The Lake

By Ruby Jean Jensen

Dirk was feeling lost and lonely. His wife Patricia had announced that she was struggling to feel any purpose in her life and had decided to move into an apartment for a time period to sort things out. Dirk is strongly motivated to change something to put his family back together, and decides to sell his share of the business and invest in a summer resort based around a beautiful, remote, spring-fed lake in Arkansas. Unfortunately, he didn’t ask enough questions about the history of the lake ... It wasn’t until after he brings his three children to stay for the summer that he becomes fully aware of a history of missing persons. Patricia decides to stay at her apartment and continue sorting out her feelings. Within a few days, Dirk’s fourteen-year-old daughter is attacked by something that came from the lake. She narrowly escapes with her life, due to the quick action of old Bill Ocherman, who fears that his son has already disappeared in the lake and had begun a nightly vigil. As Dirk struggled to make sense of what has happened, he decides to hire Rodney, a biology student that is also a highly experienced diver. Over time, Rodney learns more and more about the monster that is large enough to block the flow of the underground spring as it passes back and forth between the lake and some underground chamber. But Rodney, friend and expert diver Eddie, and Dirk’s son Brad are unable to imagine the size, speed, and mind-boggling power of the strange, underwater behemoth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruby Jean Jensen
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986005027

Ruby Jean Jensen

Ruby Jean Jensen (1927 – 2010) authored more than 30 novels and over 200 short stories. Her passion for writing developed at an early age, and she worked for many years to develop her writing skills. After having many short stories published, in 1974 the novel The House that Samael Built was accepted for publication. She then quickly established herself as a professional author, with representation by a Literary Agent from New York. She subsequently sold 29 more novels to several New York publishing houses. After four Gothic Romance, three Occult and then three Horror novels, MaMa was published by Zebra books in 1983. With Zebra, Ruby Jean completed nineteen more novels in the Horror genre.Ruby was involved with creative writing groups for many years, and she often took the time to encourage young authors and to reply to fan mail.

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Prologue

Wine-dark water, its surface smooth as a mirror, reflected moonlight in streaks lying long and undisturbed from the shadows of the forest that skirted the south and east sides. Occasionally a dimple appeared upon the surface, bubbled softly and disappeared, as from the gasp of a fish swimming soundlessly. But in this lake there were no fish.

On the shore opposite the trees a beach swept back a few yards to a narrow little road. A car, out of place in this silent isolation, was half in the moonlight, half in the shadows of a white-barked sycamore tree. A young couple came out into the moonlight, hand in hand, and walked down to the gentle edge of the water. It barely moved upon the sand, so still was the summer night. They stood looking out over the smooth dark surface.

So this is Loch Dawngere, she said, voice low as though the lake itself could hear, was listening and observing. I’ve heard about it all my life, but I’ve never been here before.

Not very many people come here, what with the locked gate. But I guess it used to be the best summer resort in the area.

It was closed because people drowned here, wasn’t it?

Naw. I mean, yeah, sure a couple of people drowned, but people drown everywhere there’s water deep enough for them to stick their heads in. Poor swimmers.

She was quiet a moment. The old resort, Loch Dawngere, and whatever had caused its closing, was far away in the past.

I somehow had the idea it was a bigger lake than this.

Ten acres, maybe, is all. It’s not a natural lake, you know. There’s a dam down there, and that’s Mike’s Creek the lake feeds. That’s the same stream that becomes Lee’s River past town.

My mother has told me about the great times she used to have here. She came here to swim when she was my age.

See, she didn’t drown. She was probably a good swimmer, like you.

She said the water is blue, really blue, and that it comes up from a real deep spring out in the middle somewhere. I’d like to come here in the daytime, wouldn’t you?

Well, I have. The water is cold, but good swimming because there’s no current like the river. And it is blue, all right. Beautiful in the daylight.

It’s beautiful now. The girl looked over her shoulder at the dark, silent, deserted cabins beyond the road, nearly hidden from the moonlight, so strong tonight, by overpowering forest trees. Too bad someone doesn’t open it again. It looks like a perfect place to vacation. What a waste to lock it off.

It’s not wasted if we’re here. This way we’ve got it all to ourselves, any time we want it.

But the sign on the gate said no trespassing. I feel a little guilty, don’t you?

He pulled her close with an arm around her waist. No, I feel . . . unwatched.

Her brief smile disappeared. He bent to kiss her, but she turned her face away, her eyes searching into the moonlight over the length and breadth of the lake, from the dark forests to the low dam on the lower end where the water curved like smooth glass over and downward to a stream bed where it came alive at last, and in shallow clearness moved out of the narrow valley into a wider valley and, picking up added streams, became the river where she and the other kids she knew had learned to swim.

She said, I’m not sure that I do, Jerry.

Not sure you do what? he mumbled against her hair.

Feel unwatched.

Huh? He drew back, staring down at her. There’s nobody in five miles of here. Well, three anyway. This is a private road, gate locked. And there’s nothing back to the east but hills and mountains for twenty miles. We’re alone, all right.

But if you unlocked the gate, couldn’t someone else?

Sure, I suppose, but—hey, Ilene, don’t be a spoilsport. You said you wanted to be alone with me, and this is as alone as we can get. I promise you, nobody is here.

You don’t think it’s kind of spooky here?

Hell no, I think it’s great. How about a moonlight skinny-dip?

She hesitated, her face toward the water now, yielding.

I’ll undress you. . ., he offered.

She giggled and ran a few feet away. Oh, no. I'll undress myself.

All right then, I’ll race you. When I count to three, start tearing, because if you’re not undressed by the time I am, I’ll help you anyway. One, two, three.

Like two children they raced, sliding out of shoes, jeans, shirts, and splashing into the edge of the dark water and rushing in, ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh, hip . . . and the girl cried out against the unexpected cold as she dived forward and began to swim. Beside her the boy’s long body slipped, his arms breaking the surface of that placid moon-touched darkness. The noises of their swimming, the splashing, gliding, moved toward the center of the lake, one-eighth of the way, one-fourth . . .

The dimples burst upon the black surface, sparkling, widening, becoming many as they divided and multiplied, and as they grew a sound rose, a watery, indrawn, quicksand sound that had within it a kind of life unheard of, unknown and unknowable.

The girl paused and began to tread water. Jerry moved on ahead, toward the small round blight that had appeared like a scab on the surface of the lake. She called out as she treaded, the water so cold her legs were beginning to pain.

Jerry! Wait!

He heard her and stopped, turning toward her; his head was a dark blob against the swelling, bubbling circle just beyond.

What is it? he called.

I don’t know. Come back, Jerry. There’s something disturbing the water just the other side of you. Don’t you hear it?

He turned, and she knew he saw and heard, but then he disappeared, suddenly and silently, and the lake surface was still except for the moving circle of murmuring, rippling water that was drawing nearer to her.

She began moving backwards, still treading water, her eyes searching for Jerry to reappear. Where had he gone? What could he see by diving into the dark depths? Or had something pulled him down?

Why didn’t he surface?

She screamed his name, and swam toward the place he had disappeared, and then in a sudden spasm of terror she whirled and swam for shore instead. Her breath came in gasps. Her arms and legs ached with the hard, desperate pull toward safety. The cold surrounded her like something glacial left over from the ice age millenniums ago.

The bubble rose and swelled to the size of a baseball and burst softly before her face, an unearthly sound escaping it, and she felt herself drawn downward. She kicked and struggled and sucked water into her burning lungs as she was surrounded and pulled down, down.

Chapter 1

Dirk Inglesol made the small real-estate office look even smaller. He sat on a chair near the desk, an ankle resting on one knee, both hands clasped around the ankle. He was dressed in western clothes, cord trousers and jacket, form-fitting western shirt with five small pearl buttons on each wide cuff. He looked as out-of-doors as a Texas Stetson, his hair bleached from sunlight, and skin bronzed. He was filled out with plenty of muscle and a little added fat just over his belt buckle. But the look in his squinted eyes changed the first impression and suggested this wasn’t a man as free as the open spaces, but a man trapped and seeking escape.

He had come in, shaken hands with the man behind the desk, introduced himself as Dirk Inglesol from Dallas, and said he was looking for something back in the hills. A place he could turn into a retreat, a resort perhaps that would pay its way. Nothing fancy, he said. A place where people, families, can come and get away from it all. A good investment, a stream of water, a spring, some caves and trees. Safe for kids.

Mr. Markel thumbed his glasses higher onto his nose and pretended to leaf through his listings, but he had already begun to be hopeful that at last, after twenty-

four years, he had snared himself a buyer for the old Loch Dawngere resort.

I do have something, he said. It’s a quiet, private place a few miles back, with its own small lake, and five cabins. Of course, it’s pretty run down. It was built in the twenties and failed during the Depression. It was left empty until after the war, when a man bought it and built a dam and created the lake and remodeled the cabins. After a few years he closed it again, and some years later it went up for sale. It’s a good buy. There are about three hundred acres of woodland and hollow, which includes the eight-acre lake, and five good cabins. Well, they might need some roofing and a nail or two. There’s a private road. And the price is only one hundred and fifty thousand.

Dirk Inglesol paused in his slight, restless movements, the jiggling of his foot, the clasping and unclasping of fingers, and looked more directly at Markel.

"One hundred and fifty thousand for three hundred acres of land that includes a lake and five cabins? What’s wrong with it? You understand I’ve been looking, and I’m in the home-building and land business myself, and that price is low."

Markel tried not to fidget nervously. Uh . . . this price was set years ago. It’s an estate sale, and just hasn’t been needed, I guess. The owners don’t live here, and don’t know the price of land probably. Anyway, that’s all it is, and it is a good buy.

No telephone or electricity, I suppose, Dirk said.

No telephone any more, but there was once. The line’s still there, but would have to be repaired. There is electricity.

I would have thought somebody from the area would have bought it.

Uh . . . it’s hills and trees, not usable for anything but a resort. And I guess nobody around here ever wanted to go into the resort business. You won’t find another buy like it, I’m sure.

Dirk Inglesol smiled for the first time. ‘‘I’m sure, too. If you’d like to show me the place. . . ."

Mr. Markel was a puny little man next to his husky client; he literally hopped to action. ‘‘I’ll find me a key or two here, and we’ll be on our way. All I got to do is lock up the office and get the key to the gate to Loch Dawngere— He jerked open drawers and did a fast shuffle through the contents. Ah, here we go. I haven’t had to use this old key very often. I usually just go up a couple of times a year to see how the cabins are getting along."

He hurried to the door and locked it behind them. The spring sun was warm this day, the wind still. It was the kind of day that would make anybody feel optimistic. He decided to mention a little item about the lake that his client would be bound to hear later. No point in taking any chances.

A couple of kids sneaked in there a couple of years ago, picked the lock on the gate and supposedly drowned themselves. It was a month before the town even found where they’d gone. They’d been dating, and it was just assumed they had run off together, because the boy’s car was gone. Then when I went in to check at the end of summer, I came across the boy’s car. A search party went in to look for them. Their bodies never were found, but their clothes were on the bank. It was assumed they drowned. Personally, I always figured they just covered their tracks that way, and ran off. It wouldn’t surprise me if they showed up some day.

That’s really tough, Dirk said with feeling. I’ve got some teenagers myself, as well as a little one. I can imagine how those parents felt. It must have been rough on them. I hope you’re right and they do show up.

My car’s right around here, Mr. Inglesol.

They drove north out of town on a state highway, past a valley farm, and over a bridge that spanned a medium-sized river. Hills rose to the east and north, pale green with the new leaf growth of April. Beyond, eastward, were higher, distant hills that were hazy, dull lavender. It was a quiet country, no more than half a day’s drive from Dallas.

Dirk waited for the feeling of freedom and peace to brush away the dull depression of his mind, the way it once did when he took the time to get away from work and city, but the depression persisted. He missed her as much here as he did back in the city. He missed the kids. But somewhere in the eighteen years of his marriage to Patricia he had lost touch with her and didn’t even know it until the day she told him she was leaving. He looked back on that day, six months ago, and the man who had stood there half-dressed listening to her, and saw himself as a stupid oaf. He hadn’t guessed her unhappiness, did not understand what she was saying, or why she was saying it. It’s not you, Dirk, it’s me, she said, her brown eyes cast down in a misery that began to infect him as well. It’s me. I feel as though I’m going nowhere. The kids are growing up and getting independent ... no, that’s not really true, is it? It’s only an excuse, for after all, Jones Lee is only nine. The truth is, I want out. You’ve got your business and your contacts there. I’ve got the house, and suddenly it’s not enough for me. I’m not happy, Dirk. In fact, I’m unhappy as hell! At last she looked up, but even the expression on her face pushed him away.

He helped her get settled in the apartment, for he was successful in his business even though he had failed in his personal life. Then she and the kids were gone, and the hundred-thousand-dollar house was his alone. Except on weekends, when the kids came home. Griping. Bitching. Sometimes crying. Never understanding that he had not wanted Patricia to leave, feeling and sometimes accusing him of not trying hard enough to get her back. It was true, he didn’t really try, for to bring her back to the house she had grown to hate was to ruin his last chance. No, if they survived as a family, it would have to be somewhere else. A new start. A business venture that would support them, but not take all his energies.

—Only about three miles out, Mr. Markel was saying as he drove very slowly down the two-lane highway that curved along the valley, following the creek that was a tributary of the river they had crossed. If a body wanted to, he could walk to town.

Dirk smiled in silence. The vernacular of different regions had always amused him. But Mr. Markel didn’t see his client’s amusement.

Pays, Mr. Markel continued. For when the phone goes out and the electricity goes off and the car won’t start. When a body needs to be close enough to town to walk in.

Does the electricity go off very often?

When there’s a hard storm, it does. And, of course, phone lines are torn down by the falling trees and whatnot, especially back where there’s no cable underground. The line back to the cabins is on poles, since it’s been thirty years or so since it was installed. But we don’t have a lot of storms, just a few in the spring and summer, and a little ice in the winter now and then.

Mr. Markel drove onto a gravel side road and stopped, the front bumper of the car almost touching a heavy metal gate. Beyond the gate a narrow drive disappeared into the trees, running beside a small stream of water.

That’s the overflow from the lake, Mr. Markel said as he got out to open the gate. It comes from one of the best springs in this area.

Dirk looked at the small, clear stream, tumbling on its way over rocks and gravel, winding and murmuring like a living creature, and thought to himself that Jonsey would love it. He could spend the summer wading in the stream and catching fish from the lake. He wasn’t sure about Kelly, now fourteen. She might be bored to death. As for Brad, sixteen, give him a fishing pole, a rowboat, and a pool of water, and he’d not want for another thing. Surprising interests for a city boy. Picked up, Dirk supposed, from their infrequent vacations.

Markel sang the virtues of the place as they drove the shaded, curving length of the driveway, but Dirk was not unduly impressed until the lake burst jewel-like into the sunshine. It was like one soft blue eye gazing up in baby gentleness from the pocket in the hollow. Markel swung the car onto the road that circled the cabins and parked beside the lake.

Dirk got out and stood for a moment where the water inched onto the sand between the road and the blue depths of the lake, and looked out over it. In the upper section, centered, a slight disturbance bubbled, pushing out tiny ripples that died long before they reached the shores.

That’s the spring, Markel said, seeing the direction of his client’s gaze. Before the dam was built, it was called the Blue Spring. The water comes out of a hole in the ground that is claimed to be bottomless. I saw it once as a boy. It was like a cave, a small one, opening out beneath a rock at the base of a big tree. Of course, that tree is long gone now. It was cut down and carried away when the dam was built, as were the other trees.

Does the spring ever go dry, as some do?

No. But it does rise and fall. I’ve seen that water come boiling out of there one day and die down to a slight overflow a day later. It doesn’t seem to be affected by the local weather. It’s cold as ice, like something from the Arctic. A few geologists came and looked at it years ago, but nobody ever came to any conclusion I ever heard of. All the speculation ended when the lake was built, and the cabins. One thing for sure, you don’t have to worry about the lake going dry on you. Markel, bored with the lake, turned his attention to the cabins. All of these cabins have two bedrooms or more, so I guess they could rightly be called houses. They’re shaded year round, and don’t have yards to mow and take care of unless you just happen to like that kind of thing.

Dirk saw what he meant. In naturalistic settings, with the trees growing close against them, the cabins were nicely spaced so that each one had its fair share of privacy. They were arranged in a half-moon shape, facing away from the lake. Each had a porch walled with wire screening that was now rusted and torn, and a door that squeaked when touched. But the cabins seemed solid enough, and Markel said there was no termite damage. The major work would be in reroofing and painting the interiors and cleaning. The exteriors were of split logs, and needed very little work. Pine needles and fallen twigs covered the ground. The little road swept close in front of the cabins, and around to the lake shore in the back.

Dirk found himself remembering a vacation with his family back when Jonsey was only three years old. They had spent a week at a small lake in the Rocky Mountains, and Patricia had been happy and all his, and had anyone told him then his family would one day be split and drifting he would have cursed them to hell and gone. They had been close, he and Patricia, creating a loving nest for their young ones. And here was his chance to patch the tear in their lives. Once the resort was his, and the kids began to work from his side, he would stand a good chance of getting Patricia to come back to him.

I’ll take it, he said.

Markel’s smile was pleased. You don’t waste time, do you, Mr. Inglesol, when you make up your mind?

Not this time. I’ve spent three months looking around, and now I’ve found what I was looking for. I’ve got some phone calls to make, but then I’ll be ready to sign the papers when you’ve prepared them. I’d like to come back and spend the night here.

Tonight? Markel said, gazing back at the cabin they had just left, thinking of the debris on the floors, and the holes in the roof, and the door that swung crooked on the rusted hinge.

Dirk smiled, watching the direction of the agent’s eyes. No, not in there. I wouldn’t want to be walked on by all the animals that explore those corners at night. I’ve got a sleeping bag along. I’ll just lay it out on that sandy spot by the water.

You’re welcome to stay at my house if you can’t find a better place. But there are a couple of motels, very good ones, out on the interstate west of town.

Yes, I know. I stayed in one last night. And thanks, but I’ll manage fine here. It’s been a few years since I slept under the stars. I’ve got a couple of boys that would enjoy this.

They got into Markel’s car, and Dirk looked out the window as the car moved down nearer to the lake. Other than the faint up-boil of water in the upper center where Markel had said the spring was located, the surface was as calm as a backyard swimming pool. And as blue.

Dirk looked back as they drove around the circle past the cabins, watching the lake as long as he could see it, suddenly aware of a niggling concern. There was something about that lake that was different . . . but what was it? Something that bothered him.

But Markel was talking, giving some local history, and the thick tree trunks began to hide the small body of water. Dirk shrugged the undeveloped worry away and began listening to Markel.

Chapter 2

Dirk’s first phone call went to his own business office, to his partner. You still willing to buy me out, Sammy?

Hey, it’s good to hear from you, Dirk. Where are you?

A little town called Juneth, about three or four thousand. Quiet, lazy. I just bought myself a lake, Sammy, with some resort cabins that are in bad need of repair to make them livable. I’m going to get the kids up here for the summer, and Pat, too, if I can. So I need all the money I can get, and if you still want my part of the company, you’re welcome to it, and I’m grateful for the fast sale.

Sure, Dirk, if that’s what you want.

That’s what I want. Out and away.

We’ll miss you. If you ever want back in, you know all you have to do is ask.

Thanks, Sam, but that won’t ever happen. I’ve got an address to give you, but it’ll take a while to get a phone number. If you need to get in touch with me by phone, just call the Markel Real Estate Agency.

They talked a few minutes alone, then Dirk went to a cafe out on the highway for an early dinner. Neither the kids nor Patricia would be available until later, he was sure. Patricia was holding a part-time job, which certainly was not financially necessary, and going to school too, in her effort to find whatever it was he hadn’t given her. He tried not to feel bitter about it, to stop minimizing what she was doing, but it was a hard lesson to learn.

By six o’clock he had finished his business and his dinner and the sun was dropping low in the west. He used a pay phone and began feeding change into its greedy little slot.

His daughter, Kelly, answered the phone. That was expected. Like Pavlov’s dogs, she practically salivated at that ringing signal. It had her trained to jump and run, where neither he nor her mother had ever succeeded completely. He smiled to himself, seeing her in his mind and heart. She was beautiful, with reddish hair and even features and enough freckles to make her really cute, although she was always trying to bleach them away with some concoction or another. She was going to be built like her mother, small and slim, but nicely curved.

Hi, Punkin, he said.

Daddy! Hey, she called to the background, It’s Daddy. Where are you, Daddy? It’s been three days since you called.

I know, Punkin, and I won’t be calling very often now until I get a phone installed—

You bought a place!

Yes, and I hope you’ll like it. It’s a summer resort, with cabins and a lake you can swim and fish in—

"Really?"

Yes, really. I’m going to have everything ready when school is out.

Do we have to wait until then?

Probably. You’d have to rough it too much on the weekends, and I’m about two hundred miles away. I was wondering if your mother would drive you down when school is out.

Patricia’s voice entered, from the extension. What on earth do you want with a summer resort, Dirk?

I sold out this afternoon, Pat, he said. I’m quitting the city and the business, and this resort is going to be my home year-round. I want you to come and see it.

I don’t know if I’ll have time—

Mom! Kelly interrupted her mother with a disappointed cry. Why can’t you? You have to.

Dirk intervened quickly, knowing this was no time