Nothing.
I did another careful three-sixty, silt swirling before my eyes, and I soon began to wonder if I had imagined the damn thing. I’ve seen monster alligators in my life, but none the size of the thing that had just buzzed me. And the shape didn’t seem quite right, either.
So . . . perhaps I had been wrong. Maybe a plane had swooped in low, throwing a shadow, as it checked on the lakeside fire. Or possibly I’d seen a school of baitfish, moving past me in a dense cloud. In zero visibility, the human brain will scan randomly like a frozen computer, attempting to impose form on chaos.
I comforted myself with similar reassuring explanations, but I didn’t believe any of them. I had seen something. It was an animal. A reptile of some type or possibly an oversized alligator gar—a freshwater fish that grows to three hundred pounds. The thing had been descending toward me, swimming fast, but then it had veered away.
Why?
Once again, I recalled the fear in King’s voice when he’d said that he’d just seen something huge slide into the water. That suggested that it was a gator, not a fish. A big gator was a threat I had to take seriously.
It’s a popular fallacy that infrared light can pierce fog, smoke and silt, but it’s not true. Even so, I touched my fingers to the monocular and switched on the infrared. Maybe the invisible beam of light would extend my range of visibility.
Seconds later, as I continued scanning, I felt a shock wave of pressure behind me. It was as if a torpedo had shot past me. The wave caused me to duck and pull my body hard against the rock ledge. I don’t know why my first instinct was to switch off the infrared light but that’s what I did. It was an atavistic response; a limbic impulse to extinguish the campfire, to draw the limbs into a fetal position and then retreat into a dark place to hide.
My heart was pounding but my hand unaccountably sure as I unsnapped the spotlight and found the switch. The beam was blinding. Stupidly, I hadn’t first switched off my night vision system, so the intensifier tube automatically flared before shutting down to protect the precision optics as well as my own eye.
I extended the big flashlight and moved it around. Underwater, a thousand-lumen LED projects a beam that is as dense as a shaft of glowing marble. Maybe the light saved me . . . Or maybe there was, in fact, nothing from which to be saved. I was partially blinded, as I probed the darkness, so I couldn’t be certain of what I was seeing. For the briefest instant, though, I
thought
I saw a massive reptilian head in profile and a single glowing orange eye. The animal materialized on the far black rim of visibility and then hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to turn and face me.
It did not turn. Instead, it seemed to shrink as it descended into deeper water toward the bottom. And then it vanished.
I didn’t know what I’d just seen, but I was sure it wasn’t an alligator. So what was it?
Slowly, like a drunk approaching a mountain ledge, I moved away from the cave opening. I took a couple of strokes with my fins and then poked my head over the drop-off. The flashlight drilled a brilliant white conduit downward into the depths. I painted the beam over the bottom but was still alert to movement behind me.
It took a while for my eyes to adapt. Through a haze of silt, I identified an elongated darkness, which I knew was the fuselage of the plane. Then . . . I saw something that was too animated and well defined to be imaginary. I saw the fanning pendulum of what appeared to be a reptilian tail as the creature nosed itself into a limestone hole. The tail was miniaturized by distance, but I knew it had to be big—longer than a man.
Pushing the light ahead of me, I started downward to get a closer look. But then stopped myself.
Don’t press your luck, Ford. Leave it alone.
As I watched, I tried to convince myself that I was watching an oversized gator, but I knew it wasn’t true. More than anything else, it looked like the tail of a Nile monitor lizard—but that couldn’t be. Monitors didn’t grow to be thirteen feet long, and the animal I was watching had to be at least that big.
I extended the light downward as if using the beam to pin the creature to the bottom. As I did, a chilling memory flashed into my mind, and I pictured myself on the island of Gili Motang, in the Suva Sea, where my friend and I had been tracked by a reptile of a similar size.
A Komodo monitor? In Florida?
Even as I thought the word
Impossible,
I knew that I was wrong again. Florida was the perfect habitat for the world’s largest venomous lizard.
“Something lives in that lake that kills cows,” the land’s previous owner had told Arlis. I had smiled when I’d heard the story—me, a skeptic by nature and also by profession.
Yes, it
was
possible . . . possible that I was now watching an Indonesian monitor. In the remote pasturelands of central Florida, a Komodo-sized lizard wouldn’t just survive, it would thrive. An animal with its habits could live unnoticed for years, feeding by night and sleeping underground by day. With miles of tree cover and lakes connected by karst vents and tunnels, the topography was ideally suited to support just such a creature. On the islands of Indonesia, the giant monitors are more often obligate scavengers, reliant on the success of their pack. In Florida, though, there was no competition. Even an immature Komodo would soon ascend to the top of the food chain as an alpha predator.
My mind shifted to the three lizards that I had believed were Nile monitors. I had been surprised to see diurnal animals hunting well after sunset. I didn’t want to believe it, but I no longer doubted my eyes or the evidence—evidence that suggested that at least one adult Komodo lived in this area and it had reproduced.
That’s why the young lizards were out feeding at night.
Maybe the spotlight had saved me when the animal swooped in close. True or not, I gripped the light tighter as I watched the monitor’s tail stir the water twice more, then vanish into the hole. Another karst vent, most likely.
I glanced over my shoulder at the tunnel I was about to enter. I compared it with the location and the apparent angle of the hole into which the giant lizard had disappeared. If the hole beneath me was indeed a karst vent, the two tunnels ran roughly parallel. Even though they were separated by forty feet of limestone and sand, it was likely that they intersected at some distant place, perhaps far from the rim of the lake.
I couldn’t let myself dwell on it.
I had to find Will and Tomlinson—before the Komodo monitor found them.
TWENTY-FOUR
AS ARLIS FUTCH HUNTED AMONG THE BUSHES, HE
called to Tomlinson and Will Chaser, “You can quit making so much noise now—my God, you could raise the dead! I’ve got a good fix on where you are.”
Looking over his shoulder every few seconds, Arlis had used the tire iron to hack his way up the western side of the mound. When he had cleared enough cactus and bayonet plants, he tracked Tomlinson’s voice and the steady echo of the boy treading water until he found an opening in the rocks.
The hole wasn’t wide enough to crawl through, but it was large enough to poke the flashlight in and have a look. As he did, Arlis told them again, whispering, “Quiet down! I’m here, stop making so much racket. Do you see my light?”
They were close enough to the lake that the two convicts might be able to hear them—sound carried over water—which was risky enough. And Arlis sure as hell didn’t want that snake he’d seen, the monster with the orange eyes, to come cruising around. He wanted to concentrate on what he was seeing and not have to worry about someone or something sneaking up behind him.
Lying on his belly, he pushed the flashlight into the hole, then pressed his face close enough to see. Below was a bone-strewn animal den. It was a small cave, with tree roots hanging down. Near the far eastern wall, the floor of the chamber angled into a pool of water. When the flashlight hit the pool just right, the water was tannin red but clear.
Judging from the bones and the egg casings and the stink, Arlis guessed that the pool was somehow connected to the cypress head where he’d seen the massive reptile, and he thought,
Dear God Aw’mighty, this is where the thing lives. It’s a by God snake den!
Near the center of the chamber, a karst vent creased the southern wall. There was a hole in the limestone floor there, water visible beneath. Tomlinson’s face floated within the hole, as if someone had taken his picture and placed it in a rock frame. His face was covered with mud, and he held up a hand to shield the light from his eyes until Arlis swung the light away.
Arlis called, “How the hell did you get down there? Where’s the boy, is he with you?”
Instead of answering, Tomlinson was already asking questions. “Where’s Doc? We heard him using the sand dredge. He signaled us a couple of times, but then he stopped. Is he with you?”
Arlis felt the pain in his head sharpen and he winced before saying, “Doc’s fine, don’t worry about him. Where’s the boy?”
Tomlinson’s face disappeared and Will Chaser’s face suddenly filled the little opening. The teen was grinning, but he sounded irritable when he said, “I’ve been digging at this hole for more than an hour! We’ve got nothing but one knife, and both our lights went out.” The boy’s grin widened. “Man! Never thought I’d say this, but it sure is good to see a bossy old redneck.”
Arlis laughed, feeling ridiculously close to tears. “I’ve got a tire iron—watch your eyes, and I’ll try to dig my way through.”
Will shouted, “No! You need a shovel and maybe a pickax. These goddamn roots are hard as iron.”
The boy had a mouth on him, and Arlis knew that he would soon be asking for Ford’s opinion. “I’ll do it my way, if you don’t mind,” he told Will Chaser. “Move aside or this bossy old redneck won’t rescue your mouthy young ass.”
Arlis thought for a moment and then said again, “And keep your voices down. This cave’s got an echo to it.”
The lake was on the other side of the swamp, less than a hundred yards away, and the punk killers might hear them. But he was also still thinking of that snake. If the thing had hatched eggs in the cave, it would be back.
“Why? What’s the problem with making a little noise?” the boy asked, sounding more suspicious than respectful.
Still whispering, Arlis said, “Just do it.”
Because of the bayonet plants—
they were as sharp and hard as darts—Arlis was bleeding from puncture wounds on his arms and hands when he lowered himself into the cave. The space was less than five feet high, ceiling to floor, but it was wide and long, counting the pool of water at the far end of the chamber.
Arlis kept his eye on the pool, thinking,
That’s how the snake comes and goes. These little lakes are all connected.
It wasn’t unusual in Florida for lakes to be connected by underground rivers or karst tunnels, as the man was aware. A good example was a sinkhole called Deep Lake, which wasn’t far from Copeland, off Highway 27, on the way to Everglades City. Every spring, ocean-going tarpon appeared in that little lake, rolling on the surface. By fall, they were gone—the fish had followed a tunnel or underground river back to the Gulf of Mexico, twenty-some miles away, to spawn. Arlis had witnessed it with his own eyes long ago when he was a boy, although it was the rare Yankee fisherman who actually believed the story.
Arlis stood there for a second, his mind playing tug-of-war with his courage. He thought,
Crawling into this hole might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And sure as hell the most dangerous.
Then he thought,
What’s it matter? I ain’t never going to run away again. And I’m gonna die soon, anyway.
The man took a big breath, then ducked headfirst into the cave and began to shimmy his way through a curtain of tree roots. The floor was greasy slick with mud and moss, and there was no avoiding the bones, which rolled and levered beneath his feet. Twice, his boots nearly went out from under him, so he got down on his hands and knees and crawled in the muck. Crawling was easier here—no wonder the snake had chosen it as a good place to hatch its young.
As Arlis worked his way closer, Tomlinson and the boy took turns watching him. The hole was big enough to provide them both air, but just barely. The boy didn’t say much, but Tomlinson was even more hyperactive than usual, and he talked nonstop when it was his turn to push his face into the hole.
Arlis had noticed that reaction before in men who had come close to dying, and a thought came into his head.
First time since I met Tomlinson that he’s ever behaved like a normal human being.
Tomlinson yammered away until the light must have hit Arlis’s face just right, which caused the hippie to pause, and then he said in a soft voice, “My God, Arlis, what happened to your face?”
Arlis hadn’t thought about what he must look like, but he knew that his left eye was almost swollen shut and the skin of his jaw was puffy tight with bruising and blood. It was embarrassing, in a way—Arlis had never been beaten so badly by another man, and he hated to lie about it but did. “I took a spill back there on the rocks. Probably because I’m not used to roaming around the woods at night clean sober, but here I am. So don’t worry about it.”
Still concerned, Tomlinson said, “Man . . . you need a doctor.” But then he sensed the old man’s embarrassment and recovered by adding, “I’ll buy us a twelve-pack on the way home. It’s important to stay hydrated down here in the tropics—a few beers will make us both feel better.”
Arlis was having trouble getting through the roots. Every few feet, he had to stop and whack at them with the tire iron before proceeding. During the pauses, Tomlinson continued to talk away, telling Arlis about the series of underwater landslides that had buried them and how they’d ended up here, several hundred feet from the lake. Of course, the hippie also repeatedly asked questions about Ford, which Arlis found disconcerting. He didn’t mind exaggerating a story—that’s the way stories were meant to be told—but he had seldom told so many outright lies in the space of only a few minutes.