Written for the NYCMidnight Flash Fiction challenge 2023. My writing prompts for this round were:
Genre: Horror
Location: A man-made lake
Object: A windchime.
There was a word limit of 1000 words. I used every one, but I've tweaked a few since. This one didn't do so well, though I got some good feedback.
Smoke on the Water
A man camping close to a lake meets an elderly local and learns an old folktale in great depth.
Matt stood to survey his work. All the pegs were in, and the tent was upright… ish. This would do, for until Dani forgave him. She always forgave him eventually, though she’d never before gone as far as actually locking him out of her flat. She’d known he had a temper when they’d got together, so when she wound him up like that, what did she expect? Fleetingly, he wondered if he’d gone too far, but then smiled. It would be fine. She’d come round. He threw his rucksack into the tent and closed the zip. It was hot and stuffy in there and he was already overheating. He would make the most of the cool evening air and go for a walk.
Pushing through a metal gate, Matt found himself on the edge of a lake. There was a sign on the fence naming it as Fellside Farm Reservoir and prohibiting unauthorised fishing, swimming, sailing, and just about everything else you could do on a lake. Looking around he lit a cigarette then turned left and headed along the lakeshore. As he reached the corner of the lake he flicked the stub into the bushes, and lit another. Dani didn’t like him smoking around her and the kid so he might as well make the most of her not being here. As he put his lighter away he heard a cough a little way ahead. The light was failing by now, but he could make out a figure standing by a pole with something reflective twinkling on it. Curious, he headed towards it.
The figure turned out to be a small-framed grey-haired elderly man, his grey whiskers poking out beneath a battered brown pork pie hat, his ancient corduroy trousers held up with braces that had once been red, over a patched beige shirt. The old man turned to look at Matt and held up a hand in greeting.
“Evening young sir!” Said the old man, cheerfully. “It’s a beautiful night isn’t it. I’m William.”
Matt nodded. The air was dead calm and the lake mirror still, reflecting the last red clouds of the sunset. “It is. Didn’t expect to see anyone out here.”
“Oh I come out here most nights. Live just over there.” He pointed to some lights just visible through the hedges. “It’s my peaceful place.”
“There are worse places, definitely. What’s this?” He pointed to the reflecting thing on the pole, about four feet above his head. From here he could see it was made of pieces of rough broken glass of various colours, hanging by lengths of wire. The old man regarded it.
“That’s the windchime. Been hanging there since Fellside was a working farm. Must have been almost a hundred years now. The farm was bought up by the government about eighty years back. Old man McCreedy farmed it then and he had a few of these around his boundaries. Only this one left though.”
Matt was impressed. “I’m surprised it’s lasted so long and not broken or been knocked down.”
“Oh it has, a bunch of times. Each time it’s back up within a couple of days. New bits of glass, sometimes a new pole, sometimes the old one stood up again. Someone cares about it. Matter of fact, there’s loads of tales have come out of this place. Probably all nonsense of course, but my favourite is about this very windchime. They say that if the chime sounds when there’s no wind, that means a bad person has abused the lake, made Old Man McCreedy angry, and he’ll come and punish them.”
“Abused it how?”
William grinned, moonlight reflecting off his white whiskers as he did. “Well that’s the interesting part. Nobody knows. It’s never happened.” He leaned in close, a serious look in his eyes. “...Yet.” His face cracked into a smile again. “As I said, all nonsense.”
Matt laughed awkwardly. The man’s breath when he leaned in smelled of damp and old fish. He drew on his cigarette again, flicking ash to the ground.
“Must suck having your farm bought and flooded and having no choice in it.”
The old man nodded. “Yes indeed. Back then they didn’t pay fair for em either. Just the base price of the land, nothing for losses. He was given a pittance. Drowned himself in the lake as a protest few months later. He had nothing left by then and had lost his mind a bit too I reckon.”
“That’s quite a story.” Matt said.
“Oh that’s not the half of it. This farm was his pride and joy. Everyone was scared of him back then too.” Matt saw a twinkle in William’s eye at this. “He was a character, by all accounts. Died before I was born… I think. Memory isn’t what it was.”
“Funny what stories people pass on.” said Matt. He took another drag on the cigarette, then absently flicked the butt into the lake. As it hit the water, there was the sound of tinkling glass from above. Matt looked up to see the strands of glass swinging against each other in the calm still air. He looked at William, who looked as surprised as Matt himself, but then a look of terror appeared on William’s face. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but just kept opening it further and further. There was a rending crack as his jaw snapped open and dark water started gushing from his ruined mouth. Matt took a step back as William reached towards him, his flesh now hanging from his arms, finger bones poking through the rotting skin of his hands. He grasped Matt with unexpected strength. His eyes were gone now, replaced with empty black sockets, water starting to flow out of them and splash down on Matt’s feet. Matt wrestled with the bony hands but was pulled off his feet and into the water, down and down, till darkness fell.
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