Bigfoot War (3 page)

Jeff leaned forward in his seat thinking about what lay ahead of him now. Finding the creature after all these years seemed an impossible task, but something deep inside told him the thing was still in these woods and very much alive.

“
You’re telling me your father and brother were killed by Bigfoot?” Tom asked again.

“
We’ve been through this. I told you everything I remember about that night.” Jeff waved a handful of newspapers at Tom. “And everything I’ve learned since that night, too. The only reason I came back to this place is to see it bleed. It’s time someone put an end to the monster. I need to know if you’re in or out.”

Tom ground out the butt of his last cigarette in the ashtray and glanced longingly at the empty pack on the table beside it. Between the pack and the ashtray sat the now-warm and half-drank cans of beer they’d popped the tops on an hour ago.

“
Jeff, you know I owe you, but this is crazy.”

“
In or out, Tom. Which is it?” Jeff leaned forward in his chair. “I’m going after it tonight with or without you.”

“
Fine. I’m in. I got nothing better to do anyway,” Tom said. “But if the thing turns out to be real like you say it is, I hope you brought along some serious firepower. I don’t even own a handgun these days much less a hunting rifle.”

Jeff smiled. “Trust me, I brought enough gear for both of us.”

Becca

The man Becca pulled from the wreck now rested in the morgue. She waited beside the table next to his body. She thanked God her paperwork had kept her busy enough to get here
after
Lauren finished the autopsy and not during it. Lauren had a way of getting too excited about her work that she sometimes found disturbing. Lauren was across the room from her, putting together the final details of her report, typing madly away on her laptop. The woman’s lab coat was covered in blotches of blood from the work she’d been doing.

“
Well,” Becca said, growing impatient.

“
His skull is shattered. You’re right, too. It certainly didn’t happen in the wreck unless there was another truck that somehow rolled over his head.” Lauren laughed.

Becca glanced at her sternly. Lauren held up her hands, as if staving off an attack. “Bad joke, sorry. Look, I’m sorry if I’m cranky. I know you’ve been awake all night, too. I didn’t get a chance to pick up an energy drink on the way in. His body . . . his bruises and such coincide with what you would find from an accident like the one you described, but his skull . . . it looks like a really angry grizzly—or some other large animal—just squished it with its paws or something. The imprints, though, they’re more like those that would be left by a human hand than a paw. I’ve sent off my findings to the lab in Asheville. I’m hoping they’ll come up with a theory that makes a bit more sense.” Lauren handed Becca the autopsy report. “I found some really weird looking hairs on him, too. Sorry I don’t have more for you. Look it all over. Maybe it will spark an idea on what could’ve actually happened at the wreck because my best guess is this was the work of the Babble Creek monster.” Lauren made the statement obviously jokingly, seeming to poke fun at Becca’s disbelief in the local legend, but Becca knew Lauren was a believer herself and had worked for some time to convince Becca the thing rumored to stalk the mountains around the town was real.

Becca groaned. “You know I don’t believe in that crap.” However, she began to wonder if her friend might be right. Sometimes if you ruled out all that was possible, the impossible was the only answer. There was certainly enough sightings of the strange filed with the department each year, and she herself had seen casts of the creature’s supposed feet, but up until now she’d never given the beast any serious thought.

Lauren noticed Becca’s brooding and chuckled, apparently trying to get her to lighten up. “You wanna grab some coffee?”

Becca shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m still on the clock.”

When she got back to the station, Powell and Gab were waiting on her. Gab caught her at the door.

“
We got the results back on the license plate. The truck belonged to a Mr. Jack Daily. It’s not reported stolen and I haven’t contacted his family yet,” Gab said.

“
Well, that settles that, then.” Powell slouched behind his desk, haggard and exhausted from the long night. “Poor guy was passing through, got lost, ticked off the wrong bear, and moved on to a better place.”

“
What makes you think it was a bear?” Becca asked.

Powell rubbed his tired eyes. “You saw him, too, Becca. What else we got out there in the woods that could do that to a man?”

“
I’d agree with you, but I don’t know too many bears that rip off a truck door and throw it across the road in order to get at someone. This whole case is royally messed up.” Frustrated, she cursed, then slammed the autopsy report down on the desk in front of him.

“
Not to make matters worse, ma’am,” Gab said carefully, “but a call came in last night from old Hank at the bar. Jeff Taylor’s back in town and Hank says he sounds like he’s looking for trouble.”

“
Taylor?” Becca muttered. “Why do I think I should know that name?”

Powell burst into laughter. “He was the kid who amped up all the Babble Creek monster crap in the media when he claimed it killed his family and he barely escaped. No one here really took him seriously though. That year was a bad one for bears in the area and, frankly, Jeff was a messed up nerdy kid even before all that happened. When was it, about twenty years ago?” Powell’s grin was cat-like and full of mischief as his eyes met hers. “Your day just got worse, boss. I mean it. The guy’s hardcore and as crazy as they come—especially where the monster is concerned—but sane enough to serve in the Gulf War from what I’ve heard. Special Ops, too, or something like it. Hope he doesn’t flip and go all Rambo on us.”

Becca wondered how Powell knew all that.

He seemed to notice her questioning glance. “Checked his records during my break when I first heard he was back this morning,” he said.

“
I knew I should have stayed in bed yesterday.” Becca sighed and stormed off to her office, leaving Gab and Powell behind. “Find him,” she ordered over her shoulder. “See to it he doesn’t cause any trouble. This town’s already got its share today.”

Tom

The drive to the farm where Jeff grew up was a short one. He told Tom it was as good a place to start as any and Tom didn’t protest. Tom still hadn’t figured out if Jeff was completely off his rocker or not and it was his policy not to anger crazy people. He was quiet and withdrawn for the duration of the trip, not knowing what to say, and remained that way even after they reached the farm and got out of the car.

Jeff led him around to the trunk and popped it open. Tom’s breath caught at the arsenal tucked within it. Jeff chuckled at him. “Like I said, I got us covered on the firepower front.”

Tom looked the weapons over. An M-16, a .30-.06, an M4, and two older-looking-but-well-taken-care-of pump-action shotguns rested inside the trunk alongside two holsters with their belts wound around them. One contained a .44 Magnum and the belt held a pair of 9mm handguns. What caught Tom’s eye the most was all the gear surrounding the weapons. Motion detectors, tripwires, a small box of four grenades, and more technical-looking stuff that he’d be hard-pressed to define their function.

Tom picked up the M-16. “Been a while since I held one these,” he said, stroking the rifle with a fond remembrance of better days. “I have to ask, man: are you hunting a monster or planning on fighting a small-scale war?”

Jeff tossed him a clip. “Load up. The more daylight we have hunting this thing, the better. It’s big, strong, and a lot faster than us.”

As Tom gathered his gear, he noticed Jeff looking at his old home. No one had bought the place despite Jeff’s numerous attempts to sell it over the years. Vines grew up its sides and snaked their way around the banisters of the porch. A portion of the roof looked on the verge of caving in. Given the shape it was in, it was more than a fixer-upper and Tom couldn’t blame anyone for not buying it.

It reminded him of Jeff and how the man before him was not the one that left town.

Powell

Powell went to check on Becca a few minutes later and found her passed out in her office over a stack of paperwork from last night’s wreck. She’d kind of left him in charge so he called in Brent and Warren. Between the accident, the return of Jeff Taylor, and the department’s day-to-day stuff of the town, they needed the whole staff on duty.

He placed Warren in charge of overseeing the daily routine and sent him out on patrol. Gab was the logical choice to man the office. He was the most professional of them in that regard and knew how to keep things rolling from his desk. Brent, the department’s heavy muscle, he took with him to find Taylor. If Taylor had come back to town to stir things up or worse, he wanted the best back up he could get. Brent was one of those guys who the high school had to special order a football uniform for even back in his teens. He was a giant. Before he joined the Babble Creek Department, the man had worked as a detention officer over in Macon and spent a few years on the semi-pro wrestling circuit. He had the experience and the moves to match his strength. Powell had once seen Brent take on five bikers single-handedly. Two of them needed to be hospitalized afterwards. If the big man had ever lost a fight in his life, Powell didn’t know about it.

Their first stop was Gracie’s. Her little place was the only hotel in town. It made sense Taylor would have checked in there, and sure enough, he had and Gracie was throwing a fit about it. She told them that “that loser coach Tom Birchfield” was with him and the two of them apparently spent their night turning the room she’d rented them into a pool hall. Gracie said Taylor and Birchfield left early, but that Taylor hadn’t checked out so she got the impression he’d be back. Powell pitied him if he did return. The man was in for one heck of a tongue lashing. Gracie was in a rage so Powell let Brent handle her while he went to see what he could find in Taylor’s room.

Once giving it a sweep, he found nothing useful in the room or any clue as to where the two men could have gone; just the stench of cigarette burns on the carpet, empty beer cans, and other trash. Powell rescued Brent from the old lady’s wrath on his way out, promising her they’d see to it that Taylor paid for the damages when they found him and then they’d make him hit the road.

Powell glanced at his watch as they drove down Main Street. “You hungry?”

Brent smiled at him.

“
Guess that was a dumb question. How about we get some lunch and see if Taylor’s at the diner? I can’t remember the last time I ate with all this craziness going on.”

When they got there, Rita met them at the door. It was a bit early for the normal lunch crowd and the place was mostly empty.

“
Morning, boys. What can I get for you?” she asked, leading them to a booth.

“
Coffee, black. Lots of it and keep it coming,” Powell replied.

“
Thought you were going to eat?” Brent asked.

“
Some things are more important than food.”

“
Whatever.” Brent ordered the largest of the breakfast platters like he usually did and Rita raced off with her pad in hand to fetch it. She returned quickly with Brent’s heaping plate of eggs, bacon, sausage, gravy, and biscuits.

After she’d left, Powell studied Brent over his coffee. The big man shoveled eggs into his mouth at a frightening pace, but Powell noticed his glances at Rita. “You still have a thing for her, don’t you?”

Brent nearly choked on his eggs. He looked at Powell with a mix of denial, embarrassment, and a touch of anger.

“
Well?” Powell said.

“
We have traveled this line of thinking before, man. We both know she deserves someone better than me. I mean, come on, I barely scrape by on my salary. How could I support her? Not to mention my weight problem.”

Powell frowned at him. “Brent, one of these days you’re going to wake up and realize you would have been the best thing that ever happened to her, but by then it’ll be too late. She will have moved on. Rita isn’t going to wait on you forever.”

They finished their meal in silence. Their next stop was the old Taylor home. Powell figured Jeff would pop by the old farm if just for a quick look. Taylor still owned the property. There was also the matter of all the emotional baggage that went with the place for Taylor to consider. Yeah, he’d probably go there at some point.

Sure enough, the third stop proved to be the charm. There was a car left unattended behind the Taylor house.

Powell pulled their patrol car to a stop beside it and ran its plate. It was a rental registered to Jeff Taylor. A quick inspection of the area around the car produced evidence Tom was with him. The ground was littered with cigarette butts of the brand the coach smoked. Powell could see the Camel label on some of the ones not smoked right down to the butt. Brent whistled as he popped the trunk and looked in.

“
You better take a look at this,” the big deputy called to him.

Powell came over. A pair of pump-action shotguns and other weapons rested beside stacks of ammo and hunting gear.

“
Looks like they loaded up and headed into the woods,” Brent said.