The Stolen Dead

Wednesday, 25th April 1860

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Chapter 1​

 

  Dressed in a kilt and a thin shirt, Bruce McTavish called it “ proper Scottish summer weather”. I called it ruddy freezing. It was a grey and cloudy day with a bitter wind that bit at any exposed skin. It was the end of April, yet it felt like the middle of January. I buried my head in the folds of my coat trying to find some relief, but the Scottish Hills covered in bracken and brown grass were exposed to the elements. With head down I trudged after Bruce up the twisting sheep trail. Not concentrating on the path, I slipped on a patch of mud. I flailed my arms trying to keep upright. My foot slid out from beneath me. I couldn’t right myself and I tumbled down the steep bank to my left, coming to a halt a in a clump of bracken ten feet below the track.

 

  “You all right down there?” Bruce McTavish called out. He was struggling to repress his grin.

 

  “I’m fine,” I said.

 

  I climbed to my feet brushing the grass and dirt from my coat. Not for the first time I cursed the Professor. While I endured the cold, dampness of the Scottish Highlands, the Professor remained in London surrounded by the warm comforts of home. Clutching the long grass for support I scrambled back up the bank. Reaching the sheep track Bruce pulled me to my feet.

 

  “You took a mighty tumble,” Bruce said. At fifteen he was only a couple of months older than me, yet the age difference between us looked like several years. He was a head taller with long muscular limbs and thick red hair. Patchy ginger fluff covered his face in a feeble excuse for a beard. He carried a loaded rifle, claiming we needed it for protection. “You sure you’re all right to continue?”

 

  “How much further have to go?” I said.

 

  “Not far now.” It was his default response whenever I asked. He pointed to the top of the closest hill. “The loch is on the other side of that beinn. You sure an English city boy like you can get up there?”

 

  “Just take me to where you saw it.”

 

  The spectacular scenery almost made up for the cold. Amongst the rolling hills we were the only people for miles. We crossed the crest of the hill, or the beinn as the Scottish called it, and began to descend into the valley on the other side. At the base of the valley a long narrow loch stretched for several miles towards the hazy hills in the distance. The water, a grey mirror of the afternoon sky, rippled in the strong breeze.

 

  Bruce stopped halfway down the hill amongst a rocky outcrop. He pointed to a thin pebble beach at the water’s edge. “That’s where I saw it.”

 

  Trying to get out of the wind, I crouched beside a large boulder protruding from the grass. I brushed the rock clean and placed my notepad upon its surface. “What did you see?”

 

  “I already told you back at home.”

 

  “Well tell me again.”

 

  “It was early evening, and I was checking on the sheep. We had a few ewes out grazing ready to bring back down to the farm to lamb. I was standing right here when I spotted a sheep down by the loch. I started to walk down to it when I saw the water rippling. A dark hump rose out of the water heading towards the sheep. Then as I watched a monster came out of the loch and grabbed the sheep.”

 

  “What happened next?”

 

  “I didn’t stay to find out. I ran for home. When I looked again from the top of the beinn the sheep was gone. The monster had dragged it into the water.”

 

  I looked down at the grey water in the loch. Was it possible that it harboured such a creature?

 

  Of course not. That was why the Professor had sent me. He had taken one look at the report, dismissed it as a waste of his time, and sent me as his representative.

 

  “And this monster, what did it look like?”

 

  Bruce looked off into the distance. “I only got a brief glimpse.”

 

  “Just describe it the best you can.”

 

  “It had a long head. A bit like a horse.”

 

  “Like a horse?”

 

  “Aye, just like a horse, but a longer and thinner snout. It was a kelpie. No doubt about it.”

 

  “A kelpie?” I repeated.

 

  My scepticism must have shown because Bruce nodded his head ardently. “Aye, defiantly a kelpie. They’re water spirits that live in the rivers and lochs. They can take the shape of a man or horse. As a horse they trick people to climb on to their back before running into the nearest source of water. If you’re lucky they will disappear after jumping into the water. But sometimes they will drown you or rip you to shreds before eating you.”

 

  “And you are certain you saw a kelpie?”

 

  “Aye, as certain as there is water in that loch.”

 

  I looked up at the sky to get my bearing. From our position the loch was directly to the west. Bruce claimed to have seen the creature in the early evening just as the sun would have been setting over the loch. The long shadows and the shimmer of the sun on the loch could have easily produced the illusion of something emerging from the water.

 

  I shook my head. Sometimes I even surprised myself how much I was beginning to think like the Professor. It had only been three months earlier that I had taken a position as Professor Ashcroft’s apprentice. The Professor had wanted an educated man to assist him disproving the existence of the supernatural, instead to his displeasure he had ended up with me. A fourteen, nearly fifteen-year-old boy that in his eyes was completely inept.

 

  “What do you know about the people that have disappeared?” I asked.

 

  The report of people disappearing in the area was the real reason for my visit. Not even the Professor would send me all the way to Scotland to investigate a missing sheep. Unless he was trying to get rid of me. Which was a real possibility. The Professor was hardly satisfied with my contributions to his work. He had already fired me once. I have only retained my job as thanks for saving his life. Although the Professor was yet to admit that perhaps I wasn’t completely inept after all.

 

  “Ever since anyone can remember people have gone missing in the area. A few years back the McCone lad disappeared. He was last seen playing near the water.” Bruce pointed to where the far end of the loch was concealed by a neighbouring hill. “You can’t see it from here, but there is a river at the far end. A couple of months back a traveller was walking along the road. He was last seen crossing the bridge over the river. Like all the others he was taken by the kelpie.”

 

  The disappearances were more plausibly explained by the missing having the misfortune of drowning rather than falling victim to a beast of superstition. The loch would be cold, incredibly deep, and murky. A body could easily disappear into its depths never to be seen again. I put the notepad back into my pocket and stood up. I stared out at the loch. The Professor had insisted I prove that there was no such thing as a kelpie. Easier said than done. How did you disprove the existence of creature that did not exist? Luckily, I had a plan.

 

  “Tomorrow I’m going to need a dead sheep, a couple of gallons of blood, and a boat,” I said looking out over the loch.

 

  “What on earth for?”

 

  I turned to him and smiled. “I’m going fishing.”

 

 

Thursday, 26th April 1860

 

Chapter 2

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  “This is utter madness,” Bruce said dipping the oars into the water.

 

  “You didn’t have to come,” I reminded him.

 

  “And who would have rowed you out to the middle of the loch?”

 

  “I would have managed.”

 

  “Aye and when you came a cropper, I would have your death on my conscience. If you’re mad enough to try such a thing, you will be glad that you had Bruce McTavish to watch your back.”

 

  Having the benefit of growing up on a farm Bruce possessed a physical strength that I lacked. He manned the oars with smooth disciplined strokes that I had failed to replicate on my turn. Bruce had quickly got frustrated and taken the oars from me.

 

  I turned back to the bow with a small smile on my lips. Bruce feared that my plan to fish for the loch monster was an act of lunacy. I happened to agree, but only because no such creature existed. Ahead lay a day of sitting in the boat waiting for nothing to happen and we couldn’t have picked a better day to waste. The bitter wind had died away, the warm sun shimmered off the water and for the first time since leaving London I was enjoying myself.

 

  When we caught nothing, nobody could accuse me of not trying. I had hired the small rowboat. With Bruce’s help I had built a custom-made crane (a tripod with a crank that when turned wound the rope on to a drum) to fit at the bow of the boat. Attached to the rope was a cruel hook fashioned from a farm implement used to hook hay. We were hunting for a monster so needed a bit more than a handful of worms as bait. We had got a barrel full of blood from a local butcher to draw the monster in. On the end of our hook was putrefying sheep head. The perfect bait for any hungry monster.

 

  “This will do,” I said. We were about five hundred feet from the shore.

 

  I leaned over the edge of the starboard side and stared down into the greyish green water. “How deep do you think it is?”

​

  Bruce grabbed the back of my coat and pulled me back into the boat.

 

  “It’s not safe to be sticking your head over the edge like that,” Bruce warned. “If you’re going to do it at least wait until I have a gun in my hand.”

 

  Humouring him I nodded and sat back down in the boat. I waited until Bruce had stowed the oars and picked up his rifle before taking the lid off the gallon barrel. With the gentle bobbing of the boat the sheep blood sloshed up the sides of the barrel. I ladled six cups of sheep blood into the loch.

 

  “Do you think that is going to work?” Bruce asked. He stood in the middle of the boat his rifle pointed at the bloody slick in the water.

 

  “When hunting sharks, they ladle blood into the sea to attract them,” I explained. I had read about the method in one of the Professor’s books. “The principle should be the same. If the kelpie is a predator it should possess a strong sense of smell especially in the murky loch water. The blood will act as a lure bringing it to us. When it takes the bait, we will hook it and bring it in.”

 

  “This boat is not big enough.”

 

  “We will be fine.”

 

  If I believed for one second in the possibility of catching a kelpie, I certainly would not have come out in a small rowing boat barely big enough for four people.

 

  I took the large hook from the bottom of the boat, checked the rope was secure, and then baited the hook with the rotting sheep head. I threw the head into the water followed by forty feet of rope. Before Bruce could protest, I dipped my hands into the water to wash the foul smell from them. I ladled another few cups of blood into the water, checked that the tripod was securely mounted to the prow of the boat, and then sat back to wait.

 

  Bruce remained standing for half an hour and then as nothing was happening sat down. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”

 

  “This is the first time I have ever fished for a lake monster,” I admitted ladling more blood into the water. “Although I have faced other… let’s just say dangers before.”

 

  I still couldn’t sleep without a lit candle beside my bed. Two months had passed since the incident in the Potteries. It didn’t help that prior to my trip to Scotland the Professor had me rewriting the notes of the incident at the Field’s Fine China Factory. The process had revived many of my fears of the dark. To my dismay, the Professor had stricken all accounts of the wraith being a supernatural entity from the documentation. The Professor claimed it was a hoax yet had still failed to provide a rational explanation for what we had seen and experienced the night Gerry Lowe had died.

 

  Two hours passed and as expected there was no sign of the mythical creature. After ladling more blood into the water I decided to stop for lunch. I was laying a slice of bread with lumps of hard cheese when I noticed Bruce’s eyes widen.

 

  “Did you see that?” Bruce asked.

 

  I followed his gaze to a circle of spreading ripples about sixty feet away. “What did you see?”

 

  “Just the water beginning to ripple,” Bruce said standing up for a better look.

 

  “Probably a fish breaking the surface.”

 

  “Aye could be,” Bruce said unconvinced.

 

  Suddenly the boat rocked violently towards the starboard side before rolling back. It felt as if we had been struck by a giant wave. Bruce stumbled backwards. Flailing his arms he tried to keep his balance. He remained in the boat at the cost of his hold on the rifle. The gun flew from his grasp and splashed into the water. Before he could grab it, the rifle sunk down into the depths.

 

  “The gun!” Bruce cried. “My father’s going to kill me.”

 

  “What did we hit?” I asked. We were several hundred feet from the shore in water far too deep for us to have hit a rock.

 

  “It was the kelpie!”

 

  “It might have been…”

 

  “It wasn’t a fish,” Bruce interrupted reaching for the oars. “We’ve got to get back to land!”

 

  The rope jerked. 

 

  I watched in disbelief as the coils of slack rope drifting in the water pulled tight. Something had taken the bait. The crank whirled around as the rope spun off the drum. The rope snapped taunt with enough force to drag the bow of the boat down into the water.

Cursing Bruce took to the oars like he was possessed. But for all his effort the boat moved further away from the shore. Whatever had taken the hook was powerful enough to drag us through the water.

 

  “It’s the Kelpie. It will drag us under. Cut it lose!” Bruce cried. No sooner had he uttered the words the rope went slack. The boat righted and Bruce slumped in his seat relieved.

 

  “The rope must have broke,” I said turning the crank and winding in the slack rope. I reeled in about ten feet and then began to feel resistance of something pulling back. I let go of the crank. It turned slowly anticlockwise on its own as the rope began to unwind.

 

  “Bruce, I think we still got it.”

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Chapter 3

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  Bruce looked horrified. “Cut the rope!”

 

  “Let’s not be too hasty,” I said. “What if it really is a kelpie we got on the other end?”

 

  “Then we have to cut it free before it attacks us.”

 

  “Or we try and land the creature.”

 

  “Are you mad? We don’t have the gun if things go wrong.”

 

  “But what if we landed the creature? Just think of what that would mean. We would prove the existence of the kelpie. You would be famous. Your face would be on the front of every paper. You would be a hero amongst the scientific community. Who knows, you might even be knighted. Just imagine Sir Bruce McTavish.”

 

  “Aye and I suppose there would be a Sir Nick Briggs as well?”

 

  “I’m not going to let you have all the glory.” Especially if it meant proving the Professor wrong. I was still bitter about his denial of the wraith’s existence. Even all ways right Professor Ashcroft would not be able to deny the body of a kelpie. All we had to do was get the thing out of the water.

 

  Bruce bit his lip. “Say I agree, how do we bring the monster in?”

 

  “It will be a fight, but if we take our time and pull it in slowly the creature will get exhausted. Then when it’s weak we row back to land and drag it ashore. I can’t do this without you. So, what do you say? Shall we catch this monster?”

 

  “I don’t know.”

 

  “This is a chance of a lifetime, Bruce. Fame and glory. Or cut if free. Your call?”

Bruce glanced at the edge of the loch six hundred feet away, then nodded slowly. “Fame and glory it is. But I want your word that if things get out of hand you will cut the rope.”

 

  “You have my word,” I said reaching for the crank.

 

 I slowly reeled the rope in. Several times our quarry fought back pulling against the rope with enough strength to unspool the reel. Bruce watched with his knife in hand. He was ready at a moment’s notice to cut the rope. He did not offer once to take the crank. He had made it clear that as it was my plan, it was up to me to land the monster. When I reminded him about the glory Bruce just smiled and said he was saving his energy for rowing us back in.

 

  An hour passed and although my biceps felt as if they were going to burst I at last felt like I was making progress. The creature on the other end of the rope no longer fought as hard. At times I could reel several feet of rope in before it fought back. It was tiring, but so was I. This fight would come down to who could last the longest.

 

  Suddenly the crank became easy to turn as if there was nothing on the end.

 

  “The rope broke,” I sighed. My mammoth fight had all been for nothing. “I guess we…”

 

  Something crashed into the hull with enough force to lift the whole boat a foot clear of the water. The boat dropped back down with a splash, drenching us in freezing water.

 

  “W-w-what hap- hap- happened?” Bruce stammered.

 

  Before I could reply something thudded against the bottom of the boat. A crack appeared in the boards between us. Water began seeping around our feet.

 

  “It’s trying to sink us!” Bruce yelled. He passed me his knife. “Cut it free!”

 

  I didn’t argue. I sawed at the rope as the monster struck the hull again. The boards split, and a long snout burst through the bottom of the boat. Its mouth opened to reveal staggered dagger like teeth. The mottled greyish brown skin was smooth like the skin of an amphibian. The hook was embedded in the top of its mouth. The crocodilian like jaws closed and the snout disappeared back into the water.

 

  Water surged through the hole filling the bottom of the boat. Bruce bailed the water out with his cupped hands, but within seconds the water was shin deep. I franticly sawed at the rope. The strands slowly breaking. The boat rocked as the monster struck the boat again.

 

  “Hurry up,” Bruce screamed.

 

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

 

  The knife cut through the remaining strands and the rope snapped with a twang. I hoped that now free the monster would swim away.

 

  But it didn’t. The snout smashed back through the hole in the boat. The gaping jaws flailed around as the monster blindly hunted for something to latch on too. Bruce swung an oar down on to the snout. The jaws clamped shut shattering the oar into splinters.

The water was up to our knees. With only one oar there was no chance we would manage to get the boat back to shore.

 

  “We’re going to have to swim for it!”

 

  “I’m not going to get in the water with that thing,” Bruce said. Between us the jaws thrashed from side to side as it tried to grab us.

 

  “We’re already in the water with it,” I said. “We either swim for it while it’s busy or wait until the boat has sunk.”

Bruce paled but began striping down to his undergarments. Undressing I threw my discarded clothes at the jaws. The jaws snapped shut tearing my clothes to shreds, but it tricked the creature into thinking that it was succeeding in catching something and remaining in the boat.

 

  “Go now!” I cried.

 

  Bruce nodded.

 

  We jumped into the water.

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 Chapter 4

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  I shuddered at the icy sting. I heard Bruce gasp beside me. It would not take the monster long to realise we were in the water. Without looking at Bruce or the boat I swam for the shore. We had drifted to within two hundred feet from the shore, a distance that would take a couple of minutes to swim. How long would it take an aquatic monster to swim the same distance? Half the time? A quarter of the time?

 

  I didn’t want to think about it. Images of jaws grabbing my legs from below filled my mind. Would it drag me down in to the cold depths and drown me or just bit me in half. I didn’t know what was worse. The thought made me begin to panic. I tried to forget about the monster and concentrate on swimming. After what felt like an eternity my hands slapped against mud at the edge of the loch. I stumbled to my feet in knee high water. Only then did I look back.

 

  Bruce swam with an inefficient doggy paddle. He was about fifty feet away. A hundred and fifty feet beyond him the tip of the boat’s bow poked out of the water. The rest of the boat was submerged.

 

  There was no sign of the monster. I sighed a breath of relief. The monster had fled back into the depths of the lock.

 

  Then a large hump broke the surface beside the boat. The moisture in my throat dried as the hump turned towards Bruce.

 

  “Hurry up!” I screamed.

 

  Bruce glanced over his shoulder and saw the approaching hump. He thrashed in the water trying to go faster. With every foot he swam the hump was traveling four. Bruce reached waist depth water. He gave up with swimming. Using his arms, he pushed the water aside fighting his way towards the shore.

 

  Bruce raced past me. The hump continued forward as the creature changed its target. Drawing into the shallows the hump rose out of the water. I frantically backpedalled towards the shore. The monster drew within striking range. My feet were on the gravel beach.

 

  Still the monster came forward.

 

  SssssHHHWOOOOSSHHH.

 

  I was hit by a wave of foam and spray as the creature surged up on to the shore. I fell on to my backside as the monster beached itself in front of us. Its head was similar in shape to a crocodile with large yellow eyes. It had a large, humped body and instead of legs had four flippers each as long as a toddler. In its rage the creature’s jaws snapped at us, but I was beyond its reach. Realising we had escaped, the creature shuffled awkwardly backwards into the water. It moved ungainly in the shallows, but once in the deeper water the monster submerged in a circle of ripples. One by one the ripples disappeared, and the monster was gone.

 

  Bruce sat down on the pebbly beach beside me. He clapped his hand on my back.  “Next time you listen to me and keep to fishing for fish.”