Chapter 6: The Final Tribute

Chapter 6: The Final Tribute

The silence was the loudest thing left in Blackwood Reservoir State Park. A profound, ringing void had replaced the sounds of children’s laughter, the rumble of RVs, and the groan of utility trucks. The federal agents had vanished as quickly as they had appeared, leaving behind nothing but tire tracks in the mud and a flimsy, insulting official report: "Park closed indefinitely due to unstable geological conditions and a series of tragic, yet isolated, wild animal incidents." A lid on the box.

They had taken Alex with them, but not the way they’d taken their equipment. He’d been sedated, strapped to a gurney, his eyes wide with a horror that no drug could touch. His final, shrieking words about the drowned houses and the floating faces of the dead echoed in the hollow chambers of Leo’s mind.

Leo was the last one. A ghost haunting his own life, left to walk the empty paths and tidy the deserted campsites. He was a warden with no prisoners, a protector with no one left to protect. Guilt was a physical weight, a shroud so heavy it made his shoulders ache and his lungs burn with every breath. He heard Zach’s mocking laughter in the rustle of the leaves. He saw Marcus’s steady, reliable face in the stoic permanence of the old oaks. He saw the boy Ethan’s little red bucket, lying on its side in his mind’s eye, a perpetual testament to his failure.

His father’s mantra, the bedrock of his life, had become a litany of torment. Get your crew home safe. He had failed. He had failed them all.

That evening, as a full, bone-white moon rose over the pines, something inside Leo finally snapped. It wasn't a violent break, but a quiet, cold settling. The frantic fear and the desperate hope for survival were gone, burned away by the acid of his grief. All that remained was a single, clear purpose. He was done being hunted. He was done being a victim. A debt was owed, and he was the only one left to pay it.

He drove the utility truck away from the park, one last time, and headed for the small, clapboard house his father had left him. The air inside was stale, a museum of a life that no longer existed. He ignored the dusty furniture and the pictures on the wall. He went straight to his father’s bedroom closet, reached to the back of the top shelf, and pulled down a heavy, oilskin-wrapped bundle.

He unwrapped it on the bed. His father's Smith & Wesson Model 10. A .38 Special, blued steel and worn wooden grips, heavy and solid in his hand. It smelled of gun oil and old responsibility. His father had taught him to shoot with it, emphasizing respect and restraint. You only ever draw this if you mean to end something. Leo meant to end something.

As he loaded the six chambers, the fat, brass-cased rounds clicking into place with grim finality, a fragment of Jedediah’s lore surfaced from the chaos of his memory. It was from that evening at the maintenance shop, a parting comment Leo had almost missed.

“He’s a king, boy,” Jed had rasped, his eyes on the dark water. “And a king in his own kingdom doesn’t tolerate disrespect. But what he hates more than mockery… is a challenge to his throne. You don’t hunt a thing like that. You make it come to you. You stand on its land, and you call its name.”

It wasn’t a plan for survival. It was a recipe for a summons.

Leo pocketed a handful of extra cartridges, slid the heavy revolver into the waistband at the small of his back, and walked out of the house without a backward glance. He didn’t go to the beach, or the deep woods. He drove back into the silent, waiting park, the truck’s headlights cutting a lonely path through the oppressive darkness. He drove to Aspen Grove. Back to the beginning.

The cursed campsite was bathed in an ethereal, silver moonlight that made the familiar shapes of the tables and fire pits seem alien and strange. The water pump stood sentinel, a crooked black finger pointing at the sky. The reservoir itself was a vast, placid sheet of ink, perfectly mirroring the cold moon above.

Leo cut the engine. He got out of the truck, leaving the door ajar, and walked slowly, deliberately, down to the water’s edge. He stopped on the gravel shore where he had saved Alex, where the creature had risen from the depths. The air was cold, still, and carried that unmistakable, foul odor of rot and ancient mud, thicker and more potent than ever before.

He stood there for a long moment, the silence of the world pressing in on him. He thought of Alex’s screams, of the faces in the water. They’re down there with him. Waiting. He wouldn’t let them wait alone.

He drew the revolver. The metal was cold against his skin.

“I know you can hear me,” Leo said, his voice raw but steady, carrying unnaturally far across the still water. He wasn’t shouting. He was speaking to something he knew was listening just beneath the surface. “You took my crew. You took them from my watch.”

He raised the revolver and pointed it not at the water, but straight up at the moonlit sky. He squeezed the trigger.

The shot was a deafening, violent crack that tore the silence to shreds. The sound echoed off the distant hills and rolled back across the lake, a thunderous challenge.

As the echoes died away, the world fell silent once more. But it was a different silence now. It was charged, expectant. Leo lowered the gun, his heart hammering a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs.

Then, he saw them.

To his left, on a flat, mossy rock, a shape materialized from the shadows. A large, warty toad. To his right, another appeared on the shore, as if it had simply pushed its way up through the gravel. And directly in front of him, at the very edge of the water, the third one sat. The three harbingers. His audience. Their black, unblinking eyes were all fixed on him, filled with a cold, ancient intelligence. They had accepted his invitation.

The water in front of him began to bubble, not with the gentle fizz of escaping gas, but with a thick, viscous churning, as if the lake itself were turning to sludge. The stench of the abyss washed over him, a physical wave of decay and territorial fury.

Slowly, majestically, the Toad King rose from the black water.

It was larger than before, or perhaps the moonlight simply revealed its true, horrifying scale. It towered over him, a monstrous god of the deep, its mottled green-and-brown skin glistening with foul water and slime. Its immense, unblinking eyes, blacker than the void between stars, stared down at him. There was no rage in those eyes, no animal fury. There was only an absolute, patient, and territorial authority. It was the genius loci, the spirit of this drowned land, and Leo had trespassed on its soul.

Leo didn't flinch. He didn’t back away. The fear was a cold, solid thing in his gut, but the guilt was hotter, stronger. He saw Zach’s grin, Marcus’s quiet nod, Alex’s terrified face. He saw a little boy’s red bucket.

He raised his father’s revolver, the wooden grip firm in his sweating hand. He aimed it squarely at the center of the creature’s massive, inhuman head. This wasn’t about killing it. He knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that six bullets from a .38 were nothing to a creature like this. This was an act of defiance. An act of tribute.

He was the final tax. The last offering. The price for all of them.

Get your crew home safe.

A strange, final peace settled over him. He was no longer running. He was finally going to them.

“This is for my crew,” he whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger. “The final tribute.”