2. Dead Eyes Golden Eyes
Dead Eyes Golden Eyes
Caution tape fluttered from the bird’s rotten neck and its head lolled against the waterlogged stick holding up its corpse. Feathers trailed after it like bits of skin after a bad sunburn as it drifted sideways.
“What the fuck is that?” Marlowe didn’t even recognize her voice, hardly heard the thin noise escape Heather as she twisted around.
Marlowe didn’t even mind when Heather pressed against her on the same seat, pine-vanilla nauseating scent no longer bothering her, because what the fuck.
“The kids—the kids have been gone since the flood,” Heather whispered, as if the dead swan could hear, as if assurance that the campers didn’t do this made it better.
Marlowe could have almost believed the trumpeter got tangled in the caution tape protecting the nest.
An accident.
Except for her lighter wedged in its throat.
Knife forgotten at her feet, Marlowe shook her flashlight, rattling the beam until it blasted each decaying feather in harsh light.
The swan angled toward them.
Plumage stained swamp-green, the corpse parted swaths of algae, cutting toward the rowboat in stiff precision.
Golden eyes stared at them from underneath the swan.
Round.
Unblinking.
Reflecting light.
Too large to be human.
Blood rushed in Marlowe’s ears, her flashlight clattered away, and she reached across Heather’s lap to snatch at the oars.
The rowboat, wood sodden with lake water, groaned as Marlowe bore down, the hull lurching out of the water.
Bobbing in place, the corpse drifted.
Rock scraped the boards underneath them.
The boat shuddered, and Marlowe knew there were no rocks in the center of the lake. There had never been any rocks.
Marlowe shouted when the swan rushed at them, reaching the stern.
The frogs had gone silent. The bird strayed to the side when slimy ripples disturbed the water underneath it.
Muck sloughed away as a monster rose from the water, the hollowed body of the swan clinging to its head as it towered over the boat. Caution tape snapped, and the bird’s decayed skull lunged at them.
Heather made a choked sound and scrambled back toward the bow.
Vision blurred as the monster slipped back underwater, sweaty palms lost their grip on the oars, and a hiss wrenched from Marlowe as she scrabbled for her backpack, for the knife that wasn’t where she left it, a chorus of “fuck, fuck, fuck” stumbling from her numb lips.
At the stern, webbed, fleshy hands inched over peeling paint. Arms roped with muscle strained, twitching and bulging under muddy brown spots. Its sinuous chest lurched over the edge and it bared pale needle teeth.
At the bow, a faint splash.
Marlowe didn’t have to turn around to know Heather was gone.
The rowboat listed and groaned under the monster’s weight and Marlowe’s vision tunneled to three sharp lines slicing through its neck. Ragged, scarlet-tinged gills flashed, gaping open.
Vulnerable.
Marlowe brought her flashlight down in a vicious arc.
Nerves pulled her blow and it crunched against the side of the boat.
Heavy vibrations rattled the stern as the monster snarled. Thin lips pulled back from rows of sharp, nearly translucent teeth. Its chest thrummed, pale underbelly undulating and pulsing, the sound burrowing in Marlowe’s ribcage, throbbing in time with her heart, strangling her throat.
The pit of her stomach went cold and brittle. Marlowe gritted her teeth, breath coming short and fast, shaking hands slippery. Useless.
She was going to die in a shitty little boat. She was going to die in a shitty little boat, and she didn’t even get one last fuck.
Scales hissed across the boards.
A croaking whimper squeezed from Marlowe’s throat as she pressed back against the bow.
The monster leaned in, round eyes unblinking and cracked golden in the moonlight.
Strands of pondweed grew from its scalp and a small crayfish anchored there, claws raised.
Fleshy cat-fish-like tendrils snaked out between the lanky strands and left a damp trail across Marlowe’s cheeks, curling around the lines of her clogged throat, dragging over her trembling lips.
Marlowe’s tongue flicked across cracked lips and brushed against the strand. The tang of decaying lake bed and fish tossed carelessly to the shore leached into her mouth. The monster tilted its head as it tasted her with one, careful tendril curled at the corner of Marlowe’s mouth.
It—she, Marlowe hazily considered, the same way boats were called she—reached out knobby fingers, tips even with each other and twice as long as a human’s.
Translucent webbing stretched between each knuckle that was the same spotted, slick skin as the rest of her.
Her hand was clammy against Marlowe’s forehead, then temple, then jaw.
Two vertical slits in the center of her face fluttered open, a swampy gust wafting over her as the creature exhaled.
A deadly sense of peace Marlowe hadn’t experienced since the flooding in that damn cabin washed over her.
Crouched on the top bunk with a soggy Bible waiting for the water level to rise was different from being trapped on a sinking boat with a creature who shouldn’t exist—but the same peace still wormed into her mind, the peace of someone who faced death.
It blinked. Clear membrane shuttered and retracted over its eyes.
Marlowe should have struck. Fingers squished into eyeballs, an oar to the skull. If she hurt it enough, maybe she’d be able to get away.
But she saw the same glaze on the creature’s face as she saw in her own cracked mirror at home. Loneliness, medicated by shitty sex with shitty people, unwilling to let go even if it killed them.
Marlowe’s anger at Heather spiked at the faint scent of pine-vanilla lingering in the boat, and she shifted up on her elbows like surfacing from quicksand.
“Go on. Make it quick.” Her mouth tasted like stale smoke and rot, and she spat over the side.
It watched her.
The crayfish in its pondweed hair burrowed away.
Rain swept in with heavy mist turning to fat droplets as the storm hit.
Christ. What was it waiting for?
Marlowe reached out with one trembling hand, expecting her fingers to be swallowed up. The creature’s lip curled, a hint of teeth. Marlowe brushed her hand along the fluttering edges of their gill slits and a shudder slithered through the creature's body.
“You like that,” she murmured, now barely a whisper.
A hum reverberated from deep inside the creature’s chest and she leaned into Marlowe’s touch, pinning her hips to the boat with slick scales. Sharp, sticky-sweet breath with an undercurrent of decay mingled with her own.
What the hell. She was already dead.
The slits on their neck flared wide, inviting. Vibrations pulsed through Marlowe from the creature’s chest, stronger, deeper, writhing into the pit of her stomach.
Its skin tasted like the rest of it, sand and fish and rot, and Marlowe’s cunt ached when she laved her tongue against the feathery gills. The creature shuddered and a low keening sound left it.
Webbed hands splayed at the hollow of her throat and the sides of her neck, damp seeping into Marlowe’s bones with every graze of her bulging fingertips. The creature moved as if she’d done this before—and maybe she had, and maybe all those poor saps wound up picked clean on the lake bed.
Their gills feathered against Marlowe’s tongue like tiny swollen worms. Anchoring her mouth along the quivering slits, she flattened her tongue, rhythmically stroking the slick edges as a thousand wispy bits of flesh squirmed against her lips.
Lake water leaked with each pulsing movement and trickled down her chin. Marlowe dipped her head, hungrily chasing the grainy droplets and they let out a strangled noise, twisting their tail against her in a stuttering slide and sending a stab of pleasure through her gut.
The creature rutted against Marlowe like a bitch in heat and she let it. Marlowe panted as she angled her hips up, head falling back on the rough plank seat, rolling to meet its movements.
The rough, wet-denim crush against her built to a dizzying frenzy and Marlowe inhaled rain as she blindly grabbed, skimming damp flesh and tiny scales and wedging her hand between their warm bodies.
It snarled in Marlowe’s ear and she was acutely aware of the mouthful of needle teeth hovering over her neck.
Marlowe let out a ragged groan with the first desperate grab of denim under her palm.
“Gonna bite me? Go ahead, do it,” she panted. Marlowe nearly came at the phantom sensation of those teeth nipping at her, but she held herself there, urging the heavy rock of her tail to grind the heel of her palm into her swollen clit.
The creature’s movements slowed and they drew back, the slits in their face flaring.
Their hand clasped the side of her face, a fleshy thumb at the corner of her lips, and Marlowe tilted her head.
Slowly, they pressed their thumb between Marlowe’s lips.
She flicked and curled her tongue against the curve of webbing, swallowing until it touched the back of her throat before the creature snatched their hand away and stared, unblinking.
Marlowe still worked her clit between them, an increasingly unsteady kneading with enough friction to be on the verge of pain. Marlowe was used to pain. Fear of getting caught, lack of foreplay, rough hands—all bred a rigid fact that sex hurt. This was no different, and she didn’t mind.
The creature finally seemed to take notice. Its own hand trailed between them, the other braced on the seat, and grazed over Marlowe’s knuckles. The fleshy pads curled around her fingers, and Marlowe made a small, frustrated sound, hips grinding against air, before she realized what it was doing.
Twisting her hand palm up and drawing it to the place where spotted, marshy skin faded into small scales, the creature pressed her fingers into a small, slick opening. Marlowe shuddered, lightheaded with want.
She pressed two fingers into the hot flesh of its cunt, the soft skin under its scales sucking at her as she pressed in a third. The creature’s chest vibrated with a satisfied, low sound, and Marlowe rutted her hips against her knuckles, fucking her fingers deeper and feeding the buzz in her veins.
Adrenaline-drunk, cunt throbbing, Marlowe welcomed the hot slide of webbed hands along her stomach.
She fumbled at the button of her shorts as fleshy pads slipped under soaked denim and cheap, shitty lace.
Their exploration faltered at the thatch of neatly trimmed curls, drawing a wretched groan from Marlowe.
She angled her hips, slicking her cunt across their fingers.
A soft hiss left them and they felt along the curves of Marlowe’s body, eyes darkening when her thighs parted and pushed into their touch.
They sank into her until the webbing at their knuckles rubbed against her clit and Marlowe moaned, low and ragged, beginning a slow rhythm—fucking her hand into them, fucking their hand into her, human fingers curling and thrusting, fleshy fingers twisting and pressing.
Marlowe shuddered, selfishly staving off her pleasure, and leaned forward, hooded gaze slipping to the creature’s wide, flat mouth.
It bared its teeth, nicking her lip and drawing a drop of blood.
Sharp iron dripped between them, and it did nothing for a moment until its lips flattened, tasting.
Wanting. The creature lunged and clumsily mouthed at her.
She swallowed Marlowe's moans on a thick, flat tongue, delving into her mouth, drowning-deep, snaking down her throat. Marlowe’s throat bulged, and her cunt spasmed, and she gagged and choked, hand still trapped between them, fingers deep in the creature’s hot, slick cunt, their fingers plunged into hers, heavy and demanding.
Marlowe came when she couldn’t breathe.
When the thunder dulled and her body convulsed around a single breaking point deep in her gut, when the uncontrolled, achingly deep twist of their fingers became unbearable.
It knew. It licked the roof of her mouth as Marlowe gasped.
She panted through her orgasm, dragging in deep lungfuls of rain-flecked air as their touch left her.
Rutting against her fingers, it rhythmically fucked itself open until three wasn’t enough and Marlowe’s chapped knuckles stung as they slipped past its pale underbelly.
The creature’s cunt suckled hungrily at her hand.
Marlowe’s wrist burned and popped as it bent, hand flattened inside the creature.
Slick edges pulsed around her wrist in time to the creature making a deep humming sound that beat into her head, again, again, again, and Marlowe couldn’t get away if she wanted to, but she hadn’t wanted to, had she?
And her feet were ice-numb and her legs were cold, but the rest of her was blistering hot and her hand was candlewax.
Heat and pressure and soft pressed in and Marlowe’s lips were numb, but she thought she was smiling.
Glass. Shards bit into her palm, a perfect, layered circle. The flashlight. She must have put her hand in the broken glass. Marlowe, bleary-eyed and almost blinded by the rain, lifted her left hand. Untouched. Glass splintered in the center of her right hand, still buried in the creature.
It smiled. Venom dripped from its mouth. Cunt-teeth bit into Marlowe’s palm like splaying over hot coals. The boat groaned under them, decayed boards dipping beneath the surface.
Lake water soaked over Marlowe’s ass, chasing her high and nipping at her taut stomach, delving into the heavy ache of her chest, and strangled the last guttural sound from her throat.
Water swallowed up Marlowe’s cry as they plunged into the lake.