Alec smiled and shook his head. Incorrigible Ken.
He changed out of his pajamas and into some cargo shorts and a red Kansas City Chiefs t-shirt, then slipped on some ankle socks and walked downstairs. Remembering Emily and Sarah, he immediately steered himself into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. When he was finished, he went into the living room. The cabin was empty. He slipped on his white tennis shoes and walked out the front door.
“Alec! Come get a water balloon!” Ken shouted with glee. “I filled up a whole bunch of ’em, and I’m at war with th’ girls!”
Alec stepped down the wooden stairs and watched as Sarah grabbed a full balloon from Ken’s stash on the ground next to a tree and walloped Ken’s face with it. It exploded and covered him with water. Sarah and Emily laughed, sauntered to the middle cabin, and walked inside.
Alec approached Ken in the grass, who stood with his eyes closed and his hair soaked and flat, and slapped him on his bare shoulder.
“She gotcha good.”
Ken opened one eye and peeked at him. He blew the water from his lips and grinned. “Yeah, but wait till she finds th’ garter snake in ’er bedroom!”
On cue, a scream burst from the middle cabin. Ken smiled wide at Alec. A moment later Ken’s mother yelled, “Kenneth Enrique Gonzalez! You get in here, now!”
Alec pursed his lips, and Ken shrugged his shoulders. Trudging, Ken began a long, slow trek to the middle cabin, dragging out the inevitable as long as possible.
Mrs. Gonzalez popped her head out the door. “Ándale, mister!”
Ken picked up his pace.
Mrs. Gonzalez spotted Alec. “Well, sleepy head, just in time. It’s lunch time. Come on!”
Alec smiled and hustled inside. He was hungry, and everything Mrs. Gonzalez served was good. As he entered the cabin, he was confronted with the sight of the odd new family already sitting at the long dinner table, grinning at him.
Good grief.
After arriving last night, they had come inside and Mr. Gonzalez had made formal introductions all around. There was the father, Mr. Edgar — Alec thought Mr. Gonzalez said the guy’s first name was Elbert. This guy seemed to really love his fake leather white dress shoes, because he wore them all the time, even with white shorts and black socks, like now. He also wore a navy blue short-sleeved button up dress shirt with a large, stiff collar. The mother’s name was Evelyn. She always had her auburn hair pulled back into a seriously long ponytail that flowed all the way down her back. Today she also had shorts on, pleated and old fashioned, bright red, with leather sandals, purple painted toenails, and a bright yellow t-shirt. Her jovial face was covered with freckles.
The son — wow. He still wore the same too-short black shorts that Alec saw him in the other day, with his white socks and black dress shoes, and a short-sleeved tan dress shirt. This wiggly little fellow’s name was Ethan. When Alec had first seen him at the animal park, he’d thought Ethan was nine or ten years old, but it turned out the kid was actually just small for his age, since, at eleven, he was only one year in school behind the rest of the kids on this trip. His parents had made a point to mention that his middle name was Elvis, no kidding. So his full name was Ethan Elvis Edgar. And he seemed intent on living up to the name, as he was all about Elvis Presley.
As Alec entered the cabin, Ethan immediately stood up straight, slapped the back of his hand to his forehead in his silly salute, and sang, in a heavy Elvis accent, “Vivaaaaaa, Las Vegas!”
Alec was horrified. Ethan’s parents both beamed at Alec, and Ethan remained frozen in that salute. Timidly, Alec raised his hand to his head and returned Ethan’s salute.
“WOO HOO!” Ethan shouted, and began to jiggle and dance like Elvis Presley, shaking his hips and twitching his legs spasmodically.
Ken, now clad in a dry blue t-shirt, in addition to his wet swim trunks, approached Alec and muttered under his breath, “Now ya done it.”
“Alright, sit down, boys,” Mrs. Gonzalez ordered. All three boys sat at the table, and since Danny and Mr. Gonzalez were already seated at the table, Alec and Ken landed directly across from the Edgar family.
“Let’s go, girls!” Mrs. Gonzalez called up the stairs, as she sat at the table next to Mr. Gonzalez.
Sarah and Emily, freshly changed into new shorts and t-shirts, skulked down the stairs. Sarah glared at Ken, who turned and grinned at them.
“Like yer pet?” he chided.
“I thought it was kind of cool,” said Emily.
“Oh, you’ll get yours, short stuff,” Sarah said. She was two inches taller than Ken, who was her fraternal twin, and he hated being reminded of it. Ken scowled at her.
The girls sat next to Alec, with Emily directly beside him, and Alec was very pleased with this turn of events. He smiled pleasantly at Emily and said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” she replied shyly.
Alec turned and was startled to see little Ethan, with his disorderly mop of brown hair and over-sized ears, feverishly wiggling his eyebrows at the two girls, who were studying him with a sort of scientific apprehension.
“Ethan, stop the wiggling,” his mother cooed. Ethan’s eyebrows stopped dancing, but he continued to stare curiously at the four kids across from him with large, hazel eyes.
Alec was a little disappointed to learn that lunch consisted of chef salads, but was encouraged when his dad said that he’d be cooking steaks on the grill for dinner later.
“Well, you were right, the EMF field generator was stuck on,” Ethan’s pointy-nosed dad said as they all began eating. “That’s why the Sasquatch showed up here last night.”
Danny looked concerned and glanced at Ethan. Following his eyes, Mr. Edgar smiled and said, “Oh, Ethan knows about our work. He’s a sharp one. He figured it out a couple of years ago when he found a werewolf-killing kit in the closet of my home office.”
Mr. Gonzalez choked on the coffee he was drinking and began coughing.
Ken’s eyes popped wide. “WEREWOLF?!” he bellowed.
Emily gasped in excitement. Alec’s blood ran cold. Mr. Edgar nodded innocently at the kids while Danny tried to do damage control.
“Um, uh, Elbert, the only creature our kids know about is Bigfoot, so…”
“Oh, okay, right-o. Yeah, sorry about that.” He snorted and laughed.
“Oh, Elbert!” Mrs. Edgar exclaimed. She peered intently at the four kids across from her. “You didn’t hear anything,” she said heavily, as if trying to use magic mojo to make them forget.
Alec stared at her. Forget? Yeah, right!
“Werewolf!” Ken repeated.
“Ken, quiet. Not another word about werewolves,” Mr. Gonzalez growled. He glowered at the rest of the kids at the table. “That goes for the rest of you, too. Not another word about it.”
Alec and Ken exchanged sideways glances. Ken’s eyes were wide and excited.
“Yeah, so, any-hoo,” Mr. Edgar continued, “I haven’t been able to turn it off.”
Danny and Mr. Gonzalez stared at him.
“What do you mean?” asked Danny.
“You mean it’s still on right now?” Mr. Gonzalez demanded.
Mr. Edgar nodded. “Yep. Can’t get that rascal off until it’s dismantled. Something in there is stuck.”
“Then dismantle it!” Mrs. Gonzalez gasped.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” said Mrs. Edgar. “This is what you were wanting, right? To observe, to learn, to interact with them?”
“Not with the kids here!” said Mrs. Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez put a hand on her arm to calm her.
“Evelyn,” he said to Mrs. Edgar, “you didn’t see what happened. That thing on the road was a roaring monster. Something had it angry, and it attacked the Explorer.”
Mrs. Edgar shook her head. “It’s up to you — you two are the lead on this case, so it’s your call. But to have this type of interaction with these things is magnificent, after all the preparation we’ve done. After all the preparation that you’ve done, even befo
re Elbert and I joined the team.”
Mr. Gonzalez considered it for a moment. He looked at Danny. “She’s right. This is a miraculous opportunity to interact with these things.”
Danny was watching Alec thoughtfully. He shook his head. “No. I agree with Rosa. It’s too dangerous with the kids here.”
“Thank you!” said Mrs. Gonzalez.
After a moment of silence, Mr. Gonzalez agreed. “Okay, it’s decided. Elbert, I’m sorry, but we’ll need you to dismantle the generator right away.”
Mr. Edgar nodded. “No problemo.”
After lunch, while Mrs. Gonzalez was making Ken wash dishes as punishment for the snake incident, Alec retreated outside and found a tree to sit under that was close to the lake. He liked to be alone. He liked silence. He stared at the blue water, shimmering in the sun like a flowing blanket of diamonds. He inhaled deeply, breathing in the fresh lake air. The wind from the water caressed his wavy blonde hair and he closed his eyes against the warmth of the sunlight.
Hearing footsteps rustling in the grass behind him, he looked back to see Emily approaching. She wore a metal hair clip that pulled her sandy locks over to the left side of her face, with her hair parted on the right side. Her t-shirt was small and white, and her shorts were khaki brown. She was not as tall and thin as Sarah, thicker, and sweet and pretty. Her toes were unpainted and framed in green plastic flip flops.
“Mind if I come over?” she asked timidly.
Alec smiled. “Of course not.”
She approached and stood next to him, gazing at the lake. They were quiet for a moment, then she said, “I know what it’s like to lose a parent, too.”
Startled, Alec gaped at her. Emily glanced down and frowned. “My dad has been gone for three years.”
Alec didn’t know anything about Emily, except that she and her mom had moved to Kansas City a year ago and last year was her first at their school.
“Did he die?” Alec asked, soft and quiet.
“No. He and my mom got a divorce when I was nine, and he disappeared. Didn’t pay child support, didn’t try to see me, nothing. Just gone. I never heard from him again.”
Alec thought about this. “Well, at least he’s alive.”
“For all I know, he may not be. Anyway, for me, he’s as good as dead.”
Alec peered up at her. “Do you miss him?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered, staring at the glistening water. “He used to take me on dates. We’d go to the park, sometimes go get ice cream, sometimes go see a movie. He used to call me his princess. Now it’s just me and my mom, and she works all the time. Guess it’s hard being a single parent.”
Alec thought about his father. “Guess so.”
Emily crouched down and crossed her arms. “But for him to not want to see me… what does that say about me, you know? My own father has no interest in seeing me. And really, why would anyone have any interest in me? I’m nobody.”
“Emily, that’s not true. I think you’re great!” Alec said, a little too forcefully. He felt embarrassed.
She smiled. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know.”
He cocked his head. “Know what?”
“That you’re not the only one who hurts, Alec. I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. You must miss her terribly. I just want you to know that you’re not alone. There’s a whole world of us out there, who are hurting, and struggling.”
She stood up. “I read somewhere that it’s ‘the human condition’. The brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity. We’re all hurting. All together, hurting. And I bet your dad is, too.”
Her eyes became watery. “We’re all hurting,” she whispered. Then she turned and walked back to the cabin.
The steaks hissed as he laid them on the hot old metal grill that was permanently embedded in the ground. Danny had filled it with charcoal and lit the fire 30 minutes ago, and the coals were now white around the edges — perfect for cooking. But with the addition of the Edgar family, the need for extra food required that he grill 20 steaks instead of 14 or 15, so it was going to take a while. John Gonzalez said he was going to come out and help as soon as he and Elbert Edgar finished trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the EMF generator, which was finally dismantled.
Danny loved the smoky smell of steak sizzling on the grill. Divine.
He stared at the meat as it cooked but he didn’t really see it. His mind drifted to someplace else.
Alec.
This revelation about his real job had been upsetting for his son, and he regretted that. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen, not like this. Alec wasn’t supposed to find out about his work — it was top secret. But sometimes things couldn’t be helped, he supposed.
The poor kid had been through a lot. Losing his mother had devastated him. Both of them. He and his son used to have a better connection. But after Amanda died, everything changed. Everything went to pieces and nothing was right anymore.
Danny’s heart ached for his son, for his son’s pain. He wanted to help him heal, he wanted to reach out to him, he wanted to bridge the gap between them. But how?
Danny had always believed in God. Always. Even when his wife died. But sometimes maintaining faith was really, really hard… especially when you feel lost.
A friend of his who had graduated from a religious college once told him that God could turn any event into a positive in someone’s life. God may not have made something happen, but He could make it work out for our good.
How He could use these events of the past couple of days for their good, Danny had no idea. How He could take anything from their lives this past year and make something positive out of it…
Danny sighed.
Give me a sign. Anything. Something to cling to.
He poured some Worcestershire sauce on the meat, then shook the spices on. He smiled to himself, remembering how his father in southeast Kansas calls Worcestershire sauce rooster juice because Worcestershire sauce was such an awkward name. Danny had taken to calling it that himself.
The coals under the meat were red hot now.
She used to love my cooking.
She would compliment him for the perfect steak every time, even when they were too tough. That was just the kind of woman she was. Always supportive, always generous with her affection.
She had been his best friend.
Danny stood silent with that thought reverberating through his head, over and over. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the fresh Ozark mountain air.
When he opened them again he looked up and was staring at the largest Bigfoot creature he had ever seen. It must have been nine feet tall and four feet wide. And it was standing less than 20 feet away, under a tree, glaring at him. Way, way too close. Its eyes had a red tinge to them.
Danny shuddered, dumbstruck. His mind went blank. He didn’t know what to think or what to do. He felt like a mouse frozen in fear before a cobra.
This wasn’t the same creature as last night. It was bigger. And it didn’t have the silverish coloration on its chest like the one last night did. This one looked more threatening, more aggressive. And the red eyes were freaking him out.
Although caught up in the moment, Danny tried to force himself to make an observation of its appearance: Its face was flat, like a human’s. The thing was covered with dark grayish-black fur, or hair a little longer than fur, all over, except around the eyes, on the nose, the cheeks, and some around the mouth. The mouth was wider than a human’s, quite big, with little appearance of lips, or very thin lips, the lower lip more visible than the top one. The nose was round and fairly flat, with nostrils pointed down. The eyes were about human size, maybe a little bigger, and they seemed to betray an intelligence that was higher than an animal. It almost appeared to be actively thinking. Danny could not see any white in its eyes, only darkness tinged with red. It had a heavy ridge over its eyes, like great apes or what Danny had seen in caveman likenesses. The head had a coned shape to it, with an apparent s
agittal crest like a great ape, and it seemed to slope back from the face more than a human. There was no neck to speak of, and Danny couldn’t see any ears at this distance. It looked like the head was sitting directly on top of its shoulders, which were horrifyingly wide and intimidating. The torso was barrel-like and its arms were muscular and long, reaching almost to its knees, which were slightly bent. Its legs were thick and wide, with huge calves, and the feet were gigantic. The toes, which were quite big — especially the big toe — seemed to be separated more so than humans. There was no hair on the palms of the large hands. The skin on the face and the palms of the hands was dark gray.
This monster appeared to weigh around a thousand pounds.
Danny swallowed hard.
It took one step forward and stopped. Danny looked down at the grilling gear he had sitting on a small table next to him.
The grilling fork.
Slowly, he reached out and grasped the fork. It was big and long, with three sharp prongs.
The creature growled, long and low and menacing. Danny’s breathing became rapid and shallow. His heart thundered in his chest.
For the past few hours Alec, Ken, Sarah, Emily, and Ethan had been playing a rousing game of Risk at the dining room table in the Gonzalez cabin. It was a board game ‘of global domination’, as the advertising went. A little slow, but fun. Except when a girl is winning the game of global domination. And currently, Sarah was dominating.
Alec watched Sarah shake and roll her dice, as she fought a skirmish against her brother. With every roll, Ken was becoming more and more agitated, and Sarah was having a ball. She was winning the battle.
She’s pretty, Alec thought.
Tall, slim and athletic, with long raven black hair that was parted in the middle, and deep brown eyes, Sarah was also probably the smartest one out of all of them. She was kind, sweet to Alec, and was like a sister to him. It would be weird to be anything more than friends, he thought.
Alec Kerley and the Terror of Bigfoot (Book One of the Monster Hunters Series) Page 6