“Uh, thanks,” he mumbled.
The young Bigfoot laughed. Actually laughed!
The sound caught Alec by surprise, but it was definitely a laugh, like a low giggle. The creature almost appeared to be smiling. All at once the little fellow dropped onto his rump, raised his large feet, which appeared to be padded on the bottom like a dog, grabbed them with his hands, and began to bounce around the ground directly on his rear end!
Unsure of what to make of this display, Alec surreptitiously placed the crawdad in the grass a few feet away from him and let the ill-tempered little thing, which seemed highly offended by the whole affair, scamper off in a huff.
While the little monster was joyously bouncing around on his bottom, the young female returned to their camp with an armful of grass and weeds and roots and twigs and pinecones, which she placed near the opening of the area where they sleep. Then she ambled over to an oak tree that was maybe twenty feet from Alec, turned her knees out, and sat straight down, leaning back against the tree and staring at him.
The large male disappeared, but the older female sat down by the cave opening and glared at Alec, apparently making sure that he didn’t try to escape. The young male stopped bouncing on his bottom and scampered off in the direction that the larger male went.
Alec sat in silence, staring back at the two female Sasquatches, feeling like an animal on display in a zoo. He had noticed that both females had light brown eyes with flakes of green in them, and he figured that the younger one must be the daughter of the older one and had gotten her eye color from her mother. The older male’s eyes were just dark brown, and the young male’s eyes were more black, like maybe they hadn’t formed their own eye color yet.
And now that he was considering their eyes, Alec realized that the large Bigfoot with the one eye damaged by his dad was not there. Probably lurking around here somewhere… and when it sees me…
Alec shivered, remembering how he shot it with Mr. Gonzalez’s gun. It was pretty mad.
Looking around at their living area, Alec wondered if it was only a temporary abode; if they would soon be moving on to another, different area. He’d heard Ken’s dad say that they like to move around. He couldn’t remember the term, though. What was that called? He thought hard, thinking about Ms. Cunningham’s Biology class.
Migration. That was it. Ken’s dad said maybe these things migrated from one place to another according to the seasons.
This is all so crazy, he thought. It was so much to take in.
Here he was, a few days ago, thinking his dad was taking him on a vacation to southwest Missouri to visit the sites in and around Branson, to stay in a cool country cabin by a lake, when his dad was really some sort of spy or something with an agenda of checking out reports of Sasquatches in the area. Then they’re attacked on a country road by a creature out of a nightmare, then their cabin gets attacked, and now, here he was, a hostage of monsters that are not even supposed to exist. Well, tell that to the monsters.
He watched them as they glared at him in a sort of staring contest. Since the big male was gone, Alec decided to try his luck with these creatures and stood up slowly. A deep, guttural growl rumbled from the large female by the mountain, and it sounded savage. Alec stood transfixed, staring at her. The growl lasted forever. He took a step away and the beast shot straight up without even using its hands to help it stand up. It bared its huge teeth at him and appeared ready to pounce.
Taking the hint, Alec stepped back to the tree and sat down. The female sat again, in the same manner that the other one had sat, but the growl continued.
“Okay, okay!” Alec said.
The snarling stopped and the thing eyed him quizzically. Alec, almost more annoyed than scared now, said, “Yeah, that’s right, I can talk! How about that? I also know how to bathe. You should learn about it.”
The young female stood straight up and grabbed a long tree branch from the ground. She stepped tentatively toward Alec, holding the stick like a weapon. He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. All at once, she pushed it forward, poking him in the stomach.
“Hey! Stop that!” he howled.
The young female squawked and hopped up and down, obviously amused. She poked him again.
“Hey!” Alec complained.
She laughed like a hyena. The older female screeched and said, “No-ka, no-ka.”
The young female turned to the other one — she didn’t turn her head as much as she turned her shoulder to look — and emitted a sound kind of high pitched, something like, “Nuuh, nuuh.”
The older one suddenly babbled that mix of bestial ape screeches and gibberish again. The younger one dropped the branch and fell silent. She stepped back and sat down, staring at Alec with mischievous eyes.
Well, obviously the mom here is the grumpy one.
Alec sighed. He noted the increasing shadows and the setting sun. “This is gonna be a long night,” he whispered to himself.
Maybe a half hour later, around twilight, the little Bigfoot bounded back into camp, followed by the giant male, which easily carried a dead, full-grown doe over its right shoulder, where it had toted Alec earlier. It strode over to the opening in the mountainside and dropped the deer carcass near where the young female had dumped the grasses and sticks. He turned to the young female and barked something, low and wild. She shot up and hurried out of the camp. Then he sat down in the same manner as the females, with his knees bent out, and lowered himself down to the ground next to the older female, fixing his dark eyes on Alec. The young male approached Alec and held out a pinecone. The dad grunted, said something like, “So-ka, so-ka,” and the little fellow jumped back about ten feet and sat down, staring at Alec with wide black eyes.
Alec watched this odd family with caution. They all gaped at him as if entranced, and remained like this for what seemed like an eternity.
Then he thought he noticed movement in his peripheral vision, off to his right, in the darkening woods. He spun his head and scanned the trees quickly. He heard the snaps of sticks breaking and rustling brush, the sound of walking.
Something was making its way toward him, slowly, emerging out of the gloom like a ghost. Then it was gone. A moment later, Alec saw a woolly head peer at him from behind a tree, then disappear again.
His heart began to pound fast in anticipation. Was it the one-eyed Bigfoot? Was he being offered as a sacrifice to be eaten like that woman was offered to King Kong?
Then a form stepped out and began creeping toward him again, misty and dreamlike.
“What is it?” Alec shouted at the other creatures. “What does it want?”
The Bigfoots’ eyes grew wide at his voice, but they only continued to stare, watching in fascination.
Staring into the gloom, Alec realized that it was the young female approaching him, and next to her, another Sasquatch, all white, bent over and thin. She was holding its arm, helping it walk. They stepped behind a tree that was directly across from Alec, maybe five feet away. The female emerged and went back to her sitting place, lowering herself and watching Alec intently.
Nothing happened for a moment, and Alec gazed around at the hideous, hairy brutes that sat gawking at him stupidly, as if watching a movie.
“WHAT DOES IT WANT?” he shouted again.
The hairy white creature slipped around the tree across from Alec and gazed down at him with eerie gray eyes. It stared at him in a deathly silence.
Alec’s blood ran cold.
Ken had paced the inside of the cabin repeatedly, and was becoming more restless as each hour passed. The sun was setting; darkness was moving in. How were those men going to find Alec in the dark?
The soldier who had been left behind to protect them sat in the living room in a recliner, his rifle across his lap, quietly surveying the damage near the front windows from the previous night, when the Bigfoots had attacked the cabin. He was tall, with a square face and strong nose and chin, with coal black hair, and appeared to be of Native American descent.
Mrs. Edgar and Ethan sat on a couch; Ken’s mom was up in the loft bedroom with Sarah and Emily, probably trying once again to comfort poor Emily. After the monster had shown up and chased Emily and Alec, then abducted Alec, Emily had run back to the cabin in hysterics. It took forever for Ken’s mom to calm her down, and Emily was still very, very shook up.
Ken didn’t blame her. Last night had been terrifying, the scariest thing he’d ever experienced, so being chased today on top of that, like Emily was, would have been just over the top. But Ken was too focused on his friend’s disappearance to be concerned with all that now. He stopped his pacing in front of the soldier and faced him.
“So, what’s goin’ on? Why haven’t they found ’im yet?”
The soldier stared up at Ken steadily. “They’ll find him.”
“Well, you can hear everythin’ that’s goin’ on, in that ear piece, can’t ya?”
“When they use the ’com, which is not all the time.”
“So, what’s goin’ on?”
The soldier was silent. Frustrated, Ken became more confrontational.
“I already know all your little secrets, G.I. Joe! I know about Bigfoot, and I know my dad and Danny are super secret super spies, okay? Yer not keepin’ anythin’ from me that I don’t already know!”
The soldier bristled and glared at Ken with steely eyes. Mrs. Edgar popped up and hurried to Ken, placing her hands on his shoulders. “It’s okay, Ken, he’ll let us know as soon as they find Alec, right?” She glanced at the soldier with a pleading smile.
He nodded once, curtly.
Mrs. Edgar steered Ken to the couch and pulled him down to sit next to her and Ethan. She looked up at the soldier. “They do know about S.T.O.K.E.R., at least about the Sasquatch part.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow and peered up at his mother. “I know more than that! I know about hunting werewolves!”
“Okay, Ethan, that’s enough. We’re not going to discuss that now.”
The soldier watched them closely, then shook his head. “Sounds like a security breach to me.”
“Well, that’s not your call to make, mister,” said Mrs. Edgar firmly, which caught Ken by surprise. The soldier shook his head again and looked away.
Ken did want to discuss this whole werewolf thing with Ethan sometime, but not now. Not now. He pointed at the front wall and glared at the soldier. “Ya see that broken win-der? That’s where one of ’em nearly crawled in here an’ ate Mr. Edgar. That’s what’s got my frien’.”
The soldier eyed the window quietly. “Chiye tanka,” he said, barely audible.
“He’s cussin’!” Ethan shouted, pointing. “Mom, he’s cussin’ at you!”
The soldier glared at the wiggly little fellow. “It’s the old language, the language of the people of the middle waters, the Osage. My grandfather taught me some of the old stories, some of the language.”
“So what does it mean?” said Ken.
The man breathed in deep, then exhaled. “Big elder brother. That’s what my people used to call your Bigfoot.”
“Well, big brothers don’t try to kill you, kimosabe,” Ken replied.
The soldier considered Ken thoughtfully. “As far as I know, they were always shown respect, but did not kill anyone.”
“They attacked us last night, all night long,” Mrs. Edgar said. “I don’t know why, maybe as a result of our EMF device, maybe something about it enraged them, maybe they were being territorial, I don’t know. But they attacked this cabin, and now they’ve taken Danny’s son.”
“Captain Chaney said one of them was injured, with a damaged eye,” he said.
Mrs. Edgar nodded. “One tried to attack Danny yesterday and he threw a grilling fork at it—”
“Hit it right in its red eye!” Ethan exclaimed.
“Then maybe the attack on the cabin was in retaliation for that. Maybe it wasn’t trying to attack him in the first place. Maybe it was just trying to intimidate him, to get you to leave. Wait,” he looked at Ethan, “what did you say?”
“Mr. Kerley hit that monster right in the eye,” Ethan replied.
“No, you said ‘right in its red eye’, right?”
Ethan nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
The soldier thought for a moment. He closed his eyes, as if trying to remember something, then peered at Mrs. Edgar. “I seem to recall something about that…”
“About what,” she said. “Red eyes?”
The soldier nodded. “There were different ones, different types of the big hairy men. Like different clans.”
Mrs. Edgar raised her eyebrows. “And the eye color differentiated them?”
He nodded again. “And you didn’t want to mess with the ones with the eyes the color of blood,” he said ominously.
For Ken, the room shrank down to just this tall paramilitary soldier, all dressed in black, holding that black rifle, sitting in that old orange recliner. You didn’t want to mess with the ones with the eyes the color of blood. The color of blood: red. That’s exactly the type of monsters that had attacked them last night. That must have been the type that took Alec. You don’t want to mess with them…
Alec.
Ken’s heart began to gallop in his chest and he could hear his pulse in his ears. His face felt hot. He looked over at the front window, the one with the shattered glass and destroyed wooden shutters. There was only darkness beyond; the night had swept in like the shadow of death. He slowly stood up, turned, and ambled to the stairs that led up to the loft. His feet felt as heavy as lead weights. His mind was reeling. Sluggishly, he began to climb them, his hand on the railing.
His mother emerged from the bedroom door and began descending the stairs, meeting him halfway. “You okay, Kenneth?” She asked, worried.
He nodded silently.
“Well, Emily’s doing better. It would probably do her good to have you around. She likes you.” She kissed his forehead, then continued down the stairs.
Ken finished climbing the steps and turned into the bedroom, opening the door without knocking. Sarah and Emily were sitting on the bed talking. They turned to look at him.
Sarah saw the expression on her brother’s face and immediately knew that something was wrong. Her face fell into a frown and she asked, “What’s going on?”
Ken sat down on the edge of the bed in a daze, staring at the floor. He didn’t reply.
Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. “Ken! What is it?”
Ken slowly raised his eyes and met his sister’s gaze. “I’m goin’ after Alec.”
Danny plodded along blindly in the black forest, panting. Frequently, low tree branches slapped his face or poked his eyes, and thick bushes or roots or large rocks caused him to stumble. His face was covered with dirt and blood, and his clothes were torn. He grasped the .38 pistol in his right hand like a lifeline.
“ALLLLLLLLEEEEEEEC!” He called out over and over and over, his voice harsh and rough.
He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know where his son was at. Somewhere in these Godforsaken woods, that’s all he knew. Oh, he also knew this: he wouldn’t stop searching until he found his son, or until he, Danny, was dead himself.
Those are the only two ways this is gonna end.
He didn’t know how long he had been in this forest. He had lost track of John Gonzalez and Elbert Edgar hours ago.
He heard a twig snap behind him, and he twirled around, rolling his eyes around in the darkness in unfocused panic. Danny raised the gun.
“Mr. Kerley!” A male voice hissed.
“Who is it?” Danny demanded.
“It’s Captain Chaney, sir. It’s okay, don’t get twitchy.”
Danny lowered the pistol. “Oh, Lawrence, thank God,” he sighed, the first relief he had felt in a while. “I’m pretty turned around out here, captain. Any sign of my son?”
Captain Chaney stepped out of the gloom. “No, not yet. We couldn’t find a trail so I’ve got the team spread out in a grid pattern. It’ll
cover a lot of area. We’ll find him.”
“Is there someone back at the cabins with the women and children?”
“I’ve got John Red Eagle with them—”
“Just one man?”
“He’s a good soldier, sir, very capable. And he’s fully armed.”
Danny sighed again, this time from frustration. These guys don’t know what those monsters are like. “The Sasquatches out here are violent, captain,” he said, low and grave. “Very dangerous. Not to be taken lightly.”
“I understand,” Chaney replied calmly. Maybe too calmly.
He’s awfully self-assured, Danny thought. A little over confident?
“Do you have night vision goggles?” Danny asked.
“The others do, I don’t. I see pretty good in the dark, and I can creep along easier without them causing me to trip over my own feet.”
Danny raised one eyebrow in the darkness. “You got cat eyes, huh?”
“Something like that. But here…”
Danny heard the ripping sound of Velcro, then felt something metal and cold in his hand. Captain Chaney was handing him something. Danny immediately recognized the shape and feel of a flashlight. He switched it on and a bright white beam shot onto the ground.
“Thanks,” he breathed.
“No problem.”
An electronic crackle squawked out of the captain’s earpiece. Chaney touched something on his chest and said, “Roger that. Everyone converge on that spot.”
Danny’s heart leapt. “What is it?”
Captain Chaney looked at Danny. “We’ve got a footprint.”
Sarah gawked at her brother. “That’s crazy! You can’t go after him! It’s dark out, and those… things are out there.”
“Sarah, Alec’s my best frien’. He’s like a brother to me, to both of us,” Ken replied.
Sarah studied him. His expression was firm, fierce. There was no talking him out of this. “I’ll tell mom.”
Alec Kerley and the Terror of Bigfoot (Book One of the Monster Hunters Series) Page 11