Sheriff Frank Marshall was finally out of the office with an actual purpose other than his daily rounds of the town, or having to oversee the investigation of the grisly attack on old man Farley’s livestock. Looking at the mutilated carcasses brought his breakfast flowing back into his mouth, he was a strong man, but not many could smell that stench and not get ill. Investigating a foreign object in the lake had to be better than that by far, so he made a call to the resident scuba diver requesting that he meet him at Deer Lake.
“Frank.”
“Terry.”
“So what’s the deal? Someone lose his keys or something?”
“No; nothing like that this time. It seems that a group of boys were out here horsin’ around and one of them got banged up pretty bad. He was swingin’ out and hit something when he landed, broke his leg in two. Another boy cut his calf, but that wasn’t very serious.”
“I see. You want me go down and see what we’re dealing with.”
“You always did catch on quick.”
“Not according to my wife.” The two old friends shared a laugh before Terry Crenshaw drug his gear from his truck and suited up. During the summer he often received calls when someone lost their wedding ring or other valuables. At times he made a nice little chunk of change off either the reward or his own hourly rate. Once upon a time he considered going into the recovery business full time, but the calls to action were few and far between and anything he did for Frank was strictly a favor.
Terry double-checked his gages one last time before wading into the murky lake water and submerging. No matter how many times he went down it was always new and exciting, almost like a treasure hunt. Even when he was searching for accident victims the adventure still held a level of excitement over the unexpected. In truth that’s what he anticipated to discover in the not so deep water of Deer Lake. His light flashed on a large metallic object not four yards ahead of him and by its size he knew that his assumption was correct. Cautiously Terry swam towards the vehicle; yet the closer he got the stronger the feeling welled in him that he was being watched. Dismissing the feeling as quickly as it came he swam to the car and noticed something strange. There didn’t seem to be any major damage other than the shattered rear window the boy had most likely broken when he plunged into the water. In fact it appeared as if the car had simply driven off the road into the lake. He moved to the driver’s window and flashed his powerful light inside the car expecting to see some pour soul who had either fallen asleep at the wheel or had been driving drunk, their eyes and tongue bulging from their head, bloated with the grayest of complexions. Unfortunately he had seen it many times, more than he cared to remember.
On land, the slightly bored and more than a little inquisitive Sheriff began to search the area, but for what he didn’t know. Walking to and fro he observed several branches on many of the trees were either broken or severely bent as if something quite large had recently come through the area and further in the woods he discovered a path had also recently been made, many of the young pine saplings were now bent at odd angles, and there were radial tracks in the sand, but they were scarce and had to be viewed from certain angles, none the less they were there. He began searching the rest of the clearing for more signs of tracks, but there were no more. It was like someone or something had intentionally covered them. Still this was part of Make-out Point and many teens came here to have a little fun, he had even done it a few times in his youth; a smile crept upon Frank Marshall’s face as the years reversed themselves.
Terry Crenshaw, on the other hand was expecting the worse, but what he found was far beyond anything he had ever seen before. He noticed the woman first, or what was left of her mutilated corpse that is. Her punctured eyes were wide open with a look of terror, staring straight into his soul. Her flesh was floating about the vehicle and that which was still attached was bobbing all about her. Her limbs were gone, torn from her body, strewn about and floating around her. It was then Terry noticed the headless body from the driver’s seat lying on top of her. Forcing back the bile that erupted from his stomach he shoved himself away from the vehicle and made a mad dash for the surface doing his best to hold back his breath and his brunch. To breathe was to retch. Terry reached the apex in a panic and struggled for the shore, white as a sheet, spatting out his regulator and howling for Frank, but as he reached the safety of the beach his body let loose and began gagging violently no longer able to keep his cookies in their place.
Yanked from his reverie by the frantic cries of his friend Frank ran for the beach just in time to witness the terrified diver spewing his daily special onto the soft brown sand that hungrily sucked it up. Reaching Terry, he drug him further up the beach and out of the water.
“It’s all right, you’re safe man. Get it all up. That’s right. Calm down Terry. I need you to calm down.” He finished vomiting as there was nothing left to bring up and shakily slowed his breathing to almost normal. His eyes were as blank as the cloudless afternoon sky while he related the discovery of the shredded woman and the headless body next to her. Terry had gone into shock. Within half an hour every officer on the Epson police force was at the lake dredging the car and its victims from its waters, and Terry Crenshaw was staring blankly at the hospital ceiling.