Matthew Silver and the Monster Hunters, Book One: The Darkest Waters

Chapter Seven

SilverCHAPTER SEVEN

Normal people see planning a trip as throwing a few clothes in a suitcase, gathering up toiletries, and bringing a pillow or two. We do pack all that, but we add a bit more.

Now, like I said, we’re pretty well funded. You know, being the police of the cryptids and all that. All of the resources we had access to were on different clipboards given to us, each with different categories of supplies. I’m talking weapons, silver ammunition by the crate, explosives, transports, and all the tech we could dream of. The more dangerous the mission, the more lenient they were with supplies, so I was planning on getting some serious butt-kicking weaponry and to a slightly lesser extent, some cool tech.

Scott and I got put on weapons, explosives, and research. “What type of a job is that?”I asked. Oh, right after I pack away a few grenade rounds, I think I’ll do a little homework!

I suppose it was pretty interesting. The Loch Ness Monster had been sighted countless times over the years. Sure, most were probably from some Scottish small business owner, trying to sell his driftwood picture of Nessie, but many stories were too similar to be faked.

The observer would be out on or by the Loch, and they’d sight a mysterious thing with a body like a giant seal and a long snaking neck. Sometimes it was described as being an eel-like creature, but I was pretty sure that those stories were false. Most of the accounts corroborated with the first description.

From what I could gather, it was a plesiosaur or a plesiosaur-like reptile. It was bigger than a shark, but smaller than a whale. It had long, paddle-like fins, a short tail, an eel-like neck, and a head like a gargoyle.

If it were just an ancient dinosaur, then it wouldn’t be nearly as scary. Megalodons still cruised the ocean depths, and Raptors were still causing issues, but something about this monster seemed different. Too much was unexplained about it. No one, not even the CCU, really knew anything about it, even though there had been so many claimed sightings. Everything was circumstantial. So many unsolved questions surrounded it. Was it a solitary monster, or were there packs of these creatures roaming the depths in secret? Were they packs of vicious flesh-eaters, or was it a sole survivor of the Mesozoic Era, seeking solitude? Was it a coiling eel that stretched yards in length or an aquatic dinosaur of monstrous proportions?

The questions went on and on. I saw what Ms. Amber had meant about it majorly being a recon mission. If we could just get one sighting of it, that would be enough to fill a report and file a description to be placed among all the other proven cryptids. That is, assuming we lived through the experience. But unfortunately, this time, we wouldn’t simply be recording data. We had to capture one.

The scariest thing about Class One cryptids was that a lot of people believed in them. A lot of people “saw”them, causing the monsters to grow in strength and sometimes number, all through the people’s belief. That raised many other questions about the Loch Ness Monster or possible Monsters. By the time I was finished speculating, I was without doubt that if the creature really did exist, it would be very powerful. Not a very pleasant thought.

I had enough information to use, so I left my desk to help Scott with packing. I understood that it was more in his range of expertise, but I didn’t see why I had to do all the boring work.

Scott had several clipboards that listed all of the resources we had access to. I got a glimpse of some of the items he was marking as needed and how many of each. I blanched at what I saw. I knew Nessie was supposed to be huge, but 30 packs of C-4 seemed like overkill to me. And that was only a portion of what he was ordering.