Ghosts, Monsters and Madmen

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  “You’re right,” she acquiesced with a chuckle. “I’ve just gotten so used to living in the garden paradise of suburbia that I forgot things out here haven’t been completely tamed, trained, and trimmed into obedient conformity. Sorry about that.”

  “Well, it’s farm and pasture land. Not exactly the great dark forests of yore.”

  “Ah, but how do you know? All we know about Potter’s Creek is where we see it cross the highway near Hallisboro and then way down at the bridge near Pritchard Hill. That’s over forty miles apart. Think about it, we only know the world around us in strips, whatever is in sight along the road or street.”

  “Oh brother, here we go again…”

  “Oh c’mon, Ryan. You know it’s true. Even when you go jogging in the park, you have no idea what’s thirty feet off of the path. And that’s because you never leave it.”

  “Honey, I’m an accountant, not Daniel Boone. I blaze my trail through the tax codes. Besides, the only thing to discover off the trails in that park is kids getting high and making out. I’m sure they would just be thrilled to see me prancing about the underbrush in shorts.”

  Cathy giggled at the image of her paunchy husband driving hordes of stoned, half-dressed teens before him as he thundered amongst the bushes in his jogging outfit. She leaned back and watched the tree limbs that overarched the creek slide past. Even when the waterway snaked past cultivated fields, a line of trees remained along the banks. In pastures, the trees thickened in places where one almost got the illusion of being in the woods.

  Dappled sunlight filtered between the leaves of the canopy above, casting a mottled pattern on the brown waters. A chorus of cicada song cascaded down around them from the leafy roof. Other than the occasional rusted can or scrap of paper along the water’s edge, nothing distinguished their surroundings from how they must have appeared a century ago. Twice they startled deer that came to the banks of the creek for a drink, much to Cathy’s delight, and even Ryan smiled and started recounting his adventures of younger days at camp.

  Breaking open the ice chest, she fished out egg salad sandwiches and a couple of sports bottles filled with iced tea. She had thought through both meals and snacks with care, and saw to it that they were well provisioned. With a flourish, she handed over her husband’s share.

  “Here you go, Captain. You just drive the ship and I’ll whip up the grub.”

  “Arr. That be “steer” the ship, ye scurvy landlubber.”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “Errrr…matey, that is.” Ryan grinned around a mouthful of sandwich, “Shiver me timbers! Let’s not be havin’ any mutinies on this vessel now.”

  She gave him a mock warning look then, just as she turned to close the ice chest, she saw the motion in the water near his arm.

  “Ryan! Look out!”

  Cathy pointed to where the water had just roiled, under the very spot that Ryan’s elbow hung over the side of the boat. She noted with frustration that by the time her husband recovered from jumping due to her outburst and turned to look where she pointed, nothing but the sluggish brown surface of Potter’s Creek revealed itself.

  “What?”

  “Something moved. Right below the surface. There! Right under where you put your elbow.”

  “Where?”

  “Right there! Don’t look at me like that, either. It was there.”

  “What was there, honey?”

  “I don’t know! It moved under the water… Ryan Clyburn, don’t you look at me like that. Something was there.” She found herself starting to feel foolish and bitchy at the same time, and decided to change tactics. “How deep is the water here, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe four or five feet. I imagine it varies.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Ryan pulled the paddle off the floor of the boat and held it upright before her.

  “Here, let’s find out. This paddle is four feet long. I’ll lower it into the creek, and we’ll just add four feet to however much of my arm gets wet.”

  She eyed the opaque water with doubt. Her inability to see past the surface now made her distrust it.

  “Be careful, Ryan. There is something down there.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sure there is. I imagine it’s a turtle.”

  He twisted around and started feeding the paddle down into the water. Cathy gripped the seat and leaned forward to watch. At the same time she kept a wary eye on Ryan, knowing how he enjoyed giving her a good scare if the opportunity arose. The chance that something horrid and rubber could come flying at her always existed with him. She resolved that a good verbal thrashing would be in order if this turned out to be one of those cases.

  “Whoops! I seem to have hit something.”

  “What is it?”

  He lifted the paddle a couple of inches then dropped it down again.

  “Hmm. It’s hard. I’m guessing a submerged log or branch. Wait a second, I think I’m past it. I’ll just… What the hell?!”

  Only Cathy’s previously tightened grip on her seat prevented her from going overboard with him when the boat rocked violently. Ryan catapulted forward, out over the paddle handle, and landed in the creek with a large splash. The boat heaved the other way at the loss of his weight, and she found herself clutching the sides to try and stop the motion before it capsized her. She had no experience with boats, and didn’t know what to expect next.

  Fortunately, the rocking subsided almost at once, and she dared to raise her head and look out.

  “Ryan?’

  Her husband stood sputtering, chest deep in brown water and covered with mud and the wet leaves that floated on the slow moving surface. His hair slicked flat against his head, and a soggy weed stuck straight out from over his left ear. He looked like some B movie swamp monster.

  “Pfft! Pfft! Oh crap, I forgot how bad creek water can taste. This stuff is foul! I think every catfish in south Texas must have pissed in it.”

  Once again, she found herself giggling as Ryan presented another memorable scene for the record books. She could already picture the look of long suffering on his face as she regaled all their friends back home with his acrobatics. Fortunately, he acknowledged his own lack of coordination and she knew he would be a good sport about it. She grinned at him with affection, but then the laughter died in her throat as she followed his furrowed gaze over to where paddle still protruded from the water.

  The top foot of it stuck straight up from the surface.

  Something about the way it stood there, defiant against the slow current, raised the hair on the back of her neck. As high as the water came on her husband, the paddle shouldn’t have been sticking out at all.

  “Ryan? What’s happening? How is it doing that?”

  She leaned forward to get a better look as the boat continued its snail like drift downstream.

  “I’m not sure.” He eyed the paddle with narrow suspicion. “But I intend to find out.”

  “Ryan, don’t be stupid. Just leave it alone and get back in the boat.”

  “We need that paddle, hon. Without it, we’re literally up a creek…well, you know the rest. Besides, I think I’ve figured out what’s going on here.”

  “What?”

  “There must be a large branch under the water there. That was the hard thing I hit with the paddle the first time. After that, I must have shoved it down into a fork in the branch and it caught.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Either that or The Creature from the Black Lagoon is now stealing paddles. I’ll go with option A.” He still watched the paddle with wary intent as he waded toward it.

  “Ryan, be careful.”

  “It’s alright. I’ll just…AAAHHH!”

  He was in the middle of reaching for the paddle when he disappeared abruptly under the water.

  “RYAN!”

  Cathy grabbed the sides of the boat in a white-knuckled grip, staring at the thrashing water where her husband had just vanished. The paddle floated to the s
urface in the churning turmoil, freed from whatever held it.

  A second later Ryan surfaced, his face contorted in a mud-smeared grimace.

  “Ryan?”

  “Cathy!” He gasped. “It’s got me by the leg. Oh God . . . it’s strong . . . it’s . . . it’s breaking my . . .”

  He appeared to be jerked under the surface again.

  “Ryan!”

  Flecks of blood started to appear in the muddy swirl.

  Something inside screamed for her to jump into the water and go help him. Cathy’s instinct to leap to the aid of her husband warred with her fear of the water, and whatever lurked under the surface. At the same time, the reality of the situation further undermined her resolve. She knew from watching Ryan earlier that the water would at least come up to her chin, and that once she left the boat she would be unable to get back aboard by herself. Her ability to swim had always been marginal at best.

  A second later the surface bowed and Ryan emerged from the creek again.

  This time he didn’t come up alone.

  Something fought with him. Something even bigger than him, and the same muddy brown color of the creek waters. Something with spines, claws, and far too many spider-like legs that flailed at Ryan as others embraced him. He gave one agonized cry of pain and effort, and then the pair toppled under the water again.

  “RYAN!”

  More bloodspots rose to mottle the muddy surface, and the thrashing subsided. Ripples expanded from the scene of the struggle and then, within seconds, the surface calmed to its previous glassy state.

  “RYYAAAANNNN!”

  Only the drone of the cicada disturbed the new silence, and Cathy realized he wouldn’t be coming up again. She stared at the receding spot where Ryan vanished, tears of grief and shame starting down her face.

  Ryan was dead.

  He needed her and she had failed him. Even though every bit of reason she possessed insisted she could have done nothing against such a monster, her shame at how her own fear had stopped her from going to him overwhelmed her. The paddle floated about ten feet from the boat, and she found herself too scared to even put her hands in the water in an attempt to paddle her way over to it. Without it, she couldn’t steer the boat and drifted at the mercy of the slow current.

  Cathy knew she needed to do something, anything, or she would end up curling up in the bottom of the boat crying herself into hysterics. And that wasn’t going to make anything any better. She gulped in air, pounding her fist against the metal seat of the boat, trying to regain control.

  A second later something answered her pounding by scratching against the bottom of her boat.

  She stopped, her fist frozen in midair, not daring to breath. Perhaps earlier she would have attributed the sound to the boat scraping over a submerged branch, but not now. Now these waters harbored killers. As if to confirm her fears, the sound came again—the muted rasp of something hard and underwater dragging against the bottom of the aluminum craft.

  Moving with extreme care, Cathy swiveled her head to scan the area. Nothing moved within her vision, except the occasional leaf falling from the canopy above. The surface lay motionless, and as opaque as ever. She didn’t know if more than one of those things lurked below her, or if this might be the same one that killed Ryan. The fact that such a deadly monstrosity squatted less than a foot or two beneath her took her breath away.

  And she could do nothing about it.

  Ryan carried the cell phone, so she couldn’t use that to get help. The paddle floated out of reach, and she feared disturbing the water by using her hands to paddle over to it. She didn’t even dare scream for fear the sound would carry through the water and excite the creature into attacking the boat. Anything she did that drew more attention to her little craft, threatened her with a gruesome death. Her very survival depended on not making any more mistakes.

  Slowing her breathing, she forced herself to calm down and be still.

  “Think,” she whispered to herself. “Calm down and think. Sooner or later, this boat will have to drift ashore. Either that or it will come up against a bridge that crosses the creek. Whatever it does, all you have to do is be still till that happens, then just step ashore. And then you can go get help. No, scratch that. Then you can take your platinum card, go buy a thousand gallons of bleach, and give these bastards a one woman toxic disaster.”

  That last thought made her feel better. She closed her eyes and made a promise to her dead husband.

  “You hear that, Ryan? I’m gonna get them for you. Big bugs or not, they are going to pay. All I have to do is be still and wait.”

  She opened her eyes again…and almost screamed despite herself.

  Thirty feet away, one of the monsters hung between two trees on the bank.

  It looked like a cross between a lobster and a nightmare. Its legs splayed out to reach the trunks of the trees on each side of it. While its four large claw-bearing legs reached up to the lower branches, its stubby tail hung about a foot off the ground. Cathy crammed her hand into her mouth as the boat drifted slowly past it. Any second she feared it would spot her, then scuttle down into the water and come for the boat.

  Or who knew how far something like that could jump?

  Cathy barely breathed until it became obvious the boat had passed the point it would be eliciting a response from the deadly beast on the shore. Then with a slow, careful exhale, she allowed herself the luxury of a quiet whimper while trying to wrap her mind around this new revelation.

  She thought that the threat came only from under the water, but this changed everything. What in the hell had that thing been doing in those trees? The answer came to her even as she asked it of herself.

  It was hunting.

  To a deer, or other colorblind animal of similar nature it would appear as just a motionless bundle of branches. And when they came to the creek to get a drink…

  Cathy shuddered at the thought, and made a note that when she managed to get to shore she would watch the trees with care. Her odds of getting out of this alive had just dropped, and she still didn’t have a full understanding of the creature that killed Ryan and threatened her. Did it just stay near the creek? Did it hunt on land afoot as well? Was it some long overlooked species hidden away in a forgotten nook of the rural landscape?

  She doubted that last part. It made no sense that a creature of this size and deadliness could escape detection for centuries. This must be something new. Perhaps some product of the fertilizers and chemicals that leached into the creek from the farmland it wandered through. Or it could be some recent mutation. All fantasies of vengeance aside, she needed to let somebody know about this. If she lived long enough. She reminded herself that, barring things getting worse, she still only needed to sit still and not attract more attention until her boat hit shore somewhere ahead.

  Cathy turned to look downstream, and realized things had just gotten worse.

  About a hundred yards down the leafy tunnel of the stream, an old railroad bridge once crossed the narrow channel. The tracks themselves no longer existed, but the supports for the bridge still stood out of the water. And a true monster spanned the gap between the two center columns in the creek.

  Unlike the one in the trees, this huge horror hung head down like a spider in its web. Its black armored body stood in stark contrast with the muddy brown color of its smaller brethren. For a moment, Cathy thought her eyes must be playing tricks on her, until one of those massive claws shot down into the water and returned with a large fish struggling in its grip. It brought its prize to its mouth and started feeding, holding the still living fish to its wriggling mouth parts with its claw. This monstrosity lived, and fed on whatever unfortunate came down the creek beneath it.

  And in less than five minutes that would be her.

  She needed to get out of this creek, right now. But how? She couldn’t steer the boat and she couldn’t paddle back upstream, and that left one option.

  Swimming.

  Looking
around in desperate search for an idea, she spotted the lunch cooler. Cathy reached with hurried care over to it, and opened the lid. Fumbling inside, she snatched out another egg sandwich. Her shaking fingers tore at the wrappings, littering the bottom of the boat with shredded wax paper. Then she ripped off a corner of the sandwich, stared at the muddy water while chewing her lip, and tossed the food about five feet from the boat.

  It floated there undisturbed for a few seconds, and then suddenly disappeared under the surface with a splash. She still had a monster beneath her, too.

  Could she out swim it to the bank? The idea seemed suicidal, but a look over her shoulder showed her to be visibly closer to the colossus at the bridge. Cathy could almost feel its gaze upon her now, awaiting her arrival with predatory patience. She steeled herself for the impossible race for the bank. Better to die attempting to escape than being plucked up out of the boat and hauled up to that massive beast’s writhing mouth.

  She took one last bite of the egg salad sandwich, for whatever benefit it might give her, then stopped and stared at it in sudden thought. Maybe she could pad her odds, just a little bit. Just maybe she could outsmart this thing, instead of relying only on her questionable swimming skills. Another glance over her shoulder gave her an approximation of the time she had left.

  Tearing off another piece of the sandwich, she tossed it to where the last one disappeared. As before, it floated for a second then got snatched underwater.

  Good.

  She threw another piece out, even further. Another couple of seconds, and it too vanished. Pulling two more sandwiches from the cooler, she started ripping them up and sent pieces sailing towards the far bank. The muddy water roiled, and she caught glimpses of claws and feelers flashing up above the surface as the thing fed in the shallower creek side. A quick check back showed her to be almost within reach of the monster hanging from the old bridge. With a final heave, she threw the rest of the contents of the cooler as far as she could toward the far bank then turned and dove off the other side of the boat.

  The water shocked her with its cold, and for a disorienting second the murky liquid blinded her. Then she came up thrashing with all her might for the nearer bank. The water tasted fouler than she believed possible, and it clung to her face with soupy tenacity. Spitting and gasping, she flailed her way forward in the viscous fluid. It felt like she made almost no progress at all, and she despaired that any second she would feel the crushing grip that killed Ryan grab one of her own ankles.