Latham's Landing by Tara Fox Hall

shoreline was blood, the granite red with it. A recorder lay
nearby, lightly spattered. As she watched, that too faded, the
light from the sky illuminating clean stones and clear water.
    Something gleamed amidst the wet rocks. Marie
walked to it, and picked it up. “This looks like Daryl’s
knife.”
    Fear filled her. She darted inside.
    Sam, Daryl, and Nikki were still sleeping.
The inner door leading to the staircase was standing open, the rope
severed.
    She woke the others immediately, telling them
of what she’d seen. “I thought it was tied a few minutes ago, but I
didn’t check it.” She handed the knife to Daryl. “Is this yours? I
found it near the shore, in the water.”
    Daryl searched his pocket, unnerved. “I was
outside, but only in my dream. It must have fallen out last night,
when we were gathering wood for the fire.”
    “ I found the outside door open,” Marie
replied. “The rock was moved.”
    “ It was only a dream,” Daryl said,
trying to make light of it. “Stupid, really. Sam shot me by
mistake. But I’m clearly not a ghost—”
    “ We shared that dream,” Sam said
seriously. “You stabbed me with that knife. She found the door
open, and the knife outside. Yeah, we’re alive. But how’d it get
there?”
    “ Like I said, I must have dropped it,”
Daryl said patiently. “It’s amazing you had the same dream, but
that’s all it was. We both woke up right here. You woke up first,
even. Besides, you don’t have a gun, Sam.”
    “ Yes, I do.” Sam produced it, then told
of his nightmare. “I saw the girl, too, Marie. She said we should
leave.” He turned to Nikki. “Did you dream of anything?”
    “ No,” she said quickly, casting eyes to
the fireplace.
    “ Daryl’s right. What happened was all
in your minds,” Marie said, going to the light switch on the wall.
She flipped it several times. Nothing happened. “Not only is the
power off out here, the bulbs aren’t even in the few fixtures I’ve
seen.”
    “ You’re right about that. Still, this
didn’t fray,” Sam said, studying the rope. “This was cut. Daryl,
did you cut this in your dream?”
    “ No. A thin knife or something else
sharp through the door jamb did,” Daryl said, eyes narrowing. “My
knife’s too big anyway to fit in the gap—”
    “ None of us did it,” Nikki interrupted.
“That proves someone has to be here, and they’re trying to scare
us. Maybe they took Daryl’s knife and moved the rock, so we’d
freak.”
    “ Why?” Daryl said, studying the cut end
of the rope as if it might hold the answer. “There’s no purpose in
scaring us.”
    “ Your boyfriend doesn’t know you’re
here, does he?” Marie said to Nikki pointedly.
    “ We have an open relationship,” Nikki
said boldly. “Besides, he’s off on a hunting trip.”
    “ Hunting what?” Sam asked, shifting his
eyes to her.
    “ Elk,” Nikki answered. “I’d have gone
with him, but this outing seemed more fun. Besides, I’ve spent
enough vacations cutting up his kills.”
    Marie rolled her eyes. “Nice. You don’t carry
a knife, do you?”
    “ Look, we’re here, and we’re all fine,”
Daryl said loudly. “Whoever did this, we don’t have time for their
games. Let’s get to work, then let’s get out of here.”
    “ You’re right,” Sam said, stretching.
“So what’s the plan?”
    “ Nikki’s going to take pictures. I’ll
go with her. You go with Sam and try to come up with some good
ideas for some drawings.”
    Marie faced him. “Again, what exactly do you
want drawings of?”
    Daryl let out another sigh. “I want you to
take some of the settings here, and put some scary people in
drawings of them. I don’t care what you depict. Whatever you
include is fine, so long as you genuinely find it scary. I’ll
include them in my paper, using them to illustrate the human
imagination and its role in how fear originates.”
    “ You’d just have to draw a picture of
this cut rope for me,” Sam said darkly,