- CHAPTER 1: Chief Bigfoot - © 2.15.2007

The engine noise from the car was no longer audible.

What a bunch of losers, Rusty thought.  They must have been lost out in the middle of nowhere.  The thought was suddenly interrupted by the dog upstairs, barking louder than before. Rusty inched his way to the base of the staircase.  Rusty didn’t need a flashlight. His night vision was one of the best, even better than a dog’s. In the dark, he could see shadows moving about against a low hanging flashlight.   The shadows were getting larger and the light getting brighter.  He wondered who these men were, why they were here, and when they would see the trail of blood leading downstairs.  The blood would undoubtedly be fresh.

Rusty grabbed his gun and scrambled to hide under the stairwell.  He could hear the steps above covering up whispers like it was a home invasion.

“Look at all this blood.  Maybe the old man’s dead downstairs,” he heard a husky voice say plainly.

“The boss says we only have ten minutes here,” a younger voice replied.  “Let’s go get it.”

The door at the top creaked open and flashlights could be seen surveying the piles of junk stacked up in this storage bin.   Rusty had to think fast. If these men were to come downstairs, he would have to confront them, and there would be only one outcome from that. He lifted the gun towards the top of the stairs, ready to shoot as soon as he could see the energy field around their legs.

“If the old man’s down here, the suitcase is long gone,” the husky voice continued.  “But we still have three minutes to make use of.”

“He might still be alive,” the young man noted.

“Then we have to finish the job.”

The intruders began their descent into a room that smelled like a slaughterhouse.  The trail of blood was easy to follow, and the flashlights followed the pattern from the stairs to the peephole and slowly to the ice box, where the light paused for a long three seconds to assess the jackpot.  Then the light trailed back to the peephole, sensing something was not right.

“Where’s the body?” asked the young one.

“Are you here McKinney?  We heard some noise outside and came to help.  Where are you?”

Rusty couldn’t hold his breath much longer.  He could see the two men clearly as steam floated out of their incandescent silhouettes.  Before the flashlight could make its way back to the growing pool of blood by the base of the staircase, four shots rang out in rapid succession.  Rusty could hear the scream of panic and pain following the first shot, which dropped the younger of the two.  He fired again at the fallen intruder and shot again at the older man in the trenchcoat, who dove for the antique couch in the middle of the room.

“Twenty-three. Are you okay?”

There was no response from the fallen kid.  His flashlight was broken on the ground, and the German Shepard’s barking upstairs was the only noise that defied the organized silence of the night.

“ McKinney.  This is Roger Allis from the bureau.  We’re not here to hurt you, but to help you.  Where are you?”

Rusty began to breathe freely.  He aimed his gun at the glowing shadow next to the couch, ready to fire as needed.

“I’m here you bastard.  Come and get me!” Rusty yelled back, trying to imitate the old Irishman’s voice as best he could.  It sounded rather odd, and received no immediate reaction from the agent behind the couch.

While Rusty was trying to lure the unwelcome thief out of his shell, he heard several clicking noises followed by electronic beeps.  These were sounds like the ones he heard in science fiction movies and Star Trek shows, but never in real life.

In less than two minutes, Rusty heard another sound, this time, a large rotating blade that chopped the air into different sound bites that continuously got louder.  A helicopter out here in the middle of the night?  He threw his bloody bandage into the air, hoping it would land on this so called agent.  There was no reaction.

Suddenly, time stood still for Rusty.  As the dog’s barking noise became drowned out by the sound of the chopper hovering overhead, Rusty was getting ready to pull his trigger when a large boom rocked the entire neighborhood of sleeping cows.  Rusty didn’t hear the boom though, because he was right in the middle of it.

When the police arrived at the scene less than 2 hours later, Rusty was just gaining consciousness from the fallout.  Incredibly, the staircase had shielded him from the explosion upstairs, which decimated the entire house, collapsing what solid debris was left into the basement.  His gun was nowhere near, but his whole body was intact, except for his toe.  As far as the police were concerned, the kid was a hero who came upon some unsuspecting burglars who accidentally shot open a gas pipe during the burglary.  Rusty told them all he was thinking about was having a cigarette when the explosion occurred.  That made Rusty one lucky hero according to the Tulsa Tribune.

Rusty was treated to full accommodations at the City of Hope Hospital, receiving the best care the city officials could afford.  The briefcase that Rusty was found clutching onto at the house was left in the hospital as part of his possessions.  Nobody asked why the kid was walking around with a suitcase late at night and happened to be visiting the old man McKinney at his home, except the tribal leaders knew something was not right.  The local police knew this kid was one of the night drivers who had no close relatives or friends, and they let the facts drift away from this explanation to prevent any further tragedy to McKinney’s heart in his remaining years.  Old Man McKinney was sent to a retirement home after insurance paid out his home damage claims.  After his third and final visit to Rusty in the hospital later that week, the old man was never heard from again.  Rusty was still lapsing in and out of present memory, but he could remember that McKinney looked like a ghost trapped in a body with no way out.

Continued...