Chapter 3
The Night Sasquatch Flirted First
Olivia
It couldn’t have been more than an hour since I’d crawled into the tent, but sleep kept slipping through my fingers.
Heat clung to the tent walls, thick enough to make the air feel cramped.
Every shift of the brush outside pulled me toward waking.
By two in the morning, the woods had settled into a silence so complete it pressed against the edges of camp, broken only by the low crackle of the fire under the heavy, wet air.
Riggs had slumped in his chair, his hat tilted over his face; Mason's eyes were half-closed behind the glow of the laptop screen.
Gunner was still pacing, his flashlight swinging like he was on patrol.
And T-Bone—well, T-Bone sat on the tailgate "guarding the bait," which meant gnawing chicken bones and narrating his own heroism into the camera.
I was about one yawn away from heading back to the truck when nature called.
Grabbing my flashlight and strapping my rifle over my back—because, as Daddy always said, "you don't walk into dark woods with just good intentions"—I started toward the trees. "I'm going behind a bush!" I hollered.
T-Bone perked up like a hound dog. "You sure you don't need backup?"
"Boy, if I need backup to pee, I'm going home," I replied.
That earned a few laughs. Even Gunner cracked a grin. "Stay where I can hear you," he called. "Holler if it's a bear."
"It's gonna be y'all that get eaten," I muttered, stepping through the damp undergrowth.
The forest swallowed me fast. Just thirty yards out, and the fire was no more than a dull orange glow through the trees. Rainwater dripped slowly from the pines, each drop loud in the hush. The air smelled of sap and earth that hadn't been touched in years.
Finding a good patch of ferns, I took care of business and stood, stretching the ache from my legs. I was thinking about my warm bed and regretting my life choices when the sound came.
It wasn't the usual forest sounds. Something big shifted in the brush just beyond the beam of my light, and I went still.
Then came the breathing—slow and heavy enough to raise every hair on my arms.
My first thought was bear. My second thought was T-Bone, and that was somehow worse.
"Gunner?" I called, but my voice came out softer than I intended.
Silence.
I raised the flashlight, my hand trembling. The beam quivered across the ferns, up the slope, and then it caught on something-thick, matted fur, not sleek like a deer's, but dense and rain-soaked, with a deep copper sheen. My breath caught in my throat.
He stepped out before I could even move.
Mother Mary.
Standing upright like a man, he was as big as a barn door, with shoulders broad enough to make the trees look narrow.
Water slicked down his fur, catching the faint gleam from my light.
I should've run, should've screamed or fired my gun, but my boots seemed rooted to the ground as if the forest itself had decided I was part of it now.
Calm as anything, he didn’t charge or growl. He just stood there, head tilted the way a curious dog might when trying to make sense of a noise.
But his eyes were the thing that held me the hardest. Golden-brown, bright even in the darkness, too intelligent to belong to a mere beast. They caught the light and held it, steady and almost soft, as if trying to communicate something.
Something in me forgot to be afraid.
"Hey," I whispered, my voice shaking anyway. "Hey there, big fella."
The creature shifted his weight, one massive hand resting against a tree trunk. When he breathed, I heard the slow drag of air, and I took a breath of my own. He made a low sound then—somewhere between a hum and a sigh—and it vibrated in my ribs like thunder rolling across a valley.
For a while, we simply watched each other. Maybe only seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
Then he took a step closer, and the ground seemed to respond to his weight. My flashlight jittered, illuminating his face. He wasn't just hair and shadow, as the stories suggested. He had a broad nose, a strong jaw, and the features of a man hidden beneath wildness.
I stood there, stunned, as his hand rose slowly and cautiously, palm turned away. When his knuckles brushed my cheek, I flinched, though only slightly.
His hand was warm. The hair was unruly but clean, coarse against my skin. The scent that clung to him—wet spruce, musk, and rain-soaked earth—settled around us. Not exactly pleasant, but not unpleasant either. Just… alive.
Behind me, someone called my name—Gunner, maybe, or T-Bone—interrupting the moment.
He turned at the sound, back toward the deeper parts of the forest.
"Wait," I breathed. I took a step after him, but he was gone. The darkness swallowed him until nothing remained but trees, leaving me in a state of surreal skepticism.
A moment later, flashlights flared, blinding me.
"Liv!" Gunner's voice was loud and panicked. "Are you okay?"
I lowered my arm to shield my eyes from the glare. "Yeah. I think so. There was a—" My words trailed off as I lifted my hand toward the direction the creature had disappeared, still unsure if it had actually happened.
T-Bone barreled up beside my brother, his camera already rolling. "Tell me you got footage. Please tell me you filmed him."
"He was right there." Hand trembling, I pointed at the trees. "He was big. Tall. Brown fur. He walked right up to me."
"You saw him?" Gunner's voice wavered between disbelief and triumph.
"For real," I said. "He touched me."
T-Bone nearly tripped over his own boots, trying to shine his light where I pointed. "Are you serious? Like, touched-touched?"
"Not like that, idiot." My throat tightened as I touched my cheek. "He just… checked me out. I don't know why."
Gunner looked like he was about to burst with joy. "I knew it! I told you all!"
The others whooped and clapped him on the back, but I barely heard them. My focus remained on the dark gap between the trees where he had vanished.
He hadn't been angry—nor was he scared—just… curious.
And, Lord help me, beneath the rush of fear, a part of me wanted to see him again.
Morning crept in, gray and heavy, dragging the smell of wet earth with it. Somewhere above the clouds, the sun was trying to rise, but its light barely broke through the fog. Everything was waterlogged—the tents, the air, my bones.
The boys were already up, their voices bouncing around camp like pebbles in a tin can.
They were all talking about last night as if we hadn't nearly peed ourselves over the experience.
Mason crouched beside the fire pit, poking at the wet ashes with a stick.
Riggs sat cross-legged, muttering about corrupted files and camera angles.
Gunner couldn't stop grinning, and T-Bone, Lord help me, still had that stupid camera glued to his hand.
"Morning, sunshine," he said, sweeping the lens in my direction. "Tell America how it feels to meet the myth."
I rolled over in my sleeping bag and pulled the hood down over my face. "Feels like a sinus infection," I muttered.
Gunner chuckled, bouncing on his heels. "She saw him, y'all! She talked to him. This is history in the making!"
"He did most of the talking," I said, sitting up slowly. "If you can call humming talking."
Riggs leaned forward, his eyes wide. "You touched him?"
"He touched me," I corrected, rubbing my cheek. "Right here."
That set them off again—questions flying, voices overlapping, all of them arguing about what it meant. Mason swore it was a "non-aggressive curiosity display." T-Bone suggested that maybe I'd triggered his "mating instincts."
"Say that again," I said flatly, "and I'll demonstrate my own non-aggressive display with a punch in the throat."
He laughed as if it were the best joke he'd ever heard, zooming in close with that darn camera. "Just saying, he didn't touch anybody else."
"Maybe because nobody else wandered off to pee in his living room," I replied, standing up to stretch. The damp air bit through my clothes, and steam rose from the ground as the sun finally broke through the fog.
Gunner was already packing gear, still buzzing with excitement. "We're coming back. I'm telling you—we set up more cameras and better lights, and next time we'll get proof. This is just the beginning."
"Beginning of a headache," I said, but I didn't bother arguing. That hopeful grin of his was hard to stomp on.
We loaded the truck in near silence, all of us too tired to maintain the excitement. The forest around us looked washed clean, wet trunks gleaming black, mist twisting between the branches like smoke.
Before climbing in, I turned once more toward the ridge. It looked empty and calm, like the whole night had been a fever dream. But as the others slammed the truck doors, I thought I caught a movement between the trees. Just a shadow watching.
Then it was gone.
Probably just my imagination. Probably.
T-Bone twisted around from the driver's seat, catching my reflection in the rearview mirror. "You sure you're okay, Liv? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I fastened my seatbelt and stared at the fog curling off the ground. "I did," I said softly. "He just wasn't dead."