Life With A Werewolf

Catching Sasquatch

          Sasquatch. The mythological beast of America. The creature that supposedly lives in the woods, often alone, who is mostly humanoid and covered head to toe in fur. This beast has large red eyes and sharp teeth in a mouth that if you look at it, is almost muzzle like. Sasquatch has been the subject of many documentaries and supposed “sightings” which are about as believable as all the “Elvis” sightings in the eighties and nineties.

          Now, this isn’t the same as Crash, who is a werewolf, a mythological creature that definitely does exist and time from time protects the citizens of our town and county from other creatures that definitely does exist. Sasquatch is pure fiction. Brought about, according to Crash, by a heavy dose of moonshine and a werewolf playing a prank.

          While I was away braving the streets of Nashville and trying not to die on the highway, Crash was back here busy with another problem. Someone in the town had been watching far too much History Channel. This person, who shall go by the name of “Bob” for legal reasons, began to be convinced that it was aliens who built the pyramids and that Sasquatch was real. Bob is a recently laid off engineer. Not the helpful kind that will explain how to better secure your wifi or assist you in finding the source of your vacuum leak in your car engine. Bob is the type of engineer with a God complex. The ones who are convinced everyone who doesn’t understand his technobabble is a drooling troglodyte only good for serving him fries at a drive thru. This is the type of person who began to believe in Sasquatch, and was going to prove his existence to everyone else.

          I still don’t know how the whole “glamor” or whatever the effect is called that myth creatures use to blend in. Apparently the crazier the things someone believes the easier it is for them to see. Or something. I’m honestly not sure at all and still get confused about the explanation, especially when Crash begins to bring in Calculus into it. I’m starting to believe he doesn’t know himself and is just doing that to mess with me.

          Now, Bob, who isn’t all that athletic or outdoorsy, figured the easiest way for him to catch Sasquatch on camera was to set up trail cameras all through the woods, right outside Crash’s place. Bob, being the out of shape, pasty skinned, skinny, ‘genius’ that he is, decided that since Sasquatch is mainly a night creature. So of course the best course of action would be to post the trail cameras in the woods near town during the day and wait.

          Crash for his part didn’t do anything. He sat on the back porch sipping a cup of coffee and watched Bob work in the trees. Occasionally he watched him through a pair of binoculars, but that was about it during the day.

          That evening though, Crash did pay a visit to the local thrift shop and purchased a few stuffed animals. Then Crash went home, shifted into his ‘night uniform’ so to speak, and had Zack snip the tags off the animals and attach them to Crash with glue.

          “Worth the pain,” Crash said with a smirk when he recounted this story. “Did hurt a bit when I pulled all the tags off.”

          The cameras it worked of an infrared light that it used to catch game and other things. This light acted as a motion detector, and turned the camera on to record whenever the beam sensed something near. Hunters and farmers use it for various functions around town. But for Crash these things light up with an “off-reddish” glow.

          So, this genius had lit up the woods for Crash like a Christmas light display on cocaine, and thought he was going to catch himself a glimpse of Sasquatch. On night one, all he had gotten was a few blurry images of fuzzy elbows, knees and feet, all complete with the tag of a stuffed bear attached to it. Bob wasn’t sure what he had on camera. But he was pretty certain it was ordered off of Amazon.

          Sean, it seems, is a devious guy at times. It was his idea to get close to Bob and set up the next prank. Bob was back in the local hardware store, talking to the guy behind the counter, who had this bemused look on his face. “I’m telling you,” Bob said, “I’m going to catch him on camera. I know what I saw! I know what’s in those woods!”

          “Yeah, sure,” the old guy behind the counter said. “I have aliens come in twice a week looking for plutonium 358 for their space modulator.”

          Bob scrunched his face and snarled, “I’ll show you,” he snapped and then grabbed a bag of things off the counter. Sean followed him to the parking lot and asked. “Dude, what are you trying to get,” he asked, then peered around as if looking for onlookers. “You’re trying to sneak a shot of something special aren’t you?”

          According to Sean, he first thought the guy was going for emphatic proof of a werewolf. Instead, Bob scrunched in the back of his Tesla, throwing things around and snarled, “Don’t you start either. I know what I saw!”

          “Me too, man,” Sean said. “I didn’t know what it was. I just know that it was dark. And furry.”

          Bob’s eyes grew wide and he turned to Sean. “Not furry, hairy,” he whispered. There was a crazed look in his eyes. “That thing is out there. I know it. Sasquatch.” It was at this point that Sean couldn’t help himself, he said. With ideas like this, I may invite him to my next family reunion.

          Sean gasped and held his hand to his mouth like a shocked southern belle. “You’re hunting him too?” “Finally, someone who knows!” There was literal tears in Bob’s eyes. “I don’t know who pranked me and wrecked all my trail cams, but I have more. And those were easy to fix. I’m going to get Sasquatch on film. And it might just be tonight.”

          Bob lifted a box. Sean said it took great effort not to begin giggling. Bob was going to catch Crash on film with a drone. Not only was it a drone, but it was one of the loudest drones on the market. He was going to try to catch a creature on camera with some of the sharpest hearing in the world with a flying camera that sounded like two hornets’ nests having an all-out war.

          “Dude, here’s what you do,” Sean said. “You’re going to need some pigs blood. You can get it from the butcher’s. Smear your legs with it. Then rub mud over that. Afterwards, you stand in the woods, like this,” and he squatted down, “and give your best injured pig squeal. Sasquatch won’t be able to resist. He’ll come running thinking it’s an easy dinner, and you’ll catch him on your camera!”

          I really wish I had been there when Sean convinced him to squat down in the parking lot and give a couple of practice squeals with him. Sean said a couple cars did slow down and take a look, but none were brave enough to stop and ask what was happening. “I’m telling you dude, it will work, I promise,” Sean told Bob with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

          It wasn’t a bag and a stick shouting “kaluka ku”, but I still count this as a successful snipe hunt.

          “Do you know how much it hurts,” Crash said when he was recounting the tale, “to be in mid shift and to bust out laughing? That poor idiot was out there, shouting ‘Squee! Squee!’ as loud as he could, that trail camera buzzing all over woods.”

          “So, he caught nothing,” I said.

          “Oh, he caught something,” Crash replied. “Laryngitis and a cold. He’s lucky he didn’t get pneumonia.”

          “Surely after about a half hour, he figured it out and went home,” I asked.

          “Nope,” Crash said. “Despite multiple complaints, dodging the local constable who begged me to tell him to shut it down, Bob sat out there all night. Shouting ‘Squee!’ until his voice was gone.”

          “Well,” I said, “at least that taught him a lesson.”

          “Oh no,” Crash said. “One of the guys who believe that they already know everything. He just thought that he came at it from the wrong direction. He tried something else the next night.”

          Apparently, after spending all night in the woods, getting sick, and catching nothing but a few fines for being a public nuisance, Bob decided he’d had enough and was going to science the problem into submission.

          So first, let’s analyze the issue. The “deep woods” Bob was searching was a small patch of trees on the edge of town that allows Crash to move around the community without being seen. It’s not exactly deep, and can barely be called the ‘woods.’ At some points you can literally see houses from one side to the other. If sasquatch did exist, he wouldn’t live in such conditions. Hell, anything wilder than a squirrel wasn’t likely to choose the location. Of course, you can’t tell that to a true believer and a conspiracy nut with no family, no real friends, and literally nothing else to do with their life than to catch this beast on camera.

          Bob set up Trail cameras on literally every tree. Some cameras were set up on top of others watching each other, so if something tried the trick the previous night they would still be caught on camera. He had a dummy set out with his old clothing, smeared in mud and blood, playing a loop of an actual injured pig squeal. Several flood lights were set up on motion sensors, so if anything larger than a cat passed by it, the flood lights would kick on, the cameras would kick on, and he’d have it on video. Bob was ready.

          Crash was on the other side of the county, dealing with that whole ogre thing that I can’t talk about yet. So, he didn’t see it. But was told later that every five minutes or so, it was Flash! Flash! Flash! And of course the Squee! Squee! Squee! On repeat.

          More fines. More complaints. Threats of arrest. And an entire night of nothing. Bob, the genius “I know everything, don’t tell me anything” had set up the lights wrong. Every time a strong breeze blew through, a large leaf close to the system would blow by, and set off the lights. At this point, I think even the animals of the woods were ready to revolt against Bob.

          “Finally,” Crash said, “the complaints reached my desk.”

          “So,” I asked, “what did you do?”

          Crash smirked. “I dealt with it.”

          For legal reasons I am not allowed to divulge what exactly occurred or what was said. The record is officially sealed. Bob has put his house up for sale and is searching for a job out of state as of right now. The hunt for Sasquatch is over. If you tour a certain house for sale in our neighborhood you may find black fur stuck in a broken board or two in the walls or a strange claw mark here or there around the door frames, in the floors and walls. Don’t ask too many questions. And don’t wonder why it’s so cheap.