Nighthawk

by Alan Monroe

  Davis squatted by the fire. “He sure enough has me spooked. I’ve never felt anything like that, but we had best try to get some sleep. We’ve got a long day tomorrow. Clint and I will take first watch. You two get some rest.”

  “Aren’t we even going to talk about what that was?” Jared whispered.

  “We all know what it is,” Davis said. “Sitting around worrying about doesn’t help; we need rest so we can deal with it.”

  Clint nodded silently.

  Hugh and Jared quickly unrolled their sleeping bags and slipped into a nervous sleep.

  The shriek sliced through quiet camp. Sleeping bags tore open, and safeties clicked of in an instant. Boots scraped the dirt as men rapidly stood. Their breath filled the air with thick clouds as sweat rolled down their bodies. The second scream curdled their blood when echoed off giant trees and the huge mountain wall in the distance before it faded away.

  “That thing’s at least a two or three miles away from here,” Clint said.

  “What’s it doing?” Hugh asked.

  Small but distinguishable pops filled the night air along with a third louder scream.

  Davis took step towards the gunfire. “That’s a 9mm.

  Hugh agreed. “Tom carries a 9mm. It’s got to be him; I counted at least nine shots.”

  “Sounds like he emptied whatever was left in the clip,” Davis said.

  Clint broke in a run toward the forest, but Davis stepped in his path.

  “Sheriff, you better get out of my way; I’m going to go help my brother.”

  “Clint you know as well as I do that if any or all of us start running around the woods in the dark we're only going to get ourselves killed. And we can’t help Tom if we need help ourselves.”

  Clint turned away from Davis and walked back to the fire. “I know you're right, but don’t expect me to like waiting. Besides, didn’t you hear the girl scream too?”

  Davis paused. “No Clint, I didn’t hear a girl scream. I couldn't hear anything but that thing screaming and the gunshots.”

  “Well, I did. Right in the middle of all the shooting and Sasquatch howling there was a girl screaming bloody murder. But she suddenly stopped.”

  Davis sat down and began to rub his forehead. “That’s two. I guess I should say at least two.”

  The stink crawled out of the trees and back onto their skin while the trees at the far end of the camp writhed back and forth. Davis brought the heavy double rifle to his shoulder and pointed it at the disturbance in the trees. Branches cracked as the rustling grew louder until the noise built to a crescendo and an explosion of leaves and limbs burst out the forest filling the air of their campsite with a tornado of debris.

  Davis grabbed Jared’s shoulder while leaves slapped his face by the dozen every second. “Stay right by me.”

  “What do we do?” Jared asked.

  “Not panic. Everyone call out!”

  “I’m alright,” Clint said.

  "Hugh," Davis said.

  Only the sound of thousands of leaves fluttering through the air answered.

  "Hugh, call out," Davis yelled.

  "To your right sheriff," Clint said.

  Davis finally saw Hugh on the ground strugling with something on his chest; occasional flashes in the dark night blurred his vision when leaves touched the flames reaching up in the air. The howl that stopped Davis' adavnce toward his fallen deputy sailed through their camp for a full minute. Jared dropped his rifle and covered his ears with both hands; Davis grimaced as he pointed the rifle up into the air. A sound like a thunderclap drowned out the howl as fire reached two feet out of the rifle’s first barrel into the night sky lighting the clearing in a brief orange flash as he howling abruptly ceased, and the final leaves drifted to the ground once again leaving the camp in silence.

  Jared fell to his knees. “It’s a woman. She’s dead.”

  He began to vomit.

  Davis barked at Hugh without lowering the rifle. “You o.k.?”

  Hugh wheezed. “Yea. Just hit me in the chest and knocked the wind out of me.”

  “Well, get up and help us watch the woods.”

  Hugh drew air deep into his lungs while he groped through the leaf covered ground looking for his shotgun.

  "You know an experienced officer ought to be able to maintain control of his weapon during extenuating circumstances," Davis said.

  "Thanks a lot for the reminder," Hugh replied.

  "Glad to help," Davis said. "Suck it up Jared. Help Clint watch the forest while Hugh and I check that body."

  Jared's hands shook when he picked up his rifle and stood next to Clint, but he managed to raise his eyes and gaze at the trees.

  Davis laid his hand on the body. “She’s still warm Hugh. She hasn’t even been dead ten minutes.”

  Hugh pointed at a lump bulging the back of the woman's neck.

  “Yea, broken neck,” Davis agreed.

  After he knelt down, Hugh checked her pockets. “Empty. Clint said he heard a woman scream; this must be her.”

  “African-American woman, over fifty; that fits the description of one of the proffesors. She has got to be a part of Roundtree’s group.”

  “I’d say you're right,” agreed Hugh

  “That means there was at least one person left alive from that group within the past fifteen minutes.”

  “Between the gunshots and this we know somebody is alive up on this mountain. I hate the way we got the information though.”

  The sheriff stood in quiet thought for a few moments. Hugh finally asked, “What are you thinking now?”

  The sheriff pointed in the direction they had heard gunshots and back to the woman’s body. “That thing left here, killed the woman, and threw her in our camp in under fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “So what?”

  “Either that thing is extremely fast, or Tom’s group is pretty close.”

  “Or both.”

  “Yeah. Let’s try to get some rest. I think we’ll find them tomorrow one way or another.”

  Davis rolled the woman to her back and covered her body from head to toe with a green blanket. The short collapsible shovel was difficult to use, but it dug a narrow trench next to the body. After he covered the body with dirt, Davis placed a make shift cross at the head of the grave. One swift strike with the flat end of the shovel drove the cross six inches into the soft earth. Davis stood by the grave and rubbed the blisters on his hand for several moments before he picked up his rifle and watched the silent wilderness until dawn.

  Wednesday, May 16 2:15 a.m.

  The cut above Bruce's eye started to ooze again, and the blood dripped into his eye for the fourth time since he blundered through a thorn bush. Wiping the cut with his sandpaper like hands only served to keep the blood from clotting. Soon the cut gaped to a half inch across. The blood in his eyes made every tree look the same; he accidentally circled back to Bears body three times.

  "You're dead grizz; I'm gonna kill you dead," Bruce screamed.

  Bruce staggered downhill just before he felt the sharp crack of the bark against his forehead. The fall to his back on the soft dirt blew a small cloud of dirt and leaves in every direction. He lay on the ground for five minutes staring upward through the blood coating his eyes at the branches of the old growth forest unable to see the stars in what should have been a clear night sky; the tears ran down his heavy face again. After he rolled over onto his hand and knees, he pounded the ground with his right hand drilling a shallow crater into the dirt. The McKlintock Diary fell out of his pack onto the ground near his hands; Bruce picked up the diary and spat on it while he tore every page out and threw them to the wind.

  "Rat! Come here boy. It's all right boy."

  Both hands covered his face while he lowered his head to the ground, but the pressure on both bent knees felt like railroad spikes driven into the joints between bones. Bruce erupted to his feet and ripped the branch that had struck his head from the tree and broke it over his thigh. V
eins popped out of his neck while he charged through the brush screaming.

  “I know you hear me Rat. I’ll carve you up Rat if you don’t get over here right now you worthless dog!”

  A thick root caught his right foot, and the ankle twisted sharply on his way down. Blood shot from both nostrils when his face struck the ground; air bubbles erupted from both nostrils with every breath. The coppery taste of blood running into his mouth made him sit up and spit, but the blood continued down his chin onto the front of his jacket.

  “Rat. Just come back to me rat. I need you Rat.”

  A soft whimper crept through the forest.

  Bruce’s eyes rose. “Rat?”

  He heard the noise again, but he this time he could guess at the direction.

  “Rat? I’m coming for you Rat.”

  He moved in a straight line up the hill as the whimpering slowly increased in volume. Branches dug into the skin next to the still bleeding nose, but he ignored the pain. Limbs cracked and leaves crunched as he stomped through the forest screaming. Fifteen minutes after hearing the first whimper, a shaking paw moved out from a fallen tree ten feet in diameter.

  Bruce bent down to one knee. “Rat. Come on out boy; it’s alright.”

  The dog did not move.

  Bruce pulled some jerky from his pocket. “I’ve got some food Rat. Come on out.”

  Rat refused to move from his hiding spot.

  Bruce gripped his rifle with both hands beginning to curse loudly. “Get your stinking hide out from under that tree before I shoot you!”

  The heavy scent drifted across forest. Rat whimpered softly, and he crammed his body even further underneath the fallen tree. A growl crawled out from from deep in the trees behind Bruce; he brought the rifle to his shoulder and turned toward the sound.

  “Come on and get me Grizz,” Bruce yelled.

  The smell grew worse, and the second growl came from a different direction. A knot the size of a bowling ball settled in the pit of Bruce’s stomach while he turned towards the growl. His hands started to shake when he turned on the flashlight, but the thick forest rebuffed the narrow beam of light. Bloody bubbles began to pour from his nose as his breathing became quick and shallow. Panning the flashlight in different directions yielded no sign of the roars source. Between the blood in his nose and mouth and the thickening smell Bruce began to cough and have trouble breathing.

  The high pitched scream ran through his ears like an ice pick; Bruce began to sweat in the cold night air. Tremors spread from his hands through his entire body. He spun around to behind himself, but the barrel of his rifle slammed into something thick where there had only been empty space a moment ago. The deep animal musk that radiated from it warmed the night air.

  Bruce raised his eyes upward, and he thought of the scattered pieces of the McKlintock diary a short distance away.

  “Monsters?” Bruce whispered.

  The scream cut through the night air.

  Wednesday, May 15 5:00 a.m.

  Davis and his men broke camp while the dawn light struggled to drive away the darkness. The sun was fought its way through the tall trees attempting to burn away the cold air and the mist that covered the ground. The day promised to be warmer; but the dark clouds in the distance loomed like a wraith of the dead over the four men.

  The rest of the night proved thankfully uneventful. Hugh passed out a cold breakfast. After Davis made a quick report to the undersheriff by satellite phone, they carefully and quietly followed the trail left by Tom’s fleeing expedition. Thin pieces of rock slid from underfoot with each step, and blood began to show up more often again on the leaves and trees to their sides as well as on rocks that covered the path.

  After an hour of hiking, the ground abruptly turned from rock to soft earth leaving the jumble of footprints from Tom’s expedition clearly visible. Giant prints from the Sasquatch constantly hammered away all traces of the human tracks in six to seven foot intervals.

  “Looks like they got cut up pretty bad on that rocky slope back there,” Davis said.

  “I got a few scrapes myself,” Hugh replied.

  “You big guys never were known for being light on their feet,” Davis said.

  “You’re not so small yourself.”

  Clint stopped and pointed at the Sasquatch tracks. “See how some of these tracks are pointed uphill and others downhill. He’s been on this trail three times. Two sets are from last night. This guy was really moving.”

  Davis paused to adjust his hat. “But he’s not always on your brother’s trail. Is he zig zaging like we saw the other day?”

  “His most recent tracks don’t zig zag at all; this Sasquatch traveled in a straight line. Tom’s tracks are two days old. He knew right where they were hiding.”

  Davis thought for a moment. “So he went straight to them and took the girl and came straight back to us. Sounds like he was trying to send us another message.”

  Hugh was breathing a little heavy. “I get the message. But why not just storm into the camp and run us off like he apparently did to Tom’s group.”

  Davis’s eyes immediately went to the weapon in his hands. “I’m willing to bet it recognizes the guns; we’re pretty heavily armed compared to Tom’s group. “

  Jared grimaced. “You can’t be serious?”

  Davis nodded. “I’m as serious as I can be.”

  “Even a dog can recognize a rolled up newspaper,” Hugh said.

  Clint agreed. “I think the sheriff is right. My people have always believed that the Sasquatch was very intelligent.”

  Davis waved his hand. “I didn’t say how intelligent it is or is not. Like Hugh said, a dog can recognize a rolled up newspaper. Why can’t a Sasquatch recognize a gun?”

  Hugh shook his head. “I don’t know. But if it killed a girl just to dump her in our camp and hung a guy from a tree as a warning. That sounds pretty smart to me.”

  Davis shrugged. “O.K., it’s smarter than I gave it credit for. But how smart is it? Is it as smart as us?”

  “It acts as smart as us,” Jared said.

  Clint shook his head. “I don’t think it is as smart as a man. But it’s as at least as smart as any other animal in these woods. Probably a lot smarter.”

  “The question we’ve got to ask ourselves is why,” Davis said. “Why did this thing chase Roundtree’s expedition through the forest? Why did it pulverize that boy’s body? Why did it run all the way up there to kill a woman and throw her into the middle of our camp?”

  “Animals do all kinds of things we don’t understand,” Clint said. “Grizzly bear fathers will kill and eat their own young. Their mothers will kill to protect the same cubs. This animal could be defending its territory from a perceived threat, or it could just be crazy.”

  “I don’t like the sound of a crazy, seven hundred pound, massively strong Sasquatch running around the woods after us,” Davis said.

  “Crazy or not he’s already killed at least three people,” Hugh said.

  “Two, that kidnapper didn’t really count. Mr. Sasquatch performed society a big favor,” Davis said.

  Hugh nodded his head.

  Jared’s face wrinkled into a scowl. “I can’t believe you two guys. No one deserves to die like that.”

  The sheriff looked at Jared. “I would not have wished that death on anybody. And I’ll do my best to keep it from happening to anyone else. On the other hand, if we had caught that guy; he would have gotten out of jail sooner rather than later. And he may very well have hurt someone else. In this case our crazy Sasquatch may have unintentionally saved human lives.”

  Jared stopped walking. “But the guy deserved a chance to be rehabilitated.”

  Davis took a drink of water. “How many chances does he get Jared? That guy had already been sent to prison twice for sexual assault. How many times does he get to hurt the innocent before we say enough is enough? In Vermont a guy abused a kid for years and he got sixty days in jail. The kid gets a lifetime of pain and might gr
ow up to abuse somebody else. The guy back their in the orange fleece didn’t get much of a chance to abuse the girl he kidnapped, and Mr. Sasquatch made sure he would never abuse anybody else.”

  “So we should lock up everyone on their first offense and throw away the key?” asked Jared.

  “Sometimes I feel that way. You know, economics has a lot more to do with early release and parole than some sense of rehabilitation or mercy. Let me ask you a question Jared. What do we do if we run into our furry friend? Do we shoot him or do we try to rehabilitate him?”

  “You can’t compare killing an animal to killing a human no matter what the animal or the human have done.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong Jared. You can’t look at this from the animal’s perspective any more than you can look at this from a child abuser’s or a rapist’s perspective. Our job is to protect the innocent from anyone or anything. I don’t know that this Sasquatch is any more sick in the head than the guy that kidnapped that girl. I’ll do whatever it takes to get the four of us and those left in Tom’s party back down to civilization. I didn’t say I would enjoy it, but I’ll put that thing down if I have too just like I would have put down that kidnapper.”

  Jared shrugged his shoulders. “Trust me. I have no problem with anyone shooting this Sasquatch. But a person is different.”

  “Not for the victim. If anything, it’s worse to be attacked or assaulted by a human. The victim has to try to cope with the fact that another person could be so evil,” Davis said.

  “I’m sick of the criminals having more rights than the victims," Hugh said.

  Jared pointed his finger at Hugh. “So we should put down a child molester just like we would put down a rabid grizzly or dog?”

  Davis knocked some dirt off of his boot. “I didn’t say we had to or even should kill every criminal we see. But we have to protect the victims somehow. There’s no way the state’s penalties for some crimes are anywhere near severe enough.”

  Hugh wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I've got to agree with the sheriff. Some of these guys get arrested time and again over a period of ten or even forty years for practically the same crime. It’s like the prison is a revolving door.”