The Lake & 17 Other Stories Read online

  The whole thing happened so fast I never had time to open my mouth. One second Brayden was there and the next he was gone. Poof! Dragged under the water like a fishing bobber that doesn’t work.

  I looked down and noticed my feet were touching the lake. I jumped back and sat in the grass by the ghostly white trunk of a birch, dropping the Coleman. Thankfully it didn’t break. All I could think of was getting my shoes off. They had algae on them, and so they had to go. I could hardly get my fingers to work because they shook so badly.

  Once I got the shoes off I grabbed the lantern, wondering how much juice the batteries held, and sprinted back toward the camp in my socks. Small stones and twigs jabbed at the bottom of my feet, but I barely noticed. I ran until I didn’t have much breath left and had to stop or risk giving myself a heart attack. I bent over and heaved up my dinner, splattering the grass with puke.

  I looked to the right; the lake sat shimmering twenty yards away. The light of the Coleman didn’t touch it, but the moonlight cast an eerie luminescence on the surface of the water, and the algae continued to give off a faint, sinister glow.

  “Dude!” The voice came at me from up ahead. I looked up to see a lantern bouncing in the darkness like it was on a tripwire. “Dude, is that you?”

  Mickey ran up to me, clutching the Coleman like his life depended on it. Behind him Spencer huffed and puffed, a locomotive on low steam. Josh was not with them.

  “Where’s Josh?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “It got him! Spencer screamed. “It fucking got him!”

  Mickey dropped his lantern to the ground and tackled Spencer. “Don’t start that shit again, man,” he said. “Pull it together.”

  “What got him? The algae?” I asked.

  “See?” Spencer said, “See, Mickey? I fucking told you! He saw it too!” Spencer pointed right at me. “Now get off me, you asshole!”

  Mickey looked up, his eyes begging me not to say it. I couldn’t lie, though. Some weird shit was going on.

  “Brayden’s gone, too,” I said. “He jumped in the lake and that green shit…it just fucking grabbed him and dragged him under.”

  “How much of his weed did you smoke, man?” Mickey asked me.

  I just glared at him. Mickey and I were the only ones in the cabin who didn’t smoke weed. Christ, I had a scholarship to think about. I couldn’t afford classes without it. Mickey knew that.

  “You know I didn’t smoke any, Mickey,” I said.

  “Fuck!” Mickey said, still sitting on top of Spencer. “What are you telling me, man? This lake eats people?”

  “I don’t know, Mickey. But I saw Brayden go down. Whatever that green crap is, it pulled him under.”

  “Goddammit, Mick. I told you, now get the fuck off me!” Spencer’s face had turned bright red in the light of the Coleman.

  Mickey stood up, grabbed his lantern, and without even looking at Spencer, he walked up to me. “What did you see?”

  “I told you,” I replied. “The algae pulled him under.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Then go for a fucking swim.” I said. I turned away from him and headed back to the camp. “I’m getting my ass back to the cabin, and then first thing tomorrow morning I’m leaving this dump and going back to Dallas. You guys can stay here and go swimming if you want to.”

  “What about Brayden and Josh?” Spencer called.

  “They’re gone.” I replied. As soon as I said it, I knew it was true. “They’re gone, and I bet Wally’s gone, too.”

  “Shit,” Mickey said, and stepped into line behind me. “We should call the cops.”

  “Fuck that,” Spencer said. “They’d probably arrest all of us as suspects, and I’m not—”

  Spencer was cut off as he tripped in the grass, smashing his nose in the muck. He looked up, his face covered with mud and goop. “What the fuck? Hey!”

  Then he slid backward toward the lake. We were on an incline, so at first we thought it was gravity that pulled at him. I took a closer look, and that’s when I saw the green rope wrapped around his foot. The rope was the same glowing green color as the algae in the lake, and the other end of it was submerged under the murky water.

  I threw my lantern to the ground and grabbed one of Spencer’s hands, then I planted my socked feet in the muddy grass and pulled. It was no use; the rope pulled both of us along as easily as it had pulled Spencer by himself. I looked over my shoulder, wanting to ask Mickey for help, but he was gone. I suppose I couldn’t blame him. The first time I saw the algae attack someone I couldn’t do anything but piss myself. At least Mickey had the presence of mind to get the fuck out of there.

  By this time Spencer was screaming at me not to let go, and I tried; I really did. But his hands were so covered with muck and mud from scrabbling at the ground that I couldn’t get a good grip. As a green tendril slid up his torso and covered his mouth, I lost my footing and fell backward into the mud, losing my grip on Spencer’s wrist.

  Spencer slid down to the water and a green carpet of algae enfolded him, neat as caterpillar’s cocoon, and pulled him the rest of the way into the water. I slid in right behind him, grabbing frantically at anything I could get my hands on, but the slope was too slick, and I splashed into the water a pair of seconds behind Spencer.

  The water was fucking cold, I noticed that right away, and it was murky, too. I couldn’t see a thing. I pushed my head through the surface and gulped in air, thrashing around and trying to keep the algae off me long enough to climb out of the water. What I saw when I opened my eyes made my bladder let go.

  Right in front of me, Spencer’s face, half covered by green moss, bobbed just above the surface. One wide blue eye, streaked with red, pleaded with me to help, but there was nothing I could do. Blood leaked out of his nose and the corner of his eyes. Beneath the green carpet that covered him, I heard his muffled screams. Then another sound, a cracking like branches snapping, filled the air, and Spencer’s one visible eye clenched shut. His torso seemed to fold in on itself. The muffled screaming stopped and Spencer’s face relaxed as he, too slid under the surface of the lake.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, over and over again. “Oh, shit. Oh shit. Oh, shit!”

  The algae floated all around me, shimmering in the moonlight just under the surface of the water. I glanced back toward the shore, ten feet away. The water was up to my chest. I’d never make it. Five and a half feet of the floating green stuff hovered in the water between me and freedom. I clenched my eyes and waited for the worst, wondering what my corpse would look like. I counted down the seconds I had left to live.

  Thirty seconds went by. Then another thirty. Then sixty more. After three minutes, I opened my right eye and looked around. The glowing algae was gone.

  Without waiting to find out why, I bolted for the shore, running full speed from the lake and back toward the cabin. I left the Coleman where it sat, lighting the edge of the lake where now only normal algae seemed to grow.

  I reached the cabin and the door was wide open. Mickey must have beaten me back. That made sense since he ran screaming from the shore while I tried to save Spencer. I hoped he was still inside so I could beat the living shit out of him for leaving us to die like that. Fucking pansy!

  When I stepped into the room I saw him lying on the floor. The cowardly bastard must have fainted. I pulled off my sodden shirt, walked up to him and kicked him hard in the ribs. “Get up you chickenshit!” I yelled. “Get the fuck up!” But he didn’t move.

  That’s when I noticed the spreading pool of blood underneath him.

  “He’s dead, man.” A voice behind me said. I turned to see Wally standing in the hall, a joint in one hand and a gun in the other, complete with a muzzle silencer. Wally raised the gun and pointed it right at me, then brought the joint to his lips and took a long puff.

  “You guys didn’t smoke the weed, did you?”

  “What?” I asked, never taking my eyes off the gun.

&n
bsp; “The weed,” Wally said. “It’s special. The lake smells it. That’s how it knows when to eat.”

  “What?” Then the pieces clicked into place in my head. “You son of a bitch. You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Well, everyone’s gotta eat, you know.”

  I looked at the door, a good ten feet away. Could I sprint through it before Wally shot me? I didn’t know, but I didn’t have much choice. I tensed my legs, ready to bolt.

  “Don’t even try it,” Wally said. “I’ve got you dead to rights.”

  I looked back at him and realized it was true. He could squeeze the trigger before I could move. Fuck. He had me. What to do? I sure as hell didn’t want to die in that cabin, but I wasn’t going to let him march me down to the lake, either, if that was his plan. I said a quiet prayer and tried the oldest trick in the book. I looked over his shoulder and tried to look like I was focusing on something behind him, hoping he was stoned enough to fall for it.

  He was. He turned his head just slightly. I threw my wadded up T-shirt at his head and bolted for the door. The shirt smacked into his face with a wet plop, but the bastard still got a shot off. I heard a light fwiiiiip and white fire seared through my shoulder as the bullet went in one side and out the other. Luckily it didn’t hit any bones and just tore through muscle. It hurt like a bastard, but I could still run. And run I did.

  I sped out of the cabin and sprinted toward the lake, hoping to stop at one of the other camps that dotted the shore. Behind me Wally screamed at me. The colossal fuck even had the audacity to tell me to hold still. Yeah, right. Let me make it easy for you, Wally, you prick!

  I ran to the lake and sped along the shore, not really having a clear idea of where I was going. All around me patches of dirt and grass popped up as Wally let loose a volley. Fwiiip! Fwiiip! Fwiiip! The bullets whizzed around me, one passed so close to my ear I heard it buzz as it went by. I ducked as another round tore into my lower back. Fuck, that hurt!

  Then a round caught me in the knee and I fell face-first into the muck and grass, panting and wheezing like a track star right after a marathon. I tried to pull myself forward, but my shoulder couldn’t hold my weight, and I just fell again. So this is it, I thought. This is how I’m gonna die.

  Then Wally screamed. At first I thought it was a victory scream, but soon I heard the terror in his voice. I pulled myself up on my good arm just in time to see him fall to the ground, a glowing green rope wrapped around his ankle. He raised his gun and pointed it at the water. Fwiiip! Splash! Fwiiip! Splash! Click! Click! Out of ammo.

  “No,” he screamed at the rope. “No, not me! I feed you! I take care of you!”

  He looked over at me. “I take care of it.” His eyes brimmed with moisture.

  Then a bit of the mossy rope covered his mouth, muffling his screams like Spencer’s and Brayden’s before him. Wally was dragged, kicking and fighting, into the lake. I watched as he sank below the surface, leaving nothing but a ripple.

  “You shouldn’t have smoked your own weed,” I said.

  Headaches

  After months of headaches, she finally went to the doctor. As the platform slid into the waiting maw of the MRI, she breathed a sigh of relief. Dr. Seymour was a specialist, he’d help her.

  “Now just relax, Miss Emmil,” he said through her headphones. “Try to stay perfectly still.”

  In the confines of the MRI, she twitched as the machine thumped to life.

  “Very good, Miss Emmil. Ah, there it is. As I suspected, you have a dense tissue mass just behind the temporal lobe. It resembles a variation of—holy shit!”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  “It… it moved.”

  Kyle is Hungry

  Kyle bit into the severed forearm and almost fainted. He’d eaten the fingers already, and they were great. But this… this was Heaven. There was so much more meat. His teeth ripped a chunk of flesh from the bone, and a drop of blood rolled down his chin. He grinned. Still warm.

  In the weak light, he could see the pooled blood on the floor near the hacksaw. Such a waste. Next time he’d bring a bucket.

  The door opened, and his mother stepped into the room.

  “Kyle! Oh, God, what have you done to your arm?”

  Late Night Swim

  The Hudson is full of ghosts.

  I descend through the icy water to meet them, shivering from more than just the cold.

  The city lights filter down, pale and wavering, to the outstretched arms of the waiting dead. They look like plants reaching for sunlight. As I settle among them, my body raises a small cloud of silt, barely visible in the lightless depths of the riverbed.

  I can feel the ghosts gathering around, eager to welcome me as one of their own.

  With my foot chained to the concrete block, I wait, helpless, to join them.

  Protégé

  “How about that one?” The boy asks.

  “Too big,” Mike replies. “How would you overpower him?”

  The boy looks again, a frown creasing his face. “I couldn’t, but you could.”

  Mike smacks him on the head. Hard. “Think, boy! We’re talking about you, not me. Try again.”

  The boy bites back tears and looks around again. “OK, then. That one,” he says, pointing.

  Mike looks in the direction indicated, but sees nothing. His confusion clears up the moment he feels the knife in his back. He slides to the ground, smiling despite the pain.

  “That’s my boy,” Mike says.

  Teeth

  Teeth. That’s what she tells the detective when he asks what she remembers. I watch from the fire escape. This is important. A test. She tells him the thing that attacked her had teeth. Long. Sharp. Painful.

  “That’s all you can remember, miss?” he asks.

  “Yes,” she replies. Her voice cracks. Her eyes, still moist, glisten in the moonlight.

  He turns to look into the alley. A faint trace of a smile touches her lips. Eyes ablaze, she reaches up and grabs his shoulder.

  I smile and nod to myself. She’ll be fine. She has her own teeth now.

  Like the stories in this book? Please check out David McAfee’s other works:

  33 A.D.

  Saying Goodbye to the Sun

  GRUBS

  Find David McAfee online at:

  mcafeeland.wordpress.com

  Facebook: David McAfee

  Twitter: DavidLMcAfee

  Email: [email protected]

  BONUS STORY:

  One Last Dinner Party, by David Dalglish

  “Try to hurry back,” Wilma told Oren as he climbed into his old Ford. “I’ll get worried if you’re out too long, and it’s a devil to put blush on when my face gets red like it does.”

  “Don’t you worry,” said her husband. “Call the Pankratz while I’m gone. Maybe they’ll change their minds.”

  “I doubt they’re home,” she said. “They have family down in Texas, though god knows what the roads look like since the…”

  “Just try.”

  He drove into town, dirt billowing behind his truck. The Dollar Store would have been cheaper, but instead he turned down Main for Hank’s Groceries. Hank waited outside, his ankles crossed, his arms calmly folded over his belly, and a loaded shotgun tilted upward by his feet. Oren pulled up, parked the truck, and shut off the ignition.

  “Morning,” Hank shouted as the roaring engine died. “I was wondering if you’d show.”

  “Yeah,” Oren said. While climbing out, he made a grunting noise and gestured to the shotgun. “Hope you haven’t had to use that.”

  “I’ve let people take what they want,” Hank said. His voice sounded tired, and the puffy darkness below his eyes signified tears, drink, or both. “The first couple families cleared me out. The rest wandered around like stunned mules. I let them see everything’s gone, and then they go, usually holding something weird. You know those filters for the big window air conditioners? Had a guy walk out holding ten, all I had. What in Jesus’s n
ame he think he’s going to do with them?”

  “I’m sorry,” Oren said, as if the whole mess were his fault. He certainly sounded like he thought it was his fault.

  “Think nothing of it,” Hank said. “Though I’m glad to be talking to someone who’s not waving a gun in my face. You hear about the Dollar Store?”

  Oren turned to the side, spat, and then shook his head.

  “Glenda lock it up tight, I take it?” he asked.

  “Not like it did any good. There’s a reason my door is wide open, because if it weren’t, I doubt you and Wilma would ever see my ugly face again. Besides, not like money means anything, not anymore.”

  Oren glanced inside. Every wall and shelf was stripped bare. He caught a puddle of what looked like milk spilled across the floor of one aisle, apple sauce in another. He felt a bit of pity for old Hank, and he clapped him once on the shoulder.

  “Looks like me and Wilma will make do with what we have at the house,” he said. “You’re welcome to come with.”

  “Nah,” Hank said. He glanced back at his store, and he looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. “I planned on climbing up on the roof with one of my lawn chairs and sit up there. And wait, you know? When did they say the whole shitstorm would start?”

  “About four-thirty,” Oren said. “Though you never know. Weathermen are hardly better than the farmer’s almanac. Hell, a coin flip does better than them, I heard once.”

  “Yeah?” said Hank. “I think they’re right this time around. They wouldn’t dare fuck this up. I take it your radio’s out, too?”