THE LAKE HOUSE

I grabbed a case of beers from the trunk of the car and shut the hatch with a loud thwack. That echoed through the woods and across the lake. It was just as stunning and serene as I remembered it, but it felt wrong to be there again, at the very same cabin where I last saw our friend.

“You alright, honey?” Merrick asked, placing his hand on the small of my back. I shook off my discomfort and nodded. My husband had been right to suggest this, I told myself; we all needed closure, and there was no better way to get it than a celebration of life on the fourth anniversary of Chris’s death.

We were the first two to arrive, so we made ourselves comfortable in the master bedroom. Everything was as it had been, with the rustic decor and the smell of the pine trees. The lake glistened beyond the open window, but I didn’t dare to look at the place where he spent his last moments.

I shut the blinds. Lane was the next to arrive, bursting through the door, hands filled with homemade sweets. Her bakery had flourished since the accident and she was so busy that we rarely got to see her anymore. I hugged my friend tightly in a warm greeting. She dropped her things and looked around.

“God, this is just so…” “Weird?” I asked, finishing her sentence. “Yeah,” Lane replied “very weird.” Merrick clapped his hand on her shoulder and smiled. “It’s what Chris would have wanted,” he assured her. “All of us here, together. It’s a blessing.”

Blake was next to arrive. The group greeted him with smiles and cheers as his dark, brooding eyes scanned the cabin. “Same as it ever was,” he muttered. “So are you, it seems,” quipped Merrick. Blake had always been the serious one in the out otherwise goofy group. It seemed time had only brought forth those qualities even more.

Though we’d all become more serious since Chris died, I guess. That’s the kind of thing that happens after a tragedy. We settled in as best we could waste no time in opening the beer. After a few awkward hours of milling about the old cabin, walking the pine-covered acre it sat upon and casting glances toward the lake, now illuminated bright orange by the setting sun, we settled in around the dining table feeling tipsy and talkative.

We laughed and reminisced about old times. When we felt bold enough we even talked about the happy times with Chris. No one cried anymore, we were all just happy to have known him. Finally, as the hands-on old clock above the mantle crept closer to midnight, I felt safe to speak my mind.

“It’s just so confusing,” I blurted out, almost surprised to hear myself speak. I must have had more beers than I thought. “He was on the swim team. How could he have… drowned?” I looked at my husband, his amber eyes cast down. I could tell I’d made a mistake by saying that. I should have been more sensitive, I thought. After all, Merrick was the one who saw it happen.

After a long silence, she finally spoke. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it. But I saw it. He just got pulled under and never came up again.” I squeezed his hand tight and Blake patted him on the back. Mercifully, Lane cut the tension. “Well, on that note, I think it’s time for bed.” We laughed sardonically and said our goodnights.

As we shuffled to our respective rooms I clicked off the lights, casting the cabin into darkness, and leaving the uncomfortable conversion behind us. Everyone knew that I was in love with Chris before he died. Including my husband. His accident probably took the greatest toll on me. Despite the fact that he was the one who had to watch him go under, Merrick was my rock through it all. I never expected to fall for him too, but I did.

He was my husband now, and as much as I had cared for Chris, he was gone and Merrick was there. Still, the shared knowledge of our communal past hung heavy in the air when we were all together. It was uncomfortable to remember but too real to forget. As I drifted off to sleep I snuck a peek of the lake through the crack in the blinds and I could swear, as I slipped into a dream state, that I saw Chris looking back at me.

I felt the blow to my head first. I reached my hand up to my skull, dizzy and confused, and felt the warm wetness of blood. Before I could make sense of what had happened I was flipped on my stomach and felt my hands and ankles being tied behind my back. Through the haze, I tried to struggle, but it was too late. I was lifted up and carried to the living room, where I was horrified to see Merrick and my friends incapacitated in the same way.

When I finally wrapped my throbbing head around what was happening and turned my eyes to face the attacker, I realized with a horrible lurch of my stomach that I hadn’t dreamed his face, I’d seen it out the window; Chris was standing before us, and he had a gun.

Merrick started to cry. I was shocked , and turned to look back at him in horror, silently begging for him to make it make sense. Merrick had seen Chris die, so how was he here right now? “I’m so sorry, Chris. I’m so, so sorry!” he cried. Chris only smiled and raised the gun.

Time stopped as the deafening bang erupted through the room. Maybe I screamed, but I wasn’t sure. All I was sure of was that my husband was dead. Lane and Blake were executed in the same order they had arrived. She screamed but Blake only looked up at Chris with an expression of confusion and pain that only a man staring down the barrel of death could ever make. Blood pooled in the dusty old carpet as I screamed.

Chris was alive and he was killing us all. Finally, I caught my breath enough to speak, and fearfully I looked up at him; the man I once loved, the man that was supposed to be dead. “He tried to kill you, didn’t he?” I asked. I already knew the answer. I loved Chris and Merrick loved me. Chris went swimming alone with Merrick and only one came back. That one was the one I married. It all clicked into place with a horrible lurch of my stomach. I began to sob.

Chris leaned down and wiped a tear away with the barrel of his gun. “I loved you too,” he whispered. I felt my will to live to leave my body as my heart broke inside my chest. “But you believed him. You married him. You chose him. And now, I’m going to have to kill you.”