For what felt like the thousandth time, Mitchell glanced down at his radio, as if trying to will it to come to life with some update from his friends.
At least when they’d split up at the Inuit village, he’d been kept busy with a steady stream of patients. His company now was far less friendly and didn’t need any medical attention, aside from perhaps a few personality transplants.
Almost as if on cue, Zeist stalked over. “How the fuck long is this going to take?”
“As long as it takes,” Mitchell replied irritably. “I don’t know if you’ve ever gone hunting, but unlike what you see in the movies it’s a game of patience and waiting.”
“Why bother? Most everything I need is already at the supermarket.”
“Yeah, well, the stuff we hunt usually can’t be found in your local butcher’s freezer section.”
“Still sticking to that story, eh? That you hunt actual monsters.”
Mitchell raised an eyebrow. “Your buddy the governor gave you the same information he has. Those are official government files. Believe me, they don’t have much of a sense of humor when it comes to anything.”
“I get that part, but not the rest. Why hide any of this if it’s real? Are they afraid North Korea is going to find out and start a weaponized sasquatch program?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He wished he had a better answer, one that would shut this blowhard up, but the reality was he and the rest of the team had all asked that same question dozens of times.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Bigfoot Hunter.” Eric looked down at his watch. “This is taking forever. Are they going to be out there all goddamned night? I thought they were heading back.”
Me, too. “Not if they found something. Sorry to say, but usually the monsters don’t come running right to us with a target hanging from their chests. Would be nice if they did, though.”
Finally, Zeist walked away in a huff, leaving Mitchell to consider his next course of action. How he wished they still had their mobile lab. Sure, he had his laptop, complete with satellite uplink, but he couldn’t lock himself inside it. Maybe when this assignment was finished and they’d smoothed over whatever feathers Yarlberg had ruffled, they could ask again for a replacement.
For now, it was sit and wait, both for Derek to return and for Arthur to send him the revised test results – albeit those weren’t likely to be finished until much later.
He’d never seen such a bizarre mishmash of contradicting data before. It was as if someone had stuffed DNA samples from half a dozen species into the same bag. He’d heard of chromosome damage caused by outside factors, such as radiation, but this seemed to go way beyond that.
It was just plain weird.
Still, he was certain there was a reasonable answer. It was far more likely that a computer glitch was the cause than for the results to be from something that was actually alive.
Mitchell checked his radio again, considered heading back to their base camp, then dismissed that plan. That wasn’t how they did things. Going rogue was a good way to get shot. It was an even better way to get yelled at. Though he’d never been in the military, he understood the chain of command and why it existed. Once the hunt was either concluded or Derek decided to give up for the night, they’d break radio silence and check in. That was the way things worked. So, for now, that meant waiting.
Mind you, it didn’t mean he had to like it.
♦ ♦ ♦
Surprise, pain, fear, confusion. All of these emotions were a jumble swirling in his mind. Everything hurt and his limbs felt numb, yet they weren’t heavy. It was almost as if he were weightless, floating in the vastness of space.
No, not space. He took a breath, or tried to. Liquid entered his mouth, foul tasting and brackish. There was another taste buried within it, too, a familiar one ... coppery. It reminded him of...
Rational thought receded, replaced by panic as water filled his oxygen-starved lungs. Despite the pain, he somehow found the strength to flail about, albeit it didn’t appear to do any good.
He forced his eyes open and saw nothing but infinite blackness – although whether it was the water or he was blinded, he couldn’t tell. Nor would it matter if he couldn’t fill his lungs with air soon.
The darkness seemed to almost be a living thing, reaching out, embracing him, invading his mind, and beginning to make it feel as numb as his arms.
His foot struck something, soft and yielding at first, but then he gained purchase. With the little bit of strength left in him, he kicked off from it. It didn’t matter where. This place was death. Staying here meant dying. Elsewhere might not be any better, but he had to try.
For a moment his leg stuck, as if grabbed hold by greedy fingers unwilling to let him go, but then he was free, still flailing, but moving in a different direction.
Long seconds later, an eternity of torment to his tortured body, he finally broke the surface, coughing out water to make way for life-giving air. Everything else was unimportant in that moment.
The cold water of the bog threatened to reclaim him, to suck him back under, so he continued to struggle despite his limbs refusing to obey all but the most rudimentary commands. He thrashed and kicked forward, seeing little, his eyes full of mud and silt, his hands not nearly coordinated enough to wipe it away and still keep him afloat. He continued to flail, his strength beginning to ebb, until he finally felt solidness beneath him again. It sloped upward, allowing him to feebly stand while the viscous water supported most of his weight.
At last, he clawed his way up onto the muddy embankment. Kicking against the thick mire, he pushed himself toward higher ground. Every inch was a struggle, the mud unwilling to release his arms and legs once it had a hold.
Eventually, he reached a point above the water line, the ground damp but solid. He turned over onto his back and breathed, unable to do much more except savor each hitching breath – certain that, with his injuries, any of them could very well be his last.
His eyes still shut against the muck encrusted onto his face, the water began to drain from his ears and, slowly, the sounds of the forest returned. Crickets chirped, frogs called to one another, and off in the distance, a coyote yipped.
Then a branch broke somewhere nearby, followed by another.
Something was walking through the underbrush and it was getting closer.
Panic, the same which had gripped him underwater, again flared up. Unfortunately, he found there was little left he could do with it. Cold, injured, and exhausted from the effort it had taken to get this far, there was nothing left to use against this new threat. All he could hope was that they’d pass him by, unseen. If not, then he prayed they’d make it quick. A gunshot to the head, a broken neck, anything but being thrown back into that dark hell and left to drown.
The footsteps came closer, faster now, and he was certain he’d been spotted. Hope began to fade as he sensed someone or something standing over him. He was helpless to do anything except wait for whatever came next.
♦ ♦ ♦
The sound of something being torn caught Danni’s attention. Paper, maybe fabric. Whatever it was, it was alien to the place where she stood. It didn’t belong and she wasn’t immediately sure why.
But then realization hit. She was in a dream, albeit that didn’t mean it was a welcome one. If anything, the strange sound echoing through the streets of Bonanza Creek was a near godsend. The alpha sasquatch, a massive beast the size of a house, had just finished killing both her brother and Derek. She’d been too late to save them, and now the beast was approaching her, seeking to ensure there were no survivors of its rampage.
The alpha’s hands closed around her neck, but there was no pressure, no sense of dying as her air was cut off. Instead, it became little more than a ghost to her as the strange noise reasserted itself, pulling her toward consciousness and away from the past that continued to haunt her.
More sounds of tearing came – definitely fabric – followed by the feel of something rough and coarse beneath her. Was she in a bed?
Wherever she was, she quickly became aware that she wasn’t alone. Rough, calloused hands grabbed hold and turned her over. More fabric ripped and her body jerked with the sensation. She realized, with no small degree of horror, that it was the sound of her clothes being torn from her body.
Those hands touched her again – across her throat, lingering on her breasts, yanking at her pants, her underwear, all of it.
She reached up blindly, trying to fight them off, until a fist exploded against her cheek, sending her racing back toward the darkness where the doomed Colorado town awaited.
As the air around her again filled with the screams and cries of rabid monsters, she was afforded one brief moment of clarity in which she remembered what had happened and whose hands had likely been grabbing at her.
Suddenly, the nightmare of her past didn’t seem so bad by comparison.