I do not care what you make of me. I don’t want to hear your thoughts, your theories, or your predictions because whatever you may think you know, I promise you’ve barely even scratched the surface. Believe me when I say life has many mysteries that are meant to remain unknown. By our nature, humans are creatures that thrive on curiosity and answering the impossible questions, however some thoughts that lie deep within the depths of the human mind are suppressed for a reason.
I was anything but excited to hear that we would be moving out to an old fishing towne on the coast of Massachusetts while my mother and father focused on the class action lawsuit filed against their pharmaceutical company. As the young and naïve boy that I was, it didn’t take long for the idea of new adventures flooded my brain and washed away any thoughts of blame and anger that I had towards my parents. My older brother, Cedric, was quite the opposite. He, being ten years older than me, was much more vocal about his opinions on our sudden departure from our home in Rockford, Illinois. The last night that we spent in our home, I remember Cedric locking himself in the bathroom and flushing every one of Mom and Dad’s products down the toilet. Back then, I never understood why he did this. I was only eight, and at that age, you still take everything that your parents do as gospel. It took years, but eventually I had my own revelation and finally I understood that the events that led me to and from Gulwater, Massachusetts were entirely my parents’ fault.
I pretended not to hear whispered phone calls between my father and the countless lawyers that refused to represent my mother and him in court. I never found out exactly what their company did that made so many people hate them, but from what I gathered, one of their medicines caused a lot of people to get sick. From the shouts that echoed through the hallways and into my bedroom, it figured that my father knew of the possible side effects of their best selling drug, Zolipiren and withheld that information for the sake of profit. The drug itself was best described as treatment for headaches, muscle pain, colds, and allergic reactions. Other than that, there’s very few details left on them ever since they were recalled and stripped from the shelves. I always wondered what more there was to the story, but my parents refused to let me in on the family secret. They had learned to keep quiet after what happened when they told my older brother.
Cedric was what most of our former neighbors called a hoodlum, a delinquent, and sometimes even a thug. Aside from his small group of similarly behaving friends, most kids his age actively avoided him. He gained his poor reputation after a fight over some girl who was getting harassed by a few of the older boys which ended with my brother putting the starting quarterback of his high school football team into a coma for three weeks. This girl fell for my knight in shining armor brother pretty hard and they began dating shortly after. Although most of the time Cedric was a short tempered asshole, Cassandra was the only person that I knew, other than myself, that could bring the soft side out of him. Even at his job, the mechanic which he helped out even told him that although he had the skills, his bitter demeanor was the thing that held him back from succeeding in starting his own business. He claimed that he didn’t care because he was only in it for the money, not for the people he’d meet along the way. That being said, our parents were extremely surprised by how much he cared about us moving.
I remember sitting down on the floor in front of the flat screen TV, raising the volume to drown out the loud banging of Cedric violently “rearranging” the furniture in his room after finding out that we were moving with less than a month before going back to school. One upside that I focused on was that Illinois’ school year started in August, while Massachusetts’ started in September. As we flew to Boston and drove to our new home, I remember thinking how everyone was going to think it was so cool that I had an extra month of summer vacation that year. I thought of all the ways I was going to brag to my new friends and how everyone would want to be friends with the new kid from Illinois. Once we actually got there, all of my trains of thought left the station. Gulwater was much bigger than I imagined. From the houses to the businesses to the port to everything else around me. To my innocent eight year old brain, this place was as close to paradise as I had ever imagined.
While I unpacked the bags from my car, from the corners of my eyes I saw other children gathering around in the neighbor’s yard, all trying to catch a glimpse of the new kid in towne. From behind me, I heard a ball bouncing in my direction, and I quickly turned and caught it before it had a chance to knock the remainder of my possessions out of the moving van. When I lowered the ball away from my face, a small kid stood there in awe of the magnificent feat that I had just accomplished.
“Um, hi.” The boy avoided eye contact with me. “We were gonna play kickball, want to play?” He reached out and gestured for me to pass him the ball. “I’m Francis by the way. My friends call me Fritz. I don’t really know you, but you seem ok so you can call me Fritz, too.” He smiled at me, but again, he looked down at the ball.
“Ok, Fritz. I’m Cole. My friends call me Cole, so you can call me Cole, too.”
Cedric walked between the two of us and purposely knocked the ball out of my hands, causing it to bounce down the driveway and into the road. “Watch it, shithead.”
“Cedric James!” My mother shouted at my brother.
“What? I didn’t even say anything.”
“Go inside and help your father unpack.”
“Come on Mom.”
“Inside.”
He bumped past me again. I lost my balance, but caught myself on the edge of the truck. I continued talking, never taking my eyes off of Cedric. “That’s my brother, Cedric, his friends call him words I’m not allowed to say.” I brought my voice down to a whisper. “I’ll tell you later.”
Fritz faked a polite laugh. “Well, I’ll see you on the field.”
“Ok. Give me a minute.” I looked over at the other kids standing in the street. A boy with semi-red dyed hair was holding the ball in his hands. “I need to go ask my mom and get my sneakers.”
From that moment on, Fritz and I spent every day for the rest of the summer together. Due to our easygoing eight year old minds, the adjustment from new kid and tour guide to best friends came fairly quick. Fritz introduced me to his older sister, Teagan, at that point in my life being the most gorgeous creature I had ever laid my eyes on. She was only about two years older than me and her brother, so a lot of the time, she ended up joining us for the majority of our misadventures. He also introduced me to the twins who lived a few streets over, Kali and Kalvin, which I immediately shortened to simply calling them, “the Kals.” There were always other kids our age that played with us and helped us take over the streets like a colony of waist-height ants, however they always came and went as they pleased, while the core of the group, the five of us, remained inseparable.
About two weeks into me living there, Fritz and Teagan invited me to come to the beach with the two of them. My parents were surprisingly easy to convince into letting a complete stranger drive me to a place that they’d never been to and leave me there without adult supervision.
Upon arrival, Mrs. Schmitz explained the rules that we were to follow in her absence. “Make sure you guys stick together, ok. Francis and Cole: Please listen to Teagan even if you think what she’s saying is dumb. I’m trusting you guys by leaving you alone, so don’t make me regret it. Oh, and most of all, try to have some fun!”
“Ok!”
“Of course!”
“Will do!”
We each hopped out of the car and I got together our sand toys and towels while Fritz grabbed the snacks and cooler that we packed full of soda and juice boxes.
“Teagan,” Mrs. Schmitz said, “One more thing I forgot to mention.”
Teagan handed me her beach chair and umbrella which I happily accepted. I would do anything just to get her to think about me more.
“What’s up?” She walked over to the driver’s side window. I eavesdropped in on their conversation from the back of the car. Fritz continued to struggle with picking up the heavy cooler while balancing the snacks that sat on top of it.
“Do me a favor, ok.” Mrs. Schmitz draped her arm over her daughter’s shoulders. “Please, don’t tell Cole about—”
“Cole!” I looked over at Fritz and saw the cooler slowly opening up as it slid out of his hands. “A little help here.”
I dropped Teagan’s chair and umbrella and rushed over to Fritz just fast enough to watch our sodas explode on the ground with front row seats. One of the punctured cans rolled past the car and Teagan and her mother both entered the splash zone, too. Fritz and I were in hysterics by the time Teagan stormed over to yell at us to cut it out. As soon as she closed the trunk, Mrs. Schmitz sped off, leaving the three of us in a dark cloud of exhaust.
Teagan picked her stuff up off of the ground. “Let’s get to the water so I can wash this crap off me.” She shook her head like a dog and showered the two of us in the sticky syrup.
I began walking towards the down ramp to the beach, when I felt a large hand clamp down on my shoulder. “Hey there, kiddo. You must be new ‘round here?” The old, balding man bent down to greet me and simultaneously give me a better smell of his cheap spray-on cologne. “My name is Raymond Knowles. Most kids just call me Uncle Ray.” He stuck out his finger and poked me hard in the center of my chest. “What’s your name?”
“Cole.” I looked towards Fritz to avoid his large eyes that were even more magnified by his circular framed glasses.
“Say.” He turned to look at Fritz and Teagan. “He’s that little—” He faced me again and wagged his finger. “You’re that little Hackett boy, aren’t you?”
I nodded and said nothing.
“Well then, welcome to the Gulwater family, my friend. You or your folks ever need anything, you come visit Uncle Ray o’er at the deli, you hear? I’ll stay helping you guys out ’til y’all get yourselves accommodated.”
“Ok.” I glanced up at the man’s wide and unnatural forced smile. “Thank you.”
“Alrighty. Pleasure to meet you, Cole Hackett. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other around.” With that, Uncle Ray stood up and ruffled Fritz’s hair before walking away. Once he got out of earshot, I looked at my friends with a very obvious question plastered across my face.
“That’s Uncle Ray. He runs some of the food places here. He’s also very weird if you hadn’t noticed,” Fritz answered while readjusting his hair.
“Just stay away from him,” Teagan added.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because… He’s- I don’t know, I just get a bad feeling around him.”
From that moment onward, I avoided Uncle Ray the best I could. Occasionally, we crossed paths and I would force out a smile and give him a hello, but that was common for small townes like this. Every now and again, I would overhear others say things that backed up what Teagan said about Uncle Ray, too, but whenever I pushed further, nobody was able to give a solid reason for why they felt that way. Statements like, “He just is,” or, “There’s something about him,” spread throughout Gulwater like an infectious disease, however, one thing that was always constant was that everyone, including the adults, always called him Uncle Ray.
“Fritz! Cole! I didn’t know you were gonna be here.” Kalvin’s small, mouse-like feet pitter pattered across the burning pavement.
“Hey Kalvin!” I spoke up. “Where’d you come from?”
“From the beach,” he answered condescendingly, “I’ll show you our spot.” Kalvin motioned for us to follow him and the wet snail trail he left behind as he drip-dried his way back onto the hot sand.
Once we reached the crest of the dune that separated the beach from the towne, I looked out across the sapphire blue ocean and took a deep breath. I remember thinking to myself, you know, maybe this place isn’t so bad. My eyes panned down the crowded beach and into the equally-crowded water. Every so often, the sea would reach out, gently kissing the land before rolling back in and preparing to repeat the endless cycle. Children of all ages scampered through the water, some dashing through the ripples and jumping over the whitecaps while others dove through the waves and submerged themselves completely to hide from the beating sun. Every one of them stayed close to the shore, being careful not to be sucked out and swallowed by the giant blue beast.
Kalvin dusted off the wet sand that caked itself onto the sides of his feet and the bottom halves of his legs. “Down and a bit to the right of the lifeguard tower.” He made shakey hand signals that only he could understand. “Kali’s there on a blanket near that big red umbrella. I’ll be there in a little bit.” Kalvin ran back over the dune and out of sight.
Fritz, Teagan, and myself zigzagged our way around beach chairs and towels until we found Kali sprawled out on her blanket, trying her best to sunbathe while under an umbrella and lathered head to toe in sunscreen. She laid on her stomach with her eyes closed and her arms folded under her head like a pillow. I took the opportunity to quietly reach into the cooler and pour a bottle of ice water across her back.
Kali woke up from her hibernation in a stunned fury. “Oh my god, Cole! What the heck is wrong with you!” She sprang up and attempted to slap the water away from her, even so, by this point, the bottle was nearly empty.
“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” I giggled at her reaction and began opening up another bottle.
“Cole, no!” She laughed.
I cracked open the bottle and brought it to my lips. “What, did you really think you’re worth wasting two waters on?” I squeezed the bottle and sprayed her with another quarter of the bottle. “Definitely not worth two full.”
Kali smiled at me through her missing teeth. “I hate you so much.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Toofus.”
She stood up and tackled me onto the sand. Kali always hated it when I called her that. About a week before I showed up in Gulwater, apparently the Kals were out playing kick the can with the rest of the kids on their street and Kali ran in attempting to kick the can and one of the larger boys who was playing tagged her pretty hard and she went flying face first into the pavement. Her front teeth were already loose, so Kali was actually pretty happy that she was going to get double the money from the tooth fairy that night. I remember the first time I met the Kals, I tried to ask Kalvin why his sister had no teeth, and she must’ve heard me.
She yelled across the street, “I’m not missing teeth! I lost them! I’ll only be toothless until they come back.”
I remember looking back at Kalvin and asking, “Who’s Toofus?”
Since then, whenever I decide to mess with Kali in my poor attempt at what I thought was flirting, I would always remember to throw in her nickname once or twice just to get her a little bit angry. I believe that it was at this moment, with my face buried deep in the sand with Kali on top of me was the exact moment I realized that there was much more to life than playing tag and hide and seek. It was also the moment that my major crush list was expanded to a second person instead of just Fritz’s older sister. I felt Kali get lifted off of me, presumably by Fritz, and I took myself out of the hole she dug using my head as a shovel.
“Jeez, I didn’t realize you were that strong,” I coughed.
“Well remember that next time you wanna call me names.”
“Oh he’ll definitely remember that,” Fritz mocked.
I went to jab at Fritz, mostly just to protect my ego and partially not to look like I actually somewhat enjoyed it.
“Guys look!” Kalvin came running up behind me. I turned around to see nothing in particular interest.
“What?” I responded.
“The Hillsong House!” The other three happily shouted in unison.
“It’s smoking!” Teagan added. She took my hand into hers. “C’mon, you gotta see this.” Before I had the chance to object, she, along with more than half of the other people surrounding us, all started rushing down the beach and into the water. I followed her to the best of my ability, but I managed to lose her in the storm of bodies all in a frenzy to make it to the ocean for whatever reason.
“Teagan!” I screamed over the laughing townespeople. I continued running down to the water in an attempt to clear up even just an inch of confusion as to what the hell was happening. “Fritz! Kali! Kalvin!” I splashed into the water and dove underneath, hoping to get far enough out to locate my friends. My flailing arms and legs smacked against the swarm of beach goers. Try as I might, but my feet no longer reached the sandy ocean floor. Flapping my arms and legs frantically and struggling to make my way back to the coast line, I felt something metallic scrape against my leg. I winced at the creepy feeling, but powered through it. My foot landed on the metal again and flight took over. I propelled my way back to the shore, but before I felt sand under my feet again, there was a disturbance in the water beneath me. I kept swimming faster and faster until I saw Teagan out of the corner of my eye. A warm feeling had started in my leg spread over the rest of my body shortly after. The rumbling of the ocean from below brought on the cheers of the crowd in the water. As I lived through the scariest moment of my life up until this point in my life, the people of Gulwater watched with thunderous applause.
“Cole, are you alright?” Teagan must have seen the fright in my eyes and immediately swam out to meet me.
“What’s going on here?” I felt my heart rate quicken and pound mercilessly against my ribs.
Teagan held me tight. “It’s alright. It’s actually really cool, just wait a few seconds.” She wasn’t wrong. All around us, bubbles started to rise and pop, like we were in the world’s largest hot tub. I turned my head and, down the entirety of the shoreline, the same phenomenon was occurring. The water turned white in color and everyone was cheering as I tried to grasp what in god’s name was happening. I placed my feet back on the sand and made an effort to pretend all of this was normal just how everyone around me acted like it was.
I remember thinking of some sort of explanation as to the current situation that we found ourselves in. Having said that, “Woah,” the only thing that came out of my mouth.
“Yeah,” she said. Teagan still held onto me, not knowing that I could reach the bottom just as well as she could. I didn’t tell her either. I actually loved being this close to her. My body relaxed and sank a little bit lower into the water. My leg bumped against something fleshy and, as it did, whatever the thing was latched onto me. I screamed and tried to kick it away, but, by now, it had already wrapped itself around my leg and was slowly pulling me under with it. I kicked at the thing again and hit something hard. One of the creature’s appendages released my leg. “You alright?” Teagan laughed.
“Something’s grabbing me,” I gargled. It pulled me under and saw a white, humanoid shape. Its dark red face and long arms morphed into a bleached, fish-like tail near its waist. My eyes burned as I looked at the thing’s mouth thrashing towards me, releasing dozens of air bubbles. Teagan’s hands desperately grabbed onto mine, her pointed nails digging into my skin. I kicked the creature in its face once more and it loosened its grip enough for me to get above the water and take a deep breath.
“Francis, help!” Teagan cried over the crowd of people celebrating. In my frantic state, I couldn’t make out much, but he was nowhere to be seen and for that I was certain. “Kali! Kalvin! Anyone!” She continued.
I kicked the creature one more time straight in its molten face and this time, it recoiled, but not before scratching up my leg. This must have scared it off because I didn’t feel it again. I buried my head into Teagan’s chest and she stroked my back. “It’s ok,” she said softly, “It’s gonna be alright.”
I felt a pair of hands wrap around my waist and squeeze on either side. Fritz and Kalvin both popped out of the water right next to us. Teagan and I each let out a loud shriek. The two boys cackled maniacally at our screams.
“That’s not even funny!” I hit Kalvin in the arm. “I almost drowned!”
“Yeah seriously,” Teagan agreed, “That was way too far.”
“One little squeeze and all of a sudden you’re gonna drown. Really Cole? I didn’t think you were such a snowflake.” Kalvin pushed me back playfully.
I smacked his hand away. “Shut up, Kalvin. You could’ve drowned, too. That was just stupid.”
“Whatever, bro.” Kalvin rolled his eyes. “Just because you’re the new kid doesn’t mean you can boss everyone around.”
As suddenly as the bubbling started, it had stopped. People got out of the water and went back to their towels and chairs on the beach. Teagan began wading back up to the beach also. I followed her and left the others back in the water. I looked back and saw Kali emerge from the water between Fritz and Kalvin, scaring the shit out of both of them just as they did to us. I snickered to myself, knowing that at least karma still had my back.
“Hey, Teagan.” I caught up to her and put my hand on her shoulder.
She slowed her pace and turned around to face me. “Sorry about them. Sometimes they just don’t know when enough is enough.”
“No, don’t worry about that. That’s not your fault.” She slowed down enough so that my arm wrapped around her. “I was just wondering…” I paused and thought about how to ask the question. “What was that?”
“Oh,” she giggled, “You mean the Fizz?”
“Yeah the Fizz, if that’s what you call it.” I took my arm off of her and reached down to scratch my leg while still maintaining constant eye contact.
“It happens every once in a while. Nobody knows exactly why, but it has something to do with the Hillsong House.” She pointed over to a smoke stack in the air floating above a mansion that sat atop a large hill.
I looked at her with a crinkled brow and puzzlement across my tightly pressed together lips.
“Right, I guess you wouldn’t know about that either.” She read my expression. “People say that back when Gulwater started to become what it is today, some millionaire took a giant plot of land and built their dream house in the middle of what was then, some poor old fishing towne.” A beach ball rolled into our area and Teagan kicked it back to the kids that had thrown it. “Anyways, ever since then, when the Hillsong House starts to shoot smoke out of its chimney, the Fizz comes around and bubbles up the water. Nobody ever really figured out why though, and honestly, who cares. Everyone loves it and it keeps people going to the beach.”
“Yup,” I said sarcastically, “Everyone loves it.”
Teagan laughed and slapped me in the arm. She glanced down and a panicked expression took over her smiling face. “Oh my god, Cole. What happened to your leg?”
“What do you— holy crap!” My right leg was covered with deep scratches through and through, circling around my ankle and over the top of my foot. That warm feeling that overtook my body earlier started to come back to me and, this time, it hurt much more profusely. I picked up Kali’s beach towel without even bothering to shake off the sand and covered the red pain-stripes that decorated my leg.
“Was all that from Kalvin?” Teagan asked.
“Must’ve been.” I blotted my scrapes. “When he sees this, then he’ll understand why I got so pissed off before.”
“But you only just saw this now.”
“Well he doesn’t know that.”
Teagan wagged her finger at me. “Nice one.”
As the sun started to set over the orange and pink horizon, we got word that Mrs. Schmitz was coming to pick us up. Kalvin took this as his last chance to bury the hatchet between us. He walked over and took a seat next to me in the cold sand. We sat there for the first couple of minutes, me being too stubborn and angry to be the bigger person and him likely just not knowing what to say. I remember the ice melting in the cooler, causing the remaining drinks to bump against each other. We both turned to the cooler between us, but still said nothing. After another few minutes, the growing stiffness in the air was becoming too much for me to handle. I began preparing myself to speak, but my thoughts were abruptly cut off.
“Listen. I know things got pretty… tense between us back there.” Kalvin faced the sky, searching for his next words. “I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have scared you like that.”
“Then I’m sorry too. I probably shouldn’t have kicked you in the face.”
His head tilted as he faced me. “Wait, you tried to kick me in the face?”
“I didn’t try. I did. As in my foot basically brushed your teeth.” I took the towel off of my bloodied leg. “And don’t say you didn’t deserve it either. Look what you did to me.”
“Woah.” Kalvin recoiled a bit before continuing. “What happened to you?”
“You did, Kalvin! You happened to me!”
“That’s not possible. I-”
“Stop being an idiot. I saw you under the water, you and your stupid dyed hair!”
“First off, it’s not dyed, it’s bleached. Second, if you let me finish, I can explain!”
I took a second to calm myself. “Go on.”
“Me and Fritz were in the water and watched you almost making out with his sister. I thought it would be funny to go over and ruin your already slim-to-none chances.” He angrily pointed at his chest several times. “I went over and grabbed your waist. Just enough to send you jumping. I” —He slapped his chest several more times for dramatic effect— “never touched your freakin’ foot or leg or anything else down there.” He moved a bit closer to me and lowered his tone. “I don’t know what did that to you, Cole, but I do know it wasn’t me.”
Not long after that day, Fritz and I were walking down the street on our way to the Kals’ house, bouncing a basketball when we came across a poster labeled:
Missing
Roger Clemson
From: Gulwater Main Beach
Age: 11 years old
Race: White
Sex: Male
Height: 4’ 9”
Weight: 90 lbs
Eyes: Blue
And the final detail on that poster was the one thing that has kept that day in my mind twelve years later.
Hair Color: Red
Over the rest of my stay in Gulwater, Massachusetts, each time that dreaded house on the hill sang it’s smoky tune, while everyone ran into the blissful chaos of the Fizz, I stayed on the shore, watching and waiting to see who’s child would be pulled below the tides this time.