I am driving with my wife in a caravan of friends to a lake cottage where we’re going to stay for the week.  It’s fall outside, and although the main tourist season is over the roads seem unusually empty.  Pulling up to the cottage, my wife gasped.  Littering the long front lawn and the driveway were shells of cars, door rusted open, moldy windshields cracking with years.  Strewn between them and over the road were purses, bags, empty boxes of games and puzzles.  Confused, we drove on toward the cottage, picking our way carefully through the rubbish.  Up over a little hill and the cottage appeared, with the lake behind it.  It was a wide lake, about a mile across, and the blue green water lapped calmly at the shore.  It was a clear lake, but from the road I could see the buoy anchors a hundred yards off shore.

My brother came out of the cottage to greet us. 

“Hey,” I said, “what’s with all the stuff in the front lawn?”

He dismissed it with a wave.  “That was there when I got here.  Shouldn’t concern us.”

My wife bit her lip and looked at me.

 

We unpacked the cars, moving food, sleeping bags and entertainment into the cottage.  My brother wanted to put the guns inside, too, but I wanted to keep one with me.  Something wasn’t right, and I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I started to walk around the property. 

I walked to the edge of the lake.  There were no birds in the sky, no boat on the water, but just off shore were four cows wading in the water.  Everyone headed down to the water’s edge to see what I was looking at.

“If there’s anything threatening in the water,” I said to everyone, “the cows will react to it before we do.”

As soon as the last word left my mouth one of the kids came running up and launched a rock at the wading cattle.  The splash scattered them.  I lifted my gun and scanned the bottom of the lake.  It was so clear I could see where the lake dropped off into darkness. 

Suddenly, on that ledge, I saw an orange paw.  A tigress and tiger were crawling out of the deep of the lake.  They were heading towards us, slowly cutting back and forth.  An eerie buzz was in my ears, and out of the deep came a monster.  It had a jaw like an alligator and ears like a rat, and it was round like an elephant.  Its tan skin only served to sharpen its piercing blue eyes.

“Welcome to the lake,” it said.  We all froze. 

“Let’s kill it.”  I picked up my rifle.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” it said to me.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” my brother came running over from the cottage. “I made a deal with it.”

I turned to look at him. “Are you crazy?”

“It’s okay,” he said, staring at the monster. 
I didn’t speak, but raised my shotgun to my shoulder. 

“Wait!” my brother cried, but I shot the monster in the leg.  It coiled back briefly, but snarled and lashed out with a tentacle. 

            My wife screamed.  Everyone turned to run.  I spun around, but the tentacle caught me around the leg.  I tripped and fell, clutching at the sand and trying to move forward as fast as I could.  Everyone but my brother were in the cars, they were starting them up.

            “I told you I made a deal,” my brother said.  He stood frowning, his arms folded.  I turned around to see the monster easing itself out of the lake.  It was steaming, as though the air were burning it.  It smelled horrible, but familiar, like burnt coffee.

            “I don’t understand it,” I said to my brother.  “Why won’t you help me?”

            I watched as he stepped over to me, and then lifted his leg.

            “Because,” he said, and then kicked me.

            I blacked out.

 

            My eyes opened, the stench of the monster was thick in my nose.  I sat up straight, and knocked the coffee table over next to the chair.  Paperbacks of sci-fi novels rained down on the floor.

            “Honey!” my wife said, standing at the door. “Are you okay?”

            “Yes,” I said, “yes, I think so.”

            She stepped out of the kitchen and helped pick up the paperbacks. 

            “The coffee machine has been on for over an hour, did you fall asleep?”

            “Yes, I suppose I did,” I said, picking up two framed pictures.  One of them is of my wife in our house, in the kitchen next to the room I was in.  the other was a picture we took at that lake cottage.  We were out by the water’s edge, my sister, my wife, me and my brother.  My hands shook as I brought the pictures back up to the table.

            “What’s wrong?” my wife asked.   I gulped.

            Over my brother’s face, the glass had cracked in the frame.

 

 

Tonight’s story was brought to you by Chia Pets.  Remember: Chia Pets, not just for the unemployable.

 

 

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