Beast of the lake (standard:horror, 1947 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Sep 01 2009	Views/Reads: 3220/2036	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Can he summon the beast to grant him immortality? and would it be better not to believe in such myths?

Immortality. That was the reward, that was the promise, and he knew it
was his. Soon he would live forever. Nobody would have taken it 
seriously. Nobody who thought rationally that is. He knew that should 
he have told anybody of this belief, then they would either have 
laughed at him, or politely made their excuses and left. Yet, he was 
convinced that it would happen, and soon he would no longer fear death. 


Kenneth Ambrose was a primary school teacher. He was 38 and basically
lived a solitary life. Nine years ago he had been divorced, their 
eleven-year old daughter in the custody of the mother, and her new 
solicitor husband, 14 years older. Since then he had remained hopeful 
but realistic of getting back with her. It basically was never going to 
happen, and every two weeks, he would visit his daughter, and take her 
wherever she wanted to go. He hardly ever changed style in clothing and 
usually always wore dour black pleated trousers and checked shirts. The 
typical dull attire of a school teacher was epitomised by him. 

During one lunchbreak, he was in a side room of the school library where
the children were not allowed to go. It was basically a storeroom for 
old books and furniture that had done their time in the main room, but 
were too good to throw away, and nobody took responsibility for, so the 
place was crammed, with barely any walking space. He was searching for 
something unusual to use in one of the lessons, when he came across a 
book that piqued his interest: ‘Welsh folklore, the truth about the 
legends'. Most of it was about people, strange and eccentric, witches 
and cults, and one which got him most interested was the beast beneath 
lake brenig. It had the power to grant immortality upon the person who 
raised it from the waters into the physical world. A portal lay beneath 
the lake, closed by a welsh farmer in 1519. The book explained more 
about the creature, and its world, and as he read, a feeling within him 
grew, and he knew there and then that it was true. He simply knew it, 
rather like a believer of religion who ‘knew' their beliefs were right, 
and correct, without any physical, scientific proof. They just ‘knew'. 
To them it was real, and truth, a blurring of the line between belief 
and fact, when a believer could only believe, not ‘know'. Kenneth 
‘knew', and could not see that it was belief. To him this creature was 
yearning to be allowed through into the physical world, not to cause 
destruction or chaos, but to explore, to learn about nature and humans. 
If, however, in pursuit of this, it caused devastation, then that did 
not matter. This was of no concern to Kenneth who only saw the chance 
to live forever by a creature that lived in a parallel universe, its 
unopened portal needing four objects to activate its aperture. A 
recited, memorised prayer, spoken on the lake itself. Spilling of his 
own blood into the waters to symbolise devotion. A gift of the 
acolyte's choosing, and a fresh guilty mind. He wondered what type of 
gift to get. A creature would have no concept of human objects, so he 
opted for items that were aesthetically pleasing, which also told the 
beast that he was willing to spend as much as he could to please it, to 
receive immortality. He spent as much as he could buying jewellery and 
gemstones, in the hope that the creature would like them. The guilty 
mind was the hardest to come by, but he did it, and now drove along the 
winding country roads to the lake. He knew he was only five minutes 
away. Having looked at the lake a few days earlier to plan his 
strategy, he saw that there were wooden boats for hire at the north 
end, and that he could park at the water's edge. When he was there, a 
surge of emotions within him had stirred, as he was close to the 
portal. ‘Soon' he had said aloud. Nobody had been around him. ‘Soon 
you'll be here'. 

As he approached, that same stirring whirled inside him in anticipation.
He was soon pulling up to the water's edge and leaving the vehicle. He 
stopped and looked across the lake, and beyond it at the trees and 
hills where there was a slight mist, some of which rested on the water. 
Two boats were out there, seemingly not moving. A light wind ruffled 
his hair, and he trudged around hundred metres to the boat hire shed, 
and was soon in a white flaking craft that seemed to have been made in 
the early 18th century. It creaked its way slowly through the water, 
Kenneth doing his best to guide it to the shoreline where he had parked 
the car. Eventually he did it, and crossed to the left rear door of his 
Kia rio, and stopped as ahead, on the narrow road that led to and away 
from the lake, a van drove by, then disappeared from view. His heart 
was racing at the anticipation of being caught, and that he was soon to 
see the creature whom he venerated, and who would bestow upon him his 
gift. 


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