That Beast that Haunts Me: Part Three

It had felt wrong. It felt off. It felt like I would never be there again.

In the middle of a burning village. Screams of innocent locals. Blood on my hands.

I felt shell shocked. I said nothing because I had nothing to say. I felt like a ghost.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I heard a voice say. I turned to see Berrycloth. I turned back to look at the trampled forest in front of me. I hadn’t even realized I had started following it. I looked down at my white knuckled-grip on my rifle. “What are you doing, are you gonna go kill it by yourself?” I was unsure what to say. I realized, all that I’d wanted was for the beast to be dead, ‘how’ hadn’t occurred to me yet.

Berrycloth stood amongst the rubble of the town. “Are we still going through with this?”

“Thinking about the beast still being alive when I’m on my deathbed or something, I can’t let that happen,” I responded.

“At least you’ll get a bed.”

That pissed me off.

“What about Henry? What about all the others it’s taken?” I shouted. 

Berrycloth didn’t yell back. He looked resolved. “Okay. Then let’s go,” he said calmly. 

I nodded.

Before leaving, Berrycloth dug the old radio out of the rubble. “Could be useful,” he said. I agreed.

Despite it now growing dark, we ventured into the jungle, following the path of crushed foliage and trees.

Berrycloth retrieved a flashlight from his bag and flicked it on. We proceeded cautiously, and Berrycloth turned on the radio to a very low volume.

I gripped my gun, though I wasn’t sure I was of much use. Berrycloth went ahead of me, holding his flashlight in one hand and his gun in the other.

The radio quietly played an old blues song. The music drifted through the warm night air. It felt eerie. I could hear no birds or insects, and the jungle felt uninviting and hostile. 

We walked for several minutes in silence, hyper-aware of our surroundings. 

After a while, the destruction seemed to subside, and we were met with a clean, unharmed wall of jungle. We glanced at each other. Berrycloth turned up the radio. We listened intently. When we turned to our left, it seemed to sound more staticy. We decided to head that way.

Every step was deliberate. We didn’t know how this creature functioned, but we thought it best to be as quiet as possible, despite the radio.

The static seemed to grow, so we became confident we were headed in the right direction. 

It must have been a few hours before one of us finally spoke.

“Do you think it’s really us doing the hunting?” I whispered.

Berrycloth shrugged. “Who knows? As long as we can catch it, it doesn’t matter.”

I jumped when I heard a twig snap nearby. We both tensed up and pointed our weapons to the sound, but after a while we decided it must just have been a small animal. 

Yet something didn’t feel right. I thought I kept seeing movement in my peripherals. Strange sounds occasionally floated through the night towards us. We both remained on guard. 

“What was your time here like?” I asked abruptly after another couple minutes of silence. I didn’t know why, but after all the trouble, I felt I’d like to get to know Berrycloth a bit better. Maybe I felt guilty for putting him through it all.

“Pretty normal, other than, you know…” He gestured vaguely at the jungle, referring to his time with the beast. “I made Sergeant pretty quickly. They said I had a good work ethic. I was dependable.”

I nodded. “I was a medic,” I offered. “Didn’t see too much battle overall. Just a few. The worst was… well, you know.” It was my turn to gesture to the forest.

Berrycloth chuckled. “I remember thinking I was doing a very honorable thing,” he said. “I felt very good about my tour. I still do, to be fair.”

I didn’t know what to say. Berrycloth had seemed very hardened when I met him, and again when I saw him at his cabin. Now, I could see it was a quiet pride. He was proud of what he’d done here. I wasn’t sure I could say the same. 

“I still think about that day,” I admitted. “I wish we could have gotten it then.”

Berrycloth shrugged. “Better late than never,” he remarked. He shined his flashlight about, checking our path forward. “Best not to have regrets,” he added. “Especially when it comes to war.”

I felt like I was twenty years old again, looking up to some mentor. I shook my head. “Maybe,” I said. “But I guess it’s just not easy for me to forget about it all.”

Berrycloth chuckled humorlessly. “Well, that’s true. There are plenty of things I’ll never forget.”

As we spoke, we continued cautiously through the undergrowth. I froze when I heard another sound. “What was that?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear it,” Berrycloth admitted. “Where?” 

I nodded my head to my right. He shined his light in the direction of the sound, but it was impossible to see anything through the thick leaves.

“Let’s keep moving,” he suggested. The static on the radio continued to grow more intense. 

Not long after, we came upon a small clearing in the jungle, surrounded by jagged rocks. We had happened upon a cave. 

“Oh shit,” Berrycloth exclaimed. 

We stood there at the edge of the woods, unsure of how to proceed. 

“What now?” I asked. 

“Well, I guess now we see if the cave is inhabited,” Berrycloth said boldly.

We ventured forward. A bright moon hung in the sky above us, illuminating the strange rock outcroppings. Berrycloth shined his light into the cave.

“Think it’s in there?” I asked. 

He didn’t respond, but instead carefully turned up the radio. The static seemed to have subsided.

“Should we really go in?” I said. I could feel myself clenching my gun hard, and I felt like I was right back in that field 38 years ago. 

Berrycloth nodded. “Maybe we can find some answers.”

We approached the cave slowly, but it really did seem to be empty. The cave floor went out flat for a few feet, before curving down into what almost seemed like a tunnel.

“It’s smaller than the other cave,” Berrycloth remarked.

I didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

Shining the light around, we saw old bones littered on the dusty ground. “Cow bones,” Berrycloth said. 

Strange markings surrounded the bones. They looked much like the ones in the mud by the storage container so many years before. Now I knew what had caused them.

We ventured further, the cave floor sloping downwards. 

“How far does it go?” I asked. Did I want to know?

This time Berrycloth didn’t reply. He continued to shine his light on the walls. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary down here. It was all just a dark, dirty cave. 

A few strange markings appeared in the dirt here and there. 

“What is it?” I pondered aloud. 

Berrycloth shrugged. “Alien?”

That didn’t seem entirely out of the question. “It was sort of transparent,” I said. “Maybe it was some sort of ghost.”

It was a ridiculous guess, but neither of us laughed. At this point, nothing would have surprised us. 

“Could be a government creation,” Berrycloth suggested. “It seems like the U.S. and Cambodia are both working hard to keep it a secret.”

“That would explain why we were transporting it,” I said. “Do you think it was a weapon?”

“It definitely could have been intended for that,” Berrycloth agreed. “I mean, just imagine dumping that thing on your enemies.”

I shivered. I didn’t really need to imagine.

 

The cave wasn’t long, but we had been taking our time. We finally reached the back of it. A few more bones littered the ground. 

Berrycloth kicked one of them. It made a dull clanking sound. 

I glanced behind us, the way we’d come. Something didn’t feel right. 

“I think we should leave,” I said. 

Before Berrycloth could agree, a large figure had appeared at the mouth of the cave. It had trapped us. Had it known we would go in? Did it lure us in on purpose? 

Berrycloth raised his gun. 

“We need to get the tranquilizer in it,” I reminded him. 

He lowered it slightly, but he kept his finger on the trigger.

“What then?” he said.

“We need to get closer,” I said. I had a feeling the beast would take care of that part for us, and very quickly, I was proven correct.

The beast flung itself at us, illuminated by the flashlight, but I saw that it also gave off its own faint light. 

We were backed into the far corner of the cave. There was nowhere to go. I could feel my heart beating hard, threatening to jump out of my chest.

I could hear Berrycloth breathing heavily. 

“Distract it,” he said. He was slightly crouched, and bounced slightly on his feet, as though he were preparing to jump.

I began to protest, but knew he must have a plan. 

I shouted, “Hey!” The monster turned its odd head towards me. I fired a few shots into its torso area. It didn’t seem to like that. 

Berrycloth took his opportunity, and leapt at it. He fired a round into its head, but the monster now seemed unbothered. Lightning-quick, it reached out one of its arms and wrapped it effortlessly around Berrycloth’s waist. 

“No!” I said. One of the monster’s arms shot out at me, throwing me to the ground. I struggled to my feet, ready to do whatever it took. 

In the faint light, I could see Berrycloth shake his head at me. He was strangely calm. 

I fired another round into the monster, but it remained unfazed. 

It drew Berrycloth close to it, and opened its huge mouth wide, just as it had with Henry. It inhaled, and I heard the ungodly shriek again. Berrycloth looked very pale. 

I kept firing. I knew it wasn’t doing anything, but I kept at it anyway. What else could I have done? 

Berrycloth struggled, and I thought he was trying to get free, but then I saw he had retrieved the huge vial of tranquilizer. He had been caught on purpose, I realized. He uncapped the syringe and jammed it, as hard as he could, into one of the creature’s eyes. It shuddered, and dropped him ten feet onto the cave floor. 

I shouted, ready to fight. But it became clear that would not be necessary. 

The beast seemed to be shivering. It took two steps towards me, before it collapsed onto the ground. The dull light it had been emitting was diminished. 

Was it dead? 

It wasn’t moving. When I saw the vial, I noted it was nearly 10,000 MG. Henry’s supplier hadn’t been messing around. Was that enough to kill the beast?

Satisfied that at least it would not be attacking me any time soon, I ran to Berrycloth’s side. 

He was very pale, and when I touched his side, I could tell a few ribs were broken. He reminded me of how Mercado had looked. Sickly white, and with no visible injuries. 

But he was dying. I knew he was. There was no question. We made eye contact in the dark cave, able to see only due to the light from Berrycloth’s flashlight that had fallen nearby. 

We did not speak. I don’t know if either of us really had anything to say. 

I knelt there next to him, and watched as he took his final breaths. He seemed relaxed, almost. I suspected that he must have been prepared for this moment for a long time. 

I sat there for a moment after he was gone. I didn’t move. I didn’t cry. I don’t even think I thought of anything. I was just there. This position was all too familiar by now.  

After several minutes, I stood. 

I retrieved the flashlight from the ground, and slung my gun over my shoulder. I bent down and awkwardly dragged Berrycloth’s body around the beast, still cautious. 

As I reached the top of the cave, I looked down at the thing. How much had it been aware of? Did it know the damage it had done? Or was it just a confused animal? Where had it come from? I will never know the answer to this, but ultimately, it does not matter. It wasn’t causing anymore harm, and that was the important part. 

I carried Berrycloth out of the cave to the edge of the jungle. His daughter would want to know what had happened, I thought. Henry’s wife, too. What would I say? The truth? Would they believe me?

I hesitated at the edge of the trees, before removing a grenade from Berrycloth’s belt. I took aim, and removed the pin. I threw it with all my might into the cave. It was best not to take any chances. 

I could feel it shake the ground, and saw rocks fall from the roof of the cave. That would have to be good enough. 

I lifted Berrycloth’s body onto my shoulders, and turned towards the dark jungle. 

***

It’s been twelve years since that night. I still don’t know what to think about all of it, but I often relive those moments in my head. The first massacre in 1970, and the death of my two friends and the destruction of the village in 2008. A lot of good men, and innocent people, lost their lives before the beast could be stopped. And it just didn’t seem fair for me to be the last to die and not tell their story. James Bell. Cooper Mercado. Thomas Sherman. Robert Levy. Richard Jimenez. William Wall. David Pittman. Charles Peterson. Lawrence Jacobson. David Vasquez. Henry Hopper. John Berrycloth. I know there were more whose names I do not know. I know I’ll die never learning the truth of what really happened, and where the creature came from. But that’s okay. If just one person has read this and seen the sacrifice that was made, it will be enough. 

My name is Albert Collinsworth. And I thank you for letting me tell my story.