Tag: kayak reading

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A horror trope I always love is when a person innocently or carelessly breaks a rule they didn’t know about or thought didn’t exist. It’s scariest when they realize, after it’s too late, what has happened, and then try to save themselves, right the wrong, or appease the monster.

This story, “A Fine Trade,” from a trio of my stories that appeared in Parhelion Literary Magazine, Halloween issue 2022, explores that trope—though the tone is more dark humor than horror.

The reading is on Devil’s Kitchen Lake in Southern Illinois, the Goth lake of the area. It’s a flooded valley, and a tree graveyard. Other footage is from the Seven Bridges Natural Area in Rapid River, Michigan.
And here’s what’s really cool—I didn’t throw my phone overboard this time!
Enjoy. Read horror. Read flash fiction too.

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Devil’s Kitchen Lake produces a lovely echo. So when I yelled FUCK, the single syllable expletive rang through the stillness, coming back to me in a quieter voice. That was the day I tipped my phone into the lake attempting to make a kayak-reading video.

Here is my return to the kayak reading. No tripod this time.

I am on Little Grassy Lake. The late summer sun was blazing low on the horizon but still over the trees. First I went to the cove around the way from Party Rock. I was either blinded or backlit. So I crossed the lake to a cove with a deserted camp building and the remnants of a pier. Eerie, in the way abandoned places often are.

However, still too sunny.

So I paddled across the cove near a rock ledge and that worked OK. As I was finishing up, I heard the distinctive cry of a raptor on the wing. Not much later, a bald eagle flew over the cove to land near the abandoned camp. And I didn’t drop my phone in the water. So, a good day.

I often dream I am in the ocean. This story came from such a dream.

The story appeared in Blue Fifth Review.