A lone car drove down the deserted highway, its occupants half asleep, yet successfully managing not to crash as the driver repeatedly fell asleep at the wheel. The driver pulled into the empty parkinglot of an all-night cafe. Manchek and Kelling stumbled into the cafe, desperatly seeking caffeine. The fourty year old waitress quickly put a pot of stale coffee into the microwave and reheated it for her customers. They gratefully took the cups. They didn't care how old the coffee was, at least it would help them stay awake... they hoped.

Kelling offered to drive the car and Manchek, who had been saying no for the last twenty minutes, finally said yes. They got back in the car with extra cups of coffee for the driver, and started off. The coffee didn't help Manchek much and he fell asleep almost immediatly. Sarah Kelling however, had gotten a little sleep during her flight and managed to keep the car on a steady course as she drove the last ten minutes towards Manchek's house. They wouldn't get much sleep today because they had to be up at the crack of dawn to continue the investigation. She sure would be cranky when she woke up, Sarah thought as she pulled into the driveway.

7:00 AM

"You have reached the home of Police Chief Williams. State your name, number, and reason for calling. Thank you." The machine emitted a loud beep followed by the sound of someone hanging up.

Back at the station, Manchek stared at the phone with concern. "Something's wrong," he said with a farawway look in his eyes."Williams is never this late, except for daylight savings days." Kelling gave him a weird look. "Well its true," Manchek said with a helpless shrug.

"Did you talk with his wife?"

"No, I haven't been able to reach her. Its like they just dissapeared."

Then Sarah asked the question that they both feared. "Do you think.... do you think It got him?"

"It's possible," replied Manchek, shivering at the thought. "But we must continue our investigation. Maybe we will find a clue to his whereabouts." With that, he walked over to his deputies. He was in charge now. Kelling sat down in a nearby chair to gather her thoughts. Manchek returned and they set off towards the lake.

10:13 AM

A plane dronned by overhead as pairs of policemen emerged from the bushes. They came together in the center of the beach. None of them had found anything except an old path, probably not travelled for years. Such paths were not uncommon on deserted beaches such as this one. Had they travelled the path for ten minutes though, they would have found something interesting. A peice of translucent dead skin caught on the bushes where the monster had hid the previous night.

Kelling and Manchek came walking over from behind the fisherman's shack. They had been carefully surveying the area, making calculations. In front of them they had found, with much difficulty, a very shallow footprint with four toes. They had measured it, sketched it, and then covered it with dead bushes. Finally, some concrete evidence that it was indeed the same creature as twenty years ago that had caused the dissapearance of the girl. Of course they could not tell the deputies about It. It was to be reported immediatly to the Pentagon. They would decide what would be done next.

11:21 PM

The sound of something falling is heard. The sound is followed in rapid succession bye five more splashes. The Underwater Special Forces team from the Pentagon had touched down. They are armed with underwater cameras, lights, and electric prods... just in case. They immediatly begin to take pictures. They prodded and touched rocks of all sizes to make sure that they weren't eggs. Then they separated into three groups and each went in their own direction.

In each team, one checked the sea floor as the other shone his flashlight above, below, and around him, looking for any indication that a giant something lived there. They only had two hours before they ran out of oxygen.

At the end of two hours, they realised that they weren't going to find anything. This.... thing covered It's trackes to well. It wasn't in the lake. That meant that It was... on land! Probably finding a new victim to snack on. The head diver signaled to the rest that they were to commence their acsent.

As their heads broke the surface, they saw the helicopter above them sending down a rope ladder. They climbed up as quickly as possible, which wasn't very fast given the fact that they had heavy airtanks on their backs.

When the last of the men were saftly secured in the helicopter, it took off towards the west. The men had just started to relax when they realised taht they were going in the wrong direction. A shout broke out in the cabin of the helicopter. The pilot turned to his copilot and whispered, "gas 'em". Both pilots pulled down their gas masks from overhead compartments as gas started seeping into the rest of the 'copter. It's occupents began doubling over in coughing spasms. It didn't take long. By the end of the first minute they were all silent. They weren't dead.... not yet anyway. Their fate would be determined on a later date. One thing was for sure; it would be over quickly. It didn't like It's food screaming while it ate. Screaming gave It's human meals too much adreneline, which gave It indigestion.

As the helicopter flew away, a bright ball of light on the ground that was once a government helicopter, burned on. There would be almost no remains left. These peolpe were very efficent, and they knew how to cover themselves. The missing divers would be assumed to have died in the crash. There would be nothing left of the burned bodies of the crew. Once morning came, and the flames died down, the birds would come. Big Birds. Vultures and eagles. When they were done, the smaller animals would come to picks at the bones... if there were any.

Back on the beach, a lone creature walked silently into the still lake and swam away.

5:11 AM

A troop of police officers and government agents made their way over the rocky terrain. They were searching for the lost helicopter. When the pilot failed to report in at two AM, the people at the Pentagon began to worry. They immediatly called Manchek and then they made flight arangements. Two hours later, men and women in suits and ties met up with the local police force and they began their trek into the woods. The government agents kept grumbling about the terrain and how they should have worn civilian clothes like the police officers. Sarah Kelling was among the group. She was more used to this than they were because she had spent many years in the field.

There were twenty of them, spread thirty feet apart and comunicating with each other by use of walkie talkies. They had covered a quarter of the forest and had found nothing.

As they neared two hours of walking, (after which they had agreed to stop and rest), they started to think that their search would turn up fruitless, even though they were only a quarter done. Manchek picked up his walkie talkie and said into it, "Okay people, break. Place your markers and walk towards the flare." With that he pulled out a strange gun and pulled the trigger. A red beam shot out of the gun and into the sky with a sizzle. It was like a firework, except it didn't explode in mid-air. It fell back to the ground after reaching a height of five hundred feet. It landed on the ground a mile away. The closest people reached Manchek right away. The farthest people had to run and reached him ten minutes after he had set off the flare. They sat down and a big jug of water was passed around. After they felt refreshed, they walked back to their markers and continued their search for the downed plane.

Fifteen minutes after the last person had reached their flag, they started noticing the extraordinary amount of broken branches and debris on the ground and in the trees above them. Soon they saw whole trees broken or bent from their roots. The summarised that the broken 'copter had skimmed low to the ground and caused this damage.

Then came larger pieces of debris. First bits and peices of what was later identified as the tail and then the whole helicopter. Or what was left of it. It had been completely incinerated. All that was in the clearing around the black ash of the helicopter had been burned to a crisp. An ariel view would have shown the area as a big black spot, almost half a mile in length. The five agents in the far west stumbled on it around the same time. The others ahd to be called. Manchek was delighted when he first heard that they had found the helicopter, until he saw what was left.

He pulled out his cellular phne and called the head os Special Forces, the Pentagon. The President would not be too pleased about this latest developement. And then there was the question of the divers. Had they been picked up, or had they died of lack of air. No, they weren't that stupid. When the two hours passed, they would have realised that they had no air left to wait, and tey would have swam to shore. He would know for certain when the recreated the crash scene in the extra-large empty warehouse behind the station.

When Manchek finished his talk with the Pentagon, he called the station and asked them to bring out the Rescue team cargo plane to pick up what was left and to take measurement to determine what caused the crash.