“I don’t know,” Alan said. He looked off into the woods. Just below the dam, on either side of the stream, they’d passed by scrubby marsh. Here, the woods came almost all the way down to the water.
Bob sucked air through his pipe.
“Sounds like you don’t have an explanation for what you saw,” Bob said.
“I don’t,” Alan said. “It makes me angry.”
“Because you can’t control it?”
“I think mostly because it doesn’t seem to bother Liz one bit. Joe had to sleep in our room Wednesday night. Thursday night, he slept with a light on. I think we felt safer in the city,” Alan said.
“Keep looking to your left,” Bob said. He pointed towards the shore. “That culvert is not far from here I think.”
“Is it easy to miss?” Alan asked.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know if it looks different now,” Bob said. He tried the pipe in the corner of his mouth and then stuffed it back in his pocket. “When I lived in Boston we use to rent a really old house. It had been turned into a nursing home and then back into a residence. The front part was normal, but then it had a wing off the back with a few rooms for residents. We used the big one as a gym.”
“Did you see a lot of ghosts and ghouls?” Alan asked.
“Nope. Never did. I had some weird experiences though. Only when I worked out at night. I’d be back in the room lifting weights or jumping around doing cardio and then I’d see a shadow of someone coming down the hall. Whatever was casting the shadow would never make it to the door. It would stop and then turn around.”
“You never went to look to see what it was?”
“All the time,” Bob said. “I’d poke my head out into the hall and there would be nobody there. One time I turned just as the shadow was passing my door. I got to the threshold in time to see the door across the hallway close. That was a guest room that we hardly used. When I looked in there, the light next to the bed was on but there was nobody in there.”
“Did it have a window? Maybe someone snuck out,” Alan said.
“The window had an air conditioner in it, so I don’t think so. Sometimes unexplained things happen. The only thing worse than being certain that it was your dead mother is being certain that it wasn’t,” Bob said. “You know what I’m saying?”
“That I should keep an open mind?” Alan asked.
“No,” Bob said, laughing. “Who cares if your mind is open? I’m suggesting that you stop arguing with your wife about it. If she wants to think it’s her mom, then who cares? If you’re concerned about trespassers, then start locking the doors, or put in cameras or something. I can help you do that—they’re so small we can hide them where even Liz won’t find them. But don’t argue about it. That doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“On that we agree,” Alan said. “Hey, is that your culvert?”
Bob turned and looked in the direction Alan was pointing.
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “See if we can get closer. It looks like the water is pretty low.”
“We might have to pull the engine and paddle,” Alan said. He steered towards the little side stream that wound towards the culvert. From what he saw over the side, the water was plenty deep for the prop.
The boat stopped with a hollow thunk from underneath.
“Hold up,” Bob said. Bob moved to the bow seat and rolled up his sleeves. He leaned over the side and reached into the water. The boat shifted as Bob lifted a downed limb and pushed it off to the side. With the way clear, Alan engaged the motor again. Bob had to clear another branch before long. Alan killed the engine as they approached the big culvert.
It was a giant cylinder of steel, but it was about half filled with water. It looked like the boat would fit through if the two men ducked down.
“What if there’s a snag in the pipe?” Alan asked.
“Pull up the engine and we’ll push the boat through from inside the pipe. If we get stuck then I’ll go over the side and free us up,” Bob said.
“If you can fit,” Alan said.
Bob slid to the deck of the boat and pulled at the inside of the culvert. Alan tilted the engine and then lowered himself down.
“Tight,” Bob said. His voice boomed in the pipe.
Alan laughed. “This is where nightmares come from,” he said with a chuckle. It was at least ten degrees cooler inside the pipe and sticks scraped at the hull of the boat like clawing fingernails. “How long is this thing?”
“I think we’re about halfway through,” Bob said.
Bob gave a shove and the steel zipped by above their heads. The top of the outboard threatened to scrape on the culvert and Alan had to push the boat down deeper into the water to clear the lip. They were through to the other side. Weeds encroached, leaving them a tiny passage up the little creek. Alan lowered the prop and they motored upstream. With the landscape passing by so close on either side, it felt like they were going at an incredible speed.
“So if that culvert took us under the Mill Road, then we must be headed up towards the beaver pond,” Alan said.
“Not quite,” Bob said. “We’re west of the stream that has the beaver pond. This stream goes to a different pond.”
“Oh,” Alan said.
The stream curved left and Alan understood. They would be staying south of the Colonel’s property and the path that Alan sometimes took when he walked to Bob’s house. This stream was fed from the backside of the hill that the Durham Road crested. After a few more sweeping turns, the stream opened up. The motor bumped on the muddy bottom near the mouth of the stream and then they hit deeper water. The pond was almost a circle and looked to be about fifty yards in diameter. Alan guided the boat to the center of the pond and then killed the engine.
“This is nice,” Alan said.
“Yeah, quiet,” Bob said.
To the west, the hill rose. On the other three sides, the pond was bordered by marsh and eventually grew up into forest in the distance.
“Who owns the land?”
“That way belongs to Strickland, I think. North belongs to nobody—the town owns it. To the west and south we just came through a wildlife management area. It’s controlled by the state.”
Alan turned as they heard a train whistle from the south.
“I never knew this was over here,” Alan said.
“I hear it’s good fishing. You should bring Joe back here,” Bob said.
“How deep is it?” Alan asked. He leaned over the side of the boat.
“Pretty deep, but don’t go in. It’s a leech pond.”
“Ugh,” Alan said. “You ready for a sandwich?”
“Absolutely,” Bob said. “You have something to drink in there?”
“Of course,” Alan said.
It was so quiet, it seemed like Alan could hear every tiny little noise. He heard the water lapping at the side of the boat as they rocked slowly. He heard the crinkle of Bob’s cellophane and the crunch as he chewed his sandwich. He could even hear the bubbles popping in his soda as it sat on the bench next to him. At the shore, a crane stalked on its pencil-thin legs and then stabbed its bill into the water. The bird came up with a fish. It ate the fish as Alan took a bite of his sandwich.
After he finished eating, Alan lowered himself down to the bench, lying with his head on his rolled-up sweatshirt. Bob moved to the bow, where he leaned back and propped his arms on the rails of the boat. The thin October sun was almost hot. The shiny boat felt like a frying pan.
“What a day,” Alan said.
Bob grunted his agreement.
“I heard a strange rumor on TV yesterday,” Alan said.
“What was it?”
“Some people have jobs. Can you believe that? What a waste of a day it would be to go work in some office.”