The Beast of Barcroft

by Bill Schweigart

  “You’re in my daughter’s house. I don’t answer to you.”

  “Look…I saw the cat in the window. I thought it was trapped and I just came in to set it free. That’s all.”

  “The cat.”

  “Why else would I be here?”

  “I don’t understand why any of you did what you did to Madeleine.”

  “I didn’t do shit to her. Turn on the lights.”

  “No electricity.” Again, the smile. It gave him the shivers.

  He shone the flashlight quickly around the basement again. Most of the rats didn’t even bother to flee it now. He was the intruder. The makeshift fire pit in the center of the basement drew his beam for a second, but he could not afford to let it linger. He pointed it back up the stairs.

  As soon as she backed away from the rectangle at the top of the steps, she would be out of sight. She could be around any corner then. He hated it, but the best way to keep a knife out of his neck was to get her into the basement with him, where he could see her.

  “All right. Come down.”

  “You come up.”

  “I don’t trust you, you don’t trust me. One thing you can trust is that I want out of this dungeon.”

  “I’m not taking a step with that light in my eyes.”

  It seemed a fair concession. He trained the beam at her center mass instead of her face.

  She walked down the stairs, knife at her side. He kept the beam trained on it as he moved deeper into the dark interior of the basement. He backed to the rim of the fire pit, making room for her. When she reached the bottom, where he had landed in a heap, he backed in a semicircle around the pit, putting it between the two of them.

  They were level now and he studied her more closely. He had expected a crone. Bent fingers with talonlike hands, no teeth, warts on the nose…yet beneath the strange garb, she appeared normal. Jeans and sneakers. From glances at the parts of her face not hidden by the shadow of the hat’s brim, she appeared middle-aged, no more than fifty. She even looked familiar. No flying monkeys, no bubbling cauldron. Just rats and a fire pit, he thought. Close enough.

  “I’ve seen you before,” Ben said. “You were at the last couple of community meetings, weren’t you?”

  Silence.

  “How long have you been here?”

  He dropped the beam onto the fire pit for a moment. The light revealed photographs and what appeared to be figurines—wooden carvings—scattered around its rim. He could not make them out, but he could not afford to dwell on them.

  “What’s all this?”

  “I’m in mourning, asshole.”

  He swept the beam over her attire. “Interesting way of doing it.”

  “I don’t have to explain my ceremonies to you.”

  “You do when the ceremony includes pushing me down a flight of stairs.”

  “I didn’t touch you, jumpy boy.” She lifted the knife slowly, pointing it at him. Her eyes were hard and shone like diamonds. “Besides, that’s the least of your worries right now.”

  She mentioned a dog, he thought.

  “Come on.” He beckoned her closer. “Ring around the rosie. Nice and slow.”

  “Why should I do what you ask?”

  “Fine. Call 911 and report me for trespassing. We can wait together or you can save us both the headache.”

  She snorted, but she followed, and together they encircled the pit, reversing positions. The rectangle of light at the top of the stairs was still faint, but brighter. He felt the stirrings of hope when something brushed against his leg. Without thinking, he jumped to the side and shone the light at the spot.

  It was the cat. In its mouth was a dead rat, half its size. Gooseflesh erupted on his skin.

  Laughter floated at him from the other side of the pit. “You wanted him, jumpy boy.”

  He stomped his foot and the cat darted up the stairs, taking its prize with him. He started after it.

  “Fine,” she called after him. “ ‘Set it free.’ Take it. You think it’ll make a difference?”

  “It’s better off out there than in here.”

  “Not with the cat, jumpy boy. With you.” She showed him her teeth again in a leer. Again, the smile. Again, it filled him with dread.

  He shone the light into her eyes again as he mounted the steps. She blocked the light with her forearm.

  “You think it’ll show you any mercy? A small kindness for a small kindness?” She laughed bitterly. “Maybe it’ll save you for last.”

  He bounded for the rectangle of light.

  “Have a nice day,” he called over his shoulder.

  Chapter 9

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

  The slide projected on the auditorium’s screen was an artist’s depiction of a wolf on its hind legs, its forelegs embracing a woman’s waist. They were flanked by two men in tricornes, one with a musket, the other a spear. The wolf’s teeth were bared and its tongue protruded from its mouth as if mocking the woman’s defenders. In the background, villagers ran terrified across the countryside as another wolf disemboweled a second woman.

  “So, in a three-year period, this beast—or beasts—reportedly racked up over two hundred attacks, with over one hundred kills,” said Richard Severance. “Pretty impressive stats, really.”

  The crowd laughed.

  As Lindsay slipped into the auditorium, the slide on the screen changed to an eighteenth-century engraving of another wolf. Severance saw her from the podium and smiled at her. It reminded her of the first wolf.

  She scanned the room; no one had noticed her enter. All eyes were riveted to the speaker. When they weren’t rapt, they were cracking up. She hated to admit it, but after last night, she thought, that is how you work a crowd.

  Severance stood at the podium in a gray suit and jacket with no tie. She imagined he was in his late forties, but with his sandy blond hair and impish grin, it was hard to pinpoint. He was an amateur cryptozoologist—Is there any other kind? thought Lindsay—but he held court at the National Zoo whenever he wasn’t traveling. He was beloved among the staff, even though no one particularly believed him. Friday was a training day for the new docents, who heard lectures on everything from safety policies to care of the animals, and Severance was the final speaker. It always amazed Lindsay that the zoo allowed him to present to those who would give guided tours, but the director loved him and he was a bit of harmless fun, and he held attention with ease. After a long day of administrative training, who would not want to cleanse the palate with a PowerPoint presentation on Bigfoot?

  It also did not hurt that he was a massive donor.

  “The precise death count is disputed,” continued Severance, “but we do know that this was no fairy tale. Many, many attacks occurred, and the creature in question caused so much hysteria in the Gévaudan province of France that it even drew the attention of this guy,” he said, and an image of a painting of a bewigged noble appeared on the screen, “my esteemed and distant relative, King Louis XV.”

  Severance offered his profile to the crowd, mimicking the king’s pose in the slide. He jutted his chin. The crowd laughed again.

  “Anyway, the countryside was in such an uproar that King Louis rolled off his mistresses long enough to dispatch professional wolf hunters to kill the Beast of Gévaudan. After months of killing wolves, the Lieutenant of the Hunt, François Antoine, killed a particularly large wolf and declared victory. Some of the locals who had seen the beast or survived attacks corroborated specific markings on its hide and the villagers celebrated. Antoine stuffed the beast and returned to Paris a conquering hero.”

  Severance tapped his pointer and the screen changed to another engraving of a stuffed wolf, regarded by a man in a tricorne, surrounded by a crowd of more men in long wigs and grandiloquent women.

  “Who here has seen Jaws?” asked Severance.

  All of the hands in the auditorium shot up.

  “This would be the part of the movie when they catch the smaller shark and reopen the be
aches.”

  The crowd murmured in anticipation.

  “Another beast attacks two children then goes on another year-and-a-half rampage. Finally, a local hunter, Jean Chastel, killed a second wolf. And legend has it that Chastel shot the beast with”—he reached into his breast pocket—“this.” He produced a small, shining object and held it aloft between his thumb and forefinger.

  “A silver bullet.”

  The crowd gasped.

  “Our beast—and a French author with a flair for the dramatic—is where that little bit of lore originated. I’m inclined to believe that it wasn’t so much the composition of the bullet as its velocity, but that’s just me.”

  He tossed it to an attractive young lady in the first row. She caught it.

  “See? Harmless. But killing this wolf finally seemed to do the trick. This beast allegedly had human remains in its stomach. Reports of attacks stopped. And nothing bad ever happened in France again.”

  Richard took a sip from a bottle of water and waited until the laughter died down.

  “To this day, no one knows for sure what the beast—or beasts—was. It has been described as resembling a bear, hyena, wolf, panther, and any combination thereof, and as large as a horse. A long snout like that of a wolf, pig, or greyhound is another common feature of most accounts, with a long tail that the creature could use as a weapon. And, of course, fearsome teeth.

  “The most widely accepted theory is that it was a pair of wolves or a pack of wolves. Other theories include mastiffs, boars, and hyenas. Theories also include hybrids, crosses between dogs or wolves. Even a mesonychid, a nasty prehistoric mammal the size of a horse, that didn’t get the memo that it was extinct. There are even more outlandish, supernatural theories involving a demon. And, of course, a werewolf. The point is, no one can be entirely certain, and that’s why these deaths are not known as ‘the Well-Documented and Empirically Proven French Wolf Attacks of the 1760s.’ It has become known as ‘the Beast of Gévaudan.’ It’s a legend. But make no mistake, it’s a legend that most definitely occurred.

  “You see, that’s what cryptozoology is all about. From the Greek kryptos, meaning ‘hidden,’ and zoology, the ‘study of animals.’ ” He spread his arms, gesturing at the assemblage. “I would never pretend to be a scientist or presume to tell you your business, but just as UFO means unidentified flying object and not alien spacecraft, cryptids are not always Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Cryptids are simply animals that haven’t been discovered yet…”

  He gestured to the screen, which displayed a bright green lizard with golden flecks.

  “Like the Varanus bitatawa here, the golden spotted monitor, recently discovered in the Philippines. A six-foot lizard, already well known to locals, but just discovered by scientists.”

  The screen flashed to a black-and-white photo of a fisherman holding aloft a prehistoric fish.

  “Cryptids can be animals that have made a reappearance, like the coelacanth here, rediscovered in 1938 off the coast of South Africa when an ordinary angler caught it.”

  A mountain lion superimposed on a map of the northern United States appeared.

  “Cryptids can be animals way outside of their normal range. Like the unfortunate mountain lion from North Dakota who went on a walkabout only to get struck and killed by a car…in Connecticut.”

  He looked at Lindsay and raised an eyebrow.

  She smirked.

  “Cryptids live where the unreal meets the real. Where science shines a light into the dark corners of legend. Where folklore becomes fact. You want to know what I think the Beast of Gévaudan truly was? I don’t care. Sure, part of me desperately wants to know its true identity, but a larger part of me, the more romantic part, desperately does not. Our civilization has the ability to explore the deepest ocean trenches now. We can travel to the stars and back. With our ever-evolving technology, pushing farther and farther toward our frontiers is becoming easier and easier. And as we do, we will continue to have a rash of discoveries. Until we won’t. They’ll slow to a trickle, then dry up completely. Every legend will have been classified and categorized, demystified and defanged. The best we’ll be able to hope for…is a zoo.”

  The crowd groaned. He held up his hands. “Cheap shot, sorry. We share the same mission. Conservancy. But I’m an amateur. A dilettante. Hell, other cryptozoologists don’t even like me, but I ask you this: What brought you into this business? What sparked your imagination as a child? Did you hide under the covers as a kid, flashlight in hand, reading about the ‘leadership of winter mixed-species flocks’ in the International Journal of Zoology? Or was it closer to this?”

  The next slide was a painting of an enormous squid attacking a barque, its gigantic eyes staring wide, its tentacles curling around the masts up to the topsails.

  “I’m not preaching ignorance here.”

  Next, a picture of another giant squid wrapped around Jules Verne’s Nautilus.

  “It’s your business to know everything, and Lord knows, I support it.”

  A black-and-white photograph of a group of men standing on a beach, surrounding the remains of a giant squid. Its mantle was the size of a man.

  “I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but in our relentless drive forward, I’m saying sometimes a little mystery, a little romance, is good. It may just inspire the next great conservationist. Or at the very least, the next amateur cryptozoologist. For those of you not swayed by my presentation or dazzled by my charm, I’ll leave you with one last clip.”

  The screen turned black and a video came on. The footage came from a fishing boat. Excited Japanese voices shouted over one another in the background as a massive red shape could be seen undulating next to the boat, just below the surface. Tentacles coiled around the cable hauling it to the surface. A giant squid, alive, captured on video.

  “After the initial thrill of seeing this for the first time, do you want to know what I thought?”

  He tapped his pointer a final time and the giant screen went black.

  “I thought ‘one less sea monster.’ ”

  The crowd applauded. After he shook hands with the excited docents, Severance found Lindsay by the doors.

  “Lindsay Clark, I knew you couldn’t stay away.”

  “You make the most persuasive case for pseudoscience I’ve ever heard, Richard.”

  “If you only had an imagination, you’d be unstoppable.”

  “If you only had scientific rigor, you’d be a real zoologist.”

  He smiled. “Backhanded compliments I can take, but don’t call my rigor into question.”

  “Simmer down. I actually stopped by on business. I was at a community meeting in Arlington last night where someone reported a mountain lion attacking his dog.”

  “Arlington, Virginia?”

  “I went to the site—fur, prints—it’s the real deal. Puma concolor. And big.”

  “That’s fun.”

  “I don’t think fun is the word. It snapped a full-grown greyhound’s neck in a resident’s backyard and nearly came back for seconds on the guy.”

  “No, that’s really fun. Why are you telling me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I figured this might be another anecdote to spice up your campfire stories.”

  “Is the institution getting involved?”

  “Arlington hasn’t officially approached the Smithsonian yet, and knowing who is involved, I doubt they will. I’m on my way to talk to Curator Bankbridge.”

  “Well, all this is very fascinating. You and I should buckle down immediately over lunch and a few cocktails and discuss your…kitty.”

  “I don’t like empty calories.” She turned to walk away.

  “Hey,” he called after her.

  She awaited his next innuendo with a smirk.

  “Sample?”

  “Of course.”

  “May I?”

  She dug into her shoulder bag and handed over a clear plastic bag filled with tufts of hair.

&nbs
p; He studied it and frowned at her. “Lindsay, if I had feelings, they’d be hurt right now. You think I don’t know a hoax when I see one?”

  He tossed it back to her.

  “Nice try, Clark.”

  “What are you talking about?” She held the bag up to the light. Even jumbled together, there appeared to be two distinct fur samples, one shorter and flat, the other longer and coarser. They were both darker than mountain lion fur, darker than Ben’s description of his greyhound too.

  “Wait, this is a mistake.”

  “Yes, yours.” He turned on his heel.

  “Richard!” she called after him, then quieter, said, “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  He stopped and sighed. “Was it dark? Were there cocktails involved?”

  “Come on, I know Puma concolor fur when I see it, and Puma concolor was in here last night.”

  “Then someone is pranking you.”

  “No one even knows about this.”

  “I’d keep it that way. You’d hate to look like a pseudoscientist.”

  “Why would someone do that?” she said, more to herself.

  “Welcome to my world.”

  “Someone switching out my mountain lion sample and replacing it with two different fur samples? That’s ridiculous.”

  “More ridiculous than you being wrong, certainly.”

  “It was Puma concolor, I swear.”

  “Very fascinating, but I wouldn’t ask Bankbridge to commit zoo resources—and by extension my resources—until you get your ducks in a row.” He did an about-face and strolled back down the corridor. “Or in this case, your otters.”

  “What?”

  “Your sample. It’s not two animals, it’s one. Enhydra lutris.”

  “Sea otter?”

  “The longer hairs are the guard hairs, the shorter are the underfur.”

  “You can tell that just by looking?”

  “That’s me at half rigor. Au revoir.”

  Chapter 10

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14

  It was already dark when Ben pulled into his driveway after work and saw the rear half of his house awash in blue police lights. That would be impossible, he thought, unless cruisers had driven right into his backyard. He turned off his car and sat for a moment, regarding the lights, then Madeleine’s house. He had more to contend with than rats and bobcats now.