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

It was irresponsible what I did. Selfish. And stupid.

I knew it was wrong, otherwise I would have told someone. Bobbi was asleep. Reinhardt too probably, with Effie watching him. I’d seen her take over for Carmen, who’d gone back to cutting more stakes with Pal. I figured Dan and Mostar were doing the same thing. No one saw me slip out of the Boothes’ house, and I managed to get a quarter of the way up the trail before hearing, “Wait!”

Dan was coming up behind me, spear in one hand, javelin in the other. He was using them like hiking poles, pushing himself at twice my speed. His red face, that clench-jawed determination. I turned to face him, ready for the fight:

“No, Dan! No, you can’t stop me! I’m going to find Vincent and there’s nothing you can do about it! And there never was. You’re done holding me back, and I’m done babying you. No, no, keep your mouth shut! Here’s what’s going to happen, I’m going out to find Vincent while you turn your ass around and make yourself useful until I get back.”

Wouldn’t that have made a great speech? It was already in my head, probably stored, in one form or another, for years. But it never got a chance to be said, because just as I raised my hand to stop him, Dan gave that open hand the javelin and trudged right on by. I gawked at his back for a moment before he twisted to offer his free hand. And that’s how we traveled. Hand in hand, mutually supportive. Hiking up the trail the way I’d dreamed about since Day One.

Figures.

We didn’t hear anything, didn’t see any movement. I couldn’t help but hope that maybe they really were nocturnal. Blissfully asleep. Full.

We made it halfway up before intersecting with the footprints. The tracks from last night, Scout, drawing a straight line from the houses to the top of the ridge. That was where the other one, Alpha, maybe, had been standing. She’d left a mess of prints there. And blood. Beaded in the ash, spattered on the trees. More red flecks led us down the opposite slope. It was slow going. There’s no trail there. Not a natural one. She’d torn through the foliage, leaving a path of bloody, broken branches.

Those breaks, jabbing our sides with each misstep. The ground was soft there, spongy. No visibility. And no sound, except for my own heartbeat. The path curved around a large pine, which we now realized had been concealing a small clearing.

Bones. Fragments. They were everywhere. Mixing with ash and mud. Too many for just one animal. With bits of fur and severed hooves. The deer we’d seen? And maybe some more we hadn’t? I recognized the few bloody stones, the type used for butchering. But these new piles? Each was about a foot high and twice as wide. Each stone looked pristine, and roughly as large as the kind they’d thrown at us. Stockpiles for the next bombardment? If they’re smart enough to plan ahead like this, then what else are they capable of?

As we walked slowly among the stones and bones, I began to pick out distinct “islands,” leaves, moss, whole ferns torn up by the roots, all pressed into the earth and all of it mixed with the long, coarse fibers I now recognized as hairs. Sleeping mats? The stench, worse than ever. Different. Dan tugged my hand, drawing my attention to several small, brown mounds at the edge of the trees. Feces? What do you call this place? A nest? A lair?

Dan lowered his hand to something just below the nearest mound, a long, thin object that shone in the overcast light. We didn’t need to get any closer. It was one of Vincent’s hiking poles.

That was when the trees in front of us moved.

He was big, maybe the first one I’d seen. That night at the kitchen door. He was broad, muscular, but missing Alpha’s scars.

His eyes flicked between the two of us. His growl, low, languishing.

Dan was the first to retreat, rising slowly, gently pulling me back.

The large male lowered his head, growled again, and took a cautious step toward us as the woods around him suddenly came alive. They’d been right there the whole time! All of them!

I close my eyes now, trying to picture each one. And maybe it’s silly to assign names, but that’s where my mind naturally goes.

The two smaller, younger brothers from the compost bin fight, Twins One and Two, flanking their, what, father? The first male. Alpha’s mate? What’s that term for Philip in The Crown ? “Prince consort”? And there was thin, tall Scout to his right, with the older male, “Gray,” between him and the old female, “Granny Dowager,” at the end.

On the left, she was young, an adolescent, I think. She’d been the one I’d seen running through the brush. The one with lighter, reddish fur. It seemed to flow around her, soft, shining. “Princess.” And on her left, another female, older, bigger, still with patches of soft red fur, but a distended belly that she cradled in one arm. Pregnant? “Juno.”

And the young male to her left, at first, I thought he wasn’t even a male. They hadn’t dropped yet, barely hanging from the fur between his legs. Everything about him was young; his frenetic hopping, his high chattering, his constant, rapid glances over his shoulder. Waiting? Calling for the three shapes looming up behind Consort.

Two females, one old, one young, both holding fur balls in their arms. Babies. Two mothers, hunched, hesitant, following behind her .

Alpha.

The whole troop seemed to part when she approached, even Consort, who stared at the ground when she passed him. No growls from her. No chatter. Silently approaching to match our slow retreat up the slope, out of the clearing, back toward the top of the ridge.

Monkeys. That’s the image I can’t get out of my head, the little monkeys at the zoo, with their wide, darting eyes. That was us, trying to look everywhere at once. Forward to the advancing troop, down to the stone piles at our feet, side to side at the gradually enveloping ring, and back to the open, narrowing escape.

They were trying to surround us, cut us off. That must have been what prompted Dan to speed up. I felt his grip constrict my wrist, the pulling as I locked eyes on Alpha. Her lips curled back, jaw fell.