Bigfoot War (6 page)

Jeff, however, closed in on the thing and placed the barrel of his rifle directly onto the thing’s forehead. He pulled the trigger, sending a crack of thunder into the air.

Fred was nowhere to be seen.

Becca

Hauling the sasquatch out of the woods was anything but an easy task. Becca was forced to wait until a four-wheeler could be brought up from town and a makeshift sled built for the thing’s corpse so they could get the body to the vehicles at the old Taylor farm. Loading it onto Fred’s pickup was an even worse ordeal. They covered the body with a tarp. Becca wasn’t ready for Babble Creek to know monsters like this actually existed. She and Powell decided to take the corpse to Lauren. She at least was going to have to know. There was no way around it.

There were Terry, Gab, and Warren’s bodies to deal with as well. Were it not for the stink thanks to the hot sun, she would have waited until nightfall to try to smuggle the thing through town, but she was forced to come up with a cover story of a rogue grizzly to explain the deaths and what rested underneath the tarp. It made sense and was something she hoped no one who lived in the town would question.

Brent was banged up from the battle. The fact he had just wrestled hand to hand with a sasquatch and wasn’t hurt worse was a miracle in itself. Becca sent him ahead as soon as the bodies were loaded then radioed the ER to expect him. She noticed Fred was still looking uncomfortable. She assumed it was because of his cowardice. They had found him waiting with the dogs when they first came out of the woods. There was no point in making an issue of it and the others seemed to agree. No one railed him out for it. Everyone was in kind of a state of shock, she figured, except for Jeff. He gave the appearance of a man who had fulfilled his purpose in life. His demeanor was almost jubilant. He sat in his car, partly leaning out the driver’s side window as he watched the others get ready for the trip back into town.

“
Mr. Taylor,” she said as she walked over to where he sat.

His head swung around in her direction. “Sheriff,” he said, getting out and standing up.

“
You’ll be leaving tomorrow.” Becca made sure the words did not come across as a question.

“
Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I think you can handle it from here without me.”

She ignored his response. “Don’t let me see you in these parts again.”

She turned to order Justin to roll out, but Jeff called after her. “Are you going to tell people the truth of what happened here? Make them understand the monster is real?”

She stopped and spun around. “That’s my choice, not yours.”

“
That’s not an answer. I have seen things like this covered up before. The sheriff in Babble Creek when I was a kid swept everything under the rug and played me as crazy because it was just easier that way.”

“
Like I said, it’s my call to make and you’ll have to live with that fact.” She moved on to her patrol car and slammed the door after she got in.

As she followed Justin and Powell down the long drive, she looked in the rearview mirror to see Jeff still standing by his car.

Jeff

Jeff watched Becca and the others leave. Once they had vanished from view, he turned and walked toward the house where he had grown up, and ascended the steps on the front porch to the main door. He went in. Bugs skittered across the floor as the sunlight behind him shone into the room. The smell of rot and animal waste took his breath. He covered his mouth and shook his head in disgust. There was nothing to be seen here anyway. He didn’t know what had made him think taking a look inside was a good idea. The place held only darkness, and the darkness was over now. His father and brother had at last been avenged. They could rest in peace. He could move on and, maybe, with luck, live a normal life.

He stepped out onto the porch and took a deep breath of fresh country air. It was hard to believe it was all over. Somehow it didn’t feel real. It felt as if there was something left to do. Jeff hopped over the porch railing to the grass and walked around the house, taking one last look at this place of nightmares before he headed to his car.

A roar erupted from the trees beyond the gravel drive. It was not the voice of the creature which had so long haunted him. It sounded different, as if it was a cry of grief not rage. He broke into a run. Jeff knew the voice belonged to another of the creatures and it was going to come after him like he had its kin. His rifle was his only hope.

As he reached the car, several more howling voices roared in the woods, a chorus of sadness becoming rage. Jeff was amazed at how much emotion lay in the cries. These things were more human-like than he’d ever guessed and that was not a good thing.

He jerked his rifle from the car and stood facing the tree line. He could no longer keep count of the number of voices in the air. His heart thundered in his chest and sweat poured from his skin. If he was going to die today, that was okay, too. He wasn’t going to go down without a fight, though. Chambering a round, he raised the rifle as an eight-foot-tall creature lumbered from the trees at the head of a large tribe of monsters. It was female. Large sagging breasts hung from underneath the fur of its chest. Jeff took aim and put a bullet into its skull, knowing he was slaying the mother of at least some of the child-like creatures in the pack. They were only about the size of a man, but their bodies were still thick with muscle. The wailing monster flopped to the ground then lay still. No sooner had the body hit the dirt than the others came. They were of all sizes and shapes, male and female. The smallest looked to weigh a little over four hundred pounds and was tiny in comparison to most of the others. A large male led the charge; Jeff took note of the fury in its eyes. There was hurt and anger there, too. In that instant, he realized these things weren’t going to stop with his death. He’d stirred up a hornet’s nest of primal vengeance and it would be coming for all of Babble Creek.

The beast-like creature that raced toward him stood nearly a dozen feet tall and the ground shook with each of its steps. Hulking muscles rippled even through the thick layer of hair that covered its arms and legs. Jeff raised his rifle and put a .30.-.06 round into its shoulder. It spun, betrayed by its own momentum, and went skidding sideways in the dirt. His aim moved to the rest of the pack. As one they bounded toward him as he fired again and again into their ranks. One of his shots caught a female in her shoulder and blew a hefty chunk of flesh into the air. Another of his shots slammed into one male’s forehead and sent brain matter splattering into the wind as his round exited the backside of the monster’s skull. The red eyes of the pack blazed even brighter with anger and hatred. The rifle was torn from his grasp as they reached him and dozens of hairy hands grabbed onto his body. Jeff heard his own screams echoing across the land as they tore him limb from limb.

The last thing he saw was his own blood and strands of flesh spraying up into the air.

Brent

Rita was waiting on Brent when he reached the emergency room. He felt the urge to make a run for it when he saw her, but he forced himself to don a smile. His heart fluttered like a nervous teenager’s.

She raced to him, stopping just short of embracing him. “Oh, Brent,” she said, bringing a hand up to the large bruise on his cheek and the numerous small gashes and scrapes on his exposed flesh.

“
It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, rubbing at a gash on his lip. “I’m okay. Really, I had worse when I was on the circuit wrestling. Let someone get overzealous and go to town on you with a metal chair and this seems like nothing.”

“
Thank God,” she said, clearly relieved. “I heard . . . I heard a bunch of people got hurt and some got killed at the old Taylor place. I had to know you were all right.”

“
Rita, I . . .” he started, but she stood on her toes and placed a finger over his lips, being careful not to touch the many small cuts where the tree’s bark had tore him up.

“
I know how you feel about me, Brent. I can see it every time you look at me. Will you please ask me on a date before something really
does
happen to you?”

He was awestruck and struggled to shake it off. “Okay, Rita,” he said quietly, “okay.”

She smiled at him. “Go see the doctor. I’ll wait right here for you.”

He nodded dumbly and went to the receptionist to tell them he was there. As the nurse led him into the ER proper, he was so happy he could barely keep himself from singing.

Marcus

The engine of the dirt bike whirred loud and clear as Marcus Hawk tore his way through the trees. He was as close to being a professional driver as they came without actually being one. Driving like this was dangerous, but it made him feel alive and he did it every chance he got. He knew these woods better than most his friends’ houses. He swerved, cutting onto the gravel road that ran from the lake into the outskirts of Babble Creek. He let out a cry of excitement as he hit a bump in the road and left the ground for a brief moment. He easily brought the bike down with perfect balance. Marcus slowed as he neared the spot where he left Anna and the others at the lake. His dad’s old gray truck and Donald’s Forester both sat parked on the roadside. He came to a stop, killing the engine, and left the bike behind him.

The sounds of splashing and playful yells came from all the way up the bank. He took off his helmet and slipped off his jacket before he walked the trail leading to the lake. Anna, Rachel, and Sheena were in the water. Travis sat on the bank, snapping pictures of them with his camera. Marcus’s gaze went directly to Anna. His breath caught as he took her in. Her long brown hair was soaked, plastered to her skin on the top of her shoulders. Like he always did, he reminded himself how blessed he was to have her in his life. They had been together for almost a year and Marcus knew in his heart she was the one for him.

“
Marcus!” she shouted as they saw him. “Tell your perverted friend to stop it or we will seriously hurt him.”

He sighed as Donald looked over at him, realizing he was back. “Put it away, buddy,” Marcus told him.

Donald laughed and tucked the camera into the pocket of his shorts.

“
Thought you’d never come back,” he said. “You have fun?”

A large splash, like a limb falling into the water, came from the other side of the small lake. The girls were suddenly screaming and swimming toward them.

Donald leaped to his feet beside Marcus. “What in the heck was that? Did a tree just fall in the water?”

Marcus’s eyes went wide. “It wasn’t a tree,” he said almost stunned beyond the capacity for speech.

“
How do you know?” Donald asked.

“
Trees don’t swim,” he shouted, watching as a massive brown form underneath the surface of the clear water streaked at the girls. He ran to the edge of the bank to meet Anna as she came bursting from the lake.

“
Marcus,” she screamed, throwing herself into his arms. “What is that thing?”

The other girls were right behind her. Sheena hopped out of the water near them, but Rachel wasn’t so lucky. Something caught her and she vanished into the now-muddy and murky depths of the lake. The surface rippled and bubbled, turning red.

“
Oh, please no,” Donald muttered as the thing stood up. The deep water of the lake barely came to the thing’s chest. A creature stood towering over them. Sopping brown fur covered its body. Its eyes were filled with a burning hatred and the thing roared at them with a voice louder than a lion’s. Marcus knew in that moment that Sheena was beyond their help and he didn’t intend on sticking around to see her body float up to the surface. “Run!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, shoving Anna up the bank ahead of him.

The creature moved with speed and came at them in a fury. Marcus glanced back as he, Anna, and Donald raced for his dad’s truck to see the thing effortlessly overtake Rachel and scoop her into the air with a single hand lifting her above its head. It grabbed her lower body with its other hand and ripped her in half, silencing her cries for help while her entrails rained over it.

Something slammed into Marcus as he turned away form the horror behind him and started running again. Whatever it was slammed into his chest, causing him to lose his footing. The impact sent him rolling down the trail. As he tumbled, he saw it was Anna’s body that’d hit him. Most of the flesh of her chest was torn away, as if it had been clawed at by a single mighty swipe of a giant fan rake but with razor-sharp ends. One of her breasts was gone, leaving nothing but a ragged fleshy hole in her torso. Her neck was broken and her head flopped from side to side as their entwined bodies bounced down the path toward the water. Rage boiled in Marcus’s veins. They came to a stop with her corpse on top of him. He gently pushed her off and started to get up. He swore he was going to find a way to kill the thing that did this to her. The last thing Marcus saw was a huge, furry hand come down and envelop his head from behind, covering his eyes. His world filled with pain as he heard the crunching sound of his own bone caving in from the pressure of the thing’s grip.

Dirk

On the other side of town, Dirk was thinking about how much he hated Mondays. The work day was through, but regulations required he and Gerald drive to the tops of Rhodes Cove to inspect the main power junction before they called it a day. It was a simple matter of a quick glance, making a note things were running okay, then driving back. The catch was the junction was so far off the main road, the round trip took nearly an hour. Never in his career had he managed to talk Gerald into just skipping the stupid place and faking the paperwork.