The passenger side door was half opened before the car had completely rolled to a stop, a bad habit Police Detective Nick Carter had developed from his days as a beat cop. His partner always told him he was sure to get run over eventually but it did nothing to kill his need to always keep one foot on the ground, ready to take action at a moment’s notice.

He slammed the door shut, his eyes fixed on the run down lodge that stood ahead of them. He imagined that at one time it would have been picturesque, a classic log cabin settled in front of a thick, green wood. Somewhere along the way the maintenance had gone by the wayside and now moss was sprouting out from between the logs, a swing on the porch was hanging precariously by a rusty chain and places he had imagined had once held hanging baskets full of colouring flowers now had various wild game hanging and waiting to be dealt with.

“I almost ran you over again!” a voice rang out in a concerned tone and Nick rolled his eyes.

“I wasn’t anywhere near the tires, Brian.” he told his partner flatly, feeling the smaller man sidle up next to him to take his own look at the building.

“You sure this is the right place? Did you read the address right?”

They were an odd pair but Nick trusted his partner with his life without a doubt. He had known Brian Littrell as long as he had been a detective, they were coming up on their five year anniversary together. They were both from southern states, Nick from Florida and Brian from Kentucky, shared a love of basketball and fast-food milkshakes and were passionate about the law. Brian had been working for the Special Investigation Division’s Missing Persons Squad for a couple of years before Nick came strolling through the doors. They’d worked hundreds of missing persons cases together, had saved countless lives, reunited families and had experienced the heartbreak that accompanied a case that ended fatally.

While many of the missing persons reports they followed up on were fairly run of the mill, some were a little left of centre. They’d dealt with people who were convinced their loved ones were abducted by aliens when they’d really just taken off to escape to a better life, complaints about missing children that turned out to be pets and a host of other duds. That morning they’d been assigned what Nick believed would be yet another dud.

The paperwork listed an address in what Nick affectionately referred to as the Hillbilly Highlands just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee and the complainant claimed his girlfriend had been missing for about a week after going for a walk in the woods. From some of the other details the guy seemed like a wack job, going on to the Sergeant on the phone about some sort of Bigfoot that was holding his sweetheart hostage in the woods.

Tuning back into his partner’s last comment Nick shook his head, “How could I get the address wrong? There’s only one house out here. This must be it.”

With a casual shrug Brian moved toward the cabin, stopping short of the door to check out the random collection of decor on the porch including a stack of large buck antlers and full-size deer pelts piled onto an old, wooden rocking chair.

“Look at this stuff,” Brian chuckled, reaching out to cautiously touch one of the pelts, “isn’t it neat?”

Nick’s already high-arching brow raised even higher, causing a ripple of creases to push across his forehead and he shook his head, “If slaughtering innocent animals for sport is neat, then sure. Real neat.”

The veteran detective chuckled and winked at his partner, “You’re such a hippie.”

“Just knock on the door,” Nick whined. “There’s a girl being held captive by Bigfoot and time is tickin’, partner.”

In the back of his mind Nick had been hoping that the guy on the other side of the door would turn out to be legitimate but he was barely two steps into the log cabin when he’d firmly decided that he was a nut job.

The man who filed the missing persons report was Kevin Richardson. He was a large man, fit and muscular from spending much of his time outside. He had dark hair kept in an old fashioned coif and thick, dark eyebrows that offset a squared-off jaw. He had been living in the cabin in the woods, “off the grid” so-to-speak, for most of his life. He insisted that the two detectives call him by his nickname, Gaston (which Nick firmly pledged to never do) and he began to tell Brian the story of his missing girlfriend as he’d reported it to the police while leading the pair into the main room of the cabin.

Nick stopped short as they walked into what seemed to be the living room, unable to tear his eyes away from an awkwardly large painted portrait of Richardson perched proudly on the mantle above a dark fireplace. He was posed, grinning proudly, one foot resting firmly on a chair that seemed to be carved from the bones of various animals, clutching a hunting rifle in one hand while the other held onto his hip. The man’s passion for sport hunting was made more apparent by more antlers, mounted animal heads and preserved fish displayed on every available wall.

“Can I get you guys something to drink?” the man asked, his voice raised just slightly above what was acceptable for an inside voice. “I was about to make myself a protein shake. Gotta keep my strength up.”

Nick held up a hand to interrupt, shaking his head negatively on behalf of the pair, “Look, Mr. Richardson-”

“Gaston.”

“Right. How about we talk about your girlfriend so we can hopefully get this all sorted out. I notice there isn’t much of a feminine touch in here - does your girlfriend live here?”

Richardson laughed loudly, shaking his head. “No, my sweet Belle lives with her father.”

“Why isn’t her father reporting her missing then?” Brian wondered, glancing up briefly from from the notepad he was scribbling away on.

“Everyone knows her father’s a lunatic. He’s not concerned that she’s with that...that...BEAST! There’s a castle in the woods, you see. Belle went into the woods last week and never came back. I know she’s with that hideous monster, locked away in his tower. Held against her will, no doubt!”

Nick moved around the room as Richardson went on about a large, ugly, hairy monster that had been terrorizing the locals as long as he could remember. Curiously, the detective glanced at the various nicknacks on the tables and shelves around the room, noting a lack of photographs. “How long have you and Miss...what did you say Belle’s last name was?”

“It’s just Belle,” Richardson explained and the two detectives shared an uneasy glance.

“Ok, how long have you and Belle been together?”

“We’re not together...yet. One day she’ll be my wife though. She’ll get her nose out of those books, get away from that...that...BEAST and we’ll be married.”

The man was grinning like an idiot and Nick clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, silently wondering how long a man had to live alone in a cabin in the woods before he reached that level of crazy.

“I actually wrote a song about it. I can sing it for you? No one sings like Gaston!”

“NO!” both Brian and Nick yelled simultaneously.

“No, thank you,” Brian added graciously, always the good-cop out of the pair of them. “I think we probably have everything we need, right Detective Carter?”

“Right,” Nick agreed, moving back across the room to where his partner still stood, nearly certain that if they stayed any longer they’d find their place as busts on the wall between the black bear and the caribou. “We’ll be in touch if we need any other information.”

“Alright,” the man agreed somewhat reluctantly. “If you need my help, say the word. I was thinking about getting some people together to go find her tonight.”

“Why don’t you leave the detective work to us?” Nick asked with a false grin. “We’ll be in touch.”

The two detectives quickly made their way out the log cabin, both taking a relieved breath once they’d made it safely back inside the car. Brian jammed the keys in the ignition, neither saying much until they were half a mile down the dirt road that would lead them back to civilization.

“Holy mother...” Brian trailed off, letting out a breath he had been holding for far too long. “That guy was...something else. Did you see that painting?”

Nick heard the words but his eyes were fixed on the woods that ran along the side of the road. For a brief moment he was sure he’d seen something watching them from beyond the trees, something larger than the average man, hunched and menacing with yellow eyes glowing from within the dark woods. Shaking his head free of the cobwebs, he chalked it up to his imagination getting away from him based on the stories they’d just heard from what may have been the craziest man they’d ever met in their professional careers.

“Yeah,” Nick finally answered despite the lengthy silence since the question. “We really need to talk to the desk Sergeant about doing a better job of screening reports. That guy was crazy.”

“I was waiting for him to gather a mob and storm into the woods with pitchforks and torches or something.”

Tilting his head in contemplation, Nick considered the possibility. “If I were Bigfoot I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’m sure buddy wrote a song to accompany them storming the ‘castle’ so he’ll likely hear them coming. What with the orchestration and all.”

The two of them immediately dissolved into giggles, Brian barely able to keep the car on the road as tears streamed down his face. It was sure to be a case (or lack of one) that they would laugh about for a long time to come.