Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here. Something Just kise my dog. Something killed your dog.
Speaker 1: My dog. We're flying through the air, over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Satan, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here. Did you see what it was?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 1: It was standing up. I'm out here looking through the
Speaker 1: window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go outside. Jesus, quiet you bick Hellohet thebody out here?
Speaker 1: What quin on out there? I thought of a bit
Speaker 1: about Tech forty nine. I don't know. Easy ann out there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm walking right.
Speaker 2: Head Tonight we're doing something different. This is a Halloween
Speaker 2: special with a story that merges two forces, one from
Speaker 2: the wild, one from the darkness of man. We're talking
Speaker 2: Michael Myers, the unstoppable force of evil from the Halloween franchise,
Speaker 2: going head to head with something even more primal, even
Speaker 2: more ancient, A sasquatch deep in the Alaskan wilderness, and
Speaker 2: caught in the middle is Laurie Strode, who spent her
Speaker 2: entire life running from the nightmare that won't end. Now,
Speaker 2: before we get started, I need to give you a warning.
Speaker 2: This episode is intense. We're talking graphic violence, brutal fight scenes,
Speaker 2: and some genuinely frightening imagery. This is not suitable for
Speaker 2: younger listeners. If you've got kids around, maybe save this
Speaker 2: one for after they've got on to bed. This is
Speaker 2: adult horror content, plain and simple. It gets violent, it
Speaker 2: gets dark, and it doesn't pull any punches. But if
Speaker 2: you're ready for a wild ride that mixes slash or
Speaker 2: horror with cryptid encounters, if you want to hear what
Speaker 2: happens when two monsters collide in the frozen darkness of Alaska,
Speaker 2: then settle in, turn off the lights, maybe lock your doors,
Speaker 2: and let me tell you a story about the night
Speaker 2: that evil finally met its match. And it all starts
Speaker 2: with a woman who just wanted to be left alone.
Speaker 2: There are things that live in the spaces between civilization
Speaker 2: and wilderness that we were never meant to understand. Ancient things,
Speaker 2: things that existed long before we carved our towns from
Speaker 2: the forest and pretended we had conquered the wild. The
Speaker 2: old timers in Alaska know this. They know that when
Speaker 2: you go deep enough into those mountains, far enough from
Speaker 2: the lights and the roads and the sound of human voices,
Speaker 2: you're not alone. You're never alone. Something else you need
Speaker 2: to understand about the darkness. It's not just one thing.
Speaker 2: It's not just the creatures that have always lived in
Speaker 2: the wild places. Sometimes the darkness follows you. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: wears a mask, and it won't stop. It can't stop,
Speaker 2: because that's what evil does. It endures, It persists, It
Speaker 2: finds you no matter how far you run. This is
Speaker 2: a story about two kinds of monsters, one that belongs
Speaker 2: to the wilderness and one that should have stayed dead
Speaker 2: a long time ago. And somewhere in between those two
Speaker 2: forces stood a woman who had spent her entire life
Speaker 2: running from the inevitable, only to discover that sometimes salvation
Speaker 2: comes from the most unexpected places. The locals in the
Speaker 2: small Alaskan settlement of Coldfoot will tell you about the
Speaker 2: winter of twenty twenty three. If you ask them well,
Speaker 2: they'll tell you part of it. They'll mention the strange
Speaker 2: sounds that echoed through the valley that Halloween night, sounds
Speaker 2: that made the dogs howl and the old folks lock.
Speaker 3: Their doors and pray.
Speaker 2: They'll talk about the woman who lived in the cabin
Speaker 2: fifteen miles up the frozen creek, the one who kept
Speaker 2: to herself and never quite met your eyes when she
Speaker 2: came into town for supplies. And if you buy them
Speaker 2: enough drinks, if you earn their trust, they might even
Speaker 2: mention what they found in the woods when the snow
Speaker 2: finally melted that spring. But they won't tell you everything.
Speaker 2: They can't because some stories are too strange, too terrible,
Speaker 2: too impossible to believe. This is one of those stories,
Speaker 2: and every word of it is true, well, if you
Speaker 2: choose to believe it. Laurie Strode had been running for
Speaker 2: forty five years, and she was tired, bone tired, soul tired,
Speaker 2: the kind of tired that settles into your marrow and
Speaker 2: makes you feel like you're a thousand years old, even
Speaker 2: though you've only lived through fifty nine of them. She
Speaker 2: stood at the window of her new cabin, watching the
Speaker 2: snow fall in the gathering dusk, and wondered for the
Speaker 2: millionth time if this would finally be far enough vsca
Speaker 2: the last frontier, a place where you could disappear if
Speaker 2: you wanted to, where the wilderness was so vast and
Speaker 2: unforgiving that a person could vanish into it like smoke
Speaker 2: and never be seen again. That's what she'd been looking for.
Speaker 2: Not peace exactly, she'd given up on peace decades ago.
Speaker 2: But maybe distance, maybe silence, maybe a place where the
Speaker 2: nightmares couldn't follow. The cabin was small, just two rooms
Speaker 2: and aloft, but it was solid, built by someone who
Speaker 2: understood the brutal winters up here, someone who knew that
Speaker 2: when the temperature dropped to forty below and the wind
Speaker 2: came howling down from the mountains, your walls better be
Speaker 2: thick and your stove better be hot. She'd bought it
Speaker 2: with cash from a trapper who was too old to
Speaker 2: handle another winter, and he'd looked at her with eyes
Speaker 2: that had seen too much and asked if she was
Speaker 2: running from something. She'd met his gaze and told him
Speaker 2: that everyone was running from something. He nodded like he understood,
Speaker 2: and hadn't asked any more questions. That was three months ago,
Speaker 2: late August, when the fireweed was still blooming and the
Speaker 2: salmon were running.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: It was late October and the world had turned to
Speaker 2: ice and darkness, and she was starting to think maybe
Speaker 2: she'd made a terrible mistake. The cabin sat in a
Speaker 2: small clearing, surrounded by spruce and birch, fifteen miles from
Speaker 2: the nearest neighbor, accessible only by a four wheeler trail
Speaker 2: that would be impassable once the heavy snows came. She
Speaker 2: had six months of supplies, a satellite phone for emergencies,
Speaker 2: and a shotgun that she knew how to use. She
Speaker 2: had her pills for the anxiety and the nightmares. She
Speaker 2: had her journals and her books, and her memories, both
Speaker 2: the ones she wanted to keep and the one she'd
Speaker 2: been trying to forget for most of her life. What
Speaker 2: she didn't have was any illusions about what she was
Speaker 2: doing here. This wasn't a fresh start, This was a
Speaker 2: last stand. This was her version of dying, except she'd
Speaker 2: still be breathing. She'd cut every tie, burned every bridge,
Speaker 2: left no forwarding address. Her daughter Karen, thought she'd finally
Speaker 2: lost her mind completely. Maybe she had, After everything, after Haddenfield,
Speaker 2: after the fire, after the hospital, after watching her family
Speaker 2: torn apart again, and again by the evil that refused
Speaker 2: to die. Maybe going mad was the only sane response left.
Speaker 2: The first week had been the hardest. The silence was oppressive,
Speaker 2: almost physical. She'd spent so many years in a state
Speaker 2: of hypervigilance, always looking over her shoulder, always waiting for
Speaker 2: the other shoe to drop, that the absence of immediate
Speaker 2: threat felt wrong. Somehow, her body didn't know how to rest.
Speaker 2: She'd paced the cabin at night, checking the locks on
Speaker 2: the doors and windows, peering out into the darkness, seeing
Speaker 2: shadows that weren't there. But slowly, grudgingly, she'd started to adapt.
Speaker 2: The rhythms of this place were different from anything she'd
Speaker 2: known before. The days were getting shorter, the sun barely
Speaker 2: clearing the mountains before it began its scent again. The
Speaker 2: cold was a living thing, something you had to respect
Speaker 2: and plan for. She'd learned to split wood, to keep
Speaker 2: the fire going through the night, to read the weather
Speaker 2: in the clouds and the behavior of the ravens. She
Speaker 2: was learning to be alone with herself, and it was
Speaker 2: harder than she'd ever imagined. By the end of September,
Speaker 2: she'd fallen into a routine up before dawn, which came
Speaker 2: late up here, coffee and oatmeal tend the fire, paul
Speaker 2: water from the creek while it was still flowing. She'd
Speaker 2: spent weeks preparing for winter, cutting firewood until her hands
Speaker 2: were covered in blisters and calluses, reinforcing the cabin's chinking,
Speaker 2: organizing her supplies. Physical labor helped it kept her mind occupied,
Speaker 2: kept the memories at bay. It was early October when
Speaker 2: things started getting strange. The first incident was the rocks.
Speaker 2: She'd been inside reading when she heard a heavy thump
Speaker 2: against the cabin's north wall. She'd grabbed the shotgun and
Speaker 2: gone out to investigate, thinking maybe a branch had fallen,
Speaker 2: but there was no branch. There was a rock about
Speaker 2: the size of a soft ball sitting in the snow,
Speaker 2: about three feet from the cabin. She'd looked up at
Speaker 2: the roof, thinking maybe it had slid off, but that
Speaker 2: didn't make sense. The rock hadn't fallen, it had been thrown.
Speaker 2: The trajectory was all wrong for anything else. She'd scanned
Speaker 2: the tree line, her heart pounding, her finger resting lightly
Speaker 2: on the shotgun's trigger guard.
Speaker 3: Nothing moved.
Speaker 2: The forest was silent, except for the whisper of wind
Speaker 2: through the spruce branches. She'd called out into the emptiness,
Speaker 2: her voice sounding thin and small in the vastness, no answer,
Speaker 2: just the wind and her own breathing, visible in the
Speaker 2: cold air. She'd gone back inside and told herself it
Speaker 2: was nothing. Maybe a snow slide from a tree, maybe
Speaker 2: thermal expansion in a rock near the cabin, maybe anything
Speaker 2: other than what her instincts were screaming at her, which
Speaker 2: was that someone or something had deliberately thrown that rock
Speaker 2: at her cabin. Three days later, it happened again. This
Speaker 2: time she was outside splitting wood when a rock sailed
Speaker 2: over her head and crashed into the woodpile. She spun around,
Speaker 2: raising the axe defensively, and saw nothing but trees and shadows.
Speaker 2: But she'd seen the trajectory this time. Whoever or whatever
Speaker 2: had thrown that rock had done it from a position
Speaker 2: about thirty yards into the forest, and they'd thrown it hard, strong,
Speaker 2: very strong. She shouted into the forest that she was
Speaker 2: armed and didn't want trouble, but would defend herself if
Speaker 2: she had to. Silence answered her, and then, from somewhere
Speaker 2: in the trees a sound she'd never heard before, low
Speaker 2: and deep, almost subsonic, more felt than heard, not quite
Speaker 2: a growl, not quite a vocalization, something in between. It
Speaker 2: made the hair on the back of her neck stand
Speaker 2: up and triggered some primal instinct that screamed at her
Speaker 2: to run, to get inside, to hide. She'd back toward
Speaker 2: the cabin, keeping her eyes on the forest, and once inside,
Speaker 2: she'd locked the door and sat with the shotgun across
Speaker 2: her lap until her hand stopped shaking. That night, she
Speaker 2: didn't sleep. She sat at the window and watched the
Speaker 2: darkness and wondered what the hell was out there. The
Speaker 2: vocalization started after that. At first, just at night, that
Speaker 2: same deep, resonant sound, but sometimes it would change in
Speaker 2: pitch and tone. Sometimes it sounded almost curious. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: sounded like a warning. She'd lie in her sleeping loft
Speaker 2: and listen to it echoing through the valley, and she'd
Speaker 2: think about all the stories she'd read about Alaska, about
Speaker 2: the things that lived in the deep wilderness, bears, wolves, moose.
Speaker 2: But this didn't sound like any animals she'd ever heard of.
Speaker 2: She drove into Coldfoot on a supply run and casually
Speaker 2: asked the woman at the general store if there were
Speaker 2: bears still active this late in the season. The woman
Speaker 2: whose name was Maggie and who looked like she'd been
Speaker 2: born with callouses and a scowl, gave her a long look.
Speaker 2: You're hearing something up at your place. Laurie kept her
Speaker 2: voice neutral, just curious. Maggie leaned forward and lowered her voice,
Speaker 2: even though they were alone in the store. You up
Speaker 2: on the old Henderson property passed Minny Creek, Laurie nodded.
Speaker 2: That's wild country up there, real wild. You get all
Speaker 2: kinds of things moving through Bear sure, but they should
Speaker 2: be denning up by now. Maggie paused, You're hearing something else.
Speaker 2: Laurie hesitated, then decided to be honest. Deep vocalizations rocks
Speaker 2: being thrown at the cabin. Maggie nodded slowly, like she'd
Speaker 2: expected this. How long you've been up there three months
Speaker 2: and you're just now mentioning this. Maggie smiled, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't friendly. It was the smile of someone who knew
Speaker 2: a secret and wasn't sure whether to share it. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to tell you what to think, but there
Speaker 2: are things in these mountains that don't show up in
Speaker 2: any Whyild Life guide. Things that the old timers, the
Speaker 2: native folks, especially they know about They have names for them,
Speaker 2: the hairy Man, the tall one Bush, Indian bigfoot, Laurie said, flatly,
Speaker 2: call it what you want. Point is, if something's taking
Speaker 2: an interest in your place, best thing you can do
Speaker 2: is show respect. Don't threaten it, don't try to shoot it.
Speaker 2: Leave it be, and maybe it'll leave you be. Laurie
Speaker 2: wanted to laugh. She'd fled across a continent to escape
Speaker 2: one monster, she didn't need to worry about another one.
Speaker 2: But Maggie's expression was dead serious, and Laurie spent too
Speaker 2: many years learning to trust her instincts to dismiss it
Speaker 2: out of hand. What happens if it doesn't leave me be?
Speaker 2: Maggie shrugged. I guess you'll find out what you're made of,
Speaker 2: though from the look of you, I'd say you already know.
Speaker 2: That conversation was a week ago. Since then, Laurie saw
Speaker 2: it just once, just for a moment, but it was enough.
Speaker 2: She was coming back from the creek with water buckets,
Speaker 2: taking the long way around because she'd seen moose tracks
Speaker 2: and wanted to avoid any confrontation. The sun was setting
Speaker 2: that brief twilight period when the light goes strange, and
Speaker 2: everything is cast in shades of gold and purple. She
Speaker 2: was tired, not paying as much attention as she should
Speaker 2: have been, when movement caught her eye. There at the
Speaker 2: edge of the clearing, partially obscured by a thick spruce,
Speaker 2: stood something that made her stop dead in her tracks
Speaker 2: and forget how to Breathe tall, very tall, at least
Speaker 2: eight feet maybe more, covered in dark reddish brown hair
Speaker 2: that seemed to blend with the shadows. It stood upright
Speaker 2: like a man, but it was too broad, too massive,
Speaker 2: too wrong.
Speaker 3: To be human.
Speaker 2: She could see the shape of its head, conical and powerful,
Speaker 2: and she could see its eyes catching the last of
Speaker 2: the daylight. Dark eyes, intelligent eyes, eyes that were watching
Speaker 2: her with what looked like curiosity, and stay tuned for
Speaker 2: more sasquatch ott to see. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: these messages. They stared at each other for what felt
Speaker 2: like an eternity but was probably only ten seconds. Laurie's
Speaker 2: mind went completely blank. All her training, all her preparation,
Speaker 2: all her years of paranoia and self defense, and she
Speaker 2: just stood there, frozen, like a deer in headlights. Then
Speaker 2: it moved, not toward her, Thank god, It simply took
Speaker 2: a step backward, moving with a fluid grace that something
Speaker 2: that large shouldn't possess, and melted into the forest like
Speaker 2: it never existed at all, no sound, no crashing through brush,
Speaker 2: just there one moment and gone the next. Laurie stood
Speaker 2: there until the water buckets got so heavy her arms shook,
Speaker 2: and then she walked very carefully back to the cabin,
Speaker 2: locked herself inside, and poured three fingers of whiskey with
Speaker 2: trembling hands. A sasquatch, Are you kidding me? A freaking sasquatch?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: After everything she'd been through, after all the human monsters
Speaker 2: and the knives and the fires and the fear, she
Speaker 2: ended up in a cabin being watched by a creature
Speaker 2: that wasn't supposed to exist. She should have been terrified,
Speaker 2: should have packed her bags and driven straight back to civilization,
Speaker 2: But instead, lying in her loft that night, listening to
Speaker 2: the deep vocalizations echoing through the valley, she felt something unexpected.
Speaker 3: She felt less alone.
Speaker 2: Maggie's advice finally made Laurie decide to try something different,
Speaker 2: show respect, leave it be, So she started doing research,
Speaker 2: pulling up what she could on the satellite Internet about
Speaker 2: sasquatch behavior, habituation, situations, people who claim to have ongoing encounters.
Speaker 2: Most of it was probably nonsense, but some of it
Speaker 2: rang true. The stories about rocks being thrown as territorial
Speaker 2: markers or attempts at communication, the vocalizations, the way they'd
Speaker 2: watch human habitations from a distance, curious but cautious.
Speaker 3: One thing kept coming up in the accounts. Food.
Speaker 2: People who'd had extended contact often reported that leaving food
Speaker 2: out seemed to ease tensions, to transform the dynamic from
Speaker 2: confrontational to something more like coexistence. So three days after
Speaker 2: her sighting, Laurie took a bucket of apples she bought
Speaker 2: in cold Foot, walked to the edge of the clearing
Speaker 2: where she saw it, and placed them on a flat rock.
Speaker 2: She stood there for a moment, feeling ridiculous, and then
Speaker 2: spoke to the empty forest. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: can understand me. Don't know what you want, but I'm
Speaker 2: not here to hurt you, not here to prove you
Speaker 2: exist or take pictures or do any of that nonsense.
Speaker 2: I just want to be left alone. Figure you probably
Speaker 2: want the same thing. So here's some apples. Consider it
Speaker 2: a peace offering. From one refugee to another. She walked
Speaker 2: back to the cabin feeling like an idiot, but that
Speaker 2: night she slept better than she did in weeks. The
Speaker 2: next morning, the apples were gone, all of them, and
Speaker 2: in their place, arranged in a neat little pile, were
Speaker 2: four pine cones. Laurie stood there looking at those pine
Speaker 2: cones for a long time, a gift or a response,
Speaker 2: or something, an acknowledgment. She picked them up carefully, like
Speaker 2: they were precious and set them on her windowsill. That
Speaker 2: night she left more apples and some smoked salmon she
Speaker 2: bought from a local fisherman. The next morning those were
Speaker 2: gone too, and there was a dear antler placed carefully
Speaker 2: by her door, not dropped or tossed there, placed there deliberately.
Speaker 2: And that's how it started. That's how Laurie Strode, survivor
Speaker 2: of Michael Myers, veteran of forty five years of running
Speaker 2: and fighting in trauma, ended up in a gift exchange
Speaker 2: with a sasquatch in the Alaskan wilderness. She learned its
Speaker 2: patterns over the next few weeks. It would come at dusk,
Speaker 2: moving through the trees with remarkable silence for something so large.
Speaker 2: She'd see glimpses of it, shadows at the edge of
Speaker 2: the clearing. Sometimes she'd hear it moving around the cabin,
Speaker 2: testing things.
Speaker 3: Curious.
Speaker 2: It never tried to break in, never acted aggressive, more
Speaker 2: like it was trying to figure her out, trying to
Speaker 2: understand what this strange human woman was doing in its territory.
Speaker 2: The vocalizations changed. They became softer, almost conversational. Sometimes she'd
Speaker 2: be inside and hear that deep sound, and she'd walk
Speaker 2: to the window and see it standing at the tree line,
Speaker 2: just watching. She'd wave feeling absurd, and it would shift
Speaker 2: its weight from foot to foot, a gesture that looked
Speaker 2: almost bashful, before melting back into the forest. She started
Speaker 2: leaving better food. She'd cook extra portions of whatever she
Speaker 2: was making and leave them out, stew bread. Once, she
Speaker 2: made a barry cobbler and left half of it out,
Speaker 2: wondering if sasquatches had a sweet tooth.
Speaker 3: It was gone.
Speaker 2: The next morning, the pan licked clean, and she laughed
Speaker 2: for the first time in months. She started talking it,
Speaker 2: even though she never knew if it was listening. She'd
Speaker 2: be outside chopping wood and she'd just start talking, telling
Speaker 2: stories about her life, about Karen about the grandchildren she'd
Speaker 2: never see again. She talked about Haddenfield, about that first
Speaker 2: night forty five years ago when she was a teenage
Speaker 2: babysitter and her life turned into a nightmare. She talked
Speaker 2: about Michael, about the shape that refused to die, about
Speaker 2: how many times she thought it was over, only to
Speaker 2: discover it never was.
Speaker 3: You're probably the.
Speaker 2: Only one who could understand what it's like to be
Speaker 2: something people don't believe in, she told the forest, something
Speaker 2: that gets written off as legend or delusion. They made
Speaker 2: movies about what happened to me, made me into a
Speaker 2: character in their horror stories.
Speaker 3: But we know the truth. Monsters are real.
Speaker 2: They walk among us, and sometimes they wear masks, and
Speaker 2: sometimes they're covered in hair, and sometimes they're just your
Speaker 2: brother who won't stop trying to kill you. The sasquatch
Speaker 2: vocalized then, that deep, resonant sound, and she felt like
Speaker 2: somehow it understood. The creature started leaving her gifts more frequently,
Speaker 2: interesting rocks, feathers, once a perfectly intact wolverine skull that
Speaker 2: she kept on her mantle. The arrangement seemed to work.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch kept its distance, but stayed close, a presence
Speaker 2: in the forest. Laurie went about her business preparing for winter,
Speaker 2: and felt something she hadn't felt in decades. She felt safe.
Speaker 2: That should have been her first warning. Laurie Strode should
Speaker 2: have known better than to feel safe. She learned that
Speaker 2: lesson over and over again throughout her life. Safety was
Speaker 2: an illusion. Security was a lie. And the moment you
Speaker 2: let your guard down, the moment you started to believe that, maybe,
Speaker 2: just maybe you'd finally escaped, that's when it came for you.
Speaker 2: The calendar pages turned, October deepened, the temperatures dropped, Snow
Speaker 2: fell more frequently, beginning to pile up a round the cabin.
Speaker 2: She talked to Karen on the satellite phone, a brief,
Speaker 2: awkward conversation where her daughter asked if she was okay,
Speaker 2: and Laurie lied and said yes. She didn't mention the sasquatch.
Speaker 2: How do you explain something like that? She couldn't very
Speaker 2: well tell her daughter she was living in the woods
Speaker 2: and befriended a cryptid Halloween was approaching October thirty first.
Speaker 2: That date defined her existence for so long. She tried
Speaker 2: not to think about it, tried to tell herself that
Speaker 2: up here, thousands of miles from Haddenfield. That date didn't matter,
Speaker 2: just another day, just another rotation of the earth. But
Speaker 2: deep down, in the place where instinct lives, she knew better.
Speaker 2: She always knew better. October thirtieth dawned clear and cold,
Speaker 2: the sky that impossible blue you only see in the north.
Speaker 2: Laurie was outside splitting wood when the sasquatch appeared at
Speaker 2: the tree line. Unusual, it rarely showed itself during the day.
Speaker 2: It stood there, visible for once in full sunlight, and
Speaker 2: Laurie got her first really good look at it. Massive,
Speaker 2: at least eight and a half feet tall, probably heavier
Speaker 2: than three men combined, dark reddish brown hair covering its
Speaker 2: entire body except for its face, which was dark and leathery,
Speaker 2: more human than ape, but not quite either. Its eyes
Speaker 2: were deep set and intelligent, watching her with obvious concern,
Speaker 2: It shifted from foot to foot, making low vocalizations that
Speaker 2: sounded agitated.
Speaker 3: What's wrong. Laurie set down the axe.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch lifted one long arm and pointed toward the
Speaker 2: trail that led away from the cabin, the trail that
Speaker 2: connected her property to the access road miles away. Then
Speaker 2: it vocalized again, louder, this time more insistent. It was
Speaker 2: trying to warn her about something. Is someone coming? Ice
Speaker 2: water flooded her veins. Someone on the trail. The sasquatch
Speaker 2: beat its chest once hard, the sound echoing through the
Speaker 2: clearing like a drum, and then it bounded into the
Speaker 2: forest with shocking speed, disappearing into the trees. Laurie stood
Speaker 2: there for a long moment, her heart hammering, and then
Speaker 2: she walked quickly to the cabin. Inside, she locked the
Speaker 2: doors and loaded the shotgun. She sat at the window
Speaker 2: and watched the trail until the sun set and darkness fell,
Speaker 2: but no one came. That night, she didn't sleep. She
Speaker 2: sat in a chair by the door with the shotgun
Speaker 2: across her lap, and watched and waited and felt something
Speaker 2: she'd been trying to escape creeping up her spine. Fear,
Speaker 2: the old, familiar fear, the knowledge that he was coming.
Speaker 2: Because she knew, even without proof, even without evidence, Michael
Speaker 2: was coming. He found her, somehow, impossibly, he tracked her
Speaker 2: across thousands of miles to this remote cabin in the
Speaker 2: Alaskan wilderness. That's what the Sasquatch was warning her about.
Speaker 2: That's what the creature sensed evil, recognizes evil. October thirty
Speaker 2: first arrived with a white out blizzard. By noon, the
Speaker 2: world disappeared into a wall of white snow, falling so
Speaker 2: thick you couldn't see ten feet in any direction. The
Speaker 2: wind howled around the cabin like something alive and angry.
Speaker 2: Laurie prepared for this. She had supplies, heat, light, but
Speaker 2: she also had something else. Now she had certainty he
Speaker 2: was coming. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, but he was coming,
Speaker 2: and this time she was ready. Laurie spent Halloween Day
Speaker 2: turning her cabin into a fortress. She learned over the
Speaker 2: years that you couldn't kill Michael Myers through conventional means.
Speaker 2: She shot him, stabbed him, burned him, watched him fall
Speaker 2: from heights that should have killed him, and still he
Speaker 2: kept coming. He was the shape the Boogeyman, the embodiment
Speaker 2: of pure evil.
Speaker 3: And evil didn't die easy.
Speaker 2: But you could slow him down, you could hurt him,
Speaker 2: You could make him work for it. And if you
Speaker 2: were smart, if you were prepared, if you spent forty
Speaker 2: five years learning how predators think, you could maybe just
Speaker 2: maybe survive long enough to find a way to end it.
Speaker 2: The cabin had two doors, front and back, and four windows.
Speaker 2: She barricaded the back door completely, nailing boards across it
Speaker 2: and piling her heaviest furniture against it. That left the
Speaker 2: front door as the only.
Speaker 3: Way in or out.
Speaker 2: She reinforced it with a heavy beam that dropped into
Speaker 2: brackets she installed, making it strong enough to withstand significant force.
Speaker 2: The windows were the weak points. She couldn't board them
Speaker 2: all up without trapping herself inside, so she compromised. She
Speaker 2: reinforced them with additional latches and prepared piles of furniture
Speaker 2: that could be quickly shoved against them if needed. She
Speaker 2: placed her heaviest cast iron skillet on the sill of
Speaker 2: each window, ready to be used as a weapon. Then
Speaker 2: she started on the traps. She learned a lot about
Speaker 2: survival in Alaska, about the old ways of hunting and trapping.
Speaker 2: She applied those lessons. Now, outside the front door, she
Speaker 2: dug a pit, covering it with branches and snow, making
Speaker 2: it look like solid ground. It wouldn't stop him, but
Speaker 2: it might slow him down, might give her a few
Speaker 2: extra seconds. She strung wire at ankle height across the porch,
Speaker 2: nearly invisible in the darkness. She rigged a bucket of
Speaker 2: boiling water over the door, ready to be tipped on
Speaker 2: anyone who broke through. She scattered cowtrips she made from
Speaker 2: nails and wood on the approaches to the cabin, hiding
Speaker 2: them under a light dusting of snow. Inside, she prepared stations.
Speaker 2: The shotgun by the front window with extra shells, a
Speaker 2: fire axe by the door, knives within reach wherever she
Speaker 2: might need them. She learned from her last encounters with
Speaker 2: Michael that fire was one of the few things that
Speaker 2: could genuinely hurt him, so she prepared accelerants, bottles of
Speaker 2: lamp oil and grain alcohol that could be lit and thrown.
Speaker 2: She thought about the sasquatch out there in the storm somewhere.
Speaker 2: The creature hadn't shown itself since yesterday's warning, and Laurie
Speaker 2: felt a pang of worry. Was it hiding from what
Speaker 2: was coming or was it preparing to Either way, she
Speaker 2: couldn't count on help. This was her fight, It always
Speaker 2: was her fight. As the short winter day faded into
Speaker 2: the long winter night, Laurie sat by the window and
Speaker 2: thought about her life, about the girl she was before Haddenfield,
Speaker 2: before Michael, before everything. That girl was long gone, burned
Speaker 2: away by trauma and terror. But maybe that was okay.
Speaker 2: Maybe that girl needed to die so this woman could
Speaker 2: be born, this survivor who learned to stand her ground
Speaker 2: and fight back. She thought about Karen and her grandchildren.
Speaker 2: She left them a letter with her lawyer, to be
Speaker 2: opened only if she died.
Speaker 3: In it.
Speaker 2: She tried to explain everything, tried to tell them she
Speaker 2: loved them, tried to make them understand why she chose
Speaker 2: this isolation overstaying with them and putting them at risk.
Speaker 2: She hoped they'd forgive her. She hoped they'd understand. Mostly,
Speaker 2: she hoped they'd live long, happy lives without ever having
Speaker 2: to know the kind of fear she lived with. The
Speaker 2: wind died around nine o'clock, the storm suddenly ceasing, as
Speaker 2: winter storms sometimes do. The silence afterward was profound, absolute.
Speaker 2: Laurie stood at the window and looked out at a
Speaker 2: world transformed. Everything was buried under two feet of fresh snow,
Speaker 2: The clearing a perfect white expanse, broken only by the
Speaker 2: dark line of trees. And there at the edge of
Speaker 2: the clearing, a shape moved, not the sasquatch. She knew
Speaker 2: the creature's profile, its movements.
Speaker 3: This was different. This was human.
Speaker 2: This was a man walking slowly, deliberately, wading through the
Speaker 2: deep snow toward her cabin. He wore coveralls and boots.
Speaker 2: His face was obscured by a white mask. Pale and
Speaker 2: expressionless in the darkness. He moved with mechanical purpose, not hurrying,
Speaker 2: not hesitating, walking forward with the inevitability of a glacier. Michael,
Speaker 2: and stay tuned for mar sasquatch oat to see We'll
Speaker 2: be right back. After these messages, Laurie felt her hand
Speaker 2: start to shake and force them to be still. She
Speaker 2: knew he was coming. She prepared for this, but knowing
Speaker 2: and seeing were two different things. After everything, after all
Speaker 2: this time, there he was her brother, her tormentor, the
Speaker 2: shape that defined her life. It's okay, she whispered to herself,
Speaker 2: We're going to finish this. She watched him approach the cabin,
Speaker 2: watched him step onto the approach and trigger the first trap.
Speaker 2: His foot came down on a cow trip and he paused,
Speaker 2: looking down. In anyone else, that would have been a
Speaker 2: moment of pain, of shock. In Michael, it was just
Speaker 2: a moment of curiosity. He pulled his foot up the nail,
Speaker 2: pulling free and continued forward without any sign of distress.
Speaker 2: The ankle wire caught him next. He stumbled, his momentum
Speaker 2: carrying him forward, and crashed into the snow. For a moment,
Speaker 2: Laurie felt a surge of hope. Maybe the fall would
Speaker 2: disorient him, give her more time. But Michael pushed himself up, slowly, methodically,
Speaker 2: and continued forward. Nothing stopped him, nothing ever stopped him.
Speaker 2: He reached the pit trap and fell through, disappearing from view.
Speaker 2: Laurie ran to the door. Peering out through the reinforced window,
Speaker 2: she could hear him down there, moving around in.
Speaker 3: The six foot deep hole. She dug.
Speaker 2: Then she saw his hands appear on the edge, impossibly strong,
Speaker 2: and he hauled himself up and out, like the pit
Speaker 2: was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. He stood at
Speaker 2: the base of the porch steps, snow covered, and tilted
Speaker 2: his head in that characteristic gesture, looking at the cabin,
Speaker 2: looking at her. She could feel his eyes on her,
Speaker 2: even through the mask in the distance. You're not getting in,
Speaker 2: she shouted, not this time, not ever Again.
Speaker 3: He took another.
Speaker 2: Step forward and triggered the bucket trap. Boiling water cascaded
Speaker 2: down on him, steam rising into the cold air. Any
Speaker 2: normal person would have screamed, would have fallen back. Michael
Speaker 2: just stood there and took it, the water soaking into
Speaker 2: his coveralls, and then he reached for the door. The
Speaker 2: door held, the reinforced frame and the heavy beam did
Speaker 2: their job. He pulled on it, shook it, and when
Speaker 2: it didn't open, he stopped and looked at it, studying
Speaker 2: it problem solving. Then he raised his fist and started
Speaker 2: to punch through it. The door was solid wood, thick
Speaker 2: and heavy, but under Michael's assault, it began to splinter.
Speaker 2: Each blow landed with mechanical precision, the sound echoing through
Speaker 2: the small cabin. Laurie grabbed the shotgun and aimed it
Speaker 2: at the door, her finger on the trigger, waiting. The
Speaker 2: door cracked, splintered, a hole appeared, and Michael's hand thrust through,
Speaker 2: Groping for the latch. Laurie fired the shotgun directly at
Speaker 2: the opening. The blast was deafening in the enclosed space,
Speaker 2: and she saw Michael's hand jerk back. She pumped another
Speaker 2: shell into the chamber and fired again and again, blowing
Speaker 2: chunks out of the door, trying to drive him back.
Speaker 2: She heard him fall from the porch, and for a
Speaker 2: moment there was silence. She ejected the empty shells and
Speaker 2: reloaded with shaking hands, her ears ringing from the shots.
Speaker 2: The smell of gunpowder filled the air, acrid and bitter.
Speaker 2: A window shattered. She spun around and saw Michael's arm
Speaker 2: reaching through, sweeping aside the curtains, finding the latch, she
Speaker 2: ran across the room and brought the fire axe down
Speaker 2: on his forearm with all her strength. The blade bit
Speaker 2: deep and she felt it hit bone, but Michael didn't react.
Speaker 2: He just kept reaching, kept moving, mechanical and unstoppable. She
Speaker 2: wrenched the axe free and swung again, and this time
Speaker 2: he pulled his arm back. She grabbed the heavy cast
Speaker 2: iron skillet from the windowsill and smashed it against his
Speaker 2: hand as he reached through again. The window frame was
Speaker 2: too small for him to fit through, but he was
Speaker 2: tearing at it, enlarging it, making an opening. Laurie ran
Speaker 2: back to the other side of the cabin.
Speaker 3: The door was.
Speaker 2: Barely hanging on now, just splinters and nails holding it together.
Speaker 2: She grabbed one of her prepared bottles, lit the rag
Speaker 2: stuffed in its neck with a lighter, and threw it
Speaker 2: at the door. As Michael's hand came through again, the
Speaker 2: bottle shattered and liquid fire spread across the porch. Through
Speaker 2: the damaged door, she could see Michael standing in the flames,
Speaker 2: his coveralls starting to burn. He looked down at the fire,
Speaker 2: almost curious, and then he stepped through it and slammed
Speaker 2: his full weight against what was left of the door.
Speaker 2: It gave way, The beam cracked, the hinges tore free,
Speaker 2: and suddenly Michael was inside the cabin, burning and relentless.
Speaker 2: Laurie screamed and swung the axe. It caught him in
Speaker 2: the chest and stuck there. He looked down at it,
Speaker 2: reached up and pulled it free like it was a splinter.
Speaker 2: Blood was soaking through his coveralls, now mixing with the
Speaker 2: water and the fire, but he kept coming. She threw
Speaker 2: another Molotov cocktail and it shattered against his chest, igniting
Speaker 2: the oil soaked coveralls. Michael was fully ablaze, now a
Speaker 2: walking inferno, and still he advanced. She backed toward the
Speaker 2: ladder to the loft, firing the shotgun point blank into
Speaker 2: his midsection. The blast knocked him back a step, maybe two,
Speaker 2: but he just kept coming. Her heel hit the bottom
Speaker 2: of the ladder and she made a decision. She dropped
Speaker 2: the shotgun and scrambled up to the loft as fast
Speaker 2: as she could, hearing Michael's footsteps behind her. The loft
Speaker 2: was a dead end, she knew that, but it would
Speaker 2: give her a few more seconds to plan, to think,
Speaker 2: to find a way out of this. Michael reached the
Speaker 2: ladder and started to climb, methodical as always. Laurie grabbed
Speaker 2: her sleeping bag and lit it with her lighter, then
Speaker 2: threw it down on top of him. More fire, more smoke.
Speaker 2: The cab was filling with it. Now the heat was
Speaker 2: overwhelming and she was choking. She could barely see, barely breathe.
Speaker 2: Michael reached the top of the ladder, fully engulfed in flames,
Speaker 2: now a burning figure of death, and grabbed for her ankle.
Speaker 2: She kicked at his face, her boot heel connecting with
Speaker 2: that white mask, and he lost his grip on the ladder.
Speaker 2: He fell backward, crashing down to the main floor, taking
Speaker 2: the ladder with him. Laurie coughed her lungs, burning from
Speaker 2: the smoke. The loft was filling up fast, heat rising,
Speaker 2: and she realized with horror that she trapped herself the
Speaker 2: cabin was burning, Michael was down there, somewhere in the
Speaker 2: smoke and flames, and she had nowhere to go. She
Speaker 2: crawled to the loft window, the one she kept clear
Speaker 2: for ventilation, and kicked it open. Cold air rushed in,
Speaker 2: making the fire roar louder. She looked down about a
Speaker 2: twelve foot dropped to the snow below, and she had
Speaker 2: no choice. She heard Michael moving below, climbing through the wreckage,
Speaker 2: coming for her. She didn't look back, she just jumped.
Speaker 2: The landing knocked the wind out of her, driving her
Speaker 2: deep into the snow. She lay there, gasping, trying to
Speaker 2: get air back into her lungs, trying to make her
Speaker 2: body move. The cabin was fully involved now, flames shooting
Speaker 2: through the roof, lighting up the clearing like a beacon.
Speaker 2: She could see her shadow cast stark and black against
Speaker 2: the snow movement in the doorway. Michael emerged from the inferno,
Speaker 2: still burning, pieces of his coveralls falling away as charred debris.
Speaker 2: How was he still moving? How was any of this possible?
Speaker 2: But she knew the answer, She always knew. Michael Myers
Speaker 2: wasn't human anymore. If he ever was, he was something else.
Speaker 2: Something that wouldn't stop, couldn't stop. He started walking toward
Speaker 2: her through the snow, leaving a trail of fire and
Speaker 2: smoke in his wake. Laurie tried to crawl away, but
Speaker 2: her body wouldn't cooperate. The fall injured something. Ribs are back,
Speaker 2: and every movement was agony.
Speaker 3: This was it.
Speaker 2: After forty five years of running, forty five years of fighting,
Speaker 2: it was going to end here in the snow, far
Speaker 2: from home, far from everyone she loved. Michael reached down
Speaker 2: and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her effortlessly. His
Speaker 2: hands were charred, the flesh burned and cracked, but his
Speaker 2: grip was iron. He held her up so she could
Speaker 2: see his mask, so she could look into those empty
Speaker 2: eyes one last time. She tried to speak, but couldn't.
Speaker 2: Tried to fight, but had no strength left. The world
Speaker 2: was going dark at the edges, her vision tunneling down
Speaker 2: to just that white mask and those dead eyes. Then
Speaker 2: something hit Michael from the side with the force of
Speaker 2: a freight train, and suddenly Laurie was flying through the air.
Speaker 2: Released from his grip, she hit the snow hard and
Speaker 2: lay there, gasping, trying to understand what just happened. It
Speaker 2: was the Sasquatch. The creature stood between Laurie and Michael,
Speaker 2: and in that moment, Laurie understood why people told stories
Speaker 2: about these beings for thousands of years. He was magnificent
Speaker 2: and terrifying in equal measure, a force of nature, given
Speaker 2: flesh and hair, It stood at its full height, easily
Speaker 2: eight and a half feet of corded muscle and primal power.
Speaker 2: Its chest thrust out, arms spread wide, making itself as
Speaker 2: large and intimidating as possible. It beat its chest with
Speaker 2: both massive hands. The sound like thunder rolling across the clearing,
Speaker 2: reverberating off the trees and echoing back from the mountains.
Speaker 2: The vocalization that followed was something Laurie felt in her bones,
Speaker 2: in her teeth, in the cavity of her chest. It
Speaker 2: was deeper than sound, more vibration than noise, a challenge
Speaker 2: that spoke to something ancient and instinctual. This is my territory,
Speaker 2: This human is under my protection. Back off. Michael, still burning,
Speaker 2: still bleeding, turned to face this new threat, his head
Speaker 2: studying the Sasquatch like he might study an interesting puzzle.
Speaker 2: There was no fear in his posture, no hesitation. He
Speaker 2: simply processed this new variable in his mechanical, inhuman way.
Speaker 2: Then he took a step forward. The sasquatch didn't back down.
Speaker 2: It roared again, even louder this time, and charged. The
Speaker 2: collision was cataclysmic, eight and a half feet of pure
Speaker 2: muscle and primal fury meeting the unstoppable force of evil Incarnate.
Speaker 2: The impact when they came together sounded like a car crash,
Speaker 2: like two bull moose, and rut like the end of
Speaker 2: the world. They went down together in the snow, rolling
Speaker 2: and grappling, and Laurie could only watch in horror and awe.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch was stronger than Michael, much stronger. Where Michael
Speaker 2: had inhuman resilience and mechanical determination, the creature had raw
Speaker 2: physical power that defied comprehension. It got its arms around
Speaker 2: Michael's torso and lifted him off the ground, spinning with
Speaker 2: terrifying speed, before hurling him across the clearing like he
Speaker 2: was made of straw. Michael's body sailed through the air
Speaker 2: in an arc of flame and blood, covering at least
Speaker 2: twenty feet before he hit a thick spruce tree. The
Speaker 2: impact was devastating. The tree trunk easily two feet in diameter,
Speaker 2: cracked audibly. Snow cascaded down from the branches in a
Speaker 2: white avalanche. Any normal person would have been killed instantly,
Speaker 2: their spine shattered, their organs ruptured. Michael hit the snow
Speaker 2: at the base of the tree. His body bent at
Speaker 2: an unnatural angle, and then he stood up. He rose slowly, methodically,
Speaker 2: pieces of burning fabric falling from his body like molting skin.
Speaker 2: His coveralls were mostly gone, now burned away, revealing the
Speaker 2: scarred flesh beneath, flesh that should have been dead long ago,
Speaker 2: but somehow kept moving, kept functioning, driven by something that
Speaker 2: existed beyond the realm of biology or reason. He had
Speaker 2: a knife, now, that knife, the one he used for
Speaker 2: so many kills over so many years. He pulled it
Speaker 2: from somewhere in what remained of his clothing, and the
Speaker 2: blade caught the firelight from the burning cabin, glinting orange
Speaker 2: and red like it was already covered in blood. The
Speaker 2: sasquatch circled him warily, now its initial charge spent assessing
Speaker 2: this opponent that refused to stay down. The creature's dark
Speaker 2: eyes narrowed, intelligence and calculation visible in its gaze It
Speaker 2: dealt with bears, with wolves, with all manner of predators
Speaker 2: in these mountains. But this was different, this thing that
Speaker 2: looked like a man but moved like a machine, that
Speaker 2: burned but didn't die, that took punishment that would kill
Speaker 2: any living thing, but kept coming. Michael lunged with the knife,
Speaker 2: faster than something so damaged should have been able to move.
Speaker 2: The blade arked through the air, aimed at the Sasquatch's throat,
Speaker 2: but the creature was faster. It caught Michael's wrist in
Speaker 2: one massive hand, wrapping completely around his forearm. The Sasquatch's
Speaker 2: other hand shot out and grabbed Michael by the throat,
Speaker 2: lifting him off the ground with terrible ease. For a moment,
Speaker 2: they were frozen there, a tableau of two monsters locked
Speaker 2: in combat. Michael dangled in the air, held at arm's
Speaker 2: length by the creature's massive hands, still trying to drive
Speaker 2: the knife forward, even as his windpipe was being crushed.
Speaker 2: The Sasquatch's muscles bulged, cords standing out beneath its hair
Speaker 2: as it squeezed, But Michael was still burning. The fire
Speaker 2: that covered his body, fed by the accelerant, soaked into
Speaker 2: his flesh, and the remaining tatters of his coveralls was
Speaker 2: spreading to the sasquatch's hair. Where they made contact. The
Speaker 2: smell of burning hair filled the air, acrid and nauseating.
Speaker 2: The creature's hand wrapped around Michael's burning throat, began to smoke.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch made a sound of pain, a vocalization unlike
Speaker 2: anything Laurie heard from it before. It was a sound
Speaker 2: of suppse and agony, high pitched and terrible. The creature
Speaker 2: released Michael and stumbled backward, its hand already blistering patches
Speaker 2: of fur on its arm. Blackened and smoking, it beat
Speaker 2: at the burning spots, frantically, slapping them with its other hand,
Speaker 2: rolling patches of snow over its arm to extinguish the flames.
Speaker 2: Michael hit the ground and came at the sasquatch again, immediately,
Speaker 2: relentless as a machine, giving no quarter for the creature's pain,
Speaker 2: he drove the knife forward in a straight thrust, putting
Speaker 2: his full weight behind it. The blade caught the sasquatch
Speaker 2: in the left shoulder, sinking deep into muscle and tissue.
Speaker 2: The creature roared and swung back handed, catching Michael across
Speaker 2: the face with enough force to snap a normal person's neck.
Speaker 2: Michael's head snapped to the side, the white mask, finally
Speaker 2: cracking down the middle, but he didn't go down. He
Speaker 2: twisted with the momentum of the blow, using it to
Speaker 2: drive the knife in deeper, wrenching its sideways. The sasquatch
Speaker 2: bellowed in pain and rage, a sound that shook snow
Speaker 2: from the trees and set Laurie's ears ringing and stay
Speaker 2: tuned for more sasquatch ott to see We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: After these messages.
Speaker 2: The creature grabbed Michael with both hands, one on his arm,
Speaker 2: one on his torso, and pulled. Laurie heard Michael's shoulder
Speaker 2: dislocate with a wet pop that carried across the clearing.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch lifted him overhead like a wrestler performing a
Speaker 2: power slam, holding him there for a moment, silhouetted against
Speaker 2: the burning cabin and the star strewn sky beyond. Then
Speaker 2: it brought Michael down across its knee. The sound of
Speaker 2: Michael's spine bending cracking was like green wood breaking. The
Speaker 2: Sasquatch held him there for a moment, bent backward over
Speaker 2: its knee in a position that should have paralyzed him instantly.
Speaker 2: Then it threw him aside like garbage, and he tumbled
Speaker 2: through the snow, leaving a trail of blood and ash.
Speaker 2: Laurie dragged herself to the base of a tree, using
Speaker 2: it for support, trying to stay conscious through the pain
Speaker 2: in her ribs and the horror of what she was witnessing.
Speaker 2: She watched the sasquatch lumber toward where Michael fell, its
Speaker 2: left arm hanging useless at its side, blood streaming from
Speaker 2: the knife wound in its shoulder. The creature was favoring
Speaker 2: that side, its movements less fluid, now pain evident in
Speaker 2: every step.
Speaker 3: But Michael wasn't finished. He never was.
Speaker 2: He rose from the snow like a revenant, like something
Speaker 2: that already died, but refused to accept it. His body
Speaker 2: was broken, now truly broken. His left arm hung at
Speaker 2: an impossible angle, the shoulder destroyed, his spine had to
Speaker 2: be fractured, damaged beyond any reasonable hope of function.
Speaker 3: But still he stood still.
Speaker 2: He moved toward the sasquatch with mechanical determination. They came
Speaker 2: together again, and this time there was no grace to it,
Speaker 2: no display of strength. It was ugly, and brutal, two
Speaker 2: damaged monsters trying to destroy each other through sheer attrition.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch swung its good arm and a haymaker that
Speaker 2: caught Michael in the ribs. Laurie heard bone's crack, saw
Speaker 2: Michael's torso compress from the impact. He staggered but didn't fall,
Speaker 2: driving forward inside the creature's reach, punching at its wounded
Speaker 2: side with his one functioning arm. They grappled, crashed through
Speaker 2: the underbrush, destroying young trees and churning up the snow.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch got its good arm around Michael's waist and
Speaker 2: squeezed a crushing bear hug that should have pulverized his
Speaker 2: internal organs. Michael's mask fell away completely, now revealing his face.
Speaker 2: Laurie could see it in the firelight, that face she
Speaker 2: knew since childhood, transformed by evil and damage into something
Speaker 2: barely recognizable as human. Burns and scars covered his features.
Speaker 2: One eye was clouded and dead. His mouth was fixed
Speaker 2: in a permanent rictus that might have been a snarl,
Speaker 2: or might have just been the way his damaged facial
Speaker 2: muscle naturally rested. He drove his thumb into the Sasquatch's eye.
Speaker 2: The creature shrieked and released him, staggering backward, one hand
Speaker 2: going to its face. Michael fell to his knees, but
Speaker 2: didn't stop. Even on his knees, even with his broken body,
Speaker 2: he lunged forward and grabbed the knife that was still
Speaker 2: sticking out off the sasquatch's shoulder. He wrenched it free
Speaker 2: and drove it into the creature's chest, just below the sternum.
Speaker 2: Angling upward, the sasquatch stumbled backward, blood pumping from the
Speaker 2: new wound, dark blood, almost black in the firelight, steaming
Speaker 2: in the cold air. The creature's hand went to the
Speaker 2: knife handle, wrapped around it and pulled it free with
Speaker 2: the sound that Laurie would hear in her nightmares for
Speaker 2: the rest of her life. The knife came out, followed
Speaker 2: by a gush of blood that told Laurie everything she
Speaker 2: needed to know. That wound was mortal, deep, and mortal.
Speaker 2: But the sasquatch wasn't done fighting. It lurched forward, using
Speaker 2: its good arm to grab Michael by the head. Michael
Speaker 2: tried to twist away, but his damaged body couldn't move
Speaker 2: fast enough. The creature's massive hand wrapped around Michael's skull,
Speaker 2: fingers digging in, and it began to squeeze. Michael drove
Speaker 2: his fist into the Sasquatch's wounded chest again and again,
Speaker 2: each blow sending fresh gouts of blood streaming down the
Speaker 2: creature's torso, But the Sasquatch held on its hand, tightening
Speaker 2: more and more. Laurie heard Michael's skull beginning to crack,
Speaker 2: small popping sounds, like ice breaking on a frozen lake.
Speaker 2: They stood there, locked together, each dealing death to the other,
Speaker 2: both refusing to fall. Michael's fists pummeled the Sasquatch's chest, cavity,
Speaker 2: breaking ribs, rupturing organs. The Sasquatch's hand compressed Michael's skull,
Speaker 2: fracturing bone, crushing the tissue beneath, and then the Sasquatch
Speaker 2: got its other arm, working the wounded one, and brought
Speaker 2: it up, despite the pain, despite the damage, Both hands
Speaker 2: now on Michael's head, the creature roared one final time,
Speaker 2: a sound of triumph and agony combined and twisted. The
Speaker 2: crack echoed across the clearing like a rifle shot. Michael's
Speaker 2: body went limp instantly completely, his arms dropping to his sides.
Speaker 3: The sasquatch held him there for.
Speaker 2: A moment longer, making sure than released him. Michael Myers
Speaker 2: collapsed into the snow, face first and didn't move. His
Speaker 2: head lay at an angle that was not compatible with life,
Speaker 2: with consciousness, with anything except death. The shape was finally still.
Speaker 2: The sasquatch stood over Michael's body, swaying slightly, blood pouring
Speaker 2: from its chest wound. It looked down at the dead
Speaker 2: man for a long moment, as if making certain the
Speaker 2: threat was truly ended.
Speaker 3: Then it turned its gaze to Laurie. Their eyes met.
Speaker 2: Across the clearing, across the burning cabin and the churned
Speaker 2: snow and the blood soaked battlefield. Laurie saw intelligence in
Speaker 2: those dark eyes. She saw pain, She saw recognition, and
Speaker 2: she saw something that might have been a question, or
Speaker 2: might have been goodbye. She tried to speak to thank
Speaker 2: this impossible being that saved her life, but her voice
Speaker 2: wouldn't work. She could only watch as the sasquatch took
Speaker 2: a step toward her, then stumbled. Its hand went to
Speaker 2: the wound in its chest, and came away, dark with blood.
Speaker 2: The creature looked at its own hand, seemed to understand
Speaker 2: what that meant, and turned away. It limped toward the
Speaker 2: tree line, toward the deep forest, leaving a trail of blood,
Speaker 2: black and stark against the white snow. Laurie found her voice, wait,
Speaker 2: but the sasquatch didn't stop. It moved with painful determination
Speaker 2: into the shadows between the trees, moving towards some destination
Speaker 2: only it new, someplace it chose to die. And then
Speaker 2: it was gone, swallowed by the darkness and the vast wilderness,
Speaker 2: leaving only that trail of blood, disappearing into the forest.
Speaker 2: Laurie sagged against the tree, tears streaming down her face,
Speaker 2: mixing with the smoke and the blood and the snow.
Speaker 2: She looked at Michael's body, lying motionless in the clearing.
Speaker 2: The fire from the cabin was beginning to die down, now,
Speaker 2: the structure collapsing in on itself. The clearing was lit
Speaker 2: by dying flames and starlight, and in that light she
Speaker 2: could see clearly that Michael Myers was finally truly dead.
Speaker 2: After forty five years, the nightmare was over, but the
Speaker 2: cost was terrible. The creature that showed her kindness, that
Speaker 2: became her unlikely companion in this remote place, gave its
Speaker 2: life to end the evil that pursued her across a continent.
Speaker 2: She knelt there in the snow beside Michael's corpse and
Speaker 2: wept for the Sasquatch, for herself, for all the years
Speaker 2: of fear and trauma, for the impossible price of her survival.
Speaker 2: The cold bit into her damaged body, and she knew
Speaker 2: she couldn't stay here much longer. She would freeze to
Speaker 2: death if she didn't find shelter, get warm, call for help.
Speaker 2: But for now, for just a few more moments, she
Speaker 2: let herself cry, She let herself mourn, and she looked
Speaker 2: at the forest where the creature disappeared, and whispered words
Speaker 2: of gratitude that the wind carried away into the vast
Speaker 2: Alaskan night. They found Lauri three days later, half frozen
Speaker 2: and delirious in the burned remains of her cabin. A
Speaker 2: passing bush pilot saw the smoke and called it in.
Speaker 2: The state troopers came, and then the medics, and they
Speaker 2: airlifted her to the hospital and Fairbanks, where she spent
Speaker 2: two weeks recovering from broken ribs, frostbite, smoke inhalation, and
Speaker 2: severe hypothermia. They found Michael's body too, or what was
Speaker 2: left of it. The official report said it was a
Speaker 2: home invader, probably someone high on drugs, who attacked her
Speaker 2: and whom she killed in self defense. The burned condition
Speaker 2: of the body made identification difficult. They checked dental records
Speaker 2: and DNA, but the samples were so degraded that they
Speaker 2: came back inconclusive. Eventually, they listed him as John Doe
Speaker 2: and cremated the remains. Laurie didn't correct them. What would
Speaker 2: she have said, that was my brother, the serial killer
Speaker 2: who was supposed to be dead thirty years ago. They'd
Speaker 2: have put her in a psychiatric ward. She told them
Speaker 2: someone helped her, a large man who lived in the woods.
Speaker 2: But the troopers never found any evidence of anyone else
Speaker 2: being there, just animal tracks in the snow. They said,
Speaker 2: probably a bear. Laurie didn't argue. Some things were better
Speaker 2: left unsaid. Karen flew up as soon as she heard.
Speaker 2: They had a long, tearful reunion in the hospital, and
Speaker 2: Laurie tried to explain why she came here, why she ran.
Speaker 2: Karen didn't understand, not really, but she stopped arguing. Maybe
Speaker 2: she could see something in her mother's eyes, some fundamental change,
Speaker 2: some burden that finally lifted. It's over now, Laurie told
Speaker 2: her daughter, really over. He's gone forever this time. Are
Speaker 2: you sure, Karen asked, and heard all the years of
Speaker 2: fear in that question. I'm sure I watched him die.
Speaker 2: I saw it end. Spring came to Alaska like it
Speaker 2: always does, sudden and overwhelming. After the long winter, the
Speaker 2: snow melted and the rivers ran high, and the tundra
Speaker 2: exploded with flowers.
Speaker 3: Laurie bought a new.
Speaker 2: Cabin, smaller, this time, closer to Coldfoot, where neighbors could
Speaker 2: check on her. She was healing, both physically and mentally,
Speaker 2: going to therapy for the first time in her life
Speaker 2: and actually talking about everything she'd been through, but she
Speaker 2: couldn't stop thinking about the Sasquatch. On a warm day
Speaker 2: in May, when the fireweed was starting to bloom, she
Speaker 2: made a trip back to the old property. The burned
Speaker 2: remains of her original cabin were still there, black and
Speaker 2: skeletal against the new green growth. She walked past them
Speaker 2: into the forest, following paths she remembered, looking for something
Speaker 2: she knew she probably wouldn't find. She found it anyway.
Speaker 2: The skeleton was laid out in a small clearing covered
Speaker 2: in maws and new vegetation already being reclaimed by the forest.
Speaker 2: It was massive, the bones thick and heavy, the skull
Speaker 2: unlike anything in any anatomy textbook, sasquatch, real, undeniable, proof
Speaker 2: of something that wasn't supposed to exist. Laurie stood there
Speaker 2: for a long time, looking at all that remained of
Speaker 2: the creature that saved her life. Then she knelt down
Speaker 2: and placed her hand on the skull, feeling the bone
Speaker 2: solid and real under her palm. Thank you, she whispered
Speaker 2: to the empty air. I wish I could have saved
Speaker 2: you too. I wish you could have lived to see
Speaker 2: another spring. A raven called somewhere in the trees, its
Speaker 2: voice harsh and clear. The wind rustled through the birch leaves.
Speaker 2: Life continued as it always did, indifferent to the small
Speaker 2: tragedies and victories that played out beneath its green canopy.
Speaker 2: Laurie stood and looked around the clearing. This was where
Speaker 2: it happened. This was where two monsters fought and was
Speaker 2: finally defeated, not by fire or bullets or traps, but
Speaker 2: by something far more primal, by a creature defending its territory,
Speaker 2: protecting something it cared about.
Speaker 3: She pulled out her satellite phone and made a call.
Speaker 2: It took a few tries to get through, but eventually
Speaker 2: she heard Maggie's voice on the other end. I need
Speaker 2: help with something, and I need you to promise to
Speaker 2: keep it quiet. An hour later, Maggie arrived on her
Speaker 2: four wheeler with shovels and heavy duty trash bags. She
Speaker 2: looked at the skeleton. You weren't kidding, were you, No,
Speaker 2: Laurie said quietly, I wasn't. They worked together in silence,
Speaker 2: carefully bagging the bones, handling them with respect. Maggie knew
Speaker 2: people native elders who understood these things, who would know
Speaker 2: what to do with the remains, how to honor them properly.
Speaker 2: The bones would be hidden away, protected, kept safe from
Speaker 2: trophy hunters and scientists and all the people who would
Speaker 2: want to prove something or make money off the discovery.
Speaker 2: Some secrets were meant to stay secret. Some stories weren't
Speaker 2: meant to be told to everyone. As they loaded the
Speaker 2: last of the bags onto the four wheeler, Maggie put
Speaker 2: a hand on Laurie's shoulder. You okay, yeah, Laurie said,
Speaker 2: and she meant it for the first time in a
Speaker 2: very long time, she thought she actually was. What are
Speaker 2: you going to do now? Laurie looked back at the forest,
Speaker 2: at the clearing where the sasquatch made its last stand.
Speaker 2: She thought about all the years she spent running, all
Speaker 2: the fear and trauma and sleepless nights. She thought about
Speaker 2: her family, about the life she'd been too afraid to live.
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to go home, going to see
Speaker 2: my grandchildren, going to stop running and start living. He's dead,
Speaker 2: it's over, and I'm still here. That's good, Maggie said,
Speaker 2: that's real good. They drove back to Coldfoot together, the
Speaker 2: bones of a legend secured on the four wheeler, a
Speaker 2: secret that would be kept. Laurie looked back one last
Speaker 2: time as they crested a hill, seeing her old property
Speaker 2: disappearing behind them, the burned cabin and the clearing and
Speaker 2: the forest that briefly was home. Goodbye, she whispered into
Speaker 2: the wind, thank you for giving me back my life.
Speaker 2: That night, in her new cabin, Laurie slept without nightmares
Speaker 2: for the first time in forty five years. And far
Speaker 2: away in the mountains, in the deep places where humans
Speaker 2: rarely go, something moved through the trees, something large and
Speaker 2: quiet and impossible, because legends don't die easily, and the
Speaker 2: wild places always keep their secrets.
Speaker 3: The sasquatch that saved her.
Speaker 2: Was gone, yes, but the forest was full of mysteries,
Speaker 2: full of things that watched from the shadows and left
Speaker 2: no trace. And maybe, just maybe that creature wasn't alone.
Speaker 2: Maybe there were others out there, moving through the darkness,
Speaker 2: living their ancient lives far from human eyes. Some stories end,
Speaker 2: some monsters die, but the wilderness endures, vast and unknowable,
Speaker 2: full of wonders were not meant to understand. And sometimes,
Speaker 2: when the wind is right and the night is dark,
Speaker 2: people in the remote parts of Alaska hear sounds echoing
Speaker 2: through the valleys, deep vocalizations, calls that might be bear
Speaker 2: or wolf or wind, or might be something else entirely
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