Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation (5 page)

“No, you’re not. It’s no secret. A car accident involving
a drunk driver. She died immediately. That was the only thing that gave Steven
any peace of mind. But he’s taken her death so hard. They’d been married for
seven years and were trying to have a baby. Happiest couple I’ve ever seen. It
was all so tragic. I feel for him.”

“I’m sorry to hear this. Do you think he’ll be all
right coming along with us? He’s not suicidal or anything, is he? You trust
him?”

“No,” Justin stated emphatically. “And I’d trust
him with my life. He’s resourceful and a quick thinker. I knew you wouldn’t
like the idea of a stranger tagging along, but he won’t impede us in any way, I
assure you.

“In fact, I think this little undertaking might be
good for him. He’s been unhappy for far too long. Unexcited with life. This
will get his mind off his loss. At least for a while.”

Henry nodded his head. “Okay. When he gets back,
we’ll leave. Ranger Gillian is meeting us at Cleetwood Dock in,” he checked his
wristwatch, “about twenty minutes. We’ll take off from there. This time I have
procured us the fastest boat on the lake with the biggest motor. Don’t say I
don’t learn from past experiences. If there’s something in the lake we’ll be
able to outrun it for sure. Or try to anyway.”

“So it’ll be just the three of us, huh?” Justin drank
the last of his coffee.

“Yeah, just the three of us and Ranger Gillian. The
other rangers are busy closing up the park and shooing out the visitors. Notifying
the business owners they have to shut down and leave. That can’t wait. I should
be helping them and not going on a wild goose chase after unidentified swimming
water monsters, but I need to know if there really is something in the lake
again.”

“You mentioned last night you’d already closed the
lake, though?”

“Yep. All boat and trolley tours were canceled
yesterday. We can’t take the risk. Especially after what happened to me last
night.”

“You were lucky you saved your cat. Ann loves that
cat.”

“Don’t I know it,” Henry replied. “I was hero for
the night in her eyes. Not to mention the kitten was real appreciative, too. It
wouldn’t stop rubbing against me.”

“I wonder if we’ll get to see the lake creatures
today?” Justin mused out loud.

“As long as that’s all we do. See them. I still recollect
the last time we were on the water with a prehistoric leviathan and what happened.
I don’t want a repeat performance of that debacle. We were lucky to have
escaped with our lives and I never like to stretch my luck.”

Justin had a funny look on his face. “Neither do I.
But I sure would like to see what’s out there. See if it’s like that first one
years ago.”

“And heaven help us if it is. Six years of multiplying
and growing would make them real giants.” Paleontologists, Henry thought.
Always wanting to see, chase and catalog dinosaurs. All he wanted to do was
exterminate them. And now he also had another dinosaur fanatic sailing with
them…this one wanting to write a book about them. So be it.

Henry finished his breakfast and coffee, pushed his
plate away. Left a ten dollar bill for the meal which included a generous tip. In
the meantime, a grinning Steven was making his way back to them through the
empty tables. “Time to go. But I have to make a quick stop at the front desk
first. I need to inform the lodge’s owner, who I see has returned from the
supply room, he has to close up again and batten down the hatches until we know
what we’re dealing with. He’s not going to be happy at all so I feel the least
I can do is give him the bad news in person.”

They came to their feet as Steven joined them. On
their way out Henry spoke briefly to the lodge owner, who, as he’d surmised,
wasn’t thrilled with what he had to tell him, and then they left.

Ranger Gillian would be waiting for them at the
dock with the boat. The sooner they got out on the lake and found out what was
in it, and got off the water, the better, because Henry had the gut feeling
things were going to get worse quickly. And he always listened to his gut. It
was usually right.

*****

The day was a calm one but as hot as a small sun.
The heat a palpable presence crowding in around them like the inside of an oven.
It was better when they got out on the lake. The water cooled things off a bit,
but it was the warmest August in the park Henry could recall. It was strange to
think about their last dinosaur hunt, the one done in the freezing weather and
snow on Mount Scott just months before. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

As they roared onto the lake Justin declared loudly
so to be heard over the motor, “Does this all somehow seem familiar to you,
Henry?” His eyes behind the gold wire-rimmed glasses swept the lake around them
searching for anything unusual in the water.

“What? You mean us out on a boat trolling for Crater
Lake monsters? Maybe in danger of being capsized any second and eaten alive by them?
Yep.”

Justin, hand shading his eyes from the glare and
water spray so he could see better, answered, “Yeah, that. We’ve already done
this way too many times. It’s starting to feel almost normal.” He stumbled and
righted himself as the boat hit against a wave or something and bounced slightly.
They were moving fast.

“Not normal to me. Never will be.” Henry snorted.
“I was way over it after that first time…you know where we were out on the lake
in the middle of the night and first bumped into Godzilla?”

“I remember. It was dark and cold and I had never
been more frightened in my whole life…until the next time and the next.”

“Ah, memories.”

There were no other boats on the lake. No people.
Henry’s rangers had done their jobs and cleared everyone out. The park, too,
would soon be empty of visitors. He’d kept in communication with his men and
everything was progressing as planned. It was a relief there’d been no further
reports of strange animal sightings or attacks from tourists because he
couldn’t get that creature he’d fought off the night before out of his mind.
Were there more? And, if so, where were they and what were they up to? He
almost didn’t want to think about it.

He knew he’d have to ask the Governor to bring in
the National Guard again at some point and dreaded it. The troops had occupied
the park so often in the last few years they might as well build permanent
barracks and keep a base there. Oh, that’d be fun. Better yet he could turn the
whole park over to them and coast until his retirement.

But at that moment he was more concerned with the
water creatures that Captain Sander had claimed to have seen. He studied the
water as it streamed past them. Beautifully blue. Deep. Mysterious as always. And
this time the home to…what?

Ranger Gillian was steering the craft and Justin’s
friend, Steven, was braced against the railing by them, eavesdropping on every
word they uttered–and Henry tried to sound as intelligent as he could–and
probably filing them away in his head for his book; a big grin on his face as
he regarded the lake and the boat moved across it. They’d already made three
circuits and were speeding by Wizard Island yet again.

They’d seen nothing in the water but a couple of
fish jumping and some floating flotsam. So far.

“Hey, there’s the
Old Man
of Crater Lake.
See that log sticking out of the water?” Justin pointed downwards and to his
right. “You see it Steven?”

“I see it,” Steven answered. “But it’s just a log,
huh?”

“Not just any log.
It’s a mountain hemlock trunk that has been
floating upright in the water for more than a hundred years. Wind currents
enable it to travel to different locations around the lake.
It
never stays in the same place.”

“Interesting but weird. A traveling tree. The roots
must make it bottom heavy and that’s why it stays upright. Any Indian or lake
folklore connected to it? Any neat stories?” Steven had directed the last part
of his inquiry to Henry.

Henry gave the young man a sideways glance. That
was a question he’d never asked and he found himself wanting to know the
answer, too. But he didn’t have it. “Not that I’m aware of. But I could ask
around for you. Maybe one of the rangers who have been here longer than me, or
one more seeped in the Indian legends of the park, would have an answer.” Like
Ranger Stanton. “Come to think of it, Ranger Stanton would be the one to ask.
If there’s a native legend or story attached to the
Old Man
, she’d know
it.”

“Thanks. Throwing in local color and tidbits help add
to the word count and make a book more believable.”

“I bet,” Henry remarked, his attention still on the
scenery around them.

They circled the lake for hours, slowly losing
faith they’d see anything that day, then Justin voiced a suggestion. “Do you
remember what drew the water dinosaur to us that first night on the lake all
those years ago?”

Henry went back in his memory. “Ah, ha!” he snapped
his fingers. “We made noise? The motors made lots of noise and it heard us?”

“You do remember.”

“So, we’ve had the motor clanking away as loud as a
trash truck, but no creatures have popped up their heads. But what if we make
more noise, blow the horns and yell a lot, perhaps they’ll come to see what’s
making the ruckus?”

“That’s a possibility.”

Henry nodded at Ranger Gillian and the man gave him
the okay sign with his fingers.

The boat’s air horn began to sound. Again and again.
The noise vibrated over the air and across the water and spread out for miles.
With no other boats or people anywhere on the lake, it was ear-shatteringly loud.

“That should do it. They probably hear it all over
the park,” Henry shouted. “Let’s see what happens now.”

The men on the boat waited, listening, and studied
the flowing waters around them.

After a while Steven, his hands clamped over his
ears from the horn’s din, yelled, “Maybe they’re hard of hearing?”

“Maybe they’re leery of us?” Justin offered another
explanation. “The gargoyles were really smart; maybe these are, too.”

“Captain Sander claimed they didn’t appear to be.
They swarmed around his boat like dolphins. Chased him. He just didn’t know
what their ultimate intent was.”

“Maybe–” Steven started to say something else when
suddenly Justin cried out beside him.

“Look! There! By the bow…there’s something coming
up from the water!”

Ranger Gillian silenced the boat’s horn and slowed
their speed.

The four men were staring as the something rose up
into the air next to the boat, shoving itself three, four feet out of the
water, and then lowering back in. All Henry could see of it was greenish scaly
skin as it slithered through the waves. It looked like a giant snake. No eyes
or mouth. Making it hard to tell how large it was. Was what he was seeing the
neck or back? He couldn’t tell. It swam along easily keeping up with them, and
they were moving over the water at a good clip. So it was flying in the water,
whatever it was.

“Look! There’s another one!” Justin’s fingers gestured
a ways behind where the first one had breached.

“And another!” Steven cried out, excited, pointing
to the other side of the boat. “And another!” His eyes were reflecting awe. He
clapped his hands over his mouth for a moment, then exclaimed, “Oh, my God!
Look at them! They’re amazing! I don’t believe I’m seeing what I’m seeing. But
I am. I mean I didn’t actually think we’d see anything out here. To be
absolutely truthful, I didn’t really believe in your dinosaurs, Justin…but
now….” He seemed to run out of words. The shocked expression on his face saying
what he couldn’t.

Henry’s mouth tightened as he examined the water
around them.
They’re here. They are right here.
They were surrounded by
a school of the aquatic creatures. On all sides. Four, five, six or more of
them. And from what he could see, they weren’t anything like the first lake
dinosaur. They didn’t appear as large, unless the rest of their bodies below
the water were.

Something bumped against the underside of the boat.
Not hard. A gentle nudge. Just saying
hi there
. But it could have been a
branch or a piece of floating wood. Probably was.

Then the old fear reawakened and Henry’s inner
voice warned.
There’s too many. Too close.
They should speed the boat up,
get away and return to land where they’d be safe. They had no idea what the
creatures would do.

“Wow! What a rockin’ picture this is going to
make!” Steven cried, aiming his smart phone towards the water as one of the Nessies
broke above the surface again. This time they could see more of it. A column of
reptilian skin shot seven feet out of the water.

Steven and Justin clicked away with their phones,
getting the best photos of the creatures they could because they were moving so
swiftly. Once and a while a portion of a body would come up and the camera
phones would snap-snap-snap.

“They aren’t behaving aggressively,” Steven commented
as if he’d read Henry’s mind, peering over the rails as one rushed by. None of them
had brushed against the boat. Yet.