The Loch (7 page)

"Forget about giant squids, David, there's something even more fascinating down there—Bloop!"

"Bloop?"

"Don't you ever pick up a science journal? Back in '97, the navy discovered these mysterious deep-water biologics, which they named Bloop. SOSUS picked them up."

"SOSUS?"

"Come on—the Sound Underwater Surveillance System. The microphones the navy used to detect Soviet subs during the Cold War!"

"Oh, that SOSUS… right."

"They're animals, David. Big, nasty undiscovered predators, only they swarm, like… like piranha. They attacked us in the Sargasso. They were after our giant squid!"

"Zack—"

"This is big stuff, David, an undiscovered species. You have to organize another expedition and—"

"Zack, you're not listening. It's over. No more expeditions. No more grants."

"What're you talking about?"

"The pilot's family hired some hotshot attorney, a Mike Rempe out of West Palm. Talk about a piranha. The guy's already filed a wrongful death lawsuit against you and FAU. As far as the University's concerned, you're unmarketable, pal. Poison."

"A lawsuit? But it was an accident."

"Save it for the deposition. Anyway, the dean and I think it's best we sort of sever all ties with you, at least for now."

I was incredulous. "FAU's blaming me? David, what did you tell them?"

"Look, you did open that escape hatch."

"Yes, schmuck, to escape!"

"And by doing so, you may have put too much strain on the tow cable."

"You son of a bitch… you told them I flooded the sub!"

"No… I… I mean, look, maybe you'd better get an attorney."

"No way, David, no flicking way! I won't play the fall guy for you or FAU, you can forget it. The sub's bubble cracked, that's what killed the pilot."

"Hey, I'm just the messenger, and the message is you're no longer associated with the university. It's a visibility thing, nothing personal."

"Yeah, well, fuck you, nothing personal."

It was all I could do to keep from strangling him with one of my IVs.

* * *

The hospital released me two days later, only after I signed a paper agreeing to keep an appointment with a psychiatrist. Apparently, my doctors feared depression setting in.

They were right to worry.

I took a cab to my on-campus apartment, a perk FAU had used in recruiting me. Demonstrating uncharacteristic efficiency, David had already struck, ordering the university's housing authority to pack my possessions into cardboard boxes. Under the watchful eye of a security officer (what was I going to do, steal my own belongings?) I tossed everything into the back of my Jeep. Then, with nowhere else to go, I headed for my mother's place in Bal Harbour.

* * *

Upon returning to America with her nine-year-old son, the former Mrs. Angus Wallace had struggled for several years to earn a living as a travel agent before meeting her future husband, Mr. Charlie Mason of Long Island, New York. Charlie was a writer, spending his days penning columns for soap opera magazines, his nights pounding out screenplays. His breakthrough as a scribe came six months after marrying my mother, when a friend of hers enticed a prominent Hollywood agent to read one of his scripts, a comedy about a man trying to kill his legally wed homosexual partner so he could collect on a lottery ticket. The sale netted six figures and reaped a nice payday at the box office, and suddenly Charlie and his new bride were moving up in the world.

I liked my stepfather. He was a slight man with thinning hair, fifteen years older than my mother, but he loved her dearly and treated her with respect, and that's all that mattered in my book.

The fact that he was wealthy never bothered me in the least, though I never asked Charlie for a dime. With FAU paying my room and board, along with a decent salary, I was able to sock away enough over the years for a down payment on a house.

Having lost my job, I was now going to need those funds to survive.

Bal Harbour Island is a seaside resort located in northern Miami- Dade County. A favored hideaway of the rich and famous, it is single-family homes nestled in gardened, gated communities, and high-rise condos lining private white beaches and azure coastlines. Upscale shopping malls and restaurants run north and south along its main thoroughfares, and yachts inhabit the deep water channel of its intracoastal.

Mother and Charlie were in Manhattan for the week. We had spoken briefly on the phone, with me assuring her that I was fine, and that rest and relaxation were all I was interested in. I told her not to worry, that I'd see her soon enough.

Their apartment was a four-bedroom condo on the tenth floor, facing the ocean. It was late by the time I settled in, so I took a quick shower, slipped on my favorite boxer shorts, and crawled into bed in one of the guest rooms. I left the balcony door open, the salty breeze and pounding ocean soon guiding me into a heavy sleep.

* * *

It is dark.

It is dark and I am in the water. Deep, frigid water.

I am in the Loch.

I am drowning!

Kick to the surface! Gag, spit, tread water.

My capsized rowboat sinks beneath me.

Salmon everywhere, jumping, snapping. I'm swimming in a school of fish!

Look around. Search for land, but the fog is everywhere, and the sun has set. Which direction is home?

Stay calm, Zachary, don't panic… just tread water and wait… wait until the fog fills.

Help! Can anybody hear me?

Muscles growing heavier, I'm so tired, so numb.

A powerful current swirls around me… is something down there? I'm scared.

Help! Help! Ahh…

Gulp! Underwater! I'm underwater! Something has me, has my ankle! Sharp pain… what is it? What has me? Is it my rowboat? Am I entangled in the bow line?

Panic… struggle… twist… fight to get air …

"Ahh! Ahhh!"

Catapulting out of bed, still half asleep, I bellowed a bloodcurdling howl and ran blindly from the bedroom—the wrong way! Past the billowing curtains, I sprinted straight out onto the balcony, my momentum flipping me head over heels over the aluminum rail!

Hands that once plucked footballs from the air lunged one last desperate time, my left smashing uselessly against the balcony's concrete lip, the right managing to grasp the aluminum rail's divider that separated the two plastic balcony panels.

"Owwff!"

For a surreal moment I simply held on, suspended 128 feet above the pavement. The fingers of my right hand held on for dear life while my mind, soothed by the ocean's dull roar, fought to convince my nightmare-laden brain that I was indeed awake and a butterfly's flutter from dying, only this time, there'd be nothing left of me to resuscitate.

Do something, Wallace, move!

Carefully, I raised my legs, my bare toes embracing the rough concrete along the underside of the balcony. My right ankle found a perch near the outside of the rail so that I could grab hold with my left hand, and I hauled myself up and over the cracked partition. My body trembled as my feet touched down upon the warm tile, my bruised chest heaving as I looked down ten stories, staring in disbelief at what might have been.

"Hey, son, you all right?"

"Isn't that Andrea Mason's boy?"

"The guy in the newspaper? Didn't know he was
meshuga."

The neighbors were out on their balconies, dressed in shorts and robes and nightgowns, talking about me like I was some kind of suicidal freak.

Waving them off, I retreated inside the apartment and double locked the glass door.

I was wide-awake and pumped full of adrenaline, but the dark bedroom seemed filled with demons. Feeling myself beginning to freak out, I bolted from the chamber, flipping on light after light until I reached Charlie's liquor cabinet. Tearing it open, I grabbed the first unsealed bottle I could find and swallowed two long gulps, then heaved the cursed container of cooking sherry across the Saturnia marble floor and retched.

The life of wild animals is a struggle for existence. The full exertion of all their faculties and all their energies is required to preserve their own existence and provide for that of their infant offspring. The possibility of procuring food during the least favorable seasons, and of escaping the attacks of their most dangerous enemies, are the primary conditions which determine the existence both of individuals and of entire species. These conditions will also determine the population of a species; and by a careful consideration of all the circumstances we may be enabled to comprehend, and in some degree to explain, what at first sight appears so inexplicable—the excessive abundance of some species, while others closely allied to them are very rare.

—
A
LFRED
R
USSEL
W
ALLACE, "
O
N THE
T
ENDENCY OF
V
ARIETIES TO
D
EPART
I
NDEFINITELY
F
ROM THE
O
RIGINAL
T
YPE", 1858

There are at least 10,000 known reported sightings at Loch Ness, but less than a third of these are recorded.

—
D
R.
R
OY
M
ACKALL,
C
RYPTO-
Z
OOLOGIST

South Beach

I
woke up the next morning on the den sofa, the horrors of the previous night a fading memory. Staggering to the drapes, I drew them back, revealing blue skies, a shimmering white stretch of beach, and an azure ocean.

Nirvana.

I showered and shaved, ate a quick breakfast, then headed down to the beach in my shorts and sunglasses, ready for some much needed rest and sun.

The condominium had reserved chairs on the beach. Helping myself to a chaise lounge and a handful of towels, I scanned the coastline.

Lying on her stomach close by the water's edge was a woman in her early twenties. My eyes targeted shoulder-length brown hair and a white thong that was wedged so deep into the crack of her yoga- firmed buttocks that it was nearly invisible. The bikini top that barely contained her dark, baby-oiled breasts was unhinged, preventing tan lines.

God, I love South Beach …

I set my chair within ten feet, spying on her from behind my tinted sunglasses. I waited until she rotated her head, then offered, "Beautiful day."

No response.

Goofball, you're coming off like Sir Alfred.

Playing it cool, I moved closer, flexing my muscles with every movement. "I'm Zack," I said, kneeling close to her basting body. "And you are?"

"Not interested."

"Right. Sorry. I just, I dated a lot of athletes back when I played football in college, so I have a thing for physically fit women."

She looked up. "Leesa Gehman."

"Hi, Lisa."

"Not Lisa, Leesa."

"You're uh… not a student, are you?"

"Not anymore. Why?"

"Just curious. My former fiancée was an undergrad."

"So now you're on the rebound. Good luck."

She laid her head back down, then looked up again. "Wait, did you say your name was Zack, as in Zachary Wallace?"

"Guilty as charged."

"I read about you in the paper. You drowned while saving some guy, right?"

And Wallace catches the ball in the end zone for a touchdown!

In South Beach, fame is the key that unlocks all chastity belts. In the next twenty minutes I learned Leesa was from Allentown, Pennsylvania, had worked in an architect's office in Miami, and taught aerobics part-time. She told me what schools she'd attended, her brother's name, her favorite books, the meaning of the Chinese symbols tattooed on her left ankle, and where she wanted to go to dinner that evening.

At any moment, I expected to be discussing her favorite baby names.

"Zack, do you like it in the water?"

"I'm a marine biologist. I'm always working in oceans and—"

"No, Zack, I meant sex." She rehooked her top and stood, taking my hand. "I've never done it with a dead guy. Come on."

God, I love South Beach …

Hand in hand, we walked into the water, the thought of what lay ahead pumping blood to my already alerted groin.

We hurried through the shallows, our feet splashing one another, my heart pounding—

—my chest suddenly hurting, my vision impaired by purple spots. The blood rushed from my face as we waded into hip-deep water.

Not now …

My flesh tingled then burned, as if stung by a thousand jellyfish. I let go of Leesa's hand and stumbled blindly back to shore, the world spinning in my head. Collapsing to my knees in the wet sand, I fought to gasp a breath.

Leesa looked at me, perplexed. "Come on, the water's perfect!"

I tried to answer, but couldn't speak, unable to stop hyperventilating. A cold sweat broke out all over my body, my vision still impaired.

This wasn't a migraine, it was something else …

I was afraid.

Leesa moved closer, undoing the clasp on her top. "Zachary. Zach-ar-y!" The vixen smiled as she lifted her bikini, flashing the twins at me.

Torture… God's torturing me—

"Come on, hero, I'm horny."

The blind spots faded, the pain and cold sweat mercifully subsiding. Feeling embarrassed, I stood, wiping perspiration from my face. "Sorry."

"What happened?"

"Low blood sugar, I guess." I sucked in a few more breaths, my limbs still trembling. "Okay, I'm coming."

"Not yet, I hope." She grabbed my hand, leading me back out.

I took two strides, and was suddenly blinded by subliminal images, flashing across my mind's eye.