Clear Water: The Town

The Town

Clear Water was one of those old, drive-through towns tucked away in the mountains of Southern California—a wrong turn at a small fork left travelers alone in a long, curious, and abandoned country hours from gas, with no cell towers. A once upon a time place in a mountain-land dressed in old, quiet wood where shadows walked and roots whispered. There’d been a revival once. Big tents, fiery preaching. The damned were made new, but the hour came and went as fast as the Gold Rush. Like the eldest things, it was forgotten to the world. And so it was lost amidst one of the thousand pocket valleys of Cahuilla’s slumbering mountain. The place was now entirely unworthy of note. So when Mrs. Cortez and Father Henderson were found the day after Hallow’s Eve in his parish—mangled, dismembered, and arranged in what appeared to be some grisly, primeval rite—a sudden, fear slithered into the heart of those quiet mountain folk.

The murders came at the end of a strange litany of vanishings and violence and the queerest happenings—burning houses, missing persons, old timers going mad, and murdered pets in odd succession, all climaxing into the ghastly savagery at the parish. Peculiar violations quietly haunted the whispers of Clear Water. The horror was made grand not least by enduring anonymity of its aggressor, nor the littleness of that town, but its stark remoteness from the rest of the world.

For the road there is a languid thing, coiling round disturbing heights and bending about sheer cliffs with no bottom in sight. So tight does that slim highway cling to the mountain’s side, and so near looms the threat of death, that the road is managed with an unusual amount of warnings and heedings urging travelers to slow and to enter bends with the utmost caution. These warnings, for the most part, are unobserved and overlooked and thus Highway 173 has earned its place as one of the deadliest roads in the Sunshine State.

At the bottom of its canyon lies a near-endless accumulation of vehicular carcasses, piled high as a grim testament to those heedless people who flung themselves—and often with their loved ones—into oblivion.

Yet, should you tread that meandering way with an approximate caution, in a short time you will descend from its heights and be submerged in the shadowy depths of a sea of pine and ash. There, the winding road treads over firth and round nameless valleys and in some quiet spots glimpses silver mirrors that are older than all the affections of men.

It was in one of these forlorn steeps that the road no longer moves like the serpent, but straightens—and there makes a quick sprint through a two-lane, no-stoplight hamlet that’s lingered on since the days of the Gold Rush. A place never really found so much as stumbled upon. There was some breathable charm about the place, one that bewitched folks and kept them longer than they meant to stay—or so the old timers said.

But, the old timers had grown restless. A weariness of mind beset them of late.

Clear Water had once been a treasure to souls prospecting peace in a hidden place away from worries of the world, but its boon was being unmade. Long shadows had gathered under the elder pines—roots grown deep with strange tidings. The spate of odd disappearances had haunted the gossip of many local families. This fiery turmoil in no way helped the odd fact that long-timers, like the Haskins and Leadbetters and Elmores, had not come down from their places for provisions in their usually monthly turns.

And so, the bossomed peace of this quiet community had suffered a defilement to sanctity and many blamed the newcomers and their green business for their recent anxieties.

It was November 2nd and the world had turned grey after happenings at the local parish.

The air was sloughed with an unusual dampness. The prodigal sun—long gone and wayward—hadn’t been seen in days. Great towers of cumulonimbus marched over the High Sierras and descended on the small valley with an uncanny magnitude, dwarfing those alpine heights with the most abnormal immensity. The heavens were rearing for a fight. The billowing plumes filled with the soft grey promise of rain had swelled and churned into a tenebrous blackness that imposed a general unease.

A frisky wind had turned into a spiteful thing, whipping and spitting as it walked through town, catching doors and throwing them open, hurling trashcans end over end, littering the street with their contents and tormenting anyone brave enough to walk through its menace. Its slow whine had grown into a beast that howled into a gale.

As Josh drove through town he’d never seen it so packed; it was like everyone had come down to get supplies at the same time. People wrapped in winter coats walked briskly from shop to shop amidst the veritable tempest. He slowed to twenty-five. Main Street was bustling with cars and trucks pulling in and out of The Valley Market, the Clear Water Pharmacy, and True Valley Hardware. Beyond there was the station and the old Pentecostal church with its overly large neon-blue cross.

Josh couldn’t wait to get home and out of the bustle—especially after the turn the day had taken.

He flicked the radio on.

“… State officials have postponed the ongoing investigation of a murdered priest and an elderly woman until the passing of Storm Cerberus, citing that the intensity of the winds and rainfall over the course of several days makes flash-flooding and mudslides a high probability…”

Josh flicked it off. “Jesus.”

He had never seen anything like it, but then again he wasn’t from here. He wasn’t from the mountains. He and Sam had only lived in Clear Water for a year. Josh put up with moving to this backwater town and his third-rate teaching job so that he and Sam could build a dream life together.

A year ago, Holy Buds—California’s top cannabis magazine—had named Clear Water the friendliest place in the state to grow pot. Humboldt was dethroned; Clear Water was king. Greenhouses popped up like weeds in people’s backyards, fields, and lawns. The old timers weren’t pleased. Their quiet little town had turned commercial, and the shifting demographics bothered them even more. Some took the increased property values as a boon and sold longtime farms and houses and moved off the hill for good.

The Weed Rush was on, Clear Water was changing. A small timer could make three to five million a year—if they had medical licenses. That was the pitch. Yet strangely, no one in Clear Water had come away with a pot of gold. Josh wasn’t thinking about medical licenses or a pot of gold. He needed to get home; he needed to get off this mountain.

His phone rang. It was Sam. Josh picked up.

“Hey—are you still in town?”

“Hi, to you too,” Josh said, “yeah, I am still in town. It’s a madhouse down here.”

“Perfect! I forgot to get that 3/4 part for the spigot. I haven’t been able to water House 3 because of it.”

“You said you were going to get that part two days ago when you were in town.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Sam shot out, “but I forgot. Can you please stop at the feed store and get the parts for me?”

“Sam!”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been super busy with the paperwork side of things and I—just forgot.”

“I’ll get it,” Josh said, sounding more annoyed than he wanted to on the phone.

“Thank you. You’re the best. It’s a 3/4-inch adapter, the one with a 45º elbow. It’s in the back of the store. The irrigation row, the one with all the plumbing stuff.”

Josh repeated back the instructions.

“Yep, that’s it. Can’t wait to see you when you get home.”

“You too,” Josh huffed.

Typical, Josh thought. Sam could have told him in the morning, but that would have been too easy. Josh would have told him to get the part himself. This way Josh was stuck stopping and getting the part after a long day.

He ground his teeth. His patience was wearing thin.

True Value was coming up on the right.

Josh pulled in, but the old feed store didn’t have any parking spots left. He had to park in the street.

Of course, there isn’t a spot, he thought, nothing ever worked out when he was helping someone else.

He entered True Value. It was a madhouse. People piling in and around, hunting for little necessities to make it through the storm. Every isle was full and it was a fight to the back of the store.

“Can I help you find anything?” an attendant asked when Josh got to the plumbing aisle.

“No thank you,” Josh said, “I know what I’m looking for.”

But then, in the aisle he saw the impossible task before him. There were thousands of parts floor to ceiling.

He ground his teeth.

Sam made it sound so easy, like he’d been so clear, and yet, standing in the aisle it might have been impossible. So many parts. It took him twenty minutes to find the right 3/4-inch coupling piece.

He began the slog back to the front of the store.

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbled. The line would be another half-hour.

“Oh no,” a woman said with a copy of the Valley News in her hands.

“What is it?” her husband said.

“It says another girl’s gone missing. Rosa Cortez, don’t we know her?” she said. A bolt through his bones. Josh caught his breath.

Rosa was an his student in AP literature. Hearing her name in the paper. It was surreal. She hadn’t been in class in two weeks. The sheriff arrested her boyfriend Brandon Turbly. Josh had been in the principal’s office when it happened. Brandon was being suspended for his homophobic remarks.

Josh didn’t tell the couple. He wasn’t in the mood for words. So many strange going-ons for a small town.

He shook his head.

From his place in line, he watched through the big bay window as mad clouds unfurled over the valley in what looked like the coming of a tempestuous cataclysm.

A u-haul truck pulled in—one of many lately. A woman climbed out of the passenger side of the truck; even Josh could tell she wasn’t an ordinary woman.

Her black hair tumbled over a suppleness that stirred strangely rapacious yearnings. She was not dressed for a storm. There was a wantonness about her—something that dripped with primeval urgency. It snared eyes and caught breaths and stirred hearts into an aching abyss of the lurid and forbidden.

Josh chuckled.

Every man in line was looking at her, but the woman’s charms held no allure for him.

Then the other door opened and Josh’s heart went cold.

It was him. It was the devil.

It couldn’t be.

Josh stepped behind the man in front of him and peeked around his shoulder to try and get a better look. His eyes strained. He couldn’t be sure—but something in him was. The man was big for a Hispanic and tall. Mean muscles and tattoos and a demeanor that promised proficiency in violence. He opened the door and held it for the beauty. She was giggling about something that Josh didn’t think was funny.

Her voice was a gleeful jingle—it summoned the gaze, where another seduction entranced. It was only broken when they him following her. Many turned their heads away and cast their wanting gaze to the floor, but all stepped aside as he came close.

They were coming straight for Josh.

His feet pitter-pattered on the floor in a sudden panic. He saw it and there was no doubt: the devil horns crawling up from the man’s collar. That wicked face with its lashing tongue, mocking the world. Josh’s breath snagged like a thorn in his throat.

It was him, there was no mistaking.

Josh needed to get out of there. He couldn’t be seen—not by that one—but his feet wouldn’t move. Then, amidst the cacophony of the store, his ears became strangely attuned to the dribbling of liquid splattering on the floor. He felt the warm trickle of shame down his leg.

“Fuck,” he whispered, stepping out of line, trying to hide his embarrassment. He found a shadowed nook, and hid himself in the darkness of it, pretending to look at something on one of the shelves. He flicked his gaze back in the direction of the tattooed muscle and beauty.

Smiling eyes locked on his. Josh’s world went cold. Then, for a moment or passing breath, he knew a rancorous, debauched filth. Nothing moved except the lips of the seductress.

“I see you,” she mouthed to him and grinned. She winked and flicked a devil sign with her hands.

The serious one didn’t give Josh a second look. Josh didn’t understand how—not after what he’d done to Sam and him.

The couple passed. Josh stuck the 3/4-inch coupling in his pocket and made for the door, swiping a copy of the Valley News. He unfolded the paper and covered his pee stain and marched for the door.

He flung it open and collided with someone.

He was on the ground. His head had hit the other man’s.

“Hey! God,” he looked up and it was black man. Josh knew there was only one black man in Clear Water: the pentecostal preacher. “Oh, I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Josh stood up. The other man’s eyes went to his crotch. The embarrassment burnt in his cheeks. Behind the other man handfuls of people were walking to the door and Josh had lost the paper. Everyone was going to see him now. The black man ducked down and came up with the sound of a ruffling papers. He unfolded it covered Josh’s accident.

“Here you dropped this, I should have done a better job watching where I was going,” he said with a smile, “Have a good day.”

He walked past him into the store.

Josh got in his car and drove away from True Value and the pharmacy and passed the overlarge cross of the rundown Pentecostal church; for a moment he felt a strange kindredness to the thing. Josh chuckled at the thought. He’d never entered a church before—probably never would—but the ick of the woman left him feeling noxious.

He drove toward the edge of town.

“Breathe, Josh, just breathe,” he told himself, trying to calm his short, rapid inhales. But the air tasted like piss and cowardice. Each breath meant to soothe, to cleanse—they were pillaged and taken hostage by a nightmare of that night.

Out from beneath the wood, he’d come—taking shape out of the darkness like a daemon of old, he and four others.

They had come with AK’s, and other guns Josh didn’t know. They crossed the yard. Climbed the porch. Never a word.

Josh and Sam were sharing a blunt.

They froze mid-drag when they saw the men climb their rail. The biggest one, mean muscles and more ink than skin took the stairs. He didn’t speak. Just stared—far eyed and true—into their eyes. There was a kind of death there. Not malice, just meaningless.

He was the kind that killed and forgot.

He took the blunt from Josh’s hand. He took a long, slow draw. Passed it to Sam. He nodded once and Sam put the wet end in his mouth. He took a shaky drag.

Then the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a long brass finger with a lead fingernail. He stood the 7.62 round on the table before Sam. Josh saw the devil then. His wild, mocking eyes inked into the flesh of the man’s neck. The man’s hand went to his pocket and he pulled another and set it before Josh.

A puddle of shame spread wide, but Josh couldn’t stop himself.

They all laughed at his incontinence.

“Ninety-eight—two,” was all he said.

His men were in their barn now. Rolling out the barrels of weed. Two million worth. Dirty hand made magic. Four stacks of Benjamins. Crisp and banded. One next to the other.

“How much is that?” Josh whispered never taking his eyes off the devil man.

“It’s forty.”

“That’s two percent?” Josh said as he watched his fortune roll away.

Sam shook his head. It was too little.

The devil looked him in the eyes; he looked both of them in the eyes and tapped the top of the bullet.

”Ninety-eight—two. It’s fair.”

The memory sent a chill down his spine.

On his right, Josh was passing the sheriff’s station.

For the briefest moment, he felt the tug. He’d met Sheriff Bradshaw only that day, but they’d built a rapport. He could tell him about that night. Tell him about the devil—but it would be damnation for his dream, or at least Sam’s.

Sam would never forgive him.

Josh let the thought go.

He came to the edge of town where the parish was. He thought then of the priest.

His murder had been an afterthought—until now. The local paper had printed the grisly details.

As a rule, he wasn’t religious, he didn’t believe in God, but he did believe in evil—or at least the kind of evil men can make. And there was evil in this odd town; the burnings, the disappearance, the violence… but, it was Rosa's disappearance, not the priest, not old lady, but Rosa that haunted him…

A tendril of darkness shivered through him.

The mountain loomed to his right. The long, lonesome road ran out before him. It whispered to him. The sky above it was clear and unladen, like a fresh breath for his soul, he could feel it. If he just kept going, he could be through the woods and off the mountain in a few hours.

A fresh start, a clean slate—away from all the darkness.

He flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. There was the storm. A hulking, black mass who rode the sky and darkened the world, and made even the mountains to feel small. Clear Water was about to be swallowed by that improbable magnitude and its tempestuous adornments, yet despite the colossus and its heaving mass of black and thunderous grey, there at the bottom of it maw Josh saw the twinkling glow of an neon cross.

For the briefest of moments—God help him—it almost happened. He nearly drove away. Nearly left it all behind—but then he thought of Sam.

His eyes fixed on that twinkling light. It was the straw that proved too much. He couldn’t leave, not without him. The coming storm—a focal point for so many—was nothing more than a backdrop to his own preoccupied state. Perhaps after today, after the murder of the priest and seeing the devil in True Value, it would be enough to convince Sam to leave. How many more things would it take for him to see they were in a dangerous place.

He hoped today’s paper would be enough.

He didn’t drive off the mountain—it felt stupid, it felt childish. He couldn’t leave—not without Sam.

He looked to the heavens, but their roiling black mass held no answers.

Josh took his turn off the main highway and let the slumbering darkness of the mountain swallow him.