Silver River

Silver Springs State Park

36 Miles East of Ocala, Florida

5:58 PM

My red Chevy Avalanche crunches to a stop at the faux-log gate that allows entrance into the tourist-packed Silver Springs state park. I slide from the cab, dressed in an overly bright red and flower-print Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and hiking boots, and wait for the portly Florida Fish and Wildlife officer to approach with an extended palm. I shake the officer’s hand with a casual nonchalance of someone who is rarely ever in a hurry.

The FWC officer, who’d called me two hours earlier in a full-blown panic, is far less casual. In fact, to my eyes, the man who identified himself as Officer Jeffrey Rausch on the phone, looks positively stricken with disgust, if not a little fear. His face is ashen. Beads of sweat glisten down his forehead and soak straight through his shirt, creating a Rorschach Test of stains down his paunch and arm pits. Something about the way the officer trembles as he stands there speaks volumes about the circumstances that brought me here today.

Whatever had the ruddy-faced officer in such a state has nothing to do with the smothering late-afternoon June heat. From the look in his wild eyes, Officer Rausch has seen something terrible…something that has shaken this seasoned wildlife officer to his very core.

“Dr. Barrows?” Officer Rausch asked as the two continued to shake hands. “Dr. Obadiah Barrows?”

I offer him a noncommittal nod, tapping down my customary instinct to go off on a rant about how much I despise my first name. I’ve just never really been very keen on it. ‘Obadiah’ had been my grandfather’s name, and always sounded so…well, puritanical and old fashioned for my liking. A little too stern. So, ever since middle school, I’ve insisted my friends use my middle name, Jack, instead. It works for me. Fits my personality better. However, at this moment, I don’t expect to be there long enough to warrant a correction. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I even need to be here at all.

Rausch gives me a nervous smile. It seems almost manic. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve never seen anything like this before. None of the others have neither. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m kind of freaking out right now.”

“I can see that,” I say.

The FWC officer ignores my interjection and continues with his rambling tirade undeterred. “My supervisor, Captain Young…he’s the one who suggested I give you a call.”

The overweight, balding Officer Rausch wipes at the stream of sweat running down his brow before chugging an entire bottle of water in a handful of gulps. I watch him close. Rausch’s hands tremble in almost seizure-like fits as he eventually pulls the bottle from his lips.

“I’m happy to help,” I say, motioning for Rausch to follow me over to the back of my truck, where I drop the bed’s hatch door before lifting the vinyl bed cover. As the hydraulic hinge of the cover hisses open, a blur of black and gray shoots out from behind the duffle bag carrying most my gear. Before anyone could register what was happening, the blur bounds from the bed, down to the sandy soil at my feet, and then scrambles up my leg. Still nothing but a blur of motion, the thing wheels around my waist before clambering up my back and finally perching on my shoulder.

With a girlish scream, the FWC officer jumps back at the sight, before letting out a deep breath once the small adolescent raccoon with one milky-white eye and a scar going down its cheek finally settles down clinging to my neck, and Rausch can finally get a good look at it.

“Dang it, Arnie!” I bark at the little furball. “I told you to stay home.”

Officer Rausch glances from me to the raccoon, then back with a puzzled look on his face.

“Sorry about that.” I can’t help but smile at the man’s reaction to it all. In fact, it takes considerable effort on my part not to laugh simply at the bigger man’s schoolgirl scream. A grown man, accustomed to all manner of dangerous wildlife, not to mention the brutality of men…I just didn’t expect such a high-pitched shriek to come out of someone so big and woodsy. “I rescued Arnold about a year ago. He’d fallen from his nest and had been attacked by some feral cats in the neighborhood. His mother abandoned him. Poor guy hadn’t even opened his eyes yet before one had practically been clawed out. I took him in, nursed him to health, and now the little bandit won’t leave me alone. Tried releasing him back into the wild, but he just ended up tracking me back home. So, I’m now his mama.” I give Rausch a shrug, as if to say ‘What ya gonna do?’

When the officer nodded his understanding, I pull out my gear from the truck bed and try steering the conversation back to the reason I’m there. “Okay. So, I get that you’re freaked out right now. But you still haven’t told me what’s happened. I’m not exactly sure why I’m here.”

“Mutilations.” There is a distinctive tremble in his voice as he utters the word.

I blink, then peer over at him with narrowing eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Animal mutilations.” He repeats it like it’s the most common thing in the world. “Or, rather…”

“Animal mutilations.” I feel an all too familiar lump swell in my throat. I’m beginning to suspect I’ve just wasted the better part of my Saturday afternoon, and I struggle to keep my eyes from rolling. “As in…?” I leave the sentence unfinished while humming the X-Files theme and pointing up to the sky.

I’ve been a doctor veterinary medicine for the better part of fifteen years now. I spent most of my twenties traveling the world, helping governments break up poaching rings, and protecting endangered species from being hung on trophy hunters’ walls. After that, I’ve spent the last five years in Florida, specializing in livestock and wildlife medicine while also running a wildlife rescue sanctuary. I’m a simple man with a simple mission.

It’s my father who’s always been into all the paranormal nonsense. For most of my life, Dad has been M.I.A., traveling the world hunting all sorts of make-believe creatures. Bigfoot, Nessie. Even a few ghosts here and there. Cursed treasure, too. You name it, if it was spooky and unscientific, my father has probably chased after it.

And for whatever reason, once people got wind of my connection to the famous Dr. James Barrows, they invariably seek me out whenever a strange light so much as twinkles in the night’s sky. These wackos always seem to come out during the hottest times of the year too. Well, Officer Rausch would just have to forgive me if I don’t quite fall in line with the whole UFO-animal mutilation bit that dear ol’ Dad would have given his right arm to abandon his family for. I have more important things to do with my valuable time.

Besides, most of the time, these kinds of things boil down to one of two things: a simple case of mistaken identity or a flat-out hoax.

I watch the FWC officer for a moment. Between his twitching jowls and his trembling hands, I’m pretty sure the man isn’t in on it if whatever it I’m here for proves to be a hoax. And someone as obviously as experienced at Rausch surely wouldn’t likely mistakenly identify a clearly ordinary phenomenon with something supernatural.

I hate to admit it, but if my time is being wasted, it is the first time it had ever been wasted by a professional law enforcement officer with Fish and Wildlife. On top of all that, I’ve known Captain Peter Young for quite a while now. We go back at least six years. If Young had suggested Officer Rausch contact me, then maybe I shouldn’t just discount the story altogether. Better to hear the man out first, then hightail it back to the ARK, my animal rescue preserve in Cedar Key, without a second thought.

Rausch shakes his head at the notion of aliens. “It’s not like that at all.”

“You care to explain then?” I ask. I know I’ve been glaring at the man for quite some time, but at the moment, I’m too miffed to care.

“Look. I’m not sure ‘mutilation’ is the best word to use here and I’m not saying little green men are doin’ experiments on the wildlife around here or nothin’. I’m just sayin’ something in these woods is…well, you just need to see for yourself. I can’t exactly explain it. It’s like something is killing the animals and hanging up their vital organs in trees on display. Only, they’re well hidden. It was by pure chance I even found these.”

Arnold, as if sensing my irritation, chatters excitedly in my ear. Still keeping my eyes on Rausch, I reach in my shorts pockets, and withdraw a couple of cashews for the animal to munch on.

“Something is eviscerating animals and displaying their entrails?” The FWC man has grabbed my attention now. I’m pretty well-versed in animal behavior but have never heard of anything like this before. The only species I can imagine doing something like this was Man. “And the bodies?”

“Excuse me?”

“The bodies of the animals. Are they displayed too?”

Rausch shakes his head. “Haven’t found the carcasses. Just their entrails. Hanging from branches by their intestines.”

“Huh?”

“I’m telling you, Doc, it’s the strangest thing I ever saw. I searched the whole area. Couldn’t find a single carcass. No blood neither. Just looks as if the dang things fell out of the sky or something, then tied themselves up in a knot around the brances.”

“And you say they’re tied by the intestines?”

Rausch nods. “Just like someone hangin’ laundry out to dry.” He pauses, then holds up his hands. “I promise. I’m not makin’ this up!”

Though I can’t explain why, I believe him. He was obviously an experienced outdoorsman. A hunter. I have no reason to doubt his story at this point, weird as it may seem. But believing him was a far cry different than understanding.

“Sounds like some hunters having some fun.”

Rausch shakes his head. “I know most of the hunters around here. None of ‘em would do anything like this. Too much respect. Besides, it’s the organs themselves that’s got me so worked up. I’ve skinned my share of critters in these parts. Never seen organs like these before. They almost look human to me.”

I suck in a breath. “Well, why call me then? If you think they’re human, why didn’t you call the Medical Examiner?”

“Because I’m not sure.” He throws up his hands in frustration. “You know cops are. I call this in and it turns out to be something silly, my colleagues ain’t ever gonna let me live it down. I don’t know what else to do and I’m really freaking out here.”

I look the big man up and down for a moment before letting out a sigh. “Well, I guess there won’t be any harm in taking a look for myself.” I glance over at the woods behind the FWC officer. They were lush, tropical—thick with vegetation and brimming with all manner of life. “How far is it?”

“Too far to walk.” Rausch thumbs behind him toward his truck. There is a trailer hitched to it with two four-wheel ATVs, ready to go. “We’ll need to take those for most of the way.”

I set to work helping Rausch unload the four-wheelers, before slipping on a pair of sturdy hiking books and sling a backpack over my shoulders. A few minutes later, we’re on our way with me following the FWC man closely. Despite the well-used trail we’re traveling, undergrowth and outstretched vines make going slow and it takes us nearly an hour to travel five miles east, along the banks of the river.

The sun is now dropping quickly behind the trees, stretching the shadows all around us. Soon, it will be dark, and visibility would be impossible without the high-powered halogen lamps of the ATV’s and flashlights I’ve got nestled away in my pack.

Keeping a watchful eye on the dipping sun, we navigate the twisting trail, ducking in places to avoid low-hanging branches here and there. Along the way, I take special interest in the fauna inhabiting the jungle-like forest, watching them prepare for the coming night. I watch a beautiful gray and blue belted kingfisher swoop down along the riverbank, snapping at a swarm of mosquitoes hovering just over the water’s surface. Two sandhill cranes, wading in the shallow water, appear oblivious to the kingfisher’s presence, instead dipping their heads down below the surface to pluck up a smorgasbord of frogs or snails that their long, slender beaks are lucky enough to nab. After another mile or so, I catch sight of a pair of alligators shimmying down the muddy banks and gliding into the cool water for an evening hunt.

The terrain is primordial. Savage and beautiful. I love every minute of being there, despite the strange circumstances that has brought me. For a moment, I’m reminded of my time in Uganda and an operation to ferret out a highly organized network of gorilla poachers. It’s a memory both sweet and bitter to my soul and I instantly push it from my mind before I lose focus on the macabre find I’ve come to investigate.

Another mile—and fifteen minutes—later, the two of us arrive at the site of the first so-called ‘mutilation’. I smell it well before I see it. The horrific stench of decaying flesh mixed with the foul odor that only comes from a cocktail of swamp algae, muck, and bacteria. It burns at my nostrils and eyes and seems augmented by rapidly decreasing daylight.

I’ve been around the world and seen death time and again throughout my life. I take pride in that I’ve rarely succumbed to the nausea such sights and smells induce in most people, but the stench in this place is like none I’ve ever encountered before. It isn’t just the usual mixture of methane, ammonia, and other gasses permeating the air here. It’s something else. Something I can’t quite identify. Something utterly alien.

As I look up into the purple-orange sky, past the thick canopy of vegetation hanging high over our heads, I notice the smell is affecting others as well. There are no carrion birds circling overhead, drawn to a free meal of dead flesh. No flying scavengers—avian or of the insect variety anywhere near the odor. It is unsettling. Unnatural.

Okay, that’s kind of weird.

Out here, I expected the air to be filled with the overwhelming hum of blow flies. The hushed rustling of insect larvae writhing about. At the very least, a few buzzards fighting over the decomposing carrion. But there is absolutely nothing.

Whatever I’m smelling, it’s just as unappetizing to the scavengers as it is to me.

As Rausch brings his ATV to a stop in the small clearing at the end of the trail, I pull up beside him, and cut the engine. The air, confined as it is by the thick wall of trees around us, is stagnant. Festering. Despite the lack of flies, there is certainly no shortage of gnats and mosquitoes to swarm us in the early evening air. The FWC man swats them away with curses while I sit up on the ATV’s seat, reach into my shirt pocket, and pull out a metal cigar canister. Popping the container open, I slip a stogy between my lips, bite off one end, and light it up.

“Didn’t figure you for a smoker,” Rausch says, while slipping from his four-wheeler.

I slide off my own vehicle, lay Arnold, who’d been sleeping soundly on my shoulder since the parking lot, down on the ATV’s seat, and re-adjust my backpack before flipping on my Scorpion high-intensity flashlight.

“I’m not.” I turn to face the officer, blowing out a plume of gray-black smoke into the air and dispersing the flying insects like Moses parting the Red Sea. “But cigar smoke makes great inspect repellant.”

It’s a trick I’d learned as a kid from my grandmother back home in Kentucky. With my mom dying when I was far too young to remember, and Dad gallivanting all around the world in search of his paranormal windmills, I spent most of my childhood being raised by the wise old Appalachian Granny Woman. She’d been the local healer. A salt-of-the-earth-type. Some had even called her a witch—if you can believe that sort of thing. I didn’t, which was one of the reasons I’d high-tailed it out of my superstitious little hometown of Boone Creek the moment I’d graduated high school. Still, witch or not, there is no one who understood nature and its ‘critters’ better than she had. And the cigar smoke bug repellant thing was just one of many little tricks she’d taught me during his formative years.

“It also helps cover the stench.” I grin back at the officer while chomping down on the cigar. “Now, come on. Let’s have a look at these hanging organs you were telling me about.”

“Actually, there’s more than one. We’ll have to walk the rest of the way. There’s no more trail to drive on.”

I swing my backpack over my shoulder and motion for him to take the lead. Taking his cue, Rausch raises a machete and hacks away a cluster of palmetto fronds before stepping deeper into the woods. I follow without a word, careful to avoid the thorny brambles stretching up to scratch the back of my calves, and we slowly trudge through the dense foliage to the source of the intense odor hanging like a putrid cloud in the trees.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2