It was obvious the mother was nowhere nearby, or else she was a ruthless bitch, watching one of her kin get carved to pieces. Rooster would have to be smarter if he wanted a chance to get at her. He’d never been much of a hunter, of animals at least, but there’d been enough hunting trips when he was a kid to draw upon.
He looked at the steaming remains of the Bigfoot. His nose was oblivious to the stench now.
That was it!
The only way to sneak up on the momma was to somehow make her believe he was one of her family. “Oh, Jesus H. Christmas, this is not gonna be fun.”
Using the edge of his machete, he sawed away at the Bigfoot’s hide, pulling the fur and upper layers of its flesh from the bone. His skinning work was rough, bordering on brutal, but it didn’t need to be pretty. When he was done, he had pulled off enough to drape over his head and shoulders, with long, blood-soaked strips swaying at his knees.
To combat the rain from washing the scent off of him, he reached into its exposed entrails and pulled out what he could, rubbing it across his chest, legs and arms. He grabbed a rope of intestine, leaving some to trail out of his pockets, and stuffed something that looked like a liver into his shirt.
He threw up when he felt the quivering organ against his bare stomach, and again when the meaty skull cap dipped low and over his nose and mouth.
“There,” he spat, his hands on his knees. “Nothing left to toss now.”
A cluster of thunderclaps sounded off in the distance. He straightened up, took a deep breath and headed into the deepest part of the woods.
Chapter Twenty-Four
If he was right, this particular island ended in another eighth of a mile. The opposite end should be a big sandbar. He walked as heavily as he could to mimic the Bigfoot’s thunderous gait. The one drawback to wearing the flesh and organs of the Bigfoot was that he couldn’t use his nose to sniff out the momma. It had overwhelmed his senses so much, he was probably immune to it.
But if he was lucky, the sand would tell him all he needed to know.
It took a while to get there because he didn’t go in a straight line. He zigzagged and backtracked so he could give momma ample evidence that she was not alone. She didn’t come out to greet or maim him. She was either hiding low, waiting to trap him like the other one, or she had moved on. He pushed any thoughts of the bitch-beast going back for Liz.
No, Liz would be there when he got back.
If
he got back.
He came to the beach and nearly genuflected with joy.
A pair of tracks, the biggest goddamn feet he’d ever seen, led from the tree line right to the water’s edge. Another island beckoned to him, a mere fifty or so yards away. There was sand there, too. Rooster plodded into the water, heedless of the other wildlife that could kill him just as easily as the Bigfoot. He didn’t know if God or the Devil were looking after him know, but he did know that neither would let it end with a bite by some damn snake. He draped the dripping skin over his arms, doing his best to keep them out of the water.
Sure enough, the footprints resumed on the next island. The rain had eased back a bit, so the prints were preserved pretty well. It couldn’t have passed by here more than ten minutes earlier.
He stalked into the trees. Why did every island in this part have to have so many trees? There were too many places for momma to hide. He could be out here for the next ten years tracking the thing at this rate.
Somehow, he had to make it come to him.
The huffing noises they made! There were a couple of times he’d seen them do that, and it had looked like they were talking to each other. He wasn’t a friggin’ ventriloquist, but he thought he could imitate the sound. It was that or nothing.
Rooster settled against a palm tree, sliding onto his haunches. He tucked the blade within the wet strips of the Bigfoot hide.
He took several gulps of air, relaxed his throat.
The short grunts and pants sounded, to his ears, on the money. He imagined what a hurt Bigfoot would sound like, and tried to convey that emotion into his call. After several minutes, he stopped. The rain had moved off, but pregnant patters of drops still fell from the trees. He strained to listen.
Nothing.
So he started up again, pausing, starting, pausing, starting. He figured he’d give it a good half hour or more. If this didn’t work, it was back to tracking through impossible terrain.
Gagging slightly, he extracted the liver from his shirt and pierced it with the machete. A new malodorous gust expelled from the split organ. He restarted his call in earnest, louder and louder, feeling the distress bleed from his pores.
Snap!
Whatever it was, it sounded large and deliberate, like a rotted log being stepped on. He kept up with his Bigfoot cry, keeping his eyes peeled.
The momma’s crimson eyes peered out from behind a wide mahogany tree. He could sense its reluctance. No matter how good a job he thought he was doing, he was sure it sounded slightly off to the monster.
Better to stop, let the smell and disguise reel it the rest of the way in.
He tightened his hold on the machete. The Bigfoot came out from behind the tree and sniffed the air. Rooster moved his foot to catch its attention. Momma narrowed her eyes at him.
Come on, you big ugly bitch.
She startled him when she raced forward, stopping a couple of feet from him. It was amazing. One second she was a good fifteen yards away, and the next she was in his face. How could something so fucking big move so fast?
He’d kept his head down, until now.
His chin rose up, and the meaty skull cap slipped from the back of his head. The momma’s eyes scrunched into tight, malevolent slits and her lips pulled back from teeth that could tear through an alligator’s hide.
Rooster swung the blade, barely managing to nick its right shin. The Bigfoot jumped back and cried out in an uncontrolled rage. Both hands pawed the air, flexing open and closed, itching to get a piece of him.
Fat chance!
Rooster tugged the rest of the fur from his shoulder and flung it at the momma’s face. It tried to dodge it, but the fur and skin wrapped around its head nonetheless. Not wasting a second, he cleaved its chest in one stroke, catching it on the inside of the elbow on the upswing.
It ripped its kin’s hide from its face and lashed out, catching Rooster in the shoulder with fingers that were chiseled into talons. Three rivers of heat opened up on his flesh.
He countered with a swipe that severed the tip of its wide nose right off.
“Oh shit.”
That particular blow sent it into an apoplectic rampage. It lashed out with a speed and intensity that no man could defend. He was kicked in the thigh, bashed on the chest and hammered on his wounded shoulder. The machete flew from his hands into the underbrush. The pain was unreal. Still the Bigfoot carried on with its frenzy. He was powerless to stop it, unable to ward off a single blow.
When it kicked him in the stomach, he felt his internal organs shift into places they weren’t meant to be. He crashed onto the ground like a boxer who had taken a hard one to the chin. His arms flopped uselessly at his sides.
Momma stopped her convulsing when she realized he was down and done. She stood above him, chest heaving, urine flowing onto the ground and his legs.
He was marked. He was hers.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Bigfoot reached down and scooped him into her arms. Its pendulous breasts crushed his already shattered chest.
She wasn’t about to play around with him. He had killed her child, and in turn she had killed everyone around him, losing the rest of her family in the process. Every ounce of venom running in her veins was directed at Rooster.
All he wanted now was to die. To make the pain stop.
Maybe this
was
hell. He hadn’t deserved much else. If this was, the moment she killed him, it would start all over again.
He wondered how it would end for Liz.
Liz!
Dammit, he promised her he’d be back. But he had nothing left. Nada. Zip.
The Bigfoot’s voice rumbled and it licked blood from its lips.
There was only one shot left to him. Rooster opened his mouth, and to his astonishment, the Bigfoot mimicked him. They stared at one another, slack-jawed, both seeming to wait the other out to see what the next move would be.
Rooster pushed his head forward and clamped down as hard as he could on the remains of its nose.
The Bigfoot screamed for the heavens to hear. She swatted his face, which freed an arm. He reached up and drove his thumb as deep into its eye as he could, stopping when he felt hot, membranous resistance.
She dropped onto her back. He did the same with his other hand, blinding it, probing for its brain to perform an Everglade lobotomy. Something popped under his thumbs, and the Bigfoot suddenly ceased moving, its final cry dying in its throat. His thumb slid easily into the hot, soft mass of its brain.
He rolled off her body and winced when his ribs struck the ground.
“Gotta make sure,” he wheezed.
It took a few minutes to find the machete. His legs felt like cotton candy.
No sense fooling around. He slashed at its neck again and again until the head rolled free. The monster’s body jerked with every blow, nerve endings caught in a death twitch.
Rooster staggered back to admire his kill. No one would ever believe this. In a couple of days, all of the Bigfoot bodies would be ‘reclaimed’ by the Everglades. Probably wouldn’t even be bones left to have as a souvenir.
Fuck it. The rage high they’d given him was reward enough. Now maybe he could live a peaceful life.
Peace.
Rooster’s world spun like a tilt-a-whirl, and he passed out.
“Rooster? Rooster?”
Liz cradled his head in her lap and poured small drops of rainwater she had collected in a palm leaf onto his mouth. The guy looked like he’d been through a meat grinder. She couldn’t tell where his blood ended and the skunk ape’s blood began. And beneath the blood were bruises so purple and black, she worried about internal bleeding.
She’d panicked when she’d woken up under the shelter, and in her daze set out searching for him without thinking the skunk ape could be near. When she saw the remains of their footprints at the shore, she came to this island and heard their struggle. It was like listening to two bears go at it whole hog, except one of the bears could talk and curse with the proficiency of a maestro.
By the time she found him, the skunk ape’s head sat several feet from its body and Rooster lay on the ground. The whole scene looked as if it had been a fight to the death, until she saw his chest rise and fall. Then she set about doing what she could to take care of him. Without a full medical team nearby, there was little she could do other than wash some of the lacerations and stay by his side.
It had been four hours and he hadn’t stirred. Night was coming fast. She had to wake him.
Liz tilted the palm leaf so the rest of the water splashed across his face. He winced, and a hand lazily tried to swipe the water off.
When his eyes did open, she smoothed his hair back and stroked his cheek.
“Am I dead?” he asked, his throat parched, hoarse.
“Not yet,” Liz said and smiled. “Although I can’t say the same for our skunk ape pal. I don’t know how you did it.”
He held his palm against the side of his head as he sat up. “A little something I learned from Rage Against the Machine.
Anger is a gift
.”
She gave him some time to get to his feet and set his bearings. The machete rested against her thigh, blood crusted over every square inch.
Rooster looked up. “I think we can make it to the shack before night.”
Liz had never heard more magical words.
He pointed to the west. “It should be on the next island over. You think canned fruit can last nine years?”