Swamp Monster Love

Chapter 2: Christine

I went to Hansen's Pond to see Christine Felcht. If you knew Christine Felcht, if you had ever seen her nose crinkle when she laughs or smelled the lightly perfumed air that trails in her wake, you would understand about Christine.

And if you'd heard the rumors about skinny dipping, you'd understand about Hansen's Pond.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not a stalker, or a voyeur or anything creepy and/or French like that. We brought our swimsuits, my best friend Todd and I, and after considerable debate, we left our phones (more to the point – the cameras on our phones) in the car. We may have come to gape, but we meant to do it in the most respectable way possible. Preferably as participants.

Chip was the one who put us up to it, which is the main reason he now suspects me.

"If you're so hot for her, why don't you just go to Hansen's Pond tomorrow night?"

I knew he was baiting me for something, I really did. But I couldn't help biting. "I'm not hot for Christine. You're the one she's always trying to talk to. I barely know her. Besides, she's a year older than me."

"You had her sign your yearbook twice last year."

"Stay out of my stuff, Chip. I just forgot she had signed."

"You didn't forget. She forgot. She doesn't even know you exist."

"We were in drama club together."

"We were in drama club together." When he mocks me, Chip uses a voice so stupid that I am embarrassed I ever said the words, or that I speak the same language the words were spoken in, or that I speak at all. There is no defense against this weapon of verbal mass destruction, so I respond the only way I can.

"Shut up. Stupid jerk." Then, to my shame, I caved. "What's at Hansen's Pond anyway, jerk of stupidity?"

And then he told me about the skinny dipping. Never mind that he was hazy on details–the possibility alone was enough. I think I might have resisted, I really do, but once Chip told Todd, there was no backing out.

Now, with the disappearance of both Todd and Christine, it's no surprise Chip has put the dots together–even though the dots don't make a square. Or even a decent triangle. What I mean to say is that although Todd and Christine and I are all part of this, we're just the dots on the periphery. There is so much more to the picture than any of us understand.

Even as I consider all this, I feel both sickened and strangely elated by the realization that Christine and I are finally connected, even if it is only by the coincidence of time and place, and what I must assume will be my eventual death, aerosol can or not.