The day crawled by, and Alex’s hand strayed often to his father’s penny where it rested in his pocket. Worry gnawed at his nerve endings, a hollow ache settling in his chest, a feeling of impending doom that he couldn’t wrap his noodle around hovering over him like a dark cloud.

  Celeste suggested he add tours for Saturday and Sunday nights. During tourist season the spigot that controlled the falls was turned down at night, decreasing the ferocity of the rapids Alex used to generate thrills and chills, but who cared? There was a Labor Day fireworks show Sunday night, and he could charge a premium for the two cruises because they’d be outside the scope of his normal pricing structure.

  “Do it, Celeste. Time the Sunday night jaunt with the fireworks, so figure we pull off the dock at 9 PM. Tomorrow night can be earlier.”

  Celeste nodded.

  “There’ll be a thousand-dollar bonus in your next check for handling all this.” Celeste’s idea would make Alex close to $5,000. He had to figure out how to pry her away from the environmentalists, inject a little capitalism into those bones.

  “Thanks, boss.”

  “I know you’ve got young people shit to do, but Lilly and I are having all the conspirators over tonight for beer, burgers, and bullshit. You should stop by.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Thanks.”

  The day wore on and when the last tourist pulled from the lot and Alex locked the door, Celeste announced that the two-night cruises were already full. “I’m having them get here early for a mixer.”

  “A what now?”

  “A little party. I’ve got Joey’s bringing in some snacks, soda and wine.”

  “Soda and wine? What the hell am I? A luxury cruise? How much is all this costing me?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I charged twenty dollars extra, per ticket, for the event. All part of our evening package,” Celeste said. She crossed her arms and thrust up her chin.

  “See, this is why I’m going to end up mopping floors someday. That right there,” Alex said. “When the season’s over and you’re back in class we need to sit down and talk. Really.”

  Alex stopped at the mart on his way home, and Gabe had just finished his shift and had one of the bag boys collect everything Alex needed as he and Alex sipped ‘damaged’ beers.

  “I can’t very well sell my customers a beer with a dent in the can, can I?”

  “Don’t they need to take them back to give the store credit?” Alex asked.

  Gabe drained the beer, pulled a pen from his shirt pocket, and stabbed the can. “Not if the denting caused a leak.”

  Alex threw up his hands.

  Lilly was home when he arrived, and Alex took a certain pleasure in cleaning the grill, setting out the dogs and paddies on the platter. He had a grill master apron somewhere, but it made him feel like an idiot when he wore it. He iced beers, wine, water, and as he worked his mind searched the last few weeks' events, trying to pull back any thoughts or facts that might have slipped through the reality grate of life. He and Lilly spent so much time making a living, he often thought they were failing to build a life.

  Dr. Silverfish and Iggy were the first to arrive, right on time, and soon Ginger and Gabe followed. Wahanu turned down the invitation, as Alex had expected he would. The old man didn’t leave the confines of his self-imposed prison much, and a BBQ with strangers who would never stop talking about the creature wasn’t his scene.

  Katelyn arrived last, straight from work and still in uniform, and to Alex’s surprise and dismay she and Lilly hit it off. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, and though Lilly and Alex weren’t enemies, the constant renegotiations of the marital contract supplied plenty of material, and his wife was having fun poking fun at him. Katelyn simply went to the stories of all the stupid things he’d done in his youth, and that was a bountiful supply of source material.

  Alex waited for Celeste, but when she didn’t come, he lit the grill. He couldn’t blame the girl. He was sure she had better things to do on a Friday night than hang out with a bunch of geezers. He wasn’t forty, but considered himself old. He needed to do something about that.

  Dusk gave way to night, stars rolling in the heavens, moonlight casting errant rays across the manicured lawn that covered the Weston backyard like a carpet. The party sat around a table out on the deck, candlelight flickering over the remains of dinner. The faint rumble of the falls and the hum of crickets echoed over Niagara, the gentle wind bringing the scent of moisture and charred meat, when Dr. Silverfish disturbed the collective peace.

  “So what now?”

  “I think we’re done, no?” The voice came from the side of the house. There was the click and scrape of Alex’s backyard gate opening, and Dixon and Perry stepped into a cone of light cast by the motion-activated floodlight on the corner of the house.

  Everyone stared open-mouthed. Alex hadn’t thought to invite the FBI people.

  “Sorry to intrude, but…” Dixon laughed. “Would you like us to leave?”

  A wave of shame and embarrassment flooded Alex, his sense of loyalty, patriotism, and basic humanity kicking the ass of his healthy distrust for authority. Everyone knew you didn’t trust the feds, unless you had to, but Dixon had been O.K., shared information with Alex that he wasn’t entitled to. He said, “Why are you here?”

  “The truth?”

  “What have you been telling me?” Alex heard Gabe attempt to stifle a laugh, but instead let loose with a pig-like squeal as his friend fought embarrassment.

  Dixon eased forward until he stood tableside. “That’s not fair.”

  Alex used the FBI’s own trick on the agent, and he said nothing.

  “The truth is we’re still tailing you because we don’t know what else to do at this point, and…” Dixon looked away, and Alex sensed that was the closest expression to embarrassment he could expect from the man.

  “Annnnnddddd…” Lilly said.

  “And we smelled the burgers and thought maybe you could spare a couple.”

  Alex’s head jerked back like he’d been punched, and Lilly squeaked. A deep relief that shifted to guilt fought its way to the surface, and suddenly Alex felt like the biggest asshole ever to walk the Earth. He knew nothing about these agents, who were just trying to do their jobs, away from friends and family. Did Dixon have a family? A partner? Did Perry? Law enforcement sacrificed so much and were forced to deal with all kinds of crap because of a few bad apples. Alex knew it wasn’t fair, but still… “Cheese or no cheese?” Alex indicated the empty chairs at the table.

  “What kind of cheese?” Perry asked, and everyone laughed.

  Alex introduced the agents to Lilly, Gabe and Ginger, who had heard much about the FBI pair, but hadn’t actually met them.

  “So, what do you mean ‘you don’t know what to do?’ You’re the FBI, if you don’t know what to do, we’re screwed,” Gabe said.

  “It’s not like that,” Dixon said between bites of burger and sips of brew. “We’re assigned here until September 15th, but I think things are done… for now.”

  “Done?”

  “Based on all the data we’ve got, the creature has never appeared after August 28th,” Dixon said.

  Crickets sang, the wind whispered, and the static of the falls filled the silence.

  “Cutting it a little close, no?” Alex said.

  “The coasties will remain vigilant,” Perry said. She had finished her burger, complimented the chef, and went back to monitoring her phone with one ear on the conversation.

  Dixon rolled his eyes and said, “I’m not saying we’re leaving, but I think perhaps we can breathe a sigh of relief.”

  “Why? Because we’ll all most likely be dead when the next year of the beast rolls around?” Lilly said.

  Dixon didn’t answer.

  “What did we accomplish? Anything?” Katelyn said.

  “I think perhaps the increased patrols, the Iron Scow, it all may have scared the beast into hiding earlier than normal,” Dixon said. “Plus, in ’53 nobody believed, certainly not the agents assigned to the case. Now…” Dixon took a long pull of beer. “Though none of us will be around to see it, the FBI response next time will be significant.”

  “How can you say that?” Gabe said.

  “I’ll make sure of it. My report will eventually be seen by the president.”

  “Still, sixty-six years is a long time,” Dr. Silverfish said. “Why not investigate under the falls now? Try and find its home.”

  “Yeah,” Gabe added. “You can put a robot on Mars and take a picture of my license plate from space, but you can’t track this thing?”

  “Ground-penetrating radar still isn’t great, and when water is involved, everything becomes doubly difficult,” Dixon said.

  “You don’t have drones?” Alex said.

  “Robots?” Lilly added.

  “We do, and we’re investigating, but as you all know the geology of the falls is precarious. It’s not like we could blow the thing up even if we found it. We believe the creature lives in the bedrock below the falls. Drone and robo-crawlers have found large voids, and I’ve seen images of bone piles, but we’ve never gotten a picture of the beast in its lair.”

  That shut everyone down.

  “Then there’s the problem that the higher-ups don’t want the thing killed,” Dixon said.

  Nobody spoke, and Dixon’s words hung there like a fart in church.

  “I’ll bite,” the professor said. “Why wouldn’t we want to kill it? I mean, I understand not wanting to destroy a majestic, unique, and hitherto fore unseen creature, but this thing is a killer. There are no doubts. If it were to get free in the city…”

  “I shot the thing several times at point-blank range, and it didn’t even slow,” Gabe said.

  “And that there is the answer,” Dixon said as he drained his beer.

  Perry stopped tapping her phone and cast a suspicious gaze in Dixon’s direction.

  “What does it matter?” the agent asked his partner.

  Perry shrugged.

  “There are those,” Dixon began, “I don’t know who they are or why they feel the way they do, but these people believe the creature is a type of fountain of youth.”

  A dog barked in the yard next door and an old woman yelled at the animal, telling it to shut up.

  “Care to explain?” Dr. Silverfish said.

  “I can’t, like I said.” Dixon ran fingers through his hair. “You have all assumed, and so did I, that it’s a different creature that emerges on a sixty-six-year cycle, and that the beast comes to the surface to feed, then goes back underground to give birth, but some… again, I’ve got no clue who, but these people believe it’s a single creature, and that it holds the key to immortality.”

  “That’s insane,” Dr. Silverish said.

  “More insane than a forty-foot sea scorpion, that in its current state never existed, and whose direct relatives passed from this world millions of years ago?”

  “Oh, shit,” Lilly said.

  “What?” Alex was worried now.

  “Alex, you told me about the connection to horseshoe crabs, how this thing could be a distant relative?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Horseshoe crabs are harvested all around the world for their blood,” Lilly said.

  “She’s right,” Dixon said. “Doc?”

  Dr. Silverfish’s face grew grim, her face churning through emotions and settling on a thin ironic looking smile. “It sounds horrible, but each spring, guided by the full moon, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs clamber onto beaches across the U.S. to lay their eggs. For the wild animals it’s a buffet. For drug companies, it’s a crucial resource for making human medicines safe.”

  “Now I’m lost. There’s crab blood in my meds?” Gabe asked.

  “Yes,” the professor said. “A horseshoe crab’s milky-blue blood provides the only known natural source of limulus amebocyte lysate, a substance that detects a contaminant called endotoxin. If even tiny amounts of endotoxin, which is a type of bacterial toxin, found its way into vaccines, injectable drugs, or other sterile pharmaceuticals such as artificial knees and hips, the results would be deadly.”

  Dixon said, “All the drug companies rely on these animals, and they harvest their blood like vampires. They bleed them out in laboratories where the creatures are all connected to a draining system like The Matrix.”

  “They return the horseshoe crabs to the ocean, but many of them die due to the procedure. This rampant abuse, combined with overharvesting for fishing bait, has caused a decline in the species in the past few decades,” the professor added. “I guess I can see why the bigwigs might have interest in the beast if they think its blood has special properties.”

  “Above our paygrade,” Dixon said as he pushed up from the table. “Anyhow, we better get going. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “You're very welcome,” Lilly said. “Thank you for your service.”

  Dixon smiled. “One more favor?”

  Alex lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Do you have any open spots for us tomorrow? We’d like to take you up on your offer and hit the rapids.”

  “We’re full all day, but stop by. You can ride in the pilothouse.”

  Dixon nodded.

  The party broke up and Lilly and Alex retreated to the bedroom and made love for the first time in months. As Alex lay in the afterglow his thoughts drifted to the tour business, the cause of his constant stress. He looked over at Lilly, who was already pushing faint snores through closed lips, a thin stream of drool running down her cheek. She cleaned other peoples’ shit for him while he was out on the river. Didn’t seem fair. Nothing seemed fair, and Alex vowed to change that.

  22

  Alex woke to an empty house, dressed, and headed out early. Like an infant that needed to be driven in a car to fall asleep, the gentle rock and shift of his boat, the sea spray on his face, it all put him at ease and uncoiled his nerves like nothing else could.

  Stimpson’s Marina was empty, everything locked up tight, and he didn’t see another person as he hopped on his center console. The outboard fired up on the first turn, its rattling howl echoing over the river. Nothing moved out on the Niagara River, and the faint rumble of the falls was drowned out by the heavy traffic on Niagara Street. Saturdays were always hectic, but it was a holiday weekend, and every hotel, tour, and restaurant was booked solid. Deep discounts and an entire array of out-of-season deals became available the day after Labor Day.

  His mind churned as the boat fought the current upstream toward Lake Erie, parks, houses, and marinas sliding by on both sides of the river. Alex kept going back to what Dixon had said about certain bigwigs not wanting the creature dead. What did they hope to do? Capture it alive? That had worked in King Kong for a short time, but he thought the beast would go down fighting, just like Kong.

  The river widened, and Alex pushed down the control arm, the outboard screaming as the boat skipped across light chop, throwing spray and shooting a fifteen-foot rooster tail. The boat passed beneath the rusty blue metal arch of South Grand Island Bridge, cars streaming by overhead like multicolored beetles. Housing developments, stores, and restaurants packed the suburbs of Buffalo, but on the Canadian side the Niagara River Parkway ran through fields and meadows that slowly gave way to development.

  The metropolis of Buffalo sat under a smokey haze on the southeast horizon, the city in sharp contrast to the surrounding rural areas. The river narrowed significantly, and Alex slowed the center console and threaded between buoys marking the channel to the lake. The cool breeze picked up, wind ripping off the lake and funneling up the river, helping the current push the vessel back as it clawed at the water. The scent of garbage and low tide wafted over the lake as Alex dropped the hammer, and the boat knifed out onto Lake Erie.

  He rolled his shoulders, slowly letting the wheel slip through his hands as he headed west. Alex turned on the fish finder, and it showed he was cruising in twenty feet of water. Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the five Great Lakes and the eleventh largest on Earth. Its deepest point is 210 feet, and there were shoals and beaches and craggy areas all along the shoreline.

  Two gulls sailed overhead, and water snapped and popped against the hull. The green water smelled like algae baking in the sun, and no fish leapt from the murky lake. The amount of water entering and leaving Lake Erie each year is less than one percent of the lake’s total volume of water, and Alex knew the dumping of chemical and industrial waste, raw sewage, and the runoff from cities and mining operations constantly polluted the lake and its four siblings.

  He turned the boat slightly to port, the vessel arcing in a circle that would turn him around. He glanced at the fish finder, which read the boat was in seventy feet of water, but the dark smudge that marked the lake’s bottom was steadily rising as the depth of the water decreased. The dotted demarcation line that ran through the center of the map indicated the international border between Canada and the United States. Technically, Alex was currently in Canada.

  A green field of propeller-fouling Eurasian watermilfoil filled the water. Alex arced away from the field of green, its slender stems and submerged leaves marking a shallow section of the lake. Invasive species, plants and animals of all types are introduced into Lake Erie every year. That meant conservation efforts needed to be increased, more restrictions imposed, and none of that was good for tourism or his business.

  An hour had slipped away, and as Alex shot up the Niagara River, heading for Stimpson’s, his nerves jumped and complained about the day ahead. A cruise on the lake usually put his mind at ease, but not today. The pollution didn’t usually bother him. Today it had. It was like he was constantly being poked by some unseen force, a dread that stung the tips of his fingers and toes.

  He’d seen no signs of the creature on his journey.

  Traffic on River Road was backed up all the way to Lumber Jack’s Patio Grill, so Alex took the backroads, cutting around the city of Niagara, and slipping back onto River Road via I-190. Like the prior day, the lot was packed, the standby line full. He went about his business like a robot, his mind lost in three hundred years of history, the idea of eternal life, and the thirty-foot sea monster from the age of the dinosaurs that had seemingly disappeared into thin air.