Rogue Read online

  ROGUE

  A Bigfoot Thriller

  C.G. Mosley

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by C.G. Mosley

  Chapter 1

  October 1989

  “It’s already been a year,” Emma Honeycutt complained as she downed the last of her Slurpee from the Dunn Sonic.

  “Not quite a full year,” John Milk replied as he munched on a french fry. “Next month makes a full year.”

  Emma rolled her eyes at him and scratched at the back of her head. “Next conversation we have with Cold, I’m asking him to reassign me,” she grumbled. “This is a waste of my talent and time.”

  John sighed and resisted the urge to tell her she was being arrogant again. It was a trait of hers that he grew to tolerate. Emma Honeycutt was the best agent alive in her own mind. She was damn good, he had to admit, but her confidence in her abilities became a bit annoying at times.

  It was a brisk night in Baker County Mississippi, and they watched the residents of Dunn go about their daily lives from the Sonic restaurant parking lot. John certainly related to Emma’s circumstances. He too was frustrated and dismayed that nothing at all had happened since the events at Walker Laboratory in November of the prior year. Supposedly, Baker County was home to a large tribe of Bigfoot and rumors circulated of other cryptids lurking in the forests also. The events of the prior year had resulted in some sort of human and Bigfoot hybrid. Supposedly, the creature had escaped to the forest, but no one had seen or heard from the thing since.

  “So, what are you going to be for Halloween?” Emma asked rather abruptly.

  John smiled at her. “Are you serious right now?”

  She looked over at him, wide-eyed. “Of course I’m serious,” she answered sharply. “Why the hell would I joke about that?”

  “So…you dress up for Halloween?” John tried not to laugh.

  Emma looked away and watched a young boy sucking on a milkshake several cars away from them. “It’s my favorite holiday. Of course I dress up.”

  “Well, what are you going as?” he asked, now genuinely curious.

  “Haven’t decided yet, John. So, I’m going to ask again, what are you going to be for Halloween?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Wasn’t really planning on going as anything. Isn’t that a kid thing?”

  She took a deep breath through her nose and exhaled slowly. “No, it’s not just a kids’ holiday,” she proclaimed. “My parents never let me do it as a kid so I’m going to dress up every damn Halloween until the day I die.”

  John smiled. “Do what makes you happy, Honeycutt.”

  “Well, it would make me happy if you’d tell me what the hell you’re going to be for Halloween,” she persisted.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he snapped. “I’ll be a damn Sasquatch…okay?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not funny. Not in this county.”

  “Then let me think on it.”

  “You’ve got ‘til Friday and then I want an answer,” she replied firmly.

  “Fine! I’ll give you a damn answer on Friday,” he said, now exasperated with the conversation.

  “So, where do you think the thing is at now?” Emma glanced up at the stars.

  “The hybrid?”

  She nodded.

  John shrugged. “Hell, if I know,” he answered. “Could be dead, I suppose.”

  She looked over at him, curious. “Why would you assume it’s dead?”

  “Well, no one has seen or heard from it in almost a year,” John replied. “His sister moved away because she couldn’t bear to live here anymore after what happened. He doesn’t belong to the humans and it doesn’t belong to the tribe of Bigfoot. He’s in a strange in-between place. How can he survive that way?”

  Emma shook her head and chuckled.

  “What is it?” John asked.

  “You keep referring to the damn thing as a he.” She sounded somewhat disgusted.

  “It is a he,” John countered. “His name is Kurt Bledsoe and a very terrible thing happened to him.”

  “Correction,” Emma snapped. “He used to be Kyle Bledsoe. Now it’s a thing that, as you just eluded to, has no purpose. No family and nowhere to really call home anymore. The damn thing should’ve been destroyed.”

  “Well, his sister didn’t think so,” John said. “And neither did Sheriff Cochran.”

  Emma scoffed at the comment and tossed her now empty cup out of the window and into a nearby trashcan. “A lot of good it did the poor thing.”

  John decided to let her have the last word. “Are you ready to call it a night?”

  “Yeah, sure…another day where we accomplished practically nothing,” she quipped.

  John cranked the car and as he prepared to shift into reverse, a blood-curdling scream pierced through the cool night air.

  “What the hell?” he said, startled.

  Emma does not respond; she instead scrambled from the vehicle, her gun drawn. John chased after her and they found a large woman in a nightgown, screaming frantically.

  “Ma’am, calm down,” John pleaded. “Tell us what is going on!”

  “My son!” she screamed. “It took my son!”

  “Where did it take him?” Emma asked.

  The woman continued to scream but pointed toward the dark forest behind them. Without another word, Emma took off, retrieving a small flashlight from her pocket as she ran. John chased after her, doing the same. They were only in the forest a short time when they heard the cries of a young boy ahead of them.

  “Stop where you are!” Emma yelled. “We are armed federal agents and you must stop now!”

  The boy screamed at them for help, but he seemed to be getting further away.

  “We’re losing them,” John said as he pulled alongside Emma.

  “I’m not stopping.” Determination fired her statement.

  As they continued, the young boy’s cries became more and more distant until finally, they could no longer hear him at all.

  Emma continued to run until her body could no longer carry her forward. She collapsed onto her hands and knees, panting furiously.

  “We lost them,” John panted beside her.

  “We’ve got to keep going,” she said. “Whoever that was can’t get away with this.”

  “You know damn well what it was,” John snapped. “That wasn’t a man…no man can run that fast!”

  Emma shook her head. “It’s going to kill that boy.”

  John nodded but said nothing.

  “We’re just going to let it happen?” Emma asked, still breathing heavily.

  “Come on,” John said, grabbing her shoulder. “Let’s go back to the car and call the sheriff. We’ll come up with a plan.”

  They walked briskly back to the car and on the way, Emma stepped on something that crunched under her feet. She stopped, shining her light on the ground and illuminating a half-empty milkshake cup. It belonged to the boy she’d been watching while in the car.

  When they finally returned to the parking lot, the boy’s distraught mother was seated at a picnic table surrounded by Sonic employees.

  “Did you find him?” she asked through tears.

  Emma shook her head. “No, ma’am, not yet,” she said sympathetically. “But we will. We’re going to get the local sheriff’s department to assist in the search.”

  “I called the sheriff,” the manager of Sonic told her. “He should be here any minute.”

  John leaned near the woman. “Ma’am, can you give us a description of who took your son?”

  The woman looked at him, bewildered. “It wasn’t a man!” she exclaimed. “It was one of those things from the forest!”

  John glanced over at Emma to see she was already staring at him, her gaze piercing.


  “Tell me your son’s name, his age, and what he was wearing,” John asked, trying to act as if the woman’s revelation hadn’t swayed him.

  The woman continued to sob, and a Sonic employee offered her a cup of water. She finally managed to regain her composure enough to answer his questions. John learned the boy’s name was Lucas Hurst. He was eight years old and wearing a pair of denim shorts and a white shirt with red stripes. His mother had sent him out of the car to dispose of their trash when he was abruptly taken. She’d just barely caught a glimpse of the thing that took him but was certain it was one of the wood apes that were known to inhabit the forests of Baker County.

  Strobing blue lights pulled John and Emma’s attention away from the woman. Sheriff Ray Cochran brought the large patrol car to a screeching stop near them and the man’s large frame exited the vehicle and jogged toward them.

  “Was it one of them?” he asked.

  John nodded.

  “Yeah, it was one of those sons of bitches,” Emma growled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s the one you helped free.”

  “No,” Sheriff Cochran said. “It wasn’t Kurt. There’s no way.”

  “Sheriff, please find my boy!” the woman wailed in agony.

  “We’ll find him, Mary,” he replied, seemingly aware of who the woman was.

  A deputy arrived and Cochran had him see to the woman. Once he had John and Emma out of earshot, he asked, “Which way did the thing take him?”

  John pointed to where they went into the forest.

  “We chased him as far as we could but finally lost track,” Emma said bitterly.

  “I know a road that goes through the forest in the direction you say they went.” The sheriff walked back toward his vehicle. “Get in the car,” he told them. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and cut them off.”

  Cochran sped along the curvy dark roads until they finally reached a very secluded spot in the heart of the forest. He pulled the car off the road, the blue lights still strobing.

  “I say we spread out,” the sheriff suggested. “I’ll go straight ahead and you two go parallel to me further out.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” John said as he readied his weapon.

  “Fire a shot in the air if you see anything,” Emma said, and she quickly ran away into the darkness.

  John shined his light in all directions as he went, and he began to shout the boy’s name.

  “Lucas! Lucas, can you hear me?”

  The only reply he received was the own echo of his words returning to him. He traveled deep into the woods, so far that he was beginning to think it was time to turn back. His light scanned the environment ahead of him and suddenly he caught a glimpse of something odd. He moved the light carefully back to what caught his gaze, and he cringed as it illuminated what he’d feared he’d seen before. Bright red blood.

  John fired a shot into the air to let the sheriff and Emma know he’d found something. As he waited, he began to follow the trail of blood in hopes he’d find something positive that would lead to a happy ending for young Lucas Hurst. His hopes were dashed soon as he came across a boy’s sneaker. It was stained in blood.

  John held a hand over his mouth as he crouched to examine the shoe. He clearly saw it had once been white but was now soaked almost entirely red. It wasn’t a good sign and his heart sank.

  “John!” Sheriff Cochran called out as he approached.

  “Over here,” he replied, still crouching over the shoe.

  The sheriff drew closer to him and John heard him gasp.

  “Yeah, not good,” he said in response.

  “No, it’s not the shoe,” Cochran said, his voice trembling a bit.

  John turned and shined his light in the direction where Sheriff Cochran was standing. On the ground in front of his boots lay a severed arm—a boy’s arm ripped away just above the elbow.

  Chapter 2

  “So, what is it exactly that you’d have me do?” Sheriff Cochran asked tiredly.

  “Your job,” Emma replied, frustration in her tone.

  John rubbed his eyes and took a gulp of coffee. It was almost two o’clock in the morning and he desperately wanted to sleep. “Sheriff, we just think that the sooner you get a search party in those woods, the better. The boy is most likely dead, true enough, but we need to act fast if we’re gonna find whoever is responsible.”

  “And I told you,” Cochran responded, staring at the two of them sharply. “I’ll get every man I can get in those woods first thing in the morning. almost certainly dead.”

  Cochran closed his eyes, looked away, and sighed.

  “And you’re here cowering in your office,” Emma continued. “Cowering because you’re afraid you don’t have enough men to deal with that…” she paused as she contemplated the right word. “That thing,” she said finally. “You’re afraid and it’s pretty damn obvious.”

  “Honeycutt, that’s enough,” John said, stepping forward and gesturing at her with his hand.

  Sheriff Cochran rubbed at the back of his neck and grumbled something under his breath. “Fine, damnit,” he said, sounding defeated. “Me and my deputies will go out there tonight and see if we can track it.”

  Lightning flashed from beyond the window and thunder rumbled soon after.

  “Maybe he’s right,” John said, glancing over at Emma. “A storm is rolling in.”

  “The one that took that boy, it’s not who you think it is,” the sheriff said abruptly. “It’s not Kurt Bledsoe.”

  Emma stepped forward, the cigarette dangling from her mouth. “Oh yeah? How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’ve been around him in his current…state,” Cochran explained. “He wouldn’t do this. There is too much of his human side still in there.”

  Emma rolled her eyes and took a long drag off her cigarette. She exhaled the smoke through her nose. “Sheriff, please stop,” she muttered. “You’re gonna make me cry here.”

  Sheriff Cochran snorted and then stomped toward a hook hanging on a nearby wall where his rain gear hung. “I’m headed back over there to look for this thing, Ms. Honeycutt,” he growled. “You stay in here where it’s nice and dry, okay?”

  Emma smiled at him. “Yeah, I think I’ll hang around and question the witness a little bit more,” she replied arrogantly.

  John sighed and shook his head. “Sheriff, I’m going with you,” he said. “Do you have an extra poncho or something.”

  Sheriff Cochran nodded. “Got one in the trunk of my car,” he answered. “Not going to turn down your help.”

  The two men trudged toward the glass door as another streak of lightning illuminated the parking lot outside.

  “You boys try not to catch a cold,” Emma called out after them. “Catch whatever the hell took that boy instead.”

  Sheriff Cochran seemed to ignore her and barged out into the windy night. John glared at her and paused at the door. “Honeycutt, when you finish questioning Mrs. Hurst, the car is out here if you’d like to come join us.” He tossed her the keys.

  She caught them and shoved them into her coat pocket in one fluid motion. “Thanks, Milk,” she said with a smirk. “Sure, I’ll be right over. Be watching for me.”

  ***

  “Why is she like that?” Sheriff Cochran asked as he piloted the boxy patrol car along the rural roads of Baker County.

  John chuckled. “Don’t take it so personally,” he said. “You should be used to how she is by now.”

  Cochran glanced over at him. “You are?”

  John’s eyes widened slightly, and he turned his attention to the windshield in front of him. “Well…I suppose if I’m honest, that’s a big N-O.”

  “So how the hell do you deal with it?”

  “She’s actually really good at her job,” John explained. “What she said about questioning Mrs. Hurst some more…she’s not bullshitting. She’s gonna run that poor woman through the ringer to make damn sure there isn’t another piece of information she can pry out o
f her to point us in the right direction.”

  “So, you’re saying she doesn’t believe it was a wood ape?”

  “I’m saying she’s open to all possibilities, no matter how unbelievable,” John replied. “That’s one of the things that makes her so good.”

  The big car rumbled along for several more miles until finally they reached the point where they’d searched for Lucas Hurst hours earlier. There were already other patrol cars parked there, blue lights strobing in all directions. As Cochran pulled the car to a stop, the rain began to fall.

  “Perfect,” he grumbled as he exited the vehicle.

  John pulled the poncho on over his head and then grabbed a Baker County Sheriff’s Department ball cap off the back seat in hopes it would at the very least help keep the rain out of his face.

  “Alright, fellas,” the sheriff said as he approached the four deputies. “I know it’s late and I know the weather isn’t great,” he added as thunder rumbled overhead. “But after careful consideration, I think it best we get out there and comb through these woods one more time to see if we can find that boy. We’ll have help in the morning but until the sun rises, we’re on our own. Keep your gun drawn, but if you have to use it, you better know damn well what you’re shooting at.”

  The deputies looked at each other and John could see a bit of uneasiness in their faces.

  “If we find that boy, we’re gonna call it a night. He is most likely dead, so at this point, I don’t think it would be accurate to call this a search and rescue. Having said that, I just know if it was my kid, I wouldn’t want him left out here all night in weather like this and it wouldn’t matter if he was alive or dead. Let’s find Lucas and give the mother some closure.”

  A skinny deputy with horn-rimmed glasses stepped forward. He had dark hair, almost shoulder-length, and it was already beginning to stick his neck from all the rain. “Sheriff, are you saying if we see this thing that took the boy…we’re supposed to kill it?”

  Cochran sighed and glanced over at John. “Billy, keep in mind, we’re not completely certain who or what took the boy,” he answered. “Having said that, if you find a wood ape out there, yes, you’ve got authorization to shoot to kill.”