“Yes, sir.” Henson nodded.
“It’s really a shame we lost that last APC.” Kennedy sighed. “It could have made a heck of a lot of difference if those things do get in here.”
“Where do you want me?” Joe asked.
“The wall of course.” Colonel Flint smiled. “You’re our main line of defense, Mr. Reynolds.”
****
The sunset was beautiful that evening. Joe barely noticed it. He was busy barking orders at those on the wall around him. They needed to be as ready for what was coming as they could be. If Colonel Flint was right and the Sasquatch were indeed going all out to break into the city, tonight was going to be a bloodbath.
Karen had been assigned to one of the city’s interior defense emplacements. That ticked her off and made Joe very happy. All he had to do was hold the wall and she would be safe. Joe still didn’t fully understand his attraction to the woman. He wasn’t supposed to have those kinds of feelings anymore but he did.
As the sun sunk below the distant mountains, Joe stood on the wall, watching the trees. There was utter silence on the wall. Here and there a few folks smoked cigarettes, others clutched their weapons tightly, but everyone kept quiet. The silence was eerie to Joe. It felt so unnatural.
The wait wasn’t a long one before the first of the Sasquatch showed themselves. Joe watched several packs of the creatures moving about in the trees. It was clear they were gathering their forces before making a run at the city just as the colonel had thought they were going to do.
Out among the trees arose the knocking of the Sasquatch. It sounded like battle drums. The beasts were ready. It was excellent psychological warfare on the part of the Sasquatch, though Joe wasn’t about to give them credit for using it that way. Most likely it was just signaling between their various war parties.
“Everyone hold steady!” Joe shouted at those around him as the knocking reached a thunderous crescendo. Then it was time.
The Sasquatch came pouring out from the trees. Joe put their number in the hundreds. It was an impressive display of force. The beasts ran full out toward the wall as Joe gave the order for its defenders to open fire.
A cacophony of gunfire broke the silence, booming in the night. Automatic weapons chattered, mounted .50 calibers roared, rifles cracked, and shotguns thundered. A hellish barrage met the first wave of the Sasquatch and cut the beasts to shreds. Joe saw a Sasquatch sliced in half by the fire of a .50 caliber. Another Sasquatch took multiple rounds to its torso even as a shotgun round slammed into its skull. Flaming cocktails soared through the darkness, thrown from the wall, to explode among the beasts lighting them up.
For the first few moments, the Sasquatch were truly held back from the wall. It took so much to take down a single beast though and their numbers were so vast that the defenders’ success in doing so didn’t last long. A second wave of the monsters charged out of the trees, filling in the shattered ranks of the first wave. Together, they pushed forward, an unstoppable juggernaut of feral rage.
Joe longed for his lost M82 Barrett again. He was using an AK-47 like many of the wall’s defenders. The weapon clicked empty in his hands as he finished off an already wounded Sasquatch. He ejected the spent magazine, shoving another into place.
Sasquatch began to reach the wall and leap onto it. They climbed up it, hurling themselves over its top to land among its defenders. One came up not far from Joe’s position. It knocked a woman from the wall in the process. She fell, screaming, to land among the horde of the beasts below. Joe hoped the fall had killed her as he watched several of the Sasquatch hungrily tearing her body apart. The beast spun to engage the closest pair of defenders. Its claws raked across the chest of a middle-aged man armed with a shotgun. They tore into his ribs, shattering them even as they slashed open his flesh. The other defender close to the monster was a young girl. She leveled the barrel of her M-16 at the monster and put two bursts of fire into it as the Sasquatch came at her. The Sasquatch ignored the pain of the bullets hitting it and closed on her with the speed of a predatory cat. It grabbed the sides of her head and ripped it away from her shoulders.
Similar scenes were playing out all along the top of the wall. The Sasquatch had taken heavy losses. The field between the woods and the wall was littered with giant, hair-covered corpses but the beasts just kept coming. Joe knew the wall’s defenders were in trouble. Too many of the things had gotten up among them already. They weren’t going to be able to hold the wall. That much was already clear to him.
A group of Sasquatch had gathered at the city’s gates and were unleashing their fury upon it. The heavy doors there shuddered in their frame. Their thick wood was beginning to splinter and buckle. It was just a matter of time until the Sasquatch broke through them.
Joe emptied his AK-47 again, hosing a Sasquatch that was climbing up the wall. Bullets tore at the thing’s arms and shoulders. The Sasquatch shrieked in pain and anger as it lost its hold on the wall and toppled to the ground below it. Joe was out of replacement magazines for his AK-47. He tossed the now useless weapon aside, drawing his pistols. They spoke loudly, thundering over and over again in rapid succession. He blew a hole in one Sasquatch’s skull, shot another through its right eye, dropped a third with a series of high-powered rounds to its heart, and kept right on killing the beasts until one came at him from behind. Joe spun around, both of his pistols firing together to reduce the creature’s snarling face into little more than a mangled mess of shredded meat. Its hulking body fell toward him, carried on by the thing’s momentum, but Joe leaped from the wall out of its path. Joe landed on the ground behind the wall with a grunt. His body was a great deal tougher than a normal human’s or he would have broken both his legs when he landed. It still hurt like the devil though.
Rising up, Joe took off at a full-out sprint away from the wall as the city’s gates finally gave way to the monsters attacking them. The broken gates swung inward and the Sasquatch came pouring inside the city. Joe paused just long enough to empty the few rounds that remained in his pistols at the charging horde. He dropped three more of the beasts from his effort but that was nowhere near enough to stop the monsters. There were already dozens of the things inside the city and the number was increasing with each passing second. Joe holstered his pistols as he ran. A pair of Sasquatch sprinted after him though most of the others were intercepted by a group of the city’s defenders. They met the creatures with shotguns and crossbows.
Joe’s legs pumped beneath him as he picked up his pace. Even his heightened speed wasn’t enough to outrun the two Sasquatch chasing him. He knew that but didn’t care. His focus was on reaching Cedarmark’s city hall where its “last stand” defenders were positioned. Karen was among them and he had to make sure she was safe.
He could hear the snarls and ragged breaths of the two Sasquatch closing on his heels. As much as Joe didn’t want to stop and deal with them, they weren’t going to leave him a choice in the matter. Drawing his katana from the sheath on his back, Joe spun on the Sasquatch. His move caught them completely by surprise. The blade of his katana had already slashed away the lower jaw of the closer of the two monsters. The Sasquatch stumbled backward, hands raising to its face as blood flowed down over the thick hair that covered its chest. Joe finished it, plunging his katana’s blade into the beast’s stomach and fiercely twisting it there. The Sasquatch slumped to its knees and then collapsed forward onto its face. The other Sasquatch came at him. It gave a roar of anger, swiping at him with a clawed hand. The tip of Joe’s katana opened the monster’s arm from its wrist to its shoulder. The Sasquatch howled, wincing as it drew back away from him. Joe wasn’t letting the monster off that easy though. He lunged forward, cutting its face apart along its middle with a vicious strike of his sword that cut upward from beneath the monster’s chin to the top of its forehead. Blew flew as the Sasquatch swayed sideways and crashed onto the ground. Then Joe was moving again. The sounds of gunfire were growing quieter in the direction of the wall. That
wasn’t a good thing. The screams of dying men and women rang out in the night as Joe resumed his course toward where the city’s defenders planned to make their last stand in front of Cedarmark’s city hall.
The circle of soldiers, militiamen, and volunteers came into view ahead of him. They were a pitiful lot compared to those that had been stationed on the city’s wall. Armed with mostly small arms, bows, spears, and even a few makeshift clubs, Joe didn’t have much hope that they would hold out long against the monsters that were spilling into the city in staggering numbers. He spotted Karen among them. She was raising the rifle in her hands to aim at something behind him. Joe didn’t dare risk taking a look over his shoulder at what was there. Instead, he pushed himself even harder, increasing his speed to the limits of what his body could give.
As Joe leaped into the circle of men and women stationed outside Cedarmark’s city hall, they let loose at the Sasquatch following him with everything they had. Shotguns boomed, crossbows twanged, and pistols cracked. Even with all their fire concentrated on the approaching Sasquatch, it wasn’t enough to even slow the wave of charging monsters. The Sasquatch that did fall were trampled by the others as they continued raging onward.
“Karen!” Joe shouted, having lost her in the crowd.
“Over here!” he heard her yell.
Joe saw her kneeling at the edge of the makeshift barricade that had been set up. She took a shot at a Sasquatch, blowing out the creature’s knee with a round from her .30.06. Then the Sasquatch hit the barricade. Or rather, they came bounding over it. The beasts plowed their way into the group of men and women, killing anyone unlucky enough to be in their path.
A Sasquatch came at Karen. Joe rushed to fling her aside and meet the monster. His double-barreled shotguns cleared their holsters as he emptied them into the Sasquatch. The force of the four heavy slugs slamming into the beast knocked it back over the edge of the barricade. Joe didn’t check to see if it was dead. Instead, he yanked Karen to her feet.
“We have to go!” Joe told her. “If we remain here, we will die.”
He could see that Karen had no intention of running from the fight they were caught up in.
“Please!” Joe begged before she had a chance to argue. He snatched her by the arm and pulled her along after him as he ran. Karen had no choice but to relent or have her arm torn from its shoulder joint. Joe didn’t give a frag how mad at him she was going to be. All that mattered to him was keeping her alive.
Colonel Flint emerged from the city hall, stepping out onto its steps as the men and women gathered around the building continued to die in droves as they were overrun. Colonel Flint was carrying a belt-fed heavy machine gun with three barrels that spun as they fired. He hosed the closest of the Sasquatch with the weapon. The Sasquatch jerked about as bullets riddled their bodies.
Joe kept Karen moving. They rounded a corner and came upon the door of an apartment building.
“Inside!” Joe barked at Karen, kicking the door open and shoving her through it ahead of him.
There was a stairwell that led to the building’s upper floors and that’s where Joe took the two of them. Once inside the stairwell, Joe paused long enough to wedge a knife through the door’s handle.
“Joe…” Karen said. There was fear in her voice but anger at him too. Her eyes seemed to ask how he could simply abandon everyone else to die in the battle still raging outside.
“We need to get off the ground floor,” Joe said. “Keep moving!”
****
Fifteen minutes or more had passed since Joe had heard a single gunshot outside. There were still plenty of screams and wailing though. It was almost as if the Sasquatch were taking their time with those who were still alive in the streets outside. Joe felt no guilt. Karen was okay. That was all that mattered. He had hidden them in an apartment on the building’s fourth and highest floor. After blocking the door leading into the apartment with a couch, a dresser, other odd bits of furniture, Joe had settled down some. He hoped that the Sasquatch would leave the city once they were done wiping out whatever few other survivors of the battle were left.
Karen was staring at him with flat-out hatred burning in her tear-reddened eyes.
“How could you, Joe?” she asked.
“How could I what? Save your life?” Joe shrugged where he sat reloading his double-barreled shotguns and pistols.
“You know exactly what I mean Joe,” Karen spat. “Those people we left behind out there … they were counting on you.”
“I couldn’t save them, Karen.” Joe frowned. “I’m not even sure that I have saved us yet. If those things…”
“Maybe I don’t want to be saved anymore, Joe.” Karen glared at him. “Everyone I know … everyone else in this whole city is either dead or dying out there. How am I supposed to live with that?”
“Live,” Joe said. “That’s the key word in what you just said, Karen. And I am going to make sure that you do.”
“Why me, Joe?” Karen asked.
“You are special, Karen,” Joe answered. “You’re going to be the mother of a new race of humans. Together, we can start over.”
“But I don’t want to start over, Joe … and certainly not with you,” Karen said.
Her words cut him deeper than the claws of a Sasquatch. Joe cringed at them, not wanting to believe that they were real though he knew they were. He could see that she was never going to forgive him for saving her and her alone.
“Goodbye, Joe,” Karen said. He had allowed her to hold onto her .30.06. Joe saw what she was going to do and started moving to stop her but just wasn’t enough time for him to cross the room and tear the weapon from her hands. The barrel of the rifle entered her mouth a fraction of second before she squeezed its trigger. The back of her skull disintegrated into a shower of blood, gore, and bone fragments that splattered over the wall behind where she sat on the apartment’s floor.
Joe slumped onto his knees, staring at Karen’s dead body. Tears welled up in his eyes and escaped them, running down over the curves of his cheeks. He had failed … failed to protect the only thing in the world that had mattered to him.
Heavy footfalls crashed along the hallway outside the apartment. The Sasquatch had found them. Karen’s shot had drawn the monsters to it. Joe didn’t want to fight anymore. There was no point in it. Cedarmark was the last city and now it was gone just like all the others. There was no other place to run to.
Joe rose to his feet, picking up his double-barreled shotguns as the door of the apartment came crashing inward, shoving aside the makeshift barricade he had piled in front of it. Joe emptied both shotguns into the first monster that came through the door. The Sasquatch died as the four heavy slugs from his shotguns blew holes in its chest and guts. Joe dropped the shotguns, allowing them to clatter onto the floor at his feet. He knew the odds were impossibly against him but Joe wasn’t going to go down without a fight. His conditioning from Project Ares wouldn’t let him. Assuming a defensive stance with his katana held ready, Joe screamed, “I’ll see you in Hell you fragging bastards!”
And then the Sasquatch pouring into the apartment came at him one after another until the room’s walls and floor were drenched with blood and Joe finally met his end.
END
Read on for a free sample of Baker County Bigfoot Chronicle
Eric S Brown is the author of numerous book series including the Bigfoot War series, The Psi-Mechs Inc. series, the Kaiju Apocalypse series (with Jason Cordova), the Crypto-Squad series (with Jason Brannon), the Homeworld series (With Tony Faville and Jason Cordova), the Jack Bunny Bam series, and the A Pack of Wolves series. Some of his stand alone books include War of the Worlds plus Blood Guts and Zombies, Casper Alamo (with Jason Brannon), Sasquatch Island, Day of the Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Crashed, World War of the Dead, Last Stand in a Dead Land, Sasquatch Lake, Kaiju Armageddon, Megalodon, Megalodon Apocalypse, Kraken, Alien Battalion, The Last Fleet, and From the Snow They Came to name only a few. His short fiction has be
en published hundreds of times in the small press in beyond including markets like the Onward Drake and Black Tide Rising anthologies from Baen Books, the Grantville Gazette, the SNAFU Military horror anthology series, and Walmart World magazine. He has done the novelizations for such films as Boggy Creek: The Legend is True (Studio 3 Entertainment) and The Bloody Rage of Bigfoot (Great Lake films). The first book of his Bigfoot War series was adapted into a feature film by Origin Releasing in 2014. Werewolf Massacre at Hell’s Gate was the second of his books to be adapted into film in 2015. Major Japanese publisher, Takeshobo, bought the reprint rights to his Kaiju Apocalypse series (with Jason Cordova) and the mass market, Japanese language version was released in late 2017. Ring of Fire Press has released a collected edition of his Monster Society stories (set in the New York Times Best-selling world of Eric Flint’s 1632). In addition to his fiction, Eric also writes an award winning comic book news column entitled “Comics in a Flash” as well a pop culture column for Altered Reality Magazine. Eric lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children where he continues to write tales of the hungry dead, blazing guns, and the things that lurk in the woods.
Chapter 1
Tony Joyner and Kurt Bledsoe had been friends since the first time they’d ever met in Mrs. Wilson’s kindergarten class many moons ago. Tony had been the shy one, quiet and reserved. Kurt was his polar opposite, rambunctious and mischievous. The two had been inseparable and where you found one, the other was close behind. Not surprising, Kurt’s outgoing personality bled over into his confidence level and as it was, he was very sought after by the girls in their high school. With his dark hair, and chiseled good looks, it was no surprise that his girlfriend had been the homecoming queen. June Johnson was blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful—truly a dream girl for all the other boys in the senior class. For this reason, it never made any sense at all to Tony that Kurt frequently cheated on her. He seemed to take her for granted, and although Tony had tried on many occasions to talk sense into him, it was no use. Kurt simply loved girls—even more so than the average teenage boy, Tony thought—and he’d finally come to accept that this trait was just part of who he was.
Night of the Sasquatch Page 9
