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

Why did the rocks stop? Why did they start? What does it mean?

I can’t hear anything outside.

I really need to pee.

From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.

Like wood knocking, rock throwing is deeply embedded in the lore. Again, there’s a lot of conjecture. It might very well be a peaceful… well… nonlethal means of intimidation. That might explain the howls as well. One theory is that they use it to drive another troop or individual away. That would make sense, given that chimps sometimes throw rocks at each other, or at people, like at that Swedish zoo. [28] In 2009, “Santino,” an adult male chimpanzee, shocked visitors at Sweden’s Furuvik Zoo by pelting them with prepositioned rocks. Santino probably wasn’t looking to kill anybody, just make them leave.

So much to do this morning, so much to do today. I have to get this down quickly while it’s still fresh. The pain in my neck woke me up. Sleeping on the floor, on my side, arm for a pillow. I’ve had neck aches before but oh my God . Shoulder, ribs, face! And so cold! Last night it was kind of nice. The room was so hot and stuffy. But now, the chill outside, it must have dropped twenty degrees. I can see my breath. This is what Frank must have been talking about, that plunge in temperature right before winter.

While the rest of me was freezing, my bladder was absolutely burning. Not only did it cause me discomfort, but when I opened my eyes, I almost peed out of fear. Dan and Mostar were gone, and the door was wide open!

I called out for both of them, and got nothing back. I stood up, shivered, sneezed repeatedly, then poked my head out of the office. The house looked empty, the front door was open. The curtains covering the living room window were raised. I checked my phone, a little past eight, but the darkness… Lead gray, obscuring everything. I couldn’t see lights from the other houses, or the other houses. It was like they’d had been teleported to another world.

I ducked into the hall bathroom quickly, then came out and called again for Dan. No answer. I could hear voices, distant but clear. I hobbled downstairs, rubbing the blood into my needle-stung right leg, and half limped over to the front door.

Fog!

Dark and thick. And cold! I could feel it through my skin, seeping into my bones. The village was barely visible, but I could just make out the small group by the Common House.

Dan was there, talking to the Boothes, along with Carmen and Reinhardt. Vincent was all decked out in his hiking gear, boots, poles, CamelBak. The pack itself was bulging, crammed with stuff it wasn’t meant to hold. So was the laptop bag on his hip, round and overstuffed. And Bobbi’s pink yoga mat on the other hip, tied around his shoulder with an improvised rope of shoelaces. And around the mat was a blanket, one of those ultra-soft airport types you buy at Hudson News. It was wrapped with more tied-together laces that typified his entire ensemble.

“I don’t need to worry about getting lost.” Vincent kept gesturing down the road. “Just follow the driveway to the bridge…”

Dan countered with, “But then what? If there’s no bridge…”

“I’ll just follow the lahar.” Vincent swallowed. “It must have cooled by now. Or hardened, whatever the proper term…”

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?