Cap was trying not to be abrupt. “Not that he’s been able to say for sure.”
Thorne gave him a gentle pat on the back. “Thanks. Just wondering.”
Cap turned his full attention back to Pete Henderson, who caught his look. “Cap—is that what they call you?”
“Cap’ll do.”
“Nice to meet you. Which team you want to go with?”
“I want the waterfall,” he answered.
“Who was that guy?” Sing asked.
Cap shrugged, impatient. “One of the hunters. Some thrill seeker, if you ask me.”
Reed had yanked off his dirty clothes and pulled a fresh shirt and jeans from his backpack—and then put on the dirty jeans with the clean shirt. He took off the shirt. No, it was the clean one. He put it back on and tried to take off the pants—he forgot he’d put on his boots. He unlaced them and pulled them off. Now, where were the clean pants? He’d thrown them into the pile of dirty clothes. He fished them out and put them on. Now if he could find his belt—
There was a knock at the door. “Reed?” It was Sheriff Mills.
“Yeah, come in.”
Mills stepped inside and closed the door quietly behind him. “How you doing?”
Reed didn’t answer because he didn’t want to lie. He only hurried to pull on a boot as he sat in one of the room’s two chairs.
Mills grabbed the other chair and set it down directly opposite Reed, almost in his way as he tried to pull on the other boot. “I said, how you doing?”
It felt like an interrogation. Mills pressed into Reed’s space big time, and Reed didn’t like it. He met Mills’s gaze deliberately, angrily. “With all due respect, sir, that’s a stupid question.”
“I need a firm answer, Reed—”
“Are we heading out?”
“—or you don’t go.”
“Arrest me!” Reed said.
Mills whacked Reed on the side of the head. Reed froze in disbelief, staring into the eyes of his superior officer, who still held that hand close to his face, forbidding Reed’s eyes to stray.
“You can thank me later,” said Mills. “In the meantime, you’d better listen. There are more than a dozen trained volunteers out there who just might be risking their lives on your behalf, so before I let you out that door, you’d better decide what role you’re playing. We need men on this job, not victims. Not basket cases. If you need time to work this through and pull yourself together, I’ll grant you that, no questions, no shame, but I need to know.”
Reed gave some thought to his attitude and tried to ease down. “Sure didn’t turn out right.”
Mills was listening.
“It was supposed to be good for her, supposed to get her out of the house, get her out where she could just, just live a little without having to talk to anybody. Out in those woods, there aren’t any social rules, you know? No expectations.” He looked Mills squarely in the eye. “She would have aced it. She would have done great. I knew she had it in her. I don’t think people give her credit.”
Mills nodded. “She would have aced it. You’re right.”
Reed’s eyes teared up again. He looked away to clear them, to clear his mind. “I just didn’t want her to be afraid anymore.”
“Reed, look at me.”
Reed met his eyes. The gaze coming from under that hat brim was kind but would not be trifled with.
“You and Beck signed up for a challenge. Well, now you’ve got one, only there’s no teacher and there’s no pretend, no trial run. There’s just a truckload of real trouble, and Beck doesn’t need you fumbling around and getting in the way because you’re wallowing in what should have been. She needs you to get your mind cleared up and on the problem. She needs you to do your job. We all do.” He rose and went for the door. “We’re pulling out of here in about five minutes. Let me know what you decide.”
Mills stepped out onto the porch, caught a breath, then signaled for Sing’s attention. She joined him near the main door.
“Don’t imagine you have any of your gear with you?” he asked.
“I was on vacation!”
“Got your camera, though.”
“Yes. And my notepad. I was supposed to be taking survival training this week.”
“I want you to come along with Deputy Saunders and me to the cabin area. We’ll treat it like a crime scene, document everything so we can figure out what happened up there—and what didn’t.” He saw the question in her eyes. “Reed’s got a wild story, one that people won’t want to believe, and that means they’ll start believing other things. Let’s get that door closed right away, first thing.”
Reed emerged from Room 105 correctly dressed, his backpack slung over one shoulder, but walking like a drunk man, his face reddened with emotion, his hand against the wall to steady himself.
Jimmy was finishing the briefing in the parking lot. His voice carried well enough for Reed to hear the gist of it: “. . . the bear could still be around guarding its kill, so, hunters, be sure to take point position and secure the area. Prepare for the worst, and by the way . . .” He lowered his voice, but Reed still heard him admonish, “Let’s be careful what we say. Reed’s a little crazy right now, and I would be too.”
Several folks noticed Reed and nodded a greeting or even gave a little wave. Some were jerking their heads, pointing, shifting their gaze, trying to let Jimmy know of Reed’s presence, but Jimmy, with his back toward the resort, just kept going. “Bears usually go for the soft organs, but any fresh meat will do; they’ll eat arms and legs too. Let’s be sure to bring several body bags, because she may not be in one piece.”
Reed’s feet wouldn’t move. All he could do was stare at Jimmy’s back and wonder why he couldn’t find the strength to deck the guy. Jimmy finally got a clue from his listeners and looked over his shoulder. Jimmy’s face flamed with embarrassment. Too late. Reed felt worse.
Reed ducked inside the lobby, clumsily closing the door behind him. The floor reeled as if he were on a ship in a storm. He staggered to the counter, stomach churning, as the pack fell forgotten and unnoticed to the floor. With elbows on the countertop and his face in his hands, he tried one more time to pull himself together, to be the man Beck needed, to do his job.
Now even the countertop seemed to be moving, but at least the room was empty, and he was so thankful for that. He drank in the silence, waiting one moment, one breath at a time for his mind to settle on some workable scheme of reality, just one simple pathway to sorting this whole thing out.
Maybe I am crazy.
A simple conclusion of insanity was pretty tempting right now. It would be so much easier. It would explain away everything, and he could dismiss his nightmarish memories like any other outlandish dream.
But he found no comfort in such thoughts. Even if his mind was creating nightmarish memories of hellish things that never happened, it was probably to replace worse memories of even more hellish things.
Either way, here he was with only the counter to keep him from collapsing to the floor, an official basket case. Wasn’t that what Sheriff Mills said they didn’t need?
He breathed a moment. He prayed, and his mind cleared just enough for him to realize he was too messed up to be safe out there. He could never survive or be any help to the search teams or to Beck when he couldn’t trust his own senses.
So, looks like I won’t be going, he thought.
He rubbed his face, partly because it expressed his pain and confusion, mostly because his face was a tangible reality he could be sure of. It was still there. He could feel it. He guessed he still had elbows too; they were holding him up.
What else was real around here? He let his eyes drift around the lobby, taking in the trophies—the moose head, the elk head, the deer head, the big bearskin, the many sets of antlers. So it seemed somebody knew his way around out there and had come back the winner, somebody way out of Reed’s league.
His eyes drifted down the wall and almost passed over a yellowing po
ster—
His gaze returned and parked there. The dark, two-legged creature striding along a log-strewn riverbed was blurry and grainy, but it was looking his way. A shiver coursed through Reed’s limbs. He saw no silvery-green retinas glowing in the dark, but something about that image brought back the same nerve-jangling, hand-trembling terror.
His eyes went to a glass case below the poster and focused on a plaster cast of a huge footprint. As he leaned close to the glass, the sound a foot like that could make in the soft earth of the forest came back to him. Suddenly the speed and mobility of the shadow he’d seen did not seem impossible.
His heartbeat quickened. His hands trembled. He looked around the lobby, through the windows at the people gearing up for the search after Jimmy’s lecture on how to handle dismembered bodies and fear-crazed, delusional family members. Hadn’t any of these people seen this stuff in the glass case or that picture on the wall? Had it never occurred to them that it might not be a bear, that it might be—
Caution took hold, and Reed didn’t run anywhere to yell anything.
Of course they’d seen it. They’d heard his story too. He tried to understand why their minds would only go one direction, locked on only one explanation, and he could settle on only one answer: they weren’t there last night.
He looked at the poster again, trying to imagine that thing in the dark—
“I don’t know if you ought to be looking at that.”
Arlen Peak, the owner of the place, had come into the lobby from the souvenir shop. Worry in his eyes, he stood beneath the huge, clawed bearskin, watching Reed.
Reed looked toward the glass case. “I never saw one before.”
“It’s hard to find anybody who has, and anybody who has usually won’t talk about it.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
The old man shook his head, almost sadly. “No.”
Reed knew it would be safe to tell this man. “I think I have.”
Peak approached and spoke gently. “Son, you need to be sure about that. I don’t want anybody thinking I’ve put ideas in your head.”
Reed gazed at the big footprint. “Do they . . . make a crying sound like a woman? Not screaming, but, you know, wailing and crying?”
The innkeeper half-smiled and shook his head.
“How do you know?”
“Let’s just say nobody’s ever heard one do that.”
“Do they smell bad, like the worst armpit in the world?”
Peak hesitated just a moment, then answered, “Only when they’re frightened or upset. It’s what a lot of apes do. It’s a defense mechanism.”
“Do they howl and scream like, well, like apes?”
The old man’s silver fillings twinkled in the windows’ light. “Now, that I’ve heard.”
“Do they whistle?” Reed tried to mimic what he’d heard, the long, soaring whistle with the little warbles in it.
Now Peak actually straightened, staring at him.
Outside, the teams were ready to trek into the woods. Jimmy Clark and Sheriff Mills, rifles slung on their backs, exchanged a look with Pete Henderson, then glanced toward the front door.
“You saw him, didn’t you?” Jimmy asked. “He was so wiped out he looked like he was on something.”
Sheriff Mills waited only a moment, looked at the folks gathered for the search, then sighed through his mustache. “Let’s do it.” He shouted, “Okay, everybody, let’s go!”
The front door opened. Everyone froze on the same cue.
Reed stepped out, a little pale, just a little wobbly, but standing tall, his pack on his back, his deputy sheriff’s cap on his head. He was ready with an answer and spoke in strained tones to Sheriff Mills, “Ready when you are, sir.”
Beck heard a long, soaring whistle with little warbles in it. Then a deep-throated, disgusting grunt, like a gigantic old sow in the mud. Another low grunt. Another soaring whistle.
And then Beck was aware of gook in her mouth—clumpy like gooey raisins and tart like wild berries—and someone wearing big leathery gloves shoving more gook into her mouth.
She gagged, then coughed, then spit it all out—
And the whole world shook.
Beck opened her eyes. They were still slimy from a long sleep, and her vision was blurred. Nothing was real, not yet.
Someone was holding her, cradling her in a smelly brown blanket.
Rescue! I’ve been rescued!
There came that whistle again, like a boiling teakettle.
Shmoosh! More gooky berries in her mouth, and she could feel some of them smeared on her face. She jerked her head away, spit them out, blinked to clear her vision.
The world came into focus, and she gathered she wasn’t home. All she could see were tangled branches and green leaves. The cool breeze told her she was still outside, somewhere in the mountains, somewhere in the shelter of thick bushes. Bushes with berries. Huckleberries?
She looked up—
NO!
Her lungs pulled in a long, quaking gasp and held it there as her mouth hung open and her jaw began to quiver. Though her hands began to shake on their own, she dared not move or utter a sound. She could only lie there, stiff with terror, and gape at the deep, monstrous eyes looking back at her.
The eyes were dark amber, with muddy brown around the iris instead of the usual white. They were intense and probing— studying her as if she were a specimen under a microscope—deep set under a prominent brow. The face was reddish brown, leathery like an old saddle, bordered by thick, straggly hair.
Beck felt hot breath passing by her face in sour little puffs. The bulging lips tightened against a row of white teeth and the thing whistled at her.
The same whistle Beck heard in the dark when glowing eyes bored into her and a dead man dangled from a tree.
Four
Unthinking, her mind paralyzed by fear, Beck responded as she was taught to respond to hornets, bees, rattlesnakes, and assorted monsters of childhood: she froze—except for the trembling in her hands, which she couldn’t help.
The thing shoved more berries into her mouth with fingers the size of sausages. Beck forgot her mouth was already open, and now suddenly it was full again. She closed her mouth, an unconscious reflex, and the berries remained inside, an unchewed mass. The beastly eyes locked on her, waiting, the face stern under a heavy, furrowed brow. The thing grunted again, then tapped on Beck’s mouth with thick, berry-stained fingers.
Somehow, it occurred to Beck to chew. The berries burst in her mouth, filling it with juice, half-sweet, half-tart. The wizened face waited and watched, huge volumes of air rushing in and out through the broad, flat nose.
Still chewing, and just now remembering to breathe herself, Beck let her eyes drop enough to see another huge hand with dirty black fingernails curled around her, pressing her against a mountain of dark, reddish-brown hair. The hair was coarse and oily, the body beneath it warm and moist, with a familiar—and unpleasant—sweaty smell. She could feel the rib cage expanding, pressing against her, then easing away as the mountain breathed. She’d never been this close to anything with lungs this big.
Oh, please, don’t kill me . . .
Could she run? Where? As near as she could tell, she was in the woods somewhere. Beyond the tangle of the huckleberry bushes, she could see the thick forest, and through its canopy, a blue sky.
A powerful, hairy arm reached up and grabbed another cluster of berries from a branch.
When the hand that was bigger than her whole head descended to deliver the berries, Beck didn’t dare argue. She opened up, let the berries tumble in, and started chewing.
With the taste of the berries and her ability to chew them came a conscious realization that she was still alive—quite notable, given the circumstances. How long she would remain that way she had no idea and no encouraging thoughts.
She turned her head just enough to study her situation. She was being held by what appeared to be a huge ape, similar to a gorilla,
but not quite a gorilla. The crown of its head extended to a narrow crest like a gorilla’s, and it had a prominent brow ridge over the eyes, but the jaws didn’t protrude as much and the lips were more flexible and expressive. As near as Beck could tell, the creature’s legs were folded beneath it, but one large, hairy foot jutted out, with a wrinkled, hairless sole and all five toes aligned in a row. By its ample, fur-covered bosom, Beck concluded it was a female. They were now sitting in a cavity created when a tree upended, pulling the root ball out of the ground. Thick bushes, most of them huckleberries, had since moved in and now provided a blind that hid them from the outside world. The female held Beck inescapably in her lap with her left arm while feeding Beck with her right.
Another load of berries was on the way. Beck couldn’t take much more of this, but unless she wanted more berries smeared all over her face . . .
She opened up and let the beast dump them in. She chewed but did not move, did not stir, did not make a sound. Her hands were still trembling.
Suddenly the big arm loosened and the creature let her go. She slid down that big hairy body to the ground.
Run! her instincts screamed at her. It didn’t matter which direction. Run for the trees!
All it took was the slightest weight on her right ankle. “Oww!” With a shriek of agony, she fell in the tangled limbs and stalks, grabbing her ankle, grimacing. She checked for a break, for—“Awww!” The pain flashed up her entire leg, red-hot and lingering. She settled backward on a bush, bending and crumpling branches, gasping. She thought of crawling, pulling herself out of the woods with two hands and one good leg.
Not good enough. The beast lunged forward faster than Beck could pull to get away. It overshadowed Beck like a rust-red thundercloud, nudging her, poking her with a big finger, nearly flipping her body over. Terror in combination with her stutter took away Beck’s ability to speak, even to scream. The creature backed off, resting on all fours, and gave her some space.
Daring to move, Beck felt her ankle again under the creature’s sentrylike stare. The ankle wasn’t broken as near as she could tell, but she did have a cruel souvenir from her tumble over the falls— a bad sprain. She wouldn’t be walking, much less running, anytime soon.