A House at the Bottom of a Lake Read online

  A House at the Bottom of a Lake is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Josh Malerman

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Circle colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in paperback in the United Kingdom by This Is Horror, in 2016.

  Hardback ISBN 9780593237779

  Ebook ISBN 9780593237786

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Caroline Cunningham, adapted for ebook

  Cover design and illustration: Pye Parr

  ep_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Dedication

  By Josh Malerman

  About the Author

  1

  It’s the best first date I’ve ever heard of.

  Amelia smiled big and nodded.

  “Yes?” James said, not sure he’d read her right.

  How can I say no?

  “How can I say no? Canoeing with a stranger? Yes. I’d love to.”

  Both seventeen. Both afraid. But both saying yes.

  James ran sweaty hands through his brown hair then wiped them again on his apron. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in his father’s store. It was the fourth.

  “My name is Amelia,” she said, wondering if he already knew that, if he’d found her online.

  “James,” he said and smiled, too. “And wow was I nervous to ask you out.”

  “Really?” She asked it earnestly but knew he was. The fidgeting revealed that. She was anxious, too. “Why?”

  James snorted a single awkward chuckle.

  “You know…boy girl…people meet…I don’t know! It’s scary!”

  Amelia laughed. It felt good to have a boy ask her out. God, it felt great. How long had it been since she’d gone on a date? And here, at the very onset of summer, it felt…natural.

  A new day.

  A new season.

  And a yes to a stranger who’d asked her to go canoeing for a first date.

  “So here’s the idea,” James said, checking over his shoulder for his dad. “My uncle has a place on a lake—”

  “You said so, yep.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a second lake, off the first one, that nobody uses. I mean…some people do, but there won’t be, like, a ton of speedboats. We can actually paddle right up to the shoreline, to the base of the mountains. And we’ll pretty much have them all to ourselves. The mountains.”

  “Sounds great,” Amelia said, hooking her thumbs into the belt loops of her jean shorts. She arched her back beneath her yellow tank top. She worried she was augmenting her breasts too much. So she slumped. Then she worried that she was slumping.

  James was even more self-conscious than she was. This being his father’s hardware store, he was sure Amelia would have second thoughts if she hung around too long. Is this his future? she might think. A girl said that to him once. Asked if this was his future. James didn’t want Amelia asking that. Didn’t want her walking away. If she was thinking anything like he was, she was already seeing a future together, a life rolling out ruglike from their first date. He saw them laughing on the first lake, kissing on the second, getting married in a canoe, Amelia giving birth in a canoe…

  “Saturday then,” she said, and for a crazy second he thought she was saying they should get married on Saturday. His cheeks flushed. He became very aware of that. His cheeks. Then his whole body. He worried suddenly that he didn’t work out enough. Worried that she was going to leave here thinking about the paunch beneath his apron and not the mountains he’d tried to distract her with.

  And yet he managed a smile. Even found some confidence in his voice.

  “Yes, Saturday. Nine a.m. Wanna meet here?”

  “Here?” She looked up and down the aisle of rubber hoses, hose clamps, and bolts. Maybe this was the moment, then, when she realized the scope of the situation, the job he had, his future.

  “Unless you wanna meet somewhere else? I don’t care.”

  “No no,” Amelia said, attempting to appear casual while worrying that she was being suddenly indecisive in front of him. “Here is fine. Here is great. Saturday. Nine.”

  James stuck his hand out for her to shake, then realized how awkward that was.

  Here is great.

  He brought his hand back just as she reached hers out to shake it. Then she lowered hers, too.

  “Great.”

  “Great.”

  They stared at each other, neither certain how to end their first conversation. A Muzak version of a love song from the 1980s played through the hardware store’s equally archaic speakers. Both felt the cheese.

  “Bye,” James said, then scurried back down the aisle.

  He nearly knocked a box of garden floodlights from the shelf. He didn’t look back at Amelia as he fixed it. Instead, he set out to find a customer, anybody who looked like they might need help. But when he was far enough away from her, he wished he had looked back.

  He just wanted to see her face once more.

  Saturday, he thought. You’ll see her again.

  Outside, walking quick to her car, Amelia replayed James’s offer. She loved it.

  It’s the best first date I’ve ever heard of.

  And it didn’t hurt that James had kind eyes. A kind face and kind voice, too.

  It wasn’t until she got behind the wheel of her used yellow Omni that she realized she hadn’t bought what she’d gone into the store to buy. A new hose.

  She thought of going back in.

  No, she decided. Maybe a date was what you came here for.

  She started the car.

  2

  “Cool,” Amelia said. “It’s green.”

  It was cool. A green canoe with brown trim. It looked like the kind of canoe you’d find in a history book, two Native Americans seated inside.


  “It’s sturdy, too,” James’s uncle Bob said. His jean shorts and open flannel were straight out of 1995. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t tip.”

  Amelia and James exchanged glances. They were already ankle-deep in the cold water.

  They hardly knew each other at all.

  “We won’t stand up in her,” James said. “I know better.”

  “I do, too,” Amelia said.

  “You’ve canoed before?” Uncle Bob asked her.

  Amelia blushed.

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve canoed, you know, but I’ve been in one. Yeah. Is that canoeing?”

  Uncle Bob laughed and lifted the paddles from inside the boat.

  “These are solid cherrywood. Don’t ask why. Trish wanted them that way. I don’t think she’s used them since we got them. But heck, you two get to use some pretty fancy paddles.”

  Bob eyed the cooler James had already placed in the canoe.

  “I don’t mind if you two have some beers out there, but be careful, all right?” He turned to Amelia. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  Bob considered this. But not for very long.

  “A couple of seventeen-year-olds,” he said. His eyes got glassy. Like he was remembering seventeen. “Awesome.”

  When James got to the front of the canoe he was shin-deep. He stepped over the edge and sat down on the front bench. Amelia got into the back behind him.

  “Thank you for this, Bob,” Amelia said.

  “Absolutely.” He placed a sandaled foot on the back end of the canoe. “Now go be seventeen.”

  He pushed them out into the water.

  3

  “This is the lake,” James said. Then he snapped his fingers, like trying to catch the words as they left him. Of course it was the lake.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Amelia said.

  James was paddling on the right side of the canoe. Amelia paddled on the left and steered.

  Her eyes traveled to the rippling surface of the water.

  It was a great blue, the kind of blue you painted.

  Amelia felt like she was painting, the oar as her brush. As though all this beauty fanned out from the simple motions she and James made.

  “What do you think is down there?’ she asked. Then wished she hadn’t. The question made it sound like she was scared. What’s in there? “I mean…what kind of fish?”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell James that his shorts were hanging a little low and she could see the very top of his plumber’s crack.

  Plumber’s crack. Hardware store. This made her smile.

  “All kinds,” James said, not sure of the answer. “Bass…I think.”

  He wanted to tell her there was something magical in this lake. A buried treasure. A mysterious shipwreck. A monster.

  He also regretted sitting up front. He couldn’t see her from here.

  He turned around to face her.

  His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, his fair brown hair wet with sweat from the paddling. And beyond him was the endless blue. But no…not endless. The lake was bordered neatly by the shoreline, the toes of the feet of mountains. And the mountains were covered with trees.

  There were many homes at the base of the mountains. A-frames and ranches. Decks where the families no doubt sat outside, drank coffee, watched the sun rise and set on the lake. Amelia wondered what kind of animals lived between the trees. Between the houses.

  A boat’s engine revved, and James looked ahead again. Amelia saw a speedboat far to the right, cresting the shoreline as if creating it. Watching the four people in bikinis and briefs on board, she was surprised to find she liked the idea of the canoe better. The green canoe with the brown trim. Old school. She looked to the cooler between them, knew that James had brought some beers. Some sandwiches. It felt so much…classier. Paddling instead of revving. Talking instead of howling. Seeing instead of racing by.

  A sudden shrill scream and both James and Amelia saw one of the girls in the speedboat laughing, leaning over the back edge, too close to the motor, flailing her arms toward the wake.

  She was drunk. Carefree. Having a blast.

  James worried that Amelia might think the speedboat looked like more fun. It did look fun. And here he was sweating in his uncle’s canoe while some other guys with a real boat were making girls scream all over the lake.

  He looked over his shoulder, trying to gauge her enthusiasm.

  She was beautiful. Just gorgeous. Truly. Her auburn hair looked especially vivid against the backdrop of blue lake behind her. He wasn’t sure exactly where he’d found the nerve to ask her out. He just did it. The canoe, the lake, all of this just came pouring out of him because it was the first fun thing he thought of. And now he needed more nerve. More confidence. Where did it go?

  Was she having fun?

  James turned away from her, looked ahead again.

  Something jumped in the water. James pointed.

  “Did you see that?” he called over his shoulder.

  “No, but I heard it.”

  “That was big.”

  “How big?”

  The ripples left behind spread wide.

  “I don’t know. Like the size of a loaf of bread?”

  Amelia snorted a stifled laugh. Then she snickered. Then she laughed outright.

  “The size of a loaf of bread? What the hell does that mean?”

  She laughed harder.

  James laughed, too.

  “I swear. It was like a loaf of rye bread just leapt right out of the water.”

  Amelia almost told him that made her hungry. But really it didn’t. It made her think of soggy bread.

  Jesus, she thought. You’re just thinking of things to say. And guys notice that! Guys notice when girls are just trying to think of something to say.

  James thought, Shit. Those guys in that boat are thrilling the bikinis off those girls and I’m bringing up rye bread. Come on!

  Then James ducked to pick something up at his feet and Amelia saw the horizon split by his hunched form. The mountains fanned out on either side of the canoe’s tip. It was incredible.

  James popped back up, and between his forefinger and thumb he held a spider.

  “A spider!” he said, and Amelia could see it was a big one. Big enough.

  She searched the floor near her shoes. Searched the towel she sat on.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “You don’t like him?”

  “No…I mean…it’s not that I don’t like him…”

  “Scared of spiders? A little? I’ll get rid of him.”

  “No! Where would you put him?”

  James looked to either side of the canoe.

  “The water?”

  “No, no. That’s terrible. I can’t live knowing that he was sent out to sea because of me.”

  Can’t live? Out to sea? Amelia felt like everything she said was wrong. Didn’t define her. Didn’t explain her to James.

  “Well, shoot. Looks like he stays, then.”

  But he wanted to help her. Didn’t want her to be scared. The guys in the speedboat probably killed spiders all day.

  “Okay,” Amelia said. “But maybe keep an eye on him for me?”

  James set the spider down on the tip of the canoe. He pointed ahead.

  “Look there,” he said. “That’s the entrance to the second lake. No homes at all on that one.”

  Amelia glanced to a roof jutting from the trees at the base of the mountains. As if it were sinking. Or hiding.

  “Sounds cool,” she said.

  They paddled toward the second lake.

  4

  Amelia didn’t think it was possible—it was, after all, very unlikely—but the second lake was more beautiful than th
e first.

  And more remote.

  It was smaller by a third of the size, she guessed, and the shores were so crowded with trees that it appeared there was no land there at all.

  Like the water is supported by trees, a lake on stilts.

  And the water!

  Gorgeous. Not like the tropical beaches she’d seen in pictures, even better than that. The clearest she’d ever seen.

  “This is…” she started to say but stopped. She stopped paddling, too. Laid the oar across her legs, rolled up her sleeves, and just saw.

  James continued to paddle, but slow, taking it in, too.

  Amelia listened to the canoe cut the cool surface, the only sound out here, as if all the fish were sleeping. She caught a reflection in the water, her reflection, her face a rippling disk amid auburn straw.

  The green body of the canoe looked like it belonged here, like it was a part of the second lake. Like it was made for it.

  She looked ahead, silently thanking James, and saw he had his oar across his legs, too. He was looking to the right, she could see his profile clearly, and she was very glad she’d said yes to his offer.

  “You hungry?” James asked, still looking to the right, to the shoreline of heavy trees.

  He was hungry. Had been since before they set off. Wanted to show her the lakes first, wanted to wait until they were out here in the middle of the second one. If it turned out they had nothing to talk about? Well, fine. He had food. And if they did have something to talk about, they could talk over lunch.

  “Yes,” Amelia said.

  James carefully swung his feet over the bench, and Amelia recalled Uncle Bob warning them about tipping. She saw it then, the two of them sprawling into the water, arms out, the canoe sinking, no boats out here to help them. They’d have to swim to shore. They’d lose the cooler, their things.