July 29th, 2018
Frederick, MD
Ford and Pauline stood along the edge of a homestead just outside town, Ford wearing his usual lab coat, Pauline in a coal-gray trench coat. They were interviewing the first witness identified in the newspaper accounts, a flannel-wearing store owner named Bobby Keel.
"I was fixing a flat tire on I-70 when I heard the screech," Keel said in a mild Appalachian accent. "It weren't like anything I'd ever heard before! At first it sounded like an eagle or some kinda bird of prey, but it welled up until it was so loud you could hear the sky rumble! For the next few minutes I couldn't hear a damn thing, just the ringing in my ears and the echo of the damn screamy thing."
"What happened next?" Ford prodded, taking notes.
"I sat down on the ground and covered my ears, could only hear the ringing. Then I looked at the sky and saw it. Giant critter flying right over my head! Looked to have a wingspan of about 40 feet at least!"
"How good a look did you get?"
"Pretty long! It flew directly over my head for about forty seconds."
"What color was it?"
"I dunno, orange-brown, maybe. I didn't get a good look at its face or its features, just that it had these long, scaly-lookin' wings. Not only was it huge, but it didn't look like any kinda bird I'd ever seen."
Ford found the witness credible, even if he couldn't provide all the details that the scientist wanted. Pauline, though, was more skeptical, crossing her arms and scowling.
"How did you figure the wingspan was 40 feet?" she asked.
"Just common sense," Keel said, nodding.
"Uh-huh. Did you have a ruler or a tape measure to measure it with?"
"Course not."
"You often see forty foot birds flying overhead?"
"No, this is my first."
Mr. Keel must have been a little slow on the uptake, for he took these questions in earnest. But Ford caught on to her sarcasm and grew quietly angry watching Pauline's interrogation continue.
"How did you scale it?"
"Just an educated guess," Keel admitted, scratching his head. "I mean, it was bigger than my car."
"How long is your car?"
"Ma'am, I dunno, 12 feet?"
"Thank you, Mr. Keel, for your help," Ford interjected. "One more question. Did you ever see or hear it again?"
"No, I didn't."
"Obviously you got your hearing back," Pauline said.
"Yeah, my ears was ringing for about twelve hours after I saw it. Had to fall asleep and wake up to refresh them."
"How convenient."
"Thanks again," Ford said, offering the witness a gloved hand to shake. Pauline just waved as the befuddled witness walked into his car and drove off. The two investigators watched him drive off.
"Was that really necessary?" Ford barked.
"What?"
"Giving him the third degree like that."
"Ford, you should know how much people who see these things exaggerate."
"People won't be inclined to help us if we treat them like liars."
"Just think about it. Do you really think that the Snallygaster's got a forty foot wingspan? Do you really think he'd be able to determine that from watching it from below."
"It was an estimate."
"It was a guess," she snapped. "Big difference. The longest known bird is the Andean condor, and it only has a twelve foot wingspan. Heck, those thunderbirds that supposedly live in the Southwest aren't reported as being any more than fifteen feet across. Forty feet would be absolutely ludicrous."
"Since when are you, Miss Abductee 1979, the world's foremost skeptic?"
"That was four decades and a million mysteries ago, Ford. Get with the times. Besides, it's not skeptical just to try and pin down a more realistic view of a mythical creature."
Ford scowled and shook his head. He was more than a little annoyed that Pauline, of all people, would discount such a story, crazy as it sounded on the surface. But he'd seen crazier things than a forty foot bird before. The possibilities of such a giant beast roaming loose both fascinated and terrified him. And he wouldn't discount anything like that until he'd investigated further.
But maybe Pauline had a point. Maybe it was a creature of more mundane, if still intimidating size, exaggerated by a guy too scared and surprised by an unexpected creature to take an accurate measurement.
Though that still didn't explain the screech. Or a host of other things.
Like, why Pauline would contact him after several decades apart. Or why she would draw his attention to a fascinating but commonplace bit of folklore on the other side of the country. Or why, having done so, she seemed so eager to dismiss it as a tall tale or an exaggeration.
He wouldn't ask those questions out loud, at least not yet. For now, he had a monster to find.
The rest of the day offered more of the same. Ford and Pauline talked to about a half-dozen people in total, from a waitress who'd seen the creature flying overhead while driving home to work, to a teenage couple whose necking had been interrupted by that damn screech. Some of them caught a decent glimpse of the creature, others only heard its deafening cry, but the reports were consistent enough to keep Ford intrigued.
He asked firm but gentle questions to probe for details, while Pauline tried to deflate the witnesses. He lost his annoyance with Pauline after awhile; a good cop-bad cop, Mulder and Scully routine helped even out inconsistencies and weirdness in their testimonies and make things more credible.
"It's been consistently seen in an area of about fifty square miles," Ford calculated while munching a sandwich at a diner. "Seven people have seen the Snallygaster in the past month. That's a regular flap, in UFO terminology! Usually this creature's only seen once in a blue moon, but now he's making regular appearances, and in very populated area."
"What's your take on that?" Pauline asked.
"Something must be rousting him out of hiding," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe some kind of land development or environmental change. Maybe he - or she - just had babies and needs to feed them regularly."
"Yeah," Pauline said thoughtfully. She looked down at the table, as if wanting to add something more substantial, but never did. She let her "yeah..." trail off into nothing, as Ford launched obliviously into another monologue about the Unknown.
Next, Ford tried to pinpoint the central location of the sightings for a most likely location. They drove around the county, looking at highways and side roads and plains and mountains, trying to figure where the Snallygaster might be located.
"If I had to guess," Ford said, standing by the side of a road, "it's probably somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains." He traced out a path through the sky with his finger, then pointed into a purple smudge on the horizon. "Imagine this creature living in some kind of cave or old mine or a mountainside retreat."
"Sounds logical to me," Pauline agreed, leaning against a fence.
"Now, based on what we could determine from the witnesses we interviewed, it's mostly frequently flying east to west when it's spotted. But the mountains are to our east...Presumably the creature was taking off then, possibly to look for food or shelter in the west."
"You're missing something big, buddy," Pauline said. "Like, no reports of this thing attacking anyone or picking up people or food. Isn't that it's thing? It carries people off to its nest to eat them?"
"It's been alleged to do that, yes," Ford agreed. "But that could well be a myth or exaggeration, like so much else that's said about undiscovered species."
"So, hold up here. Maybe I missed something. You think it's more plausible that the creature's forty feet long than that it might eat people?"
"Humans have an annoying, self-serving tendency to see all animals, and especially large ones, as monstrous or evil. In my experience, they tend to be misunderstood. While I'm sure the Snallygaster must eat some kind of meat - it is a bird, after all, and virtually all are carnivorous - given its supposed size I wonder if humans would even be a desirable culinary option."
Pauline sounded mildly grossed out by Ford's indifference to the prospect of a giant, man-eating bird.
"So, you're saying that the giant birds won't people because..."
"Too skinny," Ford said, his face twisted in disgust - more from sympathy with the bird, Pauline suspected, than the humans. "Not enough meat and fat content. Why eat a human when there are tasty cows or deer around?"
"Because they're scarier that way," Pauline said, knowing that's what he wanted to hear.
As she expected, Ford nodded. "Precisely. Who needs the truth when you have a nice, scary, cannibal tall tale? Now, maybe in desperation they would attack people, like lions and wolves and other large predators do. It's not impossible. But I really doubt that they would eat humans as a primary food source. Would need some evidence before I accepted that."
The wind blew gently, ruffling the grass beside them and their coats. Several gray clouds rolled overhead, blocking out the sun. Somewhere in the sky above, a hawk screeched and flew past in search of prey.
"Well," Pauline said, watching it chase after a smaller bird, "I hope we don't get to find out."
As Pauline drove them back into Frederick for dinner, Ford read through an email he'd received from Dipper.
"Holy Moses," Ford exclaimed. "I sent my nephew on a mission that I assumed was busy work this weekend. He was investigating Foxfire sightings out near Gravity Falls. Turns out that one of his friends had a very close encounter with one of them, and experienced some kind of visions."
"Visions, huh?" Pauline bristled with discomfort as he said that.
"Didn't say what they were, but indicated they were some kind of animate creatures who...showed his friend her future, or something like that? I'll have to read this more carefully when we get back to the hotel. Or maybe even call him."
The two drove silently for another few minutes. Pauline gripped the wheel, as the mention of glowing balls and close encounters and mysterious entities brought back painful memories...
And Ford, when he finally spoke, didn't help.
"Did you ever...When you encountered the aliens, did they ever show you anything about..."
"Let's think about somewhere to eat," Pauline interrupted curtly. "Maybe a real restaurant this time instead of some gross greasy spoon, huh?"
Ford looked away awkwardly; Pauline stared out the windshield, angry and ashamed at her reaction, but angrier still that Ford would even bring that up.
As they drove, raindrops started splashing against the window glass.
The rain was pouring down by the time Bob Keel returned home. After his interview with Ford and Pauline, he went to work and spent most of the day at his shop, selling loads of fishing equipment to middle aged sportsmen, then fielded a phone call about an order of sporting rifles for the fall. Nothing overly exciting or interesting; as boring and aggravating as a working Sunday could be.
He was happy to unwind and watch TV; he had Mondays off, at least, and planned to do as little as possible. His dog Rufus, a hyperactive Irish setter, greeted him at the door. He fed the pet first, then made himself a sandwich and beer and sat down, turning on the tail end of a baseball game. Orioles-Marlins, 6-2, bottom of the 8th. Perfect.
As he ate, he became dimly aware of a rumbling noise outside. Rufus whimpered and stared at the ceiling, then started to bark. Keel peeled himself off his seat, listening to the ruckus and trying to calm his dog.
Instinctively, he rushed to his bedroom and grabbed a shotgun. The dog's bark grew louder, even though the commotion overhead had ceased for a moment.
Keel gripped the weapon tight, unsure what to do. He could rush outside and confront whatever it was - hopefully just a helicopter or a plane or something explicable, not what he dreaded in his gut that it might be - but he reckoned that might be suicidal. If it was any kind of creature or monster or threat, best to stay inside and force it to come to him.
After a moment, Rufus laid down, though he continued letting out occasional agitated woof. Keel sighed and patted the dog's head, then made his way back over to his chair and set his gun down beside him. He took another drink and turned up the volume.
Then it began. The noise.
The scream.
The Snallygaster. As deafening and horrifying as before.
It didn't seem to come from outside, even though Rufus was barking his head off. Even though it shook the walls of his home. It didn't even seem to be audible in the usual sense.
Instead, it seemed to be inside his head.
He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes, feeling his temples throb, feeling his eardrums ring with pain. His whole body shook along with the cabin. He rubbed his head frantically, hoping to make the sound and the awful feeling go away.
Instead, it grew louder. Louder.
And so he screamed. As loud as he could. But no one answered.
No one even seemed to hear.
They'd rented a double economy hotel room with two beds. Purely platonic. Ford hadn't slept with a woman in decades, and Pauline wasn't especially interested tonight...least of all after Ford's breach of tact.
Anyway, she didn't want him to see what she'd brought with her.
"We had a pretty successful day," Ford said optimistically as he undressed down to a t-shirt. "Interviewed all of the eyewitnesses, looked at some of the locations where the creature was sighted. Tomorrow we can begin the real fun stuff."
"And what fun stuff is that?" Pauline asked, sitting on her bed and reading her phone.
"Monster hunting," Ford said with a broad smile. "I guarantee you that we'll be able to pinpoint the most likely location for the Snallygaster's nest. And then!"
"Then what? Are you gonna capture it, put it in a cage and take it back to Oregon with you?"
"I, erm, don't think that would be feasible." Ford seemed taken aback by her attitude.
"What a waste of a good monster," Pauline said. "Can't leave any mystery in the world, can we?"
Now Ford grew angry. He'd been putting up with her sour attitude and digs all day, and didn't have any more patience for them.
"You invited me to help you find this thing," he reminded her. "What's with the attitude? Why did you want me to come if you're just gonna poo-poo everything and insist it's nothing?"
Pauline groaned. "It's not that I think it's nothing," Pauline said. "I'm just yanking your chain a little bit. Trying to get you to see some perspective before leaping into the crazy unknown."
"Well, maybe you could do so in a way that's a little less obnoxious and insulting. It's helpful when you're trying to talk a witness into something more reasonable, but..."
"Like how you brought up my abduction experiences earlier? That didn't seem very reasonable to me."
"I'm sorry," Ford shrugged, letting down his anger for a moment. It soon returned: "But you were crabby long before that."
"I'm crabby?" Pauline exploded. "What the fuck do you expect me to be?"
After that explosion, the two old friends turned away from each other. After a long moment's awkward silence, Pauline got up and walked over to Ford, clasping his shoulder.
"Ford, I'm..." At the last second, she stopped herself from apologizing. From her point of view, she had nothing to apologize for. But she continued in a much more gentle tone.
"Ford, I've had a rotten life. Two shitty marriages, another boyfriend disappearing into the Multiverse, a lifetime of bad dreams and shitty memories and awful conventions and being branded a freak. Being someone who can't hold down a job, who's rated mentally unstable, who spends her whole life living down a nightmare that I didn't ask for, didn't want, and don't want to fucking talk about anymore. So, don't expect me to be Miss Mary Sunshine, all right?"
"Sure," Ford said, a little remorseful himself. "But I still don't understand..."
"I thought it might be fun," she interrupted, clutching him from behind...To Ford's visible discomfort. She pulled away.
"You know," she continued, "you always told me about how you would catalog weird creatures and find all their measurements and origins and weaknesses and all that weird stuff. Not sure how much of it I actually believed, but it certainly sounded like fun. So I see your name in the paper and think, what the hell? Maybe I'll give an old friend a call and see if we can go monster hunting together. I need some excitement in my life that's not, you know, running from a psychotic ex or a goddamn space alien."
Ford allowed himself a joke. "Well, how do we know that the Snallygaster isn't a space alien?"
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," she assured him. The two smiled at each other and gave each other a brief, loose hug. Then they drifted to their respective beds, and Ford turned on the television without a further word.
Outside, the rain finally stopped.
Ford was in the shower when Pauline received the phone call. She didn't recognize the number, thought it must be a telemarketer or a bill collector or something...though which would be ballsy enough to call her at 9:30 pm on a Sunday night...
"Hello?" she asked, agitated. She heard a weird click and an electronic buzz, which instantly put her on guard.
"Hello? Who is this?" she repeated, more anxiously.
After a moment, a familiar snippet of conversation played back. She instantly recognized the voice on the other end:
"I've had a rotten life. Two shitty marriages, another boyfriend disappearing into the Multiverse, a lifetime of bad dreams and shitty memories and awful conventions and being branded a freak..."
She threw her phone against the wall, smashing it. She numbly stumbled back to her bed; trembling, she reached under her pillow and pulled out her .38 caliber pistol.
She made sure all six chambers were loaded, then slipped it under her pillow again. Then went and collected her phone...which somehow was still working.
She shivered in terror as she saw she had a new text message. And her heart stopped when she actually read it:
"WE'LL BE LISTENING"
