on the cover / By Ryan “Capt. Buhne” Hurley

BIGFOOT TRAPPED BY NORCAL FANATIC!

Suddenly a rock lands at my feet. Then another rock whizzes by. Then another, and another.

“ What the fuck? ”

Something, lost in the fog, is running around: Branches snap, footfalls smash through the brush. I’m under attack … but by whom? By what?

The knocking continues, and now I’m being showered with these golf-ball-sized stones. Oddly, none hit me. It soon dawns on me, though, that being struck is only a matter of when, not if. I’m not wearing a helmet or body armor. If I don’t get out of here right now I’ll soon be nursing a head wound.

But here’s the kicker: I can’t escape. My legs go cartoon-wobbly; intense nausea takes firm root in my guts. I’m on the verge of throwing up, something I haven’t done in years. (A curator with the Bigfoot Field Researchers’ Organization — a prominent online outpost for Bigfoot enthusiasts — later shares his rather fantastic theory about the paralyzing fear I’m experiencing. He says that Bigfoot are able to emit a low-frequency vibration as a defense mechanism — an inaudible “hum” that induces nausea and sudden paralysis in the same way that sound weaponry is deployed by the U.S. Army.)

You do funny things when you feel your life is in imminent danger — you make funny bargains with yourself, engage in novel survival tactics. Spaghetti-legged and watery-mouthed, I just want to be another oblivious motorist, safely behind the confines of his warm pickup. Suddenly, I’m a changed man: Bigfoot’s rock assault transforms me into the world’s preeminent Bigfoot skeptic — a Sasquatch debunker non-pareil .

“How come no one’s ever found a dead Bigfoot in the woods?” I think to myself, and am able to take a small, timid step uphill.

The rock shower continues. And my heart is audibly pulsing in my throat. But it’s working: “Anyone who believes this forest could support a breeding population of 800-pound primates is insane.”

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