Lake of The Woods

After pushing blackheads out of his nose for what could only have been too long,

Jonathan returned to his cold dinner. A cool breeze bullied its way through the windows

and into the dark kitchen. His microwaved dinner sat on the cheap poker table that

resided in the middle of the room, judging him with an implacable stare. He poked

through the thin greasy film on his meal, and returned it once more to the microwave.

He made a promise to himself that he would eat it this time. The luminescent glow of the

microwave was a momentary distraction from the blue outside. With his back facing the

uninvited cold, he thought of home as the digital numbers counted down. When the

timer reached zero and the microwave dinged. He took his food from the microwave,

again, and shut the door. The room was enveloped in the darkness.

Jonathan had been in The Angle for three weeks, studying the lake water here.

When he heard he was being sent to The Lake of the Woods he laughed at the name.

When he saw the lake he did not. The Lake of the Woods certainly lived up to its

moniker. The NorthWest Angle, or simply “The Angle” as locals call it, sticks out from

the top of Minnesota, encompassing the majority of the Lake of The Woods, and a few

hundred square miles of land north of it. This land is the northernmost county of the

contiguous U.S. Bordered on three sides by the deep woods of Canada, and on one

side by the Lake. The separation of land and water doesn’t make the Angle any less

American.
 The isolation was a nice getaway. The main town was on the North side of the

Angle, Jonathan’s research station was on the south side. The removal from society

was relaxing, and Jonathan enjoyed the opportunity to clear his mind. He did not enjoy

the weekly trips to get groceries. The closest produce store was in the mainland lower

48, with the only way to get there being through over 100 miles of Canadian wilderness.

Meaning he had to show his passport to an unstaffed border customs booth every time

he left Angle Inlet for food. Those hour and a half drives through the Great White North

are what his college advertised as “Studying Abroad”, even though the actual research

Jonathan conducted was in the Lake (within the U.S. Border).

Now the sun was peeking around the horizon. His back to the east, Jonathan

looked through the window. He could almost see the land on the south side of the lake.

His 6:00 AM alarm rang in the other room. Jonathan walked through the small house

and shut it off, leaving his dinner, once again, forgotten. Jonathan looked into his closet

for his work waders, finding it empty save for a few shirts on the left side. He shut it

again and looked around the room. The bed in one corner, the door in the other, and the

closet on the far wall, he shouldn’t be looking this much.There aren’t many places in the

room for them to be. Despite this, they were nowhere to be found. The underside of the

bed was empty, there was nothing between the mattress and the wall, and the only

other furnishing in the room was the closet.

The only other place that he could think of was the bathroom. Jonathan took a

shower after work every day, maybe he had left them on the counter. Jonathan turned

as he felt a cold breeze across his back, coming from the open door behind him. The
bathroom was in the middle of the house, in the hallway between the kitchen and the

bedroom.

It was still dark in the hallway, and despite the layers of pajamas he was wearing,

Jonathan still felt the cold breeze on his back. Walking through the short hall to the

kitchen, Jonathan heard something. A steady in-and-out. A quiet whisper, that

introduced itself to his hearing only slightly. Getting gradually more prominent until it

was loud enough that he couldn’t quite tell when he had began hearing it. It was

something moving, a beat, then another muffled movement. A beat, a movement, and

so on. It sounded like metal on rocks, a guttural sound. Jonathan pushed the door

inwards warily. Inside, Jonathan didn’t see anything wrong in the bathroom. It was

exactly how he had left it last night, and the day-light from the window helped to quell

his fears. The only thing different was the temperature. It was freezing inside of the

bathroom, as soon as he opened the door he had felt a blast of frigid air. The window

next to the shower was wide open, letting the cold air steal into the house.. That’s why

he had felt that cold breeze, but why was it open? Jonathan had never touched the

window, of this he was certain.

The bright sun shining through the sil was blinding to Jonathan’s eyes. It hung in

the air, wide open and blowing the heat out of the house. Creeping into the room,

Jonathan cranked the window shut. His eyes adjusted to the light, only to let his

stomach drop once more at what he saw. The source of the scraping noises was plainly

visible through the bathroom window. The dinghy that Jonathan used for research had

come loose from its moorings, and was almost completely ashore. The tide jostled it
ever so slightly, rocking it back and forth towards the stony bank on which the

station-house resided.

With wide eyes, Jonathan turned to bolt out of the room. He had to find his

waders. To go in that water without them would be suicide. But he had to prevent the

dinghy from being damaged. There was small splashing sound, and Jonathan's bare

foot touched ice cold water on the bathroom tile. While falling, he was confused. He was

sure that there had been no water on the floor when he walked in. His head smacked

onto the linoleum, and he laid on the ground, unconscious.

The light had fully invaded the bathroom when he woke up. All four musky,

age-dirtied corners were showing. The barren room seemed bigger than it really was

and Jonathan looked about helplessly. He lifted himself from the floor and looked into

the mirror. There was a cut above his left eyebrow, and drool on his face. He wiped his

mouth and listened. It was quiet again. The boat had either come fully ashore, or had

drifted off into the center of the ice-cold lake. He didn’t really like the thought of either

option. Jonathan listened to the silence, the blowing of the wind, and… and? Something

else? Another noise was somewhere in the house. Something was dripping, nearby.

He carefully made his way into the hallway. The door to his room was shut. As he

pushed it open, he felt another rush of cold air. The windows were all closed, and the

room was empty. He walked to the bed and sat down, cradling his aching head in his

hands. Jonathan saw something at the corner of his vision. There was a figure in his

closet. Something with slick, black, fish-skin. Jonathan saw the legs drifting side to side,

above the ground, leaking some fluid onto his carpet.

 Jonathan froze, unable to take his eyes away from the slightly swaying figure

hanging in his closet. It seemed like an eternity was going by. An eternity of silence and

terror, as the the thing in the closet stood limply. Jonathan was terrified, he could

scarcely breath, for it could only have been an hour ago that he had looked into the

closet and found it empty. He was the only one in the Inlet, hell, the ​world​ with a key to

the station. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else within 20 miles of the research

station. The open window had confused him and the boat had startled him, but this was

something else entirely. This was an impossibility. There was something in the house

with him, and it was watching him from the closet. A pair of silvery eyes flared open

within the darkness. They were in the middle of what Jonathan had thought was it’s

torso. The eyes were reflective, Jonathan saw himself in them. His own face in the

monster seemed to calm his fears, there was something familiar about the figure in the

closet.

His fear disintegrating by the second, Jonathan stood and walked to the closet.

He turned on the lights and there, on the right side of his closet, were the waders. They

turned slowly on the hanger. The silvery eyes had been the buttons on the clasps of the

big rubber straps.

With the oddest adventure he’d had at Angle Inlet over, he pulled on the waders

and prepared to deal with whatever had happened to the boat. He couldn’t believe that

he had thought there was someone else in the house. No one in the Inlet even knew

where to find the station. He probably just messed up the knot when he was mooring
the boat. The window might have blown open, the house part of the station was old and

in dire need of some repairs.

As he left, Jonathan noticed another cold breeze pulling the kitchen door shut.

He did not notice the empty plate of food on the table.