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

Chapter Twenty

SilverCHAPTER TWENTY

I was glad to be settled with Jay.

On the way to resetting the sonar with Scott, Scott had given me a talk. He basically laid it into me that if I was really Jade’s friend, then I shouldn’t push her around to do stuff she didn’t want to do. After all, it wasn’t my life, and it’s not like I was the boss over her or anything. Making her feel bad about it wasn’t helping things either.

I hadn’t ever really thought of that, and I felt like a jerk for…Well, for being a jerk. I wasn’t bothered by the fight we’d had, because we’d gotten into fights countless times before. It was the reason that we had fought that bothered me. She had every right to quit, and I was being selfish for wanting her to stay. I just felt that if she’d quit, I’d never see her again. As partners, the longest time we’d ever been apart was a few days. That made me feel needy and babyish. Jade was growing up, and I was holding her back.

Then Scott had told us that story about the Shadows and the Great Ones. It was all enough to make my head spin around, but totally immerse me into the story.

Even though I knew it was just a story, I was going to be keeping an eye on the darkness from then on. Whoever had made up that story had some serious issues, and I could see why the Administrators had banned it. If it creeped me out, then it had to scare the pants off of a new recruit.

The next morning, Jay and I moved to our new campsite upriver. It was back to that boring, slow, routine.

Jay said that she was going to go into the forest for some firewood, so I just stretched out on a blanket, watching the sunlight sparkle on the water. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the lawn chairs, but the chairs had been torn to shreds, thanks to a grenade from Scott. I suppose if I was given a choice between my life and relaxation, I’d have to stick with my life though.

While lying there, I noticed that there was a dark spot on the water, farther out on the loch. I figured it was just a whale, but routine was routine. But when I checked the sonar it both indicated that something was out there and that nothing was out there. I began to feel an electric buzz across my fingertips.

The shape was slowly moving down the loch, getting very close to being directly across from me, but still not breaking the surface. I grabbed a pair of range-finding binoculars and sighted onto it, but I couldn’t make out any details through the murky water. Something big was under the loch, disturbing the surface of the water.

We had powerboats docked way down at the village, but there wasn’t time to get one. Instead, I spied the small, rented canoe we used for fishing. I didn’t need to go out all the way, but I needed to get a closer look.

I sent Jay a hurried message with my phone, hoping that it really was secure. There wasn’t much danger to worry about, but I grabbed one of the spare BRs from the Hummer’s stash to take with me.

I paddled with all my might, until my arms began to burn. The wind was with me, but I still had to paddle out a mile.

I looked for the shape again, but I couldn’t find it. I began scanning the area frantically, when I finally spied a dark shape about several hundred yards from where it had been before. It was no longer It was closer to me now, so I could see it even better.

The wind began picking up in the opposite direction, trying to push me in the direction of the submerged shape. I decided that it was best to head back, because it was getting too dangerous, but the winds were pushing against me.

I rowed for all I was worth, my arms powering back and forth, like a pistons on an engine, but I was hardly making any progress. My arms were already tired from getting out in the middle of the loch in the first place. I was starting to run out of steam.

Something hit the bottom of the canoe, hard. There was a loud CRACK! as the canoe split down the middle. A big tidal wave, from seemingly out of nowhere, towered over the canoe and pounded down upon it, splitting it completely in two. I must’ve hit my head on one of the pieces of wood or metal while falling in, because I remember a flash of pain on my forehead.

Then nothing.

I woke up on my back in the wet mud to desperate yelling. I groggily looked around. I was on the shore of the base camp. I wasn’t sure how I’d washed up there, but I counted myself lucky once more.

The yelling increased, and I saw the other three climbing out of one of the Hummers, running towards me. The yelling didn’t help much. My head felt like it had done a shift as a piñata while I was out. When I put my hand up to my forehead, it came away bloody.

“What happened?”I asked, feeling a sudden wave of drowsiness and nausea.

“We should ask you that! Where did you go?!”Jay screamed, unnecessarily loudly. She knelt down to examine my head.

“Quieter…quieter…”

They all looked at each other with concern upon their faces.

“I whispered that to you.”Jay said, worriedly checking the wound again.

“Sounded like you were using a megaphone in my eardrum.”

“You’re going to be like this for a little while,”Jay said, wiping my head with a cloth. “If you can talk fine, then you’re probably not concussed. It’s probably something minor.”

“Minor?”I spluttered.

“Trust me,”she said. “You’d feel a lot worse if this was a really serious injury.”

“If you hate me, I wish you’d just tell me,”I groaned.

“Matthew,”Scott said, kneeling over me. “What happened? Do you remember? Can you tell us what happened?”

He didn’t call me kid.“I saw something out on the loch, so I went to get a closer look. It’s kind of fuzzy, but I think something hit me. I just remember paddling and paddling, then suddenly flying into the air.”

“Did you see anything? Did it turn out to be anything?”They all crowded around excitedly.

I shook my head. “If it was something that hit me, it stayed under the water. I tried getting closer to the shape, but the wind kind of ruined that.”

They tried to hide their disappointment. So close. The closest we’d been in weeks, and I’d missed it. I wasn’t feeling like a star agent.

Scott and Jade put my arms around their shoulders and helped walk me to the campsite to get cleaned up. I could barely see straight, much less walk straight. Every time I turned my head, the sudden change in color and shape would overwhelm my brain, and my vision would go fuzzy. All these things only made me feel like an even bigger failure. Maybe if I hadn’t chickened out to go back to shore, and if I’d moved closer to the shape instead, I might’ve seen something.

That begged the question on what exactly had hit me. Was there really a monster beneath the loch?