And then that ended.
All because she had wanted to go on a nice, simple, relaxing “no paranormal investigation” vacation with him after they were married, her use of the word “normal” once things got a little heated within the discussion having sparked unexpected outrage—outrage that she had later learned was due to a conversation her mother had had with him about how he was selfish and never let her pick their destinations. Apparently, her mother had used the word “normal” as well, her anger toward Brian the result of a moment of venting that Alice had let out during a lunch she and her mother shared a few days earlier.
You wanted her to say something to him…
She hadn't come out and said it directly, but deep down inside, while venting, she had wanted Brian to hear her anger, something her mother must have picked up upon, because she had let him hear it all right.
Unfortunately, having it all unfold the way it did pretty much put an end to them taking trips together, which, looking back, was one of the reasons why their marriage had started to crumble. And though she wouldn't have said so at the time, had she been given the choice between going with him on his trips and not going anywhere with him at all, she would have chosen the former.
You should have just talked to him back then.
Not to your mother, not to your coworkers, just to him.
Instead, she had talked to everyone but him with the hope that her anger and frustration would filter back to him so he could realize how upset she was.
And then you left the computer open for him to see…
Did I do that on purpose?
Subconsciously?
No answer arrived.
One thing she did know, flying out to see him and joining him in this investigation—if that is what he really is doing…STOP!—was going to be a huge step. Not in a silly romance-movie type of way, but in a “let's start doing these trips together and rekindle the love we once shared” way.
If it works…
She pushed the thought away, knowing that dwelling on it would only serve to keep her on edge.
Of course, keeping the thought away was easier said than done, but she did her best, mostly with packing and then, after thinking about it, reaching out to book a room with the motel in Crystal Creek.
No answer.
She left a message when prompted with her name and number, requesting that they call her back so that she could book a room.
Why do you need a room?
You should just stay with Brian.
Though she wouldn't consciously admit it, she wanted her own room just in case things didn't work out the way she hoped they would, a horrible visualization of seeing Brian pull up to his own motel room with some skanky small-town housewife whore playing across her mind.
8
Silence followed the gunshots. A heavy one that seemed to keep him pressed to the ground, hands shielding his head. Then, "You okay?"
He looked up to the left and squinted, Cheryl's body nothing but shadow, thanks to the sun that was directly behind her.
"Are you okay?" she asked again when he didn't respond.
His vocal cords seemed locked up, so he simply nodded.
"Come on," she said, offering a hand for a second time that day. "Let's go see what happened."
"What?" he demanded as he stood, his vocal cords working again.
"I'm pretty sure it came from that way." She pointed.
"Those were gunshots," Brian said.
"Yeah…from a rifle."
He was confused by her lack of concern. "Shouldn't we call the police?"
She eyed him for a moment and then shook her head, a look of amusement crossing her face. "This isn't the city. If we were back in town, then we'd call the police, but up here…" She shook her head again. "Come on, let's see if that was Marlon."
Brian hesitated.
"Come on, he might need help."
With that, Cheryl started into the trees.
Brian had no choice but to follow, his arms quickly going up to shield his face from the branches that were snapped back by Cheryl as she plowed through the pathless underbrush. He also had to fight with vines that kept wanting to trip him up, ones that only seemed to get worse if he slowed down when they snagged his legs.
And then they emerged from the trees into a rocky clearing.
Cheryl came to a stop.
Brian was out of breath.
Cheryl seemed winded as well, but not to the same extent as he.
They scanned the area.
"There!" Cheryl said and started toward a large boulder.
A figure was sprawled upon it, a rifle sitting up against the crevice.
Cheryl halted.
Brian followed suit, his eyes seeing the same thing she did.
The man's head had been shattered beyond repair, his brain visible where skull bone and hair had once been, the broken pieces having slid down the edge of the boulder to the dirt, chunks of scalp and hair still attached. It was the most disgusting thing Brian had ever seen, and for the first time during their journey up the mountain he was glad he hadn't had a chance to eat breakfast.
After several seconds, Cheryl stepped forward, camera in hand, and started snapping pictures.
Brian was speechless.
And scared.
Something had killed this man, something he had tried to shoot, and here they were in the same area a few minutes later. What if—
"Oh my God!" Cheryl snapped. "Look at this!"
"What?" Brian asked, heart racing. He didn't move.
"It's a print. A big one." She looked back at him, momentarily puzzled by his inaction, and then turned her attention back to the print, which she started taking pictures of.
He looked around before moving, eyes scanning the area to make sure they were alone.
Nothing else was in the clearing with them, but beyond the trees that surrounded them on three sides…there was no telling what could be lurking.
"Have you ever seen a print this defined?" she asked.
"No," he said, startled by her excitement.
"Me either," she said and continued snapping pictures.
He turned his attention back to the dead body, his initial disgust having subsided a bit. Not completely, but he was able to look upon the body without feeling woozy. His stomach and throat had calmed as well, though he knew that if he’d had food in it, it would have been purged.
"Do you know who this is?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, camera clicks coming to a stop. "It's Marlon Gibbs."
9
Something wasn't right. It wasn't just the body or the idea that the victim had been attacked by something that left a Bigfoot-like print at the scene, though that alone was unthinkable and difficult for him to wrap his mind around. It was the fact that it was Marlon Gibbs, the man who supposedly had left the phone for Cheryl, the man who they had been on their way to see. Her confirmation of this triggered a warning in his mind, one that was different than the warning that had arrived when hearing the gunshots and then discovering the dead body.
Her behavior didn't seem right either.
Why wasn't Cheryl afraid?
A man had been killed by something, a man who they had wanted to talk to, yet her only concern seemed to be capturing it all on camera.
Was it because she knew there was no danger? Or because she was overwhelmed with the glory that would come from being able to report upon a situation that looked as if someone had been attacked and killed by a Bigfoot creature?
"Cheryl," he said. "We need to get the police."
"I know," she said yet made no move to stop.
"Cheryl!"
She let out a sigh and turned to him.
"We need to get the police," he said again, suspicions about what was really going on here growing.
"Yes, but to do that we have to go all the way back to town. Phones won't work up here. Hell, they barely work in town. So, before we do that, we should document everything because i
f that storm does come in, it will be here before the chief or county gets out here and will wash everything away."
"We've documented enough," he said.
She didn't respond to that.
"Aren't you worried that whatever killed him will come back?" he asked.
She lifted her sweater in response, revealing a pistol strapped to her hip. "If it does, I'm armed."
"Yeah, well, so was he," Brian said and pointed at the rifle.
This seemed to get through to her. "Okay, point taken. Let's head back."
Relief arrived.
They started back into the trees, Cheryl leading the way, talking nonstop about the various possibilities of what had happened.
Five minutes came and went.
Then ten.
At first, Brian assumed that it was taking longer simply because they were walking this time rather than sprinting, but then, after ten minutes had come and gone, he started to get worried.
Cheryl stopped at the fifteen-minute mark, their bodies completely surrounded by underbrush, the clearing and the cabin nowhere to be seen.
"Are we lost?" Brian asked.
"No," Cheryl said, voice dismissive. "We just veered off course a bit."
"Can you get us back on course?"
She didn't reply to this, unless her shifting to the right and pushing through the brush was an answer.
Brian followed.
Another ten minutes came and went, and they still were not back at the cabin.
10
Bags packed and waiting by the door, Alice spent the rest of her afternoon reading online news stories about Bigfoot and the area that Brian was in, the search results bringing up quite a bit of information on the mythical man-ape creature, but little on its connection to the town of Crystal Creek. In fact, the only information she could find on the town itself came from stories focusing upon the legal troubles the Crystal Creek Logging Company had been having several years earlier, and their ultimate decision to relocate to the opposite side of the valley near a town called Clearwater. Apparently, this was quite the scandal given that the logging company had been the economic livelihood of the town for nearly one hundred years, hence the name, and now was, according to the town citizens, “abandoning” them in order to make more money. Several also grumbled about job-killing environmental policies, grumbles that didn't seem to take into account the jobs that were being created in Clearwater by the company where a new modernized lumber mill had been built. Most of the articles were written by a woman named Cheryl Gaffney, who, she guessed, was the same Cheryl who Brian had mentioned earlier that week as someone who was going to dig into the archives to see if she could find possible Bigfoot sighting stories for him.
Stories that didn't appear online for some reason.
Then again, not much from the Crystal Creek newspaper appeared online, which probably meant they had never taken the time to switch over into the electronic age.
How are they even in business still?
Alice wasn't sure why, but something about that felt a bit fishy to her. Actually, the entire situation felt off, but she couldn't put her finger on why.
11
"Face it, we're lost!" Brian snapped while throwing his arms up in the air, frustration getting the better of him.
"We're not lost!" Cheryl shouted back.
"Then what do you call it?"
"Like I said before, we just veered off course a bit."
"A bit! We've been walking back and forth for over an hour. You can't find the cabin, the path, or the clearing."
"Yeah, well, I'd like to see you do better."
"I can't. I have no idea where we are."
"Then shut the fuck up and let me get us back to the cabin. Once there, we can use Marlon's radio to call for help."
"A radio? Back in the clearing you said we'd have to go all the way back down to town."
"I forgot about his radio."
Brian didn't know what else to say.
"Come on," Cheryl said, voice a bit calmer. "This way."
With that, they started in a new direction through the underbrush—branches, vines, and leaves snagging at their clothes, burrs clinging to their legs. It was horrible.
12
One Crystal Creek Daily News story that was up on the web was the one about the Margaret Jones disappearance earlier that summer, and while she had listened while Brian told her about it after being contacted by Annie Morgan, she hadn't really absorbed much of what had happened. Now, reading the story, she learned that Margaret Jones was a college student working on a thesis involving the post-logging environment and what would happen if a logging company partially deforested an area and then left without replanting. Alice had a feeling that Margaret was not the first person to do such a study, nor would she be the last, and she doubted the research would have really yielded anything earth-shattering. In fact, the only thing that made Margaret stand out was that she had disappeared, and that someone was now claiming she had footage from the girl's own phone showing that she had been attacked by a Bigfoot-like creature—though that wasn't in any of the articles. Nothing about Bigfoot was, and no one would have drawn a link to the mythical creature from what was written. Instead, readers simply learned that the girl had gone missing sometime in mid June, the exact date unknown. Once she was reported missing, the local authorities had done a search but hadn't found any evidence of foul play, their conclusion being that she had gotten lost on the mountain and likely died from exposure.
Such statements didn't seem to settle things for the family, who had keep pressuring the authorities to do more, but the county and many locals had backed up the chief.
The doorbell rang.
Alice jumped, her mind having been so enthralled by the different articles she had pulled up that she didn't realize it was time for her cab.
Closing her computer, she quickly packed it into its case and headed to the entryway, the cab driver, a young woman, waiting for her at the door.
A few minutes later, they were pulling out of the driveway, Alice's eyes on the house. Next time she let herself in, she would know one way or another whether or not she and Brian would be continuing onward as husband and wife.
13
Thunder began to rumble in the distance, and soon a static buzz could be felt in the air.
"We can't stay up here any longer," Cheryl said. "Not with a lightning storm coming."
"What then?" Brian asked.
"We hike down. Back to town."
Brian didn't reply to that, disbelief at how this morning was playing out getting the better of him.
And then a bolt of lightning crashed down close enough to shake the mountain.
"Shit, I hope that doesn't spark a fire," Cheryl said.
"Could that happen?"
Cheryl gave him a look that made him feel like an idiot. "We're in a drought, and this place is dryer than Michele Bachmann's cunt."
Once again, Brian didn't reply.
14
Getting to the airport was much easier that afternoon than it had been the morning before, I-90 pretty much free of traffic. The only snarl occurred at the airport itself, two cars having hit each other in the merge zone shortly before the runway bridge that would often allow those driving below to see planes passing overhead as they crossed over the lanes toward a runway. Once they got beyond that, the cab driver dropped her off at the departure gate and then headed on her way to her next customer.
Bag in hand, Alice headed to the ticket counter and then through security. She expected to be groped but wasn't, and soon was on her way to the terminal, having to look up at the signs several times, her hurried steps pointless given the two-hour buffer she had before the flight would depart.
Gate located, she felt relief and decided to find something to drink.
Fifteen minutes later, she was back at the gate, a bottle of Coke in hand, bag in the other, and took a seat against the wall.
Eight other people were waiting.
> For ten minutes, she didn't do anything but sip the Coke and stare, her eyes not really looking at anything, her mind consumed by thoughts of Brian and what might unfold once she reached the motel. Optimism was present at first but then faded, his lack of contact the reason. If he didn't even want to speak with her, then why in the world did she think he would want to see her? She was making a big mistake. He didn't want to speak with her because he needed space to deal with what she had done, and now she was going to intrude upon that space. What was she thinking?
On top of that, she had nearly maxed out their second, emergency-use-only credit card.
Unease settled within her stomach, making the Coke undrinkable.
Setting that aside, she pulled her laptop from its zippered sleeve in her overnight bag and powered it up.
The battery had about forty minutes of life left, which was perfect since the flight would likely start to board around that time.
After a few false starts, she managed to hook onto a free Wi-Fi signal and once again began reading up on Margaret Jones.
Aside from one news story, Crystal Creek had seemed unfazed and uninterested in the college girl's disappearance. The same could not be said about her hometown, her college, and, for a while, the town of Clearwater, which seemed to be near Crystal Creek and enjoyed pouncing on oddities within the neighboring town. All the news agencies from those areas had dozens of stories that speculated upon the disappearance. When it came to the legitimate sites, the speculation was pretty standard. They either thought she had been attacked by someone and disposed of, or that she had gotten lost and died. Other sites went a bit further, one claiming the local police were involved because she had found D.B. Cooper’s hijacking money and they had decided to kill her and split it; another that the college was responsible, Margaret’s research having uncovered evidence of something that they were ordered to cover up if they wanted to keep their government funding. A third suggested she had been abducted by aliens and claimed the Crystal Creek area was a hotspot. It wasn't. Brian would have mentioned it if it was before leaving, but the article did well as clickbait.
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