by Max Brooks
I certainly wasn’t. I would have given anything to stay in my comfort zone. Even now, when Mostar mentioned the enigmatic trauma of her past. I could have asked about it, just like I could have asked all the other times she’d brought it up. But I didn’t. I just stood there, hoping she’d change the subject, then wishing a second later that she hadn’t.
“People only see the present through the lenses of their personal pasts.” Her lips soured. “Maybe that’s my problem too.”
She sat down on the steps, focusing on the ash. “Violence. Danger. That’s my zone of comfort.”
She looked up at us again. “You probably thought I was crazy that first night.” Her head jerked toward our house and, I’m guessing, our garden. “But I knew what I was doing. I know how quickly society can burn. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived through it. But this…”
Eyes back to the footprints. “These may be real.” Head up to the trees. “They may be out there.”
“They”? Not “it”?
“But how do I know that they’re dangerous?” She shook her head. “I don’t. They might be friendly. They might just be passing through. And the fight with that big cat. How do I know it wasn’t self-defense or that Vincent’s not right about scavengers? I don’t.”
And then I understood what had come over her. And it chilled me.
Doubt.
“Bear spray.” She huffed. “That was just the start. You don’t know how far I would have taken you all today if the others hadn’t stopped me. And maybe they were right to do so.” Her eyes, meeting ours. Apologetic? “Do I have any evidence that they’re threatening, any proof of anything except”—she blinked, hard—“the lens of my personal past?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I still can’t. It’s been a couple hours since Mostar told us to go home. We haven’t seen her since. Dan’s off to work, brushing the Perkins-Forster roof. I’ll meet him over there after I’ve done some gardening. Not much really to do. The seeds are all in, even the rice now, scattered over a square-foot patch with some soil thrown over it. The drip line works great, so there’s no need to hand water anything. Not that anything’s coming up. Basically, my “gardening” consists of looking over a room full of mud.
I should probably go check on Mostar first. I feel so bad for her, and, yes, scared for the rest of us. We’re depending on her, Dan and I, and the whole village, whether they know it or not. We can’t have her doubting herself, ending up as lost as the rest of us. We need her to be strong. We need her to be right.
But in this case, with those things out there, what does it mean for all of us if she is?
From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.
Yeah, I’ve read The Sasquatch Companion, and for the most part, I agree with the official origins story. I think the book makes some good points about being descended from Gigantopithecus and the migration from Asia to the Americas. But co-migration? I’m not so sure.
Now, I don’t have a shred of evidence to back this up, so if you want to nail me on that, be my guest. But given what happened to Greenloop, what if…what if…they weren’t just co-migrating along with us? What if they were hunting us? Isn’t that why we came over? Following the grazing animals across the Beringian land bridge? What if we were stalking the caribou while they were stalking us? It wouldn’t discount any of the adaptations, just give them a different purpose. Nocturnal hunting would catch us at our most vulnerable. Camouflage skills are ideal for an ambush. And broad running feet would give them the speed to chase us down.
And when they caught us…if the stats are right, then we’re talking about three times the strength of a gorilla, which is already six times stronger than us. And that large head, the same conical shape we see on gorillas, that’s a sagittal crest, the skull plate that anchors their jaw muscles. Those muscles give a gorilla one of the most powerful bites in the world, thirteen hundred pounds per square inch. Now triple that in a Sasquatch and picture what it would do to our bones.
Maybe they used that bite, and strength, and speed to compete with us for food, or maybe we were the food. You’ll have to talk to Josephine Schell about that part. She knows more about carnivorous apes than me.
But for whatever reason, we were the ones, not them, who couldn’t wait to flee into this vast new continent. And what if enough time went by for us, this weak little species, to build up our numbers, and our confidence, to eventually challenge the larger primates for dominance of North America? What if that’s why they’ve remained so elusive, because they knew what would happen if they stepped out of the shadows? They saw what we did to the saber-toothed cat, the dire wolf, the giant bulldog bear. They saw what we did to enough of them to realize that they were on the wrong side of evolution.
At least until Rainier.
Josephine Schell thinks I’m going too far. She’s all about ecosystems and caloric needs, and maybe she’s right. But maybe there was also some latent gene that woke up in those creatures when they stumbled across Greenloop and found themselves facing a herd of cornered, isolated Homo sapiens. Maybe some instinct told them it was time to swap evolution for devolution, reach back to who they were to reclaim what was theirs.
Violence, as unpleasant as it may seem, fulfills a necessary social function in chimpanzees.
—ANDREW R. HALLORAN, The Song of the Ape: Understanding the Languages of Chimpanzees
JOURNAL ENTRY #12
October 10
So much has happened. Where do I even begin?
That idiocy with the compost. Spreading it up on the ridge? I watched them all day. Vincent and Bobbi, chatting giddily over buckets of slop. The Perkins-Forsters, Effie doing most of the heavy lifting. Carmen with her rubber gloves and white paper flu mask. Germophobe. Palomino sticking close, apprehensively looking around. At least they only took up the top portions, the stuff that still looked like food. The bottom, newly minted dirt, we’ll need for the garden. Maybe they were thinking that, or were just too lazy to haul it up. I bet you that was the case with Reinhardt.
I busted him taking his burden to the Common House bin. “Busted” is the word because of the guilty look on his face. I watched him hoof his office trash pail (doesn’t he own a bucket?) across the driveway to the Common House. I feel a little mean doing what I did, but the way he looked around suspiciously…
I just had to knock on the window. That priceless freeze on his face when he saw me. It was worth it for the follow-up fake smile, and the ridiculous pantomime. I think he was trying to relate that the steep incline of the ridge was bothering his hip or something. Yes, I have seen him walk with some discomfort, but now, as he shuffled back to his house, his irregular step was a full-on limp.
Weenie.
I thought Mostar would get a good laugh over that. I thought she might need some cheering up. But when I got to the house, I noticed that the lights were on in her workshop. I’m sure I could have gone in, asked what she was doing, but after what happened that morning, she didn’t seem to want company.
And that was confirmed at dinner. She always cooked for us, either at her place or ours. That night she was MIA. I thought about going over again, and even asked Dan if I should. He responded matter-of-factly, “If she wanted to see us, she would.”
Dan and I didn’t eat together either. He was too busy trying to get all the windows re-alarmed. He wasted half the day on the glass, trying to seal the breaks with packing tape. It turned out the real problem was the screens. The connections had been loosened during the quake. He cursed not having a soldering gun, or any real tools for that matter.
Can you believe that? No tools, anywhere! I asked around, the Perkins-Forsters, the Boothes. Nobody. I mean, I guess it makes sense when you’re supposed to have a handyman on call 24/7. But now. I did talk to Mostar about maybe using her 3-D printer, which Dan thought was a great idea. But Mostar reminded us that h
er only raw material was a polymer-silicon mix. Glass tools? Dead end. So Dan made do with tape, paper clips, and, of all things, glue with a King Kong–ish ape on the front.
Looking at the ape, watching him work, it kind of dawned on me how vulnerable our house, all houses, really are. They’re not built for physical safety. That’s what cops are for. I remember Matt, Dan’s roommate sophomore year. He was a history major. I remember him talking about how rich Romans could afford to live in comfortable homes because they were protected by army forts down the road. But when the empire fell, those ruined forts got built back up into castles. Slit windows. Few doors. Security was everything. Matt always talked about this French movie where a medieval knight travels forward in time to the modern age, and is horrified at what’s happened to his castle. “Who put all these windows in? We’re defenseless!” I was thinking that as Dan tried to re-alarm all our windows.
And I wondered, without telling him, what an alarm would actually accomplish. It’s just a signal, a call for muscle that can’t get to us even if they heard. Maybe the siren itself will do some good. Scare them off, hopefully.
Dan must think so, the way he worked today. I did force him to eat something, a bowl of Bobbi’s puffed quinoa. He was so frustrated by then, almost getting in a fistfight with the upstairs window in the guest bathroom. It’s really small, and against a flat wall. No way for them to climb up or squeeze through. He wasn’t listening by that point, getting obsessive about “finishing the job.” When he started cursing it out, I put my food down and made him take a break. After “dinner” and a hot shower, he admitted that I was right. I was also right about him heading off to bed. I promised to wake him if I saw anything.
And for a few hours, I didn’t. The sky darkened, the house lights went on, then off as our neighbors turned in. I sat at the desk in my office, going over the village’s collective food list. The Boothes and Perkins-Forsters both asked me to make ration books for them. They weren’t shy about their ages or levels of physical exertion. Reinhardt was the only holdout. Maybe he’s too ashamed to get that personal, or maybe he just figures he’s got enough fat reserves to outlast us all. I’m not being mean here, just stating a fact. Technically he could outlast us all, because everyone’s pantries are about as shallow as ours. I’m trying not to think about what we might all look like by January, living on crumbs and the last licks of olive oil. I’m depending on the garden more than ever now, and hoping against hope that Bobbi’s new seed rice will sprout. Does rice need water to grow? Pictures always have it in flooded paddies. Did I totally mess up by sticking it in the ground? I really don’t know what I’m doing.
I also keep telling myself that, no matter what, it’s great that everyone’s starting to cooperate. Trading food for Dan’s handiwork, letting me go through all their stuff. People want to help, they want to work together. You can’t deny that kind of progress, and I was starting to feel pretty good about it, sitting there at my desk, when I noticed the first motion light flick on.
The Durants. I saw it a second before a shadow moved in between their house and the Boothes’. Then the shadow took form as the thing slouched up the slope into view.
It looked just like what I’d seen the night before, and it was definitely not a bear!
Broad, powerful shoulders, long, muscular limbs. I saw fingers. Four and a thumb! Don’t get me wrong though. It was not human! The size, the fur, the head! From the back, that huge neckless head almost looked like a helmet. And when it swung that head toward me, I got a good, clear look at its face. Hairless, shiny dark skin. A jutting jaw, lipless, under flat, flaring nostrils. A pronounced brow, shading deeply recessed eyes.
I don’t think it could see me. I’d switched off the desk lamp the second I saw the Durants’ porch light switch on. It wasn’t even looking at our house, more of a slow scan, left to right, across the whole neighborhood. Its movement was smooth, casual. Unlike last night, the motion light hadn’t scared it away.
I whispered, “Dan.” Then, a little louder. “Dan!” My response was a disturbed, hoggish snore. I got up slowly, afraid that it might detect the sudden motion, and walked swiftly but quietly back to the bedroom. Dan was dead asleep when I shook him. “Dan, Dan, wake up. It’s here!”
He groaned slightly, started with, “Wh…,” then his eyes snapped open and he practically shot out of bed.
We spoke in whispers: “Where?” “The Durants’.” “Where!” “Look!”
It was gone by then. I pointed to the empty spot on the slope. “Right there, it was…”
“There!” Dan’s finger pointed farther up the ridge, amongst the trees. Right where the Boothes had dumped their compost. Something was moving up there. Dark shapes in the dim porch light. More than one. We could see branches moving, a brush of fur. I caught sight of a full body, with lighter fur than the rest, auburn. Then it disappeared.
I suddenly remembered and said, “iPad!” Dan grabbed his tablet off the night table. I didn’t think about the light from the screen, how it illuminated both of our faces.
Eyes. At least three beady sets. They’d been darting around, attracted by each new porch light. But when we turned the iPad screen to our faces, all three turned on us. I wanted to duck, but instead told Dan to zoom in. The image was too grainy, especially on video setting. I still can’t believe we don’t own a real camera! They stared at us for a second, we stared back. Then a bright funnel spread out between our house and Mostar’s. Another one behind us!
We turned for the back window. We should have gone on the porch. Too “chickenshit,” as Frank would say. We did catch a view of it crossing from Mostar’s yard to ours. This one had patches of gray fur. The muzzle. Down the swinging arms. The skin was lighter than the first one I’d seen, and spotted. Age? I still don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it, she, was female. I haven’t mentioned this before, mainly because I didn’t realize I was looking at them, but the other one I’d seen had a large, dangling scrotum, noticeable even across the village. This one though, she didn’t have anything between her legs, and I could clearly see small pancaked breasts sagging on her hairless chest.
We only spied her for a second, not enough time to get the iPad up. She ducked under the balcony. Then a scraping, popping noise, and the lid from our compost bin flew across our yard like a Frisbee. We could hear grunts now. Low, quick.
Hm-mhmh-hm.
Rummaging through our bin, probably frustrated because we haven’t been here long enough to leave much. We listened for a few more seconds. Dan looked at me questioningly, making a two-fingered walking motion with his hand. Should we head downstairs? Just close enough to get some video? The porch light would catch it perfectly, and the burglar alarm was still on. I was considering it when this sharp, loud growl pulled us back to the front window.
The Common House. There were two of them. Males. They were smaller than the first one I’d seen, a little shorter and narrower across the shoulders. Younger? They were also identical. Twin One and Twin Two. Brothers? Do brothers fight like that?
Because they were fighting! One had a hand on the bin’s lid. Two tried to nudge him aside. One snarled and with bright, bared teeth, he bodily shoved Two away. Two snarled back and charged, grabbing the other side of the bin. One gave a gurgling bark noise and slapped or sideways punched Two in the face, knocking him back before turning on him with a loud growl. Canine fangs biting down hard into Two’s shoulder. And hanging on despite the three quick punches to the ear.
I could see the blood, bright red in the Common House light. Ironically, the light almost killed our view, catching the ash as their tussling threw up a thick gray cloud. It would have been cartoonish, this flurry of flailing limbs, if it hadn’t been so utterly terrifying. I’ve seen a few fights on Animal Planet and once in our neighborhood a couple of dogs got into it. But in real life, and with this much power. The size, the rage. I don’t kn
ow if I’m imagining it, but I think the ground was shaking!
One rolled off Two, kicking him in the face, then rose to a crouch. Two mirrored his stance. They circled each other for a few seconds. Teeth bared, arms raised. Their shrieks, high, chattering calls. They lunged at each other, swiping and dodging. One finally caught Two, biting him in the stomach. Two howled, bashing One repeatedly with hammer blows to the back. Thumping, bass drum impacts.
Then this ROAR! From the darkness, rolling across the village like a wave. The windows did shake this time. I’m sure of it. And from out of the gloom, this hulking mass. As tall as the first male I’d seen. Taller, I’m sure. And female! Wider hips. Breasts. Breast! One had been torn off. I’m not making this up. I checked the iPad footage later. Torn or bitten and scarred over. Her whole body was scarred. Claw marks, four jagged lines down the side of one thigh. Scrapes across both forearms. A bite mark, from a bear, maybe, or another one of them, in her left shoulder, like the kind One had given Two.
One must have regretted that now, when this new woman, the mother? The alpha? Isn’t that the right term? When she smashed him on the side of the face with her hand. He went sprawling, from the blow or just fear, rolling to a squat at her feet. Two didn’t need the blow to assume that position. He shrunk as she turned to him. She roared again, at both of them, and raised her arms for another strike. They cowered, heads down, with these little, doglike whimpers.
I must have done something. My body or just my head, some movement in the iPad’s glow, because suddenly that giant, scarred nightmare head whipped up in my direction. Her eyes locked on mine. And she saw me. I know she did. She reacted. Her lips pulled back into a growl.
And then a burglar alarm.
It was coming from the Boothes’ house, and as Dan and I looked over, we saw another one dashing up the slope behind the house. Its legs seemed much longer than the others, reminding me, now that I look back, of the one that chased me that day. Because now I know I was chased. I know it was one of them. This guy? Because it was a guy, I could see. The first one to arrive? A scout? These are all thoughts I’m having now. Not then.