by Paul Sating
This needed to end before he allowed himself to see another human again. And the world would see a different Jared Strong the next time he made an appearance.
Unless they only ever find my body.
Jared pulled his eyes away from the fire long enough to take in the gorgeous sight of the true power of nature spread out above him in the blackness. Sparkling twinkles of light filled the sky, reminding him this wasn't a dream; he was alive and part of the story of the universe. As much a part of its story as Sasquatch. They had a story to tell too and he could be the one to bring it to the world. He could be the one to enlighten the human race about this wonderful animal. Years from now, decades even, they would mention his name in their conversations. School children in the distant future would argue about the existence of some creature, long-thought to be extinct, and they would cite his work as an example of how to never give up, never quit, if you believed in something. You used good science, strategy, grit and hard work, and you never stopped until you'd convinced yourself you were wrong or you convinced the world that it was. What he was about to begin tomorrow was going to change reality. For Bigfoot. For him.
He wasn't fooling himself about that.
The human race represented all that was wrong with the world, but it also displayed the beautiful power of selflessness, charity, and empathy. The problem? Which one would his species display when they found out that they had a hairy cousin living in the northwest corner of America? Would they accept and protect it, or would they act without regard or, worse, out of fear, and harm the creature or its habitat? The problem with people was that you could never tell which way they'd lean. Plus, people tended to shift in the direction of their own personal, selfish, desires.
Jared swallowed and poked at a log. He hoped that his work wouldn't be to the detriment of a creature that, to this point, was peaceful, wanting nothing to do with their more violent cousins.
It was something he always struggled with. He would never rest if he didn't find the answer to the question. Never. It was time to find out.
Now or never, the firelight seemed to tease.
Jared grabbed the recorder and turned it over and over in his hands. Who knew what tomorrow was going to bring? This might be the last time he sat next to the warm glow of a fire under a crown of celestial kings and queens and enjoyed the self-talk of a life's work. Come tomorrow, nothing might be the same again.
He pressed RECORD. "Using my previous expedition experience and twenty years of data I've collected, I think I found the location that gives me the best chance to find Sasquatch. I'm a few miles east-northeast of Wolf Creek, which is a mile or so east of the trail at Whiskey Bend. I found a comfortable ridge the last time I was out here and that's where I'm camping tonight. In the morning I'll head out. I've got an area narrowed down and I'm confident I'll find something tomorrow, or the day after at the latest. Either way, this is my last expedition. I've lost enough of my life to this damn creature."
That was it. He clicked STOP and packed everything up. The morning would come soon.
*****
The scream echoed through the still air of the night. Jared flipped over, rubbing his eyes and listening.
Nothing. His ears scanned for that sound, nothing else mattered.
Moments passed.
He wasn't going back to sleep now.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!
His visitors were back.
He riffled through the front pocket of his pack and grabbed the recorder, clicking it on. "Dammit. I knew they weren't going to give me any peace tonight."
Another call. A different Sasquatch from a different direction but much, much closer.
The hairs on his forearms stood straight up, for more reasons than the cold night air.
He didn't dare to move, preferring to listen to any clues to the closer Sasquatch's whereabouts. The ruckus from their call chilled him. He swore he felt a vibration! It had to be close and it had to be big.
A branch snapped. No more than twenty feet, Jared estimated. It was here. And it knew he was here. This wasn't a game of curiosity anymore; it was a scouting trip. They were probably as tired of him coming around as he was of doing it. This time they might be in the mood to discourage him from ever coming back.
He didn't want to take any chances testing their disposition. Laying the recorder at the foot of his sleeping bag, Jared reached into the pack and pulled out his pistol. Listening.
Snap. Boom!
An audible footstep. It was close. Too close. "They're coming," he whispered, hoping the recorder would pick up his voice. "At least one of them is."
Thud!
A rock landed a few feet from his tent. He was grateful for their inadequate aim. "They're not happy about me being here. I didn't expect them to be."
The second rock landed much closer.
The bottom corner of his tent ruffled. "Another rock," he whispered, sniffing for a scent of the creature. His nose hairs retreated at the stench. Not as strong as his experience with Lucas, but unmistakable. "Could be the same Sasquatch or a second one. I extinguished the fire before I went to sleep, so the camp is dark, though it's close enough to sunrise for the sky to start brightening. It won't be up for another hour or so. The Sasquatch won't be afraid to explore the camp in this poor light."
Snap! Crack!
"Shit! I can hear him inside the camp now."
Right outside the tent. Closer than twenty feet. Jared swallowed; his clammy hand gripped the pistol. Sliding forward, he reached and carefully unzipped the tent flap. It sounded like the sky was being torn apart. He paused and listened for clues to the Sasquatch's whereabouts. Nothing. He inched the zipper up. When it was high enough for him to slip through, should the need to escape arise, he peaked through the flap. "Oh my God; he's big!" he whispered harshly. There was no science on Sasquatch's hearing abilities. The lumbering giant could be deaf for all he knew or it could hear every single thing he was doing. There was no way to tell and not doing anything was not an option. There was no use in searching for his camera; the night was too dark to get anything decent. "Over seven feet tall. Easily. He's rooting around in ... I think he—"
Then it happened.
Whether Jared's movements or speech set it off, whether it smelled him, or whether it knew Jared was there all along, none of it mattered. The massive creature, covered in matted, brown fur, turned toward the tent and grunted, its eyes narrowed. Jared couldn't breathe. He couldn't speak. It wasn't light enough to make out the finer detail but there was no doubt the monster knew it wasn't alone. It pulled back its lips and snarled before letting loose a growl that came from the depths of the earth.
And it charged.
"Shit!" Jared yelled, no longer worried about not being detected. He instinctively backed into his tent, knowing the flimsy material would do nothing to stop something that big. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The only escape was through the front flap and that massive beast was charging in that direction. He'd lost the chance to scamper free. The ridge only provided one way out, he'd chosen it for its defensive position and now found himself a prisoner to his own strategy.
Jared lunged for his pack as the thundering footsteps rapidly approached. Only seconds remained before that beast would crash into the tent, ripping it from the stakes and entangling him in a death trap of cotton, nylon, and polyester. Somewhere in his pack he had a hunting knife with a six-inch blade.
The Sasquatch was on top of him. There was no time left. No time to do anything. He'd made one too many trips, invaded their sanctuary one too many times, and now he was going to die for his passion. Knife or camera? That was his only decision now. In about two seconds that monster was going to rip open the tent and beat him to death. He could either find the damn knife, cut a hole in the back of the tent and flee into the woods—getting chased down by the Sasquatch—or he could get a picture or two, some video, and hope that someday a hiker or park ranger would trip across the camera and cement his lega
cy by showing the world the real reason Jared Strong wasn't part of it anymore. At the very least, if he got a picture or two, then his life’s work would live on that way.
But living on in this reality suited him much better. He gave up on the search. He didn’t feel like experiencing an avoidable death. He was going to do the only thing he could do. Option C.
The pre-dawn day wasn't old enough yet to cast shadows but Jared didn't need to see the looming shape of the monstrosity. It was there, tussling with the tent. A scream. A male's scream. For a second Jared was sure someone else was here to help him by scaring off the Sasquatch. He almost sighed until the realization slammed into the side of his head that he had screamed. He was the one behind that toe-curling, hair-splitting scream, the sound of a man witnessing the end of his own existence.
Jared whipped the pistol up and tried to steady his arm. It was like watching a first-person point of view shooter video game, the way his arms didn't feel attached, or how he saw the pistol but couldn't feel it pressed against his palms as he attempted to control his wildly shaking arms. But he didn't need to worry about precision; the Bigfoot that stood no more than three feet away from him was everywhere at once, taking up his entire field of narrowed vision. Adrenaline surged through him, the gun dipped, bobbed. He over-corrected and nearly shot the beast in the head. No! Wound it, you idiot. No head. The trigger was yanked back by that video game hand. All feeling, all sensation, was focused on that single point where his skin met steel, where his index finger curled around the equally-curled metal trigger. He could feel nothing else. There was nothing else to be aware of, not even that colossal primate shaking the tent in its own frustration to get to its distant cousin. Every tangible aspect of the known universe was focused on that one point of contact between man and his destructive means.
Jared fired.
The burst filled the world.
His heart skipped. A roar of pain and outrage.
The tent shook. The beast didn’t flee as Jared had hoped.
"Shit! Shit!"
He fired again.
"Fuck!!!"
And again.
Screaming.
And again.
Yelling.
Crying for it to flee.
The Sasquatch roared into the pre-dawn sky and the tent stopped shaking.
Thundering footfalls quickly faded as the beast crashed through the underbrush, cracking dead and living branches alike as it fled. Jared sat on his sleeping bag, pistol still raised in two shaking arms, aimed at nothing in particular and finally, after what felt like minutes, began to breathe again. His heart thumped against his chest cavity. He could hear nothing over it and the accompanying pulse that thudded in his neck.
Jared leaned forward to move the flap. The front part of the tent collapsed from the assault so Jared was actually thankful he'd unzipped it to inspect the Sasquatch. There were no guarantees he'd find anything today and staying another night or four was still a very real possibility. He'd need shelter. He couldn't go back into town to buy more gear. The promise had been made and needed to be kept; he was not going back into the world until this was finished.
He was going to chase the demon.
Jared fished around for the recorder and found it knocked into the far corner of the tent, and sighed when he noticed it was still working, still recording.
"He's gone. Jesus Christ, he's gone." His breaths still came in rapid succession, the more he breathed, the less filled his lungs felt. "Oh my God. I can't believe he attacked. I didn't want to shoot. I didn't. I think I can—"
A distant Sasquatch call stopped him.
Listening.
As he opened his mouth the response came.
It was closer than the first call. Weaker. He waited, fascinated by the way these creatures communicated over miles and miles of mountainous terrain.
Much further away, this call had a different intonation. Multiple Sasquatch, relatively close. And after shooting a Sasquatch at close range, he might just have a chance to follow a trail all the way back to its community if it was still as reckless as it had been fleeing his camp.
Jared escaped the tent and started packing. There was no better time than now. The animal was wounded; it didn't matter how big it was. Nothing could be shot that many times at point-blank range and not suffer traumatic, if not fatal, injuries.
Oh God, please don't let anyone find out I killed it. Please.
He hadn't thought about that until now. His survival instinct dictated his actions when he pulled the trigger, but now he was a rational creature again, as rational as human beings can be, and he couldn't stomach the thought that he'd taken a life of something so wondrous.
No, please. God, no!
Never in twenty years of expeditions had Jared ever packed a camp so quickly.
25
The sun was still behind the mountain but its rays extended up and out, brightening the world in a perverse contradiction to his mood.
Jared lunged atop a large boulder, climbing higher and higher up the slope. It was rough going, with steep pitches and soft ground that gave away under the occasional misplaced step. His exhaustion didn't help. The short evening, the pre-dawn visitor, and the adrenaline rush of having to actually shoot the Sasquatch sapped him of any strength he usually had in this type of situation. What he'd seen outside his camp didn't help energize him either.
He used a sapling to pull himself up an outcropping of rock, his thighs burned in exertion and his calves alternated turns cramping up. Jared winced and unslung his pack. He'd record for a few minutes and then keep going. He needed to hydrate anyway. In case something happened. In case he never made it home, he had to have a record of everything. Someone needed to know.
"I'm hiking toward Hurricane Ridge," he recorded. The trees were thick here; a lot of them toppled over and replaced by younger, healthier giants. There were a lot of hiding spots around him, even for an animal as big as Sasquatch. "It's a hell of an incline. I'm exhausted. Especially after what happened this morning. When my adrenaline crashed so did my energy. Any other day I'd turn around and head out but I'm so damn close. To give up now ... I can't.”
The mountain mocked him, dared him to push through.
"I couldn't have killed the Sasquatch," he continued after taking a long drink of water. "I haven't come across a body, but he did leave a mess behind that was easy enough to track. Even someone out of Seattle could have followed this path. Tree branches are broken. Saplings are snapped in half. This big boy made no effort to hide."
Keep the brave face, Jared. Keep the brave face. Can't let 'em see you sweat, right? No body meant the Sasquatch was still alive. But the animal was hurt, badly; it had to be. "Man, this trail of blood has stretched for miles. I don't know how much he lost or still can lose, but he hasn't bled out yet. I'm assuming he's headed to a nest. I have no idea what's ... hang on."
The trail continued uphill. Twenty yards ahead there was an open area, no more than two hundred square feet in total. It was free of trees, alive or dead. It was one of the few areas in this part of the forest uncluttered by nature. But that wasn't what drew him to it. The Sasquatch's trail led him straight there and, even from this distance, he could see significant evidence of a struggle for survival.
A large area of matted ferns, twenty feet in diameter, indicated that something had laid on them. Something big, like Sasquatch big. Jared scrambled over to it, immediately noticing the broad leaves covered in dark, red blood that was still drying. Narrower bands of blood trailed down the leaves to the forest floor, indicating that whatever had bled here either stayed for a while or was bleeding heavily. Jared moved some of the fern branches and spotted a footprint—a Sasquatch footprint.
He swallowed down the remorse, scanning the surrounding trees for a large corpse. Or one pissed off Bigfoot. The amount of blood he'd been following for miles should have led him to a body by now, but he'd found nothing. That could only mean the creature was still lumbering on toward its de
stination. Impressive that it could get this far, at this elevation and against this slope. The resilience of the animal was more than impressive. This was a display of the will to live. No human could have lasted in these circumstances. He was exhausted. This thing was shot and still plugged along.
"Something big was here," Jared recorded. "There's an area in front of me that's probably twenty feet in diameter. Some of the mud has been disturbed and the brush is matted. It almost looks like he laid down. The brush is coated in blood. But there's no body. Nothing at all."
Jared looked up the slope, feeling the discouragement that exhausted hikers felt whenever they thought they'd accomplished something significant only to realize they still had half a mountain to go.
Where is this damn thing?
"What the hell?" he growled. He didn't want the animal to die but the world was going to need something more substantial than audio. Not getting a clear picture was the scourge of Bigfoot hunters for generations and Jared realized that would have been impossible under the circumstances of the pre-dawn visitation he didn't ask for. But now, in the morning light, all he needed was to find the thing resting. That was it. He didn't even need to get close; a few hundred yards would allow him to get enough detail to convince all but the staunchest deniers that the animal exists. That was it—a quick couple of shots, a short video, of an animal so rarely captured, clear and precise, and then the world's appetite for it could return to the fringes so that everyone could be distracted by the latest football standings or what some housewives in some city were doing with their privileged lives.
Just one picture.
Now or never.
"It's possible he got up and ... wait a second. There's something here. Some—" Jared was looking at the far end of the matted clearing. A band of vegetation about three feet wide was flattened by something heavy pressing it down. Jared rushed to the edge for an unobstructed, view.
"What the hell?" He got on his knees, tracing the outline with his fingers the way a person traces their loved one's face while they're sleeping. "It's another set of tracks! Coming from the opposite direction. There's ... God, there are two sets of new tracks. I need to get some shots of this!" He fumbled in his pack to draw out his camera. More tracks! Multiple sets! Opposite direction from the one he’d followed.