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Summer of Screams: The Boathouse by Brian LeTendre

#SummerofScreams

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The Boathouse

by Brian Letendre

July 15, 1978

“I’m pretty sure Director Spencer wouldn’t be on board with this,” Harry nervously offered from the shadows of the lower bunk.

“Shut up, dickweed,” Chad snapped. “You’re just lucky we didn’t think of this when you were a counselor-in-training. You got off light. All you had to do was swim to the other side of the lake and back.”

“Yeah—naked,” Harry moaned. “And then you guys hid my clothes and I had to walk back to my cabin while you all slapped my ass a hundred times.”

“And it’s still the most action you’ve ever gotten,” Chad smirked. “So you’re welcome.”

Haley rolled her eyes. “Knock it off, idiots. It’s gonna be lights out soon and we need to give these three their marching orders.”

Jessie, for one, was hoping the rest of them would keep arguing, at least until Director Spencer showed up. She’d heard that all CITs had to go through initiation by the other counselors. She’d also heard the rumors about counselors partying after lights out, the secret bonfires, the hook-ups, and more. But counselors never told campers about what actually happened after hours. They were like a secret society, one that Jessie had dreamed about becoming a part of since she began attending Camp Crabtree at eight years old. That was seven years ago, and now that she was old enough to be a counselor-in-training, she was almost a part of that secret cabal of almost-adults that ran the whole camp. She just had to pay her dues for one summer as a CIT. And that meant doing whatever the senior counselors told her to do. In order to graduate to counselor for next year, she had to pass peer review. If the senior counselors liked you, you passed. If not, you failed and were sent back to the ranks of the regular campers. And there was no way Jessie was going to let that happen. If that meant spending the night in the creepy-ass boathouse, that’s exactly what she’d do.

All eyes turned to Mallory, the senior counselor, who was leaning against the dresser. She dropped the strand of long, black hair she’d been twirling and pushed stop on the 8-Track player. Silence filled the room as John Travolta and Olivia Newton-Johns’ voices cut out in the middle of “You’re the One That I Want.” Mallory paused for effect and then strolled forward to face Jessie and the other two CITs.

“Okay newbies, here’s the deal. In order to graduate from CITs to counselors, you need us. It’s our last summer here, and we need to know that whoever’s coming up behind us isn’t going to tarnish our good names by being a fuck up. So for the next six weeks, you do what we say when we say it. Got it?”

Jessie nodded solemnly. Mallory was a bitch, but she was the Head Bitch. There were four senior counselors, fourteen regular counselors, and CITs, Jesse included.

The other three SCs—even Chad—were pretty cool. Jessie knew she just needed to get through the hazing period, and she wasn’t going to give Mallory a reason to focus on her.

She stole a glance over at her two fellow CITs, Andrea and Paulo. They didn’t look half as nervous as Jessie felt. Then she noticed they sat awfully close to one another on the bed, and their pinkies were hooked together behind their backs.

“I asked you a question,” Mallory growled, leaning in toward Paulo.

The smile faded from his face as he swallowed. “Yes, ma’am. We’ve—I’ve got it.”

Mallory’s gaze drifted over to Andrea before she stood up straight again.

“Like Chad said, the three of you will be spending the night in the boathouse. We’ll be locking you in just before midnight, and I’ll let you out when I come down for sunrise swim.”

The word “boathouse” was a bit of an exaggeration, as the building Mallory referred to was a glorified shed. The long wooden shack near the edge of the lake was about the length of a tractor-trailer and was filled mostly with racks that held canoes and lifejackets. It was damp, musty and a haven for spiders, which Jessie had an unnatural fear of. The idea of spending the night in there was not pleasant, but it didn’t sound half as bad as swimming across the lake naked and getting your ass slapped a bunch of times.

Andrea must have thought the same, because he foolishly spoke up. “So, what’s the big deal about the boathouse? Are you guys gonna mess with us while we’re in there or something?”

“What’s the big deal about the boathouse?” Mallory repeated, followed by a cartoonishly evil laugh. “Tell ‘em, Chad.”

“Do any of you losers know the history of this place?” Chad smirked.

“I know the camp’s been around for over twenty years,” Paulo replied.

“Not the camp, dumbass,” Chad replied with a disgusted look. “The lake.”

“The lake was formed in 1928,” Jessie blurted out before thinking. It was a habit from school. If she heard a question and she had the answer, she felt compelled to give it. That quality got her no small amount of teasing throughout elementary school, and it brought the spotlight she had been trying to avoid right onto her.

“Very good,” Mallory said, mildly impressed. “Anything else?”

“Um, I know it’s not really a lake, it’s a reservoir,” Jessie replied. “They actually flooded three small towns in the area to form it in order to supply the area with drinking water. People had to relocate. That’s all I really know.”

“Then you don’t know the most important part,” Mallory smirked. “The part about all the people who died.”

“What do you mean?” Andrea asked, and Jessie noticed she was holding Paulo’s hand firmly now.

“There was a church in the middle of Barnsley,” Mallory said in her most dramatic voice. “And many of its patrons had no intention of leaving their lives—and the church—behind. Barnsley was the first of the three towns to be flooded, and when they released the dam, the water came quickly. A bunch of parishioners had hidden in the basement of the church, as they would rather die than leave. They all drowned before anyone figured out they were still there. That was fifty years ago tomorrow.”

Jessie didn’t believe Mallory for a second. There was no way a church full of people went unaccounted for before the town was flooded. There had to be people whose only responsibility was making sure everyone was out. It did make for a good story, though.

“And then there were the cemeteries,” Mallory continued. “A company was hired to move all the bodies that were buried in the area to a new location. But legend has it they took the money and mostly just moved the headstones.”

“Bullshit,” Paulo chuckled. “No way that happened.”

“How the hell would you know?” Chad replied. “You’re not even from around here, New York boy. Mallory and I grew up in Cunningham—we know all the stories, right Mal?”

“That’s right,” Mallory agreed with a wicked smile. And that’s why I saved the best for last. The legend of Lucy Masters.”

“Who the hell is that?” Andrea asked, and Jessie could tell the stories were starting to get to her.

“She was a girl about our age, whose parents lived on the other side of the lake,” Mallory explained. “She’d grown up around here too, so she knew the history of the lake and the secrets buried beneath it. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Barnsley drownings, Lucy’s friends dared her to take a canoe out to the spot where the old church still sat at bottom of the lake. It’s only about a half-mile from here.”

“She was a smartass like you,” Chad chimed in, looking at Paulo. “She didn’t believe the stories, and she damn sure didn’t believe in ghosts. So just after midnight, she rowed out there all by herself, while her friends watched from the distant shore. The dare was to stay out there until four a.m., when the Devil’s hour had come and gone.”

Even Jessie found herself leaning forward on the bed as Chad’s words sucked her in. “What happened?”

“Nothing…for the first couple hours,” Mallory replied, taking the story back over. “But just after three, a large, thick cloud passed in front of the almost-full moon, and the water went dark. Lucy’s friends could no longer see her. But they heard a blood-curdling scream echo across the lake, and the sounds of splashing around in the water. When the cloud finally passed, the moonlight shone on the water once again, just in time to see the tip of Lucy’s red canoe disappear below the surface.”

Jessie, Andrea, and Paulo just sat there speechless. The hairs on Jessie’s arms stood straight up.

“No one ever found any sign of her or the canoe again,” Chad said. “But there have been plenty of reported sightings over the years of a girl in a red canoe, floating out on the middle of the lake, just before the Devil’s hour.”

“And since midnight marks the sixteenth,” Mallory said spookily, “the twenty-fifth anniversary of Lucy Masters’ disappearance will be just before three a.m. Maybe tonight, she’ll finally come back to shore.”

“If she does,” Chad added, “she’ll need a place to store her canoe, right?”

Silence settled over the room as Chad and Mallory let the story sink in and take old of the three CITs. It was broken five seconds later when a loud knock on the cabin door startled them all and unleashed a scream from Andrea.

“Geez Louise,” came a voice from beyond the door, which swung open to reveal a middle-aged man in cargo shorts and a “Camp Crabtree” t-shirt. “Am I really getting that scary in my old age?”

“Sorry Director Spencer,” Mallory apologized. “We were just finishing up our first counselor’s meeting with the new CITs. I guess we lost track of time. She turned and gave all three of them a fake smile that had plenty of menace behind it. “These three are going to be great.”

“I sure hope so,” Director Spencer smiled. “They’ve all been coming to Camp Crabtree for years, and only our best campers go on to be counselors.” He looked at his watch. “But they can’t do it without a good night’s sleep. Lights out is in twenty minutes.”

“We were just heading out,” Chad replied, motioning for Haley and Harry.

“Good idea,” Director Spencer nodded. “I just made the rounds, and your cabins are all a bit rowdy. Sixteen is too many for just one counselor.”

Each cabin consisted of two main rooms with eight beds in each. A small room in the middle was where the two counselors assigned to the cabin slept. Harry, Chad, and Harley had left their counterparts to watch over a full cabin at bed-prep.

The counselors-in-training however, stayed with one of the senior counselors. And that meant Jessie, Andrea, and Paulo weren’t going anywhere. Mallory had them all to herself.

“We’ll be in bed by eleven,” she promised Director Spencer. I have a sunrise swim tomorrow, and I’ll be taking these three with me. I just want to go over the activity schedules with them again before bed.”

“I’ll see you kids in the morning, then,” Director Spencer replied, letting the other three SCs out before pulling the door closed.

No sooner had the latch clicked than Mallory wheeled around to face them. “You three might as well rest now,” she advised. “Because the only thing you’re bringing to the boathouse is your bathing suit, a towel, and pair of flip-flops.”

Jessie crawled up to her bunk and stared at the ceiling, telling herself there was nothing to be afraid of. But thinking the words and believing them were two very different things.

 

tree-divider

Mallory opened the cabin door and peeked around.

“Let’s go,” she whispered over her shoulder before stepping out. “And be quiet about it.”

Clad in their bathing suits, t-shirts, and flip-flops, the three CITs followed Mallory around the back of the cabin toward the long dirt path that led down to the lake.

Mallory wasn’t worried about Director Spencer catching them–his cabin was near the entrance to camp, a good quarter-mile away. But if any of the campers saw them sneaking down to the lake, someone would say something, and Mallory would be screwed.

The path down to the lake was a long one, leading away from the cabins and through the woods. It wasn’t long until the lights of the camp were almost gone completely, and they would be walking in total darkness, as the canopy of trees overhead blocked out most of the moonlight.

“Ow! Son of a—” Paulo grunted as he stumbled.

“What part of ‘be quiet about it’ didn’t you understand?” Mallory hissed.

“It’s not my fault we can’t freaking see,” he whispered back as he limped along. “I just rolled my ankle.”

“Here, let me help,” Andrea offered, pulling his arm around her shoulder. Jessie could hear the concern in her voice, as if she needed any further confirmation of their little summer romance.

“Fine,” Mallory sighed, clicking on a flashlight and illuminating the path ahead.

 Jessie gave Mallory an annoyed look. “You had that the whole time?”

“Yeah dipshit,” she fired back, “and I needed to be out of view of the cabins to use it. Now shut up and let’s get moving. It’s almost midnight.”

The paths started to slope downward, and it wasn’t long until Jessie saw the shimmer of moonlight on the water. The path opened up, leading down to the sandy shore, where a lifeguard chair sat twenty yards away from the boathouse. The two barn-style doors were open, and a small ramp led into the yawning darkness.

“There’s your room for the night, kiddies,” Mallory sneered as she clicked off the flashlight. “Make yourselves at home.”

Jessie closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. This is a test, she thought to herself. And I’m going to pass it.

With that, she opened her eyes and strode toward the oversized shed, with Andrea and Paulo following behind.

“I can walk,” he said to Andrea, and she let him go ahead, biting her lip as she watched him limp over to the boathouse.

“You’ve really got it bad for him, huh?” Mallory asked, and the shade of crimson Andrea’s face turned could be seen clear as day in the moonlight.

“What?” she sputtered, trying to fake a laugh. “I was just helping—”

“Please,” Mallory rolled her eyes. “I’ve had enough summer flings to know one when I see one. Two pieces of advice. One, be the boss. And two, don’t fall in love. Summer crushes never last.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Andrea replied flatly, quickening her step to follow behind Paulo in case he stumbled.

Mallory shook her head. She remembered when she was fifteen and had no freaking clue about anything. In a way, she was doing these three a favor by scaring the shit out of them. It would build character, help them shed some of that wide-eyed innocence. And then in a few years, they would be the ones telling ghost stories and putting CITs through hell.

“The circle of life,” she said aloud, quite pleased with herself. Then she put her bitch face on again and tromped down toward the boathouse.

At least there’s a few windows, Jessie thought as she walked into the boathouse. On either side of her were two sets or racks with three canoes each on them. They ran the length of the walls in the boathouse, except for roughly a five-foot space in between the racks on the front wall, where a window overlooked the lake. There was another window at the far end of that shed, which was opened outward about halfway. This allowed the breeze to flow through and dry things out. Luckily, it was a fairly warm evening.

“Damn it,” Paulo grumbled as the strap of a lifejacket hit him in the face. There must have been a hundred of them hanging from long hooks in the ceiling. Several of them were still dripping from when the counselors had run the canoe-flipping drill earlier in the day. The occasional sound of water hitting the wood floor made it feel like they were stepping into a cave.

“It’s dry in the middle by the window,” Jessie called to them, and Paulo and Andrea wove their way through the lifejackets to find her.

“Any last words, newbies?”

They turned to see Mallory standing in the doorway of the boathouse. She was shining the flashlight under her chin so that shadows made her look as sinister as possible.

“We’ll be fine,” Andrea called back, trying to sound confident. “See you in the morning.”

Mallory smiled wickedly. “If you make it that long. Say ‘hi’ to Lucy for me.”

With that, Mallory swung the doors closed. That was followed by the sound of the metal latch clanking, and the distinct click of a padlock.

“You bitch,” Paulo spat, and he quickly limped to the door, pushing against it to no avail. “You never said you were locking us in here!”

“To be fair, I never said I wasn’t,” purred Mallory from the other side. “You’re not chickening out in the first thirty seconds, are you Paulo? I mean, what would Andrea think?”

That one hit home. Paulo wanted to fire back something that would shatter that prissy veneer of Mallory’s but he reminded himself that this was literally the second day of camp. He wasn’t going to ruin his whole summer in one night.

“See you at sunrise,” he said, turning away from the door and heading back to the girls.

Jessie and Andrea had found some dry lifejackets and made a circle on the floor in front of the window. Paolo gingerly sat down next to Andrea.

The moon was bright that night, save for the occasional cloud that passed in front of it, and as long as they stayed within five feet of the window, it was more than enough to see by. The window at the far end brought in considerable less light, and there was a whole lot of shadows between them and that window.

“So…” Jessie started, hating the silence. “You two are a thing now?”

“Well, uh,” Paulo stammered, flushing.

“It’s fine,” Andrea said, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Seems like everyone has already figured it out. Even Mallory.”

“But counselors aren’t supposed to have relationships with other counselors,” Paulo replied. “I didn’t want to get Andrea in trouble.”

“Good thing you two aren’t counselors yet then,” Jessie smiled. She could see the relief on Paulo’s face, and Andrea gave her a thank you nod. “Besides,” Jessie added, “you guys know Mallory and Chad have been hooking up for the past three summers, right?”

“I knew it,” Andrea smirked. “She’s such a bitch.”

“Thanks for being cool,” Paulo told her.

“”I’m just sorry you guys have to have me as your third wheel on this romantic moonlit evening,” Jessie replied, straight faced.

Andrea burst out laughing, which made Paulo start laughing, and soon all three of them had tears rolling down their faces. Though none of them would admit it, the laughter dispersed the nervous tension all three of them had struggled to put words to.

Once the laughter died down, Andrea unfurled her beach towel to reveal a deck of cards, and a pack of cigarettes.

“Babe, you told me you were quitting,” Paulo said, ignoring the cards.

“I’m down to like two a day,” Andrea justified. “I only brought them in case I get too bored or stressed. Don’t be mad. Let’s just play some Pitch, okay?”

All it took was a few bats of her eyelashes for Paulo’s annoyed look to melt away. Jessie rolled her eyes at the lovebirds and grabbed the deck of cards.

“I’ll deal first,” she told them, shuffling the deck and giving them each six cards. “Paulo, your bid.”

“Pass,” he replied nonchalantly.

Me too, Andrea smirked.

“Damn it,” Jessie sighed, looking at her garbage hand. “Two, I guess.”

They spent the next few hours playing cards, as it proved a good distraction from both their quarters for the evening and the thought of what Mallory and her goons might have planned for them. They hadn’t heard a peep from outside, save for the constant low sound of crickets, the drip, drip, drip of waterlogged lifejackets inside the boathouse.

“It’s gotta be after three now, right?” Andrea said after she’d taken another game from them.

“Feels like it,” Jessie replied, stretching into a yawn.

Andrea gave Paulo a quick smooch on the cheek and stood up. “Sorry babe, but I need a cigarette. I’ll go lean out the window down there, so you guys won’t smell it.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” Jesse shrugged. “My mom and dad both smoke.”

“Well, it bothers me,” Paulo grumbled.

Andrea hesitated for a moment, but Jessie gave her a “he’ll get over it” glance, and she continued to the far and of the boathouse. She pushed the window open and leaned out, lighting a cigarette.

“You know,” she called back after making sure to blow the smoke outside, “It’s only like five feet up. We could totally squeeze out of this and sneak out.”

“I’m sure Mallory has one of her minions watching us,” Jessie replied. “And they haven’t even started screwing with us yet, so they’re definitely still out there.”

“Well, I don’t see—holy mother shit!”

“What?” Jessie blurted, Scrambling to her feet.

“Look out the window!”

Jessie pulled Paulo to his feet and they scampered over to the window.

“I don’t see—” Paolo started.

“There!” Jessie pointed.

Floating along lazily, out toward the middle of the lake, was a canoe, the moonlight glinting off of its shiny red side. And seated in the middle of the canoe was what looked like a girl. It was hard to tell, but whoever it was had long, wavy hair that hung down over their face.

“No,” was all Paulo could mutter, and Jessie felt his body stiffen in fear as he leaned against her.

“Settle down,” Jessie gently scolded, having regained her composure after the initial shock. “It’s obviously Mallory.”

Andrea must have figured the same, as she leaned out the window and yelled “Nice try, Mallory! Or should we say Lucy? Ha ha ha!”

Whoever was in the canoe didn’t answer, but slowly turned her head in the direction of the boathouse.

“Man, she’s really playing it up,” Jessie muttered, almost admiring Mallory’s dedication. She’d obviously bought a wig, and must have rowed hard enough to let the momentum carry the canoe into their field of view. If Jessie were a little more gullible, she’d have been totally creeped out.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Andrea shouted, flicking her cigarette toward the water. “You made us stay out here—”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The sound of someone slamming on the barn doors of the boathouse instantly muted Jessie, Paulo, and Andrea.

“Hey jackasses!” came the pissed off voice of Mallory through the doors. “Are you trying to wake up the entire camp?”

Not even a startled whimper escaped any of them, as the same question popped into each of the minds simultaneously.

If Mallory was outside the door, then who was out on the water?

As the thought crystallized, Jessie’s gaze swung back to the water. The figure in the red canoe began to shimmer. Suddenly, it and the boat liquefied and dropped into the lake like a water balloon that had been pricked with a pin.

“What..the…hell…” Jessie breathed, not believing her eyes.

“Did you effing see that?” Andrea yelled, pulling herself in from the window, eyes wide.

“What was that?” Paulo moaned. “It’s like it…melted or something.”

“Hello?” came Mallory’s voice again from outside. “Are you idiots gonna answer me?”

Paulo opened his mouth, but Jessie shushed him. “Listen,” she whispered.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“You guys hear that?” Andrea said as she started walking back toward them, flip-flops smacking as she went.

Drip. Drip. Drip. It was faster now. And growing louder.

The Jessie saw it, in the shadows between Andrea and them. The water from the lifejackets had formed a rather large puddle.

But the sigh of relief caught in her throat. Because in that moment, Jessie realized the water wasn’t dripping down from the lifejackets. It was dripping up from the floor.

“Andrea—”

The wide-eyed look on Andrea’s face was quickly blotted out by the shadowy form that began to rise out of the puddle on the floor.

Andrea’s trembling hand rose up almost involuntarily and she flicked her lighter. The small flame illuminated the rotting face of the creature before her, and one word escaped her lips before the end.

“Lucy.”

The word still hung in the air as an arc of water shot from floor to ceiling, extinguishing the flame.

“Andrea!” Jessie screamed as two perfectly symmetrical halves of Andrea’s body peeled away from one another and fell in piles on either side of the thing that had killed her.

“No!” Paulo cried in anguish, hobbling toward the thing.

Jessie reached out a second too late to grab him but whiffed. In that second, she made the decision not to case him, because it meant chasing death. Instead, she bolted for the barn doors and threw her body against them.

“Jesus Christ!” Mallory snapped from the other side. “What the hell are you guys doing?”

“Open the fucking door!” Jessie screamed as she clawed the door.

“I told you you’re not getting out—”

“It’s killing us! Open the door now!” Jessie pleaded.

Mercifully, Jessie could hear Mallory fiddling with padlock, and she took that moment to steal a glance back at Paulo.

She shouldn’t have.

His feet dangled off the ground as the cracked and bloated hand of Lucy Masters squeezed his face.

“Please, no,” he whimpered as she brought him close and pressed her broken lips against his before dropping him on the ground.

Paulo landed on his hands and knees, violently retching. Gallons of dirty lake water spewed from his body, until at last he gasped for air, coughing, and sputtering. He started to pick himself up, but his stomach lurched again, only this time, it was a steady stream of blood that spilled from his mouth. The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was his own intestines coiling like a snake as he vomited them up.

Jessie had lost the ability to form words as she stared at Paulo’s innards piled on the ground. But when the decayed foot of Lucy Masters stepped on them a second later, Jessie snapped out of it, because she realized it was her turn.

With each spongy, sloshing step, Lucy got closer. Jessie pressed herself against the door, closing her eyes and bracing for the final blow.

Instead, the doors behind her gave way, and she tumbled backwards into Mallory, both of them rolling down the ramp onto the sand below.

“Son of a bitch,” Mallory said, pushing Jessie off of her. “You clumsy—”

“We have to run!” Jessie growled, and the feral look in her eyes immediately dispersed Mallory’s rage. One glance at the doorway of the boathouse replaced that rage with sheer terror, as the dripping corpse of Lucy Masters shambled into the moonlight.

“How?”

Jessie’s answer was to grab Mallory by the collar and yank her to her feet. They sprinted up the path away from the lake, into the darkness of the woods. And they kept running, until the light of their cabin started to come into view.

Jessie’s sense of relief was short-lived. She tripped over a protruding rock and went down in a heap, all the adrenaline leaving with the wind that was knocked out of her.

Mallory ran over to her, gasping for air herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she ran that hard.

“Do you think she’s—she’s…” Mallory heaved, “still…”

Jessie’s eyes filled with tears as she pointed down the path.

Splutch.

Each step sounded like a wet facecloth being dropped on a shower floor.

Splutch.

“Come on,” Mallory prodded, trying to pull her up.

“Just leave me,” Jessie said, her voice cracking. “I can’t run anymore. She wants me and she’s going to get me.”

Splutch.

“Then I guess we fight it,” Mallory said, digging the rock Jessie had tripped over out of the dirt and cocking her arm back.

Splutch.

The stench of rotten meat wafted over them as Lucy was within ten feet now.

“Starting left fielder for Cunningham High, bitch,” Mallory said as she hurled the rock at the shambling creature. As it sailed over Lucy’s head, Mallory saw the undead girl’s jagged lips curl into a smile.

Splutch.

Jessie grabbed onto Mallory and turned her head away, waiting for the killing blow to fall.

“I’m sorry,” Mallory whispered as the realization washed over her that this was it. She wasn’t sure if she was apologizing to Jessie, or to Lucy.

As Lucy’s outstretched fingers reached for them, Mallory could see the bones of her knuckles poking through the skin. She wondered if Lucy would take her and Jessie back to the bottom of the lake with her.

Mallory closed her eyes.

Splash.

The sound made Jessie turn back to look. Instead of Lucy’s corpse looming over them, there was only a puddle of water on the ground.

Mallory opened one eye, and then the other. “What…just happened?”

Clinging to Mallory, Jessie pulled herself up. “I don’t know. She just…disappeared.”

“Well let’s not wait for her to come back,” Mallory said. “Come on.”

A few minutes later, they were in the cabin, sitting across from one another, both staring at the clock that read four-thirteen.

“We made it through the Devil’s hour,” Mallory said. “That must be it. That’s why she disappeared. Or maybe we got far enough away from the lake.”

“But Andrea and Paulo…” Jessie moaned. “We have to call the cops, and tell Director Spencer, and—”

Everything that had happened finally caught up with her, and Jessie broke down. Mallory came to sit next to her and held her as the tears flowed uncontrollably, streaming down her face and falling to the floor.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

 

 

About the Author

Brian LeTendre

Brian LeTendre is the writer of the Parted Veil horror series, which includes Intrusive Thoughts, Courting the King in Yellow, Lovecraft’s Curse, and Lovecraft’s Pupil.

A gaming, comics and horror lover, Brian has co-hosted and produced a podcast about geek culture called Secret Identity since 2006, producing well over 1700 hours of programming. He also hosts and produces podcasts about writing (See Brian Write), music (Thrash It Out) and gaming (Co-Op Critics).

Brian lives and works in Massachusetts.

Brian on Twitter

Brian’s Blog

Brian on Amazon

Brian’s Podcasts

 

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