Back at the beginning of September, I got an e-mail with a special invitation from Matt at horror website Flames Rising. He wanted to post one new monster description for each day of the month of October. He was contacting his network of game designers, writers, and horror aficionados to contribute to the project and wanted to know if I would participate.
The rules were pretty easy. Try to keep it under 500 words, don’t write for a particular game system, but just write about a creature. It could be one of the standard horror villains such as vampires or werewolves, or it could be a creature of my own devising. I agreed, then let the project percolate for a couple of weeks.
In the end, I decided to write about Biting Water. Follow the link and read my submission, then come back here for “the rest of the story”. Go on. It’s okay, I’ll wait.
Okay, you’re back? Yeah, I know. It was cooler in my head. But believe it or not, Biting Water is inspired by a real phenomenon. Or, at least one reported to me by someone claiming to be a victim. This story originates, oddly enough, something like 15 years ago in a hot tub at a Colorado ski resort. I was in college at the time and was invited on the trip with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. My cousin is only a few years older than me, so we tended to hang out at night after the old folks went to bed. One night we were in the hot tub and met a brother and sister roughly my cousin’s age. The guy (whose name I have long since forgotten) had just gotten back from an abbreviated stint with the Peace Corps. Over the next few nights he entertained us with several stories, but the one about biting water stuck with me.
I don’t remember which country he was in beyond that it was on the Asian continent. (Gimme a break, it was 15 years ago!) He said that he borrowed a jeep and took a weekend trip to the coast with his girlfriend. The locals warned them to avoid a certain stretch of beach because of the “biting water”, but being enlightened Westerners they scoffed at such superstition. Anyway, that particular stretch of beach was pristine and protected by a little cove, and they had it entirely to themselves! After a couple hours his girlfriend took a nap on the beach. He decided he’d go for a swim in the clear, blue water and struck out beyond where he could touch the bottom.
That’s when the biting water struck. He swore it wasn’t muscle cramps. It felt just like something had bit him on the thigh. Then a felt another bite, and another. The clear water gave no sign of fish or other aquatic life. He painfully, slowly struck back for shore. At this point he was in a lot of pain and scared enough to yell for help, but his girlfriend slept unaware on the beach, his cries drowned by the sound of the waves on the beach. He claims that he came very close to drowning, and when he got back to shore he found painful, red welts that lasted for two or three days. He never got a scientific explanation for what happened or what the “biting water” really was, and he said that the lifestyle at that level of poverty tends to discourage curiosity. He asked a few people about it, but otherwise dropped the matter after a few days.
So that’s the story of where I got the idea for Biting Water. Something about that guy’s story stuck with me, and it’s been rattling around in my brain for well over a decade. I extrapolated his story to more bloody, vicious conclusion, but the “creature” itself might actually lurk at a beach near you.
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