3. Hateful Adoration
Hateful Adoration
Claws scuttled along Marlowe’s skin and pondweed slithered across her face, her shoulders.
She thrashed, ears popping, silt filling her nose as the monster dragged her along the lakebed. Branches snapped at her legs and she clawed at the submerged trees with her free hand, catching nothing but splinters wedged deep under split nails.
The creature’s fins sliced at her stomach as their tail churned the water to boiling around Marlowe, froth and sand and—
Marlowe snatched blindly as branches raked across her chest. Her shoulder jolted and twisted in its socket and she jerked to a stop, hand ripping free from the creature’s cunt-teeth with a flash of pain.
She shoved away from the sunken tree, kicking furiously toward the surface, escaping the panic threatening to strangle her.
Muscles screamed as she forced them to work and broke through algae mats, clawing slick ropes away from her face. Red-edged fins sliced through the rain circles on the surface and slipped under.
Marlowe filled her lungs and ducked below as lightning cracked open the sky, illuminating murky water in flashes of white and putrid green.
Spiny fins. Leopard frog spots. A tooth-edged jaw hinging the length of their chest. Their eyes rolled white in the blinding flare of a second lightning strike.
Cartilage bent and snapped back as Marlowe clumsily thrust the heel of her palm into the seam of its jaw, fighting the suffocating urge to inhale and scream as fins shredded a line up her arm. Vibrations pounded through the water as the thing coiled, spinning for the next strike.
Rapt, desperate, hateful adoration swept through Marlowe. She’d admired beautiful, deadly things before. But always from a distance.
At least she wouldn’t die on a shitty little boat.
Marlowe exhaled in a brutal squeeze of her lungs, slipping under its massive form.
Her eyes burned as she forced them open and struck out at it.
Fingers dug into the feather-soft brush of its gills and Marlowe hooked it, bracing bare feet on the lake bottom.
Something crunched and writhed under her toes.
Marlowe ripped at her snapping tendrils, fighting her way atop her spined back, knobs of bone shuddering underfoot. Pushing off the monster’s back, she lunged to the surface and choked on a damp breath, hoping the dark slash through sheets of rain was the shoreline.
It had to be shoreline. They were close enough she might have a shot.
Marlowe hadn’t swum since cabin 13. When the lock had busted right off the door from the outside and Marlowe had escaped through the stinking, pine-rot floodwaters, she hadn’t had a choice but to swim.
Survival drove her now as it did back then, necessity puppeting her limbs. Body pulsing hot, legs burning, she pushed herself to the shallows, taking deep gulps of rain-flecked air with each stroke.
The lake roiled behind her, driving closer.
Another crack split open the sky and drowned out Marlowe’s ragged grunt as she stumbled into the waterlilies.
Rot overcame sickly perfume. Marlowe pitched forward, crawling, fighting through the bulbous, slimy roots. Drifts of fish bones splintered into her bare knees and pierced her knuckles.
Fleshy hands wrapped around her ankles and yanked her back. Marlowe snarled and twisted and the creature loomed above her, tendrils snapping at her face and viscous fluid leaking from their gills. They leaned in, jaw slack and cracking open, needle teeth bared.
Marlowe’s heart thudded against her ribs. She went boneless. Rain beat down and lightning arced above them, flashing through the translucent hinges of the creature’s jaw. Its teeth were the same pale color as its jaw. Pike teeth, like the fish this lake was named after.
“Pike.” Marlowe’s voice rattled through her raw throat, between swollen, mud-smeared lips. She was calm, coaxing. A voice Heather would use on her. Had used on her.
Mud sucked at her hands as Marlowe carefully pulled them free and painted slow patterns of sludge and blood up the creature's side.
Golden eyes narrowed. Her jaw hung, waiting.
Marlowe never stopped the smooth trail of her fingers along her side. “Marlowe,” she murmured. Heather talked. Heather never shut up. It worked for her.
“The camp is closed. By the time they open up again, you’ll be out of fish and you only got one swan left. I can help,” she whispered. “Let me go.”
The creature—Pike—cocked her head. She leaned in, nose slits flaring. Her jaw cracked shut. Webbing stretched between each knobby joint as she spread her right hand between them.
Marlowe’s hand throbbed as she raised hers, fingers trembling as she pressed in, palm-to-palm. Pike’s hand was warm. The soft pads of her fingers folded over and brushed the backs of Marlowe’s chapped knuckles.
Marlowe tasted blood when she bared her teeth in a smile. “I’ll take that as a deal.”
Pike’s chest vibrated as if she were laughing, and droplets spattered Marlowe’s face like rain. Thin lips pulled back to mimic Marlowe’s smile. Then she twisted away, and Pike’s Lake swallowed her up, leaving Marlowe sinking in the shoreline.
Marlowe crawled to her feet in a daze, heavy rain washing off the muck as she followed the shoreline and limped to her truck. Her legs went weak and she sagged against the rusted side.
“Jesus Christ. Jesus-fucking-Christ.” She tipped her hand, catching flashes of it in the bursts of lightning.
A red circle pulsed and spasmed, bitten into her skin like a layered, knife-edged stamp. Her palm was hot, as if Pike’s webbed hand still pressed against hers. Marlowe’s stomach chilled in the rain.
Whatever had happened was over now. The mark was a bluff, a creature trying to intimidate and protect its territory. Marlowe had escaped. They were done.
She pushed her limp bangs out of the way and winced. Her hand pulsed angrily and the mark constricted her hand into a fist. She needed antibiotics and a drink. Bad. That would be a hell of a conversation to have at the hospital. Yes, sorry I need a rabies shot. What bit me? Hard to say.
Marlowe thinly smiled. For now, she carried a first aid kit in her truck. She shoved heavily off the side of the truck and turned around. Her smile faded.
Ink-streaked paper clogged the space behind her door handle.
Marlowe ripped it away and peeled open the square as torn pieces chased rivulets under her truck. Scrawled in black ink, the message stained her hands and dripped down her wrists.
“If you made it, come to cabin 9. This isn’t ending. I’m sorry.”
She dropped the note underfoot and slammed the truck door shut behind her. Jean shorts chafed her thighs and soaked the bench seat.
Heather had survived Pike’s Lake.
The monster hadn't been out of Marlowe’s sight. Of course Heather had survived. And now, Marlowe realized with a sick twist of her gut, she could never lure Heather here again.
The monster in Pike’s Lake had ruined Marlowe’s chance for a clean, perfect revenge.
Her nails made crescent moons in the leather wheel and she stared at the lake’s edge through sheets of rain.
Golden eyes, round and unblinking, watched her from the shoreline.
Tires flung gravel as Marlowe sped away. The ache in her hand seeped into her drenched cunt in a steady pulse, worsening with each mile she put between herself and that damn lake.