The Beast of Barcroft

by Bill Schweigart

  “Just because you were arrested doesn’t mean you should be bear food.”

  Despite herself, Lindsay laughed out loud.

  Chapter 29

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22

  It charged. Ben barely had time to register that the kushtaka had become a bear before it was upon them.

  “Shoot, shoot!” he finally yelled.

  A flash of light spit forth from Cushing’s rifle, and massive explosions, deafening in the narrow confines, rocked the gorge. The beast ignored it. It charged straight ahead. Straight for Ben. I have one chance, he thought. If that. He fumbled with the lighter and hair spray, but brought them together.

  The bear closed the distance between them before Cushing could get off another round. It moved faster than Ben could even move his fingers. It breached their tiny island in the middle of the stream. Ben felt the first droplets of water from the creature’s thundering approach kiss his face and smelled the thick, cloying scent of its fur. Then he felt the hot rot of its breath as it was upon him. He flicked the lighter and mashed the hair spray nozzle and braced for impact.

  A jet of flame and light gushed forth.

  For a moment, everything in their small canyon was illuminated. The dull gloss of the moss on the rocks, the glint of rusted beer cans embedded in the tiny lip of the shoreline, the tangle of roots creeping up the rocky face of the cliff wall. And the bear. The white of the beast’s fangs, the black of its gums. It was a pale, carroty color, several shades lighter than its scorching eyes. It resembled a polar bear to Ben, but smaller in stature. It looked as if it had been awakened abruptly near the end of its hibernation, all teeth and claw and loose flesh swinging at the underbelly. Both ravenous and furious. Its eyes bored into Ben just as the tip of his flame licked its fur. The beast fell backward as if it had run into a wall.

  It tumbled off the island and splashed back into the water. When it righted itself it roared, a sound louder and more terrifying than Cushing’s rifle. Ben’s makeshift torch sputtered as he took his finger off the nozzle, the bear out of his range.

  “Don’t stop!” yelled Cushing. She advanced to the edge, firing more rounds into the mass. Even in the darkness, Ben saw the creature roll into a tight ball. It spun around in the water, dousing the tiny fires that had erupted on its hide. It spun and spun, retreating into itself. He could no longer see the head or the paws. It was just a breathing, writhing mass, tawny and black where the flames had consumed its fur.

  The beast came to rest finally, a huddled mound in the stream.

  “Wait,” said Ben.

  Its flesh began to ripple.

  Deep inside the mass, Ben heard the muddled sounds of bones grinding, punctuated by sickening pops and cracks. He listened to the beast’s internal gears falling into place, and Ben’s runaway brain, desperate for context, thought of the movies about giant robots turning themselves into cars and planes. Yet these gears were bones and cartilage and muscle and their shuffling was a wet, grotesque sound, a sodden mop smacking a dirty floor. It turned his stomach, but he could not look away. Its surface shivered and buckled as its insides shifted, rearranging itself into the next horror. Ben wondered vaguely how much more his mind could take, but he was rooted to the spot, mesmerized.

  Cushing moved to the edge of the island, her weapon at the low ready, peering just over her front sight. The beast was still, a foul mass in the middle of the stream.

  “Is it dead?” she asked.

  Ben stared at a patch of skin on the creature, leathery where his torch had done its gruesome work. The flesh rippled.

  “Get ba—”

  The beast exploded outward. One moment Ben’s eyes were locked on the still mound of the creature, Cushing in the foreground, the vanguard of their little patch of land. The next he heard himself grunt, flat on his back. He saw bright stars in the crisp sky, framed by the black walls of the canyon. He shook his head. Cushing was off to the side and behind him, facedown. Out cold. He instinctively looked to her hands—empty, the sling severed, the rifle gone. His lighter and the hair spray can were gone too. He felt a gash across his forehead. He wiped his brow and his hand came back wet.

  He looked to where the mass had been.

  Slowly, languorously, the beast unfurled itself.

  It towered over Ben. It rose up on two legs and Ben had a feeling of déjà vu. It was thinner now than when it had been a bear, but much taller, as it seemed to have taken all of its flesh and lengthened it, expanded it, stretched it, all the way to its snout, which now had the length of a horse’s muzzle. It had a powerful chest and sinewy arms ending in claws, and a long torso that tapered down to smaller, bent legs that were tipped by hooves. It had gained width as well, Ben thought, expanding in every direction, until he realized it was unfolding a set of monstrous wings. Leathery, membranous, like those of a bat.

  It was then that Ben knew precisely what he was looking at.

  Artists’ depictions and pictures of old woodcuts had always made it look silly to Ben, ungainly and not at all threatening. A hodgepodge of other lore—cloven hooves, dragon’s wings, a horse’s head. It never had teeth, metaphorical or otherwise. It was laughable. But this chimera was not laughable. Its long maw dripped with teeth. It gazed at him with eyes the color of burning coals, two orange pinpoints blazing out of a mass that just kept expanding, filling the canyon, blotting the moon and stars. Growing into how he always saw it in his nightmares—wiry and looming and all-powerful—ever since the night of his father’s first telling out there in the woods, where their campfire’s light cast dancing shadows and folklore waited just beyond the tree line. His head swam, unmoored.

  God help me, it’s real.

  The Jersey Devil threw its head back and roared and Ben waited for death.

  Even so, by instinct, he rolled to one side. There was nothing to do at this point but present as small a target as possible. Like how on the nature shows they said to ball up into the fetal position during a bear attack. Protect your head and neck and hope for the best. Maybe the bear will get bored and amble off. Only this wasn’t a bear anymore. It had raided his mind and pulled out the great terror of his boyhood and it would never get bored.

  As he rolled, something stung his thigh. A needle prick, but it burned. Stung and burned hot enough that he dug into his pocket even as the devil shrieked and prepared to pounce. His keys. He thought to splay them between his fingers, maybe take out one of its damned eyes. To go out dealing some punishment, however futile. Make the fucker earn it. Earn him. With one hand cradling his neck, the other fumbled in his pocket for the keys. But there were no keys.

  Instead he pulled out his father’s badge.

  No.

  It was hopeless. He was terrified, trembling with fear, but beneath that, there was something harder, darker. Anger. No, rage. He was furious. Furious at the world, furious with this thing, but mostly furious with himself. Furious that he had let everyone down. His neighbors, all hunted and dead. Cushing beside him, doomed. Lindsay, betrayed. He had pushed Rachel away, pushed everyone away one way or another. Even Madeleine too. Maybe there had been a chance to help her once, but he had been too furious to see it. He waited for his life to flash before his eyes, but he was just too furious. Furious that he had lived alone, and now he would die that way. He screamed himself hoarse, as much out of rage and frustration and indignation as fear. He balled up again and squeezed the badge so tightly that he felt his own heartbeat in the throb of his fingers and palm.

  But that did not explain the heat. The metal burned in his hand.

  The badge radiated heat. Warmth. Had he pricked himself, he wondered? Blood? He did not realize how cold he had been the past few hours until he clutched the badge. He had been chilled to the bone—to the soul—and a wet, metal badge should not warm his hand. Not on such a cold night. Not in a stream bed cut deep into the earth. Yet it did. The badge grew hotter and hotter and the warmth spread up his arm and throughout his body, like a drug. And then he realized it was not
his own heartbeat throbbing in his fingers. It was the badge. It pulsed. The copper shield vibrated in his palm, hot to the touch.

  “Dad?”

  Of course. Cop. Copper. From the copper stars of old. The badge must have been made of it.

  He remembered Cushing then. The devil breached the island and lurched toward her.

  Ben found his feet.

  He threw himself between the devil and the unconscious officer. He planted his feet and he flung the hand with the badge over his head. In that moment, all of the despair fell away. His limbs flooded with adrenaline or something like it, something unspeakably powerful. He felt fortified. Reinforced. His hand raised, clutching a thunderbolt, Zeus’s hand on his shoulder.

  It knocked the devil off its hooves.

  The devil landed in the water, flung clear of the island. Farther back than when the fire touched it. Ben thought he had seen a flash of light, but he no longer fully trusted his vision and he did not have the luxury of time to ponder it—the devil righted itself onto all fours. It advanced again, roaring, but Ben held the badge aloft between them. The devil was shunted away again like an opposing magnet; he felt the resistance of it in his hand. The devil feinted left and right, grunting, its wings blown back like streamers in a hurricane, but Ben held his ground. The badge beat in his hand, heat radiating throughout his arm, his body, his heart. He felt like great glaciers cracked inside his chest and fell into warming waters. He gripped it tighter.

  The devil grew more frenzied. It pushed its long muzzle at him, at Cushing, but Ben countered with the badge at every lunge. When it got too close, its features ran or were shunted, like modeling clay smashed against stone.

  It may as well have been battling a microburst. Its long, fearsome head, overcrowded with teeth, and its wide chest and massive wings, all topping hooved legs, were perfectly suited to instill fear, but it fought to find purchase in the wet, slippery stream bed. It was an ungainly creature. Stymied, the devil backed a few feet, snorting, its chest heaving. It watched the badge and burned with hatred.

  The devil crouched and gathered its battered wings.

  Ben readied for it to spring into the air. Its wings flashed skyward, its body set to follow. Then it screeched. He had heard all manner of animal screams from this creature, but this was a new sound: fear. It thrashed its wings, but they were too frenzied and disorganized now to carry it into the air. The devil spun.

  Lindsay grasped something long and thin that pierced the devil’s back, just below its wings. When the devil spun, she spun with it, holding on for all she was worth, driving forward when both feet were able to touch the ground. It was black with a handle. Ben squinted. A fireplace poker. He watched her struggle mightily for a moment, trying to run the kushtaka through. Ben charged into the water.

  “Brace yourself!” he yelled.

  He ran toward her, keeping the devil directly in front of him. The farther Ben advanced, the more resistance he felt against his hand. He braced with his other hand and pushed forward. Lindsay dug in. He with his shield and she with her sword, and between them, they impaled the beast. It gnashed its teeth, frothing and snapping and slashing at the air with its claws, but it was pinned now, fastened between them, fixed onto the poker.

  “Push!” yelled Lindsay.

  Ben plowed forward. She threw herself onto the handle and plunged the poker deeper into the beast’s back. It disappeared to the hilt. With the sound of overripe fruit bursting, it erupted through the devil’s chest. Blood, tinged with the same orange luminescence of its eyes, spattered Ben’s face. An unearthly, earsplitting cry filled the canyon, bounced off its walls, and assaulted them from every direction. Ben did not care about any of it. Teeth be damned, he would ram the badge in his fist down the devil’s throat.

  He took a final step forward, but it was one step too far. The repulsion between the badge and the beast was too much and like two magnets, it flung them both away from each other. Ben was thrown back to the lip of his little island. The devil was thrown farther downstream. The force of it spun the creature, flinging Lindsay from her weapon and knocking her into the water. She landed with a splash in front of Ben. She scrambled to her feet, soaking wet. Ben, still clutching the badge, pulled her onto the island.

  They collapsed onto each other.

  “What just happened?” she gasped.

  “I think you just slayed the fucking dragon.”

  “I might not next time, you prick.”

  “Sure you will. You’re a knight now.”

  “Your head—” said Lindsay.

  “It’s okay. Cushing first.”

  They rolled the officer onto her back. Her uniform was flayed across the chest where the devil’s wing had raked her, but her vest had protected her. Her gashes were not too deep. Their island was hard, rocky ground; he hoped she had just been knocked out. He shook her gently. He touched her cheek. In the moonlight, unconscious, her face was at rest, her brow peaceful rather than wrinkled in the angry way she always looked at him. She was serene. Beautiful.

  She came around. She blinked, then scrambled to her elbows, looking for her weapon.

  “Stacy, it’s okay, it’s only me.”

  “Where is it?” She noticed Lindsay then. “How did you—”

  “Nobody puts baby in a cruiser. You’re lucky I don’t kill both of you myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Ben. “I—”

  “Later.” She pointed downstream. “Look.”

  Downstream, the kushtaka raged. It grasped the iron spear with both claws. The poker’s handle at its back prevented the creature from pulling it all the way through its chest, and its hook near the tip prevented the creature from pulling it back. It stumbled. It tried to lift itself into the air, but could not command its wings. Finally, it fell forward, onto all fours. Ben thought it might be in its death throes when he heard the telltale snapping again echoing like wood crackling in a fire. Its wings folded back and though they could not see the beast’s features from their distance, its appendages receded and its body grew longer and leaner. It flopped forward into the shallow water.

  “What’s it doing?” asked Cushing.

  “ ‘The land otter man,’ ” whispered Ben. “It’s trying to get to deeper water!”

  “I’ll go after it,” said Lindsay.

  “You need to stay with Stacy.”

  “You chauvinist ass—”

  “No, you don’t understand,” said Ben. He held up the badge. “It’s because of this. The badge stopped him.”

  “Then give it to me,” she said.

  “It won’t work for you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do, Lindsay!” Something in his voice cut off further protests. “Get her back to the car!” he said and bolted downstream.

  Behind him, he heard, “Yeah, Officer, about your car…”

  Chapter 30

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22

  Ben chased the beast’s torpedo-like form south as it darted easily between the rocks. Even pierced with the fire poker, the handle jutting from its back like a planted flag, the beast outpaced Ben. He abandoned the slippery rocks and the small rapids for the tangled shoreline.

  He saw a thin stream of orange phosphorescence trailing out from behind the creature’s wound. Ben kept after it, barely keeping up. He did not know how long he ran. All he was aware of was the pulsing in his hand, the inexplicable warmth he felt despite the damp and the chill. He felt no pain, no fatigue. Even the anger had dissipated. It was like he was in a dream. He could have chased it forever. Soon the walls of the canyon shortened as the stream rose out of the gorge. Or the world sank to them, he did not know. He followed it under Columbia Pike. Then back through the woods until he could see the lights of buildings yet again. He threaded through the green, along the banks, up onto parallel trails, trying to keep pace. He could hear the occasional car on the road, now not far above his head, sweeping its lights across the dark water, unaware of what the shadowy circu
latory system coursing through Arlington carried. Weaving silently between the neighborhoods, right under everyone’s noses.

  The shallow stream, encrusted with large rocks and tiny rapids, broadened. Ben looked ahead. Around a bend, he saw Four Mile Run widen and deepen, becoming a small river. Open water. He would never be able to catch it then. He poured on the speed. He gained. With a final burst of energy, he sprinted to the bend. When he had pulled even alongside the beast, he leapt.

  Ben was not sure if he ever touched the water, let alone the beast. The repulsion threw him back onto the shore. It felt as if he had been hit by a car. He landed on his side and something snapped in his arm. When he opened his mouth to yell, he realized the wind had been knocked out of him and he could not find his breath. He struggled to his feet. He discovered that his arm would not respond to his commands and hung limp, and the pain surrounding his chest told him he had a broken rib or two. Despite the pain, he looked into his hands. Empty.

  He heard crackling.

  He saw the beast on the opposite bank, changing again. It arched its back, limbs lengthening, its features flowing like lava until it resembled a man on its hands and knees. It struggled to pull the poker through its chest, but between the thick handle and the hook at the tip, the poker was still secure. It would not budge. Ben heard its panting from the other shore, ten yards away.

  Ben got to his feet in knee-deep water. His head swam and the world teetered around him. The badge was gone. Without it, Ben could feel the biting chill of the November air against his wet skin again. The water was worse. He tried to get his breathing under control, which felt as if it came through a flattened straw, and to slow the beating of his heart, which felt like it would rupture. He thought he could swim to it, but the water felt like tiny daggers in his feet and shins. And he knew that swimming to fight something called the water devil was not something he could manage even if he was in perfect shape. A car passed on the road overhead. He readied himself for the beast’s attack.

  The kushtaka rose. From this distance, and in the darkness, Ben could see only the silhouette, but he knew instantly what form it had chosen. It was larger than the man had ever been, but on the opposite bank there was no one else and no context to judge its size against. And up close, the details would be wrong, Ben was sure. The tawny hair should be black, like it was in the older pictures on Ben’s bookshelf, or white, as it had been in his final years. It was an abomination, a perversion, but it was close enough.