The Ghost Lake (Supernatural Horror)

Johnny Coolstick shifted his weight on the rotting park bench, adjusting the focus on his video camera. The infrared filter transformed the midnight landscape of Wilderness Lake into a surreal world of ghostly greens and harsh blacks. In front of them, an empty carpet of wild grass stretched down to the water—the exact spot where the bustling Potterville Marina had stood decades ago.

Beside him, Sally Woodrift pulled the collar of her denim jacket tight against her throat. “Did you bring a jacket?” she whispered, her teeth lightly chattering. “The radio said it’s supposed to drop to sixty tonight.”

“I have a hoodie in the car,” Johnny muttered, his eyes glued to the small LCD screen. “I’ll be fine. Don’t talk too loud. Sound carries over water.”

Johnny wasn’t a Potterville local. He had driven four hours and burned three nights of hotel money based entirely on a dark corner of an online true-crime forum. The threads detailed the legend of Randle “Tex” Dasher, a local bait shop owner who had spent a decade systematically murdering teenagers. The rumor was always the same: once the kids went missing, Tex would row them out to the deepest trench of Wilderness Lake, weigh them down with cinder blocks, and drop them over the side.

The state police had dredged the lake three separate times over the years, finding nothing but silt and sunken timber. The town had almost forgotten. But then came July seventh. Two local teenagers casting a heavy catfish net snagged a human skull, pulling a piece of the nightmare back into the light.

“Johnny, seriously, how long are we staying?” Sally asked, checking her phone. “It’s past ten.”

“A few more hours, Sal. I didn’t spend half my paycheck on gas and lodging to pack up early.” Johnny suddenly froze. His finger tightened on the camera’s record button. “Wait. Look. Out there, under the moonlight.”

Sally leaned forward, squinting through the gloom. “See that?” Johnny whispered, panning the camera toward the black water. “About a hundred yards out, cutting right toward where the old boat dock used to be.”

A rhythmic, metallic creak-slosh echoed across the glassy surface. It was the distinct sound of wooden oars turning in rusty rowlock sockets. Through the infrared lens, a small wooden rowboat materialized out of the fog.

“Johnny, I’m getting really scared,” Sally said, her voice dropping to a panicked breath. “That’s not a local fisherman. Can we just go? Please?”

“No way. This is just getting good,” Johnny whispered back, his heart hammering against his ribs.

For twenty agonizing minutes, the two watched the boat glide closer. The green tint of the night-vision screen revealed the silhouette of a barrel-chested man with coarse, grey hair and a thick, unkempt beard. He was rowing with practiced, agonizingly slow strokes, facing away from the shore.

When the bow of the boat scraped against the muddy bank directly in front of their bench, the old man stopped rowing. He turned his head, staring directly into the lens of Johnny’s camera.

“The bait shop is closed, kids,” the old man rumbled. His voice was flat, dry, and carried the heavy rasp of a lifelong smoker. “Come back tomorrow morning.”

Johnny lowered the camera slightly, his skin prickling. The man looked entirely solid. “What bait shop?” Johnny asked, intentionally trying to provoke a reaction.

The man gestured with a calloused thumb over his shoulder toward the empty field of grass. “The one right behind you. Part of the marina. Are you blind?”

Johnny felt a cold knot form in his stomach. “The marina was torn down the summer of sixty-eight, mister.”

The old man scoffed, wiping a hand across his beard. “It’s nineteen fifty-four, boy. Are you hyped up on drugs or something?”

Sally gripped Johnny’s forearm so hard her knuckles turned white. Johnny swallowed hard, pressing the record button again. “What is your name?”

“Randle Texas Dasher. Everyone around the county calls me Tex.”

Sally let out a sharp, choked gasp. “Johnny... is that him?”

“Damn right it is,” Johnny whispered, his mind racing. He looked back down at the boat. “What are you doing out here at this hour, Tex?”

“I could ask you two the same thing,” Tex barked, his eyes narrowing. “What are you kids doing here? Looking to cause trouble?”

“Actually, we were searching for you,” Johnny said, stepping closer to the water’s edge, keeping the camera leveled. “We’re reporters. We came out here for a scoop.”

Tex paused, looking them up and down. He seemed to deliberate, his large hands resting heavily on the wooden oars. “I’m a private person,” he grumbled. “But I suppose I can talk for a minute. What do you want?”

Johnny took a deep breath, dropping all subtlety. “According to the state archives, Tex, you were convicted of murdering nine children and dumping their bodies into this very water. The state of Nebraska hanged you in December of nineteen seventy-two. Your sister had you cremated because she was terrified a mob would desecrate your grave.”

Tex’s face instantly reddened. He slammed his fist against the gunwale of the boat, making the wooden hull rattle. “I didn’t kill no kids! I don’t appreciate a couple of punk transients coming down to my lake and throwing around those kinds of sick accusations!”

“You think the year is nineteen fifty-four, right?” Johnny pressed, his voice steadying as his investigative instincts took over.

“Are you stupid, boy? The calendar hanging inside my shop is right behind you. Big as day.”

Sally stepped into the frame, her voice trembling but resolute. “There is no bait shop behind us, Tex. There hasn’t been for fifty years.”

“The first child went missing in forty-nine,” Johnny interjected, listing the grim timeline. “By fifty-four—the year you think it is right now—three more kids were gone. And the sheriff’s logs show you were the last person seen with every single one of them.”

Tex shook his head aggressively, gripping the oars until his knuckles turned gray. “I run a bait shop! It’s popular with the local kids, popular with the adults. There ain’t a damn thing unusual about children coming by to buy minnows and look at the turtles!”

“Then where are their bodies, Tex?” Johnny barked, stepping right to the muddy brim of the water. “Cut the crap. Where are they?”

“Don’t ask me,” Tex sneered, his lower lip curling. “You’re asking the wrong person.”

“The police found Mary Simpleton’s clothing hidden right behind your minnow tank at the back of the shop,” Johnny countered. “She was fourteen years old. Her mother identified the ribbon in her hair. How do you explain that?”

“The cops planted it!” Tex yelled, his voice cracking with rage. “They were out to get me from the very start. They claimed I was giving liquor to minors. It was bullshit! They never proved a single thing in court!”

“Why would the entire police department want to frame a bait shop owner?”

“Because the mayor had it out for me!” Tex spat, saliva flying from his lips. “He got the city council to hold a special, closed-door meeting to revoke my business license. They wanted my land.”

“And how did that turn out?” Johnny asked.

“They couldn’t prove a damn thing, so they had to back off,” Tex said, a smug, dark grin briefly touching his face. “But they put the sheriff on my ass right after. I couldn’t even take a piss without some deputy watching me through binoculars from a cruiser parked on the county road.”

Johnny leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. “If they were watching you that closely, Tex... how did you manage to kill the rest of them?”

The old man’s grin vanished. His eyes turned entirely vacant, reflecting the moonlight like two pieces of flat, dead slate. “You’re treading on thin ice, boy. Don’t you accuse me again, you hear?”

“The records said you weighed them down,” Johnny continued, relentless. “I bet rowing those bodies out to the trench in the dead of night was a hell of a chore. Especially with the deputies watching.”

“They dredged this lake more than once and found absolutely nothing,” Tex replied, his voice slipping into a strange, rhythmic cadence. “That skull those kids dragged up last week? That was just an old Indian burial. The historical society said so.”

“The DNA results were actually undetermined, Tex. They didn’t have the labs for it back then. Do you know where that skull is right now?”

Tex stared past Johnny, looking at the empty grass field where his life had ended. “They gave it back to the tribes. Go ask them if you want to see it so bad.”

“Why don’t you just confess?” Sally pleaded, stepping up beside Johnny. Tears of pure terror and pity were welling in her eyes. “If you just tell the truth, you can leave this place. You don’t have to keep rowing in the dark. You can head toward the light.”

“I confess to nothing,” Tex muttered, his voice dropping to a low, mechanical drone.

Sally looked down, her eyes scanning the completely empty interior of the wooden rowboat. A realization hit her, making her breath catch in her throat. “Tex... why do you keep boating on this lake? If you’re a ghost, you could go anywhere. But you stay right here. It’s like you’re protecting something.”

Johnny looked at Sally, then down at the boat, and a sudden, horrifying epiphany washed over him. He lowered the camera entirely.

“He’s not protecting it,” Johnny whispered, his face going pale. “He’s hiding it. He’s guarding the trench so the souls of those kids can never float to the top. He’s keeping them trapped down there with him.”

“Bullshit!” Tex roared, the illusion of his humanity fracturing for a split second as a dark, oppressive static seemed to warp the air around the boat. “I’m a fisherman! I own a bait shop! I’m out here doing what I do best—catching fish!”

Sally took a step back, pointing a trembling finger into the boat. “Then where is your pole, Tex? Where is your tackle box? Where is your bait?”

Tex gripped the oars so hard the wood began to splinter under his phantom fingers. His jaw locked, his eyes burning with an ancient, unholy malice as he leaned over the bow of the boat, mere inches from Johnny’s face.

“I left my gear on the boat dock, Missy,” Tex growled, his voice vibrating with the weight of a dozen dead years. “And it is none of your fucking business what I do with my tackle.”

Tex pulled back on the oars, spinning the rowboat around with unnatural speed. With three powerful, silent strokes, the boat melted back into the heavy lake fog, disappearing as if it had never been there at all.

Johnny stood frozen on the bank, the camera still recording the empty, silent water. He looked back at the empty grass field, then out at the dark lake, knowing that beneath the peaceful surface, the watchman was still on duty.