Monster of Cooke Dam Pond

By Bradley A. Cossins

About the Book
Katie has a lot going on. She may love her cheating mom and absent dad, she may be disappointed that her friend Mary is too different now to be around, but unexpectedly Katie has made a new friend in Chester, a young man in the States illegally, fleeing a war-torn country, and working off the books for her mother.
When Katie is assaulted at a party in the forest, Chester comes to her aid in time for them both to witness the violent demise of her attacker. It was dark out, so they couldn’t see what killed him, just the screaming, begging, and thrashing as he was pulled beneath the water’s surface. Where do they go from here? People have been vanishing up and down the Au Sable River for months, but who would believe what they saw? Monster of Cooke Dam Pond is far more than a story about a mysterious monster stalking the outdoor-loving residents of a small Michigan town. It’s a story about everyday people overcoming hardships in life such as betrayal, addiction, rape, suicide, loss of loved ones, and good versus evil within themselves. Hardships come and go, but it’s how you handle them that really makes the difference.

About the Author
Ever since Bradley A. Cossins was a toddler, his parents took him camping throughout many areas in Michigan. He doesn't believe there has been a year in his life that he has not stepped into a national forest for a weekend. Having worked for outdoor/sporting goods retailers for more than seven consecutive years, Cossins has come to not only cherish the outdoors as a staple of his life, but a means of regaining our childhood and to never forget where we all came from. During the time he wrote this book, he has been a student at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, focusing on environmental studies so he can one day give back to our natural world! This book was inspired by Peter Benchley’s Jaws and Johnathan Rand’s book series, Michigan Chillers, as well as nerdy games and interests throughout his childhood like Magic: The Gathering, “The Gitrog Monster,” and his life’s accumulation of camping along the Au Sable River.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887296272

Book preview

Chapter One

The Job Interview

It has been nearly three weeks since my best friend Davy left town, and nothing has been the same. I tried getting in touch with some of my older friends, but ever since high school, they all went their separate ways, Mary especially. Even when Davy was here it was just the two of us mostly. A friend of mine he was indeed, but there was chemistry there, no doubt about that. Hell, maybe if we were dating, I would have gone south with him to Hannibal. There’s really nothing left for me here, save for the work ethic I provide for my parents. It’s hard to imagine over the years I flourished in a pool of friends, loved ones, and relatives that were all no more than five miles from each other. Now? Now it is just me, Mom, and Dad.

For the last few years, I have been in a stalemate here at the old shop that we bought from some old people who passed away recently. Besides working at this old, crusty store, I find myself wandering the long, isolated trails of the Huron National Forest, specifically along the Au Sable River. The part of the river where I and everyone I know lives is a section called Cooke Dam Pond. It’s the last great pond within the river system before reaching Lake Huron, and Oscoda, a city of great potential, but poor execution. It’s not bad or anything, just quiet.

As I said, we own a little store right on River Road, just twelve miles outside of Oscoda. We sell simple things like firewood, fishing tackle, hunting, and fishing licenses, and cringy car stickers that vary in bad lines like I heart Michigan, or Camping is my life, and so on. However, due to prices continually rising and standard of living becoming ever more expensive, my dad had to hand the shop over to my mom. He is now working full time at the chemical plant just north of the Au Sable. He has a degree in environmental sciences, but up here, there wasn’t anything he could really do, until the plant reopened four years ago. Now he is working for some company trying to perfect pesticides while also maintaining an environment-friendly chemical, and hence why my dad’s there.

My dad, nor I for that matter never agreed with the construction of the plant, which was raised right along the river up a steep slope. The people my dad works for claim to be environmentally friendly, but everyone knows they dump shit into the river. My father has his good days and bad days because of that place. Lately, they have been bad days for both of us as I always see him and Mom argue and storm out after yelling for minutes on end, sometimes leaving me alone to close the shop.

Today’s a good day, though. It’s a warm April day, one of the first warm days we’ve had this year. Mom has been prepping the shop to make it look presentable for our interviewees. Like I said, Dad is gone working for the plant, so we need more hands on deck when spring arrives. Our place gets good business, but it can sometimes get intense when you have the hunters, the boaters, the campers, and the locals all coming in at the same time. I’m pretty excited to see what new eager people come through that door, only to be disappointed after working here for three years and cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel. Oh wait, that’s me!

I was doing what I do every day, stocking some first aid stuff on some shelves, knelt down between peg hooks down the farthest aisle when I heard the bell smack against the front door as it flung open. The door smacks against that decaying wall every minute of every day. I’m surprised it’s still holding. I grunted as my knees stretched out after being on the ground for so long. My eyes adjusted towards the front door where the dusty fan blew and light particles visible from the bright sun outside levitated. The moment my eyes looked in that direction, I grew hot like a pipe of flowing water and quietly hissed under my breath, unhappy at the sight of this fellow who wants nothing but the worst for my family and me—Frank, some old bastard that reeks of alcohol and has the hots for my mom.

He always wears the same black and red plaid jacket with that stupid orange hunting cap. He had two pocket knives on him at all times and a holstered pistol that he openly carries, the Glock-17. Seems like this low-life was always ready for a battle at any given moment. His greasy black hair and his badly shaven face always attracted Mom for some reason, even though she is supposed to be loyal to Dad. While, of course, she never slept with the guy, let alone kissed him, I still get sick whenever I see Mom flirt with this living pile of greasy garbage. As he waltzed into the store, he carelessly took a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter and put them in his pocket.

Hey, you have to pay for that! I yelled from across the store. Thankfully nobody else was in here, so it’s not like I caused any big outrages. Frank and Mom both looked at me; Frank, with a blank, eased look and Mother, with an angry, stunned expression as if I did something illegal. She waved her arm towards me while shaking her head, acting like it’s okay for someone to steal from our business.

Katie, honey, he’s fine! Hurry stocking those shelves up, I have more in the back that needs to get out, she told me with a hesitated, but grouchy tone. She felt embarrassed by my justified outrage. I cursed under my breath and threw myself back onto the hard, green and black tiled floor. I glared at the cracked green ceiling with the wobbly fan just above me as I eased my ears onto their conversation.

Wow, Katie’s still here? Shouldn’t she be off to college by now? Frank asked my mom. Obviously very offensive to me, but I could hear my mom giggling in the background, blowing it off as if it didn’t hurt me or it was some bad joke.

Katie has an internship with the DNR. Well, she starts in the fall. She starts school next year. It’s not her fault, though! I asked her to stay for one more year until we can get enough staffing for the store. In truth I wish she wouldn’t even go, Mom said. I like how she’s pretty much putting words into my own mouth. But that’s Mom for you. Typical Deborah.

Eh, honestly, school is all a scam, Deborah, Frank said, leaning his grimy, stained jacket sleeves onto the already creaky countertop. Of course, he would say that. Frank is the last person I would expect to go to school. Why don’t she take up something useful around here like welding, or plumbing? Hell, even an electrician makes roughly seventy to eighty thousand a year. How much will her art degree make her? Forty? Barely enough to get herself a nice apartment in one of those liberal cities? he asked. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up, some of the peg hooks getting caught on my shirt and plucked from the brackets. All the first aid stuff scattered around the floor didn’t bother me as my attention was focused strongly on this man continuing to offend me.

It’s a science degree, first of all, you pathetic drunk! And secondly— I shouted, but Mom cut me off. Her eyes widened like an owl’s. She gasped and slammed the bundles of dollar bills she was about to load into the cash register on the countertop, shaking the loose change pile, even spilling some pennies onto the floor.

Katie, hold your mouth before I shut it for you! she yelled. I glared into her eyes, then turned back to Frank.

Secondly, what do you know about school? Probably didn’t even make it past middle school before you dropped out and tried to impress Papa every night by welding or plumbing or whatever the hell it is you do. Oh wait, that’s right, you don’t have a papa anymore. He hung himself in your shed after he beat you, didn’t he? I had to stop to take a breather. My mom stepped back; her mouth was sealed shut. Frank’s face, though, red hot like a burner. He looked around the store in his immediate area and grabbed one of the fixtures in front of him holding tons of candy, each piece carefully coordinated and organized by pegs, tags, and signs.

With his hairy, muscular hands, he shoved it forward, spilling everything onto the floor. One fixture had enough candy on it to feed a whole church. He pointed his finger at me. I could feel the tension in the room. He pulled the pack of cigarettes from his plaid jacket and opened the top of it. Everything was still for a moment. All I could watch was a little fly hovering above the counter behind Frank. His one eyebrow was raised so profoundly that it stuck out like no other part of his body. When Frank was angry, it scared everyone.

If you were my kid, I’d throw you out of this damn town and never see your ass again, he told me. He turned to my mom and began to yell at her. How dare you raise your daughter like that! he yelled. I didn’t know that a man’s face could get anymore red. He turned and stomped for the door, shaking every tile and fixture on his way out with his massive boots. He left the building but not before smashing one of the ice freezers, making a large crack in the middle of the glass. My mom ran outside after him, begging for his forgiveness. After I heard the sound of an old truck gas it out of the little parking lot, Mom came back in and was just about to rip me a new one when we heard the bell again. We both turned our heads to the door and in came a boy, just maybe a year or two younger than me. He was far shorter than me too. I was surprised by his looks.

He was Latino. Black hair and big ears. He was shy, very shy. Even though there was a mess of smashed, scattered candy right in front of him, he politely stepped over and with a hesitant smile held out his hand to my mother. His chubby, blushed grin suddenly took all of the tension out of the room. I smiled back and nodded my head at him. My mother pushed her bangs to the other side of her face and apologized for the mess as she shook his hand. He was holding a small piece of paper in his hand and wore khaki pants with a green polo shirt. His hair was combed to the side with little half curls at the end and his shoes were dress shoes, odd, but I could see he was trying to dress to impress.

Hello, I’m Chester. My interview was supposed to be five minutes ago, but I didn’t want to interfere with the yelling I heard coming from in here. If I may ask, is everything okay? he asked us. I saw that guy in the truck leave in some hurry. Very sweet of him to ask us if we were okay. My mom chuckled and brushed it off like it was nothing.

Oh yes, we’re quite alright. Just some family drama, no big deal, she said. What did my mom just say?

Wait, family drama? I asked. My mom shushed me.

Well, a family friend, she told Chester.

Friend? I laughed. I shook my head and moved my pointer finger back and forth, wanting to yell but kept my cool. He’s no friend of mine. And I’m sure Father isn’t his friend either, I told Mom. She politely shoved me away from her and Chester. I kept glancing over to Chester. He noticed the way I pushed my mother’s buttons. Though I was still furious, knowing I was able to easily get a reaction out of her made me smirk, which made him smirk too.

Okay, Katie, hold the store down while I interview Chester, she told me. Chester turned to me. He had a bright smile that was eager to tell me something, probably something sweet or fascinating.

Katie? That’s my mom’s name. Beautiful name. Nice to meet you, Katie. He smiled. His smile was genuine I could tell. It wasn’t a flirty smile like every single guy who comes in here gives me, no. It was sincere and made me smile back. As I cleaned the candy from the floor and taped up the crack on the glass freezer door, I overheard my mom’s interview in the back. Once I was done, I leaned closer, right next to the broken wooden door that led to her office.

Well, Chester you seem to have a lot of experience with handling money and great speaking skills, but if you don’t have a proof of citizenship, I can’t hire you. I’m sorry, I heard my mother say.

Miss, please hear me out. I don’t live with my ma or pa anymore and they’re the ones who have my birth certificate. I live out here with my grandmother who can barely speak English. I need this job, miss, please, he begged. I felt bad for the poor kid. And he’s the nicest (and only) guy I’ve met that doesn’t want to get in my pants. I thought of an idea. He seems like a good asset to the little team we have, plus we could use anyone that has a basic sense of customer service. I peeked my head into the interview. It was a witty idea, but one with major consequences. Hopefully this pays off!

Hey, Mom, I’m sorry to bother you and Chester. But I just got a phone call from the DNR station in Oscoda. My internship can start earlier and end earlier, which gives me more time to work here before the year is over. I accepted it, I told her. My mom looked at Chester’s papers, looked up at me, then thought in her head for a moment. She had this smug, unsatisfied look as if I ruined every plan she had ever planned. She coughed twice to clear her throat and tapped her long, lavender fingernails on the table. I could tell this was her way of trying to calm her anger.

Chester, excuse me for a moment, she politely said to him. She stood up and stepped out into the store with me. She closed the door to the office and instantly grew stressed as I suspected. Katie, what do you mean you took the offer? I need you for these next couple of months! she cried.

Mom, I couldn’t say no to an internship. Who knows? They probably would have rejected my offer when it was actually time to start. I need this experience, Mom! I whined like a baby, but for good reasons. She turned to the wall and hit it with her fist.

I can’t keep this up by myself, Katie! With your father gone most of these days, who is going to help keep the store with me? she asked. I pointed to the door of her office, pointing past the outdated calendar on the wall, past the poorly kept paint job, past the wood, and to the boy sitting in the chair.

Just hire Chester, Mom! He meets every credential. Sure, he might be illegal, but Mom, be realistic, who else is going to work for you? Old men and women who have been retired for ten years who can barely walk? He’s young, he’s all there in the head, and he has proper manners. And, if he’s not officially in your system as a worker, you don’t have to pay more taxes. Just pay him under the table for a little less in exchange for his protection. It will also help keep you, and me, and Dad in business, I convinced her. She thought about it for a minute.

You expect me to pay that man a lower wage and threaten him with calling authorities if he fights back? she asked me.

Not necessarily. Just give him a decent wage but hold back enough that you can keep some extra cash for the store. Give this guy a chance, Mom. Please. He’s all you can get right now. Not really your place to be choosing, I confessed to her. My plan seemed a little unethical, to pay a supposed illegal immigrant a little lower than normal. However, on the flip side of the coin, we can guarantee his safety, at least from us. We argued back and forth for a bit longer, even to the point where my head began throbbing, but after the close battle between the two of us, my mom stepped back into the room and asked Chester when he could start. After Chester left the store, we finished cleaning everything up and continued with our day.

Everything was normal as usual. Customers came in maybe one or two every half hour. By the time evening came around, I had just finished pulling the register till, and putting the cash in a little rusted safe in the back just under the white party table that we used as a desk. The jingle at the front door echoed throughout the empty shop. I yelled out the door to wait one moment, I was nearly done putting the money away. Mother had gone home to grab more supplies, so it was just me here for the next half hour, so it definitely wasn’t her that came in. I came back out into the main shop with my new till for the register when I peeked around an aisle to see someone looking through my beautiful fixture wall of first aid items. She was rummaging through everything, I guess trying to find something we probably didn’t have.

The lady was a bit taller than me, very skinny and had a gray coat on over a pink jacket. I saw her blonde bun from above the other aisles as she came prancing towards me and the register at the front, just to the right of the ice freezer. I saw the woman’s eyeliner clearly dripping from her face. Something severely distressed her. The emotion was emitting from her body like a source of heat coming from a hot stove. Before I could ask if she was okay, she dropped a $100 bill onto my glass counter. Her old, veiny hands were shaking like a dog in fireworks. She looked up at me with the most monotone, yet eerie tone I’ve ever seen.

Do you have medical sewing thread and needles? she asked. I unfroze from her deep gaze and found myself again. I slid the bill back closer to her.

Ma’am, I am sorry, truly, I am. Whatever we have over there in the medical supplies is all we have, I said bluntly. She paced herself back over to the shelf area she’d just destroyed. I thought for a moment while she was looking at packaging with a very intense haste. I walked over to her after grabbing a couple of things from our fishing aisle. Hey, I don’t know if this will help, but we have fishing line and some hooks. The hook I think is a bit thicker than a stitching hook, but it will do if you need this for an emergency. She looked at me with a gasp in her breath. Without a second thought she snatched the hook pack and fishing line, tossed the large bill in my direction (but landing on the floor), and sprinted outside.

She yelled for me to keep the change, all ninety dollars of it. when the shop door closed behind her, I followed with a slight distance until I was at the glass door and looked out to see where she was heading to. Little droplets of rain began colonizing the cracked pavement in front of our little store. I couldn’t see much except where the large floodlight over our building shined. The woman ran just past it to an old red van. She swiftly slid into the driver’s seat and began bolting away. Her tires slid against the wet concrete, chucking up pieces of rock and grass. Before the car left the premises, I could see into the passenger side of the car after the van made a donut and barely got into view of the floodlight.

What I saw in that passenger seat would haunt me forever. I think it was a man. His head was balding from what I could barely see. He wore a brown rain coat and had his hand up to his face. Most of the arm portion of his jacket covered his face, but I could see a bit of his cheek and lower jaw. There was something red coming from his face, bright red that appeared to ignore the darkness. He looked still, limp, frozen. He did not move. He seemed like one of those people in a classroom who use their arm to hold their heads up as they fall asleep in class. Was it blood? Was it something else? I don’t know how I didn’t realize it at first, but when I looked down, something was on my hand, as well as the door handle.

Blood. Warm, red blood. I froze where I stood, looking down into the depths of my hand as a little spit of blood was covering the palms of my pointer finger, middle finger, and thumb. I ran to go get a cloth and wipe everything down, but first I needed to grab the $100 bill that was still lying on the floor. I quickly snatched it and ran behind the counter, sneakers sliding across the freshly mopped floor. However, I paused right in front of the counter as something caught my eye. Another red mark, more blood. It was smeared. I closed my eyes and slowly opened my tight palm that held the bill. I wanted to open my eyes and see no blood on that damn bill, but I was wrong. I glared at this strange bill in my hand as rain began dropping like bombs on the store ceiling. I investigated my hand once more after the sounds of the rainy darkness clouded my fragile atmosphere while the roaring of thunder filled my ears.

I ran towards the sink in the back room and rubbed my hands vigorously. The sink bottom was turning to hues of red and orange while my fingers finally washed away the smears of blood from their palms. I stepped back out to the main lobby of the small store and stared at the parking lot from behind the glass door. I wondered about that woman and her passenger for the rest of the evening. I hoped they would be alright, but who knows? Maybe I will see them on the news tomorrow, not a lot happens in the National Forest, so every little incident is big news for all of us. As the rain grew even heavier upon the old rooftop, I stood alone, the lingering thought of every worst-case scenario rushing through my mind, and the residue of blood on the counter remained, thin and spread out like butter on bread.

Chapter Two

A Morning on the Waterfront

I have been fishing with Dad since seven in the morning. It was spent mostly catching water reeds and smacking away flies that should not be alive in this crisp weather. I got a couple of good catches, one good size bass, and a handful of bluegills. The dense fog kept away the families of swans and Canadian geese that littered these waters but gave way to the millions of frogs and their harmonious rhythm of clicks and snaps, and thumps and nags. Dad and I kept passing back and forth the thermos full of hot coffee, constantly pouring little bits at a time in our individual metal cups. While in between catches, I tried swaying the current of steam emitting from the cup onto my cargo pants as little droplets of morning dew dripped from overly tall grasses onto them. My damn nose kept leaking with no end in sight. Perhaps if I actually dressed appropriately for this weather, I wouldn’t be having so many problems. Then again, I’m too stubborn to wear actual winter clothes in the early spring.

Finally, around eleven, we begin packing our tackle up to go home. It’s been my dad’s and my tradition to go fishing every Sunday morning. We’ve been doing it ever since I can remember. Sure, it wasn’t every Sunday really. There have been times where I wanted to sleep in, or where he had to do something else instead, but we made it work. I had my own fishing tackle box, blue lid, and gray bottom with three different layers of space for all my sinkers, jigs, and fake frogs, perfect for bass! We always sat with camping chairs on the edge of one of the pond’s most scenic and hidden shorelines, where reeds were plentiful and fallen trees made perfect homes for all species of fish.

Chilly as hell, though, but we kept warm, well, only because I had the thermos. I just put on whatever I could find really. But Dad? He wore the same black coat with a jean jacket sewn into the interior of it. He had a brown trucker’s hat and wore his favorite fishing watch. The funny thing is the watch is dead. He never changes the battery. Every time he looks at it, he asks me the time and winds it to the correct time. My favorite part about his fishing outfit is a hat he keeps in his tackle box. It was his dad’s hat. It was a dark red, like burgundy or maroon. The damn thing was dirtier than mud itself and his box smelled like an old gym bag, but it held a lot of sentimental value to him. His father always went fishing with him every Sunday morning, same exact spot here on Cooke Dam Pond. One day, I will take his hat in my tackle box, but hopefully not anytime soon.

The ghostly fog dimmed down and revealed the opposite end of the massively wide pond. Frogs were still clicking and the faraway echoes of swans finally emerging, smacking their wings against the water sang in the cold, lonely atmosphere. The greenish-brown water swayed back and forth, hitting the grassy, muddy shoreline, creating little sounds of small ripples popping and mud falling and rising right at the surface. The sky on one end of the pond was dark and silent while the other end was misty and had a slight beam of light poking through the distant horizon, revealing slight visibility down to the bottom of the water in few places. The spot we were fishing at was ripe with old logs, stumps, and immense growth of lilies, reeds, cattails, and spiderwebs, too many spiderwebs.

As the sound of the water rippled against the uneven banks, we reeled in our last lines and just sat there in our chairs, looking out into the water as the sun poked above the hills far ahead of us. The last of the night frogs stopped chirping and the new sound of swans, geese, and ducks echoed through the shallow fjord. As I sat there, picking fresh spiderwebs from my sleeve and shooing gnats from my face, I thought about what happened a few nights prior. I told nobody about the incident. Not even my mom who worked that same night. The blood of the last worm I put on the end of my pole was mirroring the blood on the counter, on the bill, and on my hand. I remember getting a paper towel and scrubbing every surface the blood came into contact with. After having roughly three bloody towels, I remember taking the trash out into the cold night driveway where I saw packaging from the fishing hook and fishing line I sold the woman.

I was uneasy, and that bad memory would not leave me alone. Hey, Dad, can I tell you something you won’t tell Mom? He turned his head with the upmost concerned yet interested look.

What’s up? he asked. I could tell him so many things and he kept his mouth sealed. We had a lot of secrets together, pretty dark ones at that. A lot that even Mom doesn’t know, nor will she ever. I held my breath for a second. The mention of blood and more blood was on the tip of my tongue when all of a sudden, I didn’t want to tell him. I had already asked him the question, so I decided to