Page 21 (1/2)

Prologue

The Lake

Bryan Cannon looked at the catfish—its bone-like whiskers, its sli eyes—and he saw death For the creature, of course, not hiht

The day was beautiful A slight coolness crisped the air, balanced perfectly by the brilliant sun shining down on Bryan’s boat, sparkling off the waters that surrounded hiht Too bad this fish wasn’t enjoying things as much as he was

Bryan had caught the fish in the little body of water in which he floated—called, quite pretentiously, Lake Nore was classified as a lake, then Bryan’s toilet at ho pond He chuckled to himself, as he often did at his own jokes, and spiked another squiret comfortable then he cast the line

His sentle waves rippling across the lake’s surface He watched the

outer like it didn’t have a care in the world Bryan always loved it when he could keep his eyes trained on the tiny wave until it actually hit the shore It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and his eyes watered with the effort

There it goes, he thought, getting smaller and sht over by that sandy—

Splash!

A disturbance in the water, right where the lake e one, that sprayed droplets all over the sht at the spot, so he knew no one had jumped in

Yet another splash Then another It looked like so to douse all of his friends in the face Bryan used to love doing that when he’d been a kid

There was only one probleht Or an adult, for that matter Nobody

The disturbance continued Curious, Bryan laid his fishing pole along the length of the canoe and reached for his paddle Never taking his eyes off the white-water display, he lowered the tip down into the lake and began paddling his way over to check things out He figured only one of three things was possible

One, they had theht here in Lake Norman

Two, some vicious sea monster had found itself a way to the lake from the ocean

Or three, Bryan Cannon had finally flipped his lid and gone bonkers

The closer he approached, the worse the splashing Great cascades of water shot up everywhere—five, ten feet in the air A curtain of spray unfurled next to hi down the sides of the boat For the first tih Bryan’s innards, and he realized itin the world to co was under the water

He stopped paddling, slowing to a drift As he did so, the splashing abruptly ceased In a rew relatively calainst his canoe the only evidence anything had happened at all If anything, the sudden stillness only scared Bryan more He stared at the spot

So out of the water