Serena
Sometimes, things just go wrong from the start. Like the universe is trying to give you a heads up. Abort. Abandon your plans. This is not going to end well.
The evening of the Pumpkin Patch Party, Mom was in one of her moods – stressed, flapping about every little thing: My hair wasn’t right, the dress she’d chosen for me to wear was too short, a little slutty, maybe she should let down the hem or find a cardigan to cover the low-cut top. And was that a zit near my nose?
I tried to let it wash over me. I didn’t care about my hair or the stupid dress.
I wouldn’t be wearing it for long. I’d already packed a change of clothes in a small backpack, which I’d hidden in some bushes in the park.
Along with the clothes, I’d also packed a flashlight, chips, and a couple of beers I’d sneaked from Dad’s stash.
Mom’s bad temper wasn’t helped by the fact that Johnson Green, the Conservator, had ‘popped round’ to check how we were. I was pretty sure by this point that he was sweet on Mum, even if she didn’t reciprocate his feelings.
I didn’t like Green. He was pompous and loud and generally a bit of a dick. But he was still preferable to his son, Owen, who he had, once again, dragged round with him.
I sometimes felt mean about disliking the kid.
He was only ten, overweight and kind of unfortunate-looking: big, almost my height, with greasy dark hair and a weird pudgy face, a bit like a Cabbage Patch doll.
But something about him genuinely made my skin crawl.
Some kids. You just know they’re not right.
You can feel it, radiating off them. Owen was like that. He was all kinds of wrong.
I made my excuses and hid away in my room till they left.
Eventually, Mom came up and decided she was semi-satisfied with my appearance.
A cardigan had been found to cover the low-cut top and my hair would pass.
We were around fifteen minutes late leaving the house when Mom discovered that somehow one of her favourite china figurines had been smashed.
Somehow, it felt like an omen. A bad one.
The town square was packed, as it always was for the party. I did my thing, announced the opening, gave out some prizes and then rang a bell shaped like a pumpkin to officially declare the party open.
Normally, I’d be released quickly after that, but Mom must have been feeling guilty about her panic before we left, and she insisted on buying me an ice-cream.
I ate it so fast I gave myself brain freeze, but it was still another thirty minutes before she was finally distracted enough, trapped talking to one of the party organizers, for me to slip away.
I checked my watch as I hurried towards the park. Already gone seven thirty.
‘Where’ve you been?’ Milo hissed as he emerged from the shadows at our rendezvous point.
‘Everything ran late,’ I panted. ‘I’m sorry.’ I grabbed my backpack from the bushes. ‘I need to get changed.’
‘Be quick.’
I move around the side of the bush. ‘Can you turn away?’
‘Like I care.’
‘Just do it.’
I struggled out of the dress and dragged on my T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, stuffing the dress and kitten heels into the backpack. I slung it over my shoulder.
‘Ready.’
Milo sprung to his feet. His hair was loose and there was a look in his eyes – wild, kind of crazy.
‘Okay. Let’s do this!’
Ironically, stealing the boat was the easiest bit of our plan. The boathouse was unlocked. We just strolled in, lowered one of the two-person kayaks into the water and climbed in, dumping our rucksacks at our feet.
Within minutes, we were off, steadily paddling out on to the expanse of dark lake.
I’d kayaked before, so I sat up front, Milo following my lead.
It felt strange, out here, just the two of us on the water.
Exposed but also kind of exciting. Overhead, the moon was huge and full, swollen with silvery light.
Its twin floated in the dark water, faint ripples dismembering its reflection.
‘Okay?’ Milo asked.
‘Yeah, good.’
‘When you reach the woods, take the river on the right.’
‘Gotcha.’
We continued to paddle in silence, no sounds but the regular swish swash of the paddles.
As the lake narrowed, I steered us right, breaking off on to a smaller river that flowed through the woods.
We were lucky it was a clear night with an almost full moon or it would have been too dark to see where we were going, something neither of us had considered.
We’d brought flashlights, but that wasn’t much help when we needed both hands to paddle.
Even with the moonlight it was darker here, the silvery illumination more intermittent between the overhang of the trees.
It was strange. We’d only gone a few metres off the main lake.
The river was still wide enough for boats to pass, but it immediately felt closer, creepier.
I’d never been down here on the water, I realized.
Most people hadn’t. The woods beyond the authorized walking tracks were off limits, with signs warning about swampland and snakes.
A sign before the turn-off had warned again about alligators, but in a less friendly way: Danger.
Gators. Weirdly, I didn’t think I’d ever seen a gator in the lake, but I knew they must be around.
This was Florida. They were as abundant as river rats.
‘We need to go right again up ahead,’ Milo called behind me. ‘You see that narrow opening?’
I followed the way he was pointing with his paddle.
We steered the kayak a hard right, just avoiding the jutting bank.
I felt the bottom scrape on the lakebed.
Shit. We were going to ground or capsize.
I wedged my paddle against the bank to steady the kayak and then shoved.
For a moment I thought we were stuck, then I felt the kayak give and slide back into deeper water.
‘Nice one,’ Milo said.
I let out a breath. Sweat slid down my brow. ‘Yeah, that one kayaking lesson really paid off.’
We paddled down the small offshoot. Here, the banks were close enough to touch with the paddles, and trees crowded in from either side.
I could hear the faint calls and mutterings of nocturnal birds and other creatures.
Frogs, ’coons, owls. And then my mind slithered towards thoughts of snakes, anacondas and, inevitably, gators.
The banks here were exactly the type of habitat where they liked to hang out.
Here they could submerge themselves in the shallow waters, camouflaged by mud and tree roots.
A sudden shriek made us both jump, and I almost dropped my paddle.
‘What the hell?’ Milo muttered.
I caught my breath and let out a shuddering laugh. ‘Limpkin,’ I said, remembering my dad telling me about the noisy night-time birds.
The shriek came again, further away, still raw and agonized enough to send the hairs shimmying up along my arms.
‘Or someone being murdered,’ I added.
‘Comforting,’ Miles replied drily.
‘How far does this river go?’
‘About another half a mile, I think, before we’re gonna run out of water and it gets too narrow for the kayak. Then we’ll need to haul on to land and go on foot.’
‘Okay,’ I said, even though I didn’t like that thought.
What if we got lost? What if we couldn’t find our way back to the kayak?
Milo had the map, but the exact location of Harold’s cabin was still only a rough guess.
What if we were out by a mile, or more? What if it wasn’t even here any more?
What if it was never here? We hadn’t planned for any of this properly.
But I didn’t say anything. It was too late. We’d started on this thing, and we couldn’t go back. So, we paddled on and, somewhere in the swamps, the limpkins screamed.