A dense, clammy fog rippled low across the water, tendrils coalescing in and out of existence as the mist draped itself across the lake and spilled onto the rocks therebeside. A lone bullfrog croaked out his lonely cry, and the sussurration of reeds as the autumn wind tumbled through them whispered frightful nothings into the night. Though the air was crisp with the late season, and though Libra’s Equinox had brought once more the chill winds, the air seemed yet stagnant. Some primordial evil must have leaked and oozed from the depths of that foul lake, bespoiling the atmosphere.
Most locals made sure to give the lake a wide berth, knowing too well its toxic nature, knowing the miasmic malevolence its depths contained. But on this terrible night, one local found himself prey to fate, and found himself at the whims of that dreadful lagoon. James was drunk.
This was no great departure from tradition. Week’s end had once more brought a taste for celebration, and celebration brought a taste for liquor; liquor in its turn brought folly, and it was this folly which found James here, at this hateful well.
He cooled his fevered face on the hard stones which perimetered the water, cooing lightly in pleasure as the world spun around him. Scarce could he remember the events and paths which led him here, and scarcer still could he recall where his companions had gone. This at last drew a sudden frown and twinge of concern, and he unsteadily righted himself and sat, peering around. He was certain that Elizabeth had been here, just moments ago. Hadn’t it been she who suggested they visit this awful place? Hadn’t it been at her cajoling that they had made their way to this noxious copse?
No matter, she was with him no longer. No one was. The bullfrog’s mourning had ceased and the reeds clicked and rustled no more. The only sounds were James’s own increasingly frenzied breath and heartbeat, and – low, almost imperceptible – an atmospheric hum of apprehension.
Suddenly, the silence was broken as, in the middle of the lake, the water began to churn and boil, burbling madly and unceasingly. It was as though some underwater leviathan were surfacing continuously, rising malevolently through the thin membrane between air and water and stirring the lake to madness. The churning began to move, roiling directly towards James at an impossible rate, kicking out fans of water from either side.
James screamed once in fear, scrabbling wildly backward and clumsily struggling to his feet. He screamed once more, plaintive, for mercy, as the creature lurched from the water to stand over him.
And he screamed one last time. In agony, and in death.
~
Eric squinted at the television, his eyes gritty from several hours of playing his grey-brown first-person-shooter. He cleared his throat, as though to speak, then realized he had nothing to say, so he just blew a stray lock of hair out of his face. Searching through his short-term memory for what he had meant to say, he found mostly flickering television images and an imagined breast. Dang, he thought, that’s a nice tit. Oh, wait, he remembered now what he had meant to say. He was wondering where one of his friends had gotten off to. He shouted over his shoulder at his roommate, Rob.
“Dude, where the fuck is Jimmy, I haven’t seen that asshole for like three days.”
Stiffening in shock, Rob looked over at Eric in utter disbelief and disgust. “Wait, are you serious? Because, that isn’t funny, Eric, and is way too far, even for you.”
Eric paused the game and turned around to look Rob in the eye. “What are you talking about, what’s too far?”
The strangest look of total despair washed over Rob’s face. It was a complex expression, multifaceted and layered and aromatic like a fine diamond-onion wine. It spoke of a sadness of loss, and a pain at the sudden recollection. But it also spoke of hopelessness. It spoke of a friend who could not be helped. Rob ran his hands over his close-cropped, thickly curled hair.
“Jimmy,” he started. “Jimmy is…shit. Jim’s dead, man.”
“WAIT, WHAT.” Eric went to lunge forwards towards Rob, for the dramatic grab-shirt-and-demand-information maneuver, but forgot he was sitting backwards in a chair, so instead he fell heavily on his face, feet still on the back of the chair. He made his demands from the ground, his words coming up muffled around the hardwood: “You explain your black ass right goddamn now!”
“I asked you to go to his funeral on Monday, you asshole, how could you not remember that?!” Rob scrubbed at his face with his hands and huffed angrily. “You told me no, that you, ‘didn’t do that pussy shit.’ I thought you meant crying at funerals, but what the fuck did you mean?”
“I thought you meant he was in a musical and was gonna do bad, so it was his funeral!” Eric cried, scrambling to his feet. “And I wouldn’t even go to a musical if it was good! For I’m-not-a-pussy reasons, mostly.”
“That’s still not a good reason not to go, even in that incredibly wrong situation!”
“Rob,” Eric said, looking very serious for a brief, disconcerting moment. He placed his hand on Rob’s shoulder. “Do I look like I enjoy prancing around in make-up and costumes, and singing, and sucking other guys’s cocks?”
“Who the fuck cares! You somehow didn’t know that Jimmy died last Friday when he got eaten by some monster at Mirror Lake, I’m really more concerned about that!” Batting Eric’s hand from his shoulder, Rob swiped up his little red stress ball from his desk and went to town. Sometimes, talking to Eric was comparable to flagellating yourself while beating yourself on the head with a Bible to “cast that evil Devil’s knowledge and book-learning out.”
“Hold on, there, dear Robert,” Eric chuckled, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m pretty sure I heard you say, ‘Lake Monster,’ just now. Would you mind going back and saying that thing again, but this time, instead say things that aren’t completed bonkers retarded.”
“Yeah, I know it sounds stupid,” Rob sighed, “but that seems to be what happened, man. He was found on a bench, squirrels nibbling on his genitals, with gigantic bite-chunks taken out of him all over the place. He was missing half his head, man! The official story is that it was a mugging gone wrong, but who counters a failed mugging by eating the victim? Not to mention, that doesn’t explain those enormous, slimy, webbed footprints that I saw all over the scene, and…why the FUCK are you giggling?!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but what exactly were the squirrels chewing on?”
“It isn’t funny, Eric.”
“Would you say they were, nibbling on his nuts?”
“I hate you so much, oh my god.”
“Because squirrels love nuts, you see.”
“Our friend is dead.”
“It is a pun.”
It was at this point that the room was lit with a burst of scarlet, as Clarissa bounced her unintentionally-school-spirited mop of highly-dyed hair into the clash of idiocy and reason.
“Why on earth are you two morons yelling so much?” she tutted, eyes hooded in disdain as her lips twisted into a scowl. “The whole dorm can hear you. Some guys in the hall were taking bets on whether or not you were arguing because Eric wanted to pitch again tonight.”
“How rude!” Eric snorted, “I would be on top EVERY night.”
“Shut up, you mental invalid,” Rob said, “Clarissa, Eric somehow was unaware that Jim died.” Seeming to struggle with finding words to convey the stupidity he was dealing with, Rob gestured wildly with his hands. “How…why…like, wh-…just HOW high do you even have to BE to DO something like that?!”
Clarissa blinked mildly for several seconds. She looked at Eric. “Eric,” she said.
“Yes,” he answered.
“It’s people like you who gave Alfred Binet’s life purpose.”
Eric grappled mightily with the insult. “Thaaaaank…you?” Eric was shitty at grappling.
“You’re welcome,” Clarissa offered, drolly.
“Now, Rob,” she continued, “It’s funny that you should bring up Jim’s death. Because I personally have been thinking about this bullshit, and things don’t add up.” She began to pace back and forth, in the traditional way that characters do when they’re thinking hard about something. “What was with the bite marks all over him? And those foot-prints? And for that matter, why weren’t the police concerned about these issues? I really don’t know, but it’s starting to seem like a real Scooby-Doo of a shitty mystery.”
“Ahem,” Rob coughed, sheepishly. “Now, this is going to sound a little ridiculous, but I want you to bear with me here. I think that, given the circumstances, we can only rationally-”
“IT WAS A GODDAMN LAKE MONSTER. IT RAPED JIM AND ATE HIS DICK AND WHO KNOWS WHO IS GOING TO BE NEXT.” Eric always chose the most opportune moments to spout bullshit.
Clarissa’s brow furrowed strongly, and she looked hard at Rob. “Is that actually what you were going to say? Because it sounds retarded when he says it, but I think that might just be because it is him saying it.”
“Uh, yeah, actually,” Rob allowed, voice ever-begrudging. “That is pretty much what I was going to say.” He began to rub at his right eyebrow, another nervous habit. “I mean, it just makes the most sense, even though it doesn’t make sense, and it’s all we have and I don’t know what else to think and-”
“Rob!” Clarissa yelled, becoming the second person to cut him off in less than sixty seconds. “I…believe you. I think.” She closed her eyes in thought. “Or at least, I believe that the story is wrong somehow. Your idea is kind of outlandish, but we have to start somewhere I guess.” She pounded her fist into her palm. “So I guess the only option is to go out and look for this thing, or murderer, or whatever, and do some grade-A sleuthing.”
“Okaaaay, but…” Rob trailed off. “Huh. I don’t know. I guess it just seems like someone should bring up a step in between now and going to hunt the monster.”
“‘But, but, Clarriiiiiiiissssa, how are we gonna fight the monster,’” Eric whined, doing a high-pitched and incredibly inaccurate impression of Rob’s low baritone voice. He shot Rob a smug look and rolled his eyes. “That’s what you sound that.”
“That’s literally not even a little bit what I sound like.”
“Whatever. That’s the step you were forgetting, anyways. And I have the solution!” With this, Eric dove underneath his bed, rummaged furiously for a moment, and then emerged with his hands full of treasures. Or, wait, I meant junk. Not treasures.
He handed Rob a baseball bat and Clarissa a shitty machete. “Here, take these. Its dangerous to go alone in a group all together like this.”
Clarissa clenched her eyes tightly closed, attempting not to shout as she asked, “Why…why the fuck do you have a machete in your dorm.”
“Self-defence, what do you think I am, a peasant.”
“This is literally the most illegal item I have ever held!” She exclaimed. “You can’t bring this into a dorm!”
“Don’t worry,” Eric soothed, “It’s nice and sharp, it kills things real fast-like, so they don’t suffer.”
“THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME NOT WORRY.”
“Jesus, keep your voice down!” He hushed, “Fine, give it to me, I’ll sneak it out.”
As Eric took the machete and began to conceal it awkwardly in his hoodie, Rob got a good look at the weapon which Eric had reserved for himself. “Is that a fucking speargun?”
“Fuck yeah it is!” Eric crowed, hastily snatching and posing with his ridiculous personal harpoon. “I got this thing on ebay for like 70 bucks, pretty sweet, right?”
“Pretty stupid, more like. You know you’re not supposed to shoot those things out of water, right? You could kill yourself with just the recoil.”
“1.) Who gives a massive shit 2.) I’m a badass and can handle a little recoil and 3.) we’re finding a LAKE MONSTER. Who says I’m not going to be underwater!”
Rob threw up his hands in frustration. “We’re fighting a Lake Monster in MIRROR LAKE. Most likely the thing is just laying on the bottom, like three inches below the surface.”
“Yeah, whatever, fuck you,” Eric sneered. “Come on. Let’s go kill a monster.”
END PART ONE