Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

The group scrambles to escape from the Bigfoot. Tony and Yvette retreat to their garage gym, while Kate looks for Palomino to ensure she’s safe. She believes that Palomino and Carmen retreated upstairs. Mostar guides Dan and Kate out through the opening in the living room, fighting back the Bigfoot as it tries to reach for Kate. Kate returns to her house to hide.

Kate sees Tony escape the garage and get into his car. Yvette chases after him, having been abandoned, and jumps on the hood of the car. The Bigfoot, identified as Alpha, leaps after them, landing on the roof of Tony’s car. She grabs Yvette and kills her, using her body to smash the car. This allows Alpha to grab Tony and kill him, too. Afterward, Alpha howls, signaling the others to join her. She mutilates Yvette’s corpse, distributing organs among the other Bigfoots and driving them into a frenzy.

Alpha spots Kate watching her and charges. Kate tries to escape the house through the back window of the guest bathroom, but it’s too narrow. Instead, she waits there as the Bigfoots smash through her house. She uses the smart house’s speaker system to play music, drawing their attention away. They destroy the speakers and then focus on Kate’s garden. Suddenly, Kate hears popping noises outside. One of the Bigfoots wails in pain. Soon, Kate hears human screams and worries that Dan and Mostar have been discovered. When Kate believes that Alpha is closing in on her, she sets one of the towels on fire to set off the fire alarm. Alpha breaks into the bathroom and grabs Kate, so Kate uses the flaming towel to punch her mouth. This stuns Alpha and sends them both down the stairs.

In her interview, Schell connects the statistics regarding bison-related accidental injuries in North America to “anthropomorphizing.” Urban dwellers project human ideas and feelings onto animals, causing them to drop their guard when confronting nature’s hostilities. She denounces the mindset that idealizes the human connection with nature, believing that this kind of thinking is folly.

Palomino wakes Kate up. The novel reveals that the Perkins-Forsters and Bobbi survived the Bigfoot attack by sheltering in the Durants’ upstairs bedroom. They escaped detection by masking their scent with the Durants’ dirty clothing. Palomino leads Kate to the garden to show her that the Bigfoot attack destroyed it. Kate interprets traces of Bigfoot excrement in the garden as a message insulting her efforts.

Palomino leads Kate outside, where snow has begun to fall. They follow a trail of blood leading to Mostar’s house and discover Dan with Mostar and Consort, who are both dead. The novel reveals that Mostar took Dan into her house and enlisted his help in smashing all her sculptures to deter Consort’s movement inside her house. Mostar then rushed into her workshop to retrieve her new spear, but Consort intercepted her, prompting Mostar to impale him in self-defense. In his last moments, Consort used his body weight to crush Mostar, killing her. From the workshop, Dan witnessed Alpha escaping from their house after Kate fought her back with the flaming towel. This prompted a mass retreat.

Mostar’s death compels Kate’s resolution to eradicate the Bigfoot clan, at least until it stops them from attacking Greenloop.

The chapter opens with the transcript of an episode from the NPR program Fresh Air with Terry Gross, featuring Mostar as a guest. Mostar reveals that she chose her name as a form of remembrance for her home city, as well as a mission statement to keep the memories of those who lived there alive. She found inspiration to become an artist during the ceasefire when she walked by a ruined house and saw wine bottles that had melted into a glass waterfall. She describes it as the moment when she realized that beauty could come from destruction.

On October 17, Kate wonders why the Bigfoots have delayed their next attack. She speculates that the disappearance of Consort and Alpha’s wounding had a chilling effect on their intrusions. This has given the surviving Greenloop residents time to regroup and fortify themselves. Kate has taken the leadership role in the community, continuing Mostar’s specialization approach to ensure the completion of tasks. Carmen develops poisoned stakes by dipping new spikes in human waste, overcoming her germophobia to perform her work. Kate oversees the creation of a glass “minefield” around the Common House driveway, borrowing from Mostar’s idea to smash her sculptures and deter movement in the areas that the stake fence can’t cover. In addition, Kate assumes the responsibility of crafting weapons in Mostar’s workshop.

Kate reflects on how she’s trying to live as Mostar would have wanted her to, prioritizing survival and practicality over sentiment. Using Mostar’s 3-D printer, Kate has developed barbed spearheads and crossbars to modify Mostar’s original spear design. She fashions personal spears for each of the town’s survivors. Bobbi gifts Kate several specialized knives, including a soba kiri and a Damascus blade, a specialized knife that is thicker and longer than any of the other blades in their possession. Inspired, Kate recreates the Zulu Iklwa for Dan. She also fashions a shield, which will give him cover as he moves close to use the Iklwa. Kate hears the first of the Bigfoot howls and realizes that they’re preparing for their next attack. She steels herself and wakes the others to anticipate their arrival.

Kate’s journal entry dated October 17 begins with the disclosure that Dan is dead. She then recounts the events of the last Bigfoot assault in detail.

Kate mobilizes her neighbors to wheel Consort’s corpse out from the workshop, intending to use it as bait to draw the Bigfoots’ attention. They call out to the Bigfoots with drumming and howling, and the Bigfoots respond in kind. When they see Consort’s corpse, the Bigfoots begin to wail. The Greenloop residents then perform a mutilation, stabbing the corpse’s gut with their spears. As a final insult to the Bigfoots, Kate urinates on Consort’s corpse. This draws two of the Bigfoots into spike traps.

The Bigfoots divert their movement, passing through the kitchens of each house. Dan deploys a second trap, using the smart home controls to release methane gas from the stoves and incinerate the intruders. Goldenboy is among the Bigfoots confirmed dead from this trap.

The Greenloop residents proceed to the Common House as Dan detonates the energy cells in each house, creating a massive explosion. Once the debris stops falling, the group hears Alpha crying in fear. They witness Princess and Scout in retreat. Meanwhile, Gray and the Twins are caught in the glass minefield trap. The Greenloop residents fire javelins at them in the hopes of killing them. One of the Twins is severely wounded; the other retreats. Carmen, Dan, and Kate use spears to hold back Gray. Gray tosses Kate aside, but is speared in the chest by the others. Seized with bloodlust, Kate bashes Gray’s head in with a rock.

Kate stops when she hears Bobbi’s scream as Dowager grapples with her. Dan can’t save Bobbi when Dowager throws her around, killing her. Juno seizes Palomino, prompting Carmen, Effie, and Kate to save her. Juno crushes Carmen’s skull. Effie gouges Juno’s eyes and bites her throat. Juno smashes Effie to death. Kate rescues Palomino. As they try to retreat into the Common House, Alpha stops them. Kate sends Palomino away to hide under the wreck of the Durants’ car and then confronts Alpha.

Alpha grabs Kate by the ankle. Just before Alpha kills her, Dan slashes at Alpha with the soba-kiri axe, and Kate retreats into the house. Dan continues to fight Alpha, but she crushes his back, killing him. Kate retrieves her shield and Iklwa, which she uses to kill Alpha. Kate then attends to Dan’s corpse.

During the interview with Schell, two rangers arrive to pack up her field office before the imminent expiration of the government’s lease. Schell reveals that the heat signature from the burning houses enabled them to find Greenloop’s remains, albeit one week after Kate’s last journal entry.

The destruction they found at the site supports Kate’s account. Neither Kate nor Palomino could be found at the site. There were eight graves for each of the Greenloop residents killed, including smaller graves for those whose remains had been badly mutilated. The Common House freezer contained several cuts of steak and jerky, which Schell intuited was Sasquatch meat. Investigators collected every piece of evidence they could find at the Greenloop ruins, as well as the bone lair behind the ridge.

Schell notes that while the government will likely cover up what happened with a fake story, it hasn’t done so yet. In any case, it’s still busy clearing the destruction left by Rainier’s eruption, which includes searching for those who died during the lahar flow. Schell posits, however, that the truth will eventually emerge, though it will discredit the government to admit it while the region remains in a state of unrest. As proof of her theory, she cites the fact that the government authorized the editor’s interview with her.

In his interview, Frank proposes three possible scenarios for what could have happened after the last Bigfoot assault on Greenloop. In the first scenario, Scout, Princess, and the other surviving Bigfoots regrouped and killed Kate and Palomino. This scenario is unlikely, given the time it must have taken to dig the eight graves and store the meat after the assault.

In the second scenario, Kate and Palomino left Greenloop but didn’t know how to navigate the surrounding area because they didn’t have a map. The onset of winter would have exacerbated their hiking conditions, stranding them if one of them had gotten injured.

In the third scenario, Kate and Palomino left Greenloop and took shelter in a cave, where they live on a diet of melted snow and Sasquatch meat. Once winter cleared, they found their way to a road and were rescued. They may be recovering in a hospital, unable to speak due to trauma.

Frank suggests a fourth scenario, which he believes. In her journal, Kate resolved to eradicate the Bigfoots. Her experience in Greenloop may have activated a latent gene within her, turning her into a Sasquatch hunter. Frank imagines Kate and Palomino working in tandem to draw out and kill any remaining Bigfoot they find, surviving on the meat of their prey and striking fear into the hearts of the other Bigfoots, including those who are mothers to young Bigfoots. Frank and his ex-husband, Gary, continue to search the woods for signs of Kate. Frank finds it difficult to reconcile the memories of his sister with a natural predator. Frank and the editor hear howling and are unsure if it’s the wind.