Young Writers Society

The Harvest Moon Creature of Lake Waynoka

by Nat Rantala

“Hey, Cassie, look at what I found,” Julian called from the back of the garage. He squeezed through the labyrinth of dusty towers of cardboard. Powdery clouds brewed around his face and clutched the back of his throat dryly. His sneakered toes snagged the last box, launching the object in his hand into the air. The anonymous item landed with a thud in the threshold of the boathouse.

“What is it?” Cassie asked uncaringly; she didn’t bother to take her eyes off her cell phone. Her blue fire eyes gleamed in the radiance of the device.

Julian lugged himself off the cement floor and staggered into the carpeted room, closing the door behind him with a click of the doorknob. He reached for the thick black book at his feet and held it up for Cassie. “Don’t you see, it’s a book?” he replied snidely.

“Uh, huh, whatever,” the buttons on her phone clicked vigorously, typing idc.

“Never mind,” Julian muttered. He plopped down on the bunk bed, triggering the screams of the springs to groan under his weight. He glanced over at Cassie to his left, where she lounged on the couch, before opening the book. In the dimly lit room her phone was a beacon of light that attracted the smallest of insects to buzz around her nose vexingly. She swatted at one crossly; a small success in Julian’s mind.

He re-read the title that was stamped into the dark fabric stretched over the hardcover with gold lettering, Legends of the Ohio River Valley. The bottom of the spine was torn off giving only a partial authors name. Strangely enough the authors name was not found.

He flipped the spongy with age hardcover open and leafed through the yellowing pages. It smelled of mothballs and the texture of the wavy pages felt coarse under his fingertips.

Cassie’s phone beeped angrily as the light vanished from its screen, darkening the room slightly. “Ugh!” she puffed and thrust the phone down on the couch. She glared at it for a moment before she turned her laser stink eye to Julian. Cassie knit her eyebrows; the glower disappeared as the ice melted from her eyes but was replaced with fiery mockery. “I didn’t know you read books.”

“I didn’t know you could live without your phone.” Julian mumbled as he studied a drawing of a sea serpent.

Cassie stood, craning her neck to see what was in the book. “I should have known,” she said with a sigh and a smirk, “It had pictures.” She reached down and flicked the cover out of Julian’s fingers, slamming it shut. His clumsy fingers fumbled with the book until it crashed, pages flailing, onto the floor. Cassie’s smirk grew into a cruel grin where Julian thought he saw a crooked tooth. She sauntered over to her duffle bag in the corner, and rummaged through it furiously.

“What are you looking for?” Julian sneered, reaching down for the book. He brushed the dirt and dust off the cover and flattened the wrinkled pages.

“My cell phone charger,” she replied. “It was in my purse which should be in my bag.”

“I last saw your purse in the car,” said Julian, another success!

“Ugh! And mom and dad are at that concert, shoot!” she plunked back down on the couch and let her head fall into the small pillow on the arm. Julian continued reading the book, silently letting the room become almost as fragile as thin glass. Cassie stared at the white ceiling, steaming. Her fingertips began to singe the blonde curls that she twirled between her fingers. A rustle of pages nicked the glass. Cassie glanced over at Julian the light reflected off the pane of glass. Why in the world would Julian read a book, voluntarily?! She thought. The necessity; the longing for the answer chewed viciously at the back of her skull. Was her brother abducted by aliens and did they send another, smarter, one to take his place? she wondered.

To extinguish the insistent nagging question, she flopped over with her face against the yellow cushions. The pages crackled once more, the glass splintered into intricate spider webs, giving Cassie a chance to escape and uncover the answer. She shot through the glass like a bullet, shattering it into a billion glittering pieces of what used to be silence.

“What are you reading?!” Cassie demanded.

Julian grinned. “The question was eating away at you, wasn’t it?”

“No!” she snarled. “Give me that,” she snatched the book out of his hands before Julian had realized that she had gotten up. She let the pages fly; rolling to the other cover. She examined it with distaste and stuck her thumb in a random page. She gave a peek inside before tossing it back to Julian, but something caught her eye. The name Waynoka bugged out like the orange harvest moon outside in the starless black sky. The word flashed before her eyes then mingled with the others as the book flew back into Julian’s hands.

“Wait!” Cassie pleaded.

“What? I thought you weren’t interested in my picture book?” Julian remarked, shooting back the tease.

“Didn’t you see the name of the lake in there?” asked Cassie, ignoring him as usual. “Didn’t you see Lake Waynoka ? Look for it in the back.”

“No,” suddenly intrigued he ripped the back cover, open to the index and hunted the columns for Waynoka.

While he searched, Cassie heard a faint splash in the dark waters near the lake. It sounded like delicate wind chimes clinking in a gentle breeze. She glanced out the window to see vague ripples near the dock on the glass lake. Everything was bathed in the iridescent orange glow of the full harvest moon. The once green leaves of the young maples that dotted their backyard, which was a minor peninsula in Lake Waynoka, seemed to be neon with the sunset orange. The lake was eerily black except for the inerrant reflection of the orange orb that hung in the sky. Not a breeze rustled the leaves, nor did anything shatter the ghastly silence.

“Here it is,” Julian exclaimed, showing Cassie the page with Waynoka scattered randomly across it. “13: The Harvest Moon Creature of Lake Waynoka.”

She refocused on the book and sat beside him, holding one cover open. Below the chapter title was a depiction of the supposed Harvest Moon Creature.

“Whoa! That’s sweet, how would you like to see one of them outside your window?” said Julian. Cassie wasn’t so thrilled.

The Creature had the body of a man but was greatly altered and deformed to suit his other features. His arm sockets rose higher and farther onto his back for more of a rotational movement. His chest was a broad bulk that pointed where his rib cage folded in like an animal. Its eyes were sunken in and charred black with beady lifeless eyes. Long agile wings like one of an eagle extended from the back of his arms. Feathers grew off the top of his head, ankles, wrists, and spine like razors. Its whip-like tail was also tipped with the sharp feathers. Its hands and feet were scaled over like a lizard and the talons replaced its nails. The nose was two slits on the slick face below the eyes and its mouth, raw and edgeless, dripped a dark substance from its stubby pointed teeth. On his shoulders, knees and elbows were markings neither Julian nor Cassie recognized. A circle with a line drawn vertically through it with also two diagonal lines met in the middle in the center and V’s stuck to its side.

“Yeah, holy crap, and that hideous thing is supposed to live around here,” Cassie almost shouted with amazement.

“You don’t think this thing exists, right?” Julian asked, eyeing her over his shoulder to where she leaned back. “Or anything that is in this book?”

“Of course not,” replied Cassie, “But don’t you think it’s kinda cool that this lake has its own mythical creature and legend to go along with it? Like the New Jersey Devil, the Mothman of Pennsylvania, or the Dogman of Northern Michigan.”

“I didn’t know you liked all of those fictional loads of-”

“Well, I think it’s interesting,” Cassie interrupted, sticking her nose up at him and started reading aloud the legend of The Harvest Moon Creature of Lake Waynoka.

The Harvest Moon Creature is a cursed Native American monster. It once was a man who lived just as we do, but what he had done during his short life was what corrupted him.

Around Lake Waynoka lived a tribe, the Waynokan’s. They lived by the lake for survival. The area provided all that they needed to thrive and prosper.

In the dawning of a new era, a new chief was established, Brown Eagle. He had told the people that that year’s winter would be mild and food would be abundant and plentiful. As the people always did, they listened to their chief and decided to rely on the predicted unfrozen lake.

But when winter came, the chief’s predictions were fatefully wrong. The lake froze over so thick that the ice broke their tools. The tribe was on the verge of starvation and Chief Brown Eagle needed to find a solution, though that is exactly what he did. Chief Brown Eagle told his people that he would take the elders into the woods to pray to their gods to have mercy and to unfreeze the lake.

After they had left and Chief Brown Eagle and the group had ventured deep enough into the forest, he slaughtered the elders and relieved their bones of their flesh. He covered himself with their blood to contribute to his alibi. He returned to the village with the meat claiming that while on their journey they were attacked by a large animal that had killed the elders but he had killed the beast in a vicious battle. He brought the meat of the beast back to feed the village. The people rejoiced for food but mourned their beloved elders more.

When they had survived the winter, because of what Chief Brown Eagle had done, some children wandered into the forest to practice hunting small game. They stumbled upon the bones of the elders. The children raced back to the village horrified and, not long after, the people had realized what their chief had done.

With hearts filled with fury, they cursed Brown Eagle to be the ruthless beast he truly was for 1000 years, bearing the mark of the cursed on his shoulders. He is bound to where he had killed the elders and every year on the night of the first harvest moon he is to appear and collect chickens, deer, fish, and other animals that the tribe had eaten and deserved. He must burn all of the animals in a bonfire as atonement to his people. According to legend on his 1000th fire he will be restored back to his mortal self, though death would seize him the instant he returned.

“That’s creepy,” said Julian. He turned the page to find the accounts where people claimed to have witnessed the bonfires. On the opposite page was map, a map of the lake. A small drawing of a flame indicated where people had seen the bonfire. The map focused on the south side of the lake where there were many bays creating small juts of land. But one particular peninsula jumped off the page at Julian, making his heart skip a beat. On it were the flames, the only flames. No where else on the map of the lake were they found.

“Hey, Cassie do you see that?” Julian pointed at the map, tracing the shoreline with his finger tip while Cassie read about the strange accounts.

“See what?”

“Look at the map,” Julian shoved the book onto her lap, “Doesn’t it look familiar?” he added.

“Of course!” retorted Cassie, “It’s a map of the lake.”

“No, look,” he pointed to the compass rose, “This is the south end of the lake and see those bays?” she nodded. Julian fought back a lying grin. “See that’s where the small dock would be and the larger one would be there, the house would be right here and that’s where the boathouse would be.” His fingers danced along the page but it finally landed on one of the grandest flames. His voice as hard as steel and his tan brown eyes were wide with artificial worry, he was amazed with how well he had performed it.

Cassie’s mouth dropped; wide enough to catch flies and disbelief swallowed her eyes. “Oh. My. Gosh,” her voice was shrill, “My brother believes all of this nonsense!” she shouted. His shoulders drooped but he wasn’t about to give up. The corners of her lips tugged into a beam. “Well, then again that’s not the first odd thing you’ve done,” she laughed.

“No, Cassie, I’m serious! Okay, tell me that doesn’t look like our land where the house is now,”

“Yes, it does, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Cassie shook her head, “Julian, it’s just a stor-,”

THUDUNK! Cassie screeched and fell back onto the bed, laughing at herself, but Julian’s head snapped towards the curtain drawn window above the couch. He leapt to his feet and his mind was suddenly bombarded with doubt and terror. Cassie giggled until Julian raised a shaky hand pointing to the window.

“Julian, what is it?” she said between snickers. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw it. She shrieked and fumbled backwards, tumbling off the bed, landing at Julian’s feet. His concrete leg bruised her head.

Splattering the window was the brilliant red, glittering in the orange moon light. Julian felt so close he could feel the heat still radiate weakly off the dead animal that was plastered to the window, a fresh kill. Its belly was split and the pink fatty guts sprawled forth and grasped the glass with its gummy finger tips. Everything was tinted a brilliant red, the cotton white feathers were slathered in it like a white rose dipped in scarlet paint. It twitched violently, losing its grip, and slopped off the window, leaving a splash of blood, as if the harvest moon itself was bleeding.

Julian was the first to overcome the shock induced coma which seemed to last an eternity. Cassie’s knees wobbled brutally, leaving her to depend on Julian for support.

“What in the world was that?!” Cassie whispered, her eyes unblinkingly trained to the splotch of vermillion liquid.

“I know what it was,” Julian said with grim grave stones rising behind his eyes but truly a doubtful and concerned joker crouched behind the head stones. “The first harvest moon of the year….,” he glanced down at Cassie; the whites of her eyes were glazed over with terror.

“Oh, don’t be retarded, Julian.” The glaze melted to complete and utter disappointment in her brother. “There’s no such thing as the Harvest Moon Creature,”

“Then, you wouldn’t mind going with me, outside, to get rid of the dead chicken in our yard, would you?” Julian grinned on the inside, though he was also frightened. He certainly didn’t plan this event and wondered if somehow by his own power the animal fell from the sky. He highly doubted it though, but the fear was creeping up his neck and into the back of his skull, lodging the idea of reality of the Creature in his mind. Shut up!, Julian’s mind shouted at the other half, telling it that that was ridiculous and he should continue the prank even if he had no clue what was going on.

“No!” she shouted. “Are you insane?! I am not going out there!”

“You said that the Harvest Moon Creature doesn’t exist and if you believe that you wouldn’t be so scared to go outsi-,” Julian was cut off.

“It doesn’t exist and I’m not scared!” she snapped.

“You just said you were!” He shouted back but realized that she was never going to admit it and it was pointless. “But if you really aren’t scared why won’t you come outside. Come on,” Julian started for the door. He unlocked the deadbolt and held the screen door open for her.

“Fine!” She retorted. She held fists to her chest and stepped into her tennis shoes. She leaned slightly forward to get a glimpse of the outside.

“Oh, come on,” Julian nudged Cassie with his elbow. She stumbled over the threshold and out into the cool midnight air. She let out a yelp as Julian unleashed a rambunctious uproar of laughter.

“That’s not funny, Julian, don’t do it again!” Cassie scolded him but this only made him broil more with laughter.

She bolted back into the boathouse and snatched a flashlight from the shelf.

“I thought you weren’t scared?” Julian snickered.

“Oh, just shut up!” she shoved past him and stalked out into the dark with only the pathetic beam of light to guide her. Julian stayed put, leaning against the frame with his hands in his jean pockets, wanting to know if she would go by herself. Prediction: 3, 2…1. Five steps ahead towards the house, Cassie turned and shouted at him.

“I thought you weren’t scared?” she mimicked.

“I’m not, just wanted to know how long you would last alone,” he gave a quick smirk and strutted towards the back of the boathouse.

Cassie raced to his side and stuck to her taller younger brother like a piece of clothing. He took long fast strides, trying to shake the lint from his shirt.

When they arrived at the massacre, they finally identified it as a chicken, for its head was hanging onto its body by only a thread of flesh and raw skin that was slick with blood. Julian examined it while Cassie pretended to be looking at something in the boathouse through the window. She covered her nose with her shirt and grimaced.

“Cassie, do you see how this is cut?” Julian knelt down beside it and referred to the three long slash marks across its gut. “It looks like someone cut it open with a blade. It doesn’t look like an animal mauled it.”

“Birds can’t maul animals like that but how else would it get up in the sky to smack our window?!” Cassie almost shouted as Julian stood and tried to poke its flowing guts back into its shredded body with the toe of his Airwalk’s. It collapsed with a bowel releasing hiss. The fumes reeked; putrid and sour flesh.

He glanced at her and grinned “Well, then it must be a pterodactyl!”

“Oh, shut up, Julian!” she punched him weakly in the shoulder. “Be serious. What could it have been?” she whined.

Julian sighed and started to think aloud. “It couldn’t have been a wolf, because we don’t have those nor do we have bears, but it fell from the sky, it seemed like, so it must be a vulture or something.” Julian struggled to find a reasonable solution.

“That’s some freaking huge vulture,” Cassie commented. She gazed up at her brother a little mystified because she had never heard her brother speak like that before. Julian, serious? Smart? She was sure it was an alien now.

“Come on,” Julian said, “Let’s get rid of it.”

Cassie was surprised that he wasn’t going to preserve it and send it to the mother ship for observation.