EXCERPT: To Those Willing to Drown by Mark Matthews

Blurb

When Jewel Jordan dies from cancer, her father’s wish is to scatter the ashes inside their beloved Torch Lake. But after the grieving mother hears her daughter’s voice coming from inside the urn, how can she let the ashes go? Especially after a mysterious pastor begs her to keep them and promises to reunite her with her daughter’s spirit. Who should she listen to? Even creatures from the lake whisper to her at night, pleading for the remains of her daughter. Who can she trust? Nobody knows the truth and the bargain she made that led to her daughter’s death. Now she has to fight to save her child’s soul, and Torch Lake holds the answers. But the lake is cold, the truth is deep, and it will take the ultimate sacrifice, for...the Lake Speaks Most Honestly to Those Willing to Drown.

Early readers have thoughts!

“This is goddamn wonderful. It’s beautiful and horrible. Matthews manages to put a psychotic Civil War surgeon, a bunch of camp counselors, and water demons and makes it absolutely f*cking cohesive and brilliant.” – Julie Hutchings, author of The Harpy

“An epic tale of pain, love, grief, and regret. Atmospheric and steeped in folklore, the centuries-spanning saga cuts deep both in gore and empathy.” —Laurel Hightower

“Deep, disturbing, and beautifully rendered.” –Christa Carmen, author of the Daughters of Block Island

About the Author

Mark Matthews is a graduate of the University of Michigan and a licensed professional counselor who has worked in behavioral health for over 25 years. He is the author of On the Lips of Children, All Smoke Rises, Milk-Blood, and The Hobgoblin of Little Minds. He is also the editor of a trio of addiction horror anthologies including Orphans of Bliss, Lullabies for Suffering and Garden of Fiends. In June of 2021, he was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. His next novel, To Those Willing to Drown, is coming in 2025.

Note from the Author

First off, thanks and gratitude to FanFiAddict for sharing their space, and allowing me to give readers a first look at my novel, To Those Willing to Drown. Full of folk horror, aquatic horror, and exploring trauma, grief, and addiction, the novel has received tremendous praise. The Midwest Book Review states: “Matthews creates a powerful, thought-provoking, multifaceted story that proves nearly impossible to put down.”

The novel takes place at Torch Lake in Northern Michigan, the deepest inland lake in the state which National Geographic reportedly dubbed the 3^rd most beautiful in the world. The lake is brought to life in the novel and presented with all its beauty, power, and mysticism. You’ll swim with lake creatures, make deals with witches, and may lose a limb or two.

In the novel, to save her daughter’s soul, a grieving mother must battle a sinister pastor who haunts the lake community. This pastor is actually a civil war surgeon, cursed to live for eternity feeding off cremains of the dead. Chapter one introduces the villain, and his journey to Northern Michigan to escape the Civil War, but a darker battle awaits.

Enjoy!

Excerpt

To Those Willing to Drown

Part One

Chapter One:

Of Surgeon Lucas Lamia, 100^th Infantry Union Army

Just as many soldiers had, I packed up my wounds and went north after the war. I aimed to distance myself from the horrors I’d seen, and leave the bloody battlefields behind.

What I found was a land of rolling green fields and majestic blue waters. God had clearly stretched the heavens over northern Michigan. The air was so fresh and beautiful, the town would soon be named Bell-Aire for the magic you inhaled in your lungs, where logging and farming and trade blossomed and soon the rails would follow.

But I brought the war with me.

To understand this, you must have stood as I have, witnessed the effect of shells, explosions, the incessant discharge of musketry, men falling dead, some without a groan, yielding up their life with their chest imploded. Others hurt in battle and covered in dirt, blackened by their own powder, cries of agony, a language understood as the prayer of a wounded soldier. These prayers go unanswered and weaken as their eyes grow dim.

You must have smelled the putrid scent of exposed wounds as I have, begging for an amputation, as if the very limb could speak. If you heard this you would know true horror. Aye, you may not believe me if I describe what I saw, all that I felt, during that awful conflict, caring for the wounded and bringing them back to life as a surgeon practicing in battle. I observed soldiers who were superhuman in their bravery, anointed by God, infused with His spirit. That was the only explanation for their courage, staring at Death’s face with piercing gaze and piercing bayonets. If I ever felt my constitution fade, I remembered those men, and I’d fight on.

So I matched their intensity and waged my own battles to comfort the dying and heal the wounded. Under intense heat, sweat and blood beading on my brow, soldier after soldier was placed on the scaffold and put under chloroform while surgeons performed the operation. Separating the inflicted body part so that the spirit could live on—an empty sleeve but a patriot’s heart.

Enemies were everywhere, invisible invaders of smallpox, typhoid fever, yellow fever. All attacking the body, and so the cleansing and closing of the wound was critical to have any defense. I mastered the art of leaving a good flap of flesh above the amputation site, folded down to ensure a cushion of skin around the severed bone. It took the care of an artist to make a fine stump.

I carried with me the visions of my mistakes, born of hesitancy and caution, when urgency and action were required.

Once such man, George Alexander Hanna, who, feverish from malaria and the burden of a soldier’s heart, fired (by accident, he insists) his own gun into his leg. The ball passed between tibia and fibula, severing both main arteries. We waited to amputate after I conferred with the revered Dr. Robert Liston. He urged my patience, so I ended my protests and agreed to delay. When we finally amputated the infected leg, it was too late. He died a day later, having endured the operation and many days of pain, when acting sooner may have saved his life. Dr. Liston and I changed our approach from that moment on and began to take pride in how quickly we severed a limb.

The question I did not share with any surgeon nor any man of God was this: Did I also sever part of a man’s soul by performing an amputation? If they die with their body disconnected, are souls also split forever, the way our country seemed split, North and South, Rebel and Yank?

I thought of the limbs left on the battlefield, of the mothers who received bodies not fully complete. Fractured hearts, fractured souls, scattered pieces trying to find their match. I prayed that God would find the grace to unite these desecrated bodies in Heaven, for I’d seen too many torn asunder.

So if you stood where I stood, you would have traveled as I traveled. Far, far north, to flee these horrors, with my love Lilith by my side, grateful I wasn’t one of the many parents who buried less than a full child.

We settled here not far from the Lake of the Torches, a name given to this remarkable body of water with an expanse so long surveyors could not yet measure. It was the savages, the heathens, who ruled this lake. You could see them from our hilltop at night, floating in their canoes, holding their flames to the water.

Those who were here before me speak of the bounty they summon with their flames, luring fish to the top to be speared for sustenance. But others whisper the flames are meant to work their sorcery in the dark of night. The flames summon demons, the flames burn their young. And the torches they hold are fueled by the oil of a witch.

With my inquisitive and curious mind, I preferred to make my own informed judgements on the local natives, so I traveled to the water one night for a better look. I moved silently through the lakeside foliage, crouching in the brush, spying on them in their canoes.

They worked in pairs, one with flame held to the water, the other with spears ready to stab. When the time came, they struck with a splash, then raised their spear out of the water with long trout flapping on the end. The fish got clubbed with one smack, ending their protest, falling dead into the canoe. One after another they pulled fish from the water, and I imagined myself coming here for my fill.

But then I heard a splash in the water, and saw a large body swimming near the surface. I held my breath, remained still, trying not to gasp out loud at this creature, at this behemoth, gliding slowly just below the surface. It seemed like a gigantic squid, or a sea dragon, or a monstrous eel, or all of these things at once. Sailors blown off course to uncharted oceans speak about such creatures, but their words fell short compared to this vision.

The heathens held their spears. They didn’t feel threatened. They left this creature be. It was clear the behemoth was ancient and had been through many battles. I saw large wounds on its flesh as it slipped in and out of the water, sinister and seductive. The beast finally dove back into the lake for good, returning into the depths, leaving behind a deafening quiet.

This demon of the lake is their god, was all I could think, for the reverence they paid.

The fishing appeared over, the spears set aside, but one savage held up what at first seemed a doll. In the light of the flame, I saw it wasn’t a doll, but a human child. Deceased. I could tell. Its limbs hung lifeless.

I watched with a mix of wonder and fear as this child was set upon a bed of twine and twigs inside an empty canoe. It was then set adrift, but not before the funeral pyre was set aflame with torches on all sides. I watched as the carcass of this child burned, along with the canoe, until the flesh and twine and canoe of ash fell into the depths.

This was their burial ritual, cremating their children on this lake. Or perhaps a sacrifice the dark devils demanded.

With the child’s remains in the lake, the savages began to paddle away, and I realized I’d stayed there too long. The vessels were coming right towards me, so close I feared they could hear my heartbeat and smell my scent.

They floated so near I could see their flesh, their skin of leather, their muscles svelte, their eyes piercing. With my back hunched in the brush, my long black hair, my green eyes that sparkled like a feline in the dark, I may have been confused as one of them, but I did not take that risk. I rushed out from my spot, beyond the foliage, away from the lake, my senses electrified from terror.

I knew these natives could track like a lion, so I weaved my way through the brush, trying to lose my tail. I could still feel their presence no matter how far away I ran, heart pounding in my chest, lungs gasping for air. Farther and farther away from the lake, up a hill where I could hold an advantage, I finally turned to face them.

They had not given chase.

I was free.

Or at least I thought. Something from the lake had attached to my heart that night, the way a mollusk would to the hull of a ship. I did not return to visit the waters at dark anymore. I bathed in the lake during the daytime only, so refreshing I felt my pre-war vigor return. But at night, I stayed away from the natives and their flames.

Was it smart to build a home so close to the heathens?

I thought about abandoning this land, going somewhere safer, but I felt a calling, a voice beckoning me, confirming that my God was greater than these devils. I would make my home on this hilltop, and keep my faith that God would provide.

But men of faith are often misled. Godly men like myself who believe in the Lord are the Devil’s favorite prey. I survived the Civil War, escaped to the north—but a more sinister battle awaited me.