Deep Water
Kay lets herself fall forward, feels the water catch her, lift her up. The sun blazes on her back as her limbs slide, silky, through the blissful cool. Before she knows it, she’s left Greg far behind, just a dot near the shoreline, waving frantically.
What? Treading water, she snaps her head left and right, searching for whatever he sees. A speedboat? Something in the water? Her stomach lurches; in her mind, some slick beast gliding through the dark under her feet.
She kicks out, swooning with the sense of vast, obscure space beneath her, endless. Phrases from the guidebook pop into her mind: “One hundred metres deep, ten metres from shore.” Her mind struggles to grasp it, all she can picture is a void of liquid black. Depths the sunlight’s never pierced, not since the lake was formed, with dinosaur bones silted on its murky bed. What creatures is it hiding now? Peering into the dim water she can’t even make out her own legs. Panic courses through her as she sprints for shore.
How is it so far away? Her body’s tense and she’s vaguely aware she’s veering, swinging wide on where she needs to be. Greg’s barely a speck now, the distant shoreline a blur of green. She fights the current, feels herself moving nowhere, heart hammering as she imagines creatures slipping by just beneath her, homing in. Gasping, she takes in water, splutters, churns her arms in a rush of fear.
Stop. Just stop. Get a hold of yourself, girl. Dad’s voice. She’s five again, in the pool back home. If you get into trouble, flip on your back until you’re calm. She floats on his words, breath steadying. Supine, she reaches an arm, swipes a cool arc through the lake, repeats. That’s my girl. Kay cuts through the water serenely, arms falling into a rhythm, heart slowing. When she turns to check the shoreline, she’s almost home.
Then her foot snags in something. Slimy tendrils snake up her leg, dragging her back, down. She gasps, gulps water, chokes.
Her fingers claw at her legs, searching. What is it? Lake weed, she tells herself, no monsters, no eels or snakes, only a tree root. Just got to get free. She kicks and kicks, the water foaming as her arms convulse. Her fingers meet something sharp and she snatches them back, feels her belly jolt as the water runs pink from gashes like teethmarks. She screams.
Stop it. Think.
A metal clip holds her hair out of her eyes. She unclasps it, reaches down, slashes blindly at whatever’s clinging to her ankle. The water roils angrily and something sharp slices through her calf like it’s butter. There’s only a slick pressure, no pain. Reaching down with shaking fingers she finds bone where her foot should be.
Mitch shields his eyes to squint at the lake, just off near the shore where the bottom shelves into deeper water. There’s a dark shadow, and the water’s tinged with an odd reddish hue in the late afternoon sun.
Clive knows that look. He sidles past the stool where Mitch’s resting his leg, tanned muscle tapering down to an abrupt stop just above the knee. The skin’s scarred with deep, old gouges.
“You don’t think it’s still out there? After all these years?”
Mitch stares out at the water, and Clive follows his gaze, but his eyes aren’t so good these days, so he doesn’t see the black bob churn the water, then disappear beneath the surface.
“Course it’s still out there.” Mitch tells him. “The goddamned tourists keep feeding it.”
