The smell of fresh pine struck my nose as my father and I got out of the car. I couldn’t believe it, we were finally here — Loche Lake. I’ve heard so many stories about this place growing up; it was this secluded getaway spot for my father and his two friends. They used to come here every fourth weekend of every month and he’d always bring home the fish he caught. They stopped after one of them died though, I don’t think my father ever recovered from his death. And after my mother died last year, he’s just clinging onto whatever’s familiar. Who am I to refuse this invitation?

Two mountains stood in the distance, taking up a good portion of the blue skies and along the lake’s circumference stood hundreds of pine trees. The water itself was still, not a ripple was in sight given that the winds weren’t blowing that day. Still, one would assume that freshwater-life would have been livelier. It seemed perfect, I wouldn’t change anything about it. It was even more beautiful than my father’s descriptions. 

“Just as I told you, aye?” he asked. 

I turned to him and took in the scenery behind him, beautiful through and through. The sky was masked by these towering, condensed trees but they were so symmetrically arranged I couldn’t complain — this was, without a doubt, the perfect resting place. I let out a small chuckle. “Yeah, wish I’d come here sooner.” 

As soon as he bought the bait, we began to row to the center of the lake. Using the oars served as a challenge for me at first as the boat rotated in one direction or the other. I watched my father though, to observe and to learn his movements for me to mimic, and thankfully, he was patient enough to wait for me… kind of. 

“Will you just listen to me when I’m explaining?” my dad said, in a subtle, annoyed tone.

I glared at him. “Dad, I am listening. This thing’s just heavy.”

“Nonsense! You just go one two THREE, one two THREE,” he replied. “That’s when ya lift.”

“Fine, fine.”

Ultimately, my determination to get to the middle of the lake was greater than my struggles. I paddled my way through, creating a rhythmic pattern with my father to get to our destination. He never missed that three and we synced up like harmony. Part of me thinks he wanted me to share this familiarity with him, so that he wouldn’t be alone in his approach to dotage. 

Once we were there and steady, I jammed a worm into the sharp end of my hook. I watched as it wiggled violently, thrashing around before it went limp and still — meeting its inevitable doom. My father showed me his perfect casting technique, the one he’s been bragging about for years. “It’s all in the trajectory,” He said. And so we cast a line, excitement quickly enveloping every bone in my body and running down to my core. Not a single bone in me was still.

Thirty minutes passed and not a tug on the line was felt. We waited longer in hopes of any action enthralling us but there was none. A passage of time went by unnoticed and a blanket of darkness had covered the sky, revealing white specs of shimmering diamonds amongst the vast empty void. I could tell my father wanted me to experience the thrill he had enjoyed for so long but even he knew that this trip was a total bust, we had to go back to the shore.

As we were about to row back, a thick, somewhat unnatural fog descended upon the lake’s surface, completely obscuring our vision. It surrounded us on all sides, leaving the lake as its only untouchable eye. I looked around — left and right — trying to get a hold of my bearings, but even the mountains vanished under the menace of the ivory unknown. My father looked straight in my line of vision and placed one of the oars in my hand at a quickened pace. He started rowing before I could even speak.

“Anna, I need you to paddle now,” he said in a low, unwavering tone. “Do it now Anna, just paddle.”

I tried to catch my balance under the jolted movement of the boat that my father had just so promptly caused. He paddled once more and the boat swerved in a circle, causing the oar he gave me to spring to the edge of my fingertips as I slipped further down. My father instantly looked at me with eyes full of impatience as if I were so incompetent. I knew what it meant — so I grabbed onto the boat’s edges and yanked myself up. 

“Dad? What the hell’s happening? Where is all of this fog coming from?”

He didn’t answer.

“Dad!” I yelled, starting to row in any way I could. The perfect rhythmic pattern we had was no longer existent, it went away with my focus. I simply tried to follow as best I could to match his hastened speed. Round and round his arms went, never failing to keep up the rapid pace. “Is this normal?! Did this happen when you went fishing with your friends?”

He didn’t answer again. I wanted to demand an answer, the anxiety was already bubbling up to my surface… but then I caught a look on my father’s face. His eyebrows inched apart and his eyes slowly widened. It wasn’t only fear; it wasn’t only worry; it was realization too. He was tense, as if he knew something was amiss. The blueness in his eyes had darkened, induced by the water’s newfound twilight nature and the obvious concern he had. Somehow that very look caused all of the questions I had to disappear and it told me to do as I was told. And so I gripped my oar and just paddled with him. 

After a while of rowing back, I noticed two things. One, it had gone absolutely dead silent on the shores, we could no longer hear the sound of crickets chirping. The only sound that registered in my ears were the splashes of water caused by our movements. The next thing I noticed was that we’ve been rowing for far too long, we should have hit the shores by now. It didn’t add up, I should have known. 

It was then that we saw a nimbus of pale blue light, about twenty meters from where we were. It sliced through the darkness of the night and disappeared into the vast cloud of fog. Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech cut through the silence. It sent excruciating white hot pain through my ears from the sheer volume. I covered them with my hands in a futile attempt to block out the noise but it was no use. I fell hard on the boat’s wooden floor, hands still pressing on my ears. I could see my father’s face all scrunched up from the pain and even he couldn’t save me from the deafening noise.

He quickly reached for something at the back of his old boat with one hand still stuck to his ear. Much to my surprise, my father drew out a hunting rifle. He was visibly shaking as he stood back up, seemingly trying to fight off the agony that I knew was slowly devouring him too. Somehow, he managed to steady himself and brought up the gun’s sights to his eyes. I closed my eyes in another barren effort to lessen the pain as I realized what was about to come — more noise. It was then that I heard five muffled gunshots. And as suddenly as it happened, the screeching stopped. Echoes of the last gunshot radiated all around us in a cacophony of just one diminishing tone. Softer and softer it went, revealing nothing but silence in the water and on land, not a single sound was present. I opened my eyes to see my father with blood dripping from his ears, he lowered the rifle and fell back rapidly onto the boat as he passed out. The fog instantly vanished, revealing that we were only a few steps from the dock.

I scrambled up, shaking off the stinging sensation in my ears as I did. Before the panic could even properly set in, I got out of the boat and dragged it with all my might to land with my father still lifeless inside. I was absolutely befuddled, aided by only adrenaline to fuel my actions and my conscience. I pulled and pulled, dragging it on the pebbles senselessly as the feeling of icy cold water stung my legs to keep me alert. Everything else around me seemed like a haze; the trees faded into one void of blackness and the dark water seemed only like a glistening tool of reflection. But then there it was — just at the corner of my hearing — the slightest crack of a tree branch that caused my ears to focus. I turned around.

To my horror, a female-like creature with pale skin and dark damp hair came into view. Its very sight shocked me to my core and fear shot down to my toes. I stopped breathing. As my eyes came to focus on it more, my entire sanity sank into my stomach. I saw it all — its pointed nails, its disproportionate anorexic figure, the grey tone of its skin that screamed death. And its face… Oh God its face… the very one that I think laid beyond that drenched curtain of hair.

No I didn’t see — I couldn’t possibly bear to see — what its features could look like. But I did see… and that solidified my paralysis. The water brushed the heel of my foot and it sent a wave of electricity that snapped me awake. Oh God this was real… The realization locked my body into place and shackled my vocal cords shut in an instant. A scream was thrusting to get out, dragging panic and terror to the surface of my sanity, but silence was all there was. My heart pounced out of my chest at that sudden realization, and all supply of air to me was lost again.

It looked at me tentatively, tilting its head before a deep growl came from its jagged, narrow mouth. Its eyes were dark, like a soulless abyss that had no end; no sclera was present, and the reflection of its teeth led to the revelation of many more. This was no woman, what was standing in front of me could be a creature of the devil himself.

It took one step forward and that was enough to send my legs scurrying into the water. My fingers dug into the wooden frame of the boat and I pulled it close to my chest. I feared for my father’s safety above all, his inability to defend himself could mean our demise today. 

Its eyes peered into the boat once and that’s when it happened — the creature stopped in its tracks, dropping its arms to its side and its nails dangled close to the ground. It just looked, nothing more and nothing less. Its eyes returned to me for the last time before it vanished into the woods at an impeccable pace, leaving five bullet casings behind. I stood there, frozen, completely unable to comprehend what just happened.

My conscience forced my fingers to make the first move, it took everything in me to put survival over shock. Despite the sense of paralysis that had taken over the command of my limbs, I was able to drive my father to a nearby hospital. When he awoke, we both knew what happened was a preternatural work of the unknown, and it was a tale never to be told to humans.