Homestead on the Corner

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CONTENT WARNING: Aquaphobia, discussions of death and drowning (including child death), some loud noises, despair, paranoia, small town decline and collapse, depictions of a natural disaster, and depictions of grief, loss, and trauma, including a PTSD flashback

Omnibus 03: Collected memories of the town of Agate Shore, and what became of those who lived there.

Starring Robin Gabrielli as Allen Gott, Wray Van Winkle as Sam Bailey, Airen Neeley Chaconas as Anna Sheridan, Maurice Cooper as Jerry Price, Jesse Steele as Bill Tyler, and Chris Martin as Robert Quincy, with original music by Jesse Haugen. Our end credits song was “Auld Lang Syne” by Narrow Skies. This episode was written by Wray Van Winkle and produced by Wray Van Winkle and Virginia Spotts, and made possible by our supporters at Patreon.com/homesteadcorner and ko-fi.com/homesteadcorner.

Transcript

CONTENT WARNING: Aquaphobia, discussions of death and drowning (including child death), some loud noises, despair, paranoia, small town decline and collapse, depictions of a natural disaster, and depictions of grief, loss, and trauma, including a PTSD flashback

[Faint sounds of a busy office through the wall]

[Knock on door]

Allen Gott

Come in!

[The door opens, then closes]

Sam Bailey

Sorry to bother you, but… I’m looking for Sergeant Gott?

Allen Gott

Oh, you must be our new detective! I’m Allen.

Sam Bailey

[Footsteps]

Hi, um… Sam. Bailey. Uh, do you know where I could find Sergeant Gott…?

Allen Gott 

[Laughs]

Allen Gott, Sam. But you can just call me Allen.

Sam Bailey

Oh. Of course, sorry, I’m just… I just wasn’t sure if…

Allen Gott

Hey, don’t worry about it. Welcome to Agate Shore, Detective Bailey. Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?

Sam Bailey

No thanks, I — I’d just like to get settled in, if you could show me where…

Allen Gott

Oh, yeah, of course. Come on, it’s just down the hall. 

[Chair scoots back, he begins to lead Sam out of the office]

[Door opens]

[They walk in silence]

So… what brought you to Agate Shore? If you don’t mind me asking.

Sam Bailey

Just, uh… Looking for somewhere quiet to get started, you know. And I’ve got some family in town… Well, used to, at least.

Allen Gott

You spend a lot of time here as a kid?

Sam Bailey

Um… Not… Not a lot, no. A couple of summers when I was little.

Allen Gott

Was that before the dam, or uh…

Sam Bailey

Uh… A few before then, yeah.

Allen Gott

God. Wish I could’ve seen it back then. The old pictures make it look absolutely stunning.

Sam Bailey

Uh, yeah… It was.

Allen Gott

Well, here we are.

[Allen opens a creaky door]

[Something clatters to the ground]

Sam Bailey

It’s… uh… cozy.

Allen Gott

I think you mean tiny.

Sam Bailey

Well, I didn’t want to say, but…

Allen Gott 

It used to be a broom closet, Sam. 

[Laughs]

We set it up as nice as we could, but… We didn’t exactly have the money to build you a whole new office. Sorry if HR promised you different.

Sam Bailey

No, it’s fine… I guess I just didn’t know what to expect.

Allen Gott

Trust me, you get used to that pretty quickly around here. But if you ever need a bit more space to think, my door is always open.

Sam Bailey

I… Thanks, that’s… that’s really kind of you.

Allen Gott

It’s nothing. Besides, my office is about the only place in the station that actually stays warm in the winter. Don’t want you freezing to death on us.

Sam Bailey

I’ll… keep that in mind.

Allen Gott

Well, I’d better get out of your hair and let you get settled in. Nice to meet you, Sam.

Sam Bailey

Uh… Nice to meet you too. See you around.

[Cassette player motor whirs, then stops]

[Click]

[Main Theme]

[Click]

[Hiss of static, then fades]

[Sounds of light rain]

[Footsteps over wet asphalt]

[Footsteps stop]

Anna Sheridan

There’s something… Deeply unnerving about ghost towns. It’s not just the empty, decaying ruins of old buildings, but that’s certainly part of it. And it’s not the thought that they might actually be haunted — I’ve visited more than a hundred and never found any evidence to suggest that “Ghost Town” is more than a snappy moniker. No: they’re unnerving because they’re wrong.

[Footsteps resume]

It’s impossible to ignore the feeling when you’re walking through. No matter how long ago it was abandoned, or how much it’s fallen apart, you still feel the presence of the people who lived here. Even if their souls aren’t trapped here, the memory of them is: the imprint of their lives, written on every inch of this empty, lifeless place.

[Footsteps stop]

Look one way and you’ll see a child’s doll, tossed aside in the rush to leave town. Did they carry it with them when they walked to school each day? Did it have a name? A personality? What did this doll mean to that child? And what did that child mean to this town?

[Footsteps resume, then stop]

Look the other way, and you’ll see the husk of a car, stripped for parts and left with nothing but its bones, slowly rusting away. Whose car was that? What did they do here? What were their hopes, their dreams? It’s impossible to say now, but that car still belongs to this place, long after this place has ceased to belong to anyone.

[Footsteps resume]

But that’s the thing about places like this: you can feel that once, not so long ago, people lived and worked and died here, feeling like they had some ownership of this place — or perhaps, that this place had some kind of ownership of them.

[Footsteps stop, then resume]

I know how that goes. Small towns like this… They keep a kind of hold on you, even once you’ve left them for good. Most of the time you can forget about it if you really try, pretend like you’ve never belonged anywhere… But every time you think back, even for a second, you realize that you never really left home. Not completely.

[Footsteps stop]

Try as you might to cut ties and move on, you leave a piece of yourself there when you go, and carry a piece of it out into the world wherever you end up.

[Footsteps resume]

Even if there aren’t any real ghosts here, there’s certainly a lot of memory in this place.

[Footsteps stop]

Memory, and grief.

[Click]

[Cassette noises]

[Click]

[The faint sound of static giving way to rain pattering against a window, and the faint crackle of a fireplace]

[The light roll of thunder]

Sam Bailey

[Sighs]

When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me – Sam, just because you don’t love the people you’re supposed to, doesn’t make that love any less real. She used to tell me – – Sam, you have a heart as deep and dark and wide as a lake, but most people only see what’s on the surface. Once you find someone who’s willing to dive in and look for what’s beneath… then, only then, do you know you’ve found your person.

[Laughs]

My dad, on the other hand, told me that the secret to finding love was learning to play the guitar. I guess that’s the trade-off for having young parents still very much in love… You may end up with some half baked advice about romance.

It’s strange… I lost both of them when I was barely five years old, but I can still remember them so clearly that it’s almost like they’re still here with me. Like they never left. I can still remember their faces. I can still remember dad’s voice, singing The Parting Glass while I listened from the stairs, legs dangling through the banisters. I wasn’t supposed to be up that late, and I knew it, but I just wanted to hear him sing. His voice wasn’t especially smooth or elegant, especially not once he’d had a few drinks. But it was warm and full and it felt like home. It didn’t surprise me when I learned he sang in a band, though I didn’t discover that until years after he was gone. Back then, I thought his voice was something that only existed between the three of us – me, dad, and mom. 

[Sighs]

When he sang, it was like the rest of the world just… faded away.

I can still remember my mom’s arms: how strong they were, and how safe it felt when she held me. Dad could make the whole world disappear with a song, but she could fight it off with one hand tied behind her back. I remember her eyes: steel blue, sharp and bright as arrowheads. I knew I could lie to dad, so of course I did… More than I should’ve, I’ll admit. But I never dared lie to mom. I knew she would cut through me with a look, and I’d end up a blubbering, undignified mess on the floor, confessing every lie I’d ever told anyone. But even so, I knew she’d still pick me up, clean my face, and tell me – “It’s okay Sam… The world has enough good liars. Maybe it needs some bad ones.”

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

Anna Sheridan

A decade ago, this was the busiest street in downtown. In the middle of summer, it would be lined with cars from the highway to the marina as tourists tried desperately to find somewhere to park. The lake was full of swimmers, pontoon boats, and kayaks by 9am every day. On the weekends, every hotel in town was full, and the few small restaurants were pushed to capacity trying to feed their visitors. The people who lived there full time complained, of course. They didn’t move to a small town to be inundated with noisy, rude tourists. But everyone who lived here knew the truth, even if they couldn’t admit it. The town only existed because of the lake, and the hordes of tourists made their way of life possible. So they grumbled, but otherwise did nothing.

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

The town was always small and self-isolated: always the odd one out when it came to local politics. It wasn’t the only small town in the region — not by a long shot. But the others had industry, gambling, and the ever-expanding business of bureaucracy to keep them profitable. But this place? It stayed small, and grew smaller with every passing year as the cost of living rose and what little land the town had was sold off to developers looking to make a quick buck, not feed and house its workforce.

The town hung on for a while, but eventually the county ran into the age old problem of “not enough.” Not enough power, not enough water, and not enough money to bring it from somewhere else. The lake was huge, sure, but it was the brackish and saline water of the great basin. It could be purified, true — but again, it would cost the county too much, and only get more expensive with each passing year. Its source, however, was only a few miles north, and as pure as anything they could possibly hope for. So, in a public meeting given to a mostly empty conference hall, one of the county commissioners put forward a motion: to build a hydroelectric dam and reservoir to provide power and light to the rest of the county and divert some of the water to a purification plant downstream. It might, she admitted, result in a slight drop in the water levels of the lake, but what was a small decrease in tourism compared to the future of the county?

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

The measure passed unanimously and without further comment. A public scoping period opened the next week, and closed two months later with no objections. By the time anyone in the little town realized what was happening, the foundations had already been laid, the contractors had been hired, and the project had been approved by every relevant agency. The lake would be dammed, and the town with it.

[Click]

[The sounds of a small but noisy crowd in the next room]

[Sam takes a deep breath]

[Door opens]

[Loud partygoers inside]

[Footsteps as Sam enters party]

Jerry Price

Sam? What are you doing here?

Sam Bailey

I’m… uh… Here for the party.

Jerry Price

[Laughing]

Well obviously! But we didn’t think you were really going to show up. We actually had a bit of a bet going round the office, you know.

Sam Bailey

I… I, uh, thought I’d try. To be here for one of these things. Wait, were you betting against me showing up?

Jerry Price

No, of course not! I knew you’d come through just, uh… You know, kind of seemed like something you’d skip out on.

Sam Bailey 

[Scoffs]

With people betting on whether or not I’d show up? Yeah, don’t know why I wouldn’t want to deal with that.

Jerry Price

[Laughs]

We’re just having fun, Sam… It is actually a party, you know! Speaking of which…

[Jerry grabs a beer, opening it]

Jerry Price

Happy new year, man! Here’s to 2015!

Sam Bailey

Uh… Cheers.

[The two clink their bottles together and drink]

Jerry Price

So, um… How long are you planning on staying, by the way?

Sam Bailey

What? Why?

Jerry Price

Well, uh… Not to pressure you, but there was also a bet on how long you’d stay if you did show up, so…

Sam Bailey

[Annoyed grumble]

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me… Do people really think I’m that predictable?

Jerry Price

Well, uh… Not so much predictable, just… Idiosyncratic, you know?

Sam Bailey 

[Scoffs]

Glad I could be a source of amusement for everyone.

[Sam sips his beer]

Is, uh… Is Allen here?

Jerry Price

Huh? Oh, yeah, he’s here. Over by the punch bowl, making eyes at Susan.

Sam Bailey

Oh. Is he, uh… Do you think he likes her?

Jerry Price

I don’t know. Maybe. Honestly, I think he’s had a little more to drink than usual. She’s really not his type.

Sam Bailey

What do you mean, she’s not…

[Something breaks across the room]

Allen Gott

Friends! Romans! Countrymen, lend me your ears!

Jerry Price

[Laughs]

Get off the table, Gott, you’re drunk!

[Shushing around the room]

Allen Gott

That may be so, but that doesn’t change the fact that tonight is indeed… a night of nights. The last night of 2014. It’s been one hell of a year. We’ve kept our old friends, made some new ones, and clung to life here on the ragged edge of nowhere. It’s been tough, and I won’t pretend otherwise — but we’ve made it through. All of us. And we even managed to grow stronger for it, haven’t we? Come on, let’s hear it for the newest member of our little cadre, Detective Sam Bailey!

[A smattering of applause]

Allen Gott 

I know, he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he really is a decent guy if you just get to know him — well, get to know him, manage to ignore all the angry muttering, and learn to see the real human person underneath. But, in any case… here’s looking at you, kid.

[Laughs]

Anyway, since I’m a bit of a sap for tradition, I think it’s high time for a bit of Auld Lang Syne, don’t you think! Come on, let’s go!

[Starts singing]

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to… 

Whoah!

[Allen slips, fumbling and falling

[Sam catches him]

Sam Bailey

I’ve got you, I’ve got you.

Allen Gott

Uh… Yeah. I guess you do. Wasn’t I… Wasn’t I up there a minute ago?

Sam Bailey

[Laughing]

Uh… yeah. You kind of were.

Allen Gott

[Chuckles]

Huh. Huh huh huh huh… That’s funny.

What are you all staring at? Never seen a guy fall off a table before? Bunch of greenhorns…

[A few people laugh, a little uncomfortable]

Well, come on! It’s still a party, isn’t it! 

[People cheer and applaud]

Let’s get it… Uh, let’s get… I…

[Allen takes a few steps forward, then falls on his face]

Sam Bailey

Allen! Are you okay?

[The sounds of the party fade out]

[Click]

Sam Bailey

I don’t know how I remember so much about them. I can barely remember anything about those first few years of my life. Maybe it’s just that back then, my parents felt like my whole world, and so I didn’t bother to remember anything else. I’d like to think that. But I think it’s more likely the fact that when I went into the lake, they were the very last people I thought of before the water filled my lungs and the world went black.

I tried to believe I’d imagined it. The questions. The voice. What I’d promised to give it. I tried to pray. I tried to make other bargains, other deals with anyone, anything who was listening. But evidently, no one was. And so, later that spring, a lone police officer showed up at school and told me, in no uncertain terms, that I’d just become an orphan.

I didn’t cry for a long time after that. I couldn’t. The part of me that would have cried or should have just – shut down. It actually made grandma nervous when she saw it. She watched me identify my parent’s bodies, attend their funeral, and move out of my childhood room with what looked like a cold, mechanical detachment. It was only when I had to go through their possessions and decide what should go into storage that I finally broke down. I remembered visiting a storage locker with dad after his brother died, and the rows and rows of blank steel doors alway made me think of tombstones. That, of all things, was what finally made it real to me… The cold, pragmatic certainty that mom and dad wouldn’t need their stuff anymore. The fact that I had to decide whether I wanted to keep dad’s Stratocaster, or seal it away until I was old enough to play it. Whether I wanted to keep mom’s shawl, or if I thought it was a little too big for me. That last one ripped a harsh laugh out of me between sobs. 

Of course it was too big for me. It was all too big for me.

[Click]

[A door opens quietly]

[Soft footsteps pad across the carpeted floor]

[Someone sets a tray on the night stand]

[Allen stirs, groaning a little as he wakes up]

Allen Gott

[Groaning]

What the hell…

Sam Bailey

Oh, shh shh shh shh… It’s okay.

Allen Gott

Sam? What are you doing in… Where am I?

Sam Bailey

My house. You hit your head pretty badly when you fell, and no one could find the first aid kit in the station. Now hold still… You’re still bleeding a bit.

Allen Gott

Hold on… Why am I in your house?

Sam Bailey

Oh, uh. Well — we figured you didn’t want to go to the hospital over this, and my place was closest. Uh, Jerry’s still downstairs, waiting to see if you’re okay. Now lie back and keep still.

Allen Gott

Did he help you… Ow!

[Allen yelps a little]

Sam Bailey

Sorry — need to disinfect it. I don’t think the break room floor is sterile, you know?

Allen Gott

Yeah, no… [He laughs] but… Still isn’t fun, though.

Sam Bailey

I think you had a bit too much fun already tonight. That’s how you ended up here, remember?

Allen Gott 

[Chuckles]

Oh. Right. No exactly how I wanted to end up in your bed, that’s for sure… Uh.

[Fabric rustles as Sam moves back]

[Awkward silence]

[Sam coughs]

Sam Bailey

Uh… Here, this should take care of the bleeding. You should ice it as well, just to be safe…

Allen Gott

Sam…

Sam Bailey

Twenty minutes on, forty minutes off. It should stop the swelling.

Allen Gott

Sam, listen, I didn’t mean to…

[Sam stands up quickly, handing him the ice pack]

Sam Bailey

I’m going to go downstairs and tell Jerry you’re fine. I’ll be sleeping down in the living room if you need anything, but try not to get up if you don’t have to.

Allen Gott

Sam, look, I wasn’t trying to… 

[Sighs]

Okay. Thanks Sam.

[Sam hurries out of the room]

[Door opens and closes]

[Allen groans]

Oh, brilliant. Way to go Gott. Gold star for you on this one.

[Fades out]

[Click]

Anna Sheridan

To be fair, the mayor did try to challenge the project. The town hired consultants to figure out just how much income would be lost for every gallon of water the dam diverted. Local conservation groups organized petitions, collecting thousands of signatures from the tourists who passed through — though a suspiciously small number of locals put their names forward to protest the dam. By the time the town had enough of a leg to stand on, nearly a year had passed. Even so, they filed suit in county court, claiming that the dam would bring disaster to their community.

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

The case was dismissed within a week. The Arrowhead Dam project had been open for comment for two months, and their silence during that period was enough to indicate their acceptance. A few local organizations tried to stage protests and raise enough hell to get someone’s attention… But they were still a small town in a small, rural area, and this was long before the internet might have given them a voice. No one outside the town really seemed to notice, and very few inside of it really seemed to care. Honestly, most of them were secretly glad there might be fewer tourists next season. And so, after five years of fighting the useless fight, the final pieces of the dam were put in place on a cold afternoon in mid-February. Water and power began to flow to the bigger cities surrounding the little town… But not to the town itself. After all the nuisance they caused during construction, the department of water and power made sure their pipes and powerlines were disconnected from the county system.

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

When summer rolled around again, some people did notice that the lake was a bit lower than usual. But the same number of tourists showed up in May, and the locals laughed off the town’s projections of economic ruin as simple fear mongering. After all, there were still just as many cars on main street as before, and to them, that meant their town was safe, and always would be.

By the end of August, the lake was less than half its usual size. No one panicked, of course. Most people remembered — or at least,

thought they remembered — the water level getting that low in the past. But the summer heat continued long into September and October, and the few who realized what was happening tried to warn the others. They showed up at empty town council meetings with stacks of charts and figures, called in to the local radio station to try and get on the air, and generally shouted the words no one wanted to hear from whatever platform they could. The lake was evaporating, and with almost no water coming in from the dam, it would dry out permanently within the year.

[Footsteps resume]

Small towns are resilient — but that also means they’re stubborn. No one wanted to believe that their livelihood was about to disappear, and so they ignored the warnings and carried on with business as usual. So after a late, harsh winter that froze what little water was left, the tourists showed up on the first weekend of May expecting to find the lake untouched.

[Footsteps transition from wet asphalt to wooden planks, then stop]

Instead, they found a marina standing on stilts, perched five feet above a wide, cracked salt flat and a small pool of muddy, noxious water nearly half a mile from the old shoreline. Even that evaporated after a few weeks in the merciless Nevada sun, and with it, the tourism industry. A few businesses tried to pivot… But it was too little too late.

[Footsteps resume, returning to the asphalt]

The town all but imploded after that, but a place like this — a place that people belong to — doesn’t just dry up and disappear like a lake. So the community limped along for years, surrounded by the rotting shells of its former opulence: abandoned condo blocks and empty resorts covered in bright murals of the dead lake beyond, slowly fading and rotting away. But even with the water dammed and stolen, the people remained.

[Footsteps stop]

[Click]

[Birds call outside]

[Something sizzles as it cooks on the stove]

{Sam stirs, sniffs, and sits up off the couch]

Sam Bailey

What the hell… Who’s…?

[Fabric rustles]

[Sam stands up off the couch]

[Footsteps]

Sam Bailey

Allen? What the hell are you doing?

Allen Gott

Oh good, you’re up. I didn’t want to wake you, but now that you’re up… How do you like your eggs?

Sam Bailey

What? Uh, scrambled, but…

Allen Gott

Great, because that’s about all I can really do on short notice.

[Eggs crack, sizzle in pan]

Allen Gott

I was going to make toast. Want some?

Sam Bailey

Allen, what are you doing up? You should be resting…

Allen Gott 

[Scoffs]

What, for this? I’ve had much worse with way less pampering. And seeing as you slept on the couch, I figured the least I could do was make breakfast. So… Toast?

Sam Bailey

Um… Sure?

[Allen puts bread in the toaster and pushes it down]

[Momentary silence]

Sam Bailey 

Allen… Listen, about what happened last night…

Allen Gott 

[Chuckles]

I think you mean what didn’t happen last night.

Sam Bailey

I… Yeah. Sure. What didn’t happen. Look, I don’t want you to…

Allen Gott

Hold on, I think the eggs are done.

[Allen turns off the stove]

Sam Bailey

Allen, I’m serious — you…

Allen Gott

And I seriously think this conversation will go over better after you’ve had something to eat. Here.

[Allen sets a plate on the counter]

[Sam hesitates, then picks up his fork and begins to eat]

Allen Gott 

Plus, I’m starving, and no good decision in history has ever been made on an empty stomach. Good?

Sam Bailey

Yeah… Really good, actually.

Allen Gott 

[Laughing]

Don’t flatter me, it’s eggs. They’re pretty hard to mess up.

Sam Bailey

Not that hard… Trust me.

[They both laugh]

[The toast pops up]

[Allen sets his plate on the counter]

Allen Gott

So. Last night.

Sam Bailey

Um… Yeah. Last night.

Allen Gott

I shouldn’t have said it. It was just a stupid thought that popped into my head, and I wasn’t thinking clearly, and… I’m sorry.

Sam Bailey

Did… Did you mean it, though?

Allen Gott

Well, I… Sort of? Mostly? 

[Sighs]

Yes. Not the way I said it, but yes. I did. I do. Do you?

Sam Bailey

I… I don’t know.

Allen Gott

It’s a very simple question, Sam.

Sam Bailey

Well… Not really. Not for me.

Allen Gott

What’s that supposed to mean?

[An awkward silence, then…]

Sam Bailey

[Sighs]

Look, the people I love — I don’t always like them at first. And I never really know if it will even happen. I know I like… Being around you. I like spending time with you, I like to be close to you, but… I don’t know if I feel that way about you yet. Or if I ever will.

Allen Gott

Huh.

Sam Bailey

It… It takes time. For me. Too much time for most people, actually. So… look, I get it.

Allen Gott

Get what?

Sam Bailey

If you just… Want to go.

[A bird sings outside]

Allen Gott

Why do you think I’d want to go?

Sam Bailey

I… I don’t know. I just thought…

Allen Gott

Sam, I don’t know who you think I am, but if I didn’t want to wait, I would have asked you out three months ago.

Sam Bailey

You… You’re not going to…

Allen Gott

[Laughing]

Sam, I’ve had a crush on you since you first bumbled into my office. I’ve always known. But I’m not in any rush. I can wait. And if you never feel the same way about me, then… That’s okay. I’ll wish you did, but if you don’t — then you don’t. It’s your call.

Sam Bailey

[Stammering]

How… How long?

Allen Gott

As long as you need. Now eat your eggs — they’re turning into rubber over there.

[Allen starts to eat]

[Sam hesitates for a moment, then starts eating in contented silence]

[Fades out]

[Sound of rain on the window]

Sam Bailey

Allen.

Sweet, kind, patient, strong, beautiful Allen. Irritating Allen. Vexing Allen. Annoying Allen. 

[Sighs]

He was all the best parts of all the best people I’d ever known and so much more besides… And yet, for the longest time, I didn’t know if I loved him. Not the way he loved me. Definitely not the way he deserved to be loved. One drunken night after the station New Year’s Party, he accidentally blurted out that he, uh… well. I think it’s better that what he said exactly is uh, is lost to history. Suffice to say it made my little grey-ace heart clench into a tight little fist of panic. I’d been on the other side of the unrequited love equation more than once, and I hated the idea that when he woke up, I’d have to be the one to say, in all honesty – I don’t feel that way about you. Not yet, anyway.

It was that not yet that he latched onto. Not in a possessive way, not pushing or pulling me into something I didn’t want or skulking around until I gave in and just said I loved him back. The next day we both went back to simply being coworkers and friends… As much as was humanly possible in that situation. I badgered him about police procedure and how messy his desk was. He pestered me out of the office whenever I’d spent too many days in there obsessing over some small thing I couldn’t change. And slowly, bit by bit, my heart unclenched, then opened, and then, finally, on a late Autumn day just before Thanksgiving, I saw him walking to work through one of the lobby windows. The police station boasted two of the only maple trees in town – no small feat of horticultural wizardry this far out into the Nevadan desert.

As he strolled across the street, the early morning light and the slow spiral of falling leaves framed him in a way that I had never seen him before, and suddenly, I felt a kind of love I hadn’t felt in nearly four years, and I finally understood what my mother’s words had meant.

Even so, it took me more than a week to actually tell Allen how I felt. Even though I knew he felt the same way about me, I still felt like an awkward kid with a new crush – which, if I’m being honest, is what I was. But once I did, it took us less than a month to move in together. That may have had more to do with the fact that Allen’s lease was up that month, but even so…

Allen brought Russel with him, still basically a puppy at that point and full of boundless, wild energy. We never had dogs in my family, even when I was a kid, and Russel was just – the best boy. I loved him nearly as much as Allen – sometimes more so. Even if he did occasionally piss on the carpets.

And we were happy. For many, many years, we were both so, deliriously happy. We spent our days full of work and love and food and sleep and TV and Russel and slow dancing in our socks on the kitchen floor. 

[Sighs]

We grew older. I grew kinder, my hard edges wearing away, and somehow, Allen managed to grow kinder still. And he always knew how to make me laugh, even on the darkest days.

[Sam takes a deep breath]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Anna Sheridan

This is the story of so many towns like this. The specifics are unique to each one, but it’s almost always the same: boom, then bust, and then a long, steady decline. New generations grow up with fewer and fewer happy memories of the place they were born, and those who remain there grow more and more bitter with each passing year.

[Footsteps stop]

Soon, even those driving by on the highway begin to wonder how and why that little town is still there, and if anyone even lives there anymore. Before the town becomes a ghost, it becomes a zombie: shambling forward with no greater vision or purpose than to stay alive. And like all undead, it feeds on those who live there.

[Footsteps resume, then stop after a moment]

No matter how fervently those old locals swear that they love the peace and quiet of their home, they feel the same impatience, frustration, and impotence of the teenagers who can’t wait to leave as soon as they turn 18. Some of them make it, but a part of their soul is still attached to their home, and sooner or later they begin to feel the tender pull of nostalgia for the simpler, quieter world of their childhood. It might take twenty or thirty years for that feeling to really get its claws into them, but sooner or later, most of them return, if only for a little while. Some escape again. Others don’t. And some never leave, getting more bitter with every year that passes and brings no visible change but the slow decay of time.

[Desolate gust of wind]

[Footsteps resume]

For a while, this place wasn’t any different. The economy stagnated, the population shrank, and for nearly 20 years after the lake evaporated, it clung to life out of stubborn refusal to die. But about a year ago, something terrible happened — something unimaginable.

[Footsteps stop]

A child drowned.

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Sam Bailey

…and I swear to God if Allen doesn’t stop stapling both copies of his reports together I’m going to take him out back and shoot him myself… it’s an act of mercy.

[Sighs]

Sorry, that’s… that probably shouldn’t be on this tape. “Official business only,” and all that. Jeez, they even wrote that on top of the recorder in big red letters in case I forgot. But who else am I going to talk to about these things? I mean, is it really more professional to complain to a coworker than a machine? And I can’t talk to anybody in town — word travels too quick. I mean, I tell Jim about Allen, Jim tells Mary, Mary tells Abby, Abby tells Jerry and Jerry tells Allen. 

[Sighs]

And if this gets played in county court someday — which I find unlikely — nobody in Agate Shore will hear it. Probably.

I’m… I’m avoiding the issue, I guess. Just don’t want to talk about it. A kid went missing at school today. The Martins’ boy, Pat. Good kid. Too shy for his own good, sure, but smart. Curious. Couple of the other kids saw him wander off into the lake bed… it was an Agate hunting trip. I mean, there were too many kids for Miss Maisey to keep track of, and the volunteer parent bailed at the last second. I saw him at Chuck’s last night — he’s probably still hungover.

[Siren rises behind his voice]

That’s — that’s an ambulance, not a patrol car. God, I hope that’s not…

[Door opens across the room]

Allen Gott

Sam!

[Click]

[Thunder rumbles in the distance on a rain-lashed night]

[Rain hits the window]

[Someone stirs on the bed, disturbing the blankets] 

Allen Gott 

[Groaning as he wakes and sits up]

Sam? Sam? Sam, are you…?

[Allen sits up]

[He hears Sam muttering]

Sam Bailey 

Anything. Anything. Anyone. Anything. Anything. Anyone. Anything. Anything. Anyone…

[Allen stands and crosses the room to his side]

Allen Gott 

Sam? Sam, look at me, are… Are you okay?

Sam Bailey

Huh? Where am… Who are you?

Allen Gott 

[Laughing]

The man in the moon, silly. I came in to get out of the rain.

Sam Bailey 

The – who?

Allen Gott 

Oh shit – Sam, it’s me. It’s Allen.

Sam Bailey 

Allen?

[coming back to himself]

Allen!

[Sam buries his face in Allen’s chest, sobbing]

Allen Gott 

Hey, hey, it’s alright. It’s alright. You’re okay.

Sam Bailey

I can’t… Allen, I couldn’t see you. I couldn’t hear you. I was… I was back in the water again, and I was…

Allen Gott 

Hey… It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. You’re safe now.

Sam Bailey 

I can hear it, Allen. I can still hear the waves, every time it rains. They’re still inside my head. I can still see their faces…

Allen Gott 

Come back to bed… I think I have something that might help.

[Allen sits on the bed and opens a drawer]

Sam Bailey 

[Scoffs]

Yeah, I bet you do.

Allen Gott 

Here, try these.

Sam Bailey 

Ear plugs?

Allen Gott

It’s the sound of the rain that sets it off, right? My first apartment was next to the freeway, and I always have a stash of them tucked away. Go ahead, try them on.

[Rustling as Sam puts them in]

Allen Gott

Better?

Sam Bailey 

What?

Allen Gott

[Playfully]

Is that better?

Sam Bailey 

Oh… Yeah, I think it is. I… I can’t hear them anymore. I always thought… I didn’t think that would work.

Allen Gott

Well, hopefully that means we can both get some sleep tonight. Come on, let’s get back into bed…

[The phone suddenly starts to ring across the room]

Allen Gott 

What the hell? It’s one o’clock in the morning.

Sam Bailey 

Is… Is that the phone?

Allen Gott

You stay here and go back to sleep,

I’ll get it.

[Allen walks across the room & picks up the phone]

Allen Gott

Hello, Bailey residence? Hello? Is anyone there?

(pause, listening)

I think you might have a bad connection, I can’t quite… I can’t hear you.

[The bed creaks, Sam shifting]

Allen Gott

Look, try calling back, but… Please do it later? It’s way too early for this.

Sam Bailey 

Who is it, Allen?

Allen Gott 

I… I don’t think it’s anyone. 

[Allen hangs up] 

Allen Gott

Huh. You know, I just got the weirdest feeling that…

Sam Bailey

Huh?

[The bed creaks as Allen gets back in]

Allen Gott

Never mind. I’m sure it’s nothing. Go back to sleep.

[Cassette noises]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Sam Bailey

Allen’s dead.

He… I… It was just like all the other others. Water, in his lungs. His skin colder than it should’ve been out on the lake bed in the sun. The coroner said the same thing he did with the others: that he drowned. On saltwater. In the middle of the desert.

I’m sorry, I – I can’t, I can’t.

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Anna Sheridan

The situation was clearly spiraling out of control — at least, according to the county. So, they sent a team of detectives to put a stop to the killings as quickly as possible. They swaggered into town with a fully formed theory, pinning the killings on a stranger who disappeared from the local hospital earlier that year. Within a month, all four of them were found dead on the salt pan.

Panic began to set in at that point, and those with the means quickly found excuses to leave town for good. The population shrank even as the killings seemed to stop and a record-setting rainstorm locked in over town, filling the lake to its highest point in years.

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Sam Bailey

It’s finally stopped raining. I took Russel out for a walk for… I guess it must’ve been the first time in weeks last night. I was just letting him out on the porch, before. Gross, I know, but… I just couldn’t go out in that. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, and then the rain finally stopped, so I…

The gutters were still flooded. Nothing drains properly here… I guess it’s ’cause we live in the desert, despite what the weather wants us all to think. I had my boots on, and, of course, Russel was having a blast with all the puddles. He was going to make a mess of the carpets when we got back, but I didn’t care. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone, not… not anyway. I was too distracted to really notice, even if it was dark and there wasn’t much to look at except maybe the streetlights. I could smell the water, though. I know it’s impossible, but — it smelled like the ocean. Like salt. Like the way the lake used to when…

I was hypnotized by it all: by the streetlights passing by and the smell and something… and something else. The sound of waves. And then all the lights went out again…

[Sam shudders]

[Faint sounds of waves]

Russel started barking right away. I noticed it too. I couldn’t see anything, not then, but… I felt something… someone… watching. Waiting. Considering. There wasn’t a moon last night, and what was left of the rain clouds was hiding the stars. But it still wasn’t dark. Not like it… Not like it should’ve been.

You know how when you’re swimming in a lake and you open your eyes? How there’s that kind of green-grey glow all around you? It was like that, except if you were at the very bottom of the deepest lake you could think of, and there was barely any of that light, but it was still all around you — no up, no down, and no real source that you could see. And you look up to try and find the sun, the way back to the surface, and it’s… gone. And it’s… It’s gone.

And then I felt like there was water in my lungs, and I was coughing and choking on the ground, trying to breath…

Russel — Russel saved me. He was barking at the shadows behind one of the dead streetlights. Then I thought I saw something moving there — something tall and pale, but I only saw it for a second. My eyes were watering — I was crying. And then Russel was licking my face, snapping me out of whatever it was. Then I was crying again — Jesus, crying over the fact I was alive.

Oh yeah. By the way, the profanity filter’s broken. I haven’t tried to fix it. The filter, the lights, the generators — everything keeps breaking down. I guess, except… Everything except the cars. Those are still working. They have to be… people just keep leaving.

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[A car’s engine starts in the distance, then speeds away]

Sam Bailey

Jerry found the guy. The guy from the bar that night last January. The pale one, with black hair and blue eyes and nice clothes singing in another language. He was… He was murdered behind the supermarket. He was… He’d been dead four days before anyone noticed the smell. There was no one taking out the garbage anymore.

There… There wasn’t any water in his lungs this time. The autopsy says he died of shock, completely unrelated to the other deaths. It could be. He was older than I thought he’d be — 67, if his ID was legit. And he did have it this time… just – just an expired driver’s license from Montana. Maybe it wasn’t another drowning. But… he’d been out in the sun for four days. It could’ve evaporated, or drained out, or — something. Anything. I – I don’t know.

His name was Richard Seaver.

[Click]

[Silence]

Sam Bailey

It’s… It’s over. They’re all gone. Everyone. They were already — they were already leaving, and this was just the last straw. Jim was out on the lake. Nobody knows what he was doing out there, he worked a full night at Chuck’s, he should have just gone home, to Mary…

But someone on the highway saw him wandering out there, alone — alone on the salt flat. They couldn’t tell if he was moving away from town or running towards it, but they pulled off and drove over to him. By the time they got to where they thought they’d seen him, they…

It was just like all the others. Almost. But he had a note in his hand. It was pretty well crushed and soaked almost all the way through — it pretty much fell apart the moment I pulled it out of his hand, but… There was only one word on it, written over and over again. Restore. Restore. Restore…

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

Anna Sheridan

His death finally took away whatever excuses still remained to stay, and within a week the town’s population dropped from 50 to 1. As far as I can tell, the only person left is one last police detective, still trying to find an answer.

[Footsteps resume]

That was nearly a month ago. Strictly speaking, the town doesn’t exist anymore — without anyone in charge, it’s been downgraded to an “unincorporated community…” A nice way of saying the county doesn’t consider it a real place anymore. If they ever did.

[Footsteps stop]

I don’t know if that detective is still here. I’m standing across from the police station, and it certainly looks abandoned. There are no lights on, and all the windows are tightly boarded up. The plywood over the door looks loose though, as if someone’s been here recently.

It’s strange to see it like this. This town hung on through twenty years of poverty and slow decay, but died less than a year after the impossible touched it. And make no mistake: it was the impossible that did this. Because there have always been stories about this place: first about the lake, then the town, and then the people in it. In fact, the whole county seems to be a paranormal hot spot. Santa Lucia’s only a few miles west of here, and we all know how many ghosts that place has. There are plenty of rumors about Oslow as well, but I’ve never been able to confirm any of them. But as far as anyone knows, there has always been something in the waters of Agate Shore.

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Buzz of fluorescent lights]

Sam Bailey

This is the first time I’ve… recorded anything in a while. I couldn’t just — sit in my office. I, I couldn’t — I couldn’t breathe in there. It felt like I was…

[Swallows, sounding choked]

I don’t know why I thought it’d be better here, of all places, but… But it is. I couldn’t get away from them in the office. Oslow sent up a new team of investigators, they… they think it’s a serial killer. Some… Someone with a fixation on the old salt lake. But, but I…

[He takes a moment to breathe]

It took me a while to figure out how to move this thing. They had it mounted to my desk, but I did manage to get it off. But I couldn’t take it home. Maybe it’s…it’s quieter there, but I… I couldn’t just tell it to the recorder. I had to — I needed to…

I’m sorry, Allen.

[Silence]

I’m sorry, Allen. I should’ve known what this was right from the start. The signs were there — the lake bed, the drownings, the weather —  hell, even Ms. Miller’s flooded basement. It’s so, g[Beep]n obvious even you could’ve figured it out, if only — if only I told anyone.

I grew up here in Agate Shore. I know, I know, I play the big city cop so well, dragged here against my will… and that’s also kind of true. When I went to school, I never wanted to end up working back here. But no one else would take me, though. Guess I was too bad with computers to actually fit at any other PD. Or maybe… maybe it was Agate Shore, trying to…

Back when I was a kid, there was actually a shore. There was actually a lake. You’re too young to remember it — h[Beep]l I’m almost too young myself. They built the dam when I was in third grade, and the lake was gone by the next summer. But before that, I was always out there with my parents. My mom and dad would swim out in the lake early in the morning, then teach me to swim in the shallows in the afternoon. We went out there as… as often as we could, sometimes three or four times a week in the warm season. I was a pretty good swimmer by the time I started kindergarten, and then I decided I would try to do what my parents did — swim out into the middle of the salt lake and just…  float in the sun. They would never let me go out that far — my dad would jump in and pull me back to shore and tell me it wasn’t safe out there. So one day, when my parents forgot the towels in the car and ran back to fetch them, I… I jumped into the lake and just started swimming.

I was a good swimmer, yeah, but not half as good as I thought I was. It was late February, and the lake was still cold. I made it about twenty yards before my arms started seizing up. I tried kicking to keep going, but my legs were already stiff, and I couldn’t seem to stay afloat. And then my legs froze too. And I was sinking.

You know when you’re swimming in a lake, and you open your eyes? How there’s that kind of… green-grey glow all around you, and you can’t tell which way is up? That’s what it was like. Except I knew I was getting deeper and deeper by the second. I tried to scream before I went under, but that just filled my lungs with water. I was drowning, and stupid as I was I knew there was no one coming to save me. And then I heard it: the voice. I — I don’t know if it was the lake itself talking, or some creature or monster or what. For a long time I thought it was just my own imagination or… Maybe it was God. I don’t think so now.

“What would you do to save yourself?” it asked. “Anything,” I thought. “What would you give to save yourself?” it asked. “Anything,” I said. “Who would you give to save yourself?” I wasn’t thinking clearly, my… my brain just couldn’t get the oxygen. And I was afraid… So, so afraid. “Anyone,” I managed, just before I blacked out.

[Deep, shuddering breath]

When I woke up, I was in the hospital with my parents watching over me. I never did get a straight answer out of them about what happened. They said I made it out of the water just in time, but they never said how I got out… or who pulled me out. But I could still hear the sound of waves in my head — I still hear them now, every once in a while.

[Faint sound of waves rises]

For years I thought one of them… swam in and saved me, but didn’t want to say it… That they didn’t want to scare me. Now I’m not so sure. I never really got the chance to ask them. The lake took them both back a few months later.

Restore. Restore. Restore.

Anything. Anything. Anyone.

[Clack]

[Silence]

[Click]

[The different, harsher static, then fades]

[Quiet, drafty room]

[Footsteps]

[Beeping as someone uses a keypad]

[Buzzer, door unlocks and swings open]

[Footsteps]

[Someone picks up a gun, loads, and cocks it]

[Holsters gun]

[Footsteps]

[Keys rattle, metal door opens]

[Two soft, heavy objects set on counter]

[Beeping as several buttons are pressed]

[Regular, electronic beeping starts]

Sam Bailey

[Sighs]

Allright. That should do the trick.

[Drops bag on counter and unzips it]

[Places beeping objects into the bag, zips it back up]

[Sam sighs heavily]

[Footsteps]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Thunder and rain]

[A car drives up and turns off its engine]

[Backpack dropped in seat, opened]

[Rummaging]

[A gun loading and cocking]

[Car door opens]

[Car door closes]

[Footsteps moving away]

[BOOM]

[BOOOM]

[Low rumbling sound begins to rise]

[Footsteps return, running]

[Car door opens, Sam climbs in, panting]

[Keys rattle, engine starts]

[Tires squeal, car races away]

[Sam begins coughing violently]

[Semi truck honks]

[Tires squeal]

[The noises of a crash]

[Mic bumps as recorder falls]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Mic handling as recorder is picked up]

[Sound of flames]

[Kicking against window three time]

[Sam grunts on each impact]

[Glass shatters]

[Impact as he lands in loose gravel, then begins to walk away]

[A fire engine’s siren from far away approaches]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Crickets chirping]

[Footsteps]

[Train whistles in the distance] 

[Coyote howls]

[Footsteps stop]

[Handling and cocking of a pistol]

[Footsteps resume]

[Footsteps stop, then Sam collapses with a grunt of pain]

[Silence]

[Footsteps approach, pause, then run over to Sam]

Bill Tyler

5-540 to dispatch, I have an unconscious male just off Kaiser Boulevard, near the Myers intersection — looks like an Agate Shore police officer.

Robert Quincy

10-4 5-540: EMTs are en route.

Bill Tyler

10-4 dispatch.

[Fabric rustling]

[Mic hits as the recorder falls to the ground]

What is that?

[Mic handling as Bill picks up the recorder]

[Click]

[Silence]

[Click]

[Rain on the windows]

Sam Bailey

And I wish I could say the story ended there. That this long history of life and loss and growth and healing and love could be tied up in a neat little bow at that moment. “And they lived happily ever after. The End.”

[Sighs]

But we all know that’s a lie. We always know it’s a lie. It contradicts itself. “Happy ever after” can’t exist alongside “The End.” Doesn’t work like that. Never has. No matter how much we wish it could.

[Long pause]

But, I don’t think it has to. I don’t believe that the ending has to be, or even should be, happy, ever after. It doesn’t even need to be happy, at the end. It just needs to be happy, sometimes. It just has to be happy, enough. From time to time. In the little moments. In the times we really remember.

My mom used to tell me that I had a heart as deep and dark and wide as a lake… and most of the time, that feels exactly like it sounds. But not always. Not when it matters. She told me, “Just because you don’t love the people you’re supposed to, doesn’t make that love any less real.” And my heart is full of that very same love. Allen’s love, of course, but also my mother’s and my father’s. My grandmother’s, and the love of that friend who let me crash on their couch while I looked for a job. The love of Bill, and even Maria, new and unsure as it may be. Even the love of that sharp-edged old therapist, who smiled and told me that the real work starts here. That life doesn’t end with loss and brokenness and death – it begins there. And it begins again. And again. And again.

“Auld Lang Syne” by Narrow Skies

Wray Van Winkle

In loving memory of our friend, Chuck Scatolini.

[Click]

[Hiss of static, then fades]

[Footsteps over wet asphalt]

Anna Sheridan

The lake gave the town life — but everyone who lived here knew the lake took it away as well. The number of drownings each year was significantly higher than the national average, and there were plenty of stories of people hearing voices when they went out swimming alone. Voices that asked them questions and spoke to them in riddles. And even after the lake was drained, the people who lived here still heard that voice on cold winter nights when the fog seeped out of the old lakebed and rolled over the town.

[Footsteps stop]

Across the decades, that voice has always been here — and the question has always been the same.

[Faint, crackling static rises]

“What would you do to save yourself?”

I’ve heard that question before — when I almost drowned up in Tahoe, on that last trip with Maria. And there are records of that exact same question all over the world, in dozens of languages and across hundreds of years: all connected with water.

[Thunder rumbles in the distance]

Lakes, rivers, streams, wells — people drowning, and being offered a chance to save themselves at some terrible cost. I don’t know if it’s the same entity in all the stories, or just some similar one. But this is a place of power. I’ve been looking for somewhere like this for a long time: somewhere isolated and with a strong connection to…

[A low, heavy explosion echoes in the distance]

Oh my god. The, um… The dam just…

[A second, louder explosion in the distance]

[Anna turns and runs]

[Low rumbling, rolling noise rises behind her]

[Rumbling grows louder, structures crackling as they shatter]

[Click]