Dark Waters, page 6
Brian shuddered. As he watched, the beanie sank. It had tooth marks in it.
Ms. Zintner was still at the radio when they got onto the deck. She swore at it. “The radio’s out,” she said. “I’m not sure how . . .”
“Phones?” demanded Brian, still short of breath and shaky. “Does anyone’s phone work?”
Coco shook her head. Ollie had her head bent, talking to her dad, maybe trying to keep him awake, but she shook her head briefly too when Brian glanced her way.
“Where’s Mr. Dimmonds?” asked Coco.
Brian swallowed. “Look, guys, it wasn’t a rock that took out the motors. It was—”
“It was a monster,” said Phil, in the first words he’d spoken since Brian hauled him out from below. He was shaking violently. His teeth chattered.
Ollie’s head lifted. Coco pressed her lips together.
Ms. Zintner frowned. “Right,” she said. “I know it was unsettling, that snake biting Mr. Adler, but you guys need to keep it together. We’ll be all right if we just stay calm. You kids stay on deck. I’m going to go down below and see about Dane . . .”
Brian met Coco’s eyes and shook his head.
Coco instantly planted herself in front of her mom. “Mom, you can’t go down into the hold. Brian, how big was it?”
“Big,” said Phil.
Coco’s mom looked perplexed. She finally said gently, to her daughter, “I realize that something bad probably happened in the hold. But I need to see if Dane is okay.”
“He’s not okay,” said Phil, in a strange, harsh voice.
Coco spoke over her mom’s shoulder to Brian. “What was it?”
“It looked—it looked like the water snake that we caught,” said Brian. “Except it was bigger. It was a lot bigger.”
“Like baby T. rex and momma T. rex?” said Coco. “In Jurassic Park?”
“Um, maybe,” said Brian. His thoughts felt chaotic and also too slow, like he was thinking through mud. It had been so big. “Something like that.”
“Kids,” said Ms. Zintner. “I appreciate that you are frightened and that this is an emergency, but I am sure there is a better explanation for all this than dinosaurs. Now, what we all need to do is—”
She was interrupted by a huge crash from below. The boat shook. And then another crash. There was the shriek of ripping metal. The boat rocked, sloshing them all with freezing water.
Phil’s eyes went wide. His nose was running again. “It’s coming!” he yelled. “It’s trying to get in!”
Even Ms. Zintner looked uneasy now.
“What—” said Mr. Adler weakly. His face had gone a nasty green-gray color. “What’s that noise?”
“Nothing good,” muttered Coco.
The boat heaved. Metal groaned.
Brian didn’t know what to do. Except . . . his eyes went to the island, less than a hundred yards away. Did they have a choice? He didn’t think so. “We need to get off this boat,” he said. “Phil—do you know where the lifeboats are?”
Phil pointed. Brian saw them, tucked neatly under the boat’s railing: bright yellow, two of them, inflatable.
Coco said, “Don’t you think getting into a rubber lifeboat might be kind of a bad idea if there’s a monster in the lake?”
Brian was thinking fast now, his head clearing. “We’re going to be in the lake pretty soon ourselves if we don’t do something,” he said. A huge thump came from below, as though to punctuate his words. “We just—we just need to make the—the snake think we’re still on the boat. Give ourselves time to paddle to the island.”
“How do we do that?” demanded Phil, sounding as breathless and frightened as Brian felt. “We don’t know how it thinks! If it thinks!”
Brian wasn’t sure either. Coco tugged her lower lip. Coco’s mom had gone back to shouting into the silent radio. The Cassandra was so low in the water . . .
“Two lifeboats on the Cassandra?” Coco asked Phil suddenly.
Phil eyed her. “Yeah, but so? We don’t need two. We’ll all fit on one.” Under their feet the boat tilted, and they all staggered. Freezing water sloshed over their shoes. Behind him, Brian could just hear Ollie talking to her dad, quietly and steadily, not paying attention to what they were doing, trusting that he and Coco could figure something out . . .
“We can launch a decoy boat,” said Coco. “Like in chess. A feint. Launch one boat, empty, on the side away from the island. Put the boat in the water with a lot of splashing. At the same time launch us in the other boat, very quietly, on that side.” She pointed again.
The rock-crowned green island, the one that didn’t have a name, stood quiet, with little wavelets just breaking around the boulders at its foot. “To the island,” added Coco.
“And what if the monster doesn’t take the decoy?” said Phil.
“Do you have a better idea?” Coco asked.
Phil’s shoulders slumped. “No.”
The deck was tilting noticeably; they all had to hold something to stay upright. The back of the boat was sinking faster than the front. Water heaved and foamed around its gashed stern.
“Hurry,” said Brian. “Phil, do you know how to launch the lifeboats?”
“I—yes?” said Phil, but he didn’t sound certain, at all. “At least, my uncle—” His voice wavered, and he tried again, sniffing. “My uncle showed me. Once.”
That didn’t exactly sound like enough training to Brian, but it was what they had. “Okay,” he said. “What do we do?”
“This way,” Phil said. He and Brian ran for the lifeboats.
“Mom,” Brian heard Coco say, just as her mother slammed down the radio for what had to be the twelfth time. “Mom, we have to get off the boat. The boys are launching the lifeboats—the Cassandra is sinking. Can we bring the radio? In case it starts working?”
Ms. Zintner stared at her daughter, a little wild-eyed. Brian realized, with a creeping, not-so-nice feeling in his stomach, that he and the girls had been in more tight, scary corners than the grown-ups had in the last couple of months. Maybe they were more used to it. Maybe they knew best. Since Brian felt like he hardly knew anything at all, it wasn’t a comforting thought.
The life rafts hissed as they were inflated, and Brian saw Coco’s mom take a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. You’re right, hon. Let’s get off this boat. I’ll pack up the radio.”
The deck was tilting more steeply now. Like the freaking Titanic, thought Brian. As fast as they could, he and Phil were loading the decoy boat with coils of rope and an anchor, to make it splash as though it held people.
“We’ll need supplies for the real lifeboat,” said Brian.
Phil shook his head. “A lot of supplies were down in the hold,” he said.
They grabbed what they could. Some emergency blankets. A pair of emergency whistles. The first aid kit. It didn’t seem like much. But we won’t be on the island long, Brian consoled himself. Someone would see them; there were boats all over Lake Champlain. They just had to get there safely. He and Phil dragged the decoy to the lake-facing side of the sinking Cassandra, ready to slide it into the water.
Ollie was pulling on her dad’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “Dad—Dad, please. You have to get up. Try. We can’t stay on the boat . . .”
“Yeah,” said Mr. Adler. He was looking even more greenish now, Brian thought worriedly. He stumbled to his feet. His hand was swollen, and black stuff still leaked out of the punctures from under the bandage. His eyes were half closed.
Coco’s mom ran to help. Between her and Ollie, they got him in the boat. Brian yelled, “Phil! Now!”
Phil gave him a sickly grin, and the two of them launched the decoy lifeboat. It landed with a splash. For a second it looked like it wouldn’t move at all, just hang out beside the boat and not do them any good. But Phil had a long pole—maybe from the sails—and he pushed the decoy life raft out from the boat’s shadow, just far enough for the wind to pick it up.
Silence. Stillness on the water. It’s not going to work, Brian thought with sinking heart. The snake wasn’t going to take the bait. Maybe it was a smart lake monster who would just wait for them to launch their real life raft and then lunge for it.
And then there was a sudden boiling froth of water under the decoy raft, and the whole thing went flying into the air. A snapping mouth attached to a glittering silver body came flying up after it.
Phil was staring at it, eyes enormous. Brian had to yell, “Phil!”
Phil came running. Together he and Brian and Ollie shoved the real lifeboat into the lake. It wasn’t hard. The stern of the sinking Cassandra was more or less on a level with the lake by then. Phil jumped in after.
They pushed away. Brian and Ollie, who had done the most canoeing, each grabbed a paddle and started rowing them toward the shore. Coco’s mom was white as a sheet. She hadn’t said anything when she saw the creature, just hustled them faster into the boat. She was holding on to Ollie’s dad. Phil and Coco were staring behind them, looking for signs of disturbance in the water.
“Take it easy, Owl,” said Brian to Ollie. “Try not to splash. Maybe it’s like a shark. Sharks come to splashing.”
Ollie swallowed hard and nodded, her knuckles white on the paddle. The island got closer and closer. Brian had a vague impression of gloomy pine trees running down to a pebbly beach. The trees were clustered so close that you couldn’t make anything out of what lay behind them. A wind riffled the trees and water. The island looked like a locked room. Brian couldn’t see any signs that humans ever came there. No jetty. No boat dock. No beach, no picnic table, no path.
He swallowed hard.
Phil yelped and pointed. Brian whipped around just in time to see a silver gleam in the water. At the same moment, Ollie’s watch beeped. From where he was, Brian could just read the word on the display.
fast.
He and Ollie started paddling just as fast as they could, strokes evenly matched as they raced toward land. Brian wasn’t sure they’d make it. They were close; the shadows of pine trees, stretching long, were just falling on them. But the snake was fast, and going faster every second. Its silver body caught the light, where its frilled head just crested the water.
Then the lifeboat bumped onto rocks. Brian and Ollie both jumped out at the same second and grabbed the gunwales of the lifeboat to pull it up the bank. “Phil! Coco!” snapped Brian. “Come on! Get out! Pull!”
They all jumped out, except for Ollie’s dad, and the five of them pulled together. Five feet. Four . . .
A dripping silver head, a mouth crowded with teeth, rearing up out of the water. The head was bulging and barnacled, the eyes huge and filmy and blank. The mouth opened wide. “PULL!” screamed Ollie, and they heaved the boat up the beach, just as the teeth slammed shut with the sound of a metal door, only a few inches from the back of Ollie’s jacket. The teeth caught the edge of the inflatable life raft and shredded it.
But they kept hauling anyway, panting, scrambling, cold sweat in their eyes, until the boat was as far as it could possibly go up the stony slope. There was a grinding, slithering sound behind, and Brian turned.
The lake monster had disappeared. It was like it had never been there at all. Lake Champlain sparkled, untroubled, beneath the last of that day’s sun.
“Oh my God,” said Coco’s mom.
“Come on,” said Ollie, her face set hard with determination. “We need to make a fire, signal a boat . . .”
“No,” said Coco’s mom. “Look.”
There was a good-sized pine standing sentinel on the edge of the beach. On the side of the trunk facing the water, someone had carved, deeply and skillfully:
maye god have merci on yer soules.
They stared, and no one said anything at all.
8
THEY JUST STARED at the carving in the tree. Ollie’s dad was the first to move, trying to get up from the bottom of the lifeboat. Ollie instantly turned away from the carved trunk and knelt beside him. “Ollie,” he said. His breath wheezed. Even the gulls weren’t crying now. “What’s happening?”
“We’re on the island,” said Ollie. “We got off the boat. It was sinking. There was—well, I don’t know what it was. Sort of like a big version of the snake that bit you. It sank the Cassie. But that doesn’t matter. We’re getting off this island as soon as we can. We’ll take you to a hospital.”
He nodded but didn’t answer. His eyes drifted shut.
Coco’s mom picked up the portable radio. “Mayday,” she said. “Mayday. Require immediate assistance.”
Silence. Not even static. Just silence.
“Look,” said Coco suddenly. She stooped and brushed a litter of pebbles and pine needles from below the carved tree.
There, in the dirt, was a hard brown dome. Coco dug all around it until she revealed, unmistakably, the eye sockets and brow ridges of a skull.
She let it go abruptly and stepped back, wiping her hands on her damp jeans.
Behind them, they heard Ms. Zintner’s voice. “Mayday, Mayday . . .”
“We’re in trouble,” said Brian, and Coco nodded, biting her lip. “What should we do?” she said. “I don’t know anything about islands.”
Brian tried to peer deeper into the woods. No luck; the forest was too dense. He could only see a few feet. The ground sloped steeply up. There were no paths. Maybe a few bare spaces between the trees, where the pines crowded out the undergrowth, but that was all.
Brian turned away from the forest. The lake glittered like a monster’s scales in the afternoon sun. The water was still now, except for a few tiny whitecaps whipped up by the wind. As though neither the Cassandra nor the lake monster nor Mr. Dimmonds had ever existed.
Phil was staring out at the water, his arms wrapped around himself. Coco went over to him. “Phil,” she said. “I’m really sorry. About your uncle.”
“He was my favorite uncle,” said Phil. He wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Brian had been feeling angry at Phil. For fishing, for not listening to them. Now he was just sad. Mr. Dimmonds was dead. Mr. Adler was hurt. So what if Phil had met the smiling man and somehow that meeting had led to all this? It wasn’t Phil’s fault. How would he even have known? It was so, so easy to trust the smiling man. Brian went over to Phil too. “Buddy,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
Phil shook his head and didn’t answer.
Coco’s mom had finally put the dead radio aside. She pushed her fair hair off her face, eyes slitted with frustration. Ollie was trying to make her dad more comfortable. She’d dug an emergency blanket out of the first aid kit to put around his shoulders. He was still sitting in the damp raft.
“How are you doing, Ollie-pop?” said Mr. Adler, not sounding so great. “I’m okay. How are you, Zel? That was a pretty quick exit off the boat, wasn’t it?”
“We’re fine, Roger,” said Coco’s mom. She put a hand on his forehead, looking worried. “We’ll get out of here really soon. I just can’t figure out why the radio isn’t . . .” She trailed off, scowling at the machine. “Here’s a dry spot,” she added. “Let’s get you off this raft. Come on, Roger, you can do a little for yourself. One—two—three—there you go.”
Between Ollie and Ms. Zintner, they got Mr. Adler to stand up and walk a few steps to a tall dry rock. “Here,” Coco’s mom said. “Sit down, Roger—you need to be still—no—” Mr. Adler was trying to get up, making incoherent noises. “You’ll only make it worse, moving around.”
Ollie retucked the emergency blanket around her dad. His hand had gone black, nearly to the wrist.
We have to get off this island, Brian thought.
But there was a lake monster—between them and everything else. Rescuers and hospitals. The whole world. Phil was still standing rigid, staring at the water.
Coco glanced up at the sky and then pulled out her phone. Made a face at whatever she saw.
Brian could guess what she’d seen: no service.
“It’s nearly five,” she said, coming over to Brian. “When does it get dark?”
“Seven thirty?” said Brian. “I think. Somewhere in there.” He tapped his lips with his finger. STOP, that was the acronym when you were in trouble. Stop. Think. Observe. Plan. “We should figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Yeah,” said Coco. She was frowning. “Is a lake monster supernatural? Or is it more like a strange animal? If it is supernatural, is it smart? Can it plan and think? Is it just gonna give up? Brian—” She bent her head closer, whispering. “Is this what the smiling man meant? A black spot—a death? Or are we all supposed to die here?”
Brian shuddered. “Mr. Dimmonds died,” he said. Involuntarily, they both looked at Mr. Adler, sitting there hunched, holding his wrist with his good hand, his face an awful color. “Don’t say anything about death to Ollie right now,” added Brian.
Coco shook her head. “Ollie’s thinking about it already,” she said. Ollie’s face looked pinched and afraid. Brian supposed his did as well. They all loved Mr. Adler.
The sun was still shining, but they were on the east side of the island, and the sun would set to the west. Pretty soon the light would go behind the dome-shaped rock over their heads, and they’d be in shadow. A long, cold breeze riffled the still water and Coco’s straggling pinkish hair. Coco shivered. Brian shivered too. None of them were completely dry, what with the sloshing on the Cassie and the flying spray from the paddles as they raced toward shore.
Brian wished that they hadn’t lost their bags, with their warm, dry jackets and hats. It was going to be freezing once the sun went away.
But hopefully, Brian thought, we’ll be off this island before dark.
