A ripple of bubbles can be seen heading away from shore. They dissapear as It heads into deeper water. Back on shore, all signs of the attack are swept away as the wind resumes blowing fiercly across the sand. Slowly, all sound return to the deserted beach; the crashing of the ocean waves on the sand, the song of crickets in nearyby willow trees, the rustling of the trees' branches against and old fisherman's shack, the creaking of an old dock, weathered by time. The beach has returned to normal ....... or so it seems.

8:50 AM

Lieutenant Manchek quietly closed the door of Police Chief Williams' office behind him. "You wanted to see me sir?" he called out to the man sitting in the swivel chair in front of him. The chair slowly turned around to reveal a man in a blue police uniform. The police chief lifted his hat and raised his deep brown eyes to Manchek's and whispered, "It's back".

9:10 AM

"At 8:43 AM today, we recieved a call from a local fisherman. He stated that he heard some strange sounds coming from this direction last night. He also called to report his 6 year old daughter missing. Since she is a minor, we cannot start an official search for her until she has been missing for 24 hours; but the father simply coudn't wait that long. As soon as we told him that we coudn't start a search for another 12 hours, he hung up on us and no one has seen or heard from hhim since. He has probably gone off in search of his daughter. Because we now have two missing people, I have descided to start an unofficial search for them. Break off into pairs of two and thoroughly search this area, and the area around the fishing shack. Dissmissed".

The police men and forest rangers scattered off into the bushes. In two minutes, no one was left in the clearing except Williams and Manchek. They quietly conferred with each other.

"We must never let the truth about this incident come out, if it really is you-know-what. If we do recover the girl's body from the water, we must cover up all the evidence. We will label it as an accidental drowning. I'll go call Uncle Sam, while you search for evidence in this area. If you find any, take it and show it to me when we rendez-vous at you-know-where". With that final word, he left the Lieutenant with the beach and whatever lay in the recesses of the water.

1:00 PM

Police Chief Williams entered the restaurant and headed directly towards the darkest, farthest corner of the room. Sitting at the ddesignated table was Lieutenant Manchek. He sat down across from him and hailed the waitress. When she came he ordered a beer, noting that Manchek already had one. Neither of them said a word until the beer arrived and the waitress was out of earshot.

Williams said in a low voice, "What have you got for me?" Manchek placed some objects on the counter. Williams inspected them closely. There was a button, a small doll, and in a plastic baggie, what looked like a piece of chewed up human flesh. Williams asked if any of the others found anything. Manchek responded,

"Wiel found a shoelace entangled in a root, and he concluded that the girl must have wandered out of her house, and sometime later tripped over the root and lost the lace".

"Good, good," Williams muttered. "Any trouble with the media?"

"None so far. How was your call to the government? What do we do next?"

"Special Forces at the Pentagon want to go in right away and kill it," Williams paused as a waiter passed by. "When the President was alerted to our predicament, he suggested dragging the lake for the girl's body, and if no remains are found, to send an underwater squad to search for any signs of It."

"I just have one question sir. If we killed it twenty years ago, how the hell did it come back?" Lieutenant Manchek leaned forward in anticipation.

"The Pentagon thinks It must have had a child, probably laid an egg that we mistook for a rock. It most likely fed on fish all this time. Remember, the number of salmon in th lake has decreased drastically. Now, It needs something to satisfy It's hunger. Maybe It has an instinct to hunt humans, and maybe It was going to die of starvation, but It's found It's self a plentiful food source. One thing is for sure. It. Must. Not. Breed. We only found one in the lake twenty years ago so it must self-reproduce. This will present a problem for us, because we have no way of knowing if It is pregnant or not, if It has had a child already or not."

Williams looked across the room to see a man in an oversized trench coat, as Manchek asked, "Are we bringin Kelling in on this?"

"I talked to her and she seems very eager to assist us. She is flying over from Washington tonight and is expected to arrive sometime early tomorrow morning. She wants us to halt our investigation until then. I told her that wasn't possible, but that we would try not to disturb too much. Remember Manchek, this incident is to be kept in the utmost secrecy." With that they parted. Williams noticed that the trench coat man had left his seat and was trying, unsuccessfully to look as inconspicous as possible, as he followed Williams to his car. Williams was so preoccupied with the trench coat man that he didn't notice that black figures that lept out of the shadows until the chlorofoam had alreadyy taken effect. Chief Williams was dragged into the back of an unmarked black van. The car left the parking lot to join in the afternoon traffic.

Manchek was almost runover by the van as it sped to who-knows-where. There was nothing strange about it, save for the fact that its licence plate was covered by mud. Instinct caused him to note the approximate size and make (although that was hidden too) of the van. He dissmissed the drivers antics as that of a buisness man late for work.