Oaks
Bethany’s still running her mouth when the scream cuts through camp.
It ain’t shrill drama, and it ain’t a wife trying to win a crowd.
It’s terror, pure and sharp, coming from the shoreline like somebody grabbed a lung and squeezed.
Every biker in the clearing goes still at the same time.
Legend don’t have to say a damn thing. We move because that’s what we do when the danger turns real.
The scream comes again, closer to the water this time.
One of the prospects, a young kid named Mercer, stumbles up the slope from the dock white as a sheet, eyes too wide, mouth working like he’s trying to swallow his own panic.
“There’s something out there,” he pants. “Boat’s… fuck… just come look.”
Boots pound dirt. Gravel sprays underfoot. Royal reaches the shoreline first and stops like he expects the lake to bite him back. Holler jogs past me already pulling a flashlight from his cut even though it’s broad daylight, like his hands know what they want even if the sun is lying.
The lake is too calm. That’s the first thing I notice. Herrington sits flat and glassy like it’s pretending nothing ever happens beneath it, early sun throwing long streaks across the surface while birds scatter from the reeds and the water keeps acting innocent.
Then I see it. Half-submerged twenty yards from the dock, a small aluminum fishing boat, tilted wrong. One side sits lower than the other, nose dipped like it tried to climb out and failed.
Holler mutters, “That ain’t one of ours.”
Royal answers quiet, “It ain’t.”
Legend steps down beside me, gaze locked on the boat like he’s already putting a name to the feeling.
“Girl from Pearly Gates,” I answer automatically. “Twenty-two. Worked at the feed store.” Nobody says her name. Sadie.
We all look at the boat instead, like if we avoid saying it we can avoid making it true. Something dark is smeared along the inside rail. Blood don’t spread right in water. It blooms. It thins. But this looks thick. Sticky. Recent.
Mercer whispers, “Shit.”
Royal steps into the shallows without hesitation, jeans soaking and swims out. He steadies the empty boat and drags it closer until it scrapes rock with a slow, ugly sound. Holler climbs in careful, bracing his weight like he expects it to tip.
“Jesus,” he breathes.
Legend’s voice cuts through. “What.”
“Blood,” Holler confirms. “Lots.”
Bethany’s voice carries faint from the treeline, still throwing poison like it matters more than what’s in front of us.
“You see? This is what happens when y’all playhouse instead of minding business…”
I tune her out.
Royal squats at the waterline and points. Drag marks. Deep grooves carved into the mud bordering the shallows. Not footprints. Not someone walking in.
Something heavy was pulled. From land into water, or from water onto land. Hard to tell. The grooves disappear where the lake deepens, and my stomach goes cold because I’ve seen plenty of ugly in my life, but I don’t like not knowing the direction of it.
“Split up,” Legend orders. “Half circle north along the treeline. Holler, take two and check that inlet. Royal, you’re with me.”
Nobody argues. This ain’t club drama anymore. This is real, and real don’t care who’s married to who.
As the men start moving, I feel it again, that wrongness.
The same kind I felt at the floatel when the wall gave up its secret and showed me a sick bastard’s hideout.
Something’s off here. I glance back toward camp and see Brittany near Lottie’s cabin with her arms wrapped around herself, pale, watching the shoreline like it might swallow someone she knows.
Bethany is still pacing ten yards away, trying to keep the fight alive like she can out-scream the lake.
“Don’t you walk away from me!” she yells again.
I do. Again.
I head straight for Brittany like my feet already decided before my brain could argue. Bethany’s voice spikes behind me, but it fades the closer I get to Brittany’s side, like the world narrows down to what matters.
“You need to go inside,” I say.
Her eyes flick to mine, wide and sharp. “Was that blood?”
“Maybe.”
“That ain’t a good maybe.”
“No,” I agree, because there ain’t a good version of blood in a boat that wasn’t supposed to be there.
The lake surface ripples, subtle, not from wind, not from a fish. Just a long disturbance rolling out from near the dock like something underneath shifted its weight. Holler notices it too and freezes mid-step in the boat.
Mercer’s voice cracks. “Y’all see that?”
Royal straightens slow, shoulders tight. The ripple grows. Not a splash. Not a wake. Too big and too deliberate, like a thought moving under glass.
A dark shape passes under the surface, long and thick as a fallen tree.
For half a second it breaks close enough to distort the light like a back, or a shadow, or my brain trying to make sense of something else.
A real big fish. They say fish can get big if they have room to grow.
Then it’s gone. The water smooths again and nobody breathes for a beat.
“Boat wake,” one of the prospects mutters, trying to hand the fear somewhere else.
“There ain’t no boats out there,” Holler replies, flat.
Mercer swallows hard. “They say there’s something in this lake.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap, but my skin feels it, like it’s being watched from below. I hate that I can’t shake it.
Legend turns toward the shoreline, gaze sweeping the trees. “We ain’t chasing ghost stories,” he says even, because that’s what a man says when he can’t afford to believe in monsters. “We’re looking for a girl.”
Royal nods once and the men move again, but the air stays wired tight.
Bethany marches down toward us, heels sinking into mud, mouth already open.
“This is ridiculous,” she says loud. “You’re all acting like children.”
I don’t even look at her.
My focus is Brittany because she’s stepped closer to the water without realizing it, like the lake is pulling her with a string.
“Back up,” I bark.
“I’m not made of glass,” she snaps.
“Didn’t say you were,” I answer, and the edge in her voice almost makes me smile even now, even with blood in the water. I lower my voice so it’s just for her. “You need to get up the hill.”
“Why?”
Because I don’t like the lake looking at you.
Because something out there moved wrong.
Because Pearly Gates is circling and now there’s drag marks and blood and I don’t know if this is a monster or a man who likes hiding under water.
But I don’t say any of that. I give her the only thing she’ll accept when she’s scared and mad.
“Because I said so,” I say.
She rolls her eyes, but she steps back.
Bethany stops three feet away from the shoreline with her hands on her hips. I imagine a Lake Monster rising up and swallowing her whole.
“Oh, now you’re worried?” she sneers. “Now you’re protective?”
I turn to her finally, and I don’t yell. I don’t argue. I don’t defend. I just say, “Go back to your cabin, Beth.” The authority in my voice lands. She hears it. So does everyone else. She studies me like she’s deciding whether to push, then laughs soft. “This ain’t over,” she says.
“It ain’t,” I agree, but I don’t mean her. I mean the lake.
Holler hops back to shore. “No body,” he reports. “Just blood.”
Royal gestures toward the treeline. “Drag marks go that way too.”
Two directions. That’s worse.
Legend’s jaw tightens. “We keep searching,” he says. “Pairs. Nobody alone.”
His eyes flick to me, then to Brittany, and that look says everything.
I nod once.
I ain’t assigned to a team. I don’t move toward the woods.
I stay where I am, next to her. Keeping the ol’ ladies and other women away from the lake.
The shift ain’t loud or dramatic, but it’s real.
Everyone’s on edge. Bethany sees it. Royal sees it.
Legend definitely sees it. And the lake, Hell, the lake watches all of us like it’s got time.
A distant splash echoes from deeper out, not near the dock, far enough that it ain’t a thrown rock and it ain’t a mistake. Brittany’s hand brushes mine for a second, instinct and fear and something else, and I don’t pull away.
“Tell me that wasn’t what I think it was,” she whispers.
“I don’t know what you think it was,” I say, but I know.
Something moved under that boat. Something big enough to tip it, or someone strong enough to fake it.
Either way, this ain’t about Bethany anymore, and it damn sure ain’t about gossip.
Now it’s blood and water and something hunting.
I’ll deal with my wife later. Right now, I step half an inch closer to Brittany, visible and unapologetic, and when Bethany starts in again behind us I don’t even turn around.