Bigfoot Beach

by Kristopher Rufty

  Becky pulled Paul’s children closer to her. Gunner didn’t seem to be reacting to the news of his uncle’s death, but Natalie was bawling. Becky could feel her tears seeping through her shirt. Once she heard the little girl ask God for Uncle Howie to be alive.

  Megan raised her head off Gunner’s shoulder. She turned to Paul. “My dad was with you all, wasn’t he?”

  Paul nodded without looking back.

  “Is he…?” Megan said, letting the silence finish her question.

  Paul’s lack of response was all that was needed.

  Oh, God…the poor girl…

  Becky watched Megan’s struggle. A range of emotions washed over her face. She looked as if she wanted to cry but was determined not to do so. She nodded. “Are you sure?”

  Again, Paul didn’t react to the question.

  But it was all the answer Megan seemed to need. She nodded again. Her eyes turned shiny with tears and she quickly lowered her head to Gunner’s shoulder. He pulled her against him, then she hugged his neck.

  Becky realized Paul and Striker were the only survivors. She knew she should feel bad for so many deaths, and deep down she really did. But seeing Paul was alive had somewhat numbed her to the shock of everything else. She knew one day she would spend a lot of time living with the remorse of so many casualties, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to start.

  Heavy footsteps resounded from the living room. Becky’s first thought was the Bigfoot had returned and her chest turned to ice.

  “Paul!” Striker. He was in the house.

  Becky hoped he was coming to tell them he’d killed the monster.

  When Paul didn’t respond, Striker called for him again. Paul still didn’t react to Striker’s call and held his sobbing sister-in-law to his chest.

  “In here,” said Becky.

  The footsteps grew in volume as they neared the kitchen. Striker’s bulky form filled the doorway.

  “Is everybody okay?” he asked.

  Becky shook her head.

  Striker looked over her shoulder to Paul. A look of sorrow hardened his face but it was quickly gone. “Paul, we have to get moving. It already has a head start. It’ll disappear soon. If we don’t get it now, we’ll miss our chance.”

  Paul started to pull away from Trish. She quickly grabbed his arms, pulling them to her. “No,” she said. “Not you, too…no…”

  “I have to go,” he said. “I promised Howie…”

  That seemed to do it. She released him, though it looked as if any moment she might grab him again.

  “Does anybody know if there’s a car here?” asked Striker. “Preferably something that can handle sand?”

  Megan raised her head again. “Not any cars that’ll work…”

  “Are you a Caine?”

  Megan nodded. “Megan. Mayor Caine was—is my father.”

  Striker’s lips pressed tightly together. “Nothing we can take on the sand?”

  “No cars…”

  “Damn,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “But we have some four-wheelers,” Megan said.

  Striker nodded. “That’ll do just fine.”

  36

  Megan led them to a massive detached garage with five large bay doors that resembled an airplane hangar more than a garage. They stopped at a narrow side door. She tapped a code into the keypad with one hand, the other clamped in Gunner’s hand.

  Paul wanted to know how Gunner, Natalie and Trish had ended up at the Caine house. But now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “That killed the alarm, but I forgot to get the key,” Megan said. She ran a hand through her hair. “Shit.”

  “No problem,” said Striker. He gripped his rifle high and smashed the stock end against the door, close to the frame. It took three tries to bash the door in.

  They entered the building. It was air conditioned and felt wonderful to Paul. He scanned the collectible cars that probably hadn’t been driven since parked in here. More money than Paul would ever know was inside this building.

  “Down there,” said Megan. She pointed past an old Corvette at the end of the line. Parked in a configuration of four were the ATVs. All were the same yellow color, the same size, make, and model.

  “Perfect,” said Striker, then ran toward them.

  Paul rushed to catch up. The sounds their feet made on the concrete floor made tinny echoes all around. By the time he reached the ATVs, Striker was already mounting one.

  “Are they gassed up?” Striker asked.

  “They’re supposed to be,” she said, approaching. “It was Malcolm’s turn to do it.”

  As Paul straddled the one beside Striker, Megan and Gunner walked to the bay door. She thumbed the top of two buttons on a keypad. A machine clicked on, raising the door with a low hum. Sunlight poured in, pushing back the dimness and hurting Paul’s eyes.

  Paul couldn’t find anywhere to put the rifle, so he put the stock against his crotch, pushing the barrel under the bar that connected to the throttle. He shook it to see if it would stay. Seemed to be fine.

  “Do you want the helmets?” asked Megan.

  “No,” said Striker.

  “You at least need to wear goggles or the sand will kill your eyes.”

  Striker considered this. He nodded. “Make it quick.”

  “Come on, Gunner,” she said, grabbing his hand.

  Gunner looked pale, even with the sunlight coming inside highlighting his body. He nodded when Megan took his hand, then ran with her to the wall behind the ATVs. Helmets sat in a row on a table. She ignored those and reached up to the pegs above them where several pairs of goggles hung like bats. She grabbed two, handing a pair to Gunner.

  Then they ran back. Megan gave Striker a pair.

  Gunner stepped over to Paul, looking at the floor as he held out the last pair. Paul took it from him.

  “Are you okay?” Paul asked.

  Gunner shook his head without looking up.

  “Me either,” said Paul. He reached out, stroked his son’s face.

  Finally, Gunner looked at him. “You’re coming back, right?”

  Seeing the fear and pain in his son’s eyes made Paul’s chest go tight. A tingling ache seemed to spread from his heart. He briefly considered telling Striker he was on his own. His kids needed him more than he did. The big guy could do this without him. But he didn’t say anything of the sort. Nodding, he said, “Yes.”

  “I would ask you to promise, but…”

  “Yeah,” said Paul. “But I will.”

  Gunner rushed forward so quickly, Paul flinched. His arms wrapped around Paul’s back, squeezing hard. Paul hugged him back. Tears spilled down his cheeks. It was the first they’d hugged since Gunner was little.

  “I love you, Gunner.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.”

  Gunner squeezed him even harder. It triggered pain in all of Paul’s sore spots, but he didn’t dare stop this moment.

  Striker even allowed their emotional grip to last longer than they could spare before he finally said, “Paul…”

  “I know,” said Paul. He eased Gunner back, put a hand on each shoulder. He was surprised by the muscle he felt on his son. “Watch after everyone. You’re the man while I’m gone.”

  The corner of Gunner’s mouth arched. “I will.” He stepped back.

  Paul gave his son one more smile, then turned to the ATV. He wasn’t exactly sure how to operate one, but he figured it was similar to other bikes he’d been on in the past. He turned the key. Flipped the killswitch on. Held the brake. Then he pressed the ignition button.

  The ATV brattled to life.

  The noise was nearly unbearable as it reverberated off the tinny walls around them, filling the hollow space with deep roars. Megan, shoulders high, cupped her hands over her ears. Paul looked at Gunner, shot him a thumbs-up, then popped the clutch. Gunner gave him one back.

  Striker peeled out, the backend fishtailing as he launched from the garage.

  Paul woun
d back the throttle. The engine raised and steadied. Then he released the brake. The ATV hurled forward, throwing Paul back on the seat. It felt like he’d just crossed over the dip of a rollercoaster. Air buffeted him, threw his clothes against his body as he shot out of the garage. When the tires hit the sand, he nearly lost control of the ATV. Quickly, he turned the front wheels into the slide and corrected himself, throwing sand out beside him in a gritty arc.

  Now that he was going straight, he pulled the throttle back and really started to fly. He surprised himself by loosing a loud hoot into the air.

  Striker was already a short distance ahead. The tracker glanced over his shoulder, saw Paul and threw a fist in the air. He gave a hoot in response, then pointed at the sand to his right. When Paul passed the spot, he saw large footprints in the sand. The rising tide had nearly washed them away. All that was left were some bulbous depressions of toes and a curve of the foot.

  His mind tried to distract him from the pursuit with thoughts of his brother. With the regret of how he’d allowed their relationship to sour over the years. He thought back to his reserves about coming here. And the main reason that had nearly kept him away was Howie.

  Howie would still be alive if I’d stayed away.

  Paul wasn’t sure how true that was. The Bigfoot would’ve still been here and Paul would have missed out on Howie’s last moments. They never would’ve erased the tension between them. How he wished he would’ve never become so bitter to those who cared about him the most. Because of Alisha, he’d turned into a hermit that just wanted to shut himself off from everyone except for his kids. And even they were growing tired of his bullshit.

  A body was sprawled in the sand. A man. Flat on his back, his head was canted far to the side. A bulging ripple of flesh protruded from the side of his neck that suggested it had been snapped.

  Damn.

  Poor guy was probably just jogging on the beach.

  How could he have possibly known what was heading his way?

  37

  The bells above the door jangled and Malcolm Caine checked to see if it was Mrs. Thompson and her sweet little girl. He sighed. Just another pair of regulars. The seats were filling up with the lunch rush, and so far, they hadn’t come in. He was beginning to think they weren’t going to.

  Malcolm looked at the empty table he was saving for them. He couldn’t keep it reserved forever. And if a paying customer was to come in, and he had nowhere to seat them, he’d have to give up the table.

  I tried to be fair.

  Standing behind the counter, he leaned down to the register book and drew a line through the name of an older couple who’d just taken a seat at the bar. They didn’t look familiar to him, so he assumed they were lingering tourists, not ready to go home yet. The bar filled up fast during lunch and dinner hours, so they had a number system to keep it fair.

  He watched the servers dash back and forth as the volume of chatter steadily rose inside the restaurant. He looked at the empty table with the best view in the whole place and sighed. If he gave that table away, Mrs. Thompson would stroll in right after wondering why he didn’t hold it like he’d promised.

  She probably wouldn’t be mad. I’d explain how long I tried to keep it open. Put them somewhere else and keep the food free of charge.

  He figured Mrs. Thompson would be okay with that. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to make a big fuss about anything. Hopefully, she wouldn’t tell the sheriff or his dad about what happened earlier.

  Stupid idea. Why would Dad want somebody running around dressed like a monster anyway? I don’t see how that’s supposed to bring in business.

  Malcolm was getting quite fed up with all this Bigfoot bullshit. He couldn’t wait until he graduated. He’d live on campus or near it, so long as it was far away from his asinine father and this fatuous town.

  From outside came a sudden tumult of shrieks and cries.

  The various conversations inside petered down to silence. The servers stopped where they were, some holding trays balanced on their arms. One held two empty cups in her hand as she neared the soda fountain. Others were empty-handed with their ears pointed in the air.

  The chatter started back up again, but this time they were all talking about the same thing.

  Did you hear that?

  What was it?

  Sounded like somebody screaming…

  It was. I heard it.

  Did you hear that growling? Something growled. Heard it with my own two ears.

  Ronald, there wasn’t any damn growling.

  Don’t tell me there wasn’t when there was!

  Malcolm stepped out from behind the counter, preparing to address the customers. He needed to calm them down before they got too worked up. That was Malcolm’s special talent. He could smooth out anyone once they got riled up. He’d gotten that trait from his father, who was a natural at it.

  Then a woman who sat at a table with two children pointed at the large window and screamed. Heads jerked in the direction of her trembling finger.

  Malcolm traced the path to the empty table reserved for Mrs. Thompson. Right outside, on the wraparound porch, he spotted a hairy beast peering inside. With its hands flat on the window, its face was squished against the screen, bowing it inward. The mouth snarled, showing a set of big teeth that were shaped like Domino chips. Small yellow eyes seemed to glow from the bar of shadow underneath its bulging, curdled forehead. From where Malcom stood, he could see bald areas spread across its hair, inside the pink islands were open sores that secreted yellow ooze.

  Malcolm smirked.

  “Calm down, everyone,” he said. “Looks like my father’s up to his old tricks again.”

  Customers faced him as he started across the main floor, passing the line at the hot dog bar.

  Turning around, he walked backwards and held out his arms. “This is just a really bad joke.”

  “A joke?” said a man sitting with a woman who looked young enough to be his daughter in college. For some reason, Malcolm didn’t think they were related. How the woman’s long bare leg extended under the table, the heel of her foot resting on the wedge of chair between the man’s legs, toes rubbing his crotch, suggested she was his trophy wife.

  “Yes,” said Malcolm. “My brother has already terrified some poor customers in this costume, and although I told him to knock it off, it looks like he’s trying to have some fun with you.”

  Malcolm heard some quiet laughter mixed with the hushed tones of whispers. The parties in attendance seemed to be talking to each other rather than watching him.

  At the window, he noticed the smell right away—an acrid stench that drifted in through the screen, making Malcolm’s nose run. “Jeez, Max, what did you do to yourself?”

  “What?” his brother said.

  The Bigfoot stared at Malcolm through the screen. Its breaths rattled in its throat, choppy like a boat motor, with a quiet growling underneath. Malcolm imagined a sleeping pig might sound similar.

  He realized the voice hadn’t come from in front of him.

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw Max standing by the hot dog buffet. He had changed out of the costume and was now wearing his uniform. He stared at Malcolm with a confused grimace on his face.

  “Max? How long have you been standing there?”

  “Just a couple minutes.”

  Malcolm nodded once, then turned back to the window. The big face furrowed into a downward arc that showed snarling anger.

  “Oh…shit…”

  Hands tore through the screen and grabbed the front of Malcolm’s shirt.

  Behind him, he heard screams. Chairs knocked over. Dishes crashed on the floor.

  Then he was jerked through the window.

  ****

  A young man crashed through the wooden railing that ran along the porch and down the ramp. He tumbled over the edge and dropped onto the sand.

  Before Paul could react to what he’d just witnessed, a panicked crowd tore out of Quincy’
s, screaming and trampling each other to get away.

  A poor woman dropped onto her stomach among the crowd. Nobody paused to help her, instead, they stomped her motionless as they fled.

  Paul, still several yards away, wound the throttle back all the way. He felt his body pull as the speed whipped faster. The sand yanked the ATV this way and that as he struggled with the steering bar.

  Suddenly Striker cut in front of him, heading for Quincy’s.

  Paul eased up on the throttle for the tracker to take the lead, then he followed him toward the restaurant, where a swarm of terrified customers piled out of the building.

  He scanned the mob for the beast. As the crowd thinned, he spotted its dark fur, the clumps of bald spots like islands of infected flesh among an ocean of dingy hair. Arms raised high as if reaching for something, it roared at a man passing in front of it. Then it caught the man’s arm and pulled. The man kept running as the arm tore from the socket as easily as the ants’ legs did when Paul was a kid. He used to torture ants as a boy, finding it funny how simple it was to tear their legs off. Now, holding the arm above its head and roaring, Paul detected the same kind of twisted glee coming from the beast.

  Screaming, the man stomped around in circles as blood sprayed from the ragged stump below his shoulder. A stick of bone protruded a couple inches from the spout of mushy tendons. People were splashed in crimson as they ran by.

  “Get out of there!” Paul tried to shout above the pandemonium and twin rumbles of the ATVs’ engines.

  The beast, holding the arm like a baseball bat by the wrist, swung at the man’s head. The chunky tip that had once been connected to a shoulder bashed the man’s head back. It landed between his shoulder blades, making his back look as if it had sprouted an inverted face with a large gash stretched across the brow.

  The man dropped.

  Bigfoot turned. It saw the ATVs approaching and roared. With both hands, it held the severed arm out and spun around. When it faced Paul again, it released the arm. Propelling circles, the arm soared through the air straight for Paul. There was no time to dodge it.