Jessie is now close enough to see a crooked smile emerge beneath the black butt of the rifle.
“Brad and me have been feeding the old girl for years. Since we were kids.”
“The fuck? Why?”
Tom shrugs, but the rifle’s muzzle doesn’t waver. “If we don’t feed her every few months, she hunts. It started with Brad’s brother, when we were little. He was out there on that stupid raft they built. He’d sliced his foot, was paddling for shore, when WHAM. Here comes our girl.” He chuckles. “What a sight.
“The family figured out a system. Started with the occasional friend, mainly the ones we didn’t like so much. You’d swim out, slice their leg or their arm and swim like hell. Was kinda fun. But there’s only so many mysterious drownings you can explain away, right?”
“Jesus Christ, you’re insane.”
“Anyway,” Tom continues, his voice disturbingly conversational, “couple times a year we bring food, and she behaves. Like any pet, you know? Just needs some love and attention.”
“A pet?” she says, trying to make sense of what she’s hearing. “What the fuck even is that thing?”
“We’re not sure. We’ve only seen her a few times over the years. But we do know she likes fresh meat, and it’s a lot of fun when girls like you are dropped in, drugged but alive. Of course, we cut you first. The blood draws her up.”
He lowers the rifle a few inches, and she can see the madness in his eyes.
“Our friend Blake was just an appetizer,” he says. “You’re the main course, Jess.”
Not able to believe what she’s hearing, Jessie can barely get her head around the situation she’s somehow found herself in.
Even worse, she also can’t think of a way out of it.
If she starts to row back toward the middle of the lake, Tom can shoot at her anytime he wants. Her damned white shirt makes her an easy target. Plus, she’ll still have to deal with that thing in the water. She imagines that barreled float disappearing, with Brad’s brother riding on top, and wonders if Nessie will eventually just take the whole rowboat down, and her with it. A tasty peanut inside a crispy shell.
But the longer she sits in the gently rocking boat, the longer she begins to wonder: Why isn’t he shooting?
She recalls the argument they’d had after Tom took a couple shots at her earlier. Brad was legit pissed, and Jessie thinks maybe a gunshot is pushing their luck. Sure, they’re remote, but the crack of a rifle is a distinctive sound and carries miles. Folks might call the police to look into such a thing. Probably not, she supposes. But they might. Gaining confidence this might be the case, she decides to risk it.
Carefully.
Not taking her eyes off Tom, Jessie grips the ends of the oars, slowly lowers the blades into the water.
Thirty feet away, Tom shuffles his feet, but says nothing.
Jessie pulls back on the oars once, then waits, eyes focused on the end of the rifle, waiting for the flash that would mean death. She sees him wrap and unwrap his fingers over the barrel, but still says nothing.
He can’t shoot. Not unless he absolutely has to.
Emboldened, Jessie starts to row away from shore. After another ten yards, Tom lowers the rifle, and watches her.
“Okay, okay,” she whispers, feeling safer now that she’s moved back toward the lake’s center, Tom no more than an action figure on the far shore. “You’ve got this, Jess, you’ve got this. You can still win.”
After an hour or so, Tom gets on his ATV and cruises casually back along the lake, toward the house. There, he and Brad have a short chat, then walk to the patio. As Jessie watches, the boys eat some sort of sandwich, drink beer, and chat as if there has never been a more pleasant, more normal evening in all the world.
Their eyes, of course, never leave her.
And Nessie, much to Jessie’s relief, does not resurface.
A FEW HOURS PASS. THE stars in the heavens continue to flicker in the sky, the air grows colder, and Jessie finds herself sitting in the bottom of the boat, her underwear soaked through, her shirt clinging to her icy skin. The water in the bottom is cold and filthy, but she’d rather be out of the wind that’s carrying across the water, even if it means a wet ass. The boat stinks of her urine, her body of rank sweat, but she could give a shit—if she lives, she’ll take the longest, hottest shower in the history of the world. Until then she just wants to be warm, and not be shot, or eaten by some fucking lake monster, or stabbed to death, her body turned into chum.
So, she sits, arms wrapped around her knees, and waits for a miracle.
JESSIE SNAPS AWAKE.
She didn’t mean to fall asleep, had no idea she could fall asleep lying in an inch of freezing water at the bottom of a boat … but she did.
And now she feels that something is off.
She sits up, eyes already moving to the shore, looking for her would-be killers.
Nothing.
She scoots her butt up onto the seat, checks that the oars are tucked inside the boat where she left them. They are. Reflexively, she settles her hands on the handles, scanning the land for any sign of Brad or Tom.
“Where are you?”
Suddenly, there’s a heart-stopping shout from behind her and the boat heaves right, then capsizes. Jessie cries out as she slips on the slick bottom and crashes, head-first, into the freezing cold lake.
Before she can get her bearings, strong hands clutch her arm, grip her hair, and she begins to squirm and kick and fight against whoever it is holding her down. Frantic, she reaches up toward where she thinks a face might be, curls her fingers into claws, and rakes at the flesh with her nails.
There’s a muffled roar of pain and the strong hands gripping her vanish. Jessie immediately kicks herself away from the attacker. When she breaks the surface, her body shocked with the cold air, she spots the rowboat only ten feet away, still upright. Praying she has time, Jessie swims for the boat, waiting for a hand to close around her leg and pull her back and down, drag her once more under the water.
