by Alan Monroe
Thomas opened the MCU’s side door and walked under the canopy; the next ranking officer, Sargent Dwight Peck, unrolled a map on the table. His finger traced a route through the nearby fields leading to the firebreak.
Thomas looked from the map to the nearest deputy leaning against the MCU drinking coffee. “Find Curtis,” he barked.
The young man dropped his cup of coffee and walked quickly toward the inn without a word.
“I think you scared him,” Peck said.
“He needed a wakeup call,” Thomas responded. “Everyone else is working, and he’s sucking on a cup of coffee.”
Peck smiled. “He’s young.”
“Young people can get themselves killed too; they can also get me killed. How long do you think it will take to make it to the firebreak?”
“If we get started in the next fifteen minutes, we’ll be on the firebreak by ten. I can’t even begin to guess what kind of progress we’ll make once we start uphill.”
The deputy with coffee stains on his pants wrapped a knuckle on the one of the poles holing up the canopy.
“Sir, I knocked on the door of the Inn, but I didn’t get an answer.”
Thomas looked up. “Did you try to go in?”
“Yes sir, the door was unlocked but no sign of anybody. The coffee maker is still on high. Looks like it’s been that way for quite a while because the water had boiled away and the glass turned really black.”
Peck and the undersheriff looked at each other; Peck spoke first. “You don’t suppose that this is just a coincidence do you?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t see how it could be.” He picked up his portable radio. “I want all sheriffs’ deputy’s to meet at the MCU immediately.”
Within moments, fifteen officers gathered around the canopy attached to the side of the MCU; Thomas stepped out from under the awning so he could be seen clearly. “We have been unable to locate Jedidiah Curtis; you all know how helpful that mangy old fart has been to us in the past. He knew we were going to be here, and since we can’t find him I am forced to conclude that his disappearance is related to the trouble up on the mountain. I want a thorough search starting with the area within two hundred yards of his inn. Begin at the inn and work your way out. Do not under any circumstances enter the forest, and make sure you are armed with a shotgun. Report back here in fifteen minutes.”
The group broke up and began their search. In less than five minutes, Peck and the Undersheriff received a call to the edge of the trees behind the Nighthawk Inn. The deputies first found the corpse of the dog; then they found the remains of Jedidiah Curtis. A shattered walking stick with a hand carved eagles head on the handle lay in mud that had been died red. Pieces of flesh clung to trees on the edge of the forest; the body no longer carried a definite shape. It puddled and conformed to the outline of a fresh depression in the soft mud covered ground with what appeared to be hundreds of knuckle imprints.
The coffee stained deputy took several steps backwards before he fell to his knees and wretched into the grass.
Thomas turned away as soon as he could tear his eyes away from the horrific scene. “Peck, I've never seen anything like that.”
The tall lean Peck continued to stare at the remains. “I’ve been working on my degree in criminal justice. We've looked at some stuff on serial killers, but we've never covered anything like this. No human could have done this.”
Thomas nodded his head. “You’re right. It had to be an animal of some sort. Looks like it pounded him to a pulp, and then just kept on pounding the body for no reason.”
Peck’s eyes grew wide. “Are you saying that all of this Bigfoot stuff is for real?”
Thomas patted the young deputy with coffee stains on the back while he looked at Peck. “You know the sheriff almost as well as me, and we both know that he wouldn’t make up some Bigfoot story. He’s been out of contact for almost a full day now. Peck, we've got to get you and your men up that mountain fast.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“The sheriff is usually the planner when it comes to things like this. But I would say that you take ten men as close as you can to the edge of that firebreak. The ops van has all-wheel drive; that will at least get you to the firebreak. You and your seven best will start hiking up that mountain. Leave three men with the special ops van to stand guard. That will leave five men with me to hold down the fort.”
Peck slid his hat back on his forehead. “Like I said earlier it’s going to be slow going, hiking up that firebreak in all this fresh mud.”
“It’s the only chance we’ve got. It’s way too muddy to drive up like the sheriff did. No way we can use a chopper with those winds up there.”
“I'm just thinking of how long it will take to get to the sheriff.”
“With any luck, he’s already on his way out.”
“We’re on it,” Peck said as he took off in a run towards the special operations van.
Thomas frowned while he watched Peck run; he looked down at the coffee stained young man wiping his mouth of with a shirt sleeve. “You alright son?”
The deputy straightened up. “Yes sir. I’m sorry about that.”
Thomas patted his back again. “It’s o.k. Don’t know how I kept from doing that myself.”
Thursday, May 16, 10:00 a.m.
Passing through the thick wet brush soaked their clothing in under five minutes; thirty minutes more shredded most of their sleeves with thorns. The brush gradually thinned easing the pain on their scratched shoulders, but the grade steepened and thousands of tiny pebbles covered the ground. A few minutes of sliding down the marble covered grade led them from the plateau back to the edge of the old growth forest where the trees rose like dark towers over the mountainside.
Hundreds of years of rain and snow melt carved a notch through the mountainside where the forest met the plateau’s sloping edge. At this point, the ditch stretched twelve feet across and eight feet deep. Only a trickle of water remained from the torrential rains that began saturating the mountain only eighteen hours earlier. Davis stood guard on the plateau side of the gulley until Clint and Tom climbed out mud covered on the far side. Rachael climbed out the far side followed by Hugh and his end of the stretcher. When Jared tried to climb out with the stretcher, his right foot slipped and sent him face first into the bottom of the ditch. Hugh jammed his feet into the mud and leaned back to keep the stretcher’s weight from pulling him into the ditch.
Davis slung the double rifle and slide into the ditch. “I’m on it Hugh.”
Hugh grimaced. “No hurry.”
Clint and Tom latched onto Hugh’s shoulders.
“Sheriff,” Tom said. “We can’t get a hold of the stretcher; you’re going to have to lift it.”
Davis face turned red. “That’s going to be tough; the doc’s a little heavy on this end.”
“It’s not like I can’t hear you Sheriff Davis,” Dr. Smith said.
“I’m not too worried about your feelings right now,” Davis replied. “Jared, get out of the mud and help me lift the stretcher out of the gulley.”
Jared rolled his face out of the mud and struggled to his feet. Blood flowed freely from a cut above his eye, but he managed to stagger to the stretcher and lift one side.
“I’m going to let go and keep an eye on the woods,” Tom said.
“No,” Davis said. “That big alpha won’t even feel those forty-five slugs. You hold on and let Clint keep an eye on the forest.”
Clint let go and picked up his rifle. “I’m not sure this old .30-06 would stop him anyway.”
Davis and Jared bench pressed the stretcher over the edge, and Hugh finally relaxed when he slid it away from the edge.
“Even a grizzly couldn’t ignore a .30-06,” Davis said.
“This is no bear sheriff,” Dr. Smith said.
Davis helped Jared up the steep bank. “Yea. I’ve got a pretty good hold of that fact Doc.”
“Does anyone else smell that?”
Rachael asked.
Hugh extended a big hand to Davis and helped him out of the ditch.
Davis slipped the gun from his shoulder. “Circle up on the Doc and Rachael.”
“I smell it now,” Hugh said.
Tom popped the 1911’s safety off and held a spare magazine in his left hand. “Me too.”
“Zip it, and watch the trees,” Davis snapped.
After several moments of silence, Clint spoke visibly relaxed. “That’s not the same smell.”
“I have not smelled too many things in my life as bad as that,” Davis said.
“But it’s not the same smell as any of the Sasquatch,” Clint responded.
Jared wiped the blood from his eyes. “How can you guys tell the difference between two bad stinks?”
Tom lowered the pistol and pointed into the woods. “Clint’s right; that’s not the same smell. Sheriff, do you remember a few years back when we found that pit full of dead dogs at the puppy mill? The smell of rotting flesh, not the smell of the Bigfoot. It’s coming from over there in that thicket.” Tom pointed to a large thicket composed of huge thorny plants about thirty yards away. “Nothing else smells like it; I’d bet my life on it.”
Davis shook his head in disbelief. “You Roundtree brothers must have the best noses in the state. I'm with Jared. A rotten stink is a rotten stink as far as I am concerned. But we'll check out the thicket; Tom, you just volunteered to come with me.”
The sheriff and Tom slowly approached the large thorny thicket, and the stench grew worse as the two men moved closer. Vines and thorns grew unnaturally around the thick clump of trees that already looked out of place even at the edge of the old growth forest. A single trip around its perimeter did not lead to any obvious entrance.
“This is weird,” Davis said. “It looks like these thorns were bent into place. Definitely not natural.”
“You think the Sasquatch had something to do with this?” Tom asked.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Davis replied. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods, but I’ve never seen anything like this. It looks like a hut made out of thorns and vines wrapped around some small trees, but I don’t have a clue how the little ones could get in much less the big ones.”
“Have you ever heard of the Ohio Grassman?”
“Sounds like a pot head,” Davis replied.
Tom laughed quietly. “It’s what the call Bigfoot in Ohio.”
“You know way too much about this Tom.”
“At least I was proved right.”
“You’re still a nerd.”
Tom shook his head. “Anyway. Somebody found a hut type thing in Ohio made out of grass, and a lot of people thing the Grassman a.k.a. Sasquatch built it.”
Davis looked back toward the rest of their party. “You’re still a nerd, and we can’t get inside.”
Tom pointed to a small crease in the thicket. “I think we can get in there.”
“You must be kidding; I couldn't fit through there when I was in middle school.”
“I could go by myself. I bet our big furry friends just stick their arms in this crease and spread it apart so they can walk through. The thorns probably won’t get through that thick fur.”
“Well, I know I'm not strong enough to spread that opening with my arms or legs.”
“And you don’t have fur.”
Davis stepped in front of Tom. “Just move out of the way and I’ll squeeze through there first.”
Davis twisted his broad shoulders sideways until he was laying on his side and slid through the small break in the thorns while keeping the barrel of the big gun pointed in front of him. Tom followed closely behind. After several feet, the thin path opened into a large clearing inside the thorns; the rotten smell hung in the air. Davis bit his bottom lip and tried to breathe through his mouth in order to hold back the bile. A large pit sat in the middle of the clearing; Davis shined the seven cell mag-lite into the pit.
A tangled mass of bones and flesh covered the floor of the pit in tall pile. Maggots crawled over decaying skin while a fat rat sat on top of the pile staring at Davis. Carcasses from moose, dear, and even a small bear lay at the bottom of the pile. However, a shiver crawled up Davis’ spine when he saw three human bodies in the pit. The mutilated body of Susan Rhodes lay near the top of the pile, and the remains of Luke Wallace’s body would have been unrecognizable if it had not been for the odd colored blue jacket that he had been wearing.
Tom stared down at the remains of the man who had abandoned the group he was hired to guide. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
Davis pointed. “There's your gold nugget.”
The nugget still retained a bright luster in the dark confines of the unnatural thicket.
“Wonder if he ever regretted running out on us?”
Davis squatted at the edge of the pit. “I doubt it; maybe not even when they pulled him apart. Look at the big body underneath Wallace, Tom.”
It took a moment for Tom to make out the face. “That’s Bruce Millay. You tasered him while he was choking me. I think it was two years ago.”
“Yes I did. What is he doing up here?”
Tom stared at Davis. “Can’t be a coincidence.”
“No it can’t.”
Without warning, Davis stepped into the carnal pit as close as possible to Bruce’s body; Tom looked away for a moment when one of the sheriff’s feet sunk out of sight into the rotten heap. Davis searched the man’s massive body, but he found nothing of interest in any of his pockets. He moved to the large backpack still strapped to Bruce’s back and soon removed five unused and empty heavy duty backpacks made of kevlar. Davis stood up and flipped through the packs until his eyes grew wide.
“Tom, do you remember how every time we busted Bruce over the years, we always thought he had an accomplice.”
Tom agreed. “Yea. He would never tell us who it was. Big dumb guy took the fall for everything.”
Davis climbed out of the pit but held onto the kevlar packs; he shook the slime from his boot. “I think Wallace was his partner. They somehow found out the mine was up here. Bruce was going to meet Wallace up here, and they were going to use these packs to make your group carry the gold down the mountain to where they probably have a truck hidden near a road.”
“Use us as human pack mules? That's a stupid plan even for Bruce; we would report them as soon as we got back to civilization. No way they could get away even if they did make it to Canada.
Davis threw the packs back into the hole filled with corpses and they scattered across the bodies. “You’re right,” Davis paused. “They would have had to kill you. All of you.”
Tom’s eyebrows arched down sharply toward his nose. “They deserved exactly what they got.”
“As much as I would like to stand here and agree with you, I think we had better leave.”
“Wait,” said Tom. “What about the gold?”
Davis looked at the massive gold nugget. “Gold is heavy. I’d rather see my family again. I don’t want that thing slowing me down. Do you?”
Tom shook his head. “No I don’t.”
“It aint worth dieing for.”
The sheriff and Tom quietly slid out of the enclosure and walked back to the rest of the waiting group; they only shared minimal details about their discovery.
Dr. Smith braced his body upward with his elbows so he could see Davis and Tom as they talked. “Did it look like the bodies had been eaten?”
Davis took a deep breath before he spoke. “I'm no expert, but they just looked mutilated, not eaten. Not the human bodies anyway. A lot of the animals looked they had been chewed partially, but most of the meat was wasted.”
Jared’s voice quivered as he spoke. “Why are they doing this, Doc? It’s like they are just killing for no reason at all. I thought Bigfoot were supposed to be docile, and run away from humans.”
Dr. Smith looked at the group one by one as he spoke. “Yes Jared that is the typical respon
se. But there have been accounts of Sasquatch kidnapping, attacking, or even murdering humans, and these things are certainly not typical. They are mutated creatures; I would almost call them monsters.”
Davis scanned the trees. “Trapped in the woods with mutated, murdering monster Sasquatch, wonderful.”
Dr. Smith lay down on his back. “Even mutation and isolation does not begin to fully explain what these things do.”
Rachael spoke for the first time since leaving the cave. “What does explain it Dr. Smith?”
Dr. Smith’s eyes grew tired and mournful. “Due to the current circumstances I will try to be brief. In 1898, upwards of one hundred men were killed while building a railroad in Africa. The killers are referred to as the Tsavo Man-eaters. Two maneless lions of great size. Different theories have been offered as to why the lions killed so many people. A shortage of their natural food, they were used to finding human bodies along the Tsavo River and they developed a taste, or that the lions had lost their teeth and had to seek easier prey such as humans. To this day no one knows. The point is, my dear, that there is not always an explanation. And there is not always someone to blame for bad circumstances. Sometimes you just have to survive.”
Just as the doctor finished speaking, two huge rocks thundered to the ground in their midst. Everyone scrambled for cover. Hugh and Jared struggled to drag Dr. Smith’s stretcher behind a larger tree. The rocks continued to strike the ground around them. After sliding back down into the gulley, Davis pointed the double rifle over its side and fired two loud rounds in the direction the rocks had come from.
“I can’t believe I voluntarily slid back down in here,” Davis said.
“I think you scared them,” Hugh said.
Davis stared over the edge of the ditch. “I don’t think these things get scared. Best case scenario is that I gave them something to think about. Give me a hand out of this hole.”
Jared knelt on both knees with his hands over his ears; his rifle lay on the ground at his feet. “We’re going to die, we’re going to die.”
Davis grabbed Jared by the shirt collar and lifted him off of the ground until he met the young man’s eyes. “Now that’s enough. Nobody’s going to panic. And we are going to get off this mountain.”
