Lake Hallow (Story #1 in the Gloam collection)

 

                           

Hello, lovely readers! Welcome to Gloam, a collection of short fiction stories that I'm excited to introduce. I've hit a bit of a rough spot writing my bigger story, so I began working on this as a way to still direct my creative energy toward something! Here we are introduced to Margot, who recounts her first experience running into a mystery that is not quite human, as a small town teenager. There will be two more installments of her story. 

Lake Hallow's dock is very old. It's been around since my grandparents time, and probably since the lake was young, too. All of its groans as the wind and water knock it around, all of the empty spaces where chunks of wood should be, point to its antiquity. 

It was here, also, that Theodore Golding disappeared. And nobody seemed to remember who he was. I didn't either, until I found his jacket half-concealed under dying grass. That's when I remembered. Theo Golding, who lived two houses down. Theo Golding, who had twinkling gray eyes and helped his grandmother at the grocery shop. I close my eyes, thinking of the police station. Of his mother's reaction. The kindly officer had said there had been no such person that had lived in this town. Mrs. Golding swore up and down that she'd never had a son. Her eyes were clouded over the whole time -- like they were veiled by a fog. 

So I found myself here again, at the place he seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Doubt began to crawl its slimy way into my mind. Maybe I had dreamed this up. Maybe I watched too many crime shows. And yet, I had physical evidence in my hands. Evidence that was blue and labelled 'Theo' on the tag with a sharpie. 

Something very wrong was happening to this town. 

Thunder crackles as pillars of dark clouds race across the sky. The storm'll be on the lake in a few moments, disturbing the placid, glass-like surface into a tempest. Birds fly back and forth. I ponder what they could say if they could speak. If they could tell me what happened. Had they seen what lurked out there? Had they tried to warn him?

Or maybe whoever, whatever it was, had been dreadful enough to silence them. 

A gust of wind blows across the lake and the dock groans in response, as if begging to collapse. A drop or two of rain hits my face. 

The storm had taken over, draining the color out of everything, even the water. Only the cedars kept their vibrant green, standing tall and proud against the faded landscape. 

And then I saw him -- it. I knew without a doubt I was staring at something truly evil. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't run, I couldn't look away. Eyes of endless black. Putrid and hateful. 

Another gust of wind hits, stronger and uncharacteristically cold for summer. 

I blink and its gone. 

"Margot." 

The whisper, carried by the breeze, caressed my ear. Sibilant as a snake. 

The trance broke. I ran with all the strength in me, refusing to look behind, to see if I was being pursued by something with sharp teeth and claws and eyes that weren't really eyes at all. 

The sky opened and poured.