by David Wood
“No need to tip your driver,” Joaquin said. “He’s on staff and Mister Holloway takes very good care of those in his employ.” The big man locked eyes with Aston just long enough to imply, ‘And he’ll take good care of you too if you play ball.’
Aston nodded dumbly. He’d had no intention of tipping and had to remind himself of the American obsession with the idea. Good to know he wouldn’t offend anyone if Holloway insisted on everyone avoiding the practice.
Joaquin smiled and nodded to the limo driver before leading the way to the elevator and up to Holloway’s suite on the eleventh floor.
“Bloody hell!” Aston said as he stepped through the door. He thought he knew what a fancy hotel room looked like, but he was wrong.
“They call it the Presidential Suite.” Joaquin closed the door behind them. “It’s far from the largest we’ve ever stayed in, but it’s respectable. Almost two thousand square feet with a dining room, home theater, butler’s pantry, and bedrooms. Not bad for a brief stay.”
“If by ‘not bad’ you mean ‘larger than any place I’ve ever lived’, then I’d say you’re right.”
Joaquin set Aston’s bag by the door. “You’ll be staying on a different floor tonight. I’ll have your things delivered after you meet Mister Holloway.”
Ellis Holloway and two others sat at a large dining room table, enjoying drinks and conversation. Aston recognized him immediately from the photos he’d seen online. The billionaire was a tall, broad-shouldered man with receding brown hair and a neatly-trimmed beard and mustache. Unlike his assistant, he wore a button-down khaki shirt, brown pants, and scuffed lace-up boots. Aston couldn’t help but wonder if a fedora and bullwhip lay somewhere nearby.
“So the shopkeeper points to this big jar on the counter filled with green liquid and what looks like giant toes,” Holloway was saying to the others. “So I say to him, ‘Not a pig’s foot, I’m looking for Bigfoot.’”
The slender, dark-haired woman seated next to Holloway laughed heartily and laid a hand on the billionaire’s arm. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I heard you, Mister, but this is a store and information ain’t free. Now, are you gonna buy a pig’s foot or am I going to have ask you nicely to leave?’”
Everyone laughed, including Aston and Joaquin. It was then that Holloway noticed them, and he sprang to his feet and hurried over.
“Sam Aston. I’m so glad you’re here. Your reputation precedes you.” He sealed the greeting with a firm handshake. His callused hand and strong grip said he was more than a soft corporate type. “Have a seat,” Holloway urged. “Can we get you anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
The table seated eight, and Aston took the chair farthest from the others.
“Let me introduce you to the team. You’ve met Joaquin. He’s my right-hand man and he’ll be joining us. This,” he pointed to the woman on his left, “is Joanne Slater.”
Slater smiled. “My parents call me Jo, but everyone else sticks with Slater. Dealer’s choice.”
“Works for me.” Aston knew the woman by reputation. She hosted a television program on one of the high-number cable channels. He’d caught some episodes online in the past. Each week, they went off in search of some myth or legend. Not surprisingly, they never found anything, though every so-called ‘clue’ they uncovered was treated like the Holy Grail. Aston figured the only things keeping the show on the air were Slater’s curves, which the producers placed on full display as often as possible. “Is your show covering the expedition?”
“Not exactly. I’ve assembled my own crew and we’ll be filming everything. Depending on how much material we gather, it’ll either be a television special or a full series. We’ll see.”
Aston didn’t bother to hide his scowl. He had no desire to be on television, especially not with this vapid woman. Nor did he care to be associated with her so-called investigations.
“And this is Alvar Laine.” Holloway nodded at the man on his right. “He’s a cryptozoologist and a native of the area in which we’ll be working. He knows more about the background of this project than anyone.”
A brief smile creased Laine’s weathered face. He looked to be in his forties, dressed in jeans, a turtleneck, and a battered army jacket. “Don’t worry. You’re the lead scientist on the expedition,” he said to Aston. He smiled and dragged a hand back over thinning blond hair. He must have seen something in Aston’s eyes because he hurried on. “The only scientist, in fact, but I assure you I take what I do seriously and my work is grounded in a firm sense of skepticism.”
Holloway nodded and rubbed his hands together.
“Well, now that we’ve all gotten to know each other, let’s begin.”
Chapter 5
Holloway led the team into the home theater, a room in itself bigger than Aston’s current apartment. They sat in the front row and were still ten feet from the screen. Aston sighed. A cryptozoologist, a crazy cable TV host, Holloway himself, and legends of a prehistoric lake monster according to the original letter. What a farce. He felt like the dog at a cat orgy. He was a scientist, not a nutcase, and wondered how quickly he could fulfill his role and take his money and run. Hopefully he could do it with whatever professional reputation he held onto still intact.
Holloway produced a remote control with a flourish, cleared his throat, and beamed at his assembled team. “So,” he said, clearly enjoying his audience. “Prepare yourselves to be amazed. Drum roll please?” He grinned, but it faded when the others showed no overt signs of sharing in his enthusiasm. His smile crept back a little as he said, “Skeptical? Just wait and you’ll see.”
Joaquin opened the door behind them, light flooding in from the suite. “You ordered room service, boss?”
“Sure did. Bring it in.”
A low rattle rose behind them as a hotel employee wheeled in a heavily-laden trolley. How much food did the man think they were going to eat? Holloway instructed the woman to leave it and gestured to his party. “Help yourselves, please.”
Aston glanced over the mixed fruit platter, fresh prawns, bread rolls, variety of desserts, and shook his head. “I’m all right, thanks.” He didn’t trust his stomach yet.
Slater took a piece of watermelon and nibbled at it. She had nice lips and a delicate way about her that made her one of those women who could lend a touch of sensuality to the simple act of consuming food. Aston looked away, not wanting to get caught staring. She was a fellow passenger in this clown car, and surely Holloway wouldn’t have hired her if she didn’t have something of value to offer. He returned his attention to their new boss and waited.
“Please, everyone, don’t be shy. Help yourselves.” Holloway smiled weakly, a little disappointed, it seemed, that people weren’t more impressed with his generosity. Aston was glad the others in the room weren’t buying into the billionaire’s ostentatious displays any more than he was. “Okay then,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to whet your appetite with my tantalizing presentation. Let’s begin.”
He clicked the remote and a bird’s eye image of a huge, dark lake appeared on the giant screen. “This is Lake Kaarme, in central eastern Finland,” he said proudly, as if it were his own property. Maybe it was, for all Aston knew. Holloway clicked again and the image began to move, clearly shot from a light plane or helicopter passing low over the water. It was a vast expanse, edged all around with thick pine trees, and dotted here and there with tiny islands, equally forested. The shore cut back and forth, making wide beaches and narrow coves. Rolling hills and shallow valleys surrounded the lake on all sides, and stretched away for as far as the camera’s eye could see.
“It’s gorgeous,” Slater breathed. “I wouldn’t mind taking a little vacation there once the job is done.”
Aston had to agree. It was an impressive sight, and far bigger than any other lake he’d seen. “It’s massive, almost an in
land sea.”
Holloway nodded emphatically. “And very deep in places. It could be home to anything!”
Aston resisted the urge to snort in derision. “We’ll have to see about that.” He doubted the place was home to more than mud and fish.
Holloway turned to the Finnish cryptozoologist. “Mister Laine, would you be so kind as to give us an overview of the local legends while we view the presentation.”
Laine cleared his throat. “All right, I can give you a few. Understand, there’s a strong storytelling tradition in this region.” His accent was soft and pleasant to the ear. “Any place like this attracts folklore, of course, but our lake seems to get more than its fair share.
“For as long as anyone can remember, there are stories of sightings. Some huge beast, spotted in the gloom of twilight or dawn, never really seen clearly. People have gone missing regularly. Every town loses people, whether they move away and don’t tell anyone or get abducted, or hike a trail and die of exposure. There are a thousand ways and more to die, and people go inexplicably missing all the time. But our town has a higher number, per capita, of disappearances than anywhere else in Finland. It’s not really a statistic of which to be proud, of course.” He gave a nervous laugh and then went on.
“An old man once told me the story of how he’d watched a beast the size of a bus, covered in grey skin and with a mouth filled with razor fangs, burst from the lake one evening and snatch his dog right from the water’s edge as the hound was taking a drink. He said he ran away in panic and would never go near the water again. It swallowed his pet whole, the man said, and his was a big dog. He was true to his word, refused to ever go near the lake. He moved first to the far side of town and finally left altogether. And he was a local, born and raised. The kind of person you would never expect to abandon his hometown. Old school, you know?”
“Liked a drink or two, did he?” Sam asked. There were a host of natural phenomena in a place like Lake Kaarme that could fool even a sober eyewitness. Add in a few stiff drinks and you had an explanation for a great many ‘monster’ sightings.
Alvar Laine turned a hard eye on him. “Most people enjoy a drink. That doesn’t make them liars.”
Aston held up a hand in apology. “Just asking. I’m a scientist and I believe in being thorough. No offense intended. Carry on.”
“There have regularly been unexplained animal carcasses, or bits and pieces of them, found on the lake shore. More than once I’ve come across such things. Once just a single deer leg, seemingly torn off the body. Another time I found a reindeer hind quarters, the creature taken in half right in front of the pelvis. Imagine the size of a reindeer and think what might be able to create remains like that. The wound was ragged, but the bones were sheared right through.”
Aston narrowed his eyes, reluctant to suggest Laine himself might be a drunk or a liar, but that story certainly raised a number of questions difficult to answer.
“Suffice to say,” Laine went on, “that while any place like this breeds myth, ours seems to breed far more. And they all have a thread of consistency you might not expect. Many of us have seen the kind of evidence I’ve just described. I’m not some lone crazy person.” Laine caught Aston’s still skeptical frown and continued, his tone softer and his head hanging a bit. The wind was a little gone from his sails. “I can introduce you to a dozen people in town who all claim to have glimpsed the beast itself, and their accounts are strangely similar.”
“Any chance they compared notes?” Slater asked.
Laine gave his head a noncommittal side-to-side bob. “In some cases, it’s possible, but why would they? No one has anything to gain from foisting a false legend on the community. And in several instances, the person with whom I spoke swore they had never told their tale to anyone but me.”
Silence descended as they watched the footage of the flyover. Aston’s frown remained, annoyed that they really were on a giant bug hunt. Why couldn’t the billionaire have employed him for some genuinely useful scientific research?
“We are looking for a lake monster,” Holloway said. “And I’m fairly convinced we’re going to find it.”
“Why?” Aston asked. “People have been mounting expeditions searching for Nessie for decades and they’ve never succeeded. Almost certainly because there’s no such damn thing! Why is this any different?”
“Just bear with me.” Holloway clicked the remote again and scans of newspaper articles began to cycle past.
Aston couldn’t read the Finnish, but the pictures and multitude of exclamation points made it pretty obvious Holloway considered this tabloid nonsense some kind of proof. How long would the old man persist with his foolishness? Aston supposed the least he could do was play along for a little while and take some of the fool’s money.
“Aston does have a point,” Slater said, and she went up in Aston’s estimation immediately. “I mean, even if there were a monster, how would you find it? This lake looks much bigger than Loch Ness and the primary reason Nessie has never been found is because Loch Ness is such a difficult place to search. It’s large, deep, and the water is extremely murky.” And with that, just as quickly as she’d risen, she dipped in Aston’s estimation once more.
“This lake is indeed much bigger,” Holloway said. “And in a more remote area, which makes it a far better candidate than any other lake I’ve ever investigated to be home to something we would never find elsewhere in the world. There’s hilly terrain all around, and at least some caves that we know of, though we suspect there could be many more subterranean passages in the area, including some underwater channels where a beast could make its home. That won’t make the creature easy to find by any stretch, but it does increase the likelihood that something resides there undiscovered.”
“But why would this place, regardless of size, be any more likely to house a Nessie or goddamned Ogopogo than anywhere else?” Aston asked, his voice rising with his frustration. “There’s no proof. No evidence beyond the same sorts of myths and legends that surround every lake monster, everywhere else in the world.” He turned to Slater. “It’s not because Loch Ness is a big peat-filled expanse that they’ve never found Nessie. It’s because it’s just another of the bullshit stories people love to tell!”
Holloway smiled, pausing to let Aston’s words hang in the air. As Aston drew breath to protest further, the billionaire said, “In our case, we do have proof.”
“Actual proof?” Aston scoffed. “Beyond the drunken legends of the townsfolk?” He looked at Alvar Laine. “No offence.”
The Finn shrugged; chose not to reply.
“I sent a hunter to this lake last year,” Holloway said. He clicked the remote again and a mugshot of a sensible-looking fellow appeared. Aston realized that Holloway had anticipated the course this meeting would take and had constructed his slideshow to account for that. The marine biologist was annoyed he had played his role perfectly for the rich lunatic.
“The man’s name was Sweeney and, honestly, he spent weeks out there and turned up nothing of any real interest. I was about to give up and stop pouring money into the endeavor when he stopped communicating entirely.”
“What happened to him?” Slater asked.
“He died, presumably. But his body was never found. And before you protest that he simply ran away, consider this. Wherever he might have gone, he left everything behind. Camping gear, research equipment, personal effects, all still there. Since a lot of the equipment he was using belonged to me, and was labeled as such, the authorities eventually contacted me.” Holloway paused. Aston had the sense it was for effect.
“Do you think he saw something that scared him and he bugged out?” Slater asked.
Holloway shrugged. “That’s one theory. In any case, most of his research was useless, except for a digital camera, found a little way up the shore from his last camp. Here are the final photos he took.”
&nbs
p; Click.
A photograph appeared of an indentation in the earth by the lake shore.
“What is that?” Slater asked.
“It’s a wallow.” Aston leaned forward, heart racing. His skepticism had just taken a huge kick in the gut. Using the nearby trees as a source of scale, he leaned closer still. “A massive wallow. I’ve never seen one that size before.”
Holloway nodded. The grin Aston caught from the corner of his eye was infuriating, but he couldn’t take his gaze from the screen. Was it really possible? Of course, something like that was relatively easily faked, but he chose to keep that fact to himself for the moment.
Click.
Another shot of the wallow, from a different angle.
“And there is no known creature in the lake that could make that impression,” Laine added.
As Aston stared, Holloway clicked through more pictures of the wallow, the surrounding area, a section of mud and stone that showed clear evidence something huge had been dragged through it. Holloway was clearly enjoying Aston’s interest.
“And then there’s Sweeney’s final picture,” Holloway said, almost a whisper.
Click.
The shot was blurry, as if the camera, the subject, or both had been moving when the photo was snapped. But there was no mistaking what filled the screen: a huge row of razor-sharp teeth.
Chapter 6
Aston leaned against the starboard rail and watched the dark water slide past, the boat sending frothy waves out across its smooth surface. A crisp morning breeze ruffled his hair and the sun danced on that water, a striking counterpoint to his dark mood.
“Quit your moping, Sam,” he muttered. “You’re safe and you’ve got money coming in. And you’re a damn sight better off than you were a few days ago.”