Hedge Lake

by Brian Harmon

  Again, he wondered if the events of his dream had already taken place or if they were merely a glimpse into the possible future. Either way, it might not look the same this time of year. The lake could be much higher or lower now, or the foliage around it might have bloomed early, making it almost impossible to recognize.

  He stared down at the softly rippling surface of the lake, remembering Holly’s warning to stay out of the water. There’s blood in it, she’d cautioned him. Now, standing at the water’s edge, her words sent a chill down his back.

  “Are you married,” asked Jordan.

  Eric turned and looked at the girl. She stood beside him, staring back at him, patiently waiting for his response. “I am,” he told her.

  “Where’s your wife?”

  He didn’t try to make sense of a child’s random questions. “She’s at home.”

  “Why’d you leave her at home?” She gave him a serious look and said, “Did you need to get away from her for a while?”

  Eric stared at her. What a peculiar thing to ask. “No. I didn’t need to get away from her.”

  “Sometimes people just need their space,” she told him in a soft, “it’s okay to feel that way” kind of tone.

  “Well, I didn’t need any space. I just had something I needed to do.”

  “Why didn’t you bring her with you, then?”

  “She had things she needed to do, too.”

  “Like what?”

  “She’s decorating cupcakes for a wedding tomorrow.”

  She stared up at him, studying him. “So why did you need to come here?”

  Eric turned and looked out at the lake. That was a good question. What was he doing here? Where did he go next? What was he looking for? “It’s complicated,” he said.

  She continued to stare at him, her eyes intense, as if studying him.

  He tried to ignore her, but suddenly a thought occurred to him. He turned to face her and asked, “Do you live around here?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Eric looked back out at the lake and frowned. Holly told him before he set out on this trip that anyone near this lake was in terrible danger. That already included cranky Mrs. Fulrick and inquisitive, young Jordan and her unwell mother. Suddenly, he could feel the weight of his responsibility pressing down on him.

  Damn it, he thought. He had to figure out what was going on here before it was too late.

  He turned left and began following the shore. With any luck, he’d find the cove sooner than later and start to finally make sense out of all this madness.

  Jordan trailed after him.

  Chapter Five

  After about half an hour of following the waterline and finding nothing more exciting than the occasional startled frog, Jordan apparently grew bored with Eric. She announced cheerfully that she would catch up with him later and then, like the cat, she promptly vanished into the woods, leaving him to continue on alone.

  I LIKE HER, declared Isabelle as soon as she was gone. SHE’S FUNNY

  “She’s something,” agreed Eric. “Have you felt anything I can use?”

  NOTHING YET. THE ENERGY OF THAT PLACE IS REALLY STRANGE

  “Strange how?”

  IT SORT OF PULSES. I THINK THERE’S SOMETHING THERE SOMEWHERE, BUT I CAN’T TELL WHAT IT IS, OR WHERE

  Eric rubbed at the back of his neck and looked around. He wished he had something more to go on than Isabelle’s cryptic feelings, Holly’s riddles and a freaky dream.

  I’LL KEEP A LOOKOUT

  “Thanks.”

  He pocketed the phone again and continued on.

  What was he doing here? He didn’t even know where “here” was. From what little he’d managed to learn so far, there were both monster hunters and UFO fanatics frequenting these woods. It seemed that this was one of those curiosity spots favored by supernatural enthusiasts. He’d never put much faith in that stuff, but he’d also never believed in ogres until last summer when one nearly tore him in half.

  Currently, his only plan was to find this mysterious dream cove. Although, even if he found it, he couldn’t logically expect that the answer to this whole mess would just be waiting for him there. He didn’t like not knowing where to go next.

  But before he could consider it any further, he became aware of something moving in the water.

  He stopped and faced the lake. About a hundred yards out, something had breached the surface and was bobbing up and down, sending ripples racing out across the water. He hooded his eyes with his hand and squinted against the brilliant sunshine, but he couldn’t make out the shape.

  Then, without warning, the thing began moving toward him, carving a long, wide wake through the water.

  He felt a nervous twinge in his gut. He’d always had a vivid imagination, and in moments like these, it rarely offered him a calming thought. More often, it would produce the most terrifying scenario possible. Now, for example, he could almost imagine an enormous crocodile rushing toward him, its powerful, toothy jaws opening, eager to devour him. And it didn’t matter one bit that no crocodile (or even alligator, which at least was actually native to this hemisphere) could possibly survive this far north. His imagination defied logic and remained insistent upon every terrible thought, regardless of what was or wasn’t possible. But then again, with all that he’d witnessed these past couple years, there seemed to be fewer and fewer things that he refused to believe were possible, so maybe his imagination wasn’t so far off after all.

  It was only seventy-five yards out now and closing fast.

  Eric took a step backward. Then another.

  That nervous feeling in his belly became a sharp twinge, and then a painful twist. Whatever this thing was, his intuition was telling him that it wasn’t friendly. And if he’d learned nothing else since these weird things began happening to him two summers ago, it was to trust his intuition. Sometimes, it was the only thing keeping him alive.

  Fifty yards.

  He backed into the trees, not daring to take his eyes off the strange object speeding toward him, wondering if it could move just as quickly on land.

  Now his imagination offered him a second possibility: An enormous, man-eating snake with a head the size of a pickup truck slithering out of the water, forked tongue tasting his fear on the air. He could turn and run, but it would slip effortlessly through the trees and snatch him off his feet, swallowing him alive into its crushing belly.

  Thirty yards.

  He was about to make a run for it when he heard a dreadful commotion from the woods behind him. He turned, alarmed, but he couldn’t see anything through the dense foliage. Whatever it was, it was moving toward him purposefully and loudly, with none of the grace of a stealthy predator, as if an irritable rhinoceros were loose in the forest and barreling at him like a battering ram.

  His imagination ran with that, except the rhino was hairy and upright, the better to extend its massive claws. And it had great, razor-sharp teeth that glinted in the mottled sunlight, hell-bent on disemboweling him.

  He could tell himself this was nonsense, but it had happened before. Monstrous things always came out of the forest on these trips.

  He was trapped.

  His heart racing in his chest, he turned and looked back at the water, sure that something terrible was rising from the depths, ready to strike him down and devour his flesh. But the thing in the lake was gone, submerged back into the mysterious depths from which it came. Only the fading wake remained, the rippling surface sloshing up over the grassy shore.

  He didn’t have time to wonder what the thing might have been or why it had suddenly changed its mind about eating him. He had another monster to deal with.

  But the thing in the woods was not a monster. After a few more breathless seconds, he caught a glimpse of two young men tearing through the brush.

  One was tall, but scrawny, with a ridiculous-looking tuft of blond hair growing on his chin. He looked too old to be one of his high school students, but was still plenty young e
nough to sport an unattractive spattering of acne across his long face. He wore dirty blue jeans and a black pullover hoodie emblazoned across the front with what appeared to be a cartoon image of a shapely female ghost, with huge breasts barely contained within a tiny bikini top. The ghost was flashing a brilliant smile and winking flirtatiously. Below the cartoon was the enigmatic phrase, “Specter 10.”

  He was holding a video camera in one hand and barely managing to stay on his feet as he stomped gracelessly through the trees on his long, lanky legs, slapping away the many branches that snatched at his hair and clothes with his free hand.

  The second of the duo was of average height, but considerably greater-than-average breadth. Too chubby to merely be described as “beefy,” he sported a pair of extra, extra (and maybe another extra) large khaki shorts and a sweat-stained tee shirt with an alien’s head printed across his expansive belly with the same curious phrase printed below it. The same phrase was printed over the bill of a black baseball cap. He was panting with exertion and struggling to keep up with his lither companion while clinging to a computer tablet and a walkie-talkie.

  The skinny one finally caught sight of Eric and abruptly stopped, which caused the chubby one, whose formidable bulk was already at the mercy of the laws of physics, to slam into him, knocking him several steps forward. Once Skinny caught his balance, he turned suddenly and shouted, “Dude!”

  “Sorry!” gasped Chubby.

  “Careful!”

  “I said, sorry!”

  “If you break any of this stuff it’s over!”

  His face reddening even more than it already was from his run through the woods, Chubby shouted back, “Don’t yell at me!”

  “Jeez, Pete, act professional!”

  Chubby, whose real name was apparently Pete, glared up at his companion, his pudgy face darkening a few more shades.

  Eric stood where he was, watching them.

  The skinny kid turned away, ignoring his plus-sized friend’s furious expression. He lifted the video camera and aimed it at Eric. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing out here?”

  He considered the camera. He didn’t care much for being recorded. “I’m just out for a walk,” he lied.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the water’s edge, but there was no sign of whatever he’d seen out there. Even the wake had vanished.

  That hadn’t been a couple of goofy kids. Something was under there. And he had the distinct feeling that it was still there, lurking beneath the surface, watching him.

  Or was that only his ridiculous imagination again?

  It was probably nothing more than a big fish. There were supposed to be some huge species up in this area, he’d heard. Or were those just river fish? He couldn’t remember. He wasn’t much of an outdoorsman.

  “Right,” said Skinny as he stepped closer. “Just a walk. I’m sure.”

  Eric looked back at him and cocked his head, confused. “Excuse me?”

  The kid turned the camera on himself, smoothed back his messy hair and said, “We’ve responded to the mysterious shape that passed by camera two, but it’s a false alarm. It’s just some guy wandering around down here. Another rival investigator trying to muscle in on our find. I consider it further proof that we’re on the right track.”

  Eric raised an eyebrow. Rival investigator? These must be some of the guys Mrs. Fulrick and Jordan were referring to. The monster and UFO hunters.

  The skinny guy turned the camera back on Eric and stepped forward, lifting his chin as if he were trying to make himself look bigger. It only made him look more ridiculous. “Who are you with? Is it Kirby?”

  “Who’s Kirby?” asked Eric.

  “Right,” he said again. “I’ve got some things you can tell Kirby.”

  “I don’t think he’s working with Kirby,” said Pete.

  The skinny kid whirled on him. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m on camera! Jeez, Pete!”

  “I’m just saying, he doesn’t look like he’s working with Kirby. He doesn’t even have a camera.”

  He stepped up to Pete and bent down, practically sticking his nose in the big guy’s face, and whispered dramatically—and quite pointlessly, given that Eric could hear every word—“That’s probably because he’s trying to steal our footage, idiot!”

  Pete’s expression darkened again. “Don’t call me idiot,” he growled.

  Skinny took a step back, as if startled, and lowered the camera. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean it. It just slipped out.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” agreed Skinny. “I don’t think you’re an idiot. I really don’t. I shouldn’t have said that. You know I say things I don’t mean when I get excited.”

  The anger seemed to slowly drain out of Pete’s face, but left behind something very close to a pout.

  “You want to run the camera for a while?” asked Skinny.

  Pete nodded and Skinny exchanged it for the tablet.

  Eric, quickly growing bored with this nonsense, asked, “Who are you two?”

  Skinny twirled around to face him again. “As if you don’t know!” he snapped.

  “We’re Specter Ten,” replied Pete, gesturing at his enormous tee shirt.

  Skinny spun around again. The kid looked like he really needed to lay off the caffeine. “What are you doing?”

  “Specter Ten?” asked Eric.

  “It’s the name of our blog,” explained Pete.

  “It’s my blog,” growled Skinny.

  “It’s the name of his blog,” corrected Pete.

  “Jeez! We didn’t come out here to make friends! Why don’t you just give him all our evidence, too?”

  But Pete ignored him. “I’m Pete Flashen. This is Owen Maltman.”

  “Oh, come on!” groaned Owen.

  “I’m Eric Fortrell,” said Eric. “I don’t know anything about your blog—”

  “Sure you don’t,” snapped Owen.

  “Like I said, I’m just out for a walk. I’m sorry if I interrupted your…whatever you’re doing out here.”

  “We’re investigating the triangle,” explained Pete.

  Owen growled and turned on his friend. “You know what? You can’t use the camera.” He snatched the device out of Pete’s hand and turned back to Eric.

  Pete frowned at his friend, looking hurt.

  “Triangle?” asked Eric.

  “The Hedge Lake Triangle?” said Owen, rolling his eyes. “The only reason anyone ever comes out here?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Owen rolled his eyes again. “Right.”

  “It’s like a tiny Bermuda Triangle,” explained Pete.

  Owen closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying not to lose his temper.

  “Weird things happen here,” Pete said.

  “What kinds of weird things?”

  Owen thrust his hand at Pete, warning him to shut up. “You can read about it on my blog, if you’re interested. But we have work to do, don’t we, Pete?”

  Pete shrugged. “Not really.”

  Owen sighed. “You know, you really make things hard on me some days.”

  “You make things hard on yourself. Just because Kirby’s a douche doesn’t mean everybody you meet on an investigation is just like him.”

  Eric looked out at the lake. Apparently, it was called Hedge Lake. And apparently there was a mini Bermuda-like triangle associated with it, where lots of weird things happened. Now it was starting to sound like the kind of thing he was used to getting himself into. He was sure this triangle thing was somehow related to his dream and why he was here.

  But first, he had to ditch these guys.

  His phone began to ring. He turned his back on Specter Ten and lifted it to his ear.

  “Don’t mess this up!” said Isabelle.

  This surprised him. “What?”

  “These guys are already preprogramed to believe anything you tell them. If yo
u let them in on your dream, they’ll probably tell you everything they know. And who’s going to believe them?”

  Eric glanced over his shoulder at Owen and his team. “Uh huh,” was all he said aloud, but in his head, where only Isabelle could hear him, he thought, Anyone who reads these guys’ blog might believe it. And he was sure there were more than a few of them. There was never a shortage of people who believed stupid things they read on the internet.

  “True, but who’s going to believe them? And you don’t have to tell them everything. Just enough to get their attention. Just tell them about your dream.”

  Eric looked out at the lake. He wasn’t sure about this. These guys didn’t exactly reek of professionalism.

  “You said I could use the camera,” he heard Pete grumble behind him.

  “Not now!” snapped Owen.

  But then again, he supposed they also didn’t strike him as even remotely dangerous.

  “Who’re you talking to?” demanded Owen. “Is that Kirby?” Then, raising his voice, he shouted, “I know it’s you, Kirby!”

  “These guys are desperate to find something paranormal,” Isabelle told him. “If you tell them you’re here because you had a dream about this place, or better yet, a premonition, I guarantee they’ll help you.”

  Owen was watching him suspiciously, so Eric said, “Mondays are usually better for me.”

  “You should really find out what they know about this place. If it really is a triangle, things might get pretty complicated.”

  Eric opened his mouth to ask her what she knew about triangles, but he heard the line go dead in his ear. “Okay,” he said, still pretending to be having a very boring and not at all psychic conversation. “I’ll see you then.” He stuffed the phone into his pocket and turned to face the Specter Ten boys. “Sorry,” he said. “Had to reschedule an appointment.”

  Owen stood and stared at him, suspicious.

  Eric ignored him and addressed Pete, who seemed to be the more sensible of the two. “You said you guys were investigating this triangle thing… Are you some kind of paranormal investigators, then? Like all those people on television?”