When she had first inherited the lakeside cabin after her mother’s passing, her first thought was to find a realtor and be rid of it. Purely practically it was the wisest choice: it took too long to get to, was overly large and expensive to upkeep, and there was no mortgage on it so the sale would be all profit to her.
Selling it was practical. Very practical.
A nice bit of reasoned behavior to hide the far less reasoned truth that she does not like the place. She had been there exactly once. It was originally her grandparents’ and it was rare that they would invite the rest of the family, but when it happened it was a exciting and cherished event.
If one were to take the memories of her one attendance as a reel of film and project them, they would be presented with an idyllic home movie. Lively banter, a sizzling grill, a few relaxed adults sipping drinks, and children playing games in the shallows of the lake as the warm golden rays of the sun took an amber tint. The kind of scene from which the pain of nostalgia derives its sharpest edges.
When her parents announced they would be going to the cabin again five years later, she violently refused. A thin scar on her arm can still be seen from where it caught a metal door fixture as her tantrum escalated.
In hindsight that event had become nothing more than an unfortunate outburst of emotion from a young child. Something which she and her parents could laugh about not many years later.
Every time her grandparents announced a get-together after that, her parents immediately declined. No one could quite say why, but she had been thankful.
Now she—that is Anise Clement—is well into adulthood and a mother of two. Work has been a far more tangible hell, the school year will start again soon, her realtor has yet to find a single prospective buyer, and whatever childish phobia once kept her from that place has been replaced by the irresistible force of a convenient vacation.
The last attempt to bring the luxury of pavement to that long roadway leading to the lake had taken place many decades in the past. The asphalt laid was hard but thin so all that remained—even when so rarely trodden—was its disintegrating outline and the occasional island of stubborn black between the grooves in the dirt. Only the joyful squeals a five-year-old, let loose with each bounce and puddle splash, kept her from spiraling into worry thinking about what kind of damage her poor city van would have to suffer for her lack of foresight.
When finally they reached the estate, her two children erupted from their landing vessel to seize their new operating base with all haste. Content simply to be done traveling, the woman—one Anise Laffelder—took to unloading their belongings from the van quite casually.
Pulling one wheeled suitcase and holding two smaller backpacks, she gave the old wood cabin a long look-over as she approached the manually operated garage doors. However much she wished to distance herself from the place at one point in her memories, she had always thought it looked much prouder before. One could not call it shabby, but the wood had become greyed, the corners weathered, the roof dusted with lichen and moss. Despite this, it stubbornly remained solid in all places of importance. No sagged foundations, nor cracked wall, nor broken windows. It was an old man who had lost his shine but not his spine.
The lakeside to her left was bright and clear in the midday as she scanned to see what mischief Erin and Renald had started. The two had just finished their preliminary foray to the estate’s sun bleached dock and slipped around to the far side. She could hear the echoes of their shouts as they swept around and into the forested hills to her right.
It seemed the hill, too, had lost its luster. The verdant grove of pines had burned away and new growth had yet to sprout. It surprised her the house still stood after a fire so close.
Perhaps all the trees her father and grandfather had cut for firewood had left just large enough of a buffer. Perhaps a lucky rain had stopped it short. In either case the unfortunate place had become lifeless and fragile in appearance.
She saw a harsh beauty in it as she stood and stared.
Dinner was a simple affair: cold cut sandwiches and a salad of lettuce and tomato. She dared not test fate on anything more complicated on her first night in a new kitchen. Luckily she had been blessed with children that were easy to satisfy when it came to food, or as easy as volatile young tastebuds could allow.
Her youngest, five-year-old Erin, of course picked out the tomatoes and was quite distraught by the presence of mayo in her sandwich (having only just that moment finally become aware of its taste after three years of solid foods).
Nine-year-old Renald had acquired a keen interest in athletics and was developing the appetite of one. Every grape tomato rolled to the side of Erin’s plate was quickly vacuumed up by the idling lad whose plate had long since been cleared.
Anise had hoped the exhaustion of traveling would set in for the two after eating, but the high of adventure kept them buzzing well into the evening. They roped her into playing one of the many board games left in the estate—likely by her uncle. And then another… and then another…
She longed for sleep long before they finished their fifth game, but was too charmed by their innocent pleas and so accept a request for “just one more.” This one of Erin’s choosing.
She leaned back and closed her eyes as she let her little girl retrieve the next treasure from the shelf. Just as she was about to give in fully, Erin returned and excitedly declared that she had found just the one.
Anise furrowed her brow as she looked at the intricately painted, wood box her daughter held in two arms. It was an abstract depiction of something vaguely humanoid, though she paid little attention. She took the box appraisingly and opened it to find not a game but a stash of letters with a handful of photos mixed in.
Erin was at first disappointed upon the discovery, then promptly became curious: were those letters? Who were they for? Who were the people in the pictures? Is this grandma’s? And many other irrelevant question besides.
Anise had not a single answer to give even should she have the energy to give him. None of the faces or names were familiar. Some of the letters were clearly much older than the rest, however, so she guessed it must have originally been one of her grandparents who started the collection—if it was any of theirs at all.
As she studied the photos she noticed the single individual captured in each was dressed in white and stood in front of the one element that she did recognize: the Lake.
Before she could think on it any longer, Renald announced that he had found an actual game they could play (he having lost interest in the box immediately upon seeing the contents). Erin started to protest having her turn skipped, but then upon seeing the game in question graciously decided such pertinence would be allowed that night.
Following another round of their coaxing, Anise replaced the contents of the box and set it to her side. An investigation mission of her own for tomorrow, it seemed.
For reasons she wasn’t too sure of herself, she chose to sleep in a guest bedroom that night. She found the bed still well made—if a bit dusty—and settled in with no issue.
In such a remote place, the night was well and truly dark and quiet as all residents of the cabin became still. Her breathing relaxed and the world faded.
Her last conscious thoughts were to the light pitter of a starting rain upon her window.
It was supposed to be dry that week.
The children were—of course—undeterred by the rain on the following morning and after breakfast dragged her out with them to play around the lake. Anise had not packed for rain, but it made little difference to the two who were already determined to get wet. She grabbed the one umbrella left in the cabin and stood on the dock as they splashed about.
Erin didn’t last long. The lake mud had already reclaimed most of the shallows around their property from the layer of sand and pebbles her family once maintained. One step into it was all it took to send the sensitive little girl crying back to land and into the arms of her sheltering mother.
Renald couldn’t be happier, jumping off the dock and laughing as the cold stole his breath. He climbed back onto the dock, jumped again, and repeated the cycle many… many times. Anise was worried he might hurt himself, but was glad he at least listened to her request to not get too far from the dock.
Just before the boy jumped again, he suddenly stopped and stared out. A fish, he claimed. And a big one at that.
The three stood at the end of the dock and watched for another glance. Three minutes passed before the boy pointed again.
So it was. Anise only caught a glance but it appeared black and slender, and the motion of the water around it was evidence enough to its size.
She expected Renald to suggest jumping in to catch it but he stayed quiet, shivering as his body finally recognized the cold. He stubbornly continued to watch for the fish for another minute then gave in and retreated to the fireplace inside.
The rain got a steady step heavier by midday. Renald was passed out under a blanket in front of the fire as Erin quietly colored away in a book. Anise had retrieved the box of letters and was reading through each in full.
She didn’t quite know what to make of them. No one in her family was a priest as far as she could remember, yet all of these letters read like confessions and appeals for repentance. There were plenty of gaps in what she knew, however, and it wasn’t entirely unreasonable her grandfather had some role in a church.
Many of them were nearly unreadable, written with shaking hands and filled with typos and mistakes. They must have been hard words to express for the individuals, Anise thought.
After the sixth letter, she couldn’t bring herself to try reading any more. She told herself it was out of respect now that she had realized what they were.
In truth she found them unsettling.
With the box closed once again, she examined the painting on top more closely. It was still fairly indistinct and open to interpretation who the two figures were in the radially symmetric design, but now she felt their faces had a ghastly quality to them. Long, pale faces with sunken features and exaggerated shadows. The dark, curved shapes behind them now appeared organic… writhing.
As Anise mustered up the willpower to cook their dinner for the night, Renald found his second wind for the day and requested permission to go out onto the dock and watch the fish. She mandated that he dress appropriately, keep clean (relatively), and stay out of the water. He consented readily, saying he didn’t want to swim. His eyes, however, said he would have rushed out without a coat had she not said anything.
She had some misgivings looking out the window as he scuttled off. The rain had only gotten worse and the clouds had made the afternoon unreasonably dim for the season.
Still, she kept her word. Surely she had gone out to play on many days like this in her youth.
Erin stayed in and “helped” her cook. It was a simple dish but it took some time to prepare. Anise looked out to see her son still on the dock as they finished their preparation and waited for it to simmer. He was still as a statue in his vigil. His innocent dedication brought a smile to her face but the water line was starting to concern her as the floating dock was now half submerged.
It was then that a sudden buzzing on the counter made her jump. She quickly realized it was just an alert from her phone. Erin had been spinning it around and humming, then scrunched her face as she concentrated on the bold lettered alert that woke the screen. She announced the phone was “flu-ding.”
Anise poked her head out the porch side door and shouted for Renald that it was time to come in. He didn’t seem to hear her as he seemed to have finally spotted one of the fish and was excitedly pointing. Whatever he shouted was swallowed in the din of the rain.
Resigned to the inevitable, Anise promptly got boots and the umbrella and made her way out to the dock to retrieve the boy directly. The water had reached over the top of it and splashed as she trudged down its length, calling out once again.
Renald turned with a big smile, pointing again—now just in front of his feet. With great joy he proclaimed to her that it was the biggest fish he had ever seen.
She smiled back and acknowledged his discovery as she reached out for his hand.
He sighed in acceptance and reached out for hers.
Then his feet slipped backwards and into the lake.
Only a moment passed before Anise realized what was happening, but it was an important moment to lose.
Renald crashed facedown into the dock, his arms flailing reflexively as he was across the last lip of it into the deep of the lake. He only barely caught a handhold on the last plank to keep from disappearing altogether, but his head was already submerged.
Anise screamed and dove after him. The ice cold water immediately soaked into her clothes, but she didn’t feel it, nor the bruising of her joints against the wood, nor the seizing of her lungs from the jolt, nor the strain of her heart as its pace exploded in intensity.
The umbrella splashed into the water beside her as she grabbed at her son’s arms. She barely managed one hand on his right arm before he lost his grip on the dock. For the briefest moment he began to slip away. She squeezed tight, clenching as much of the loose fabric as she could gather and it worked to keep them together.
Yet the force trying to steal her child away was intense, rhythmic, and feral. It dragged both of them further in and try as she may Anise could not keep her head above the water. Panicked hrashing rewarded her free hand a hold on a plank of the deck from which she leveraged a desperate resistance.
Blind and deaf in the violent sloshing of the murk, numb to the scraping and strain by adrenaline and the cold, and yet she could feel the full truth that she would not be able to hold.
And then it slipped.
Anise twisted herself to bring Renald back onto the deck, waterlogged as it was, then scrambled to her feet. Renald was coughing and spurting, unable to raise himself or do else but curl and whimper. And so, she lifted him up and sprinted back to the house, stumbling as the flooding grabbed at her feet.
If it was following her, she did not listen. If it was watching her, she did not look to see.
Erin brought the first aid kit, as requested by her mother. What Lake water was left in the boy’s body was being coughed and vomited up as his mother assessed his scrapes and bruises: a battered chin; raw, bleeding fingers; and one missing boot—the price for their fortune.
After a few minutes of fussing and tending, Renald assured her he was fine. The words were unconvincing from blued lips and red, tear-glazed eyes. At least he was trying, that would have to be enough for Anise for the time being.
They had to leave, of course. Erin couldn’t understand what was happening but her brother’s condition was enough to keep her pliant to her mother’s frantic directions. Two bags were all they would take, still half packed from their arrival.
Rain pattered against the thin garage door as she reached to pull it up. It resisted her first attempt, its un-oiled tracks jamming and clattering. That would feel to her to be an omen as when it finally gave a bitter chill stole in amidst the spill of water that had pooled on the other side.
The panic that spurred Anise still lingered but in the sober quiet of their preparations she became aware of her own state. Her sopping clothes and roped hair making a mess of her seat as she climbed in and started up the van. Her fingers on the wheel, pale and cold as she turned about and set off down the dark road.
The din was constant and roaring with every collision on glass and plastic. The van’s tires played the part of waterwheels as what once was a path of dirt had become a stream. Every heavy droplet creating a geyser of spray that caught the light of the headlamps, obscuring the path beyond. All that Anise could rely upon for guidance was her memory of its simple route and the shadowy outline of the flanking terrain.
They moved slowly. So carefully that they were truly not far from the cabin at all when thoughts of regret began to surface into her mind. Doubts that her machine in all its modern engineering—or perhaps because of it—would be able to make the trek in these conditions.
She had never seen rains so calamitous. She considered them heavy when Renald had first gone out, and yet still it fell thicker by the hour. Surely, though, this was the worst it could get in that region.
She slowed nearly to a stop. If she was going to turn back it would have to be then. Heading out into the storm felt foolish in hindsight and holing up in the cabin was probably the wiser option.
But deeper in her mind that impulse that once drove her to stay away from that place had reignited. And then there was that thing.
If it had hands to grab, why not feet to walk?
And even if it could not leave the lake, the lake was building its way up to them.
She looked out to the road again.
The noise of the storm was ceaseless, yet Anise’s ears had become deafened to it in the tension.
Her world felt so very far away. Somewhere past the dark ahead. Perhaps behind her?
When did she get here, and why? What was it she was running from?
In the rearview mirror she could see her children illuminated ever so faintly by the glow of the sparse interior lights. Erin already sleeping as she did on the initial drive, Renald quietly yet intently staring out towards the lake.
That’s what she was doing. Getting them home.
They were going home.
She was pushing against the door of the car.
They were sliding sideways.
She tried to correct; flailed at the wheel and pumped the brake. What was she supposed to do in a situation like this? Renald asked what was happening and she told him to hold tight and then woke up Erin.
Prayers were all they had to hope for that they’d stop before the lake, and those prayers were met with a crunch as the van collided with something. A tree or rock, perhaps. It became a pivot as the van swung slowly, then they stopped entirely.
Anise looked out and tried to gauge how fast the water and mud was flowing. It looked still in the headlights—horizontally in any case—so she opened her door and stuck a foot out to confirm. They had gotten some distance from the cabin but she could still see its porch light. With few alternatives, she grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and abandoned the van with Erin in her arms and guiding Renald by hand.
The water had gotten deep—well past the ankles—and the flow of the hill runoff was weak, suggesting the lake itself had risen to that point. With the mud below, walking was arduous. Renald pressed on diligently but she could feel him begin to shake and his pace slow.
It was more than just the physical toll, though that was accumulating. Both mother and son could not keep themselves from glancing towards the lakeside of the cabin as they approached. Yet in the roaring dark of the storm, there was no way to know if they were walking alone.
The rise in elevation and better kept pavement around the cabin granted them some reprieve as they finally returned. Erin was clinging tightly with her head buried into her mother’s shoulder, however, Renald had managed a second wind with their goal finally in sight.
The two short steps from the garage floor to the door were still just enough to keep water from flooding in as they opened it. On the inside, the lower parts of the cabin had already began to seep in water with a small stream beginning to form towards the basement. With no more access to the fireplace, Anise got the kids dried off and settled around a space heater in an upper story room as she called emergency services.
The signal was bad, but it went through. The operator was attentive and did their best to assure her, but she learned she was not the only one around the lake dealing with the flooding and the rescue crews had been blindsided by the suddenness of the disaster.
She hid away in a downstairs bathroom pleading with them to come save her children for as long as she could keep them on the line, but that time ran through quickly. They left her with only the advice to seek the highest ground in the house with accessible windows should the flooding get worse.
It took her a minute to collect herself after the call. There was a viscous chaos lingering in her throat, her heart, and the back of her mind. The lights of the house were already flickering and threatening to extinguish, but the darkness at the edges of her vision did not come from the shadows of the world.
Then with a pop the lights finally did die, along with all of the cabin’s electricity. She scrambled to her feet to check on Erin and Renald and get them a flashlight of their own. With no more heater she was worried about the cold getting to them, but curiously the house felt almost stiflingly warm. The rain outside had such a bitter chill to it she nearly forgot it was still summer.
And then she saw the glow of embers in the glittering stream rushing down to the basement with ever more vigor than before. For concern and curiosity, Anise ventured along the cascade down the step to find the space already half submerged. Streaks and specks of orange filled the water and turning her light to the nearest cluster she saw bits of forest debris drifting just under the surface.
They were chunks of ashen wood utterly consumed by flame long ago—the remnants of the forest fire. Yet, they still smoldered even as they remained completely submerged. None of them floated as wood should, instead following hidden currents any which way.
There was a branch that drifted close to her which glowed from base to tip so intensely it would vanish into ash entirely any moment. Then it collided with the stairs sending a piece of it out of the water, and on every inch exposed to the air—and only there—the glow extinguished completely. Anise stooped to grab it, but it scalded her fingers as they closed around.
The hairs of her neck raised as her conscious mind registered the potential danger of these strange coals, but they were quite dazzling to her to behold in the dark. Then, as she scanned once more, she saw the chest tucked away near the far end of the flooded room, licked in the glow all around its unassuming wooden structure. On its top there it formed a familiar pattern.
She felt a strong urge to wade in and see what it held.
Then the stream of water surged in strength, bringing her back to more pressing matters.
Out the window they could see the water’s rise would not cease. It had already filled the garage level up to three feet and still climbed higher. The rain, at least, seemed set to a constant. Though, that still brought it to the level of a monsoon or perhaps worse.
It was going to bring the whole house under. Anise needed neither instinct nor inspective reasoning to deduce as much. What would they do if the rescue teams could not arrive by then?
There was a small dinghy in the garage. A pitiful thing useful only for paddling about the lake for fun and exercise on a pleasant day. But once the house was taken, what other choice did they have?
She checked the windows closest to the garage to see which the kids could best get out from. Satisfied with the one in the master bedroom, she told them to wait up there while she got the boat ready, and if—or rather when—the water got high enough the were to climb through and join her in it.
There was some amount of concern in her mind that the glowing embers could be found in the water outside the cabin as well, but it was another factor for which she had no control.
However, she soon realized she would have to be the first to climb out that way as her attempts to the enter the garage through the inside were stunted. She had never closed the outer door and so now a wall of water that was already leaking its way in kept that path sealed. So she made her way back up to the top floor and carefully clambered her way out of the window.
Perhaps she could have jumped. The water was deep enough to cushion. It seemed a tad high still, however, so she had attempted to climb down as far as she could.
Attempted as she promptly slipped and hurtled back first. She heard Renald scream out for her just before she splashed into the water. There was a moment of disoriented panic in which she brushed several of the floating embers, but adrenaline found her back to her feet soon enough with only a few spurts and coughs needed to clear her airways.
Snatching her floating flashlight, she waded in through the open door of the garage and found the dinghy where it had been left for many years, covered in a blue tarp and already beginning to float over the trailer it had rested on. They would need that tarp, she reasoned, and so she left it on as she attempted to negotiate the hidden obstacles at her feet and push it out.
The water felt like a battleground of fire and ice, the space around the ashen debris near boiling hot yet chilling to near freezing in their absence. It was unnatural and spurred her to hurry.
She scavenged a set of life-jackets then slipped her way into the back corner to begin pushing. There was a noise like something dipping into the water from the other entrance side that caused her to halt and listen, but there were no further disturbances. The boat bumped and crashed a few times and she whacked her shin once or twice, but she pushed the vessel out just before it floated high enough to scrape the roof of the garage.
Now to climb in with the boat at head level would prove to be the greater challenge. She tried the contents of the garage again for a stool or a ladder and saw metal one still leaning against the wall. It was frustratingly heavy to drag out, but at least that meant it wouldn’t float off later.
She set it against the outside of the cabin and drew the boat back over. As she took the first step to climb up there was an impact on her left leg, followed by sliming tendrils constricting it and piercing pain like many small forks digging into one focused point of her flesh.
She screamed and began kicking at the mass attached to her with her free leg. It was stubborn and its amorphous body hidden in the muddied liquid evaded a clean impact. Whatever heat was left in her body was quickly sapping way.
Short of breath and conscious thought, she grabbed a floating stick and jabbed it down. There was a sizzle and bubbling hiss then the presence on her leg released and fled. She dropped the stick, scrambled up the ladder, and jumped onto the tarp covered boat. Awkwardly, and nearly tipping the vessel multiple times, she navigated her way under the sheet then raised it to shed the small pool that had already formed.
There were two oars inside and she grabbed one to keep herself near the window her kids waited at. Then she waited, nursing her wounded leg and burned hand.
Anise nearly laughed even as her eyes blurred when she could reach out to touch the window. She yelled to Renald to get her phone and the first-aid kit then bandaged herself before helping the children in with her.
She had thought to row towards the far side of the lake and the town there, but in the pitch black of the night she knew she could only get themselves lost in the middle of nowhere. So they stayed huddled under the tarp managing whatever water that seeped in and waiting for the SOS signal of her phone to guide help to them.
She tried not to think about what state the town must be in with the lake that high.
When she peeked out all she could see was a field of stars and comets below them. Beautiful… yet hellish.
The rain kept pressing, each hit on the tarp and lake a drum resounding until it became the silence and swallowed all noise with it.
The water was still—and they even more. Yet, on occasion they were shaken by a bump or collision along with the sound of some soft body dragging along the wood.
It was becoming unbearable. Erin’s stunned paralysis broke into heavy sobbing and tremors. Renald couldn’t hold out any longer either, trembling with tears and shivers. Anise held them tightly, praying over and over again.
There was another bump, larger than the ones before. There was crunch on either side as if it was digging in, determined now to pry a prize from craft by whatever means. It shook the boat violently letting some water pool in over the tarp.
She couldn’t let it persist and sink them all, so Anise grabbed a paddle again and stuck it through the tarp and down the side of the dinghy, thrashing it vaguely towards whatever was under them. She could muster little force but it connected, so she jabbed again and again.
Eventually it took notice, but little concern. The boat tipped again as it released one side and grabbed the other end of the paddle, wreathing it from her grip. She fell backward from the sudden shift in force rocked the boat further. More water piled on top turning the tarp into a burden. She shouted to the kids to help pull the tarp off as quickly as they could, and they did just before the thing below tipped them nearly sideways.
They began taking on water in earnest starting the sinking process just as a bright light settled onto the three of them: a searchlight, finally.
She grabbed her beloved daughter and son and abandoned the dinghy to the entity that so wanted it. She kicked and struggled, relying on their combined life-jackets to stay afloat.
She knew what would happen to her now, but she just needed those two safely on that boat.
Burning debris scrapped her. The ice water stole her breath. The boat behind her was flipped entirely and soon a familiar horror found her and she could do nothing to prevent it.
It did not pull her down, but it was so much larger than the one before. Even through the numb she could feel her blood pulled her veins towards its hunger.
She could see the rescue vessel but it felt so very far away. Her arms which were like vises around what was most precious to her could no longer hold them.
The last thing she could perceive were shadows reaching out from the light to grab Erin and Renald.
And then the world was lost to the deep.