"Help Us":
Tom handled the vessel like it was an extension of his own body, steady hands, calm eyes. Emily was already fussing with the rods before we even cleared the channel. We left the harbor at first light, motoring toward the deep water—the kind of endless blue where the ocean drops off and the big fish run.
When we reached our spot, Tom set the anchor with a practiced clank of chain.
“This is prime tuna country,” he said, wiping his palms on his shorts. Emily baited the hooks with fresh squid, her expression all focus.
“First catch buys the beers,” she teased.
I grinned and cast my line, watching it disappear into the dark.
For a while, everything felt normal. The water was calm, the sky soft, and we made lazy conversation about work and family—just killing time until something pulled.
Then Emily’s rod bent so hard it nearly ripped out of the holder.
“Fish on!” she shouted.
Tom moved beside her instantly, coaching her through the fight. A minute later, a thick yellowfin slapped onto the deck, spraying us with salt.
“Great start,” I said, still laughing as it flailed.
Tom gutted it to keep the meat clean. As he slit open the belly, something slipped out and hit the deck with a sticky plop—a tiny sealed plastic bag.
“What the hell?” Emily picked it up. Inside was a waterlogged note, ink smeared but readable enough: Help us.
Tom frowned. “Probably some prank. People throw all kinds of garbage overboard.”
But it didn’t feel like garbage. It felt like a message someone hoped would drift into the hands of the living.
We kept fishing. My line jerked next—slow, heavy, a different kind of fight. I hauled up a fat grouper, its mouth yawning as Tom cleaned it. Another object fell out: a keychain with two corroded keys attached. One looked like it belonged in a boat ignition.
Emily’s face tightened. “That’s not normal.”
Tom stopped brushing it off. He radioed the coast guard.
“Found some personal items inside fish. Possible connection to a missing vessel.”
Static, then a voice: “Copy. Log it and keep us updated.”
We tried to shake off the unease by repositioning. But as we motored a few hundred yards, the water around us began to churn—soft bubbles at first, then rolling pockets of foam.
Fins surfaced. First one. Then another. Then three more.
“Bull sharks,” Tom said immediately. His tone changed—quiet, calculating.
“They smell the tuna blood,” Emily said.
We reeled in fast. Tom reached for the ignition—
—and something slammed the hull from below.
Hard.
The whole boat jolted.
“What was that?” I yelled.
Another thump. Louder. The sharks weren’t just circling—they were hitting us.
Tom shoved the throttle forward. “Hold on!”
The sharks followed, matching our speed, fins slicing the surface. More appeared from the deep, drawn by the chaos. I counted eight… then twelve. One monstrous bull shark led them, thick-bodied and scarred.
It rammed the stern so hard the engine coughed.
“Why are they after us?” Emily shouted.
“Frenzy mode,” Tom said. “If there's a wreck nearby, they might associate boats with food—learned behavior.”
Impacts shook the deck like sledgehammers. A hairline crack opened along the hull. Seawater seeped in, cold on my ankles.
“We’re taking on water,” I said.
Emily grabbed the patch kit, working frantically, but every time she sealed one spot, another strike opened up a new one. The big shark kept circling, turning sharply, its dorsal fin cutting tight arcs around us.
The boat began to sag, heavier with every gallon it swallowed. Sharks slammed us from all angles, deliberate and forceful, as if trying to roll us.
One vaulted from the water, jaws wide, landing with a crash that nearly sent me overboard.
“They’re coordinating,” Tom muttered, pale now. “I’ve read about packs behaving like this.”
I bailed water with a bucket, but the sea was winning. The radio crackled again:
“Coast guard en route. ETA forty minutes.”
Forty minutes felt like a death sentence.
The big shark rammed again. The hull groaned like something alive and hurt.
Emily’s patch held for maybe ten seconds before another hit split it open. A smaller shark lunged half onto the deck, snapping at the air, teeth clacking. Tom shoved it off with a gaff while it shredded a chunk of the rail.
We retreated to the cabin, the water inside now up to our shins. The glass fogged with spray and fear. The big shark drifted past the window, eye level, watching us. Its eye looked… aware.
“What if those items weren’t just trash?” I whispered. “What if they were from the people who wrote that note?”
Tom didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
The hits came faster. The boat listed hard. Another shark breached, body slamming the side like a battering ram. The cabin window cracked, spiderwebbing.
“They’re going to break through,” Emily said, barely audible.
Then—
Rotors.
A helicopter thundered overhead, the downdraft flattening the sea. The sharks scattered at the noise, fins slicing downward. A rescue basket dropped toward us.
One by one, we were winched up, the ocean shrinking beneath our feet. From above, I watched our boat sinking slowly—still surrounded by lingering fins.
Later, the coast guard confirmed a wreck nearby. A fishing vessel lost weeks earlier. No survivors ever found. The items we pulled from the fish matched the crew’s belongings.
Experts called it learned predation, an adaptation born from desperation in overfished waters.
I call it something else.
I call it the moment the ocean told me not to come back.
"Dragged Under":
Back when I was a kid growing up in a quiet Connecticut town, fishing was my escape from everything—school, chores, boredom, you name it. I was thirteen, all skinny limbs and restless energy, always looking for something that felt like an adventure. My best friend was Josh, a year older, taller, louder, braver, and the kind of kid who could make even a trip to the corner store feel epic. We lived on the same street, raced our bikes everywhere, and trusted each other like brothers.
One warm afternoon in the summer of 1991, we planned a fishing trip to Stenger’s Pond—a hidden little place about a mile from our houses, tucked behind a wall of thick woods. It always felt like stepping into a secret world, the kind only we knew existed. The surface of the water was dark and glassy, ringed with lily pads. Birds skimmed the water and disappeared into branches overhead. To us, it was perfect.
We didn’t pack much—just two rods, a tackle box that rattled like a toolbox, a dented metal bucket, and a couple peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in paper towels. “Best day of the summer coming right up,” Josh boasted as we pedaled down the dirt path, dust swirling behind our tires. He grinned at me. “Bet I out-fish you by at least two today.”
“No chance,” I shot back. “Last time I cleaned you out.”
By the time we reached the pond, the sun was sitting high, turning the water gold at the edges. We set up on our usual bank—flat enough to sit on, shaded enough to keep cool. Worms from our backyard wriggled weakly in the bait tin. We cast our lines with that satisfying plop, watched our bobbers settle, and let the world shrink to the small ripples on the water.
For the first hour, life felt simple. Perfect. We talked about school, summer, what we’d do when we were older. Josh announced we should build a fort there someday—“something big, with real walls”—and I jumped on the idea instantly. A fish tugged at my line, but it slipped away before I could reel it in. We didn’t care. For a while, nothing existed except us, the pond, and the soft breeze in the trees.
Then everything shifted.
It started as a faint rustle behind us—too heavy to be wind, too slow to be an animal scampering through leaves. I turned slightly. “Did you hear that?” I whispered.
Josh nodded without taking his eyes off the trees. “Probably a deer,” he murmured, though his voice had lost that usual boldness.
The rustling grew louder. Then came the sharp snap of a twig—close. Too close.
Three older boys stepped out from the shadows. Teenagers. Not from our neighborhood. They looked rough, like they’d been living in the woods for days. One was skinny with thick, taped-up glasses. Another had a jagged U-shaped scar on his forearm. The third—a broad-shouldered kid with a mean expression—rested a faded green aluminum baseball bat on his shoulder.
None of them smiled.
“What are you two doing out here?” the bat kid asked. His voice was flat, like he wasn’t actually interested in the answer.
Josh stood up slowly, gripping his fishing rod like it might somehow protect him. “Just fishing,” he said. “We come here all the time.”
I stayed on the ground but tightened my grip on my rod, wishing I could shrink into the dirt.
The skinny kid pulled a knife from his pocket—a real one, not the tiny folding kind. “Cute setup,” he said with a smirk. “But you’re in our spot now.”
The scarred teen took a step forward. “Hand it all over,” he said. “Rods. Bags. Bikes.”
Josh shook his head. “No. Go somewhere else.”
My voice came out small. “We’re not bothering anyone. Please.”
They didn’t care.
It all erupted at once. The bat kid lunged and grabbed Josh by the front of his shirt. Josh shoved him, surprising both of us, his fist hitting the guy’s chest. “Back off!” he yelled.
The bat swung.
The crack was sickening—thick, heavy, final. Josh dropped like someone had cut his strings, blood already spilling from his temple. My heart stopped. “Josh!” I screamed, scrambling up.
I tried swinging my rod wildly, but the knife kid moved faster. He yanked it from my hands, threw me onto the ground, and pressed the blade against my throat. The metal was cold enough to burn. “Move and I’ll cut you,” he hissed.
My breath froze.
The scarred teen laughed—this low, ugly sound. “Tie ’em up,” he said. “Don’t need ’em running.”
From their backpacks, they pulled out real handcuffs—heavy ones that clicked tight around our wrists behind our backs. The metal pinched my skin raw. Then duct tape slapped over our mouths, sealing every breath with the taste of glue and panic.
They dragged us across the dirt, toward the water.
“This’ll teach ’em,” the bat kid muttered. “Throw ’em in.”
The knife one nodded. “No one’ll find ’em fast in this mud hole.”
They hurled us into the pond.
The impact stole my breath. The cold punched into my chest, weeds snaking around my legs like hands pulling me down. The tape over my mouth made the water rush into my nose. Josh floated beside me, limp, drifting like a broken doll. I tried to scream but only bubbles escaped.
Their voices echoed faintly above the surface. “Grab the bikes! Let’s go!”
Then nothing. Just water. Darkness. Pressure.
Some instinct—some tiny flicker of survival—told me to go still. To pretend. To wait.
I held my breath until my lungs screamed. Then I twisted my jaw, scraping the tape against the metal cuff until it tore just enough for air to slip in. I forced my hands to bend and twist until one wrist slid through the cuff with a burning scrape of skin.
My head broke the surface with a gasp that felt like fire. I grabbed Josh’s shirt with my free hand and kicked, dragging him toward the bank inch by inch.
We collapsed on the muddy shore. I ripped the tape from his mouth. “Josh,” I croaked, shaking him. “Come on. Wake up.”
He groaned—a weak, broken sound, but it was life.
We stumbled through the woods, half-blind, soaked, shivering. Finally, a white house came into view through the trees. I ran to the door and pounded. “Help!” I managed to shout. “Please!”
A woman opened it, her eyes wide the moment she saw us. “Oh my God—get inside!” She called the police and an ambulance immediately.
At the hospital, doctors worked on Josh, stitching his scalp and checking for fractures. One of them came out later and put a hand on my shoulder. “You saved your friend's life,” he said. “He was slipping under fast.”
I didn’t feel brave. I felt scared, cold, and small.
The police caught the three boys days later. A neighbor had seen one of them earlier asking for food, claiming he was sick. She remembered the scar, the glasses. Investigators matched the mud on their shoes to plants and sediment from Stenger’s Pond.
The evidence placed them right where we said they were.
But even with them caught, the nightmares stayed for a long time—dreams of sinking, of muffled voices, of cold water closing over my head.
Dreams of the moment childhood ended with the swing of a green baseball bat.
"The Drowning Girl":
My brother Alex came along that afternoon, like he usually did when I went fishing. We tossed our rods, the tackle box, a bucket of worms, and a cooler into the back of the car. The sky was soft and gray, the kind of light that makes lakes look flat and metallic. The drive was short, just a few winding back roads until the trees opened up and the water appeared—still, calm, almost too calm.
We parked at the gravel edge and made our way down to the bank. The air smelled like wet leaves and mud, and mosquitoes hovered sluggishly over the surface. We picked our spots, baited our hooks, and cast our lines with that familiar fwip that always made me feel like the day was finally beginning.
It was quiet at first. Peaceful. The kind of peace you don’t realize you’re craving until you’re sitting in it, hearing nothing but ripples and the occasional plop of a fish hitting the surface.
Alex was the first to break the silence. He reeled in a fat bluegill, lifted it by the lip, and grinned like a kid.
“Look at this one,” he said proudly. “Not bad for starters.”
I smirked and cast again. “Give it an hour. I’m calling a bass.”
Time drifted. We talked about work, about how our boss was a pain, about weekend plans, dumb jokes—just normal, easy conversation carried on the breeze. I almost didn’t notice the ripples at first. Just a faint disturbance way out in the lake, as if something big had breached the surface.
At first, I thought it was a carp or maybe a snapping turtle. But the ripples kept widening, and then… a shape rose up. Slow. Smooth. Deliberate.
The top of a head.
Skin. Hair. A human silhouette.
I felt my stomach tighten. “Alex… you see that?”
He squinted, shading his eyes. “Is that… a swimmer?”
But even as he said it, his voice sounded unsure. The lake was cold—too cold for anyone to be out there voluntarily. No one swam here this time of year. And certainly not alone.
The figure drifted closer, arms moving in this unsettling, rhythmic sway. Not quite swimming. Not quite floating. Just… moving.
When she got close enough for the light to catch her face, we realized it was a young woman. Long brown hair plastered to her cheeks. A dark swimsuit clinging to her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on us. Too long. Too still. And then she smiled—wide enough to look wrong.
“Hi there!” she called, her voice carrying eerily clear across the water. “What are you boys doing?”
Alex looked at me before answering. “Uh… just fishing. You good out there?”
She laughed, soft and strange. “Oh, I’m great. The water feels so nice. You should come in. It’s perfect.”
Something cold scraped down my spine.
“No thanks,” I said. “We’re fine here.”
But she kept drifting toward us, cutting through the water effortlessly. No splashes. No struggle. Just that same smooth glide.
“Come on, babies,” she cooed. “Don’t be scared. It only feels cold at first.”
Alex leaned toward me. “This is really weird, man.”
I didn’t answer. I just kept watching her, my hand tightening on my rod. She was maybe halfway to us when she stopped abruptly. The smile faded, replaced by something unreadable.
“Swim with me,” she said softly. “I get lonely.”
We didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
She stared for a few seconds—then dipped beneath the surface. Fully. Quietly. Like a stone sinking straight down.
We waited. Counting without saying it aloud.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty.
A full minute.
Then two.
Nothing.
Alex stood. “Where the hell did she go?”
I scanned the lake, heart thumping. “Maybe she—”
Then, a burst of bubbles. Close. Too close. Just twenty feet out.
Her head shot up from the water, hair hanging like seaweed, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Why won’t you come in?” she asked. This time her voice was sharper. Off-key. Wrong.
I swallowed. “We’re heading out. Have a good swim.”
Her head tilted at an unnatural angle. “No. Stay. I need you to come in the water with me.”
Alex grabbed his gear. “Nope. We’re done. Let’s go.”
As we turned toward the car, her voice ripped across the lake.
A scream—so loud, raw, and furious that it didn’t sound human.
“NO! COME BACK! YOU HAVE TO SWIM WITH ME!”
We hurried, stumbling over roots and mud, her screams rising, breaking, echoing across the water.
“DON’T LEAVE! COME BACK! BABIES! COME BACK!”
I couldn’t help it. I looked back.
She was thrashing violently, arms slapping the surface, water exploding around her. Her face twisted with rage, mouth wide open, teeth bared.
We threw everything into the car and peeled out, gravel spitting behind us.
On the drive home, Alex kept replaying it out loud, trying to make it make sense.
“What was wrong with her? She looked like she wanted to drag us under.”
I nodded, though my throat felt dry. “We should tell someone. She might hurt herself. Or someone else.”
At a gas station, we used a payphone to call the police. I told the officer everything—well, everything that didn’t sound insane.
“She screamed when we left,” I said. “She seemed desperate.”
They said they’d send someone out. But we didn’t go back that night.
The next day, Dad drove us there to check.
The lake was still. Empty. No footprints except ours from the day before. The police said they found nothing. No clothes, no bag, no car. No missing-person report that matched.
Weeks passed, but the image of her—floating there, smiling that too-wide smile—never left my mind.
People in town whispered their own stories. A girl who once lived near the lake. A bad home. A breakdown. Nights spent wandering the waterline calling for help. Some said she drowned years ago. Others swore they’d seen her after that, trying to lure fishermen, hikers, anyone into the deep.
No one knew the truth.
One night, I dreamed she was standing at my window, dripping wet, hair hanging like weeds, whispering,
“Come swim with me.”
I jolted awake, heart beating like a drum.
Alex and I never went back to that lake.
But even now—when I’m near still water, and the wind is quiet, and the surface looks too smooth—I catch myself watching for ripples. For a silhouette rising where it shouldn’t.
Wondering if she’s still out there.
Waiting for someone new to cast a line.
"The Tug":
It was close to home, just a ten-minute walk if I didn’t feel like driving, and for years it had been my place to breathe. After long days when my head felt cluttered, I’d go there, cast a line, and let the quiet water rinse the noise out of me. That Thursday morning, a little after ten, the air felt cool enough that my breath came out faint and white. I arrived with my rod in one hand and a small box of bait in the other, already picturing the calm I usually felt once the line was in the water.
The lake looked glassy and still, the kind of stillness that makes the world feel paused. I walked to my usual spot—right by the edge where the shore dipped slightly and the trees leaned in, offering shade that smelled like earth and pine needles. I threaded a worm onto the hook and cast out, watching the ripples widen and fade.
For the first half hour, nothing. Just a few lazy nibbles, the kind you get from tiny fish that never commit. I reeled in weeds twice and eventually sat back on a flat rock, letting the sounds around me wash in: distant footsteps on gravel, kids laughing somewhere across the park, and the flutter of wings in the branches overhead. It was peaceful, almost meditative.
Then the rod jerked so hard it nearly slid off the rock.
I grabbed it instinctively. The pull was deep, heavy. “Alright, that’s gotta be a big one,” I muttered, bracing my feet. But the weight felt strange—not like a fish fighting, but like something dragging along the bottom. The line went tight enough to hum.
I stood slowly, muscles tightening as I began to reel. Whatever was on the other end resisted in a dead weight kind of way, making my forearms burn. “Come on…” I grunted, cranking the reel inch by inch. Sweat beaded down my temple even though the air was cool.
As it neared the surface, I saw only a murky shape through the water. A branch, maybe. Or a bag of trash. It had that dull, bulky look. But when it broke through the surface, I froze.
Fabric.
Cloth—wet, dark, clinging.
My hands trembled, but I kept reeling without meaning to. And then a pale leg rolled up out of the water, limp and unbelievably human.
My breath stopped. Just—stopped.
The rest of the body surfaced a moment later, face down, arms drifting like seaweed. I dropped the rod so fast it clattered against the rocks. “No. No, no…” I whispered, stumbling back. The hook had snagged the shirt near the shoulder. A cloud of diluted blood drifted from the back of the skull, spreading faint tendrils in the current. The smell hit a second later—sweet, rotten, metallic enough to make my eyes sting.
My fingers felt stiff as wood as I fumbled for my phone. Somehow I unlocked it. Somehow I tapped 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Yes—please, I—I need help.” My voice cracked. “I’m at the park’s north lake. I was fishing and I… I pulled up a body. A dead person.” The words felt unreal in my mouth.
“Sir, stay calm. Are you safe right now?”
“I’m alone,” I said, glancing around. The entire park suddenly felt unfamiliar, like the world had shifted. “He… he has a wound on his head. A bad one.”
“Okay. Keep your distance from the body. Officers are on the way. Can you describe what you see?”
I swallowed, forcing myself to look again. “Male, maybe thirties. Dark hair. Jeans, a shirt. Looks like he was… hit. Hard.”
“You’re doing great. Stay on the line. Help is less than three minutes away. Do you see anyone else nearby?”
I scanned the paths. A jogger passed far off, earbuds in, unaware. No one close. “No… but it’s quiet. Too quiet.” A nervous chill crept down my spine. A body doesn’t just end up in a lake like this. Someone put him here.
The operator kept me talking while time dragged like wet rope. My nerves buzzed under my skin.
“What’s your name, sir?”
“Luis,” I breathed. “I’ve fished here since I was a kid. I never thought—God, I never thought I’d see something like this.”
“You’re doing fine, Luis. Officers are almost there.”
Then I heard it.
A rustle—small, but too deliberate to be the wind—coming from the brush behind me.
I turned fast, the phone shaking in my hand. “Wait… I think someone’s here.”
“What do you mean?” the operator asked, her tone sharpening.
“The bushes moved,” I whispered, backing up toward the water. “Like footsteps—slow steps.” A branch snapped softly, like someone shifting their weight.
“Hello?” I called out. My voice sounded thin. “Who’s there?”
Silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.
My gut twisted. Was it the person who did this? Were they watching me find the body they left behind?
“Please hurry,” I whispered into the phone.
Then—sirens. Faint at first, then rising. The rustling stopped instantly, like whatever—or whoever—was there didn’t want to be caught. Within moments, police cars pulled up on the nearby path, the flashing lights painting the trees red and blue.
“Over here!” I shouted, waving them down.
Officers sprinted toward me. One of them assessed the situation in seconds, calling for backup divers and forensic techs. Another walked over and looked me in the eye.
“You okay?”
“I thought… I thought it was a fish,” I said shakily. “Hooked onto something. And then… the leg…” I trailed off, rubbing my face with trembling hands.
“We’ll take it from here,” he said gently. “Looks like foul play.”
As they cordoned off the area and pulled the body fully from the lake, I sat on the grass, staring at the rippling water where everything had been calm an hour ago.
A fisherman walking by slowed and asked, “What happened?”
I swallowed. “Found a body right there.”
His face drained of color. “Jesus… you think it’s safe around here?”
“I don’t know anymore,” I admitted. “This place used to feel like home. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever come back.”
Later that night, the news confirmed what I already felt in my bones—the man was local, about thirty-five, and his death was suspicious enough to launch a full investigation. No quick answers. No suspects. Just more questions.
Sleep didn’t come that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the leg breaking the surface, the shirt hooked on my line. Every creak in my house made me flinch. I kept thinking about the rustling in the bushes—about someone standing there, watching me, deciding whether to step out… or disappear.
Days went by, and I couldn’t make myself return to the park. Friends checked in, trying to reassure me, but the image stuck like it had been burned into my mind.
“You holding up?” my buddy asked over the phone.
“Barely,” I said. “I keep seeing his body coming up out of the water.”
“Man… maybe take a break from fishing.”
But it wasn’t the fishing that haunted me.
It was the feeling that someone else had been there.
Watching. Listening. Close enough to touch the same bushes I stood near for years without fear.
And whoever they were, they were gone before the police arrived.
Gone—but maybe not far.