Макс Брукс - Devolution - A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

“Oh, come on!” Dan cut him off angrily. “Dude, you totally saw that! Them!” He looked at all of us, and while Mostar again kept silent, I mumbled, “I saw them, pretty clear. I think I know…”

I could have been a little more forceful. Me and confrontation. But at least I tried to stick up for Dan, even if it didn’t work on Reinhardt.

“You think ”—eyes glimmering, hand out; Reinhardt looked so smug—“ think you saw, and that is, indeed, the issue when confronted with an arcane situation…”

“Oh Jesus Christ.” Dan took off running for the house. “Wait!” he called over his shoulder. “Just wait!”

Reinhardt didn’t. “In the interest of full transparency, I will admit that my limited expertise terminates at anthropology”—he bowed his head slightly toward Carmen—“but haven’t there been recorded cases of mass hallucinations?”

Carmen took the bait and recounted something about a town in the Midwest during World War II where people blamed a bad smell on an “anesthetic prowler.” And, also about a school in Ireland in 1979 where kids all thought they were getting sick at the same time and ambulances were called and ultimately it turned out to be mass hypochondria.

“Exactly,” Reinhardt said with a tip of his imaginary hat to Carmen, and then his eyes went wide with another newly remembered epiphany. “Wasn’t there a story recently from India? Residents of a Delhi slum believed reported attacks of a mysterious giant ‘ape-man.’ But when the authorities declared it a case of mass psychosis, no new attacks were reported.” [27] In 2001, reports of a “kala bandar” (Hindi) or “monkey man” began to terrorize residents of East Delhi, India. These reports were later debunked as a case of “mass hysteria.”

I looked at… to… Mostar. C’mon, we need you! That was my expression. But she responded with a blank look and the slightest out turn of her hands. No, you go. That’s what I took from it. I couldn’t understand. Still doubtful? I muttered, “Well, uh… that’s… like, smelling something and feeling something, right? But we all saw… with our eyes…”

I’m such a wimp. Thank God, Dan came to the rescue.

“Look!” He was running back with the iPad. “Look at this!”

And we did. There was the fight, clear and steady. He’d even rested the tablet on the windowsill. No argument from anyone. Not even from Reinhardt. Silent, defeated, he seemed to shrink as Carmen, of all people, switched sides. “They’re real.” It came out shocked, but Vincent’s “Bigfoot is real!” was definitely excited. Bobbi even smiled, grabbing his hand, and when Carmen waved for Effie and Pal to join us, I took the whole mood as relief that we weren’t all crazy.

Mostar must have interpreted it the same way, nodding at us and speaking for the first time. “There is no denying that these creatures exist.” And the chatter started, everyone talking at once, sharing stories they’ve heard. It felt cathartic, to admit what we all suspected, to make it “okay” by group agreement. I admit I was kind of taken up in the moment, re-watching the video with Effie and Pal. “Look at them”—that was Carmen—“look how big they are!”

“Do you remember?” That was Effie to her wife. “That time before we were married, when we were camping by Rimrock Lake and we smelled—”

“Now that they’re real,” Mostar cut her off, “what are we going to do about them?”

The chatter hushed. Everyone looked at her quizzically, including Dan and me.

Carmen asked, “What do you mean?”

And Mostar, kind of theatrically, reached into her robe for what looked like a sharpened stick. It was about a foot long, bamboo, and angled to a point at both ends. “We’re going to need a lot of these.” And she tapped the stick, the spike, against the bamboo growing behind her. “Hundreds maybe, but if we work together, and place them in a deep circle around the village…”

“Why?” Vincent asked, knowing, I suspect, but needing to hear it out loud.

“A defensive perimeter,” Mostar answered, waving the spike like a baton. “If they try to cross and one of them steps on one of these…”

“You want to hurt them?” Bobbi looked like she’d been slapped.

“Just deter them,” Mostar responded calmly.

“That’s what the burglar alarm did!” answered Bobbi.

“This time,” Mostar volleyed back. “But now they know it’s just harmless noise. And why do you think your alarm went off in the first place?” And to the group, she said, “They were trying to get in!”

Vincent, stepping up next to Bobbi, said, “Maybe they were just curious.”

Bobbi grabbed her husband, rallying to his point. “And you want to hurt them!”

“So they don’t try to hurt us,” Mostar answered with supreme confidence, all her previous doubt gone. “You heard what they did to that big cat.” A glance in our direction, then, “You all saw what they just did to each other.” As if to accentuate the point, she stooped to pick up a section of beaded ash. Holding it up to us, mashing it between thumb and forefinger, we could all see the red paste. “They’ve just shown us how violent they can be.”

Bobbi countered. “Not against us.” And this time Carmen came in with, “Why do you have to assume that they’re evil?”

Mostar took a breath before speaking. “Carmen, they’re not good or evil. They’re just hungry.” A nod to the darkness. “The berries are all gone, and the fruit from our trees, and your compost, which probably kept them here instead of following the other animals… assuming they haven’t already eaten those animals.”

Vincent shrugged defiantly. “So, then there’s nothing left.”

Mostar looked us over. “There isn’t?”

Nobody spoke. I felt Dan’s grip tighten.

Mostar was clearly hoping the group would come to this conclusion on its own. And maybe they would have if Reinhardt hadn’t spoiled it. “In point of fact”—he stepped into the circle—“we may be in a more advantageous situation than if these visitors were, in fact, ursine.” He must have been waiting for the opening, crafting his lecture while the rest of us debated. “After all, bears are omnivorous while… and I confess my knowledge reservoir of primatology is even shallower than psychoanalysis…”

And he gave a chortle of faux humility. Has anyone ever deserved more to be punched in the face?

“But I seem to recall that most hominids are herbivorous in nature.” Mostar made a sound and he bowled over her with his pontificating. “Great apes! Gorillas and orangutans subsist only on fruits and vegetable matter. In fact”—I could actually see when the cartoon lightbulb appeared above his head—“if I’m not mistaken, one anthropoid species, the bonobos of southern central Africa, are matriarchal pacifists by nature.”

I couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth next. He actually looked over at the Perkins-Forsters and said, “And correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t said bonobos even practice a form of inter-female sexual diplomacy?”

Was it the shock that kept Effie and Carmen silent? Or were they, like the Boothes, and Reinhardt himself, just so damn determined to hold on to anything to keep the fear away? Ego-defense mechanism. Reinhardt continued his classroom speech with, “In fact, since we know nothing of these hominids’ social order, or their method of interaction, accidentally injuring one of them might precipitate the very regrettable incident we seek to avoid.”

From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.

Are you serious? Why would any of them have a gun? Just consider your question. Why does anyone have a gun? Barring this unique circumstance…