Phil turned around. He didn’t say anything, just stared at Brian as though he didn’t quite recognize him. Brian said, “It’s not safe down here. Phil, there must be a big hole. The water’s getting in.”
Still Phil didn’t say anything. What was wrong with him? Brian felt himself getting an
noyed. Now was not a good time to panic. “Phil, where’s Mr. Dimmonds? Where’s your uncle?”
Phil didn’t say anything, but his eyes went again toward the giant hole in the stern, about where the motor had been. Water sloshed, freezing, around Brian’s ankles.
Brian asked again, his voice going squeaky, “Phil, where is he?”
“Gone,” said Phil. His voice was a weird, dull croak. “It—it took him.”
“Phil, what? What took him?”
“Dunno,” whispered Phil. A little snot ran down his face, but he didn’t seem to notice. He looked like a mouse under a cat’s paw. Frozen. “Something. A thing. A huge thing.”
Brian was starting to shiver, his legs numb from the knee down. The lake water was frigid. “Okay,” said Brian, not knowing exactly what to say. “Okay—okay, we’ll figure it out on deck. Phil, let’s just grab our bags and—”
But he broke off. He’d seen, just for a second, something moving in the water. Just a flash, there and gone, under the surface. “Phil,” whispered Brian. “Phil—back up. Come on, let’s go back up. The Cassie is sinking.”
Phil didn’t move. He was staring down at the water around his knees, as though hypnotized. Brian had to reach and grab him and pull him backward toward the ladder. “Phil, come on!”
Another movement: unhurried, sinuous, there and gone in the water. Brian, cold with instinctive fear, pushed Phil ahead of him, up the ladder to the deck.
A splash behind him. A plop. A groaning of metal as though—as though something big was trying to get into the boat. Or get farther into the boat.
Metal shrieked.
Brian turned around.
And saw—a mouth. Rising out of the murky, swirling water. A giant pink mouth, wide open, packed with teeth as long as his forearm. It seemed to hover right behind them, over the churning water. Brian screamed and hurled himself up the last steps, expecting with each step to feel teeth meet in his leg. But instead there was only another splash; he risked a quick look back from the top of the ladder. The—the thing—was gone. As though it had never been there.
The water below looked waist-deep now. Their bags, full of all their gear, were floating already in the surge. And . . . and there was Mr. Dimmonds’s blue-striped beanie, floating too.
Brian shuddered. As he watched, the beanie sank. It had tooth marks in it.
Ms. Zintner was still at the radio when they got onto the deck. She swore at it. “The radio’s out,” she said. “I’m not sure how . . .”
“Phones?” demanded Brian, still short of breath and shaky. “Does anyone’s phone work?”
Coco shook her head. Ollie had her head bent, talking to her dad, maybe trying to keep him awake, but she shook her head briefly too when Brian glanced her way.
“Where’s Mr. Dimmonds?” asked Coco.
Brian swallowed. “Look, guys, it wasn’t a rock that took out the motors. It was—”
“It was a monster,” said Phil, in the first words he’d spoken since Brian hauled him out from below. He was shaking violently. His teeth chattered.
Ollie’s head lifted. Coco pressed her lips together.
Ms. Zintner frowned. “Right,” she said. “I know it was unsettling, that snake biting Mr. Adler, but you guys need to keep it together. We’ll be all right if we just stay calm. You kids stay on deck. I’m going to go down below and see about Dane . . .”
Brian met Coco’s eyes and shook his head.
Coco instantly planted herself in front of her mom. “Mom, you can’t go down into the hold. Brian, how big was it?”
“Big,” said Phil.
Coco’s mom looked perplexed. She finally said gently, to her daughter, “I realize that something bad probably happened in the hold. But I need to see if Dane is okay.”