Monster

by Frank Peretti

  Oh, please, don’t kill me . . .

  Could she run? Where? As near as she could tell, she was in the woods somewhere. Beyond the tangle of the huckleberry bushes, she could see the thick forest, and through its canopy, a blue sky.

  A powerful, hairy arm reached up and grabbed another cluster of berries from a branch.

  When the hand that was bigger than her whole head descended to deliver the berries, Beck didn’t dare argue. She opened up, let the berries tumble in, and started chewing.

  With the taste of the berries and her ability to chew them came a conscious realization that she was still alive—quite notable, given the circumstances. How long she would remain that way she had no idea and no encouraging thoughts.

  She turned her head just enough to study her situation. She was being held by what appeared to be a huge ape, similar to a gorilla, but not quite a gorilla. The crown of its head extended to a narrow crest like a gorilla’s, and it had a prominent brow ridge over the eyes, but the jaws didn’t protrude as much and the lips were more flexible and expressive. As near as Beck could tell, the creature’s legs were folded beneath it, but one large, hairy foot jutted out, with a wrinkled, hairless sole and all five toes aligned in a row. By its ample, fur-covered bosom, Beck concluded it was a female. They were now sitting in a cavity created when a tree upended, pulling the root ball out of the ground. Thick bushes, most of them huckleberries, had since moved in and now provided a blind that hid them from the outside world. The female held Beck inescapably in her lap with her left arm while feeding Beck with her right.

  Another load of berries was on the way. Beck couldn’t take much more of this, but unless she wanted more berries smeared all over her face . . .

  She opened up and let the beast dump them in. She chewed but did not move, did not stir, did not make a sound. Her hands were still trembling.

  Suddenly the big arm loosened and the creature let her go. She slid down that big hairy body to the ground.

  Run! her instincts screamed at her. It didn’t matter which direction. Run for the trees!

  All it took was the slightest weight on her right ankle. “Oww!” With a shriek of agony, she fell in the tangled limbs and stalks, grabbing her ankle, grimacing. She checked for a break, for—“Awww!” The pain flashed up her entire leg, red-hot and lingering. She settled backward on a bush, bending and crumpling branches, gasping. She thought of crawling, pulling herself out of the woods with two hands and one good leg.

  Not good enough. The beast lunged forward faster than Beck could pull to get away. It overshadowed Beck like a rust-red thundercloud, nudging her, poking her with a big finger, nearly flipping her body over. Terror in combination with her stutter took away Beck’s ability to speak, even to scream. The creature backed off, resting on all fours, and gave her some space.

  Daring to move, Beck felt her ankle again under the creature’s sentrylike stare. The ankle wasn’t broken as near as she could tell, but she did have a cruel souvenir from her tumble over the falls— a bad sprain. She wouldn’t be walking, much less running, anytime soon.

  Beck lifted her eyes to the creature. Was it possible to make peace with this beast? A cluster of berries was within reach. This beast seemed to want Beck to eat them. If it would make it happy . . .

  Daringly, her hand still quaking, Beck reached halfway to the berries, hoping such personal initiative would not seem threatening.

  There was no violent reaction. The thing didn’t growl or bite her.

  Slowly, inch by trembling inch, she reached the rest of the way and grabbed them. The ape-thing let her, making strange, guttural rumblings and a clicking sound like wood hitting bamboo: Tok! Tok! Tok!

  Beck placed the berries in her mouth and reached for more, eating them slowly. The beast’s expression softened. She eased back onto her haunches and watched. From this slight distance Beck got a first full look at her. She was very much like a gorilla, but with a body like a barrel and a neck so broad it blended with her shoulders. Her legs, thick as tree trunks and covered with hair, were longer than one would expect in an ape, but the arms were definitely ape arms, long enough to reach Beck’s neck and wring the life out of her.

  As Beck lay still, chewing berries, the pain in her ankle subsided enough for her to notice a dull ache in her head. She touched the side of her forehead, felt a bump—Ouch! Another spot that hurt!—then found dark, flaking blood on her fingers.

  Ohhh . . . dear Lord, what happened? She remembered falling, but after that, nothing. If she was this beat up, what had happened to Reed? Was he lying somewhere in worse shape than she was? Her backpack was missing. Maybe this monster tried to raid their backpacks for food and Reed had tried to resist, tried to save Beck, gotten the brunt of this monster’s rage—

  She dared not think it.

  But then came more bad news. A further inventory revealed a large smear of blood on her leather jacket where she’d been pressed against the creature’s side. She looked and found a corresponding dark stain on the big ape’s shoulder and left flank.

  If her fear had ebbed even slightly, now it returned. She met the creature’s eyes and thought, What have you done?

  The monster stiffened, suddenly alert and alarmed. The lips pulled back slightly, revealing the edges of the teeth—sharp, white incisors between an imposing set of canines.

  Beck cowered. Oh no, I’ve made it angry.

  But the big female wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even looking at her. It was listening. The look on its face, the piercing stare of its eyes, its motionless body reminded Beck of their dog, Jonah, and how he reacted whenever he heard a distant coyote or the UPS truck approaching a half mile away. And there was that foul smell again, a new, sickening wave of it.

  It happened so fast Beck didn’t have time to object or resist. Before she could even scream, the big hands enfolded her and snatched her from the ground, shaking her insides and nearly giving her whiplash. Limbs, leaves, and berries blurred past her eyes and whipped her head and shoulders. She covered her face.

  There was a burst of acceleration so fast that the wind swept her hair from her face. She lifted her eyes.

  She was flying, lunging through the forest at an altitude of six feet, her body held fast against that abundant bosom by two muscular arms. Tree limbs blurred by like fence posts on a freeway. She curled her legs up as her hands grabbed fistfuls of red hair in a death grip. Beneath her, the creature’s big feet pounded the ground as she leaped over logs and dodged thickets and brush with incredible agility, slowed by nothing.

  With a little whine, Caesar the German shepherd balked only a few yards into the trees, turned back, looked down the hill at Agnes, his handler, tried again, whined again, and finally, at a timid trot, ran to his master and cowered behind her legs. Agnes, whose dogs had served the county sheriff’s department, the state patrol, and local police departments for the past twelve years, looked puzzled to say the least as she stroked the shy dog’s neck. “Caesar, what is it? What’s the matter, boy?”

  Reed did not find the dog’s behavior one bit surprising. He felt that way himself—he just wasn’t going to whine about it.

  Pete Henderson and his team of searchers looked as mystified as Agnes, gawking up into the woods from a small clearing on the mountainside. Scatter Creek ran through this clearing, cutting across the trail just below them and cascading over a ten-foot waterfall. Agnes had taken Caesar to the base of the waterfall, the spot search teams call the “LKP,” the Last Known Place Beck had been, and let him go. He’d hesitated, whined, followed a scent up to the trail, spun in circles, followed it across the trail and up the clearing, turned back at the trees, and then, with some goading from Agnes, continued into the trees. A few yards in, he’d had enough.

  Pete’s radio squawked. “Team 1 in position at the campsite.”

  Pete spoke into the handheld, “Team 2 above the waterfall at the LKP.” He gazed curiously at the dog. “We’re, uh, working the K-9 right now. Good hunting.”

>   He clipped the handheld to his belt and looked down toward the trail where Reed and the others waited for further orders.

  Reed tried to keep his impatience in check. He knew all these people were as eager and on edge as he was: the two Search and Rescue volunteers, one the dental assistant and the other the heavy equipment operator, both tracking apprentices; the two marksmen, one of them a newcomer named Thorne who looked like a marine; two medical technicians with emergency kits and a stretcher; Don Nelson and Tyler Jones, experienced trackers, who would form the three-man tracking team with Pete; Agnes Hastings, the K-9 handler; and Cap Capella, there because he was a friend. All were dressed for the job and grim with the business at hand, but any hasty move at this point could destroy important signs and evidence. Pete had to make the calls.

  Pete was obviously troubled over the dog. He asked the handler, “Has he ever done this before?”

  She was still petting Caesar, who refused to budge from her side. “No. Never.”

  “But he has tracked bears before?”

  “Nine times in the past two years.”

  Pete gestured toward the trees from which Caesar had fled. “Well, he found something. It turned him back, but it’s something.” He reached for a set of short aluminum poles that hung on his tracker’s vest and began to screw them together into one five-foot length. This was his tracking stick, a rod marked in one-inch increments, with movable rubber O-rings for marking on the stick the size of prints and the stride length between them. “Don and Tyler, I’ll take point; you flank. We’ll start where Caesar’s afraid to go. Reed and Cap, you follow the flank men. You step where they step and don’t disturb anything. Agnes, I know Jimmy’s real eager to have Caesar help out at the other location. Want to head up there?”

  The dog handler gave a resigned shrug, put Caesar’s leash on him, and led him up the trail toward the cabin. Caesar was more than happy to go.

  Pete took a moment to focus on Reed. “Reed, buddy, you ready?”

  Reed knew he didn’t know what he was saying, but he answered, “I’m ready.”

  Pete told Cap, “You stay close to him.” He directed his attention downhill. “Joanie and Chris, stand by. When we find the trail, we’ll need you to cross-track. And you guys with the guns, guard our flanks. Everybody keep quiet. That bear could still be around. Medics, stand by on the radios.”

  Pete led the way up the hill. The flank men took positions just behind him, one on his left and one on his right, forming a triangle with Pete at the “point.” Reed fell in behind the man on the left, Cap behind the man on the right. The marksmen, guns ready, eyes and ears alert, followed wide to the sides. When Pete moved, they all moved as one body.

  Pete led the train slowly, eyes scanning back and forth as they all moved into the trees, his tracking stick ready in his hand. Only a few steps in, he used the stick to point out bent grass and crushed twigs where an animal—or a human—had passed through. “Had a lot of traffic through here this morning,” he said in a quiet, stealthy voice, “so the trick is gonna be telling the difference between everybody else’s sign and the sign we’re looking for.”

  Reed and Cap exchanged a look. Yes, they and Sing had spent quite a while thrashing through these trees and thickets, leaving their own disturbances everywhere and possibly obliterating everything Pete needed to find now. Reed didn’t know whether to feel sheepish at the blunder or just plain aggravated at life’s unfairness.

  “Boot print on the right,” said the right flank man, pointing with his own stick.

  Pete saw it. “It’s coming your way, Tyler.”

  The flanker to the left inched forward, carefully checking for more prints. “Okay. Got it.” He pointed out a depression in the pine needles at Pete’s eleven o’clock.

  Pete held his tracking stick between the two tracks, measuring the distance between them, then straightened and asked, “Reed, Cap, either one of you come through here?”

  Reed and Cap exchanged a look. Cap wagged his head. Reed answered, “I think I did.”

  “Let me see the bottom of your left boot.”

  Reed grabbed Cap’s shoulder to steady himself and stuck up his foot.

  Pete studied and measured the boot sole while Tyler pulled out a pencil and a preprinted diagram of a footprint. Pete dictated, “Okay, three-point waffle tread, section 4, thumbnail pattern on right side, center to lower right corner; section 10, sliver in lower right corner.”

  “It’s him,” said Don, looking at the track on the right.

  Tyler drew the wear patterns on the diagram and labeled it “Reed Shelton.”

  “I suppose you were in a big hurry last night?” Pete asked.

  “I was,” Reed admitted.

  “Well, it’s you, all right. Thanks.”

  They moved farther into the trees, as far as the dog had gone. They could see his sign as Pete pointed it out—paw prints, a bent pine needle, a toe and claw mark on a rotting log—a trail left by a very hesitant canine who didn’t know which way to turn next. This was the spot. Whatever was troubling Caesar had to have left something here.

  Pete sank carefully to one knee and remained still, as if listening. His eyes began to sweep across the cluttered forest floor as he studied the twigs, the pine cones, the fallen needles, the scattered pebbles, the blades of grass and tiny, broad-leaved weeds. Reed saw his jaw tense. Then Pete pointed with his stick.

  Tyler replied, “Yeah, you’ve got it.”

  Reed peered over Tyler’s shoulder but couldn’t see a thing except the cluttered, busy, infinitely detailed forest floor.

  Pete removed his hat and went down on his belly, the side of his head to the ground, his open eye next to the ground, the other winked shut. “Yeah.”

  He raised up on his side and carefully pressed his thumb into the soil, leaving a small oval indentation. Then he went in close, his nose only inches from the tiny leaves and grass. “Yeah, maybe half a day old. Could’ve come through last night, easy.”

  Tyler whispered to Reed, pointing carefully with his tracking stick. “See the shine on that leaf right there? And the dip in the needles underneath?”

  Reed looked a long time, but finally he saw it—he thought.

  “Rear foot?” Don asked.

  “I wanna see another one,” Pete answered as he measured the impression with a tape measure. “Got about five . . . and one-half inches across. Whew! That makes him one for the record books.

  Heavy son of a gun too.” While Don flagged the impression with a pink ribbon on a Popsicle stick, Pete pivoted the tracking stick forward, holding the handle over the impression and swinging the tip in a slow, careful arc. “C’mon now, let me see a heel print.”

  Pete—and so the whole group—inched forward.

  Don pointed with his stick. “Got some snapped branches at one o’clock.”

  They all looked and saw the spindly, mostly dead branches on the lower trunk of a pine either bent or snapped in an uphill direction.

  “Ehh, bingo,” said Pete, selecting some tweezers from his pocket and plucking a long reddish hair from the jagged stump of a limb. The hair gave him pause. He handed it back to Don. “That look like bear to you?”

  Don held the specimen up to the light. “Well, maybe. Kind of long.”

  Pete asked Reed, “What color is Beck’s hair these days?”

  Reed examined the hair Don held in the tweezers. “Reddish brown.”

  Pete exhaled a half whistle. “Hoo, lordy.”

  Don carefully placed the hair in a Ziploc bag.

  Pete stood still, probing ahead with narrowed eyes. Finally, he let out a held breath. “Okay,” he said, pointing. “We’ve got another one.”

  The body of trackers inched forward again.

  This one was more visible, a roundish impression in some humus. To Reed it looked as though someone had knelt there and left a knee print.

  Pete went on his belly again, eyeing the print carefully, then measuring it. He straightened up, still on one kne
e. He was troubled, eyeing the area between the two prints. “Where are the front feet?”

  “We’ve missed something,” Don agreed as he flagged the print.

  “Well, we’ll find ’em,” said Pete. He stretched out his tracking stick to measure the distance between the two tracks, but it wouldn’t reach. He chuckled. “Either that, or this bear has one heck of a stride.”

  They moved ahead, this time according to the length they’d found between the first two tracks. The third one, nothing more than a scuff on a rotting log, was where it should have been, the same distance from the second as the second was from the first. They had a pattern.

  Sing crouched in the doorway of the sorrowful old cabin and took one last shot of the destruction inside. She was amazed. In her line of work, she’d photographed and reconstructed crime scenes involving hoodlums and vandals, domestic spats, drug-related murders, and meth lab explosions, but they were nothing like this. For one thing, the beast that made this mess was far, far outside the human category. Certainly, human scum could show this kind of disregard for property, but to snap support posts like toothpicks and tear whole walls open required an inestimable strength she had never encountered. For another thing—and this still felt a little odd to her—according to the rules out here, this wasn’t even a crime scene but made perfect sense: bear gets hungry, bear finds food, bear does what is necessary to get it. Tearing the windows out of a building, smashing cots and shelves, and splintering a door were shocking, destructive acts to civilized perceptions, but to a bear’s way of thinking, no different from clawing the termites out of an old stump.

  It was frightening and fascinating, and not hard to understand.

  If it was a bear.

  “How’s it going?” Jimmy, the conservation officer, called from the bridge.

  He was obviously impatient, and she couldn’t blame him. Agnes the dog handler had arrived with Caesar, and Jimmy and the hunters were ready to move, so the only thing holding them up was Sing’s directive from Sheriff Mills. She’d photographed Reed and Beck’s campsite, their food stash, the log bridge, and the littered area around the cabin. She’d paced off distances and made notes. Everything that was directly knowable she’d recorded on several pages. She’d worked expeditiously, but the process took precious time. Jimmy had somehow managed to defer to the sheriff on this one, but she could feel him breathing down her neck with each passing minute.