For your reading pleasure, I present the first three chapters of my upcoming novel, The Green. Enjoy!
Chapter 1
Dog barked at the worst possible
moment.
Heather lowered her night vision binoculars
and looked towards him in disbelief. “What in the world?” she muttered. Dog
rarely barked and never when Heather had made it clear that it was time to be
still. In the dim light she could see his
face was turned away from her, pointed down the side of the forested slope. His
body was rigid. Heather clicked on her head lamp and looked back up at the
forest, shadows jumping from tree to tree as she moved her head. The owl she
had spent all night tracking was nowhere to be seen. Just before Dog had made
his uncharacteristic yap she had seen her target, a Boreal Owl. It had
something in its mouth, probably a vole, and the fact that it had food meant it
was headed back to its nest. Her attention returned to her dog, who still
peered down into the forest below.
“What is it buddy? A mountain
lion?” The big cats could be found in these woods, along with black bears and
wolves. Her annoyance was tinged with a touch of concern. If it was dangerous
enough to make Dog lose his famous cool she should probably be worried.
“Might as well call it a night
then,” she said.
Owls were hard to track, being
heard more than being seen. She had spent hours following the bird’s “to, to,
to” sound up and down and across the slope trying to lay eyes on its nest
cavity. It was surely spooked now.
“Come on
you big weirdo. It’s probably nothing we can’t handle,” she told her companion
as she tied a piece of orange ribbon around the nearest tree and began to pick
her way down the mountain.
Dog gave
her a funny, pleading look and then began to follow. Despite his short legs and
his long body he had always done well in the forest. The slope in this
particular slice of Montana made it easy to move about. The old growth fir and
spruce were spaced far apart, each claiming its own fertile piece of
mountainside. It was this same old growth forest that had brought Heather here,
as the owls she was studying for her PhD only nested in old growth trees at
high elevations.
Dawn seeped
into the forest as Heather made quick work of the decent to her temporary camp
at the bottom of the slope. Dog continued to look around, not straying far from
her side.
“What is up with you?” she asked
him. Dog just looked at her, his friendly mutt face now impossible to read.
Heather
thought about when she had first seen those big brown eyes. She had been camped
on a tiny island in the Florida everglades, studying the mating habits of a
giant invasive rodent called the Gambian Pouched Rat. Someone had decided to
release half a dozen into the wild and now there were thousands of these housecat
sized rats roaming the swamp. Heather had chosen this animal for her master’s
thesis, with the thought that by better understanding the animal they might be
better able to control it.
She had
been peering through a pair of binoculars, watching two rats fulfill their
biological imperative when she heard a whimper. Floating by on a small homemade
boat was a tiny, and from the look of him, almost dead, puppy. Heather managed
to snag the boat with a stick and bring it to shore. The puppy had looked up at
her with weak eyes and her heart had melted. It had been a rare moment of
happiness for her. Once nursed back to health Dog was her constant companion,
forever loyal and very intelligent. He did as he was told. Which made his
outburst and present state all the more concerning.
Large for a
woman and well muscled by years of martial arts training there wasn’t much that
Heather was afraid of. Dog had also proven himself as a ferocious protector
when needed, so she tried to ignore the animal as she went about making
breakfast/supper. When presented with his share of the grub Dog ate furtively,
looking over his shoulder every other gulp
Heather
yawned and prepared her tent for sleeping. As she lay down, Dog curled up close
to her, Heather thought about the owl. Tonight for sure, she would find the
nest and add another much needed data point to her study. It was getting late
in the year and she only had another month before the fall snows forced her out
of the mountains and back to her lab at the University of Montana. Back to the
real world with all its noise and people and complications. Determined to enjoy
the solitude while she could she scooted closer to Dog’s warmth and closed her
eyes.
She never got to sleep. Her eyes
popped open before slumber found her. She began to share Dog’s concern.
Crawling out of her tent she tried to pin down the source of her growing
unease.
Something
was wrong. Everything looked normal though. The forest stretched away on all
sides, bright and green and alive. What
was going on? Then it dawned on her. It felt like someone had just been in
her camp. This wasn’t impossible she concluded. If she had hiked in here anyone
else with enough motivation could do the same. She had heard stories about the
odd person deciding they had had enough with civilization and moving out here
full time. Years ago someone had even kidnapped a young girl and brought her
deep into this wilderness before finally being shot by rangers on horseback.
The idea of another human worried her much more than mountain lions or wolves.
Something
like an electric shock suddenly went through her body. Every hair stood on end.
A voice spoke to her, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
“Greetings.”
Ice cold water poured into Heather’s
brain. The word echoed between her ears. More than just words the feeling of a greeting was present. It
felt tinged with excitement and curiosity and …fear? Heather froze in place,
feeling her heartbeats through her shirt. The forest was quiet around her. Dog
let loose a slow continuous whine from his place at her feet. The feeling of shock
ricocheted around her body. What had just
happened?
Heather slowly turned in place,
hoping she was asleep and dreaming.
“Hello?” she asked the forest.
The shock of connection came again,
no less alarming the second time. Feelings and words poured themselves into her
head.
“I requesting communicate with you,” said the message.
Heather stood in the forest and
tried to keep breathing. Her heartbeat was racing away from her. It felt like
the voice wasn’t reaching her through her ears but instead broadcasting
directly into her head.
“What is this?” burst from her lips.
A feeling of resignation pulsed
into Heather’s brain as a large shape stepped out from behind a tree in front
of her. Heather tried to register what she was seeing. A large fur covered
thing stood before her. Long limbs. Black shiny eyes. Even as some part of her
rational brain said Holy Fuck, that’s a
Mother Fucking Sasquatch, her body was already calling the shots. Heather
turned and ran with all the considerable power her long legs could provide. She
sprinted through the forest, vaulting fallen trees like a track star, her blond
ponytail flying behind her. Dog followed, the two of them moving as fast as
they could. Branches clawed at her face and the forest became a blur. Heather
and Dog ran.
Breath tearing
from her lungs, Heather eventually had to slow. Bright spots danced in her
vision. She thought she might pass out. Dog looked at her as if she was crazy,
as if saying, “See! That’s what I was trying to tell you! Now let’s keep
freaking running!” Heather had to slow or she really would pass out. She
continued to jog through the forest as fast as her body would allow. Raw panic slowly
gave way to confusion and doubt.
Did
that really just happen? she wondered. Having never touched hard drugs the
possibility of a flashback was out of the question. Could she be having some
kind of medical event? A stoke or aneurism? Heather continued to look over her shoulder as
she made her way through the forest. She was glad to see she had instinctively
run down the valley, towards her van and the forest service road that would
bring her back to civilization. What
about my tent and supplies? Oh, my god, what about my notes?! she thought.
Still she continued on. A summer’s worth of data or not there was no way she
was going back to that campsite without some serious back-up. Armed back-up. Oh crap, now I’m going to be one of those
crazy people with a Sasquatch story! she realized.
Heather had heard the occasional
person swear up and down that they had seen something in the woods but she had
always brushed it off as over active imaginations or drugs or both. Although
she had never heard of a Sasquatch talking to someone. Her heartbeat eventually
lowered and feeling returned to her limbs. Heather focused on her breathing and
tried to stay calm. She concentrated on moving as fast as she could away from
whatever it was she had seen.
Maybe I was still dreaming and sleepwalking,
she thought when the voice connected again.
“I need communicate with you.”
Heather stopped dead in her tracks,
her heart like a rock in her chest. She could feel the urgent need in the voice. The forest was silent,
the only sound her and Dog’s breathing. Heather waited, frozen in place.
“I not hurt you.”
It was like nothing she had ever
experienced. Like her own inner voice, but not her voice, something from the
outside. It made her brain tingle. On some level, through the panic, she knew
the voice was telling the truth.
“Leave me
alone,” she shouted. Tears whelmed up in her eyes. Heather felt a sob build in
her chest as she was overcome by the unreality of what was happening. She
closed her eyes and tried to wake up from this nightmare.
The forest
was still. Minutes ticked by as Heather retreated inside her mind. Then, the
shock of connection again, words and feelings mixing together, forcing
themselves inside her head. An urgency under laid the message.
“I sorry Heather Hudson. Please believe, I do not wish to hurt you. I do
not mean any harm. I need to communicate with you. I picked you because you are
scientist human, rational being. Now. You must to calm down and when you are
ready to communicate with me, I be here.”
With that the connection broke and Heather
was left with nothing but her own congested snuffles. What was going on? I must be losing my mind, she thought. She stood
there, bewildered and unsure of what to do. Keep
moving, she ordered herself. Get to the
van, get to a bar, get drunk and then go to the hospital. If there is nothing
wrong with me I can always pass it off as a drunken hallucination. That would not
nearly be as embarrassing as a sober one.
She
continued her rush through the forest. Numb from panic she focused solely on
putting one foot in front of the other. It was five hours from her camp to her
van.
Heather marched and tried not the
think. She barely saw the forest around her as she moved forward. Her brain
bubbled and burped with indigestion. It was almost a physical pain. She
couldn’t not think. Deep underneath her fear another voice slowly started to talk,
yelling until it was impossible to ignore.
What
are you doing? You really want to just drive away from this and not know what
is going on? You’re a scientist for goodness sakes. Cow Girl up. What would
Natalya do in this situation?
That
thought finally got her to stop. She took some long deep breaths, trying to
master herself. She shook her head, feeling numb and worn out. She was still a
long way from her van. She took one last long breath.
“Who are you?” she demanded to the
air. “What are you?”
The
connection came immediately. Heather felt urgency and relief in the words. “I am what humans would call a Sasquatch. I not
have a name like you do. My name is the feeling of my voice in your head. Yes,
I talking to you telepathically, that is how we communicate. I need your help.”
Please god let me be going crazy,
thought Heather.
“You are not going crazy,” said the
voice. “I promise this is real. What I do
to make this better?”
“Leave me
alone,” Heather whispered.
“I cannot do that. There not enough time. I
need your help.”
Heather
didn’t know what to do. She could feel the emotion underlying the message. If
this was real, if she wasn’t losing her mind, then the voice was telling the
truth. Her mind tried to retreat again but she brought it back to the present
with a force of will.
Burying a stab of fear she said,
“alright. Here I am. Talk damn it.”
“Would be better if you could see my physical form again?”
“No,”
Heather ordered the air. “Just tell me what you want.”
“I need your help. We need make contact with
the humans.”
Heather
tried to process this. The words and implications were too much in her present
state. The connection returned. Could she be getting used to it?
“I going to show my body to you again. I real.
We cannot proceed until you accept.”
Heather did
not reply. Instead she waited, feeling on the edge of panic as she questioned
her sanity. With barely any noise the creature stepped into view, about twenty
feet from her. Heather fought the urge to run, her stomach rolled dangerously. Dog
began to growl deep in the back of his throat.
The Sasquatch turned its deep,
black eyes towards the dog. He made a strange squeak sound and then stopped
growling. He looked up at Heather waiting to see what she would do.
It was big.
About eight feet tall, covered in dark brown fur except for a wrinkled face.
Long arms dangled almost to its knees. Its eyes were the most alarming thing,
dark and piercing with intelligence. They were staring right at her.
Chapter 2
Heather felt like her body was made of stone. Her stomach
threatened to return her breakfast. She turned towards the creature, ready to
fight or resume running. Not that she
felt like fighting would accomplish anything. The creature was huge. Its shape seemed
to fill the forest.
“I not sure where to begin” said the
voice in Heather’s head. She could feel its confusion and excitement. The face
of the Sasquatch remained still while these words poured into her brain.
“So we exist. Sasquatches. What humans would call
Big Foot,” the voice continued. “We an
ancient people. We watch the rise of humans, learning early that it best to
avoid you. We telepathic and can hear your thoughts from far away. About ten
miles by human method of measuring distance. This let us avoid you for the most
part. I have been sent as … emissary to announce our existence to humans and am
asking you to help me. We…” at this the Sasquatch paused, “… have been having hard time. We need humans
to make changes. Give us some room to breathe. Something about what humans been
doing to the planet been making us sick and we need your help.”
Heather’s
brain tried unsuccessfully to process everything the shape had just said and
felt. Just the reality of the creature standing across from her was too much to
process. She remained silent.
“You must have lot of questions. How about
you try to think of one question to ask?” said the strange inside/outside
voice in her head.
Heathers
mind was blank. A large portion of her brain was still telling her to turn heel
and run. Her rational mind, the part of her that had managed to stop running in
the first place, the part that had a Masters in Biology as a Mammalogist, piped
up again. “What genus do you belong to?”
she thought, not realizing she hadn’t spoken aloud.
“The closest relative in your fossil record
would be what you call Gigantopithecus. We have gone great lengths to hide our
bones from humans.”
At this answer
Heather tilted her head back and stared into the forest canopy. No owls. She
felt like screaming. This was too weird. She was having a silent conversation
with a Big Foot in the middle of nowhere.
“Can you move your mouth when you
speak? Do something. You’re freaking me out by being so still!” Heather said. A
moment passed then the Sasquatch began to shuffle back and forth, opening and
closing its mouth. It looked like a white guy with bad sinuses trying to dance.
“Better?” asked the voice.
“Not really,”
said Heather. She closed her eyes, trying to get her shit together. “How can
you know about our fossil record if you live out here in the wilderness hiding
from us?”
“We listen to human thoughts as they pass.
Many of the people who seek the deep woods very knowledgeable about one thing.
We have own scientists as well and have been merging our knowledge with yours
for millennia. In particular, understanding of physics and math has grown alongside
your own. I have listened to many humans thinking. It is first time trying to
talk in English. Sorry if I not perfect.”
“Ok, if you
understand physics why don’t you have cars and guns and lights like we do?”
Heather asked.
“Well, those things would made it harder to hide
from you. But mostly we happy with what we had.”
Heather took
a deep breath. She began to feel angry. “I can’t be your guide, or whatever it
is you need. I’ve got a paper due in three months and besides I’ve got some
stuff in my past that isn’t exactly media friendly. And besides THAT,” Heather
began to yell, “how in the hell do you plan to ‘announce’ yourself anyway? You
think we can just stroll into a TV station and request some air time? As soon
as we get out of the woods some redneck is going to blast you full of holes.
Pretty much everyone around here has a gun. And if not a redneck a cop! I can
only imagine the shit storm that would be. And BESIDES THAT, the government
would probably swoop in and take you away to Area 51 or some shit and dissect
you and probably lock me up for the rest of my life just for kicks!” Heather’s
voice was rough again, her breath short.
“This why I need you. To help avoid all that,”
said the Sasquatch as it jumbled back and forth and opened and closed its
silent mouth.
“You can
stop doing that, it’s not helping,” said Heather. The being went back to
looking like a furry statue.
Heather
plunked down to the forest floor. Dog put his head in her lap, looking up at
her in concern. She put her head between her hands. What to do? How do you reveal a secret ancient race of humanoids to the
world without getting shot or locked away by the government? Was she even
considering helping this creature? She knew though. Deep down in her guts she
knew that she was going to try and help this thing do what it was asking. She
could feel it was telling the truth. A great mix of emotions swirled around in
her mind each time it spoke. The creature felt excited and nervous and urgent
but not deceitful. She must be going crazy. She knew she was going to try to
help, she just didn’t know how to go about doing it.
“Thank-you.” The creature’s relief was
palatable.
“Holy crap! Can you get out of my head
for a minute! I’m trying to think,” she yelled. No response from the voice. “Can you hear everything I think?” she
thought, raising her gaze to the Sasquatch.
“Is there answer to that question which not result in my getting yelled
at again?” asked the voice.
Heather sighed, returning her eyes
to the blackness of her palms. What to
do? What to do? How does one announce a
Sasquatch to the world? Heather’s mind was blank at the enormity of the
task before her.
“Well,” she finally said, “we’ve
got hours to think about it before we reach my van. First things first, I need
to go back and grab my gear.”
Heather stood up and began to walk
back to her camp, passing close to the Sasquatch as she returned the way she
had come. Still frightened but no longer fully terrified she looked at its
thick fur, much like a bear’s, and breathed in its musky, earthy smell. Tingles
of fear swept up her spine. Black eyes followed her as she walked away.
Heather marveled at the malleability
of the human brain. Part of her still felt like she was in a waking dream but
another part of her knew that this was really happening. Just put one foot in front of the other, she told herself,
beginning to hum the old song from the Christmas special.
The Sasquatch was nowhere to be
seen as she hiked back up to her camp. Dog followed along, also seeming to have
accepted their new fate. She felt like she was looking at a problem out of the
corner of her eye, knowing it was too bright to stare at directly. Packing up
her camp (and field notes!) she returned the way she had come. Looking at her
watch, she figured she could make it to the van before dark.
“You still there?” she said aloud.
“Yes,” said the voice, a little bit fainter than before. The shock
of the mind-connection was becoming more and more familiar.
“I wasn’t sure since you’re being
so quiet.”
“I thought I give you some time to think. I ask if you have a plan but I
already know the answer to question.”
“I have absolutely no idea what to do,” thought Heather.
When she got back to the spot where
she had stopped running the Sasquatch was still there, only now it was sitting
against a large Ponderosa Pine. It made Heather glad to see it doing something
besides standing like a furry monolith. Still scary in its alien-ness but
becoming familiar too.
“Are you sure I haven’t lost my
mind and you are a hallucination?” she asked.
“I do not feel like a hallucination.”
“Yeah, me neither. I keep hoping
this is a dream I’m going to wake up from.”
Heather felt something like impatience
from the Sasquatch. “I thought we had
established I was real.”
“Yes. It looks like you are. This
is just too much. Too much.”
Heather took a deep breath, still
trying to come to terms with this new reality before her. She thought again about
what Natalya would do in this situation. She steeled herself and decided to
move forward as if this was really happening. If it all turned out to be a
dream or she was having some kind of mental health event, well then, she would
deal with that when the time came.
“I need something I can call you,”
she said.
“I told you I not have a name.”
“Are you a male or a female?”
“By human’s way of thinking, I am female.”
“Right. How would you feel about the
name Sally?” said Heather.
“…that would be acceptable,” thought the Sasquatch with a pinch of what
felt like pleasure.
“Ok Sally, let’s make some tracks.”
And with that Heather continued down the valley. She could hear the faint noise
of the creature rising and following her. Part of her continued to wonder if
she was losing her mind, going from sheer terror to acceptance so quickly. When
it came down to it she simply didn’t know what else to do, so she put one foot
in front of the other and made her way down the valley, humming the whole way.
Chapter 3
They reached her van an hour before sunset. Sally had
remained quiet since her naming and Dog had gone back to his happy-go-lucky
self. He had even taken a few good whiffs of Sally when he got the chance. The
van, an old camper that Heather had jacked up herself, was parked in a dirt
roundabout, just big enough for a forest service truck to turn around in.
Heather looked at the creature. Now that she was back at her van the unreality
of her day and the hard reality of her real life came clashing together. She
felt exhausted and a little queasy.
“Any ideas
on what we do now?” she asked, silently hoping the creature would give up and
she could have her life back.
“Could you take me to the President of the
United States?” asked the Sasquatch.
“Yeah, I
don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t
have the gas money to make it to Washington.”
The
Sasquatch was silent at this. It seemed to be processing.
“Well, I do
have enough money to make it home. I’ll bring you there,” said Heather.
Once stuffed
into the back of the van on top of a double mattress Sally looked like a can of
freshly opened sardines. If sardines were furry and smelled like stray dogs.
“Comfortable?”
asked Heather, from behind the wheel.
“No,” replied the voice of the Sasquatch.
“Don’t
worry, it’s only five hours to Missoula.” Heather put the van in gear and began
slowly making her way down the winding and rough forest service road. At the
first pothole the van bottomed out and the engine raced as the tires tried to
move the vehicle forward.
“This is not
going to work. At least not on this part of the road” said Heather. “Do you
think you could get out and walk until we get to some pavement?”
“That would be good.”
“Will you be able to keep up?” asked
Heather, once they had Sally untangled from the van.
“Do not worry about me. I meet you where the
earth stops” replied Sally as she silently disappeared into the darkening forest.
Heather got
back in her van and rolled down her windows before continuing along the road.
She breathed the clean mountain air, soaking in the last of the light. Dog
curled up on the passenger seat and promptly fell asleep. As they slowly moved
along, headlights bobbing with the ruts and holes, Heather thought about her
day. Did that really happen? The
lingering smell of Sally answered her question. She tried to put it out of her
mind. Every time she thought about the Sasquatch she felt a little nauseous.
Instead she tried to enjoy the sights and smells of the old growth forest while
she could. She pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had happened and she
was on her way back home from a successful field trip. Eventually the forest
service road merged with another, still dirt but better maintained, and then
after another hour the dirt became pavement.
The road
stretched away into the night, illuminated by her headlights. Heather had
always thought of this spot as where the wilderness ended and civilization
began.
I
could just floor it right now, she thought. I’ll drive away and never come back and never speak of this to anyone.
But something kept her foot off the
gas and instead she put the vehicle in park. Heather got out and stretched. Her
legs were sore from the terror filled sprint of that morning.
With the
slightest of rustles Sally stepped into the road. Massive and impossible but
still undeniably there. Heather buried a stab of panic deep in her guts. Without
a word, she opened the back doors of the van, Sally squeezed into the space,
still looking uncomfortable but slightly better than before. Heather closed the
doors, got back in and drove out into the world.
Forest crowded
in on both sides of the narrow road. To her left, lay the 1.3 million acres of
the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness Area, to her right the Frank Church – River of
No Return Wilderness Area. Together they made 5 million acres of protected
wilderness, all separated by this one small road. With the clean air blowing in
through her window and the forest rolling away on either side Heather felt in somewhat
in control for the first time all day. In the back Sally shifted and the van
rocked. Heather took deep breaths trying to clear the sick feeling from her
stomach. A new feeling began to mix with her unease. Was it excitement? Sally
shifted a second time and the van shook on its suspension.
“Are you ok?” asked Heather silently. “Do you need anything?”
“Does this vehicle play music? I have always
wanted to listen to your music. Sometimes people sing to themselves. It is
enjoyable.”
Heather reached
over to the glove compartment and then popped the classic Dixie Chicks album Not Ready to Make Nice into the CD
player. The van filled with funky bluegrass and she began to quietly sing along
when the lyrics began: “My friends from high schoool, married their high school
boy friends…” The album continued to
play as they reached Highway 93 and turned north.
“I need to
stop for gas soon,” Heather said, turning down the music.
Sally seemed lost in the music, her
telepathic voice was quiet. “So beautiful,
she seems sad though.”
“It’s my favorite
album to sing along with,” said Heather, seeing lights up ahead. “I need to
stop here.”
Heather turned into a gas station a
minute later. They were passing through Darby, Montana, population 3000.
Heather peered into the back of the van. She didn’t think anyone would be able
to see anything unless they shined a flashlight back there.
“Stay quiet and hidden,” she thought as
she got out of the van and began to pump gas. The station was empty with no
other cars filling up. Inside, under the too bright florescent lights, she
could see a woman behind the cash register, tapping away on a large phone.
“I’m going to go in,” she thought towards the van. There was no
response from Sally.
Heather
walked in to pay for the gas, grabbing a giant coffee and a few chocolate bars
as well. The newspaper rack next to the counter held an image of the new Tea
Party president ramming his hand down on a podium. Heather sighed to herself.
Back to the real world and all of its real problems.
The cashier dipped the phone and looked
at her with concern. “Are you alright dear?” she asked in a gentle Montanan
twang. “You look like you’ve been through the ringer.”
“I’m fine,”
replied Heather, forcing a smile and thinking about her appearance for the
first time in weeks. “Just spent some time in the woods is all. Do you have a
bathroom I could use?”
The cashier
pointed towards the back of the store. Heather looked out at the pumps. All
quiet on the western front. Was there
really a Big Foot in the back of her van? Heather felt a twinge of the fear
from the morning return. What in the
world am I doing? she thought as she walked to the back of the store.
Once in the bathroom she could see
why the cashier was so concerned. Her hair, normally contained in a tight
ponytail, was falling every which way and her face was dirty and held several
bloody scratches. Tying her hair back she did her best to wash her face of the
dirt and blood. She didn’t own any makeup, as it was included in a long list of
things she considered bullshit. She studied her freshly washed face. Plain Jane, said the insecure 12-year-old
inside her. Shut the fuck up insecure
12-year-old, Heather told herself.
She left
the bathroom and gathered up her coffee and snacks. As she turned to walk out
the door her heart skipped. Out at the pumps a state trooper was staring at her
van with interest. Heather forced
another smile onto her face as she stepped outside.
“Good evening officer!” she said,
trying to sound cheery. He turned towards her, his young face failing to look
tough behind a thick mustache.
“You’re
riding awfully low on your shocks there miss” said the officer in a friendly
but concerned tone. “What’d you got in there?”
Heather’s
brain whirled. “Rock samples,” she said. “I’m a geology student at University
of Montana. Been up here all day collecting samples from the Pleistocene
Period.” Heather had no idea if that made any sense and hoped the young trooper
wasn’t an amateur rock hound.
The trooper
gave the van another hard look. “Well, ok then. You be careful on your drive
back,” he said and then waited, as if trying to figure out something else to
say.
Heather broke the silence. “Good
night officer,” she said, as she hurried into her vehicle, leaving him standing
there. In her side mirror she could see him watching as she drove off.
The wide
highway opened up before them. “That male
wanted to mate with you,” said Sally, breaking the silence. A mix of relief
and excitement and curiosity under laid her words.
“Is that what
that was? I swear, I will never understand men.”
“What does ‘Plain Jane’ mean?” asked
Sally.
“Holy crap,
you really need to stay out of people’s heads sometimes!”
“I am sorry” said the Sasquatch,
genuinely remorseful.
Heather
watched the dark road fall away under her wheels. “It’s ok Sally,” she said.
Heather felt warm relief from the back of the van followed up sudden panicked
alarm.
Blue and
red flashing lights appeared in her mirrors. “Fuck a duck,” Heather muttered as
she pulled over. “Be very quiet,” she told the Sasquatch in the back of her
van.
“Let me handle this,” thought Sally. The
trooper had stopped and was getting out of his car.
“Are you
insane?” Heather whispered.
Switching to her thoughts as the
trooper was almost at her open window. “How
in the world are you going to handle it?”
“Hello
again!” said the tropper as he swaggered up to her window flashing a smile.
Not a bad looking man, thought Heather
as she smiled back at him. “What can I do for you officer?”
The trooper
leaned in the window. “I realized I never got your name,” he said.
“Heather.
Heather Hudson.”
“And you’re
a student at U of M huh? How’s that going for you?”
“Just fine,”
replied Heather, wondering where this was going.
The trooper took a breath, leaned in a little
more. “Listen, I know this is a bit strange. You don’t know me, I don’t know
you. But I thought we had a moment back there at the gas station and was
wondering if I could buy you dinner sometime?”
It all came
together in Heather’s brain. Ah. She forced another smile, trying to hide the
flicker of anger she was feeling. “Sure officer, do you have something I can
write my number on for you?” she said, fully intending to give this douche a
fake.
He casually
produced a note book and Heather wrote down the number of her favorite pizza
place.
“This human is bad Heather.”
“You know,”
continued the officer, flashing a smile, “I don’t see any reason why we can’t
start getting to know each other better tonight.”
“This human is bad Heather. He thinks you
want to mate with him right now!” Sally warned.
Anger and
worry rushed through Heather. The trooper continued to leer at her, taking one
of his hands and letting the fingers stoke her left forearm. She felt herself
go cold. To her right, Dog stirred in his sleep.
“You got a
mattress in the back or it is covered with rocks?” the trooper asked.
Heather
looked at him with a fresh lens, wondering if she could take him. He was big
but not massive, probably had some basic law enforcement style training. The
gun was the real problem.
“Invite him in the back,” thought Sally.
Heather
considered this. Trying to hide her outrage she reached out and touched the
trooper on the arm. “I think there is still some room back there,” she said,
hoping she sounded sweet as she opened her door. As she walked towards the back
of the van she could feel the man right behind her, something hard poked her in
the bum.
“After you,”
she told the officer gesturing towards the doors as she backed up a step. He
looked at her with a hungry gleam and went to open the back doors. He was still
staring at her when he lifted the latch and both doors shot open like a cannon.
The trooper was caught full force in the chest and flew into the air, landing
in his own car’s windshield with a crunch. He lay there crumpled, blood tricked
from one nostril. Everything went quiet.
Sally disentangled
herself from the back, looking at the trooper and then at Heather. “Does this sort of thing happen a lot?”
she asked.
“Not to me
thank god,” replied Heather as they both stared at the man lying in his windshield.
The officer
began to moan and stir, one hand groping towards his gun. Heather rushed over,
reached in and unclasped the holster, sliding the heavy gun out and away. “What
are we going to do?” she asked. “Somebody could drive by at any moment.”
The Sasquatch moved over and
extricated the man from the windshield. His eyes opened as Sally lay him gently
down on the ground. He remained as still as a stone, frozen either from fear or
his injuries. Sally turned to Heather.
“Can you turn off the lights?”
Heather reached into the cab and
turned off the patrol car. Its headlights and flashers went dark.
Sally walked over to the side of the
car facing the road. “Stand back,”
she ordered and then squatted next to the vehicle. Hooking her hands under the
car, she stood up in one smooth motion, flipping it onto its side. Taking a
step back she then kicked the underside of the car. Metal squealed against rock
as it slid over the embankment and into a deep ditch.
From the
way they had come, the glow of approaching headlights. Heather turned to warn
Sally but both she and the officer had disappeared. Heather jumped into the
front seat of the van before the other car got too close. It didn’t even slow
as it sped by. She tucked the trooper’s gun under her seat.
Heather
waited. Shuddering when she remembered the trooper touching her. Still, it
didn’t mean she wanted him dead. The shocks compressed as Sally climbed into
the back. “What did you do with him?”
Heather queried as she got out to close the doors.
“Moved him into woods,” the Sasquatch
replied. “With injuries it should take hours
for him to make it back to the road.”
“Alright
then,” said Heather while trying to force the newly warped doors to shut. She
pondered the implications of this new development as she pushed and shoved at
the metal. After some encouragement the doors finally clicked shut. One of the
windows was spider webbed. Would she be
wanted by the police in a few hours? she wondered. She had given the cop
her real name. He knew her face.
Heather got back into the driver’s
seat, trying not to think about what this meant for her future. She tamped down
the growing panic that wanted to overwhelm her. One thing at a time, she told herself. Heather pulled back onto the
deserted highway and continued north.
