BIGFOOT
Eric S Brown
Copyright 2018 by Eric S Brown
One hundred years ago…
Ulu grunted as he jumped over the large mass of tree roots protruding upwards from the forest floor. The ground was white with snow but still the thick roots bulged through it. He landed with another grunt, managing to keep his footing and his momentum as he ran. His legs pumped beneath him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Deishu matched his pace to his right and Tala on his left. The three of them were all that was left of the hunting party. The others had been torn apart by the beast. Ulu’s mind was still trying to process it all. Everything had happened so fast. No one had expected it. The beast had just burst from the trees into their ranks, its mighty fists breaking bones, its claws shredding flesh. Red splashed over the snow as Ulu’s brothers died.
Deishu was the fastest of them, but instead of sprinting on ahead, he matched Ulu’s pace. Ulu was grateful for it. He doubted even Deishu was fast enough to escape the beast and the three of them together had better odds of surviving the next few minutes than any of them did alone. Ulu didn’t know much about the beast. He had never believed the legends that were commonplace among his tribe, but he had seen the speed at which the beast could move with his own eyes now.
Ulu carried a spiked war club. He held it tight in a white-knuckled grip as he ran. Deishu was armed with a spear and Tala had an arrow notched and ready against the string of his bow. Each of them was a formidable warrior and hunter in their own right. Ulu doubted that their weapons would make any difference when the beast caught up with them, but dying without a fight was not their way.
An inhuman roar echoed through the trees of the forest from behind them. From the sound of it, Ulu could tell that the beast was gaining on them. It wouldn’t be long until there was no choice but to fight. Sweat slicked his skin beneath his clothes despite the frigid temperature of the air. The sun was setting behind the mountains and the sky had taken on a pinkish hue. Ulu sucked in a breath as he saw Tala stop running and turn to fire his bow at the beast as it came bounding through the trees into the clearing they were in the process of crossing.
The beast stood over nine feet tall. Its feral, yellow eyes burned in the growing dimness of the twilight. Brown and white hair covered every inch of its body from head to feet. Its arms were overly long compared to those of a man’s, despite its otherwise human shape. The fingers of its hands were tipped with long, curved claws that glinted sharply in the dying light. Impossibly thick muscles rippled beneath the hair covering its arms and legs. Its lips were parted in a snarl that showed the jagged, pointed teeth inside its mouth.
Tala’s bowstring twanged as he let loose his arrow. It flew straight and true at its target. The arrow sunk into the meat of the beast’s arm as it raised it up to block Tala’s shot from striking its chest. The beast growled in fury as it ripped the arrow free of its flesh and flung it aside while never breaking its stride. Tala was staring wide-eyed at the thing in horror as it closed on him.
Deishu sprung between the archer and the beast, stabbing at it with his spear. Its tip plunged into the beast’s stomach. Deishu shoved it forward with all his strength, twisting the spear as he did so. A downward motion of the beast’s left arm snapped the spear in two as he reached out to grab at Deishu. Deishu hurled himself sideways, narrowly avoiding being caught by the beast.
Ulu watched it all. Fear had locked his muscles tight. He stood paralyzed at the sight of the beast. The thing was a nightmare given form in the real world. Ulu desperately wanted to join the battle, to help his brothers, but could not.
Tala was readying another arrow as the beast struck him. One of its massive hands swung outward at him. Its claws raked away most of his face in a single swipe, blood exploding into the air, as Tala was knocked from his feet. It was easy to see that he would not be getting up again. His nose, right eye, and a good portion of his flesh were gone, leaving the white, jagged edges of shattered bone showing where they had once been.
Deishu loosed a war cry as he plucked his knife from his belt and slashed at the beast with its crescent-shaped edge. The small blade drew blood as it sliced through the hair and flesh covering the beast’s ribs. The beast gave no indication that it even felt the wound. It swung a hair-covered fist into the side of Deishu’s skull as he attempted to turn away from the blow. Deishu’s head burst like an overripe melon in a shower of blood, brain matter, and bone fragments that splattered into the snow from the impact.
The death of his brothers was enough to snap Ulu out of the fear that held him in place. It was replaced by rage as he leaped at the monster with his spiked war club raised above his head in a two-handed grip. Ulu swung the club into the beast with the full weight of his body behind it. The blow would have snapped the bones of a man, but his enemy was so much more than a simple man. The beast shrugged off the blow as if it were nothing, even as Ulu’s club broke against the side of its body.
The beast spun to face him, its yellow eyes locking onto him, filled with hellish rage and anger. The beast was so close to him that Ulu could smell its putrid breath. He backpedaled away from it, letting the remnant of his club slip from his hands. His only other weapon was his knife. It was a weapon of last resort and next to useless against such a hulking monster who he knew could end him with a single blow, but he yanked it from his belt anyway. The blade of his knife flashed through the air as Ulu slashed wildly at the monster. Each swing of the weapon brought forth a splash of red from the monster’s arms as they reached for him. The beast ignored his efforts, its hands closing on his shoulders. Ulu screamed in pain as their claws sunk into him. He rammed his knife upwards into the underside of the beast’s right arm. The blade caught there as he felt the beast’s warm blood flowing over his hand and wrist. With a growl, the beast flung him several yards away from it. Ulu thudded into the snow on his back, his breath knocked from his lungs. The world seemed to spin about him as he desperately fought to stay conscious. The beast was walking towards him as he rolled onto his side, gasping in an attempt to refill his empty lungs, and tried to get up. He was at the beast’s mercy. It could end him whenever it felt like doing so. Ulu knew there was no point in running. It had caught him and his brothers once already without any great effort on its part. No, running was as hopeless as trying to fight it barehanded.
Ulu staggered to his feet and stood his ground as the beast approached him. He had spent the bulk of his life as a warrior and would die like one. His eyes scanned the snow around him for his knife. It was nowhere to be seen. He’d lost it as the beast had thrown him. Ulu spotted a piece of a tree limb and snatched it up to use as a club, but the beast suddenly sprang at him so fast he never got the chance. The fingers of its right hand entered the spaces between his ribs, pushing them apart and snapping them as the beast lifted him from the snow. Ulu’s legs kicked beneath him as he hammered the beast’s arm with his fist, trying to force it to withdraw its hand and the fingers that were inside of him. The beast cocked its head to the side, watching him struggle, then gave a snort as its fingers closed upon his heart. The last thing Ulu saw was the beast’s gleaming, yellow eyes. They lit the darkness of death as he slipped into its depths.
Present Day…
Sheriff Aurelio Jackson drove along the windy mountain road with Whiskey In My Soul by the Moonshine Bandits blaring. It was just another day on the job. The sky was gray and a chill hung in the morning air. His window was rolled down despite the cold and a cigarette dangled between his lips. He was getting really sick of the complaints coming in from Henderson’s folks. This was the third one in the last two days. Henderson hadn’t hired anyone locally when he showed up. He had brought his entire set-up crew with him, and Aurelio wondered if any of them had ever been out in the woo
ds before.
Henderson and his crew had come to Lowah to reopen the old mine in the mountains above the town. The man and whoever was bankrolling him really believed there was still gold to be found there. Aurelio doubted it. What he didn’t doubt was the trouble with Henderson was just starting. No one wanted him or his crew here. Already, some more inspired, to put it nicely, teenagers from the town’s high school had vandalized Henderson’s camp. So far, the kids hadn’t done more than splash around some paint, leaving behind some threatening signs for Henderson and his crew to find as they came to work in the mornings, and Aurelio hoped it wouldn’t go beyond that.
Aurelio spotted the turn onto the gravel road that lead to Henderson’s camp and turned off onto it. The patrol car bounced along the road as Aurelio shut off his music and flicked the butt of his cigarette out the window. It had rained the night before or he would have thought twice about doing so. As it was, the ground was still soaked and as cold as it was getting, it was more likely that whatever was left would freeze than dry up.
Henderson’s camp came into view up ahead. It was a small camp with a few scattered tents, a couple of excavators, trucks, and jeeps parked around it. There was also a hastily erected small office building that was really more akin to a large shed than anything else. Aurelio could see Henderson and two of his flunkies waiting on him. He slowed the car and brought it to a stop just outside of the camp. Henderson was already marching towards his patrol car as Aurelio slid out of its driver’s seat and shut the door behind him. The door slammed shut harder than he had intended to it. The noise of it caused Henderson to stop in this tracks and stare at him angrily. It didn’t stop him from mouthing off though.
“Sheriff Jackson! It’s about bloody well time you showed up!” Henderson shouted.
“Easy now,” Aurelio cautioned him. “It’s still early and I haven’t had enough coffee yet.”
Henderson looked like he wanted to deck him but knew better than to actually do it. Aurelio wasn’t a big man. He was wiry and thin, but how he carried himself spoke volumes about the level of damage he could inflict on anyone that ticked him off.
“Is that a joke?” Henderson glared at him.
“Take it how you want, Mr. Henderson,” Aurelio said. “You want to tell me why you called me up here again or are you just going to make that face you’re making all day? It’s not a good look for you.”
“Sheriff Jackson,” Henderson’s aide, Wallace, spoke up. “We found more than just the usual crap the kids from your town leave out here this morning.”
“Is that so? What exactly did you find this time?” Aurelio asked, taking his pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shaking one out of it. Aurelio waited for Wallace to get on with it as he lit up.
“I think you need to see it for yourself, Sheriff,” Wallace told him.
Aurelio recognized the big man with Henderson and Wallace. His name was Chad and he was built like a tank. As Aurelio understood things, Chad was both Henderson’s foreman and head of security for the mining project. Aurelio hoped he would never come to blows with Chad. He wasn’t afraid of him, there was just no question that it would be a toss-up as to who won.
“You need to come with me, Sheriff,” Chad ordered him.
Chad led him away from the camp towards the woods surrounding it. Henderson and Wallace didn’t come with them. Aurelio followed the security man without questioning him. They entered the trees side by side. Aurelio smelled the bodies before he saw them. He raised a hand over his mouth and nose in an attempt to block out the smell. There was a pile of wolves around the tree in the small clearing they walked into, all of them dead and rotting. Each of them had been mauled as if someone had gone crazy on them with a large blade of some kind. Their guts spilled out of their slashed-open stomachs, adding to their stench. A few were missing entire legs and one was even missing its head. The ones lying in the snow around the tree were nowhere near as disturbing as the three tied to the tree itself. Stretched, purple intestinal cords bound the three wolves to the tree, pressing their bodies tightly against the bark of its trunk. The three tied-up wolves were mostly intact, but their eyes had been shoved out of their sockets and their tongues ripped out of their mouths. The empty, blood-smeared spaces where their eyes had been seemed to be staring at Aurelio, though he knew it was just his nerves that made him think that.
“Those kids from your town do this, Sheriff?” Chad snarled at him.
“No,” Aurelio answered and, despite himself, swallowed hard. In all his years as a law enforcement officer, he had never seen anything like the mess in front of him now.
“How many…?” he started.
“Twelve,” Chad answered coldly. “Looks like someone or something massacred their whole pack and left them here.”
Aurelio moved closer to the bodies of the wolves. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Neither have I, Sheriff,” Chad said, “but to find it so close to our camp…”
“What? You think someone killed these wolves and left them here as some kind of warning to y’all?”
“Do you have a better explanation?” Chad asked.
Aurelio shook his head. “I have to admit that I don’t. That doesn’t mean what you’re suggesting is true though. If these poor wolves were really left as a warning to you, why weren’t they piled up in your camp instead of out here?”
“The camp was lit up all night last night,” Chad told him. “We had men in the mine trying to get a better idea of what we’ll be dealing once we get up and running. As you know, we’re on a very tight timetable. There was a lot of activity here. Whoever did this clearly didn’t want to be seen as they delivered this gory little message to us. Our workers often take breaks in the trees or step out here to relieve themselves. One of them found these wolves this morning shortly after the normal shift for the day started.”
“Well, we both know that no kids from town did this,” Aurelio said. “Who do you think is behind it?”
“Isn’t your job to answer that question, Sheriff?” Chad asked with a grunt. “All the native folks, as you call them here, are upset with our project. It’s as if no one wants to see this mine in business again.”
“There aren’t any organized tribes in this area anymore.” Aurelio frowned as he began to really inspect the bodies of the wolves and knelt over the pile below the tree. “And even if there were, they’re peaceful people. They would never do anything like this just to get you to leave. They respect the animals too much, unlike some folks.”
“Nothing we’re doing out here is going to cause any harm to the local ecosystem, Sheriff, and you know it,” Chad assured him.
“Maybe,” Aurelio said. “Will you look at the cuts on these guys? I’d stake my life that these cuts in their bodies are claw marks.”
“Nothing has claws that large, Sheriff,” Chad said, shaking his head.
“A bear might,” Aurelio argued.
“I’ve never heard of a bear capable of tying its kill to a tree before, Sheriff. Stop wasting my time. We both know it was no animal that did this,” Chad said, scowling at him.
Aurelio took off his hat and scratched at the side of his head. “Look, I’ll haul one of these wolves back in town and have Dr. Ferguson take a gander at it. He can tell us for sure what killed these guys, and that’ll tell us a heck of lot more about who or what is behind this than we’re going to figure out by standing here arguing over it.”
“That’s not enough, Sheriff,” Chad growled. “We’ve got over a dozen workers on our payroll, not counting the engineers. All of them are terrified to be out here now because of this. I’m going to need you to give them some assurance that it is safe.”
Standing up, Aurelio met Chad’s stare with one of his own. “I’ve only got five deputies in my entire department, Chad,” he said, saying the security man’s name as if it were an insult, “and frankly, looking after my town is the priority, not your mine. I don’t have the manpower to loan my deputies out
to you as nursemaids.”
“There has to be something you can do,” Chad raged.
“Like I said, I’ll take one of these wolves back to the doc and we’ll go from there,” Aurelio told him firmly. “If you really want more, tell you what, I’ll say you a prayer too as I drive back into town.”
“That’s not enough,” Chad told him again.
“It’s going to have to be. Now shut up and help me carry one of these wolves if you’re really wanting something to get done today,” Aurelio ordered him.
****
A few miles away from Henderson’s camp, Nicki was responding to another call that had come in not long after Sheriff Jackson had left. She was the department’s newest deputy and a woman to boot, so crap rolled downhill and she had gotten stuck with checking it out. She honestly wasn’t sure if it was a sexist thing or a newbie thing, but either way, her morning was about to get wasted. The call had come in from Lou Hyatt, the town’s local nutjob. He was one of those prepper crazies who had money to burn and moved up here out of the cities for when the apocalypse hit. Lou rarely came into town except to buy supplies or drink with his hunting buddies. He was a loner and mostly kept to himself, but that didn’t make him any less crazy as Nicki saw things. One only had to spend a few minutes talking with him to understand just how messed up he was. He’d ramble on about things like EMPs and solar flares all day long if you gave him the chance, which most people were smart enough not to do in town. Nicki knew all too well just what kind of firepower Lou had tucked away at his place. The sheriff saw him as harmless so as of yet, they hadn’t done anything about it, but that day may not be far off based on what he had called into the department for this morning.
According to Gail, the town’s on-duty 911 operator, Mr. Hyatt had reported a monster roaming around the woods close to his house. He had told her that Bigfoot was coming to kill him. Nicki had to wonder if Lou had been drunk as he made the call. Gail had told her and the other officers that Lou really sounded rattled and terrified out of his mind. As much as they might have wanted to, they couldn’t just let his call go unanswered, and that’s how Nicki had ended up out here instead of sitting in Joe’s, having her normal breakfast of bacon, eggs, and black coffee.
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