The Sorrows of Sunset Lake

(TW/Death/Gore)

The first time I heard of what the locals called “The Wailing Woman” was on a hot summer afternoon in the middle of an Oklahoma drought.  The lack of precipitation made the town lake, Sunset Lake, an appealing place to go for a stroll.  Calling it a lake was an oxymoron at best, it was merely the lowest spot in the mostly flat, plain-locked town of Guymon, Oklahoma.

I was working for a medical flight company as their Fixed Wing Pilot.  The job was an easy one that consisted of two weeks of twelve hour, on call shifts.  When things were slow, I would go to Sunset Lake, which was within a mile of the airport, and I would walk around the lake.  There was a nice concrete walking path that encompassed the muddy, usually placid body of water. The east portion of the path was heavily shaded with the branches of tall cottonwood trees, their branches following no symmetry but successfully providing shelter for birds, squirrels, and the people walking and jogging underneath them.

Standing out from the cottonwoods was a brief section of cedars lining the path.  The city of Guymon and the local VFW had collaborated to construct a memorial for regional heroes who had sacrificed their lives in military service of their country.  Roughly twenty cedar trees lined the path, each spaced about six feet from the next, standing tall, offering their branched arms up to the heavens.  The row of barked sentries closed their ranks with two granite headstones etched with the names of the fallen.  Every day, I would walk past the cedars and render a salute to the etched names of my brothers and sisters in arms.

On this day, I had just surrendered my salute when a short man with black hair, peppered with gray, approached me from the other direction.  His arms were animated and swinging wildly about his body, his mouth was moving but his voice was muted by my ear pods.  As I removed my ear pods, I realized that he had already been conversing with me, unbeknownst to me, and I was already lost in the conversation.

The middle-aged man pointed one of his hairy arms toward the middle of the lake and said, “…yeah, it happened right over there!”

“What happened over there?” I asked hoping that he would restart his story.

“That’s where the lady walked into the lake,”

“What lady?”

“Didn’t you hear anything I said?”

“Uh…No Sir, I had my ear pods in.”

“Well, you had better be careful, you could get run over wearing those things.”

I ignored his advice and suppressed the urge to laugh, considering that I was on a walking path that did not cross a road much less have vehicles on it.

“Yep, the police found her clothes folded neatly on top of her shoes there on the grass.  There were bare footprints left in the mud leading to the water.”  He glided his arm from the green grass of the park, down the muddy shoreline, and then back to where he had been pointing in the middle of the lake.

“What, she drowned?” I asked, signaling my first real participation in the unwarranted conversation.

“Well—Well hell yeah, but the kicker is—,” the man slowed his speeding speech for emphasis while staring into my eyes, “They never found her body!”  The man fixed his gaze and waited for me to react.

His perspiration was lofting the sweet stench of alcohol into the air, his eyes were yellowed and slightly blood shot.  All these observations told me to handle this character gently as crazy turns to angry quickly when influenced by alcohol.

So, I played along, saying, “So what do you think got her?”

The man smiled as he realized he had hooked a whale of a fish to spin his yarn with, then he said, “Well—there are some pretty strong currents out there.”  He wagged his arm to the middle once again and said, “They can pull you right under!”

I fought back the urge to both laugh and to tell him if there were currents in the middle of the pond, it needed to be investigated because it was a scientific anomaly.  However, I refrained and instead tried to make him realize his error by asking, “What do you think causes the currents?”

The man raised his hands up to his head as if he was asking himself how I could be so dense, before collecting his thoughts and saying, “Well—Well the god damned underwater bluffs!  That’s what causes ‘em.  That water is deep in the middle, it used to be a set of bluffs along a stream.”

I could tell that my question had befuddled him, so I tried to return the conversation to the main subject, inquiring, “So they never found her?”

“No—Not only did they not find her body, but they didn’t even know who she was.”

“Didn’t she have a wallet with an ID in her clothing, or maybe she left her car in the parking lot?”

“Nope—the cops didn’t find a damn thing in that pile of clothes or the parking lot.  Nobody saw her go in the lake until…” The man ‘s voice lost excitement and faded.

I knew I was playing into the man’s hands by asking, but I asked anyway, “Until what?”

“Until people started seeing her…”

“Seeing who?  The lady?  Alive?”

“No—not alive—as a ghost or phantom or something.”

I had reached my breaking point, saying, “Get out of here!  A ghost lady?” I started walking and attempted to part ways saying, “Thanks for the story, man.”

I fiddled with my ear pods and moved to go around the drunk.  He reached out and grabbed me by my bicep.  His dirty fingernails dug into my skin, and he pulled my arm to lean my ear down to his level. 

His grasp trembled as he said, “I have seen her with my own eyes.  Her eyes pale like the moon, her naked body glowing in the darkness, and that sound—that horrible sound.”

I was fed up with the guy and ripped my arm away from him saying, “Get off me man.”  I freed my arm by jerking it forward and I briskly created distance from him.

The man yelled after me, “The Wailing Woman—don’t walk here at night!  The Wailing Woman collects sorrows!  She attracts it and feeds on it! You will see her—you will see her soon!”

I walked to the other side of the lake, agitated from the little drunk man putting his hands on me.  I didn’t mind somebody wasting my time with a story, I had plenty of time to waste, but putting your hands on me crossed a line.

The trees on the west side of the lake were few and far between, but I found a good one that was dropping shade on a park bench.  I sat down and soon I was back in a peaceful mood.  I was listening to my favorite Don Williams music thinking about drifting off into an afternoon nap when another man waved at me from the walking path and started heading toward me.  I recognized the man by the red Farm & Ranch ballcap he was wearing.  I smiled and waved at him as I watched him struggle up the slight incline.  His name was Gary, a local rancher that had spent his youth plowing fields and tending to cattle.  Now, his old bones and joints creaked and popped in objection to any and all movement.  That’s how I met Gary.  We had crossed paths on the walking trail and when I politely asked how he was doing, he took the opportunity to introduce himself to me and explain that if he didn’t walk every day, his body would probably seize up and he would die.  Gary was a friendly feller, and he knew everything there was to know about Guymon.

I had joked with my coworkers that I was becoming the park psychologist, telling them, “Just pull up a park bench and tell me your woes.”  Gary had become my favorite patient.  His jovial spirit would always wane toward the end of our conversations and then he would reveal the true tragedy in his life.  His wife and child had been killed by a drunk driver and he had been the first person on the scene.  He told me that he had beaten the drunk driver close to death.  I could see that he was conflicted by his actions, beating the man, but it was not in his nature to be violent.  I could feel the pain in him and knew that he had done what any person would have in that situation.  Unlike a psychologist, I remained silent and listened to the dark pain spill from his mouth.  I don’t think I was helping Gary; his pain was too deep and had been with him for too long for my park bench listening therapy to help.  I was excited to see him today though, I had something new to discuss with him.

Gary shook my hand and then plopped down next to me saying, “Gotta get the bones moving today, but it’s a hot one.”

“Yep, it is hot, Gary.  This damned drought has got to end. It is bringing out all the crazies!”

“You aren’t talking about me, are you?” Gary said with a chuckle.

“No Sir.  Some guy on the other side of the lake interrupted the favorite part of my walk—”

“You mean over by the tombstones—I seen you saluting them before.”

“Yeah, over there.  Well, the guy told me some story about a lady stripping down naked and walking into the water.  He called her something like The Wailin…”

Gary cut me off saying in a low voice, “The Wailing Woman.”

Gary fell silent for a moment while he stared out into the water.

“Well—Gary is it true?”  I asked, breaking the silence.

Gary kept staring off into the distance and slowly said, “Yes—yes, it’s true.  I’ve seen her.”

“Get out of here Gary.  What is this—some ghost story you tell gullible big city-folk to keep them out of the park at night?  Well, I’m not biting.”

Gary reached over and forcefully grabbed my wrist.  His grasp was trembling just as the drunk’s had.  He wiped his mouth with the back of his other hand and said, “You listen to me and listen good.  Now that you know about her don’t you come down here at night.  Promise me!  Promise me you won’t come down here.”

“Gary come on man it’s just a—”

“It’s not just a story!  She has a weird effect on people.  She brings out the pain and sorrow inside us.  She calls to me in the night.  That horrible cry—it echoes in my head and haunts me in my sleep.  Promise me you won’t come down here at night.  Promise me right now!”

His grasp intensified and I shouted, “Alright—Alright Gary, I promise!”

Gary released my arm then turned crooked in the bench and pushed himself to his feet.  He started hobbling off before raising a hand and saying, “I’ll see ya tomorrow kid.”

I couldn’t believe that I had been grabbed twice in one day at the park over a crazy story.  I left the lake and decided to take some time away from the walking path.  However, with little to do in a small town, I was soon back into the routine of walking out there.

One night I found myself helplessly awake.  If you have ever lived in small-town America, you understand that in the middle of the week everything shuts down at about 9:00pm.  The entire town goes to sleep except for a few unfortunate policemen and, in this case, a fixed wing pilot on call.  I was full of energy and knew that a few laps around the lake would get me tired enough to get a little sleep.  I didn’t even think about Gary’s warning until I arrived at the lake.

The park surrounding the lake was only lit by a few florescent lamp posts and a half-moon in the western sky.  The concrete pathway was illuminated by the moon enough that I could see to walk.  I started my normal counterclockwise trek, starting on the west side.  The wind had collapsed into a sleepy flutter, causing the lake’s surface to swirl with tiny circles.  I was passing a small fishing dock when something across the lake caught my eye.  I froze in my tracks as I realized what was over there.

Two figures stood, naked, on the muddy bank of the small lake, a woman, and a man.  The man was emaciated.  I could see his ribs trying to poke through his skin, his facial features were sunken in, his eyeballs hid in the back of their sockets, and his manhood was shrived.  She was plump like a cherub, her perky white breasts and thick thighs reflecting the moonlight.  He was an unrecognizable sack of bones while she was full figured and beautiful.

The cool night breeze swaggered its way up the bank and swirled around their bodies, causing the woman’s taught bare skin to pimple.  They both stood and starred out into the water, their irises reflecting the moon.  Suddenly the breeze stopped and with it all sound ceased.  She raised her arms from her side holding his hand in hers and reached forward as if she were trying to embrace someone.  Her jaw lowered and then extended beyond normal limits, her chin resting on her breastbone.  The woman then released a terrifying cry that brimmed with sorrow and depression.  They began slowly walking forward into the water, all the while the woman wailed.  She wailed until the water entered her mouth and then the cries morphed into a gurgling noise that slowly faded.  The water rose above their noses, their haunting moonlit eyes remaining focused in front of them as they walked beneath the water’s surface and disappeared.

I couldn’t believe what I had just seen and heard.  Part of me was terrified and wanted to run away and I almost did.  But looking across the lake, I could see a pile of clothes on the shoreline.  My mind raced trying to choose between fight or flight, but I finally chose to compromise somewhere in between.  I decided that I had to investigate the clothes pile.  I began walking briskly around the path.  I rounded the south end and approached the cedar sentries.  I wondered how they could stand so tall and straight after witnessing the sounds and sights of that night.  I raised a quick salute for the fallen, but its surrender was expedited when I saw what was lying on the bank.

There piled neatly on the feet of a pair of well-worn Justin cowboy boots were a pair of blue jeans, a pair of tighty-whiteys, a belt, a shirt, and a red Farm & Ranch ballcap.  My heart sank.  I knew that my friend and all his sorrow had fed The Wailing Woman that night.  That is why she was plump and beautiful, and he was sagging and drained.

I wasn’t sure what to think of what I had seen.  Was The Wailing Woman evil or was she simply ridding my friend of his pain?  I chose the latter, thinking of her as an angel, sent to free my friend of his earthly burdens, returning him to his wife and his daughter in heaven.

I searched his clothing that night for identification, but there was nothing except for the red ballcap.  I decided to take the cap with me so it would not be recognized and connected to Gary.  Instead, the police would be called to the lake to find yet another set of derelict clothes on the muddy bank of Sunset Lake, with bare footprints leading into the deep.

I never went back to the lake at night, nor did I tell anyone what I had seen.  The experience had changed me and opened a deep depression within.

***

Tonight, I’m flying solo to go pickup my medical crew from Santa Fe, New Mexico.  The summer weather has stirred up some nighttime thunderstorms along the Sangre de Cristo mountains and I’m feeling a bit lonely as I skirt the towering storms.  They make me feel so small and insignificant.  They make me miss my friend Gary and our park bench sessions.

Lightning flashes and fills the cabin of the small King Air aircraft.  The sadness of the loss of my friend weighs on me heavier than normal.  I reach into my backpack and pull out his red Farm & Ranch ballcap.  It comforts me momentarily, but the sorrow quickly returns.  It is all-consuming.

Another flash of lightning lights up the cockpit and in the windscreen’s reflection I catch a glimpse of an emaciated female figure standing in the cabin aisle behind me.  Suddenly a wailing sound reverberates through the fuselage of the plane.  The wailing is so loud that my eardrums rupture and blood begins to trickle from my headset’s ear cushions.  My muscles cramp and then disintegrate.  My skin sags, hanging from my bones.  I no longer have the strength to control the airplane and the yoke slips from my fingers.

I look at my reflection in the windscreen, and I can see that my face is nothing, but a skeleton wrapped in loose skin.  The engines roar with their own escalating screams as the aircraft races downward in an uncontrolled descent.  A plump hand reaches forward and grabs mine, lifting our arms in front of us as if we are reaching for the storm we are now diving toward.  The King Air abruptly rolls upside down and the boiling storm clouds engulf it.  The wailing fades.