Mystery Lake
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The night was still as the town slept. It seemed no one could sleep with so much death happening all around.
People who had gone to bed at ten or eleven were just waking up now, and they heard the news on their phones—two girls missing since last week from a nearby campground; then there was that body found floating in the lake two days ago; a third girl, another camper from the same campground, went missing yesterday; and finally, there was an unconfirmed sighting of some teenagers swimming somewhere in Mystery Lake.
People couldn’t stop talking about this stuff. They didn’t need cable television anymore because they already knew what was going on in the world: murders, rapes, burglaries, robberies, and car accidents. That’s how it used to be twenty years ago.
Now we have more information coming out than we can ever possibly use: crime statistics, terrorist threats, stock market fluctuations, climate reports, natural disasters, weather patterns, sports scores, entertainment gossip… There’s even a new disease called Twitteritis, where you become obsessed with your own little 140-character self.
I was sitting in my room thinking about all these things when I got a text message from Sarah asking if she could come over. It wasn’t unusual for us to hang out alone together but it did make me feel strange knowing that our parents would freak out if they ever found out we weren’t sleeping in our beds. We sat on the couch watching The Office, and before long it felt like old times.
At first, everything was great, but after a while, it became very awkward and quiet between us. Finally, I broke the ice by asking if she wanted to go outside and play Truth or Dare. She said she didn’t dare me to kiss her brother, which made me think it was really time to move on and do something else.
After a few more minutes of silence, I decided to bring up what happened earlier that day. “Sarah, are you okay?”
“What’s wrong? Did something happen at school today? You were acting weird.”
It took me a moment to remember why I came home early that morning.
“No,” I replied. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing happened at all.” And suddenly I felt guilty about being dishonest with my sister. But how could I tell her I went swimming with a guy, almost drowned, and then woke up here, completely naked, in my underwear, with no recollection whatsoever of the last several hours? It didn’t seem right to say anything at all.
But Sarah insisted that nothing had happened at school that day. In fact, she swore she didn’t even know who she’d been talking to until after dinner when we started playing Truth or Dare.
“We must have switched places somehow,” she said.
After hearing this, I began feeling very nervous about telling anyone about what had happened to me—especially my sister. If I told Sarah she wouldn’t believe me; besides, we both thought that if either one of us got sick or hurt in any way, there might actually be some truth to the legends surrounding Mystery Lake.
Our parents hadn’t taken us out there since we were kids and neither of us wanted them to find out now. We’d always planned to go back once we were adults to see what all the fuss was about, but we figured we could wait ’til we graduated high school and get a group together for a weekend camping trip.
As much as I wished otherwise, the only thing I could think of to do was to keep it a secret from everyone and hope this whole business blows over.
***
That night I lay in bed listening to all the noise of people going through their nightly rituals: dishes clanging in the kitchen, music playing in every room of the house; doors slamming and voices calling upstairs. The house was full of people: Mom and Dad downstairs, Sarah and Josh in their rooms.
Even Grandpa Jack was asleep in his chair downstairs, snoring away. No matter how loud they all were, nothing could drown out the sound of water. I couldn’t fall asleep with the sound of waves pounding against the shore just feet below our bedroom window.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the dead girl’s face staring at me through the darkness, and I imagined it was all her fault I was awake.
Eventually, I gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs to watch TV. When Sarah asked where I was going, I told her I had a headache and didn’t want to be alone. As soon as she fell asleep in front of the movie, I slipped into my parent’s bedroom.
They had an old tube television that only picked up three channels, and it seemed like all those channels were playing reruns of the Twilight Zone at that hour. I flipped the channel to the History Channel, which was showing a documentary about the Great Depression on black and white film. It was a pretty cool show.
A lot of footage was shot in the 1930s, most of it never seen before. I watched mesmerized, fascinated by the images of the dust bowl and the thousands of homeless families who traveled by train from New York City to California, looking for work. One of the stories featured a man who had lost his wife and six children in a tragic farm accident.
He lived with another family for a while but eventually had to leave them behind too, because he couldn’t find steady work and his family needed money more than ever.
The man’s story was so sad that I couldn’t help thinking it was the same exact situation that caused the two men to come to the edge of Mystery Lake that afternoon, and now they were probably wandering around out there somewhere searching for each other.
The documentary ended and it was nearly midnight. The house was still filled with light, and I realized my dad was still working late at the office. That’s when I remembered that Grandpa Jack used to live in an apartment not far from Mystery Lake. Maybe I should pay him a visit.
I made myself some toast with peanut butter and honey and then walked down to the basement door—a big heavy wooden thing with a padlock hanging on it. The padlock was a strange design, and it wasn’t easy to figure out which key would unlock it. I tried several keys until finally, something clicked, and the lock fell open.
I went downstairs to the cold, dank storage area under the house and pulled out a box full of old toys and knickknacks that Grandpa Jack left behind for us to sort through.
I found a few items that looked promising, but most of them turned out to be things from a child’s past or junk that we weren’t interested in selling. Eventually, I came across an old photo album that contained pictures taken during World War II. My mother told me our grandparents had met on a blind date, and their courtship was conducted entirely through letters.
Grandpa Jack had been overseas fighting in the war, and it took him a year to return home. Once they were married, my grandparents moved to a different town, which was where I’d heard all the rumors about the mysterious death of a couple years earlier.
Grandpa Jack was a pilot in the military and my grandmother had become a secretary for the Red Cross. After the war, they settled in the new town and opened a restaurant.
My mother told me our father’s mother died when my dad was five years old, and that was why he had such a hard time making friends. He’d always preferred spending time with his mother’s family—the Culvers—instead of his own relatives.
She said Grandpa Jack did everything he could to raise my dad up and make him feel loved, especially after his mother passed away. He bought him toys and books and games, and he taught my dad how to swim and fish and play cards.
But there was a period of time in my father’s early childhood when Grandpa Jack had to go back to the Korean War and couldn’t be around as often. When I asked my mom what happened to his parents in Korea, she told me they’d been killed by a mortar shell, and that Grandpa Jack had never returned to his home country afterward.
The photos of our grandparents showed a younger, happier version of my mother and father. They wore suits instead of overalls and looked like a handsome couple. There were shots of them dancing together at a party; sitting with their arms around each other in front of a fireplace with a Christmas tree, and holding hands walking along a beach in Hawaii.
There was even a picture of Grandma wearing a bathing suit and standing next to a diving board with her arms above her head. I couldn’t believe this glamorous woman had once lived on a farm in Pennsylvania with eight kids. I wondered if she ever imagined living in such a big city, and taking part in so much excitement and adventure.
As I leafed through the albums, I noticed that the last photograph inside one of the boxes was dated 1952. I lifted the lid off the box and stared at the final image within. It was a simple black-and-white shot of my grandparents on their wedding day, smiling happily.
The photographer had captured just enough of their faces and features to allow me to guess who they were. The groom wore a sharp white tuxedo, complete with a top hat and cane, while the bride wore an elegant dress, complete with gloves and a pearl necklace. Their names were listed below the photo on a piece of paper—George and Ethel Culver. They were my grandmother’s parents.
The next morning was Sunday. I slept late and decided to skip church. Instead, I walked down to the pond to see if I could catch sight of Grandpa Jack’s body, which was supposedly washed up on the shoreline yesterday. The water level had dropped a foot or two, and I found a path that led through the woods to the edge of Mystery Lake.
As I walked closer to the bank, I spotted several large boulders, which I didn’t recall seeing before. One of them appeared to be covered in moss and vines. Another one sported some dead trees nearby. And the third one had what looked like a small island growing right out of the middle of it.
I stepped onto the grassy slope that bordered the shoreline and saw the dark stain on the ground where Grandpa Jack had presumably slipped into the lake. In the middle of it stood what seemed to be a pile of logs. I bent down to examine them more closely but realized they weren’t logs at all.
Each one was made of thick branches that had been arranged into an intricate pattern and stacked neatly upon one another. Some of the branches were intertwined and intertwined again, creating a maze of patterns inside the pile. A few pieces were still connected to other pieces, and they formed a circular shape, giving the illusion that you were looking at something alive.
When I glanced over to where the log pile ended, I saw a large tree that looked like it had sunken below the surface. I walked back toward the shoreline and discovered another patch of land farther out on the pond. This area looked to be filled with long, thin tree stumps that stretched out from a small, low hill on one side.
From far away, the forest behind this spot seemed normal. But as I got closer, I noticed what looked like the outline of a building or a bridge that had been buried beneath the earth and sand. When I moved aside the grasses and weeds, I discovered what looked like the foundation of a stone house—or maybe a lighthouse.
I followed the base of the structure deeper into the woods. Then I climbed up a short rise and found myself standing in the center of the small clearing where my dad had disappeared the previous afternoon.
“Hello?” I whispered as if my voice would bring my father back from wherever he was hiding. “Dad? Dad, are you here?”
Nothing appeared to have changed since yesterday, but there was a faint hint of smoke coming from the direction of the forest. At first glance, it looked like someone had built a bonfire deep in the woods. But then I realized it was drifting toward me instead of going away.
And as I squinted through the trees, I noticed a strange smell: a mix of smoke and rotting meat. It reminded me of a barbecue we’d eaten at when my parents visited South Carolina a few years ago. But the scent didn’t seem quite right for a backyard cookout.
It was too overpowering and pungent to be anything ordinary. I thought about turning back, but curiosity pulled me further into the woods, past the foundation of my mystery home.
I came across three tall wooden pillars that formed a triangle in the middle of the woods. Each pillar seemed to be about fifty yards apart and was made up of four square columns. The whole thing stood twenty feet high, and I guessed it was built somewhere near where I’d come across the stone house foundations.
At each corner of the triangle were two large doors made of metal bars. One was shaped like a square, and the other had a round hole cut into its surface. I tried pulling on both of the doors, hoping they would open. They didn’t budge, and as I stared at them, I wondered if they might actually be part of a giant gate that leads to some sort of underground tunnel.
If so, that explained why I hadn’t noticed anything unusual until now. Maybe it was because I was walking right by it while hunting for my lost dog. I remembered how strange the place felt yesterday when I passed through it during my walk. For a second, everything just disappeared.
I heard birds chirping. And even though the breeze was warm, the air didn’t feel heavy or oppressive. And after I emerged from the tunnel, my eyes burned and itched as if they had been doused with bleach.
It must have been some sort of magic trick. But then I thought maybe it wasn’t a trick, but rather, something I couldn’t see because I wasn’t supposed to be there. That’s when I turned toward the small hill on the other side of the woods. There appeared to be another entrance—a smaller, circular doorway carved in the rock face that was only about a foot high.
As I approached, the opening closed itself with a sharp clang. I stopped moving as soon as the noise reached my ears, but when I peeked inside the circular room, all I could see was darkness. I waited several minutes before trying to enter the room again.
By this time, the sky had darkened, and I knew I wouldn’t get very far if I kept exploring the woods alone. So I decided to go back to the main entrance and try to find the trail that led back to the road.
The moment I stepped out of the woods onto the small rise next to the beach, I saw something move in the shadows on the opposite side of the pond. I squinted my eyes, but couldn’t make out what it was. I stood frozen, afraid to move, but unable to resist.
A loud bang startled me. The sound came from the same direction where I’d seen movement, and for a second, I thought I saw something dark and lumpy crawl into the brush on the edge of the water. My pulse raced and my mouth went dry. I felt like something evil was following me. It was getting closer.
My mind began racing as I tried to figure out what to do. There was nothing nearby for miles except a dirt path that ran along the shoreline. In a panic, I jumped off the rise, and took off running down the narrow pathway.
I didn’t dare look back again, but as soon as I reached the road, I paused to catch my breath and take inventory of the situation. To my left was my mystery home. On my right, the ocean glistened beneath a starless sky.
The moon had yet to appear, which meant I had to run without light or risk bumping into something in the night. The last thing I needed was to end up like Lucy and her mother at the bottom of the cliff.
I was panting hard when I finally reached the highway, and for the first time in over an hour, I slowed my pace to check around me for signs of life. All I saw were trees lining the asphalt road, their branches rustling as they swayed in the wind. After taking a deep breath, I turned onto the dirt path and walked slowly as if someone might be waiting to jump out at me from behind any tree.
After walking for another couple of minutes, I saw something bright in the distance—a flashlight. The beam swept along the ground, and I could hear the soft clacking of footsteps. Whoever it was was looking for something; he or she must’ve fallen in the pond. Or perhaps it was a deer wandering away from the water in search of food.
Either way, I figured it was best not to make a loud noise or attract attention, so I decided to hide myself behind the bushes at the base of a tree. After making sure no one else was around, I leaned my back against the trunk and watched as the flashlight moved farther away. When I saw the light disappear in the distance, I let out the breath I’d been holding and relaxed.
When I looked up again, I noticed a white glow coming from beyond the forest line. It wasn’t a car’s headlights, but a single street lamp that lit up the entire area with its soft glow. It seemed to come from across the highway. I got ready to sprint when the sound of crunching leaves alerted me to someone approaching.
The stranger’s boots made soft noises on the pavement, and when his shadow loomed above me, I realized it wasn’t someone searching for food or a friend who’d stumbled in the woods. It was him—the man in black, and he was heading straight toward me.
He wore a pair of faded jeans, and when he reached the bottom of the hill, he pulled out a knife.
The End