2.7
The stairs creak gently under Austin’s shoes as he descends them, feeling out-of-body, a ghost himself in someone else’s empty house. The first floor seems dimmer, somehow, than it was before. Austin pauses in the foyer, toeing the carpet restlessly. I should leave. I should drive back to Antlers, and forget I ever saw anything here. Let the police handle it. But what happens when they get here and fucking books start talking to them? I wonder if the lake could convince them all to kill each other. Jesus.
It’s a sick thought, but perfectly plausible. Austin tries to linger on it a little longer, but the TV in the den turns on in a burst of sudden noise that makes him jump out of his skin.
I didn’t do that. Did I? Austin makes his way back towards the den, stops just at the threshold and doesn’t bother turning on the light, much less looking for it. The TV screen hisses with static. He can see the channel numbers in the corner of the screen counting down from a hundred, ninety, eighty, until the black and white fuzz falls away and pictures start to appear. Sitcoms, game shows, weather reports, documentaries. The channel scrolling slows, then settles on a reality show full of beautiful people who hate each other. Austin stands frozen in place.
The picture on the TV jumps and skips, and the beautiful people move jerkily, like they’re mannequins being piloted around a set by someone (something?) else. One of them looks directly into the camera, out at Austin. Her face is perfectly still except for her big, blue, jittering eyes, rolling in their sockets in twitchy stop motion. She smiles as wide as her mouth will allow, the artificial set lighting glistening off her made-for-TV teeth.
“Why don’t…you…come outside…Austin?”
Her voice is segmented, like each word is from a different sound sample - the cadence is all wrong. Austin tries to back up into the hallway, to at least turn away from the TV. His heart is hammering in his chest, and if he breathes any faster, he’ll choke, but he can’t will his body to move.
“I need…you,” the girl on the TV screen simpers at him. She smiles wider, her mouth splitting open all the way up to her ears. Her teeth - there are so many of them now - are all straight, perfect, pearly white. Austin wants to throw up.
“Hey,” he says, but his mouth is so dry it comes out half-croak, half-whisper. He swallows, wets his lips with his tongue, and tries again. “Hey!”
“What’s up?” Danton pops out of the wall next to him, bisected through the stomach by the wall that divides the den and the kitchen. It’s so sudden that Austin almost jumps, even though he was expecting it.
Austin nods at the TV, as much as the lock on his body will allow. “You see that?”
The girl on the screen is still there, still grinning at him, her eyes still jumping and glitching. Danton floats over to the TV and gets as close as he can, frowning, hovering with his face only an inch from the picture. He puts his hand against the set, making the picture goes white as snow for a split second before his fingers pass through.
“It does this sometimes,” Danton says thoughtfully. “Usually when Landis is in here.”
“What is it?” Austin asks. The twisting panic in his gut already knows the answer.
“It’s how the lake talks to him,” Wes answers before Danton has a chance. Austin doesn’t remember seeing him come back down the stairs, but he’s here now. “We think, anyway. I didn’t believe him about it until he tried to watch the news in here one night and a reporter started bleeding black from the eyes and talking about devouring civilizations.”
“Come outside…Austin,” the reality show girl says, more insistently than before. “I have…something…to show you.”
“How do I get it to stop?” Austin asks, looking helplessly from Wes to Danton.
“You can’t,” Jeremy calls softly from the kitchen.
Danton nods. “Landis never figured out how. So he just stopped watching TV. And listening to the radio. I think he burned a couple of his books because the text wouldn’t go back to the way it was supposed to be.”
Might as well go outside, then. Austin finds himself released from whatever was holding him in place as soon as he thinks about following the TV’s orders, and makes his way for the sliding glass door in the kitchen. His hands unlock the door and fling it open before he can even process wanting to do it. It’s like something else is in his body with him, some other consciousness, piloting it.
Icy air buffets his face as he walks outside - Austin wants to turn back and get his coat, but there’s pins and needles rushing up his legs, and he gets the idea that whatever is compelling him doesn’t want him to go back inside the house. The lake is only yards from the porch step, and Austin’s forward momentum carries him there, to the shore. He sinks his boots firmly into the ground, feeling snow and sand sink down underneath him.
The lake must be pretty in the summer. It’s frozen over now, covered by gray sheets of ice that reflect the full moon like a spotlight. There’s an island in the middle of it, closer to the other shore, dotted with withered trees. Austin’s legs start to shake, and he realizes he’s physically holding himself back from walking closer. From taking a step out onto the ice. Something wants him to come out there and meet it, under the water, and Austin doubts it will take no for an answer. He can feel it tugging on him, reeling him in like a limp fish on the end of a line. Burrowing and rooting around in his mind like maggots in soil. It’s the strongest presence he’s ever felt near him before, an evil presence. And he isn’t ready to deal with it. Whatever this is, it’s going to crush him like a bug.
Not for a while, yet.
Austin yelps like a hurt animal - the pressure in his head when the lake talks to him! It’s too much. It feels like something pushing up against his skull, cracking it open from the inside out. And the voice - hundreds of tones in unison, birds singing, cicadas buzzing, leaves rustling, sounds that shouldn’t be speech coming together against all reason to make words.
“What the fuck do you want?” Austin growls. He can feel tears leaking from his eyes, hot and damp on his freezing cheeks.
You are stronger than the other one. More useful as a tool. Come here.
Something invisible yanks Austin forward by the waist, dragging him to the ground and across the frozen surface of the lake like a ragdoll, so fast that the friction burns his arms and face. The ice sticks to his skin when he tries to struggle upwards, holding him down so that all he can see is the vast, dark expanse of water waiting just below.
I want to show you something.
Austin hears the ice crack before he sees it happen. The whole surface reverberates with it - a low, crunching sound like some lumbering animal biting into its prey. He catches a glimpse of the ghosts before he goes under, pale shapes lingering around the dirty deck chairs on the back porch like spectators.