Big

The story unfolds in the mountains of Washington State, where bigfoot sightings occur regularly.

It begins with a hunter encountering and then wounding a bigfoot with a shotgun blast to its upper back. Shot, bleeding, but not quite dead, the bigfoot passes out beside a stream deep in the woods. It is discovered by Marcy Dillon, a high school senior who intends to go to medical school. She has gone to the stream to gather herbs for an important school project.

As Marcy approaches the bigfoot, it revives and is rightfully terrified of her, but it is too weak to harm her. Given the reprieve, she manages to convince it that she wants to help it, not harm it any further.

Marcy is a small-town girl with big-town, world-class abilities, and she assumes responsibility for helping the bigfoot recover enough strength and stamina to return to wherever it came from.

She proceeds to feed it, then prepares a poultice pack of herbs to stop the wound’s bleeding, and to help it heal. She then returns home to get help from her father and boyfriend.

What Marcy does not realize is that the hunter who shot the bigfoot returned to their isolated hometown, and the bigfoot tracked him down to exact revenge. Now everyone in the town knows a seriously wounded bigfoot is somewhere up in the forested mountains surrounding them.

If the bigfoot can be successfully recovered, dead or alive, it will be worth a fortune in earned income and publicity for their isolated area. A large posse of local men is gathered to begin the hunt in earnest. That posse includes Marcy’s father and boyfriend, both of whom she tries to dissuade from going, but both refuse.

Her advantage is that she knows precisely where the bigfoot is, so she sneaks away ahead of the posse and rouses him, prodding him to get him up and moving beyond the reach of the posse and their relentless hunting dogs.

It will be a life-and-death race for the bigfoot, but soon after their journey begins, it becomes life-and-death for Marcy, too. Now, however, she has no choice but to continue onward to meet whatever fate has in store for both of them.

The final leg of the chase takes Marcy and her charge out the very edge of mental and physical hardship, and without incredible courage and tenacity on both their parts, they would not stand a chance. And then, when it seems as if they might prevail against the odds stacked so high against them, the very worst happens.

This story will keep you turning pages from start to finish. Read the excerpt and see for yourself.