A massive concussive boom pressured her ears into deafness and water and rock smashed into her, tumbled her over and over in a maelstrom of whining silence and swirling, rushing bubbles.
Something sharp cracked into her skull and blackness rushed her vision. For a moment she was stunned, tumbling and rolling, then rising and trying desperately to hold on to her regulator, to drag air from the tank into her screaming lungs. The boom and echo of collapsing rock assaulted her ears as hearing returned, then slowly stilled. She realized she was moving up through open water. She had been blasted out into the lake. Trying to shine her light back behind, seeking the channel entrance, all she saw was clouds of silt rolling in the depths like a thunderstorm. She couldn’t be sure where the channel was, if the entrance had collapsed, if Aston or the monster had made it out or were both trapped inside. She tried to kick back down, but her head throbbed, shafts of light lanced through her vision. She must be concussed, nausea swirled in her gut. She drew hard against her respirator and nothing seemed to come through. She had exhausted her supply of air.
She kicked back upward again, heading for the near-paradise of the surface and open air, her lungs on fire. She shrugged off her harness and belt, kicking with legs like jelly. Come on, Sam! she repeated over and over like a mantra as she swam.
She broke the surface into the fresh, dark night and gasped in heavenly lungsful of blessed air, dizzy with near-suffocation. Heavy, cold rain spattered her face and it felt like a benediction as she lay back in the water and sucked in great gulp after gulp of night air.
She cried out at the site of a great pale hump in the water not thirty feet from her, then realized it was the underside of a boat. The police launch, capsized. Something moved on top.
“Over here. Let me help you.”
Slater recognized Rinne’s voice and swam to him. He helped her up onto the dubious safety of the wrecked boat. She sat heavily beside him and pressed a hand to the throbbing side of her head. It came away bloody.
“You need a doctor,” Rinne said.
“I need a lot of things,” she replied bitterly. She looked around. The Merenneito was nowhere to be seen.
Rinne sniffed and nodded. “Yes, I’m all that’s left. Until you came along, that is.”
Slater shook her head, tears breaching. “Fuck me.”
“That… thing,” Rinne began, “do you know what happened to it?”
Slater couldn’t find the words. Finally, she pointed toward the shore. “We should get out of here. Now’s our best chance. You can take my word on it.” Even if Aston hadn’t managed to seal the creature up in the tunnel, perhaps he had slowed it down.
Rinne looked nervously at the water and then over to the shore. “I don’t think I can make it, at least, not in my present condition.”
Slater nodded. She wasn’t sure she could make the swim either.
“Is anyone else down there?” Rinne asked.
She stared at the dark water, willing Aston to pop up, a wide grin on his stupid face as he regaled them with the story of how he had finally bested the monster. But he didn’t.
She shook her head. “I don’t think anyone else is coming.”
They sat in silence for another five minutes and Slater knew in that time any air Aston had left would have run out. If he’d survived the monster and the blast, he would need to be out of the water by now. Maybe he made it back up to the lair. But without air, what good was that to him? He’d had no way to get out. And the tunnel was likely collapsed. Tears rolled over her cheeks as she accepted that he really wasn’t coming back.
But to Aston’s credit, the monster didn’t appear to be coming either. If nothing else, he seemed to have been successful there. Or perhaps not. Maybe the beast was still free to roam the lake as it pleased, it just wasn’t coming for them right now. Maybe the legends would continue unabated.
She thought of all the footage they had got up until this crazy day, all secretly uploaded to her secure server. The snippets she had sent to her alternate investor, the interest she had been nurturing. Holloway was long gone, so there would be no bidding war, but she had a backer, and she had the footage. Everything that had happened today could be re-enacted or narrated somehow. It wasn’t the same as having footage of the great finale, but still… She glanced sidelong at Rinne. Maybe she could wrap the piece with those interviews with the locals she had considered before.
Through her shock and trembling, she realized her professional mind was protecting her, planning beyond this nightmare. But she would make it happen. This story would be told, and Sam Aston would be honored in its telling.
The sound of an outboard motor drifted across the lake. They turned to see a small fiberglass boat, a grizzled old man in the back guiding it toward them.
Old Mo pulled up alongside the wreckage. “Looks like you two could use a lift?”
“We’d be much obliged,” Rinne said flatly.
“Funny the things you see and hear when you live as close to the lake as I do,” Old Mo said as Slater and Rinne climbed aboard his small vessel. He scanned the water. “Come on, hurry up. I’ll get you back to town.”
Dawn purpled the eastern sky as they motored away. Slater pressed one hand to her aching head and let the tears roll freely over cheeks, gave her grief for Sam, and Dave and Carly, free rein. This story would most definitely be told. She intended to be on the first plane home.
Epilogue
Nikla Laine called out the window to his mother. “Is Dad back yet?”
She looked up from unloading groceries from the car. “How do I know, I’ve just got home? He’s not in there?”
Nikla shook his head. “He promised me we’d go fishing if I finished my work, and I have. Where is he?”
Charlotta Laine put down her shopping and planted her hands on her hips. She looked out toward the lake, eyes narrowed. What the hell was he up to this time? Fooling around with those crazy Americans, she had warned him it would bring nothing but trouble. He had been checking in every couple of days, constantly reminding her how much that fool Holloway was paying. But it was starting to feel like too long since his last visit home. She would be offended if she wasn’t so worried.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” she called up to her son.
“But he promised me today!”
“Then I’m sure he’ll be back today.”
She shook her head. Sixteen years old. She thought the toddler years had been hard. She gathered up groceries again and started ferrying them to the house.
Nikla waited until his mother had put away her shopping and left again to work her volunteer shift at the second-hand clothing charity shop in town. Be good, she had told him. Your father is sure to be home before long.
Sure, whatever. He crept to the door under the stairs and listened. The house was still and silent. His father always kept the cellar key with him, but Nikla was proud of his ingenuity. Weeks ago, coming home at lunchtime, he had found the old man passed out drunk in the armchair, his wallet and keys on the table with the empty bottle of vodka. Nikla had cautiously taken the cellar key and rushed back to town, had a copy made, and returned the original before his father had stirred.
Then Nikla had been patient, waiting for the right opportunity. He had no idea if or when his dad would be back, but day after day he had put off using the purloined key, too scared of being caught. But he could wait no longer. Something he couldn’t explain told him now was the time to try. Now or never.
He turned the key, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. A switch at the top of the stairs turned on all the lights below. His father’s private cellar, where no one was allowed, not even Nikla’s mother. She humored him, A man needs his foolish secrets, but Nikla has always wondered just what his old man did down there. If nothing else, maybe there was some good porn, or a computer without the parental controls engaged.