Fiction: "Something in the Water," by Kenneth Quinnell

Let me tell you about the time my brother died.

My name is Stephen Lucas. My parents died when I was 17. That's a story for a different day. Since then, I have been raising my younger siblings George and Carrie. This story took place about six years ago. George was 4 and Carrie was 6. I was 22.

We were living in Tallahassee, Florida, where we grew up. We don't live there anymore. We left after Carrie started seeing things.

It started that summer. I used to take George and Carrie to this public pool on John Knox road. They had a kids area and a big pool for the older kids. We used to go all the time. One time, I noticed that Carrie was sitting over by the side of the kids area. It looked like she was talking to the lifeguard, sitting up in his chair. But the lifeguard wasn't taking any notice of her. He didn't look at her. He wasn't talking to her.

So I thought maybe she was nagging him. I walked over and took her hand. We went over to the other side of the shallow pool. I asked her what she was doing.

"Talking."

Duh. I knew that. I asked her what she was talking about.

"Nothing."

Right. I asked her why she was nagging that lifeguard.

"Gross! I wasn't talkin' to him."

That one puzzled me. There wasn't anybody else over there. And she had been looking up when she was talking. I wondered if our parents' death was finally getting to her. I asked her who she was talking to.

"A boy."

After she said it, she got this scared look on her face. I looked over by the lifeguard stand and there weren't any boys anywhere near the place. I asked her what boy.

"Nobody. I'm not supposed to say."

I said that she damned sure was supposed to say when she was talking to me.

"He told me I'd get in trouble if I told anyone."

I said that she was going to get in trouble if she didn't told me. I asked her if that lifeguard had been saying things. Had he been saying things that he shouldn't be saying?

"No! I told you it wasn't him."

Then who was it, I said, there's nobody else over there.

"Yes there is, he's next to the lifeguard."

I look over at the lifeguard stand. No one was there. I looked back at Carrie. She was as scared as I'd ever seen her.

Just then, I felt a light breeze hit me in the back. That was strange, I thought, since behind me was a building. Not a place for a breeze to come from. Then there was a ripple in the water. Next thing I knew Carrie lifted up out of the water about three feet and flew halfway across the kid's area. She splashed down again in the foot deep water with a scream.

"Hey, you can't throw kids like that in this area. Someone's gonna get hurt." The lifeguards and a number of parents were staring at me. They must've thought I was Ted Bundy or something the way they looked at me.

I ran over to check on Carrie. She was okay. She said her butt hurt from where she landed. She said she wanted to leave. The way the parents and lifeguards were still looking at me, I thought she had a good idea. I grabbed George and Carrie and we got out of there.

Later that night, I gave Carrie a bath. That's when I noticed the marks. They were on both of her arms, about midway between the shoulder and the elbow. They looked like someone had grabbed ahold of her real hard. Both arms had finger marks. They were bruises. It was like someone had picked her up and thrown her. We never back to that pool.

But things didn't get better. A few weeks later, Carrie saw the boy in the bathtub. We were out of there that day. We never went back to that house. But she saw the boy at the motel room we were staying at, too. George didn't know why, but I quit my job that day and we left Tallahassee. We never went back.

Moving around didn't help a whole lot. Every time Carrie saw the boy again, we moved again. I went wherever I could find work. Perry. Twoegg. Brooksville. Yeehaw Junction.

After about a year of moving around, it happened. By this time, we had left Florida. We were living in Macon, Georgia. All this time, Carrie never said anything about the boy other than to let me know, "It's happening again." That's all she said. I think she was afraid. I sure was. If I asked any more about it, he might get mad again. She didn't say anything. I didn't ask. Nothing dangerous ever happened. We sure were scared a lot, though.

When we were in Georgia for a while, we thought everything was okay. We talked about it a little bit. The boy was always in the water. He talked a little bit. Most of the time he was quiet. He used to tell Carrie stories. They were all stories about dead children. Carrie was scared. When she started talking to me about it, I was scared.

I went to the library and tried to do some reading on ghosts. Most of the books weren't real helpful. There wasn't much about ghosts that followed people. I felt kind of stupid for reading about ghosts. I wasn't a kid. But I had seen what had happened. And I had heard what Carrie told me. It's hard to fake that kind of scared.

I also did some searching on the Internet. There wasn't a whole lot of help there, either. Best I could come up with was a demon. Ghosts weren't supposed to do the things this thing was doing. But demons sometimes did. And demons could be associated with water. So I figured it must have been a water-demon. There were all kinds of stories about water-demons. But most of them didn't follow people around. I thought maybe that meant that the thing wouldn't follow us this far. Yeah, I know all that stuff sounds crazy. I didn't really believe it, either. Not really.

When I got back from the library, I was feeding Carrie and George. Carrie told me that George had been asking why we moved so much. I told her I hope you didn't tell him.

"Why not"?

I said it was probably nothing. But George was young and didn't need to be hearing about such things.

"Sorry."

I asked her why she was sorry.

"I told him."

I was angry at her. I wished she hadn't done that. I looked at George. He was scared. He started to cry because I was yelling. He ran out of the room. I followed him. He kept running from me, though. He ran past the living room. He almost knocked over the fish tank running away from me so fast. He ran past the bathroom without out stopping. He did look in the bathroom, though. He ran into the kitchen. I had some water boiling there for macaroni and cheese. He screamed.

Carrie was already there. She was screaming. I finally got into the room. Directly across from the boiling pot, George was lying against the front of the dishwasher. A thin trickle of blood was falling from the edge of George's mouth. Carrie grabbed my hand.

"He's here!"

I asked her if she meant the boy.

"Yes! He's in the boiling water! He keeps saying the same thing!"

I asked her what the boy was saying.

"He keeps saying 'Kill the boy! Kill the boy! Kill the boy!'"

I grabbed Carrie. We got the hell out of there. We never went back. Not even to get our stuff. Or even to see George again.

I did see myself again. In the newspaper. And on TV. I was wanted for questioning. I didn't have any answers. And I had more important things to run from.

We've been on the run ever since. I'm wanted by the police. And that boy. No matter where we go, he shows up. He's always in the water. You'd be amazed how hard it is to get away from the water in this country. Oh well, best we can do is keep running. It always takes him a while to catch up. He always does, though.

Since George died, we've lived in 13 different states. None of them for very long. Every time the boy catches up, we move on. Every once in a while, I hear about some dead kid. I wonder if the boy did it. I wonder if there is anything I can do about it. I find whatever work I can. Carrie's starting to get older. Before long, she'll be working, too. Then we'll be a little better off. For a while.