Bump in the Night Read online

  I scowled. “Didn’t you hire someone?”

  “He didn’t want to get his hands dirty. Too much bitching and moaning.” Keith grimaced. “You’re good with animals, though. I’ve never even seen you flinch at handling snakes. You’d be perfect.”

  I doubted that. When Keith’s family had moved to town when we were kids, we’d become thick as thieves, but where Keith was a brainy veterinarian with delusions of scientific grandeur, my aspirations were more mundane. A job making a livable wage. A wife and maybe a few kids someday. A job. A house down the road from my parents.

  A job.

  Cleaning cages sounded like a lower level of hell, but I’d done worse for a paycheck.

  “It’s only for a month, a private research project, very hush-hush.” Keith dribbled the ball. “But if I win the grants I’m expecting, this could stretch indefinitely.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I was almost desperate enough to take him up on the offer, except . . . “You still live on the lake?”

  Keith snorted. “Since the second grade. Right next to the lab you helped me build last year, remember?”

  Sure, I’d built the addition onto his house. “In the summer.”

  As usual, Keith ignored my misgivings. “C’mon, man. Working for me, you’d be away from town gossip about Trisha and your boss.” He winced. “I mean ex-boss. Has she returned the engagement ring yet, at least?” He finally lobbed a shot from the three-point line. Nothing but net.

  Figured.

  Still, Keith had stood by me when other friends had faded. “No,” I said. “She hasn’t returned the ring.”

  “I bet you’re still making payments on that marquis solitaire Trisha had to have, and I know you blew your savings on deposits for the dream wedding her family couldn’t afford.” Keith frowned. “You have to stop hiding from this. Let me help you.”

  “I’m okay for money for a little longer,” I lied because I couldn’t take more of Keith’s pity. Or the embarrassment. “Besides, Dad said I could go back to work at the store if I needed to.”

  “Camden’s only grocery? You’d be center stage for the rumor mill and I’d never pry you out of your apartment again.” He loped across the court for the basketball. “This isn’t healthy, Danny. If you don’t want to work for me, fine, I’ll accept that. But I think you should go away for a while. Take a break from the gossip and stress.” Keith took his next shot.

  Swish!

  Hard not to hate the guy.

  Keith scrambled for the ball.

  “I’m not broke enough to take a job at Dad’s store.” Or handouts from friends. “But that doesn’t mean I have money for a vacation.”

  Lazily bouncing the basketball on the cracked asphalt, Keith arched an eyebrow. “You don’t need money to hike the lake. Plenty of spots to camp for free.”

  When he lifted the ball to chest level and passed, I caught it with steady hands. My stomach jiggled, though. “Pitch a tent near the lake? In October?” I shook my head.

  “You still believe the old stories, don’t you?” Keith snickered. “I’ve lived near the lake for twenty years. Don’t you think I would’ve noticed something weird if there were genuinely anything to see?”

  I forced out a brittle laugh. Pretending I wasn’t uncomfortable, I shot the ball again, satisfaction swelling my chest when the ball sank through the net. “Nobody camps this late in the season, anyway. It’s too cold at night.”

  Keith gaped at me, leaving the ball to bounce toward the fence. “You do still believe the monster stories!”

  I didn’t. Mostly. Tall tales about the creature in the lake and its regular appearance every autumn had been around for generations, told and retold like campfire ghost stories. Funny how some of those stories had a kernel of truth, though. “I just don’t want to freeze my balls off.” I jogged to the fence to grab the basketball, then dribbled to center court, focusing on the sagging basket attached to the backboard instead of meeting my friend’s incredulous stare.

  “Bullshit. You climb tree stands to wait for deer every hunting season.” I’d bagged a buck every year since puberty, a point of tension between Keith and me since I didn’t eat the meat. “You’re a seasoned camper and it’s supposed to be warm this week, too.” When I didn’t answer, Keith chuckled evilly. “I can’t believe you’re going to let an old wives’ tale keep you from a relaxing week taking in the fall colors. No Trisha. No cell phones or internet. Just you and the woods.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  The wild urge to organize my gear and hit the closest trail tripped my pulse. Fresh air. The crackle of crisp leaves under my feet. Scurrying animals in the undergrowth. A shiver of dread worked up my spine at the legends warning locals to stay away from the lake once trees began shedding leaves for winter. But after months of hiding in my apartment to avoid the scandal of my fiancée leaving me for my boss and said boss firing me soon thereafter, I craved the freedom of the outdoors. “I’ll think about it,” I finally said, but in my head, I was already stuffing supplies into my backpack.

  Just to show Keith how scared I wasn’t of spooky stories, I asked him to drop me off at the trailhead on the south side of the lake the next day. Once I’d decided to go, waiting for the sun to rise was excruciating. I barely slept the night before, my mind busy with which trails I’d take and which supplies I’d cram into my backpack. Usually, I had plenty of money to buy what I wanted for each hiking trip, but this time, I’d had to make do. Instead of choosing favorite ingredients for meals at Dad’s store, I’d raided my stash of leftover dehydrated rejects from trips past. Rather than buying a fresh can of fuel for my camp stove, I’d cook over a fire.

  This trip, I was definitely roughing it.

  By the time Keith dropped me off and wished me a relaxing week away from the world, my body was vibrating with how excited I was to walk through the familiar woods and trails, even if the temperature was a little lower than I was accustomed to. As I turned up the trailhead, now cluttered with falling leaves in bright reds and mellow golds, I held my camera at the ready. Shying from cold nights and local lore, I’d never hiked or camped near the lake once the trees turned color.

  The forest understory was a carpet of brittle leaves as deep as my knees in parts of the path that was usually crowded with day-trippers, hikers, and kids. I had the lake to myself today, the woods a painter’s palette of every shade and hue. I snapped pictures of squirrels scampering through dead leaves with acorns clutched in their clawed, skinny-fingered grasps. When a stiff breeze blew leaves like snow from maples and oaks towering overhead, I got excellent shots of the cascade with the camera. No matter how stunning the scenery, I wasn’t just clicking picture after amazing picture to fill up memory cards and drain my batteries, though. I uploaded backgrounds as well as landscapes and sold those images online. I’d even set up a corner of my apartment as an impromptu studio to shoot stills. I hadn’t made a lot of money yet, nothing to build a career on, but every dollar helped. If these shots were half as spectacular as they seemed, I’d buy a few more days before lack of money forced me to tie on an apron to stock, bag, and carry groceries at Dad’s store. Or shovel new bedding into cages for Keith’s latest weird experiment.

  I didn’t think of my next dead-end career. I enjoyed the day. The burn of my muscles felt fantastic after months of tension. I could breathe again, inhale the autumn air deep into my lungs. I stopped for a lunch of granola bars and an apple at the ruins of an old tarpaper shack—my halfway point to the site I’d chosen to camp at tonight. The granola bars were so old the box had been coated with dust when I’d retrieved it from the back of my cupboards, but the apple was juicy and sweet. Perched on a fallen log, I washed it down with water from my canteen, and then I heaved myself to my feet. I wanted to reach the cove on the far side of the lake before dinner.

  The trail meandered around the lake, sticking close to the shore that was sometimes cluttered with picnic tables and public barbeque grills, but at other times was choked with weeds. The su
n’s reflection on the black water glittered like diamonds. I spotted beaver dens, and farther down the path, deer tracks led through slick mud to the water, where the silhouette of trout darted in the shallows.

  The poison of Trisha’s betrayal and the loss of my last job seeped from my body. By the time I reached my destination, those anxieties didn’t exist anymore.

  I busied myself with the chores of setting up camp. I unstrapped my tarp and tent from the aluminum frame of my backpack and set up both over a rock- and root-free patch of ground a few feet from shore. I wasn’t sure if the area’s population of black bears had returned to their dens to hibernate yet, so I removed a small aluminum foil packet containing tonight’s dinner from my bag of food and then pitched a rope over a tree limb to hang the bag from a high branch. Once that was secure, I gathered broken pieces of wood and kindling for the fire circle, and soon a small blaze crackled, banking down to glowing embers by the time I’d uncurled my sleeping bag and organized my supplies inside the tent.

  Nestling the aluminum foil packet by the embers, I heated water for my camping mainstay of instant coffee. I dragged a log near the fire to perch on while I stared at the dark and fathomless water, sipping coffee as squirrels rustled the leaves and birds twittered. No cell would pick up a signal here; no tourists chattered. I felt like the last man on earth.

  Amazing.

  My dinner was ready soon enough and, careful of venting steam, I opened the aluminum foil to eat the hobo stew I’d prepared before leaving at dawn. I scooped hot chunks of food with my fingers, licking the thin gravy off my fingertips. Who cared? No one was around to scowl at my lack of manners except me, and I certainly didn’t mind washing my sticky hands in the frigid lake. The meal wasn’t fancy, just hamburger, a dash of condensed soup, and a can of mixed vegetables, but out here, it was fine cuisine that I’d sorely miss if I didn’t catch fish for tomorrow’s supper. Eating with my hands had unleashed something wonderful inside me, as though I were a teenager again and out on a lark in the woods. My first overnight camp. My first taste of freedom.

  Darkness had crowded into my isolated sanctuary by the time I disposed of my dinner’s trash. I could’ve crawled into my sleeping bag then and slept. The hike today had exhausted me, but my mind couldn’t let this unexpected peace and solitude go. I sat at my campsite, watching the fire burn down while the stars came out one by one.

  Why had I fought this? Why had I allowed stupid superstitions to keep me from the wooded lakeside in the fall, when I loved my time along the water so much? Bugs weren’t biting this late in the season, so I had no swarms of gnats or mosquitoes to contend with. The glow of other campfires didn’t dot the shore nearby, nor did the murmurs of other campers echo over the placid water. I blew out a contented breath, positive the day couldn’t have been more perfect.

  Finally, I unzipped my tent and, sitting inside with my feet dangling out, I removed my boots. Placing them on a garbage bag by the tent’s door to catch water and dirt, I zipped up and stripped in a dark so fathomless I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I couldn’t see my hand lower to fist my stiff cock, either, but that was fine. More than fine. And a relief. I’d had trouble holding an erection since my fiancée’s humiliating betrayal, so stroking my rigid meat felt good. Right. Naked, groaning out crude lust as I kneeled, I beat off like I never would’ve if other campers had been nearby. My fingers clenched the length, choking my cock. Electric tingles worked from the base to the dampening tip. Tempted to quicken the pace and finish furtively, I forced my hand to move glacially slow, making myself coast on the prolonged build to release. My balls tightened as the rhythmic slap of my hand on my dick whispered in the tent, overwhelmed by the sound of my pants and gasping moans. Felt so good. Even before Trisha had dumped me for my boss, the sex had tapered, and I sure hadn’t been getting laid in the months since. The pleasurable shocks gathering along the length of my dick seemed even sharper for my shameless abandon, and I swore that the next time I camped on the lake, I’d beat off just like this, regardless of who was camped close enough to hear me and know what I was doing. Let them whisper and watch. God knows I had no pride left anyway. I’d hang a lantern in my tent so the whole town could see my silhouette fisting my dick. Let their stares measure the nine fat inches Trisha had sworn wasn’t enough to satisfy her.

  The wicked notion of revenge and a public display rocketed me over the edge. I gritted my teeth, shouting, as pleasure consumed me. My head whirled. Cum spit from my cock and into my hand, warm and wet.

  Sucking in air, I collapsed onto my sleeping bag, hand still busily stroking my groin as the last dribbles of cum emptied from my balls. When I stopped shaking, I fumbled for my discarded underwear and wiped the gobs from my hand onto cotton still warm from my body. I tossed my semen-smeared jockeys to one side and squirmed limply into my sleeping bag, naked in case I woke up and felt like squeezing off another load during the night. But I zipped the sleeping bag. Nights get cold on the lake, even in summer. I wanted to wantonly abuse my dick during my week of freedom, not freeze it off.

  My fingers were still cradling my cock when I drifted off to sleep.

  I slid awake with a moan, my hips thrusting. My dick was on fire, pleasure bursting at my crotch more fiercely than I’d ever known. Cool wetness and hungry sucking pressure consumed me from balls to tip, like a blowjob from the most voracious and skilled mouth I’d experienced. I cried out in the darkness, jerking my hands, but a wet, heavy weight pressed my wrists into the slick nylon sleeping bag over my head. When I tried to kick, my legs were similarly secured, goose bumps breaking out on my skin where layers of thick slime met chill night air.

  Swimming up from sleep, I shouted until a slick pebbled surface brushed over my open mouth, scraping globs of viscous fluid that tasted like cool lake water mixed with a sour goop that made my lips pucker. I gagged and yanked away as the mesmerizing attention at the head of my cock redoubled. Pressure built on my skull as my hair was pulled at the crown, forcing me to be still.

  I screamed in blind terror—

  —until a tube of flesh slid into my mouth.

  Not a dick. This narrowed to a point at the end, flicking inside the cavity of my mouth in a stomach-turning dance. The sour taste intensified. I interrupted my shout of fear to desperately swallow the goo feeding into me as the length of flesh pushed forward, rapidly thickening with each inch.

  My heart thudded.

  My brain scrambled.

  As my mouth was stuffed, efficiently smothering my pleas, my tongue pressed against the flesh filling it. The tube jammed inside me was pebbled, except for the underside, covered with tiny suckers that latched and locked onto the surface of my tongue so that even it was held immobile.

  A tentacle.

  Some sort of tentacle had been shoved into my mouth, and that must surely be what was pressing my limbs down and feeding at my tingling dick. The suckers on the underside of the tentacles nuzzled and guzzled down my cock like dozens of tiny mouths slurping across the length, siphoning pre-cum from the slit at the tip and tenderly squeezing and releasing my balls.

  Holy shit! The monster of the lake was . . . real.

  I struggled as hard as I could in the inky dark of my tent, but my terrified protests were met only by more of the tentacle shoved into my mouth to gag me, more slime slithering down my gullet that I was forced to swallow. I bit the tentacle, teeth clenching like a vise, but even that didn’t prod the monster to retreat. Instead, another gush of thick, sour fluid flooded my mouth. The tentacles teasing and pleasing my rigid dick sucked voraciously.

  Horrified to realize that my balls had tightened, preparing my body to shoot a load of cum, I fought frantically and uselessly. The tentacle in my mouth nudged the back of my throat and pushed deeper. Breath cut off, I reflexively gulped around the tip, drinking down the rush of fluid. When my air ran out and I was sure I was about to die, the tip finally withdrew, allowing me a stingy gasp of breath through my nose before breaching my throat
again, making me drink more and drink deeply of the thick, slimy secretions.

  I was in hell.

  With the tentacles at my crotch, massaging my dick, I was also in heaven, and I couldn’t stop the rock of my hips as my orgasm built. What kind of sick fuck was I to enjoy this? My body sang, nerve endings greedily snapping with ecstasy as the beast’s tangle of tentacles sucked my cock.

  My exhausted muscles gradually loosened. I didn’t want to relax or accept the rapacious attention of the tentacles at my crotch. I didn’t want the fat tentacle fucking my throat, either, but some chemical or poison in the juice it was leaking into me must have had a sedating effect because my limbs grew heavier. My thinking muddied as coherency drifted farther away.

  By the time my orgasm streaked up my molested cock to shoot from the tip, my shout of release smothered by the tentacle gagging me, my dope-addled brain had ceased processing anything except siphoning more of the delicious syrup from the tentacle into my stomach and spilling as much cum as the creature could squeeze from my balls. I trembled, enraptured at the pleasure searing my groin. I groaned while tentacles struck my cock head, beating my poor dick so hard I grunted in pain, but the abuse leeched more cum from me nonetheless.

  My body collapsed into the sleeping bag, but the animal didn’t stop at my sudden surrender. I nursed at the tentacle in my mouth, blearily tonguing it to encourage more to trickle down my throat as the suckers continued their relentless pressure on my cock and balls. They kept me hard, and although I wasn’t a randy teenager anymore, I could come and come and come. The beast seemed to understand that and had decided to drain me of however much semen I could be forced to produce.

  Doped with the juice it’d force-fed me, I came again. It hurt. The orgasm too quickly followed my first for me to enjoy it, and my cum blazed up my poor dick like a wildfire. The beast clamped down on my aching balls to wring me dry, the pain so sharp that shaming wetness gathered in my eyes.