The Frank Peretti Collection: The Oath, the Visitation, and Monster

by Frank E. Peretti

  “No, no, now listen, I said I didn’t want to get sucked into it!”

  Nick Claybuckle was enjoying a relaxing jog around Manitow Park. He passed the big duck pond and the geometric rose gardens, pounded over the beautiful stone bridge and under the spreading maple trees—

  Until he was overtaken by another jogger who could outrun him. “You heard me, kid! Pull over!”

  “Doc, somebody’s gonna see us talking!”

  “Not if you get off the road,” said Cap. He pointed. “How about in there? Nice benches, lots of hedges, nice and private.”

  Nick was huffing and puffing anyway, carrying too much extra poundage to get away. He hung a right and they ducked into a pleasant grove, sending a brown squirrel darting up a tree. Nick collapsed onto an ornate concrete bench with a brass plaque commemorating the donor. He was soaked with sweat and his glasses were foggy.

  Cap sat down next to him, not even breathing hard. “Nick, my needs are very simple,” Cap began. “We all know Burkhardt’s been shifting his operation off campus for years, and now he’s moved off campus altogether. I need to know where he went. I need to find him and his lab.”

  Nick gasped a few breaths and then answered, “Dr. Capella, you’re one of the main reasons he moved!”

  “Nick . . .”

  “They’re going to know I told you!”

  Cap nudged him. “You said your department’s having to cut back. Where’s the money going?”

  “Now, how would I know that?”

  Cap hooked a finger under Nick’s chin and forced him to meet his eyes. “Let me tell you about my ape. Remember him, the one who’s ticked off about something? He’s been killing people, Nick. He’s been breaking their necks.” Nick tried to look away. Cap used his whole hand to hold his attention. “He’s killed a trail guide, a logger, the Whitcomb County sheriff, and now . . .” Cap came closer, nose to nose. “He’s killed Beck Shelton, a close friend of mine—lots of bites, lots of blood, ripping, tearing, the whole nine yards. So, Nick, you have to understand, now I am ticked off. I am not a patient man!”

  Nick’s face went white; he was paying attention now. Cap let him go. A question began to form—

  Cap intercepted it. “Chimpanzees, Nick, maybe as many as four, spliced so full of human DNA they’re a patchwork quilt. Now, how do you suppose that happened?”

  “The Judy Lab said it was contamination—”

  “It was put there using viral transfers. That means human intervention, which means somebody’s responsible, which means somebody’s going to be in big trouble when the law sorts this all out. So who are you more afraid of?”

  Nick stared, struggling to process it all.

  “Where’s the money going? Is Merrill diverting funds?”

  Nick thought it over one more second, then gave in, nodding yes. “I checked on it. The college budget’s gone up the last ten years, not down, but all the departments are being cut back, including the York Center. Merrill’s got some kind of pet project going.”

  “With Burkhardt?” Nick hesitated and Cap nudged him again. “With Burkhardt?”

  “That’s the talk on the inside. Merrill’s hoping for a big payoff to make it all legit. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the big people hovering around with grant money—”

  “Like Euro-Atlantic Oil and the Carlisle Foundation.”

  “Yeah. And Mort Fernan.”

  Cap hadn’t seen that name in his research. “The guy who owns the Evolution Channel?”

  “Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Whatever Burkhardt’s working on, Fernan wants first dibs to put it on TV.” He sniffed a bitter chuckle. “Must be pretty sexy stuff, a whole lot more exciting than inequity aversion in capuchins. But it’s a gamble. The investors are holding back until they see results.”

  Cap nodded to himself. Results. There was that word again. “No results, no money.”

  “And Merrill will have some explaining to do.”

  “Incorrect results, no money,” Cap mused.

  “Same thing.”

  “So what about the chimpanzees being shipped off campus? Any truth to that?”

  Nick nodded. “The York Center’s turning away research proposals— which means we’re turning away money—because we don’t have new chimps. We have the old standbys, but they’re getting too aggressive to be useful, and we’re short on younger males.”

  “What about the females?”

  “They’re getting old too, and we don’t have younger ones to replace them. The young ones get shipped out as soon as they’re old enough to breed. Orders from Merrill’s office.”

  “Where do they go?”

  “Somewhere in Idaho. A place called Three Rivers.”

  That turned Cap’s head. “Say again?”

  Sing kept raking, loosening up the sand by the creek bank, cleaning out rocks and twigs that could prevent a clear footprint. Reed brought a gunnysack into the center of the tilled area and began setting apples, pears, and bananas on a short, sun-bleached log. Pete remained outside the circle, studying a map in the ebbing light.

  “It’s the right place,” Reed assured him.

  “Only if they come here,” Pete answered, orienting the map to the surroundings. “They’ve got plenty of choices which way to go.”

  “But the food is here,” said Reed, “alongside the same creek bed, and just a little farther south. If nothing else, Jimmy’s hunters will drive them this way.”

  “We may have been driving them this way all along.”

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking. If they were living in the forest around Abney all this time, why else would they move?”

  “Then again, if they were living around Abney all this time, why haven’t they attacked anyone before?”

  Sing looked up from her raking. “I keep hearing the word ‘they.’”

  Pete grabbed up a second rake and directed a buddy’s look at Reed. “It’ll be ‘they’ as long as Reed wants it to be.”

  Sing smiled her gratitude at Pete.

  “It won’t be very long,” said Reed, setting a few last items on the log. “I know this whole idea’s ridiculous, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “Maybe just half ridiculous,” Pete replied thoughtfully. “Look at it this way: Arlen and Fleming don’t even know we’re doing this, so if we get something this time . . .” He could only shake his head after that.

  “It’s either this or give up,” said Sing. “So if you don’t go through with it, I will.”

  “You write Beck a note?” Pete asked to make sure.

  “I explained everything,” Reed answered, taking long strides out of the circle, leaving a minimum of footprints for Pete to rake out.

  Pete raked them all out, and then they stood there, gazing across a small circle of clear, carefully raked sand at what Reed had designated the Last-Ditch Attempt. It would be dark before they could make it back to Pete’s truck, but they found it hard to leave.

  “And I told her I loved her,” Reed added. His gaze moved between his two friends. “Would you guys mind . . . praying with me? It would put my mind at ease.”

  Sing and Pete both nodded their consent. Reed put his arms around his two friends’ shoulders and spoke softly. “God, wherever Beck is, we know she’s in Your hands. Hold her tight for me, will you? Keep her safe and bring her home soon. And . . . that’s about it. Amen.”

  “We’d best get back,” said Pete, and they grabbed up their gear.

  Thirteen

  Deputy Dave Saunders had spent Thursday evening on the phone, recalling any Search and Rescue volunteers he could find—four were ready, willing, available, and armed. Then he’d hunted around for metal detectors—two he borrowed from some hobbyist friends, one he rented, and one he bought with his own money. At first light Friday morning, he and his crew were at the cabin on Lost Creek. They would test Sing’s theory by searching for something that was not necessarily there to be found.

  “If you see, hear, or smell any bel
ligerent creature in the area, I don’t care if it’s a bear or a Bigfoot or a raccoon on steroids, you get out of there,” he told the faithful four. “If you find the shovel, then get on the radio and we’ll all converge on the area. If there’s a shovel, then chances are there’s a grave, and that’s what we’re after. Any questions?”

  The housewife, the fireman, the heavy equipment operator, and the machinist all looked back at him, silent.

  “Okay, then, you know your quadrants. We’ll take a snack break about ten. Let’s go.”

  Cap drove east from Spokane. He planned to cut through Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and then south into the timberlands. A highway map rested on the seat beside him, his destination represented by a small open dot.

  “Three Rivers,” he said into his cell phone. “I about fell off the bench when Nick said that. That’s close to where Allen Arnold was killed, am I right?”

  Sing replied, “Cap, I think you’re heading into trouble.”

  “I remember Burkhardt talking about a vacation cabin in Idaho, and now Nick says the chimps are being sent to Three Rivers, right where all this trouble began, if the pattern means anything.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. I’d say call the police, but . . .”

  “But what would we tell them?”

  “Well, get something to tell them and then tell them!”

  “Exactly my intentions.”

  “But tell me first—and be careful.”

  “Say hi to Reed.”

  Sing closed her cell phone and redirected her attention to the dozen camouflaged, rifle-toting hunters now gathered beside the mobile lab, planning, discussing, debating. Max Johnson, Steve Thorne, and Sam Marlowe were telling stories and expressing opinions about today’s plan of action; Wiley Kane was having a smoke; Janson was repacking a backpack.

  Jimmy and some forest rangers huddled around a map, pointing and muttering: “Set out bait here and here, but you can’t have human presence pressuring from above,” Jimmy said.

  “How about a triangle? Just keep these guys in a triangle and make one big sweep,” one offered.

  “Dogs’ll take care of that, really, if you want to wait,” said a second.

  Sing reached inside the motor home and brought out some briefcase-sized storage cases. “Here are the GPS units.”

  Jimmy was elated. “All right. I’ll hand them out. Want to take the central command like yesterday?” He opened the first case and pulled out one of the units.

  “I’ll be here.”

  “Great. Now I need to know where Reed and Pete are.”

  Sing pressed through the huddle so she could see the map. She found the site of the Last-Ditch Attempt, along the same creek bed as the Fleming Cryncovich site, two miles south. “They’re hiking back in there to look for any sign.”

  “Big footprints, I suppose?” Jimmy teased.

  She only smiled. “We’ll take anything we can get.”

  He gave her an encouraging pat on the back. Sing received it as such and stepped up into the motor home, settling in front of the computer.

  “Okay, guys,” she heard Jimmy saying, “here’s the plan. Max and Janson, we’ll start you guys up where Reed found that shred of jacket. You’ll bait the area and then wait; you know the drill. Wiley and Thorne, I want you farther south, and take a look at the map here: Henderson and Shelton are in that area, so let’s make sure we make contact with them and don’t cross purposes; catch my drift?”

  Jimmy’s banter faded from Sing’s awareness as she studied the computer screen, scrolling it south to reveal the terrain around the Last-Ditch Attempt. The map was clean—no activity.

  “Hey, Sing?” Jimmy called. “We’re short a GPS.”

  She called out the door, “Reed and Pete took it.”

  Reed and Pete were armed and cautious, working their way into the forest along a game trail that only the deer and elk used. There were no human trails here, no hikers, no trailside latrines, just thick, leafy forest and sun-starved undergrowth that swished and crackled despite their best efforts to keep quiet.

  Pete led the way, setting his own pace, thinking, watching, moving stealthily, like an animal.

  Reed’s watch told him it was time to call in. He put a small handheld radio to his jaw and whispered, “Sing, we’re halfway in.”

  Her voice came back, “Roger that. Jimmy’s guys are moving in. Thorne and Kane are taking the south flank. They know where you’ll be.”

  Leah sat on her haunches amid the Rocky Mountain Maples and wild roses, eyes half open as if she cared little about anything beyond her immediate, sweet little world, moaning and humming a song of pleasure.

  Immediately behind her, Rachel hummed and grunted, busily, meticulously running her fingers through Leah’s hair, making Sasquatch improvements in the grooming Beck had performed just the day before.

  Immediately behind Rachel, Beck guided her brush carefully, maintaining the beauty of Rachel’s full-body coiffure and humming quietly, constantly gauging how her behavior was being received and passed on.

  The arrangement had fallen together spontaneously, like the revival of a forgotten routine. Rachel, as if desiring reconciliation, offered to groom Leah. Leah, having been groomed by the lowest member of the group, now seemed to find grooming from a slightly higher member acceptable, and allowed it. Beck, seeing a chance for just one more measure of acceptance—and possible influence—joined the party, and so it happened. She wasn’t humming out of joy or pleasure, but to keep things calm and to keep appeasement flowing. This was a whole new social development, as precarious as a cease-fire between two mortal enemies, and she feared one wrong move could break the spell.

  Either that, or one jealous little Sasquatch, obsessed with an ape’s version of sibling rivalry. As Beck brushed, she kept a watchful eye on Reuben, fully expecting him to do something; she didn’t know what. Right now he was sitting at a distance, his shoulder against a tree, contemplating his fingernails—a behavior he may have learned from his mother in a similar situation. Beck couldn’t be sure just what it meant. He might be pouting or trying to act indifferent. Then again, he could be acting indifferent while plotting a vicious and wicked act. He was a wild card in this game.

  He looked up, met Beck’s eyes, and held the gaze—in this context, a challenge.

  Leah gave a quiet, corrective grunt, and he looked down at his fingernails again.

  Okay, Beck thought. I just have to keep his momma on my side.

  As for Jacob, Beck didn’t expect him to warm to her. He was a protector and provider, but every bit a beast, a cold and savage ruler. Even the gentle side she may have seen when Leah groomed him seemed a thin facade in light of the beating he gave Rachel and the brutal bite marks on his two women. The only reason Beck was a part of this grooming chain was because he wasn’t around to render an opinion about it. If and when he ever showed up—

  Suddenly the bushes quaked. Jacob was returning. Beck bolted away from the two females and hobbled to her spot in the pine grove, pocketing the hairbrush and plopping down, trying to appear passive.

  Reuben was on his feet instantly, like a dog whose master had returned.

  The two females rose at the same time, looked into the forest, and then flopped down to their hands and knees in formal greeting.

  Beck got on her hands and knees as well, not wanting to challenge the patience of the king who now emerged through the trees, light and shadow, light and shadow blinking on his face and chest as he walked. He was clutching something against his stomach with his hands and arms.

  Beck knew right away that he’d found more fruit, which brought a volley of questions to mind: Was it a farm, an orchard, or another baiting site? Were there humans around? Lastly, Will I get any to eat?

  Jacob came to a small gap in the trees, sank to his knees, and let the fruit tumble to the ground. The selection was suspiciously familiar: apples, pears, and bananas.

  Another baiting site, Beck thought.

  Reed knel
t in the sand, staring, at a loss for words except to say, “I don’t know what to feel.”

  Pete was beside him, studying the huge footprints and needing a little time to become a believer again. “I’ve had my head turned around so many times it’s about to come unscrewed.” The similarity to recent horrors struck him. “Sorry.”

  “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  Pete studied the tracks where they approached and then returned in a beeline across the creek bed. “It’s him. Old alpha male, Mr. Scarfoot. He’s still out there, like it or not.”

  “So Fleming’s footprints weren’t a hoax after all.”

  Pete didn’t answer that but stood, scanning the area. “He took the bait, every piece of it.”

  Reed searched carefully around the perimeter of the raked ground. “Every piece?”

  Beck held back, waiting to see what the rules might be this time around. Surprisingly, Leah and Rachel approached the fruit almost together, Leah first, but Rachel only a few steps behind. While Jacob sat back and watched without comment, Leah took an apple and allowed Rachel to take one after her. She didn’t seem to mind Rachel sharing in the fruit as long as Leah chose first.

  Reuben sidled up to his mother in his usual way and helped himself.

  My turn? Beck wondered.

  She waited, watching Jacob. He did not look at her, which could have meant a lingering hatred, prideful rejection, or total indifference. She tried to read his body language for any clues as to which it was, but she couldn’t be sure.

  She waited for Rachel to invite her, and after Rachel had downed two apples with the group’s indulgence, she looked at Beck and pig grunted a call to supper.