If you were to travel down Sun Road in Leland county Michigan, you would eventually run into a mailbox on your right, and a wall of trees on your left. If you decided to turn to your left and walk into that forest for about fifteen feet you would find nothing besides a four by four platform about twenty feet up a tree. There were pegs sticking out the side of the tree for you to get up though a few of them were rotted out which made it rather hard to get up to the platform. Now if you found your way back to the road and went towards the mailbox you would notice that the name Fenton was painted on to it. Directly after the mailbox if you turn right you will go down a very steep gravel driveway. The driveway will open up into a relatively small parking lot. In the corner of the parking lot sits a small tool shed. The key was lost a long time ago. If you were going to continue forward you would run into the back of the house. The house is quite large with many different rooms (which will be described at different points during the story). If you walk directly through the house and out the front you will find yourself in a large yard shaded by a few trees on either side. If you were to continue still you would either walk down a shell beach past a catamaran into the water, walk down a dock past a pontoon boat and off the edge or walk straight off the edge of the yard onto some rocks… So don’t do that. So that is the lay of the land and if you want to understand the locations of events in this story I suggest that you remember this setting.
A large navy blue van with six teenagers and an adult inside rolled down Sun Road and turned down the steep driveway which was situated right after the mailbox with the name Fenton on it. The van parked in the small lot in the back of the house. The door slowly rolled open and within seconds six teens (three boys and three girls) jumped out. The kids all waited as the trunk made the four beeps signaling that it was opening and then slowly lifted open. There was laughter but no words as the kids grabbed their luggage out of the trunk and ran towards the back door of the house. It was swung open with a loud screeching noise and all of the teens rushed in as fast as possible. The back door leads into the kitchen where if you turn right you will find the dining room. And in the dining room was the grandpa of one of the boys.
“Hey there folks,” said Roger (the grandpa) “I’m just here to chaperone but I’m not going to be strict about most things. Just be inside by dark every night and the boys and girls have to sleep in separate rooms”. All of the kids exchanged grins with one another.
At that moment the door made that awful screeching sound again and the mom of Peter (the parent who drove the kids to the cottage) walked in.
“Well I think that everything is all set,” she said “I wish that I could stay but there are people expecting me back home, I know that you guys will have so much fun,” She then went around and hugged all of the kids. She hugged Peter especially hard and gave him a kiss on the cheek to which he groaned. “Thanks so much for doing for this Dad!”
“It’s my pleasure”
“Bye guys. Have fun!” and at that the door swung closed with that awful sound and she was gone.
“Whelp… I’m going to go upstairs and take a nap. You guys have the whole bottom floor. Peter can show you around and if you need anything he knows where I’ll be,” Roger got up and out of his chair fairly fast for someone of his age. He was fairly fit because he used to be a cross-country coach.
It was one o'clock when they arrived and since it was mid July the sun would probably set at about ten PM. That gave them plenty of time to do pretty much whatever they liked.
“There’s a pontoon boat out back and a few tubes. We can go out to the sandbar and float around if you guys want to,” said Peter. He knew the entire lake. His grandparents owned the cottage and he was there often. There was a chorus of agreement from all the teens save for two of them, Connor and Rachel who claimed to be far too tired for any activity of that day.
In fifteen minutes everyone who was going on the boat trip was in swimsuits and ready to go. Nobody really knew what Connor and Rachel were doing. They stocked the cargo holds (underneath the seats) with snacks that they had brought. They also threw a large round inflatable tube with a rope in the back of the boat and put up the sun awning not because it was entirely sunny but because it looked like it might have rained in a few hours. Peter stepped onto the boat with Ian, and Katherine while Lisa cranked the large wheel that lowered the boat’s pontoons into the water. Once the boat was in the water Lisa shoved the boat off of the dock with his foot. Peter started the engine and they were off.
Literally three minutes later they were at the sandbar. Lisa threw out the anchor which after a few seconds of falling to the bottom of the lake and then a few seconds more of the anchor scraping against the bottom it eventually found hold in a large rock. The engines were already shut off but the boat was still coasting forward so when the anchor found its home around the rock the boat came to a sudden stop. Everybody onboard lurched forward. All of the teens jumped over the sides of the boat into the water. Nearly all of them winced at how cold the water seemed at first but soon adjusted to it.
It had been four six hours and the sun was setting. Peter, Lisa, Ian, and Katherine had not yet returned, but Connor and Rachel didn’t care, in fact they wanted as much time alone together as possible. You see Connor and Rachel had been together for about a year now and they rarely had time alone together though they desperately wanted to. As of this time they were laying on the couch watching a stupid old horror movie. It was a fairly stereotypical plan: a “scary” part of the movie comes on she gets “scared” and buries herself in him. Literally the oldest trick in the book. That “scary” part of the movie had happened a long time ago and there was about to be another. As soon as it did she took her eyes away from the small TV in the front of the living room and stared at the side of Peter’s face. He took notice but didn’t look towards her because it was all part of the little game that couples play. He waited maybe ten seconds before turning and looking her in the face. They locked eyes for a while until he pushed a lock of chestnut brown hair away from her face and the flood of love began. At first he went in for a short kiss on the lips and that was it but she grabbed his head from behind and kept it there.
The kissing went on for a few minutes until suddenly the stairs going upstairs stated to creak. They halted kissing quickly and looked towards the stairs. The TV behind them started to play stereotypical horror music, which just added to the generally pretty scary atmosphere. They had listened and counted that whatever was coming down the stairs had been down at least ten of them. A woman in the movie screamed and the figure from the stairs revealed itself.
“Hey guys,” said Roger “am I interrupting something? I thought that all of you guys went out to the sandbar.” The two were both still too stunned to say anything until Rachel found her wit and piped up, “Everyone else did… But we’re a little too tired.”
“Okay,” said Roger as he walked through the wide entrance to the kitchen. “Can I get you guys something to eat? I’m heading over to the supermarket.”
“Thanks, but we just ate,” said Connor.
“Alright then, I’ll be back in about an hour”
They waited in silence until they heard the engine of Rogers’s car start and roll down the street out of the reach of their ears.
Meanwhile on the boat things were going great. For the past few hours the four teenagers had been tubing and having the kind of fun that you are expected to have on such a trip as this. All that was left to do was watch the sunset and head back into land. The sunset came and soon after the sun had set fully Peter pulled everything back onboard and started to drive the boat full of sleeping teens back towards the shore.
TEENS5 and 6 had fallen asleep on the couch. Rachel was suddenly awakened by the sound of a car pulling down the driveway in the back of the house. She thought nothing of it because there was a car expected at the house around this time. Rachel fell back asleep on top of Connor.
The boat was now about a mile from shore but it was going relatively slowly for two reasons. One… it was dark and any obstructions in the water couldn’t be seen as easily. Two… Peter was slowly falling asleep at the wheel.
Rachel was awakening once more at the loud creak of the door. The creek sounded different though… like somebody was trying to keep it quiet.
Roger now walked out of the grocery store to his car and loaded his purchases into the trunk. When he was done he closed the trunk and got on his way driving back to the house.
Peter was now fully asleep and the boat was moving at a moderate speed towards the shore.
Soon came the footsteps. They were slow but relatively light. They kept going until Rachel could see a silhouette against the light of the kitchen. It was tall and relatively muscular but she couldn’t make out anything else in the dark. Rachel didn’t dare to move or notify Connor of the intruder. If she did she would certainly be discovered as awake.
The boat was now only meters from the shore.
The intruder was now only meters from Connor and Rachel. They raised their knife and Rachel couldn’t move.
BOOM.