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

Chapter Thirty-One

SilverCHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I hadn’t planned that far ahead. I’d rammed our only means of transportation halfway through a tree. You’d think I would’ve gotten a little sympathy, because I had totally saved their lives, but noooo. Saving them wasn’t enough, because I also had to get them proper accommodations.

Would you like a massage and a bubble bath with that too?

It was pretty miserable. The water was freezing cold. If I had thought it was bad during the day, swimming at night, when the temperatures dropped to below freezing, was plain torture. With a diving suit on, it had been cold, but I didn’t have a diving suit anymore. My diving suit was torn to shreds and still sitting somewhere in Parker’s cabin.

A little swim in cold water doesn’t seem so bad, but a five mile swim in freezing temperatures with an injured leg and three ticked off friends? It didn’t take me long to realize that I wouldn’t be able to make the entire swim back to our campground.

Something brushed against my leg. I had a bad vision of sharks. I hated sharks. I didn’t want to show any panic, but I looked down nervously.

Then Scott stopped swimming in front of me and pointed ahead of us. “What the heck is that?”

I couldn’t see what he was looking at, so I pushed off his shoulder to get a better view. About 50 feet away, a wake was forming and moving straight for us.

“You’ve got—” Jay started.

“To be—” Sandy followed.

“Freaking kidding me!” I finished.

“BACK TO SHORE! BACK TO SHORE!” Scott yelled.

We all swam as fast as we could towards the shore, which was a good distance away from us. Sandy and Scott immediately pulled ahead. Jay was never a strong swimmer, and I was having a hard time using my legs to kick, so we were falling behind. We were all tired, and the wake was steadily gaining on us. Then it completely disappeared

I don’t know why, but I stopped swimming and looked around the water in a panic. My mind went into blank terror, and I thrashed around in the water, turning myself around in all directions. I knew that sharks were attracted to the scent of blood in the water, so I could only fear the worst, because I was covered in all sorts of fun wounds. The Loch Ness Monster was much worse than a shark.

“GET BACK TO SHORE!” Scott and Sandy were yelling. They were only a few yards from shore and had slowed down to urge us on.

The water exploded in front of me. Literally. Jets of water shot twenty feet into the air with hissing bursts of released pressure.

Jay screamed as a wave overtook her. I lost sight of her through the spraying water.

A long snake-like head rose out of the water. The head resembled a dragon’s. It had a long snout filled with shark teeth, and it bore cruel, gleaming red eyes that would’ve sent a Pukwudgie into hiding. It was covered in scales, spines, and reptilian armor. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. My jaw was hanging in a silent scream that would not come.

Scott and Sandy replaced my screams with their own.

But something wasn’t right.

The jaws of the monster opened in front of me to lengths that seemed impossible, like a snake. I believed that it was going to swallow me whole. I probably would make good monster food. But the monster kept moving his jaws back. It was seriously opening wide, to the point where it was freaking me out. It was like it had a rubber jaw.

The jaws were completely bent backwards, making a flat surface…with teeth. The neck lowered itself so that the flattened mouth was level with the water. It looked like a smooth, green platform, surrounded by teeth, floating on the water. If it hadn’t been for the massive razor sharp teeth, it would’ve looked inviting.

Right after I had thought this, the teeth slid down into grooves with sharp, grinding noises. It was now just a very smooth, green platform.

I paused, treading water uncertainly, but the platform moved closer to me, beckoning me onto it. I made up my mind and swam over to it.

“Matthew! What are you doing?!” Jay spluttered from somewhere off to my left.

“That’s not a monster!”

“What?!” they all said in unison.

“That thing’s not a real monster,”I muttered darkly. When I pulled myself onto the platform out of the water, I was not surprised to find that it was made completely of metal. It wasn’t so smooth after all. Plates of metal were all bolted to each other to make a surface. It appeared smooth from a distance, but up close, it was far from smooth.

It took a whole lot of convincing and further arguing to convince the other three to join me on the metal surface, but when they saw that I hadn’t been eaten, they all finally joined me with clear reluctance, hesitation, and nervousness.

The platform rose slightly into the air, so that we were hovering just above the waterline. I peered underneath us, and a long mechanical neck was connected from the bottom of the platform to something below the water. The neck, which had looked scaly from a distance, was actually just cleverly colored and diamond plated. Even the spikes protruding from the neck didn’t look real anymore.

Whatever was linking the neck to the platform picked up speed very quickly, and we started moving towards our campsite at mediocre speeds.

By then, I had pretty much figured out what was going on. I still had a lot of questions, but I had a good idea of what was happening. I think Jay did too. She was scowling the same way I was.

The platform stopped a few yards away from the campground. The neck extended all the way over to the land, so we were able to step off the platform onto dry land. The neck retracted, and the platform submerged. We couldn’t see anything anymore, except for the waves.

“What the—” Scott started to say.

“Wait for it,”I told him.

Nothing happened for a minute, but just when I thought I was wrong, six masked heads broke the water’s surface.

Scott and Sandy snatched BRs from the camp’s armory, but I held Scott’s arm. “Let me go!”he protested, struggling to take aim at the intruders.

“You don’t want to fight them!” I told him, while pulling his arm down, so he couldn’t draw a bead on any of the floating heads.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because they’re Hunters too, all of them! Senior Agents, if I’m right.”

“That we are,” said the first person to reach the shore, as he pulled off his mask. The other five reached the shore and began pulling off their masks as well.

Judging from their looks, they were all in their late twenties, indicating that they were, in fact, Senior Agents. A guy with spiky white hair held out his hand to me. “Well done, you’ve passed! Bound by blood!”

“No fear,”I muttered.

“Wait, what? I’m so confused!” Scott said looking back and forth between us, as I shook the guy’s hand.