Night of the Sasquatch

  NIGHT OF THE SASQUATCH

  Eric S Brown

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Eric S Brown

  NIGHT OF THE SASQUATCH

  The world was changing. America used to be a place of freedom. Now, as I sat on the roof of the apartment building I lived in, watching the soldiers and others work at completing the wall, I could only think about how much had already been lost. The wall was meant to protect us. It wasn’t being built to keep those of us who lived in Cedarmark in, but rather to keep the beasts out. I stared at the distant wall and shuddered. Would it be enough? I prayed it would be. But I had my doubts.

  Gone were the days where people lived without fear. Gone too was the divide that had nearly ripped the country in half. There was no more time for politics and arguments. Everyone just wanted to survive and that meant working together. After all, we were all humans and the things, out there, beyond the wall, weren’t.

  It had all started out west,—Washington, Oregon…places like that. Places where the beasts had supposedly been spotted time and time again before most people truly knew that they were real. A town was wiped out. The government spun a cover story. The press bought it. And everything returned to normal. But then another town was torn apart, and another after that. It became impossible to hide the truth of what was happening. Word got out. The press tried hard to deny it all. Their misconceptions and lies were blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain from my point of view. I suppose though that like with many things, folks in general just didn’t want to knowledge the truth. After all, it wasn’t happening to them. Their lives went on. They went to their jobs. Took their kids to school. Paid the bills. And did their best to be happy.

  The military, who had actually been called into action after the first two attacks, began operating openly. The press announced that entire sections of the western states had been sealed off from the rest of the country. Social media was filled with reports of the beasts. The voices of those who had believed in Bigfoot all along grew louder. It was a great time of vindication for them. Sadly though, most of them denied what was happening. They truly believed that the Sasquatch race was a peaceful one. They blamed climate change, the cutting down of forests, the encroachment of mankind, and anything else they could point a finger at other than accepting the truth. And the truth was that Sasquatch were real and they weren’t keeping to the woods anymore. The beasts had declared war on the human race and were determined to wipe it out.

  Even as sections of the western states were sealed off, other attacks flared up all through the United States and the rest of the world. The beasts came at us from everywhere there were woods that could contain them. No one could explain their numbers or where all of the beasts came from. There were all sorts of crazy theories. Some believed the Sasquatch were aliens. Others figured the things had been hiding under the surface of the Earth. There were even folks who believed that God Himself had multiplied the numbers of the beasts so that they could cleanse the Earth and rid it of the sinfulness of man. In the end, it didn’t matter where all of the Sasquatch came from. They were there and that simply was the truth of it.

  The entire world was plunged into chaos. Within a matter of weeks, huge sections of the country fell to the beasts. The more rural areas were the first to go. Battle lines were drawn and the war between man and beast came to a head. Technology versus sheer, brute strength and animal cunning. Our own disbelief was one of the Sasquatch’s greatest weapons against us. Many didn’t believe in any of it until they saw one of the beasts with their own eyes and by then, it was usually too late to matter.

  The president talked about using nukes but never did. The military fought hard but always seemed to be blindsided by the beasts when they showed themselves and paid a heavy price in causalities for it. People withdrew into the cities and larger towns. Disease and starvation hit hard. That killed more of us than the beasts did if you really looked at the numbers. America depended so much on its infrastructure that once it collapsed and the roads were no longer safe to travel, there was no means of getting the food from where it was grown to the people who needed it. The same applied to medicine and other things that folks had always just taken for granted, thinking they could just pop down to the corner store and get whatever they needed.

  Fewer and fewer places even had such basic things as power and running water. America had changed from a promised land to an apocalyptic nightmare within only a couple of months. And the Sasquatch kept pressing forward, taking more and more of the country as their own. There was just no stopping the beasts with our failing resources. By that time, even the military was no longer functioning as a whole but rather as scattered and cut off from one another, independent units merely trying to hold their own positions.

  Through it all, I watched and I prayed for things to turn around. We humans had a great many victories against the beasts. I didn’t mean to make it sound like we didn’t. They were far from enough to change the tide of the war though. We just kept losing ground every day.

  It’s been three months now since the Bigfoot War began and here I am, trapped in the town of Cedarmark by the very wall meant to protect me. I know I shouldn’t feel that way. Here we have power, water, food, and hope. That is a great deal more than most of the country can say. It doesn’t make the days or the long nights, filled with gunfire and screams when the beasts came, any easier though. My name is Nick and I just can’t take all this any longer.

  ****

  The blood-spotted note crunched in Colonel Flint’s hand as he wadded it up and threw it aside in disgust.

  “I think we can expect a lot more of this to come, sir.” Lieutenant Wagner frowned. “Nick Willsher is just the first. The first that we know of among our own men anyway.”

  “Rather kind of him to leave such a detailed note behind,” Colonel Flint growled, his cheeks flushed red with anger.

  “Nick was a bit of thinker, sir. It was his way. His note fits with that,” Lieutenant Wagner commented. “He was a good soldier too. His loss is going to be felt. We’ve come to a point where every man on the line matters.”

  “The wall was finished up this afternoon,” Colonel Flint said. “That should take some pressure off.”

  “It will,” Lieutenant Wagner agreed. “A good thing too. We’re down to only three tanks and single APC in the city.”

  The use of armored vehicles had been all that kept the beasts held at bay while the construction of the wall had been completed. The construction of the wall had begun long before the beasts started coming at the city in real numbers. If it hadn’t, they would likely have all been dead by now. Them and everyone else in Cedarmark along with them.

  The massed attacks of the beasts were almost nightly now. The wall made the defense of the city much easier but even it was only a delay to the inevitable as Colonel Flint saw things. Either the beasts would learn from the heavy causalities of their attacks on the city and leave off coming at it, or eventually, as the number of his men and the supply of ammo dwindled, the city would be overrun.

  There were those among the citizens who knew how to make ammo and he had ordered them to start producing it, as much and as quickly as they could. Even so, it wasn’t enough to keep up with the amount expended in defending the city. That, too, was merely a temporary stopgap. Their ability to produce new ammo was again limited in its scope and duration. What he needed was a miracle that didn’t seem to be forthcoming.

  Fleeing the city wasn’t an option. There was no way to move all the civilians and he refused to leave them behind while he and his men ran. That would be murder as surely as putting the barrel of a gun to each of their heads and squeezing the trigger himself. No. His duty was to keep them saf
e or die alongside the people of the city.

  Lieutenant Wagner must have been able to see what he was thinking and shook his head.

  “I’m not for leaving anyone behind, sir,” Lieutenant Wagner said, “but there may very well come a day when we have no other option if any of us are to survive.”

  “But that day is not today, Wagner.” Colonel Flint sighed. “We have to hold out. For all we know, this city could the only one left.”

  That much was true. When he had taken command, Cedarmark had been in constant radio contact with three other cities. All of those had fallen silent. Maybe they had simply lost power. Perhaps the beasts had damaged their communications equipment during an attack. Colonel Flint doubted it though. Odds were they had been overrun just as Cedarmark remained in constant danger of falling to the same fate.

  “Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Wagner nodded. “I agree. That’ll be easier said than done though, sir, if we lose more men like Nick to…” he appeared to search for the right words, “the mess we’re in.”

  “The wall will help.” Colonel Flint wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Lieutenant Wagner of that fact or himself. “People can look out and see it now. Know it’s there, standing strong, and keeping those monsters out there from getting in here.”

  “One thing we could do that might help, sir,” Lieutenant Wagner offered.

  “Go on, Wagner. I’m listening,” Colonel Flint urged.

  “It’s impossible for us to make it so that no one is ever alone, sir, but we can take steps to ensure that at least our men aren’t. I suggest making sure every sentry post along the wall be assigned two men, every night. Beyond that, we could make it regulation that every soldier, even off duty, must be accompanied by one of his fellows at all times,” Lieutenant Wagner suggested.

  “Our numbers are stretched so thin … is doubling the guards even a possibility?” Colonel Flint asked.

  “It is if we draft more of the civilian populace into service,” Lieutenant Wagner answered.

  Colonel Flint frowned deeply. The civilian populace was so hard pressed just to get three meals a day. They were wound up and would have revolted already if they weren’t keenly aware that the presence of he and his men was all that was keeping them alive. Pushing them further might not be the best idea. He had twice before drafted civilians into service under his own authority as the ranking military officer of the city. Neither time had gone smoothly or without some resistance. Doing so again was a risk he wasn’t sure they could afford to take. Yet there appeared to no other choice.

  “Do it,” Colonel Flint ordered. “But ask for volunteers again first. Give some of them a chance to man up and step forward before we just take those we need at gunpoint.”

  “I’ll get right on it, sir.” Lieutenant Wagner nodded and then left his office.

  Colonel Flint watched Wagner leave and then spun around in his chair to stare out his office’s only window. The sky beyond it was dark. There was a storm rolling in from the south. With any luck, it would keep the beasts from making a move against the city tonight.

  ****

  Rationing in Cedarmark was fierce. All the food and fuel were watched over closely by the military group that had taken control of the city. Chris tried to look at that as a good thing. He had finally been able to lose weight. He was down to what he thought of as a respectable one hundred and seventy pounds. That didn’t make going without the life he had been used to before the beasts came any easier but it did put a positive upswing on things in his mind. And he needed that. He had heard the story that was going around about the soldier who had taken his own life yesterday. That guy hadn’t been the first and likely wouldn’t be the last to take the one-way ticket offered by a round through the skull out of Cedarmark.

  He sat at the stool behind the counter of Boom Comics. Like most other places in Cedarmark, the store had no power. That didn’t matter during the day though. The store’s large front windows let in more than enough light for him to read by. Before the world had ended, Chris had been a die-hard comic collector. Coming to the store reminded him of the good times in his life. It helped keep the darkness of the present away. He could spend hours going through the dozens upon dozens of long boxes in the store’s inventory, just sorting and seeing what was there. It was fun and he still hadn’t finished a complete list of everything the store had. But mostly, he just read. The comics allowed him to escape into other worlds, other realities, where heroes often saved the day. He was reading an issue of Devil as the door of the shop swung open and the tiny bell above it rang. Chris looked up to see his brother Marcus coming toward him.

  “Hey…” Chris started, greeting him with a smile.

  Marcus wasn’t smiling. A dark scowl twisted the features of his face into something ugly and violent. He came right up to where Chris was sitting and ripped the comic he was reading from his hands.

  “This is what you do?” Marcus growled. “The entire world is dead and you’re sitting here reading comics.”

  “Careful!” Chris yelled. “That’s a key issue you’re waving around there!”

  Marcus waded up the comic he had taken from Chris and flung it onto the floor of the shop.

  “Do you hear yourself, Chris?” Marcus snapped. “A key issue? Like any of that crap matters anymore. There ain’t no eBay to put it on, Chris! Nobody out there to buy it either!”

  Chris had leaped out of his seat at the counter, going after the comic Marcus had so cruelly damaged and threw down. He snatched it up, beginning to smooth it out and see just how much damage his brother had done to it.

  “Marcus, did you ever stop to think that maybe, just maybe, these books are all the more important now? They’re a piece of the world we had before! Maybe one of the few things that’s really left of it.”

  “Don’t try to feed me that crap, Chris. These things are just paper and made up stories for kids!” Marcus yelled, waving a hand around at the long white boxes that filled the center of the store. “You’re an adult now! Act like one!”

  Chris gently placed the injured comic on the counter, staring at Marcus. He was doing his best to keep his anger held in. Marcus could kick his butt and he knew it. “What is it that’s got you so upset, Marcus?” he asked cautiously.

  His words hit Marcus just as hard as any punch he could have thrown would have, likely harder.

  “That … that soldier who took his own life, Chris,” Marcus stammered. “His name was Nick. I knew him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chris said. “I didn’t realize.”

  The anger that had been burning in Marcus rose up in him again. “Of course you didn’t realize! You never leave this fragging shop!”

  That was an exaggeration. Of course he left the shop to go home and help take care of their mother while Marcus was off being a soldier. Seeing how Marcus was glaring at him again though, he wasn’t about to argue the point. Chris kept silent and watched his brother.

  “Word has come down that Colonel Wagner is going to be taking volunteers again. I want to see you there when that happens, Chris. It’s time you grew up and started contributing something to keeping us all alive.” Marcus glared at him, discreetly trying to wipe at the tears which had welled up in his eyes. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal.” Chris nodded. “But…”

  “No buts, Chris, or I am coming back here and burning this place to the ground,” Marcus said. “Don’t think for a second that I won’t.”

  With that, Marcus turned and stormed out the shop’s door onto the street outside it.

  Chris watched him go. He looked down at his own hands and saw they were shaking. What the heck was he supposed to do? He wasn’t a soldier and frankly wasn’t cut out to be one either. In truth, Marcus wasn’t either. His brother was just a member of the volunteer militia that the colonel had created and added to his own forces after setting up in the city. Marcus was proud that he had been among the first volunteers to join up. Prouder that he had done his time out th
ere keeping the beasts out of the city. Marcus had always been a fighter. Long before the beasts came, Marcus had been the only member of their family that had stood up to their drunk of a father before their mother had finally gotten the nerve to go to the police. Marcus had saved him many times during those days, taking the beatings that had originally been meant for him. He owed Marcus. Their mother did too. It had still broken her heart when Marcus had joined up with the colonel and his men but she had understood why. Marcus needed something to fight as much as Chris needed his own escape that the comics gave him.

  Shuddering, Chris sat back down on the stool at the shop’s counter. When Marcus got like this, there was no reasoning with him. And he knew, too, that Marcus would make good on his word about burning down the shop. He couldn’t let that happen. Chris had gone beyond claiming the shop as his hangout spot. He had moved his own collection into it. Many of the city’s kids came to the shop still and he enjoyed seeing them, talking comics with them, and trading books. The shop’s real owner was dead. Mr. Henderson had passed on of a heart attack right after the world had gone to hell and the colonel and his men had shown up in the city. For all intents and purposes, the shop was Chris’s now, and even if it cost him his life, he was going to protect it.

  ****

  As twilight drew nearer, Joe trudged along through the woods. He was tired. His legs ached with each step that he took. His journey had been a long one. In just a couple of hours though, he would be reaching his destination—the city of Cedarmark. It was the last holdout of humanity in the state of North Carolina, and perhaps the world. The city, from his understanding, wasn’t much. A few hundred people and the remnants of a military division that had holed up there. In his hands, he carried a M82 Barrett, ready for use. Strapped to his back were crossed, sawed-off shotguns held in leather sheaths. Between them was a sheathed, equally deadly katana. Joe wore matching heavy pistols holstered on his hips. A pack was slung onto his shoulder. It contained many more instruments of death.