Mortimer

The water was known to have taken the lives of men; curiously, no woman could be counted amongst the casualties of Rhodes Lake, now so named. That is, no woman could be counted among the casualties until now and this one was wretched. It was a different sort of death, one which was believed to have prolonged her agony ungraciously long and no one knew why. Impossible, though it would seem, to survive that long, she had. It was believed that she was out floating in the vastness of the lake for ten days before she was found. When she was, she was butchered. Multiple stab wounds covered her body. Many of them were to vital organs. It was a miracle to have survived that long, if one had the heart to put it that way. The wounds came from within, beginning in the stomach and making their way to the uterus. From there they exited out through the rest of the body. In the end Stacey died on the lakeshore, gasping for an air that could never fill the walls of her lungs.

She was in all ways perfect you see and, in years of investigation no one had given a hint as to why someone may want her dead. She was both beautiful and kind, which was rare. Anyone could have fallen in love with lovely young woman, and to be sure, many did. Two men in line for questioning had both made advances on her the night of her disappearance at a party on that very lake. Both cases were similar. The men, being drunk, tried to force themselves on her and had been harshly turned down. One of the men had been slapped in the face for some unwarranted groping. The other, no sooner had he stuck his tongue down her throat than he'd been given a bloody nose. But however appalling and indecent these men’s behavior was all alibis checked out and they could not be connected to her death.

Investigations of partygoers went on, unsuccessful. The closest anyone ever got to getting a real answer was from a man named Mortimer. He was an eccentric homeless man who told a wild, disturbing tale. A small section in a hidden area on the lakeshore had been fixed up, by him, to call home. Incidentally, there was a spot nearby just perfect for a party. The lights and music coming from it kept him awake for hours. His description fit that of the night in question.

It was a particularly cold night. The faint glow of the fire he had built hugged a young woman nearby so that he could just make her out in the dark. A blonde stripe ran down the side of her light brown locks. She had a youthful body and a graceful walk. Soon, the fire withdrew its hug, and she became a silhouette. He knew nothing about her, only that she was beautiful, and the fact that she didn’t even notice him. Maybe she needed to get away for a little while. Or maybe, as the lonely old man had secretly wished, that she was going skinny dipping. She wasn’t. Whatever the reason she was there, her description matched Stacey’s.

The water was calm and polished that night. Constellations were painted upon the blackened water. Aquarius had filled the lake to its brim. There was a cracking in the air that sung like a strange music. In the dark he saw the silhouette making its way, noiselessly, into the water. Deeper and deeper it went until finally it could no longer be seen. Though he should have, in retrospect, he made nothing of it at the time. He only watched, interested, before falling asleep.

The night after was stranger still. Everything he called home felt eerily unfamiliar. There was something in the air that he couldn’t quite fathom. Mortimer may have been protected by heavy layers of clothes, but a windstorm struck that sunk its icicle jaws into his face. In order to escape its clutches, he was forced to make his way to higher ground where thicker trees blocked the majority of the gusts. As deplorable as conditions were, the view from that spot was a magnificent one. It overlooked everything for miles, but he did not enjoy it long. A ringing in his ear gave him a sudden sleepiness that he couldn’t fend off. Nor did he try.

Later in the night, he awoke to what he thought was a dream, but it was too vivid for comfort. Everything was so clear. There were two heavens it seemed, One above and one below. He thought if he jumped in maybe he would find himself floating among the stars. Far out in the water were a number of spots that glowed a translucent blue. They surrounded a large wooden platform that had not been there before. A vibration around the spots lifted them up and out onto it. Once on top they all took on the same humanoid form. They had limbs but no hair or distinct facial features, yet they produced some sort of freakish grunt that punched you in the chest even from that distance. He noticed three people out on the platform with them, stripped stark naked. They were kneeling with their hands bound behind their backs. Judging from their whispered screams they were all women, nonhuman, except for the one with a blonde stripe in her hair.

These creatures began to pace around the prisoners, unfazed by their suffering. One of them walked up to the edge and pulled on a chain, hauling up a chest, which two other ones brought out and propped down. Inside was a rather large, elongated vessel, which had to be lifted with two hands. It was grey and glistened like polished stone. The vessel was handed over to another who was easily twice the size of the others. That creature appeared older and commanded respect from the rest. Whatever the thing was it was preparing something inside of the stone. The rest made a deep, ugly, droning sound. They swayed in a slow upright motion, an unearthly dance.

Everything came to a sudden halt with one thunderous roar. Only crying could be heard. Whatever was in the stone was ready. One of the women was dragged out toward the center. Silently, the old one walked around her a number of times. She was held down; hands were placed around her face and her mouth forced open. Her shriek rang into Mortimer’s ear. The stone was lifted high above her head, and something poured in. Her mouth was shut. A weight was strapped to her legs. She was tied to a rope and thrown over like an anchor on a ship. Others were already cast out. The next girl suffered much the same fate. However, a particular interest was taken to Stacey by one of these creatures before the she could be given the drink, it was an abnormal behavior comparatively. Her face was examined with a gentle caress, its hand rubbed down her shoulder. Turning toward the rest of them it must’ve said something that got another one angry who promptly came over and shoved him. Arguing ensued, and all the poor girl could do was watch, horrified. Her screams were echoes of an echo. The troublemaker that first touched her was beaten and they continued to quench the poor girl of her thirst, tied her off and threw her over. Soon after the older ropes were raised and checked. A bulbous red sack was attached to every one of them. Something wriggled around inside.

That was the end of the first night, but Mortimer claimed that this happened for days, and there was always a new prisoner. After over a week of this going on he had come to notice that the drink was being prepared with little pieces of the older one. The pieces writhed around in some type of unknown fluid but that he thought was keeping the women alive inside the sack. That night, on the ninth night, after everything was quiet, he recalled seeing the abnormal one appearing out of nowhere. The creature desperately raised line after line looking for Stacey but had been finding only other creatures. When she was finally found, her line and sack were cut. Translucent blue tentacles pierced out of her body. She squirmed on the floor, mechanically, making no sound. The creature was grief-stricken. It reached deeply into her mouth and pulled out the blue mass, stomping the life out of it.

Not a moment later that it did that was it surrounded by the others who came floating out from beneath the mirror water. A fight broke out between them and the abnormal. In the middle of the violence Stacey’s body was lost over the edge, not to be seen again that night. The brawl on the platform continued, however, the rescuer was overtaken and stomped to a pulp. As it lay there the older one slowly appeared. All the others were deadly silent as it walked over and absorbed the motionless body.

The fact that her body was found the next day in the very lake that was being searched for her when she couldn’t be found before was thanks to the situation that played out the night before, the homeless man claimed. None of the others had been found because they fulfilled their purpose and weren’t of this world. After she had been fished out by a family on their boat, she was dragged out onto the shore where she was proclaimed dead by the huge number of authorities arriving at the scene. From there on investigators knew how the story was playing out because investigations were still going on at the time.

They ended up never being able to obtain any worthy information from other sources even though investigations went on long after that. In the end all they had was an insane homeless man named Mortimer and his lunatic’s story about the beautiful Stacey Rhodes.