Louisa still hadn’t moved her head. “We’re pretty sure it can’t count so it might think we’re all dead and move on.”
“Or it could be waiting for one of us to try to take off in a lifeboat so it could get a better shot at us. Right?”
“Again. I don’t think it’s smart enough to think about lifeboats.”
Louisa finally raised her head. “Lifeboats? We have lifeboats?”
“Of course we’ve got lifeboats.”
“What kind of lifeboats?”
“We’ve got an inflatable dinghy, a six-person runabout and the speeder.”
“Speeder? Like speed boat? Are you kidding me? Why aren’t we speeding out of here?”
“Because it’s in the bay and the door is locked. We need to open the door at the end of the boat to launch it and the controls are in the control room.”
“I wonder how much structural damage that thing did to us,” Davis wondered aloud. “We might be able to open the door from the outside with a crowbar or something.”
“But how do we know the thing wouldn’t be sitting right there waiting for us?” Jones asked.
Billikin thought. “The runabout has a sonar rig. It’s nothing like the one on the Princess but we’d be able to tell if it’s out there.”
“Again, the runabout is trapped.”
Davis started to stand up but Beau cautioned him. “Keep your head down. If that thing sees us it might come back up on the boat and we’ll go down for sure.”
“I just want to see how much damage was done to the door. If we can open it and slip into the speeder, we can get a reading before the thing sees us.”
“It might be worth a try,” Beau said.
Jones leaned forward. “I’ll go with you. You might need a lookout or something.”
The two of them crawled on their hands and knees to stay below the metal rail of the boat as they made their way aft. The boat listed to one side and her tail was much lower but she seemed stable. Billikin and Jones came to the aft rail and sat side by side.
“I’ll see if I can see the door from here,” Billikin said. “The release is at the top so if I can hit it with something, it might open.”
Jones looked to his other side and picked up an eight-foot boathook. “Try this. I’ll watch for the thing.”
“Okay. Just let me know if you see anything.”
Jones nodded and Davis stood and leaned over the rail. The frame had been compressed and the door was virtually falling open. “Good news,” he called to Jones. “It’s almost open.” He pressed the metal hook into the seam and tested the resilience. It moved. With slightly more effort he opened it enough to see inside the bay. The runabout sat in its mooring pointed right at him. The water in the bay was higher than normal but he saw no discernable damage.
Jones scanned out around them. The morning’s light had yet to come but there was an inkling of predawn illumination. He studied the waves for any anomaly, sudden move or sea monster. Only the top half of his head was above the edge of the rail and he turned back and forth. He thought to hold Billikin’s legs as Davis stood next to him leaning well over the rail.
Davis tried the latch but the rivets securing it held tighter than he’d hoped. He strained against the hardwood pole wedged in the frame but his angle was too poor to get any real leverage. He felt Jones grab his jeans for support. “Hold tight, Jonesy. I’m going to give it a good yank!” As he called out the warning, he saw the water directly below him explode. He had just enough time to realize his fate.
Jones heard his warning and pulled against the pant leg of his jeans. He expected a tug or shift but did not expect the large gush of seawater as Billikin’s leg jerked wildly. He pulled harder thinking Davis had pulled the door free, thus causing the splash, and needed reeling in. Instead, he pulled Billikin’s body backward onto the deck. It twitched and convulsed unnaturally and Jones tried not to look at where once Davis had a head. Blood gushed from the shredded neck in strong pulses.
Jones sat and stared at the body until it came still. Billikin was dead and he was now alone with the monster. He thought briefly about looking over the rail to see if it was still there but instantly realized the error in that logic. He fell to his belly and crawled marine-style, as low as he could possible get, back up to where Beau and Louisa awaited his report.
He was trembling wildly when he got to them. “It got him!” was all he could say. “It got him!”
“How? Where is he?” Beau demanded. “What happened?”
“It ate his head. Like plucking a grape from the bunch it ate his fucking head off!”
Beau recoiled at the news and instinctively pulled Louisa close to console her. She held her head to his chest for a few seconds and Jones tried to gather his wits. Then she slowly turned to him.
“Did you see the boat?”
Jones looked at her as if in shock. “What?”
“What about the runabout? Can we use it?”
“Lou,” Beau said with a note of disbelief. “The man is dead.”
“But we’re not. Jonesy. Did you see the boat or not?”
Jones could only nod at first. Then he managed to hiss his report. “He said it was there and all right. The door was broken and almost open. He was opening the door when his head got bitten off. Want to hear the rest?”
“Hey. I’m as sorry about this as anyone. But there’s no good to come of sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves.”
“She’s right,” Beau said. “He laid the groundwork and exposed the risk. All we need to do now is distract the thing long enough to get away.”
“It’s obvious that thing isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to watch this boat until it sinks.”
“Maybe not. If we sent the dinghy out.”
“Trust me,” she assured them both. “This animal hunts from below. The way it kills on the surface is by striking a fatal blow and then going down to wait for the prey to die and sink.”
“What if we don’t sink?”
“It’ll hit us again. It’s not leaving this boat. Period.”
Beau thought deeply. “Jonesy. Did you say the bay was intact?”
“Davis said there was a little more water than usual but it looked fine.”
“Would that mean the engine room is fine too?”
“I’d say no. The way the boat is listing suggests the engine room is flooded. The emergency program was initiated in time to seal the watertight doors but the bottom is surely underwater.”
“So if the emergency program was initiated, the engines were shut down. Right?”
“That would be part of it. Are you coming up with something?”
“Maybe. How long do you think those engines will run underwater?”
“Run? I don’t know. If we could turn them over, three or four minutes maybe. Not much more. They’d gulp some seawater and stall eventually.”
Louisa was getting it. “But not until the Princess built up some cruising speed. If we could get the thing following this boat even for a few minutes we might be able to get away.”
“It’s worth a shot. There’s no question that speeder can outrun the thing. All we have to do is put some distance between us and hope it stays with the ship.”
“Can we start the engines though?” Jones asked.
“The cabin is crushed but the controls are still reachable.”
Suddenly the ship was rocked from a great impact. The three survivors were thrown across the narrow bow to the other rail. Louisa landed on her hands and knees and turned to see the enormous head of the Liopleurodon rise above the rail. With a scream of terror she pointed and scrambled on all fours to get behind the crushed remains of the superstructure. Beau rolled behind her and Jones tried to follow. Just as he moved, the beast threw its vast tonnage against the side and Jones was thrown back toward it. Beau grabbed his arm and pulled with all his might. Jones was snatched from the giant’s waiting jaws just as he was within inches of being swallowed whole. The last thing he saw as
Spencer pulled him around the crushed metal enclosure was Billikin’s severed head wedged between two of the giant teeth in the lower jaw. Like a seed in need of flossing, the head stuck there so cleanly bitten that his glasses were still on his head.
They scrambled down the side of the boat, watching the other side for the next attack. But their thinking was two-dimensional and this beast had other options. From behind them the sea opened and the beast came up on their side to snap at them. Now ready and in the frame of mind needed, they all stood and sprinted away from it.
The colossal reptile hoisted its massive bulk onto the boat again but its flippers were not designed for this type of pursuit and it fell back into the sea with a thunderous splash which sent a wave rocking the floundering ship. The desperate survivors clung to the side to keep from being thrown overboard. Beau heard a low groan and knew it was not of anything natural.
“That’s the keel giving way. We’re going down this time.”
“The boat!” Louisa gasped. “Can we make it to the boat?”
“You might as well smear yourself in Hollandaise sauce and serve yourself up to that thing,” Jones said.
Louisa looked at him with a mixture of surprise and disdain. “You’re starting to sound like Billikin. Quit it.”
The Princess was hit again from underneath. It seemed as if the giant had sensed her failing structure and hit her at her weakest point—it was surely bringing her down. From its vantage point at striking distance below, it readied for another blow; the aluminum hull would take few more. It curled its flattened tail for the next lunge and started to move. Suddenly it heard a sound it had never heard before, loud and threatening and definitely a Plesiosaur. It was being attacked. As had been its only true defense throughout its existence, it sounded to escape.
The sound came closer. Beau couldn’t hear it but he could see why they weren’t yet attacked. “Look!”
Following his point, they saw Esperanza racing toward them. Still well away, the sound she transmitted was loud enough to give the lio a scare at least long enough to get the survivors off the crippled ship. Louisa looked out.
“It’s John! He came! We’re going to make it!”
Kyle piloted Esperanza full throttle as John and Frank watched the giant’s reaction to the call Aisling had selected. She told them this was a threatening call. Like a hunt or warning. It meant fight.
“I don’t like this,” Mac said as he watched the giant’s descent in to the sea.
“Why not?” Frank asked. “It worked. The thing is gone.”
“It’s not used to running from a Plesiosaur. It’s like running from a pizza. We startled it but I’m thinking it’ll be back.”
John pondered the merit of Mac’s worry. “You’ve got a point. So how can we keep it confused?” He looked at Aisling for the answer.
“Whatever you’re doing, you better do it fast,” Frank warned. “Here he comes!” His scope showed the giant coming back near the surface and racing toward the smaller boat.
“Murph! Hard right! Circle Spencer’s boat but don’t get any closer!” He felt Esperanza bank and go. Then he looked at Aisling. “Did you recognize all of those calls?”
The beast saw the smaller boat turn and run. It turned with it and was on a course to overtake it when it heard another call. This one was not a challenge to fight but a call to others—a gathering call. This was more dangerous than a threat as the beast had no idea if others were around. Again outwitted, it took its only defensive move and dove deep enough to escape their instruments.
The trio cheered and John hoisted Aisling in his arms. Her selection of a gathering call seemed to do the trick. John set her back down on the deck and reluctantly took his arms from around her.
“So,” she said. “I suppose it’s time to go rescue your girlfriend.”
“Oh yeah. Her,” John said. “I guess we could…”
“Hold on!” Frank shouted just before the boat was struck from below with enough force to lift her out of the water. From the deck of the Discovery Princess they watched as John’s cruiser was hit again, this time knocked to the side. The creature, more than twice the size of Esperanza, was attacking a declared foe. It was Esperanza that threw down the gauntlet. Now she was in dire straits as the giant called her bluff. The side blow literally bent her in half; like the Discovery Princess, Esperanza was rendered crippled and mute.
Then the sea went suddenly quiet.
Beau watched John’s boat anxiously, looking for some sign of life. “I wonder if they’re thinking the same about us,” he muttered.
Louisa sighed. “We’ll probably never know. But hey. Isn’t the lio distracted by Esperanza? Maybe we could…”
Beau looked around the deck frantically. “Jonesy. Find me something reflective. Like a mirror.”
Jones looked around. On the wall was a commemorative plaque riveted in place. The ten by eight inch engraving was gold-plated. Jones pulled it off the wall and handed it to Beau.
“I hope Nagle’s Morse isn’t as rusty as mine.” He took a glance at the angle of the morning sun. Holding his thumb up toward John, he used the plaque to reflect the sun’s light across his thumb and thus directly at John.
On board Esperanza, John was helping his team assess the damage. Miraculously they all seemed all right. “Does anything work?” he shouted.
“We’ve got some power. I’m just not sure where it’s going. The walls are torn apart. We could electrocute ourselves at any point here.”
“No choice,” John said. “Murph! Will the engines start? Kyle! Kyle!” There was no response from topside. He touched Aisling’s arms for confidence more than force and told her, “Wait here.” Then he ran to the ladder and climbed up. Kyle was lying beside the pilot station. The round welded bar that ran along the top of the rail had torn loose in the side impact and Kyle had been thrown against it. He hung there, alive and conscious but impaled on the jagged bar. It protruded from his chest at the bottom of his ribcage.
He looked at John in shock. “You know how they say something hurts so bad you can’t feel it? This ain’t it. Damn this hurts,” he said with a flickering smile.
John could not return the humor. “Mac! Get up here!” He came up beside him as Mac climbed up. “Don’t worry, Kyle. We’ll get you out of this. It’s not nearly as bad as it seems.”
“Sure,” Kyle said. “This is nothing. I impaled myself shaving just last week.”
Mac had almost come to terms with the extent of his friend’s injury. As he opened Kyle’s shirt to examine the trajectory of the wound, he tried to keep his tone as calm as possible. “Sure you did, Murph. Remember that time you ran yourself through with the nose hair trimmer? Wasn’t that a hoot?”
“Seriously,” Kyle asked, placing a trembling hand on his friend’s arm. “What are we looking at here?”
“Well, this thing managed to miss most of the important stuff. I’m thinking we can get you off of it. What do you say? Are you game?”
“Sounds like it’s going to hurt.”
“Oh, you might feel a sight twinge that will have you begging for the sweet relief of death. But after that it should mellow to simple agony. Ready?”
He looked at Mac and grasped his arm tightly. Mac gestured for John to get around to the other arm and they braced to lift him off the bar. The advantage was that the bar was polished and extremely smooth so they expected it to at least be tolerable. The fear was the settling of the damaged organs and the internal bleeding. The fact that no help was coming left them little choice. John squeezed and gave Mac a nod.
“Wait!” Kyle shouted. “Maybe we should just leave it. It’s not a bad look for me, really. Conversation piece and all. Let’s just…”
Aisling came up to tell them Frank had booted up the sonar station again. She was completely unprepared for the horrific sight as John and Mac lifted their friend off of the bloody impalement. Kyle screamed in agony through clenched teeth then passed out the instant the bar was clear.
“Has he got any chance at all?”
“Not a prayer, John,” Mac said. “It pierced his lung and God knows what else. I don’t know how much time he has but it’s less than it’ll take us to get to a hospital.” Mac still had a tight hold of his friend’s arm and John saw the tear forming in his eye that belied his forensic demeanor.
Aisling looked away from the gruesome and painful sight. From the bridge, she could see the Princess floundering at a distance. She saw a bright light flickering from the highest point. “John? What is that?”
John looked out and watched. He knew almost instantly what it was. “Find me a mirror. Quick!” As Aisling went down to retrieve the mirror, he watched and spoke the letters out loud. “R-A-D-I-O—O-U-T—C-A-N—Y-O-U—S-E-N-D”
Aisling came up with a piece of broken mirror from the head. “Will this work?”
“Thank you!” He grabbed the mirror and emulated Beau. “W-H-O—I-S—S-E-N-D-E-R”
From the Princess he saw “B-E-A-U—D-O—Y-O-U—H-A-V-E—S-O-N-A-R”
“Y-E-S---Y-O-U”
“N-O—W-H-E-R-E—I-S—P-L-E-S”
“D-O-N-T—K-N-O-W—L-O-O-K-I-N-G—S-T-A-N-D—B-Y”
“O-K”
“I-S—L-O-U—O-K”
Beau glanced awkwardly at Louisa as she watched. Fortunately her code skills were virtually non-existent so he wouldn’t have need of telling her that she wasn’t John’s first concern. “L-O-U—I-S—F-I-N-E” He watched the reply with great concern.
“M-A-Y—H-A-V-E—P-L-A-N---S-T-A-N-D—B-Y”
John went down into the control room with Mac and Frank. Mac had been talking to Frank during the Morse exchange and they had the rudiments of an idea.
“We need to get out of here and that thing simply isn’t going to let us if it has a choice,” Frank said. “The biggest problem is that we’re sinking so time is not on our side. Our only hope is to take the lio out so that we can use a smaller boat to leave.”
Loch Ness Page 24