by A. P. Fuchs
Tears mixed with the lake water running off his hair and over his eyes.
"Jordan! Emily! No! Maria . . ." He was already out of breath.
The beast on the lake grunted, low and guttural, its sound echoing inside him.
My kids . . . "It . . . they . . ." The words would not come and he didn't think they ever would.
The revelation of what might have happened hit him hard and it quickly explained why he hadn't noticed any footprints on the beach earlier. Not even a sign of any stirring of the sand. This thing had covered everything, probably had brought up the sand that was just beneath the shoreline when it rose from the depths the first time that afternoon.
It covered everything.
Except for him. He had been higher up.
"Jordan!" His son just lay there, still and waterlogged. "Emily," he whispered. "Wake up. My kids . . . . Maria!" Their bodies absorbed his voice and didn't react.
Though he knew they hadn't survived, it was at that moment he truly acknowledged they were dead. When it really hit home.
Everyone was dead.
Everyone . . . except for him.
The creature on the lake lifted its tentacles then brought them down with a hard slap, showering up a spray of water.
It began to move toward him.
Gerry's muscles locked and for an instant his heart stopped beating. At least he thought so until it started pounding inside his chest, his head, its pulse echoing in his throat.
The big, black hulk scrambled out of the water like a dog, its tentacles suddenly rigid, clawing at the sand, bringing its mass toward him. With each inch closer, the thing grew a foot taller, a foot wider.
Enormous.
His breaths came out fast through his nostrils; the creature's shining, liquid eye locked on with his.
Gerry tried to swallow, but his mouth was so dry that nothing would go down. He forgot where he was---forgot who he was---forgot what happened, forgot about being trapped. Nothing mattered, but the giant squid-like monster coming toward him.
The world disappeared in a flash of darkness and when it focused back into being again, the creature was right in front of him.
It stared at him, but like the shadowy slug, it didn't move.
A part of him just wanted it to be over. Just wanted the creature to do something. Anything. He hated playing this staring game and constantly wondering what was going to happen next.
Minutes passed, maybe hours, before the creature moved its girth, its huge body-head pushing the sand in a heap around it when it turned.
Without meaning to, Gerry tried once more to free himself and, with a hard pull, yanked his arms free from the sand. The second his arms came out, the creature shifted its weight and its eye was once again fixed on him.
Don't move. Don't even breathe, Gerry thought.
The two exchanged stares: the creature's soul-searching and evil; Gerry's wide-eyed with panic.
Again after a time, the creature shifted its weight.
Gerry tried to move and the second he did, the twenty-something-foot-tall behemoth stared down at him. He couldn't see a mouth on the creature, just a slick, oily face with a single eye.
Its vision is based on movement, Gerry thought. At least he hoped so. If he could just somehow stay still and wait it out. Surely there were others in Birds Hill Park near the beach or, at least, there would be shortly. It had to be nearly dawn, though he was still unsure what time it was.
And so he waited, forcing himself to remain still, forcing himself to breathe slow, methodic breaths, anything that would make him appear no less significant than a tree stump.
Don't think about where you are. Pretend you're at home with the kids, with . . . ". . . my kids," he accidentally whispered. Jordan and Emily were dead. Tears swelled in his eyes and as much as he tried not to cry, he couldn't stop himself from sniffling. A sharp pang filled his chest, pierced his heart.
He took in the creature, his field of vision following the liquid slick contours of the monster's form and he was awed by how perfectly round it was, how impossibly smooth.
The creature moved again and its mass pushed up a mound of sand that was quickly picked up by a light breeze that decided to come by. Some of the sand hit Gerry's face, tickling his skin. And, a moment later, an itch formed. It poked and pricked and begged to be scratched.
Gerry grimaced, bit his lips, tried to take his mind off it. You're not itchy. Everything's fine. Relax. It's okay. You're at home. You're watching TV. You're at the park with the kids. You're sitting across from Maria at the dinner table, eating a turkey club. The itch pinched and he could envision his skin curling from it. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn't. It hurt so bad and he---
His hand snapped back down to his side as the blessed relief of an itch scratched took over.
The monster grunted, faced him and, near its lower jowls, its face seem to split horizontally in two, revealing row upon row of sharp, jagged teeth, each at least six inches long, if not more, and almost nearly as wide. Its breath was hot and smelled of fish.
Its eye locked onto Gerry.
He couldn't help himself but scream.
* * * *
The Beat
When Granddad called me up and invited me to the family cabin for the weekend, I was surprised. Well, it wasn't actually the family cabin. It was his, but he let all his kids and their children use it. He and Grandmama had purchased the lot up by Lake Winnipeg sometime in the early eighties. With the help of his two daughters and their husbands, over the course of a summer the cabin had been built.
The cabin's a fair size. It runs roughly fifty feet long, twenty-five feet wide, the ceiling starting at ten feet by the door, rising to sixteen in the middle, then descending back down to ten feet at the other end. I'm proud to say it had been my suggestion, when I was around sixteen or so, to make off with the ivory paneling on the outside and install artificial dark brown logs, giving it an old pioneer/early settler kind of feel.
I'm eighteen now. Granddad's seventy-four. Grandmama is only sixty-seven---if you consider such a number as "only" when it comes to an elderly person.
Someone once asked me while I was helping Grandmama loading groceries into her cart at a supermarket how old she was. The guy asking had guessed by her looks and zeal in her voice that she was in her mid-fifties. When I told him her real age, his eyes went wide, obviously not believing me.
She kept a positive attitude and that impressed me. Especially now since Granddad had fallen ill, lung cancer manifesting itself to its full extent as a result of his forty-some-odd years as a smoker. Granddad had been in the hospital twice, the second time being just two nights ago. Like I said before, I was surprised when he called me up today and asked in his raspy, gurgly voice (his throat burnt to a crisp from the years of hot smoke, no doubt), "I just got out of the hospital, Robby, and I was wondering if you wanted to come up to the lake with me this weekend?"
"Do you really want me to come," I said, "or do you only want me there because I always have a pack of Winstons with me?"
He chuckled, knowing I was on to him. Ever since he had come down with cancer, Grandmama had forbade him to buy any more cigarettes. "You're not going to help yourself to yer deathbed as long as I'm around!" she would scold him.
Of course Granddad, playing the sheepish innocent, obliged to her demands, only to secretly stash a cigarette here and there around the house. Knowing that he would do such a thing, Grandmama scoured the house top to bottom and found every one, yelling at him each time a cigarette was found. Granddad didn't learn his lesson and often came to me, always complaining of a nic' fit.
Grandmama would have a bird if she knew I was slipping Granddad smokes, but, I figure, who was she or I to deprive him of one of his favorite pleasures in life? In return for my supplying him with cigarettes, he treated me to different things: taking me out for breakfast, giving me gas money, buying me a lighter when mine conked out---things like that. So far, our secret trade had gone o
n beneath Grandmama's notice.
However, since Granddad's recent turn for the worse, I decided that I did not want to be responsible for his next visit to the I.C.U.
"I'll come along," I told him, "but I can't give you smokes anymore."
"Aw, come on, Robert. Ah, okay, you win. Just don't smoke in front of me, okay?" he said, sounding as if I had just broken his heart.
"You know I can't let you smoke because I care about you, right?"
He sighed. "I'll pick you up Friday night around eight. We'll be at the lake before eleven."
I told him that sounded fine. This should be an interesting weekend. Maybe I'll leave my cigarettes at home for the next two days, just to be safe?
* * * *
The gravel seemed to crunch louder than usual when Granddad and I pulled into the cabin's driveway. It was more like a short, small stone-covered path than a real driveway, the path not far from the road. I watched the headlights from Granddad's Ford pickup bathe the cabin with a yellow glow, transforming the dark brown of the cabin into a deep tan.
In all my years of coming here I've never arrived at night. Usually family trips to the lake were either done Saturday morning or afternoon, plenty of daylight left when we arrived.
Granddad put the truck in park, idled it, and gazed at the cabin as if it was a lost relative. And, in a way, I suppose it was. The cabin was as much family as both of us.
After a few minutes he turned the motor off and got out of the truck. I got out, too, rounding to the rear and pulling my duffel bag off its bed.
Hoisting the bag's strap over my shoulder, Granddad, with a hard pat to my back, gave me the key to the front door. He told me he had to run to the outhouse at the left of the property and he didn't want me standing in the chilly night air waiting for him.
Granddad went off, disappearing into the night. I watched him dissolve into the darkness and waited a moment in case anything went wrong. I didn't know if he was able to manage himself as well as he used to since he had gotten sick. Once Granddad was out of view for a few seconds, I adjusted the bag's strap on my shoulder and made my way for the door.
A sudden gust of cool wind sent a shiver up my back and down my arms. Bad timing, too, because my eyes had been locked on to the three black windows of the cabin, one for the kitchen, one for a bedroom, the last for the living room. The windows seemed to draw my eyes into their void, only darkness emanating from them, extinguishing the pale moonlight that shone against them.
I walked up the two steps leading to the front patio landing. The screen door squeaked on its hinges as I opened it, revealing the door I had the key to. I stole a glance at the window to my left before entering, then perked an ear for Granddad. Blackness glanced back and silence hung on the air. I didn't know why I was so afraid. Actually, I did know why: too many scary movies and violent comic books. Disregarding the thought of an ogre with a cloak made from human skin waiting inside for me, I put the key into the lock, heard it click, and went in.
I turned on the light. The cabin lit up. There was only two light switches other than those for the two bedrooms and bathroom---one for the front door and main living area, the other for the back porch.
I slid my shoulder out of the strap, my bag falling to the always-dirty welcome mat beneath me.
Any childish fears I had when standing outside vanished. It felt good to finally be back here. Startling me out my lamentation, the screen door behind me screeched open.
"So, are ya comin' in all the way or are ya jus' gonna stand there like a bellhop?" Granddad asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.
"All the way," I breathed, feeling as if I just did something wrong.
He appeared all right. His leathery skin was a bit paler than usual but he looked healthy enough. He lovingly smiled at me, the crow's-feet by his eyes rising up. The gray hair on top of his head was slicked back, as if he had just got out of the shower.
Picking up my bag, I shuffled off into the room where I'd be staying. The room was across from his.
I turned on the light and tossed my bag on the bed. The coils of the mattress squeaked from the weight. My room was plain: pale yellow walls, a curtain-less window, a small closet and an oak dresser with a mirror, all blending in nicely with the worn dark brown carpet of the floor. The carpets. That was another thing I enjoyed about this place. Each room had a different colored carpet, most of them similar to the brown one in my room (but different shades of brown nonetheless), except for the floor of the kitchen (the floor sharing the floor of the living room), which was covered in light tan tiles. The inside of the family cabin was a perfect testimony to the earth-tone theme of the seventies and early eighties.
Taking a few of my things out of my bag, I heard Granddad clanking around in the kitchen. He was probably preparing us a snack of some sort and a couple of beers. (He had come up here last weekend to stock the fridge and pantry, he said.)
Putting a sweatshirt on a hanger, I watched myself in my peripheral in the mirror to my left. It took a moment after hanging up the sweatshirt to actually look at myself squarely. I never liked what I saw when I looked in the mirror. And the reason I didn't like it had nothing to do with my appearance. In the end, it all came down to one thing: a child's vision of himself as to how he would look when he grew up. Back between the ages of seven and ten, I always envisioned myself growing up into your well-built, stubble-cheeked, deeply tanned, just-the-right-amount-of-blond-highlights-in-the-hair underwear-model gentleman. Instead, I looked like his younger brother: pale-faced, sweaty-banged, thin-shouldered, beer-bellied-wino, with glasses and an AC/DC T-shirt. So much for being Don Juan.
High school finished in June and I still had a month before first semester at the University of Winnipeg. I'm still wasn't sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, but in your first year of post-secondary, that didn't matter. Everyone was enrolled in some University One program that came into being a few years back. It's basically Grade Twelve all over again, but maybe a little tougher.
Granddad hollered from the other room, telling me to get in the kitchen. I shouted back, saying I'd be right there.
The kitchen table was neatly set: two frosted beer mugs set on opposite ends, a black ashtray in the table's middle.
Granddad turned from the counter, a beer bottle in each hand. He set a bottle beside each mug. I took my seat at the end of the table nearest the door. Granddad always sat at the end of the table farthest from the door. Always. Don't ask me why.
He tilted his mug as he emptied the bottle. I did the same. He held up his mug, as if in a toast, then took a large, satisfying swig. After, he let out an audible, "Ahh." I took a swig of my own beer, the carbon of the beer stinging my throat on its way down.
"I say we should turn in early tonight," Granddad said. "An' tomorrow, we'll get up early an' hit the lake across the way, there." He gestured to the large window opposite us that looked out onto the back property. The yard extended about a hundred feet then tapered off into a man-made lake, cleaned yearly, as well as stocked with fish. A two-minute walk from the yard and there was a path that led up to an old rickety bridge you could sit on, hang your line from and wait until you caught something.
"Sounds like a plan," I said.
He nodded and took another gulp.
I could tell he wanted a cigarette by the way he slouched in his chair, one hand gripping his mug, the other resting on his belly. He looked off somewhere through the kitchen window. As if he could see anything through the darkness that filled it. His eyes went from the window to me to the window again, then back to me, checking to be sure that I knew what he wanted, but was too shy to ask for.
It was kind of amusing at first, seeing how long he could keep up his subtle yet obvious hints that he wanted to smoke. Soon it became annoying. Though Granddad was your Jack-of-all-trades grandfather, I found it disturbing he was acting so childlike.
Knowing it wasn't a good idea, I reluctantly removed my cigarette package from my jeans pocket and dropp
ed it on the table. (I couldn't leave the smokes at home; fishing and smoking go hand in hand.) Granddad made like he didn't notice, but I could see his eyes salivating at the package of coffin nails. Indulging him, I made show of removing a cigarette, putting it behind my ear and putting another between my lips. I paused, building his anticipation. His eyes took me in then peered back out the window. I thought to toy with him, but decided against it, figuring Granddad had already had enough torture from being in the I.C.U.
I held the pack out to him, proffering him a cigarette.
He made like he didn't want it, but then leaned forward in his chair, his arm extended, his fingers just touching the edge of my pack.
"You sure?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, "go ahead. Just don't tell Grandmama."
He smiled his famous Granddad smile, the stubble on his cheeks scraping against each other in the folds of his skin. "Thanks, kiddo."
He took the smoke and I slid my lighter across the table. He took a swig of his beer and lit up. I grabbed an ashtray of my own from the cupboard over the sink then sat back down.
Granddad said that he was having a good weekend so far. So was I.
* * * *
It was sometime deep into the night, around 3:30, when I heard the tick-tick-ticking of a clock. Hearing such a patterned noise in the silence of a house---in this case, cabin---was normal. What bothered me about the ticking was that, as far as I was aware, Granddad never kept a ticking clock at the cabin. As old-fashioned as he was, his clocks were digital. He was also a light sleeper and even though the ticking was relatively quiet, it still would be enough to wake him.
I wondered if he was awake now and, perhaps, since I haven't spent the night here in so long, if Grandmama had insisted he install the antique analog clock that had been stationed above the stove at their apartment since who knew when, as a little taste of home.