by David Wood
“It’s unnecessary cruelty, you sick bastard!” Slater said. “What is wrong with you? Are you a sociopath?”
“And floating it out there for bait isn’t unnecessary cruelty?” Holloway asked.
“Yes it absolutely is!” Slater said, face twisted in astonishment. “That’s the whole point. This isn’t research any longer; it’s sadistic…” She threw up her hands, unable to say more.
“You don’t understand,” Holloway said as he brought the dinghy alongside Merenneito. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. We’re on the cusp of the greatest scientific discovery of the century. It’s ridiculous to think we should fail now because you don’t want to see an animal eaten. I’ve got news for you, if the monster didn’t eat that thing,” he pointed at the sheep for emphasis, “some local would have. That’s how the food chain works, sweetheart.”
“This is bad,” Slater said, “and you’re making it worse by the minute.”
Aston looked out at the blood-soaked bait. “Actually,” he pointed over Holloway’s shoulder, “it can’t really get any worse now, can it?” he said.
The billionaire twisted to see what Aston was indicating and spat. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Damn thing.”
The sheep had tipped sideways and lay dead in the water, its eyes rolled back to show only the whites. Holloway killed the outboard and stared at it, seemingly at a loss. Then he burst into action, clambering back onto Merenneito and hurrying out of sight.
“Boss,” Joaquin called tentatively, “do you need my help?” The dull sheen of disbelief in the man’s dark eyes said he hoped the answer was no.
Holloway didn’t reply. Aston and Slater shared a concerned look as sounds of banging and bleating rose from the SCUBA room.
“Not another one,” Aston said.
Soon enough, Holloway reappeared in the dinghy, a second sheep stumbling fearfully around, looking for an escape that didn’t exist. The small boat rocked dangerously, but Holloway seemed not to care. The sheep’s coat was soaked scarlet with blood in spots, but it was clear the billionaire had been less violent this time. The bloody patches covered only a small part of its coat, but its pain was evident along with its fear as it staggered around uncertainly.
Holloway pulled the dinghy up next to the dead sheep and that only made the panicked one on board redouble its frenzy. Holloway lifted a diver’s weight belt loaded with lead sinkers into view. He fed it through the life vest of the dead animal and cut it free to sink like a rock beneath the surface.
“That should help draw my monster in!” he said, though he didn’t seem to be addressing his words to any of the crew.
He threw the second sheep overboard and tied its leash rope to the trailing edge of the net. The animal thrashed and protested loudly. Holloway motored back, grinning broadly.
“That’s more like it!” he called up. “We’re learning more with every failed attempt, aren’t we?”
As he went out of view toward the dive platform, Aston said, “We’re certainly learning more about what a fucking lunatic you are!”
He jumped when he realized Joaquin had reappeared to stand right beside him. But the big man just laughed softly and patted Aston on the shoulder. “He’s eccentric,” Joaquin said, with a smile that said he knew full well how much of an understatement that was.
“You know the difference between eccentricity and madness?” Aston asked. When no one answered, he said, “Money. You act like him and have no money, you get locked up in a psych ward. But act like that with a bank account like he’s got and you’re merrily referred to as eccentric.”
“How do you stay with him?” Slater asked. “He must have shown these colors before.”
“He has, in some ways,” Joaquin admitted. “Though maybe never quite this… obsessed about something that wasn’t business. He’s never been this close to a discovery before, I suppose. The thing is, people don’t make the kind of money he has without being ruthless, amoral, and at least a little bit insane.”
“And that’s okay with you?” Slater said.
Joaquin shrugged. “He takes very good care of me and that lets me take care of my family in a way I wouldn’t be able to otherwise.”
“He pays you to be complicit in his lunacy,” Aston said.
“I’ve never felt that I’ve compromised my morals,” Joaquin said.
“But would you if it came down to it?” Aston demanded.
“I take each day as it comes.”
Aston grunted. “That’s not a very definitive answer.”
Joaquin shrugged again.
Further conversation was curtailed by Holloway’s return. “Now if that doesn’t bring my monster in, I have no idea what will!”
They stood in silence for a few moments. Silence except for the sheep, which dutifully cried out exactly as Holloway had hoped it would. It twisted and flexed in the water, kicked its legs in vain attempts to break free, and gave voice to its terror almost constantly.
Holloway nodded. “Yes, yes. That’s more like it! Come on, let’s all get ourselves some dinner and keep an eye on the sonar and cameras while we wait.”
Chapter 34
Aston gazed straight ahead, absently shoveling mouthfuls of chili con carne into his mouth, chewing mechanically, and washing it down with beer he hardly tasted. He wished his other senses were as dull right now. Holloway had insisted on a working dinner so they could monitor the screens in hopes the creature would make an appearance.
“I don’t know how you can eat with all that noise,” Slater said, scowling at him and pushing her untouched bowl away.
He did his best to ignore the weak, intermittent bleats from outside. “It’s nervous eating. I’m not enjoying it, if that’s any consolation.” The truth was, Joaquin’s chili was delicious. They had all sung its praises the night before. But the leftovers served up again were like ash and cardboard on his tongue.
Slater shook her head. “I can’t eat a thing. All I can think of is what Holloway might do next.”
“It’s purely biological,” Aston said. “I get weak and wobbly if I don’t eat regularly.” He forced down another mouthful, the sheep in the lake gargled as it bleated, and he dropped his fork. “But that’s me done.”
Holloway came in from out on the deck, his cheerful demeanor firmly in place. “We’ve still got live bait on the hook,” he proclaimed.
“It’s getting very weak,” Joaquin reported from the window. He was having no trouble putting away food as he watched the gloomy view, wolfing down two bowls in quick succession. “Its head keeps dipping under the water. Won’t be able to hold it up much longer, I guess.”
“And then it’ll drown. Good work, Holloway.” Slater looked at the billionaire, eyes challenging.
He shrugged. “We’ve got another one.”
Slater sighed. She looked close to tears and Aston thought again about suggesting they take a dinghy back to town and quit the whole operation. Surely there was some way he could find the cash to get Chang off his back. Maybe robbing a bank was a better option than this.
“I’ve been thinking,” Holloway said, upbeat and enthusiastic again. “It probably hunts at night, don’t you figure?”
Aston realized the question was directed at him. He glanced at the windows, quickly darkening with the rapidly approaching twilight. This time of year it wouldn’t be full dark for a good couple of hours yet, but so far north the twilight was a long and ever-deepening affair. “Not sure,” he admitted. “A lot of predators will hunt at night or dusk, when certain factors are in their favor. But equally as many are happy enough hunting in the daylight hours. It’s impossible to say.” Even if he had known for certain, he would have been reluctant to give Holloway concrete information any more. It felt like a betrayal of Slater, of his own professional integrity, of common decency even.
Holloway waggled his fingers
. “Just postulate for me here. Suppose this is a prehistoric aquatic hunter. Given all you know about them, what’s your best guess about their feeding habits?”
Aston noticed the cold eye of the lens on him again, Carly silently moving about the cabin capturing everything. She seemed to have retreated even further since the incident with the sheep and kept the camera in front of herself permanently like a shield.
“All I know about them?” Aston said. “I’m a marine biologist, not an archeologist. I know next to nothing about prehistoric aquatic dinosaurs and we don’t even know if that’s what this is!”
“Speculate for me, man! I’m paying you for your expertise. Extrapolate what you know about similar animals.”
“Okay, fine. I really have next to nothing to base this on, but it’s quite possible it would only feed at night or dusk, given that it’s harder for prey to see it coming in the darkness, or its prey may be sleeping if we’re talking about it coming onto land. But then again, what is its prey? Whatever this prehistoric beast ate back in the bloody Jurassic or whatever is probably not around any more. If this is an ocean-dwelling creature that’s found its way into this lake through underground passages, that’s almost certainly because it’s on the hunt. What’s it found here that keeps bringing it back?”
Five seconds of contemplative silence hung in the air as they all considered the question.
“People.” Makonnen’s voice cut through the quiet.
Everyone present turned as one to face the usually taciturn ship’s captain. His face was deadly serious.
“People?” Slater asked.
Makkonen shrugged and wiped up the last of his chili with a hunk of bread. “What else? There’s nothing here that it can’t find it greater numbers out to sea. Sure, there’s the occasional deer but the population is sparse due to heavy hunting. The fish we have in Lake Kaarme are small compared to giant shoals out there. And, if it’s as big as we think, it could probably take out dolphin, sharks, even whales, giant squid, who knows what else? The only thing in ready supply here that’s not out there are people. Maybe we’re a delicacy.”
It was the longest speech Makkonen had ever made and it silenced the room.
“According to local history,” Slater said eventually, her countenance dark, “the natives had a tradition of sacrificing people to whatever lived in the lake.”
“Sweeney was killed at night,” Joaquin said around a mouthful of chili. “At least, his last pictures were taken at night.”
Aston tried to ignore the chill tickling the base of his spine as he remembered the images Holloway had shown them upon their first meeting. Did the creature have a particular taste for human flesh? He had nothing to say to that theory. But the old captain was onto something. There was nothing in this lake big enough to keep the interest of a giant apex predator. It had no reason to keep coming back unless it was getting something it found nowhere else and the history he had studied so far, the disappearances, all pointed to human flesh. Gaszi, Dave, even the policeman that fool Rinne said he had sent to investigate them. They were all missing, presumed dead. Presumed eaten, with no better theory forthcoming.
The silence in the room returned, hanging heavy like a fog. Even Holloway seemed subdued by the captain’s assessment. A high-pitched squeak interrupted them.
“What was that?” Aston asked, looking behind the ever-present camera.
Carly pointed at the screens, forgotten in the conversation. The first screen was lit up, the motion-sensor lights on the camera nearest the vertical lair tunnel illuminating the rock walls and the end of a huge, grey shape sliding by. They crowded quickly for a better view as the wide tail fin went past.
Aston, Slater, Holloway, Joaquin and Makkonen, shoulder to shoulder, stared hard at the mostly dark screens. Carly stayed back, recording.
“It’s coming toward the lake, not going to the lair,” Aston said quietly. “There’s one more camera to pass that way.”
Another flash lit up a screen and a row of sharp teeth in a long, bony mouth swept past the lens, followed by a seemingly endless flank of pale scales, a long fin, sharp spines.
“Holy mother of god, it’s working. Here she comes!” Holloway fired up the sonar and snapped on all the underwater spotlights lining the hull. The images from the Merenneito’s underside cameras flared into brightness as the sonar scanned the lake depths in front of the underwater channel. After a few seconds pregnant with tension a massive image pinged back. A long shadow moving away from the lake shore, heading directly for them.
“That has to be fifteen meters long,” Aston said quietly, subdued by both the enormity and the very reality of the creature. If a single shred of doubt had remained, it was gone.
“Fifteen meters?” Slater whispered. “That’s about fifty feet.” Her eyes were wide as they challenged Aston to confirm her mental arithmetic.
He simply nodded.
“She’s on her way!” Holloway yelled and ran from the room.
The others followed him onto the deck. The sheep tied to the net lolled and drifted, still managing the occasional weak bleat. Time and again, its head rolled back then jerked up as water covered its nose. Every time it was a slower, more laborious effort to save itself.
“Ollie, the controls!” Holloway barked, and Makkonen ran to the winch arm.
They stared at the cloudy water, illuminated into swirls of silt and debris by the powerful halogens. Aston almost hoped for nothing to happen, but a tiny part of him raced with the adrenaline rush that comes on the precipice of success. Were they really about to see a creature thought extinct for millions of years?
A massive, pale bulk suddenly rose into the hull lights near the surface and the almost unconscious sheep squealed as it was whipped under.
“Close it up!” Holloway yelled and Makkonen hit the buttons that started to draw the giant net rapidly closed.
Aston stared dumbfounded. Was the mad bastard really going to catch it? Water burst in roiling, thrashing waves, white like a sudden whirlpool boiling up as the thing twisted and turned, trying to avoid the rapidly closing steel mesh. The boat rocked as the beast’s massive weight dragged against the net and that in turn hauled on the winch. Metallic screeches and creaking sounded from the rails, the deck groaned and the winch seemed to flex as though it were about to snap clean off. The crew staggered, grabbing for rails to avoid being tipped into the lake. Carly managed to hold tight with one hand to the doorframe of the bridge and keep filming with the other. Aston was impressed.
“Be ready to zap it!” Holloway yelled.
As the net drew almost half closed, the water stilled. Aston realized he was holding his breath, but could do nothing about it. It felt as though he would never draw a breath in again. The water churned and something enormous launched into the air, showering them all in a torrent as it lifted clear over the edges of the net, massive mouth spread wide in a silent howl of defiance.
It had a long, pointed snout, bristling with sharp teeth each the length of Aston’s forearm. Its body was serpentine, seemingly endless, two powerful front flippers and, finally, two at the rear, each tipped with fingerlike digits. They were heavily muscled, clearly useful for moving short distances on land as well as powering through the water. Sharp, bony spines ran in several rows along its flanks and a ridge of them flicked up along its spine, showering diamonds of lake water into the air. It just kept coming, its rear flippers giving way to a tail that widened at the end and beat against the water as the creature cleared the net and crashed down into the lake again with a gigantic splash that rocked the Merenneito like a toy in a child’s bath.
“Can you identify it?” Slater asked.
Once he had accepted the likelihood, even probability, that a prehistoric creature lived in the lake, Aston had done a fair bit of studying, trying to find the most likely candidate for their monster. “It looks like an evolved Mosasaurus.
The size and shape are right but the spines are new.” Mosasaurus was a carnivorous aquatic lizard of the late Cretaceous. Common to North America and Western Europe, it reached lengths of up to eighteen meters… sixty feet, and dined on fish, turtles, smaller mosasaurids, and even plesiosaurs.” The information rolled through his mind like a documentary. This beauty would literally eat Nessie for lunch.
As the huge wash of its landing fell back, they realized it was powering along the surface heading straight for them. They had barely a second to brace before it slammed into the boat and rocked it hard over to one side. Their cries of terror were loud, but not loud enough to cover the distinct crack of fiberglass somewhere down near the waterline.
Then a second scream cut the air like a blade as Ollie Makkonen, on the rail trying to reset the net to send it out again, was suddenly standing tall, arms pinwheeling madly as he tried to pull his weight back. Aston lurched forward, but the giant beast had passed beneath the boat and came up to strike it again. Makkonen yelped like a whipped dog as he was thrown forward. He hit the water thrashing.
“Throw me a rope!” he shrieked. “Hurry!”
“Here, man!” Holloway yelled and began feeding a mooring rope out over the gunwale.
Aston ran to help but Makkonen’s shouts turned to a wail of fear and pain as the creature punched up directly beneath him, rising up from the lake like a launching missile. Aston and Holloway staggered back as Makkonen shot up past them, carried along in the monster’s massive jaws. It rose fifteen feet or more out of the water, flooding them with an icy shower before tossing the Merenneito’s captain like a cat with a mouse. As Makkonen came back down, the beast snapped its jaws closed and the captain’s screams died in a wet gurgle. Everything above his waist disappeared in the monster’s maw and his legs and hips fell, spraying blood, to thunk off the ship’s rail and splash into the lake. The beast tipped sideways like a breaching whale and crashed into the water again, twisting tight on itself to snap up and swallow Makkonen’s lower limbs.