Ergo, the Ogre

Welcome to MLMM Wordle challenge where you are invited to write a post or poem using the prompt words provided by Di, our host. Try to use them all, but if you can’t manage that, no matter, and aim for at least ten.
Genre and style is up to you but please keep it family friendly, and if possible, post your response within seven days.
Tag your contribution with MLMM, Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie and #Wordle, and remember to pingback to this post then leave a link to your work in the comments for others to read and enjoy.

Today’s words to use:

• stormy
• let
• drowning
• future
• dread
• gasping
• bleak
• sleep
• fast
• rotate
• alone
• buried

It was a gray and stormy afternoon on Cranberry Lake in Eagle River, Wisconsin. It was Eddie’s favorite fishing spot as his dad used to take him there every summer. Those were good, happy times as Eddie recalled. Well, until the day of the accident.

Eddie looked up at the swollen dark rain clouds with dread as he turned the rowboat around and headed for shore. “Let it rain,” he shrugged. “There’s always tomorrow.”

He was thinking about the accident now, replaying every bit of it in his mind.

It was early in the morning, and they were the only ones on the lake as far as he could see. They’d brought Eddie’s little sister along that day, which Eddie knew was a big mistake. In the first place, Candyce was a girl which pretty much said it all. She was afraid of the night crawlers they used for bait, like most six-year-old girls. Candyce was a whiner, always had to go to the bathroom or was hungry. She couldn’t swim and refused to wear her life jacket. She didn’t like that it was orange, Candyce wanted pink or light purple.

She also kept standing up in the boat no matter how many times their dad yelled at her. Finally, and predictably, Candyce dropped her Barbie doll overboard and fell in trying to reach for it. Somehow, she ended up underneath the boat. Dad dropped his fishing pole and jumped in after her. There was a lot of splashing and every so often one of them, or something, bumped the bottom of the boat.

And then, there was silence. The water was calm. The sun continued its early morning rise as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Eddie sat alone in the boat, trying to think of what to do. This was before the days of cell phones and such so there was no way to call for help. Things were looking bleak.

He started to panic and then hyperventilate. As he gasped for air, Eddie tried to calm himself. This never should have happened. Dad was in shape and too good a swimmer to even consider drowning. Okay, so how could it be that he was now buried underwater? And why haven’t either of them resurfaced? Maybe they got caught on something, but what?

Eventually it dawned on Eddie to row the boat back to shore and get help. One of the oars was in the boat while other floated lazily on the water, just out of reach. He managed to grab it without tipping over and awkwardly began to row.

Once back on dry land, Eddie relayed the series of events to the first person he saw. Soon, the place was swarming with cops and EMTs.

While Eddie waited for his mom to show up, a few of the older fisherman sat with him. They started talking about this giant carp that was supposedly big enough to swallow a man. They called it “The Legend of Grandpappy.” One of the men claimed to have seen ol’ Grandpappy once, another added that he’d almost caught the giant fish, but his fishing pole had snapped in half during the struggle.

“Just fisherman stories,” Eddie told himself.

Their bodies were never recovered. The police wrote it off as an unfortunate accident.

A loud clap of thunder jolted Eddie out of his reverie. From the corner of his eye, he saw a dirty, waterlogged plastic doll floating a few feet away. It’s hair was almost gone as were its clothes.

Eddie stared at it for a moment, remembering. “Naaah! It couldn’t be…”