Using my hunting knife, I fashioned several four-foot-long spears out of tree branches before my eyes grew too weary to focus. Stoking the fire one last time, I crawled into my sleeping bag, and spent the next few hours drifting in and out of a restless sleep.
The motorized raft, commonly known as a Zodiac, spewed oily fumes as it cut an erratic course through darkness and mist.
Justin Wagner tried to quell the hot waves of frustration coursing through his blood. Four hours earlier, he and Amber Korpela had rented the watercraft, guiding it across Loch Ness to its western shores. They had journeyed as far south as Cherry Island, enjoying a sun-soaked summer evening exploring the man-made crannog before embarking on the long ride back. But with their reserve tank of gasoline running low and dusk coming quickly, Justin had decided to save time and distance by taking a northeasterly shortcut across the Loch.
That was over an hour ago.
Justin, an accomplished boater back in Alaska, had not counted on the sun disappearing so suddenly behind the mountains, nor had he planned on the bank of fog moving in from the east.
The whine of the Zodiac's single-prop sixty horsepower engine, combined with her companion's constant course changes, had given Amber Korpela a pounding headache. "Okay, Magellan, enough's enough. Where the hell are we?"
"Somewhere in the middle of Loch Ness… I think."
"No shit. Don't you have a compass?"
"What makes you think I'd have a compass?"
"I don't know. I guess I didn't expect you to be stupid enough to get us lost on Loch Ness."
"You want to take the tiller, be my guest."
"Instead of zigzagging back and forth, why don't you just keep us pointed in one direction until we hit land?"
"Land? Can you see land in this fog? What if we're pointing north? We could cover twenty miles before we hit—"
"Shh! I think I hear something."
"Yeah, my stomach growling."
"No, I'm serious. It sounds like people's voices. Justin, cut the engine."
Justin turned off the motor. The raft rose and dropped beneath its own swell, then continued drifting forward. "You're crazy, I don't hear a thing."
"Shh. Listen."
Justin listened, then he heard it… splashing sounds, followed by strange whimpers, coming toward them from their right. "Sounds almost like a baby crying."
Amber leaned out over the bow. "Oh my God, look! It's a deer… no, it's a herd of deer."
Justin moved next to her as the heads and slender necks of a half dozen Sika deer appeared out of the fog. "Excellent. The deer know their way, we'll just follow them in to shore. Told you I'd get us back to Foyers."
"How do you know they're headed to Foyers? They could be swimming towards the western shore."
"At this point, who cares?"
The first two deer paddled past the Zodiac's bow, their hoofs churning water in a frenzy of movement, their nostrils lathered in foam with the effort.
"Justin, do they seemed frightened?"
"They're probably cold."
Another deer appeared from out of the fog. Suddenly the animal let out a high-pitched, "nehhhh—" tossed its head back… and disappeared in a froth of waves.
Amber clutched Justin's arm. "Did you see that? Oh my God, something huge just dragged that deer underwater!"
Justin searched the surface. "No. It… it must've got tired and drowned, that's all."
"It didn't drown! Something ate it!"
"Easy, girl. I was just teasing you before about Nessie. There's no such thing."
"Hey, I'm not stupid. I'm telling you, something big just took that deer. Start the engine!"
They grabbed one another as the Zodiac rocked violently, then spun counterclockwise several quick revolutions before drifting sideways.
"Okay, what the hell was that?"
Now Justin was trembling. "Let's just get out of here."
"Justin, watch out!"
Emerging from the mist, a panicking buck veered for the Zodiac, lunging its front hoofs out of the water and over the edge of the rubber raft.
"Shit!" Grabbing the wild animal by its neck and antlers, Justin fought to shove the two-hundred-pound beast back into the water without being lanced. "Amber, help—"
The buck continued thrashing and kicking, intent on climbing out of the water, when it was seized by its hindquarters by an unseen force and dragged below.
Pulled off-balance, Justin Wagner tumbled overboard after it.
"Justin!" Amber knelt on her bench seat, looking in every direction. "Justin? Justin, where are you?!" She heard splashing sounds behind her and turned to the source. "Justin?"
"Ambhhhhhh—" Justin's head poked free of the freezing waters, his arms slapping frantically at the fog-covered surface. "It's fuuuuckinnng freeeezing!"
"Hold on!" Amber climbed back to the stern. "Okay, you can do this." She pushed the tiller out of her way, then stood behind the outboard and attacked the starter cord with both hands.
It took her several awkward jerks before the engine started. But as the revving propeller caught water, the bent tiller sent the raft lurching sideways, spilling Amber Korpela headfirst into the Loch.
The bone-chilling water, combined with his soaked clothing, were zapping Justin's strength. Through blurred vision he saw Amber fall overboard, the now-empty Zodiac left to cut wide circles across the surface.
Pathetic. Okay, boat first, then Amber…
He kicked for the vessel, never hearing the whines and yelps from the deer, his heart skipping a beat at Amber's bloodcurdling scream.
"Amber?" Justin stopped swimming and spun to his left. Through the fog-laced surface he saw something dark and massive breach a half dozen boat lengths away, rolling and twisting in a frenzy of movement that whipped icy water and warm fleshy shrapnel at his face.
A column of deer swam past him, whimpering and gasping with their exertion.
Justin tried to move, but couldn't, not until the attack ended with one final heavy splash.
The silence that followed was petrifying.
With trembling hand, Justin touched his forehead, smearing away gobs of blood and bone fragments.
"Amber…"
The whine of the approaching Zodiac grew louder, snapping him into action. Justin swam as hard as he could, then lunged for the passing water craft, his chest bouncing off the inflatable's side, his fingers managing to catch the raft's trim line.
Too weak to pull himself on board, Justin managed to loop his wrists around the rope, his weight counterbalancing the Zodiac's trajectory.
The motorized raft raced away, towing its semiconscious passenger along with it.
Chapter 19
I'm fifty-nine years old, lived here all my life. When I was fourteen, we had a local farm, down here at Drumnadrochit. My late brother and late mother were in the car with me, and we were headed to Inverness. I was looking out at the Loch, its surface flat and calm, when I yelled, "Stop the car!" My brother stopped, and we all saw this huge commotion right in the center of the Loch, just opposite Aldourie Castle. The monster was gray-brown, and massive, the size of a bus. It flipped over, just flipped right over like that, crashing down. You could see it, and the waves from that point were about three feet high and ebbed to each side of the Loch.