Day of the Sasquatch

by Eric S. Brown

  Herald had told him there were tracks around the places where the cattle were slaughtered, but by the time Jerry had gotten to those scenes, they were gone, washed away by the rain that was an answer to the desperate prayers of the town’s farmers. Herald had told him there were tracks at the scene tonight too but honestly, both of them had been so shaken up by the state of the dogs, neither of them had really stopped to investigate them. Truth be told, Jerry hadn’t even noticed them and wouldn’t have known about them at all if Herald hadn’t said something. Now that he was in a calmer frame of mind, Jerry considered turning the patrol car around to go back and check them out but thought the better of it. It was getting dark and trudging around in the woods alone seemed like a very bad idea to him.

  The night shift would be clocking in at the station right about now, and Jerry planned on making sure that the Hendriks were safe. He decided he would go beyond his word and not just have an officer drive by their farm every hour or so. John would hate it, but he was going to send the kid out to sit in his car at the Hendriks’ house until the sun came up and he was sure that whoever or whatever killed those dogs wasn’t hanging around there. After that, he figured it would be time to pay the doc a visit. Harley kept odd hours and liked to work late over at the morgue. Jerry knew he would be there. He just hoped Harley had some answers as to what was going in Canton because he sure didn’t.

  ****

  The sun was setting as Lyle pulled into the drive outside Ed’s trailer. Robert was glad to be along for the ride. He didn’t have anything else to do and hanging around to see how Lyle handled being begged into trying to hunt a lost house cat was sure to be interesting.

  Ed’s trailer was within walking distance of Lyle’s home. They had parked at Ed’s though because Lyle told him they needed Ed’s truck. Lyle’s plan for trying to track the cat hinged on his hunting dogs and with the truck, they could haul them over to Ashley’s. Lyle claimed the dogs were his only hope of tracking the cat. Robert didn’t know a blasted thing about hunting, but he had read Where the Red Fern Grows and guessed that Lyle had something the tracking dogs in that book had done in mind.

  They could hear the sounds of pulse rifle fire and alien wails from inside the trailer as they walked up to its front door. Lyle knocked on the door loudly, banging his fist frantically against it.

  “Come on in!” Ed’s voice boomed from somewhere inside.

  Robert opened the door and gestured for Lyle to go on ahead of him. The place smelled like Cheetos and stale pizza. It was easy to see why. Ed sat in front of his TV, playing the newest Colonial Marine game, surrounded by energy drink cans and junk food. He didn’t even look up as they entered. His eyes were glued on the TV and his attention focused on taking out a squad of blue-skinned things wearing combat armor.

  “Ed, I need a favor,” Lyle said, walking between his friend and the TV.

  “Hey!” Ed yelled and paused the game. “That’s not cool, man. I’m just about to—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lyle told him gruffly. “Do you know Ashley Meadows?”

  Ed seemed confused by the question. “The hot blonde chick that goes to your school that looks like a geek but sounds like a redneck?”

  “Yep, that’s the one,” Lyle replied. “She’s lost her cat, Ed, and I promised to help her.”

  “And this involves me how?” Ed frowned, still angry about having his game interrupted.

  “I need your truck to drive my dogs over to her house and go looking for her cat.” Lyle picked up a beer from an untouched six pack that sat near the sea of empty energy drink cans on Ed’s coffee table. He popped its tab and took gulped down a mouthful of the warm liquid inside it.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone hunting a house cat with dogs before,” Ed replied, smirking. “Can you even do that?”

  “The man promised he would try,” Robert cut in.

  Ed turned to him as if noticing he was in the room for the first time. “Spaceknight! Man, I haven’t seen you in so long I thought you were dead or something.”

  Robert scowled at being called by that name again. “As you can see, I’m not dead. Just haven’t been around a lot recently. No time.”

  “Hard at work on selling more stories, huh?” Ed said as he got up and shut down his game, turning off the TV too. “I still can’t believe you’re actually a writer.”

  Lyle shot a surprised sideways glance at him, but Robert ignored it. “You going to help us out or what?”

  “Anything for you, Spaceknight. Besides, this ought to be good for a few laughs. Let me grab my keys,” Ed said. “You just have to promise to remember me when you’re famous and all that, man.”

  Lyle sprinted over to his house to fetch the dogs as Ed locked up his trailer.

  Ed let down the end of his truck bed so that Lyle would be able to get the dogs up into it. “This is going to be wild… The two of us heading in adventure, Spaceknight.” Ed laughed. “It’ll be just like old times.”

  Robert very much doubted it. He and Ed were close friends before life had caused them to drift apart. Ed was older and after graduating high school, he didn’t have much time for hanging out with “young’uns” anymore while he got his degree in computer programming. Robert had to admit that Ed tried to stay in touch even after he got his IT job for the town’s school system. Their paths would cross once in a while as Robert was still a senior, but they rarely spoke. A wave of recognition as they passed in the school’s hallways was enough for Robert and he wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t have anything against Ed. Ed was the same geeky misfit with a gigantic, kind heart like he had always been, but Robert had changed. Friends weren’t a high priority on his list with all the stuff that had gone down with his dad. Just surviving, taking care of his mom, and escaping into books and his writing were enough for him. He had no desire for Ed to get pulled into the trouble of his life as Ed surely would if they got close again.

  “I’ve missed you, buddy,” Ed told him as they waited on Lyle to return with the dogs.

  Robert didn’t know what to say to that. Instead, he said, “I see you’re still a diehard gamer.”

  “Always,” Ed said, chuckling. “Some things are just a part of who you are, ya know?”

  “Still waiting to find the right woman too I see,” Robert ribbed him.

  “What can I say?” Ed shrugged. “I’ve got pretty high standards in that regard, I guess.”

  Robert laughed. It felt good to laugh again. He had almost forgotten what it was like to really let go in the sort of honest laughter that only a good friend could get out of you.

  “You doing okay?” Ed asked, watching him closely as Robert’s laughter came to an end.

  “He’s back with the dogs,” Robert said, switching the subject as Lyle came up the drive with three hunting dogs bouncing happily around him on their leashes.

  “Let’s get these boys loaded up,” Lyle ordered them. “Time’s a wasting.”

  ****

  Jerry’s trip to the station was a brief one. He stayed there only long enough to bark orders at the night shift and grab a Red Bull for the drive over to the town morgue. Coffee was his drink of choice, but he drank so much of it on a regular basis that when he was really tired, coffee just didn’t cut it anymore. His body had built up a tolerance to the level of caffeine in coffee and at times like this, he needed something with more kick to keep him going. His shift had started at 7 AM that morning and it was now pushing 9 PM. He liked the taste of Red Bull okay, but it tended make him more…aggressive.

  He was right about Harley still being at work. Harley was listening to music and chugging a Red Bull of his own as Jerry entered the section of the morgue where he was. The music kept Harley from hearing him come in. Jerry didn’t want to spook Harley. He stood near the door, waiting on him to turn around and realize that he was there. When Harley finally did, he met Jerry with a smile, taking off his earphones and shutting down whatever he was listening to.

  “I imagine you’re
here about the cows,” Harley said smugly.

  Jerry nodded. “Right in one. Tell me you’ve got something.”

  Harley shrugged. “Not much more than I was able to tell you when I first looked them over, I’m afraid. The lab results haven’t come back yet.”

  “Anything would be a big help, Harley,” Jerry told him.

  “There’s been another attack?” Harley asked.

  “Yeah, only this time it wasn’t cows, Doc,” Jerry began. “It was the Hendriks’ dogs. Herald found them gutted and hanging from a tree by their own intestines. Herald had to cut them down with his pocket knife. We buried them afterward so the kids wouldn’t have to see them again.”

  “Wow.” Harley shook his head in amazement and disgust.

  “I need to know who or what is behind all this, Harley,” Jerry pressed him. “The next time, it may not be cows or dogs.”

  Harley stared at him and then walked over to where his laptop was set up. “Here’s all I can tell you, Jerry. Whatever killed those cows… It ate parts of them. There are definite teeth and claws marks on their bodies. They’re unlike anything I’ve seen though. I sent the data on them higher up the chain, but like the lab work, nothing on them has come back yet.”

  “So whatever did this is an animal?” Jerry felt a wave of relief wash over him. An animal being behind the attacks was a whole lot less of a mess to deal with than if the killer was a person.

  “If whatever is doing all this is an animal, Jerry, it’s not one that’s on record anywhere in the databases I have access to,” Harley said with a sigh.

  “What in the devil does that mean?” Jerry asked.

  “We’re talking about something strong enough to pick and move the body of a full-grown cow by itself, Jerry. And the bruises on the cows’ flesh indict that whatever is doing all this, well, its hands are bloody well close to a human’s in shape, just a heck of a lot larger,” Harley explained.

  “A bear would be strong enough right?” Jerry ran his fingers through his hair as he watched Harley continuing to shuffle through the files on his laptop as if he were looking for something he hadn’t gotten to yet.

  “The bite and claw marks don’t match a bear’s, Jerry. Not any kind of bear native to this region anyway. In fact, the bite marks more closely resemble those of a human’s than an animal’s,” Harley answered.

  “I’m confused here, Harley.” Jerry was getting frustrated and the Red Bull he drank on the way over wasn’t helping matters as it messed with his system. “You just said that whatever did this wasn’t human or did I hear you wrong?”

  “I don’t think your attacker is human,” Harley assured him. “That said, I don’t have a clue as to what it really is either. The data is somewhat conflicting. It points to your attacker being an animal, but a very, very human-like one. Something like a primate maybe.”

  “A primate? You mean like an ape or something?” Jerry was doing his best to make sense of it all and failing.

  “Or something,” Harley answered pointedly.

  “You’re talking as if you think we have a monster on the loose here in Canton, Doc,” Jerry growled. “We both know monsters aren’t real.”

  “Tell that to the data,” Harley replied. “I’ve told you all I can until the stuff I sent comes back and we know more from the DNA tests that are being run on your attacker’s saliva from the bites on the cows.”

  Jerry glared at Harley. He knew the doc had done all he could, but it still left him without the answers he so desperately needed.

  “I’m sorry,” Harley said and Jerry knew that he was being sincere. “I’ll call you as soon as I know more, but I wouldn’t expect anything for another a few days, maybe longer. The boys at the lab over there in Buchanan stay overworked and frankly, it’s not like we’ve got priority over the cases they’re dealing with where people have actually been killed and not just animals.”

  “Let’s just hope that the wait doesn’t cost us any lives, Doc!” Jerry roared and then caught himself. Harley was staring at him as if he was afraid he was about to be punched in the face. “Look, none of this is your fault, Doc. You’re doing all you can and I know that. It’s just… I guess I’m a bit on edge.”

  “I would be too in your shoes, Jerry,” Harley told him. “I get it. Now, why don’t you head on home and get some sleep? You’re pushing yourself too hard on this one.”

  “This town hasn’t had a real murder here in…well, for as long as I can remember. I don’t intend for the first one in Lord knows how many years to happen on my watch,” Jerry said.

  “You’re not going to stop it by pushing yourself so hard that you start making mistakes and overlooking things from exhaustion though.” Harley walked over to put a hand on his shoulder. “Let your deputies handle things tonight, get some rest, and come at this fresh in the morning.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Doc,” Jerry agreed and turned to leave. He was halfway to his patrol car when Glenda’s voice crackled to life over his radio.

  “Sheriff, come in,” she called to him. “You reading me? Over.”

  “What is it, Glenda?” he answered.

  “There’s been a wreck up on Jones Mountain Road. One fatality. Roger is on scene and requesting that you get up there as fast as you can.”

  “Copy that.” Jerry felt like the world was caving in on him. “Tell Roger I am on my way.”

  ****

  One hour earlier…

  Luke used to love blasting awesome tunes on the radio as he drove when he was younger. He missed them. Now at the age of fifty-three and still employed by the town’s super center where he worked as a shopping cart wrangler, his drives home after work were silent things, devoid of good tunes or any other kind of happiness. His anxiety had grown worse as he got older. Luke’s sister, Judy, who also worked at the super center, rode him night and day about getting help for it. He just couldn’t do it though. The thought of taking pills for something like that sickened him. Every night, he cut across Jones Mountain on his way his home. The shortcut saved him a solid thirty minutes of drive time. The road to the turn that led onto his shortcut was a high traffic one even at night, and the one on the mountain was windy and narrow at times so narrow it was difficult for two cars to pass each other. And every night, he was raked with fear that he was going to have an accident. Driving at night was the concentrated high point of his anxiety. Every bump in the gravel road was someone he ran over and every whooshing noise of a car passing him was the sound of him sideswiping another vehicle. Often when he got home, he would sit in his living room, not watching the TV though he would turn it on, and listen for the sirens of officers coming to take him away in the night because of whoever he had run over on the way home. Rationally, Luke knew it was all his nerves, but it was so hard to be sure sometimes. The line between reality and the fears in his head often blurred, and he would put himself more at risk by turning around to drive sections of the road again just to be sure he hadn’t hurt anyone or anything.

  The nights when sirens did shoot past his house after he got home were the worst. He would pace the floor for an hour or so, wondering if he should call the sheriff to see what was going on. Luke never did though, because he figured either he would be letting them know he was the one responsible for whatever had happened or they would think he was crazy and take his license away. The nights he had to work late and make the drive over Jones Mountain were hell. There was no other word for them. Thankfully, he only worked a few nights a week as he didn’t need much money to survive. His life was a simple one, and the cabin he lived in he had inherited from his late father so he didn’t have rent to worry with anymore.

  Luke’s hand clutched the steering wheel of his beat-up old Chevy in a white-knuckled grip, his eyes peering into the rearview mirror to make sure the last bump the truck had bounced over was only a bump. He wasn’t really paying attention to the road ahead of him. That often created even more trouble with his nerves when he did return his eyes to where he w
as headed but tonight, it really fragged him up. Luke caught the flicker of a shadow of something moving out of the woods in the light of his truck’s high beams. The next thing he knew, Luke was flung forward into the steering wheel. As he jerked his head around, he saw the hood of his Chevy folding up towards him. Luke screamed at the top of his lungs and jerked the wheel to the right, but the truck didn’t respond. It had already stopped moving, brought to a shuddering halt by whatever he had just hit.

  “Oh Lord, please help me,” Luke begged, “and don’t let me have killed someone.”

  One of his headlights were clearly out and likely smashed to pieces by whatever he had hit, but the other was still shining. Its light spilled over the road in front of the truck, but Luke couldn’t see anything beyond the folded-up metal of the truck’s hood. He shifted the truck into park even though it was already at a dead stop and reached to unfasten his seatbelt. As he did so, the truck started moving again. Luke’s eyes bugged as he realized the truck wasn’t moving forward or rolling backward, its mangled forward end was being lifted from the road. That was when the thing roared. The cry it let loose was more animal than human, and Luke had no clue what on Earth could make a noise like it. He bounced in his seat, grabbing the steering wheel to sturdy himself, as the truck slammed back down on the gravel road.