by Freya Darcy
Dad used to love using the word, radical, and when he was really feeling lucky, he’d throw in a, cowabunga. It drove me mad and we’d spend hours playfully arguing, probably driving mum batty in the along the way.
“Hey,” Payton says, falling back to land a playful punch against my shoulder. “You doing okay?”
“Yeah!” I give her a smile. “Listening to them is just bringing back happy memories of my own embarrassing parents.”
While Derick leads, regaling everyone with more warnings about the importance of making noise when you walk and not cornering the shy creature we fall back a little more.
“This is nice,” I say feeling the leaves and twigs crunch under my boots and smiling up at the slivers of sunlight filtering through the thick foliage up above. “I don’t think I’ve done anything outdoorsy since I was a kid.”
“I come out here as often as I can, and these Bigfoot tours are fun.” She nibbles at her lip for another moment before saying, “I wasn’t sure if going ahead with this tour, you know so soon after Meghan. But the bookings were made and paid for and everyone had already arrived...”
“I’ll never see my girl again,” I quote. “But the work waits.” I don’t even realise that I’ve spoken out loud until Payton stops.
“Did you just quote Sweeney Todd?”
I make a face. “Maybe?” I can feel myself turning red. “I’m sorry. Sometimes weird stuff pops into my head and out my mouth.”
She laughs then. It’s so loud that everyone stops to stare at us.
“Alright!” I say, waving for her to stop. “It wasn’t that funny.”
But in the next second she’s hugging me, still laughing. “Oh yeah, we’re keeping you.”
“That is so woke,” the dad says, sounding impressed.
“Dad!”
An hour later we break off the path and into a small clearing.
“Alright!” Derick says clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “We’ll set up camp here for the night. Now we have three tents. One for the boys, one for the girls, and one for the happy couple.” He winks at the parents who wave off the disgusted sounds made by their teenagers.
Chapter Eleven
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SHE’S dead?” a man bellows at a woman I can’t quite make out.
Her hands wrap defensively around her body, but her face is hidden in the shadow of the overhanging trees blocking the moonlight.
“It— It’s like I said,” she stammers. “The police think she hung herself.”
“Hung herself?” He looks at her as if she’s talking another language and I can see he’s becoming more agitated with every passing second.
“I’m sorry. I tried to call but I kept getting your message bank and I—”
“And why would I answer a call from you?” He snaps. “You’re the reason we broke up in the first place! I don’t know what you did to me but...”
“I didn’t do anything!” She shoots back. “You came onto me! You practically ravished me you were so—”
“Shut up!”
She shrinks back with a whimper and the man glares down at his clenched fists.
“You killed her.” The man points an accusatory finger with so much force it seems to move the air. “You were always jealous of Meghan. She was smarter than any of the backwards hicks this place could produce and just when she was finally getting out, you couldn’t hack it so you—”
“So, I what?” she snaps back. “Forced you to leave her sleeping in her room to come sit with me at the bar? Forced you to buy me drink after drink till I was stupid enough to let you...”
Everything fades and it’s like I’m rocking. Rocking really hard.
“LADY?” A VOICE THAT sounds very young seems to be accompanying the fierce shaking. “Lady, wake up.”
“I’m awake,” I say, opening my eyes a crack to just make out the form of the teenager in the bag next to mine. “Jayne? What’s going on? It’s still dark, what time is it?”
“I don’t know. About midnight, I guess. Mum made us give up our phones.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. The other lady, you know the tour guide lady? She’s gone. I thought she just went out to go to use the toilet or whatever, but it’s been a really long time and she’s not back and she’s not outside.”
I sit up and stretch, remnants of the dream still playing in my mind. If I had to guess, I’d say that the man had been Meghan’s ex from the city, but who was the woman?
Something twists in my stomach as I crawl out of the tent and squint into the silvery darkness.
The man and the woman had been arguing in woods much like this. Was it possible that Payton was the woman? She seemed crazy but nice, surely not the kind of person who would sleep with her friend’s boyfriend.
But if it was Payton in the dream, could she also be involved in Meghan’s death?
The man had accused her of always being jealous of Meghan but that didn’t mean...
“Lady?” Jayne asks. “Do you see her?”
“Kizz,” I say. “My name’s Kizz.”
“Kiss?” She snorts.
“No, Kizz, with zees.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s short for Kismet.” I give her a sardonic smile. “Remember that next time you’re complaining about how lame your parents are.”
That makes her laugh softly but the mood sobers again just as fast.
“Maybe we should go ask Derick,” I suggest. “He knows this area better.”
“I tried that, but the other two dudes were farting up a storm.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
I approach the boys tent carefully and as quietly as possible unzip the door. But a few blinks into the gloom reveals that the two men and the teenage boy are there but no Derick.
“Hmm.” I take a seat near the firepit. “Maybe they forgot something and went to get it?”
Jayne’s eyes get wide. “Maybe they got eaten by wolves.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “There are no wolves here.”
As though summoned a lonely howl calls out in the night followed by another and another.
“That’s probably just dogs.”
Jayne doesn’t look convinced. “What if they went to the toilet together only one got hurt and the other doesn’t want to leave them because of the roving pack of dogs?”
“Okay, I doubt it’s a roving pack.”
Jayne does make a good point though. What if one of them fell in the dark and the other doesn’t want to leave them alone? Surely, they’d call out for help though, right? They couldn’t be that far off.
Standing I look around the clearing for any sign of – anything. I have no idea what I’m looking for. But on the far path I see a piece of yellow twine that could be from Derick’s coat.
“I guess that’s as good a direction as any,” I say. “We should wake up the others first though.”
Jayne agrees and while she wakes her parents I risk the boys tent again. After opening the zip I let it air a little before ducking my head in and gently calling for them to wake up.
We explain the situation and set off down the path with the yellow twine.
It’s not much, just little threads here and there along the path. In fact, he might have done it on purpose, so he could find his way back if he got disorientated. Wasn’t that supposed to be some kind of survival trick? It’s possible I’m thinking of Hansel and Gretel.
But before I can wonder any more the threads stop. We follow the path a little further but as we go, the covering of scrub and leaves looks less and less disturbed, unlike the path when we started out.
“I don’t think they came this way,” I say. “It looks like it just gets denser up ahead. Wouldn’t we see signs if someone had walked through?”
The others agree and we stand there in a tight circle looking around us at the endless woods.
There’s another howl followed up by two more. These ones sound
closer.
“Maybe we should make our way back to camp,” the mother says, sounding nervous. “I’m not sure wandering around the woods at night is a very good idea.”
“You’re right,” I say and pick my way back to the path. “I guess they know what they’re doing. And if they’re not back by morning, we’ll have a better chance of—”
THUMP
The sound comes from our right and seems to make the earth vibrate beneath out feet.
“What was that?” Gregory whispers.
“Probably just a tree branch falling somewhere.”
Jayne looks at him incredulously. “That was way heavier than a branch.”
Hoo! Hoo!
We all look at each other.
“Okay, you all heard that, right?” One of the men, I’m pretty sure his name is Dave, says.
“I heard that!” The other man says and after a silent exchange, they head off in the direction of the sound.
“Wait!” The mother calls after them in a loud whisper. “We should stick together.”
“Fine,” Dave calls over his shoulder.
“Come with us,” the other man says. I’m somewhat sure his name is Troy. “We’re going to find Bigfoot.”
The two teenagers look at one another and their faces split into twin grins. Before their mother can stop them, they’re bounding after the two men, and having no alternative, we follow.
We pick and trip through the woods until the sound of the river makes us slow a little.
THUMP
Hoo!
Clinging to the trees we stop dead, frozen in place as on the other side of the river, three enormous creatures pick berries from a thick line of mulberry trees.
They’re easily twice the height of any of us and covered in thick downy fur. In the dim moonlight I can’t really make out the colour, but I guess they’re a dark brown with slightly lighter faces.
Bigfoot. Three Bigfoots. Three Bigfoots are right now standing on the other side of the river.
“Oh my goddess,” I gasp, my head light from lack of oxygen. “Are they...?”
Dave nods. “Bigfoots. Looks like a whole pod.”
Gregory glares at him. “They’re called a herd.”
“Derick said they were a troop.”
“You’re all wrong,” Troy says, raising his camera. “They’re called a clan.”
He takes three quick shots, the flash lighting up the three like it was the middle of the day and the click and whir like thunder after the silence in which we’d been standing.
The three Bigfoots look up and the larger of the three inches forward, placing himself between us and the other two of his group.
Hoo! He makes an angry sound and bares large dangerous looking teeth.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that Bigfoots were vegetarian, but those teeth make me wonder.
Troy raises his camera again and we all lunge at him.
“Stop!” I hiss at him. “Remember what Derick said about cornering or scaring them.”
The man’s eyes shift towards the three Bigfoots and widen slightly, as though remembering. He nods and as we turn to look, the three creatures seem to fade into the shadows.
“We should go back,” I whisper, and everyone nods, but I can’t help giggling as we find our way back to the path and follow it back to camp.
Those were actual Bigfoots. Not a bunch of blurry pictures. Actual factual creatures living and thriving in the woods of my home town.
We arrive back at camp to find both Payton and Derick arguing in loud whispers until Payton catches sight of us and turns, hands on hips, less than impressed.
“Where have you been?” she demands. “Didn’t Derick give you the lecture on the dangers of wandering into the woods at night?”
“You could have gotten lost, or worse!” Derick adds. “Do you know what that would do to our premiums?”
“Us!” The mother crosses her arms over her chest. “What about you? Jayne says you left an hour ago and was worried you’d gotten hurt, so we went looking.”
“An hour?” Payton says, throwing an impatient look at the teenage girl. “Really? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.”
“I waited with Jayne for almost ten minutes after she woke me up. We thought something had happened to you, so we followed your path.” I point to the yellow thread hanging off the tree near the path.
Derick looks impressed. “That’s actually very clever. But we didn’t go that way, at least not tonight. That’s the way to the river for fresh water and fishing and there’s a bunch of fruit trees too. That was going to be our first stop in the morning.”
The two exchange a poignant look before Payton shrugs and puts up her hands. “Okay, we might have been longer and I’m sorry. We didn’t want anyone to panic.”
“We heard some dingoes howling a bit too close to camp. They’re not usually dangerous but...”
“They have their moments,” Payton finishes with a shrug.
“Like that time they stole a baby?” Jayne says.
“Yeah,” Gregory snickers. “That’s totally what happened.”
“Stop that.” The mother scolds them both. “Honestly, we need to start cutting down on your true crime podcasts.”
“Everything’s fine.” Derick assures everyone. “Dingoes are usually wary of people, so we spent some time clomping about and they seem to have gone to hunt in another part of the woods.”
“Sorry for scaring you,” Payton adds. “We must have taken longer than we thought.”
“That’s okay,” Dave says with a wide grin, clearly he’d been waiting for his chance to break into the conversation. “We saw—”
“Bigfoots!” The brother and sister say together, much to the annoyance of the man.
“Three of them,” Jayne says.
“And they were really big!” Gregory holds a hand high over his head and jumps up and down to demonstrate just how high, making us all laugh.
Troy holds up his camera triumphantly. “And I got a picture.”
“And scared them all away!” Jayne and Gregory add, throwing him a dirty look.
Troy looks sheepish. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Sounds like quite the adventure you had,” Derick says, and he and Payton exchange another look but I can’t decipher what it means.
The memory of the dream twists hard in my chest. I can’t help feeling like they were lying about why they left camp. And both seem relieved at the turn in subject.
Could Payton have been the woman in my dream? Maybe she got a call while we were sleeping and went to deal with this one remaining loose end.
No! For all I know, Payton and Derick are a couple and snuck off for some sneaky time alone while we were sleeping. That makes more sense and also explains Derick’s guilt over Meghan’s apparent suicide.
It’s hard being happy while someone you care about is falling apart. Perhaps he feels horrible that he hadn’t even noticed or that she felt like she couldn’t come to him when she needed help.
I immediately feel guilty for even suspecting either of them. When did I become such a judge?
THE NEXT DAY WE SLEEP late, but soon enough we’re all following Jayne and Gregory to where we’d seen the Bigfoots the night before. Hours are spent collecting tufts of thick brown fur off the tree bark and making plaster casts of the heavy footprints left behind.
“This is so cool!” Gregory holds up a baggy of hair to the sunlight. “Noel is never going to believe this. He said we’d never see anything. But look!”
I grin, holding my own bag of hair. “Talk about believing six impossible things before breakfast.”
“Huh?” Gregory frowns at me.
“It’s from Alice and Wonderland, you douche,” Jayne sneers at her bother.
“Don’t call your brother a douche,” their mother, Miriam, says, but her stern voice isn’t quite as effective when she bursts out laughing at her husband using his tuft of hair to make a thick bushy moustache.
“Cut that out, Michael, and discipline your children.” She’d sound more authoritative if she could stop giggling.
Michael turns to face his two teens, bushy moustache firmly in place. “Listen to your mother, kids.”
But his expression sobers and he pulls the moustache away from his face as he stares at something over their shoulder.
“Hey, Miriam, take these two to pick some more berries or something. I think I need to talk to Derick.”
He could not have chosen a worse way to say it. The two teens, Dave, Troy, Miriam, and I all turn just in time to see something large floating in the river.
Before I can think I’m running towards it and stop at the bank, my hands over my mouth to muffle my scream. It’s a body. A man in a dark blue suit.
I know before I even look at his face that it’s the man from my dream.
Robert. Meghan’s ex fiancée. And he’s very dead.
Chapter Twelve
I’VE BEEN SITTING IN this interrogation room now for an hour when the door finally opens after a low-pitched buzz and Detective Jameson walks in. He doesn’t look happy.
“Sit down,” he says, barely looking at where I’m standing in the corner of the room. “I said sit down!”
I do as I’m told but he’s not the only one who’s agitated. “You can’t honestly believe that I killed that man. I didn’t even know him.”
“This makes two dead bodies that you’ve stumbled upon this week.” He lays the folder on the table between us before finally meeting my eyes, his face carefully blank. “That’s quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Technically, that guy Michael was the one who saw him first. I was just there.”
Detective Jameson doesn’t look convinced. “You also correctly identified him as Robert Finch, Meghan’s recently ex fiancée.”
“That was just a lucky guess,” I say. Yes, I’m lying, but it’s not like he’ll believe the truth anyway. “A couple of people mentioned that she’d recently broken up with her boyfriend, who was from the city so when I saw the—” I clear my throat. “When I saw him in his expensive business suit, the boyfriend was the first thought to come to mind. I could have just as easily been wrong.”