Aquifer: A Novel (24 page)

Larry and Tina retreated to a large boulder in the middle of the river’s flow where they sunned themselves while leisurely eating their picnic lunch.

“This place is more fun than any water theme park I've ever been to,” Larry noted.

“I knew you’d like it. I could never be penned up in a big city for very long,” said Tina.

“I'm thinking I may never go back. And to think that all this water comes from one big aquifer,” Larry reflected.

“That big pool down there . . .” Tina said as she pointed downstream to the swimming hole where the boys had gone. It was a small lagoon about seventy-five feet wide by one-hundred feet long, with an eighty-foot high cliff which rose from the water's edge on the far side. As the Black River wound its way down through the Shut-Ins to the swimming hole, it finally tumbled over a six-foot waterfall plunging into the forty-five foot deep pool at its base. “. . . is fed not only by the water from the river, but right where the river drops into the lagoon there’s another large spring.”

*

Major Reid was standing on an observation platform at the end of the boardwalk high up on a cliff, watching Clayton and the group eighty feet below. He was speaking into a handheld military radio, reporting to General Branigan.

“Yes sir,” responded Major Reid. “This should be the last of my reports. Dr. Clayton seems totally absorbed in his environmental pollution work and has shown no interest in returning to the alien crash site. In fact, he was just a quarter mile from it yesterday and showed no signs of returning to it. . . . Affirmative sir, the entire town has forgotten about the incident. . . . The containment team completed the cleanup operations two days ago and did an excellent job of camouflaging the area. . . . Yes sir, the disinformation we spread is working. . . . I’ll be heading back to Cheyenne Mountain this afternoon sir; I should be there by morning . . . very good sir. We can consider this case closed.”

*

A young girl, Susan Henderson, age eight, played in ankle deep water in the exit stream of the swimming hole at the bottom of the Shut-Ins. The stream was about twenty-feet wide, but no more than a foot deep and meandered through a tree-lined course before disappearing into the depths of the forest. Susan bent over to pick up a “pretty” rock. Her almost waist length, straight, blond hair fell forward from her shoulders forming a shimmering curtain through which the sunlight danced before it hit the water where it sparkled radiantly. She threw the rock downstream to see it splash. Then she turned and ran to her mother, who was sunning on the shore of the swimming hole barely thirty feet away. Susan grabbed a large inner tube. “Mommy, watch me!” yelled Susan as she began to wade out into the swimming hole with the inner tube.

“Don't go out too far honey - stay close to shore,” scolded her mother.

Susan climbed into the inner tube and began to paddle out to deeper water. “That's far enough! I said stay close to shore!” her mother yelled again.

Susan laughed, and kicked to drive the inner tube out farther.

*

At the far side of the swimming hole Johnny was snorkeling near the bottom of the falls. The water was full of bubbles created from the churning water. It was difficult to see anything very distinctly in the clear but bubbly water. As Johnny lazily swam along the surface in the forty-foot deep water something brushed his legs. He spun in the water to see what had just touched him. Screened by a curtain of bubbles, he looked through his swim mask and saw only an indistinguishable image receding into the deeper water.

He raised his head out of the water and saw a turtle swimming across the lagoon. He decided to pursue it. Kicking with his Aunt Tina’s flippers, which were much too large for him, he quickly closed the gap and for a moment it appeared as if the prize would soon be his. But just as he was about to reach out and grab it, the turtle suddenly dove and was lost in the sea of bubbles.

Then Johnny remembered the eerie feeling of the object that had brushed against his leg and a sudden shudder ran down the back of his neck.

*

Underwater, two large amphibious creatures swam along the bottom of the lagoon. Neither of them had an injured right front foot. They split, one swam toward the cliff and the other toward the shore where the waders were splashing in waist-deep water.

*

People were sunning themselves all around the edges of the west side of the lagoon where the water was relatively shallow. Extending across the pool, the water got progressively deeper. At the far side, the lagoon was about forty-five feet deep. A sheer granite cliff rose majestically from the deep pool forming a slightly concaved, horseshoe curtain extending a hundred feet along the shoreline. The top edge of the cliff angled upward such that the right side was about forty feet above the pool. The other end was a little over eighty feet above the water.

Three teenage boys ascended a steep trail that wound up the back side of the cliff. Arriving at the top they advanced along the perimeter of the cliff’s rim until they stood forty feet above the pool below. There was a sign clearly posted which prohibited jumping or diving because of the dangerous rocks under the water. But being young and impetuous, they ignored the sign and one-by-one leapt from the edge of the cliff into the deep pool at its base.

Johnny swam near to where the divers were jumping. Watching them he became absorbed in the excitement of the moment and quickly forgot the chilling experience of only a few moments earlier. He called to his friends. “Hey Austin . . . Frankie . . . Come and watch these guys. It's way cool.”

They shook their heads and waved him off. They were having too much fun swinging out and dropping into the swimming hole from a rope swing which hung from a walnut tree at the shoreline.

Frankie grabbed the rope swing and yelled, “Look out Austin, I’m going to swing out as far as possible.” He and Austin both broke out in laughter as he swung out and dropped into the lagoon.

Tina and Larry were strolling hand in hand along the lagoon’s perimeter. Hearing Frankie’s exclamation and the boy’s raucous laughter, Tina quizzed Larry. “What is it with you guys? Every time someone says the word
possible
you all start laughing?”

Larry smiled and playfully contemplated his answer. Then he shrugged his shoulders and calmly replied, “Sorry, it’s a guy thing. We men don’t tell you women everything.”

At that moment a small lizard scurried across the path they were following. It paused momentarily, cocking its head to look directly at the couple.

“Oooooh! What a cutie,” Tina squealed as she gently knelt down for a closer inspection. “It’s an Eastern Collared Lizard. Some people call them
Mountain Boomers
.”

Eastern Collared Lizards are a large-headed, small-scaled lizard that have bright yellow necks with two black bands, or “collars.” The rings are often broken at the nape of the neck. Males are richly colored with broad splotches of yellow, green, brown, red and blue covering their backs and necks. Their heads are usually a vibrant red with small splotches of orange, yellow and green. Often their legs and tail are a solid sky-blue. Collared lizards are among the most colorful lizards in America. Typically they are found only in dry desert regions of the country and seem out of place in the humid, lush, almost jungly forest of the Ozarks.

The rocky area west of the Black River however, contained large tracts of extremely dry glades. These extensive rocky openings, in the otherwise lush forest, supported many varieties of drought-adapted plants and animals which are commonly found in the deserts of the southwestern United States, such as prickly pear cacti and scorpions. Though the collared lizards made themselves at home in these unusually dry glades, they often made short forays into the surrounding humid forest surrounding the Shut-Ins.

“I’ve seen a lot of lizards since I’ve been here. Most of them are pretty dull with light blue underbellies, but this one is really colorful,” Larry observed.

“Yeah, those plain ones are the most common ones we have, but Mountain Boomers are relatively rare and only live around here. Watch this,” she said as she slapped the palm of her hand hard against the smooth granite pathway.

Immediately the little lizard sprang upright on its hind legs and bolted into the brush beside the trail. Larry laughed at the unexpected gangly spectacle of a two-legged lizard running for cover.

*

The three divers had again climbed up the cliff’s backside and were poised for another jump. Their previous jump had only served to boost their courage and this time they decided to jump from a little farther up, at about the fifty-foot mark. The first of the youth stood there momentarily surveying the scene before him. Then he jumped.

Johnny did a surface dive to watch as the diver entered the water. Through his swim mask Johnny watched the bubbly trail of the diver’s plunge streak toward the lagoon's floor.

*

Susan paddled about in her inner tube twenty-five feet from shore as her mother looked on.

“Mommy, watch me! Watch me Mommy!” the child screamed to her mother.

Susan spun around so that her back was to her mother. An unnoticed V-shaped ripple, created by something very large swimming underwater at high velocity, headed directly toward Susan.

Underwater, one of the creatures approached Susan’s legs. Suddenly the young girl was yanked though the center of the inner tube and dragged underwater. At first her mother continued to watch, thinking that her daughter was merely doing some kind of a trick.

Then the inner tube was suddenly hurled ten feet into the air, having been smacked by the alien’s massive tail from underwater. When it bounced back onto the surface of the water it was met by the creature’s open jaws. The alien, still secluded underwater, bit the inner tube with its razor sharp teeth. The inner tube immediately exploded, deflated and sank from sight.

Susan’s mother watched in horror. She jumped to her feet in panic as she madly raced into the water.

“Susan! Susan!” she yelled. “Somebody help me! My daughter! Help!”

*

Simultaneously, and on the other side of the swimming hole, the second diver jumped from the cliff, cannonball style. Johnny did a surface dive to view the jumper from underwater.

Through his swim mask Johnny viewed the bubbly plunge as the diver bottomed out and then began his ascent toward the surface. Just then, an alien creature darted out from the shadows of the bluff wall, grabbed the diver in its mouth and viciously attacked and devoured him. Johnny was horrified and madly raced for the surface.

Breaking the surface, Johnny frantically began screaming for Tina. At the same time, a pool of blood rose to the water’s surface marking the spot where the diver had entered. All of the people in the lagoon began to scream and run from the water.

*

At the other end of the swimming hole, in waist-deep water, Susan’s mother had reached the spot where her daughter was last seen. She held the limp, deflated inner tube in her hand, hysterically thrashing the water. She called her daughter’s name and begged for help from people on the shore.

*

Johnny, terrified, ran up to Tina and Larry, yelling. “Tina! . . . There's a monster in there! I saw it eat a diver! Take me home, I want to get out of here.”

“Johnny, there is no monster; the diver probably hit a rock. He shouldn’t have been jumping,” explained Tina as she tried to comfort her young nephew.

“No! There's a monster in there. It ate that man. I saw it!”

“Johnny! There's no such thing as a man-eating monster!” Tina calmly maintained.

Larry approached and knelt beside Johnny, placing his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. He gazed into Johnny’s eyes for a moment and realized that Johnny was not joking; he was genuinely terrified. Larry looked up at Tina and said: “Whatever he saw, it was obviously a very traumatic experience. It's probably best to not make a big issue of it right now. Let's just get him home.”

“Yeah - You're probably right,” Tina agreed. “Let’s pack up the kids and head out.”

Larry called to Austin and Frankie. “Get your stuff, boys. Let's go.”

Clayton and Welton, who had both been sliding on the granite water slides, came running up beside Tina and Larry.

Silence had overtaken the entire crowd. Everyone had abandoned the water except for Susan’s mother who was still standing in waist-deep water sobbing.

Pockets of swimmers and sunbathers congregated in small groups along the shoreline, talking in subdued tones and staring at the now calm lagoon.

Clayton and his group began assembling their belongings, preparing to leave the area as Park Rangers launched a rowboat into the lagoon to search for the bodies with grappling hooks.

*

As Clayton and the group began their trek down the boardwalk to the parking lot, Johnny remained silent. Every few steps, however, he quickly glanced back over his shoulder to make sure that they were not being pursued by the creature he had seen.

Arriving at the Jeep, Johnny quickly climbed into the back seat and buckled himself into his seatbelt. Feeling somewhat more secure, he became even more adamant about what he had seen.

“Tina, don’t ever bring me back here again. It’s not safe. There
IS
a monster in there . . . a man-eating monster . . . I saw it!”