by Billy Wells
“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Did you hire three numbskulls to plant body parts at Widow’s Peak and say they saw Big Foot?”
“What? Big Foot? Body parts?” Bubba spat, appearing genuinely upset by the accusation.
Jack told him about the three hunters, the Big Foot sighting, and what they had found at Widow’s Peak.
“How desperate would I have to be to get involved in such a crazy idea?” Bubba scowled, wiping the bar with a rag.
“You said you were desperate to drum up more business, and it crossed my mind, you might have hired someone to run around Widow’s Peak in a gorilla suit like Rocky Jenkins did way back when.”
Ignoring this, Bubba asked, “Did you find any footprints?”
“We saw humongous footprints all around the body parts, and what’s more, whatever made them walked upright on two feet.”
“Well, for God sakes, pick up the phone and call somebody at the Mountain Ledger. Tell them what you’ve seen. This could be just what the doctor ordered to bring new beer guzzlers into town.”
“Are you sure you don’t know anything about what we found in the woods?”
“I’d swear on my mother’s grave. I’m innocent.” Bubba said, placing his right hand over his heart.
“I’ve got a splitting headache,” Jack groaned, rubbing his temples. “I think I’ve been chewing too much bubble gum, and it’s given me a migraine. I’m going back to my house to take some medicine and lie down for a spell.”
“Be sure you call the press as soon as you can,” Bubba yelled as a reminder.
As soon as Jack went out the door, Bubba went into the back room where the three hunters from Widow’s Peak were drinking beer. His face turned redder than a matador’s cape and then he cut loose with spit flying, “I can’t believe you guys were stupid enough to think cadavers would pass for Big Foot victims.”
“We didn’t know,” the tall one explained. “We hacked up the torsos we bought from the medical supply house with a hatchet. We didn’t have enough money to buy the heads, the arms and the legs.”
“Thank God for small favors. At least, it will be harder to ID the torsos,” Bubba grumbled.
“After spreading out the slabs of meat, we splashed the blood we bought on the pieces. It looked damn good to me.”
Bubba winced at the stupidity. “Did you leave a lot of tracks with the Big Foot molds I gave you?”
“Absolutely. All over.”
Bubba kept firing questions, “You drove the stolen truck, and the one I loaned you to the site… and which one did you leave in the parking lot?”
“Golly gee, Mr. Rexrode, we left the stolen truck, o’course. How dumb do you think we are?” the tall man grimaced, looking at his silent partners leaning against the wall.
“Just checkin’. And you got away clean?”
“After we screamed for help like Big Foot was after us, we hightailed it to the other pickup we had parked down the road and took the long way here to be sure nobody see’d us. We done everything just like you said. Well, everything except for the body parts.” the tall hunter replied, guzzling more beer.
“Well, at least you did something right,” Bubba’s heavy-handed demeanor relaxed. “What about the stilts?”
“We made them like you said, but we’re not going to parade around on them so some hunter can blow our brains out.”
“I told you not to go into the forest where the hunters are. It’s critical that no one sees your disguise up close. You only show yourself when you know someone is watching from the hotel window. As soon as you’re spotted, get down behind a bush, take off your costume, and stow it in the back pack I gave you.”
“You’re gonna have to hire somebody dumber than us for that job,” the tall man muttered, rising from his chair.
Bubba handed him $500 to split between them and said. “As soon as it gets dark, sneak out the back door, and walk quietly through the woods to where you hid your truck. Be sure you don’t let anyone see you. Once you’re out of the town limits, haul ass back to the holler, and stay there ‘til I call you.”
* * *
The next day, the Mountain Ledger headline caused quite a commotion. “THIRD BIG FOOT SIGHTING. THREE HUNTERS MISSING. BLOODY BODY PARTS FOUND AT WIDOW’S PEAK.”
Jack could not believe his eyes when he read the coroner’s interview about what he had found at the crime scene. He called him for an explanation, “You told me the body parts were from cadavers. Why did you change your story?”
“When I got back to the morgue and tested them, I found my initial findings were incorrect.”
“How could you make such a mistake?” Jack ranted, suspicious of Forbes’ new diagnosis.
“Nobody’s perfect. Look, I’m really swamped over here, I’ll have to talk to you later,” Forbes blurted, like he had to put out a fire.
“Wait! Do you have any way of identifying the bodies?”
“It doesn’t matter now. Didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?” Jack could not wait to hear him explain another new wrinkle.
“Someone broke into the morgue last night and stole the body parts. Every scrap of evidence is gone.”
“Do you have any leads on the break in?”
“The sheriff says whoever did it was a pro. They didn’t leave anything behind.”
Jack hung up, exasperated. Some kind of conspiracy was in play here, and he was certain Bubba was in the middle of it, and Forbes would be drinking free beer for God knows how long. He decided to drive out to Widow’s Peak and take another look around.
When he arrived in the parking lot, the hunters’ truck was still there along with ten other vehicles in the Sheriff’s search party. He could not believe no one had called him to participate in the wild goose chase. He did not believe for a moment the three hunters were still on the mountain.
When he returned to the place where the hunters had said they had spotted Big Foot, he found that someone with a dozer had dug an enormous hole right where the hunters had found the body parts. It must have happened in the dead of night. Pieces of yellow tape littered the bushes and floated in the ocean of mud at the unrecognizable crime scene. It had poured down rain early that morning, and water partially filled the giant cavity. Someone other than Big Foot had intentionally destroyed all the evidence, and it did not take a Sherlock Holmes to guess who that might be.
With nothing left to check, Jack drove back to town.
* * *
The next Friday night, droves of hunters, tourists, and reporters from miles around packed Bubba’s Bar and Emporium. Just like the good old days, shit-faced customers occupied every stool and table in the place. A long reservation line led a block down the street. Bubba had posted a $20,000 reward for any hunter who captured Big Foot alive and $5,000 for his carcass. The reward had attracted more people than Jack had ever seen in this neck of the woods.
Weeks passed, and hundreds of new hunters combed every inch of the woods without success in finding Big Foot. Every night, Bubba’s place was standing room only. Customers had to make reservations a week in advance to get a table.
Jack wondered what Bubba would do next to keep the bubble from bursting. Something new would have to come soon to sustain this level of interest.
Two weeks later about dusk, a hunter spotted an enormous beast walking erect on a high ridge four hundred yards away. In his scope, the colossal brute appeared to be at least ten feet tall with hair covering his entire body. The hunter thought about the $20,000 reward, but realizing how far away the hulk of a man-beast was, decided to pull the trigger to ensure garnering the $5,000 prize.
When the shooter and his two friends reached the peak, they found the body of what the sheriff later identified as a retired wrestler named Mountain Magnus. His biography said he stood 7 feet, 2 inches tall, but with the molded plastic stilts he had strapped to his legs, his height was 9 feet, 6 inches. He wore a gorilla suit and an incredibly realistic Big Foot mask, which had been
ruined by a gigantic bullet hole in the middle of the forehead.
Jack and the sheriff found a backpack nearby with molded plastic shoes that would leave twenty-four inch footprints when a normal man wore them.
The headline in the next day’s Mountain Ledger was deadly to the town’s business. It read, “BOONTON’S BIG FOOT GIANT HOAX. RETIRED WRESTLER ON STILTS SHOT DEAD IN GORILLA SUIT BY HUNTER SEEKING REWARD.”
By the next afternoon, every hunter and tourist had vacated the cheap motels along the main highway. Jack stopped by Bubba’s Bar for an update and a brew. When he took a seat, he noticed Bubba had a big, black shiner.
“What happened to you?” Jack asked, grabbing some peanuts from the bowl on the bar.
“The hunter who bagged the wrestler wanted his $5,000 reward. He claimed he shot the only Big Foot on the mountain, spent a fortune in expenses, lost a month’s wages, and might be arrested for murder. When I told him I had nothing to do with the hoax, he popped me.”
“I expect there will be others coming to see you.”
“Did you notice my wooden Indian at the entrance to the Emporium?” Bubba groaned.
Jack turned and looked through the plate glass window, “No, what happened?”
Somebody scalped him with a chainsaw. And, all my tires are flat on my SUV to boot.”
“Did the sheriff try to arrest you?”
“For what? There’s not a shred of evidence linking me to the wrestler or the missing hunters. I’m innocent. Pure as the driven snow.” Bubba said firmly.
“Tell me, Bubba, who else stands to profit from the Big Foot hoax? You own more than half the town. You must have made a fortune the last couple of months. You know there’s no Big Foot on the mountain. That’s why you offered the $20,000 reward.”
“That reward really did bring in a shit load of new business.” Bubba said, grinning from ear to ear. “Still, I’m innocent until proven guilty. This is America, isn’t it? Are you drinking or just loitering. I can’t keep jabbering with you. I’m the chief, cook, and bottle washer around here now. I fired everyone else. I’ve got to check on the couple in the back booth.”
“Don’t bother. They were leaving when I came in. I’ll have the usual”
Bubba groaned as he placed a frosty bottle of Bud on a coaster, “The sorry sons of bitches left without paying their tab.”
“What are you gonna do about business?”
“I just received a call from a nomad in the Himalayas who says he has something to sell me for $15,000. It sounds like a hoax, but I’ve got a friend looking into it for me. Until then, I guess I’ll have to wait till Big Foot shows his ugly face again,” Bubba said, drumming his fingers on the bar.
Jack shook his head at his friend’s persistence with the legend, drank some beer, and said; “I think you better try a vampire or a werewolf next time. No one will believe in Big Foot after this.”
* * *
Three months later, Bubba woke the sheriff in the middle of the night, claiming he saw Big Foot glaring at him through his picture window.
When he recognized Bubba’s inebriated voice and looked at the clock, he said, “I’m going fishing in the morning. I’ll stop by on my way and give you a report to fill out. Say hello to Big Foot for me.” Click.
“The thing in the window is the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen. I emptied my bladder into my drawers when it looked at me like a juicy piece of hamburger.” Bubba blubbered, then waited for a reply. When he realized there was no one on the line, he hurled his phone against the wall and saw it shatter into pieces on the floor.
When the sheriff stopped by the next morning, Bubba was furious, “That monster could have killed me last night. I’m lucky to be alive. I’m going to make sure you never get elected again. You’re finished in this town.”
“Bullshit! We both know you didn’t see Big Foot in your picture window last night. You were drunk as a skunk. I could barely understand what you were saying. You musta been seeing pink elephants or spiders crawling up the walls. Fill out this report. I’ll pick it up on my way back from fishing.”
* * *
A week later, Bubba called the sheriff again about Big Foot watching him through his picture window at three o’clock in the morning. When he said, “Fuck you!” and hung up the phone, he called Jack Springer and pleaded for him to come to his rescue.
“Look, Jack, when I called the sheriff last week, I was drunk out of my mind, and having a bad dream about the crates I received from the Himalayas. This time I’m sober, and I’m scared to death. I bought two Sasquatches from that nomad I told you about.”
“You what? Come on, Bubba. This is Jack on the line. Enough of this Big Foot bullshit. You need to come up with a new idea.”
“Listen, this is no bullshit,” Bubba stammered with his voice quaking. “One of the Big Foots broke out of his cell, and he’s trying to get at me.”
“Bubba! It’s almost three o’clock in the morning,” Jack groaned.
“I swear the fucker is at least ten feet tall with big ugly teeth and claws about two inches long. I left my rifle in the truck, and I’m afraid to go outside to get it. Get your shotgun, and get over here now, I can’t hold it off with a measly butcher knife.”
Jack thought about it, and hoping he could get a few more free brews out of the situation, he relented. “Okay, Bubba, I’ll come on out, but it’s gonna cost you, big time.”
“Hurry, and you can drink free beer at my place for a week. Hurry!”
When Jack arrived, he saw every light in Bubba’s house burning bright. When he got out of his Jeep, he noticed the front door was hanging on one hinge. He grimaced and grabbed his shotgun when he saw a trail of blood leading from the front door into the woods. He called the sheriff.
“Don’t you know it’s three o’clock in the morning?” the sheriff said gruffly.
“I’m at Bubba’s house. The front door is open, and there’s blood everywhere on the porch.”
“Jesus, Jack! It’s just another hoax he’s concocted.”
“Maybe so, maybe not, but it’s your job, not mine to check it out.”
There was a silence on the line, and then the sheriff exhaled and said, “Okay, I’m on my way.”
When the police cruiser pulled into the driveway, Jack met the sheriff on the front porch.
His eyes got bigger when he saw the blood, “Did you go inside yet?”
“I’m a game warden, not a homicide investigator. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
The sheriff winced when he saw the bloody footprints leading from the foyer. The two men moved cautiously inside and immediately found a pile of body parts on the deep pile white carpet in the middle of the living room. Like on the porch, a trail of humongous, bloody prints encircled the partially devoured human remains. Glass from a broken picture window peppered the carpet.
The sheriff looked at Jack with a smirk, “Does this remind you of anything?”
Jack knew exactly what he meant. The pile of bloody body parts strewn about the room did resemble what they had seen at Widow’s Peak. Neither of them could identify a head, an arm, or a leg.
“I think Bubba’s up to his old tricks, damn him to Hell,” the sheriff growled.
Jack called the coroner and told him what they had found. When he also resisted getting out of bed and was about to hang up, Jack snarled, “Get your sorry ass over here. I don’t think this is a joke. Do your job, for God’s sake.”
Deciding not to wait for the coroner, Jack and the sheriff followed the bloody footprints out the front door, and then into the woods. With the aid of a flashlight, they followed the mammoth prints about 200 yards behind the main house to a structure built into the opening of a cave.
They could see someone had expertly camouflaged the building so that no one could see it until they were right up against it. Several signs nailed to trees along the way warned trespassers they would be shot on sight if they entered the property. They noticed a light on inside the buil
ding.
Approaching as quietly as possible, they entered through an open door into a space about the size of a two-car garage. They immediately smelled an intense gamy odor.
Inside a cage filling half of the interior space, they saw an enormous hairy monster sitting on the floor in a pile of hay making a meal of Bubba’s head. The door to the cell stood open with a key in the lock. If the wooly beast sensed their presence, he did not seem to care. In the shadows of the adjacent corner, a smaller version of the adult creature sat chewing happily on a bloody bone.
The larger monster looked up at Jack and the sheriff, and pausing in the middle of sucking a dangling eyeball from Bubba’s cheek, it said, “Do you know any place around here you can order fries at this time of night?”
COLD CALLS
Mortimer slammed his fist on the table. His face reddened as he glared at the real estate tax invoice that was due in a week. Mount Chester was looking less prestigious every day and yet taxes were still rising, even though property values had plummeted.
As he peered out the window at the sidewalk, he saw a different class of people had moved in since the halcyon days of his father’s time. The pedestrian parade was still a melting pot of nationalities, but now, everyone was dressed down. Not just on Friday, but every day. He remembered the time when wearing a suit was commonplace in downtown Mount Chester. Now, people assumed anyone dressed up must be going to a funeral. But even that assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. He should know; he was the third generation owner of Jeepers’ Funeral Parlor.
For example, Mortimer was shocked at what people wore to the wake for Hector Alvarez the previous Friday night. Only one couple of the twenty who came for the viewing dressed appropriately, at least, in his opinion. The rest of the rabble looked like they had just come from a construction site or from picking up pop bottles along the road. One woman with a missing tooth forgot she still donned her Burger King crown on her head and was still wearing it when she left.
These losers were so poor they could only afford the wooden coffin that cost $250, which is the paltry amount social security pays when someone dies. They had to take up a collection from their friends for the embalming. They also saved on the burial plot by burying Hector in an abandoned cornfield. And, of course, they didn’t even consider a concrete liner. Well, at least the worms would be happy.
