The Loch (46 page)

"Ye see oor friend?"

I'd been so preoccupied with surviving the descent I'd completely forgotten about the monster!

I looked around nervously, my anchored shoulder beams revolving back and forth like a lighthouse. "I don't see anything."

"Whit aboot a cave?"

"Nothing."

"By the direction o' yer umbilical I can see ye're headin' south. Did ye want to head south then?"

I checked the digital compass.
One-seven-two… he was right, I was drifting south.
"Standby." I pressed down with my left foot, activating my propeller for the first time.

The powerful motor blasted me through the alien underworld, my arms reaching out awkwardly for balance as I soared through the abyss doing eight knots.

Easing back on the propeller, I slowed, then used my thrusters to execute a turn. After a few tries, I was able to steady my heading at zero-nine-zero, moving due east, aiming for the eastern bank and Aldourie Castle.

Through the brown-black darkness I flew, the intensity of my beating heart causing the arteries in my neck to throb. I looked left then right, feeling like a lone antelope on a lion-infested plain.

And then my eyes caught movement, a brief shimmer along the bottom.

I slowed, circling back as I searched the gray-brown void. And then I saw it.

It was an Anguilla eel, a big one, maybe ten feet long, only it wasn't slithering like a sea snake, it was hanging vertically off the bottom, the tip of its tail buried in the sediment, its head aimed at the surface.

As I drifted slowly over the eel, my light reflecting off the opaque eyes of another and another, then dozens more, all frozen in the same vertical holding pattern, like a ballet of cobras, caught in a trance.

"Zack, whit dae ye see?"

"Eels. Must be hundreds of them. They're just hanging off the bottom, as if standing on end. It's eerie."

"An' dangerous. Steer clear."

"Wait… I see something else."

I eased forward using my propeller, aiming my light along the bottom. The beacon caught the jagged edge of a dark shadow. Moving closer, I saw that it was not a shadow, but a chasm, cutting across the Loch's bottom like a miniature version of the Grand Canyon.

"It's a narrow trench, and it looks pretty deep. The eels are positioned around it, almost as if they're sentries standing guard."

"Stay downcurrent if ye can. Anguilla have poor eyesight, but if they smell ye—"

"The chasm's about sixty feet wide. If I hover over it, I think I can drop down nice and easy without disturbing the eels."

I pressed gently on my thrusters, ascending higher over the rift before engaging the propeller again. Slowly I circled, the handheld beacon shining down upon a hole so deep it seemed to absorb my light.

I never noticed the elongated tract of sediment, piled eighteen feet high, that wound more than fifty feet along one edge of the crevice. Nor did I see the two luminescent-yellow eyes that gleamed up from it as I circled by.

"Stand by, True, here I go."

I pulled my feet away from both boot controls, allowing the weight of the Newt Suit to sink me—too fast… way too fast!

Sensing the sudden disturbance, the once-sedate eels broke from their ranks. They whirled about in a chaotic frenzy, then swarmed in on me, snapping at my arms and legs from all angles, bashing my face mask and backpack with their powerful bodies. I tried to fend them off, but there were too many of them, and I was moving two speeds too slow. My lights kept most of them from my face, but they attacked my legs without mercy, their sharp needle teeth clawing my metal skin, their muscular torsos whipping at my gear, and I was petrified of losing pressure within the ADS.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the assault ceased.

"Jesus …" I sucked in deep breaths, then retracted my left arm from its sleeve and mopped the sweat from my face.

"Zack? Are ye okay?"

"The eels… they came at me, all of "em at once. Then they just disappeared. Holy shit… and now I know why."

"Why? Whit is it?"

Looking around, I realized I had dropped into the chasm… and I was still falling.

"True, I'm descending within the canyon. Standby."

Pressing down on my right foot, I engaged my thrusters and slowed my descent. Raising my right arm, I aimed the hand-held light and looked around as a blizzard of brown sediment fell into the trench from above, obliterating my view.

And then something immense plowed sideways into me with the force of a locomotive and an immense pressure squeezed my brain, bashing me into unconsciousness.

Well, the day that I saw the monster, it was the end of September and I was driving back from Inverness. I came up the hill where we came in sight of the bay, glanced out across it, and saw this large lump. The nearest I can tell you is it looked like a boat that had turned upside down. It was about ten meters [thirty-three feet] in length, and nearly three meters [ten feet] in height from the water to the top of the back. It was a mixture of browns, greens, sludgy sort of colors. I looked at it on and off for a few seconds, because I was driving. Must have seen it three or four times, and the last time I looked, it was gone! I thought to myself, "Oh, there's Nessie. "Bout time I saw it, I've been living here a year." And then something in the back of my head sort of said, "That's not just Nessie, that's got to be the Loch Ness Monster that everybody has spent thousands of pounds searching for, and you're looking at the darn thing." I nearly drove off the road, but luckily I didn't because we had a fairly new car. Can you imagine what the insurance claim would have been like?

When I got home I thought, "I need a strong drink." But there was none in the house, so I thought, "Right. Strong coffee will do."

—
V
AL
M
OFFAT,
L
OCH
N
ESS RESIDENT,
S
EPTEMBER 1990

Inverness Castle

T
here were no members of the media present, only two shell-shocked guards and Francesca Kasa, my father's private nurse, who hovered over Angus as he lay slumped on the floor of his cell.

"Angus, listen to me! You're having a heart attack! Hang on, I've called the hospital, an ambulance is on the way."

The nurse turned to the two guards as Angus lay there groaning. "They'll never get a gurney down that circular stairwell. We need to carry him up. Now! Come on, move!"

The two guards hurried into the cell.

* * *

Sirens blaring, the ambulance roared up the driveway behind Inverness Castle, then backed up to the police barracks just as the guards emerged carrying Angus.

A female EMT jumped down from the back of the van, her long, raven-colored hair tucked beneath her cap. With one of the guards help, she removed the gurney, "Lay him down, quickly!"

The guards complied, just as their superior, Captain Douglas Galliac, hurried over from his post. "Whit's a' this?"

Nurse Kasa secured Angus to the gurney as the female paramedic hovered over him, listening to his heart with her stethoscope. "Myocardial infarction… it's a massive heart attack."

"Probably a blood clot in one or more of his coronary arteries," called out the EMT. "I'm startin' him on Retavase."

The paramedic hooked up a clear IV bag to the gurney, passing the needle end to the nurse, who jabbed Angus in the arm.

"Ahh!"

Captain Galliac went pale. "Is he gonnae make it? Where are ye takin' him?"

"Where dae ye think?" the nurse yelled back.

"Well, I cannae jist let him go, he's been convicted o' murder!"

"An' he could die if ye keep us here. Then
you
can explain tae the media how the sheriff's office executed their prisoner without him ever bein' sentenced."

"What's the holdup, people?" the female driver yelled from the front seat of the ambulance. "We've got a surgical team standing by for an emergency angiogram and stent."

"Oh Bloody Hell… Mastramico, Edwards, load him aboard, then follow them tae the hospital. I've got tae find the sheriff. An' no media!"

The paramedic and nurse climbed in the back of the van as the two guards lifted Angus and his gurney to them. The double doors were slammed closed, and the ambulance accelerated away.

The emergency vehicle raced down the winding path of Castle Street, its blasting siren alerting a second ambulance, identical to the first, that had been waiting at the bottom of the hill for the last ten minutes.

The first ambulance, driven by Theresa Cialino, turned right onto the main road, forcing traffic to one side while the second emergency vehicle, driven by her cousin, James Fox, hesitated just long enough for the trailing sheriff's car to appear in his rear view mirror. When it did, he accelerated into traffic, turning left.

Brandy watched the scene from the back of the first van as she removed her EMT's garb. "That was fun. I've never been a fugitive before."

"Accomplice, lass, I'm the fugitive." Angus winced as he removed the IV from his arm. "Theresa, how much farther?"

"Two minutes, hang on." Theresa cut the siren, then pulled off the main road into an industrial park. Slowing to traverse the speed bumps, she followed an alleyway back to a row of self-store garages.

Reaching into her jacket pocket, she removed a garage door opener and activated it.

The second to the last garage door rolled open, revealing a silver 2004 Audi TT Roadster.

Angus, now dressed in a black Nike sweat suit and sunglasses, climbed down from the back of the ambulance. "Well done, team. Brandy, ye're wi' me. Theresa an' Francesca, ye ken whit tae dae."

The nurse reached up and kissed Angus passionately on the lips. "Don't worry about us, we'll be fine."

Angus swatted her playfully on the behind. "Indeed ye will, but another kiss like that, an' I'll really end up in the hospital."

Loch Ness

True MacDonald's eyes grew wide as a thousand feet of umbilical cord quickly disappeared below the surface. "Zachary, can ye hear me? Zachary, come in!"

As the last of the slack was taken up, the floating aluminum barrel suddenly shot across the surface, moving at fifteen knots as it sped toward the eastern shore.

"Shyte!" True hurried into the wheelhouse and started the twin engines, racing the trawler yacht after the barrel.

The aluminum tank struck the embankment with a resounding,
bong
, spun around three times, then was forcibly yanked underwater.

"Gee-zus!" True cut the engines and waited for the barrel to reappear. When it didn't, he gunned the motor, heading south toward Aldourie Pier. "I warned him an' warned him, but did he bloody listen? "Course not!"

True reversed the engines and drifted in to the pier, tossing the bow-line to his father. "Tie that off, will ye, Pop?"

Alban complied. "Whit happened?"

"Ye ken whit happened. The monster took him."

"Then he's deid."

"He's no' deid!" True rummaged through a wooden crate, grabbing a flashlight and the two remaining underwater charges. Climbing over the starboard rail, he jumped down to the pier and double-timed it toward shore, his father in tow.

"Whit are ye gonnae dae now then, laddie?"

"Rescue Zack."

"Ye cannae! The lair's off-limits, ye ken that."

"I dinnae care aboot breakin' the blood oath," he said, hurrying up the grassy acreage to Aldourie Castle. "Zachary's my best friend."

"Son, listen tae me… if the creature took him, ye ken it's a'ready too late."

"He's wearin' a dive suit. He could still be alive."

"No' likely." Alban ran ahead of him, blocking him as he reached a castle drive overrun by weeds. "Finley, wait!"

True paused.

"I didnae stop ye when ye went after him in Invermoriston. But this is different. I cannae stand by an' allow ye tae violate yer blood oath."

"It's ower, Pop. Angus wis right. This creature's got tae be dealt wi', an' Zack cannae dae it alone. Now ye either help me or get oot o' my way, but ye willnae be stoppin' me. No' today."

True pushed past his father and walked around to the side of the baroque dwelling. Rust-stained concrete walls were overwhelmed by a growth of vines, concealing an open, first floor passage.

True pushed the foliage aside and climbed through.

It may be doubted whether sudden and considerable deviations of structure are ever permanently propagated in a state of nature. Monstrosities sometimes occur which resemble normal structures in widely different animals. If monstrous forms of nature are capable of reproduction (which is not always the case), as they occur rarely and singly, their preservation would depend on unusually favorable circumstances. They would, also, during the first and succeeding generations cross with the ordinary form, and thus their abnormal character would almost inevitably be lost.

—
C
HARLES
D
ARWIN,
T
HE
O
RIGIN OF
S
PECIES
, 1859

If we had believed the Loch Ness monster did not exist, we would have certainly said it loud and clear. Instead, the totality of the evidence, the eyewitnesses and the sonar led me to say, after thirty days on the Loch, that there is definitely something here that has to be resolved.

—
K
IRK
W
OLFINGER,
P
RODUCER 1998
NOVA E
XPEDITION AT
L
OCH
N
ESS

Loch Ness Aquifer

T
he cold water shocked me awake. I could feel it seeping into my Newt Suit, soaking through my clothing.

I opened my eyes.

I was horizontal, suspended on my left side, my mechanical arms pinned awkwardly behind me. My head throbbed, my mind still in a fog, yet it seemed as if I was moving… pushing left then right, left then right, traveling very fast through the darkness.