By The Lake

I

They stood at the shore in the mid-day sun, peering over Bluebell Lake as it lay with an almost supernatural stillness that caused it to resemble a mirror.

Despite Julia Arburn having protested greatly, her husband Jacob believed this place was going to be the beginning of the rest of their lives. And that, it would be. Jacob had longed to return to the familiar setting of his childhood. Jacob considered himself to be a hard-working man and he believed (like most husbands do) that he was doing what was best for his family. Julia on the other hand had argued with him more times than he cared to remember.

Julia would complain: “We will be so far from the city.”

Jacob would tell her: “The nearest town is only twenty minutes away.”

“We can’t afford to move, the house costs too much.” She would worry.

“My new job is going to be paying six-figures.” He’d argue.

Julia had told Jacob, “I hate this idea of being stuck in a place that will be snowed in during the Winter.”

Jacob—doing his husbandly duty—would tell her, “Our future children will enjoy it.” (Julia was already three months pregnant by that time, and it was to be their first child). Jacob said, “It will give them the kind of Christmas they could never experience in the deserts of Death Valley.”

Despite all this, Julia still insisted to argue with Jacob over and over again.

II

Jacob understood Julia’s real reason for complaining: Julia always had a fear of the water. When Julia was eight her younger brother Garret had gone missing during a family camping trip. Julia’s family had spent three days searching the campground for Garret and Jacob could remember Julia telling the story only once, and then it seemed as though she never mentioned Garret again.

“I had been too little to really understand what it meant to have my brother—a child at that—go missing for that long.” Julia had said. “I could remember my parents were sitting on a bench over by a building where people would go to drink beer and listen to live music.” Julia didn’t know what a bar was at that age so that’s how she described it and Jacob always thought that was kind of funny, but he would never tell her that.

There had been a small deck behind the bar which stood a few feet above the lake next to the campground. The deck was under maintenance that summer and so it had been blocked off to the public. Julia remembered her mom had been crying while her dad and the sheriff were looking over a map.

“I still feel guilty for walking away from them so I could trespass into the area that was blocked off.” Julia had told Jacob. “I can’t imagine what it would have done to my parents had I gone missing too.”

Jacob felt she was being too hard on herself for that—she was just a kid, after all—she couldn’t know better.

While Julia told Jacob this, he could see her eyes starting to gloss over and he knew how much it hurt her. When Julia got to the part where she told Jacob she reached the deck's stairs that met the lake's water, and her eyes broke loose, he knew what she would say—well, not entirely.

III

The deck behind the bar had been standing there for at least half a century. It was grey and green in color due to the moss and mold that had seeped into the grain of the rotting brown wooden planks that ran across the floor.

Julia walked along the wooden planks as she stared at her reflection in the panes of glass that were separated by wood muntins while making careful not to be caught by the sheriff deputies or bartenders who worked inside. She playfully made her way across, ducking under a window when she felt like she was being watched and eventually found herself standing at the end where a staircase met with a shallow point (not more than three feet deep) in the water of the lake.

“Why is it so black?” Julia spoke softly as she peered over the edge of the small staircase. It wasn’t that the water was dirty—far from it actually—as most of the water in the lake was a crystal clear light blue color that resembled the thousand-year old water which flowed down the melting glaciers in the polar regions of the Earth.

Julia looked down for some time and realized she couldn’t see anything at the bottom (she also realized the water wasn’t reflecting anything either). Julia’s face, the wooden deck behind the bar, and even the sun had refused to reflect in the blackness of that water. Time itself seemed to be absorbed into the blackness and disappeared just as the sunlight had. Julia felt this incredible feeling as though her entire eight years of life up until that moment had been spent staring into the black abyss that stood before her.

IV

Julia’s crying had become so uncontrollable at that point that Jacob didn’t think she would be capable of finishing the story, and he didn’t want her to. He could never figure out if it was because he hated seeing her in pain, or because he was terrified of having to share her burden in the trauma.

V

Julia looked down after what had felt like her lifetime and realized she was standing on the middle step of the staircase leading into the black water. The water was cold—freezing in fact—despite it still being a hot mid-summer day. The water sloshed just half way between Julia’s knees and her blue high-rise jean shorts. As it fell back into the water Julia realized for the first time that the water wasn’t truly black, it was clear.

As Julia moved her head upwards to look from her knees to the horizon, terror like none she had ever known before consumed her. Julia’s eyes widened as though, if they could go any further, they would fall from their sockets and into the blackness—black that was actually clear—of the water below.

Emerging before Julia’s eyes through the black abyss of the lake was Garret. His body seemed to appear from no where and he seized all of Julia’s focus as he stood there—not floating the way you would expect, but actually standing—and Julia, despite knowing Garret was certainly dead, looked into his eyes with a horror stricken expression carved into her face and could see that he was looking at her.

Terrified with panic, Julia threw herself back towards the safety of the rotting deck and away from the water. Her back slammed against the deck in excruciating pain and as she did that—both beyond doubt and reason—she saw the dead eyes of her brother Garret follow her.

Julia screamed in shock and horror and tried to crawl backwards. While Julia struggled to get away one of Garret’s arms floated—reached—out towards her. Every fiber and every ounce of Julia’s being forced her to push and claw backwards away from the staircase. Garret’s eyes continued to follow Julia and in that moment she came to discover the awful truth: Garret wasn’t reaching so Julia could pull him out, he was reaching because he wanted to pull her in. Garret wanted Julia to be with him.

VI

Jacob moved his arm around Julia’s waist while he remembered that story. “They said he was dead for five days” suddenly appeared in his mind.

“What do you think?” Jacob asked.

“Well, you were right. It is beautiful.” Julia responded and looked into Jacob’s eyes with a smile.

“I told you you’d love it.” Replied Jacob.

“I’ll love it more when you build the fence around our yard. I don’t want little Junior here to have anything happen to him.” She said in a tone which Jacob understood stemmed from her feelings of guilt over the death of Garret.

“You mean little Eleanor.” Jacob corrected with a slight smirk on his face.

The two of them had made an arrangement when they decided to have a child: if it were to be a boy Julia would be the one to choose the name while Jacob would choose the name if their child were to be a girl. Jacob always thought Julia would go with Garret, but when she settled on Jacob he was partially disappointed. It wasn’t that Jacob hated his name; he just felt it would have been better to honor her brother than to honor him. After learning Julia chose his name for a boy, Jacob decided he would pick Eleanor for a girl. Eleanor had been the name of Julia’s mother who passed away when Julia was a teen.

VII

Julia, who was fourteen and attended Wilson High School, had panicked when a storm caused a sudden power outage. It had been raining for several hours and Mr. Jameson, the school principal, didn’t want to deal with Julia any longer. Being terrified of storms (really, anything to do with water since Garret’s death) Julia begged Mr. Jameson to let her go home.

Eleanor, being the kind loving mother that she was, agreed to drive down and pick Julia up from school. Even though, mind you, even though there were severe flash flood warnings in the area and Eleanor knew she had to cross the Walker Dam (historically known to overflow in severe weather). Still, she agreed to go.

God bless that woman’s soul.

Tragically, as fate would have it, just as Eleanor was driving across that mile-long dam, the water began to spill over, and with all it’s might it swept poor Eleanor and her little four-door sedan away.

Into the black water she went. Never to be heard from again.

VIII

“Come on, let’s get back inside. I need to get some lamps plugged in before it’s too dark.” Jacob removed his arm from around Julia’s waist (Julia had hardly noticed that his arm was there at all) and started to head back towards the house.

Julia looked out towards the lake: If you stare long enough into the black water something will stare back. She hardly noticed the thought. Julia would rather convince herself that the chills along her spine came from the sudden breeze that caused the lake to ripple. The lake moved first. It moved before the wind. Julia turned around and started walking towards the house. Jacob was already beyond her sight.

“Julia.”

It was fast, and despite being a whisper, it was the kind that wanted to be heard; and Julia heard it. There was something familiar about it every time she did, but over the years she had learned to ignore it. Julia had been convinced the whisper was a symptom of schizophrenia and even after being placed on medication the whisper still kept calling out her name. The whisper didn’t go away until she met Jacob, but ever since Julia became pregnant she started to hear it again. And this place, the whisper wasn’t just getting louder here, it was becoming more frequent.

The dense forest was the only thing that surrounded the property, and their closest neighbors were a least a mile or two in any direction and Julia knew the whisper didn’t come from them. Julia paused in her step to take a look around. Julia could only see the green in the trees that stood at the edge of the shore before the forest began to swallow the color into its darkness. Never whistle at night, she remembered. It was just ancient folklore. A way for the Natives and others to describe a falling tree branch, or even a pine cone at that. They’re not in the forest, they’re in the water. Julia lingered on the thought for a moment with her arms crossed around her chest while hugging herself in a tight grip. Julia was being watched by something—she could feel it—and though it was a feeling Julia has always had when standing near water, this was the first time she ever sensed it coming from the wilderness. Julia couldn’t help to wonder: what would happen if I were to whistle, it wasn’t night yet anyways but if something were to be in that forest how would it even know the difference.

Julia turned her head towards her house. The path leading from the beach was cleared and lined with cobblestone. Julia followed it with her eyes towards the small staircase that lead up to the deck in the back yard. The entire house was a dark natural looking brown color that had been only lightly weathered. Julia thought the house was made of redwood, but she didn’t know for sure. Eight large glass windows faced towards the beach with the two in the center cut out for the doors. Julia imagined the house would have looked much better if there had been a point in the center rather than the entire thing being a simple flat line all the way across. It almost looked like a real home to her now that Jacob had the lamps on inside.

Julia didn’t realize it yet, but she had already been standing out there alone for an hour. That loss of time happened to Julia more often than she cared to think about. It was like time itself was pulling away from her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. When Julia did think about it it would remind her of that look in Garret’s eyes when she knew he wanted to pull her into the water to be with him.

Julia didn’t see anything in the forest. It's useless to search for these things, they only show themselves when it's too late anyways. Julia started walking towards the cobblestone path and when she got to it she couldn’t hold herself back any longer. Very lightly Julia started to whistle, and though she was skipping lyrics, it was to the tune of "Our House." It was only Julia’s second time on the path but she felt like she could walk it with her eyes closed, as though she’d been walking it her entire life. Déjà-Vu. That’s the name of the album that song came from. Julia then realized she was walking the path with her eyes closed and had managed to make it all the way to the deck's stairway.

The realization made Julia stop her whistling and it occurred to her that an absolute stillness had taken the air. Julia looked behind her, back towards the lake, and it too had become still again. The beginning of the rest of my life. Julia closed her eyes again and for a moment thought she heard the wind over the lake whistle to the same tune she’d been doing, and in her right ear she heard a loud whisper.

“Julia.”

IX

In a burst of thunder and lightening the figure of a woman stood by the lake.

“Julia.”

Julia opened her eyes to the booming thunder to see the bolt of lightening still streaking across the sky which now had seemed to suddenly turn black. The lake was covered in a deep fog and the rain was only a trickle. Julia was confused, and she was cold. Julia didn’t understand why she was standing at what appeared to be the lake's shore.

Julia looked down at her cold wet feet and noticed she couldn’t see her toes despite the feeling of sand between them. The lightening flashed a second time and when it did Julia realized it wasn’t just her shoes that were missing. In the lingering light from that flash Julia looked down and could see the bare bulging of her belly where her first child would be forming inside her womb. The light mist of rain fell upon her chest and reflected brightly in the flash like the sweat of a jogger under the summer sun. Julia now realized in that near blinding flash that she was standing there completely naked and waist deep inside the lake.

In the third flash of lighting Julia raised her hands to her face and she could see they were pruning, she didn’t know how long she had been there but she knew it must have been hours. Julia looked out beyond her hands into the the black abyss of the lake. It was still lit by the previous bolt of lightening and then she looked down at the water again.

“Jacob!” She cried out.

Staring back at Julia laying between her legs was the pale green face of her stillborn child which floated at the surface. The infant's eyes were sunken and wide, as though two golf balls had been launched across a golf course and landed deep inside the sockets and protruded in a way that the lids of the eyes would never shut. The skin around them appeared black and the infant's forehead seemed enlarged while black strands of hair floated like tangled pieces of yarn. The veins in its neck fluctuated in such a way that made it look as though many voices were attempting to escape through its gnawing jaw and Julia believed she could hear them screaming her name.

The sky rattled again and in that final flash Julia looked back towards the shore as her frightful tears began to mix with the rain. Standing before her were the silhouettes of three figures: A man as tall as Jacob; A woman who looked eerily like her mother Eleanor; and a child which horrified her with his resemblance to her brother Garret. Julia threw her hands frantically towards her face and wiped the tears from her eyes and scratched herself as she did. She looked down at her hands again and saw they were covered in black water.

“Jacob!” Julia cried out again, and from the silhouettes standing by the lake, Julia heard a whisper.