Summer's Dark Waters Read online

  Simon Williams

  Summer’s Dark Waters

  Summer’s Dark Waters by Simon Williams

  © Simon Williams 2014

  First published 2014

  All illustrations © Ankolie 2014

  All characters in this work are fictitious and any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the Author or Artist, nor may this publication be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Also by the same author, for adults:

  The Aona Series

  Oblivion’s Forge

  Secret Roads

  The Endless Shore

  The Spiral Heart

  Salvation’s Door

  Before you begin reading, just a note to say that if you enjoy this book, you can get the sequel, The Light From Far Below, absolutely FREE from the author’s website here:

  https://www.simonwilliamsauthor.com/freebies.php

  Chapter 1

  The events that changed Joe Anderson’s life forever started on a hot Tuesday afternoon in July, a week before the start of the summer holidays.

  If everyone in the class had been asked by their teacher to vote on who else in the class they thought would turn out to be a truly extraordinary human being, Joe would probably not have received any votes.

  He was good enough at most subjects without being near the very top of the class in any of them. He wasn’t terrible at anything but no one had found anything that he was brilliant at either. He worked hard enough (his teacher thought he could maybe work a little harder), he behaved well most of the time and he was fairly quiet, but not so quiet that the other children particularly noticed. He didn’t get picked on, nor did he really stand out in any way and so he didn’t get noticed very much. But that was exactly how he liked it. He wasn’t especially shy but he didn’t like to make a fuss either. He was just happy fitting in.

  Was there anything extraordinary about him? Nobody would have guessed so, least of all the boy himself. Perhaps the only thing that marked him out as a little different was his calmness. Sometimes it made him across as a little detached, but mostly it just made people think of him as easy-going.

  The afternoon wore on, tedious in the way that only summer afternoons spent inside can be. The hands of the clock on the wall appeared (to the eyes of the hot and tired students who kept staring at it) to be moving far too slowly, as if like them it was starting to wilt a little in the summer heat.

  Joe finished his work and turned it over to stop anyone nearby from copying his answers. Nathan sat nearest to him, and he usually tried to look at Joe’s work whenever he got a chance, but today he was actually trying to figure out the answers himself for a change.

  Joe frowned and looked around suddenly. The oddest sensation had come to him- something he could not even hope to describe.

  It’s like there’s suddenly an extra person in the classroom, he thought, and he found himself looking around at everyone and counting heads, certain that there was a new student who had suddenly wandered into the room- although that was impossible, because he and everyone else would have seen him or her. In fact their teacher, Miss Wells, would have introduced the new student at the beginning of the lesson.

  And there can’t be anyone new anyway, he reminded himself. It’s almost the end of the summer term. No one joins school with just a week to go.

  But he couldn’t stop himself looking around, scanning everyone and silently counting them. A few saw him and stared back. Daniel made a rude hand signal and glared at him. Gemma stuck out her tongue. Caitlin just smiled and gave him a little wave before going back to her work.

  “Have you finished your work, Joe?” Miss Wells asked, staring at him over the top of her glasses.

  “Yes miss,” he said politely.

  “Then could you please stop looking around at everyone else and read a book until the end of class?”

  Joe took a book out of his bag and opened it at the bookmark. He began reading, but he had only got as far as halfway down the page when another strange feeling came to him. It was as if he was being watched intently by one of the other students.

  No, he thought suddenly, closing the book slowly. His heart pounded and his stomach felt as if it had turned over. No, it’s not one of the other students. It’s the missing one. It’s the one I can’t see.

  He knew that what he was thinking didn’t make any sense. It sounded completely mad. But that didn’t stop him being certain that there was someone in the class apart from all the people who he could see.

  His eyes were drawn to a desk not far from the window where the sun poured in. There was no one sitting there, and he tried to remember who normally sat at that desk. Did anyone sit there?

  Time seemed to slow down as he stared at the desk, at the sunlight slanting in across the classroom, at the tiny specks of dust that shone in the still warm air. He could dimly hear the tired ticking of the classroom clock on the wall. It’s slower than usual, he thought. It’s slowing down.

  The dust appeared to hang in the air as if to prove that idea. The faint sounds of writing and of paper rustling sounded longer, more drawn out. Joe watched as one girl paused her work to brush back a strand of her hair that had fallen over her eyes. That movement alone seemed to take forever.

  And just for a moment, through the shimmer of this oddly slowed-down classroom, Joe thought he saw a shape- the shape of someone, sitting at that empty desk, as if the dust and the sunlight had marked out its body.

  “I can see you,” he whispered.

  “Joe!”

  He jumped at the sound of Miss Wells’ voice, which shattered the spell entirely, pulling him back into the world of normal movements and noises in a rush that felt almost painful. She was standing next to his desk and staring at him. “What is the matter with you?!”

  “I’m sorry, miss.” He tried to look as apologetic as he could. “I’m just feeling a bit restless,” he added.

  Miss Wells gave him an odd look. “Try and not feel restless for the next twenty minutes,” she said, before walking back to her desk.

  Joe opened his book again and tried to concentrate on reading, but he couldn’t. He felt uncomfortable knowing that some of the other children were staring at him. A few even laughed quietly, until Miss Wells told them to be quiet.

  Joe had just walked outside the school gates later that afternoon on his way home, when he heard Amber calling out just behind him: “Wait for me, Joe!”

  Amber was his best friend. She was also in his class and sat a few rows behind him, so she would have had a good view of his behaviour earlier. She grinned at him and asked, “Was the heat getting to you in class?”

  “No,” Joe muttered. He looked around quickly to make sure no one else was nearby. “I just thought... never mind. It doesn’t matter what I thought.” He rubbed at his cheek- not because it was itching but because he knew it had gone bright red with embarrassment.

  Her hazel eyes were full of laughter. “Well, it was a funny way of trying to get attention. And I’ve never seen you do that before. What are you going to do tomorrow?”

  “Nothing! I wasn’t trying to get attention,” Joe protested. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “I heard you whisper something.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “I did. You whispered I can see you. What was it you saw?” She gave him her familiar you can’t fool me look.

  “Noth
ing. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it was just the heat.” Joe looked reluctantly at her. Amber never seemed to miss anything. She was the sort of girl his Aunt Emma called bright as a button, although her grades were all over the place. “Anyway, I’m fine now.”

  But Joe wasn’t fine at all, as he found out later.

  Chapter 2

  Joe ate his dinner, read a couple of chapters from the book he had managed to read half a page from earlier, and went up to his bedroom at eight o’clock. It was still light outside, and normally he never went to bed early unless he had to, especially in the summer, but he felt quite tired.

  He was also looking forward to at least trying to get some proper sleep. He hadn’t been sleeping well recently. His Aunt Emma, who he lived with, mentioned how surprised she was that he had decided to go to bed early. Joe just smiled at that. Emma often stayed up all night reading books and even leaving little post-it notes throughout them, and she still never seemed tired the next morning.

  He walked into his bedroom and shut the door. When he took his t-shirt off he happened to glance in the mirror, and he had the shock of his life.

  Just for a moment, he thought that someone else was staring back at him through the glass.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he whispered to himself, and he walked even closer to the mirror to examine his reflection properly. “Yes, it’s me,” he said, watching as his reflection said the same thing at the same time- exactly as anyone would expect. “Who else would it be?” he added for good measure- and so did his reflection.

  But just for a moment, when he stared at himself he didn’t see his own eyes at all. The eyes that he saw instead were the same colour as his- blue- and to anyone else they would have looked the same, but for one terrified second Joe felt certain that they belonged to someone else. Worse than that, he saw in that instant such huge sadness and pain that he stumbled backwards, muttering “No!” to himself.

  Somehow he plucked up the courage to glance back at the mirror after a short while. His heart pounded as he turned slowly, imagining all sorts of horrors. But all he saw staring back at him was the reflection of a frightened eleven-year old boy.

  Joe had always been sensible and practical. It was that sensible part of him that now spoke up calmly but urgently inside his head. What’s wrong with you? Why do you keep seeing things that aren’t there? You know there wasn’t anyone at that empty desk in class. You know that there’s nothing in the mirror. It just reflects whatever gets put in front of it. That’s all a mirror can do.

  I really need to go and tell Aunt Emma about this before it gets worse, he thought. It might be serious. Maybe I’m starting to imagine things because I haven’t been sleeping well.

  But then another thought came to him. Is this something I really want to be telling anyone about? Even Aunt Emma? I trust her, but she worries too much. She would definitely be worried about this if I told her.

  Joe felt strangely cold, and he put his t-shirt back on and then sat on the edge of his bed, trying to think. He felt totally helpless. What was he supposed to do?

  After a while he couldn’t bear to just sit still thinking any more, but neither could he lie down to sleep. It would probably be dawn by the time I got any sleep at all, he thought, and then the sounds of birdsong and traffic would just wake me up again.

  He went over to the window, drew back his curtains a little way and looked out into the twilight. As he stared out across the houses and towards the open field that led to the woods, he suddenly recalled something. It felt vague, as if it might be part of a dream he had had- despite having had such little proper sleep recently- and the more he tried to concentrate on it the more it faded.

  The lake, he thought suddenly. Something about the lake over in the woods...

  The warm evening air drifted in through his window, which he had opened a little way. For a moment Joe was certain that the breeze actually smelled of the lake- though not in a bad way. The lake didn’t actually have any smell as far as he knew.

  I saw something there, he thought. Something or someone. In a dream.

  Suddenly he knew that he had to go to the lake. He had no idea why, but he felt a dreadful certainty that if he didn’t go right now, something terrible would happen.

  He made his decision there and then. He slipped his jeans and spare trainers on, and opened his bedroom door as quietly as possible. Within a moment he was making his way down the stairs. The door to the living room was slightly open but not enough for his aunt to see him creeping along the hallway towards the front door. She’s probably reading, Joe thought. When Emma was reading almost nothing could disturb her. She could spend hours on end totally engrossed in a book to the point that she wouldn’t notice anything around her.

  Closing the front door quietly after him, Joe made his down the street, towards the entrance to the field. From there he ran even faster, making less noise than before as he sprinted over the grass, heading towards the darkness of the woods and the lake.

  Joe reached the lake and sank to the ground near the water’s edge as the sun dipped over the tree line in the west. His breaths were quick and shallow. He could feel the blood pounding in his ears. The evening felt hot and humid. Clouds of midges swirled lazily over the water.

  For a moment, as he stared across the calm water he felt utterly confused. Why did I panic and run all the way here? he asked himself. Was I just scared of being found out, even though I hadn’t even told anyone I was imagining things? Was I scared of Aunt Emma taking me to hospital if I told her that I’d started seeing things that weren’t there?

  Was I scared of never being allowed to even leave the hospital if I ended up in one?

  All these thoughts sounded crazy. They certainly didn’t sound like the sort of things Aunt Emma would do- she was a quietly kind and thoughtful person. But at the same time he felt oddly certain that something would have happened, and that he had left his house just in time. What would have happened if I’d stayed there? he asked himself. What would have happened if I’d just carried on looking into the mirror instead of looking away?

  He imagined his reflection suddenly moving without him, its arm reaching out of the glass to pull him in.

  A sudden pain stabbed at him. It felt as if it happened everywhere in his body at the same time. He gasped and doubled over, grimacing with the agony.

  When the pain had subsided a little, Joe looked at his hands. A mad thought came to him. They don’t look like my hands!

  “No,” he whispered. He would then have added, “What’s happening?” but for some reason he could no longer speak.

  The terror he felt was overwhelming. He couldn’t even scream.

  He didn’t remember pulling off his t-shirt and jeans, nor would he remember the words he muttered to himself over and over. He didn’t recall stumbling forwards right to the edge of the lake, or falling forwards into the water with a loud splash.

  Amber heard the sound of Joe falling into the water. She had been walking slowly back to her house after visiting a friend, and wondering to herself what to do during the summer holidays. Then, from the corner of her eye she had caught a glimpse of Joe running across the field towards the woods. After a moment she had decided to go after him, wondering what he was doing running towards the woods at this time of the evening, and why he was in such a rush to get there.

  She walked a little more quickly when she heard the splash, and then, suddenly sure that something terrible had happened or soon would if she didn’t hurry up, she broke into a run.

  By the time she reached the shore of the lake the water was almost perfectly still, but Amber only had to look around for a moment before she saw Joe’s clothes on the ground and recognised them.

  At first she didn’t know what to make of the situation. Had he gone for a swim in the lake? Why would he do that? Everyone knew that the lake was far too dangerous to swim in- it didn’t matter how good a swimmer you were, and Joe was pretty average. People who should have known better had dumped
all kinds of things in there over the years, and many of them had the sort of shapes that could easily cut your foot or leg or worse still, trap you as you swam near.

  Not only that, but it was quickly getting dark.

  “He’s not that stupid,” Amber whispered to herself. “Is he?” She looked around and listened, but she couldn’t see anyone or anything disturbing the surface of the lake, nor could she hear any splashing.

  Then another possibility occurred to her as she knelt and looked at his clothing, and saw that his t-shirt had been ripped in one place. And as she thought that dreadful thought, her heart started hammering even faster and the shadows made by the trees nearby seemed deeper and larger than ever, as if they might be hiding the sort of people her dad kept warning her about.

  “Joe!” she screamed, and she ran along the path that skirted near to the water’s edge for a while, looking desperately around and stopping to listen half a dozen times in case she could hear anything. But she couldn’t.

  Amber turned and ran like the wind all the way back to her house without stopping. When she finally arrived, breathless and trembling, she told her dad what she had seen and where.

  But he didn’t respond in the way she thought he would. “Stay here and lock the door,” he told her, “and go up to your bedroom. I’ll find him.”

  Amber stared open-mouthed at him. “No! What are you talking about?! We need to call the police! I saw some of his clothes...”

  “Amber, I said I would find him. Now please do as I said.”

  “You’ve got to tell Emma even if you don’t tell anyone else,” she continued, still barely able to believe he was going to try and handle this himself. Why did adults always think they could deal with everything themselves? Especially men? “Something’s happened to him! You’ve got to!”