When Nature Calls

by Harper Crowley

  “Sorry, bud,” I mutter, hopping off so I can let him out before he gouges holes in me.

  Russ spreads the map out on the seat of his ATV. “This is it,” he says, pointing at a spot on the map. He traces a line through the trees to the house where we found Greg and his brother. “We’re not that far. Maybe a mile or two.” He gestures for George to join him. “About how far do you think Greg Burrows could carry his brother if they were injured?”

  George does a full circle. “Not far, especially if the brother was as injured as they said he was.” His eyes grow distant as he ponders something. “You know, you said they found the car not too far away from here, right?”

  I nod. “In a rest area just off of the interstate.”

  “Then there’s a couple of spots we can check that aren’t too far away. Don’t know why they wouldn’t have picked a campground, though. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  He’s right. I file that question away to ask Greg if I talk to him again. I definitely want to check on him and see how he’s doing.

  I slip on our other GoPro harness and connect the camera. “Ready?”

  “I think we should live stream this if we have the reception,” Jess says, her eyes glued to her phone. “We haven’t uploaded as much as we usually do, and our subscribers are getting antsy. I mean, we’re just looking for a campsite, right? We filled them in on what we found, at least as much as we could, but they want more. There’s a heated debate going on about whether or not a Bigfoot is involved or if it’s human.” She pulls out her phone and taps on the screen. “Damn it. The Internet is so slow out here. It’ll take me years to get to the website.” She shoves her phone back into her pocket. “There’s a poll and everything, and I wanted to see who was winning.”

  My eyes meet Russ’s. “What do you think? Should we live stream it?”

  He shrugs. “Probably, but why in the hell not? Set up the hot spot on your phone, and we’ll be online as we go, at least more or less, as long as we get some sort of reception.”

  I glance at my phone. “Two bars. It’s not the best, but we can work with it. If we end up getting arrested or eaten by Bigfoot, then at least our last moments will be documented.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Jess says, grinning. “Come on.” She gestures at Russ. “Let’s do an intro while Mer sets up the hot spot.”

  As they start recording a few feet away, I connect my phone and make sure my camera works with it. Russ will have done the same with his, I’m sure. He’s efficient like that. By the time they’ve returned, George has finished scouring the map, and I’ve repacked the gear we won’t be using.

  “All set,” Russ says. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “How about you?” I ask George. I eye the lengthening shadows stretching between the trees. If George is confident, then I’ll be fine. He knows these woods far better than anyone else, I bet. If he says he’s all right, then I have to trust him.

  The older man nods. “I’m good.”

  Okay then. I guess that’s that. A couple of minutes later, we’re following George down the overgrown two-lane trail. Bear buries his nose in the grass and weeds to either side of the trail, his whole head and body disappearing at times, except for his wiry white tail. He crisscrosses from one side of the track to the other. I know he’s not a tracking dog and is likely smelling all of the squirrels and rabbits that live here, but he sure looks the part of a professional right now.

  “The first spot I was telling you about is just over this ridge,” George says, pointing to his right.

  I shade my eyes with my hand, but all I see are trees. I hope he’s right, for all of our sakes. I don’t want to get lost and die out here.

  The first clearing is a bust. Not because the campsite isn’t there—it was—but because there’s nothing there but deer shit. George gleefully points out that it would be a great place to search for Bigfoot. I tell him maybe on another night.

  He then directs us to another site about twenty minutes from the first one. That one’s also empty and devoid of anything but more leaves and nearly waist-high weeds.

  “There are two more,” George says, waving his arm in the general direction where these supposed camps might be. “Not too far, but it’s probably all we can get to during the daylight.”

  I watch the sun as it slowly makes its way to the horizon. “Are you sure you can find it?” I ask.

  He waves off my worries. “It’s fine. I’ve been out here all my life, remember?”

  “How’re we doing on reception?” Russ asks.

  I glance at my phone. “One bar, but it keeps going in and out. I’m surprised we’re getting anything, to be honest. Must be a tower somewhere.”

  “Let’s take advantage of it while we can,” he says.

  The third clearing can barely be classified as such. It’s just a blank space in between the trees, as if they forgot to grow there. It’s just a ring of trees surrounding a vacant opening in the forest.

  “This is weird,” Russ says, turning slowly so the camera he’s wearing can get the whole clearing. “I don’t know if you got this, but there’s no grass here. It’s all dirt.”

  I look down at my feet. He’s right. “That is strange.” I crouch down and take a pinch of the earth between my fingertips, rubbing them together slowly as I watch the dirt fall away.

  “Hey, I think I found something!” Jess yells from the far side of the dirty ground. “Come here!”

  Russ, George, and I hurry over to her side. Hidden underneath some brush is what looks to be garbage, including empty coffee cans, a couple of water bottles, some empty bottles of cleaning supplies, a few food wrappers, and a wadded-up fast food bag. All of it is garbage, and all of it is meaningless to us. It pisses me off, but it’s not what we came up here for.

  “Damn idiots,” George says. “Always littering and never cleaning up for themselves. I hate people like that.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away.

  Russ crouches down, clearing off the trash. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes widen, and he scrambles backward until he’s about six feet away from the trash pile.

  “I think we’d better call the cops,” he says, pointing at the pile with a shaking finger. “Like, now.”

  “Why?” I drop to my knees to get a closer look. There, half hidden under the pile of trash, is a mostly rotted skeleton, its skin stretched tightly over the bones, and its empty eye sockets gaping at me. I swear and kick myself backward, eager to get away from here.

  “Crap.” I say. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Jess peeks around my shoulder before I can stop her. “What the heck?” She spots the dead body before George does. “Holy crap,” she says. “What is that?”

  “Um, a human skull?” I say, my voice shaky.

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  I pull my phone back out and dial Ceri’s dad’s number. “No reception.” I glare at the screen, frustrated. So much for a constant live stream. If anyone’s watching, they’re probably upset that the feed cut again. On the plus side, they didn’t have to see yet another dead body that’ll probably haunt me for the rest of my life, so it might not be such a bad thing. “Is there a hill or something around here where I might be able to get phone reception?”

  George shakes his head. “You’ll probably have to hike closer to the road. There ain’t really hills to speak of around here.”

  Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Except for the ravine where we found the destroyed camping gear, everything’s been pretty flat. Just great. It looks like there’s more hiking in my future.

  “Do you want to, you know,” Jess gestures at the skull, “take some pictures or something?”

  I glance at Russ, but he shrugs. “I don’t know.” I frown at the skull. “Can we do that? I mean, everything else we’ve found, it’s been accidental, you know? We’ve never purposely taking pictures of stuff like this. It feels wrong somehow, like we’re profiting off of someone’s death.”

  “
Yeah, I guess so,” Jess says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “I just thought our viewers would like to see it, and it might help, you know, get famous.”

  At her words and the forlorn petulance in her voice, I shake my head. “Absolutely not. I mean, yeah, it’d be nice to have an investigation in which we made it big, but I don’t want to do it this way. Let’s call the cops, like we’re supposed do, and let them take it from there.” Just saying the words helps me feel better, more confident, in our choices. Yeah, a part of me wants to take a ton of pictures and prove to our viewers that we can actually find real evidence of something happening, but another part of me just thinks it feels wrong. Somebody died out here, and I don’t want to make a cent off of that tragedy. It wouldn’t be right.

  Chapter 22

  I hold my phone away from my ear as the sheriff’s swearing fills the air.

  “God almighty,” he says. “Do you make a habit of finding dead bodies on all of your cases?”

  “It’s becoming a trend. You’re welcome, by the way,” I say, my voice dry. “I’m pretty sure this is your job. If we can find a body as untrained civilians, then your men should have found it easy-peasy. Calling you is a professional courtesy. We could have just left the skull out there and forgotten about it.” Actually, we couldn’t, but I want the sheriff to feel at least a tiny bit grateful for our help.

  He takes a deep breath then lets it out. “Okay, so where are you, again?”

  With George’s direction, I describe our current position a couple of miles from the site. The phone’s been too spotty to get a good call in any closer.

  “Let me guess, you just happened upon this spot?”

  I hesitate but decide on the truth. “We were looking for Greg Burrow’s campsite.”

  The sheriff swears again. This time it’s muffled, as though he’s covering the phone so I don’t hear the full extent of his irritation. Some of the tension in my shoulders leaches away. At least he’s not the silent but deadly type. That bodes well for us.

  He sighs. “Stay where you are. We’ll be out as soon as we can.” He hangs up, and I’m left staring at the phone, knowing I’d made the right decision to call him but wishing there’d been another way.

  Jess and Russ jog back over from the other side of the road. “Okay,” she says. “I just posted a quick update. There weren’t a lot of viewers logged on, so it’s not too bad, but what we posted has been shared almost a hundred times already.” A troubled look crosses her face. “What are we going to do if the cops make us take it down?”

  As Jess talks, Russ takes off his GoPro harness and stuffs the camera into his bag. I do the same. It’s better if the sheriff doesn’t see them. Maybe we can just tell him that we were going to take pictures but haven’t yet, as if he’ll believe that.

  I shrug. “Tell the truth. I’m not mentioning it though, so unless the sheriff asks, just keep your mouths shut.” I give George a stern look too, just in case. Not that I think he’d say anything, what with his aversion to technology and all, but one never knows. And not knowing could kill our business or worse. I think back to the Georgia case, when so many lies and secrets nearly cost us our lives. Yeah, I definitely don’t want to go there again.

  Sheriff Sinclair arrives about ten minutes later, followed by another car containing one of his deputies. Bear growls at them, and I scoop him up. We’re definitely not going to get on the sheriff’s good side if the dog bites him.

  “That’s it?” Russ asks, nonplussed as the two officers walk toward us. “You told them there was a dead body, right?”

  I nod. “Oh yeah. I described it in great detail.”

  “Then why didn’t he bring the cavalry?” Jess pipes in.

  “I don’t know.”

  Squinting at us from under the brim of his hat, the sheriff frowns. “We need to talk. Later. After you’ve taken us on this wild-goose chase.”

  I bristle. “I told you there’s a body out here. I wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

  He sticks his thumbs in his belt loops. “Uh huh. And you’re not just a bunch of kids looking to get famous or to make a buck on another’s misfortunes. I looked you up, remember?”

  “We’ve already been through this,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I told you, we debunk more cases than we prove. Seriously, Sheriff, we found you a campsite with bloody gear, an injured hiker, and one dead body, and now we’re going to take you to a second one. What more can you ask for? We’re on your side here.”

  His steely gaze pins me to the spot. “Are you? I’ve seen some of your videos. It’s all Blair Witch Project shit to me.” He massages his temple. “Anyway, we’ll talk more about this later. Let’s go find this crime scene you’re convinced is out there.”

  “It most definitely is,” I say. “You’ll see.”

  For the next half an hour, we lead the sheriff and his deputy through the forest in silence. I’m too pissed off to talk to them, and from the way Russ seethes next to me, he’s feeling the same. Jess keeps trying to pick up a signal on her phone, but it’s so spotty that as soon as she picks it up, she drops it. I’ve got to buy a hidden camera one of these days. That confrontation would have made great footage.

  “Here it is,” George wheezes, leaning against a tree. Even in the dappled light, his face looks haggard and worn. All of this walking is really wearing him out. I keep forgetting he’s not used to this much activity. George lets us pass him, and I direct the sheriff and his deputy over to where Jess found the trash. Russ stays behind with George, surreptitiously dropping his bag behind a tree. Maybe he hopes the sheriff won’t ask what’s in it if he doesn’t see it, and by the time he does, he’ll be so wrapped up in investigating the body that he won’t care.

  “It’s right around this bush,” I say, pointing to the area with the trash.

  The sheriff grabs a stick and pokes around, his brow furrowing. All of a sudden, his deputy lets out a bellowing laugh, one that echoes through the surrounding forest. What the hell?

  “Come here.” Sheriff Sinclair gestures for me to join him. I do, tentatively and with my shoulders tensed so I don’t have to look too closely at the corpse again. Gingerly, the sheriff plucks something off of the ground. “Is this what you brought us out here to see?”

  It’s a head, only it’s not a human head. It’s a deer skull, attached to a small pair of antlers. The bone is worn white with age and sun, and the antlers have a brown, milky look. Confused, I beckon Russ closer.

  “Yeah, this isn’t a human skull,” he says. His deputy doubles over with laughter. “Jackson, you go look around, see if there’s anything around here that could explain why these kids just wasted our time.”

  “I’ll look around, too,” Jess says. I doubt she wants to be around for what looks like an epic tirade. Only I don’t know if it’ll be the sheriff’s or mine.

  “That’s not what we saw,” I tell the sheriff. I root around in the brush, certain that at any moment, I’m going to overturn a few leaves and find the human skull, with its skin darkened and stretched tight over the bone and its empty eye sockets staring up at me, but I don’t. There’s nothing there.

  “Where did it go?”

  The sheriff rocks back on his heels. “Where did what go?”

  “The skull. It was right here.” I point at the pile. “Russ saw it, right?”

  My teammate grimaces. “Oh yeah, it was there.”

  “Did either of you get it on video?”

  I wince. All of a sudden my earlier arguments sound stupid. I should have just taken the pictures. “No, um, it didn’t feel right. We wanted to call you right away.”

  Sheriff Sinclair’s gaze travels from me to Russ to Jess. “So let me get this straight,” he says. “You all come out here, looking for evidence of the Bigfoot, or the missing persons, or whatever, and you claim to find part of a dead body, which you conveniently didn’t take any pictures of. Then you drag the town’s sheriff and a deputy out there, only to find out the skull you claim to
have found, which likely belongs to one of our missing people, is in fact a deer skull. Probably poached, but still just from a deer.” He grimaces. “If this is your idea of a joke, Ms. Brady, or a publicity stunt, then you’ve got a terrible sense of humor.”

  “It’s not. I swear.” Desperation makes me raise my voice. “There was a dead body here, buried underneath all of this trash. Someone must have moved it. That’s it.”

  He arches an eyebrow. “In the hour or so you were gone, someone came and moved the body, huh? Do you see any tracks?” He scans the ground. “Me, neither.” He shakes his head. “What a waste of time. If it weren’t for my daughter...” His voice trails off.

  “So Ceri’s the one who made you come out here?” That makes sense. If the sheriff thinks we’re off on some wild goose chase, he’s not likely to come running at our beck and call like he did.

  He nods tersely. “For some ungodly reason, she seems to believe in you and thinks that you’re on the right track. I think you’re full of shit, and I will say that on or off the record. I did it as a favor to her.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry for wasting your time.”

  Deputy Jackson returns, my sister following slowly. “There ain’t anything out here, Sheriff,” he says, a look of glee on his face. He’s enjoying this, the jerk.

  “There’s got to be something. I’ll... I’ll take a lie detector test or something, anything to prove I’m telling the truth.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Sheriff Sinclair says. His words have a note of finality to them that make my stomach sink. “Can you guys find your way back to your ATVs?”

  “Yeah, George will show us.” I wave at our guide, who limps toward us. “So that’s it, then? You’re just going to leave?”

  He nods. “There’s nothing going on here except a little bit of illegal poaching. I grew up in these woods and with these people, and if I arrested everyone who took a deer out of season, we wouldn’t have anyone left in town.”