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Horror At Big Bass Lake
by Rob Crandall © 2008

Manny was crazy.

Not, “bring a sawed off shotgun to work” crazy,--more like, “drink a six pack of Bud and take the old VW bug up past 90mph down a country road, while sticking his head out the window and howling at the moon” crazy.

And that’s why Randy liked him so much. Because getting crazy, for Randy, was only looking over his notes once before taking a test. And so, like a bad “buddy-cop” movie, they spent a lot of time in that VW bug, just cruising around. Not causing trouble, per se, but rather wandering aimlessly, in search of a good time.

Presently, they were parked in the gravel next to Big Bass Lake. A swath of cat-tails hovered just above the windshield, as if they were reedy spectators, getting a peek at what was inside.

Randy looked out at the glassy calm of the lake and rolled down his window a bit to hear the sound of crickets and bullfrogs. Those sounds always reminded him of the pleasant empty-mindedness of being a little boy. The way that being little was like being a bundle of senses, and nothing else. How it was pure and true. And….

“Roll up the freakin’ winda!” Manny said, pronouncing the word wrong just for laughs. “Clam bake, Ran-man. Clam bake.”

Randy rolled up the window reluctantly, while Manny shoved the last of the pot into the bowl of the corn-cob pipe, using his pinky to really smoosh it down.

“You gonna partake tonight?” Manny said, absently smelling the tip of his pinky.

Randy shifted in his seat. “Man, you know I don’t. Stuff makes you daft.”

“That one of this week’s vocab words?” Manny jibed, but not unkindly.

“Makes you into a retard. That better?”

“Makes you into a genius, I heard. ‘s like food for your brain. Makes it grow.” Manny put a hand on either side of his head to show how big his brain would get. “Chia-brain.” He said, placing the pipe firmly between his teeth with a click.

Randy shook his head and laughed. He couldn’t help it.

Manny patted his shirt pocket and came up with a small lighter, which he held up like it was the Holy Grail. Then he carefully set the marijuana ablaze, and inhaled deeply.

The familiar smell hit Randy, and he wished again that he could roll down the window. Instead, he flicked on the radio, and waited for the strange tingly feeling that sometimes came over him when he breathed in the second hand smoke. “Contact Buzz.” That’s what Manny called it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

“We are the champions,” by Queen, filtered through the VW’s cheap stock speakers. Manny crinkled up his face, and blew out a stream of bluish-green smoke.

“Turn this crap.” He croaked, and then more smoke trickled out. “Better yet..” He said, and popped in the tape that was halfway in the tape deck. It was AC/DC, and soon the crunch of distorted guitar crackled through.

“Your speakers sound like trash.” Randy said.

“Yeah, well, you’re wearing white after Labor Day, you out of style ignoramus.”

Randy laughed. “It’s a T-shirt…”

Manny held up his hand. “Still white.”

“Kill some more brain cells.”

“Thank you sir. I think I will.” And with that, Manny cranked the volume, and smoked the rest of his stash to the throat-tearing vocals of Brian Johnson.

Two songs later, Manny turned the radio down to a more comfortable level. Then he reached down underneath the driver’s seat, and pulled out a gleaming bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. It was half full, and he sloshed it around in a way that was supposed to be inviting.

“No. Don’t, man.” Randy said. “I don’t want to end up half alive, half hash on the side of the highway somewhere.”

“Aw, c’mon. The buzzards will pick ya clean. It’ll be over before you know it.” But he saw the look in Randy’s eyes so he put the bottle back. “Party pooper.” He said, pouting. A lock of hair hung in his eye, and he brushed it away.

The car was redolent with the sweet smell of the dope, and thick with leftover smoke. Randy waved his hand through the air to no avail.

“Be right back. Gotta pee.” He said, and opened the car door. Manny said something that he didn’t quite catch, although the tone sounded sarcastic.

Out in the open, Randy took in a deep breath of the fresh night air. It felt wonderful on his lungs. Cleansing. He went deeper into the thicket of cat-tails to relieve his aching bladder, and was doing so, when he heard something--something like wind--whistling above him. It was quiet at first…almost imperceptible, could have been nothing more than the hum of the VW’s motor….but within seconds, it increased in volume so that source of the noise was unmistakable.

It was coming from the sky.

“What the…” Randy’s urine stopped mid-stream with a pressure that was uncomfortable as it retracted into his body. He barely registered the pain.

It was whooshing now. Sounding like an Amtrak barreling down the track from a mile away. Like how they always described tornados on the weather channel.

Randy looked up, and what he saw made his neck tingle, and his exposed testicles rise like ice cubes in a glass of Coke.

It was not a tornado. It was something else.

At first, he was sure--positive--that it was a jet spiraling down at him. Because the trails of smoke twisted and turned as that horrible screaming got louder and louder. It was a jet and it was going to crash right in front of him. Possibly kill him. Either way, it was going to be a hell of a collision. Metal on gravel. Or metal on metal, if, God forbid, it hit Manny’s car……Oh God…

Randy looked over at Manny through the passenger window. It was dark, but he could see the silhouette of Manny’s head, going up and down. The crazy bastard was head-banging to his music! He was zoned out…high as a kite. He didn’t even hear the……

It wasn’t a jet either.

The smoke trails--there were three of them--were coming from nothing that Randy could locate. In fact, in became clear, as they got closer, that the whistling screech was emanating from the trails themselves. Like they were enormous hissing snakes.

The moon lit up enough of the sky so that Randy could clearly see them. And it suddenly occurred to him what the twisted trails reminded him of: A giant DNA double helix (without the “rungs”). And at the tip of the helix that was coming at him were the three trails, open-ended, writhing like dendrites grasping for axons. They looked alive in their blind searching. Alive and relentless.

Randy zipped up his pants, and covered his ears. The wind caught the tip of his bill and his hat flew off, swirling into the night. Immediately, his unruly hair was pasted to his face. He flipped his head, and his hair flew back from his forehead.

It was very loud now. There was no way that Manny couldn’t have heard it. If he had been on heroin with hot dogs in his ears, and the stereo cranked up to full blast, he still would have heard it.

Randy saw the passenger window go down. He could see Manny yelling something with his hands cupped around his mouth, but he couldn’t tell what he was saying. Randy tried to get closer, but it was a tough task in the whipping wind. It was like battling an invisible Sumo wrestler. He leaned forward, and kept trudging onward, all the while trying to read Manny’s lips.

And the three smoke tendrils got closer.

And louder.

He had to get to the car. It would be safer in the car. Hell, they could kick it into “drive” and haul ass. Get far enough away, and get out of the path of --whatever the hell it was. Maybe that’s what Manny was trying to tell him.

Randy put his head down like a rodeo bull, and barreled into the blustery current. The VW was fifteen feet away…maybe ten.

He could make it.

Wind blew into his mouth and filled up his cheeks like an astronaut experiencing G-force. He squinted his eyes.

He could make it.

He dared to look up, and it was close now. Very close. And then he saw something that he would never forget. All three tips were glowing an ethereal green. Vibrating with electric color. Pulsing with it. It was beautiful. Mesmerizing. They squirmed like eels. Screamed like banshees.

Five feet to the VW.

He could make it.

But he didn’t make it. And he stood, utterly stupefied, as the three smoke tendrils latched onto the roof of the car. He looked at Manny, and Manny looked back with an expression of stoned terror. Randy held up his two fingers in a peace sign. It was all that he could think of to do.

Then the VW started to spin, as the smoke trails twisted and wrapped around each other like a kid on a tire swing. It spun faster and faster, and Randy screamed, although he couldn’t hear himself. And he screamed as the thing lifted Manny and the VW off of the gravel, and up into the sky. And he cried as the DNA cloud coiled itself upward at a dizzying rate. And he stared, as the car got smaller and smaller, until, eventually, it was nothing more than a dot. And then nothing.

And it was quiet.

Randy pulled his hands from his head. His ears rang, and throbbed painfully. He looked at his palms and they were spotted with blood. The ears had been damaged permanently. He knew that. And he didn’t care. He was too far in shock for that. He wiped the blood onto his jeans, and he could feel more dripping down the side of his face.

What in blue blazes had just happened?!? Things like that didn’t just happen. They didn’t!

Now, something fell in front of Randy’s face. What looked like brown streamers followed the object, and after it clattered to the ground, the streamers fluttered down on top of it.

Randy looked down, dumbly, and picked up the object. “AC/DC” it said. “Back In Black.” Randy began to laugh, hysterically. Then he threw the cassette to the ground and stomped on it with the heel of his shoe.

He crouched down, like an umpire, and put his head in his hands. In a moment he was racked with sobs. He crouched like that, shoulders hunched, for a long time. He didn’t know how long, but it felt like hours. It may have been.

* * *


And then the whistling started again. Only it was different than before. Much quieter. In fact, it was hardly audible. Part of that was Randy’s hearing loss…but, even that was already starting to repair itself.

Randy, still crouched, lifted his tear streaked face to the sky. And what he saw up there looked like a dark black splotch….getting bigger and bigger as it got closer.

Seeing that the thing would likely crush him if he didn’t get out of the way, Randy stood up on sore, creaking knees and ran as fast as he could to the edge of Big Bass Lake…very near where he had taken his bathroom break. He stood in the cat-tails, which bobbed up and down like velvet hot dogs when he brushed them, and he waited for whatever it was to crash to the ground.

The whistling increased, although it was not much louder than a coach’s whistle, and not nearly as shrill. And then, all at once, Randy knew what the object was. He had equal feelings of rejoice and dread.

The old VW crashed to the gravel, amazingly, wheels down, and bounced once, maybe five feet in the air. Bounced again, and then settled. The sound of the shocks depressing sounded like a giant jumping on an enormous bed.

Wisps of gravel made a small cloud around the vehicle, and a few stones even made their way to Randy, where they struck his jeans with a noise that sounded like rain on an umbrella. Randy covered his eyes. And then everything settled.

The old VW sat there, as if it had never gone. As if it had never been sucked up into oblivion by that awful DNA cloud. It was even in the same spot where it had been, more or less. One of the front tires was flat, but, other than that, it looked pretty much the way it had.

Randy rushed over to the car. The passenger window was still down, and Randy skidded to a stop, as he put his palms on the door, and looked inside. A searing pain bolted through his hands like he had wrapped them around a toaster, and he pulled them back quickly, shaking out the heat at his sides. But he didn’t care about that right now--hardly noticed. What he cared about was Manny.

Of course, in his logical mind, he knew that there was no way that Manny could have ever survived such a severe fall. The mere impact would have broken countless bones. Would have given him a jolt so powerful that his neck would have snapped from whiplash. But, still, he had to know.

Even if it meant seeing his buddy contorted, in a bloody heap.

He stuck his head in the window, and it was like sticking it into an oven set at 375. The heat took his breath away, but he continued to search.

The driver’s seat was empty, save for the corncob pipe that sat in its middle like some small relic. The rest of the car was empty too. Randy noticed in a far off way that the seats were singed to a crisp black crust, and that it smelled like burnt rubber. Anyone who would have been unfortunate enough to have been in that vehicle would have also been burned beyond recognition.

Randy backed away slowly. He walked to a clearing by the edge of the lake and sat down, Indian style. He stared out at the lake, which was still glassy calm. A bullfrog croaked, stupidly into the night air, which was now a bit chilly. Randy felt like crying more, but no tears came. So he just stared.

After awhile, he got up and walked back to the VW. He opened the driver side door, and grabbed the corncob pipe. After a moment of searching, he found the lighter too, and grabbed that as well.

He sat back down in his spot, and looked into the small concave bowl of the pipe. There was still enough dope in there to get someone high. He packed it down with his pinky like he had seen Manny do so many times. Then he clenched the pipe in his teeth and lit the contents of the bowl. He closed his eyes and sucked in deeply

There was a loud splash then…much too big to be a fish…about twenty feet out.

Randy’s eyes popped open, and he saw ripples, coming at him. …And then, a shape…a shape like a man, emerging from the depths. First, just a head. Then a head and shoulders…and so on. Randy blinked, and swallowed hard.

“Hey man. Don’t Bogart my stash, you dillweed.”

Randy let out a series of whooping coughs, and looked, unbelievingly, at the man…Manny! It had to be Manny!…coming at him.

Walking in that lazy, slumped way that skaters and stoners walk, came Manny, himself. He flipped his head, in an ever futile attempt to get the hair out of his eyes, and a fine spray of water landed on the lake‘s surface. He continued to rise out of Big Bass Lake like some aquatic creature that had evolved and grown legs.

“Manny?!? But…”

Randy looked at the pipe. Could it be a hallucination? No, this was way too real.

“You did save me some, didn’t you?” Manny said, wringing out his bangs like a wet washcloth.

“Huh? Yeah…But…”

A fat cloud sailed past the moon, and the glowing orb that had been covered, bathed the night with light once more. Manny’s face, which had been in the shadows until now, came into full view, and Randy’s eyes went wide. He felt like screaming, but only gasped.

Manny’s face was as charred as the seats of the VW. It was black and dripping. Randy could actually see tendrils of smoke being emitted from the skin. Being in contact with his wet face and hair, it hissed. And, then, slowly…like someone turning on a lantern…he began to glow a greenish-blue. Little lightning bolts of electricity scuttled across his face and body.

“They didn’t want me, man.” Manny said. His voice was flat now. The mini-lightning storm buzzed around him. “Said I was too daft. Isn’t that funny, Randy? Too daft. They used your vocab word.”

Randy felt like doing anything but laughing.

Manny looked off into space. “So, they sent me back. Said the landing wouldn’t hurt, but they lied. It felt like a big belly flop. Remember doing belly flops as a kid, Randy?” The voice, still flat, with a creepy sing-song edge.

“Sure, Manny. Sure.”

Randy slowly got up, and threw the pipe into the grass.

“I thought we were going to smoke that.” Manny said, moving faster now…lifting his feet above the surface of the water so that he could run. Droplets arced from the tips of his shoes, which were glowing and sputtering photons.

The effects from the pot began to hit Randy. It was all too much. Too much!! He took one final look and then began to run.

“Randy!! Wait!! I’m still the same. They didn’t change me. I’m still the same!!”

Randy bumped into the VW and scrabbled for a moment. And then he ran off into the night.

The last thing he heard through his ringing ears was wet foot steps pounding on gravel, and Manny’s shrieking voice.

* * *

Randy stopped. He didn’t want to, but he looked back. The figure of Manny, --or rather— a glowing outline of him, was now standing on the shore. His hands were cupped around his mouth, and he appeared to still be yelling. Randy could not make out what. All that he could hear was his own ragged breathing.

“Aw hell.” He said.

He couldn’t leave his friend down there. It was Manny, for God’s sake. The guy that had given him his Darth Vader figure in the third grade on the day that they met out by the swings.

Randy, somewhat begrudgingly, began to trot back the way he had come. In a few minutes, he was back at the burned out VW. He stepped around it cautiously, not wanting to get burned again.

Manny was bent over now, sifting his hands through the grass. In a moment, he came up, with the corncob pipe in his hand. He flipped his hair again.

“HA! Found it!” He said, triumphantly.

Randy approached his friend warily.

“Y—You all right, man?”

Although, he was still glowing, that stunned look was gone from his eyes. His face now had the usual “stoned and lazily happy” look that Randy was used to.

“I will be. Soon as I fire this up.” He said. He patted his shirt pocket for the lighter. A few tiny bolts of electricity buzzed in protest. He seemed not to notice. Instead, he shrugged, put the pipe in his mouth, and stuck one of his blazing fingertips into the bowl of it. Blue smoke instantly rose from the pipe, and Manny sucked in deeply.

He squinted through the smoke at Randy. “They’ve never even heard of AC/DC. You know that? Poor bastards.” He offered the pipe to Randy, who held up his palms in refusal.

“So, you’re all right then? I mean….” He poked Manny’s arm, and received a nasty shock.

“You worry too much.” Manny said. “What you need to do is reeellaaaxxx.” He swooshed his hand through the air to emphasize his point, and took another hit.

So Randy looked out on the placid waters and thought about what it was like to be a little boy. In time, he would give his sizzling friend the third degree. Or maybe not.

________________________

Rob Crandall lives in Michigan with his wonderful girl, Sara, and their two pups.  He has been published in several publications.  To learn more about Rob, please visit: http://peafant.wordpress.com   or email him at Peafant@aol.com