Bigfoot Hunters (Tales of the Crypto-Hunter Book 1)

by Rick Gualtieri

Derek held up a hand to Harrison. “I’m sure it’s just a...”

  Just then, there was a loud thump from the backroom. All heads turned in that direction. Ben could be heard yelling, “Use the front door, you...” but his shout was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood. The entire building shuddered as if from an impact.

  Then the screaming started.

  “Let me guess, just another coincidence?” Harrison asked.

  Derek looked between them all. “I’ve been known to be wrong on occasion.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “What’s wrong?” asked Rob. “What does the report say?”

  Even in the glow of the monitors, Mitchell’s face appeared to have taken on an ashen sheen. “It says that I’m a goddamned fool.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “The results,” he said, holding up the printouts. “The biopsy samples came back with a match.”

  “For what?”

  “Rabies,” Mitchell replied. “The goddamn thing was rabid.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t panic,” Rob said, trying to calm the other man down. This wasn’t his area of expertise, but he was a quick thinker and wanted to make sure they weren’t jumping the gun on anything. “Are you sure the sample was okay? Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe it got corrupted.”

  Mitchell rolled his eyes at the younger man. “Don’t you think I thought of that? I sent over multiple samples, all prepared separately. All of them came back with similar results. If there was an outlier, the report would’ve listed it.”

  Rob listened with a growing sense of panic. “Harrison got that thing’s blood all over him and Woodchuck got slashed up.”

  “I know. We’re going to need to get them to a real hospital. Hell, we’ll probably all need to be treated, just to be safe. And that’s not even the worst of it.”

  “How is that not the worst?”

  “Remember what Derek said? There’s probably a whole clan of them in the area. What if that thing was a kind of Typhoid Mary?”

  Now it was Rob’s turn to look ill. He stood up and grabbed the printouts. “We need to tell him about this now.”

  He stepped toward the rear of the van. Suddenly, the entire vehicle lurched as if it had been broadsided. He fell to the floor, and Mitchell landed beside him.

  “What the hell?” Mitchell barked. Just as he did, there came a second impact. If the first had rocked the heavy vehicle, this one was enough to finish the job.

  The van tumbled onto its side. The sensitive communications array on top was smashed in the impact. Inside, equipment sparked, warning lights flashed, and then, after a few seconds of chaos, it all went dark.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Danni jolted awake in bed, disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings. After escorting Greg back to his room, she had retired to her own. She had found Allison already out cold, still fully dressed, lying across one of the beds. Upon seeing her, Danni had realized how good a little bit of sleep sounded. Everything else could wait until morning.

  She had covered her friend with a blanket before climbing into the other bed and doing the same. She initially wasn’t sure if she’d be able to sleep, despite the weariness of her body. She needn’t have worried, though. She was snoring within three minutes of hitting the pillow.

  Though it was already starting to fade from memory, she knew she had been reliving the day’s events in a dream. In it, she had been alone as the creature pursued her through the woods. It had been even larger than life, more like being run down by a dinosaur. With each monstrous stride, it gained on her. With each step it took, the ground beneath her feet shook a little more. Finally, she had looked back and realized it was right on top of her. The creature let out an earth-shattering scream, and that was when she had awoken. It had seemed so real.

  “Danni?” a voice called from the darkness. She realized, after a second or two, it was Allison. She reached over and flicked the switch on the lamp next to her bed. Nothing happened.

  “Danni, are you awake?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You heard it too, huh?”

  That got her attention. “Heard what?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded like someone screamed. I thought I was dreaming, but then I heard you sit up.”

  A dull feeling of unease shot up Danni’s spine. “Turn on your light, okay? Mine’s not working.”

  There was a shuffling noise as her friend got up, followed by a dull click. The darkness remained, though.

  “Power’s out,” Allison said, a bit of wariness creeping into her voice.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing to...”

  Her words trailed off as something started hammering on their door.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Both girls let out a cry of surprise.

  The pounding ceased just as quickly as it began, and then a panicked voice on the other side of the door yelled, “Let me in!”

  Danni swallowed the lump in her throat. She felt a bit foolish and was kind of glad that Allison couldn’t see her. Judging by the deep breath that came from the other girl’s direction, she was probably thinking the same thing.

  “Is that Paula?”

  “Sounds like it,” Allison replied. “Can you get the door and see what she wants? I’ll find my flashlight.”

  “On it.” Danni walked toward the door, feeling in front of herself with her hands. The pounding and shouting started up again as she reached it. Fumbling with the lock, she yelled back, “Okay! We heard you the first time! For Christ’s sake, Paula...” The door flung open, and she was pushed back by its force. A scant second later, someone, presumably Paula, grabbed her in a bear hug.

  “Thank God! Thank God!” she panted over and over again.

  Danni somehow managed to keep from falling over. She was confused, but she could tell the other girl was extremely upset. Instinctively, she put her arms around Paula, then felt her backside.

  “Paula, are you...,” she started to say when the bright LEDs of a flashlight lit up the room.

  “Naked?” Allison finished.

  Sure enough, she was – naked and completely hysterical, as far as Danni could tell. Paula continued to hug her with almost manic strength, then she started stuttering in an attempt to speak.

  “Slow down,” Danni said in a comforting tone. “It’s okay. Take a breath and tell us what happened.”

  Paula continued shaking, but at last managed to blurt out, “Wild ... Feather!”

  Allison stepped up to them. “What?” She looked Paula up and down. “What did that asshole do to you?”

  Danni and her friend shared a glance. They were probably thinking the same thing. Had the whole ordeal caused Wild Feather to snap? She almost couldn’t believe it. He was normally so together, so serene, so gentle.

  No, that was all bullshit, she reminded herself. She had to remember that she obviously didn’t know him at all. Now it looked like the little bastard had stepped way over the line. If so, he was going down hard. She’d see him behind bars and hopefully some convict’s bitch before this was over.

  “Get me a blanket,” Danni instructed.

  Allison grabbed one off the bed and wrapped it around Paula’s still trembling shoulders. Danni then gently pulled away and looked her in the eye. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you.”

  “He...” the other girl trembled.

  “Tell us. What did he do?”

  Finally, something seemed to snap in Paula. She grabbed Danni’s arms in a manic grip and stared back at her, her pupils wide despite Allison’s light. “DEAD!” she finally screamed. “HE’S DEAD!”

  The two other girls once again exchanged confused glances. “What do you mean ‘he’s dead?’” Even as Danni asked the question, she realized how stupid it sounded. It was a bad line straight out of a Law & Order episode.

  Paula didn’t seem to notice, though. She was far beyond that. “IT KILLED HIM! IT KILLED HIM – AND NOW IT’S COMING FOR US!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Greg
slept like the dead. Despite his outward good cheer, his arm had been hurting like a motherfucker. The good doctor, knowing the nearest pharmacy was over an hour’s drive away, had taken pity and handed him a small vial of codeine tablets before showing them out.

  After Danni walked him back to his room – politely declining his offer to come in – he had immediately swallowed two of the pills. He had just been going through the motions with her anyway. He couldn’t let a pretty girl walk away without at least trying any more than he could give up breathing. The truth was, he hadn’t been particularly miffed by her refusal. In fact, he was pretty fine with it. The only company he really wanted tonight was the pain pills.

  It turned out that what the doctor gave him had been the good stuff. Within a few minutes, he either didn’t feel the pain anymore or didn’t care, he wasn’t sure which. He decided that his last joint would be the perfect chaser. By the time he had finished it, he had been high as a kite. Hell, someone could’ve sawed off his good arm with a dull butter knife and he would have been absolutely cool with it.

  He had been lying on his bed, watching the room swirl around him, when the lights went out. “But I don’t wanna go to bed yet, Dad,” he had giggled to nobody in particular before completely passing out.

  His room was directly above Paula’s, yet he didn’t hear the crash as the creature came through the window. Nor did he hear the wet tearing of meat followed by her piteous screams. He was completely oblivious when Conroy McStanish came walking down the hall to investigate. Conroy’s grunts of irritation would have been far too low for Greg to have heard, even had he been awake, but he would have probably noticed the man’s surprised yelp as Paula came tearing bare-assed out of the room and past him. He would almost certainly have heard the sound of her door being torn off its hinges just moments later.

  He likewise missed Conroy McStanish’s last moments on earth. Had he been awake, he most likely would not have heard the man’s surprised gasp of, “Dear mother in heaven!” as a beast straight out of his worst nightmares strode down the hall toward him. The floors of the Bonanza Bed & Breakfast were not quite solid enough to mute the sound of Conroy’s collar bone shattering as the creature slammed both its fists down onto the unlucky man. Even if they had been, Greg surely would have heard the high-pitched squeal that the bed and breakfast owner made as his head was ripped from his shoulders.

  The only indication that Greg noticed anything at all was the rippling fart that he let loose as the now headless body of Conroy McStanish slammed into the wall hard enough to splatter like a crushed insect. It wasn’t much of a eulogy to mark the end of a life, but it was more than most in Bonanza Creek received that night.

  His tribute to the late Mr. McStanish done, Greg grunted in his sleep and turned over. He missed the sound of Paula begging to be let into Danni’s room. He missed her weeping cries as they tried to comfort her. He even missed the heavy footsteps that came plodding up the stairs and past his room.

  Chapter 24

  There was no longer any order within the clan. The very last act they performed as social creatures had been to bring darkness to the two-legged things. For creatures with night vision, even a small place such as Bonanza Creek stood out like a beacon. For the clan, whose eyes and ears had grown overly sensitive in the grip of the fever, it was a source of pain as well. The light bore into their dilated pupils as they approached, causing them to cry out.

  That might have been the end of the attack. The lights of the small town may very well have been enough to turn them away and send them mewling back into the depths of the forest. If so, things would have ended differently. Some of the clan would have scattered. Others would have turned on each other. The survivors would have eventually succumbed to the sickness. Perhaps a few more wayward hikers would have perished at their crazed hands, but the worst would have been averted.

  But the Alpha was old and had seen much. His mind wasn’t so far gone yet that he wasn’t able to remember. He had traveled far in his lifetime, migrating as the weather changed and as more of their habitat was encroached upon. He had seen the clans of the two-legged things. Before the rage, there had been curiosity. He had observed them as they worked, as they played, and as they lived.

  Though he did not understand how, he knew the false trees, the ones the two-legged things planted, carried fire within their vines. He had once seen a false tree felled by a storm. Its vines had snapped and flames had sprayed from their ends. The dwellings that housed the two-legged things had gone dark when that had happened, their source of fire cut off.

  He remembered this, although rage had since replaced all of his former curiosity. Knowing what to do, he had barked and grunted to the clan to follow him. When they had hesitated, a few showing their teeth in defiance, he had torn off a tree limb and beaten them with it. That seemed to temporarily restore their sense of clan.

  Once order had been reestablished, he had shown them what to do. The false trees were flimsy things. They lacked roots and could be toppled easily. The clan did not care much beyond that. All they cared was that they were finally able to let loose their rage. It was not nearly as satisfying as making something scream. When they saw the results, though – that the hurtful lights died when the false trees were felled – they attacked them in earnest.

  Despite the Alpha’s warning grunts, a young female had been stupid. When the vines fell, she had gotten too close. Her body had spasmed wildly at first, and then the fire had touched her fur. She immediately burst aflame. She died, burning and convulsing, as the others watched. However, the lesson had been learned. None of the rest ventured near the vines.

  There had been no hooting of remorse at her passing. The clan was too far gone for that. If anything, her death had only excited them for the bloodshed to come. Their rage had been just barely kept in check until then. Watching her die, and the promise of more death to come, finally caused them to snap.

  As the last of the light died, the clan spread out. There was neither rhyme nor reason to their pattern. Their individual goals were simple: find and kill as many of the two-legged things as they could. By then, the Alpha could not have stopped them, even had he wanted to. He didn’t want to stop them, though. All he cared was that they stay out of his way. He was looking forward to the screaming, and it didn’t particularly matter much the source.

  Chapter 25

  Byron Clemons was happily whistling along to some Bob Dylan as he drove toward home. All the building supplies he and Grace would need to rebuild the chicken coop stronger than ever filled the bed of his Dodge Ram. In actuality, there were quite a few excess purchases as well. She would probably chew him out for it, but he just couldn’t help himself. He had a high credit limit on his Home Depot card, and nobody had been around to tell him no. He wasn’t too worried, though, having also picked up the new vanity set for the downstairs bathroom that she’d been bugging him about. If he tossed her a bone by installing it, all would be well.

  As he drove along the former logging road, he passed a few other cars – most of them state troopers heading toward 160. Most likely, they were members of the search party calling it quits for the night. Damn stupid hikers are always getting lost, he mused. It had been years since he’d volunteered to help in one of those searches. Despite the fact that he and Grace were more than capable of adding their expertise, he had a bad taste in his mouth about the whole thing. Unless there were missing kids involved – and stupid ass teenagers didn’t count as kids in Byron Clemons’ book – then the damn fools could take care of themselves. Not only was it almost always their own damn fault, but most of the time they were ingrates about it after you went out of your way to drag their sorry asses back to civilization.