Clay groaned and closed his eyes.
41
Ethan was amazed by the old-timer’s endurance, as not once, did Micah want to stop and rest, hobbling on his peg leg with only the help of his crutch.
“So where are we going?” Ethan asked as he tried not to stumble over Blu in the dark as the coonhound had a bad habit of cutting in front of him, especially when the path they were following veered from a straight line.
“The cabin where I grew up,” Micah replied over his shoulder.
“Does anyone live there anymore?”
“I would hardly think so. My folks have been dead for many years.”
They were just coming up on a rise when Ethan saw the backwoods lodge tucked back in the trees under the moonlight. The place didn’t appear to be occupied, as there were no lights shining from the windows.
Micah limped up onto the porch and pushed open the front door. Before he could set foot inside, a bird or a bat, screeched as it flew out into the night.
“Damn near scared me half to death,” Micah said, but didn’t hesitate to go inside.
Ethan shooed Blu through the front door and walked in after.
Micah fumbled around in the dark for a moment before striking a match and lighting the wick on a lantern. Soon, the interior of the cabin came into view as the bulb brightened.
“It ain’t much, but it’s a roof over our heads,” Micah boasted.
Ethan looked up and saw that some of the rafters and shake had come down as he could see a patch of moonlit sky through the gap in the roof. He didn’t say anything, as he didn’t want to sound ungrateful.
The cabin looked similar to Micah’s place, basic and slightly bigger with one bunk, a long table and two bench seats, and a door that led into another room. Some uncovered wooden crates were against one wall.
Ethan walked over and looked inside one of the boxes and saw the tops of evenly spaced Mason jars. He reached down, picked up a jar, and unscrewed the lid. He took a big whiff.
“Try it,” Micah said.
Ethan took a gulp and almost coughed as the fiery liquid burned down his gullet.
“That’s my folks’ special blend. Peels paint better than turpentine.”
“I bet it does.”
“Take another swig and pass it over.”
Ethan did just that. This time, the pure alcohol wasn’t as harsh as his throat was already numb from the first drink. It reminded him of the last time he tried siphoning gasoline out of his truck and ended up swallowing a mouthful of petrol when he sucked too hard on the plastic tube.
“I haven’t been up here in over thirty years,” Micah said, taking another swig and gazing about the dilapidated cabin. “There’s a still nearby, in a cavern where my daddy used to make shine. I doubt if there’s much of it left. We can go take a look tomorrow.”
“You can. I have to go back for the others.”
“There’s a tunnel that goes back in there, comes out in a small valley. I can show you a shortcut.”
“All right,” Ethan agreed.
“Then it’s settled.” Micah passed Ethan the jar.
Even though the ruined cabin didn’t keep out the elements and the temperature had dropped outside, it was doubtful if either man was going to feel the cold.
42
Unable to pick up the tracks in the dark, and wandering aimlessly, Landon and Jacob finally gave up for the night as they were exhausted. They set up camp on a hummock surrounded by rocks and ferns. Jacob collected deadwood and built a small campfire while Landon divvied out small portions of food.
After they had eaten their meager meals, Landon said he would stand the second watch and found a comfortable bed of pine needles to sleep on while Jacob stayed up and kept guard for the first shift.
But after an hour, Jacob began to wane and started to nod off—and soon drifted off to sleep, with his shotgun lying across his lap.
Jacob suddenly awoke when he felt a sharp jab in his leg.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath when he realized that he had fallen asleep when Landon trusted him to be on watch.
He gazed up and saw three figures standing over him in the silver moonlight.
They couldn’t have been more than three feet tall. It was difficult to determine their age in the dim lighting, but Jacob was certain they weren’t children. They wore animal skins and were barefoot.
Their large, hairless craniums were disproportionate to their small bodies.
The one to his right was wearing a hide open in the front, its prominent clavicles and ribcage visible under its thin parchment skin that looked as though it had been tanned and stretched over its skeletal frame.
He couldn’t see their eyes clearly as they were recessed in deep-set sockets. None of them possessed noses, just air holes for nasal passages.
They were armed with four-foot long pointy-tipped lances, and knife-like spearheads made of flint.
The three humanoids—which strongly resembled pigmy ghouls—snarled, exposing squared incisors caked with black tartar and gunk.
Jacob’s hand slowly slid along the stock of the shotgun, his finger itching for the trigger.
The creatures lunged in unison, like warriors ordered by a silent command, and speared Jacob. He tried moving his right leg, but his calf was impaled to the ground. The one that had stabbed him in the chest was already withdrawing its lance and preparing to run him through again. The third spear that had been thrust in his side was giving him serious pain, as it had to have punctured a vital organ.
“Landon!” Jacob screamed. He turned his head and saw a dozen silhouettes converging on the campsite. Some of them were carrying large rocks while the others were armed with cudgels and spears.
Jacob lifted his shotgun and fired into the nearest creature. The heavy-load buckshot blasted apart its upper body into tiny splintering pieces like it was made of thin balsa wood. He slid back the pump, shoved another cartridge in the chamber, and disintegrated another attacker but not before it thrust its spear into Jacob’s windpipe.
Landon was already on his feet, aiming the Marlin lever-action and firing at the creatures until the 4-round clip went dry.
But they kept coming.
He flipped the rifle around, and used it like a baseball bat; smashing one in the face, and cracking another across the skull, sending them both to the ground.
He counted maybe seven of them, forming a circle around him.
Landon drew his high-caliber revolver and started to pivot slowly, picking off one creature at a time as if he were performing a bizarre target practice.
Two of them came up from behind and thrust their spears into Landon’s back. He spun around, pulling one spear out of his flesh, the other breaking off and still stuck in the wound. He fired off two shots, killing each of his attackers.
A spear flew over the campfire and lodged in Landon’s shoulder. He grabbed the shaft and yanked it out. Another spear struck his thigh. He leaned down and managed to pull that one out. Rocks began to hail in his direction.
He fell to one knee and grabbed a fistful of cartridges out of his coat pocket. He pushed the extractor lever and rolled out the cylinder. He dumped out the spent shells onto the ground, and started pressing fresh bullets into the cylinder.
Another humanoid came at him.
With only two bullets in, Landon flipped the cylinder closed, and fired both shots into the pigmy ghoul’s chest. He staggered to his feet, stumbled over and braced against a tree trunk to reload his gun.
He glanced up, expecting at any second to be stabbed or pummeled with a rock then realized that he was no longer of prime interest as there was more of them milled around Jacob’s body.
Landon watched in horror as they gathered up his brother and carted him away.
***
It took ten of them to carry the big man through the forest. Once they arrived at the gaping hole in the ground, they commenced stripping the clothing from the body, slashing through the garments an
d flesh with their sharp weapons and tearing away the shreds with their vicious hands.
Picking up their prey, they positioned the head over the hole then shoved the naked body down into the boneyard pit thirty feet below where it landed with a loud, sickening, bone-splintering crunch.
One by one, the pygmy ghouls descended the stone steps into their lair where a hundred or more creatures were already waiting to start their nighttime feast.
43
The morning sun glared down through the opening in the rotted roof and shined down into Micah’s face, waking him up. He sat up and slid his good leg over the side of the bunk and placed his barefoot on the floorboard. Wearing only a ratty pair of shorts, he reached over and inserted his stump into the peg leg and fastened the strap around his waist.
He stood up and lightly tapped the bottom of the artificial limb to ensure that his stump had a comfortable fit.
The sound woke up Ethan, who was lying on the stiff floor. He started to get up but immediately decided against any sudden moves and lay back down. “I swear, my head’s about to come off.”
“It’ll pass,” Micah said. “You got any food?”
“You might find something in my bag,” Ethan said as he slowly sat up then gingerly got to his feet. That’s when he realized that he must have passed out the night before because he was still in his clothes.
Micah rummaged through Ethan’s backpack and came up with a couple of biscuits wrapped in butcher paper. “Here, you go,” he said, handing a roll to Ethan. “This should soak up some of that booze.”
“Much obliged,” Ethan said, thanking Micah for a biscuit that was rightfully his.
After they had forced down the dry, stale dinner rolls and drank some water from Ethan’s canteen, Micah finished getting dressed and put on his boot. They collected their rifles and side arms and went outside.
Micah led the way around the side of the cabin to a pathway that stretched into the trees. They hadn’t gone far when they reached a large entrance to a cave. The opening was around twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high.
As Micah and Ethan walked in, they could hear the dripping and feel the chill associated with a wet cave. Turquoise phosphorus lichen glistened on the limestone interior walls.
Fifty feet in, they came upon a subterranean aquifer and an abandoned bootleg distillery operation set up on a granite bank. Goose-necked and long lengths of copper piping—longed turned green from age—were still connected to a five rusted derelict boilers.
There were 50-gallon barrels lined up against a curved wall, others stacked on top of each other, maybe a hundred casks altogether.
Metal flecks drifted in the underground pool beneath the scummy, viscous surface. A heavy cloying stink permeated the dank air—a mix of decay, rust, and high-octane alcohol.
“Looks like your folks ran a pretty big operation here,” Ethan said.
“No, they only had one still,” Micah said. “This belonged to someone else.”
“You don’t think they were the owners?” Ethan pointed over to the corpses lying next to one of the boilers.
There were four bodies. They were mere skeletons under the rotted clothes and appeared to have been there for decades.
“They must have had a grievance,” Micah said.
“Looks like there were no winners.” Ethan wandered over to one of the copper boilers, the base sitting on top of a slate kiln. He gazed at the copper piping connected to the other boilers, trying to make sense of the process. “So how does this work?”
“It’s simple enough. Grind up some cornmeal and boil it up. Let it cool then throw in some sugar, add the yeast. Then let it sit for a few days to ferment into sour mash. Then you cook it up until it steams through those coils,” Micah said, pointing at the copper tubing attached to the tops of the boilers. “It travels down those pipes and out comes your liquid moonshine.”
“How dangerous was it, making moonshine?” Ethan asked.
“You mean, could you blow yourself up? You bet.”
44
Mason waded through the ground fog looking for any signs of tracks, but it was useless as most of the time he couldn’t even see his boots.
“Anything?” Clay asked.
“I can’t see a damn thing.”
Mia looked around at the morning mist that covered the forest floor, obscuring the trees off in the distance.
Alden ambled up to the front of the line and went ahead of Mason. The bigfoot didn’t look back, just kept shambling into the dense, waist-high mist.
“Looks like Alden’s picked up a scent,” Clay said.
“Or he’s just taking a walk in the woods,” Mason said.
“Either way, we better not lose him.” Mia hurried after Alden.
“Yeah, she’s right. Be easy in this pea soup.”
Mason and Clay jogged after Mia until they caught up to Alden—and luckily, they had picked up the pace—as now the bigfoot was lengthening his stride and gliding through the ground fog with a purpose.
***
They were lying on the ground, gazing down a declivity that stretched down into a vale of brushwood where a clan of gray-haired bigfoot were foraging berries and fruit blossoms.
“I count twenty,” Clay said.
“Twenty-one,” Mason corrected. “There’s another one by that tree stump.”
“You’re right. I see it now.”
Alden lay anxiously next to Mia.
“Are they your family?” Mia asked the bigfoot, using their hand language.
Alden replied that he was unsure.
“What did he say?” Clay asked Mia.
“He doesn’t know.”
“Hey, look over there,” Mason said, pointing a fair distance away where three other bigfoot were scrunched behind a hedge.
“It’s the black and brown,” Clay said. “The ones we’ve been after.”
“There’s the female,” Mia said, spotting the smaller, gray-furred bigfoot sitting on the ground with a tiny blond head tucked in the crook of her massive arm.
“I see Casey.”
“We need to go down there and get him,” Clay said.
“But how? We charge down there, the female will run off, and the others will attack us. Not to mention that group over there,” Mia said, tilting her head in the direction of the gray tribe.
“Why do you think those three are keeping to themselves?” Clay asked.
“Maybe they don’t get along with the others,” Mason replied.
“You don’t think the female is an outcast, and she joined up with those other two?”
“Could be they’re all outcasts which might explain why they came down off the mountain,” Mia said.
“Well, if we’re going to get your boy, we’re going to need a plan,” Mason said.
Mia and Clay nodded in agreement.
The three had been so engrossed talking and spying on the bigfoot they never realized Alden had slipped away until they looked over and saw that he was gone.
45
The first thing Ethan and Micah noticed when they returned to the cabin was the trail of blood on the dirt leading up the porch and under the closed door.
“Looks like we might have company,” Micah said, cocking his Schofield.
Ethan drew his forty-five. He approached the door and nudged it open with his boot. As soon as Blu peered through the doorway, his hackles shot up.
They stepped inside and found a man slumped on the bunk with his back up against the wall. His jacket and pants were covered in blood. A rifle was lying on the mattress next to his right hand.
“Landon?” Ethan said, recognizing one of the Payne brothers.
“Ethan, what the hell you doing here?”
“That’s a question for you,” Micah said, pointing his revolver at the man bleeding all over his bed.
“We’ve been hunting whoever killed my brother.”
“That would be James, I gather,” Ethan said.
“Yeah, how’d you kno
w?”
“We were passing by your field when we found him. We thought it only fitting to wrap him up and put him in the cave.”
“You did that?”
“That’s right. We’ve been after some bigfoot that stole my nephew’s baby boy.”
“Strange, we found a dead baby bigfoot out in the field,” Landon said.
“Well, don’t that beat all,” Micah said. “Swapped one for the other.”
“So what happened to you?” Ethan asked.
“Jacob and I got ambushed by these…things. Hell, I don’t know what they were. Looked like little demons. Weren’t more than three feet tall. They killed Jacob and hauled away his body. They got me pretty good.”
“Sounds like you had a run-in with the little people,” Micah said.
“Whoa,” Ethan said. “I thought you said that was only a legend.”
“Did I? Well, I guess I was mistaken. They’re real, all right. Why do you think I moved away from this part of the mountain?”
“So it was only the two of you?” Ethan asked Landon.
“No. We got split up. I have no idea where Mason is.”
“Mason! I heard someone yell out that name before some yahoos started shooting up my place then burned me out. That was you?” Micah aimed his gun at Landon, just as the other man reached for his rifle.
“Hey, hey,” Ethan shouted, standing in the middle of the two quarreling men. “Shooting each other isn’t going to do us any good. Just put them down.”
Blu joined in and snarled, sensing the men’s anger.
The men kept eyeballing each other, but then they finally laid down their weapons.
“Good.” Ethan stepped back and Blu quieted down. He looked at Landon. “So, when was the last time you saw your brother?”
“When we came across a couple of backpacks and I sent him off to track down the owners.”
“That would have been my nephew and his wife. What was he going to do when he found them?”
Landon didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
The Beasts Of Stoneclad Mountain Page 12