SOMETHING IS DOWN THERE . . .
He felt something around his feet, just barely touching
his toes.
He tried to look down in the water.
The small, feathery touches around his legs had turned
to something hard now, holding on to his legs, almost hold-
ing him like—
He brought his right hand down to feel what he was
caught in, to push it away, to free himself.
What the hell?
It felt all sort of doughy, and soft, like, like—
Flesh. Gone puffy. Rotten.
“Oh, God,” he said. And he screamed . . .
“A CONSUMMATE WRITER OF HORROR.”
—Science Fiction Chronicle
Titles by Matthew J. Costello
missing monday
unidentified
poltergeist: the legacy maelstrom
see how she runs
seaquest dsv: fire below
homecoming
darkborn
child’s play 3
wurm
child’s play 2
midsummer
beneath still waters
BENEATH
STILL
WATERS
MATTHE W J. COSTELLO
b
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
BENEATH STILL WATERS
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 1989 by Matthew J. Costello.
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P R O L O G U E
GOULDENS FALLS, NEW YORK—1936
It was morning.
Cool, damp, with thin, wispy clouds ready to be burned
off by breakfast.
Billy sat up quickly. He heard someone calling to him, a
hushed voice from below his window, and for a moment he
wondered whether the voice was part of a dream.
But he went to his window and saw Jackie Weeks stand-
ing below his window, looking right up at him, his wide-
open eyes telling him to get a move on. Jackie was excited,
but Billy just had that same uncomfortable feeling that he
carried around all week, a feeling, he finally admitted, that
was fear.
He waved at Jackie to let him know that he was on his
way down, and then he jumped into yesterday’s clothes,
scattered on the floor of his room.
He pulled them on quickly, feeling their clammy coolness
just jump back into his bed and pull his covers over his head,
shutting out the light, the morning, and Jackie Weeks.
But no, there was no way to do that.
2
m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
After all, they had talked about this day, planned it for
weeks, swearing each other to total secrecy. Swearing!
Jackie had demanded.
Cross your heart and hope to—
Jackie called again, and Billy pulled on his worn sneak-
ers, leaving the laces undone until he got outside. Then he
moved as quietly as he could, just like the burglar from the
Bulldog Drummond movie, stepping on his toes, wincing as
the floorboards creaked out in alarm, hoping that his little
sister wouldn’t come stumbling out to pee or for a drink of
water and blow the whistle on him.
Then he reached the front door and turned the doorknob
slowly, silently, barely breathing, before pulling back on it,
moving outside to where his best friend stood.
He saw Jackie roll his eyes in disgust before speaking to
him.
“C’mon, Billy Boy, we’re late already.”
He nodded.
“My alarm clock didn’t go off. It’s old—”
“Yeah, well, we better get moving. The sun will be up in
half an hour.”
He crouched and tied his laces, pulling them real tight,
until both his black sneakers were snug from his ankles to
his toes. So they’d never come off no matter what—
“I’ve been thinking. You know, it’s all fenced off, with
signs and stuff. We could be in big trouble if we’re caught
in there.”
Jackie rolled his eyes again. “Oh, brother. You’re not
punking out on me, are you? All your big talk of seeing the
town one last time, seeing all the empty houses and stuff?”
“I’m just wondering.” He stood up and looked at Jackie, a
good five inches taller, seemingly years older. He never un-
derstood what Jackie saw in him. Here was Jackie, the best
athlete in Gouldens Falls Elementary School, liked by all
the kids, hanging around with someone who was the booby
prize every time a team’s captain lost out on the critical
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
3
once-twice-three-shoot finger play that determined who got
first pick.
“But you’re smart,” Jackie had told him one summer’s
day when they had gone fishing. “Real smart.” And for some
crazy reason this was important to Jackie.
“Well, are you ready, Billy Boy?”
Billy nodded.
Jackie turned, and Bi
lly watched him dart into the woods
that surrounded his house, heard his black Keds landing
with an assured plop on the ground. Then he ran, not really
able to keep up with him.
Jackie was the fastest kid in Gouldens Falls Elementary
School. Nobody could catch him. They’d even put a plaque
up, right in the school gym.
But that was all history now.
’Cause in a few hours the small redbrick school build-
ing will be at the bottom of the largest man-made lake in
the whole state. Yeah, as if it were something to be proud
of. As if he’d ever want to brag that his hometown was
filled with fish and duckweed.
(And, for a moment, he remembered a bit of his dream
from that night. He was in his bedroom, just walking around,
when the water came in, a trickle at first, then slowly rising.
He tried to get out, but the door just wouldn’t open, and the
water just . . . kept rising.)
“C’mon, Billy. Run, for Pete’s sake!”
“No stamina,” the coach had said. That was his prob-
lem. Just couldn’t keep going, not the way Jackie could.
“I’m . . . coming,” Billy gasped.
And Billy ran, head down, watching for branches and
vines that might trip him up, barely noticing the dark
woods growing lighter. Then he heard Jackie scream out.
“There it is!” And he stumbled beside his friend, and just
ahead he could see the chain-link fence, topped with shiny
strands of brand-new barbed wire. And behind it, the aban-
4
m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
“Kinda spooky, isn’t it?” Jackie said. Billy moved closer
to him and they looked down at the town. “It’s like a ghost
town now.”
Then he walked toward the fence.
And Billy followed Jackie. He came to the fence beside
him and clawed the wire mesh, resting his face against the
fence. And it was more than spooky. There was something
bad about seeing a town so still.
“Look,” Jackie said, laughing. “There’s our church. I
won’t mind having that under fifty feet of water.”
Billy nodded, even as he looked up and down the famil-
iar streets that now seemed so strange, fenced in like some
kind of—
“And Donnelly’s Hardware Shop. My dad says his new
place in Ellerton will carry a lot more stuff, lots more,
maybe even hunting rifles and fishing gear.”
“Yeah.” But he wasn’t really listening. Instead he looked
at the streets, searching for some sign of life, knowing that
there really couldn’t be anything there.
’Cause they’re all gone.
The old people and the kids. Donnelly and that nice wait-
ress at Woolworth’s who always gave free refills of Coke.
All the cats and all the dogs.
And then he looked south, at the reason Gouldens Falls
was surrounded by a ten-foot-high barbed-wire fence. He
looked at the dam.
It wasn’t big as far as dams went. No. He had checked out
pictures of the Hoover Dam in the encyclopedia. Now, that
was big. This one, the one they were calling the Kenicut
Dam, was just small potatoes.
Still, seeing the massive wall at the south end of town,
running all the way from one ridge to the other, sealing off
the town, made him feel like he was seeing something im-
portant. Important and scary.
“They’re all set up,” Billy said quietly, looking at the
roadway on top of the dam.
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
5
“Yeah. There’s the special grandstand for the governor
and the old-fart mayor, and a lot of other jerks.”
“What time is it?” Billy asked. He wanted the trip over
with, done, so he could get back home. Then he could join
Jackie in bragging about their big adventure.
Jackie dug out a big pocket watch, its scratched gold
cover catching the early-morning light. It was one of Jackie’s
treasures, he knew, from his grandfather. He knew Jackie just
loved to be asked what time it was.
“Six a.m., Billy Boy. Time to pay our last respects.”
And before he could say anything, to tell Jackie that he
really didn’t want to climb the fence, that all he wanted to
do was get the hell out of there, Jackie started climbing. He
felt trapped. By his friendship, by their plan, and by the
fence.
And, no sweat, Jackie moved up the fence easily, clutch-
ing at the wire strands and digging his Keds into the mesh.
He watched his friend climb, knowing that he’d have to go
through with it next.
Then Jackie was at the top, gingerly stepping over the
shiny strands of barbed wire, shifting his body around,
crouching like he was going to take a dump or something.
And Billy kept his eyes on the twisted spokes of wire
between Jackie’s legs. He chewed his lips. “No problem,
champ. This is just like Tim Tyler making his way over the
snake pit.”
That’s another place that’s going to disappear. The Glen-
wood was his movie theater, his favorite place in the whole town. He had seen King Kong there, and Frankenstein, and a ton of others, slumped down in his seat, feet up on the seat
in front (until the usherette had come by and shined her
flashlight in his face). There’d always be the greatest pop-
corn fights when some boring Western was on. He’d laugh
so hard, it hurt.
The big old theater, his theater, would be under water in
just a few hours. Did they leave the screen? he wondered.
6
m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
Or the popcorn machine, half full with dried-out popcorn,
soon to turn into a yellowish, soggy muck?
“Geronimo!” Jackie yelled with a scream that made
Billy’s hair stand on end. He saw Jackie leap off the fence,
land, and roll into some bushes.
“You’re next, sport.”
Now there was this big new fence between them. Jackie’s
eyes were on him, burning. He could just turn and run
away. So what if he lost his friend? So what if Jackie told
the whole school he was a punk?
I’m not Tim Tyler. I don’t need to cross rivers with alli-
gators or quicksand pits.
But instead he reached up to the cold wire, grabbed it,
and then started climbing, He moved slowly, making doubly
sure of every foothold before climbing higher. He watched
his hands grab the wire, saw the goose bumps on his arms.
“C’mon, Billy.”
Then he saw the top, the strands of barbed wire ready to
cut at him. It had been so easy for Jackie.
“Okay, Billy Boy. Nice and slow here. You don’t want to
lose the family jewels.” Jackie laughed, but all Billy could
think of was slipping, sliding down right onto the barbed
wire.
He could jump off now. He could just leap off the fence,
back where he came from, and run away. It would be all
over. But he went up, feeling Jackie’s eyes on him, wonder-
ing whether Jackie might be worried about him too. Then
he reached for the top strand of barbed wire, clamping his
hand around a bare section, and pulled himself up.
“Way to go! Take it easy now.”
He heard himself breathing funny, like air whistling un-
der a door in wintertime. There was no rhythm to it; he just
sucked it in.
He straddled the wire and looked down at Jackie, know-
ing that the hard part was coming. He started to move one
foot over the barbed wire.
b e n e a t h s t i l l w a t e r s
7
“Nice and slow. Almost there. Almost—” Jackie’s voice
helped give him confidence.
Then he felt his balance go, and his body was just some
heavy weight about to tumble down. His hands slid an inch,
right over one of the barbs, and he screamed out.
But it stopped his fall, and he pulled his body into an
awkward balance. He thought he might cry.
“Shit, you cut your hand.”
Billy looked down. The blood coating the wire looked
slimy and dark, not like when he scraped his knee. At least
the wire wasn’t rusty. At least I won’t get tetanus or what-
ever it is you get from rusty nails.
“Bring your other leg over, Billy. You got to go over the
barbed wire.”
He nodded but didn’t move. To move meant another
chance to fall, maybe even more blood. It was better to just
freeze. . . .
“You gotta move, Billy! Get your leg up!”
Then he let himself obey Jackie’s voice, letting it take
charge so he wouldn’t have to think about the wire.
“That’s it. Now bring it over. Easy. Easy. Okay, you’re
about there.”
Amazingly his feet were on the other side of the fence.
“Now jump!” Jackie yelled.
No.
“Jump, Leeper, before I come up there and pull you
down.”
He would do it too. Jackie would really climb up and
drag him down.
It was enough to get him to jump off.
“Aaaah!” He flew off awkwardly, his arms and legs reach-
ing out in all directions. His shoulder hit the ground first,
banging hard into the dirt. He thought for sure he’d broken
some important bones.
“I thought you were stuck up there, chum. Sorry I had to
get tough on you. How’s the hand?”
8
m a t t h e w j . c o s t e l l o
He looked down at his hand, and the round hole in the
center of his palm, surrounded by a small pool of blood.
“It’s okay.” He looked up at Jackie. “It’s nothing.”