The Lake Effect

In the sweltering August of my solitary summer in Avalon Bay, a provincial town hugging the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, I had sought refuge at my friend Meredith’s cottage after a bout of the flu had left me bedridden for days. My older brother, a stern Coast Guardsman named Derek, had banished me from our shared rental, terrified I’d contaminate him before his upcoming physical fitness test. I resented him, but with him covering the rent, I had no leverage. Meredith, who worked at the local pharmacy, had offered her spare room without hesitation.

That morning, I woke to the oppressive humidity and the distant cry of gulls. I felt marginally better, but still weak, my limbs heavy as if weighted with sand. Meredith had a job interview at a medical lab in Oswego, a forty-minute drive along the treacherous lakeside highway. She was nervous, and I agreed to drive her since my fever had broken. As I sipped bitter coffee from a thermos, my phone buzzed. It was my twin brother, Marcus, though we shared not a single feature—he was tall, blonde, and athletic, while I was shorter with dark curls and a perpetual pallor. We hadn’t spoken in months. Why would he call now? I let it ring, focusing on the road, the shimmering heat waves rising off the asphalt making the lake appear as a mirage.

The highway hugged the coast, where the water was a deceivingly calm blue. We passed the old lighthouse, decommissioned years ago, its paint peeling like sunburned skin. Meredith chattered about the job, but my mind drifted to Marcus. We’d grown up in the city, but he had always been drawn to the water, joining the Navy right after high school. I stayed behind, taking a mundane office job. Our relationship had always been strained—his bravado against my quiet introspection. But the call unsettled me.

Meredith’s interview went well. She emerged from the squat brick building with a smile, and we celebrated with a greasy lunch at a diner overlooking the harbor. The food sat heavy in my stomach, and my fever threatened to spike again. As we drove back, the sky to the west turned an ugly green. A sudden squall, the radio warned, rolling in from the lake. I turned on the wipers as fat raindrops splattered the windshield, but within minutes, the rain was a torrent, reducing visibility to near zero. I slowed to a crawl, my hands gripping the wheel, when a figure appeared on the road ahead—a man in a yellow raincoat, waving frantically.

I slammed the brakes, the car skidding to a halt. The man approached, his face obscured by the hood. Through the rain, I could see he wore a uniform, the same shade as my brother Derek’s, but with unfamiliar insignia. He pointed to his vehicle, a pickup truck idling on the shoulder, its hazard lights blinking. ‘Engine trouble,’ he shouted over the wind. ‘Can you give me a lift to the gas station in town? It’s just a few miles.’ Meredith looked at me, her eyes wide with concern. My instincts told me to say no, but the man seemed harmless, and leaving him in this storm felt wrong. I nodded, and he climbed into the back seat, his raincoat dripping water onto the fabric.

As I drove, the man introduced himself as Officer Jim Thorne, a park ranger for the nearby St. Lawrence islands. He spoke of strange occurrences on the lake—fishermen going missing, boats found abandoned. ‘Sometimes the lake takes people,’ he said, a strange smile creeping across his face. ‘It likes the taste of them.’ Meredith shifted nervously, and I caught his reflection in the rearview mirror. His eyes were dark, almost black, and they seemed fixed on me. He asked about Derek, how he was serving in the Coast Guard. ‘A noble profession,’ he said. ‘But the water is a jealous mistress.’ I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

We dropped him off at the gas station on the outskirts of town. He thanked us and disappeared into the station, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. ‘That was weird,’ Meredith said. ‘I’ve never seen him before. The island rangers don’t come this far south.’ I dismissed it as a quirk, but the unease lingered.

Back at Meredith’s, I collapsed onto the sofa, fever spiking. I must have drifted off, because I had a vivid dream: I was underwater, surrounded by green light, and I could hear Marcus’s voice, muffled, calling my name. I woke with a start to find my phone buzzing again. It was Marcus. I answered, but the line was crackly, as if he were calling from deep underwater. ‘Ruth, don’t trust the water,’ he said, his voice distorted. ‘The lake effect is real. It’s not just the weather.’ Then the call dropped.

I tried to call him back, but there was no service. Panic clawed at my throat. I stumbled to the kitchen where Meredith was making tea. I told her what Marcus had said. She paled. ‘The lake effect,’ she whispered. ‘My grandmother used to tell stories about a creature that lived in the deepest trench, a thing of pure hunger. She said it could imitate voices, lure people in.’ I laughed nervously, but the unease grew.

That night, unable to sleep, I wandered to the window overlooking the lake. The storm had passed, and the water was calm, lit by a silver moon. I saw a light on the water, bobbing like a buoy. As I watched, it moved closer, and I realized it was a boat, a skiff, with a single figure. It was my brother Derek’s boat, but he was away on duty. The figure raised a hand, and I saw it was Marcus, waving, smiling. I grabbed my coat and ran to the shore, forgetting my fever, forgetting everything. The skiff was near the dock, and I could see Marcus’s face clearly now, but something was wrong. His eyes were black, like the ranger’s, and his smile was too wide. ‘Come on, Ruth,’ he called, and his voice was wrong, layered, like many voices at once. ‘The water’s fine.’

I stopped at the water’s edge. My own brother had never called me ‘Ruth’—he called me ‘Ria.’ And Marcus was supposed to be in San Diego. This… thing, this entity, was wearing his face. I backed away, and the figure on the boat began to morph, the skin peeling like wet paper, revealing a shimmering, scaled form. A low growl emanated from beneath the surface, and the lake itself seemed to swell. I turned and ran, not looking back, until I crashed into Meredith’s living room, locking the door behind me.

I called the Coast Guard, but they said Derek was fine, stationed in Buffalo. I told them about the creature, but they dismissed it as a fever dream. The next morning, I was packing to leave, to flee Avalon Bay, when I found a note slipped under the door. It was written on soaked paper, in handwriting that was mine but not mine: ‘The lake remembers. We will be family again.’ I looked out the window. The lake was calm, but I knew, deep in my bones, that it was waiting.

I never spoke of it again, not really. Derek and I reconciled, and I moved to the desert, nowhere near water. But every August, when the heat rises and storms roll in, I hear a phone ringing, and a voice that sounds like my brother’s calling me home. I keep the ringer off, but the lake, it seems, has its own way of reaching out.