Bigfoot Hunters

by Rick Gualtieri

  Sleep was a long time coming for them both. Thoughts of Wild Feather ran through their heads. For Rob, it was an amusing fantasy involving him being eaten by a bear. For Paula, it was thoughts of him running through the fields, tomahawk in hand. She pictured him wearing nothing but a loincloth which, in turn, caused a small shiver in her own loins.

  * * *

  “I don’t think your brother likes Wild Feather much,” Allison said, lying across the tent from Danni.

  “Nah! He’s just overprotective. Not that there’s anything to be overprotective about.”

  “Of course not. We’re all just friends.”

  Allison and Danni had been fast friends ever since they met. Even so, there had been some strain as of late. They both had their sights set on Wild Feather, and each was aware of the other’s interest. They had discussed it and had outwardly taken a “may the best girl win” attitude with each other. Inwardly, though, they were both attempting to vie for an edge in his affections.

  Wild Feather, for his part, had been maddeningly neutral. At times, Danni wondered if he might not be stringing them along, enjoying the attention. However, those were fleeting thoughts as she was genuinely convinced of his good intentions.

  Still, she considered, it was never a bad idea to try and stack the deck. “Speaking of my brother, I caught him checking you out a couple of times.”

  “Oh? I hadn’t noticed,” Allison lied. The truth was, she thought Harrison might make a pretty good consolation prize if things came down to it. She had considered that it might be fun to have a tryst in the woods with a guy she didn’t have to compete for. Still, she had her eyes set on Wild Feather, and until such time as he made his decision, she wasn’t about to be distracted.

  Well, all right, maybe an hour of distraction would be okay. After all, nobody had to know, and she was fairly sure Harrison wouldn’t go bragging to his sister about a little dalliance in the woods. No, that would be weird. Best not to let Danni know any of that, though. “So, what did you think of Wild Feather’s story?”

  Danni couldn’t have cared less about the story itself. She no more believed in bigfoot than she did trolls or fairies. It was the story teller who was important to her, as well as the way he told it. There was such passion and conviction in his voice that Danni couldn’t help but get goose bumps during his telling of it. However, she answered with a casual, “It was okay.”

  “Yeah, I thought so, too,” Allison said before turning over.

  They both drifted off, thinking the other was a bad liar.

  * * *

  Several pairs of curious eyeballs viewed the campsite from just outside of the clearing. They continued to watch as the conversation in the tents died down and the fire outside slowly gave way to cooling embers.

  Chapter 8

  “Slow down, Danni!” Rob yelled. Despite the coolness of the morning, he was already sweating hard. She hadn’t been kidding last night. Even with most of their gear back at camp, the pace was quickly getting to the less athletically-inclined amongst them.

  “Seconded!” cried Greg. He was in better shape than Rob, but was still suffering the after effects of his indulgence the night before. “This is supposed to be a vacation, you know. Not boot camp.”

  “Fine!” Danni called out from ten yards ahead. “Be a bunch of wusses.” She, Harrison, and Allison stopped and waited for the rest to catch up. While they did, Danni uncorked her canteen and took a sip of water. Even she was a little winded, although she wasn’t about to admit it.

  She had woken early, light barely peeking over the horizon, and had roused the rest of the group. She couldn’t help it. This was their first full day out in the woods, and she had no intention of wasting a second of it. To her surprise, Allison, normally an early riser, had been the first to grouse about it, complaining of sleeping like crap.

  “I felt like we were being watched all night,” she had said.

  “Well, yeah. We do have four boys along with us,” Danni had joked as she packed up her sleeping bag.

  “It’s not that. Things just didn’t feel right. Who knows, maybe Wild Feather’s story freaked me out more than I thought.”

  That’s a bit odd, Danni had thought. Allison was no stranger to camping. Being creeped out wasn’t her usual forte. Still, between her sighting of those poachers and the story, maybe she had been spooked. The generous tokes she’d taken the previous night had probably not helped in the paranoia department either.

  Despite that, within the hour she had somehow gotten them all ready. They had a quick breakfast, secured some supplies, then marked the coordinates of their camp on both GPS and map. Following that, Danni had led them in the direction of the old ranger station she meant to explore.

  Five miles later, they neared the coordinates her friend had given her. Unfortunately, some of them were starting to lag badly.

  “Relax,” Harrison said, bringing Danni out of her reverie. “If this place is still standing, I doubt it’s gonna pick right now to crumble into dust. Besides, if I have to carry Rob back because you destroyed him on our first day out, I’m gonna be pissed.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she replied offhandedly as the others caught up and unshouldered their packs.

  Paula sat down on hers and took a sip from a water bottle. After a few seconds, her breathing had slowed enough for her to say, “It’s so peaceful out here.”

  “Yes,” replied Wild Feather, leaning against a tree next to her. “In the silence, you can almost hear the forest spirits whispering to you.”

  Danni was about to chide Harrison for the look he gave Wild Feather when a thought struck her. It was quiet. In fact, other than their breathing, she couldn’t hear another sound. That wasn’t right.

  Her eyes caught Allison’s. They were showing the same questioning look.

  “You’re noticing it, too?” Allison asked.

  “Noticing what?” Harrison replied.

  “Listen.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Greg wheezed.

  “I think that’s the point,” said Harrison after a moment. “We should be. There’s probably an army of squirrels alone right above our heads. There are lots of things that should be making noise right now, but they’re not.”

  “Do you think it’s us?” Allison asked, purposely looking toward Greg and Rob as she did so. “We haven’t exactly been subtle.”

  “Maybe,” Danni replied warily. “Let’s keep still for a few and see. If so, things should start up again fairly quickly.” She grabbed her pack and started rooting through it. “But just in case...” She pulled out a can of bear spray.

  Both Paula’s and Wild Feather’s eyes went wide, and they immediately began rummaging through their own packs. While they did so, Harrison bent down and picked up a sturdy stick.

  “What are you gonna do with that?” Rob asked.

  “Scare it off.” He raised the branch and smacked it on a nearby tree. It made a sharp report in the quiet forest.

  “I can do better than that,” Allison said. She pulled an air horn from her backpack just as there was a loud *CRACK* off to their left. The brush was too dense to see, but it sounded as if it were about a dozen yards off.

  Harrison turned toward where the noise had come from. “Don’t wait for my invitation.”

  “Hold your ears. This is gonna be loud.” She raised it and pulled the trigger, causing an earsplitting bellow to blare out across the woods. As it subsided, she said, “There. That should scare off any...”

  An ungodly roar, even louder than the horn, shattered the stillness around them.

  It was followed by a splintering crash. It didn’t take a genius to realize that a tree had just come down.

  “What the fuck!?” Greg yelled as another crash came. The look in all of their eyes told the same story: there was something out there, and they had just pissed it off.

  “Follow me, and stick together!” Danni ordered, quickly shouldering her pack.
The rest of the group didn’t need to be told twice. She checked her GPS and strode off into the woods, the others following closely behind.

  “I don’t think that was a bear,” Allison gasped, following Danni’s lead.

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Wild Feather snapped, all traces of calm gone from his voice.

  * * *

  If he had ever known such rage before, it was lost to memory. He had approached the two-legged things silently, as he knew he could. They were stupid things with poor instincts and couldn’t sense his movement.

  He had planned to take one and scatter the rest. It did not matter. They could be hunted down easily enough. However, he had not expected to be challenged. As he neared them, a battle cry unlike any other rose up to meet him. The noise had stopped him in his tracks and shot waves of pain through his head. It was like another of his kind had bitten clean into his skull, so much was the agony. Regardless, the challenge could not go unanswered. To do so would be a show of weakness. Others might challenge his dominance, and that could not be allowed.

  He had answered the challenge with a cry of his own, then the rage had taken over. So incensed was he that he unleashed his fury at everything around him. Branches snapped. Trees were felled. Dirt and rocks were thrown. It was minutes before he realized that he was once again alone. The two-legged things had moved off. Their challenge had been a bluff. They were weak after all. He had planned to savor the hunt, to enjoy their screams. Now he would make them all scream at once as he rent them limb from limb. But first he would salt their meat with fear.

  He began to lumber in the direction of their scent, giving up all pretense of stealth.

  * * *

  Danni checked the GPS again. They were headed in the right direction. As they fled away from the source of the – whatever it had been – Harrison dropped back to make sure there were no stragglers. Danni wanted to protest, but her brother was more than capable. Thus, she was surprised when he caught up to her again.

  “How are we doing?” he asked with obvious false calm.

  “Maybe another quarter of a mile. Why?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he answered in a low voice she could barely hear.

  He was right. She really didn’t want to know. Unfortunately, she was long past that state of blissful ignorance. Whatever they were running from was coming after them. “How bad?”

  “It’s making a lot of noise, but doesn’t seem to be gaining on us ... yet.”

  As if in response to his statement, another roar split the air behind them. It sounded hundreds of yards away, but if it had snuck up on them once, it was probably capable of doing so again.

  “Don’t let anyone run off,” she said.

  He nodded and again fell back, but he needn’t have bothered. After that last cry, the rest of the group were crowded so close that Danni could have practically piggybacked them all, had she been strong enough.

  * * *

  Something was not right. He stopped and sniffed the air. For just a moment, the breeze had stilled and he thought he had smelled another scent from behind. Had one of the two-legged things broken off from its clan and tried to flee?

  He sniffed again. The scent was gone. Whatever it had been had been faint, just barely there. Now that the breeze started up again, he could once again smell the two-legged things he was pursuing. He could smell their bodies, but best of all, he could smell their fear.

  They knew he was coming. They knew that they were being hunted. If he could have understood the concept of a smile, he might have allowed himself one at that thought. As it was, he screamed again and once more began to stalk his prey.

  * * *

  “We are so screwed!”

  “You got that right, brother,” Greg replied to Wild Feather as they fled.

  “Shouldn’t we be trying to head out of the woods, not deeper into them?” Paula wheezed.

  She sounded out of breath, but at least the effort was keeping her from settling into a full-blown panic attack, Danni noted. If they stopped, she was sure that would change.

  “The cars are back in the direction of that thing,” Danni replied. “And there’s fifty miles of forest in every other direction. Trust me, this is our best bet.” I hope, she thought.

  She was trying to keep a positive attitude. Wild Feather had already lost it, and Allison was keeping unusually quiet. If either she or Harrison freaked out now, that would be it. The rest would scatter like doves. Fortunately, her big brother seemed to be doing his part. The least she could do was follow suit. “Just another hundred yards,” she said before adding another silent I hope. She quickly checked her GPS again and trudged onward.

  * * *

  Near the back of their close-knit group, Harrison was making sure he didn’t lose anyone. It was one hell of an effort on his part. Every instinct he had was telling him to cut loose and make a run for it. Inside of his head, the old hunting joke that ended with “I don’t need to run faster than the bear, I just need to run faster than you” kept replaying itself. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so funny. Still, he couldn’t live with himself if something happened to one of his friends because of his selfishness. He had been raised better than that.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked Rob, who had begun to fall back a bit.

  “N-not good,” his friend stammered. “You might have to drag me the rest of the way.”

  “Don’t worry. I would,” Harrison reassured him before looking back over his shoulder. He could still hear it coming. Whatever it was, it wasn’t making any attempts at stealth anymore. It also didn’t appear to be catching up to them yet.

  It was the ‘yet’ part that worried him, though. Harrison wasn’t a betting man, but if he had been he would have put money on it being able to overtake them anytime it damn well pleased.

  “What the hell is it?” Paula asked, lagging but still doing better than Rob.

  “Has to be a grizzly,” answered Harrison.

  Rob coughed. “I didn’t think they were around these parts.”

  “Neither did I. But have you got a better answer?”

  “I might,” Rob said with a small tired grin.

  “Don’t start that shit,” Harrison growled. “Everyone is freaked out enough as it is.”

  Rob, for his part, decided to follow that advice and concentrate on running instead of talking.

  * * *

  Danni wasn’t a particularly religious girl. However, as they entered the clearing, she could have gladly dropped to her knees and thanked any of a dozen different deities. Her friend’s coordinates had been faithful after all. At the far end of the clearing, partially overgrown but still standing, was the old ranger station she had been seeking. It was a small, one-story structure. Danni was once again reminded of Little House on the Prairie as she spied it, although the forest was about as far from a prairie as you could get. It appeared to be an old log cabin. It had seen better days, but still looked pretty damn solid to her eyes.

  “There!” she pointed. The rest of the group followed her outstretched hand and saw it, too. A small chorus of cheers arose behind her. That was good. She was pretty sure at least a few members of the group were about done for. This would hopefully give them enough of a morale boost to get inside and bar the entrance with whatever the hell they could get their hands on.

  Oh crap! What if the doors are locked?

  Why would they be? she asked herself. This place hadn’t been used in years, from the look of it. Why lock up an abandoned structure? It’s not like anyone had to worry about looters out here.

  “Are you just gonna stand there gawking?” Paula asked from behind her, startling Danni out of her thoughts. She had a point. Getting torn to pieces in sight of their potential salvation, all because she was busy worrying about whether or not the doors were locked, wouldn’t be a particularly grand way to go.

  She found the energy for a quick sprint. As she started running, she heard the others f
ollowing her lead. Within the space of seconds, she made it to the dilapidated front porch and tried the door.

  It didn’t budge.

  Oh God, it is locked a voice inside of her head screamed. For one small moment, Danni felt panic welling up. It threatened to bubble over until the rational part of her mind realized that the knob had turned when she tried it. Realization hit, and she put her shoulder into the door.

  “Help me! It’s stuck,” she pleaded as her friends caught up to her.

  Harrison dragged Greg up to the door with him and gently pushed his sister out of the way. A couple good shoves by the muscular young men, and the swollen door began to groan open an inch at a time. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the opening was wide enough to allow access.

  “Ladies first,” Greg wheezed in a bad attempt at humor. He stepped aside and gestured toward the entrance.

  The others had just started to move when another ungodly scream shattered the silence around them.

  As one, the group turned back in the direction whence they had just come. They watched in stunned horror as the creature stepped from the tree line.

  For a few seconds, silence once more descended. Then Rob asked Harrison, “So can I start that shit now?”

  Chapter 9

  At the sight of the creature, Paula’s nerve broke. All thoughts of the potential safety in front of her vanished from her mind, and she did the exact opposite of what she probably should have. She turned toward the other end of the clearing and began running. Most of the group was too frozen at the sight before them to notice. Even Rob was too busy muttering, “Sonofabitch, bigfoot is real,” to himself to pay her much attention.

  Fortunately, Danni still had her wits about her. “I’ll get her,” she barked before taking off after Paula.

  That snapped Harrison out of it. He yelled, “Danni!” before noticing that the creature’s eyes were tracking the two fleeing females. It bared its teeth, and long foamy ropes of drool began to spill over its lips.

  Oh shit. It’s gonna charge them!