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 was 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
“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
4
