Nothing.
The safety was still on! Never in his career had he needed to draw his weapon. This was Finland, not the wild west of America or the drug-infested lawlessness of Mexico. His vision crossed and pain lanced through his ribcage. He looked down and panic flooded him as he saw the hilt of a large knife sticking out from his jacket, the blade completely buried in his body. He tried to lift his weapon again, thumb flicking at the safety, but it weighed too much. His fingers twitched at the trigger, but the mechanism was too strong for him to operate. He dropped to his knees and through his failing vision he saw a strange creation of sticks and twine in his attacker’s hand, the effigy of a man less than a foot tall.
Lehtonen tried to cry out, but only a wet gurgle emerged from his restricted throat as his punctured heart flooded his lung. The robed man stepped forward and caught the collar of Lehtonen’s jacket as he pitched forward. The last thing the Senior Constable saw before blackness swam across his eyes was the lakeshore mud sliding by as he was dragged into the darkness of the trees.
Jo Slater tossed and turned on her bunk, bone weary but unable to sleep. She was full of wine too, and that slowed her thoughts, but not sufficiently to let her drift off into blessed unconsciousness. If she was honest with herself, she was no longer worried about Dave. Now she grieved for him. He was gone. She had no proof, but equally no doubt that the man was dead. But how? Murdered by a local who stole his boat? Drowned in a freak accident? Or could he really have fallen victim to this lake monster? And if so, did that mean she owed it to him to make sure the film got finished? Or was she using a weak excuse there to justify her own desire to see this thing through. To see her continued paychecks and her chance to move on from bimbo cable host to something bigger, something more respectable. Something of which she could be genuinely proud.
She had entertained the idea that maybe Dave had fallen prey to an entirely more human monster. Maybe someone locally was using these legends of a mythical beast to get away with atrocities. It was a good cover, if a person was that way inclined. No better place to be a serial killer than in a small, isolated town where the locals expected a few people to die or disappear every year. It was a goddamned serial killer theme park. She imagined the mind-blowing exposé if she managed to reveal a culprit and blow the thing wide open. The Lake Monster Killer. Nice hook.
But she didn’t know if that was even a realistic possibility. After all, weren’t they uncovering more every day to indicate there really was some prehistoric horror here preying on the locals? And, just maybe, the idiots who came to film it.
It was all too much. The thoughts bounded in her head like a border collie on amphetamines. She needed to turn off her brain for a while. Maybe another roll with Aston would take her mind off things? She dismissed that out of hand. She wouldn’t say no to another hookup sometime in the future, but she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. Better to let things cool down for a bit.
With a sigh, she rolled off her bed and pulled on a sweater. Might as well use her insomnia productively. Everyone would be long asleep by now. She grabbed a spare t-shirt and snuck out into the belly of the boat. A tickling up her spine gave her pause for moment, the sensation that she wasn’t alone. Being watched. She held her breath and turned in a slow circle, then gasped at the shadow of someone standing not ten feet from her, motionless.
One adrenaline charged second later she realized it was a wetsuit hung on the wall next to several others. Idiot!
Sneaking up to the bridge, she paused again to look around and listen. Nothing but the quiet lapping of the lake against the hull. She peered out into the gloom. Far fewer stars this night, clouds moving in thick and low. She was no weathergirl, but it looked a little ominous to her eye. Maybe storms coming. Great.
Movement caught her eye and she turned quickly to look out across the lake toward the shore. She went to the window, squinting through the darkness. Was that something near the trees? A large bulk shifting into the deeper black? She stared for several seconds but there was nothing there, just the passing idea of a person dragging something. But the shadows shifted as the breeze moved tree branches and every time she turned her head, something else caught on the periphery of her vision like a wayward sleeve snagged on a thorny bush.
Why am I so fucking jumpy?
She went to the terminal, used the spare shirt to mask the glow like before, and logged on. When it finally booted up, she connected her external drive. As the browser loaded, a private message icon flashed by her username. With a half-smile, she clicked it.
‘All really good stuff, but we need more. Keep it coming and we might get them yet!’
Slater’s smile widened. Wait until they saw today’s footage and data. Or at least, the few encrypted snippets she was going to allow them. She quickly set the drive to uploading, nervously chewing her bottom lip as it chugged along. So damned slow, it drove her crazy. Simultaneously, she backed everything up to her personal encrypted cloud account. Once the files were sent, she replied to the message.
‘How do you like me now?:)’
With a self-satisfied chuckle, she hit Send and logged everything off. Pausing again, looking and listening carefully, she nodded. Keep those bases covered, Jo. She could imagine a bidding war soon, the way things were going. Now wouldn’t that be fun. She glanced back at the inert terminal. You’d better not fucking stiff me! she thought at her contact, half a world away. But she was pretty sure he could be trusted. As far as such things went.
She crept back down through the sleeping boat. As she approached her cabin, she heard footsteps, and then Aston’s door opened a crack.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You all right?”
“Sure, fine. Couldn’t sleep with all the craziness that’s been going on. I thought a night time stroll might help me clear my head.”
“Did it?” It was too dark to read Aston’s face, but the question was seasoned with a dash of skepticism.
“I suppose.”
“I heard you leave a while ago. I thought about coming to check on you but figured you wanted to be alone.” The last word hung there, a subtle invitation extended.
“Yeah, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be good company right now. I’m going back to bed.”
“Good night, then.”
“Night.”
She slipped into her cabin, closing the door silently behind herself. She had no idea if she would be able to sleep, but had to at least try. Rest, even wide-eyed through the night, was the next best thing.
Chapter 21
“This is going to take forever.” Joaquin scowled at the vial of liquid he’d just drawn from the lake. “Circle the entire lake testing salinity? That’s going to take forever. I don’t know where Holloway gets these ideas.”
“He got that one from me.” Aston took pleasure at Joaquin’s embarrassed grin.
“Sorry.”
“No worries.” Aston waved off the apology. “It might not work but it’s an avenue we haven’t yet tried.” They’d covered a large section of the lake countless times and performed scans of the lakeshore and bed, but despite some tantalizing clues, they were really no closer to anything definitive. If the creature, or creatures, lived here, there should be a lair somewhere, most likely in the warren of underwater passageways, but if the creatures were actually accessing the lake from the sea, that was a different story altogether. They could have their nest anywhere. Exploring every passage one by one was out of the question, but if they could find an area of high salinity, that might point the way to the ocean, and to the creature’s favored thoroughfare.