by Max Brooks
IKLWA
I landed flat on my back, ears ringing, eyes and mouth filled with her blood. I managed to crawl backward to the edge of the Common House, sitting up against the wall. I watched through tunneling vision as Alpha took a long, thundering step toward me.
She tried to roar, but all that came out was pink foam. She tried to move, but her knees buckled. She knelt, raised an arm, reaching. She fell on hands and knees, eyes never losing mine. A final stretch, fingers brushing my shoe. She collapsed without a sound.
I crawled past her and over to Dan. I stroked his face, called his name. Pal’s hand touched my shoulder.
My man is dead.
I found a way, I found a way to survive with them. Am I a great person? I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re all great people. Everyone has something in them that’s wonderful. I’m just different and I love these bears enough to do it right. I’m edgy enough and I’m tough enough. But mostly I love these bears enough to survive and do it right.
—From the video diary of TIMOTHY TREADWELL, self-proclaimed “Grizzly Man,” recorded right before he was eaten by a bear
From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.
A knock at the door interrupts my interview. Two rangers enter, hesitate respectfully, then on her nod remove several of the heavy boxes from the room. The time is eleven forty-five A.M. The government’s lease officially expires at noon. Schell rises from her desk, stretches slightly, winces, and rubs her lower back.
We got there the following week. Shoulda been the following day. But that’s how long it took for the heat signature picked up by an NOAA*1 POES*2 bird to make its way through the bureaucratic labyrinth at Lewis-McChord to the closest team, which happened to be us….If those houses hadn’t burned, we probably never would have found them until spring, until some family member finally got a phone call through or maybe, honestly, some bill collector logged enough complaints.
Mrs. Holland was gone by the time we got there, her and the little girl, but everything we’ve found backs up everything in the journal she left.
We found what had to be the garden, which just looked like a patch of raised, charred dirt by then. I can’t help wondering if it might have worked, if they’d been able to plant more in the other garages….I know a little bit about gardening. Mom always kept a vegetable patch behind our house. I honestly don’t think they could have lived on it indefinitely, but under the right conditions and with a little luck, it might have eked out enough to make it till spring. Hypotheticals aside though, who can’t sympathize with all that work down the drain?
War does that, I guess, and this place looked like a war zone. All that blackened rubble, debris strewn everywhere. We found the glass “minefield” and the bamboo spikes. Had to be really careful with those, one of our guys almost lost a foot. Reminded me of the story my uncles used to tell about Vietnam. Punji pits, complete with human feces. Amazing how different people at different times can come up with the same ideas.
We found eight stone-covered graves on the Common House helipad—four big, four small. We didn’t exhume them. We left that to the follow-up forensic team. The long graves, I’m told, contained the remains of her husband, along with Roberta Boothe, Carmen Perkins, and Euphemia Forster. The small ones…
She grimaces.
Those were…collections. The smashed bones and tissue shreds of Mr. and Mrs. Durant, the head of Vincent Boothe, and the black, burned skeleton that DNA evidence later identified as Ms. Mostar.
When I think about the time it took for her, the two of them, to dig that miniature cemetery, scraping out the frozen earth, collecting the bodies, covering them with rocks…and still having time for the “other” corpses…
We found a lot of meat in the Common House freezer. Newly cut steaks—well butchered, I might add—along with pots of stew. And in the cabinets, these endless Ziploc bags of jerky. They must have had the dehydrator going night and day. Some of the guys in my group, they…yeah, me too…we kinda kick ourselves for not sneaking just one of those little dried strips. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t want to know what Sasquatch tastes like?
But it’s all gone now. Confiscated, along with the piles of broken, scraped bones we found behind the Common House and the heavy, stinking skins we found nailed to the walls. Investigators also took every last shard from the other bone pile. The one up behind the ridge, the “lair” according to her journal. They even scooped up the frozen pile of poop from the garden. All under lock and key now, along with the cellphones, laptops, and tablets we found stacked neatly next to Mrs. Holland’s journal. If I’d only thought to charge up Dan Holland’s iPad before turning it in. The compost battle video’s gotta be on there. Woulda been my chance to actually see what they look like. Well, I guess, we all will eventually.
Schell reaches for one of the two remaining boxes. I grab the other one. Together, we carry them out to the parking lot, loading them into the back of a battered U.S. National Park Service pickup truck. On the way out, I ask my final question.
Fuck if I know. At least they’re not writing it off. I think if they were going for a straight-up cover-up, it’d all be explained away by the fires. Community gets stranded, starts fiddling with their newfangled biogas systems to keep warm. Accidental explosion, yada yada yada. But they haven’t done that. The investigation is still very open. Ask anyone directly connected with it and they’ll tell you they’re gettin’ to it, as soon as they dig, literally dig, through all the other investigations going on right now.
And there’s no lying there. That backlog is real. We’re still finding bodies in the woods, who died of exposure after abandoning their cars. And the bodies still buried in those cars? Lahars dry into concrete! Even with ground-penetrating radar, they’re having a bitch of a time.
Between those entombed corpses, our frozen finds, and all the other remains they’re still pulling from under the smashed towns…how long did it take for loved ones to identify body bags from Katrina? How long do you think it’ll take to empty that mega-morgue we’ve got in what used to be Tacoma?
So officially, it’s just a matter of red tape. But unofficially…look, we were “encouraged” not to talk about this, and if I thought my job was on the line, I’m not sure I would, but you didn’t have any problem getting through to me, and you don’t see anyone right now trying to get in between us. They’re not gonna bury this, stick the evidence in a crate and warehouse it like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think the truth’ll come out for no other reason than they want it to.
Think about it. Tourist dollars! Zoo fees! You know what the Chinese make on their pandas? You know how long Loch Ness had been dining out on a few faked photos? Please. We’ll be able to rebuild the Rainier damage and then some when the whole world flocks here for the chance to glimpse a living legend.
They want to go public, the only question is when. Rainier showed us what can happen when people lose faith in the system. We need to restore that faith, rebuild it along with the roads and bridges and other structures that make up a civilization. And that’s why it probably won’t help with public confidence if the government announces it just discovered Bigfoot.
That’s why they have to wait a little bit, till the lights come back on, the water starts running, and all the dead are finally laid to rest. Maybe they have a PR plan for that day. Maybe your book is part of it. No, really. Maybe that’s why they’re letting me talk to you.
It’s not the craziest idea. The book comes out, puts a toe in the water. If no one gives a shit, they’ve got more time to get their story straight. But if it stirs the pot, they can back you up with their findings, blame their own bureaucracy for the delay. Whatever. I guess we’ll know soon enough.
From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.
McCray has finished cleaning his BioLite stove. He places it in his backpack, checks his
watch, then ushers me outside. The wind has gotten colder since our conversation, despite the rising sun. McCray reaches into his parka for a small, bright orange handheld radio and keys the mic three times. Turning toward the mountains, I watch one of the bushes move, a human figure walking down the game trail toward us.
What happened? What’s the next chapter of this story?
There are a lot of scenarios and they depend on who you ask.
Scenario One is that the surviving creatures regrouped for a counterattack. That’s what the scuzzbags at [website name withheld] believe. They think Kate and Palomino tried to hole up for the winter in the Common House until one day, or night, they were ambushed and taken away. I’ll admit it’s possible. She did write about several of them escaping. Scout and Princess, running up the slope after the explosions. One of the twins with all those javelin hits, although I’m betting he later bled to death. And the other two females, the new mamas. She didn’t write about them during the fight.
Yes, it’s possible they reorganized, then came roaring back out for a rematch. Possible, but not probable. Kate wouldn’t have let that happen. Not the Kate I’ve read about. Even when they buried the bodies, she would have been armed and alert. Those graves were dug right next to the Common House, which meant that any of those approaching fuckers would have to cross a lot of open space to strike. Kate probably had plenty of javelins waiting within arm’s reach, and her new spear.
That’s what I think she did with the Iklwa blade. Nobody ever found it. Schell was kind enough to make some discreet inquiries for me. Through all the wreckage, all the stockpiled supplies and homemade weapons in the Common House, they never found a knife with a Damascus blade.
That’s the key piece of evidence to back up her leaving. That and the soba-kiri axe. They never found that one either, and it would have been essential for a long trek. I can’t be sure about any other items. Backpacks, sleeping bags, cooking gear. I don’t know what else they had. She didn’t leave a list. She also didn’t leave a note, which is why some people suspect she was taken. I don’t buy it though; I think she wasn’t sure where she was going.
That’s Scenario Two, and it’s backed up by the fact that they didn’t have a map of the area. She wrote, more than once, that they didn’t know which was the best way out. It’s possible that they tried a series of day-hikes to get the lay of the land, and that she didn’t leave a note because when they stepped out the door that morning, it wasn’t supposed to be for the last time. They could have gotten lost or hurt, or stuck in the first storm of winter.
Remember how brutal that was? I mean, c’mon, God, give us a break! A contact at the USGS told me that those kind of one-two punches can happen, like the typhoon after Pinatubo. If she got caught out in that polar vortex, with the blizzard and bitter cold…Their bodies might still be up there now, half-buried in snow and ice, thawing and rotting as scavengers pick at any exposed pieces. That’s the ending of Scenario Two, and it’s a lot less attractive than Scenario Three.
In this one they make it! Found some cave somewhere in the mountains, kept a fire going, lived on melted snow and Sasquatch jerky. Then, when the weather cleared enough to get moving, they started off again and are right now about to walk out of the wilderness next to some busy road. They might have done that already. The two of them, in some hospital, too weak and traumatized to speak. Someday soon she’ll open her eyes, whisper her name to the nearest orderly. I love Scenario Three.
But my gut tells me it’s Scenario Four.
“We have to kill them all.” That’s what she wrote. That’s what she’s doing.
I’m not talking about revenge. This is deeper, more primitive. What if those poor dumb brutes flicked a switch in Kate that’s waiting in all our DNA?
What if she didn’t stop at driving those creatures away? What if she went after them?
She knew their tracks, their scent. Kate had winter gear, and I’m betting little Palomino did too. I’m also betting that the jerky we found was made for that purpose. It’s light, easy to transport, and if you add up all the meat the rangers found versus what those animals probably weighed, I bet the deficit would be enough to get them to their first kill.
And that kill would mean more food. That soba-kiri axe was perfect for chopping up bodies, roasting a nice juicy leg on a spit. I wish I didn’t think of her that way, sitting in the dark with Palomino, the two of them warming their hands by a roaring fire, stomachs growling at some steaming limb.
It’s also hard not to feel sorry for the surviving troop. Wounded, scared, cringing at any sound that might be the smaller hungry primates coming for them. Kate’s not the only one in our family with a vivid imagination.
I’ve pictured her stalking them, maybe using Palomino as the flusher. The little girl’d yell, beat the brush, make enough racket to scatter them in terror as Kate waits patiently for some straggler to blunder into her spear. I can even picture one of them. Princess, the youngest and most vulnerable, chattering in torment as Kate jams the Damascus blade between her ribs. I can also picture my sister “playing” with her kill, torturing her. Not for fun, that’d be a waste. She’d try for a Vincent Boothe tactic, hoping to draw out a lone rescuer. And maybe it’d work. Scout, running to help, turning in surprise to see his Achilles heel severed by Pal’s swinging axe.
And the others, the two young moms, holding each other, hearing the screams die, then smelling smoke and cooking meat. I hope their brains aren’t too advanced to imagine fate, to know their babies won’t live long enough to reach adulthood. I also hope they’re not intelligent enough to feel remorse. “What have we awoken!” If there’s anything worse than visualizing your own death, it’s knowing that you caused it.
Maybe I’m totally grasping at straws here. Maybe they did just get caught in a storm. For all I know, their bodies are on a Tacoma slab. I check every week, and so far, no remains match.
But if by some miracle they kept stalking those things, killing them one by one…living off them long enough to…find the others? We haven’t talked about this till now. There can’t just be one troop out there. That wouldn’t be enough to sustain the species. What if Kate and Pal let those young mothers live just long enough to lead them to another troop? Hard to believe, I know, but so is everything about this story.
At this point the figure from the game trails has come down to meet us. It is Gary Nelson, McCray’s formerly estranged husband. The two men share a long embrace. Gary shows McCray the map in his gloved right hand, and the red grease pencil marks he’s made. McCray utters a resigned sigh and unslings his rifle.
Hard to accept why she left the journal behind. She never said it, but I know. One journey ends, another begins. Hard to reconcile the memories of my soft, sensitive baby sister with the predator that might be out there now. Mother of a tribe of two. The killer apes.
The wind howls in the distance. At least I think it’s the wind.
You hear that?
*1 NOAA: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
*2 POES: Polar Operational Environmental Satellite.
To Henry Michael Brooks: May you conquer all your fears.
First and foremost, a giant, Sasquatch-sized thank-you to Thomas Tull, who generously gave me back the novel rights for a movie I once sold to him.
To my editing team, Julian Pavia and Sarah Peed, for their relentless diligence and objectivity.
To Carolyn Driedger (USGS), Leslie C. Gordon (USGS, Ret.), and Professor Barry Voight of Penn State for their technical help with the Rainier eruption.
To my friends Kevin and Jo for introducing me to the town that inspired Greenloop, and to Jo’s brother John for his technological guidance in turning that inspiration into reality.
To Rachel and Adam Teller for their advice on glassblowing.
To Diana Harlin and Jonny Small for th
eir culinary and pop-culture references.
To Nate Pugh for his knowledge of home construction, Cousin Robert Wu for kitchen knives, and Arigon Starr for her navigation through the world of Sasquatch in Native American cultures.
To Rosemary Clarkson at the Darwin Correspondence Project for setting me straight on the real author of that Darwin quote.
To Major John Spencer (US Army, Ret.) for his military language.
Professor Lionel Beehner (United States Military Academy at West Point) and Major Michael Jackson (US Army) for introducing me to my Bosnian experts.
And to those experts, Jasmin Mujanovic and Leila Disdarevic, who expertly brought Mostar to life.
To my agent, Jonny Geller, who filled some very big shoes.
To my childhood friend Richard Cade, for his unforgettable, second-grade declaration that “Bigfoot is indestructible!”
And, always, to my brilliant, supportive, and superhumanly patient wife, Michelle.
BY MAX BROOKS
NOVELS
The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
GRAPHIC NOVELS
The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks
G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds
The Extinction Parade
The Harlem Hellfighters
A More Perfect Union
FOR YOUNG READERS
Minecraft: The Island
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max Brooks is a senior nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His bestselling books include Minecraft: The Island, The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z, which was adapted into a 2013 movie starring Brad Pitt. His graphic novels include the #1 New York Times bestseller The Harlem Hellfighters.