Page 2 of The Girl Who Cried Bigfoot

A familiar tightening starts in my chest, the same feeling I get whenever I think of the dwindling bank account. “How much time do we have?”

“If the wind stays down? Maybe a month. If it doesn’t? We’ll be storing the mowers in the lobby by November,” Walt says. He doesn’t sound worried; he sounds practical. To Walt, buildings falling down is just another form of erosion.

I look back at the screen. The red notifications are still coming. Each one is a potential guest. Each one is a shingle. I’ve turned the memory of my family’s lodge into a digital freak show, and the worst part is how well it’s working. The birdwatchers in Cabin Four are only here because they heard the lodge was the epicenter of the ‘recent activity.’

“I’ll find the money, Walt. Just... keep the rake moving. Make it look like we’ve got a full staff out there.” It’s a necessary lie. We’re a three-person operation pretending to be a wilderness resort.

Walt nods and heads back out. Marge lingers, her hand resting briefly on my shoulder, which is her version of a hug. Then she’s gone, back to the kitchen to prepare for a dinner rush that might consist of four people or forty, depending on whether the algorithm decides to bless up today.

I stare at the ‘Bass Pro Shops’ Bigfoot transcript again. This bit—this gloriously stupid, viral bit—is the only thing keeping the lights on. There is no plan B. No second act. There is only a girl with a useless degree and a fake hotline, waiting for the woods to give her something she can sell.

I check the About section of the website I built on a caffeine-fueled Tuesday at three in the morning. It’s a masterpiece of intentional ambiguity. I used my art history background to select the exact shade of forest green to evoke both nostalgia and a slight, unsettling sense of depth. I know the power of a well-placed void. If you leave a gap in the narrative, a hundred strangers will rush to fill it with their own anxieties and desires. Right now, those desires involve blurry photographs of shadows and an irrational hope that something ancient is roaming the forest.

The phone on the desk vibrates. It’s the direct line for the lodge, not the hotline. I pick it up, sliding into my Professional Daughter of the Cascades voice.

“Cassidy Lodge, this is Wren. How can I help you?”

“Is this the place with the monster?” The voice is young and a little breathless. I can hear the rush of wind in the background, so I assume they’re calling from a moving vehicle.

“We’re a full-service wilderness lodge located in the heart of the national forest,” I say, the script smooth as river stones. “If you’re referring to the recent reports of unusual sightings, we are indeed the primary intake center for the Bigfoot Hotline.”

“Do you have a room available? For tonight? We have a thermal camera and three bags of beef jerky.”

I bring up the booking calendar. It’s a sea of white space with a few lonely blue blocks. “I can get you into Cabin Seven. It has a prime view of the north ridge, which has been a... high-frequency area lately.”

Cabin Seven also has a temperamental water heater and a porch that groans when the wind hits it, but ‘high-frequency’ sounds much more enticing. I take their credit card information, the numbers feeling like a transfusion of blood. That’s another two hundred dollars toward the insurance payment. Two hundred dollars away from the edge of the cliff.

When I hang up, I feel a prickle of something that isn’t quite guilt. It’s more like the vertigo you get when you realize you’re standing on a bridge you built out of toothpicks. I’m selling them the ridge and the thrill of the hunt, but I’m also selling them the silence. This place used to be about the forest. My dad used to take people out to show them the Douglas firs and the way the light hit the lichen. Now, I’m selling them the thing that isn’t there so I can save the things that are.

I pull up the next hotline transcript to clear my head.

HOTLINE TRANSCRIPT #445

CALLER: (Heavy breathing) It’s... it’s screaming. Do you hear that? In the woods behind the gas station?

WREN: Sir, are you near the town of Silverton?

CALLER: Yeah. It sounds like a woman screaming, but, like... bigger. Is that him? Is he angry?

WREN: Sir, based on your location and the time of year, what you’re likely hearing is a mountain lion in heat. They are known for their vocalizations, which can sound remarkably human.

CALLER: So it’s not Bigfoot?

WREN: While the Sasquatch is known for many sounds, we find that screams near the Chevron are usually feline in origin. Please stay in your vehicle.

I sigh. Sometimes the truth is more dangerous than the lie. A mountain lion is a real threat; a Sasquatch is a brand. I’m out here protecting people from reality by feeding them a fantasy, which is an irony my art history professors would have loved to deconstruct for three credit hours.

Standing, I stretch, my spine cracking. I need to move. I walk over to the door and stop next to my father’s boots. The size twelves are worn at the heel, the leather dark with years of waterproofing grease. I haven’t moved them because moving them feels like an admission of a finality I’m not ready to sign off on. As long as they’re by the door, I can pretend my parents are just late for dinner.

I push open the door and step onto the porch. The sharp, clean scent of petrichor and pine permeates the air. It’s beautiful, magnificent, but nature doesn’t care about beauty. Just like the mountains don’t care if I pay the mortgage because they’ll still be here long after Cassidy Lodge is gone.

I look toward the tree line. The forest starts about fifty yards past the last cabin, a wall of green that seems to swallow the light. That’s where the “sightings” happen and the drones go to die when their batteries fail. It’s also where the real problems live: the erosion, the beetle kill, the encroaching rot that eventually claims every man-made thing in this zip code.

A flicker of movement near the equipment shed catches my eye. Walt, his back bent, rakes the gravel with a grim, rhythmic focus. He looks smaller than he did last year. Or maybe the lodge just looks bigger the longer it stands empty. He’s pretending for the sake of the imaginary guests, just like I’m pretending for the sake of the callers. We’re all actors in a play that hasn’t had a rehearsal in years.

I remember a lecture in one of my courses about the sublime, the idea that nature is both terrifying and magnificent, and that humanity’s role is to stand in awe of it. I’m not in awe. I’m looking out at a lodge with a failing septic tank, trying to figure out how to monetize terror to preserve magnificence. It’s a messy, undignified way to live.

I go back inside, the door clicking shut with a finality that echoes in the empty room. I sit back down at the desk. The red notifications are piling up again. Ping. Ping. Ping. It’s the sound of survival. It’s the sound of a legacy being bartered for clicks.