Chapter 7
“I said…” Graham glared at Brian. “… let go.”
“Or what?” Brian growled.
“Or we’re going to have a problem,” Graham warned. He’d never been in a fight, but he wasn’t afraid to defend himself.
Deke stepped closer. “I think we already do.”
A couple of their other friends—Trevor and Evan—stood nearby, tense and waiting to see how the situation would escalate.
Graham knew that whatever happened, they would side with Deke and Brian.
Though no one in their group had shown blatant homophobia before, aside from a few jokes, their true colors were beginning to show. None of them would defend a queer.
“I think so, too.” Brian squeezed, his fingers digging into Graham’s muscle, the flesh flushing a deep red around his fingertips.
Graham clenched his jaw and didn’t flinch, though a burning pain webbed out from his bicep as Brian clamped down on a nerve.
“Too bad this ain’t a pirate ship,” Ryan slurred. “We could make him walk the plank.”
Deke snorted. “We got a surfboard.”
“That works.” Ryan laughed. “Where is it?”
Minutes later, some of the guys had wedged the end of the surfboard beneath an inner metal railing at one end of the pontoon boat.
“Come on, queer boy.” Brian dragged Graham toward the surfboard.
“Get off me!” Graham jerked against his iron grip, shoving Brian.
Deke grabbed his other arm. “You love your precious lake so fucking much, we’ll give it to you.”
Graham struggled and pushed against the two athletes as they forced him to the end of the boat.
He wrenched his arm free from Brian and elbowed the guy in the ribs.
Brian grunted, swore sharply, and sucker-punched Graham in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.
The fucker could hit hard. Graham had seen him fight, and Brian kicked ass every time.
With Trevor and Evan's help, the two men forced Graham onto the surfboard, which protruded precariously over the water. The other drunken passengers were getting into the spirit, shouting and chanting in pirate brogues for Deke and Brian to “Banish him to the deep, matey!”
Deke jabbed Graham with the handle of an oar, shoving him farther onto the board as a chorus of “Yoho! Yoho! It’s a pirate’s life for me!
” echoed from the drunk crew. Graham took a cautious step forward and felt the board creak beneath his weight.
Surfboards were sturdy but weren’t designed to carry weight over open air.
With only the back end of the board wedged under the railing, it was likely to snap in two if Graham moved much farther out.
The oar handle stabbed Graham in the lower back, knocking him forward another step.
His balance wavered as the board began to dip a little, and he felt the strain in the makeshift plank.
He looked down into the dark depths; he wasn’t afraid of the water—he knew how to swim—but last night’s incident on the lake, mixed with the strange dream, left him anxious.
He’d almost drowned. And though his “near-death” experience was due mostly to his drunken state, he felt uneasy about taking another plunge into the dark waters.
“Got nowhere else to go,” Brian jeered. “Might as well jump. ‘Cause you ain’t getting back on this boat, faggot.”
Graham glanced behind him. Wendy hung on Ryan, wicked glee on her face.
The others were a faceless mob of clamoring drunks that Graham had once believed were his friends.
Discovering he was wrong felt like no great loss now.
They had never been the type he felt comfortable confiding in.
They were his social hangout, that’s all.
His grandfather was the one who listened to Graham’s heart.
A knot formed in his throat as he looked at the water where he had spread his grandpa’s ashes last night.
Had some of his spirit gone into the lake along with ashes?
Tears stung his eyes. The jeering betrayal of his “friends” magnified the loss of his grandfather, reminding him how alone—and lonely—he truly was.
He loved his parents, but he’d never had the close relationship with them that he’d had with his grandpa.
They had dismissed his awakening sexuality and were pleased when he seemed to take an interest in girls.
Graham knew they’d never disown him, but he didn’t think they wanted a gay son.
“Whatcha waiting for, queer?” Ryan howled. “Faggot ass afraid of the water?”
Graham stared at the gentle ripples beneath him, the lights of the boat reflecting across the surface of the water.
Tears welled up as his sorrow consumed him.
I miss you, Grandpa. The old man was all he’d truly had in the world, the only one who understood him and honestly loved him for who he was.
Graham thought about the journal… and the way his grandpa had written about Lochlan, the depth of passion, reverence, and consuming love.
The shouts behind him faded as an ache webbed through his heart.
I want to love like that… just once in my life.
A phosphorescent blue-green glow shimmered beneath the surface as something moved through the deep water, sending ripples that lapped against the pontoon boat.
Graham frowned, watching the water, convinced it was just a trick of the boat’s lights.
The noise of the railing “crew” faded into a dull roar as his focus shifted entirely to the lake.
A powerful, swirling current that seemed to form out of nowhere hit the pontoon boat, causing it to spin partially. Graham gasped as he lost his balance, plunged into the dark water with a loud splash, and sank straight down.
Graham’s feet struck something solid long before he should’ve reached the lakebed. His shoes slipped on its silty—slimy?—surface, then it retracted like a flexing muscle and sprang back, catapulting him toward the lake’s surface.
He burst into open air, bobbing and hacking. The pontoon had already drifted away, and shadow-figures of his former friends leaned over the port side of the boat, mocking and howling insults when they spotted him.
“Swim to the dock, fuckwad!” That was Trevor, who’d spent most of the night trying to shotgun beers with his left hand and not cry over being dumped by his last girlfriend, who’d caught him cheating with a rival team’s cheerleader.
Brian and Evan joined in, their voices blending.
Maybe Heather said something, too, but Graham’s head rang, the world a blur of stars and algae, and the only thing he could hear for sure was his own blood pounding in his ears.
He kicked his feet, churning through the long weeds that reached up from somewhere below, their filaments snagging his ankles, until the pontoon was a dull lantern behind him.
He let himself float, treading just enough to keep his nose above water.
The boat lights winked as the pontoon floated toward the far side of the lake, spaced like Morse code.
Then he curved his neck, his eyes turned to the night sky, and he absorbed the starlight as he bobbed in place.
The gentle rocking of the water was almost lulling, an odd comfort amid the turmoil.
Graham thought about his last moment there on the plank… the glow in the water… something moving beneath the surface.
It was nothing—a trick of the light.
What had caused the pontoon to suddenly jolt, knocking him into the water? Where had the sudden current come from? The lake was practically placid most of the time.
Maybe it was Lochlan. The thought struck him as funny, and he laughed, a giddy sound born of stress.
He wondered what Lochlan would have done to the partiers.
Anything? In the storybooks, he was protective of his lake; it was his sanctuary.
After reading the passage from his grandpa’s journal, Graham began to understand the true inspiration behind the stories.
With that knowledge in his head—and his heart—Graham wished the pontoon boat and its occupants would vanish.
They were defiling the lake just by being there.
A dull splash somewhere behind him. Graham rolled and squinted.
Another ripple, then the blunt sound of a body hitting water.
Not a fish. The pontoon was too far away for anyone to be jumping in.
He blinked drizzle from his lashes and kicked in a circle, scanning for one of the dipshits, just in case.
But all he saw was the distant glow from the boat and, for a split second, something else—a humped silhouette pushing water where the shallows met the shore. Then it was gone.
Just his imagination. It had to be. Still, he treaded a little harder, a feathering of panic in his chest. He looked back at the pontoon.
They weren’t watching the water anymore.
Trevor was doubled over, head in his hands, and Evan was gesturing fiercely with a Solo cup, some private fight, probably alcohol-induced and about nothing.
Wendy stood, arms crossed, her back a lighthouse in the darkness as her laughter echoed through the night.
Graham swam for shore, arms slicing, but the drag on his legs worsened—like the weeds had thickened or something beneath had grown curious.
He couldn't kick free. Each stroke brought him closer to the dock, but each kick pulled the resistance up, snagging his jeans, then the bare skin above, where the water floated his T-shirt away from his body.
He thrashed, lost his rhythm, and for a moment went under.
Water filled his ears, the pressure a slap.
His feet scraped mud, but again the bottom wasn’t right—too soft, giving, like flesh and muscle rather than grit.
He bent his knees to jump, to break the surface, and whatever was under him climbed higher, pressing up between his thighs with the insistence of a live thing.
Pure panic. He kicked hard, knees up, and shot to the surface, coughing and spitting.
Nobody saw. The pontoon was a party again, Wendy’s laughter, teasing, a little meaner; she was over him and already onto the next.
Namely, Ryan, it seemed. The boat was drifting farther out, and the dock felt miles away, the gangplank ghostly and unlit.
He was chest-deep now, legs numb, arms burning, his clothes clinging to his skin like a suffocating wetsuit.
He tried to stand, but the lakebed gave way beneath his toes.
The next step plunged him into a pit, and he went under, air squeezed from his chest in a muddy fizz.
Underwater, the world was green murk and ribboning weed, and the thing wrapped his shin, then both.
Not a thing, he corrected. Things—plural, banded and pulsing, cold as raw dough.
He kicked, but it was like fighting a giant tongue.
Graham opened his mouth to scream, and lake water rushed in.
He clawed at his own legs, scraping nails along his calves, but the sensation only migrated higher, looping up the inside of his thigh, a peristaltic squeeze that pushed his jeans tight against his balls.
In the weird, pressurized silence, Graham kicked and bucked, every motion magnified by the resistance of the water and the impossible clutch working its way up his leg, now inside his pantleg.
What’s happening? He thought about his dream from last night when he nearly drowned. Was it really a dream? Is this? But how? He was awake. He wasn’t drunk.
Something slithered along his inner thigh and under the elastic of his shorts, cold and slick, with a texture like boiled okra.
Graham’s mind went blank with shock and fear, a hot electric pulse that briefly overwhelmed all his other senses.
The thing probed, explored, found the soft spots, and lingered, a curious intelligence behind the pressure.
The tentacle bunched at his crotch and wormed gently around his dick, which, to Graham’s retroactive mortification, responded with a confused half-chub.
No, he thought, but the word was outgunned by something close to animal panic.
He kicked hard, and the lake replied with a suction, a muscular draw that wedged the limb between his ass cheeks.
His body shivered, every muscle firing at once, but the tentacle just flexed in answer, cinching him tighter.
It curled around his sack and squeezed, not with violence, but with an almost playful test, as if it were trying to fit him for size.
Graham’s lungs burned. He scrabbled upward, face breaking the surface in time to take a single, stuttering gasp.
The air was syrupy thick and laced with Wendy’s laughter, which had gone from teasing to shrill, and above the din, he heard Deke shout, “Holy shit, look at Graham—he’s getting eaten alive! ”
Was he? Because every synapse firing through his brain insisted that whatever had him… meant to devour him.