Macka Lake ✔ [short story]

MACKA LAKE | 3

I wanted to yell. To shout. Instead, all I could manage was a scratchy croak. "I'm not scared of you."

The periodic plip-plop of muted underwater movements matched my own rabbiting heartbeat.

I forced myself to inch the last bit of distance, tightening my grip on the handle of the cleaning bucket, not feeling any less tense or braver. For a split-second, the absolution that I was playing right into the trap flashed through my mind like some sort of sickening last-seconds-of-life movie.

There was no going back from this. No Try Again?

If It had crushed military marines, if It had flung its arms impromptu and dragged down a whole police unit with no hesitation as retaliation for the gunfire, It was more than capable of snapping this twig-like floating dock. How would a flimsy pocket knife be enough to sever Its limb? How could a kid with noodles for legs and arms who didn't know how to swim stood a chance against this creature, against half-aliens whose domain was water?

I'd have laughed aloud at myself, if the gravity of my decision hadn't suddenly registered into me—that this was real, that this wasn't another lucid imagination I had rehearsed over and over again with myself.

If I died here, that would be it.

⸻

The Chamber was small, when I finally reached it. Brown and windowless, held in place by a rope twice thicker than my arms. The exterior railing groaned softly as the whole structure swayed. Grabbing the post for balance, I hopped onto the porch. The Chamber tipped a bit, but the lifebuoys held and balanced out after a few seconds. Inhaling deeply, I gathered enough courage to reach out and try the door. The knob resisted at first, rusty and slick with moss, before finally turning.

The first thing that hit me was the smell. Licorice and mayan mint, sweat and blood and spit and come, skin and sex. The sweet, acrid scent poured out in rogue waves, dizzying and repugnant, slamming into me hard enough that my eyes almost rolled to the back of my head. I clamped a hand across my face, gripping the door frame, purple circles bloomed behind my eyelids. My body immediately reacted to whatever chemical presented in the scent—the muscles clenching, straining and nerves turned raw and sensitive.

The Chamber interior was bare-bone. There wasn't any furniture, save for the iron-frame queen-sized bed taken up the centre of the Chamber, a bedside drawer and a rectangular, wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. The bed sheet was rumpled, however, whatever imprint of the body last laid on it had already long gone, leaving patches of sticky fluid on the duvet.

Setting the bucket and the mop down, I crossed the room. The tiny vent near the top corner barely let a single, narrow feeble ray of light to illuminate the musky darkness. My shoes made wet, disgusting suction noises. I stepped over the discarded clothes haphazardly strewn across the gooey floor until I found the pink blouse and green box-pleated skirt Zoe had worn on the day she was Picked. I squatted, turning fabric inside out.

Nothing.

"No."

I rooted through the stiff, hospital blue shirts and pants, fingers scrabbling for something—anything.

There was nothing.

I half-lunged, half-clawed toward the chest and felt my rib cages constricted as I heaved the chest opened, feeling my face contorted as my worst fear was confirmed. "Please, no." The chest contained a washcloth, a basin, and an unused change of clothes. That was it.

Nothing under the bed, the mattress, either. Nothing hidden between the folds of the duvet.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.