Bouncing Antlers

About a year ago I went out on a search for Bigfoot once again with a large group of other believers. One of the members was a pilot who owned his own plane. He offered to fly us deep within Kantasy Forest. Most of us liked the idea, but there were a few that felt uneasy about it.
“We’re not supposed to go that deep within the forest.” One woman said nervously.
“Grow some backbone.” The group leader said crawling into the plane.
Personally I felt a little scared off getting lost, but there was no way I was going to act like a wimp around six body builders and a comedian. I then remembered a book I once read called Tracking in the Woods for dopeheads. Feeling better I hopped into the plane. I grumbled as I got to my feet and rubbed the bump on my head.
“You shouldn’t have tried hopping into the plane.” The group leader (whose name was Larry) said as I walked by him.
I sat down in the back and made myself comfortable. The other members slowly piled in the front seats, away from me. I found this odd but left the matter alone. Finally the last person reluctantly stepped into the plane. The nervous woman with no backbone walked down the plane to the only available seat left, the one next to me. She plopped down next to me and gazed over my shoulder out the window.
“Would you like the window seat?” I asked.
“Sure, thanks,” she replied switching seats.
I laid back and closed my eyes. It was going to be a short trip, but long enough for a short nap. I was soon awakened by the girl next to me gasping. I looked out the window to see if we had arrived in the forest. I then felt the plane begin to take off. I sighed with annoyance closed my eyes again. The woman had obviously never flown before. Or, better put, had never flown with a suspicious pilot before. I was quite used to it after many other Bigfoot and alien trips. Not bothered I soon fell asleep. I large jolt woke me up instantly. I knew the pilot could not be trusted. He was a cold blooded murderer who had jumped out of the plane and left us to die.
“We’ve landed everyone,” Larry said standing to his feet.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and got to my feet. As I walked out of the plane I bent down a bit to make sure that I didn’t hit my head on the doorway like before. I made sure I had about a five foot clearing. I later regretted this as the comedian made fun of me for crouching down in a tight ball. He was over reacting of course. I was only a loose ball. We set up camp in the small clearing he had landed on and pulled out the Bigfoot traps. After scouting out the area for good spots to put the traps we sat up all seven of them. I pulled out my journal and began cataloging everything we did for future reference. The sun soon disappeared behind the horizon (as if it disappears anywhere else) and a large fire was made in for all of us to sit around. A couple of the members, including myself, told stories of our past Bigfoot searches around the campfire for lack of anything better to do. I’m not sure many people actually listened. After a while we all crawled into our tents and went to sleep. I got up early the next morning and went outside to make myself breakfast. No one else had gotten up yet besides me. I decided it was because the sun had not risen yet. I knew I should have never taken a nap in the plane. Now I was never go to fall asleep again. I made hot chocolate, eggs, and toast for breakfast since I had brought a small generator. As I was cleaning up my breakfast I dropped a slice of bread. I grumbled and put my stuff away in my tent. When I came out the bread slice was gone. A small trail was left from the bread being dragged on the ground. I followed the trail a short distance into the woods before it disappeared under a log. Slowly I moved to the fallen log and peered over. A large rabbit sat on the other side nibbling the bread. I nearly fainted as I saw that the rabbit had antlers sticking out from its head. The creature looked up at me and froze. It must have been quite a spectacle to see us both too shocked to move. Suddenly the rabbit disappeared into the forest as I bounded away. When I came back to camp I quickly wrote what happened in my journal and sat in my tent thinking about it for a long time. When I came out of my tent, the sun had gone high into the sky and most everyone was awake. I walked over to Larry and greeted him.
“Good morning Larry, did you sleep well?” I asked.
“Yeah, but some idiot was up before the sun rise running around the camp.” Larry replied.
“That stinks; by the way do you know anything about a rabbit with antlers?”
“You mean a Jackalope? They don’t exist. They’re a myth.”
It was then that for the first time I questioned the existence of Bigfoot. Maybe he was just a myth to. I quickly straightened myself out and felt dumb as everyone watched me punch myself in the face. I explained what I did and they all took turns slapping me. Larry later told me that it was for my own good, but I’m not sure since he was trying his hardest to suppress laughter. A little after lunch it was time to check our Bigfoot traps. We split up into small groups to make sure no one got hurt from the Bigfoot’s amazing strength. Larry put me with the pilot, the lady who sat next to me and myself in a group and sent us off for one of the traps deep within the forest. As we walked up to the trap we were disappointed to find that it was empty. We turned back to camp and, with my expert tracking skills, got lost.
“Did we come from that direction or that direction?” I asked looking around.
“I knew we shouldn’t have come this far into the forest. Now we’re going to die.” The lady said miserably.
“She’s a bit unsure of our great skills.” I said turning to the pilot. “By her face on the plane she didn’t believe you could get us out here alive. I, on the other hand, never questioned what a good man you are.”
The pilot nodded and began walking off.
“Where are you going?” I called to him.
“I always question what sort of man you are. I’m heading back to camp myself since you went and got us lost.” He called back.
“Should we follow him?” The lady asked.
“No way, he’ll get us even more lost. I think I found the right direction. Let’s go this way.”
We walked off into the woods and found that we weren’t going in the right direction, but I didn’t say a word to the girl. I slyly began edging to my left and the girl never even seemed to notice. Soon we were heading in, what I then believed, was the right direction. I soon felt tired and we sat down on a log. I took note of our surroundings to make sure we didn’t get even more lost. Suddenly a scratching noise came from behind me. I turned around and saw the same rabbit with antlers was digging in the ground. I froze again and the girl next to me turned to see what I was looking at. A high pitched scream soared through the air.
“Stop screaming,” The girl said, shoving her fingers in her ears.
I stopped and made eye contact with the rabbit. The creature turned from me to the girl then back again. I bounded away through the forest and I quickly ran after it. I heard the girl running behind me. Finally she was doing something useful. The rabbit hopped into a tree and soon disappeared. I continued walking for a few minutes, stunned by the encounter, and then realized that the Jackalope had led us back to camp. As we walked up we were greeted by Larry and the pilot.
“What happened to you guys? We were just about to go out searching for you.” Larry said.
“We saw the rabbit thing again, what did you call it, a Jackalope? Yes, we saw a Jackalope. Me and, um… what is your name?’
“Charlene,” The girl replied.
“I and Charlene saw a Jackalope. We really did.”
“What really happened?” Larry asked turning to the girl named Charlene.
“Well, we got lost and were separated from the pilot. Then Dr.VonGon thought he knew the direction to camp which got us more lost so he carefully began moving south, I don’t know why he didn’t just turn and walk, but we sat down and found a rabbit with antlers. After he screeched at the top of his lungs we followed it back to camp where it disappeared into the trees.” Charlene replied.
A few days later we all packed up our stuff and climbed back onto the plane. I sat in the back next to the comedian who made fun of me the whole flight. When we landed I found my car and threw my stuff in the back. I found that Charlene didn’t have a ride and that she lived not far from my house. I drove her home then realized that I had left her stuff back at the plane. I drove all the way back and brought it to her. I drove back to my house and put my junk away. When I got in bed that night I began to think of the Jackalope I saw. I promised myself that I would go searching for the creature again someday.

-Dr. VonGon