Short story READER’S

Loch by Paul Turner reveals the ‘real’ story of the Loch Ness monster. The 62-year-old former journalist from Birmingham used to work at his local paper, the Sunday Mercury.

But he says: “I’m now unemployed after my mother died in 2020 as I was her carer. “I’ve never been to Loch Ness, but I’d like to visit one day.”

PC Sharon Baxter looked across the dark waters of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. Where had her colleague gone?

“It was supposed to be a team effort,” she grumbled to herself.

“This is a serious investigation,” she’d told him as they climbed out of the jam sandwich of a police car.

“I’ll check down the beach,” he had said and walked off, leaving her to do her own search of the missing family.

“How could you lose a family in a camper van?” she said to herself as she checked the lay-by where vehicles are normally parked.

Sharon looked down the beach. There was no sign of her police colleague in any direction. “Where has he skulked off too?” she thought. Something wasn’t adding up, if the family had been going on a picnic. Where on earth was it? She scanned around her. There was no sign of any rubbish or dropped belongings that had been left in a hurry. She began to worry there had been foul play. But how? There was nothing here but the loch.

“Perhaps it was Nessie!” she exclaimed out loud with a short laugh.

Everyone knew Nessie was a Scottish tourist plot to bring in the tourists, right.

Nessie wasn’t REAL.

The PC began to get worried as she looked over the dune she was examining for clues to the disappearance of the camper van, and realised suddenly her police car was not where

she’d left it. “What!” she exclaimed, nervously looking around. The police car was nowhere to be seen. “Who would steal a police car?” she thought as she walked over to the parking spot. There was nothing there.

Sharon rubbed her head for a moment. She was the only one there. She would have heard it if the car had been stolen. She would have heard the engine.

‘Why aren’t there any tyre marks?’ she asked herself, trying to understand the mystery as the sky suddenly went dark.

She turned to face the loch. She felt herself flying across the beach and landing badly. Sharon lay stunned, her head was whizzing as she came too. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.

A giant tsunami wall of water rose 40ft feet above her – the whole length of the loch. It was the Loch Ness monster. It was the loch itself. It was alive and everyone could see it. It was the water of the loch. That’s why no one had ever seen it. It was there already, totally invisible, but clearly seen.

Sharon tried to run, her leg was broken, but she scrambled her way, hoping to escape.

The wall of water crashed silently on to the beach. Sharon vanished, silently, instantly gone into history.

The monster had claimed another victim. Submit your short story (up to 500 words) to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk