Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

Benny Pope stole the boat because he had never been fishing. He had lived right next to the lake forever, but he had never been fishing. It didn’t seem right. The more beer he drank the more apparent this injustice became, and, at two o’clock in the morning, after two quick sixpacks, he determined to right the wrong.

He shuffled from his room at the back of Ed Parker’s Sinclair station, clutching the other two sixpacks of the case of beer and made his way past the wrecked cars and piles of old tires, through the trees and down to the little dock where Ed rented space to locals. He cast a slightly-out-of-focus eye on the array of small boats tied there and chose the aluminum skiff belonging to the lawyer, McCauliffe, because there was a fishing rod lying in it and because it had two motors. Two motors seemed like a good idea to Benny; you never could tell when one would conk out. Folks were always bringing them up to the station to get fixed.

Benny got the outboard started easily enough, though he nearly fell overboard doing it, then he pointed the skiff toward the middle of the lake, steering an erratic course. The night was clear and warm and still, and the noise the outboard made soon began to intrude upon Benny’s appreciation of the nature around him, so he switched it off and changed to the little electric trolling motor which ran off a car battery. Its dim hum was more in harmony with the surroundings, and soon Benny had some line played out behind the boat and was happily trolling aimlessly across the lake, unconcerned with whatever kind of lure he was towing. He was fishing, by God. He glanced back toward the town. The only electric lights to be seen were at Bubba’s, where a low-stakes pool game was still going on. The old timey gaslights along Main street cast a warm glow over the brick storefronts, giving the white trim a honey tint. It was all very pretty, Benny thought, a pretty town. He was glad he lived there. During the week, he did his work, stayed sober and said hey to folks, helped Ed bring in the business to the filling station. On Saturday nights, he cashed his paycheck, bought a case of beer, and drank it by himself. Sundays, he slept late. He didn’t go to mass any more. Nobody did. He cracked another cold beer and settled in the bottom of the boat, his head resting against a seat cushion, and gazed, awestruck, at the wild array of stars twinkling at him in the moonless night.

Benny wasn’t sure what time it was when he woke up. He was closer to shore, and the little electric motor was draining the last of the battery’s juice, barely moving the boat. A moment later it stopped altogether, and the boat drifted. The night and the water were absolutely still. The stars were reflected in the lake, and for a moment Benny felt he was floating in space, with stars both over and under him. He was so enchanted with the beauty of the moment that he didn’t even want another beer. Then he saw the lights in the water.

They were obviously not stars; they were too bright and too well arranged. Benny froze just for a moment. The faint memory of an old movie came to him, something about space invaders. If the lights were reflected in the water, then they had to be over his head, but he heard nothing. Jesus God, it was a flying saucer! Those things didn’t make any noise, did they? He got slowly to his knees, unable to take his eyes from the reflection in the water. The lights weren’t moving; the goddamned thing was hovering right over him! He forced himself to slowly swivel his neck and look up. There was nothing there. It was gone. It had flown off in an instant, without a sound, before he could see it.

Benny’s breath rushed out of him in a huge sigh of relief. He sank back into the boat. Now he needed another beer; he drank deeply from it. He was too sober for this sort of experience. He set the beer down on a thwart and reached into the back pocket of his overalls for the half pint of Early Times he had stashed there in case the beer didn’t do the job. It wasn’t doing the job, now, and he knocked back a bunch of the bourbon and chased it with the beer. His heart was thumping against his chest, accelerated by his close call with being kidnapped into space. Benny had read something in Readers Digest about some folks that had got kidnapped by a flying saucer, and while it sounded like they had had an interesting experience, it sure had screwed up their lives good. Nobody had believed them or anything, and sure as hell, nobody would believe him if he got kidnapped into space and came back to tell about it. Shoot, they didn’t believe him about his other experiences, the ones he’d had right here at home, so he could imagine the grief he’d have to take if he told them he’d been off in a flying saucer, even if he really had been. As the bourbon found its way to the right places, he began to chuckle at himself, at his foolishness. He laughed out loud. He began to feel cold, and he pulled at the bourbon again. It was time to be getting back. He struggled up to the seat to start the outboard and in so doing glanced at the lake. The lights in the water were back, winking at him in the ripples his movements in the boat had made.

He looked quickly above him, determined to catch it this time, then back at the reflection. He did this three or four times before he realized that there was nothing above him. He looked back at the lights. They were still there, but they weren’t reflections in the lake. They were under the lake.

Benny stared dumbly at the lights for a moment, tried to get his brain to think through the bourbon. The lights didn’t seem close to the surface, but far below. And there was a pattern, a familiar pattern. A house. They were the lights of a house. And all of a sudden Benny knew, he remembered. He had seen this place before, and he had never expected to see it again. He looked quickly up at the shoreline for evidence that this wasn’t happening. Trees; up yonder a cabin. He turned and looked for the water tower in the town, found its string of red lights in the distance over a promontory. His mind triangulated his position as if it were a big radio. He was in the cove. Oh, sweet Jesus, he was back in the cove.

In terror, he looked back at the lights; now he could see more. He was looking at fields and trees under the lake. He could see the house and the road from above, as if he were floating in some silent dirigible. As he looked, the lights of a car pulled away from the house and moved rapidly up the road. He had, he knew, seen all this before. Benny Pope lost his fight with panic. He grabbed the starter cord on the outboard and yanked, and thank God, the engine started immediately. Then, as he reached for the gear lever, a soundless explosion of light came from the lake, illuminating the water about him. For an instant the little boat seemed afloat on a sea of pulsating light.

Benny slammed the motor into gear and twisted the throttle wide open. The boat shot forward, dumping him into the bilges, screaming. He kept screaming as he somehow found his knees and got the wobbling, yawing boat pointed toward the distant town water tower. His screams mingled with the roar of the motor and echoed off the hills.

Bubba Brown had finished mopping the floor at Bubba’s Central Cafe and Recreation Parlor and was fishing for his keys to lock up when Benny Pope exploded through the front doors, damn near shattering the plate glass.

“I seen it, Bubba, I seen it!” Benny was shouting. “Over to the Cove! I seen it again!”

“Hey! Come on, Benny!” Bubba yelled back at him, holding his wrists and guiding him toward a seat in a booth. “Just sit down here and take it easy for a minute.” He got a bottle of his own stuff from behind the counter and poured a stiff one into a water glass. “Here, now get that down and relax.”