The Dock

(Short Story)

Around five years ago, I spent my summer working at the marina in my town. That’s the only reason why anybody came to our small town, and it was frankly the only place you could get a summer job. I worked there every summer during my high school and college years. My skin was hard as leather from spending every waking moment in the sun. I loved it. I didn’t have to spend my summer days in the office, instead, I spent them either in the water or on the dock.

Like most small towns, our town had an urban legend to bring some spice into our mundane everyday living. I heard it my second summer in college working there, somehow missing it the first summer. I suppose that was partly because the guy who normally retells the legend was away that summer. He was taking summer classes before deciding to drop out and work at the dock full-time. I’m not sure why he’d want to drop out of NYU, especially since he had a full ride and come live in the boondocks, but he always repeated how he liked the simplicity this town brought and how he felt drawn here. I’m not sure if I’ll get that feeling, but I like to come back each summer for an easy job. Anyway, each summer we held a beginning of the summer bonfire filled with beer, throw-up, and half-eaten hotdogs. It was normally a group of 20 people, nothing too crazy, and we would huddle around the fire waiting to hear the story. It was a staple at this point, and he never failed to put on a big show when he told the story. He was always ready to go on his ten-minute monologue about the woman in the lake. He wobbled as he stood up, tightly holding onto his nearly empty beer as he cleared his throat, preparing us all for his great retelling.

“Alright guys, for anyone who hasn’t heard the story, you better listen up. The legend says that she’ll be back this year. She only comes back every five years, claiming five lives in the process.” He took a pause, taking in a long swig of his beer.

“You’re just making this up as you go.” said one of my coworkers in disbelief.

“Believe what you want, but all I know is that she appears drenched from head to toe and the people she claims start seeing her randomly. They start seeing her wet footprints either around their house, office, or what have you. Then they start seeing clumps of dark tangled hair and then you start seeing her with her half-dead eyes, ghostly pale face, and ripped-up nightgown. That’s when you know she’s after you, once you see her.”

 Another coworker interrupted and asked, “Why five?”

“For each year that she was gone. Apparently, she freaked out when she found her husband with another woman. She couldn’t understand why he would do that. He was her whole world, even more than her children. So, once finding her husband in bed with the woman next door, she knew what she had to do. Her husband loved their kids, so she decided to take away his whole world. She drowned her kids, one by one, tying their bodies to the poles of the dock. She then took her husband there and she convinced him to go swimming based on her lie that the children were at their friend’s houses.

As he’s swimming, he kicks something and apologizes to his wife, thinking that he kicked her. A wide, devilish smile appears on her face when a hand slowly appears in the water. The husband’s look of disgust quickly turns into horror as he brings one of his children to the surface and then another and then another. As he is sobbing, the wife just laughs, the smile growing wider before the husband lunges at her, rips her dress, and holds her under. She put up a good fight and had clumps of her hair pulled out. She died out in the water while her husband spent the rest of his life with the neighbor. But later on, she came back as the kills didn’t satisfy her vengeful heart. Thus, she comes back and takes more lives, and now that it’s been five years, we can expect her to raise havoc again.”

“How do you know all this?” I spoke up this time. His head turned towards me, the glare of the fire igniting his mischievous eyes.

“My uncle. He managed to escape from her grasp. He told me that he used to see her, and nobody believed him. He’d see clumps of hair in his sinks…”

“Well, that could’ve been his wife or kids.”

He sighed and glared at this interruption and remarked, “Considering he was bald, unmarried, and childless, I doubt it. Anyway, then he started seeing footsteps on his back porch. Once that happened, he started thinking about how he didn’t have much time left. So, he went to the library and looked up the legend and found the killings of every person in the five-year span in newspaper clippings. He got freaked out and decided to leave town.” He took a pause and swung his bottle around before continuing, “If I were you all, I wouldn’t stay too long on that dock. That’s where she killed her kids and, for the most part, claims the rest of her victims.”

“How are we supposed to do that when we work on them?” One of the younger, new hires asked.

“That’s up to you to figure out.” He winked. I shook off the story at first, wanting to have a peaceful and stress-free summer. Well, that is until the last few weeks of summer. Four people were already killed in the most gruesome way. Hair tangled in their mouths, or they had mouthfuls of murky lake water when they were discovered. I started seeing clumps of long black, tangly hair in my shower and then at work, I’d see her on the dock. I once saw her on one of the boats across the lake and her outline amongst the trees. Hair in front of half of her face, with her eyes dull and tattered nightgown flowing in the breeze. There was no denying that I was next. I decided to leave when I felt like she was breathing down my neck, my blood running ice cold like the lake water.

It’s been five years since then, and although I probably shouldn’t be walking on this rickety dock, I felt like I needed to be here. I rented a motel room for the summer, and I’ve already seen the first hair clump in the drain.