Echo Lake
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright © 2012 John Grover
All rights reserved
Cover art design by John Grover
This digital story is a work of fiction. All characters, events and descriptions in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead are the product of the author’s imagination and are purely coincidental.
Visit the Author’s website at www.shadowtales.com
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ECHO LAKE
By
John Grover
It had been more than fifteen years since Ryan Maddox had seen his hometown. Why he’d come back he wasn’t quite sure. He just had to see Echo Lake one more time.
After the tragedy, his parents relocated, not just out of town but the entire state, never to return. Ryan could not get the incident out of his head. That day stuck with him all of these years. There was something more to it. It wasn’t just that his younger sister Emily drowned in Echo Lake, it was something else, something he couldn’t see. Something he couldn’t stop. That was why he was back. He had to know. He had to see that damn lake one last time.
He stopped by the family house and never got out of his car. The home belonged to some other family now. Strangers he didn’t know. People he didn’t care to know. He just wanted to see it, remember the good times but old ghosts haunted it. Someone peered from behind a curtain at him. It was a young girl who looked like Emily. For an instant he believed it was her.
Ryan moved on before they called the police. Echo Lake wasn’t far from his neighborhood. He and Emily used to walk to it, towels slung over their shoulders, her small hand in his. He watched over her just as a protective older brother should. His parents trusted him. Ryan was responsible. He could be counted on. If all that was true, then what the hell happened?
It shouldn’t have happened. They were both good swimmers. The lake was a popular spot, there were always plenty of people there--adults, parents, grandparents, teenagers. Just not on that day. The day that started it all. The day that destroyed his family and many others after that.
It shouldn’t have happened. There was something else there. He couldn’t quite see it, but it was there.
His car rolled to a stop at the edge of the road. Large rocks, not quite as big as he, surrounded the edge of the street, a natural buffer before the embankment. A few feet away the lake waited. Ryan tried to gather his courage. He really did. He wanted so bad to step out and set eyes on the lake. It was hard…harder than anything else he’d ever tried to do. For a long time he just sat there and stared.