The River Serpent

My best friends Darius and Jordan learned about my fear of swimming during an impromptu tubing trip on the Farmington River. The summer after I turned twenty-six, Darius and Jordan took me to Foxborough Park, a park that ran alongside the river. Foxborough Park had recently undergone improvements as a part of the town’s beautification project. My parents once described the park as being “overrun by druggies and dropouts.” After the project completed, the town’s lilly-white, upper-middle class community became a mainstay of the park. We preferred the park the old way, even with its reputation, because it was our high school hangout and our getaway during difficult times.

“The wonders of gentrification,” Jordan said, gesturing to the Black Bear Cafe, a cute log-cabin style restaurant nestled on the bank of the river. “Sure it looks quaint with all the people sitting at those dining wood carved tables, but a single appetizer will clean out your wallet.”

“Shut up,” Darius replied, checking his phone. “We’ve got time and I’m hungry. What do you think, Zack?”

“You’d agree with me if your dad wasn’t the mayor…”

Darius rolled his eyes.

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever works.”  I wasn’t watching the cafe at all, but a group of teenagers in orange inner tubes circling down the lazy current. Though the water flowed slowly enough for them to text, I felt a tinge of nausea through a burst of acid reflux. “Hey…how long is the ride guys?”

“The current is slow so probably a couple hours,” Darius said, scanning my eyes. “You okay, man?”

“It’s not like you can’t swim,” Jordan quipped. “Wait a minute…I don’t think we ever swam together before.”

“I can swim.”  I shook my head, attention still fixed on the water. “I just haven’t done it in a long time.”

Darius patted my back. “You probably won’t need to. The water is really shallow most of the time.”

Jordan chuckled. “I don’t know. I think my CPR certification expired.”

Darius elbowed Jordan who jumped back and yelped. “You guys are so uptight!”

“Nah. Your jokes are just old, bro. Zack, we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that. It’s just…been a long time since I’ve done this.”

“Tubing or swimming?”

“Both.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Darius said, smiling. “It’ll come back to you.”

I nodded as we walked toward the cafe. He didn’t realize how right he was. As Jordan droned on about gentrification and snooty Hyde residents, the memories came back to me, memories of being nine and drowning in the river, memories of my late brother swimming frantically my way as I screamed and slipped beneath the surface.

Sitting outside, ordering food, and engaging in conversation felt all too much like clockwork. Over the years, I learned to tune my body into conversations while my mind tuned out.  My brother’s life felt like a blur most of the time but the time he saved my life played so vividly in my mind on repeat. I locked this memory away for years but now I remembered everything, including a feeling I had never acknowledged before of being pulled under, my body thrashing against the waves. I couldn’t remember what pulled me, just that it weighed me down like an anchor, salt water filling my eyes  and lungs.

“Zack, are you ready for this?” Darius asked, briefly staring at my half-eaten plate of food.

“If he wants to just watch us, let him,” Jordan sneered. “He’ll be bored, but he’ll be safe.”

“You’ve made your point, asshole. I’m going.”

With that, the three of us walked to the base of the river where men in olive green park uniforms were handing out tubes and life preservers. We must have arrived during downtime because only a bearded man in a Hawaiian bathing suit stood before us. We stripped down to our swim trunks and stored our clothes and items in our backpacks within a nearby bin.  Then, we dragged our tubes down by a guide with tinted sunglasses and laid them flat where the tide met the sand.

“Alright, gentleman. For your safety, keep your life preservers on at all times. If you happen to fall off the tube, the water should be shallow enough to get back on but be mindful of the other tubers around you. Based on the river level, this ride will take you about two hours today. There is no eating or drinking inside the tube as it is important to keep our water clean. Be considerate of kayakers, other tubers and anglers around you. Lastly, leave all wildlife alone. Use the rule of thumb. If you can cover the entire animal with your thumb, you are at a safe distance, which is anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred yards. Follow these simple rules and you’ll have a good time. Are we clear?”

We nodded as the gentleman pushed the three of our tubes into the river. Jordan and Darius cheered while I feigned a smile. When we were about one hundred yards away from the base, Jordan pulled a can of IPA from his trunks’ pocket, causing Darius to burst out laughing.

“You always have to be the edgy one,” I remarked, giving Jordan the side eye.

Jordan splashed water toward my tube but narrowly missed as it spun toward a bend. “Live a little, Zack. For once in your milktoast life, do something spontaneous.”

“Like your YouTube channel,” Darius groaned. “He’s not going to hunt magical ghosts and cryptids for views.”

I laughed, slapping my arm into the water, cutting a nice wave Jordan’s way.

“Better that than being a knife salesman,” Jordan jeered. “Let’s not kid ourselves Zack.”

As the three of our tubes circled another bend past a group of young girls, I looked at the orange tinted sky and smiled. It was good to be with Darius and Jordan, even if we were crudely roasting each other. For the past few years the monotony of work and home kept us from enjoying each other’s company too often. Darius worked for a tech company in Japan and only visited the states a couple times a year.  Jordan, on the other hand, was my roommate who resented the fact that I worked too often to hang out and make YouTube videos with. Like the day’s tide, we were slowly drifting apart but for the time being, just within an arm or phone call’s distance of each other.  I wondered how long that would last.

For the next hour we joked and reminisced about better times as we drifted further down the river. A couple groups of tubers had pulled their rafts ashore to have lunch or join the fishermen. The park felt very much alive that day. The man in the Hawaiian bathing suit drifted nearer toward us as Jordan boasted about his next project.

“So, next week, Matt Drake and I are going to Green Lady Cemetery. He has new EVP gear so we can try to communicate. You guys are more than welcome to come along.”

“Thanks. But I’ll pass,” Darius scoffed. “You tell Zack to get a real job but look at you, dude.”

As we continued to travel down the river, the old man’s  tube drifted closer to ours. He was listening to our conversation, not caring if we caught on. When Jordan told his story about getting chased by the ghost of Samson Rock, the man laughed heartily, causing his white, Santa Claus beard to bounce off his large belly.

“You boys sure enjoy some tall tales,” he said as his tube pulled up next to ours. The three of us stared at him blankly as he introduced himself with a slight Scottish brogue as “Matty MacDonald.”

“Well, sir,” Darius said, visibly indifferent. “That only makes Jordan.”

“Actually,” I chimed in, to the surprise of Jordan and Darius. “I enjoy the stories. I just don’t believe in most of them.”

Matty flashed me a chipped tooth smile, laughing heartily once more. “Then, maybe the two of you would enjoy the tale of the river serpent. Have you heard it before, boys?”

We shrugged. Jordan started and then stopped mid-sentence, admitting he surprisingly hadn’t heard that one before. Jordan was so inundated with folklore, cryptozoology stories and hearing his own stories that we were equally thrown off by his loss for words.

“Ha! I am not surprised. People don’t tell serpent stories around these parts anymore but when I was little, it was all anyone talked about. When I was a wee yin and my family was fresh off the boat, my mother forbade me from playing by the river. She heard stories of boys being pulled under. The boys that lived to tell about it described a sensation of sliminess and sharp scales. The stories of a river serpent spread like wildfire.”

“It’s true!” Jordan exclaimed, pulling up an article on his phone. “It’s true! I have access to the New York Times archives and I found an article from 1886 about a hundred foot sea serpent that was spotted all the way up the Connecticut River in Cromwell.”

“So that must make it true,” Darius said coldly. “A second-hand account from the 1800s, before much of modern science’s discoveries, and you believe it just like that. Figures. Also, we’re on the Farmington River, not-”

“It’s a tributary, you silly skeptic, which means it flows into-”

“I know what it means, Jordan. It still doesn’t mean you have any proof. Mr. MacDonald, have you ever experienced anything?”

As soon as the jolly man laughed again, Darius seemed to instantly regret his question while I quietly grew more curious. At a young age, my late grandfather, a Navy veteran of the second world war, told Arnold and me tall tales about giant squid and a shark as big as the Megalodon. Even though I never believed my grandfather, I found comfort in some of these stories.

“Of course my boys! Why, as a lad, I went fishing all the time. I caught mostly trout in those days but I remember one night, something hivvy  tugged my rod and me under! It was the most violent force I ever felt. Had I not let go of the rod, I would have been like all those other boys. I haven’t been fishing ‘round these parts since. My poor mac-min, or what yeh call grandson, died looking for it.”

“Whoa,” Jordan said, jaw agape.

“Oh…” Darius murmured.

“I’m sorry for your loss. Thanks for telling us your story,” I said as Matty’s tube started to drift further from ours again. “Hey guys, why are our tubes going slower than his?”

“Oh shit,” Darius said, looking over the side. There were a few small holes in the seams

of each of our tubes. “We better bring these to shore.”

Darius hopped out of the tube and noticed that the water was shallow enough that he could walk. He motioned for all of us to step out of our tubes. We all hopped out, the rocks digging at our toes, seaweed between the crevices.   As a strand of seaweed wrapped around my leg, I squirmed, thinking back to the slimy feeling I felt the day I almost drowned. Until that moment, I hadn’t thought about that particular feeling because the memory of drowning was so overwhelming. The slimy feeling triggered another memory, the fear of looking down. It wasn’t only when something pulled me under but every time I entered the water thereafter. I never ventured further than a few feet into a pool, river or ocean, fearing what I couldn’t see.

After we pulled the tubes to shore, Jordan stepped aside to start yelling obscenities into the phone, most likely at his girlfriend whom he was fighting with for the umpteenth time. Darius motioned for me to come over and commented that I looked totally zoned out.

“Zack. You okay, man?”

“Yeah,” I said instinctively, not looking back at him. The wet sand beneath my toes reminded me of the first feeling I recalled when I woke up gasping with my grandfather looming over me, his meaty fingers locked over my chest. A small crowd gathered around us, their faces drifting in and out of focus. For years, that moment had been a blur, a frightening, overwhelming blur that stayed in my mind’s black box of repressed childhood memories.

“I call bullshit on that.”

“Yeah,” I replied, awkwardly laughing. I looked toward Jordan who was dragging the deflating tubes up the hill toward a park worker. When he was out of earshot, I said, “I almost drowned here when I was a kid.”

“Drowned?”

“I…had fallen out of my tube. I could swim but something like a rip current pulled me under.”

“I thought rip currents only happened near the sea.”

“That’s the thing. It makes no sense but I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Darius put an arm around my shoulder and stood with me for a moment. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Zack. I can’t imagine what it felt like. No wonder you were all quiet today.”

“Yeah…”

“Ugh. I hear Jordan raising his voice. I’m going to check it out and hopefully stop him before he gets thrown out of the park. Are you good here?”

“I will be. Thanks for doing that. I don’t really want to talk to him right now.”

“Someone has to.”

After hearing the words “Jordan, you idiot,” I headed down the bank to clear my head. On any other day, I would have stepped in to help, but my thoughts were too many miles and years away for me to care. After Arnold and my grandfather rescued me, I didn’t think much about what happened to me or how it affected me emotionally. At that age, my life moved on normally and was filled with too many school days, birthday parties, and karate practices for me to care about the past. When my brother died unexpectedly a year later, however, I felt like I was drowning all over again. I was wracked with guilt for not being able to save my brother the way he saved me. On my most miserable days, I even thought about going back in the river and waiting for an unexplainable force to pull me under again.

As I walked further down the bank, I struggled to find the exact drowning spot or anything that remotely resembled it. Maybe the current was too high. Maybe the shadows blanketing the river made it too difficult to see.  Either way, I lacked the focus to continue and sat down by a large boulder. My head throbbed. For some strange reason my jaw was throbbing too. When I looked up, the sky morphed into a dreary mix of purple and black. When I looked back from the direction I came, I saw nothing more than boulders varying in size. How had I walked so far, I wasn’t sure.

I attempted to call out in the direction of the guys, only to find my voice faint and horse. I rubbed my hand over my throat and tried to clear any saliva trapped inside. No saliva lingered.  I attempted once more, only to find my voice fainter, hoarser. Upon instinct, I darted toward the water and  splashed a fistful into my throat.

I spoke first softly and then increasingly louder. “What the hell. What the hell. What the hell!”

My voice, audible again, carried down the river and disappeared into the wind. A few moments later a hollow, familiar voice answered back- “Zack, over here!” I figured the voice belonged to Darius or Jordan, but it was higher-pitched. It sounded like another voice I had heard before, but I couldn’t figure out who it belonged to.

“Zack, hurry up!” the voice called again, this time even more hollow. It seemed closer than before.  My mind was racing, trying to figure out who else would have called my name with such vigor. After high school, most of the people in my friendship circle moved to other towns or other states. After college, my last known acquaintances did as well, except for Darius, Jordan and Miguel. Of course! It must have been Miguel. He didn’t live in Hyde anymore. He had an apartment in New Haven with his girlfriend but sometimes visited his grandparents’ house on weekends.

“Miguel?!” I called back. “Miguel is that you?”

There was no response, only the echo of my voice bouncing down the waters and into the wind. Reluctantly, I hurried down the bank and called Miguel’s name again. It must be Miguel, I thought. No other person knew my name well enough to shout it with that intensity. Suddenly, I remembered that Miguel never called me by my first name. He was the only one to call me “Zee” since high school, an inside joke that didn’t catch on with the rest of my friend group.

A few minutes later, I felt the water start to regurgitate. It didn’t feel like water though. It was sour and putrid, causing me to convulse onto some nearby rocks, followed by very heavy breathing. So much for my lunch of sliders and iced coffee. The sour, putrid taste lingered intensely on my tongue, the stench permeating my nostrils.

“Oh no,” I whispered just as I stood up and regained my composure. I felt my body shiver, from the loss of liquid I figured, and then a sudden stream of vomit shot out of my mouth like a waterfall. I stared fearfully as I lost control of my body. The liquid wasn’t green or clear but black and slimy. I gasped as something scaly stabbed its way up my throat and into the black stream.When the stream finished, I felt like collapsing. Instead, I stared with pure terror at the black lagoon my body produced. I must have lost blood. I must have been internally bleeding. I needed an ambulance. With my hands violently shaking, I thrust my cell phone from my tattered pockets, practically dropping it into the lagoon. I began to dial 9-1-1 as my phone drained to black.

“Oh fuck. Oh no.”

A jagged, black scale lay in the middle of the slime, floating upward like a submerged shark fin.

I looked around frantically to find any person nearby. In a matter of seconds, I heard the voice once more.

“Zack, you okay, brother?”

The voice carried from the water, merely yards from where I stood.

“Miguel?”  I called. I looked up from my pile of misery to see a figure floating in the middle of the water, eclipsed by shadows.  “Miguel. Can you help?”

“I can’t believe you wouldn’t recognize your own brother.”

“What the hell? Who are you?”

I glanced more closely at the figure and noticed the long, curly hair draping over its shoulders. I jumped into the water and started swimming toward the figure, which just floated and swayed with the waves. No matter how close I came to the figure, I couldn’t quite discern its features. I stopped four feet from the figure and began  to tread water, my body still weak, my throat still throbbing. Something prevented me from swimming closer.

“Who the hell are you?” I shouted between labored breaths  “You’re not my brother.”

“I saved you. Why couldn’t you save me?” the figure said menacingly.

“You’re not my fucking brother!” I shouted again, clasping my throat from the pain. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

“I saved you. Why couldn’t you save me!”

Although I was terrified, I wanted to punch it. I lunged from the water, fists ablaze and dove toward it.

“I saved you. Why couldn’t you save me!”

I was airborne for mere seconds before I felt something rubbery like a long, scaly fire hose immersed in mire lasso my legs so tightly that it cut off circulation to my ankles, dragging me under. I was too frightened to look down. I desperately held my breath as the same black slime I convulsed permeated the waters above and below me. My senses were fading but I could still clearly hear the figure shouting above the surface, “I saved you! Why couldn’t you save me!”

I screamed and jerked my body in every direction until I managed to escape the rubbery force. I could taste the slime, the putrid, sour slime, but I was free. I closed my eyes and pushed myself to the surface, expecting to see the figure still lingering there. When I opened my eyes and gasped for breath, there were several people on the banks, including my friends who were madly waving at me.

“Watch out!” a group of tubers yelled toward me as their orange inner tubes spun on by.

“You shouldn’t be out here!” a man in a single tube shouted, almost knocking me over.

“Zack, what the hell are you doing out here?!” Darius shouted.

“You’re crazy, man!” Jordan clamored, laughing hysterically. “Get your ass back here!”

I froze as several more groups of tubers spun past me, shouting, swearing  and scolding me. When I could manage to move my head, I scanned my surroundings for the figure, but it vanished along with my puddle of black waste back on shore.

“Do you need help?!” Darius shouted as another tuber spun by, giving me the bird.

“No, no! I’m just a little winded.”

When the coast was clear, I swam to shore. Darius and Jordan grabbed me by the arms and pulled me up.

“You don’t look good, dude.”

“I don’t understand…I threw up right here. There was blood everywhere.”

“You-you threw up blood?!” they stammered in unison.

“Where’s the blood, Zack?” Jordan spouted. “I don’t see any blood. You sure you didn’t hit your head out there?”

“No. There was blood. I don’t underst-”

“Let’s get you to the medical station,” Darius stated firmly.

“Actually…um,  I think I’m good.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied. “My arms got pretty marked up and you know me. I freak at the sight of blood. I think I threw up water and got confused. Sorry, guys.”

“Okay…so why were you in the water?” Darius asked, arms folded, biting his lip. “I thought you were too uncomfortable to swim.”

“I wanted to wash off the blood and then…I had the urge to swim to take my mind off things.”

“I thought you didn’t want to swim?” Jordan postured, scratching his head. “None of this makes sense.”

I hated lying to them. I was bad at lying and my friends could always tell. This time proved no exception. I knew, however, that Darius would take the overly cautious approach and Jordan would gush over my story and exploit my state of his mind as an excuse for some supernatural expedition for his YouTube channel. Before I dug a deeper deception hole, a yelling woman redirected our attention. At first glance, it seemed like nothing more than a mom scolding her ten-year-old son, but the question “What are those marks?” sparked our curiosity.

We cautiously walked down the bank in their direction. We tried to be discreet but our quizzical looks, hushed questions like “what did she just say?” and Jordan’s snickering made our intentions and presence obvious. We had fallen into the mode of the small town gossipers when we swore we’d never become when we left for college. Our curiosity quickly turned to concern upon seeing the jagged slash marks on the boy’s arm.

The woman shook the boy and kept repeating questions such as “what happened Caelan?” and “Are you okay?” He did not respond. Caelan kicked a cloud of dirt underneath him and stared blankly into his mother’s eyes. His blue eyes were unblinking and vapid.  No matter how hard she shook his shoulder or how loudly she yelled, he remained unfazed.

“I’m sorry to intrude but is everything okay?” Darius asked. The woman adjusted her shirt, wiped her face and nodded. “Can I get help?”

“No,” she said sniffling. “Caelan’s on the spectrum. Sometimes when stuff like this happens, he shuts down. I’m sorry. I must have sounded like a crazy person.”

“No you’re good,” Jordan said, kneeling down toward the boy. “Hey buddy, those are some gnarly marks there. Did you get those swimming?”

The boy didn’t respond. He was staring in our direction now with the same, vapid expression.

“Caelan loves swimming,” his mother insisted. “He’s a very good swimmer but I tell him not to go out too far. I should have kept my eye on him but he hates when I’m watching.”

“Where did you get those?” the boy whispered. It took a few moments for me to realize that the boy was speaking to me. His eyes were wide now and almost fearful. Caelan stared intensely at my leg, which I hadn’t realized until that moment shared the same set of slash marks. I grimaced. “Where did you get those?”

“I got beat up swimming…”

“I hate it when people lie,” the boy replied, raising his voice. He was still staring at my marks. I was taken aback at Caelan’s alarmingly accurate perception. “It got you too!”

“What?” I stammered. “What did you say?”

“I hate it when people lie!” the boy repeated, this time shouting on top of his lungs, sky blue eyes locked deeply on mine. Jordan and Darius exchanged worried glances. Caelan’s mom reached to grab his arm but he smacked it. “It got you too! It will get everyone!”

“I’m so sorry. He’s never like this. Let’s go home, honey.”

Before any of us could ask Caelan what he meant, his mother grabbed him by the arm, dragging him forcefully away. His face turned many different shades of red.   As Caelan’s mom pulled him down the bank he screamed, “It got you too! It will get everyone! It got you too!”

“That was terrifying,” Jordan said after a long time.

“Maybe you should tell us what the hell is going on?” Darius remarked, glaring uneasily at the boy until he was out of sight. “Let’s start with how you got those marks and save us the lies.”

“You wouldn’t believe me. I mean… Jordan will but I don’t even believe myself.”

“You saw the serpent again?” His tone was a predictable mixture of concern and excitement.  “Did it get you?”

“All I know is something got me when I was swimming. It wrapped around me. I don’t know what it was.It felt like the same thing that grabbed me when I was a kid”

I didn’t even dare tell them about the figure as I didn’t even know how to describe it or if it was real. Maybe I had hallucinated the whole thing, but why could I see its menacing shape so vividly in my mind?  Why could I still hear that voice that sounded like an otherworldly version of my brother’s?

“Don’t start that shit again. Zack, do you think it was an eel?”

“Come on, bro.  Zack doesn’t think it was an eel. That’s just stupid.”

“Not as stupid as your serpent idea. American eels live in rivers and I read somewhere that the largest one is seven feet.”

“Oh yeah. A seven foot eel just pulled him under the water. Eels don’t do that. You heard what Matty said. This is classic serpent behavior.”

“Matty’s a kook and you’re exhibiting pure kook behavior.”

“Shut up. Stop arguing. You’re not helping,” I groaned as I walked back toward the river. The sky started to darken again as a low wave died upon the shore, dampening our shoes. “Look. I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what got me. What that boy said scared the shit out of me and I want to go home.”

“There’s got to be a rational explanation.”

“Darius, nothing about this day is rational. Oh god. Jordan, why are you getting into the water? Jordan?”

“You guys didn’t  hear that! Some girl is calling my name. What the hell? Who is that?”

By the time Darius and I reacted, Jordan stood waist deep in the water. A moderately sized wave smacked his forehead, rapidly washing over him. Jordan jumped up, hastily wiping his eyes, and trudged forward.   Rain started to cascade down from the velvety black skies. We called for Jordan to come back, but he continued to wade toward the drop-off, his eyes fixed intently on something in the distance.

“Sarah! Is that you?”

“Oh no,” I whispered to Darius. He grimaced and exhaled deeply. The very name made our skin crawl. Jordan’s friend Sarah died after a long illness in college. Was he hallucinating like me? Then again, had I hallucinated at all? What I saw felt so real.   “Should we get him?”

“I…don’t even know.”

As the rain crashed over Jordan, he screamed, his arms visibly trembling, “Sarah! Come back!”

“Jordan, that’s not Sarah!” I shouted his way. The sound of the crashing rain and waves distorted my voice. He continued to scream, his entire body shaking now, his skin color draining to an awful pale. “Jordan! Get away from it! It’s not Sarah! Screw it. I’m going in.”

Before I could dive in, Jordan was already rushing back to the shore. He sprang out of the water and onto the dirt, now rapidly speeding up the grassy knoll toward an opening in the woods. Jordan’s trunks were tattered at the seams with three jagged slash marks running horizontally down his right leg. Without even looking at each other, Darius and I raced after him, almost tripping on a lopsided boulder midway up the hill, which caused Jordan to gain additional speed. For a mere moment, I thought I saw a young woman in a hooded sweatshirt. When I blinked again, there was just a tall oak tree.

“Jordan, stop!” Darius hollered but by the time we reached the opening to the forest he already had. He stood still for a moment, staring into the narrow path  and an entrance sign that read “Red Brushed Trail.” Only a few hikers were on the trail now. Yet, Jordan was staring intensely at their faces, trying to discern any feature that looked like Sarah’s. “Jordan…Jordan. What did you see?”

“She…was right here. You don’t understand. Sarah… was in the water. Then…she was running…and I couldn’t catch her.”

“Jordan,” I said softly. “Sarah died many years ago…”

“You don’t understand, Zack.” Jordan’s words were faint, his entire body was still trembling, trenched in water and goosebumps. “That was Sarah. She was right here. I know…she died but she was right here…”

Jordan collapsed to his knees and started sobbing uncontrollably. Darius and I knelt down with him and pulled him into our arms. We didn’t know what else to do. Through all his faults, gullibility,  and impulsivity, Jordan was still our best friend and we had never seen him cry this way, not even when Sarah died. It was around this time that Jordan had thrown himself into his supernatural YouTube channel, the channel they had started together. The channel became his escape and mission to honor her. I feared what would happen to Jordan if the supernatural ever threatened that world of his.

Darius and I didn’t bother to question what Jordan saw. Once we helped him get under control, he expressed his desire to walk back to the parking lot. We didn’t blame him. Unfortunately, it was getting darker and the Red Brushed trail was the only way we could return to the front of the park, which extended over two miles in length. We had no other choice but to head down the path. Jordan’s face stayed red and puffy, his eyes looking somewhere far away. We knew of no words or phrases that would ease Jordan’s pain. We may have been Jordan’s best friends but Sarah and Jordan connected on a much deeper level, ever since they were assigned lab partners in high school biology class. They shared the same undying love for horror, attending horror movies and conventions regularly. Jordan loved her deeply, even more than he did his current girlfriend, but was always too afraid to express that love.

“It’s getting pretty dark,” Jordan said, sniffling slightly. “We should use the flashlights on our phones.”

“Damn. I left my phone back in the bin. I don’t have a waterproof case like you guys,” Darius remarked.

“I’ll try, Jordan. I only have about thirty percent battery life on my phone.”

“That will be enough for now.”

After about ten minutes of silent walking, Jordan started to apologize but we reassured

him that there was no need. The flashlights on our phones illuminated a trail of leaf litter that wound through twists and turns past a repetition of sycamore and birch trees. Despite the trail extending only a couple of miles, the distance seemed longer  in the dark. We had to squint to see the red blazes on the trees. When the battery on my phone started to rapidly drain, I shut off the flashlight and pulled up a trail app on my phone, typing in the park and trail name.

“What did you do that for?” Jordan inquired uneasily.

“We need to save battery. Besides, the AllTrails app says we only have a mile to go.”

“Hey, guys!” Darius shouted. We were surprised to find him a few yards ahead of us with a medium sized brown lab sitting by his feet. The dog had long, floppy ears and a peculiar white speckled pattern across its nose and fur. “Someone left their dog here. What should we do?”

Jordan rushed over to the dog’s side and started rapidly petting it. “I don’t know, but it’s really cute and friendly.”

“It kind of looks like your old dog, Gus.”

This comment gave Jordan pause. Darius’ eyes were wide and misty. Gus ran away when Darius was a teenager. I immediately regretted saying this as he couldn’t look at brown labs for years following the dog’s disappearance.

“Oh my god,” Darius whispered. He stroked his back profusely.  “Gus. It’s really you. It’s really you buddy. Gus. Oh my god. You even have that scar from your surgery…”

“Wouldn’t Gus be really old?” Jordan said. “Wait…you’re right.”

“It can’t be…” I commented. “I’m sorry guys, but he looks like a young dog and would be well over sixteen and-”

I stopped my words short as soon as I saw the scar that stretched the length of the dog’s back. It was the same scar Gus had after taking a fall on a hike. After surgery, the veterinarian told Darius and his family Gus was lucky to be alive and may not fully recover from his injuries. We all took turns stroking the dog’s back, not realizing that one of us accidentally reached the dog’s scar. Gus yelped and scampered off the side of the trail.

“Gus!” our words echoed simultaneously as we took off after him, ducking under branches, stumbling out of the opening to the knoll, prickers stringing to our trunks. Gus darted down the hill and into the river, splashing through the waves that struck the shore. As Darius picked up speed and hustled toward Gus, rain cascaded from the sky once more. We could barely keep up with Darius, once the star of Hyde High School’s track team. As hard as we hustled, he was no match for Gus who sped around the shore’s bend and out of sight. Darius doubled over, breathing rapidly.

Darius was still about fifty feet in front of us when he rose and started shouting into the waters.

“It’s not my fault he ran away! It’s not my fault!”

We weren’t sure why Darius shouted this phrase. We grew increasingly worried when he started repeating it. When we caught up to him, he was screaming on top of his lungs.

“It’s not my fault he ran away! It’s not my fault! You can’t blame me anymore!”

I had never heard Darius scream like this. We grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back and he still screamed into the waves until his voice was horse and he needed to catch his breath.

“I…heard my father’s voice,” he said, whimpering just like Gus did.  “I heard his voice from the water. I heard his scornful, awful voice.”

“It’s not real!” I said. “It’s not real, Darius.  Guys…I saw something in the water too. It was a figure that looked like my brother. It wasn’t my brother though.”

“What’s doing this to us?” Jordan whispered, still holding onto Darius’ arm. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“When I was sixteen,” Darius started. As he spoke, I noticed someone standing on a boulder in the distance, looking out into the ocean. It looked like the old man in Hawaiian trunks, but I couldn’t be sure. Other than him, the shore was completely vacant.  “My dad and I got into a screaming match when I came out to him. Gus got scared and escaped through the front dog door. We chased after him but could never find him. This only made my dad scream and blame me more.  I know this sounds crazy but I heard those exact same words.”

“It’s not crazy,” I said. “Unless, we’re all crazy…”

“Yer not crazy.”  We turned to see Matty standing before us, this time wearing a plaid shirt over his trunks, devoid of any jovial expression. “I’m sorry to intrude but-”

“Do you live at the park or something?” Darius jeered. “No offense, but it’s kind of creepy that you’re always around us.”

“I know you’re upset but be nice,” I said. “He wasn’t the one who made you see those things.”

“No, yer fine,” Matty responded in a solemn tone. “The park is in my backyard. And I heard the three of yeh screaming yer lungs out all day. Yeh can’t blame me for being curious. Yeh saw something.”

We nodded in unison.

“Yeh saw yer innermost fears and regrets.”

It took a moment to process this sentence but we nodded again.

“We saw visions, Matty,” I said. “We saw them in the water: my brother, Jordan’s deceased friend and Darius’ dog that ran away years ago. What the hell is happening?”

He sighed. “Yeh don’t have to see the serpent to be affected by it. It makes yeh see yer innermost fears and regrets deep within the water. It lures yeh that way.”

“I felt something pull me under when I was nine and today, right after I saw a figure that looked like Arnold. I knew it wasn’t my brother. But it got me anyway.”

“Wait,” Darius said. “This is insane. I know what we think we saw but it could be our mind playing tricks on us, you know, the power of suggestion or something.”

“You’re reaching.”  Jordan patted his back. “We know what we saw.”

“Maybe I am and maybe we did but it’s a reach to say it’s some mystical sea serpent.”

“How can you be so sure?” I was shocked by my own words. I wasn’t one to fall for paranormal or cryptid stories but we  had no other way to explain what we saw. Maybe Matty was a kook like Darius claimed, but at least he had an explanation.

Matty rolled down his sleeves and grunted. “Well, whatever yeh decide to believe, be careful out there. It’s past this old man’s bed time.”

Matty bid us farewell and continued down the shore for another mile to the parking lot. By the time we grabbed our supplies from the bin and reached the front of the park, the skies were pitch black and there were only a few campers by the shore and cafe. Only a handful of cars, including ours, remained in the lot. As much as we wanted to figure out what we saw, we were too tired and confused to carry on.

“Well, this was weird and terrifying,” Jordan said as we approached our cars. “I never thought I’d say this, but I never want to hear the words ‘serpent’ or ‘innermost fears’ for a very long time.”

Darius laughed nervously. “For once, I agree with you.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “None of this makes sense.”

“We can figure it out in the morning, Zack.”

I was surprised to hear those words come from Jordan’s mouth.

“Or you know, not,” Darius said as he stepped into his blue Ford Focus. “Let’s get some sleep guys and put this day behind us.”

Darius and Jordan drove out of the parking lot as fast as they could. I stayed. I couldn’t leave after all that happened to us, not without figuring out what we truly saw.

Upon a few more cars leaving the parking lot, I made my way to the lightless, misty shore. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but trudged into the mist anyway, hoping that my presence would draw attention. My brother’s voice echoed in my head, but I was pretty sure that was my imagination. It was easy to shut that out. But I also heard Sarah’s voice saying, “There’s something really cool in here!”  Mayor Johnston’s voice followed, screaming, “You’re a disappointment like my son!” It wasn’t clear if the words were coming from my mind or from the waters, but these weren’t the words that Darius or Jordan heard. I also heard Gus howl too.

These words and sounds consumed my mind so intensely that I barely noticed Caelan’s mom bundled in a large hoodie, her bare feet touching the waves.

“Oh, hi there,” she said with a slight smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I don’t think I introduced myself, I’m Irene and you know Caelan, of course.”

“He’s… out there again?”

“Yeah. I’m not a bad mother, I swear. He goes night swimming with his grandfather sometimes.”

“Not at all.”   I slightly smiled too as I spotted Caelan breaking into a crawl stroke above the waves. “Wow! He’s really good. How long has he been out there?”

“Too long. Caelan! It’s time to come back! Caelan! I can’t see him anymore, can you?”

“Shit. Should I get him?”

“I’m not a strong swimmer. If you could go out there and just tell him to come back that would be great.”

I stripped my shirt and dove into the water, remembering what it was like to swim in the river so many years ago. I was a strong swimmer like Caelan at nine but too fearful to swim at night. As I thrashed against the wave, I could barely see or hear anything. The deeper I swam, the worse my vision became. When I pulled myself above the water, I started to panic. I no longer saw the shore above the crashing waves, only the blood red moon eclipsing the sky.

“Caelan! Caelan! Where are you?”

“It’s really nice out here tonight. Come a little further, Zack!” a female voice called to my left.

“You can’t save him, Zack! You couldn’t even save me!” a more distorted voice called to my left.

“Bring me my goddamn dog back! It should have been my son,” an even more distorted voice snarled. I couldn’t tell where that voice came from. This voice was more menacing and echoed even deeper into the waves.

When the voices ceased, something snarled from beneath the water followed by high-pitched, muffled screams. I forced myself down under. My eyes didn’t adjust to the darkness but there was just enough light to see black sludge permeating the water above and below me.The sludge stung my eyes. I closed them and forced myself further below. The high-pitched scream grew more audible. My eyes opened in front of Caelan who slipped in and out of consciousness as the sludge permeated his body. I couldn’t see beneath the sludge but I reached out to grab Caelan from the rubbery and scaly entity constricting his body. Surprisingly, his body slipped from the entity and I pulled him above the surface.

He opened his eyes and we both were coughing profusely. Caelean forced himself out of my arms and hiccupped a mouth full of water.

“Are you okay, Caelan?”

“You shouldn’t have done that!” Caelan yelled. His eyes morphed from blue to a darker shade.

“You were drowning!”

“You can try all you want but it’ll always be the same…”

“What…what do you mean? We have to get back…”

Before I could say anything more, I heard another snarl from beneath the water. The rubbery and scaly entity emerged from the water, taking the form of an enormous, twisting black tail. The tail swept over the waves, colliding with my body, its ivory scales puncturing my chest. My body propelled backward, dangling helplessly as it skirted over the now still rapids. The speed felt like being on an upside down roller coaster without any straps or supports. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move as my body blew backward over the shore and onto the grassy knoll. Upon my body’s impact, I slipped into darkness.

When I awoke from my trance-like state, the sun beamed through my eyes. For some reason, I felt stiff without any excruciating pain. My arms and legs moved without peril. I rose to my feet and touched my chest, surprised to see my shirt back on and my cell phone in my pocket. Had I dreamt the night before? At that moment, Darius’ power of suggestion and hallucination explanation seemed more logical, even though I couldn’t quite make sense of it. If a giant serpent actually attacked me and my body impacted the knoll at roller coaster speed, I would have been killed upon impact. I also hadn’t slept well the previous night and probably collapsed upon the knoll, dreaming up my nightmarish encounter with Caelan and the serpent.

It was all beginning to make sense, or at least I thought it did. The three of us came to the river with our deeply buried trauma and after hearing the story of the river serpent, we saw and heard what we wanted to. People hallucinated ghosts and demons for all sorts of strange reasons. I couldn’t explain the psychology behind it but figured this was the most satisfying explanation for the previous day’s events. When I checked my phone, I found a number of missing calls from Jordan. With all the chaos from the previous day, I almost forgot he was my roommate. I texted the guys that I was okay and that I accidentally fell asleep in the park.

As I finished the texts, I looked up to see Matty knee deep in the morning tide. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating again.

“Matty!” I shouted with glee. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. What are you doing out here?”

I expected to hear Matty’s gleeful voice but upon reaching him, he responded with a sense of sorrow.  “I came out here hoping to see my poor mac-min or nighean. The serpent only lets  you see what he wants.”

“I didn’t realize both of them died. Matty, I’m so sorry.”

He sighed. “Caelan drowned looking for the serpent. Irene passed shortly after…probably of a broken heart.”

My heart was exploding in my chest. My entire body felt nauseous. I excused myself and rushed up the knoll and projectile vomited black sludge onto the grass. Another scale floated upward like a submerged shark fin. After my body felt empty and lifeless, I blinked and there was nothing there but tall grass and in the distance, the sound of the cruel morning waves.