I can feel it now, even, hot and pulsing. I could chase her, I suppose. Splash out into the water and drag her into the darkness, killing her the same way I died that first time. I’d go under with her, though. I’d make sure she wasn’t alone as the light slipped out of her eyes.
But I don’t move from my spot in the trees, just reach down and unbuckle my fly so I can ease my cock out. Jerking off is never as good as killing, although it’s a close enough approximation, and the pressure of my hand around my length makes me suck my breath in. A new image flits into my mind, of me and Chloe. But this time. I’m not killing her. I’m fucking her.
I imagine fucking her on top of my grave, burying myself to the hilt as she groans beneath me, her cunt as hot as the friction of my palm. I stroke myself faster, rocking my cock into my fist, watching Chloe row into the golden light. Pressure builds tight in my body, and she’s not even halfway across the lake when a pulsing, unfamiliar pleasure courses through me. I groan, dropping my head back, as cum spurts between my fingers, splattering across the dead leaves on the ground.
Dizziness washes over me. An orgasm, and I didn’t even have to kill someone to get it.
I drop my softening cock and wipe my hands on my jeans, not sure what to think. Across the lake, Chloe bumps up against her pier and scrambles out of the boat. Her movements are quick and a little panicked, although she’s downwind now, and I can’t smell it, that sweet, pungent scent of her fear.
She stops, standing there on the edge of the pier. Then she turns back toward my peninsula. I stiffen and drop my hands down to my still-bare cock, feeling suddenly perceived even though there’s no way she can see me, not from that distance and not with me hidden by the trees.
But she watches, the wind blowing her hair around her face. And just for a second, I think I know what it would feel like for her gaze to touch my skin.
7
CHLOE
Idon’t feel truly safe until I’m back in my house, the deadbolt lodged firmly in place and the curtains on those big living room windows drawn tightly shut. I’m not sure whatI’m afraid of, exactly. A snap in the woods? I know, intellectually, that doesn’t mean someone was watching me.
Still, the whole boat ride across the lake, my skin prickled like that’s exactly what was happening.
It’s better inside, though. Safe as houses, as they say. I check in with Abi and Penelope.
Didn’t see anything. Just found a cool old graveyard, though.
Penelope
Oooh, you’re just like Abi. Living next door to a graveyard!
Abi
There’s still some leftover adrenaline surging through me. I’m not sure how to put it into words, though, even though it’s got me feeling spiky and uncertain. I can’t stop thinking about that gravestone. Theodore Shorn, dead in 1960. He had just been a teenager. I wonder if that’s why Oliver latched onto the name.
I type it into Google on a lark. Predictably, nothing comes up but those questionable people locator sites. I sigh, scrolling through the first few pages of returns.
Then, on another whim, I typeTheodore Shorn Hanging Lake 1960. And this time, I get something.
An old archived newspaper article, it looks like, one that’s been digitized from something called theVeritas Evening Reporter.It dates from 1960, and when it comes up, there’s a scanned black-and-white picture of a teenage boy. A portrait, his light hair slicked back, his eyes sunken, his expression unsmiling.
The Hanging Lake County sheriff has ruled the recent drowning death of Veritas local boy, Theodore Shorn, an accidental death.
The death occurred nearly a week ago, and the boy’s mother, Ruth Shorn, has accused four local teenagers of unlawful activities. The four teenagers were present for the boy’s death but have maintained that Shorn slipped and fell on a wet patch of pier.
“This is a terrible tragedy,” Sheriff Mandle says. “But it was not the result of wrongdoing. I hope we as a community can put this accident behind us.”
Miss Shorn was not available for comment.
I frown, click back to look at the other hits, starting with a ghost investigators forum from the early 2010s.
rbd1979:Anyone ever check out the western peninsula on Hanging Lake? I heard it’s hella haunted and I’m gonna be in the area in a few weeks.
demon_hunter_69:Don’t fucking do it, man. I grew up around there. People straight up die if they go on the peninsula. Everybody knows you stay away.
rbd1979: Seriously? What’s the story there?
There’s no response. The conversation shifts to something else.
I try another search:Hanging Lake ghost stories.And this, it seems, is the jackpot. There’s a whole litany of YouTube videos dedicated to the subject, all with headlines like,Is a ghost killing people on Hanging Lake?AndIs this lake HAUNTED by a SERIAL KILLER?
