“Not while he’s concussed.”
“I’m being supportive!”
“Out,” she orders.
He obeys. Eventually.
The door closes behind him, and the room quiets again.
Gladys sighs, rubbing her temples. “You attract trouble,” she mutters. “Wildlife incidents, head injuries, flirty interns….”
“That last one’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was your fault,” she replies. “I said you attract it.”
Honestly? Fair.
She flips through her clipboard. “If your vitals look good after breakfast, I’ll clear you to head back. But you’ll take it slow. No twelve-mile hikes, no climbing anything that isn’t absolutely necessary, and radio check-ins every few hours until your headache’s gone.”
“Gladys, you’re a saint.”
She snorts. “Hardly. You smell less than most cryptids, which is why I tolerate you.”
The words take a moment to land. “Cryptids?”
Before I can ask, a head pops in the door. It’s Jonah—the very shy trainee ranger who looks like a startled deer most of the time. He holds a piece of paper out like he’s afraid it might explode.
“Uh, Gladys? Dr. Hart? You should see this.”
She frowns. “If it’s another raccoon in the supply shed?—”
“No, uh—footprints,” he says. “Near the storage building. They’re… weird.”
He hands the paper to me, which is a photo that’s been printed.
I expect bear prints. Maybe mountain lion. But the image on the page?—
I sit up straighter.
The prints are enormous. Humanoid. Deep. The toes splay slightly. No claw marks. The stride length is long. Too long.
My scalp prickles.
These are the same kind I found last week. The same kind I’ve been telling myself must be distorted melt patterns or hoaxes or freak geological anomalies.
“What the hell…?” I whisper. “Those aren’t bear.”
“Nope,” Jonah says, sounding a little excited, a little scared. “And they’re fresh. Like… from this morning.”
Gladys leans over my shoulder.
“Oh, for the love of cedar bark—this again.”
“You’ve seen them before?” I ask sharply.
Gladys shoots me a look. “This park is full of nonsense. Rockfalls, weird mudslides, overenthusiastic campers with plaster molds. It’s never Bigfoot.”
Jonah grins nervously. “I mean… they kinda look like Bigfoot prints.”
