Page 110 of It Happened on the Lake

The Present

Chapter 26

Scratch!

The grating sound was coming from somewhere far off.

Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!

Someone clawing . . . but how? Harper stood on the small boat in the middle of the lake, the wind snatching at her nightgown. It was dark, the stars hidden by low-hanging clouds, the surface of the water choppy with white caps.

Scratchhhhh!

Was something or someone scraping and tearing the hull?

Something large, with sharp claws or teeth, ripping at the wood?

The boat buckled on a wave, and she scrabbled to grab onto a mast with tattered sails to keep from being thrown overboard.

“Jump!” She heard someone yell at her, a faint voice over the rush of the wind. “Jump! Jump!”

Craaack!Beneath her bare feet, the wood began to splinter.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no!”

Water rushed into the craft.

“Jump!” she heard again, before realizing it was her own voice, drowned out by the loud, horrifying cry of a banshee as a giant wave rose.

As the scream continued, the boat split.

Flung into the water, she was engulfed, the dark void surrounding her.

Swim, she told herself, forcing leaden legs to kick. Up, up, up to the ever-distant surface.Swim! Kick!

She flailed upward. Past photographs that sank into the darkness.

Kick! Swim!

She rose slowly, and just as she broke the surface, she saw two great taloned beasts rise to the heavens, one was scaled, the other with smooth skin, both winged. The dragon and the devil, gargoyles come to life, teeth bared as they screamed, their wings opening in flight.

She gasped, horrified, sinking back into the water.

But she found no safety in the depths, as through the dark water a body appeared, little more than a hideous skeleton with fish and eels floating through its eye sockets and ribs.

“I love you,” it seemed to say, and in that second, she saw him as he once was, a tall athletic boy with blond hair and an easy smile.

“Chase,” she tried to whisper, but the words wouldn’t come and his visage disappeared into the rotting skeleton. She screamed then, echoing the banshee’s cry.

Harper’s eyes flew open.

She sat bolt upright on the bed in her room.

Moonlight streamed through the window, casting the crucifix in relief against the wall. It was a dream. Just a bad, bad dream. She breathed deeply, calming herself. “Get over it,” she said aloud as vestiges of the nightmare, like ashes from a dying fire, still floated in the air.

Once more, the headache that had been with her most of yesterday reappeared, and she chastised herself for having too many drinks the night before. Today—none, she vowed. She needed to be clearheaded.

But the nightmare. Wow.

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