Speaker 1: I was born into a violent family. My father was
an alcoholic Scot with a Native American and his lineage somewhere.
My mother was an auburn haired Irish girl who was
naive but quick tempered. Every day of my life was
filled with arguments that turned violent. I became a panic stricken,
socially backward, messed up kid, where as the kids at
school called me a retarded pansy. We lived in the
Quad Cities area of North Alabama, a mile from the
Tennessee River. The Tennessee Valley Authority or TVA owned the
forested area. Those woods and the river were my sanctuary.
I knew all the game trails, snake pits, and fishing
holes for miles around, and I used to walk past
the school bus stop and straight into the woods, where
I would spend my day in peace. At school, I
was bullied and made fun of because I was a
nervous and shy kid. Now I realized that I was
suffering from severe social anxiety and panic attacks, a condition
that was not studied in those days. I grew older
and eventually collapsed into agoraphobia and became housebound. I only
ventured out in the early morning hours to drive a
newspaper route. This job allowed me to pay my bills,
but still be alone and isolated. It's difficult to describe
the misery suffered by a housebound person. To be young
and healthy, yet afraid to walk out the door. In
my mind, there was a monster just outside that door,
waiting to devour me. Now I thought I was insane,
and that scared me even more. For years, I stayed inside,
burying myself and pity. Because I couldn't live a normal life.
I became jealous of others who were living the life
I wanted, and that jealousy turned to resentment and eventually
to pure hatred. I lived with my hatred and plotted
my revenge. The insults and bullying never left my mind.
Fantasies of punishing my tormentors began to consume me. The
thoughts grew darker by the day. The torture methods I
envisioned for my victims were only complete when at the
last moment before I killed them, I would reveal myself.
I wanted them to see my face and regret the
way they treated me. But insane or not, I never
heard anyone, even though the thoughts of revenge continued. Now
I wondered if this was the way serial killers got
their start, When would I snap something strange was happening though,
The more of a monster I became in my own mind,
the less I feared the monster beyond my door, and
I began to venture out. Like in most neighborhoods, there
are always the troublemakers, kids who seem to always cause problems.
If it's a bad thing to do, When it would
be easier to do good, they always choose the bad.
They get a kick out of picking on kids who
just want to have fun. They seek out the innocent
and prey on them. Most kids grow out of that face.
Adulthood has a way of taming the devil inside us,
but some never learn, and you have to wonder if
they were born to constantly be a burden on society.
Seth was the worst in our neighborhood. He spent his
days tormenting the younger, weaker kids. I was his special project,
and even as an adult, he once drove by my
house shouting insults while flipping me the bird. Seth had
been on my list for years. Seth seemed to idolize
all the hoods around our town. Eventually he teamed up
with another local punk who had a worse reputation. Tony
was a criminal who had done time in prison. When
he was released, he showed no rehabilitation and resumed the
life he lived previously. Robbery, burglary, and intimidation were his
forte Tony and Seth were arrested not long after for
crimes that would send Seth to trial on a rape
charge and Tony to death for murder. Tony was later
convicted and his death sentence was carried out. In January
of nineteen eighty four. They both sat in the county
jail waiting to be transferred to a federal facility where
they would be held until their trial. Careless guards left
Seth's cell unlocked, and he slipped doubt without them noticing
he was gone for several hours. The story was soon
breaking news on the TV. He was believed to be
armed and considered dangerous. No one was to try to
apprehend him without calling the police, and authorities didn't know
where he was, but they were searching local woods. The
image of Seth's mugshot covering the screen brought back the
hate that had built inside me. I remembered seeing Seth
and his buddies in years passed in the woods where
I went for peace and quiet. I knew he would
run to anything familiar, and sure enough, not long after
the story broke the news, police cars were running down
my road. They were looking for him in that place
I call sanctuary. But I also knew that he would
need shelter. It was cold and it had been snowing,
and Seth wouldn't stay in the open if he could
help it. I knew exactly where he would be. It
would be several hours before I needed to begin my
paper route. I had plenty of time. With my pistol,
a knife, and a flashlight, I headed for the woods.
More cars drove fast down the road as I climbed
the hill behind my house. They were heading to the
wrong place. Seth would have made it past those woods
by now. So I picked a route that would take
me away from the search area, through the woods and
to the place that I would go if I were
on the run. I was going to find Seth and
I was going to kill him. He had it coming.
The snow had stopped and the clouds began to clear.
The full moon lit my way, Although I didn't need it.
I hadn't been in those woods for years since the
agoraphobia took over my life, but I knew the woods
better than my own house. I was headed to the river.
Years before. The TVA had piled large concrete pipes or
culverts on the bank. They had never been used in construction,
and I played in and around those pipes for years.
It would be the only shelter for miles. On this
cold night, I would quietly slip down the bank and
approach the massive pipes from that direction. He would never
think of anyone coming from the direction of the river.
He would be looking toward the woods. After making it
to the river, one hundred yards from the pipes, I
creeped along the bank. I wasn't afraid, and that felt
good to me. I was outside in the open air.
The monster I had feared was outside my door had
not attacked. I was free, and I felt like a
kid again. The pipes came into view under the moonlight,
and I stopped and watched for movement. Seth would be
no problem physically. I could take him down quickly. I
even hoped that he had a gun, so after I
killed him, I could claim self defense, and still no
monster came after me. Now I was the monster. All
was quiet except the shallow waves slapping the bank, and
since there was no movement, I began to think Seth
had not come here. Disappointment took over, and I walked
the last few feet toward the opening of the large pipe.
When I entered, an odor of urine and riding fish
hit me like a slap in the face. I stepped
back out and took an inventory of the items around me.
There were smaller pipes laying randomly along the bank, some
piled up on top of each other and others I
could see farther away from the water. With my pistol
in hand and the flashlight on, I lit the interior
of the pipe. I expected to see Seth right away. Instead,
I got that strong smell again. I crept forward to
exit at the other end and searched the pipes beyond,
and I felt the presence of someone else there. It
was like a sixth sense. Even though I could not
see them, I knew they were close, and I felt
it before I heard it. A warm wind came down
the pipe into my face, and my chest began to
vibrate slightly. No one was in the pipe with me.
I could see the end, but thick brush had grown
up at the far side opening. The air I felt
was a breath or an exhale from something. I could
smell it. Now stop. It screamed so loud and was
amplified inside the concrete tunnel. Stunned and frozen, I shined
the lights straight ahead and I saw two glowing red
eyes staring back at me, and they were wrapped in
the silhouette of a giant creature crouching behind the brush.
I fired two shots at it, and then it stood up.
The top of the six foot pipe was at its
chest level. This thing was huge. With one swift motion,
he was on top of the pipe, moving to the
other end. It dropped down and glared at me, and
I shot twice more, hitting it with both and the
creature flinched and then roared. I had to get to
the other end, into a smaller pipe where he couldn't
reach me. I'm not sure I could get there fast enough.
I sprended anyway, after crashing through the tangle of vines
and bushes. I was looking straight into a much smaller
pipe where I would fit, but the creature wouldn't over
the rocks and weeds. I dove into the inn and crawled.
Its hand brushed my shoe as it reached inside to
catch me. I was inside far enough the tube was
too small for me to turn around and face the beast.
The end in front of me was ten feet away
and completely blocked by debris, and I was trapped. So
I waited periodically, trying to look over my shoulder at
the thing after me, but it was pointless. Everything went
quiet and I couldn't hear it now, no footsteps crunching
in the rocks, no heavy breaths, no screams, and for
a second I thought it had given up and left,
until the whole pipe was lifted into the air. He
was turning it on its end and trying to shake
me out, and when he lifted the end, the pipe crack,
giving me a handhold. I could feel myself in the
pipe being lifted vertically and lowered several times. I could
hear the beast frustration when I didn't pop out the end,
but I hung on for my life. Maybe out of
frustration or maybe from lack of interest, it finally pushed
the end over and the pipe slammed onto another with
a crash. I was on my back now feet toward
the ground at an angle and still unreachable from either end.
And then one last lift dashed my hopes of surviving
the night. As it lifted the pipe I suppose over
its head and through a thousand pounds of concrete and
terrified human. My body tensed for the impact, and I
expected the brittle covert to break apart enough for it
to reach inside and pull me out. But it hadn't
thrown me to the ground the pipe and I sailed
several feet in the air into the river. The cold
water rushed in and shocked me, and if I crawled forward,
I would be heading to the river bed. Backing out
of that broken pipe was difficult. My coat was hung
on the reinforcing wire fabric and it dug into my clothes,
through into my flesh, but I pushed through it. My
air was running out fast. My feet cleared the end
of the pipe and only had a few more feet
to go and I would be free. One last push
backward folded my coat over my head, so I allowed
my body to relax enough to slip out of the
heavy jacket. Without the coat, I was smaller, and I
pushed free from the pipe. The river was shallow in
this spot, and one easy push off the pipe upwards
sent me to the surface. My eyes searched the bank
for the creature. It wasn't there. Thinking it had finished
me off, I assumed it had left the area, and
then a few strokes toward the bank until I felt
the sandy bottom, and then I walked out of the water,
frantically looking everywhere for my attacker, and still nothing came
for me. What now, I thought I had a long
walk back home. I would freeze in this weather, but
that was my only option. Before heading back up the
bluff to my trail home, I looked for my gun
in flashlight, and a few feet into the pile of
discarded construction material, I saw the light I had dropped,
and not far from the light, I saw my pistol
laying in the leaves. And then I started straight up
through either debris, working my way through the maze of pipes,
trying not to break a leg an injury now it
would be a death sentence. When I was clear of
the pipeses and up the bank a bit, I looked
back over the area and I saw the creature walking
away from me and knee deep water. The splashing had
drawn my attention, and in the moonlight I could finally
see its full form. Long legs stepped high in the water,
and they carried a frame that no man could contend
with in a fight. I expected it to return to
the bank and head up the mountain where the bank
leveled out, but instead it walked out deeper into the
water and disappeared. The swirling of the slow current was
all I could see on the surface. Patten Island was
out there. Maybe that's where it was headed. The monster
had come in and out of my life in a maddening,
violent way, and I would never see it again. That
moment was perhaps one of the most profound epiphanies of
my life. For years, I had dreamed of becoming the
monster that brought vengeance to my tormentors, and now, watching
this magnificent creature walk away from me, I knew I
was not, nor did I want to inflict the same
terror on anyone as I had just experienced. I had
just gone through something that few survive. It wasn't the
size and vicious nature of the creature in that moment
that brought on my epiphany. It was the image in
my mind, still fresh as if I saw it an
hour ago, of Seth's limp body hanging from the left
hand of the beast. Seth's arm dangled free and his
fingers dipping into the surface, pushing a tiny wake. The
beast had found its meal, and Seth, the rapist, vanished forever.
I started for home, a changed man, wondering if I
could make it back alive. On the side of the mountain,
already feeling weak, I saw lights moving through the woods
toward me. I stopped and yelled, and soon I was
surrounded by searchers. Once they were sure that I wasn't Seth,
they bummled me up and helped me get home. They
all left after depositing me in the house, except one deputy,
who stayed to make sure that I was not in
serious hypothermia. After taking a hot shower and getting some
microwave food in me, he and I sat at my
table sipping coffee, and I explained that I had suspected
Seth would be sheltering in those pipes, since it was
the only place he could have escaped the snow and wind.
And then I lied and said that My plan was
to hold him there until the searchers arrived. There was
no need to say that I had planned to kill
the guy for making fun of me. If by some
strange event, the creature didn't eat Seth that night and
his corpse was found floating in the river, I might
be implicated and questioned. I had fallen in the river
like an idiot on the coldest night of January, is
what I told him. And then I headed straight for home,
hoping to not freeze to death, and thank goodness that
I had run into them not long after and sure
that I was healthy. The deputy left. Now alone with
my faults, all the repetitive visions I conjured every day
over the years seemed to slip away. I wasn't a
blooming serial killer, after all. I felt sane for the
first time since I was a kid. I slept well
that night and woke the next morning to the news.
I already knew that Seth the rapist, had not been captured,
but the search continued, and then, without hesitation, I walked
out the door into the world with no fear, no anxiety.
After finishing my paper route, I stopped at a local
diner and ate a hearty breakfast, and I began to
think of all the places I was now free to go.
The monster was actually in the woods, not outside my door.
Now I was free