Loch, The Page 19

  The judge thought for a moment. “Dr. Wallace is right, of course. We certainly can’t force him to organize our search. For now, we’ll just have to allow the researchers to organize themselves, God knows the media attention should draw them to Loch Ness in droves. However, Doctor, bear in mind you’re still a witness in a murder trial, which means you can’t just leave the country either, at least not until the prosecution’s had a chance to cross-examine your testimony. Confiscate his passport, Sheriff, then you can release him.”

  The bastard took my passport, then showed me the door.

  * * *

  “I dinnae understand,” said True, slogging down his third lager in the last half hour. “Seems tae me they’re offerin’ ye a chance of a lifetime. Why no’ jist dae it?”

  I poured another shot down my throat, the burning sensation now a warm friend. “If I tell you, and you repeat this to another living soul, then you and me as best friends ...pffftt.”

  He leaned in with his big shaggy Viking head. “Go on, I’m lis­tenin’.”

  I pointed to my temple. “Angus was right about one thing. I’m screwed up, right here in the brain. Ever since that Sargasso thing, I can’t get near the damn water.”

  “Meanin’?”

  “Meaning? Meaning I’m afraid to get near the water, ya dumb bastard, what the fuck did you think I mean?”

  “Why? Whit’s wrong wi’ the water?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with the water, ya dullard, I just can’t get near it. Jesus, why do ya think I didn’t boff your sister Friday night? Outta respect for your whacked-out old man? Geez Louise, give me a little credit.”

  “Wait a minute ... are ye sayin’ ye’re feart o’ the water?”

  “Yes, shit-for-brains, yes!” I stood upon my chair, teetering like a drunken fool. “Now hear this! I, Zachary Wallace, marine fuck­ing biologist, son of Angus the drunken murdering bastard, distant cousin to Sir William Wallace the Braveheart, am deathly afraid of the water!”

  The rest of the drunks at Sniddles rose and applauded.

  I took a wobbly bow, then fell sideways into my friend’s brawny arms. “Was I clear this time, True? Are you getting the whole pic­ture?”

  “Aye, lad, but dinnae ye worry, I willnae tell a soul.”

  * * *

  Afraid to sleep, I found myself greeting the dawn at the summit of Drumnadrochit’s highest peak, sobriety returning fast as I contem­plated my existence.

  What had happened to me? In six short months, I had gone from goal-oriented bastion of science to a sulking shell of a man, afraid of his own shadow, afraid of his own life.

  A former teetotaler, I was well on the road to becoming an alco­holic. A former thinker, I was now afraid to reason, making pathetic excuses for my new-found phobia ... and a long-lost fear that seemed to be reappearing in my dreams.

  I was burnt out and exhausted. I hated myself, I hated my life, and there was no way to escape from my own head.

  Except one.

  Removing the vial of prescription drugs from my pocket, I stared at the pills, debating a fatal overdose.

  How many times had I considered suicide since my ninth birth­day? Six times? A dozen? With the help of my teachers and coaches, I had reinvented myself, but deep inside, I knew I was still Angus’s runt.

  What was keeping me alive? What did I have to live for? What did I have to lose?

  I had spent the last six months poisoning myself slowly with alco­hol. Why not just get it over with now?

  Do it, Zachary! Swallow the pills! End the pain and fear and humili­ation, once and for all.

  I cupped the pills in my hand, but there was still one thing pre­venting me from offing myself on that beautiful mountainside. This time it wasn’t fear—it was anger.

  I was angry at Angus for forcing me to return, for forcing me to take a harsh look at myself. And having looked, I now realized that as disgusting as my father was, he was just a convenient excuse for my pain.

  In truth, I was angry at myself, because Angus was right. I had been living a lie.

  With each passing night terror, fragments of long-buried memo­ries were moving into the light. As frightening as they were, I finally realized the dreams were serving a purpose—to shake loose my false foundation of reality.

  As much as I tried to fight it, I now knew that something mon­strous had grabbed me in the Loch seventeen years earlier. Unable to cope with the truth, my child’s mind had buried it. Somehow, my second drowning in the Sargasso Sea had released these long-dor­mant memories, and now I had a choice; take the coward’s way out and kill myself, or track down the very being that was responsible for my pain.

  The dragon can sense fear, he can smell it in yer blood. Will ye stand and fight the dragon like a warrior, or will ye cower and run, lettin’ him haunt ye for the rest of yer days?

  “No!”

  The echo of my voice crackled across the Glen like gunfire.

  Leaping to my feet, I tossed the vial of pills as far as I could into the bushes. “No more cowering. No more running. If I’m going to die, then let my death serve a purpose!”

  Standing beneath that gray morning sky, I looked down upon the ancient waters of Loch Ness, my words growling beneath my breath, sending shivers down my spine. “Okay, beast, whatever you are, you’ve haunted my existence long enough. Now I’m coming, do you hear me?

  “I’m coming after you!”

  Chapter 17 Quotes

  « ^ »

  Police Sergeant George Mackenzie and I were standing among a group of people near Altsigh Youth Hostel watching two humps travel up the Loch doing ten knots. It was obvious these two humps were part of one animate long object, making it at least thirteen meters [42.6 feet]!”

  —POLICE INSPECTOR HENRY HENDERSON, INVERNESS, 13 OCTOBER 1971

  Suddenly there was a terrific disturbance in the Loch. In the midst of this commotion, my friend (Mr. Roger Pugh) and I saw quite distinctly the neck of the beast standing out of the water at a height we later calculated to be about three meters (ten feet). It swam towards us at a slight angle, then thankfully disappeared.

  —FATHER GREGORY BRUSEY, FORT AUGUSTUS ABBEY, 14 OCTOBER 1971

  Chapter 17

  « ^ »

  Drumnadrochlit, Loch Ness

  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, especiall
y 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.”