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

The circle closed, the shrieks rose. Alpha’s hand lowered as the small male, the Goldenboy, grabbed the first taste, then spun its back to the group, a length of intestine still connected to Yvette’s corpse.

The troop went wild, some running in small tight circles, some rolling spasmodically in the ash. What do they call it when sharks do this? A feeding frenzy? Alpha looked down for another grab into Yvette’s torso. That was when she saw me.

Spy. Voyeur. Why did I stay? Why did I have to look? Just like that first night, the compost bin fight, when she’d locked eyes on me. A challenge? That huge head stopping halfway up with another fistful of gut. The glint from those two black marbles.

The roar! Yvette’s body tossed aside as the mountain charged.

I jumped back from the curtains, running, stumbling, scraping my knees up the stairs. Again, I forgot the spear. Again, I chose the wrong hideout. The guest bathroom was right at the top of the stairs. The door was open, and so was the back window. Why did I think I could slip through it? Slamming the door, locking it, jumping onto the closed toilet seat, trying to inch my shoulders through.

Too narrow.

I pushed again, trying to relax my body, forcing my flesh to give. The scraping, the burning. I tried again, faster. Again. Straining. Skin scraping off on the metal sill. The definition of insanity, repeating motions with the baseless hope of a different response. I kept trying to jam myself through, a Kate-shaped peg in a rectangular hole. Back and forth, twisting my arms, bashing the back of my head on the sill. I don’t know how many times until my neck seized up. And when it did. That knot at the base of my skull, like a hand grenade behind my eyes. Pain rippling down my neck, across the right side of my face. Ear, jaw. Spine.

Crippling. Freezing.

I sank back on the toilet, unable to move my head, neck, right arm. I tried to rise, make it to the door. I reached for the knob.

It vibrated in my hand as the whole house shook.

I felt the living room window smash, heard the curtains pulled from their fixtures. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Adrenaline must have deadened the shock waves surging from my neck. I remember that cold line of sweat running from my armpit to my hip.

She couldn’t have seen me. That was what I hoped. The curtains had to have blocked her view of my escape. There was no way she could know which way I’d gone.

Another roar, rattling the mirror in front of me. I heard a hard bang from the coffee table. A soft thump from the couch. Three quick, shaking booms told me fists were bashing in the downstairs bathroom door, and the lingering crack said that door was caving in.

A frustrated huff, then silence. She paused to listen, which gave me pause to think. I don’t know where this idea came from. But as I heard the first creak of a foot on the staircase, I grabbed for the phone in my pocket. Still charged, still able to communicate. I tapped the music app, hit the room choice, heard it blasting from the kitchen.

A grunt, a shuffle, then the clang of pots and crash of plates.

Thank you, “Black Hole Sun.”

I took a careful, painful breath, trying to think, to plan my escape. Out the door? Through another window? Could I make it to Mostar’s house? Flashes of Alpha’s speed, her reach. At that moment the floor jumped, killing the music. I checked my phone to see that the connection was gone. Something delicate she’d severed. I could hear more destruction below, the overturned roll of the kitchen table as she stomped back out into the living room. Then the hard, shaking bang of another door caving in.

The garden. My sprouts!

Low grunts. Long, slow. Sharp cracks and muffled thuds.

A second source. High and distant out the window. Next door. Pop-papop-pop!

Alpha must have heard it too. She paused. Both of us listened to the noises, followed by grunts, growls, and suddenly a wail.

The same sound Consort had made when Mostar’d speared his hand.

Pain.

He was hurt!

A crashing sound, furniture turning over. A childlike whine lowering to an angry yelp.

An answer from my house, Alpha’s bellow from my garden.

The BOOM, this deep bass from somewhere at Mostar’s. Not furniture, not wood, not alive. I couldn’t begin to imagine what had made that kettledrum din.

The screams. Human—Mostar and Dan.

Dan! I tried the phone again. More music to cover my escape. No response. Zero signal. A flash of anger and I almost threw it against the mirror. And in the mirror, I saw the smoke alarm. Memories collided into an idea just as I heard the roar.

She must have heard me. The faintest creak of my feet?

Thundering footsteps.

I grabbed the towel, wrapping it around my arm.

Louder, closer.

Match in my free hand, box wedged between towel fist and sink.

The staircase shuddered.

First strike, breaking with a curse.

The force of a truck, crashing against the door.

The second try, a flare, holding the flicker under cloth.

Second blow, wood splintering.

Light. Please. Light!

Door bursting open, thick fingers grabbing my shirt.

LIGHT! Orange licks through billowing smoke. My toweled fist burning!

Alpha pulled me toward her. Chipped teeth, stinking, moist breath.

One punch.

Into her mouth!

A muffled bawl. Biting down as I yanked my hand from the towel.

Flying cinders, stinging eyes. The smell of singed hair and burnt meat.

Coughing.

Snarling.

Staggering back, pulling me with her.

Hitting my head on the doorframe.

Falling forward.

Spinning.

Somersaulting.

Stairs.

Fur in my eyes, mouth.

Smooth skin over hard bone.

My nose cracking, white spots on black.

From my interview with Senior Ranger Josephine Schell.

Do you know that more people are hurt by bison in North America than by sharks all over the world? Do you know why? Because they try to ride them. Tourists from New York or Tokyo, whatever urban bubble, literally try to jump on the buffaloes’ backs. Feed them, hug them, take selfies with them. They think they’re at a petting zoo, or in a Disney movie. They’ve never learned the real rules, so they think they can just make up their own. This is called anthropomorphizing. This is why families let their little kids play around coyotes, why the Venice Beach “Grizzly Man” tried to live among Alaskan bears, why a whole town in Colorado couldn’t imagine that mountain lions would ever be a threat to human beings. All these overeducated, isolated city dwellers who idealize the natural world.

And they don’t stop with animals. My people too. All that “noble savage” shit. From Rousseau to that alcoholic, woman-beating, racist anti-Semite. Ever see the movie he made in the Yucatan? The simple, sweet natives living “in harmony with nature” until, oh no, here come the evil, pyramid-building, crop-growing, corrupted Mayans! Thank God the Spanish show up as divine punishment. Movie shoulda been called Them Injuns Had It Comin’. I’ve heard versions of that philosophy all my life.

Nature is pure. Nature is real. Connecting with nature brings out the best in you. That’s what I hear from the poor dumb dipshits who come up here every year in their new REI outfits, never having felt dirt under their feet, just aching to lose themselves in the Garden of Eden. And then a few days later we find them crawling through the muck, half-starved, dehydrated, nursing some gangrenous wound.