Need coffee. It is still brewing so we’ll do the prompt first. My neighbor had a meeting for the muffler challenged around three am and it lasted until dawn. They are all asleep now and I am very much fighting the urge to take out a weed Wacker and unnecessarily whack some weeds at the edge of my yard nearest them. The urge is strong and I am hoping coffee will help it fade. For now, we write. Timers set and let’s dive in.
Okay I like the bones of this. As the timer went off I thought of some really creepy ways I could take this. For now I am pouring coffee and making a few notes. But later…later there will be storytime!
Friday, May 3rd: The lake was still.
The lake was still. He looked over it, the surface as smooth as glass. He could see the puffy white clouds punctuating the sky reflected in it. It looked picture perfect.
He didn’t trust it.
He knew this lake was deep, far deeper than it looked. People died on it routinely, some on days where it looked this calm and smooth. It was still a popular destination. He knew it was smooth and calm now, but soon there would be canoes and larger boats traversing it’s surface. He knew that his friends had a pontoon boat they planned to use. There would be fishing and drinking throughout the day and then they would return to the rented cabin when the sun went down.
Not for the first time he wondered why he came. ‘Morbid curiosity, I suppose,’ he decided. It was as good an answer as any he could find. Those he was here with, he met at university. They knew where he went to high school and the town he called home. They didn’t know that this was where he was born and spent the most of his childhood. They left the summer before he started high school.
Officially his father found a new job and they moved because of it. Any other reasons they might want to leave town were never mentioned. The few months before his family left, there had been a lot of deaths on the lake. All were officially recorded as accidents but locals told different stories. Even though it was never discussed, that was why his father took the new job. Better pay was just a lie they told others. He knew that that first year they struggled because the pay was in fact less.
It was another something never mentioned.
‘And here I am,’ he thought. He heard laughter and knew that Carl was heading towards the pontoon boat. It was moored on the dock that the cabin had access to. He was shielded from view by a stand of trees but heard the sound of Carl and Evan filling and moving the cooler. Jhe heard them leave the cabin.
‘Old Joe’s cabin,’ he thought unexpectedly as he heard the sound of the wooden screen snap back against the frame. He blinked and looked around, realizing the thought was correct. This had been Old Joe’s cabin. He swallowed hard a memories rose. He was no longer sure that he could go out on the pontoon with the others. He planned to go and put his childhood fears to rest, even if the others didn’t know that’s what he was doing.
‘I can’t,’ he realized. He slipped back in the trees, his feet carrying him away from the lake before he could even fully think about it.
Ten til Midnight 