‘Okay, great, I just pulled into the parking lot. Damn, I’m thirty minutes early. Too early, I’ll look eager.’ Stepper looks at his watch.

‘I’ll review my notes on this place.’ Stepper starts to read through the company’s history, again.

someone knocks on his window. It’s a beautiful woman. ‘Sir, can you help me? My car died, and it’s in the middle of the road. Can you push it to the side for me, while I steer it?’ She says, blinking her eyes, looking hopeless and helpless, everything a man needs to tell himself ‘sure.’

Stepper steps out of the car, and walks over to the vehicle. He checks his watch. 25 minutes before the interview. He checks the normal guy stuff, to look like a knowledgeable hero. Engine? Looks okay. Underneath, no leaking. He shakes his head.

‘Did you call anyone?’ Stepper eagerly asks. ‘Ummm, of course, but it may take a little while, and it’s in such a bad spot.’ She looks at him, a little scared he won’t help. ‘Okay, I’m not sure what’s going on with this car, but I’ll push, and you’ll just steer it over there, yeah?’ As he points to a grassy spot on the side of the road, before it goes downhill.

‘Yes! Thank you!’ The woman says, gratefully.

As Stepper starts to push, the oddest thing happens. A flock of birds start flying out of the woods. They swirl in the air for a minute, gather their flock, and fly over the car, as he pushes. Strangely, at that exact moment, they all pooped at the same time. The exact same time. The car, the road, and most importantly, Stepper, all are hit with the defecation. The white car now looks like a Dalmatian, and Stepper is full of bird shit.

‘What the f…!!!’ Stepper screams, looking at his new suit.

The woman steps out of the car and looks at him in amazement. ‘I have something in the back that might help.’ She hurriedly opens the back door, grabs a roll of paper towels, and Stepper rushes over.

The woman starts to speak, but he can’t hear her words over his thoughts of panic.

As Stepper cleans himself quickly, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a clown walk out of the woods, right where the birds flew from. Absolute confusion and amazement set in. Stepper stops wiping the shit off of himself for a moment.

The clown has a big blue suit on, with a huge red smile, and a little yellow hat. He’s holding some kind of pie. He walks right up to Stepper and the woman. Without a word, the clown throws the pie right into Stepper’s face. Stepper is in shock. He starts to wipe off the pie from his face while swearing. As he yells, the clown handcuffs his hands and pushes Stepper into the backseat of the car, shoves his feet in, and slams the door.

The woman reacts quickly, and seemingly, puts down the emergency break. The clown pushes the car, and the woman slams the door shut while it starts rolling down the hill.

‘Will he be okay?’ The woman asks the clown. ‘What do you care…but yeah, he’ll be fine’ says the clown. ‘See that little stream right there at the bottom, where the road curves? The car will get stuck, and there ain’t no way he’ll get out of the car without getting soaked and muddy.’ He looks at his watch, ‘Aren’t you goin’ be late for your interview?’

The woman looks at her watch. ‘Forty minutes to kill’ she says, pats the clown on the shoulder, and starts walking to the parking lot. ‘I’ll call you later.’

The clown walks in the other direction, away from the woman, away from the man.

As Lisa sits in the waiting room for her interview, in comes Stepper. Handcuffed, shat on, full of mud, water, and pie, he’s frantic. The receptionist looks at him in awe. ‘Can, can I help you, oh my, what happened…” Stepper starts to tell the receptionist the story. She calls the cops.

Lisa hides herself behind the water cooler, knowing this moment might happen. ‘Lisa Smith’ her name is called. She stands up and smiles and shakes the woman’s hand.

Stepper sees her walk into an office, and he starts yelling ‘it was her, it was her, she set me up!’ But, his story is so bizarre, no one believes him. Shit bird.

A splash of black water unnerved her soul, because she knew it was right there, underneath the boat. It was her only shot, to paddle to the island on a moonless night. She’s was so close, only a few good thrusts away, when the paddle was ripped out of her hand. Swimming and praying weren’t options, only action and bravery. She took a deep breath, and stilled her mind, slowed the world, and started to think.

First thought and second thoughts were easy. ‘I will survive’ and ‘I will outsmart it’ were natural to her nature. An optimist and a person who rarely failed, and never ever the victim, she immediately jumped onto the third thought…’how to beat this?’ And then the flow of everything else came to Za.

This creature attacked on a New Moon, and went to an isolated, wet place. Light and fire could be options. Without hesitation, Za grabbled her phone and turned on the flashlight. Splash! Something happened as she reluctantly, but willingly gazed her phoned into the blackness. The reflection was blinding and made it difficult to see anything in the depths of the lake. She quickly tried to find something to burn, in the boat. Anything she thought. And there, at the edge of seat was her sweatshirt she took off when her friend soaked her with splashes of playfulness. At the time, it annoyed Za, but now it’s clear, ‘everything happens for a reason.’ She grabbed the sweatshirt, thankfully most of it was dry, and placed it on her lap.

Now, how to light this on fire. Her instinct, the phone’s flashlight needed to stay on. Had to stay on. Then she heard it. Another splash. Not as close, but something was there in the dark, biding it’s time, or testing it’s fate. Za immmediately turned the light over to the area where the splash was, to warn whatever is following her, that she’s waiting too. And another helpful thought came to mind. Sunrise can save me. Za looked at the time. 4:43 a.m. And then looked at her battery…19% as the warning came up.

‘Sunrise had to be 5ish’, she thought. The tingling sensation of the thoughts pulled her into a time warp, where she was in a tornado of possibilities. ‘The phone could die, the sun could rise, the shirt could burn, I can drift closer to land’…..but ‘what will happen’ vs. ‘what I can control’ is the current fight. Za decided to take a chance and jump into the blackness, holding her phone in one hand, sweatshirt in the other, and hoping she can make it to the island before the thing could. Death will happen if it’s her time. Foolish thought, of course, but living in fear, and waiting. That just wasn’t her.

Za jumped in the water, the coolness surprised her, but, as she suspected, the land was shallow, and her body was softly stopped by muck. Phone in hand, she tried centering the light around herself. She swam and pushed forward, getting closer to the island. She could feel the lakeweed getting thicker, making it difficult to move forward. She tried to swim, but keeping the phone over her was too difficult. Panic and exhaustion creeped up on her quicker than she could ever have imagined. The adrenaline was fading, as the cold of the water, the entanglement in the weeds, the muck of the mud, and the weight of the night set it.

With every bit of fight in her, she moved forward, but the island was further than she thought. And then she heard it, the splashing. It was closer. It was waiting for her to fade, to lose her fight. She started laughing. Laughing was her defense mechanism. She started to laugh, and yell at herself ‘let’s go, let’s do this!’ Then more splashing. Frantic splashing. Not wanting to look, but she had to see what was coming for her. A black creature was coming closer, and she couldn’t believe it. The closer it got, the slower she became, because she couldn’t comprehend what it was.

To the left of her, it looked like a huge thorn bush floating her way. But through the blackness, the sky became a tint lighter, and dawn was approaching. And with the hope of dawn, and a splashing of chaos, came a most surprising twist. A herd of deer were swimming along side of her. They were all fighting to get to safety.

I’m sleeping when it happened.

The spinning and tumbling, the darkness enclosing, and…what is that? Silence? Sort of silence, muffled screaming, and swishing, but there’s something else I can’t do. I can’t touch anything. Not the ground, not the car, not even the air. Then I realize I can’t breathe in, I can’t find up, I can’t see anything - I’m drowning.

To see a glimmer of red, to see anything, is directional. I pull the water back behind me, over and over again, doing anything to not let the water fill the hole of my desperate need. The red breaks up in shards of light, and it’s enough to reach for it, to find air, to find my life, my breath.

And in that moment of sweet relief that I can breathe, I grab onto something floating, to catch my weight so I can take a moment and get my thoughts straight. But wait, it’s my friend. I push him away, screaming, and trying to tread the chaotic water. He’s violently floating, up and down the current of quickening currents. Oh my God, she’s floating, and she’s floating too. The bodies of my friends catching the moonlight just enough for me to realize what’s happening. And they’re gone.

As I swim against the strong current, I realize what’s pushing me forward. Forward to where my friends have fallen. It pushes me off the edge of the world, and once again, I’m thrown into floating darkness. The water surrounds me, the air assaults me with it’s chilling fingers, and then I plunge back in the blackness. And there is no light to guide me.