Unable to control the men, I have allowed the launch of a boat. No provisions, since if they succeed, they will not need them.
And if they fail, we desperately will.
Thursday, 5 January 1809
Grieved to report the destruction of the lifeboat Emily, with all hands. They were under moderate sail, course ESE, when we watchers onshore saw a wave come up, and then a glitter, and then a smashing sound as the boat was flung into the air. The men came down into the water, and they had no chance even to drown, for the serpent plucked them out like so many fish and swallowed them down.
Appended is a list of the lost men.
Three of us remain: myself, William Sheehan, captain; Thomas Ross, first mate; and James Allen, seaman. We are resolved to stay on this island until the lake has frozen solidly and then, when there is no fear of the serpent breaking through the ice, we will walk back to Burlington. We cut wood like madmen by day and tend the fire by night that keeps the serpent from our door. But we are mortally hungry.
Friday, 6 January 1809
Have settled the single remaining lifeboat into cave near the landing site, marked location on chart.
Rations are low, and it is very cold. Morale poor among the three of us, although Tommy does what he can, with jokes and songs, God bless that man. The water has not frozen yet; it has been a winter of rain thus far, without snow. Sometimes, Tommy says, the lake has frozen solid as late as March. Pray.
Sunday, 8 January 1809
We are hunted now. We hear the sound of the creature in the night; the cabin is besieged.
We thought it would go quiet with the frost, like any animal. We thought it would retreat beneath the lake and leave us be. But it has not. We see its track in the mud. We have hung all metal we possess, all the fishhooks that do us no good, to give us a little warning by chiming together, for the creature often hunts from above. We cut wood all day and burn it all night. We see its eyes shine just outside the firelight.
Even Tommy cannot joke anymore.
We cannot use the boat, and the lake hasn’t frozen yet. It ought to be frozen long since, but it isn’t. As though some malign force keeps it liquid. As though the ordinary rules of creation are suspended and we live at the serpent’s whim, like mice in a giant larder. We cannot get out. We will have to kill it, we think. We’ve no weapons but a couple of knives and my axe. Tommy and Jim are afraid. But what choice do we have?
We hear the scales sliding at night now, every night, as the creature comes closer. Closer, closer. We do not often see it. But we know it is there. Waiting. We are hungry, and weak. We must make our last stand soon, while our strength holds.
Pray.
The last sentence ended with a splatter and a scrawl. As though the writer had run out of ink and then been distracted by something else and not gone back.
They all looked at each other. “I wonder what happened to them?” said Coco softly.
Eaten, Brian thought. Coco’s mom had slipped away to the radio, again.
Brian added, low, “I wonder who the axe man is? And the—the person on the bed?”
“Maybe the skeleton was Sheehan,” said Coco. “That would make sense. He wrote the log and the skeleton was holding it.” She shivered at the thought.
P
hil said, with dawning horror, “But—if Sheehan and the crew got stuck here, and the axe man got stuck here too . . . are we stuck here?”
Brian took a breath. Yeah, he was going to say. Yeah, we are. Until we figure out how to . . . But he was stopped by Ollie’s dad, speaking sharply. “Olivia!” he cried, once, in a such a tone of lucid terror that they all whipped around, and Coco’s mom got up and hurried back toward them. Then Mr. Adler’s voice dropped, feeble, still afraid. “Don’t—don’t.”
“Wait,” said Phil. “Where’s Ollie?”
All of them turned to look, scattering pebbles.
Ollie wasn’t anywhere. Ollie was gone.
“When did she go?” asked Brian.
“She said something about going to pee,” said Coco. “I thought she was going just a few steps, like the rest of us did.”
Brian shined the emergency flashlight. It lit up starkly the white, sweating face of Mr. Adler, his eyes stretched wide open, and two tears running down his temples to mix with the sweat. His lips were cracking.