How many people died in the flood, again?” asked Andrew peering out the window of the car into the fog as he turned a corner.


Gwen responded with simply, “A lot.”


Gwen had taken a morbid interest to the flood of Coral Lake and had picked the internet clean of any information on its big flood.


“Didn’t you have an exact number before?” Andrew asked.


“Yeah, but you don’t want to know what it is,” Gwen said, staring out of her window at the gray clouds.


“You’re probably right,” Andrew said, picking up a chip from his bag,“but tell me something else about the lake.”


“Okay,” Gwen said. “Did you know that the majority of the flooding happened in fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes! That’s about the time it takes you to eat a bag of chips!” she exclaimed.


Andrew let go of the chip he was holding and pushed the bad away from him.


“Just imagine it,” Gwen said, already setting the scene for a story. “It was a cold, foggy morning like this one. Even the plants shivered in suspense, as small raindrops glistened on their leaves.”


Andrew wished Gwen’s story wasn’t creeping him out as much as it actually was.


“The sky rumbled, and a mother in a lakeside house with her two children was lighting a fire on the stove. Her house was a beautiful lakeside cottage with a picturesque view of the water,” Gwen continued.


“Aw, c’mon,” Andrew said, “you can’t kill the kids. Or the mother for that matter.”


“I’m not,” she responded. “Just wait. Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah. The mother stared out at the lake only looking down when she noticed a few inches of water at her feet. Sighing, she got a mop from the closet, but by then the lake water was almost at her knees…”


Gwen trailed off. “Hey, there’s a hitch hiker on the side of the road.”


“Let’s stop,” Andrew said.


“Seriously?” Gwen said. “Do you know how many stories there are on the internet of crazy hitch hikers killing innocent drivers? I can just picture us in the headlines: Psychopath Kills Two Sixteen Year Old Kids, Bodies Found in Coral Lake!”


Andrew laughed uneasily. “C’mon, I’m practically seventeen,” he said.


Gwen rolled her eyes. “What is it, like a month from your birthday?”


“Two and a half weeks,” Andrew said matter of factly.


By the time their conversation was done, they had passed the hitch hiker and here almost to Coral Lake.