The Hunt by Eirinn Cunningham is a Sasquatch novella about a group of deer hunters who encounter the cryptid in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Subtitled There’s Something Waiting in the Dark, The Hunt is Book 1 in a series titled Coral Pond.
The main character, Drew Peters, is a former police officer on a deer hunt with seven other friends and acquaintances. Nothing out of the ordinary happens on this hunt until Drew’s friend Milton claims he killed a big buck that had disappeared when he returned to retrieve it the next morning.
Drew thought, “What animal can take a deer carcass away leaving little to no trace?”
He’ll find out soon enough as evidence starts to mount that the group is not alone.
Dekker, who’s on the trip with his son Teddy, sees a flash of an unidentified creature in his rifle scope, not once but twice. A second deer carcass shot by a man named Casper disappears surrounded by huge tracks in the snow. Following the tracks, the hunters detect a smell like “rotten eggs and hot garbage mixed together.”
Yes, the men are definitely in Sasquatch territory, but it takes a heavy log tossed from the woods to make the humans retreat to the main camp building. With one man seriously injured and another remaining at the camp to tend to his wound, the other six hunters develop an attack plan.
“There’s only one of it and six of us,” said Casper.
Famous last words, right?
Dividing into two groups of three, the hunters head into the elements to battle the beast. The interactions among the men are realistic, and the climactic action scene is thrilling.
Released in July 2022, The Hunt is a quick 61-page read with a twist at the end plus a promising sequel setup. With 200 reviews, the novella’s Amazon rating is a solid 4 out of 5 stars. The top reviews praise its fast-paced action and straightforward writing. There was only one review from the negative ratings, and that reader didn’t like the “to be continued” ending.
I enjoyed The Hunt. It’s a no-frills creature feature, and the author knows enough about the subject to name-drop noted anthology professor and Bigfoot researcher Jeff Meldrum into his story. I look forward to the sequel.
NEXT UP: Chapter Fifty-Six: The Muck Hollow Monster. I review the 2022 novella by Harlan Graves.
THE BIGFOOT FILES
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