Most people know the rules of Marco Polo. I doubt anyone, who grew up in a neighborhood with a community pool, survived their childhood without playing this game at least once. One child is selected to be “it,” closes their eyes, and shouts “Marco!” All the other kids yell “Polo!” in response and try to avoid getting caught by the child who’s “it.” There’s always a moment of mild panic mixed with a sense of giddiness for the closest child responding with “Polo!” as the kid who’s “it” hears them, and lunges forward to catch their prey! If the kid who’s “it” successfully catches their victim, that hapless boy or girl becomes the new “it.”
My friends and I played this game all the time when we were little except that we lived in a more rural area of town on the outskirts of our city’s suburbs. Instead of going to a crowded neighborhood pool every summer, we had a sizable nearby lake.
I remember cutting through my neighbor’s backyard toward the wood line each summer where a small dirt path wound its way downhill for about a quarter mile through the trees until I reached an enormous clearing. There, beyond the trees and a small stretch of knee-high grass sat a large, crystal-clear lake! It seemed enormous to a 10-year-old me at the time, but I don’t recall its actual size. All I know is that one of the older boys – Brock – claimed he swam down to the bottom and told us that it was probably 12 to 15 feet deep.
About 30 yards from the shore was a small, floating dock which we enjoyed sitting on and watching small schools of fish dart around shafts of light from the afternoon sun. The fish would occasionally swim right up to this small hole in the lake bed, but would quickly swim away as if startled by something inside. Brock bragged to me and some of the other kids that he swam down one time to investigate it. He never went inside because it would have been a tight squeeze, but he said the water around it was noticeably warmer than the rest of the lake and it seemed to be lined with smooth rock.
As I mentioned, we loved playing Marco Polo in this lake during the day, but during the hottest parts of the summer, about nine other kids and I would head down to the lake to play Marco Polo at night. We’d tell our parents we were going to a nearby field to play flashlight tag and then double back towards the lake when we were safely out of sight. Once we got there, we’d strip down to our underwear and swim out to that small dock I mentioned. We’d make sure to do this on clear evenings so we could see each other in the moonlight.
The last time we ever did this, there were exactly 10 of us in total (counting me). Six boys and four girls all around the 10 to 12-year-old range. Becky - a small, freckled, awkward girl with a rhoticism (meaning she had trouble pronouncing the letter “r”) - was picked to be “it” first.
She wasn't the best swimmer and flailed around haplessly for a good five minutes (maybe longer), repeatedly shouting “Marco!” Due to the speech impediment, though, this sounded more like “Mowco!” We responded with the obligatory “Polo!” each time, but as the minutes dragged on, I started to feel more and more sorry for her.
Best I could tell from keeping tabs on where everyone was, we had all managed to maintain about a good 15-foot gap between her and us. So, I was surprised when I heard her shout in triumph and announce that she’d caught someone. Last I'd checked, there was no one remotely close to her. I shrugged it off because, despite her awkwardness, I had a bit of a crush on her and was relieved she’d actually managed to catch someone.
Whoever Becky caught, though, was a much better swimmer than she had been. Such a good swimmer that I decided to escape to the safety of the dock despite the risk of getting called out as a "fish out of water" and thereby becoming the new "it." From here, I quietly sat and watched the rest of the game unfold.
As I sat on the dock, trying to remain as still and quiet as I could, I started to sense that something was “off.” There was just enough light that I could see the person who was now “it” was a girl (though I wasn’t sure exactly who because I couldn’t make out any facial features).
Part of what unnerved me was that she sounded a lot like Becky. She pronounced her “r’s” the same way, so when she’d call out “Marco!” It also sounded like “Mowco.” Something else was strange about the voice though and it took me a minute before I realized what it was. It was a couple of things, actually – her voice was completely monotone and it almost had a robotic quality to it. She also emphasized the wrong syllable, so it sounded like “MOW-co…” Additionally, she never paused to allow anyone to respond. It was just “MOW- co. MOW-co. MOW-co.” Over and over again.
This was odd, yes, but it made me more curious to know which one of our group it was. I decided to figure it out by process of elimination. I was the only one on the dock and there were 10 of us, in total, so there should have been nine in the water. It took me a couple of tries due to the low light and the fact that I was convinced I had miscounted. I began to panic, though, as I realized there was an extra 10th person in the water!
I quickly shouted to everyone to get out! There was a moment of confused hesitation, but some of the others must have also sensed something was off because, after that pause, everyone swam for the dock as fast as they could.
One by one, everyone clambered onto the dock and huddled together. Everyone, except Becky, that is. She was still trying to swim away from this weird girl as fast as she could while crying for help. Brock and I almost dove back in after her, but it was too late. In an inhumanly fast and fluid motion, the girl who was "it" surged forward while at the same time rising out of the water. For a split second, the image of her doing that reminded me of one of those mermaid figureheads at the bow of an old sailing ship.
For one, horrifying moment, the girl (or whatever it was) was high enough out of the water that we would have been able to see her legs; if she’d had legs, that is. Instead of legs, after her waist came a pinnacle of what looked like smooth, slippery flesh. It reminded me a lot of a hand puppet where you can see a little bit of the puppeteer’s arm.
Almost gracefully, the girl-puppet-thing fell on Becky, grabbed her in a tight embrace, and pulled her under the water leaving behind nothing more than a splash, and then a small, vortex-like swirl. The wispy clouds suddenly cleared, and, in the moonlight, I could see this abominable, tentacle, puppet…thing…retract into that hole at the bottom of the lake. It got stuck for a moment as it tried to force Becky into the hole with it. But once it managed to do so, she completely disappeared into it in a dark cloud of blood mixed with sediment, and air bubbles.
As if a spell had broken, everyone suddenly dove into the water towards the shore, screaming and splashing in panic. It felt like it took an eternity to reach the safety of the land. I kept thinking that, at any moment, I'd look back and see that thing chasing after me imitating Becky's voice and calling out "MOW-co." We were met at the shore by some of the angry parents who’d been woken by all the commotion.
While none of our parents ever believed our story about the puppet thing that had mimicked Becky and dragged her under, a subsequent search by police divers revealed the hole and, just inside it, the tattered remains of the unfortunate girl’s swimsuit top. It was too tight a squeeze for the divers to get into, so nothing else was ever found. They simply covered up the hole as best they could, erected a chain-link fence blocking off that section of shoreline, and put up a sign warning people away from swimming in the lake.
I don’t think that hole remained covered for very long, though. A few months after Becky “disappeared,” I snuck out of my house one final time to sit a safe distance from the shoreline, watch the sunset, and say a final, symbolic goodbye to Becky. I’d been seeing a therapist (for all the good it did) at the time, and I thought making this gesture might help bring some sort of closure and healing even if it didn’t stop the frequent nightmares and panic attacks.
As I watched the sunset over the lake, my eyes caught a ripple in the water. I froze as, a moment later, this was followed by the puppet-like silhouette of that mimic creature cutting through the water like a mermaid figurehead at the bow of an old ship... In lazy figure-eight motions, it swam around. An unsettling voice emanating from it mimicked Becky in a never-ending, monotone “MOW-co. MOW-co. MOW-co…”
There was another noise in the background that gradually seemed to become louder and louder until, a full minute later, I realized it was me - screaming and sobbing hysterically. With that, I turned and ran…
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