The Strange and Unusual Case of Lake Barton

1: The Rainstorm

It was the tenth day of September and the rain was coming down in sheets. It was a rain like Columbia County had never seen before, as if Niagara Falls had moved to the sky above and grown a hundred times bigger. Not even the umbrella canopies of the giant oaks of Arawn Wood could stop it. The water just crashed through the leaves and boughs. It soaked into the ground and turned the trail into a muddy mess. The streets of the surrounding town were two inches deep in water. They say on that day, the gutters became two inches deeper from the erosion of all that water.

It was on this day, in such extreme conditions, that two of our young heroes were hurrying down the trail through the woods, from Nestletown-Louistown to Axe Valley. He was returning from school at Nestletown Middle; a small hamlet like Axe Valley didn't have a school, and Nestletown was a logical choice. After all, Nestletown-Louistown was the center of the Lake Barton Township (although Lake Barton itself was much closer to Axe Valley) and it was only a short walk through the woods.

Regulus Karlo Feuerstein ran down the trail as fast as he could, with the mud and his heavy briefcase slowing him down quite a bit. His non-waterproof windbreaker, with the hood up, did little to protect him from the soak. His face was already wet, the tips of his dark brown hair plastered to his forehead. Wet eyelashes blocked his icy blue eyes. His olive skin was pasty white with the sunscreen his mother had insisted on. So much for the sunscreen.

At his side in a similar fashion ran his classmate and neighbor, Hanifa Adjoa Shakuntala Klimentina Daniela Iris Gohansson. The third, she liked to joke. Reggie had thought that being Croatian and German made him diverse, but when Iris moved there from Brooklyn, he changed his mind. She was Lebanese, Macedonian, Turkish, Portuguese, Danish, Gambian, Indian, Albanian and God knows what else. She practically hyperventilated trying to keep up with Reggie. Iris was the new fastest runner in the school, but she had twice as many books in her backpack as Reggie. Her blonde bob bounced up and down, but stayed remarkably neat.

It wasn't a thunderstorm. It was actually quite light out. The clouds were a boring shade of gray, like you might expect to see in an English sky during a summer drizzle. But instead, it was the coldest, wettest, windiest, most violent rainstorm in years.

By the time the two twelve-year-olds finally made it to Lake Barton, at the top of the hill above Axe Valley, the weather had gotten even worse. The depression created by the trail had filled up ankle-deep in water. The wind had already blown down an entire tree right after Reggie and Iris had passed. The clouds, and therefore the storm, seemed to be staying put, so the two decided to wait it out.

They raced to the doorstep of the Lake Barton Township Electricity and Communication Center. It was a boring-looking brown post-war building that sat on the edge of the hill, right next to Lake Barton. If you looked at it from above, though, you would notice its irregular shape; apparently the builders had to do that to fit it onto the hillside.

Then the two children did what anyone with a right mind would do in that situation would do: they knocked. They knocked for their lives, the sound shaking the entire thing.

Unfortunately, the man who came to open the door was none other than George Mendell.

Iris took a giant step through the door. "Oh, thank you, sir—"

Bad move. She knew nothing about Mr. Mendell. She was new in town. She had only lived here for two days. She suspected nothing unusual about it or anyone in it. Then again, nobody who lived there did either, except about Mr. Mendell.... and certain other things.

Iris had only been safe under the roof of the Electricity and Communication Center (or the El-Co, as it was called in Lake Barton) for a split second before she found herself in the rain again, shoved out of the door by Mr. Mendell.