Jon Fore: Black Water

“Can we just go now? It’s cold and I want to make the house before sunset,” Abby half whined while clutching her coat around her.

“It’s not hard to tell which way to go, huh? Just keep going uphill and you end up at the Heart House,” Madison mused more to herself than to anyone.

“It’s still creepy. Man, do I have a headache,” Chris muttered as he began to follow Ethan uphill.

The sun had not been in the sky long, so the air was still chill and a while away from being warm. The travelers could see their breath as they climbed, now beginning to encounter large boulders with a dried moss fixed to their surface.

The group did not speak much as they walked, more strained than yesterday due to sore legs and blistered feet. They were not disgruntled yet, the idea of an adventure still fresh in their minds, but just not as jubilant as the day before. The idea of someone walking through their camp was a bit nerve-racking for most of them, except for Ethan, who was just flat out frightened.

“You know, I just thought of this… Slaves walked this same trek trying to get away. They very well could have passed over this very ground,” Abby said wistfully, clearly taken by the idea of touching history. Her statement did nothing more than give Ethan greater reason to be disturbed.

“Did this house handle a lot of runaway slaves?” Madison asked.

“No, actually they didn’t. This was a side stop, sort of. When the main trail was impassable, the runaways would come in this direction. So, no, not many slaves past through here, but some did.”

Ethan toyed with the idea of saying something, telling them about the people he had seen last night, but was afraid of their reaction, and for not telling them in the first place. It had to have been an episode, that was all. The doctor had told him they might return, and if they did to contact him or another qualified psychiatrist; this he would do when they got back. The University had them on staff if he needed them—hell, a whole department of them, actually.

“Did any of them die on this mountain, trying to get to the house?”

“Got me—there is not much written history about the Heart House, which is why I chose it as my project. If it does well enough in class, I will submit it to a publisher; see if I can’t earn a little money.”

“I hope it works out. Are you going to put me in the dedication or something?” Chris asked.

“No, not you, just your headache and a bottle of Turkey.”

This brought a few chuckles, and the mood of the group began to lighten.

Chris worked his way behind the others to watch Madison and Abby walk up the mountain. He so enjoyed women, and the opportunity to watch two rather nice looking ones work their way up the steep climb was an opportunity he did not wish to miss.

“Hey, how good are you with that camera?” Madison asked Abby.

“It’s what I am studying. Why?”

“I was thinking of adding some more risqué pictures to my portfolio and wondered if you wouldn’t mind shooting them at the house up there.”

“What do you mean?” Abby asked slowly.

“Well, nothing too bad, you know—not exactly pornographic, but implied nudes and full nudes…and maybe some with the guys back there watching our butts.”

“I’m game!” Chris shouted.

“Well, yeah, I guess. I don’t want credit for any of them…and you can’t tell anyone I shot them.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to be a photojournalist; it might hurt my chances if a serious news magazine found out—”

“Oh, well, okay, that’s fine. I just want to spice up my portfolio.”

Abby almost ran directly into Ethan. He had stopped without warning and was just staring into the trees to the left. “What’s wrong, Ethan?”

He looked pale and shaken, and did not reply to her question. She followed where he was looking, and there, standing next to a tree, was a soldier—not a modern soldier, but one wearing what looked like the remains of a eighteenth century British uniform. He was clearly wounded in many places and bleeding from most of them. He was just standing there, breathing heavily, and looking up hill.

“What the fuck?” Chris hissed.

Ethan turned. “You see him? It’s not just me?” he whispered.

“I see him…” Abby said as she pulled free her camera, much like an old western gun slinger, and began snapping shots, one after the other with different zoom settings, as fast as she could take them.

The emotion of everyone was thick enough to taste. Then the distant call of hounds started again, but this time uphill. The soldier turned and fled silently down the hill, plowing headlong but making no sound whatsoever.

“Yeah, okay. I think it’s time to head back,” Madison said shakily.

“And what, not take any of those pictures?” Chris asked absently, still staring off in the direction the soldier had fled.

“Did we just see a ghost?” Abby asked.

“The hounds have stopped,” Chris commented.

“We are almost to the top and it’s past noon; we would not be able to make it down by nightfall. Should we just continue?” Ethan suggested.

“Wouldn’t going down be easier than going up?” Madison argued.

“No, it’s a lot trickier. It’s very easy to trip and fall—”

“Let’s continue, get to the house, and take the pictures. We can come back down in the morning,” Abby decided.

“Are you two scared of ghosts or something?” Chris teased.

“You didn’t just see that?” Madison whispered.

“Well, yeah, I saw something, but it’s gone now, and it didn’t hurt us or anything. Probably just a trick set up by farmer Joe-Bob down there to make us talk to other people about it, bring in more tourists. I don’t know—start an urban legend?”

“Come on. Let’s get up there and out of these woods. I, for one, would be more comfortable if we were more in the open or even under the roof of a house,” Ethan said as he began climbing again. “That and I’m hungry.”

The others paused a moment before following. Abby guessed that even if there was such a thing as ghosts, they could not hurt anyone—they were, after all, ghosts. She really did want to get these pictures taken and finish her book. She was certain it would not be a best seller, but if it sold anything at all, she would be able to get rid of that rusty blue Nova waiting for them at the farmer’s house.

“Do you believe in ghosts, Abby?” Madison asked, still shaken by her experience.

“Well, I didn’t, but I am not so sure now. If I was the only one to have seen it or if someone was trying to convince me they had seen it, then no.”

“Do you think that was a joke or a trick or whatever?”

“Did you notice there was no noise when the guy took off running?”

“Yeah, but don’t they teach soldiers that? You know, in basic training or whatever?”

“He was running headlong down the mountain. He was not attempting to be silent at all, yet there was no noise—that’s what bothers me.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I think it was a trick, you know, to make us talk and start rumors or folklore or whatever—make more people come and see this house.”

“It’s possible, I guess.”

The mountain finally made a lazy layover, and the uphill climb became the littered floor of a forest. “We must be close now, maybe a few hundred yards,” Abby called ahead to Ethan.

“How could someone live up here with no roads and stuff?” Madison asked.

“There was a road, but it winds up the mountain and is now mostly grown over. It would have taken us a few days to walk it,” Abby explained.

“Oh…”

They continued in silence, Madison evidently having run her brain dry of questions. The forest here, although thick, seemed runt and twisted. None of the trees seemed to grow very tall but they were obviously ancient, most of them showing signs of illness or at least a rough life in this part of the woods. Some were even burned—small circular scorch marks almost completely obliterated by bulging bark growth.