Sea Beast, Part Four

The creature sank back down beneath the surface of the lake after a few minutes of staring toward the island. As if it saw each and every one of us. 

            “What . . . was that?” Cecile finally stood up, her feet sliding on the rough sand.

            “April?” I looked at her. She was still staring at the invisible horizon between lake and sky, her eyes wide, her lower lip trembling. “What was that?”

            She didn’t answer.

            I glanced at Rachel. “Check her out.”

            Rachel groaned. “Okay. Just because you ask so nicely.”

            “Please?”

            April stared at the water silently, as if waiting for the huge monster to come back. Rachel put a hand on April’s damp, shaking shoulder. “April? Are you all right?”

            She just nodded, watching the waves.

            “Yeah.” Rachel nodded. “It’s her.”

            “What are you talking about?” Jim took a step toward Rachel. Or maybe April.

I didn’t care where he was headed. My feet sank in the wet sand was I struggled to get between them. “I told you, she’s psychic.” After all the sea monsters, maybe that would be easier for them to believe now. “So what did you see?”

Rachel leaned against me. “When we were out on the front deck, she told us about some statue she found at an antique store. She said—you said . . .”

            “It made sex better.” April giggled. “Having it on the shelf. Watching us. And I had weird dreams afterward.”

            “You mean that snake, or whatever it was?” Jim grabbed her arm. “I always thought—I mean, yeah, but . . .” He shook his head hard. “I just thought it was, uh, stuff. The dreams.”

            “Antique store.” I stepped toward her. “What kind? Where was it? When?”

            “I don’t . . .” She blinked. “Just a shop. A week or two ago. The owner was this old guy. He had lots of stuff about boats and sailing and the sea. That’s why I bought it.” She twisted around to stare at Jim. “And it’s a sea serpent, not a snake. I thought you’d like it.”

            “I do. I did.” Jim looked at Rachel and me. “What are you talking about?”

            A week ago. “Why did you bring it on the boat, April?”

            She blinked. “It told me to.”

“This is crazy.” Jim shook April’s shoulders. “Come on, snap out of it!”

She pulled away from him and staggered toward the water. Jim followed, but she collapsed on the sand just a few steps away, then pulled herself up and crossed her legs, looking out at the lake.

“Goddamn it.” Conroy shook his head. “Do you really think . . .”

            “Yeah.” I ran a hand over my scalp. “But I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

Jim, Rachel, and I paddled the raft back out to the half-sunken Sea Beast.

            Almost immediately rain started to fall. Hard, cold, and wet.

            “Damn it.” Jim paddled harder. “We’ll have to make this fast before we’re swamped.”

            “The boat’s not far away.” Rachel dug her paddle into the water.

            Jim was on the raft because he could find the statue in his cabin more easily than anyone else. Except April, and he didn’t want her coming. Rachel, because insisted that she’d know immediately if the statue was the source of all our problems. Not Conroy, because someone had to stay with the women. Sexist, yeah—and it probably should have bothered me more that nobody suggested I stay behind to defend them too.

            I was there because I wanted to be with Rachel. No matter what happened.

            Thunder rattled the sky. Then a bolt of lightning passed over our drenched heads.

            Great. “Didn’t I read that it’s a bad idea to be out on the water during a thunderstorm?”

            Something hit the raft from underneath. The fabric bulged up in the middle.

            “Just paddle!” Rachel shouted over the pounding rain.

            Yeah, some things might be worse than lightning. I paddled.

            Jim knelt in front. The creature under the raft surged up again, but we were close to the sagging Sea Beast now. Close enough for him to lean forward and fling a rope at the railing.

            He missed. And a claw ripped up through the bottom of the raft, slicing a jagged line through the fabric.

            Jim tossed the rope again, pulled it through the railing, and managed to tie a quick knot to secure the sinking raft. He scrambled over the railing, then stuck an arm out. “Come on!”

            Rachel was closer. I didn’t even have to think about being chivalrous—she grabbed his hand and leaped up, letting him help her clamber aboard as I pushed at her butt.

            Between the rain and the claw’s damage, the raft was almost completely swamped now. I lunged forward, holding onto the still-inflated side as my shoes slipped on what was left of the fabric. Rachel and Jim leaned down, taking my arms, and somehow they managed to haul me over the rail onto the boat.

            We might as well have been back in the lake. The port side of the boat was almost completely submerged. We couldn’t climb to the upper side. The water was freezing. And the raft was gone.

            Lightning flared again.

            “All right!” Jim took off his life vest and tied it to the rail. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket. “I’m going to go look for it! Stay here!”

            The boat rocked. He took a deep breath and ducked under the water.

            I saw his feet gliding down, into the cabin area. If that was totally underwater, how far could he go?

            Rachel held onto me. Or maybe I held onto her. We both clutched the railing.

            “This is like Titanic!” I shouted in her ear. “Only without all the romance.”

            “And you’re no Leonardo DiCaprio!” She would have slugged me if she could.

            I laughed hysterically. “That’s exactly what I want as the last words I hear from you.”

            “Shut up, idiot!” She kissed me. Actually, she tried to, but the rocking of the boat made her lips land somewhere between my ear and my forehead. “I’m not singing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at your funeral!”

            We held onto each other, wondering how long to wait before deciding that Jim wasn’t coming back.

            Then his head emerged from the dark water. “Goddamn it!” He reached for Rachel’s hand, and she pulled him toward us until he could grip the railing. “Goddamn it, that’s cold! I’m going to . . . oh hell . . .”

            He coughed. “Enough air at the top of the passageway. But I had to unlock the stupid door. And then go down three times. I didn’t think I’d find it. Then I lost the flashlight.” He coughed again, gasping. “But here it is.”

            He lifted his other hand, shaking.

            The statue was made out of dark wood, on a pedestal of metal. I was surprised he’d been able to swim back holding it. It looked like a snake, or maybe a sea serpent like April said, with a head almost human and tentacles wrapped around its slithering body.

            Rachel wrapped her wet fingers around it, and I felt her body shudder. She let her hand drop, and for a moment I was afraid she’d pass out. Then she kicked the siding of the boat—or maybe she was trying to kick me—and pushed herself up.

            “That’s it!” Her face was flushed, even in the freezing water. “That’s it!”

            “So what do we do now?” Jim looked close to exhaustion. Like Rachel and me. “How do we destroy it?”

            Good question. We hadn’t considered it before. We couldn’t burn it, not in the rain. It looked too solid to smash with our bare hands. Maybe use the flares? Maybe—

            A roar beyond the thunder burst in our ears.

            I swung around, my hand slipping on the railing.

            The beast from before was rising over the boat, its jaws gaping wide. I hadn’t seen its teeth before. Slimy, blunt, and ugly. The fins on its sides fluttered like crippled wings, and the continuing roar was like a blast to our ears.

            And its breath was hideous.

            Eyes glowed at the top of its head, brighter than the lightning. I gulped, wondering if I’d rather drown or get crushed by its filthy teeth.

            Then I looked at the statue in Jim’s hand.

            “Is that what it wants?” I screamed in Rachel’s ear. “Is that—”

            I didn’t hear her answer. I didn’t wait. I reached my arm out, and Jim dropped the statue in my hand. I almost dropped it. I bit my lip and lifted it, my arm stiff from the cold water.

            But I planted my feet against the siding, let go of Rachel, and lurched up. I hurled the statue as hard and high as I could—across the other rail, sailing into the darkness.

            It hit one of the monster’s thick fins. Then it dropped into the water.

            Damn it. Did I do the right thing? Maybe the monster would destroy the boat—and us—because I’d tossed the statue to the bottom of the lake.

            I sank back, hitting the siding. Rachel pulled me to her. “Jerk.”

            “S-sorry.” I was shivering. She put an arm around me.

            The monster swung its head back and forth with another Godzilla-sized roar. Then suddenly it was silent.

            Then it was gone. Beneath the waves.

            I braced myself. Was it going to come up under the boat? Ram its head into the hull? Sink us—and smash us?

            The rain dwindled. The boat rocked, but not as violently as before. The waves slowed.

            I don’t know how long we sat in the water. I might have passed out. When I felt like myself again, the rain had stopped and the lake was calm.

            Still dark. Still terrifying. But I could see the stars.

            “I think . . .” Jim took a breath. “I think we’ll have to swim back.”

            “But it’s gone.” Rachel patted my head. “We’re okay.”

            “Yeah. Thanks.” Jim grabbed for my hand.

            What? “Hey, I just threw it overboard. You got the statue.”

            “Whatever.” He tied his life vest around his chest. “We can’t sit out here all night. Let’s start swimming.”

The Coast Guard found us the next morning.

            We shot off flares once an hour. We rationed the sandwiches. Conroy and his brother didn’t talk much, but they seemed resigned to each other. Mostly Conroy huddled around Cecile, trying to keep her warm.

            April sat as close to the water as she could, staring out into the lake until the Coast Guard boat came into view.

            Jim told them that we’d had a complete systems failure that somehow also shut the engines down. And that we’d hit a rock. The officers were skeptical, but looking at the wreck of the Sea Beast, they didn’t ask too many questions. But they did promise that they’d have more questions, soon.

            Jim shrugged. “At least I have insurance.”

            April hadn’t said a word since the monster had gone back down to wherever it lived. I wondered what the statue had really meant to her. Was she temporarily possessed? Or something worse?

            The officers gave us coffee and blankets. I sat next to Rachel, still shivering. Not entirely from the cold.

           

# # #