House in the Lake (John Murder 1)

Night settles over the woods beside a black, slow-moving river. Through the trees, a vacation house glows with yellow windows and loud music.

Several young adults crowd the riverbank: women in bright summer clothes, men in open shirts and jeans, glasses raised beneath a string of dying bulbs.

A young adult woman with curly dark hair and a red jacket dances near the water. A lean young adult man watches from the porch, cigarette ember trembling.

Laughter rolls across the clearing, careless and warm. Beyond it, the forest holds its breath, branches knitting together over the narrow path.

The river reflects the house in broken strips of light. On the porch, the young man glances toward the woods, then dismisses the darkness and returns to the party.

Reach the vacation house

Discover what taints the black river

The lean young adult man slips from the porch, cigarette gone, one hand dragging along the railing for balance. His pale shirt hangs open over dark jeans.

He stumbles down the narrow path toward a derelict boathouse, speaking to himself while the party noise fades behind him. John Murder follows through the trees.

A rotten branch snaps beneath John Murder's bare foot. The young man stops and looks back, squinting into the dark, but alcohol blurs the shape between the trunks.

The drunk young man reaches the boathouse and fumbles inside. John Murder crosses the remaining ground unseen, arriving beneath its warped window as the man drops onto a crate.

John Murder seizes the drunk young man from behind and drives him through the boathouse doorway into the black river. The cold water closes over them.

The drunk young man thrashes in the shallows, fingers scraping uselessly against John Murder's hard grey forearms. Muffled music pulses through the trees above the water.

His struggles weaken, then stop. John Murder holds him beneath the surface until the river takes the last bubbles and leaves only ripples.

When John Murder releases him, the body drifts against the boathouse pilings. Behind the trees, someone laughs at the party, unaware of the silence below.

John Murder drags the body against the boathouse pilings and raises his machete. One heavy stroke separates the head, and the river carries the loose blood into darkness.

He stuffs the severed head into his waiting bag, cinching the mouth shut. The weight settles against the traps inside with a dull, wet thump.

John Murder leaves the boathouse and moves toward the vacation house through the trees. The party lights flicker between trunks, close enough to invite pursuit.

At the edge of the clearing, every dying bulb turns black at once. A cold pressure clamps around the woods, and the path ahead folds into the same few yards of ground.

He advances again, but the river suddenly sounds beside him, though its bank remains behind the boathouse. Wet footprints appear ahead, facing him, then fill with black water.

Inside the house, Mara's laughter falters. The music keeps playing, but the windows show only an empty clearing where the forest should be.

Mara: Turn the lights back on. Now.

John Murder slips through the rear door while the house remains blind to the clearing. He folds into a dark pantry behind stacked liquor crates, coat blending with the unlit shelves.

The door eases shut without a click. Music still plays from the living room, bright and tinny, while the windows hold only flat blackness.

Mara crosses the living room with a flashlight, her red jacket stark beneath the dead bulbs outside. The beam trembles across overturned cups and empty doorways.

From the pantry, John hears water dripping on the kitchen floor. Each drop lands beside the door, though the boards beyond it remain dry.

John Murder opens the trap bag without a sound. Beneath the pantry shelf, he sets a steel snare across the kitchen doorway and anchors its line to the warped cabinet.

The dripping stops. The young adult man steps from the living room, following Mara toward the rear door, his face pale in the flashlight beam.

His shoe catches the hidden line. The snare snaps tight around his ankle, yanking him backward into the cabinet with a violent crack. The flashlight spins across the ceiling.

The trapped man claws at the floor, but the cord cinches higher and crushes his throat against the cabinet edge. His struggle dwindles beneath the tinny music.

Mara freezes beside the rear door. In the pantry darkness, John Murder remains still while the dead man hangs between her and escape, water ticking steadily beside his boot.

John Murder steps from the pantry and unhooks the severed head from his bag. Mara turns, flashlight shaking, the trapped body between them.

He crosses the kitchen in silence. Mara raises the flashlight like a shield, but John Murder tears it from her hand and closes his grip around the head.

The first blow smashes into Mara's face and drives her against the rear door. The second knocks her sideways into the cabinets as the music chatters on.

John Murder strikes again and again. Bone cracks beneath the wet impact, blood streaks the door, and Mara's cry collapses into a breathless gasp.

The final blows leave her motionless on the kitchen floor. The severed head hangs from John Murder's hand while water continues ticking beside the dead man's boot.

John Murder lifts his machete and cuts through the trapped young man's neck, then Mara's. The blows are heavy and loud, startling birds into the night.

He retrieves the drunk young man's head from the bag's bottom, then packs all three severed heads together beneath the traps. The bag strains at its seams.

A sharp cabinet splinter has pierced John Murder's palm during the work. Grey flesh closes around it, but the wood remains lodged until he tears it free.

John Murder turns from the bodies and follows the kitchen's dark reflection toward the rear windows. The party room beyond is empty, yet music still chatters from the speakers.

Outside, the footprints continue across the clearing and stop at the riverbank. In the black water, a second house glimmers beneath the surface, its windows lit from within.

John Murder follows the wet footprints across the clearing, machete raised and his shoulders squared. Each print holds black water that trembles beneath his steps.

The tracks lead directly to the riverbank. Reeds brush his longcoat, and the packed earth gives way beneath him, soaking one bare foot in the cold mud.

He reaches the water's edge ready for an attack. Beneath the surface, the reflected house sharpens into a complete second structure, its lit windows wavering below the current.

The submerged house mirrors the vacation house, but its porch faces the river. A dark figure, a slender young adult woman in a hooded black coat, her face lost in the window's glare, stands behind one glowing window, motionless and watching him.

Water climbs over John Murder's boots as the river pulls at the bank. The heavy bag drags against his shoulder, its three heads shifting beneath the traps while the figure raises one hand.

John Murder steps into the river. The current folds around his longcoat, then drops him through the wavering reflection and into the submerged house without breaking the surface.

He lands on a porch slick with black water. Inside, the lit windows burn without flame, and the submerged woman's silhouette waits beyond the open doorway.

John Murder enters with his machete raised. The woman turns toward him, her hood hiding her face as water streams upward from the floorboards.

He crosses the room and slashes through her black coat and pale shape beneath it. The blade bites deep, splitting her from shoulder to ribs as dark water bursts across the walls.

The cost arrives with the impact: the machete tears from his grip and clatters through a floorboard into the dark below. The wounded woman staggers back, but John Murder stands inside the house, and his strike has landed.