‘WE FOUND A SASQUATCH INFANT AND INSTANTLY REGRETTED IT’

WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE CHILD WHERE WE FOUND IT

I still wake up shaking when I hear a baby cry.

Not because it reminds me of my own children, but because it reminds me of the one we took—
and the price my partner paid for that mistake.

Twenty-three years have passed since that day in the Olympic National Forest, yet the memory feels closer than yesterday. The forest has a way of keeping things alive, especially guilt.

It was late September when the call came in. A group of seasoned backpackers reported hearing a baby crying deep in the old-growth forest—hours of it. They weren’t panicked tourists. These were people who knew the wilderness, people who knew the difference between imagination and instinct.

My partner and I had a combined fifteen years in those woods. We’d heard everything nature could scream, howl, or whisper.

But a crying baby?

That didn’t belong out there.

Three miles into the forest, we heard it. A sound that tightened something in my chest before my brain could make sense of it. It was almost human—almost—but the pitch was wrong. Too deep. Too steady. No pauses for breath the way a real infant cries.

We followed the sound off the trail, pushing through moss and rot so thick it felt like walking through time itself. The trees grew massive, ancient, their trunks scarred by centuries. When we finally saw the source, neither of us spoke.

At first glance, it looked like a toddler sitting against a cedar tree, knees pulled to its chest. But as we stepped closer, the illusion fell apart.

Its body was covered in dark hair. Its arms were too long. Its hands and feet were impossibly large. And its face—God help me—was wrong in a way that made my stomach twist. Human enough to recognize fear. Alien enough to make my instincts scream.

It stopped crying when it saw us.

Instead, it whimpered and reached out, just like any frightened child would.

My partner moved first. He was a father of three. Compassion had always been his weakness and his strength. He whispered that we couldn’t just leave it there. That something so small wouldn’t survive alone.

I hesitated. Every part of me felt watched.

But empathy won.

We convinced ourselves it was some unknown primate, maybe sick, maybe abandoned. We told ourselves biologists would know what to do. We told ourselves we were doing the right thing.

The moment my partner lifted the creature, the forest died.

No birds. No wind. No insects.

Silence thick enough to suffocate.

The infant clung to him tightly, warm and strong. Too strong. And as we began the hike back, I noticed something else—massive footprints in the soft earth near a stream. Eighteen inches long. Human-shaped. Fresh.

The stride between them was terrifying.

That’s when the truth hit us.

We weren’t rescuing a lost child.

We had stolen one.

The first call came from behind us—deep, resonant, vibrating through bone and soil. It wasn’t a roar. It was a voice. The infant responded immediately, its smaller call filled with urgency and relief.

Whatever was out there was coming.

Fast.

Branches snapped. Trees shook. The sounds weren’t careless; they were deliberate. This thing didn’t charge blindly. It tracked us.

We tried to change direction. The crashing grew closer. Angrier.

Then we saw it.

Eight feet tall. Maybe more. Covered in dark hair, moving upright with terrifying intelligence. Its eyes locked onto the infant in my partner’s arms, and in that moment, I understood something horrifying.

This wasn’t rage.

It was parental fury.

The trail curved, and suddenly the creature stood directly ahead of us, blocking our path. It didn’t posture. It didn’t hesitate.

It charged.

My partner barely had time to set the infant down before the creature hit him with the force of a vehicle. The sound of his body striking the tree still lives in my ears. Bones breaking. Breath stolen.

The infant scrambled to the creature’s leg, clinging to it like a human child would.

The adult loomed over my partner, making sounds that felt like warnings carved into air itself.

I tried to call for help.

Static.

The creature looked at me.

There was no mindless aggression in its eyes. Only judgment.

And fear broke me.

I ran.

I left my partner behind with something that should not exist.

I heard him scream once.

Then nothing.

Every step away from him felt like betrayal. But my body didn’t stop. Survival is a cruel instinct—it doesn’t care about honor.

I forced myself to turn back minutes later, shaking, sobbing, ready to die if I had to.

The clearing was empty.

The creature was gone.

So was the infant.

My partner lay crumpled at the base of the tree, barely breathing. Broken arm. Internal injuries. Blood at his mouth.

Alive.

I dragged him back mile by mile, building a stretcher from branches and rope. As I pulled him through the forest, I realized we were no longer alone.

They were watching.

Not one. Many.

Tall shapes moving silently between trees. Never threatening. Never intervening. Escorting us.

When they called to each other, the sound was mournful, not hostile. Like communication. Like grief.

When rescue finally came, the watchers faded into the forest, all except one. It stood at the edge of the clearing, observing quietly as medics worked.

When our eyes met, I saw something I didn’t expect.

Understanding.

Not forgiveness. But recognition.

My partner died later that day from internal injuries.

The report called it an animal attack.

I retired soon after.

I still think about the infant we took. I hope it survived. I hope it grew up protected by a family that learned how dangerous we are.

The forest doesn’t belong to us.

It never did.

And sometimes, the most shocking truth isn’t that monsters exist—

It’s that they love their children just as fiercely as we do.