A wall of gray cloud approached, changing the texture of the sky, the clouds, the air, the water. A line was drawn, calm on one side, churning liquid on the other. Only The Casper would be on the lake this dark, late afternoon.
Randy lit up another joint. Fifth or sixth of the day. He became a health hazard, tripping over gas cans, dropping ash and spark near the engine. After a few turns of the reel, he tangled the fishing line until it was taut, and then began reeling the line backwards. Back and forth. He had wrecked it completely.
Leaning in close to Jason, Randy shouted in his face, spittle flying. “Fuck, this is totally fucked.”
“Stop spitting on me, for fuck’s sake. Just turn it the right way.”
Jason took it from his hands. Randy never had been able to tell left from right.
Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Carmen thought.
After about an hour on the water they were half way up the lake. A dock emerged from the mist, and figures appeared. People from town. Jason didn’t seem to notice, or else he didn’t care, that the two couples were just having supper. Of course he would be welcome! Right in the middle of a meal! And he all drunked up, too. No problem. He bashed The Casper into the dock, threw the rope to one of the men who came to greet them, and staggered onto the weather-worn planks. Randy handed him the precious booze cooler.
Carmen was left alone in the boat as Jason and Randy walked over to the people sitting in lawn chairs. She had to get out or Jason would be pissed off, but the water was so rough it smashed The Casper into the dock one minute and the next it strained to pull the boat over. It was so unsteady, she didn’t know how she would climb onto the slippery dock. One of the men jumped up, came over to the boat, and held out his hand for Carmen to take. She accepted it with grace and stepped onto the dock, but dropped it quickly before Jason saw her touching another man.
Last night, around the campfire, Randy had said. “I’d like to throw you down on the ground and grab those big tits.”
Carmen shot a look over to Jason.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said, and gave an unpleasant laugh. “What’s the matter? Are you getting excited? Wanna little threesome?”
Carmen hadn’t said anything, just waited for the subject to pass before things got out of hand. She was scared of Randy to the point of crying, and full of despair that she was with a man who would not stand up for her. Jason didn’t give a shit about Carmen, that was clear, but he would lose face if she spoke to another man while he was there. It was about him, not her. She had figured this out. Years of putting up with his crap had taught her this.
Now, she just watched them both as they bragged loudly to the people on the dock.
“Fuck, we polished off a bottle of whisky, just a little sip,” said Jason. “I can drive better when I’m drunk, right? Right? In fact, I can drive better when I’m drunk. Better than you when you’re sober, Randy, you fuck head.”
“Fuck you,” said Randy, lighting another joint, and gulping down a mouthful of whisky. The two couples sat in deck chairs. The women wore sun glasses, and drank umbrella drinks. The men were beefy, middle-aged and concerned about their barbecue. Carmen knew she was out of place, and that Jason and Randy were boorish, drunken, unwelcome oafs at this party.
Carmen stood while everyone sat. Eventually, the same man who helped her from the boat got her a chair. The two sunburned blondes looked at her and gave polite, social smiles. There was no connection there. She was just an interruption, and a poorly dressed one, too, with her mannish clothes, her grey shapeless hoodie. She felt ugly and embarrassed.
Carmen watched the lake water getting choppier, rougher. A few drops of rain spat down. A growl of thunder in the distance.
Someone asked a subtle question about how far Jason and Randy had to go before they could be back at camp on shore.
As the wind picked up the two drunks realized they had to climb into the boat and make their way down the lake. The boat rocked wildly on the waves that slammed into the dock. Carmen got a hand into the boat from the same man who helped her out of it. He whispered, “Step boldly, just go for it and get your footing.” So she stepped on the boat, and it wasn’t as bad as she thought. Her deck shoes gripped, and she didn’t slip. She jumped through the hatch and waited for Jason and Randy to get into the boat.
The Casper roared down the lake. The small boat banged and slapped against the waves, the drunken driver twisting the wheel dangerously. In the rear-facing seat, Carmen braced her feet against the back of the boat. Each time the small boat’s hull hit another wave, it sent a jarring bang through the whole transom. Bang, bang, BAM. Over and over and over. She began to count, 1, 2, 3 … 155, 156, eyes closed, let it be over soon, please God. But the banging continued. Surely the boat would fly apart soon. Randy tried to move to the back seat but was thrown down on the deck. Jason hung onto the wheel, pushing the throttle harder and faster. Carmen had to pretend not to care, because if she showed emotion, Jason would be angry. “What the fuck are you whining about?” he’d say. She pretended not to care about the driving rain coming through the back window, and the water washing over the bow coming through the hatch. Bang, bang, BAM. The boat lost speed, the engine geared down, and Jason turned the bow toward a small island.
“We’re almost out of gas,” bellowed Jason. “We have to pull into shore and refuel.”
They landed the hull on a sloping gravel beach and Jason poured gas from the spare jugs into the gas tank, slopping a good portion of it on the bow. The gas stunk, and was now all over the seats, and all over the men’s clothing. Carmen felt ill, her head pounded and her stomach heaved. The rank smell of the gasoline, the odor of stale beer, and the whiff of sweat every time Randy or Jason came near became the fumes of fear. Refuelled now, The Casper, was good to go. And the men took this as a jubilant sign of their abilities.
“Yeah! Totally! Fuck those assholes at the dock, fuckin’ pussies!” They punctuated each of their yells with a toss and a smash of a bottle on the rocky shore. “Fuck.” Smash. “Those.” Smash. “Assholes.” Smash.
“Gotta keep the boat clean, right?” Jason smiled and Randy gave the thumbs up.
They had an hour of rough water to cross, and Jason would not have considered resting on shore until the storm passed. Jason and Randy drank more booze and Carmen cooperated by handing them beer from the cooler, whenever they asked. This was her main role.
The Casper headed out, waves smashing and crashing over the bow, and of course Jason drove the boat as fast as he could. He would show everyone what a great captain he was.
Carmen could just hear Jason’s taunts if she asked him to slow down, “There’s no fucking way I’m gonna slow down for rain, for storm, for no fucking thing. Why are you scared, I’m not even going fast? Get off my ass; no one tells me how to drive!”
And then he would go even faster. Carmen knew silence was her weapon of choice.
Carmen didn’t even bother praying to stay alive. She just focused on staying invisible.
Inevitably, Jason had to stop and take a piss. He put it like that. “Take a piss.” Carmen hated that phrase. “No shitter on this boat,” yelled Randy.
“It’s called a head, you fucking idiot, not a fucking shitter!” sneered Jason. Either way, there wasn’t one. There was no shitter, no head, no toilet, no bucket, nothing. So if anyone wanted to take a leak, they had to go to the back of the boat, and pee over the side. Not dangerous in calm waters under sunny skies. A different situation when the boat had no power, it was rocking almost two feet up and down, the wind was blowing the boat into the white caps, and the pisser himself was pissed drunk.
Carmen didn’t know whether she wanted to die from drowning in this horrible, storm-blackened lake, overturned in a waterlogged boat, or if she just wanted to shrivel up and disappear.
She edged back into her chair as Jason abandoned the captain’s chair and growled at Randy to take his place. Randy stumbled into Jason’s seat, the boat idling and being tossed around like
a twig. Jason staggered to the back of the boat, stepped over the transom, and stood on the wooden swim grid. He pulled down the elasticized waist of his swim trunks with his right hand, and flailed around looking for something to hold onto with his left. There was nothing there. He flailed his left hand, trying to keep his balance, grasping for something to grab. He kept a good grip on his dick with his right hand.
Carmen felt a jolt go through her, and she sat up straight and alert. Randy: facing forward, drunk, stoned and inept. Jason: unsteady on a boat, rocking in a storm, nothing in front of him, holding onto nothing.
She stood up slowly, crouching so she wouldn’t hit her head on the canvas top above. Jason was too drunk to see her. Fear grabbed her gut, but even more fear propelled her forward. She stepped gingerly over a few rolling empties, and made sure of her footing. She got as close as she could, so the angle was just right, and so that her arms would have lots of push. She shuddered as her hands touched Jason’s sweat-soaked polo shirt, and she felt the unwelcome warmth of his back under the fabric. She shoved him with a violent push, into the crashing waves. Jason let go of his dick, held his hands out as though the water was a solid floor, and sank like a stone, then rose back up again. The water was wild now, the boat swirling in a circle. Jason had no chance to grab onto anything, even if he was capable of such a logical act. And Carmen did not throw him a buoy, or a life jacket, or hold out an oar to save him. For once, Jason was silenced. His eyes and mouth showing only slack-jawed incomprehension. She didn’t want to watch him die. She just wanted him dead.
The glacier-fed water of the lake would do the deed. He had about 20 minutes to live before hypothermia set in. She willed him to die even sooner. She turned, with a terrible fear, to see if Randy had seen anything. But Randy was passed out, his limbs all odd angles, almost into the aisle of the boat.
Carmen watched Jason spit and struggle, and then saw him go down for the last time. She wanted to be sure he was dead. He was. She sat, frozen, patient, unwilling to move, willing this to be over. So weary. Should I just join him overboard? Just say, “fuck it” for the final time? Hell no!
Carmen turned away from Jason’s drowned body, and towards the bow of the boat.
Randy was easy to push out of the way. He’d be out of it for hours.
Carmen shoved him away from the driver’s seat, and sat down in the captain’s chair. Nothing special about the chair, except she was in it instead of Jason. Her hands were cold, and her fingers slipped on the metal grip of the ignition key.
She turned it. It coughed. Nothing. Turned it again. It sputtered. She held her breath. It started.
She’d watched Jason baby The Casper. Now it was her turn to urge this little boat into performing its best. She nudged the throttle ahead, kept the speed slow. The engine chugged along, sounding vulnerable and small as it echoed off the misty shore. The rain was a sheet of water on the windshield. Carmen struggled to find the wiper switch and the fan to clear the fog from the glass.
The boat puttered away up the lake, gulping up the sloshing waves, turning a little to the left, a little to the right. Carmen steered herself straight, and headed to The Narrows, where the shores of both sides of the lake were closest together. The wind blew the rain and the lake water through the open side windows, fresh air and water gave Carmen’s pale face a pink glow. She watched her reflection in the glass of the window. A calm, almost passive face, overlaid with the mirror image of The Casper’s neon blue control panel.
She got as close to shore as she dared, checked her bearings, then aimed the boat down the vast empty lake, walked to the back, and jumped overboard. She gasped, and waves smashed water into her mouth. She coughed and thrashed and forced herself to tread water, allowing the water to take control. She floated; she became flotsam, part of the lake, part of the world once more.
The drysuit she’d worn under her baggy pants and hoodie would keep her body and head warm until she was rescued. But, the cold water was still like a grand slap to her face and hands and the experience she’d just been through -- after all, she’d just murdered someone -- threatened to throw her into shock.
She watched The Casper chug away to a destination of nowhere. A pang went through her. Off it went, on its slow, steady course, into the mist. Into oblivion. As long as the wheel stayed straight, even in a storm, the boat would not hit shore for another two hours. When Randy woke up, he would have no idea what had happened. Who gives a shit about Randy anyway?
Carmen bobbed up and down with the waves, rocking back and forth. Sometimes a whitecap would spit cold water in her face. The surrounding mountains blocked out the sun, and the gray, overcast sky made it even darker. The distant hills were black, not one light of humans to break the void. The water like dull pewter, had calmed, and the waves were subsiding. Initial panic had gone, but a deeper fear remained. Alone, half a mile of water underneath her, and a long swim to shore in the cold.
Her eyes strained in the gloaming. Which way to go? Her arms began to tire, and a dull chill crept through the protective fabric of the dry suit.
She started to swim towards the closest island. As her strokes became uneven, and she had to put more effort into each movement, she continued to scan the water. Maybe she could find a log? A deadhead, a water-logged piece of wood, and hold onto it while she kicked. As her eyes grew weary, she thought it was her mind playing tricks. Hallucinating, close to death, the throes of the end. The moon came out from behind the cloud, just a sliver, but a bright slice of heaven. Enough to reveal a shimmer on the water and an even series of bumps appeared about 20 feet to her right. They rose in tandem with the waves. Was this the Ogopogo-like creature that lived in the lake? Carmen surveyed the horizon in panic, surely a rescue boat would come along soon. Anyone? Anywhere. She gave a series of violent kicks, aiming for the shore, but the waves washed her towards the humps.
It was dark now, but the humps began to glow, one by one, and in an eerie row, came closer and closer to Carmen. Then the creature disappeared, the humps gone in a gentle splash.
Carmen’s heart pounded in her ears. Maybe she would die of a heart attack out here in the cold water. She’d heard of that happening. Her breath came faster and faster, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh please, oh no ...” She shut her eyes, “shit shit shit.”
Another splash. Closer now. Carmen opened her eyes again, horrified at what was happening. It was coming to get her! A head popped out of the water. A human head. Oh my God, she thought, it’s JASON. He’s not dead, he’s going to kill me!
She screamed and SCREAMED.
It wasn’t Jason, though. It was a live woman, not a dead man. The woman was wearing a black drysuit covering her head. More heads came out. A total of eight women, undulating with the rhythm of the waves. Their eyes watching, observant.
“Carmen?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome to the Ogopogo club.”
The nine women swam silently in a row towards the shore, their black-covered heads shining and rocking in the waves. That’s nine husbands done with. Many more to go.
The Loch
The air above the river has turned to gray fog, so thick you reach over the water to see if you can feel the smoke with your fingers. You drift without any sense of direction, alone in your small boat, with only the sound of the light waves lapping against its sides as they push you along.
Your eyes are heavy now. The journey has been a long one and sleep tugs at your eyelids like it is trying to close the curtains on your brain, when something jolts the boat and you snap upright.
Do not move.
Do not speak.
Out in the dark fog wild things roam and they hunger for meals that squirm and scream. You swallow and remain still. The boat rocks again as something brushes up alongside it and you hear something reptilian slither against its walls, its scales scraping the boat's rough wooden hull, sanding it down with its reticulated skin.
A shining black flipper slaps the water's surface, large as a wha
le's, and the thing descends into the black water, already gone by the time you manage the courage to peer over the side and look for it.
"Damn!" a man's voice calls out ahead of you.
It is the showman from the tent, your sometimes-guide, and he grunts as he slaps the end of a brass telescope with his metal-ringed fingers and collapses it in his palm. "Almost caught a glimpse of it."
He stands on an island of black gravel in the center of the water and reaches out to stop your boat as it passes. "Come on now, out you go." He offers you his hand and pulls you up onto the shore beside him, frowning as he looks past you into the murk. "Cursed fog," he grumbles. "Do you know that the first reported sighting of a river monster in Loch Ness was by an Irish monk in the Seventh Century? He came upon a group of terrified men who were fishing one of their company's bodies from the water. They breathlessly explained to him that their friend had been swimming when suddenly he was attacked by a ferocious creature that coiled itself around him and dragged him under. His mutilated body eventually floated back up to the surface and there, before the monk's very eyes, the creature emerged in all of its terrible glory and attacked them again. The monk thrust out his arms in front of the other men and commanded the beast to retreat in the name of God. They all stared in amazement as the monster withdrew in fear from the monk." He cocks an eyebrow at you and says, "What do you make of that?"
"That's amazing. I had no idea it had been seen as far back as then."
He smiles gently and says, "Indeed. The monk was sainted after that. There are still statues and stained glass windows that bear his likeness. Of course, the story was not completely false. There was a creature in the river that day that appeared strange and ferocious to the Picts and the monk. Unfortunately, it was just an adolescent walrus."
Carnival of Cryptids (Anthology to Raise Funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) (Kindle All-Stars Book 2) Page 12