“Paula’s out there,” Rob replied in a dazed voice.
“I need you to concentrate,” said Harrison, stepping up to him. “Danni’s with her. They’re probably a mile away by now. She’s okay as long as that thing is here with us. For right now, we need to worry about ourselves. Now I need you to pay attention. You’re the one who’s into this shit. What do you know about this thing?”
The question brought Rob back to his senses. He thought for a second, then answered, “Not much. Nobody really knows anything about it. It’s not supposed to even exist. Why don’t we ask him?” He pointed toward Wild Feather, still huddled in the corner.
They walked over to where he crouched. “Hey, man, are you still with us?” Harrison asked. He received no answer to his question. After another moment, he sighed then added, “Sorry, but we don’t have time for this crap.” He reached down, grabbed Wild Feather by his jacket, and hauled him to his feet. That seemed to snap him back to reality a bit.
“Is it gone?” he asked in a shaky voice.
“No,” replied Harrison. “I need to know what else your people know about this thing,” he said while more thuds sounded from the front of the cabin. The shit’s really hitting the fan now.
“What do you mean?” Wild Feather asked, his eyes darting between Harrison and the door.
“That story you told yesterday,” Rob said. “What else do your people know about sasquatch?”
“That!? I made that shit up.”
“What do you mean ‘made it up?’”
“Exactly that!” Wild Feather mewled. “I don’t know anything about that fucking monster.”
“What was all that crap about spirits and hairy men of the forest?”
Wild Feather seemed on the verge of losing it again. He started sputtering, “H-how the hell am I supposed to know? I grew up in Chicago. My name is Phil. I just do this shit to get laid.”
For a moment, there was silence in the cabin, save for what filtered in from outside.
“Well, that’s just great, Phil,” Harrison replied at last, releasing his grip and turning toward his roommate.
“I am so gonna kick your ass when this is over,” Allison growled from the window.
“Save it for later,” Harrison barked. “Rob, let’s see if there’s a back door to this place.”
“Uh oh! I don’t think there’s time, guys. It’s coming back,” she said, catching their attention.
“Oh crap!” muttered Harrison. He quickly dragged Rob over to where Greg was trying to reinforce the miniscule barricade.
They braced for impact. None came. Instead, Allison jumped back from the window with a shout. Glass shattered, and the shutters blew off their hinges as a huge hairy arm came plowing through it. Allison fell to the floor as debris rained down. However, the grasping claws of the creature managed to miss snagging her.
A chorus of screams broke out from the group as the muscular arm began reaching around, searching as the creature snarled outside. Allison backed up to where Wild Feather once more cowered. He didn’t even acknowledge her in his panicked state.
Amidst the chaos, an idea popped into Harrison’s head. He pulled his backpack from the barricade and began rummaging through it.
He found what he was looking for just as Rob muttered, “Oh crap.”
Harrison turned and saw that the creature had grabbed onto the window sill and ripped it, along with a chunk of wall, out. If it couldn’t get in through the door, it was apparently going to try making its own.
Not on my watch, he thought, momentarily curious as to where this clearly insane bravery was coming from. He pushed those thoughts aside, though, as he pulled the machete from his pack. In an instant, he had stepped to the side of the window, still out of sight of the creature. The next time it started pulling at a piece of wall, he swung with everything he had.
He caught the creature flush on the wrist. The blow would have been enough to lop a man’s hand clean off; however, Harrison watched in horror as the blade sank an inch at most into muscle and bone before stopping. There was a horrific scream of pain from right outside. In this close proximity, it was loud enough to leave a ringing in all of their ears. The arm pulled back, almost wrenching the weapon from Harrison’s grasp, but he held true and yanked it free with a spray of blood.
There was another roar, then an oversized fist burst through the wood not a foot from Harrison’s head. He had succeeded all right ... succeeded in pissing it off again, he grimly noted to himself. This wasn’t good. If that thing could smash straight through the walls whenever it wanted to, then they didn’t stand a chance. Their barricade at the door was little more than a joke.
“Allison!” he yelled, ducking out of reach of the grasping hand. “Find a back door, now!”
To her credit, she only hesitated for a moment before running toward the rear of the cabin. Harrison wished her luck. Unlike the monstrous ape at the front door, they had little chance of knocking down a wall. If it turned out there was no other exit from this building, it might very well become their tomb.
Chapter 10
Taking Harrison’s lead, Greg left his place and began searching through another of the backpacks. This left Rob as the sole person bracing the front door. I might as well open up and let it in, for all the good I’m gonna do here, he thought, watching Greg heft the axe they had purchased back in Bonanza Creek. Great! That’ll probably be just slightly more effective than thinking bad thoughts at it, but any port in a storm, he mused as Greg took up a defensive post on the opposite side of the window as Harrison.
“There’s no back door,” Allison cried out to them.
“Of course not.” Harrison muttered with a sigh as he waited to see what the creature would do next. “Greg, don’t get too close to the window!”
Sadly, he was a second too slow in his warning. The beast’s still bleeding arm shot through again. Greg managed to sink the axe into its massive bicep, but not before its grasping hand closed on his shoulder. Before he could do much more than open his mouth to scream, the arm pulled back. The window wasn’t originally designed to be wide enough to accommodate a person of Greg’s size. However, with the wood around it already heavily damaged, he was roughly pulled off his feet and through the portal, widening it even further.
Harrison made a mad scramble to grab for his friend, but the creature was both faster and stronger. He peered through the ruined window in time to see Greg thrown some fifteen feet out into the clearing. He landed in the high grass and flipped end over end before disappearing from view. The creature was at the edge of the porch, looking toward where it had flung him. It took one slow step in that direction.
“Oh shit.”
Rob noticed, from his vantage point at the barrier, Harrison appeared to be tensing up his body. He realized his friend was actually considering what was sure to be a suicidal plan of action. Before he could make a move, though, Allison called out again.
“There’s a cellar!”
“What?” Harrison asked.
“There’s a trap door in the back room. Looks like it leads down to a root cellar,” she replied, joining them in the front again. “Where’s Gr...”
“Get everyone down there and lock yourself in as best you can.”
“But...”
“Do it!”
They could all hear the tone of finality in his voice. Tears sprang to Allison’s eyes, but she nodded anyway. She started toward Wild Feather, then stopped. Turning back to Harrison, she said, “Here, take this.” She pulled a can of bear spray from her pocket and tossed it to him. “It’s not much, but...”
“Thanks,” he replied, then added with a smirk, “Heh, maybe I can use it on myself so I don’t see it coming.”
“Wait a second,” Rob said, leaving his place at the barricade. “What the hell are you...”
But he didn’t get a chance to finish. Harrison had already climbed out the window.
♦ ♦ ♦
The creature was almost to wher
e Harrison had seen his friend land. It appeared to be actually savoring the moment. This didn’t seem the behavior of a dumb animal to him. In many ways, that made it even more frightening.
Stepping off the porch, he got his first good look at the beast. It was even larger than he’d thought. Covered in matted brown fur, it was nearly nine-feet tall. He couldn’t begin to guess at its weight, but it had to be several hundred pounds, most of it dense muscle by the look of things.
Am I really gonna do this? he pondered right before springing into action. He had planned to run up behind it and swing the machete at its neck before it knew what was happening. As he got closer, though, he noticed that the creature didn’t seem to have much of a neck to swing at. Its head appeared to sit almost directly upon its massive shoulders.
He was contemplating another target, maybe the back of its leg, when the creature turned to face him. The thing might’ve had the appearance of a large humanoid, but, as Harrison grimly noted, it definitely had the superior senses of a wild animal.
He stood there, not ten feet from the monster, feeling a little foolish as he brandished his meager weapons at it. The creature looked at him with red-rimmed, watery eyes. Harrison met its gaze. For a moment, it was a standoff between man and monster.
A memory from several years earlier flashed through his mind. It was of a trip to the zoo he had taken with his family. As they stood there watching the gorillas, his father had told him how, in the wild, staring down a silverback was the exact opposite thing to do if you wanted to keep living.
“Oh crap,” he muttered before being drowned out by a roar of such primal fury that his knees began to buckle. He didn’t think human emotions applied to this thing, but if they did, it sounded angry – very angry. It raised its club-like arms and charged.
Be safe, Danni, he thought as death rushed at him.
Just then, a sound like thunder resounded in the air around him. A moment later, a splash of something warm sprayed across his face. At first Harrison thought it must he his own blood as the creature tore him limb from limb. Then realization hit: he was still in one piece.
The creature had stopped less than two feet from him. Harrison immediately noticed two things: a bewildered look on its face, and a gaping wound in its right shoulder, about three inches in diameter.
Holy shit! I think someone just shot it. That thought was followed by a less hopeful realization. He was no hunter. Hell, he had never even fired a gun before. Nevertheless, he was certain that as ugly as the wound was, it wouldn’t even come close to being fatal to the beast. Thus, before any thoughts as to the insanity of what he was about to do could slow him down, Harrison raised his left arm and unloaded the bear spray right into the creature’s eyes.
♦ ♦ ♦
The result was immediate. Whereas the surprise of being shot had momentarily stunned the creature, the spray caused it to go completely wild. It screamed again as it brought its hands up to its face. In that same instant, it took off running.
Unfortunately for Harrison, he was close enough to be shouldered aside as the monster ran blindly for the tree line. If he had ever wondered what it would be like to be the tackling dummy for the Denver Broncos’ entire defensive line, he now knew. He flew back and landed on the ground, the wind completely knocked out of him. All he could see was the sky, but he could hear the screams of the monster as it crashed through the brush, soon drowned out by another loud gunshot.
Several seconds passed until he felt he could breathe again. He gingerly started to sit up, feeling as if every inch of him was bruised. He may have felt like a truck had run him over, but he was also aware that he was still alive.
Harrison had just gotten to a sitting position when he saw a hand in front of him. He took it and was pulled to his feet. He stood and found himself staring at a well-built man in his mid-thirties. There was something oddly familiar about his face. It took Harrison maybe a second to pull the memory up, and then he said, “Hey! You’re that guy from TV.”
“Yep, and you’re that asshole who just ruined my shot.”
Chapter 11
“Greg,” Harrison gasped, finally steadying himself on his feet.
“Relax. We’re checking on your friend.”
It was then that Harrison realized the newcomer wasn’t alone. Three other men, each heavily armed and carrying a variety of gear, milled about. Two of them were crouched approximately where Greg had landed.
“I don’t know whether you’re brave, stupid, or both,” said the man who had helped him up. “Spraying an angry squatch in the face, haven’t seen that one before.”
“Squatch?”
“Short for sasquatch.” The man held out his hand. “Derek, Derek Jenner.”
Harrison was still somewhat stunned, though whether from the hit he had taken or the sudden appearance of his apparent savior, he wasn’t sure. He shook the man’s hand before he even realized he was doing so.
It was only then that the fact he was still alive really started to sink in. He felt a coldness seep into him as he came to the realization of just how close to death he had been. He tried to shake it away. Going into shock wasn’t going to help him or his friends. That thought pulled his mind back from the dark place it wanted to go. He disengaged hands with the stranger and walked over to where Greg lay.
“Is he...” he started to ask.
“Dead? No. Pretty banged up? Oh yeah,” one of the men, thin and about middle-aged, said. “All things considered, though, he should probably play the lottery when he gets back home.”
“How bad?” Harrison asked.
The thin man continued tending to Greg. “He has a fractured arm, a few cracked ribs, and maybe a concussion. One thing’s for certain, once he comes to, he’s not gonna be a happy camper.” He unshouldered a pack and started pulling medical supplies from it. As he did, he spoke to the second man, a burly bearded fellow who resembled a stereotypical lumberjack. “Help me set the arm before he wakes up.”
Seeing that his friend was being cared for, Harrison’s thoughts returned to the others still in the cabin. They hadn’t come out, which meant they had probably taken his advice about the root cellar. He started walking back in that direction.
“Where are you going?” Derek asked, catching up to him.
“I have some more friends inside.” He moved to the window. “Door’s barricaded.”
“I would hope so,” Derek responded, giving him a boost.
Harrison landed with a grunt, and the other man hopped in after him. “That’s one way to renovate the place,” Derek remarked, surveying the damaged wall.
Harrison walked toward the rear of the cabin. He scanned the room in the dim light, then spotted what he was looking for. In the middle of the floor was an outline in the wood, with a recessed handle in the center. He walked over, reached down, and gave it a pull. It didn’t budge.
“Locked?”
“Seems that way,” he replied.
“Smart.”
Harrison knelt over the trapdoor. He banged on it a few times, then yelled, “Open up, guys! It’s gone.”
After a moment, there was a sliding sound, then the door began to inch up. “Don’t! It could be a trick,” Wild Feather said in a panicked voice from below.
“Yeah, Phil,” he replied, “it’s me, bigfoot, doing my best Harrison impersonation.” That elicited a sharp retort of laughter from Derek.
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