The Loch

A Story by Bryan Wolford

A con man discovers that on Loch Ness it's not wise to fool with local legends.

“All aboard,” Dave Robinson bellowed. He stood by a small pontoon boat. Six people climbed the small set of stairs to take seats on the boat. Loch Ness Tours was written on the side of the boat. It was dark out. A mist hung over the water.

During the day Dave ran a tour boat company. He would take tourists out on the Loch and show them points of interest. They would stop at numerous points and he would tell stories over the loud speaker about stories of eye witness accounts of The Loch Ness Monster. The stories were mostly made up by Dave and a few of his friends. He threw in a few of the more well known stories just to give the rest of the stories some credibility. Most of the locals knew that the whole Loch Ness Monster thing was a load of manure but since it looked good on a t-shirt and kept the local economy up no one spoke ill of it. During the day trips Dave would scope out the tourists and find a few targets. He would let slip that he had seen the monster itself. Knew of a spot that it frequented. The mark would then want to go but Dave would refuse saying it was to dangerous. They would offer him a few hundred bucks to take them. He would act as if it was impossible. They would raise the offer. He would begrudgingly accept. It never failed. He would take them out at night and his friend Steve would be already in position.

Steve had come up with some of the greatest tools for this scam. He had created a speaker that sat in the water facing upwards. It floated just on the surface of the water. At night it was near invisible on the surface. It would wirelessly sound off a low growling sound. They had created it by mixing together the sound of whales and slowing down the screech of Howler Monkeys. It was perfect. Steve had also found a small unmanned underwater sub. They had attached a giant rubber hump to it so if you brought the sub to the surface and then dove again quickly it would appear that the back of giant creature had just surfaced. Steve would sit on the shore with the remote controls and wait to see the boat approach. They had planned the whole thing out and had done some trial runs before hand. Dave had to make sure to only catch part of it with the spotlight just as it went back underwater. The scam had made them very rich very quickly. They had figured a few more and they could retire to a tropical beach somewhere. Tourists seemed to pay insane amounts of money to catch a glimpse of something that shouldn’t exist.

Now people settled into their seats. He had found a group of tourists from Canada. They were part of some sort of traveling sales team or something like that. But they all had paid a lot of money for Dave to take them out onto the Loch to find the mysterious Nessie. Dave climbed on board and stood before the group.

“I really do not like the idea of us doing this but since you are all offering such an amount of money I can’t really say no. But this is extremely dangerous so I’m just saying now that if we run into any trouble I am turning this boat around and coming back to shore. The last thing I need is one of you falling into the Loch and drowning and me getting my business taken away from me.” They all nodded in agreement. Dave turned to start the engine. He had a smug smirk on his face. The engine started with no problem and he steered the boat out into the Loch.

“Now every time I have seen the monster it was very docile. All it ever really did was look at me and then go underwater. But we have to remember that this is an animal. If it has had a baby or something it may become aggressive. You never know. So if the opportunity arises please don’t try to touch the animal. I would recommend not taking pictures only because the flash might agitate it. I’m already taking a risk by bringing you guys out here. I don’t want to have to fight for my life.” All the passengers nodded. One even took his digital camera and put it back into his pocket.

The night was cool. As the boat sped out into the Loch the mist parted in front of it. Dave hit the first check point and lowered the speed of the boat. Steve should be in position on the left bank a few miles up. Dave took out the spotlight and swept it over the surface of the water.

“Sometimes I have seen it out here at night. The schools of fish come to the surface here at night to try and catch mosquitoes that land on the surface of the water. The monster is probably attracted by the free meal.” He dramatically swept it back and forth across the water. As if to help aid his story a fish jumped out of the water. “See. Free dinner.” The passengers whispered among themselves. The boat kept moving forward. A few more yards and they would be within range of the speaker. That should really get the passengers going. Most people got bored up to this point as there was no evidence of anything but once that growl hits the air they got all wild eyed and enthralled.

Dave moved the boat more out towards the middle of the Loch to make sure he didn’t run into the speaker. Once he had kept the boat to far to the left and hit the speaker. Luckily he passed it off as a piece of drift wood and most of the passengers had bought it. Just as the boat got into position a small growl came from the distance. Dave quickly hushed the group and had them listen. The growl grew. Just about all of the passengers seemed to get really excited.

“Okay. We’re getting closer. Again everyone be careful. Any sign of trouble we’re going back.” The growl got closer and closer. Then just as they were within the usual area for the full Loch Tour effect the growl suddenly went dead. A loud splashing was heard off in the darkness. Everyone on board was getting very excited and they all leaned forward to look out into the darkness to see what they could see. Another sound hit the air. To Dave it sounded like an elephant. The only thing he could think of was that Steve must have updated the tape. Why Steve would do that now was beyond him.

Dave flipped on the spotlight making sure to keep it pointed mostly to the front of the boat. In about thirty seconds he would hear a splash and would first move the light to the left. After not seeing anything he would go to the right and then would catch just a slight glimpse of the rubber covering on the sub as it submerged again.

He swept it back and forth across the front of the boat and sure enough there came the splash. First he went left and then right and according to plan he caught the very slight glimpse of the sub submerging.

“There it is,” someone said. Dave had to smile at himself. It worked perfectly. They would sit for another few minutes and then he would say that the spotlight had probably chased it away. After another fifteen minutes or so he would then say they would probably not see anything else that night and begin to head back.

“There it is again,” someone on the other side of the boat said. Dave turned and saw most of the passengers on the left side of the boat staring out a few feet. Dave turned the spotlight and again caught just a glimpse of something going underwater. Steve was changing the plan. This was not good. He would have to chew him out later about almost ruining it. From behind them came another splash and that elephant sound again. Dave was startled as the sound was way to close. The speaker should be closer to the shore.

“Okay everyone. Things seem to be picking up here. I don’t want to take a chance of it getting aggressive on us so I’m going to start heading back.”

“No way,” one of the passengers said. “I paid you to see Nessie and I want to see it. Get that spotlight on it.” Dave stepped back to the passenger that had spoken.

“I am not risking all our lives just so you can see it. I’m heading back.” All the passengers stood up.

“We want to see it,” one of them said.

“Yeah,” another agreed.

The elephant sound came again and it was on the right side of the boat. Dave ran back up to the spotlight and flipped it to the right side. A pair of eyes flared in the darkness as the light hit it. It dove into the water and was gone. Everyone on board was talking back and forth to each other. Dave started the engine and began to turn the boat back to the dock.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking us back. The tour’s over.” Dave kept the engine at full speed until he saw the dock. He pulled into his spot and ran off the boat. Most of the passengers were confused but began to make their way off. They were excited and couldn’t wait to tell their friends and families when they got home about the trip. Dave was no where to be found when they went to thank him for the tour.

Dave paced back and forth in his house. Steve was late getting back. Usually they met up at Dave’s house after a night tour and Dave gave him his cut. Tonight he hadn’t shown up yet and Dave was getting worried. After about an hour Dave considered going out to where Steve was supposed to be on the bank. Just as he was about to grab his coat a knock came at the front door. Dave opened it and found Steve standing there looking irritated.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dave asked.

“Where do you think? Thanks a lot. You know how much it’s going to cost?” Dave looked at him confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“The speaker. The sub. Both are trashed man. Did you not remember where to go? You hit both of them.” Dave looked at Steve and saw that he was serious.

“I didn’t hit anything.”

“The hell you didn’t. Come out and look at them.” Dave followed Steve outside. The back of Steve’s truck had a tarp over it. He lifted it up and inside was the floating speaker and the small sub. The speaker was totally trashed. It had looked like it had been run over a few times. “And what was with playing the other tape off the boat? When did you decide to do that?” Dave ignored him and looked at the sub. A whole side of it was crushed. The rubber covering was torn and looked like it had almost fallen off the sub on its way back to the shore. Dave ran his finger over the crushed part of the sub. He realized that the shape his finger was tracing on the sub could very well have been a giant bite mark.