it starts at a cabin by the lake, because that's how most horror movies start*

(*it's actually a fairly nice 3 bedroom house, but whatever, setting the mood)

my friend usually tries to organize a "girls' weekend" once a year when the cabin is not in use, and it's usually a chill weekend of board games, good and simple food, swimming in the lake, maybe a hike or two

this year schedules meant only four of us could go for like a 24 hour period, but whatever, it's nice to get away from the city and get up in the mountains!

we do a nice, relaxing morning swim/drying off on their private dock, have lunch, play some games while we digest and get ready for another swim

the other three girls are contemplating swimming the entire length of the lake, which is reasonably far!

i love swimming, but i've never been a super-strong swimmer and swim honestly one to two times a year

so i opt out, because i'm pretty sure they're going to have to rescue me if i attempt to keep up

so the plan is we swim from our dock (on one end of the lake), i'll swim with them as far as the floating dock with is roughly 1/3 of the way and cheer them on from there

there's two guys on the floating dock when i get there who are vacationing with their young families, and we chat, talk about how crazy my friends are for trying to swim the length of the lake because we're all unfit slobs who would probably die trying

at some point i turn back to watch my friends' progress (and make sure no one has drowned) and i see that they've only made it about midway between the floating dock and the end of the lake

huh, they must be taking a bit of a rest, whatever

and then i see that they're all doing the front crawl with a vengeance, which is odd? the lake is usually meant for lazy, leisurely swimming.

maybe they tired out and then decided just to have a race back to the dock

that's when i see a lot of frantic splashing, and now the guys on the dock are watching too

and i realize "oh my god, the aggressive loon is after them!"

basically, that morning my friend had sort of laughingly said "oh yeah, my family was a up a few weeks ago and they were talking about this loon was acting aggressively, chasing people and attacking their feet! my mom was scared to get in the water!"

we laughed like the dumb camp counselors who don't believe in the legend of Jason and moved on with our day

WE WERE WRONG

so my friends are booking it for the dock, and this crazy loon has marked one of them as his victim of choice

it's basically levitating in circles around her face trying to attack her and there is a lot of splashing and yelling and i am despairing at having nothing to throw at it and being too far away to help anyway

and look, it is partially comical because - an aggressive loon! it's probably not going to really hurt her

on the other hand it is honestly terrifying as all hell to watch from a distance because this son of a bitch meant business

my friend manages to scare it off with a bit of splashing (the other two girls have completely abandoned her to her fate by this time)

she swims as fast as she can and we see the loon dive

and honestly, it was a full-on "JAWS" moment.

WHERE IS THE LOON? WHERE IS IT GOING TO SURFACE? IS IT GOING TO GET HER?

spoilers: it did

she finally manages to escape from the loon and makes it to the floating dock with us and she's like "that fucker BIT me!"

and sure enough she is bleeding from a (admittedly small) cut/abrasion on her foot

so my friends are somewhere between "good spirits" and "HYSTERICAL" at this point

and i'm in the same place from witnessing all of this, really

they're pretty spent from their swim to safety and are recovering while we're debating calling it a day and getting back to the cabin

BUT THEN, we see a paddle-boarder come from the far end of the lake, and the loon seems to be scared of it so the paddle-boarder is essentially driving it in our direction

so there's us, four grown women and two grown men, watching this goddamn loon come closer and we're all "shit shit, we need to go"

but then the loon dives underwater, and we know how far it travels in a very short time

so we're all standing in the middle of this floating dock, desperately trying to see where the loon went

and then it pops up right behind the dock, and we're all like half-legitimately terrified of this thing

and half-laughing hysterically because this stupid loon has trapped 6 grown adults on a floating dock

and i swear to god, this loon had murder in its eyes

as we're all freaking out about it being super close, it dives again, and we're all screaming "WHERE IS IT?? WHERE IS IT?!"

and then it pop up menacingly on the OTHER side of the dock second later

now the problem is this loon is directly in our swim-path back to my friend's private dock

it drifts menacingly in front of the dock for about five minutes while we contemplate the idea of being stuck in the middle of the lake forever, and then it tucks its head under its wing

the guys are like "whelp, it's go time, try not to die!" and jump off the other end of the dock for their (shorter) swim back to their dock

and in doing so THEY WAKE UP THE AGGRESSIVE LOON

they yell a half-hearted "sorry!" in our direction as they book it to safety, and here we are, still trapped on this goddamn dock

finally the paddle-boarder looks like he's heading in our direction, with his little daughter on the front