by Hunter Shea
I must be right, because I can even hear Rob wailing, “No, no, no, no!”
It crashes through the branches of a tree and lands with a wet thud, out of sight but definitely not out of mind. It also demolishes a video camera and tripod.
Austin fires a few rounds into the water, even though we can’t see anything. “I guess that’s their way of sending the food back to the chef.”
“How the fuck did it do that?”
I never counted on the Nessies rejecting the bait. Ignoring it, maybe. But never this.
“Another one just disappeared,” Henrik calmly calls out. We turn around again. One, now two more buoys are dragged under. Austin and I fire away, hoping one of them is close enough to the surface to catch some lead.
We stop when we realize we’re just wasting ammo.
“Guess they liked those,” I say.
Me and my big mouth.
A carcass flies out from the depths, this time taking a lazy arc to our left and splattering back into the loch. We’re so busy watching it, we’re not prepared for the next one that clips one of Vindicta’s pontoons as it makes its improbable journey to the gray skies. The boast tips backward and we both fall hard.
I’m up on my feet first. “Crap, they’re using them as weapons against us.”
Austin grabs one of the depth charges and activates it. “We’ll see how they like this.”
“Austin, no!”
He’s too fast and I’m too late. The depth charge hits the water and immediately starts sinking.
All I can think of is, what if they toss that back, too?
“I know what you’re worrying about and you don’t need to.”
Twin power at work.
“And why is that?”
The explosion rocks the boat, a great plume of big white bubbles coming up for air.
Austin grins. “Short fuse.”
“Get ready,” Henrik says.
Waiting for a body to float up feels like forever. It never comes.
And no more buoys are disappearing, either.
“Crap, we scared them off.”
Austin waves his rifle back and forth over the water, ready to let fly. “I think it’ll take more than that.”
Henrik disagrees. “If they use any type of natural sonar for their navigation, the depth charge will have set them off in any direction. They may not even know where they’re going, except away from here.”
Rob is standing at the shore with his hands cupped around his mouth. I can barely hear him. Why doesn’t he just use his cell phone? We’re being shocked dumb by these creatures.
Henrik pulls around us to get closer. “It was a depth charge!” he has to shout back at Rob.
I don’t need to see his face to know there’s a mask of befuddlement. I mean, how many people can get their hands on depth charges?
Taking a quick peek over the side of Vindicta, I see a fresh dent in one of the pontoons, a la the dangerous trajectory of the meat rocket. I’ll have to write the manufacturer and thank them for making them so sturdy. I’m sure something like this was never anticipated in their stress tests.
“Well, this sucks. And I know someone had to hear that thing go off.” I’m very worried that our mission has ended before it even began. And all Rob has to show for his efforts are flying cows. It could go viral on YouTube, but I’m pretty damn sure that’s not what he had in mind when he joined our merry hunting party.
But there is still the dead body atop the fisherman, if one of its brethren hasn’t come up and taken it away. At this point, I’ll believe just about anything.
“I’m sorry, Nat. I just thought since they were so close, I could take a few of them out with one shot.”
I pat Austin’s chest. It feels like slapping the side of a building. “Hey, that’s why we have them. I was hoping that would work, too. So long as they didn’t regurgitate it back at us. That’s a partial win.”
“Uh, McQueens.”
Henrik is staring with wide eyes at the loch.
I’m instantly elated and terrified.
All of the buoys are gone.
The monsters didn’t leave.
They were just reloading.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I hate it when I’m right.
The remaining bait spew from beneath the loch simultaneously – over half a dozen deadly projectiles shot straight into the air.
And what goes up must come down.
Henrik guns the cigarette boat and is able to tear ass out of the splatter zone in seconds. Austin helplessly watches them rise, crest, and start to fall.
“Get us the hell out of here, Nat!”
I dare to look up. A pontoon boat is not a cigarette boat. What it lacks in speed it makes up for in stability. Stability we don’t need so much at the moment. We won’t make it out of the radius of falling bait in time. I give it all I’ve got anyway.
I hear the first one splash into the water to my right.
Don’t think about it. Just keep going.
Then Austin says the one thing I did not want to hear.
“Incoming!”
He tackles me from behind, tearing my hands from the wheel, his big body covering me as I’m pinned to the floor.
The bait hits Vindicta so hard and loud, I’m sure she’s broken in two. It’s like a fat kid who plops onto one end of a seesaw. Austin and I are catapulted off the deck. I flail my legs and arms to no avail. I see my boat below me. It looks like it’s speeding in the opposite direction, but it’s Austin and me who are moving away.
His weight is lifted off me. I can’t see where he is. I can only hope when I hit the water, I don’t land on top of him. My Bullpup rifle is at my back. If I crash into him rifle first, it may kill him, or at least knock him our cold, which will then cause him to drown.
Funny, and a bit encouraging, that as my own life is flashing before my eyes, I’m only worried about Austin. That should count for something when I approach that big bouncer in the sky, St. Peter. Right?
My body makes a half turn and all I see is the water rushing up to greet me. I hit it with the mother of all belly flops. The water has the consistency of concrete. I lose my breath, and quite possibly my lungs, as I sink like a stone.
It’s so dark under the water I can’t see. Or am I dead already? Shouldn’t there be a light?
My diaphragm starts hitching and my body is craving to draw a breath.
Now I’m panicking and only thinking about myself.
The pain is so extreme, it would be easy to let it overwhelm me, take me under, so to speak. If I’m lucky, I’ll drown in my sleep.
Something nudges my leg.
The water is so cold.
Kick your legs, dummy! Paddle your arms! Got to get some air!
Despite the burning in my entire torso, I fight, my hands cupping the water, pulling myself to where I hope the surface is. I’m so disoriented and it’s so incredibly dingy down here, I could be swimming deeper, signing my own death warrant.
My legs thrash about.
What just touched my foot?
Why the hell am I even down here?
Shut up. Need…air!
Something feels heavy at my back. I freak. I know it’s holding me back.
Oh God, it hurts. I’m going to inhale. Can’t stop my body from doing what comes naturally. I know if I do, I’m as good as dead, but my lungs won’t listen to reason.
Kick and paddle. Kick and paddle.
It’s too far. I’ve taken a wrong turn. I’ll never make it.
And then it happens. My face breaches the surface the second I can no longer fight my instincts. I gulp the air greedily, each inhalation bringing pleasure with equal measures of pain.
A wave washes over me, filling my mouth with water. I rise again, sputtering, choking.
Fighting the chop, I keep my head above water long enough to regain my wits.
“Give me your hand.”
Someone’s talking to me but I can’t see them.
Where’s Austin?
“Natalie. Turn around. Natalie!”
I make a quick turn, see Henrik stretched over the bow of the cigarette boat, his hand reaching out for me. I lunge for it and he grabs my wrist hard.
“Now your other hand.”
I flail and miss. My arms are so numb. Trying to get them to do my bidding is like herding cats.
“Where’s…my brother?”
“Safe on board. Now, try again.”
I flop my arm forward and Henrik catches it. He starts to pull and I’m halfway out of the water. Jesus, he’s strong for such a skinny guy.
I can see Austin. He’s lying on the deck, unconscious.
Please don’t let him be dead.
“Almost there.”
I want to cry with relief. Each breath is a gift. Henrik will take care of me.
I’m hammered from behind. My spine feels like someone took a baseball bat to it. My body goes slack. I know I’m just dead weight.
“No!” Henrik shouts.
My wet wrists slip free from his iron grip. I fall back into the water. Now I hurt in the front and back.
Those monsters aren’t about to let me go. They’ve got me right where they want me, on their home turf. We’ve got their number on land, but we’re no match for them in the loch. I feel so foolish for thinking I could be their executioner.
The Bullpup rifle!
That’s what was at my back before. Fully underwater, I reach for the rifle, slinging it over my shoulder.
I can’t see a damn thing. But I can pull a trigger.
One…two…three…four…five shots zip through the water. I hear a low, throaty cry. It reverberates through my battered chest, a pulsing weight on my ears.
I hope it hurts like a mother.
Need air.
I head for the surface. Henrik grabs me by the back of my waterproof suit. The rifle is still under the water. I keep pulling the trigger until I’m up and onto the boat.
Henrik lays me next to Austin, though I can sit up.
“Is he…?”
“He’s alive.”
He grabs the grenade launcher and lets one fly. The water mushrooms. I can hear one of those things screech.
“Our original estimates may have been a bit conservative,” Henrik says, eyes on the water.
“Huh?” Everything is a bit fuzzy at the moment.
“About the number of creatures that could survive here.”
I pull myself up. Every cell in my body hurts.
Looking around us, I wish I stayed down.
We were wrong.
Oh, so very wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The fucking things are everywhere. They’re in the water. They’re on the shore. One of them is lying on its side by the boat. It looks dead. I pray it’s dead.
“We underestimated them,” Henrik says, letting another grenade fly toward a hump undulating atop the water about forty yards away. It makes a direct hit, shredding the creature’s back like pork at a southern barbecue. Its head rears to the surface, obsidian eyes directing all of its hate and pain at us.
I fire at it with the underwater rifle.
Henrik hands me an assault rifle instead. “You’ll need this.”
There must be twenty of the monsters. It’s hard to tell with them in constant motion. Some are on the bank, gobbling the sides of beef they ejected.
“Where’s Rob?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
I fire at anything that moves, hoping Rob is laying low and doesn’t wander across my sights.
So much for stealth. Even over the storm, a deaf person could hear the racket we’re making.
Henrik says, “I’d kill for a depth charge right about now.”
I scan the water for Vindicta. She’s floated away from the fray. At least she’s still on this side of the water.
All of the depth charges are on Vindicta.
I say, “The genie wants to know if you have another wish.”
A hand on my shoulder startles me and my shot goes wild.
“I take a little nap and this is what happens?”
I’m beyond relieved to see Austin awake and on his feet, but I wonder how long it will be before those things overturn the cigarette boat and finish us off like circus peanuts.
“Grab a gun, muscle man.”
Henrik covers our back while Austin and I do what we can. The water is rippled with mini explosions. It’s hard to tell if we hit them or not. The one Henrik nailed with the grenade floats to the top, a spreading pool of blood coloring the loch.
“Is Rob okay?” Austin asks between shots.
“I don’t know. You take the water, I’ll concentrate on the shore.”
I find a smaller one munching on the bait. I pull the trigger. The shot goes wide, shattering the trunk of a tree. It stops, head turning right to me.
It starts to slink into the water, mouth open wide, emitting a sound that’s a cross between a sea lion and a tiger. Must be its war cry.
Taking a deep breath, I let it out and squeeze the trigger again. In the AR-15’s sights, I see the bullet carve right into its throat. Its long neck flops back violently. The body is still moving, but now the head is hanging at an unsightly angle, bobbing against its mottled neck.
Dead but forgot to fall.
It slides easily into the water and disappears. I can only hope the wound is fatal.
“Nice shooting.”
The water quakes as Henrik sets another grenade loose.
I hear the pop, pop, pop of another gun.
Austin points to the shore. “Look!”
Rob is alive.
But he’s not well. He’s bleeding from his head. He’s covered in so much sanguine gore, he looks like the devil himself.
Rob approaches a feeding creature with unsteady steps, the stumbling gait of a sleepwalker. He doesn’t see the one creeping up behind him. Before we can shout a warning, it flicks its tail and sweeps him off his feet. When he hits the ground, the gun goes off, firing impotently into the gray sky.
Henrik takes the rifle from my hands, lifts it to his shoulders, and fires. The creature bellows, twitching away from Rob.
Now the one Rob was intending to shoot sees a fresh meal, not day-old beef. My friend and Nessie hunter is barely moving. He’s either out or too dazed to know he’s about to die.
Henrik is a good shot, but even he must know it’s too risky to take. The creature lowers its head and sniffs at Rob.
“Get us to Vindicta,” Henrik says.
I stumble to take control of the cigarette boat, my eyes unable to leave poor Rob.
“Do something.”
I realize that even if he accidentally shoots Rob, it would be a mercy. Better that than being eaten alive. I know. I’ve seen and heard it. It’ll probably be the last thing I remember right before I die.
Which could be any minute now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As I swing the cigarette boat around, I see something that even on a day like today shocks me.
Rob must have been playing dead…or dazed. The moment the creature straddles him, opening its mouth to take a chunk of the Loch Ness Monster hunter, Rob shoves a tripod down its gaping maw, rising up and driving it as deep as possible.
The beast flies backward, flailing about, unable to dislodge the tripod. We can hear it’s choking gasps.
Now free, Rob turns to us, gives us a sharp salute, and runs into the deep foliage and out of sight.
Austin whistles in admiration. “Didn’t see that coming. Rob Rayman, monster slayer.”
Able to breathe again, I hurry to my beloved and embattled pontoon boat. “So much for being a pacifist.”
It seems that both man and beast had taken a pause to watch what would happen on the shore. Now that the monster is in its death throes and the puny human beat feet, the Loch Ness Monstrosities, as I now think of them, return their attentions to us. A massive tail breaches the water, swinging for our heads.
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“Duck!” I shout.
We all do, which is why we still have something big and round at the end of our necks.
“It didn’t do that by accident,” Henrik says. “It has to have the power of forethought and planning for a maneuver like that.”
The boat bumps the hull of Vindicta. “Yeah, yeah, these things are smarter than the average bear. Let’s see if they can figure out how to disarm the depth charges.”
I’m contemplating the apparent danger of hopping from one boat to the next, seeing the swells of creatures headed our way, when Austin leaps before he looks. Luckily, he lands on his feet, but the deck is slick with rainwater and he ends up sliding. He has to grab hold of a rail to stop from slipping overboard.
“Asshole.” All those muscles must be taking vital blood away from his brain.
“I’m fine,” he says, crawling on his hands and knees to one of the depth charges. “Tell me when they’re close.”
Henrik has an assault rifle now and is unloading it on the approaching monstrosities. I see more lifeless bodies in the water, but we have a long way to go.
I shout back, “Drop it now!”
Austin kicks the depth charge overboard. The humps that have been making headway toward us suddenly stop and change direction. I can feel and hear the explosive detonate. It’s followed by a mushroom of water.
Henrik’s rifle stops barking and falls to his side. “They knew what was coming.”
We watch them gathering fifty yards from us. The ones on land have slithered back into the loch. I’m too afraid to count how many are left. Whatever the number is, it’s too damn many.
“We’re fucked.”
Henrik leaps onto Vindicta. “Not yet. Austin, help me. Natalie, stay on the boat.”
He flips open every compartment on my pontoon boat, exposing the cache of weapons we stowed onboard. Some he hands to Austin, who grabs the edge of the cigarette boat, pulling it closer so he can dump them by my feet.
“We’re going to need these.”
Several grenades roll past me like eggs that have slipped from their cartoon. My heart stops, waiting for one of them to go off.