It had been a long time since the University had agreed to fund an expedition like this, but a recent rash of sightings in the area had prompted a resurgence of interest in the creature and a sizable donation to the University, on the condition that at least 75% be used to fund a search for it. Kate knew perfectly well that, to the school, that 75% was a write-off, but the remaining 25% justified the trouble. She'd lobbied very hard to be the one sent on the expedition, and while her professors didn't fully understand her interest in what most of them dismissed as a wild goose chase, they also knew she was probably the only grad student who would at least try to look like she was taking the search seriously.
And Kate Garland took it very seriously. She had always been fascinated by the Sasquatch legend. As a girl, she'd owned a big book on unsolved mysteries, with chapters on the Sasquatch, the Yeti, Ogopogo, Nessie, the Mothman, the Jersey Devil, and others. She'd been intrigued by all of them, but Sasquatch was her favourite. Like her, it lived in BC, but as a land-dwelling humanoid, it had more personality and relatability than a lake monster like Ogopogo.
She believed it was real. Even her most skeptical professors were impressed by the depth of her research to corroborate this idea, her proposal that the Sasquatch and Yeti were more man than ape, probably the descendents of
Homo heidelbergensis
or
Homo denisova
, or, more likely, a hybrid of the two, grown to gigantic size. She had traced the entire spread of the creatures through the Levant and up the central Asian steppe, into the Himalayas, across the Beringian landbridge and into North America. She'd provided plausible arguments in the local human DNA pools, the hominid fossil record, and of course, the folklore. Her professors might not share her belief, but they had a hard time dismissing it as mere antiscientific fancy.
So the university had paid for her to rent a small cottage deep in a remote valley in the Cascadian Mountains, not far from where the latest sightings had been, but the nearest road had closed, and it was a long hike from where the bus had dropped her off. All her equipment and supplies she would need to carry with her, making the hike even longer and more grueling, and she couldn't wait to be inside and enjoying a long hot bath, no matter how dingy the inside of the cottage was.
The undergrowth was thick here, but more than that, it was laced with fallen branches and larger limbs, until all of that suddenly gave off a few hundred metres up ahead, where a soft, squelchy mud covered the ground. It didn't look too deep, and she had on a good pair of boots, so she wasn't worried, but then, suddenly, she noticed something in the mud. It looked like a footprint!
She got closer. It was definitely a humanoid footprint, distinct and very fresh, but also - and this was the exciting part - about fourteen inches long.
"My God," she whispered. A Sasquatch print! She pulled her phone from her pocket and took a quick barrage of photos.
She stopped to listen to the forest now. Perhaps whoever or whatever made this print wasn't far off? She crouched and waited, but there was no sound except a few birds and the buzzing mosquitoes, no smell except the mud and her own sweat, no apparent sign of a gigantic hairy humanoid, and before long, she gave up and continued hiking to the cottage.
"After all," she said out loud (Kate often spoke to herself when she was alone) "finding a footprint already is a very good sign." That thought, that sunny optimism, made the rest of the hike feel like it was nothing.
The cottage was surprisingly nice given its remote location. She was able to get hot running water, and took a long, relaxing bath. After she got out, she wrapped herself in a towel and started to unpack her stuff. Clothes, dried food, basic toiletries. Probably the most important thing was the small satellite dish that would grant her internet access. She wondered, for a moment, whether to bother getting dressed before heading outside. Surely there was nobody around, and even the mosquitoes had died out pretty sharply as she moved away from the swamp.
"Fuck it," she said, and walked outside wearing nothing but a towel.
Fresh out of the tub, Kate Garland was truly stunning. She was a tall girl, curvaceous, wide hipped, and busty, with long brown hair she wore in neat bangs, framing a wide, clear-skinned face. Bright green eyes, a pretty nose, and a wide, heart-melting smile with the cutest dimples you could imagine.
She took a moment to set up the satellite dish, modem, and router, granting her a limited WiFi signal across the cottage. She set up a few sensors around the perimeter, that would notify her if anything human-sized or larger was approaching. The sun felt great on her bare skin, and there were no mosquitoes this high up the hill, away from the standing water. She took a moment to appreciate the beautiful scenery around her, the view down the mountain into an endless forest of pine trees, orange in the setting sun.
Just as she was setting up the last of the sensors, she heard a sort of snuffling sound from a ways' off. When she turned to see what it was, she was so shocked that her towel fell right off, leaving her standing naked in the evening breeze.
About a hundred and fifty metres away, at a natural clearing in the foliage, stood an enormous manlike creature, easily seven feet tall, a shaggy silhouette against the orange sky. Kate reached for her phone only to remember that she'd left it in her pants pocket, inside the cottage. Before she could even consider whether to go in for it, the creature loped back off into the woods. As it walked, she noticed something the keychains and posters and action figures had left out, something you couldn't see in that iconic silhouette from the Patterson-Gimlin film.
"Wow, Bigfoot is hung like a champ."
Kate felt strangely uncomfortable even acknowledging that she'd seen his enormous dick, but in the moment, found it strangely erotic. A half-forgotten fantasy from her youth resurfaced, an aspect of her lifelong fascination with the Sasquatch she thought she'd outgrown: some girls have their sexual awakening as a result of David Bowie's pants in
Labyrinth
. Kate had hers while watching
