Weekend at Bigfoot's

Chapter 1: Never Fake! We Swear!-2

At O’Hare Airport, Wilson presented an easy smile as he approached the ticket counter. Mark had probably thought he was twisting the screws when he’d booked the flight for early evening on a Friday, a commonly busy time for airlines.

What Mark didn’t realize was that Wilson had better odds of a free bump to first-class on an oversold flight when the airline would be more likely to upgrade people to make room in coach. The keys to getting that bump were to arrive early, which he’d done, to dress like he would fit in with the paying first class passengers, which he’d also done—a suit wasn’t required, only well-groomed business casual—and to be pleasant.

Worst case scenario, he could use up some of his frequent flyer miles to get that upgrade. He had more than enough. Well, no. Worst case scenario, there wouldn’t be a first-class seat available.

“Good evening.” Wilson used a cheerful tone that was upbeat enough to put someone used to irate customers at ease while not crossing over to irritatingly phony. He handed his paperwork, frequent flyer card, and identification across to the harried young man whose tight smile leaned more toward mildly stressed than full-blown aggravated, so Wilson had hope.

The ticket agent silently perused the documentation and clicked a few buttons on his keyboard. Wilson gave him enough time to ascertain precisely how much of a frequent flyer he was before saying, “If you’re upgrading passengers on this flight, I sure would appreciate your consideration.”

The man glanced up at Wilson without moving his head. He didn’t actually roll his eyes, but the expression in them did the deed while conveying a sentiment akin to a sarcastic, I’m sure you would, without actually saying the words.

That was par for the course, so that in itself wasn’t worrisome. Wilson held his breath as the man clicked a few more keys, apparently—hopefully—checking availability.

“All right, Mr. Banks.” The ticket agent’s lips compressed briefly before morphing into a stiff smile, as if he hated to say the words, but couldn’t think of a good reason to deny the bump up to first class. “I can do that for you.”

Wilson sent a silent—and ironic—thank you to Mark for inadvertently handing him the ideal conditions for a free upgrade. To the ticket agent, he said, “Fantastic. Thanks so much.”

Best to keep it short but sincere. He punctuated that with an unaffected grin.

“That’s only for the flight to San Francisco.” The agent continued clicking away on his keyboard, and his smile seemed a bit brighter. “Your connecting flight to Arcata is a regional jet with only a single cabin. Just a carry-on?”

“Correct.” The news that had cheered the ticket agent didn’t dampen Wilson’s mood. He’d flown enough to know that would be the case. It would be a short enough flight. He could deal.

In no time at all, he had his boarding pass in hand. Sadly, he couldn’t say it took no time at all to get through security, but eventually he got to his gate.

His luck was holding, because an earlier flight at the gate was in the process of boarding, so the “good” seats—i.e. the seats near an electrical outlet—were recently vacated. He slid into one before anyone else could figure it out, or worse yet, unwittingly sit there with no intention of using the outlet.

He pulled out his laptop, plugged it in so he’d have a full battery at the start of the flight, and took another look at his itinerary before making his Google search. He executed a low-key fist pump when the B&B came up with its very own website with a simple, clean-looking landing page. That boded well for the professionalism of the place.

A brother and sister, Chauncey and Lena Hughes, owned the B&B. Lena ran the place while Chauncey handled maintenance and yard upkeep. There were no pictures of the owners, but the name, Chauncey, pointed toward them pushing retirement age. Hughes House was a large structure and even had a few guest cottages outside of the main house.

Per the itinerary, he had a room in the main house with a queen-sized bed. So no private hot tub like the cottages had, but a sweet-looking oversized clawfoot tub. At least, the room pictured on the website had one. Hopefully, his room did, too.

He opened another tab and did a search for the town. If it was truly a tourist trap as Jerry—and the existence of such a high-end B&B—had indicated, it would likely have a page touting everything it had to offer.

Wilson’s grin flashed as Tallbear’s website popped onto the screen. It had a “things to do” tab as well as a listing of upcoming events right on the landing page.

He skipped past things that would be of interest only to tourists—it was townspeople he wanted to interact with. He grimaced as he scrolled down the page. He would take a hard pass on the organized mountain bike ride. He wasn’t that dedicated to the job even if he could assume it would be mostly locals, which he couldn’t.

The “Honky Tonk Saturday Night” advertised at a local saloon would work just as well as a means to meet and chat up random people, with a bonus of them being more inclined to say things after a few beers than when sober. He sighed at the thought of spending an entire evening listening to country music, but at least it would be better than pedaling a bike up a bunch of hills, and more likely to attract a share of locals. He hoped.

Trolling the semi-weekly farmers’ market on Saturday morning could also be a good way to strike up casual conversations. It would be a great place to get a general feel for the story. Help him set the scene and identify the mindset of the typical resident. Give the story a little color and maybe uncover some extra witnesses.

He was impressed by both websites. They’d been similar enough that Wilson suspected they’d been designed by the same person. Sensational News was looking to redesign its own. These had been well organized and easy to navigate. The sections and categories presented information in a manner that was easy for users to navigate. Clutter-free with drop-down menus.

The content was well-formatted, making it easy to scan key features with additional details easily available for those who wanted to read further. Load times had been fast.

He made a mental note to check mobile compatibility, accessibility, search engine optimization, and browser consistency. The powers that be at Sensational News might want to add this web designer to the list they were looking at.

He pulled a bundle of papers from the manila envelope Jerry had given him and flipped through the pages. The interviews Mark had set up were scheduled for Saturday afternoon and would fit nicely between the early morning farmers’ market and the evening at the bar. His return flight wasn’t until late Monday morning, and Sunday was left open for him to fill however he saw fit.

He slipped the stack of papers into the envelope. He would reserve formulating his own story theme until after his interviews, but while he had easy internet access, he opened Google, typed in “Bigfoot,” and hit ENTER. Checking the current lore would help ensure that his own story was fresh, and not merely a rewrite of popular myths.

Which, as it turned out, were pretty lackluster, so making his own story refreshing shouldn’t be too difficult. Concepts to avoid included a UFO tie-in, the ever-popular “Bigfoot is an unevolved Neanderthal,” and the eye-roll-worthy “Bigfoot is a supernatural guardian of the earth”—which at least would explain the infrequency of the sightings while the species still maintained a population large enough that they hadn’t gone extinct. Most of all, Wilson’s Bigfoot wouldn’t have been spotted diddling the livestock, even if one of the “witnesses” wanted to push that angle.

When the gate personnel announced preboarding, he quickly gathered his belongings and tried not to look pretentious under the glare of the impatiently waiting crowd as he joined the short line of first-class passengers, most of whom made little effort to dim their entitled (or in one case, outright smug) expressions.

In his seat, he again pulled out the manila envelope and flipped through the copies Mark had printed of previously published tabloid articles, both Sensational News’ own and their competitors’. He added “were-Bigfoots” to his list of themes to avoid. It made for entertaining novels if one didn’t think too hard about how the laws of physics didn’t quite work with the differences in mass between humans and whatever they were purportedly shifting into, Although it was perfectly fine to do so in fiction, his standards prevented him from writing something that silly as fact. Even tabloid “fact,” complete with scare quotes.

The rest of the articles were variations on the theories he’d found on the Internet. They’d merely differed in their quotes and sighting claims. Overall mundane stuff.

He exchanged the old articles for the briefs about the allegations of the people he’d be interviewing. Once the plane was stable in the air and the flight attendants announced permission to do so, he reopened his laptop and created a document for each interviewee, then jotted down some thoughts on the topics he wanted to cover based on their statements.

There wasn’t much he wanted to ask Harold Clayton, the second of his appointments. That man’s story left a sour taste in Wilson’s mouth. Unfortunately, it was the kind of thing that would draw in readers, so he pretty much had to go through with the interview, regardless of his personal aversion.

Harold had killed someone when he’d laid out a reinforced, heavy duty, old-school barbaric bear trap aiming to catch a Bigfoot he swore often visited his grove of blackberry bushes in early August. According to Harold, Bigfoot stripped several bushes of berries each year that it came.

He hadn’t trapped Bigfoot, but he had caught a naked and apparently disoriented old woman who’d raided the wrong person’s berry bushes. That mistake had earned the poor woman a gruesome and painful death sentence as her snapped leg bled out. No, actually her heart had given out first. Small mercy.

It had also earned Harold a couple years for involuntary manslaughter. He’d done his time, but hadn’t changed his tune. He still swore up and down that he’d been watching from his kitchen window a good distance from the grove, and that he’d seen Bigfoot enter the rows of bushes. If he’d seen the old woman go in there, he would’ve called out and warned her.

Not that thinking it had been Bigfoot would’ve been much better, since either a fraudster in a costume or, most likely, a bear, had been the regular marauder visiting Harold’s grove, and that souped-up trap would have severely maimed, if not killed, any bear that happened across it.

Enough. Wilson blew out a heavy breath and shoved everything into his computer bag. He knew how to proceed now, and put it all out of his mind as the plane began its descent to the San Francisco airport.