r (reposeremembers) wrote in repose, @ 2020-04-12 22:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | fable white, ~plot: memories |
[Memory]
What: Memory
Will characters be viewing the memory or experiencing it?: Experiencing it.
Warning, this memory contains: Topless swimming. Things that go bump in the night.
"Are you sure about this?"
You're on the edge of a wooden dock looking out onto the lake. The house that the dock belongs to, or belonged to, is behind you - sitting empty, with windows that look all too creepy like eyes that are watching you.
All of you.
There are a half dozen of you: Teens in cut-off shorts and bikini tops. The air is warm; the moon is full. It's summer. The two girls have ponytails pulled up high on their heads.
"Yeah, it's gonna be great, feel how warm the water is." Matt sticks his toe in over the edge of the dock and turns back to grin at all of you.
You want to protest, but you can feel the criticisms coming, or maybe they won't be said out loud but that doesn't mean that the eye rolling and the 'mom friend' won't be left unstated between the others so you shut your mouth.
The air is warm, the nights have been incredibly hot this end of the summer, and there's something about the idea of a midnight swim that sounds alluring and your best friend, Jennifer, is already slipping out of her cut-offs, leaving them on the dock. She's to the ladder, ready to enter the lake when a howl begins in the woods beyond the giant vacant mansion, and everyone turns towards it.
Almost immediately the boys begin to make howling noises that are nowhere nearly as hair raising as the howls you just heard. "Werewolves coming to get you," and they wave their arms at all of you. Crissy is still on land and she skeeters onto the dock, as if putting distance between her and the woods will save her from the wolves. She's screaming and telling the boys to 'stop it'.
"Werewolves aren't real anyway." This is said with disdain by Jennifer, and she tosses her head, slipping into the lake in such a way that you know she's fully aware of the fact that she looks fabulous doing so. It's unfair just how much she's filled out her bikini top in the last year, or the fact that both of the boys are clearly watching her.
You glance back at the woods, and also step onto the dock without correcting Jennifer about werewolves. You're not certain about the midnight swim. But you know the woods aren't safe. And werewolves might be the least of the problems on a night of the full-moon.
"Stop being a scaredy cat," one of the boys says, and Crissy shivers, before she also takes off her shorts. Her bikini isn't new, it's not as nice as the other one, and she doesn't bother displaying for everyone to see, but instead jumps straight into the water, going underneath the inky depths, and then popping back up, further out.
"Who's scaredy now," she taunts back.
The boys grin, and then they dive in, all newly formed muscles, and taunt skin, and he turns back to you. "Well?"
"Someone's got to keep watch," you explain, not bothering to try to explain the knot in your stomach, or the feeling that something is going to happen, something is going to go wrong. There's something… something you can't put your finger on it. As if to prove that it's not because you're afraid, you walk forward, kick the discarded shorts towards the center of the dock, and sit down near the end, sticking your toes in with a shrug.
The air is warm, but as they laugh and swim further out into the lake, you shiver and wish you had the jean jacket you left in the back of the old Ford truck that's parked down the road from the mansion's driveway. They're laughing, voices carry across the lake and you can't help but worry someone is going to hear, while at the same time, you half hope someone will. One of the rangers maybe, or a cop. Someone to cite you all for trespassing, but your friends would have to listen to someone like that where they'll just tell you to 'stop fucking worrying' to you.
"Don't go too far out," you call, worrying the friendship bracelet on your wrist, but you don't think they heard you because you didn't call that loud.
Jennifer raises a hand up and you realize she's got her bikini top held over her head, and she's laughing at the boys. "Come and get it!" Floats back over the water.
There's a crack of a branch nearby, and your head snaps behind you. There's nothing on shore. You chose the dock because you knew that you could see what was happening, but now you suddenly think one of the campsites in the woods might have been a better choice. You're exposed, and your heart is pounding. You get to your feet, wondering if the lake might be safer, but that seems unlikely. The lake might be okay during the day, but at night during the full-moon... Well, you've no need to prove anything unlike your friends.
A scream catches your attention and you turn back. Four heads. Matt is missing, Jennifer is swimming towards shore with all the strength of the star member of the high school swim team. The other girl is screaming, her arms flailing. The shrieks echo off the lake, and likely could be heard by half the lakeside homes, but you're not concerned about it so much as getting them all out of there.
"What happened!?"
"I don't know, there was something - SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!"
The snap behind you is forgotten. Likely an animal anyway and whatever is in the lake suddenly seems far more dangerous than what was on the shore. Jennifer is climbing out, still topless, the bikini top seemingly lost, and she snaps up her pair of shorts, holding it over her perfect pert breasts.
You could try to pull Matt up out of the water from here, but not without outing yourself to the world, and you shouldn't even be thinking that way. The other boys are diving down to where he disappeared, and you know you'd be in so much trouble, but can you leave him if he doesn't come back up?
Two heads raise up together.
Crissy is on the dock now, practically in hysterics, and Ryan swims over, sliding an arm underneath Matt, and together the three are working their way back, and you can breathe again even as your heart is pounding. You want to tell them that it was stupid idea, and you said that it was, but you're so glad when they reach the dock that you don't say anything. You and Crissy lean over to try to pull and tug as the other two boys push Matt up onto the dock.
"Is he okay?" Jennifer is typically so cool, but you can hear the panic in her voice.
There's another howl in the wood, and Crissy whimpers.
"SHUT UP." Jennifer snaps. "Is he?"
"He's breathing," Ryan informs all of you, but you can see that there's some sort of mark on his skin around his legs and chest- like suckers maybe? But he's alive.
And with your relief, you remember the snapping twig, and it occurs to you the howl felt closer this time, and when you glance towards the house, you could practically swear you saw something move in the window, but it's been empty for over a decade. Widow James' family owns it and used to come down for a week in the middle of the summer, but they've not done that for the last four years. You've got to be imagining things now.
"Alright." You stand up. You are, after all, Mom friend, and everyone seems to need to be told what to do. "We're going to get him back to the truck. Crissy stay here with the boys. Jenn, let's go get the truck, we'll drive it down on the lawn here, and you guys can get him up in the back, and we'll get him back and make certain he's okay."
You don't give Ryan room to protest Crissy staying with them, and you peel off your camp t-shirt, and throw it at Jennifer who still has her jean shorts over her breasts. "Thanks," is murmured, and the two of you take off, she waits until the boys are nearly out of view, before she pulls the t-shirt on over, as she's walking, the two of you silent in the still muggy summer night.
"What was it?" you ask her.
"I don't know," she looks pale, obviously shaken. and Jenn isn't usually shaken.
They say the lake is haunted. They say the lake has creatures in it. They say all sorts of things about the lake, and you've never entirely wanted to believe those things. But tonight.
The truck starts right up, thankfully. It's not yours, but the key was under the mat so it wouldn't get wet or lost in the lake, and thankfully nobody's taken it. Driving a shift isn't something you normally do, and you kill it once before you get it back down the driveway, back off through the lumpy green yard that at one time probably was amazingly gorgeous. It's one of those houses after all. There will likely be tire tracks in the yard, you think as you pull it to a halt near the dock.
The boys are on the move, and Crissy crawls into the back with Matt. You join her, giving Ryan the wheel. Matt's moaning as if he's going to die, and there's definitely marks on his legs of some sort, but you can't figure out what it would be. A squid or octopus maybe if it was an ocean. As Ryan backs up, and pulls up the hill towards the driveway and the road, you glance back at the lake.
Across the still water moonlight glitters, and the dock is clearly visible as if it were daylight. There's nothing. The water is still, no movement whatsoever.
You glance up to the moon, then back down, and that's when something breaches the water so quickly you're not certain what you saw. You look back to the others, but those in the cab are looking forward and Crissy is busy pushing hair back from Matt's face, and when you look back to the water it is as silent as the grave.