Boating With Dad

The woman gasped for a breath of air, trying ever so hard to take as much in as she could before her head would inevitably go back underwater. It was very stormy, and ever time she would open her mouth, the rain would find a way to trickle back into her mouth and into the throat. She continuously coughed, seeming unable to swim, though she did try.

I was but a child, standing on the dock of the lake and feeling helpless. I was wearing my favorite yellow raincoat and holding my favorite teddy bear. The woman gasped for air and tried to scream, but couldn’t. Her mouth was filling full of water, each a little bit more every time she went down. She would spit it out, trying to keep her mouth dry, but it did not work.

For some reason, I couldn’t look away from her. I was mesmerized, not knowing what to do about the drowning woman before me. At one point, she made eye contact with me. Her eyes were red from all of the salt, but the color was actually baby blue. Her eyes begged me to try and save her, to do anything I could. But I didn’t. I was frozen in my tracks.She continued coughing, at one point I believe I saw some blood come out of her mouth. I remember wincing at the sight, but not looking away. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t do it. Before me was a dying woman, and I had a chance to save her. But I didn’t. I try to rationalize it by saying that I was 6, and I didn’t know any better. But I knew very well what was happening. She was going to die.

I never cried once during all of it. I was very scared, but I just shook. It was almost like I exhibited no emotion on my face. I was pale, and I kept on staring at her with my beady eyes. She had brown hair, and was heavier than most. She was in her late 30’s, and wore a ring around her finger. She looked sweet, like someone who would own a bakery or local library. But I didn’t feel sad. And I didn’t stop watching.I think the reason that the woman stood out to me so much was that she was the first one that I saw die. Every week, my father and I would go boating at the same location. He would leave me at the dock every time while he went to set up a boat, and while I was there, I saw a woman die every single time. The youngest I saw was around 19, and the oldest was around 52. I never looked away through any of these drownings. I watched, not saying a word. I grew used to them, almost. My one rule was to try and not make eye contact with them, because their eyes looked to sad for me to comprehend. I didn’t want to feel empathy for them. But I still wanted to watch.

I don’t know exactly how many women there were, or how much I frequented the dock. Every week, yes, but the exact age I stopped coming there I did not clearly remember. I believe I was around 11, and we stopped going because we moved. We went almost every single week without fail, and every single time, a woman died in my presence. I never knew any of the women on a personal level. They were never my teachers or friend’s parents. I recognized a few, but only from the streets or grocery stores. It was almost like some of them popped up out of nowhere, since our town was so small and it seemed impossible that a woman a week would die in the same spot, and I would be the only one to see them.

When I was younger, I never really thought about what happened to them after the bubbles stopped. However, I remember staying up late a few times when I was a bit older to see if they made it on the news. Most of them never did, which was odd. Our town again was very small, almost no one died frequently. The news was mostly new restaurants opening or a community event, not deaths. So the fact that I only remember 3 women ever being mentioned was crazy to me. Even when the women did get on the news, it wasn’t because they died. It was because they were missing. The cases always went cold, even though I knew very well their fate.Once, I remembered, I tried to tell my father. I told him that I had seen one woman, Cynthia Reed, drown at the lake we had visited. My father got furious with me and made me wash my mouth out with soap for being a liar. He told me that things like that didn’t happen where we lived. I was so frightened, that I never talked about it ever again.

I don’t recall ever seeing the women get in the water or the cause to them drowning. My dad would leave me at the dock and go to his boat, and at first I wouldn’t even be looking at the lake. I would be playing with the sand facing the opposite way, hoping that it wouldn’t happen this time. But it always happened, and I knew when it did. I would hear a faint splash, and then screaming. I would turn around, and there the women would be, drowning.

When I was about 9, the drownings got weirder. I turned around one day, to find that the drowning woman did not have hands. She had bloodied wrists, and the water around her was turning red. She began to try and frantically tried to wipe her tears, smearing the blood all over her face in the process. She began to scream as her mouth filled with more and more water, tears streaming down her face as he kept on trying to wipe them away. This was the time I was most afraid during one of these. I was so afraid, but yet again could not run away or stop watching.

After the women died, my dad would sail the boat and pick me up at the dock. He would rustle my hair, and told me that I looked like I had seen a ghost. I tried to tell him I felt sick, and he would always blame it on the sea, yet he continued to take me boating.One day, I was sick and tired of seeing women die. I hated it, I hated how I had to watch, I hated their screams, I hated everything. I tried to tell my mom what I had seen. I know my dad wouldn’t believe me, but surely my mom had to, right?

I told my mom everything, and she shot me a nervous smirk, her eyes shaking. She laid my head on her lap and stroked my hair. She told me that I was just seeing things, and boating with my father would make me a man. Her smile then faded, and she whispered in my ear ever so quietly to never mention this in front of my dad. I continued to boat with my dad, never stepping out of line. At this point I was terrified from my parents’ reactions, but more so terrified of the things I had to see each time. I tried closing my eyes, but it wouldn’t work. They would always end up opened, no matter how hard I squeezed them shut.

There was a time where we were on the boat together, and I smelt something so putrid I ended up throwing up into the lake. It smelt like rotting meat was hidden away somewhere on the boat, but my dad did not seem to mind. I asked him about the smell, but he blew me off. I told him I was tired of fishing, and tried exploring the boat for the source of the smell.

As I continued going farther, the stench grew more wretched. I ended up pinching my nose and looking around the area it was most poignant until I found a sack of some sort. Curiosity got the best of me, and I ended up opening it. I wish I had not.

In the sack was hundreds of chopped off hands, some rotting, some with blood covered on them. My eyes grew wide and I ended up dropping the sack. The hands flew all over the deck, and my dad ended up seeing me. His face grew red, and his nerves bulged like I have never seen anyone's before. He looked insane. He ran over to me and he frantically started putting them back in the sack, screaming at me to help him. I obeyed him, scared out of my mind that he would kill me. Once he put all the hands back in the sack, he threw it off the side of the boat and began to beat me in the middle of the lake. I started to sob, begging for the pain to stop. I had no idea what my father was capable of at this point, and said nothing, hoping and praying for my life to go on.

My father grabbed me by the collar, pulling a knife from his pocket and putting it close to my neck. I was just a kid, and I then realized how evil my father was. I swallowed hard and then asked my dad,

“Are you going to kill me?”

My father looked down for a moment, and then back at me. He threw me on the ground, and put the knife back in his pocket.

“I am not going to kill you,” he said, stepping closer towards me. “I am not going to kill you, because you are going to grow up to be just like me. You like it. That’s why you can’t look away.”

My father drove the boat back, and we moved away a week after that. A lot of questions have been left unanswered because of all of this, and I definitely am still haunted by all of these experiences. Where did all these women come from? Why did my dad decide to do this? Did my mother know about it?

But perhaps the question that is in my mind the most, the one that keeps me up at night, is: Will I really end up like my dad?

--- ''A/N- This is my first creepypasta posted on this wiki! I'm so excited to share this story with all of you. Feedback is always appriciated :)''