The Night of the Bigfoot
Lindsey tossed and turned in her bed and found sleep difficult which was unusual for her as she normally just crashed when she hit the pillow.
Tonight she had just finished watching a documentary about the truth and fiction behind the bigfoot legend. Her thought was awash with all sorts of fantastic scenarios both romantic and fearful.
Every continent around the world seemed to have its own stories of large hairy ape-like animals that inhabit the deepest forests or highest mountains of most continents. The Yeti, Sasquatch, Abominable Snow Man, and the Yowie to name a few. All seemed to have the same things in common, hairy body ginger to dark brown in most countries and white for those in the Asian Himalayan mountains, an oversized foot after all they were big, supposedly, and they smell rather badly.
Lindsey had recently moved to the mountain retreat of the blue mountains of New South Wales and had been comfortable with her new surroundings, just the right place to write her thesis. Her seclusion helped her focus on the task at hand and with all of the research behind her she was solely absorbed by the need to craft her arguments. That is until now, or to be more precise yesterday.
The visit to the Yowie museum run by a man who could best be kindly called a nut case by most people, he was amusing that was certain but fixated on the presence of Yowie in the deep forests of the mountains. David, the curator, had all sorts of so-called artifacts related to the Yowie, plaster casts of feet impressions, hair samples, apparently tested and were not of known animal or human resided in glass cases among many blurred photos on display.
The museum visit hadn't disturbed her, far from it, it was comical to the scientifically minded skeptic that she was. However, knowing that the documentary on the creatures real, myth or legend was going to air this evening Lindsey thought it would be fun to get some local background on the subject.
Now, this is what had her mind racing, many of the sights and sounds, particularly the so-called recordings of Yowie calls had a familiar parallel with sounds she had often heard during the night since she had arrived.
There was no stopping her mind from drifting back to those sounds she had heard and was told they were just the male Koalas calling. The sounds were tormenting her now more than ever and preventing her from sleeping. Could there be Yowie? Of course not she chided herself but it didn't help, besides her disturbing thoughts it was an uncomfortably warm evening.
The wind, that had blown gently throughout the day, had faded to a zephyr then died altogether. With the dropping breeze the night creatures came out to play, insects that were attracted earlier by the light from the house were easy feed for the bats. The occasional misjudgement of a bat resulted in a collision with the wire screens on the window. Each thump made Lindsey jump.
With the idea of sleep all but gone Lindsey rose from her bed perspiration saturating her flimsy nightdress. She decided that a shower and a change of night attire might help cure her insomnia. However, all that the cold water succeeded in doing was shocking her system to an even higher state of alertness.
When as she stepped from her shower into the living room which was not curtained because there was nothing to hide from in this remote ridge top area that looked out onto a magnificent panorama by day, but by night, except for week starlight it was dark, very dark.
It was momentary but Lindsey, from the corner of her eye, caught the movement of a dark shadow that passed between the rising moon and the house. It was not a flash of a night bird but at slow deliberate and measured movement then it was gone.
As the shadow passed from her view a howling scream started low and built to a defining crescendo Lindsey froze to the spot, dripping and naked. She wanted to move but couldn't. That was the very sound the guest, a so-called expert on the show, and David at the museum had described.
The frightened girl just stared at the darkness beyond the thick glass window, her heart racing so fast that her chest wobbled. Then without removing her eyes from the place she had seen the shadow Lindsey edged to the switch that fired the generator that provided her only source of electricity. When she heard the humming of the petrol engine she flipped the external light switch that bathed the space between the house and the dense tree line with yellow light.
Still shaking with fear Lindsey edged across to the big window and peered out. To the left then the right then straight ahead. There it was, she gave a start, a movement, not much granted but a movement never the less in the underbrush. The shaking leaves had caught Lindsey's attention and her heart rate lifted again and she took a step back from the glass and watched closely as the small underbrush parted. A warm trickle down her leg made her curse. She had peed herself with fear.
In the brief moment that it had taken for her to look down then up again the underbrush had stopped moving. There in the lonely house, naked, staring out into the darkened valley that spread before her Lindsey stood trembling. There would be no sleep tonight.
Unable to go back to bed Lindsey doused the outside light and turned on the reading lamp next to the lounge. For the remainder of the long hot night, she read through her notes. Sometime during the early morning hours, she finally dropped off to sleep still naked half sitting half lying supported by pillows.
The sun was well up when she finally shook herself fully awake. Ever mindful of the nights' events she went to the window to look out on the more friendly daytime vista that stretched before her. Lindsey had been standing there for several minutes taking in the view when she turned to go. Then she jumped back a look of pure fear on her face. Her eyes that had been focused through the window glass into the yard, the valley and forest beyond the window. Now as she turned she was looking more closely at the window itself.
There were two full dirty handprints about eighty centimeters apart on the glass. They were big palms and fingerprints, very big. Lindsey reached up to the impressions and it was as high as she could reach on the big window. She put her hand against the glass on the opposite the paw print and shuddered. This was one big critter she mused. Lindsey's empty stomach churned and her heart began to race as her eyes flicked around the once-friendly landscape that had turned foreboding.
A shiver of fear ran through Lindsey's entire body as she realised each print had only three fingers and a thumb. Right between the two paw prints and just a little higher was the clear imprint of a large open mouth. A line of dribble had run from one corner of the mouth leaving a glistening trail that clung, stickily to the glass. Several strands of dark hair were stuck to the otherwise clean glass panel. Something during the night had been watching her. Lindsey backed up to the bedroom. She slammed the door and threw herself onto the bed and began to sob. The events of the night had just been too much.
When the racking sobs subsided she just lay there thinking. She could have put it all down to her fertile imagination if it hadn't been for the hand marks on the window. The lip outline and dribble must have meant the beast had been watching her for some time, just how long made her shiver and start weeping afresh. It was mid-morning before Lindsey was able to regain her confidence and dress before re-entering the living area to begin work on the all-important thesis but her mind wandered away from the topic constantly.
Try as she may there was no way that she could focus on the task at hand, her mind kept returning to the events of the previous evening. Her imagination had developed a picture of a hairy Yowie pressed against the glass watching her sleeping, god knows what crude thoughts were running through its mind as it watched her laying naked on the lounge chair. The drool probably answered that question. After another hour Lindsey decided that she would drive back to the museum and talk to the strange man that ran the place.
"Hello, didn't I see you here yesterday?"
"Uh ... oh, yes, yes I was here," Lindsey replied to the man she recognised as the owner. There were only a few tired tourists in the little museum at this time with no tourist buses in the parking lot. It was the kind of place you stopped at more to break your trip than to satisfy your belief in Yowie.
"By the way my name is David, David Fardel. You are?
"Lindsey Wilson."
