by Simon Rosser
A silhouette of Conner’s stationary SUV came into view, parked up in the spot where they’d left it. Had Jess even made it to the vehicle? A wave of nausea washed over him as he feared the worst. He pulled out his smartphone and found it wasn’t functioning, water damaged from his earlier spell in the river.
He crept towards the vehicle, using the mature trees as cover to keep himself as hidden as possible, hoping the creature had gone. He made it to the thick trunk of a spruce tree and looked around. The SUV was twenty feet away, parked in a clearing, at the far edge of the camp site's parking area.
He took a deep breath and darted across the open space to the truck, crouching down by the passenger side wheel for cover. He reached up to the door to try it, but it was locked.
Tom cursed under his breath. Jessica had the keys, and he didn’t have a spare. He scuttled around the front of the vehicle and tried the driver’s door, also locked.
He looked to his left, towards the small hut they’d passed on the way to the clearing where they’d set up the tents. The area was well lit by the Moon, but he saw nothing, apart from trees and shadows, the only sound came from the river gushing by a short distance away.
Tom rose to peer in through the SUV’s tinted, glass driver’s window to look for Jessica, cupped his hands and stared into the vehicle. As his eyes adjusted, he made out the balled up figure of Jess in the foot-well of the passenger side.
A wave of relief rose inside him and he went to walk back around the front of the car to the passenger side, but froze in his tracks as he saw the silhouette of something large, standing on the tree line, looking directly at him.
CHAPTER 6
Pine Crags Wilderness Campsite, 6.40 A.M.
TOM FELT HIS legs turn to jelly. A second later, he heard a loud click, like the sound of a branch snapping, and the dark shape moved towards him. Something sounded familiar about the sound however. It wasn’t the sound of a branch snapping, but of a gun being loaded.
“What the hell is going on here boy?” A man’s voice boomed from the tree line.
Tom strained his eyes as he felt a palpable wave of relief wash over him. “Don...don’t shoot,” he said, as he moved back round the front of the vehicle.
A man dressed in dark clothing, holding a sawn-off shotgun, stepped out from beside a large tree. Tom immediately noticed a five-pointed star fixed to his jacket, glinting in the moonlight.
“I’m Sheriff Rob Garland, Mount Shasta Police Department. Keep your hands up, boy. What the hell are you kids doing out here? Damn camp site has been closed for a week.”
“Yep, we know it’s a bit late in the season, but there's no need for the gun. I need help. My girlfriend’s in the vehicle. We were attacked…”
“Attacked?” The sheriff said, moving closer to Tom, shotgun still aimed at him.
Tom took a deep breath, and trying to compose himself said, “I think it was a bear, something larger, I’m not sure!”
“Are you taking the piss, boy? If you college kids are playing pranks on each other do it in your own backyards not out here.”
Tom rubbed his arms, he was freezing. “It sounds crazy I know. We set up camp over there,” he said pointing. “My two friends were attacked. Their bodies are over there. There’s also a large stag carcass, looks as if it’s been freshly killed by something large.”
The sheriff looked towards the woods and a small clearing not far from the lake. “Are you being serious?” The sheriff said, noticing the look of anxiety on Tom’s face.
“Yep, I swear....”
“Well you better not be fooling around kid,” The sheriff said, cutting him off.
“At least let me check on my girlfriend,” Tom said, gesturing toward the car door. “It’s locked and I don't have the keys. Jess isn't responding.”
The sheriff pressed his face up against the passenger window for a second, then stepped back, walked briskly around the car, and over to the driver’s window. He then held his shotgun with both hands, as if he were gripping a pole, and slammed the end of the barrel into the driver’s window, shattering it with one blow. “Go get her,” he grunted.
Tom leant across to the foot-well where Jess was still huddled into a ball. The noise from the shattered window must have woken her. She looked up at him, trembling, mascara smudged on her cheeks, and her eyes open wide in fear. “To...Tom?” she whimpered.
“It’s okay honey. I came back, the sheriff is here too. We’re safe,” he said, hugging her as best he could from his horizontal position.
With Jessica out of the vehicle and slightly calmer, they followed the sheriff over to where the attack had taken place.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tom whispered to Jess, as they passed the small, wooden ticket hut.
Jess nodded. “I need to know what happened to them.”
They approached the area where they had erected the tents, allowing them to clearly see the second tent, which had been ripped to shreds. The sleeping bags and remains of Madison's and Conner's backpacks lay strewn over the ground.
“Is this your friend's tent?” the sheriff asked, upon reaching the spot, realising that something odd had clearly taken place.
Tom nodded, seeing no evidence of Madison's and Conner’s bodies.
The sheriff looked at them. “You expect me to believe that your friends have been taken by a bear, or something larger?” he said, grinning slightly, his tone harsh once again.
Tom scrutinised the ground around the tent as he replayed the attack in his mind, recalling the thing smashing Conner’s head against a rock. He found the rock, partially hidden by some torn canvas from the tent, Conner’s blood still clearly visible splattered over it.
“Over here,” Tom said, showing the sheriff the blood stained rock. “And here,” he added, spotting a set of two-foot wide drag marks, barely visible on the hard ground, disappearing into the woods.
The sheriff knelt down to inspect the tracks. “Okay, I accept that something odd has occurred here, but I can’t guess at what,” he said, looking into the trees. “Come on; let’s get back to my vehicle. I'll radio for assistance and get you two back to town for some medical help and food.”
CHAPTER 7
THE SHERIFF DROVE Tom and Jessica back down the mountain to the town of Shasta. They were both now seated in a small, but functional and warm interrogation room in the Mount Shasta Police Department in the centre of town. The clock on the wall had just ticked to 07.50.
“You kids must be wrecked. Here’s some coffee. Breakfast is on its way,” a female officer said to them, as she handed them both a mug of hot coffee. “I’m Lieutenant Jo Rogers,” she said, smiling.
“Thank you,” Tom said, warming his cold hands around the hot mug.
“We’ll need to take statements from you once you’ve had breakfast, while events are still fresh in your minds. Then you’ll be free to get some rest. Is that okay?” she said, glancing at them both in turn.
“Sure,” Tom replied, wearily.
Lieutenant Rogers nodded and left the room.
“I still can’t believe what happened to us,” Jessica said, her eyes glazed. “Why didn’t we just stay at home and have that dinner party we originally planned?”
Tom shook his head. “I agree, it's difficult to accept what we saw. I mean, I don’t even know what we saw. If they never find the bodies or any evidence of that thing, who is going to believe us?” he said, taking a gulp of coffee.
The female officer returned with a cooked breakfast of eggs over easy, hash browns, beans, and streaky bacon.
“Oh, you don’t happen to have any rice do you?” Tom asked.
“Rice?” the officer asked.
“To put this in,” Tom said, holding up his waterlogged smartphone. “It might help!”
The officer smiled. “Sure, I’ll go get some,” she said.
“Well, it worked for me once when I dropped my phone down the toilet.”
The office raised her eyebrows and left the roo
m.
Tom and Jessica ate in silence; their plates empty in no time.
Not long after they finished eating, the female officer returned with the sheriff, a small Dictaphone and a couple pads of notepaper in her hand.
“Okay, we need to take some details of what happened last night. We’re treating this as a missing person’s case at the moment but the things might change as the investigation progresses. There's no need to involve attorneys at the moment, but of course, you have the right to an attorney should you both wish. Do you understand?”
Tom looked at Jess and nodded. “We both understand. We’ll just tell it as it happened. We don’t need lawyers…yet,” he said.
Jess nodded in agreement.
It took an hour for them to both tell the officers what they knew, from the moment they’d left their homes early yesterday morning, to the moment the attack had happened.
The female officer looked at the sheriff and back at the two of them. “Are you sure you don't want to....to change your statements in any way?” she asked.
Tom shrugged. “Nope, that’s exactly what happened.”
Jess nodded.
“Well, it’s a little hard to believe, but if you say that’s what happened, that’s what happened, I guess,” the female officer said, clearly sceptical.
“So, are we free to go? We really need to get some sleep,” Tom asked.
“I guess so. I’d advise you to get a room here if you can. Save you driving all the way home. We’ll send someone back to pick your vehicle up. All we ask is that you don’t leave the State. We’ll need to speak to you further once the investigation is underway. We will be sending out a search team shortly to look for your friends,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her blue shirt and pulled out a card. “Here, call me if you think of anything else; any other detail,” she said, slipping the card across the table towards Tom.
“Thanks,” Tom said, as he and Jessica stood up to leave.
“Hold on a minute, Mr. Bishop,” the female officer said, as she stood and left the room.
Tom felt his heart sink.
Lieutenant Rogers returned. “You forgot this. Nice idea with the rice, but it doesn’t seem to have worked,” she said, handing Tom his phone back.
“Oh! Well, thanks for trying anyway,” Tom said, as he and Jess headed for the corridor and the way out.
Lieutenant Rogers looked at Sherriff Garland. “Do you believe them?”
Garland scratched his stubbly jaw. “Do I hell,” he replied. “Come on; let’s get the search party underway. Something happened up there for sure, but attacked by something that looked like a bear, but was bigger; really?”
“Well, there have been stories, of Bigfoot being spotted around here.”
Garland shook his head. “Don’t you start! Let’s get back up there. We’ll probably find out they were all smoking some strong grass, after which their friends wandered off to shag in the woods and became lost.”
CHAPTER 8
“WHERE ARE WE going?” Jess asked, as she followed Tom out of the police station. He turned right, and was heading out of town, towards the mountain road.
“I want to speak to the owner of that hunting shop we passed on the way up.”
“What, the owner of the creepy store with all the stuffed animals outside?” Jess asked, trying to catch him up.
“Yep,”
“Oh, bloody hell, can’t we just go home?”
“Home?! Jess, our friends were just slain in front of us by a freaking creature that shouldn’t exist, and you want to go home? I need to go to that store, ask the owner some questions.”
“Okay, okay,” Jessica replied, as they both walked along the street to where the shop was located, just before the bend where the road snaked up the mountain.
Ten minutes later they reached Casey’s Hunting Lodge. And Tom looked up at the large, and clearly fake, stuffed Bigfoot. It looked nothing like the thing they’d seen last night. This looked more like an ape, whereas the thing they’d seen last night was more a cross between a bear and a human.
“I can’t look at it. Let’s go in,” Jessica said.
They weaved their way through the large collection of stuffed animals, which were fixed to wheeled platforms for ease of movement, and entered the store.
A bell dinged above them as they opened the door, alerting the shop owner to their presence.
A man in his mid-thirties appeared from behind a long counter. “Howdy, folks,” he said, eyeing them both with dark, beady eyes.
The shop was fairly dark inside, and the walls covered with moose, stag, and deer heads, their antlers protruding like old tree branches into the space, cobwebs coating most of them.
“What can I do you for?” the guy asked.
Below the mostly wooden counter, glass cabinets were filled with hunting guns and knives.
“Looking for a hunting weapon?” the guy asked, looking at them both in turn.
“Maybe,” Tom said. “First, I just wanted to ask you about the stuffed Bigfoot you’ve got out there,” he said.
“Old Sally? Ah, she’s not for sale I’m afraid,” the guy said, smiling.
“Sally?” Jess repeated.
“Sally Sasquatch. We’ve had her for thirty years, but she ain’t for sale I’m afraid,” he repeated.
“It’s okay. We don’t want to buy it,” Tom said.
The guy shrugged. “What can I do for you then?”
“This is going to sound a bit odd, but we were camping last night up at Pine Crags Campsite and we got attacked…our friends were killed, we believe, by a bear-like creature, possibly a Bigfoot.”
The guy stared at them in silence for a few seconds. “You’re shitting me,” he finally said.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but we did,” Jessica said, sounding emotional.
“Wait here,” the guy said, as he turned and disappeared into another room through an arch behind the counter. “Pa,” he shouted. “You’re gonna want to come down here and see these folks.”
The guy reappeared. “My Pa is going to want to speak to you guys. Take a seat, please,” he said, pointing to an old, worn leather sofa tucked away next to a large, carved wooden bison, at the rear of the store.
Tom and Jess walked over and sat down. Two minutes later an older man, in his mid-sixties, appeared. He had a white, stained polo-neck jumper on, ripped, worn jeans, and a cap with the motif Monster Hunter written on it.
He strode over to them. “Howdy, I’m Casey. This is my store. My son, Arran, tells me you spotted a Sasquatch last night,” he said, speaking excitedly in a gruff voice.
Tom cleared his throat, before telling the man briefly what had happened.
“I’ll be damned,” Casey finally said. “You positive it wasn’t just a bear? I’ve been out trying to capture one of those things for two decades, and now you tell me this happened right up the road. Unbelievable,” he said, taking his cap off and shaking his head.
“It didn’t look like any bear I’ve ever seen. We just need your help. I mean, the police are involved so I guess we shouldn’t even be talking to you about it, but…”
“Well I’m bloody grateful you did. The police won’t do a damn thing. They’ll go and have a look, find nothing, and treat the case as missing persons, like the rest. It’s happened before, all covered up, believe me. No, the best way to deal with this is to get up there and hunt for the creature and what’s left…I mean, your friends, ourselves. I know what to look for and I’ve been waiting for a moment like this all my life. I’ve also got a good buddy, in the film business. He’s been waiting to produce a documentary about Mount Shasta for a long time. This is the perfect opportunity. I mean, sorry about your friends an’ all,” he said, stopping to catch his breath and glancing at them awkwardly. “This story is too big to be hushed up. I need to call Dickie now. Please, don’t go away. I’ll be right back,” he said, before rushing over to the counter and disappearing through the arch.
“Oh God, what have we done?” Jessica said.
Tom shook his head. “I didn’t expect this. I just wanted to ask the guy if he’d ever heard any rumours about what we’d seen. Crap,” Tom whispered.
Casey returned after a few minutes, talking excitedly on a mobile phone he had gripped in his large, leathery hand.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, they’re here now. Happened last night, just five, six miles from the store, base of the mountain. Yeah…yeah,” Tom heard Casey talking rapidly.
Casey nodded. “Great, we’ll see you all tomorrow evening then. Yep, we can meet here. Cheers, Richard.”
Casey ended the call and pulled a chair over to the sofa. “Well, that was my old pal, Richard Armstrong. He’s a Brit, just like you. Has his own small film crew, works for Channel Five, I think it is? He’s an independent documentary filmmaker, and been dying to do a story about this location for years. He’s buzzing with excitement, thanks to you guys and is going to get on a flight first thing in the morning,” Casey said, grinning.
“Jesus Christ,” Jessica said, looking at Tom.
Tom shook his head. “Well, at least it’ll be a British documentary,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
“So what do you plan on doing exactly?” Tom asked, after a few moments silence.
“Well, Dickie already has funding in place for the documentary, which means we can spend a week up in the mountains to try hunt down whatever you saw. Plan will be to try and capture it alive, and make ourselves rich and famous in the process. We will have heat-seeking equipment, motion sensors, the lot. Dickie gets his documentary, while we try to hunt and catch a real live Sasquatch,” Casey said, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
“This is all too much,” Jessica said, as she started sobbing.