely a piece of the puzzle, part of a bigger picture she couldn’t, and didn’t need to, comprehend.

Once the drought was in place, the town could be uncovered. Once the town was uncovered, she could wake from her long sleep. Once she’d awakened, she could bring all the players in this sordid drama back to the scene of their crimes. Once they were all there…well, she didn’t know what happened next. It wasn’t up to her. She merely had her part to play. Besides, she would find out soon enough.

She could see a vehicle driving toward her across the dry lake-bed, kicking up a trail of dust in its wake. She’d almost started to wonder if they were going to show, but somehow she knew they would. Orthlieb had too much to lose, and he was too eager to reassert control.

It was a late Sunday afternoon, early evening really, and Agnes had been out at the old town for nearly two hours now, making the long, halting walk out after taking a taxi to the former shoreline. She’d taken her time to explore, knees and hips complaining as she hunched beneath the police “crime scene” tape strung haphazardly between hastily-erected stakes, dried mud clinging to her shoes as she wandered about. There were several large mounds of dirt from a series of holes that had been dug. The holes lay patiently, like graves waiting to be filled.

For Agnes, each step brought with it another memory—here, the spot where she’d fallen from her bike as a child, garnering gravel burns that wouldn’t fade for years; over there, a lane where she’d strolled with her first boyfriend; a little further on, the bench where she’d collapsed in relief upon hearing that her brother was coming home from the war, safe and sound. There were other, far less pleasant memories as well, but she forced those aside.

When she saw the police tape, she knew they’d found Andrew, but she had to go look, anyway. The old water company cellar was just a mute hole in the ground now, scoured down to its foundation by searchers, the yawning space broken only by a few rusted pipes.

Those pipes…

The events of nearly forty years ago were as clear in her mind as if they’d happened yesterday. She’d turned away then, hoping the past could not yank free its chains from their moorings and come clanking, shambling after her. At least not yet.

Thunder rumbled again, rolling across the cracked lakebed; thunder, and something more, something deeper, a deep-throated growl that seemed to emanate from the earth itself. Agnes felt a first, tentative drop of rain. More followed, caressing soil that had lain untouched for too long.

She watched the vehicle, a Mercedes of some sort, draw close and come to a stop before her. She watched as the door opened, waiting for familiar faces, but only Orthlieb emerged. He gazed back at her with a combination of anger and curiosity.

“Where are the others?” she demanded.

“I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t let me—Gavin moved away a long time ago; Carl refused to come.” said Orthlieb, holding up a hand to stop her protests. “And Ken is dead.”

Agnes knew she shouldn’t be surprised—after all, they were all so old now—and yet she was. She felt her mouth hanging open, but no words came to fill the void.

“I don’t know why I agreed to this, Agnes, but here I am. So what now? Do you harangue me for my sins? Lead a prayer for forgiveness? Try to blackmail me? What?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?” she asked, ignoring his questions. “Doesn’t it keep you awake at night? My God, you killed a man. Chained him up and left him there to drown. You killed...” She found herself fighting tears, even now, after all this time.

“What bothers you the most, Agnes? What I did? Or that it was your own brother who threatened to betray us? Or that you stood by and did nothing when he died? Or that you let it all happen because you stupidly fell in love with a married man who turned his back on you once you were no longer useful?”

“Shut up! God, you’re even more of a heartless bastard now.”

Orthlieb chuckled. “I could care less what you think of me. The only thing I care about is making sure that you don’t start causing trouble after all these years.” He was wearing a voluminous short-sleeved shirt, hanging un-tucked over his slacks. He reached beneath the shirt now, and his hand seemed to settle on something tucked in his waistband.

8.

Lightning forked above Frank Depp’s house, and the sky’s resistance suddenly faded, hesitant sprinkles turning to fat drops. The backyard group started grabbing items and moving inside before it got too wet.

Digger and Frank scurried back out to grab the last of the food but then just stood there, faces upturned to the sky. Digger started laughing, and Frank joined in; Digger danced around in a little circle, and Frank whooped. Finally, when they’d had their fill, they ducked back inside.

“Do you believe it?” asked Frank. “Do you believe it?”

“Un-fucking-believable,” grinned Digger.

“Look at you two, acting like a couple of ten-year-olds,” laughed Mindy.

“I’m going to get the kids from next door,” said Christie. “They probably think it’s fun to play in a swimming pool during a lightning storm.”

“Do you think it’s finally broken?” asked Digger.

“Don’t even say that,” said Frank. “You’ll jinx us.”

“Okay, then. Think it’s gonna last long?”

“Judging by the sky, I’d say so.” Through the window, a cape of gray and black hues surged overhead.

“Weird—there wasn’t anything in the forecast about rain.”

“Weather forecasters didn’t know a damned thing back when it actually used to rain,” said Frank. “Why should they know anything now?”

“You’ve got a point there. Man, just look at it.” The rain was pelting down harder now, appearing to rebound well back up into the air after striking the wooden deck outside Frank’s back door.

“Shit, I just realized—if this keeps up…” Digger’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

“I need to get out to the lake, get my ’hoe out of there. I left it where I was working last, right down by the waterline. It was pretty mucky there already. With this coming down, it’s gonna turn into a friggin’ bog.”

“You and Christie walked over here, didn’t you? Do you need a ride?”

“Yeah, if you could run me back to my house to get my car, that’d be great.”

“Oh, the hell with that. I’ll just take you out to the lake. We can take the Jeep. That way we can drive all the way out with no worries.”

* * *

By the time they reached the lake’s edge, it was raining hard enough that the wipers were having a hard time keeping up.

“Look at this. Man, I hope it rains for a week.”

“Let me get my ’hoe out first, then it can rain for a week.”

“You should be OK. We’re almost there and we’re not sinking in at all. I don’t—
what the hell?
”

Frank was leaning forward in his seat, eyes narrowed, straining to see through the downpour. Digger followed his gaze, and saw a vehicle parked ahead.

“Kids, you figure?” began Digger, but then he saw the make of the vehicle. Then he saw the figures pressed between sheets of rain.

Digger struggled to form another question, but before he could bring it to his lips, Frank had opened the door and stepped out. “Should’ve brought an umbrella,” Digger said to himself as he followed.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Frank’s voice rose above the wind and wetness. “This is a crime scene. Can’t you see—” he stopped, mid-sentence and mid-stride, when he was close enough to see who he was addressing. “Christ, Henry, what are you doing out here? And who are you?” he asked, looking at a diminutive, gray-haired woman.

“Just a little reunion,” answered Orthlieb. “A couple of us who remember what the old town was like.”

“In the pouring rain? You’ll have to do better than that.”

Digger stepped closer, straining to hear over the rain’s percussion. His feet sank in the growing mire but he didn’t notice, absorbed as he was by the unlikely scene before him.

“Are you Ken Depp’s son?” This from the woman.

Frank seemed perturbed by the question, although Digger wasn’t sure if it was because it was such an out-of-the-blue non-sequitur, or because he couldn’t escape his heritage even with a complete stranger.

“Yes,” he said finally. “And you are…?”

The woman took a step forward. “My name is Agnes Woolrich. I knew your father very well.”

Digger recognized the surname. He knew the Woolrich family had once been major land barons here in Karn County, but he hadn’t heard the name in years. The notion that they’d sold out and moved away seemed vaguely familiar.

“We’re here,” she continued, “to right a wrong that occurred thirty-eight years ago. You see, none of this”—she looked around her, drops of water slewing from her face and hair— “had to happen. There were better places for a dam, more logical places, more economical. But a few influential people, including the two of us, got together and realized we had a way to make even more money than we already had. We bribed a few people, got our way, and made our new fortunes.”

“You’ll have to excuse her,” said Orthlieb. “She’s been institutionalized for several years now. I suspect she’s here without her doctor’s permission, or knowledge.”

Agnes Woolrich laughed, but it was a short, unpleasant sound, without a hint of mirth. “Quick thinking, Henry. Well done. But you have much more to worry about than me telling the police you’re a murderer.”

“All right, I’ve heard enough,” said Frank. “We’re all going back to the station and talk about this some more. A lot more.”

Night had crept up so that the only real illumination came from the jeep’s headlights, and from the lightning strikes, which came every few seconds now, followed closely by thunder strumming low on its backside. But there was enough light for Digger to see that Orthlieb’s face was twisted like a wadded-up rag, with a grimace mean enough to kill sitting dead-center.

“I’m afraid not,” he said, reaching beneath his shirt. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a revolver. “I’m sorry you and your friend have stumbled into this, Frank. You were always a likeable enough buffoon.” He moved the gun back and forth between the brothers. “But your timing couldn’t be worse.”

Digger’s heart went from 0 to 60 in a blink. A minute ago, he was about to drive a tractor a short distance and then head back to a warm, dry house. Now…

His ears were prepared to hear the loud crack of a gunshot. Instead, there came a massive, churning rumble, like a gigantic subwoofer, that seemed to spread from his feet up through the top of his head. A moment later, the ground heaved, knocking Digger and the others off their feet.

When Digger looked up, Orthlieb still had the gun, but he was on all fours, both hands thrown out before him, fighting for balance as the ground continued to lurch. As Digger watched, the lakebed suddenly seemed to
liquefy
beneath Orthlieb.

His hands and feet disappeared beneath the surface, the gun going with them. Mud seemed to crawl up his body as he sank.

Alongside him, the Woolrich woman was sinking as well. Digger and Frank seemed to be on solid ground, at least for the moment.

They’d all been stunned into silence by the sudden events, but now senses returned.

“Christ!”

“What the hell?”

“Somebody help me!”

* * *

Only Agnes remains quiet. She seems oddly calm as the mud wraps her in its cold embrace.

“Help me, dammit! It’s like quicksand!” Panic creeps into Orthlieb’s voice, overtaking fear.

The shaking subsides slightly. Frank struggles to his feet and takes a halting step. A few feet behind him, Digger rises unsteadily.

“No!” It’s Agnes, finally speaking. “Stay back, or it will take you, too!”

Ignoring her, Frank staggers forward.

Digger watches, not moving, stunned.

Orthlieb is whimpering, swearing, up to his armpits. Sinking faster.

Frank takes another step.

“No!” she cries again. “It will take you in place of your father.”

Frank stops suddenly, as if struck. “What?” he shouts. “What do you mean?”

“Just walk away,” says Agnes, calmer now that Frank has stopped moving. “Leave us; it’s what we deserve.” Mud licks beneath her chin.

Frank breaks from his paralysis, leans forward, arm extended. But then the earth lurches again violently, purposefully, throwing him backwards.

Orthlieb is screaming now, thrashing helplessly.

“Your father was a good man,” says Agnes, while her mouth is still uncovered. “Remember that.”

Digger moves at last. He reaches out, wraps his arms around his brother, holding him back from any last-second heroics.

Agnes’s eyes are serene as they slip below the surface.

Orthlieb’s screams bubble through the mud, his hands reaching up desperately as he sinks.

Digger holds his brother tightly as Orthlieb’s straining fingertips slip hopelessly beneath the mire. Frank’s struggles to pull free slowly cease but he continues to shake violently in his brother’s arms.

Around them, the lakebed grows darker.

And the rain comes down.

And the earth rolls on.

That Long Black Train

Travis Heermann

“You no ride this one,” the nasal voice said, thick with a Vietnamese accent.

The December air was chilly but Sean hadn’t noticed it, even in his thin batik shirt, until the sound of that voice. A shape emerged from the shadows along the crumbling train platform. A short, lumpy man with a pencil-thin mustache, wearing the ubiquitous olive-green uniform and red-banded wheel cap with the yellow star above the bill. Vietnam People’s Army. The man’s uniform had pips on the collar like an officer, and he wore a sidearm.

The train ground to a halt a few feet away, its massive diesel engine growling, rumbling.

Sean scratched his head in a moment of panic. Was this the wrong train? He and Phil glanced at each other.

Phil turned toward the officer and pointed at the train. “Night train to Nha Trang?”

“Yes. You no ride this one.”

“We have tickets.” Phil pulled out his ticket and showed it to the officer, but the man didn’t appear to be interested. His gaze was fixed on Sean.

Sean looked around. Two more shadows lurked near the area from which this man had emerged. A spot of cigarette orange flared against a dark silhouette.

The dim yellow lights of the platform made dull yellow circles on the glossy black cars. The same tone of dull yellow seeped through the closed blinds from inside the cars.

Back toward the ticket office, dozens of other passengers shambled, dispersed along the platform, looking for their assigned car numbers, climbing the steps through the passenger doors. Most of the Vietnamese were going home to the countryside for the Tet holiday, getting out of Ho Chi Minh City to visit their families. But even thirty-five years after the Communists took over, the locals still called it Saigon. In the chilly air, they wore long coats and scarves, compared to Phil’s and Sean’s short-sleeve shirts and shorts.

The rest of the passengers were foreigners, wearing dreadlocks, beads in their hair, scruffy beards, no bras, lean and carefree as they lugged their massive backpacks. Europeans, Aussies, Israelis, all on a cheap vacation to exotic Southeast Asia. Just like Sean and Phil.

Phil was almost a foot shorter than Sean. He was Filipino by heritage, but he had a generic Asian ethnicity, leading him to be mistaken for Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, even Japanese. His hair was shaved close to his head. He had the upper body of a heavy-weight boxer and the lower torso of a dedicated beer drinker. By contrast, Sean stood six-foot-three with a stiff brush of red hair and broad, linebacker’s shoulders.

The officer looked at Phil. “You no go. He go, OK.”

Sean looked at his friend again and felt his insides clench. He did
not
want a run-in with the notoriously corrupt Vietnamese authorities. How many times in the last week had he felt that twinge of nervousness? The feeling of being off the beaten path in a country where anything goes. Until Phil had talked him into this trip, Vietnam had just been a vague painful notion that nevertheless had cast a pall over his entire life. It had made his father into a difficult man, all but ruined him. Vietnam and everything about it was best left at arm’s length, just like his dad. That is, until Angie had dumped him, and Phil had called him up and said, “Let’s takes a trip to Southeast Asia!” He had been so enthusiastic. “C’mon! I need to get out of this one horse town for a while. We’ll meet some girls and tear a swath through every bar that crosses our path! You can forget about that cheatin’ ho-bag for a while. Whaddaya say?”

He had to admit, his friend had been very persuasive.

But now, four days into their trip…

Those men in uniform were just the right age to be former NVA or Viet Cong. The same people who had driven the U.S. Army in disarray from their shores. The same nervousness had twinged inside his gut at several points during their trip. At the gleefully propagandistic War Museum, and the graphic photos of “atrocities” committed by “the American aggressors” and the French-made guillotine so proudly displayed, said to have been used only by the “evil South Vietnamese government.” And the next day the grim and sullen Cu Chi Tunnel System sixty kilometers west of Saigon, nestled in jungle and rubber plantations that looked as if Agent Orange had never existed. The ingenious subterranean mazes where American G.I. “tunnel rats” had met booby traps and ambush. Now it was a tourist attraction. The prominent displays of booby traps and animatronic Viet Cong freedom fighters. The burned-out shell of an M-48 tank near one of the entrances where it had rotted like a steel corpse for 35 years. And the real U.S. Army issue .50-caliber machine gun that tourists could fire for a mere twenty dollars. The history had pressed down on both of them, made this trip more than just the hedonistic free-for-all that Phil had intended.

Sean stepped forward and pointed at Phil. “My friend. We go together.”

The officer gave them one last long look, then shrugged and walked back to the other men standing in the shadows.

They shrugged at each other to try to dispel their mutual discomfort and boarded the train.

The sleeper compartment that matched their ticket number was a dark, four-bed cracker box, two on each side, with frayed, naked mattresses that looked like they were new when the train was built, in about 1974. Sean and Phil took the top bunks.

The small reading light at the head of Sean’s bunk helped dispel the gloom. Passengers shambled past the bright doorway, dragging luggage behind them.

It had been a long, challenging evening to make sure they reached the station on time. Neither of them spoke a syllable of Vietnamese, even though Phil made a hilarious imitation. The bar girls had loved it.

They stretched out in their bunks, arranging bags and blankets. Phil pulled out one of the baguette sandwiches they had bought from a street vendor for thirty cents apiece. “So how long was your dad in Nha Trang?”

Sean took out his own baguette and unwrapped it. “His whole tour. A year.” The baguette he had eaten yesterday had been fantastic. At least the French had left something worthwhile behind.

“He saw some heavy shit there, eh?”

“It messed him up. Mom said he was kind of gun crazy when he came home. Figured the Russians or the Chinese would invade or something, so we always had a bunch of guns in the house.”

“How does he feel about you going to Vietnam?”

“I think he wants to know what it’s like now. He really wants pictures of Nha Trang.”

“Is that why you came on this trip? Or is it to take your mind off the ex?”

Sean nodded and lied. “For Dad. Maybe we’ll have something to talk about now. Angie can go fuck herself.” Six years. And for three of it, she had been fucking her yoga instructor.

“That’s the spirit!”

He took a big bite of his sandwich, chewed a little, and then the scent of rancid meat smashed him in the nose. He spewed the rotten paste in his mouth onto the wrapping paper. “Fucking hell!”

“Something wrong?”

“It’s rotten!” The processed luncheon meat that gave the sandwiches their particular flair stank like a carcass left in the sun for three days, and as he opened the bun, he saw that the meat had a sickly greenish cast. His stomach heaved.

Phil continued munching his. “That sucks, man. Mine’s good.”

“Are you sure? We were standing right there when the old lady made them both.” He grabbed his bottle of water, climbed down, and headed for the bathroom. Passengers clogged the hallway, sifting into their respective berths.

The bathroom was a corrugated stainless steel cell with a six-inch hole in the floor that opened onto the tracks.

He did his best to wash the rancid taste out of his mouth with the bottled water, rinsing and spitting into the tiny steel sink.

Then the whistle blew a long, wavering squeal, and the cell lurched. Through the hole in the floor, he could see the ground beginning to move. Through the small, grimy window, the station platform began to slide.

The whistle squealed again, a strangled, ululating sound, like someone throttling a rabbit. Something rumbled in his belly that was not hunger and was not the lingering taste of putrid meat.

“Toss that sandwich in the garbage, man. It reeks,” Phil said.

He was right. The compartment stank of rotten meat, so Sean bundled the sandwich back up into its paper and took it out to toss it into the garbage bin.

As he turned, he found himself belly-to-face with a short Vietnamese woman. Her eyes were milky and half-lidded; her pink, toothless mouth hung slack and open. She stopped one step away from him. Her gray hair was shot with streaks of white, and her skin looked like a desiccated mango. She did not look up at him, just stopped as if she had dimly perceived some sort of obstacle in her path but did not care to examine it. She lifted her nose to sniff the air. He stepped aside, and she moved on without acknowledgement.

By the time he returned to his compartment, the disembodied lights of Saigon were picking up speed outside the window. Haloed globes of halogen white suspended in ink moved across the filmy glass like headlights coming sideways on a dark night.

Phil thumbed through his copy of
Lonely Planet: South East Asia.
“Looks like a couple of good hotels in Nha Trang.”

Sean lay back on his bunk wondering what to do about his returning hunger. He felt like something in his chest was vibrating, defibrillating, and it would not let him relax. Finally, he said, “I’m going to go find the dining car, get something to eat.”

“Sounds good, man. I’ll come with. Maybe we’ll meet some of those smoking hot European girls.”

After threading their way through three sleeping cars identical to theirs, they came to a different kind of coach, dark and dingy, with quiet people squeezed into ancient cast-iron seats. Furtive eyes flicked their gazes at the pair. They picked their way around boxes, luggage, and haphazardly sprawling legs, down the center aisle between rows of seats. Phil said, “Jesus, man. Who chose the upholstery on this train?”

An old man slept soundly on a seat made of worn vinyl the color of flesh. The vinyl looked deep and soft, like a fat woman’s belly. The clenching unease in Sean’s belly returned, stronger. He caught a strange scent on the air, like a tangle of sweat and smoke and…

They found the dining car a couple more coaches forward. As they neared it, the smells of hot steaming noodle broth and warm beer drifted back on waves of rockabilly music. An Elvis song, one of his early ones that Sean had heard many times, but could not name.

“Looks like we’re missing the party,” he said.

“And me without my condoms.” Phil’s sarcasm could peel paint at times.

The foreign passengers they had seen earlier looked to be all here. Tables were filled with bottles of Tiger beer, empty noodle bowls, and half-eaten spring rolls. A man and woman were dancing, their bodies grinding at the hips, tank-tops and shorts clinging to their sweaty flesh. His hand was down inside the back of her shorts, cupping one of her buttocks, and her eyes were half-closed and dreamy. The air in here was hot and steamy, like the Mekong delta in high summer. The other partiers watched the couple with hungry, rapt expressions, as if waiting for the man to throw her up on a table and bang her right there.

Behind the counter was a tall cook with a big grin on his face and an array of steaming pots behind him. A half-drunk policeman slouched on a stool, leaning against the wall, clutching his beer and enjoying the spectacle with piss-colored eyes.

The cook’s plastic smile did not change as Sean ordered two beers and a bowl of
pho
. The cook ladled out noodles and handed out beers with his lips and teeth in exactly the same position, as if they were glued in place.

Phil squinted, mimicked his expression, and said, “Sank you velly mush.”

They sat down near the door, keeping an eye on the other foreigners. The music pulsed from an old, worn boom box on a corner table. Suddenly the music stopped as the cassette player kicked itself off at the end of the tape. The sudden silence roared, and the partiers filled it with a surge of cacophonous conversation. Sean did not speak any of those languages. The two dancers continued their sensuous movements as if listening to hot, juicy, throbbing music only they could hear. Then someone flipped the tape over, and the music resumed with “Surfin’ USA.”

Sean and Phil looked at each other.

“Wacky Europeans,” Phil said.

“Yes, we are quite ‘wacky,’ aren’t we,” a man’s voice said behind him, with a heavy French accent and an undecipherable tone. “Some of us more than others.”

Sean looked over his shoulder at the man behind him. The man’s nose was enormous, like a hatchet buried in the front of his narrow, aquiline face. His eyes were a pale slate-gray, and his hair had thinned almost to nonexistence on his dark, weathered skull. He wore a fashionable sport coat and trousers with a light gray T-shirt, Italian leather shoes. His golden watch gleamed in the ruddy light.

He sat down at a table across the aisle, about five feet from the drunken policeman, keeping his gaze fixed on them. “Americans?”

Phil pointed. “He is. I’m Canadian.”

“
Parlez-vous français
?” the man said.

“
Je parle français comme une vache espagnole
,” Phil said.

The man’s mouth twitched almost into a smile. Sean thought that mouth had not seen a smile in quite some time. His teeth were like an ill-kept picket fence painted tobacco-stain yellow. The man reeled off more French. Phil squinted, listening, as if he was trying to decide if he had heard correctly. The Frenchman’s tone wormed under Sean’s skin.

The Frenchman put his feet up on a chair, and his gaze flicked back and forth between them as he lit up a slender brown cigarette.

“What did you say to him?” Sean said to Phil.

“I said, ‘I speak French like a Spanish cow.’”

A nimbus of blue smoke surrounded the Frenchman’s head.

Finally Sean tried to be friendly. “You going to Nha Trang?”

The Frenchman nodded slowly, a mere tipping of the head.

“Business or pleasure?”