The Lake Around the Corner

There’s a creature that lives in the lake down the street from my house. No one believes me, but I know what I saw. They chalk it up to a vivid imagination, but how many times can you see something so colossally unreal, before you believe its reality? Apparently that argument makes me crazy, so I’ve stopped trying to convince people, but when swimmers go missing I cringe for their fate. Drowning, accidents or whatever else the police file it under, can’t hide the bite marks in the severed leg that washed up on the manmade beach last Tuesday. It’s angry. They angered it, but I’m one science fiction proclamation away from the nut house, so I bit back the truth.

I’ve seen the beast a few times, the first when I was very young. So young in fact I was delusional enough to believe it was a massive fish. But the next time I spotted it, it was lounging on a small island in the middle of the lake. Six fins, each longer than a rowboat, glinted mysteriously under the summer sun as it curled its lengthy neck around to meet its equally as impressive tail. It looked more like a prehistoric dinosaur than a fish, but it could survive out of water and that was enough for me to evade the lake for the next three years. But my family didn’t, my brothers, my friends. With each departure my mind would create unforgiving, panic-inducing scenarios until they returned. Until the day one didn’t. My childhood friend went boating with her parents most Sunday mornings. Their leisurely ride turned into a lethal incident when their boat mysteriously capsized, leaving no survivors. My friend always wore a lifejacket though. Always.

I tried to raise awareness of the creature once more but my folks thought I was creative, my brothers called me naive and the rest of the world seemed genuinely concerned about my mental sanity when I pushed flyers into their hands with such commitment, you’d have sworn I was fighting for my life. But I was, for mine, theirs and everybody else’s. I was old enough to make a difference but too young to be taken seriously. Or maybe they were simply scared of something they couldn’t define. The unknown has been known to entice the curious and terrorize the indifferent.

Days were spent in the shade of an elder maple tree just staring out into that lake. I waited. I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the creature to show itself again. All the while people kept vanishing. Most of them were strangers but some of them I knew and knew dearly. My theories of a water dwelling convict did little to comfort the families of the victims so eventually, I stopped trying to give them closure. They seemed accepting of whatever cockamamie story the police conjured up anyway. Every ripple, every wave, I could swear was the result of my creature. Once when I approached my coveted watching spot, what looked like the creature lay half submerged in the water. I pounced and wrestled with the half dead beast only to discover it was merely an abandoned beach quilt and a pair of torn swim trunks.

“I bet the beast got you too. I’m sorry,” I tossed the remnants of a nameless life aside and resumed my search.

There it was. On the same island it first presented itself on so many years ago. It lay on its side with three fins in the air; there was no mistaking it this time. But I had no boat, no feasible means of getting halfway across the lake before the creature slithered back into the murky waters. I’d have to brave the waters I’d evaded for the majority of my childhood and prey the beast didn’t have a family.

“What a terrible thing to think,” I thought to myself as I striped down before all confidence was lost. “It must be awfully lonely looming about in the waters all by yourself.” The chill of the water melted away the sweat from the oppressive heat and I was momentarily grateful. Upon the quick realization of where I was and what I was doing, I set off. I had always been a decent swimmer but I preferred to see the bottom of whatever I swimming in. Now I had nothing but dismal gray waters that blinded a foot in front of me so I shut my eyes. After five minutes of hard swimming, I paused to survey my distance, but I was there. My feet grazed the rocky bottom of the lake and the beast obscured any other sight. Cautiously, I waded through the milfoil and tainted water until an outstretched arm would have touched its flawless skin. So I extended it and felt the daunting chill of a leather like coat against my fingertips. I let my palm move flush against the surface but the beast did not retort. It didn’t move at all. As I slid my hand along the creature’s back, I warily moved towards its tail. Should it awake from this deep sleep, I’d rather take my chances with a tail than with teeth. But as I rounded the tail, I noticed a distinctive clinking sound I heard before, a rattle, some chinking and a bang- the sounds that floated through my house when my father was tinkering. Slowly, I moved to face the underbelly of the beast only to find its underbelly opened on hinged doors and a peculiar man shoulder deep in the creature.

“I’m sorry you came all this way,” The man groaned as he tightened something inside the brute. Unable to speak, I just stood there dripping on the beast’s tail. “I’ve noticed you. Watching, waiting, I figured it was time to end your misery.” As the man removed himself and secured the doors, the monster began to stir. “You know, I thought I was going to have to kill you myself.” My heart sank at the slow realization of my fate. The massive creature stretched and turned its primitive head in my direction before gliding back into the lake. “But you’ll have to leave this island at some point.”