Christ, what a mess, thought Howard Phillips.

It was a scene from a surrealistic hell. There was a mass of police cars, wreckers, and ambulances, all standing around flashing their lights futilely. There were red lights and blue lights and yellow lights and white lights, a chaotic jumble of spasmodic colored lights. A thin red line of smoking flares stood like guardians along the borders of all the activity. Inside the area, hooded, shiny black and yellow figures were scurrying to and fro frantically. Presiding over the scene, its black steeple raised high, a huge crane was crawling from the back of a flatbed with a chorus of growls and screeches. Shouts and curses and the constant crackling and squawking peculiar to police radios added to the tumult.

The rain had stopped, but a heavy drizzle was still coming down. Everything was dripping wet, and reflecting light, and adding a sense of unreality to everything else. And for every light, for every motion which took place on shore, there was an equal blink, an equal movement in the water. It was as if a nightmare had crawled half out of the water, and lay, gasping, on the only beach on this side of Bottomless Lake. From a distance, the entire scene was as one continuous creature, moving its multitude of appendages in a confused, jerky frenzy that was as uncoordinated as the last spasms of an animal with its back broken.

Howard Phillips slowed down his van and looked at the gaping hole in the twisted metal of the guardrail, then sped up and drove the half mile or so down to the beach area. A policeman stopping traffic recognized him and waved him through. As he pulled his van off the road and parked it next to a police car, he told himself again that there was no real reason to hurry. As usual, this was strictly a body bag operation. That's what he and the other diver were here for--to bring up the dead bodies. In this case, dead children.

He slammed his fist on the steering wheel in anger. He hated Bottomless Lake. Far too many people died here and vanished here. They disappeared forever into this stinking, god awful deep pit. Of course, it couldn't be bottomless. Everything had to have a bottom, didn't it? But no one knew how deep this lake was. An unbidden thought came to his mind: maybe Arnold knows. He shuddered and stared out the wet window at the black water of the lake.

Somewhere out there was his younger brother. Fifteen years ago he and Arnold had gone fishing here because of a stupid dare. It was so dumb. A nineteen year-old and a seventeen year old-old trying to prove to the other guys that they had "balls." And neither of them even knew how to swim at the time. For some reason Arnold stood up in the boat. And fell overboard. Howard had watched in petrified horror as his little brother went under, still yelling and desperately clutching for help that never came. As if in a trance, he whispered, for the thousandth time since the accident, "I'm sorry, Mom. I couldn't move. I just couldn't move. It wasn't my fault. I'm so sorry, Mom." Howard shuddered from head to toe, shook his head as if to clear it, and slowly got out of the van.

The rain was coming down again. A dark, hooded figure came hurrying towards him from down by the shore where they were still trying to unload the crane. Howard recognized the Sheriff despite the gleaming black plastic poncho he had draped over him. They always met at the scene of tragedies.

"Hi, Mac," he called out.

"Hi, Howard. Got a real mess for you this time. "

"Are you sure it's the school bus?"

The Sheriff mopped his face with a wet handkerchief. "Yeah. A car about a quarter mile behind them saw it happen, saw the lights go over the side. Christ almighty, twenty-five kids!" He took a deep breath. "Must have gone down like a rock. Nobody got out."

Howard shook his head. "Who was driving?"

"A young lady by the name of Patty Lincoln. Real nice gal. Experienced driver too. I don't know if you ever met her. She was living with that English teacher guy over in Corona. Larry something or other. Heard they were going to get married. Now I suppose I'll have to run over there and tell him before he hears it on the news. Dammitalltohell!" He wiped his face again. "Well, you got all your stuff? Need anything?"

"Nah. Just give me ten minutes to put on my suit. Say, who's the other diver?"

"A guy by the name of Bill Hariss. He's suiting up right now. Borrowed him from the State Patrol. He just happened to be in the area. What with Jack out, you're lucky I got this guy or you'd be going down there alone tonight."

Howard shook his head. "Uh, uh. Never. Any place but here." He took a deep breath. "Well, guess I'd better get ready."

The Sheriff turned to go, then stopped. "Howard. You've been down there before. What are the chances of recovery? I mean, this place, ahm...we hardly ever recover bodies here. It's weird."

At that moment a long drawn out scream cut through the wind and the rain. It died down slowly into a wail of anguish, then to almost inaudible sobs.

The Sheriff listened in silence for a moment, then said softly, " Parents."

Howard swallowed hard. "Yeah. Well, I've only been down there a couple times. Didn't stay long. You've got almost a straight drop down to fifty-five, sixty feet. There you've got this shelf, kind of like a plateau. It's real flat , and clean, and sandy. It extends out maybe a hundred, hundred fifty, two hundred feet in some places. If the bus is there, we'll have no problem. We'll hook up the crane line and you'll have it out of there in a couple hours. But if it went towards the center, and for some reason most things down there tend to go out that way...well, that's where you find that godamm pit. Like the crater of a volcano. It goes down...down." He shrugged his shoulders.

The Sheriff wiped his hand over his eyes, nodded, and walked off down towards the shore.

Howard Phillips splashed into the cold, dark water and felt goose bumps begin to crawl all over his body.

There was a stench in the water such as he had never experienced before. His stomach surged at the terrible sickly taste of death that filtered into his mouth. It was a taste which would have driven a shark to insane frenzies. But there was something else besides.