♦ ♦ ♦
There was a second shot, and then, a few moments after, a third followed by a tremendous bellowing scream. The group all looked at one another for a few moments. None of them needed to be psychic to know what the others were thinking. With the first few shots, they had all been hoping that it was over. Now, with the advent of the roaring, they were all wondering just how badly they were screwed.
Even Mitchell was feeling a bit worried. Three shots, and it still wasn’t down? That was very unusual.
The battle was momentarily forgotten, though, as all of their attention was drawn to Phil. “Oh God! It killed them,” he said, starting to rise. “We need to get out of here!”
“Jesus Christ, dude...” Rob started, but Harrison held up a hand to silence him.
He put his other on Phil’s shoulder to try to calm him down again, but this time Phil swatted it off. He stood up and looked ready to bolt.
“Easy there, son,” Mitchell said, stepping in.
“Screw that!” Phil barked, his voice rising in both volume and pitch. “I’m not sticking around and waiting for that fucking thing to kill us all.”
“Listen, kid...” Mitchell replied, moving to block his potential escape.
Unfortunately, Phil had reached his breaking point and was beyond reason. He shoved Mitchell away. It wasn’t particularly forceful, but it caught the medic by surprise. He stumbled and went down.
It apparently surprised Phil, too. He stared at the downed man for a second before turning to run. Before he could bring his foot down for the first step, though, he was tackled from behind. His hesitation proved to be his undoing.
Harrison was at least twenty pounds heavier, and thus the smaller boy hit the ground. Unfortunately, Phil was in the grip of panic and proved difficult to subdue. He squirmed against Harrison and, as he did so, he started screaming at the top of his lungs. It was a desperate, keening wail with no discernable words.
Mitchell got back to his feet. “Shut him up!” he hissed through clenched teeth, although nobody was able to hear him over the pitiful screeching.
Finally, Harrison had enough. He let his frustration boil over. All thoughts of Phil’s deceit as Wild Feather and, even worse, his entreaties to get into Danni’s pants were concentrated into one swift, savage action. He drove his fist into Phil’s jaw with everything he had. The other boy’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he at last fell silent.
“Effective,” Mitchell noted with a tone of admiration in his voice. He started to thank Harrison before he was again drowned out – this time by something much louder than Phil.
♦ ♦ ♦
Derek took aim with his Browning rifle while Frank struggled to his feet. The creature had backed up into a tree and was using it for support. “Come on, let’s make this count,” he said.
He aimed for the creature’s right eye, exhaled, and slowly pulled the trigger. Just as the necessary force to fire the gun was applied, a manic screeching filled the forest. Derek was an experienced outdoorsman, but he was still human. The sound, a high-pitched scream like a scared teenaged girl might make, caught his attention and threw his aim off just enough. The bullet grazed the creature’s head and sent a shower of bark flying as it impacted with a tree behind it.
“Frank!” he yelled as the creature lurched in their direction, using the nearby foliage to keep itself from falling. Damn, these things are smart ... too smart. It began to close the gap between them.
He turned his head to find that his cameraman had regained his footing and was lining up a shot. Just as Frank pulled the trigger, the screaming abruptly ceased. Nothing but a dull click sounded in the renewed silence. The gun had jammed.
Oh yeah, that fucking figures.
There was no time left for a proper sighting. Derek brought up his rifle again and aimed as best he could at the creature’s center mass. It was nearly upon them when he started to squeeze the trigger again.
Chapter 15
Three shots rang out in quick succession. As their echoes faded, silence descended once more. Mitchell stood up from where he had been checking on Phil. The boy was still unconscious, but aside from a possible cracked jaw, he’d probably awake with little worse than a headache.
Harrison, still cradling his bruised fist, motioned for the rest to stay down as they waited to see what would happen next. Everyone did as told, except for Rob, who bounded over to Mitchell’s side.
“Did they get it?” he asked the older man.
“I hope so,” Mitchell replied. He then tapped his headset. “Derek, are you there? Come in.”
No reply came, so he tried again. He was about to do so for a third time when Francis stepped from the bushes, a somber look on his face. “Derek can’t answer you.”
There was a moment of stunned silence until he smiled. “Because he’s too busy checking out the big bastard we just nailed.”
Mitchell let out a sigh. “Asshole.”
Rob thought it was hilarious and a grin spread wide on his face as well. “All right! The Crypto Hunter lives to hunt again.”
“You had us worried there. We thought that thing killed you all,” Harrison said.
The smile fell off Francis’s face. “It almost did. That was one mean motherfucker, I tell you. Derek missed his shot ... oh, by the way, whichever one of you was screaming like a little girl, thanks a lot for that ... and then my damn gun jammed.”
“So, what happened?” Allison asked, regaining her feet.
“Derek unloaded in its chest with his last two rounds. Blew holes in it big enough to put your fist through.”
“We heard three shots,” Mitchell said.
“Exactly,” Francis continued. “The damn thing was just too stubborn to die. Was about to club us like baby seals when Chuck suddenly appeared out of nowhere and put a bullet into the side of its head. He’s gonna need help, by the way, Mitch. That thing gouged a couple of good-sized chunks out of him.”
“On my way,” the medic replied, beginning to gather his supplies. “Can you stay with the kids?”
“No problem,” Francis said. “I’ve had enough ugly for one day – although if any of them wanna tag along and check it out, now’s the time to do so.”
“Hell yeah!” Rob exclaimed. “You couldn’t stop me if you tried.”
“I’ll go, too,” Harrison said, stepping next to his friend. He wanted to see for himself that the thing was dead. If so, that meant his sister and Paula were out of immediate danger. They were still lost in the woods, but, oddly enough, that seemed like a minor inconvenience compared to what they had just experienced.
♦ ♦ ♦
Unsurprisingly, Greg opted to stay put, the strain on his face still evident. Allison decided to join Harrison and Rob. Although she had no desire to see the creature that would surely haunt her nightmares for years to come, she had even less of a desire to be around Wild Feather ... Phil, she mentally corrected herself. No way was she falling for his crap again. She couldn’t believe that she would have gladly slept with him up until only a short while ago. It disgusted her to no end that it was apparently part of his plan all along. Guys can be such pricks, she thought, following the other two.
As she walked, though, she found her eyes drifting down toward Harrison’s ass. It wasn’t all bad, she mused. Where Phil had turned out to be a major disappointment, Danni’s brother had stepped up to the plate like a true hero. He was cute, too, which definitely didn’t hurt. She had been so enamored of Phil’s bullshit that she hadn’t even given it much consideration. Now she began to entertain those thoughts, a smile crossing her face. Maybe I should give him a hero’s reward.
♦ ♦ ♦
The trio followed Mitchell through the forest. Within a few short steps, the party members they had left behind were out of sight. They only needed to walk a couple dozen yards, but in the dense woods, a hundred feet might as well be another planet.
A few minutes later, they stepped past some trees and caught sight
of Derek. He waved them over. The scene looked like something out of a bizarre CSI / Tales from the Crypt crossover. Blood and viscera were everywhere. A massive body lay on the forest floor, gaping wounds covering its legs, torso, and head. A few feet away, Chuck sat propped against a tree. He was breathing heavily and holding a bloodied hand over his midsection.
Mitchell immediately unslung his bag and went to check on his companion. He bent down and slowly pried Chuck’s hand away from the still dripping wound. He examined it briefly, then began cutting away the tattered material around it.
“How bad?” the wounded man asked.
“It’s ugly, but I think you’ll live. What happened?” Mitch asked.
“I got sloppy. Fucking monster heard me and charged,” he gasped. “Missed my shot like a newb fresh out of basic training, and then Frankenstein over there caught me a good one in the gut.”
“I’d say you got lucky,” Mitchell replied as he began cleaning the wound. “I don’t think you’ll be impressing the ladies with your washboard abs anytime soon, but it doesn’t look like he got anything major.”
Derek pointed the three campers toward the body. “Look, but don’t touch.” He turned back to Mitchell. “How’s Chuck?”
The medic glanced up from his work. “He’ll need to be stitched up properly once we get back to town. I can field dress him for now, though. I guess we won’t be able to get rid of him just yet.”
Chuck laughed and then winced. “Screw you, man.”
Derek chuckled, too, but then lowered his voice. “Mitch, when you’re done, I need you to check out the squatch.”
“Looks like he’s dead to me,” Mitchell responded in a glib tone.
“No shit. Seriously, though, there’s something majorly wrong with it. Never seen one act the way it did.”
“What do you mean?”
Derek hesitated. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say the damn thing was insane.”
♦ ♦ ♦
“Insane?” Mitchell asked, keeping his tone low so the others wouldn’t overhear. “Are we playing sasquatch psychoanalyst now?”
“Fine then, maybe it was sick or poisoned,” Derek countered. “All I know is that something was definitely not right with it.”
“Doubtful. We’ve never even seen one of these things with so much as a case of the sniffles. Then there was that report in the archives. You remember that?”
“The one from that crazy defector?”
“Yeah, well, according to him, the Russians caught one of these things in Siberia about thirty years back. Supposedly, they tested the crap out of it: small pox, malaria, all sorts of nasty stuff. Found that it had an immune system like a battleship.”
“Anecdotal evidence at best,” Derek replied. “Besides, the rest of his account read like a cheap horror novel.”
“They really should have double-checked that cage.”
“Tell me about it,” Derek said, then lightened his tone. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting paranoid in my old age.”
“I’ll check it out anyway, just to be sure. Get some blood samples and a brain biopsy ... assuming all of it isn’t splattered against the trees,” Mitchell replied, kneeling so as to continue tending to Chuck.
Derek turned back toward the three campers. No doubt they’d have lots of questions. He might as well field them now before he had to silence them all under a mountain of non-disclosures. They’d all know the truth, but wouldn’t be able to do anything with it. Even if they decided to talk, it’s not like they’d be believed. That was part of what the show was about.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Ugly bastard, isn’t it?” Derek asked, stepping up next to the body. Harrison and the girl, Allison, were staring at it in awe. The geeky kid, Rob, seemed like he practically wanted to jump onto the corpse and hug it. Ah, our core demographic, thought Derek.
“It’s freaking amazing!” Rob exclaimed. “You hear stories about how big they are, but damn. This thing makes Andre the Giant look like a midget.”
“I’m just glad it’s dead,” Allison said, a look of disgust on her face.
“Don’t be,” Derek replied. “I’m not entirely sure it was his fault.”
“His?”
“Well, yeah.” He gestured toward the creature’s groin.
“Oh.” A blush rose in her cheeks.
“What do you mean that it’s not his fault?” Harrison asked.
Derek shrugged. “We’re not sure yet. We need to run a few tests.”
“Who cares what was wrong with it?” Allison commented. “Like I said, I’m just happy that it’s dead and that there aren’t any more of them around.”
Derek raised an eyebrow in bemusement. “I agree that this one needed to be put down, but I wouldn’t be too sure about that second part.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes opening wide.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “These creatures are social animals, much like gorillas – or even humans.”
Rob asked, “You think there’s a pack of them out there?”
“Considering how close they are to us, we tend to think of them more as tribes or clans. But yeah, I don’t doubt there’s a small population in the area.”
“Oh God!” Allison gasped.
“As I said, don’t worry about it. These things are mostly peaceful. They want to avoid us as much as we want to avoid them.”
“This one sure didn’t.”
“It was an aberration. Now that it’s gone, the woods will quiet down again...”
The sound of movement off in the brush interrupted him. Branches broke and leaves crunched as something approached.
All of their heads snapped toward the direction of the disturbance. “You call that quieting down?” Allison asked, her eyes wide with fear.
♦ ♦ ♦
“I hear voices!” Danni whispered as they made their way through the foliage. That cemented in her mind the outcome of the battle, for a battle it surely must have been.
After the first volley of gunfire, she had managed to convince Paula to follow her. It was a calculated risk, a very large one ... a potentially very large hairy one. Nonetheless, she felt their chances of survival were still better than continuing to lead the monster on a merry chase through the woods, a chase that they would eventually lose.
At first, she had been nearly as petrified as Paula. The thought of turning around and walking straight into that thing was utterly terrifying. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to keep running.
Then the shooting had begun in earnest, followed by the thing’s enraged cries. That erased any doubt about it. The hunters had come across the monster. The only question was: who would win? She desperately prayed it was the guys with the guns. If not, she hoped that they were at least able to badly wound the beast before going down. If that didn’t happen, she and Paula were toast.
It was only after the gunfire ceased and silence once more returned to the forest that she dared hope for the best. Although not entirely convinced herself, she had reassured Paula that the creature was either dead or driven off. It had made no attempts at stealth during its pursuit of them. The fact that she couldn’t hear it raging through the forest now was a good sign ... or so she hoped.
Bigfoot Hunters (Tales of the Crypto-Hunter Book 1) Page 12