Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Chapter 12

So much has happened. Where do I even begin?

That idiocy with the compost. Spreading it up on the ridge? I watched them all day. Vincent and Bobbi, chatting giddily over buckets of slop. The Perkins-Forsters, Effie doing most of the heavy lifting. Carmen with her rubber gloves and white paper flu mask. Germophobe. Palomino sticking close, apprehensively looking around. At least they only took up the top portions, the stuff that still looked like food. The bottom, newly minted dirt, we’ll need for the garden. Maybe they were thinking that, or were just too lazy to haul it up. I bet you that was the case with Reinhardt.

I busted him taking his burden to the Common House bin. “Busted” is the word because of the guilty look on his face. I watched him hoof his office trash pail (doesn’t he own a bucket?) across the driveway to the Common House. I feel a little mean doing what I did, but the way he looked around suspiciously…

I just had to knock on the window. That priceless freeze on his face when he saw me. It was worth it for the follow-up fake smile, and the ridiculous pantomime. I think he was trying to relate that the steep incline of the ridge was bothering his hip or something. Yes, I have seen him walk with some discomfort, but now, as he shuffled back to his house, his irregular step was a full-on limp.

Weenie.

I thought Mostar would get a good laugh over that. I thought she might need some cheering up. But when I got to the house, I noticed that the lights were on in her workshop. I’m sure I could have gone in, asked what she was doing, but after what happened that morning, she didn’t seem to want company.

And that was confirmed at dinner. She always cooked for us, either at her place or ours. That night she was MIA. I thought about going over again, and even asked Dan if I should. He responded matter-of-factly, “If she wanted to see us, she would.”

Dan and I didn’t eat together either. He was too busy trying to get all the windows re-alarmed. He wasted half the day on the glass, trying to seal the breaks with packing tape. It turned out the real problem was the screens. The connections had been loosened during the quake. He cursed not having a soldering gun, or any real tools for that matter.

Can you believe that? No tools, anywhere! I asked around, the Perkins-Forsters, the Boothes. Nobody. I mean, I guess it makes sense when you’re supposed to have a handyman on call 24/7. But now. I did talk to Mostar about maybe using her 3-D printer, which Dan thought was a great idea. But Mostar reminded us that her only raw material was a polymer-silicon mix. Glass tools? Dead end. So Dan made do with tape, paper clips, and, of all things, glue with a King Kong–ish ape on the front.

Looking at the ape, watching him work, it kind of dawned on me how vulnerable our house, all houses, really are. They’re not built for physical safety. That’s what cops are for. I remember Matt, Dan’s roommate sophomore year. He was a history major. I remember him talking about how rich Romans could afford to live in comfortable homes because they were protected by army forts down the road. But when the empire fell, those ruined forts got built back up into castles. Slit windows. Few doors. Security was everything. Matt always talked about this French movie where a medieval knight travels forward in time to the modern age, and is horrified at what’s happened to his castle. “Who put all these windows in? We’re defenseless!” I was thinking that as Dan tried to re-alarm all our windows.

And I wondered, without telling him, what an alarm would actually accomplish. It’s just a signal, a call for muscle that can’t get to us even if they heard. Maybe the siren itself will do some good. Scare them off, hopefully.

Dan must think so, the way he worked today. I did force him to eat something, a bowl of Bobbi’s puffed quinoa. He was so frustrated by then, almost getting in a fistfight with the upstairs window in the guest bathroom. It’s really small, and against a flat wall. No way for them to climb up or squeeze through. He wasn’t listening by that point, getting obsessive about “finishing the job.” When he started cursing it out, I put my food down and made him take a break. After “dinner” and a hot shower, he admitted that I was right. I was also right about him heading off to bed. I promised to wake him if I saw anything.

And for a few hours, I didn’t. The sky darkened, the house lights went on, then off as our neighbors turned in. I sat at the desk in my office, going over the village’s collective food list. The Boothes and Perkins-Forsters both asked me to make ration books for them. They weren’t shy about their ages or levels of physical exertion. Reinhardt was the only holdout. Maybe he’s too ashamed to get that personal, or maybe he just figures he’s got enough fat reserves to outlast us all. I’m not being mean here, just stating a fact. Technically he could outlast us all, because everyone’s pantries are about as shallow as ours. I’m trying not to think about what we might all look like by January, living on crumbs and the last licks of olive oil. I’m depending on the garden more than ever now, and hoping against hope that Bobbi’s new seed rice will sprout. Does rice need water to grow? Pictures always have it in flooded paddies. Did I totally mess up by sticking it in the ground? I really don’t know what I’m doing.

I also keep telling myself that, no matter what, it’s great that everyone’s starting to cooperate. Trading food for Dan’s handiwork, letting me go through all their stuff. People want to help, they want to work together. You can’t deny that kind of progress, and I was starting to feel pretty good about it, sitting there at my desk, when I noticed the first motion light flick on.

The Durants. I saw it a second before a shadow moved in between their house and the Boothes’. Then the shadow took form as the thing slouched up the slope into view.

It looked just like what I’d seen the night before, and it was definitely not a bear!

Broad, powerful shoulders, long, muscular limbs. I saw fingers. Four and a thumb! Don’t get me wrong though. It was not human! The size, the fur, the head! From the back, that huge neckless head almost looked like a helmet. And when it swung that head toward me, I got a good, clear look at its face. Hairless, shiny dark skin. A jutting jaw, lipless, under flat, flaring nostrils. A pronounced brow, shading deeply recessed eyes.

I don’t think it could see me. I’d switched off the desk lamp the second I saw the Durants’ porch light switch on. It wasn’t even looking at our house, more of a slow scan, left to right, across the whole neighborhood. Its movement was smooth, casual. Unlike last night, the motion light hadn’t scared it away.

I whispered, “Dan.” Then, a little louder. “Dan!” My response was a disturbed, hoggish snore. I got up slowly, afraid that it might detect the sudden motion, and walked swiftly but quietly back to the bedroom. Dan was dead asleep when I shook him. “Dan, Dan, wake up. It’s here!”

He groaned slightly, started with, “Wh…,” then his eyes snapped open and he practically shot out of bed.

We spoke in whispers: “Where?” “The Durants’.” “Where!” “Look!”

It was gone by then. I pointed to the empty spot on the slope. “Right there, it was…”

“There!” Dan’s finger pointed farther up the ridge, amongst the trees. Right where the Boothes had dumped their compost. Something was moving up there. Dark shapes in the dim porch light. More than one. We could see branches moving, a brush of fur. I caught sight of a full body, with lighter fur than the rest, auburn. Then it disappeared.

I suddenly remembered and said, “iPad!” Dan grabbed his tablet off the night table. I didn’t think about the light from the screen, how it illuminated both of our faces.

Eyes. At least three beady sets. They’d been darting around, attracted by each new porch light. But when we turned the iPad screen to our faces, all three turned on us. I wanted to duck, but instead told Dan to zoom in. The image was too grainy, especially on video setting. I still can’t believe we don’t own a real camera! They stared at us for a second, we stared back. Then a bright funnel spread out between our house and Mostar’s. Another one behind us!

We turned for the back window. We should have gone on the porch. Too “chickenshit,” as Frank would say. We did catch a view of it crossing from Mostar’s yard to ours. This one had patches of gray fur. The muzzle. Down the swinging arms. The skin was lighter than the first one I’d seen, and spotted. Age? I still don’t know. But I’m pretty sure it, she, was female. I haven’t mentioned this before, mainly because I didn’t realize I was looking at them, but the other one I’d seen had a large, dangling scrotum, noticeable even across the village. This one though, she didn’t have anything between her legs, and I could clearly see small pancaked breasts sagging on her hairless chest.

We only spied her for a second, not enough time to get the iPad up. She ducked under the balcony. Then a scraping, popping noise, and the lid from our compost bin flew across our yard like a Frisbee. We could hear grunts now. Low, quick.

Hm-mhmh-hm.

Rummaging through our bin, probably frustrated because we haven’t been here long enough to leave much. We listened for a few more seconds. Dan looked at me questioningly, making a two-fingered walking motion with his hand. Should we head downstairs? Just close enough to get some video? The porch light would catch it perfectly, and the burglar alarm was still on. I was considering it when this sharp, loud growl pulled us back to the front window.

The Common House. There were two of them. Males. They were smaller than the first one I’d seen, a little shorter and narrower across the shoulders. Younger? They were also identical. Twin One and Twin Two. Brothers? Do brothers fight like that?

Because they were fighting! One had a hand on the bin’s lid. Two tried to nudge him aside. One snarled and with bright, bared teeth, he bodily shoved Two away. Two snarled back and charged, grabbing the other side of the bin. One gave a gurgling bark noise and slapped or sideways punched Two in the face, knocking him back before turning on him with a loud growl. Canine fangs biting down hard into Two’s shoulder. And hanging on despite the three quick punches to the ear.

I could see the blood, bright red in the Common House light. Ironically, the light almost killed our view, catching the ash as their tussling threw up a thick gray cloud. It would have been cartoonish, this flurry of flailing limbs, if it hadn’t been so utterly terrifying. I’ve seen a few fights on Animal Planet and once in our neighborhood a couple of dogs got into it. But in real life, and with this much power. The size, the rage. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I think the ground was shaking!

One rolled off Two, kicking him in the face, then rose to a crouch. Two mirrored his stance. They circled each other for a few seconds. Teeth bared, arms raised. Their shrieks, high, chattering calls. They lunged at each other, swiping and dodging. One finally caught Two, biting him in the stomach. Two howled, bashing One repeatedly with hammer blows to the back. Thumping, bass drum impacts.

Then this ROAR! From the darkness, rolling across the village like a wave. The windows did shake this time. I’m sure of it. And from out of the gloom, this hulking mass. As tall as the first male I’d seen. Taller, I’m sure. And female! Wider hips. Breasts. Breast! One had been torn off. I’m not making this up. I checked the iPad footage later. Torn or bitten and scarred over. Her whole body was scarred. Claw marks, four jagged lines down the side of one thigh. Scrapes across both forearms. A bite mark, from a bear, maybe, or another one of them, in her left shoulder, like the kind One had given Two.

One must have regretted that now, when this new woman, the mother? The alpha? Isn’t that the right term? When she smashed him on the side of the face with her hand. He went sprawling, from the blow or just fear, rolling to a squat at her feet. Two didn’t need the blow to assume that position. He shrunk as she turned to him. She roared again, at both of them, and raised her arms for another strike. They cowered, heads down, with these little, doglike whimpers.

I must have done something. My body or just my head, some movement in the iPad’s glow, because suddenly that giant, scarred nightmare head whipped up in my direction. Her eyes locked on mine. And she saw me. I know she did. She reacted. Her lips pulled back into a growl.

And then a burglar alarm.

It was coming from the Boothes’ house, and as Dan and I looked over, we saw another one dashing up the slope behind the house. Its legs seemed much longer than the others, reminding me, now that I look back, of the one that chased me that day. Because now I know I was chased. I know it was one of them. This guy? Because it was a guy, I could see. The first one to arrive? A scout? These are all thoughts I’m having now. Not then.

At that moment I was just shocked at how quickly the other ones had fled. Because when Dan and I turned back to the Common House, we saw that the other three were gone. All of them. All the movement up and around the village, even behind us. We checked the back window as well. The older one scrounging in our compost bin. Gone.

We waited. Watched. Listened. We didn’t move for a full five minutes, which feels a lot longer than it sounds on paper. Silence. Stillness. One by one the outside motion lights timed out. And just as I was mulling over the idea of going outside to check on our compost bin, Dan grabbed my arm and said, “Mostar?”

There she was, all five determined feet of her, trudging across the driveway toward the Common House. She stopped at the black and gray patchwork from the fight, stooping as if to examine something. She looked over at the compost bin, turned back out toward the ridge. Hands on hips. Placid.

Dan muttered, “What the hell…”

But I knew. I could see that all the house lights were still on, and a few people—Reinhardt and the Boothes—were staring at her from their upstairs windows. I told Dan, “She’s letting us all know it’s okay to come out. She’s calling a meeting.”

We were the first ones to reach her, but not by much. The Boothes, robe and slippers, came jogging out toward us. So did Reinhardt (in a kimono!). Carmen was the only one from her house. Effie and Pal watched from the living room window.

“Did you see them?” I’m not sure who said that first, Bobbi or Carmen, but Dan answered with, “Oh yeah, we saw them!” and before anyone could respond, he added, “Those were definitely not bears!”

Whatever Vincent was going to say, Dan’s words shut him up. Carmen too went into reset mode. Mostar kept quiet, maybe waiting to see how that truth would land. She might have regretted it a second later when Reinhardt raised a questioning finger. “I’m sure,” he said in this very professorial tone, “that we all think we saw something other than an ursine family, but… let me remind everyone that given this poor light, the stress we’re all under, the human mind’s ability to fabricate—”

“Oh, come on!” Dan cut him off angrily. “Dude, you totally saw that! Them!” He looked at all of us, and while Mostar again kept silent, I mumbled, “I saw them, pretty clear. I think I know…”

I could have been a little more forceful. Me and confrontation. But at least I tried to stick up for Dan, even if it didn’t work on Reinhardt.

“You think”—eyes glimmering, hand out; Reinhardt looked so smug—“think you saw, and that is, indeed, the issue when confronted with an arcane situation…”

“Oh Jesus Christ.” Dan took off running for the house. “Wait!” he called over his shoulder. “Just wait!”

Reinhardt didn’t. “In the interest of full transparency, I will admit that my limited expertise terminates at anthropology”—he bowed his head slightly toward Carmen—“but haven’t there been recorded cases of mass hallucinations?”

Carmen took the bait and recounted something about a town in the Midwest during World War II where people blamed a bad smell on an “anesthetic prowler.” And, also about a school in Ireland in 1979 where kids all thought they were getting sick at the same time and ambulances were called and ultimately it turned out to be mass hypochondria.

“Exactly,” Reinhardt said with a tip of his imaginary hat to Carmen, and then his eyes went wide with another newly remembered epiphany. “Wasn’t there a story recently from India? Residents of a Delhi slum believed reported attacks of a mysterious giant ‘ape-man.’ But when the authorities declared it a case of mass psychosis, no new attacks were reported.”[27]

I looked at… to… Mostar. C’mon, we need you! That was my expression. But she responded with a blank look and the slightest out turn of her hands. No, you go. That’s what I took from it. I couldn’t understand. Still doubtful? I muttered, “Well, uh… that’s… like, smelling something and feeling something, right? But we all saw… with our eyes…”

I’m such a wimp. Thank God, Dan came to the rescue.

“Look!” He was running back with the iPad. “Look at this!”

And we did. There was the fight, clear and steady. He’d even rested the tablet on the windowsill. No argument from anyone. Not even from Reinhardt. Silent, defeated, he seemed to shrink as Carmen, of all people, switched sides. “They’re real.” It came out shocked, but Vincent’s “Bigfoot is real!” was definitely excited. Bobbi even smiled, grabbing his hand, and when Carmen waved for Effie and Pal to join us, I took the whole mood as relief that we weren’t all crazy.

Mostar must have interpreted it the same way, nodding at us and speaking for the first time. “There is no denying that these creatures exist.” And the chatter started, everyone talking at once, sharing stories they’ve heard. It felt cathartic, to admit what we all suspected, to make it “okay” by group agreement. I admit I was kind of taken up in the moment, re-watching the video with Effie and Pal. “Look at them”—that was Carmen—“look how big they are!”

“Do you remember?” That was Effie to her wife. “That time before we were married, when we were camping by Rimrock Lake and we smelled—”

“Now that they’re real,” Mostar cut her off, “what are we going to do about them?”

The chatter hushed. Everyone looked at her quizzically, including Dan and me.

Carmen asked, “What do you mean?”

And Mostar, kind of theatrically, reached into her robe for what looked like a sharpened stick. It was about a foot long, bamboo, and angled to a point at both ends. “We’re going to need a lot of these.” And she tapped the stick, the spike, against the bamboo growing behind her. “Hundreds maybe, but if we work together, and place them in a deep circle around the village…”

“Why?” Vincent asked, knowing, I suspect, but needing to hear it out loud.

“A defensive perimeter,” Mostar answered, waving the spike like a baton. “If they try to cross and one of them steps on one of these…”

“You want to hurt them?” Bobbi looked like she’d been slapped.

“Just deter them,” Mostar responded calmly.

“That’s what the burglar alarm did!” answered Bobbi.

“This time,” Mostar volleyed back. “But now they know it’s just harmless noise. And why do you think your alarm went off in the first place?” And to the group, she said, “They were trying to get in!”

Vincent, stepping up next to Bobbi, said, “Maybe they were just curious.”

Bobbi grabbed her husband, rallying to his point. “And you want to hurt them!”

“So they don’t try to hurt us,” Mostar answered with supreme confidence, all her previous doubt gone. “You heard what they did to that big cat.” A glance in our direction, then, “You all saw what they just did to each other.” As if to accentuate the point, she stooped to pick up a section of beaded ash. Holding it up to us, mashing it between thumb and forefinger, we could all see the red paste. “They’ve just shown us how violent they can be.”

Bobbi countered. “Not against us.” And this time Carmen came in with, “Why do you have to assume that they’re evil?”

Mostar took a breath before speaking. “Carmen, they’re not good or evil. They’re just hungry.” A nod to the darkness. “The berries are all gone, and the fruit from our trees, and your compost, which probably kept them here instead of following the other animals… assuming they haven’t already eaten those animals.”

Vincent shrugged defiantly. “So, then there’s nothing left.”

Mostar looked us over. “There isn’t?”

Nobody spoke. I felt Dan’s grip tighten.

Mostar was clearly hoping the group would come to this conclusion on its own. And maybe they would have if Reinhardt hadn’t spoiled it. “In point of fact”—he stepped into the circle—“we may be in a more advantageous situation than if these visitors were, in fact, ursine.” He must have been waiting for the opening, crafting his lecture while the rest of us debated. “After all, bears are omnivorous while… and I confess my knowledge reservoir of primatology is even shallower than psychoanalysis…”

And he gave a chortle of faux humility. Has anyone ever deserved more to be punched in the face?

“But I seem to recall that most hominids are herbivorous in nature.” Mostar made a sound and he bowled over her with his pontificating. “Great apes! Gorillas and orangutans subsist only on fruits and vegetable matter. In fact”—I could actually see when the cartoon lightbulb appeared above his head—“if I’m not mistaken, one anthropoid species, the bonobos of southern central Africa, are matriarchal pacifists by nature.”

I couldn’t believe what came out of his mouth next. He actually looked over at the Perkins-Forsters and said, “And correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t said bonobos even practice a form of inter-female sexual diplomacy?”

Was it the shock that kept Effie and Carmen silent? Or were they, like the Boothes, and Reinhardt himself, just so damn determined to hold on to anything to keep the fear away? Ego-defense mechanism. Reinhardt continued his classroom speech with, “In fact, since we know nothing of these hominids’ social order, or their method of interaction, accidentally injuring one of them might precipitate the very regrettable incident we seek to avoid.”

From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.

Are you serious? Why would any of them have a gun? Just consider your question. Why does anyone have a gun? Barring this unique circumstance…

He nods to the weapons around us.

…there’re only two legitimate reasons. Once you take out the toys and treason, the man-boys who want to play real life Call of Duty and the domestic terrorists watching for “black helicopters,” you’re only left with hunting and home defense.

Reasonable, practical, and completely incompatible with life in Greenloop.

When it comes to hunting… well… I can’t judge who I used to be. Like my former neighbors up there, I somehow thought I was superior to deer shooters because I chose fish over meat, and chose Apple Pay over bullets.

And as far as protecting my house… our houses, from a break-in… who’s gonna do that? And how? Greenloop is completely off the beaten track, the ultimate cu-de-sac, with a gated private road, and alarms to both private security and county cops.

So, unless you’re pulling off a Mission Impossible airlift, or you’re some hermit meth head who can’t believe his luck, Greenloop was probably the safest place in America. That was one of Tony’s selling points. That’s why none of the houses have surveillance cameras. Or dogs. Did you notice that? No dogs? The HOA guidelines forbid them. I remember thinking how strange that was when I first moved in. I mean, wouldn’t it make sense for those people to be the ultimate dog lovers? Problem is, they might scare away the wildlife, which, again, is another reason we all moved up there.

It all goes back to the core philosophy of Greenloop: People are the problem. Nature is your friend.