Urban Monsters, A Bigfoot Story

By Bill Ryland

When a film crew investigates a series of ghastly murders perpetrated on the homeless in Sacramento, California, they uncover the story of a lifetime. Aided by Sierra, a young homeless girl, the team visits the haunts of the indigent throughout the capital city and discovers that Sierra holds the secret to this astonishing story. When the truth becomes unbelievable, it is their own fear that is the biggest threat to exposing one of the greatest mysteries of modern times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Ryland
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224895670

Book preview

Helen

It was colder tonight than it had been, maybe the coldest of the season. Helen didn’t know what season. She only knew that it was cold. Helen had intended to stay at the shelter after dinner, but she couldn’t—too many people, too close, too loud. She had to leave. She had to take her stuff and walk.

Helen couldn’t tell you how long she had lived on the street. She wasn’t sure. It could have been forever. Time didn’t mean anything anymore. It had been long enough to carve out a few places to call your own on a cold night. All she had to do was get there first. She didn’t share. She needed to be alone . . . always. Many homeless women who were on their own would find a man or a small group to be with for safety, but not Helen. It had never crossed her mind. She didn’t like people. Don’t look at her, and she won’t look at you.

She was headed towards the loading docks. There was a certain office doorway that was set back, protected from the wind. There was a gap across the bottom of the door where she would spread her blanket and feel the heat escaping from inside—one of life’s little pleasures on a cold night. Also, if she didn’t get up and leave by the time the office opened, they would shoo her off but never call the police. If no one gets there before her, that’s where she will spend the night. If the doorway is occupied, she will just keep moving, maybe into the nearby railyard.

The sun had set, and the temperature was dropping. She didn’t feel it anymore, which was okay. She couldn’t feel the heat of summertime either. She always wore the same clothes, the same layers, same sweater, same coat. Helen was probably in her mid to late forties but looked seventy.

She never took to pushing around a shopping cart. Helen had been carrying all her earthly belongings in the same two-wheeled wire cart forever. It was smaller but still big enough to hold everything important. In fact, it had been years since she had bothered to look at the items on the bottom. The essentials were right on top, including her blanket, favorite stick, and her personal treasure—a bag of aluminum cans.

Helen seemed to be the only one out tonight as she moved between the warehouses that skirted the loading docks and railyard. She was about halfway down a dark, wet alleyway that runs between empty warehouses when she heard it. It was an odd sound, but she had heard it before. Others had, too. Most everybody who moved around at night had heard it. It wasn’t a yell, yet it was. Maybe it was a scream, but it wasn’t. A howl, that’s what it is, she thought. It brought a chill to Helen’s old bones, something the winter’s cold could no longer do.

Suddenly, the squeak from the wheel of her basket seemed loud in contrast to the deadened sound of the dank alleyway. She stopped dead in her tracks. The last thing she wants is to attract any attention and have someone yelling or howling or whatever that is at her.

Helen listened. She could hear quite a racket outside the alleyway. It sounded like vandals pushing dumpsters around. It was always best to just stay clear. Helen had been the victim of drunken teens before and lost her aluminum cans. She would hunker down here in this dark, quiet alley until they moved on. There was not much chance they would come this way. Waiting, listening, her nature was to get angry as the noise didn’t lessen but got closer. She couldn’t pinpoint where it was, but maybe a block away. Helen wanted to keep moving, but her street-honed instincts told her to stay put. Just be quiet, be invisible.

As the clamor continued to get closer, Helen’s angst began to rise. She couldn’t help it. When Helen got anxious, her mind began to race. She had always had problems with stress, with her mind. She would see or hear things other people said weren’t there. She learned she couldn’t always trust what was real or what was not. Or other people, for that matter. She just figured it was best to consider everything real. She also learned it was best not to mention it to anyone—that never turned out good.

Helen crouched down in the dampness as she sensed something very threatening getting closer by the moment. No lights were in the alleyway, but flashes began illuminating her mind. Even with her eyes closed, there were streaks and flickers. . . and that added to her fear. She mumbled to herself, trying to calm down, but it wasn’t working. Whoever was causing the panic was now down at the end of her alley.

This was precisely why Helen didn’t like people. They did things that she didn’t understand. Either they ignored you or stood back and called you crazy. Then there are those, like this one, that just want to frighten you in the dark. She knew she needed to stay quiet, but her brain was screaming. Whoever had been making the ruckus was now getting closer.

Why is he coming this way? I’m not bothering anybody! Just leave me alone! Helen’s brain shrieked to itself.

When things got suddenly quiet, she became so frightened that she almost soiled herself. Helen heard breathing or snorting. She couldn’t understand why someone would be doing that, like an animal sniffing the air, trying to sense something particular.

Now, with her face hidden in her knees as she crouched down, cowering in fear, she could feel how near they were. She didn’t dare open her eyes. Oh my god, they were so close now that she could smell them, and she definitely wasn’t imagining that! They smelled awful! They seemed crazed, breathing hard right above her, making grunting and grumbling noises, sniffing her. This was no teenager. She had heard about this kind. Horrible people preying on the poor street-folks . . . like her! Her brain was on fire. He was right there, he might hurt her. He was going to steal her bag of cans! She just knew it!

With deafening thunder, he screamed at her. Oh, dear god, with her face covered in her hands, Helen hoped she was imagining all this. He sounded like he was right on top of her, so close she could feel his breath. Shaking fiercely, Helen was grabbed and lifted above the two dumpsters she was hiding between and violently thrown back down to the alley’s asphalt.

Several days later, another member of the homeless found Helen’s cart in the alleyway. He took her aluminum cans.

The Job at Hand

Over the last decade or so, the documentary film industry has changed. For independent filmmakers, satisfying the public’s recent hunger for crises hadn’t been nearly as enjoyable as the feel-good stories of projects past. The team of film veteran Warren and his producer Kate had worked together for more than a few years.

To master the marketable documentary, they had to study and adapt to the demands of the audiences and funders. They learned it probably wouldn’t get funded if the story didn’t make people uncomfortable, if not angry. Uncover a scandal, and you will probably win an award. The day of the warm and fuzzy had passed.

That’s how they found themselves headed to Sacramento, California, in the dead of winter. The job at hand was to shoot a story on homelessness. They would have preferred to be doing the proposed piece on a highly successful, all-black high school in Mississippi. Much warmer, with no late nights out on the bitterly cold streets. But they were professionals; they followed the money.

The reports had suggested that several dozen of Sacramento’s almost three thousand homeless had gone missing or had been found brutally murdered and mutilated. Some in obscure, out-of-the-way places. There was no apparent motivation for the homicides, but any solid or reliable information from this sector of society was hard to come by. Falling off the face of the earth wasn’t a rare occurrence for the homeless, but dozens?

And then there were the murders—no motive, no evidence, no arrests, hence the potential for a