So, with all the focus on promoting my debut novel and the business of writing, it has been a little while since I touched upon anything horror on here. Even longer since I gifted my readers with a writing sample. I figured I would kill two birds with one stone with an extra blog post. So, without further ado, a sample from one of my next works: Black Lake (Title subject to change.)
Dylan Walker
sat quietly in his small rowboat, the cutting board balanced precariously
across his knees as he sliced the bass into chunks. The blood ran off the board
and down his leg, staining the jeans and making his nose wrinkle with the
smell, feeling, and the knowledge of the stern talking to he was going to get
from Sara when he got home. One piece of fish slipped between his fingers, the
edge of the old knife digging into his thumb and drawing blood from a fresh
source. He paused, sticking the hurt appendage in his mouth and sucking on it.
His tongue ran along the cut, testing the pain and the depth of the wound. It
wasn't bad, but he had nothing to cover it with him in the boat. He sucked on
it again, swallowing back the miniscule amount of blood that he got before
packing the cut with saliva. It would still probably bleed out a little, but in
his mind, having his own spit in there was better than anything he could pick
up from the fish. He held the finger up in the moonlight and sighed a little.
The moon was full, casting the
lake in a soft, blue light. It was like a painting. Trees overhung the sides of
the lake all the way around, protecting it from most of the attentions of
tourists and people from nearby towns. The water was like a plate of glass
except for the ripples his small boat made as it lightly bobbed. The water
almost seemed to glow under the light. A more secluded lake, Dylan doubted
there was in the entire United States.
He finished cutting up the fish
and slid the pieces off the cutting board and into the water. Then he laid back
for a moment. His head leaning back until it touched the bottom of the boat. He
imagined he could hear the movement through the water underneath him as the
pieces of fish were snatched as they drifted down into the depths. There were
no fish in the lake at all, the only wildlife consisting of frogs, salamanders,
birds and the occasional amphibious mammal which happened to stumble upon it.
It had only been last summer, a
trio of pre-teens from one of the nearby towns had been chased off by a beaver.
The kids hadn't known how lucky they were. The beaver disappeared not long
after that.
Dylan sat up, grabbing the oars
and sliding them into place as he headed back home. The way was illuminated by
the light of the moon, gently caressing everything it touched with a softness
that was rare for the small lake. His hands gripped the wood of the oars,
feeling the rough wood underneath his palms as he rowed. He had lived on the
lake for almost twenty years now, and had only been chosen for this duty four
times before. The duty lasted for a month per person at a time, but the ritual
was over a hundred years old. At one point it was suggested that it had even
started with the native americans who had lived on the lake before the europeans
had arrived. There was no evidence that the native americans had ever lived in
the area, though.
He made his way towards the
large dead oak tree which Dylan used as the marker for his property. The creak
of the oars in their locks was the only sound on the water. He paused and
looked out across the lake again, watching for the glass to be broken and the
illusion of peace to melt away. There wasn't even a soft breeze, convincing the
spring leaves to wave lightly to him. Dylan hadn't seen it himself, but there
were certain facets of the lake which made its presence obvious to him. One of
those facets was present tonight as he watched, holding his breath, the only
movement from one end of the lake to the other being the slow dragging of his
eyes, back and forth. The absolute silence.
Dylan had worked as a fisherman
for most of his life, taking trips up to Alaska and back twice a year. Things
could get pretty hectic on the boats, but one thing he had learned over the
years, was that nature abhorred a vacuum. Silence was the ultimate vacuum, and
nature had always seemed to abhor it more than any other. No matter where he
was or what was going on, he had never experienced a perfect silence as the one
which existed on this lake.
After a few minutes, Dylan gave
up waiting for something besides him to move and returned to rowing, ducking
his head under the branches of a willow and feeling the boat strike the edge of
the lake with a soft finality. The chore for the night was finished. He stood
up, took a few careful steps through the boat and made the short hop onto the
dirt. He turned and reached out, grabbing the boat to pull it up out of the
water.
The soft earth under his foot
gave way, dropping his shoe partially into the water which lapped at the edge of
the lake. He inhaled sharply, the whites of his eyes expanding as they shot
open and he fell back onto the ground, scrambling to get out of the water. A
hundred feet away he finally stopped, surrounded by soft grass in the pale
moonlight. His pulse raced and his breath came in short, quick gasps. He
scanned the water and the bank frantically, watching for any sign of movement.
Nothing happened. The boat continued to bob lightly at the edge of the bank. He
lay there for several minutes, waiting, watching. Slowly, his pulse slowed and
he allowed himself a single, deep breath of relief.
The boat would wait until
morning.
He pushed himself to his feet
and slowly backed the rest of the two-hundred feet to his back porch, not
turning around until he felt the wood under his shoes. Even then, he glanced
back over his shoulder as he opened first the screen door then the solid oak
shield which served as the barrier to inside. A shiver ran through him as he
looked at the silence. The perfectly level piece of glass which reflected the
moon's soft light.
Dylan stepped across the
threshold, shutting the screen door and twisting the lock into place. Then
there was the true door, which finally blocked his view of the lake through the
branches of the trees which lined his properties bank. The deadbolt clicked
into place, followed by the soft jingle of a chain lock. A breath escaped him
as he closed his eyes, another shiver rushing through him, as if the cold of
the water which had splashed against his shoe was an infection, racing through
his system.
He shook it off, looking around
inside the kitchen. The light was on, but it seemed to be the only one. Sara
must have gone on to bed. She had left a change of clothes sitting in his chair
at the kitchen table, though. He smiled, the love for his wife of twelve years,
pushing away the cold fear which had been threatening to grip him by the
throat. He slipped off his bloody jeans, folding them carefully so as not to
get the fish blood on anything else before setting them aside so he could pull
on the pajamas that had been waiting.
Slipping into the mudroom where
the washer and dryer sat, he dumped his jeans in with a cup of soap and started
it. It was wasting water to wash them by themselves, but it wasn't like they
were watching every penny. He paused in
front of the mirror, inspecting his old but still muscular frame. His beard had
long ago turned to grey, though he still managed to hold onto a few streaks of
the cinnamon hair he had lived with most of his life. His hazel eyes reflected
experience and a kind of gentle peace with the world, which was echoed by the
lines and wrinkles in his face. He found it rather sad that his daughter hadn't
seen fit to give him any grandchildren. He thought he would make a good
grandpa. He shook his head to that thought. Kids would want to go swimming.
He moved back into the house
proper and down the hallway, a soft light greeting him as he rounded the corner
to the bedroom and found Sara sitting up, reading. Her hair had been grey long before
his, but she had spent years hiding that fact with professional coloring jobs. He
wished she would do so again, he missed the look of the red hair, even though
the spitfire personality had lost none of its bite from the passage of time.
She smiled up at him over the rim of her glasses, green marbles which reflected
none of Dylan's experience. Sara had spent the first half of her life as a
trophy wife, until her husband had traded her in for a younger model. Dylan had
picked her up and showed her what a real relationship was like and though she
often reminded him how much better she'd had it in her previous marriage, she
always told him she would never trade back for it. She was still a hell of a
trophy to him, the best woman he had ever had.
His smile faltered for only a
second as he stepped into the doorway, but it wasn't beneath her notice.
"What's wrong?"
"My foot fell in the
water."
Her face turned to stone, her
eyes locked on his and her mouth a line. She closed her book and took off her
glasses, looking up at him from the bed.
"And?"
"Nothing. I didn't see
anything. Nothing touched me. I made it up on the lawn and nothing
followed."
She looked him up and down, then
nodded slowly. Her smile crept back into her face, as well as her complexion.
"Then we don't have
anything to worry about for tonight, I think," Sara said, "Yes. I
think so."
Dylan smiled, his shoulders
slumping a little as he relaxed and moved up to the bed, slipping under the
covers with his wife. Sara set her book and glasses on the nightstand on her side of the bed
before rolling over and cuddling up against his side, one arm draped across his
chest as she leaned up and kissed him lightly.
Sara left her reading light on
as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, embracing her husband. Dylan
turned his reading lamp on as well and lay there for a while, wide awake. He
listened to the night as the washer ran at the far end of the house, silence
descending as it finished its cycle. The silence filled the house like a slowly
creeping fog, moving up in layers from the floor.
Dylan felt it suffocating him as
he lay there, one arm around his wife as she slept soundly against him. His ears strained until he thought they would
bleed, searching for any sound at all in the small ranch house. He felt his
body tensing up under the oppressive weight of the quiet, his breathing
becoming shallow, as if the silence was stealing the oxygen from the air. His
eyes flickered from one side of the room to the other, then back, then focusing
on the open door which led to the rest of the house. He watched it intensely,
waiting, listening, like a deer that knew it was being stalked. His free hand
lifted and reached out slowly to the nightstand on his side of the bed, fingers
blindly wandering over the base of the reading lamp until they found the form
of his digital alarm clock. Fingertips counted over the buttons across the top,
finally finding the one labeled "sleep" and pushing it down.
Instantly, the room was filled
with the soft noise of electric crickets chirping and singing to each other. In
the blink of an eye, the silence was broken and the oppression lifted. Dylan
felt a shiver of relief spread from deep in his chest and took a deep breath of
the free air.
Still, he sat awake for over an
hour, the reading lamps still on by the time he drifted off to sleep.
