Relic Page 4

  “Like what?” Frankie prods.

  Terrence chews the inside of his cheek. “For starters, all the electrical failures.”

  “There’s no electricity out here,” Frankie counters.

  “No, like equipment on boats, cameras, lights. Shit that runs on batteries.”

  Frankie whips her cell phone out of her tote bag and swipes it on. “Signal, one bar. Battery, four bars.” She drops it back into her bag unceremoniously. “Doesn’t seem drained.”

  “Not here,” Jack says. “Farther up by the old mines, in the hills between Squaw Creek and McCloud River.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Frankie says.

  “We’ve heard about it too,” Graham adds, poking Greer. “From our dad.”

  Greer nods. “He fishes up the Squaw Creek arm of the lake sometimes.”

  “He says the navigation equipment will go all haywire,” Graham continues, “and the battery on the boat will go out. Like it’s been drained.”

  “Or it was a shitty battery to begin with.” Frankie crosses her legs in front of her, kicking some sand into the fire. It flickers as the flames die down momentarily, casting us into near darkness. Instantly, I feel my face and hands go cold and I hold my breath, waiting for it go out entirely. But after a moment, the flames rekindle, and gradually, the fire comes back to life.

  “Once might be an accident,” Graham says after a pause. “But for the batteries to go out twice? That’s fucking weird.”

  I agree with Graham, though I don’t admit it out loud. The last thing I need to do is fan the flame of my own fear. The creepy-crawly feeling slowly making its way down the back of my neck tells me that I’m not enjoying this conversation at all. I scoot closer to Jack and lay my head against his arm.

  But Terrence isn’t done. “And then there are the lights.”

  “Lights?” I ask. I can’t help it even though I don’t really want to hear his explanation.

  “Underwater,” Terrence says. “You can see them sometimes on moonless nights, kinda dim beneath the surface.”

  “Could be a reflection,” Jack offers, slipping his arm around my shoulders.

  “Moonless nights, dude,” Rob says. “And I hear that you can see them moving underwater.”

  Frankie holds up her hand to the firelight and begins to count off reasons on her perfectly manicured fingers. “Airplanes, boat lights, waves, stars. There are a million explanations less insane than magical underwater monsters.”

  Terrence turns to her slowly. “Who said anything about underwater monsters?”

  “Then what are they?” Frankie asks, exasperated.

  “Why don’t you take the inflatable dinghy,” Rob says to her with a wicked smile, “and go find out. Then you can actually know more about it than the rest of us, instead of just pretending you do.”

  “Why don’t you,” Frankie replies, “take my fist and shove it up your—”

  “Give it a rest, you guys,” Jack says. I wonder if he regrets she’s here. Or even better, that he ever dated Frankie in the first place. I seriously hope so.

  “But that’s not the creepiest thing about those hills,” Terrence says, undeterred.

  “What’s the creepiest thing about those hills?” Greer asks, her voice a whisper.

  Terrence swallows. The flickering light from the fire accentuates the hollow spaces in his cheeks and the deep sockets of his eyes, giving him the appearance of a skull.

  “The creepiest thing,” he begins, “is the Man of Squaw Creek.”

  EIGHT

  JACK LAUGHS SOFTLY, JOSTLING MY HEAD. IT’S COMFORTING to know that he’s not taking any of this seriously.

  “No joke,” Terrence says, sounding hurt. “Haven’t you guys heard the stories about the Man of Squaw Creek?”

  “Like Bigfoot?” Graham asks, tossing a couple of dried branches onto the fire, which sparks in appreciation.

  “Aw yeah,” Rob says, bobbing his head back and forth. “We be hunting Sasquatch.”

  Terrence turns to Rob. “There have been no credible Sasquatch sightings south of Thompson Peak in the last eighty-seven years.” In the bright glow of the replenished fire, I can see that his face is deadly serious.

  Rob rears back. “And before that?”

  “Two,” Terrence says. “But they’re questionable at best.”

  “Yeah, okay, dude,” Rob says, taking a sip of his beer. “Maybe you should lay off that Kryptonite weed of yours.”

  “What I’m talking about,” Terrence continues, “is the Man of Squaw Creek. He supposedly haunts the valleys, looking for the town where he used to live before it was buried beneath the lake.”

  “That’s impossible,” Sonya says with a nervous laugh. “Wasn’t the dam built in the forties? He’d be like ninety years old.” She’s trying to rationalize her fear. I can appreciate that.

  “He should be,” Terrence says, “but he’s not. Doesn’t look much older than us, and people have reported seeing him in the woods for almost eighty years.” Terrence drops his voice. “Searching. Ageless.”

  He freezes, his words flitting away on the breeze. The only sound is the crackling of the fire, its jarring pops accentuating the stillness of the night.

  Rob is the first to break the spell. “Dude, that story sucks.”

  I laugh uncomfortably, thankful that someone has lightened the mood.

  “Not a story, my man,” Terrence says. “True science.”

  “Sure it is,” Rob says. He grabs another beer, unimpressed.

  “You ever seen this ageless wonder?” Frankie asks. “Is he hot? Cuz the lake could do with a few more hot guys this weekend.”

  Graham clears his throat. “There are plenty of hot guys here, thank you very much.”

  “And girls,” Greer adds.

  Terrence places his hand on his heart. “I swear to the flying spaghetti monster that what I’ve told you is true.”

  Rob gets up on his haunches and leans closer to the fire. “I’ve got one. And this one’s actually true.”

  “We’re not falling for that.” Greer leans back on her elbows and crosses her legs in front of her, mimicking Frankie’s relaxed pose.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Promise?” Frankie asks.

  He ignores her. “Happened in the early seventies. There’s a police report and everything.”

  Great. If the fake IDs, underage drinking, and trespassing didn’t make me sufficiently nervous about this trip, now begins the requisite scary-stories-around-the-fire portion of our weekend. Ugh. Kill me.

  “Back in the day when the water level was still high,” Rob begins, “a group of divers did a little unsanctioned exploration of Bull Valley Mine.”

  I snort. “Like us?”

  Rob’s eyes fly to my face, intentionally wide and wild as they shift around the circle. “There were five of them. Experienced, tough. Ex-military or some shit. So it came as a shock that only one of them returned to shore.”

  “Please,” Sonya says with a nervous laugh. “How would you know about this?”

  “It’s true,” Jack chimes in. “Rob and I were at camp with this guy. His great-uncle was one of the divers who disappeared.”

  “So what happened?” Terrence asks impatiently.

  “Well . . .” Rob leans back so only his face is illuminated by the wavering light. “The survivor had a fucked-up story to tell. He said that once they got into the caves, they got separated. Like immediately.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie says, her eyes narrow. “Because there’s no freaking light down there, genius. It’s an underwater cave.”

  “They had powerful dive lights,” Rob replies. “Should’ve had plenty of visibility even in the worst conditions. And this dude swore that the water was clear and he could see well into the caves, but his buddies had just disappeared.”

  “Awesome,” Graham whispers.

  That is not the word I would use.

  “He starts to freak out and decides to surfac
e. Protocol, you know, in case anything gets weird. So he heads up, but he’s disoriented in the caves. Walls that hadn’t been there minutes before, caverns he swore he’d swum through, now dead ends. That’s when he starts seeing things.”

  Rob smiles, his face contorted by the firelight, and pauses dramatically. No one says a word; not even a quip from Frankie mars the silence. A breeze kicks off the lake, scattering embers across the sand and sending a chill down my spine. I wrap my arms around my waist, suddenly aware of the dark, cold expanse of forest behind me, and desperately wish we were back on the boat.

  “What?” Greer squeaks at last. “What did he see?”

  “Shadows,” Rob says.

  I stiffen, recalling what I saw in the woods. “What kind of shadows?”

  “Dark forms moving in the water,” Rob continues. “Always just out of the corner of his eye. He swore he could feel the water pulsing around him as something encircled him. Dude started punching at the water, trying to fight off whatever it was, then just took off blindly, swimming for the mouth of the cave. By luck, he made the right series of turns and broke the surface just as his oxygen was running out. Then he waited for hours, but his friends never surfaced.”

  “They must have gotten disoriented too,” Frankie says. This time, I detect a catch in her usually calm and collected voice. “Run out of air and drowned.”

  “Oh my God,” Greer says. “That means they’re still down there.”

  “Exactly,” Rob says.

  “I’m sure,” I say, trying to stay grounded in logic, “that there have been a lot of deaths in the mines. Copper mining wasn’t exactly the safest job in the world.”

  “Bodies everywhere,” Terrence says. “I bet the mines are like a graveyard.”

  Sonya pokes me. “You’re not making this better.”

  “There’s more,” Jack says.

  Something in his voice startles me. I cock my head to get a better look at him as he stares into the fire, and I swear I can see the color drain out of his face, the muscles around his jaw tighten.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “The survivor? The one who made it back to the surface? He died six months later.” Jack turns to me. “It’s as if the mine is cursed.”

  Silence as I look around the circle. Greer hugs her knees tightly to her chest, while her brother has unintentionally picked up a large rock from the beach and is gripping it so tightly his knuckles are shining white in the orange firelight. Terrence wraps both arms around his body. Sonya has zipped her sweatshirt up to the neck and tightened the strings on her hood so only a small circle of her face remains exposed. Even Frankie’s confidence seems momentarily shaken as she obsessively chips off bits of bright pink nail polish.

  I turn back to Jack, still staring at the fire, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Then suddenly he glances up, catching Rob’s eyes, and they both burst into laughter.

  “You asshole!” I say, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

  “Oh my God,” Rob gasps between heaves. “You should have seen the looks on your faces.”

  Jack reaches across me to high-five Rob. “We totally had them going.”

  “I didn’t buy it for a second,” Frankie says.

  “Then why is half your nail polish chipped off?” I ask innocently.

  “Not cool, Cruz,” Terrence says, pointing at Jack. “Not cool.”

  “Oh, come on.” Jack holds up his hands and wiggles his fingers. “The Man of Squaw Creek,” he says in a spooky, hollow voice. “Same thing.”

  “The Man of Squaw Creek is real,” Terrence says, obviously hurt. “Not like your bullshit story.”

  “It’s not bullshit,” Sonya says quietly.

  Terrence turns to her. “Come on, you don’t really believe that crap, do you?”

  “The story of the divers who disappeared in the old mines is true.”

  Rob inches nearer to the fire. “For reals?”

  Sonya nods. “It’s in the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office’s file of unsolved crimes.” She offers no further explanation, but I know she found it while perving through the database.

  Terrence scoots closer to her. “How did you—”

  Rustling branches and the crunch of rubber soles on rocky sand freeze everyone. There’s movement in the darkness near the woods and as I turn my head to look, I can feel a panicked scream surging up the back of my throat.

  A man stumbles forward, bent at the waist and gripping his stomach as if he’s about to be sick.

  “Help me!”

  NINE

  WE STARE AT THE INTRUDER AS HE SWAYS BACK AND FORTH AT the edge of the firelight, his face coming in and out of focus like an apparition. He’s wearing cargo pants, dark-stained from the knee to the ankle, and a khaki fisherman’s vest, unzipped, over a “Super Bowl XVI Champions” San Francisco 49ers T-shirt. On his head, a short-brimmed canvas hat covers what appears to be a rather significant mullet.

  “Help,” the man repeats, his voice little more than a croak. He staggers toward us, and for the first time I can see his face. He’s clean-shaven, rugged but youthful, and the deep lines around his mouth combined with tanned skin indicate someone who spends a lot of time outdoors.

  But what strikes me most are his eyes. They’re shining in the darkness, watery with pain, and I can see the light blue of his irises even in the flickering glow of the fire.

  Jack turns to Rob. “What should we do?”

  Years of junior sheriff’s emergency training take over, pushing fear aside. “We help him.” I’m on my feet in an instant, jogging to the fisherman before Jack can stop me. “Sir, my name is Annie. Can you tell us what you need? Where you’re hurt?”

  I lay a hand on his shoulder and his face contorts.

  “Annie,” Jack says from behind me. “Don’t—”

  “Are you injured?” I ask, ignoring Jack.

  The fisherman’s shiny blue eyes search the dark surface of the lake. “My boat,” he says. “Where’s my boat? I need to go home.”

  Sonya yanks her phone from her pocket. “I’m calling the Sheriff’s Office.”

  The stranger sucks in a sharp breath. “No!”

  “It’s okay,” I say soothingly. His body is tense, his shoulders hunched like those of a man trying to protect himself from pain. “They can help.”

  “Help?”

  “Yes.” I nod. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Okay . . .” he repeats. “I’m going to be okay. Thank . . .” Then without warning, he whirls on me. I feel his hands around my neck, and the strength of his grip forces me to my knees.

  “You can’t have me!” he screams. “I won’t go back!”

  I attempt to pry his fingers from around my throat as they dig deeper into my flesh. I cry for help, but all that comes out of my mouth is a panicked rasp. My airway is already closed off and my lungs burn, desperate for oxygen. The world fades into darkness around me, and all I can see is the face of the fisherman as he squeezes my windpipe. His eyes are crazed now, wide and cruel, like he’s a completely different person from the one he was moments ago.

  “I won’t go back,” he growls. “I won’t go back to the mine.”

  As suddenly as his hands were upon me, they’re gone. I pitch forward, gasping for breath.

  “Annie!” Sonya cries, her arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m okay,” I sputter into the sand.

  Bodies writhe in front of me. The guys have tackled the fisherman and are trying to pin him to the ground, but he fights back with surprising strength. He lets out a tremendous roar, more animal than human, and tosses all four of them away like he’s flicking ants off his arm.

  He’s on his feet before they can regroup. “I’ll die first!” he screams. “I’ll die before you can have me!”

  Then he spins around and bolts back into the woods.

  “You’re not seriously thinking of calling this off, are you?”

  Rob’s face is hard, accusatory, and his hands, which se
conds before had been twitching nervously against the linoleum surface of the houseboat’s galley table, are now balled up into fists. But despite the display of bravado, I can see that Rob is shaken, just like the rest of us. He’s not willing to admit it, but there’s a part of him that wants to back out of tomorrow’s trip to Bull Valley Mine.

  “I . . .” I swallow; my tongue feels two sizes too large for my throat. “I think we should consider it.”

  Though I’m the first to voice it, I’m not the only one thinking it. It’s been a rough hour, confusing and weird, and I can see doubt in almost everyone’s faces. The arrival of the fisherman has us spooked. And his disappearance is downright terrifying.

  We searched the island, of course. From his earlier reconnaissance, Terrence knew there was no way on or off its shores without a boat. Armed with Maglites, rope, and whatever tools from the boat that could double as weapons, we split up into two groups and set off in different directions across the beach. One group should have run into the fisherman and been able to subdue him until we could call the Lake Patrol and hand him over.

  Slight problem: both groups met on the far side of the island. No fisherman in sight.

  Consensus: screw this.

  We hurried back to the campsite and quickly packed up. No freaking way were we going to stick around with that weirdo hiding in the woods. Ten minutes later we pulled up anchor and were chugging away from Slaughterhouse Island.

  With our boat anchored in the middle of the lake, our creepy fisherman can’t reach us. But what should we do now? Call the authorities? Report the fact that a crazed lunatic is stalking the woods on Slaughterhouse Island? That would end our little adventure before it really begins. Or do we let it go and continue on to Bull Valley Mine tomorrow morning like we planned? We all look at each other, unable to decide.

  Despite the doubt I see in his face, Rob’s stance is clear. “We can’t back out now.”

  “It’s not a dare,” I say. “We’re not bound by an oath of honor to climb into those caves tomorrow.”

  “We can always just explore the old train tracks,” Graham suggests. He sounds like he’s hoping someone will agree with him.