Don't Go Back

The slow sound of wind rustling the distant trees is the only sound to be heard, and it’s glorious.

Chris resists any urge to play music on his phone. The motionless water carries his one-man fishing boat lazily, moving mere inches at a time since he’d killed the engine. He lies on the bottom of the boat, dusty cushions propping his neck up slightly. He hasn’t cast his line in nearly an hour, choosing instead to sit back and try to think of nothing. Fishing alone was something he rarely did, despite it being amongst his favourite things in the world. His friends fished, but as he wasn’t a very proactive person he rarely did the organising. Plus, if he’d ever suggested fishing alone to the missus, she’d laugh at him until he begged her to stop. So on this clear Tuesday afternoon, for the first time since April, he came back to this lake and slouched in the rented fishing boat, enjoying the lack of sound and company. He was a man who appreciated solitude, and his own space. At first his mind struggled to clear as he pondered last night’s football highlights, or the news updates he’d listened to while driving to the fishing shop. They’d sorted him out with lines, bait and a boat with little conversation; they didn’t remember him from April, and they wouldn't remember him coming this time either. Soon the thoughts and ideas dulled and he just.....was.

After another half-hour of delightful thoughtlessness, Chris decides a drink is in order. He sits up slowly, not wanting to rock too much and disturb the lake. He opens a small blue chiller he’d brought along and pulls out a can of Coke and a glass, and from his backpack a 35cl bottle of single malt whisky, and mixes a strong one. He takes a sip and stares out at the grassy bank that borders roughly a third of the lake; the rest enclosed by trees. The shopkeeper who’d loaned him the fishing boat drove them up to the edge of the bank and helped Chris drag it into the water, leaving a long brown cleft in the grass that was just about visible from the boat now.

Chris sits this time, sipping his drink and taking in big breaths of the autumnal air, when he hears a noise from underneath the boat. His eyes flick to the left, where his ears told him it came from. The rest of his body is as still as the water as his eyes stare intently at the lip of the boat. It was a scraping sound, or a sliding sound. He feels the oppression of solitude all of a sudden, no longer enjoying it. The shade of the trees seems darker than before. He half-expects a mouldy corpse covered in weeds and rotten flesh to climb up and over the edge and strangle him. He shudders at the thought, and sits up straight. He slowly leans and peers over the edge, relieved to see his own silhouette reflected back at him, wobbling slightly. He relaxes and tries to see past the reflection and into the water. A doubt in his mind quickly turns to unease as he realises that the face looking up at him seems considerably leaner than his own. His own head, somewhat square and strong-looking, wasn’t reflected back. Instead a much smaller head, oval-shaped and on narrower shoulders, hunches over the lip of the mirror image of the boat. Chris stares, transfixed and confused, before a face from below the surface rises into the mirror image he casts. Two eyes, burning white with a dark red crust around the edges, and a gnarled mouth of uneven teeth, yellow and brown, snarl at him.

Before the face gets close enough to break the water’s surface, Chris’ senses return and he flicks his head back with a yelp, and looks around in a panic. Terror makes his arms and thighs tingle, and he struggles to breathe, stuttered gasps rocking his chest. His yelp was the closest thing to a word uttered since he’d taken the boat into the water and pricked his finger on a fishing hook. He sits, terrified, and nerves claw at him from the lack of something to lean against. If he could put his back against something, he’d only have to look left and right, but in this tiny fishing boat, he had nothing. Unless he laid down flat, he’d have to keep turning to look everywhere...and the last thing he wanted to do right now was lay down flat. He pictures in his mind that hate-filled face, attached to a rotting body, gray and dead but with a lean, inhuman strength, lean over him and rip his eyes right out of his skull. Chris squeezes his eyes shut, pinching his temples with the thumb and index finger of one hand. The smell of whisky fills his nose and he realises he’d spilt his drink, and it's now spread over the deck of the boat.

He decides to turn the engine on, and speed back to the bank before any more shit happens; his appreciation for silence dissipated, he doesn’t care how pathetic he feels, he wants out of this lake. Fuck the place. When his wife asks him why he didn’t catch any fish, he’ll tell her the shop was shut and he couldn’t hire a boat. Swearing at the engine, and the lake, and himself, he pulls the starter for the engine three times before it finally kicks into life. Too much life it turns out, as the engine roars at an ear-piercing level accompanied by hard clicking sounds as if the motor was smashing itself to pieces, and a geyser of white foam begins to grow so large it blocks his view of the bank. Swearing louder, he grips the engine box feeling for a kill switch of some kind, hoping the thing doesn’t catch fire. Suddenly he flinches back gripping his hands within each other as the spray of white turns to crimson; dark and foreboding near the engine, but light and morbidly eye-catching around the outside. He studies his own hand but there's no wound.

'The FUCK'

 The spray gains power, flowing harder, arching towards the boat and beginning to sprinkle Chris’ jeans with blood. He studies his hands again, but any relief that he isn't injured is instantly silenced by the horrified of what IS causing the scene in front of him. He flings his legs at the engine, his boots catching it solid three times before it powers down and the fountain subsides.

He feels ill, staring at his blood-soaked jeans and feeling a pang of fear, even regret-remorse, even guilt-but he chokes it down in an instant. He shakes his head and looks abound the boat, water and blood mixing with a pool of whiskey and coke in the corner. His eye catches a figure stood on the bank; he double-takes and squints to see. Almost certainly feminine, it waves one hand as outstretched as it can manage, the other bent at the elbow and maybe holding something to its chest. Confused, Chris shapes his hands around his mouth and bellows as loud as he can.

‘MY BOAT’S DIED! GO GET SOMEONE TO HELP!’

No sooner has Chris stopped speaking, than the figure on the bank lowers its arm. Staring silently for what seems like an age, the figure shows no signs of going anywhere.  Chris watches the figure, a growing impatience turning into anger-resentment, turning into hatred- and it turns and walks away, eventually out of his view. His brief hope had turned to unease in one cruel swipe, as he considers his lack of options; he has no engine, no paddles, and is easily a hundred metres from the bank. He’s not a strong swimmer anyway, and has packed on bodyweight like a man possessed over the last year. He looks about his surroundings again, and considers the woods. Those trees go deep, a thought in his mind offers, before he shuts it out. No matter how long it took to get around the trees and onto the road, it would be worth it to be back on dry land. It was around twenty metres to the shore of the trees, and even there it was a steep incline to climb onto solid ground. He looks to the bank, but the figure seems gone for good.

‘Always fucking laughing at me...’

Chris stops muttering to himself and looks back to the trees, studying the most solid-looking ground. His eyes then move to the water. He’s going to have to get into the water to get out of here... The swimming doesn’t worry him too much, although he was going to have to take off his boots and stick them in his jacket or something. What worries him is what he might see when climbing into the water, or what might grab at him while he feebly jerks his arms and legs, scrambling for every inch to get back out. The face with the hate-filled eyes.

A long time passes before Chris moves. The sky is slightly darker, and the air colder. He takes his boots off and stuffs them into his jacket, deep into his sleeves so they’re buried in deep. He shuffles forward to the very edge of the boat on the side that's closest to the trees; the opposite side to the one he’d leaned over last time, but that thought provides little comfort as the boat had turned in several full circles during the engine’s bloody display. He leans over, not far enough to see his reflection, but the thing in the water is there. Almost expectantly, those eyes burn into his own, patiently waiting. Chris feels almost like crying. The teeth are shut tight, the lack of lips giving the impression of a perpetual grin or snarl, taking a sadistic pleasure in the torment. Staring longer this time, transfixed by fear, he notices clumps of long hair floating in the water; a woman, but with so little facial detail left that nobody would see that. He could see a neckline that faded into darkness, and nothing more. It was so still, Chris thought with a thin hope that it may be a twisted Halloween decoration dumped in the lake. Perhaps a crude model skeleton that has amassed so much moss and dirt it’s gained a more vivid appearance, especially underwater.

It begins to shake its head. As if knowing his thoughts. It then submerges itself into the darkness until Chris can see nothing but the calm water of the lake. It's time to get out and swim, he tries telling himself, before he loses his mind.

His exit of the boat isn’t graceful. Leaning one knee out, there's no easy way to shift weight. In the end he flops out of the boat and in to the water with so much dead weight the boat itself flips, and by the time he’s gotten steady enough to tread water, he 's able to hold onto the upturned boat for a rest. He spots a half-broken tree stump jutting out of the water, roughly two-thirds of the way to the woods, and makes that his checkpoint. The disturbance to the water prevents him from seeing anything, and that suits him just fine. He has one last look around before beginning his swim for land and thinks he sees the figure on the bank again, arm waving outstretched, but by the time he registers it and turns back, it’s gone.

‘Wish you’d just leave me alone...’

Chris begins to move, a pathetic doggy paddle that uses up a lot of energy without returning much in the way of distance. His chin points almost forty five degrees up as he struggles to keep his face above water level, and avoid glimpsing anything under the surface. He sees the tree stump and reaches for it, but too soon, and for a moment his face submerges as he tips forward. Panic fills his mind and he scrambles and kicks, screaming underwater but too afraid to open his eyes. Reaching forward, he grasps the tree trunk by complete luck and pulls, first towards it, and then reaching up and pulling himself above water.

He sucks in huge gasps of air, despite only being under water for less than thirty seconds. A blind panic-a blind fury- fills Chris’ mind, and in such a pitiful position, holding onto the log like an infant hugging its duvet, he head-butts the log as hard as he can in anger.

‘I could kill you, you bitch!’

Chris closes his eyes and breathes slower, calmer, the rage eventually subsiding as he feels the ache in his bones from the coldness of the water. He needs to move again, get out, and hopefully dry off. He turns to look at the woods, trying to estimate the distance, and he lets out a scream. On the edge of the bank, lying on its stomach with arms propping it up like a man performing push-ups, the hate-filled face from the water stares at Chris, excited by its dominance. The body is pallid and covered in open sores. Chris begins to sob, torment destroying any shred of hope he has. His grip on the tree trunk weakens, and as he considers letting go and sinking to the bottom, he squeezes his eyes closed to clear away the tears, and when re-opening them the foul thing has gone, the only sound his stuttered breathing. Embarrassed by his sobbing, hope returning just enough, he spits at the trees of the bank, but it only lands in the water, causing a tiny ripple. He lets go and pushes off of the log with his feet, swimming at the same dreadful pace with twice as much vigour.

Eventually, his hands brush a tangled mess of roots and he grips with strength only found by those who fear for their lives. He pulls himself up and crawls on his stomach until he reaches solid ground. When he reaches a patch of thick grass he sits down and holds himself tight for a moment, painfully cold from the water and covered by too much shade to warm up in any remaining mid-autumn sun. He pulls the boots out of his jacket and puts them on, but rather than tie the shoelaces he pulls them as tight as he can, his fingers unable to grip. He tells himself it’s from the cold, and that’s partly true, but the real reason he can’t control his fingers is fear. The trees of the bank form an eerie combination of dark, shadow and twilight despite the sun still shimmering off of the lake. He guesses he has several miles to walk, as it won’t be a straight journey to the bank; there’ll be ditches to avoid and fallen trees to climb over. Chris stands but immediately freezes, petrified. The voice felt so close to his ear, but as he spins around there’s nothing. It speaks again, this time directly behind him.

‘Why did you kill me, darling?’

He spins again, and trips over a thick branch. On the floor, he feels the same frustrating predicament as on the boat; nowhere to put his back to. In his fear, in his panic, he continually turns and stretches, the nearest tree a couple of meters away, unable to rest for a fraction of a second. The voice was coming from nowhere, and he was hearing it from all possible sides. His neck ached as he strained to look left and right, left and right.

‘Why would you ever come back? Don’t you even respect my memory?’

Chris tries to stand up, but a force on his shoulder, invisible but painfully powerful, slams him back down and he lets out a high-pitched wail of terror.

‘We were lovers. Real lovers. I trusted you so much’

Chris lies down flat, his head reeling, unable to take the dizziness of leaning one way and the other, spinning his head left and right. He lays down flat and looks at the sky, seeing small diamonds of sunlight breaking through the leaves. He sobs so breathlessly it's silent. The voice speaks in his ear again, closer than ever.

‘Some boys found my grave. They found me and dug me up, laughing and squirming. They threw me in the water, but not before taking my wedding ring. Why don’t you wear yours anymore?’

Chris turns his head to his left and sees the rotten thing from the lake. It lays on its side as if engaging in pillow talk, before mounting him and gripping Chris’ collar and leaning in close. The face contorts, a look of fury, and swipes at his face, tearing his skin in four neat lines, making him scream. He tries to turn to his side and cover his face, the corpse having seemingly disappeared. He hears the voice again, but this time there are no words. There’s rage, and fury, and hatred. There are no words but a roar.  

Laying on his side, Chris lays as still as he can, although every sob causes his entire body to convulse. His mind is blanker than ever before – the fear has given him a blank lack of thought he craved so desperately an hour ago; he has no memories, and no plan to survive, and no voice. He only hears and sees what are his final moments. He hears the snapping of a thick tree branch and the sound of footsteps on the earth, a sound so powerful he couldn't believe something the size of a human could make it. He feels the branch's jagged end thrust into his hack, breaking his spine and tunneling through his chest.

His face contorts, and his last breath whistles out of his lungs. He should have never gone back.