Her best friend, Samantha, hadn’t believed her at first. “I’m not falling for another one of  your stupid pranks!” she had stubbornly declared, thinking Claire was planning to scare her like  she had done the previous summer—Claire relished a good practical joke, after all! But after some  convincing, she had decided to accompany Claire on an early morning amble down to the lakeshore while the other campers slept. 

     They walked together on a quiet morning through the reeds and brush overrunning the  derelict path to the shore. It was still dim by the time they arrived at the old dock.  

     “I don’t see anything!” Samantha complained impatiently, her legs and feet slick with the  morning dew of the tall grass. Claire rolled her eyes; Samantha was always cranky before  breakfast. 

     After a few short minutes of waiting at the dock, the girls could begin to taste the loamy  scent of the returning fog. They’re coming! Claire thought excitedly. The fog enveloped the lake  like a vaporous blanket, and then, like every other morning, it happened. Four bodies buoyed up  to the surface, sending soft ripples across the otherwise placid lake. Their limbs were extended out  like the arms of a starfish, their faces devoid of perception. 

     Samantha was astounded by the uncanny sight. She couldn’t believe her eyes as more  children rose from their lacustrine slumber, drifting aimlessly through the mist. 

     When the closest figures approached the southeast shore, Samantha could make out their  pallid complexion. She looked at Claire with grave concern in her eyes. “You don’t suppose  they’re…dead?”

     “They’re dummies, dummy!” Claire assured her. But even Claire was unsettled by how  lifelike the figures looked. These must be some expensive mannequins, she told herself. 

     The next day, the two girls decided to share their eerie discovery with their friends Caleb  and Mateo. As with Samantha, however, the girls’ claims were initially met with incredulity. So,  Claire invited the boys on another early morning walk to the lakeshore so they could see it for  themselves.  

     The first four floating children appeared once the fog had fully cloaked the lake, and Caleb  and Mateo were equally bewildered. One by one, all fifteen figures emerged from the watery  depths as the sun crept above the horizon. The scene played out exactly as it had every other  morning, except the children were closer to the shore now. 

     The fifteenth body surfaced only a few yards away from the dock, and Caleb turned white  when he noticed something dismayingly familiar about its face. 

     “That one looks like you, Claire!” he gasped in disbelief, pointing at the figure.  

      Claire traced his finger and spotted the figure drifting into the reeds. She DOES look like  me! she thought, utterly astonished. She had the exact same button nose and ocean blue eyes. The  only differences were the figure’s strange stiffness and moribund pallor. 

     Claire then glimpsed the floating child to its left. “And that one looks like you, Sam!” she  cried.  

     Samantha stood frozen when she realized Claire was right. The two figures bore an  undeniable semblance to Claire and Samantha. And they looked even more real than before. 

     “I don’t like this,” Samantha whispered with a shiver of apprehension. 

     “Where do you think they’re coming from?” Caleb asked.  

     Claire had been asking herself the same question since she had first discovered the floating  children. “Well,” she said, “the first ones we saw popped up near the center of the lake, so they’re  probably coming from over there.” 

     “Only one way to find out,” Mateo declared.  

     The camp counselors had no activities planned for the following day, so the four of them  decided to investigate. They met at the lakeshore after lunchtime, and Mateo—the most intrepid  of the group and the strongest swimmer—dove into the turbid water while the others watched from  the dock. 

     Once he reached the middle of the lake, he slipped on his goggles and took a big breath  before diving down. For nearly a minute, Claire, Samantha, and Caleb saw nothing.  

     “Why hasn’t he come up yet?!” Samantha asked, beginning to panic. The other two looked  equally anxious.

     But after another twenty seconds or so, a familiar face sprang back up from the water,  gasping for air. They all sighed in relief.  

     Mateo swiftly swam back to the dock, and Claire handed him a towel.  

     “You won’t believe what’s down there!” he exclaimed. Claire was especially eager to find  out.  

     “I dove down about ten feet and touched something metal. I pulled myself around it, and  then I felt this slime-covered window.” 

     “Was it a car?” Samantha asked.  

     “No, bigger! It was a whole shuttle bus!”  

     The other three friends were dumbfounded. Why on earth was there a shuttle bus at the  bottom of Sunny Grove Lake? Had one crashed there some years ago? 

     “What about the mannequins? Did you see any inside?” Caleb probed.  

     “I couldn’t tell. It was really hard to see down there, and I didn’t want to try to swim inside  the bus in case I got stuck. All I found were a few scratch marks on the windows.” 

      Thirsting for answers, the four friends made plans to resume their search once they had  swiped a water-proof headlamp from the camp office. But the investigation would have to wait  until the weekend, as the counselors had planned a hike up Blackbird Peak the next morning. 

      It was a beautiful day for a trek in the mountains—cloudless skies with a crisp breeze to  alleviate the August heat. The campers all had fun scrambling up the craggy slopes and trudging  through the cool creeks with their pant legs rolled up and shoes and socks in hand. They had even  set up their tents near the summit and spent the night stargazing. Early the next morning, however, 

     Claire felt an inexplicable sadness wash over her. It was a wrenching, mournful sorrow, the source  of which she couldn’t ascertain.  

     “Everyone on board?” David, the senior counsellor, asked his two colleagues. “I counted fifteen heads,” Sherryl replied. 

     “Great, let’s get rolling.” 

     It had been a long day and a half, and most of the other campers—including Samantha,  Caleb, and Mateo—had been lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the bus. Claire, however,  couldn’t sleep. She peered through the bus window with tears in her eyes. Why was she so sad? It  had been a delightful trip; she had no reason to feel upset. And yet, she felt the familiar crushing  despair she had felt when her grandmother had passed away two years ago. 

     The bus driver navigated through the winding mountain road down to the ridge overlooking  Sunny Grove Lake. From its crest, Claire could see the morning sun begin to peak above the  horizon. She glanced down at the lake, wondering if she’d see any of the floating figures. There were none that she could discern, but that may have been because she was at quite a distance from  the misty waters below.  

     Suddenly, a loud burst echoed through the bus, abruptly awakening its passengers. The  front right tire had popped, and the bus lurched to the side of the road. Shattering through the  wooden guardrail, the bus slid down a sharp escarpment. Its remaining tires lost traction with the  slope, and it plummeted off the cliff, diving headfirst into the lake.  

     The few passengers who weren’t immediately struck unconscious erupted in a panic. The  bus was sinking quickly, and the children were all clawing at the windows trying to escape. A deluge of water began to flood the aisle, and the three counselors were all stumbling over each  other trying to throttle the emergency exits open. The water rose, and the terrified screams grew  louder and louder until the lake finally drowned them out.