There’s Something in the Water Contest Honorable Mention
The rusty fence smelled like stale blood as Marnie and I climbed it in the middle of the night. My old watch beeped as the date shifted. She thought it was the onset of an oncoming alarm.
“Relax,” I said. “The power is off. No security system, no guards. We’re safe.”
I landed on the other side with barely a scratch, avoiding the jagged wire sticking out halfway. But ‘the Queen’ wasn’t as lucky, cutting her finger.
“Shit!” Marnie cried. “You said this would be easy.” Drops of her blood glistened on the dirty ground, arousing me in unknown ways. She flinched when I took her hand to examine the wound. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “It’s barely bleeding.” I held eye contact until she looked away, capturing her trust. The prevalent darkness made my eyes’ temperature and the color of the water imperceptible when the moon snuck behind the clouds. I took off my shirt, pants and shoes, and embraced the breezy summer evening in my yellow swimsuit. Marnie’s eyes narrowed as her nose met the awaiting aroma.
“Ugh! Is that thing filled with mop water?” She waved her hand in front of her face.
“Who cares!? Come on.” I jumped in without hesitation. Water was cold, murky, and smelled of soiled laundry. I hid my discomfort from Marnie, for the last thing I wanted was for her to change her mind. She unbuttoned her pants, but stopped short of taking them off.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“It looks nasty.”
Marnie hesitated like an indecisive child. She seemed resentful of the gloom, but particularly of the absence of additional eyeballs. Her attitude, as with most social media Queens, was, If no one’s watching, is it really worth doing?
“Relax”, I said. “It’s unpleasant, but think of all the views you’ll get.” That’s all it took to get the diva to do what she’d rather not. She undressed quicker than it took me to turn my head. Her legs plunged in the water, as if gradually devoured by the liquid putridity.
“Ugh! I can’t believe I’m doing this!” Her chin shivered as if in vibration mode. I took photos, then recorded her with the waterproof phone. Her countenance changed at the first sight of a lens; an uninformed bystander would scarcely have believed her current mood from the previous one. Marnie smiled, grinned from ear to ear, stuck her tongue out, splashed around, and strutted as if she was the empress of the underworld. After I handed her the phone back, she immediately posted them on her page.
“Did all those kids really die here?” she asked. I nodded. “Did they drown…?”
“Who knows,” I said. “All that matters is when these photos go viral, you’ll be the envy of everyone who shits themselves at the mere thought of this place.”
“You really think it’s cursed? What if something happens to us?”
“Relax,” I said. “Nothing ever happens to me.”
“You say relax a lot. How come?”
I turned away, hoping my silence would make her ever so curious. The stars suddenly vanished from the sky, and night became blacker yet. Crickets chirped from nearby, their echoes like low frequency murmurs.
“Are you scared?” I asked, my grin likely invisible to her.
“Should I be?”
I glided in the water, circling her, until I was a few feet from her face. “Why did you delete me?”
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“You deleted me from HeadPage.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her intonation was non-existent. She avoided eye contact, and paddled towards the deep end, like a struggling puppy.
“Why?” I repeated. The silence accompanied the darkness, like a bride does a groom. When the moon reappeared, Marnie’s hair shone as a dim lamp. I crept up behind her, the water expanding outwards. With her face away from mine, she uttered a barely audible, “I’m sorry.”
“But why?” I repeated. “That wasn’t nice.”
“Your photos… they’re dark. Too many dead animals and weird art. You creep people out.”
The queen’s honesty struck me as unexpected, poking my ego as an irritable thorn. “Do I creep you out?” I asked. If she had an ounce of integrity, she’d reply in the affirmative.
If.
Marnie turned and smiled, the grin of which I could discern by the cheerful alignment of her eyes. At length, she shook her head. I extended my arm, initiating a hug. She accepted my embrace. For several moments we remained united, like shy lovers. Gently, I began to push her head below, at first gently, then more forcefully. Bubbles rose to the surface like a boiling cauldron.
Marnie kicked, tossed, and resisted with all her strength, but to little avail. I whispered relax, but she likely didn’t hear. Her frantic fingers scratched my neck in multiple places before she came to rest, like an unplugged machine, mid-cycle. The open wound on her hand continued to bleed, until its color merged with the pungent water.
I took a final photo of Marnie’s floating body while putting my clothes back on. The concentric circles expanded no more under the night’s reign. In a few hours, the place would return to its wasteland status, and any sign of our presence would disintegrate with the dawn’s arrival, like dew under the warming sun.
Published 8/7/26