'It's freezing. Being pressed up against the damp, musty cement is very uncomfortable. There's a light "padding" noise in the room somewhere, like drips of water hitting a sheet of paper. Can't stay still forever.'
27 year old Dennis Eastman stands on his feet, his knees wobbly from sitting for a long period of time. The room is so dark that you can almost feel it creeping around you. He feels around the room for something to grab hold of. His shin collides with a small cement box. He falls forward on top of it, making a loud pound as he strikes the metal sheet on top of it. It must lead to a shaft down below.
'Better not go down, can't see as it is now.'
His eyes are closed, mostly because the air is heavy with particles and they are irritating his eyes. He fell asleep for at least six hours then awoke minutes earlier. Now his eyes were starting to focus better in the darkness. He can make out what seems to be a snake coming out of a tree. No, it's a metal pipe attached to a large metal cylinder of some sort.
'I'm not familiar with water pipes. This probably a sewer maintenance shed of some kind. Oh well, it's good shelter. Don't want to go outside anyway'
He sits down for another hour. At that time he can almost make out everything, his eyes are adjusting. There isn't much to look at, but he can tell that there is a sign with crimson letters on the wall opposite of him.
'Ah, there it is.'
He finally sees his backpack that he dropped in the center of the room. He unzips it and feels around. He then pulls out his flashlight. He flicks it on and searches through the rest of the contents of the backpack. The light, although not to bright, is almost blinding for a second; his eyes have been in total darkness for at least 12 hours. Just for fun he pulls out his wintergreen Lifesavers that he had in his pouch. He puts one between his teeth and, teeth showing, crunched into it. He saw a sparkle at the end of the wall. Must be a mirror there. He doesn't know why, but when you sit in a dark room for a while and bite down on a LifeSaver, it makes a spark.
'My journal. Better write everything down, this will make a great story.'
He sits down and records everything that had happened in the last hour that got him in this mess.
Nearly two hours pass when he hears a padding noise. At first he thinks it is the dripping he heard earlier. He already found the soaked newspaper in the corner of the room under a leaky pipe and removed it; it was starting to bug him. It must be something else. Dennis sits absolutely still and listened. He hears it again, now it's louder, a pad then a long scrape. The scraping sounds like something heavy moving over pebbles or rocks. He hears it again and again. Pad then scrape, pad then scrape. He looks at his watch and sees the time. 12:42 A.M.
'Oh no, oh God in heaven no.'
His entire body goes cold; his fingers grow numb as he drops his journal on the ground. He had found this concrete building to find shelter for a few hours, but he fell asleep for too long. If he had known that a full 12 hours had passed he would have made a run for it long ago. It's night-time, now it's back, and he may not be lucky enough to get away this time. He points the beam of the flashlight on the door and watches. The noise gets louder and louder until it seems that it is right at the door. Then it stops. For what seems to be an eternity there is a short pause. Absolutely nothing moves, no sound. Perfect stillness.
That is when the door receives an enormous punch that dents it slightly. Dennis runs to the side of the room farthest to the door.
'Less than twenty feet. No good. No good. It won't do.'
The door receives several more blows, then, stillness. Nothing else.
He switches on his flashlight and points it at the heavily damaged door.
'Man, look at that door, it must be hideously strong. I just hope...'
just then the door flies open, and for a moment, just for a moment, he sees a gaping mouth and sharp teeth.
It's been two days. Dennis failed to show up at the inn he was staying at and he never signed out. It's Monday 1 P.M., and a worker at the Consolidated Water company reports that one of the treatment rooms have been broken into. It had been closed down years ago, but the thin chain on the outside had been broken off like a running person had tripped over it. He seemingly had used a sledgehammer to pound in the 1 1/2 inch thick door, but, after finding nothing of value he left. An investigator showed up to survey and photograph the damage. It was then that he saw the sky blue and crimson backpack hidden in the corner of the room. He found a book lying on the ground. No, a journal. He opened it and found only one entry.
'October 21st, 2003'.
It was inevitable. Two years of pouring pesticide "potassium 243" into Loch Ness has had dire effects. We were here at first to study the effect of the potassium mixture on the creatures of Loch Ness, mainly the fish and the nematode abundant silt. Our fish finder then picked up strong signals 5 days ago. At first we thought it was a school of fish, but as we got closer we could tell it was solid, not a clump of fish. It was starting to retreat, possibly at the sound of our motors, so we cut them off and drifted. It stopped moving. We sat there for fifteen minutes, unbelievably; looking at a trace that could only be one thing, Nessie, the famous Loch Ness monster.
For the next four days we tried to track it, but to no prevail. Having lost sight of our goal to study the effects of the potassium mixture on the fish and nematodes, we quickly wrapped up our finding and released a rather thin pamphlet on the subject. Yesterday was our last day on the loch so we spent it looking for Nessie. We found her at 11:55 Saturday night. We cut the motor and recorded the size that the fish finder estimated, seeing that we forgot to in the excitement of the last sighting. "Almost 50 feet!" exclaimed my best friend Chuck Hackenbush as he stared at the integer on the right top corner. That was when it charged at the boat.
I never thought anything in the water could move that fast, it hit our boat like a torpedo. The 13 footer splintered into toothpicks as the long, telephone pole thick neck broke right through the middle of the boat. Chuck fell backwards, making a surprised scream, into the inky water; Mike Gessler was right on the impact point, so the squarish shaped head of the monster catapulted him in the air. I could tell his back was broken by the way he formed a perfect circle in the air, his shoes touching his head. I fell into the water and swam for shore, which was only about 250 yards away. I could hear the screams of my friends as the monster presumably attacked them. I was too much in shock to feel sorrow, I couldn't save them, I could only save himself. I could hear the sound of the beast coming ashore, the sound of a wave, yet there was no big waves on the loch, it was a still, calm night. I saw it in the moonlight, moving in the manner of a seal towards me. I tripped over a chain or a rope with a sign on it, got back up and ran to a cement shack, some kind of sewer maintenance building or something, and ran in. I slammed the door shut and placed the metal slab into the lock position. Only a wrecking ball can break through that. I should be safe here for a while.'
There were a few blank pages, then it picked up again.
'My guess it that the pesticide being poured into the lake has raised the aggressiveness of the monster. It's food supply is being poisoned, therefore much less is available. This was obviously a full grown creature, perhaps too old to return to the open sea. These creatures must migrate to the ocean during the winter, the old or sick may be left behind. Now it needs a new source, and humans may be the only available one left. Or it just wants revenge on the people doing this before it dies. Whatever it is, the creature is pissed and it is probably waiting for me to leave the building to do away with me too. Water is a great conductor of sound; it is probably offshore listening for footprints on the rocky beach. Better stay here a while.'
That was all there was.
As he picked up the backpack to see if he could find anything else, his hand touched something slick and wet. It was on the backpack. Blood. The backpack was all blue, but there was blood on it. The damp air of the cement room kept it moist. This inspector had seen dozens of murders in just a few years, grisly ones, murders where people had severed limbs or heads, and he never felt as much as a wincing twitch. Yet just this smear of blood made him feel sick. There was more in the corner. He inspected it. There was quite a bit there, but very little blood leading to the door, as if the victim was lifted up and pulled out. What he wrote was true. Just then his radio beeped. He switched it on.
"MacGuire here."
"James?" the radio crackled, "just got a report of some wreckage washing ashore less than a mile from where you are. Also heard about two more rentals that never returned to ol' Scott's Rental Shack. That makes it five. Better look into it."
As James left the building he thought of what this investigation would lead to. He walked along the shore and dipped his hand in the freezing water and washed off the blood.
Three years have passed. The lochside is now totally barren. The government had ordered everyone to relocate to another premises due to the threat of the monster. The hills are still green and lush, but no one can enjoy them. For the first time in over 1,000 years the monsters of Loch Ness can roam the waters freely without threat of human intervention. A large, chain-link fence encircles the entire loch. Signs every couple hundred feet read "Warning: This is government owned territory. No trespassing." Of course there are a few who still visit the loch, punks who jump the fence in order to take a picture or just catch a glimpse of the monster and the scientists who come every couple of months to study them. Perhaps it is for the best, these creatures and humans do not mix well. To the rest of the world, even in the lakes of Champlain, Okanagon, Lochs Duich and Morar, Lake Van, the White River, Chesapeake Bay, and every other place housing it's own monster, the attitude "Pish-posh, there's no such thing as monsters," prevails. As they speak, tanker trucks containing the substance Potassium 243 are searching for a new place to dump its toxic chemicals.
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