by Scott Todd
The rain had subsided to a mere drizzle, and we were all still soaking wet and getting colder by the minute. We needed shelter, and we had left everything in the car in our mad dash to get away from the deadly, hellish assault.
"Well after seeing the remains of Sandra's husband, I'd rather die being pelted by one of those than getting eaten alive by another bear," Jan blurted out. "At least it's quick." She tried to look around nervously into the surrounding trees at each opportunity with the diminishing, sporadic light bursts from the passing fireballs.
As another passed by, suddenly out of nowhere we caught a glimpse of what appeared to be several deer, as they sprinted away into the trees, heading further down the hill towards the water. But it was what we heard next that gave us an idea of why they were sprinting.
Chapter 25: Rumors of Extinction Come True?
Bears growl, and maybe even roar sometimes, if you tried to describe the sounds they make. But I can't ever remember hearing one snarl. New fears were upon us as what we heard, but did not see, permeated our senses.
No sooner had we seen the small herd of deer vanish down the hill into the darkness, we heard what sounded like a brief struggle in the woods with snarling, and then silence. But it was the lowness of the tone of that snarling that was truly terrifying. It was obviously coming from some kind of large animal. Make that a large hungry animal- which hopefully- wasn't going to be hungry anymore for a while.
Ben was looking right at me in disbelief as I just barely saw his eyes briefly by the light of another passing fireball far above. Terry and Jan were holding each other, mortified.
"PLEASE let's go back to the car...NOW," shrieked Jan. "I don't even want to know what that was."
I had the pistol in my pants, but it offered no comfort to me or anyone else in the face of those terrifying sounds. There is such sheer terror about getting eaten alive that it supersedes anything else.
"Ok, OK," Ben quickly agreed. "Let's head back. You agree, Brian?" he asked me.
"Uhh yeah," I responded with a gulp. "I don't want any part of that."
"Terry? What about...?" Ben started to ask her.
"YES, can we go please?" she quickly replied. "Like NOW???"
So as the next object briefly lit up the night, Ben took the lead and started making his way back up the hill slowly, with Terry in close tow holding her hand. He had left the rifle in the car, so my pistol was our only protection.
"Try to stick with them closely and I'll watch our rear as we go," I said to Jan.
"Yeah," is all I heard as I pulled the pistol, and gazed in vain at the darkness behind us, trying partly to watch the ground as I moved forward, and partly to keep watching behind us. Jan grabbed my free hand and helped to lead me. I kept having visions of a beast nabbing me out of the night all of sudden- perhaps only seeing it when a fireball went by. Far too little, far too late.
We had only moved about fifty yards or so, when another fireball briefly lit us up. And it was then I swear I caught a glimpse of a big animal through the forest- it appeared to be dragging a dead deer up a tree. My heart skipped a beat, and I struggled whether to tell the others. I opted not to, as I saw no benefit in it. It would just scare them further, and I reasoned that whatever it was, was probably good to go for while with a fresh meal in its mouth.
We pressed onward without much incident, although Jan briefly stumbled over a rock in the darkness and nearly fell, letting out a nasty cuss word. I hoisted her back up, and we continued. But the going was slow, and we were being extra careful to avoid injuries.
The spot where we weathered the apocalyptic onslaught from above was about a quarter to half mile away from the top of the hill, but it was taking forever to get back, because we had no light in the woods aside from the brief, intermittent illumination from the fireballs. And Ben was stopping after each one, taking care to note a rough forward path with the illumination of the next one, and then continuing.
But we finally made it back to the top over the course of an hour or so, and the lingering smell of burning flesh was still present. So while we had escaped death once again, its ever-present reminder would not leave us.
Climbing back into the car, the first thing Ben did was to grab his rifle. Terry and Jan tried to get in on the passenger side, but they couldn't.
We noticed that side of the car had been damaged from the big blast, slightly denting the doors so they wouldn't open, and blowing out the front passenger door window. There was shattered glass all over the front seat, and the rear passenger window was cracked.
"Get in on this side," Ben said, and they did. Terry brushed what glass she could onto the floorboard with a towel covering her hands.
"What are we going to do about that window?" Terry asked, still frightened and trying to hold her nose to lessen the lingering stench of burning flesh.
"Here, take this blanket and maybe see if you can use a piece of it to cover that window," I suggested, and handed it to Jan. "Maybe you could pass one end of it between the passenger seat and the side of the car to Terry."
Jan did so and then bundled up best she could with the rest of it from the cold. Terry proceeded to rig her end to a handle on the inside roof and interior door handle, and it seemed to work ok. Terry lit up another million dollar cigarette, again covering up the stench, much to all our relief.
So between the tent, another blanket, the sleeping bag, one towel, as well as being out from the elements, we slowly started to get warm again. I slid over on the back seat to snuggle up to Jan for additional warmth, and she was accommodating.
Ben, noticing the near virtual end of the fireballs, remarked "Well, I guess we made it though, but I am still not sure it's totally over yet. There is just no telling. There could be pockets of more up there that could still come down."
As his statements registered in my brain, I knew I finally had to tell them about what I saw back there. Cause that could be more of an immediate problem.
"Well, I think I might have seen what was back there," I began. Jan immediately tensed up, and I had her attention, at least.
"Oh?" said Ben, with a tone of morbid curiosity. I felt him and Terry both turn around to look into the back, trying to see me, but it was just about pitch black. Ben flicked the switch and nearly blinded us with the overhead light. After my eyes adjusted, I looked up to see what a mess we all were- still wet, dirty and ruffled. Ben quickly shut the light back off, obviously concerned about the electricity he was wasting.
"Well yeah," I continued. "Just as one of those fireballs went by I think I caught a glimpse through the trees of something dragging one of those deer up a tree. And although I didn't see it clearly, it looked to be at least twice as big as the deer. At least. And that was no fawn... That was a pretty big deer. But it was so brief with just the light from the fireball, I'm not sure. I didn't tell you all then because I figured it wouldn't help... And whatever it was, was probably going to be full for a while... I just wanted to make it back to the car without scaring the crap out of you all..."
"Oh hell. That can't be," Ben quickly responded. "They pronounced those animals extinct many years ago. But there have been rumors of rare sightings for years and years around here... People swearing up and down they had seen one..."
"Seen... WHAT?" questioned Jan urgently.
"Mountain lions, otherwise known as cougars," Ben replied. "They used to call them 'painters' way back in the day, but they were hunted into extinction, or at least so they thought. Sometime in the 1920's they thought they had seen the last of them, and any sightings since then have been dismissed as hoaxes. Hard to say. But if you saw it dragging the deer up a tree, then... I suppose it's possible. Bears don't usually drag their kills up trees."
"Well I know what little I saw of it didn't look black... Black like the big bear you shot," I added. "Even in the little light I had, it looked lighter than that. Like a light brown or dark tan color. But it was... Just... BIG."
Silence ensued, and I could sense the
tension in the air.
"Well I am a geologist and physicist, not an animal expert," said Ben, "But I did do little reading on them back in college, and if I remember correctly, they do tend to live in caves... And if that is right, it could mean there might be a cave of some sort around here. And if we could find it, that could turn out to be a valuable resource and shelter for us. It might be worth looking for that in the upcoming days. I am also wondering now if this was the lion's normal territory, instead of the bear's."
Further silence ensued, and then the memory hit me- I had a very old friend, a mountain man of sorts, I had known for over twenty years, who had done all kinds of excursions up on Mount Mitchell when he was younger. He told me once of exactly this- a cave he had discovered in the area long ago. And for a while it was his secret hiding spot- a place where he would go to get away from the urban rat race.
I remembered he told me he had been storing some supplies there, hidden deep in the cave- just in case he might ever need them. I always meant to go with him, as he had invited me years ago, but I had never made it. The few times I had been here had always been just spur-of-the-moment trips, with other people, or just by myself.
I had always stuck to the main path up the hill to the deck- and never ventured out on the trails into the surrounding woods. But he said had been coming here long before there were many trails, and said he knew nearly ever inch of the territory surrounding the mountain. He had stopped coming here to speak of in the last ten years, as he had encountered his own troubles with life, health, and retirement with little or no money.
When I told the others of all that, Ben was immediately curious, and further insisted on an excursion to look in the upcoming days. But again the women got uneasy at the thought, and insisted that any trips we take to look around all be done as a group- especially with a possible 'painter' running around.
Ben finally agreed, as did I. Everyone in the group was extremely important, and we could not let up watch on one another, even for a minute. And that made me consider how unwise our little excursion for a rain shower was- without Ben there. Something the rest of us had neglected to tell him about yet. But we had not had the chance. That would be forthcoming when the time was right.
"Well aside from that possible danger from the cat," Ben said, breaking the train of thought, "I have been thinking that we seriously need to define what our priorities are, and carefully plan if we are going to survive at all much further. And that's assuming we don't get wiped out by something related to the disaster first- which can still happen. But if we are smart, with some luck and careful planning we might last until someone finds us here."
"Ha. Someone find us here? Are you nuts?" Terry ridiculed her father, taking advantage of the fact that she could get away with it. "Like WHO is going to find us here? For all we know the world just ended. We don't even know if there's anyone else alive."
There was no response at first, as silence had become a large part of our lives more often than not in the last two days.
Then Ben finally said "Well yeah, you're right about that, we don't really know... But I have a hunch there are still many, many people alive, and particularly on the side of the planet opposite from where the big event happened. Even in the northern part of the US, Canada, and Alaska, there still might be survivors. We don't know just how far and wide the disaster has had effects.
"I am still thinking about this, and all the possible ramifications of something this big happening," he continued. "It is very complicated, and involves potential toxic gas releases, wind directions, effects from the water, and much more. It will be days before I have any reasonable guesses as to a lot of it. I have to work with the calculator a lot more. But in the meantime, we should not give up hope that someone might find us."
I sensed Terry looking away in hopelessness out through the front windshield, and more silence fell on the group. Jan just sighed, and went a bit limp. But then she said "Well there are a lot of trails up here, and the season just started, so it's possible we could run into some hikers or campers."
"And they could be armed," I added.
More silence. There just wasn't much more to say for the moment, and we would need to give Ben some time to come up with more answers.
Terry let her seat back a bit, settling into captivity in her front seat, while Ben did the same, giving Jan and me a bit less room in the back- but we understood.
The next thing I heard was slight snoring from Ben, and I departed in and out of sleep, as uncomfortable as I was. At least I was a bit warmer next to Jan. And I had the memories of the "rain shower" to take my mind away from all the grim events at hand and lure me back to sleep. But it was very hard to find any comfortable position, stuck in the back seat of the car. We were going to HAVE to do something to improve on this situation. But that would be on another day.
Chapter 26: Concessions of a Stealth Predator
As I awoke the next morning from a very uncomfortable night spent in the car, my body ached from the beating it had taken. We were each still nursing our various wounds, and Terry, concerned that any one of them could get infected, insisted on cleaning them up... With more urine. No one was about to venture out down to the water line to try and collect sea water with a possible mountain lion running around, but it became clear quickly that we had to, and soon.
We all stayed right outside the car, talking. Ben was quick to point out that if we had to go, it would be better to go now, just after it ate, as it would be less likely to attack us. I countered with the possibility that it might attack us regardless if we were caught invading its territory. But it seemed his point was still more pertinent- so we might just have to settle for the lesser of two evils and go.
We needed that sea water now on two serious counts- one, to extract salt for meat preservation, and two, to clean our wounds. And Ben was also thinking that we would have to resort to evaporation techniques with the sea water when our meager supply of fresh water ran out. If we could manage to come up with the right containers, it might be possible we could accomplish both things at once- to extract salt and potable water from sea water.
He was already talking about plans to capture future rain water, but was still concerned about the amount of sulfur it contained- and whether we had anything that might be able to strain the rainwater enough to drink it safely.
After all the rain, he tried to collect a bit of water from accumulated morning dew on various things, but didn't come up with much.
He kept insisting we define our priorities, and we all agreed that water was first, with food a very close second. While we had enough in the cumulative supplies to save us from sheer starvation for maybe two weeks at the very most, his focus turned to trying preserve the bear meat. And again that came back to salt. Which led us back to the need to go to the ocean down below. Any of the canned goods were to be consumed the very last, because they would keep the longest.
Jan also pointed out that we could maybe use the bear hide for additional weather protection, seeing as at over 6,600 feet elevation it was nearly always chilly up there. In the winter it could get downright brutal, with very high wind speeds aggravating the situation even worse. But we had a lot of months before we'd really have to worry about that.
And then Jan had a eureka moment.
"You know, I just realized from being up here hiking before that there used to be a concession stand building down there by the parking lot entrance. They probably had just stocked up for the season. And there are picnic tables and public grills too, along with... Running water! And I also remember seeing some other structures around here too."
Ben's eyes got wider and Terry looked hopeful. Jan was right, and I kicked myself for not remembering that- I had even purchased a bag of chips from that very stand before and been in the bathroom.
"Yeah, well where is it?" I asked, scratching my brain. "Why didn't I see it when I took the trip down to the water? .... Oh, wait a minute. There was a lot of land down there that sl
id in the quakes... I guess it must have taken the building with it."
"Well did it go all the way to the water?" Terry asked, before Ben could ask the same thing. "Maybe it collapsed and was buried in the landslide."
"Yes, it's possible there could be all kinds of things still down there, under the dirt. We've got to check that out right away before any animals get to them," Ben agreed. "But the running water, well, that's probably gone. If we could find some charcoal from any of those grills though, we really need that for water filtration and other things." He still sounded hopeful.
"Well I did find that shovel up there, but it's still..." Jan remembered, but stopped short as she looked up towards the deck and caught another fading whiff of burning death. "It's still up there by the deck, along with most of our supplies." She grimaced at the thought of having to go up there, and facing Sandra's remains. And so did we.
