Beast

by Watt Key

  “What about school?” I said.

  “I’ve made arrangements for you to attend in Cross City. Just for now. Just until we know more. They’re searching the entire Refuge. Both sides of the river clear down to the mouth and out into the Gulf.”

  “I don’t think they could have lived out there for this long,” I said.

  Uncle John looked at me. “Adam, I’m not giving up on them, but we’ll have to face reality at some point. Chances are they’re not coming back. That’s a dangerous river. The current’s strong. The water’s dark. There’s alligators and snakes all over the place.”

  I looked out the window.

  “We simply don’t know what happened and may never know,” he said.

  “What if they don’t find them?”

  “Your parents had a will. They left you in my care, and I intend to do the best job I can raising you.”

  I looked back at him again. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, how do you have a funeral?”

  “Well, you just have one anyway. There’s just, you know…”

  “Empty graves?”

  “We don’t need to talk about that yet. I think it’s best if we both try to get ourselves together and press on.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” I said.

  Uncle John looked over at me. “You’ll be okay, Adam. It won’t be easy, but people live through this stuff.”

  “I can’t sleep,” I said. “I have bad dreams. Even in the daytime.”

  “Okay,” he said, thoughtfully. “I’ll see about finding someone you can talk to about it.”

  “Nobody knows anything,” I said.

  “What do you mean? There’s doctors that specialize in helping people with this kind of stuff.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t know about what happened to me. About my nightmares and what I saw.”

  Uncle John sighed. “Is this about the Sasquatch?”

  I hated the word. He didn’t mean it, but I heard the mockery in his voice.

  I looked out the window again. “Never mind,” I said.

  “You probably saw a bear, Adam. It was dark and easy to get confused.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I was just … I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “There’s no such thing as Sasquatch.”

  I looked at him. “I’d never even heard that word,” I said. “The newspaper called it that, not me.”

  “Then what did you tell them?” he asked.

  “I told the state trooper what I saw.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t a bear?”

  I couldn’t hold back my anger and frustration. “It wasn’t a bear!” I shouted. “I know what I saw, and it wasn’t a bear!”

  Uncle John studied the road, looking a little startled. “Okay,” he said. “No problem. I believe you.”

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself.

  “Listen,” he said, finally. “I believe you think you saw this thing. I do.”

  “Forget it,” I mumbled.

  “I’m going to tell you a story about something that happened to me when I was about your age. There was a boy who moved into my neighborhood who I got to be friends with. One day he asks me if I want to go to camp with him that summer. It was just this weeklong thing his church did. Your grandparents thought it sounded okay, and it wasn’t expensive so I went. Turned out it was some kind of extreme Bible camp. The preacher put his hand on these kids’ heads and told them he was sending Jesus into them. They started flipping about on the ground and shouting all this weird stuff. Speaking in tongues, they call it.”

  “So you’re saying I’m crazy?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying, depending on people’s state of mind, they can believe what they want to believe.”

  He thought I was nuts. I supposed everybody did.

  “You think I want to believe in Bigfoot?” I said.

  “Look, let’s just forget it for now.”

  “I don’t want any of this.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  * * *

  We pulled up in front of my home in the Glen Oaks subdivision. There wasn’t much to it: a three-bedroom wood-frame house that looked pretty much like all the others. We’d lived there for as long as I could remember. For a moment I thought it was possible my parents would be inside waiting for me—that it was all a big misunderstanding. But that flash of hope quickly disappeared when I saw Mom’s car in the driveway sprinkled with oak leaves and that the windows of the house were dark.

  Uncle John had a spare key and walked with me to the front door and let me in. Then he waited in the foyer while I went back to my room. It was strange being in there, the house just like we’d left it, smelling like Mom and Dad. When I entered my room, it felt like entering a tomb full of ancient artifacts—items left long ago by some kid that wasn’t alive anymore.

  I didn’t want much. I grabbed my L.L.Bean school backpack and slung it over my shoulder. I got my Treblehook Gear fishing cap off the bedpost and slipped it on. Then I pulled my duffel bag from under the bed and filled it with some extra clothes. At the last minute, I glanced at my dresser and saw the Swiss Army knife Dad had given me on my tenth birthday. I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket. Then I turned and walked out and pulled the door shut behind me.

  I didn’t want to stay in there.

  5

  Uncle John’s house is a small brick home just on the outskirts of Cross City. It’s neat and tidy on the inside, but it always gave me the sense it’s a place where a man lives alone. The furniture is basic and the rooms are mostly bare of decorations. It has the overall smell of pine and glue and laundry detergent. It’s not unpleasant, but certainly not comforting.

  I’d asked my parents once why Uncle John never had a wife.

  “Sometimes, if a person doesn’t get married early, they get too set in their ways to make it work later,” Dad said.

  “John had some opportunities,” Mom continued, “but they didn’t work out for one reason or another.”

  I didn’t get the sense they disapproved, but I could tell they felt sorry for him. And I suppose it made me feel sorry for him, which bothered me. But it didn’t seem like there was any purpose to him. Like he just spent his whole life in orbit between the power company and his house, and occasionally shooting out like a comet to the hunting camp during deer season. And that was just because he knew Dad and I were going to be there. He was friendly enough, but he didn’t seem to have any friends. I didn’t see how he’d ever replace Dad.

  Uncle John had cleaned out his extra bedroom, which was used for storage. He’d furnished it with a bed frame, mattress, and small chest of drawers. Otherwise the room was a bare box with about as much character as a prison cell.

  * * *

  Uncle John told me the situation with my parents was still too uncertain for me to start school that week. If we hadn’t heard anything by Sunday evening, then my first day at Cross City Middle would be Monday.

  For the rest of the week, I rested during the day. Uncle John’s shift didn’t start until six o’clock in the evening, so he was at the house most of the day sleeping.

  I stayed off the iPad and the internet. I lay on the living room sofa watching old reruns of Western movies during the day. It helped keep my mind distracted. But the nights were a different story. I tossed against visions of all things cryptid—vampires and werewolves and the Rake. And when I finally woke, I found myself yelling to an empty house.

  After two nights of this, I asked Uncle John to get more sleeping pills for me. He picked up some melatonin at the grocery store, and it helped. He also made an appointment for me to see a therapist the following Wednesday. I wished there was a way to erase the horrors seared into my brain and start over. I didn’t have any confidence I could be helped, but at that point I was willing to try anything.

  * * *

  We hadn’t heard much in the way of news about my parents by Sunday eve
ning. In response to Uncle John’s phone calls, the police said the search was still ongoing, the investigation still open. On Monday morning I took my old schoolbooks out of my backpack so it was mostly empty. The week before our vacation to Disney World, my class had gone on a field trip to Wakulla Springs. Mom had bought a poncho and a disposable waterproof camera for me to take. We were going to be outside on a nature tour, and if the weather was bad the poncho would keep me drier than my rain jacket. The camera was for pictures with my friends, which she was always bugging me about.

  It didn’t rain, so the poncho was still unopened. I’ve never been much for taking photos, so I took only four, just enough to say I’d used it. There were still thirty-two exposures left. For some reason, now that Mom was gone, I felt guilty for not doing the simple things I knew made her happy. So I left the poncho and the camera in the pack, planning to use the remaining film, not sure that she would ever get to see the pictures. Then I bagged a lunch, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and left with Uncle John for Cross City Middle.

  Back in Perry I’d been at the same school since kindergarten and knew just about everybody in my grade. I wasn’t great at sports, and my grades were average. I wasn’t supercool, but I wasn’t a dork either. School has just always been pretty easy and comfortable. Here in Cross City, though, I was starting over.

  I probably should have been nervous, but I wasn’t. I was relieved I didn’t have to see kids I knew. That I didn’t have to listen to people say they were sorry about my parents and talk about the accident and the stupid newspaper article. Here in Cross City, I figured I could disappear for as long as I wanted.

  The assistant principal gave me my books and a schedule of my classes. Then he walked me to a homeroom full of chatting kids and introduced me to the teacher. She was nice and looked over my schedule and gave me a map of the school and circled where my classrooms were. Then I took a seat near the back of the room, thankful none of the other students seemed to notice me.

  First period was math. I already knew what they were studying and tuned out most of it. English was next. The class was reading The Red Pony by John Steinbeck. The teacher gave me a copy and told me to catch up as soon as I could. After English we had a fifteen-minute break in the lunchroom. Then I went to history class. That’s when the problems started.

  The teacher’s name was Mr. Thornton. At the beginning of the period, he had me come to the front of the room, stand in front of the whiteboard, and introduce myself. A classroom of nearly twenty students grew silent and stared at me.

  “I’m Adam Parks,” I said.

  “Where are you from, Adam?” Mr. Thornton asked.

  I felt myself getting uneasy. “Perry,” I said.

  “And what brings you to Cross City?”

  “I just moved here,” I said.

  Then there was that boy. There’s always that boy. And he’s always big and likes to twiddle pencils in his mouth.

  “What happened to your face?” the boy said, in a way that sounds innocent but you know it’s not.

  Half the class started chuckling.

  “Shut up, Gantt!” a girl with blond hair snapped. “He was in a car accident.”

  I felt my heart drumming in my chest.

  Mr. Thornton was already moving toward Gantt. He stood over him and motioned toward the door. “Out,” he said. “Into the hall.”

  Some of the boys laughed. Gantt grinned and made a point of slowly standing up and grabbing his books. Then he strolled out of the room, still grinning.

  “Is that true, Adam?” Mr. Thornton asked.

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope everybody’s okay.”

  “I saw it on the news,” the girl said. “I hope they find your parents.”

  “I read about that in the paper!” a boy with red hair said. “You’re the one that saw the swamp ape!”

  Nobody was laughing now. I felt like I was about to puke. I left the whiteboard and started for the back of the room, as far back as possible.

  “We’re glad to have you, Adam,” Mr. Thornton said after me. “And I’m sure your family will be in all of our prayers.”

  I took my seat in the back and stared at the cover of my book. The queasiness had left me, and now my mouth was dry and my scalp tingled and a steady ringing sounded in my ears and made it impossible to think. Like my head was full of crawling, whining termites eating my brain. I’m losing my mind now, I thought. This is what it feels like.

  I don’t remember anything Mr. Thornton said for the next forty-five minutes. Then I vaguely realized class was over and got up and followed the others out into the hall. It was lunchtime, and everyone was going to their lockers. I hadn’t gone far before I came across Gantt, who was standing with some other guys.

  “Hey, Adam,” he said in that fake-nice voice. “Tell me about the swamp ape.”

  I stopped and looked up at him. For a moment I just stood there, staring at his meaty face through the buzzing in my head.

  “What’d it look like?” Gantt said.

  One of the other boys snickered.

  I dropped my backpack and tackled Gantt against the lockers. I heard kids yelling around me as I drove my fists into his stomach as hard as I could, over and over again. We fell sideways to the floor and I kept hitting him. Then he managed to roll me before he was suddenly pulled away by a teacher. I lay there, breathing hard, staring past a bunch of strange faces.

  6

  Uncle John had to come get me from school. He met with the assistant principal in his office while I waited in the hall. After a few minutes he walked out frowning and motioned for me to follow him. It wasn’t until we were crossing the parking lot that he said anything.

  “Geez, Adam. What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  “You just got suspended from school on your first day. I think it’s time to start talking about things.”

  I didn’t respond.

  We got into his truck and started for the house. We hadn’t gone far before Uncle John’s cell phone rang. He answered it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, this is John Walker … Okay … Okay.”

  He slowed the truck and pulled onto the roadside. I looked over at him. He put the truck in park and sat back in his seat. He took a deep breath.

  “So what’s next?” he said into the phone.

  I knew who it was.

  “Okay … Please do. Thank you.”

  He set the phone down and rubbed his face. “They’ve called off the search,” he said.

  I didn’t answer him. The words weren’t any surprise. He looked at me. “They said something might still come up. If they find anything they’ll contact us immediately. Who knows how long this could take?”

  “We already know it’s too late,” I said. “We already know they’re gone.”

  Uncle John put the truck into gear and didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. I looked out the window as my throat tightened and tears began rolling down my face. I just felt sick and ruined and hopeless.

  * * *

  Uncle John went to work that evening, and I was alone again. My parents were gone. I was suspended from school. Everyone thought I was crazy. And what if I was? I thought of something Dad had told me once. “Always be considerate. Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy.”

  How would I know it?

  All I knew for certain is Mom’s and Dad’s disappearances and the vision of this creature had left me stunned. My world had been wiped clean. It didn’t seem I had anything to live for except finding my way to the truth and figuring out where I fit into this world that wasn’t at all what I’d been taught it would be like.

  Was it real? Was Bigfoot a real thing or, as Uncle John said, something my mind had made up?

  I got out the iPad again and went to the Bigfoot research site. These were my people now, crazy or not.

  * * *

  I read through report after report, this time
focusing more on the witnesses than their encounters. The interviewers who compiled the reports gave a short assessment of the eyewitness’s character at the end of each document. None of the assessments led me to believe these people were lying or crazy. Some were even doctors and lawyers and police officers.

  While it was a relief to know there were others like me who had seen these things, and they didn’t sound crazy, it wasn’t enough. I needed to speak to one of these people. I needed to hear a voice tell me I wasn’t losing my mind.

  I thought about contacting the site and submitting my own encounter. One of their investigators would contact me and then I could communicate with someone who would understand. Then I considered none of the reports were made by children or teenagers, and mine would certainly stand out. And maybe more people would connect me to the report since my story was so fresh in the news. That would just make things worse. There had to be another way.

  I kept reading through all the Florida encounters. I came across one from another Panhandle town called Yellow Jacket, just south of Fanning Springs and only about twenty miles from Cross City. A man who lived on the edge of Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge claimed to have heard his cows lowing and running about his pasture at two o’clock in the morning. He got into his truck and drove out to the field to find all the cows bunched up in a corner, nearly climbing on top of one another. They were so frightened and packed so tightly against the electric fence, they’d short-circuited it. He drove into the pasture, and his headlight beams revealed a creature sitting next to a cedar tree eating the torn-off leg of one of his cows.

  The report was submitted on June 11, 2013, and the encounter had happened in October of 1991. But I’d found most of the encounters weren’t reported until years later. Like me, the witnesses hadn’t known what they’d seen. And until they met or read about others who’d seen the same thing, they’d been scared to talk about it.

  I searched the report, looking for information as to where exactly this farm was. It didn’t list the man’s name or address, but there were several clues. First of all, the location description read “approximately one mile south of Yellow Jacket on County Road 34.” Second of all, there was the detail about the cedar tree. From the incident report it sounded like the tree would have been in the middle of the field. It seemed unusual to have a cedar tree in the middle of a cow pasture.