Three Haunts from The Monster Index

By Mel Bosworth and Ryan Ridge / Issue 26

DREAM LAKE

The long-lost twins sat on the hood of a sunken Cybertruck, silent and still in the crushing cold below the frozen lake. Their long red locks fanned out like atomic bomb blasts in the bitter water, their green eyes focused on the fishermen’s shifting shadows overhead. Pinpricks of light pierced the ice as anglers drove their augers down. In death, the twins now shared a mind. A thought passed between them. Fuck. Marry. Kill. The ice groaned above. A lonely man knelt by the fresh-cut hole and stared into the dark lake. He squinted. Searched. For what, he did not know. But the twins did. A second thought passed between them. Marry. Soon, four hands broke the surface. Clamped onto his black parka. Yanked him hard. His L.L. Bean boots scraped deep grooves in the snow. His bourbon breath burned little clouds into the afternoon air. He gasped as the ice took him. Cold hands. Colder mouths. They muffled his screams. He fought and flailed as he wondered how the failing local newspaper would headline his demise: “Nightmare at Dream Lake” or “Drunk Drowns in Dream.” He let go. The twins carried him past pale roots littered with crushed cans, past the hush of fish, past the floating femur of someone drowned before him, and down to the altar of rust and ruin where his wedding ceremony commenced. Nearby, a catfish the size of a leopard watched, wide-eyed and wild. Ice circled his fourth finger like a ring. The twins pressed their lips to his.

SATYR DAY

We got tuned up on Templeton rye and swerved out to the sticks. You were hell-bent on hunting down the legendary goat man. Rumor had it the beast prowled a railroad trestle behind an abandoned church, waiting for fools like us. The sun dipped below a rocky ridge, scattering the light pink and black. We spiraled down a dirt road into the valley and coasted to a stop beside a shrubby honeysuckle. I killed the engine and you killed the bottle. We were flanked by towering evergreens. Something rushed past the front of the car. Or did it leap? Bound? We stepped out, cautiously, and followed the sound of sticks, cracking. “Was that him?” you asked. “Don’t know,” I said. We tiptoed past an abandoned church. All the stained-glass windows were smashed out but one. It had to be ten feet high and five feet wide. It held a dark and looming image I couldn’t make out. Ahead: a railroad trestle, and a clearing with a flickering fire at its center. And the goat man, reclining against a smooth stone beside it. We stopped and stared. The goat man beckoned us closer. I moved first, and the goat man tossed something into the air. A tambourine landed in my hands with a pleasant, metallic rattling. Then he gently lobbed something to you: The Great American Songbook. “Our ride will be here soon,” said the goat man. “I’ve been waiting for you two.” An overture of ghostly show tunes rose like a luminescent mist from the abandoned church. A living light swelled inside, filling the stained-glass window. I could make out the image now. It was the goat man, groomed and beautiful, and at his feet were two young people who looked just like us. I gasped, my lips pulling back into a smile. You fell to your knees, tears of joy jumping from your eyes. “Music to make,” the goat man said. “Songs to sing,” I said. “I’m so happy,” you said, crying. The night sky wobbled like a giant bubble filled with stars. I couldn’t remember whether I’d spiked the Templeton with LSD. It didn’t matter. Something big was happening. The railroad trestle began to vibrate. In the distance, the sound of the coming train.

THE KEYNOTE

It was the annual gathering of the Association of Sea Monsters & Relics on a hidden strip of beach off Newfoundland. The Labrador Sea howled like a once-wild dog gone domestic. Monsters glistening with saltwater ambled toward the welcome tent, lured in part by the organizers’ decision to go claws out on catering. They had platters of plankton shooters, bioluminescent lanternfish skewers, and barnacle clusters scraped from the hulls of infamous shipwrecks. A colossal squid roast sprawled across the buffet table with its tentacles curled into coils of nautical linguini. But the true spectacle was the firepit centerpiece: a slow-roasting white whale rumored to have been brined for centuries. Volunteer mermaids handed out shell lanyards at the registration hut. Representatives from the North Atlantic Chapter of Kraken mingled with a choir of sirens from the Mediterranean Luring League and a herd of mutant seahorses. An awkward sea serpent spent several seconds trying to thread his head through the lanyard loop. No luck. “Name?” asked a burly mermaid. “It’s super complicated,” the serpent said. “And it depends on who you ask.” The mermaid studied his blank name tag and scowled before scrawling OTHER in a bubbly script and clipping the tag to the tip of his tail. The serpent let out a fiery sigh. He’d crossed three continental coastlines to get here and already regretted it. Beside him, a cantankerous kraken complained to an aquatic centaur that the conference totes weren’t “tentacle-forward” enough for her tastes. It was true. This year’s bags were made from recycled fishing nets and could hold a couple of half-starved sailors, at best, but not an entire crew. Driftwood placards announced tomorrow’s panels: “Shipwrecks: Lessons from a Thousand Years of Sinkings,” “Whaling Narratives: A Monster’s Perspective,” and “Seducing Seafarers: Strategies for a Post-GPS World.” The kraken made a fierce push to be keynote, arguing that history had already anointed her, especially since her likeness had landed on a mid-shelf American rum bottle. Of course, those honors belonged to Leviathan, again. The aquatic centaur confirmed that Leviathan had been recycling the same stale jokes for sixteen years, which made even his most ardent admirers newly receptive to a fresh voice like the kraken’s. Around them, the monsters were already filling their plates at the buffet. A radioactive merman stacked lanternfish skewers like kindling. Nessie scooped barnacles into a canoe-sized conch. Someone asked if the seal medallions were sustainably sourced. A chorus of shock shot through the crowd. It was the centerpiece. The whale. Was it still alive? The serpent leaned toward a mutant seahorse near the roasting pit and said, “You don’t think that’s the whale, do you? The one from the novel? Is it alive?” “No,” the seahorse said. “That would be in poor taste, even for us.” A harder wind came off the Labrador, rattling their badges like chattering teeth. The whale’s pale eyes opened. For a long time, no one spoke. Then old Leviathan Emeritus cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “Perhaps our keynote should commence. But first, can I get approval of the minutes from last year’s plenary assembly?”

MEL BOSWORTH is the author of the novel Freight, and co-author with Ryan Ridge of the short fiction collection Second Acts in American Lives. His work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Tin House, New World Writing, Santa Monica Review, Melville House, American Book Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Western Massachusetts.

RYAN RIDGE is the author of New Bad News (Sarabande Books) and the novella American Homes (University of Michigan Press), among other books. His collaborative collection Climate Strange, written with Mel Bosworth, is forthcoming in May 2026 from Astrophil Press, and his YA novel Poison Summer is scheduled for release by Gibbs Smith in 2027. An associate professor at Weber State University, he chairs the Department of English Language and Literature. He lives in Salt Lake City with the writer Ashley Marie Farmer and their greyhound, Doug, and plays bass for the Snarlin’ Yarns, who’ve put out three freak folk albums.