Across the Lake
Chapter 5: The Urban Legend
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When I got back to the cabin, I looked around for a specific strange masked man. Nope. He wasn't around. With that, I shuffled up the stairs and locked the door behind me.
Placing the food on the counter, I began assembling a sandwich. My stomach was eating itself by the time I was done making it. I forgot the mayo so my sandwich was very dry. I sighed, but just continued eating, I was too hungry to even bother with forgetting the mayo. I wasn't going to go all the way back for one small jar of mayo. The skies were getting dark and I didn't like the idea of going out super late at night.
After the sandwich, I decided to build a fire in the fireplace. I placed the oak and maple logs into the fire and struck a match. Once the fire was given life and began to eat the crumpled newspaper articles and oak logs, I curled up on the couch and grabbed my sketchbook. It's been a whole three days since I sketched in my sketchbook.
It was a special Strathmore leather-bound mixed media sketchbook; filled with ink drawings, sketches, mini paintings of fantasy characters, animals from the zoo, café sketches, food, mini comics of original characters, story backgrounds, and watercolor illustrations for my art classes assignments. The recent sketchbook's pages were so thick from keeping the paints and inks from bleeding through to the other pages, it was hard to close the book completely. I opened the book up, causing all the pages to flutter open up like a flower full of color. I opened to a blank page and began to doodle.
I first started doodling what I saw in the living room; the sunlight streaming through the slightly closed curtains over the windows, the mantle above the fireplace with the bullet shells, even the creepy moose head. Soon my mind began to wander and I found myself doodling the weird guy in the hockey mask across the lake. I didn't realize I was drawing him until I finished darkening the outline around the mask. I stared down at the drawing and immediately felt uneasy, but curious.
Who was he?
Why was he at the lake?
Why was he wearing a hockey mask?
The wood popped and crackled in the fireplace. The shadows stretched and darkened inside the living room as the sun slowly began to set. The sky was a deep indigo by the time I felt tired and was ready to head upstairs to bed. I closed my sketchbook, now with new drawings of hockey masks and dark, mysterious figures.
I walked upstairs and got ready for bed. The creaking sounds of the cabin still made me a little tense. Even the ones I made, feeling as though I could be heard even from outside. When I got under the covers and into bed, I fell into a deep sleep, and immediately dreamed of the masked figure and the lake.
I was watching him from below the waters. He was staring down at me as I stared back up at him, his image moving. My head under the surface. Unable to breathe. I reached up my hands to him. Something grabbed me from below the depths. I couldn't tell what it was but it wrapped around my waist tightly and pulled me down deeper into the black waters. It screamed my name. Bubbles formed around me as I sank.
Deeper...
Deeper...
Deeper...
Crash!
A loud crash was heard from downstairs. I sat bolt upright, gasping for air. My pajamas soaked with sweat. My heart skipped a few beats and my blood went ice cold. It took me a moment for my brain to work and to connect the dots together.
I just had another drowning nightmare.
There was a loud crash from downstairs.
Downstairs. A crash. There's nothing downstairs that can crash on their own. Unless someone caused something to crash. Immediately my brain started freaking out while my eyes looked for a weapon to defend myself with. My dad didn't own a lot of weapons, so I had to improvise.
I grabbed my extra paint knife from my bag near the bed.
In my fake fur slippers, fuzzy coat and a paint knife in my hand, I bravely walked out of the master bedroom and quietly down the stairs. I held the paint knife out in front of me like a long sword. Ready to stab anyone.
When I got down the stairs, I peeked around the corner. Nothing. No sign of a break in at the door. The door was still closed and locked. I didn't see anything broken. I turned on the lights to make it less spooky, and looked around the living room.
Nothing.
I checked the kitchen, the bathroom, the small closet. I was very nervous of checking the basement. You never go down in the basement. That's how people died in horror movies. I just opened the door and used my useless phone as a flashlight and shined down inside really quick.
Nothing.
I slammed the door of the basement really fast and spun back around, facing the living room area with the couches and fireplace. The fire was dead, the embers were barely glowing. I stared at the curtain. A dark shape loomed behind it. It looked like someone was hiding behind the curtain. I saw the curtain rustle a bit. Fear held me for a few minutes before deciding what to do. I gripped the handle of the paint knife tighter. With a cry I ripped the curtain open and swiped fast.
The tip of the blade made a loud shriek noise as it ran across the window pane. No one was there. Just my shocked reflection and a line running across it. My hair stood up on my arms. Shit, I hope dad doesn't see what I did to the glass. I decided to pull the curtain back over the thin scratch I made, hiding the damage, and moving on to the other curtain.
I found the source of the loud crash. It was a rock. The wind was blowing through the hole in the window, which caused the curtains to move. The local kids must have been throwing rocks at the cabin, thinking no one was home...Or they thought it would be funny to scare me. Either way, I'll need to talk to the sheriff about that in the morning.
My heart was still racing, but I managed to sigh in relief. No one broke into the house. I was alone. My last thought was to look out the window before going back upstairs and bundling up in the warm covers and blankets. I turned my head and looked out the window.
All I saw was black. No indication of any trees or the lake itself. I blinked in confusion. Why is the outside so pitch black like a void? I should be able to see the porch at least. I cupped my hands around my eyes to block out the lights behind me. My nose was pressed up against the glass as I squinted out to the darkness. Pure black.
How was it this dark?
It took me a moment to realize it wasn't pitch black outside... The darkness looked like dark colored fabric. A shirt of some sort. Like I was looking at something up close and not outside. I moved my face away from the glass and looked up, causing myself to fall backwards in terror.
A tall, dark, hulking figure stood right on the other side of the window where I had been looking out. The hockey mask pressed against the glass on the other side. His shoulders rose and fell as he breathed heavily. His breath fogged the glass; while from the black pool eyeholes of the mask, I could see eyes from within. The eyes stared down at me. Cold and hard like steel...and very real.
I broke out of my frozen state and screamed, stumbling backwards, dropping my paint knife and completely forgetting about it. It was the figure! The guy across the lake! The man in the hockey mask just watched me as I stumbled like an idiot away from the window and back towards the stairs; running on all fours up the stairs like a frightened animal.
I ran into the master bedroom to the radio on the nightstand; and pulled out the card Jackson gave to me with shaking hands. My breathing was fast and uneven. I pushed the numbers and lifted the radio up to my mouth. The person on the other end answered. It was a woman.
"Hello, New Jersey Police D-" she started.
"There's someone here! Please! Can you please come up here! There's someone out here! They are outside my window!" I stumbled over the words pouring out of my mouth. The lady on the other end spoke in a calm and professional tone.
"It's alright, I'm sending Sheriff Jackson to your cabin," she said. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. "Thank you so much," I responded, not yelling anymore.
"No problem, that's what we are here for. Do you know your location?"
My blood went from hot to cold in point two seconds.
"Uh...no...I d-..." My voice trailed off as I looked frantically around for any sign of coordinates or numbers to say where the hell I was. There was a shit ton of trees! Trees, trees and more trees! How can you-
"No problem, Jackson told me he knows which cabin you are. Your dad is known for fixing things around town, and going to Sally's diner every morning."
"I...uh...erm...ok..." was all I was able to get out of my mouth. The lady on the other end could tell I was stressed out and helped me calm down. She told me her name was Courtney; then asked me my name and what I was doing while at my dad's cabin, distracting me from panicking more. I answered her questions as best as I could, still not shaking away the panicked feeling inside.
A loud knock came from downstairs, making me jump.
"Jackson radioed to me that he's at your cabin," said Courtney. I hesitated. What if Jackson was at the wrong cabin? What if it was the weird hockey mask guy pretending to be the sheriff?
"Hello?" asked Courtney, interrupting my thoughts.
"Hi, yes I'm here. Ok, thank you," I said nervously back into the phone.
"No problem, you have a good night, bye" said Courtney, ending the radio call.
I placed the receiver back before going downstairs.
Both of the curtains were closed so I couldn't tell if the masked man was still outside waiting for me. I stood fifteen feet from the door, unable to move or decide what to do. I was so terrified, my brain kept thinking back to the hockey mask. He was so close to me-
"Hey. It's just me. Jackson," I heard the familiar male voice say. I immediately opened the door and found the smiling clean shaven officer standing before me. Ignoring him, I peeked around the doorway to where the figure had stood outside the window when I last saw him.
Gone.
"Uh...You ok?" asked Jackson in a worried tone when I turned my attention to him.
"There was a man in a hockey mask! He was right here, staring at me through the window!" I told Jackson.
"A man in a hockey mask?" the young police officer asked. I nodded my head. "I have been seeing him since I got here a few days ago," I decided to add, hoping it would help the young officer out. Instead, he just gave me a strange, puzzled look.
"Hm...that's weird."
"What?" I asked. "What's weird? A guy wearing a hockey mask in the middle of the forest? I'd say its very weird!" I didn't mean to be sassy, but I was terrified. Sheriff Jackson didn't seem affected by my sass and started to explain what he meant.
"Well...two things of what it might be...One: it could be someone pranking you..." he started, I felt my mouth open, then close. Shit, I feel like such an idiot for not thinking that in the first place. I felt my cheeks grow hot.
"Or two...it's the ghost of Jason Voorhees." he said.
I blinked in confusion. "...Jason? Who's Jason Voorhees?" I asked.
The young officer took a deep breath and exhaled. "He's kind of an urban legend around here, something you'd tell around a campfire late at night," Jackson explained.
"Like a ghost story?" I asked. Jackson nodded his head. "Yup. They would tell it like this: There was a camp called Camp Crystal Lake for young boys and girls during the summers. The camp was named after the lake, Crystal Lake, because of how clear the waters were. One day, Friday the 13th to be specific, a boy was being bullied by a bunch of kids near the lake. The teen counselors were having sex in one of the cabins when they were supposed to be watching the kids. The kids chased him to the edge of the pier and pushed him into the lake for being ugly and deformed.
The mother, Pamela Voorhees, grieving over the loss of her boy, got angry and went on a killing spree, killing all the teenage counselors one by one. Then, on the next Friday the 13th, she went out again and killed all the new counselors who came to the reopening of the camp. The last remaining teen counselor chopped her head off with a machete. That's when her son came back to life as a vengeful spirit, hiding his deformed face behind a hockey mask, avenging his mother's death."
I realized I wasn't breathing when he stopped telling his story. I exhaled. "So...is that a real story?" I asked. Jackson smiled. "If you believe in ghosts; but I think its just a spooky story for little kids, like that Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
I felt a wave of relief wash over me.
The sheriff chuckled softly, causing my face to grow hot from embarrassment. "Just a local legend. Every place has them. People twist stories into something interesting out of sheer boredom or to get tourists down here to buy their old knickknacks and roadside keychains." he said.
I nodded my head, not saying anything.
"From what the stories sound like, it sounds like it really was a kid who died out on the lake one night, and then kids swear they saw him standing at the edge of the lake; and the older folks in town don't like talking about it because it is possibly the worst thing to happen in this small town," Jackson continued.
That last part made my blood run cold. A ghost at the edge of the lake. Sheriff Jackson shrugged his shoulders. "It's just a story, but if it makes you feel any better, I'll take a look around and make sure no one is around here."
I nodded my head. "That would be great, thanks."
He nodded back. "No problem."
When he left, I started to feel very embarrassed. This whole place was open for anyone to come hiking or fishing. This wasn't my dad's lake, it was a public lake. Crystal Lake. I felt stupid for jumping to conclusions. If this Jason Voorhees guy was a known urban legend around here, then most likely someone was pulling a prank. Most likely doing a photoshoot or a video for their online platform.
After ten minutes, Jackson came back and told me the coast was clear. I thanked him again before he got back into his car and drove off. I closed the door and locked it. My eyes flickered back to the window where I had seen the figure. The curtain moved a little from the broken glass. From there I could still see the fogged glass where he had breathed.
I thought back to Jackson's ghost story. A boy drowned in the lake. Wouldn't that mean he was still a boy if he were a ghost? He wouldn't be a grown adult. Ghosts can't age.
I looked up at the fogged glass.
And ghosts can't breathe...
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