Page 1 of The Girl Who Cried Bigfoot

1

WREN

FAKE IT ’TIL YOU CRYPTID

Red notifications flash across my laptop screen, a relentless pulse of pings from the Bigfoot Hotline. Every five seconds, a new number registers, another voice from the internet void convinced they’ve spotted a hairy giant in the Cascades. The call log climbs, the digits ticking up and up in time with my fingers drumming against the desk.

If only those digits could translate to the lodge. The parking lot is a vast, empty stretch of gray gravel, interrupted only by my beat-up sedan and an SUV belonging to the birdwatchers in Cabin Four. The Cassidy Lodge sign leans five degrees to the left, the wood silvered by age and neglect. Yesterday morning, I hammered a fresh bracket onto the frame, but the rot is winning. I’ll have to replace the frame soon, or maybe the whole sign.

If there’s still a need for a sign…

Everything about the lodge is quiet these days, and quiet means expensive. At least we’re saving money on floor polish, because there aren’t enough boots coming through here to scuff the floorboards. The place is a dying legacy in a beautiful wrapper. Sighing, I lean back in the swivel chair, the springs groaning a protest that matches the one in my joints.

My father’s hiking boots still sit by the heavy oak door. They’re caked in dried mud from a trail he’ll never walk again. On the mantle above the fireplace, there’s a photo of me and my parents, my mother and I grinning with pride, my father wearing an aw shucks expression, because he’d just graduated from the Search and Rescue academy. I usually avoid looking at the photo because grief is a heavy weight that doesn’t help me pay the electric bill. Black ice and bad timing had taken my parents from me, which I’m sure must have pissed my father off because he’d always wanted the mountains to take him.

My art history degree hangs in a cheap frame behind the desk, a four-year detour that taught me everything about the iconography of the Renaissance and nothing about how to save a failing family business. Everyone in this town, me included, has come to a tacit agreement that the degree was a mistake. It turns out knowing the difference between a sfumato and a chiaroscuro doesn’t help when the septic tank decides to retire.

I tap a pen against the desk as I turn my gaze back to the call log. I’m good at this. My marketing instincts, honed by a desperate need to keep the lights on, have turned a late-night whim into a viral sensation. I’m not a believer, just a woman who knows how to curate a mystery. People don’t really care about the truth; all they want is a story they can tell at bars. They want to be part of something that can’t be explained.

The hotline started as a joke, a bit of local color to drive traffic to the gift shop. Now, it’s become the only thing keeping us from foreclosure. If I can keep the internet interested, I can keep the power running. It’s a dumb thing to do on purpose, but being smart hasn’t been paying the mortgage.

HOTLINE TRANSCRIPT #442

CALLER: Yeah, hi. I’m in the national park and I definitely just saw him.

WREN: Describe the encounter, please.

CALLER: He was huge. Like, eight feet tall. And he was wearing... wait, was he wearing a trucker hat?

WREN: Did the hat have a logo, sir?

CALLER: I think it said Bass Pro Shops. Does Bigfoot shop at Bass Pro Shops?

WREN: We can’t rule out his appreciation for quality outdoor gear at this time. Thank you for your report.

I close the transcript and rub my eyes. The absurdity is the fuel. People call to report stolen shoes, blurry shapes, strange noises, and, now apparently, cryptid fashion choices. Every call is a data point that I can turn into content, and every piece of content is a reason for a tourist to book a room they’ll eventually realize is slightly damp.

A shadow falls over the desk. I don’t need to look up to know it’s Marge. The smell of cinnamon and sourdough precedes her, a physical manifestation of the kitchen’s authority. She puts a plate of thick-cut toast and a bowl of oatmeal on the cleared space next to my laptop.

“Eat,” Marge says, her voice rough and steady. She doesn’t ask if I’m hungry. Marge hasn’t asked a question she didn’t already know the answer to since 1994.

“I’m working, Marge. The internet is losing its mind over a Sasquatch in a trucker hat,” I say as another notification pops up on the screen. A man in Ohio thinks he found a footprint in his flowerbed. It’s a bear, but I’ll log it anyway.

“The internet can wait ten minutes while you chew,” she says, planting a hand on her hip. She looks at the laptop screen with a level of suspicion she usually reserves for spoiled milk. “You’re going to turn into a ghost if you keep sitting behind this desk. A pale, twitchy ghost who smells like lithium batteries.”

“Ghost-run lodges are a different niche. We’re doing the hairy giant thing right now. If it doesn’t pan out, then we’ll look at the ghost angle. Branding is important,” I mutter, finally picking up the toast. It’s buttered thick enough to be a health hazard, toasted just shy of burnt, exactly how my mother used to serve it.

Marge grunts in reluctant approval. “Walt says the gravel in the north lot is shifting again. He’s out there now with the rake, trying to convince the ground to stay where he put it. He also said he saw another one of those drones hovering over the tree line this morning.”

I pause, my teeth sinking into the bread. “A drone? We’re three miles from the nearest trailhead. Who’s flying drones out here?”

“The people who listen to that phone line of yours,” Marge says, squinting at a blurry photo a caller just uploaded. It looks like a stump. Maybe a very stationary bear. “That’s a cedar knot, Wren. I’ve lived in the area for sixty years. I know a tree when I see one.”

“Unidentified forest biomass, Marge. That sounds much more intriguing on a brochure,” I say. I move the photo to the Pending Verification folder. Verification usually consists of me waiting three days before posting a cryptic caption about how the Cascades keep their secrets well.

Walt Halloran enters the lobby, the screen door slapping shut behind him. He smells like pine needles and exhaust. The running family joke is that he’s been the groundskeeper here since before the lodge had indoor plumbing. He stops by the desk, nodding to Marge before looking at me.

“The birds are quiet today,” Walt says. It’s his version of a weather report. “And the roof on the equipment shed is starting to sag. I can patch it, but we’re going to need real shingles before the first snow. Not the stuff I found in the basement.”