"Really, I'm fine. I just need to get home and rest, so…" She motioned him back toward the vehicle so she could drop him off at his motel.
28
Alice's flight was uneventful and, aside from some asshole businessman screaming into a phone while standing off to the side of the Enterprise counter about wanting a full-size rather than a standard-size rental vehicle, picking up her own midsize rental was as well. Unfortunately, the flight was only the first part of the journey, a three- to four-hour drive into the mountains now looming before her.
Coke in hand from a machine outside of the Enterprise, Alice took a long sip and then began programming the Crystal Creek destination into her phone, her fingers and eyes double-checking everything to make sure she was taking the most direct route rather than some twisting scenic one.
Route programmed, Alice took another sip of her Coke and then navigated her way from the parking lot to the expressway, heading east, the mountains standing like a wall on the horizon, peaks looking ominous.
It's going to be dark before you get to Crystal Creek, she said to herself.
What if he's in bed with the reporter when you arrive at the motel?
As horrible as this would be, a part of her also thought maybe it would work to her advantage because then they both would have made a mistake, thereby making it so her mistake couldn't be held against her as much as it could be if she was the only one who had broken their vows.
Still, seeing him with another woman…
She could barely stomach the thought and realized that she would rather that not be the situation.
Is that how he feels right now?
Brian hadn't come home to her in bed with Jared, but he had seen the pictures and read the emails, of this she was certain, so his mind was likely filled with scenes of the two together, fucking each other's brains out.
How was he coping with it?
Was he even able to cope with it?
Maybe it had pushed him into the arms of another woman.
Maybe he was fucking the newspaper girl right now, the quest to find Bigfoot forgotten.
Round and round her thoughts went, the imagery always seeming to end up with a scene of those two in bed together. She couldn't get it out of her head. It was horrible and simply made her that much more worried about their marriage, because if just the theory of such a thing happening was doing this to her, then what was it like for Brian, who had more than just a theory?
She tried blasting the thoughts away with the radio, but it didn't seem to help.
Nothing did.
All she could do was get to Crystal Creek and talk to him, each minute on the road bringing her another mile or two closer to finding out once and for all if their marriage was going to stay intact or crumble.
29
"I still can't believe it," Brian said while scrolling through the photos Cheryl had taken and allowed to be copied over to his computer. "I never expected to see anything like this when we went up there, and then knowing it attacked Chief Parker and dragged you off in the woods…I don't even know what to make of all that."
Cheryl didn't reply.
Brian turned toward her, taking in her appearance as she sat on the edge of the bed. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." A yawn escaped. "Just tired."
"Me too," he said, the reply sounding awkward given the events that had unfolded.
"I was so scared," she said without warning. "But I didn't realize it until after. I guess maybe my adrenaline was pumping."
Brian waited, her look indicating that more was to follow.
"Do you think Margaret Jones could still be alive?"
The question caught him off guard. "I don't know." It had been nearly two months since she had disappeared.
"I mean, it killed Marlon and it smashed Chief Parker in the head pretty good, but with me, it didn't do anything to harm me, just simply tried to take me away." She hesitated. "What if he's trying to find females to breed with?"
Brian didn't know how to reply to this and simply said, "I've never heard of anything like that happening before, but…well…anything's possible."
"Me neither, but with what has happened here…I don't know, maybe it lost its mate or something and instinct drove it to find a female to reproduce with."
"Like I said, anything's possible." A thought followed, one that he wasn't sure if he should voice.
Cheryl seemed to sense that his wheels were turning and asked, "What're you thinking?"
"I just remembered, you said earlier that you felt its…um…its penis, and that it was dripping."
She nodded.
"Did any of it land on you?"
Disgust appeared and she quickly said, "No, thank God!" A visible tremble followed.
"Too bad, because as gross as that would have been, it would still have been evidence that could be tested. DNA evidence. The first of its kind. Evidence that could prove the existence of Bigfoot. That, plus the video and the pictures…well, I'm guessing you can imagine the uproar that would follow."
"Oh, I didn't think of that." She looked down at herself, coat still zipped all the way up. "I'm pretty sure it didn't get on me, but"—she turned to the motel-room bathroom and then back to him—"let me go look."
"Sure."
With that, she disappeared into the bathroom.
He waited, suddenly contemplating the sight of her breasts and her body. She was young and beautiful, someone he wouldn't mind going to bed with. That said, something was off about her. He couldn't pinpoint what, but it helped in pushing the thoughts of sex from his mind.
What if she walks out of that room naked, ready for you?
Once again, he tried to push the thought away.
While he was doing this, she did walk out of the room, jacket zipped up, a look of disappointment on her face. "Nothing," she said.
"Okay, not the end of the world. There's still quite a bit of evidence."
"Yeah, and with the chief having been attacked, he'll likely start taking all this more seriously, and it'll be hard for naysayers to say nothing happened."
"Did he actually see the creature?" Brian asked.
"I don't know. It kind of hit him from behind and then came at me."
"But he was attacked nonetheless, and you saw it and were attacked as well. And I saw something and we have pictures and, if Annie ever shows up, there is video."
Cheryl was quiet for several seconds and then said, "Do you really think she's going to show up?"
"I don't know," Brian admitted. "She was supposed to be here before I even arrived." They had talked the night before, during his break at work, and she had been planning on leaving first thing the next morning, and since she simply had to get in the car and head into the mountains, she would have likely been there before his plane even touched down in Seattle. "But…I just don't know. I wish I could call her, but she won't let me." He nodded his head toward the office. "No long-distance phone calls."
"Really? Even for one simple phone call?"
"Yep," he said, a heavy sigh punctuating it.
"Tell you what. Tomorrow, if she still hasn't arrived, we'll give her a call from my office."
"That would be great."
Cheryl gave a tired smile and said, "And on that note, despite it still being fairly early, I think I'm going to call it a night. If I don't, I'm going to be too tired to drive home and will have to crash here."
Was that an invitation?
Or a prompting for me to make an invitation?
If so, he wasn't going to take the bait and said, "Okay, if anything comes up, feel free to give me a ring." Well, the motel a ring.
"You too."
Was that another invitation?
Was he disappointing her with his lack of response to what could be construed as sexual invitations, or was his typical guy brain making them seem like sexual invitations when really they were nothing more than simple “we're done for the day” statements?
Who cares!
<
br /> Even if they were invitations, he didn't want to cross the line—despite what Alice had done. No. It was best for him to stay on task and eventually get home, his new site ready to welcome the attention this story could bring.
30
The town was dying. Cheryl had known this for quite some time, but it really showed itself while she was driving home that night, her journey from the motel to her house taking her through the downtown area, which, when she was growing up, had always been busy, the local teens always filling the downtown hangouts during the early evening hours, and then those who were paired up heading to the more secluded spots. Now it was completely deserted.
How could they allow this to happen?
As a kid, whenever she had expressed her desires to be a writer and run a newspaper, everyone had always warned her about putting all her eggs in one basket, yet that was exactly what they had all done for years. The entire town had put all its eggs into the lumber industry basket, and then kept them there for a decade, even though all the warning signs of the industry changes were echoing. It was so obvious that during junior high, her class had had an assignment where they were to think up alternatives to the lumber industry as a way for the town to sustain itself. The assignment was met with outrage from parents who thought the “hippie teacher” was trying to tell the students that lumber was bad and that the town was wrong for chopping down trees way up in the uninhabited regions of the mountain. Ms. Richards had been doing nothing of the sort, yet the adults couldn't see that, and eventually she was forced to resign and find employment elsewhere. It was ridiculous.
Nothing you can do about it, Cheryl told herself, glancing at all the empty storefront windows.
They dug their own grave.
Once out of town, her thoughts shifted to Brian and the Bigfoot investigation.
Going up to talk with Marlon Gibbs was a big mistake.
Or was it?
No answer followed.
Not long after that, she pulled up to her house, the sound of her wind chimes echoing through her open window as she parked within a shadow, darkness quickly taking over now that the sun was falling behind the mountains.
A yawn arrived as she stepped inside, her fingers finally able to unzip her coat, her sweaty body breathing a sigh of relief.
The teakettle was waiting on the stove.
She filled it with water from the tap and set it on a burner to boil before heading up the stairs to her room to change, only to stop in the hallway when a sound echoed from within her room.
"Hello?" she called, pulling out her pistol, voice sounding odd in the empty house.
Nothing.
Someone was there. She could sense it.
Pistol ready, finger just touching the trigger, she crept down the hallway toward her bedroom and peeked inside.
Nothing.
She waited, heart thumping against her rib cage.
"I have a gun," she warned.
Still nothing.
She stepped into the room, turning toward the closet, which was open.
Did I leave it like that earlier?
Typically, she would have closed it, but given that Brian had been there and her main focus was on getting back up the mountain with him and Chief Parker, she knew her actions had probably been out of sync a bit.
She stepped up to the closet and peeked inside, confirming its emptiness just as someone stepped up behind her, two hairy arms reaching around and grabbing hold of her breasts.
A scream echoed as the gun went off, the bullet lodging itself somewhere in the closet.
A laugh pierced her ear, one that echoed within the mask, all while one of the hairy hands grabbed her wrist and squeezed.
She fought against it for a moment, but then allowed the gun to slip from her fingers onto the dresser.
The hairy hands released her.
She spun around and gave the girl a hard shove in the chest while saying, "What the fuck are you doing?"
Beverly pulled off the mask and tossed it onto the floor. "Jesus, just having a bit of fun. What with all the Bigfoot stuff, I thought you'd get a kick out of it."
"A kick out of it?" she demanded, arms crossed. "Are you out of your fucking mind!"
Beverly didn't reply.
Cheryl took a deep breath and tried to calm herself down. "What are you doing here?"
"It gets lonely over at the motel, especially when my only guest is running around with my girlfriend trying to find Bigfoot."
"What if someone saw you?"
"Who would see me? It's not like you have any neighbors and I was—wait, was there a chance you were going to bring someone back? Did you and the Bigfoot guy hit it off and have a moment while in the woods?"
"No," she snapped, hitting Beverly in the chest again. "Of course not. It's just…Brendon killed Marlon Gibbs while we were up there."
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Crushed his head with a rock. We found him not far from his home. And then we went and got Chief Parker—"
"You did what?"
"We got Chief Parker."
"Why would you do that?" Beverly demanded.
"Because I had the Bigfoot guy with me, and it would have looked really odd if I suggested we simply ignore it."
Beverly didn't reply, unless one counted the troubled look as a response.
"And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, Brendon attacked us while we were back up there with the chief, jumping him and then dragging me off into the woods. I had to threaten to shoot him before he would let me go."
Beverly's silence continued.
"I thought you said you had him under control, that he would stay in his cave while Brian was here."
"I—I—" She simply shook her head.
Downstairs, the teapot began to whistle.
"Fuck, let me go take that off the stove. I was going to have some tea, but now…I feel like something stronger. Do you want a drink?"
Beverly nodded.
"And do me a favor, take that stupid costume off."
"I will, and sorry, it was in bad taste. I should have known better."
Cheryl waved that away and headed downstairs, thoughts on Beverly, her fucked up brother, and everything that was going on dominating her mind.
It was all Brendon's fault.
If he hadn't attacked and killed Margaret Jones, none of this would have happened.
And if Margaret hadn't taken video of the attack and sent it to Annie, Beverly's cover-up would have been fine.
The big question was, how had that video clip been sent?
Cheryl had watched it several times before erasing it and turning the phone over to the chief, and every time the phone fell to the ground, screams echoing as Brendon overtook the girl, her pleas difficult to listen to as he fucked her over and over again.
Who had picked it up?
Or had it actually been Margaret?
Had the video ending been because she crawled back to the phone, grabbed it, and quickly sent the video?
Some of the areas higher up in the mountains did have cell coverage, the tower from Clearwater able to reach there, but it was unreliable at best.
The biggest question of all: who had left the phone on her porch?
It didn't make any sense.
Cheryl shook her head and opened the cabinet to see what she had in the liquor department, and then, once she had a bottle in hand, opened the freezer to get some ice.
"This better?" Beverly asked.
Startled, Cheryl closed the freezer without grabbing any ice and stared at Beverly, her naked body standing before her, a sudden warmth building between her legs.
Without a word, Beverly stepped forward, her right hand reaching out and gently caressing Cheryl’s right breast through her ruined shirt.
"Brendon do this while taking you into the woods?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry, and I'll put him over my knee next time I see him."
Cheryl was about to reply but couldn't
find her voice as Beverly began to tease her nipple.
A tremor raced through her body, and her breathing quickened.
Beverly smiled and then leaned in, lips pressing against Cheryl's.
Cheryl welcomed the kiss, her lips savoring the sensation as they lightly touched, and then welcoming the tongue that slipped in.
Beverly gripped her shirt while their lips were connected and in one quick pull finished the job that her brother had started.
Hardened nipples pressed into Cheryl’s flesh, making her knees go weak.
Sensing this, Beverly used her own body to force Cheryl up against a cabinet for support. Once there, their tongues began dancing with each other while Beverly's hands opened up her pants and reached inside.
"Oh God," Cheryl moaned into Beverly's mouth.
Beverly teased her for several seconds with her fingers before breaking contact with her lips so that she could slowly kiss her way down until her mouth and tongue were positioned perfectly between Cheryl’s legs.
This time the "Oh God!" statements Cheryl made were not mere moans but cries that echoed throughout the house, her palms pressing themselves against the cabinets for support, all while Beverly used her own hands to hold her bucking hips in place.
Sunday
Brian found himself running through the woods, constantly falling over roots, vines, and other unseen obstacles. And then he got caught in mud. Quicksand mud. It took him down nearly three feet before he stopped sinking, his legs and hips completely stuck.
A growl echoed.
He twisted as much as his body would allow, a gun in hand.
The brush he had just crashed through was still.
Darkness arrived.
He waited.
Another growl.
He pulled back the hammer on the gun, his hands trying to stay steady as he aimed toward the brush.
A spotlight hit, blinding him.
Confused, he took one hand off the gun so he could shield his eyes.
A figure was moving in the light, calling his name.
Alice?
She called his name several more times, getting closer and closer in the light.
Crystal Creek Page 8
