Years passed. The reservoir settled into ordinary life. Boats crossed it. Fishermen worked it. The hydroelectric station kept running.
No more incidents or anomalies were officially recorded. But fishermen who set nets in that area sometimes told odd stories. On quiet nights, they heard something.
It was faint, distant male church singing. When asked where it came from, they always pointed toward the restricted zone marked by the buoys. They were not frightened. They were simply used to it.
They said it often happened on major church holidays. As if someone below was still keeping the old calendar. Scientists heard those stories and came with instruments.
They lowered hydrophones into the water and tried to make recordings. All they got was water noise, ice creaking, and stones knocking on the bottom. Nothing supernatural appeared on the instruments.
The local fishermen just gave a dry smile. They said instruments couldn’t hear that sort of thing. You had to listen with your own ears. And maybe with a little faith.
Vance lived to 83 and died in 1996. He remained clear-minded to the end. Shortly before his death, he called his daughter to his bedside.
He told her, “Back on that river in ’54, I saw something that should not exist. But it was there. I can’t explain it.”
“I’ll tell you this much: the past doesn’t drown. Remember that.” She did not understand him then, but she never forgot the words. Carter died earlier, in 1981, of a sudden heart attack.
He said nothing before he died. But among his things they found an old worn notebook. On the last page was a short entry.
“If the service is still going on down there, then there is something death does not interrupt. Something water does not put out, and time does not erase. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s there.”
Mullen lived the longest of all and died in 2003 at the age of 76. He spent the rest of his life in the hospital. He was always calm, quiet, and detached.
Until his last day, he said he heard singing. But the day before he died, he suddenly told an orderly, “Do you hear it? They’re finally finishing.”
“The service is ending,” he added. “Who’s ending it?” the orderly asked, surprised. “The ones down there under the water. They’ve finally been released.”
“Someone went there and said the right words. They’re leaving. I can hear them leaving.” “Where are they going?”
“Where all of us are headed sooner or later,” he said. “Home.” Mullen smiled faintly for the first time in 50 years. He closed his eyes and never opened them again.
And the archive file still sits on its shelf. Sealed. Classified. Unopened. The central reservoir is now called New Lake…
