After finishing a less-than-appetizing can of green pea soup, I set my tent up beneath the lean-to. A heavy forest separated my campsite from the waters of Loch Ness, which loomed a good hundred yards down sloping woods to the west. With darkness settling on the Great Glen, I began feeling a bit uneasy, my thoughts lingering on True's warning. Like it or not, I was vulnerable, and I seriously considered spending the night in the lower branches of a tree. But the likelihood of being attacked so far from the water's edge was considerably less than falling out of a tree and breaking my neck, so I opted for a weapon.

Using my hunting knife, I fashioned several four-foot-long spears out of tree branches before my eyes grew too weary to focus. Stoking the fire one last time, I crawled into my sleeping bag, and spent the next few hours drifting in and out of a restless sleep.

Foyers, Loch Ness

The motorized raft, commonly known as a Zodiac, spewed oily fumes as it cut an erratic course through darkness and mist.

Justin Wagner tried to quell the hot waves of frustration coursing through his blood. Four hours earlier, he and Amber Korpela had rented the watercraft, guiding it across Loch Ness to its western shores. They had journeyed as far south as Cherry Island, enjoying a sun-soaked summer evening exploring the man-made crannog before embarking on the long ride back. But with their reserve tank of gasoline running low and dusk coming quickly, Justin had decided to save time and distance by taking a northeasterly shortcut across the Loch.

That was over an hour ago.

Justin, an accomplished boater back in Alaska, had not counted on the sun disappearing so suddenly behind the mountains, nor had he planned on the bank of fog moving in from the east.

The whine of the Zodiac's single-prop sixty horsepower engine, combined with her companion's constant course changes, had given Amber Korpela a pounding headache. "Okay, Magellan, enough's enough. Where the hell are we?"

"Somewhere in the middle of Loch Ness… I think."

"No shit. Don't you have a compass?"

"What makes you think I'd have a compass?"

"I don't know. I guess I didn't expect you to be stupid enough to get us lost on Loch Ness."

"You want to take the tiller, be my guest."

"Instead of zigzagging back and forth, why don't you just keep us pointed in one direction until we hit land?"

"Land? Can you see land in this fog? What if we're pointing north? We could cover twenty miles before we hit—"

"Shh! I think I hear something."

"Yeah, my stomach growling."

"No, I'm serious. It sounds like people's voices. Justin, cut the engine."

Justin turned off the motor. The raft rose and dropped beneath its own swell, then continued drifting forward. "You're crazy, I don't hear a thing."

"Shh. Listen."