Gray Lake: A Novel of Crime and Supernatural Horror

Gray Lake: Chapter 2

Sweet, pungent smoke rolled so thick through the old Nova Menger had chosen for the night that Jim Stuckey could barely see his hand directly in front of his eyes. AC/DC’s “The Jack” off High Voltage was throbbing away on the speakers. Keith Orban and Stuckey had been singing along, their vocals now degenerating into a tangled mix of laughter and mistimed lyrics. Stuckey was sucking at air in between hacking, but-gusting coughs from his last hit. His lungs were burning. In his mind’s eye he could see them pulsing red in his chest, achieving the same bright brick color as his thin flannel shirt.

As he choked down the last cough – maybe his final weed wheeze ever – Stuckey rolled down the window.

Mike Menger, who’d been silent these past several minutes, seemed to form in the driver’s seat like a brooding, wizened, frowning ghost come to stare at them in judgment as the smoke drifted out and cleared. The entire right side of Menger’s face looked slightly melted and slick-smooth from an old burn. The scar extended a short way up past his temple so that Menger’s starkly white hair, which he kept in a military crew that complimented the square set of his jaw, was patchy and sparse on that side. His right eye had a perpetual squint from the same accident, and Stuckey could never tell, in situations such as this, exactly how pissed the chief was.

“If you two braying jackasses really mean to do this, you’d best get to it,” Menger said, dismissing them with a hard glance. He opened the driver’s door and got out. “God damn it! I’ve got a fucking contact buzz, and it’s reminding me why I quit this shit in the first place. It’ll do you dickheads some good if you actually go through with this, if you actually stick with it for the long term. Maybe this business of ours will finally work right for once.” He walked to the rear of the Nova, put the key in the trunk’s lock and turned it.

“That is why we’re doing it, Chief,” Keith said. “Lucidity. To make the business run smoother. To make our lives run smoother. I’ve got a family on the way, man. No more room for fuck-ups.”

“No more fuck-ups. That’ll be the day,” Menger muttered.

The darkness was warm and humid despite the slight breeze here in the marshy fens that made up the northern section of Gray Lake. They were lost in the mazes of dirt roads the Department of Natural Resources had blazed through this nature preserve, most of which was nothing but cattails, waist-high rustling grass, boggy soil and marshwater.

The trunk bounced open on its springs with a squeaky thunk. Menger examined the contents and shook his head. “Damn expensive stuff you’re throwing away. We’re supposed to be making money, not tossing it into the swamp.” Menger dug a crumpled pack of Marlboros out of his navy blue work shirt and went about lighting a smoke. The sewed-on patch over his breast said Menger’s Salvage in cursive script. “Why not sell this shit? You’ve each got customers who’d buy it, right?”

“Hey, it’s symbolic, Chief,” Keith said. “This stuff … well, it’ll be a little tough to see Mr. Moyers and the magazines go, but the rest is a dime a dozen. Everyone who’d want it would know where to get it without us. As long as we supply the actual product, they’ll stay happy.”

“If you say so. Symbolic, huh? How about then you get your symbolic thumbs out of your symbolic asses and get to it.” Smoke seeped from Menger’s mouth as he spoke. “We could all be out right now earning symbolic pieces of paper called money.”

Stuckey had walked, limping slightly as always, to the middle of the concrete railing of the small bridge by which they were parked. With careful precision, he placed the bong they’d just used in the direct center. This, he and Keith had agreed, was to be the first ceremonial offering. The bong was about two feet high and had started life as a huge glass beaker Keith had stolen from the science lab back three years ago on his last day in high school. They’d named it “Mr. Moyers” after the square, straight-laced science teacher who’d flunked Stuckey twice. Moyers had also handed Keith a D- “so you won’t have to have an F on your record” almost ten years ago.