The Megathropi were large, strong, and swift. Not as physically imposing as they would eventually evolve to be, but more than enough to take any three humans in unarmed combat. When they waged war against their rivals, they hefted clubs the size of small tree stumps, However, they weren’t wrathful by nature and only fought when provoked.
The Neanderthals were an intermediary species. Though they embodied many of the best physical characteristics of the other two races, what doomed them was that they also embodied the worst as well. They could not compete against the Megathropi in power, and they could not best the humans with cunning. They were also a solitary people, preferring small, nomadic families. When another species decided to do battle against them, there were often not enough in any one area to mount an effective defense.
In the end, it had been the humans’ social nature and their eagerness for battle that had decided the fate of the planet. They decimated the Neanderthals in Europe and slowly drove back the Megathropi through aggressiveness and sheer force of numbers.
The Neanderthal tribes were eventually destroyed and their remnants absorbed into the human population. As for the Megathropi, they became a fractured people. They were driven into the deepest forests and the highest mountains. It was only in these places that the humans’ greater numbers could be countered and they were able to make a stand. Eventually, mankind grew disinterested in these inhospitable territories and retreated back to the prime lands they had won. In time, they forgot.
The Megathropi were left in peace. Time passed, and they evolved. They became larger and stronger, better suited to the harsh climates they had been forced into. Their senses heightened, and they became warier. Despite their size, they adapted to a life of stealth. Sadly, all that they gained did not compare to what had been lost. Fire, tools, dwellings ... all was forgotten. In many ways, the remaining clans once more became the animals they had long ago risen above.
As for this history between the two species, it is also doubtful the clan would have shown much appreciation for it either. Their racial memory was strong, and the lessons of their defeat had been passed down through the generations. Who knows what they might have thought under different circumstances. Some of them might have felt disgust at this replaying of events long past. Others might have had vague feelings of vindication. However, none of this mattered to them in the slightest. By the time the lights had gone out at Bonanza Creek, each and every one of them was quite insane.
Chapter 23
“Are you a fucking retard!?” Chuck screamed at the dirty man he’d just shoved off him. “I almost gutted you.”
“Wouldn’t...” the man gasped as he rose back to his feet, looking exhausted, “...be the first time I almost got gutted today.”
Chuck had no idea what he was talking about. All he knew was that it still didn’t feel right. If he had been a few hundred yards further back in the direction he had come, his suspicions would have been confirmed. He would have seen nothing but darkness where the town of Bonanza Creek should have been.
“Can you walk?” he asked, vaguely aware of the throbbing in his own gut. The collision hadn’t done his wound any good. He could walk, but at the moment he wasn’t sure he could do much more.
“Walking doesn’t concern me so much as running.” The man eyed the knife that Chuck was still holding. “Don’t suppose you got anything bigger than that pig sticker on you.”
“Not with me. Why?” Chuck asked, hoping the answer wasn’t going to further ruin his already shitty day.
“You ain’t gonna believe this,” replied Kurt Bachowski, “but there’s a big-ass ape out there, and it’s gonna be up both our shitters if we don’t get moving.”
* * *
The blackout was just the excuse Phil had been looking for. He hadn’t expected Paula to be such an – animal, and a freaky one at that. They had just finished up their second go at it, and he was breathing hard. He felt like he could pass out right then and there. Paula, on the other hand, was almost immediately ready for round three. She had started pawing at him and was once more weirding him out with her bizarre demands.
“Tame me, oh mighty chief. Make me your squaw,” she had grunted, lowering her head beneath the covers and starting to work her way down.
Jesus, this bitch has some fucked up fantasies, he thought, trying to pry her off.
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back up, hoping she got the hint. However, she had just grinned at him and purred, “Oh, please don’t scalp me, young brave. The other settlers are dead. I have no defense against you, should you wish to violate me.”
She started grinding her body against him again. Amazingly, he was the one feeling violated. He was getting close to decking the freaky bitch – although a small voice in his head warned she might like that – when the lights had blinked out.
In the perfect darkness, she didn’t see the look of relief that crossed over his face.
“What’s going on?” she asked, dropping out of whatever crazed fantasy had been playing out in her mind.
“I don’t know. I’d better go check.” Before she could protest, he quickly rolled out from under her and began grabbing for his clothes in the dark.
“You don’t have to go. This dump probably just blew a fuse. Why don’t you come back here and we can pretend you just dragged me back to your teepee?”
Oh shit. He hopped back into his pants as quickly as he could. “I should get going anyway,” he told her, a slight note of desperation in his voice. “Your boyfriend will probably be worried.”
She sighed in the darkness. “I guess you’re right. Although the twerp is probably busy jerking himself off to those assholes’ every word.”
Phil heard shuffling on the bed. It sounded like she was getting up, too. “I’ll come with you. Maybe we can find a quiet corner and you can show me your great spirit again,” she purred.
He involuntarily gulped. Even in the dark, he could imagine the insatiable look in her eyes. This was definitely not going as he had imagined. “You know, I’m not really an Indian,” he confessed, fumbling into his sneakers and starting toward the door.
“Of course not,” her voice came from right in front of him. “Your people have been scattered by the white man,” she said in a throaty voice as she moved between him and the door. “You have no home, no identity of your own. All you have is vengeance for your own personal Trail of Tears, a chance to take it out on some poor, helpless maiden.”
“Not quite what I meant,” he replied in a small voice. Christ, this chick won’t take the hint. He backed up and found himself leaning against one of the windows. Unsurprisingly, he heard her footsteps following.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t all he heard.
He noticed a strange chuffing sound that didn’t seem to be coming from her direction.
“Did I tire you out that much?” Paula asked, walking up to him.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re panting like a dog.”
“That’s not me.”
“Then what...” She didn’t get a chance to finish the question, though, for at that moment, the window exploded.
Phil screamed out as shards of glass embedded themselves in his skin, but that wasn’t the worst. No, that was far from the worst. He felt the nails of an impossibly strong hand dig into his back. There was a wet tearing sound, followed by a crunch as his spine shattered. It was the last thing he heard before a much darker blackness took him.
* * *
Inside the Bonanza Creek Bar and Grill, there wasn’t any sense of worry, at least not initially. The three men had been talking with Kate when the lights went out. Before anyone could react, Ben Reeves had cursed, “Goddamnit! This place is wired worse than a ten-cent whore.” Derek had been tempted to ask what he meant by that, when Ben turned on a flashlight from his spot behind the bar. “No need to panic, folks.”
Moving with the speed of a man who knows a place like
the back of his hand, he procured some candles from beneath the counter and lit them. At last, he seemed satisfied that he had given his customers enough light for the moment. He then said, “Hold tight and I’ll go check on the genny,” before walking around the bar and heading toward the rear of the room.
Harrison gave a worried look as the bartender disappeared into the back, but Derek smiled at him reassuringly in the dim light. “There is such a thing as coincidence,” he said.
Kate looked between them for a second. “Coincidence about what?”
Harrison took another sip of his beer. “Sorry. I’m being jumpy. Just because I got a good scare is probably no reason to freak out the second anything weird happens.”
“I’ll say,” she replied. “And trust me, there’s been a lot of weird going on the last day or two.”
“How so?” Derek asked, his interest piqued.
“Those hikers that got lost?” Harrison offered.
“No. It has nothing to do with them or the search party. I’m probably all worked up because my dog’s gone missing.”
Derek and Francis exchanged a quick glance. “When did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t seen him since I left the house this morning. It’s not like him. He’s usually a lazy bugger. Then there was that blood on my porch.”
“Blood?” She suddenly had Derek’s full attention.
“Yeah, a whole puddle of it. My dad thought one of the locals got drunk, then maybe stepped on some broken glass. I don’t know, though. It was a lot of blood for that. Whoever they were, I just hope they got themselves over to Doc Hanscomb’s place.”
Harrison’s eyes went wide. Derek was about to tell him to calm down and not jump to conclusions, but the younger man spoke first. “What do you mean by ‘stepped on glass?’”
“Well, there were bloody footprints. Big ones, too, and the damnedest thing was they were barefoot, just like it was the middle of summer.”
Derek held up a hand to Harrison. “I’m sure it’s just a...”
Just then, there was a loud thump from the backroom. All heads turned in that direction. Ben could be heard yelling, “Use the front door, you...” but his shout was interrupted by the sound of splintering wood. The entire building shuddered as if from an impact.
Then the screaming started.
“Let me guess, just another coincidence?” Harrison asked.
Derek looked between them all. “I’ve been known to be wrong on occasion.”
* * *
“What’s wrong?” asked Rob. “What does the report say?”
Even in the glow of the monitors, Mitchell’s face appeared to have taken on an ashen sheen. “It says that I’m a goddamned fool.”
“I’m not following you.”
“The results,” he said, holding up the printouts. “The biopsy samples came back with a match.”
“For what?”
“Rabies,” Mitchell replied. “The goddamn thing was rabid.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t panic,” Rob said, trying to calm the other man down. This wasn’t his area of expertise, but he was a quick thinker and wanted to make sure they weren’t jumping the gun on anything. “Are you sure the sample was okay? Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe it got corrupted.”
Mitchell rolled his eyes at the younger man. “Don’t you think I thought of that? I sent over multiple samples, all prepared separately. All of them came back with similar results. If there was an outlier, the report would’ve listed it.”
Rob listened with a growing sense of panic. “Harrison got that thing’s blood all over him and Woodchuck got slashed up.”
“I know. We’re going to need to get them to a real hospital. Hell, we’ll probably all need to be treated, just to be safe. And that’s not even the worst of it.”
“How is that not the worst?”
“Remember what Derek said? There’s probably a whole clan of them in the area. What if that thing was a kind of Typhoid Mary?”
Now it was Rob’s turn to look ill. He stood up and grabbed the printouts. “We need to tell him about this now.”
He stepped toward the rear of the van. Suddenly, the entire vehicle lurched as if it had been broadsided. He fell to the floor, and Mitchell landed beside him.
“What the hell?” Mitchell barked. Just as he did, there came a second impact. If the first had rocked the heavy vehicle, this one was enough to finish the job.
The van tumbled onto its side. The sensitive communications array on top was smashed in the impact. Inside, equipment sparked, warning lights flashed, and then, after a few seconds of chaos, it all went dark.
* * *
Danni jolted awake in bed, disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings. After escorting Greg back to his room, she had retired to her own. She had found Allison already out cold, still fully dressed, lying across one of the beds. Upon seeing her, Danni had realized how good a little bit of sleep sounded. Everything else could wait until morning.
She had covered her friend with a blanket before climbing into the other bed and doing the same. She initially wasn’t sure if she’d be able to sleep, despite the weariness of her body. She needn’t have worried, though. She was snoring within three minutes of hitting the pillow.
Though it was already starting to fade from memory, she knew she had been reliving the day’s events in a dream. In it, she had been alone as the creature pursued her through the woods. It had been even larger than life, more like being run down by a dinosaur. With each monstrous stride, it gained on her. With each step it took, the ground beneath her feet shook a little more. Finally, she had looked back and realized it was right on top of her. The creature let out an earth-shattering scream, and that was when she had awoken. It had seemed so real.
“Danni?” a voice called from the darkness. She realized, after a second or two, it was Allison. She reached over and flicked the switch on the lamp next to her bed. Nothing happened.
“Danni, are you awake?”
“Yeah.”
“You heard it too, huh?”
That got her attention. “Heard what?”
“I don’t know. It sounded like someone screamed. I thought I was dreaming, but then I heard you sit up.”
A dull feeling of unease shot up Danni’s spine. “Turn on your light, okay? Mine’s not working.”
There was a shuffling noise as her friend got up, followed by a dull click. The darkness remained, though.
“Power’s out,” Allison said, a bit of wariness creeping into her voice.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to...”
Her words trailed off as something started hammering on their door.
* * *
Both girls let out a cry of surprise.
The pounding ceased just as quickly as it began, and then a panicked voice on the other side of the door yelled, “Let me in!”
Danni swallowed the lump in her throat. She felt a bit foolish and was kind of glad that Allison couldn’t see her. Judging by the deep breath that came from the other girl’s direction, she was probably thinking the same thing.
“Is that Paula?”
“Sounds like it,” Allison replied. “Can you get the door and see what she wants? I’ll find my flashlight.”
“On it.” Danni walked toward the door, feeling in front of herself with her hands. The pounding and shouting started up again as she reached it. Fumbling with the lock, she yelled back, “Okay! We heard you the first time! For Christ’s sake, Paula...” The door flung open, and she was pushed back by its force. A scant second later, someone, presumably Paula, grabbed her in a bear hug.
“Thank God! Thank God!” she panted over and over again.
Danni somehow managed to keep from falling over. She was confused, but she could tell the other girl was extremely upset. Instinctively, she put her arms around Paula, then felt her backside.
“Paula, are you...,” she started to say when t
he bright LEDs of a flashlight lit up the room.
“Naked?” Allison finished.
Sure enough, she was – naked and completely hysterical, as far as Danni could tell. Paula continued to hug her with almost manic strength, then she started stuttering in an attempt to speak.
“Slow down,” Danni said in a comforting tone. “It’s okay. Take a breath and tell us what happened.”
Paula continued shaking, but at last managed to blurt out, “Wild ... Feather!”
Allison stepped up to them. “What?” She looked Paula up and down. “What did that asshole do to you?”
Danni and her friend shared a glance. They were probably thinking the same thing. Had the whole ordeal caused Wild Feather to snap? She almost couldn’t believe it. He was normally so together, so serene, so gentle.
No, that was all bullshit, she reminded herself. She had to remember that she obviously didn’t know him at all. Now it looked like the little bastard had stepped way over the line. If so, he was going down hard. She’d see him behind bars and hopefully some convict’s bitch before this was over.
“Get me a blanket,” Danni instructed.
Allison grabbed one off the bed and wrapped it around Paula’s still trembling shoulders. Danni then gently pulled away and looked her in the eye. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you.”
“He...” the other girl trembled.
“Tell us. What did he do?”
Finally, something seemed to snap in Paula. She grabbed Danni’s arms in a manic grip and stared back at her, her pupils wide despite Allison’s light. “DEAD!” she finally screamed. “HE’S DEAD!”
The two other girls once again exchanged confused glances. “What do you mean ‘he’s dead?’” Even as Danni asked the question, she realized how stupid it sounded. It was a bad line straight out of a Law & Order episode.
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