Loch (The Zone Unkown)

by Paul Zindel

  Loch went back inside and sat down with Zaidee. The picture on the laptop screen was of an iridescent forest and a frozen crystal river with a path leading across it. The cartoon figure of a young boy was being stalked by a hideous witch with a knife.

  “Hey, congratulations!” Loch said. “You got to the fifth screen!”

  “Yeah, but look at the squiggles,” Zaidee complained, pointing to two thick black lines dancing across the middle of the screen.

  “Probably interference from the sonar.”

  “It was okay before.”

  “Then maybe it’s the storm coming,” Loch said.

  Zaidee took the laptop, shut it off, and flipped it closed. “I’ll never get to the fifth screen by myself again.”

  Scratch … scraaatch …

  Loch looked up. He saw his father tense, then lean forward to the graphic recorders. Loch too had detected the change in the pitch and rhythm of the styluses. He quickly moved next to his father.

  “I’m showing something,” Dr. Sam said.

  Cavenger turned, his profile eerie in the light from the sonar screens. “I’ve got it too.”

  “It’s reading as a large, moving object,” Dr. Sam specified. Loch heard a rare tremor crawl into his father’s voice.

  “Other boats are radioing in,” Randolph said, lifting half his headset.

  “Tell them we’ve got it,” Cavenger ordered. “Tell them to hold course and maintain speed.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s alive. And deep,” Dr. Sam said.

  “As long as it stays in front of us,” Cavenger said. He snapped his fingers at Emilio. “How far to the end of the lake?”

  Emilio checked his map. “Less than a mile.”

  “Where is it now?” Cavenger demanded, his eyes dropping to the master screen.

  “Still in front,” Dr. Sam said.

  Cavenger’s hands began to shake. “Tell the trawlers to draw the nets!”

  “Draw the nets!” Randolph yelled into the radio mike.

  Loch ran out onto the deck, with Zaidee right after him. The storm was mounting quickly now, like a great black glove reaching across the mountains. The wind whipped the waves higher until they struck noisily at the sides of the boats. There was a flash of lightnings followed a few seconds later by a tremendous thunderclap. The crew worked to secure the deck furniture and roll up the flapping awnings.

  “Think it’s something real this time?” Zaidee asked, looking anxiously into her brother’s eyes.

  “Yes, I think it’s real,” Loch said softly.

  There was no sonar or radio on the catamaran. A great, black thunderhead loomed in the sky above, and Sarah took a couple of yellow rain slickers from the storage bin. She tossed one to Erdon, who was forward at the camera mounts.

  “Thanks,” he said, catching it. He forced a smile as he put the slicker on, but he didn’t like the look of the thunderhead at all. He knew that a lake during a thunderstorm was not exactly the safest place to be.

  Loch rushed to the bow of the yacht, with Zaidee after him. Ahead, he saw the deep undulation in the water, a sight he’d seen only once before. A chill moved across his chest as he remembered when he was a small boy standing at the edge of another dark, even deeper lake. He remembered the sounds of the sheep, their urgent bleating. …

  Sarah and Erdon saw Loch and Zaidee signaling to them.

  “What do they want?” Erdon called nervously over the slap of waves hitting the catamaran.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said, but she was certain they looked worried. Loch kept pointing ahead, toward the approaching shore.

  “Maybe they found something,” Erdon said. He felt goose bumps rise on his arms beneath the slicker.

  “Maybe.” Sarah saw the two trawlers crank up speed and pull ahead. “They’re closing the nets!” she shouted, throwing the throttle forward, propelling the cat out in front.

  “NO!” Loch yelled from the deck of The Revelation. He had wanted to signal Sarah about the radar showing something ahead, that she should stay back, closer to the protection of the yacht and fleet, but she didn’t understand.

  “Get the camera going!” she shouted to Erdon. The vibrations had loosened one of the leads from the battery pack, and it sparked until Erdon tightened it. He put his eye to the viewfinder, turned the camera on, and pressed the RECORD button. The automatic focus whirred the lens forward and back, seeking a target.

  The lake floor rose sharply now, the peat-black water turning to gray as the thick steel rises of the salmon grid stood like sentinels at the end of the lake. Sarah slowed the cat’s engines as Cavenger ordered the fleet to cut power and hang back in neutral. Only the trawlers chugged ahead at full speed, straining to close the semicircle of their nets as quickly as possible—but they were too late. Something had gotten past them and was now between the shore and the nets.

  Cavenger was on deck with the megaphone.

  “There!” he shouted, pointing. “It’s trapped!”

  Sarah turned the cat to follow her father’s directions as Erdon swiveled the video camera around on its mount. Through the camera’s eye he saw a patch of water beyond the net begin to boil. Finally, the thing turned away from the shore. It looked as if it were going to try to escape through the nets back to the deep of the lake. Sarah watched, startled to see the net buoys tugged violently to the left.

  “We’re too close,” she yelled.

  “Shut the engines,” Erdon shouted, a rush of panic filling his voice. “They’re spooking it.”

  Sarah turned the ignition off, but the thing still battled against the net, shaking it. Suddenly, there was a great tearing, a snapping of ropes as the buoys sprang loose and the blackness submerged again.

  “What’s going on?” Erdon asked, confused. “What is that thing?”

  Cavenger stood speechless, furious at the thought that the creature had escaped back toward the deep of the lake. Dr. Sam came out on deck. Zaidee ran to him, taking his hand. The crews on the drifting skiffs watched silently, waiting for Cavenger’s next command.

  Emilio rushed toward the bow from the control room. “Mr. Cavenger,” he called, “there’s another one on the screen now!”

  “Probably the same one,” Randolph muttered.

  Emilio hesitated but finally got the words out. “No. This one’s bigger. Much bigger.”

  “Where is it?” Cavenger asked.

  “It’s heading toward us.”

  Emilio dashed back into the control room with Cavenger and Randolph right after him. Dr. Sam took Zaidee with him.

  Loch looked toward Sarah. He shouted across to the catamaran. “There’s another one! Get the cat to shore!”

  Sarah heard his warning and reached for the starter key.

  “Don’t,” Erdon said, holding tightly to the camera mount for support. “We’re better off staying still.”

  CRASH. Another tremendous thunderclap, and rain began to fall. Sarah stared down at the water behind the cat’s outboards. Despite the rain, she slid her yellow slicker off. It made her feel too much like an outsized, glowing lure. Erdon followed her lead.

  She froze when she saw the shadow fill the space beneath the catamaran.

  “It’s here!” she called out to Loch. The line of silent crews aboard the skiffs heard her too, but didn’t move.

  “I feel something,” Erdon said.

  Sarah nodded. She did too.

  The cat was vibrating, turning slowly.

  “It’s touching us,” Erdon said, barely audible. He began to curse himself for having signed on to the expedition in the first place.

  There was a clearing in the peat of the water, an underwater spring rushing upward to dilute the blackness. Sarah’s eyes widened in terror when she glimpsed the knobby scales of a spine and a pair of monstrous ribbed fins churning the water slowly, powerfully. …

  Oh, it can’t be, I can’t be seeing this, Sarah told herself.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of whale,” Erdon said, knowing he w
as lying even to himself. “The lakes and rivers are deep enough. Maybe pollution knocked out its navigation system. It could have made its way from the St. Lawrence to Champlain, then up here.”

  Sarah didn’t lift her eyes from the water. “I don’t think so.”

  “It could be some kind of manatee,” Erdon said weakly.

  “Shhhhhh. It’s listening for us,” Sarah said softly.

  After a moment the boat stopped its shaking. The mass of bony spine began to sink, fade into the darkness below.

  “What’s going on?” Erdon asked. “I can’t see.

  “It’s leaving,” Sarah said, watching the shadow sink deeper, then disappear altogether.

  “You sure?” Erdon asked, stepping around the camera mount. He moved closer to the edge of the catamaran, angling himself to avoid the glare of the water’s surface. He saw nothing and breathed a sigh of relief. “That was bigger than a bread box.” He laughed nervously. He looked toward The Revelation and the fleet. “It’s okay,” he yelled. “It’s gone. It was some kind of whale.”

  “Did you get it on camera?” Sarah asked.

  “Just some shadows,” Erdon said. He looked toward the yacht. Realizing he’d better at least put on a show for Cavenger, he grabbed one of his Nikons, the one with the fastest film, and stepped out on the left pontoon of the cat. Now he could appear brave. He sat down, straddling the bow like he was riding a horse. He figured he’d take some shots. Cavenger wouldn’t have to know he had been too scared even to think about taking stills when the creature was under the boat. Now that there was no danger, he began to regret he hadn’t gotten at least a shot of the spine or fins. If it had been some sort of prehistoric beast, he knew, his career as a marine photographer would have been made.

  “Be careful,” Sarah warned.

  “No problem.” Erdon smiled. He lay down on the bow, hooked his feet under the rope webbing at the front, and moved his torso out over the bow.

  The explosion from the water came quickly. What Erdon saw through the camera’s lens was a shining mass of night erupting up toward him, a darkness hitting into him with such force he was airborne. The camera fell from his hands as he glimpsed a pair of huge, horrifying, yellow eyes and a gorge rimmed by jagged, dagger-sized teeth. The horror happened so fast—as if Erdon had been struck by the hood of a racing car, his feet torn from the rope webbing—he had but an instant to feel the impact on his face and chest. He was aware of a brief sensation of being turned, positioned, when a godless, fiery pain crashed simultaneously into his back and groin. Erdon’s last conscious thought was the realization that he was being chewed in half.

  At first, Sarah didn’t have time to scream. The gnarled, grotesque body of the beast hit the catamaran, knocking it upward and throwing her across the deck. Her body slapped against the outboards, then spilled like a rag doll into the recess behind the windshield. The cat and the creature dropped back down like falling stones, with a tremendous splash of water erupting around her. Instinctively, she reached for the ignition key, but as her arm and hand went out she felt the warm, thick drops spotting her skin. When she looked at her arm, she knew it was raining blood. Now she could scream.

  Emilio and Dr. Sam were on the deck of the yacht yelling to Sarah. Cavenger had Haskell start the engines. He bolted from the control room with the megaphone, his voice roaring incomprehensibly toward his shrieking daughter.

  Loch ran for the raft at the rear of the yacht and swung its cradle out over the water. He leaped in and threw the pulley release, and the raft splashed down. Loch yanked the start cord, the outboard roared to life, and he shot off toward Sarah and the beast. Off the cat’s starboard, he had to swerve sharply to avoid a floating tree limb. As he passed it, he saw it was one of Erdon’s legs.

  The creature crashed upward from the surface again. It tilted its head back on its long, scaly neck, then snapped forward with its gaping mouth to tear into the wood of the catamaran. In a great splintering, the front half of the left pontoon fell away. The beast pulled its head back and struck again and again, then slowly sank once more under the water.

  Sarah dragged her body across the shattered deck, as Loch rammed the rubber raft up onto the back of the sinking cat. “Get in,” he yelled to Sarah as he gassed the engine, trying to hold the raft in position.

  Loch saw the deep motion of the water. By now, Sarah, too, knew what that meant.

  Before Sarah could get into the raft, the monstrous head of the beast erupted between them, throwing Loch and the raft into the air as Sarah fell forward to the camera mount. The neck of the creature continued to erupt upward, a tremendous, glistening shaft. High above, its head poised for a moment, the two great wedges that were its eyes stared down at the catamaran. The mouth of the beast opened and plunged down like a tremendous shredder. CRACK. CRACK. Its teeth tore into the back of the cat as Sarah began to slide down toward the gaping mouth.

  “Help us!” Sarah screamed at the closest skiff. “Help …”

  The jaws of the beast opened wider now. It roared a blast of stinking breath and shredded human intestines at Sarah as her right ankle got caught between the crushed engines. Only when the creature’s teeth crashed into the outboards did it halt, then sink back again beneath the surface.

  Loch had been knocked twenty feet from the stalled rubber raft. He started swimming for it, kicking for all he was worth. When he reached the raft, he hurled himself aboard it, but the motor wouldn’t start. He dropped onto his stomach, swung his arms over the side of the raft, and dug into the water.

  “Hurry!” Sarah called to him. “My foot is caught!”

  “Hold on,” Loch yelled.

  They saw the creature’s head surface on the lake. Only its snout and hooded, yellow, glaring eyes were coming at them now, gaining speed. It moved toward them like a massive, hungry crocodile. Finally, Loch reached Sarah with the raft, but her foot was still wedged between the engines. They both could see and smell gasoline as it spilled from the ruptured tanks and floated out into a widening slick.

  “The cat’s going down!” she cried.

  Loch threw his shoulder against one of the engines as Sarah pounded her fists on the other. There was the crackling sound of sparks, and they looked to see that Erdon’s battery pack had slid down the deck. It inched closer and closer to the gasoline.

  Desperately, Loch tore off an engine cover and plunged his hand into the grease of the engine. He reached below the water for Sarah’s ankle and thrust the grease onto her skin and the crushing metal. The creature was closing fast. Her foot slipped free.

  “Get us out of here!” Sarah pleaded.

  Loch pulled at the cord of the raft’s outboard, but the motor still wouldn’t start. The creature lifted its snout. The tremendous teeth of its upper jaw lifted into a deadly canopy as water rushed into the mouth.

  “It’s going to swallow us alive,” Sarah screamed as she pulled herself into the raft.

  The beast’s mouth was fully open now, its lower jaw distended. Loch gave a last desperate pull on the start cord and the motor screamed to life. When the hideous jaws snapped closed, they crashed onto the cat and the battery pack sparked for a last time. Loch and Sarah were racing toward The Revelation when the great explosion came.

  4

  WATERFALL

  “I regret the death of the young photographer, but anyone who leaks any information about the incident will no longer be employed by this company,” Cavenger said that night, moving for as much containment at the base as possible. “Within three or four days we’ll be properly equipped to capture one of the beasts. Bonus incentives will be posted so each of you will enthusiastically complete your work on this expedition.” Those who hadn’t known Cavenger well realized by the end of the meeting that his physical frailty masked—from the unsuspecting—his complete ruthlessness.

  Loch couldn’t sleep that night. He lay awake with images of the monster crashing up from the water, its massive jaws and teeth hurtling down upon the catamaran. The
ultimate moment of horror, Erdon being torn to pieces, played over and over in his mind. Loch couldn’t think of a death more horrible. No one deserved to die like that. No one.

  “Noooo … nooooo …” Zaidee cried out in her sleep.

  Zaidee had made sounds when she dreamed for as long as Loch could remember. The year before, when their mother had died, Zaidee had gone through a sleepwalking phase. He would hear a noise and wake up to see Zaidee standing at his doorway, uttering strange words, as though speaking in tongues, not knowing where she was. Dr. Sam had told him never to wake her in the middle of a sleepwalk, just to put his arm around her and guide her back to her bed.

  Loch got up in the dark, made his way past the clutter of cryptids, and went to Zaidee’s room. He knelt down by her sleeping bag. When she cried out again, he shook her.

  “Hey, it’s a dream,” Loch said, “a dream.”

  Zaidee flung her eyes open and stared at her brother. “I wasn’t having a dream,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I was having a nightmare … the worst nightmare in the world with a lot of bats landing on my face … and they were all trying to drink out of my mouth … and do other horrible things …”

  “That wasn’t nice of them, was it?” Loch said softly. He put his hand gently on her forehead. He remembered his mother used to do that when Zaidee had had a bad dream. “Zaidee,” he said gently, “you saw what happened to Erdon. Maybe you want to sit up and talk about it. Sometimes it’s better to talk about things. …”

  Zaidee pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and turned over. “Lots of sauce on that pizza … a lot of sauce …” she muttered, and was asleep again.

  At breakfast, Dr. Sam gave each of his kids a hug. His only way to deal with what had happened on the lake was to push the images down deep, to bury them until he had time to deal with the tremendous rush of guilt he had felt over the attack on the lake. He had tried to raise Loch and Zaidee to be brave and not afraid of life, but he had never meant to put either of them in danger. He had lost his wife. If he lost Loch or Zaidee, he knew it would be more than he could survive.