by Hunter Shea
Jack was already doing his share of mouth breathing to calm his nerves. His head bobbed up and down like a bird dipping into a puddle of water.
“Just let me lead. Liz, once you see me, you come ready to gore its ugly ass. I’ll take the right. Let’s hit it before they go looking for their dead brother.”
Liz gave him a thumbs-up and disappeared behind a cypress tree without making a sound. Rooster wasn’t quite as nimble, but in a way, he wanted the Bigfoots to know he was coming. He hoped when he got close enough, they could smell the blood of their brother on him. He wanted them to feel what it was like to be hunted. Most of all, he wanted them to feel fear.
The trees ended in a flat field of high grass. He emerged from the tree line about fifteen feet to the right of the sitting Bigfoots. Both looked hurt, the worse being the one Dominic had done a number on. Its face was jacked to hell and looked like a mask made of crumbled bologna. The other was nursing its arm and grimacing in pain.
Perfect.
No sense waiting for someone to ring the bell.
Rooster charged, holding the machete across his chest with both hands like a samurai brandishing his sword. Their heads twitched to face him, and he noticed that the one Dominic had pummeled was missing both its eyes. Even better, because that would be Liz’s kill.
The gunshot one rose up and did its best to let out one of those tighty-whitey-staining roars, but it didn’t have the strength. Rooster saw Liz dart out from behind something that looked like a termite mound with her makeshift spear pointed in the beast’s direction. The Bigfoot swiped at him with its long arm, but he ducked and slashed with the machete across its belly. He heard Jack’s gun go off and saw the other one stagger when the bullet buried itself in its back. Rooster hadn’t gotten near enough of the Bigfoot’s belly, so he went to take a hack at its good shoulder. The damn thing still had some speed left in it, and it dodged the blow, catching him with a backhand that sent him ass over head.
He stopped tumbling just in time to see Liz go for bologna face’s gut. She misjudged, aimed too high, and sure enough, the branch hit the bottom of its rib cage and shuddered out of her hands.
“Liz!”
Scrabbling to his feet, he watched in horror as the other Bigfoot sprinted toward Liz. He ran, shouting as loud as he could to get its attention.
When it turned, swinging both arms to tear his head from his neck, he dropped low like he was sliding into second base, letting the momentum carry him forward, where he slashed at its leg, rending a gaping maw in its calf. There was another shot, and he saw bologna face’s head explode like an egg in a microwave. Jack let out a cry of exultation, and Liz jumped back to avoid having the big ape fall on her.
One to go.
The last Bigfoot backed away slowly, limping and trailing blood and stink that even Mother Nature couldn’t wash away.
“That’s right, big fella. It’s me and you now,” Rooster sneered. He advanced, swinging the machete in a wide arc. The Bigfoot put up a hand to stop it and lost three fingers for its efforts. It yelped and paused to look at its wrecked hand.
“I may just save those fingers for myself. Maybe they’ll be lucky, like a rabbit’s foot.”
All the Bigfoot could do was cower, even though it stood a good foot and a half taller than him and outweighed him considerably. Its fear fed Rooster’s rage, and he growled as he swept in to deliver the killing blow.
“Jack!”
Liz’s scream caused just enough of a hitch in his swing for the Bigfoot to twist out of harm’s way. The machete sliced into the grass with a resounding thud.
Rooster looked over and saw Liz pointing in the trees. When he looked back at the Bigfoot, it was gone!
“Rooster!” Liz shouted, waving frantically for him.
When he got to her side, he pulled up short and swallowed back bile.
The mother Bigfoot, all nine feet or so of her, had pinned Jack’s arms to his sides and held him off the ground like you’d lift a plastic lawn chair. It grunted at them, and Rooster could feel the hate in its scarlet glare.
“Don’t come any closer!” Jack warned. His voice came out in a pained rush.
“Rooster, we have to do something,” Liz pleaded.
That’s when he saw Jack’s eyes travel downward, and knew the little guy had a plan up his sleeve.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rooster turned to her and said, “Liz, I want you to look away.”
“What?”
She had to have heard him wrong.
“I need you to get behind me and don’t look at Jack until I tell you to.”
“But—“
“Don’t argue with me!”
His big hand rested on her hip and guided her behind him.
Her mind flew in a hundred different directions. She’d already seen people torn to pieces and watched her own sister disappear under the crushing weight of one of those animals. If she and Rooster attacked the mother skunk ape, maybe it would let Jack go and they could, at the very least, scare it off.
The tension in Rooster’s voice and grip told her there was no room for argument. She slipped behind his broad back, felt the heaving of his chest. The sky darkened and the smell of rain infused the air. She twitched when Jack yelled, and had to bite the palm of her hand to keep from running to his aid.
“Aaagggh, it hurts!” Jack wailed. The mother Bigfoot didn’t take its eyes off Rooster. It was using Jack as a warning or a threat—or, most likely, a promise. This is what I have in store for you. There was something almost human in its penetrating gaze. Only humans had the capacity to hate, to seek revenge, to kill for the sake of killing.
Rooster gave back as much as he took.
“You just hang in there,” he said flatly.
When he’d first spied Jack, his impulse had been to charge and let the machete do all the talking. When he saw the gun in Jack’s hand, he forced himself to hold back.
“I’ve got…at least…one bullet left,” Jack wheezed.
The Bigfoot growled, low and menacing, and a thick line of drool fell from its mouth onto Jack’s cheek.
“I think I…hear…more of them.”
More of them? Rooster hoped he meant the one that got away and had retreated to the rear, sans one third of its fingers.
Rooster tensed when the Bigfoot opened its mouth wide, so wide it looked like it could swallow a cantaloupe whole, and slowly took in the top of Jack’s head. Teeth that were as jagged as snapped timber punctured his scalp and scraped downward. Jack’s eyes went wide and his body went rigid.
When Rooster took a half step forward, Jack shouted, “Don’t!”
Jack’s right arm was free enough so he could still bend at the elbow. He raised the gun up as high as he could, until it was pointing directly under his chin.
There was a sickening sound of crunching as the Bigfoot moved its lower jaw from side to side, gouging deep gullies into his skull. Blood flowed in racing rivulets down his face. The pain must have been excruciating.
“Jack, you don’t have to do that!” Rooster yelled.
The urge to grind that mother up into chop meat was burning his soul to ashes.
“I’m…dead…anyway. Be nice…to take…charge for…once.”
Rooster saw the Bigfoot flex its arms and apply more pressure to Jack’s body. It leered at Rooster while it mouthed Jack’s head like an ice pop. The fucking thing was getting off watching Rooster stand there, helpless.
You’ve got a surprise coming, asshole.
Blood bubbled from the creature’s mouth, and for a second Jack looked like he was going to pass out. His eyes rolled back, and he shut his lids tight. His finger pulled on the trigger.
The blast was quick and true. The bullet entered just under his chin, sprouting a fountain of gore.
The Bigfoot jerked its head back so quickly, it brought the top of Jack’s skull right off. Jack’s brains cascaded several feet into the air. The bullet must have ricocheted off part of his skull, be
cause it didn’t travel straight through and into the Bigfoot’s mouth. Instead, it came out the side of Jack’s head and cut a deep furrow into the damned thing’s left cheek. It dropped Jack’s body and howled in surprise, pain and anger.
“Get ready,” Rooster said to Liz. He was shit-sure it was going to charge them like a riled-up bull.
Instead, it balled its hands into tight firsts, bent at the waist and roared at him before charging back into the woods.
Shit! You’re going the wrong way, Rooster lamented.
He spun around to face Liz. “I’m going to give you a choice and you have five seconds to decide. You can either come with me while I track down that son of a bitch, or you can hole up in one of the trees and wait for me. When I get back, I’ll get us to my father’s safe house.”
Liz saw Jack’s body on the ground and quickly replied, “Let’s go.”
Both Bigfoots ran recklessly, tearing down anything in their path. Following the sounds of their mad dash, and their overwhelming scent that only seemed to intensify, was easy. Rooster called up reserves of energy from every cell in his body to keep close behind. Liz was also holding her own.
The clouds finally burst, and rain came in driving buckets. In less time than it takes to change your underwear, the ground had transformed into a muddy mess. More than a couple of times, Rooster lost his footing and almost took a header.
They were close!
“Eeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhh!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He wanted them to know he was on their tails, that death was just a moment away.
Suddenly, the heavy sounds of their escape ceased.
“What the hell?”
Liz ran into him. “Sound like they’re tired of running. They must be hoping we run right into them, the way Maddie and I set them up last night.”
Rooster swung the machete at a branch near his face, sending the branch spiraling to the soggy ground. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint them.”
He plunged ahead, his voice raw from screaming like a wild man.
Something snatched his foot and he hit the ground on his side, sliding in the mud until his head cracked into a hardwood tree.
The Bigfoot without its fingers rose up from a stand of downed branches and leaves. Before Rooster could get back to his feet, it was on him, latching on to his leg and squeezing hard enough to make his thigh pop. Pain only stoked the fires of his fury.
He swooped the machete upward, burying it into the monster’s arm. The Bigfoot flinched, and the machete, still in its arm, was pried loose from Rooster’s hand.
Ignoring the blade, the Bigfoot dropped to all fours and scampered until it was directly over him. Hot drool spattered his face as it huffed and growled. It was the first time Rooster had been so close, their noses just inches from one another. There was nothing remotely human about it. The beast that pinned him to the mud was no missing link, no offshoot of the simian tree. It was something altogether different, culling the darker, more savage parts of both species.
Rooster tried to roll out from under its incredible girth, but it stopped him cold with a solid punch to the ground, burying its hairy fist into the muck.
Well, fuck me sideways. Never saw my end coming this way.
“Go ahead, kill me,” Rooster hissed, recoiling from the rancid breath that blew over him in steady waves. “But always remember, I got your kid and your brothers, you big, stupid son of a bitch!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The skunk ape’s attention was fully on Rooster. Liz checked around for the bigger, meaner mother, but it was hard to see or hear anything in the downpour. She only had one chance and no time to hesitate.
Pushing all of her survival instincts aside, she ran hard, vaulting atop the creature’s shoulders armed with nothing but her own two hands and her fading hopes at avenging Maddie’s death.
She grabbed hold of the coarse hair that matted its neck and tugged with all of her might. It pulled back and tried to butt her with the back of its head, but she was quick and shifted sideways. Rooster was still locked beneath it. She pulled harder, driving her knees into its side, hoping there was a kidney nearby that would not take kindly to the pressure.
“Get…off of him!” she keened.
It shook from side to side like a dog shuddering water from its fur. She fought to keep her purchase. When it swung its arms back to snatch her, the handle of the machete struck her in the ribs and punched every bit of air from her lungs. The impact dislodged the machete from the skunk ape’s arm and it clanged against a tree root. She gasped, loosening her fingers and flipping off the wounded creature’s back. Liz hit the ground and spots danced before her eyes. Rainwater filled her open mouth as she fought for breath. She felt she would drown in the process.
Liz turned to her side to force the water to run out. It also meant she had turned her back on the skunk ape. She was close to blacking out. Her diaphragm hitched uncontrollably, and it felt like an eternity since she had last felt the cool kiss of oxygen.
An iron claw wrapped itself around her ankle, and she was suddenly upside down and staring at the ground. Everything sounded so far away. Nothing made sense. The neurons in her brain misfired, and a growing numbness shot through her extremities.
She was having a hard time keeping her eyes focused, though she did see Rooster rise up from the ground, his machete pointed outward down by his waist. He resembled every childhood nightmare of the bogeyman, except this one murdered the monster under your bed.
The machete sliced through the air, and suddenly she was level with the ground. She finally felt her body relax, and her mind went blank.
Rooster cackled as he watched the Bigfoot toss about, staring wide-eyed at the spot where its hand used to be. Blood came out in long, stuttering streams.
He hammered the machete into its shoulder, cleaving the base of its neck. That stopped its bawling. He ran behind it, slicing where its Achilles tendons should be. It dropped to its knees, bleeding out, unable to walk. Next, he took off its other hand.
It whimpered on the ground, trembling from shock.
Rooster felt no pity.
He straddled its chest, made sure to look it dead in the eye, and pushed the tip of the machete deep, right below the arch of the breastbone.
He watched it die, waited until its eyes clouded over. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen death pluck the soul from a body. When he was sure the deed was done, he spit into its gaping mouth, plucking the machete out with a loud squish.
Only momma left.
Liz was still out cold, but her chest was rising steadily.
He couldn’t bring her with him to get the mother. It was too big, too dangerous. And like him, it had cold hatred in its heart.
Looking around, he found the makeshift hideout that the Bigfoot had built to ambush him. Carrying Liz away from the body, he repositioned the branches so they camouflaged her. Wiping her hair from her face, he knelt down and whispered, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to sit tight. I’m going after the last one, but I’m coming back for you. My daddy’s place isn’t far now. I don’t know how I know that, but it just feels right. Jesus, I hope you don’t get up and wander, because there’s no telling how lost you’ll get out here. Just sleep for now. I ain’t leaving this swamp without you.”
There was no way of knowing if she comprehended a single word, but he had to try.
The rain was relentless, and dark shadows nestled into every corner of the woods.
It was obvious the mother was nowhere nearby, or else she was a ruthless bitch, watching one of her kin get carved to pieces. Rooster would have to be smarter if he wanted a chance to get at her. He’d never been much of a hunter, of animals at least, but there’d been enough hunting trips when he was a kid to draw upon.
He looked at the steaming remains of the Bigfoot. His nose was oblivious to the stench now.
That was it!
The only way to sneak up on the momma was to somehow make her believ
e he was one of her family. “Oh, Jesus H. Christmas, this is not gonna be fun.”
Using the edge of his machete, he sawed away at the Bigfoot’s hide, pulling the fur and upper layers of its flesh from the bone. His skinning work was rough, bordering on brutal, but it didn’t need to be pretty. When he was done, he had pulled off enough to drape over his head and shoulders, with long, blood-soaked strips swaying at his knees.
To combat the rain from washing the scent off of him, he reached into its exposed entrails and pulled out what he could, rubbing it across his chest, legs and arms. He grabbed a rope of intestine, leaving some to trail out of his pockets, and stuffed something that looked like a liver into his shirt.
He threw up when he felt the quivering organ against his bare stomach, and again when the meaty skull cap dipped low and over his nose and mouth.
“There,” he spat, his hands on his knees. “Nothing left to toss now.”
A cluster of thunderclaps sounded off in the distance. He straightened up, took a deep breath and headed into the deepest part of the woods.
Chapter Twenty-Four
If he was right, this particular island ended in another eighth of a mile. The opposite end should be a big sandbar. He walked as heavily as he could to mimic the Bigfoot’s thunderous gait. The one drawback to wearing the flesh and organs of the Bigfoot was that he couldn’t use his nose to sniff out the momma. It had overwhelmed his senses so much, he was probably immune to it.
But if he was lucky, the sand would tell him all he needed to know.
It took a while to get there because he didn’t go in a straight line. He zigzagged and backtracked so he could give momma ample evidence that she was not alone. She didn’t come out to greet or maim him. She was either hiding low, waiting to trap him like the other one, or she had moved on. He pushed any thoughts of the bitch-beast going back for Liz.
