Black Water Tales: The Secret Keepers (3 page)

She was home.

Regina opened her mouth to scream, but everything fell ominously quiet and she could force no hellish shriek from her vocal chords. Faster, she ran but her stamina threatened to abandon her completely. Despite the goal she was trying to reach or the monster she so desperately hoped to escape, she could only run so far and she could only run for so long. Regina threw her hands up like flags waving for the help that was flaunted in the band of officers just ahead of her. Again, she opened her mouth, wider this time, but the gaping hole of silence still gave no sound. Regina could only hear the heavy pounding, but it was no longer in her ears, it was in
her head, like a headboard against a wall, it banged. The harder she ran toward the safety of the police gathering, the farther away they stretched before her until they were tiny points of color at the end of a gray stretch of lonely highway. There was no choice but to turn around, no choice but to face the force that hunted her down, for she could no longer outrun it and the journey was calling for an end. She halted, spun around, and a loud clap crashed down on her head, instantly collapsing her to the hard asphalt road like a house of cards elegantly toppled by the wind.

The dream violently spit the girl back into reality with a sharp jolt that threw her promptly into an upright and defensive position. Chang, her pudgy, black cat who had been sleeping restfully at Regina’s feet screeched as he elongated his body in a lightning-fast spring from the bed and away from the unhinged girl whom he mistakenly thought he could trust. A twice-startled Regina threw herself away from the spooked animal, forcefully thrusting her head back into the wooden headboard. Regina clenched her pain-filled head with both hands, squinting at the platinum moonlight, which was the only soothing presence on a ghastly night such as this.

Sleep would not find Regina twice in one evening. She contemplated getting out of bed to watch more television, but she was comfortable and a change of location seemed an unnecessary hassle. Regina tossed until she found the slightest bit of solace on her side and she lay there staring at the alarm clock by her bed. Emerald green numbers stared back at her, the only company she kept on an evening when the twisting in her stomach warned her that something on this peculiar night would surface, cold and bloated with secrets. The green lines on the clock flickered signaling the movement of time from one day into the next—midnight. Shrill ringing from the telephone exploded into the room. Regina shot up, jerking the phone to her ear before it could complete its first ring.

“Hello?” Regina spoke in a cracked whisper. On the other end of the phone, she heard a delicate gasp, a few moments of silence and then a voice spoke to her.

“Regina? Is that you?” the raspy voice croaked.

“This is Regina, who is this?” Regina asked, pushing the covers from her bed, pulling her legs closer to her.

“They found her, Regina…they found her.” The voice on the other end of the phone vomited the harsh news, causing her to remove the phone from her ear and frown at it like some alien artifact.

Regina muffled a powerful sob before returning the phone to her ear.

Almost six years had passed since Regina had heard the gravelly voice on the other end of the line, but there was as little need, now, to inquire about the identity of the person on the other end of the phone as there was to inquire about “who” had been found.

Nikki Valentine was calling to tell her that Lola Rusher had been found.

Years before when balmy summers seemed endless and unfettered laughter was traded over school cafeteria tables, Regina Dean, Nikki Valentine, Lola Rusher and Natalie Weston were best friends, soul mates, almost sisters until the day, eight years ago, when Lola Rusher vanished. The disappearance of Lola Rusher devastated her friends, their families, and the entire town of Black Water. One day she was there and the next day she was gone with such finality one could almost think she never existed. Some said that Lola ran away, but popular theory stated that one of the many shady truckers that made their course through the town on I-48 abducted her, but without a trace of evidence, they could never prove anything and soon Lola was just a beautiful memory. Lola Rusher walked out of the Black Water library one evening and nobody saw her again.

“Her body was buried on the DeFrank estate,” Nikki told her.

“WHAT?” Regina found herself almost yelling. On the other end of the line, Nikki replied with a deep exhale before continuing.

“The Madsen kids were playing out in the woods, they got onto the DeFrank property where one of them saw the top of a
garbage bag that was buried. They started digging. They thought they had found a treasure.”

“What?” Regina repeated; no other word in the human language could express her complete disorientation.

“So she was just stuffed into a garbage bag and buried on DeFrank’s land?” Regina asked.

Nikki forced herself to breathe in an attempt to stop trembling enough to speak.

“First, she was cut up and then buried,” Nikki revealed. Regina could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate at the gruesome thought of someone mutilating her friend.

“No,” Regina moaned as her eyes began to glaze over with tears.

“Her family is having a funeral. I feel like I’m going crazy. You have to come back, Regina…please, I’m begging you. Come back,” Nikki pleaded with the girl who was once her best friend, whom she now barely knew.

Black Water was a distant, but intimate series of recollections for Regina. Lola had disappeared eight years ago and Regina left Black Water two years later when she turned eighteen. All of the good times filled her memory, but once Lola disappeared, everything fell apart and all she wanted was out. With Lola gone, it felt as if the walls of Black Water were closing in on her; she found it more difficult to breathe there with every passing day. There was something in the air. As soon as she was able, she fled to college and never returned. Regina had not gone back even to visit her parents. In the past, her parents had visited her in Texas, but she would not go back to Black Water. Over the years, it was made clear that she had absolutely no intention of returning, but saying no now seemed like a farfetched option. The very thing that had sent her away was now calling her back and no excuse was feasible. She could tell Lola’s parents or herself nothing that would justify her absence.

“OK. I’m coming.” She announced to herself as much to the woman on the other end of the phone. She had a hard time believing the words that she was sure had just tumbled out of her mouth.
Her throat throbbed as she swallowed and her stomach was churning at the dreadful thought. Both girls rested comfortably in the momentary silence.

“I’ll be there soon.” Regina confirmed the self-treasonous decision.

“You promise, Regina?” Nikki pushed. She had to know that Regina would be there.

“Yes. I’ll be there soon.” Regina’s words assuaged the unnerved woman and without another word between them, both women let their phones fall back to their cradles. Both aware that there was nothing more to be said, there would be no exchanges of common courtesies or traditional inquiries. The only thing between them was the distance that was no longer able to help Regina run away.

Regina could feel the darkness in the room inching closer. Wandering through her small apartment, Regina flipped switches until every light bulb in the apartment glowed. The girl dropped into her couch and leaned back, exhaling deeply at the sight of the future that was plowing her way.

She had to go. Destiny was setting in motion a chain of events that would lead her back to the place she came from and either free her forever from the chains of the history in Black Water…or bury her there.

M
urky raindrops spattered down from the charcoal sky and Regina could feel the chill of the liquid on her forehead through the thick glass of her mother’s car window.

“How you doing, angel?” her father broke the silence that was beginning to thicken in the car.

“As good as can be, considering the circumstances.” Regina explained never moving her forehead from the backseat window or taking her eyes off the landscape of trees, their leaves the color of far-off desert sands, a brilliant harbinger of the glacial months that were sure to soon follow. All of the farmlands appeared forsaken under the leaden light of the sky. The scenes whirred by her as the sedan sped down Culliver Parkway, dragging her back to Black Water. Regina looked solemnly down at her hands that were dry and beginning to crack and she wished that she had worn gloves. Somehow, she had forgotten how cold Black Water was in the fall.

“Of course, we hate the circumstances, but we are so glad that you are home. It’s been so long.” Her mother added to the conversation. Three times in the past six years Regina’s parents had been to Texas to visit her, but she had never, not once, returned to the delicate rolling hills of the Midwest that her parents and their parents before them and so on and so on had called home for as long as anyone could remember.

“Yeah,” Regina responded to her mother with the involuntary eye roll that had become an automatic response to her mother’s guilt trips. “Did you hear anything new this morning?” Regina inquired.

“We left town pretty early to head to the airport so we didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone before we left. If you’re hungry we can stop by the diner to get lunch, if there is anything new to know, we will hear it there.” Mrs. Dean told her daughter.

“Especially if Michelle is working.” Mr. Dean added with an eye roll identical to the one that he had passed down to his only daughter. Charles Dean allowed most things to slide inconsequently off his back with a nonchalant eye roll or shoulder shrug and Regina had always wished that she could have been more like her father who was always easygoing. If there were ever an instance of bad restaurant service or being overcharged at the store it would be Regina’s father who would have to calmly point out the incident and bring it to resolution because her mother was usually too quick to irritation to handle the situations with much finesse. Her mother never failed to get the job done, but whether she had a friend after always remained to be seen. Regina ended up with a temperament somewhere in the middle.

“Yeah…I guess I could go for a burger or something.” Regina answered her father after thinking. In her stomach, the rumblings consisted of dread as much as they did of hunger pains.

Old Country Diner or the OC as she and her friends had referred to it in high school was still her favorite. All the way to Texas and back, and Regina had to admit that the OC still had the best burgers, fries, and shakes of any place on the map. The burgers were always a little drippy with grease and the cheese perfectly melted down the side of the patty, caramelized onions, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, mayonnaise and mustard—just thinking about it made her mouth water. Black Water was not a place where people worried too much over their weight; besides, country living consisted of several outdoor activities that easily burned a burger off in a couple of hours. Regina would pass on the shake since she was not the same effortlessly light-weight that she had been in high school and she no longer took much to country living. The young woman remained thin in her early twenties, but what had been simple before, now took a concentrated effort.

Regina was so focused on the anticipated lunch that she took no notice of the deer crossing sign with the bullet-hole as the car sped past.

Dreaming of the burger and sugared fries while listening to the euphoric classical music that played on the radio took Regina
away. She closed her eyes and did her best to forget where she was and why she was there. When she opened her eyes, she could see the old Waterford factory. Once bright and promising, the building was long ago abandoned and now covered in a layer of smut that reflected the fact that no one loved the place anymore. Most of the windows were broken out and graffiti tattooed the walls. She sat up straight and moved closer to the window to get a better look at the landmark on Culliver Parkway that told her, no matter how much she despised the idea, she was home. Seeing the old place meant that she was now only a few minutes outside of Black Water, minutes away from Oakley High School where she had once laughed uproariously in the hallways, minutes from the Fairview two-screen movie theatre, where she and her friends had spent several Saturday nights eating popcorn and watching movies, minutes away from Klein park where she and the girls would sneak away to conduct secret girls club meetings.

“Such a shame,” her father interrupted. With his words, Regina looked up to see that they were now passing the DeFrank estate. Wheezing for air, Regina withdrew from the window as if she had seen a ghost. Yellow tape was strung around the gates and trees that served as the perimeter of the property. The sight hit her like a brick wall.

“You OK, honey?” Regina’s mother was watching her closely in the rearview mirror as she drove; her father unbuckled his seatbelt and turned completely around in the passenger seat to ensure that Regina was not too disturbed by the surprisingly tranquil scene.

No longer were there trucks, police officers, or a dead body, just an empty shell of a home that sat far back in the distance across a massive field of browning grass and tall stretching trees on the verge of shedding their leaves.

Drumming out of the radio, a robust classical piece of music continued rising frantically in her ears. Through the breaks in the tall trees that were scattered throughout the football field that the DeFranks had once called a front yard, Regina eyed the forlorn monolithic mansion, two vast stories of cold, unmoving panel
and brick. The music drove full speed toward a climactic finish as the dormant domicile sat across from Regina, challenging her. It laughed at her. Lola was trapped there, on that unholy ground and it would not release her. Regina’s ears were pounded with the beats of the abusive music grappling toward crescendo. She pressed her fingertips against the cool window and suddenly she heard her own voice shrieking.