Echo

quiet dock. The moon hung high and bright in the sky as if a child just cut out a silver circle and pasted it onto a blanket of rich black velvet. The luminescence gave them a lucky break. Scotty lifted Echo and Barney into the shallow skiff, helping them into their orange life jackets, belting them snugly. For the last time, he consulted the map he pulled off the Internet. He pushed off, gliding noiselessly into the foreboding cold water of the bay, not even a flirty wave to distract them.
    Instructing an excited Barney not to whine or bark, Scotty navigated the small skiff through the silent water, eyes peeled for other larger boats, hoping to stay out of the way. The skiff lacked running lights, a huge handicap in the dark. Luckily, Scotty grabbed a flashlight to use on the other end of their operation. It would come in handy if they needed to announce their presence to another boat, preventing them from getting swamped.
    As the skiff settled in the water, making slow progress, they felt the late spring evening rawness in the air. The light scent of brine enveloped them. From time to time they would hear a solitary splash in the ghostly distance. They listened, all ears to the creepy calm quietude as they glided across the bay.
    Nearing their destination, Scotty steered to the shore, hugging the broken rocky coastline so as to not overshoot their destination. Before long, they spotted the aquarium. They quickly docked, pulling the skiff up over the rocks to dry white sand, the moon magically changing it to an unbroken field of snow. Tying Barney to the skiff with instructions to stay put, Scotty and Echo scouted the vacant buildings, looking for the medical unit. Studying the layout confidently shown for the tourists on their website made the search easy for them. But the only entry point they could find was over a wall that supported the seawater tanks filled with sea turtles. The wall loomed too high for Scotty to grab onto no matter how hard he tried. Looking at Echo, they both realized what they must do.
    “If you can’t find the manatee, try to find another way to let me in. I’ll help. You sure you can handle this alone?”
    “Yes, Brother Scotty; I survived alone for over a century until you found me. I will be successful. Thank you for your help.” As the mind aura faded, Echo held out her arms and Scotty boosted her up the wall, her leathery feet catching close to the top. Saved by the suction effect of her fingers, she righted herself. She finished the climb and disappeared. Scotty looked up, seeing nothing. Five seconds past and suddenly Echo’s face reappeared. A rainbow aura suffused his mind.
    “We are a good team, Brother Scotty; My Barney too.” And she vanished again. Shaking his head in amusement, Scotty slumped down on the cold sand to wait for Echo, dampness seeping through the seat of his shorts, goose bumps making the hair on his legs prickle. Taking any kind of action in their quest to save earth creatures was fulfilling. He paused, reflecting on how much he sounded like Echo when she first suggested their secret alliance. This was not their first mission, of course. Not far down the coast, existed a small shallow beach aptly named Turtle Beach. The green sea turtle’s nesting areas were staked out by volunteers, marked to protect them from marauding human profiteers that would eagerly dig them up and sell the eggs to be eaten as delicacies. The efforts of the volunteers were usually fruitless, the poachers cleaning out the nests relentlessly, year after year. As a result, the green sea turtle numbered amongst the most endangered of sea creatures.
    One night, he took the skiff down the coast with his two cohorts. The overcast sky looked bleak, waves kicking up bitter spray, whipping needlelike in their faces. Echo located the beach, instructing Scotty to stay on the skiff with Barney who tightly hunkered down, shivering. Echo would not be long. Watching from the skiff, Scotty swallowed his breath, his eyes bugging out in the cold wind as Echo stood calmly in the coral sand, her crystal antlers peeling apart, releasing a stream of black red liquid that surrounded the beach and burrowed under the sand. Echo announced she was finished, hopped back into the boat and they sped home, anxious to sneak back to the safety and comfort of Scotty’s bedroom.
    It only took a week before a news story appeared, commenting on the oddity of a man and a woman found on the beach, the victims of heart