Bigfoot through the Ages © Dustin Reade
The thing stank. Bad. Reaching out with the dry mud-caked toe of his steel-tip leather work boot, Berlin Manchester nudged the massive, bloody mess on the shoulder. Whatever it was, it was dead, dead, dead. Bill Parry stood a few paces farther back, thirty or so feet from where they had dug the “crap-hole”.
“Is it dead?” he asked. A flock of geese flew overhead in a lopsided ‘V'. Winter was coming, nudging autumn out of the way like an old dog pushing his way onto the sofa.
Berlin nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “its dead. Deader'n a doornail.” How could it not be, with all that blood and bone splashed and jutted like modern art all over the forest floor, bits of intestines mixed in with pine needles and deer tracks.
Bill took a few cautious steps toward the thing and peeked over Berlin's shoulder, shouldering his rifle as he did. The smell of the crap hole floated lazily over the corpse. Berlin's rifle was laid across his lap, pointing at a nearby stump, coated in moss.
Bill sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
“Well,” he said, “just what in the hell is it?” * * * One could use the Giant Snake of Mt. Tsurugi, Japan, the Batsquatch of Mount Saint Helens, Wisconsin's Beast of Bray Road, the Australian Bunyip, or the Giant Bloop of South America as examples of things science has not yet been able to explain. This is not to say there is no explanation; only, there is not explanation as of yet, February 7th, 2010, which is to say, the future. Doubly so, this is not to say these are the only beasts thus far unexplained by science. That list would swell into the thousands. * * * Berlin pulled the long, serrated blade from the thing's muscular forearm. Blood ran down the blade onto the handle, onto Berlin's callused right hand. He shook his head and sat the knife across his knee, beside his rifle.
“Huh,” he said, chewing his bottom lip. “Well that don't make no sense.”
“What don't make no sense?” Bill asked.
“It's a suit .”
Bill shook his head, swatted at a few of the fat, contented flies swarming around the badly decomposed corpse. “What do you mean, ‘it's a suit'?”
“I mean,” Berlin said, “that this here beastie is wearin' a suit! Like a fur suit…like a parka or something, only all over…like cover-alls.”
Using the knife, he began to peel the suit away from whatever lay beneath. Careful as an open-heart surgeon, he pulled away large swaths of dense, dark brown fur. As he pulled each piece away from the body, he handed them over to Bill, who sat them in a neat pile beside a sickly looking spruce. All of this is very important, I assure you.
As the layers peeled away, the thing inside became more visible. And it remained a mystery still. Indeed, as if it were possible, the mystery grew in size, like a marshmallow in a microwave.
Berlin pulled back a thick layer of blood, fur, and hair, and said, “Holy shit, Bill! This thing's got hands!” * * * The African Nandi bear is a carnivorous mammal reported to eat only the brain of its victims. Canada's “Old Yellow Top”, is a seven-foot primate with a blonde patch of hair on its head and a light-colored mane, which is what has given it its name. Then there is the troll-beast “Pukwudgie” of Massachusetts, with a lengthy list of magical abilities that includes shape-shifting, creating fire at will, and the power of invisibility. All of these beasts have been seen and reported by normal people like you and I since the dawn of time and scientists still have no explanation for them. Thus, they fall into that branch of science deemed “impossible”, which really only means “too crazy”.
Maybe all of this crazy stuff that hasn't been explained yet just needs a really, really crazy explanation. * * * Berlin and Bill sat studying the strange fur suit around the campfire as the early evening sun sank slowly below the horizon of high-reaching, white-peaked mountain tops. All around them, the sounds of birds and animals switched from daytime to nighttime voices, growing subtle and eerie in the enveloping darkness. The crap-hole to their left, the corpse to their right, they sat in the middle, trying to decipher the strange writing and wirings lining the inside of the suit.
Berlin shivered, the image of the thing's face flashing again through his mind. It had been a human, of that there was no doubt. Nothing else has eyes like that, or hands, thumbs, feet, ears, teeth…it was human. The only difference was the skin. Normal people do not have skin like that. It reminded Berlin of a sideshow freak he had seen as a boy at the Longview Dime Grocery & Flea Market. They had this tank set up, and this fellow was sitting in the tank, all surrounded by swamp plants, moss, and dirty water. The man in the tank had rough skin, like an alligator, and it covered his entire body, except for his genitals, which were concealed behind a leather thong. A sign on the side of the tank said, “Elvis, the famous ALLIGATOR BOY!!!”
The thing in the suit had skin sort of like that, only it looked harder and thicker, like his body had turned reptile on him for some reason, and then had taken the whole process too far. As Berlin thought all this, Bill tried to copy down all of the numbers and writings on the inner lining of the suit. He used a short stub of a pencil, and he wrote on the back of an ammunition box.
The ammunition box was empty.
The writings were like this: “130.6 V Liner 8300 mAh” and so on. There were thousands of markings, symbols, etc.
“I think this here suit,” Bill said, looking up from the ammunition box, “these markings, I mean, are electrical currents.”
Berlin nodded his head and said, “Probably.” He had already figured as much.
“That settles it for sure,” he said, “That thing was a man…a man in a suit.”
Bill shook his head in disbelief.
“Shit,” he said. He looked up at the stars and the moon, “Damn thing looked like a Bigfoot to me!” * * * The Grinning Man, or “Man in Black”, is one example of a humanoid crypto-zoological creature. He is sometimes described as being extraterrestrial, claimed to be of large status, and behaving as if completely unfamiliar to the most basic of earth customs (brushing one's teeth, answering the phone, etc.). Most witnesses claim that “ they could not remember seeing any hair, ears, or nose on this figure.”
Other examples of humanoid to quasi-humanoid entities include the Mothman (a beast so loved by the people of Point Pleasant, West Virginia that there is now a twelve-foot-tall stainless steel sculpture of it in one of the downtown park areas), the Florida “Skunk Ape”, Russia's Chuchunya, who some speculate may be a relict population of Neanderthal, and the European Shug Monkey, which sometimes fades away slowly, like a ghost or apparition. * * * The noise shook through the tent, pulling Berlin and Bill from an uneasy sleep.
“What the hell was that !?” Berlin yelled as he grabbed his rifle and unzipped the tent.
“I don't know,” Bill said, “sounded like the goddamned mountain fell over!” They rushed out through the mouth of the tent into the clearing. Berlin saw the things first, and Bill, still busy with his shirt front, slammed hard into his back.
“What the hell…” Bill looked up and closed his mouth.
Standing over the corpse a few feet ahead of them, stood roughly fifteen to twenty Bigfeet. Yetis. Sasquatch. Chuchunya. Skunk Apes. Shug Monkeys.
They were all holding gnarled sticks, which they used to poke at the body and then talk excitedly to one another. They spoke in a wide range of languages all at once. Bill caught bits of English, Spanish, French, and several other languages he could not discern in the Babylonian cacophony. The beasts then began pointing the long sticks at the two men, who stood, dumbfounded, too scared or move or think or anything. Berlin saw several small, neon bright lights running along the length of the sticks, flashing regularly.
On of the creatures waved its arms in a complicated gesture, as it made its way awkwardly over to them. Berlin felt the ground shake with each fall of the beast's massive feet. Terror welled up in his bones. He imagined his skeleton shaking and rattling, his ribs playing out a strange xylophone solo in major and minor notes.
Then, he noticed something: No testicles
“Suits,” he remembered, “these are men…men in suits. That is all, nothing more.”
He raised his rifle. “Don't come any closer,” he shouted, his voice edged with equal parts hysteria and confidence.
The thing raised its hands but did not stop. From the back of its throat issued soft, soothing noises, as if it were trying to calm him. Berlin aimed fro the wide patch of fur between the beats eyes.
“Don't move,” he said again. “One more step and you're a goddamned throw rug, pal!” The other beasts had stopped what they were doing and were now staring at the drama unfolding around them. Bill tugged at Berlin's shirtsleeve.
“Berlin,” he said, “what in the Sam hell are you doin', man? Put the gun down, there're too many of these things…” A series of blue and red lights flashed in a thin line across the monster's face.
“Wait,” it said, its voice tinny, as though it had been filtered through several screens before coming through the mask. “My name is Gadwall Forensic. I am a scientist…please, lower your weapon, we mean you no…”
Berlin pulled back on the trigger, shattering the tense silence that filled the campsite. Gadwall clutched at the dark red hole in his chest, opened his mouth as if to say something, looked over his shoulder at the other people, and fell to the ground dead. No one moved for a long moment.
“Oh boy,” Bill said, jerking at Berlin's arm. “We gotta get outta here, Berl! Them things is gonna kill us!”
One of the beasts raised its hands in surrender, and took a few steps towards the two men. He was holding a short, brightly lit stick in his hands. He looked Berlin square in the eyes.
“Please,” it said, “Do not shoot. I just want to check him…I am a physician.”
Berlin held the gun level with the beast's chest. “Okay,” he said, “you can tend to him. But the rest of you better hold still! If anyone moves I'll…well, I don't know what I might do!”
“Yeah!” Bill shouted.
The physician got down on one knee and began waving the small stick over Gadwall's wound. As Berlin watched, the wound began to sizzle, and he saw several bright red bubbles of blood rise up and simmer around the rim of the bullet hole. Tiny tendrils of flesh began to stretch from one side of the wound to the other in cross-stitching, pulling the wound closed. Gadwall's chest began to rise and fall in slow, steady breathes. Even from where he stood, Berlin could hear the soft thumping rhythms of a heart beating.
The physician placed his hands behind Gadwall's head and helped him to his feet. After a moment, Gadwall turned to the two men.
“Please do not do that again,” he said.
Berlin dropped the rifle in the dirt and leaves beneath him. * * * Think of the Mylodon, the giant ground sloth of the Pleistocene, or the Mapinguari. Some scientists claim that these two creatures may be one in the same, even though the Mylodon has been extinct for almost ten-thousand years. Every so often, researchers find unexplainable footprints, or strange stool samples that could hypothetically belong to the fabled creature.
The Mapinguari is slow but ferocious and very dangerous due to its ability to move without noise in between the thick vegetation, its only weakness being that of avoiding water bodies, an unfortunate weakness for such a damp area of the map. It is said to have long claws, thick fur, and a second mouth upon its stomach. Though reports are spotty at best, and the natives of the region are notorious for tall tales and stretching the truth.
The thing to think about, however, is the timeline. How is it that a creature that was thought to be dead for thousands of years suddenly pops up in modern day Bolivia? Furthermore, how is it that, for as long as there have been people marching about in the woods, there have been stories of ape men, yet never any concrete evidence found?
It is, of course, just something to think about. * * * We jump forward now, and drop you in the interior of a wide library, full of books. The library is inside a large rocket. The rocket is a time machine. In the center of the room there is a table, at which Berlin and Bill sit, their noses stuffed in books with titles like, “Big Hand, Little Hand: the rules and regulations of relativistic time travel for research and recreation, 3 rd ed. 3109.”
That was the year the book was published: 3109 A.D.
Berlin was working his way through the third edition of said book, with a new introduction by the author, when he decided he could take no more. He slammed the book shut angrily.
The Sasquatch on guard by the door barely moved at all, it chose instead to continue its rigorous examination of its fingernails. It had shed its Bigfoot suit and was now wearing a transparent coverall, its reptilian skin clearly visible underneath. Even without the suit, Berlin noticed, they still looked remarkably simian. The suits looked the same as their skin, only without the hair. Bill looked up from the massive book he was reading. The title of the book he was reading was, “How to Use Mythical Beasts as Cover While Traversing Restricted Time Zones” by Hobnob Wisconsin.
“Something wrong, Berlin?” He asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
Berlin waved his hands over the massive book.
“So we're supposed to believe,” he said, flipping through a few pages of a nearby encyclopedia, “these Bigfoots…they're really just people?”
“Seems to be the case,” Bill said. “At least, that's as far as I have been able to figure out.”
Berlin nodded. “Okay,” he said. “And on top of that, they're from the future, right?”
Bill laughed, not because anything was particularly funny, but because the whole situation was ridiculous. “Yeah,” he said. “The future…like, really, really far ahead in the future. And I guess they come back to now every so often, to, uh…”
“Go camping,” Berlin said.
“Yeah,” the guard said, keeping his eyes on his fingernails.
Suddenly, both men burst out laughing. * * * If you wanted to travel back through time, you would first need a time machine.
If you wanted to build a time machine, all you would need is a complete understanding of Einstein's theory of Relativity, and access to a ring laser.
A ring laser is a laser in which the laser cavity has the shape of a ring. Light in ring lasers has two possible directions of propagation: clockwise and counter-clockwise. Ring lasers have several applications, but all you would need it for is your time machine.
Using Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, you would see that both matter and energy can create a gravitational field. This means that the energy of a light beam can produce a gravitational field. Inside the ring laser, you would see what is known as “Frame-Dragging”, which is when the rotation of an object alters space and time, dragging a nearby object out of position compared with the predictions of Newtonian physics. And so on until ‘Viola!' You have a time machine.
Though, I am not quite sure how you would get it to work. * * * Malaren, The Bigfoot Physician, smiled down at Berlin, whom was strapped to a table.
“How are you doing?” He asked, adjusting the cannon of the ring laser directly over Berlin's head.
“Uh,” Berlin said, “I'm a little nervous…I mean, are you sure this thing is safe?”
“Of course it's safe!” Malaren said, waving his hands dismissively. “I tell you, I have travelled all the way back to the reign of the Aztecs on this laser! She's our number one transport ray, with a success rate of ninety-nine-point dozens of other nines.” He disappeared momentarily behind a massive computer screen. Berlin looked over to where Bill had been strapped down. He looked silly, Berlin thought, in that transparent thing they had him dressed in. I probably don't look a whole lot better, myself.
“Doin' alright there, Bill?”
“Oh, I'm just fine, Berlin!” Bill smiled. “As a matter of fact, I'm excited! I mean think about it, Berl! We could go anywhere in the world! They could take us all the way back to the caveman days, wouldn't that be a kick in the head! To see all them cavemen, and saber-toothed tigers, and…my god, Berl! We could hunt a mammoth!”
The computer beeped and the laser began humming softly to itself. Malaren peeked over the top of the screen, a wide smile across his half-reptile-half-simian face.
“Okay,” he said, walking between the tables and looking over a notepad in his hands. “Now, before we send you boys home, we have a written agreement here for you. These basically just state all the things we already went over after your readings, but I'd just like to read them over again and have you sign it…y'know, you can't escape the bureaucrats.
“First, you agree to tell no one of what you know as regards the enigma of Bigfoot, Sasquatch, or primitive ape men of any kind, excepting of course the minimal storyline which has been preapproved by our council and agreed upon by the two of you.
“Also, you are hereby forbidden to make public your advanced knowledge on the subject of time travel, which includes the subject of both ring lasers and gravitomagnetism. In exchange for your silence on the aforementioned subjects, you will each be given several locks of Sasquatch fur, and three footprint casts which should be helpful in corroborating aforementioned council approved storyline. As a further reward, we, the field representatives for Past Research and Recreational Expeditions into Closed Timeline Curves, promise to send you to any point in past American History you desire, provided you follow all of the necessary time travel guidelines as set forth by aforementioned organization. Now,” he handed the paper to Berlin, “if you will just sign here. Thank you, Berlin. And you too, Bill. Excellent! Now, are you boys going to take us up on our offer, or do you just want to be sent back to your own time?”
Berlin looked to Bill. Bill shrugged his shoulders. “It's up to you, Berl,” he said. “I'm fine with whatever.”
Berlin thought about history, about pleated skirts and sock hops, chocolate malts and witch burnings, Plymouth Rock and Billy the Kid. His mind reeled at the thought of meeting Lincoln, or shaking hands with Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe he could go back and stop Oswald before he got the shot off and took part of Kennedy's head. He could be a hero, his name known the world over, a celebrated man, his birthday a national holiday.
But, of course, he couldn't really do any of that, the Bigfoot people had made that abundantly clear. Any changes made to the space time continuum (whatever that is), could result in a paradox which, as far as Berlin could figure, meant having to do the same thing over and over and over again until the universe tore itself apart.
If they went farther back, say to the roaring twenties, they would be forbidden from doing anything. They were not even allowed to talk to anyone, as the conversation might take up valuable time when the person should have been doing some other thing that was seemingly unimportant but was really one of the ten most important things in the history of the world. All they could do is watch, like the Sasquatch's had been doing for so long. Since the dawn of time.
Berlin looked up at the circular barrel of the ring laser.
“Take us home,” he said. * * * Did you know that former president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt believed in the mythical “Bigfoot”, even going so far as to publish an eyewitness account in his 1839 book, “The Wilderness Hunter”? * * * The blue light subsided, leaving the strange orange-purple glow one gets when one looks directly into a bright light. Berlin blinked, waited for his vision to clear. He heard the distant husk of bird wings, the call of a crow. Sitting up, he realized it was dawn. The tops of the trees were half-naked of leaves, swaying like leather clad skeletons in the chill mountain breeze. “Bill,” he shouted, looking around and finding Bill still laying flat in a pile of dry leaves about twenty feet away. All of their belongings, rifles, clothes, ammo boxes, as well as the plaster “authentic bigfoot” footprints and bags of Sasquatch hair lay in the dirt beside them.
“Yeah,” Bill said, sitting up and rubbing his neck with his hands. A few leaves stuck to the back of his coverall. “Boy,” he said, “what a way to travel, eh? I mean, it didn't feel like anything; just a flash and a drop and here we are!” He stood up, helped Berlin to his feet.
They were on the lip of a steep cliff, overlooking the entire park. Berlin could see the visitor's center in the distance, and the wide parking lot nearly empty of vehicles. He scanned the lot for Bill's beaten pick up truck.
Beside him, Bill said, “Now that's funny. The sun is just comin' up.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Berlin asked, still searching for some sign of the truck. Panic nipped at his intestines, like a persistent cat demanding attention.
“Well, Dr. Malaren said he was gonna drop us at the same time as when they picked us up, right?' Berlin nodded.
“Okay, but when they picked us up it was the middle of the night, remember? I mean, I was asleep and everything. So, it stands to reason that it would still be night time now, don't it?”
“I guess so,” Berlin said, “but so what? So they dropped us off a few hours late, what's the big deal? I'm just glad to be home!”
Bill shook his head. “I don't think that's what is going on,” he said. “Look down at the parking lot, my truck isn't even here yet! I think,” He whispered, “they dropped us off early!”
Berlin froze; his head became a disassembled jigsaw puzzle of paradoxes, behemoth books, shots of the loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, H.G. Wells, and flying saucers. If it was true, and they had been sent too far back, then they ran the risk of creating a loop. Ever since discovering what they were, Berlin had developed a rather serious phobia of being trapped in one. The thought of doing the same thing over and over again, and never really being aware of it, was more than he could handle. He looked over at Bill, who stood looking over the expanse of wilderness before them, shaking his head.
“Don't touch anything,” he said, “we have to wait until we should really be here before we do anything else. Otherwise…we might…”
“Right,” Bill said, nodding.
While they were busy holding perfectly still, waiting for the coming night, there came the sound of a large animal rustling about in the bushes behind them. Instinctively, Berlin picked up his gun.
“NO!” Bill shouted. “Remember, we can't change anything!”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Purdy,” the bushes said in a deep, familiar voice, “There are exceptions to every rule.”
The bushes parted and out came Malaren, holding his hands above his head in mock surrender. He was again wearing his Bigfoot suit, but the expression on his face translated easily through his voice. Malaren was deeply concerned about something. * * * The so called “grandfather paradox” can be explained rather simply: say you have a time machine. You use your time machine to visit an earlier timeline and while in this timeline, you accidentally (unless there is something wrong with you and you have set out to do so in the first place) kill your Grandfather. Thus, you would never have been born in the first place, and thus never have made your time machine, and thus never have killed your Grandfather, which would mean you would have been born, and you could have done it after all.
Of course, the term “grandfather paradox” does not apply specifically to the impossibility of one's birth. Rather, it refers to any action that makes it impossible for one to have travelled through time in the first place.
Another example would be using scientific knowledge to invent a time machine, then going back in time and murdering a scientist whose work would eventually have lead to the very information that you used to invent the time machine.
A lot of what has to do with time travel is confusion. * * * The sun had gone down, and Berlin watched the flames of the campfire play demonic shadows across the hairy face of Dr. Malaren. It had been a long day, and he was tired. But, of course, they could not sleep until they had cleared the ground beneath them of all traces of life, microbial and otherwise. They didn't want to upset the natural balance.
What had happened was this: A minute malfunction in the ring laser had cause them to be to be sent two months further back into the past than had been planned. Nothing serious, Malaren had explained, it had happened once or twice before. He himself had been sent back an entire year once during WWII.
“Can't you just take us back into your rocket?” Bill asked.
Dr. Malaren shook his head and poked at the fire with his surgical stick.
“I'm sorry,” he said, “but the thing is, because you have been sent back this far, that means you have always been sent back this far. Bringing you out of this timeline could upset any changes you may have made in the three months that you were here in the first place, of which we hope there are few, as any changes you made could have altered the timeline before we sent you back this time.” He stared at the fire for a moment, then said, “Well, you boys should get some shut eye. I'll be heading back now; I hope I didn't upset this timeline by talking to you guys. I'm not sure if I came back the last time or not.” He shrugged. “Oh well, no harm no foul; goodnight, gentlemen!”
Berlin shook his head in disbelief. “You mean, we're just supposed to sit here for three months because you guys screwed up! To hell with that! You're taking us home…now!” He grabbed his rifle and aimed it at the Sasquatch's mighty chest.
Bill took a step towards him, but Berlin swung the rifle around and pointed at his gut.
“Step back, Bill,” Berlin said, “I'll shoot you too, if I have to.”
Pointing the gun back at Malaren, he said, “What's it gonna be, monkey boy?”
Malaren seemed to be lost in thought, as though something had just occurred to him, making him forget all about the tense scene in which he was currently involved. Suddenly, he looked up into Berlin's eyes.
“Shoot me,” he said.
“What?” Berlin said. “Are you crazy? I don't want to shoot you, I want to go home!”
Malaren shook his head. “No,” he said, “you have to shoot me, otherwise we'll be trapped here forever, all of us. Don't you get it? That body you both fell upon…that was my body,” he pointed at Berlin and gestured philosophically, “and you are the one who shot me! As a matter of fact, you're about to shoot me right now, aren't you?”
Berlin nodded. “I think so,” he said, thinking about closed time loops, and wondering how many times he had already shot the good doctor. He tried to think back, digging deep into his brain to see if he could remember having done any of this before; undoubtedly he had, of that he was certain. After all, he was going to shoot Malaren, very soon in fact. But the thing that struck him as truly odd was that fact that he didn't really want to. He didn't Malaren in any way. It wasn't his fault the laser had gotten all screwy. It just seemed like something he had to do, as natural as breathing, or waiting for the right time to go home.
He raised the rifle until the crosshairs made a lower-case‘t' between Malaren's eyes. He remembered how messy the corpse had been when they'd found it. He didn't think he could do that to someone, so it must have been animals that had torn it up so badly.
“Cut me open after you do it,” Malaren said, apparently think the same thing, “right along here.” He indicated a long line just above his pelvis. “That way,” he explained, “my intestines will spill out and attract more animals…fresh blood, you understand.”
Berlin nodded. “Okay,” he said.
He pulled the trigger. * * * The “Leave No Trace” principle: Plan ahead and prepare : know the regulations and special concerns for the area you plan to visit, schedule your trip to avoid times of high use, visit in small groups when possible. Dispose of waste properly : pack it in, pack it out, inspect your campsite for spilled food, trash, and all litter. Leave what you find : leave rocks, plants and other natural objects as you find them. Do not build structures, furniture, or dig trenches. Respect wildlife : observe wildlife from a distance, do not follow or approach them. Avoid wildlife during sensitive times such as mating, nesting, raising young, or winter . Preserve the past : examine, but do not touch, cultural or historic structures and artifacts.
Let nature's sounds prevail. Avoid loud voices and noises
If all goes well, no one should ever know you were their at all.
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