In a cold forest, hides a creature of myth. Two opposing groups have come to find it. One seeks answers to a mystery. The other... a trophy. Who will reach it first? And what will they find when they do?
As before, Stu drove while Sky sat in the front passenger seat, leaving me alone in the back. All of us were bundled up for the cold weather. The sky was a thick winter grey which occasionally let go a random flake or two of snow. But for the most part, the weather was clear and the roads had been freshly plowed and salted. Getting around wasn't going to be a problem, at least for the time being.
Sky navigated as we continued down the winding country roads, doing her best to point Stu in the right direction. She had known that Gary Grey's place was a bit remote, a fact that was proven even more clearly by the ever-thickening swaths of winter barren trees that continued to grow on either side of the road. Salem's Noose was a few miles to the east. We were now heading west, a direction that seemed to take us even deeper into the arms of the Allegheny National Forrest.
"I believe we'll have to turn right at the next intersection," she said.
Stu did just that. The new road was not a main artery but rather a back street which was not as well maintained as the other had been. Stu slowed the car's speed, not wanting to skid off into a ditch in the middle of nowhere. With each passing foot of road, the forest swallowed us up as if it was a giant fish and we were the worm.
Eventually we came to a tiny driveway. Next to it was a mailbox with the address numbers written on the side.
"I think this is it. Pull in here."
Gary Grey's driveway was not plowed. Luckily, the front wheel drive on the rental car managed to cut through the accumulated inches to bring us to the doorstep of the tiny house. Stu put the car in park and shut off the engine. We each got out of the car and stood for a second, surveying the house. Sky made the first move, walking up to the front porch while Stu and I followed behind.
Sky knocked on the door.
A short, squirrely looking man answered a minute later. My impression of Gary Grey was that of a nervous little man who was prone to a lifetime of solitary confinement and void of even the basic of social graces. As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew that my first impression was right on the money.
"Professor Colman?" Gary asked, using Sky's professional name and title.
"Yes."
He cast an uneasy gaze at Stu and I.
"These are my friends I wrote to you about," Sky said. "This is my associate, Stuart Gains and his nephew, Nick."
"Yeah, I was hoping you were kidding about that."
Nice welcome, I thought.
"Well, I guess you can all come in."
He stepped back into the threshold of the house and held the door open. Sky entered first. I cast Stu an uneasy glance. Stu simply shrugged and motioned for me to go ahead.
The house was small and cozy, but what I noticed right away was the proliferation of electronic equipment that seemed to be strewn all over the place.
Cameras, laptops, satellite dishes, various circuit boards and monitors and about a dozen other things that I didn't recognize were placed here and there. Gary Grey was obviously some kind of tech geek.
All of it was stacked neatly on shelves, though. Grey may have been a pack rat, but at least he was orderly about it.
He led us to a table that had an open laptop on it.
There was a single icon on the desktop that I assumed must contain the footage he'd shot.
Before sitting down at the table, Grey turned to Stu and said, "I checked out your blog last night after getting Professor Colman's email. I feel like I should get you to sign a non-disclosure agreement or something. I don't want my name blasted all over the internet. Not until we get to the bottom of this thing."
I thought that Stu might take offense to this, but he seemed to take it in stride.
"I can assure you," he said. "Nick and I are just here out of general curiosity. I won't post anything without your consent. You have my word."
Now it was my turn.
Grey looked at me and said, "And what about you?"
I pantomimed zipping my lips shut, locking it, and tossing the imaginary key behind my left shoulder.
"Good," he said, pointing at the lab top. "Because what I have here just might be the most important footage of a bipedal hominid since the Patterson-Gimlan film."
I pantomimed unzipping my lips and said, "the what?"
Stu answered before Grey could.
"In 1967, a couple of guys hiking in the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California stumbled upon what they claimed was a real live Sasquatch. One of them had a 16mm film camera and managed to get a few seconds of footage before it disappeared behind some trees."
"Its authenticity has been debated ever since," Sky added. "There are many who feel it's a hoax. For one thing, the hair flow on the creature is very uniform and unlike what you'd expect to see from a forest dweller. Plus, its retreat is very calm and not consistent with a creature that had supposedly been spooked by intruders invading its environment. At one point, it turns and looks at the camera, so there's no doubt that it saw the filmmaker, but it continues to walk at a casual pace until the trees obscure it."
"Still," Stu said, "There's a lot about it that can't be explained away as a simple hoax. If it was a man in a suit, it had to be pretty high-quality to pull off a look that convincing. The movie The Planet of the Apes came out a year after this happened and those costumes didn't look half as lifelike as the creature in the Patterson film did. If it's a hoax, then how could two random guys with an amateur camera fake something that the best pros in Hollywood couldn't pull off?"
The fact that Sky had taken the skeptic's route while Stu chose the opposite wasn't lost on me. She was a scientist, prone to follow the evidence to its logical conclusion. He was a storyteller – a very thorough and well researched storyteller – but one none-the-less. His stock in trade was the legend. The lore. I wondered if this was another reason why they weren't able to gel before. Their interests were similar, but their styles were very different.
"The footage was graining and largely out of focus," Grey added. "But we have much better cameras now-a-days. Take a look at this."
We all gathered around the laptop and watched as Grey clicked on the icon.
A window popped up and the two-minute video began to play.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
