"What Broke Victor":
I had this spot on Reelfoot Lake that my buddies and I claimed every season. Alex, Ben, and I had been fishing there for years—same wooden shelter on the water’s edge, same rickety benches, same battered cooler that somehow never gave out. It wasn’t much to look at: a low roof to keep the rain off, some hooks on the wall, and a tie-up post for the boat. But it was ours. Every winter we’d haul in catfish big enough to feed a family, swapping stories until dawn and laughing loud enough to scare off anything with ears.
That night in late January, the cold bit deep, the kind of chill that turns breath into fog and water into glass. We loaded the boat just after dark—rods, bait, and a cooler full of beer and sandwiches—and pushed off around ten. Alex steered us out, the small motor humming against the stillness. The lake was black and silent under the moon, broken only by the slap of water against the hull.
“Prime time,” Ben said, threading a hook like it was second nature. “The cats’ll be hungry tonight.”
I grinned, settling on my bench with a thermos of coffee. “Then let’s make it count.”
Our lines hit the water with quiet plunks. For the first couple of hours, everything was easy—steady bites, quiet talk, the comforting rhythm of old friends who knew each other too well to need words. Alex reeled in a small one early on. “Dinner already,” he said, grinning as he held it up.
Ben chuckled. “Put it back. We’re after monsters tonight.”
The air smelled of bait and river mud. I passed around sandwiches from the cooler, and we talked about life—Alex managing the farm, Ben at the outdoor store, me working odd jobs just to get by. The same small talk we always had, but somehow it felt good just being out there again. “Remember that storm last time?” Ben said. “Nearly lost the boat.”
Alex snorted. “Don’t jinx it, man.”
Hours drifted by, and the night grew colder. The wind died completely. That’s when I noticed it—a small light moving across the lake, bobbing like a lantern on the water.
“Someone else out here?” I muttered, squinting.
Ben shaded his eyes. “Probably just passing through.”
But it wasn’t passing. The engine was running low, barely a hum, and the light kept coming closer. Soon we could hear the quiet splash of another boat idling up beside ours. A man stepped out—older, hunched a little, wearing a dark coat that looked soaked through. He carried something long at his side, like a case or a tool.
He tied his boat next to ours and stood in the doorway of the shelter, silent.
“Hey,” Ben called, friendly but cautious. “You need something? You looking to fish?”
The man didn’t answer. He just watched us.
Alex leaned toward me, whispering, “What’s he doing?”
The stranger finally stepped under the roof. He was tall, gaunt-faced, eyes hollow and unreadable in the lantern light. He held his case tight against his leg. Something about the way he gripped it—like it wasn’t just a fishing pole—set my nerves on edge.
“Evenin’,” I said, trying to ease the tension. “Cold night to be out.”
He looked at me briefly, then turned toward the door again, mumbling something I couldn’t make out. Ben followed him out, still talking. “You got a line? We got room if you’re—”
The sound shattered the night.
Boom.
Ben’s voice cut off mid-word, followed by a splash.
I froze. Alex shot to his feet. “What the hell was that?”
We rushed to the door, and I saw Ben floating face down between the boats, the water around him blooming red. My mind couldn’t catch up—couldn’t make sense of it. The man stood on the deck, the “case” now unmistakably a shotgun, smoke curling from the barrel.
“You shot him!” I yelled, my voice breaking.
Alex lunged at him. “Why? Why’d you—”
Boom.
The blast hit Alex square in the side. He stumbled back, clutching his ribs, eyes wide and glassy. “Tom… get out…” he gasped, before collapsing against the wall.
The man turned toward me next. My body moved before my brain did. I grabbed the nearest thing—a fishing rod—and swung at his arm. He fired again, the blast tearing through the wall just inches from my head. I slammed the rod into his wrist, forcing the shotgun down, then wrenched it away. He staggered, muttering a single word:
“Victor.”
My hands shook. “Why, Victor? What’s wrong with you?”
He blinked slowly, voice flat, almost confused. “I don’t know.”
I threw the shotgun aside and shoved him backward into his boat. My thoughts were chaos—get help, get Alex, move—but Alex wasn’t moving. His chest barely rose once, then stilled. Ben was gone too, still floating outside like a shadow on the water.
I dragged them both into the boat, my arms trembling, every movement heavy. Victor just sat there, slumped, dazed. I untied his boat and shoved it away, then started ours, engine sputtering as we pulled into the channel.
The lake swallowed all sound but the hum of the motor. The weight of their bodies made the boat ride low. I looked back—Victor was stirring, reaching for something near the bench. Another gun. One of ours.
He raised it.
I dove, grabbing the barrel just as he pulled the trigger. The blast went wide, deafening, the flash lighting his face for a split second—blank, expressionless, like no one was home behind his eyes. I brought the gun down on his head as hard as I could. The crack was sickening. He went limp, blood streaking his forehead.
Rage and terror mixed inside me. I shoved him overboard, watching him splash into the shallows near the bank, tangled in cypress roots. He didn’t even scream, just drifted back, vanishing into the dark.
The ride back was endless. The boat’s small motor whined under the weight. I kept looking at Alex and Ben, whispering to them like they could still hear me. “Hold on, guys. Just hold on.” But their eyes stayed open, empty.
When I reached the ramp, there was no one—just silence and frost on the boards. I ran to the nearest house, banging on the door until a woman answered, half-asleep and terrified. “Please,” I gasped, “call the sheriff—my friends, they’ve been shot—”
She stared, hand over her mouth. “Oh, Lord.”
Within minutes, the night filled with sirens and red lights reflecting off the water. Deputies surrounded the boat. I sat on the ramp, shaking, my hands stiff and cold, their blood drying on my clothes.
“He just showed up,” I told them. “Said his name was Victor. Shot them both for no reason.”
They searched the lake, found the gun, the shell casings, the wreck of our night. Medics checked me over—just a graze and bruises—but I felt hollow, like something had been torn out.
They never found Victor alive. His boat turned up drifting two miles away. A few days later, hunters found his body tangled in roots near the bank. Hypothermia, maybe a head injury from the fall. No note, no motive. Just a man who’d snapped somewhere deep inside.
Weeks passed, but the lake never left me. The smell of the water, the echo of the blasts, the look on Alex’s face—it all plays on repeat in my head. I don’t go back there anymore. Our spot’s still out there, rotting quietly under the cypress, maybe still holding that stranger’s ghost.
Sometimes, late at night, I think about how fast it all turned. One moment, laughter and bait and friends. The next, silence and blood. And I wonder how someone could carry death so calmly—how close any of us might be to breaking without knowing it.
Because that’s what really haunts me.
Not the gun. Not the screams.
But the thought that anyone, anywhere, could just… snap.
"A Circle and a Cross":
My girlfriend Lisa and I had been together for about a year when we decided to try night fishing at the lake. It was late September 1969, the air cool and still, with that faint smell of pine and water you only get before autumn truly sets in. We were both in college then—Lisa was twenty-two, studying art, with long brown hair and a laugh that seemed to make the world brighter. I was twenty, grinding through my second year of law school, and she always had this way of pulling me out of my books and into the world.
“Come on, David,” she said that afternoon, loading our tackle box into the trunk. “Fish bite better after dark. Besides, it’ll be romantic—just us under the stars.”
I smiled, even though I preferred fishing in daylight. But when she looked at me with that playful grin, I couldn’t say no. We packed a cooler of drinks, some sandwiches, and our rods, then drove the winding roads out to Lake Berryessa as the sun sank behind the hills.
We found a quiet peninsula, the kind that juts into the water like a finger, away from the usual camping spots. The air smelled faintly of mud and moss. Crickets hummed in the brush. We spread a blanket on the rocks and cast our lines, watching the last streaks of orange fade to purple.
“This is perfect,” Lisa whispered, leaning against me. “No one around, just the sound of the lake.”
I nodded, feeling her warmth against my side. For a while, we talked about school, about the future—maybe graduation, maybe marriage someday. “I’d want a small wedding,” she said softly. “By a lake like this.”
I squeezed her hand. “Sounds good to me.”
Hours passed. The moon climbed high, silvering the ripples. The lantern we’d brought threw a warm glow across the rocks. We didn’t care that the fish weren’t biting. It was quiet. Peaceful. Until Lisa stiffened beside me.
“David,” she whispered. “Do you see that?”
I followed her gaze toward the treeline behind us. About fifty yards away, a figure stood half-hidden in the dark, motionless. Just… watching.
“Probably another fisherman,” I said, though my stomach turned cold. But the figure didn’t move. Didn’t call out.
When I looked back again, he was gone. Then—closer—halfway between the trees and the shore, as if he’d melted from one shadow to the next.
Lisa’s voice trembled. “David, he’s coming this way.”
I grabbed the lantern and stood, the light cutting across the brush. The man stepped into view—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark clothes. A strange hood covered his head, and beneath it, flat-topped sunglasses glinted in the light. A crude bib hung over his chest, painted with a white circle and a cross—like a gun’s sight.
He stopped ten feet from us.
“Don’t move,” he said. His voice was calm. Controlled.
Lisa gripped my arm.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to sound steady.
“I’m an escaped prisoner from up north,” he said evenly. “I killed a guard to get out. I need your car keys and your money to get to Mexico.”
I felt Lisa shaking beside me. “Please,” she said. “Take it. Take everything.”
I reached slowly into my pocket, holding out my wallet. “Here. The keys are in there too.”
He took them—but didn’t leave. Instead, he pulled something from his jacket. Rope.
“Turn around,” he said. “I have to tie you up so you don’t follow me.”
Lisa’s voice cracked. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Turn around,” he repeated.
I gave her a small nod. Maybe if we stayed calm, he’d take the car and disappear. He handed Lisa the rope. “You tie him first.”
Her hands shook as she looped the cord around my wrists behind my back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
When she was done, he checked the knots—tightened them until they burned. Then he bound her, too, her breathing fast and shallow.
“Look,” I said, forcing the words out, “we won’t tell anyone. Just—just go.”
He didn’t answer.
The only sounds were the water lapping at the rocks and Lisa’s uneven breaths. The man stared at us through those dark lenses, then slowly reached beneath his bib. When his hand came out, it held a long knife, its blade catching the lantern light.
Lisa gasped. “Oh my God, please—”
“Wait!” I shouted. “You said you just needed the car!”
He stepped closer. The knife flashed.
Lisa screamed as he plunged it into her side. “David! Help!”
I twisted against the ropes, trying to break free, the fibers cutting into my wrists. I lunged toward him, but he turned and slashed at me, the blade ripping through my arm. Pain exploded. He drove it into my back—once, twice, again.
Lisa’s cries faded into wet gasps.
“Stop!” I yelled, blood filling my mouth. “Please!”
He didn’t stop. His breathing never changed—steady, almost mechanical. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. He wiped the blade on his pants and turned, disappearing into the dark woods without a word.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the lake and the whisper of wind through the grass. Then I realized I was still alive.
I crawled toward Lisa, gnawing at the rope around my wrists until it loosened. “Lisa… Lisa, hold on.”
Her face was pale, her lips trembling. “It hurts,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said, freeing her hands. “Just stay with me.”
We screamed for help. Our voices echoed off the water, swallowed by the night.
A faint light appeared across the lake—then another. A fisherman’s boat, moving toward us.
“Over here!” I shouted with what little strength I had left.
They reached us minutes later—a man and his teenage son. “Dear God,” the man said, pulling us aboard. He wrapped us in jackets. “Hold on. We’ll get you to a hospital.”
Lisa turned her head weakly toward me. “I love you, David,” she whispered. Then her eyes closed.
I don’t remember much after that—just the sirens, the glare of hospital lights, the pain like fire in my chest. Six stab wounds, they told me. Lisa had ten. She didn’t make it.
When the police came, I told them everything: the hood, the circle-and-cross symbol, the calm voice, the fake story about the prison break. They found a message on my car door later—dates, words, and that same white symbol. They said it matched other killings.
They never caught him.
Years passed. The scars faded, but the memories never did. Sometimes, late at night, I still see him standing there at the edge of the trees—silent, waiting. And I hear Lisa’s voice, soft and distant, calling my name.
What started as a quiet night of fishing became something else entirely.
The lake was so peaceful once—
but evil found us there, waiting in the dark.
"The Inlet":
We were a tight group—four friends who’d known each other long enough to finish each other’s sentences. My boyfriend, David, and I had been together for two years, both in our mid-twenties, and most weekends we found ourselves with Mark and his girlfriend, Sophie. Mark was a mechanic, all grease and loud laughter, while Sophie taught second grade, her calm presence grounding the rest of us.
That November weekend, we decided to escape the noise of work and city life, heading to a small lake on David’s family property. It wasn’t much—just a secluded patch of water surrounded by pine and birch—but it always felt like ours. We’d been there before, fishing under the stars, roasting marshmallows, talking until the fire burned low. It was the kind of place where time slowed down, where the world seemed far away.
We packed the truck with tents, rods, and a cooler full of beer and food, then drove out under a sky brushed with autumn clouds. By the time we arrived, the sun was sinking, and the lake shimmered gold. Sophie and I set up near the water’s edge, our boots sinking slightly into the soft ground. She handed me a bag of chips and smiled. “This is exactly what I needed. No lesson plans, no alarm clocks.”
Mark grinned as he stacked kindling. “Speak for yourself—I plan to put dinner on the fire tonight.”
David laughed and slung an arm around my shoulder. “You mean, after I catch it for you.”
We settled into an easy rhythm. Sophie and I unpacked food while the guys built a fire and got the rods ready. The lake mirrored the fading daylight, turning silver as the first stars appeared. We swam briefly in the chilly water, then huddled close around the fire as evening crept in.
By nightfall, we were sitting shoulder to shoulder on folding chairs, lines cast into the still water. The fishing was slow, but the conversation flowed—work, travel, stupid memories. Sophie told us about a student who insisted fish could fly if they “believed hard enough,” and we all burst out laughing. Mark caught one small catfish, held it up proudly, then tossed it back. “That one’s got a family,” he said.
Around midnight, the air grew cooler. Mist began to creep across the lake’s surface, wrapping the trees in a pale haze. We were about to pack up when we heard it—a low rumble coming down the dirt path.
A truck.
It stopped just beyond the treeline, headlights cutting through the fog. A tall man stepped out, wearing a worn jacket and a friendly half-smile. “Evening,” he called, raising a hand. “Name’s Will. Sorry to bother you—saw your fire from the road. You folks stuck or something?”
David stood, brushing dirt off his jeans. “Nah, just camping. Got the truck out earlier.”
Will nodded, glancing toward the lake. “Good spot you’ve got here. I live down the ridge—been fishing these waters for years. Mind if I join for a bit?”
David hesitated, then offered a beer. “Sure, pull up a chair.”
Will accepted with an easy grin, settling near the fire. At first, he seemed harmless enough. He talked about fishing, about how the deeper parts of the lake were better after midnight. His voice was calm, his eyes steady. If there was something off about him, none of us noticed.
“You folks come here often?” he asked after a while.
Sophie smiled politely. “David’s family owns this land. We’ve been coming since last summer.”
Will nodded slowly, poking at the fire with a stick. “That’s nice. Always good to have a quiet place away from people.”
We chatted another half hour. He even helped Mark fix a tangled reel, quick and sure with his hands. “That should hold,” he said, smiling faintly. Then, almost casually, he added, “There’s a better fishing spot at the inlet. Deep water. You’d get bigger catfish this time of night.”
Mark’s eyes lit up. “Let’s check it out. What do you think?”
Sophie looked uneasy. “Maybe we just stay here—it’s late.”
I hesitated too, but David shrugged. “It’s close, right?”
“Just a short walk,” Will said. “Five minutes, tops.”
So they went—David, Mark, Sophie, and Will—disappearing between the trees with their flashlights flickering like fireflies. I stayed behind to tend the fire, promising to join them soon.
The night stretched quiet again. Crickets, wind through leaves, the soft lap of water. I stared at the flames, absently poking at the logs. Then I heard it.
A sharp pop.
Then another.
At first, I thought it might be fireworks. Or maybe something falling in the woods. But then came a third—louder, closer. Gunshots.
My body went rigid. “David?” I called softly. No answer. The air seemed to hold its breath.
I grabbed the flashlight and stepped toward the trees. The beam trembled as I moved. Another sound—a branch breaking. I froze. And then Will stepped out of the dark. Alone.
He had a gun in his hand.
For a second, he didn’t see me. The firelight flickered over his face—calm, expressionless. He walked toward the tents, muttering under his breath. “Where are you?”
I ducked behind a bush, holding my breath so tight my chest hurt. He rummaged through our gear, tossing things aside, then dragged something heavy toward his truck. My stomach turned when I saw—an arm, a flash of denim, blood glinting under the moonlight.
He loaded them into the truck, one by one, humming softly to himself. When he finally drove off, the night went dead silent again, save for the distant rumble of the engine fading down the road.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I just ran.
Into the woods, stumbling, gasping, tripping over roots and rocks. When I found them—David, Mark, and Sophie—it didn’t feel real. David lay on his back, eyes open to the stars, blood staining his shirt. Mark was slumped beside him. Sophie’s fishing rod was still in her hand, her hair spread across the dirt.
I fell to my knees, shaking, choking on sobs that wouldn’t come out right. Then instinct took over. I ran again—deeper, farther, until the woods swallowed me whole. I hid there all night, curled beneath the leaves, shaking so hard I thought my bones would crack. Every sound felt like footsteps, every gust of wind like breath on my neck.
When dawn finally came, pale and cold, I crept back toward the lake. My phone was still in the tent. My hands shook as I dialed.
“Please,” I whispered when the dispatcher answered. “My friends are dead. A man shot them.”
The sirens came fast—echoing through the forest, breaking the stillness. Police found them where I’d said. They searched Will’s property and found his truck, blood on the tailgate, the weapon buried beneath a pile of scrap.
He barricaded himself for a while, then surrendered. He claimed it was a misunderstanding, that he thought we were trespassing, that he “panicked.” But there was no misunderstanding—he’d gained our trust, watched us, and lured them away.
The trial dragged on for months. I took the stand, voice shaking as I relived every sound, every second. When the verdict came—guilty, sentenced to death—it didn’t bring peace. Nothing could.
I don’t camp anymore. Don’t fish.
Sometimes I still hear the gunshots in my dreams, echoing across the lake. I see David’s face in the firelight, smiling at me, just before he turned to follow that man into the trees.
The lake was once our refuge. Now, it’s a place I can’t bear to think about. Evil doesn’t always come screaming out of the dark. Sometimes, it walks right up to your fire, smiles, and asks for a beer.
"Gone Before Dawn":
The outing began as a simple escape—just a break from the grind. We’d been talking about it for weeks over coffee, the kind of half-serious plans friends make when life gets too heavy. My longtime buddy Tom was the one who pushed it into motion. “Let’s do a midnight fishing run,” he said one night. “Just like old times. No phones, no work, no noise. Just us.”
Tom was thirty-one, steady, the kind of guy who never missed his daughter’s school plays or forgot an anniversary. He’d married Denise right after college, and they seemed like one of those couples who had it all figured out. Our other friend, Brian, jumped on board right away. He sold insurance, had a sharp tongue and a knack for turning small talk into persuasion. “I’ll bring the boat,” Brian said. “We’ll fill that cooler before sunrise.”
So that Friday night, around ten, we loaded up Tom’s truck—rods, bait, a few beers, and a small cooler of food—and hit the backroads leading out to the lake. The world grew darker the farther we drove, the trees leaning over the narrow lanes like a tunnel. Tom talked easily, about his work appraising properties and how he was trying to spend more time with his family. “Denise wants another baby,” he said, a soft smile in the glow of the dash lights.
Brian, sitting behind him, gave a low chuckle. “You’ve got a good life, man,” he said. But there was something in his tone—something flat and strange. I remember glancing back, wondering if I’d misheard.
When we reached the lake, it was still and silver under the moon. Not a ripple, not a sound but frogs and wind. We launched the small aluminum boat and drifted out, the motor coughing once before quieting. “This is it,” Tom said, breathing deep. “This is peace.”
We fished in easy silence for a while, broken only by small talk and the plop of lines hitting the water. Tom caught the first catfish—a good-sized one. “Still got the magic touch,” he grinned, holding it up for us to see. We cheered, laughed, the sound echoing across the still surface. I caught a smaller one next. Brian teased me for letting it go, and I tossed him a look.
Then, as the hours wore on, the conversation turned quieter, more personal. Brian brought up high school memories—how he and Denise used to hang out back then. “She was a good friend,” he said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. Tom smiled. “Still is,” he replied, unaware of the tension building in that exchange. I noticed Brian looking away, jaw tight, and a cold, inexplicable unease crept into my gut.
By two in the morning, the moon hung high and pale. A light mist began to settle over the lake. “Let’s move closer to the stumps,” Brian suggested, taking the tiller. “Bigger ones hang there.” Tom stood up to adjust his line, balancing easily in his waders.
Then everything shifted in an instant.
Brian stood, too—his face changed, no warmth left in it. “Tom,” he said quietly.
Tom looked over. “What’s up?”
And before either of us could react, Brian shoved him—hard. Tom stumbled backward and went over the side, hitting the water with a splash. “Brian! What the hell!” I shouted, reaching for him, but Brian was already reaching under his seat. When his hand came up, it was holding the shotgun Tom had brought for protection against coyotes.
“Don’t,” I said, backing away.
Brian’s voice was low, trembling, but cold. “This has to happen.”
Tom surfaced, sputtering, clinging to a stump. “Help me up, Brian! Come on, man!”
The sound that came next was deafening. A single blast echoed across the lake. Tom jerked, blood rippling out around him. His fingers slipped from the stump. And then—he was gone.
I screamed his name, lunged at Brian, grappling for the gun. The boat rocked violently. “Why?!” I yelled. “What did you do?”
“For the insurance,” Brian spat, shoving me back. His face twisted with something like desperation. “Denise and I—she wants out. We both do. The policy’s worth a million.”
The words hit me harder than the gun ever could. Denise. His wife. My friend’s wife.
I swung, my fist catching him across the jaw. The gun went off again, the blast searing my shoulder. Pain exploded through me, and I stumbled backward, losing my balance. The icy water swallowed me whole, knocking my breath away. My head slammed against a stump, stars bursting behind my eyes.
Above, the engine roared to life. Brian looked down at me, expression unreadable. “I’m sorry,” he said—and fired once more. The bullet missed as I ducked under. Then the boat turned, the motor whining, and he sped off into the darkness.
I surfaced, gasping, clinging to the stump where Tom had been moments earlier. The pain in my shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat. Somehow, my phone was still in my pocket, sealed in its waterproof case. My fingers were shaking too hard to type, so I hit redial and prayed.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Help…” My voice cracked. “Lake… shot… my friend’s dead…”
They kept me talking, guiding me to describe the shoreline lights I could barely see through the fog. By the time the rescue boats arrived, I was half-conscious, teeth chattering uncontrollably. They hauled me out, wrapped me in blankets, and I passed out before we reached the dock.
Tom’s body was recovered an hour later.
In the days that followed, the story unraveled. Brian confessed quickly under pressure. The affair with Denise had been going on for years. Together, they’d forged paperwork and bought a life insurance policy naming her the sole beneficiary. The fishing trip was never meant to end with three men returning.
Their trials took over a year, but both were convicted—murder, conspiracy, fraud. I sat in court, my arm in a sling, staring at the two of them as they avoided my eyes.
I still can’t bring myself to visit that lake. Some nights, when the wind picks up and the water outside my window shifts in the moonlight, I hear the echo of that gunshot again—and see Tom’s face disappear beneath the surface.