Jocassee - The Place of the Lost One

This story is dedicated to Tom Bradbury, your critiques will be missed.

***

July 1974

Amelia Logan, cold, wet, and agitated, stood on the rickety dock as the angry waves from the vast lake lapped over the old wooden boards. Her stringy damp hair whipped in the wind, and her blue cotton dress, soaked, clung to her petite body. She gazed up at the gray and black clouds that roiled across the skyline that sprayed mists like a judgment on the world and its inequities. Her mind raged like the summer storm and wondered where Heidi had been the past year.

The thirteen-year-old turned to her left and observed the new cabin next door. Its interior lights illuminated the darkened yard like a lighthouse in the storm. Two buildings, side by side, one that would photograph like an artful jigsaw puzzle photo and one a dilapidated shack that needed to be demolished, were within the newly created Devils Fork State Park.

Heidi, her best friend, and her family had arrived for the summer's reunion at Lake Jocassee. The days ahead promised to be eventful as the Jocassee Valley's flooding had occurred one year ago.

The engineered project created a 7500-acre lake above the Whitewater River that had fed the farming valley cultivated by native Americans and settlers for centuries. The hundreds of displaced residents of Scottish, Irish, and Cherokee descent had agreed to gather once a year to remember their village and ancestors. Tomorrow was the first reunion, and Amelia hoped to reunite with Heidi.

Heidi's hometown was in Salem, twenty miles south and west of the Jocassee Valley. Amelia's parents, Sam and Coral, owned and managed the Attakulla Lodge and her grandparents before them.

She had been born in the downstairs Master bedroom in 1961. The river and the valley had always been her home. The lodge had served as a bed and breakfast until the government and the need to produce more energy had shut down everything around it. The lodge had brought the town girl and the valley girl together.

Amelia had not spoken with Heidi in over a year and still didn't understand why she had shunned her in the final days of the last summer. They had always exchanged notes and letters in the off-season, but not one letter had arrived since the flooding of the valley.

Heidi and Amelia had spent every summer together since they were toddlers. Heidi's family owned a summer home in the valley a half-mile down the Sandy Road from the lodge.

The slow hot days of tubing, fishing, boys, and sunbathing with her on the Whitewater River had been the highlight of every summer. Last summer they had watched the filming of the movie “Deliverance” in the valley and got to meet Burt Reynolds.

They walked the Sandy Road, hiked the river trails, and talked about the boys. Heidi had made out with a boy from Charleston the last summer, and she had said the experience was gross and would prefer to swap spit with her bulldog, O'Malley.

They had many secrets as they came of age and a few times practiced kissing to prepare for the future. Amelia never thought a kiss was gross with Heidi and missed her friend to the point her heart ached.

The two girls were like peas and carrots, different, but paired well together. Heidi, a town girl, taught her about fashion and Amelia, a country valley girl, taught her about blue jeans and how to fish. Their affection over the years grew strong, and a secret password, Gvgeyu, pronounced Ga-gay-u, was their bond. The beautiful Cherokee word meant I love you. They didn't understand the emotions but knew their bond was for life.

Heidi's dad, John B, worked as a consultant for the power company and brokered the land deals to clear the valley of its residents. He rarely stayed in the valley during the summer anymore and stayed busy with his work. Amelia didn't like him because of how he stared at her, put his hands on her shoulders, and whispered inappropriate compliments. Her intuition had told her he was trouble and to stay away from him.

The Logan's shack stood dark and bleak behind the old dock and appeared uninhabited. Amelia's mother, Coral, stood on the porch and waved her to come inside. Sam, her father, stood inside at the window and stared at the house next door. He rarely displayed anger, but Amelia sensed his wrath and the radiated raw hatred when he turned to her mom, who sat behind him at a table.

"Judgment comes," he mumbled and turned back to the window. Across the yard, John B stood in the window across the way, and his silhouette backlit by the lighting loomed like a shadow demon until he turned away.

***

The following morning, Amelia sat on their front step and faced the clear-skied and sun-laden lake as Heidi walked across their front yard to the shared dock.

"Good morning, Heidi," she said, but Heidi ignored her and continued to the lake's edge and onto the dock. Amelia stood and walked to the wooden planked pier, baffled why Heidi refused to acknowledge her and decided the time had come to confront her.

Heidi's feet dangled in the emerald water at the edge of the dock. She absorbed the view of the lake and wished for the joy of summer's past with Amelia.

"Amelia, I miss you. My dad says I can't visit you anymore. He found and tore up the letters I wrote to you," Heidi said. "He said you were a bad influence, and we can no longer be friends. Where did you go? I don't even have an address to contact you."

"I'm right behind you, Heidi," Amelia said.

"Where did you move? I can't believe you never told me goodbye," Heidi said.

Amelia moved closer. "I'm right behind you Heidi, why won't you face me. Is it because of your father?"

Heidi sat up straighter, and Amelia knelt and wrapped her arms around her friend.

"I don't understand what I did to hurt you, but I'm sorry," Amelia said, "Gvgeyu."

Heidi's body stiffened, let out an audible gasp, jumped up, and ran down the pier, across the two yards and into their cabin. Her mother stopped her at the foot of the stairs to her room.

"Heidi, what's wrong? Why is your t-shirt soaked?" She said.

"Why won't anyone tell me the truth about last year? Why can't I be friends with Amelia? What happened?" Heidi said and ran upstairs sobbing.

Back at the dock, Amelia, heartbroken, questioned why Heidi treated her this way. Her parents stood, expressionless, and stared at her from the front porch of the shack.

***

The sun rose high in the afternoon sky, and pontoon boats arrived at the dock for the scheduled tour of the lake. They would follow the original channel of the White Water River to memorialize the valley and the family homes of the past three hundred years now relegated to the deep.

Heidi and her parents crossed the yard to the dock and boarded, followed by Amelia and her parents. No one acknowledged the Logan's as they stood in the far rear of the boat. Glassy waves slapped against the boat's sides while the roar of the engines muted the voices of the dozen people in the front.

The tour guide piloted the boat across the pristine clear blue water with the regal Blue Ridge Mountains as its panoramic backdrop, cut the throttle, and announced they had arrived directly over the Attakulla Lodge. The passengers searched over the sides into the depths of the crystal-clear water.

Someone said, "I miss the Logan's and their fine Sunday brunches, wonder where they moved to."

"We are standing right here, geez," Amelia said, "How rude."

John B stepped to the back of the boat away from the other passengers and stood between Sam and Coral like they didn't exist. The angry couple locked their arms from each side and corralled him.

John B felt the cold wetness of the lake and something more dark and frigid. His shirt became soaked with water, and he struggled to break free from this invisible force. Sam and Coral, determined, contained him.

"What the hell?" he said and twisted and turned to no avail. They appeared to him, the victims of his greed, and his heart raced with fear.

The Logan's faces and skin were pale blue-gray with sunken cheeks, and their eyes were pitch black orbs. Water dripped off what remained of the decomposed clothing and hair and puddled onto the deck.

Sam's head had a washed-out gash on his skull that exposed grayish brain matter. Coral's eyes bulged, unblinking, and her mouth opened and closed like a dying fish out of the water too long. She mouthed, "You bastard," as water mixed with green algae flowed over her lips and down her chin.

John B frantically resisted their grip but couldn't break free.

"Judg..ment day," Sam gurgled as a mixture of black bile ran down his chin, and the noxious odor of decomposed flesh replaced the fresh mountain air that flowed across the lake.

"Logan, this can't be. You’re dead," John B said, and gagged from the noxious odors.

Heidi glanced to the rear of the boat as her father leaned over the stern, jerked back and forth, and heaved.

"Mom, I think Dad's sick," Heidi said.

Her mom glanced to toward her father and said, "He will be fine. Let him be."

Amelia stood at the far corner of the stern and the cloaked truth of the previous year erupted into her mind. The prevalent memories had been her love for Heidi, and how much she missed her, now she faced the hard cold reality.

The evil of John B flashed into her mind with painful clarity, and she realized her body was cold, wet, and decomposed, like her parents. Her hands and arms were a rotted bluish-green, and Amelia realized she was dead.

***

July 1973

John B had represented the power company in brokering all the land and building settlement contracts with the condemned properties to create Lake Jocassee. Everyone had settled and signed their contracts except the Logans. Their concern wasn't about money, but the land and lodge were a legacy for them to uphold.

Without their consent, the entire billion-dollar project would be delayed and cost the company millions, John B a bonus, and probably his job.

Three days before the flooding of the lake was to begin; John B came to the lodge to make one more attempt to reach an agreement. Sam and John B sat on the spacious front porch of the Attakulla Lodge and argued.

"Everyone in the valley has already moved out. You are the only holdouts, and the time has come to accept the offer and sign the contracts,” John B said.

Sam stood and turned his back on him toward the river and said, "We aren't signing anything, John B. Take us to court. I don't care. This property goes back five generations, and I will fight you to the end."

"You are a stubborn man Logan; I guess nothing will change your mind."

Amelia stepped onto the porch as John B swung and slashed her dad over the head with an ax handle, and Sam collapsed to the floor. He smashed the handle into Sam's skull again. Blood and tissue splattered across the porch and oozed from the wound, and puddled across the floor planks.

Horrified, Amelia screamed, "Nooooooo!" and her mom ran out of the lodge and onto the porch.

"Oh my God, what have you done, John B?" Coral said, "Do we mean so little to you?"

She ran past him to Sam's side, knelt and checked for a pulse as the ax handle struck her across the base of the neck, and she collapsed across him.

Amelia attacked John B with her fists and beat them across his back. He backhanded her, and her thin body sailed across the porch, and she landed on her back, stunned mentally and physically.

Helpless to stop him, she watched John B drag the bodies of her parents off the porch and into the kitchen. He returned, picked Amelia up, carried her through the kitchen, into the pantry, and tossed her like a sack of potatoes on the floor beside her parents.

"It didn't have to be this way. You Logans have always been pig-headed, and this is what it got you," said John B and slammed the door shut. A hammer pounded nails into the door to lock them in.

Amelia's parents were breathing, but she couldn't revive them. She found a towel and tried to stop her father's bleeding the best she could. The rest of the day, she screamed for help until she lost her voice, but no one came. No one would come because everyone had already left the valley.

Amelia tried to break out of the windowless pantry, but the walls were too thick, and the heavy door was the most secure room in the lodge because of bears in the area.

The third day, desperate, knowing they would die, she cut a message into the sheetrock wall with a manual can opener and hoped someone would find their bodies and learn what John B had done. She collapsed into the corner, shook with fear, and sobbed.

"Please, Heidi, please come for us," she pleaded, "I need you."

The power company closed the dam's gates that day, and the waters rose over the banks of the river, over the porch, and into the lodge. The Sandy Road disappeared, and the water seeped under the pantry door and up the walls.

Amelia propped her parents up to keep their heads above water but it became impossible. She tried to lift her mom as the water climbed three feet up the walls but lost her grip. She floated with the rising water and could see her parents below. Their eyes bulged and expanded from their sockets. Sam and Coral's mouths were frozen open as their bodies begged desperately for air and received the river water instead.

Amelia knew they were dead, drowned, and she trod water until only inches of air were left at the top of the ten-foot ceiling.

She took her final breath and held the air in her lungs as long as she could. Three minutes later, her body's reflexes forced the air to escape in bubbles, and the spent pods of life disappeared out of sight. Her final thought was of Heidi as the water-filled her lungs. She stared into the void, and her heart stopped as she mouthed, "Gvgeyu."

The vast waters of the new lake rose three hundred feet above the valley floor and buried more than the ancient history of the past wrongs. Old sins against the Cherokee were merged with the recent crimes of John B, who had committed triple murder. All were hidden by the flooding waters.

John B forged the contracts, drew his bonus, and capped it off by spreading the rumor the Logan's had moved out of state.

***

July 1974

Her parents still held John B in their angry grip of judgment and pulled him overboard, and the three plunged into the lake. Heidi turned to check on her dad saw him disappear over the side of the boat.

"Dad fell in the lake," Heidi screamed and ran to the stern, too late, as he sank through the clear water ten, twenty, thirty feet down until his body faded into the shadows of the depths.

The tour guide dove into the water but gave up the search when he couldn't find John B. Heidi wailed and her mother, in shock, stared into the waters. Amelia moved to Heidi's side and put her hand on her shoulder, and the water soaked into her shirt, but she didn't react.

"Gvgeyu, Heidi," Amelia whispered.

The boat captain radioed the state police, and a search with professional divers ensued. The lake's depth was beyond the capabilities of the local divers, and the search was called off until the next day.

A two-person submarine was transported from Charleston, and the search resumed by noon the following day. The underwater rig, equipped with heavy lighting and cameras, illuminated the lake's bottom.

The searchers passed over the old Mount Carmel Cemetery with its excavated graves and approached the Attakulla Lodge. John B's body was discovered tied, by his neck, to a column on the porch. Fish of all sizes nibbled at his ears and nose. Strands of tissue trailed off of his face and body and danced with the current.

Navy divers later discovered Sam and Coral Logan's bodies in the lodge and found these words carved into the sheetrock.

John B murdered us all.

Gvgeyu, H.

Amelia

They never found Amelia's body.

***

Present Day

Every July for the past forty-seven years, Heidi, heartbroken, still goes to the cabin by the lake at Devils Fork State Park, sits on the end of the dock, and waits as the moon rises over the water.

"I will always love you, Amelia. You were my first love. Gvgeyu."

The top of her shirt becomes soaked, and she would sense Amelia there touching her.

***

The lunar light illuminates Devils Fork on every full moon and shimmers out over the lake through its ripples. Amelia roams the lakeshore at midnight and waits for her parents to return as she longs for Heidi. She wishes more than ever to tell her, one more time.

"Gvgeyu, I love you too, Heidi."

The locals say if you see a young girl, with wet stringy hair, in a soaked light blue cotton dress near the lake to beware, she waits for you, and the judgment day for your greed has come, and she will punish you. Enraged, she will drag you to the bottom of Lake Jocassee.

The name the Cherokee of old gave the valley, Jocassee: the place of the lost one had become a Native American prophecy come true.