Beneath the Surface - horror

The lake had always been there, nestled at the edge of the property like a forgotten secret. It was small, quiet, and utterly still, the kind of place where the surface mirrored the sky perfectly, as though no one had ever dared to disturb it.

It wasn’t until after the storm that the lake began to change.

Elliot first noticed the hands two nights later.

He had been sitting on the back porch, nursing a beer, staring out at the water. The moon was high, casting pale light across the rippling surface. At first, he thought it was debris—a branch or perhaps a clump of leaves, blown in from the storm.

But as he squinted, the shape clarified.

They were fingers.

Slender, pale fingers, just barely visible above the waterline.

Elliot blinked, shaking his head. You’re tired, he told himself. Too much beer, not enough sleep. But when he looked again, the fingers were still there, motionless, barely disturbing the surface of the lake.

He couldn’t bring himself to move closer. Instead, he went inside, shut the blinds, and spent the rest of the night pretending he hadn’t seen anything at all.

By the following evening, curiosity had taken hold. Elliot found himself by the edge of the lake, staring at the spot where he’d seen the fingers. The surface was calm, undisturbed, the way it had always been.

“Just my imagination,” he muttered, kicking a loose stone into the water.

It sank with a small splash.

And then something reached for it.

A hand broke the surface—thin, with translucent skin stretched over delicate bones. It snatched at the stone, dragging it down before Elliot could even register what he was seeing.

He stumbled back, his breath catching in his throat. The hand disappeared as quickly as it had come. The water returned to stillness, perfect as glass.

Elliot told himself not to look again. He told himself to go back inside and forget it, to act like it never happened. But that night, he couldn’t sleep.

The hands came back.

Every night, they rose from the depths, more of them each time. At first, there were just one or two—pale, spidery things that barely broke the surface. But soon, there were dozens, their shapes visible even in the moonlight, reaching, clawing at nothing.

Elliot started to dream about them. In his sleep, he saw the hands reaching for him, pressing against the windows, dragging him toward the lake. He woke up sweating, the sound of water lapping at the shore still echoing in his ears.

A week later, he saw the hands move.

He was on the porch again, unable to keep himself away, watching the lake with morbid fascination. The hands emerged slowly, one after another, as if testing the air.

And then they began to crawl.

The fingers dug into the muddy bank, pulling themselves forward. Where the hands should have been attached to bodies, there was nothing. Just empty space, as though the hands existed independently of any form.

Elliot backed away, tripping over his own feet, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Stay back!” he shouted, his voice trembling.

The hands froze.

For a moment, the world was still.

And then, as if they had understood him, the hands retreated. They slipped back into the water one by one, vanishing beneath the surface without a sound.

By now, Elliot knew better than to tell anyone. Who would believe him? A grown man, terrified of hands in a lake? He avoided the backyard, kept his curtains drawn, tried to drown out his thoughts with work and television.

But the lake was always there, waiting.

And the hands weren’t finished with him.

It was on the twentieth night that they came for him.

Elliot woke to the sound of dripping water. At first, he thought it was the rain, but when he sat up, he saw them.

The hands were in his bedroom.

They clung to the walls, the ceiling, the floor—wet, skeletal things that dripped lake water onto the carpet. Some of them were small, childlike, while others were unnaturally large, their fingers long enough to wrap around his throat.

Elliot froze, unable to breathe, as one of the hands crept closer.

It reached for him, its fingers brushing his arm with a cold, clammy touch.

“Why?” he whispered, his voice shaking.

The hand paused, tilting as though it were listening.

And then it pointed. Out the window. Toward the lake.

They didn’t speak, but Elliot understood. The lake wanted him.

He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what it was, or how it had chosen him. But he knew, with a cold certainty, that he couldn’t escape it.

The hands followed him as he stumbled through the house, out the back door, and onto the porch. They pressed against his back, guiding him toward the water.

When he reached the edge, he stopped.

“I don’t—” he began, but the hands didn’t wait.

They surged forward, grabbing him, dragging him down into the depths.

The last thing he saw before the water closed over his head was his own reflection in the lake—distorted, rippling, and surrounded by countless hands.

And then there was nothing but darkness.

The next morning, the lake was still.

No one noticed Elliot’s absence. But if you stood by the edge of the water, just as the sun was setting, you might see them—the hands, reaching, waiting for someone else to come too close.