Serpentine

by Napier, Barry

  He’d been too excited about seeing Valerie to allow thoughts of the monster to slow him down. But now, as the trees started to crowd in around him, Joe began to feel fear for the first time since slipping out of the bedroom window. He hurried down the path until the dark shadowed shape of the cabin came into view. He headed directly for it, suddenly certain that the thing from the water was waiting for him in the leaves or maybe even over his head, waiting in the branches to leap down on him with its dark mouth and slimy underside.

  “Hey there,” came a voice.

  It was soft and sweet and instantly recognizable, but Joe jumped anyway. He stopped walking and looked ahead. He could just barely see Valerie’s shape against the side of the cabin. She was walking towards him and as she drew closer, he started to see her a bit from the scant moonlight that fell through the branches.

  “Hey,” Joe said.

  “Sorry to text you so late,” she said. “But I wanted to see you and…well, that’s about it.”

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  She took his right hand in her left one and they simply stood there, looking out to the dark lake. Joe’s heart was thundering in his chest and every inch of his skin seemed to be on fire.

  “So,” Valerie said, “Dad and I went into town today. He ran into one of his friends and they started talking. I overheard them talk about some guy that does dock repairs that was killed three days ago. He was fixing a dock when it happened. Dad’s friend said that he’d heard it was like some vicious attack—like an alligator or something.”

  “I didn’t think alligators lived around here,” Joe said.

  “They don’t.”

  “Oh,” Joe said and understood what she was insinuating. “You think it was the thing we saw?”

  She shrugged and stepped closer to him. He was new to all of this but his body seemed to respond to her in a way that it had been designed to do. With his right hand taken, his left arm found her waist.

  “Do you think we should tell someone?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We’d get in trouble and…really, would anyone believe us?”

  Joe didn’t think so. And honestly, in that moment, the monster was once again the last thing on his mind. Valerie was so close to him that he could smell her shampoo. “Probably not,” he said.

  “It’s sort of scary, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said…but it wasn’t the monster from the lake that he was scared of. It was something else—some push he felt within his heart that seemed to drag the rest of his body with it. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m just not—”

  And then he was kissing her. He had no idea that he was going to do it until he started moving slowly forward. He knew that it was clumsy at first, especially because he was interrupting her. She had not been expecting it and he honestly had no idea what he was doing. But after a few seconds, they caught up to one another and she was leaning into him. There was too much for his mind to take in: the feel and taste of her lips, the feel of her hand coming up and resting along his side, the soft little sigh she made, and the spark of unexpected electricity that shot through his body in a chaotic ricochet of energy.

  Not wanting to overdo it, Joe pulled away. He immediately wanted to do it again but figured he should get her reaction first.

  “Okay,” she said. “Maybe I’m not as scared now.”

  He looked into her eyes and thought he saw the same sort of feeling that was coursing through him. She took his other hand now and pulled him closer. “Can we do that again?” she asked.

  He didn’t bother answering with words. They were kissing again and the forest seemed to dissolve around him. This time, she took the lead. They got into sync quickly and when he found her tongue darting in to touch his, the spike of energy that was still riding the waves inside of him seemed to burst into a heat that his body could not contain.

  In the back of his head, he knew that there was good reason to be alarmed about the death of the man that had been killed while fixing a dock. If it really had been the monster that had come lurching after them through the field of fireflies, who knew how many others it might kill? Who knew what something like that was capable of?

  Still, thoughts of the monster or whatever it had been faded quickly as their second kiss grew longer, especially when Valerie’s hand went to the back of his neck and lightly caressed him there. It was clear that she’d kissed someone before and, perhaps, for extended periods of time. But that wasn’t something that Joe wanted to think about; it was nearly as bad letting thoughts of the monster from the lake invade his head.

  Joe kissed her under the fragmented moonlight and, for the moment, not at all afraid of the darkened lake that sat just to his right or the deadly secret it might be hiding.

  EIGHTEEN

  Less than two miles away from where Joe Evans was experiencing his first real kiss, a more experienced couple was also enjoying the summer night. It was the sort of summer night that so many country and southern rock musicians had written songs about. The moon was nearly full, the heat of the day was still sagging on the lake, and the cooler was filled with beer. It sat in the back of Jeremy’s truck, the ice sloshing around in a half melted state as he pulled it out to the edge of the opened tailgate.

  Kelly watched him open the lid up and fish two beers out of the cooler. He popped the top on one of them and handed it to her. She took it and sipped, her eyes never leaving Jeremy. The rest of that summer night equation came in the thrum that spun through her heart (and, if she was honest with herself, that place located just a bit south of her center) when she was with Jeremy. While they’d been dating for a little over a year and a half and had been sleeping together for a little over a year, that little thrum of electricity was new. She supposed it could be love, finally sprouting up in her heart for him. The truth of the matter was she had no idea what it was and she wasn’t about to ruin their summer worrying with it.

  They sat on his tailgate and looked out to the lake, sitting in the spot she knew full well they would be sitting on when the Fourth of July rolled around. This was their own little private spot, the place where they had watched the fireworks last year and then created their own in the back of this very truck, sandwiched between two blankets.

  How they had managed to keep this place a secret was beyond her. It seemed perfect and really wasn’t all that well hidden. It sat off of Poor Boy Road, down a gravel road that she’d been told was reserved for state trucks. Why state trucks needed to get down here for was beyond her, though. The road dead-ended a quarter of a mile from where they sat and the only attraction the entire road held was a pair of old concrete blocks and discarded wooden docks that were going to rot. There were areas like this all around the west side of Clarkton Lake; they were nothing more than little holes in the middle of all the vacation homes that had been set aside for projects the state or private owners had started but abandoned.

  Kelly supposed the creep-factor of this particular location kept others away from it. That was fine with her. While she did her best to present herself as a sophisticated eighteen year old that would be getting out of Virginia and going to college in Boston in two short months, she was glad to have Jeremy to herself. Lately, he’d been making her feel like a little school girl with a crazy crush.

  Being that she was leaving for college in two months meant that these intense new feelings for him were coming at the worst possible time. And that was one of the primary reasons she hadn’t told him how she was feeling. She wasn’t going to screw up her last two months with him.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  His voice caught her off guard. She’d been lost in her thoughts, looking out to the lake she had grown up around. Her entire childhood was built around that lake; the thought of heading off to college and leaving it behind was brutal all of a sudden.

  “I’m good,” she said. “Just zoned out.”

  “Thinking about college again, weren’t you?
”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can talk to me about it, you know.”

  “I know.”

  This was something of a new development in and of itself. They had never bothered trying to make their relationship out to be some grand romantic thing. They had started dating because they had been madly attracted to one another and how they had put off sex for the first few months of their relationship was beyond her. But once they had crossed that line, it had become the center of their relationship. Everything had been about sex to both of them. While their friends had partied and went out to the movies, they had locked themselves in their bedrooms. Or, if both of their parents had been at home and no bedroom was available, they’d taken up their time along the winding dirt roads around Clarkton Lake. That was how they had come across this particular spot, in fact.

  Because of their intense focus on sex, Jeremy’s recent interest in getting to know her was out of nowhere. Maybe it was because she would be gone soon. They made no promises to one another and it was basically an understood reality that once she went to college, their relationship would be over. Maybe he wanted to get to really know her in the time they had left.

  Or maybe he was feeling what she felt, too. Was it love, perhaps, starting to blossom between both of them? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She figured they needed to talk about it eventually. But not tonight. It felt too perfect—the temperature, the cold beer, the tranquil lake beckoning from less than twenty feet away.

  Given that, she thought she knew how to distract both of them from the looming subject of her leaving.

  She scooted down from the tailgate and gave him a long lingering kiss on the lips. She then took another sip of her beer and set it down. “I think I feel like a swim,” she said.

  “Want to go back and get our bathing suits?” Jeremy asked.

  She shook her head and smiled, playfully biting her lip. She slowly took off her shirt and tossed it at him. She then removed her jeans as well, sliding out of them and then throwing those as well.

  With just her bra and panties on, she turned away from him. She reached back and undid her bra. It dropped to the ground and she looked over her shoulder at him, grinning devilishly.

  “You coming?” she asked.

  Jeremy answered by removing his shirt and quickly hopping down from the tailgate with a speed that nearly cartoonish. When she saw him unbuttoning his pants while slowly walking towards her, she started to giggle. She raced to the water, bending over slightly and nearly tripping as she slid out of her panties.

  Naked, Kelly ran down the bank and into the water. She let out a gale of laughter as she made it out to her waist and then leaped in. When she came back up, she turned and saw Jeremy, now just as naked as she was, leaping into the water.

  They met in the water, submerged to their shoulders, with their feet grazing along the muddy bottom. She laced her hands around his back and he placed one hand on her hips, pulling him tight to her and lifting her slightly. She kissed him then, surprised that in their time together, they had never done this before. Sure, the water was unsanitary but every now and then you had to ignore those things and just have fun.

  The idea that they only had two months left together made it easier to take the risk. She did her best not to think about it as she kissed him in the water, their naked bodies pressed firmly against one another. But it remained there like a ghost in her head. She was going to Boston and he was staying here. It had been his choice to not go to college and while she hadn’t understood why, she had not pressed it. They had not been serious…just someone to hang out with, drink with, and sleep with while high school came to an end.

  But now there were these new feelings and that was complicating things. But what those feelings weren’t complicating was the sex. Even now, as they kissed and grinded against one another, she thought she might explode from the anticipation of having him start. The water and the muddy lake floor was creating a challenge for him and she smiled against the kiss. He smiled, too and before long, they were laughing.

  But then he gave her a curious look, as if she had said something that had offended him.

  “What?” she said, wondering if he had also started to think that doing this in the lake might be gross.

  Jeremy answered in a horrendous scream.

  He pulled away from her quickly, swatting at the water as if it were attacking him. As he beat at the water, he fell under for a moment, his eyes wide. He then popped back up almost right away, still screaming and now choking on water.

  Kelly was splashed in the face and right away, she knew that something was wrong with the water. The musky and earthy smell she had come to know the lake by was different. There was something bitter to it now, something almost familiar that made her start to panic.

  “Jeremy?” she asked.

  “Out! Get out! Something just bit m—”

  He screamed again and this time she watched as he was jerked underwater. He did not fall this time, slipping in the muck along the bottom. He was pulled. As he went down, he was jerked backwards, towards deeper water. Kelly screamed for him as she watched him get pulled under, the night making the water seem more sinister than ever. She saw one of his arms come flailing out of the water, slapping blindly at it. She reached out and took it, pulling him forward.

  His head came up, his mouth opened in a scream of pure horror and pain. She had never seen such a look on his face and it broke her heart. She continued to pull at him and just as she thought she had a good grip on him, pulling him forward with ease, she saw something rise up out of the water.

  It looked like a stump, but it moved like a snake. She saw it for only a moment as its body broke the surface of the water in twin humps. She saw the flesh of it in the weak moonlight and could make no immediate sense of it. She thought of an octopus and as the thought crossed her mind, she desperately wanted to get out of the water.

  With fear sparking inside of her heart, Kelly watched as the thing went back underwater with a splash. Again, her face was splashed with water. This time, some of it went into her mouth. The taste of it clued her into what had been different about the water when she had been splashed the first time.

  There was blood in it.

  She tasted it, strong and coppery in her mouth, as Jeremy was again pulled back out. She continued to pull on his arm but her feet were slipping along the muddy floor. Her head went under once and when she was fully submerged, she lost her grip on Jeremy.

  She swam up to the surface and started screaming for him immediately. He was five feet away from her, his arms paddling madly at the water. She tried reaching out for him again as she headed for the shore, but could not reach. He was yanked under again and the look of terror on his face as he went under made her feel helpless.

  “Jeremy!”

  His head bobbed to the surface right away. It was covered in blood and his eyes were wide with shock and horror. He opened his mouth as if to reply, but not a single word made it out. Instead, that stump-like thing came out of the water behind him and wrapped itself around his head. She could see nothing more than Jeremy’s hair as it tugged him under the water.

  This time, even Jeremy’s extended arm was submerged. Jeremy was gone and something in the darker corner of Kelly’s heart told her that he was not going to come back up.

  Kelly turned and finished splashing her way back to the shore, screaming and crying. She felt a wave of panic coming on that she was certain would cripple her. So she simply repeated his name to keep it at bay, saying it like a mantra of sorts: “Jeremy…Jeremy…”

  She finally reached the muddy shore and ran for Jeremy’s truck. She was barely even aware that she was naked, not bothering to stop for her clothes. She was only worried about the cellphone sitting on Jeremy’s dashboard. If she could get to it fast enough, maybe she’d be able to save him.

  She made it to the door and opened it. She got one foot into the truck and then felt a million hornets stinging her back.
<
br />   She cried out and nearly fell backwards. She grabbed on to the door, trying to keep herself up and get away from whatever was at her back. She saw the faintest reflection of what was happening in the driver’s side window, which was partially rolled down to let in the summer breeze while they drove.

  The thing from the water was on her back. It clung to her with what looked like small black holes all along its underside. The very sight of this made her mind quake, issuing up the dredges of insanity. She shrieked and then felt the thing tug at her. It was violent, and she had a fleeting image of a bug being sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. That’s how much pressure this thing was applying to her.

  She was unable to hold on. She fell out of the truck and hit the ground. She instantly felt the thing wrap around her entire body. After that, she was pulled back towards the water. She felt her bare backside scraping against the ground as she fought for breath. The thing was crushing her and she could not seem to draw in a breath. She smelled the thing around her—fishy and also like the smell of copper. She found it harder to breathe and the world slipped away from her. She slapped at the ground but could find nothing to stop herself from being dragged away. Her fingernail tore as she clawed for purchase in the dirt and grass.

  The thing grew tighter around her body and breathing became impossible. By the time she heard the water splashing around her, she also heard something splinter and crack. An explosive pain in her left side told her that this was her ribs being shattered and splintering in several pieces.

  She didn’t even feel it when the thing pulled her fully into the water. By then, she tasted blood in her throat and she was desperate for air.

  The pressure eventually let up and she was released. It was then that she realized that she was in the lake, underwater. She tried swimming away but the pain was too much. She made two half-hearted strokes towards what she thought was the surface and then her body gave up. Something inside of her trembled and popped.