Derrick trudged through the snow, wondering what he had gotten himself into. His feet hurt after walking countless miles in his heavy hiking boots. It didn’t help that he had a heavy pack strapped to his back.
He was deep inside some forgotten corner of Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. It was a dark moonless night. He was accompanied by his fellow cryptozoology enthusiasts, Henry and Amanda.
Derrick had hunted with his dad, God rest his soul, up near Mt. Baker many times as a kid, but this was no ordinary camping trip. He and his new friends, who he had met a couple months earlier at an online meetup for cryptid enthusiasts, were hunting something elusive, something that most folks didn’t think even existed.
“Up here is where the latest sighting took place!” Henry exclaimed breathlessly, pointing toward a clearing a few hundred feet ahead. The burly, bearded man possessed an endless fountain of enthusiasm that Derrick envied.
Henry had told him that he had been obsessed with legendary creatures since he was a kid. Somehow he had managed to scrape out a living by selling his books and videos about cryptids.
His first book, “Bigfoot: The Legend is Real”, had sold modestly. Undeterred, Henry had started a YouTube channel where he posted videos about every cryptid imaginable – Nessie, the Jersey Devil, the Beast of Bray Road, you name it.
Meanwhile, Derrick toiled Monday through Friday at his boring day job at a Seattle accounting firm. If the commute didn’t kill him, the endless paperwork would. Why can’t I be like Henry, Derrick thought. You know why, a voice in his head replied. Your writing is shit, so a book is out of the question, and there’s no way you could make it on YouTube, either. Face it, Derrick, you’ve got the charisma of a cardboard box.
Derrick sighed. It was a voice he knew all too well.
“What is it, buddy?” Henry asked. “Still upset about the breakup?”
Derrick had been dumped by his girlfriend, Sue, a week earlier. She had finally had enough of his weird hobbies. Sue had no interest in cryptozoology, which she constantly mispronounced as cryptology. She told her friends that he was a cryptologist who studied cryptos, making him sound like some kind of morgue enthusiast who invested in digital currency.
Sue could never understand his interest in studying creatures that she said had a “0.0 percent chance of existing.” He had tried to explain that he was skeptical about a lot of it, too, but some of the sightings were made by credible people, and there was just enough evidence to convince him that there may be some truth to the legends. She would always roll her eyes and shake her head.
They had met during their senior years of college at the University of Washington and had been together almost two and a half years when she called it off.
It’s for the best, she wasn’t right for me, Derrick thought. Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. So what if I was the hottest girl you ever dated, Sue retorted in his mind.
“Hello? Earth to Derrick!” Amanda exclaimed.
“Sorry guys,” Derrick said. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. It’s been a long hike.”
Henry chuckled. “Well, good news is, we’re almost to the site. Did you hear what I said about the clearing up ahead?”
Derrick nodded. “Yup, it’s the Moose Man hotspot we talked about.”
The Moose Man was the latest cryptid to send the state of Washington into a frenzy. This was normally Bigfoot country, but not since last Autumn, when a terrified mother and son had told a forest ranger about their encounter with an eight-foot-tall bipedal moose.
They were coming back from a camping trip at the base of the mountain and were driving down a dirt road deep in the forest. Patricia Reeves and her 12-year-old son Kenny both claimed that the creature suddenly appeared from behind a tree.
It stepped out onto the road and stared them down. Patricia, after a few seconds of frozen fear, had flashed her lights and pounded on her car horn. After staring at them for a few more seconds, the creature finished crossing the road and vanished back into the forest.
Local news stories about the beast, who was quickly given the moniker The Moose Man, led to a social media sensation. Memes and theories spread like wildfire. Of course, many people ridiculed the witnesses, accusing them of either being crazy or making up a hoax.
A spate of sightings followed. A hiking group swore they had seen The Moose Man standing on a cliff ledge high up on the mountain. It was glaring down at them, and it scared the hikers so much that they abandoned the hike and headed home. Some of them took pictures of the creature on their smartphones, but it was a rainy misty evening and only a mysterious shadowy figure could be seen in the photographs.
An elderly lady, who lived on the outskirts of the forest, had made a spinechilling call to the local police claiming that the Moose Man was standing in her backyard. An officer arrived at the home five minutes later. The creature had disappeared, but it left giant cloven footprints behind.
The most recent sighting had been in the clearing that they were now approaching. A forest ranger had heard eerie moaning noises as he was driving through the woods late at night. Wondering if a hiker was injured nearby, he moved closer to the sounds, shining his flashlight through the dark forest and calling out to see if anyone needed assistance.
According to an interview he gave to a local news station, he walked into the clearing, and the noises suddenly stopped. Then he heard bushes rustling behind him.
He spun around and saw The Moose Man standing there. It roared at him and the ranger took off through the woods, running for his life. He didn’t dare look back until he had made back to his truck at the nearest road.
As he drove away, he said he saw The Moose Man again in his rearview mirror. It glared at him and let out a terrifying roar. He hit the accelerator, got the hell out of there, and quit his job the next day.
“I bet you anything that this thing is either an alien or an escaped government experiment,” Henry said.
“I think it’s a weremoose,” Amanda replied.
“A what?” Henry asked.
“All the sightings have occurred on or around a new moon. Maybe it’s like werewolves and a full moon, except reversed.”
“If you believe in werewolves,” Henry said. “There are some credible sightings. A couple years ago I spoke to this woman over in Ferndale who…”
Henry and Amanda continued to discuss the pros and cons of aliens and were-creatures, but their voices faded from Derrick’s mind.
He heard Sue’s voice in his head again. Are you listening to these wackos? They’re crazy. You’re crazy. You’re wasting your life.
Derrick looked up at the starry sky. I really need to stop thinking about Sue. He glanced at Amanda. She was cute. Maybe he would ask her if she wanted to go out for coffee after they got back into town.
Sue’s shrill voice pierced through his mind again. Stop staring at her ass, you perv! You think you have a chance with her? Can’t you see she’s attracted to Henry? He’s her type, not a wiry little nerd like you. They’ll be sleeping together soon, if they aren’t already.
“We finally made it! Time to set up camp!” Henry exclaimed. They carried three lightweight pop-up tents with them. The plan was to stay the night and leave at dawn.
They had brought a battery-powered Bluetooth speaker that would continuously play moose noises throughout the evening, in the hope that this would attract the creature’s attention. Night vision motion sensor cameras would record anything that approached the camp. Henry had also brought his rifle with him, just in case.
Derrick set up his tent and laid in his sleeping bag. He closed his eyes and mercifully drifted off to sleep.
Derrick woke up to the sound of heavy footsteps nearby. Probably Henry, he thought. He was likely going into the woods to take a leak. He glanced at his watch. It was 2:14 am, about three hours after he had fallen asleep. He could still hear the moose noises playing from the Bluetooth speaker.
The recording suddenly stopped. Derrick heard a smashing noise. Had someone or something picked up the speaker and tossed it to the ground?
Was anyone else awake, or was he the only one hearing this? He heard someone unzip their tent.
“Holy shit! Holy fucking shit!” he heard Henry shout. “You’re really real! Oh, my God! OH, GOD!”
Just stay here and be quiet, Sue’s voice said. For once, she was making sense, but Derrick couldn’t do that. He had to see. He had to know. Derrick’s hand trembled as he slowly unzipped his tent and peered out into the darkness.
He saw Henry staring in awe at something that even he probably didn’t really believe they would find. He was holding his rifle, but seemed to have forgotten that it was there.
The Moose Man was standing a couple of feet away from Henry. The creature was just as witnesses had described. It was the stuff of nightmares. The Moose Man glared at Henry with blaring red eyes that looked like giant stop lights. Its enormous antlers were at least ten feet long. They looked like they could bludgeon a T-rex.
“We mean you no harm,” Henry said, waving his hand at the creature, as if the giant beast needed any reassurances. The Moose Man lifted one of its giant hooves and took a step toward him. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Derrick felt the ground shake as the creature stepped forward. The Moose Man roared and snatched Henry by the neck, lifting the 300-pound man off the ground with one arm. He snapped Henry’s neck and tore his limbs off.
Derrick watched, frozen in terror, as blood spurted out of Henry’s obliterated corpse.
“Hey, what’s going on?” He heard Amanda ask sleepily from inside her tent. The Moose Man turned toward her. He tossed what was left of Henry’s body to the ground, grabbed Amanda’s tent, and threw it aside, leaving her exposed in her sleeping bag.
Amanda let out a horrified shriek as the Moose Man grabbed her. He quickly ended her screams by ripping her head off. The Moose Man let out a satisfied grunt, tossed her decapitated corpse aside, and turned to face Derrick.
There was no time to escape. At least their cameras had caught the whole thing. Someone would find them and they would prove that the Moose Man was real. Their quest hadn’t been in vain.
Derrick knew that he was in his last moments, but his final feelings weren’t of fear, but of vindication.
I was right, Sue, Derrick thought. I was right.
