A Night At The Lake

                The crowded middle school lunchroom was abuzz with a new rumor.

               “Yeah the man in the water’s real! Johnny swam it and no one’s heard from him for three days,” exclaimed a voice off in the distance. Tom and Andrew were sitting at a table by themselves, wondering what all of the fuss could be about.

               “He probably just faked sick to stay home from school and scare everybody,” said Andrew unenthusiastically. "Who cars anyway, Johnny sucks.”

               “For real,” Tom said with a pause. “Wouldn’t it be cool though, if the rumor was true?”

               “What’s the rumor about anyway?” asked Andrew.

               “You mean you haven’t heard?!” a passing student exclaimed. “Eighty years ago, a man named Carl Rice was running from the police. He thought he would take a short cut through the woods, but he tripped and hit his head on a rock. He rolled down the hill and into the lake behind the new Grub Panther grocery store. He drowned in the lake that night. They say if you go to the lake at one in the morning and swim across, you’ll see him lying on the bottom of the lake. But swim carefully, because if you wake him,” the student paused, looked around, and leaned in closer, “He’ll get you!” The student laughed and walked away.

               “So Andrew, you wanna go check it out?”

               “Why? It’s not like anything is actually going to happen.”

               “Yeah but when we do it and nothing happens, we can prove that Johnny’s a faker!”

               “You make a good point. I guess we can go,” said Andrew excitedly.

               That night Andrew told his parents that he was staying with Tom, and Tom told his parents he was staying with Andrew. The boys then met up at the local park, and began the dark, eerie walk to the lake. They couldn’t take the short way by the grocery store, someone may see them and tell their parents what they were up to. The boys found a small opening in the bushes and crawled through, one after the other. “This sucks it’s too dark out here, I can’t see anything,” said Andrew as he brushed the dirt off his knees.

               “Don’t be such a girl,” Tom said as he shoved Andrew. “Besides, I’ve got us covered,” he said as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight. The boys high fived, and slowly began to creep through the thick, dark woods. They walked for what seemed like hours. They began to become paranoid hearing the occasional creature of the night rustled or dashed a few feet away from them. The boys rejoiced when they finally heard the light trickle of water. “Ok, let’s swim across, dry off, and head over to your brother’s house Andrew, this place gives me the creeps.” Andrew looked at Tom and nodded. The boys threw their backpacks to the shore across the lake, and slowly began to step into the water. The boys swam as fast, and quietly as they could across the lake, grabbed their bags on the other side and began the dash to Andrew’s brother’s house. Thankfully, it was only a few minutes away, so they would be there in no time. The boys arrived at Andrew’s brother’s house and quickly shot through the door. Andrew’s brother wasn’t home but knew they would be coming so he left a key under the mat outside. When they turned the light on, the boys noticed they were covered in mud. “Hey Tom, I’m gonna take a shower real fast, and then you can.”

               “Sounds good Andrew, just hurry. I wanna get this gunk off of me.” Andrew stepped into the bath room and noticed something very strange. There was no shower head, just a bath tub. He turned the nob, and flipped the stopper and waited as the bath tub filled. He felt something strange so he turned to the mirror to see what it was. “I guess I ran through some sticks,” he said wiping the blood from his forehead. He turned back to the bath tub to turn the water off, when he saw on old, scrawny man lying in the bottom of it. Andrew let out a blood curdling scream and stepped back in shock. Seconds later, the old man’s eyes quickly shot open, and gazed up at Andrew.