Michael Koryta - So Cold the River

But maybe not. Maybe it was all a charade, a silly girl’s notion that she’d never let die. Maybe the storm was never coming.

“Enough,” she whispered to herself. “Enough of this, Annie.”

Sleep swept over her then, descending with the speed and weight of a long day filled with unusual activity. She had a dim realization, just before it took her, of a light whistling sound.

The wind was coming back.

I’M GETTING STRONGER, and you can’t stop it. All the water in the world ain’t going to hold me back now.

The memory chased Eric up the stairs and back to his room, the words echoing through his brain.

He’d been real again. Without so much as a drop of the Bradford water passing through Eric’s lips, Campbell had been made real again. This time the vision had been a sort of hybrid, actually-a moment from the past again, yes, but this time Eric had been a participant as well as a spectator.

What in the hell had happened? What had changed?

He called Kellen. The first thing he said was, “He spoke to me again.”

“Campbell?”

“That’s right.”

“He spoke to you in a vision?”

“Well, it wasn’t on the elevator.”

Quiet again. Eric said, “Sorry, man. I’m just a little-”

“Forget it. What did you see?”

Eric told him about the murder of the nameless man in the mineral bath. He was sitting in the desk chair in the room, hair still damp, muscles still tight and stomach trembling from what he had seen.

“At first it was like they have been recently, you know, a scene from the past. Only there wasn’t any distance; I was right there for it. It didn’t involve me, though. Not in the beginning. When it was done, after he’d killed that guy… he turned and spoke to me. He spoke directly to me and spit tobacco juice into the water, and the tobacco juice was still there after he was gone. It was real, damn it. It was-”

“Okay,” Kellen said, his voice soft, calming. “I get it.”

“I don’t know why it changed,” Eric said. “I can’t figure out why it would have changed. Maybe because I was in the water, you know, immersed? But the only times I’ve seen him like that before were after drinking from the original bottle, and that thing’s nowhere near me now.”

“He said he was getting stronger?”

“Yeah. And that all the water in the world wasn’t going to stop him.”

“So the water’s been helping you.”

“Helping me?”

“You know, protecting you.”

From what? Eric thought. What in the hell is going to happen if I stop drinking the water? And what if he wasn’t lying-what if he is getting stronger? Does that mean the water won’t work anymore?

“You said that was your second vision,” Kellen said. “What was the first?”

So he told him about the Shadrach vision, realizing halfway through that he’d completely forgotten that he’d been given the name of the boy’s uncle. Somehow such details seemed insignificant after the scene in the spa.

“Let me ask you something,” Kellen said. “What did Shadrach Hunter look like?”

Eric gave as much detail as he could and then described the bar.

“I’ll be damned,” Kellen said, voice soft. “It’s real. What you’re seeing is real.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve found a few pictures of Shadrach. Very few. Aren’t many that exist anymore. You just described him to a T. And that bar, that’s one of the old black clubs, the one they called Whiskeytown. That’s Shadrach’s club.”

“I’ve got to find that spring, Kellen.”

“Why?”

“I think it matters,” Eric said. “Check that-I know it matters. You were right with what you said earlier. Anne’s water hasn’t been causing problems; it’s been preventing them. Showing me the truth but keeping Campbell at bay. I need to find the spring that mattered so much to all of them, though. There’s a point to these visions, Kellen, and they’re all headed in that direction. I need to follow them.”

Kellen was silent.

“Can we find it?” Eric said.

“The uncle’s name is a start, but I don’t know how much of a help it will be. There’s nothing else that we can go on? Nothing else you saw or heard?”

“No,” Eric said. “Just that his name was Thomas Granger, and-. Wait. There was something else. Campbell told Shadrach he knew he’d already been out in the hills, looking for the spring. He said it was by the gulf. But what in the hell would that mean? The only gulfs I know are in the ocean.”

“Wesley Chapel Gulf,” Kellen said. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“What?”

“It’s part of the Lost River. A spot where it rises from underground and fills this weird stone sinkhole and then sinks again. One side of the sinkhole is like a cliff, must be a hundred feet high at least. I’ve been there once. It’s a very strange spot. It’s also where Shadrach Hunter’s body was found.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. His body was found in the woods on the ridge above the gulf. That’s why I went out there. I just wanted to see the place and, like I said, it’s strange.”

“Well, maybe I should see it, too.”

“Yeah,” Kellen said, and there was unconcealed fascination in his voice. “You’re really seeing it, man. The truth. Everybody thought Campbell murdered Shadrach, but it’s never been proven, you know? What you just saw, with the two of them heading out there… that’s the truth, Eric.”

I knew it was, he thought, and maybe now you’ll see the potential in this.

“You can get me there, then?”

“Absolutely.”

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Eric said. “First thing.”

“All right,” Kellen said. “But before you hang up, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I talked to Danielle, and she said the bottle’s getting warmer.”

“Warmer?”

“Yeah. The Bradford bottle, the original. I thought it had warmed up a little during the drive, but she said it’s almost normal now.”

“Weird,” Eric said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah. I was just thinking that suggests whatever’s happening has a lot to do with its proximity to this place.”

“Maybe,” Eric said, thinking that it had been cold back in Chicago, though, and that was miles farther away. “I’ll call you in the morning, all right?”

He hung up and went out onto the balcony, stood and looked down over the hotel. The bottle could be affected by its proximity to this valley. Eric had consumed its contents, and the effects had changed dramatically once he left Chicago and came here. Perhaps if he left, they would lessen. Stop altogether, even.

But then I wouldn’t be able to see it, he thought. I want to keep on seeing it.

He’d stay, then. There was no other choice. He couldn’t leave now.

I’m getting stronger, Campbell had said.

Never mind that. He was a figment, nothing more. He had no real power in this world.

None.

Josiah waited until midnight to call. Originally, he’d planned to do it later but he was impatient and there was something about the hour of midnight that attracted him.

Both phones had full charges by then, and he used the second one and didn’t worry about trying to block the number. It was an anonymous phone, paid for in cash, and even if they could trace it to the gas station where Danny had bought it, Josiah didn’t much care. Anything coming from that sort of detective work took time, and he wasn’t too worried about long-term plans. More concerned with getting what was owed to him. He didn’t know what that was yet, but his gut said that Lucas G. Bradford did.

He called the number that was listed as residence on the paperwork he’d taken from the detective, listened to it ring. After five rings it kicked over to a message. He disconnected, waited a few minutes, and tried again. This time, it was answered. A male with a husky voice, speaking low, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.