Paul Zindel - Loch

“Hi.” Zaidee waved to them. “Nice day for a swim.”

The frogmen swam to the edge of the pool and pulled themselves out onto the granite ledge. They saw the pile of wet snorkel equipment thrown into the back of the jeep. “Who’s out here with you?” one of the frogmen demanded to know.

“A couple of friends. We’re having a picnic.” Zaidee smiled. “They’re in the woods looking for firewood. Would you like some Fruity Pebbles?”

They noticed the pile of squid and fish on the rock. “What’s that?”

“Oh, you know,” Zaidee said, “we always say, what’s a picnic without roast fish!”

Randolph’s voice came roaring from the top of the ridge. He was running down from the bunker, clutching a walkie-talkie and pointing downstream. “Get them!”

The divers turned and spotted Loch and Sarah splashing their way down the grid with a strange black creature. In a second, the frogmen were after them.

The water on the second level of the grid was knee-deep, sufficient for Wee Beastie to propel himself along beside them like a seal. Loch kept urging him on. “Don’t worry, fellah, we’re going to make it. Just hang in there. You’ll be okay.”

But the end of the grid steps looked too far away.

Sarah looked over her shoulder as she pushed ahead. “They’re coming!” she yelled. Loch turned and saw the frogmen already in the top of the grid. More men were racing down from the bunker to join Randolph. Loch could only think that if somehow Sarah and he could get Wee Beastie to the last grid step, he would make it over the last obstacle and escape into the deep, swift stream to Lake Champlain.

The frogmen were gaining on them.

“I’m getting exhausted!” Sarah yelled when the water grew still deeper near the end of the fourth step. Here a steel barrier forced the powerful surge of water to cascade down to the next step, a drop of several feet. Wee Beastie couldn’t make it over alone. The creature tried to turn from the barrier, to go back toward the pursuers, but Loch and Sarah got behind him again and started to lift him. With a great fluttering of his front fins, finally Wee Beastie went splashing over into the next grid step.

“What is that?” Sarah called as she and Loch dropped down to the lower grid. A rippling of white water lay directly ahead.

“Artificial rapids,” Loch called back.

“They look real enough to me!” Sarah gasped as the current pulled her along.

“Look!” Loch yelled, pointing ahead. Beyond the end of the last grid, coming up the stream, was a skiff carrying a crew of armed men. Cavenger must have had a second team searching downstream, and Randolph had ordered it into position with his walkie-talkie.

They were trapped; men were closing from upstream and down.

Back at the waterfall, Zaidee continued to relax in the backseat of the jeep, eating her Fruity Pebbles. Randolph was yelling at her, asking her about the black creature, what it was, what her brother and Sarah were doing with it.

“It’s an otter,” Zaidee told him, “a big old mutant otter.” The more Randolph yelled at her, the more she kept her attention on two things: the sight of her buddies trapped in the grid and the keys hanging in the jeep’s ignition. The second company jeep made it up the hill and screeched to a halt next to Randolph. Four burly men in fatigues leaped out to join in the chase. It was getting very unfair, Zaidee felt. Then the huge military helicopter lifted over the ridge with a roar. As far as Zaidee was concerned, that was downright mean. That was overkill.

Randolph shouted commands into his walkie-talkie while the chopper hovered above, kicking up great swirls of dust. Zaidee waited until no one was looking at her, then slid into the driver’s seat of the jeep and turned the key in the ignition. The jeep started. In a second, she had it in gear. Randolph turned and saw her. “Hey!” he yelled.

“Party on!” Zaidee shouted. She floored the accelerator, making the jeep’s wheels spin and tear into the ground. A few of the men ran to stop her, but the wheels gripped, and the jeep shot forward onto the dirt road, heading fast down the hill. Zaidee kept the gear in second. She wanted power with speed.

Below, in the grid, Loch and Sarah had stopped. There seemed to be no point in going forward or in turning back. The frogmen and Randolph’s crew were bearing down on them through the grid and along the shore path. The men in the skiff closed from downstream.

“I’m sorry, fellah,” Loch told Wee Beastie. The creature had heard the sounds of the strange men and had begun to tremble.

“Can’t we do anything?” Sarah cried out.

“I don’t think so,” Loch said sadly.

Suddenly, there was a screech of brakes on the left bank and a cloud of dust as a vehicle skidded to a stop.

“Move it!” Zaidee yelled.

Loch, Sarah-even Wee Beastie-turned, surprised by Zaidee’s sudden arrival at the wheel of the jeep. “Way to go!” Loch shouted. They pushed their way through the rushing water to the cement slab that lined the bank. Sarah climbed onto a set of rungs, clutching the creature around his neck. Loch, struggling to keep his footing in the strong current, lifted Wee Beastie as high as he could, but it wasn’t enough. Zaidee jumped out of the jeep, ran to the edge, and reached to grab one of Wee Beastie’s fins.

The men running down the path were nearly upon them. The second jeep, with Randolph, was coming fast down the hill road.

Then, with one last effort from all of them, Wee Beastie was out of the grid. The three of them lifted him into the back of the jeep. Loch jumped behind the wheel and threw the jeep into gear while Sarah and Zaidee held on to the creature. Three of Randolph’s men came running from the grid path and tried to grab onto the jeep as it moved forward. Wee Beastie snapped his head back, then lunged forward, letting his awesome cluster of teeth snap out at them. The men screamed, pulling their arms away fast before they could be bitten off. The jeep gained speed, shooting forward through the last treacherous curves of the hillside before racing out onto the paved south road.

The pursuit jeep with Randolph had fallen behind, but the enormous helicopter swooped down quickly as though from nowhere, its shadow falling on them like that of a great, brown wasp.

The helicopter stayed low, practically on top of the speeding jeep as it hit an open stretch of the road. A gruff voice on the helicopter’s speakers blared down at them to stop. Finally, the road snaked under a cover of tall pines and birch.

“We’ll be lucky if we make it as far as the trailer,” Loch said. “Then we’ll be cornered.”

“The lake!” Zaidee cried out. “We’ve got to at least get him into the lake!”

The creature made its noises loud and clear. CLICK CLICK …

CLACK CLICK CLACK …

“What’s with him?” Sarah asked.

“He makes those noises whenever he thinks we’re going to leave him,” Zaidee explained. “He always wants to stay with us.”

CLICK CLACK …

By the time the pursuit jeep made the turn into the Perkins camp, Randolph had already radioed the helicopter to set down in the field near the duck pond. Six armed men were already marching toward the jeep parked at the edge of the lake. Loch, Sarah, and Zaidee stood next to it waiting for them.

“Hey,” Loch yelled at the men, “you’re trespassing!”

“Where is it?” Randolph demanded, striding up to check out the jeep.

“I told you it was only an otter,” Zaidee said, ticked off. “A mutant ninja otter.”

“We put it back in the lake,” Loch said.

“Search the grounds,” Randolph ordered his men. Half of the men spread out over the dock and lakefront, the other half moved to check the grounds and duck pond. Randolph singled Sarah out. “We know what it is. What did you do with it?”