A New York Times Bestselling author and recipient of the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers Association, Rick Hautala was a prolific author of speculative fiction between 1980 and 2013. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1974 where he received a Master of Art in English Literature. A devout family man with a strong work ethic, Rick was a mentor and inspiration to many young authors, a fact evidenced by the massive outpouring of remembrances and tributes following his untimely passing in early 2013. His final novel, Star Road (with Matthew Costello), will be released in hardcover by Thomas Dunne Books in early 2014.
I’ve been working on this journal for almost thirty years. Ever since I was twelve years old. You’d think I would have finished it by now and gone on to write something else, but I have to keep writing and re-writing it if only to make sure the memories and the fear stay fresh and alive in my mind.
I want to remember.
I have to remember because I don’t want to have what happened to my father happen to me. So at least four or five times a year—sometime a lot more often—I take down the old journal and read it straight through, and then I write … and I revise … and I remember.
I have no idea when it started for my father. It had to have been long before I was born, back when he was a kid, growing up in Hilton, Maine. I do remember that, at some point, the dreams got so bad for him he told me one morning at breakfast that there were times when he actually couldn’t distinguish between waking and sleeping.
That idea really bothered me.
I was just a kid at the time, remember. Couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, but I’ll never forget that particular morning. My dad and I were sitting across from each other in the breakfast nook, in our usual places, eating what we always had for breakfast—cereal, usually Cheerios, and orange juice for me; scrambled eggs, wheat toast, juice and coffee for my dad.
My mom died when I was three years old, so I don’t have any memories of her that aren’t colored by the old photographs I’ve seen of her and how my father’s described her. But memories of my dad—and that morning and what happened afterwards—are still sharp and clear.
I work at keeping them that way.
My father was a good man … a good father. I don’t remember him as anything other than patient and understanding, even when I screwed up royally. Now that I’m older, and married, and have a son of my own—he’s named Matt, after my father—I think I understand a little better why my father was the way he was. At the time, though, especially that morning, all I knew was that I was worried sick that he was going to die, that I was going to lose him like I’d lost my mom.
That morning …
It was spring, maybe March or early April. I remember how the sun was shining warmly in through the kitchen window, but the view of our back yard out the kitchen bay window was of a brown, dead world. The only snow left on the ground was in the shadows under the pine trees that bordered our property, and I remember a swarm of brown sparrows fluttering around the feeder my dad and I had built together the summer before. I could hear them chirping even through the closed window.
I also remember being confused and frightened by what my father had said, and then he told me a story that confused and frightened me even more. He said it was something called a Zen koan. I don’t remember exactly how it went, but it was something about a man who was upset because the night before he’d dreamed he was a butterfly. His friend or teacher or something asked him if he could be sure that, right then, he wasn’t a butterfly, dreaming he was a man.
I still not sure I get it.
But then my dad proceeded to tell me how for the last several nights, when he was dreaming—when he was in his dreams, they were so vivid that he felt as though he had been awake all night. When he awoke up in the morning, he said he felt so tired he might just as well not have slept at all.
He didn’t look so good, either.
I remember thinking that. His eyes had puffy, dark bags under them, and his face was pale and drawn, really pasty-white. To my little kid’s eyes, he sure looked like someone who might be living two complete lives instead of one with no time left over for any real sleep.
My dad worked at Martindale’s Rope and Twine Factory, in Biddeford, Maine. It wasn’t a glamorous job, by any stretch of the imagination, but he worked hard, and we got by. I don’t remember ever going without food or clothes, although—like any kid, I suppose—there were toys and stuff I wanted that I didn’t get, even for Christmas.
It wasn’t until a little later, once I was in junior high school, that my father died, and that’s what this is an account of, as best as I can write it. Of course, there are lots of things—especially what my father was thinking and feeling at the time—that I can only guess at.
But I was there when it happened, and I saw what I saw, no matter how unbelievable it might seem even to me.
Even now, thinking about it, I get a chill deep in my gut. No matter how much over the years it seems more and more as though it had to have been a dream or a nightmare, I know it really happened. I know because it killed my father.
But even if it didn’t happen the way I remember it … even if it was just a dream, I know dreams and nightmares, no matter how intense, fade over time … like memories, and I have to remember this one. I have to keep it fresh in my mind so I don’t end up convincing myself that it didn’t really happen, and then fall into the same trap my father fell into.
The whole time I was growing up, I remember thinking how my father didn’t look very healthy. He was always on the thin side, even in his wedding photos, but by the time I was in seventh grade, I remember lying awake many nights worried sick that my dad had cancer like what had killed my mother, and that he was going to die, too, and leave me all alone in the world.
And that’s exactly what happened.
He died, and from the seventh grade on, my aunt and uncle, Pauline and Mike, raised me, but my father didn’t die of cancer … not unless it was cancer of the universe.
Now there’s a concept!
Cancer of the Universe.
Every now and then, especially in the months before he died, my dad talked to me about his dreams. I remember many mornings when he looked haggard and tired, and he would ask me over breakfast what I had dreamed the night before. He taught me early on to pay attention to my dreams, but I’m sure now that it wasn’t just out of interest or curiosity. He was checking on me … making sure I was okay … not being threatened. No matter how casual he tried to be about it, I always felt like there was an undercurrent of danger when he asked me about my dreams, as if he didn’t quite trust his own dreams and was afraid that mine would get to be as bad as his.
He never told me any of the details of his dreams, at least not that I recall, but he seemed to move through life with a dark cloud hanging over his head, shading his face even on the sunniest days. That’s the only way I can describe it.
Anyway, it was a bright, sunny morning in spring when I was in seventh grade that my father looked particularly worn when we sat down at the table for our usual breakfasts. By then I was convinced he was wasting away from some dread disease he didn’t know about or he did know about and didn’t yet have the heart to discuss with me. So I got really nervous when he told me he wasn’t going to work that day, and that he was going to call school and tell them I wasn’t coming today and we were going for a drive.
I protested.
Not that I wanted to go to school or anything, but there was something about the way he said it that I could tell something was really wrong. All I could think was, he’s going to take me to the doctor’s office or he’s going to check into the hospital where the doctor would break the news to me that he had only a few weeks—or days—to live.
“Hey. What’s the matter, Sport?” he asked, scruffing my hair.
He called me “Sport” a lot.
“You got something against missing school and spending the day with your old man?”
“It’s not that,” I said, and I remember that I was burning inside, dying to ask him if he was okay, or if he was going to die. Instead, all I could manage was a feeble, “So what are we gonna do?”
“I was thinking about taking a little drive up north,” he said with a thin smile. The circles under his eyes looked like smears of black shoe polish.
“You mean up to Hilton?” I asked, and he nodded.
I remember thinking how his smile looked forced … not at all natural or normal. And I remember that all I did was nod in agreement and focus as hard as I could on the cereal floating in the milk in my bowl, all the while thinking, He’s going to die! … He’s sick, and he’s going back home to die!
Crazy thought for a little kid, don’t you think?
Anyway, we finished breakfast, cleaned up the dishes, and got into the car. As we backed out of the driveway, I wanted desperately to ask him why he wanted to drive to Hilton, especially today, but I couldn’t because I was still tingling with the dreadful anticipation that he was going to admit something horrible once we were on the road … something I didn’t want to hear.
The drive north went okay. I’ve never been much for long car trips, even now. After two or three hours in a car, I start getting a little twitchy. But this particular day, I remember, was mild and sunny. The grass was green, and leaves were bursting out all over the place. As we drove, my dad told me he wanted to take the long way and see some of the scenery while we were at it.
My father was born and raised in Hilton. It’s not much of a town, but I always had fun whenever we’d visit. I remember thinking how it must have been kind of a cool place to be a kid. Although I haven’t been back in ages, probably only once or twice since he died, I can imagine that, even now, in spite of the Internet and MTV, it’s probably retained some of that quaint “small town” charm it had back them. There are places where the Twenty-first Century still hasn’t happened.
We stopped along the way and ate lunch at Moody’s Diner on Route One before heading west along Route 201. My father didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, and as far as I could tell, he wasn’t in a bad mood or depressed or anything. I do remember thinking how he seemed … distant, maybe, is the word. It was like he was preoccupied, thinking about something other than the drive. I’m sure now that it was his dreams he was mulling over. He was living half of his life, and right up to his dying day, I’ll bet he was trying to figure out how those two lives he led—the one awake, the other dreaming—might coincide.
We got to Hilton a little past three o’clock in the afternoon. We drove through downtown but didn’t stop even though my father recognized a couple of people and waved to them as we passed. At the edge of town, I could see Watcher’s Mountain through the trees, off to the west. We turned onto a narrow dirt road that wound through a dense stand of pine trees. I didn’t recognize the road, and I was suddenly afraid.
“Where we going?” I asked.
This wasn’t the road to the old family homestead—I knew that much. My father’s parents were both dead, and my dad had only one brother, my Uncle Mike, who lived with his family in Saco. I’d been thinking all along that we had come out here so he could drive past the old house, and my dad could reminisce.
“I just wanna check something out,” my father said.
At least now, I remember hearing a certain tension in his voice, but at the time, I think I just shrugged and settled back in the seat, waiting to see where we ended up.
The road was a typical dirt road, the kind you find all over Maine. It wound through a long corridor of dense pine forest that shut out the sun except at high noon. I had my window open, and I remember the strong smell of pine resin wafting around me. I’ve always loved that smell, but for some reason, on this particular day, the smell made me sick to my stomach. I could hear birds singing, deep in the forest, but their songs didn’t seem very cheerful.
“So—uh, where are we going?” I asked again.
I wasn’t afraid of my father. I’d never been afraid of him even the few times I’d made him angry by doing some bonehead kid thing. I trusted him like I’ve never trusted another person, before or since. But I realize now it was fear I was feeling.
It was fear for my father as much as fear for myself.
The tall pine trees blocked out the sunlight, and my father’s face was all but lost in shadow. I kept trying to think of this excursion as fun, but I remember thinking this was how it must feel when you’re driving to a funeral.
“There’s a small lake out here that I want you to see before I—”
He stopped himself before he finished the sentence, but I mentally finished it for him—before I die!
He was going to die … at least he thought he was going to die, and he wanted to share something with me … a family secret or something.
“Look over to the south there. See?” My father leaned forward and squinted as he pointed off to the right.
Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of sunlight, sparkling on water. It looked like quicksilver flashing between the dense stand of trees.
“That’s Watcher’s Lake,” my dad said. “And you see all these woods around here? We own it all.”
“Who does?”
“Us … Me and Uncle Mike … ” He paused and took a deep breath. “And you.”
“All of it?” I asked, amazed as I scanned the area.
I think now that I should have been more excited than I was. I certainly was impressed, but the deep, cold gloom of the forest had seeped into the car and into my mind. Whatever else you could say about the land, it certainly didn’t seem cheerful, even on a warm May afternoon. I could just imagine what it was like out here on a dreary winter day.
“The old homestead is on the other side of the mountain.”
I knew Watcher’s Mountain well enough. It was a bit of a hike from my grandparent’s house, but there were a couple of times back when we visited in the summer, when my grandparents were still alive, that my dad and I climbed it. I almost remember seeing a lake or pond from the mountaintop, but no one ever said anything about it to me … not until right then.
“So how come we never come swimming out here?” I asked, and my father gave me a funny look. It makes sense to me now, but at the time, I remember being confused.
“We just don’t,” he said, and there was a certain finality in his tone of voice that made me know that was the end of it, so I let it drop.
My father took a turn onto an even narrower dirt road, not much more than a path, really. I could see we were getting closer to the lake. Something—probably the suspension—was making a real loud bumping sound underneath the car. I was jostled up and down in my seat so much that, when I spoke to my father, my voice sounded all chattery.
“Why we coming down here today, then?”
My voice trembled with fear, but if I had known then what I know now—especially after what happened an hour or so later—I would have been a lot more frightened.
“I want to check on something,” was all my dad said.
He frowned as he hunched over the steering wheel and looked up at what little patch of sky he could see above the pine trees.
“We probably should have waited, though,” he said, talking more to himself than to me.
I knew he was he worried about it getting dark soon. Plus, the forest had this … this feeling to it. Maybe it still does. It was like night came here a lot sooner than it does any place else on Earth. I suspect memory and imagination have played tricks on me, and I’ve exaggerated this feeling more than I should. But I swear I have a clear memory of feeling like the trees were closing in around us, and the sky was pressing down like it was made of something heavier than air. All around the car, the shadows under the trees were dense, so dense it looked to me like they were opening up in front of us and then closing back behind us once we were past, keeping us in this kind of bubble that separated us from the real world.
“Maybe we could come back tomorrow,” I offered.
“It may be too late tomorrow,” my father said, and I could tell—and I’m positive this isn’t something I made up later—that he said the words before he thought it through. He caught himself, and the expression on his face made it clear he wished he hadn’t said anything.
“Too late for what?” I asked, unable to choke back my question even though I was afraid of the answer.
My dad forced a laugh and scruffed my hair.
“Hey, Sport. Don’t you worry about it, all right?”
I could tell he was forcing it. The look in his eyes made me feel plenty worried.
The car crested a long, slow hill that curved around to the right. At the top, it dropped off, much steeper. The lake was close by on the right as we started down the hill slowly, the car bouncing all over the place like the shocks were gone. The shadows deepened around us like black water, swallowing us even though I could see sunlight reflecting off the water. The narrow dirt road ended at the bottom of the hill, and through a stand of pine trees, I saw a small wooden shack.
“Is that—” I started to say but then cut myself off, knowing that my father would eventually tell me what was going on … if he wanted to.
As we pulled to a stop, I could see that the building wasn’t big enough to be a summer camp or anything. It was just a tiny shed that looked like it was used either as an outhouse or for storage. Its shingles were rotted, and some of them had fallen off, giving the shed a funny, gap-toothed look. Dark, black moss was growing up its sides like a fringe of uneven beard.
“Want to take a look around?” my dad asked.
The car was as close as he could get it to the small shed. I remember thinking I should be excited about being at the lake. It was an adventure. Even though it was too early in the year to go swimming, I could have waded along the edge of the lake and explored.
I looked at my dad, wanting really bad to ask him again what we were doing out here, but I couldn’t get any words out. I could hardly breathe.
“I don’t really like this place,” I managed to say, and I know my dad heard the tremor in my voice.
The sun was tipping the edge of the western horizon, making the forest on the opposite shore look like it was on fire. After a moment or two, though, I noticed something curious about the lake. The sky was streaked with bright red and orange clouds, but the water was dull and gray. It looked like how I imagined it would on a winter day, just before a blizzard. It was like the lake absorbed rather than reflected the sunset. I wanted to say something to my dad, but I wasn’t sure how to phrase it.
“I just want to have a look around, is all,” my dad said as he snapped open the car door and stepped outside.
I sat where I was for only a second before deciding that I would rather be with him in the woods than left alone in the car, no matter how weird and creepy this place was.
The pine needles made a funny crunching sound under our feet as we walked slowly down toward the water. A soft, hissing sound of wind whistled high in the trees overhead, but I couldn’t feel even the faintest stirring of a breeze against my face. Even with the sun going down the air was heavy and warm. Even so, a shiver ran up my back, and a cold tightening twisted deep in my gut.
“Dad … Why’d we come out here?” I asked.
I was trying hard to keep my voice steady, but it was shaking and weak.
“I have to see something,” he replied, and I could tell by the dreamy edge in his voice that, once again, he was talking as much to himself as to me.
“It’s about the … dreams.”
I wanted to ask him What dreams? but I already knew. He meant the dreams where he feels like he’s not asleep, where he feels like what’s happening while he’s asleep is really happening.
“It was a long time ago,” he said, his voice distant and so low I could barely hear him above the sighing of the wind overhead and the crunching of the pine needles beneath our feet. “And it happened out here.”
I wanted to ask: What happened? but couldn’t.
We were close to the lake, now, and I felt a faint stirring of wind coming in off the water. It carried a damp, fishy smell that made me gag. Even with the wind rushing across the water, though, the surface of the lake was as flat and smooth as a polished mirror … just like a mirror except for one thing: a mirror reflects objects. I couldn’t see even the faintest trace of reflections in the water. My eyes were having difficulty adjusting to the odd lighting, like I was looking at something that had a different dimension to it or something. I know how weird this sounds, but something made me really afraid of the water.
“There used to be a camp here. Long ago. We came out here … my friend, Glenn Chadbourne and I.” My dad’s voice got distant and dreamy. “We weren’t supposed to be out here. We knew that, but—you know how kids are. We did it, anyway.”
I couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t talking to me, that he had forgotten that I was there with him. He stared out over the water, and I remember thinking that the lake must have been looking weird to him, too, because his eyes didn’t seem to be focused right. They had a milky, glazed cast that scared me. They reminded me of the eyes of this blind kid in school, Billy Randall.
The wind picked up, and as it did, I heard a low, hollow whistling sound. At first I thought the sound was coming from behind me, maybe from the old shed, but when I turned to look in that direction, the sound shifted and seemed to come from behind me again. I turned quickly, trying to get a fix on it, but no matter where I looked, the sound thrummed softly, like someone was standing behind me, blowing gently into my ears. At times, I imagined it was the faint sound of distant music. And with the sound, the smell I’d gotten a whiff of earlier got much stronger, like something was rotting.
“It was in the summertime,” my dad continued, still acting like he was unaware I was there with him. “Just around sunset … like this … only in the summer. We’d been playing baseball, down at Pingree Field. We’d ridden our bikes to the game and were heading home, but for some reason … for some goddamned reason—I don’t even know whose idea it was—we decided to come out here instead.”
“Were you gonna go swimming?” I asked.
The sound of my voice seemed barely to intrude on his awareness. He shook his head slowly as through he was in a dream and was struggling hard to wake up. I was gagging from the decayed smell that was getting much stronger. It reminded me of rotting fish or sour vomit and … something else … something so horrible and noxious that it’s still indescribable, no matter how hard I’ve tried over the years to find words for it.
“Yeah, but then … Glenn disappeared,” my father said, “and … Oh, Jesus! It’s happening again!”
I looked up at my dad, wondering what he was talking about. In the gathering gloom, his eyes widened, and he pointed with a trembling hand out over the water. The flat, dimension-less surface of the lake was still, perfectly smooth and unruffled, but now that the sun had dropped behind the trees on the far shore and stars were twinkling in the sky, the color of the water rapidly deepened as well.
Too rapidly, I thought, and then my father whispered hoarsely, “See … Out there … There it is again.”
As much as I didn’t want to look, I tracked my eyes out over the water. After a moment or two, I saw what he meant. The center of the lake was … thickening is the only word that comes to mind. The water was turning a deep black—as black … no, blacker than the oncoming night. And in the very center of the lake, a round patch of darkness was spreading out slowly like an ink stain seeping into cloth. But this stain didn’t fade on the edges as it spread out. It deepened, if that’s possible, as thick, winding strands of pitch black radiated from its center.
I stared at what was happening to the lake, almost overcome by a feeling of intense vertigo. I couldn’t resist the nauseating feeling of falling forward, spiraling headfirst into that thickening darkness. No matter how desperately I wanted to look away, I couldn’t. Twisting, waving, black arms reached out to me, and I watched in stunned, silent horror as a hideous shape gathered and took on a three-dimensional quality as it rose up out of the water. Coiling strands of darkness clawed at the night, spraying fetid water in all directions. I knew, if that darkness reached me and touched me, I would be destroyed by a cold vacuum as deep and lifeless as space.
“ … run … ”
I heard the word distantly; it barely registered in my brain. I couldn’t move … I couldn’t breathe or swallow or blink my eyes. Frozen with fear, I didn’t move as the darkness deeper than the night quivered and reared up above the water’s surface. Black tendrils twisted and writhed, taking on hideous shapes that I was and still am powerless to describe. The horrible stench of rot and death filled my throat and chest, gagging me.
“Bobby! … Run! … Get the hell out of here! … Now!”
My father’s voice came to me as if from an impossible distance, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. Vaguely, I knew I had to save myself, but I was frozen with fear, riveted where I stood.
The black, amorphous shape shifted and grew into impossible dimensions as it covered the night sky, blocking out the stars and casting a thick shadow across the land. Thick, rounded shadows streamed across the ground, swallowing, embracing everything in their path as they moved closer and closer to where my father and I stood.
Still was unable to move, I suddenly felt something grab me roughly by the shoulders and spin me around. As soon as I wasn’t looking at the monstrosity on the lake, its hypnotic grip was broken. My body was rigid as I lurched forward and then, just to keep my balance, I started to run.
Even after all these years, I find it impossible to describe the fear that gripped me as I ran. It wasn’t just my imagination. The cold and horrible emptiness of that darkness gathering behind me filled me with terror. I realize now, all these years later, that I wasn’t just imagining it. There was a cruel, unfathomable intelligence inside that darkness that didn’t so much want to destroy me as it had no awareness or regard for pitifully small human fears and emotions. It was the cold, uncaring destructive power of the eternal void that swept away whole worlds as easily and unthinkingly as it destroyed human life.
I have no idea how, but somehow I made it back to the car. I have a single, clear mental image of my hands fumbling to open the car door open, and then, more vaguely, I remember hurling myself onto the front seat and slamming the door shut behind me before rolling onto the car floor.
Even then I knew that I wasn’t safe as I cowered on the floor, whimpering and curled up in a fetal position with my head ducked down and my hands covering my head. The darkness outside was still rising, still swelling and gathering power, sucking it from the night. I heard a soft, strangled cry, but it took a while before I realized I was making the sound. By the time I did, I knew … I could feel that the darkness had retreated. My face was streaked with tears and snot as I cautiously raised my head and looked down toward the lake.
The night was too dark to see clearly, but stars were shining through the trees. Behind me, a half-moon had risen. It cast a silvery glow over the shore. Long dark bars of the shadows of trees scored the shoreline like pinstripes. I remember being surprised that the lake now seemed to be “normal,” whatever that meant. Its water reflected shimmering starlight, and far out in the center, I could see that a gentle breeze was ruffling its surface, giving it a beaten metal look.
“Dad?” I called out in a strangled voice. I raised my head and slowly unfolded my body, looking all around.
I already knew the terrible truth of what had happened.
My father was dead … gone … destroyed by that indescribable darkness that had risen up out of the lake.
He was gone, and I—somehow—had been left alive. “I alone am escaped to tell thee.”
I haven’t got any clear memories of what happened next. I know from what my Uncle Mike told me afterwards that I managed to drive the car out of the woods. Just after I got onto the main road, I ran off the shoulder of the road, smack into a tree. A passing patrol car found me unconscious behind the wheel some time later. I told the policeman that my father was missing, and he went back to look for him, but—of course—never found him. The authorities concluded that he’d gone for a late night swim and had drowned, but his body was never recovered.
I never told anyone—not even the police—what I had seen. I knew no one would ever believe me. I was positive they’d think I was crazy, maybe even take me away from my aunt and uncle, and lock me up in a nut house. For years, I was consumed with grief over losing my father, but more than that—infinitely more—I was filled with the deep, indescribable terror that has consumed me ever since that night.
There’s still so much to tell … about how my aunt and uncle raised me, and how I tried to deal with what had happened that night. I’ve never stopped feeling as though my entire life is a dream, that I am a walking, talking phantom that has absolutely no business being here on the earth. I’ve kept this journal and, over the years, have worked and re-worked my description of that night because I think it will help.
But it hasn’t.
Not really.
Ever since that night, I’ve been lost in a surreal feeling that absolutely nothing is real in this life … nothing except the nameless horror that I saw and felt that night when I watched a dimensionless darkness rise up from the waters of Watcher’s Lake and consume my father. Even now, one small, rational corner of my mind insists it had to have been a dream, that it couldn’t really have happened the way I remember it, but I know what I saw.
And I wonder sometimes … all the time, in fact, if it’s still out there … if that nameless darkness still lurks in the depths of Watcher’s Lake … or if Watcher’s Lake is, somehow, a lens that focuses it from whatever dimension it originates.
For the last several months, I’ve been having some disturbing dreams about what happened back then, and I’ve been toying with the idea of driving up to Hilton just to take a look around. I still own the property and the lake, so I know no houses have been built along the shore. Everything should be exactly as it was that night more than thirty years ago when my father disappeared.
If I do go out there, I probably won’t go down to the lake. Or if I do, I’m going to make damned sure I don’t get too close to the water’s edge … especially if it’s late in the afternoon. I know how fast it gets dark out there in those woods.
Still, I wonder what might be out there in Watcher’s Lake, and I wonder what I might find if I were to drive down that narrow dirt road and take a look around. It’s a beautiful autumn afternoon. Maybe when Matt gets home from school, he and I will hop into the car and take a little drive up north. I’ll bet we can get to Hilton long before dark.