Hazy View: Souls of the Vanished by Ink Blood

Andrew
followed.
    “ Which incidents or events
don’t I know of?”
    Tom was slightly upset and took a
moment to think. “It's nothing worth mentioning at the time until I
had a chance to think about it. There were small incidences that
didn’t make sense. I’d hate to lose my job over this, you know.
People might think I’m too incapable to take care of the lake and
grounds.”
    “ You won’t lose your job,
you didn’t do anything wrong, did you?” Andrew assured.
    “ There’s so many things
wrong. In the last two weeks I’ve lost four boats and my cruiser’s
damaged. It’ll be some time before it's repaired. Don’t even talk
about the smaller boats. At least Roberts’ boat didn’t sink. This
crisis is putting me out of business.” Tom explained
worried.
    “ There are four boats so
far? I only know of the one the men took to search for the missing
child.”
    Andrew stopped at the trash can and
dumped his cigarette bud.
    “ Some kids came here early
one morning and hired a small rowboat. I thought they wanted to
catch fish, because they had all their gear. They weren’t out too
far from the pier when I saw them swimming back. I didn’t think too
much of it because I didn’t see what happened. I thought they were
just cooling off, strange.”
    “ Why did you think it's
strange?”
    “ I didn’t see the boat and
all the kids swam back. They looked frightened and shaken up the
minute they left the water. They were breathless and scared more
than the swim tired them out.” Tom explained.
    “ What happened to them,
did they say?” Andrew asked holding his breath.
    “ I first had to calm them
down, couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They told me the
boat tipped over and they didn’t even bother to safe their gear.
They just needed to get out of the water fast. While they were
swimming back they felt like something was chasing
them.”
    “ And the other two boats
you mentioned?”
    “ That’s the strangest. I
lost the two moored boats because the one sank some distance away
and I couldn’t recover it. The other one, well I don’t know what
happened, when I found it, let’s just say it’s destroyed. This
happened about three weeks ago. I reported it to Sheriff Parker,
but I never heard anything about it again. I thought it might’ve
been the strong winds we had around that time, or kids messing
around. Well I had to write them off as lost.”
    “ How’s the cruiser
damaged?” Andrew asked.
    Tom seemed distant in thought. “What
do you mean?”
    “ You said the youngsters
brought it back damaged.”
    “ I normally check all my
boats when they come back. When I checked the cruiser water
filtered through the hull, not much about three inches. I took it
out of the water and saw large scratch marks and a few dents in the
keel. I can’t imagine the boat rammed a sandbank or rocks under the
water. The scratches’ deep and long enough that water filters
through.”
    “ Do we have a sandbank in
the lake? I’m under the impression the lake’s deep.”
    “ It's deep enough. We
don’t even have large enough rocks under the water to cause that
damage. There are large rocks at the rock face, but they’re too
deep. I don’t think even if the youngsters were that close, they
wouldn’t be able to do damage to that extent. There was nothing
wrong when it left, yet the cruiser came back with knocks and
scratches that I don’t know how it could’ve happened. The damage’s
impossible on this lake.” Tom assured.
    “ What did the scratches
look like? Can you describe them?”
    “ It looks like someone
took an ice claw and a sledgehammer to do some bodywork to the
keel.” Tom sounded a little angry.
    Andrew looked at him hard. “A
claw…?”
    It looked like something metal or hard
scratched in one stroke, making them even in length and in-depth.
It's too strange to understand.” Tom turned to the water. “I’m
telling you sheriff, there is something here and I don’t think