The Lakes

I never expected to find myself standing over the lakes, clutching onto an axe for dear life. But here we are. Wearing a silk night robe in the dead of winter. A trail of blood pools into my slippers, soaking the snow beneath my feet.

I can’t leave a trail. I have to stop the bleeding before…

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

My grandmother’s cottage on the lake is a place I used to visit as a kid. But because its surroundings actually consist of several lakes tied together, most people just call it The Lakes.

My grandmother inherited the cottage from an old boyfriend of hers in the sixties. When she passed away last winter, it was revealed through her will that she had left it to me. At age twenty-eight, I could officially say I owned a cottage in the woods. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, and a couple hours’ drive outside of the city, but the lake was my zone of peace. The one place I could always go to escape reality, responsibilities, and busy streets.

Which is why I wanted to visit at this particular time of year – the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death. My way of feeling close to her.

I open the creaky door to the cottage and drop my bags to the ground with Noah, my boyfriend of almost six months, right behind me. Before Noah, I had barely even looked at a white man before – much less actually dated one. They just weren’t on my radar in terms of romantic interest. I grew up fearing them, cautious of every move I made in their presence. As though saying the wrong thing or using the wrong tone of voice with them could make or break my very existence.

Their eyes seemed to follow me everywhere I’d go; in line at the grocery store, eating dinner at a restaurant, walking down the street in an oversized parka in minus forty weather. Some might call this normal. Natural even, for men to stare down women they find attractive. But it never felt like attraction to me, it felt like entitlement. As though they felt entitled to invade my personal space by boring their eyes into my body.

There’s a difference between a man shyly glancing your way every now and then because he finds you beautiful versus a man whose eyes seem to follow your every move, even when it’s clear you are uncomfortable. I may not know everything there is to know about the inner workings of the male brain, but I do know that getting off on making a woman feel vulnerable or unsafe has absolutely nothing to do with physical attraction, and everything to do with power and control.

But Noah wasn’t like that; he was charming, sweet, sensitive. I hadn’t known him for very long when we started dating, but he seemed to slip easily into my life. We had so much in common – art, music, books. Even our senses of humor paralleled each other’s.

“Whoa, it’s drab in here,” Noah says, referring to the closed blinds and sea of darkness that seems to swallow us whole. He walks the perimeter of the room, tearing open the curtains to every single window.

My eyes twitch at the sudden brightness. Even though I was just outside not a minute before, the glare from the sun feels blinding inside the cottage.

“It’s just like I remembered,” I say, still marveling at the beauty of its chipped sunflower wallpaper and creaky floorboards after all these years.

“Even got the old VHS collection and everything,” Noah says, resting his hand on the shelf housing all my favorite holiday movies from the nineties. The only reason my grandmother got a television in the first place was because of me. She always did her best to make me feel as at home as possible.

I feel gravitated towards the VHS collection. So many fun memories of us watching Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, which ironically was my grandmother’s favorite. She would always say, “Char, if you ever see me get run over by a reindeer, promise me you will not break out into this horrendous song!” But she would laugh as she said it, letting me know that she didn’t find the song totally horrendous.

“Hm… this is new,” I pull a blank tape out from the bottom shelf.

Noah looks at the tape and shrugs, “Maybe it’s a movie you guys taped off of cable TV?”

The way he says the word cable makes it sound as though taping is completely foreign to him. As though he didn’t grow up in the nineties, which doesn’t make sense because I’m younger than him. Something about this minor and otherwise irrelevant word choice of his makes me feel momentarily disconnected from him and suddenly, I am annoyed Noah is asking me any questions at all about my and my grandmother’s personal Christmas movie collection.

I turn the tape over in my hands, looking for an indication of where it’s from – but with no luck. I sigh. I shouldn’t expect Noah to understand what I’m going through right now. He told me his parents died of old age years ago, meaning he never did get to experience having grandparents.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “But I’m going to hop in the shower now. Would you mind starting that pasta dish?”

___________________________________

Noah made a delicious alfredo sauce while I was sulking under the running water, cursing myself for bringing him at all. This week at the cottage felt personal to me. I wanted to spend it wrapped up in my grandmother’s things, reminded of every memory, every moment we had ever spent together – not explaining those memories to someone who had never even met her.

But when I came out of the shower and tasted that sauce, I could feel my anger – or should I say hanger – dissipate. Maybe having Noah here with me isn’t so bad. After all, I need someone who can take care of me and ground me back down to earth, even if that grounding comes in the form of cheesy, gooey pasta sauce.

It’s after midnight now and Noah has been snoring in bed for the past hour, meaning he’s out cold. Despite my change of heart towards him accompanying me on this trip, there are still a few things I’d like to do by myself. And seeing what’s on that blank VHS tape is one of them.

I open our bedroom door just enough for me to slip out, careful not to squeak the hinges. My wool-knit slippers scurry across the floor to the VHS collection. Something about waking up in the middle of the night to do something all by myself, without anyone’s watchful eye lingering over me, feels thrilling.

I bend down at the shelf, slowly pulling out the mysterious blank tape as if it might explode on me at any moment. It looks so out of place, sitting amongst a colorful array of holiday covers. Has this tape been here all along and I just didn’t notice? Maybe Noah’s right. Maybe it is some old, made-for-TV movie my grandmother had taped off the television. Or off cable, as Noah would say.

I turn on the television and pop open the VCR player, sliding the tape into position. The first couple of seconds shows a blank screen, followed by a few more seconds of static. And that’s when I remember – my grandmother never had cable TV.

Just then, the static cuts to a scene of my grandmother sitting in her rocking chair by the window. She’s lifting a mug to her lips, taking slow sips of what I can only assume is earl grey tea. It’s all my grandmother ever drank. I find the video comforting. I don’t have as much footage of her as I’d like to, other than a few short clips here and there captured on my phone.

Maybe this is a video-message she left behind just for me, from beyond the grave?

I wait a few moments for something to happen, for my grandmother to turn to the camera and smile that big smile of hers, talking about how closely she holds all our memories to her heart. But after the initial excitement wears off, I realize something isn’t right. My grandmother isn’t looking at the camera at all.

Huh, that’s weird. Why would grandma film herself doing something as mundane as drinking tea?

The scene cuts again, this time to my grandmother crocheting a hot plate. She’s sitting in the same rocking chair but wearing an entirely different outfit. Even the time of day looks different.

What the hell is going on?

Before I have a chance to ponder that thought, the scene cuts abruptly again. My grandmother is standing in the kitchen pouring herself her nightly cup of earl grey. I told her so many times to switch to decaf if she was so keen on drinking it before bed, but she just wouldn’t listen.

And then it hits me again, how strange it is for my grandmother to have filmed herself doing regular things around the house.

Just as I’m about to press fast-forward on the machine, I notice a blurry movement in the upper right corner of the screen where the hallway is located. It may be pitch-dark in that corner, but I’m certain I saw something. I inch closer to get a better look.

And that’s when I see it.

Two legs, all in black, standing straight up against the wall. And it is not my grandmother. It is a stranger in my grandmother’s house.

This cottage. A stranger had broken into this very cottage.

I can feel my heartbeat quickening and sweat pooling into the palms of my hands, unprepared for what happens next. Then, as if on cue, the pair of legs lunge at my grandmother just as she’s reaching for her mug. She doesn’t see it coming.

The intruder grabs hold of her from behind, her mug crashing to the floor. But because I can only see their legs, I can’t make out what happens next. All I see is a struggle. My grandmother was trying to fight off her intruder.

I grip my chair’s armrests so tight, I can feel the blood pulsating through my veins.

No no no. It can’t be.

Is this how my grandmother died? I was told she died of natural causes. At least, that’s what we believed.

All of a sudden, my grandmother stops resisting and falls to the floor. The intruder marches out of the cottage, face hidden behind a faceless mask. Before I have time to mourn my grandmother’s gruesome death, the scene cuts again with something even more chilling taking its place – if that were possible.

Me and Noah. From earlier today. Except this footage is much choppier than the last, almost like some sadistic, sped-up version. Me setting my luggage at the door, me stalking down the hall to take my shower, Noah placing his pasta sauce on the table and then finally, me and Noah heading off to bed. This was no more than three hours ago. That means whoever did this came into the cottage to retrieve the tape, transferred tonight’s footage onto it, then came back again to return the tape to its shelf. All while we were sleeping.

That means the killer could be in the house... right now.

I run back to the bedroom at full speed. Thankfully, Noah is still in bed. I shake him until he wakes.

“My God, Charlotte!” He flinches as though I’ve hit him. I leave him no time to speak.

“Shhh! Noah, you have to listen to me,” I bend down and whisper in his ear. “I think there’s someone in the house. They killed my grandmother… and now I think they want to kill us, too!”

Noah’s eyes bug out of his head as though he’s seen a ghost. But then I realize all the blood has drained from my face, so I must look like one now, too.

“Are you nuts, Char?” He rubs away at his eyes. “Are you sure it wasn’t a bad dream?”

“I saw it! You know that blank tape we found? Well, I played it just now and I saw everything. They murdered my grandmother in this cottage. And we’re in it, too. They’ve been stalking us all day, which can only mean we’re next!”

With a huff, Noah gets up and stalks to the living room. I trail slowly behind him, peeking around every corner before each step. He stops at the VCR player and presses play.

And this is where I start to think I might actually be going crazy. An episode of Family Ties starts to play, a show my grandmother loved in the eighties.

“See, Char. Nobody is killing your grandmother,” Noah says, motioning towards the TV. He places one hand on my shoulder. “Look, I know it must be hard for you to accept her death and all. Especially now that you’re back at the cottage. But she died of old age, like most grandmothers do. It must’ve been a bad dream.”

Confused, I follow Noah back to bed. I know what I saw. But at the same time, I do feel lightheaded – and I’ve heard before of people developing major psychiatric disorders in their mid-to-late twenties.

Is that really all this is?

___________________________________

I wake to the sound of birds singing and eggs frying on the pan. I can’t shake the horrible images I saw last night, but at the same time, the whole thing is already starting to feel like some faraway dream. A distant nightmare brought forth by my stay at the cottage – my brain’s way of trying to make sense of my grandmother’s death.

I make my way to the kitchen. The time on the stove reads half past five. That’s weird. Back home, Noah can barely wake up before seven. Maybe this whole no Wi-Fi thing is doing him some good.

I notice his eggs look a little burnt. I peek around the corner at the bathroom door. It’s shut. Light creeps out from underneath.

I walk over to it and knock. No answer. I knock a second time.

“Noah? Your eggs are burning!”

Still no answer.

A sudden chill washes over me as I realize everything about this scene feels off. Noah never wakes up at five. And I could’ve sworn he made a face at my fried eggs once before going into some long speech about how liquid yolk makes him gag.

Without a second thought, I burst open the door – and let out the biggest scream.

Blood.

Everywhere.

Covering the tub, floors, sink.

I was right. Someone did kill my grandmother. And now they’ve got Noah, too.

I do a double take in the mirror. A message written in blood.

YOU’RE NEXT

I slink backwards as tears flood my cheeks.

They killed Noah, and now I’m next.

I race to the supply closet in the hallway in pursuit of the only weapon in the house I can think of. An axe.

I pull out the axe, grab my keys and race outside.

Standing below the crack of dawn that reveals itself through the morning clouds, I fiddle with my keychain before realizing my car key is missing from its ring.

It’s freezing out here. And I didn’t think to grab a jacket. My only plan was to get in my car.

But I can’t go back into that cottage now. I don’t think I ever could. And at this point, I'm too deep into the lakes to make it to the main road on foot.

I look into the dark, foreboding woods. Now I know why so many horror films involve people running through the forest.

Sometimes, you really do have no other choice.

___________________________________

The sun is bright. It must be close to seven o’clock by now. I’m lying flat on the ground. My body has become so acclimated to the cold, it barely registers anymore. My brain, on the other hand, keeps alternating between two states – numb and delirium.

Woman in silk robe and knitted booties flees gruesome murder scene – only to die of frostbite!

I’m sure the press would have a field day with that one.

Just then, I hear the snap of a branch. My entire body flinches but I remain paralyzed, frozen like the snow beneath me.

Noah’s face appears in the clearing. Though I can’t be sure. I may be hallucinating.

“Noah?”

He doesn’t speak. Just circles around until he is standing over my feet.

Only now do I see his arms are covered in blood.

“Are you hurt?” I ask, my windpipe too numb to let out more than a barely audible whisper.

He looks disturbed. Like he’s seen far too much in his thirty-five years to ever put the pieces back together and be whole again.

“I am. Because of you.”

He’s referring to me taking him out to the lakes. The killer stalking my cottage. But I tried to warn him. I really did.

“I’m sorry,” I cry.

“Yeah, you should be.” Noah reaches into his coat pocket. And that’s when I realize he is fully dressed, unlike me. Warm parka, heavy boots, thick winter gloves – as though he were prepared for this.

And not a scratch on him.

“You just had to wake up in the middle of the night and watch that tape. You just had to ruin all my plans…” Noah mumbles. He pulls out something long and shiny, reflective of the sun. My delirium is irrelevant at this point. I know exactly what this means.

Noah is the killer.

“Your grandmother took what should have been mine. That cottage over there? This whole plot of land?” Noah makes wild gestures with his arms, swinging his knife all around like he’s the Ghostface killer, “Belonged to my father! Until he met your floozy of a grandma and gave her everything he had, leaving my mother with nothing. Nothing!”

His father. Noah’s father was the mystery man behind my grandmother’s inheritance.

I try to process the rest of what he is saying, but my eyes remain glued to the knife in case I have to swerve at any moment.

“I thought getting rid of her would solve the problem. Take back what was mine. But nooo… Her floozy granddaughter had to come along and take what didn’t belong to her, either!”

I’m beginning to question whether he knows what the word floozy means.

I think back to the moment I first met Noah, in line at my favorite coffee shop. I remember thinking how serendipitous that moment was. As if destiny itself had brought us together; two wandering souls collided by some stroke of fate.

Funny how sometimes ‘fate’ is just an elaborate ploy a predator has orchestrated to catch their prey.

“I – I had no idea, Noah. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have given it back to you!” Not true, but what else do you tell someone who’s swinging a knife over your helpless body?

Noah lets out a deep, maniacal laugh – not unlike that of a Disney character who’s just been revealed as the villain. “Ha! Women. All they do is lie, lie, lie…”

Ironic – coming from a man who lied to me for six months and is now trying to kill me.

And with that, he raises the knife and plunges it into the ground at my feet. This is it. I swerve my legs to the left, but not before the blade slices the outer portion of my right calf. I push my body up and start running. Anywhere and everywhere. Behind me, Noah lets out a low growl that sounds more beast than man.

But then again, aren’t the two one and the same?

I stop once I realize I am running directly over the lakes. I can’t tell north from south, and the snow keeps reflecting sun into my eyes. I look down and realize I’m still clinging to the axe from the cottage, my hand frozen in shape around its handle. I see my cut for the first time. Blood oozing out the calf. Filling my slippers. Leaving a trail everywhere I go.

Damnit. I can’t leave a trail. That’s how he’ll find me.

I hear a crack on the lake behind me.

Noah. And he’s laughing. Again.

“Well, well, well… Look who fell into my trap,” Noah sneers. He points his knife at my bleeding calf. “You really oughta patch that up, you know. All sorts of wild animals in these parts of the woods!”

Tell me about it, Noah.

He continues blabbering on, as if the irony of his very being is lost upon him. “But I was going to dump your body into the lake anyway, so we might as well do this here.”

I can’t believe there was once a time – yesterday, for example – I actually thought Noah was a decent guy. I remember showing him a news article once of an Indigenous woman who had been kidnapped in our city. Her body was eventually found, but her story received very little coverage. Noah had gone on and on about how ridiculous it was – how no one cared about this woman, how her killer would continue targeting Indigenous women since it clearly didn’t cause a media frenzy.

It is moments like these that remind me of just how easily one is able to hide their own hypocrisy behind layers of sympathetic words and empty promises. Noah hadn’t felt bad or sorry for what happened to that woman – he was giving me insight into the mind of a serial killer. Me being Indigenous may not be the reason Noah is targeting me today, but he’s sure as hell banking on it being the reason he gets away with my murder.

“C’mon! Isn’t that what you came here for?” Noah smirks. “To be one with your grandmother and her precious lakes?”

I’ve had enough of Noah’s mockery of my grandmother, of the lakes, and whatever the hell else he keeps rambling on about. I grip my hand even tighter around the axe’s handle, feeling more ruthless than ever before.

Bring it on, Noah.

I refuse to let my grandmother’s killer win.

I refuse to be a white man’s victim.

I have to think fast. If I heard the lake crack below his feet, that could only mean one thing.

We’re standing on thin ice.

Noah plunges the knife at my neck, but I duck and he misses me by an inch. I swing around him, striking the axe into the ice with all my might. It hits directly where his two feet stand.

Whoosh.

The ice cracks open. Noah’s body plummets through like a wet fish.

I dodge the gaping hole, landing safely a meter away. I watch as Noah thrashes his limbs in the frigid waters, desperate to grab hold of solid ice, or perhaps for me to pull him back out.

But I don’t.

Instead, I watch his mobility weaken, his energy depleting with each passing second.

Those heavy winter boots of his are working in my favor now.

His head slips under the ice. And just like that, he’s gone. Swallowed whole by the lakes. The ones he cared so much about.

Indigenous woman drowns white man in desperate battle of self-defence.

There. Finally, a headline worth reading.