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October 3, 2025 19 mins
The Last Case of Detective Cole.
 
Jacob Cole was only ten, but he had already made up his mind about his future: he was going to be the world’s greatest detective, just like his dad—and, of course, like Batman.
Every evening after dinner, he curled up in the corner of their small, log-walled living room with a detective comic in one hand and a notepad in the other.

The next story on this episode is called Rosalyn's Revenge. Enjoy... 
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Jacob was only ten, but he had already made up
his mind about his future. He was going to be
the world's greatest detective, just like his dad, and of
course like Batman. Every evening after dinner, he curled up
into the corner of their small log walled living room

(00:21):
with a detective comic in one hand and a notepad
in the other. The flickering firelight made his imagination come
alive as he scribbled down clues and theories from the pages.
His father, Detective Robert Cole, had recently taken a leave

(00:41):
of absence from the city Force, an illness, to be
more exact, one he prayed he could recover from this place.
This cabin, hopefully would be good to spend some quiet
time in the mountains with Jacob after a long, grueling case,
or so he thought. A friend had reached out to him,

(01:05):
and as he pulled up at the base of the mountain,
the engines rumble, fading into the quiet. Robert tightened his
coat against the chill and stepped into the brittle scent
of pine needle and decay that filled the air. The
report had been vague from what had been shared with him.
Animal carcasses mutilated in unnatural ways. His friend, a local

(01:30):
trapper pale as death, had spoken of something wrong in
the woods. When Harper found the first body, a deer,
its rib cage splayed open, as though by massive hands.
He felt a cold knot of dread twist in his chest.
No tracks led to or from the scene, no signs

(01:52):
of struggle. The wounds were too precise for a bear,
too savage for a human. As the sun dipped behind
the mountains, the air grew heavy with silence. He scanned
the darkening forest. Then he heard it, low, guttural breathing.
Something moved in the shadows, and in the moment he

(02:16):
realized he was no longer alone. Their cabin sat alone
at the edge of a vast forest, the nearest neighbor
miles away. It was peaceful until it wasn't. Another sign
came on a chilly evening in early spring. Jacob had
stepped outside to gather firewood. The sun was setting, casting

(02:41):
long shadows through the trees. He had just bent down
to pick up a log when a sound made him freeze.
A branch broke somewhere in the distance, but it was heavy,
like something far larger than a deer. Had stepped on it.
His heart quickened. Slowly. He stood up, his eyes scanning

(03:04):
the forest's edge. Dad, he whispered, no answer. Then something moved,
a dark shape between the trees, tall and broad, blending
into the deepest, deepening twilight. He blinked, and it was gone.
He dropped the firewood and dashed inside. There's something out there,

(03:29):
he gasped, slamming the door behind him. Robert looked up
from his book, an eyebrow raised. Probably just a bear,
they're waking up this time of year. Jacob shook his head.
It wasn't a bear. It was it was bigger, like Bigfoot.

(03:49):
His father chuckled, Bigfoot. Huh. Jacob's face burned with frustration.
I know what I saw, Robert sighed, and beside him, Look, Jake,
it's easy to let your mind play tricks on you
when you're alone in the woods. Stay sharp, observe everything.

(04:10):
Facts not fear, remember, Jacob nodded reluctantly. Facts not fear.
That night, Jacob couldn't sleep. He stared at his window,
watching the dark forest, his detective comics forgotten on the floor.
If he was going to be the world's greatest detective,

(04:32):
he had to prove what he saw. The next morning,
he ventured outside with a magnifying glass and a notebook.
The firewood lay scattered where he had dropped it. He
scanned the ground for clues and found tracks. They were huge,
far larger than any bare print he had ever seen,

(04:53):
with long toes and deep impressions in the soil. His
heart raced as he traced the outline with his finger.
He raced inside, no book in hand, Dad, I found footprints.
Robert examined the sketch with a careful eye. Humm, could
be an old print. Maybe someone else was out here

(05:16):
before us, Jacob frowned. Who We're in the middle of nowhere?
Hunters maybe, But Jacob wasn't convinced. That evening, he sat
by the window again, determined to catch the creature. As
the sun dipped below the horizon, the shadows grew long,

(05:37):
and the familiar sense of being watched returned. Then he
saw it. A mass of silhouette moved between the trees.
It was slow, deliberate, too big, too upright to be
any animal, he knew. His breath caught in his throat.
He grabbed the flashlight and threw open the door. Heartunding jake,

(06:01):
his father's voice snapped behind him. He whirled around to
see Robert standing in the doorway, gun in hand. Get
back inside now, but inside, Jacob obeyed, heart racing. His
father locked the door and turned off the lights. They

(06:22):
sat together in the dark, listening. The woods were silent.
Then thud, thud, thud. Something heavy was walking outside the cabin,
just beyond the window. Jacob held his breath. He felt
his father's arm tighten around him. Suddenly the footsteps stopped.

(06:48):
Silence stretched on for what felt like hours before Robert whispered,
stay here. He grabbed his flashlight and slipped outside, closing
the door behind him. Jacob waited, every nerve on edge.
The minutes dragged. Finally, the door creaked open and his

(07:09):
father stepped inside well. Jacob whispered. Robert hesitated, then knelt
in front of his son. His face was pale, his
eyes unreadable. You were right, he said quietly. Jacob's heart
soared with vindication, but fear quickly followed. What was it?

(07:34):
I don't know, Robert admitted, but it's not something I've
ever seen before. He took Jacob's hand and squeezed it.
You have a sharp eye. Jake never doubt that, But
some mysteries are bigger than we can solve alone. Jacob
nodded slowly, feeling both pride and a deep lingering unease,

(08:00):
glanced toward the window where the forest loomed dark and silent.
That night, as he lay awake, he whispered to himself facts,
not fear. But in his heart he knew some mysteries
were more shadow than fact. And in the shadows of
the pines, something watched.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's a big world out there. Welcome to Bigfoot's Wilderness podcast.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Welcome everyone to Bigfoot's Wilderness. This story that's about to
come up next was shared with me, and although it's
not a Bigfoot story, it is a really good story
and I hope you enjoy it. Here it is. It's
called Rosalind's Revenge. The halls of Ashton Hill's assisted living
were never warm, but after Rosalind died, they became colder.

(09:39):
She had been a terror in life, a mountain of
a woman six feet tall and two hundred and seventy
five pounds. Confined to a wheelchair for the last decade
of her life, that didn't stop her from making her
presence known. She barked at the nurses, snapped at the orderlies,
and intimidated residence into silence. Her voice was a sharp blade,

(10:04):
slicing through the hospice with cruel efficiency. Rosalind had once
been a force, standing tall, looming over people like a thundercloud.
But her body had turned on her. Her legs could
no longer carry her weight, and her world shrank to
the confines of her chair. She blamed everyone for it,

(10:28):
the doctors, the staff, the people who dared to treat
her with pity. She used to be a firefighter, you know.
One of the younger nurses whispered once, long after Rosalind
had rolled down the hall, leaving only the scent of
her menthol cough drops behind. That's why she's so mad.

(10:48):
She used to be strong, but strength didn't matter anymore.
She was dying, and she knew it. The last time
anyone saw Rosalind alive, she was being wheeled out for surgery.
No one knew exactly what for Some said it was
a last ditch effort to fix her failing heart. Others

(11:11):
whispered about internal complications. No one spoke of. Whatever it was,
it didn't matter. She never returned. Cardiac arrest on the
table was all the doctor had to say. No one
openly celebrated, but there were no tears either. The hospice

(11:31):
wing felt lighter. Then the fires started. Martha was the
first to go. She was an old woman with thin
papery skin, known for sneaking cigarettes by the back entrance,
just outside the building's range of the smoke alarms. One night,

(11:51):
as she flickered her lighter, something went wrong. The flames
leaped from the tiny device, spreading unnaturally fast. In seconds,
she was engulfed. There was no time to scream, no
time to run. By the time an orderly found her,
she was just a charred silhouette against the brick wall.

(12:14):
The official cause an accident, faulty lighter, maybe, But the
whispers began. She always hated Martha. When resident murmured, her
voice barely above a breath, used to say she could
smell the smoke in her room and it made her sick.

(12:36):
The kitchen burned next. Ashton Hills had just finished a
full remodel of its dining area, a sleek, polished upgrade
that Rosalind had complained about for months before her death.
All this money for that, but they can't get me

(12:57):
a decent cushion from my chair, she had grumbled, damn waste.
Two weeks after her passing, fire consumed the kitchen. The
new appliances, the fresh tiles, the modernized ovens ruined. The

(13:18):
flames irerupted overnight when no one was around to see
how they had started. The sprinkler system failed. The thick,
choking smoke sent nearly half a dozen members to the
hospital with severe respiratory distress. She hated the food, a
nurse murmured under her breath. Then came the hospice wing itself.

(13:43):
It started. Small lights flickered in the dead of night.
Emergency call buttons went off in empty rooms. Nurses swore
they heard something rolling through the halls, a soft, rhythmic creaking,
like the slow push of a wheel chair across linoleum.
One nurse, returning late from her break, turned a corner

(14:06):
and saw a shadow at the end of the hallway.
It was massive, broad, heavy. She caught a glimpse of
something familiar in the dim light before the figure vanished.
She refused to walk alone after that. Janine, the night nurse,
who had been the only person rosalind ever, seemed to

(14:28):
tolerate was the last to acknowledge what they all feared.
She's here, Jeanine said one night in the break room.
The other nurses stared at her, their eyes wide. You
think someone like that just dies, no, one argued. That night,

(14:50):
they did something they had never done before. They left
an offering in Rosalind's old room. They placed a place
of mashed potatoes, her favorite, drowning in butter, just the
way she always demanded. They whispered quiet apologies into the

(15:11):
empty air. We're sorry, one of them muttered, we didn't
mean to. Another started, but she couldn't finish. Then they left.
By morning, the flickering stopped, the emergency call, buttons stayed silent.
The air felt lighter. No more creaking wheels in the hall,

(15:36):
no more whispered complaints about the food, the staff, the world.
Rosalind was gone, or maybe just maybe she was satisfied.

(16:11):
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank
you to all the Bigfoots Wilderness listeners. I know the
last part of today's episode wasn't a Bigfoot story, but
felt Rosalind's revenge was such a good one that I
wanted to make sure I could share it with you.
I hope everyone has a great rest of the day,
and i'll see you next time. Take care, Sat,
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