Original Short Fiction: How to Hunt Bigfoot for Fun and College Credit, Part Four: Jail Break

Esau turned to the crowd on the balcony above. “They’ve agreed to help us tame the Miracle Bears,” he said. “We’ll begin first thing tomorrow.”

***If you haven't read the beginning yet, part one his here, part two is here and the third episode in our saga can be found here. Welcome! Let me know what you think in the comments on any of the chapters. ***

Gwen saw Phil’s reaction coming and before he could express his doubts about our abilities to train anything, she kicked him in the shin. “Smile, you big dope, you don’t want to make the hillbillies angry,” she said through clinched teeth, which formed a brilliant smile that never quite reached her eyes.

Taking the cue, I looked up, smiled and waved to the surrounding families. Inside my head, I was screaming and running down the side of the mountain.

I just kept thinking, “I didn’t see this coming. Where was the banjo music? Wasn’t there usually banjo music before situations like this?”

Esau turned back to the cage and the audience above began to shuffle out, through a door that led to a staircase on the side of the barn away from the house. He opened a door in one end of the cage and set some fruit he’d brought from the house on the ground outside of it to coax the creatures out.

They were very timid at first, but warmed to us quickly, especially Gwen. They were soft, and shy, not at all what you would expect from a legendary monster’s offspring.

For the next hour, Gwen and I sat and played with them. There was one boy and one girl and Esau showed us which was which. Phil still stood, watching the balcony overhead nervously.

They loved Esau and he put them through their paces, demonstrating the behaviors he had trained them to. The boy could do a cartwheel and the girl liked nothing better than the roll up in a ball and somersault around the floor of the barn in an endless circle, faster and faster.

Esau was very guarded in the way he talked and kept glancing to a dark corner of the barn.

Finally, I walked to ward the corer, curiosity overcoming my fear, to find we were not alone.

Perched on a tall wooden stool, and old woman, with long, silver hair, dressed in a black, loose blouse, and black, blousy pants with high leather boots. Her eyes locked onto mine behind the green lenses of her gold rimmed glasses as her brow lowered, “Not sure what you’re up to here, but you should know, we’ll kill to keep them here. This whole mountain has been cursed since Maggie and Ursula were taken. The water went bad, then the air and it all started the day they came for them.”

I didn’t know what to say, I shuddered, involuntarily, turning back to Gwen and Phil for support.

Gwen walked over and matched the old woman, stare for stare, “I thought they returned to their natural habitat when they were ready,” she said, parroting lines from the documentary we’d been shown.

The old woman slipped from the stool and strode to the center of the barn. She clicked her tongue once and the girl sasquatch leapt to her shoulder, while the male huddled against her leg.

While no one had touched, or said a thing to the animals, it was obvious they didn’t want to respond to the old woman. Fear showed on their faces as they looked to Gwen, wanting to run from the woman’s dark presence.

“That’s what my son says in his fiction. We, who were old enough to remember that day know better. State men from fish and game came around. We hid the Bears from site, but they found what they needed, someone who would talk. Then three days later, their clothes were found at the edge of a clearing. They were never seen again, neither was Peter Bergen, not in these parts, anyway,” her eyes narrowed. “Until now. I don’t know how, but you have the smell of him on you.”

Esau had moved almost to the opposite end of the barn. He pretended to oil a latch on the cage door, avoiding her gaze.

Phil stepped up, “So, why would someone do that? It seems like everyone was happy with them in Blue Bird.”

“Humph! Were they? Most were, except for the Bergen’s. Peter had it in his head that his Pa had been mauled by their mother, although everyone knew it was a Bar,” the old woman scratched the girl sasquatch under the chin, she seemed to purr in response to the scratching.

“Most of us believed it were Peter runned over their ma and left her roadside like a dead coon,” the woman went on. “But, now we got our Miracle Bears back and things are turning around. So, be warned, if you intend to interfere with us in any way, roadkill.”

The beat of her boot heels echoed through the barn as she turned and walked to the door, sending the bigfoot children scurrying for the shelter of their cage.

Esau reinserted the lock in the latch on the cage, and headed for the barn door. I followed. Phil grabbed my shoulder as I walked past, pulling his attention from the balcony. He looked me in the eye and he was scared.

“Man, we are down the rabbit hole here. Are you serious, playing along with this? We need to get out of here, now,” he said.

“Phil, chill out,” Gwen smiled, “we wanted an adventure, right? So, here it is. Cowboy up, we’re going for a ride. I won’t let them hurt you.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him toward the door, like a protective big sister. Phil sighed and gave in.

When we walked out into the yard, it seemed we were alone, so I approached Esau. He waved me off, with a finger to his lips and led the way into the house. Inside, his mother was waiting with dinner on the table and we were told that after we’d eaten, we’d each be shown to our quarters.

The fried chicken was delicious and very welcome after the long day.

The house had windows on all sides and in lieu of air-conditioning, they were all thrown open, allowing a breeze filled with late summer scents to blow through the room.

As dinner ended, I excused myself to use the restroom and was pleasantly surprised to discover indoor plumbing in a cozy bathroom, under the stairs to the upper floor. Esau lit an oil lamp in the small room and stepped out, closing the door. It was exactly the break I’d been looking for. I pulled the note from my pocket and spread it over the vanity. It was neatly written by hand.

I brought you here for a purpose. My mother seems to believe that the sasquatch are going to bring luck back to the mountain and somehow reopen the mines. It was never the disappearance of the Miracle Bears that led to this, however, the environment is toxic and every day people continue to live here, they are putting themselves and their children at risk. I need you to do something for me. These two sasquatch were taken from a nest nowhere near here and they need to be returned. Hope can be a beautiful thing. It can also kill. Removing these creatures may be enough to wake them up. Return them to their mother. Below are the coordinates. Midnight, at the barn, for details. Find a way to warn your friends.

There was a knock at the door. “Just a minute,” I said.

“You haven’t climbed out my window, have you?” the old woman’s voice sounded even creepier through a bathroom door.

In the flickering light, I looked around the room, how would I warn them? I could pass the note to one of them, but not both. Then, I remembered, we had our phones.

I pulled mine out, thumbing the volume down to zero and texted Phil, hoping for service, hoping he’d have a chance to look at it and praying his phone was on vibrate. I paused, took a deep breath and hit send, I had to risk the tiny chime.

I’d pass the note to Gwen, and hope for the best.

I flushed and ran water long enough for a hand wash, then turned the knob and opened the door.

Esau’s mother stood in the doorway, peering around me into the bathroom, suspiciously. I attempted a disarming smile, which under the circumstances was less than my best effort.

She led me back into the kitchen where Phil and Gwen waited in the company of a large man, with a bushy red beard.

“You’ll all be staying with kin, so I’ll expect you know to mind your manners,” she said, “Young lady, you’ll be staying with cousin Martha,” here she indicated an impossibly tall woman who had just entered the back door, “You, will stay here with my son,” she indicated Phil, “and I have a special accommodation prepared for you, as befitting your leadership.”

Phil started to protest us being broken up, but it was apparent there was no point. His mouth hung open for a minute, then he lurched a bit and looked at his pocket. A tiny chime sounded. I coughed loudly, pretending to choke.

“What was that?” the red bearded stranger asked.

“Chicken bone?” I suggested, drumming on my own chest. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say any more about it. I exchanged a glance with Phil, then sat at the table, drinking deeply from my water glass.

I slipped the note out of my pocket and into the small bag Gwen had hung from the back of the chair next to mine. She squeezed my shoulder as she stood behind me, she understood.

“You okay, Jack?” she asked with real concern.

I coughed a bit more, then swallowed, “Fine, I said, just got a bit caught in my throat, I guess.”

A few minutes later I was being led by the man with the red beard back through the town square and down a narrow alley.

We walked up a wood framed staircase, similar to the one we’d seen on the barn, into the second story of the building labeled as town hall. There was a desk with a flickering lamp, and a low, wooden bench ran along the wall on three sides of the room. The man didn’t say a word.

He pulled a set of manacles out from under the bench and held them out.

I gave him my wrists and he snapped the cold iron closed around them, locking them with a key he placed around his thick neck. He tossed a thick, gray blanket on the bare bench, next to a heavy down pillow and indicated I should make myself comfortable.

The chain was connected to a huge eye bolt protruding from a rough wooden post, running up the side of a window, with bars on it, about a foot above the bench. I had enough slack to lay down, so I did.

My jailer seemed to relax a bit after that. He walked to our entrance and locked the door with the same key he’d used for my chains. He moved behind the desk and pulled a shotgun down from a rack on the wall, chambering a round.

He positioned himself in the desk chair, feet on the desk, with the gun across his knees and tipped a large brimmed hat down to cover his eyes.

A hairy hand over my mouth stifled my scream as I woke in pitch darkness sometime later. I struggled to calm myself and sat up, my eyes adjusting to the moonlight through the window.

There, standing near the bench, and holding a key in an outstretched palm was the male sasquatch from earlier that evening. I looked to the jailer. He snored, steadily. The creature took the key between it’s thumb and forefinger and slipped it silently into the lock, then held out a hand. I took it.

We crossed the room and the little guy, whose site was apparently better than mine, unlocked the door.

A second guard lay across the bottom step, apparently sleeping, the moonlight glinting off his gun.

I stopped, this just wasn’t going to get easy, I thought. The sasquatch walked along the stair rail, his head just a little higher than mine. He waved me on so I proceeded until I was two steps above the sleeping guard.

I don’t remember the little gut lifting me, but somehow, he had grabbed me underneath my arms and effortlessly swung me up and over the rail, dangling me a few inches from the ground. He released me and I landed as gracefully as I could, as he landed beside me and rolled himself into a ball, somersaulting away down the alley, through the square and up the street toward Esau’s without a sound, his mottled coat barely visible in the shadows.

I ran to catch up.

The large barn doors were open at one end and a slight glimmer came from inside. The hasp on the door hung at an odd angle, torn from its’ mount. I approached cautiously, half expecting another trap.

Inside, Phil and Gwen were waiting nervously, she ran toward me and hugged me, Phil breathed out in relief. Esau had the girl sasquatch, her arms around his neck, legs around his waist. The black Willy’s Jeep sat in the barn, doors open. The male ran to him and climbed up the other side.

“Dude, that text almost got me killed!” Phil said.

All three of us spun to him, shushing, “Use your inside voice,” Gwen whispered.

Esau busied himself getting the two animals into the back of the jeep, saying his goodbyes. He closed the rear doors and turned to me.

“Sorry, I couldn’t explain earlier. I couldn’t risk it. They have my wife and kids, and even my own mother wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her grandchildren to get my cooperation. You’ve only got a few minutes before the sentry finds the guard at the jail asleep and raises the alarm, sleeping pills,” Esau explained.

“Jack, be careful with my babies, all three of them."

"That truck was my father’s. Don’t turn your lights on until you’re past the second town, they have sentries.”

The jeep was running. I slid behind the wheel, Gwen climbed in beside me.

Esau held a large wrench out to Phil, “Okay, one last thing, you have to make this look good, bring it down, on my forehead, I want a headache and some blood, but not a coma.”

Phil held the wrench, staring at it, he looked to me. Phil Johnson was many things, but a bully was not one of them. I knew he was incapable of what he was being asked.

Before I could move to do it myself, Gwen stepped from the jeep, “Need some help, there, precious?”

Gwen took the wrench, Esau closed his eyes, she brought it down on the top of his forehead with a sickening smack, he staggered back and collapsed.

“You killed him,” Phil said, in disbelief.

Gwen knelt down and checked the man’s pulse, “Nope, not dead, he’s breathing. Not too much blood, we’re done here.” She climbed into the jeep and tossed the wrench onto the wooden barn floor with a thud. Phil hesitated, then climbed in and closed his door, looking at Gwen in awe.

“That, was, awesome!” Phil said, as I popped the clutch and chugged out of the barn, checking the infant bigfoots in my rearview mirror.

As we careened out of town, my last view was of a young girl, sitting in a window, backed by flickering candlelight, sadly waving us goodbye.

I’ve always wondered if she knew.

The mountain road rose up to meet me way too fast without lights, but what choice did we have? Either way, we had to escape and I agreed with Esau, these little miracles would be better off somewhere else.

**I leaned forward, and pressed on the gas, if we were going to make it, it would have to be fast. **

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