Something about the steadiness of the kid’s voice snapped Arlis out of his panic. Never once had he taken his eyes off the reptile. The animal was still pulling itself from the pool—the thing had to be
thirteen feet long—
its claws making a sound on limestone so metallic that the stink of sulfur and carrion filled the room like sparks.
Tomlinson was now saying, “Hey—what’s happening? Let me see!,” as Will ordered in a louder voice, “Arlis—the flashlight. Use it!”
Arlis lifted the flashlight from the mud and swung it toward the animal, the bright beam panning along the cave wall, first showing roots, then the petroglyphs. The stick figure with horns appeared buckskin yellow behind the black bulk of the reptile, which had drawn its head back again, snakelike, its dull eyes beginning to glow orange as the light panned closer.
Tomlinson’s voice said, “Mother of God! What
is
that thing?,” as Will continued calling directions, saying, “Right in its goddamn eyes! But turn it off first. Hear me? Arlis—kill the light first!”
Arlis’s thumb explored the body of the flashlight, trying to find the switch. He understood what the kid was saying. Shock the animal with the light. It made so much sense that Arlis was surprised that he didn’t think of it himself because it might have worked if he had done it in time but he didn’t. He was just switching off the light when the animal struck, its head spearing forward so fast that the blur of movement continued to fill Arlis’s eyes even as darkness swamped the cave. He felt a thudding impact on his right calf that was like getting hit with an ax.
“Shit!” he screamed. “It got me!”
The cave echoed as Tomlinson hollered, “Arlis, are you okay?,” and Will was yelling, “Turn it on! Turn the goddamn light on, Arlis!”
Arlis’s thumb punched the switch, and the flashlight drilled a silver beam through the blackness, a beam so intense that all he could see for an instant were the twin orange stars of the reptile’s eyes, its face separated from his own only by the space of a few tree roots.
The animal hissed, flinging slobber, as it lurched backward. Arlis leaned toward the thing, jabbing at it with the flashlight, as he drew his legs under him and got to his knees. A chunk of flesh was gone from his calf, he noticed, the wound so fresh that it hadn’t yet started to bleed.
For several seconds, the lizard held its ground, striking once at Arlis—or the flashlight—but it was disoriented by the light, or temporarily blinded, because its teeth came away with only a chunk of root, which it flung away with a slash of its head, before continuing to slide backward into the water.
There was a swirl, then bubbles. The reptile submerged.
In shock, Arlis sat back in the mud, breathing heavily, as he continued to aim the light at the pool. Behind him, he heard Tomlinson’s voice, slow with wonder, say, “A fucking
dragon,
man. I knew it—I
knew
this day was coming.”
Arlis muttered,
“What?,”
as Tomlinson continued to talk, saying, “Those bastards have been tracking me for years.”
TWENTY-FIVE
FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, I SNAKED AND SHIMMIED MY
way through the darkness of the karst tunnel but gave up when I came to a dead-end chamber, where I found Will’s swim fins hanging motionless from the rock ceiling.
Seeing the fins gave me an emotional boost at first. The boy and Tomlinson had been here, I was on the right path. But my optimism soon faded. There had once been an exit vent—that was obvious—but the unstable limestone had shifted, or collapsed, and I couldn’t find the opening they had used.
I tried signaling—there was no response—so I searched and probed and dug carefully with my hands, but after another ten minutes I knew it was suicide to continue looking. My air was low. I had already broken the rule of thirds. And dying wasn’t going to help my friends. I would have to surface and return later with help.
I was as disappointed as I was desperate, but I also took perverse pleasure in the knowledge that first I would have to deal with the two convicts. There was nothing to hold me back now. The sooner they were out of the way, the sooner I could call in a rescue team and press ahead with the search.
Perry was too scared to risk swimming back to shore alone, which meant he was still somewhere above me floating on the inner tube. I knew how I would work it. I would surprise him from behind and then go after King. Somewhere in their clothing, or hidden nearby, I would find our cell phones and the VHF. Get rid of the killers and help would soon be on its way.
I turned and worked my way out of the chamber, pushing my BC rig and the spare bottle ahead of me. It was slow going. I couldn’t hurry. Even though I had not passed any intersecting vents, I maintained contact with the monofilament lay line that was attached to the Penn reel, wrapping it inch by inch over my right wrist as I retraced my path, until I sensed the opening ahead of me.
As I exited free into the blackness of the lake basin, I activated the night vision monocular and took my time searching the space above me and below me. As I searched, a Tomlinson superstition came into my mind.
Thoughts are energy. They sculpt reality from the noosphere. Focus on a dream—or a fear—and it will happen.
What I didn’t want to happen was to see the Komodo monitor waiting for me as I exited. But the axiom forced me into its own unavoidable paradox. Attempting to blank the creature from my mind only made the image stronger. Call the monster and the monster will appear, the axiom suggested.
The monster did appear, although the coincidence proved nothing. Even so, the timing left me with the unsettling possibility that my fear had summoned a nightmare.
Before exiting the tunnel,
I took my time searching even though I didn’t have much air left. Finally, though, I abandoned the quasi-safety of the limestone hole and did a slow three-sixty as I swam upward. My fins worked slowly, propelling me at an angle that would allow me to approach Perry from behind and surprise him.
The man was still above me, curled up in the inner tube, as I had hoped. I could see the silhouettes of the tube and his swim fins, although his feet weren’t in the water. That’s how bright the winter sky appeared as seen through night vision. It was all backdropped by stars, plus a pulsing illumination that I knew was firelight. It told me that King was staying busy collecting wood even though he had promised Perry to stand guard by the generator in case Perry called for help.
That was good news for me, bad news for the two killers.
The water clarity was flawless, but the green eye of the monocular had its limits. I wanted to be certain that the Komodo monitor wasn’t lurking somewhere out there in the darkness at the edge of visibility, and I had only two options. I could use the spotlight, which might alert Perry, or I could flip on the little infrared light that was built into the system.
I chose the invisible infrared . . . and that’s when I saw the monitor. It was hanging on the surface, over deep water, at the northern rim of the lake, forty yards away. The thing’s body drifted, motionless, pitched downward at an eighty-degree angle, its head above water, facing the inner tube. It suggested to me that the animal had recently surfaced for air and that it had spotted Perry.
Now the monitor was waiting . . . watching . . . observing the habits of its prey before leveling off for an attack. Perry, who had been terrified of the lake from the start and who was probably now numb with cold and fear, wouldn’t see or hear the lizard approaching until it was too late.
To me, it was exquisite irony. A killer who had stabbed or shot children, who flaunted his manhood with a dragon tattoo, was about to be attacked and possibly killed by a species that had existed unchanged for fifty million years.
I stopped kicking toward the surface when I saw the lizard. I decided it was safer if I remained on the bottom, where I could watch events unfold, so I purged my BC and began to descend fins first, still focused on the creature.
Maybe it heard the bubbles from my exhaust valve—that was the first explanation that came to mind, anyway—because the thing pivoted instantly and thrust its head beneath the surface and began searching the bottom.
I remained motionless as I descended, watching the distant reflection of the monitor’s eyes. Most reptiles don’t have great eyesight, particularly at night. They can detect movement, but inanimate objects—even if warm-blooded—are invisible to them, which is why snakes and lizards rely on their tongues when hunting.
I inhaled enough air to stop my descent, then held my breath. I could see the monitor’s tongue working, stabbing the water for information. A popular rural legend is that snakes and alligators can’t attack underwater, but it’s a myth. Reptiles have a palatal valve that prevents water from breaching their throats when they open their mouths underwater. They can attack, they can bite, they can feed.
Could the monitor taste my heat beneath the surface? I didn’t know.
The animal’s head panned briefly, but then suddenly speared deeper in my direction. Short paws sculled the water as it straightened itself and then began to sink. I watched its putty-colored eyes appear to brighten as they focused. And then its body pivoted parallel to the bottom. Until then, it had more closely resembled a floating tree trunk, but now it came alive.
Not once had the monitor taken its eyes off me.
It began swimming in my direction, slowly at first, undulating like a dinosaur-sized snake, and that’s when I knew for certain—motionless or not, it could see me.
I turned and kicked hard toward the bottom. Would the monitor pursue? I risked a quick glance over my shoulder and confirmed that the lizard was coming fast now, closing the distance at a terrifying rate.
I had been carrying the extra air bottle and the fishing reel. I dropped both and then struggled to unclip the spotlight from a D ring on my vest as I swam toward the ivory tusk ten feet below. It marked the opening into the karst vent—my only hope of escaping the creature. It wouldn’t provide me much protection, though, and I couldn’t hide there for long because I was almost out of air.
Kicking as hard as I could, I flew past the tusk and threw one hand out in time to snag the lip of the tunnel from above. My momentum swung me around as I struggled with the spotlight. As I turned, I saw through the green lens that the animal was only twenty yards away. Its head was streamlined, extended flat, as it knifed through the water, coming at me with the weight and speed of a torpedo.
My fins were too wide to slip cleanly into the vent. With my left hand, I yanked off one, then the other, as I finally freed the spotlight. I jammed my feet into the hole and used the light to pole myself backward until my body was encased by limestone like some oversized lobster hiding from an attacker. Then I waited . . . waited in a green and eerie darkness . . . with the spotlight in my right hand ready to fend off the monitor if it tried to follow me into the cave.
I didn’t have to wait long. My clumsy entrance had stirred up a cloud of silt and, seconds later, the monitor’s head appeared as a gray, elongated shape at the tunnel’s entrance, only a few feet from my face mask. I heard its claws scrabbling for purchase on the rocks, and then it pushed its head deeper into the hole. Just as I was about to turn on the spotlight, though, it suddenly retreated. The bulk of its body covered the entrance for a few moments and then it disappeared.
I lay motionless on my belly, trying to slow my breathing. Several seconds later, the monitor was back again, the silhouette of its head a sullen black wedge at the edge of visibility. It seemed to be waiting for me to come out.
The animal appeared to be in no hurry now. It knew where I was, that was obvious. But how? The spotlight was off, so there was no way for it to see me. A reptile’s eyesight isn’t good at night, even on land. How had the thing tracked me so exactingly underwater? I wondered if it had somehow followed my bubble trail, but rejected the possibility. If it was tracking my bubbles, the animal would now be searching around on the surface. It made no sense.
It was when I reached to readjust the monocular’s focus that I finally made the connection. The infrared light was still on. It gave me pause and I began to search for linkage. Had I been using infrared when the animal buzzed me earlier?
I couldn’t remember for certain . . . But now I
did
recall that some animals can see infrared light. Infrared light is heat. It can be read through a variety of sensory organs. Bees can see infrared, some fish can process both infrared and ultraviolet light—and certain reptiles not only see infrared, they can sense it through their tongues, as well.
Immediately, I switched off the infrared. Fearing that the monocular was producing some kind of electronic signature, I switched it off, too, then lay there in a blackness so absolute that ocular connectors to my brain created sparks and swirls behind my eyes that were uncomfortably bright. I blinked, trying to mitigate the reaction, as I calculated the chances that shutting down the night vision system actually would make a difference.
It did make a difference—but the monitor didn’t respond as I had hoped. Within seconds of switching off the infrared, I heard a frenzied digging—claws on limestone—and then I heard the clatter of falling rocks only a few feet from my face mask. Maybe the animal feared it had lost me because it was now clawing its way into the hole.
I retreated a few feet deeper, throwing my left hand over my head for protection from rocks as I extended my right arm so I could use the spotlight as a shield. The spotlight was my only weapon now and I knew I had to time it right. Hit the switch too soon and the monitor’s eyes would have time to adjust. If I waited, though, waited until the animal was only a few feet away, its dilated pupils would allow a thousand lumens of blinding light to pierce its optic nerve. If I blinded the thing, maybe it would retreat to the surface and decide that Perry was an easier target.