Winnebago

Death of the Family Name

Chapter Five

The box of photos didn't include many of his kids.  Those, he kept on a thumb drive, locked away in his safe.  Jonathan had never been the same after all the tragedy in the last ten years.  New York was a grossly dirty place.  He'd never gotten used to all the people.  His wife Sheryl had a lucrative career in New York.  Even if she'd wanted to leave, her job would not allow it.  She could retire in another ten years.  That was too long for Jonathan.  His sister Vicki, as far as he knew, was the only living family member left and she was still in a prison cell in Vacaville.  He had no knowledge that Vicki was responsible for the deaths of his children and that her ashes lay in the forest amidst a lump of burned-out steel that used to be a Ford F250.  Losing his entire family had altered his mental capacity to live life normally.  He knew he could not spend one more year in New York.  On a Thursday afternoon, he got in his F250, drove to the grocery store that he had worked at for decades, and told his boss that he was quitting.  His boss half understood, and he wished both Jonathan and Sheryl the best in their future endeavors.  Sheryl new that Jonathan was unhappy, but she could not change that.  She focused on keeping her secret affair with a woman she had met at work, exactly that.  She had no idea Jonathan was about to do something drastic.

Tossing his cell phone into the Mohawk River was the first step to Jonathan's plan.  That plan was to disappear completely from his old life.  He had already bought a new phone, under his name only.  Sheryl would not be able to track this new phone.  Jonathan had even thought to use his parents old address when setting up the contract.  He was headed west to the state of California.  A month ago, while aimlessly looking at the internet, he came across the story of three young men that had all disappeared in the same area on a mountain trail.  He printed out the article so that he had specifics to go by when he finally completed the long drive across the country.  His beloved F250 sold for a fairly good price, twenty-two thousand in cash.  This would be helpful with his plan to disappear completely.  The newly purchased used BMW E Tron would get him to his destination.  It had a lot of miles on it, but it was a BMW, he knew it would serve him for what he was about to do.  Plus, the price was right.  Jonathan wanted to use cash only.  Cash was not traceable.  His parents land in Pennsylvania hadn't yet sold.  He didn't care, Sheryl could keep that money if the land ever did sell.  Sheryl would know immediately that something was wrong.  The only evidence Jonathan left behind was quitting his job and telling his boss that he was doing so.  Otherwise, Sheryl was in dark and would have no clue where her husband had gone to.  Three days after Jonathan's disappearance, Sheryl would be killed in a freak accident.  While walking in a city park close to her condo, she and her lover Sarah, would be struck by a lightning bolt and both would die on the park sidewalk.  Jonathan would never know, as he had fallen off the grid.  There was no one left to contact him anyway.  The police only had his old information to go by.  They could not possibly know Jonathan was halfway across the country at the time of Sheryl's death.  

California was an odd place.  Jonathan had only been out two other times to attend his sisters parole hearings.  The land was dry and lacked very many trees.  The air was also dry, not humid like he was used to.  The motel he was staying in was dirt cheap and for good reason.  Most of the rooms were occupied by people that were on the verge of being homeless.  There were those even worse off living out in the alley way adjacent to the motel.  One of these men had been burned over sixty percent of his body.  This made Jonathan think about the man his sister had almost burned to death with the Winnebago bomb.  The motel was in close proximity to the little town that lie just below the mountains where Jonathan would find Pine Tar trail.  Three men had vanished off of this trail in years past and Jonathan was intrigued by the story.  Part of him wanted to vanish as well.  So, he would hike this trail and see if the mystery surrounding the three men, had any validity.  The motor of his BMW had been making noise since Tucumcari.  That was three days ago.  Now, on his drive up the mountain to the Pine Tar trailhead, the motor had had enough. Smoke wafted out from beneath the hood.  Coolant slowly dripped off the plastic guard on the bottom of the car.  Ninety percent of it was on the roadway a mile back where his hose had failed.  Jonathan was stuck.  He sat under the shade of a pine tree in a turn out.  Through the smoke from his car, he could see a vehicle approaching.  He began to wave his arms at this passerby and to his relief, the driver stopped.

Grace loved the outdoors.  She had spent her summers camping in as many of the local campgrounds that she could find.  She had just graduated from Cal Poly in Pomona with an Engineering degree.  She had read about Pine Tar trail, and she needed to see it for herself.  She did not believe in superstitions, nor did she believe in monsters or ghosts.  She felt there must be a sensible explanation to the missing person stories surrounding this particular trail.  Grace wore her heart on her sleeve and loved helping others.  It was no surprise that when she saw the broken-down BMW, she stopped to see if she could help.  Jonathan was more than grateful that Grace had stopped.  He thanked her for doing so and the two began talking.  When they discovered that their destination was one in the same, they decided to continue on together.  They pulled into the trailhead parking lot.  There was one other car already in the lot and it looked as though maybe the owners were off on their bikes as there was a bike rack on the back of the vehicle.  Grace and Jonathan put on their day packs and headed up the trail.  It was a sunny day, and the temperature was perfect for hiking.  They talked about the mystery surrounding the trail and both agreed that there had to be some sort of explanation.  The bear attack reports seemed logical to them both, but they did find it interesting that Pine Tar trail was not in bear country.  There had been no evidence of any bears since the disappearances.  Surely someone would have noticed bears in the area, the trail had become a popular destination for conspiracy theorists and the curious general public.  Hundreds of people had hiked the trail since the bear attacks were reported.  Not a single person saw any evidence of bears living on the mountain.  Grace and Jonathan made good time climbing the trail and had reached the end of it.  Now, before them was the thick stand of buckbrush.  Jonathan, while sitting in the shade assessing the thorny bushes, noticed a strange looking tree.  The trunk appeared to fork off at the top.  As far as he could tell, no other tree in the area looked like that.  Grace wanted to take a bit of a longer break, while Jonathan set off towards the forked tree.

Brianna and McKenna's bike ride was just about coming to an end.  As they slowly chugged uphill towards the trailhead, they noticed a second car had shown up and was parked a hundred feet in front of theirs.  Exhausted from their ride, their energy levels were at a markedly low level.  Now off of their bikes, they drank water and began placing their gear in the back of the car.  The car above them began to move.  The tires made little to no noise with the movement of the vehicle.  Brianna and Mckenna didn't even see it rolling towards them.  As they prepared their bikes to go back on to the rack, Graces car had picked up good speed and ran the two girls over.  They were not killed immediately.  Their bodies would remain crushed under the car for hours.  None of the cars passing by knew there was even anyone under the vehicle.  It just looked as though someone had parked really oddly directly behind Brianna and Mckenna's car.  This caught the eye of a forest ranger who pulled into the lot to check things out.  It was too late, however.  The ranger's discovery of the two victims beneath the car would become an investigation of two deceased females in their early twenties.

Just as Jonathan cleared the buckthorn, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  It was big and, in the shadows.  He could not quite make out what it was.  He moved closer towards this thing.  Grace crawled out of the thorns a couple of minutes after Jonathan.  She was just in time to hear and see Jonathan being eaten alive by the biggest bear Grace had ever seen in her life!  The bear had tasted blood, and Grace had made a lot of noise trudging through the buckthorn.  The bear reared up and must have stood ten feet tall.  Grace passed out.  The bear would begin to eat her as well, becoming full by the time it had finished eating her legs.  It left the rest of Grace's body for the bugs and the vultures to clean up.  Back at the parking lot at the trailhead.  Ranger Brian had set up crime scene tape.  As he waited for detectives and the coroner, he could hear the rumble of a motor approaching from down the road.  The day was close to becoming night and the sunlight was dim at best.  The rumbling noise got closer and soon Brian could make out the Winnebago driving up the road, it's motor laboring away at the moderate grade.  Pulling into the parking lot of the trailhead, crime scene tape blowing in the slight breeze, the Winnebago came to an abrupt stop.  Brian shined his flashlight to motion the vehicle to continue driving.  With a sudden burst of sound, the doors flew open, and six to seven mountain lions bolted out of the Winnebago, towards Brian.  Before he could get his Smith & Wesson revolver out of its holster, the mountain lions pounced on him.  Knocking him to the ground and with great fervor eating his head. The crime scene had just gained one more body.  The forked tree up above the buckthorn now had two more bodies to rot and decay into the soil.  Giving the tree sustenance for the coming winter.