Anyhow, Skeeter gave me the low-down on a Bigfoot sighting up along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Galax, Virginia. It was a pretty spring day, so I didn't mind a ride through the mountains. I mighta even took the Harley if I hadn't thought I'd need every damn gun I owned and then some if I actually ran into Bigfoot. Or a Bigfoot, if there's more than one. Hell, I don't know nothing about Bigfoot except they're supposed to be tall, hairy and have big feet. Which sounds like me, when you get right down to it. Except I wear pants.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is some of the prettiest damn country in the US, and I the windows rolled down and the AC/DC blastin'. My F-250 pickup was taking care of the curves with no problem, and I was generally enjoying the day. Galax is a cute little Mayberry of a town, not far from Mount Airy, NC, the real basis for the town of Mayberry. They even have an annual Leaf and String Festival when the trees start to turn colors in the fall and the bluegrass gets jammin'. It's a pretty good time, for a town with no titty bars.
That ain't to say there's not a few places for a fella to get a drink or seven, and I managed to find a place called Shorty's just off the main drag that looked inviting. Of course, my idea of a bar that looks inviting is more than half a dozen Harleys out front and a sign on the door that says "No Puking, No Bleeding, No Excuses."
It was about what I'd expected inside, a little hole-in-the-wall joint with a jukebox, a dozen or so scuffed tables, a couple booths and a bar running the length of the far wall. I pulled up a stool and settled in for a nice session of long-distance drinking. The bartender came over and wiped down the bar in front of me with a rag that was dirtier than the old t-shirt I checked my oil with. He was a big boy, about six-three with a shiny bald head and a long goatee. He had a scar running from the middle of his forehead down across one eye and along his cheekbone, but he grinned when he looked up at me.
"They call you Tiny or something stupid like that?" He asked.
"I reckon you're Shorty?" I shot right back.
"Damn straight. Ain't nothin' original in Galax, son. What'll it be, Slim?"
"Macallan 18, and one for yourself." He looked at me for a second, his split eyebrow climbing almost all the way up to the middle of his bald head, and I laughed. "I'm just screwing with you. Crown on the rocks. But the offer's open if you want one."
He pulled a couple of glasses from under the bar and set us both up with a generous pour. I sipped mine slowly, feeling the burn of the liquor wash away the road dust. I'd put more than a few miles on the Blue Bomber today, and it felt good to sit on something that wasn't moving for a little while.
Shorty knocked his back in a long gulp and set his glass down. It was still early, so there was just me and a bunch of bikers in the back shooting pool. The one waitress was taking care of them, so Shorty leaned on the bar and looked me up and down. "What brings you to Virginia, son?"
"I hear there's been some Bigfoot sightings around town. I'm here to find out if that's real or just a couple of local boys gettin' a little too loaded and thinking you're bigger and hairier than you really are."
"Well, damn, son! You have come to the right place. Spider back yonder 'round the pool table is one of the boys that saw that monster. And he wasn't looking at me when he drove his bike off the side of that mountain and broke his leg in three places. Totaled his scooter and ended up in a wheelchair for almost three months." I looked back to the back room. Through the smoke I could see a figure in a wheelchair trying to get his arm set right to make a difficult shot. He was having a hell of a time maneuvering the chair with his left leg stuck out on front of him in a full-length cast. I kept watching. He didn't make it. His opponent, a skinny wannabe with no cut on his leather and a couple of scraggly whiskers dotting his chin, cackled with glee and sunk the eight-ball. That ended the game, and the scrawny fella grabbed the stack of cash that was sitting on the rail and shoved it into his pocket. Wheelchair guy (who I assumed was Spider) flipped Scrawny the bird and spun his chair around towards the door.
I reached down and grabbed the back of his chair as he cruised past me, popping him back up on two wheels and earning a nasty glare from the injured biker. "Calm down, Speed Racer." I said. "I just got a couple questions about Bigfoot."
"I don't want to talk about it." He grumbled. He looked like he was a pretty tough SOB when he wasn't broken into a dozen pieces. He had a long red ponytail that ran about halfway down his back, full beard and probably stood a hair over six feet when he could stand.
"I'll buy you a drink." I offered. I waved Shorty back over and pointed at the bottle of Crown.
"Bring the bottle over to the table. I can't reach the bar 'til I get outta this damn chair." He wheeled over to a table, shoved a chair out of the way and parked himself there waiting on me. I grabbed the bottle of Crown and two glasses, tossed three twenties at Shorty and made my way over there. I put one glass in front of Spider, one in front of me, filled them both and set the bottle in the middle of the table.
"Now tell me a story, buddy. I want to know what you saw, where you saw it, and why you think you saw Bigfoot."
"Fine, but I get to keep the bottle when we're done. I collect 'em."
"Whatever." I pushed the Bluetooth transmitted in my ear and heard Skeeter come online. I wanted him to hear this redneck's story and let me know if it matched the other reports we'd gotten.
"I was south of town a little ways out on 97, just about to where it crosses the Parkway, and it was about one in the morning. I'd been here at Shorty's hanging with the boys and shootin' some pool and that little shithead over yonder had done took my money." He flipped the bird in the general direction of the scrawny dude over at the pool table. Scrawny, keeping it classy, grabbed his crotch at Spider and laughed.
"Anyway," He continued. "I'd had a couple beers but nothing serious, so I wasn't drunk. I don't give a shit what that Breathalyzer said, I was sober as a judge. Well, sober as most of the judges 'round here, anyhow. So I was cruisin' along 97, getting her up to about fifty, sixty miles an hour or so. I wasn't in no hurry, and that road gets twisty up in there, so I was taking my time. Then all of a sudden there was this gigantic sonofabith standing on the side of the road. He was eight feet tall if he was an inch, and he came out of nowhere, I tell ya. There ain't nothing along that stretch of 97 but woods for a couple miles in both directions, and this giant come out of them woods! And he was all covered in hair, and didn't have no britches on, and I tell you, he had the biggest damn wiener I ever seen."
I couldn't help it, I blew Crown Royal right out of my nose. Skeeter cackled in my ear and I said "You saw Bigfoot in the middle of the night and all you could think about was how big his dick was?"
"Well it was huge! And it like you could avoid it, swinging down there like a damn sapling or something. It was bigger than a baby's arm!"
I got myself under control, which was more than I could say for Skeeter, who sounded like he was about to hyperventilate on the other end of the phone line. "Well, other than having a huge johnson, what kind of description could you give me?" I asked.
"Like I said, he was real tall, and covered in hair. It was kinda like a hippy, only with even more hair. Anyhow, he come strutting out of the woods buck naked in the middle of the night, and I sent my Harley right off the road and down the side of the damn mountain! I dove off the bike, but she went sailing. I could hear her crashing off tress and through the underbrush for like five minutes until she finally came to rest up down in the middle of the road a couple hundred feet below me. I landed wrong when I jumped off and broke the hell out of my leg on a big-ass rock. Then when I come to, I'm looking up into the face of a monster!"
"You mean Bigfoot came after you?"
"Hell, yeah it came after me! I looked up into that big hairy face and hollered like my ass was on fire! It took off then, ran off back up the mountain and I ain't seen it again. But I know what I'll do if I ever do see the sumbitch again." He patted his chest under his left arm and gave me one of those looks. You know, the look that s
ays "I've got a gun and I think I know how to use it."
"Well, try not to shoot off anything you might need later." I said and pushed my chair back.
"Wait, you leaving?" He sounded a little sad, like I was the only guy around that wanted to hear his story. Hell, I probably was the only guy around that wanted to hear his story, at least for a couple hundred miles. And I'd heard it.
"Yep, I gotta go look for a Bigfoot with a dick like a horse. And thanks for that image, by the way." Now I couldn't keep from thinking about Bigfoot's pecker. There ain't enough booze in Virginia to make that right.
I left the bar and got into my truck. "Skeeter, what do you think about all that?"
"Well, it makes sense, Bubba. I mean, the monster's eight feet tall, it's only proportional that it would have a giant penis." He tried, but he couldn't hold it together and busted out laughing.
I sighed. "Believe it or not, Skeeter, Bigfoot's pecker was not what I thought was the important par of the conversation." But I could see how Skeeter might have fixated on that part of the story. He probably hadn't had a date in longer than me, and that was saying something.
"I know, I know. I just couldn't help it. I don't think we've ever spent that much time talking about a monster's genitals, not even that werewolf back in South Carolina."
"Yeah, and that boy was blessed, if I recall. Too bad I had to shoot him so much. Now can we get back to the job?" I'm never the one that's all business, but Skeeter's a lot more comfortable discussing another dude's private parts than I am. Of course, Skeeter's also queer as a golf helmet, so he's studied a lot more dudes' private parts than I have. I've only ever been terribly familiar with my own. Now if we were talking women, the roles might be somewhat reversed.
"Sure, Bubba. I'll try. Just look at this as payback for all the times you kept the video camera running while you went to the titty bar."
"You're a crappy wingman, Skeeter. I knew I shoulda made more straight friends. But anyway," I tried once more to steer the conversation back to work. "The important thing I took from Spider's story, besides where he saw the monster, was the fact that this critter don't seem to be the bad guy."
"How do you mean?" Skeeter asked.
"Well, it didn't do nothin' to Spider. It was just taking a walk. Spider comes roarin' up on his Harley and gets the crap scared out of him, I don't know how much of that is Bigfoot's fault."
"What happened to the Bubba who says stuff like 'you find 'em, I shoot 'em,' and other stupid one-liners?"
"I'm still here, but I don't want to shoot no innocent monster just because Spider's scared of a big hairy dude with a giant wiener."
"I can understand that, Bubba. But it's the job. We hunt monsters."
"Yeah, but they ain't all evil, are they?" I thought back on the vegetarian vampires, the lovestruck rakshasa and other hapless bastards I'd fought and helped in the past few months. It sure was easier when they were all evil, or at least amoral bastards, like the ballet troupe full of vampires or the bloodthirsty fairies in the shopping mall. Those were the simple ones. This was looking like it wasn't going to be any flavor of simple. I reached beneath the front seat of the truck, pulled out my emergency flask, and took a good belt of Great-Grandpappy Beauregard's Special Recipe to get my head straight. That did the job. The corn liquor burned all the way down to my nut hair, and I felt a lot better.
"Okay, Skeeter. You figured out where this spot is on the highway where Spider met the Bigfoot?"
"Or the Big-something else?"
"Let's leave the monster's johnson out of this as long as we can, please. Now send the location to my truck's GPS and let's go find the furball."
"Done. You're loaded. Get rolling." So I did. I pulled the truck out of the gravel parking lot and onto the main road. The area where Spider had his encounter was only about fifteen minutes from the bar, so I was there almost before I knew it. I rounded a curve in the general area and pulled the truck off on the shoulder. I hopped out and opened the back door, then flipped up the back seat and pressed my thumb to the top of the metal case under the seat. The biometric scanner Skeeter had installed the last time I was home for a few days read my thumbprint and the case popped open. I grabbed my shoulder rig with Bertha, my .50 Desert Eagle, and checked that she was loaded with silver rounds. I didn't know if Bigfoot was particularly sensitive to silver or not, but even if it wasn't, a fifty-caliber round would blow a big damn hole.
I grabbed a few extra magazines, including one of cold iron and one of alternating silver and phosphorous rounds, and slid them into the other side of the shoulder holster. I strapped my grandfather's sword onto my back, slid a pair of brass knuckles into each jacket pocket and pulled my big Maglite from its holder. I locked the truck up tight and slid on the ugly-ass glasses Skeeter had built a camera into. I pushed the Bluetooth button and then turned on the camera.
"You got signal, Skeeter?"
"Read you five by five, Bubba."
"Damn, son. That sounded almost professional. And almost straight. If you didn't lisp a little I'da never known you were an abomination."
"The evolutionary missing link calls me the abomination. If you weren't my best friend I'd be offended."
"I'm not your best friend, Skeeter. I'm your only friend. Which reminds me, you need to get out more."
"I'm getting lessons in social science from the redneck who thinks a long-term relationship is a two-for-one lap dance? I'll make you a deal, Bubba. I'll start getting out more exactly one week after you have dinner with a woman who doesn't take her clothes off or carry a firearm, or both, as part of her job description."
"Deal. Now where would I find such a woman? I thought they only existed in fairy tales and elementary schools. Hold up, what's that?" The beam of my flashlight had flashed across a demolished section of undergrowth off to the downhill side of the road. The mess was way too big to have been caused by a motorcycle, so it couldn't have been Spider's wreck. I got closer, keeping the flashlight in my left hand and my right on the Bertha's butt. I knelt down in the grass and felt the broken branches.
"These have fresh sap running, Skeeter. This mess just happened."
"What is it?"
"I can't tell yet. I think I'm gonna have to climb down there."
"You better get a rope, Bubba. There ain't no airlift out of Galax in the middle of the night if you fall down that mountain." He had a point. I'm big and tough and strong, but it's all a hundred per cent human tough, so if I took a header off the side of a mountain I'd need some serious medical attention. I went back to the truck and popped open the toolbox in the back. That's where I keep the stuff that won't get the police all worked up if they decide to take a look.
I grabbed a harness, a climbing rope, some descenders, a rescue 8 and a couple of karabiners, then set to work getting ready to go down the side of a mountain in the dark after God-knows-what. I stepped into the harness and made sure all the straps were tight, then clipped the descender to the front of the harness with a locking karabiner. I needed the descender so I could stop in a hurry and keep both hands free to shoot.
I tied off to the truck's tow hitch and started down the mountain. I went down Aussie, or face-first, so I could see where I was going, and hopefully see Bigfoot before he saw me. That wasn't friggin' likely, since I was crashing through underbrush like a damned epileptic elephant and I had an LED headlamp strapped to my forehead. The light quickly revealed a wide path of destruction down the hillside, and I followed it as best I could. I was making pretty slow progress until I came over a little hump on the mountain and saw taillights in front of me.
"Son of a bitch." I muttered. "Skeeter, you sure about that whole 'no airlift' thing?" I heard him tap-tapping on his keyboard through my headset.
"Yeah, the nearest major hospital is Baptist down in Winston-Salem, and it'll take them a couple hours to get a chopper in the air and on the way, and that's assuming you have anywhere to land one where you are."
"There's nothing. Let's hope whoever
's in the car is in good enough shape to move or we've got a real problem on our hands." I was close enough by then to see that it was a black Suburban. "They might be okay, Skeeter. These damn Suburbans are built like tanks."
"Yeah, that's why all the feds use 'em." Something rang in the back of my head when he said that, but I put it out of my mind. As many mountains and hills as there are around Galax, that would just be silly, wouldn't it?
Nope, apparently it wouldn't be that silly. As I got to the door of the Suburban, I saw a US Forestry Service logo on the door. I put a fingernail under the edge, and the magnetic logo came right off. Underneath was the logo for the Department of ExtraDimensional, Mystical and Occult Nuisances, or DEMON. The Suburban was wrapped around a big oak tree, and wedged in pretty tight on the sides by some skinny pines. It wasn't going anywhere, and it looked like the trip down the mountainside had been stopped pretty abruptly.
There was a mass of blonde hair covering the head laying on the steering wheel, but I couldn't see any blood anywhere. I tapped on the driver's window, and Agent Amy Hall jerked upright. Her movement made the Suburban shake, and I could see her eyes widen a little. I made the universal symbol for "roll your window down," but she just shook her head. Of course, the automatic windows wouldn't work with a sixty-year-old oak tree sticking through the engine block.
I motioned for her to move away from the window, and when she was clear I grabbed a set of brass knuckles out of one pocket and punched the window out. Safety glass went everywhere, and I leaned into the cab of the SUV.
"Agent Hall, how you doin' tonight?" I asked, giving her a big grin. The pretty federal agent looked a little shaken up, but otherwise fine. The inside of the Suburban reeked of deployed airbag and fast food.
"I've had better days. How are you, Bubba?" Agent Sweetbuns replied.
"Well, my truck's still in one piece, and I don't need to be rescued off the side of a mountain, so I reckon I'm doing pretty good. Would you like a ride back into town?"
"No." I raised an eyebrow at her, and she went on. "I want to find the damn Bigfoot that ran me off the road and almost killed me, then I want to put a bullet in his face." She smiled at that last bit, a sweet little smile that made me really nervous for some reason. I like a woman who can shoot the bad guy, but there's something a little unnerving about one who grins while she does it.
Scattered, Smothered and Chunked - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1 Page 17