by Joe Stanley

2

After a light breakfast, I moved around the lake introducing myself and meeting the folks that lived there.

Most were retired. There were a few properties that had been passed along by inheritance so there was a small number of younger people as well.

A few even recognized me from the Register. By that evening, word had spread around and I was something of a celebrity. (My pride is showing here freely.) After that I had no shortage of people to interview.

I filled a notebook with stories and jokes and personal histories. All of it was great, but not all of it was the material I was after. I didn’t envy the task of editing it all and I knew I couldn’t put much into my article. I did think it would make a nice book if I could piece it together, but I was planning to talk about the whole community.

They were some really great people and this was a really great place. They were something the world needed to know about, but that was a task for another day.

One of my last goals for the day was to revisit the shop. I wanted to check on that old man. I was ready to “just” ask for clarification on how he wanted his name to appear in the paper, but I was worried.

The shop keeper was the best witness. Most of the others only saw the flash and heard the noise.

I stepped up on the porch and tried the door. It was locked and the inside was dark.
A voice came from behind me.
“He’s gone,” said the little old man who walked with a cane.
“Moved out already?” I asked.
“Gone,” he repeated, gesturing to the car beside the shop.
Reggie and Mary, two of the younger people on the lake were hurrying up with a look of concern.
“It swallowed him up.”
“What…” I began and he interrupted with a wild bellow, “Swallowed him up and it’s gonna get every God damned last one of us!”
Reggie and Mary tried to calm him, “Lester, you do this every time you go off your medicine…”
“Bullshit!” he roared and began coughing so hard I thought he’d pass out.
“Lester calm down,”
“Ain’t no medicine gonna make you right wit’ God! Better pray, better pray cause we all gonna die! It’s gonna swallow us all!”
Reggie lead him off and Mary apologized. “He’s suffering from dementia,” she explained.
“Not at all,” I told her, “not at all.” She smiled.

“Ain’t you heard it yet? Don’t you feel it?” Came the old man’s voice as she hurried to join them.
“Don’t you have a heart? Can’t you feel it? It’s going to get us all, swallow us all!”

I stood alone for a second and went back to my cabin.

I sat at the desk, halfway sorting through my notes. There were so many things on my mind that I was quickly distracted.

I got up and looked out the window again. I saw a few of the blooms swirling around the water. I hurried down to the water and out on the dock. I wanted a closer look.

The nearest one was about the size of a dinner table, orange in color. I found a long stick and reached out toward it from the dock. It was just beyond my reach and I stretched out.

Right as the stick dipped into the orange slime, I smiled. Then, I lost my balance. I flailed out and caught one of the dock’s posts. I was aware that I didn’t want to fall in and that it wasn’t because I didn’t want to get wet.

I felt, for all the life in me, like falling into that water would be the end of me. It was like a great shark yawned its mouth open just below the surface.

Finally, I righted myself and looked back out. The bloom was a little farther out than it had been. The stick floated stuck into its edge.

I felt taunted and stormed back to the cabin.

Inside, I went back to work on my notes. The bloom and Lester’s apocalyptic predictions had unsettled me. I threw myself into the work hoping to forget.

But there, scattered among the countless stories and notes, was the hint of something else. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I knew it was there and I knew it was bad. I was on the edge of an epiphany when there came a knock on the door.

It was Reggie and Mary, inviting me to join them for dinner. I accepted and spent the evening in their company. The offer of a small kindness sometimes make a world of difference. The value of a friend is something much under appreciated.

By the time I got back, I had forgotten my worries and typed up a pretty good article for the Register. I said nothing about blooms.

I sent it off to my editor with a note stating that I’d like to stay at the lake for a few more days.

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