Джош Малерман - A House at the Bottom of a Lake

The impossibilities.

The magic.

He called Amelia again.

No response.

Water everywhere in his bedroom. But no water in the hall. No water anywhere else.

Only his bedroom. Submerged overnight. While he was sleeping.

Sunk.

James was awake. Wide awake.

What happened here?

Fear.

A deeper fear. A new fear. No longer just afraid of the house. The house was over there. Underwater. But this… his bedroom was miles from the lake… this was his parents’ home. This was bad. This was putting other people in danger. How could he keep this a secret?

This was bad.

James hurried out of the house. The sunny morning frightened him. Too bright. Too exposed. Too normal.

He tried to calm down. He breathed. The sun dried his shorts, his shirt, his hair. He called Dad on his cellphone.

Dad answered.

“You all right, James?”

“No. There was a… did there… did a pipe break or something?”

“What do you mean?”

“My room is soaking wet.”

“Your bedroom?”

“Yeah. Soaking wet, Dad.”

“Anywhere else in the house?”

“No. Just my room. What do you think it was?”

“I know what it was. A water main.”

“How do you know that’s what it was? How do you know that?”

Fear in his voice. New fear. Scared of everything.

“What else could it have been?” Dad said. Then he half chuckled. James thought of laughter rising like bubbles in a lake. “It didn’t rain last night.”

What else could it have been, James? What else?

“Okay. What do I do?”

“Nothing. I’ll send Dana.”

“Okay. What should I… I shouldn’t go back in there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… in the house. I should probably wait for Dana?”

Dad laughed.

“It’s not going to kill you, James. It’s a water main. But wait wherever you want. I’ll send Dana and she’ll fix it.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You all right, James?”

“Yeah, just…” fear in his voice fear in his blood, “…kinda freaky to wake up that way.”

“I imagine so. Anything ruined?”

“No. I mean… nothing important. Just… I don’t know.”

“Well, check it out. You don’t wanna lose everything.”

“Okay, Dad. Yes. Thank you.”

They hung up.

James looked up to the blue sky. Down to the dry, green grass.

You don’t wanna lose everything.

But he had. He’d lost everything.

The house.

Amelia.

Everything.

And yet… was it still going on?

The house? Amelia? Everything?

By the time Dana pulled her work van into the drive, James was sitting cross-legged at the end of the driveway. Dana would later tell James’s dad that it was like pulling up on someone sitting on a raft, tethered to a house. As if James wanted to get away, but was afraid of being lost at sea.

Stocking the shelves at Darlene’s, Amelia knew better than to try and push the house out of her mind. There was no use fighting it. She was obsessed, and if there was one thing her mother had taught her about obsession it was, Even when you don’t you do.

In the week since they left the third lake, Amelia did. She did think about the cool water lapping against the wood of the raft. She did think about how good it felt to be on that raft, James’s eyes traveling up and down her body like the flowery fountain in the front of the Chinese restaurant in town. Up and down. Over and over. His interest recycled with every revolution. She missed it. She missed the logs beneath her bare feet, the superhero feeling of slipping into the wet suit for the first time each day, the shine of the mountains framing the third lake. She missed the sun, the sounds, the sensations.

But most of all, she missed the house.

Marcy spoke over the grocery store’s loudspeaker:

“There’s been a spill of boogers in aisle three. Amelia? Can you take care of that?”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard. The store was empty and Marcy was trying to help. She knew Amelia was going through something, but she didn’t know exactly what.

Even now, crestfallen, scared, confused, Amelia didn’t talk about the house.

Or the noise upstairs.

A week.

A week without smoke could drive a smoker mad. A week without family could change a man.

Amelia felt changed. Different. Afraid.

“Amelia?”

Stocking rice in aisle three, Amelia turned to see Marcy, twirling the ends of her hair until she’d made two handlebars extending far from her head. She chomped her gum like a dog.

“Do I look like one big mustache?”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard.

Seeing Marcy’s hair unnaturally fanned out like that made her think of her own in the mirrors of the house.

“Are you really okay, Amelia?”

Amelia looked down to her hands and saw she was holding a box of cereal. In the rice aisle. How’d that get here?

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been in this aisle for close to ten minutes. And you’re stocking wrong.”

The cereal doesn’t belong here, Amelia. And you don’t belong in the house.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ll get it together, Marcy.”

“Is it because you’re in love?”

At the mention of the word, Amelia could see James, mid-flight, diving into the water above the roof.

“Just a bit tired,” she said.

“Nu-uh,” Marcy said, shaking her head no.

Amelia saw the bottom of James’s bare feet as he was swallowed by the darkness of the lake.

“Come on, Marcy. I’m fine.”

“Okay. But if you spend another ten minutes in here, I’m calling the heartbreak police.”

Amelia tried to smile. It was hard.

Marcy left her.

Amelia crouched and set the cereal on the floor beside the box of rice. She thought of James’s sperm, fanning out, a slo-mo explosion, how cool it looked, how amazing everything was up until then… up until exactly then.

Amelia opened the box of rice and heard Marcy goofing off in the next aisle. It sounded like she was… squishing something. Wringing out a rag. Something wet.

Has she ever lost everything? Amelia thought. Everything all at once?

It sounded like Marcy dropped something. A wet plopping sound. It had the unmistakable tone of a friend sneaking up on you.

“Careful, Marcy,” she called.

A second plop. This one louder. Sounded to Amelia like wet shoes.

“Marcy?”

Sometimes, after you’d come back in from taking out the trash, your shoes squeaked on the grocery store’s linoleum floor. It was a joke among the co-workers. Watch out for slime out by the dumpster. It likes you. It’s gonna follow you back in.

Another squish from the aisle over and Amelia felt the first real wave of fear. It did come like that, in a wave, not from her mind to her body, but rather like the unseen waves beneath the surface of the third lake: It attacked your face and front first, then wrapped itself around the rest of you.

“Marcy?”

Another slow wet step. As if the person wearing the wet shoes didn’t know exactly how to walk.

Or like they haven’t walked on dry land in a long, long time, Amelia.

“Marcy?”

Tears started to blur the bottom of Amelia’s eyes. She looked up, slowly, to the round security mirror hanging from the grocery store ceiling.

Was there something in the aisle over? Was there?

“Amelia! What’s wrong with you today?”

Marcy. Behind her. At the end of the aisle.

Another wet step. Approaching the far end of the aisle over.