Serpentine (10 page)

“Sort of creepy, isn’t it?” Valerie asked.

“Yeah, I guess.”

They walked across the length of the field, wading through the weeds, and came to the ramp. Joe watched as Valerie kicked off her shoes and walked carefully down the concrete ramp. Joe followed her, looking out over the lake just in time to see a fish jump out of the water some distance out, chasing after a daring nighttime insect skirting along the surface. He grinned at it, finally releasing the fireflies that had been held captive in his hands. They floated up and away slowly, almost in a dance.

Out in the water, the fish went back into the water with a delicate splash. As he watched this, Joe realized that the lake looked like a totally different place at night. This close to the water, it was easy to imagine that he and Valerie were standing on the banks of a body of water in some distant galaxy. With the weeds behind them, the shells of the boats, and nothing but forest and water to all sides, it felt like they were the only two people on the planet.

Joe was hesitant to take off his shoes, but he walked to the edge of the water and looked out. Valerie was walking into the water, her feet submerged as she followed the ramp down. She then walked out to where the water came to her knees, the legs of her shorts still a good three inches away from getting wet. Joe caught himself staring at her thin legs and jerked his attention back out to the water.

Another bank sat straight ahead, roughly one hundred yards out and barely visible in the dark. Porch lights glowed over there, dim and distant. To the left, the lake seemed to get choked out by the forest, the banks coming in and out to allow room for the cabins along Kerr Lane and the other winding roads that crept through the forest. To the left, though, the lake seemed to grow in size. The forest dropped away to all sides, giving an indication of Clarkton Lake’s true size.

Joe hadn’t had the chance to go out onto the lake yet but his dad kept promising that they’d rent a boat for a week or so and try some skiing or tubing. The idea was exciting but daunting at the same time. Joe had been to the beach before, but the lake was different somehow. The ocean kept going, spreading all around the globe until it came back around on itself. But the lake was confined, a hole in the earth that was much more peaceful and inviting than the thunderous roar of the ocean. It was sort of intimidating in terms of its isolation.

Valerie walked out another foot or so, the concrete boat ramp diving deeper under her feet. The water was now touching her shorts and when she turned back to smile at him, it took everything within Joe to not get in and join her.

“We need to go swimming sometime,” Valerie said. “I’d invite you out on the boat with me and Dad sometime, but he’d kill you.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“You’re a male. That’s enough for him.”

“So you’ll never be allowed to date at all?” Joe asked.

“Maybe when I’m off to college. Dad isn’t mean…don’t get that impression. He’s just been very protective ever since mom died.”

Not too protective,
Joe thought.
He gets drunk in front of baseball games in the afternoon, leaves you unattended, and is oblivious when you sneak out at midnight.

But he knew such thoughts weren’t fair. He didn’t know Valerie and her family history. After all, with some sort of drama lurking at the heart of his own parents’ marriage, who was he to judge?

“Come on out,” Valerie said, offering her hand. “The water is sort of chilly but it’s nice. Just up to your knees. Come on.”

Joe could technically do it. He was wearing a pair of mesh shorts, so he could get in up to his knees and there would be no evidence for his parents to discover that he had been out at night.

Her arm was still stretched out, offering her hand. Seeing her out there smiling at him, Joe couldn’t resist. He kicked off his shoes and peeled off his socks. He reached out and took her hand, trying to play it as cool as possible when her fingers wrapped around his own.

As he took a step closer to her, he watched another fish break the surface of the water several feet behind them. It was sort of cool to see the lake at night, to see the quiet of it that most people forgot about during the day. It was—

Joe’s eyes locked on the fish that had broken the water and gave it an uncertain glance. It had broken the surface of the water, but remained there, about fifteen feet away. It looked like it was just floating above the surface. Was it dead? Was it some weird fish that he’d never seen before?

“What is it?” Valerie asked.

She turned to look in the direction Joe was staring and took a sudden step backwards. As they watched, the thing that Joe had originally thought to be a fish swam along, breaking the water with a strange hump-like shape that appeared to be on its back. It swam quickly, going under and then breaking the surface again several times in a series of snake-like movements.

“Is it a snake?” Joe asked, already taking a nervous step back towards the top of the concrete ramp.

“No,” Valerie answered. “That would be a
huge
snake.”

Joe knew she was right. The thing was still moving out there, coasting along at the surface of the water with a large hump breaking the water. It made a turning motion and when it did, the single hump became two.

Joe’s mind instantly brought up the images he had seen of the so-called Lochness Monster and its telltale humps breaking the water. And as comical as he found the possibility of the Lochness Monster to be, he was suddenly filled with bitter fear. It plummeted through him like a rock from a cliff.

But this was nothing like that certain fabled lake monster. First of all, it was much smaller. Secondly, Joe was pretty sure there was no sort of body attached to the thing; there was only the snake-like shape of it.

Also, it was moving fast. It was then, as he watched it and tried to make sense of its shape, that it put on extra speed and came straight towards them.

“Shit,” Joe said, the word coming out in a whoosh of terrified breath.

Still holding Valerie’s hand, he yanked her back at the exact same moment she had started to retreat. Their bodies collided as they started up the ramp and they went down in the shallow water in a tangle of arms and legs. There was a brief moment where Joe realized that his clothes were going to be soaked now and he’d have to come up with some lie to present to his folks.

But that thought was obliterated when he saw that the thing in the water had reached the place where he and Valerie had been standing less than three seconds ago. And it was still coming, not losing any speed.

Joe got to his feet, lake water splashing into his mouth. He reached out for Valerie and took her by the hand without thinking about it. He helped her to her feet and they once again started back towards the field.

As they made their way up the large concrete slab, Joe chanced a look back. What he saw drew a scream up in his throat but he was too terrified to let it out.

The thing had come mostly out of the water. It
did
look like a snake, but not like any snake Joe had ever seen. It was at least six or seven feet long and three feet across. Its skin looked to be rough on top, and white and soft underneath. He was able to see underneath the creature clearly as it raised the top half of its body. It reared back in a way that made Joe think of rubber, and then it lunged forward. In the split second that its underside was exposed, Joe saw a series of weird pucker-like things along its underside, but they paled in comparison to the slimy mouth that opened wide as it sprang towards him.

Joe’s instincts hit a gear in his heart and mind that he didn’t even know existed. Seeing the thing darting forward, he pushed Valerie to the left and followed after her with a panic-fueled leap into the weeds. The creature had been so close to striking Joe’s leg that he could feel lake water spraying off of its body as it sailed towards him.

Valerie cried out as Joe landed hard on her leg. Joe again found himself tangled up in her arms and legs as they both scrambled back up to their feet. Joe found Valerie’s hand, took it, and started to back further into the weeds behind them.

“Where is it?” Valerie asked in a frightened whisper.

Joe looked frantically around but couldn’t see it. He supposed they were in a decent position to see the creature before it saw them, though; if it came barreling towards them, they’d see a clear indentation in the weeds, coming towards them. They stood quietly, roughly ten feet into the weeds. One of the old speedboats sat a few yards to their right, sitting on blocks.

In the quiet, Joe heard loons and the same owl that he had heard asking its ageless question as he had come down Kerr Lane by himself. But there was something else, too…something closer.

He could hear the thing moving, slithering along the ground in front of the boat ramp. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the soft white underside of the thing as it had struck at them. The sound it made as it moved seemed to match that vision perfectly.

Valerie stepped closer to him, holding on to his arm. He felt her trembling, which was a feat in and of itself because he was shaking like a leaf, too. They both looked over the weeds, hoping to catch a glimpse of it.

That’s when the weeds at the edge of the field started leaning in. They started falling slowly in a perfect path, directly towards them. Joe felt the muscles in his legs bunching up, wanting to run but soaked in fear and apparently immobile.

The moving path drew closer and closer, the slithering noise mingling with the dry scratchy sound of the weeds falling. Joe watched the path grow and suddenly felt the fear in his legs evaporate. He was ready to haul ass, to head back to Kerr Lane and hope they could outrun the thing.

The moving path in the weeds ahead of them came to a stop.

Time seemed to freeze as Joe and Valerie stared at the area where the creature had been sliding towards them. After a few seconds of silence, the sound of slithering and breaking weeds reached their ears again. Only this time, the sound was growing fainter. Another path broke out in the weeds directly by the first one, heading back towards the ramp.

Joe felt Valerie relaxing a bit beside him but noticed that she still held his arm. They stood motionless until the sound of slithering was gone completely. Joe strained his ears and was pretty sure he heard the moment when the thing made its way back into the water, easing in quickly but quietly.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“What the hell was it?” Valerie asked, her voice close to hysteria. Her hand traveled down his arm and found his hand. Joe took it, their hands interlacing.

“I don’t know,” Joe said.

Still holding her hand, he led her away from the woods by the ramp, heading further into the overgrowth that led back towards the dirt road. She went with him and although he was still shaking in terror, he realized that this was the first time he had led her anywhere. It felt good in a prideful way, but it also made him feel terribly lost.

“Did you see it?” she asked.

“Yeah. It looked like…I don’t know. A mix between a snake and a slug. But it was too big to be either one.”

He also recalled that slimy-coated black maw of a mouth but he decided to not terrify her with that bit of information.

When they reached the top of the field again, Valerie sat down heavily, as if exhausted. Joe sat down beside her. Somewhere along the way, he had released her hand but he sat so close to her that their legs were touching. They looked out towards the lake and said nothing.

“I’m going to ask a stupid question,” Joe said.

“Yeah?”

“Is that some weird ass animal that’s
supposed
to live in a lake?”

“I don’t think so,” Valerie answered. “That thing was more like a monster or something. Right?”

Joe nodded. He wanted very badly to get the hell away from there but didn’t want to sound too scared. Besides…whatever that thing had been, it was gone. It had apparently needed to return to the water. Maybe it was like a fish, in that it needed to be underwater to breathe.

“Maybe we should get back home,” Valerie said, echoing Joe’s thought. “I need to try to hide these wet clothes.”

“Same here,” Joe said, wondering how he was going to get this past his parents.

“And that thing,” Valerie said. “We can’t tell anyone, can we? We’d get in trouble.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “It would be like turning ourselves in to our folks.”

This knowledge sat between them, heavy and as tangible as the fireflies that continued to dance around them, unaware of the horrors that had occurred under their specks of orange light.

“Come on,” Valerie said, standing up and offering her hand again.

Joe took it and felt her still trembling. He used what courage he had left (most having been drained by the thing that had come out of the water for them) and interlocked his fingers through hers again. She gave his hand a squeeze and started walking. There was speed in their step as they left the field and the old speedboats behind.

“You okay?” Joe asked as they stepped back onto Kerr Lane.

“Yeah. Just…shaken up. I don’t see myself sleeping tonight. Or tomorrow.”

“Same here,” he said, trying not to sound as terrified as he really was.