Asylum Lake Read Online Free PDF Page A

master the art of chopsticks,” Brady often joked as the dog sat at his feet licking the remnants of rice and vegetables from the carryout containers.
    French doors opened off the kitchen to a small deck overlooking the lake. He had helped his father hang the doors during spring break of his freshman year of high school. The old maple tree along the side of the house had been split by lightning during one of the worst storms to hit the area since the Big One of 1958, famous for knocking out power for three months across three counties.
    The strike had sent the business end of the tree crashing through the roof, demolishing half the house. Between the mess in the kitchen, the wind-blown rain, and the resulting water damage throughout, the place was a complete and utter disaster. Surprisingly, his father took it all in stride. He had seemed almost excited by the family’s misfortune. His parents had talked for years about wanting to remodel the kitchen, fix the aging roof, and maybe even adding some extra space for an office.
    Brady wasn’t sure how much his parents had sunk into the renovations, but there was no way insurance had covered everything. His father had used that lightning strike as an excuse to rebuild that old log cabin into his mother’s dream house. In the span of a few short months The Up North House was transformed from the place they spent their summers and long weekends, to the home where his parents would someday spend their retirement. Not that any of that mattered now.
    Brady walked through the French doors with Gruff in tow. Wind blew in from across the lake causing the tree limbs overhead to bend and sway. A set of chimes fashioned from old forks and spoons hung from the deck’s lattice overhang. Sixth-grade Bible camp, Brady thought, as the rusty silverware clanked in the breeze above him, worst week of my life.
    While Brady was growing up, a Seventh Day Adventist family had moved in next door to their house in Grand Rapids. The much-too-friendly neighbors made it their mission to “save” the Tanner family. His parents were able to politely decline their repeated invitations to attend Bible studies or Saturday services, but somehow they convinced Brady’s mother that a week at Bible camp would be “a good thing.” Seven days without television, radio or anything that resembled real food, equated to the worst form of torture a young boy could endure. Not to mention all of the singing and praying. The only lasting impressions Brady had taken from the experience were those damn chimes and a severe distaste for organized religion.
    Stairs descended from the deck to an area of brick pavers with a fire-pit ringed with stones. His father had carefully arranged a collection of tree stumps around the pit for seating. A few short strides from the fire-pit led to the beach where an old wooden dock extended out over the lake.
    Brady paused at the fire pit. The remnants of fires past still lay inside; the charred logs and debris covered memories were burned recognition. The wind off the lake warned of a coming storm, and the gathering clouds played hide-and-seek with the moon allowing just enough filtered light to reflect off the lake’s choppy surface. In the distance, the Asylum stood silhouetted against a backdrop of trees and hills. Brady was surprised to see that the building, which had shuttered its doors and windows half a century before, hadn't been leveled and replaced with a condo development or golf course.
    Sweeping his gaze across the lake’s shadowed waves, Brady was struck by surprise, the float is gone.
    When Brady was eleven, he and his father had strapped sections of the old dock to a couple of barrels and swam them out to the middle of the lake. They used chains tied around cement blocks to keep them in place. Most mornings they would race from the beach, swim to the float, then stretch out to bake in the sun. They’d talk about sports, life…and girls. He was twelve when Dad tried