Page 46 of Lake Hollow Curses

I want him to stop this. To tell me he didn’t mean any of it. Because I’m going into shock.

He leans down to kiss my head. “Remi, I never wanted it to end this way.” Having felt the necklace in my pocket, he pulls it out. “Just one more sign.”

No. No. No. Nooooo!

The necklace wraps around my neck, as he squeezes the wheezy shriek from me amounts to nothing. He deftly lowers me into the lake with one arm around my waist, like he’s just helping me into the water. He follows me in. The water level up to his armpits, he stands close, dragging me down in the water by pulling back on the necklace, his face is blank.

He leans near me, I hear his muffled, “Remember you are water. Cry. Cleanse. Flow. Let Go.” One of his hands smooths my hair back lovingly, the other tightens the chain of the necklace.

My vision is blackening around the edges when a pounding sound on the dock reaches my ears. I hear splashes in the water around me. I’m freed from Charlie’s grip, pulled out of the water into Grady’s arms. I look up to see Cal holding Charlie’s head under the water.

My voice is scratchy, “Don’t… Cal, don’t.”

Wilder flies into the water. He pulls Cal back, Charlie coughs profusely as his head comes up. Wilder puts an arm around his neck. “I could snap his neck. No one would know but us.” His voice is fierce.

Clutching to Grady’s forearms, my legs weak, I try to sound sure, “No, Wilder. You’re not a murderer, he is. If you do that, he never has to answer any questions or get punished for what he’s done.”

Cal pulls me into his arms, his chest heaving. “Fuck, are you okay? Are you okay, sweetheart?”

As sirens come closer, I walk out of the lake supported by Cal and Grady. When I look back, Wilder still has Charlie around the neck. A vial of medication has worked free of his pocket and is bobbing in the water next to him. I came close to death. If he hadn’t found the necklace, I would be gone right now.

Chapter Thirty-two

Cal Truitt

“Fuck off and keep fucking off. From now until forever fuck the hell off!” I yell at Gibson as he has handcuffs placed on him. His face is a blank fucking mask as he looks at me.

He’s been my best friend since I was four, he was like a brother. How the fuck was he able to hide what and who he is?

I can’t form more words, thinking about what he’s done. He killed my sister. He tried to take Remi from us. His sister… what kind of Goddamn monster can kill his own little sister? My heart feels like it’ll burst right out of my chest.

Shellshocked, I fight to get my breath.

I don’t know what to do with myself. Remi is being examined by paramedics, Wilder is speaking to the detective, and Grady is watching me with distress. “All this time… all this fucking time…” I grab my jaw squeezing.

I should’ve encouraged Wilder to end it.

To kill the sick fucker, because he’s gotten away with this for nine years. Nine long years, while everyone in his life suffered. He’ll never pay the price. His family’s money will ensure he doesn’t rot in prison. Grady walks up to me, pulling me into his chest with one arm. He states gruffly, “That piece of shit tried to frame each one of us along the way.”

My hand pulls at the back of my neck, while I start to walk one way, and then redirect the other way. I can’t think straight. The axis of the whole world has been knocked off. Like a fucking fool, I did Charlie’s bidding for years. Hell, I was only back in Lake Hollow because of him. All the warnings through the years, Mark, Sara, Carter, Dave, even Mitchell. All the times things were bugging me, I let him come up with excuses.

The world according to Charlie. It had always been that way. He convinced me that I was ‘lucky’ to have him as a best friend. He was generous, loyal, protective… He was not even one of those things. Evil. He’s sheer evil.

After Remi is done with the paramedic, she makes eye contact with me. Her reddened eyes fill with tears. A gasping sob escapes her as she rushes into my arms. I hold her like my life depends on it. It might.

I’m the reason he was ever in her life. I encouraged her relationship with him, because I didn’t want to lose her to him. How fucked is that?

“Oh, my God, Rem, honey, I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so sorry.” I cry into her hair, holding her tight. She puts her hand out to Grady. I grab onto his soaking wet shirt pulling him into our grasps. The two of us surround her. Wilder finds us all grieving, when he walks back from the dock where he retrieved his cellphone that he dropped before jumping in the lake. He’d left the 911 line open. As we’re holding one another with tears in our eyes, he joins the hug, but anger has a strong hold on him.

“I want to him to suffer,” he says. “Ineedhim to suffer.”

He’s not going to.

What made it all click for me, what made all the puzzle pieces fall into place was a memory, combined with the talk about WPL, the fucked way he acted about the row boats, his vendetta against Wilder. That fucker told me the day we were downtown to see the mural that he had no idea what everyone was upset about when it came to the mention of WPL. We were making it something it wasn’t.

Father Lowe wrote on the blackboard in the twelve-year old’s religion class ‘Life Questions’. Charlie has been acting weird. He told me about a secret club, WPL, but he can’t tell me yet what the initiation is. I don’t want to do it, especially since I have baseball. I look over at Charlie’s paper and see what he’s written. It says -What if the Lake wants sacrifices? If water gives life, does that mean anyone that dies in water comes back to life-like Daniel Gibson?He puts his finger to his lips and tells me, “Shhh… it’s just a joke.” I don’t like the way his eyes look. I write on my piece of paper;Does God know when bad things are going to happen?I only write that because I don’t like the way my best friend is acting. We hand our pages in to the priest, with the others, anonymously.

How did I not see it then? Or remember a year later what he’d written? I never connected it. The guilt I feel is like lead in the pit of my stomach. I could’ve prevented it all. If I’d gone to an adult, I could’ve stopped it.

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