Page 9 of Saving Nessie
Lachlan heard the crowd before he saw it. A multitude of arguing voices became clearer as he drew close.
‘—bloody greatdinosaurI tell you—’
‘You mean plesiosaur.’
‘Awhale,you idiot. Of course it wasn’t a plesiosaur!’
‘—maybe it was a prank? Someone in a costume? Or someone’s old theatre prop—’
Lachlan’s stomach sank. There were at least a dozen people huddled around the deep gouge in the shoreline where a Nessie-sized Cam had entered the water. The group was torn between gabbling excitedly down their phones and squabbling with each other over what they’d seen.
‘Did youactuallysee it, though? It was blue!’
‘No, definitely green!’
‘And scaly.’
‘I saw spikes on its back.’
‘No there weren’t.’
‘—looked like it wasflying—’
‘And thenoiseit made!’
Lachlan sidled up to a young woman in a rainbow hoodie who was animatedly tapping away on her phone. ‘Excuse me,’ he said politely. ‘What’s going on?’
She barely glanced up. ‘Didn’t you see it? The Loch Ness Monster was here!’
Lachlan feigned incredulity. ‘Loch Ness Monster? You mean someone set up a stunt or—’
‘No mate,’ an older, serious-looking chap interrupted him. His expression told Lachlan that he himself didn’t want to believe what he’d just seen. ‘Don’t reckon it was a hoax or nowt. Bloody great big beastie came tumbling out the trees there. Look at the marks on the ground! Heavy bugger.’
‘That sounds doubtful,’ Lachlan said weakly. He stole a glance at the woman’s phone: his heart did a triple-flip when he saw she was posting a photo—thankfully blurred, and a bit distant, but stillveryNessie-shaped—to social media.
The man shrugged at him. ‘Believe what you want, mate. I know what I saw.’
Oh, no…Lachlan swallowed, feeling overwhelmed by the conviction on the faces around him. And the number ofphones.God, why did everyone carry a tiny camera in their pocket these days?
It wasn’t the first time the Loch Ness Monster had entered the public eye—Lachlan had made plenty of slip-ups over the years. But back in those days the photographs had been grainy, black and white, and easily rebuffed as fakes.
The later scientific expeditions that had ventured into Loch Ness had been more troublesome to avoid. Lachlan recalled the tiny yellow submarine he’d had a close call with in the sixties, and all the kerfuffle that modern sonar sightings kept causing. He’d cunningly pulled in a few favours some years ago and got an old monster movie prop to leave in a conspicuous place for them to find. That bought him some peace and quiet while the internet laughed about how funny it was to mistake a sunken Loch Ness Monster statue for the real deal.
He doubted he could pull off something similar this time, however.
Lachlan figured Cam wouldn’t have hung around with all the people nearby, but he scouted along the banks anyway just to make sure. A reassuring lack of blood stains had Lachlan hopeful that Cam hadn’t sustained any terrible injuries, and seeing as he wasn’t floating unconscious just offshore, surely it meant he had swum away to safer waters.
Lachlan slipped away from the crowd. Not that they would have noticed his absence while still intently examining and arguing over the undeniable monster tracks.
He met Meredith on the roadside where Cam had left his bike. Together they wheeled the Matchless into the trees and covered it with a blanket from Meredith’s car. Cam would have to fetch it later.
Lachlan slid into the passenger seat of Meredith’s tiny Corsa and tried to ignore her worried glances. Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel, hesitant to start the ignition.
‘Cam’s fine,’ Lachlan said—more for his benefit than hers. ‘He’s probably already at the Teapot waiting for us.’
Meredith smiled weakly. ‘You’re right. He’s been in worse scrapes. I’ve known cursed sheep give him more trouble than this.’
They shared the rest of the journey to the Teapot in restless silence, neither wanting to add fuel to the other’s tangible anxiety. Lachlan didn’t tell Meredith about the crowd of witnesses, knowing it would only stress her out further.
