The park became a three-ring circus. Between the police, the press, and the families, no one had a moment’s rest. If it wasn’t the investigation, it was forensics complaining that their crime scene had been contaminated. If not that, it was a family member wanting to see where their loved one had died. If not that it was the press shoving a camera and a microphone in the face of anyone they could.
Mostly that face belonged to Glenn. He was young, he was good-looking, and he put a good image out there for park rangers.
Ken had told him to keep the press off his back, but I knew the real reason was to make the rangers look good. I mean who wants to interview someone that’s shorter than the weather girl?
And Glenn soaked it all up. He loved every moment. The toughest thing for him was to keep from smiling. It doesn’t really put forth a good impression if you’re smiling during an interview about some brutal murders. People might get ideas, and he might get kicked off interview duty, what a shame.
When the smoke cleared and the explanations started leaking out of police while cameras were in their faces, it came down to them labeling it an animal attack. They showed tracks and claw marks which were consistent with a mountain lion.
That nearly sent Glenn into convulsions.
He must’ve said, ‘I told you so’ a hundred times, all on the same day he found out.
I did my best to ignore him. It wasn’t too tough. All I had to do was tell him a reporter wanted an interview and he was gone.
It was then he made his mistake.
Ken had told him not to mention cryptids to anyone, especially the press. To his credit, he held it together and obeyed for a while. But once it was labeled an animal attack, all bets were off. After the first interview where he said they had a suspect that he believed was a skinwalker, the reporter gave him a look like he was week-old garbage that had been sitting in the sun.
After the second similar interview, there wasn’t a third. No one came to him anymore. Hell, I even got interviewed after that, they were so desperate for someone who wasn’t convinced it was a cryptid.
Ken was furious. He pulled Glenn off the crime scene and posted him at the furthest spot away from the site. I got the wonderful job of keeping an eye on him.
But it was far from over for Glenn. He doubled down on his resolve that it was the old man in the form of a skinwalker. For a while, after things settled down it was annoying. Once a couple of weeks had gone by, everyone was tired of it.
“Just give it a rest, will you?” Ken told him. “We’ve set out traps and we’ll get the rogue animal that did it.”
“Only if you set out traps at the liquor store or soup kitchen,” Glenn said.
“Enough!” Ken said. “I… don’t… want… to… hear… one… more… word… “
He turned and went into his office, slamming the door behind him.
Glenn stormed out the front door and slammed it behind him.
I sighed, knowing I was supposed to go be the supportive coworker. Which meant listening to him complain for the rest of the day.
I got into the company truck and Glenn was already in the passenger seat. I slid the seat forward so I could reach the pedals and buckled my seatbelt. He was silent and wouldn’t make eye contact.
I started the truck and drove slowly away from the station on our normal patrol route.
“You think I’m crazy too, don’t you?” he said with his head slumped against the window looking out like a little kid that’s been told to sit still.
“I don’t think you’re crazy. I just think you’re… “ he glanced over at me as I struggled with my next words. “Overly committed to your theory.”
He sighed and leaned his head back on the window.
“So, you think I’m crazy.”
“I never said that.”
“What do they call a new patient in a mental hospital?”
“I don’t know.”
“Committed.”
I hung my head. There was no winning. So, I stopped talking. The rest of our day was like that. He pouted as we did our patrols. It was the most peaceful day I’d had since I got stuck with… I mean teamed with Glenn.
As we were driving back at the end of the day, Glenn suddenly perked up.
“Stop,” he said.
“What?”
“Stop the truck, right now!”
I hit the brakes and he ripped his door open before the truck was fully stopped. He was out and running through a field. I finally saw what he was chasing.
“Oh no,” I said jumping out and running after him.
He ran like a madman, chasing his prey… a mountain lion.
“I see you,” he yelled at the animal pulling out his sidearm and firing a shot at it.
“Glenn!” I yelled, but he was a good fifty yards ahead of me and pulling away fast.
If anyone had seen it, they’d say it was the most ridiculous chase scene they’d ever seen. Glenn chasing a mountain lion, firing at it when he got a clear shot, me chasing after Glenn, trying and failing to keep up. It reminded me of that scene in the first Jumanji movie, where the one rhino was always behind the rest of the stampede.
Finally, I caught up to him only because he had stopped and was sitting in the field.
I stopped beside him, breathing hard.
“What… was… that… about… ?” I said between breaths.
“I can’t let it go,” he said, sitting on his knees with his head down, holding the gun sitting on top of his leg with the slide locked back.
He had emptied his entire clip at the animal.
“I know you want to get this thing for what it did,” I said. “Everyone does, but you can’t just go shooting in the park like that. What if you had shot someone?”
“I CAN’T LET IT GO!” he screamed at me. “Every night I dream about how I had him. He was as close to me as you are right now, and I let him go. You made me let him go.”
His face had turned toward mine and his eyes were full of rage.
“Why did you make me let him go?” he said rising off the ground and glaring down at me.
“It wasn’t him,” I said. “It was just an animal that attacked those hikers.”
“How do you know?” he said pointing the gun at me apparently without realizing it was empty.
“What do you mean, how do I know?” I said involuntarily raising my hands. “You were there with me. You saw the animal the same as I did.”
“Then you told me to let it go,” he snarled. “Why did you do that?”
“If you remember, I pulled my gun out and you told me not to shoot it.”
He blinked. His face turned from rage to doubt to confusion.
“I do remember,” he said, his eyes turning back to rage as if flipping the channel on a TV. “I remember you fired in the air and chased it off.”
“We didn’t know what it had done then.”
“Didn’t you?” he said. “Or were you helping him out?”
“Helping a mountain lion?” I said incredulously. “Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?”
“It… wasn’t… a… lion… “ he said through gritted teeth. “It… was… a… cryptid… “
“I’ve heard enough of this for the last time,” I said, turning and walking away.
The next thing I felt was pain as a solid chunk of metal bashed me in the back of the skull. I saw stars. I have no idea how I stayed conscious, but I hit the ground, hard.
In a heartbeat, Glenn was on top of me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I said, trying to push him away.
“You did this,” he growled so animalistic that spittle flew.
“I did what?” I said, trying and failing to fight him off. “Turned into a lion behind you and somehow ran ahead of you without you seeing? Turned into a lion and ran through a field while still sitting beside you driving the truck?”
“I don’t know how,” he said, punching me in the face repeatedly. “I just know you did.”
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I didn’t want to get the crap kicked out of me either. I went for broke and brought my knee up into his groin as hard as I could.
He stopped and fell off me in slow motion, holding his damaged goods.
“I know you feel guilty about those hikers,” I said. “I do too, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. We have to move on.”
He had rolled over onto his face and was struggling to breathe.
“I can’t… “ he said.
A handful of emotions rolled through my mind in a heartbeat. Frustration, anger, pity, helplessness…
Finally, I stood and looked down at him.
“Then I feel sorry for you.”
I reached up and felt the bump on my head where he had pistol-whipped me as I slowly walked back to the truck. I got in and sat for a long time, waiting for him to come back. After an hour, I gave up and drove out into the field, but he was gone. I found the spot where the grass was disturbed by our fight, but he wasn’t there.
I was alone, in the middle of the field, with a choice to make. Do I tell Ken about the incident, or do I give Glenn time to cool off?
It was no secret I was never a big Glenn fan, but I understood his commitment to his belief. Giving him a chance was the way to go. Even though it had risks.
What if he decided the old man was a cryptid and hunted him down? What if someone else got in his way or tried to reason with him? I regretted not taking his gun when I could.
I continued my patrol through the park. Aside from people needing help, I kept my eyes peeled for Glenn.
At the end of the day, I hadn’t found either thing I’d watched for, trouble, or Glenn. That sounds redundant, but oh well.
Mostly the reason I hadn’t found trouble was that the park had become a ghost town. No one wanted to hike on the trails when they could be hunted down and eviscerated for their trouble.
What surprised me was that the park hadn’t been overrun by cryptid hunters (if such a thing existed) or other film crews and less than reputable newspapers. I guess Ken had been working overtime to keep the story from taking the cryptid turn.
As I drove slowly down the dirt road that ran through the park, I noticed something moving in the trees beside me. I stopped the truck and watched, but it disappeared.
I started going again and after a minute I saw something dart through the trees beside me again. This time it seemed like it was a little bit closer.
I had no doubt, something was following me.
I drove faster back to the station, hoping it would lose interest or maybe get tired, but when I got there, I could see eyes in the trees staring at me, waiting, daring me to get out of the truck.
I was trapped. If I tried to get to my car, there was no doubt it would devour me.
I considered driving the company truck home, even though it might get me fired. But even then, I wasn’t sure I would lose this thing. It had followed me for miles and my house wasn’t that far away.
I lowered my window and saw the thing get a little closer until I pulled out my gun and aimed between its eyes. It vanished in a heartbeat.
I took the time to run from the company truck to my car, hoping it wasn’t just pretending to be afraid to lure me out into the open.
I made it to my car, slammed and locked the door, then sat there breathing hard for a moment before starting the engine and heading home.
I was on high alert as I drove. I didn’t see any way that thing could follow me at 55 miles per hour heading down the road, but then again, I lived only a half dozen miles from the park.
When I got home and parked, the fear grabbed me once again. I did a long thorough scan of the area before I opened my car door. When I was satisfied that nothing sinister was out there waiting to get me, I ran to the house and dropped the keys a few times just like they did in every horror movie, before finally opening the door. I dove inside and did a quick u-turn, leaning against the door as I locked it.
I slid to the floor, leaning against the door trying to control my breathing while thinking about the creature that had chased me. I never got a good look at it. But years of being a park ranger and tracker told me it didn’t have good intentions.
It took me a few minutes but eventually, the fear bled off and was replaced by calmer thoughts.
‘I’m home, I’m safe, I have no idea what that thing’s real intentions were.’
I got up and made myself some bacon and eggs for supper. After that, I sat in my recliner and watched some youtube videos on TV while I ate. I avoided the usual creepypastas in favor of watching some relaxing videos of slime reveals, before switching over to trick shots.
I started to fall asleep in my chair, so I got up, and took my plate over to the sink. While I was washing it, I glanced out the window and I could swear I saw those eyes staring at me from behind a tree in my yard.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again but this time there were no eyes.
‘It was just my imagination,’ I thought nervously hoping I believed it.
I shook it off and went to bed. I won’t lie and say I fell into instant, blissful slumber, but eventually, I did fall off to sleep.
***
I woke to the sound of my front door shutting. My mind tried to tell me it was just a dream when I heard floorboards creaking.
I was up in a heartbeat, my hand already in the bedstand drawer to pull out my handgun. I slowly crept to the bedroom door and listened for a moment.
There was no sound. I wondered if I was still dreaming when I heard a door open.
My spine turned to ice. I gripped the gun a little tighter and strengthened my resolve as I swung the door open and looked around the room, pointing the gun wherever I looked.
I saw a shadow move in my kitchen and yelled, “Freeze!”
The shadow stopped. I took a few steps closer, trying to see who the perpetrator was, all the while aiming at the head.
“Turn around, slowly,” I said.
The shadow complied, slowly revealing its identity.
I flicked the safety on and dropped the gun to my side.
“Really?” I said as I stepped past the shadow and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. “You ever hear of these things called phones?”
He reached past me and got a beer out of my fridge as well. I shook my head and went to my recliner before he could get to it. He followed me and sighed when I sat in the recliner, then looked disdainfully at the couch and finally sat.
“Looks like we need to have a chat,” I said popping the can and taking a drink.
“About what?” he said taking a drink of his own.
“You know exactly what.”
“No, why don’t you tell me?”
I sighed.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t hunt in the park?”
He took a long drink.
“I could say the same about you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We both agreed not to hunt in the park.”
“I haven’t,” I said.
He looked at me with doubt bleeding out of his eyes.
“You and I have always agreed to tell each other the truth no matter what,” he said. “Even when the truth is horrible.”
“Yes, we have,” I said.
“So why stop now?”
“I haven’t stopped,” I said. “In fact, it’s been over a year since I’ve transformed.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“Tell the truth,” he said.
“I swear to you, grandfather, on the spirit of our ancestors, I have not transformed into my animal form in over a year.”
He leaned close and stared deeply into my eyes. I could see the doubt bleed away as he leaned back and took another drink.
“Then we have a problem,” he said. “Because I only killed two campers. Those three you found; they weren’t mine.”
“Then what were you doing on the trail that day?”
“I was looking for you,” he said. “I was trying to catch your scent and find out why you had broken your vow.”
“But then I showed up with Glenn and you couldn’t talk to me,” I said.
He nodded.
I took a drink and leaned back in my chair, staring at him, wide-eyed.
“We have a bigger problem then,” I said. “There’s another predator in the park.”
“Do you know for sure, or is it just an animal?”
“It followed me today. It may have followed me home.”
He looked at the door.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded slowly.
“Should we hunt it down?” he said.
“Do you want me to break my vow?”
“No, grandson,” he said solemnly. “I understand and respect your commitment. I’ll change and track it.”
“Right now?”
He shrugged.
“Better to find out for sure.”
I finished my beer and stood as he transformed into the mountain lion we had seen on the trail.
I went to open the door but something felt wrong. I approached it slowly and listened. As soon as my ear touched the door I jumped back. It was hot.
I raced to the kitchen window and looked toward the front door. I could see an orange glow.
“There’s a fire on the front porch,” I said. “We’ll have to go out the back.”
He followed along to the back door, but it was jammed shut. I threw all my weight into it, but it refused to budge.
“The basement,” I said starting to panic.
We ran down the steps and tried the metal doors. They were already hot to the touch. I tried putting my shoulder into it, but there was something heavy on top of the doors holding them securely shut.
“I’m open to ideas,” I said to the lion.
He looked at me for a moment then ran upstairs. I followed him up to the second floor where he ran into the bathroom.
He nudged the bathtub with his nose. I got in the tub and looked out the window. There was a small porch roof under the window that was within reach. Unfortunately, it was also on fire. I ducked back inside and told him about the fire. He turned the water on in the shower.
The sprayer was on, and I was quickly drenched in water.
“Ok, that did a lot of good,” I said, sputtering water.
He climbed up the shower curtain and nosed the shower head hose.
I took the shower head out of its holder and pulled it toward the window. Fortunately, it reached and I was able to spray water onto the porch roof. At first, it seemed like nothing was happening. But then slowly, the flames abated, and our escape route was made clear.
I was just about to step out when I saw a creature standing beside a tree that was right next to the house. It was waiting to ambush us.
I ducked back inside and told the lion what was happening. He stared out the window and then was still. For a long moment, he looked like a statue as he thought of what to do next.
He ran downstairs and reappeared a minute later carrying my gun in his mouth. I took it and stepped out through the window. The creature was still waiting, eyes focused on me. I aimed the gun at it and it ducked behind the tree.
The lion jumped out onto the porch roof beside me. I gingerly stepped to the edge, feeling the boards underneath starting to give. I went for broke and jumped down, landing in a roll.
I tried to get up but the creature was on me. Its massive claws tore at me. I tried to raise the gun and get a shot off, but it swatted the weapon out of my hands.
I fell backward, landing hard on the ground and knocking the wind out of me. It approached its helpless prey slowly and with the confidence of knowing the kill is coming soon.
I fought the urge to transform. My mind debated with me. ‘What good is your vow if you’re dead?’
The creature was almost on me, but I hadn’t recovered yet. I stared into its nightmare face that looked more like a deformed human face than that of any animal I’d seen. The rest of the body was huge like a bear, yet somehow leaner and longer.
Drool dripped onto my cheek from its bared teeth. I could smell the stench of death.