Penage

By Anthony Armstrong

Before July 15, 1977, the most unusual thing about Madison Green was that he had four dentists. These dentists were not aware that they shared a paranoid patient who used each of them to check on the work of the others. Madison Green’s paranoia resulted in four annual sets of dental X-rays and an accumulating exposure to radiation. An accident at work resulted in X-rays, then X-rays to double-check the first X-rays, and of course further radiation exposure.
When Madison Green’s plane is twice struck by by lightning, it plummets into Lake Penage. The combination of radiation and lightning strikes transforms Madison Green from a self-absorbed violent man into a self-absorbed violent beast. The plane’s destruction by lightning is witnessed and the beast is seen, but the tall tale telling alcoholic witness named Willy Harrison is not believed. The possessive beast gathers the remains of the plane and lives secretly in the depths of Lake Penage for more than a decade.
Years later when attempting to retrieve a fishing rod from the depths of Lake Penage, Taylor Price accidentally snags a piece of the beast’s property. The contact with the humans that the beast had avoided for so many years becomes inevitable. In spite of evidence of its presence and encounters with the creature, it is easier to deny its existence when any public suggestion of its presence brings ridicule. A drunk, a school teacher, a widow, a marina owner, and a truck driver are eventually forced to

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Armstrong
• Release date: May 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301229932

Anthony Armstrong

I was born in Newfoundland in 1950. I grew up in Northern Ontario and still live there. My poetry book, Shirtless Tattoo, was published by Your Scrivener Press. My work has also appeared in anthologies. Besides writing, my interests include photography and long road trips.

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Penage

Published by Anthony Armstrong

Copyright 2013 Anthony Armstrong

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Penage is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious creations of the author. Although Lake Penage is an actual place, the author has distorted the geography to suit his purposes.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Judy for being the audience during the composition of this story.

Thanks to Iggy Fay for dealing with the labourious task of editing this book. Iggy was also a great help with cover design and formatting.

The cover photo is by Anthony Armstrong.

In memory of Tom Hodgins

CHAPTER ONE

Before July 15, 1977, the most unusual thing about Madison Green was that he had four dentists.

1977 was the thirteenth year Madison had been the owner and manager of a North American Brakes and Mufflers franchise. In those thirteen years, he had never fired anyone. Madison usually employed nine or ten people, and over the course of those thirteen years a couple of dozen people had quit, but no one had ever been fired. On separate occasions, three former employees had been caught, by Madison, stealing parts or tools. Even these men had not been fired; they had been humiliated in front of the other employees and then reported to the police. Madison had let them sweat it out for a couple of days; then he’d dropped the charges. The dropping of charges had not been a sign of mercy. Madison would have enjoyed seeing anyone who fucked with what was his do time; however, doing time had seemed unlikely in these cases, so Madison had decided against going to court and leaving his business temporarily in the hands of some other not-to-be-trusted son of a bitch.

It had not been an oversight that the three thieves had not been dismissed. Madison was fully conscious of the fact that he had not fired them. He had also known that not one of them would return to pick up back time, let alone see if his job still existed. Their utter intimidation had been a simple lesson to other employees: DON’T FUCK WITH MADISON GREEN.

Madison had sent other strong messages. In thirteen years he had never missed a day of work due to illness, and he had never left early. His discipline had earned the enmity of all who worked for him, for it was the standard by which they were judged. If there was anything to be said for such dogged discipline, it was the results. Madison Green was well on his way to being a very wealthy man.

Madison Green’s discipline was inspired by distrust, and this distrust went beyond the confines of his shop. Earlier that year, on an April morning, a tailpipe slid from the top of the storage rack and rammed into Madison’s rib cage. Madison went into quiet agony. In the privacy of his office, he examined his wound: a minor laceration with severe bruising and some swelling. Madison did not leave the shop. How could he? Who could be trusted with his kingdom? For the rest of the day, he inhaled pain and exhaled hostility.

At the end of the day Madison headed for the emergency ward of the nearest hospital. X-rays were taken; there was muscle damage that would require time more than treatment. Madison, who was sure he had a broken rib, did not accept that diagnosis. He headed for another hospital. A second set of x-rays led to a repetition of the first diagnosis. Madison gritted the teeth of his mind and grudgingly accepted the facts.

And it was the teeth of his mind that he gritted, for he did nothing to endanger the perfection of the teeth of his body. They were perfect teeth, and Madison was obsessed with their perfection. He maintained an unyielding regime of brushing, flossing, and dental appointments. But could one dentist be trusted with these white monuments of Madison’s exactness? No! Four dentists. So Madison Green had four annual visits, four annual cleanings, and of course, four annual sets of dental x-rays—just to be sure.

Madison Green was not a man given to pointless introspection, but on this day he took stock of his life. For this day, July 15, 1977, he turned forty. He was not dismayed by the number; thirty had convinced him that forty was coming. Being in an automotive ripoff business didn’t bother him either. In earlier years, when the slightest breath of guilt had rustled the fallen leaves of his conscience, he’d learned to rationalize: Hell, they’re safer with new brakes anyway. Living in Sudbury was no problem for Madison. He was within a couple of hours of dozens of great hunting and fishing spots. To him Northern Ontario was just right. He did not include his wife in his reflections and came to the conclusion that at forty, he was doing alright.

Because it was his fortieth birthday, he did two things that he had never done before. First, he fired someone. He caught an employee of two years slipping a muffler into his trunk. Today Madison didn’t apply the slow, sadistic approach. Calling the cops would take time, and today Madison didn’t have time. Terry Conway, the unsuccessful thief, heard a crisp burst from Madison. You’re fired! It was the day Madison Green turned forty, and he meant to celebrate.

Senior employees who had experienced the departure of the three other thieves were perplexed by the apparent deviation in their boss’s behavior. And while they tried to decipher this first oddity, a second, more baffling event occurred. Madison Green told the cashier to lock up at closing time, and he left work early.

Incredulous employees watched as Madison slipped his hundred and eighty pounds behind the wheel of his fiery red Corvette. One slow turn of his head sent every employee scurrying back to his post. Madison nodded with satisfaction, and the Corvette slipped into Kingsway traffic.

The Kingsway took Madison to the edge of downtown Sudbury. Two left turns and one right brought him near the shores of Lake Ramsey. Madison hardly noticed the lake; he only had eyes for his plane secured to the dock of Ramsey Airways. The single engine Beaver was a steady performer. It had been owned by a prospector. It’s reliability and durability had helped to open up vast areas of Northern Ontario, but Madison didn’t give a shit about its history; he was interested in today. Today this plane was heading for Lake Huron’s North Channel and the cottage Madison had rented.

Loading was a quick job. His tackle box and fishing rod were already on board. He placed two bags of grub behind the pilot’s seat. A cooler held the groceries in place. The cooler contained orange juice, ice, the two bottles of vodka. Behind the right-hand seat was a full five gallon gas tank for an outboard motor. Carrying gas this way was against regulations, but Madison didn’t want to have to visit the North Channel marina. Radio contact with the marina owner who had rented the cottage to Madison would be more than enough dealings with humanity for Madison. Madison wanted to celebrate, and that meant solitude. Alone and unknown, that would be heaven.

Madison entered the small office of Ramsey Airways, completed his flight plan, and checked the weather forecast. Four hours of clear skies had become two, but Madison only needed one. He didn’t phone his wife; this would be no surprise to her. Besides, he had had her that morning; she was of no interest to him now.

Within minutes, powered by the combustion of fuel and the haughtiness of ownership, his plane lifted off. He circled Lake Ramsey once to admire his car. He smiled a self-satisfied smile and headed west.

Before he’d flown twenty-five miles, it became obvious that the clear sky that had been measured in hours would soon be measured in minutes. Madison Green held his course. To the east, he saw clouds as black as those crayoned by a battered child. Soon his plane was being buffeted by wind. He couldn’t understand how the storm had approached so quickly. The concussion from a smack of thunder vibrated the plane. Things had gotten serious. It was Madison’s fortieth birthday, and he intended on celebrating. For Madison Green, being alone and assailed verged on celebrating.

The trenchancy of those moments reminded Madison of his experience a year earlier when his plane had been caught in an unbridled wind. Although he had been frightened, there’d be no panic. He had known he would survive. It hadn’t been a hope or a prayer; it had been a certainty. He had survived, of course. He’d received an awful whack that left a seven inch remembrance across his forehead. The deep scar resembled a steamrolled N. Madison Green absently fingered that scar as he glanced down at the West Bay end of Lake Penage. As another roll of thunder rattled his plane, Madison Green sniffed the gas vapor that rose from the five-gallon tank that sat behind the passenger seat. He felt a trace of déjà vu. Again he was frightened, but again he had that certainty he would survive.

* * *

Willy Harrison had lived in the West Bay area for seventeen years, and in that time he had seen some godawful thunderstorms, but he had never seen one move in like this. He’d left his cabin about ten minutes earlier under clear skies. Now he was about a mile from the marina, and he knew that was as close as he could get. On the north shore he saw an open boathouse. He didn’t know who owned it, and right then he didn’t care. He steered to his right, and because of the strength of the east wind, found that he had to aim directly for shore to get his craft to move towards the boathouse that was still farther west. The wind moved the boat in a westerly direction at about the same speed the motor moved it north, and within an undulating minute, Willy bounced his small vessel into the boathouse.

It was amazingly calm within the shelter of the boathouse’s walls, and Willy was content to wait out the storm. Moments after he tied the boat to a post along the walkway, he heard the sound of rain join the cacophony of wind and thunder. Willy withdrew a mickey of rye from the inside pocket of his jacket. The thunder was now continuous. He took a sip. He stopped as if posing, his head back, his eyes closed. Within the unceasing rumble of thunder, he was sure he heard the pitiful drone of a small plane.

Willy, seated in the back of his boat, pushed on the walkway of the boathouse with his bottleless hand and moved the boat out onto the lake as far as the rope he had tied would allow. His skyward gaze yielded a horror equivalent to witnessing an assassination. A small plane was sundered as lightning ignited gasoline vapor. In an instant the rear portion was consumed by fire. The pontoons and front section of the plane were flaming, falling wreckage.

Willy, in a wish to propitiate some power, renounced the bottle that he still held in his hand. He shuddered in the rumble of thunder that punctuated his pledge. And as what remained of the plane reached the water, it was struck by lightning again. Willy raised the bottle and drank deeply.

CHAPTER TWO

When Willy Harrison lowered his arm, about a third of his mickey was within him. His stomach burned as the warming wave moved through the rest of his body. He looked toward the site where water, lightning, and a flaming plane had met. Although the impossible meeting had occurred only five hundred feet from Willy’s refuge, the wind and waves made it impossible for him to see if there was any debris from the plane. He thought of debris rather than survivors; surely surviving such an event was impossible. But Willy was gripped by compulsion, and he couldn’t ignore the illogical necessity ofa checking to see if anyone had survived.

His stomach still burned, but the warmth the rye had brought to the rest of his body had quickly dissipated. Willy untied his boat, pulled the starting cord, and began backing into the storm. The east wind pushed against the back end of his boat causing the front end to crash against the right wall of the boathouse. The strength of the wind perpetuated the awkwardness of the angle; the boat was stuck. Willy cursed as his left hand manipulated the handle that controlled both steering and throttle. For a couple of seconds the engine laboured loudly but accomplished nothing. Willy pushed the handle so that the engine’s power worked directly against the wind. The boat scraped its way out of the boathouse. Immediately the wind drove the craft west to an area where West Bay widened. Willy was wise enough not to offer resistance. He rode the wind and waves and gradually gained control of the boat’s westward momentum; this was the beginning of a long U-turn that Willy hoped would bring him to his goal.

Willy knew precisely where the plane had hit. It was the midway point of a line between the borrowed boathouse and a small island some thousand feet southwest of it. Many West Bay residents simply referred to the island as the little island. Less than a hundred yards southwest of the little island was another island that, only in comparison to its neighbour, was called the big island.

Willy continued negotiating the endless left turn. As he did, the pierce of the rain went deeper, and the punch of the wind grew heavier. Willy almost leapt from his seat when an exceptionally powerful fork of lightning cracked the sky. Its thunder hurt Willy’s ears. Willy wished to be anywhere else. He remembered how his mother had feared lightning. She had always said that rubber tires on the car made it the safest place during a storm. If that was true, what was to be said for a steel boat in an open area of water? Willy left the thought a semi-question.

For a few seconds the length of the boat was parallel to waves higher than any Willy had ever seen. The boat was passing the halfway point of the monstrous arc, and as it did, it rode the crest of a wave. The propeller momentarily left the water; the motor shook and squawked. It was like an announcement, but not one proclaiming the easier half of the journey had been successfully completed, rather one declaring that the worst was yet to come.

Although Willy had passed the halfway point of the turn, he was now a few hundred feet farther from his goal than when he left the boathouse. He accepted this as a consequence of his chosen strategy, but he had not foreseen the grim prospects of heading directly into the wind. The slashing rain was a constant aggravation, but the occasional hailstones it contained brought real pain. Willy was torn between rage and tears, a tug-of-war that left both emotions impotent. Soon these ghosted emotions were forgotten, for Willy found himself facing alternating dilemmas. Each time the crest of a wave lifted the front of his boat, he was afraid the wind under the bow would send the whole thing ass over tea kettle. Each time the bow nosed into a trough between crests, he was afraid that the next wave would fill his boat like an unplungeable toilet. Willy eased up on the throttle as much as he could while still making forward progress. His alternating dilemmas seemed undiminished.

Willy looked northward and saw the blurred form of the boathouse that would soon be directly left of him. To his right he could see the little island. He was equidistant from both points, and this assured him that he was headed directly for the target area. The slits of his eyes looked beyond the nose of the boat; they detected no sign of debris. The bow of the boat dipped into a new trough, and during this downhill motion, Willy noticed his life jacket half-floating beneath the bow. As the boat headed uphill, the water it contained rushed to the stern. The life jacket was deposited near the middle of the boat; it was about seven feet from Willy, well beyond his reach. He swore that in the future, a future that was now less than a certainty, he would wear that life jacket like a tattoo.

The next crest rolled over the bow. It poured several inches of water into the boat. Willy grabbed the half-gallon bailing can he suddenly wished was bigger. He scooped with his right hand while he steered with his left. He didn’t look above the bow; he guided the boat by the feel of the waves; as long as the waves continued to lift and drop the bow, he knew he was on course. And while his attention was focused on bailing, a wave more hellish than any he had endured nearly tore him from the boat. He was pissing his pants; he tried to hold it. Then he didn’t care.

There was more water in the boat than ever. Willy thought that this could be the end. He kept bailing but glanced about sensing some significance in knowing the point of his departure. He was at the midpoint of that imaginary line that connected the boathouse and the little island.

Willy had reached his goal, and found fuck all. If he felt anything besides his all-consuming panic, it was a dread of this specific spot and an awareness of the madness that had compelled him to come here.

Willy ceased struggling against the overwhelming power of wind and wave. He allowed them to have their way, and the boat was turned. Willy felt like he was spinning, but the boat only turned a hundred and eighty degrees. As he headed west, the wind and rain were no less brutal, but bending to the will of nature made Willy believe the future was a possibility. But nature was not appeased. The wind veered and was now striking from a northerly direction. Willy’s first thought was tornado, but the northerly wind held steady. Willy didn’t fight it. He couldn’t. He dropped his bailing can.

Willy’s vessel was being violently directed towards the big island. Collision with its shore soon became an inevitability. Although he had given up any intention of steering, Willy still held onto the handle of the motor with his left hand. With his right, he pressed the kill button; the engine died. He pushed down on the handle and pulled forward on the encasement of the motor. He was trying to raise the propeller above the rocks in the upcoming shallows. He lacked the strength to accomplish this usually trivial chore. To attain the necessary leverage Willy stood up. Again he pressed down on the handle; again he pulled on the motor. He was successful; the motor snapped into the raised position. Just as it did, the front of the boat struck bottom. Willy fell overboard.

The water was about three feet deep. The shallow water and rocky bottom guaranteed Willy both bruises and survival. When he stood, he turned and saw the nose of his boat hit shore. As he took his first step toward it, wind and slimy rocks put Willy down again. He fell two more times making the twenty feet to shore. When he fell the third time, he thought of Jesus and laughed. When he finally reached shore, he fell again. With his right leg in the water and his left knee on the shore, he managed to grasp the bowline. He secured his boat to a tree.

Willy clambered up the sloping shore but found his arms and legs dissolving. He rolled behind a bush that would have to be his shelter.

Willy’s ordeal had lasted less than fifteen minutes. He lay face down for several more. In that time he thought of nothing but the sound of his breathing. When he felt stronger, he rolled over and sat up. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and got his mickey. The label slid off in his fingers. The rye and the storm expired together. Willy sat calm and vacant.

CHAPTER THREE

The clouds were closer to gray than black now. The northern wind that had driven Willy