Loch tzu-1

by Paul Zindel

  “Dad’s quit!” Zaidee shouted happily. “Cavenger wants him off the boat immediately. I think a helicopter’s lifting him back to the base. …”

  Zaidee’s voice suddenly cracked and she went silent. Loch watched her lift her hand and point toward the boat slips beneath him. She was seeing something he couldn’t. All at once Sarah’s and Loch’s eyes opened in terror as the monstrous head of the Rogue lifted into view, filling the frame of the window. The massive yellow eyes of the beast fixed upon them behind the glass.

  Sarah screamed as the shadow fell over her.

  “Don’t move!” Loch told her, but she was out of control. She leaped up from the chair. Her hand reached out, and she grabbed a heavy ashtray from the table.

  “No!” Loch shouted, rushing toward her-but it was too late.

  Sarah hurled the ashtray toward the Rogue.

  CRASH.

  The picture window exploded. The Rogue shook his head, startled by the attack. He let out a loud, shrieking blast from his nostrils, slime splattering across the living room as he thrust his head forward.

  The head and neck of a second beast, its snout thinner, coarser, ripped up through the center of the floor, blocking the door through which they had entered. Loch spotted another door, one off the kitchen. He grabbed Sarah’s hand.

  “Go!” Loch yelled, pushing Sarah ahead of him.

  In a moment they were out the door, running up the stairs of a breezeway. They burst through yet another door into a huge, empty warehouse with high, vaulted ceilings of corrugated tin.

  “Where are we?” Sarah cried out, her heart pounding in her chest.

  Loch looked at the cluster of machinery and huge blades at the far end of the building. “I think it’s the cutting room,” he said.

  CRASH. The entire building shook.

  Loch remembered the building was cantilevered out over the lake. “The creatures are hitting the supports.”

  There was another, stronger impact near the breezeway, this time with the sound of metal twisting, beams cracking.

  “Come on,” Loch yelled, grabbing Sarah’s hand and running for the far end of the building. Daylight streamed in through the cracks of what looked like a barn door past the huge sawing machinery. They swung the doors open, only to see a narrow walkway onto the elevated log sluice.

  CRASH. The entire building trembled, began to dip downward, shattering the wall of windows. The only way out was onto the sluice.

  “I hate heights!” Sarah shouted to Loch as he led her out and along the rickety gully. On both sides of the sluice was a fifty-foot drop.

  There was another shock to the building, and a wall of logs on the mountain began to waken.

  Loch looked back as the sound of the low, frightening rumble began to grow. There was a rush of water onto the sluice, and one by one logs dropped into the flow. The first log hurtled toward them.

  “We’re going to have to jump into the log pond,” Loch said.

  “I’m not jumping anywhere,” Sarah yelled.

  “Get ready!” Loch warned, holding her hand firmly.

  “I’m not jumping.”

  “Yes, you are!”

  Loch leaped, taking Sarah with him. They dropped down, down into the slim wedge of open water at the rim of the log pond, and surfaced quickly. For a moment they thought they were safe, but there came a rumbling noise from above.

  “Oh, my God!” Sarah cried, as they looked up to see the sluice breaking and a log hurtling down at them. It fell with all the speed and force of a huge battering ram. Loch grabbed Sarah, set his feet against a pylon, and pushed them both away. The falling log crashed into the water next to them, a single untrimmed branch tearing across Loch’s shoulder like a whip.

  “You’re bleeding,” Sarah gasped as they pulled themselves up onto the nearest floating log.

  “It’s nothing,” Loch said, standing. Beyond the levee of the log pond, he saw, Zaidee was at the wheel of the skiff.

  “Come on!” Zaidee yelled.

  Loch waved to Zaidee and helped Sarah to her feet.

  “Where are the monsters?” Sarah called to Zaidee across the landscape of logs.

  “They were heading for you!” Zaidee yelled back.

  Sarah’s eyes dropped. She saw the logs at the edge of the pond begin rising and falling.

  “Let’s go,” Loch said, leaping forward onto the next log in the jam.

  WHOOSH. A large plesiosaur rose out of the water behind Sarah. Its neck pulled back, its mouth opened wide. Sarah leaped toward Loch.

  “Keep moving!” Loch ordered Sarah, pushing her on to the next log. By the time the creature lunged, they were running on top of the logs for all they were worth. Its teeth snapped at air; then it slid back beneath the surface.

  “Hurry!” Zaidee screamed to them, nudging the bow of the skiff against the bank.

  Suddenly, the log beneath Sarah started to lift up into the air. She fell across it and hung on as it balanced crazily on the massive head of a beast. The beast’s left front flipper crashed out of the water, slapping on top of another log to give it leverage. Loch ran straight for the creature as it raised its snout and thrust its lower bed of teeth forward. The rotting log with Sarah on it began to slide off the beast’s head. Loch tore off a branch and smashed it against the creature’s fin. The beast snapped at Loch, its teeth locking on the branch, cracking it into specks. The sudden motion set the creature off balance, and its fin slipped from the log. As the beast’s own weight pulled it back under, Loch grabbed Sarah and ran forward with her across the final stretch of logs to the bank of the levee and the awaiting boat.

  Zaidee was ready at the controls.

  “I take it all back,” Zaidee told Sarah as she helped her onto the boat. “You do have guts.”

  “Thanks,” Sarah said, collapsing into the boat. “You have guts, too.”

  14

  THE JUDGMENT

  Cavenger had been glad when the helicopter had?arrived to remove Dr. Sam from the yacht and take him back to the encampment. You don’t win the Grand Prix by stopping if someone crashes, Cavenger had to remind everyone. While all the other drivers are feeling bad about the flames and the wreckage and the burning corpse, that’s when you floor it!

  “What should we do now?” Emilio asked Cavenger when the fleet had finished the sweep of the lake.

  Cavenger swiveled in his seat at the control board. “We start back, sonar active.”

  Emilio transmitted the order to the fleet. Captain Haskell led the turnaround at the west end of the lake. The fishing trawlers clanked their way past each other in a wide semicircle, giving great berth to the nets and exchanging flank positions for the return search. Cavenger motioned Emilio to keep his eye on the sonar screens, got up, and went to the munitions chest. He lifted the lid to check the rocket launcher and grenades. If any creature came their way now, Cavenger wanted everyone ready for a kill.

  On the skiff, Loch took over the wheel and threw the throttle open. The propellers growled, pulling the stern deeper and lifting the bow as the skiff began to plow out toward the open lake. A hundred yards away from the levee, Zaidee spotted a small, sleek, black shape darting in and out of their wake.

  “Stop!” Zaidee yelled. “It’s Wee Beastie!”

  Loch turned, saw the creature, and cut the throttle. He shifted into neutral and rushed to the stern.

  “It’s really not a great time to be saying hello to our little plesiosaur friend, you know,” Sarah said. Loch and Zaidee hung over the rear railing as Wee Beastie scuttled through the remnants of the wake and swam right up to the boat.

  “Hey, fellah,” Loch said, reaching his hand down toward the water. Wee Beastie rubbed his snout on Loch’s hand, fluttering his front fins.

  “Where have you been, my little darlin’?” Zaidee leaned over, joyously stroking the creature’s head. “We’ve been looking for you!”

  Clack click …

  CLICK CLACK CLACK …

  “Don’t tell me, I
know,” Sarah said. “He wants us to stay and be lunch.”

  CLACK CLICK …

  “What are you trying to tell us?” Loch asked Wee Beastie.

  Loch looked back at the twisted mill. A series of large waves flowed toward the rupture in the levee and out into the lake.

  “They’re coming out,” Loch said.

  “We’ve got to get Wee Beastie aboard,” Zaidee cried.

  “Zaidee,” Loch said, “I don’t think his mom’s really going to like that. Besides, there isn’t time.”

  CLICK CLACK CLICK …

  Loch pointed Wee Beastie to the starboard. “Move away from the props, fellah!” he yelled as he rushed back to the wheel. Wee Beastie scooted back, still clicking away as the disturbance in the water behind them got nearer.

  “Get us out of here!” Sarah shouted at Loch.

  Loch opened the throttle wide, and the skiff lunged forward.

  “He’s staying with us,” Zaidee yelled, watching Wee Beastie drop away from the gurgling props to dash in and out of the wake. Behind him the turbulence of the surface stalked them.

  “Uh-oh,” Zaidee said.

  “How many creatures are there?” Sarah asked.

  Loch turned from the wheel to look back. “From what we’ve seen, I think there’s five or six big ones,” he shouted. “I think it’s just a family.”

  “Enough to eat Greater Miami,” Zaidee said.

  “What are they doing?” Sarah wanted to know.

  “They’re not stupid,” Loch yelled over the roar of the engine. “They know the cover’s been blown on their den. There’s no place left for them to hide!” He turned the skiff west. Wee Beastie and the herd stayed with them.

  “Are we the only meal around?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” Loch said, “but Wee Beastie might have told them we’re their only chance. They’re not chasing us-they’re following us.”

  “What can we do?” Zaidee asked.

  “Try to get Dad on the ship-to-shore,” Loch said.

  “I don’t know if I can,” Zaidee said, scooting to the radio. “It receives, but I don’t know if this thing can send.” She put the earphones on and grabbed the hand mike. “The helicopter took him back to the camp.”

  “He’d clear out of there. Try the Volvo,” Loch said. “Let him know where we are and what’s happening.”

  “Boy, are we going to be grounded or what?” Zaidee wailed, pressing the send button.

  “I’ll do it,” Sarah said, reaching to take the mike.

  “No way,” Zaidee said, pulling away and shouting into the microphone. “Big Z to Dad … Big Z to Dad … ”

  Loch glanced over his shoulder. Wee Beastie still skimmed in the wake of the boat, leading the underwater herd.

  “Tell Dad to get to the grid! Get there and open it!” Loch ordered Zaidee. “He’s got to open that grid!”

  “What’s that?” Cavenger shouted, looking out over the bow of The Revelation. In the distance it had looked like a cat’s-paw of wind, but now they recognized the skiff heading for them.

  “It’s one of ours,” Emilio said, checking it through binoculars.

  “Who’s in it?” Cavenger demanded to know.

  Emilio adjusted the focus on the binoculars. “Your daughter and Perkins’ kids.”

  BLIP BLIP … BLIP BLIP …

  The sonar screens of the control room leaped alive with closing, black dots. A rush of electronic sounds caused turmoil with the speakers, and the styluses on the graph machines nearly shot off the charts.

  “What’s going on!” Cavenger roared, grabbing the binoculars. “What the hell do those kids think they’re doing?”

  The radio receiver lit up. “Everybody’s picking up the signals,” Emilio said, confused. “It’s the boat, but it’s … beasts. There are a lot of them.”

  “Tell the net boats to close!” Cavenger roared.

  “Close the nets!” Emilio shouted into the radio.

  “Faster,” Cavenger yelled, moving quickly across the length of the control console.

  BLIP … BLIP …

  There was too much data coming in for Cavenger and his men to process, too much to compute and calculate. The trawlers were pulling ahead, beginning to close their circle. Cavenger grabbed the mike out of Emilio’s hand and began bellowing into it himself. “Faster! Faster!”

  “They’re doing as much as they can,” Emilio said.

  BLIP …

  Cavenger threw the mike back at Emilio. “They’re not going to make it!” he shouted with disgust. All his calculations had never considered the possibility of the fleet being rushed by a herd of plesiosaurs. He looked off the port side and was relieved to see the crew members of the PT boat ready with rifle butts held firmly against their shoulders. The new photographer-who hadn’t been told about Erdon-was at the video camera, following the action. Cavenger checked to see that the harpoon team was in position at the bow, then grabbed a pistol and ran out on deck. The skiff with Loch at the wheel passed swiftly between the yacht and the PT boat. Cavenger saw his daughter with Loch and Zaidee. And he saw the great undulations fast behind them.

  He fired a single shot into the air to alert everyone. There was no way he was going to come out of this empty-handed. If anything, he would err on overkill.

  “Slaughter the beasts!” he found himself shouting, his hand trembling as he pointed down at the huge passing shadows. “Slaughter them!”

  As Sarah passed in the skiff, she saw her father out on the deck of The Revelation. She didn’t recognize him at first; his face was distorted with hate and he looked out of control. She had never seen him like that, and she flinched when she heard him fire the gun.

  “What’s going to happen?” Sarah asked Loch.

  “I don’t know,” Loch said. “We have to keep going.”

  “What if Dad didn’t hear us on the ship-to-shore?” Zaidee asked. “What if he didn’t understand or won’t open the grid?”

  Bam. Bam. Bam …

  Terrible sounds of rifle fire echoed from the mountains like a cluster of firecrackers lit from a single fuse.

  “Where’s Wee Beastie?” Zaidee cried out. “I don’t see him!”

  “My father’s killing them,” Sarah said.

  Loch looked back, reading the surface of the water. “No,” he said, “they’re running deep now. The bullets won’t get them. I’m sure Wee Beastie’s okay.”

  Loch glanced to the south shore at a point where the paved road weaved for a stretch close to the lake. If only Dr. Sam had heard their radio plea, if only they would catch a glimpse of the Volvo speeding along the road toward the end of the lake and the grid.

  Bam!

  The shooting started again as The Revelation and the PT boat turned about quickly and took up pursuit. The rest of the fleet floundered, struggling to turn and re-form.

  Zaidee was the first to see the little, black, shining body skimming again through the wake of their skiff.

  “Wee Beastie!” she shouted happily.

  The Revelation was gaining on them, the PT boat pacing itself easily off its port.

  Loch saw the grid and its cement control bunker in the distance. He searched the ridge for any glimpse of his father. There was no one.

  “The plesiosaurs are surfacing!” Zaidee cried out.

  Loch looked back to see the water rupture as the creatures’ dark, scaly backs began to emerge from the lake. Their speed slowed and the handful of smaller beasts began to panic, skimming to the surface at the edges of the adults like frightened fish. Only one huge head began to rise from the herd, the tremendous bony mass and snout of the Rogue. The Rogue slowed, dropping back like a patriarch whose instincts are clear.

  “What is the Rogue doing?” Zaidee asked.

  Loch, understanding what was happening, answered sadly. “Protecting his family.”

  The Revelation closed the distance between itself and the Rogue. Cavenger and his team were in place at the bow, the harpooner manning the huge gu
n. The Rogue lifted his head higher, showing more of his neck and letting the yacht come within striking distance.

  “Oh, God, please don’t …” Sarah said aloud, as if magic would carry her words to her father. As much as she feared the beasts, she didn’t want to see them destroyed like this.

  Boom.

  The first harpoon exploded from the gun and entered the Rogue’s neck so deeply its shiny, metal tip burst from the scales beneath his jaw. Blood spurted out of the wound, rushing down into the water of the lake as the creature snapped his neck back and forth, trying to break free.

  Boom.

  Another harpoon tore into the Rogue’s shoulder, this one setting deep. Its explosive head detonated, blasting loose a vast slab of the creature’s flesh and muscle.

  The PT boat began to circle the beast, its crew firing and refiring rifles, pumping bullets into his body. Sarah put her hands to her ears to try to block out the terrible, terrible noise of the shooting and the tortured roars of the beast. The Rogue kept trying to turn his head as if to see whether his herd was safe.

  “The creatures are passing us,” Zaidee yelled as the clear springs of the shallows replaced the darker peat water.

  She watched the huge blackness of the beasts rush by beneath them to halt at the mouth of the grid. What might have been Beast and two of the other larger plesiosaurs surfaced in front of the boat, forcing Loch to cut the motor and shift into neutral.

  “They’re going to eat us!” Sarah screamed, flashes of what had happened to Erdon stabbing back into her mind.

  “They could have done that already,” Loch said, ready at the wheel for anything.

  With the skiff stopped, the herd had strangely quieted, the creatures sinking to the bottom. Only Wee Beastie stayed off the boat’s stern, clicking at them, motioning with his snout toward the slaughter of the Rogue, as if there were something they could do.

  “What’s going on?” Zaidee asked, confused.

  They looked back at The Revelation. Perhaps in a last desperate attempt to escape, the Rogue had sounded in the deep water. The harpoons were holding, their lines drawn taut as the yacht began to list from the great weight and strength of the beast.