The Cryptid Files by Jean Flitcroft

Author:Jean Flitcroft
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781848409408
Publisher: Little Island
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

On 22 July 1933, when Mr and Mrs Spicer were returning home after a holiday in Scotland, their car nearly hit a huge creature as it slithered across the road into the loch. The ‘prehistoric animal’ as Mrs Spicer described it, was very ugly: about 6 to 8 feet long with a tall neck and a high back. In a letter to the Inverness Courier published in 1933, Mr Spicer said:‘Whatever it is, and it may be a land and water animal, I think it should be destroyed, as I am not sure, if I had been quite so close to it, whether I should have cared to tackle it. It is difficult to give you a better description, as it moved so swiftly and the whole thing was sudden. There is no doubt it exists.’

Vanessa turned over the rest of the canvases quickly and positioned them in a circle around her. They were all different images of Nessie moving through the water. Her skin was generally a charcoal grey but in some pictures, it had a definite green tinge. The fins looked similar to a whale’s, except for the second smaller set of fins at the back. Maybe they were the residual limbs of a sea mammal that was also once a land creature. The elongated tail and neck were more like that of the deep-sea eel. Perhaps their theory had been right after all, and Nessie was some form of deep-sea-adapted mammal. Well, why not? The beaked whale lives in deep oceans and can dive to 1,000 feet.

Vanessa whooped quietly for joy and the intensity of her excitement made her feel if as she might explode in the confines of the small cupboard. Suddenly, she felt very sure about Nessie – she was a sea creature that came into the loch when she was small and got trapped. That’s why the real sightings only happened after the building of the Caledonian Canal. She had seen Nessie herself – at least in her dream or premonition or whatever it was. But whoever had painted these pictures knew the monster very well indeed.

Vanessa looked at her watch. It was twenty to five. Her dad had said that Lee would take them out in the boat on Loch Ness at half past four. It was time to go – with or without Lee. If she waited much longer it would get too dark.

She pulled on her jacket over her warm fleece and went downstairs. There was no sign of the boys or of Maggie, thank God. The air was crisp and cool when she stepped into the garden and the boat was sitting quite still in the water. It was like a millpond, perfectly safe. She would take it out 50 metres or so around the corner and probably be back in before Alan and Lee arrived home.

She untied the boat easily enough and pushed off with the oar. To her dismay, she found that she wasn’t a very good rower.

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