Fake Yeti Toes

The mud didn't just stick; it felt personal. It was that specific brand of New England spring slush that looked like a chocolate milkshake but felt like wet concrete. I was currently stomping into it with two oversized pieces of double-walled corrugated cardboard taped to my Vans with about four rolls of duct tape. Each 'foot' was roughly the size of a microwave. I’d spent three hours in my dorm cutting out these three-toed monstrosities, trying to mimic the footprint of something that definitely didn't exist, all for the benefit of a girl who spent more time on the local social media discussion group than she did on her actual coursework.

Wendy was standing ten feet away, leaning against the brick wall of the gymnasium, looking at her phone. She was wearing a thrifted oversized leather jacket and jeans that had more holes than fabric. She looked bored. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. My heart did that stupid, heavy thud against my ribs—the one that usually preceded me making a massive fool of myself.

"You done with your ritual?" she asked, not looking up. "Or do I need to call an exorcist?"

"It’s not a ritual, Wen. It’s... evidence," I said, trying to maintain some level of dignity while my left cardboard foot began to delaminate in a puddle. "I’m telling you, I saw something move back here last night. Something big. Not a deer. Deer don't have shoulders like NFL linebackers."

She finally looked up, her dark eyes scanning my handiwork. She didn't laugh. That was the worst part. She just stared at the massive, muddy impressions I was leaving in the half-melted snow. "Peter, those tracks look like they were made by a very heavy toddler with rectangular feet. It’s mid at best."

"Mid?" I stepped forward, and the tape around my ankle groaned. "Look at the stride length. Whatever this is, it’s got a six-foot reach. At least."

"The stride length is exactly the length of your legs when you’re trying to look taller," she countered, shoving her phone into her pocket. She walked over, her boots squelching in the muck. She stood right over one of the prints. The spring sun was actually out for once, bright and unapologetic, hitting the patches of remaining snow and making everything look like a high-exposure photograph. It was too bright. It made my lies feel visible.

"Fine," she said, a small, dangerous smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "If there’s a New Hampshire Sasquatch living behind the gym, we should follow the trail. Lead the way, Tracker Pete."

I hadn't actually planned for us to follow them. I’d planned for her to see them, be impressed by my 'discovery,' and maybe we’d go grab coffee while we discussed the possibilities. But Wendy was a 'for the plot' kind of person. If there was a mystery, even a fake one, she was going to poke it with a stick until it bit her.

We headed into the tree line. The transition from the manicured lawn of the campus to the actual woods was abrupt. One minute you were near a vending machine, the next you were in a tangle of gray birch and thorny scrub. The ground was a nightmare. Spring in the woods isn't the stuff of poetry; it’s a graveyard of dead leaves and rotting logs, all soaked in a cold, viscous moisture that seeps into your socks through the seams of your shoes.

I led her deeper, trying to keep my 'tracks' going by stomping periodically. But the ground was getting harder as we moved into the shade of the evergreens, and my cardboard feet were starting to disintegrate. Every time I lifted my foot, a piece of soggy brown pulp stayed behind. It was a countdown. My credibility was literally dissolving.

"So," Wendy said, stepping over a fallen branch with an agility that made me feel like a swamp monster. "What’s the theory? Is it a localized cryptid? Or are we talking interdimensional traveler?"

"I’m leaning toward something biological," I lied, my breath hitching as the incline got steeper. My lungs were burning. I wasn't an outdoorsy guy. I was a 'sit in the library and pretend to read' guy. "Maybe a relict hominid. Pushed out of the mountains by the early thaw."

"Relict hominid," she repeated, her voice dripping with irony. "Big words for a guy wearing cardboard shoes. You're really committed to the bit, aren't you?"

"It’s not a bit."

"Sure, Peter. And I’m the Queen of Sheba."

We hiked for twenty minutes. The further we went, the more the 'trail' became a mess. I was losing the rhythm. The woods started to look the same—every gray trunk a replica of the last. I realized, with a cold spike of adrenaline that had nothing to do with monsters, that I didn't recognize this part of the preserve. The trail markers were gone. The gym was invisible behind the dense growth. The air was getting colder as the sun dipped behind the ridge.

"Hey," Wendy said, her voice dropping the sarcasm. She stopped and looked around. "Where are we?"

"The back section. Near the creek," I said, though I hadn't seen a creek in ten minutes.

"There is no creek back here, Peter. There’s a ravine and then five miles of nothing until the highway." She turned to look at me, her face pale in the flat light. "We’re lost, aren't we?"

I looked down at my feet. The cardboard was gone. Just the silver duct tape remained, wrapped uselessly around my Vans like shiny bandages. I looked like a failed science experiment. "I... I might have lost the orientation for a second. The tracks..."

"Stop talking about the tracks," she snapped. She walked toward a large, moss-covered log and sat down with a heavy sigh. She looked exhausted, and for the first time, actually stressed. "God, you’re such an idiot."

I felt the sting of it. It wasn't just the 'idiot' part; it was the fact that I’d dragged her out here for a lie. I sat on the other end of the log, keeping a respectable distance. The wood was damp and smelled like earth and old rain. My hands were shaking, partly from the cold and partly from the sudden, crushing weight of my own stupidity.

"I was just trying to..." I started, but the words died in my throat.

"Impress me?" She looked at me, her expression softening into something like pity. "Peter, I saw the Amazon box in the recycling bin outside your dorm three days ago. The one for the 'Yeti Fur' kit? You didn't even break down the box properly. The shipping label was face up."

I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. I wanted to be a real cryptid so I could just vanish into the fog and never be seen again. "You knew?"

"From the first footprint," she said. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small, black vape. She took a hit, the scent of artificial blue raspberry clashing violently with the smell of the damp woods. She blew a cloud of vapor into the air. "I thought maybe you’d confess after five minutes. But you just kept stomping. You looked like a very determined duck."

"I’m sorry," I muttered, staring at my taped-up shoes. "I just... I don't know. You like that stuff. And I’m just me. I thought if I found something real, or made something real..."

"Nothing is real, Peter," she said, her voice small. She stared out into the trees. "That’s why I like the cryptid stuff. It’s better than thinking about the fact that we’re graduating in two months and the world is basically a burning dumpster fire. I don't want to think about job applications or the fact that I’ll probably be living in my parents' basement until I’m thirty. I’d rather think about Mothman."

I looked at her. Really looked at her. She wasn't just a girl who liked weird stories. She was scared. She was just as terrified of the 'after' as I was. We spent four years pretending we were adults, and now the simulation was ending, and the real world looked cold and empty.

"I’m scared too," I said. It was the first honest thing I’d said all day. "I keep looking at LinkedIn and I feel like I’m looking at a foreign language. Everyone has these 'passions' and 'goals,' and I’m just trying to figure out how to pay for my own Netflix account."

She laughed, a short, sharp sound that broke the tension. "Netflix is overrated. We’ll just pirate everything. It’s the Gen Z way."

She offered me the vape. I took a hit, the sugary steam coating my tongue. We sat there in silence for a long time, the shadows stretching out across the mud. The absurdity of the situation started to sink in—the duct tape, the 'Yeti fur' box, the fact that we were lost in a three-acre patch of woods behind a gymnasium because I was too chicken to just ask her out.

"You know," she said, leaning her head back to look at the sky. "The tracks were actually okay. The toe placement was a bit symmetrical, but the depth was good."

"Thanks," I said, a small smile finally finding its way to my face. "I worked hard on the symmetry."

"And you got me out here," she added, turning her head to look at me. The distance between us on the log felt much smaller than it had five minutes ago. "Away from the screens. Away from the noise. It’s actually kind of nice. Minus the wet socks."

"I can give you my socks," I offered. "They’re only slightly damp."

"Hard pass," she said, but she didn't pull away when I shifted closer.

The air felt different now. The panic of being lost had faded into a weird, suspended reality. The woods felt quiet, expectant. I could see the fine lines of her profile, the way her hair caught the last of the light. My heart wasn't thudding anymore; it was just a steady, low hum.

"Wendy?"

"Yeah?"

"I didn't do this just because of the cryptid stuff. I did it because I... I really like talking to you. Even when you’re making fun of my shoes."

She didn't say anything for a second. She just looked at me, her eyes searching mine. Then, she reached out and grabbed the front of my hoodie, pulling me toward her. The kiss was clumsy. My nose hit hers, and she smelled like blue raspberry and cold air, but it was the best thing that had happened to me in four years of higher education. It was real. It wasn't a prank, or a story, or a theory. It was just us.

When she pulled back, she was smiling. A real smile, without the irony. "Okay. That was better than 'mid.'"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But we still need to find the way back, Peter. If I die out here because of a fake Bigfoot, I’m going to haunt your dorm room forever."

I stood up, my legs feeling a bit like jelly. I looked around, and this time, I saw a familiar break in the canopy—the way the light hit the ridge where the cell tower stood. "That way," I said, pointing North. "The gym is right over that hill."

We started walking, her hand finding mine. The mud was still gross, and my feet were freezing, but I didn't care. We were moving together, stepping over the rotting logs and the dead leaves of the past season. The spring was messy, sure. It was ugly and wet and confusing. But things were starting to grow under the slush.

As we crested the hill and saw the orange glow of the high school lights in the distance, a sound echoed from deep within the ravine we had just left. It wasn't a bird, and it wasn't a coyote. It was a long, low howl that vibrated in the marrow of my bones. Wendy froze, her grip on my hand tightening until it hurt.

We didn't look back. We just ran toward the light, the sound of the howl following us like a promise of things we weren't ready to understand.