Hawkins stands up, hands on his hips. He’s dressed in black fatigues, like me, to better hide in the shadows of the dense forest. While I’ve got my balding head concealed by a black beanie cap—I prefer red—he has his full head of hair held down by a black bandana, tied back. I’d like to think we look super cool and dangerous, but I’m pretty sure we look more like weekend warriors trying to relive our childhoods. Of course, the weapons we carry shatter that image.
We’ve both got .45 SIG Sauer P220 handguns, which pack a serious punch. I’m also carrying an MP5 submachine gun, and Hawkins has an insane looking AA-12 automatic shotgun that can shoot twelve rapid-fire shells with minimal kick. All this for one BFS, which if Hawkins is right, could become many BFSs if we don’t kill it before it finds victims. I’d brought up the possibility of bringing in extra fire power. The FC-P has the option now. But he’s seen these things use military forces as breeding grounds. We could throw a hundred men at them and end up having three hundred more BFSs as a result. At least with Hawkins and me, there would just be six more.
Until they reach Portland, population: 600,000, which isn’t including all the suburbs.
“Look again,” Hawkins says, and he waits until I find the trail, fifteen feet up, etched into the bark of a Douglas-fir.
“Got it.” The fresh scratches and punctures lead around the fourteen-foot-diameter tree, rising steadily before disappearing again. I point to the next tree, where the trail continues, rounding a second, three-hundred-foot-tall Douglas-fir. If the BFS climbs too high, we’ll never find it. But this one appears to prefer being near the ground. The trail continues deeper, and I notice it’s following the human-made walking trail. It’s just 6:30 in the morning, so we’re the first ones here, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone camping.
Hawkins stops me with a hand on my shoulder. Points to my MP5. “Safety off.”
“Not exactly protocol,” I say.
“There’s a good chance you won’t have time to switch the safety off later,” he says.
“If we find it.”
“When it finds us.”
I thumb the safety off. “You know, when Collins and I do these things, I usually get laid.”
He cracks a smile. Hawkins has a sense of humor, but he doesn’t crack many jokes. He’s a serious guy most of the time, which isn’t surprising given the number of scars he has—the worst of them from that grizzly bear he killed. Claw marks right over his chest. “I’m afraid that the only eggs getting fertilized will be the ones injected into your gut. Good news is, you’ll get to see the live birth before you die.”
His smile widens. An uncommon joke. He must be nervous, which makes me nervous.
I pat the puncture-resistant armor we’re both wearing. It covers most of my soft spots, and it’s strong enough to stop a razor-sharp KA-BAR knife thrust by Chuck Norris. “I’m wearing protection.”
“We’ll see,” he says, the smile fading as he steps into the shaded rainforest.
“I’d rather not.”
“Then keep your gun up, and stay quiet. Try not to speak unless you’re being attacked.”
“Copy that,” I say, getting serious. The time for jokes is over. The time for screaming and shooting and potential worst-death-ever-at-the-hands-of-a-genetic-freak has now begun.
We walk for an hour in complete silence, listening to the sounds of the forest. Birds, insects and water—lots of water. Aside from a foot-long banana slug, which looks like a cross between a banana and a living turd with tentacles, we haven’t spotted any large game. This could be a good or bad thing depending on what kind of glass-half-full, glass-half-empty kind of person you are. I’d like to think I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, but then I see the BFS’s trail returns to the ground, where it disappears again.
The path has turned to brown stone. The roar of a waterfall drowns out the forest. It’s just ahead, hidden by fifty feet of looming trees.
Hawkins waits for me to catch up. He leans back to whisper in my ear. “Stay sharp. This is an ideal hunting ground.”
I nod, having spent enough time in the woods in search of Wendigos, Jersey Devils and hairy drunk men pretending to be them, to know that the water draws prey animals to drink, and the noise helps drown out the approach of the predators that hunt them.
MP5 braced against my shoulder, I follow Hawkins around the massive tree trunks separating us from the river. Sounds easy, but I’m walking backwards. Any predator worth its claws will attack from behind, so I don’t give it a chance. Part of me says that I need to show my back, so the BFS will attack, but if Hawkins is right, it won’t matter. The B in BFS could also stand for brazen.
We exit the rainforest onto a slab of stone overlooking the river, which descends down the gently sloping mountainside over a series of five-to-ten-foot-tall waterfalls. The rush of water is deafening. If Hawkins and I were talking, we’d have to shout.