Messages In Bottles From The Lake After Dark
written by: Rae S. Earley (thestoryscripter)
Freshwater waves gently paw at my bare feet as I wander the shoreline. I walk in the darker sand, where the surf is most likely to deposit treasures from the deep. The unrelenting sun has finally been shielded by a thin screen of overcast cirrus. It’s still too bothersome to walk without sunglasses, though. As a gentle wave catches my toes, something glistens in the broken water. I meander up to it, subdued in part by the late July heat, but also by the summer. Nothing is rushed in the midst of summer, and I don’t feel the need to hurry.
The object dips below the surface, and my hand lashes out to scoop it up. A small light cerulean bottle with a cork in its top nestles in my palm. It appears to be a medicinal bottle cocooning a tightly rolled up note. It’s tied with what looks like a black, braided string. A message in a bottle. My fingernails test the cork, but it refuses to budge. I look up and down the beach, but I have the sands to myself. Not even a distant boat passing by. No one to tell me where it came from or if they have something that can help wrestle it open. A seagull lands beside me and eyes the bottle with interest. I pocket it along with the shells and seaglass I found and clip its clasp shut. I walk the whole length of the beach, searching for any more hidden treasures, but nothing seems as significant as the shy message encased in glass.
As the afternoon turns to twilight, I retreat to the motel where my older brother Seth is busy distributing takeout. Paper bags and napkins are strewn across the table, and the complimentary plastic cutlery is discarded in favor of devouring by hand. My siblings have never been tidy when it comes to meals. I find it strangely reassuring that even in the throng of arms grabbing for ketchup and swapping drinks, we still make sure everyone’s fed, and everyone gets a bite of everything if they want.
“Where were you?” My sister Anya asks, mouth full of burger. Typical Anya. Always wanting to stick her nose in whatever I’m doing. Her purple fingernails, iridescent with glitter nail polish, tap her burger impatiently as she waits for an answer.
“Just out.”
“But where?”
“The beach.”
She narrows her piercing black eyes at me. She hates my short responses, which only makes me want to use them more. She wouldn’t mock me for having found the bottle, nor would she try to steal it, quite the opposite. But there’s something special about holding onto something only you know.
“I was there earlier, you could’ve told me.”
“I know.”
Anya huffs and turns her attention back to her dinner, but she occasionally flicks her gaze to me, reminding me that she wants to know more. She knows the only thing that can keep me at the beach is treasure hunting.
All the more reason I want to keep what I found to myself for right now.
The bottle remains in my pocket throughout dinner, all the while burning a hole in my side through three episodes of The Umbrella Academy, before I finally have a turn in the bathroom to examine my find. The bottle is about the length of my hand and about as wide as two and a half fingers. The exterior is coated in uneven grime and still smells profusely of lakewater. The cork is stubbornly half in, half out. Once again, I try to pry it out by sheer willpower, but the keratin starts to bend, and I swap my digits out with my teeth. I sense the cork wheeze as the glass starts to yield. Bracing myself, I clinched my fingers around the bottle’s body, bit down hard, and with a sharp yank, the cork popped out.
The message is within my grasp, but the paper stubbornly refuses to exit its glassy time capsule. I vigorously shake the bottle, but it refuses to obey. Taking a pair of tweezers from Anya’s vanity bag, I pluck a corner of the rolled-up paper and gently ease it out of the tiny bottleneck. A part of the corner tears away, and I wince, trying to keep it from ripping further, but luckily, the main body of the note remains intact. The entire time, my imagination runs wild with the possibilities. A long-lost love letter? A joke by a few kids? Maybe it’s nothing inside.
The string tying it together rapidly uncurls itself, and I realize it’s not a string, but hair, very finely braided and tied in a way that it can’t loosen unless someone interacts with it. It’s like if someone needed to keep the paper curled but didn’t have anything to tie it with except their own locks. The hair flays onto the floor and on the counter. I pinch up what I can and place it all together on the far side of the sink, away from our toothbrushes. I carefully unroll the scroll, and a set of near-perfect handwriting in thin red Sharpie jumps out at me.
The Camper killed us. Please send help.
The words are chilling and unsatisfyingly lacking detail. It’s not sweet or nostalgic, and part of the word ‘please’ is smudged. Us? There was more than one person? Who’s the Camper? And if they’re already dead, what do they need help with? Body recovery? A knock at the door sends the strongest surge of adrenaline through me, and I yelp.
“Molly, what’s going on in there?” Anya. Her voice sounds almost filtered, like she’s speaking through a radio. But the effect fades quickly. Perhaps she’s on the phone. Perhaps I just imagined it.
“One second!” I turn on the water as if I’m washing my hands. I want to further process what I’m looking at, without my sister’s commentary. Anya tries the doorknob, but I’ve locked it.
I shove the bottle and note in my pocket and bang back in annoyance. Her footsteps leave, and I wait an extra two minutes just to establish that I will emerge on my own time. A joke. It has to be a joke. A very disturbing joke. Maybe just some kids who had some twisted idea to make messages in bottles like they do in the movies, and see who falls for their ploy.
When I open the door, the lights are out, and Seth is sound asleep on the couch. Being the oldest, he sacrifices the beds for Ayna and I on family trips. But Anya is not in the room.
“Anya?”
My call goes unanswered. I say her name again, but she’s not in the room. Seth stirs at my voice and sits up.
“Where’s Anya?” I ask.
“She went to pee.”
“But I was in the bathroom.”
I flip on the lights. The room glows a harsh golden, but there’s only two of us inside. I retreat to the bathroom on the off chance Anya slipped in without me noticing, but no one’s there. The tiny closet doesn’t even have a door to hide behind, and the windows are all shut.
“Where’d she go?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Maybe the bathrooms outside?”
“No way. Even if she were desperate, she wouldn’t go out to use those ugly things.” Anya doesn’t like the night bugs flying in her face when she can’t see them, and she says the sound of cicadas is too irksome. Still, we canvass the yard immediately, checking under picnic tables and in the shadows of the building. We probably look like two thugs looking to rob the place, but the longer we look, the worse I feel. Anya isn’t one to wander off, and she certainly wouldn’t go out after dark without telling us.
Search the beach, just in case. I jog down, barefoot, hoping I don’t step on broken glass. The beach is bathed in ghostly moonlight. What little waves it generated before the sun went down have become eerily still. A low mist has settled just above the surface of the water, creating an ominous atmosphere. I call and call for Anya, but the only answer I get is from the persistent seagull from earlier. Chills flick across my arms, and I hunch my posture. Perhaps if it wasn’t for the sudden drop in temperature, I wouldn’t have noticed the second bottle.
Its corner glistens with water, reflecting the waning moon. I reach a hand down and fish it from the sand. It looks like the same type of bottle as the one in my pocket, and also has a small cork holding its breath. Dread seizes my gut as I hold it in my hand. I can’t see anything significant on it because it’s so dark, but I backtrack to the motel and fling open the door. Seth is starting to panic, his broad shoulders heaving, his temples lined with a thin coating of sweat. I don’t like seeing him so flustered.
“I’ve looked everywhere, she’s not here.” His eyes drop to the bottle in my hand. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know, but I found another one earlier today.”
We sit on the couch, and I pry the bottle I just found at the beach open with my teeth. Seth teases it out with his pocketknife, and we stare at the message.
Mind the Camper. Payments in braids and blood accepted.
The page doesn’t look old or dated like the first. The paper unravels without resistance and stays open on my lap. It must have just been made. The other bottle from the counter says the same thing, but in different handwriting.
“The Camper?” Seth asks. We put the messages together to compare them side by side. The handwriting is in the same red ink, but the penmanship is different. I immediately recognize the latest message as Anya’s. She always curls her lowercase t’s, and her y’s have an amusingly wide tail. I can tell Seth recognizes the handwriting, too.
“Is this some kind of a joke? Is this a ransom note or something? And who’s the Camper?”
Anya went to the beach too. Did she find a bottle?
A tap at the door to the hallway draws our attention. It’s not loud. Shy, almost like raindrops on a roof during a spring shower. More taps follow, then a long scraping sound, like someone dragging their nails gently over the door. Seth unsheathes his pocketknife and cautiously approaches. He peers through the peephole, with me right beneath him, trying to see under the door. A shadow passes before us, and I rapidly unlatch the lock. I yank the door open, and Seth and I trip each other out of the doorframe. The bland motel hallway is empty, except for a single, glittery, purple nail on the floor. Anya doesn’t wear fake nails. I stoop down and turn it over. The back of the nail is streaked crimson.
Seth turns pale as he sees the macabre token. “You take the back, I’ll take the front,” I say. I retreat to our suitcases, where I grab a small metal flashlight. It may not be a knife, but it will knock you out if I hit you hard enough. Seth stares at me before going out the back door. His large brown eyes, framed with black glasses, are speckled with uncertainty. I know he feels responsible, being the oldest, and then our younger sister goes missing. He won’t hear the end of it from our family.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Molly,” he warns.
“Obviously.”
We leave the room at the same time, going in different directions. I rack my brain to remember what Anya was wearing. Her favorite fake leather jacket that she claims keeps her warm, even when you can see your breath. Pajama pants with the ends cut off so they stop just above her ankles. Her long black hair was down, and she shed more than a golden retriever. And of course, her beautiful purple nails, like mini galaxies at her fingertips. Except she’s missing at least one. I can’t imagine what that might have felt like, getting a whole cuticle ripped off.
I approach the front desk, which is empty, but the light is still on, like someone may have just stepped away, intending to return.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
I skirt around the counter to see if I can find any clues. No one’s huddled on the floor, and no one’s behind the desk. Everything’s locked up in drawers, and the keys to vacant rooms are behind locked plexiglass.
I turn my attention to the door and peer outside. There’s only two streetlamps in the parking lot, one at each end and spaced far apart. A giant pool of blackness gapes between them. Anyone could be hiding amongst the cars. I track down our hand-me-down Outback and shine the flashlight in. No one in the backseat, no one in the front. I check the trunk, which is accessible from the backseat. Nothing. I say her name nearly every two minutes.
I backtrack to the motel’s front, where a line of windows surveys the road. Most of the curtains are drawn. Those that remain open depict pitch blackness. It feels like we’re all alone, like we’re the motel’s only current residents. I know that isn’t true, we saw plenty of people earlier, and no one left by car after nightfall. No one else, though, seems as rustled as I. A breeze roughly bumps past me, taking my short, mulch-brown hair with it. I follow the wind with my eyes, and that’s when I see it.
A dark figure, frighteningly thin and pushing ten feet tall. Its gut, nearly the width of a ruler, and skin strains over all its ribs and shoulders. Its head is cocked at an unnerving angle, almost like it’s trying to keep its head balanced on its shoulders. I freeze in place, crouched under the empty maw of a curtainless window. I can’t tell if the figure is looking at me or if its back is turned. Is this the so-called Camper? The figure doesn’t move for a good ten minutes, and the whole time, my body is tensed to flee, but my knees are starting to protest at the cramped positioning. With an adjustment of its narrow, long head, it limps out of sight, towards the beach.
I should follow it, a part of me begs. But I don’t want to go alone. I slink along the motel’s wall and round the corner, hoping to find Seth. Instead, standing just inches from me is the figure. A pair of glowing orange eyes illuminates nothing in its otherwise featureless face. It’s bent at the waist, so its eyes are level with mine. It sustains itself on two spindly legs that appear to be cousins of a creeper vine with a black substance oozing between its crevices.
Terror leaps off my tongue in the form of an unsatisfying gasp. Not a scream, not an f bomb. Just a low, guttural gasp. I don’t know how it’s in front of me when I just saw it go off to the beach. Unless there’s more than one. Unless it can teleport. Either thought is terrifying. The Camper holds a clawlike finger to where its mouth should be. A dark substance drips onto the ground. I can’t tell if it’s blood or something else. I take a step back to avoid splatter. If this truly is the Camper, did it take Anya? What did that note say? Payment accepted by braids and blood. Did it cut her beautiful, thick hair for braids to make more messages? Did it hurt my sister for blood?
Behind me, I hear a twig snap, and the figure vanishes into thin air, its body swirling around me before evaporating. I don’t even look behind me, I’m too paralyzed.
“Are you okay?” A voice asks. A park ranger circles around to crouch next to me. Somehow, I’d fallen to the ground, my hands propping me up from behind, and I hadn’t even realized it. She holds out a hand, but I can’t get my muscles to move to accept her help. I’m still too freaked out.
“What was that thing?”
“What thing?” The ranger retracts her hand and stands up. She’s surprisingly tall and wiry, like her clothes are too baggy on her.
“You didn’t see it?”
“Have you been drinking?”
“What? No!” I scramble to my feet and brush the dust and pine needles from my shorts. “Have you seen my sister? Anya? She went missing.”
“Runaway?”
“No, I just can’t find her. I checked the beach and the whole motel. Dark black hair, black eyes, in her pajamas, early 20’s.”
“You basically just described 70% of the visitors here, especially at this hour. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.” She turns to go. Her voice sounds filtered, the beginning of each word like it’s through a radio. Something feels strange, like the air is electrified.
“Wait, she has purple nails.” I dig into my pocket and retrieve the broken cuticle. The ranger doesn’t even flinch at the sight of the bloody possession. Has she seen this before? “I think she may be in danger.”
“I see. Well, I can’t make an alert until it’s been 24 hours.”
“I just showed you a bloody cuticle, and you aren’t even going to agree with me that she could be in danger?”
“I never said I didn’t believe you. I just can’t pull resources yet until tomorrow.” I’m not sure I believe her, though.
“Do…do a lot of people go missing here?”
“Oh, people go missing everywhere. We’ve had the occasional pair disappear, but thing is, out here, if folks vanish, it’s usually because they want to.”
Frustration flushes through my cheeks. I can tell the ranger’s patience with me is dwindling. “My sister didn’t want to go missing. That’s not like her. We were just stopping for the night––”
The ranger’s radio cuts the silence, and she turns away slightly to take the call. “I’m sorry, I’m needed elsewhere. Good luck with your sister.” She turns and leaves without another word.
Frantic and frustrated, I retreat inside, only to pause at the door to our motel room. A thin splatter of blood, no bigger than a fingerprint, trails down over the vivid green paint just underneath the peephole. As if someone had pressed their bleeding cuticle to the panel and let the blood collect, only for it to drip down. Cold fingers of fear seize my throat, and my hands grow numb. I give a cautious knock in case Anya’s inside. At the lack of an answer, I fit my key into the door and shoulder it open. The notes, where I left them on the couch, are gone, as are the bottles. Other than that, the room looks just as I’d left it.
Did Seth take them? I know he wouldn’t take my belongings without asking, and it doesn’t seem like he’s circled back. I tear that motel room up, searching for the bottles and the messages, but they are just not here anymore.
I slouch on one of the twin beds, eyes heavy with sleep, but determined to stay open. The clock meekly announces lam. Anya is missing, or even worse, abducted and hurt. I’m sure of it. Her bloody nail, the missing notes, the strange figure–or figures. I flashback to her voice when she banged on the bathroom door. It sounded like her, but slightly different. And the ranger, her voice had a similar tone.
They’re not human voices. They’re mimicking them. And most disturbingly, they seem to be active hunters.
I need to find Anya fast. I shouldn’t have split with Seth. I open the back door. The weight of the night feels heavy on my shoulders as I set out once more. The beach is the place where I’ve gotten the most clues. I have to make it back down.
By now, the moon is fully obscured by clouds. The trees are barely distinguishable against the nightscape. I hold one hand out in front of me to warn me of any obstacles at face height. I don’t want to turn my flashlight on in case it alerts the Campers to my presence. Every now and then, I hear my brother call out for Anya, but his voice is faint and fades in with the crickets. It sounds normal. At least he’s still himself. But he’s too far away to determine where he is.
My foot slips on the slight drop where the grass meets the sand. Any tranquility this place conjured in daylight has now been replaced with menace. The lake is a black puddle, though the sand still glows brighter than the water. I drag my toes in the sand as I walk, hoping to kick up a clue.
At the water’s edge, once more, right where I had found the first two, a third bottle bobs in the darkness. My foot finds it before my hands do, and I grab it by the neck. I watch the drops of water slip off its glossy surface, plopping to the sand and being consumed by the grains. I flick on my flashlight and pop the bottle open, my teeth prepared for the jerk to get the cork out. This message is tied with long black hair. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume it’s Anya’s. I unfurl the note, flip on the flashlight, and read its red text.
The Camper killed me. Please send help.
Just like the first message, only this time in Anya’s handwriting. I scream Anya’s name into the summer night, my voice ricocheting back. I don’t care if someone hears my anguish. No. It’s not over till I find her body, and that body will be upright and warm to the touch, alive and kicking. Anya isn’t the kind of person to just let things happen to her. I shine my flashlight wildly over the lake and between the trees.
There are no footprints on the beach, and no cars driving past. My brother’s voice has long melted away. I’m all alone at this otherwise beautiful, haunting motel. I pace the beach, shuffling my feet and scanning the water for bubbles or body-looking rocks.
A thud hits the sand behind me, and I jump, turning around, flashlight blazing. The Camper, or one of them, this one a ghostly gray, stands before me. Its torso is mangled and thin, its arms reaching the ground and dragging in the grains. Its eyes blaze a harsh orange. When my flashlight hits it, the light is immediately eaten by the cryptid’s body. None escapes to the surrounding environment. Its arm twists, and it reaches out to me.
In its gnarled hand, where its fingers are giant black claws, it produces a small blue bottle and a blank slip of paper.
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