HALLOWEEN WEEK 2024 CONTEST
Honourable Mention
BY TRAVIS WALTERS
Copyright is held by the author.
YEARS GO by, as they do, and I’ve seen my share. Seen winters where the ice gets so thick fools will take their 4×4 and drive onto the middle of the lake. Seen summer skies turn from blue to black in the snap of God’s fingers. Times like that you best pray you’re nowhere near the surface of that lake.
Aye, she gives and she takes. Provided for me and mine, three generations strong. Put food on the table and helped put clothes on our backs. But she can take as much as she can give. Over the years, there’ve been countless lives lost in its depths. Pete, the grocer, old sneaky Pete folks called him on account of his tendency to accidentally bill you twice for the same item, well, he lost his first wife on the lake when they was both young. Too much wine, too much wind and too small a boat.
Frank Pritchard, he had some relatives visiting up from the States just two years back. Similar story. A pair of teenagers snuck some Crown when no one was looking and got it in their heads that they might do a little late-night fishing. Took a little two-seater flat bottom out to the middle of the lake. They found the boat but never did find them boys. Yanks never could handle our whiskey.
And yeah, there was my own girl. Naomi. Weren’t no booze involved in that one. No matter what people tells ya. And they do like to talk, don’t they? I’m not saying I never touched the stuff before she died. Hell, I was no worse than anyone everyone else back then. But, no, not on that day. I was sober as the day was long. It wasn’t dark either, nor stormy. The lake was as smooth and gentle as can be. The surface was so still it looked like you could go walk right out from the shore. And Naomi, she loved boats. Glen, my eldest, never took to them. Nor Grayson, the middle child, and aren’t they all trouble? He never cared much for the water none. Naomi was always asking to come out with me whether I was fishing with the big nets at work, or just sitting on the doc with my rod and reel. She always wanted to be by my side, much to her ma’s chagrin.
Normally I told her to stay behind, wouldn’t even let her set foot on the trawler less it was safely docked. Fraid’ she get tangled in a net, or catch her finger on a hook. Later, I’d tell her. Always later. Finally, when my heart couldn’t stand the broken look she gave me every time I denied her, I caved in. But her ma, my ex-wife, Jessy, said not that old rust bucket, meaning the 25-foot trawler we used for work. She said take her out for a short ride on the little outboard we had. Naomi was ecstatic. Beamin’, you might say. Course Glen and Grayson stayed behind, what a blessing that turned out to be. I coulda lost em all that day. Or maybe things mighta been different if they came along. Who’s to say? Thinkin’ like that too much is enough to drive a man to the looney bin.
It was calm as I said. Sunny day. Weren’t much traffic on the water either. By the ocean, they talk about rouge waves: massive amounts of water come outta nowhere, washing people out to sea in the blink of an eye. Perfect little families, shattered by these freak accidents. It weren’t like at all. There weren’t no wave.
When you think of something terrible happening, something horrific. You picture dark, stormy nights. Thrashing waves, violin bows drawn across strings like nails on a chalkboard. It weren’t like that either. It was… peaceful… beautiful. The serine kinda moment that they turn into puzzles for middle-aged women to pick at. One minute, Naomi was there, beaming away at me, life coat snug up around her chubby cheeks, pale-golden hair blowing like wheat in a field. Skin getting redder from the sun.
Then something bumped the boat. Not a big old rocking, or a lurching, just a bump. We weren’t going that fast. I looked over the edge to see if I had hit something, but I didn’t see nuttin’. Just the gentle ripple of the water. Then I hear a smooth splash, like something slipping outta the water. I heard a muffled grunt, a hint of a scream. The boat rocked again, just as subtle as before, only on the other side. Where Naomi was sittin’. I looked back over, and she was gone. Just gone.
I thought she must be pranking me, hiding like she always did. But it was just a boat; there wasn’t anywhere to hide. I dove across as best I could, half tripping over the benches till I got to where she was sitting not one moment before. My movements sent the boat to rocking and as the bow tipped down, I saw her deep down in the water. Naomi, staring back up at me. Eyes big as saucers, her mouth open wide, whatever screaming she was doing was lost in the water. I couldn’t hear it, but I swear to you now, I could feel it. Feel the vibrations of that scream, so strong, rattling my teeth. Her face, so full of horror, so full of fear. And the sun’s rays, its perfect warm light, penetrating down just enough so I could see her. Then the boat bobbed, the bow went up and I lost sight of her.
I dove in, clothes and all. Course I did, what else could I do? Didn’t even think about it. Just… whoosh, over the side, into the water. The shock hit me like a jolt of electricity. The day might have been beautiful, temperature pushing thirty, but the lake was always cold.
I opened my eyes, and I couldn’t see for shit. The water was murky, impossible to see through, but I swam down as fast as I could. It weren’t even that deep, maybe thirteen feet, but I ain’t no Olympian. It’s hard to move against the push of the water. Like it knows you’re an outsider, that don’t belong under the surface, and it tries to keep you at bay.
It’s different down there. Everything’s different. Like an alien world, just behind the curtain of all we think we know. The sound too. Amplified and muffled at the same time. Weeds reaching up from the bottom of the lake, like venomous snakes trying to bite at ya’.
I managed to paddle down close to the bottom and I could see these huge rocks. Folks don’t believe me, but it’s clearer down there. I swear to you. And I could see her. My little Naomi, air bubbles trickling past the lips of her mouth. Her face, a white mask of fear. Horrified eyes stared back at me. And something just behind her. Another face with blue-green, scaly skin. Huge yellow eyes. Bulbous, fatty lips. Sneering back at me with thin needle-like teeth.
I was so close, I could almost reach out and grab her. I knew if I could just get a hold on, I could pull her back to the surface, but I couldn’t fight no more against the water. Black spots were creeping in from the sides of my vision and the panic was settin’ in. I began to flail in the water. I was fighting some ape-like part of me, desperate to save itself. Weaker and weaker, I got thrashing against the water. Then finally, I saw a hand, a webbed, clawed thing, reach over my Naomi’s face, and pull her back down behind a rock, to some deep underwater hell.
My last thought before I lost consciousness, the realization that I had, haunts me to this day. When that webbed hand went over her face, she didn’t move, except for her golden hair twirling in her wake. She didn’t react to it at all. My Naomi was dead.
Then blackness took me.
I don’t know how I got back to the surface. Just floated up I suppose. Maybe the lake, done with terrorizing me, just spit me out. Some folks passing by saw me floating next to the boat. They fished me out and brought me to shore.
Sure enough, no one believes me. Believes what I saw. Some think I was drunk, despite the fact the cops did their breathalyzer tests on me and it came back negative. Others say I was suffocating and my mind would have me seeing all sorts of monsters in the water. But I know that there are things down there, beneath the surface. Terrible things. Go, find out for yourself, I’m not the only one what seen em. Folks have been telling tales about em for years, centuries even. Deep Ones some call them. Squishers, Murlocks. Don’t matter what name you give them, they’re monsters, hiding, just outta view. Only in the stories they tell about em’, they always come out at night, come out in storms, stalking in the shadows. But don’t you believe that. They can come at you at any point, any time of the day.
Watch out; always keep an eye on the water, for even a warm summer dream can become a nightmare.
***
Travis Walters has been living La Vida Laboratory for the last 20 years, working in a blood bank. Being literally in over his head with blood has been swell, but he has always yearned to tell stories with rich and immersive characters and sometimes scary, scaly monsters.
As an amateur writer, he has self-published six mid-grade fiction novels, all part of a series entitled The Orphans of Pearl Place.