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. Lake People Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

LAKE PEOPLE

THE RIDE

Danny’s smelled of sweet, fruity perfume that seemed to promise a night of overpriced drinks and sex, but half of that was a lie. Owen came up a few steps behind Shane and Kevin and flung open the second heavy steel door that had closed automatically while he took the final drag from his cigarette. He inhaled deeply through his nose and grinned to himself once inside. He handed over his fake I.D. to a disinterested bartender who’d just handed Shane’s fake I.D. back to him. Ron Isley was on the stereo and a Black woman in a pink bikini with a pink boa was on the stage.

Derrick barrelled in last and shivered, shaking snowflakes from the shoulders of his puffy black ski jacket. They’d all been pre-drinking, but none as much as Derrick.

Four Heinekens and four shots of Jose Cuervo with salt and lemons to start. It was an especially slow night in Danny’s thanks to an intense dive in the temperature. Three tables of young men were only moderately paying attention to the four strippers taking turns working the poles and the floor. Each stripper tried to friendly some money away from the patrons’ wallets, doing so right up close: hand on a thigh, a breathy whisper in an ear, a breast rubbed against a forearm.

“Bet it hardly seems worth it, nights like this,” Shane said to a white stripper in a black teddy who’d sat at the empty seat next to him. She was drawing figure-eights on his knee with long, red, press-on nails.

“What’s that baby?” she said.

Shane pouted his bottom lip and shook his head gently.

The stripper quit the act and laid it out then, stopped touching his knee. “It’s worth it most every night, but tonight I’ll give you a lap dance for a ten-dollar-bill.”

She had a French accent because most of the strippers at Danny’s came out of Montreal. They toured like rock bands, bringing a fresh crop of eye candy in for the small town men to ogle every two weeks.

“How much for a blowjob?” Shane had leaned in to whisper this.

“Can’t remember a time that slow,” she said and then reached over with her slim fingers and long red nails to squeeze his balls through the crotch of his jeans. Enough to make him squirm, but not enough make him beg for mercy.

She stood from the table just as the Black stripper walked by. Derrick, significantly drunker than his friends, waved for her to stop. “Baby, you like white boys?”

She tilted her head, gave him just enough attitude to make him reach for his wallet. She then smiled. “I love white boys,” she said and took him by the hand and led him to the back.

Derrick was the oldest of the foursome. Kevin was a year younger at twenty-one. Shane and Owen were only seventeen, but both had broad shoulders, good enough I.D.s, and sufficient sense to keep a close shave. They got carded everywhere they went, but neither had been tossed or refused service.

The woman who’d squeezed Shane’s balls and another white woman got on stage together. What they did with each other’s hips and tongues was enough to unglue at least a little cash from every wallet—aside from Derrick’s, he was still in the back. As soon as Kurupt and Nate Dogg’s Girl’s All Pause ceased, the pair on the stage collected their pay from the floor and the DJ hit two rows of lights, and killed the stereo altogether. Like magic, the men rose to empty beers and slip into their jackets.

Derrick ambled out from the back with titty glitter all over his cheeks and lipstick smeared on his ear. His hard-on poked at the front of his pants enough that everyone had a good laugh. Kevin tossed Derrick his coat and the foursome got into line behind the other departing patrons. It was almost too civil and Shane started laughing and said, “Like going out for recess.”

Owen huffed from just ahead of Shane, who was last in line. The air coming through was so cold it instantly adhered nose hairs together and made their teeth ache. Shane grabbed Owen’s sleeve to stop him. Kevin had veered off to piss on the wall and Derrick was walking as much sideways as forward.

“There’s the DD,” Shane said, pointing.

“What?” Owen said, grinning, but not really getting the joke. Owen had never gone out with Shane when he was with his older friends and didn’t understand there was a good chance the night was only beginning.

“Derrick. Nobody drives his Mustang but him. Maybe his dad.” Shane stepped past Owen then and sidled up next to Kevin to write his name in piss on the snow-dusted wall.

Owen stood dumbly, watching as Derrick freed his keys and opened the door. He fell into the driver’s seat and started the engine then. Kevin rushed across the lot, sliding the final five feet, bumping into the car and nearly going ass over. Shane elbowed Owen in the side once he’d finished with his autograph and they piled in behind Kevin.

Two other cars started as if timing it and pulled in front of Derrick’s Mustang. One was a lowered Chevy Cavalier with enough aftermarket plastic on it to open a dollar store and the other was a Honda Civic, splotchy with grey Bondo patches. The first took the dip onto the street slowly, and immediately, a police cruiser pulled out of the shadows next to the trinket shop and ice cream parlor across the street.

Kevin whistled as the Chevy got only as far as the curb before parking. Not five seconds later, a second cop cruiser rolled from the same shadows and pulled over the Honda, a little ahead of the Chevy.

“Fuck,” Kevin said.

Derrick said nothing, flipped his blinker to signal a right turn and pulled out. Shane and Owen turned on their seats to watch for cherries while Kevin studied the mirror and Derrick started fiddling with CDs in his visor. It remained dark back there and then an unreleased 2pac track filled the car with scratchy audio.

“Man, you’re fucking lucky,” Kevin said.

“We taking your buddy someplace?” Derrick said, words jumbled.

“Actually, he parents are just on the lake if you hook a left at the last Mac’s here,” Shane said.

Ten seconds later, the Mac’s came into view and Derrick had his signal pointing left. He slowed, then punched the gas and swung the wheel right, fishtailing wildly and heading in the opposite direction.

“Buckle up,” Shane whispered to Owen as 2pac explained how a fair exchange ain’t no robbery.

—

“Let me out!” Kevin said.

He had the shotgun door open a crack and the interior light glowed yellow. They’d been driving circles around the frozen and slick town. It was as if they were the only people still awake, still out at least. Derrick refused to speak and refused to stop, but was coming up back at the Mac’s not far from the strip club. Twice Shane had to give Owen a look that suggested this was normal business, and it was, sort of.

Derrick slammed on the brakes at the stop sign and Kevin kicked open his door. While he was pushing himself upright, Derrick rocketed across the road and toward the lake. Kevin tumbled and rolled to the shoulder. The door closed and the light went out.

The Mustang fishtailed across the road and skipped and skidded, but ultimately gripped the gravel beneath the ice. Since they were almost in the country now, Shane reached beneath the shotgun seat until he gripped three Wildcat Strong 6.1% bottles—partially slush inside. He handed one to Owen before climbing up front to sit shotgun.

“Watch when you open, might explode,” he said.

With the chewed end of a Bic lighter, he popped the top off two beers—neither erupted—though both were twist-offs, and handed one to Derrick. The caps went out the window and he lit a smoke.

“Gonna have a dry tank and nowhere to fill it if you keep burning around,” Shane said. “Owen lives not far, probably we can crash in his parents’ loft or something.”

Derrick took a good slug and reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. He was driving with his knees, but that was nothing new.

“Next right,” Owen said and then sipped his beer.

Shane grinned back at him, but the grin slipped when Derrick punched the gas and blew by the corner at about a buck-twenty. Past the final turn, the road wound around the seasonal cabins and rose steadily for six kilometers before they’d reach the bluffs. From there, the road went hard south and back out to the highway. It was already after 3:00 AM and being on the highway did not sound like a good time.

The speedometer kept climbing and Derrick barely had his eyes open. Owen was in the back, looking stressed, and Shane had given up—life rarely went his way and even at seventeen, he’d learned to stop fighting it. The world whipped by the windows under huge snow drifts, the ditches had kept up to the height of the road until they’d begun their incline. Since then, it had seemed as if they were floating and every dip in the road rollercoastered their organs higher in their guts.

“Yo, slow down. Corner’s, coming, eh?” Owen said.

Shane looked over at Derrick as he lowered his window and dropped his mostly empty Wildcat Strong 6.1% out—a wad of slush remained at the bottom like lake silt. Derrick’s cigarette had burned down to his fingers and the beer was spilling onto his lap. His eyes were closed and upon hitting a bump, his head lolled onto his shoulder.

“Fuck,” Shane said and pulled the shifter to neutral and then yanked the parking break.

Too late, the front end was already destined to take out the guardrail—they’d been rolling a steady 149/KPH when Shane grabbed the parking break. The heavy steel of the guardrail slowed their locked-wheel slide significantly and a chunk flew up and smashed the windshield. Owen screamed, “Jesus Jesus!” and Shane gripped the sides of the bucket seat as they cleared the barriers and went airborne. Derrick continued to loll lazily in his eat, his loose arms slamming up against the ceiling as the world came at them like a freight train from below. They hit the ice, creating a tremendous symphony of sounds that closed out with the wheezing of deflating airbags and fluids dripping beneath the Mustang.

Derrick didn’t wake up. Shane looked over at Owen—the shotgun seat had almost flattened out—who was frantic in trying to get his seatbelt off.

“We’re on the ice, man!”

Shane looked out the window for a few heartbeats and then got it. Sure, a car fell thirty feet and the ice had held, but where was the promise it would stay that way? He began punching at the airbag to get to his belt. Owen had moved in behind Shane’s seat and was already pushing up the paddle that would fold the seat forward.

“Fucking give me a sec’, eh?” Shane said as the seat pressed him harder into the airbag. It wasn’t easy getting out of a Mustang at the best of times. He got the moons to align close enough that he could squeeze through the open door.

Owen spilled out behind him and immediately took off running. Shane was on his ass and hands, palms burning with cold. He looked in Derrick’s direction, saw him only vaguely around the doorframe and the airbag, then he looked between his legs and the streams of cracked ice. The Mustang was riding four flats and steam climbed through the seams around the hood. He started around to Derrick’s side of the car and made it to the driver’s front fender when a fresh new crack wailed on the night sky like a rifle shot. It stilled him, total deer in the headlights, like he was facing down a Mack truck on an empty highway—a game played once in a lifetime.

Another crack rang out and the back end of the Mustang dipped.

“Derrick, wake up!” he shouted and took a step closer to the door, but the car slipped down, and even in slow motion, it was happening to fast to do anything about. A chunk of ice broke away beneath Shane’s left foot and he hopped back. More cracks began to spider dance the huge lake and Shane had to face his futility and trail after Owen.

He made it two steps before the headlights disappeared behind him and a huge bubble burped out of the hole. The cracks and splinters ceased soon after and the atmosphere made quick work of repairing the ice surface.

“Come on, man!” Owen shouted from about a hundred feet away, standing just on the shore. The wind had carried the message, alongside the promise of hypothermia if they stayed outside for more than a few minutes…but they were on the wrong side of the lake, where nobody lived and the summer cottages were non-existent.

Shane turned and walked backwards, watching the hole, holding his breath in case Derrick needed a psychic assist or a reminder down under there. Bubbles continued rising until a fresh crust of ice formed over the hole. The man did not come up for air.

—

Owen had his hood pulled up over his head and his hands buried in his sleeves, the ember of a cigarette poked out from the shadows like Rudolf’s nose. His parents were both doctors and the coat was a Gore-Tex lined parka by The North Face. Shane was not so lucky. He had to rough it, but put his hands in his pockets, what little good that did. His parents figured a kid of seventeen could buy his own coat if he didn’t like the ones that fit him around the house. He had on an old jean jacket and a vest from Walmart.

“I can’t believe it,” Shane said.

“I can. Come on. There’s a light up there. Must be a snowmobiler’s cabin,” Owen said and then took a drag from his cigarette, blew out an enormous cloud that was half smoke and half steam.

Shane wanted to be mad, maybe suggest that if Owen had helped, it was possible they could’ve pulled Derrick out before the car went under, but it was too cold and if they didn’t get inside soon, whether they could’ve done more would become even argumentatively moot.

They walked on the heavily drifted snow, sometimes barrelling through when it reached above their hips. They did not speak, their teeth chattering like keyboard clicks. Both had on only sneakers, and snow had packed around their socks and up their pant legs, and still, they powered on toward the light between the winter-thinned trees and thicker foliage ahead.

And then the light went out. They stopped and Shane ran his coat sleeve against his nose to mop up the half-crusty snot that had run and then froze. Two snowmobiles lit engines in quick succession. Owen tried to yell but his voice cracked and only steam tumbled up his throat.

Quickly the noise and distant light of the snowmobiles trialed away. Owen looked back at Shane and Shane stepped forward. Whether someone was there or not, they needed to get indoors.

The winds were dulled within the forest of leafless trees, and even duller once they came upon a patch of fir trees. They had to crouch and push, sidle and crawl to get through the dense flora. Snowmelt had soaked and then turned to ice, making everything difficult and terrifyingly cold. There were two very old buildings in the glade. They were pale white and both fairly large. The closer of the two appeared to be a barn. Animalistic moans and clanking chains played the background soundtrack behind the winds and deafening frost creeping into their ears. The second building was a cabin, built of the same materials, weathered for a similar time, as the barn. Moonlight shined glossily over the track and boot prints leading up to the cabin.

Owen ran and Shane trailed behind him all the way to the door, which, surprisingly, was unlocked. Owen pushed inside and immediately heat poured over them. Small and dark, the echoes of their breaths came back at them quickly, though softly. Both reached into their pockets for lighters. The flames revealed that the space was parcelled into a few rooms, but far less archaic than assumed. Shane turned back by the door and located a double set of switches and then a third, larger switch six inches away—thick wires stapled and running toward the floor. He tried the coupled switches and nothing happened. He flipped the larger switch and a generator rumbled to life somewhere beneath the floorboards and the lights overhead flickered until glowing a warm white.

“Uh oh,” Owen said.

Shane turned and understood the tone. There was a video camera on a tripod in the middle of the room. Next to it on the table was a bulky laptop computer, wires connecting the machines as well as running to other points. Shane gave all that only a cursory glance. Against the far was a stainless steel tool bench above a white tile floor with a drain. Two slaughterhouse meat hooks dangled from the ceiling on thick chains. Next to that was a king-size bed with a black rubber sheet snugging tightly over the mattress.

Owen stepped to the laptop. It opened to reveal multiple high-quality camera feeds, two of which recorded them where they stood.

“What the fuck is all this, you think?” Shane asked, knowing exactly what it was, or at least mostly what it was, but wanting some other explanation.

Owen, having been raised in a household were computers were normal, shrank the camera feed screen and pulled up the only other open program—Nero. Something had just completed burning to disc and Owen clicked the message closed and hit play on the preview screen. It started dark and then three separate voices made animals sounds: oinks, yowls, and snorts. A man and woman writhed on the meat hooks, naked. One of the men making animal sounds came into the frame on his hands and knees, bare asshole pointed to sky like he was air drying. He was huge—muscular and long—wearing an eerily realistic pig mask.

“If piggy’s hungry, piggy should take a nibble,” an off-screen voice said.

The man in the pig mask bounced over to the work bench on his fours and then got up and grabbed a bulky stainless steel tool with a saw blade on the end.

“Holy fuck. Holy fuck,” Shane said.

Owen’s eyes remained pinned on the screen. “If we run on the ice, we can probably get to my place in half an hour.”

“Yeah, I’m all warmed up,” Shane said, and it was true; in fact, his face and neck felt on fire.

“We should go before—”

A gust of cold air silenced Owen. On the screen, the man in the pig mask used the tool to cut off the hanging man’s leg, just above the knee. Off screen, a man of about the same size and shape suddenly stood in the doorway. Behind him were two more men, both very big, and a hawk-faced woman in a fur-lined parka and matching boots.

The man who’d entered first began snorting and stepping toward Owen and Shane, whose only defense was backing up until there was no further to go.

 

KEVIN

“Hey, you were out with Shane last night?” Megan asked Kevin who was on the floor loading cans of dog food onto a shelf at the L&M Grocery.

“Yeah, I guess,” Kevin said. He was hungover and in a mood. He’d had to take a fifty-dollar cab back to Durham—a town eighteen kilometers east of Hanover, and Danny’s—where he lived, where they all lived but Owen. His eight hours stocking shelves would net him about $48, after taxes.

“Where’d you go?” Megan asked, she was Shane’s girlfriend, but wasn’t psycho.

“Danny’s.”

“Yeah, I know, he said y’all were going there, but what about after? He never went home. That’s what his mom said.”

Kevin shrugged. “Probably they slept at that Owen guy’s place, or Derrick ditched his car and they all froze to death.”

Megan laughed without humor. The smile made her beautiful and Kevin was suddenly jealous of Shane.

“I hope not…well, okay. I guess I’ll see ya,” Megan said, nodding as she took three steps in reverse and out of the pet food aisle.

Kevin finished with the Ol’ Roy and moved onto a pallet of individual-sale pop cans. He hated the quick snack aisle as it was in full view of an enormous wall clock. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep himself from making deals—if I don’t look for eighty cans, ten minutes will have gone by, but the times never worked out, seemed to roll in reverse the closer it got to his smoke break. And, damn, he needed a smoke break.

—

After lunch, he was pushing a broom, trying to avoid his manager. Walter Brown, Derrick’s father, waved Kevin down. “How’s Mr. Kevin?”

“Be better once shift ends,” Kevin said and offered up a smile that said he was joking, but not really.

“Have you seen Derrick?” Walter said then, not smiling.

“Not since last night. He stayed out longer than I did.”

“Was he drunk driving?”

“I don’t think so, like, maybe he had a few, but—”

“Cut the fibs. You act like I didn’t have to show up twice in the middle of the darn night to pretend I was driving. I should’ve made him pay; he wouldn’t have been able to buy that darned sports car.”

“Yeah, all right. He was drinking and I got out ‘cause he was being crazy.”

“Where?”

“Uh, that Mac’s by the lake outside Hanover. Owen Hopkin’s parents live on the lake.”

Walter frowned. “Who’s this? Never heard of an Owen.” Derrick might’ve been twenty-two, but he still lived with his parents and his parents still had a way of knowing his business.

“Uh, Shane’s buddy. His parents are doctors.”

“So another high school kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Walter seemed to ponder this as he gazed off at the magazine section next to the breads. It wasn’t likely teenagers were going to be the bad influence on Derrick, more likely it’d be the other way around. “Any idea where this Owen’s parents live, exactly?”

“Not really. Just if you take the road across from the Mac’s on the edge of town you get there, somehow.”

“Okay. Thank you, Kevin. If you hear from Derrick, have him call home,” Walter said and turned on his heels and made for the exit.

Kevin looked around to be sure he wouldn’t catch it from a boss and then withdrew his Nokia flip phone, thumbed to Derrick’s contact, and dialed. Instantly, the phone went to Derrick’s drunken voice saying, “Wazzzzup?” and then a beep.

“Hey, man, call your dad…We drinking tonight?”

“Kevin!”

Kevin nearly dropped the phone, but fumbled until he recovered. He turned and pocketed the phone as he did so. His manager, Leo, was giving him a stinky glare.

“I should put that stupid gadget in the lobster tank,” Leo said.

It seemed like about half of the adults Kevin knew had cellphones—a quarter of the teens, too—but Leo was not one of them. Leo also abhorred the internet and what he called Nintenders, which, of course, was the reason so many kids were fat, stupid, and lazy.

Kevin laughed. “Yeah, they’d get a kick out of Tetris.”

“What?”

“It’s a game.”

“What?”

“On my phone.”

“I don’t care! The produce truck finally showed and the driver’s got his arm in a sling, so you and Dana are going to unload it, before break.”

Kevin didn’t move, leaned on his broom handle like he was Ken Dryden waiting for the play to resume.

“Now!” Leo shouted and Kevin got going.

—

Megan caught up to Kevin in the parking lot. She’d changed and was in clothes that suggested she had plans for the night: thin white blouse, hot pink bra, painted on jeans with a dozen stress holes, and heeled leather shoes.

“Have you talked to Derrick or Shane?” she said.

“I called Derrick, but he didn’t answer. Call that Owen guy, I think they must’ve slept over there.”

Megan shook her head. “I did call. His parents didn’t know where he was and said he was grounded as soon as he got home.”

Kevin then thought of Walter and then of how Derrick had a way of unintentionally off-roading vehicles. Add in the cold of the night before.

“Shit,” he said. “I got out ‘cause Derrick was too drunk and being an ass.”

Megan’s entire face seemed to scrunch in tight then. “And he was driving?”

“Nobody but Derrick drives the Mustang.”

“Holy shit! What if they crashed?”

Kevin lifted his arms, hands palms up, and shook his head gently, mouth opening and closing, but no words came out.

Minutes later, Megan was in Kevin’s apartment, waiting for him to shower, petting his cat, Thug Life.

 

WALTER AND EDITH

While Walter was in the L&M Grocery interviewing Kevin, Edith had been next-door picking up her Sears order. They met in their minivan and Walter exhaled a long breath before saying, “I think we’d better take a trip over to the Hanover lake. Derrick had been drinking again.”

“Oh, Dad,” Edith said.

They’d adopted Derrick when he was four and they were fifty and fifty-two. It hadn’t gone as smoothly as they’d hoped and by the time Derrick was in high school, they’d begun blaming themselves. They were so old and inexperienced and set in their ways and a whole host of other hindrances that Derrick’s bad behavior really couldn’t be his fault. Couldn’t be. Even at twenty-two, if something had happened, it traced back to them.

“It was so cold last night,” Walter said as he pulled from the parking lot to the street.

“So cold,” Edith parroted.

They drove without speaking, a Conway Twitty CD in the aftermarket stereo Derrick had had a friend put in, back when he was in high school—sometimes the interior light refused to go out and other times the radio didn’t work thanks to faulty wiring. The temperature had risen through the morning and by lunch was only ten degrees below freezing. They took the salted highway slowly enough to be passed, twice, and once into Hanover, honked at by a young woman in a gaudy green Honda Accord. Walter paid no mind and hooked north of town toward the lake.

“Mr. Kevin said he got out at that Mac’s and this Owen individual lives at the lake. His parents are both doctors.”

Edith began nodding. “Both parents?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Could be Dr. Hopkins, his wife is a psychologist in Guelph.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult to locate,” Walter said and slowed to a crawl over the gravel. It hadn’t snowed since about ten o’clock the night before and a plow had spread enough salt to destroy the ice, but Walter no longer trusted his reaction time. Besides, nobody was coming up behind them.

From that road, there was only one possible turn to make and end up at the large homes on the lake and Walter took it. Immediately, the answer of where the Hopkins lived presented itself on a placard mounted on the side of a two-car garage reading: Doctor & Doctor Hopkins.

—

A cup of coffee and a nice chat, but no answers. Walter and Edith had been forthcoming to a point, but hadn’t gotten into Derrick’s proclivity for drinking and driving, and especially hadn’t specified its extreme nature. Aside from the times with the minivan, Walter and Edith had both had to pull the Mustang out a ditch, and once, Edith had to place her hand over Derrick’s mouth and nose in order to wake him from a drunken stupor so a tow truck driver would agree to pull him from the ditch.

Walter turned back to the road. It was closing in on 3:30 PM and the sun was well into its descent. He tapped on the steering wheel as he looked out upon a farmer’s field butting up against the road leading to the lake’s secondary entrance—secondary, though neither had known that when they pulled in.

“Perhaps we should drive a little further,” Walter said and they continued the very path Derrick had taken, rolling on and on at a snail’s pace until they came to the turn and the shining silver guardrail. They continued on past and hooked back to the highway that would first take them back to Hanover where they’d reluctantly stop by the police station before heading on home to Durham.

 

KEVIN AND MEGAN

The temperature had fallen sharply once again at sundown. Megan was behind the wheel of her 1988 Ford Tempo and Kevin was in the passenger’s seat, smoking a cigarette and replaying the night before. He kind of partway wondered if she was actually some kind of psycho; it wasn’t as if she and Shane were married.

“So Derrick just kept going?” Megan said, eyes tight on the road, the dashboard heater blowing her hair gently around her ears.

“Yeah. Guess Owen’s parents live up there?” Kevin said, questioning in case she knew better.

She pulled across the highway and onto the gravel road once it was safe to do so. “There’s another road to the lake, too, right?”

“Think so. I don’t really get what we’re doing out here,” Kevin said. “I mean, if they ditched the car, the tow would’ve gotten them already.”

Megan only shrugged. She’d had big plans for that morning and they involved Shane, but when he didn’t make it home and didn’t call her, the panic siren in her brain had lit then in a bright red strobe. Shane had to be okay.

They reached the corner to the lesser lake access and Megan braked and sat. Kevin dropped his butt outside and cranked up his window.

“You called Owen’s?” Kevin said.

Megan nodded. “I even got his cell number from Kyle Duguay. He lives out here, too.” She lifted her foot from the brake and gave the Tempo some gas. “Let’s just have a look. Okay?”

“Sure thing.” Kevin had assumed he’d get drunk with Derrick, but Derrick hadn’t showed and Megan was kind of hot. Possibly when they didn’t find Shane, she’d dump him and…

Megan took it slow and it was minutes before they hit the incline. In the seemingly endless whiteness, a brown beer bottle stood like a mile marker just before a sharp turn at the top of the hill. Megan stopped.

“Will you see if that’s Wildcat?” she said without looking at Kevin.

“No problem,” he said and popped out. He shuffled and then slid on his sneakers over to the bottle. He picked it up and brought back to the car. The cold came in the door twice as heavy because his voice was there, too, saying, “Yep!”

Once Kevin slammed the door shut, the car returned to darkness aside from the reflected glows from the headlights and moonbeams. Megan let her foot off the brake and the car started creeping up the hill. Going so slowly let her eyes play over the guardrail long enough to see something hinky.

“Look at the steel. That one part’s newer,” she said. She then recognized the tamped snow and a leveled brush beyond. “Look at the snow and those sticks!” She’d grown frantic, and gassed it until her bumper was two feet away and then hit the brake before connecting with the guardrail. She put the car in park and popped out.

Kevin had finally begun to imagine something wrong and followed her out to the shoulder. The cliff of a bluff was only three feet or so beyond the guardrail, but Megan climbed over to get a better look. Kevin watched her and trailed, but slowly. He was on the guardrail when he thought he saw her falling, her hair lifting straight up in tendrils of…smoke.

“Hey,” he said and stepped in next to her. He pointed down beyond the frozen lake and to an undeveloped forest where smoke rose from the dense flora beyond thin trees, though only gently. Controlled. No bonfire. “See it?”

“Holy god,” she whispered. “Look at the ice.”

The white surface had a slightly darker rectangle, straight down from where they stood. The whispers of footsteps trailed away toward the far shore. It had been so calm all day, but that calm? Unless, unless the steps had been hot or wet. She squinted and let herself see the truth like a Magic Eye puzzle. The almost invisible cracks, the rectangular patch, the potential footfalls, it all added up.

“They went off the road and the car sank, through the ice, but they were out and they ran?” Megan said this like a question.

“Or maybe the car got towed in. I mean, that patch isn’t really the right shape, eh?” Kevin said, though starting to buy what the clues were selling.

Megan took a deep breath, yes, that was good. It didn’t explain where Shane had been all day, but it suggested they’d gotten somewhere. Maybe someone found the car, but didn’t check where the smoke was coming from. During the daytime, that smoke would be virtually impossible to see against the flat gray sky over the lake.

The cold had sank in while they stood there and she ran back to the car. Kevin remained a minute longer and then took his time, retrieving his cigarette pack from his pocket as he walked. He lit up and then fell into his seat again. Megan had her Kyocera cellphone out and was thumbing the down arrow through her contacts. “You smoke a lot,” she said and then pressed the green dial button, once highlighting Kyle Duguay’s name. The line connected and rang four times.

“Hey,” Kyle said and behind him was the raucous sounds of a bar scene.

“Hey. There’s a cabin in the trees on the lake. Or a cottage, something. There’s smoke and I think Shane’s friend drove through the guardrail.”

“Wait? Really?” Kyle said. “Give me a second here.” Within in a minute, the background noise lessened dramatically. “Guardrail where? Up past O-Dawg’s house?”

“Owen?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Megan felt like a monkey mimicking a zookeeper. “Look, I think they went through and I want to check out that cabin or whatever’s out there. Can I get a ride on your snowmobile or should I call the cops?”

“Cops? At the lake? It’s not part of town. Unincorporated. Self-policing.”

“What?”

“Cops never been allowed at the lake,” Kyle said, as if this was common knowledge.

“Oh, so, can you take me?”

“Yeah, but Hanley’s band’s playing soon, so not until after that. You can pick me up?”

“At The Inn?” Megan said, nodding.

—

The sign on the front read THE INN in big golden letters against a black backdrop. It was by far the classiest point going for the bar. Inside were a busy dancefloor with a stubby stage at the front, a long and an empty bar, and seven octagonal picnic tables with plastic drop sheet covers. They hardly ever carded, though did charge a cover and never served people obviously too young, and the owners off and on ignored the recent indoor anti-smoking bylaws.

The band was on the stage and Megan winced at the sound. Kevin was eyeing the bar—when in Rome. Megan veered toward Kyle, who was near the front of the crowd, nodding along to the music.

“Too loud for me. I’ll be out back,” she said.

Kevin heard this too and started off for the bar. It wasn’t until he got there that he realized he didn’t ask what Megan wanted. The bartender was a woman he’d seen around high school way back when—she’d been a senior when he was in the ninth grade. She wore a tuxedo t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a knot cinching up the bottom to reveal her tight tummy. She wasn’t wearing a bra and Kevin stared at her nipples the entire time she spoke to him.

“Three Coors,” he said.

She turned away and grabbed the beers, popping the tops, and then setting them before him. “That’s twelve plus titty tip.”

“What?” Kevin had out a twenty.

“Twelve for the beers and five for staring at my tits.” She wagged her chest at him.

He laughed and said, “You win. Give me back a toonie.”

“No,” she said and turned to the till with his twenty and made a show of pocketing his change. She then poured a shot of muddy yellow liquor from a label-less plastic jug. “If you don’t make a face, I’ll give you your toonie and flash you a nipple.”

Kevin’s eyes brightened and he accepted the challenge. The shot was the harshest thing he’d ever ingested and burned immediately like a live volcano, tasted like rubbing alcohol and ammonia.

“You lose,” the bartender said, grinning.

Kevin swigged down half a beer. “Jesus, what is that?”

“Perv tax.”

Kevin swiped at his mouth and looked the bartender in the eyes, then he got it, understood setting up a game to win. “Kind of depressing when high school’s over and nobody cares if you’re fucking the quarterback, eh?” he said.

The bartender’s jaw dropped in a scowling kind of way and Kevin took the beers and headed for the back door. Megan was on the patio, standing alone beneath one of two stainless steel propane heaters with red-hot coils beneath a coned hood. Three older men stood beneath the other heater, smoking a joint and trying to hide the fact.

“Got you a beer,” Kevin said and held out one he hadn’t drank from.

“Uh, no thanks.”

“I can’t get you something else?”

“No. I can’t drink.”

Kevin squinted at her. He’d seen her drunk, and fairly recently. “Oh,” he said and someone in the back room of his brain started tallying points together: desperate to find high school boyfriend + comment about smoking + suddenly can’t drink. “Oh! You’re pregnant!” He hissed the latter part.

“Yeah, but shut up. I was gonna tell Shane this morning.”

Kevin slugged back the remainder of the first bottle. He belched over his right shoulder and then said, “How old are you?”

“Eighteen. Nineteen in three months. A year older than Shane.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to do? I mean, you’re having it?”

She shrugged. “I’m Catholic, so…”

—

“You know how to drive a sled, right?” Kyle said. He smelled like a lot of beer and a lot of sweat in the back seat of Megan’s car.

“Sure. Dad’s had sleds longer than he’s had kids,” she said.

“Good. Good. Just put it back when you’re done. If you find him, stop by Sherry’s and get me. I’ll come help, but I don’t think there’s nothing much out there and probably the marks you saw on the ice were from Grady Ransom’s kids. They’re out all hours; Grady bought all three matching baby MxZs,” Kyle said.

He’d already explained that he’d arranged to visit with his next-door neighbor Sherry Heinz, which was a bit of a surprise to Megan as Kyle had been a stud in high school, and even still, whenever he dated anyone, the girl was a babe. Sherry was none of these things, but Kevin totally understood and Kyle instantly got the reference when Kevin, grinning, said, “Like riding a moped.” Kyle finished it off with, “Fun until your friends see you!”

Megan shook her head. Guys were all so horny all the time.

Once to Kyle’s enormous home, Megan parked next to a Land Rover and a BMW station wagon. She pulled her cellphone from her purse and slipped it into her coat pocket. They got out and stepped over the frosty gravel. There were two garages and Megan and Kevin followed Kyle to the second and smaller garage that smelled of gasoline and exhaust fumes. Inside were three Ski-Doo snowmobiles, two adult-sized and a second was fit for a pre-teen.

“You never drove one of these?” Kyle said to Kevin.

Kevin had lit a cigarette—hadn’t wanted to smoke in the car once he knew about Megan’s…situation. He shook his head to answer the question and then elaborated. “I’ve driven cars and a riding lawn mower.”

“You better ride behind Megan then,” Kyle said and began laughing, as if suggesting a grown man sitting behind a high school girl—even one doing the grade 13 lap—was totally funny.

“Yeah, I’d planned on it.” Kevin was grinning, but nervous and a little drunk. That Perv tax shot had really hit him.

“Thanks a bunch for this, eh?” Megan said.

“I can’t imagine someone being out there or driving through the guardrail and the guardrail getting fixed, but if you find him—actually, if you’re getting service out there, shoot me a text, or call, and I’ll bring the other sled,” Kyle said and then leaned a knee on the long black bench seat, turned the key, and gave the recoil rope a whiplashing yank. The engine growled to life and Kyle fed it some gas to keep it happy. He then stepped around the front end of the machine and grabbed two masked helmets—same yellow as the machines—and handed them over. “Probably use some mitts, too,” he said and returned to where the helmets had hung and dug into a box beneath a workbench. “Couple years old,” he said, holding out two sets of huge black mittens.

“Thanks,” Megan said and then flipped her hair back to slip the helmet over her head.

Kevin had his on and was doing big nods in thanks as the helmet made him feel like a toddler, so heavy and clumsy. He climbed on the bench and Megan got on in front of him. She grabbed his hands and put them around her middle. He scooched up tight against her and the machine’s vibration and the proximity to the girl had his imagination running hot, right up until she thumbed the throttle and the 600 cubic centimeter engine lit and they sprang out of the garage like a dashing rabbit.

The wind cut down Kevin’s neck and it felt like they were doing five hundred miles an hour, dousing any heat building in his groin’s mind. Megan steered them down a hill and past a dock and boat launch. Once on the ice, she squeezed the throttle and even managed a smile as she heard Kevin moan. The lake was large, but the snowmobile was fast and had sharp carbide runners affixed to the plastic skis so steering was tight. The moon was high and the sky was clear above them. Within minutes, they’d rounded the curve away from the populated sections. Ahead, from the midst of a section of fir trees, smoke rose in gentle lines, much more difficult to see from that angle, but undeniably there.

Hidden in plain sight, a hard-packed trail left the ice and sliced between trees. Megan lifted her thumb to about quarter-throttle and bounced onto the snow. She weaved around trees, taking a steady left-leaning curve until a path broke the wall of thick fir trees. It was suddenly full-dark aside from the machine’s headlights and a different kind of chill played upon both their spines—why was this cabin so hidden?

They hit the clearing and aside from the barn and the cabin, a smallish, very out of place steel box stood amongst the trees. It had a padlock through a hook on a door, but was not closed; the box drew attention from five snowmobiles in a row beneath a three-walled shelter and a canopy of pines. Megan did not stop. The house seemed the only right answer, but it was dark.

She killed the engine just outside the door and pulled off her helmet. Static had her hair dancing on ends before falling to her face like silk around a corncob. Kevin took off his helmet, following Megan’s lead seemed the wiser course. It really felt like trespassing now and even if the cops didn’t go to the lake, couldn’t the cops call the people in charge of security on the lake? But, also, the guardrail: was it part of this or had it been repaired before?

“You know they might be anywhere,” Kevin said.

Megan stepped up to the door and tried the handle. “Yeah, well, we’re here now.”

It was dark inside and warmer, but not warm enough to suggest anyone was in there. Still, Megan ran her mitted hand over the wall next to the door, logically, looking for a light switch. She found the pair, but not the other, and without engaging the generator, the switches she found did nothing.

“Hey. Hear that?” Kevin said, still standing on the doorstep.

There was a rumbling growl, like a distant lawnmower. Then there was a strange howl and a long groan. Everything sounded buried. Kevin tilted his head and took a step back. There were two lights on in the barn. One on the ground level and one downstairs.

“Come on,” Megan said and bumped Kevin back so she could pull the door shut. “Is any—!”

Kevin wrapped an arm over her shoulder and across her mouth. “We’re kind of trespassing here. Maybe we better be quiet until we know what’s up.” He let her go.

“Right, okay.” Megan led the way to the barn.

The sounds were a bit louder, and seemed entirely out of place on that out-of-the-way patch of undeveloped land in the middle of a lake. The barn door was heavy and insulated and once open, blasted heat at Megan and Kevin, very sauna-like. Those sounds were louder, but hard to pin down.

To the immediate right was a staircase, bright at the bottom. The rest of the barn was a dim maze of doors along hallways. “You want up or down?” Megan whispered.

Down was so much brighter and Kevin said, “Down.”

 

KEVIN

The steps were wood that had gone soft with age. The banister was a single piece of cedar, polished to a shine—whether by hands gliding its surface or by sandpaper was impossible to tell; like the stairs, the banister was old. At the foot of the stairs was a small room. The lawnmower-like rumble was closer and Kevin guessed it was a generator.

On the wall to his right were a dozen switches and toggles. Nothing was labelled. Just beyond the switches was a steel door. It was grey and smudgy with dirty brown and red handprints.

Suddenly, he wished he’d chosen to check the upstairs, but he couldn’t very well chicken out now. Even if there was zero chance he’d score with Megan, she probably had friends, probably they’d spread the word of his cowardice.

“Fuck,” he hissed and turned the door handle, wishing it were locked. The door cracked open and a fresh bought of heat nailed him. The sounds grew louder. They were animalistic and strangely mingled: a snort, a growl, a cat mew, and a horse whinny. Shadows played around him, but a spotlight shined on a mucky pen. There were two…pigs? Pigs wrestling in a pen?

The door closed behind him as he stepped through for a closer look. Strange, not pigs at all? He squinted, his brain trying to make sense of the long-healed stitch marks along the fat thigh and forearm nubs. The hairless heads and lipless mouths. The way they bounced like poor teddy bear animation used on cheap kids’ shows. He was leaning against the wall of the pit by the time he understood that he was looking at two people with amputated limbs and zombie grins, teeth exposed and ready for battle.

“No, fuck,” he said and the lights lit around him.

The two in the ring stopped fighting and began whining with open mouths, shadowy, tongue-less mouthes. Kevin turned and behind him stood three women and one man. All were naked, but wearing animals masks. A woman with huge saggy breasts in a chicken mask squawked at him. A man with skinny old man legs and pendulous balls wearing a horse mask snorted.

“No, I…” Kevin trailed.

A huge man with a gut that covered his genitals wearing a bull mask lowered his head and dashed his right foot over the floor three times, readying an attack. Kevin shook his head and did some jazz hands when the man charged. The rubber mask connected with Kevin’s palms and stomach, sending him back into the pen’s fence, knocking the wind from his lungs. The man in the bull mask then used his hands—very un-bull-like—and lifted Kevin into the pen.

A hard bodied young woman in a cat mask was already at the pen doors, opening up. “Feast, everyone’s a winner tonight!” she said and then mewed and pretended to lick her hand, ran it over a rubber ear of the mask.

Kevin groaned and gasped as the limbless, lipless, hairless people fell upon him like a clan of hyenas. His clothes came away in tatters and he swung out blindly. One went for his face, another for his throat. Three attacked his thighs, tearing through the loose-fitting denim and finding ripe flesh beneath and hot, hot blood.

 

MEGAN

The first three rooms were empty. Megan had opened doors and lit switches but found nothing beyond oddity. Single cots with steel frames and rubber mattresses. Chains dangling from the ceilings. Stainless steel tables. The wooden floors dyed red. Everything smelling like hot metal.

Through the fourth door, Megan heard moaning before she even opened it. “Holy god,” she said and ran across the small room once inside. Owen stood, affixed to chains. His lips were sewn shut with thick twine and his right arm sawn off just above the elbow. Hope tainted his horrified expression as he opened his eyes.

Megan moved around back of him and unlinked chains that had been fastened to hooks buried in Owen’s flesh. She wanted to ask who did this and why, more so wanted to know if Shane was there, but asked nothing. There’d be no words from Owen, and as much she understood she had to free him, she understood just as clearly that if Shane was there, he needed her just as much as she’d need him in the future.

“I’ll be back,” she said as Owen took a single step. He toppled before she cleared the doorway, but she couldn’t stop. She swung open the door of the next room and a dwarfish monster rushed her. She screamed, bouncing back against the wall. “Oh Jesus,” she said when the monster teetered sideways and toppled.

Shane. His arms and legs had been amputated just above elbows and knees, and his lips had been cut away, same for his tongue. The sutures were puffy and strained, a hideous pink hue crowded the fat threads. He snapped his teeth together, clacking them like a Halloween porch skeleton.

“Shane…what have they—?”

A thump from downstairs stopped her words. Then came an anguished scream. Sorry, Kevin, no time.

She grabbed Shane like he was an especially heavy baby and pinned him to her chest. She began cooing to him as she hurried back up the hallway, toward the door. Owen was crawling and she hopped over him. Sorry, Owen, no time.

A man poked his naked torso and horse mask out into the hall just as Megan was passing. He chased her three steps out into the snow and then abruptly turned back. “Cold. Cold. Cold,” he said.

Adrenaline had her moving and she was at the snowmobile in seconds. She set Shane on the seat, knocking the helmets to the snow, and then opened her coat, might ruin the zipper, but she was damn sure going to try to cram him in there with her. Voices were calling out and she went into overdrive. The zipper zipped, but bit into Shane’s bare back. Sorry, Shane, no time to fix that.

She gave the recoil rope a single tug—much smoother and lighter than anything her dad had ever owned—and the engine came alive. She barely had her ass on the seat when five naked figures ran out of the barn in boots and masks.

“Fuck that,” she said and gunned the throttle, yanking hard left to turn back the way she’d come. Steering wasn’t easy with Shane there and she found herself cutting far too wide. Tree limbs brushed against her and her sled chugged over crunchy snow.

As she was passing, the woman in the cat mask had made it to the strange metal box she’d seen when they arrived. The woman swung open the door and racks accordianed out, featuring a handful of sets of clothes and several dozen animal masks.

Sorry, freak, gotta go.

Once on the ice, she gunned it as much as she dared. The cold bit at her lungs and made it tough to breath. She felt in her pocket, driving and leaning forward against Shane’s too hot cheek. She grabbed her cellphone and flipped it open. She hit the dial button twice. Unsure it was even connected, she started shouting. “Help! Kyle! Help! Kyle!”

Behind her, snowmobile headlights played atop the ice and Megan took a deep breath and then gunned the engine. She breathed out slow, like she was swimming in ice water. The lights behind her had been gaining quickly, but were now barely keeping pace. The boat launch and dock at the shore of Kyle’s family property came into view and Megan suddenly had reason to hope. She put a hand down and felt one of Shane’s nubby legs. She expelled the remainder of her pent breath in a whoosh.

The lights in Kyle’s secondary garage were still on and two silhouettes stood. Megan assumed—correctly—that they were Kyle and his neighbor Sherry. The Ski-Doo hit the lip of the shore and bounced wildly. Megan barely held control, zooming up the hill and not lifting her attention again until she had the machine smoothed out and—

There were Kyle and Sherry. Sherry was bent over. Naked aside from boots and a frog mask. Kyle was behind her, butt-fucking her, wearing boots and a monkey mask. Megan thumbed the throttle and banked into the crusty snow, away from the garage. In seconds, she nailed a buried stone statue and the snowmobile tipped, sending her and Shane flying while stalling the engine.

The other snowmobiles were coming fast. She pushed upright, grasping her belly like a nine-month pregnant woman trying to make it to the can. The Tempo was right there. Right there!

She was going to make it.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The freaks had gotten off their snowmobiles and were charging after her.

Too bad for them, her car was only—

Yard lights lit and a wall of men and women in parkas stood behind her car. She recognized some of the faces. One was the high school principal. Another was a realtor who put her image on every park bench in the county. More and more, vaguely familiar but tough to pin down, those faces sneered at her.

“What do you want?” Megan screamed and fell back, landing on her ass, Shane’s weight sending tendrils of pain up her legs.

A woman stepped forward with a very long knife that glinted in the moonlight. “Too eat you and watch you wrestle,” she said.

“But…but…I’m pregnant!” Megan shouted.

The woman licked her lips and said, “Nummy.”

 

WALTER AND EDITH

The sun had warmed the morning significantly. Enough so that snow fell in fat flakes. Walter and Edith were back at the lake. Derrick still hadn’t come home and hadn’t called.

“Hello,” Walter said, waving as he climbed out of the minivan.

The doctors each had a shovel and were clearing out their short driveway. Dr. Ian Hopkins stood straight and offered an unhappy grin. “Hello, again,” he said.

“Just wondering if your Owen came home?” Edith said, following her husband.

“He did, as a matter of fact. He got himself in trouble with some important people when he was caught trespassing,” Dr. Heather Thompson said, still shovelling.

“Oh, he hasn’t heard from Derrick, has he?”

“You can ask him, but I don’t think he has much to say,” Dr. Ian Hopkins said, pointing to the slouched figure inside the enclosed porch, on a rocking chair. “We asked about Derrick, but…” He shrugged.

“We’ll give it a try,” Edith said and started forward.

Walter followed her about halfway. His eyes were much better than her eyes. “Honey,” he said, looking at Owen’s sewn lips and vacant expression.

Edith didn’t stop and got to the door before registering the boy’s face. She turned to look at Walter, who was looking back at the doctors.

Dr. Heather Thompson yawned and then hooted, twice, very loudly.

XX