Cryptid Frontier (Cryptid Zoo Book 7)

by Gerry Griffiths

  Hitting ninety, Roxy held the steering wheel with one hand and put the phone up to her ear. “This is Deputy Nez. I’m following a suspect. Brown Ford pickup. Heading south on Highway 9. Officer needs assistance.”

  The front end shimmied from the high speed. Roxy dropped her phone on the passenger seat so she could grip the steering wheel with both hands. The truck up ahead nearly lost it when the right tires drifted onto the shoulder but the driver managed to get it back on the road.

  Roxy gave it more gas and saw the speedometer creep over a hundred. “You’re going to get us both killed!” she yelled at the driver in the truck.

  The truck suddenly skidded to a near stop, and hung a sharp right down a dirt road into a grove of fig trees.

  Roxy downshifted and pumped the brakes. She cranked the wheel. The rear tires on the Chevelle squealed as the car left the tarmac and rolled onto the dirt road.

  Driving into a thick plume of dust, Roxy had to slow down.

  Suddenly the tailgate of the truck came into view. Roxy stood on the brakes and the Chevy came to a stop, narrowly avoiding hitting the back of the truck. She leaned over and pushed the release on the glove compartment. The door dropped down. She reached in and grabbed her Ruger .38 revolver.

  Roxy jumped out of the car and approached the side of the truck. As the dust cleared, she could see why the truck had stopped. A long-boom cherry picker had been left in the middle of the road.

  “Put your hands out the window where I can see them!” Roxy shouted.

  She saw the driver’s window slowly crank down.

  “Did you hear me? Let me see those hands!”

  A hand appeared and waved, then disappeared back in the cab.

  Roxy held her gun out in front of her. She stepped toward the driver’s door. She could see the man in the side mirror, watching her approaching. “I’m not going to tell you again.” She swiveled around and pointed her gun directly at the driver. He was a big man, scruffy looking with a thin beard. He kept staring straight ahead like he hadn’t heard a word she had said.

  She glanced at the passenger seat and saw a Quick Stop bag, money spilled out onto the floor mat. “Get out!” Roxy aimed her revolver at the man’s head. She put her left hand on the handle, and opened the door. “Nice and slow.” She placed her hand on the window frame.

  The man was lightning-fast. He knocked her gun hand out of the way, and in one quick motion, stabbed her hand resting on the window frame. The blade of the hunting knife went all the way through her hand and down into the doorframe.

  Roxy screamed and dropped her gun. The man shoved the door open with his shoulder. Roxy fell back onto her butt. As soon as the man was out of the truck, he kicked her in the ribs. When she yelped, he kicked her again in the hip. He bent down, picked up her gun, and tucked it in his belt.

  “Stupid bitch!” He grabbed the handle of the buck knife and yanked out the blade.

  With her hand free, Roxy collapsed on her back.

  “Get up!” the man ordered.

  Cupping her bleeding hand against her chest, Roxy said, “You might as well give it up. The police are on the way.”

  “What are you, a cop?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Bullshit, you don’t look like a cop!” He reached down and grabbed Roxy by the hair and lifted her up onto her feet.

  “Get your hands off of me!”

  “Shut up!” The man punched Roxy in the face. Her knees almost buckled but she stayed on her feet. “Think you’re tough, eh?” He pushed her to the ground. “Take off your clothes.”

  “Screw you,” Roxy said defiantly.

  “Do as I say.” He grabbed her left boot by the heel and yanked it off.

  Roxy scampered back.

  “Want me to cut up that pretty face of yours?” The man showed her the pointy blade of his knife.

  “What does it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “Might as well have a little fun. Who knows, you might like it.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I’m not going to tell you again. Take off your damn clothes.”

  “All right. If that’s what you want.” Roxy pulled off her other boot. She took both her socks off. She removed her tank top then slipped out of her jeans. She stood up, wearing only her bra and briefs.

  “I said everything!”

  “I don’t think so.” Roxie raised her left hand. The jagged blade had left a gaping hole in the middle of her palm.

  She watched the expression on the Quick Stop Killer’s face steadily change from shock when he saw the punctured wound on her hand close up and the skin heal in the blink of an eye, to a look of horror when her body shapeshifted from a beautiful woman into a lycanthrope beast, and finally his look of ultimate terror when she raked her claws across his throat.

  Priceless.

  Read on for a free sample of Cryptid

  TO THE READER

  I hope you enjoyed CRYPTID FRONTIER. If you like the series, you can learn more about these characters in CRYPTID ISLAND, the exciting prequel to CRYPTID ZOO and its sequel CRYPTID COUNTRY followed by CRYPTID CIRCUS, CRYPTID NATION, CRYPTID KINGDOM and this installment, CRYPTID FRONTIER.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Gary Lucas, Romana Baotic, Nichola Meaburn and the wonderful people working with Severed Press that helped with this book. It’s truly amazing how folks who live in the most incredible places in the world can truly enrich our lives. A special thanks to my wonderful daughter and faithful beta reader Genene Griffiths Ortiz for her enthusiasm and making this so much fun. And of course, I would like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to share these bizarre and incredible journeys with me.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gerry Griffiths lives in San Jose, California, with his wife and their five rescue dogs and a cat. He is a Horror Writers Association member and has over thirty published short stories in various anthologies and magazines, along with a collection entitled Creatures and his latest novel In Case of Carnage: A Paranormal Crime Novel. He is also the author of Silurid, The Beasts of Stoneclad Mountain, Death Crawlers, Deep in the Jungle, The Next World, Battleground Earth, Down From Beast Mountain, Terror Mountain, Cryptid Zoo, Cryptid Country, Cryptid Island, Cryptid Circus, Cryptid Nation, Cryptid Kingdom, and Cryptid Frontier.

  Chapter One

  53° 19.44' North Latitude 131° 57.31' West Longitude

  Graham Island, British Columbia

  July 1996

  McKinney wasn’t sure how long the two of them had been fighting their way through the island’s dense forest wilderness – but it seemed like an eternity. A sharp salty burn around his face told him that there must surely be several deep scratches across the delicate skin of his cheeks and forehead; wounds and contusions caused by the thickly entwined branches they had been forced to fight their way through as they had fled in abject terror.

  The man was close to exhaustion. He weaved unsteadily forward, forcing himself onwards, desperately grasping any protruding branch or foliage that was available to aid him - dragging himself up yet another interminable rise on the undulating forest floor - spurred on by a glimpsed promise of a small, rare area of clearing in the trees – a space he had spotted scant minutes earlier when they were higher up a previous slope. He reached it, finally staggered to a stop and held up trembling hands before him - he wanted to know what condition they were in. What McKinney saw made for a grim picture; they were lacerated, raw; fingers and palms had been flayed and were bleeding – the wounds on his hands mute evidence of the herculean effort to tear a path through dense copses and tangled undergrowth on a rough roller coaster terrain. Yet, strangely, despite their appearance, they barely hurt him at all.

  His lungs, however, were quite another matter. A pair of shredded, fluttering balloons barely contained within the fiery cavern that was his chest. The clean, fresh smelling shirt he had put on seemingly a lifetime ago, now adhered stickily to his flesh – a stained mangy
hide that he had begun to shed – comprised of filthy, ripped wet cotton infused with the pungent stink of acrid sweat and fear.

  McKinney desperately needed to rest even if it was for just a few moments. He dazedly looked around at his surroundings, trying to control his ragged breathing and triphammer heart – wait! They were finally in luck! McKinney noted the tree line that bordered the small clearing in front of him. It looked manmade – a firebreak maybe? It didn’t matter – all that did matter was it revealed what looked to be a clear path leading down from the tangle. They had miraculously, or so it seemed to him at this moment - stumbled upon - or had been guided to - what must be a well-defined loggers' trail.

  His body was trembling with sheer fatigue and adrenal overload, especially the muscles in his calves and thighs. Putting out a hand, he supported himself against the nearest cedar. The bark felt rough to the touch, unyielding; yet somehow it comforted him with its ageless, solid strength. His trembling form oozed copious amounts of sweat from every pore he had, giving any exposed area of the skin an oily, unpleasant sheen. The clouds of midges and other buzzing insects - tiny, hateful denizens of the forest, closed in on him instantly now he was no longer moving, sensing a tasty salt feast.

  McKinney was too fatigued to even attempt to bat the miniature whining harpies away. He just let them be. They happily fed off him.

  The young girl, Bobbie, who had been several yards behind him in the tree-festooned, nightmarish tangle finally caught up to him. Noisily she staggered up to join him, coming to a swaying stop beside McKinney, and tremulously leaned her tall willowy form against his sodden back; the sounds of her breath were tortured gasps.

  He was so exhausted that even this simple act of elicited comfort from the girl was almost enough to push him down to the forest floor. With grunting effort, he straightened, forcing himself away from the cedar tree’s welcome respite - in doing so he unceremoniously shoved his female companion back and away from him. With some slight vestige of chivalry, McKinney did manage to turn around in time to support Bobbie’s sagging form so she didn’t end up falling onto the moist mulch. Going down now would have meant certain death for the young woman. In his present condition, McKinney wouldn’t have been physically able to lift the girl onto her feet. Their pursuers, he reasoned, couldn’t be far behind. He glanced back and up into the forbidding timberland in the direction they came from. They had to keep moving, McKinney instinctively understood. It was their only real hope of survival.

  There had been a total of fourteen people on the university field trip – thirteen men and one woman who had tried to make a stand against the horrors that had relentlessly pursued them. The others were gone now – their efforts to fight back a futility – they had been horribly killed. McKinney and the girl had only survived the massacre because he had grabbed Bobbie’s hand and they had fled for their lives.

  McKinney believed in God. He did. With every fiber of his being and soul. In the Holy Father and his infinite mercy. So why had He let these appalling things happen to them? Why?

  He attempted to close his mind off to block the memory of the terrible ways in which he saw and heard his fellow students and their professors die. But he couldn’t quite manage it - the grotesque images and sounds he had witnessed would not leave him. They echoed in his mind…ripples on a bottomless blood-red pool of abomination – unspeakable things that no one should ever have to see or hear. It made him glad though in a bizarre kind of way. It was that abhorrence and his utter dread that kept McKinney running on despite his utter exhaustion – desperate to try to escape – so that the others’ gruesome fate wouldn’t become his or Bobbie’s.

  The light was fading fast now as it did at this latitude on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Even in the summer months the hours of daylight never overstayed its welcome.

  After the daylight, such as it was, there quickly came a barely perceived twilight – then that short-lived dimming was quickly followed by a deep, stygian blackness. And within the dark, deep in the vast forests, McKinney now knew there was contained a dreadfulness – a horror no one could have ever imagined dwelled within. As the night began to swiftly creep and seep through the canopy of dense trees that surrounded them, his hopes began to wane with equal alacrity.

  Oh God… he thought…they were going to die here. Screaming out in their death agonies, just like the others. He shook himself mentally to shun the feelings of defeat that threatened to engulf him…no, darn it, no! This wasn’t going to happen to them, or at least not to him. He had a home to go back to. Dear close friends in his church - people who truly loved him - mother and father, two younger sisters… he was determined that he was going to see them all again. Whatever he had to do to survive the terror that had been foisted upon them he would do. He was not going to perish here! This was not his time to be called. McKinney willed himself to believe that he was going to live. He was going to live!

  As if to purge any last negative thoughts from his mind, he shook Bobbie as hard as his remaining strength would allow. As he did so, the pain finally now registered sharply in his damaged hands, making him wince. The young, tall, wispy girl merely sagged dispiritedly within his arms. The filthy and disheveled woman barely even registered his violent action. McKinney spoke roughly to her, his voice ragged with the effort – an intended shout that emerged as a hoarse whisper from a throat dried out from lack of water and excesses of adrenaline and fear.

  “Come on, Bobbie, we have to keep moving! The Dinan Bay logging camp is close - must be. Only a few short miles. We’ll be safe. Don’t give up. Come on Bobbie, for Jesus Christ’s sake, and in His name - we can make it!”

  His short tirade ended, and the girl finally tilted her head up, seemingly half acknowledging his presence. Bobbie’s once bright green eyes, so alluring to McKinney since their freshman year at SMU, were now dull and dispirited - lifeless in fact. Perhaps a precursor of the fate that she felt certain soon awaited her - them. No real recognition was apparent within their dim depths, only cattle-like resignation of what was to be. The girl slumped even farther forward, becoming a dead weight.

  McKinney’s weakened muscles couldn’t support the woman’s burden any longer. Without him propping her up, the haggard girl slowly collapsed to the soft ground in slow-motion; a tall, yet slender young pine that had been felled.

  Once there amongst the dead leaves and forest floor detritus, she briefly became animated, curling herself up into a tight fetal ball, angular arms and skinny legs tucked in to wait for what must inevitably follow. McKinney noticed Bobbie was singing in a low, childlike voice. Her mind had retreated into childhood - a place where she obviously had felt the safest, where reassurance had always been within easy reach. It was pitiable and yet terrible. McKinney could hardly bear to listen to her pathetic little voice that had taken on a childlike quality:

  “Jesus loves the little children…”

  McKinney looked down at her huddled form with a feeling of incredible sadness. Bobbie had given up. Her struggle to stay alive was over. He resigned himself to the grim fact that he’d done everything he could to try to save her. She had given up. However, it certainly wasn’t over for him yet. He could still save himself and if God was willing, he would. Maybe if he got help quickly enough, he could still save her too.

  With sphincter-loosening suddenness, a soulless inhuman snigger came from somewhere very close, back in the darkening tree line. He could smell the foul rank stink that he now associated with violent death. McKinney’s head shot up away from staring at Bobbie’s recumbent form - eyes wildly glaring into the gloom, searching in the direction the awful sound emanated from, attempting to visualize the threat that he could only smell and hear. McKinney’s weak watery legs suddenly found a new lease of life. Without his conscious volition he took a diffident, foot dragging, backward step. Then another - another. He had covered six hesitant steps in this manner when he suddenly stopped, frozen to the spot.

  An obsidian dimness seemed to detach itself from
the deeper darks of the trees. An amorphous shadow snaked out towards Bobbie’s tucked in feet. A growing, unsubstantial mass encompassed her exposed shins easily. Still feebly singing in that wretched childlike voice, the woman was slowly, almost imperceptibly dragged backward away from the logger’s trail and into the impenetrable darkness. All McKinney could do was be a silent, motionless witness to the scene that was unfolding before him. In the last few seconds, before the young woman’s face completely disappeared into the blackness, Bobbie seemed to briefly come to herself and comprehend the horror of what was happening to her.

  Her eyes were suddenly alive and animate once more. Her gaze locked with his. There was no mistaking the expression. Desperation - pleading with McKinney to help her. Save her from the unspeakable thing that was pulling her away… but even that final, silent plea was lost to him as she slid from his view and into the encompassing dark.

  The last thing he saw of poor Bobbie were her starkly white arms and hands semi-bright in the gathering gloom - fingers outstretched, clutching and clawing desperately with an inevitable futility for any anchor they could find within the soft loam of the trail. She was pointlessly casting her hands out, seeking a firm purchase to prevent herself from being dragged away. At this last horrific sight, McKinney was suddenly freed from the invisible force that had rooted him to the spot. He turned jerkily on his heel and staggered down the path for his life.

  The well-worn trail turned to the left and headed in a generally downward direction. Away from the overhanging trees, the ambient daylight all around him was fast fading away now as red dusk bled away and gave over to blacking night. McKinney could barely see more than a few feet in front of him as he tore along, but what his human eyes lacked, his ears made up for. They were now pursuing him in earnest, he realized in dread. Yet still content to toy with their prey, they were combining their efforts to bring him down. He could hear their massive scampering forms crashing within the trees in the blackness; their unclean stench gagged him, cloying his nostrils with the foul combined odors of corruption, blood, and musk.