The creature screamed and stood to its full height, or almost. It was impossible under the eight foot ceilings in the jail.
All that stood between us and a full-grown sasquatch was a row of iron rebar, welded into a grid, with squares a little smaller than a man’s head.
The smell was overwhelming, as the thing beat its chest with massive arms and showed a row of yellowed teeth. It’s blood-orange eyes, bored right through us.
“Jack.”
“Yeah, Phil?”
“Next time you think it’ll be funny to apply for a research grant…”
“Yeah?”
“Go screw yourself, man. I think I just wet my pants.”
In the cell behind us, two furry shadows, about the size of a chimpanzee, each, seemed to be laughing. Their mother was now gripping the bars on the front of our cell. As far as she was concerned, the only way to her babies, was through the space we were currently occupying.
Less than two weeks earlier on the campus of OCCC community college in Oklahoma City
“Jack Bannister,” I sat up. My biology professor had just dropped my latest paper on the desk in front of me and woke me up. The lecture hall was nearly empty already, how long had I been out? I looked down at the paper a large F was circled at the top. I sighed, this wasn’t good.
“That was a brilliant piece of fiction, Jack. Consider applying to the film program, they’re looking for screenwriting majors,” he moved to the next student.
“Phillip Johnson, well done as always, see you beautiful people tomorrow,” he called after us as we exited.
“Jack, if you don’t pass biology, there will be no transfer next semester, you get that right?” Phillip said, grabbing my arm.
“Yes mom, look, I’ll just drop the class and keep it off my transcript,” I said.
“What? Do you actually pay attention to anything? If you drop that, there’s not enough credits on your transcript, no more financial aid, no more school until you get the money to pay the bill…”
“Done,” I said, slapping him on the chest as I brushed past him, snatching a notice from the ‘Science Opportunities’ billboard.
“Brilliant idea, Phil, brilliant! Look, here’s your money right here!”
I turned the paper to face him and he took it, reading, “International Fellowship of Sasquatch Researchers grant application? Are you freaking serious? This is not legit, man. And if it was, you wouldn’t get it.”
“Wanna bet?”
Over the next 24 hours, I became as much of a bigfoot expert as I could, consuming over 12 hours of “Discovery Channel” documentaries, searching dozens of websites and watching another 2 hours of Youtube footage.
I could do this.
Pause for just a moment. If I had been able to see into the future to
see exactly where this all was going to lead, it’s doubtful I would
have been so cavalier, but who knows? You only live once, right?
“Okay, here’s the plan. We set up a camera, create a Vlog, back date the whole thing and put together a resume. We take some selfies in places that look like bigfoot country, write a few blog posts and send in the application. With my writing abilities and your…pessimistic attitude, we’re perfect.” I told Phil.
“What’s your project?”
“Huh?”
“The project, you have to have a project you want funded with the grant, what’s it going to be?” Phillip asked smugly, sure I’d missed this detail.
“We’re going to Honobia,”
I said, booting up my tablet and clicking on a tab way in the back as a webpage popped up. “We’re going to shoot the Bigfoot conference.”
The next day we had a response. They wanted a telephone interview. I was a finalist for the grant.
“This is not going to work,” Phillip said, “You fooled them with a fake Vlog, now you think you can pass yourself off as one of them?”
We were in the commons when the call came, at least six kids I didn’t know were waiting to listen in. I turned on speakerphone and set my phone on a table.
“Hello, Jack Bannister?” the voice on the other end sounded tough, and spoke with a twang that wreaked of backwoods.
“Yes, sir that’s me,” I replied, trying to match his tone.
“Well, this here is Petey, wit the IFSR, we’re calling about the application for our grant money. I got Wilkes here with me, listening in, we’re the grant committee and we were very impressed with your application, there.”
“Thank you sir, so what else would you like to know?”
“Not too much, I reckon. So, you got a team to cover Honobia? We’d love to see it dun right.”
“Uh, yeah, team, they’re listening in right now. My roommate, Phil is my uh…” I looked to Phil.
“DP, uh, director of photography,” he whispered.
“He’s the DP, you know, directory of photography and we have an audio guy,” I covered the phone, “Who here can do foley?” six hands shot up. “Really? Who knows what I just freaking said?” one hand remained up, “What’s your name?”
“Carlos Mendez,” he said. He looked serious and he was carrying a digital recording rig, “Is this a paying gig?”
“Carlos Mendez, on foley for our audio, and we’re really excited to get down there and, uh , get this thing in the can,” I said.
“Is it paying?” Carlos hissed.
“Well, you got yourself a grant young man. We wuz thinking we could just PayPal the money, that work?” Petey said.
“Uh, yeah, how soon do you think that would be, we’re needing to rent some uh, some gear…”
“Is this here your PayPal email what you sent the application from?” Petey asked.
“Yes, yes sir, it is,” I replied, holding my breath.
*There were sounds of clicking on a keyboard, “Dammit, Wilkes, you spill tobacco on my keyboard agin? The damn enter key is stickin. There, you got it…now. We look forward to hearing from you.”
“Wait, what? That’s it? Uh, okay, so when do we check in?” I said, trying to sound professional enough to not get the charges reversed instantly.*
“We’ll be in touch, wunce you got sumthin,” Petey said.
“How will you know?” I asked.
Petey chuckled, “Cryptozoology is a pretty tight knit community, we’ll know.”
There was silence, “Hello?” A dial tone erupted from the speaker, followed by a ping.
I picked up my phone and the whole room collectively held its breath, as I checked my email, “Holy crap! It’s there, Phil, I just got a grant to make a movie about something that doesn’t even exist, for $10,000.00 dollars!”
Everyone in the commons cheered. People were stopping to stare, poking their heads out of doors. Students, who had heard the story, were informing total strangers, everyone was smiling except for Phil.
“Do you know what you just did?” he swallowed.
“Yeah, I just got $10k for making a movie, what’s wrong with you?”
****“You just signed a contract with the Little Dixie Mafia to make a scam movie for 10 grand,” he said quietly. He looked so pale I thought he might pass out.**
“Dude, lighten up, they are just a bunch of ignorant rednecks, it’s fine. Come on, we got a movie to make man!”
By five PM that night, I had a list of 25 film students begging to crew my movie. I didn’t know what we would do with them all but Phil, who had finally come around, said sell them a producer credit, since that’s what they needed anyway, was resume credit. So, I did who knew so many of them would go for it?
“Man, do you know how much money is here?” Phil said, sweating.
“Yeah, over $12k, man, this might just turn out to be a legit thing,” I replied.
Phil, huffed, “You’re still not getting it, this has got to be meth money, and the guys who sent you that $10,000.00 don’t mess around, Jack. My uncle was a sheriff deputy in McCurtain county and I am telling you, you don’t want to scam these guys.”
“Okay, so, we go to the festival, pick up some ideas on a bigger story, and make a real movie,” I said.
“The one thing you may know even less about than the Little Dixie Mafia is film making.”
I smiled, “That’s why I have you Phil,” I said hugging him.
“Get off me, dude, I have a girlfriend,” he said, “besides, highschool AV club and a couple of summer film camps did not prepare me to manage a $12,000.00 production budget. Look, if you want me in on this, you’re doing it my way,” Phil said.
“Fine with me, all I really wanted was to pay for school, and that is covered.”
“Um, no, not it’s not. We can’t touch this money except for film expenses until we have something to show for it!”
“That’s the whole reason I started this, what do you mean, no? There’s plenty. How much can a film cost?”
Phil Just laughed.
The next morning, my account balance was $700.00.
“What the hell? Where did all of the money go?”
“Well, the investment capital, by law, has to be held in escrow until it’s spent on expenses, so I moved it. The rest we spent on equipment, a van and a trailer,” Phil informed me.
“Okay, so when do we go pick it out?”
“Pick what out?” Phil asked.
“The van, the gear?”
“It’s a rental package, there’s no picking it out,” Phil said.
“So, you mean we spent $12,000.00 and after this is over I don’t even get a cool camera?” I was starting to regret inviting Phil.
The doorbell rang, on the step was an Amazon package.
“Cool, it’s here already!” Phil said, taking the package and slicing it open.
“What is it?”
“The camera you wanted,” he said, pulling a Go Pro with a head mount out of the box. “Here, play with this.”
I did, and by the time we were ready to load up, we had also acquired three body cams, that we intended to wear throughout the entire experience. We picked up the van and trailer the day before and unbolted the back seats to make room for an air mattress, at Phil’s suggestion, in case we needed to camp in the van, leaving enough room for up to 6 passengers.
“We need a line producer,” I insisted, consulting my ‘film for dummies’ guide to make sure I was using the right term.
“No, we don’t, that’s the same as a script supervisor and only happens on dramatic films, “ Phil answered.
“Well, I don’t care what we call her, but she is coming,” I said, holding up my phone to show Phil the hopelessly hot girl who had been begging for days to be included.
“No.”
The next morning, a group of about 50 students were in the parking lot at the college when we rolled in to load out the rest of the camera gear into the trailer. Considering it was 5 am and this was a commuter school, that was impressive.
Our fans had taken to social media over the planning period and so far, we had over 200 signed up to receive notifications every time we “went live” on Facebook. I had to admit, fame felt nice. While Phil went in with Carlos to check out the gear, I stayed behind to guard the van and by the time they had the last case in the trailer and had slapped the padlock shut, there were more than a hundred students, and miscellaneous Sasquatch fans milling around, a few even had banners.
Before Phil could stop me, I had scrambled to the top of the van, “Hello, Oh Triple C!” I yelled into the morning air, and got a roar back from the crowd.
“We’re off to solve one of life’s final mysteries and bring you real footage of the hairy man himself, Sasssssquaaaatch!” They cheered.
Somewhere in the back of the crowd, someone was holding up a giant Sasquatch cutout from a beef jerkey company promotion. They crowd surfed it up to the van, with a sharpie attached and I signed Sasquatch’s face and sent him back.
I’d left the driver’s door open and made my exit gracefully, sliding into what I thought would be an empty driver’s seat, only to end up in Phil’s lap, “Dude, I’m driving.”
“Dude, I signed the insurance paperwork, no you’re not,” he said.
“Come on, just scoot over and let me pull out of here, my fans expect it,” I pleaded.
Phil stopped thumbing in our destination on his Iphone and sighed.
“Fine, but we’re pulling into the Circle K, you got me?”
“Copy that, Captain!” I stood up on the running board, waving to the fans, as Phil moved into the passenger seat and Carlos buckled into the front bench seat. “Bigfoot or Bust!” I screamed and rolled my window down, as we cruised out of the parking lot to cheers.
“All right, pull over,” Phil said.
“No, I’m driving,” I laughed.
“I’m serious,” Phil said.
“Always,” I replied, “in fact it looks painful!”
Phil reached across and grabbed the wheel, threatening to throw the van into park. I let go, and laughed, “Oops, you’re over the line there buddy, would you like to let me drive, wreck this thing before we even get off campus?”
He rolled his eyes and set up, stiffly, as I retook the wheel and stepped on the gas.
“You’re such a child,” Phil said.
“Haven’t changed since you met me in third grade,” I said.
“Exactly.”
We pulled into our campsite at dusk.
It might have been sooner, but Phil fell asleep and we were in Gainesville, before I realized my mistake. The campground was down a dirt road. The photos must have been a few decades past, because the “general store” was now a pile of ashes, the pool was a rusty, empty hole, filled with broken furniture and the office looked like a reject from “fixer uppers”. But, the water was fine, the shower was hot and our tent was up before dark.
That night, we shot a bit of “Blair Witch” footage, with Carlos and Phil in the tent, pretending our camp was being marauded, while I, with the best “Bigfoot” voice, slapped the tent around and growled.
To make Phil happy, I insisted we would only be using it as Youtube footage for our fans, but I fully intended to see it in the movie. Little did I know.
We settled in, cooked dinner and took turns in the pay shower, having just enough quarters for all three of us to get a 5 minute hot shower.
When Phil came out of the shower, it was dark, he found that his clothes were missing, and a mysterious large, wet footprint was clearly visible where his clothes had been. As I joined in the search, Carlos donned a Sasquatch mask I had brought for just such an occasion and waited around the corner in the direction the footprint indicated.
“I’m not too sure about this, Phil,” I said. “I was in the crapper the whole time and Carlos is back at the tent man, what if that’s real?”
Phil swung his maglight up into my eyes, temporarily blinding me, “Nonsense, Jack, I know your handiwork when I see it. Get my clothes back, now!”
I shook my head no, with my best leery expression, “Hell no, I heard something rummaging back there and I’m serious.”
“For Pete’s sake!” he said, “Fine! I’ll do it myself.”
On about the second step, Phil tripped on his towel but proceeded into the darkness, my bodycam catching glimpses of his white ass as he hustled around the corner. I scrambled to catch up.
“RRRRAAAAAAHHH!” Carlos bellowed, clawing sightlessly, inside the huge mask, with foam rubber Bigfoot claws as he met Phil coming around the corner into the dark. He managed to connect, knocking Phil’s glasses from his face.
Now, there is something that happens to a person not used to the out-of-doors when they make contact with an unknown creature in the dark. As rational as Phil was, in that moment, he genuinely believed he was encountering a living Skunk Ape in it’s natural habitat. He went a little crazy.
Phil jumped back, dropping his flashlight. Then it seemed, he decided that turning his back on a potential carnivore twice his size was a bad idea and the two squared off, neither able to see the other clearly.
“Shit!” Phil said and I considered stepping in, since Phil never cusses, but it was too late.
As Carlos stepped toward him, stomping, bowlegged, in the giant bigfoot feet, Phil launched a kick, straight out in front of him that connected squarely with Carlos’ family jewels and lifted him a full six inches off the ground.
As Carlos fell backward into the mud we’d created to take the imprint of the bigfoot shoes , Phil launched himself, stark naked on top of him.
“I got one! I got one!” they rolled in the mud for a minute, Phil undoing the last hot shower we had quarters for. Meanwhile, I’d managed to get the Go Pro rolling and was torn between laughing and already regretting what was coming next as I filmed the entire incident.
After about thirty seconds of grappling, Carlos broke free and limped off around the corner of the bathhouse, howling, for all the world, like a legitimate giant primate in excruciating pain. Lights moved toward us from every corner of the campground.
Phil, meanwhile, found his glasses, right where he had stepped on them, nearly broken in the center. I went to find his towel, which by now, he’d completely forgotten about. So when the first campers arrived with a camping lantern, he was revealed in all his mud covered glory, glasses askew and hair spiked up with silt and grass.
“Well, hell,” said one older woman, “That’s not even a very convincing costume! Their peckers are bigger than that!”
“Ida Mae, how would you know?” asked her husband.
“Well, John,” she said with a smile, “That’s not something you forget.”
“Um, er, excuse me,” Phil said, snatching up a hairy bigfoot glove from the ground to cover himself with, looking down at it in confusion. I wrapped the towel around him and hustled him back into the bathhouse where another camper took pity on him and funded another round of hot water.
I made the glove disappear and went to check on Carlos, who I found writhing in agony in his tent, a package of frozen hotdogs covering his groin. “You okay, buddy?”
He responded angrily in Spanish. I never knew what he was saying, but it was something about going home, I gathered later when his uncle, who lived nearby, showed up in a rusty Ford truck to take him back to the city, walking like a donut with a bite out of it. He rolled over the side of the truck bed into the back, and lay there, on a 5 pound sack of ice, eyes barely open.
“I’ll send you your pay,” I said. He replied in Spanish, and I’m pretty sure it was my first death threat. It wouldn’t be my last.
“Dos veces,” his uncle said, holding up two fingers, then folding one of them down to leave just the middle one. "You pay twice," he paused, making sure I got the message, before getting into the truck.
He had indeed earned double pay, but the Youtube video I’d captured alone would pay that! I laughed.
When I caught up with Phil, he was retelling his harrowing tale around a campfire, while several veteran Squatch hunters prepared to enter the surrounding woods in search of the beast.
“This is just like him,” one man said, “somehow he shows up during the festival every damn year. You’d think one of these times we catch him on camera. Hey, Jack, right? Did you get him with yours?”
“No,” I lied. “It happened too fast.”
The conference hadn’t even started yet and already I had enough footage to make the money back, I thought.
What we would experience over the next week would change everything.