“Look! OhmyGod! Dad! Right there!” August threw himself to the side of the dinghy, relying wholly on the battered metal to carry his weight as he grabbed for the threads of his backpack. “Dad, did you see it? We’ve got to catch him on camera! OhmyGod, no one at school will believe this! We need a news crew down here, stat!” August unzipped the tattered bag, tearing passed his forgotten sandwich and Pokémon cards.[break][break]

Marcell could see that most of the fuss was being made by his son ripping through their supplies and being careless as usual. He caught a glimpse of the video camera and the voice recorder from home, watching August struggle to juggle them both one hand. “What are you doing?”[break][break]

“Filming a documentary! What are you doing?” August was pointing at the open crossword book that lay in his father’s lap. [break][break]

“Sorry, Squirt." Marcell set it aside, mustering his most sincere grin. "What am I looking at this time?” Now that the summer holidays had started, their allocated father-son time consisted of one cryptid hunt after the next. He was becoming an expert at abstracting reasonable data from the blurry photos and videos August provided for research. He had hoped a day on the lake would offer some relief from their mind bending efforts, but his son was as relentless as he was stubborn.[break][break]

“That! For Cripes sake! Don’t you hear it?” August pointed, jabbing the air as he spoke. [break][break]

The surface of the Okanagan lake had been a sheet of glass until a few moments ago. Marcell gave thoughtful pause to the mysterious ripples that were now breaking the surface. It was too hard to make anything out clearly; They were separated from the disturbance by a significant rowing distance.[break][break]

“It’s just a wave.” [break][break]

“Noit’snot!” August had the eye of the camera pressed against his face as he spoke. He calmed down when he appeared to be getting sufficient footage and added, “if it’s a wave, it’s moving all on it’s own...And away from shore.”[break][break]

He had a point. Perhaps it was a current. No, Marcell banished the thought. There were no notable currents on this side of the lake. “Oh.” He broke the silence. “I can hear it now.” The steady swish, swish, swish was reminiscent of something moving in the water, away from them thankfully. “Maybe it’s a sturgeon,” he offered.[break][break]

“Dad!” August forgot to whisper and his voice carried across the lake, pinched with the impatience that typically accompanied adolescence. “It’s obviously the Ogopogo! I knew he was real!” Throwing himself down onto the bench, he kept the camera pressed to his face. “Let’s go! We have to get better footage!”[break][break]

“I mean, he probably doesn’t wanna be disturbed. Can’t we just enjoy the rest of our vacation on the beach—“[break][break]

“No— start rowing!”[break][break]

“Aye—Aye cap’n!” Fearing the safety of the puzzle-book, Marcell took up his station at the centre of the boat. It had been a while since his son was obsessed with the lake monsters and myths surrounding the area. Middle school had taken its toll on him and August had become more shy and less willing to share his ideas. Marcell thought it nice to see him returning to his old self again, even if it meant sacrificing his crossword and the rest of their vacation to search for a monster that didn’t exist.[break][break]

Marcell made slow work moving them towards the ripples. He wasn’t altogether eager to come up on a giant fish in their rickety dinghy, and was having difficulty navigating through the forest of lakeweed that kept grabbing at the oars. They had been drifting over it for some time now. [break][break]

swish, swish, swish.[break][break]

The sturgeon, that’s what he decided it was, stayed ahead of them. But now that the sun had drifted behind a wall of cloud, it was easier for Marcell to make out the nondescript form carving like an ‘S’ over the water. Odd. He’d never seen a sturgeon move like that before.[break][break]

swish, swish, swish.[break][break]

“You all set up over there, squirt?”[break][break]

August muttered something inaudible, confirming the camera straps were being used like they’d discussed, when the boat gave a violent jerk.[break][break]

One of the oars ripped itself from Marcell's hand with bruising force. He watched it, open-mouthed, as it sliced through the water, vanishing into the lakeweed below. Half-aware of August speaking into his voice recorder, Marcell searched the waters for any sign of their paddle. The oarlock had been torn free from the boat which now sported a new and jagged hole.[break][break]

He was still for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. They were down one oar. Had it gotten stuck somehow? Lake weed could be tricky...[break][break]

“Hey! Why did we stop?” August was red with impatience, and he spun the video camera to inspect his father. “And stop rocking the boat, it’s making the camera shaky!” He added as the dinghy gave another wobble. [break][break]

Marcell licked his lips, trying his best to sound calm as he said, “Son, please put on your life jacket.”[break][break]

“What! At a time like this!?!”[break][break]

The dinghy shuddered. [break][break]

“August Theodore.Put. Your lifejacket. On, or so help me I will turn this boat around.”[break][break]

His son looked caught off guard by his tone, and Marcell would have felt bad if he couldn't already see the ugly tip of teenaged arrogance rearing its head.[break][break]

"Fine, but I'm leaving this on." August set the video camera on the bench as he rummaged for his life jacket. He was half-way through zipping it up when he faltered. "Hang on, what happened to the boat?" He pointed to the missing oarlock and paddle.[break][break]

"Oh. I must have dropped it." Marcell thought there was no way his son would buy into such an obvious lie. He was still flexing his left hand, trying to work through the numbness when August threw himself towards the front of the boat.[break][break]

“Oh no!”[break][break]

“What! What?!” He demanded. August was pointing at nothing, just the lake. The surface lay perfectly still. There was no sign of the mysterious waves from before. Thank goodness, Marcell thought. “Sorry squirt. I guess we didn’t get there fast enough—“ the words had no sooner left his mouth when the other oar was ripped clean from his hands. This one did not cut through the water. It hit the dinghy with a loud slap, whacking the boat before it disappeared into the lake weed. [break][break]

“Um.... dad...?" This time August had witnessed the disappearance of their remaining paddle and he was staring at his father, mouth forming a silent ‘o’.[break][break]

“Yes son.” Marcell was just as speechless. How were they going to get back to shore? Of course something like this would happen when there was virtually no one on the lake.[break][break]

Swish. Swish. Swish.[break][break]

“Oh no,” Marcell said.[break][break]

“Oh yes!” the boat wobbled as August leaped to his feet. He was hysterical as he yelled,“It’s coming back! Dad it’s coming! It's coming this way!”[break][break]

There was no need to squint any further. Something very long and very wide was carving its way towards them. Marcell tried to swallow passed the cotton in his throat. "What does the Ogopogo eat again?" He croaked.[break][break]

For the first time he thought he heard a hint of anxiety in his son's voice. "Uhm, there's a small community of people that believe he only eats lakeweed." [break][break]

"And the other communities?"[break][break]

“Um....” [break][break]

"Ohmygod we're going to die." Marcell whispered, rolling up his puzzle book just in case he needed to hit something. In a louder voice he added, "Son, come to the center of the boat please."[break][break]

There was no reason for August to argue; the beast was less than ten yards away now. They could see clearly the feathery ridge that came off of its back. How long was it supposed to be? Fifty, sixty feet?[break][break]

“OhmyGod! Dad! It’s real! Ogopogo is REAL!” August was nothing but boundless excitement as he leaned forwards, the video camera pressed to his face. Marcell wouldn't go as far as to say it was] the Ogopogo, but he could no longer say it wasn’t. [break][break]

Before he could become too sure of what they were seeing, the shape vanished beneath the waters and the lake became smooth again. [break][break]
August lowered the video camera, leaning against the side of the dinghy. "... I think it's under the boat." The words had hardly met the fresh air when the digny gave a violent lurch, threatening to roll them into the water.[break][break]

"No!" August reached for the video camera a second too late, and Marcell reached for his son just in time, pulling him back onto the bench.[break][break]

"You should've saved the camera!"[break][break]

"I just saved your life!"[break][break]

The boat lurched again. This time they were moving backwards slowly at first and then all at once as a shadow shot from the lake, dousing them water. Someone screamed. Marcell was embarassed to admit it was probably himself. [break][break]

The Ogopogo looked nothing like the pictures. If he were to guess, it was a distant relative to the water snake, although the fin on its back was a sad reminder of a prehistoric era. It flopped ragged and torn like a neglected flag.[break][break]

"Huh, so it does eat lake weed. Go figure." August spoke, drawing his father's eyes away from serpentine body unwinding before them and towards the head of the beast itself.[break][break]

Even with a mouth full of weeds, the Ogopogo was a horrifying sight to behold. Two reptilian eyes, larger than dinner plates, stared unblinking at the passengers in the dinghy. It could have been the shock, but Marcell figured the creature's eyes were so bright they must give off their own light of some kind. It's teeth looked sharp, though most of them looked twisted and broken, not like they were for eating lakeweed at all.[break][break]

The Ogopogo watched them passively before the boat shook a second time and Marcell remembered the rest of the Ogopogo was still beneath them. [break][break]

“What do you think you're—August!” He yelled, watching his son reach over the side of the boat and grab a fist full of kelp. “What are you DOING?!” He spluttered. [break][break]

The snake seemed to consider the weeds before it leaned forwards and snatched them so suddenly that Marcell was beginning to realize where their oars had gone to. He stared in shock as the snake chewed at the roots unsuccesfully before snorting and spraying the passengers of the boat with snot-water. Without breaking its unyielding stare, the Ogopogo drifted slowly towards the lake and disappeared to continue grazing beneath its surface.[break][break]

This time it was August who yelled when the boat shot backwards with alarming speed. Marcell fell off the bench and onto their sandwiches. He crushed a bag of chips before scrambling to his feet again. "What's going on!"[break][break]

A quick look at their surroundings confirmed they had been pushed clear of the underwater forest, and, floating towards them was a soggy video camera and two oars. The surface of the Okanagan was still once more, but somewhere in the distance they could still here a gentle swish. Swish. Swish.[break][break]

“Oh. My. God.” August whispered. "The Ogopogo is real."[break][break]

For once in all their adventures, Marcell managed to croak the two words he thought he'd never say. "You're right."

[attr="class","storyIcon"]

[attr="class","storyTitle"]

The Ogopogo