Misty Water Hollow

What really happened that night down at the lake?

Hello and welcome!

This week has been another roller coaster ride of emotions. I am pleased to report that my sister is doing much better and, as a family, we are more positive about her future than we were a couple of weeks ago. Thank you to everybody who sent kind messages of support. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one affected by this terrible illness. I wrote a heartfelt post last week about my sister’s addiction to alcohol and how it has affected her family.

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I would share this short story that I wrote a few years ago for a competition on Vocal, so it is aimed at all my American friends. I know how much y’all love Halloween!

Courtney thought she heard splashing sounds and spun around just in time to see a huge ripple spreading out from the center of the lake. It was getting dark, and she could have sworn she saw a rowing boat moving slowly across the surface. Perhaps the eerie light was playing tricks on her, she thought.

“Cooper! Here, boy,” she called out, but there was no sign of her caramel-colored Golden Retriever.

“Cooper!” she shouted again, louder this time, trying to keep calm. She pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and scrolled through the recent calls.

“Rick. It’s me. Listen, I’m down at the lake and something strange just happened. I think I saw someone. Out on the lake.”

Rick said he was up at the house, a short walk away, and told her that he would be down right away. Reassured, Courtney decided to retrace her steps to try and find out where Cooper could have got to, calling him as she made her way through the woods. Feeling uneasy, pine needles and other woodland detritus thick underfoot, she was making slow progress. The dank smell of the woodland floor was assaulting her senses and making her feel queasy. Where the hell was Cooper? It was not like him to run off; he was usually such an obedient dog.

Fall was her favorite time of the year, but today, she wished it were high summer. Spooked by Cooper running off, she tried to think of reasons why he hadn’t come bounding through the forest towards her, his big, pink tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, his soft, furry ears flapping around as he gamboled towards her.

Suddenly, she heard branches cracking and saw something in the distance. A shadow? Somebody or something moving, swinging. She thought she heard creaking too, but couldn’t be sure. She stood perfectly still, listening, her heart hammering in her chest as she tried not to panic. Her breathing became labored and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her feet were rooted to the spot and she felt as though she had been set in concrete. She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps some kids were playing in the woods, building a camp or collecting firewood, she thought. It was Halloween, after all. There were bound to be some shenanigans going on in the woods tonight.

She turned away, thrusting her hands deeper into her coat pockets and continued calling for Cooper.

“Here, boy!” she bellowed, as loud as she could. “Come on boy, it’s time to go. Here, Cooper! Good boy!”

She took her cell phone from her pocket again and noticed she had hardly any battery left. She hit re-dial but there was no reply. Rick’s cell went straight to voicemail. Where the hell was he?

Dusk was rapidly turning into night and Courtney activated the torch on her phone. It was good to see clearly in a beam of light directly ahead of her, but the darkness all around her seemed to swallow her up. This was crazy, she thought. She had lived on the lake since she was a kid. She knew every inch of the shoreline and had spent so much time swimming in the clear, fresh water. She and Rick often went skinny dipping in the summer, taking cold beers and the small gas barbecue to flip burgers on. Old wives' tales about witches had never bothered her before. But tonight, she was spooked.

Suddenly, she stopped dead. She thought she could hear splashing again. Feeling the icy cold, she pulled the zipper of her puffer coat up tight. Crazy thoughts were spinning through her mind, so she decided to head back up the hill, and home, to try and find Rick. As she took one last look back through the trees behind her, towards the lake, she noticed lights on the boardwalk. She and Rick had jumped off that boardwalk so many times over the years. Carefree and happy, into the lake. Splashing and giggling as they messed about in the water.

Rick had been a part of the gang that had played here every summer during the vacation. He was the tall, dark, moody one. They had been attracted to each other early on. Eventually, what had started as a teenage romance, soon blossomed into something more and they got married. They were both just eighteen years old.

That was over twenty years ago. They were still as happy now as they had been back then. There was only one thing that had clouded their relationship and that was not being able to have children. The last round of fertility treatment had completely wiped out all of their savings. Reluctantly, they had agreed that it would be their last attempt at starting a family of their own. They had had their last roll of the dice.

Rick had taken it far worse than she had and became depressed, endlessly moping about, refusing to smile or even interact with her for days on end. He flat refused to consider adoption or surrogacy; he wanted a baby of his own with his childhood sweetheart. Nothing else would do.

When he and Courtney took over Misty Water Hollow gas station and store, he was happy to work all the hours God sent. Recently, things had slowed down, real slow and money was tighter than ever. He had even allowed Courtney to take a part-time job at the local school where she had got involved in counseling troubled kids. One teenager in particular, had been having a rough time and Courtney had befriended him. She really shouldn't have left her laptop open with confidential information for Rick to see, including some email exchanges between her and the boy.

Before they had taken over Blakes gas station and store, after his Dad died, Rick and Courtney both worked separate jobs. She was a health care practitioner and he worked as a truck driver. Their joint incomes had been enough to get them by, but when Rick's Mom generously gifted them Blakes, he and Courtney couldn’t wait to carry on the successful family business. They worked well together and made a great team. Rick had never been happier.

“Rick! Is that you?” Courtney scrambled down the steep incline grabbing overhanging branches as she went, desperately trying to keep her balance as she hurried through the trees towards the lake. Her husband was still a romantic old fool even after all these years. Sometimes he would light tea candles and place them on either side of the boardwalk. Recently, he had scattered rose petals too for their twentieth wedding anniversary. They had enjoyed an anniversary meal of prime T-bone steaks, iced beers, and smores, which they had cooked over the small gas barbecue. Courtney recalled how they had sat for hours, wrapped in blankets, looking out at the lake, talking, Coyotes howling in the background. It was a magical place. It was their place.

As Courtney reached the bottom of the steep slope and made her way gingerly towards the boardwalk, her phone suddenly died. Plunged into blackness, she desperately tried to reactivate it, but gave up and slid it back into her coat pocket. She headed to the jetty to grab one of the lights. Stumbling a couple of times in the darkness, she could just make out the lake ahead of her. She heard soft rippling sounds against the shore. In the distance, a mist rose from the middle of the lake and she called out into the darkness. The dank cold seemed to want to swallow her up.

“Rick! Where are you?!” She screamed hysterically.

The force of the blow knocked her clean off her feet and straight into the icy water. Confused and dazed, she panicked, kicking and thrashing about, the water completely submerging her. Then she felt a strong pair of arms wrapping around her, squeezing her tightly.

She stopped thrashing and felt safe in those arms, as she always did. But, instead of rising to the surface, she was being dragged further and further from the shore, deeper and deeper down into the icy lake. Her lungs were burning and she desperately wanted to scream out, but she couldn’t. She fought with all her might, kicking and thrashing around with as much strength as she could muster, but the vice-like grip around her body was unrelenting. Eventually, she fought no more. Like a rag doll, she sank to the bottom of the lake, still wrapped in the arms of the man she had loved so deeply.

Police divers recovered the bodies of Richard and Courtney Blake two days later. A spokesman for the Misty Hollow Police Force said that foul play was not suspected; it looked like a terrible accident. The couple's pet dog, Cooper, was also found, drowned.

In what police believe to be an unrelated incident, a young teenage boy from the local school was found hanged in the woods nearby. MHPF are treating his death as suicide.

A news article in the Misty Hollow Gazette a few weeks later reported that a post-mortem had revealed that the couple’s cause of death had been by drowning and asphyxiation. It also revealed that Courtney Blake had been eight weeks pregnant.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Thank you for reading. I hope you weren’t too spooked!

Have a great week.