Midnight Musings: A short story collection.

Bone Lake

Prolog

The fog rolled thick and heavy across Bone Lake, curling like ghostly fingers around the skeletal branches of dead trees. The water was still, a mirror to the bruised sky above. A distant splash echoed across the shore, followed by a low, guttural growl—a sound that didn't belong to any creature known to this world.

Near the lake's edge, something moved. Dark, hulking, it dragged its prey through the mud, leaving a trail of blood-like ink seeping into the earth. The woman was barely conscious now, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Her hands twitched, trying to grasp the earth, but the weight of him was too much. He wasn't human. He hadn't been for a long time. The thing inside him had eroded whatever remained of the man he once was, leaving only fragments behind.

"Please..." she whimpered, her voice weak. Blood trickled from a gash on her forehead, mixing with the rain-soaked dirt.

He stopped, his clawed hand tightening around her. There was no hesitation in his movements—he wanted her alive. There was power in life, power in fear. His head tilted slightly, almost as if listening to her heartbeat slowing in the stillness of the lake. Her words were meaningless to him. The lake only craved the living—their fear, their final panicked breaths. It waited, its hunger rippling just beneath the water.

His hand clamped around her ankle, his grip unnaturally strong. She recoiled from his touch—his skin was ice cold, like something long dead. Her pulse quickened, feeding the demon's hunger, and a slow smile crept across his lips. The more she feared, the stronger he felt.

The woman sobbed as he hauled her toward the water. Her voice was hoarse, broken, pleading. "Please... don't."

He paused momentarily, not out of mercy but out of the fading traces of humanity that still lingered deep inside him. He could still remember when his body hadn't been a vessel for something dark and monstrous.

With a final pull, he flung her into the water.

Her scream broke the night, a sound so raw with terror that it echoed across the lake's still surface. She hit the water with a splash, sinking beneath the surface before she fought her way up, thrashing wildly, her fingers clawing at the surface in a futile attempt to grasp something—anything. But the water offered no salvation. The lake's black waters pulled her down, always pulling.

The water rippled as the figure knelt at the shore, his eyes unblinking, watching with dark satisfaction. The lake had taken her, consumed her fear, and now, he could feel the faint pulse of its power feeding him. His black eyes gleamed with something ancient, something insatiable.

1

I've been running from the dead all my life.

Not in the way most people mean, with memories haunting them like old photographs. No, for me, the dead aren't memories. They don't fade. I can feel them, hear them, even taste their fear sometimes—like copper in the back of my throat. And right now, that taste is stronger than ever.

Bone Lake may sound harmless, but the moment I heard it and felt the change in the air, I knew I was in trouble.

I take a deep breath, the smell of rain and asphalt mixing with something older, something rotten just beneath the surface. The visions haven't stopped since I heard about the lake. They creep back in thick and choking like water filling my lungs. I can feel the icy pull of the lake dragging me down with the bodies. Their terror slams into me all at once—panicked breaths, the desperate clawing at nothing, and then... nothing.

That's why I'm standing outside an old, musty office with a nameplate so faded I can barely make out the letters.

I knock on the door.