The fog was an unusual sight even to Tate McGucket, genius lake ranger, stock market predictor and one time mob boss. While his new life with his father was one of luxury and finery, it was another thing entirely to take him away from his precious lake.

After all, he had bait to rearrange, and if there was one thing that Tate took seriously, it was bait. He had even been dubbed the master baiter of 2011 until he decided to abandon the title in the name of public decency.

The fact it was 1AM did little to change his resolve. That bait needed rearranging. His customers noticed, even if they never said anything, or even spent more than two minutes looking at the bait. He knew it.

His enviable skills of bait were now so well known that the local authorities had given him the position of superior to another lake ranger. His short, bearded and husky comrade, Al Backle, was nowhere near Tate's ability and nature, but a fine man who took night shift every night without a word of complaint.

Stout, smiling and virtually unknown to the townsfolk. Out of Tate and Backle's Bait and Tackle, there was no doubt that Backle was the most unknown. Utterly expendable.

Worryingly expendable, if Tate was a man to consider such things. But he wasn't. He scratched his sideburns intently as he decided to move the twenty six bags of mealworms for the third time of the evening-

Then the noises began.

Tate peered out of the window and twisted his lip as he saw just about the strangest thing he had seen in the past six hours.

"Al, you wanna come look at this."

Al did exactly that and almost dropped the pipe that was balancing on his pronounced lower lip. "D-dang."

"Yep."

The bearded deputy ranger opened the door - as was his duty - and stared. At the foot of the jetty, a battered, wooden sailing ship. A sort of sloop, or miniature galleon, with torn sails and a towering, battered mast arrived, missing several planks of its hull, creaking uncomfortably as it cut its path through the smooth, glassy surface of the deathly still lake.

"She's sailin', Tate. Some kinda funny business." Al called out.

"Y'all got a 18th century galleon on the register?" Tate asked, looking through the ledgers. "Never seen this on day."

"No-Sir."

Tate huffed, grabbed his lantern, clipboard and pen and ran out to the jetty, more mildly irritated than particularly spooked. He didn't even take a second glance at the milky white fog that entombed them, staging a dramatic scene around that galleon that most would find blood curdling. He spoke firmly, with little emotion - classic, authoritative lake ranger stuff. "Now, hang on there. Y'all aren't registered here. What's yer sailin' reg?"

He held up the lantern and squinted into the decks of the ship, hoping to spot someone - anyone - he could confront and give the applicable $6.75 fine. He was surprised to see any visible parts of the ship empty. Had it been a Mary Celeste incident? It would be the 3rd this month. Those weren't great numbers. Not terrible. But not great.

He twisted his lip. Gonna be a night of paperwork. Just gotta tie the stray ship down and go get his red pen-

His perfectly organised plans were soon interrupted by the unmistakable shhnnnkk of cold metal sliding from leather. The unsheathing of swords, or really well sharpened steak knives. He had little time to distinguish the sound before the cacophony of Al's pained screams belowed from the mist-enrobed darkness.

They were blood curdling - echoing across the valley in a high pitched shriek. If Tate was a man to be scared, he most certainly would be.

"Al? Y'alright?" he asked, walking back along the jetty to find his comrade, lantern swinging in his hands. "Y'all get a splinter? Need the first aid kit?"

He stared. There, only a few feet ahead, was the gawking, slack jawed, agonised face of his best friend. A scarlet red was splattered against the wooden boards of the jetty.

Al gurgled in agony and fell to his knees. "They- they-"

Tate ran to him and stared in fear. Or, at least, as much horror as the taciturn ranger could manifest.

His best friend, his deputy - and even his heir to lake ranger duties in the Gravity Falls Oregon area - lay there, battered and torn open...

...Or, at least, his clothes were.

"They dun sliced up mah best life jacket, Tate! An' mah beard! They ruined mah beard! Mah beard ain't equal no more!" he sobbed.

Within every inch of the life jacket - and the harsh cuts that had swung off three inches of facial hair from Al's red, round face - there were marks of a sword. Tate could tell it was a sword due to the tiny scimitar that still sat perched inside one of the life jacket's inflatable air pockets, right alongside the destroyed jelly sandwich that had splashed strawberry preserve onto the decking.

Tate pulled the miniature sword free and glared. "Yep. That's some funny business. Imma have to tell my pops."

"Tate, ah.. ah… ah don't think imma make it."

"You wanna cup of gravy to cure your troubles?"

"Boy, ah do like my gravy." Al grinned, standing up and dusting himself off. "So long as ah kin get a new regulation life jacket."

"My friend, y'all can get two." Tate replied. "if that ain't no cure fer trauma, I don't know what is."

They made their way back along the jetty, completely oblivious to the fact it was now chipped and creaking, as if a thousand pairs of teeth had been nibbling at its every joist and plank.

They soon got an all-too-unpleasant snap back to reality.

The mooring quaked and swayed underneath their grade-four tackle-arranging boots. It seemed to slowly sink. Piece by piece, the waterbound structure began to collapse behind them, plank after plank falling limply into the smooth waters. Joists dropped, scaffold slipped downwards, ladders tumbled - all sequentially, like sinister, splashing, structural dominoes.

"Mah gawd, Tate, ah ain't ever seen nothin' like this!"

"Yep. Jus' gotta keep runnin'."

"Ya sure seem calm, Tate. Ah've no idea how ya kin be so-"

"Jus' keep runnin'."

"Tate, it's sure as hell catchin' up!!"

The two men sped up - and lept for the coast as, behind them, the entire thing fell, tumbling like a stack of playing cards into the rippling, moonlit waters of the deep, mysterious lake, disappearing before their eyes into a combination of fog, precipitation and sinister, rippling waves.

They puffed and panted with horror as they gazed upon the jetty's remains, marked out in viciously chewed support timbers that peeked through the water like sharpened, splintered teeth, splashed and washed by the impacts of their fallen brethren landing in the water.

Tate and Al blinked at eachother, then looked back in even greater horror at their beloved ranger hut and tackle shop, under attack. A brutal, screeching, gnawing attack of wild abandon by waterfaring beasts with swords and tattered velvet hats.

They got inside the place. In its rafters. In its cupboards. In the cellar. In the shop.

Bait and woodchip flew everywhere, much to the duo's unending anguish. The perfectly arranged shop was no longer. Licence papers, records, keyrings and a prize mounted catfish flew skywards.

"They're destroyin' the joint, Tate! Ah've not seen carnage like this since ah we gots a groupa cowls livin' in th' roof!"

"Yep. A dark day for bait and tackle, Al."

"What are we gonna do?!"

"We're goin' home, Al. We're goin' home, we're gonna drink gravy, an' we're gonna get help."

"Dang."

"Yep."

The two fled as, no longer able to sustain against further punishment from the shadowy creatures, the Ranger Station - not to mention the state's 14th finest Bait and Tackle shop - fell, as if it were the walls of Jericho. The fog and the beavernants had claimed their first lumber-loaded victim, and had done so with unbelievable speed and fury.

There was no hesitation.

There was no time.

There was only spilt mealworm.

And then…

Nothing.