Late last summer, I was going north for my brother’s wedding. It was at the start of my vacation, so I decided to make a few stops on my way up north. I’d make a stop for camping, another for a day of fishing, and so on. My brother, who was stopping in Minneapolis, was pushing hard for us to have a day to go shopping together, and I was just not feeling it. He was all head-in-the-clouds in love and talking about his blissful future, and it just soured my mood. How could my younger brother surpass me in so many different ways?
Nevermind.
I was passing through a small Minnesota town when I decided to make my first stop; fishing. That’d get me far from the blinding smile of my brother. It’d be just me, a six-pack, and all the time in the world. Deal.
There was a lake that ran through the west side of town and curled into the woods. There was a dirt road coming around the back of the lake, opposite of the town. It’d probably take an hour or two just to trek back to town through the undergrowth; it was a pretty big lake. The locals seemed friendly enough at the gas station, and you didn’t need a license to fish, so I figured… hell, why not?
So I drove the long way around, parked my car, got my gear, and dug along the tree line for bait. Didn’t take long to fill up a jar. I followed the path down to the lake, bait in hand. It was almost lunch time, and I’d gotten a few sandwiches and a six pack from a nearby gas station. I had this really comfy camping chair, an audio book, and nowhere to be for the next 18 hours. Hell, if I skipped my Minneapolis shopping spree with Smiley McGee I could stay an extra day out here. Also, this gave me an excellent excuse to just skip going there at all.
Needless to say, I was psyched.
As I walked up to the lake, I noticed a wooden sign. Handmade and painted, with a clear text; “MELONHEAD”.
I stopped just to re-read it a couple of times. Melonhead. What the hell was a Melonhead?
I took a picture of it and kept walking.
As I got closer to the lake, I started hearing frogs. Like, a lot of frogs. There was this strong, intense smell of vegetation in the air. But, as every good outdoorsman knows, frogs are basically a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Sure, in some environments they can be intrusive (looking at you, Australia), but that wasn’t the case up north.
I put up my camping chair on the beach. I took off my shoes and prepped two fishing rods. I put them into empty bottles that I dug into the sand, so I could set them aside. I leaned back in my chair, cracked a cold one, and put a baseball cap over my face. As Will Patton started reading me the Bill Hodges trilogy, I completely zoned out. This was what I’d been working for all year. This was a proper vacation.
I must’ve fallen asleep, probably for an hour or so. When I woke up, I’d completely lost track of my audio book. My beer was warm by now, and my fishing bobbers had drifted all the way back to the beach. I got up, reeled in the lines, and reached for my bait; only to notice it was tipped over in the sand; empty.
Strange.
I left my gear on the beach, got my shovel, and returned to the tree line. It took me longer to find bait this time, and I had to go a bit deeper. The frogs were a bit more quiet now, and there were a few clouds gathering on the horizon. I decided I wouldn’t stay the night unless the rain passed me by; I didn’t want to get stuck in a muddy tent overnight. I could sleep in the car, I suppose.
As I got back to my camping chair, I got a bad feeling. Something seemed out of place. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but it looked… different. Something had been moved.
Will Patton kept talking in my ear, but I was no longer hearing the story. By now it was just noise, like a friend who didn’t know when to stop talking. As my phone chimed with a notification from my brother, I turned it off and took off my headphones. It took me a few seconds to realize that all the frogs had gone silent. I just stood there with my bait jar, hearing an eerie wind pass through the birch trees.
I decided I’d give it another go. If it started to rain, I’d just sleep in my car. So I got back, threaded my bait, and threw my bobbers out one more time. I set my rods back up, put my headphones back on, and put away my lukewarm beer.
As I brought up my phone and started rewinding the audio book, I noticed a ripple on the lake. Not a big one, but a noticeable one. Probably fish breaching the surface. Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause after all.
Just a few minutes later, the first bobber dipped under the surface. It immediately came back up, but now I knew that fish were biting. Moments later, the second bobber dipped. I held my breath, waiting to see the bobbers dip for real. There were fish there, it was only a matter of time.
But minutes passed, and I got a strange feeling. I reeled in one of the bobbers and noticed the bait was completely gone. I reeled in the second one, and it was the same; bait was gone. Very determined and skilled fish in this lake, definitely.
I decided to try something different. I brought up my box of spinners and found a black and blue lure that usually worked on bass. My best rod had a spinning reel, so that’d work just fine. I set it up, stepped up to the edge of the beach, and threw it out. Solid, beautiful arc, way into the lake.
Half an hour passed, and I just got back into the rhythm. The click of the spinning reel, the smoothness of the line… it was nice. Just nice.
Then, a bite. Not a big one, but a bite. Finally!
I hooked it and started reeling. Not twitching, just a solid, steady reel. Probably not a big fish, about a pound at most, but now I had something to show. Would probably make a neat insta post, or something for my tinder profile. Laugh at it if you want; it works.
My lure was about halfway back when the line suddenly snapped. It wasn’t even from the pressure; it was as if the line was just… cut. The fishing line snapped out of the water. I just dropped my rod in the sand and threw up my arms.
“What the fuck?!” I yelled, to myself. “What the fuck was that?!”
And there, out on the lake, another ripple.
I had enough. I packed up my things, trudged back up to my car, and dumped it all in the trunk; even the lukewarm beer. I left the bait jar in the sand though; these worms were useless. By the time I sat down in the driver seat the first raindrops had started spattering against the hood of my car.
Then, my phone chimed. Of course, the third time my brother was asking if I would make it to Minneapolis tomorrow. I groaned out loud. I couldn’t take that kind of… toxic positivity. I just couldn’t. I needed space.
“Sorry” I texted back. “I just set up camp, I’m here for at least another day.”
So as to not make myself a liar, I decided I’d stay the night. I’d sleep in the car, and just listen to my audio book. That was a kind of camping, right?
I had a tuna sandwich packed away, and my lukewarm beer was almost palpable. Not much of a dinner, but I didn’t feel like going back to town. It felt more appropriate to just stay out in the woods. I put my headphones back on, turned off notifications, and let Will Patton creep back into my mind.
As the clock crept later and later, my lukewarm beer was running out. About 9 pm, after a long nap and checking my YouTube subscriptions, I had to take a bathroom break.
The woods had gotten really dark, really fast. I didn’t have to go far, so I just stepped out into the forest and did my business. For a moment, I just stood there, breathing. I could see the lake from there, and I noticed another ripple. It was bigger this time. I zipped up, walked back out on the dirt path, and took a second look.
There was something in the lake. Nothing big, but… something round. About the size of a basketball.
I got back in my car and updated my Instagram. I was a bit pissy about not getting the fishing picture out of this trip, but hey, at least I got a picture of that weird sign. Maybe someone out there knew what it meant.
So I took another look at the picture. I noticed two things.
One – that round thing in the water can be seen in the background, down by the lake.
Two – there is a small spatter of color at the very top of the sign. It kinda looked like the sign was broken, now that I looked closer at it.
It gave me an idea.
I took one more trip out of the car, following the dirt path. Now, I could hear frogs again, and they were getting louder. Probably the rain luring them out. Using my phone as a flashlight, I looked around the sign. Just as I suspected, there was a second part to it, just off the path. It had been broken in two.
The text was clear.
“DON’T FEED”
“Don’t feed Melonhead”. What the…
I started thinking about what I’d done all day. My bait jar going empty. Bait being picked from the hooks. My fishing line being cut. Had I been feeding whatever the hell kind of animal Melonhead was?
I turned back to my car, only to see someone standing on the path.
I didn’t raise my phone. I didn’t want to make any sudden movements. I just froze, like a deer in headlights. I could barely make out a humanoid shape, but I got this sudden realization that I was out, alone, in the middle of nowhere; and now something was blocking my path.
It was tall. Like… two heads taller than me. It had sort of a hunchback, and these long, webbed fingers. It had this irregular breathing, rattling a large sac in its chest.
It dropped my bait jar on the path in front of me.
“More.”
This awful, gurgling noise. Somewhere halfway between a regurgitation and breathing in.
I carefully picked up the jar and looked up. Whoever this was had this big, melon-sized head.
This was what I’d seen sticking out of the lake all day. It even had a tint of green.
“I-I need my shovel” I gasped. “It’s just-“
“MORE!”
It stepped towards me with a splat. I fumbled backwards, tripping over my own feet. I crawled into the underbrush and just started digging with my hands.
I stood there on my hands and feet, ripping into the ground with my fingers. Thick globs of something sticky dripped down as Melonhead loomed over me. Every now and then I felt something wiggle between my fingers as I filled the jar with dirt and worms.
I held it up, and Melonhead just poured it over its face. The dirt was filtered out and spat back out, as the jar was dropped back down next to me.
“MORE!”
I must’ve dug for hours. Just as soon as I filled the jar, it emptied it. Hour after hour, I just dug, and dug, and dug. Breaking my nails, having my fingertips cut by little rocks and roots.
I have no idea how long I was there. Hours. An eternity. Every time I slowed down, there was this sound like a man-sized rattlesnake getting antagonized behind me. I even stopped pleading, I just… kept going. The rain intensified, drenched me, but I couldn’t tell if my shivers came from fear or cold.
At some point, when I held up the jar, it didn’t take it. The sun was rising out of the dark clouds, and the frogs had gone quiet again. My knees crackled as I got back up, and my fingers were trembling. I was covered in dirt, and my clothes were soaked. There was no one there. I leaned against the closest tree, tried to find the right words, but instead just collapsed into crying.
When I got back to my car, I plugged in my phone. As it charged, I called the one person I wanted there; my brother.
I had to get away. I just drove, mindlessly. I have no memory of what I did, or how I ended up at a gas station. I don’t have the slightest idea how my brother found me there. I just remember being glad he did.
It has taken me a long time to come to terms with what happened. For a while I thought I’d had some kind of mental breakdown, thinking that what I experienced was just something I made up. I didn’t talk about it; it sounded ridiculous to say out loud. But I really was there, all night. I was on my hands and knees, digging. I wouldn’t do that for nothing. I was there, and so was Melonhead.
I decided to finally make this post after I found a couple of people posting a picture of that same sign on Instagram the other week. It was still broken in half.
And right there, in the background, was that round thing bobbing in the water.