Horror - Novelette

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Dead Lake Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

DEAD LAKE

The price was right, not that Carla Cohen misunderstood what a price like that typically meant. She didn’t need a fixer-upper, but she was willing to give the place a chance. To her amazement, it met and exceeded her expectations. There had to be a caveat.

“Lake’s no good for swimming, can’t go in. Some fish manage, I think, but I wouldn’t eat them,” the realtor said, an ex-athlete according to his size and strength. The belly bulge overhanging the belt buckle suggested the ex part of the equation. “That’s why it’s so darn cheap.”

The honesty was nice to hear, Carla expected some get it while it’s hot and a little at this price, it won’t last, but it didn’t come. It was plain old honesty and that lake, which should’ve been the cottage’s main attraction was what kept the place on the market and the price low, low, low.

“Oh, some pollutant then?” Carla asked.

“That’s right, but it’s a darn mystery. The owner, poor guy—last realtor sold him the place and didn’t mention the problem, a big no-no. That realtor should lose his mother-loving license. ‘Scuse my language. I don’t care for cheaters. I don’t like sneaky cheaters at all.”

Carla smiled at the man. “Goddamn right, to hell with motherfucking cheaters.”

The realtor smirked uneasily.

“As far as the cottage goes, it’s winterized, but it can get sticky here. So, if you do like it enough to buy it, after October I’d be sure you had enough supplies to carry you through for a month.”

“Is that right?” Carla began to walk back toward the cottage. The water in the lake looked fine. Carla didn’t swim and didn’t care to tease the fish with wading toes.

In her life, she’d had a single swimming lesson. Eight years old, her father had launched her into a shallow lake. She climbed out with three leeches clung to her legs and wailed as if someone cut off an arm. She’d never really recovered enough to get into the activity. At some point, you were either in the game or on the sidelines, and as far as enjoying water bound activities went, she was a connoisseur of the bench board.

“There’s a woodstove, and a bit of the forest comes with the cottage. You’ll be the only cottage on the lake, so you don’t have to worry about noise. What is it that you do, Miss Cohen?”

The pair walked around the side of the cottage to an ancient pile of wood next to a fire pit.

“I produce music.”

“Whoa, you related to Leonard Cohen?”

Carla shook her head, silly question. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, I like Leonard Cohen. So, what do you think? About the cottage. I would give you a whole story about other buyers, but I...” he trailed.

“You don’t want to cheat me. Just tell me, is there a smell?”

“A smell?”

“Yeah, a smell from the lake, in the air, I mean?”

“Oh, no. Only if you go in. It was quite a shock to the current owner’s wife when she went in. She was sick and died shortly after. Sad stuff. Oh, also, there’s a caretaker through the bush. I could introduce you, he’ll know more about the place, but it’s nothing major as far as I know. ‘Spose I could call him and get back to ya. Now that I think about it—”

“Don’t worry. Just give me his name and number. I’ll call him. I trust you have the paperwork ready. I was going to low ball when I figured the place was ready to collapse, but since it’s only shitty water, I’ll pay the ask.”

The realtor held out a hand. “Very good!”

—

Carla dialed the number for the former caretaker—former, as soon as she’d purchased the place. She assumed she’d need only occasional help, there was likely something he could do, but nothing full-time. The call failed and the crossed-out signal bars explained why. It was landline/satellite phone kind of area.

Carla opened every window. The place had that cleaned up smell, like pine and vinegar. She looked to the lake. “This is it,” she said, “this is retirement.” A nice idea, spending time with nothing but a view. The closest town was more than forty minutes away. She had an untainted piece of heaven all to herself, untainted so long as she stayed out of the lake.

—

After the two hired packers left, Carla fell onto her bed one last time before the six-hour drive back to the cottage. She was asleep by 8:00 PM, the sky dim, but an hour or more from dark. She dreamed of her new home. Of neighbors, smiling children, busy swimmers, and nosey raccoons, rats, and snakes.

“Siss-siss-sick’s how we like ’em,” a snake said with a child’s face.

It was silly, so obviously impossible that despite the sinister nature, it bothered her none. Dreams were dreams and nothing more.

A little after 6:00 AM, she was on the road, coffee in hand. The plan was to purchase groceries before she left, enough for a month, though winter was still weeks away, even by the early northern timeline. Shopping for the cottage gave her giddy butterflies and she shuddered as the case of Campbell’s Tomato went into her cart. Buying everything by case offered another first to go with all the lasts she’d left behind.

She put an eight-roll pack of Charmin into the car—a year’s supply—and a six-pack of Bounty, get that awful vinegar smell off everything. Cleaning would be a chore and she thought of the windows, the yard, the lake, and then remembered her dream snake. Did cleaning matter much of anything at all?

The little piece of paper was in her wallet and she fished it out. The windows were still open, airing the place out, and if her dream were any kind of forewarning, perhaps it would rain—or snow.

The paper said Theo - Caretaker and beneath that was his telephone number. Carla dialed and after four rings, heard an automated machine.

“Hello, Theo. I’m just checking in. I purchased the cottage at the lake and left the windows open and was wondering if you might go close them for me. Also, I would like to keep you on for...” She paused, thinking of a nice way to fire someone she’d never hired, never met, and knew nothing about. It wasn’t a conversation for the telephone and she refocused. “I will be there in about seven hours and would like to meet you, if possible. Thank you.” She was about to hang up. “Oh, my name is Carla Cohen.” She hit END and continued shopping, the butterflies transforming into moths chewing at her insides.

—

Sleepily, Carla hummed along with the radio as she drove. The GPS on the dash suggested that she was down to ninety-nine kilometers until departing the highway. The radio fuzzed and she tuned through stations. She listened a few seconds and hit seek, watching the numbers flip and then stop. She repeated the step several times through the limited northern options, letting her eyes follow the numbers like a lazy fly gliding circles around a mound of manure.

A pop rock song blared, mixing horridly with the static. She glanced up to the road just in time to see trouble. Elk skittered across the asphalt in a pack. Automatically, she swung the truck into the oncoming lane and found the shoulder. The brakes thudded and tugged, but the gravel denied hold and the truck went over. Carla’s head smacked the steering wheel. Glass shattered in a crystal shower as the airbag blasted her head backward.

The world went silent. Carla fell and floated to-and-fro from conscious to unconscious, wondering if she was going to die even sooner than the already early expected departure date.

“Don’t worry lady, you’re gonna make it,” a foggy face said.

The quality of light had changed outside the vehicle, and she instinctively understood that she’d been out for hours. It was eighty kilometers back to the hospital, one hundred forty kilometers south of the cottage.

—

“On top of everything else...” the doctor began.

Carla waved off the statement, she didn’t need to go over the already bad scene.

“Right, well, you’ve had a concussion, a few cuts and abrasions, but it’s your legs that’ll cause you the most grief, on top of everything else, that is.” The doctor shuffled paperwork, avoiding eye-contact.

“How long until I’m back on my feet?”

The doctor looked up from his busy hands and into Carla’s gaze. “Hard to say, I mean—”

“Got it,” Carla said.

“Do you have someone?”

Carla almost laughed; she did have someone, sort of. A strange idea, really. She didn’t know the man, but assumed it was possible to pay for any help that she might need.

—

Sixteen days after the expected arrival date, Carla reached her new home. The only extra on the Plain Jane wheelchair was a reclining back. It made a world of difference when it came to weight distribution.

Two men from the moving company salvaged what they could. The crash claimed the television and some dishes, but the sound equipment made it. It was going to be boring stuck on her ass.

“Oh, the joys of retirement,” Carla mused to the scruffy man that approached, a pipe dangling from his lips. “You must be Theo?”

“Tay-yo,” he said.

“Right, well, I was wondering if you’d stay on and help, especially now that I’m indisposed.”

“Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

“That’s good, because I’m going to need a ramp,” Carla said. She hadn’t thought it through and spoke while she looked around the space of too many wheelchair inaccessible routes.

“I can do ‘at.”

“Great. Where do you live, by the way?”

Theo pulled his pipe from his teeth and pointed into the woods.

Carla nodded. Her attention drew away from the man and to the movers. She’d never seen men paid an hourly wage work at such a pace. It was a Friday afternoon pace on a Wednesday morning.

“I’d best get inside and give some guidance. Seems these fellas have some fire in their veins. Would you mind helping me up the steps and through that door?”

Theo had already started pushing the wheelchair and rather than rolling her up and backward one step at a time, the scruffy man lifted the chair as if woman and vehicle were nothing more than Styrofoam cubes.

“Oh, hey, thanks, you’re stronger than you look,” Carla said as she clung to the chair.

Theo gave a last little push and Carla rolled along.

“Seriously, thanks a lot, do I need to...” she turned to find Theo was already moving toward a small outbuilding halfway between the cottage and the lake.

“That’s it,” a young man said, sweat dripping from his brow.

Carla looked at the boxes and her furniture scattered willy-nilly. “Excuse you? Like hell it is. I paid for the deluxe service and since I can’t move, you’re not going to shirk this one.”

“Sorry, lady, you’ll get a partial refund, I’ll see to it, but we’re not sticking around.”

As the one man spoke, the other man shook his head.

“Bull, how am I supposed to move this stuff?”

“Sorry,” the man said, and he and his partner scurried out the door.

Carla ran fingers through her straight auburn hair. The fresh air scent mingled with the dulled shampoo fragrance lingering behind a layer of sweat. A headache was surely around the corner, and to accompany it, Carla’s legs would start to wail and her stomach would revolt when she took another painkiller.

There were a good number of shelves and cupboards in the cottage and Carla could reach fewer than half of them. She unpacked what she could, taking breaks often, and an hour after starting, she wheeled to the bay window overlooking the water. There, she tilted the chair back and attempted a nap. At first, it seemed as if there was no way in the world that the pain was willing to lessen enough for sleep, but sleep came. When she awoke, she awoke to a grey face looking down at her.

“Whoa…hey.”

The caretaker straightened. “I was just checkin’.”

“All right?”

“You gonna need some changes ‘round, you want ‘em done?”

“What changes?”

“I ain’t gonna lift you onta the turlet. You gonna need a bar. Gonna need a shower seat, too.”

Carla hadn’t thought of those problems and nodded at the bushman’s thoughtfulness. Theo went outside and Carla followed as far as the door. There was a ramp waiting. It had some kind of granite roofing tape on it for traction, a smooth banister, and a gentle slope. It seemed impossible that a man crafted it in such a short time.

Carla rolled down into the gravel. Her wheels made small divots, but nothing she couldn’t manage, even with a sore shoulder.

“That’s great, you do great...” she started to say, but found the caretaker had already moved beyond earshot. Carla gave a turn and rolled backward up the ramp. It was work, and pain shot through her legs, a fuzzy Nurse Ratched’s voice floated into her head, medication time, medication time. Early or not, she was due.

Theo moved in and out of the house without saying anything, working hard and fast. Musing under a blanket of dope, Carla thought perhaps that Hard-n-Fast Labor would make a fine title for the man’s business. If he looked after more than one home. Which he had to, didn’t he?

—

It was dark and Carla attempted to stand before recalling her useless limbs. She wheeled to a light switch and felt around the wall. It was right where she left it and the room lit.

Hunger invaded and she rolled to the fridge. The interior reminded her of the accident and the delay. The cool breezy refrigerator scent matched the produce section of the Superstore where she’d typically shopped, before. That was all it resembled concerning edibles.

Her perishables had met the inside of a garbage can before their time; she had an empty fridge but for condiments and a jar of pickled chili peppers. There was a satisfying pop when she spun the lid. The pickled smell lit.

Carla jammed a fat pepper between her lips and put the jar back into the fridge. At the hospital, they’d fed her tasteless imitation foods. The pepper brought flavor home to the sensitized area. Her lips burned while she wheeled to another cupboard. She searched and found soda crackers.

No television, she plugged the stereo together. There were a handful of discs left. She’d lost many in the crash. Which was but a temporary problem for the work she’d done. If she ever wanted to correct it with a series of phone calls, someone at the studios would burn her new copies. But why bother? It was not the stuff she worked on that she really liked to hear anyway, not alone. She filled the aged changer and listened to the soundtrack from the movie Top Gun.

She wanted to dance, or at least sway and bend her knees to the tune, but the fat white casts made that impossible. She punched at the armrests of her chair along to the beat. That helped.

In a box with the stereo equipment were the rest of her electronic toys and the anger subsided when she found the night vision goggles she’d purchased online with a plan to get out of the city now and then—it hadn’t happened.

Carla flicked the living room light switch and then the kitchen switch before settling the chair at the bay window. The cottage drifted away and she watched the green landscape…a whole lot of nothing. A moth bounced on the window and appeared massive, startling Carla at first, but since it was the only thing to see, she tapped the window and watched the flapping dusty wings. The moth settled, she tapped and rather than fluttering against the glass, it fell. Beyond the tight gaze, Carla recognized the slim silhouette of a tall deer or elk as it walked shakily into the lake.

 “Oh, wow,” she said.

The deer stepped until its motion smoothed into swimming. Carla blinked, and in that second, the deer disappeared, leaving only ripples behind.

She fought another oh wow as if someone was listening and waited for the animal, or if nothing else the corpse, to rise. Nothing came of it. Neither animal nor carcass floated.

—

Carla awoke around 10:00 AM and didn’t see the caretaker until the afternoon. His wage had yet to come up, which hardly mattered. Theo was worth whatever he’d ask.

The country air was nice, and the cottage was cool and breezy, such a stark difference from what had been the norm most of her life. She spun the volume on her tunes; loud, but not so loud that she didn’t hear a knock at the door. It was Theo (who else?) and he’d come to ask for a grocery list.

“How much do I owe you so far?” Carla asked.

“Whatever you see fit.”

“You must’ve had a string of honest employers. How long have you been caretaker here? Was it just the last guy?”

“The last was a man and woman, woman died and the man tried to own the land, but ya can’t own Dead Lake.”

“Oh, I guess that’s right. Waterways belong to everyone…? How long have you been caretaker?”

“Long ‘nuff.”

Theo looked old. How old was tough to pin down, which was the kind of unimportant question that always niggled for an answer.

“Cash? I guess it’ll be a hike. The nearest store is what, fifty-K?”

Theo took a battered leather satchel from his pocket and unwound a strap, loaded his pipe with stringy brown tobacco. The hard tip clanked between his teeth, but he said nothing more.

“Right, well, I can write a list and you just...”

Theo shook his head. “I’m old, but I’ll ‘member.”

Carla gave a list, leaving off much since she didn’t want him to forget the necessities. Once finished, Theo turned without another word and walked away.

“Thanks,” Carla said to his back.

—

Impossibly, a knock came at the door only a little more than an hour after the last. Carla opened and allowed Theo to enter with four large burlap sacks in hands. The first three had everything she’d mentioned and the fourth had all the things she left off the list.

She watched in amazement. The demand to know how he knew was there on her tongue, as well as to ask where he got his money, how old he was, why he helped, but instead she said, “I saw a deer last night. It walked into the lake and drowned.”

Theo continued attempting to arrange the groceries in the cupboards within Carla’s shortened reach. The freezer posed an annoyance, so did the oven, but Theo moved the microwave onto a chair so Carla could heat burritos and pizza bagels—two things she hadn’t mentioned, but wanted and now had anyway.

“So strange. Is that why you call it Dead Lake? The realtor had a different name, Aboriginal, I think.”

“Lake Atinopin,” Theo said as he stacked the bottom of the fridge. “Same idear.”

“Did it get that name because the deer drown in the lake? Is that what makes it stink?”

“Don’t stink.”

“That realtor told me—”

“Don’t stink, don’t stink like ya think. Ya go in, you better be ready to go in. Ya almost ready?”

Carla frowned and looked at her casts. “I never had much for sea legs before the casts. I won’t go in. In fact, I have a phobia of fresh water.”

“Dead Lake knows when you ready, try get ya before though.”

This was almost comical. The explanation behind Dead Lake sounded very much like an old timer’s fishing tale, a whopper even.

“How did you know what I wanted for groceries, besides the ones I ask you to bring me?”

“The accident,” Theo said.

“The accident?”

“Your things when ya smuckered yer truck.”

Carla laughed gently to herself. That was so much more reasonable than a mind-reading caretaker.

—

The drugs helped her sleep. Carla went to bed early most nights and slept through until morning. Some days she saw Theo, others she didn’t. On the days she wanted him, the man showed up, as if conjured by her thoughts.

By the second week at the cottage, Carla had an idea and spent the morning thinking about Theo and something that was causing her annoyance.

The man arrived after lunch. He took her request and seemingly without pause to weigh options, set to work screwing a wide stool together beside the stove. It was like watching an Amish master craftsman. The tools were archaic but looked mint. Within minutes, Carla saw the stove ramp come to life. Unfortunately, the fridge door wouldn’t flip, but it was already infinitely more accessible than before.

 Theo left, ignoring Carla’s offers to fix him supper. Carla cooked a massive lasagna, nonetheless. While she ate a second piece, a coughing fit began. The doctor suggested it was due.

Here it was.

The cough subsided and that night she awoke, despite the painkillers, choking on a dry scratch that began deep in her throat. She climbed into the wheelchair, slamming her legs against the frame. It hurt, but not as it had before. The coppery taste of blood hit her mouth like an aura. She drank until the cough left.

Wide awake now. The night vision goggles sat on a table near to the bay window. She dimmed the lights and watched the lake. She gasped. There were people floating, swimming in the lake. Seeing them was such a shock that she dropped the goggles.

Frantically, she felt around the floor. Once back in hand, she held them to her face, slightly askew, but functioning until she got a better grip. The swimmers had all turned to stare at the cottage. The glistening skin glowed in the moonlight.

She nearly dropped the goggles again. “No fuck,” she whispered. “No fuck.”

One at a time, the heads dropped below the water. It was just like the deer, the lake rippled, but no bubbles of life rose to break surface. Seconds mounted, then the swimmers’ heads all approached her piece of shore.

“No fuck.”

She stopped counting at twenty people as they trudged up the lawn. Carla picked up the cordless telephone, enlivening the glowing green buttons. The last owner put Theo’s number in the first autodial slot. She hit AUTO and then ONE. On its second ring, a knock hit her door. She dropped the goggles and the phone.

“Fuck.”

Someone tested the knob. Carla didn’t remember setting the lock but thanked herself for doing so. Another set of knocks rocked the peaceful silence.

“Get Outta here. Leave her be, she ain’t for ya. Not yet. Go ‘way!” Theo’s familiar voice yelled from outside.

Carla was too scared to look out the window and waited for more knocks, but none came. After an indeterminate amount of time, Carla decided to try the window. She tapped around the floor, first finding the phone and then finding the goggles. She lifted them to her face and saw a silent lake, nothing else.

Theo wasn’t out where she could see, and she decided to try the phone again. It rang until an automatic message connected. A fresh bout of coughing began and forced Carla’s focus away from the window. She sipped at water, before frantically, breathlessly, unwrapping a morphine lollipop.

The world got fuzzy quickly and logic tendrils found more homes, found stronger grips. It had to be the medicine, there was no way she saw people in the lake. And why would Theo be there yelling at them.

Her mind flipped subjects on the dope cloud and she wished she’d made spaghetti instead of lasagna.

“Noodle,” she said, then laughed at the word. “Noodle doodle poodle.” She rolled to the bedroom and climbed into bed. “You’re crazy, noodle doodle coodle boodle zoodle moodle poodle.” She laughed, coughed, and then slept, lollipop in hand.

—

She had coughed while she slept. The Rorschach splotch of blood on the pillow was proof.

“Things will go quickly, once they start,” the doctor had said.

Carla wiggled her toes as she rolled onto her back, thinking about her legs and how ridiculous it all was. Thinking she’d planned for so much about her time at the cottage, but never considered this, never considered immobility and a strange old man.

She slid onto the chair and wheeled to the bathroom. She’d gotten used to pissing with her legs stuck out like the opposition side of a teeter-totter, but mornings could still be tricky. She thought about the lake while she sat and what had to have been a morphine hallucination.

“She ain’t for you,” Carla said to the cramped bathroom. “That’s what he said.”

She strong-armed her way from the toilet seat to the chair and rolled out through the kitchen to the door. The lock wasn’t set. One point for the hallucination, she thought. She took the ramp down to the gravel and searched the area around the lake for footprints, finding none.

“Second point.”

She wheeled up the slope from the lake, at that moment wishing she had neighbors that shared the pond. Up the ramp, reaching for the doorknob, she paused.

“Hmm.”

There was a dirty, smudgy handprint on the door. Bits of mud and brown streaks ran from the pad of the palm. And it stank. Earthy and natural. She leaned in for a stronger whiff. No denying it, the scent was decay, rotting and spicy, like an apple turning to brown mush. She sniffed again and the scent transformed.

“Flowers and ozone.” She sat back, then leaned in again. “Ugh, Christ.”

The print had mixed up her olfactory senses because she once again smelled rot and decay, even a hint of ethanol fume.

She opened the door and rolled inside. Sweat scents rushed her, pushing aside the confusion over the print that couldn’t have been made by Theo. She hadn’t showered in three days because it was a pain in the ass, and the legs. Stripping was a procedure—bagging her legs, climbing onto the shower stool—one that took close to an hour.

Glad garbage bags over her legs. She started the water running. The doctor said she’d have to come back after ten weeks, but the casts may need to stay on for up to eighteen weeks. She climbed onto the stool and got busy scrubbing.

Clean. While bending to remove the bags, Carla’s lungs compressed and she began the worst coughing fit she’d experienced yet. Her entire body ached, and after gasping for two straight minutes, she rolled to the kitchen for a lollipop to quiet the agony. 

—

Still damp, the world came back to Carla after the initial wonderful moments of a drug stupor. A rotten sense swirled her guts. She drank deeply of the cool water, which made her think again of the lake and all the people she’d imagined.

She heated a soggy pizza from the fridge, one that would’ve enjoyed a life in the freezer prior to consumption. “We can’t always get what we want,” she said watching the pizza through the oven’s golden-baked window.

Half the pizza on a plate in her lap, she wheeled to the window, stereo blasting at full volume. She finished, eyes aching for something to happen, for even a frog or squirrel. Night eventually consumed the shapes in the yard. The CD changer spun through the rock, the pop, and the rap of what she’d loaded. Even with the lights on, the inside of the cottage seemed as dark, if not darker than the black night outside.

The self-pity bubbling within finally reached the brim and spilled over. Carla put her hands to her face and cried. Scratching and undeniable, a fit of coughing barreled up her throat. She licked at a half-consumed lollipop, doling out the medicine in swiped servings.

Then she heard a knock at the door, just barely but not over, through the music. She rolled to the stereo and lowered the volume. “Hello?” Her mind jumped to the people she’d seen emerging from the pond. The people who simply couldn’t have been there. “Who’s there?”

Another knock landed. Carla raced to the window. She lifted the goggles to her face. The world outside looked normal.

Three quick and heavy knocks pounded against the door, echoing about the interior loudly enough to make her wince.

“Who’s there?”

Nothing.

She looked outside.

Nothing.

A huff puffed out her cheeks. Here, fear was irrational. She rolled to the door. Another knock seemed to pound into every corner of the cottage. Carla covered her ears, waited, and then threw open the door.

“Who—oh!”

“Heya, ma’am,” a small girl said, soaking wet black hair, a scummy plaid shirt, dirty jeans, and a flower barrette above her ear. Three petals had broken away, but the four remaining suggested a sunflower.

“Who are you?” The child seemed so familiar.

“I’m Jesse, a course; and you’re Carla Cohen, but not related to the singer. My daddy likes him, the singer. I don’t think he knows you though.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“I came to say hi. We all wonder about you. How come you never come swimming?”

“I don’t swim…should we call your parents?”

Carla knew the answer was going to be no kind of answer she wanted to hear. The child seemed untouched by the query, her focus steady.

“Can’t eat and swim. I’ll get all crampy. How come you don’t swim? Nobody never teach you?”

The girl pulled a soggy pack of Bubble Yum bubble gum from her pocket. It was dirty and the gum inside the wrapper was greenish pink rather than rosy pink. She put the pack in her pocket and popped the algae-hued gum into her mouth. She blew a bubble. It was hideous, continuing to grow, looking the color and texture of a sunbaked frog’s throat.

“Should I call your mom?” Carla asked again.

The bubble popped and thick, green and black slime splattered onto Carla’s chest.

“Oops, sorry about that, ma’am. You should come with me. We know you’re sick; we don’t care. We was all sick one way or another.”

“Go away, Jesse!” Theo yelled from the forest; the sound of his footfalls approaching let Carla breathe easier.

“See you later,” said the child named Jesse before jumping from the high side of the ramp.

“Take this back with ya.” Theo rushed, firing his shotgun as he ran.

The girl stumbled, her back pelted by little beads, black ooze pumping free of the holes. “Eat it,” she said, and giggled as if that rifle shot was nothing more than glitter. She dove into the water without making a splash, though created ripples the flowed from her entry point.

Carla watched in disbelief. “What’s going on?” she asked, demanded even. “Please.”

“Why’d ya move here?” Theo asked.

“I retired. I wanted to get away.”

“How’d ya hear ‘bout the place. You’s sick, ain’t ya? That’s why ya come. Last guy was a good ‘un. His wife was sick, but he didn’t sell for a long time after she went.”

Carla frowned. “The realtor said it was on the list for years.”

“Might a bin, but he wasn’t tryin’ to sell. He was hopin’. For a while the man talked to his wife; she tried to coax him in. He knew better. Dead Lake is for the dead, not the dead inside.” Theo tapped his chest.

Tears spilled down Carla’s cheeks. Saying it made it solid, made it undeniable, made it real. The lollipops, the pills, the painkiller drip in the hospital, the scans, the x-rays, none of it, none of it was real until she said it. The accident was nothing more than a new outcropping of rocks on a mountain of trouble.

Carla stiffened her quivering chin before rolling back into the cottage, admission of sickness never leaving her lips.

—

Carla awoke on the couch with an urgent demand from her bladder. Her head was still foggy. She reached for the wheelchair, shifted her weight, and pushed with al dente arms. The floor came at her like a rising elevator. Her body thumped and pain tore through her legs. Gasping, her chest heaved, pushing racking breaths from her mouth until she entered her worst bout with coughing yet.

The fight was on; she clenched deep muscles, holding tight against the impending rush from her bladder. The strength in her arms faltered twice more before she got into the seat. A rotten, empty feeling joined the screaming bladder and she raced to the bathroom. Her arms held steady enough and her flesh found the cold off white of the toilet like a pigeon on an ivory bird bath. She pulled her pants away and let the stream go in a molten rush.

Tears of relief and discomfort fell from her eyes as her urethra grew hotter and hotter. She squeezed off for a brief reprieve, but it only made things worse. She coughed and the piss flew, splashing the flesh of her vagina. She coughed harder until vomit belted from her rotten gut.

“Thank God,” she said as the stream ceased and the burn subsided.

The puke mostly hit the garbage pail next to the toilet. As she’d learned to do, she tossed the pants onto the chair first and then swung her body into position. The pants had a big wet stain. Instead of pissing onto her casts, she’d pissed on her pants. Somehow.

Tears continued and she put hands to cheeks. Bottom half naked, she rolled. The morphine lollipops sat in a low cupboard and Carla swung it open to find a score of dead rats and chewed plastic.

“No!” she screamed as she punched the cupboard doors until her knuckles bled.

The door was open and there stood Theo. “The guy’s wife, last owner, she was sick too,” Theo said. He remained there in the doorway. “Dead Lake calls ‘em out. The lake wants ‘em to give up, but ya never know, things change. The lake eats hope and holds all the rest.”

Carla tried to compose herself and found it impossible. “Eats hope? To hell with hope!”

Theo’s head sank and he turned away.

Carla rolled toward the door. “Hope? Fuck your hope! There’s no hope!” She rolled to the living room and cranked the stereo before methodically opening every window in the cottage? “Hope? Hope!”

Naked from the waist down, Carla rolled to the lake. She sat looking at her reflection. Harmless flies landed on her bare thighs to lap up errant piss before buzzing away. By twilight, black flies took the place of their harmless brethren, but they didn’t bite, as if they recognized that her blood was not good blood.

“You don’t want anything to do with me?” Carla swatted at the circling annoyances. “Me neither.”

Theo’s footfalls approached from behind. “There’s always a chance.” His voice came like a dull drumbeat. “There’s always room fer hope.”

“What are you doing here, Theo?”

He held his shotgun before him. “I come to see if ya need somethin’. That’s all.”

“No, what are you doing here? Why are you at Dead Lake?”

He sighed. “I come a long time ago, I’s sick too, but I fought it, didn’t wanna go in the lake. I come for the lake but changed my mind.”

“What?” Carla’s entire face was bunched into a confused ball.

“The lake takes ‘em sick and keeps ‘em that way. No Heaven down there. The woods keep me, but I ain’t so sick no more, less I leave. There’s magic in ‘em woods just like there’s magic in ‘at water.”

It was stupid and unreasonable. “Couldn’t have been too sick.”

 Theo shrugged. “Sick as it gets. My family got it too. They’s gone. The lake likes ‘em sick.”

Carla didn’t respond. Theo sat down on the shore next to the wheelchair. The shotgun clanked on a pebble as he rested it by his side. For a moment, Carla imagined putting the barrel in her mouth.

The rotten sensation ensued with redoubled force. A coughing fit sent racked echoes over the lake while the pain refused to subside. Dusk became night and overhead the stars twinkled and blazed with amazing lividness. It was unlike anything she could remember seeing.

“I can understand why you stay, I guess.”

“There’s always a chance,” Theo said. “And if ya goin’, ya don’t wanna go in the lake.”

Soundlessly, heads breached the lake’s surf before gliding to shore. Carla heard the readying of the shotgun. Angry, she reached down and squeezed his shoulder. They weren’t there for him.

“No, I have,” she inhaled deeply, “I have a cancer, it’s inoperable and I’m as good as dead. It was too late when I found out.” The admittance let all the rot flow from her nostrils in the heaviest breath she’d ever breathed, readying her for something new, an unknown variable, an idea she’d never recognized but always took for granted before the doctor put a best before date on her ass.

“But ya ain’t gotta go to the lake, go anywhere else. Get hope back or die clean, with no damned chains.”

“It’s not like that,” Jess said, appearing before them, dripping lake water. “Come in, I’ll teach you to swim.”

Carla finally recognized her. Siss-siss-sick. The snake from her dream.

Theo lifted the shotgun to the reaching shadow of a girl.

“Stop.”

“But ya don’t know, ya don’t know nothin’,” Theo said. “It ain’t good.”

“Some things are worse than hanging on, Theo, some lives aren’t worth it. Look, they’re not sick anymore.”

Carla attempted to stand on broken legs. The casts held, but her knees quaked, and she went down.

“You ain’t gotta walk to swim anyways,” Jesse said, reaching for Carla.

“See, if it was good, they’d help ya in, but they can’t. The devil always gives the choice. We choose damnation, we choose to lose hope.” Theo stood, his words strong and booming.

Carla ignored him and crawled into the water. It was cool and mucky by the shore. Once deep enough that her toes were wet, Jesse took hold of Carla’s arms.

That touch was more awful than the broken bones and morphine lollipops, more awful than the cancer eating her alive. Carla tried to yank away and couldn’t.

“Help!”

It was as if something invaded and pervaded her soul. Flailing, Carla gasped, water sweet with the rot of decay pouring down her throat.

“Theo!”

Bubbles formed around the words and the man turned his back. Carla attempted to claw and kick. She moved inch by inch in the wrong direction until the water rose above her head. She gulped the nasty sludge. Her veins began to fill as her pores lapped greedily at the putrescent water. Her head sank, but this time there was no popping topside. Gentle ripples played in every direction as the residents watched as their population grew by one.

—

“Hello, mister,” a low voice said.

Theo looked down at the bald child. The child’s parents busied themselves with boxes. It had been a big move, the whole family needing a change of scenery at a rock bottom price.

“Reckon I could fix ya a rope ‘n tire swing, what ya think?” Theo offered a strained grin.

The child, not certainly male or female nodded and smiled. “Can you make it swing over the lake so I can swing like kids’ on movies do? I love swimming.”

Theo swallowed a lump.

XX