Toluca Lake

Days seemed to have passed since they’d arrived in town. For some reason, however, Mike couldn’t recall its name.

“What’s the name of this town again, Dave?” he asked his brother. The frog tattoo on Dave’s right hand shifted in and out of sight as he swung the oars opposite Mike. The fog was incredibly thick. Had he not known his brother was with him in the boat, Mike would have thought he was all alone in the middle of the lake. All he could hear was the creaking of the boat. His brother remained silent. “The pier’s pretty far away now. Where are we going?”

Dave remained silent. The silence was almost deafening. Suddenly, the rowing stopped.

“Dave?” Mike leaned forward to catch a glimpse of his brother’s face. The fog engulfed his face like a cold blanket. He saw the oars abandoned, the seat empty. Dave was gone. Mike’s heart sank. He started frantically looking around the boat, shouting for help. Everything was silent. But then he heard it. Static. It came from the portable radio Dave had brought with him. Mike picked it up and tried to fix the static somehow, but it only got louder.

And then, in an instant, he heard nothing again, as a huge force pushed him out of the boat, head-first into the lake. He could hear a loud pounding coming from within his skull, but did his best to remain lucid. The surface was further and further away. He tried to swim upwards, he couldn’t die in a place like this, but he wasn’t getting any closer to the surface. Something was pulling him down. He looked at his feet, the black abyss of the lake was overwhelming, but he thought he could make out a pale shape around his foot. As his eyes got used to the darkness, the shape became clearer. Mike let out a scream, inaudible in the lake’s cold depths. When the hand around his foot finally let go, his lifeless body sunk lower and lower into the black abyss, passing by the hand with the frog tattoo.