She looked down again at the baby with a mixture of emotions. He had dozed off while feeding and she gently laid him down on the grass and pulled her shirt back down. He, she thought. She didn’t even have the decency to name him. But what was the point? Making sure he was still asleep she reached into her jeans and pulled out a small plastic bag. Her hands shook as she unrolled it. She withdrew a small spoon from the bag and carefully dipped it into the white powder. She had already done some before coming out here but couldn’t help herself, she needed more. At rare times when she wasn’t stoned, Cheryl realized she had a problem. But at times like this, she had no problems, only solutions. Here goes another solution, she thought as she inhaled the cocaine, and then dipped the spoon back in and snorted again. By the time she had rolled the bag up and put it back into her jeans, she could feel the effects. She looked out over the lake again but now it seemed different. The water looked dark and foreboding. Despite the crystal blue sky and vibrant green of the woods surrounding the lake, everything looked dark and brooding.
“You are really fucked up now, Cheryl,” she said aloud without realizing it. She picked up her son and stumbled down to the edge of the water. She squinted as she emerged into the ultra-bright sunshine, feeling the heat on her flesh. The baby squirmed but did not awaken. She laid him down in the grass by the shore and sat on a nearby rock. It’s party time, she thought. Once this is over, I’ll get off the shit, start going back to school, and get the hell out of this town. It will be like none of this ever happened. Without waking him, she tied a cord around the baby’s ankle. Already his skin had begun to turn a brighter shade of pink in the scorching sun. “Shit,” she muttered. She had left the backpack up by the tree. She struggled to her feet and walked quickly up the slight incline to retrieve it. The tree seemed much further away than when she had walked down to the shore, as if it was moving further away with every step closer she took.
Finally she reached the tree, the shade a welcome relief. She reached into the pack and pulled out the ten pound weight she had taken from her basement, a remnant of her father’s get in shape kick that had lasted about a week. That’ll be longer than my baby lasts, she thought. Also in the pack she found a couple of cans of beer she had forgotten about. One for now and one for when the job is done, she thought. She put the weight down and cracked one of the beers, quickly slurping up the warm foam that oozed from the top. As she drank she thought of how easy it would be. Just tie the other end of the cord to the weight, Mom and baby go for a little swim, and only Mom comes back. Nobody will ever know.
Then it hit her, an unseen force, a voice booming inside her head, echoing through every crevice of her conscience. She dropped the can of beer and choked on the mouthful she was about to swallow. Foam sprayed from the can on the ground and from her lips. You are about to kill your own son! Suddenly her stomach recoiled and she doubled over, sinking to the ground, spewing hot vomit onto the grass. You could name him Carl, just like your grandfather. God, how she had loved her grandfather, why did he have to die? A distant cry brought her back to the situation at hand. She looked down to the shore and could see the baby squirming and crying. Its face and arms were bright red, already sunburned. Cheryl scrambled to her feet, almost losing her balance but steadying herself against the tree. “I won’t do it, I can’t do it!” she muttered. Suddenly it all seemed so clear. She could get help caring for Carl until she finished high school. Then she could work during the day and take college classes at night. She could do it. “Carl, oh my God, what was I thinking?”
She started down the slope toward her son when her foot caught a root and turned her ankle over sharply. She heard a snap, like the breaking of a thick twig and felt a white-hot pain shoot up her leg. She looked down and could see her broken ankle already beginning to swell. “Carl,” she sobbed, and started crawling down the slope. Suddenly the water turned to a whirlpool at the shore in front of the baby. With a huge splash, a large black shape erupted from the lake and was on the baby. Cheryl saw what looked like… what are those things an octopus has… tentacles, wrap around its small body and in seconds the crying had stopped. Cheryl had stopped crawling, staring in disbelief at what was happening. It’s just the coke, she told herself, that and the shock of breaking your ankle. Just get down there and get your baby out of the sun before he cooks. She stood, ignoring the grinding pain in her ankle, and began to run down the incline. The creature turned in her direction and she stopped. It has to be the coke, it has to be. It looked at her, then back at the baby with eyes too intelligent to be something she cooked up in a drug-induced haze. Then it slipped back into the lake, the cord around the baby’s leg dragging behind, disappearing under the swirling water.
“Nooooo!” she screamed. “Carl, my baby!” She stumbled to the water’s edge, sure that she would find her baby still there in the sun and all this was just another hallucination. But when she finally got there, hands and knees torn and bleeding, her ankle looking like a swollen sausage, Carl was indeed gone. The impossibility of what had happened swept over her. Overcome by shock, panic and cocaine, Cheryl collapsed at the edge of the lake.
(49)
Mossy stood motionless, staring out across the lake. The distant trees shimmered in the scorching heat and the only sound was the gentle lapping of the water kissing the shore. The view was breathtaking. The shoreline was surrounded with lush, green foliage. The azure sky was brilliant and cloudless. The water was inviting; he could almost feel its coolness relieving him from the blistering heat. The thought of going into the water caused an inadvertent shiver. Mossy continued to roll everything over in his mind. The conversation with Chris had both added to his confusion and started to stir more memories. The lake played a huge part in this whole thing. And whatever it was… it was happening again. The funeral had been horrible. He had kept his composure talking to the priest, but it had taken every ounce of will not to find the nearest bar or liquor store.
Some of the things that Moses had started to remember were now becoming clearer, as if they were deep in the lake themselves and were coming closer to the surface. It’s not memories buried under the lake, is it Mossy? It’s secrets you’ve been hiding from all these years, all the wasted years. And something worse, oh yes, something much worse. Mossy swallowed hard and shook his head to exorcise the voice that was haunting him. He was suddenly parched, his hands and face breaking into a cold sweat. No drinks, he told himself. He held his hand up in front of him and was saddened to see the tremble in it. He was just a weak old man, and a drunk to boot. Why had he come back? He could have kept on doing what he had been until he met the same end as most of the homeless; freezing to death, drinking himself to death, or getting killed by another homeless person, probably over a bottle. The yearning for a hit right now was overwhelming, almost dizzying. Mossy bent down and splashed the cool lake water onto his face. When he reached in to do it again, a memory came back so clear and fast that he jerked his hands out of the water and stumbled back away from the water’s edge. He landed on his butt about ten feet from the lake, still staring across, letting the memory fill him.