Appalachian Galapagos (7 page)

The beast stood and shrieked, holding its hairy hands out in an attempt to protect itself as Lukas swung again and again. Fueled by fear, Lukas' frenzied attack was too quick for the slow-moving creature. Lukas shifted his feet and swung the bloody stick in a wide arc striking the beast in its fanged mouth, smashing lips in a wet explosion of teeth and blood and animal screams.

Seconds later, like a great rare tree, the beast fell, striking the earth with an anti-climactic
thud
.

The only sounds in the clearing were the
hyperventilations
of Lukas as he stood above the fallen monster, Bitch-Be-Quick Stick raised high, arms shaking. His energy spent, he finally lowered and leaned upon the tall gory staff.

With a whisper, Jimmy approached the still beast.

"What the hell is that?"

"
Dunno
," Lukas said, gasping. "Dead now, though."

"Did you kill it?" asked Frank.

"Yep."

"What the hell did you do that for? It wasn't even attacking us."

Both Jimmy and Lukas turned to Frank. Lukas' eyes were still wild from the battle, his face covered with thick crimson droplets.

"And it won't attack us now, will it? I didn't give it the chance."

"What the fuck is
yer
problem, Frank. You gettin' soft? It was it, or us."

Frank shook his head. He knew they were right. Something had come over him, but it had disappeared with the beast's death. In some strange way, he had almost reached an odd insight from the beast.

"I...I don't know."

Jimmy shook his head and began to circle the beast cautiously. He rubbed his hands through his thick mane of brown hair, eyes wide and jumpy.

"So what the fuck is this thing?"

Lukas pointed the blood-splattered stick at the massively large bare foot. The sole was covered with thick calluses. Toenails the size of paring knives stuck wickedly forth.

Frank kneeled down and studied the beast's face. Its eyes still wide with the shock of the attack, were now glassy in death. It
stared
off into the darkening branches as if they alone held the secrets of its existence. And if Frank was ever to learn the truth, he understood he would need to decipher the whispering within the leaves.

He couldn't help but feel sorry for it. One of its arms was folded in front of its face, a vain effort to block the attack, long furry fingers curled up like a dead spider.

"We're gonna be fuckin' rich, man," Lukas said. "This here's the Bigfoot. We killed us a Bigfoot."

Jimmy nodded, staring at the thing's massive feet.

"It can't be Bigfoot. There's no such thing."

"You tell me what the hell it is then?" asked Lukas, kicking at its massive leathery foot.

"It's some kind of monkey, or maybe an ape."

Lukas snickered. "Last time I checked there weren't no monkeys or apes around these parts. Hell, there ain't no monkeys in all of the United States. And even if you was right and this is an ape...it's still gonna be worth money. Maybe even millions. This thing is at least seven feet tall. When is the last time you saw an ape that big?" He shook his head. "Think what you want, man. This here's a Bigfoot. Don't you remember that footage of one
runnin
' away from a camera? This thing looks just like it, don't it? There ain't no fuckin' doubt in my mind, this here's a Bigfoot."

Frank shook his head. "Listen to what you're saying, Lukas. That footage you're talking about is supposed to be a hoax. And other than that, I don't think there are any other pictures of a Bigfoot. It's a big man in a fucking monkey suit in that footage. All the cameras and videotape on this planet and no one has a good image of a Bigfoot? Why is that, do you think? I'll tell you. Because Bigfoot doesn't exist."

"Frank, look at what we got here on the fuckin' ground," Lukas said, kicking the beast in the leg. "You can go on about hoaxes. You can go on about monkeys and apes, but it just don't matter. I know as certain as I know that Jimmy fucked a fat chick that this thing here is a Bigfoot. There ain't
nothin
' else it can be. Not one fuckin' thing."

"It looks like a Bigfoot to me," Jimmy added.

"
We just gotta do one thing as far as I'm concerned," Lukas said, his voice somber.

"What's that?" asked Jimmy.

"We need to get this body out of the woods and start
callin
' the newspapers. No, television. We're definitely
talkin
' television here. Maybe even a made for TV movie. If we're lucky we can get us Banjo Boy. I can see it now."

"All right. But you tell me, how are we going to move this thing?" asked Frank. "It's three miles down the river to the landing and that thing must weigh at least three hundred pounds, probably more. What are we going to do, ride it down?"

"
Naw
, we can't ride it down," Jimmy said. "We might lose it in the rapids."

"I don't care how much it weighs, man," Lukas said. "We're
talkin
' millions of dollars here. We'll carry it out. I'll carry
anythin
' for that much money."

Jimmy pointed to the setting sun.

"I think we would get to some sort of road faster if we went that way."

Frank stared into the darkness between the trees and wondered if there were any more of the things out there. Lukas' actions had saved them, he supposed. And if there was one, there could be another.

A deep rush went through him leaving him cleansed. It was several seconds before he recognized it. Closure. A sense of closure. If this was what had killed Robbie that summer so long ago, it would never kill again.

He allowed himself a smile.

He no longer felt so bad about its death.

Tuckered...Fred Astaire...Watch This...The Theory of Revolution...The Voice of Redneck Reason

Two hours later, they were completely and utterly exhausted from lugging the massive beast.

They were surprised they had carried it as far as they did. The river had sapped their strength, the continuous rushes of adrenaline needed to survive the river, kill a living demon and transport such a weight had finally taken their toll as their bodies realized there was nothing else to borrow from.

For a while, the riches of paradise had infused them, but each step had dropped them closer to hell. It's amazing how personal needs could take over one's thinking. A million dollars meant a lifetime of freedom. The opportunity to change the unchangeable.

Yet all Frank could contemplate was a soft warm bed. Some place to drop the loosening bag of battered bones he had once called his body. He had passed the point where he cared and was ready to forget the entire foolish journey to fame. Million dollars or not.

The beast weighed more than three hundred pounds. It had to. Even with the three of them, they had been forced to stop every few minutes to catch their breaths. To make matters worse, the constant stench of the animal stabbing into their nostrils had sent Jimmy and Frank repeatedly to their knees, retching half-digested beer and creek water. And Lukas, the man who would eat anything, had an iron stomach. Nothing short of seven day road kill served up as Smokey Mountain p
âté
would make that boy sick. Yet he was.

To make matters worse, the forest was almost completely dark. Frank had never liked the forest at night. Even the most mundane sounds were reminders that he wasn't alone. He didn't know if it was the ancient trees or if it was the hills that rose out of the mists like barrows in some Middle Earth landscape. Maybe it was the moss and fern- covered ground or the creatures scurrying away as they approached. Of course it could have been the kudzu, most alien with the way it draped its tiny might over and around everything that stood too still, the vine's apparent natural imperative, to kill what fed it.

"Fuck it, man," Frank said, dropping the leg of the beast. His action threw the Jimmy and Lukas off balance. "I ain't carrying this thing no more. This whole thing is fucking ridiculous."

"Don't be a dick, man!" Lukas said. "We can't carry this thing without you. Hell, we can barely carry it
with
you!"

"I don't give a flying fuck whether you can carry it or not, Lukas! You killed the damn thing, you carry it! My arms are dead here!"

What Frank didn't dare speak about was his increasing apprehension. He wasn't a coward. Sure, there were things that scared him, but those were the types of things that one couldn't grasp, concepts that eluded the sanity of reasonable thought. There was a time when he had been at home in the woods. But now...

He had seen far weirder things in his life. From the unearthly screams of
Vivi's
rage as she lay
Cthulhu
in the basement of her home to the
Whitmire's
otherworldy
still, Frank had seen more craziness than most men. Yet, slick fingers of fear kept slipping and sliding along his spine, tap dancing like a daddy longlegs with Fred Astaire aspirations. It was more than the dark, more than the woods, more than the creature...he could not help but think that there was something intervening.

Fate, maybe.

"What's that?" asked Jimmy, pointing his finger off into the darkness.

Frank and Lukas turned and saw the almost invisible flickering of a light off through the trees. Now that they had stopped arguing they could detect the murmuring of voices carried through the murky wilderness.

"Yes!" Lukas said. "They probably got a phone or even a radio to get us out of here! You gotta help us carry it now, Frank! It ain't even that far, man. Look, it's not even the length of a football field."

"Probably someone's still," Frank said. "You remember how the
Whitmire's
do it? They lure you in and then blast your ass. You know better. There's no way I'm sneaking up on some light way out in the middle of Bum Fuck Nowhere. No fucking way."

"Come on. We're all tired, guys. What could happen?"

What could happen
was the same thing as
 
saying
Watch this
.

"What could happen?" Jimmy asked. "I can think of a hundred things. Fuck me
runnin
' if Darwin doesn't have us already."

"Fuck Darwin," Lukas hissed.

"No. I think he's already fucked us. Remember Frank's Theory of Revolution? If this dead hairy giant ain't a member, then I don't know what is."

Frank bit back a lunatic laugh at Jimmy's mispronunciation.

"Look," Lukas said, "we went into a creek when we wasn't supposed to. Stupid? Yes, but we survived. We went through the Widow without any paddles. Stupid? Yes, but we survived. Then, against all odds we found us a Bigfoot and killed it. Stupid? Maybe."

"What's your point?" asked Frank.

"My point is that Darwin has
nothin
' to do with this. It's all about God. It's all about faith. God has thrown about as much at us as he will. Hell, so far we are Biblical with the amount of shit we've been
dealin
' with. Maybe it's a test for
somethin
'. Ever think of that, Frank? Think of all the shit that has been
goin
' down, man. And we lived through every one of them."

Jimmy stared at his friend sideways.

"And I can't believe that a God that is worshiped for its love would try and fuck us again. Come on! We've had our tests. We've passed them. Now, let's get the fuck outta here."