Aquifer: A Novel

by Gary Barnes

  Three teenage boys ascended a steep trail that wound up the back side of the cliff. Arriving at the top they advanced along the perimeter of the cliff’s rim until they stood forty feet above the pool below. There was a sign clearly posted which prohibited jumping or diving because of the dangerous rocks under the water. But being young and impetuous, they ignored the sign and one-by-one leapt from the edge of the cliff into the deep pool at its base.

  Johnny swam near to where the divers were jumping. Watching them he became absorbed in the excitement of the moment and quickly forgot the chilling experience of only a few moments earlier. He called to his friends. “Hey Austin . . . Frankie . . . Come and watch these guys. It's way cool.”

  They shook their heads and waved him off. They were having too much fun swinging out and dropping into the swimming hole from a rope swing which hung from a walnut tree at the shoreline.

  Frankie grabbed the rope swing and yelled, “Look out Austin, I’m going to swing out as far as possible.” He and Austin both broke out in laughter as he swung out and dropped into the lagoon.

  Tina and Larry were strolling hand in hand along the lagoon’s perimeter. Hearing Frankie’s exclamation and the boy’s raucous laughter, Tina quizzed Larry. “What is it with you guys? Every time someone says the word possible you all start laughing?”

  Larry smiled and playfully contemplated his answer. Then he shrugged his shoulders and calmly replied, “Sorry, it’s a guy thing. We men don’t tell you women everything.”

  At that moment a small lizard scurried across the path they were following. It paused momentarily, cocking its head to look directly at the couple.

  “Oooooh! What a cutie,” Tina squealed as she gently knelt down for a closer inspection. “It’s an Eastern Collared Lizard. Some people call them Mountain Boomers.”

  Eastern Collared Lizards are a large-headed, small-scaled lizard that have bright yellow necks with two black bands, or “collars.” The rings are often broken at the nape of the neck. Males are richly colored with broad splotches of yellow, green, brown, red and blue covering their backs and necks. Their heads are usually a vibrant red with small splotches of orange, yellow and green. Often their legs and tail are a solid sky-blue. Collared lizards are among the most colorful lizards in America. Typically they are found only in dry desert regions of the country and seem out of place in the humid, lush, almost jungly forest of the Ozarks.

  The rocky area west of the Black River however, contained large tracts of extremely dry glades. These extensive rocky openings, in the otherwise lush forest, supported many varieties of drought-adapted plants and animals which are commonly found in the deserts of the southwestern United States, such as prickly pear cacti and scorpions. Though the collared lizards made themselves at home in these unusually dry glades, they often made short forays into the surrounding humid forest surrounding the Shut-Ins.

  “I’ve seen a lot of lizards since I’ve been here. Most of them are pretty dull with light blue underbellies, but this one is really colorful,” Larry observed.

  “Yeah, those plain ones are the most common ones we have, but Mountain Boomers are relatively rare and only live around here. Watch this,” she said as she slapped the palm of her hand hard against the smooth granite pathway.

  Immediately the little lizard sprang upright on its hind legs and bolted into the brush beside the trail. Larry laughed at the unexpected gangly spectacle of a two-legged lizard running for cover.

  *

  The three divers had again climbed up the cliff’s backside and were poised for another jump. Their previous jump had only served to boost their courage and this time they decided to jump from a little farther up, at about the fifty-foot mark. The first of the youth stood there momentarily surveying the scene before him. Then he jumped.

  Johnny did a surface dive to watch as the diver entered the water. Through his swim mask Johnny watched the bubbly trail of the diver’s plunge streak toward the lagoon's floor.

  *

  Susan paddled about in her inner tube twenty-five feet from shore as her mother looked on.

  “Mommy, watch me! Watch me Mommy!” the child screamed to her mother.

  Susan spun around so that her back was to her mother. An unnoticed V-shaped ripple, created by something very large swimming underwater at high velocity, headed directly toward Susan.

  Underwater, one of the creatures approached Susan’s legs. Suddenly the young girl was yanked though the center of the inner tube and dragged underwater. At first her mother continued to watch, thinking that her daughter was merely doing some kind of a trick.

  Then the inner tube was suddenly hurled ten feet into the air, having been smacked by the alien’s massive tail from underwater. When it bounced back onto the surface of the water it was met by the creature’s open jaws. The alien, still secluded underwater, bit the inner tube with its razor sharp teeth. The inner tube immediately exploded, deflated and sank from sight.

  Susan’s mother watched in horror. She jumped to her feet in panic as she madly raced into the water.

  “Susan! Susan!” she yelled. “Somebody help me! My daughter! Help!”

  *

  Simultaneously, and on the other side of the swimming hole, the second diver jumped from the cliff, cannonball style. Johnny did a surface dive to view the jumper from underwater.

  Through his swim mask Johnny viewed the bubbly plunge as the diver bottomed out and then began his ascent toward the surface. Just then, an alien creature darted out from the shadows of the bluff wall, grabbed the diver in its mouth and viciously attacked and devoured him. Johnny was horrified and madly raced for the surface.

  Breaking the surface, Johnny frantically began screaming for Tina. At the same time, a pool of blood rose to the water’s surface marking the spot where the diver had entered. All of the people in the lagoon began to scream and run from the water.

  *

  At the other end of the swimming hole, in waist-deep water, Susan’s mother had reached the spot where her daughter was last seen. She held the limp, deflated inner tube in her hand, hysterically thrashing the water. She called her daughter’s name and begged for help from people on the shore.

  *

  Johnny, terrified, ran up to Tina and Larry, yelling. “Tina! . . . There's a monster in there! I saw it eat a diver! Take me home, I want to get out of here.”

  “Johnny, there is no monster; the diver probably hit a rock. He shouldn’t have been jumping,” explained Tina as she tried to comfort her young nephew.

  “No! There's a monster in there. It ate that man. I saw it!”

  “Johnny! There's no such thing as a man-eating monster!” Tina calmly maintained.

  Larry approached and knelt beside Johnny, placing his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. He gazed into Johnny’s eyes for a moment and realized that Johnny was not joking; he was genuinely terrified. Larry looked up at Tina and said: “Whatever he saw, it was obviously a very traumatic experience. It's probably best to not make a big issue of it right now. Let's just get him home.”

  “Yeah - You're probably right,” Tina agreed. “Let’s pack up the kids and head out.”

  Larry called to Austin and Frankie. “Get your stuff, boys. Let's go.”

  Clayton and Welton, who had both been sliding on the granite water slides, came running up beside Tina and Larry.

  Silence had overtaken the entire crowd. Everyone had abandoned the water except for Susan’s mother who was still standing in waist-deep water sobbing.

  Pockets of swimmers and sunbathers congregated in small groups along the shoreline, talking in subdued tones and staring at the now calm lagoon.

  Clayton and his group began assembling their belongings, preparing to leave the area as Park Rangers launched a rowboat into the lagoon to search for the bodies with grappling hooks.

  *

  As Clayton and the group began their trek down the boardwalk to the parking lot, Johnny remained silent. Every few steps, however, he quickly glanced back
over his shoulder to make sure that they were not being pursued by the creature he had seen.

  Arriving at the Jeep, Johnny quickly climbed into the back seat and buckled himself into his seatbelt. Feeling somewhat more secure, he became even more adamant about what he had seen.

  “Tina, don’t ever bring me back here again. It’s not safe. There IS a monster in there . . . a man-eating monster . . . I saw it!”

  Clayton was about to get into the H-2 when he overheard Johnny’s comment. He paused beside Larry who was sitting in the driver’s seat. “I don’t know what he really saw, but we need to swing by the Sheriff’s office and make a report. Johnny seems to be the only eyewitness to what happened.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Tina replied, speaking for them both. “The Sheriff’s Office is right across the street from Mom’s restaurant. We’ll meet you there.”

  =/=

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Nesting Chamber

  That same afternoon, two college-age picnickers, Luke Counts and his girl friend, Ellie Jo, were seated upon the ground eating their lunch in the meadow at the top of the bluff above Blue Spring. They had been dating seriously for almost two years, and Ellie Jo was hoping that he would soon ask her a very important question. Luke had been contemplating the same feelings but had decided to wait until he got closer to finishing school before he popped the question and shouldered that amount of responsibility.

  Paper plates were strewn with chicken bones, watermelon rinds and corn cobs. Luke drained his paper cup of homemade root beer - the kind that was made with yeast and aged, not the dry-ice version. He then swallowed his last bite, wiped his mouth with a napkin, laid back on the soft grass and stretched.

  “Oh man, Ellie Jo, I ain’t eaten like that in a coons age. I’m so stuffed, I’m as full as a tick. I couldn’t possibly eat another bite,” he said playfully as he smiled and cast her a sideways glance, knowing full well that she had made him a special dessert.

  Ellie Jo giggled, obviously pleased that Luke had enjoyed her meal. She then spun around and lay on her stomach with her hands clasped under her chin, her face just inches from Luke’s. “Then what do you suggest I do with Granny's Black Forest cherry cake? Feed it to the critters?” she teased with a broad smile and bright eyes.

  “Oooh, Nooo!” He rubbed his belly with his right hand while grinning contemplatively. “You just give me ‘bout fifteen minutes to let this settle and I ‘spect I can handle it just fine.”

  Their eyes connected and they gazed at each other momentarily; neither of them wanting the moment to end. Finally, Luke spoke.

  “Why Ellie Jo, I do declare! I believe yer eyes are as blue as the water in that spring over yonder,” he swore.

  Ellie Jo playfully beat on his chest several times with her fists, then laughingly spoke as she rose to a sitting position. “You're such a tease.”

  “No, really,” he said as he rose to his feet. He reached down and took her by the hand to help her stand also. “Come on, let me show you.”

  He placed his arm around her waist and they slowly strolled the few feet to the edge of the bluff. Ellie Jo snuggled under Luke’s arm as they gazed over the rim of the bluff into the depths of Blue Spring below them and the Current River in the distance.

  “Let's make a wish,” said Ellie Jo as she turned her face toward his and wrapped her arms around his neck. “If you could have anything, what would you wish for?”

  Before Luke could answer they heard a muffled growling noise behind them. They turned to see the gimpy footed alien rise on its hind legs and roar. Ellie Jo screamed as Luke stepped forward, placing himself between the creature and Ellie Jo, though Ellie Jo poked her head out to one side to see what was happening.

  Immediately the creature spit a sticky substance into their faces. Then the alien dropped back onto all four legs, charged, sprang and tackled the couple midair. All three plunged over the edge of the cliff, free-falling down the face of the one-hundred-foot bluff into the spring below.

  *

  Once underwater the creature began swimming down into the depths of the spring, dragging the now unconscious couple with it – but after diving to the depth of only twenty feet the amphibian changed course and swam into the ten-foot wide mouth of a cave in the bluff wall.

  The cave’s tunnel was short and angled slightly upward. After only forty feet the tunnel opened into the bottom of a large lagoon. Once again the creature changed course and began to ascend. It suddenly broke the surface in a subterranean lagoon and swam to the bank in what appeared to be an air pocket, a large room inside the cave whose only entrance was the underwater passageway.

  Unlike the banks of most lagoons, the perimeter’s edge rose straight out of the water to the height of about one foot and would more accurately be described as the top of a cliff, the front of which descended into the water with a vertical drop to a depth of over thirty feet. Beyond the lagoon the cave floor formed a broad flat shelf, over fifty feet wide. The cave’s ceiling varied between ten and fifteen feet in height. The lagoon was actually just a wide spot in a large river that flowed through the cave and which joined with Blue Spring through the underwater connecting tunnel.

  The interior of the cave was dimly lit by the light filtering through the underwater hole in the cave wall. The water diffused the light into eery patterns which danced across the numerous stalactites and stalagmites, as well as across the walls and ceiling of the cave.

  Arriving at the water’s edge the gimpy-footed creature deposited the picnickers’ bodies onto the dry bank and laboriously pulled itself out of the water. The couple was still alive but unconscious. Not far away lay the bodies of the two fishermen, the hunter, several cows and horses, and masses of fish. All were covered with a slimy, gooey substance containing numerous gelatinous eggs - like frog eggs, only large enough to rival the egg of a chicken.

  Arduously, the creature began dragging the limp, comatose bodies into the dark recesses of the cavern.

  =/=

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sheriff’s Office

  The professors, Larry, Tina, and the three boys drove to Sheriff Aker’s office in Eminence to make a report of the Johnson Shut-In’s incident. The dispatcher ushered them into the Sheriff’s office where they began making their report. Sheriff Akers listen attentively to Johnny’s incredible story before responding:

  “Let’s see, you say that you were snorkeling near the falls and saw a man-eating monster eat the diver?” asked the sheriff.

  “That’s right Sheriff,” replied Johnny still trembling. “It was horrible. I got right out of there as quick as I could.”

  “Can you describe this creature for me?”

  “Not really. It all happened so fast. I saw the diver get attacked, so I just got out of there as quick as I could.”

  “Well, I almost wish that it was that simple. Unfortunately, your explanation, as impossible as it is, makes as much sense as anything else right now,” commented the Sheriff.

  “What do you mean?” inquired Clayton.

  “Well, it's a small pool and the water’s very clear. Anything in there should be easy to find, but radio reports from the Search and Rescue Team say they can't find a trace of the two missing swimmers. They even sent in a team of scuba divers to do a thorough visual search. The only thing they found was a torn piece of the jumper’s swimming trunks and a bracelet he was wearing. The bracelet appears to have teeth marks, but there’s nothing with teeth in that lagoon. . . . His friends said they saw a flash of something swimming in the water just before the blood cloud obscured their view. . . . But the body has totally disappeared. It's almost as if he had been eaten. . . . And that little girl, Susan - her mother insists that something yanked her out of the inner tube, but there is no sign of her either,” explained Sheriff Akers. “As tragic as this is, we simply haven’t a clue as to what has happened.”

  At that moment Jane Chilton, entered the Sheriff’s office, “Excuse me for barging in, but Pea
rl Webber rode her mule all the way in from Log Yard and she insists on seeing you immediately.”

  Before the Sheriff could respond, Pearl hysterically burst into his office.

  “Sheriff, its Honace. Ah'm powerful feared somethin' horrible done happened to ‘em,” sobbed Pearl.

  “Now calm down Pearl and tell me what happened,” the Sheriff said, helping her to a seat and trying to calm her, but she was unconsolable.

  “Honace went coon huntin’ las night wid e's dogs, Shep and Lep, but ‘e ain't come home all night. Ah knowed ‘bout whar ‘e was a huntin' so afore breakfastin’ this mornin' Ah went ta fetch ‘em. Ah found e's shotgun an stuff down by tha riva. It looked ta me like thar'd been a scuffle. Thar was blood on tha ground and it looked like somethin’ been drug down ta tha wadah. Oh, Sheriff, Ah fear e's dade,” wailed Pearl.

  “It’s going to be okay, Pearl. I’ll be out there directly and have a look around,” said the sheriff.

  As Pearl daubed at her tearful eyes with a tissue, Jane took her by the hand and escorted her out of the office.

  “Mind if I tag along?” asked Clayton.

  “I’d welcome the company, all of my men are still out at the Shut-Ins,” replied the Sheriff.

  “How far is it to Log Yard?” Clayton asked.

  “It’s about twenty-five miles by the road, I reckon. Pearl’s cabin is a few miles the other side, though she came cross-country with her mule.”

  Clayton turned to Tina, “Why don’t you take the boys home.”

  He then addressed Larry, “Would you take Dr. Welton back to the camp for awhile? We shouldn’t be more than a few hours. I’ll meet you all at Opal’s Café for dinner.”

  “You mean supper!” Larry corrected him, as he was beginning to understand the local language.

  “Whatever,” responded Clayton, glancing at his watch. “I’ll meet you there about 6:30.”

  *

  The Sheriff drove Pearl and Clayton as close to the hunting site as possible, but they had to park the squad car and walk the last mile and a half through the dense woods. They followed a narrow game trail across two ridges and then down into a hollow near the river. An hour later they arrived at the hunting site and began meticulously examining the scene.