Cold Cat Mountain: The Peak (Cold Cat Mountain Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Could an animal of its purported size live and dwell in this world with us? After all, we as a species are driven to explore even the depths of space. One would say then too that Anthropologists leave no stone unturned.”

  Polite laughter followed and Matilda smiled primly. “Once again, turning to what lies in front of us is the most valuable approach to the discovery of a species.

  To date there have been several species on record our scientific colleagues have only recently discovered. Some of which were thought to be folklore, such as the giant squid reported by sailors who returned with tales from the high seas reporting sightings of this creature, which measured up to fifty feet in length. Many, many sailors spotted these creatures. Many sailors were laughed at. Japanese researchers discovered this elusive ocean inhabitant in 2005. It had once been an illustration in a book of fiction. Scientists, after centuries of disbelief, finally discovered this was no mythical creature.

  Furthermore, deep in the Congolese jungle a legend shared for decades about apes that were known to kill lions, catch catfish and howl at the moon dominated campfire conversations and kept people on alert. Because this species was rumored to dwell in the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the location of one of our planets bloodiest conflicts, the myth was more readily received than the effort it took to end it. Harder yet to believe were the rumors that these apes had a taste for cat flesh. Large cats. And yet, despite all of the reasons to avoid searching, the need for truth was suddenly all consuming. When this population of super-sized chimps, with their own unique culture had been finally discovered by an intrepid spirit, they were in the process of consuming a leopard.

  Getting to this location, where tales of these mystery apes generated fear, was a grueling twenty-five mile trek through croc-infested waters. Now known as the Bili Apes, the myth has been proven to be a fact. They were among us all along. They had been sighted numerous times, and numerous times those who reported their sightings received nothing but momentary attention, and an opportunity to experience the same skepticism the afore mentioned sailors of old had faced. And for the reports to come in from so many individuals who had nothing to gain through sharing, and who were consistently ignored, we must face the fact that we may ourselves be living among a creature whose very evasion of us has failed occasionally, and reports have streamed in. Let me ask you,” Matilda changed the image on the screen back to the shaded areas of Asia and North America, “Can this many people be reporting the same thing over and over and over as a hoax? And even if some have been hoaxes, where is the gain in it for those who were bold enough to share their encounters? Laughter, skepticism, mockery, condescension and refusal to listen are often the overwhelming payoffs for those who come forward.”

  A loud round of applause and cheers echoed from the back of the auditorium where the tired faces of those who had personal encounters with Sasquatch peered from darkened corners. Their eyes were feverish. Their need for acknowledgment a scent.

  “Is our society refusing to believe in Sasquatch simply because no one has yet stood up to say they will endure the hardship of the discovery? Is it inconceivable that a species has been eluding our kind for thousands of years? It would most certainly denote a higher intelligence, given that we as a species are prone to exploitation.”

  Applause reverberated off the walls and high ceiling of the auditorium. Remaining on the metal stool, Matilda managed to somehow appear even less comfortable than she had at the beginning of her presentation.

  She held up her remote and changed the screen behind her to the United States with topography of the map displaying prominent color patterns clustered in groups around mountain ranges.

  Clearing her throat again she pushed her glasses back up and crossed her legs, raising her index finger toward the screen.

  “A recent study, detailing the past sixty years of disappearances, has been compiled. This specific type of data gathering has never before been attempted. Many search and rescue operations throughout the past sixty years have generally lasted approximately six to seven days in the areas highlighted on the map above. Interesting facts have surfaced as researchers have ferreted out and accurately recorded the data surrounding disappearances, deaths and fascinating recoveries from mountainous regions and National Parks over almost a decade. Much of this data is now available for the public. I encourage you to educate yourselves. Often we cannot see the pieces of the puzzle until we study the lid from the box. Following the photo on the box, as with a puzzle, patterns will begin to emerge, showing us a picture where previously there were only scattered and disconnected pieces. As you can see from this map, frequent disappearances have been shown to emerge in clusters. More interesting still, the interviews and records from these vanishings, deaths and amnesia episodes have yielded results pointing to patterns not just in the locations of the vanishings, but in the details of the vanishings themselves. For example, records from reports where family members had since passed and no interview could be conducted, revealed startling patterns among groups where a high percentage of disappearances occurred with either an individual hiking at the head of a line, or the individual who had taken a place at the end of the line while hiking in these regions.”

  Murmur’s rose and fell as the audience absorbed the information.

  “Gathering data from this untapped information source has raised many more questions than our scientific professionals can ignore. Is the data from the past six decades simply an anomaly, or are we facing potential connections? Certainly time and man hours should not be invested in the gathering of data pertaining to unique missing persons reports unless that auspicious information, which has lain dormant, provides us with a three dimensional perspective. A perspective…”

  Matilda enlarged the map behind her, allowing for the audience to study the locations of the disappearances. “Now if we consider that these records are factual, and we then add to it in an overlay with the reports from recorded Sasquatch sightings,” Matilda clicked her remote again and the large room began to fill with anxious exchanges between groups. The disappearances of people aligned perfectly with Sasquatch sightings throughout the United States.

  Matilda allowed the audience to share hushed conversation while she patiently waited. “Gathered in these detailed and outdated reports over almost a century, are facts one would not have to embellish, or dramatize. These facts I am about to share with you speak for themselves. And before I go on to share these facts with you I would like to point out that skeptics of the Bigfoot –Giganto theory base their continued disbelief upon the possibility because of their own conclusions of who and what Gigantopithecus was, and is. Their belief in a large, Orangutan primate that subsisted on fruit and roots is a closed minded approach. Rather, we must remain curious enough that we search, and humble enough that we can see the picture appearing before us. Not what we want the picture to be. Having said that, let us then concern ourselves with the possibility that this large primate was in fact just as capable of carnivorous adaptation as the Bili Apes. Were that the case, we would then have an evolved creature capable of taking advantage of thousands of humans who have disappeared either without a trace, or in many cases, with chilling stories and experiences that have been gathered and diligently compiled into reports. Reports that have remained a silent documentation that we may in fact have a creature among us, stalking us.”

  The discomfort with Matilda’s theory was evident in the sudden shuffle of feet and elevated voices.

  Matilda raised her hand patiently, waiting.

  Blaze blinked asking herself if she’d just heard Matilda Bough accuse Bigfoot of abducting and eating people.

  Hands began going up all around the auditorium.

  Matilda remained steady and spoke into the mic clearly.

  “Please hold all of your questions until the end.” Two academics stood and quietly exited the large room with shaking heads. Matilda was unshaken in the face of their response. Whereas earlier she had appeare
d timid and nervous, she currently bore herself with a regal authority.

  “In 1948 a young boy of three named Ronald accompanied his parents and older brother to Yosemite National Park where the family had arranged to spend approximately three days enjoying the sights. On the afternoon of their second day Ronald, who had been holding his mother’s hand asked if he could run ahead and join his ten year old brother Kevin. Ronald’s mother, who had been walking behind his father on the narrow trail, asked Ronald to wait while she picked a flower. Ronald waited behind her, talking about the marshmallows he had eaten the night before. His mother listened and turned her attention to another flower. When she stood and reached for Ronald’s hand he was gone. Screaming for her husband Mary Anne Shulks ran into the trees to the right of the narrow trail. The left was a small sloping drop off that would have shown Ronald. Another family on the trail heard the commotion and responded, going for help. For six days the park was searched. Thoroughly. On the seventh day a search crew moved back up to the last spot Ronald was seen. He was there, lying on a tree that had been pushed over. He was naked. However, his shoes were on the tree next to him. He was alive, barely. He could remember nothing.”

  Matilda studied the audience, frowning. “Six days later the child turned up in the same area that had been the starting point for several days, on a tree that had not previously been lying across the trail.” Matilda paused and took a sip of water.

  “In 1965 a child of six years was abducted from her own front yard of the family’s home. They noticed her absence after her father returned outside to retrieve a bag of groceries from the car. The swing she had been on was still in motion. The child’s grandparents and parents organized their friends and neighbors in cooperation with local law enforcement, searching a total of thirteen hours. The little girl was found seventeen miles away at the top of a mountain ridge. She was found dead, lying at the base of a large boulder. Her shoes were near her. She wore only her shirt and socks.

  However, these reports do not only tell of child tragedies. Throughout these specific regions of mountains and national forests and parks, thousands of adults have gone missing, without a trace. In the rare cases their bodies have turned up, they have been located near water, at the base of trees, and at the bottom of deep ravines. Shoeless, and often clothed. In Glacier National Park in 1998 a woman named Denise Krauss went hiking with her friend. Her friend reported that they had been consistently no more than three to four feet apart as they hiked. They were visiting about work and Denise was trying to decide if she should go back to school for her Maters degree. Her friend, Carolina, said she heard Denise sneeze. She said when Denise sneezed a second time she asked if she needed a tissue. When Denise did not answer Carolina turned. Denise was gone. Her body was never recovered, and neither where any of her things. Carolina was questioned thoroughly by authorities, and very forthright. She was not a suspect.”

  Matilda paused. In the growing silence the alarm on Blazes wrist watch beeped, alerting her it was time to take her medication. She pressed the button, embarrassed. The woman next to her smiled tightly. Even that pretext of acceptance vanished though when Blaze opened a dark bottle and retrieved her pills. The moment passed. Blaze had in the recent past ignored the alarm when in the company of others, but the consequences were debilitating. Having learned the hard way that an un-sedated monster wreaked havoc with the use of pain, Blaze accepted that she could not explain to everyone she was not a drug addict, or even why she had to take the medication. She swallowed her medicine and watched as Matilda changed the screen behind her to a large, orange primate, legs curled almost childlike, eating leaves from a branch.

  “This curious and mostly docile primate is not who walks the mountains, or inhabits the outskirts of small towns.”

  The soft brown eyes of the orangutan stared back from the screen. “This is a vegetarian. Both the jaw bones and the teeth recovered from Gigantopithecus indicate that cavities were the result of eating fruit. Are we completely certain that these primates only subsisted on fruit and vegetables? For instance, their incisors were elongated and canine in appearance. And finally, I ask only that you remain curious. While no one can know with absolute accuracy what has happened to Gignatopithecus, no one can with absolute accuracy claim this creature is not extinct.”

  Matilda slid from her stool and leaned toward the mike.

  “I will now take your questions.”

  “We make our own monsters, then fear them for what they show us about ourselves.” ― Mike Carey

  ~Four~

  Matilda leaned back against the seat of her range rover, sighing deeply. After answering questions for an hour, she was happy to take her leave and join Blaze Christian at Access Grill. She rubbed her head and started her vehicle. A lone cellist elicited long subdued memories as it nearly overwhelmed the speakers. Matilda let herself be taken on the tide of its melody as she rested her hands on the wheel, staring out into the dark. She held a memory, soft around the edges, of her father standing by the ocean as he held up a starfish. His pant legs were rolled up and his thick blonde hair blew in his eyes. As the melody ended Matilda closed her own eyes. She missed him. His laugh. His adventurous spirit. His music. After her mother had died Matilda rarely left her father’s side.

  As she shifted into gear she thought of the long winters in New Zealand where she would lay at her father’s feet while he played cello. Now, even years after his death she longed to go home. It was gone though. Driving to meet Blaze for a dinner meeting and interview she lost herself in the music. Haunting. She wished her father had been able to attend her lecture today. He would have squeezed her shoulders and called her daring. Bold. Things she never considered herself to be. She felt weak very often, and overcompensated by being adventurous. Her father though, he had stated often that she was he and her mother’s crowning achievement. As a new cello melody filled the rover, Matilda inhaled, breathing the music into her lungs and holding it, letting it seep into her heart. Exhaling slowly, she smiled and closed her eyes. He was with her in spirit. She felt safe and certain of that if nothing else.

  An orphan and explorer, she let herself accept a small portion of who she was.

  “She's in the club. The hopelessly-outnumbered-and-surrounded-by-monsters club.” ― M.R. Carey

  ~Five~

  Randall leaned back and steepled his fingers. With the grant money transferred, and accepted, he knew it was only a matter of time before the pieces began to fall into place. He re-read the documents and a small smile played at the edges of his lips. Being smarter and wealthier than others came with obvious benefits. One of which was staring him back in the face. Matilda’s file with her photo had been moved from the center of his desk. Randall pulled it back to the center, planting his hands flat on either side of the photo. Closing his eyes, he remembered the day that she had decided to leave his research team. She was brilliant in her anger. Randall still enjoyed recalling the flush to her cheeks, the way she had arched her back when carrying the heavy boxes with her belongings from the room. All that determination and will had a breaking point though. He was certain of that much.

  Knowing she had accepted a grant that he was the source of brought immeasurable pleasure to his game. She was a clever little minx, but he knew he would always be at least one step ahead of her quest for knowledge. He had learned to harness the drive of others a long time ago and coast behind, drafting; head down, keeping his limbs from wind resistance. This was his favorite part of research. His chest filled with pride. He beamed at the concept of winning. Again. He had come so close before. So close. Edith had disappointed him. Of course he had warned her. He had more information on the entity that had taken the lives on Cold Cat Mountain than anyone. Even when she had revealed a peculiar ingenuity for tracking the predators approach through the behaviors of her snow leopard Randall knew she only half grasped what was really happening on the mountain. There was a simple concept to the research he could not seem to get field teams to understan
d. Adhering to Native American folklore had paid off for Randall. The legends were passed down for a reason. One specific piece of knowledge which Randall utilized had surfaced over and over throughout the centuries of folklore. He tilted his head and gazed upon the painting of an Indian maiden covering her eyes before a great beast. The secret to survival was avoidance of eye contact.

  He had always openly shared the folklore. It was one of the only things he ever openly shared. It was also the most consistently ignored piece of information, trampled over and ignored by enthusiastic researchers. Randall could not seem to emphasize the point enough. Every new field researcher ignored it. It was a simple instruction passed down around the campfires of Native elders to their children’s children. Eye contact was considered to be a challenge. A threat. Those who broke that simple golden rule paid dearly for it. Especially on Cold Cat Mountain. Long before Edith’s Snow Leopard had been set lose by her young son the mountains were known as the Iron Ridge. Through long tedious hours of drinking and storytelling among the local townspeople and media, the name Cold Cat had replaced the name for snow leopard, or Kitty. Some called it Cold Kitty, still. The older folks. Mostly though the name stuck, and Cold Cat Mountain developed into a sinister point on the map. One better avoided. For all intents and purposes Cold Cat should have been shut down entirely following Edith’s disappearance. Red tape and inability to agree among government leadership kept it not only open, but a viable threat to the public. Edith’s snow leopard seemed to know intuitively when the creature Randall had hired her to stalk and capture was near. One fascinating remnant from Edith’s past remained. The snow leopard often showed its elusive existence to be evident when a search party scoured the mountain. Without fail, each time Cold Cat appeared the person searched for never re-appeared. Randall ran his fingers across Matilda’s photo. He had finally found someone intelligent enough to pick up where Edith had left off.