Hoover Lake (Remastered)

Hoover Lake

It was a cloudy April morning. The beaches were empty, and the water was dark.

Bethany stood on the beach, watching the waves lap against the sand, the wind tossed her black hair this way and that. Bethany never liked Hoover Lake, something about it didn't sit with her right. Maybe it was the forest surrounding it, dark and foreboding; you needed to drive two miles through it before you reached the lake.

Or maybe it was the water that scared her, dark and always cold, even in the summertime.

She closed her eyes, trying to push away the memories of that lake.

The worry on a mother's face as she searched for her lost child.

The alarm, that sounded when danger was near.

It was a place she avoided if she could help it, but today was different.

Bethany's foster parents were taking her out on a yacht, it traveled across the lake in early spring, with a fee of only two dollars per person.

Her father patted her on the shoulder, telling her it was time to go. She held back a sigh and followed her father. The yacht waited for them at the end of a rickety dock; white and gleaming against the dark, almost black water.

She tried not to look at it as she crossed the jetty, only taking a breath after she was safely on the boat.

Her mother had taken a window seat, saving the two seats beside her for Bethany and her father. She smiled as the pair walked over. Bethany sat between her new parents and waited for the boat to start. She looked out the window, at the gray sky and wondered why she was on this boat. She had begged and pleaded with her parents on the day they told her about the boat ride, but they assured her that it would be fun. She said that she was worried that the boat would sink and the monsters would eat her. But they reassured her that the boat was perfectly safe and that there were no monsters in the lake.

She remembered the time blood clouded the lake, that one fateful summer's afternoon...

That day she had been swimming in the water when she heard screaming. The boy next to her was thrashing in the water as blood clouded around him. A lifeguard blew their whistle, screaming at people to get out of the water. People panicked, scooping up their children and surging out of the water as one. The lake was empty in minutes, except for the boy in the water, floating, still as a buoy.

Soon the beach was crowded with police and wildlife specialists, Bethany stayed on the grass, watching from afar. She saw them take his body out of the water and wrap it in plastic as the boy's mother stood nearby, bowling her eyes out.

Bethany was shaken from her thoughts as the boat's engine roared to life and it started moving. She looked out the window, this time into the water, all she saw was the gray sky reflected in it.

The tour guide started talking about the lake's history.

"In the nineteen sixties, Diana and David Hoover bought the property that surrounds Hoover lake." "They wanted the public to see the splendors of this magnificent lake, so they made it into a park, Hoover Park."

Bethany tried to listen to the tour guide but she could hardly keep her teeth from chattering, let alone listen to the guide. Someone had left the door leading to the indoor area of the yacht open, allowing cold wind coming off the lake to rush into the yacht, chilling Bethany to the bone. She looked at both her foster parents, who were listening intently to the tour guide. She sighed and folded her arms against the cold.

A crow landed on the railing outside the open door. It groomed its feathers, looking at Bethany from time to time, with its beady black eyes. She looked back once and the crow flew off. It had some sort of finality about it as it took flight. As if it had found what it was searching for.