The Spirit

Jason was a hair’s-­breadth away from hating that laconic redskin, that weirdo with his silly, savage superstitions. His psychiatrist would have said it was because Moon reminded him of himself. But Jason’s hatred for Moon was tinged with contempt. Put a Raggedy Ann doll before him and he’d follow you anywhere.

And so would Jason. Two peas in a pod.

Jason angrily squashed out the cigarette and lit another one. Think about something else. Think about what they both had missed.

So far Kimberly had called the shots beautifully. He had suggested that some kind of genetic damage had decimated the population of Bigfeet over the past hundred years. And it had been confirmed when Jason saw its face in the river. A damaged mismatched face with a human chin on the superstructure of a monstrous primate. Parts that did not mesh. Kimberly had stated that the chin was irrefutable proof that it was human.

Jason believed that.

Almost.

The trouble was, primitive humans were small, not giants. Twinkletoes, not Bigfeet. Kimberly had suggested that giantism, some glandular disorder, accounted for its size and hair. Yet giantism was a crippling disease that weakened bones. This thing was built huge. He could walk and run for distances of up to a thousand miles. Nature had designed it that way, using the basic superstructure of the ape.

Dammit, it was a missing link. It was both ape and human. Had to be! Even Paranthropus had not been that big a hominid. This was a gorilla-­scaled apparition no matter what kind of face it had.

Genetic damage.

Jason watched the smoke curl. Genetic damage? Now just a bloody minute here, there’s a third possibility. It was so far out of imagination, he even had trouble pinning it down.

Jason slowly sat upright on the bed. Until now his plight paralleled the Indian’s, in that he was not quite sure what he was chasing. To Moon it was a spirit, to Jason an equally unlikely creature.

A third possibility. A third Sasquatch. Kimberly had neglected to speculate what could have caused a genetic upset in the animals. Bad water, air pollution, all that stuff was the assumption.

The trouble was, genetic damage was fatal too. Oh, you could make it through two or three generations, but still, the timing was off. They’d be extinct by the mid-sixties.

So maybe genetic damage was the wrong word, too. A genetic change! Plain Darwinian evolution. The things were changing from ape to human. How in the hell could that happen?

It took something of a struggle for Jason to face that question squarely. There was only one way it could have happened, absurd as it was . . . as incredibly far out and unbelievable as it was, that had to be it.

From the drawer he pulled out a Gideon Bible. Religious fanatics! They were everywhere. He had not looked in the Bible since he was a child, but after half an hour of searching, it was there in front of his eyes.

Yes! He knew what the things were! Jason knew exactly what he was chasing.

Jack Helder was alone in the Grizzly Bar, with the color television flickering lines across the screen. He had been counting receipts and sipping Scotch. Sip. Count. Sip. Count. He fell asleep with his head on the counter as the rising wind shuddered the lodge.

When he heard the crash of crockery from the kitchen, he awoke thinking it was morning and the cook had arrived to fix breakfast. Nice of him to get an early start.

Except it was three fifteen in the morning, according to the watch, which would not stay in focus.

The second crash was louder than the first and was accompanied by plaster tearing out of the wall and water gurgling onto the floor. It brought Helder to his feet, wide awake and hung over. He went into the lounge and listened.

The fire was low. Shadows consumed the corners, trying to possess the room as the flames dwindled. Feet shuffled around in the kitchen. Heavy, soft feet, as though someone were wearing rubber soles.

The third crash was the deep freeze being upended and spilling frozen meats. Helder shouted, “Hey!”

The sounds stopped. The intruder was listening.

Helder ran into his office, opened the standing gun cabinet, and took out his rifle. As he walked rapidly to the kitchen, he heard the service-­entrance door screech from hinges which pinged onto the floor.

He banged open the swinging doors and beheld pure savagery. The wind whistled through the splintered doorway over a glutinous freezing mess of eggs, lettuce, milk, steaks, all the varied foods for varied appetites he had stocked for the week, scattered across the floor in an indescribable scramble. Steak blood was smeared across the walls. The sinks had been pulled from their pipes and water sloshed over congealing bread and salad dressing.

Helder ran to the doorway, slipping across the floor. He caught his balance against the jamb and cut on the parking-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

apron floodlights. No one—or nothing—was there.

“Hey, goddammit!” he screamed into the wind. “Come back here!”