Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter by Josh Gates Read Free Book Online Page A

glances along the ground and happen to notice a distinct marking in the nearby mud. I do a double take, see what appear to be toe prints, and quickly swat through the brush to get a better look. I call over the reporter, who happens to be standing closest to me. We both crouch down in disbelief at what is now unmistakably a footprint-shaped cavity. “Carter!” I scream out. “Get a camera over here!”
    Before I know it, I’m surrounded by people staring down at a seventeen-inch-long mystery print. We scour for more, but the patch of mud is surrounded by hard earth and a few indistinct depressions. A Seekers girl pipes up and says, “Now what?” Good question. It never occurred to me that anything like this would actually happen, so I’m at an absolute loss as to what to do next. With cameras rolling, people crowding around me (and my career as a televised explorer possibly hanging in the balance), I’m hoping for a miracle. My salvation appears in the form of a slight-statured Singaporean girl from SPI who quietly says, “Should we cast it?”
    I crane up from the dirt. “Hold on. Do you have casting powder?”
    “Yes,” she says enthusiastically, adding, “but I’m not really sure how to use it.”
    She hands me a box of powder marked “State Crime Lab.” Even though I don’t have a clue how to use this stuff, it’s starting to get dark here in tiger town, and nobody else is taking the reins. I’m not all that keen on being eaten alive, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen enough episodes of CSI to pull this off. I make quick work of mixing the powder with bottled water, and once the mix reaches the consistency of pancake batter, I start filling in the depression. It seems as though it’s going to take some time to harden, so I quickly wash off my hands and grab the satellite phone out of Eric’s bag.
    I rush out to the middle of the empty road looking for a signal. I breathlessly punch in Neil’s cell phone number and listen impatiently as the other end rings. “Hello?”
    “Neil. It’s Josh. We found something!”
    I explain the situation, and I can hear him grabbing car keys and running out of his hotel room. There are a lot of considerations to be made, and both of us are talking them through as we think of them. At the forefront of our minds is the problem of dominion. For foreigners in Malaysia, it isn’t easy to just stroll off with a Bigfoot print, especially considering the current media attention this story is getting. Neither of us wants to lose control of our find, but with a reporter, two other teams of investigators, and Malaysian nationals all over the scene, it’s all but guaranteed that we’re leaving these jungles empty-handed. We agree to at least photograph the casting extensively and make a duplicate print, if possible.
    After hanging up, I return to the woods, where the plaster is now as hard as rock. Flicking open a Spyderco knife, I set to work on digging the impression out of the earth, working around the digits and loosening the surrounding dirt. By flashlight I extract the print, hoping not to break it in half in front of an audience. To my amazement the footprint pops out of the earth in one piece, and we quickly but carefully carry it out to the road. Uncle suggests that he bring the print to The Seekers’ headquarters in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, where we can all reconvene the next day. The sudden ownership exerted over the casting doesn’t come as a surprise. I manage to carve my name and the date into the back of the plaster for posterity, and we photograph the print from every angle.
    The cast is wrapped rather unceremoniously in T-shirts and loaded into the back of Uncle’s truck. We head out and eventually meet Neil at the intersection of the main highway. He’s absolutely beaming at the discovery. We all are. It’s surreal. We head back to our hotel in high spirits, stopping to eat questionable but delicious chicken burgers from a street vendor outside