Salvage (17 page)

He tucked the watch in his fanny pack, zipped it securely—a fastidiously languid motion, zipping a zipper under the water—and checked his gauge.

Bubbles rose from his lips as his eyes widened in horror—
In the red, oh God, it's in the red!
He didn't know how much air that actually left him, but he wouldn't wait to find out the hard way. He swam for the window, but just as he reached for freedom something jerked him backward. He struggled forward, kicking madly, but couldn't budge.

He was caught. Something held him in place.

Dark eyes met his in the mirror, a cold, pale green face glaring grimly over his shoulder, holding him fast to the wall.

Followed me! Waited for me!

The same rolled-up sleeves on the same white work shirt, sodden and grimy now. The same loose black pants. His watch and chain were tucked away in Owen's fanny pack. The Shepherd seemed to take no pleasure in drowning him—it was clear from the look in his eyes. It was simply his lot in life, his God-given duty. Those unsmiling lips began to open, and a viscous fluid flowed from them, jet-black tendrils spilling over Owen's shoulder and slipping around his bare throat.

It struck him then, as his oxygen level dipped further into the red, that this man—this
thing
—must have done the same to Lori. He'd drowned her in the name of his corrupt God, and would offer Owen the same fate as long as Owen remained frozen, mesmerized by the dead man's reflection in the mirror.

The knife was on his belt, in its sheath. Not very long, but sharp. Inky filth from the Shepherd's mouth obscured Owen's movements in the mirror. He'd have it out and plunged into the dead man's heart—if it still
had
one—before the Shepherd knew what was coming for him.

The button unsnapped. The Shepherd's eyes remained transfixed on his, the expression on his gaunt face as unchanged as a post-mortem photograph, while thick ribbons of black vomit gushed up from his innards. Owen saw his own elbow rise ever so slightly as he pulled the knife free.

The Shepherd's mouth closed suddenly, the wet, hollow clack of his rotted teeth resounding in Owen's ears, his face pinching into a scowl.

Now or never, Owns
…

He swung the knife over his shoulder, its blade glinting in the same light that had caught in the face of the pocket watch. It plunged to the hilt in the Shepherd's chest, the blade sinking into flesh that was like thick gelatin, the dead man's eyes widening as he realized his fate. The wooden
THOCK
as the blade hit the wall echoed in the small, submerged room, an explosion of bubbles bursting over Owen's shoulder. His eyes widened as the black hose slithered out like a snake, spewing oxygen. In his haste to get free of the Shepherd's grip, he'd cut his own oxygen line.

But he
was
free. That was something, at least. He shot off toward the window in a flash, without even a look back to see if the Shepherd had gotten free and was following him, just swam, holding his breath, heading for the light.

As he passed through the window, he was grabbed by the shoulders and jerked roughly to the side of the house, and his mouthpiece was torn from his lips. With cold finality, Owen turned to look his killer in the eye, one dead man to another, readying himself for Death's cold embrace.

She wedged the regulator into his mouth.

He felt his lungs fill with precious air—not with death, but life. She took the air away, this woman he didn't know, his
savior
, and gave him a brief, apologetic smile, before yanking him up, up toward the sky, toward air, toward
life
.

They broke the surface between the steeple and a large orange buoy, and he gasped for air that had never tasted so sweet. She dragged him to the dock, grunting as she swam until he was able to use his own arms. She helped him up onto the dock, the two of them groaning from the effort. He doubled over suddenly, every single inch of him seizing in excruciating pain, and puked up everything still in his guts from that morning.

"You all right?" she said, dusty blonde hair matted to her head. Her face was tanned, and the heavy lids gave her eyes a look of perpetual sadness.

Owen coughed up bile. It splattered on the surface of the lake where the rest of his vomit lay in a disgusting froth, the water calmed now, looking like glass. He was too dazed and queasy to appreciate it. "I think so."

She was scowling at him when he plopped down on his ass. "What the hell were you doing in that house?"

"Nothing, I…"

She prompted him to go on with her dark, sad eyes.

"I just thought I saw something."

"Saw what?" she asked, more suspicious than curious.

"I don't know. Nothing, I guess." He spat into the water again. "I guess I must have caught my hose on something."

She looked at the hose, severed clean and hanging from the tank. "I guess
so
," she said, seemingly unconvinced. She started peeling off her flippers. "You think you'll be okay to drive? I could give you a tow if—"

"I'm okay," he said.

"You sure?"

He nodded, catching a deep breath. "Yeah. And thanks. If you hadn't helped me…"

"You would have drowned?"

He thought of Sophie Huang, her embarrassment when he'd mentioned her heroics. "Yeah," he said, smiling genuinely for the first time in as long as he could remember. "My name's Owen, by the way."

"I know what your name is. Everyone in town knows who you are." Her right fin sucked against her bare foot as she pulled it free. "Owen Saddler, brother of the dead girl."

He flinched. The smile fell from his face as swiftly as if he'd been slapped. "That's a harsh way to put it."

"It's true, isn't it? You spend your whole life tiptoeing around death, it won't make it any easier when you lose someone else you care about."

"True, I suppose," he said—not wanting to concede, but she had just saved his life. "What's your name? Just so I know who saved my ass."

"It doesn't matter," she said, wringing out her hair onto the dock. "You won't see me again."

"You seem pretty sure of that."

"I am. 'Cause even you can't be stupid enough to come back out here and try this again."

"Even me?"

"Yeah." She held his gaze. "The guy whose sister drowned maybe ten feet from where he's sitting? Even you."

The blow struck hard. He didn't know how to respond without expressing his anger. The cold, unidentified bitch stood and crossed the dock to her boat, the tin Bumble Bee. He was glad he hadn't told her about the Shepherd, nor the watch he'd found, despite her assurance he'd find nothing down there. She stepped in, the boat wobbling, and sat down in front of the motor.

"Nice talking to you," Owen called to her as she started the motor and pushed the boat away from the dock. He watched her drive away, cutting west across the lake until she disappeared from sight.

He stood up on weary legs, wiped his lips again, and peered over the edge into the water. Somewhere down there, the house with the child's room lay silent. His deadly hallucinations had followed him all the way to Chapel Lake. He'd caught on something in the wall and had imagined the Shepherd holding him down. Easy enough to make himself believe it, considering he'd only seen the dead man in an old, worn mirror covered in sludge.

"Left my knife down there, too," he said. "Probably still stuck in the wall."

Even I wouldn't be stupid enough to go back down there and get it
, he thought.
Would I…?

1

OWEN SAT ON THE BACK
deck of the house with a root beer in his hand and Lori's journal on his lap, enjoying the gorgeous afternoon, looking down at the lake every so often to remind himself how lucky he was just to be alive.

Chickadees twittered in the trees above, and while he was reading, the chipmunk had climbed onto the deck near him to nibble at a pile of peanuts Lori must have left, mostly little bits of shells now. The sun was hot, but he'd moved the chair to a place in the shade. As he read, the tree's shadow moved across the deck, and Owen moved with it.

She had tried to go out on the lake one morning, only to find that the boat motor had been "tampered with," according to the marina mechanic; and the power seemed to flicker and sometimes go out entirely at the least convenient times, like when she was showering or standing in front of the mirror brushing her teeth in the sink. Her investigations had come to a standstill, too; nobody in town wanted to talk to her, and Dink Deakins and Peter Jebson had both stopped returning her calls, shunning her when she'd gone to visit their houses.

In her June 20th entry, the same day she'd sent the postcard—
GREETINGS FROM CHAPEL LAKE!
—Lori was describing the seemingly indestructible and impenetrable church, when she finally revealed her true motivation:

I said before I sometimes think you're like a kid's sandcastle built too close to shore, and you sure didn't get it from Mom. She's as solid as a rock, except for that one time I caught her crying over her lost shoes. I think you've been quick to become depressed for as long as I've known you, but it didn't hit me until a few years back, when you were in that funk after you and Allison split, that it might be clinical.

I asked Mom about it, if there was any history of mental illness in the family. Grandma and Granddad always seemed pretty well-adjusted, aside from being WASPs, but you never know, and Uncle Ralph has his problem with pills. Mom looked at me like she'd seen a ghost. "What are you implying?" she said, and tried desperately to change the subject. You know how she is: Mom kept mum.

But I wasn't going to drop it just like that, and when I asked about your dad, she got upset. Said her spiel about him being a "great mind who'd wandered away." But her mouth slammed shut like a castle drawbridge all of the sudden, and that's when it finally clicked what she'd meant all that time about wandering away.

It wasn't
your father
who'd wandered away, Owns, it was
his great mind
. All that time she'd been dropping hints to the Terrible Truth and neither of us knew it.

Your father didn't leave you and Mom.
He went crazy
.

Owen read those final three words for a second, then a third time, then let the journal settle in his lap. A horn sounded out in the bay, loud and long, like a ferry horn calling its passengers, like a church bell calling to the flock.

If his father had been crazy—whatever that meant—it could have been hereditary. Clinical depression was one thing, but seeing dead preachers intent on choking the life from him could mean schizophrenia, and if left untreated, it could be very bad for both himself and, possibly, others.

He closed Lori's journal with finality and tucked it under his arm. The sun had begun to sink behind the trees, still far from setting, but cooling the air considerably. At the edge of the deck the chipmunk nibbled greedily at scraps of shell. High above them both, a gull cried in the clear, pale blue sky.

His mother would be no help. Like Lori wrote, Mom would keep mum. But somewhere in town,
someone
had to know who his father was, and what had happened to him. Owen determined to find that someone tonight.

If not the man himself.

2

His car had been idling at the intersection of the cottage road and the paved county road, when the Howie Haul-It truck stopped in front of him and Howie laid on the horn.

Owen snapped out of his daze, wondering how long he'd been sitting at this lonely intersection staring out at a stretch of empty farmland, worrying about his predicament.

Howie leaned over the passenger seat and peered out the window. "Find any tweasure?" he said, waggling his eyebrows in heavy sarcasm.

"I did, actually," Owen said, startling the trash man. With brash eagerness, he took the pocket watch from the change tray and dangled it for Howie to see. Its double-circle reflection swung in an arc across Howie's truck, momentarily blinding the man. Howie threw up a hand to protect his eyes.

"What the jeepers! Wight in my peepers!"

"Sorry," Owen said, palming the watch like a yo-yo.

Howie blinked hard, and with his eyebrows waggling, it was almost comical. "You found that down there?"

"Yessir."

Howie rolled his head on his shoulders in a gesture that seemed to indicate that, all this time, he'd been missing out. "You gotta be
kidding
me!"

"I kid you not."

"Well, cwipes on a cwacker. Nice find, Indiana. I guess it ain't loon shit, but it still pwoves my theowy."

"What theory is that?"

"You can find just as much in the twash as you do in the lake." He began to rummage. "Check out
this
puppy," he said, and held up a small metallic object. It glinted in the sun, but was too small to make out.

"What is it?"

"A cross," Howie said, though it sounded more like
cwoss
. "I found it in your wefuse."

Owen started. "Can I see it?"

Howie pocketed it greedily. "Tell ya what: why don't you follow me to the Pony? You can meet my dad, and maybe he'll give you a few bucks for that watch, if it isn't a piece a junk."

Owen didn't want to get rid of the watch, didn't think Howie's father would be interested in it even if he did, with its large crack and dead hands. He'd wound it and changed the time, but the thing still refused to work. He was interested to meet the man, though, and if anyone knew what had been taken out of that lake, a man who paid top-dollar for salvage likely would. "Do they have food?" he asked, suddenly realizing he was starving.

The question mystified Howie. "Sheah!" he said. "Only the best damn hot wings in town!"

"Then let's go."

"Coolio. Follow me."

Howie threw the truck into gear and took off with a grunt of his hemi. Owen zipped behind him in the hybrid, hoping like hell he could keep up.