Deep in the Forest (Wattpad Editor's Pick, June '22)

9

A chill worked over Zoe's skin as the memory of beast with glowing yellow eyes and human like gait replayed in her mind.  

In the space of a few hours, her world had shifted and everything she thought knew she found herself questioning. It was unthinkable, but if Bigfoot is real, did that mean the Loch Ness monster, unicorns and even dragons are roaming the world too? 

Her leg throbbed and her head pounded behind her eyes as she wondered how many people had seen a cryptid before, real anomalies, not the hoaxes. Of those people, how many told their story and was laughed at? She laughed at Takota when he said he wanted to get rich off a picture of Bigfoot. Now it wasn't so funny. 

She hobbled into the bathroom; each step felt like a hot iron prod stabbing her. The white pills from the medicine cabinet were chalky and rubbed like sandpaper against her esophagus as she swallowed them without water. 

The reflection in the mirror was of a frightened child. Mud smudged her round face with small red scratches from the foliage she ran through. Her lower lip was split, swollen, and tinted an unnatural shade of purple. 

With a frown, she stripped and bundled her ripped pants into a trash bag to throw out on her way to school. Deep down, she didn't want to go outside until the sun was above the horizon, just in case the animal decided to come back. 

Zoe didn't think she could sleep, so she turned on her desk lamp and booted up her computer. She scoured the internet for any scientific papers on Bigfoot. When she didn't find any, she searched for anything credible that proved the legend was real, like a police officer or a forest ranger. Because of his career, she wondered if her dad came across any stories about Bigfoot, but she wasn't about to ask him with the way his health is, and maybe never--she didn't want to worry him or sound crazy. 

As the sun came up and chased the shadows from her room and filled it with golden light, the only "proof" she came across had been testimonials from everyday people who'd encountered Bigfoot. There were thousands of reports. 

What Zoe found interesting was that in almost every retelling there were green lights that flashed whenever Bigfoot showed up or left. An awful smell accompanied the creature, and they had yellow eyes, that seemed to have intelligence in them, much like looking at another human. Everything she read rang true to what she witnessed last night. But the lack of photos, bones or any tangible proof made her question what she experienced. 

At six thirty, Zoe locked the back door behind her as she headed to the trashcans with her ripped jeans. She buried the plastic bag deep into the can, under V8-juice bottles and fat cuttings from dinner to hide it from prying eyes. 

The air smelled of fresh rainfall and pine with a dash of earth. Her favorite. But today she barely noticed--too shook to care. 

The motion sensor flashed. 

She froze in place and glanced around her. Her phone buzzed, startling her. The notification came from the game camera. 

A nervous chuckle escaped her mouth as she realized it was still dim enough outside that she set off both devices. Before turning her phone off, she flipped to the notification from last night. 

The large boulder stared at her, daring her to come look for him. She answered by hobbling past the mud puddles dotting the back yard and along the garden wall to its far side from the house. 

She reached the pine with the crooked branch the animal stood under last night. Patches of bark were missing on one side of the trees butt. Zoe ran her hand over the smooth wood, the texture reminded her of spooky tree. She spotted a small clump of hair hooked on some brown and gray bark surrounding the exposed wood. 

"Hey, Z." 

Zoe jumped away from the tree, tucking the hairs into her coat pocket. Fire burst across her left leg. "Takota!" She breathed heavily and grabbed above her wound. "You scared me." 

He grimaced. "Sorry, but I called out to you several times, and you didn't respond." 

"Oh, yeah, I was just thinking." Her leg didn't feel like it was bleeding, so she tried to rub around the injury to relieve the ache. 

"How are you holding up?" 

"I'm alright." 

"And your leg?" 

"Walking across campus for classes will be super fun for the next few days, but I'll live." She couldn't meet Takota's gaze. He would know how shaken she still felt, and she didn't want to cause him more distress than she already had. 

"Last night was...intense." Takota leaned against the garden wall. 

"Yeah." She clamped her eyelids closed, wishing she could unsee the human face on the hairy animal. The yellow eyes in the bushes and the complete sense of helplessness she felt threatened to overwhelm her like it had last night. "I'm glad your mom is alright." 

"Me too." He ran his fingers through his hair and had that look in his eye that said something was on his mind. "You heard her yelling from the forest too, right?" 

Zoe nodded. 

"It was Ste ye hah." 

"There's no scientific proof that Bigfoot exists." The response was automatic and came without her considering what she recently experienced. 

"You and I both saw Ste ye hah last night." 

"I don't know what it was, and I won't say I do until I have definitive proof." 

He shoved away from the wall and glared at her. "Wake up, Z. Life doesn't fit into your textbooks the way you want it to." 

She glanced at the house and the protective love for her mom and dad who were sleeping inside its safe walls filled her with determination. "I want to figure this out, without involving my parents," she said, surprising herself with the revelation. 

"Really?" Takota crossed his arms. 

"Yes, they have other things to worry about." She cleared her throat. "Before the horses started in last night, I got this notification." She handed him her phone, the image of Ste ye hah still on the screen. 

"What the hell?" His thick eyebrows drew together. "Why didn't you show me this last night?" 

"There wasn't time and that is a big dark blob." 

"It's Ste ye hah." 

Zoe swallowed hard, unable to admit he could be right. "Whatever that is, it was standing over there." 

Takota moved near the pine she found the hair on. "What is that?" 

The worms had been plentiful and easy pickings for the early bird, with their slithery trails zigzagging across the brown mud showing the direction they traveled in. The damp earth also captured imprints of deer hooves, tiny prongs of bird's feet and what looked to be a partial footprint. Squatting next to Takota she studied the track. 

Bears had rounded paws, with the large toe on the outside and the sixth small one on the inside. This print looked human in its elongated shape and set of five toes with the hallux on the inside working out to the pinky. 

"That's not a bear print and who in their right mind walks around without shoes in the forest?" Takota placed his size twelve booted foot next to the mystery footprint. 

Air escaped her mouth in a windy rush. 

Takota's foot was dwarfed by the imprint. It must be a men's size fifteen or sixteen, maybe more. She hadn't ever encountered someone with feet that size--until last night. 

"Z, we need help from the Shaman."