Paul Zindel: Loch

BLIP, BLIP, BLIP.

“Five hundred feet and closing …”

BLIP …

Cavenger reached his hands out around the edges of the master screen in front of him like a warlock peering into a cauldron. “We’ve got this one.”

“We won’t be able to net it out here,” Dr. Sam said.

“No,” Cavenger said without looking up. “But we are going to blow its head off. We get the carcass of the first one, then we can worry about netting the others.”

Dr. Sam shifted in his seat.

The sonar signal disappeared at three hundred fifty feet.

“What’s going on?” Cavenger shouted, turning away from the screens to look at Dr. Sam. “What happened to our signal?”

“Nothing,” Dr. Sam said.

Cavenger jumped up to check the graphic recorders. “Get that signal back,” he ordered.

“Our sonar is operational,” Dr. Sam said, confused. “The creature’s disappeared.”

“A beast that size doesn’t just disappear,” Cavenger roared.

There was a mild impact to the boat, enough to throw the frail Cavenger off balance. Emilio grabbed him before he fell.

“What was that?” Cavenger asked.

“We’ve hit something,” Haskell said nervously. He shifted the motor’s gears. “We’ve got power, but it’s not engaging the prop.”

“Tell everyone to hold their positions,” Cavenger ordered Randolph. He got on the radio as Cavenger went to Haskell. “What is going on!” he yelled.

“There must be something wrong with the propeller shaft,” Haskell said.

“I think he’s right,” Emilio agreed.

“We’re dead in the water, is that what you’re telling me?” Cavenger began to rant.

“We must have hit one of those logs.” Captain Haskell’s voice cracked in the face of Cavenger’s fury. “Probably a sheared cotter pin. We can fix it, but someone’s going to have to go down.”

Cavenger turned on Randolph. “You’re the dive engineer. Go fix it!”

“Mr. Cavenger,” Randolph said respectfully, “we had something on the sonar. One of the creatures is somewhere around here.”

“No, it isn’t,” Cavenger said. “Sam said it disappeared, didn’t you, Sam?”

“It’s not on the sonar,” Dr. Sam replied.

“Then it’s gone, is that correct?” Cavenger pressed. “Or don’t you know what the hell you’re talking about?”

“It’s gone,” Dr. Sam said uneasily.

“Fine,” Cavenger told Dr. Sam. “And since you’re the great oceanographer, you can buddy Randolph on the dive.”

Loch and Zaidee looked to the east corridor of the lake once the search fleet had passed. Finally, they saw a lone boat cutting through the water toward them. As it neared, they saw Sarah waving to them from behind the wheel of an old fishing skiff.

“See,” Loch told Zaidee, “she comes through.”

“I still don’t trust her,” Zaidee said through her teeth. “Besides, it’s just a dumpy old fishing boat.”

“I think you should stay at the camp,” Loch said.

“No way.” Zaidee made a face.

“Zaidee,” Loch said, “it really would be safer.”

“Look,” Zaidee said. “You can depend on me. I’m not going to let you risk your life with some daddy’s little girl with no guts. She won’t be there for you when you need her. She doesn’t even like fish.”

“You’ll have nightmares.”

“Wee Beastie needs me!” Zaidee stamped her foot.

Sarah threw the boat into neutral as she neared the dock. She let the momentum and wind glide the boat in. Loch grabbed the front tie rope while Zaidee jumped aboard.

“The boat’s not very fast,” Sarah apologized, “but at least it’s bigger than your boat.”

Loch recognized the skiff as he boarded and pushed off. “It was in the first day’s search.”

“Right. They dropped it out when they got the PT,” Sarah said. “I had to take this or a twenty-seven-foot Seasprite with a leak.”

Loch swung around into the open cabin and took over the wheel. He shifted into reverse. The dual propellers churned the water behind them, drawing the boat backward and away from the dock. At the edge of the black water, he shifted into forward and brought the boat around and headed across the lake.

“Where are we going?” Sarah asked.

“The logging camp.”

“Why?”

Loch knew he had to warn them. “I found the caretaker’s head last night,” he said. “You don’t want to know about that, but something’s spilling the logs out of the pond there.”

“You found Jesse Sanderson’s head?” Zaidee said, her eyes wide. “Oh, puke.”

“I’ll give you the grisly details later. How fast does this baby go?” Loch asked.

“You saw me,” Sarah said.

Loch threw the throttle full open. The motor roared, settling the rear of the skiff deeper into the water. It threw out an enormous wake and lifted the bow above the horizon line.

“It’s doing ten, maybe twelve knots,” Loch called over the noise. “That’s not too bad.”

“Glad you like it,” Sarah said. She moved closer to him, putting her arm around his waist.

Zaidee gagged. “Oh, that’s cute.”

“How would you know what’s cute?” Sarah asked.

Zaidee stuck her tongue out and sat on the side bench. She started checking out the equipment on board. There was a coil of old rope, rusted trolling gear, and a half dozen tar-covered life vests in a center storage chest. She rummaged through the life vests, picked out the cleanest one, and put it on, tying the strings in front into neat bows. She moved forward to get a better look at the electronic equipment. There was a gaping hole in the center where the sonar equipment had been pulled out, but an old tuner protruded from the right of the control panel.

“At least they left the radio,” Zaidee said.

Loch stayed on a course straight across the lake. He wanted to spend as little time as possible traveling in the deepest water, and at ten knots he figured no creature would have the time or the inclination to take a bead on them. If there was one thing he really believed about the beasts, it was that they wouldn’t attack unless they thought someone was going to harm them.

“Careful in the shallows,” Sarah said as the boat approached the north shore.

“Right,” Loch said, circling wide to the left, then straightening the skiff out to run parallel along the deep-water line.

The three of them looked in awe at the huge wall of thick, tall pines that rose from the rocks of the north shore. The late-morning sun wasn’t high enough yet in the sky to light the mammoth trees of the north bank. Farther up the shallows disappeared altogether, blending into a great blackness of water. From here the massive scars the logging mill had inflicted on the mountains could be glimpsed on the highest ridges.

Sarah pointed, shouting above the din of the motor: “There’s the mill.”

Zaidee was on her feet now, watching the approach to the boathouse with its long wooden dock. The mill itself was a long rectangle of corrugated tin, with an entire wall of windows overlooking the lake. It was cantilevered on jutting supports that thrust the building high out over the water. An elevated sluice emerged from one end of the building like the tracks of a roller coaster.

Zaidee felt a chill. “Jeez, it looks spooky.”

“If Wee Beastie’s anywhere, it’s around here,” Loch said.

At the base of the mill was the holding pond, its surface covered with enormous, moldering logs left over from when the mill had closed.

Loch took the boat in closer, checking the levee between the log pond and the lake. “That’s where all the logs have been drifting out from,” Loch said, pointing to a break in the levee. He shifted the boat into neutral, letting it glide toward the dock. Sarah took the wheel as Loch ran out on the bow and jumped onto the dock with the front tie rope. A second later Sarah jumped onto the dock and secured the rear tie.