The Red Pool’s Wake

The summer I turned twelve, we moved to a house on the edge of a town called Marrow’s End, a place where the sun set behind a skeletal forest and the air smelled of rust and wet stone. The house was old, with a basement that had been converted into a bedroom for me, complete with a narrow window that opened outward like a hungry mouth. My father, ever optimistic, decided to install an above-ground pool in the backyard, hoping to make the new place feel like home. The day the pool arrived, I helped unpack boxes while workers wrestled with blue vinyl and metal poles. By evening, the pool stood shimmering under the twilight, a perfect circle of water, calm and inviting. I went to bed early, exhausted, my bed directly beneath that side-opening window, the screen loose and rattling in the breeze.

I fell asleep instantly, but the sleep was thin, like a veil over something restless. I dreamed of the pool, but in the dream, the water was not blue—it was a deep, murky red, and something moved beneath the surface, a shape that was both feline and human, its skin raw and weeping. I woke with a jolt, my heart pounding, and for a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. But then I felt the weight—a heavy, oppressive pressure on my chest, like a great beast had settled upon me. My eyes snapped open, and there it was.

It was massive, covering the entire length of my single bed. Its skin was flayed, muscle and sinew exposed, glistening with a wet sheen, and veins pulsed visibly beneath the raw tissue. Its face was a nightmare of exposed bone and taut flesh, with eyes that held a flicker of terror, as if it were as frightened of me as I was of it. Its tail curled behind it, ending in a wicked, barbed point, like something from a medieval depiction of the devil. It stared at me, and in that stare, I felt a deep, ancient sorrow, and then it let out a scream—a sound that was not a roar but a piercing, human-like wail—and dissolved into a plume of black smoke that streamed through the open window and vanished into the night.

I didn’t sleep that night. I lay frozen, the imprint of its weight still cold on my sheets. When dawn came, I went to the window and saw the pool, still pristine, but the water was slightly pink, as if a drop of blood had fallen in. My father noticed nothing, and when I tried to tell him, he laughed, saying it was a dream. But I knew it wasn’t.

Days passed, and the pool became my obsession. I would swim in it during the day, trying to find normalcy, but each time I dove, I felt an unseen presence, a pressure in the water that was not the cool embrace of chlorinated liquid. At night, I kept the window sealed, but I would still hear the faint, wet sound of breathing from outside, and sometimes, a low, mournful hum that seemed to come from the water itself.

One evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, I sat at the edge of the pool, my feet dangling in the water. The surface was still, reflecting the orange sky. Then, ripples formed in the center, as if something had disturbed the water from below. A shape began to rise—a head, covered in raw, red flesh, its eyes wide with a pleading look. It was the same creature, smaller now, more pitiful. It opened its mouth, and a voice, thin and reedy, came out: ‘Help me.’

My heart raced, but instead of running, I felt a strange compulsion to reach out. The creature stretched a limb, its clawed hand grasping for mine. As our fingers nearly touched, the water began to churn violently, and the sky darkened. A great wind picked up, howling through the trees, and the pool’s water turned a deep, blood-red, boiling and bubbling. The creature hissed, terror in its eyes, and sank back beneath the surface, disappearing into the depths.

When the chaos subsided, the pool returned to its normal blue, but on the bottom, I saw the faint outline of a figure, like a stain. I never swam in that pool again, and my father eventually had it drained and filled with dirt, but even then, the grass that grew there was always a shade too dark, and in the summer, it was perpetually damp.

I carry that night with me, the memory of that flayed beast, its fear and mine intertwined. Sometimes, in my dreams, I still feel its weight on my chest, and hear the splash of water, and I know that it is not gone. It is waiting, in some other pool, in some other backyaard, for someone else to look out a window and see beneath the surface.