Loch (The Zone Unkown)

by Paul Zindel

  “Nothing was important,” Zaidee said, pouring herself a glass of milk and sitting as far away from her father as possible.

  “It had to be something,” Dr. Sam pursued. “I’m sorry I was so short, but I was under a lot of pressure from Cavenger.” He knew he wasn’t as good a parent as his wife had been. Their mother had had endless patience and the ability to drop everything she was doing and listen to their small problems.

  “Do you always have to do everything Cavenger says?” Loch asked, sliding into the seat across from his father.

  “Son, we’ve been over this before.” Dr. Sam sighed, sprinkling cheese on the spaghetti. “I know you don’t like Cavenger. I don’t really like him much myself. He’s got his own reasons why he didn’t turn out to be a very nice human being, but he pays our bills.”

  “We saw the guns and harpoons,” Zaidee said, wiping a mustache of milk from her upper lip. “He doesn’t care if he kills the creatures, does he?”

  “Probably not,” Dr. Sam said. “He’s got a whole lot of money and ego tied up in this …”

  “Dad, do you think it’s your job to help him do whatever he wants with the plesiosaurs?” Loch asked.

  Dr. Sam got up and grabbed a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator. “Loch, one of those creatures killed somebody.”

  “But you don’t know why,” Loch said. “They’ve kept out of everybody’s way for centuries, until Cavenger barged in here with his fleet of boats and nets to corner them. In a situation like that, any animal would turn and attack.”

  “Son, these are not any animal.”

  “You’re right.” Zaidee spoke up, moving to sit next to her brother. “These are totally incredible living things that haven’t been seen for millions of years.”

  “The one that attacked was defending itself,” Loch said. “Dad, these creatures might be a lot smarter than you think. They could have thoughts and feelings—”

  “You don’t know that,” Dr. Sam said.

  “What I do know is that they’re something rare and mind-boggling. That used to be enough for you, before you went to work for Cavenger,” Loch said.

  “Yes!” Zaidee agreed.

  Dr. Sam slid back into his seat, silently eating his spaghetti. “Dad,” Loch went on, “when you were in research and went down in diving bells, you’d come home and sit around the table with Mom and us, and you’d tell us about everything you’d seen. You loved your work. You’d do a thirty-five-hundred-foot dive in a bell and see all kinds of things. You’d be jumping out of your skin with excitement for days. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” Zaidee remembered how happy they all had been as a family.

  “You saw underwater volcanos and towers of black coral,” Loch reminded Dr. Sam. “And once you saw a rare octopus that slid out of its cave. You said the octopus saw you, that its emotions made it change from red to blue to green. You recorded sights never seen before by anyone, and you stayed up all night to write about them. You saw a fish in the Mariana Trench with lights on its tail. You didn’t call it a monstrosity—you said it was like a forbidden glimpse into the secret workroom of God, like it was proof that God wasn’t clumsy or had lapses of skill, that everything alive no matter how freaky and frightening had some kind of purpose. Dad, don’t you remember all that?”

  Dr. Sam did remember.

  “You used to laugh a lot,” Zaidee said.

  “Right,” Loch agreed. “All of life was like a big adventure. You weren’t afraid of Cavenger or keeping a job or anything.”

  Zaidee agreed. “And you were a lot more fun.”

  Dr. Sam pushed his plate away from him. “There’s one thing you both have to understand. I’m very grateful I’ve got my job. I never told you, but the medical insurance didn’t cover all the hospital expenses when your mother got sick. I didn’t want you to worry, but there were funeral expenses, too. I was really strapped. I’m just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Loch said.

  Zaidee took her father’s hand. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “But Daddy, we’ve got to know your answer to our question.”

  “Yes,” Loch agreed. “I mean, suppose one of the creatures just happened to be swimming by The Revelation, and Cavenger ordered you to go to the harpoon gun and shoot the thing. Would you?”

  Dr. Sam got up, threw the rest of his dinner in the garbage. He had never lied to his kids before, and he wasn’t about to start now. “I’m paid to follow orders,” he said. “End of discussion. Now, what was it you guys had to tell me today on the yacht?”

  Zaidee and Loch looked at each other.

  “Nothing,” Zaidee said.

  “Right,” Loch agreed. “Nothing.”

  Zaidee was asleep by the time Dr. Sam went in to say good night to his son. Loch was sitting up in his bed, surrounded by his drawings of the Waheela, Tazelwurm, and the other cryptids. He was putting the finishing touches on a drawing of the Rogue.

  “That’s a good sketch,” Dr. Sam said.

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s got a lot of detail. I didn’t notice the crustacean jaw formation, or the cavities on its snout.”

  “I guess I had a closer look,” Loch said.

  Dr. Sam sat on the edge of his son’s bed. He saw another sketch Loch had already finished and picked it up. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing,” Loch said. He usually got around to telling his father everything he and Zaidee did, even if it was something Dr. Sam had forbidden. This time he didn’t like the feeling in his gut that he couldn’t trust his father enough to tell him about Wee Beastie and the waterfall.

  “It looks like a young plesiosaur,” Dr. Sam said, studying the drawing.

  “I figured since they’ve been around over a million years, they probably had some kids along the way.” Loch took the sketch back. “Dad, they’ve got some kind of nostrils or blowholes. That means they’re mammals, right? They’ve got to surface to breathe?”

  “They’re reptiles,” Dr. Sam said, “but they might have evolved a system to filter air out of water through an auxiliary gill system. There’s one type of South American frog can stay underwater its whole life because it’s capable of breathing through its skin.”

  The phone rang, and Dr. Sam went out to the kitchen to answer it. Loch overheard his father’s brief utterings of “yes” into the phone and knew he had to be talking with Cavenger.

  “What’s up?” Loch asked, coming out to the kitchen.

  Dr. Sam opened another can of beer. “Cavenger got the keys and code for the salmon grid. Wants me to check it out in the morning, make sure some novice from State Fish and Game doesn’t suddenly feel like running a test and opening the grid. It’d give the plesiosaurs clear sailing straight back to Lake Champlain.”

  “What’s with that grid?” Loch wanted to know. “Why’d they build it in the first place?”

  “Half the salmon spawning grounds in the country have been wrecked by damming and mill operations,” Dr. Sam said, sitting back in the nook. “Now they’re having a lot of success getting salmon to swim back up rivers. The grid acts as a kind of big fish ladder and man-made spawning ground.”

  Dr. Sam got up at dawn and set out in the Volvo. Loch and Zaidee were still asleep when the phone rang at nine. Loch jumped up and grabbed it.

  “Hello?” Loch said, trapping the phone in the crook of his neck as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

  “Did I wake you?” Sarah asked.

  “I guess so,” Loch admitted.

  Zaidee staggered by, heading for the bathroom. “Oh, God, it’s her, isn’t it?” she muttered. “I’m warning you, don’t trust anybody who wears four-inch-high clogs.”

  Loch motioned his sister to zipper her mouth. “Were you able to get any wheels?” Loch asked.

  “One of the company jeeps,” Sarah said. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Bring your snorkel mask and fins.”

  “What for?”
/>   “You’ll find out,” Loch said. He hung up, grabbed a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator, and went to the open bathroom door. Zaidee was foaming at the mouth with toothpaste and glaring at him.

  “I think we’ve got to trust her,” Loch said. “We’re really going to need the jeep.”

  “If that spoiled brat does anything to hurt Wee Beastie”—Zaidee gagged, spitting her toothpaste out into the sink—“she’s one dead dork.”

  9

  PURSUIT

  Sarah drove the jeep off the main base, pulled onto the south lake road, and shoved the stick shift into high gear. She was traveling at a good clip when she spotted Loch and Zaidee walking toward her on the shoulder of the road. She waited until she was close, then braked the jeep hard, screeching it to a stop next to them.

  “What’s up?” Sarah asked, peering over the top of her favorite sunglasses.

  “First stop is North Alburg,” Loch said, grabbing the roll bar and swinging himself onto the seat next to her. “The Grand Union.”

  Zaidee spotted the double Gs on the thick silver rims of Sarah’s glasses. “Nice shades,” Zaidee remarked, as she got into the back.

  “Thanks.” Sarah threw the jeep back into gear and picked up speed along the south road until the fork to North Alburg. There she turned left and headed straight over Snake Mountain.

  “Can I drive?” Zaidee asked, the fringe of her bob rippling in the breeze.

  Sarah rolled her eyes at Loch. “Is she kidding?”

  “I know how to drive,” Zaidee said, insulted. “My dad lets me drive the Volvo all the time.”

  “In circles around the trailer,” Loch kidded.

  “It’s still driving,” Zaidee said. She spotted a canvas pocket behind the front seat and lifted its flap. “Hey, you’ve got a CB radio.”

  “All the company jeeps have them,” Sarah said.

  “Great.” Zaidee perked up. “I could use a little entertainment.” She took the CB out, pulled up its telescopic antenna, and flipped the power switch. There was a lot of static as she turned the tuner knob. Finally, the voices of a couple of truckers came in loud and clear. “Hello,” Zaidee said into the mike, pressing the broadcast button. “Hello. This is The Big Z, The Big Z … ”

  Nobody answered.

  In twenty minutes they were over the mountain and in the small town of North Alburg. Sarah slowed the jeep as they traveled down the main street past a black-and-white-shuttered church with a high steeple, a post office that doubled as a newsstand, and a Mobil gas station. At the very end of the street were the huge glass windows of the Grand Union supermarket. Sarah turned the jeep left into the front lot and parked.

  “What are you getting?” Sarah asked.

  “You’ll see,” Loch said, getting out.

  “You’re both acting very strange, is all I can say,” Sarah told Loch. “Very strange.”

  Sarah followed Loch and Zaidee inside. Loch grabbed an empty grocery cart and pushed it toward the back of the store. He stopped at the fish department. A man in a white smock was busy stocking an iced counter.

  “You’re the manager?” Loch asked.

  “That’s me.” The man smiled.

  “I called this morning from Lake Alban, about buying fish,” Loch said. “Remember?”

  Sarah thought she was hearing things. “You’re getting fish?”

  “Yes, fish.” Zaidee emphasized “fish.”

  “Like I told you,” the manager said to Loch, “our new delivery comes in tonight, so you can have a good break on what’s left.”

  If there was one thing Loch knew, it was all the different kinds of freshwater and saltwater fish. “Give me three of the sea bass,” he told the manager as he moved along the counter with its neat display of fish laid out on the ice bed. The manager tore off a big piece of waxed paper, laid it on the scale, and started piling the fish on it.

  “I guess we can use a half dozen fluke and mackerel, right?” Loch asked Zaidee.

  “Sure,” Zaidee agreed.

  “What do you want so much fish for?” Sarah asked, looking really confused.

  “Didn’t you ever wake up in the morning and get a yen for something?” Zaidee asked, savoring the grimace on Sarah’s face.

  “Give us a couple of bluefish and a half dozen salmon,” Loch told the manager. “And you might as well throw in a few squid.”

  Zaidee spotted a monkfish at the end of the counter. “We definitely need this!” she said, picking up the fish and rushing it to the scale.

  “That is so ugly,” Sarah said.

  Zaidee relished the expression on Sarah’s face. “Oh, and we need that big one,” Zaidee cried, seeing a really large striped bass. She whisked it up with her two hands and sailed it right by Sarah’s face.

  “Nasty!” Sarah yelled. “Get it away!”

  Zaidee placed the fish on the scale as Loch thrust his hand into his pocket to check exactly how much money they’d been able to scrape together from their allowances. “How much so far?” Loch asked the manager.

  “What do you say to forty bucks for everything?” the manager asked.

  “Great,” Loch agreed.

  “I don’t want those disgusting things stinking up the jeep,” Sarah complained.

  “No problem,” the manager told her. He double-wrapped the fish, stuck them in a large black plastic bag with a scoop of ice, and stapled a price ticket to the top of the bag.

  “Thanks,” Loch said, as he lifted it into the shopping cart and started up the aisle to the checkout counter. Zaidee spotted a box of Fruity Pebbles and added it to the cart.

  Sarah waited until they were outside in the parking lot before she let it all out. “What’s with the fish?”

  “We need to show you,” Loch said, swinging the bag into the back of the jeep. “Let me drive, okay?”

  Sarah tossed him the keys.

  “I can handle a stick shift.” Zaidee spoke up.

  “Forget it,” Sarah said.

  Zaidee climbed in next to the fish. She sulked, then opened the box of Fruity Pebbles as they pulled out of the lot and headed out of town. On the way back over Snake Mountain, Zaidee wanted to go on record. “My brother needs to show you something,” she clarified for Sarah. “I don’t.”

  “Show me what?” Sarah pressed.

  “We found something we don’t want your father to know about,” Loch said. “You’ve got to promise not to tell him. Not for a while anyway.”

  “Just tell me,” Sarah demanded. “I can’t listen this slowly!”

  “Promise you won’t tell your father!” Zaidee insisted.

  “I promise. What is it?”

  “You’ll see,” Loch said.

  “Eeeeeeh!” Sarah screamed. “You’re both driving me nuts.”

  When they reached the Lake Alban fork, Loch turned right on the south road. A few miles up, Zaidee spotted the sign they were looking for: FISH CONSERVATION PROJECT. The tires spun up a cloud of dust as Loch turned the jeep hard onto the dirt road and began the steep climb to the top.

  “The grid’s up here,” he said.

  “The shocks on this thing aren’t great, you know,” Sarah warned, holding on to her sunglasses as the jeep hit bump after bump. “What’s with this grid, anyway?”

  “My dad says it acts like a dam, but it’s not,” Loch explained, as the road snaked by the main stream, which flowed down from the lake. “It’s like a long series of steps, which lets the water run down them. It kills the logging operations, but lets the salmon come up from Champlain.”

  They drove around a final curve and saw the control bunker at the very top of the ridge. There was no sign of the Volvo. Loch had counted on his father having finished his early-morning inspection of the controls.

  “This is awesome,” Sarah said as Loch pulled the jeep in close to the hillside and stopped beside the waterfall. He turned off the engine, got out, and lugged the bag of fish to the edge of the pool.

  “Get your fins on,” Loch told Sa
rah.

  “Me too,” Zaidee said, grabbing her snorkling equipment.

  “No, Zaidee,” Loch said. “It’ll be better if it’s just Sarah and me down there for a while. Then it’ll be your turn.”

  Zaidee’s eyes opened wide. “That’s discrimination.”

  “Trust me,” Loch said. He didn’t want to take the chance of confusing the creature by having too many of them in the water at the same time.

  Zaidee kicked the back of the front seat of the jeep and stuffed another handful of Fruity Pebbles in her mouth. “Five minutes,” she said. “That’s all I’m waiting.”

  Sarah took her sunglasses off and stuck them in the glove compartment. Zaidee grunted and tried the CB again. She flipped through the frequencies as Loch and Sarah stripped to their bathing suits.

  Loch reached into the bag of fish and started to lift out one of the big fish.

  “Better take a little one first,” Zaidee suggested. “Like an appetizer.”

  “You’re right,” Loch said, exchanging the big bass for a mackerel. He held the mackerel by the tail, lay down on the slab of granite at the edge of the pool, and dangled the fish below the surface of the water.

  “Feeding otters, is that what this is all about?” Sarah asked, struggling to get her fins on. “You found a family of otters, right?”

  Loch didn’t answer. He let go of the fish and let it drift down toward the deep, clear bottom of the pool.

  “Follow me,” Loch said. He slid into the water, put his mask on, and dove for the bottom. Sarah put her mask on and went after him.

  Zaidee immediately took Sarah’s sunglasses out of the glove compartment and tried them on. She checked herself in the rearview mirror.

  Not bad, she had to admit.

  Zaidee got out of the jeep and lifted the huge striped bass out of the fish bag. She struggled to hold it as she walked around the edge of the pool. “Wee Beastie,” she called. “Look what Zaidee’s got for you.”

  It was in the deep end of the pool that Loch first heard the anguished cries. Today among the rocks and clusters of water plants there was no haunting, unearthly music. The sounds now were frantic, stabbing. Sarah pointed to her ears, signaling that she, too, could hear them. Loch swam deeper toward the shadowy forest of water plants, but the sounds seemed to be coming from his right. He and Sarah turned and saw Wee Beastie in the turmoil where the waterfall plunged into the pool. The creature was shrieking, oblivious of them, thrusting itself upward over and over again into the onslaught of falling water.