Children Of the Lake

(300)

The lake sparkled under the evening sun, fathomless and dark, only the occasional fish disturbing its flat, glassy face.

Demons slumbered far beneath the surface. They waited patiently for a victim, a lush head of hair to snag in their rotted grip or a bare ankle to sink their teeth.

The Children Of the Lake, was what Grandfather Eli had called them.

In 1879 an orphanage had been built on the edge of the forest, a half mile away. The legend went, (If you believed such things) that the woman managing the place ran out of funds to properly feed and care for the children.

Instead of transferring the little boys and girls, she went mad as some of the them began to perish from malnutrition. She dumped the bodies in the water, at first.

Then she took the remaining nineteen children down to the bank and drowned them, one by one.

Silly stories.

I gave it a running start, racing down the length of the dock as I'd done a thousand times before. The only difference now was that I'd come alone.

No friends to splash and yell with, but no parents to supervise or give orders. No tanned life guard with a whistle and sunglasses, not ever.

The water struck my body like a bucket of ice. My chest hitched involuntarily at the cold as my head sunk below the lake, down farther and farther, toes never brushing the sandy bottom.

Just as my lungs began to ache I made a powerful thrust upwards, pushing towards the light and away from the demons I so often mocked.

I could see the dancing sunlight and almost taste the fresh air when my momentum ceased suddenly, harshly.

I looked down at the obstruction, expecting a ruined bit of net or a piece of wood snagged to the fabric of my swim shorts.

Instead I saw a fetid little girl staring up at me with gaping, empty sockets and a mouth formed in the shape of a perfectly round, black hole.