Mr.

She swam further from the dock, gliding closer to the middle of the lake.  Shifting gears, she thought about the local tales of the town resting at the bottom of the lake.  Cleary Lake was man made and they had flooded the little valley out, washing over a small town.  The town, it is said, was only  three low buildings and a couple of houses but there were rumors that not all of the townspeople made it out before the authorities flooded it.  They said when you swam and felt those things tickling your feet it was really the corpses of the townspeople reaching up for you- trying to drag you down to their underwater tombs.  That story made some people uncomfortable in the water but it made her laugh.  She knew there were worse things to be scared of than folktales.

Once she had tread water for a time, she swam farther out, to where she thought the middle of the lake might be and could see the dock in the moonlight.  Swimming lazily along for a few minutes, she decided to swim back to the dock as fast as she could.  It would exhaust her and help her sleep.  She took a breath and was about to start when she felt it from below. 

The rush of water hit her first, cool water that had come from farther below the water.  Then, the tremendous bump and she came sailing out of the water, arms flailing. A scream caught in her throat and she crashed into the murky water with a splash. 

She had just resurfaced and caught her breath when it hit her again, but this time not as hard she came out of the water only a little.  She had time to let out only a tiny sliver of a scream before she went under- it had her leg and was pulling her down.  Frantically, she fought for the surface, but the thing had a good lock on her leg and was pulling her along.  It had stopped descending and now she moved through the water, parallel to the surface.  Just as she was about to give up on another breath it released her and she sprung to the surface, gasping for air. 

She took in lung-fulls of air and splashed around, trying to gain her bearings.  She instinctively felt her leg. It wasn't broken and it didn't feel like the skin was broken.  She screamed, "Horace!"

In front of her, the water roiled and a black shiny bulbous figure emerged.  One small eye stared at her from the side.  It moved closer to her, the water rippling as its elongated formed slithered to the surface.  It came up to her hand and nudged it.

Sarah took the form in her hands and looked it in the eye, "Bad!  Bad!" the figure moved under her hold- its skin was slick and rough at the same time.  It reminded her of the skin of a shark.

"You could have hurt me!  Bad!  Horace!"

Then it turned over and she could see the soft white underbelly of the elongated body.  The long slender flippers near the front twitched and a pair of large curled ones near the tail flapped timidly in the water.  Its mouth lay open and she could see the rows of needle like teeth.  The purple tongue lolled from the mouth and she giggled.

"Alright- alright," she rubbed its skin and patted it, "I know you didn't mean it.  I'm okay," she looked around quickly, "you shouldn't be out with the moon full like this.  Mr. Cleary would be furious.  You better get back home.  Tomorrow, I'll come see you.  I promise."

And she hugged the creature around the large head and heard it make that peculiar high pitched giggle sound- like a dolphin but not quite.  Then, she patted it again as it slipped under the water and she could see the tail swishing back and forth as it snaked off into the depths.

The water was still after his departure.  As she swam to the dock she thought about the summer when she was a little girl, when her family was building the dock, and she first met Horace.  She had swum far out near dusk and the thing had scared her badly.  He had been much smaller then.  She played with him and when she got ashore, there Mr. Cleary sat with folded arms.  He scared her worse than Horace had.  But, he spoke to her gently and though she couldn't understand everything the old man had said, she knew it was very important that she not tell anyone about Horace.  They might come take him away- or worse.