The Loch

Chapter 17

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt a true sense of purpose. Feeling reborn, my long-dormant mind focused upon my mission like a laser.

As to my hydrophobia, I wasn't quite ready to rush back into the water. Still, I convinced myself that logic and reason would provide me with the courage needed when the time came… if it came.

First things first, I needed information.

I knew there were hordes of self-proclaimed monster hunters on the way to Loch Ness, and they'd be well equipped and financed, armed with the latest sonar buoys and remotely operated vehicles, underwater listening devices and high-speed cameras, strobe lights and depth sounders. They'd probe the Loch from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn, just as they had for decades. They'd talk about capturing the beast in a net (though technically Nessie was still protected by Highland law) and brag about selling underwater photos to Time magazine and Life and the Times of London. As my stepfather, Charlie, would say, they were the embodiment of insanity, performing the same rituals over and over again, yet always expecting different results. Though each was willing to sell their souls for a fleeting glimpse of a fin or a passing signal on sonar, in the end, they'd fare no better than the rest.

Nessie hunters were like bad golfers who lose their ball out of bounds, yet always search the most advantageous rough for their shot.

Whatever lurked in Loch Ness might be a semiamphibious species, but it still preferred the deep. Locating a creature in a lake that was twenty-three miles long, a mile wide, and seven-to-eight hundred feet deep was equivalent to finding garter snakes in an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with black ink. As history attested, it was purely hit-and-miss… mostly miss, especially with the public anticipating glimpses of the monster along the surface.

As a scientist, I needed to narrow those odds considerably by understanding my quarry. To do that, I had to attack the challenge from a completely different angle.

What would Alfred Wallace do?

Rather than focus on locating an elusive and quite mobile creature, I decided to analyze Loch Ness as a whole. Granted, the waterway was a unique body of fresh water, its surface waters running into the North Sea (and perhaps, at one time, its deeper recesses as well) but the Loch was still an isolated ecosystem, supporting a variety of different species. At least one of these, presumably an apex predator or predators, had suddenly changed its behavioral pattern and, as a result, its diet. To me, that meant something within the food chain itself had been disturbed.

The first task would be to figure out what was off-kilter.

The second would be to use this information in order to track down the creature… and find a means to lure it up from the deep.

I spent most of that morning in the village buying supplies, and everywhere I went, people were talking about the monster. Word had spread that two large fishing trawlers were already making their way south through the Moray Firth, while another research vessel was coming north up the Caledonian Canal from Fort William. Later in the day, a tractor trailer loaded with sonar buoys was expected to arrive at the Clansman Hotel, this part of an American expedition funded by AMCO Productions, out of Cleveland.

The circus had officially come to town, but I refused to play the clown.

The "strongman" was awake by the time I returned.

"Whit's a' this then?" True demanded, seeing the brown paper bags in my arms.

"I've decided to resolve this whole Nessie thing, once and for all."

"YES!" He grabbed me beneath my armpits and lifted me to the ceiling. "This is bloody brilliant, Zachary, an' I'm wi' ye every step o' the way. So we'll need a boat then, yeah? I'll ring Brandy first thing an' tell her tae cancel all her tours—"

"No boat."

"No boat?"

"Clues and info first. I want to walk as much of the shoreline of Loch Ness as I can, beginning with the Invermoriston site where that woman was killed."

"Walk the shoreline? Why?"

"Because I'm not interested in blindly searching the largest body of water in Europe, hoping to get a blip on sonar. What we need, True, is hard evidence that'll tell us what's going on down there."

"Yeah… sure, I guess we can walk. But I'm bringin' my binoculars an' camera, jist in case."

From my shopping bags I retrieved glass jars, rubber gloves, flashlights, plastic bags, bottled water, and some snacks, then started packing my knapsack. "We'll need sleeping bags, we'll probably have to camp out a few nights."

"Christ, Zachary, whit's the plan then? Tae drop cookies along the shoreline an' hope Nessie hops in one o' these jars like a bloody bullfrog?"

"Actually, the cookies were for you."

An hour later we arrived at the Invermoriston boating dock. Police had closed down the launch, and had cordoned off the campsite and trail, but when they saw who I was, they allowed us to negotiate the shoreline.

From the Moriston River inlet, we followed the Loch to the south as far as the pier, True playing the part of my impatient shadow. Like most of Loch Ness's beaches, the ground was covered in smooth, rounded stones, which served to camouflage anything but the most obvious tracks.

"So, Sherlock Holmes, whit're we lookin' for then? Nessie turds?"

"Sure, Nessie turds would be great." I took a long scan of the shoreline, then began retracing my steps back toward the river.

True shook his head. "This science stuff, it's pretty borin', yeah?"

"Well, it's not deep diving off a North Sea oil rig, but it beats aimlessly searching the Loch."

"Maybe, but I've had better times watchin' grass grow. Now whit're ye doin'?"

On hands and knees I crawled by the water, pausing occasionally to press my nose to the rocky surface.

"Zachary, please, yer embarrassin' me. Ye think ye're a bloodhound now?"

"I detected a rancid odor yesterday. I'm hoping to catch another whiff."

"Sweet Jesus. Tell ye what, how 'bout I blah blah blah blah blah …"

I closed my eyes and inhaled, my mind absorbed in my "zone."

"… back wi' a few cold ones an some lunch. Okay? I said okay? Hey, Zack?"

I stood, moving to another section of shoreline, repeating the exercise.

"Ken whit? I think ye've lost yer marbles."

We both heard the rumble and looked up as a motorboat maneuvered close to shore, blasting its horn at us. "Hah, it's Brandy, shouldae known. Hey, Brandy girl!"

The Nessie III was again overloaded with passengers, all aiming their cameras at the now-legendary campsite. Brandy was visible in the wheelhouse, as was her string bikini top. She waved at her brother, then, seeing me, flipped me the middle finger.

"Look's like she's still pissed at ye."

"Hell hash no fury like a Highland woman scorned."

"Amen."

I returned to my work, my mind, tainted with the vision of Brandy in her bathing suit, fighting to refocus.

"A sandwich then?"

"Huh?"

"Are ye deaf? I asked if ye wanted a sandwich? Thought I'd grab us some lunch while ye finished polishin' thae rocks wi' yer belly."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever."

He turned and walked away, then stumbled, the toe of his right boot catching the lip of a slight depression in the geography.

I stared at the spot, my heart racing.

"Whit? Dae ye see somethin' then?"

There were three of them — S-shaped depressions, each eight feet long, five feet wide, and three to four inches deep. They were angled from the water's edge up across the embankment and into the forest, and were so broad and sweeping that the pattern looked natural to the untrained eye.

On hands and knees, I inhaled the imprint, gagging at the lingering stench.

"Is it the monster then?" True dropped down and inhaled. "Phew, smells like a girl I once knew."

"I can't speak for your social life, but something biological was definitely here, and it left behind its slime."

"Slime?"

"At least that's what it feels like. Rain washed most of it away, but its slickness still lingers." Retrieving a glass jar from my backpack, I took a soil sample, the sudden rush of adrenaline tingling my bladder.

True and I continued walking south along the western shoreline, the discovery of the impressions having reinvigorated my friend's excitement. "Okay, Zack, let's say it wis an animal that left thae impressions. To crush the earth like that, how heavy wid ye say it'd have tae be?"

"I don't know, maybe ten thousand pounds or more, but that's just a rough guess."

"Whit did Angus call it then? A Guivre?"

"True, there's no such species as a Guivre. It's just folklore."

"Then how'd ye explain—"

"Easy, big guy, let's not repeat the same mistakes other explorers at Loch Ness make. They create some preconceived idea of what might be out there, then spend all their time attempting to prove they're right by only searching for their imaginary beast."

"Ye mean, like the plesiosaur guys?"

"Exactly. A dinosaur in Loch Ness is a romantic notion, but it's not science, it's just myth-building. We'll let the lab results tell us what this creature is… or isn't."

I stopped. Taking out an empty glass jar and my gardening shovel, I bent down and took another soil sample by the water's edge.

"Now what're ye doin?"

"Checking the worm population."

"Worms? It wisnae a worm that made thae tracks, I'll tell ye that for now."

"Your Guivre has to eat, right? Before it allegedly added humans to its diet, it must have subsisted on food from the Loch."

"Aye. Makes sense."

"Loch Ness's food chain begins with microscopic vegetation called phytoplankton. From there, it progresses to zooplankton, then worms and small fish, tadpoles, minnows, and so on and so forth. Then you've got your bigger fish, salmon, sea trout, brown trout, charr, pike, lamprey, eel, and sturgeon, some of which can weigh in at several hundred pounds. Somewhere along that food chain is a major break in one or more of its links. I want to know where it is, and what caused it."

"An' this'll tell ye where oor Guivre's hidin', aye?"

I shook my head. "You know, you really have to ease up on those deep dives. Cuts off oxygen to the brain."

"Okay, take yer jabs, Dr. Doolittle, as long as ye're no' playin' in the mud jist tae avoid gettin' yer feet wet."

Maybe he wasn't such a dumb strongman after all.

We walked all morning and late into the afternoon, passing Port Clair and Cherry Island until we eventually rounded the southern tip of the Loch. We passed the old pier at Bunoch, arriving finally at Fort Augustus, the largest town on the waterway.

The village was immersed in a carnival atmosphere, overflowing with locals and tourists and scores of media. True headed off to the nearest pub for a pint of Guinness while I followed the crowd to the wharf and the just-arriving Nothosaur, a forty-two-foot research vessel named after a long-necked, sharp-toothed member of the plesiosaur family that had lived during the Triassic Period.

The boat's name alone told me everything I needed to know about its owner.

Michael Hoagland, a well-built, blonde-haired, blue-eyed German in his mid-thirties, waved to the crowd from the bow of his command like a conquering hero while a news reporter waited impatiently for his camera crew to set up.

"Mr. Hoagland, Grady Frame, BBC Scotland. Welcome back tae Loch Ness."

"Thank you."

"You've logged quite a few hours in our little Loch."

"About twelve thousand in my boat, another four thousand hours on land. I know this Loch like the back of my hand."

"Then perhaps ye'd describe the monster ye'll be huntin' for our viewers."

"She's got a head the size of a horse, with a long neck, perhaps three, maybe four meters, and her total length's at least twice that. She probably weighs between twelve and twenty tons."

"Wow. An', in your opinion, she's definitely a plesiosaur?"

"That's what I've been saying, yes. Do the science. Plesiosaur remains have been found all over Britain. Seven thousand years ago the entire north end of Loch Ness was open to the sea. It's easy to see how these ancient monsters could become trapped in our little playground. The Loch is full of wildlife, has an unlimited supply of food, no pollution, and maintains a year-round temperature of four to seven degrees Celsius. Quite ideal for—"

"For an extinct reptile that preferred warmer climates?" It was my voice, strong and sure, but it'd been so long since my ego had donned its Superman tights that I scarcely recognized its return.

The crowd parted, revealing my presence to Hoagland and the BBC cameras.

"And who might you be?" the German adventurer demanded.

"Zachary Wallace, marine biologist, and the man who's going to make you and the rest of these dinosaur hunters look mighty stupid."

A woman's voice crackled over a loudspeaker, "An' how're ye goin' tae dae that, Dr. Know-It-All? By searchin' for a legend ye don't even believe in?"

Two berths down, Brandy stood brazenly atop the Nessie III's wheelhouse. Megaphone in hand, she gestured at me with her bronze, oiled physique, which caught the crowd's attention as much as her verbal challenge. "Why don't ye let the experts see tae their business an' keep yer Americanized opinions tae yersel'."

The crowd cheered, the cameras rolled.

Hoagland fought to take back the spotlight. "Where's your vessel, Mr. Marine Biologist? Where's your sonar equipment? Or do you intend on locating Nessie by hiking through the woods?"

"I don't chase after water creatures, I prefer to find ways to make them chase after me."

The crowd oohed and ahhed.

The BBC reporter recognized me. "That's Zachary Wallace, the man who located a giant squid."

"Well, then," Hoagland said, "let's give him a hand in locating our Nessie."

Before I could react, three of Hoagland's goons jumped down from the deck of the ship. Two grabbed hold of my arms, one my legs, and together they began swinging me.

"Eins… zwei… drei!"

I flailed in mid-air, then plunged backwards into Loch Ness, the freezing waters jolting me as if electrified.

I thrashed and kicked, too terrified to reason, my overloaded backpack filling quickly with water, weighing me down like an anchor. I fought and struggled, but my negative buoyancy was too much, and I slipped below the surface and sank backwards like a dead turtle.

Sound deadened.

My pulse thundered.

The water changed quickly from iced tea to ink, blanketing me within its paralyzing darkness.

I was in serious trouble.

Think! Reason! Get the damn backpack off!

I struggled to unclip the backpack's metal clasp but my numb fingers couldn't budge the stubborn device.

Deeper I fell, twenty feet, thirty… my ears ringing, my chest on fire, my body heaving in spasms as the Loch's icy fingers pried their way in.

Where was the crowd? Where they even a bit concerned?

"Awggg!" I inhaled a mouthful of acidic water as a viselike grip clamped down upon my right forearm, dragging me sideways in its teeth.

I fought the beast, lashing at its flesh, until I realized I was being dragged to the surface.

Whoosh! Sound returned with the daylight as my head cleared and True towed me to shore.

Through glassy, half-frozen eyes I looked up and saw the silhouettes of hundreds of amused gawkers standing on the pier. Through water-clogged ears I heard their taunts and laughter.

I felt the muddy bog beneath me and stumbled to shore, my numb fingers still struggling to release the metal catch of my cursed backpack.

True pulled the waterlogged sack off me. "Are ye okay?"

I nodded, then collapsed to my knees, my body shivering from the cold. "Bastards. I'll kill 'em."

"Now ye sound like yer faither. Let them go. Before all's said an' done, we'll get oor revenge."

I nodded, anger once more fueling my resolve.