“Takes decent pictures,” Gabe said. “I got a…” His gaze shifted to Ginger.

  “My husband has gotten particularly adept at flying over sunbathing women,” Ginger said.

  “Say it ain’t so?” Alex said.

  “So you’re proposing we watch the park with the drone? Isn’t there a rule about flying over state and federal property without permission?” Dr. Silverfish said.

  “There is, but it’s a toy,” Gabe said. “I’ll pay my son to fly the thing. Tell him we're looking for deer sign. He gets caught, ‘Oh, you know kids.’”

  Dr. Silverfish nodded. “So that’s it then. I’ll handle the picture. Alex, do you want me to contact the feds?”

  He nodded.

  “And you’ll get going with FATE and such?” she asked.

  “Yup. I’m going to need something to give them other than old stuff from dad’s box.”

  “Agreed,” said Dr. Silverfish. A lot was riding on her old iPhone.

  “What about park police?” Lilly asked.

  “What do you think, Alex?” asked the professor.

  “Let’s hold off on Katelyn until the footage is processed,” Alex said, and he felt his wife’s eyes scanning him for any sign of… what? That he still cared for Katelyn? That he was still attracted to her?

  “You don’t think she’ll believe you now? Even with your eyewitness account?” Dr. Silverfish said. “She knows you wouldn’t lie, right?”

  “She never bought into my father’s story… not unlike others,” Alex said as he shot Lilly a sideways glance.

  The weekend was a deep summer rut personified; both smoldering days were packed with full tours, dinner, T.V., sleep. Lilly pulled double shifts, and they were both so exhausted they hardly spoke as the new week loomed like an unwanted task. He hadn’t heard from the professor, and he’d gotten no responses to the emails he’d sent to FATE and Undiscovered Past. Not unusual because it was the weekend and most editorial staffs these days were skeletal, at best.

  The call from Dr. Silverfish came late Sunday night, and as it turned out it wasn’t good news or bad.

  “You need to see them for yourself. My guy pulled four solid images,” she said.

  “What do they show?”

  “Depends on who looks. I’ve gotten nothing, shadows, something big as descriptions.”

  “What do you think?”

  She sighed. “I don’t want to influence your opinion.”

  They agreed to meet at Josie’s for breakfast before his morning tour and they clicked off.

  Moonlight arced through the bay window and Alex considered grabbing a beer, but decided against it. His nerves still hadn’t settled from Friday night’s experience, and self-rationalization argued that the alcohol would calm him, but the logical side of his brain was still in denial and full rebellion mode, a piece of him unable to accept what he’d seen. He ordered the evidence again, considered calling Wahanu, but the old man was surely already in dreamland, which was where he needed to be, so he shut it down for the night.

  The next morning traffic buzzed, car horns chirped, and at Josie’s the professor sipped her tea as she watched Alex from her perch atop her stool at the diner’s old-style counter.

  The photos were far from definitive proof, but they weren’t all bad. One showed the outline of the creature’s shadow caused by a flashlight beam as it reflected in the lake’s surface, and to Alex, it was clear as day, but he could understand how someone with no frame of reference might not see it at all, like how some people see shapes in cloud formations while others see only cotton. The other three photos were less useful, but not useless. One showed a closeup of the beast’s claw, but it wasn’t clear what it was attached to, and could easily be a crab claw blown up and enhanced. The other two video grabs showed hulking shadows disappearing into flashlight beams, with one displaying the dark outline of the beast silhouetted in the moonlight, but again, it was like an inkblot test.

  “These aren’t bad, but…”

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’ll have to prove they’re real, because kids could come up with more plausible forgeries in minutes using their cell phones.”

  “Doesn’t that work in our favor? If it was a hoax, wouldn’t we do a better job with the FX?”

  “You mean like this?” She slid another photo onto the counter.

  Alex sucked in a breath and looked up.

  “A computer rendering based on my footage,” the professor said. “The program analyzes each frame, takes the best piece from each and puts it together was how it was explained to me.”

  The beast in the picture looked like a toy made from molding clay. The giant scorpion had ten legs, four smaller segmented walking legs on each side and two thick forward appendages with lobster-like claws. The creature reared back in a dramatic pose like it was in a museum display, its horseshoe crab-like stinger planted behind its armored carapace for balance. It was Army green, and teeth glinted beneath two obsidian eyes. The front claws were closed, but Alex could almost hear their clicking and the creature’s shrill cry.

  He recalled a documentary he’d seen recently about dinosaurs, and he asked, “How do they know it's green?”

  “From my description. Wasn’t that your impression?”

  It was. “I think this looks too…” Alex couldn’t find the words.

  “CGI?”

  “Exactly.”

  The professor chuckled. “We’ll put a disclaimer on it and group it with the others. I can’t imagine FATE and the others won’t be interested. If not call The National Inquirer or The Globe. They’re loose with the facts and easy on attribution.”

  “Which is why it would be a waste of time. Maybe even hurt our cause. They’re rags with zero credibility,” Alex said.

  She nodded. “You’ve got a point.”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Thing was, Alex didn’t get in touch, and Silverfish didn’t get in touch with him. He took the photos and went about his daily business, and one day stretched into two, then three, and a week slid away before an intern at FATE emailed him back, but he was quickly passed up the short editorial chain to the Editor-in-Chief, who agreed to take a look at an information package Alex promised to send out. The female editor, who sounded like the inside of her throat was covered in sandpaper, pushed the family angle, his father’s history, and though it irked him, Alex had anticipated this. It was a price of doing business, at least this business.

  As the hot summer days dragged on, and the encounter with the beast faded further into the past, Alex’s urgency flagged. There were no additional sightings, and the mechanical bat found nothing, so Gabe’s son had gotten bored and stopped flying the drone over the park.

  It was tempting to just forget what they’d learned, pretend everything was fine, fantasize about the creature dying in some cold hole from the three bullets it had taken. When the summer waned, and the streets grew sparse of tourists, the beast would retreat underground to bear its young and die before its offspring emerged into the sunlight in 2085. Barring a medical miracle, Alex would have joined his father by then, and if the beast returned it would be on someone else’s watch.

  Would he tell his children if he and Lilly had any? Would he indoctrinate his son as his father had him? These questions bounced around inside his head as he drove home, the thunder of the falls his constant companion. He’d have to tell his kids because eventually, someone would stick the upcoming issue of FATE in their hands, and that would lead them on a quest that, regardless of what they believed, would be perceived as betrayal because he’d kept secrets. Big ones.

  The way things were going it was a moot point. He and Lilly hadn’t slept together, other than to snore and fight for the covers, in months, but that would change. He felt it in his heart. Proving that married couples have an ESP with a direct connection to their partner’s brain, Alex arrived home on a Wednesday in mid-August to find Lilly in a sundress, her purse over a shoulder.

  “We going somewhere?” Alex asked.

  “Date night,” she said. “We need one.”

  He smiled, and all the thoughts about imaginary children, his father and the creature faded.

  14

  Old Falls Street sure had changed since Alex and Lilly were kids, but much was the same. The wax museum was still on the corner, though it had become dusty, and locals used words like iconic and legendary to describe it. The place no longer excited the kiddies, and when the kiddies weren’t excited there was no point in having the attraction, and it wouldn’t be long before it suffered the fate of many of the town’s classic businesses and went under. Paint peeled from buildings, but there were fresh structures interspersed with the old, the result of multiple revitalization projects that aimed to keep pace with the Canadians, whose investment in their side of the river far exceeded what the City of Niagara Falls got from the State of New York or the U.S. federal government.

  Cars, shops, and restaurants lined the cobblestone road, but the crowd was thin and subdued. Despair hung over the city and its residents, an unease based on a feeling that some unseen force was plotting to make their lives more difficult. From what Alex could see the tourists felt it also. For once he was in the know, or at least thought he was. Then he remembered he didn’t know shit. The more I learn the less I know. Preach on, Brother Bob.

  Chico’s Oasis sat on the corner of Old Falls Street and 3rd Street next to the town’s latest bastion of tourist gold, The Rainforest Café at Niagara Falls. There was a line out front of the place and Lilly chuckled as they walked by, the scream of monkeys and the trumpeting of elephants leaking from the entrance. They took an open outside table, ordered a pitcher of margarita, and people watched as they examined the menu, though Alex knew most of it from memory.

  Folks of all ages, nationalities, ethnic heritages, and social and economic levels were drawn to the falls searching for something they couldn’t explain. It was more than something to do. Alex likened the experience to seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, or the Atlantic Ocean. The sheer size and majesty of the falls is overwhelming, but like all euphoria, it quickly fades, which was why the average stay at the local hotels was only two nights.

  Alex said, “So what’re you thinking?”

  Lilly took a sip of her drink and pointed over her shoulder at the table of six tourists behind them. She touched her ear and lifted her eyebrows.

  Alex tuned in to the tourists’ conversation. They were discussing how the town wasn’t like they’d remembered, how everything seemed smaller and rundown. The curse of getting older, everything from your past shrinks and dulls.

  One of the men, an older guy, clearly the head traveler, said, “I was talking with a border patrol gal last night when we crossed the bridge to Canada. I asked her about the recent disappearances, and she blew me off. Said people go over the falls all the time.”

  A woman, who Alex presumed was his wife based on the vehemence of her response, said, “Not true. Most bodies are recovered.”

  “You’ve been watching too much CSI, Marie.” Laughs, clinking glasses, general merriment.

  Then one of the women dropped the bomb that killed the buzz Alex was building. “Can’t say I’ll be back, and it would be hard for me to recommend the place… at least the U.S. side, for more than a day trip pass through.” The rumble of agreement.

  “Go home then,” Alex muttered as he took a long pull on his margarita. He broke into a coughing fit when he sucked too much salt off the rim of his glass and Lilly laughed. “Glad I amuse you.”

  “Always.”

  They ordered a large plate of tacos, half soft shell, half-hard—detente at its finest—and Alex and Lilly ate in silence as they eavesdropped on the conversations around them, occasionally commenting and poking fun at what they heard. The overwhelming vibe, which at this time of year was usually ‘keep the party going at all costs’, was more like a concert where the main performer didn’t show, and the fans were left to stoke their disappointment with lesser bands. Problem was there was nothing wrong with the falls, but there was something draining everyone’s emotions, stretching their patience.

  They finished off a second pitcher, Lilly and Alex feeling no pain. They’d already agreed to take a taxi home if they didn’t feel like walking. It was only four miles.

  With the stimulation of pure Agave coursing through them, the couple strolled down the street, holding hands, which was awkward. The jingle and roar of the arcade from around the corner made Alex think of all the money he’d wasted in there as a kid, playing Space Invaders and Pacman. Both classic machines were still in the arcade, but they didn’t get much use other than old-timers killing time while their kids played Mortal Combat and spun around on the interactive flight simulator.

  “You seem preoccupied,” Lilly said.

  He nodded. “I can’t get the creature out of my head. I’ve spent so much time burying it all, and now I feel my father’s obsession wrapping itself around me. Choking me, but it’s exciting and makes me happy, despite the potential danger to us and the city. Does that make any sense?”

  “Perfect sense,” she said. “Good or bad, recent events have broken you out of your rut.”

  “Sometimes a rut can be a good thing.”

  “You know what I mean,” Lilly said. “We get so caught up surviving that we forget to live.”

  “I just feel clueless. Helpless.”

  “I don’t know what more you can do at this point,” Lilly said.

  Alex said nothing.

  “When does the new issue of FATE hit?”

  “The print version will take a few months. Something about cutting down trees and making pulp. But the website will have the story up the day after tomorrow.”

  “You think that might draw some attention?” Lilly asked.

  “Yup,” he said. “I’m just not sure it will bring the right kind of attention.”

  She pursed her lips and her forehead wrinkled.

  “It’s just, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of Dick-Tokers and Facechat asses that want to create clickbait, but more than that? I just don’t know.”

  A thick crowd worked its way toward them from the river’s edge. Lilly and Alex paused, the crowd yelling and jostling as the mass of humanity funneled up the street.

  “What’s this now?” Alex said.

  Tourists surged past, some jogging with children in their arms, others holding hands. The crowd streamed around Alex and Lilly like they were boulders in a river, and when Alex saw the tan uniform of a park employee, he grabbed the guy’s arm.

  “Hey,” the kid said as he jerked his arm away.

  “Oh, sorry,” Alex said.

  The kid’s eyes shifted as he pondered a response, then he said nothing. Smart kid.

  “What’s going on down there?” Lilly said.

  “Another one. Right off the walkway. That’s what’s happened,” the kid said.

  “What do you mean by…”

  The kid ran off.

  “Come on,” Alex said as he took Lilly’s hand.

  “Wait, what?”

  “We need to see what’s happening,” Alex said, but as the words left his mouth, he realized how stupid he sounded. Classic horror illogic. Danger! Danger! Let’s run toward it! Perhaps curiosity was stronger than rationality, which was why it killed the cat. “You can stay back.”

  She shifted on her feet, hands going to her hips.

  “Forget it, you’re right. We’ll stand here like trees,” he said.

  She sighed loud and hard like she was auditioning to play an exasperated mother on a sitcom, and said, “Fine.”

  The roar of the falls grew as the duo fought their way down Old Falls Street, the warble of police car sirens and fire truck alarms ringing through the night. The top of the observation tower hung in the air to the north like a UFO, red light leaking from its base and splashing the tree canopy below. Rubber shrieked and horns bleated as cars fled down Prospect Street, the entrance to the park running along the river’s edge looming up in the darkness. Walkway lights lit the thin forest, and shadows danced under every bush and tree limb. There was a cluster of red and white spinning lights in the River Way Parking area, and tourists streamed along the walkway and clustered around the viewing decks along the river.

  “Must not be that bad,” Lilly said. “Not everyone is running.”

  “Our people,” Alex said. He pulled his phone intending to spark up his camera, and saw he had a missed call from Katelyn. His phone was still on do not disturb from dinner. Oh, the irony of his high school sweetheart calling during date night with his wife. If his seventeen-year-old self had been told that would happen, he would’ve laughed so hard he might’ve choked.

  Alex made his way toward the commotion, Lilly in tow, phone still in his hand. “I’m going to call Katelyn and see if she knows anything.”

  Lilly said nothing, but the grip on his hand eased and she slowed, tugging on Alex’s arm. Some jealousies never faded, and he supposed there were good reasons for that. There was in this case, and Lilly knew, her female spider senses sharper than the Air Force’s most high-tech radar.

  “Alex?” Katelyn sounded rushed and out of breath.

  “Yeah, you seeing this?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Lilly and I just came down Old Falls and now we’re walking along the river’s edge. You on scene?” Alex said. Lilly’s stare was as hot as the Caribbean sun and he felt its heat on his cheek.

  “Yeah, but I’m on the river. How close are you?”

  “Half a mile off. What the hell happened?”

  “Tourist plucked off the path.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “Yup. Supposedly there’s cell footage,” Katelyn said. “One tourist said there was a deafening buzz, and then a claw surged from the river and snatched the girl right off the walkway. Sound familiar?”

  “It does.” With the FATE article on the way Alex had filled her in about the mini-expedition into the park, the mutilated deer, the hum and the appearance of the beast.