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Macy tried to ignore the looming forest beside her. She hunkered into the back of the van and treated the windows as if they were solid, metal walls. She found it relatively easy to focus instead on the tech—the fancy laptop, the wires snaking up to small holes in the roof, connected to satellite dishes and antennae. She fiddled with the sturdy handsets that would connect her with Miriam and Kim as they ventured into the foreboding mists. She told herself that, within the walls of this white, nondescript vehicle, she could hide from whatever lurked in the woods—or, more precisely, whatever lurked in the memories of Hogg Run.
She’d been through therapy. God, so much of it. Almost a year, in fact. It had taken a while to find a therapist she connected with, but she’d found one and had made progress. Or so she thought. But in Rose Valley there were no ominous banks of towering trees. At Dobie Tech, there were hardly trees at all. A curious thing, to be afraid of trees. The very things that provided the oxygen she breathed. It was not the trees that had almost taken her life. Why should she blame the trees?
Behind her, Kim and Miriam sat on the van floor, their legs dangling onto the asphalt parking lot. Macy could see Kim’s Prius parked alongside the van. While still inspecting the gadgets, Macy kept an eye on Miriam as she began the interrogation.
“So, what does it look like?”
Kim seemed uncomfortable with the question, wriggling her butt against the floor of the van as if she had to get situated first. She didn’t look at Miriam when she answered. “Big. Hard to say. It’s always at a distance.”
“You haven’t seen it, then?” Miriam prodded.
This caused Kim to look up. To lock eyes with Miriam. “Yes. I have seen it. It couldn’t have been anything else. I haven’t been up close to it, of course. That’d be dangerous. But in the water, swimming. Arching above the surface.”
“Arching?”
Macy felt disconnected from the whole conversation, as if she wanted to participate but couldn’t find the motivation. She was fairly certain, though, that Kim knew something more. Miriam wouldn’t see it. Miriam was horrible at reading people. But Macy saw it. As clear as day. Kim may have been hired to help them find this thing, but she had a motive of her own. Macy would’ve bet anything on it.
“Yes.” Kim spoke with hesitance now, pausing between her words. “And it’s shiny. Slick.”
“How many arches?”
“Does that matter?”
“Of course it matters.” Miriam failed to hold back a sigh. “If it’s multiple arches, then we may be dealing with a sea serpent. If it’s just one arch, then maybe not.”
“It’s a lake,” Macy said plainly. Both girls turned to look at her, neither of them amused. Macy held up a hand as if to say she was sorry for butting in.
“Of course, it wouldn’t be a sea serpent, exactly. But there’s no reason a giant serpent can’t live in a lake. Actually, it’s probably more likely they would live in a lake.”
“Like the Loch Ness monster?” Kim asked.
Miriam gave a half-nod. Macy took it to mean Kim had it exactly half-right. “Sorta. Nessie does live in a lake. But most of the pictures and eyewitness reports describe it as more like a plesiosaur than a serpent.”
Kim chewed her lip, then broke out in a bright smile. “Well I did not see a plesiosaur!”
“So how many arches then?”
Kim looked off into the woods in front of the van. “We should probably head out soon, yeah? It’d be nice to get to the lake before nightfall. Camping there would give us the best chance of seeing it.”
Miriam shot an exasperated look at Macy, who shrugged.
“Macy, can you pull up our research?”
Macy nodded, relieved to have a job. She turned to the computer, where she navigated to their secure portal, typed a username, password, then a code from her phone. Miriam and Tanner had complained incessantly about all the extra security, but Macy insisted on it.
She brought up the folder on the Devil of Misty Lake. Most of the incident reports had been compiled by Miriam, so Macy didn’t have them memorized.
“Whatcha looking for?”
“The one death,” Miriam said.
Easy enough to find.
“We don’t know for certain that the... devil... did that,” Kim said. Calling it the devil seemed to make her uncomfortable.
“His girlfriend saw it happen. Why would she make that up?”
“Maybe she killed him and needed a scapegoat.”
Glancing over the file, even Macy knew the response to that. “You think she mutilated and half-ate her own boyfriend just so she could sell the story?”
“Anything could have eaten his body after he was dead,” Kim suggested. “Maybe they got in a fight or something.”
“Cops never charged her with anything,” Macy replied.
Miriam folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the pillar of the door. “Kim’s not wrong. We have to consider all of the possibilities.”
“Thank you,” Kim said with an air of vindication.
“Still, it’s proof that if this thing does exist, it’s dangerous. Deadly, even.”
“But there’s only the one death,” Kim said. “Most of the other stories are mundane. Comical even.”
Macy took the cue and closed the current file, bringing up instead a few of the lesser sightings. Mostly ripples in the water, or strange shapes running along the surface. No pictures of anything that Miriam hadn’t deemed explicable. Despite it being Miriam’s whole job to find monsters, sometimes it seemed like she looked for any excuse to prove they didn’t exist. Macy supposed that was good science, but sometimes it only took the wind out of their sails.
Kim continued, “Like, one family reported that it came to their camp in the middle of the night and rooted through all their bags. Ate their food. Played with and deflated their football. That’s not dangerous. Just curious.”
Macy popped open a few more files until she found the account that Kim had referenced. “Only the kids saw it. Said it was a teddy bear.”
Miriam nodded. “Right. So just a bear. Bears are weird. People get confused by them all the time, especially if they’re mangy or walking on their hind legs.”
“But they said it had whiskers,” Kim added. “Bears don’t have whiskers.”
“True...” Miriam said, trailing off in thought.
Macy could almost see the wheels turning behind Miriam’s clouded eyes. No doubt the entire catalog of cryptids now shuffled through her head, making comparisons and connections. She’d figure it out eventually. She always did. In truth, Macy worried much more that Kim would be Miriam’s undoing.
As Miriam thought, Kim started unloading two backpacks from the front of the van. They were stuffed full, bedrolls and tents squished inside the nylon bags.
“It’s getting late,” Kim said. “We should head out so that we hit the lake before nightfall.”
Macy turned back to her paltry watch station and grabbed two radios from the charge banks. She handed them both to Miriam, trusting one would make it to Kim.
As Kim worked, Macy tried to speak privately with Miriam.
“Don’t let her get under your skin,” Macy whispered. She felt a little like a mother sending her kid off to school.
“It’s fine,” Miriam said. “I just don’t trust her. She’s being obtuse.”
Miriam always thought people were being obtuse, but in this case, she might have been right. Clearly, Kim had a motive of her own, and Macy wasn’t entirely sure that motive included actually finding the devil in the lake. Still, taking Kim along was part of the contract, so Miriam didn’t really have a choice.
“I’ll be here on the radio for you, if you need anything.”
Miriam nodded curtly, casting a sideways glance towards Kim. Macy felt a swell of dread in her chest. She was more than happy that it wasn’t her going into the woods, but for her that same trepidation now extended to Miriam, as well.
Without thinking, she wrapped Miriam up in a hug.
“Be careful, okay?”
Miriam squirmed in her grip at first, but eventually relented and melted into the hug. Miriam hated such things, but Macy needed the reassurance. She knew she was being silly. Miriam could handle herself. She always managed to find the way out. She’d do the job, escape the monster, and be back to the van in no time.
Or she wouldn’t.
“I’m always careful,” Miriam said as she gently pushed out of the hug. “You know that.”
Macy nodded sheepishly.
Kim strode over and offered a pack to Miriam. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
The two women hoisted the backpacks over their shoulders and took off down a dirt path, marked only by a small stone pillar with no text. Macy sighed, climbed back into the van, and turned on some music.
Loud music.
