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Geri
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So my life just got a little bit crazy. Well, a lot crazy, actually.
I’ll admit that I had a hard time taking Sean seriously when he said men were on their way to kill me. I mean, it’s not something the average person expects to hear, and I was still under the impression that I was a second-rate journalist trying to get the breakthrough story that would advance my career. But after being carried through the forest at supersonic speed, I fully understand that I’m eyeball deep into a cover-up or conspiracy... or maybe both.
It’s the kind of dangerous excitement that I always anticipated would go hand in hand with being a hard-hitting investigative reporter, and the fact that I’m in the middle of it, that a government or powerful organization wants to shut me down, tells me I made it. I’m finally in the game. I’m living the dream.
And there’s no going back. If someone really does want me dead, then Sean is right—my only way out of this alive is to retract the allegations I’ve already made and turn the spotlight back onto the hunters. Any investigation I conduct into Hornsby’s disappearance in the midst of all this government-alien intrigue will need to be done with more discretion. My goal is to find Hornsby, even though the chance of finding her alive is slim, and do what Mary suggested I do—give her family something that will bring them peace.
As for the investigation into a government-alien cover-up, I’m dropping it. It’s obvious Sean is a part of whatever is going on, and I couldn’t live with myself if I ruined his career, or worse, caused him to become a target like me. Also, and perhaps more to the point, I’m scared shitless of having a bullet put in my head.
I tighten my hold on Sean as he cuts through the forest at warp speed. My legs are wrapped around his waist, my arms around his neck, and my cheek is pressed into the crook where his neck meets his shoulder. I can feel the hard muscle beneath his Gore-Tex jacket, and as I breathe in his scent and absorb his warmth, I take strength from the fact that I’m not alone in this. He said he would do anything to protect me, and I trust him on that score. I’m aware there is a tiny chance that I’m being naïve, but other than the fact that he might be an alien, nothing has changed. Sounds weird, I know, but if he actually is an alien, then it fills in a lot of the missing pieces in the puzzle of his life, including why we never met his mother or any other family member.
Sean slows and eventually stops, probably as a courtesy to me so that I don’t snap my neck or spine. I loosen my grip on him and slide my feet to the ground.
“Last time I saw them, one of them was in a bush about fifty yards down this animal path,” he whispers.
I look at the path. “It’s not much of a path,” I whisper back, because it’s not. It looks more like trampled vegetation.
“They think it’s a Sasquatch route.” He rolls his eyes. “Anyway, you can’t miss the guy—Jackson, I think. He’s the young one, right?” I nod. “Because the camo he’s sporting is for the Bayou. You know, all dark green swamp grass.”
“Seriously?” I ask, because it’s early spring in Canada, and although the conifers keep their green all year, the deciduous vegetation is just starting to bud, so those bushes are still barren. “Straight up khaki-brown military camo would’ve been the better choice.”
“Yeah, they’re not the sharpest knives, so remember what I said about making noise when you approach,” Sean says. “Make sure they know you’re human.”
“I’ll sing my heart out.”
“We meet right back here at the end of the path by this rock.” He points to the large rock next to us.
Glacial boulders are a common sight in Algonquin, so I take a moment to study the identifying features of this one. It’s waist-high, has two gouges that look like eyes, and a zigzag crease that gives it a macabre smile.
“It’s less than a ten-minute jog there. You have fifteen minutes and then ten minutes back.” He looks at his watch. “If you’re not back at seven twenty, I go looking for you.”
“Seven twenty,” I repeat.
He stares at me, not moving a muscle to leave. His eyes stray toward my mouth, and I think, No way. You’re not psyching me out again, Eastman.
“Time’s a wasting.” I give him a curt wave and start jogging down the “path.”
I resist the urge to look back and confirm that I am indeed alone now. Instead, I concentrate on getting my trembling hands under control. My eyes and ears are on heightened awareness, and then I remember I’m supposed to sing.
I start humming, not really a tune per se, just humming, until I eventually work my way into “No Air,” the song I sang over and over and over again during the summer of 2008—the summer Sean graduated high school and left Pembroke forever. I don’t need a degree in psychology to figure out why my mind has settled on this song, but I go ahead and try to convince myself it’s because this is the only song I know the lyrics to by heart.
I jog for at least five minutes, singing like an idiot and wondering what my sister Emma would make of me, until I catch sight of a dark green figure crouched in a bush ahead of me. His breath sends puffs of condensation into the air like a smoke signal. Even though Sean forewarned me that they have rifles, my heart leaps when I look down the barrel he has aimed at me.
“Hey, it’s me,” I say, staring right at him, but he doesn’t move. His eyes look left then right then back at me. “Jackson, right? Remember me? We met last night at the lodge.”
He looks around again then back at me. “You can see me?” His southern accent, like his dad Kenneth, is very mild compared to Bert’s, and especially mild compared to Louey’s Cajun.
“Just barely, though,” I lie. “You caught my eye when you moved the rifle to aim it at me.” I place a lot of emphasis on those last four words, a strong hint to stop, which he ignores.
“You’re that reporter from Global,” he says.
“Yeah, Geri McKenna. And I sure would appreciate you lowering your weapon.”
He doesn’t lower it immediately, and a tremor of fear shakes me out of my complacency. What if Sean is right? What if these guys aren’t the southern gentlemen I assume them to be?
Then he lowers the barrel. I start breathing again.
“Sorry, ma’am. Out here, you can’t be too cautious,” he says, but I’m thinking yes, he can. “How’d you find us? This is supposed to be a secret location.”
“I just stumbled on you,” I lie, hoping it doesn’t show on my face. “I’m out for a last hike before I head back to the concrete jungle of New York.”
“Hiking in this weather?” he asks with disbelief. It’s still drizzling, but at least it’s not coming down as hard ice pellets anymore.
Unable to stand up in the dense bramble, Jackson begins the arduous task of exiting the bush by walking on his haunches. Bits of bayou swamp grass get plucked off his camo jacket by thorns and branches, causing him to swear under his breath as he goes.
“Can I give you a hand?” I ask, because it’s taking a while for him to get out.
“I’m good.” He pulls his arms this way and that to free them. “At least I don’t have to worry about snakes,” he mutters, and I assume he means compared with a stakeout in a southern swamp.
“It’s still a bit cold for reptiles this far north,” I agree, although I silently think that it’s not too cold for reptile men. “They’ll keep hibernating until the end of the month.”
He finally gets clear of the bush. “It’s not safe for you to be wandering around out here.” He stands up and lets the rifle hang from its neck strap then unhooks a walkie-talkie from his hip, brings it to his mouth, and presses the button. “Jackson to base camp. Over,” he says into it, keeping his eye on me. I arch an eyebrow in response just as the radio makes a bleep sound and a voice asks, “Where y’at, Jackson? Over.”
“I got a civilian here with me, Dad. The reporter from Global—Geri McKenna. Says she’s just out for a hike. Over.”
“I am out for a hike,” I interject.
The walkie-talkie bleeps, and static crackles before a voice answers. “Is that so? Over.”
“Oh, hey, is that your dad?” I ask with innocent eyes and a feigned look of surprise. “Since I’m here, I wouldn’t mind saying hello to him and seeing how the hunt is going.”
Jackson locks his eyes on me, his stare cold as flint, as he says into the radio, “She wants to come and see you. Over.”
Bleep, static. “I reckon that’s why she was hiking in the first place. Stay there; I’ll come to you. Over.”
“He’ll be here in a minute,” Jackson says.
Does Sean need me to distract them at their base camp while he does what he needs to do? He didn’t say. “I don’t want to interfere with the hunt, so I certainly don’t mind going to him.”
“He said he’d be here. We’ll wait.” His voice is firm, giving me a clear indication that he’s not going to argue.
I maintain the smile I have plastered on my face and remind myself I have fifteen minutes. “Do you mind showing me what you’ve found so far? Any footprints? Tufts of fur?”
He regards me with uncertainty for a moment then shrugs a shoulder. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt. We’ll probably be moving to another location in a few hours, anyway.” He points in the direction I came from. “I don’t mean to shock you, ma’am, but that was a Bigfoot path you were walking.” He heads in that direction, and I follow close behind, powering on Sean’s phone with a stiff, cold thumb. “You see right here?” Jacksons points to a depression in the mucky ground that’s partially filled with water. I nod, swipe down for the camera icon, select video, and start recording him pointing to the ground. “That there’s a Bigfoot print. The rain’s messin’ with it, but you can still see it.”
“Very cool,” I say, and a cocky grin springs to his face. I angle the camera at the print, squatting down for a close-up, and that’s when I see it—a human-shaped footprint far too big to be human. “This is an actual print,” I say, a little stunned. “It’s got to be fifteen inches or longer.”
“Fifteen and three quarters inches and almost seven wide.”
Still videoing, I stand up and put my own foot beside it for scale. “This is incredible.”
“Take a look around,” Jacksons says. “They’re all over the place.”
I glance around and realize I’m in the middle of what looks like a stampede. This shouldn’t shock me, considering everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours, but it does.
“Look at them all,” I say with wonder, panning the camera. My eyes shoot everywhere, my head whipping left and right as if it’s on a swivel. “How many Sasquatches made them?”
“I measured all the full prints I could find, and they’re the exact same.” He pushes his ball cap back so he can scratch the top of his head. “One monster made ’em.”
I squat down again, sit back on my haunches, and take in the prints en masse, looking from one to the other, looking for a pattern, and recording everything as I go. Was the creature pacing? Spying on the hunters who have come to hunt it?
“Do you have a guess as to when the tracks were made?” I ask.
He pulls on the visor of his ball cap, setting it back in place. “The ground was hard with frost by eleven p.m. last night, so they had to have been made before that. We found ’em about one o’clock this morning when Bert dang near twisted his ankle when he stepped into one of them in the pitch of night.”
“So they were here before you set up base camp?”
“Those tracks are the reason we set up here.”
There goes my theory of the hunted hunting the hunters.
I stand up to get a bird’s-eye view and tiptoe around the tracks to get video footage of the pockmarked ground. The prints are odd—some are deeper on the ball of the foot, others deeper at the heel. I gently slide my own foot into a few prints to check the depth and make sure what I’m seeing is right. It is. What would make it move that way?
I try it myself—heel down, and I feel myself tip back; ball down, and I feel myself tip forward. I step from one impression to the other, matching step for step, heel down or ball forward. I do it again, faster this time, my body rocking with the motion. A fight?
“Can I ask what you’re doing?” Jacksons asks.
“Trying to walk a mile in its shoes, so to speak. Maybe it was fighting something?”
“We reckoned the same thing.” Jacksons beckons for me to follow him. We walk a little farther down the path, the same direction from which I came, and he stops and points to a three-toed impression. Each toe is tipped with a deep pinpoint into the ground. Claws.
My heart jerks in my chest. “You said the tracks were made last night, right?” For whatever reason, I know I can handle seeing a big hairy ape, but the thought of seeing Reptile Man again is sending my heart into an A-fib.
“My first guess was an overgrown gator.” Jackson seems completely oblivious to the panic setting in on me. “They can get real big. Seen some twenty feet long, weighing close to two tons,” he continues, and I stop my paranoid surveillance of the area to look at him. “But y’all don’t have gators up here, so I dunno. You recognize it?”
I shake my head. My mouth has gone bone dry. “Nope,” I lie. I’m not really thinking rationally, I realize that, but I do know I don’t want to tell this hunter—this boy with a gun—that a scaly giant alien with daggers for claws is on the loose. Jackson just might be deluded enough to think he should track and kill it and end up getting himself torn apart by Reptile Man.
“Probably just somethin’ Bigfoot was fixin’ to eat,” Jackson says, although he doesn’t sound any more convinced of that than I am.
“Hellooo,” a male voice calls out.
I jump like a startled rabbit, twisting toward the sound to search for the owner of the voice.
Kenneth Broughton is about twenty-five feet away, his form appearing and reappearing among the trees as he makes his way toward us. “Fine mornin’ for a walk, Ms. McKenna,” Ken says sarcastically when he reaches us. His smile softens the jibe and makes it more of a joke.
“Geri,” I correct him, shaking his extended hand. “Jackson let me get some footage of the tracks. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Anand might mind. I might’ve mentioned that we told him we’d give him the exclusive.” The sharp edge in his voice and the hard look in his eye let me know I’m not welcome here.
A feeling of unease comes over me. That tremor of fear I felt when Jackson held his gun on me returns to shake me up. Sean was right—I don’t know these men, and it was foolhardy of me to blindly assume they’re good people.
“You know, you’re right.” I power off the phone and put it in my pocket. It’s time for me to get the hell out of here. “I’m treading on Anand’s territory. I should go.”
Ken tilts his head slightly to the right, a half smile on his lips as he eyes me. “But that’s the price he pays for sittin’ pretty back at the lodge, waiting for us to hand him the video. Isn’t that right, Ms. McKenna? Especially since our cameras are dropping dead like flies and we don’t have any video to give him. It’s the damnedest thing.” He gives a curt shake of his head. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?”
I’m paralyzed, speechless, because I did not see that one coming. And yet now that I’m here to get the scoop, it makes perfect sense that they see me as the person with the most motive to sabotage their cameras. Not that hindsight helps me now.
I feign a look of confusion, eyebrows askew, my mouth open as if silently asking what. “I don’t know anything about your cameras.”
Ten seconds of awkward silence tick by as he glares at me, challenging me, assessing whether or not I’m being truthful. My danger meter ramps up to high alert. If these men decide to play judge, jury, and executioner, my only recourse is to scream for Sean. And that would cause a whole new set of problems. Calling for Sean has to be a last resort.
“It’s obvious you have your hands full, so I’ll leave you to it.” I make a move to leave.
“With respect, Ms. McKenna, I asked you a question,” Ken says.
Despite the panic welling up inside me, I steel myself to show no fear. Raising my chin defiantly, I return his scrutiny. “And I answered you. But if you’re having trouble believing me, Mary Ross, the lodge owner, can vouch for my whereabouts all night.”
“Huh.” He finally breaks eye contact with me to look at Jackson. “See that Ms. McKenna gets back to the lodge safely, son. I’ll send Bert to take over this position ’til you get back.”
I hold up a hand to stop Jackson from following me. “Thank you, but there’s no need.”
“The woods ain’t safe for a woman alone,” Jackson says.
“I made my way here just fine. I can make my way back.” I give them a wave and turn to leave.
“Don’t say we didn’t offer,” Ken calls after me.
As soon as I’m out of sight, I go into a full-on run, checking over my shoulder every ten seconds to make sure they’re not following me. I venture off the trail just in case they are, running parallel to it so I don’t lose my way, and cutting back over to it when I’m getting close to where I’m supposed to meet Sean. I stop short of reaching the actual meeting place, knowing Sean won’t be there yet, and stay off the trail under the cover of the forest.
I put my back against the thick trunk of an old black gum tree and survey my surroundings. I look for any movement, my ears searching for any sound beyond the pitter-patter of rain dripping off branches onto the soggy forest floor, but I’m alone. I feel alone. There are no unusual disturbances in the air, no sound of someone following me, no feeling of being watched. The adrenaline rush begins to recede, and my heart slows to a tolerable rhythm.
I check my watch: 7:09. I still have eleven minutes before Sean returns.
To make myself smaller and less visible, I sink into a squat and rest my back against the trunk. My hair is soaked from the steady drizzle, sending trickles of cold water down my neck. Turning my face upward to smooth my hair back and gather it into a stubby ponytail so I can wring it, I spy the jagged edge of where a branch was broken off the tree high up above me. The sight wouldn’t ordinarily capture my attention, but the white-and-green flesh of the break gleams noticeably against the dark gray trunk. It was broken off recently.
Shifting my attention to the ground, I search for the matching broken limb, but instead my eyes light on a trail of puddles leading away from the tree.
I take a cautious glance around before I stand up and venture forward to take a closer look. The majority of the puddles have a definite human form, including the scalloped edge of toes. They’re exactly like the Bigfoot prints Jackson showed me. And there’s a trail as far as my eye can see.
Did a Sasquatch break off the branch? If it did, it has to be at least eight feet tall.
Indecision courses through me as I stand there, staring down the trail, afraid there might actually be a Bigfoot at the end of it, yet I’m excited by the thought too. Imagine if I was the first person to get real, solid evidence of Bigfoot.
I check my watch again: 7:11. I still have nine minutes before Sean is back. It wouldn’t hurt to follow the trail a little ways, right? Who knows what exclusive footage I might be rewarded with.
I check the contents of my pockets, seeing what I have that I can use to mark my way back, and come up with the wad of tissues I packed in a plastic baggie. I learned a long time ago that tissues are a necessity for a woman hiking, and they’ll certainly come in handy now.
The prints are not in a straight line. They kind of stagger around, and every ten feet or so, I lose them and have to do some searching to pick them up again. I tie tissues onto vegetation as I go, and they immediately become soggy, but their white color remains an eye-catching breadcrumb trail. However, the farther I go, the emptier my baggie becomes. I start feeling anxious that I’m venturing too far away from our meeting spot.
I’m down to my last two tissues when the trail leads me to the edge of a clearing. I finally spy something of value: a broken branch on the ground, one end gleaming white and green. I need both hands to pick it up, because it’s the size of a club, but immediately drop it when I come into contact with something sticky. Spots of dark blood freckle my palms. Ew, ew, ew.
I squat down and waggle them in one of the puddles then vigorously rub my palms against each other to scrape it off. When they’re clean of the sticky blood, I reach up under my damp wool jacket and use my shirt to dry them off. It’s then that I notice that the ground is churned up much the same way it was back at the hunters’ site.
The bloody club would seem to confirm a fight, right? But so far, I haven’t spotted any other prints like Reptile Man’s. Maybe the one print I saw back at the hunters’ site had nothing to do with Bigfoot. It might have just been an anomaly. Or maybe Reptile Man was stalking the hunters.
I look out across the clearing, an area that has been logged at some point and turned into a field. The footprints end here, but I’m guessing they go across that clearing. Do I find out? Or do I turn around, go find Sean, and ask him to come with me?
Wait, Sean’s got us on a tight schedule to get into hiding. He’s not going to waste time looking for a mythical ape.
Right. I either do this now, on my own, or forget about it.
But what if a Bigfoot is on the other side of that clearing?
Sean is going to kill me, but I’m going for it.
Without giving myself time for any more second thoughts, I march out into the clearing, an obstacle course of tree stumps and overturned rocks. The straw grass and bed of creepers make a cushioned carpet that negates the creation of footprints, but I keep going to the other side of the clearing, hoping to pick up the trail again there.
When I reenter the woods, the first thing that catches my attention is an outcrop of boulders about a hundred yards ahead of me. Beyond the outcrop is unobstructed sky, and I presume this is where the land drops off into Shag Lake. It’s the end of the road, so to speak, because if Bigfoot swam the lake, I won’t be following him.
To my right is a pile of logged trees that run in a long line of maybe fifty to seventy feet. The logs look as though they’ve been there for a while. The top of the pile is partially covered in forest litter and scattered into the kind of disarray that reminds me of a game of Pick-Up Sticks.
The only prints I find are canine, too big to be a coyote, so I’m thinking someone’s dog made them—maybe the loyal pet of whoever logged this land.
I check my watch: 7:22. Sean is going to be pissed, especially since I have nothing to show for risking this little adventure.
I do a full-circle sweep before I go, taking in the topography, and finally clue in that maybe Bigfoot went on the other side of the pile of logs. Duh.
It’s quite a lengthy row of deadwood, so to save time, I climb it instead of walking around it, carefully placing each step so I don’t get my leg stuck or broken in the crevices, until I’m at the top and can see in both directions.
Then I hear a growl, a deep, vicious warning that makes my hair stand on end.
My head snaps in the direction of it. A wolf, the color of dirty snow, has its cold blue eyes locked on me. My heart damn near explodes in my chest as I take in the yellow fangs and bloody slaver dripping from its furry muzzle.
I want to scream and have to fight to keep it in, but right now the wolf is only growling at me, not lunging for me. A scream would set it off. And I know enough not to turn my back on it and run, because a hunter loves the chase.
The only advantage I have is that I’m on top of the woodpile. The wolf is going to have a harder time than me getting across because its spindly legs are more susceptible than mine to getting caught in the crevices, right? Unless, of course, it’s more experienced than me at crossing these familiar forest obstacles.
But I have to do something.
I grab the biggest stick within reach and scream, “Get out of here!” as I throw it with everything I’ve got. And I hit it too, right on the snout.
The wolf yelps, runs back a few feet from me, stops, and resumes its snarl.
Then I hear something else—a groan or a moan. The wolf turns its snarl on whatever made the sound and gives it two vicious barks.
The moan comes again, but this time, it sounds like “elp!”
The wolf darts toward it with its mouth open and fangs flashing. I watch in paralyzed horror as the biggest, hairiest arm I’ve ever seen rises up from behind some low-lying evergreens, large stick in hand, and whacks the wolf.
The canine staggers back but doesn’t run away. It just redirects another snarl my way, and I finally understand. It doesn’t want to eat me; it’s warning me away from its dinner.
I spin and run, flying across the heap of deadwood. My feet barely touch down, barely escape getting caught in the gaps between the logs. I slip on the wet moss and loose pine needles, praying to God I read the signs right and the wolf isn’t right behind me, about to sink its teeth into my legs.
I clear the deadwood and chance a look behind me. Once I see that it’s not following, I book it the hell out of there. I jump tree roots and rocks then run flat-out when I reach the clearing. With my head down and my meeting place with Sean as the goal, I run faster than I ever have in my life.