Troubled Waters

Jamie and Jodie Benson slapped each other high five. The ink had dried on the bill of sale and Old Man Granger’s farm was theirs at last.

The twins had wanted the Granger place ever since they were boys; when they barely came up to their Grandpa Holt’s knee. But he’d warn them sternly each time they came for a visit, “Don’t you boys ever fish outta that pond. In fact, steer clear of the Granger place altogether.”

That warning along the overall creepy vibe of the Granger farm, drew Jamie and Jodie in like moths to an open flame. After all, they were phobophiliacs; lovers of all things both strange and macabre through and through.

By the age of ten the other kids had labelled them weirdoes and had learned to stay away. Which was just fine by Jodie and even finer by Jamie, since the two always had each other for company. They found the other kids bland and annoying anyway.

The allure of the Granger place… it came from the sum total of so many delectably spooky elements that the twins could barely keep count. It came from the flakey, faded yellow paint on the house which might have been cheerful once-upon-a-time, and from the chilling sound half-rotten boards made as they creaked dangerously underfoot on the porch. It came from the scream of the of the rusty chain-swing swaying from the bough of a ancient weeping willow in the yard, and the dilapidated barn building that stood menacingly in the far corner of the lot where anything might be lurking in the shadows beyond the tree-line. It even came from Old Man Granger himself: a man so gaunt and tortured looking his face was sure to haunt more than a few kids’ dreams all on its own.

But the prize-winning element; the real horror of horrors that took hold of the Benson twins’ brains and never let go for decades after, was the pond.

The Pond of Nightmares with its scummy water; still, cold, and deep. It was carpeted by a thick coat of algae which bloomed ruby red in the height of summer in patches as large as a whole car. Anything might be down there in the dark, below the surface where the sun’s rays couldn’t reach. And the twins would while away whole afternoons making up gruesome stories about what those “anythings” might be.

Now at the age of twenty-five Jamie and Jodie had managed to buy the farm they’d dreamt of owning their whole lives. Old Man Granger had finally passed away at the ripe age of 99.

“Too bad he never made it to 100, that would have been something, huh Jamie?” Jodie said, nursing a steaming mug of tea and reclining on a rocking chair on the front porch. Low hanging tree branches scraped noisily against upper story windows while rain poured down in buckets. The twins sat watching fat raindrops fall and bounce, disrupting the stillness of murky pond. Heavy mist was starting to roll in.

“He died of cancer. Wasn’t a pleasant way to go. And if he lived we’d still be waiting on the house. I don’t think him passing on was too bad. Seems like it was his time to me.” Jamie was sitting on a single-seat sofa he’d salvaged from the junkyard. It was comfy, if threadbare, but it smelled a little too rank for Jodie to let him take it inside. The porch was the perfect place for it, Jamie thought, at least until the thing was properly aired out.

“What did Grandpa say about never fishing in Old Man Granger’s pond again?” Jodie asked. “I remember he said never to fish here but he never said why.”

“I suspect they never got on well. If we fished out of the pond we’d have been trespassing, and stealing from him too. I can’t blame him for not wanting little kids fishing in his pond. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s kids fishing in it, now that it’s ours. Would you?” Jamie asked his brother.

“No, but I mean, it’s more than that. I remember one day when Grandma Iris took you to the store with her. Old Man Granger came by and offered Grandpa Holt two big rainbow trout he caught out the pond. Grandpa turned him away and told him not to come by anymore. Grandpa Iris used to love rainbow trout…now I wonder why he would have gone and done that unless there’s more to the story.”

“Likely as not there was more to the story,” Jamie said. “But since all parties concerned are no longer with us I highly doubt we’ll ever get answers.”

“Fair point. And suddenly I’m up for a little fishing.”

“In this?” Jamie asked, looking at his brother like he'd just grown a second head. “You’ll catch pneumonia. That rain’s ice cold and with the mist coming in it doesn’t strike me as a bright idea.”

“Oh come on, scaredy-cat! We don’t have to take the rowboat out; we can just fish off the dock. That’s safe enough. It’ll make for a really creepy experience, won’t it?”

“You go out there if you want, but be careful Jodie. I like a good thrill just as much as you, but I draw the line at my brother dying and his ghost haunting our house. Got it?”

“Got it. So what’ll you do then?” Jodie asked.

“I’m going to check out Old Man Granger’s study. He had journals and stuff in there, should make for some interesting reading. Especially in this storm with the lights flickering the way they are. You sure you don’t want to join me?”

“I’m sure. I'll make you a bet. If I catch us our dinner tonight and then you get to cook and have clean up duty all to yourself. Deal?” Jodie asked, grinning.

“Maybe. Let's see you catch something first. But be safe, not stupid little brother,” Jamie said as he headed in.

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Inside, the house smelled of dust and mildew. The twins were only just settling into their new place, and there was quite a lot of work left to be done. The house had been unoccupied for at least a year before it had been sold. In every corner Jamie could see layer upon layer of thick cobwebs, holding the dried remains of a million ensnared flies, moths and other unsuspecting victims.

Way eerie, Jamie thought to himself, smiling. The shivers running down his spine as the wind echoed and moaned throughout the house felt delicious.

There was furniture in the study, draped in heavy linen sheets to protect against the worst of the dust. Which is ironic, Jamie thought, since most the furniture was already in a shockingly poor state. It was mismatched, sun-bleached in some places and appeared in other areas to have been mauled by something vicious.

Jamie turned the light-switch on and waited while the bulbs overhead flickered. Then the room filled with dim yellow light.

“40 watt bulbs I guess,” said Jamie, heading over to the wall –to-wall book shelves. “Looks like Old Man Granger had a thing for spooky ambience too.” He combed over the spines of different volumes, reading the titles aloud, “The Bizarre Farmer’s Almanac…Rare and Exotic Fish…Carnivorous Plants and Other Wonders…The Preservation of Meat…1000 Recipes for the Flesh Gourmand…oh Jodie’s missing out big time,” Jamie said, turning to face the window.

Outside the sky was nearly pitch black and lightening forked brilliantly against thick thunderheads. Heavy mist continued to roll in and swallow most of the property in its wake. Jamie moved over to the window and strained his eyes at the pond. He could barely make out Jodie’s body standing in the mist, fishing rod in hand as he stood on the embankment. His brother wore a black rain slicker with the hood down. Before long the fog swallowed him whole too.

“Warned him not to stay out there long,” Jamie said, finally taking a seat in Old Man Granger’s chair behind the writing desk. He opened the top drawer and after removing a host of ledgers and a pouch of loose tobacco Jamie felt the thin wood panel at the bottom of the drawer shift ever so slightly under his touch.

“A false bottom?! Oh please tell me there’s a false bottom!” Jamie said excitedly. He wasn’t disappointed. He slid a dime from his pocket into the thin gap between the panel and the base of the drawer, then used it to flip the panel upwards. In that hidden space, roughly an inch deep he discovered a journal bound in plush red velvet and another pouch, similar in size to the tobacco one. While the tobacco pouch was sable brown leather and had barely any tobacco left inside, this one was made of what appeared to be blue snakeskin and was stuffed full of strange dry flakes.

Jamie picked up the journal, stretched out on the chair and began to read. Outside the wind picked up in furious gusts, rattling the house on its foundation and drowning out all other sounds in its wake.

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In summer the thick algae would glisten ruby red, like a sheet of jewels in the sun. But now it was early November and the chill had killed it and turned it into a mire of brown sludge. Jodie wondered what could possibly survive the depths of the pond when the surface was entirely opaque, and no light could be let through.

Even doubting, he pulled a light fishing rod from the bed of his truck and eagerly poked around the muddy embankment with a stick, digging for worms. He’d found several, as long his forearm and blood red in color. “Ugly little things, aren’t you?” he said, pulling one from the earth and impaling it on the sharp hook at the end of his line. The worm wriggled between his fingers, then turned its head and sank needle sharp teeth into Jodie’s exposed wrist.

“Shit!” Jodie cried out, dropping his rod in the pond. Immediately the thick brown sludge began to gurgle and bubble and Jodie watched in horrified amazement as a slimy, fleshy tentacle wrapped itself around the thin pole and pulled it beneath the surface.

“I’ll be damned, there is something down there!,” Jodie said, jumping back from the edge of the pond and sprinting backwards a few feet more just for safety. That tentacle didn’t look to be too thick; it was about an inch wide, he’d have said. But he’d only caught a glimpse of it, and he remembered his brother’s advice. He didn’t want to die this night.

Yet curiosity, and his innate love of fear would not abate. Slowly, he inched closer to the pond again, this time wary of movement on the surface. As he stared out over the water, trying to make sense of shapes in the abyss, a few drops of blood spilled from the open wound at his wrist and hit the surface, right at the edge where slimy water met cold mud.

It took a few moments of stillness before the scent of blood spread. And then the entire surface of the pond began churning madly as though the pond were being boiled. And this time, the fleshy tentacle that flew up from the depths was as thick as Jodie’s wrist. He fell dead away in a faint on the embankment and knew no more.

The tentacle felt along the shore until it came across Jodie’s arm. Then slowly but surely it wrapped itself around the limp body and dragged it towards the water’s edge.

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Jamie's eyes took some time adjusting to the dim light. And then, Old Man Granger's penmanship took work to decipher. Slowly, he read:

Nov 2nd, 1975

The true gourmand knows the feast cannot be rushed. Ingredients take their own time to mature before harvest. Each one has a life cycle independent of the others, it's own sources of sustenance which too must be of the most premium quality. Only when each ingredient has been pampered to the fullest, then harvested and preserved at the finest moment of it's life, only then can the real preparation for a feast begin.

I offered Holt two rainbow trout from the pond today. He sent me off but the boy, his grandson was entranced. I could tell. There's a kinship there. Maybe he'll grow into a true gourmand himself one day. I doubt it. Most people lack the sophistication, the drive, the palate, and the spleen to eat among the elite. You need them all to be a true gourmand, and we are typically few and far between.

Holt thinks he knows. He's seen me dump the rich stew: warm pigs blood and innards from a fresh kill, into the pond. It's fond of the pig. It left the sheep altogether and only ate some of the cow, but it relishes pig flesh. Pig flesh and man flesh. My arm is less a few strips of meat this week. They say the man flesh infuses it's own unique flavor, but it is so hard to come by. I spare what I can, but it's not as much as I would like.

It's growing, only an inch per week. It'll take years to get to the harvest. But when I take it, the richness of that flesh built on years of toil, it will be a feast for the ages.

It nipped me, two days ago. Luckily, I kept the snakeskin pouch with me. I always do when it's feeding time. Dried poison dart frog skins are also not easy to come by, but necessary. He's a strong fellow even if he's small for a while yet, and he knows what flavors he likes too. A gourmand being raised to feed a gourmand. Luckily with the frog skins he sleeps deep...

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Jamie had the pouch in hand and was down the stairs and in the rain before his brain even registered he was moving. Jodie was nowhere to be seen, and screaming his brother's name in the hurricane that was shaping up was of no use.

He stumbled blindly around the water's edge until he came across an ominous patch of mud that headed towards the pitch black waters. Something heavy had been dragged into the murk.

Jamie lobbed handfuls of flakey blue and purple skins into the pond, praying for his brother's safe return. He thought of dragging the pond with a net but in the storm he couldn't chance being on the water when...something...was out there.

Suddenly, the body of a very large and hideous squid-like creature arose to the surface of the pond. Jamie hooked the body up to his brother's truck with snow chains and hauled it out of the water. The thing's lumpy flesh was mottled green and purple and it had row upon row of razor sharp teeth, each three inches in length. It was carnivorous, that was for sure.

"Come on, give me my brother back you ugly..." Jamie hurled a list of expletives at the thing, then took a long tree-branch from the lawn and poked around the thing's center, at what he hoped was its belly.

Then upon finding a bulge that looked too large to be a mere coincidence he took a bowie knife to it. Eventually he cut the still living body of his brother loose from the squid monster's gut.

"Old Man Granger meant to eat this thing. Guess he never got the chance," Jamie said as his brother sat up against the base of a tree and spewed into the grass. "He liked...rare meat. That's why Grandpa said not to fish out here. He knew what kind of monster Old Man Granger was fattening up and that it ate meat. Blood and meat."

"So what do we do with it now?" Jodie asked, still spluttering. He had a few superficial cuts but somehow had made it out for the most part unscathed.

"Well," Jamie said, mouth suddenly full of saliva. The smell emanating from the dead creature was...incredibly rich. And appetizing. He felt his stomach rumble louder than even the storm.

"Technically I fished you both out of the pond. So I guess...you're cooking and you've got clean up duty."