After school I sauntered over to the bleachers. I wanted to sit down, but a brief rain had left the wood damp. So I took up my cool stance and waited.
Gen showed up as the last bus roared away with a puff of exhaust. Doug watched us through the back window, the smoky haze blurring his features. My last glimpse was of wide eyes and distorted lips making kissy faces at us.
I sighed and we started home. The first few blocks were quiet. I waited for her news, but she wasn’t in a hurry.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer I blurted out, “So what did you have to show…”
“Let’s grab a soda,” she interrupted. We were in front of Harry’s News and Coffee Shop. She quickly stepped inside.
Harry sat behind a high counter. He peered at us through thick glasses. A large full beard made his round face look bigger than it was.
“Hey Gen,” he called. He smiled at me and I knew he had forgotten my name again. I waved anyway.
Harry specialized in coffee and newspapers of all kinds, but he shared Gen’s fondness for fantasy. I was just the kid who came in with her.
Gen strolled up to the counter and picked up a tabloid. I worked my way to the back. With each step the smell of fresh brewed coffee got fainter, replaced by the odor of newsprint. Tucked into a dark corner sat an old cooler filled with ice and sodas. The meager selection didn’t surprise me. Cola, ginger ale, or root beer. I grabbed the last two colas.
“Another Loch Ness monster sighting,” Gen read.
Harry nodded and pointed to the back wall where text crawled over the surface of a long digitized sign. Like a war room tracking military movements, it announced incoming sensational headlines day and night. The eerie green lit letters shone through the storefront window proclaiming stories about werewolves, giant squid, or the end of the world. I'd heard that you could walk past Harry’s at two in the morning and read the latest breaking fantasy news.
Now it echoed the Loch Ness headline from Gen’s paper. We paid for the sodas and tabloid. I was glad to get back outside into sunlight and fresh air.
Gen still wore her smirk from this morning. Had she gone all day with it pasted on her face? We walked another block and I finished my soda before trying again.
“Okay, Gen. I know that look. What do you know that I don't know?”
She waved her phone in front of my face. I caught her hand and she wiggled her fingers on the screen. Cloudy pictures with a shadowy shape moved across the face of her phone.
Letting go of her hand I asked, “What is that supposed to be?”
“Don't pretend ignorance. You know it's Bigfoot.”
I narrowed my eyes into a suspicious frown. “From the tabloid?”
She huffed her disgust. “From the woods. You were right. He's out there and now I have proof.”
“You went in the woods by yourself?”
“Well, I offered to take you with me.”
My heart thumped and a wave of nausea swept over me as I pictured the thing swinging out of the trees. “You could have been hurt,” I croaked.
She shrugged. The smirk was gone, and that hurt look was coming back into her eyes. “I was careful. I wanted to know if it was real. And you didn't want to come with me.”
“I'm sorry,” I mumbled.
She stared at me for a minute, then the smile came back. “Forget it. Look at the clip.” She handed me the phone.
The image was already playing. Tree branches surged into view and I flinched as they whipped toward the camera. The image was gray with plenty of shadows.
“It's hard to see anything.”
She rested her chin on my shoulder and pointed to the screen with her thin finger. Her nails were painted white with blue butterflies.
“There,” she jabbed the screen. I jerked my eyes from her hand and focused on the picture. A man shape, dark and blurry, moved with furtive stealth through the bushes. It paused under a tree facing the camera. When it stopped moving I realized it wasn't blurry, just hairy all over. A light wind stirred the leaves and made the hair wave like a current moving a sea anemone. In the poor light, I couldn't tell if it was wearing clothes or not.
It leaned forward shaking its head. The hair whipped around its face and the mouth opened. I braced myself knowing what was coming. Out came the piercing wail that made my knees jelly. The screen went blank.
“What happened?” I asked looking up from the screen.
“I had to leave.” Gen pulled the phone out of my cramped fingers.
“Yeah, the howl was chilling.”
“It was incredible. I didn't want to make it feel threatened so I quietly retreated.”
“Make it feel threatened?” I repeated.
“It was declaring its territory.”
“You're making it sound like you think it’s an animal.”
She giggled. “Well, it's not vegetable or mineral. It's obviously real. We have it on video.”
“It's not a real clear picture,” I said. It looked like one of those fake films or a picture in a tabloid, but I knew better than to suggest that.
She frowned. “Okay, we need better pictures. So we go back into the woods to observe it. More research.”
Tracking that creature was not anything I wanted to do, so I changed the subject. “Speaking of research, we have an assignment to do on South America. Want to meet at my house and we'll do some online study? Bertram gave me a list of ideas.”
She laughed. “Not as much fun as field work, but I'll come over after dinner.”