PART TWO – THE HOUSE
AS THE TRUCK CROSSES THE state line, and the industrial complexes of New Jersey dissolve into the endless, rolling wilderness of upstate New York, Tom turns to Brad, looking serious. Jessie realizes she hasn’t heard a peep from him since they left the university, and she’d begun to wonder if something was wrong with him.
“Should we tell them?” Tom’s eyes flick back toward the girls.
“Tell them what?” Brad says, eyes on the road.
“You know … about the danger they’re in.”
Jessie had only been paying partial attention to the back and forth; busy watching the blanket of trees that extended like God’s green carpet in every direction, swept away by the beauty of so much undisturbed nature. But now her attention snaps forward.
“Wait, what?” she says, and turns to Blake, who appears equally alert, but not necessarily worried. At least not yet.
Brad laughs, thawing some of the chill that had settled on the back of Jessie’s neck. But her senses remain vigilant, and for the first time since they’d met Brad and Tom she begins to wonder if the two of them are—for lack of a better word—safe.
As if sensing their tension, Brad shifts his eyes to the rearview mirror, their reflection locked on Jessie. “He’s fucking with you,” he says.
But Tom doesn’t laugh along. Instead, he turns in his seat to face the women. “I’m not, I swear,” he says. “Brad just doesn’t have the balls to tell you.”
Blake shakes her head, tries to smile, but it withers quickly. “Tell us what?”
Tom glances from Jessie to Blake, his mouth set in a line, his expression stoic, unreadable.
“Dude,” Blake says, and Jessie hears a small tremor of fear in her voice.
Finally, with a tone indicating that enough is enough, Brad says, “Tom.”
As if removing a mask, Tom suddenly smiles, and he’s Tom again. Normal, funny, quirky Tom. Jessie finds herself letting go of a held breath as he throws up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. Jesus, I wasn’t trying to scare you guys. It’s just a gag.” He turns to Brad. “So, can I tell them?”
Brad shrugs, casually switches lanes. “Go for it.”
“Okay, well, it’s about the lake,” Tom says, his attention on the girls once more. “The one behind the house we’re going to.”
“What about it?” Blake says, growing annoyed.
Annoyed at being afraid, Jessie thinks. Angry for being seen as weak.
“See, there’s a sort of legend about it. Or a … what’s it called? Myth. You guys have heard of the Loch Ness Monster, right?”
Jessie rolls her eyes, looks out the window. “Jesus, Tom.”
“Oh, relax,” he says, laughing. “It’s applicable, I swear. Did you guys read the new thing? It’s all over Twitter. How creatures like the Loch Ness ….”
“Nessie,” Blake interjects, snapping her fingers. “They call her Nessie.”
Tom shakes his head. “Whatever. Point is, they just reported that creatures like the Loch Ness monster could have totally lived in fresh water. Which makes the legend even tastier because it, you know, it’s valid, man. The myth? It could have been real.”
“Tom, get to the point,” Jessie says, surprised for being such a bitch, but still irritated for having been made to feel scared, if only for a few moments.
“God, relax, you got somewhere to be?” Tom says. “Okay fine. So, the legend is that there’s something—something prehistoric—living in the lake behind Brad’s house. Well, his family’s house … whatever.”
“Gimme a break,” Blake says, finding her phone screen again.
“He’s actually not lying,” Brad cuts in, voice oddly serious. “Look, I’m not saying it’s a dinosaur, or even necessarily an animal, but there have been countless reports over the last hundred years, give or take, from people who’ve lived on that land, in that house, about something in the lake. Some folks say there’s a much larger body of water, way underground, that connects to it, and that whatever lives down there sometimes finds its way to the surface, or at least within reach of sunlight.” He shrugs. “Honestly, it’s one of the reasons most people, historically speaking, don’t spend a lot of time on the lake. They’re freaked out by this weird myth.”
“But not anymore, right?” Jessie says, trying to mask her disappointment. “You said we’d be fishing. That we could go swimming.”
“We will, we will,” Brad says quickly. “I’m not saying I believe any of that shit. I’ve been swimming in that lake since I was a kid. When we were little, my brother and I even built a raft at one point. You know, a couple empty plastic barrels, the big industrial ones, and some wood planks on top. It was pretty cool.”
“A raft sounds nice.” Blake’s eyes are glued once more to her phone while her finger swipes to something more interesting.
“Yeah, well … it’s not there anymore.”
There’s a moment when no one speaks, and even Blake pulls her eyes from the screen. “What happened to it?”
Tom smiles knowingly, loving every second. Brad simply shrugs.
“Don’t know. One day it was there. The next … gone.”
Jessie barks a laugh. “I call bullshit.”
But Brad doesn’t crack a smile. He just shakes his head. “No, that part’s true.”
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Jessie says, feeling more relaxed now that they’re all playing the same game. “What’s this creature supposed to look like?”
“No one knows.” Tom wiggles his fingers ghoulishly. “Some say it’s a giant octopus, others say it’s a creature we’ve never discovered. Something no one’s ever seen before.”
