Jon Fore - Black Water

Everyone but Abby looked around the room again in search of the figure in the photo. Abby had become transfixed with the darkness that should have been his eyes. She searched the black depths, looking for some semblance of eyes, she knew somehow that if she could find them, then he would not be so horribly frightening and would become just a man.

A loud rumbling sound came from the foyer, from beneath their feet, followed by a terrible earthy crash. The laptop shut off, the screen going dark in an instant. Madison let out a scream, which made Abby scream and grab on to Ethan. Both Ethan and Chris held their tongues, but neither of them had ever been this starkly afraid before.

“It was the wall,” Abby suddenly realized. “The damn wall fell.” Her anger bullied her fear aside as she stood.

Ethan went into the foyer first and turned toward the brick wall. Abby rushed up beside him. They turned on their flashlights and began scanning the floor. There were chunks of brick and concrete dust everywhere, scattered all around the floor, some of it still suspended in the air.

“That’s just fucking great!” Abby said hotly. “How are we going to clean this up?” She cradled her head in her hands, exasperation suddenly filling her with hopelessness.

“What is it?” Madison asked, hunched and close to Chris and, not surprisingly, still entirely nude.

“The damn wall came down; we really have a mess here. Brighton is going to be so pissed off,” Abby said angrily.

“Abby…” Ethan said gently.

“No, I don’t want to hear it. We should not have been poking at the damn wall. Now I have to come up with the money to replace it and clean this mess up. And just look at the wood floor!”

“Abby!” Ethan shouted urgently.

“What?”

“The door was closed, remember?”

“So? The bricks knocked it open, so what?” She sounded angry but just a little curious at the same time.

“The bricks fell upward hard enough to force the door open. Shouldn’t they have fallen down and into the cellar?”

Abby stared at the pile of refused bricks and mortar trying to reason why they had not fallen down into the cellar. She thought that possibly there was a slight slant in the floor—maybe it was not perfectly level, perhaps it was just enough that it allowed the bricks to tumble outward and their weight forced the door open. It seemed reasonable to her, but it did nothing to quiet the uneasiness growing from the seed planted by the picture of the dark priest.

“Abby, we didn’t do that, did we?”

“No, Madison, you didn’t,” Ethan replied. “You may have weakened it, but by what I felt, it was about to come down anyway.”

“Abby, I’ll pay for it anyway,” Chris offered earnestly. It was rare to hear him speak sincerely.

“We can’t leave it like this. We have to find a way to clean it up. Madison, you better get dressed; this will be hard enough to do with flashlights without you being naked.”

“Yeah, okay. Really, Abby, I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s alright, Madison. Let’s just get it cleaned up,” Abby said with a sigh.

“What about the picture?” Ethan asked.

“You tell me, you’re the computer guy,” Abby replied as she knelt to inspect one of the bricks.

“Well, I guess it could have been an image at one point and it did not completely delete or something like that—sort of like double exposure with real film. I can reformat the card. That will make sure nothing hangs out. Do you remember taking a picture like that of a priest or something?”

“No, I’m sure I didn’t,” Abby said, wiping the dust from her hands, her face a twist of worry.

“Where did you get the memory card?”

“Online.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it then, but it is still very strange—almost like he was looking at Madison.”

“Yeah, I noticed that, too.”

“I’ll go get some flashlights, see if we can find something to sweep this up a bit,” Ethan said.

“Brighton is going to have my ass over this.”

“No, he won’t,” Ethan said over his shoulder, “that’s already mine.” Ethan always seemed to make her smile just when she needed it most.

Madison returned, fully clothed but still buttoning her jeans. “What should we do with these bricks? Take them outside?”

“You know, maybe we should just wait till daylight to do this. I don’t want to damage the floor, especially the marble in front,” Abby sighed.

“It will be okay, Abby, I promise. We can take the bricks to the woods and hide them, then close this door; could be years before farmer-dude down there even finds out,” Madison said cheerily.

This piqued Abby’s interest. “That just might work, but we would have to clean all this up like it never happened.”

“I promise not to leave until it’s done.” Madison smiled at her.

Now that she was clothed again, Abby did not feel the same odd desire she had before. She was just the cute, little, silly-minded Madison again, but this time with a good idea.

“Here are the flashlights.” Ethan said as he returned with arms full. “I brought the rain tarp to stack the bricks on.”

“I think we are going to do it in the morning, when we can see what we’re doing. Madison thinks we can hide the bricks in the woods and just shut the door. Do you think Brighton would find out?”

“I don’t see why that wouldn’t work. I really doubt he comes up here very often; he is too old, the hill too steep, the hike too long, you know?”

“He didn’t seem very frail to me,” Abby said, looking more for an argument than an agreement.

“He has arthritis in his hands; I could tell that when I shook it. If he has it there, it will also be in his knees or ankles or shoulders…”

“Alright, I was just ready to leave, but we can hide the bricks tomorrow morning and clear this dust and make it all nice again. We can leave in the afternoon or the day after.”

“You have all of your pictures for the book thing?” Madison asked.

“Enough, I think. We will see. I just want to leave now.”

“Where is Chris?” Ethan asked, suddenly aware one of them was missing.

“He was right here a second ago,” Abby responded as she looked around.

“Maybe he went outside to take a leak?” Madison offered.

“I was just at the door,” Ethan countered.

“Chris!” Madison shouted, but not very loud.

There was no answer.

“He’s like babysitting a—”

A scream ripped through the house like a shot of lightening—not the scream of someone simply scared, but the scream of a soul tormented. If not for the missing Chris, Abby would have sworn at first it had been a woman. Madison screamed in response, shocked at the sudden sound of it, haunted by the anguish in it.

“He’s in the cellar…” Ethan said. His voice staggered with fear and run dry. He ran back toward the door to grab his small backpack, the one with the gun.

“Chris!” Madison screamed. “Where are you?” Her voice pierced the ear, but still so utterly feminine.

“He is in the cellar, Ethan, hurry!”

The scream came again, crawling up the stairs like some wounded animal, squeezing the hearts in their chests, driving icicles like nails into their spines.

Ethan jammed a flashlight into Abby’s hand. “Why don’t you guys stay up here, I’ll go down—”

“I’m going with you.” Abby said firmly, “There might be a real story in this.” She remembered her camera and rushed to retrieve it.

“Here, Madison. Don’t drop this, we may need it. Did we bring a first aid kit?” he shouted toward Abby who skidded herself into a turn and rushed to get that as well.