Monster

by Frank Peretti

  When he broke into a meadow where the stars were visible and a waning moon was finally rising, he collapsed to the ground with a quiet whimper, limp and totally spent, head hanging, conflicting thoughts bantering in his head.

  She’s gone.

  No, no, she isn’t. Just have to find her, that’s all.

  Where? Where could you even start looking?

  Well, some daylight would sure help.

  She’ll be somebody’s dinner by then.

  No. God won’t let that happen.

  Look at what He’s already let happen! Remember where you are! There are different rules out here!

  Reed’s hands went to his head as if he could corral his thoughts. His aimless thrashing around in the woods for hours had accomplished nothing; a mad and frenzied mind would accomplish even less. He forced himself to lie still, breathing for breathing’s sake until he could construct a coherent thought.

  First coherent thought: He hadn’t found his wife.

  Second coherent thought: In all his mad scrambling and searching, he could have wandered farther from her, not closer.

  Third coherent thought: He’d become part of the problem. He was lost, without provisions, without a weapon.

  He still had his map and compass. If the sun ever came up again sometime in his life, he could take a look around and hopefully get his bearings. For now, he was too tired and emotionally spent to work it out, and any more wandering would only make things worse. Until he got some rest and some real light, he would be no help to Beck or himself.

  The dying orange beam of his flashlight found an old fallen snag just a few feeble steps up the hill, with a hollow in the ground beneath it. His heart screamed against the decision, but his mind made it stick.

  He would shelter himself under the snag to maintain his body heat, and rest until daylight.

  “Beck . . . Beck . . . Beck!”

  Beck was dreaming, far from fear in the dark, merely puzzled by her husband’s anguished voice as he screamed her name. Beyond her dream was a faraway pain, a dull throbbing, a dizzy world tipping and turning, a body aching, but she didn’t wake up from the dream. She didn’t want to. Waking would hurt; the dream didn’t. In the dream she was floating as if in a stream, gliding past limbs and trees and leaves that went swish, with the ground so far below.

  She was warm, as if cuddled in a furry blanket, but it was dark, like being in her bedroom at night.

  Can’t wake up, won’t wake up, eyes won’t open, staying in the dream, moving fast, can feel the breeze . . .

  Monsters, snorting, drooling, stomping, invisible in the dark. All around, closer, closer. Beck! Beck! His legs wouldn’t move—

  “Reed! Beck!”

  Reed awoke with a start.

  “Reed!” That sounded like Cap.

  He stirred, unclear as to where he was, but willing his legs and arms to move, to pull, push, and claw his way into the open, through tangled exposed roots and crumbled rocks into eye-stinging daylight.

  The distant call came again: “Reed! Beck!”

  Reed rolled out into the grass, the dew soaking through his clothes. Everything looked so different. “Hello!” he cried.

  He heard Sing’s voice call, “Reed! Where are you?”

  “Up here!” he called.

  He leaped to his feet, but his head emptied of blood and he fell, reminded of how weak and shaken he was. They shouted again, he answered again, and that was all he was good for until his friends reached him, snapping and rustling their way through the thick undergrowth until they emerged into the clearing. They looked prepared for a week in the wilderness, with packs on their backs, hats, boots, jackets. Reed figured he must look pretty horrible, judging from their expressions.

  “Reed! We found your pack down by the creek. What happened?” Cap asked.

  “Where’s Beck?”

  By that afternoon, the Tall Pine Resort began to see more activity than it had all season. Two squad cars from the Whitcomb County Sheriff’s Department were angled in against the meandering, up-and-down porch. On either side of them were the pickup trucks, SUVs, cars, and motorcycles that had brought the Search and Rescue volunteers. The volunteers, more than a dozen strong, wasted no time unloading and filling backpacks with needed gear, testing portable radios, and organizing survival equipment and medical supplies. Some of the guys prepared high-powered rifles and stowed cases of ammunition. A van arrived and lurched into a space at the far end of the parking lot, an eager German shepherd barking and whining in the back. Across the parking lot, hooked to an RV power outlet, was the Search and Rescue command vehicle, a converted school bus now crammed with equipment, supplies, a computer, and radios. Close to the main door was a sharp-looking King Cab pickup with an Idaho Department of Fish and Game insignia on the side.

  Deputy Sheriff Patrick Saunders, in green field jacket and billed cap, walked briskly out the main door, reporting into a handheld radio, “Yeah, Jimmy Clark’s here debriefing the witness. We’ll all get rolling when he’s done. It’s a probable bear attack, so we’re lining up some hunters—”

  Sheriff Patrick Mills signaled a halt right in front of Dave’s mouth and whispered sharply, “Dave, let’s not say it so loud, shall we?”

  The deputy followed the sheriff’s glance to where Reed Shelton sat on a wooden bench farther up the meandering porch, just outside Room 105. He was haggard, dazed, and dirty, apparently trying to make sense to Jimmy Clark, the conservation officer who asked him questions.

  “Oh, man, sorry,” the deputy said.

  Sheriff Mills, a tall man weathered by experience and sporting a graying mustache, went back to a conversation he’d been having with Cap and Sing on the slapped-together porch near the main door. He was dressed for wilderness work, in the standard-issue green jacket with SHERIFF in large yellow letters on the back, but instead of a policeman’s hat, he wore a cowboy hat with a county sheriff insignia on its front.

  “Sorry,” the sheriff said to Cap. “Now, you were saying?”

  Cap stood nervously, taking deep breaths, shifting his weight, grasping the porch post as if to steady himself. The college professor’s words raced and his voice seemed weak. “We found—it was on the rocks below the waterfall.”

  “Blood,” Mills refreshed him.

  “Yeah. We checked all around the creek area, both sides of the trail, up and down the slope . . .”

  “How wide a radius?”

  Cap shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe forty feet, maybe fifty . . .” He looked at Sing, passing her the question.

  She was sitting on a hand-hewn bench against the old log wall, her face troubled as she studied the LCD of Reed Shelton’s camera. She was reviewing the digital photographs Reed had taken of the splintered cabin and the shots of Beck sitting in their campsite, her cheeks plump with a mouthful of sandwich. Sing and Cap’s backpacks rested against the wall next to her, packed to bulging but never opened. Leaves and needles clung to her clothing and her braids. “I would say a hundred-foot radius. But it was difficult. The brush is thick in that area.”

  Mills looked over Sing’s shoulder at the small camera screen. “Did he get any shots of Thompson’s body?”

  Sing came to the end of the pictures in the camera’s memory. “No. Apparently Reed was in no picture-taking mood when he and Beck were running for their lives.”

  “And you never got back to the cabin to check it out?”

  Cap was obviously on edge, tiring of the questions. He wagged his head. “We only wanted to find Beck, that was all.”

  “So you didn’t see whether or not there was a body up there?”

  “No!” Cap lowered his voice. “Reed said Randy was dead, and that was good enough for us. Beck was the one we were concerned about.”

  Sing stroked her forehead. “We weren’t getting anywhere. Reed didn’t want to leave, but we had to get back here; we had to get some help.”

  Mills regarded the folks gathering in the parking lot, well trained, some speci
alized, all there to find Beck Shelton no matter what. “You made the right decision. Sing, you’ve been our forensics specialist for five years now. You’ve teamed up with some of these people before. You know they’re good at what they do.”

  Sing nodded and gave a wave to the dog handler, who was sharing a piece of breakfast toast with Caesar, the German shepherd. “I never thought I’d be part of the case we’re working on.”

  Sheriff Mills looked past Cap and Sing to where Reed was still being questioned by Jimmy Clark. “So how clear do you think Reed’s head is right now?”

  Cap stole a glance. “I don’t know. He’s in some sort of shock, like he’s having waking nightmares. If he tells Jimmy what he told us . . .”

  Sing shivered, putting the camera in its case. “Reed was right about the cabin. If we find Randy Thompson thrown up in a tree, we might have to believe the rest of his story.”

  “Being in the dark, in the woods, can make things seem a lot worse than they are,” the sheriff suggested.

  “Maybe finding Randy’s body was the thing that shocked him,” Cap offered, “and after that, well, then, Beck gets grabbed . . . I don’t know, I’d probably be seeing some pretty horrible things by then.”

  “Reed’s a deputy sheriff!” Sing’s voice was edgy. “Let’s not underestimate him!”

  Awkward silence followed.

  “Duly noted,” Mills finally said. “Sing, take Reed’s camera over to Marsha in the command vehicle. See if she can download those shots of Beck and print ’em up.”

  Sing got to her feet, as if eager to do something, anything. “And then can we please get up there?”

  Mills looked at his watch. “Pete said he’d be about ten minutes.”

  Cap started to say, “We don’t have ten—” when tires growled on the gravel.

  An older brown pickup with a rumbling muffler pulled in and nosed up against the building four vehicles down. The fellow who got out looked as though he’d already been in the woods most of his life and would be out of place anywhere else. He was dressed in tired jeans, a frayed leather coat, and a drooping, wide-brimmed hat with a rattlesnake skin for a hatband. He may have had a haircut three or four months ago but obviously hadn’t thought much about it since then.

  “Ah,” said Mills, “there he is.”

  Pete Henderson, search manager and tracker, was already sizing up the situation when Mills met him in the center of the parking lot. “Huh. Jimmy’s here,” Pete said, “so it was a bear. You’re here, so somebody’s dead. You’ve got me and my searchers here, so you can’t find whoever it is.”

  “Come on.” As they crossed the parking lot, Mills gave Pete an abridged version of Reed’s account.

  “You are kidding me—Reed said that?”

  “Let’s hope his head starts to clear up.”

  They walked quietly, unobtrusively, up to where Jimmy was finishing up with Reed. The conservation officer sat on the edge of the porch, pen and notepad in his hands, questioning, almost grilling Reed in his eagerness to get the information and get going. His conservation officer’s uniform spoke well of his manner, meant for the wilderness, not the town or city; no creased trousers with a stripe, but tough, forest-green Levi’s; no spit-polished shoes, but oiled boots for slogging through rough and often muddy terrain; his gray shirt had a shoulder insignia, but it was rugged enough for the wilderness and had obviously been there. His billed cap with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game insignia rested on the porch nearby.

  Reed was sitting on the bench against the building, seemingly immovable as if he were a fungus that had grown there. His hair was matted from sweat; his face and clothes were those of a desperate man who’d lost his wife and spent the night under a fallen tree. Reed’s voice was barely audible as he said, “It had to be Randy. He had a long black braid, I saw that clearly.”

  Jimmy looked up at Sheriff Mills and Pete. They knew that described Randy Thompson.

  When Reed lifted his face, a tiny hint of hope came to his eyes. “Hey, Pete!”

  “We’re here for you, partner,” Pete said.

  “We’re almost finished,” said Jimmy. He prodded, “How did he look to you, Reed? Was there anything about his condition that would indicate an attack by a—”

  “He was thrown up in the tree!” Reed insisted as if he’d said it before. “His head was practically torn off!”

  “But he could have been climbing the tree, trying to get away from a bear, right?”

  Reed thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. That makes sense, if that’s what you want to think.”

  Jimmy looked around, apparently for the right words. “Reed, I’m hating this. You know that.”

  Reed’s head sank. Tears filled his eyes. “If we hadn’t camped there that night, if we’d only buried that garbage, if I hadn’t forgotten to hang up those stupid sandwich containers . . .!”

  “Was Beck having her period?”

  “No.”

  “Did she bring any makeup along?”

  Reed looked at him blankly.

  Jimmy explained, “To a bear, the smell means food.”

  “I didn’t see a bear,” Reed emphasized as if for the hundredth time.

  Jimmy just looked at his notes. “There could have been any number of factors, Reed. You don’t need to blame yourself.”

  “Are we through?”

  Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, Reed. We’re through. We’re gonna get on this, right now.”

  Reed bolted to his feet. “I’ve got to get my gear ready.” He ducked into Room 105 and slammed the door, not looking back.

  Jimmy rose from the porch and drew in close to Sheriff Mills and Pete.

  “Pete.”

  “Hi.”

  Jimmy reviewed his notes and spoke in secretive tones. “Guess you’ve heard the story by now.”

  “Has it changed any?” Mills asked.

  Jimmy stole a furtive glance at Reed’s door. “Don’t think so, so I can’t tell you what happened up there besides the obvious. Reed’s so shook up right now he’s hallucinating, talking about a woman screaming and big monsters fighting in the dark. He insists something really big and foul-smelling chased him and Beck along the trail and then grabbed her.” Jimmy’s expression said, Need I say more?

  Mills asked, “Did he say anything about Beck falling over a waterfall?”

  “Yeah, right before the attack. If it really happened, I’d guess that’s where the Abney Trail cuts across Scatter Creek.”

  “Cap and Sing can show us the spot. They just came from there.”

  Jimmy consulted his notes again. “Reed drew a map to show where he and Beck found Randy’s body. It’s up the creek a little, on a knoll above the cabin.”

  Mills spoke to Pete, “Looks like we’ll need two teams, one to work the cabin site and one to work the creek.”

  “We’ll most likely be picking up the pieces,” Pete muttered, bitterness in his tone as he peered over his shoulder toward the volunteers.

  Jimmy leaned close to Mills. “Sheriff Mills, I can’t let Reed go on this hunt.”

  “Good luck holding him back.”

  “He’s gonna be a liability.”

  “If he’s crazy,” said Pete.

  “Guys, I can’t allow it, even if he is my friend,” Jimmy insisted.

  “I’ll talk to him,” said Mills, “and we’ll take it from there.”

  Jimmy’s glare was unmistakable. “Sheriff. This is a bear attack. It’s my jurisdiction.”

  Mills didn’t get ruffled. He’d been sheriff—and known Jimmy Clark—too long for that. “Jimmy. We don’t know what it is, not yet. Let’s see if we can be a team until we get it sorted out.”

  “There’s nothing to sort out!”

  “Okay, try this: Anything having to do with the bear, that’s your jurisdiction. Anything having to do with bodies, living or dead, that’s mine. Can you work with that?”

  Jimmy sighed through his nose, his face still defiant. “I’ll work with it. For now.” />
  “That’s right. You will.” Mills let that settle the matter and moved on. “So tell me where you want to start hunting your bear.”

  “The cabin’s the most likely center of the bear’s foraging range right now. I’ll start there.”

  “Okay, Dave and I’ll go with you. Pete, I’d like two or three searchers.”

  Pete was counting noses. “I’ve got ’em.”

  “And we’re gonna need weapons on both teams,” said Jimmy.

  “My regular guys are here, and . . .” He scanned the crowd some more. “Looks like we’ve got a few more I haven’t met yet.”

  Mills instructed Pete, “Your team’ll be looking for Beck, starting at the Scatter Creek waterfall. Take the search dog. Jimmy, I want Sing to have a good look around that cabin area before anybody contaminates it.”

  Jimmy smirked in Sing’s direction and did not succeed in keeping his voice down. “So now you’re trying to make this a crime scene?”

  “I get the bodies, remember?”

  Jimmy waved it off. “Whatever.” To Pete, “Just hurry up with the dog.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Pete. “Are we about ready?”

  “Pete, one more thing,” said the sheriff, detaining the search manager a moment. “Forget any tales or theories you’ve heard thus far. You find whatever you find and let it speak for itself, you got it?”

  Pete gave a nod and adjusted his hat. “I’ll get the volunteers assigned.”

  The sheriff and Jimmy Clark watched Pete head into the parking lot, his volunteers gathering to him like Israelites to Moses.

  “He’s right about one thing,” said Jimmy. “There won’t be much left to find.”

  “We’ll know when we know,” said Mills.

  They went to join him.

  Pete craned his neck, hands on hips, and looked over the small and willing crowd. They were his neighbors: a carpenter, a housewife, two firemen, a schoolteacher, a machinist, a dental assistant, a heavy equipment operator, and several others, all away from their jobs, geared up and ready to trek into the wilderness, even sleep there if necessary, for no pay. They’d been together many times before, in every season, in every kind of weather, because someone was lost or in trouble. If anyone were to ask them why, they’d just say it was the thing to do.