Thursday 24. I took a few days off work to be with Randy in hospital. Fortunately, Eva was all for the idea; I think she was worried about him as much as I was. He's recovering very well for what the injury did to him; and so am I for that regard. No more limp, and only mild back pain. We binge watched some anime that I found admittedly fairly tropey, and told jokes for most of the visit. Even Sid popped in once or twice. With any luck, Randy should be back on his feet soon. But I'm still in a two man band for now. I could talk about the impacts being on the team has had for my daily life at college, but this log's for my work. So, as per the norm, I walked to town, and entered the base, this time without having to lie to Lucy. Something was off as soon as I entered; Eva was dealing with some new beeping device whilst in the storage room, somebody was packing furiously.
"Eva, what's going on?" I hurriedly asked, catching her attention."
"Michael, good you're here." Eva sighed with relief. "A delivery ship in the Thames has sent out a distress signal, one that we've picked up. Whatever the situation, it sounds cryptozoological. I need you two to check it out."
Eva's tone sounded dire, I didn't blame her. If just to feel helpful, I joined Sid in the other room to help pack.
It seemed that Sid was already nearly finished by the time I got there, but as I approached, Sid nodded my way and gestured to the table.
"Throw me that net there, I might as well throw that in."
Tossing the net at Sid, I decided to look around a little more to see what tools of the trade I'd have to use in future. Rifles and darts of course, rope, nets of various sizes and uses, camping gear, baits, and other things I didn't recognise.
"By the by, what size..." Sid began, before shaking his head. "Never mind, it should fit fine. Come on, let's head outside."
"Outside?" I asked, stopping where I stood in confusion. "We're going outside?"
"Oh, Eva didn't mention?" Sid smiled, a concerning sight in itself. "I'm driving us there."
That's how I ended up swerving past the London Eye, sheet white and holding on for dear life, as Sid swerved into parking between a taxi and a lamppost in his spike covered off-roader with a generic looking heavy metal band sticker on the back. As I sat in the back trying to escape my own body, I asked myself a simple question- why couldn't Eva have driven! The journey left me feeling seasick, never mind carsick! Woozily, I crept out from the vehicle, fighting the urge to throw up and collapse on the pavement for about five minutes as Sid opened the boot.
"How the hell do you have a license!" I asked, voice shaking as I tried to pull myself together.
"I act nice in front of cops." Sid replied, deadpan. "You've got a wetsuit and rebreather waiting in the boot. With any luck, we don't need them, but better safe than sorry. Especially with you."
"Diving gear." I nodded, inspecting the sleek black wetsuit. "Where was this when I was drowning trying to capture Gambo?"
"In my pack. I wasn't exactly awake to hand it over." Sid answered gruffly, before beginning to walk off. "Now come on, we've got ten minutes."
"Until what!" I asked for the last time, exasperated.
"We've got a witness to interview."
"So, it was a giant frog." Sid growled, miserably.
It had been one hour and seventeen minutes, and we were nowhere closer to learning what had happened. Witness was, well, a quite simple lad called Greg. He's a vegan, 26 years old and he has had four girlfriends across his life, with one of whom the relationship lasted four whole months, before she left him and went off with a very unflatteringly described banker named Joseph. You may be wondering how I know all of this useless information? Well Greg, clearly in no rush to give his statement, went through his entire life story during our interview. By this point in the conversation, I was fairly hungry and desperately in need of an overpriced coffee. But I went on listening, for the sake of the Cryptotrappers, and for the mission as a whole.
"Yes, a giant frog," he said. "Probably. Definitely. Probably. Yeah. A giant frog, with a helmet on, or something similar. I didn't see everything clearly, but I think it strangled the captain? I mean I wasn't expecting it to be there, I wasn't expecting to see... you know, I mean I was only even by the Thames because otherwise I'd risk crossing paths with Linda and-"
"Greg, I won't sugarcoat this. I don't care about Linda." Sid finally admitted, as I sighed a silent sigh of relief. "Please, just finish your statement so we can go and sort out whatever it is you saw."
"Alright..." Greg responded, a little dejected seeming. "Well, after it strangled the captain, I think, as I said I didn't see it too well, it jumped into the river! And it's still out there. I've even given it a name- the Thames Strangler."
"Creative." Sid replied, his face stone.
"Thanks!" Greg replied, clearly missing the irony. "Okay, I've just remembered something. So you know I said about that party with Janice-"
"Okay statement over, great to meet you Greg, we'll be going now!" I quickly finished the conversation, pulling Sid away before he burst a blood vessel and leaving Greg to babble to nobody about whatever he was going to say. I needed a drink.
As we sat in the leather chairs of the nearest coffee shop, waiting for a drink that would surely be both overpriced and underwhelming, Sid's concern was noticeable from a mile away.
"What's up?" I asked, gently as I could. Sid's eyes remained focused on the table, as though he was attempting to bore a hole through it with his gaze.
"What Greg said. I've got a suspicion about what we're dealing with, but I hope for the sake of our safety, and for the sake of the mission, that I'm wrong."
"Sounds to me like some sort of frogman, right?" I asked, hopefully.
"Here's hoping. But if I'm right, it's far worse than any frogman could ever be."
Sid's tone was dire, almost fearful, and that direness genuinely scared me. After all, what beyond a skin-eating demon could cause this muscle mountain of a man to be concerned? That's when commotion outside drew our attention, followed by screaming, and instantly we were ready for action, leaving without our drinks but prepared to face whatever was outside.
The first noticeable thing was the body. Someone, it seemed, was dead, their intestines ripped out. Sid gagged. I threw up next to me. Already the police were swarming the situation and diverting people away, so we couldn't get anywhere closer, which was fortunate as I didn't want to spend any longer staring at a corpse than I had to. Instead I looked elsewhere. The second, albeit far less noticeable thing in comparison to the mutilated corpse, was the chunks of fish flung everywhere on the shore around the body, noticeably different from the corpse itself. Small chunks, large chunks, scattered around. There was seaweed too, some shredded, some whole.
"That's definitely unfortunate." Sid morosely noted.
"You don't think it's..." I tentatively asked, shock audible in my voice.
"No. Probably not, at least. If it was, at least somebody finally managed to shut him up." Sid added, distastefully.
"Odd, right? Seaweed in the Thames?" I diverted the conversation, deciding not to acknowledge his statement. "Definitely doesn't look local to me. Thoughts?"
Sid nodded at my statement and pointed out one of the chunks of fish.
"You see the texture on that? It's squid, and that's not from around here either. Something very strange is happening."
Even more confused than we were previously, there was finally no choice but to go to the original crime scene.
"We should at least investigate around the boat." I spoke, trying to keep my voice from wavering.
"Whilst there cops are here and not there? My thoughts exactly." Sid responded, smirking. Either he was doing a far better job than me at faking it, or he had actual confidence. The two of us walked further up the river, towards the original crime scene, hoping to find something that would drive this mission to a close.
With the police doing a thorough investigation of the body, getting to the boat wreckage discretely was no easy matter. For one thing, we were on the wrong side of the river, but finding a bridge to cross that was hardly the most difficult task we'd endured. Getting into the boat, however, was a different matter. It was completely blocked off by police tape, though as we'd expected, unattended by the forces right now.
"Are you sure entering an active crime scene is the best idea?" I queried Sid. His response was adamant.
"You saw that thing's handiwork out there. It's killed twice now that we know of, it will kill again if we don't stop it. I'm putting the lives of other people in front of the law, and I'd recommend you get used to doing that too."
There was no argument I could make to that. So we pushed carefully through, onto the abandoned boat quarters.
"Right. Michael, you take the front, try the captain's quarters, since that's where Greg's statement seems to push. Meanwhile, I'll have a look at what they were carrying in the back." Sid ordered, patting me firmly on the back and sending me off to the murder scene while he did god knows what elsewhere. I slowly made my way around the ship, listening out for anything else that could be on the vessel, and entered the captain's quarters. For all the garbage he spoke, Greg didn't lie. Though the body itself was fortunately gone, the captain's quarters did have the typical chalk outline you'd usually see at a murder scene. The floor, though, was also covered in a greenish mess that wasn't so easily explained. Examining closer, it didn't smell like a frog's slime. It smelled... fresh. My thoughts were broken when I heard Sid calling to me from across the ship.
"Hey, Mikey boy! You should probably come and see this. It seems pretty important!"
With no further desire to be in the room where the captain was murdered, I tentatively went towards the back of the ship.
Sid called me over to one of the big storage containers on the ship, the ones that should be full of whatever the ship was transporting. It smelled, surprisingly enough, fairly delicious. A sort of salty, fishy smell, even if the heat of the sun had marred the scent slightly with the vaguest stench of decay, and an acrid smell almost like vinegar left in the sun. Sid himself was crouched over a footprint in a slime that looked and smelled remarkably similar to the sort that I had seen in the captain's quarters. This print, however, was far clearer and easier to make out the fact that was in almost the shape of a frog's foot, just different enough for it to be clear that it was something different. Well, there was that, and of course the fact that the footprint was bigger than my own.
"Do you know what this substance is?" Sid asked.
"No idea," I admitted. "But it's not frog slime, whatever it is. It's too fresh smelling for that."
"It's cucumber, I found some a bit less smushed up further in the container. This boat, was delivering the ingredients we've been seeing to some restaurant by the river, before it was intercepted. Intercepted by someone or something, something that I'd have to assume was already on the ship when it left. A stowaway, something aquatic that's now swimming around in the Thames."
That made sense, at least I think it did. But I still had questions.
"Ingredients for something? What do you make with squid and cucumber?"
"Not just squid and cucumber." Sid clarified. "Tuna, too, and you smell that acrid smell? Vinegar rice. Pieces coming together?"
"Were they delivering ingredients for... sushi?" I asked, puzzled.
"Not just any sushi." Sid corrected. "Those four ingredients, they're the ingredients for a very specific type of sushi. A sushi made specifically with ingredients that could be used to potentially placate a very specific type of Japanese water imp."
Besides Sid's voice, another sound was catching my attention. The slapping of amphibious feet behind me, like the wet slap of a flipper on a deck. I didn't dare turn around, listening intently to Sid and shifting marginally closer to him as I did.
"A Japanese water imp that feasts on cucumbers, a Japanese water imp that's known to rip out intestines, just like what happened to that poor soul on the riverbank, may they rest in peace, and of course, a Japanese water imp that is also known to snap necks as a way of killing."
"Sid?" I nudged, stepping even nearer the back of the container, until my face was nearly against the wall, daring not turn around.
"It would explain the helmet Greg spoke of too." Sid continued, seemingly oblivious. "I had my suspicions, of course, but now they're completely confirmed in my mind. And it's definitely no frogman, that's for sure."
Sid turned on his heel to a combat stance, whilst stepping backwards to where I stood, tranquilliser gun drawn and back against the container's farthest wall. I too, finally turned to face whatever was approaching us.
"The Kappa."