Undertow

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Every summer, the lake shines.
Glass-still mornings. Cool coves. A perfect place for fishing and forgetting. But there’s one spot near the center of Table Rock—above where old Hurtville lies drowned—that locals avoid. It’s deeper than the sonar says. The water's always colder. And sometimes, the air tastes like metal.

That’s where the storm boat went down.
And where the cave breathes.

It was July, 1972. A heavy old fishing vessel—steel-hulled, war-surplus—called the Maggie Belle was hauling a birthday party across the lake. Nineteen passengers: fishermen, families, kids with streamers tied to their rods. A harmless afternoon. No weather warnings. Barely a cloud.

Then came the wind.

Out of nowhere, the sky collapsed. Black clouds twisted down like claws. The wind howled so loud you couldn’t hear yourself scream. People on nearby docks saw the Maggie Belle spin in place—its anchor line snapping mid-roar—then lurch backward, like something yanked it from beneath.

Witnesses say the waves didn't make sense.
They came from inside the lake, not across it.
Churning up from below.

In under three minutes, the boat was gone. No distress call. No flares.
Just nineteen names added to the lake.
And nothing left but a few scraps of party ribbon found miles downshore.

Search teams dove for weeks. They found the boat—twisted, rusted, split down the center like it had been crushed inward. But stranger still was what they found beneath it: an opening. A tunnel, far deeper than the maps showed. A limestone throat carved under old Hurtville. Some say it was part of a cave system, maybe an old mine shaft. Others say it was a natural formation that had never been dry, even before the dam.

But the divers wouldn’t go near it.

They reported hearing voices through their masks. Feeling fingers brush their necks. One diver, Mitch Satterfield, surfaced screaming and quit the force that day. He claimed the cave was “breathing”—pulling water in, then exhaling it in pulses that moved like heartbeats.

They sealed the report. Called it inconclusive.
But they never retrieved the bodies.

Ever since, the lake has moods.
Boaters tell stories. Clear skies turn to chaos.
A storm shrieks up from nowhere, always in the same place.
Radar can’t track it. Radios go dead.
And if you’re above the cave when it comes, your boat doesn’t just rock—it shudders, as though something below is reaching up.

Some who’ve survived say they saw something just before the waves came.
A shape below the surface. Not a fish. Not a rock. Something wide.
Something with holes where its eyes should be.
​
Waiting.

The lake took Hurtville.
Now the cave takes what’s left.
Not out of rage. Not hunger.

It feeds on moments.
On breath.
On celebrations.

Like it remembers that party on the Maggie Belle, and now it wants another.

If you find yourself on Table Rock when the wind stops too suddenly--
When the air goes still
And the water turns to glass
And your compass spins without moving--

Don’t look down.
Don’t call out.
And for the love of God… don’t celebrate.

Beneath the old town lies the cave.
And the cave is never empty.
Undertow.