“But all animals have an EMF field, even humans,” said Mr. Gonzalez, clarifying for the kids.
“Right. Exactly. So, the Bigfoots use this EMF field, it’s theorized, to disorient other animals, maybe scare off other animals, whatever. Okay? But they also use it with their own species, we think, to help attract each other, and to help know when one of their own is around.”
“Well, they might use infrasound to disorient other animals, but they probably use EMF to recognize their own species. We’re not sure,” interjected Mr. Gonzalez.
“Whatever,” Danny replied. “The point is, they use an EMF field to help attract each other.”
“It’s like a signature that is specific to only Sasquatches,” said Mr. Gonzalez.
“So, does your box make an EMF field?” asked Emily.
“Yes, exactly, Emily!” said Danny. “Our techs made this electrical gadget with a powerful battery that has an electrical current running in it, and it emits an electromagnetic field that is really strong, and it copies the EMF field that Bigfoots use!”
“But, see, the Sasquatches can manipulate their EMF field to suit the need. So they maybe have a certain frequency for disorienting enemies, and another for scaring them, and another to signal to each other that they are around,” said Mr. Gonzalez.
“Right,” said Danny. “And from what I understand, it was a heck of hard task for our techs to get the box set to the right frequency. Before they got it to the ‘attraction frequency’, they were apparently stuck on the ‘disorienting frequency’, because they kept becoming light-headed and confused in the workshop!”
All the kids laughed, even Alec. Mr. Gonzalez got up and walked to the windows, peering out into the darkness carefully. After a moment, he returned to his seat. It must still be gone, thought Alec.
“So why was the Bigfoot on the road so mad?” asked Ken.
“Well, it arrived expecting to find another Sasquatch, and instead it found a bunch of humans and a truck,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “It was probably confused and irritated. But that was a stronger response than I expected,” he glanced at Danny.
Danny nodded. “I agree, completely. No way we could have known that it would act like that. Which leads us back to why it was so dangerous for you two to be out there with us!” He glowered at Alec and Ken.
Alec looked away. Ken smiled sheepishly.
“Why do you two keep using different words for the creatures?” asked Mrs. Gonzalez, looking at her husband and Danny.
“What do you mean?” said Mr. Gonzalez.
“Like, John, you say ‘Sasquatch’, and Danny, you say ‘Bigfoot’.”
“There are lots of different terms people use to refer to them, Rosa,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “They’re known all over the country, and all over the world.”
Alec found all this suspicious. “All over the world? Really? I thought they were just in America.”
“Oh no,” continued Mr. Gonzalez. “In India and the Himalayas they’re called Yeti. In Russia they’re called Yeti and Almas. In Australia the name is the Yowie. In China its Yeren…”
“Hmm,” Alec replied.
“But they’re probably most famous in America,” Mr. Gonzalez continued. “There are ancient stories from Native Americans about them, going back hundreds of years, and there are over 60 Native American names for them. Sasquatch is probably the most well known, which was derived from what the Indians in Canada and the Pacific Northwest called the creatures. There are other popular Indian names like Omah, Skookum, Windago; the Cherokee called them Tsul ‘Kalu. The native Americans in the Midwest, like the Osage Indians here in southwest Missouri, often referred to them as the Big Man in their own tongue.”
“But wait,” Emily jumped in. “I know about monsters. I love monsters! And Bigfoots are always in the Pacific Northwest, like California and Washington and Oregon. Not Missouri!”
“No, that’s not true,” said Danny. “There have been reports of Bigfoot in every state, including Missouri. In fact, Bigfoot is so well known in Missouri that they have a local name for him: Momo.”
“Mmm hmm,” said Mr. Gonzalez.
“But going back hundreds of years, John?” said Mrs. Gonzalez.
Mr. Gonzalez nodded his head. “Oh yeah. There are reports in North America older than that. Over a thousand years ago, the Vikings came to North America, way before Columbus ‘discovered’ the New World, and they reported seeing horribly ugly, hairy, dark-skinned natives that they called the Skellrings.”
“WOW!” Ken shouted.
“No way!” said Emily.
“Shhh!” Mrs. Gonzalez hissed. “That thing is out there somewhere!”
“Sorry, mom,” said Ken.
“So the Vikings were here before Columbus,” said Alec.
Sarah nodded, smiling. “Leif Erikson? Leader of the Vikings? You’ve never heard of him?”
Alec shrugged.
“That’s right, Sarah,” her father replied. “They even found proof of a possible Viking settlement at Newfoundland, Canada that might have been Vinland, Leif Erikson’s settlement in the New World. And it’s dated to 500 years before Columbus.”
Alec shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. If the Vikings ran into Bigfoot, why would they build a settlement?”
“There’s an old story that the Vikings wrote, called the Sagas of Icelanders,” said Danny. “Believe me, John and I had to study all this stuff in preparation for this assignment, because neither of us knew anything about Bigfoot, except what you hear on TV. Anyway, according to that story, Leif Erikson’s crew landed in three different places in North America: what they called Helluland, Markland, and Vinland. Helluland was too rocky, so they kept going. Markland had white beaches and forests, which was a great place to stay, but they didn’t. They left quickly and kept going. Why? Because that’s where they ran into the Skellrings. They got back into their boat and took off, and didn’t land for another couple of days, in a completely different place, that they called Vinland. That’s where they built their settlement.”
“See, these creatures have been around for a long, long time,” said Mr. Gonzalez. “Even in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is thousands of years old and written on clay tablets, there’s a character called Enkidu, who was covered with hair and drank with the wild beasts at the waterholes.”
“But are they dangerous?” asked Mrs. Gonzalez nervously.
Mr. Gonzalez touched her hand and held it. “Most of the reports of Sasquatches are innocuous. They’re usually trying to avoid any interaction with humans,” he said.
“So, no reports of any attacks?” she pressed.
Danny sighed. “Well… I’ll tell you this. President Theodore Roosevelt—”
“Uh, I don’t think that story’s a very good idea, Danny,” Mr. Gonzalez interrupted.
“No! I want to hear it!” said Mrs. Gonzalez.
“Me, too!” Ken and Emily said in unison.
Danny smiled and shrugged his shoulders at Mr. Gonzalez, who rolled his eyes and acquiesced.
Danny continued. “President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a book called The Wilderness Hunter, which was a non-fiction book full of hunting stories. And in it, there’s a story of two trappers who had been out camping in the wilds of Idaho, years before, which was actually told to Roosevelt by one of them, named Bauman. He was an old mountain man kind of tracker, who had seen it all, and believed in the story he was telling so much that he would shudder sometimes while telling it. And these two trappers were camping in different places, looking for a place where the trapping was good, and they entered an area where a hunter had been killed a year before by some beast, with half-eaten remains left behind.”
Alec swallowed hard. The room was dead silent.
“And so these two trappers camp out there, in this place with this bad reputation, and they make camp, and then go off setting some traps at a stream. When they come back, something had entered their camp, and dug around in their stuff, and tore down their lean-to th
at was made of brush. They figure it was a bear, and go about rebuilding their lean-to and laying out their beds and lighting their fire. So night falls, and Bauman begins making dinner, and his trapper friend starts looking at the tracks around the camp, and he takes a burning stick from the fire and follows the tracks into the darkness. He comes back a few minutes later, and is a little confused, and says, ‘Bauman, that bear has been walking on two legs.’ Bauman laughs but the guy is dead serious.
“So the two trappers go to sleep and Bauman wakes up in the middle of the night with a terrible stench in the air — Bigfoot is known for emitting a terrible odor — and he sees this big shadow standing there, and he freaks out and shoots at it, and maybe he hits it — they don’t know — but it goes crashing through the trees and takes off. Next morning, they check their traps, and come back and the camp is destroyed again. And this thing left plain as day footprints, huge and human-like, and it was walking around on two feet! That night the thing shows up again, and stands in the dark staring at them, and it lets out these low, angry moans that really shake up the two guys.”
“Wait — they shot it?” said Mrs. Gonzalez.
“Yeah, according to the story. But didn’t kill it, obviously,” Danny answered.
“But if it was standing there moaning, maybe it was hurt. Maybe it was angry that they shot it,” she said.
“Maybe so. Well, it was definitely angry, that’s for sure. Next morning, they decide it’s time to get out of there. But they have to check their traps before they leave, so they go out checking them together because they don’t want to separate, see, because they’re freaked out. And they hear twigs breaking as if something’s following them. But around noon they decide that Bauman will check the remaining traps and the other guy’ll go back to camp to pack up, to speed things along. So Bauman goes off and gets some beavers from their traps, and when he’s coming back to camp, the sun’s beginning to set. And he calls out to his friend as he approaches, and there’s no answer. And he thinks, ‘that’s odd,’ and he comes into camp slowly. Their packs have been wrapped and neatly arranged by his friend, and they were ready to go. But no sign of the guy. Then Bauman sees his friend laying flat on the ground next to a fallen tree. He runs over. And he freaks out. The guy is dead, and his neck has been broken, and there were four huge fang marks on his throat. And his body was still warm.”
Alec’s scalp felt cold, and a shiver ran down his spine.
Sarah made a face. “Ew.”
Ken and Emily sat bug-eyed and entranced.
“See, this trapper had been sitting on the fallen tree with his face to the fire, and this thing had come up behind him and gotten him. The book says that Bauman could tell the beast had pummeled his friend, and rolled around on top of his body, as if it were celebrating the fact that it got some revenge. And it left all these footprints in the ground. Bauman decided it must have been some type of half-human beast and, thoroughly terrified, he abandoned everything but his rifle and took off running through the forest like a madman, until he arrived where their ponies were grazing, and he rode through the night to safety. And Roosevelt ends the story by saying that many other states in the U.S. have reported giant creatures that roam their wildernesses.”
The room was enveloped in a hushed horror. Everyone sat staring at his dad with stunned expressions and eyes like silver dollars, except for Mr. Gonzalez, who sat quietly, holding his wife’s hand.
“Well, maybe it killed him because his buddy shot it!” Mrs. Gonzalez said.
“Could be, honey,” said Mr. Gonzalez.
“So, why are you hunting them?” Alec whispered.
Danny looked at him. “We go out to confirm if a creature is real, and determine if it’s dangerous, and what to do about it. We collect information in the field. John and I don’t ‘hunt’ in the classic sense, like with guns, although he does have a pistol that he carries with us in the field, just in case.”
“But why did that thing show up here, if you used your little box out somewhere else?” Mrs. Gonzalez asked.
Danny and Mr. Gonzalez both shook their heads.
“We don’t know,” Mr. Gonzalez said.
“How do you know that your EMF box is off?” said Sarah.
The two men stared at her, blinking.
“What do you mean? We turned it off,” said Danny.
“Yeah, but what if it’s not really off? Couldn’t it still be attracting the Bigfoots to it?”
They stared at her again.
“Is there any way to know for sure that it’s off, not sending out a signal?” she persisted.
The two men looked at each other.
“It would make sense,” Danny murmured to Mr. Gonzalez. “If the box is still transmitting, that could be why that thing showed up here at the cabin.”
“But if that’s true, how do we get it turned off?” said Mr. Gonzalez.
Danny shrugged. “We’d have to call in the guy who designed it.”
“Edgar?”
Danny nodded. “Since they’re down here on call to back us up, they’re close by.”
Mrs. Gonzalez was confused. “Who is Edgar?”
“Elbert Edgar. He and his wife are new to the task force. They both work with us — she’s an analyst like us, and he’s a tech guy, and he built the box,” Danny answered. He turned to Mr. Gonzalez. “They could stay in the extra cabin.”
Mr. Gonzalez nodded. “You’re right. I’ll give them a call on the satphone.”
“It’s in the Explorer,” said Danny.
“Satphone?” Ken asked.
“Satellite phone,” Mr. Gonzalez answered. “It has reception where regular cell phones don’t.”
“Oh, you be careful, John!” Mrs. Gonzalez screeched.
“I’ll go with him,” Danny replied.
The two men rose and Mr. Gonzalez opened the door gingerly, peaking out both sides before stepping out. They closed the door behind them.
Alec and Ken, sitting on the loveseat, glanced at each other. “Some vacation,” Alec huffed.
Ken nodded a little too energetically, and smiled. “Yeah! Monsters!”
Emily grinned at Ken from the other loveseat, where she huddled with Sarah. “I know, right?”
Alec rolled his eyes.
The door opened and their two dads hurried back in with the satellite phone.
“See anything?” Ken asked.
Mr. Gonzalez shook his head, then made the call.
An hour later they heard the sound of an engine pulling close outside. Alec peered out one of the windows at a large old conversion van, complete with tinted windows and faded brown paint. Man, that’s an ugly van!
Danny and Mr. Gonzalez stepped out onto the front porch, followed by everyone else. The front driver side door opened, and a white dress shoe stepped onto the ground. As the other doors opened and the occupants emerged, Alec and Ken stood with mouths hanging open in mute terror. A man, woman, and child stood before them, grinning. The child was a roly-poly little fellow who smiled broadly when he saw Alec and Ken, and he whipped his hand to his forehead in a goofy salute. It was the oddball family from the food court at the World’s Greatest Animal Paradise.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Alec gasped.
The air in the place was suffocating. Thick. Hot. Stuffy. Some unknown woman was wearing a heavy perfume that smelled like purple. Way, way too much purple.
The pews were packed with strangers in their Sunday best, and a lumpy old lady was warbling a churchy song that Alec had never heard before, and it was horrible. His dad sat next to him in that front row, holding his hand. They were in their Sunday best, too, but it wasn’t Sunday. It was Thursday. And this wasn’t a church service. It was a funeral.
Out in front of the podium, where the lady was howling like a cat stuck in barbed wire, there was an open coffin. The wood was a nice warm brown, highly polished, fancy.
Alec hated these people. They didn’t know her. Not like he did. Who the heck were all t
hese people, anyway? He looked around behind them, and somber faces stared back, some smiling weakly at him, trying to be compassionate.
Fakers.
His soul was dead.
His heart was dead.
His life was nothing but darkness — a huge black pit, and there was no escape. No escape.
He stared at the casket.
She’s gone.
And then his dad squeezed his hand, then let go, leaned forward, and covered his face with his hands. Alec watched his father’s body shake.
The two of them sat side by side in that cushioned pew with the hard wooden back, lost. Together, but lost.
And that lady would not shut up. Alec really, really needed her to shut up.
There was no God. If He were there, He wouldn’t have let her die.
But He’s not there. Mom was wrong.
And now it was just him and his dad sitting in that pew, in that hot church that was full of stupid strangers, one of whom smelled like purple, and this woman at the podium would not shut up!
Alec opened his eyes and took in the warm sunlight that was piercing his cabin bedroom.
Another dream.
They were exhausting, these dreams. Persistent and emotionally draining. Maybe they would stop, he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t want them to stop. At least they kept his mother’s memory fresh in his mind. At least they kept him from losing her completely. That was at least something.
At least they kept him from forgetting her.
He breathed in deep, then let it out slowly, and wiped the wetness from his cheeks. The lump in the back of his throat would go away soon. It always did. He sniffled.
He heard a faint shout coming from somewhere outside, or was it a laugh? Alec got out of bed and padded across the creaky floor to the window, and peered out. He was in a loft bedroom, equivalent to a second floor, and down below, in the grass, Ken was yelling and laughing and throwing a water balloon at his sister and her friend, Emily. Ken was in his Batman swimming trunks with no shirt, his sister and Emily were in shorts and t-shirts, and were not amused.
Alec Kerley and the Terror of Bigfoot (Book One of the Monster Hunters Series) Page 5