Nighthawk

by Alan Monroe

  Davis laughed. “Long story.”

  The dog snarled, and Davis turned in time to see a rock the size of bowling ball smack Rachael in back of the head. Her body slowly rolled off the log where she sat as her head split down its center like a melon. Davis dove to the ground and scooped up Rachael’s body and stared into the lifeless still open eyes. Blood from the inch wide seam streaked across the top and back of her head spread across his palms and cloths.

  Every man in the rescue party turned and fired into the trees fifty yards away drilling bullets deep in the wood. Limbs popped free from tree junks and brush fell to the ground until Davis stood and barked a cease fire.

  “Shooting into the dark doesn’t do any good; we can’t even see it. And killing that monster won’t bring anyone back.”

  Peck pointed a violent finger at the mountain. “We can’t let it get away with this, sheriff!”

  Davis closed his eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. “I am not willing to risk any more lives against that thing. It’s had the chance to kill enough of us already. We’re moving out,” the sheriff said with a tone of finality in his voice. “Break out another stretcher. We aren’t leaving her here.”

  Peck held the radio to his mouth. “Howard we’re moving out in two minutes.”

  “I’ll have the coffee hot,” Thomas replied over the radio.

  “We lost one more.”

  The response took a moment. “Base camp copies.” Thomas paused again. “We’ll be waiting.”

  Davis knelt next to the young girls body covered with a blanket before he picked up one end of the stretcher and started trudging through the mud. A far off howl curled around the mountainside. Several officers stopped and looked; Davis stared straight down the mountainside and the lights in the distance as he continued to trudge through the mud.

  Friday, May 17 3:00 a.m.

  Davis sat in the passenger seat of the police cruiser with his eyes closed as it rumbled across the uneven dirt road leading back to Nighthawk. Blood coated the front of the muddy and ripped gortex jacket; the faded leather hat lay on the dashboard. Tom and Hugh silently sat in the back seat staring out the windows while the pit bull sat between them panting. Every time a thick drop of drool fell on Hugh’s thigh he cut an angry look toward the dog.

  Bright lights filled the parking lot outside the MCU and the Nighthawk Inn. Several officers stood outside the MCU watching the cruiser and SWAT van come halt just off the gravel road. Davis sat in the car for several moment after everyone else exited and started shaking hands with the officers. When Davis opened the door and stood, the dog moved to his side and placed its head under the sheriff’s right hand.

  The door to the MCU popped open and Thomas walked to Davis and shook his hand. “Welcome back, sheriff. It’s good to see you.” Thomas looked down toward the dog. “What’s with the mutt?”

  Davis looked down at the scars streaked across the ugly dog’s face. “I’ll tell you later. Thanks for getting Peck and the boys out of that forest fire and up that mountain after us.”

  “I couldn’t have kept them away once they found out you and Tom needed help. We’re just glad you made it back safely.”

  The sheriff entered the MCU leaned the big rifle in the corner and sat down. He sighed, “I just wish we had all made it back.”

  Thomas shut the door behind them as he followed Davis inside. “You mean Jared? I hated to hear about him; he was a good kid. There’s no way you could have expected to run into whatever it was you ran into up there.”

  “Its not just Jared, those things have killed 7 people in less than a week. Eleven people went up on that mountain, and only five people came back down alive. I call an attrition rate of over fifty percent pretty bad. And we found the body of that kidnapper from a few years ago tied to a tree; the guy was torn in half.”

  “The guy you followed up the mountain when Curtis was shot?”

  “The same guy. What was left of him was still wearing that same orange fleece; he was shredded.”

  “That sounds like a good thing.”

  Davis looked at him. “I found other bodies that had been tied to trees for fifty or a hundred years. They looked like loggers, miners, or even campers. Who knows how many people those things have killed over the years?”

  “How do you want to handle it?”

  Davis put his head in his hands. “I have no faith in our ability to safely hunt that thing down without getting more of our people killed. That mountain and the area around it are going to have to be off limits for a long time.”

  Thomas sighed. “I don’t think that will be a big enough area.”

  “Why not? Everything fits the Doc’s theory. They’ve been up in that old growth forest for a long time; they even fenced off the area with dead bodies tied to trees. Now there is just one big one and maybe a baby.”

  “Sheriff, Curtis is dead,” Thomas said softly.

  The sheriff leaned forward in his chair.

  Thomas walked to a window and stared outside into the darkness. “We found him yesterday morning. He had been murdered and tied to the trunk of a big tree. Sounds more or less like what you described.”

  “So we have no reason to believe it will stay on that mountain? Your description makes it sound like the thing has clamed Nighthawk. It might actually try to expand its territory even further?”

  “I’m nowhere close to being an expert, but I think that’s right,” Thomas responded.

  “And now its mate and most of its offspring are dead. It is probably the last of its family or group or whatever you want to call it. If the Doc is right about their family dynamics falling apart, it has probably already abandoned the baby. And it’s got no reason to stay on that mountain. Curtis just happened to live in the town we all started from. It’s clearly willing to come into a settled area and kill for no reason except because it can.”

  “Sheriff, there’s more.”

  Davis looked at the undersheriff as if to beg him not to reveal anymore bad news.

  “I went over to the newspaper office. Dale and I combed through decades worth of newspapers on microfilm. You’re right when you say there is no telling how many people these things have killed. Over fifty people disappeared or died in this area under questionable circumstances in the first half of the twentieth century.”

  Davis grunted. “I am guessing those are just the reported cases that actually made it to the newspaper.”

  “That’s what Dale and I thought as well. How many hikers or prospectors entered this area and just disappeared? A lot of things went unreported fifty or a hundred years ago?”

  Davis shook his head. “I am going to have to think about this. You tell all the boys to grab some sack time wherever they can tonight. We’re in no shape to go monster hunting anytime soon, and I don’t think we’re qualified either. I just don’t know if I can put anyone else’s life on the line to go after that Sasquatch.”

  Thomas watched the sheriff lean back in the chair and close his eyes with the dog curled up at his feet. After turning off the light inside the MCU and closing the door behind him, Thomas thought of how long he had actually known Davis; Thomas remembered seeing the sheriff play high school football. He felt sorry for the younger man not just because of what he had been through over the past several days, but also for the burden of the decisions that had now been forced on his shoulders. He would no doubt be blamed by the families of some of the dead and by animal rights activists for varying reasons, and he would most likely be criticized for whatever course he chose to follow tomorrow. Thomas could only shake his head as he went to gather the deputies and inform them of their brief rest.

  Friday, May 17 5:30 a.m.

  The sun had not even begun to creep above the mountain peaks when Davis started to untwist his body from a fitful sleep; the ache’s stretched from one end of this body to the other. The office chair only served to increase the pain in his arcing across his muscles after days of crawling across the mountainside. Davis looked ar
ound the mostly dark vehicle to see the dog in the floor and Thomas asleep in another chair with his feet propped up on a desk.

  He stepped from the gravel parking lot into the wet grass and walked toward the small creek just off the road. The cool mountain air always felt good in his lungs when he breathed deeply; both knees popped when he squatted down by the crystal clear water. Davis remembered the dreams that rolled through his head all night long. The phone call he made to Jared asking him to join the rescue party played itself over and over again in his head. Jared’s eager voice sapped him with guilt along with the promise he made to Rachael that she would make it off the mountain. The taste of Jedidiah Curtis’ terrible coffee lingered in his mouth as if he just finished a full cup.

  Davis took a deep breath again trying to force the pure air to clear his mind. But every time he tried to put together a plan of action to deal with the Sasquatch guilt shredded the plan in an instant. He rubbed his eyes as he tried think of a way to effectively use the state police and the state wildlife service to secure the area or locate the Sasquatch, but Jared’s words climbed back into his mind. A tear rolled down his cheek, but Davis wiped the tear away and rammed his fist into the rocky bottom of the shallow creek. Blood dripped from two knuckles.

  Davis had walked about fifty yards away from the MCU as he thought. He turned and looked back in the direction from which he had come, and he could no longer see the MCU or any of the patrol cars. As he pondered what to do, he slowly began to notice a faint but familiar smell. The smell was so weak that he almost missed it, but as Davis slowly turned to face the wilderness the stench began to grown stronger. Soon the smell surrounded him as if it was one with the thick fog. The smell quickly began to grow overwhelming with its power, but Davis could not even determine which direction the smell was coming from in the fog.

  With eyes closed, he drew in another deep breath, but the thick animal musk coated his nostrils and lungs. The hair on his neck stood on end while his eyes popped open and he stood straight up. Before he could turn and run, he heard a deep growl from behind. A pair of huge hairy arms encircled Davis’ midsection and quickly squeezed the air from his lungs. His eyesight grew hazy as he felt his body lifted from the ground. Lungs struggled for one more breath before his closed completely.

  The thirsty dog began to sniff the air as it drank. His head rose slowly as it stared into the fog until it began to bark loudly and rapidly before it suddenly raced into the fog.

  Tom Roundtree finally sat up in the back seat of the patrol car where he attempted to sleep; he learned car companies never designed backs seats in patrol cars for sleeping. He just managed to fall asleep when he heard the dog bark. He could not believe that his first night back in civilization was being spent in the back seat of a police cruiser with Hugh Walker’s loud snoring reverberating from the front seat.

  “First snoring, and now the dog. Hugh, I bet you snore louder than that Sasquatch. I haven’t slept at all.”

  Hugh did not even move from his slightly reclined position in the passenger seat of the patrol car. “I hate that dog,” he said, but the snoring resumed in seconds.

  Tom shook his head and opened the door before he slid out of the car on his hands and knees. The stench crawled across the fog and gripped Tom’s face. He snatched the driver’s door open reaching across Hugh to switch on the siren.

  Hugh snapped awake. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?

  “That thing is down here with us, Hugh. I can smell it.

  Hugh unlocked the shotgun stored between the passenger and driver seat of the patrol car and pumped a round into the chamber. Tom popped the trunk and pulled a second shotgun along with two shoulder straps loaded with buckshot; he tossed one ammunition belt to Hugh. Every officer in Nighthawk gathered around the rotating lights; As soon as the undersheriff arrived, Tom turned off the siren.

  “What is going on here, Tom?” Thomas said.

  Tom turned on a flashlight. “That thing is somewhere close right now.”

  “The Bigfoot? How can you tell, Tom?”

  “I can smell it in the air.”

  Hugh looked at the frown on Thomas’s face. “Tom is right, almost every time one of those things got anywhere near us you could smell its stink. And I can smell it now.”

  Clint snapped off his rifle’s safety. “I can smell it too. It’s close by. No doubt about it.”

  “What do we do about it?” Peck said.

  Hugh scanned the crowd of officers. “Where’s Will?”

  “No way he missed that siren,” Peck said.

  Tom rubbed the stubble on his jaw when his eyes suddenly grew wide. “It’s got him, dead or alive it’s got him.”

  Thomas looked puzzled. “What do you mean it’s got him? You’re talking crazy.”

  Clint put his hand on the undersheriff’s shoulder. “Tom’s right, it all fits together. The stink and the sheriff not responding.”

  Thomas held up his hands. “Slow down and explain this to me.”

  Tom looked at the undersheriff. “That big alpha male Sasquatch has kidnapped the sheriff. We are bound to find some tracks in the mud if we look. It left is scent behind. You know Davis would be here if he hadn’t been kidnapped or killed.”

  Thomas began to nod his head in agreement. “I’ll have to defer to you Tom. I don’t have a clue how to deal with this.”

  “Peck, take five men and search around the MCU. Then work your way outward around the inn and town from there. Clint, take five men and search the edge of the woods for tracks starting from the North. Hugh and I will take five more guys and search from the south. Everybody has shotguns, and everybody has radios. Stay in contact and stay together. Let’s move out.”

  Friday, May 17 7:00 a.m.

  The haze in front of his eyes started to clear when he pried them open. Coarse fur flowed under Davis abdomen, and the smell gagged him. The dark fur rolled up its body until it met the raw, burned flesh covering its head and shoulder opposite Davis. The Sasquatch carried Davis over its shoulder like a rag doll while every step the huge beast took hit Davis like a punch in the stomach as its feet drilled footprints deep into the earth.

  Davis shook his head while drew air back into his lungs trying to force his mind and body back to full consciousness. All attempts to orientate himself and find the distance form Nighthawk failed with his upside down view of the world. Davis reached around the Sasquatch’s face and clawed at its eyes, but his fingers only raked away more burned flesh from the cheeks. The creature growled and snapped at the bare fingers.

  A sharp pain fired into Davis’ hip, but the Sasquatch shook him violently and growled every time he tried to move. He tried to visualize the sharp cylinder in his pocket when his eyes grew wide. The sheriff thrust his right hand into his front hip pocket and ripped out the last flare. Sweaty hands struggled to hold onto the striking cap while he twisted it off and raked the end of the flare across the striker. He smiled when it lit on the first strike, and he rammed the three thousand degree flare in the Sasquatch’s face and drug it across the already burned skin towards the eye digging deep into the face. The roar cycled through one ear then the other while he spun through the air until his body slapped the cold wet ground.

  Tom and Hugh found a set of Sasquatch tracks in short order leading from the forest down to creek west of the MCU. The trail led them to the point where the tracks met a set prints from hiking boots by the creek.

  “I don’t see any blood,” Tom said.

  Hugh said quick prayer of thanks. “I’m guessing he snatched Will and carried him back toward the mountain.”

  “I’d have to agree. Do we call Clint on the radio and have him bring his squad up here? We could you use him to track this thing.”

  Hugh shook his head. “I’m not hedging my bets; this thing is smart enough to backtrack us. Besides a blind man could follow these prints. “Hugh held the shotgun parallel to the ground stepped along the trail. “And we’re not waiting.”

  Tom, Hugh
, and their men ran down the Sasquatch’s trail as it led back toward Little Chopaka Mountain and the wilderness they had only escaped a short time ago.

  Davis scraped himself off the ground while the Sasquatch roared nearby as it seethed over being burned once again. Davis searched the ground for the still burning flare until he snatched it out of the wet grass.

  After getting to his feet, Davis held the flare between himself and the still screaming creature. The bomb thrown by Hugh left most of the creature’s upper body covered with burned and blistered skin with open sores weeping pus. Davis backed away as the smell of singed hair mingled with its natural musk. Melted skin slid down the side of the creatures face he burned with the flare exposing bone at the jaw line; skin and blood covered one making it useless. Inbreeding and a purifying flame removed all traces of God’s intent; they were replaced by a true monster.

  When Davis saw the pain engulfing the creature again he could not help but allow that crooked smile to creep across his lips. “What goes around comes around.”

  The Sasquatch turned toward Davis and balled it huge hands into fists. It looked straight up into the air and sent a scream echoing across the mountain; Davis felt the creature’s hatred radiating through the air. He looked down to read the side of the flare and saw that it was only rated to last ten minutes. He scanned the ground of the forest searching for a weapon of any type; the base of a tree shattered by a lightning strike during the recent storm loomed nearby.

  Davis picked up a four foot section of the tree. He could not believe that he was holding a piece of hickory in his hand since the tree was not native to Washington State or anywhere near there for that matter. It was used as a common material in early baseball bats because of its strength; Babe Ruth used bats made out of hickory that weighed almost three pounds. The end that Davis held was about he same thickness as the handle of a baseball bat; the other end, however, was about six inches in diameter. Davis dropped the burning flare to the ground and stepped toward the Sasquatch.