Dinosaur Lake
Page 22
Chapter 8
The family had spent the day on Phantom Ship Island, brought out early by a tour boat. They snuck off against park policy to explore the small island by themselves and time had slipped away.
They didn’t see the ranger patrols stopping and boarding the other tour boats and they didn't know the park was being evacuated.
Instead, they spent the day scuttling across the island, searching for wild flowers in the nooks and crannies of the steep rocks and collecting unusual stones; they spread blankets and ate their picnic lunch with gusto, happy with the lovely summer day and the beauty of their surroundings. The sun burned their skin and sun-dried their hair, but they didn't care.
It was the family's first vacation in five years. They were having so much fun, laughing, chattering among themselves and snacking on the lodge’s sandwiches and lukewarm cokes from the picnic basket, that they were totally unaware of the activity on shore.
Marcy, the youngest girl, didn’t want to return to Cleetwood Cove when the tour boat was loading up to return. She’d fallen in love with the picturesque isle. Since it was her birthday, her father and mother agreed they’d stay behind on Phantom Ship and catch a later boat. They hadn’t heard their park ranger saying earlier that all boats were to be off the lake by twilight. They didn’t know there wouldn’t be another boat docking at the Island that afternoon or for the foreseeable future and they were stranded.
The sun dipped into the horizon beyond the scrap of land covered in trees and wildflowers before they began to get worried. The spires of volcanic rock rose up from the island's base and looked ebony against the setting sun. It was getting cooler. The woman made the girls put on their sweaters as the mist heavily blanketed the surrounding water. They seemed to be the only people left out on the lake.
“I wonder where all the boats are. It’s getting late,” the woman voiced aloud when the night shadows danced in. She’d forgotten to bring their cell phones and now she regretted it.
Only the radio they’d brought along, playing an old Beatle’s song, broke the peacefulness of the place.
“Maybe I should swim for help,” her husband suggested, studying the mist on the darkening water. He was an associate vice-president at a New England brokerage firm. The youngest one they’d ever had. He wasn’t a good swimmer and his wife knew it. He was prone to colds, too.
“The water’s too chilly. You’d freeze. The ranger said no one swims in the lake unless they’re polar bears.”
The two of them laughed, trying to cover their growing uneasiness over coming nightfall, the spooky fog and their isolation.
After waiting another hour and seeing the full arrival of night, the man said softly, “Well, it looks like we might be spending the night here, girls. I wish I’d found us a safe cave or a hole or something to spend the night in, but I was so sure there’d be another boat. Now, without a flashlight, it’s impossible to find or see anything. I should have come more prepared,” he chided himself. “Gosh, it’s dark out here in the wilderness.”
His wife hugged him to show support as well as to get warm. The night was cold and all they had on were sweaters. They hadn’t planned to spend the night. “It’s all right, Jerry. How were we to know we’d be marooned here for the night? The park brochure said the tour boats ran between the Cove and the islands until eight o’clock. I don’t understand why there hasn’t been another boat.”
Jerry nodded and pulled his girls tightly into their circle. Strange noises bellowed over the misty water and the lake churned, the sounds rising on the night wind as if it were crying.
“What is that?” his wife whispered in a trembling voice.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back.
“It’s a water-spook,” the youngest girl, Rebecca, murmured. At eight she had a vivid imagination having had read most of the R.L. Stine books for her age group. Too many, her father thought. “It’s coming to get us!”
“Nonsense, Becky, there’s no such thing as a–”
A horrendous shriek split the night air and none of the humans uttered another syllable.
Eight eyes stared out over the gloomy water, searching for bobbing lights or for any other sign of help coming. Blackness covered everything. Not a sliver of moonlight or a tiny ray of light reflected from anywhere.
“Let’s move away from the lake, behind the rocks over there,” the man proposed, not knowing what else to do.
They were almost to the rocks when something broke the water behind them and rose up swiftly. Something out of a nightmare, with a gargantuan head and gaping jaws filled with serrated teeth. The head lunged back and the hooked snout canted upwards.
At first they gawked in horror, struggling to see what was coming at them in the darkness. A limb with claws at the end swiped viciously downward, slashing the air. A snake-like tail lashed out and slammed against the ground at their feet. The island shook.
The four humans fled into the rocks, stumbling in the dark.
Not quick enough and not nearly fast enough.
The leviathan slid from the water; crawled onto the land. It moved swiftly for its huge size.
Malignant eyes fixed on them and the mouth yawned wide, closing in like a descending crane with teeth from the sky above as they tried to hide behind the rocks.
A child screamed. The woman grabbed the hand of one girl and the man grabbed the hand of the other.
If we can get to higher ground, the man thought frantically as they ran, we might be able to escape. But it was so dark, he kept running into trees; they kept falling over the rocks beneath their feet.
The monster moved faster, coming in for the kill. It smelled the scent of the creatures it craved. And it was hungry.
The man and the youngest girl found themselves falling through the air and into the cold water. They’d somehow crossed the island and had reached the lake again.
The creature dove into the frigid water behind them and the weight of its body hitting it caused such a suction that the two people were pulled down into the whirlpool. A wicked fin the length of its back the last thing seen as it, too, submerged.
The humans never resurfaced. The mist so thick it swallowed them all, beast and human alike.
An ear deafening roar filled the watery world and soon the beast was on land again, hunting for the two survivors it knew were there. With its night eyes and acute sense of smell, it didn’t take long until it found them as they huddled, hiding, among the rocks.
Her daughter had fainted, and the woman lifted the small body into her arms and lurched for the rock spires in the center of the island. A protection from the monstrosity chasing them. If they could wedge deep enough between the stones and crouch low enough, they might be able to escape the creature's reach…then wait it out until morning and help arrived.
But as the woman cowered in the dark between the towering volcanic pinnacles, child now awake and weeping in her arms, the monster lumbered over the land like a bulldozer and came for them. Amazingly quick on short, powerful legs ending in wickedly clawed feet it rose above them, blacking out the sky it was a shadow panting and slobbering with hunger, flashing bloody teeth, whipping its tail through the air.
It’d found them.
No time to scream, the woman and child ran.
It found them again. They couldn’t get away.
The beast had demon's eyes to be able to see so well in the dark.
Out of breath, her chest ready to explode, her legs rubber beneath the weight of her and her daughter, she scurried around a sharp spire, playing a deadly game of hide and seek. The child heavier than anything she'd ever had to carry. Run. Hide. It did no good. The creature reached out with its long neck and the mouth enveloped her and the girl.
The mist swirled around the shadows on the island, hiding the crime. The muffled screams didn't last long.
The monster, its hunger sated for a while, slid into the murky water and disappeared, heading towards the subterranean caves it called home. It was still young an
d needed a lot of sleep, just as it needed to feed often. It was always hungry and had discovered the perfect food source. Tiny, stick-like things that hopped about and made much noise; they were abundant, sweet and tasty–once they were caught. Oh, they could run, they could hide, but it could smell them a mile away, it was faster, and they didn't have a chance. Not a chance.