A/N: I think I wrote too much fluff yesterday (worked on the fake dating follow-up as well). This was basically a horror story in my head, but I toned it down significantly and kept it vague so I wouldn't have to up the rating. I suppose this is Gen fic (?).
Day 10: Write about a frozen lake.
The full moon illuminating the frozen lake, surrounded by trees, did nothing to make the scene before him less eerie. Tony shifted from foot to foot, and pulled up the collar of his NCIS issued vest, wishing he'd layered up a bit more. He glanced down, then clenched his jaw and looked towards the thin clearing in the trees.
What the hell was keeping Ziva and McGee?
The deafening silence was broken by the hoot of an owl. Tony held his breath as his right hand shot to his gun on instinct. He let out an annoyed sigh, realizing it was just a bird, and shook his arms loose in an effort to relax.
There was nothing calm about the stillness surrounding him. He pursed his lips in an effort to not start whistling. He'd never liked it when things were quiet, but this silence would freak even Gibbs out.
A simple breeze, rustling through the trees, would help put his mind at ease.
Tony stared at the ice below his feet again. He'd seen a lot of weird and creepy things during his years in law enforcement, but this one was definitely in the top five.
He and Ziva had driven up to the log cabin two hours ago, following a lead on a missing lieutenant. His gaze drifted to his left, then his right, and he blinked rapidly. They had found more than they bargained for, that was for sure.
They were out in the boondocks and by the time the rest of team got here with the gear, darkness had fallen. He jammed his hands in his armpits and wished they'd gone home and returned to the crime scene in the morning. He had a bad feeling about this.
The dead lieutenant staring up at him from below the icy barrier wasn't what made him long for the comfort of his couch and a distracting movie, though. The four other dead people, ten deer, three wolves, and random body parts and indefinable shapes, however, made the level of creepiness spike to unknown heights.
Not usually squeamish around corpses, the fear on their faces below the ice made his stomach clench uncharacteristically. Undoubtedly, Ducky would come up with some logical explanation. Probably something along the lines of slack muscles and water freezing and whatnot.
His gaze drifted to one of the deer. He wondered if the same Ducky logic would apply to its expression. He narrowed his eyes, something felt off.
From the corner of his eye he picked up a shadow moving below the ice. He blinked slowly then looked up to check for clouds; surely it was just a trick of the eye, a cloud moving in front of the moon up above casting a shadow down below.
Nope, not a cloud in the night sky.
The hair at the back of his neck stood on end and his gaze drifted down again. And that's when he saw it, more distinctly this time; a dark shape, roughly ten feet long, moving underneath the ice.
He stood momentarily frozen. It had to be a fish, right? The size was probably skewed, something about light and water and refraction or something. Right?
But then the shadow reappeared on his right and bumped into the wolf corpse partially stuck to the ice. The dead animal moved and tore apart, and Tony's eyes went wide.
With a yelp he ran and skidded the fifteen feet of ice separating him from the shore. Naturally, Ziva and McGee chose this exact moment to emerge from the tree line, arms loaded with gear. He stumbled onto shore, his pulse racing, then bent over and placed his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath.
Ziva looked at him, eyebrows crinkled. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen ghost."
He stood up straight, still gasping for air, eyes fixed on the frozen lake. "There…was something…something moved," he finally got out, pointing in the direction where he had seen the shadow.
Ziva's hand went to her gun as she peered out over the empty expanse in front of them. "I do not see anything. Did it take off into the woods?" she asked with a furtive glance.
McGee started laughing sardonically and Tony glared at him.
"Come on, Tony, it was probably just a shadow from a bird, or a cloud, or something," McGee said.
"Or something sounds right," Tony bit back. "It was underneath the ice, McSkeptical, about ten feet long. Black and shimmery."
He looked at the ice again. "It tore off a piece of one of the wolves," he said in a strained voice.
Ziva fixed her gaze on him again, hand still on the gun at her hip. She narrowed her eyes at him. Unlike the Probie, she had seen the dead bodies under the ice. And suddenly he flashed back to an empty ship in the middle of nowhere, and Ziva saying she kept an open mind to the unknown.
At least someone believed him.
"It was a fish," McGee said with a sneer. "It probably looked bigger than it was because of limited visibility."
Tony clenched his jaw and wondered what Gibbs would have to say when he got here.
Ziva dropped the bag she was still holding, and moved towards the edge of the lake. Tony sprang forward, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back.
She glared at him. "If there is something messing with our crime scene, we need to do something about it," she said.
Evidently she wasn't going to let an unknown creature of the deep stop her from doing her job. He refused to let go of her arm just yet, weighing the pros and cons of taking a closer look.
A loud thud pierced the quiet surrounding them. It was quickly followed by the sound of ice creaking and breaking about fifteen feet ahead.
Tony's eyes went wide and his pulse started racing again as he grabbed for his gun. He glanced at Ziva, now aiming her own gun at the vast expanse of ice, then at McGee, eyes wide and mouth agape.
"It's been nice knowing you, Probie," Tony said tersely, focusing his attention on where the ice was still snapping and squeaking.
McGee looked at him after having reached for his own gun, fear and confusion written all over his face.
"The virgin always dies in a horror flick," Tony said.
McGee's face twisted in anger. "I'm not a-"
Another loud thud and shards of ice sprayed into the sky.
All three of them took a few steps back and trained their guns at the deep cracks that had appeared in the ice. Somewhere in the back of his mind Tony hoped this particular scenario wasn't going to end up in John Carpenter movie.
Seconds later the sound of ice shattering was followed by a dark creature bursting from the lake with an ear-shattering roar. They emptied their guns, leaving the black and gold scaly beast flopping on the icy surface until it finally stilled, the ice surrounding it turning a dark crimson.
Tony vaguely registered footsteps approaching rapidly. The head slap, however, registered clearly.
"You're not supposed to add new bodies to a crime scene," Gibbs said.