Bigfoot

by Eric S. Brown

  The sun was setting as Chad walked over to the camp’s lone office building. The temp had fallen so low that he could see his breath in the day’s last dying rays of light. He was about to go into the office to get warmed up for a bit when he heard the crack of a rifle being fired from the direction of the mine. Willy, the miner on guard in the camp, came running towards him with a look of sheer panic on his face.

  “Was that a gunshot?” Willy squeaked.

  “Come on!” Chad yelled at him and sprinted in the direction the shot had come from as two more echoed in the night. His legs pumped beneath him as he poured on all the speed his body had to give. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Willy was following him. The miner turned guard was doing his best but falling behind. Chad didn’t care. He didn’t need the man’s help anyway with the firepower he was packing. Even if there was real trouble, Chad doubted any bumpkin local would be bringing anything to the fight that could match his AR.

  The gunfire was replaced by screams. Chad flinched at the sound of them. They weren’t cries of terror, they were cries that had to be born of intense pain. He skidded to a halt as the mine came into sight ahead of him. Johnson, the miner he had sent to guard the mine, was on the ground in a puddle of his own blood. At least most of him was. A thing stood over Johnson’s body with one of his ripped off legs clutched to its mouth, gnawing on it. The beast, or whatever it was, stood close to over nine feet tall. Brown hair covered it from head to toe and thick muscles rippled beneath its hair as sprang into motion. The beast threw Johnson’s leg aside at the sight of him and Willy running towards it and charged forward to meet them. Chad didn’t know what the hell it was, but he knew fragging well that he wasn’t going to let it get him too. Aiming at its chest, Chad opened fire with his AR-15. He had converted the gun to be a fully automatic weapon. It chattered as he hosed the charging beast with half the rifle’s magazine. The bullets tore at the beast, digging holes in its chest, but didn’t even slow it down. If anything, they only served to make the thing angrier than it already was.

  Willy came up beside him where he stood and took a shot at the beast as well. The shot he fired from his .30.06 blew a hole clean through the beast’s shoulder. That got its attention. The beast howled in pain from the wound and adjusted its course to come directly at Willy. It was on the two of them in less than another heartbeat. Chad was shoved aside as if he were nothing more than a child’s toy instead of a muscular, grown man. He hit the ground rolling as the beast unleashed its fury onto Willy.

  One of the beast’s hands lashed out to slash Willy’s abdomen wide open. The miner’s guts exploded out of him in a shower of red. Willy doubled over and the beast knocked him the rest of the way to the ground. It was far from done with him though. It stomped Willy with one of his massive feet and kept stomping him until he was little more than a red pulp of crushed meat and broken bones.

  Chad opened up on the beast a second time even as it went to town on Willy. Bullets from his AR raked a path torn flesh up the beast’s side as it finished with Willy. The beast whirled around at him, its yellow eyes blazing with feral rage. Chad had emptied his AR into it with his last round of fire so he discarded the rifle and drew his .44 Magnum as the beast stomped towards him. Despite the fear he was feeling, Chad’s hands were steady as he raised the heavy pistol to take aim at the beast’s forehead. When he squeezed the Magnum’s trigger, the beast’s skull caved inward as the bullet he fired entered it. The backside of the beast’s head erupted outwards in a spray of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter as the bullet exited it. Chad breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the beast collapse. It thudded onto ground in front of him and lay there with no sign that it would be trying to get up again.

  Getting to his feet, Chad kept his Magnum aimed at the beast’s corpse. He was fragging sure the thing was dead, whatever it was, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He cautiously crept over to where it lay on the ground and nudged it with the toe of his boot. The beast didn’t stir. Chad just about gagged from the smell of it. The beast stunk of a heavy musk and blood. Chad took a moment to relish his victory. It might have cost him two miners to do it, but he had no doubt that this thing had been responsible for the mangled wolf corpses and it wouldn’t be threatening Mr. Henderson’s camp anymore after tonight.

  Chad was about to turn and head back into camp when he heard an inhuman howl ring out in the night beyond the lighted area outside the mine. Another answered it. Then another. The cries were the same kind of ones that the beast he had just killed had made in its fury. More cries echoed among the trees. Chad couldn’t tell how many more of the beasts were out there, but he knew it was more than he could face alone especially with only five rounds left in his .44. He broke into a run for the camp. Chad heard the beasts tearing through the woods as they surged through to come after him.

  He was out of breath by the time he reached the camp’s lone office building. Chad entered it and slammed the door behind him. He locked the door but was under no delusion that it would keep the beasts out. The office building was little more than a glorified shed. It had been hastily erected just to give Mr. Henderson a place to stay warm and do administrative work. Inside it, there was only a desk with its accompanying chair, another chair in front of it, and a space heater. There was one window which faced in the direction of the mine. Chad ran to it and peered out into the night. The beasts couldn’t be far behind him. As fast as the things seemed to be, he was surprised they hadn’t overtaken him before he even reached the building. Chad desperately scanned the room around him for anything else he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing. He had many more guns in the trunk of his car but knew he would never reach them before the beasts tore him apart if he tried to get them.

  Chad caught sight of a beast through the window as it burst from the trees at the edge of camp and looked about, sniffing the air. Its yellow eyes fell upon the office building and it started towards it. It wasn’t the only beast outside though. Chad could hear several more already closer to the building and moving around it. He hurled himself away from the window as a giant, hair-covered hand plunged through it at him. The window shattered. Shards of glass rained and clinked onto the floor as the beast’s arm twisted about through the window, searching for him. Chad took a shot at it with his Magnum. The round he fired blew a gaping hole in the arm that reached through the window. Blood splattered over the wall around the wall and the building’s floor. The beast it was attached to shrieked in pain, withdrawing the arm.

  Behind him, wood cracked and gave way as the office’s door was torn from its hinges. Chad spun about to see one of the beasts standing at the now open doorway as it cast the door away and snarled at him. He caught sight of the yellow, jagged teeth inside its mouth. It had been a long time since he had been truly scared of anything. It was almost a new sensation as a wave of utter terror washed over him. Chad took aim at the beast with his Magnum as it shoved its way inside the building. The sides of the doorway crumpled and splinters flew as the beast widened it, pushing on each side, as it entered. Chad’s Magnum thundered. A shower of red erupted from the beast’s chest as his bullet pierced it. The beast stumbled backward out of the building. Chad knew he was down to only three rounds. He needed to start making sure each one he fired was a kill shot.

  He backed away from the doorway. As he did so, he bumped into the desk. The edge of it hit his phone inside his pocket, turning it on and activating the combat playlist he liked to listen to every day. Ballroom Blitz by The Sweet began to play over the phone’s speaker as another of the beasts tried to come through the building’s doorway. It lunged at him, giving him no time to aim. Instead of wasting a shot to defend himself, Chad leaped over the desk, putting it between himself and the beast. The beast lashed out at him but missed. Its claws raked over the top of the desk as it pulled back its hand. The wood there was shredded by them. The obstacle between Chad and the beast gave him the time he needed to get into a better firing position against th
e office’s rear wall. His back was pressed up to it as Chad aimed his Magnum in a two-handed grip extended in front of him. He squeezed the Magnum’s trigger and sent the beast back to whatever Hell the thing had crawled out of. Its forehead exploded in a shower of gore. The beast toppled over sideways, crashing onto the floor of the office.

  Chad found that he was nodding his head in time with the beat of the song his phone was blaring as he managed the courage to race forward and through the broken doorway before another beast could enter it. Emerging from the office, he saw three more beasts coming his way. Two of them were sprinting towards him from the south end of the camp and the other was coming in from its west side. Three beasts, two bullets… Chad knew the only option remaining to him was to go after the weapons in his car. Getting his bearings through his panic, he spotted his car and ran for it. The beast coming from the west was the closest. He fired at it as he ran, hoping at the very least to give the creature pause. His shot dug a glancing line of red across the side of its left shoulder. The beast grunted from the wound but didn’t stop or even slow down.

  Fishing around in his pocket as he ran, Chad found his car keys. He pressed the key on the remote that popped open the trunk of his car. He saw it bounce upward and picked up his pace, pushing himself to the limits of what his body could give. Down to one bullet with three beasts closing in, Chad reached his car. Not all of the weapons he kept there were loaded and ready for action. His choices were limited to a pump-action shotgun or another AR-15. Chad grabbed up the shotgun, pumping a round into its chamber as he let his Magnum fall to the ground at his feet.

  The beast running up from the west was almost on top of him. He twisted around to put a shotgun blast into its abdomen. The beast’s ruptured guts poured out of it in long strands of red-slicked, purple cords. They tangled themselves up about the beast’s feet, tripping it even as it squealed in pain. The beast went down hard onto its face. Chad pumped another round ready as he rushed to where the beast lay. Careful to avoid its wildly flailing claws, Chad closed on it and pressed the barrel of his shotgun to its head. The point-blank blast stripped away the top of the beast’s skull. Its body went limp and stopped moving. Chad looked up to see that the other two beasts were only a few yards away. He pumped another round ready and stood his ground to meet them.

  The faster of the two beasts leaped into the air at him with a bestial roar, its balled-up fists raised above its head. Chad jerked the shotgun’s barrel upwards to fire at the beast mid-leap. Ballroom Blitz ended and the next song on his playlist, Don’t Fear the Reaper by The Blue Oyster Cult, boomed out of his phone’s speaker as blood from the beast rained over him. His shot had opened up its ribcage. Chad dodged the beast’s falling body as it slammed, rolling, onto the ground where he had been standing a fraction a second before. He was in the groove and moving like the professional he was. Chad pumped another round, smiling, as he prepared himself to take on the last of the beasts.

  Chad’s smile was replaced by gritted teeth and a grunt of pain as the last beast sunk its claws into his stomach. It closed the distance between them while he had dealt with the other beast. Chad’s body shook, heaving as if he were vomiting, as blood gushed up and out of his mouth. The beast was twisting its clawed hand around inside of him. When it settled on the position it wanted it to be in, the beast yanked its claws upwards. Chad’s upper body parted, cut in half from his stomach to the top of his skull. Blood exploded everywhere as the two halves fell away from each other and then his body flopped over backward into the dirt.

  Don’t Fear the Reaper continued to blare from the phone in his pocket. The beast that had killed him growled at the music. Perhaps thinking Chad was still alive, it began to stomp his body over and over until the phone was shattered and the music was brought to an abrupt end.

  ****

  As the day came to an end, Sheriff Aurelio Jackson called all his deputies into the department’s conference room. He stood at the room’s rear looking at Nicki, Kevin, Scott, Larry, and Harold where they had taken seats at the table in front of him.

  Larry was disgruntled as usual. Harold wasn’t too chipper either. Their shifts were technically over and they wanted to go home. Kevin just looked confused as to the purpose of the meeting while Scott’s expression was a grim one as if he somehow sensed something bad was coming. Only Nicki knew what Aurelio was about to share with the rest and she was keeping her mouth shut to let him be the one to do it.

  “What’s all this about, Sheriff?” Harold asked.

  “More importantly, how long is gonna take?” Larry frowned. “The wife ain’t too keen on me getting home late these days.”

  “It’ll take as long as it takes.” Aurelio glared at Larry. He adjusted his uniform nervously and stole a quick glance at Nicki. Larry caught it.

  “Don’t tell me this is one of those sexual harassment meetings,” Larry complained.

  “No, it’s not,” Aurelio said. “Nicki and I both took calls this morning that didn’t seem related but turned out to paint a really disturbing of what’s been happening here in Lowah.”

  “What do you mean what’s been happening?” Kevin asked.

  “He means the livestock deaths and if I am guessing right, the trouble out at that new mining camp too,” Scott spoke up, filling in the blanks for Kevin.

  “You got it in one, Scott,” Aurelio said, grinning. Scott was his first hire when he had taken over the department. The man was ex-military like Nicki and had a sharp mind that never seemed to miss anything. “Now what I am about to tell you will sound sort of crazy, but I need you trust me that it’s real.”

  Everyone stared at him in silence. Aurelio got on with it.

  “There’s evidence to support that existence of one possibly more Sasquatch in the woods around Lowah,” Aurelio said.

  Larry, Harold, and Kevin laughed out loud at what he had just told them. Scott though at least seemed to be giving him a chance to explain himself before making a snap judgment.

  “What kind of evidence?” Scott asked carefully.

  “This morning, a pile of dead wolves was left outside Henderson’s mining camp. They had been slaughtered, disemboweled, and three of them tied to a tree. I took one of them to Dr. Ferguson. He confirms the wolves were killed by an unidentifiable, very large animal. He believes that animal to be a Sasquatch,” Aurelio said.

  “Dr. Ferguson’s a pretty solid guy when it comes to the crap he works in,” Harold conceded.

  “That don’t mean he’s right,” Larry said, laughing. “I mean, come on, a Sasquatch?”

  “Shut up, Larry,” Scott warned him. Larry swallowed hard and looked away.

  “Nicki went out to Lou Hyatt’s place this morning. Something has got him scared enough to have called one of us out there. That alone is creepy, but while she was there, Lou showed Nicki tracks around his place that well…”

  “Let me guess, Bigfoot tracks?” Harold asked.

  “They couldn’t have belonged to anything else,” Nicki spoke up. “If you had seen them…” Nicki shuddered and stopped talking.

  “When you put it all together, it adds up to the conclusion that Sasquatch is very real and living in our town’s backyard,” Aurelio assured his gathered deputies.

  “I think I see where you’re going with this,” Scott said. “You’re concerned that something has riled up these supposed Sasquatch and that might not be content with just staying out of sight in the woods anymore.”

  “I still don’t buy this crap,” Larry argued.

  “Doesn’t matter if you do or not, Larry. Last time I checked, you take orders from me unless you would like to be working somewhere else,” Aurelio told him.

  “So you’re saying that Sasquatch are a real thing?” Kevin stammered in awe, still looking confused.

  “Yes, Kevin, I am,” Aurelio said. “And we’ve got to come up with a way to keep Lowah safe from them.”

  “Good luck with that, Sheriff,” Larry snorted. “There are only six of us and
even you count Gail and Henry at the 911 desk, that’s still only eight people. Lowah’s a dang big place. Not a lot of people sure but in terms of ground to cover…”

  “That’s why I called you all in here,” Aurelio agreed. “We need to come up with something that we can do to ensure that the people in Lowah are safe. We have no idea how many Sasquatch may be out there. For all we know, there might only be one of the things. We also don’t have anywhere they or it will strike next, though at this point, given what I saw at Henderson’s camp this morning, I’d wager its high on the Sasquatch hit list.”

  “I’d recommend calling in help from the next town over or even the National Guard, but without more evidence to support what you’re saying, it just trying might cost you your badge, sir.” Scott shook his head with an expression that was partly sad and partly frustrated.

  “Step one should be getting the evidence we need then, don’t you think?” Nicki asked.

  “Our priority, again, has to be protecting the people in this town, folks. That’s our job,” Aurelio said firmly. “I don’t see why we can’t do both at once though. In fact, I’d think they’d go hand in hand.”

  “I’m on call for the night, Sheriff,” Kevin said. “I came in late today because of it. How worried about running into a Sasquatch do I need to be?”

  Larry and Harold both snorted and chuckled, but Scott’s look told Aurelio that he was taking things seriously, even Kevin’s question.

  “I’ll stay on with him,” Scott volunteered. “Any calls that come in, we’ll handle them together. I’ll also break out the department’s big guns and get the cars on site loaded up with them.”