What lurks underwater?

They’d barely been floating five minutes when mist began to creep towards them, surrounding the raft in perspiring blankets.

“Great,” muttered Georgia.

The oars made sloshing sounds as Sturt and Bradley wielded them. They couldn’t see the opposing side of the lake anymore; nor the pier from which they’d launched.

The girls’ hair grew wet, hanging in cold masses on their necks and down their backs. With the fog came the hush. The world had turned white, the atmosphere heavy and breezeless, encasing them in a quiet globe of stillness.

Lila was shivering. Jack had a strong desire to take her into his arms but knew he couldn’t. She’d look at him as though he were insane – that’s if Sturt didn’t punch him overboard first.

“Damn it.” Laverne seemed nervous. “We can’t see a thing. I’m… I’m scared Jeremy.”

Jeremy sang quietly, hugging her. “Row, row, row your boat...”

Sturt used Jeremy to vent his stress on. “Shut it or I’ll pulverise you.”

Laverne turned to him icily. “Leave him alone, you dumb ox, and row.”

Sturt advised meanly. “Watch it, Lavatory.”

Laverne sneered back. “What are you going to do, Sturt? Set your girlfriend on me?”

Lila, who’d opened her mouth to say something, shut it like a trap.

The oars cut through the water with rhythmic slopping. Jack breathed to the beat of it. Mist hung off their bodies like cobwebs.

“Hey,” said Brenda sharply. “What’s that?”

Tension caused Bradley to bark. “What’s what?”

“That.”

“What?”

“There.”

“Where?”

“In the water.”

“Where?”

Brenda’s throat muscles worked. “Can’t you see it?”

Bradley squinted at the swirly depths. “No.”

Genevieve moaned. “We should’ve walked around the outside. There’re creatures in the lake.”

“Be quiet.” Georgia peered downwards with the others. “We can’t see anything, and you’re just freaking everybody out.”

“Brenda?” Lila turned to her.

Brenda muttered. “It was a shadow in the water, swimming towards us – a shadow.”

There was tense silence.

Lila broke it tersely. “Just fucking row, Sturt.”

Jack stared at the waters. He couldn’t see a thing, but there was no doubt about it; Sturt and Bradley had increased their pace.

#EscapingTheBloodSky is a horror, fantasy, adventure book by Jett D. Rhoda.

COMING SOON.