“You see anything?” Zaidee asked, busy eating her sandwich and playing Crashers.
Loch pulled his mask off. “I’m not sure.” There was no point in telling Zaidee anything until he had checked it out.
“You know, the screen’s even worse now,” Zaidee complained. “The squiggly line’s going ballistic. You want half a roast-beef sandwich?”
“No thanks.” Loch spit into his mask again and smudged the saliva around on the plastic with his fingers.
“Hey.” Zaidee gagged. “I’m eating!”
Loch put the mask back on, kicked his legs high into the air, and dove back to the bottom of the pool.
Again he heard the faint, curious music. He knew it wasn’t caused by any water in his ears, and he certainly hadn’t been down long or deep enough to have delirium levels of nitrogen in his blood. Once more he approached the water plants. This time he glimpsed the dark blur rushing behind a rock, a creature about the size of a seal. He knew even seals bite if their territory is invaded, so he used his fins to glide slowly up and over the top of the rock. The cello sound changed suddenly into an ominous hum.
When he looked down, all he could think was, Oh my God.
Directly beneath him was the black, bony, plated back of what had to be a very young plesiosaur. Adrenaline shot into Loch’s blood. The long neck of the creature lifted, then twisted so its head could turn and look up at him. Loch stared into the face of the creature, a miniature of the ghastly, terrifying Rogue.
The hum became more of a growl. He realized the creature’s mouth could open at any moment, and the little beast might lunge for his throat. Loch let his legs settle slowly, until his fins lay on the top of the rock. The creature’s eyes stayed riveted on him, but its frightening humming dropped a pitch, becoming softer and less threatening. Loch saw bruises on the creature’s ribbed fins and body. He knew it had to have been cornered with its mother at the nets, then washed through the cavern and over the falls. Now it was trapped in the pool, hurt and dazed. Loch had seen the same sad look in the eyes of a coyote he once saw limping out of a canyon after a fire. The flames had burned the coyote’s back, compromising its wild instincts.
The humming stopped.
Loch moved and settled slowly to one side of the rock. Now the creature was in front of him.
“Okay, fellah … it’s okay.” Loch spoke softly through the mouthpiece. He knew to minimize the stream of bubbles from his air tank and let his words reverberate deeply from his chest, a type of intoning his father had taught him when they had hand-fed groupers and sea turtles off tropical reefs.
The creature raised its bumpy snout.
“Good boy … uh, good little boy,” Loch repeated as he reached out his right hand just a few inches, as he would to pet a strange dog. “Nice little plesiosaur …”
Suddenly the hoods above the creature’s eyes lifted, revealing the full size of its enormous eyes. It reared up, drew its head back, then shot it forward, brandishing a massive mouth of jagged teeth. Like a demonic swan, it lunged its snout again and again at Loch, never touching him, but causing him to fall over backward. Loch froze with the creature on top of him, its teeth whirling just above his face. Loch’s heart beat crazily, until the lunges stopped. Finally the creature closed its mouth, slowly retreating from Loch’s head. Lock took a deep breath.
It doesn’t want to hurt me, Loch told himself, astounded.
Inch by inch, Loch eased himself away from the creature and righted himself. It began to make a new sound. At first it was a type of clicking, as if it were sending out a kind of sonar to examine Loch. But the clicking sounds changed into the eerily beautiful music again.
“You make music when you feel safe,” Loch said to the creature. “Music when you trust someone …”
Loch didn’t know the words to express the thrill of being in the presence of the creature, but he knew he was witnessing something rare and precious and inexplicable.
Loch pushed against the bottom and swam slowly upward. He surfaced near Zaidee and spit out his mouthpiece.
“Give me a sandwich!” he gasped, deciding not to tell her yet about the creature.
“Say please,” Zaidee insisted.
“Please.”
“Roast beef or ham?” she asked, offering both.
He grabbed the roast-beef sandwich, bit down on the mouthpiece, and quickly dove back beneath the surface.
“Hey!” Zaidee yelled, watching the sandwich go under.
Loch reached bottom. The creature hadn’t moved. Again it started its music. Slowly, he held out the disintegrating sandwich, letting the bread and meat float down in front of the creature. Quickly, its head reared back, then snapped forward, over and over again until every speck of the sandwich was devoured.
“Good boy … you’re a little hungry … good fellah.” Loch knew there had to be small fish in the pool-shoreline crappies and sunfish from the lake that had gotten caught up in the underwater current the same way he had-but hardly enough for a growing young plesiosaur. Loch attempted to imitate the sounds, the pitch, and the rhythm, of the creature’s music. Eventually, he inched his hand out toward its head. The creature allowed him to slide his fingers gently over the knobby plating on the skull.
“You need a name,” Loch told the creature, as he continued to pet its head. He thought about calling it Dan or Steve, but a human name didn’t seem to fit. He remembered they had named its mother Beast. “Son of Beast” also didn’t sound right.
Loch stopped petting the creature for a moment and moved his hands to adjust his mask. The creature seemed disappointed. It lifted its head until Loch’s hand was touching it. Again Loch petted it, then tried moving his hand away. Once more the creature slid its head under Loch’s hand.
Loch laughed. “You want more.”
Finally Loch tried moving away a few feet. The creature moved with him. “You’re smart,” Loch told the creature. “And you probably want another sandwich. I’ll be right back, okay?”
Loch started to swim, reaching his cupped hands out, pulling at the water. When Loch looked back, he saw the creature swimming after him, its fins thrusting it forward smoothly, powerfully.
“How about this?” Loch said, bubbles rising as he looped over backward. The creature stayed with him, circling at his side. By now Loch knew the creature understood it was a game, and they began to spin and turn joyously beneath the water.
Zaidee knew Loch’s air supply would be running out soon, that he’d have to come up. She hung over the edge of the pool, watching Loch cavort in and out of the deep shadows with something that looked to her like a big otter. It appeared they were playing a weird game of tag.
When Loch finally started up toward her, the creature followed almost to the surface, but then disappeared into the water plants.
Loch’s head bobbed up near the ledge.
“What is that thing down there?” Zaidee asked. “Whatever it is, I think it’s making the static line on Crashers go bonkers.”
Loch pulled himself out. “You’ve got to see it to believe it,” he gasped. “You got another sandwich?”
“There’s half a ham and cheese left.”
“Hold it over the edge,” Loch told her. “It needs to know you’re a friend.”
Zaidee scrunched up her face. “I am not that thing’s friend!”
“Come on,” Loch said. “Don’t you want to see it?” He took the sandwich and stuck it in Zaidee’s hand. “Just let it watch you putting it in the water. It can see what you’re doing.”
“Big deal. Dad let me feed otters in the Galapagos when I was three years old.”
“Do it!”
He helped hold Zaidee as she reached out and set the sandwich in the water. She no sooner let go of it than the head of the creature exploded from the surface, hurtling the bread and meat into the air. As the food fell down, all Zaidee could see and hear was a whirling blur of ferocious, gnashing teeth. Zaidee screamed until the creature had finished its feeding, closed its mouth, and settled quietly at the edge of the pond to look at them.
“Nasty,” Zaidee said.
