Page 2 of Lake
CHAPTER ONE
Lake
“It’s fuckin’ creepy out here at night.”
“You scared, prospect?” I asked with a hint of laughter in my tone.
“No,” he said shaking his head as he brought the flame up to light the cigarette dangling from his lips. His eyes scanned the shipping container yard as he took a deep inhale then slid the cigarette from his lips. “Just all the quiet and the moon being full and all. It’s fuckin’ creepy.”
I rolled my eyes at him even though he had a point. Maybe I’d been in the city too long, but I was used to noise. But then again, the compound was rarely quiet and since I was living there, it seemed like I never got a moment of peace. That was one of the reasons I didn’t mind pulling the night shifts patrolling the place. I didn’t sleep much anyway so it wasn’t like it threw my schedule off either.
“When I was a kid, my baby sister would always wake me up around the full moon,” he said a few moments later. “It made the shadows of the big oak tree right outside the house move on her wall. She’d say there were monsters trying to put a spell on her. No matter how many times I explained it to her and went in there and showed her what was going on, she still came into my room. I remember giving up eventually and just letting her sleep in the bed with me.”
“Yeah, my sister did the same thing. Only it was every night for like three years. It was monsters under her bed. And I tried to tell her that it was always her dirty clothes that she never put in the hamper.”
“You got a sister?” he asked, his head turning to look at me.
“I did,” I said then walked off.
I had no clue why I opened my mouth and now that I did, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about it.
Besides, there was work to do. It was called patrolling, not standing around talking about shit.
Luckily, the prospect took the hint and I heard his boots head off in the opposite direction.
Two hours later, the sun was coming up and our replacements would be there any second. It had been another quiet night, but I honestly didn’t think that anything would go down here.
We’d upped our patrols and were working on making the compound more secure. After Crazy Steve tried to fuck with us, we decided it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Plus, there was still the matter of his boss. The very one that we had no clue about. While it seemed like taking Laurel had been Steve’s personal quest for vengeance, we weren’t sure that this other guy didn’t have something against the club as well. I always thought it was best to assume the worst. And since we were, in fact, very clueless, it was smart to never drop your guard.
Once our replacements arrived, I nodded to the prospect as he took off on his bike and made my way across the street.
There was only one house around for miles and that was where I was headed.
“Get your young ass in here,” Mr. Watkins called out after I knocked. “I’m old as fuck, don’t make me walk across the house. Tell you the same thing every damn day.” The last part was mumbled but I still heard it.
I found him in the kitchen, like every morning that I came over here after I got done with my shift. He was standing at the small, outdated stove frying up some bacon.
“Well, get you some coffee and have a seat. Don’t hover over me. I’ve been doing this long enough you don’t need to worry.”
I laughed as I walked over to the cabinet that held the coffee mugs. I pulled down the one with an owl on it surrounded by the words ‘I’m a hoot.’ I turned it over to look at the bottom even though I already knew the date written on this one. September thirteenth, nineteen eighty-three.
“Since I’ve already told you the story of that one, it means it’s your turn to tell me one,” he said and I hadn’t even seen him take his attention off the bacon to see which one I had picked up.
He was right. Those were the rules after all.
“Alright,” I said as I pulled a plate down and covered it with a few paper towels.
I took a seat at the small, round table in the middle of the tiny kitchen. The thing looked like it was from the fifties and the metal legs were doing their best to continue to stay upright. I knew if I didn’t get out of his way he’d yell at me and I was just too tired to get under his skin like I usually did. He secretly loved it. It wasn’t like the man had anyone else around.
It was sad and I figured he was just lonely. That was the only reason he put up with me. But over the last year, I’d come to care about the old man. And I secretly think he cared about me, too.
“I suspect,” he said after I hadn’t said anything for a long while, “that you need to talk. Why else would you have pulled down a mug with a story you already know?”
“It’s one of my favorite ones,” I replied with a small smile. “Maybe I was just hoping that you forgot that you’d already told it to me and would tell it again.”
“I’d believe that, boy, if your eyes didn’t look so sad today.”
“You’re too wise for your own good.”
