Tearing off my shoe and walking boot, I grabbed the log-sized plastic case in my right hand and climbed onto the prefabricated bridge.

I hurried across the structure, then dove into the water, swimming as fast as a frightened man could.

My eyes watered, the icy temperatures like a vise on my lungs, each breath a forced gasp, my throat tensing up.

I reached David, "where's Brandy?"

She surfaced next to him. "Zack, we're both caught… I lost my knife!"

The light, Zachary, get to the light!

Move!

I ducked my head underwater, aimed the light cannon, and pressed the power switch.

The underwater beacon ignited, blazing a penetrating funnel of light into the depths. The beam illuminated a tea-colored environment swirling with particles of peat. I saw Brandy and David's legs, entangled in the drifting latticework of cocoa brown netting, my heart nearly stopping as I spotted the breaching monster's head!

It was rising directly beneath us, thirty feet and closing, a dark majestic serpent as wide as an SUV. As it moved closer, the light caught its hideous snub-nosed snout and fang-filled outstretched jaws in mid-yawn, the insane creature intent on devouring both Brandy and David.

Fighting through my fear, I maneuvered the angle of the beam, catching the ascending leviathan flush in one of its sensitive yellow eyes.

The monster spasmed as if hit by a laser, then whirled about in a sudden 180-degree retreat. I caught a blurred glimpse of an enormous brown tail before I was literally driven free of the surface by its retreating wake.

I grabbed a quick breath and ducked my head again, the light cannon's beacon catching the tip of the beast's tail as it disappeared into the darkness in a flurry of peat and bubbles. My right ankle jerked free of the net, a reflex, as it suddenly went taut and submerged, dragging Brandy and David with it!

Kicking hard, I lunged for the edge of the net with my free hand and held on, allowing it to tow me into the depths as I struggled to reach Brandy.

She grabbed onto my arm and held tight, using my body as leverage as she struggled to free herself from the heavy bonds entangling her left knee.

We were submerging at a frightening speed, dropping an atmosphere every few seconds. The pain in my ear passages tore into my brain as we jettisoned beyond eighty feet, when Brandy slipped out of her jeans and pulled her leg free.

We floated away, no longer encumbered, while the net continued below into darkness, dragging the hopelessly encumbered David along for the ride.

I hovered there in the blackness and silence of watery space, searching for him with the light. The edge of the beam caught his pale face, his expression—frozen in horror—as he disappeared into the frigid depths of Loch Ness.