Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks

  “Got it!” Dan lumbered in with the other two bags, one under each arm. He hesitated in the doorway, expecting, I guess, a big expansive thank-you.

  “What, you want a medal?” Mostar motioned to the workshop. “Over there next to the printer.” Dan hopped to, placing the sacks where he’d been told, then came out to receive, yet again, another slap on the arm.

  “Look how helpful your man can be.”

  I wanted to melt through the floor.

  But I looked at Dan’s face. He wasn’t upset. And he didn’t have that “Oh God, what’s happening?” face anymore. This look, I didn’t recognize it.

  “Now go help your wife and get your groceries.” Mostar gestured to the van. “Go on now, she’ll come help you put them away in a minute.”

  He didn’t say anything, rushing out the front door. Neither did I, stepping into her workshop to lay down my burden. I thought I was done, just a few more seconds to escape. But she waited for me at the front door. That knowing expression from the first night we met.

  “What was it?” she asked, watching Dan carry our groceries home. “Couldn’t get the job he wanted? First business failed? Couldn’t get back up because his parents never let him get knocked down?”

  How did she know!

  “Trust me, Katie, fragile princes aren’t new.”

  I don’t know how I got out of there. A mix of nods and thank-yous and slipping out of her grasp like an eel. I don’t know if she watched me leave. I don’t care. I’m never speaking to her again. Crazy bitch.

  But what she said.

  I wasn’t mad. Not then. Shocked, I guess. Even now. X-rayed like that. Violated. Too oversensitive? I don’t care. It’s how I feel. All I wanted to do was get away, get past it, find some way to feel better.

  I couldn’t go home. Dan was there. If he was angry, or hurt…I couldn’t deal with him right then. I couldn’t go back. I haven’t really talked to you about that time. When things didn’t work out, those silent, sullen days, weeks, waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for the universe to recognize his genius. I had to recognize it. The endless compliments, reassurance, validation. The endless need. And when I needed him?

  I thought about calling you, right there, scheduling an emergency session. I’m not sure why I didn’t, or why I decided to turn and head for the Durants’ house.

  I rang the bell before deciding to. “Kate, what’s wrong?” Yvette answered, clearly pained to see what I was trying to hide.

  I babbled something about having “a day” and if it’s not too inconvenient, if it’s not the right time, but since she asked if I’d like…

  I’m not a crier. You know that by now. In control. Put together. But when she reached out to hug me, I came really close to losing it.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said over my shoulder, rubbing my back. “Whatever it is, I know how to fix it.” She released me just long enough to grab a couple of yoga mats and air pillows next to the door. “I was hoping you’d finally take me up on my offer.” She led me over to the Common House. “I’ve got the perfect meditation session for this.”

  When Yvette instructed me to lie down, drew the shades, lit the fireplace, and hit the soft, soothing music app on her phone, I knew my unconscious choice had been right.

  Her words, her guided imagery. She took me through these woods, just like I’d done on a physical hike. “Allow the forest to heal you,” she said. “Release your pain. This land gives you permission to unburden yourself with each step.”

  She guided me up that familiar hiking trail, “dropping my anguish like stones.”

  Unwinding my back, my jaw. I could feel my breathing slow as I mentally climbed the trail.

  “And there she is,” said Yvette, “waiting with open arms.”

  And then she said a word I’d never heard before. The name of who, what, was waiting for me.

  Oma.

  Guardian of the wilderness.

  Yvette explained that Oma was a spirit of the First Peoples, a gentle giant that arrogant Eurocentric white men have perverted into the name “Bigfoot.”

  I’ve obviously heard that word before, along with “UFO” and “Loch Ness Monster.” I don’t know much about it though, just what I’ve seen in those stupid beef jerky commercials. Screwing with Sasquatch? Is that the phrase? Is Sasquatch the same as Bigfoot? The creature in the commercials was a dumb brute. A grouchy neighbor just begging to be punked. I tried to get past those ridiculous images. Those “mutilations of truth,” as Yvette described it, “like everything else our society has done to what came before it.”

  Oma wasn’t anything like that. She was tenderness. She was strength. “Feel her energy, her protection. Feel her soft, warm arms around you. Her sweet, cleansing breath surround you.”

  And I could, imagining those giant arms embracing me, holding me. “Safe. Serene. Home.”

  Again, the tears nearly came. I felt a sob make it halfway up my throat. Maybe the next guided imagery session, the next time Yvette takes me to meet Oma. And there will be a next time.

  I’ve actually never done meditation. I think we talked about this. I can’t let go. That one class I took, I spent the whole time trying not to laugh. And all those times at home. When Dan was out, alone on the floor with the ear buds and the scented candle. My mind couldn’t stop checking boxes. Laundry, errands, work calls. I just couldn’t seem to focus.

  But I didn’t have Yvette back then. Or Oma. Yes, my practical side still thinks it’s silly. Like that first thought I had about Mount Rainier watching over us. But is it so wrong to want to be watched over? When you’re feeling small and scared—which, let’s be honest, is pretty much how I feel all the time—isn’t it okay, just for a moment, to want someone, something bigger than you to have all the answers, to have everything under control?

  *1 MoPOP: Museum of Popular Culture.

  *2 Intelligentsia: A popular coffee establishment on Abbot Kinney Blvd.

  *3 “Y-Q” stands for Yi qi, a late Jurassic, bat-winged dinosaur found in China.

  Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

  —Final radio report by USGS volcanologist DAVID ALEXANDER JOHNSTON before being killed by Mount St. Helens’s eruption on May 18, 1980

  JOURNAL ENTRY #4

  October 2

  I thought it was an earthquake. I woke up to this loud bang. It felt like a giant foot had kicked the house. I thought it was the kind of quick, bomb-type earthquakes we’ve gotten back in Venice that are over before you’re fully awake. I switched on the light and saw that the front bedroom windows were cracked. I could see lights going on in the other houses.

  “Look at this!” That was Dan, behind me, standing at the back window.

  “Look!” Again, motioning urgently for me. I could see a red glow on the horizon. I guess I was still groggy, still waking up. I wondered why he was so excited about distant city lights. But then I realized that wasn’t a city. It was Rainier.

  I squinted through the cracks but couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. Dan must’ve mistrusted his vision too because he darted out onto the back balcony. No mistaking the artificial dawn.

  Another rumble hit, and this time we grabbed each other. It wasn’t as bad, this one. I heard a few things clatter downstairs and the windows rattled a little bit. At the same time, the glow behind Rainier brightened.

  “Is that an eruption?” I know Dan wasn’t asking me specifically, but I went inside and turned on the TV. The cable was out, so I grabbed my phone and saw we still had full Wi-Fi. But when I tried to go online, I couldn’t seem to connect.

  I tried dialing 911. The call failed. I tried calling Dan’s phone. Same. I switched off my phone and tried it again. Dan did the same with his devices—iPads, TVs, laptops. They all showed a perfect signal, but weren’t working.<
br />
  That was when Dan noticed the blinking app that monitors all house functions. It showed we were now on backup battery. Power from the grid was cut.

  From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.

  Why would they have a satellite phone, or a two-way radio? Those are technologies that imply you’re cut off from civilization, which they certainly were not. The whole point of Greenloop was to ensure that its residents were as wired in as anyone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Better even. As a telecommuter community, they had to have the fastest, most reliable connection possible. That means cable, not air. Satellite dishes aren’t as reliable, especially in the kind of weather we get up in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone’s data stream flowed through solid fiber-optic cable. And why would, how could, that cable ever fail?

  JOURNAL ENTRY #4 [CONTINUED]

  The doorbell rang and we both jumped. It was Carmen. She asked if we were getting any cell reception. We told her our situation, including the power problem. You could see she hadn’t thought to check that. She looked back at her house, where Effie was standing in the doorway with a blanket-wrapped Palomino.

  Dr. Reinhardt shuffled over in a kimono, which made me stifle a nervous giggle. He asked what was going on, what that loud crash was. His breath was so bad, even from six feet away. I just pointed up the ridge behind our houses. You could still see a faint crimson flicker. He looked, paused, then turned back with this hesitant yet arrogant “Oh yes, of course that, I’ve seen that, I just mean…” As he was struggling for the words (any words, I’m guessing, to save face) Carmen asked about his Wi-Fi connection. He responded, kind of self-importantly, that he didn’t own a “pocket phone.” Dan started to ask him about the power supply to his house, but was cut off by someone shouting, “Meeting!”

  We all looked over to Bobbi Boothe waving her phone flashlight at us while Vincent shone his on the ground. They were halfway to the Common House, where I could see Tony and Yvette waiting. Yvette was already at the kitchenette, filling up the kettle while Tony took teacups from the cupboard.

  Tony waved everyone to take a seat and asked if anyone was hungry, if they wanted him to run back to his house for some snacks. When we shook our heads, he joked that the only hunger was for information. I saw that both he and Yvette still wore their calm, reassuring smiles. Maybe a little bit stiffer? Forced? But that could have totally been me projecting my own anxiety.

  Tony began by stating that obviously something was happening up on Rainier. Some kind of “activity.” And while we couldn’t be sure of anything yet, by now, we all knew that “our cable is out.”

  The way he talked, that casual confidence. “Our cable is out.”

  He assured us that it’d probably come back soon, maybe a few minutes, an hour, and then we could all see what was really happening up on Rainier.

  “What about the car radio?” That was Vincent Boothe. “We’ve all got Sirius satellite, right?” He rose suddenly. “I’ll go listen to the news!” As he ran out to the little BMW i3 parked in his driveway, Tony held up his hand in an over-the-top salute. “Uh…yeah, Vincent…why don’t you go listen to the news.”

  I laughed with the rest of the room.

  “If there is an eruption,” that was Reinhardt, “there must be at least a few fatalities, given the proximity to population centers.” He talked about how, during Mount St. Helens, there were scientists, like someone named David Johnston, and people who refused to evacuate, this guy named Harry Truman. (Really? Harry Truman? Like the president?*1) Waving his hand to the window, he said, “And St. Helens was in the middle of nowhere. With Rainier…”

  Yvette cut him off with a playfully scolding “Alex” and an exaggerated nod to Palomino, who was wrapped tightly in Effie’s arms. Reinhardt glanced over his shoulder at the girl, gave her a thumbs-up (Seriously? A thumbs-up?), then melted back into his chair.

  Tony reclaimed the room by saying, “Until we do find out what’s happening, the worst thing we can do right now is drive ourselves crazy with speculation. Stress, anxiety”—a warm, friendly glance at Palomino—“does that ever help?”

  “Should we leave?” That was Bobbi. “I mean, can’t we just get in our cars and drive in the other direction?”

  “We could”—Tony nodded with eyebrows raised—“and that’s a valid impulse, but until we know more, we might be making things a whole lot worse for ourselves.” He must have expected the quizzical looks. “We’re safe up here. Rainier’s too far away to hurt us, right?”

  Was it? Tony seemed to think so.

  “But if we panic and head down into the valley…there’s only one road out, and it’s sure to be jammed with panicked people right now. Remember the Malibu wildfires? All those cars stuck on the Pacific Coast Highway? Not moving. No bathrooms. Remember that?”

  I did. Watching the endless coverage. That thin snake of cars wedged in between the hills and the ocean. I remember hearing constantly that they’d barely moved inches in hours. I remember feeling guilty that I was safe and comfortable at home, able to see the pulsing orange line creep right over the distant hills.

  Tony asked, “Do we really want to do that to ourselves? Wade into that chaos? Maybe even hinder emergency vehicles trying to get to people who really need help? And if they don’t? If it all turns out to be a false alarm?”

  He gestured to the wall, in the direction of Mr. Boothe’s car. “Again, we don’t know anything right now. And if Vincent comes in here telling us he’s heard about an evacuation order, trust me, I’ll be the first—no…the last one to leave, after I’ve made sure all of you get out of here safely. But until that order comes, until we know more, the worst thing we can do right now is panic.”

  “So, what do we do?” That was Carmen, and Tony seemed to brighten. Yvette even shot him a knowing look, like she was prompting him to say what they’d been waiting for. “Perfect question,” he said, and spread his hands in a jazzed “check this out” gesture.

  “This situation, the one we find ourselves in now, is exactly what Greenloop is designed for!” He paused for a moment, letting his enthusiasm wash over us. “Think about it. We’re not in physical danger, just temporarily out of touch. We have power from our solar panels, water from our wells, heating from our own biogas. Is anyone going to starve if we don’t get a FreshDirect grocery fix in the next few days…Sorry, Alex.” Reinhardt laughed, his big belly shaking like Santa Claus’s. Everyone else chuckled too. You could feel the tension drain out of the room.

  I felt it too, my back and jaw relaxing. Is that how he does it? Calming fears, stoking excitement? Is that the secret to his success? Making you want to believe? I did. His energy, his passion. It’s infectious. I was right on board by the time he said, “So we’ll have to unplug for a little while. And isn’t that what we all should be doing anyway? Limit our screen time to enjoy the world?” He gestured out the door behind us. “Isn’t that why we moved here?” Nods and affirmative mmms followed. “And yes”—he put his hands up with a slightly mischievous smile—“I know how some of you will have to wait a little longer for the sequel series of Downton Abbey to drop.” His eyes flicked to me. I felt myself blush; was he guessing or did I mention it to him at dinner?

  Tony added, “I feel your pain.” We all laughed, except one.

  “And what if it’s not ‘a little while’?” When Mostar spoke up, my jaw re-clenched. “What if it’s weeks? Months?” I felt Dan stiffen next to me. “I agree with you, Tony, about staying put, but not because it’s a false alarm. What if the roads aren’t just jammed? What if they’re gone? We might not just get caught in traffic, we might get killed out there.”

  For a second, Tony thought she’d finished agreeing with him, and opened his mouth to speak.

  “But,” Mostar continued, “staying put and staying safe isn’t enough. We could be cut off, physically unable to get out, and if Ale
x is right about the eruption affecting all those other towns, we could also be forgotten.”

  I suddenly felt dizzy.

  Forgotten?

  “And winter’s on its way, remember? When the weather turns, when the snow starts piling up…” Mostar gestured to Tony. “We might have electricity, water, heat, but what about food?”

  Carmen looked ready to say something, and Mostar, reading her mind, continued, “This week’s groceries won’t last till spring!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bobbi check her phone. Was she trying the FreshDirect app? “What else do we have?” Mostar asked. “A few fruit trees? Your herb garden?” That was to Bobbi, who hid her phone like a busted teenager.

  “We need to pool our resources.” Mostar went back to scanning the room. “Compile a central list of everyone’s supplies, and work out how to make those supplies last as long as they can.”

  Reinhardt huffed. “Well, that’s a bit of an invasion of privacy.”

  Mostar turned on him. “You want to try going for help, Alex?” She gestured toward the volcano. “One road. That’s it. And if anyone is thinking about walking…” She threw her arms out dramatically in opposite directions. “A volcano on one side and mountains on the other.” She turned to the Cascades. “Anyone know how far it is to the next town, the next cabin? We don’t know our neighbors, or even if we have any. We don’t know anything about this land past the end of the hiking trail. Do you want to try stumbling around out there without a working GPS?”

  “But can’t our phones…” That was Carmen, her eyes bouncing between Mostar and her phone. “I had these friends who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and they’d downloaded this map or app…”

  “Do you have it already?” Mostar swung her eyes around the room. “Do any of you? Because it’s too late to get them now.” I noticed nobody checking their phones. “Do any of you have a paper map, or a compass, or any emergency supplies?” No one answered. “If you don’t like my idea, then come up with a better one.”