Deep Shadow

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.

The clawing sounds grew louder and more frenzied, and I realized that the vent wasn’t wide enough for the monitor to wedge its body through. Like a hyena in pursuit of a rodent, it was trying to dig me out of my hole. I decided to risk activating my night vision—but not the infrared. I was now convinced infrared was an invitation to be attacked.

When the monocular was on, I saw the monitor’s head through a veil of silt. Its viper tongue probed the darkness, flicking at limestone only inches from my right hand, as its front claws continued to tractor its body closer.

Startled that the animal was only a yard away, I lurched backward, which caused it to lift its head, alerted by my sudden movement. Through a green haze, I could see the monitor’s opaque eyes—they were the color of lead, like two indifferent ball bearings—and I could also see that its vertical pupils were dilated wide in the darkness as it attempted to decipher details.

I jabbed the spotlight forward, closed my eyes and hit the switch. The explosion of light was so bright that it pierced my own eyelids. I felt a suctioning void of water pressure as the monitor lunged backward, and then rocks and sand began to rain down on me as it bucked its body free of the hole.

I waited for several seconds, eyes closed, waving the spotlight like a flamethrower. Carefully, then, I switch off my night vision and opened my eyes.

Even in the searing brightness of the light, all I could see was silt. Visibility might have been better had I switched off the spotlight, but I wasn’t going to risk that. Instead, I allowed several seconds to pass and then crawled to the opening, thrusting the spotlight ahead of me like a spear.

At the mouth of the tunnel, I stopped. I found my fins and put them on as I swiveled my head, expecting the monitor to attack at any moment. Visibility in the lake basin was fair, and I used the light to search the area as far away as the drop-off. Just because I couldn’t see the monitor, though, didn’t mean that it had abandoned its pursuit.

I switched off the spotlight and activated my night vision. Instantly, visibility improved. Perry was still above me on the inner tube less than thirty feet away. It seemed incredible that he was unaware of what had just taken place, but water is the relentless keeper of its own secrets.

I continued to search, rechecking the lip of the drop-off, then scanning the lake’s surface. Stars were bright. I could still see the bouncing lucency of the beach fire. If the monitor hadn’t surfaced, it was somewhere nearby—perhaps behind me, or below me in deeper water, waiting for me, its prey, to reappear.

I checked the orange numerals of my watch. It was 8:07 p.m. I had been underwater for forty-three minutes and my tank was nearly empty. Alligators can stay under for up to two hours and perhaps the same was true of monitor lizards. I couldn’t sit there and wait for the thing to surface. I had only a few minutes of air left, so I had to do something and I had to do it fast.

Die on the bottom of an ancient lake or risk dying on the surface in the jaws of a prehistoric lizard?

I forced myself to settle back against the rocks and think about it. There had to be a better option.