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I have a summer home in the northern Midwest region of the U.S. It’s a small rural town with a population of less than two thousand people. There are a few restaurants, a barbershop, a gas station convenience store, and plenty of bars for the locals to sit down for a beer. Walking down Main Street, you’ll see windows with neon signs for Budweiser, Heineken, and Pabst Blue Ribbon, maybe the occasional ad for some deep-fried appetizer. It’s the sort of place where everyone knows everyone; The kind of place where a visitor might get a sideways glance or two if it’s very obvious that he’s out of town. Perhaps a minivan or pickup might pass through on its way to the next big city.
This cottage of mine is on a lake that stretches the length of the town. Almost every property owner on the lake owns a pontoon boat. Maybe a paddle boat and a few kayaks as well. People go swimming, canoeing, kayaking, and fishing all the time. The sunsets on this lake have also been said to be some of the most beautiful ever seen.
Now, I rarely ever watch the news, especially at the cottage. Being surrounded by so much wilderness, I found that spending time outdoors and by the lake was all the entertainment I needed. But I remember being bored and turning on the TV a month or two ago just on a whim and seeing a news bulletin about a man from town who had gone missing. He was last seen swimming in the lake and never returned. A search party was sent out after word was received of his disappearance, but his body was never found.
One late afternoon in July, I decided it would be nice to take my kayak out and do some fishing. I changed into a pair of swim shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed my fishing pole and an electric lantern, and dragged my red kayak by one end down to the pier. There was a very slight breeze on the lake. Enough to create ripples in the water, but not enough to majorly affect the movement of my kayak. The sky was cloudy, but not overcast. I could still see the sun as it slowly descended through the sky. There was a clear gap between the tree-lined horizon and the bottom of the clouds.
Standing on the pier, I heard a voice call out from behind me.
“Careful of those weeds, eh? Wouldn’t want your kayak to get stuck.”
I turned around. “Oh, hey Gene,” I said.
My next-door neighbor, Gene Wilkes, was a motor salesman in his late sixties. He always liked to stand out on his pier in his baseball cap and clip-on sunglasses and just stare across the lake. Right now, he was talking to me from his screened-in porch, beer in hand.
“Shame about what happened to that guy on the news, huh?” he said. “If you ask me, Northerns probably got him after he drowned.” He was referring to the large Northern Pikes people would sometimes catch on the lake. Even I knew to be careful with those fish.
“Yeah, maybe,” I returned. Gene was a nice guy, but he tended to drag conversations on for a long time.
“I remember the last time I caught one. One feel of its teeth and my finger was all red. Had to get five stitches.” He held up his left hand, and I could faintly see a scar running the length of his index finger.
“Well, I’ll be careful,” I said finally. I really didn’t want to be stuck listening to Gene ramble about his fishing stories for the next hour. I turned towards the lake. He kept talking, seemingly to himself, as I lowered the kayak into the water.
As I paddled my kayak out into the lake, the sun was starting to become visible between the clouds and the horizon. This is how I knew that tonight’s sunset was going to be beautiful. I soon came to the deepest part of the lake; which locals called the “swimming hole.” Here, people loved to take their pontoon boats out and anchor them while they swam. There was a small beach at one end, where on a pleasant day, people would often swim and lay in the water.
By this point, the sunset was in full bloom. The gray bottoms of the clouds were lit up with a vibrant magenta, which soon shifted into a crimson red. I stopped paddling and put the paddle beside me in the kayak. Since so many people liked to swim in this area of the lake, it wasn’t the best place for fishing, but I thought I might as well give it a shot. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I gave up. I put down my pole and dropped my anchor into the water. I lightly held the rope as the small metal anchor slowly sank into the lake.
It felt like an uncomfortably long number of seconds before I finally felt the anchor softly come into contact with the weedy floor of the lake. To be fair, this was the first time I’d used an anchor in this part of the lake, so I didn’t think much of it. I sat and admired the sunset for a while, and once the sun started to dip below the horizon, I turned on the little electric lantern I had brought with me. Its pale LEDs provided enough light for me to be able to see my surroundings fairly well.
I felt the kayak rock from side to side a little bit. At first, I thought it was just some small waves caused by the wake of a pontoon boat, but when I looked around, I couldn’t see anyone else on the lake. Then I felt it again, more intense this time. It was almost as if a large fish or something was moving right underneath me. I held my lantern in one hand as I peered over the side of my kayak into the dark murky water.
The stench of the lake weeds wafted up into my nose, to the point where it was almost unbearable. I began to feel uneasy, wondering what could be causing this to happen. I felt the movement a third time, and the kayak rocked even more. I craned my neck even further, trying to see what it was that was making this happen. I was so caught up in this that I didn’t realize my kayak was starting to tip to one side. A fourth and final movement under the water made the kayak suddenly flip over and my lantern and I fell into the lake.
As I submerged, it felt like everything was going in slow motion. All I could hear was the deafening rush of water past my ears. I held my breath and my eyes were shut tight. When I opened them, the only light was the pale LED of the lantern sinking into the depths. My vision was blurry from being underwater, but what I saw next was clear as day, and would haunt me forever.
Its face was almost human, but its skin was a sickly dark green color like it was made of algae or lake weeds. Its elongated nostrils and thin jawline made it look almost skeletal in nature. The thing had no hair. Instead, it was covered in what looked like green strips of weeds. Its sunken yellow eyes stared directly back into my own with malicious intent. What was this thing? Had it been living at the bottom of the lake this whole time? How had nobody seen it?
My thoughts were cut short when the creature reached out with a claw-like hand and grabbed my leg. It was slimy and cold, and its grip was like iron. My immediate reaction was to jerk my leg in an attempt to break free. I flailed and kicked like crazy, but the creature kept its hold on my leg. I felt myself being pulled downward. If my fight-or-flight response hadn’t already been triggered, it was definitely active now. But flight wasn’t an option. I was still close enough to the water’s surface that I was able to gasp for air. For that brief moment, I spotted the paddle of my kayak floating in the water next to me. This was my saving grace. Before being pulled back down, I was able to grab it. When my eyes met the water again, seeing that thing’s hideous face gave me a feeling not only of terror and panic, but of anger. This monster had been living in my lake, my happy place, for God knows how long. I used my paddle as a spear and struck the creature’s face once, twice, three times. This third blow stunned it for just long enough for me to evade its slimy grip and begin to swim toward the beach.
I dared not look behind me. I didn’t care that I had left my overturned kayak anchored in the middle of the lake. I just needed to get on dry land. The sun had fully gone down by this point, so my vision was impeded. But I had swam this way a thousand times and knew the lake like the back of my hand. Soon the water was shallow enough to stand, and I stumbled into a run. The water and sand slowed me down, but I was determined to do anything I could to get out of the lake. Just as my feet met dry sand, a horrible sound came from behind me. It was a strained screech that bore the last remnants of a human voice. I made myself look back and saw the grotesque humanoid figure flailing and clawing at the sandy shore. By now the moon had risen into the sky above the treeline, and the creature’s twisted silhouette could be seen flailing against the pale shimmering reflection. Amidst its ghastly vocalizations, I could almost make out words. The tone of its voice almost sounded like a cry for help, but I wasn’t going to stay around long enough to know for sure. I ran up the beach and down the road that led into town. I had to tell someone about the horror I had just witnessed, but who would believe me?
My bare feet ached as I ran down the rough asphalt road from my cottage. The moon and the faint streetlights were the only things providing illumination. I couldn’t see as well as I would if it was daytime, but that didn’t slow me down. Past the pine trees that lined my street, around the corner by the old factory, across the grass near the quarry, and over the bridge into town. All the while, I made occasional glances behind me, imagining that the monster had transgressed onto dry land with the intent of chasing me endlessly. But of course, there was only the empty road.
I made it to the small police station at the edge of town. I didn’t care that I was dripping wet and smelled like lake weeds. The only thing on my mind was that thing’s hideous face.
As I suspected, the officer at the front desk laughed at my story.
“Listen, kid, I’ve been living in this town for thirty years, and I’ve never heard of any monster living in our lake. Do us all a favor and lay off the horror flicks, alright? Now go home and dry off. You’re getting water all over the tile floor.”
Feeling even angrier than before, I turned to leave, but not before noticing a missing person report on the bulletin board behind the desk. The little black-and-white photo was of a thin, tired-looking man with slender features and stringy shoulder-length dark hair.
It may have just been my imagination, but the dark circles around his eyes gave his face an almost skeletal look, and his greasy hair bore a slight resemblance to the grass that grew at the deep end of the lake.