“Greg!” she scolded.
“Don’t be mad at him, little miss,” Chuck said with a smile. “He was just sharing some happiness ... for medicinal purposes only, of course. Kill the pain a bit.”
Greg looked up at her and tried to make puppy dog eyes, but he wasn’t quite able to keep the grin off his face. Eventually, he dissolved into giggles.
Danni put her hands on her hips and tried to look disapproving. Deep down, though, she was relieved. If these two were over here sharing a joint while laughing at dick jokes, then perhaps that was a hopeful sign. Despite everything, she actually felt a smile forming on her lips.
* * *
They were aware of the intruders in their territory. They were always aware when such things happened. In the past, they would go out of their way to avoid the two-legged things. Something in their memories told them it was a wise thing to do. Occasionally, they would be seen when their innate curiosity got the better of them. Even rarer, one of the young males might chase them out of their territory during rutting season. For the most part, though, their existence was one of avoidance and stealth where the two-legged things were concerned.
Then the fever had come. At first, it had only affected the young male. Little by little, he had become erratic. Finally, he had begun to violently lash out at the others of the clan. They were mostly a tolerant species, and it wasn’t until many of them bore wounds that the Alpha had acted and driven him away. By then, it was too late. Most of them had been infected, and as the violence inside of them began to awaken, the rest soon followed. The rage claimed the entire clan, the sole exception having been a cub savagely beaten to death by his mother after he nipped her too hard while nursing.
While most were not so far gone yet as the young male had been, a few had since wandered away in a daze. They had not been seen for at least a day. Those that remained, however, still understood order within the clan. They still followed the Alpha.
Thus, when the Alpha began to lead them toward the intruders, they did not disobey. They were still curious, but their curiosity was now tinged with madness. They would observe the two-legged things, but when they acted, it would not be to drive them away. The two-legged things would never be allowed to leave their territory.
* * *
“Are you sure it was a good idea to leave the body out there?” Francis asked, hoisting his camera.
They had returned to their own camp to pack up. Without Mitchell or Chuck, their load was heavier than usual. Fortunately, they didn’t have far to go. It would slow them down a bit, but it wouldn’t be oppressive.
Derek shrugged. “What else were we gonna do with it? I sure as hell wasn’t going to carry it back to town, and we didn’t have all day to bury it. Besides, within a few days nobody will ever know it was even there. Scavengers will take care of it.”
“But I thought you said it was sick.”
“Might be sick. Mitch disagrees. He thinks it could just be food poisoning.”
Francis laughed. “Oh, please. I had some bad Chinese food last month. Gave me the Hershey squirts, but I didn’t go around killing campers because of it.”
“Yeah, but we still don’t know too much about these things. A bad case of indigestion might put them in a much fouler mood than you or I,” he replied unconvincingly. He was trying really hard to make himself believe in that theory, but it just didn’t sit well. He had worked with animals for far too long. He was certain it had been sick, and Mitchell had humored him by taking the tissue samples. Derek just hoped he was wrong.
“So, what if it was sick?” Francis asked, echoing Derek’s thoughts.
“Probably no matter,” he answered distractedly. “The big predators won’t touch a squatch, not even a dead one. Beetles and maggots will take care of most of it, and I’m not too worried about them.”
“What if it wasn’t the only one infected?”
There it was – a question that Derek had been desperately trying not to think about. He didn’t even want to consider it. They could handle a rogue squatch or two. But a whole clan of them? It was a bad thought. Even though he had seen creatures that few other men had, there were still some things that frightened him.
“I wouldn’t worry,” he finally replied to Francis, forcing a smile. “There’s almost no chance of that happening. So, are you up for getting some filler footage as we bug out of here?”
“Always, chief.” As the camera switched on, the lens panned across the canopy. “What about the trap cams?”
“Leave them for now. We can come back in a few days and grab them ... oh, and don’t call me ‘chief.’”
“Good point. I’ll save it for that Indian wannabe we saved,” Francis said with a chuckle before concentrating on his filming.
As they walked, Derek began reading some pre-written dialogue for the camera. It would need to be redubbed later during editing, but it kept his mind from wandering back toward questions he didn’t want to think about.
Chapter 18
Kate Barrows was performing inventory in the back of her shop. It was mindless work, and for the most part unnecessary, considering her clientele was small enough that she was well aware of who bought what from her store. However, it kept her mind busy and away from thoughts of the blood on her front porch.
Her father had volunteered to mop it up. He didn’t seem particularly perturbed by it, being of the mindset that the perpetrator was probably Joel Bean. Joel was a large man, a former lumberjack who had retired once he had lost a few too many fingers. Since then, he had a tendency to spend his days drunk and his nights passed out wherever he lay down. Her father figured he had probably cut his foot while drunkenly stumbling about and then somehow had made his way to their place.
“What if he’s badly hurt?”
“I wouldn’t worry,” her father had said. “It’d take a lot more than a bleeding foot to put that lummox down. There’s so much whiskey in his blood that he probably doesn’t need to worry about infection either.”
Still, Kate was worried. Not so much for Joel, but her dog Gus was still missing. What if her father had been partially right? What if Joel had come over to her place in a drunken stupor and Gus had bitten him? He wasn’t a vicious animal, but any dog could be a little protective of its territory. What if Joel had fought back and hurt Gus? She didn’t think that scenario likely. He wasn’t known for being violent, whether drunk or sober. But still, she hated not knowing. It was causing her mind to start making things up.
Fortunately, she wasn’t given the opportunity for further wool gathering as, just then, she heard the front door open. She peeked out from the back and saw Grace Clemons walk into the shop. Grace and her husband, Byron, lived at the far end of town, although, considering the size of Bonanza Creek, that was still easily within walking distance of the store.
“Afternoon, Grace,” said Kate as she walked out. She was on fairly good terms with the Clemons family. Grace and her husband mostly kept to themselves, but they were usually friendly enough, and they always paid up front. None of that mattered much to Kate at that moment, though. She would have probably welcomed a distraction by a mangy coyote walking into her store.
“Hi, Kate,” Grace greeted her. “Sorry to bother you, but have you seen Mark?”
Kate knew she was talking about Mark Watson. In a small town like Bonanza Creek, it was easy to know such things. Mark ran a nature blog about the forests and natural resources of Colorado. It was popular with tourists and locals alike, allowing him to make a modest living off advertising revenue. However, that probably wasn’t why Grace was looking for him. Mark Watson was also the closest thing to law enforcement Bonanza Creek had. He served as a part-time deputy. The town wasn’t large enough to warrant a full-time police force, so, technically speaking, Mark reported to the sheriff’s office down in Pagosa Springs.
“Last I heard, he was out again with that search party,” she replied to the older woman.
“The
y’re still looking for those fool hikers?”
“Yeah. It’ll probably be at least another day or two, assuming they don’t find them first.”
“I swear,” Grace said, “they should make people take a common sense test before they let them step one foot into the woods.”
Kate chuckled. If anyone would know, it would be Grace. She and her husband were both avid sportsmen. They spent a good deal of their spare time out hunting elk. Over the years, Kate had heard other stories about the two. The rumor mill would occasionally flare up regarding other less savory activities about the couple. She’d never had any problems with them, though, and usually dismissed it as the gossip of small town folk with nothing better to do.
“What do you need him for, Grace?”
“Something killed my chickens,” the woman said, an edge of anger working into her voice. During the off season, Grace supplemented the lack of game meat by raising poultry at her place. She had no problems telling anyone who listened that she and her man were practically self-contained out in their forest-side home.
“A fox?”
“Not unless it was the biggest damn fox since the days of the dinosaurs. Whatever it was, it ripped into our coop like a runaway freight train. Tore the poor little things to shreds.”
“Oh, maybe a bear then?”
“That’s the damnedest thing, Kate. If it was a bear, we’d have known about it. Byron put up motion detectors last year to scare them off. Anything bigger than a squirrel comes into our yard, they get lights and an alarm.”
“So, when it went off...”
“It didn’t. That’s why I’m here now instead of first thing this morning. The damn alarm never went off. At first I thought maybe a fuse had blown, but when I went to check, I found the entire thing was destroyed. Something tore the control box right off the back of our house. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a bear clever enough to do that.”
“Neither have I,” replied Kate as she found herself confronted with the second mystery of the day.
* * *
Joel Bean woke up in the woods. That in itself was not particularly surprising. It had happened many times before, especially when the weather was clear. On those days, he’d bundle himself up, nice and warm, and wander over to Ben Reeves’ place, the Bonanza Creek Bar and Grill which served as both the local tavern and liquor store. Joel was a drunk, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew the forest well from working in the lumber industry for years, before being forced to go on permanent disability, and had no intention of freezing his fool ass to death in it.
He’d started the night drinking at Ben’s before getting nostalgic for the good old days, as he often did. At that point, he had paid Ben for a fifth of Old Granddad and had wandered off into the night to toast his former profession before eventually settling down against a tree for a snooze. Now, as he blearily looked up and noticed the position of the sun, he realized that perhaps snooze wasn’t the correct term. From the look of things, he’d been out for a good twelve hours, not that it mattered. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be.
He pulled himself to his feet, picking up the nearly empty bottle beside him. “Waste not, want not,” he said to himself. He drank off the last few swallows of whiskey before stuffing the empty bottle into his coat pocket. He was a drunk, but he wasn’t a goddamned litterbug. He then unzipped his fly and proceeded to take a nice, long piss.
Joel hummed some Lynyrd Skynyrd while he relieved himself. He was still urinating when he realized that the humming was all there was. There were no other sounds around him. In fact, in the silence, he sounded comically loud.
Just my luck, a goddamned bear, he thought irritably as he zipped up. Better scare it off. Joel had come across numerous bruins during his years as a woodsman. The blackies didn’t frighten him in the least. They were usually just as happy to avoid a scuffle and go on about their business.
“YAW!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, waving his meaty arms above his head as he did so. Joel was a big man, almost six-and-a-half feet tall and well north of two-hundred and fifty pounds. By waving and hollering, he knew he made himself seem like far too much of a hassle for any but the most desperate blackie to tangle with. “YAW! GIT! GIT ON OUT OF HERE!” he shouted.
He figured if that thing was anywhere near, it’d most likely be pulling up stakes and getting out of Dodge after that display. What he didn’t count on was the screaming roar that answered him. It was unlike anything he had ever heard in his life. It made his yelling seem like little more than a peep in comparison. Whatever it was, it was big and it was close.
A goddamned grizzly. Sweat broke out on his brow despite the coolness of the weather. They weren’t supposed to be down this far south. It must be all that global warming everyone kept hollering about on the TV.
There came the sound of wood being splintered as something moved in his direction. Joel quickly sobered up and considered his options. There was no use in running from a mad grizzly. You might as well try to outrun a car; a car with six-inch claws. No way was he getting his ass up a tree anytime soon either. He wasn’t in that kind of shape anymore. Since his yelling and screaming had apparently pissed it off, that left only one option. Joel had never tried to play dead for a bear before, but there was a first time for everything.
He quickly lay on his stomach and put his hands behind his head to protect his neck. With any luck, it would just sniff him and be off. He was well aware of how ripe he probably smelled, thus he was fairly confident there weren’t too many things that would consider him a good meal.
He was wrong.
He squinted through partially closed eyes in the direction of the commotion. What stepped from the bushes was no bear. Large feet – only two of them, Joel’s confused mind registered – supported by massively muscled legs entered his field of vision. Before he could begin to comprehend what was happening, he was grabbed by the back of his coat and hoisted into the air. Whatever had a hold of him was insanely strong. Joel was little more than a rag doll to it.
He had just enough time to notice the glassy red eyes and foam-encrusted mouth before he was slammed face-first into a nearby tree. He hit with enough force to shatter his skull like an overripe pumpkin.
He died instantly, his alcohol-soaked brain forced from his head like toothpaste from a tube. All things considered, it was a merciful fate compared to what the creature did to his body next.
* * *
Elmer Gentry was sitting on his back porch enjoying a cigar when he heard the roar. His eyesight hadn’t been so great for the past couple years, necessitating the use of what he thought of as coke bottles to be able to read his mail or watch the TV. However, his ears were just as sharp as ever. They had never let him down: not while he was lying in a trench in France during the big one, not when he had pulled a tour of duty in Korea, and not in the many intervening years since. Old Man Gentry, as the kids called him – they didn’t realize he could hear them talking; idiots always assumed old meant deaf – looked up when the sound came, a frown furrowing his brow.
It had been a long time since he had heard anything like it, but even if his mind wasn’t still as sharp as his ears, his eighty-eight years of life hadn’t left him senile or stupid either. He had spent a portion of the seventies living in a commune on the border of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. He had never given two shits about the hippie lifestyle, but had been newly divorced at the time and had decided to take a stab at the whole free love thing that had been all the rage. When he wasn’t busy getting tail from the potheads, he would often be up in the mountains hunting. If those hippies had known he kept his Winchester stored in his tent, they’d have given him the boot. But they were often so stoned; he could have probably fired it off in the middle of the place without too many of them noticing.
It was during one such hunting excursion that he’d heard a sound not unlike that which reached his ears now. Curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he had de
cided to check it out. What he had seen that day convinced him to never again go hunting without plenty of extra ammo. He hadn’t personally been threatened, but he knew animals. If ever something like that decided to turn on him, he’d best have enough bullets to put down a small platoon or, if that failed, keep at least one in reserve for himself.
Those thoughts all flitted through his wrinkled head before the cry’s echoes had even died down. Elmer’s ears were sharp. The sound was similar to the one from all those years ago, but the pitch was different. He had heard enough animal cries to know when something was angry. This sounded that way ... angry and mean. It was a good ways off, but that didn’t mean anything. Elmer had no intention of sitting there like a jackass with a stogie in its mouth while that thing came waltzing in his direction.
He grabbed his cane and hobbled into the house. When he got in, he barred the door. As he did so, his wife, Vera, came out of the kitchen. She observed him locking things up and shuttering the windows.
“Storm coming?” she asked.
“You could say that,” he replied, going about his business. “Now be a good woman and fetch me my shotgun.”
* * *
Kurt Bachowski was walking along a game trail toward his home, his rifle slung over his shoulder. The day’s catch had been disappointing. Only two of his traps had managed to snare anything, and one of those had been an undersized fox with mange. It couldn’t be helped. Some days were winners, others not so much. He and his brother, Stanley, still had more than enough work ahead of them.
They lived in a cabin about a quarter mile into the woods west of Bonanza Creek – alone in their own little world, just the way the brothers liked it. They were lifelong bachelors and preferred their solitude. Sometimes it was for the peace and quiet, but more often it was for the fact that prying eyes would have eventually noticed the Bachowski brothers were not always on the up and up as far as the law was concerned.
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