Terror at Mirror Lake

By Hank Kellner

Terror lurks in the shadows of Mirror Lake. Secrets of sex, lies, and death are all patiently waiting to surface from its murky depths.
The small, sleepy town of Hamptonville seems the last place you would find sadistic sex, drugs, blackmail, and murder. But that's exactly what Bruce Orum and his girlfriend Cindy Garvey encounter when they flee from New York City after having killed another girl.
In Hamptonville they meet Luke Downing, a psychopath who soon uses drugs to control Cindy and make her his sex slave. A cruel, vicious character, Downing showed all the classic symptoms of a cold-blooded killer from the time he was a boy growing up with an imaginary friend who encourages him in his perversions until he became and adult.
Having dominated Cindy, Downing uses her to seduce two fishermen, Pete Engstrom and Hal Bonnacker, when they visit Mirror Lake, after which he plans to blackmail them. Although Cindy seduces the men, she double crosses Downing, disappears, and the men get away.
For the next few months Engstrom and Bonnacker express guilt over what happened at the lake. They decide to return to the scene to find Cindy. Sensing a problem, their wives decide to accompany them.
At Mirror Lake Downing takes the two couples prisoner and plans to torture and humiliate them before killing them. But he does not know that Sheriff Jeff Parker and Molly Hutchison are on his trail and determined to stop him.
From page one all the way to the breathtaking ending, you will find yourself on pins and needles waiting to see what happens on the next page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hank Kellner
• Release date: Apr 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301827442

Hank Kellner

Hank Kellner is a veteran of the Korean War and a retired associate professor of English currently based in Winston Salem, North Carolina. He is the author of 125 Photos for English Composition Classes (J. Weston Walch, 1978); How to Be a Better Photographer (J. Weston Walch, 1978); Write What You See (Prufrock Press, 2010); and, with co-author Elizabeth Guy, Reflect and Write: 300 Poems and Photographs to Inspire Writing (Prufrock Press, 2013).

Book preview

TERROR AT MIRROR LAKE

By

Hank Kellner

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Hank Kellner on Smashwords

Terror at Mirror Lake

Copyright 2013 by Hank Kellner

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and are used fictionally.

Adult Reading Material

*****

TERROR AT MIRROR LAKE

*****

We are no other than a moving row

Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come

And go.

The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám

PROLOGUE

Not long ago, Old Jonah had seen the girl descending toward the bottom of the lake, her long black hair trailing upward, her outstretched arms flailing wildly. The big fish had seen bubbles exploding from the girl’s mouth as her eyes bulged when she realized that her decision to commit suicide was irreversible. She kicked her feet, clawed at the water, and struggled against the current that embraced her. Finally, her lungs exploding in her chest, she struck the silt at the bottom of the lake, jogged grotesquely in slow motion, and died.

Old Jonah had finned his way downward through the water and considered the impressions he received from the corpse. But he hadn’t nibbled at it. It wasn’t what he was accustomed to: it was too big, too ungainly, and too unappetizing. He flicked his tail and floated upward toward the light that became brighter as he neared the surface.

Of course, Old Jonah had nibbled at many things before the girl died in the water. Sometimes he went after bugs. At other times he went after fish that were smaller than he was. And sometimes, when he became careless, he flirted with bright, metallic things suspended on thin, translucent threads. Those were the times when he felt himself being yanked upward toward what he knew would be his death.

But he was smart, much smarter than the other fish that were almost always drawn, flapping and struggling, from the depths of Mirror Lake. He never got caught.

Now, however, just a few days after the girl died, Old Jonah saw something interesting floating on the surface of the water–floating, not hanging from one of those killer strands that had caught so many other fish. He was intrigued. He watched. He waited.

Finally, its patience exhausted, the big fish flicked its tail once and coasted into position inches below the thing. He opened his mouth and surged upward, the light above him a blue-white mirror. As he struck the object, he knew he’d made a mistake. The spear that angled through his body just behind the gills lifted him out of the water. Flopping wildly in the bottom of an old rowboat, he died.

A short man in a flannel shirt withdrew the spear and tossed Old Jonah back into the lake.

Chapter 1

Shadows almost hid Bruce Orum and Luke Downing from view as they stood at the end of a trail that meandered through a stand of trees just beginning to shed their leaves. Perched nearby, a squirrel nibbled on an acorn.

Deer and other wildlife followed trails that were invisible to human eyes. Pinpoints of light speckled the surface of the lake nestled in the clearing just below them. A small cabin squatted on the western shore of the water.

Mirror Lake. This is where it happened? asked Orum.

Yep, I was here. Remember?

North of the lake, countless acres of trees rustled in the wind, their crowns bullying upward in a relentless war for survival. Mostly pine, the older trees had long since overpowered their weaker cousins who now waited patiently, it seemed, to die.

To the south, not far away, the tree line ended at a cliff overlooking a stone quarry. Silent and menacing, a sheer wall of gray-white rock dropped seventy or eighty feet to the floor of the quarry. Abandoned for many years, the open pit occasionally sheltered unwary deer and other animals that wandered into its entrance farther to the south only to be trapped by winter snows. Now, during late October, the pit waited patiently for the first snowfall of the season.

To the east, the trees petered out against the rocky foothills of a mountain. More than 5,000 feet high, the mountain seemed indomitable, impassable. Hope Mountain, the locals called it. Nobody knew why.

On the western edge of the lake, a footpath meandered through thickets and shrubs toward a small clearing. At one corner of the clearing, a dirt road snaked through the wilderness toward the town of Hamptonville eighteen miles to the west. An old Ford Bronco bearing New Hampshire plates waited in a clearing near the end of the road.

You say they come here every year? For two weeks? Orum blocked one nostril with the thumb of his right hand and blew air through the other. A blob of mucous spattered the ground. He dragged the sleeve of his shirt across his nose.

Downing nodded. Yep, in June. They’re from NewYork. One’s a college teacher named Peter Engstrom. He grinned. The other, Hal Bonnacker, works for some big company. They think they’re fishermen, but they don’t catch much. They don’t know the lake. He leaned against a tree. I reckon they don’t know much of anything.

New York, you say? Orum squinted into the sun. You sure this is what you want to do? Maybe we should let it go. Maybe they won’t come again. I wouldn’t.

They’ll come. Their consciences must be botherin’ them. And they’re after Old Jonah. That’s what they call the big fish. But they’re wastin’ their time.

How come?

I got him last week. Ain’t no fish smart enough to fool me. I know the lake. He unzipped his fly and urinated against a tree. I speared him.

You got the fish? Why? Orum spat at the ground.

Don’t know. Sport maybe. Or maybe it was ‘cause of Cindy.

Cindy? I’ll bet. Yeah, I’m sure you really cared for her.

Downing shrugged and moved toward the footpath leading away from Mirror Lake as a swarm of flies hovered above the reeds growing along the shore while crows skittered noisily through the trees.

Secluded in the woods of New Hampshire, Mirror Lake was more like a big pond than a lake. Kidney shaped, it was less than a quarter of a mile wide and about half a mile long. Difficult to get to and plagued by bad weather much of the year, it didn’t attract tourists or others who wanted to ... get away for a weekend. During the day, a few local fishermen went there occasionally to float on the surface in their battered boats while they challenged the lake trout lurking in the water below. At night, young couples parked near its shores to search for what they thought was love in the back seats of their cars. Occasionally, hunters roamed the woods.

Mostly, however, Mirror Lake was just another small body of water set back in the woods that few people paid much attention to.

Some of the locals said it was thirty feet deep: others said sixty. But no one really knew, and no one really cared. It was a small lake with a small cabin owned by someone from another place who rented it to fishermen from time to time. By day, it reflected scenes of clouds and foliage on its surface. By night, it captured moon glow.

C’mon, said Downing. It’s more than eighteen miles back to the highway, and the road’s a mess. It’ll turn to mud if it rains. He looked up at the clouds and frowned as the two men moved along the narrow path leading to a clearing in the woods where their truck was parked. Silently, they eased themselves into the Bronco and drove away while shadows marched across the land as the moon began to rise.

Chapter Two

The house on Whitson Road was the same as all the other houses lining the street not far from a large college town in upstate New York. Small yew bushes and beds of salvias accented a fairly well kept lawn. On one side of the house, two maple trees planted in a narrow strip of land separated the structure from its neighbor next door. On the other side, a picket fence ran along the edge of the property. A dormer poked upward through the roof.

Upstairs, a hint of moonlight floated into Peter and Martha Engstrom’s bedroom at the rear of the house as the couple lay in bed.

Would you like some wine, Pete? the woman asked, uncertainly. She turned onto her side and draped a slim leg over her husband’s body.

Why not? I’ll pour it over you. Queen of the Vineyards, that’s what you’ll be.

Umm, sounds delicious. And you’ll be Bacchus? Don’t go away. I’ll get a gallon or two from the kitchen. Maybe it’ll perk you up. Smiling mischievously, she brushed her fingertips along his thigh before she sat up, left the bed, and moved out of the room. For a moment she hated herself for pretending she was someone she never was.

For Martha Engstrom, sex had never taken her on the journey to ecstasy that other women experienced. Her lovemaking had never sent delicious shivers up and down her spine. It had never taken her to the heights of passion. And now, well into her marriage, it was about as exciting as a stale doughnut. And it won’t get any better, she thought, no matter how hard she tried to ignore the ghosts that slept between her husband and herself. She was sure of that. Even so, she continued to play out the charade she’d mastered as the years flew by. Returning from the kitchen with a bottle of burgundy, she perched on the edge of the bed, filled two glasses, and handed one to Pete.

Moments later, she felt his hands pulling her backward. She didn’t resist.

When she moaned as her husband moved urgently above her, she felt unclean. She wondered how much longer she’d be able to act out her little drama, how many more times she’d be able to pretend to be carried away by passion when her husband made love to her while she felt little or nothing.

The moon glowed on a corner of the bed.

Later, Martha rose and poured two more glasses of wine. It’s cheap, she said, but it’s okay. What the hell. It’s what we can afford. We still owe the bank tons of money for Richie’s tuition.

True, he responded. As he sipped his wine, Pete sensed that his mind was beginning to focus on another time, another place. He willed it back to the present. You’re amazing, he concluded. He knew that he was lying, and he wondered if Martha suspected that he was.

She smiled. You know, you’re not too bad for an English prof. But I really shouldn’t tell you that: you’d get a swelled head. Then you’ll want to get started all over again.

"Swelled head? That’s a bad pun. But you don’t have to worry. I’m finished, washed out, kaput. It’s 2:00 A.M., and I’ve got to get to my office early tomorrow to work on a lecture. Maybe you should try old Doc Schleigerman, the Don Juan of the English Department."

She laughed thinly. I could if I wanted to.

But you don’t want to, do you?

Oh, no. She leaned forward and affected a dramatic pose. And I’ll tell you why. She was still acting. Act One, Scene Two, she thought.

He kissed her. Why? Tell me.

Because, Mr. College Professor, you’re the only one I could ever be with. You’re the star that lights up my life and the sunshine that brightens my days.

"That sure is poetic, Martha. Not too bad for a former hausfrau who worked her way up to an administrative assistant’s position in a major corporation after her daughter got married and her son went off to college."

"Hausfrau! Not on your life. How about all the other work I did for years while you studied for your doctorate? After all, I wasn’t always as naive as I was when you ravished me behind the sorority house way back in the Middle Ages when I was still in my girlish bloom."

Girlish bloom? Tell me about it. Pete finished his wine, put his glass on the night table near the bed, and stretched out full length on the bed.

The drama was complete. A cloud swallowed the moon as Martha and Peter Engstrom chatted about nothing in particular for a few minutes before they finally ran out of words and lay silent in their bed.

Memories battered their way into Pete’s mind. ROTC in college. Martha as young woman. A tour of duty during the Gulf War. Yesterday’s memories: today’s lecture notes. Shakespeare, Milton, Pope. The dissertation he never completed. The doctorate he never earned. The unpublished poetry crammed into the bottom drawer of a desk. The novel he hesitated to submit. He wasn’t a full professor, and he knew he never would be unless he earned a doctorate. No, he’d be an associate professor until he retired. It wasn’t much to show for a lifetime, he thought.

But he knew that those weren’t the real problems. Luckily, he’d learned to live with his issues. And Martha helped, too, although her responses in bed didn’t cover up for the fact that there were things missing in her life too. Or maybe even secrets.

He recalled with regret that earlier in their marriage their lovemaking had been okay, if not memorable. How sad, he thought, that sex could become so much less than it was meant to be. Martha, he could tell, wasn’t the same person she’d been before.

And neither was he, for that matter. So what? No one on the planet lived a perfect life. What’s more, sooner or later everyone changed. Sooner or later everyone had to compromise, to follow different paths.

He shifted to other thoughts, thoughts that were trapped under thirty or sixty or who knows how many feet of water. But he always tried to blot out the image of the drowning girl. It troubled him too much. Short-circuiting his memory, he moved up one level from the bottom of Mirror Lake. The depths were much too painful. It was hard to breathe down there. He floated on the surface: he avoided the truth.

There must be more to it, he thought. Sure, his marriage was okay, even though he knew it was just a shadow compared to what it had once been. And Martha was okay, too, even though she always seemed to be somewhere else when they were making love. What could she be thinking? he wondered.

He was almost fifty, a second rate associate professor with a Silver Star earned years ago in a now-forgotten war. An over-the-hill idea merchant. A guy who’d grown a beard and bought a sports car after he’d turned forty.

What had the girl driven? A motorcycle?

He’d gotten by, though. Martha understood not only the sports car, but also the beard he’d long since gotten rid of. Other wives, he knew, would never understand sports cars and beards.

Even so, there must be more to it, more to the Great Game than simply loving your family and lecturing on the subtleties of the Shakespearean sonnet while everything changed around you and you pretended that you never noticed several of the girls in your classes who were very attractive. And very available.

He almost convinced himself that he was approaching the core of the problem. But he wasn’t. There was always the girl at the lake. The body in the water. The silent message he and Hal exchanged. The hidden terror.

He shifted back to his self-imposed diversion. Was there really more to it? The girls who came on to their profs? He’d leave them to Schleigerman. His unpublished novel? He knew he could never revise it a fifth time. And what could you say about poetry? What did that form of literature amount to after you reached the bottom line?

Beauty is truth: truth, beauty. That was Keats. So what? Murder will out. So wrote Shakespeare. Big deal! Had what happened at the lake really been murder?

A clock ticked loudly in his mind. He felt as if water was being forced deep into his lungs, as if he was about to drown. He gasped. Stay on the surface, he thought. Don’t think too much. Don’t go too deep. Don’t drown. Don’t let yourself go back into the past, where skeletons rattled in closets while nightmares attacked without letup.

But he couldn’t help himself. The girl smiled at him from a dozen fun house mirrors fastened to his brain. She called him to her. She beckoned to him. She clung to his mind like a leech. She reminded him of a part of himself that he wanted to forget.

He knew that the only way to ease his mind would be to return to the lake. And he knew that Hal would have to go with him. Maybe, at the lake he’d be able to clear his thoughts of the mud he was drowning in. Maybe he’d be able to work things out, to put the nightmare to rest once and for all.

Pete thought about Old Jonah. It was funny how the fish had always been a challenge, and how it had always been the reason for going to Mirror Lake in the first place. But now Old Jonah didn’t figure in the scheme of things at all. He knew he had a more important challenge to meet.

He’d call Hal tomorrow.

Yes. They’d make plans, he’d get someone to cover his classes for a few days, and the two of them would go to Mirror Lake just as they had done for so many years. But this time they wouldn’t be interested in catching a big fish.

He saw the girl again, a hazy, indistinct image glowing sadly from below the surface of the water. And he saw bubbles floating upward like ghostly memories he would have preferred to forget. Maybe, he thought, after one more visit to Mirror Lake, there would be no more bubbles.

Chapter 3

Not many cars drove past 1487 Summerfield Drive late in the evening. Located on a cul de sac just off a suburban street leading to a parkway, the split level house squatted pretentiously between others featuring lawns cared for by Doctor Green Thumb, vinyl siding guaranteed to last a lifetime, finished basements with wet bars, swimming pools, and interiors decorated by Harriet Le Clair.

Upstairs, in Harold and Barbara Bonnacker’s bedroom, pale light from a streetlight filtered through a window, dappled the bed with the brass headboard, and petered out against one of the walls. Separate bathrooms yawned at either end of the room.

Is something wrong, Hal? Barbara didn’t speak directly to her husband. Her back to him, she spoke to the night table beside her bed.

No, Barb. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just not sleepy. The tip of his cigarette glowed eerily in the darkness.

The company? Jesperson? Is that what’s bothering you?

No.

No? Her eyes were wide open in the dark

Okay. You’re right. The bastards really did a number on me. He puffed on his cigarette and exhaled slowly. Are you satisfied?

"No, I’m not satisfied, Hal.