“What the…?” Henderson began to rage but then he saw why Wallace had stopped the car. Ahead of them in the road leading to the camp stood what could only be described as a monster. A turned-over jeep lay shoved onto the side of the road, its headlight still burning. Henderson recognized the jeep as belonging to Gerald, his foreman, who always got to the camp before the other workers. Gerald was a good man who believed in hard work and keeping a timetable. That was why Henderson had hired him.
The monster appeared to be holding something that looked like a human body. Henderson screamed as it tore off the body’s head and threw it at the windshield of the car. Gerald’s blood-smeared face struck the window in front of him with enough force to crack it and then bounced away. Next to him, Wallace was already throwing the car into reverse. There wasn’t really space in the road to turn the car around quickly, but Wallace was sure trying. The monster roared, rising up to its full height. The thing had to be at least eight and a half feet tall. Its yellow eyes seemed to glow as brightly as the car’s headlights in the morning gloom. It let go of the body it was clutching and came bounding towards the car. Wallace was wailing like a frightened school girl as the monster reached the car in mid-turn. The thing’s hand grabbed the driver’s side door, yanking it from the vehicle, and threw it upward and away into the trees that lined the road. Wallace was still screaming as the thing’s hands closed on him next and ripped him out of the car.
Henderson unlatched his seatbelt and threw open his own door in a panic. He half-leaped, half-fell out of the car. His knees thudded onto the gravel of the road. Ignoring the pain, Henderson forced himself up and to his feet to sprint along the road back in the direction of town. He didn’t bother to look back as he ran, but he heard Wallace’s screams rise in pitch and then fall silent behind him. All Henderson’s reeling mind could wonder was where Chad was. It was Chad’s job to keep them safe and now when they actually needed him, the security man was nowhere to be found. Henderson’s legs pumped beneath him, his portly belly shaking up and down with each step he took. His breath came in ragged gasps as he pushed himself harder. A part of Henderson hoped that Wallace’s sacrifice, intentional or not, would buy him the time he needed to get away.
Luck just wasn’t with him though. Henderson heard the heavy footfalls of the monster as it came down the road after him. They drew closer and closer with each of his heartbeats and his heart was pounding against his ribs inside his chest. He didn’t dare look back now. Henderson knew the monster was gaining on him and that it would soon overtake him. He cursed himself for not wearing a sidearm as Chad had urged him to do. He had left the pistol the security man had given him in his hotel room, thinking that with Chad on the payroll, there would be no need for it. His heart skipped a beat as he felt the thick-fingered hand close on his shoulder. Its grip was so tight that his clavicle snapped from the pressure of it. Henderson cried out in pain and fear as the hand jerked him backward, flinging him from his feet to go thudding onto the gravel of the road. He landed on his back with a grunt. The monster was standing only a few feet away from where he lay, glaring at him with its burning yellow eyes. Henderson watched as it moved to tower over him. His head was swimming from the pain he was in and the insanity of the situation. Monsters aren’t real, he kept telling himself. This was all a bad dream and any second he’d wake up in his bed at the hotel, drenched in sweat, and it would all be over.
The monster moved to snatch him by one of his ankles. It broke as the thing’s thick, hair-covered fingers closed around it. Henderson cried out again, but the monster ignored his screaming. It dragged him up the road towards the camp. Gravel scraped at his back as it pulled him along behind it. Henderson saw Wallace’s body lying near their car as the monster dragged on up the road. Wallace was clearly dead. His head had been crushed, and one of his eyes dangled by thin strands of sinew from its shattered socket to rest on Wallace’s blood-smeared cheek. Henderson had started outright sobbing. Tears ran from his eyes as he whimpered and prayed to a God he had spent the bulk of his life making fun of. There were other bodies along the road, or at least parts of them. Some of them looked as if they might belong to members of his work crew, but it was impossible for him to know for sure.
The monster apparently got tired of dragging him along and decided that it was hungry. It let go of his broken ankle and whirled about to face him again. Henderson screamed at the top of his lungs as the monster dropped onto him. His scream was cut short as one of its knees crushed his chest. Blood erupted up and out of his mouth like vomit as the monster’s hands closed on the sides of his head. With a single yank, it removed his head from the top of his neck in an explosion of red. Henderson saw his body still lying on the road as the monster drew his head towards its mouth. He’d heard of decapitated heads continuing to live on for a few seconds after being severed but had never really believed it possible. He did now though, right up until the moment the monster’s teeth crunched through the bone of his skull.
****
Aurelio found Scott and Kevin waiting on him as he entered the department. They’d called him during the night about the wrecked eighteen-wheeler. He’d advised them to stay on the scene, play it as if it wasn’t anything unusual with the clean-up folks, and call him back if anything else happened. It hadn’t. The beast that Scott and Kevin believed responsible for the wreck hadn’t shown back up on the road.
“Morning,” Aurelio said, heading to get himself some coffee from the pot that was brewing on a table near their desks.
“It was a helluva night, Sheriff,” Kevin said, shaking his head.
“I imagine so,” Aurelio agreed. “Could have been a lot worse though. You guys got an ID on the driver yet?”
“Just some trucker named Brian Hightower,” Scott told him.
“The Sasquatch or whatever they are have upped their game if they’re outright attacking people now, much less people driving big rigs,” Aurelio said. “That man died on our watch, so his death is on us, guys. We need to do something to make sure no one else is attacked and we need to do it right now.”
“Yeah, that would be fantastic,” Scott commented and then shrugged, “but what? We can’t be everywhere at once.”
“I’m reconsidering Lou Hyatt’s offer to go into the woods after them with us,” Aurelio admitted, sipping at the cup of black coffee he held.
“I thought you said—” Kevin started, but Aurelio stopped him short.
“I know what I said,” Aurelio said. “But things have changed. We can’t let these creatures just run amok out there. We’ve got to do something.”
Aurelio looked around. “Larry and Harold haven’t come in yet?”
“No sign of them so far,” Kevin answered. “Nicki is in the back with Gail going over the calls that came in last night aside from the one about the accident we dealt with.”
“We really teaming with Lou?” Scott asked, the disbelief clear in his voice.
“I don’t think we have a choice.” Aurelio shrugged. “The guy’s offered to help and let’s face it, he likely has firepower hidden away up there in his place that’s beyond anything we have here at the department.”
“That’s a good point,” Kevin said. “That mean we’re going to arrest him for having it when we’re done?”
Nicki emerged from the doorway leading to the 911 office. Her expression was dark.
“What’s up?” Aurelio greeted her.
“We got another call from Lou Hyatt last night. Came in around four o’clock in the morning. Gail says she wasn’t on duty when it happened, and she doesn’t know why it wasn’t passed on other than that Lou apparently sounded drunk,” Nicki told him. “But Gail says that Lou was babbling about monsters attacking his house and then just hung up on the operator.”
“That ain’t good,” Scott said, looking over at Aurelio.
“Tell Gail to get on the horn and find out where in the devil Harold and Larry are. I need them here,” Aurelio ordered Nicki. She scurried away to d
eliver his message to Gail.
Aurelio turned to Scott and Kevin. “As soon as they get here, I want us ready to roll. Kevin, I want you and Nicki to stay here. Someone has to be available if those things pop up somewhere else while the rest of us are out there looking for them.”Kevin looked relieved that he wouldn’t be going up to Lou’s place and into the woods.
“Yes, sir,” Kevin agreed.
****
Harold and Larry showed up only a couple of minutes later. They had stopped for breakfast at the diner down the street before reporting in. Harold was freaked out when Scott told them about the eighteen-wheeler. Larry still didn’t seem to believe any of what was happening around Lowah. He didn’t argue when Aurelio ordered him to gear up though.
Nicki, unlike Kevin, wasn’t too happy about being ordered to stay at the department while the rest of them headed out to search for the Sasquatch up at Lou Hyatt’s place. Aurelio had to take the time to assure her it wasn’t because she was the newest deputy or that she was a woman. When he explained that she was going to be in charge of the department, she calmed down and agreed to stay, even if still somewhat reluctantly.
Aurelio decided to take only two patrol cars. There was no need to draw more attention than necessary as they drove through Lowah. Harold rode with him while Scott and Larry filled the other car. They didn’t use their sirens or lights but did push the limits of what they could get away with in terms of speed.
They arrived at Lou’s place a couple of hours before noon. Aurelio’s car was in front as the two patrols cars came to a stop in the drive below the house. It was clear something was up straight away. The heavy metal front door of the house lay several feet from the doorway leading inside. Something had managed to tear it loose. There were dents in the wall around the doorway too. A chill ran down Aurelio’s spine but he shook it off, getting out of the car. Scott and Larry were already out of their car and moving to get their weapons out of its trunk.
“What the hell could do that to a door like that?” Harold asked.
“A Sasquatch,” Aurelio said, frowning. “Likely more than one of them.”
Aurelio looked down at the ground, his gaze scanning for the tracks that Nicki had told him about. He spotted them easily. They were everywhere.
“Harold, get our guns out of the trunk,” Aurelio ordered as Scott and Larry came up to them.
Larry was carrying a standard-issue, pump-action twelve gauge, while Scott was packing an AR-15. Scott’s expression was grim as he stared at the house’s thick, metal door lying in the front yard.
“Scott,” was all Aurelio had to say.
Advancing carefully towards the house, Scott readied his AR. He crept up to the open doorway and looked through it into the house before stepping inside, disappearing from sight. Aurelio and the others waited on him to come back out. Scott did a few minutes later, looking sick.
“Lou’s dead,” Scott announced.
“Frag it!” Aurelio slammed a balled-up fist onto the hood of his patrol car.
“He took one of the Sasquatch with him though,” Scott said. “Its body is in the living room.”
“You’re messing with us,” Larry said, scowling at Scott.
“Why don’t you go have a look if you don’t believe me?” Scott snapped, clearly upset by what he had seen in the house.
“I will,” Larry barked and headed for the house. Aurelio and the others followed him.
There were bullet casings all over the living room floor as they entered it. What was left of Lou lay at the far end of the room and there wasn’t much either. All his limbs had been torn away from the trunk of his body and were nowhere to be found. Lou’s face was contorted into a grimace of pain and fear. Aurelio didn’t think he would ever be able to erase the image of it from his mind no matter how long he lived. And there in the floor, near the center of the room, lay the corpse of a Sasquatch. Larry was gawking at it with pure terror in his eyes. The Sasquatch’s corpse stunk. The smell of a heavy musk, urine, and blood hung in the air of the room. The early stages of rot beginning on the bodies of the Sasquatch and Lou only added to the stench. Harold dropped to his knees, puking up the contents of his stomach onto the hardwood floor in front of him.
“What a mess,” Larry said at last and shook his head. He looked out of it, like he had gone completely into a state of shock and his brain wasn’t working right anymore.
“Well, I’d say that thing on the floor over there is all the proof we need to call in some outside help.” Scott looked at Aurelio. “You still want to go out there in the woods with it just being the four of us?”
Aurelio shook his head. “Not anymore. We need to get that corpse to the doc and see what he makes of it.”
“And call in the fragging National Guard while we’re at it,” Larry added.
“Yeah,” Aurelio muttered and then said more loudly, “That would be a good thing to do too.”
It took all four of them to drag the Sasquatch’s corpse out of the house to the cars. Getting it inside one of the patrol cars was an even bigger job, but they managed it by tearing out one of the car’s backseats to make it fit. The entire time they worked at getting it done, Aurelio kept his eyes on the trees around Lou’s place. He knew at any moment more of the creatures could show up and then they would have no choice but to engage them. That wasn’t something he liked to think about from the looks of the dead Sasquatch. The thing was built like a tank. And God only knew how many more like it were out there.
****
Trudy heard the crackle and hiss of the eggs frying in the pan on the stove as she stepped into the kitchen to pick up the order for table 4. Martin gave her a look that told her all she needed to know about what kind of mood he was in today. The portly cook and owner of the diner was having trouble at home and it was spilling over into his work. Trudy knew to just keep her head down and mouth shut until he was the one who wanted to talk about it.
Carrying a plate loaded up with a double patty burger, fries, and coleslaw, she darted out of the kitchen into the serving area. The lunch rush was over. Things wouldn’t pick up again until much later on in the afternoon. Powell’s Diner was on the very outskirts of Lowah and not many locals visited it as regulars. Mr. Keogh was an exception to that. Every day, during the week, he’d show up right as the lunch crowd thinned out to order his usual meal. She sat it on the table in front of him as he smiled up at her.
“When are you going to quit this place and run away with me, sweetie?” Mr. Keogh asked.
Trudy laughed. “You’re a little old for me, don’t ya think, Mr. Keogh?”
He snorted, still smiling, and told her, “You’re only as old as you let yourself be.”
“Right,” she said, winking at him. “Now you let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
Trudy left the old man to his burger. There was only one other customer in the diner and she had already taken his order, so Trudy took a moment to stop and stare out the large window into the parking lot. A light snow had just started to fall. It blew about, twisting white flakes on the wind. As long as it didn’t start sticking on the roads, she could appreciate its beauty. Moving to Alaska with her ex-husband Jamie had been the one good thing she had gotten out of their relationship. However grudgingly, Trudy had to admit she owed Jamie for that. She loved Alaska. Everything was so majestic and the people, at least in Lowah, were friendly and good folks.
As she was staring into the snow, she caught a glimpse of something moving in the trees at the far end of the diner’s parking lot where it bordered on the woods that surrounded the place. Whatever it was, it had to be big for her to be able to see it from where she was. At first, she wondered if it was another bear. A bear had wandered down from the mountain a few months back and Martin had been forced to shoot it. She didn’t want to ever see anything like that again. It had broken her heart. The poor thing was just looking for food most likely and smelled the diner, but when it couldn’t be scared away… Boom, Martin had put a b
ullet in its skull.
Trudy squinted her eyes, straining them to try to see what the shape in the trees was. That was when the beast gave up its hiding spot and stepped into the parking lot. Trudy let out a gasp as she saw the thing. It walked on two legs like a man but was clearly some kind of animal. The beast had yellow eyes that almost glowed as it looked around, sniffing at the air. Its body was covered in thick, brown hair, and its arms hung at its sides like those of an ape’s.
“Hey, Martin!” Trudy called towards the kitchen. “You better get your gun and get out here!”
The beast creeped her out, there was no denying it. Whether it might be peaceful or not, Trudy was too scared by the look of it to care. This time, she would be totally okay with Martin shooting it unlike she had been with the bear.
Mr. Keogh and the other customer, a random truck driver who was taking his time about getting back on the road, had gotten up from their seats and moved to join her looking out the window at the beast.
“I’ll be danged,” Mr. Keogh breathed. “That’s a Sasquatch.”
“Can’t be,” the tall truck driver said. He was in his later twenties, wearing a beat-up flannel jacket, and his knuckles bore the scars of plenty of brawls. “Sasquatch ain’t real. There’s no such thing.”
“What do ya call that then, boy?” Mr. Keogh challenged him, thumping the window with the end of his pointer finger.
Martin emerged from the kitchen carrying his rifle. He slid back its bolt and then rammed it into place again, chambering a round. “Whatever it is, it’s on my property and it needs to get the hell off of it before the dinner crowd starts showing up.”
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