This Scientist Examined Bigfoot, Until Something Shocking Happened – Terrifying Sasquatch Story
Chapter 1: The Call of the Wild
My name is Dr. Kenny Price. I’m 46 now, living in a townhouse in Wachi, Washington. But what I’m about to tell you happened in late January 2014, up near Twisp on the eastern side of the Cascades. It was a deep snow year, with pine air so cold it felt like it could cut your teeth. I shouldn’t be telling this story, but it’s been years, and I don’t really sleep anyway.
Back then, I was a wildlife biologist, wintering alone in a forest service cabin. My nights were boring—data sheets, cheap coffee, the little refrigerator humming in the corner, porch light throwing a yellow cone onto the snow. One night, something ordinary went wrong. A routine snow survey revealed a shape in the ditch that wasn’t supposed to be there. I told myself it was a dead elk. I know what people think when they hear the word “Bigfoot.” I hate the word.
I have a clip on an old phone in a shoe box locked in a closet. I won’t show you, but I remember the smell—wet fur and iron coming off the snow like steam.
Chapter 2: A Routine Night
It was late January 2014. Twisp River Road, Washington. 9:17 at night. The tape would probably hear it before you see anything. The baseboard heater ticking. The low rumble of the fridge. Faint wind scraping at the eaves. That was my soundtrack most nights in that cabin. I was 34, a contract scientist for the state, tracking snowpack and wolverine signs. My world was data loggers and snow pits, not campfire stories.
I’d sit at the little pine table under that weak amber lamp, sorting sample vials while the porch light burned a circle into the blue snow outside. Locals at the gas station loved to test the city scientist. They’d talk about mountain lions, ghosts, that Bigfoot up Gold Creek scaring off elk. I’d smile, nod, stir powdered creamer into my coffee. In my head, I labeled it folklore—same drawer as UFOs and miracle diets. Still, on the lonelier nights, with the cabin wood popping and the trees leaning in, I’d catch myself checking the deadbolt twice.
Chapter 3: The Whisper of the Woods
I’d listen to the wind and tell myself that’s all it was—wind, not footsteps circling the porch the way those old men joked. And sometimes, just as I was about to sleep, I thought I heard something heavy shift in the snow. Then silence so complete it felt staged.
January 27th, 2014. Hank’s Diner, Twisp, Washington. 5:42 in the afternoon. You’d film it with that buzzing fluorescent light, yellow vinyl booths, snow melting off boots onto cracked linoleum, forks on plates, somebody’s kid’s tablet playing a cartoon too loud in the corner, country radio hissing under the vent fan. I was at the counter scribbling notes about a wolverine track line when Ray Haskins sat down beside me.
“Up at mile 14, doc?” he asked, blowing on his coffee.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Forest service cabin,” he snorted. “Heard some boys up there last winter talking about Bigfoot. Said they heard knocks in the trees. You hear any of that crap yet?”
I laughed too quickly. Just the usual stories. Wind in the trees. He watched me longer than was polite.
“Wind don’t knock three times, son,” he said.
The jukebox clicked to another song. Static rushing for a second. I smelled frying oil, burnt toast, that faint animal musk that clung to Ray’s coat. I told myself he just wanted to spook the outsider. Driving back in the blue-gray dusk, snowflakes spinning in the headlights, I kept thinking about what he’d said. Wind don’t knock three times.
Chapter 4: The Routine of Isolation
I told myself I was above that kind of talk. But my hand shook a little when I turned on the porch light and let it flood the empty snow. January 30th, 2014. Forest service cabin, Twisp River Road. 6:03 in the morning. Morning in that cabin had a specific sound—the pop of ice in the roof gutters, the coffee maker dripping, faint AM radio news fighting through static.
The sky would go from black to that dull cold blue, and the porch light would look embarrassed, fading against the snow. I pulled on frozen boots, grabbed my snowshoes, the aluminum poles clacking against the door frame. The plan was simple: check two snow courses, swap batteries on a remote camera, be back before dark. Just another day of being the only human for miles.
I remember standing on the porch, breath clouding, looking at the ridge line smudged with low cloud. The woods were still, like they were listening. I told myself that was poetic nonsense. I tried to think about snow water equivalent instead. In the truck, the heater squealed. My field notebook slid off the seat, open to a margin doodle someone else had made months before—a big cartoon footprint under it in somebody’s handwriting.
“Watch out for Bigfoot.” I shook my head, shut the notebook. It’s just a dumb joke, I said out loud to the empty cab. To prove I didn’t care, I turned the radio up over the engine and the crunch of tires on icy gravel.
Chapter 5: The Storm Approaches
But halfway up the road, where the plow stopped and the forest swallowed the sound of the truck, I caught myself glancing at the tree line, looking for something that didn’t belong. I told myself it was a cougar I was worried about, not something watching from between the pines.
January 30th, 2014. Forest Service Road 4410 near Twisp, Washington. 3:24 in the afternoon. The storm rolled in earlier than forecast. You’d see it as a gray wall of snow swallowing the valley. Wind worrying the treetops, making that low, constant shush like distant traffic. My snowshoes hissed over fresh powder as I headed back toward the truck, thighs burning.
I remember the smell changed first—the sharp, clean cold picked up something else. Musky, rank, like a wet dog that had lived in the woods its whole life. It came and went with the gusts. I told myself it was a buried elk. Happens all the time. Then I saw the shape in the ditch, half covered in drifted snow. Not a normal shape. Too long, I guess. Too much of it.
Chapter 6: The Shape in the Snow
The light was going flat and blue. Snowflakes racing past my headlamp beam. Probably a black bear, I muttered, saying it out loud made it safer. Bears, I understood. The closer I got, the less it looked like any bear I’d ever seen. No obvious neck, no visible snout from that angle—just a mound of frozen matted fur and a limb. An arm, I keep wanting to say, sticking wrong into the air. I could see the dark mass of a hand or paw. Fingers or claws splayed.
Wind roared through the trees and then dropped, leaving everything unnaturally quiet. My ears rang in the sudden silence. Bigfoot popped into my head entirely against my will, like a reflex. I actually shook my head to get it out. I don’t believe in that stuff, I said quieter this time, like I was afraid something might hear me. Snow was already building over the body, smoothing it away. If I left, it would be buried by morning.
Chapter 7: The Decision to Act
I looked back down the empty road, then at that impossible shape, and knew that if I walked away, I’d never sleep again. January 30th, 2014. Same road approaching dusk. 4:09 in the afternoon. You could shoot this whole part in one long miserable take—me hooking the sled rope around that frozen limb, digging my heels into the snow, my breath coming in ragged bursts that fogged the air in front of my headlamp. Wind pushing at my back like it was trying to hurry me or push me away. I couldn’t tell.
The body, yeah, I have to call it a body, was way heavier than anything its size should have been. Under the ice in the fur, you could feel a density, a compactness that didn’t match bear or moose. Gloves on, of course, but I remember the way the fur felt through them—coarse, stiff, like dragging your hand across an old rug left in a barn. Every few minutes, I’d get a noseful of that smell—wet fur, old sweat, a metallic tang like blood and rusted iron.
Chapter 8: The Struggle
I kept telling myself, “Dead,” like a mantra. “Dead is safe. Dead doesn’t move. Dead is just data.” Halfway back, I had to stop, leaning on the sled handle, heart pounding loud enough to hear over the wind. Snow hissed around us. The tree line just a dark smear. “Ray’s going to laugh his ass off when I tell him I dragged home a frozen Bigfoot,” I said to nobody—half mocking myself, half trying the word out loud. It sounded stupid in my mouth, childish.
The scientific part of my brain cringed. Still, I didn’t turn around. The porch light at the cabin was a faint gold dot in the distance. It looked fragile, like one good gust could blow the whole place away.
Chapter 9: The Cabin
January 30th, 2014. Forest Service cabin mudroom. 6:02 in the evening. The cabin felt too small with that thing in it. Even before I got the body fully inside, snowmelt dripped off the fur onto the rubber mat in the mudroom, pattering like a slow leak. The fridge hummed louder than usual. Or maybe I was just more aware of it. The baseboard heater clicked on, making the air smell like dust.
I kept the interior door shut, stood there alone in that little uninsulated space with my headlamp off. Just the bare bulb overhead turning everything the color of old bone. My hand shook when I reached to touch the fur again. It was stiff with ice, but underneath there was give like meat—not frozen solid all the way through. “This is insane,” I whispered. “I can’t have a Bigfoot in my mudroom.”
Chapter 10: The Decision
I told myself I’d call the sheriff in the morning or fish and wildlife, somebody official. Let them deal with explaining how a wildlife biologist had dragged home a rumored animal he claimed not to believe in. Maybe I’d say I thought it was a bear at first. Maybe that was even true. I set up my old field camera on a tripod in the corner anyway, pointed toward the mass on the floor. Professional habit—document, then think. The little red recording light blinked in the dimness like a tired eye.
Standing there watching my own breath, I had this sudden stupid urge to apologize to the body for dragging it. For thinking about cutting into it, for calling it Bigfoot in my head like a joke. I didn’t. I just turned out the light, closed the inner door quickly, and listened from the kitchen side to the quiet thump of snow sliding off the roof, telling myself again that dead is dead.
Chapter 11: The Awakening
January 31st, 2014. Forest Service cabin, kitchen and mudroom. 10:11 in the morning. By morning, the storm had blown itself out. Light came in weak and blew through the frosted window over the sink. The radio crackled with some distant station, a country song dissolving in and out of static. The cabin smelled like coffee, ethanol, and that heavier animal musk bleeding in from the mudroom.
I’d slept maybe an hour, if that. Every time the cabin creaked, I’d snap awake. Sure, I heard movement, but the camera still blinked away in the corner when I checked the feed. No motion, just the rise of my own pulse in my ears. I told myself I was being ridiculous. This was the opportunity of a lifetime—unknown primate, misidentified bear, whatever. My job was to examine, measure, take samples, not sit at the table staring at the closed mudroom door like a kid scared of monsters.
Chapter 12: The Moment of Truth
“I don’t believe in Bigfoot,” I said firmly as I laid out instruments on a towel—scalpel, measuring tape, collection vials. The word sounded hollow now, like I’d worn some of the disbelief off it in the last 24 hours. I opened the door. The cold hit first, then the smell—stronger now, sour and wild, mixing with the clean bite of the winter air leaking in around the frame. The body hadn’t changed. Same twisted limb, same matted fur. My camera battery light blinked yellow.
I approached from the side, kneeling, my jeans soaking up meltwater. Up close, the skin visible between patches of fur looked grayish, slack. Dead. Absolutely dead. I told myself twice under my breath as I reached for the arm with the pressure cuff. Somewhere behind the cabin in the trees, a crow called three times. Caw caw caw.
I wrapped the cuff around that thick wrist or forearm, avoiding looking too closely at the hand. The rubber felt stupidly clinical against whatever this was. I pumped the bulb until the cuff tightened. That’s when everything went wrong.
Chapter 13: The Unthinkable
January 31st, 2014. Same. 10:18 in the morning. If you play the clip, that short one I still have, you don’t see much. The camera’s off angle pointed mostly at my back and the curve of the body on the floor, but you can hear everything. You hear the pump of the cuff, my breathing fast and shallow, the drip of meltwater, the faint whine of the fridge through the door, and then a sound that doesn’t belong to any of those—a low, wet inhale.
I froze halfway through squeezing the bulb. For a second, I thought it was me, some weird echo. So, I held my breath. On the audio, you can hear the room go almost silent, like even the fridge is listening. Then it happens again—longer, dragging, like someone who’s been underwater too long finally reaching air. The cuff around the arm twitched in my hand. Just a millimeter, maybe less. Enough to make the needle on the little analog gauge jump.
“No,” I said. It came out somewhere between a word and a plea. You’re dead. You’re frozen. You can’t be Bigfoot. Coming back to the word stuck in my throat came out choked and thin. Under my glove, the skin felt different—less like cold meat, more like cold rubber that had been left in the sun. The tiniest give. Its chest—God, I hate saying that, but there’s no other word—shifted under the fur. Not a full rise, just a tremor.
Chapter 14: The Fight or Flight
Like whatever was under there was testing the idea of breathing again. My heart slammed so hard my vision went static at the edges. Every trained instinct I had screamed at me to run, lock the door, bury the footage, never say the word “Bigfoot” again. Every scientific instinct told me to stay, to observe. I did neither. I just knelt there shaking while the recorder caught the sound of something impossible remembering how to breathe.
January 31st, 2014. Mudroom. 10:22 in the morning. Time got strange. Seconds stretched, then snapped tight. The ambient noise in the cabin seemed to drop away like someone was slowly turning the world’s volume knob down. No radio, no heater click, just that occasional ragged inhale from the floor and the drip drip drip of meltwater. I realized my hand was still on the cuff bulb. My thumb brushed the gauge again. The needle jerked just a hair in sync with that awful fragile sound.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay, reflex post-mortem something not alive.” I slid my fingers down under the cuff to where a radial artery should be on a human. Nothing. Then faintly, like memory, a flutter—two beats, pause, three beats, then nothing again. I yanked my hand back like I’d been burned, stumbling onto my ass. The camera caught the edge of my boot, my jacket sleeve as I flailed.
Chapter 15: The Breaking Point
You’re supposed to be dead, I heard myself say on the recording. You were frozen. I saw you. Bigfoot’s not real. This isn’t real. The word sounded different this time, not like a joke. Like a label I was desperately trying to peel off the situation and failing. I watched from the floor as the arm nearest me flexed—slow, stiff. The hand or paw, whatever, curling slightly like a person trying to curl their fingers after sleeping wrong on them.
No sudden lunging. No roar. Just that horrible slow returning to itself—a reinhabiting. Full panic hit. Then my brain did what human brains do when they hit a wall. It started listing other possibilities. Maybe I was hypothermic. Maybe I’d fallen on the hike and had a concussion. Maybe the carbon monoxide detector was broken.
I heard myself start laughing—this high, breathless sound with no humor in it. The body—Bigfoot, I guess I have to say it plainly now—let out a noise in answer, not a growl, not anything I’d heard from bears or elk. Low, confused, almost pained. That was the worst part—the confusion. Like whatever it was, it was just as terrified to be there as I was to be with it.
Chapter 16: The Decision to Set It Free
January 31st, 2014. Cabin interior, 10:40 in the morning. I bolted. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth. I scrambled out of the mudroom, slammed the interior door, threw the deadbolt like that thin piece of metal would do anything against whatever was happening on the other side. Inside the cabin, the light felt wrong—too bright, even though it was still that gray winter morning, sneaking past the curtains. The radio had gone to pure static. The fridge hummed, a nervous insect in the corner.
I stood in the middle of the room, listening. The heater ticked. My pulse roared in my ears. For a horrible moment, I wondered if I’d imagined all of it. Then I heard movement—heavy, dragging, the scrape of something large shifting its weight on the mudroom floor. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy—the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
Chapter 17: The Final Decision
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 18: The Revelation
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet. I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom, about what would happen then.
Chapter 19: The Crossing of Paths
I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go. I’m so sorry, I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 20: The Departure
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 21: The Aftermath
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 22: The Reflection
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 23: The Final Goodbye
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
Chapter 24: The Journey Continues
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 25: The Unraveling
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 26: The Final Decision
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 27: The Release
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
Chapter 28: The Aftermath
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 29: The Reflection
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 30: The Final Goodbye
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 31: The Departure
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
Chapter 32: The Connection
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 33: The Unraveling
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 34: The Final Decision
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 35: The Release
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
Chapter 36: The Aftermath
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 37: The Reflection
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 38: The Final Goodbye
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
Chapter 39: The Departure
I didn’t look directly at what came through. I saw impressions—a mass blotting out the doorway. Fur dark against the snow. Breath fogging in front of my face as I stepped out the back door in just a flannel and jeans, no coat, boots crunching in untouched powder. The cold was a slap. It helped clear some of the buzzing from my head. The world was quiet. No wind now, just the distant knock of a woodpecker somewhere upslope and the tiny ticking of ice in the branches.
Chapter 40: The Connection
I circled to the mudroom’s exterior door. It had a padlock, more for show than anything. My fingers fumbled with it, numb. Inside, something moved—a slow, dragging shift. A low sound again—not angry, not predatory, just scared and in pain and stuck in a space the size of a walk-in closet.
Chapter 41: The Unraveling
I thought about calling fish and wildlife. About becoming that guy, the scientist with the living Bigfoot locked in his mudroom. About what would happen then—trucks, cameras, sedatives, cages, autopsies if the shock killed it. And I thought about the three slow knocks on the interior door. Not a monster trying to get in, but something asking very clearly to go.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not sure if I was apologizing to my career, my training, or the individual inside. I don’t know what the right thing is. That was the emotional truth of it, I guess. I didn’t know if protecting Bigfoot was sane. I just knew leaving a conscious, terrified being sealed in there because we wanted proof felt wrong in a way I couldn’t live with.
Chapter 42: The Final Decision
I slid the padlock free. My hand shook on the knob. “Okay,” I said loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. “Doors open. You can go. No one needs to see you. No one ever has to know. Just go.” I stepped back, heart pounding so hard the sound filled my head. Snow creaked under my heels. The door latch clicked from the inside. The gap opened.
