The Chimera Secret

1

‘We’ve got him now, brother.’

Cletus MacCarthy’s voice was a whisper drifting through dense ferns that sparkled with moisture. Jesse MacCarthy did not reply as he crouched low in the foliage, kept his breathing calm and tried not to look directly at their quarry on the far side of the creek. But he could hear the ragged excitement in Cletus’s voice, a volatile mixture of bloodlust and adrenaline.

The alpha-male was no more than sixty yards away and some fifty feet lower than where they crouched on the forested hillside. The rushing water in the narrow creek far below was the only sound that rose up between soaring hills that vanished into wreaths of cloud enveloping their peaks. Jesse looked down to where the magnificent creature scanned the hillsides with a cautious gaze before lowering its head to drink. At least twelve hundred pounds, and with antlers more than a metre long, Jesse had never seen a Roosevelt elk as large as the specimen they had tracked for the past four hours.

A breeze drifted down the valley from the west, the clouds drifting slowly above them in the cold sky. The elk would not have picked up their scent, allowing them to creep to within a hair’s breadth of a sure kill. Either one of them could hit such a large animal at this close range.

‘He’s a goner f’sure,’ Cletus whispered. ‘Question is, who’s takin’ the shot, lil’ brother?’

Jesse breathed his reply.

‘Best you make the shot, Cleet. You’ve done it before and we don’t want to lose this beauty. Besides, you’ve got the Winchester.’

Jesse saw his brother nod. He was crouched six feet farther down the hillside, his rifle cradled in his grasp. Jesse held his own rifle with the barrel almost touching the ground and the safety catch off. Sighted for long range, his Browning 7mm mag was loaded with a 175-grain bullet and zeroed-in three inches high at a hundred yards, meaning that Jesse could hit targets at more than three hundred yards using the 3x9 sniper scope. But Cletus’s .308 Winchester was perfect for closer shots.

Jesse relaxed his posture, knowing that he would not have to move now that Cletus was taking the shot. His brother was a big man with a thick, russet beard that almost touched his chest. Jesse watched as Cletus moved with extreme care further down the hillside, one crouched and hunched step at a time, until he reached a cluster of small boulders scattered amid the thick grass.

The elk looked up and blinked at the hillside, its magnificent antlers looking like the limbs of a gigantic tree. Big, black eyes stared as though looking directly at Jesse. The rut was over and although the Roosevelt elk did not migrate seasonally like other species, their diet changed from sprouts to bark as the fall progressed toward winter. Cletus knew where to find the big elk, the first to reach the deep valleys, creeks and ravines they favored as shelter from the winter storms. He knew that they had to head as deep into the wilderness as their supplies would allow and avoid the well-trodden game trails. He also knew that to find the best specimen they had to go in before the season opener and the influx of day-trippers and other clueless tenderfoots out to shoot bull elk for something to tell the grandkids back home.

Cletus and Jesse were poaching.

Only thing on their side was that no day-tripper would ever hike this far out into the wilderness. Hell, the ranger service probably wouldn’t make it out here, so harsh was the terrain. And with the swiftly fading light, only the hardiest hunters like Cletus MacCarthy felt confident enough to rough it in the wild until dawn before making their way back with their prize. Jesse figured there probably wasn’t another human being within twenty miles of them.

The bull elk scanned the hillside, not alarmed but not entirely at ease either. Jesse watched as, inch by painfully slow inch, Cletus brought the Winchester up onto his shoulder, sighting down the weapon as his finger moved by reflex and slipped the safety catch off. The soft puffs of breath condensing on the air from Cletus’s nostrils suddenly ceased as he took final aim and held his breath, waiting for the pause between his heartbeats to steady the rifle for the final shot.

Cletus’s finger squeezed the trigger.

‘Don’t move.’

The voice came from behind Jesse, spoken without force and yet in the deep silence of the moment it seemed as loud as a gunshot. All at once the magnificent elk shuddered in alarm and whirled, leaping with extraordinary force and grace across the creek in a rustle of grass and thundering hooves. Within moments it had plunged into the treeline on the opposite side of the ravine. Cletus jerked his head back over his shoulder as Jesse whirled to see a pistol held by a uniformed park ranger pointed at him. The ranger, his jacket festooned with Idaho State patches and his field hat shielding his eyes from the drizzle, directed a steely gaze at them.

‘Gavin Coltz, Idaho State Park Ranger. You’ll be aware that we’re ten days outside of the season opener. Lay down your weapons immediately.’

Jesse heard Cletus sigh heavily and the safety catch of the Winchester click back into place. Jesse carefully laid down the Browning at his feet as he turned and stood up from his hiding place.

Gavin Coltz kept his pistol trained in their direction, the weapon held double-handed. Jesse knew that park rangers had been shot in the past by poachers, and Coltz was taking no chances. He kept his distance, ten yards further back in the treeline. Jesse raised his hands and from the corner of his eye he saw Cletus do the same.

‘We don’t want trouble, officer,’ Cletus said, all of the excitement now drained from his voice.

‘Then you’ll do exactly as I say,’ Coltz replied. ‘Keep your hands in the air and move ten paces to your left. Leave your weapons where they are.’

Cletus reluctantly did as he was told, casting a last glance at his beloved Winchester as he backed away. Jesse followed him, stepping carefully through the rough grass. Gavin Coltz stood his ground at the treeline until they were where he wanted them, and then glanced over his shoulder into the deep forest behind.

‘Where’s the third guy?’ he demanded.

Jesse blinked and looked at Cletus. Cletus shook his head.

‘There ain’t no third guy, officer. It’s just me and my brother here.’

Coltz changed his stance and gripped his pistol tighter.

‘I’ve been tracking you for three hours, boys, and I saw somebody trailing you. Don’t be messin’ with me and making this worse than it already is. Call him out.’

Jesse shook his head.

‘We’re alone, officer. I swear it. There’s nobody else come out this far with us.’

Coltz frowned. ‘Then who the hell was followin’ you?’

Jesse was about to answer when on the faint breeze a pungent odor filled his nostrils and coated the back of his throat with something that felt slimy. He fought a choke reaction as the stench hit him and tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Beside him Cletus coughed and glanced to their right.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Cletus gasped. ‘What the hell is that?’

Coltz, his pistol still aimed at them, looked to his left through the forest. Jesse looked at the ranger for a brief moment and then suddenly something tugged at his stomach, a primal terror so deep it must have been buried for a thousand generations. The strength seemed to go out of his knees as the terrible odor of decay, sweat and rancid flesh swept on the air around them and, with an almost supernatural horror, Jesse watched as the forest came alive before his eyes.

From the treeline a huge form surged into view, half lost in the shadows as it rushed far faster than any man could run. Coltz whirled as heavy footfalls thundered toward him, and Jesse saw the ranger try to swing his pistol to meet the unexpected attack.

‘Bear!’ Cletus yelled. ‘Get your gun, Jesse!’

The huge form crashed through the treeline in a mass of red-brown fur, a colossal creature far larger than any bear Jesse had ever seen. He was about to turn for his rifle when the animal suddenly reared up, and he realized that it was running not on four legs but two. In a terrible instant Jesse saw immense arms and muscular legs and a tall crested skull, the entire form covered in thick hair.

Gavin Coltz fired a single, deafening gunshot at point-blank range and then staggered backward as one immense shaggy arm smashed into the ranger’s head with a crunch like boots on gravel. Jesse felt bile swell in his throat as the ranger’s head was ripped from his neck in a spray of dark blood and splintered bone to spin in a gruesome arc over their heads and bounce with a dull crunch upon the rocks behind them.

The beast turned its gaze down the hillside and fixed upon Jesse, who felt as if he were staring into the eyes of Satan himself.

‘Jesse!’ Cletus yelled as he dashed past. ‘The guns!’

Jesse whirled on unsteady legs as they rushed for the two rifles lying in the bushes barely ten feet away. All at once Jesse heard a low growl and he turned, looking at the beast as it spread its arms wide. Its chest shuddered as from deep within its lungs burst a cry like nothing he’d ever heard before, rising from a guttural growl to a high-pitched wail that sent bolts of pain through his ears and soared out across the valley like the howl of a thousand wolves.

Jesse staggered backward as Cletus reached his Winchester and yanked the weapon into his shoulder, snapping the safety catch off in one fluid motion as he swung the barrel around to aim at the creature.

The gunshot burst out with a blast of smoke and flame in the half-light and Jesse felt the shockwave from the blast hammer his ears. The shot hit the creature low in the belly, and the immense beast bowed over at the waist as its thunderous cry mutated into a wail of pain.

‘Jesse!’ Cletus shouted as he fumbled in his pocket for another round. ‘Get behind me!’

Jesse stumbled backward down the hillside as Cletus shoved a second bullet into his rifle. He grabbed the Browning and then crouched down behind his brother and looked back up the hillside at the creature.

The beast’s wail of pain mutated again. Jesse heard the animal suck in air and let out a roar of fury as it charged down the hillside at them.

‘It’s coming right at us, Cleet!’

Cletus cocked the Winchester as Jesse threw his hands over his head and crouched down lower in the bushes. He heard the beast’s heavy footfalls thundering toward them as Cletus hefted the Winchester into his shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

Too late.

The beast plowed into Cletus and hurled him backward. The gunshot blasted out as Cletus’s finger snapped inside the trigger guard and fired the weapon’s final round uselessly into the sky above. Jesse smelled a blast of foul air and saw a huge mass of rippling fur plunge past him as Cletus let out a scream.

Cletus span through the air with his limbs outstretched, and then his body crashed down the hillside toward the rocks far below, one arm flailing at an impossible angle. Jesse gazed in horror as his brother tumbled to a halt near the bottom of the hillside and tried to pull himself away with his remaining good arm.

‘Shoot it, Jesse!’ he screamed up the hillside.

Jesse didn’t move. Couldn’t move. His legs trembled beneath him, the neurons in his brain frozen in a paralysis of horror as the beast lifted his brother’s screaming body off the hillside and hurled it down into the creek. Jesse saw his brother’s head smash like an eggshell against a rock and saw his neck snap like a twig. The creature crashed into the water in pursuit, snarling and wailing its terrible cries as it picked up the limp corpse and lifted it high above its head before smashing it down again across the rocks. Cletus’s bones crunched and his flesh ripped until the icy waters of the creek were stained with crimson ribbons that snaked between the rocks.

Jesse vomited into the bushes, his vision blurred with tears and his throat burning as he stumbled to his feet by automatic reflex and began running up the hillside as fast as he could, the Browning falling from his grasp.

He hit the treeline and glanced back over his shoulder. Far below lay Cletus’s mutilated, twisted body. Standing over the remains, the beast’s head turned and two blood-red eyes locked onto Jesse’s.

Nausea overwhelmed Jesse once again as he plunged into the dense forests, chased by his own keening cry of fear. The deepening night made the woods seem darker and more threatening, the mist obscuring the distant trees. Jesse ran but he could no longer feel his legs, driven now by the adrenaline seething through his veins. Raw terror, pure and undiluted. His mind was empty, devoid of anything other than the most basic of instincts. Run. Keep running.

Because it’s following you.

A tingling fear like icy fingers against the nape of his neck spread rapidly down his spine as he crashed through the forest, his hands batting foliage from his path and not feeling the thorns slicing into his skin. His legs powered him over fallen logs and tree stumps, his breath sawed in his throat and his heart hammered against the cage of his chest. He plunged from the dense tangles of trees onto a winding animal trail, his hunter’s eye catching a glimpse of flattened grass stems and churned earth where countless creatures had made their way through the woods. A tiny voice flickered like a phantasm through the freezing fog of terror clouding his mind: Stay off the easy trail, keep to the forest.

Jesse ran straight across the trail, darting left and right between trees and hurdling dense tangles of foliage. Don’t look back. Jesse’s legs began to falter, his vision blurring and twinkling with tiny pinpricks of light as his body began crashing. His labored breathing fluttered as he stumbled desperately through the darkening forest, and in a moment of hope he glanced over his shoulder.

Straight into a pair of fearsome red eyes that towered over him.

The creature was moving with incredible speed as though it were gliding through the dense woods, its huge legs adapting to the terrain with each stride.

Jesse’s cry caught in his throat and he gagged. Something huge and heavy swiped across his legs and hurled him off of his feet. He span in midair and slammed down hard onto the ground amid a flurry of fallen leaves and twigs. Jesse rolled onto his back, his arms held out defensively as he looked up into the darkened sky and saw it loom into view.

The immense bulk of the creature filled the sky above him and Jesse felt his bowels loosen and spill beneath him to soak the ground. Those terrible red eyes glared down at him and blinked once. In a moment terror seared through every fiber in his body and he saw there the face of a man upon the body of a beast.

And then Jesse’s consciousness slipped away from him into darkness.