Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks

  Dan persisted. “But does that make it safe to cross?”

  Bobbi cut in. “He doesn’t need to cross. Like he said, he’ll just be walking alongside it, following it down where the stream used to be.”

  “To where?” Dan saw me enter the group, slid an arm around my waist, then swooped his free hand to the sky. “You can’t see anything!”

  “It’ll burn off.” Vincent didn’t make eye contact, just nodded quickly to the ground. “It does.” Then, to his wife, “Last fall, remember, by midday…” She nodded back, clutching his arm, trying to smile.

  “I’ll be fine.” I’m not sure if Vincent meant this for her or Dan or himself. “Take it slow, careful…” He looked up. “I don’t need to make it all the way, just enough to get cell reception.” He patted his jacket, the high-end trekker kind with solar panels woven into the lining. He repeated, “I’ll be careful.”

  “But you’ll be all alone.”

  A pause at that. A warning.

  Dan filled me in later about the argument I’d already missed. How he and Mostar had gotten up early, decided to let me sleep, and gone out to check on everyone else. That was when they’d found Vincent getting ready to leave, and how he’d already made up his mind.

  The philosophy, the justification. Somehow Vincent and Bobbi had convinced themselves that the rocks were meant to scare us away. Our land was the goal, the shelter of our houses, possibly, as well as the food inside. They still weren’t ready to cross that mental line, to admit what those creatures really want. And when Reinhardt showed up…

  Reinhardt.

  He’d been listening, that’s what Dan thinks, through one of his broken windows, and came over to see what was happening. When he enthusiastically threw his support behind Vincent, Dan said Mostar gave up after that. No one, not even Carmen, who showed up at the same time, was willing to accept the truth. That’s why Dan had switched tactics, focusing on the perils of the hike. But, as I personally witnessed, this logic wouldn’t work either.

  Someone just had to go for help. There simply wasn’t any other choice.

  Why? Why are we always looking for someone else to save us instead of trying to save ourselves?

  “Here it is!” We all turned to see Mostar shuffling back to the group. Dan told me when he’d pivoted to the terrain argument, she’d rushed back to her house for “something.” And that something turned out to be a bamboo spear. A proper one this time. Not the slapdash javelin from before. An eight-inch chef’s knife jutted from the hollow center of a thick, strong shaft, held there by what I thought was brown string but later learned was rubber-coated electrical wire. It looked powerful, deadly, and a little bit comical when held next to Vincent’s diminutive frame. (I also learned, later, that she’d been making it for Dan.)

  “Here”—she held out the weapon to Vincent—“this is what I was talking about.”

  “Thank you.” Vincent kept his hands at his sides. “But…I think…it’s a little…” His eyes followed the six-foot-plus shaft.

  “I can cut it down.” Mostar started to turn away. “Give me thirty seconds.”

  “I’m okay,” Vincent insisted, and held up the twin telescopic poles dangling from his wrists. “They’re better for balance anyway, I have more experience with them, and…” He ran his hand over his glistening upper lip. “I don’t…”

  A glance at Reinhardt, who, surprisingly, had been silent all this time. “I…don’t want to make things worse.”

  “Then don’t go!” Mostar jammed the butt of her spear into the ground.

  He shrugged. “I have to.” Then, softer to his wife, “I have to.”

  And that was that. A whole conversation in agreed code. Hints, warnings, even a weapon without mentioning aloud what it was for. Mostar just sighed, withdrew the spear, and gave him a big hug. So did the rest of us. I could feel the nervous heat coming through his clothes, the sweat of his neck on my cheek. Reinhardt gave him this confident pat on the arm, like one of those old black-and-white war movies where somebody’s sending the hero off to glory. I always hated those movies. Whenever someone said “Good luck” or “Godspeed,” I only heard “Better you than me.” Bobbi kissed him deeply and, for a second, I thought she was going to cry.

  We followed him as far as the Common House and then stopped to let Bobbi walk him to the bottom of the driveway. Standing there waiting, our backs turned to give them some privacy, Mostar looked at her shoes and said, “They never listen. No matter what you say, sooner or later someone always tries to run the blockade.” And she muttered something in her native language, something I couldn’t catch. I half expected her to cross herself. Isn’t that what they also did in war movies, the old stout foreign women?

  This one didn’t. She just clapped her hands twice with, “Okay, let’s get to work, a lot of broken glass to clean up.” As Reinhardt took Dan aside, mumbling something about his bad knees, I looked back to see that Bobbi was now alone.

  I could see her head was bowed slightly, as she hugged herself, shoulders heaving.

  “C’mon, Katie.” Mostar took me by the arm and escorted me down the hill toward her. “Let’s get her home.”

  Vincent was gone by then, disappeared into the fog.

  From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.

  Not all chimps throw rocks for dominance. In West Africa, primatologists recently observed them hurling stones against trees. No one knows why. There’s a theory that it’s some kind of “sacred ritual” for some yet undiscovered goal. Personally, I couldn’t care less why they do it, just that they do. It shows me rocks have multiple functions, and we can’t be sure about what all those functions are. If some chimps use stones in their monkey-hunting tactics and those tactics are being used by some of their larger, North American cousins, then both the Mount St. Helens attack and the bombardment of Greenloop weren’t meant to drive the humans away, but to drive them out into the open.

  * In 2009, “Santino,” an adult male chimpanzee, shocked visitors at Sweden’s Furuvik Zoo by pelting them with prepositioned rocks.

  When meat is available, it is treated as a valuable resource; bonobos have been observed to beg the meat holder for a share.

  —From World Atlas of Great Apes and Their Conservation, edited by JULIAN CALDECOTT and LERA MILES

  JOURNAL ENTRY #13

  October 12

  There’s no more lying. To each other, to ourselves. No more denying what they are and what they want.

  I haven’t written for two days and so much has happened. I’m trying to keep everything in order in my head. It’s like I’ve lived a year.

  After Vincent left, we spent the rest of the day trying to repair our houses. I wondered to Mostar if we, the three of us, shouldn’t just focus on making more sharpened stakes. If they were hostile, and clearly the rocks had proven that, shouldn’t security be our most important priority?

  She said, “You’re right,” but followed up with, “broken glass is a security issue. If we don’t clean it up, if someone gets cut and needs stitches…” She also pointed out the need for sealing up the spaces left by broken windows. “We can’t have anyone catching a chill. We’ll need them strong and healthy when they come around.” And before I could ask, she answered, “They will, Katie. Trust me. They’re on the line…no…fence. That’s the American term. They’re all on the fence right now, waffling because of Vincent’s heroic gesture. But they’ll need us soon enough. And we’ll need them.”

  There it was again.

  Need.

  I didn’t ask what would make them come around. I figured I’d know soon enough.

  As far as our house is concerned, the master bedroom had to be abandoned. The rock that hit our balcony door pushed the safety glass right out of its frame. Even if we put the mattress and box spring up against the open
ing there’s no practical way to seal up all the drafts. Better to move them into my office. Move all our toiletries to the guest bathroom down the hall, keep the master bedroom door shut all the time.

  The same goes for Dan’s office, which he actually sees as a plus. “More energy efficient.” That’s his rationale. “Two rooms we don’t have to heat.” He’s programmed the system to shut their air ducts. Amazing you can do that. Smart house. He showed me how many amps we’re saving. “Which can all go toward the garden.”

  I pretended to share his optimism, his enthusiasm. I didn’t tell him how it feels like a retreat. One more step back. First, they took the forest. Then they took the night. Then a couple rooms in our own house. How many more steps back do we have?

  The house told us one of the solar panels was offline. Not cracked, their flexible makeup is shatter-proof. It was just a loose wire connection that could be fixed from the balcony. Still, the idea of Dan out there with his back to the woods. Just one well-aimed rock. I stayed with him the whole time, facing the trees, looking for any movement. Nothing happened. No rocks, no sounds. At least the fog might have given us some cover. That was what I hoped even though it was starting to burn off. Vincent was right. I wondered where he was by now, how far he’d gotten. It was hard to focus on what I was doing. Tired. Achy. But so much to do!

  The village took a lot of hits. Back windows smashed. A few balcony doors fractured. Same with the kitchen doors. Safety glass. Fissured but intact. Reinhardt’s took a hit, but unlike our balcony, it was still in the frame. Even the door itself worked, although Dan thought it might be dangerous to use it. He came up with the idea of closing the drapes and setting the kitchen table against it. Reinhardt got lucky. There’s no way to seal off the kitchen. That potential heat loss makes me grateful that the living room window-wall is also paneled with safety glass. Ours now looks like an asymmetric checkerboard, panes intact, others “fogged” with cracks.

  None of the other houses were hit on their inward-facing windows. Did that have to do with being seen? The Perkins-Forsters all hid right behind their front door. Bobbi sheltered in the downstairs bathroom. Who knows what the Durants did. Mostar warned us not to waste any time trying to check on them. She’d sheltered in her workshop before running over to check on us. We, I, was the only one standing right in front of an upstairs window. They must have seen me, targeted me.

  That moment during the compost fight, when the large female, Alpha, locked eyes on me…

  Stop it. Stick to recording what happened.

  While Dan helped Reinhardt, Mostar and I went over to see what we could do for the Perkins-Forsters. That car alarm we’d heard last night? That was their Nissan Leaf. Right on the roof, right up and over the house. How much strength does it take to hurl a stone the size of a medicine ball?

  At least their master balcony doors were intact, which prompted them to turn the whole bed up against it. They’ll all be sleeping in that room from now on. Palomino’s room was a disaster. Multiple rocks. Window glass mixed with mirror shards. I tried not to think about the stone chunk in the middle of her pillow.

  No cleanup there, just abandoned. Another retreat.

  Effie must have seen the way Pal was looking at me, the way she held my hand when we came in. “Do you want to stay here for a bit, help Pal move some of her stuff into our room?” I was going to agree, especially when I saw her eyes brighten. But Mostar killed that idea with, “We haven’t stopped by Bobbi’s yet.”

  “Bobbi’s.” I just realized that now. Not “the Boothes’.”

  Effie gave a resigned, “Oh, of course.” And as I turned to leave, Pal refused to let go. “Would you like to come along?” I asked her, then up to Effie, “Is that okay?”

  “By all means,” that was Carmen stepping in, “we can take care of this.” There was something in her face, all of their faces, including Bobbi’s when we came over.

  She was in her kitchen, Band-Aids covering her right thumb and forefinger. A rock had gone through the window above her sink. She’d cut herself trying to fish a few fragments out of the drain. “Can’t have them clogging the garbage disposal.”

  I noticed the room smelled like chardonnay and some of the pieces on the floor were olive green. Did the rock knock a bottle over, or had she done it herself in a frustrated fit? She looked listless, bleary-eyed. The room’s smell masked if she’d been drinking. I started to regret bringing Palomino along, but seeing her seemed to energize Bobbi. “Oh hi, Pal!” And she jumped up to open the freezer.

  “I’ve been saving these.” She came out with an ice cube tray of toothpicks poked through cellophane. “The last of the lavender berry lemonade pops.” Palomino took one with a smile. “Please,” she said, proudly holding out the tray for us. “All from our garden.” Summer, that’s what it tastes like. I savored every lick. Mostar, on the other hand, crunched through hers with one bite, thanked her quickly for the “extra sugar ration,” then asked for a broom and dustpan.

  As Mostar swept the kitchen floor, I asked if I could get to work on anything upstairs. Bobbi said it didn’t matter. “I’ll be sleeping on the couch until Vincent gets back.”

  “Are you sure?” Mostar called from the kitchen. “Maybe you’d like to stay with me?”

  “That’s very kind.” Bobbi smiled and glanced through the living room window. “But I’d hate for him to come home to an empty house.”

  I didn’t like the idea either, but not for the same reason as Mostar. She was all about security. I was about emotion. The look on Bobbi’s face, the same as Pal and her parents. I got it now. A longing.

  Need.

  “Bobbi, are you still up for having that community dinner in the Common House tonight?”

  Three people looked at me like I was crazy. Nothing to do but press on.

  “Just…you know…to remind ourselves, each other that…well…we got us.” I couldn’t believe I’d actually said that phrase. We got us.

  When I was little, Dad bought us the DVDs of the old Muppet Show. And in one of the episodes, when that guy, Dom DeLuise, I think, is trying to comfort Miss Piggy about something, he says, “You’re here, I’m here. Us is here,” and when she repeats “Us is here?” he doubles down with a song: “We Got Us.”* That was our song, our family anthem, and though I’d tried to forget it since the divorce, it was now playing at full volume in my head.

  “We…,” I blathered nervously, “…we’ve been pooling resources, right? Food, skills…but there’s another resource…,” directly to Mostar, “…and I know we blew it off in the beginning because we had to handle the practical stuff…and we still do…But we can’t forget…we need…”

  “Comfort.” Mostar came forward with a look I recognized as contrition. “You’re right, Katie, we need that as much as sharpened sticks.” She reached up to wrap her arms around myself and Bobbi. Pal completed our little huddle, grabbing my hand while clinging to the waist of a trembling, sniffling Mrs. Boothe. “Togetherness, belonging…” Mostar repeated, with a hint of whimsical fascination, “We got us.”

  Of all the ironies. Wouldn’t Yvette, the old Yvette, have just died for a moment like this? And we tried! The first thing after breaking our circle was to march, all four of us, right next door to invite them. Naturally we got no response. The doorbell rang without answer. The methodical, eternal zzzzzps of the elliptical never ceased. I even coaxed Bobbi (who I figured had the least emotional baggage with them) to shout through the door about community and healing and everything they’d preached at the first emergency meeting.

  Oh well.

  At least the rest of the village agreed, and it couldn’t have felt more comforting. Food, wine, and friends…and more wine. Everyone brought a bottle, all of us talking about how “every calorie counts.” Even Pal had a few sips from her little glass, prompting an approving “How French” from Reinhar
dt.

  The food, portion-wise, was nowhere near what we’d eaten our first night. Anyone in normal circumstances would have looked at our puny dishes as appetizers. It was so gratifying that everyone wasn’t just obeying the rationing guidelines, but doing it enthusiastically. To quote Carmen, “El hambre es la mejor salsa.” Hunger is the best sauce!

  Hunger aside, her egg frittata was delicious. Brilliant idea mixing in ground-up veggie bacon. So much better than ours, which was essentially just scrambled eggs with salt and pepper.

  And hunger had nothing to do with enjoying Mostar’s dish. It was legitimately scrumptious. She calls them “siege fries”—deep-fried sticks of compressed dough. I noticed that Bobbi didn’t eat much of her share; either she didn’t like them or, maybe, it was Mostar’s comment about “the best substitute for potatoes.” Does she still feel bad? That feels like a hundred years ago. Anyway, she gave the bulk of her fries to Pal. “You’ll probably like these more than what I brought.”

  She didn’t have to bring anything. We’d agreed on that at her house. But she’d whipped up another noodle soup. It was thicker, darker, and rougher than her soba. She explained that she’d tried to make naengmyeon but apologized for using too much arrowroot starch. I don’t think anyone cared. I didn’t. For the first time since the eruption, I felt the bliss of a full stomach!

  And it was also an entertaining dish, because when I looked over at Pal and exclaimed, “Oh look, worm soup!” the whole conversation shifted to eating bugs. Effie asked if we’d had any chance to dig for garden worms, which jump-started Carmen on a Washington Post story about the insect element of the real “paleo diet.”

  Dan brought up the time he’d tried a dish of fried crickets at this restaurant in Santa Monica. (I’d been there and politely declined to partake.)

  Effie asked if anyone had heard about cricket flour, and Bobbi joked, or not, that she’d consider cheating on her veganism for a dish of grubs. “Some curry powder, or soy sauce…”