“I told him to kill them.”
46
Even though they were concerned not knowing why Alden had snuck off and were worried for his safety, it didn’t deter them from the task at hand. After some brief discussion, they finally came up with a course of action.
It was a simple enough plan.
Mason would create a diversion to draw the two male bigfoot away from the female, while Clay and Mia went in and rescued their son.
They crept along the top of the knoll until they found underbrush tall enough that they could venture down behind and not be detected.
When they finally made it to the hollow without arousing suspicion, they ducked behind a stand of shrubs for cover. From their vantage point, they could see the black and brown bigfoot twenty feet away by themselves, squatting on the ground and grabbing handfuls of elderberries off a plant and stuffing the fruit into their greedy mouths.
The female was sitting on the ground with her back against a tree. Her chin was slumped on her chest, Casey lying on her lap, both sound asleep taking a nap.
“This is our chance,” Clay whispered.
Mason peered through the branches and stole a peek at the two males. “Okay, give me a slow count to thirty then make your move.”
“Be careful,” Mia said.
Mason was taken aback. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.” He gave her smile—a yellow crescent in his fuzzy beard.
The big man crept away and edged along the underbrush until he reached an area of deadfall and hid behind a large log. He wet his finger, put it up to test the air, and felt a slight breeze blowing in his face, which meant that he was downwind of the two bigfoot and they probably hadn’t picked up his scent though he could surely smell their stench.
Mason looked down at the ground and saw a large pinecone. He picked it up and threw it as far as he could deeper into the woods. The strobile struck a tree trunk with a loud crack and bounced off onto the dirt.
The black bigfoot was the first to hear the sound and looked in the general direction where Mason had thrown the pinecone. Mason waited for it to wander over to investigate the sound, but the creature didn’t move. Time was running out. He picked up another pinecone. He needed to draw their attention to him.
So he stood up and made himself visible to the two creatures.
“Hey!” Then Mason threw the pinecone, striking the brown bigfoot in the face.
The creature snarled, jumped to its feet, and immediately charged.
Mason backed away and began running, baiting the angry animal as it got tangled in the brush. The plan was working—maybe too well—because the black bigfoot was also in pursuit, and with its great bulk, was steamrolling through the barrier of shrubs like the vegetation wasn’t even there.
He ran as fast as he could, knowing at any time that he could spin around and kill them with his AR-15, but that meant alarming the bigfoot clan not too far away, and spooking the female before Clay and Mia could get a chance to grab Casey.
Mason had no choice but to run for his life.
***
“Come on,” Clay whispered to Mia. They squeezed between the bushes and tread softly toward the slumbering bigfoot. Each step was excruciatingly slow as there were broken branches and twigs everywhere on the ground. One false move was all it would take and their hopes of saving their little boy would be gone.
Clay had his rifle ready in case the bigfoot should wake suddenly and lash out at them. Mia was right by his side as they moved in, each one careful not to…
Snap.
Mia looked down at her boot in disbelief and saw the end of a twig sticking out from under her rubber sole.
The female bolted awake. She took in the two figures standing in front of her and in a split second was on her feet, crashing into the brush with Casey tucked under her arm, and was gone before Clay and Mia even knew what was happening.
47
Once Mason had lured the two bigfoot far enough away, giving Clay and Mia hopefully the time they needed to retrieve their son, he stopped and turned around to stand his ground. He raised the muzzle of the AR-15 to take aim on the first bigfoot to appear in his gun sight.
The black bigfoot stormed out of the trees.
Mason set his finger in the trigger guard, waited for the precise moment, and pulled the trigger.
The machinegun only clicked.
It was jammed.
Before Mason could go for his sidearm, the black bigfoot was already smashing into his body, knocking him to the ground. A mallet fist came down and slammed Mason’s skull. The creature reared back for another assault. But before the wrecking ball could rain down again, Mason drew his Ruger nine-millimeter.
He rolled his head and shoulder, jammed the gun muzzle in the black bigfoot’s gut, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was muffled in the animal’s thick fur.
The bigfoot roared as it rose, clamping its hand over the gunshot wound.
Mason could see a funnel of blood oozing out. There was also dried blood across its chest from a previous injury, and when it pulled its bloody hand away from its stomach, Mason could see a gaping hole clear through its palm.
No longer wanting to be in the fight, the black bigfoot held its belly wound and staggered into the trees.
Mason was too busy watching the gunshot bigfoot run off that he forgot about the other one. When he turned, he was already too late. The brown bigfoot stomped down on his gun hand, snapping his trigger finger in the guard, and breaking his thumb.
“Jesus!” Mason yelped.
The bigfoot came down again, this time driving the heel of its enormous foot down onto Mason’s ribcage. The air was instantly punched out of his lungs. A sharp pain cut into his side most likely the result of a cracked rib. He coughed and gasped and tried to sit up, but he was too spent to move. He looked over at his gun in the dirt, but his hand was useless to pick it up.
He was a goner, and he knew it. Even if he was to pull out his knife, he didn’t have the strength to protect himself.
All he could do was lie there, and wait. Wait for…
A gray blur came out of nowhere and rammed into the brown bigfoot.
Mason turned his head.
And was never so happy to see Alden.
Mason had never witnessed such a savage brawl. Both creatures were punching, tearing at each other’s fur, and fiercely biting one another. They were growling, spittle and blood flying out of their mouths.
Alden kicked at the other bigfoot. When the creature fell back on the ground, Alden picked up a large rock with both hands, and with a mighty downswing, crushed his opponent’s skull in. The brown bigfoot’s body and legs shuddered for a moment, and then it was dead.
Still lying on his back, Mason stared through the treetops and gazed up at the sky, thinking he was never more thankful to be alive.
48
Clay and Mia dashed after the female, surprised at how fast the large creature could run. They had caught fleeting glimpses of the fleeing bigfoot as she charged through the thorny briars, leaving swaths of her fur behind. Instead of sprinting on her hind legs, she was loping on her left front hand and hind legs, carrying Casey close to her body like a primate protecting her young, stampeding through a jungle.
“I thought they would be slow,” Clay called over his shoulder as he darted between the trees, doing his best to keep up the chase.
“She must be frightened out of her mind,” Mia shouted. Even though she was a small-framed woman, she had a long stride and was right on Clay’s heels.
Clay was just rounding a high scrub when he saw the bigfoot scamper up to a cave entrance set in the granite face of the hillside and rush inside. He slowed down his pace to a walk.
“What’s wrong? Why are you stopping?” Mia asked, almost running into her husband as she, too, stumbled to a halt.
“She went in there,” Clay said, pointing to the opening.
They approached the mouth of the gloomy cave, not kno
wing if the bigfoot was laying a trap, waiting to jump out at them the second they stepped inside.
“I can’t see where they went,” Clay said, staring into the caliginous tunnel.
He went in first. Mia stayed close. Even though the passage ahead was tenebrous, there were fissures of natural daylight shinning down from the ceiling. Clay and Mia looked up as they walked and could see tiny patches of blue sky through the narrow clefts in the rock stretching all the way up to the surface. The stone floor and walls were damp and slick from condensation and water seepage.
Clay looked down at the ground and saw large wet footprints. “We’re in luck.”
“Come on, she couldn’t have gotten far,” Mia said.
They wanted to run, but the slick rock was too slippery, so they kept it to a fast walk, grabbing at the walls whenever they thought they were going to slide and fall.
Clay and Mia crossed over some dry ground, and the footprints soon faded away just as they reached a junction of four dark passages.
“Now what do we do?” Mia said painfully.
49
Mason returned to where he had left Clay and Mia and quickly picked up their tracks. He could tell by their deep imprints that there had been a pursuit.
His hand hurt like hell from resetting his thumb and forefinger, which were purple and swollen. Even though he wasn’t much of a shot with his left hand, he still carried the gun with him.
Alden, too, was following their trail with his nose.
After covering a fair amount of ground, they stopped at a hedgerow of shrubs.
Mason could see the dark entrance to a cave.
He was about to step out of the bushes when Alden grunted a warning. Mason didn’t know if he should heed the admonisher hunkered down by his side but figured he better, trusting Alden’s acute instincts.
That’s when he saw the fierce-looking ghoul step out from the trees. He had never seen such a creature. Even though it resembled a short person, it was definitely not human. It looked like a walking skeleton with paper-thin skin.
The barefoot ghoul stood, wielding a spear. It wore a white animal hide across its shoulders, opened in the front, a mummified snow fox’s snout face as a headdress.
Mason had never seen anything more ugly.
It was straight out of a nightmare.
The miniature warrior tramped over to the cave entrance and peered into the murkiness. It knelt on one bony knee, swiped the ground with its thin-fingered hand, and licked its palm with a black, serpentine tongue.
The ghoul stood, faced the trees, and trilled like a raccoon.
Mason watched in horror, as one by one, more similar-looking creatures appeared, all dressed in animal skins and carrying lances.
They gradually mustered into small groups.
Mason counted more than a hundred.
The abomination that had summoned the others, which Mason assumed was their leader, pointed his spear at the cave entrance, signaling the horde to enter.
Mason stayed behind his concealment until the last ghoul had gone inside.
“It’s a damn hunting party,” he said and turned his head.
Alden was no longer by his side.
He had skulked off while Mason had been enthralled watching the strange creatures assembling.
“Not again.” This time, he was mad. “Where the hell did you go? Don’t tell me you’re scared?” he cursed, accusing the bigfoot of being petrified and slinking away.
“Oh, what the hell.” Mason pushed through the shrubs, and with his pistol in hand, strode toward the cave.
50
“Maybe we should split up. That would give us a fifty-fifty chance,” Mia said, trying to rationalize their options as she stared at the four passageways.
“And if we choose the wrong ones? We’d most likely get lost and never find each other. No, we have to stay together. Just pick one.”
Still indecisive, Mia stepped from one passage entrance to the other, and then, suddenly stopped at the third one. “She went through here. I can smell her.”
Clay rushed over and sniffed the air. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
“Wait a sec. Do you hear that?”
Clay turned his head to listen, thinking that Mia had heard something up ahead.
“No,” Mia said when she realized he had misunderstood her. “Behind us. Do you hear that?”
Clay turned his head. “Yeah, I do. Sounds like an army coming.”
“An army of what?”
“Bigfoot?”
“We have to hide. And quick.”
They ran into the passage that they were sure the female bigfoot had taken. The corridor wound through the rock in twisty turns. They could hear footfalls approaching steadily from behind.
In a matter of seconds, the creatures would be around the bend.
Clay looked up. “We can hide up there.” He pointed to a recess in the wall up near the ceiling. He put his hands together, interweaving his fingers. “Here, step up.”
Mia placed her boot in his hands and let Clay boost her up. She grabbed hold and pulled herself into the niche that was situated eight feet up from the ground. Clay climbed up and crammed into the cranny next to Mia.
Clay was afraid that when the tall creatures ran by, their hidey-hole wouldn’t be high enough, and the bigfoot would easily spot them as they passed by.
The couple heard bare feet slapping across the stone floor below, but they couldn’t see who it was. Edging toward the lip, Clay and Mia gazed down.
A dozen short creatures with spears raced by.
“Oh my God, Clay. Are those…the little people?” Mia gasped.
“Jesus, Micah wasn’t lying.”
And that’s when they heard the female bigfoot’s terrified cry.
51
Hustling through the passageway, the female bigfoot howled when she realized that she had run into a dead end. She was standing in a small antechamber with nowhere to go. Above her head was an airshaft that went up to the surface, but it wasn’t within her reach.
Her baby was agitated from all the jostling and began to wail. She was frightened, trapped. She glanced around to see if there was a possibility of scaling the walls, anything to get out of this prison, escape the danger that she had so unwontedly put the two of them in.
And then they scurried in; the ones that hunted her kind. Even though she was bigger and stronger, they greatly outnumbered her, and she was further disadvantaged having to protect her baby.
She backed against a wall so that they couldn’t outflank her and placed the baby on the ground behind her foot. She rolled her shoulders and puffed out her chest and roared at the troupe forming in front of her. They stood side by side, pointing their sharp spears.
Their gaze was not so much on her as it was on her crying baby. They were a vicious lot. She had seen them attack before. The way they pleasured in killing.
Three of them came at her at once. With both hands free, she swatted a weapon out of one assailant’s tiny hands. Another one lunged, and she avoided being stabbed by stepping to one side.
Giving the third aggressor the perfect opportunity to impale her in the abdomen.
She screeched, reached down, and plucked out the shaft. Then she grabbed her tormenter by the throat, slammed its skull into the rock wall, smashing it open like a gooey gourd.
Another one got too close and she hammered her fist, driving its head down through its spine.
She fought courageously, but the beset became overwhelming as more of them advanced, thrusting and jabbing, most often connecting and drawing gouts of blood every time they jerked their spear tips out of her body.
She howled, not so much because of the pain, but knowing that it was only a matter of time before she would no longer be able to shield her baby from the bloodthirsty predators.
A daring assailant ran up and drove its weapon into her chest.
The female bigfoot dropped to her knees.
She raised her arms to wa
rd off more punishing strikes and further impalements as her baby cried at the top of his lungs.
The infant’s unrest only fueled the murderous lot to quicken the job.
52
“That’s Casey crying,” Mia said, hearing her son further down the passage as she scooted down from their hiding place into Clay’s waiting arms.
Clay and Mia took off running as now their son’s capturer was bellowing in pain.
“They must be after her,” Mia said.
“Sounds like they caught up,” Clay responded.
When they came around a bend, they almost ran smack dab into the pack of little people converging on the fallen bigfoot.
“Get away from her,” Mia yelled.
Ten ghouls turned in unison and pointed their sharp spears. Four of them even charged.
Clay raised the Winchester and shot one in the chest. The creature screeched and fell dead on the ground. He levered another round and fired, killing another one. The other two stepped back to regroup with the others.
Three ghouls came at Mia. She pulled her small handgun out of her coat pocket and began shooting, dropping two in their tracks.
The third one snarled, ready to run her through…
Clay shot Mia’s attacker in the head. The creature’s skull splintered apart like a porcelain teacup.
When the others ran at them, Clay levered a couple more shots as Mia emptied her .22 caliber. The remainder of the group dispersed and ran back through the cave.
Mia approached the mortally wounded bigfoot.
Down on her haunches and propped up against the wall, her riddled body was covered in bloody splotches. Close to death, she reached down and picked up Casey, who was still fussing. She cradled him in her arms and he instantly quieted down.
Looking down, Mia couldn’t help but cry.
Even though this creature had abducted her son and stolen him away, Mia was grateful that Casey had been cared for. This massive beast that lay here before her had actually sacrificed her life in order to keep her son from being harmed.
The Beasts Of Stoneclad Mountain Page 13
