Lake Fame
by Jan-Andrew Henderson
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
In physics, the observation of quantum phenomena is known to change their measurements. The idea that we can affect reality in this mysterious way is known as the "observer effect."
It was early on the 14th of October when Mum burst into my room and shook me awake.
“What are you playing at?” I glanced at the clock and tried to pull the covers over my head. “It’s six in the morning!”
Mum picked up my portable TV and launched it through the window. A stiff wind whipped at the curtains.
“In the car. Now.”
“OK! OK!” My heart was thumping. “What’ve I done? Let me get dressed.”
“No time.” She pulled me out of bed and hustled me down the stairs. My big sister, Donna, and my younger brother, Aiden, were already in the back seat of our convertible. The top was down and the engine running, a plume of smoke drifting up from the exhaust.
On the other side of the drive was our neighbour, Mr Voss. With him stood his wife and daughter, Ruby. She’s too little for me to play with, but Mr Voss is a friend of my dad’s because they work together. I saw with a start that his wife had a rifle slung over one shoulder. Mr Voss pointed, and Ruby obediently climbed into the back of our car, squeezing between Aiden and Donna. Mr Voss is a bike nut, and his Harley Davidson was parked in the driveway, two full saddlebags draped over the back.
“We have to go, Deirdre,” he shouted to my mum.
“He’s not here.” There were tears in my mother’s eyes. “I can’t leave.”
“Bill told us we shouldn’t wait. You understand he isn’t coming, don’t you?”
Bill was my father.
“Behave yourself, Ruby.” Mr Voss straddled the bike, and his wife climbed on behind, arms round his waist. “Look after my girl, Deirdre.”
“I will.” She motioned to me. “Get in the front.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“GET IN THE CAR!”
Aiden flinched, and Donna began to cry.
We live on the outskirts of town, so it wasn’t long before we were in the country. Mum turned west, off the highway, driving at breakneck speed until the last few villages faded away. Mr Voss’s Harley remained behind us the whole time, his pace matching ours.
“I’m still in my pyjamas and it’s freezing,” I protested. “Can’t we put the roof up?”
“It stays down.” Mum shot around a tight corner, and Donna whimpered in terror. “There’s a bag of clothes on the floor and some blankets. You’ll have to change on the go.”
Her phone rang, and she jabbed at the answer button.
It’s me again, Deirdre.
“Bill!” Mum gasped. “We should have waited. I’m so sorry!”
I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this.
“The children are listening.”
Good. They need to hear.
“Dad, what’s happening?” Donna broke in. “Why is everyone acting so scary?”
Listen, kids. Your mother is going to drive until she is as far from civilisation as she can get.
“Is it a war?” Aiden whispered. “Is there a bomb?”
Please stay quiet. Your lives depend on it, and I don’t have much time.
I clenched my fists. What did he mean that our lives depended on it? Donna was crying again.
Find somewhere remote, leave the car, and stay outside. Do you understand? Stay out of enclosed spaces. Don’t ever go inside.
“It’s the middle of winter, dad!” I stammered.
“I’m heading for the boys’ camp at Lake Fame, Bill.” Mum was crying as much as Donna. “It’s deserted in winter, but there’s running water and a locked storeroom with supplies.”
Yes, but you can’t go into any confined places. If you do…
The line went dead.
“Bill!” Mum sobbed. “Bill!”
There was no answer.
“Tell your father you love him,” she commanded.
“He’s been cut off, Mum.”
“Tell him anyway.”
“Love you, Dad.”
We drove in silence for what seemed like hours, huddled under blankets, too cold and afraid to speak.
“We’re almost there.” My mother wiped the tears away and sat up straighter. “This is where your dad and I first met as teenagers. We were camp counsellors.”
Mum had never mentioned that before.
“What did he mean… to stay outside?” Aiden asked timidly.
“I don’t know, honey.” Mother took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I only know something terrible has happened.”
We parked by the shore of Lake Fame. Mr and Mrs Voss stopped right behind. Ruby jumped out of our vehicle and hugged them both. As Mum said, it was a summer camp, dotted with log cabins and completely deserted at this time of year. Or so we thought.
Then we heard the chug-chug of a powerful engine. After a few minutes, an old tractor towing some complicated apparatus made of circular blades and steel arms hove into view. On top perched an elderly man in an overcoat, sporting thick glasses and a fur hat. Mrs Voss quickly hid the rifle behind her husband’s bike.
“Morning,” the stranger waved. “I’m the caretaker around here. Was mowing the playing fields when I saw you come past and head up the driveway.”
He gave an awkward grimace.
“Problem is, we’re closed for winter. You folks lost?”
“Nothing like that.” Mr Voss jerked his thumb at the convertible. “Bit of car trouble is all. It’s been a long journey, and I wondered if we might take a walk around and stretch our legs.”
“This is private property, but who’s gonna know, eh?” The caretaker winked at them. “Have a stroll, and I’ll go to the reception building and call you a tow truck. Take a couple of hours to get way out here, anyhow.”
He turned and marched off between the cabins. Mum waited until he was out of sight, then shot Mr Voss a panicked look.
“We can’t just let him go,” she whispered.
“How do you propose stopping the guy?” he hissed back. “Shoot him?”
“We could tie him up at gunpoint.”
“What if Bill is wrong? How much trouble would we be…” Mr Voss paused. “Aw, hell. Bill’s never wrong.”
Mrs Voss handed her husband the rifle and he sprinted after the caretaker.
A couple of minutes later, we heard a shot fired, and everyone ran in the direction of the sound. Mr Voss sat on a tree stump, face ashen.
“I caught up with him just as he went into the reception building and shut the door,” he said. “But, as soon as he did, it changed.”
“Oh God,” Donna gasped. “This can’t be happening.”
I imagine the reception building had been constructed of wood, like all the other cabins, only larger. Now it was some sort of synthetic, seamless… lump. What seemed to be vinyl stickers had suddenly replaced the windows and doors. It looked like a giant plastic toy… I don’t know how else to describe it. Painted onto one window, as if he were inside, was a 2D image of the camp caretaker, mouth open in a silent scream.
It was obscene.
Ruby and Aiden clutched at each other. Mrs Voss turned and threw up.
“Mum?” Donna asked plaintively. “What the holy hell is going on?”
“Fetch branches from the forest.” Our mother pointed to a string of trees ringing the lake. “We need enough to keep a fire burning permanently.”
“Keep an eye open for anything useful, like axes or rope,” Mr Voss added. “But don’t go into any of the buildings.”
Like we needed to be told that.
“I know you kids have a million questions.” Mum clasped Aiden to her chest and stroked Donna’s cheek. “And we’ll answer them the best we can tonight. Right now, we have to make sure we don’t die of exposure when darkness falls.”
By evening, we had a huge pile of wood. Mum built a roaring fire, and we sat round it draped in blankets. The temperature was just above freezing, so one side of me tingled with the heat and the other with cold.
“You know your dad is a high-up researcher, and he’s not allowed to talk about his work.” Mum hugged her knees. “I’ve always respected that. Especially when it got us a nice house, a big convertible and vacations whenever we wanted.”
Her face was a picture of misery.
“In other words, I didn’t ask for details.”
All eyes swung round to Mr Voss.
“Bill’s area of expertise was quantum physics, but his research was top secret and well above my clearance level.” Mr Voss tossed another log on the fire. “He let slip once that he was working on expanding the observer effect.”
I knew what that was. The idea that you could change tiny quantum particles just by observing them. And quantum particles were the building blocks of the whole universe.
“He said that, in theory, we might be able to change the very nature of reality.” Mr Voss looked lost. “I said that sounded pretty dangerous, and he clammed up.”
“Your father called me last night,” Mum continued. “Told me to load up the car with tinned food and warm clothes, then be ready to leave at dawn if I hadn’t heard from him before that. To drive as far as I could into the wilderness.”
Reflections from the flames flickered across her face.
“He absolutely insisted that we stay outside. I wasn’t even allowed to put the top up on the convertible.” She hugged her blanket tighter and stared longingly at the cabins a few hundred meters away. “Then he suddenly hung up. I could tell he wasn’t supposed to be speaking to me.”
“I got a near-identical call.” Mr Voss wiped sweat from his forehead. “Bill said something had gone wrong with an experiment. That it was his fault and he’d try to shut it down.”
He shuddered.
“Now I know why he told us not to go inside. We all saw what happened to the caretaker. I just don’t know why. Bill was the genius, not me.”
“Do you think Dad is… dead?” Donna asked quietly.
“Throw some more wood on the fire,” Mum snapped.
Next day, we put the things we found lying around to good use. Mrs Voss discovered some old brooms and wrapped the handles together using strips of surgical tape from our first-aid kit. We broke the lock on the storerooms and were able to reach some more tinned goods, towels, a tent, and empty plastic containers that we filled from a stream that ran into the lake.
Yet the cold was ever-present. Then it rained on and off for three days. We tried our best, but the odds were against us.
We lost the Voss family at the end of the first week. The sleeping bags were no real protection for night after night on the frosty ground in ice-cold air. Ruby developed a severe cough, which turned into flu, then pneumonia.
“My daughter and I are going to stay in the tent,” Mrs Voss told us. “I have to get some warm air into her lungs.”
“A tent is enclosed.” Donna pointed out.
“It’s outside, isn’t it? Just a bit of canvas.” Mrs Voss stroked her daughter’s hair and smiled wanly at her husband. “You stay out here, honey, but I need to take that chance.”
“Don’t be silly.” Mr Voss glanced at Ruby, hunched over the fire, face waxy and sheened with sweat. “We do this together.”
They erected the tent and waited until we were asleep before they crawled inside. I don’t know if they were just delaying the inevitable or wanted to spare us.
The following morning, it was one solid piece of plastic, like the roof of a giant doll’s house. The entrance resembled a black sticker and the imprint of one small hand sullied the left side.
Aiden hammered on it until his fists were bruised.
“Dad did this,” he spat. “Killed his best friend.”
I couldn’t help but agree.
Two weeks passed without a single person coming our way. No surprise there, as I imagine there wasn’t anyone left. After all, in times of panic, a population always seeks shelter – the one thing that would doom them.
We tried to keep some semblance of normality, yet it was difficult. Mum pretended everything was okay, and it was all some kind of grand adventure, but it rang false, and the dark circles under her eyes grew deeper each day. Donna was increasingly nervous, jumping at shadows, convinced some greater hardship was just around the corner. I gathered wood, picked berries, and fished. Aiden spent hours staring into space.
On the 22nd of October, he waited until we were asleep, then crept into one of the cabins. He didn’t even open the windows, just left the door wedged ajar. In the morning, he walked out unharmed. Mum grabbed him, and at first I didn’t know whether she was going to kiss him or slap him across the face.
“Why?” she kept repeating, squeezing him tightly. “Why did you risk your life?”
“We were going to die of exposure. I had to take the chance.”
“Bill said we couldn’t go inside! He sounded so sure!”
“If our father was right about everything,” Aiden stuck out his chin. “We wouldn’t be in this mess.”
My mother looked stunned, but Donna clapped her hands in relief.
That day was the best of our lives. We got right into the storeroom and found more tinned food and drums of fuel. There were rods and reels, which meant we’d be able to catch fish, and archery equipment so we could hunt. We also gained access to the generator room and got it working. Now we had light and hot water. Mum declared we would live in the manse, a large colonial building set aside for summer staff.
“Fetch your brother,” she said. “Only fair he should pick the best bedroom.”
I found Aiden sitting on the shore of the lake and made myself comfortable on a rock beside him. Mum and Donna are sweet but Aiden and I inherited the brains of our family, and he’s the only one I can really talk to.
“Cool move, saving the family like that.” I put an arm around him. “How did you figure out the cabins were safe?”
“You agree dad somehow changed reality, yeah?” He swept his hand in an arc. “Created whatever this is.”
“I do. The result of his top-secret project going wrong would be my bet.”
“I think I know how it went wrong.”
“Do tell.” I shuffled around to get more comfortable.
“He thought he’d found a way to alter reality by observing it, but I reckon his subconscious warped the results, somehow.” Aiden looked sideways at me. “Think about it, sis. What was dad’s great obsession?”
“His career.” No hesitation there.
“Don’t be coy. I’m talking outside of work.”
That was a no-brainer, too. Dad had an expansive workshop on the grounds out back of our house. Aircraft of every sort hung on wires from the roof, while each shelf was crammed with miniature cars, tanks and buildings.
“He loved making models.”
“Plastic models,” Aiden nodded. “And what scared him most?”
“He was claustrophobic.”
Another obvious one. Dad had a terror of confined spaces and couldn’t even be in a car. That’s why we had to buy a convertible. He’d totally freak out in a tent.
“But his phobia had a quirk.” I held up a finger. “He could happily enter any room, cupboard, restaurant or secret government facility… as long as a door or a window was open.”
“I knew you’d work it out, too,” Aiden grinned. “Warning us to stay outside was dad being overanxious. Mum always joked he was completely neurotic.”
“Or he didn’t want to take the chance we might ruin his nice little experiment by dying.”
“That’s a bit harsh.” My brother looked shocked, but I could tell he had been thinking along the same lines.
“Either way, you’ve established something vital to our survival,” I said. “In whatever strange new existence this is, ‘inside’ and ‘confined’ are not quite the same thing.”
“Dad was being too cautious,” Aiden agreed. “If a space is not totally enclosed, it’s safe.”
“Which means I can finally go have a hot shower.” I kissed his cheek. “Making you my favourite person of all time!”
“Ehhhh… I may have already told mum she could have one.” He got up and pulled me to my feet. “She was starting to smell pretty bad.”
“I’m next, then.”
We were halfway to the manse when we heard Donna shrieking. I broke into a run, Aiden right behind. We burst in and followed the sound. Our sister was in the bathroom.
“I saw a light and found Mum in the shower,” she moaned. “But it’s enclosed.”
I clapped a hand to my mouth.
The shower was one solid block of resin, my mother’s silhouette etched on the side, pushing desperately against her confines, a literal shadow of who she once was. I clutched at the sink behind me for support, head bowed, too numb to take it in.
“No, no, no!” Aiden pointed above the macabre scene. “It’s not enclosed. There’s a gap between the glass and the roof!”
“I didn’t see it,” Donna wailed. “It was covered in clouds of steam.”
“What did you say?” My head jerked up.
“I didn’t see it! What does it matter?”
“I don’t understand.” Aiden pressed his hands forlornly against the plastic, sorrow and confusion etched across his face. “It should have been safe.”
“Nothing here is safe!” Donna screamed at him. “Everything is a trap waiting to be sprung! We’re trapped in our father’s insane experiment. Trapped in this stupid existence. No matter what we do, we’re doomed.”
She sank to the floor, clutching her hair.
“We’re all going to die here!” she moaned over and over. “We’re going to die, one by one.”
Aiden went to help her, but I grabbed his arm.
“We have to go,” I urged. “Now!”
“She’s having a panic attack!” he pushed me away. “Mum is dead!”
“Please, Aiden!”
“We can’t leave her. What the hell is wrong with you!”
Donna was curled in a ball, rocking back and forwards, still repeating the same phrase. I began to feel dizzy. Leaving Aiden crouched beside her, I staggered down the stairs and into the crisp morning air.
Then I shut the door.
The house smoothed out and transformed into synthetic material, cutting Donna and Aiden off mid-cry.
I moved into the cabin closest to the lake. The view is beautiful, and none of the windows faces the plastic monstrosity that was once the manse.
I’m not proud of what I did. And if I had figured out the truth sooner, my brother and sister would still be alive. But it took me too long to realise Aiden was only half right.
This reality may have been shaped by dad’s fears and imaginings—but it can be changed by ours.
Aiden survived in the cabin because he was sure he would. The Voss family died because they didn’t really believe a tent counted as outside. When Donna failed to notice the gap over the shower screen, she was certain the shower would turn plastic. So, it did.
Then she became convinced we were all going to die.
I had to shut her up or that would have come true as well. Aiden got caught in the crossfire.
With plenty of time on my hands, my thoughts have turned from what did dad do? to why did he do it? And I realised something disturbing. Try as I might, I don’t remember my father playing with us, taking us to the park or reading us a story. In fact, I don’t really remember him at all. So how do I know what he was like?
I can come to only one conclusion.
Another of my father’s many fears had managed to wriggle into the fabric of this existence. The knowledge that, as a neurotic, immoral, work-obsessed, model-building claustrophobe, he was never going to have a loyal best friend, a beautiful wife, and healthy children. So, we appeared.
We’re not his family. We’re products of his pathetic attempts to be loved.
Well, that’s another part of his experiment that hasn’t gone the way he expected. I can alter this reality, too, and I don’t have a subconscious getting in the way. I’m going to shape his pitiful world however I desire.
You wanted to play God, dad? All you did was create your own version of Hell.
And I’m the Devil.
| SPECIAL EXHIBIT 2: Return to “Chrysalis“ | Continue Coming Soon to a Civilization Near You, Gallery Three: Post-Apocalyptic Resistance and read the next attraction, “To Dream of Better Worlds“ |