The Night on Loch Ness

I remember the winter of 1937 as the year Loch Ness stopped feeling familiar. My name is Euan Mloud, and I was 23 then—the youngest hand aboard the Morag, our fishing boat. That night, four of us set out from our small village on the western shore, a row of stone houses huddled close to the water. The older men had spent their lives on the loch, treating it as part of daily work rather than a mystery. By then, I thought I knew every inlet and curve of the shoreline.

We left later than usual, under a sky with no stars—just a low cover of cloud hiding the moon. The air was damp and cold, breath drifting in pale clouds before fading. A steady wind rippled the surface in dark bands and carried the smell of wet earth and peat.

Angus, our skipper, was broad-shouldered, his beard mostly gray. He trusted routine and did not accept changes to it. Beside him was my older cousin Callum, steady and cautious since his wife became pregnant that spring. The last man was Fergus—Ferg to all—louder than the rest, always joking, always moving. He’d joined us a year before after leaving a trawler on the east coast, and often claimed our loch was dull compared to the open sea.

We pushed off from the jetty just after sundown. The water near shore tapped gently against the stones. The Morag shifted as we climbed in, ropes creaking softly as Angus cast them off. I settled near the bow, pulling my coat tight, while Callum checked the nets and Fergus fussed with the lantern. Angus spoke quietly: “Mind that wick. I want it steady. We’ll need every bit of light later.” Fergus adjusted the lantern until the flame settled into a calm glow.

We headed for deeper water, where the loch narrowed and the hills closed in. The older fishermen favored that stretch in winter; the fish moved there along colder channels, and if you placed your nets well, the night could be worth the trouble. The engine throbbed under our feet, a low, regular pulse mixing with the slap of waves against the hull. Behind us, the village lights faded, slipping out of sight as we rounded a slope of land.

The silence out there was not the same as onshore. It held sound, but in a measured way—the oar shifting, the cough of the engine, boots scuffing against wood. Voices came only when needed. On dark water, words seemed to carry farther than they should.

Angus leaned toward the side, peering ahead. The hills rose as dark shapes, their slopes only faint edges against the heavy sky. The water looked thicker, a deeper shade than near shore. The lantern showed only the nearest waves; beyond that, the loch was a flat black surface hiding its depth.

“Here,” Angus said. “We’ll set the first line.” He cut the engine, and the Morag drifted. Without the engine’s noise, the loch’s own sounds came forward. Water lapped against the hull, and somewhere along the shore, an owl called once, then again, then fell silent.

Callum and I moved to the nets. He checked the floats while I loosened the coiled line. Fergus stood near the stern, working on the lantern. We lowered the first net into the loch. The floats bobbed once in the lantern light, then drifted away as the line unspooled. The net slid into the dark without a splash.

“There,” Angus said. “We’ll circle back in an hour.” We started the engine again and moved farther along, planning to drop another line. The routine steadied my thoughts: set net, mark position, move on, repeat. The work rarely changed. Yet, as we moved, I noticed something that did not fit. The waves near the bow slowed and thickened. The Morag felt heavier, meeting more resistance, though the engine sounded the same.

“Do you feel that?” I asked Callum.

“Feel what?”

“The pull,” I said. “Under us.” He placed a hand on the side and waited. After a moment, his brow tightened.

“The water’s strange here,” he said. “Current, maybe.”

Angus turned his head. “There’s a trench under this stretch. The bottom drops quick. The water moves odd along the sides of it. Keep your minds on the nets.” His tone did not invite more questions. Still, I saw Callum’s fingers stayed tense on the rope.

We dropped the second net, not far from the first, and marked its position. Fergus joked about how slow the fish would be in such cold, but his voice lacked its usual ease. He kept glancing over the side, his eyes fixed on the shifting water.

As we moved on, the lantern’s glow caught a thin mist over the surface. It wasn’t the heavy fog we sometimes saw at dawn—just a low band clinging close to the water ahead. When I leaned out, I saw it stayed near the bow, always just in front of where we were going. Behind us, the surface looked clearer. I said nothing then. It was easy to doubt your own eyes in that darkness.

Angus had us set two more nets farther along the trench. By then, the village shore was only a memory behind the black ridge of hillside. The world had narrowed to the boat, the water, and the faint outline of slopes on either side. The sky stayed shut without a single gap in the cloud.

We cut the engine to drift and wait. The quiet pressed in again. The only noise came from the soft slap of small waves and the faint rattle of loose gear on deck. The lantern burned steadily, a dull yellow circle that swallowed our faces and left the rest of the loch untouched.

Fergus rubbed his hands together and stamped his feet. “I should have stayed with the east coast trawlers,” he said. “At least the sea has the decency to move proper. This place feels half asleep.”

“Less talking, more watching,” Angus said.

Fergus grinned, but it looked forced. He kept shifting his gaze between the dark water and Angus’ back. I leaned on the rail and tried to read the surface. I had grown up near this loch. My father had taken me out on small boats before I could remember. Even so, I could not read what the water was doing that night. The waves rose and fell in no clear pattern. Patches of surface lay almost flat, surrounded by rougher ripples that gathered and then faded. It reminded me of the way water moves when something large passes under it.

That thought sat heavily in my mind. I kept it to myself until the first odd sound reached us. It was a low noise at first, hard to separate from the rest of the night. I only noticed it because it did not match the natural rhythm of the loch—a slow, heavy beat followed by a pause, then another. At first, I thought it was the muffled echo of our own engine, even though it was off.

“Do you hear that?” I asked quietly.

All three turned their heads. The noise came again—a deep thump or knock that seemed to come from somewhere under the water, not from the boat. It repeated at irregular intervals, never quite the same length between beats.

“That’s not the hull,” Callum said, his voice losing its steady tone.

Angus stepped closer to the rail and bent slightly, his eyes narrowed. He stayed there for a long moment, listening.

“Could be fallen rock somewhere along the shore,” he said at last. “Sound carries strange out here. Keep your heads. We’ll haul the first net in a few minutes.”

He spoke with authority, but his hand gripped the rail harder than before. I noticed the whiteness of his knuckles in the lantern light.

The noise faded after that, or blended back into the general sounds. We tried to return to our work rhythm. Angus signaled, and we started the engine again, easing the Morag back toward where we had set the first net.

As we neared the marker float, something else drew our attention. The water around the float was not moving like the rest of the loch. The small buoy turned in slow circles, pulled by some unseen force below. The waves around it spread outward in a broad ring as if a steady pressure rose from beneath.

“Current again,” Angus said quickly, though no one had asked. “That trench plays tricks.”

We pulled alongside the buoy. Callum reached with a hook and caught the line. He drew it in hand over hand, expecting the usual pull of a net loaded with whatever the loch had given us. Instead, the line jerked tight and stopped, his shoulders tensed.

“It’s snagged on something,” he said.

“Rock outcrop, maybe,” Angus said. “Give it a firm pull. Don’t snap it.”

Callum braced his feet and hauled. The line came a little, then stuck again. The boat shifted slightly toward the point where the net should be. The water around us heaved in a slow, broad swell that did not match the wind pattern.

“Feels wrong,” Callum muttered. “It’s not a sharp hold. It’s heavy. It moves.”

Angus stepped over and together they pulled. I moved to help, grabbing the line behind them. The rope felt cold and damp under my gloves, but there was another sensation beneath that—a steady vibration ran through the fibers. It rose and fell in a rhythm that made my teeth clench.

“Do you feel that?” I said.

Before anyone could answer, the line went slack. All at once, the resistance disappeared. We stumbled back a step as the rope came in freely, loose in our hands.

“Careful,” Angus snapped. “Pay it out slow.”

We recovered and eased the line back to a controlled pull. When the first portion of the net broke the surface, it carried almost nothing—a few small fish caught near the top. The lower half of the mesh was missing. The net had been torn clean through, the edges dangling in rough strands. It had not snagged on rock. It had been ripped.

We stared there in the lantern’s glow, water running off the ruined net. Apart from the small catch near the top, it was a loss. The loch moved calmly around us, offering no clue.

“Could be a large log,” Angus said, but there was no conviction in his tone. “A stray tree from upstream. We’ll mend it later.”

I had seen nets torn by debris before. This was not the same. The missing section formed a wide gap. There were strands left behind that had been twisted and stretched rather than cut by sharp stone. Something heavy and flexible had forced its way through.

Fergus found his voice again. “A log that swims and pulls on the line,” he said. “We should get back to shore and talk about what happened over a bottle, not hang about here.”

“Hold your tongue,” Angus said. “We’re not heading back with only scraps of catch and one damaged net. We’ll check the others, then decide.”

Callum said nothing. He kept looking at the torn section, his brow furrowed. We brought the ruined net aboard and stowed it. As we moved to the next marker, I felt a pressure behind my ribs that had nothing to do with the cold. The loch no longer felt like a workplace. It felt watchful.

My thoughts drifted to old stories from childhood—tales fishermen told at the pub about long shapes in the water, humps that rose then sank, wakes with no boat to cause them. I’d dismissed those tales or treated them as entertainment on long winter nights. Now the memory of those tales sat close to my thoughts.

We reached the second net. The marker float here lay still. No odd rings disturbed the area around it. In the weak light, the surface looked ordinary.

“See,” Angus said quietly. “The first one was a fluke. We’ll haul this and it will be fine.”

We pulled the second line. The weight felt normal. As the net rose, I saw the usual glint of fish scales in the lantern circle. Relief loosened my shoulders, but the damaged net and the strange vibration in the rope stayed in mind, a quiet presence behind each thought.

“We’ll check the next two,” Angus said. “If the same trouble shows, we go in. I won’t have anyone say I risked the Morag needlessly.”

The concession surprised me. It also told me that Angus had taken the torn net far more seriously than his words suggested.

We started the engine again and turned along the trench. The dark mist that had hovered near our bow earlier began to return, not as a band this time, but as scattered strips drifting low over the surface. They didn’t thicken enough to block our view of the nearest waves, but they broke the line between water and air. The lantern’s light bounced off them in strange ways, making depth hard to judge.

Fergus fell uncharacteristically quiet. He stood near the stern, one hand resting on the rail, his gaze fixed behind us toward the black trail of water we had already crossed.

“What is it?” I asked.

He hesitated before answering. “I keep thinking I see something in our wake—a long shadow just under the skin of the water. When I look straight at it, it’s gone.”

I felt my mouth go dry. “Your eyes play tricks in the dark,” I said.

“I know what tricks look like,” he replied. “This feels different.”

I did not push him. My imagination was already filling in too much.

The third net waited near a narrow bend where the hills pressed closer to the water. As we approached, the air felt colder—a sharper drop, sinking through clothes and into the bones. None of us mentioned it, yet I saw Callum rub his arms through his coat while Angus kept glancing at the surface as if searching for something he had no name for.

The marker float here bobbed in a steady rhythm. At first, nothing seemed unusual, but as we drew closer, I saw the float was dipping slightly lower than normal, as if pulled down by a weight far heavier than we expected. The water around it didn’t break into rough waves. It held a slow circling motion like the steady turn of a wheel.

“Slow,” Angus said. “No sudden moves.”

We eased the Morag to the side of the float. Callum hooked the line, but as soon as he pulled, his shoulders jerked back.

“That’s not fish,” he said.

Fergus stepped in to help, placing his hands behind Callum’s on the rope. They both pulled. The net shifted upward, but only an inch. The line trembled in a way that didn’t match any motion I recognized—it wasn’t the recoil of snagged mesh, but a steady pulse, deliberate and strong.

“Let it go,” Angus said sharply.

Callum nodded, but the rope twitched in his hands before he could release tension. It was a sudden movement, forceful and directed downward. He stumbled and had to plant his feet wide to keep from falling.

“Something’s dragging it,” he said.

“Cut it loose,” Fergus whispered.

Angus shook his head. “We don’t cut gear unless there’s no other choice. Ease it. Not too much.”

We tried again, more carefully. The line rose another inch, shuddering in our hands. Then the rope stiffened and went rigid, as if it connected to a solid mass deep below. The deck vibrated under us. A dull thud carried up through the hull, different from the earlier knocks—closer, heavier.

“Enough,” Angus said. “Drop it. Let it settle.”

Callum let the rope slip through his gloves until the float drifted freely beside us again. The water around it calmed, but the unease in the air did not lift.

“Something’s down there,” Fergus said quietly. “Something that doesn’t care what’s tied to it.”

“We’ll come back for it when daylight hits,” Angus said. “I’m not risking the Morag over a weighted net in the dark.” He started the engine before anyone could argue. The sound felt like a relief—something steady among forces we couldn’t see.

As we turned toward the fourth and final net, I felt the boat shift under us—not dramatically, but with a slow tilt as though a current pushed from below. The tilt corrected itself within seconds, but the movement left a knot in my stomach.

We moved on, and the hills narrowed even more. The loch here was deep, darker than ink. The lantern’s glow barely reached the surface. I leaned over the side, hoping to glimpse anything that might explain the disturbances, but the water swallowed all light after just a short distance. It felt endless.

Without warning, a splash echoed behind us—not a small one, but something heavy striking the surface with force. All of us turned. The ripples spread in a broad ring, lit faintly by our shifting lantern.

“What was that?” I asked.

“No reason to think it’s anything unusual,” Angus said, though his voice betrayed him. He scanned the water behind us for too long.

I stared at the expanding circle of ripples—wider than anything a bird or a fish could make. Something had broken the surface and gone back under before we could catch a shape.

Fergus moved closer to me. “I know this loch,” he said in a low voice meant only for me. “Not as well as you lot, but enough to say that wasn’t natural.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t disagree, either.

We reached the fourth net, but before we got close, we saw the float moving in short, jolting motions—dipping, rising, dipping again, each movement sharp and fast. Something down there was pulling with sudden bursts of force.

“Leave it,” Callum said firmly. “We know what we’ll find if we haul it.”

“We check it,” Angus replied. “No guesswork. We check.”

He brought the Morag alongside. The water around the float wasn’t swirling this time—it chopped instead, breaking into jagged little waves despite the low wind. The surface looked disturbed in scattered patches that didn’t match any other motion around them.

Angus hooked the float himself. His hands were steady, but his shoulders were tight. When he pulled the line, the rope jerked hard, nearly tearing from his grip.

“Easy,” Callum said.

Angus let it down, but didn’t listen. He braced himself and pulled again. The rope shuddered as though something below tested our strength, measuring it.

“Angus,” I started.

Before I could finish, the tension vanished again. The rope went slack. Angus stumbled back two steps, catching himself on the tiller. I pulled the line in quickly, not wanting to give whatever was below a second chance.

When the net surfaced, my breath locked in my chest. Half the net was shredded—not torn in the same way as the first, but with wide gashes cutting through multiple layers of mesh. The edges were frayed in long strips. The damage was deeper, more violent. There were no fish at all this time.

Callum held one section up, water dripping from the tatters. “No rock does this,” he said.

“No log either,” Fergus added.

Angus remained silent, staring at the ruined net with a stiff posture, as if bracing against a truth he didn’t want to accept.

“We head back now,” Callum said. “We can’t ignore this.”

Angus kept staring at the torn mesh. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “Aye, we go.” He didn’t say why. He didn’t need to. Each of us had reached the same conclusion. Something in the loch had interacted with our nets—not by accident, but with intention.

We turned the Morag toward home. As the boat shifted course, I felt a pressure in the air, faint but present. I couldn’t name the source. It reminded me of the way the atmosphere feels just before a storm. But the sky remained unchanged. The clouds hung low. The wind eased. The water behind us left a widening path of black.

We moved for several minutes without speaking, each of us watching a different part of the loch, though all of us were thinking the same thing. Something had followed our work that night.

I didn’t want to admit it, but when I glanced behind us, I saw a broad shape move across the surface far back in our wake. It was low and dark—no more than a suggestion of form, but it was long, far longer than any fish I had ever seen in fresh water. When I blinked, it was gone beneath the waves. I said nothing. I didn’t need to. The others must have felt it, too—the shift in the water, the growing sense of being noticed.

The engine kept a steady beat as we headed toward the wider stretch of the loch. The air remained cold, and the low mist drifted close to the surface in thin streaks. The hills were little more than black walls rising on either side of us. I tried to focus on the rhythm of the water and the hum of the motor, but each sound made me more aware of the silence beyond it. There was too much space in that silence, as if something waited for the right moment to break it.

Fergus moved closer to the stern, glancing at the wake, his face drawn tight. Normally, he filled the night with words, but he hadn’t spoken since we turned for home. He looked different without his usual energy, as though the dark water itself had pulled something out of him.

Callum stood near the bow, one hand gripping the rail, watching the path ahead with focused attention. He had grown up hearing stories about strange things in Scottish waters, but he’d never been one to repeat them. The way he leaned into the darkness now told me he was running through every tale he’d dismissed in the past.

Angus kept both hands on the tiller, staring straight ahead, jaw tight. He did not look at us or at the water, fixated on a single point in the distance, guiding the Morag toward it as though nothing else existed. But his stillness didn’t read as calm—it looked like someone holding himself together by force.

About ten minutes into the return, the surface of the loch changed. The waves no longer moved in long, even lines. Instead, wide patches of water rose and fell at a slower rhythm, as if stirred by something large and deep beneath them. The surface didn’t break, but the movement was too heavy to dismiss.

Angus adjusted the engine speed. “Hold steady,” he said, more to himself than to us.

The Morag passed over one of the rising patches. The boat lifted slightly, then settled. The wave came not from wind, but from below. I felt the pressure of it through the soles of my boots.

“We need to get off this trench,” Callum said quietly. “If we move to shallower ground, it won’t follow as easily.”

“If we cut across too soon, we risk drifting into rocks,” Angus replied. “We stay on the safe route until the point opens up.” He spoke firmly, but not confidently.

Another heavy swell rose ahead of us, spreading in a wide arc. It created a clear bulge that traveled toward the surface, then sank. No wind changed. No current shifted. It came from below, just like the movement we felt earlier near the nets.

“That’s no current,” Fergus said. “I’m telling you, something’s keeping pace with us.”

No one contradicted him. The next swelling of the water came closer, only twenty meters ahead. The Morag passed over it. This time, the boat rocked harder. Loose gear clattered against the deck. I swallowed hard and tried to calm my breathing. I told myself it was just the loch—deep and unpredictable, the sort of place that fostered tales for centuries. But the rhythm of the movement, steady, powerful, and following us, worked against any rational thought.

When the next swell rose, I caught something else with it—a faint deep vibration through the hull. Not sound, not exactly—more a pressure that drifted into my chest and stayed there.

“Angus,” I said, “how much longer until we reach the wide stretch?”

“Ten minutes,” he answered. “Keep watch.”

I turned to look behind us. The lantern light reached only a short distance before the darkness took everything. For several seconds, nothing moved. Then, near the far edge of the lantern’s reach, the water pushed outward as though struck by a slow, strong force from below. The ring spread wider than any splash we had seen earlier.

“I saw it,” Fergus said quietly. “Something’s rising and sinking. It’s following our wake.”

I felt my throat tighten. “We don’t know that.”

“We do,” he replied.

Callum spoke without turning. “Whatever it is, it’s been testing us. Tearing nets, pulling lines. Now it’s coming closer.”

None of us asked how he knew that. The evidence was all around us in the water’s shifting surface.

As we neared the wider section of the loch, the hills pulled back slightly. The air felt even colder. The wind eased to almost nothing. The engine noise became more pronounced—the only steady sound in the world.

Then it stopped—not the engine, everything else. The water calmed. No swells rose. No odd vibrations followed. Even the faint mist ahead had thinned. For one brief moment, the loch felt normal again.

“It’s gone,” I whispered.

Angus shook his head. “No, it’s waiting.”

Fergus opened his mouth to speak, but something hit the underside of the boat. It was not a light tap. The entire hull jolted violently, throwing us off balance. I grabbed the rail with both hands. Callum stumbled and caught himself against the bow. Fergus fell to one knee. A low, heavy impact echoed through the timber, followed by a surge of ripples on both sides of the vessel.

Angus fought the tiller. “Hold on!”

Another strike came, this time angled upward. A deep thud carried through the deck. The Morag lifted on one side, then dropped hard, splashing cold water over us.

“Full speed!” Callum shouted.

Angus shoved the throttle forward. The engine answered with a roar, shaking the boat. We surged ahead, but the water behind us swelled again, closer than before. A dark mass rose under the surface, not breaking through, but large enough to distort everything above it.

I gripped the rail, my pulse pounding. “Angus, it’s coming up.”

“It won’t catch us in open stretch,” Angus said, shouting over the motor. “Stay on your feet.”

But he was wrong. A long shape broke the surface behind us—only for a second, but enough for all of us to see. A dark mound rose, smooth and broad. A section of neck or body reached upward, then sank again. The wake it created traveled fast, pushing toward us.

Fergus gasped. “That’s no log.”

The next surge of water reached the stern, lifting it for a moment. The Morag strained forward, engine whining under the load. The force behind us was tremendous.

Callum looked at me, his face pale in the lantern light. “It’s following our speed. That’s no animal I know.”

I didn’t answer. My voice had vanished somewhere between fear and disbelief. The creature—whatever it was—had surfaced briefly, enough to reveal a portion of its form, but most of it remained under the water, moving with purpose. The next time it surfaced, it would be closer. The next time it might come fully out of the loch.

“Angus,” I said, forced to raise my voice. “We can’t outrun something that lives in this depth.”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t turn. “Then we pray it decides we’re not worth the effort.”

But the creature did not seem to be losing interest. The water bulged again behind us. This time it did not sink right away. The bulge behind us rose higher than before. A long shape moved beneath the surface, pushing the water upward in a slow arc that kept gaining height. The creature stayed just below, close enough that the lantern reflected off the smooth, dark skin passing under the waves. We could not see its full body, but we knew it was far larger than anything that belonged to fresh water.

Angus tightened his grip on the tiller. “Hold steady. Don’t shift your weight.”

The order barely mattered. None of us could move even if we wanted to. I stood with my hands locked on the rail, unable to look away from the rising arc of water behind us.

A narrow section of neck broke through the surface. It rose only a short distance, but the sight froze every thought in my head. The skin was dark and smooth, water sliding off it in thin lines. A small head followed, pushing upward just enough for us to make out its shape—rounded, with a blunt snout and dark eyes that did not reflect any light. They absorbed it instead, giving the creature an expression that felt empty and unwavering.

The neck held there for only two or three seconds, then dropped back down. The wake it left rolled toward us in a wide, heavy swell.

Fergus backed away from the stern until he hit the steps leading to the cabin hatch. “It saw us,” he said. “It looked straight at us.”

No one argued. We had all seen it.

Callum stepped beside Angus, not taking control, but bracing him. “Keep speed steady. Don’t let it push us sideways.”

Angus nodded, jaw clenched tight. “If it strikes the hull again, move to center. No one goes overboard.”

The idea of falling into that water sent a bolt of fear through me. I could handle storms, cold, and rough seas. But falling into water with that creature beneath us felt like certain death.

The next surface movement came not behind us, but off to the port side. A long, dark hump rose above the water line, moving at a slight angle toward our path. The hump shifted with deliberate control, holding its position, pacing us.

“That’s part of its back,” Callum said. “It’s guiding us.”

I didn’t want to believe that. I didn’t want to believe it had intention, but the creature kept pace with us, adjusting its angle in small, subtle movements. The hump sank again, the water rolling inward as though pulled by its weight.

The engine strained at full speed. Angus pushed it as far as he dared. The bow cut through the waves, sending water spraying outward.

“Reach deeper water,” Angus muttered. “Give us room.”

“We’re already in deep water,” I said quietly.

He didn’t answer. The loch narrowed slightly ahead—not much, but enough that the slopes pressed closer. The path through the center grew darker. The narrowing made the water feel alive, like something breathing around us.

We didn’t speak for a long moment. We watched both sides of the loch, waiting for any sign of where the creature would surface next, but the water kept its steady movement. No ripples broke the pattern.

Then the boat slowed. It didn’t stop entirely—the Morag still pushed forward—but the engine’s strain grew louder. The boat dipped slightly at the stern, as if pulled back by a force below.

Angus widened his stance. “That shouldn’t be possible. There are no nets down, nothing to snag. Check the rudder line.”

Callum didn’t move. He stared at the water behind us. “It’s not the rudder,” he said.

The stern dipped again, deeper this time. The lantern swung, its light swaying across our faces and the deck.

Fergus grabbed the rail. “It’s under us.”

I looked down into the water, but the darkness hid everything. The only sign of its presence was the strange resistance slowing the Morag. The boat continued to move forward, but it fought for each meter.

Then the water erupted behind us. A massive surge pushed upward, parting the surface in a sudden, violent burst. A rounded head rose again, higher this time. The neck stretched several meters out of the water. Drops slid off its dark skin. The creature lifted enough for us to see more of its upper form—massive, solid, and unmistakably powerful. Its dark eyes fixed on us again.

Angus gripped the tiller so hard the wood creaked. “Don’t stop,” he said, voice steady but strained.

The creature lowered its head, moving closer to the boat. The wake it created caught the stern and lifted it. The Morag tilted forward, bow dipping toward the water. I stepped back instinctively, heart pounding. My breath came in quick bursts.

The creature did not strike. It slid beneath the surface again, passing under us. The hull trembled as if scraped by something immense. The vibrations crawled up through the deck boards and into my legs.

“Brace!” Callum shouted.

The stern dropped back into place just as the bow lifted. The Morag rocked violently, but Angus kept it from turning sideways.

Fergus pressed his back against the cabin door. “It’s playing with us,” he said. “It could tear the boat apart if it wanted.”

Angus didn’t deny it. Instead, he spoke with unexpected calm. “There’s a shallow shelf ahead. If we push past the narrow point, we reach it. It won’t be able to surface there.”

I swallowed hard. “What if it attacks before we reach it?”

“We keep moving,” Angus said. “No hesitation.”

Another swell formed off the starboard side, larger than the others. The creature rose again—not fully, but enough that we saw a long curve of its back and the beginning of a second hump before it slipped beneath the waves. The movement created a strong pull that veered the Morag slightly off its path.

“Correct it,” Callum said, helping Angus shift weight.

The engine groaned, the boat steadied. The creature surfaced once more, this time closer than any previous moment. The head rose only a short distance from the stern, close enough that the lantern’s glow reached its skin. Water poured off it in streams. The eyes stayed fixed on us—not angry, not confused, just aware. I could feel the weight of its presence without understanding it. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem driven by simple hunger or instinct. It moved with purpose.

The creature sank again, the water folding over it in a smooth motion. Angus exhaled through his teeth. “It’s guiding us up the loch.”

“No,” Callum said. “It’s herding us.”

The word made my stomach turn.

The hills began to open wider as we neared the transition into the shallow shelf Angus mentioned. The mist ahead thinned into a faint haze. The engine pushed hard, but the Morag responded better now. The stern lifted, the drag below lessening.

“We’re close,” Angus said. “Just keep her straight.”

But before we could reach the shallower region, the creature rose again, this time directly in front of our path. The dark neck and head breached the surface, blocking the way forward. The creature’s head stood in our path, dark and motionless. Water streamed down its neck in thin lines. Its eyes stayed fixed on us, unblinking in the lantern’s glow.

The Morag slowed despite the engine’s effort, as if the creature’s presence alone pressed against our movement. Angus eased the throttle just enough to keep us from striking it.

“Hold steady,” he said, though his voice had lost all certainty.

The boat drifted closer. None of us spoke. There was no language to bridge the distance between us and something that had lived in the loch long before any of our families.

The creature lowered its head by a small degree. Its breath sounded like a deep surge beneath the surface, a low movement of air rather than a sound. Then, just as slowly, it sank back under the water. Its long neck vanished last, sliding beneath the surface in one controlled motion.

The water calmed for a moment. The path ahead reopened. Angus took the chance. “Go,” he said, pushing the throttle forward again. “Now.”

The Morag surged ahead, passing the spot where the creature had been only seconds earlier. I looked down as we crossed it. The depth was absolute black. Anything might have been below us, matching our speed without showing itself.

The hills opened wider as we entered the broader stretch of the loch. The shelf Angus mentioned lay somewhere ahead, shallower than the trench, but still deep enough to hold anything that knew the loch better than we did.

For a minute, nothing followed. No swells rose. No dark shapes broke the surface. Even the mist thinned until the air felt clearer than before.

Fergus let out a shaky breath. “Is it gone?”

“No,” Callum said. “It’s waiting for us to relax.”

Angus glanced over his shoulder. “Eyes on the loch. All of you.”

I watched the wake trail behind us, expecting to see the creature’s head rise again, but the water stayed calm. The waves were small and natural now. The silence grew heavier.

Minutes passed. The Morag made good speed through the wider part of the loch. The fear that had tightened my chest began to shift—not easing, but turning into an expectation, waiting for the next sign.

I turned to look at the starboard side, scanning the surface for any disturbance. That was when I saw it. Farther out, near the edge of the lantern’s fading reach, a long dark shape moved parallel to us—not fast, not breaking the surface, just gliding. Its outline shifted in and out of the faint ripples—a long back, a suggestion of a second ridge behind it. It stayed completely silent.

“It’s still with us,” I said quietly.

Callum didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes ahead. “Of course it is.”

Angus held his jaw tight and kept the Morag moving. We could not outpace something that moved through this loch as if born from it. We could only hope it lost interest.

That hope faded when the creature’s shadow shifted direction. It angled inward toward us.

“Angus,” I said, “it’s closing in.”

He didn’t answer. He braced himself and adjusted the tiller. The shadow gained speed. The ripples around it spread outward. It cut toward our path with a silent, controlled line. The water behind it rose in a faint swell.

Fergus stepped back from the rail. “It’s going to hit us.”

Callum stayed at the bow, posture tight, ready to brace for another strike. “Hold center when it does,” he