The Reservoir (5 page)

“Kick her!  Damn it, Zack, kick her!” Daniel implored, his voice breaking from fright.

Zack gave his friend a puzzled glance, and then began kicking with everything in him, against something he could not even see.  He was big, solid, and strong, and to his horror, as he kicked beneath his friend, he felt nothing there.  He swung his leg in a wide arc beneath Daniel, but there was simply nothing there. 
There had to be something beneath them
.   

Was it a fish? Zack wondered.  A fish large enough to have a hold of his friend’s foot, and fast moving enough it had managed to evade each thrust of his foot?  God, he hoped not.  But what other explanation could there be?

“Throw me an oar!” he screamed, and it was Niqui who answered his call.  She found an oar in an instant and threw it to him, finding her target with precision.  Throwing a softball was her forte—had earned her a full ride scholarship to Indiana—and the skill had certainly come in handy now.

Zack took the oar and struck at whatever was beneath Daniel—presumably beneath him too.  He couldn’t seem to get a solid jab, and suddenly, to his horror, something took hold of the oar.  He plunged face first into the water, drinking a pint in the process.  Instinctively, his eyes closed, but he forced them open.  He couldn’t see what had a grip on the oar.  He felt himself pulled deeper, but had the presence of mind to release the oar.  Unfortunately, something grabbed his wrist then. 

Zack found himself held beneath the surface.  Like Daniel, he strained against whatever held him in a vice-like grip.  His eyes widened in terror, but he couldn’t see anything in the murky, frothy water. 

What was causing the water to churn? he wondered fleetingly, and then remembered, he was wearing a vest!  He should be too buoyant to be underwater, and if he didn’t break the surface soon, his lungs were going to burst. 

When he thought he couldn’t take another second without precious air, he was suddenly free and bobbing to the surface like a fishing bobber.  He began coughing and gagging, and sucking in air as if there wasn’t enough in the Washington woods to fill his lungs.

A horrified glance at Daniel confirmed his friend was losing strength.  Zack was about to call to Holly to bring the boat around, when he realized she was already there.  “Zack, give us your hand!” Niqui shouted.

“Now!” Kendall instructed.

“Take Daniel first!”

“Tell me what to do, Zack!” Holly cried, holding the wheel and trying to stay in close range of her friends, despite the wind picking up.

“Bring the prop close to the tube!” Zack shouted, an idea forming in his head.  Surely the prop would scare off any fish or…

When Daniel suddenly popped out of the water like a cork, with enough force to propel him several feet above the water, Kendall and Niqui acted quickly.  Niqui plunged her body over the side, straining to remain in the boat at the same time, and took a hold of his vest.  “Kendall, help me!” 

The two proceeded to pull him into the boat.  The fact that he weighed a hundred and eighteen pounds soaking wet made the task doable.  He continued kicking, his legs acting like a propeller, long seconds after he reached the safety of the boat. 

“Zack!” Holly cried.  “Get Zack!”

To her relief, Kendall had grabbed the ladder for him, and he was struggling to climb it in his exhausted state.  Holly released the wheel and dashed to him, taking a hold of his arm.  With as much strength as she could muster, she pulled him toward her.  He tumbled into the boat, landing squarely on top of Daniel and gasping for air. 

Zack met Holly’s horrified gaze.  “Get us the heck out of her!” he cried.  “Can you drive the boat without me?”

She nodded and returned to the wheel.

Holly glanced back at Daniel.  He was sobbing.  “Did you … see her, Zack?  Did you … see her, too?” 

Holly pushed the throttle and set them on course for the dock.  What had the two guys seen? she wondered.  What could have possibly taken hold of Daniel and the tube, to have caused it to tip on its side, and to cause it and Daniel to tremble with the fight of staying above water?

“Zack!” Daniel implored.  “Am I crazy?  Did that just happen?”

“Buddy, it happened,” he said, pulling his best friend toward him and wrapping a protective arm around him.  “It happened all right.  I was there.”

Holly motored toward the dock, and then cut the prop, allowing the wind to drift the boat alongside the dock as David had taught her to do.  Holly realized she hadn’t put the bumpers on the boat, scolded herself for a second or two, and then forced away the thought.  Extenuating circumstances had prevented her from following exact boating protocol.

It was Niqui who jumped out of the boat and received the rope Holly tossed to her.  She tied up the boat, and then received the second rope, which she also secured to the dock.

“Kendall, can you pass me those bumpers?” Holly asked.

“What are bumpers?”

“Uh, those white things,” Holly told her, directing her to them with a pointed finger.  “You attach them to the boat, to keep the sides from scraping against the dock.”

“Oh, okay.  I’ve got them.”

“I’ll take care of the bumpers,” Zack said, rising from the floor of the boat.  Holly could see he was unsteady on his feet, but he scooped up the bumpers and secured them to the boat anyway.  Once done, he dropped back into the boat and helped Daniel to stand. 

“Zack,” Daniel whimpered, “I’m not crazy, right?”

“No, buddy,” he soothed, “you’re not crazy.  Cuz if you’re crazy, I am too.”

Zack helped him onto the dock, where he stood frozen with fear, searching the water with his eyes.  It was too dark to see anything, but his eyes remained fixed on the lake.  The group could hear the water lapping at the dock, since the winds had steadily increased, causing white caps to form on the reservoir’s surface. 

Had the night gone differently, Holly was confident Niqui would have suggested a late night skinny dip.  Of course, she would have said no to the nudity part, but she would have enjoyed a swim.  Now, she wasn’t certain she would ever stick a toe back in that lake. 
Reservoir
.

“Niqui, Kendall, can you get Daniel inside?” Zack asked.

“We’ve got him,” Niqui told him.  “What about you two?”

“We’re going to secure the boat, and then we’ll be right in,” Zack told her.  “Get Daniel a glass of water, okay?”

“You got it,” Kendall said, casting Daniel a worried glance. 

Would Daniel be all right?  It was a question they all wanted answered.

Once the others were gone, Zack turned to Holly.  Despite the rapidly darkening evening, she could see the confusion in his eyes.  “Holly, I don’t know what happened back there.”

“I … don’t know either,” she admitted.  “But the truth is, I’d like to get off this dock and away from this water.” 

“You and me both,” he said, shooting a glance at the shallow water on either side of them.  “First, we have to deal with the boat.  Do you guys leave the vests in the boat overnight?”

“No.  David is afraid someone will steal them.  We pretty much take everything out and button it down.”

“Can we let it go for once?” he asked, but immediately shook his head and answered his own question.  “No, we can’t.  Besides—” he gave a rueful, half-hearted grin.  “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for what happened out on the lake.”

“Reservoir,” Holly said glumly.

“Right.  Reservoir.  Big, deep,
inky
black reservoir.”

“It’s green during the daylight.”

“Well, it’s inky now.”

Holly managed a tight, nervous chuckle and accepted the vests Zack was passing her way.  Back on the dock, he took three from her and they walked together back to the cabin.  Holly directed him to the hooks where David hung the vests after a day of boating or swimming.

“Oh, yeah, they’re real secure here,” Zack said sarcastically, noting the holes in the screen.  Regardless of the condition of the dilapidated screens, he obligingly hung the vests.  “What now?”

“We really should button up the cover on the front of the boat, but…”  She glanced off toward the reservoir.  “I don’t want to.  Let’s just hope nobody comes along and takes anything.”

“We’ve already lost an oar,” Zack said, staring into Holly’s face.  She wasn’t certain what he hoped to communicate to her, but when he took her arm and pulled her away from the cabin and to his truck, she knew he wanted to talk privately.

They climbed into the cab.  Zack didn’t utter a word of protest when Holly locked the doors.  They sat in silence for several moments, each lost to their respective thoughts. 

Holly broke the silence.  “I’m going to have nightmares tonight.”

“You and me both,” Zack said, and then glanced toward the cabin.  “Do you think Daniel’s all right?  Do you think what just happened out there might cause him to have some kind of psychotic break?  God help him, Holly, he’s terrified about going crazy.  Always has been.  Laughing, joking, cutting up—it’s his way of staving off the panic.  He tells me all the time, he’s probably the only guy on Planet Earth who wants to get old.  Thirty to him is like nirvana.  If he reaches thirty, he says he’ll be in the clear.”

“Poor Daniel,” Holly murmured.  “We’ll do our best to reassure him.  Zack, exactly what did happen out there?  We couldn’t see clearly from the boat, since the tube effectively blocked our view.”

He raked a hand through his close cropped, sandy blond hair and then emitted a haggard breath.  “I swam to Daniel.  He told me ‘she’ had a hold of his leg.  Of course, I didn’t believe him on that count, but…”  His earnest eyes met hers.  “But, something had a hold of him, Holly.  I could … not … pull him up for the life of me, and I’m not…”

“Weak,” Holly supplied.

Zack had biceps like tree trunks and in the past, at risk of sounding superficial, Holly had admitted to her friends that those arms made her swoon.  What also made her swoon was the fact that he seemed unaware that his physical attributes, let alone his other wonderful qualities, made anyone swoon.  He was, all in all, a great guy.  Humble, trustworthy, an all around good guy. 

Holly hadn’t realized she was staring at Zack’s arms until he cleared his throat.  She glanced up to find him grinning.  As embarrassed as she was, it was good to see a genuine smile on his face. 

“Sorry,” she murmured contritely.

“Not a problem,” he said, chuckling, but sobered quickly.  “It feels funny laughing … flirting when…”

Holly glanced at him with alarm.  Had they been?  Flirting?  “Shifting gears now…,” Holly murmured in embarrassment.

“Speaking of that, I admire a girl who knows her way around a boat,” he quipped.

“Okay, stop,” she insisted.  “We have to figure this out.  We can flirt later.”

Once again, they sat quietly.  Out of habit, Holly reached for her cell phone to check her messages, but remembered, no phone!

Zack noticed the frown on her face.  “What’s up?  Talk to me.”

“I lost my phone when you made that quick stop on the lake.”

He winced.  “Really?  It went into the water?”

She nodded.  “Second phone lost in two months.  I’m a goner.”

“Please refrain from usage of such words in the immediate future…”

“What?” Holly said confusedly. 

“Goner…  Daniel and I almost were… goners, that is.”

“Oh, right.  So…  What happened on the reservoir?”  Holly searched her memory banks for any logical explanation for what had occurred.  “Zack, what if…?”

“What?”

“Okay, so there is a veritable forest of trees beneath all that water.  What if Daniel somehow managed to become tangled in the branches of one of them, you know, a super tall tree—tall enough to nearly breach the surface?  Remember, I pointed one out to you earlier.”

“Wouldn’t all the branches be dead?”

Holly shrugged.  “I don’t know.  There’s all sorts of debris floating around.  Maybe some of the trees retain their branches.”

Zack pondered the possibility.  “I mean, I guess it could have happened.  Once when I was little, and was fishing with my dad, I slipped into the water.  Thankfully, it was shallow, but I got tangled up in a soggy plant of some kind.  Every time I pulled away, it pulled back.”

“That could be it, Zack!”

Suddenly, he frowned.  “Okay, maybe.  But…”

“What?”

“That doesn’t explain the
whatever
that took a hold of the oar and pulled it out of my hands.  I’m not kidding, Holly.  If I hadn’t let go, I would have been pulled to the bottom of that reservoir.”  He grinned woefully.  “Maybe I could have found that cell phone of yours.”  His eyes pierced hers with their intensity when he added, “And then there’s the matter of something snagging my wrist.”

Holly shuddered at the possibility of Zack being pulled into the depths of that reservoir.  “I can handle a lost phone.  I can’t handle a lost…”

“Me,” he supplied, and then grinned and reached for her hand.  She felt his warmth travel up her arm.  It felt good to feel warm, since a coldness had gripped her earlier.  She studied their clasped hands, and felt a curious flutter in the pit of her stomach.  She glanced up to see Zack watching her, and when he leaned close to her and claimed her lips with his own, she surrendered to his warmth.

When he pulled back, she felt her heart hammering crazily.  Wow.  She’d been kissed before, but nothing had elicited a response like this.  Perhaps the evening’s events had been the impetus for the enhanced feelings.  She was certainly hyper-sensitive at the moment.  But when she lifted her eyes and stared into Zack’s handsome face, she knew better.  She liked him.  And had, for a long time.

What was it her mother always told her?  Friendship was often the basis of a lasting romantic relationship?

Apparently, Zack’s thoughts were in sync with her own, since he said, “I like you, Holly.”

“I … like you, too.”

“No, I don’t mean the like you, like you—as in the junior high definition.  I mean, I
really
like you as a person.  We’ve been friends for a long time, but my feelings for you are deeper than friendship.”  He flashed a grin.  “Deeper than that reservoir.”  He laughed outright and realized it felt good to laugh.  “I know I’m being cheesy, but you know what?  I don’t care.  I … like you.  There.  I’ve finally said it.  It took a near-death experience to give me the guts, but, I said it.”