Foggy

This story was originally published in The Fable Online in September 2017. Then an updated version was published in The Rabbit Hole 2018 Edition.

Now I’m releasing it here for the reading public. Enjoy!

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The bloated yellow mouth protruded from the murky water. Its jagged purple teeth pointed to a mesh bottom throat, inviting some witless prey to willingly hop in. So the large, circular inner tube appeared to Alexandra. She sat in the boat’s driver’s seat, her heart pounding and her palms fisted and sweaty. She leaned away from the tube, as if keeping her distance could somehow delay her riding in it.

 
Alexandra hated deep water; she couldn’t even close her eyes in the shower without being assaulted by images of plesiosaurs, kelpies or giant tadpoles. But in the comfort of the boat, she was fine. It had barriers, a motor and a steering wheel, so there was control, and it had dad.

 
Alexandra often stayed with her dad, Owen, in the summer, as it was a busy time of year for her mom. They frequently took trips to Fog Lake, a private mid-sized reservoir a few miles out of town. Owen’s former boss and one of his only friends, Barry, had a membership and would let Owen take his little blue motorboat for a spin.

 
One morning, Owen surprised Alexandra by bringing home the inner tube in the bed of his pick-up. It proceeded to spend most of its days losing air and collecting dust in the closet of Owen’s bedroom. The idea of being exposed over those dark and untamable waters in an oversized donut was too much for Alexandra. Sure, she’d seen other kids ride inner tubes, but she never shared her age group’s idea of fun. Her idea of a good time was hanging out at home, watching a movie, helping mom or dad cook or playing with a pet.

 
However, today was the day of reckoning. She had finally promised to ride in it.
“Alright, good enough.” Owen finished tying the yellow rope of the inner tube to the thing they called a “metal thingy” on the back of the boat.

 
He lifted his red cap to wipe sweat off his tan, clean-bald head. It was a painfully humid day with only a slight breeze for relief. It was nearly cloudless, but coming their way from the western horizon was a white mass of cream puff clouds building toward a massive anvil-headed top. According to the Weather Channel App Alexandra obsessively checked, a nasty thunderstorm could be on its way. Usually, Alexandra would be zombified all day from dread about this, but right now the inner tube dominated her thoughts.

 
His task complete, Owen turned to her. “Ya’ll ready for this?”

 
Alexandra quietly nodded. It felt like any words would come up as vomit. She wished she could whip around in her seat and drive the boat back to shore. But even if she had the gall to do so, the keys were buried in the cluttered pockets of Owen’s khaki shorts.
Owen sighed through his nose. He turned and kneeled to Alexandra, still planted firmly in the driver’s seat, his bulky form eclipsed the sun from her. “You alright, Al?”

 
Alexandra usually avoided eye contact but she couldn’t help but look into his piercing blue eyes. They always stared wide and firm with unflinching confidence, though lately they were developing a slight unhealthy sunken look.

 
For most people, she would just nod in response, even if it weren’t the truth. But she was more open with her dad, so she attempted to mutter a playfully sarcastic, “Whaddya think?”

 
Owen nodded understandingly. “Well, I’m really proud of you. You’re overcoming your fear! ”

 
Alexandra sluggishly shrugged. There was only one reason she was doing this. Her dad constantly searched for tactics and incentives to get her in that inner tube so she could have “fun”. However, promised ice cream treats didn’t do it, nor the promise of taking her to a movie; they always did that anyway. He once tried to get her to ride it by telling her that she could pick where they would eat that night, but if she didn’t, he would. The flaw with this is that they both liked all the same restaurants, usually Chinese.

 
However, this time he finally hit the right mark. If Alexandra rode the inner tube, he’d buy her a new turtle. They used to have a turtle named Gamera, a four-inch red-eared slider. He became an obsession of Alexandra’s; she loved watching him bask on his log or scramble against the glass wall of his tank, as if it would open up if he pushed hard enough.

 
She also loved observing the black and green patterns of his shell. However, the shell gradually became discolored with white spots of shell rot. Alexandra religiously practiced the vet-recommended treatment of brushing him with an iodine solution and keeping him confined in the narrow kitchen sink for most of the day so he could dry. Owen continued the practice whenever Alexandra was at her mom’s.

 
One day Owen found Gamera half retracted over the drain, stiff as a plastic toy. His death was the first heart-twisting loss Alexandra suffered. Eventually the pain wore off, but she longed to again fill that empty tank in the corner of Owen’s living room.

 
The evening before this boat ride, Owen brilliantly promised Alexandra that if she rode in the inner tube, they would go to the city and buy a new turtle. He had to pull out this ace-in-the-hole, because this was the last chance he would ever get to see his daughter experience this. Soon, Barry was going to end his membership and sell off the boat, but not before letting his friend go for one last ride.

 
Out of utter excitement at the prospect of a new pet, Alexandra agreed. Now, sitting in the boat, with an entire butterfly pavilion in her stomach, she regretted her decision. She was particularly disturbed because, when they had arrived, they saw an abandoned black inner tube gently floating along, bouncing against the dock. But there was no backing out of her bargain.

 
Alexandra sighed and stood up, making her about the same height as her still-kneeling father.

 
“Okay,” she mumbled.

 
She scanned the lake around her. The chocolaty water was calm with only tiny waves to gently rock the boat. The lake was completely empty today. Though it was never bustling, there would usually be some activity here and there. Not even the elderly couple, who were often seen strolling along the sandbox sized beach, were there today.

 
Alexandra recalled something Barry once told her when he came along on a trip. She was resting along the stern of the boat, watching the wake of the boat, Owen drove while Barry chatted with him.

 
“Say Al, you ever hear of Foggy?!” Barry shouted to her above the roar of the engine.
Alexandra shook her head without turning around. She was irritated, as only her dad could call her Al.

 
Knowing this, Owen tried to diffuse the situation by jesting “Barry, don’t tell my daughter one of your creepy patron stories!”

 
Barry downed his third can of beer, some of it dribbled onto his massive gut. After a refreshed sigh he grinned, “Nah, Nah, it’s what they call the monster that lives in this lake.” Alexandra’s heart dropped into her stomach. Monster?

 

 

“B.S., Barry,” Owen boomed, cracking open his second can of Diet Coke.

 
“No, it’s true. It don’t come out much, they say it likes to stay around the bottom. But once in a while, it comes up to play. Y’know Vince? Mr. Bloody Mary. He came out here once, and it was the last time too because…”

 

 

As Barry spoke, Alexandra backed away from the water and leaned towards Owen. Sensing his daughter’s distress, Owen quickly diverted Barry’s tangent, “Say, what’s going on with Vince anyway? I haven’t seen him at the bar for a while.”

 
Barry chortled, “You haven’t heard? Sandy gave him an ultimatum, quit the booze or I quit you…”

 
Barry went on about Vince’s domestic life. But now, Alexandra could only think of the creature that lay in Fog Lake. The foamy wake began to look like a reptilian hump.

 
Alexandra no longer believed Barry’s story. Still, her imagination was using what it could as she prepared to ride the tube. Her heart pounded faster and her lungs turned to lead. Owen noticed her erratic breath, so he gently placed his massive hands on her thin shoulders.

 
In the most soothing tone his bombastic voice could muster, he said. “Hey, hey, Al. It’s okay. Listen, it’ll only be for one minute, one lousy minute. Then I’ll stop the boat and bring you in? All right? If you’re having fun and want to keep going, that’s fine. But I won’t go for more than a minute. Trust me.”

 
Alexandra calmed down; nobody but her father could do this for her. He was too big for bad guys to mess with, yet even in the worst situations he was too calm to be intimidated by forces of nature, and he had too many quips to let serious things get him down.
She wasn’t the only person who liked him; he had been a favorite bartender down at Barry’s bar. He was always friendly, and also trying to please everyone. One night, he pleased a few college kids by giving them alcohol without carding them. They turned out to be high schoolers. It was the only mistake he’d made in all his years there. But he lost his job, his license and the respect of a lot of people. Even his friendship with Barry was no longer what it used to be.

 
Alexandra was the only one who loved, if not idolized him. He lost his job and couldn’t find another, his situation was tight and he feared for his custody. Yet, he still carried himself like it was all just part of a plan. He convinced Alexandra everything was okay.
She took a deep breath. Just one minute, she repeated to herself. Just one minute, then it’s over. Then came the elated notion, and I get a new turtle!

 
Alexandra went to the side of the boat. Without even thinking about it she climbed over the edge and sat cross-legged into the squishy floor of the inner tube. She gripped the black handles on both sides as tightly as her sweaty hands could.

 
“Alright, Guinness World Record for shortest inner tube ride, here we come!” Owen beamed at her with a wink as he gently pushed the inner tube outward.

 
Alexandra’s heartbeat began to pick up again as she drifted out into the lake, the little blue boat and the large man on it growing smaller and smaller. She took a deep breath and kept clenching the handles for dear life. “One minute. One minute,” she repeated to herself out loud.

 
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a brief flash of a dark mass moving along the surface of the water. She jolted and looked in the direction: nothing. She sighed, frustrated with her brain playing tricks on her.

 
Owen shouted to Alexandra, his voice echoing through the whole lake: “You ready?”
In lieu of trying to shout back, Alexandra just gave a big Roman thumbs up. Owen returned the gesture and sat at the driver’s seat.

 
“Let’s go already,” she softly sing-songed to herself, as it seemed like her dad was taking forever to start the boat. She just wanted to get into motion already. Gently bouncing along the water and trying to keep the inner tube from slowly spinning around, she felt like a careening duck. The mass slid by out of the corner of her eye. She jerked her head again but saw nothing.

 
“God damn it!” she hissed, quoting her father.

 
Finally, the motor’s noisy hum began and the boat started moving forward. At first it seemed like it was leaving her behind, but the rope finally caught up and the tube was jerked along.

 
The tube whipped along behind the boat, bouncing Alexandra up and down along the choppy waves left by the wake. The boat zoomed in a clockwise motion around the interior of the lake. Alexandra could hardly think clearly with her brain rattling around, the noise of the motor and splashing water ringing through her ears and her curly hair whipping into her face. The sensory overload had already made the short experience utterly draining.

 
Out of the corner of her wind and mist-squinted eye she caught a glimpse of the mass again. Alexandra turned her head and this time it was still there. It was a boat-sized mass, submarine shaped. If there were clouds, one could have mistaken it for a shadow. But this was beneath the water and it was perpetually moving alongside the inner tube.
Her breath stopped and her stomach sank. She turned ahead, screaming for her dad. Unfortunately her soft voice, even in the loudest and shrillest level it could achieve, couldn’t get through to him.

 
Fortunately the boat slowed down and halted. The motor’s roar died, leaving Alexandra’s hoarse cry the only noise. Owen, noticing his daughter’s panic, immediately began to pull the tube in.

 
“Hey, it’s alright! You did it, baby! It’s okay!” he shouted to her.

 
The shadow moved toward the space between the boat and the tube. Alexandra pointed a trembling hand to it.

 
“Look!” she shrieked.

 
Owen, noticing the shadow, leaped back. The shadow was directly beneath the tussle of rope that floated on the water. Part of the rope slipped underneath. When the yellow rope resurfaced, it was shredded in two.

 
Alexandra was silent as she and Owen stared dumbfounded at the broken rope.

 
The boat rocked back and forth, as something pushed it from underneath. It caused Owen to fall forward against the seat of the bow. He carefully got back on his feet.
All Alexandra could do was watch, petrified as this thing went after her dad. Her blood felt like lead.

 
The boat rocked again so violently that the bottom became visible. Owen grabbed onto the driver’s windshield to keep upright.

 
The boat rocked one more time. Owen held on all the way as it capsized.

 
“Dad!” Alexandra tried to shout, but it came out as more of a broken gasp. She could hardly breathe. The water stood still, the boat flipped like a turtle, with no sign of Owen. Numb tears started to stream from Alexandra’s eyes.

 
Finally, Owen’s glistening head emerged from the water between the boat and the tube. Alexandra was able to give a slight sigh, but her dad wasn’t safe yet. Sure enough, the shadow was circling them.

 
She couldn’t shriek for him to hurry, instead she erratically beat against the tube like they were bongo drums.

 
He started to doggy paddle to the tube. Despite his athletic appearance, he had never been the best swimmer. The shadow kept its distance, as if it was allowing Owen to safely swim across.

 
Owen reached the inner tube and scrambled on board, nearly sinking and flipping over the tube in the process. He managed to awkwardly squeeze himself in, covering up so much space that Alexandra was essentially sitting in his soaked lap.

 
Alexandra trembled like a tiny dog. Owen wrapped his massive arms around her.
“It’ll be okay,” he said to her between heavy breaths. Alexandra could feel his pulse, pounding as intensely as hers.

 
Owen jerkily cocked his head about, observing the land around them. The white rocky dam in the north, the tiny slither of beach in the east, and the woods all around were about the same distance from them, too far. They were smack dab in the middle of the lake.

 
“Okay, okay,” he began to chant in a frazzled murmur. Owen stuck his massive hands into the murky water and used them as paddles to push the tube. A breeze was beginning to pick up with the approaching storm from the west so he pushed them towards the beach in the opposite direction. Alexandra remained squashed against her dad, too petrified to put her hands in the water and help. She looked back to watch the shadow, it continued to linger around the surface of the upturned boat.

 
Owen paddled for what felt like an hour. The inner tube with its dangling rope rocked with the increasingly choppy waters. His breaths turned into exasperated grunts and every now and then he had to pause to shake his aching arms. Progress was being made, with every fifth push the white sliver of beach and the green cottonwoods behind it grew a little larger and more pronounced.

 
Owen’s eyes bulged as he concentrated on the task ahead, as if thinking of anything else right now would completely break his flow. Sweat drenched his face and mixed with the filthy dried lake water in his clothes. Meanwhile, Alexandra, whose hands were possibly now permanently locked to the handles, rapidly surveyed the water around them. She couldn’t see the shadow.

 
The grunting and rowing continued for another lifetime. The shore was closer and closer. Safety was ever near. Owen and Alexandra’s cloudy minds didn’t notice the slight tug.

 
The tube started moving backwards, as if a force field began to pull them from behind. Despite Owen’s continued efforts, he couldn’t fight it and keep them moving forward.

 
“What!? What!?” He began to shout in a near manic rage.

 
The tube was whipped around, facing them toward the western sky, which was now covered by the grey, ever-approaching anvil cloud. The yellow rope was now straight and tight, leading to an underwater end-point where the shadow lay, pulling the tube forward.

 
“God damn it! No!” Owen hollered with the hoarse rage of a madman but the desperation of a child. He frightened Alexandra, she could hardly recognized the man in the tube with her.

 
The shadow pulled them along at a medium pace, dragging them back to the center of the lake.

 
“No! No!” Owen yelled over and over. His screams pounded into Alexandra’s ears. She wanted to shout for him to stop, but her throat felt shut tight.

 
Owen’s screams began to fade into gasps. He started hyperventilating, his heaves pushing against Alexandra’s head. She felt like he had to be joking. Maybe it was a ruse to trick the shadow, a Plan B. She didn’t know how the hunched, sobbing and heaving man she was stuck against was the same man who never even cried when he burned his hand while making monkey bread.

 
In his heaves, there was a faint wheeze, like air escaping a balloon, which was somehow familiar to Alexandra. On the night Owen lost his job, she had heard this wheeze coming from behind the closed doors of her dad’s bedroom. A wheeze so chilling she never dared to investigate. She’d simply watched a movie and waited for it to disappear. Sure enough, the noise vanished and Owen came out with his face stretched in a grin and then tickled her feet until she was in hysterics.

 
Owen clenched his eyes and puckered his lips, sucking air in and out. He put his fingers around a curly fry-shaped strand of Alexandra’s hair and started kneading it almost ritualistically. At first he did it so hard it stung Alexandra a little. But gradually his grip relaxed and the heaves started to vanish.

 
With the episode finished, his hand gently tussled Alexandra’s hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered through heavy breathing.

 
The words passed over Alexandra; she felt outside of her body. The one person in her life who she thought could protect her through anything had now just proven that not to be true. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed in him, even though, deep down, she knew she shouldn’t. But whether in the tube or not, the world was successfully destroying this man; all he could do before was pretend everything was okay. But now he didn’t even have that.

 
It was all because of this thing lingering around the inner tube. Why did Foggy feel the need to destroy this dad and daughter who never hurt anybody and wanted nothing more than to live their lives? They were never so cocky and arrogant that they deserved to be shown just how weak and powerless they really are.

 
Alexandra released her grip from the handles and let her aching hands drop into her lap. There didn’t feel like much of a point in gripping it anymore.

 
The day passed slowly. The hot sun was eventually blotted out by the massive anvil head but not before doing its damage. Owen’s tanned head turned cherry red. Alexandra’s pale face, arms and legs also reddened, but she was mostly spared from the rays by Owen’s shadow.

 
However, her stomach panged with hunger and her throat and lips were stinging and parched. The capsized boat was gradually drifting away, but the inner tube remained captive in the desolate lake’s center. Owen had attempted multiple other times to paddle off again, only to be pulled back by the shadow. With each attempt, Owen’s rowing was more sluggish and strenuous. By the last attempt, the shadow barely even let him go a few feet before jerking him back, as if it felt like this was just getting sad. But Owen felt obliged to try to do something, even if it was the same futile exercise.

 
Alexandra numbly sat in the rocking tube. In her exhaustion she heard faint voices, like one does when they are beginning to fall asleep. One voice she recognized was her mom’s. Even though mom always made her go to bed at 10 and never let her watch movies above a PG rating and was always worrying, Alexandra wanted her now, badly. She wanted to be snuggled safely in her embrace.

 
As mid-afternoon became evening the anvil head stretched eastward, the blue sky being gradually captured by the grey mass. Everything darkened: the lake turned from brown to dark grey and the waters grew ever choppier with the wind. The shadow’s form could still be made out, making its unfailing circles around the inner tube. From the storm’s billowy dark patch, there were slightly distant grumbles of thunder.

 
Owen watched the drifting hull of the boat, which was now several yards away from them. He weakly chuckled, “She was always a fixer upper. Maybe Barry can flip her for a nice profit.”

 
This was Owen’s final attempt of heroism; if he couldn’t do anything to save them, he could at least make her smile. And while Alexandra didn’t, she felt safe and relaxed for one tiny moment. Her dad wasn’t the ultimate hero she had made herself believe, but he was, at least, her warm blanket through whatever might happen. This dumb joke reminded her of that.

 
By what must have been nearly nine p.m., the rumbling thunder persisted as the dark storm clouds now dominated most of the sky. Along the shore, the harsh whispers of the cicadas accompanied the thunder. Rain sprinkled down and lightning bolts streaked in the west. It was probably already storming back in town. Alexandra numbly watched the shadow, it appeared to be erratically moving back and forth, as if anxiously pacing. A loud, angry thunder crack shook the earth, sky and sea, prompting it to retreat from the surface, disappearing under the grey murk.

 
The rain picked up, the thunder roared and lightning was uncomfortably closer, illuminating the darkened world. The wind pushed them further and further away from the center, and both Owen and Alexandra noticed that nothing was pulling them back. The shadow may have had power over them but in the face of nature, it, too, was small and helpless; all it could do was retreat to the depths of its domain.

 
“I think it’s gone,” Alexandra weakly murmured.

 
Owen immediately ceased the opportunity by paddling again.

 
He grunted as he pushed through the choppy waters. The intensity of the wind and the weakness of his arms ensured they were making very little progress. Alexandra could no longer let her dad struggle on his own; they were in this together. She hunched over, and with as much strength as possible she stuck her arms in the water and began to paddle.
They moved the tube along, fighting the storm’s intensity; the strong winds were now whirling them around and whipping them back and forth. They couldn’t keep control, no matter how hard they desperately tried.

 
Owen stopped paddling. Alexandra kept trying to push until Owen tightly wrapped himself around her, as if acting as a protective cocoon.

 
Alexandra turned toward her dad and wrapped her arms around his waist. Owen hunched to protect her. He gripped the handles. All they could do was ride with the storm.

 
They knew now they needed to use their strength not to fight against it, but to simply survive.

 
The next afternoon, an elderly man and woman ambled along the muddy beach holding hands, like they had done nearly every day. The man noticed something strange near the shore and pointed his bony finger toward it.

 
It was an empty inner tube, yellow with jagged purple patterns. It floated across the surface. Because it was nearly airless, its wide center opened and closed as it floated, giving the appearance of a gasping mouth.