NOTE: All flash fiction and stories based on writing exercises/prompts posted to the Talebones homepage are free for everyone to read!
If you like this little story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!
And for more fiction fun of various shapes and sizes, subscribe for free!
The August night was heatwave-heavy, no breeze off the nearby water, no relief despite the darkness. Ethan Baker sat with his bedroom window wide open, a fruitless effort to cool things down, while he tried and failed to focus on the pages of The Lord of the Flies.
School was mere weeks away, and Ethan had had months to complete his summer reading along with the notes he was supposed to take. But this was his last summer before high school, and there had simply been too much to do, too much to soak up. Riding bikes into Orchard Beach with his best friend, Bailey, to buy ice cream and play frisbee on the public shoreline, or sitting on the couch on the rare rainy days and playing Fortnite. He had single-handedly weeded the whole garden upon his mom’s request and had even earned a few bucks mowing a few brown, unwatered lawns around the neighborhood. School had been the last thing on his mind.
Ethan looked over at his phone. 10pm. He sighed. His mom worked late at a bar in town most nights, but he knew she would expect proof that he had made a significant dent in the reading over breakfast the next morning.
“Ethan!”
He looked up. It was Bailey’s hissed voice, coming from outside.
Ethan set the book down and crossed to the open window.
There she was, standing down on the lawn looking up at him, smiling. “Whatcha doing?”
“Summer reading,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Come down,” she said. “I have an idea.”
Ethan hesitated. “I don’t think I can,” he said.
But Bailey frowned. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be quick. You can read when we get back.”
Get back? From where? But Ethan was too curious to refuse. He closed the window and left the house, locking the door behind him, meeting Bailey on the lawn.
She smiled when he approached. “I thought you were gonna wimp out on me for a second.”
He shook his head. “Nah. Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” she replied. Then, without waiting, she turned on her heel and headed down the street, her flip-flops snapping on the sidewalk in the stillness.
Ethan followed after her. They passed her house—only two doors down from his own—and kept going.
“If we’re heading into town we should take our bikes,” Ethan said, tentatively, poking for clues.
Bailey shook her head. “We’re not going into town. We’re doing something else.”
“Bailey, this is dumb. Tell me what we’re doing, or I’m going home.”
“Fine.”
She stopped and turned to face him with a devious expression. “Wanna go swimming?”
“Swimming?” Ethan frowned. “Where?”
“Appleview,” she said.
Something got heavy in the pit of Ethan’s stomach. “Appleview Lodge?”
Bailey nodded, waggling her eyebrows. “I found a way to sneak in. There’s a hole in the fence. I saw it the other day. We could totally fit through it.”
Ethan swallowed. “But…what if we get caught?”
“We won’t,” Bailey said. “Unless you act like a baby about it.”
Ethan bristled. “I’m not a baby.”
“Well, come on, then.”
Ethan watched Bailey’s back recede into the night. Reluctance weighted his feet to the warm pavement, but curiosity—and a desire to impress Bailey, a new feeling—moved him forward.
He followed her down the suburban street, past all the modest houses on the edge of the boundary where the wealthy part of Orchard Beach began. In this sleepy part of town no one did much driving after dark, so they passed unseen down the road until they reached the wooded area where the edge of the Appleview Lodge Resort’s property started. Bailey entered the trees without turning back, Ethan close on her heels.
The resort’s property line loomed ahead of them, an old but solid wooden fence about ten feet tall, with a row of decorative but wicked spikes along its top, to keep vandals from trying to climb over it.
Casually, Bailey followed the line of the fence until—as far as Ethan could tell—she ducked down, and completely vanished into the dark.
Stunned, he felt his way along the fence until he found the hole into which she had disappeared.
“Come on,” she whispered, from the other side.
Ethan climbed through the hole in the fence and emerged into the resort’s overgrown parkland. What once had been landscaped, manicured trails and an old nine-hole golf course had been left to go feral, patches of lawn overtaken by weeds and summer wildflowers, the trees dipping their branches over the fairways and the walking trails choked out by blackberry bushes. Bailey moved forward with uncanny confidence, pushing her way through the underbrush, cursing quietly when she got whacked in the back of her ankle by a bramble cane. Ethan did his best to keep up.
Before long, they stepped out of the woods onto the grassy rise above the private rocky beachfront, and looming over them—glowering out at the saltwater channel—was the Appleview Lodge.
Once, it had been quite a grand hotel. The largest on Ferris Island, the last of its kind, sweeping around the private beachfront in a giant horseshoe, rooms upon rooms, high-end suites and amenities, a restaurant that frequently received top ratings and easy access to the nearby seaside village of Orchard Beach. And over everything, an unmatched Northwest flavor, high timber rafters and big windows and shingled charm.
But tourism on the island was an ephemeral business, and Appleview had not been able to keep up. Without frequent renovations, what once had been a classic look was now dated. The interior aesthetic was markedly vintage, but not in a cool way. The rooms were shabby, the restaurant’s menu hadn’t changed since the 90s, and the lack of stable wifi and no cable TV made it a no-go for most modern travelers.
Ethan had never been this close. He had seen it from the road when driving with his mom or riding past it on his bike, but had never been inside the property.
Locals didn’t stay at Appleview. This was the unspoken rule, consistent as the tides. No one could ever give a good reason why, but there were stories…always stories…
Bailey pushed Ethan behind a maintenance shed so they could peer around without being spotted.
“It looks deserted,” Ethan whispered.
“It’s not,” Bailey said. “There’s usually a few people staying here, but not many. The lights are on in the lobby, and there’s a security guard that wanders around, so we need to be careful.”
Ethan glanced at her, the penny finally dropping. “You’ve already done this before, haven’t you?”
Bailey grinned. Her teeth flashed white in the dark. “Of course! Had to practice. Didn’t get much further than this, though.”
This didn’t fill Ethan with confidence.
“Pool is this way,” Bailey said, and suddenly Ethan was reminded of why they were there: to go swimming.
“Are you sure about this?” he said, but Bailey ignored him. She left the shelter of the maintenance shed and crossed the private beach at a sprint. Ahead was the pool house, a padlocked chain loosely wrapped around the handles of the glass double-doors, misty with condensation.
Bailey pointed to the chain. “Look, see? A loose link. They really don’t give a crap about this place.”
She wiggled the chain, unhooked the loose links, and quietly set the whole thing aside in the grass. Then she pulled the doors open, pushed Ethan inside, and closed them quickly behind.
The pool house stretched out and away from them, unlit, the surface of the water moving only barely. The entire space was walled in with glass, big skylights in the ceiling, a lifeguard chair halfway down. There was a hot tub, covered, in one corner. The smell of chlorine was overpowering, along with something else. Something different.
“What is that smell?” Ethan said, and his whispers echoed noisily in the pool room.
“It’s a saltwater pool,” Bailey said. She was already taking off her t-shirt, revealing that she was wearing her swimsuit underneath. “Some fancy thing that rich people like. Ready?”
“Bailey, what about the…” Ethan said, then stopped. They had already come this far, and he knew she would be mad.
She looked at him. “I told you not to be a baby about this.”
“I’m not.” He looked around the darkened pool house, the water, the glass windows looking out onto the channel. It was probably quite a nice view, in the daylight. But right now the darkness beyond the glass just felt empty. Watchful.
“I’m not being a baby,” he repeated, almost more to himself than to her. “I just think…I mean, you don’t believe any of the stories? Any of them?”
“Hell no,” Bailey replied, but her attempt at swearing was feeble and unpracticed. “Do you?”
“No,” Ethan said, quickly. But rumors about a place being cursed don’t come from nowhere. No smoke without fire.
Bailey nodded, taking his answer as vindication. “Come on. I promise, it’s gonna feel amazing. And can you imagine how cool everyone is gonna think we are on the first day of school, when we tell them about this?”
Ethan hadn’t thought of that.
Bailey slipped out of her shorts and sandals and sat on the edge of the pool, dipping her feet into the water, the ripples agitating, fervent, spreading away from her into the darker, distant corners of the pool.
Ethan was about to say something, anything else to see if he could convince her to back out now, head home. But before he could speak, she folded her hands as if in prayer and then slid into the water, kicking herself away from the wall. Gone.
The silence, waiting for her to re-emerge, was excruciating.
But finally, her head broke the surface almost halfway down the length of the pool and she sputtered, laughing.
“Ethan, it feels so good!” she said, trying to keep her volume down, but the water threw her voice around the pool house, echoing off the glass.
Sighing, Ethan took off his shirt and set it next to the pile of Bailey’s clothes. He was already wearing his board shorts; he practically lived in them, during the summer. Then he climbed down the stairs at the pool’s shallow end, the water rising up his legs.
Bailey was right. It did feel nice. She came gliding toward him, splashing him as he stood waist-deep in the shallow end.
“You’re such a wuss,” she said, but he could tell she was pleased. “What did I tell you?”
“Yeah, fine, it feels good,” he said, and couldn’t help but smile.
She dove back into the water, kicking away into the dark. And Ethan followed after her. For a little while, there was no other sound except the movement of the water as the two swam back and forth, spinning and tumbling in their own individual reveries, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness.
Ethan was lying on his back in the center of the pool, drifting lazily, when the sound of thrashing pulled him out of his gentle stupor. He swam upright in time to hear Bailey shriek.
“Ow! What was that?”
She was struggling toward the shallow end of the pool, and he could barely make out her whirling in the dark, looking around.
“What?” he said. “What happened?”
“Something brushed past me,” she said. “Underwater.”
Despite the warmth of the pool, a chill passed through Ethan.
“That isn’t funny, Bailey,” he said. “You know I’m already freaked out about this. Don’t make it worse.”
“I’m not lying,” she said, pulling herself up onto the edge of the pool and looking down into the water. “Something touched me, Ethan. I swear.”
Ethan suddenly became very aware of the empty space between his feet and the bottom of the pool. Trying not to panic, and trying not to show Bailey that he was panicking, he swam toward the closest edge, as gently as he could, careful not to splash. But as he reached his arm out, he felt it. Something—something soft, something flexible—shivered past his leg, and he yelped, the sound shattering the quiet.
Bailey shrieked too, startled. “What is it? Did you feel it? What is that?”
But Ethan was too terrified to reply. Something was in the pool with him. He could feel it, even if he couldn’t see it. The water was moving, underneath him, around him. He was being watched. He could sense it.
Not caring how he looked, anymore, he made a mad dash for the wall, reaching his arms out desperately, mere feet away from solid ground…and then something pulled him under.
*******
A bright light. A strong hand.
Ethan felt himself lifted out of the water, coughing and hacking, ears ringing, lungs burning. He lay on the cold pool deck for a long time, unable to move, sputtering and gasping while a man’s voice droned somewhere above his head and Bailey’s voice responded.
“You two staying here at the resort?” he heard the man ask.
“No, sir,” Bailey said, her voice harsh and shrill with emotion. “We live close by.”
When Ethan was finally able to look up, eyes burning from the chlorine, a security guard was standing over him with a flashlight, and Bailey was shivering beside him, holding all of their clothes in her arms.
“Ethan, are you okay?” she said, nearly sobbing.
But the guard, a portly fellow with a dramatic mustache and kinder-than-average eyes, said, “You two need to get out of here, right now. Young man, can you stand?”
With the help of the guard and Bailey on either side of him, Ethan stood up on shaking legs, and all three walked out of the pool house, the guard pausing to loop the chain back around the door handles.
“The chain is broken,” Bailey said, quietly.
But the guard ignored her.
As they headed away from the pool house, Bailey tried to ask Ethan questions, but the guard shushed her, escorting them up through the main walkway to the resort’s front entrance. Every room was dark, most of the curtains drawn against the night. The lobby alone was dimly lit, the night-receptionist sitting behind the desk, a lonely figure in her black blazer. She looked up as they passed, her eyes mirrored behind her glasses as they reflected the glow of her computer screen.
At the front entrance, the security guard stopped to let Ethan and Bailey put their clothes on over their sopping swimsuits.
“You two go home as fast as you can,” he said. But his expression was not angry. If anything, it was afraid. “Don’t look back. Do you hear me? This place isn’t for you.”
Ethan slipped his shirt on with trembling fingers. The feeling of being dragged underwater was still with him, clinging like the stink of death.
“Sir,” he said, his voice hoarse. “What was that? That thing?”
The security guard paused. “There was no thing, son. You just went under, that’s all.”
But Ethan looked at him, dazed. “No,” he said. “I felt it. What was it?”
The guard looked around, as though nervous about being heard, before he said, “Listen, cuz this is all I'm gonna say about it. Folks do some crazy things when they’re staring ruin in the face, kid. When they have no other choices, and they need their business to stay afloat. They make…sacrifices. They make…deals…they wouldn’t usually make. You’re lucky it let you go.”
He looked at both of them, severely. “Never come back,” he said.
But, true to his word, he would say no more. He waited while they walked off into the night. He did not go back into the resort until they had vanished into the darkness.
*******
The whole walk home, neither of them could speak. Bailey alone made any sound, in turns crying softly and sniffling, wiping her nose on her arm.
The night followed them, August snapping at their heels, the day’s heat finally breaking like a fever with a sigh off the sea, smelling of fall’s impending perfume. They did not speak of what had happened; they couldn’t. It already felt like a dream of childhood, a nightmare you would swear was real.
But it was real. Wasn’t it?
As they passed her house, Bailey stopped and turned to Ethan.
“I’m really sorry,” she said, breathless with something like grief. She reached out, and in a movement that shocked him, she wrapped him in a hug.
Bailey had been his best friend for his entire life. They did everything together. They laughed until their guts ached, they fought like siblings, they made up, they competed, they played, they talked. But she had never hugged him, before. Together, they stepped over an invisible threshold. Ethan was struck dumb, lifting his arms to return the embrace loosely.
“You’re not a baby,” she said, into his shoulder.
Then, as quickly as the moment happened, it ended. Bailey pulled away and ran into the darkened house. As she passed the garage the exterior motion light turned on, sending a flurry of nocturnal insects fluttering around it as it beamed out onto the driveway.
Ethan stood for a long time in the harsh light, his shadow spreading out behind him, dwarfing him, unsure of how to feel. The shock of what had happened, and what had almost happened, was already ebbing away, leaving a terrible uncertainty behind, and yet an incredible reality. He had lived to tell the tale.
Bailey’s words echoed in his mind: Can you imagine how cool everyone is gonna think we are on the first day of school, when we tell them about this?
Ethan Baker looked down at his feet, and the light illuminated an impossible truth:
Wrapping around his left leg were bruises.
They were the fingermarks of a gigantic hand, already fading.
END
WHOA. I love faustian tales. This is unnerving and I'm secretly glad nothing bad happened. Would have been sad if either of those kids got...you know. Good subversion, making us fear Bailey and then having Ethan get pulled! Well done!
I'd love to hear more about this place!