B.J. Daniels - Shadow Lake

GENE BRUBAKER BOLTED upright in bed. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath and frantically searched the room for whatever had awakened him.

The room was black except for the sliver of moonlight that knifed across the end of his bed through a crack in the drapes. He drew back from the light as fearful of it as the darkness.

He was sweating, his heart pounding too hard, his mouth dry. Another nightmare. The same nightmare. He was left with a cloying sense of dread that clung to his skin.

Lying back, he closed his eyes, opened them again, fearful of sleep. The clock on the bedside table read 11:57 p.m.

Throwing back the covers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, but had to take a moment before he could stand. He cursed the body that was letting him down. He didn’t feel his age, could hardly remember it, but he recalled looking in the mirror one day and being shocked to see a deeply wrinkled gray-haired man squinting back at him.

Stiffly, he finally rose. The floor felt cold on his bare feet as he padded over to the window. He still felt shaken, his legs weaker than usual, as he drew back the drapes. The rain had stopped. He could see the lake through the trees. The water shimmered in the moonlight, the surface burnished silver.

He lifted the window with some effort and took a deep breath of the cold spring night air, letting it fill his lungs. As if anything could chase away the nightmare. He let the breath out slowly as he looked past the trees along the shore of the lake to the expanse of open water beyond.

The night air chilled his clammy skin. He slammed the window and had started to pull the drapes closed again when he noticed a light up the block.

Although nearing midnight, it appeared someone was still up at the church.

He stared at the light, surprised by the sudden ache of need that overcame him. He’d avoided church since Gladys’s funeral and truthfully only attended before that to please his wife.

He glanced back at the huge bed, the crumpled sheets on only the one side. The ache of emptiness wasn’t new. Nor was the loneliness—or the guilt. He reached for his pants.

Gene Brubaker wasn’t a man who believed in omens. In fact, he wasn’t sure what if anything he believed in anymore. That’s why he didn’t stop to consider what he was doing as he left the house and walked the block down the street to the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.

He walked past the church every day, aware that for the past few months he’d moved to the other side of the street.

Now when he neared the church, the street deserted, his jacket pulled around him as he huddled against the cold, he wondered what he was doing. Possibly just taking a walk to clear his head. The rain had left the night air damp and filled with the smell of the wet street, and he was struck with the thought that it was too cold for late April even for a town in the Northern Cascades of Washington.

Fortunately, there was no one around this time of the night. Or this time of the year in the town of Shadow Lake. Still too early for tourists with Memorial Day weeks away.

The town’s only stoplight flashed yellow down the street as he climbed the broad stone steps to the front entrance of the church, half-hoping to find the door locked. Not that there was much chance of that. Shadow Lake was so small and isolated from the real world that there was no need for anybody to lock their doors. Especially churches.

The door was heavier than he remembered it. But then again he was getting weaker each day. He had to push hard to get it to swing open and when it did, he hesitated. This was crazy. Wasn’t this the last place he should be?

A dim light burned inside. What was it he thought he’d find here? he wondered now. Salvation? Or redemption?

He had started to turn to leave when he heard the rustle of clothing and saw an elderly priest rise awkwardly from one of the pews up front and turn toward him.

Father Tom Bertonelli met his gaze. With the flick of the priest’s arthritic fingers, his old friend motioned him inside.

Brubaker let the church door close behind him, the smell of the rain and night quickly replaced by the familiar scents of his thirty-eight-year marriage. It evoked both longing and sadness. A lump formed in his throat and he felt close to tears again. Christ, he needed to get some sleep. These nightmares were killing him. His life was killing him.

He wanted to laugh at the irony of that as he glanced toward the confessionals, the church feeling too large, too vacuous. The priest gave a faint nod. Like a sleepwalker, Gene moved toward the polished wood of the confessional, his footsteps echoing across the marble floor.

He was glad when the confessional door closed behind him and he was sitting on the worn seat in the dark, the seclusion giving him a sense of safety if not peace.

Tom Bertonelli had been his friend for years. They’d fished together, shared meals up at the house, talked politics. But that had been before Gladys died, before Gene Brubaker had lost all faith.

Leaning back in the shadowy darkness, he closed his eyes as he heard the door to the adjacent confessional open, then close softly as the priest arranged his robes.

Brubaker didn’t open his eyes.

“What troubles you?” Tom asked in a voice dry as parchment.

The lump rose in his throat again. He swallowed. “Father, I have sinned.”

JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, ROB Nash parked under the wide branches of a large old pine tree along the quiet street next to a pile of dirty snow. Cutting his headlights and engine, he settled in to wait.

Rain dimpled the mud puddles along the unpaved back street. All the houses were dark except for one. The other houses were mostly summer cabins, boarded up for the winter. The seasonal residents wouldn’t be returning until Memorial Day weekend and it was only April.

A drenched cat crept across the muddy street and disappeared into a honeysuckle hedge. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

It was Tuesday, a notoriously slow night of the week in Shadow Lake, Washington, in the Northern Cascades. Not that there was much trouble in the town this time of year, given that few people wintered-in. The number of residents dropped drastically during the cold months.

It was another story in the summer, though. Tourists flocked to the lake to boat and fish and shop for antiques and curios, causing traffic problems and all the disturbances that came with the increase in population.

Nash hated summers. The town got too hectic, too crowded. That was one reason he wasn’t looking forward to another busy season and wondered if it wasn’t time for him to retire. He had a new bride to think about.

He’d put in thirty-five years and yet he was still young. Relatively. Fifty-five wasn’t that old anymore. He could spend more time fishing. Spend more time with Lucinda, something he wished he had done more of lately.

Headlights flashed at the other end of the street as a car turned and headed toward him. Nash slid down a little in his seat and picked up his binoculars to watch through the half circle in the steering wheel and the low-slung branches of the thick pine he’d pulled under.

He felt like a fool. Worse, he felt disloyal. He’d made a point of letting everyone believe he would be in Pilot’s Cove for a couple of days. He hated this kind of deception and had always believed he was a better man than that. Right now he wished both were true.

The approaching car’s headlights went out just before the vehicle pulled into the driveway of the only house with lights on down the street, a single-level white brick rancher with a two-car attached garage. Nash felt a jolt as he recognized the car—and the driver.

The front door opened and a young, slim woman rushed out of the house. She’d obviously been expecting her visitor because she wore her red raincoat, the one Nash had bought her for her birthday.