Page 12 of Unnatural Death

Lucy says the wooded area likely is where the victims were hiding with guns ready. When the intruder got to them, they opened fire, bullets bouncing off like it was nothing.

“And clearly that’s not Bigfoot. Unless he’s wearing body armor,” she adds.

“… OBSTRUCTION! OBSTRUCTION … !”

We avoid a cell tower sticking up like a giant pitchfork, the guy wires faint like pencil strokes.

“Were the Mansons connected to any local hate groups?” I ask. “I’m wondering who they might have associated with before they started living in the woods. Did they ever have visitors? Russian or otherwise?”

“For the most part Huck and Brittany were loners, which is one of the reasons they got away with their crimes for as long as they did. I wouldn’t accuse them of having any deep-seated convictions or meaningful relationships. They didn’t care about much beyond themselves,” Lucy says, and we’re about ten miles from our destination.

Winds are light with occasional gusts that shove us around as the shadow of our helicopter follows on the ground.

“Maybe you couldn’t see anything on the surveillance cameras, but were you able to pick up sound besides footsteps and dead leaves kicked around?” I continue anticipating what I’m about to encounter. “Could you hear anything helpful that might give us a clue what happened early this morning in the pitch dark and rain once the intruder reached the campsite?”

“Mostly I heard the wind blowing. Then eventually gunshots in rapid succession,” Lucy says. “It sounded like more than one person shooting semiautomatics. Based on what’s been found at the scene, it was Huck and Brittany firing their pistols, possibly having no idea who or what they were shooting at.”

“What happened after that?”

“It got dead quiet, no pun intended.”

“How long was the intruder at the scene?”

“Long enough to be massively destructive to everything, including the bodies,” she answers. “Of course, the sound of that wasn’t picked up. An hour and a half after he got there you can hear him leaving, striding past the cameras on the path the same way he did earlier. I’m doing searches of the area and he’s not showing up on my thermal imagers. And I’m sayinghebecause it’s easier. I’m not assuming it’s a male. And it’s not a bear or a Bigfoot. The monster in question is of the human variety.”

“That’s what it sounds like,” I reply. “How far from the campsite to the Mansons’ farm?”

“About a mile.”

“That’s a lot of brush to clear for a footpath.”

“They used flamethrowers and pesticides, not caring what they damaged and killed on the way,” Lucy says. “That’s what the self-proclaimed nature lovers were like when no one was looking. The footpath is the only way in and out of the campsite. And it’s not visible unless you know about it.”

“Suggesting the intruder was familiar with them and their setup,” I reply.

“Absolutely.”

“Would this person know about their cameras?”

“I’m going to assume so.”

“And was undeterred.”

“Because he knew he had a way of defeating them,” Lucy says. “Explaining why we can’t see anything on thermal imaging except that infrequent flash of light I mentioned. But you can hear something big and powerful walking loudly, steadily, aggressively.”

Lucy could see leaves displaced and kicked along the path. Branches were shoved out of the way and in some instances broken off.

* * *

“It was as if a violent spirit was passing through,” Lucy explains as she flies, the sunlight bright and warm through the plexiglass. “Based on the height of damaged foliage, the intruder was between five and six feet tall. He didn’t leave any tracks. Just a few scraped areas in mud.”

At close to four-thirty this morning, the assailant left the scene the same way he arrived. Following the footpath, he reached the edge of the Mansons’ farm at around five, Lucy says. After that he was out of range of the cameras’ microphones. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t somewhere in the area.

“Maybe he returned to wherever he’d left his vehicle, hightailing it out of there,” Lucy says. “Or it’s possible he hung around because of me. If he heard a helicopter flying toward the campsite, that must have come as quite a surprise.”

It’s doubtful the assailant would have expected anyone looking for the Mansons so soon and in such terrible conditions. When this person heard the approach of a powerful helicopter, I suspect he would have been intensely curious and wary. He might have been lying low, hiding as Lucy lumbered over with lights strobing in the foggy dark.

“This thing’s thermal imagers didn’t see the intruder any better than the trail cameras did.” She enters a new radio frequency into one of the communication systems.

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