Monster

by Frank Peretti

  “He has a bit of a temper.”

  “What are you working on, anyway?”

  Cap patted him on the shoulder. “I need you to help me find out.” He turned to leave.

  “Are you spying on Burkhardt?”

  That made Cap stop and turn. “Should I be?”

  “Well, somebody ought to do something. I don’t like having to cut back when he’s—” He shrugged it off—poorly. “Aw, never mind.”

  “Never mind what?”

  Nick backed away with a head shake of regret. “Nothing. Really. I mean, with all due respect, sir, if you’re going to make a bunch of waves again, I don’t want to get sucked into it. I’ve got a nice job here.”

  Cap cracked the door and looked to be sure no former associates would see him. “Well, I can’t tell a lie either, and you deserve to know: there are going to be some waves.”

  eight

  “Mr. Arnold was well respected in the community, and certainly he had no enemies. I had no reason to suspect any foul play, but of course I had to be curious.” Milton Tidewater was an amiable, older gentleman, soft-spoken, highly cordial, well suited to his profession. A man of proper procedure, he’d already put on his green apron and surgical gloves before opening the cold, walk-in storage locker.

  The first thing Reed and Sing saw were the soles of Mr. Arnold’s feet, jutting from under a white sheet on a wheeled worktable.

  “Oh, dear,” said Tidewater, readjusting the sheet, “I am sorry, Mr. Arnold.” He said to Reed, “Could you take that side?”

  Reed gave Tidewater a hand rolling the table out into the workroom.

  “Mrs. Capella, you may help yourself to Mrs. Tidewater’s apron and gloves, right over there.”

  Sing took a second green apron from a wall hook and put it on. She found a box of surgical gloves, size small, exactly one inch from, and parallel to, a box of gloves, size large, on the shelf above the work counter.

  Tidewater carefully, respectfully removed the sheet from Mr. Arnold, fold by neat fold, revealing the remains. “Now, you understand that I’ve already begun some restoration, so you’ll have to allow for that. Just imagine what he used to look like, right after the accident.”

  Reed didn’t have to do a lot of imagining. It was a good thing this guy was going to be wearing a suit and tie. “How’d this happen?”

  “A stack of logs rolled on top of him, just piled on top of him like jackstraws. It took his crew several hours to uncover him. Of course, he was long dead.”

  Sing spoke quietly, commenting as she observed. “Punctures and lacerations all along the front of the body. Bits of bark and pine needles embedded in the skin.” She took hold of the left arm and lifted it gently. The upper arm bent as if it were made of rubber. “Fracture of the humerus.”

  “You’ll find plenty of fractures,” said Tidewater.

  Sing rotated the arm for a closer view of some puncture wounds. “What do you think caused these?”

  “Sharp rocks on the ground? Perhaps the jagged stumps of branches on the logs.”

  “Uh-huh. Any evidence of bleeding?”

  “Oh yes. Certainly.”

  “What about these other injuries, these lacerations from the logs? Any evidence of bleeding before you cleaned them up?”

  Tidewater was struck by his own answer. “Um, now that you ask, no, I don’t think so. The blood was congealed for the most part.”

  Sing looked closely at a gouge on the left chest. “I don’t see any bruising either.”

  “No, it’s a little surprising.”

  “What about the lividity on his front side?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Well, the injuries tell me he was faceup when the logs fell on him. Was that the case?”

  Tidewater fumbled. “Um . . . I believe he was faceup, yes.”

  Sing grabbed her camera. “Is it okay if we . . . ?”

  “Oh, certainly,” said Tidewater.

  She handed the camera to Reed, who started snapping pictures, following Sing as she worked her way around the body. His first shots were of the puncture wounds on the left arm.

  Sing pressed down on the rib cage with both hands. It sank easily beneath the pressure. “Rib cage is flailed.” She pressed on the hips and made a painful face. “Iliac wings are entirely mobile! The pelvis is crushed!”

  Tidewater wagged his head. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it. It took hours to reshape him, and the rigor mortis certainly didn’t help. The suit will cover a lot of it, of course. But the neck—that has me a little puzzled, especially the bruising. What do you make of it?”

  Sing stood at the head of the table and gently cradled Mr. Arnold’s head in her hands. She tilted the head this way and that, observing the neck. She pulled a little, and the neck stretched. She rotated the head to one side and the neck didn’t resist; it just went squish. “I see what you mean.”

  “I’ve seen some broken necks, but nothing like this.”

  Sing felt along the neck, pinching, pressing, twisting. “No. It’s a severe subluxation, a separation at the first and second cervical vertebrae. I would guess this hemorrhaging all around the neck is due to the vertebral arteries being severed.” Her professional demeanor weakened as fear crept into her eyes. Reed wondered what it meant. She blinked the expression away and continued, “Of course, the spinal cord would have to be severed as well.

  “Diffuse, circumferential ecchymosis around the neck.” She held the head in an awkward, twisted position while Reed got some shots of the bruising on the neck, then she backed away, so troubled she couldn’t hide it. She said to Reed, “Like Randy Thompson?”

  Reed swallowed. “That’s about how he looked.”

  She carefully returned Mr. Arnold’s head to as near a natural position as the damage would allow. “Mr. Tidewater,” she said, “this is what killed him, not the logs. The hemorrhaging and bruising around the neck are well spread. That means Mr. Arnold was alive when it happened. He still had a beating heart and blood pressure. The lacerations, the tears, and the punctures from the falling logs show no bleeding or bruising, which means there was no blood pressure when they occurred. Mr. Arnold was already dead.

  “To make matters worse . . .” She pointed out large darkened regions on the man’s chest and belly. “This discoloration you see is fixed lividity. When a person is dead, the blood settles by gravity to whichever side or part of the body is lowest. In this case, the lividity tells us that Mr. Arnold was lying on his stomach after he died, not on his back, the way he was found. The fact that the lividity is fixed—see here? When I press on it, it doesn’t displace; the blood has congealed—that means he was dead at least eight to twelve hours before he was moved.”

  “So he died Sunday night,” said Reed.

  Sing nodded. “And the logs fell on him Monday morning.”

  Tidewater stood there, mouth half open, nonplussed. “I understand, but then again, I don’t.”

  Reed and Sing did not discuss Mr. Arnold until they were alone at a picnic table near a playground on the edge of town.

  Even though they were well out of earshot of anyone, Sing still spoke in lowered tones. “Those punctures on the left arm have the same arrangement and spacing as the punctures in that thermos from the campsite. This thing has teeth, and it isn’t afraid to use them.”

  “It doesn’t mind wringing necks either.”

  “No. In fact, I think it prefers it. The bruises on the head and neck weren’t from teeth or claws, but fingers,” Sing reviewed. “Somebody or something wrung that man’s neck, just wrenched it, and then left the body facedown.”

  “And then someone else moved the body.”

  “And left it on its back, not on its stomach.”

  “And dumped the logs on him to make it look like an accident.”

  Sing shivered at the thought. “Which doesn’t bode well for Cap.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She waved it off. “Oh, just thinking out loud.”

  “Bu
t we have some patterns now, don’t we? A line of attacks running southeast, two dead guys killed the same way, one hidden under logs, one . . .” Reed’s voice trailed off.

  “Hidden. We just haven’t found him yet.”

  Reed nodded. “So I’d better get up to that logging site and see for myself. You took pictures of that cabin, right?”

  “Took plenty.”

  “So did I. I want to see them. All of them, right next to each other.”

  Sing checked her watch. “Meet you back in Abney?”

  Reed rose from the table. “Let’s roll.”

  As Rachel plunged into the woods, barreled through pine and fir boughs, leaped over logs, and snapped off dry, obstinate branches, Beck found that riding on her back was a definite improvement over hanging, clinging, and dangling every which way in her arms. Rachel seemed perfectly suited to taking the brunt of the branches and limbs that whipped past. Riding her was much like riding a lean, well-bred horse.

  So Sasquatches did have a practical and efficient way to transport their young. Rachel just needed someone to remind her.

  Rachel and Beck were dropping down the mountainside into a shady draw where the trunks of ancient cedars and cottonwoods supported the forest canopy like pillars in a dark cathedral. Beck had no idea where they were geographically but guessed from the occasional flashes of sunlight that they were still heading south.

  As they entered a boggy bottomland among the cottonwoods, Rachel slowed to a cautious, furtive walk, padding quietly over the black, rotting leaves, turning in quick little circles, looking this way and that, sniffing and listening. The fear was there again; Beck could sense it in Rachel’s demeanor, in her eyes, in her movements, and in the fear odor that intensified when Rachel was alarmed. It made Beck wary, and she began rubbernecking in all directions, not knowing what to look for but wanting to be sure it wasn’t there.

  Rachel let out a soft whistle.

  Another whistle came back immediately, and Rachel bolted forward, through the grove, through a stand of young cedars, and into a small meadow where sunlight showcased wildflowers and cattails grew in tall clumps at the edge of a pond.

  Rachel sank to her haunches, disappearing up to her waist in the meadow grass. Beck alighted on the ground beside her. Taking one deep, calming breath, Rachel fingered the leaves of a dandelion, then plucked them up and put them in her mouth, her eyes scanning casually as she chewed.

  She grunted, “Hmph!”

  “Hmph!” came a reply among the cattails as a gray shadow came alive, moving but still hiding. Beck saw one coffee-and-amber eye gazing at her, then the other eye, then the first again as the breeze opened and closed the gaps in the leaves. Leah’s gaze was icy and suspicious.

  Rachel rose lazily, strode to the cattails, and with Leah’s grudging indulgence, began fingering through them like a woman shopping for a blouse. When she found one she liked, she yanked it out, roots and all, and set it in the grass. She plucked up another, nibbled on it, plucked still another, nibbled on it, decided she preferred the first one, and put the second one back.

  Rachel returned with her arms full and sat down, setting the plants between her and Beck, enough to get sick on. From past experience, Beck knew her future: she was going to have to bite off, taste, chew, and force down every raw, chewy, stringy bit while Rachel watched. And watched. And watched.

  Rachel had already grabbed a cattail and was making quick work of it, chomping down the brown, cylindrical head as if it were a soft carrot and making it look delicious. She eyed Beck, waiting for her to do the same.

  Beck followed her example and reached for one, wondering where she should start biting into it.

  A whistle!

  Leah was the first to reply, emerging from behind the cattails and whistling back. Then Reuben popped up out of the pond, streaked with slime and excited, mud flying from his feet. Even Rachel paused with a cattail hanging from her mouth and gazed toward the old cottonwoods.

  Jacob emerged, looking tired from a long trek but still awesome in the light of day, his black hair gleaming, his sagittal crest a priestly miter atop his head. His hands and arms cradled something against his belly.

  Beck actually felt glad to see him—he was carrying fruit! Apples and pears! Real food! People food! Nothing ever looked so wonderful!

  Leah and Reuben were there in an instant, bowed low with hands outstretched, groveling like beggars before a noble, catching the luscious fruit as it fell from Jacob’s hands.

  Rachel stared and fidgeted, whining, clearly wanting to be invited to the party but too timid to ask.

  Hey, come on! Don’t just sit there! “Roo-r-Rachel!” Beck pointed at the fruit with one hand, poked at Rachel with the other, and gave a plaintive cry, as near as she could get to an apelike “Ooh! Ooohh!” The sound made her throat hurt.

  Leah and Reuben bothered to send her a scowl and went back to consuming the fruit—an apple, a pear, another apple, not slowing, slamming them into their mouths, making them disappear with alarming speed.

  Beck bounced up and down for emphasis, reaching toward the fruit and making whatever apelike sounds she thought would register. She felt ridiculous, but she was hungry.

  Rachel lifted a lazy finger toward Jacob and grunted.

  Jacob glanced her way and took several precious seconds to think it over. He looked down at an apple he held in one hand and a pear he held in the other.

  Leah and Reuben had their eyes on the pear and apple too, their greedy hands outstretched.

  Jacob reached a decision somewhat grudgingly and all too slowly took three steps toward Rachel. He tossed the pear and apple the rest of the distance. Rachel caught the pear with the skill of an outfielder. The apple bounced on the ground and Beck grabbed it up. Rachel chomped and mashed the pear like a fruit grinder until it was gone. Beck took a bite from her apple—

  And then stared at it. Wait a minute. An apple. A domestic fruit from a tree someone had planted.

  She lifted her eyes to Jacob, who was settling down in the grass for a much-needed rest. Then Beck scanned all around as if she might catch a glimpse, a clue, a hint of where Jacob had been.

  Wherever he’d been, people had to have been nearby. It had to have been a farm, a homestead, an orchard, something owned and operated by people with roads, houses, and telephones.

  She examined the apple again. What kind was it? Was this kind of apple ripe in July, or did someone buy this at a grocery store? Where did—

  She didn’t hear or see Reuben coming until his big, filthy fist appeared over her shoulder and grabbed the apple.

  “Nooo!” Instinctively, in desperation, Beck clamped her hands around the apple, clutched it close to her body, and held on for sheer survival.

  Reuben’s grip was like an iron vise, and Beck’s body was a feather as he flipped her on her back and tried to pry the apple from her hands. Screaming, hoping for help, wondering where in the world Rachel was, she slipped from his muddy grip, then wriggled and squirmed until she was on her belly, the apple under her.

  Through the blades of grass, she saw Rachel come running, screaming and displaying, until Leah, growling and showing her teeth, tackled her to the ground and pummeled her.

  Reuben clearly felt no qualms. He took Beck by the hair and yanked her off the ground. She was twisting, dangling by her scalp, which brought a roar of pain from where she’d hit her head, but she didn’t let go. Reuben groped for the apple, and Beck turned, holding it from him. She saw an opportunity and kicked him in the stomach with her good foot. The stomach didn’t even give. Reuben dropped her, then grabbed at the apple with both hands. Beck tried to run.

  One step and her ankle punished her. She screamed in pain, nearly fell, then recovered her balance—

  So suddenly she scarcely saw it happening, the apple was gone. She yelped at the sight of her empty hands, and her eyes went immediately to the ground, searching, searching, darting everywhere.

  But Reuben had left her, and she could e
asily see why. He walked away with a triumphant, head-high gait, his hand to his mouth. She heard the apple’s flesh snapping and crunching deliciously between his teeth.

  Leah punished Rachel with one more slap across her shoulders, and then she retreated, gathering up her thieving son.

  Oh God, where are you? Beck cried. How could you leave me like this?

  She collapsed to the ground, whimpering. It just wasn’t fair!

  She heard a familiar pig grunt above her, and for a moment a huge silhouette blocked the sun. Rachel sat beside her, sniffing, panting, and moaning little sounds of comfort. Leaning so close Beck could smell her breath—a scent of pear still lingered— she gently groomed the hair that fell across Beck’s face and then, leaning back, offered Beck the only consolation she had: a cattail.

  One chain saw was noisy. Four chain saws were very noisy. Four chain saws, a bulldozer, and an occasionally falling tree were more than enough to make conversation difficult. The clear-cut on Road 27 was going to be a noisy place, at least until the six-man crew quit for the day. Reed, wearing the required hard hat, felt a little silly yelling at the man who stood only a few feet away, but the new foreman, a beer-bellied man in his forties, yelled as if he was used to yelling, so yelling had to be okay.

  “So where was the truck?” Reed asked.

  A huge fir came down right on top of his question, and the foreman shouted, “What?”

  “The truck! Where was the truck parked?”

  The foreman turned his head to look toward the clearing, and that’s where most of his answer went. “Oh, I theeni was ritovther supplace!” He was pointing to the center of the clearing, now a field of stumps, slash, dozer ruts, and sawdust.

  Reed pointed to where the bulldozer was piling up a fresh batch of logs. “Was that where you found him?”

  The foreman pointed at the pile and hollered something. Reed caught the words “Found . . . under there . . . morning . . . flat like a bug.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Duz mega bitta sense.” The foreman finally turned and shouted in his face. “Those logs don’t dump over that way, not without some real help. But you oughta think about this: that dozer had an extra tenth of an hour on it when we got here.”