The Pond: Part 2

The next morning Dave woke with a heavy head and pulsating pain by his right temple. He felt hung-over, and as though he had not slept for days. He looked at the clock and startled. It was 10am, he had lost more than an hour of working time.

He dressed quickly, pulling on the first pair of trousers and shirt he saw in the cupboard and hurried downstairs.

"Why didn't you wake me?"  He demanded of Janelle. His voice was angry and it shocked her. Dave never got mad.

"I'm sorry, you looked so peaceful I thought I would let you sleep a little." Janelle stuttered, caught off guard both by Dave's angry voice, and his disheveled appearance.

Dave's eyes seemed to be supported on swollen purple pillows of flesh, he look as though he hadn't shaved in a week. His normally well-groomed hair flared around his head at all angles. It made him look quite mad.

"Yeah well I've got a lot to do today and… and…" Dave's face softened, "I'm sorry, I didn't sleep well at all last night."  He took Janelle in his arms and held her tight. She he looked over her shoulder he saw Mrs Macabie's dead cat sitting on the window ledge, staring into the house.

"What do you say you and I go upstairs and start the day over?" He scooped his wife into his arms and marched up to the bedroom.

They made a passionate love and once they were finished Janelle found herself powerless to resist going to sleep.

"You were right. Now it's just us." Dave whispered to the decaying feline. The animal had stood and watched proceedings from the bedside table.

The animal gave a gurgled response and jumped to the floor. Dave followed, knowing where they were headed.

The pond was still empty of water, but the algae had not been deterred. It overflowed from the pit and had spread across the wall, which then gave way to the lowered patio area.

The cat brushed itself against Dave's leg, leaving behind putrid strips of flesh which stuck to Dave's jeans as if they were Velcro.

"I know,"  He looked down at the cat. He bent and scratched behind its ear, his fingernails grating against the exposed bone. "Let me just get the shovel and a pair of gloves." Dave turned and walked to the shed. He opened the door and grabbed the shovel. The handle was wet, and when he looked at it in the daylight he saw that the entire thing was covered in algae.

"What the fuck?" He asked himself. The cat sat by the pond and just stared, its dead eyes had turned milky yet their gaze burnt into Dave. "I'll have to clean it better next time."  He told the beast.

Forgetting his gloves Dave jumped into the pond, landing in a thick pool of algae. It was like looking at , and standing in, mucus. It remind Dave of a question from school.

If you were buried up to your neck in snot, and other people were throwing stones at you, would you duck? Standing there, he was no longer sure what his answer would be.

Time dissolved, and by the time he realized Janelle was standing above him, her shadow blocking the sun which had been beating down on his now shirtless – Where did my shirt go – back it was long past midday and the pit had descended even further.

"Honey, isn't that deep enough?"  The question made Dave jump. He spun around and look up at his wife.

He gave a nervous laugh and stumbled over his words like a man caught masturbating or watching a dirty movie while his wife slept."No, no, no, it's um… I need to get to the…um, source, yeah. I need to find out where this algae is coming from, otherwise we will have the same problem all over again." He paused, heart thundering in his chest, anxious to see if Janelle took the bait.

Again, he wasn't really lying to her, he did want to find the source, it was merely his motive that had changed.

"Ok, I guess you know best." She answered. There was something off about him today, and she wasn't sure how to handle it."Do you want to come up for lunch? I've opened a can of soup and got a bun in the over." She articulated the last few words, hoping that the message would be received.

"No thanks, I'm gonna keep working. This is one fuck of a job and I want to get down to it this weekend at the very least. "  He answered, not even looking up at his wife whose face was suddenly filling with tears.

She turned and walked away. Dave, who had resumed digging the moment he had given his answer did not even notice.

By the time that the church bell rang announcing that it was five o'clock  Dave came out of the pit with a look of complete exhaustion on his face. He looked at his watch aghast and ran inside. "Hey babe, I'm so sorry, I guess I just lost track of time." He kissed her gently. I'm gonna go wash up before dinner. I'm filthy." He kissed her again and ran up the stairs.

Once she heard the water running Janelle made her move. She crept, suddenly afraid that he might hear her and come down. She stood at the top of the pond and stared into it. It didn't look as thought Dave had made much progress in the afternoon, but as she stared and thick bubble rose up and burst. The spatters stained the bottom of her white trousers and made Janelle jump. She stifled the small scream that rose and hurried back inside. The water was already off in the shower. Janelle looked at the clock, to check on when she needed to put the oven on for dinner and was shocked to see she had been standing by the pond for almost twenty-five minutes.

She ran upstairs and changed her trousers. Unable to shake the guilty feeling that was gnawing away at her.

Dave ate his dinner, and polished off another three plates, including what his wife had left. Janelle watched him eat, the mixed emotions that were running through her body were too much for her. She hardly ate anything. Instead she sat and waited, hoping that the right time to break the news to Dave would just appear.

It didn't.

The following morning Dave was up before dawn, and when Janelle rose her husband's side of the bed was cold.

"Dave do you want any breakfast?"  Janelle called, but she got no answer. She was about to go outside but changed her direction at the last second and vomited into the sink. "Honey, do you want any…" She began to ask again. She took one step outside and her voice fell silent. The entire patio area was covered with a layer of algae. It looked as if someone had laid a sun-bleached layer of AstroTurf over their brick-weave. Janelle picked her way over to the pond, moving on tiptoes so as not to ruin her slippers

As she had expected Dave was standing in what had once been a pond. It was now at least three meters deep. He stood still. There was no shovel in his hands, or in the hole at all. Janelle saw it resting against the shed. It was almost covered with the algae and as she watched, it slowly consumed the remaining bit of the handle. A cold wind whistled through the garden and as Janelle took one more look at her husband she saw the Algae slowly working its way up his legs.

"Dave, honey, let's go inside and get something to eat. I have something I need to tell you. " Janelle asked. Dave turned and looked up at her, his face was pale, his eyes white. Janelle screamed and stepped backwards, slipping on the ice like surface she fell hard. Janelle heard more than felt the bone in her arm crack as she instinctively braced herself for the impact."Shit," She called as she scrambled to her feet. The image of her husbands drained face and white eyes floated before her, mixed with a hazy, swimming sensation and stars that speckled her vision.

"Janelle?"  She heard Dave call from the pit, only it wasn't his voice, not anymore.

Janelle turned and run, hugging her injured arm like a rugby player shielding the ball as he made a break for the Try line.

***

"You should have seen him Amanda. I've never seen anything so freaky in my life." Janelle spoke as she sipped at the awful, hospital cafeteria coffee. After leaving the house Janelle had driven to her friend Amanda and together they had gone to the hospital. Janelle had broken her wrist in two places when she fell, but thankfully the baby was alright.

"Well you are welcome to stay with me. You know that. Even if it's just tonight. Just to rest. You need to think about the baby too." Her best friend of fifteen years spoke.

"I know, and thank you for offering but I need to go check on him. Besides, I haven't even told him about the baby yet. That reminds me, please keep it to yourself. Just until Dave knows." Janelle knew her friend would keep the secret, but wanted to keep talking. If she stopped she thought about Dave, she saw those white eyes and the dead look to his skin. Her body erupted in a wave of goosebumps and she pushed the image away.

***

When Janelle got home Dave was still outside. At least, he was not inside, she checked, and although there were green footprints on the carpet going both up and down the stairs, the house itself was empty. Janelle refused to go out into the garden and so she cooked them both a meal, set the table and ended up eating it alone.

Eventually, just as it was getting dark Dave came inside. He didn't acknowledge his wife, or even glance a the cast that now adorned her wrist, in the place where her watch had been earlier that morning. He just walked upstairs, showered, and went to bed.

Unable to relax and afraid of climbing into bed with her husband Janelle remained on the sofa. After a time she got up and went to the computer. Her intention had been to send a few emails to some friends that she had been meaning to catch up with for some time. Yet as she passed the doorway into the kitchen she saw something reflected on the floor. She turned on the light and there it was. The algae was flowing into the kitchen, moving like a miniature floor. Yet the moment the light it it, it stopped, and even shrank back a little. Janelle wanted to scream, but couldn't. She wanted to turn and run, but found herself unable to. Instead she left the light in the kitchen on, and those in the living room and dining room too, just for good measure. She then sat behind the computer with an altogether different motive.

The first fifteen pages of search results yielded nothing. Only endless articles about pond maintenance, water purity and a rather strange site about sexual fetishes which Janelle closed without reading a word.

Janelle came close to giving up when her eyes came across a page from a newspaper dated thirty-five years ago. She clicked on it and was amazed to see that the picture, which had been a front page headline in the local newspaper the The Mayfield Comet, was their own home. She recognized it down to the tall oak that towered above the house from the back yard. She opened the article and began to read. It said that there had been a murder in the house. A husband had killed his wife and then himself. It said that the husband Earl Hubbard had been a breeder of Koi Carp and other ornamental fish – whatever that was – then one day, all of the fish died. Earl had been convinced that his wife had killed them to get back at him for having an affair he'd had when he was stationed in Vietnam. The article went on to say that the fish had died because of a rare pollutant in the water… An algae.

With a horrible cold feeling swelling in the pit of her stomach, right in the spot where her baby should have been preparing itself for life. Janelle read on and discovered that there had been a total of six mysterious murder suicides in the house over the three decades since the initial incident had occurred.

Each one followed the same pattern. A husband and wife, never with children, would move into the house. Within eight months they were dead. The bodies were always discovered in the garden. The woman submerged in the water, the husband beside his wife. A knife straight through the heart was always how the men had died. The couplers were found holding hands, staring at each other. As if in death they had forgiven one another.

Janelle felt her palms begin to sweat, her heart began to pound and her mouth was dry. She went to click the next article when the house fell into darkness. The power went out. A hand clamped over her mouth and Janelle was wrenched from the chair.