The Great Outdoors Pt. 02

Heads up! This story is pretty messed up and is intended for adults. Don't read it if you're under 18. Tags in the description.

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Part 2

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Fanciers of Hemp Seeds and Water-Melon Seeds

Story told by Kochokoev Erjib, 70 years, Kabardian, inhabitant of Stary Cherek.

Before the war, there were many almastys around our area, even masses of them, one can

say. Today, evidently, very few are encountered. I am somewhat informed about almastys, because I have heard a great deal spoken about them. Personally, I have seen them three times.

The first time was in October 1944. Our detachment (of police) was on horseback, crossing a field of hemp, on the steppe... Suddenly, the horse of the first man stopped so abruptly that I almost ran into it. I was riding second in line...He said to me: "Look! An almasty:" Just in front of us, a few meters away, an almasty was stuffing into its mouth the ends of stalks of hemp, with the grains on them. Behind us, the detachment was gathering around and making some noise. It saw us and ran away very rapidly -- it ran extraordinarily fast -- toward a shepherd's cabin, which was not far away. While it was running, several men of our detachment took their rifles from their shoulders and prepared to fire, but our chief, a Russian officer from Nalchik, cried out: "Don't shoot, don't shoot. Let's capture it alive and take it to Nalchik."

We dismounted and surrounded the shepherd's cabin. We were quite numerous, and were able to form a solid circle around the cabin. I was just opposite the door, and saw everything very well. When we approached, the almasty came out of the cabin two or three times, in one bound. It appeared very agitated; it came out, moved around, jumped to one side, but then saw the men. It went back in in one jump, leaped out again right away, jumped to

another side, but there also it saw the men. In doing this, it grimaced, with its lips moving very, very fast, and it mumbled something.

Meanwhile, our cordon was approaching. We had closed ranks, and were advancing elbow to elbow. At this moment the almasty appeared again, jumped in all directions and, suddenly, gave a terrible cry and ran straight at the men. It ran faster than a horse. To tell the truth, the men were taken by surprise. It easily broke through our cordon, jumped into the ravine and disappeared in the brush surrounding the river.

It was about 1m80 in height, and very robust. One could not see its face well because of the hair. Its very large breasts hung down to its middle. It was covered with long shaggy red hair, like that of the buffalo.

From The Relict Hominoid Inquiry 4:79-105 (2015)

*Editor's Note: This article was originally published in Archéologia 269:24-43, June 1991, in French. It was translated into English by Dr. Edward Winn, March 1993. Much of Dr. Koffmann's original publications have remained relatively inaccessible to English-speakers. Portions have been summarized and restated by such authors as Tchernine, Shackley, or Bayanov. While this article was written for a semi-popular publication, this translation provides fuller access by Anglophones to Dr. Koffmann's own discussion of her seminal field research. Therefore, it is deemed appropriate to reprint this classical work, with the author's permission, in the RHI.

© RHI Article Reprint The Almasty - Yeti of the Caucasus*, Marie-Jeanne Koffmann

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Emily awoke to the smell of cooking fish. Her stomach groaned. She groggily unzipped the tent and stiffly pulled her hiking boots on. Great, she was probably getting blisters, the boots felt tight. As she stood up and looked around, she didn't see the other girls, just the campstove, still lit, and an enamel plate stacked with fish.

"What the fuck?" She turned off the stove. "What is this? Hey Claire, Sush, are you up? Get out here!"

Claire and Sushmita groaned from inside their tents.

The girls were stumped. "What do we think?" Emily pondered theatrically "Crazed mountain man out to poison us? Raccoon learning to cook? An elaborate trout suicide?"

"Which one of you was sleep-fishing?" asked Sushmita

"I know it's irresponsible but actually it smells great. I think I'm going to eat it." said Claire "I'm starving this morning, we only have the food we're carrying and and can't think of a reason anyone would want to poison us."

"Homicidal maniacs don't need a reason to poison women they find in the woods!" said Emily.

Sushmita had already expertly grabbed the trout's head and pulled the spine out of her fillet, quickly shovelling the meat down. In a moment they all were. And when all the fish was gone they still ate their planned breakfast of overnight oats.

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As they climbed higher on Capilano mountain, the landscape took on a more alpine character and the heat of the sun wasn't so unbearable. Patches of snow peeked out from under bushes and outcrops.The ascent wasn't technical but they found themselves resting frequently and snacking heavily. Emily adjusted her pack often. Claire found herself loosening her laces a couple times.

The day passed without incident. The view from the summit was breathtaking, even if the snow cover made progress slow. Emily's gore-tex layer felt tight on her chest. Maybe I'm just wearing different layers than last time, she thought. I don't know, it's riding so high. Were the sleeves always this short?

Claire looked down into the valley the way they had come up and thought she could see the dark figures of two hikers in the distance, one tall one short.

Sushmita went off behind a boulder for a discrete pee. When she pulled her panties down, she thought she noticed that her pubic hair was thicker, maybe darker? That's probably not true, she thought, but did it always cover so much area? Maybe I should start shaving. I swear it even seems longer. But that doesn't make any sense.

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They set up camp near Beth Lake, safely back under the tree line.

"I would kill a man for pizza right now" said Emily

"Told ya" said Claire, throwing her a bean burrito.

"Hey do you guys smell smoke?" Sushmita was down by the edge of the lake. "Hey yeah, look there, by that big pine" a thin plume of smoke drifted lazily out across the water. "Do you want to go see what it is?"

"It's probably just other hikers. I'd say we should leave them alone but I'm starting to become concerned that we didn't bring enough food on this trip." Emily said "maybe we should check it out."

"Maybe. But I'm just exhausted right now. They're probably making camp for the night, we can catch them in the morning." said Claire, before returning to her burrito.

"Hey, is anyone else itchy? I feel itchy all over." Sushmita scratched at her neck and arms.

"Probably just pollen allergies or something" said Emily, visibly disappointed that her burrito was already gone.

"Maybe, but I don't feel it in my throat or nose or anything."

"Huh. weird" Having finished her dinner, Claire let down her hair, which almost brushed the tops of her shoulders, and started hunting for her toiletries in her backpack. "I've got some hand lotion and some afterbite if you think it might help"

They slept deeply that night. Jennifer and A'heuk decided not to enter their camp.

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"I know Jane Goodall and other biologists or primatologists or, you know, non-crackpot scientists say they could exist. Sure yes, people who spend a lot of time outside believe in them. And, look, I'm an indoor person. An indoor kid, I guess you could say. Maybe I shouldn't pretend to know more than Jane Goodall and Les Stroud. But I don't believe such massive creatures could hide. They'd need to have elaborate secret cave systems that were big enough for them to live in. not hide in, live in, and the caves would also have to have entrances so small that no one would find them. And, presumably, big enough catacombs to hold a geological epoch's worth of bones."

"What would they eat? The forests can support one bear for every 1000 salmon. One wolf for every 400 deer. Just biologically speaking there's no way. There's no way. Unless they have a secret underground grow-op with acres of, like, hydroponic lentils, there's no way"

-John Rostoffer, Skepticast, episode 2.3, Cryptids and Crackpots, August 7, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

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Emily woke up with her feet pushing against the screen at the bottom of her tent. This was not, in itself, unusual. It was an ultralight, one person tent and if she moved around at night, she usually ended up touching the walls. As her consciousness dawned, however, she became aware that her head was pushing up against her pack, mashing against the screen of the tent door. And this was unusual. This tent was supposed to be 6 feet long. She didn't think about it for very long because she heard yelling outside the tent. In her hurry, she didn't even put on her boots.

Claire was in an absolute state, her long hair undone around her shoulders, her eyes crispy with sleep. Emily thought she could hear her stomach growl.

"No no no, what is happening? Why won't you fit?" She sat on a log and struggled with her boots. She had successfully jammed her foot into one of her boots, but they felt impossibly tight.

"Are you sure those aren't Sush's boots?"

"I know what boots I have!" snapped Claire "Something is going on with my feet. Like they're swollen or something"

"Maybe you're pregnant"

"That's not helpful Emily! I'm freaking out here! Something is happening!" She wrestled the boot off. Her foot appeared to be as long as the boot itself.

"Whoa" said Emily

"Don't look at me like that. Look at your own feet"

"There's nothing wrong with my..." Emily looked down "oh what the fuck!"

It's not easy to judge the size of your own foot visually, but Emily could tell something was up. She stepped back to her tent and grabbed her size 9 boots. They looked pitifully small. "What the fuck!"

"Em, can I try your boots? I don't know what to do."

"Uh, uh, uh, I guess so yeah. I guess I can't wear them anymore. What the fuck is going on."

They were interrupted by a distressed moaning from Sushmita's tent.

"What is this? Where did it come from! It's all over me"

"Sush? Sweetie? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Sushmita unzipped the door to her tent "I'm covered in hair! My legs my arms my chest! I'm all hairy! I look like my dad! Why is this happening? How! Make it stop!" In truth, her hair didn't cover everything. She looked like she hadn't shaved her legs in a while, and her arms had caught up with her legs, but nothing truly extraordinary, except that it had all grown in last night. Under her clothes, her pubic hair had doubled its territory, and was sending exploratory colonists up her chest.

"...Allergic reaction?" Emily ventured. Sushmita glared.

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After they freaked out for a bit, and then calmed down for a bit, and then ravenously ate the day's breakfast and some of the day's lunch, they started to work out what to do next.

"Okay, let's lay it out. Everything out in the open. What's happening to us? I'll go first." My feet have gone from size 5 to size 9. Maybe nine and a half. My bra feels tight. I'm hungry all the time. I'm scared and I want to go home" Claire said, opening a second powerbar in as many minutes.

"And your hair's longer." Said Emily

"What?!" Claire pulled at her red locks "Aaahhhh! I hate this I hate this I hate this!"

"At least it looks good on you!" blurted Sushmita "I'm turning into Chewbacca over here. Look at this." She lifted her chin and turned up her cheek "Stubble! I've got a moustache like a 13 year old boy. My armpits are bushy. And I used to be size 3 and now I almost fit into Claire's boots. And I'm also super hungry"

"Oh c'mon. I've got aunties who are hairier than you. That's peach fuzz" this was, at best, debatably true (Auntie Ife was pretty hairy after all), but Emily thought it would help Sushmita feel better. It did not. Sushmita's hair was fine and wispy, but it was already forming patterns of density along the centre of her torso and down her lower back. A dark patch could be seen just above the neckline of her top.

"I don't know how big my feet are except that they're too big for my boots, my bra is tight, my pants are tight and now my sleeves feel short. I think I'm getting taller." The last word caught in Emily's throat. There was something almost... exciting about it, but she didn't want to give that emotion any space to breathe.

"Taller? You're already tall! How come you get to be taller and I need a full-body waxing? It's not fair."

Claire had collected herself a little. "We have to get off this mountain. We have to get back to the SUV at the trailhead."

"That's like a day's walk minimum. We'll run out of food by then. And I don't know if I can walk that far barefoot."

"What about the other hikers? Maybe they have food?" Claire and Emily looked at Sushmita. They had forgotten about the possibility of other hikers around the side of the lake. "We should hurry. They might have broken camp already."

In a rush, the girls left their tents and made for the trail around the lake. They hopefully, breathlessly came upon the area where the smoke seemed to have come from. From out of the thicket, they came into a small clearing on the lakeshore, only to make a cautious approach to a strange construction of stripped branches that stood there. Something hung in the centre, almost like a cradle.

"It's a deer." said Sushmita "It was a deer, I mean"

On a roughly-constructed wooden spit, a headless deer carcass steamed low above a gently smoking bed of charcoal and ash, which clearly had recently been a substantial fire.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck" Emily just stared at it. The deer had been cleanly beheaded and the fur perfectly burnt off. The organs were laid out on flat slates around the fire. It smelled delicious.

"This is so much weirder than the fish" Claire said "I wonder who left it. And why"

"Well, they're gone, so we should eat it." Emily said. The words were out of her mouth much faster than she expected.

"What happened to the homicidal mountain men?" teased Sushmita.

"I don't know. I don't care. I'm so hungry."

That basically settled it. They sliced open the deer with Sushmita's pocketknife to see if it was cooked through, and then they hoisted the spit off of the two prongs that held it on either side and laid the deer on a nearby boulder. Nobody said a word. They simply went to work with their camping knives and they ate.

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None of them were even aware how much time had passed until Claire looked down at her watch and said that it was already 2:30 and that they wouldn't make the trailhead today, even if they scrambled. Sushmita was in a daze, and even in her hoodie a little food baby was visible. Emily struggled towards wakefulness in a patch of moss. It was like coming back to the surface after spending slightly too long underwater. The world began to come into focus but never quite got there. The deer was half gone. Everything still seemed like a dream.

They decided to spend the day at the lake, building their strength, foraging for wild edibles and trying to forget about the changes. After all, they were all feeling much better after a big meal. They brought their tents over to the deer spit, reasoning that if the other hikers came back they would know where to find them, although when they returned to the clearing with their packs, they found a large wicker basket full of lake trout and mushrooms. Waiting for them, maybe. They rekindled the cooking fire with deadfall wood and grilled the fish on the slates. There had to be 12 or 15 of them, but as soon as each was cooked, one of the girls ate it.

Claire stripped down to her skivvies and went for a swim in the lake. At this elevation she expected the water to be unbearably frigid, but found that it didn't bother her at all. She paddled about and then dove under the crystal-clear water. She was never much of a swimmer before, but her kicks felt extra powerful. Maybe these big feet would be good for something after all. Her red hair streamed behind her, billowing when she bobbed to the surface.

Emily had been poking around the shoreline, collecting mallows and cattail roots, and decided to join her. Claire just looked so free. Her 34-D bra felt tight, so she stripped it off too, flinging it lazily towards the area of the camp. The waistband of her underwear was also digging in, so she took those off as well. The water felt amazing and refreshing. Her whole body felt light. She felt like she was stretching out for the first time in forever. Maybe for the first time in her life.

Sushmita appeared in the sky above her, a naked cannonball flying off a high rock wall beside the lake. In the breathless moment before she hit the water, she screamed in exhilaration. When she came up from her dive, her nipples were hard from the cold water, peeking through light patches of chest hair. Things were going to be ok. This was going to be ok. She could feel it. She felt sleek. Sexy even. She tried out the word in her mind, and it felt right. She felt every ripple of water, every kick of her legs or splash of her arms, playing in her new hair.

The girls dried off in the blazing late afternoon sun. They laughed and joked and finished eating the deer and the rest of their packed food and the organs and the mallows and even the mushrooms, despite their absence from Sushmita's field guide. Emily even took her hatchet and cracked the bones open for the marrow.

Getting dressed again, Claire found that even Emily's boots didn't fit anymore, and she just laughed.

Brushing her teeth, Sushmita pulled a mirror out of her toiletries and observed the progress of her beard. She smiled at herself, feeling proud of how fast it was filling out. She found her A-cup sports bra but it was uncomfortably tight, so she took it off again.

Emily lay down in her tent and found that there was no room for her pack between her head and the door. She grinned. She was going to be gigantic.

That night, Jennifer and A'heuk returned to the cave complex through a hidden entrance far up a crevasse. They bantered through the passage. A'heuk was impressed with Emily cracking open the bones. Jennifer observed that they were all experiencing different changes, and that Emily seemed hungrier than the others. A'heuk said that to truly join the tribe you must drink from all three springs, which made Jennifer worry even more about what would happen to them. A'heuk shrugged. They moved with total confidence through the pitch dark tunnels until they reached the mushroom fields, a sprawling underground cavity that glowed with the phosphorescent light of thousands of bioluminescent fungus. They filled several willow baskets to bring back for the girls.

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Sushmita Gaddam (25)

Height 4'9" 145 cm

Chapter End No change

Shoe Size 7 ⅞" (size 3) 20 cm (size 33.5)

Chapter End 8 1/2" (size 4.5) 22cm (size 34)

Bust 32A

Chapter End 32B

Hips 30" 76 cm

Chapter End 31" 79 cm

Hair Just over shoulders when down, mostly up in a ponytail for hiking