Beast Hunter

Chapter Eight

We awoke early the next morning and enjoyed a modest breakfast that consisted of cereal, toast, and local jam - all purchased from our brief stop at the convenience store the night before. The cabin we were staying in was cozy and I slept well. Now seated at the small dining table in the cabin's kitchen, we each enjoyed our meal. Stu read from a local newspaper while Sky sat with a tiny notebook open, going over data that she herself must have written down at one point.

The plan was to head out shortly after we finished eating. According to Sky, her friend Gary Grey was expecting us right away. Going off the directions she had printed online before we had left, his place wasn't far.

Before going, though, there was something that I wanted to ask her, something that may be considered too personal, but I was dying to know none-the-less.

"Sky, I was wondering. What first got you interested in studying cryptids?"

Sky looked up from her notebook. Stu put down his paper. For a second, they both just looked at me, saying nothing. I suddenly worried that perhaps I had touched on a sensitive subject one that she wasn't yet prepared to discuss.

But her expression soon softened, and she answered my question without even the slightest hint of embarrassment or apprehension.

"I've always loved animals," she said. "At one point I even wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up. That all changed one summer when I was twelve. My parents owned a small farm about a hundred miles southwest of the city. My dad and I were working in one of the fields while my mother was close to the house putting laundry out on the clothesline to dry. My baby brother had been born that winter, so she had to stick close to the house to keep an eye on him. It was just dad and I out in the field when it happened."

I could tell from Stu's neutral expression that he had heard this story before, which meant that this current revelation was solely for my benefit. It didn't matter. I was riveted.

"I had stepped away from my father and was on my hands and knees pulling weeds away from the bean crops when a shadow quickly passed over the sun. The next thing I knew, something gripped me by the shoulders and lifted me off the ground. I was disoriented at first and wasn't quite sure what was going on. But it didn't take me long to realize that I wasn't just being lifted off the ground, I was flying over it. Struggling, I turned my head up trying to get a good look at whatever it was that had grabbed me. And that's when I saw..."

I leaned forward, my attention fully focused on every word.

"It was a bird," Sky said. "A very large, very terrifying bird. Its wingspan was enormous, and each time it flapped it made this defining whoosh sound. It had a long neck, and for a moment it turned its head and squawked at me before looking forward again."

She said all this without the slightest hint of apprehension or defensiveness, as if she had no problem taking full ownership of the story with complete confidence in every detail. I could tell that she believed in every word she was saying, and she didn't care who knew.

"How did you escape?" I asked.

"Fortunately for me, my father was close enough and saw the whole thing. He was a veteran and knew how to keep calm in stressful situations. He sprinted to the house and grabbed his rifle. Though I was short for my age and didn't weigh much, it must have been more than the bird expected. My weight must have slowed it some and kept it from climbing too high in the sky. Once my father got back outside, he took aim with his rifle and fired a shot. The bullet clipped the bird's wing and caused it to let go. I dropped back down onto the bean field. The impact knocked the wind out of me but luckily nothing was broken. While I laid there trying to catch my breath, I looked up into the sky and watched as the giant bird flew away. By the time my father reached me, it had disappeared over the horizon. I never saw it again."

The next question to jump into my mind was obvious. "What was it?"

"Exactly," Sky answered. "After the incident, we spent hours in the local library pouring over books trying to identify it. But nothing fit. Most ornithologists agree that the largest-known flight birds are condors. The Andean condor is the largest of the species. They have a wingspan of ten to twelve feet and live in the Andes Mountain region of South America. Their closest North American cousin is the California condor, which have a wingspan of nine feet and is the largest bird species in North America. But as I live and breathe, I swear to you that the bird that attacked me that day was much larger than even the Andean condor, let alone the smaller California condor. Its wingspan was at least fifteen feet wide, not to mention the fact that its color pattern didn't fit any known species in the zoological record. This was something else, something unknown to natural science. It was a cryptid species."

Sky paused for an instant, giving me a moment to fully digest the story.

"I was hooked from that moment on," she said. "I became fascinated with the animal kingdom. I practically devoured the zoological record, not just to learn what was there, but to learn what was not there. I soon discovered that giant birds weren't the only mysterious species rumored to exist in the world, and I vowed to make it my mission to study these species using real scientific methods. And that, my young friend, is what first got me interested in the study of cryptids."

A flood of further questions came to me: You must have a theory about the bird that attacked you. What was it? Where did it come from? Where was it going? Why did it attack you? Where is it now? Are there others?

I asked them all like a blubbering idiot before stopping myself. I could see Stu chuckle out of the corner of my eye. Crypto fever was a contagious disease. And it seemed that I had thoroughly caught it.

"Those are all good questions," Sky said. "But that discussion will have to wait for another time, otherwise we'll be here all day and half the night just talking about it, and we have other matters to attend to today."

"She's right," Stu said, finally entering the conversation. "We have a tight schedule to keep, and I believe that Mr. Grey is expecting us soon."

I consented right away. They were right. The thing we were after today was of another species all together. The hunt for the giant birds would have to wait.

At least for now.

We left for Grey's place shortly after, unaware that we were being followed.