It was passing beneath the boat, its form revealed in the moonlight. The thickly muscled back was chocolate brown in color, adorned with a horsehair dorsal fin that tapered back to a finless rounded tail. As long and wide as two tour buses connected end to end, the creature moved left, then right, left, then right as it swam, twisting with snakelike undulations.

It passed quickly, and though he had just missed seeing its head, Pete Lindner knew he had seen a sea serpent, as cold as the devil, as ancient as time itself.

His heart thundered in his chest and his lungs threatened to burst, but still the captain refused to venture out, intent on giving the dreadful animal another twenty seconds to vacate the area.

Instead, the cabin, along with his exit, spun counterclockwise and out from under him, and then the capsized boat lurched forward, dragged stern-first through the water by the powerful creature still leashed to its transom.

Trapped underwater, enveloped in darkness, Lindner groped at the suddenly alien walls, desperate to relocate an air pocket that no longer existed. His palms banged awkwardly against the inverted forward windshield, and then he gagged, belching bubbles as he fought blindly to untangle himself from the languid remains of Chuck Jones.

Unable to reason, unable to see, he clawed in ever-tightening circles, fumbling through the suffocating blackness for an exit.

Spent lungs expelled primal gurgles.

Arms stopped moving, eyes ceased seeing.

Silence took the Wiley as the Loch's icy claws reached out once more to claim its dead.

* * *

Chad Brager surfaced fifty feet from the capsized boat. Years of playing ice hockey on frozen lakes had acclimated him to the sudden cold, and his lifeguard training at USC kept him from panicking. Treading water, he called out for his companions.

"Chucky! Ron!"

Steam dissipated from his head, his body losing heat rapidly. Gotta get out of this cold water before hypothermia sets in.

He turned to swim back to the boat, then realized the capsized hull was spinning, the boat moving towards him!

"Oh shit …"

Brager turned and swam, his arms and legs barely moving through the layers of clothing. Pausing, he forcibly yanked off his shoes, allowing himself a quick glance back.

The boat's hull was coming at him stern first now, the fractured transom and its cursed steel cable just visible above the waterline.

Brager tore off his windbreaker jacket, then launched himself into a rapid crawl stroke.

Two hundred feet… it's got two hundred feet of goddam cable!

His heart jumped as he registered the gunshot twang of snapping steel line--its echo as clear as the opening trapdoor of a gallows.

A dam-bursting wave of adrenaline ignited Brager's muscles, propelling him through the water—even as searing pain ignited his half- frozen nerve cells as he was jolted forward… then mercifully released from consciousness, his spine crushed and severed, his torso savagely ripped apart and swallowed.

* * *

The Nessie III slowed.