The Lady in The Lake

A ghost story that's great for telling while you're camping next to a pond or lake.

About fifty years ago there was a young woman who lived near a lake all alone in a forest.  She liked to go canoeing when she had time, and on one such trip the wind caused the water to push the boat over and the woman got tangled in the weeds.
As she lost precious air and time, a little girl seemed to come from somewhere beneath the woman.  The girl had big, shining black eyes and skin as pale as moonlight. The girl tapped the woman lightly on the forehead and vanished
The woman was now facing face up, she could see the beautiful azure sky above, and let out a small sigh with the last of her breath.  The last thing she saw while she was alive was her air bubbles causing ripples to go across the surface of the water, and seemingly the sky.  She believed she was going to Heaven.
The Woman woke up underneath the water.  She didn’t need to breathe anymore.  She was able to free herself from the weeds, and she swam towards the shore.  As she stepped out, the woman glanced at her reflection and thought she saw the little girl.  She looked closer, and found that those cold eyes and ashen skin were her own.  The woman had become a water nymph.
After her death, the woman became angry and vengeful.  The Lady In The Lake, they called her.  She would reach up from time to time and drown unsuspecting campers out all alone.  The Lady loved to see the frightened faces when they saw her look in through tent windows late at night.  She fed on their fear, taking delight in every scream, ecstasy in every fearful whimper.
Then one day, forty years after her death, the most handsome man she had ever seen camped all alone by The Lady’s lake.  He slept that night without a tent in a sleeping bag by a fire.  She walked ashore and watched him sleep for awhile. He looked so peaceful; she wondered what he was dreaming of.  When she died The Lady had lost the ability to sleep.
The man awoke, and jumped at the sight of her.  “Wh-who are you?” He managed to whisper.
The Lady In The Lake chuckled, then said in a voice as soft and beautiful as a flower petal, “You know me as The Lady In The Lake.”
The man’s eyes widened.  “Y-you mean you really are her?  The one who drowns people?”
“The one and the same.”
“Then I have a request for you.”  The man’s eyes went somber.  “I would like you to kill me.”
The Lady In The Lake was shocked.  She was about to say no, when a small voice inside her head told her that if she were to kill him, he would be with her forever.  “Yes.”
She took his hand and led him to the water.  She swam with him to the middle of the lake, and there she drowned him.  She waited hours for him to wake up as she had when she’d been drowned, but he never did.  The man died and left her all alone just as everybody else had.  She became even angrier than before.
To this day, no one has ever lived to see The Lady In The Lake up close and live to tell the tale.  She is said to drown whoever is stupid enough to go out alone to the lake.  Every once in awhile you can see her crying on a rock jutting out of the middle of the lake;  she cries for passage to Heaven, and for all her victims who never stayed.