The Creature of Fortune Lake

Background:

Bewabic Park, a 137-site campground situated in a shady, wooded site, is located in Crystal Falls, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. The park has picnic areas, a tennis court, a hiking trail, two playgrounds, an excellent beach and a boat launch to Fortune Lake. It is also part of the Iron County Heritage Trail system. Many other points of interest in the area are within easy reach, such as Horse Race Rapids, Chicaugon Falls, Pentoga Park with its Indian burial ground, Iron Mountain Iron Mine and the Iron County Museum in Caspian.


During the day, Crystal Falls's Bewabic Park seems like a friendly, atmospheric campground, but if you ever made the mistake of wandering it at night, you would never want to return . . . If you even survived.

Nobody ever thought of leaving their campsites at night just for fun, but one cold night, an adventurous brother-and-sister duo decided it would be a good idea to go swimming at three o'clock in the morning.

Max and Rebecca exited their campsite, leaving their parents sound asleep on a partially-deflated air mattress in their way-too-small-for-four-people tent. They made sure not to wake their parents, because if they were caught, they would receive a major scolding not only for sneaking out into the darkness but for trying to go to the lake, the one they were not allowed to swim in. "The water is murky and full of germs," their mother would say.

"What was that noise?" Max asked suddenly when they were walking in the woods to the lake.

"Shut up and keep walking," said Rebecca, annoyed. "I didn't hear a thing."

Max, obeying his younger yet extremely bossy sister, continued on the path, until he heard it again.

The Noise.

It was a moan. No, a growl. A moan-growl. It was terrifying.

"Shh!" he scolded. "Listen."

She sighed irritably, but stopped anyway and listened intently to a sound that wasn't there.

"I swear, if you try to scare me again . . . "

"I'm not! I promise I heard something!" His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly agape. His heart began thumping in his chest.

She rolled her eyes and continued on her way down the trail, hoping to get a swim in before their parents knew they were gone.

"Where are you going?" her brother said in a loud whisper.

"What?" She spun around.

"Uh...we should go back. We don't know what's lurking in these woods."

His sister scoffed. "You don't think we'd wake Mom and Dad if we ran back there, screaming that there was a monster in the woods?" She shook her head, and once again continued walking.

Reluctantly, her brother followed.

He kept hearing noises, all unsettling, but none of them resembled "The Noise" he kept hearing before.

Though he was still on edge, he managed to complete the trek through the woods. Expecting a surface shimmering in the moonlight, he was surprised when he saw that the lake was completely black. He looked at the sky, but he still saw the full moon hanging overhead.

By the time he reached the shore, his sister was already in the reflection-less water, practicing her breaststroke.

"Uh . . . I have a bad feeling about this," he said shakily.

"Would you just rela---" She was cut off; she had been pulled under.

"Rebecca!" he cried, rushing into the water. He searched around, and when he found her, he pulled her up. She was unconscious. He shook her, calling her name in a panic. Then suddenly, her eyes shot open and she screamed. He backed away, completely startled, and she burst out laughing.

"Ha! You should've seen your fa---"

Splash.

Her brother rolled his eyes and turned toward the shore. "You can't fool me twice with the same joke. You know that, right?"

She didn't answer.

He turned back around, but there was no sign of her.

"R-Rebecca?"

Finally she emerged, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

But what came from his sister's throat was not a giggle; it was an even more terrifyingly-familiar sound: The Noise.

Max felt his stomach drop. The Thing was staring at him, he noticed, with gleaming yellow eyes that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He couldn't see much else except for the wicked grin spreading across the creature's face. Its teeth were razor sharp.

He could not move. He could not run. He just stared. He didn't even move when the Thing lunged forward.

All Max saw was blackness.

The siblings never surfaced Fortune Lake, and were never seen again.

This was nearly twenty years ago, but the Creature of Fortune Lake still lurks around . . . somewhere. The lake, the woods. Even outside your own campsite.

So . . . for your own good . . . do not wander the grounds at night, or you could end up like Rebecca and Max.