4/11, midday
There’s a lake near my childhood house that I’d swim in every summer and skate on every winter. It was always nice to wash the hay off after messing with the cows on a hot day.
My friend always said that there was something weird about the lake. I always blamed it on him being a wimp. He was never the best swimmer, so maybe it was the depth that scared him. It was fairly deep for a farm lake. He was always much more willing to skate on it during the winter.
We were about thirteen, maybe fourteen when it happened. We were young and thought we were invincible, like every other thirteen year old boy. We went out with less winter clothes than we should have had on. It was a warm winter day, at least in comparison to the other days. Looking back, that was probably a sign.
We stopped at the fence where some cows were. There wasn’t snow that day, though if it were to rain there certainly would have been. The cows never seemed to mind it, though.
When we got to the lake, it was frozen over in the brightest blue I had ever seen it. These long white cracks ran through it. It looked like the marbling of meat. Steak always reminds me of it now, if im entirely honest. The cracks were kind of under the ice, so we figured it would be safe enough.
Like I said, we were young and stupid and thought we were invincible.
We were fine for a while before it happened. My friend had skated out to the middle of the lake when he called out to me. He said one of the cracks had moved. I told him to get away from it since it was probably thinner there.
He told me no, the crack moved. Like it moved clear to the side, not like it was cracking more. I told him that either way, he should probably get away from the center of the lake. It was thinner there either way.
And then, and I’ll never forget this, but there was this sickening scraping sound. It was like when you sharpen a knife. My friend was staring down at the ice, and he shouted something about it moving again. And with a terrifying, loud crack, he was gone.
I of course ran over to where he was. And for a agonizingly long second, I thought about jumping in after him. I heard a knock on the ice, and a few paces away was my friend, under the ice. I’ll never forget his face. He was terrified. I was too.
I’m just glad that my skates were strong enough to break the ice. I don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t. I pulled him out, and he was so cold. I was freezing at that point. I got him back to the house and my father started a fire in the fireplace.
My friend had the perfect view of the lake from the window. He kept looking over to it, but every time he did it was almost like he didn’t want to.
Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask him about it. Neither of us felt very invincible anymore. He said that the crack had moved again, some kind of claw scraping against the ice before it broke through. It dragged him down until he kicked it with his skates and let him go. He swam up to find the ice above his head.
He was so pale after telling me that. I’d never seen him so scared. He refused to tell me, or anyone else, any more and made me swear not to tell anyone. I agreed, only because I thought his mind had made that up in the heat of the moment.
We both stopped going to the lake after that. For me it was the memory. For my friend, he developed a fully fledged fear of deep water. He won’t swim in anything other than a pool now.
I went out there a few times after that, but I never saw anything. The ice was always clear after that.
Its been years. I came back to visit yesterday. My parents are getting older, so I’m helping out with the farm for a bit. Its nostalgic being here, sleeping in my old room and whatnot. The window in it faces right out towards that lake. There’s a small tree near the shore of it now. Its summer again, and the cows love to stand in it.
Yesterday, I looked out and saw a cow standing near the tree in the lake. There were these weird, spindly white roots coming from the tree I hadn’t noticed before. The cow was pretty noticeable too. Most of the others are brown or black, but this one is blond. Apparently my mother raised it from a calf after I moved out.
This morning, I asked my parents what kind of tree was by the lake. They said I’d have to be more specific, so I said the one with the white roots. They said there wasn’t a tree by the lake with white roots.
So I pointed out the window and showed them. It was still there, along with the blond cow. My father shrugged and just said he’d look into it. Seeing it was the end of the conversation, I got ready for the day’s chores.
I kept my eye on the lake while I worked. That cow stared at me the entire time. I brushed it off since it had been raised by humans.
I was on break, in my room. I looked out the window. The roots weren’t there anymore. Neither was the cow.
I’m writing this at the dinner table, much to my parents’s distaste. Apparently nobody had seen the blond cow since that afternoon, so my mother went out to look. Now im just waiting for her to come back in. …
-11pm
She came back ten minutes or so ago. She couldn’t find the cow. I’ll have to look around later. She looked pretty worried.
Either way, it’s getting pretty late. The lake is calm. …
-8/11
Morning now. Leaving as soon as I can. A farmhand found the cow’s head floating in the lake.