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Lance blinked, and then barked out laughter. He turned toward her and saw a frightened smile on her lips.

The house began to move beneath their feet, the gap between the edge and the ground widening. Lance’s heart pounded and his legs nearly unhinged, but he managed one last look in Mary’s direction before he jumped, pulling her with him.

The ground ran up to meet them, and a shock wave that sent icy nails of pain through his body greeted Lance’s feet. His breath rushed out of him, and he was rolling over. His right shoulder struck wet gravel, and then the blustering clouds were above him once again. A sharp crack resounded louder than the constant thunder, and he raised his head just off the ground.

The house’s substructure was toppling out of sight. It hung on the cusp of the newly formed cliff, like a gargantuan beetle ready to trundle down a hill, and then it was picking up speed and falling away. The last fringe of the house disappeared and an enormous splash issued from the other side of the drop. Lance stared at the place where it had been, in awe. The crescent of ground gaped like an exposed jaw, and he wondered if they should move farther away from the edge when he felt a hand pull at his arm. He rolled toward it, still trying to reclaim the air that had been expelled from his lungs.

Mary lay next to him in the mud, her eyes luminous in the afternoon that was gradually becoming an early dusk. He felt a pleasant numbness spreading throughout his body, and smiled at her pretty face. A dark line formed on the upper edge of his sight and he saw Mary begin to yank on an arm that he could no longer feel. She was yelling something, but her voice was soft in his ears. Soft like the ground he lay upon. The rain was warm, and it was finally time to sleep.

The line in his vision dropped lower, making the wind, the rain, and the woman before him no more.



Sunday, September 30, 2012



Christopher Porter, Duluth Explorer



The events that took place nearly a week ago in the small town of Stony Bay, north of Duluth/Superior, have finally been brought to light.

At approximately 3:15 p.m. CST, the seismograph unit located in the University of Minnesota Duluth began to record vibrations echoing from some 46 miles away. The exact location of the activity was officially documented yesterday by scientific authorities from the United States Geological Survey office. Many historians know this point north of Stony Bay as the original shipping port of the area, and is in fact its namesake. Currently it is the private property of New York Times best-selling author Lance Metzger. The seismic activity was centralized around an area just inside the original port area of the bay.

“Earthquake is too strong of a word,” Alan Jarvis, a geophysicist with the USGS, was quoted as saying. “Right now we know that there was some movement deep below the lake’s bed. At this time the data is inconclusive as to whether or not what we are seeing is an undiscovered fault line in the area.” Jarvis went on to say that the area is not currently active and sensors set up within the lake have registered no further vibrations.

But what authorities found after being alerted by several students from UMD was nothing less than astounding.

“The house is completely gone,” said Dennis Johnson, a State Trooper that was one of the first to arrive on the scene after the emergency calls began to stream in. “When I pulled up to the place, there was just a hole in the ground and a few boards floating in the water, nothing else. The entire house had been swallowed by the lake.”

Sources indicate that Metzger was inside his home at the time of the activity with several guests, whose identities have not been disclosed. He and one female that is not being named at this time were able to escape before the house collapsed into the waters of Superior. At least two people were killed after being trapped within the falling wreckage. No bodies have been recovered. Metzger remains in intensive care from injuries incurred during the escape, and at this time no statements have been made by his representatives.





Epilogue




“A man’s character is his fate.”



—Heraclitus



One year later



A gentle but insistent breeze pushed at the browning grass that lined the river’s bank. Several blue jays that hadn’t heeded the nearing fall’s warnings still called out their shrill, pulsing cries across the flowing waters. The winch’s moaning hum overshadowed nature’s accents, along with the sound of the cable attached to it being drawn tight. The steel creaked like an over-tuned guitar string as the two divers who had emerged moments earlier from the muddy water began to pull off their gear on the nearby slope.