WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in, but those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.879 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.280 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:05.560 This is story eight of ten. We're in the back 14 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:08.040 half of this series now, and if you've been following 15 00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.560 garrett'sccount from the beginning, you've watched a man's relationship with 16 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:14.319 his own property change in ways that most of us 17 00:01:14.359 --> 00:01:18.640 can't imagine. In seven stories, Garrett has gone from hearing 18 00:01:18.719 --> 00:01:22.400 unexplained knocks on a summer evening to receiving three decades 19 00:01:22.439 --> 00:01:25.280 of documentation from a neighbor who'd been watching the same 20 00:01:25.359 --> 00:01:29.239 creatures from across the creek since the nineteen sixties. That 21 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:33.680 documentation changed things for Garrett. Opel's visit and Vernon's files 22 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:37.599 gave him a framework he'd been missing, a context. The 23 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:42.400 knocking wasn't random, the garden raids weren't opportunistic. The tracks, 24 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:46.560 the mimicry, the bluff sighting, the cabin visits, the dogs 25 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.680 in the forest. None of it was chaos. It was 26 00:01:49.719 --> 00:01:53.599 a pattern, a fifty year behavioral pattern maintained by a 27 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:56.719 small group of creatures that orbited a four thousand acre 28 00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:59.959 circuit along Bishop Creek and assessed every human who moved 29 00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:04.200 onto their corridor through a series of escalating tests. But 30 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.840 knowing the pattern doesn't make it less terrifying when the 31 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:10.919 pattern brings something to your front door. Story eight takes 32 00:02:10.919 --> 00:02:14.400 place on a night in November of twenty eighteen, about 33 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:17.919 seven months after Opal crossed Bishop Creek and handed Garrett 34 00:02:17.960 --> 00:02:21.319 the keys to a half century of secrets. A storm 35 00:02:21.439 --> 00:02:24.919 rolls in, the power goes out, and something comes to 36 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.240 the cabin that's been coming for decades, Except this time 37 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:32.039 Garrett is awake for it. This time he hears every footstep, 38 00:02:32.639 --> 00:02:36.479 every breath, every second of its visit. From beginning to end, 39 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:40.400 here's Garrett. I need to tell you about November ninth, 40 00:02:40.639 --> 00:02:45.000 twenty eighteen, a Saturday night. I've put it off because 41 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.639 it's the encounter that's hardest to talk about, and not 42 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.800 because it was the most dramatic or the most physically dangerous. 43 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:54.759 It wasn't. Nothing that happened that night involved a bluff 44 00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:57.840 charge or a tree strike or a vocalization that shook 45 00:02:57.879 --> 00:03:00.879 the snow off the branches. The creature that came to 46 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:04.039 my cabin on November ninth didn't do any of those things. 47 00:03:04.560 --> 00:03:08.360 It didn't need to. What it did was worse. It 48 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.800 stood outside my walls for over four hours. It touched 49 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:16.639 my windows, it turned my doorknob, and it breathed. That's it. 50 00:03:17.240 --> 00:03:20.199 That's the whole summary. And if you're thinking that doesn't 51 00:03:20.199 --> 00:03:23.199 sound very scary, you've never been alone in a cabin 52 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:26.039 during a power outage while something eight feet tall leans 53 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:28.400 against the other side of a wall and breathes at 54 00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:31.000 a rhythm you can feel in the wood. But I'm 55 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:34.560 getting ahead of myself. Let me start with the storm. 56 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.680 The weather had been building all week. The first week 57 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:41.680 of November had been unseasonably warm mid sixties during the day, 58 00:03:42.280 --> 00:03:45.120 the kind of false summer that North Carolina sometimes gives 59 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:48.919 you right before the cold moves in for good. By Wednesday, 60 00:03:48.960 --> 00:03:51.759 the sixth, the forecast was calling for a major system 61 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:55.400 coming down from Tennessee cold front with a trailing low 62 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.360 pressure trough that was expected to stall over the mountains 63 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:02.159 and dump sustained heavy rain starting Friday evening and continuing 64 00:04:02.199 --> 00:04:06.120 through Saturday night two to four inches, with higher amounts 65 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:09.919 in the terrain Enhanced zones above three thousand feet. My 66 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.159 property sat at twenty eight hundred feet, close enough. I'd 67 00:04:14.159 --> 00:04:17.560 been through mountain storms before five years on the property. 68 00:04:17.560 --> 00:04:21.240 By then, I knew the routine. Fill the water jugs 69 00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:24.279 in case the well pumped lost power, Bring in extra 70 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:26.480 firewood and stack it on the porch where it had 71 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:30.360 stay dry. Top off the generator's gas tank, check the 72 00:04:30.360 --> 00:04:33.720 flashlight batteries, make sure the dogs had food for three 73 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.439 days in case the road washed out, which it had 74 00:04:36.480 --> 00:04:39.879 done twice before when Bishop Creek overflowed its banks and 75 00:04:39.920 --> 00:04:42.720 covered the gravel in two feet of fast moving water 76 00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:46.439 that took the mailbox with it both times. I also 77 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:49.720 knew that storms changed things on the mountain in ways 78 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:53.959 that went beyond the weather. Vernon's notes had documented increased 79 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.639 creature activity during and after major storm events. He theorized 80 00:04:58.680 --> 00:05:01.759 that the rain suppressed sund in the forest, which gave 81 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:04.800 the creatures cover to move more freely at lower elevations. 82 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:08.839 The knocking always stopped during heavy rain because the rain 83 00:05:08.959 --> 00:05:13.600 noise masked everything but the physical activity. The tracking, the 84 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:18.920 cabin approaches, the corridor movement, those increased. The creatures used 85 00:05:18.920 --> 00:05:22.560 storms the way a military unit uses covering fire. The 86 00:05:22.600 --> 00:05:26.240 noise gave them freedom to maneuver without being heard. I'd 87 00:05:26.279 --> 00:05:29.680 noticed it myself. Some of my best track finds had 88 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:33.839 come after heavy rain, when the soft, saturated ground recorded 89 00:05:33.879 --> 00:05:37.279 everything with high fidelity, and the creatures had apparently been 90 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:39.680 moving through the property at a level of activity that 91 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.759 dry weather conditions didn't show. Storm nights were busy nights 92 00:05:43.759 --> 00:05:47.720 on the corridor. I just usually slept through them. Not tonight. 93 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:50.879 By Friday afternoon, the sky had gone the color of 94 00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:54.319 wet concrete, Low cloud sitting on the ridge line like 95 00:05:54.360 --> 00:05:57.839 a lid being placed on a pot. The barometric pressure 96 00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:01.160 had been falling since Wednesday. If dogs were acting the 97 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:04.319 way they act when a front moves in Bowie had 98 00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:07.000 parked himself on his blanket and refused to go outside 99 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:10.160 for his evening walk. His hips always stiffened when the 100 00:06:10.199 --> 00:06:13.160 pressure dropped, and he'd learned that the smart play was 101 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:15.279 to stay on the blanket near the fire and wait 102 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:17.920 it out. He'd look at me when I called him, 103 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:20.720 give me the slow blink that meant I know what 104 00:06:20.800 --> 00:06:23.279 you're asking, and the answer is no, and put his 105 00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:27.120 head back down. Ruby was a different story. She was 106 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:29.360 more agitated than I'd seen her since the night the 107 00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:32.879 dogs went into the forest the previous fall, pacing the 108 00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:37.600 cabin in a tight pattern, window, door and back again, 109 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:41.279 standing at the back door for thirty seconds, her ears 110 00:06:41.319 --> 00:06:45.199 working independently, the good one pointing toward the ridge, the 111 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:48.959 folded one tracking something I couldn't hear. Then she turned 112 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:51.720 and walked to the front window and stand there, her 113 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:54.920 nose against the glass, her breath fogging the pane in 114 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.959 quick bursts. Then back to the door, over and over, 115 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.399 and animal running a patrol route inside the house because 116 00:07:02.439 --> 00:07:05.399 something was telling her not to run it outside. I'd 117 00:07:05.439 --> 00:07:07.720 learned to pay attention to Ruby's behavior the way you'd 118 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:11.360 pay attention to a weather vein. She wasn't wrong very often. 119 00:07:12.079 --> 00:07:15.240 When she paced, something was usually happening on the property 120 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:18.160 that I'd find evidence of the next morning, tracks in 121 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:22.160 the garden, impressions near the well pump, mud smears on 122 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:26.439 the workshop door. Ruby's internal alarm system was calibrated to 123 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:29.319 whatever was on the corridor, and when it went off, 124 00:07:29.639 --> 00:07:33.040 the corridor was active. It was active now and the 125 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:36.600 storm hadn't even started. The rain came in around eight 126 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:39.959 on Friday night, not a build up, not a gradual 127 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:43.639 increase from mist to drizzle to steady. It started as 128 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.680 a downpour and stayed there, the kind of rain where 129 00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:49.959 individual drops lose their identity and merge into a single, 130 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:53.560 continuous roar, a wall of water falling from a sky 131 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:56.240 that had been holding it for three days and finally 132 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:59.920 let go. The cabin roof was green metal, and in 133 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.279 the heavy rain, the noise on that roof was something 134 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:05.839 you had to experience to believe. Loud enough to drown 135 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:09.759 out conversation, loud enough to drown out the television, which 136 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:12.920 I'd been watching before the signal died. I couldn't hear 137 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:16.120 the radio. I could barely hear Bowie snoring three feet 138 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:19.199 from me on his blanket. The rain continued through the 139 00:08:19.279 --> 00:08:22.199 night and all the next day. I slept in fits 140 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:26.360 on Friday night, not just the noise, the barometric pressure, 141 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:29.560 which does something to my sinuses during major drops that 142 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:33.879 makes deep sleep impossible. I doze for twenty minutes, wake 143 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.639 up with a headache, Listen to the rain, check on 144 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:40.919 the dogs, check the windows for leaks, doze again. By 145 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:44.399 Saturday morning, the meadow had standing water in every low spot, 146 00:08:44.679 --> 00:08:47.399 and Bishop Creek was running high and fast and brown, 147 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:51.480 carrying branches and leaf debris and the occasional full sized 148 00:08:51.559 --> 00:08:54.519 log from the upper drainage. The water moving with a 149 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:56.759 speed and a violence that I could hear from the 150 00:08:56.759 --> 00:09:00.000 cabin porch, even over the rain. The power went out 151 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.679 at four seventeen on Saturday afternoon. I know the exact 152 00:09:03.720 --> 00:09:06.279 time because I was looking at the microwave clock when 153 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:09.919 it happened. The green numbers were there, then they weren't. 154 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:14.879 The refrigerator compressor shuddered and went silent. The overhead light 155 00:09:14.919 --> 00:09:18.000 in the kitchen died, the hum of the water heater element, 156 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:21.919 which I hadn't consciously noticed until it stopped, and the 157 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:25.399 cabin which had been producing the baseline electrical noise that 158 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:28.840 every modern house produces constantly, and that you tune out 159 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:31.720 the way you tune out your own heartbeat. Went quiet, 160 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:35.480 not fully quiet. The rain was still hammering the roof, 161 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:40.159 but the electronic quiet, the absence of every mechanical vibration, 162 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:44.080 an electrical hum and motorcycle that a house generates when 163 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:47.399 it's connected to the grid, that was gone, And in 164 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:52.480 its absence, the cabin changed character. It felt older, raw, 165 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:55.360 more like what it had been when Earl built it 166 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:58.440 in seventy one, before the wiring and the fixtures and 167 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.399 the appliances that modern life drapes over a building, like 168 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:05.879 wallpaper over plaster, Just a log structure on a mountain side, 169 00:10:06.159 --> 00:10:11.360 wood and stone, fire inside, storm outside, nothing between them 170 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:15.120 except the walls. I lit the oil lamps, three of them, 171 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:18.600 glass chimney kerosene lamps I'd bought at a hardware store 172 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:21.360 the first winter on the property, back when I'd assumed 173 00:10:21.399 --> 00:10:25.000 power outages would be rare and temporary. They were neither. 174 00:10:25.960 --> 00:10:27.879 The power on this section of the mountain went out 175 00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:32.360 during every major storm, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. 176 00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:36.559 The lamps were essential equipment. One went on the kitchen table, 177 00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:40.200 one on the mantle above the fireplace, one on a 178 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:43.360 shelf near the bedroom door. The light they gave was 179 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:48.240 amber and inconsistent, throwing shadows that moved when the draft moved, 180 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:50.919 making the corners of the cabin feel deeper and less 181 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.960 defined than they did under bulbs. Oil lamp light has 182 00:10:55.000 --> 00:11:00.000 a quality that electric light doesn't. It's alive. It flickers, 183 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:03.120 It responds to movement in the room, to doors opening 184 00:11:03.159 --> 00:11:05.919 and closing, to the rise and fall of the fire. 185 00:11:06.759 --> 00:11:09.600 It makes a house feel inhabited by the light itself, 186 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:12.399 as if the flame is a third presence in the room, 187 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.519 watching everything the way you are. I fed the dogs 188 00:11:16.559 --> 00:11:19.559 around five point thirty. Bowie ate on the blanket, which 189 00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:22.120 I allowed during storms because forcing him up and over 190 00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:24.120 to his bowl when his hips were at their worst 191 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:28.039 felt cruel for no good reason. Ruby ated her bowl 192 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:31.120 in the kitchen fast and focused, and went straight back 193 00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:35.679 to her pacing the window root, the door root. Whatever 194 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:38.480 the storm had stirred up in her internal alarm system. 195 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:41.600 A bowl of kibble hadn't settled it. I tried the 196 00:11:41.639 --> 00:11:44.759 generator around six, went out to the porch in the rain, 197 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:49.639 pulled the starter cord and got nothing. Tried again, nothing. 198 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:52.240 The rain was so heavy that by the time I'd 199 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.200 pulled the cord four times, my jacket was soaked through 200 00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:57.720 and water was running down my back and pulling in 201 00:11:57.759 --> 00:12:01.360 my boots. I checked the fuel line, checked the spark 202 00:12:01.399 --> 00:12:04.639 plug wire, pulled the cord twice more with the kind 203 00:12:04.679 --> 00:12:08.240 of frustrated, full body yanks that accomplish nothing except making 204 00:12:08.279 --> 00:12:13.200 you wetter and angrier. Dead moisture in the magneto probably 205 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:17.120 a known failure mode on that generator in wet conditions. 206 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:20.080 I could spend an hour troubleshooting it in a downpour, 207 00:12:20.679 --> 00:12:22.519 or I could accept that tonight was going to be 208 00:12:22.639 --> 00:12:25.120 lamps and firelight and whatever the cabin could give me 209 00:12:25.200 --> 00:12:29.480 without the grid. I went inside, stripped off the wet jacket, 210 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:32.600 dried my hair with a kitchen towel, put on a 211 00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:34.960 flannel shirt that was hanging on the chair by the fire, 212 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:37.960 and settled in for a long night that I assumed 213 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:41.559 would be boring. By six o'clock, it was full dark. 214 00:12:42.279 --> 00:12:45.480 Not the gradual dimming that happens on clear evenings where 215 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:48.480 the light fades from gold to orange to purple to 216 00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:52.320 blue and you can track the transition minute by minute. 217 00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:56.399 This was overcast, dark storm dark, the kind of dark 218 00:12:56.440 --> 00:13:01.159 where there's no twilight at all, no transition light, draining 219 00:13:01.200 --> 00:13:03.240 out of the sky like water out of a sink 220 00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.120 and leaving nothing behind. The clouds were so thick and 221 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:10.279 so low that they'd absorbed every photon the setting sun 222 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:13.080 tried to push through, and by six point fifteen the 223 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:17.519 darkness outside the cabin windows was absolute. I couldn't see 224 00:13:17.559 --> 00:13:20.480 the meadow. I couldn't see the porch railing, which was 225 00:13:20.519 --> 00:13:23.840 three feet from the nearest window. I couldn't see anything 226 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:26.480 except the reflection of the cabin interior in the glass, 227 00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:29.639 the amber glow of the lamps, and the fire bouncing 228 00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:32.320 back at me from a surface that had become a mirror, 229 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:35.720 hiding whatever was beyond it in a wall of reflected 230 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.639 light that bothered me. On a clear night, I could 231 00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:42.559 at least see shapes, the tree line as a dark 232 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:46.000 mass against a lighter sky, the meadow as an open 233 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:49.519 space between the cabin and the forest, the ridge as 234 00:13:49.559 --> 00:13:53.279 a black line overhead. On a night like this, the 235 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:57.320 windows were useless. They showed me myself and nothing else. 236 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:02.039 I was blind to whatever was outside. While whatever was outside, 237 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:04.399 if it was close enough and at the right angle 238 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:07.279 could see into the cabin through the gaps between the 239 00:14:07.320 --> 00:14:10.559 reflected light the lamps and the fire. That made the 240 00:14:10.600 --> 00:14:14.039 interior visible to me also made me visible to anything 241 00:14:14.080 --> 00:14:17.559 looking in from the dark. I thought about turning off 242 00:14:17.559 --> 00:14:21.960 the lamps, going dark matching the outside, but that would 243 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:24.360 have left me with only the fire, and the fire 244 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:27.240 was behind me, which would have put my silhouette against 245 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:29.320 the window in a way that was worse than having 246 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:32.840 the room lit evenly. There's no winning the light game 247 00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.960 in a cabin during a power outage. You're either visible 248 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:39.480 from outside or you're blind from inside, and the only 249 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:41.399 way to be neither is to sit in the dark 250 00:14:41.440 --> 00:14:44.480 with no fire, which on a forty degree November night 251 00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:46.960 with two dogs and a stone fireplace built by a 252 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:49.879 dead man's brother wasn't something I was willing to do. 253 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:54.840 So I sat in the light, visible, readable, my movements, 254 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:58.279 trackable through every window on the cabin's perimeter by anything 255 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:01.200 with eyes and the patience to walk much. And I 256 00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:03.519 read my book and pretended that the storm was the 257 00:15:03.559 --> 00:15:07.480 only thing outside. Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. 258 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:12.360 We'll be back after these messages. I built the fire 259 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:16.399 up big flames, I wanted heat and I wanted light, 260 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:20.159 and the fireplace was the only source of both. The 261 00:15:20.200 --> 00:15:23.039 chimney drew well even in high wind, one of the 262 00:15:23.039 --> 00:15:26.360 benefits of the stone construction Frank had used, and within 263 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:28.879 twenty minutes the fire was roaring, and the main room 264 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:32.039 of the cabin was warm and bright enough to read by. 265 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:34.639 The poplar logs in the wall seemed to absorb the 266 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:37.799 firelight and glow with it, giving the room a warm 267 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:42.240 amber tone that electric bulbs never quite matched. Earl's cabin 268 00:15:42.279 --> 00:15:46.000 was built for firelight. The proportions were right. The ceiling 269 00:15:46.039 --> 00:15:49.120 was low enough that the heat stayed close, the windows 270 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:51.440 were small enough that the fire was the dominant light 271 00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:55.120 source rather than the weakest one in this room. With 272 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:58.559 this fire, you could forget the storm outside. You could 273 00:15:58.559 --> 00:16:02.240 forget the mountain. You could forget that anything existed beyond 274 00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:06.639 the walls, which was I'd learned later exactly the kind 275 00:16:06.679 --> 00:16:08.960 of forgetting that got you in trouble on this property. 276 00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.240 I settled into the chair beside the hearth with a 277 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.279 book i'd been working through, a history of the Civilian 278 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:18.679 Conservation Corps that I'd picked up at the library in Hendersonville. 279 00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:23.080 Good book, the kind of dense, factual reading that keeps 280 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:27.320 your mind occupied without demanding emotional investment. I wasn't in 281 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:30.279 the mood for fiction. Fiction would have required me to 282 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:33.159 care about characters who didn't exist, and on a night 283 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:36.720 like this, in a cabin like this, my capacity for 284 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:40.120 caring about imaginary people was fully consumed by the task 285 00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:43.360 of not thinking about real things that might be somewhere 286 00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:46.759 on the mountain in the rain Bowie was on his blanket, 287 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:49.720 three feet from the hearth, close enough that the fire 288 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:52.840 warmed his bad hips. He was lying on his side 289 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:55.559 with his legs extended, which was the position that gave 290 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:58.559 his joints the most relief, and his breathing was deep 291 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:01.679 and steady. Ruby was on the floor between me and 292 00:17:01.759 --> 00:17:05.680 the front door, lying down finally, her chin on her paws, 293 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:10.720 her eyes half closed. The pacing had stopped. Whatever had 294 00:17:10.759 --> 00:17:13.240 been driving her back and forth between the windows and 295 00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.559 the door since midday seemed to have resolved, or she'd 296 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.079 run out of energy for it, and she'd settled into 297 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.640 a position that was as close to relaxed as Ruby 298 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.920 ever got. She wasn't a dog who slept deeply. In 299 00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:29.759 the best of times, she dozed, She monitored. Even at rest, 300 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.880 one ear was always cocked toward the nearest sound source, 301 00:17:33.359 --> 00:17:37.200 processing ambient noise the way a radar dish processes signals, 302 00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:41.680 sorting the familiar from the unfamiliar, and filing each one accordingly. 303 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:45.079 I read for about an hour. The rain was steady 304 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:48.200 on the metal roof, a white noise wall of sound 305 00:17:48.279 --> 00:17:51.519 that had become so constant and so uniform that my 306 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:55.599 brain had started treating it as silence. The fire popped 307 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:58.599 and shifted as the log settled. One of the oil 308 00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:01.160 lamps guttered when a draft caught the chimney, and then 309 00:18:01.200 --> 00:18:05.759 steadied itself. The warmth was making me drowsy. The book 310 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:09.119 was getting into a section about camp construction techniques that 311 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:11.880 was detailed enough to be interesting and repetitive enough to 312 00:18:11.880 --> 00:18:15.039 be soporific, and I was considering whether to put another 313 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:17.440 log on the fire or let it burn down and 314 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:21.519 go to bed. It was, despite the power outage, one 315 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:23.880 of the more peaceful evenings I'd had on the mountain 316 00:18:23.880 --> 00:18:28.240 in months. The storm had an insulating quality. It sealed 317 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:32.119 the world at the walls, made everything beyond them irrelevant. 318 00:18:32.519 --> 00:18:35.079 I couldn't hear the ridge, I couldn't hear the creek. 319 00:18:35.839 --> 00:18:38.960 The mountain felt far away, and the cabin felt close. 320 00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:42.599 And for the first time since Opal's visit seven months earlier, 321 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.839 I wasn't thinking about the corridor, or the creatures, or 322 00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:48.680 the fifty years of documentation stacked in boxes on my 323 00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:51.599 kitchen table. I was just a guy in a chair 324 00:18:51.640 --> 00:18:54.119 with a book and a fire and two sleeping dogs 325 00:18:54.119 --> 00:18:57.680 and a storm that was somebody else's problem. That's the 326 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:00.920 thing about those nights. They feel safest right before they 327 00:19:00.920 --> 00:19:05.079 stopped being safe. It changed at nine fourteen. I know 328 00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:07.839 the time because I checked my watch about two minutes earlier, 329 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:10.559 thinking about whether to put another log on the fire 330 00:19:10.920 --> 00:19:13.519 or let it burn down for the night. I was 331 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:17.279 leaning toward bed, The book was getting slow, the warmth 332 00:19:17.359 --> 00:19:19.559 was making it hard for me to keep my eyes open. 333 00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.319 And then Ruby's head came up off her paws. Not 334 00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:27.119 a casual lift, a snap, like someone had pulled a 335 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:30.519 string attached to her skull. One second she was lying 336 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:33.519 down with her eyes half shut. The next second her 337 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:36.799 head was up, her ears were forward, and every muscle 338 00:19:36.839 --> 00:19:39.839 in her body had gone rigid. She was facing the 339 00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:43.279 front wall of the cabin, not the door, the wall 340 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:45.039 to the left of the door, where there was a 341 00:19:45.079 --> 00:19:47.799 window that looked out onto the porch and beyond the 342 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:51.799 porch the meadow. The window was dark, the lamp on 343 00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:54.720 the kitchen table didn't reach that far, and the fire 344 00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:57.680 was behind me casting its light in the other direction. 345 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.559 The window was a black rectang set into the log wall, 346 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:06.480 reflecting nothing, showing nothing. Ruby wasn't looking at the window. 347 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:09.799 She was looking through the wall beside it, at something 348 00:20:09.839 --> 00:20:12.000 on the other side that she could hear or smell 349 00:20:12.119 --> 00:20:15.680 or sense through the logs. Bowie's head came up about 350 00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:20.480 three seconds later, slower stiffer the old dog's version of 351 00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:23.960 the same alert. His ears rotated toward the front wall 352 00:20:24.039 --> 00:20:28.039 and held, his nostrils widened. His tail, which had been 353 00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:31.359 resting on the blanket, went flat against the floor. Neither 354 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:33.880 dog made a sound, and that was the thing that 355 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:36.519 told me more than any bark or growl could have 356 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:41.400 both dogs facing the same wall in full alert posture, 357 00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:45.799 in absolute silence. Bowie had barked at the window before. 358 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:51.079 In every previous cabin encounter, the dogs had vocalized growls 359 00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:54.200 at the hand against the wall, barking at the approaching 360 00:20:54.240 --> 00:20:57.519 figure in the meadow Bowie's alarm barked the night the 361 00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:02.759 knocking descended from the ridge, this time nothing, complete silence, 362 00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:06.920 as if making noise was something they decided independently and 363 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:10.640 simultaneously not to do, as if the thing on the 364 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:12.720 other side of the wall had earned a category of 365 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:16.599 response that went beyond alarm and into something else, entirely, 366 00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:22.119 something closer to deference. I set the book down slowly, 367 00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:24.799 put it on the arm of the chair without looking 368 00:21:24.839 --> 00:21:27.880 at it, my eyes fixed on the front wall, my 369 00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:30.640 ears straining past the sound of the rain and the fire, 370 00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.480 and my own pulse, which was picking up speed the 371 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:36.440 way a car picks up speed on a downhill grade, 372 00:21:36.599 --> 00:21:39.319 not because you've hit the gas, but because gravity has 373 00:21:39.400 --> 00:21:44.319 taken over. For about thirty seconds, nothing happened. The dogs 374 00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:48.079 held their alert, The rain pounded, the roof, the fire 375 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.960 crackled behind me, and I sat in my chair and 376 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.319 stared at a log wall and waited for something to 377 00:21:53.359 --> 00:21:56.319 confirm what the dogs were telling me. Then I heard it, 378 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:01.880 a creak from the porch, the pacific, identifiable creak of 379 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:04.519 the third plank from the left side, the one that 380 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:06.680 I'd been meaning to replace since my second year on 381 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:10.359 the property. Every plank on that porch had its own voice. 382 00:22:10.920 --> 00:22:12.599 I knew them the way you know the sounds of 383 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:16.279 your own house, the specific groan of each stair, the 384 00:22:16.319 --> 00:22:19.839 particular rattle of each window. The third plank from the 385 00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:22.960 left creaked when you stepped on its center. A rising 386 00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:25.920 pitch grown that lasted about half a second, and it 387 00:22:25.960 --> 00:22:28.480 took at least one hundred and fifty pounds to produce it. 388 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:31.799 I was one hundred and eighty. I produced it every 389 00:22:31.799 --> 00:22:34.839 time I walked to the railing. Something had stepped on 390 00:22:34.839 --> 00:22:38.799 that plank in the rain, in the dark on my porch. 391 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:43.640 A second creek, different pitch, the plank beside the first one, 392 00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:47.480 closer to the door. Something was walking across the porch, 393 00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:49.519 and I could track its position by the sequence of 394 00:22:49.599 --> 00:22:53.440 sounds under its feet. A third creak, and this one 395 00:22:53.480 --> 00:22:58.359 was accompanied by something else. A vibration in the front wall, faint, 396 00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:01.640 the kind of tremory you feel when someone leans against 397 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:04.480 the other side of a partition wall in an office building. 398 00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:08.079 Not enough to move anything, just enough to tell you 399 00:23:08.119 --> 00:23:11.559 that weight has been applied to the structure from the outside. 400 00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:13.759 Something had reached the front wall of the cabin and 401 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:19.920