Monster

by Frank Peretti

  With Rachel’s indulgence, Beck stretched the limit of her invisible tether and reached a tiny crease in the terrain where a feeble stream trickled among rocks, aging logs, and moss-covered windfall. Crouching on all fours, one hand on a tuft of wild grass and the other on a stick that bridged the stream, Beck sipped with her lips just touching the surface so as not to stir up the black mud on the bottom.

  Survive, survive, survive, she thought. Drink to live. Live to hope. Hope for a miracle.

  The stick under her hand shifted, and she sat up before it gave way and she got a face full of mud.

  It didn’t give way. It didn’t crack either. With nothing better to hold her attention, she closed her fist around it and lifted. It came off the ground in her hand, about the size and weight of a baseball bat. She wielded it just a moment, thinking of Reuben and imagining what a good club it would make, but of course, she was only venting her frustration.

  She let the other end of the stick plop into the streambed but still held on to her end, just for the feel of it. Thinking she should return to the group before Rachel got nervous, she almost let it go but didn’t. Instead, she lifted it again, felt its weight, gave it a few small swings. She tapped it against a rock. The stick hadn’t rotted. Years of sun had turned it hard and gray.

  The stick had stirred up the bottom of the stream. She reached in with just one finger and spooned up a sample of the mud. It was fine and greasy between her fingers, like black paint. She smeared it along the top of one finger. It coated the skin evenly, turning it an impressive, smudgy black.

  An outlandish thought crossed her mind: Displaying carried a lot of weight in Sasquatch circles, didn’t it? Stomping, hollering, threatening, throwing things, banging on things . . .

  She studied the grass under her other hand, closed her fist around it, and yanked it up. There was plenty of it. As a matter of fact, there was plenty of other loose material around here, like leaves, twigs, and moss. Her shirt was loose fitting. It could hold a lot of this stuff.

  No! She shook her head at herself, at God. No! I’m not the one to do this!

  As if God Himself were saying it, the thought came to her, Of course you are. Who else is there?

  She caught her reflection in the shallow water. There was only one face, one person looking back at her.

  She smeared the black mud over another finger. Now two fingers were blackened—she hated getting dirty!

  But it wouldn’t be enough. If she was going to put on a show, it had to be a big one, something no Sasquatch—especially Reuben—had ever seen before or even knew to expect.

  She dug for more mud and blackened her whole hand, grimacing with disgust. It felt awful. But it looked awful too, and awful was good. Awful might work.

  She probed around the immediate area, looking for more ideas—and stalling a bit. That was when she found a real prize: a fresh pile of Sasquatch droppings, most likely Jacob’s. The scent of that stuff would be quite alarming. If it was Jacob’s, it might even be confusing. Confusion was good. The more the better.

  She scrambled around the area on hands and knees, then on two hands and one and a half feet, gathering leaves, twigs, moss, and grass. The process gave her momentum, enough to forsake her hygienic world and move to the brink of the stream once again.

  A thin barrier of disgust held her back for only a moment, and then she made a choice. With a dangerous, reckless resolve, she dug into the mud, brought up a sizable blob, and smeared her face.

  Sing made her last trip from Room 104, carrying her backpack and a toiletry bag out to the motor home. She piled them into the rear bedroom along with the other camping gear and a well-read copy of Randy Thompson’s book, the last vestiges of the vacation that never was. Arlen Peak had been a neighborly sort: he only charged for the first night, not the several days of searching.

  She stepped into the motor home’s overcrowded midsection where the bulk of her lab and crime scene reconstruction gear was stowed, hung, stuffed, and folded. The last thing to fold up and put away was the computer, still running.

  She pressed the Menu key, arrowed down to the Shut Down option, clicked on it, and got a box with the final question, What do you want your computer to do? Shut Down was the highlighted option.

  She hesitated, the little arrow poised over the OK button. With a sigh, and feeling just a little foolish, she closed that window and left the computer running.

  The computer map of the mountains came on-screen again, with no activity indicated.

  She would be having a last, parting consultation with Reed as soon as he was ready. Perhaps she would shut down the computer then.

  Jacob was probing the old stump for grubs, breaking off chunks of red, rotten wood with his fingernails and removing the white larvae with flicks of his tongue.

  Leah sat next to an elderberry bush, indulging in the leaves from a branch she’d pulled down.

  Rachel was picking through the hair on any part of her body she could reach, removing seeds, twigs, and small leaves, sampling each find for flavor and edibility.

  Reuben was discovering how to regurgitate into his hand, but he still wasn’t sure what to do with the dripping contents. The intriguing yellow object was beside him on the ground, no longer an object of keen interest but a matter of territory nonetheless.

  All four were aware of the female human’s presence on the other side of a thicket, near the tiny stream. None could see her, but they could hear her rustling about, raking the ground, often splashing in the little bit of water there was. She’d puttered about before, feeding, drinking, grooming herself. They’d grown used to her ways.

  But then came a strange silence that bothered them. She’d never behaved in quite this way before, standing still as if hiding, lurking like a predator, even stalking in the bushes.

  Jacob flicked a grub into his mouth and watched the thicket, curious but not alarmed.

  Rachel looked over her shoulder, mildly curious what her “child” was up to, and puzzled to see Jacob still eating grubs from the stump when she could detect his scent from her “child’s” direction.

  Leah shot a protective glance at Reuben, wary of danger.

  Reuben was paying attention to nothing other than the green goo in his hand and wasn’t expecting— “Aaaaaaiiiiiii!!!”

  They all jumped, even Jacob, as if a cannon had gone off in the midst of them, and then they stared, mouths gaping, as Beck exploded from the thicket, running lopsidedly on a weak ankle, shrieking like a cougar, brandishing a club, face, arms, and torso blackened with mud except for wide white areas around her eyes. She’d stuffed her shirt, sleeves and all, to the bursting point with leaves, twigs, and moss, expanding her outline. Grass shot out like bristling hair from her waist, her collar, her shirt cuffs, her pant legs. She’d even fashioned a headdress from her handkerchief and long spears of grass, creating a sunburst of grass and blowing reddish hair around her face.

  Startling to hear, shocking to behold, she even smelled frightening, smeared with a liberal coat of dung that made her reek as if ejected from the bowels of the alpha male himself.

  It was all or nothing. No turning back. No fear. No gentle, timid world. No mercy, no compassion, no propriety, no fairness. If this was how matters were settled out here, then this was how she would settle them. She ran headlong, her club raised, her eyes crazed, her mouth wide open in a permanent scream.

  She closed in on Reuben, so focused and intense that he seemed to react in eerie slow motion—shyly jumping to his feet, gasping, and raising his arms in a singular moment that went on and on.

  She would never get a second chance for that first blow, that first desperate grab for advantage. As she passed on his uphill side, she swung the club in a wide batter’s arc and broke it in half against the back of his skull. He reeled, stumbled forward. Beck dug in, reversed direction, lunged at him, swatted him again on his head and shoulders with the half club still in her hand.

  He ran for his mother, who was on her feet, s
creaming with shock and indignity.

  The GPS, that precious GPS, lay on the ground, ripe for the picking. She pounced on it, got her hands around it. Precious yellow plastic, hope from home—

  Reuben pounced on her and, with one powerful heave of his arms, threw her, head over heels, into the bushes. She floated, mashed the branches, tumbled into the tangle until the thick stalks near the ground bore her up. Her head was swimming, her world spinning, but she kicked, struggled, stayed alive. Still entangled and suspended, not knowing which way was up or whether her body was intact or what she could do next, she screamed, yelled, thrashed, and displayed, doing anything her body could do to show anger, defiance, and strength.

  Rachel was coming her way, trying to save her. No. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to stay in trouble. With a violent kick, a twist, and several strong yanks, she got out of the bushes and onto the clear ground.

  Reuben was hunting for the GPS. She saw it the same time he did, in the grass, still intact.

  She crawled, then got to her feet. No fear. Show him who’s boss. Bluff if you have to!

  She leaped, screamed, beat on her bulky, grass-and-moss-stuffed chest, waved her arms, slapped the ground. Her hand found a rock and she threw it, hitting him in the hip. He roared in pain.

  Her entire field of vision suddenly filled with gray.

  Leah.

  “Tell you what,” said Arlen, his voice gentle, like that of a friend. “Those trophies are probably the last I’ll ever see. I would say you’ve paid enough. The room’s on me.”

  Reed smiled, admiring the four new plaster casts in Arlen’s Bigfoot display case. He could understand what a treasure they must be to a man with Arlen’s perspective. “I do appreciate it,” Reed said. He examined the grainy photo of the big female striding along a sandbar. “Think they’ll stick around after all this?”

  Arlen’s smile slipped. “Maybe not. They’ve never been hunted before. If I were them, I’d probably move on.”

  “I hope you’re right. I might be the interim sheriff, but I can’t keep the trails closed forever, especially for a reason nobody’s going to believe.” Reed turned to go.

  “Reed?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If I may speak on their behalf?” Arlen looked down at the casts for a moment, drumming the countertop with his fingers. “I can’t explain what we found up there, other than that your wife was with them and she was alive. I’d like to think it was the bear that killed her.”

  Reed would never believe that, but there would be no point in bickering. “See you later, Arlen.”

  He quietly closed the front door behind him, leaving a sad old man at the counter.

  Leah snarled, displaying, baring her teeth, arms upraised as if to strike—and then she looked up.

  A savage roar came from over Beck’s shoulder. Beck hugged the ground as the truck-sized mass of red fur sailed over her and plowed into Leah, knocking her backward. Leah recovered in only two steps, then shoved, slapped, and punched as Rachel returned blow for blow. They faced off, mirroring each other, circling, hair bristling, backs arched, fingers spread like talons, hissing and foaming through their teeth.

  With Leah occupied, Beck half-crawled and limped forward, searching for that glint of yellow.

  It was in Reuben’s hands. He was slinking away with it.

  Beck got to her feet, yelling, displaying, then loping toward him. She leaped with her good leg, then kicked him in the side. It was like kicking a wall. He flinched a little but didn’t even lose his balance. She landed on the ground, got up again, faced him—

  The slap sent her spinning. Her headdress disintegrated, the blades of grass falling like winnowed straw. The world was a blur until her hair blinded her. She hit the ground, her nose dripping, her face burning.

  With one eye above the grass, she saw Rachel holding her own, not backing down, getting slapped, slapping back, exchanging threats, and circling. Leah showed no weakness. As for Jacob, he sat next to his stump, surprisingly aloof, a spectator.

  Beck pushed against the ground, her body aching, nauseous. The ground reeled under her. Drops of blood glistened on the grass. She got to her feet, bent over to clear the dizziness, and wiped her face with her hands, streaking the mud, smearing the blood. She wiped her hands on her shirt and left red streaks. She straightened slowly—

  Reuben’s foot caught her in the back and she went down like a limp toy, tumbling in the brush, arms flailing, until a tree caught her in the side.

  Half conscious, she thought she would never breathe again.

  Reed poked his head in the door of the motor home. “Everything okay?”

  Sing sat at the computer, scrolling the map up and down, back and forth, retracing old possibilities, exploring new ones. The GPS system was its cold and cruel self; it had nothing to say. “It’s hard to leave,” she said.

  Reed looked back at the inn, at the bench on the porch, the front doors, the door to Room 105. There wasn’t a pleasant memory anywhere, only sorrow and finality. “We have to.”

  She nodded but didn’t turn the computer off. She only closed the lid, then went forward to the driver’s station and pulled out a map. “So what’s the best way to get to Three Rivers from here?”

  Reuben stood a few yards up the hill, snuffing at her, acting superior and victorious, clutching the GPS in his hands, his snarl warning her to stay away, to stay on the ground, to remain subservient.

  Beck rolled a painful quarter turn away from the tree, drew her first full breath, and pulled her knees up under her.

  The two females faced off, daring each other to make a move. It wasn’t so much a fight as a game, a war of wills.

  Beck straightened, got one foot planted, rose on one leg—

  And fell again, hurting in every limb, every fiber. Reuben must have opened her somewhere; she was leaving a trail of blood on the ground.

  He displayed again, snarling, stomping, coming closer. She knew he would hit her, and this time it would probably kill her.

  She could barely keep the females in focus. They weren’t looking her way but glaring at each other.

  If only she had won some favor. If only she was accepted.

  She cried out, the best series of alarm screams she could muster, and extended her hand, crimson with her own blood, their way.

  Rachel, facing Beck, saw her first. With a loud howl, she bolted Beck’s direction.

  Leah opposed her—

  Rachel could have been fighting the bear again. With ferocity Beck had seen only once before, Rachel forearmed Leah across the throat, knocking her back several steps, turning her. Leah leaned into a step, about to lunge, when her eyes followed Beck’s scream and Beck caught her gaze. Leah hesitated. She stretched her neck for a better view, concern clouding her face.

  Beck screamed again, her hand extended.

  Time stood still.

  Leah was wide open. Rachel hammered her with a right to the chest, then a left, pushing, pummeling. Leah covered her head, struck back once, then backpedaled, still staring at Beck.

  Beck cried out again, hand extended. Leah moaned, pain filling her eyes.

  Rachel pressed her attack, snarling, hurling another double-blow.

  Leah ducked, arms over her head, as Rachel delivered a steady and violent drumming. Then, at long last, her will broken, Leah turned tail and ran into the shelter of some trees.

  Reuben’s bravado drained in an instant. He whimpered, looking at Beck, then up the hill toward his mother.

  Finish it!

  Beck noticed she was on her feet. It hurt like crazy, but she was standing. A good-sized stick lay only two steps away. She took those steps, grabbed up the stick, raised it high, and climbed the hill, closing in on Reuben one last time. He was looking for his mother when Beck brought the stick down on his shoulders, raised it, brought it down again. Again! Again!

  He flinched, ducked, put his arms over his head, then started up the hill, retreating, ducking, whimpering.
<
br />   Again!

  The GPS bounced onto the ground and came to rest in the shards of a rotting log.

  Reuben ran, disappearing into the same trees that concealed his mother.

  Beck teetered but remained standing, her fist still clenched around the stick, not sure it was over. Her upper lip and chin felt cold and she tasted blood in her mouth. She wiped her sleeve across her mouth and it came away red.

  Rachel was coming to save her.

  No, please, not yet. Where’s that GPS?

  It was close enough to grab just before Rachel enfolded her in those huge arms. Rachel settled to the ground right there, cradling her, licking the blood and mud from Beck’s face with her big tongue, poking with grave concern at the weird stuffing inside Beck’s shirt, yanking and tasting the grass that protruded from Beck’s sleeves.

  Beck held that GPS close, trying to find the on switch in between swipes from Rachel’s tongue. Lick! She found it. Lick! She pressed it. Lick! Lick! Nothing happened.

  She almost felt a wave of despair, but another thought held it off: Check the batteries.

  The licking had stopped. Beck tried to open the back of the GPS, but her fingers were slick with mud and blood, and now the GPS was smeared with it. She pulled her handkerchief from around her head and wiped her hands, then the GPS.

  Rachel was poking her, humming with concern. Beck nestled in close to let her know she was all right and, using her fingernail, wedged the battery compartment open.

  The batteries were there, the ends blocked with a piece of paper. Clever! A safeguard, no doubt, to make sure only a human could turn it on. Beck pulled the paper out, closed the cover, and pressed the on button again.

  A little light came on. The LCD screen came to life.

  Reed spoke into his handheld radio as he sat in his SUV just outside the Tall Pine. “Okay, 450 point 45. Hello?”

  Sing came back from inside the motor home: “Gotcha loud and clear.”

  “All buttoned up?”

  “Three Rivers, here we come. Oh. Sorry. Got one more thing.” Sing set her radio in its rack on the dashboard and hurried back to secure the bedroom door. On her way, she remembered one more thing: the computer. Okay. It was time to turn it off.