“It’s getting very weak,” Joaquin reported from the window. He was having no trouble putting away food as he watched the gloomy view, wolfing down two bowls in quick succession. “Its head keeps dipping under the water. Won’t be able to hold it up much longer, I guess.”
“And then it’ll drown. Good work, Holloway.” Slater looked at the billionaire, eyes challenging.
He shrugged. “We’ve got another one.”
Slater sighed. She looked close to tears and Aston thought again about suggesting they take a dinghy back to town and quit the whole operation. Surely there was some way he could find the cash to get Chang off his back. Maybe robbing a bank was a better option than this.
“I’ve been thinking,” Holloway said, upbeat and enthusiastic again. “It probably hunts at night, don’t you figure?”
Aston realized the question was directed at him. He glanced at the windows, quickly darkening with the rapidly approaching twilight. This time of year it wouldn’t be full dark for a good couple of hours yet, but so far north the twilight was a long and ever-deepening affair. “Not sure,” he admitted. “A lot of predators will hunt at night or dusk, when certain factors are in their favor. But equally as many are happy enough hunting in the daylight hours. It’s impossible to say.” Even if he had known for certain, he would have been reluctant to give Holloway concrete information any more. It felt like a betrayal of Slater, of his own professional integrity, of common decency even.
Holloway waggled his fingers. “Just postulate for me here. Suppose this is a prehistoric aquatic hunter. Given all you know about them, what’s your best guess about their feeding habits?”
Aston noticed the cold eye of the lens on him again, Carly silently moving about the cabin capturing everything. She seemed to have retreated even further since the incident with the sheep and kept the camera in front of herself permanently like a shield.
“All I know about them?” Aston said. “I’m a marine biologist, not an archeologist. I know next to nothing about prehistoric aquatic dinosaurs and we don’t even know if that’s what this is!”
“Speculate for me, man! I’m paying you for your expertise. Extrapolate what you know about similar animals.”
“Okay, fine. I really have next to nothing to base this on, but it’s quite possible it would only feed at night or dusk, given that it’s harder for prey to see it coming in the darkness, or its prey may be sleeping if we’re talking about it coming onto land. But then again, what is its prey? Whatever this prehistoric beast ate back in the bloody Jurassic or whatever is probably not around any more. If this is an ocean-dwelling creature that’s found its way into this lake through underground passages, that’s almost certainly because it’s on the hunt. What’s it found here that keeps bringing it back?”
Five seconds of contemplative silence hung in the air as they all considered the question.
“People.” Makonnen’s voice cut through the quiet.
Everyone present turned as one to face the usually taciturn ship’s captain. His face was deadly serious.
“People?” Slater asked.
Makkonen shrugged and wiped up the last of his chili with a hunk of bread. “What else? There’s nothing here that it can’t find it greater numbers out to sea. Sure, there’s the occasional deer but the population is sparse due to heavy hunting. The fish we have in Lake Kaarme are small compared to giant shoals out there. And, if it’s as big as we think, it could probably take out dolphin, sharks, even whales, giant squid, who knows what else? The only thing in ready supply here that’s not out there are people. Maybe we’re a delicacy.”
It was the longest speech Makkonen had ever made and it silenced the room.
“According to local history,” Slater said eventually, her countenance dark, “the natives had a tradition of sacrificing people to whatever lived in the lake.”
“Sweeney was killed at night,” Joaquin said around a mouthful of chili. “At least, his last pictures were taken at night.”
Aston tried to ignore the chill tickling the base of his spine as he remembered the images Holloway had shown them upon their first meeting. Did the creature have a particular taste for human flesh? He had nothing to say to that theory. But the old captain was onto something. There was nothing in this lake big enough to keep the interest of a giant apex predator. It had no reason to keep coming back unless it was getting something it found nowhere else and the history he had studied so far, the disappearances, all pointed to human flesh. Gaszi, Dave, even the policeman that fool Rinne said he had sent to investigate them. They were all missing, presumed dead. Presumed eaten, with no better theory forthcoming.
The silence in the room returned, hanging heavy like a fog. Even Holloway seemed subdued by the captain’s assessment. A high-pitched squeak interrupted them.
“What was that?” Aston asked, looking behind the ever-present camera.
Carly pointed at the screens, forgotten in the conversation. The first screen was lit up, the motion-sensor lights on the camera nearest the vertical lair tunnel illuminating the rock walls and the end of a huge, grey shape sliding by. They crowded quickly for a better view as the wide tail fin went past.
Aston, Slater, Holloway, Joaquin and Makkonen, shoulder to shoulder, stared hard at the mostly dark screens. Carly stayed back, recording.
“It’s coming toward the lake, not going to the lair,” Aston said quietly. “There’s one more camera to pass that way.”
Another flash lit up a screen and a row of sharp teeth in a long, bony mouth swept past the lens, followed by a seemingly endless flank of pale scales, a long fin, sharp spines.
“Holy mother of god, it’s working. Here she comes!” Holloway fired up the sonar and snapped on all the underwater spotlights lining the hull. The images from the Merenneito’s underside cameras flared into brightness as the sonar scanned the lake depths in front of the underwater channel. After a few seconds pregnant with tension a massive image pinged back. A long shadow moving away from the lake shore, heading directly for them.
“That has to be fifteen meters long,” Aston said quietly, subdued by both the enormity and the very reality of the creature. If a single shred of doubt had remained, it was gone.
“Fifteen meters?” Slater whispered. “That’s about fifty feet.” Her eyes were wide as they challenged Aston to confirm her mental arithmetic.
He simply nodded.
“She’s on her way!” Holloway yelled and ran from the room.
The others followed him onto the deck. The sheep tied to the net lolled and drifted, still managing the occasional weak bleat. Time and again, its head rolled back then jerked up as water covered its nose. Every time it was a slower, more laborious effort to save itself.
“Ollie, the controls!” Holloway barked, and Makkonen ran to the winch arm.
They stared at the cloudy water, illuminated into swirls of silt and debris by the powerful halogens. Aston almost hoped for nothing to happen, but a tiny part of him raced with the adrenaline rush that comes on the precipice of success. Were they really about to see a creature thought extinct for millions of years?
A massive, pale bulk suddenly rose into the hull lights near the surface and the almost unconscious sheep squealed as it was whipped under.
“Close it up!” Holloway yelled and Makkonen hit the buttons that started to draw the giant net rapidly closed.
Aston stared dumbfounded. Was the mad bastard really going to catch it? Water burst in roiling, thrashing waves, white like a sudden whirlpool boiling up as the thing twisted and turned, trying to avoid the rapidly closing steel mesh. The boat rocked as the beast’s massive weight dragged against the net and that in turn hauled on the winch. Metallic screeches and creaking sounded from the rails, the deck groaned and the winch seemed to flex as though it were about to snap clean off. The crew staggered, grabbing for rails to avoid being tipped into the lake. Carly managed to hold tight with one hand to the doorframe of the bridge and keep filming with the other. Aston was impressed.