by B J Bourg
We were all quiet for the next twenty minutes, each of us lost in our own thoughts as we scanned the water and banks of the lake. We had made it to the opposite end when Melvin’s satellite phone suddenly began ringing. Gary jerked in his skin.
“Hey, this is Melvin, what’s up?”
Gary and I both watched curiously as Melvin talked. He nodded often and his facial expression revealed his interest in the conversation. I could only hear his end of it, and it sounded like he was talking to Susan. It seemed she had information on this case. Finally, he ended the call and revved the engine. He was moving with a purpose, and I knew Susan had given him something useful.
“What’s going on?” I asked, raising my voice over the roar of the motor. I figured he would volunteer the information sooner or later, but I didn’t want to wait. I trusted Melvin with my life—hell, he had saved me enough that he practically owned me—but I wanted to know where we were going and why.
Turning his head in my direction so his voice would carry but keeping his eyes on the lake in front of us, he explained that Susan had done some research and located an online video that was titled, Bear Sighting in Mechant Loup Swamps. It had been posted about two months earlier, and, as Melvin talked, I wondered why I’d never heard about it. From time to time, fishermen would make reports about seeing bears swimming in the swamps, but when our police department had contacted Wildlife and Fisheries, they had assured us there was no evidence to support the reports.
“Susan tracked down the guy who posted the video. He told her he didn’t remember exactly where it was, but he described in great detail how he got there. Based on the route he traveled, it was on this lake,” Melvin explained. “He said the sighting was on the southern end of the lake, on the western shore, and the bear was breaking open a dead tree in search of grubs. He said they stopped their boat and watched it for about a minute, and then it turned and slowly walked away.”
I nodded and stared out over the water, hoping we’d find the kids alive.
CHAPTER 9
I shined the spotlight around the lake, searching the western shore. Dozens of red eyes stared back at me and I shuddered, wondering at the fate of the four young people for whom we were searching. What had happened to the boat? Were they all onboard when it sank? Did they drown? Did some of them escape to shore? I had so many questions, but no answers. No one did. Well, almost no one.
When searching for missing people, I’d always been astutely aware that someone knew what had happened—and it was usually the victims themselves. If alive, they knew exactly where they were and what had happened. If they were dead, they had known exactly what had happened to them as it was happening. While the rest of the world was left to wonder, they had all of the answers. I frowned. All too often, those answers were terrifying and their last moments on earth would have been unbearably horrific.
I lurched forward a little when Melvin pulled up on the throttle to slow the boat. We were approaching the southern end of the lake and I had scanned the entire western shoreline, but had detected no trace of human presence.
“This is the end of the line,” Melvin said, shutting off the engine so we could listen. “If they’re not back here, I don’t know where they could be.”
Gary was digging in his pocket and he pulled out his phone. He held it high in the air, then moved it to the left and right, and then he shook it. “Damn it! Why on earth would they come to this Godforsaken place? I don’t have a single bar on my phone.”
I didn’t say anything as I scanned the shore with the light. Something suddenly occurred to me and I shut it off. All was quiet except for an occasional frog or alligator and the sound of small waves lapping against the side of the boat. Off in the distance, a cicada began playing its death song. I reflected idly that it was early to be hearing cicadas, and turned my head to look over my shoulder.
Like the western side of the lake, everything was dark on the eastern side—
Wait a minute!
I hurried to the opposite side of the boat and leaned far out.
“Watch it,” Melvin cautioned. “An alligator might mistake you for a chicken dangling on a hook and make a play at you.”
I pointed across the lake. “Look over there, tell me what you see.”
Melvin moved beside me and craned his neck. “Nothing. I don’t see a damn thing.”
I felt someone on the other side of me and knew it was Gary. “What is it, detective?”
“Look across the lake. Do you see a faint glow through the trees—an orange-like glow?”
Both men gasped audibly when they spotted what I’d pointed out. In the utter darkness of the opposite shoreline, there was the dimmest of glows. It was so faint that if we stared directly at the glow it would disappear. I had to shift my eyes to the left or right of the spot to see the glow again.
“That’s a fire,” I said. “Someone has set up a camp.”
“Leroy!” Gary suddenly screamed from beside me, nearly causing me to jump out of my skin. “Kaitlin! It’s me! It’s Dad! I’m here!” The man turned to me and shook my arm, but he didn’t have to say anything. Melvin was already firing up the engine so we could race across the lake.
As the front of the boat lifted out of the water in slow motion, I began yelling alongside Gary, calling out the names of his children. When the boat leveled out and the opposite shore came into view again, I could see that the glow was more prominent. The closer we got to the shore, the better it came into view. It was apparent the glow was deep in the woods, but there was no mistaking it was a campfire.
My heart was pounding as Gary and I continued to holler for Leroy and Kaitlin. I went over the possibilities that it might be someone else, some random campers or hunters, and I hoped to God that it wasn’t. Gary had hit a devastating low point out on the lake and now his spirits were up. If the glow from the fire did not represent his children, then he would crash back down, and I knew how harmful that could be to his mental faculties.
We were fifty or so yards from the shore when the orange glow began to disappear and reappear again. I frowned and cocked my head to the side. It seemed some mysterious shadow would pass in front of the fire and then move out of the way.
“What’s going on?” Gary asked. “The fire’s coming and going.”
“No,” I said, realizing what was happening. “I think someone is there.”
I grabbed the control for the spotlight and swung it to bear on the area. That’s when we realized the shadows were people running back and forth along the shore, jumping in the air and waving their hands.
“Oh, Jesus, thank you Jesus!” Gary exclaimed. “That’s Leroy! And there’s Elton and Sarah and—”
He clamped his mouth shut and I heard him gasp. “Dear God, where’s Kaitlin? Leroy! Where’s your sister?”
All three of the students were screaming, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I did, however, recognize the look of panic on their faces. Whatever they were shouting, I knew it wasn’t good, and the absence of Kaitlin made my stomach twist into knots. Where was the girl? Had she been in the boat all alone? But that didn’t make any sense. Why would she have ventured off on her own?
I forced my mind to settle down. I would have answers very soon, because Melvin was guiding the boat to a small V in the shore, and he was backing off on the throttle. I hurried to the bow and hollered at one of the boys to take the line I was about to toss to him. The kid nodded and held out a hand. I reached back and then flung the rope forward, watching as it shot out like a snake and fell across the boy’s shoulders. He quickly looped his arm around it and raced to a nearby tree.
Gary didn’t wait for him to secure the line. He jumped over the side of the boat and landed waist deep in the water. High stepping it across the shallow water, he made his way for the other boy, who had dropped to his knees on the bank of the lake. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he was crying. The girl was kneeling beside him and had a hand on his shoulder.
“Where’s your sister?” Gary demanded. The boy only shook his head. Gary repeated the question, this time louder.
I jumped from the boat and landed in the soft mud at the water’s edge, but managed to keep my boots from getting wet. A second later, Melvin appeared beside me and we approached the group.
“God damn it, boy, where’s your sister?” Gary bellowed.
I was closer now and could see that Leroy was shaking his head and trying to speak. He was stuttering and the words wouldn’t come. I winced when Gary reared back and slapped him in the face, jerking his head around. “Get a hold of yourself and tell me what the hell happened!”
I rushed forward, but Melvin beat me to it. He snatched Gary off of his feet and slammed him to the ground. I heard Gary grunt as he made contact with the ground. Luckily for him, we were in marsh mud and not on a concrete street in town.
I dropped beside Leroy. “Son,” I said soothingly, “it’s okay. Tell me where I can find your sister. Tell me where Kaitlin is.”
“He…he got her,” said the girl standing over us. “He took her.”
I looked up at the girl’s face. The light from the boat behind us splashed against her pale skin and gave her a ghostly appearance. She was nodding wide-eyed. I glanced at the other boy. He stood several feet away hugging himself and looking over his shoulder. I turned back to Leroy. He was nodding.
“She’s right,” he said. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, son? Who took her?”
“It was him…it was Big Foot. He took my sister.”
CHAPTER 10
After Melvin had gotten Gary calmed down, I asked him to get the grieving father back on the boat. “Handcuff him if you have to,” I said, “but do whatever you have to do to keep him from interfering.”
“And you?” Melvin asked.
I indicated the deep swamps with my head. “I’ll have a look at their campsite and see what I can find.”
“Keep your head on a swivel,” Melvin called after me as I approached the three students who were huddled together on the ground near a giant Cottonwood. I waved over my shoulder to let him know I’d heard him, but I was not at all concerned about Big Foot.
I studied the group as they looked up at me. That they were hungry and tired was obvious. Leroy was a couple of inches shorter than my five-ten and was a little heavier than me, probably close to 200 lbs. His jeans were covered in mud and his thick black hair was a mess.
I’d heard Leroy refer to the girl as Sarah, and I regarded her now. She was short, had dirty blonde hair, and her eyes looked green in the lights from the boat behind me. She wore a skirt that was dirty and ripped on one side. There were scratches on her bare legs and there was dried mud on her hands.
I turned my attention to the other boy. “What’s your name?”
“Elton,” he said. “Elton Gatti.”
This kid was tall and lanky. He had probably hit the six-foot mark in high school and then stopped growing. He looked like a serious young man. His hair was longer than Leroy’s, but just as dark. Like the others, his clothes were covered in mud and there was a jagged tear in his shirt that revealed a bloody gash to his ribs. I didn’t know what had caused the gash, but I was sure it was the result of a sharp branch and not the works of an imaginary creature.
“Leroy,” I said, stepping away from the group and waving for him to follow me. “Can I have a word with you alone?”
He pushed himself wearily to his feet and trudged along behind me. I only walked a few yards, just far enough to be out of earshot of the others. When I stopped, Leroy did too, but he leaned against a tree. I suddenly had a thought that the kid might fall if the tree wasn’t there to hold him up.
“It looks like you’ve been through hell.”
He nodded his head.
“Want to tell me what happened?”
“I…we don’t know. She was there when we went to bed, and then she was just gone.”
I scowled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we all went to sleep and she was there, in the tent, and when we woke up we couldn’t find her. We searched everywhere. We’ve been searching the swamps ever since she disappeared, but we haven’t found any sign of her.”
I glanced through the trees toward the orange glow. I wanted to get there as soon as possible, but I wanted to have an idea what occurred before I started adding my shoe prints to the mix. “Did all of you sleep in one tent?”
He shook his head. “Sarah and I slept in one tent, and Kaitlin slept in the other.”
“What about Elton?”
“He slept on the ground outside.” Leroy shifted his feet. “I…I meant to send Sarah to the red tent with Kaitlin—which was where the girls were supposed to sleep—but we accidentally fell asleep.”
“Why didn’t Elton sleep in the tent with Kaitlin? Wasn’t this a double date?”
“Oh, no, they’re not dating, but even if they were, my sister’s not that kind of girl. She wouldn’t let a boy sleep in a tent with her.”
I turned my head and stared curiously at the other boy sitting beside Sarah. He wasn’t looking in our direction. His head was turned downward and his elbows were resting on his knees. “Were they friendly?”
Leroy hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Had there been any flirting or anything between them?”
“I mean, I don’t know. Why are you asking about Elton? He didn’t do anything.” Leroy shifted his feet and shot a thumb toward the deep swamps. “The creature that took her is out there somewhere.”
I wanted to call bullshit, but now wasn’t the time. “What time did you bed down for the night?”
“I don’t know exactly what time it was, but it was a while after it got dark. Elton saw Big Foot earlier in the night and we all went—”
“Wait—say that again.”
“Elton…he saw Big Foot.”
I tried not to smirk. “Look, this is not a joke. When someone goes missing, it’s serious business.”
“We’re not joking.” His voice rose to a shrill pitch. “He really saw him—or it.”
“Did he catch this on video? Or get a picture?”
“No, he and Kaitlin were out gathering firewood when they encountered him. They didn’t have a camera.” Leroy took a breath, blew it out. “Anyway, when Elton and Kaitlin came back and told me about the sighting, I grabbed my gear and went to the area. Elton pointed out the exact location and I found some footprints in the mud. They were huge and positively Big Foot prints. I have pictures of that if you don’t believe me. I can show you.”
“Please, I’d love to see the pictures.” I held out my hand.
Leroy pulled his cell phone out of a pocket. After fumbling with it for a few seconds, he handed it over. “I’m really worried about my sister, mister. We’ve looked everywhere, but we can’t find her. Even the boat’s missing. When we woke up yesterday morning, her tent was empty and she was gone. The zipper was open and the tent was empty. We came to the boat to see if maybe she came out here to feel safer, but even the boat was gone.”
I nodded as I studied the picture that was displayed on the screen. It was hard to discern the exact depth and size of the print, but it did look like a large human footprint. I slid my thumb across the screen and found another photo, but this one had a boot next to the tiny crater for comparison.
“Is this your boot?” I asked.
He nodded.
“What size are you?”
“A ten. As you can see, the bare print is much bigger than my boot.”
There was no doubt the print was bigger than his boot, so I couldn’t argue that point, but I wasn’t sure this print was real. I sucked at art, but I figured I could make a decent-looking footprint in the mud with my hands.
“What did y’all do after going to where Elton saw…um, what he thought was Big Foot?”
“We went back to the camp and pitched the tents. Elton and Kaitlin gathered logs while Sarah helped me set up some game camera
s around the area—”
My head snapped up from the images on his phone. “Wait a minute—you set up game cameras?”
“Yes sir. I brought them to look for bears but now I wanted to catch Big Foot on camera, so I set them up in case he came around while we were sleeping.” A scowl spread across Leroy’s face. “Was I not supposed to put them up?”
“No, no, it’s great that you did.” I glanced toward the campfire, which was starting to fade. “Have you checked them to see if you captured what happened night before last—that is when you say your sister disappeared, right?”
“Yes, sir, that’s when it happened, but no, it wouldn’t be on camera. Big Foot might be on camera, but my sister wouldn’t be. The cameras were facing away from the tent, out into the swamps.”
“Did you check the cameras to be sure?”
“No, I’d need my laptop to access the SD cards, but my laptop is in the boat. I left it in an inner compartment where it would be safe, but the boat’s gone now.”
You won’t be using that laptop, I thought, but didn’t say it. After he explained where he put all of the cameras, I asked him if it was possible that Kaitlin took the boat and left.
“Oh, no, she can’t drive a boat.”
Obviously, because she crashed the damn thing.
“You mentioned that Big Foot took your sister.” I paused to let him think about that statement, hoping he would realize how ridiculous it sounded. “Upon what are you basing that theory?”
Leroy blinked. “Because there’s no other explanation.”
“You really don’t believe your sister left of her own volition?”
“Her what?”
“Her own will.”
“Oh, no, she’s too skittish to start walking around the woods at night.”
“What about Elton?”
“What about him?”
“Is it possible he had something to do with her disappearance?”
“No way! Elton would never do anything to Kaitlin.”
Leroy had raised his voice and I shot a quick glance in Elton’s direction to make sure he didn’t hear. It appeared he hadn’t. “Was Elton the only one who saw Big Foot?”