Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(60)

—JANE GOODALL, In the Shadow of Man





JOURNAL ENTRY #13 [CONT.]


No one spoke, all of us probably wondering if we’d really heard it. But then, a moment later, crying. Human.

As a group, we dropped everything and rushed out into the night. It was clear, close to the village, maybe halfway up the ridge, in a densely wooded clump above the Boothes’ house.

A lone voice. Piercing. Agony. Like when you’re little, the sound you first hear from a friend who’s fallen hard. That long rush of diaphragm torment after the initial shocked inhale.

“Vincent?” Bobbi’s voice, wobbly, questioning.

Then she hollered, right next to me. “Vincent!”

Effie covered Palomino’s ears, leading her back inside as Vincent’s next long shriek broke into echoing sobs.

Bobbi looked at me. Why me? “He’s hurt,” then, to Dan, “We have to go get him!”

Dan stepped toward the sound. Just one step, because Mostar reached out to grab his arm. She missed, but held him firmly by a clump of shirt.

“No.”

Her expression was blank, practical.

“Don’t.”

More distant sobs, quick, soft, then suddenly launching into another long scream.

“He’s hurt!” Bobbi looked incredulously at Mostar, then to Dan. “He needs help!”

I saw Dan wiggle his arm slightly, pulling at Mostar’s grip. Testing?

She wouldn’t budge. “That’s what they want.”

It took me a second to realize what she meant. I suddenly wanted to throw up everything I’d just eaten.

Dan got it. I saw his shoulders sag.

Carmen and Reinhardt too, not the shoulders, but the understanding. A moment of surprise, then a mental shift, Carmen facing back out to the ridge with Reinhardt studying his shoes.

But Bobbi, “They!” She threw her hands up. “What ‘they’? You can’t hear them!”

“Can’t you smell them?” asked Mostar.

Even with the wind at our backs, the stench was overpowering.

“They’re keeping quiet on purpose.” Mostar kept her attention on the ridge. “They want to draw us out, pull us apart.” The way her eyes squinted, flicking from side to side. “Sniper trick.”

“Wha…,” Bobbi started to say, then, as if she’d just picked the winning lottery ticket, her whole face broke into this wide smile. “You’re crazy!” Shaking her head with this little half-chuckling gasp. “Crazy! Sonofabitch post-trauma…”

And then she spun back to the darkness. “Vincent! We’re coming, baby! We’re coming!” And over at Dan with a head-jerking c’mon!

And when he didn’t move.

“What’s the matter with you!” Her eyes focused on him, then out to the wider group.

Dan, just standing there, believing Mostar but wanting to help Bobbi so badly. The way his eyebrows narrowed, lip quivering. I would have said something, I know I would have, but then I noticed his face. The light thrown on his skin, just the barest shade brighter. And behind him, Carmen shouted, “There!”

She was pointing past us to the space between the Boothe and Durant houses. None of us had noticed it until then. We didn’t realize that the lower half of that space had been partially blocked by something. And that something was now running up the slope behind the houses. The one with long legs. Scout. Watching us all this time? Frustrated when we wouldn’t take the bait?

I watched him vanish into the brambles, just below a gap in the trees. And in that gap, at the top of the ridge, lit by the glow of the houses…

I can’t be sure if it was Alpha. You can’t tell at that distance. And I’m not sure of what I think it was waving at us. Had to be a branch. And it must have been cracked in the middle. Why else would it have dangled like that? And there’s no way, no way I could have seen what my brain keeps telling me were fingers.

“We can’t.” Reinhardt, speaking to the back of my head, then, as I turned to the group. “Mostar’s right. We can’t go out there.” And to Bobbi, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” In the pale motion-light glare, I watched her lips go white.

“Bobbi”—Reinhardt gave a resigned shrug—“please just look at the situation with—”

Another scream and Bobbi pointed to the darkness. “Listen!” Eyes wet, bouncing slightly like a child. At the next scream she grabbed her hair with both hands. “OhmyGod ohmyGod…”

Dan tried another quick lunge away from Mostar, his free arm reaching behind his back for the stabber he’d hidden under his shirt.

She must have seen the bulge. Or just suspected? “Dan!” Her voice raised in warning, her other arm grabbed his.

Bobbi looked at both of them, hands out, rasping, “Please.”

Carmen edged toward her. I followed. I don’t know what we thought we would do. Comfort? Restrain?

Carmen barely touched her shoulder before she threw it off in a wild, frantic swipe. “Please! Please!” To all of us. “Please!”

“Bobbi,” said Reinhardt, soft and soothing, “you have to understand that there’s nothing we can—”

“YOU!” She growled, turning on him. “You’re doing this!”