The Monster in the Lake
Johi Jenkins
The Monster
Against years of his mother’s constant warnings,
Thal wandered outside to the human world.
She had wanted to keep him safe, and the human
world was anything but that. But in the end she had known that his destiny lay
above the lake surface in the land of light; that he couldn’t live the rest of
his life underwater. So she hadn’t made him promise to stay beneath. Instead,
she had used her last breath to tell him how much she loved him.
And for
many years after her death he had stayed in the underwater cave, living off the
large mammals that shared his aquatic world. But these past long months it had
become more and more challenging; the temperatures were warming outside and the
animals that used to swim year round his cave had dwindled in numbers or migrated
elsewhere. Food had become scarce and he’d been starving. So Thal left the
safety of his cave and swam up to the surface.
The Girl
The goat bleated pitifully and Amka’s resolve almost
faltered. She hated using the young female as bait, but it had been a week
since the last attack, and Amka was sure the monster was coming tonight; she
would take no chances. The monster had been attacking every seven days, and the
sounds of easy prey would lure it here; she was sure. And she was going to kill
it.
The monster only attacked at night. It was
quite dark tonight, and in her hiding place the monster wouldn’t see her when
it attacked the goat currently stuck in the mud. Her plan was simple; to attack
the monster while it was busy. Her blade was sharp and her legs eager to
pounce. She waited.
She almost missed it—but the goat’s shrill cry
alerted her to the spot where a shape had appeared, hovering over the ill-fated
animal. She meant to wait until it attacked the goat, but her adrenaline sent
her running towards the monster, as quiet as only she could be.
Still, it heard—and it whipped around so fast
she didn’t have time to stop or change strategy. Something strong connected to
her chest, and she went down into the sticky mud, face up, air knocked out of
her. The monster she had been so sure she would kill had somehow gained all the
advantage on her. As the thing that had hit her pressed her down into the
mud—it was an arm holding her down, she realized—she looked up and faced her
death.
It was a … man-like creature. She couldn’t see
it well in the darkness, but it looked like a man, his body covered in scales,
his face framed and partially hidden by long thick hair. At least, the face and
eyes staring down at her looked like those of a man; only it—he—looked like nothing she had ever seen
before. And she realized he was distracted, staring down at her, and the
pressure on her chest had lessened. Then he bent down and sniffed her.
She didn’t wait—her arm went up with all her
might, and her blade connected with his side. He yelped in surprise and backed
away, and she tore out of the mud and ran away as he ran the opposite way.
She continued running until she reached her
village and woke the young hunters, Torren and Aruk, to have them keep watch.
They were her least favorite people, but as the village hunter it was her job
to keep the village safe. She had already expected their taunts, so they didn’t
really surprise her.
“You saw the fish monster? Are you sure it wasn’t
your imagination, huntress Amka?” Torren asked as he grabbed his spear. He was
always the first to start the jeering.
“It’s a real
monster, Torren,” Aruk said in a sarcastic voice. “A monster that somehow only
she saw, and that kills animals but doesn’t actually eat them.”
Amka was the best hunter in the village ever since
her uncle, the last hunter chief, had been killed a month ago. These two young
idiots could taunt all they wanted, but they weren’t ever going to match her
speed and stealth. She brought in more game than anyone else. She knew who she
was, and who they were. She was above their petty insults.
But that didn’t keep her from wanting to show
them she had been right.
“You boys are probably right,” she said. “It’s
my imagination, so keeping guard should be no problem for you.”
She left them there and went back to her hut. She
lay awake for some time, plotting. After deciding what to do, she slept a few
hours. Then she spent the next morning setting up her trap.
The trap consisted simply of covering an opening
at the top of a mountain cave; she would get the monster to fall though it and
land on a row of well-placed spikes in the cave below. She had discovered the
cave by accident when she was young, almost falling through the same opening.
She wouldn’t have survived the fall; it was quite a drop. The cave was far from
the village, but she was positive that she could lure the monster there.
She had learned from her mistake and knew not
to face the monster directly; he was much faster and stronger than her. But she
hoped he wouldn’t resist the scent of a small piece of the elk that she had
brought to her family the previous day. She carefully placed it on the false
floor covering the opening; when he reached out to grab it he would fall
through. Easy.
As an extra incentive, she had placed the meat within
the folded breechcloth that she had worn yesterday—the monster had sniffed her;
maybe he had a good sense of smell and he wouldn’t resist the prey that had
attacked him last night. She had considered the goat; the poor thing had found
her way back home to the village, looking for her mamma. But Amka felt guilty
and decided to use leftover meat instead.
Her masterwork finished, with still plenty of
light she retreated to the safety of the village. He’d never attacked there.
She hoped after tonight, he never would.
***
Amka was up at the break of dawn the next
morning and armed herself with as many weapons and rope as she could carry. She
said goodbye to her parents, hugged her mother extra hard, and gave a kiss to
her little siblings. She was excited and hopeful but was not conceited enough
to blindly trust her skills. The monster had taken her by surprise once before.
She left when the sun was high enough in the
sky that it was very bright. As she approached the cave from the top, she heard
nothing, saw nothing. But when she saw her trap her heart jumped with excitement.
The false floor she had carefully strewn over the opening of the cave had
fallen in; carefully she peeked inside, and saw the body inside in a pool of
blood.
She had done it!
She rushed to the bottom of the hill, to the hidden
cave entrance. She had beaten him by simple cunning. She knew the area well,
and he did not.
She came in, cautious but thrilled. And there
he was. The monster was …
In the low light that filled the cavern from
the opening above, she could see the man-like scaly creature was just … a boy.
A young man about her age. His skin that had appeared to be scaly was just some
sort of clothing or armor. The exposed parts of his skin that appeared to be
gray were just caked with clay. But his face and shoulders, and bits of other
areas where the clay had washed away, she could see his skin had been very pale
and was now very red, as though burnt by the sun.
And now he was dead.
For some reason the kill had not brought the
joy she had thought it would. Her earlier excitement when coming down the
mountain had all but vanished, replaced with a strange unhappiness.
The supposed monster had been just a boy. And
he was so strange-looking. So pale. She was … embarrassed that she had tricked
him. How long had he lain broken at the bottom of the cave before he died? Had
he suffered much?
She was supposed to take his body back with her
to the village, though, to show everyone that the monster did exist and that
she had been right all along. And that she was able to kill it because she was
a good huntress and her uncle had been right about her in selecting her as his
second in command, not long before he was killed.
By this boy at her feet.
She shook her sympathy aside and crouched next
to him, then began to remove his body from the tangle of spears and sharp
sticks that had been his demise. She saw several had pierced his body. She took
them out carefully, grimacing at the broken flesh. When she finished, she dared
look at his face again, pushing a strand of matted hair off his cheek.
Then she saw him looking at her.
She jumped back, afraid. Survival instincts
made her temporarily regret pulling the spears from his body, but only for a
moment. She realized right away he didn’t look like he could move. But, just to
be safe, she tied his hands.
As she worked, a new excitement replaced her
fear. He was alive. Maybe he would live. She would …
She would what? Sew him up and send him back to
where he came?
But she couldn’t kill him. He looked so skinny
and so pitiful. Her uncle had been a brawny man. How did this … boy… kill her
uncle? Unless … unless it hadn’t been him. But no, she recognized the scales.
The day her uncle had been killed, she was the
one that had found him, with a creature bent over him. When she approached, the
creature lifted its head and ran away, but not before she had caught a glimpse
of what appeared to be fish scales covering its body.
“You killed my uncle, didn’t you? You’re the
same monster that killed all those animals, and my uncle.” It was more of a
statement to herself, as she didn’t think he’d answer.
But he did.
In a different language, he said a few words.
That he had a language, and a soft voice, not
just grunts or animal sounds, took her by surprise. He was a person.
But he’s
a murderer! She corrected herself.
“It had scales like you, like that … thing …
you are wearing,” she added. The image flashed before her eyes again. The
scales, the size was the right size.
Something like understanding flashed before his
eyes, as though he was remembering something. As though he had understood her.
He nodded, and pointed at himself, and at his
scales.
“Do you understand me?” she asked suspiciously.
He lifted his hands and seemed to notice his
restraints for the first time. Then he held his thumb and first finger very
close together, showing her a small space between them. A little bit, she understood he meant.
“I’m not going to untie you until I know the
truth.” She pointed at his tied wrists and shook her head, emphasizing no.
He nodded.
“Why did you do it?”
He didn’t understand that, and only gave her a
questioning stare.
“Why did you kill the animals?” She thought of
the several dead elk and the two large buffalo she had found over the last
month, dead and discarded. But she also thought of her goat, alive with her mamma
goat.
He said a word in his language and rubbed his
belly.
“You killed because you were hungry?” she
guessed.
He nodded.
“But you didn’t eat them.”
Something was off. He looked like a nice person.
Maybe only because he was tied up.
“Are you still hungry?”
He nodded.
“Did you eat the meat I left in the trap?” she
pointed to the opening above.
He followed her pointing automatically, but as
he looked up to the bright opening, he squinted and looked sharply away.
“Ah, I forgot you’re a night creature,” she
said. “The meat. Did you eat it?”
But he wasn’t looking at her anymore; his eyes
were closed tightly. Frustrated, she looked around and found her breechcloth
easily enough. The meat was still inside.
“Here, eat it,” she offered, bringing it close
to his hands.
He opened his eyes and made a face she didn’t
understand, and shook his head.
“What is it? You don’t eat elk? You don’t trust
me to feed you? You’re upset that you fell for this particular piece of meat?”
At each question he would just shake his head, and she was getting very
frustrated, until she all but yelled, “What is it?”
Then very swiftly he grabbed her arm and
pointed to the inside of her wrist, saying some words in his language. Alarmed
that he had grabbed her, she pulled her hand back and fell silent. He then touched
his own neck. She didn’t understand what he meant, so she just shook her head.
Looking frustrated, with some effort he sat up,
and brought his tied hands to his mouth. Then he bit his own wrist. She gasped
as she saw he had drawn blood. But he wasn’t done—he thrust out his bloodied
wrist for her to see, then very deliberately brought his open wound back to his
mouth, and drank.
She gasped.
She remembered the animals, a similar bite on
them. And her dead uncle, how his neck had been ripped open.
At this, the boy nodded. Then very slowly, he
bared his fangs, pointing at one of them.
She understood, and was terrified.
He was
a monster.
She ran. Out of the cave and into the safety of
the light. Back to her village, running.
But she thought of him all day.
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