Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(84)
And the steel grating might also provide some protection from thrown rocks. I’ve actually never thought about that until writing it down just now. I’m also thinking about finding a use for the shelves’ steel support poles. They must be as strong as bamboo, and hollow, but how could I ever drill holes for the knives? If I only had more time to experiment.
But I don’t. From Mostar’s workshop I can see everyone asleep in the Common House. I can see everyone sleeping, curled up in comforters and sleeping bags. Bobbi on the couch. Effie, Carmen, and Pal on cushions. Dan on an air mattress we found in the Durants’ house. Probably my imagination but I think I can hear them snoring.
That’s not all I can hear.
That’s why I can’t make any more shields, or Iklwas, or anything else anymore. For the last few minutes, the woods have been coming alive. Branches breaking, the occasional grunt. I hope my work didn’t attract them, the high-pitched metallic banging. Maybe it’s just time. They’re fully digested, well rested.
There it is, the first howl.
They’re back.
No motion lights yet. The sounds seem far away. Maybe they’re psyching themselves up. Harder to hunt on a full stomach?
Deep hooting cries now. Alpha. Rallying them to finish us off.
I wish we had more time. If just to practice with the javelins. No chance now. I probably shouldn’t have wasted all this time writing. But just in case something happens to me, I wanted there to be a record. I want someone, anyone who reads this, to know what happened.
The hoots are getting louder now.
Time to wake everyone and apologize for not getting their keepsakes. I’m good at apologizing. Specialization.
I thought I’d be more afraid. Maybe I am and just don’t feel it. Maybe I’m just too tired to care.
Fear and anxiety. I’ve lived with the latter all my life. Now it’s gone. The threat is here. I feel strangely calm, alert, focused.
I’m ready.
Another howl. Closer.
Here we go.
Red colobus are most aggressive and most successful at counterattacking in habitats where they can mount an effective defense without being scattered.
—CRAIG B. STANFORD, Chimpanzee and Red Colobus
JOURNAL ENTRY #17
October 17
My man is dead.
It was hard to wake Dan up. He was sleeping so soundly. I had to shake him a couple times. He looked up at me, started to ask something, then got his answer from the distant grunts.
We roused the others. No need to explain the plan. Everyone knew their jobs. Palomino hid under blankets behind the couch while the rest of us headed to the workshop for our “bait.” So heavy, slowing us down. I worried about the sound of the flapping tarp, the smell catching their noses before we were ready. If they’d jumped us at that moment, unarmed, hands full, in that narrow stake-and-glass-free path.
Once the “bait” was placed, we started the knocking. Short, wide bamboo rods, hollowed out for maximum sound.
thock-thock-thock
Slow and synchronized, striking them together like kindergarten woodblocks.
thock-thock-thock-thock-thock-thock…
We drummed for a full minute, standing in a line outside the Common House door. I glanced back inside at the wall clock, held up my hand for silence.
They didn’t answer.
We waited. I held my breath, straining to hear some kind of reply. I started to think, hope, that maybe they weren’t coming. Maybe my theory about the full belly was right. They were done with us, watching from a respectful distance before slinking away for good.
I really did hope that was true. And yet, there was this tiny part of me, no point in denying it now, just the barest thread of disappointment.
“Do you…,” Carmen started to say.
thk
We almost missed the first one. My hand went back up.
thkthk
Soft and muffled, the other side of the ridge.
thkthkthkthkthk
I looked at the group and we answered as one.
Thckthckthck!
Faster. Louder. I could feel my palms moisten, my ears warm, and suddenly I really needed to pee.
More knocks followed by the howl. Long, powerful. Familiar.
I knew that voice.
I answered it with mine.
I’m sure I sounded ridiculous. Trying to match those lungs was like a flute taking on a tuba. But I did try. Laying my knock-sticks down, stepping forward and raising my head to the ridge, I let go the deepest, harshest boom my diaphragm could muster.
A pause, maybe bewilderment on their part?
But then she answered, followed by the chorus of her troop.
These hoots were much closer now, direct instead of echoed.
They’d come over the rise. They had to be watching us.
I looked back at the group and said, “Now!”
Dan hit a button on his iPad, manually igniting the house’s outside lights. There was no way they could miss us now, or the “bait” as we whipped the tarp off Consort’s corpse.
The sounds, I thought I’d heard them all before. The call to challenge, the rallying hoot, the roar to charge, the chatter of food. But this, this cacophony of wails. Shock? Did they not know Consort was dead? Grief? Suddenly seeing him like this, no time to process his passing or conceive of how he died? Or was it hope? Belief that he might actually still be alive and that we were somehow holding him prisoner? “Please don’t hurt him! Please let him go!”