Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks

  Dan’s iPad chirped, the home security app flashing. One, hopefully more, was now passing directly through our kitchen. The angle of Dan’s tablet gave his face a demonic expression. Rising smile, narrowing eyebrows. Even now I don’t know how he’d done it. Hacking the stove to pump all that homemade methane into our house. Bypassing all the safeguards to ensure a remote ignition. Dan’s eyes flicked to me for permission, finger poised above the screen.

  I mouthed, “Yes.”

  Dan answered, “As you wish.”

  Face warmed, eyes squinted, my ears popped as blue flames blew out our windows. The creature must have run (if it did run) out the back. It might have just been stunned in the blast. There wasn’t time to see what happened.

  More chirps. More home invasions. Mostar’s, Reinhardt’s, the Perkins-Forsters’. How could they have been unfazed by the first explosion? Were they that brave or simply that eager to reach us? Dan didn’t wait for my permission this time. Three quick taps. Boom-boom-boom! Heat and pressure rolled over us, along with the sight of our first confirmed kill.

  This one had made it to Reinhardt’s living room. Goldenboy. The force of the explosion blasted him right out onto the front lawn. He landed on his hands and feet, dazed, shaking. Wisps of whitish smoke rose from patches of smoldering fur. He tried to rise, slipped, and face-planted right into a patch of bamboo.

  We heard a hacking, wet wheeze as he pushed himself up to show us his punctured front. Some stakes were still embedded, some had left gaping holes. Stomach, chest, the higher ones puffed small red clouds. He tried to stand, slipped backward, hit Reinhardt’s door, and slid back down under a slick of blood.

  Then the whole house jumped. Reinhardt’s home seemed to rise off its foundation as more fireballs erupted from every window. Dan shouted, “Battery!” and we ran for the safety of the Common House.

  Dan had rigged up the houses’ energy cells to explode, hacking their fire suppression systems and packing their bases with oil-soaked towels. He’d tried to warn me that it might not work, or work too well. “We don’t know how big the explosion could be!”

  “Bigger the better” was how I’d responded, mentally salivating about how many it could kill.

  But as we all crouched under the table listening to, feeling, our houses detonate one by one, I will confess to thinking, Oh shit, what have I done! I’m sure Mostar wouldn’t have given it a thought, probably compared it to an artillery bombardment from her past. “Oh no,” she would have scoffed, “this is nothing.” And then rattled off the names of some army cannons that made these explosions look like firecrackers. I could have used those comparisons now, because the rain of debris made it seem like World War III. Bangs and thuds and, at one point, a crack as the roof’s central beam absorbed a piece of something we used to live in.

  We couldn’t see anything outside; blowing ash fogged the windows. One of them cracked suddenly from a small strike. I threw my body over Pal, ready for another hit to send flying glass our way.

  A final BOOM above our heads, the last solid objects hitting earth.

  A few tense, quiet seconds. Then—

  “Listen!” That was Dan, holding my hand and cupping one ear toward the door.

  A sound, rising above the crackling, creaking collapse.

  A new call. High, lamenting bawls mixing with pain-filled yelps.

  Fear.

  Alpha? That’s all I could think as my ears strained to pick her out. Is she calling them all back?

  I listened for another cryptic cry, but instead got an earful of cheers.

  “Yeah!” That was Dan, squatting at the open door, staring out at the fires, pumping his fist in the air. “Yesyesyes!”

  Bobbi picked up the cheer, whooping right into my ear with Effie and Carmen behind her.

  I shouted, “Quiet!” and rushed for the door. Dan, reaching for my hand, mumbled something like, “Wait.”

  I couldn’t. I had to be sure.

  The dust was still settling along with some light debris. I coughed at the smoke, tried to see through stinging eyes. Greenloop was gone. Nothing but a ring of bonfires.

  There!

  Two of them running over the rise behind the burning wreckage of our home. Backs orange in the flames. One lighter than the other, Princess, her pristine fur ruined. And Scout, far out ahead. Just those two? I grasped my spear, whipping my head right and left. No more movement, no bodies.

  Then a yelping cry behind me. From the driveway, still in darkness.

  I was afraid of that, planned for that, and reached into my pocket for the two car fobs. We’d parked our Prius and the Boothes’ BMW on opposite edges of the road entrance, making sure to angle their noses down the hill. When I hit both buttons, their headlights turned night into day. A startled Gray shielded his eyes, along with Twins One and Two. They must have also been surprised by the broken glass, the only barrier we could lay across the ash-covered asphalt. But between the glass and now the light, we’d spoiled any chance for a surprise attack.

  I shouted, “Javelins,” but Dan was already next to me, shoving one of the long thin missiles in my hand. I held it next to my face, arm cocked, legs bent for balance. The glass point glinted in the light.

  Something beautiful from fire.

  I threw. I missed. My shot landed just short of Gray. The old male kicked it aside, trampled, forgotten.

  But the second.

  Carmen, like an Olympic athlete, threw hers from a running stance! She was still balancing on one leg when I turned to see the reflected orange sparks vanish into the target’s chest. She must have hit right between the ribs, sliding almost to the hilt.

  Twin One roared, skidding to a halt in a storm of ash. He grabbed the shaft angrily, threw it aside, then skipped sideways and backward, clawing the tiny wound.

  It worked!

  The barbs had held the blade in place, allowing it to snap clean off. Yipping, dancing, Twin One pinched and fingered the bloody hole. Finally, in an explosive fit of rage, he pounded furiously on his chest. That must have driven the point through the lung.

  The sound. Megaphone hacks of wet, crackling bubbles from his nose and mouth. I could have watched it forever, then…

  “Throw!”

  Dan’s mouth in my ear, his hand pointing to my left. Twin Two, barely a dozen feet away. Arms out, mouth open, eyes narrowed.

  Two javelins. Mine and Dan’s. His was knocked away in mid-flight. Mine hit low, planting deep in the upper thigh. Two jerked to a stop, like hitting an invisible wall. As it reached to break off my wiggling shaft, Dan launched another right into its shoulder. Two jerked back sharply, roared, reached up to tear it out.

  I actually heard this one, the whistle of a third javelin that whipped between Dan and me. Carmen again. Straight on to burrow in the smooth, muscled gut. Grasping, pulling, the whole barbed point came out. A long yowl, a flash of pink, tubular intestine.

  One hand swatted the air in front of him, the other cupped his wounded stomach.

  Enough? Self-preservation instinct or an intelligent calculation of odds?

  “Not worth it!” That’s what Two seemed to yelp as he backstepped a few paces down the driveway, then turned and ran. Ran! He didn’t even stop to help his brother, who was lying on his side, panting, bleeding, trying to crawl away. Two didn’t look back as One wailed after him. The mouse from the cat, the antelope from the lion. Distance, safety, life.

  “Effie!”

  My eyes flicked to Carmen, thrusting spear in hand, sprinting over to her kneeling wife. I watched Gray catch Effie’s javelin mid-flight, stop to bite it in half like a piece of dry spaghetti, then bound the last few steps toward her.

  Speed, weight, momentum. What does it take to knock a hurtling asteroid aside? Carmen, Dan, and I running with outstretched spears. We hit
at exactly the same time. Dan’s blade buried itself into the sinew of Gray’s left forearm while Carmen’s pierced its bulging calf. And mine, falling forward, steadied by the grip on my shaft. It skewered him under the lowest rib, stopped only by the spear’s crossbar! Gray yowled, spun, swiped at my head. Six inches, maybe. Three? Close enough to whip the air across my face. The crossbar’d kept me, literally, at arm’s length!

  If I’d only been smart enough to let go and duck. Gray pivoted from the hips this time, using my own weapon to catapult me back into the ash. My head hit something. Hard. A bright star burst in the center of my vision. I rolled over twice, saw what I’d struck.

  A thrown rock from the first night’s bombardment. Rough, oval, heavy, I grabbed it with both hands, struggling to my feet. I don’t know who’d acted first, Dan or Carmen, but as I turned to face them, I could see both had Effie’s spear now, and were driving it up into the goliath’s chest. The angle was perfect, just under its rib cage, right into the heart.

  Thick, sticky spray. Down the pole, into our faces as Gray toppled backward.

  And that was when we made our mistake.

  Leave him there. Recover our weapons. Scan for other attackers. That was the right choice, the one we’d planned for. Gray had to be dying, and dying or not, he couldn’t hurt us anymore. I remember Carmen bracing her feet against the heaving ribs, and the spurting streams that followed her retracting blade. I remember her jamming that blade right back in, her red-stained teeth grinning wide. I remember Dan retrieving his spear, striking Gray in the chest, the stomach, the groin. I remember the old ape’s splotchy, sun-damaged face, upside down as I kneeled above it, eyes clear, mouth opening, driving the rock down.

  Bouncing off the skin-covered bone. Again. Teeth breaking, lips torn. Again. Muzzle cracking. Again. Skull giving. Again. Broken bone slicing up through damp fur. Again. The first hint of brains. Again. Again. Again. Eyes popping, skull collapsing, brains spilling out into the ash, onto my jeans, a mass of hairs and liquid and steaming, shiny meat. I remember everything.

  I remember laughing.

  No words, words are for thinking animals, for human beings. Laughing and grunts and tight little moans of joy.

  Then the scream.

  Up and alert. Me again.

  All of us scrambling. Remembering where we were, who we were.

  One mistake. That’s all it took.

  There were others out there, braving the dying flames, watching for the shadow of stakes and flicker of broken glass. We’d stopped thinking just as they’d started. Moving through darkness, silent, creeping up to the Common House behind our backs.

  The scream was Bobbi. It had her by the hair. Dragging her in a puffing furrow, spindly legs kicking, delicate, pale hands grasping backward at air. Screaming, sobbing, pleading.

  I don’t know if what happened next was an act of self-defense, the old lady, Dowager, using Bobbi to ward off Dan’s charge. All I saw was Mrs. Boothe, still writhing, swung back and up into the air. Like Yvette, spun in a complete circle. I pray that her neck broke quickly. The Common House roof thudded as her body broke on its edge. She had to have been dead by then, by the time my eyes followed her down, and caught on the image of Dan’s spear rammed up into the killer’s chest.

  That was when we all heard the second scream.

  Pal!

  Juno had slipped completely past us, right into the Common House without a sound, right over to the pile of blankets hiding her.

  “Palomino!” Carmen ran after the withdrawing titan. Like Bobbi, this one had Pal by the hair. Unlike Dowager, Juno wasn’t looking for a fight. She was limping, bleeding from her right foot. A stake? Probably why she’d gone after Pal. Easy pickings, limited risk. Withdraw, escape, feed somewhere quiet and safe. That was what must have been going through the pregnant sow’s mind.

  Carmen and I were running toward them, with Effie—the only one still armed—leading the charge. She threw her heavy, clunky spear in a high arc. Over Effie’s shoulder, I saw it thunk into the small of Juno’s back. A shallow hit, maybe glancing off the pelvis. Enough to get her attention though, force her to turn and swipe at Carmen with her free arm.

  The open hand caught Carmen on the side of the head, grabbing it, lifting. I saw her feet rise off the ground. I heard the crack as Juno crushed her skull.

  Juno hurled Carmen’s body at us, forcing us to stop and duck. With a growling hoot, she held up Palomino, dangling her like a taunt, or a warning.

  “Don’t come any closer. I’ll hurt your baby. Get back. I’ll kill her!”

  Intelligence, reasoning. I know that’s what it meant, and I think it might have worked except—

  “Mamma!”

  That was the only word I’ve ever heard Pal speak, and before I could react, I witnessed that word’s power.

  Effie shot forward, springing past her daughter and into her captor’s grasp.

  Hands out, clawing the sides of that watermelon head, thumbs jamming into Juno’s tiny eyes.

  The snarl. Effie’s snarl. I didn’t know human beings could sound like that. Rising to a sandpaper screech as the back of her head disappeared under the monster’s chin.

  Juno staggered back, dropped Pal, and raised her arms above her head. Those arms came down like hammers, smashing Effie’s shoulders.

  She dropped to Juno’s feet. Eyes open. Broken doll.

  Effie.

  Mamma.

  Her mouth was full of fur, skin, and blood. She’d literally torn Juno’s throat out with her teeth. The giant fell back, hands groping for the holes that had been her eyes and windpipe. I rushed over to Pal, who was already crawling toward me. Struggling to rise, she reached up as I fell to my knees beside her. I think I said something like, “C’mon…” and turned us both to the Common House. The door was right there, only a few dozen steps away. But there was something wrong. The shape. It’d changed. The rectangular door now seemed triangular, like it was framed in some kind of arch. And that arch seemed blurry, the edge of light and dark in soft focus.

  Fur. Legs.

  I followed them up to the scratched stomach, over the scars and torn breast, past the singed, raw, oozing mouth into those two glinting points staring down.

  Was she as surprised by Effie’s actions? Or just savoring the sure kill?

  Still on our knees, I tried to move Pal behind me. “Get ready to run.”

  Alpha roared.

  “GO!” I shoved Pal sideways, crawling in the other direction. I knew the blow would land. I just wanted a few more steps. A few more seconds to give Pal time and space. I didn’t expect the padded vise grip on my ankle.

  The hard yank dragged me back, face plowing in the ash, breathing it in.

  Coughing, choking. And suddenly I was upside down. I hoped it would be quick like Bobbi. My eyes cleared in time to see a grotesque smile. The result of my fire punch. Cooked, peeling lips pulled back over mottled teeth.

  Her growl vibrated my own teeth, filling my nose.

  Her mouth opened as I shut my eyes.

  Then the squeal. Surprise, piercing, numbing my eardrums as I fell.

  On my hands, rolling to the side, looking up at Dan poised for another swing.

  The soba-kiri axe in his hands, painted red, matching the gash in Alpha’s right hip. She wobbled, spinning awkwardly to face him.

  “Getouttahere!”

  I rose and ran, bolting for the Common House.

  I didn’t see what happened next. Pal explained it all to me later.

  She’d run in the other direction, toward the darkness, under the gutted remains of the Durants’ car. Hiding on her stomach, she could see everything that happened to Dan.

  He raised the axe for another, higher strike, probably going for an eye. But the blade glanced off the sock
et’s protruding bone. It must have hurt though. That must have been the roar I heard. Pal saw Alpha slap one bloody hand over her split brow while grabbing and throwing the axe away. Dan tried to retreat, backing up and ducking as she swung.

  Speed, that’s what he must have been banking on, his small size allowing him to dodge the bludgeoning storm. She was fast too, but she was hurt, and she was angry. He kept just out of her grasp, missing half a dozen punches. He could have run, maybe. He could have hopped over and around enough stakes to maybe get her impaled on a few. A chance to let her bleed, to get fed up, to give up. He had a chance.

  Dammit Dan.

  The coconut knife, still in his belt, then in his hand. Sidestepping another blow, he sprang forward with a quick stabbing thrust. He had to have been going for the heart, just under the rib cage, just like before.

  So close.

  Alpha charged at just the same moment, spoiling the spike’s angle, pushing it up toward the sternum, where it lodged between hide and bone. Alpha roared, reeled back, taking Dan with her. She raised her fist just as he freed himself.

  The blow came down on his shoulder, spinning him sideways, knocking him on his stomach. She stepped on his back. Pal heard the crack. So did I.

  I’m not sure what I said at that moment, running out to see her raising a foot to stomp on his head. Something profound, or just profane? I must have made some kind of sound to get her to twist in my direction, for her eyes to catch the reflected light of my shield.

  That light on her face, the expression. Annoyed at my distraction, or just glad to finish me off? I remember her fists raising high above her head, aiming for the shield, exposing the soft dark dent of her armpit.

  I drove the Damascus blade through skin and muscle, heart and lungs.

  The world spun. Alpha jerked herself away, throwing me aside, losing my shield but still gripping the Zulu spear. The sound it made sliding from the wound: