Speaker 1: If you follow this podcast, you know that I've been
uploading archived audio projects that I've done as far back
as five or six years ago. I'm doing that because
there are a lot of new followers on the podcast,
and it's not normal for a new listener to search
back into the history or library of any podcast and
go back to the old stuff and listen to it.
I know I don't do that. I don't know anyone
else who does that. They stumble on a new podcast
and they just keep listening to the new stuff. However,
the stories that I did, especially in the first couple
of years, they weren't presented very well as you're gonna
hear in this podcast, but the stories are fantastic. I'm
reaching way back in this episode one on one of
the archive drops. Two of the stories in this podcast
are from that era, and you'll look the audio horrible
on them, and I've tried to improve it. The way
I read them was not very good. It was pretty
poor reading, and I've learned how to do it just
a little bit better through the years. But if you
can get by that and just listen to the story,
I think you'll be entertained and intrigued. That's all I
wanted to say, thanks for watching the first one hundred.
I didn't announce it. I was going to do it
back in May. I just made a decision and just
did it that I was going to try my best
to upload one hundred podcasts in one hundred days. I
missed my mark, but I got a hundred up in
about one hundred and six days. I believe it is
so thank you for listening. I'm going to keep doing them.
They're not going to drop every day from this point forward.
Some might, but I'll probably drop a couple of archive
podcasts per week along with the newer podcast that I do,
so maybe you can expect two to three a week.
I just want to get on and let you know
how much I appreciate you listening and following this podcast,
and I hope you continue to enjoy the stories, new
and old. All right, here we go. There was an
old hermit once. No one ever really knew his name
or where he came from. He was as much a
part of the landscape as the trees that grew around
a shack he kept himself. Mostly. Sometimes he'd venture into
town and pick up a bag of coffee beans or
maybe a pound of flour. But when he did, he
didn't speak much to anyone. Mostly he stayed out there
by himself in the woods. He was such a quiet
old man that no one ever gave him much thought.
He was never invited to any parties, nor did he
show up for the community dances. He was nowhere to
be found when the fireworks the sky on the fourth
of July. And well, it's highly unlikely that anyone ever
thought to give him a Christmas present. He was just
old Jake, and it may not have been his real name,
but who could say. But someone started calling him that
one day, and it stuck. Old Jake didn't live alone
in his little one room shack. He had three companions
who lived there too, and their names were I Know,
you Know, and Kaliko. They were three of the finest
redbone hounds a man could ask for. They hunted faithfully
at his side and spent long hours lying on the
banks of the river while Old Jake fished. Each morning,
when Jake got up, those three dogs were at the
door waiting to be let in, having spent a long
night out chasing whatever animals inhabited the night. Each night
before he went to bed, they were at the door again,
waiting to be let out for another night of rolic.
Jake didn't have many possessions, and just a few pieces
of furniture and his gun in his fishing pole, and
the tools he needed to get through each day. In
each spring, he'd put in a big garden and the
food from which is what he lived on most of
the year. He grew what he needed and canned and
dried and put away as much as he could, along
with the fish and the game he caught. It was
usually enough to get him through the winter, and when
it wasn't enough, Jake went hungry. It was one of
those years when the garden hadn't produced like it should
and the game had been a bit scarce, that Jake
found himself deep into February with nothing left to eat.
He went out each day and hunted for rabbits and
squirrels or anything else he could find, but he wasn't
having a lot of luck that year. Sometimes he'd go
a whole week before he'd managed to catch something to
fill his belly, and at his age, with his bones
beginning to protest against the cold, Jake was miserable. One night,
tired and hungry and with nothing to eat. He turned
out the dogs and put up the biggest fire he
could in the fireplace, and he crawled into bed under
his old patchwork wilt. The wind blew hard that night,
and the cabin creaked and shuddered under its force. Jake
shivered in reply, and his belly was too empty and
his body was too cold to allow for a good
night's sleep. It's all he could do was lie there
and listen. I know, you know, And Kaliko had come
back from the woods early. He could hear him bedding
down in the cross space under the floorboards. Ought to
get up and let those dogs in, he told himself
as he listened to them scratching around below him. But
he was cold and hungry, and he was tired. Getting
up and going to the door seemed like too big
of a task, So he laid there and he listened.
It wasn't long before he began to notice the But
the noises he was hearing didn't sound like his dogs
at all. This got his attention. He raised his head
a little off the bed and concentrated. He heard scratching,
long scratches and short scratches. That ain't my dog's, he said.
The scratching grew louder and turned into a gnawing sound.
What is that? He wondered. Feeling a little afraid, Jake
sat up in his bed and he looked around the room.
At that moment, something nibbled through the wall and popped
its head through the hole. It was a tall, bony
rat like creature with beady red eyes that watered with
milky secretions, and long yellow teeth that drips sliva onto
the floor. It raised its clawed hands up and began
to inch toward Jake's bed. Panic down, afraid, Jake forgot
all about his aching bones and his empty belly, and
he thought only of how he was going to rid
himself with this monster. He climbed out of bed and
ran to grab something, anything, to defend himself from this
creature that was moving ever closer. The first thing Jake
got his hands on was a meat cleaver on the table.
He turned and swung it at the fend and backed
it into a corner where it had chewed the hole.
It ducked and swayed, even pounced back as they fought,
But little by little, Jake was winning until he found
himself standing by the door of the cabin, and thinking quickly,
he threw open the door and called for the dogs.
Seconds later, they were barreling into the cabin. They were
growling and barking at the strange, monstrous being, and together
Jake and the dogs drove it back to the hole
and out of the cabin. But before it could escape completely,
Jake grabbed its tail and with one swing of the blade,
he chopped it off. The animal gave out a horrifying
scream that rattled Jake and sent three dogs cower back.
Jake looked quickly around the room and found a piece
of cloth to shove into the hole. Then he piled
some of his firewood in front of it, and then
he turned to the dogs and gave each one a
pat on the head before letting them back out into
the night. Jake looked at the long tail in his hand,
and he wondered what he should do with it. His
stomach rumbled and hunger then, and so he decided to
cook it into his suit. An hour later, with his
belly full for the first time in a week, Jake
tired and crawled into bed and fell asleep. It wasn't
long though, until that scratching sound began again, and Jake
found himself sitting up in bed, facing the corner where
he had secured the hole. A second later, the pile
of firewood erupted and the rat creature was standing in
front of him again. Where's my taily poe, it growled
at him. I want my taily poe. I don't have,
Jake cried, his voice wavering in fear. Go away. I
want my taily pole, the thing replied. Jake sprang from
the bed and ran to the front door. I know
you know, Caaliico? He called, Come in here, boys, and
once again the three dogs came. Running together. Jake and
his dogs forced the beasts back into the hole. Once again,
Jake covered it with bits of cloth and firewood. He
was exhausted beyond measure now and he crawled back into
the bed within seconds, and he was snoring. When Jake
awoke again, the monster was already inside the cabin. It
was towering over his bed and croaking out the words
where is my taily pole? Again. Jake sprang for the
door and he threw it open. I know you know, Caalico,
he called, but the dogs didn't come. I know, Come on, boy,
he yelled again, you know where you at, Kalko. Come on, boy,
come on. No matter how many times he called, the
dogs didn't come. He turned and faced the monstrous rat,
who demanded in its leathery voice, I want my tailey pole.
And Jake ran for his bed and jumped in and
threw the covers over his head. I don't have it,
he screamed. I cooked it and ate it for supper.
In an instant, the rat jumped onto the bed and
began to claw at the old quilt, and Jake screamed
and cried out for help, and the rat gnawed through
the covers and into Jake's shirt. Help me, help me,
he screamed, but no one was around to hear him,
and then it began to claw its way into Jake's stomach.
It was later that spring when someone finally noticed that
Jake hadn't been to town for quite some time, and
for the first time in memory, Old Jake was the
center of conversation. You don't suppose he's hurt out there
in that cabin, Someone asked, well, maybe he died out there.
He's getting old, you know. Another suggested, do you think
we ought to go check on him? Yet another wondered.
The town gathered up a group of men and they
headed out to the cabin where Old Jake lived, and
when they got there, they found the place had been
torn to pieces. The only thing standing was the fireplace chimney.
They found a skull that looked like it probably belonged
to one of Jake's hound dogs, and there were bits
of material that might have been covered in blood. But
Jake was gone. He was never seen again. These days,
if you head out to the woods where Old Jake's
cabin once stood, don't be surprised if you hear screaming
on the wind in a scratchy, growling voice, demanding to
know where's my daily pole. In April of twenty ten,
my husband was assigned a contract to work in Germany.
We decided that it would be a good experience for
our son, Jake, then eighteen and a senior in high school,
to go for a senior trip. We discussed the plans
with his school principal and was met with the resounding yes,
he's excused. This is a trip of a lifetime. Go
with lots of instructions on how to navigate the airport's
use of passport finding a US embassy and movement through customs.
We sent our one hundred and seventy five pound, six
foot tall wrestler alone to Germany to meet his dad.
He stayed a week and then he returned home. Jake
returned to an airport where I had never driven. Monday,
May third, twenty ten, my twelve year old daughter, Journey
and I picked up my son at Dulles International Airport
in Virginia at nine forty five pm. I used a
map quest to find the shortest route and printed a copy,
which took us down country roads in the daylight hours.
It was easy, peasy. We arrived at the airport without
a hitch. I proceeded south on Route twenty eight with
both of my kids heading home. My daughter rode in
the front seat to navigate the printed directions in reverse
and in the dark. My son rode in the back
seat with his head down. I became disoriented and missed
our left turn on to Aiden Road. To make matters worse,
the fuel gauge was on empty. I had less than
three gallons in the tank. I was afraid that we'd
run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. This
was compounded by the fact that the local news was
plastered with stories of a mass murderer in the Manassas area.
His mo was stabbing victims with screwdrivers or bash with
a hammer and leaving them for dead. I didn't tell
the kids. I'm not one to shield my kids from gore,
but they sensed my urgency and the tension was high.
I saw a dimly lit gas station on the side
of the road. I pulled in, swiped my card. It authorized.
I pulled the handle to start the flow of gas
into my tank, and one cent dispensed and clunked the
gas pump stop. I got three cents worth of gas
over three tries when I noticed a large, brownish tan
suv sitting at the stop sign with its hazard lights on.
The feeling of relief that I had found a gas
station changed from annoyance with the pumps to an undeniable
fear something wasn't right about the vehicle. I got in
the car, locked the doors, and drove out of the
gas station parking lot. As I approached the stop sign
where the suv was parked, a dark haired man wait
for us to stop. To OH. I was terrified and
didn't know why. My son said, Mom I think this
guy needs some help. No one needs more help than
us right now. He's a grown man. He can figure
it out. I blew through the stop sign. We drove
down roads with unfamiliar names that were unmarked by lines
and narrowed ominously into what looked like a tree lined tunnel.
Upon reaching a dead end, we backtracked, finding that we
had to navigate around obstacles that were not there earlier.
We approached part of a large broken pine tree laying
in the middle of the road and drove around it.
It was as if someone had thrown a broken pine
tree randomly in the yard. We backtracked to find Fitzwater Drive.
It passed an open well liit convenience store, where I
stopped and filled up with gas. The tension calm because
we had a full tank of gas and this road
would eventually lead us home. My cars old dim yellow
tinted lights illuminated something beside the road. Crouched and bent
over in the corner ditch was a large reddish brown figure.
Its back was toward the road, so I saw no face.
The fur texture, shape, and lay were like a wet
brown bear. You knew how you see bears exiting a
river on TV. The fur was auburn with a thick undercoat,
and the outside hairs laid downward in points like fresh
out of the water hair groomed with a wide toothed comb.
I saw the animal but said nothing. My daughter immediately said,
did you see that? What was it poking fun? I said,
I don't know, maybe it was a bigfoot. My son
said he was looking forward and only saw a reddish
brown colored difference in the peripheral vision. The time was
approximately eleven PM. I asked if I should turn around
and go back to see The kid said to keep
because they were already rattled by being lost late at night,
they didn't want to waste any more time getting home.
We arrived home around midnight or twelve thirty am. The
kids went to bed with no further conversation about our adventure.
The next day, Tuesday, May the fourth, I began research
on grizzly brown bears in Virginia. I found a Virginia
Department of Game in Inland Fisheries pdf link saying that
grizzly bears do not live in Virginia. Virginia is home
only to black bears. After finding this article, and without
making any comments to bias a reaction. I showed my son.
He read in silence, his eyes widened, fear washed over
his face, and the colored drain. Mom, you've got to
report this. That was a bigfoot. I told Jake, wait here,
don't talk, don't say anything. I immediately walked to my
daughter's room. I asked, Journey, do you think you could
draw a picture of what you saw last night? Sure,
and went to work on a sketch in another room,
away from prying eyes. I made my own drawing. When
Journey completed her sketch, we compared pictures. My drawing showed
the back of a squatting, crouched, hairy figure. The animal's
head bent low as if to hide, exposing only the
massive hairy's shoulders to its waistline. My daughter's drawing was
from a different perspective. She caught sight of the animal
as we rounded the corner, placing her at an angle
to see its profile. Her drawing depicted the curve of
the ditch with a large, hunched being sitting in the depression.
It was leaning forward as though to make itself look smaller,
with arms outstretched to support its weight against the rise
of the ditch's embankment. On the other side, there was
no mistaking that she drew massive shoulders, lack of neck,
and a conical head file that transitioned into a heavy,
sloping brow. With the pieces of evidence, I filled an
online report with two of the leading Bigfoot research organizations.
I knew who to contact because Jake had completed an
independent research project years earlier on the Bigfoot, Yetti sisquatch phenomenon.
As I typed my response, Jake schooled me on what happened.
It all makes sense, mom. The Native Americans believe he's
a spirit being that orchestrates or is drawn by confusion, fear,
or chaos. People report finding broken trees in the vicinity
of Bigfoot. That's exactly what happened last night. Within an hour,
both Bigfoot research organizations contacted me, one of which went
to the site and conducted their own investigation. He considered
me a Class B witness because there was no physical
evidence or photographic evidence from the scene found. I was
a credible witness because of my standing in the community
as a teacher and a disability awareness advocate. He said
that any other animal would flee like a bear or deer,
not crouch and hide. I wasn't a whack job. The
researcher found a blind of a bent tree secured by
a large rock in the area, supporting the thought that
this may be a bigfoot shelter. There was also a
food source dumpsters in close proximity, with nearby woods for cover.
I've shared my story with very few folks, only those
I can trust. Sometimes a family member will say, tell
so and so about the Aiden Road incident, like I'm
a party novelty. Most would be satisfied with this being
the conclusion of my bear turned Bigfoot sighting. But that
is not the end. My husband calls me the unsolved
mystery Lady because I love mystery shows on TV, and
one day I hoped to unrival a mystery. After all
the Bigfoot excitement had died down in our household, I
had some quiet time on my hands. I recalled that
about a month before the sighting, I had pondered Bigfoot
and said, God, if you are the creator, certainly you
made bigfoot, and certainly you can let me see one.
That was that. No hell, Mary's, no our fathers, no formalities,
just a chat with God. I realized that God is
the Creator allowed me and my children to see this
marvelous creature. Then the news came out in the local newspapers,
The Examiner and The Louden Times August tenth, twenty ten,
and then in the Free Lance Star August twenty seventh,
twenty ten. The headlines noted that a serial killer responsible
for five deaths near Flint, Michigan, is one in the
same hunting men in North Virginia, wounding a dozen since May.
While the victims varied in ages, they included a fifteen
year old boy, a nineteen year old man in the
area close to the age of my son, and one
in upwards of sixty seven years old. The report stated
that the killer drove a nineteen ninety five to two
thousand and six four door Chevy S ten Blazer GMC
Jimmy or similar vehicle that may be green or gold.
He feigned needing directions or help with his car. Only
by the grace of God did we escape the evil
that was the thirty three year old Elias of Wellasahm
arrested on August eleventh, twenty ten. I kept the story
to myself for years and only just started telling select
people what happened. No one believes me, but I don't care.
In nineteen seventy three, I was eleven years old. I
stayed with my grain parents a lot. Back then. I
loved being with both of them and would stay with
them a lot during the summers and the holidays. They
have both passed away and I missed them, which is
one reason I'm able to tell the story. My grandfather
forbid me from telling anyone, even telling my mother and father.
The weekend before school started was Labor Day weekend, and
of course I was spending the weekend at my grandmother's house. Traditionally,
squirrel season opened on Labor Day weekend, and my grandfather
started taking me with him when I was eight years old.
It was a weekend I looked forward to every year.
He had bought my first shotgun the year before, and
living in the city, I never got to use it
unless I was hunting with him. My mother had dropped
me off at their house on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning,
my grandfather woke me early to get ready to leave.
My grandmother always had biscuits ready for us. When we left,
my grandfather told me to stuff a couple in my
vest pockets. And that I could eat them later. We
had to get going. We loaded up his car and
headed to the woods, about an hour away. My grandfather
drank a lot. He had all his adult life, or
since he returned from the war. He was a marine
during World War Two. I never knew, nor did I care,
what battles he fought in until I was older. He
never talked about it. Now that I'm an adult and
have read about these battles, I understand why he drank,
and I do not hold it against him. I don't
remember him not drinking, but it never seemed to cause
a problem as far as a kid was concerned. He
spent a lot of time with me, and I loved him.
This morning was no exception. About halfway to the woods,
he reached under his seat and pulled a pint bottle
of some cheap whiskey and started taking swigs from the bottle.
I never thought anything about it. We reached the area
we were going to hunt, and as all, he sent
me to a washed out ditch and told me to
follow it until I reached a certain landmark, then to
come out of the ditch and make my way back.
He would meet me by a huge oak tree that
was not far from where he parked the car. I
cannot remember how far it was. I think it took
me two hours to make the circle. The creek bed
or ditch was always dry this time of year. It
was perfect for walking because my footsteps made no noise
in the sandy bottom, and though the ditch was deep,
I still had a good view of the tree top
so that I could pick out squirrel movement. I was
never afraid, and I always had a great time hunting
by myself. My grandfather had finished the pint bottle by
the time we reached the woods, and I knew he
would be asleep under that big oak when I returned.
He always said he was hunting. But every year I
would wind up back at that tree, and he would
be leaned against the trunk, snoring so loud. I could
hear him from one hundred yards away as I made
the la last leg of the route, and he would
never have any squirrels. I laugh about it now, and
my brothers and I get a kick out of these
stories about him. Go ahead and get into the woods,
he would say, I'll meet you back here. Keep that
shot gun pointed up and watch the treetops. These woods
are full of squirrels on this day, I set off
and was happy to be on my own. Against his advice,
as soon as he was out of sight, I would
click off my safety and get ready to shoot. I
made my way down into that dry creek bed and
started scanning the trees. I went on to kill three
squirrels that morning, early right at daylight. Then all the
movement seemed to stop in the trees. I walked on,
looking and looking for any movement that would give a
squirrel's location away. But after two hours or so of
walking and backtracking, I saw nothing. I still had a
ways to go, so I started walking faster. I was
getting bored to an eleven year old kid. When the
action stops, I reached a deeper part of the creek
bed and the walls began to obscure my view of
the tree tops. When I reached the lowest point, there
was a pool of water still from the rain back
in the summer. I could either wade through the shallow
pool or go back, climb out of the ditch and
walk around. I decided that I didn't want to get
my shoes wet, so I backtracked to try to find
a spot easy to climb out. As I turned around,
I heard something walking in the woods above me. I
first thought it was my grandfather because it was obviously
a man walking, so I called out his name. No
one answered, but I couldn't hear the footsteps anymore. I
walked a little further and the footsteps started again, and
I called his name again, no answer. I could not
see anything. The walls of the creek were three or
four feet above my head. I was in a hole.
I kept walking and looking in the direct of the footsteps,
and finally made it to a washout that I could
climb out of. I grabbed a root ball in the
ditch bank and started to pull myself out. As I
reached the top, I laid my shotgun on the leaves
so that I could pull myself over the top. As
my line of sight broke the edge of the ditch bank,
the first thing I saw was a large fur covered
leg behind a tree trunk. The body of whatever this
was was hidden behind the tree. I let go of
the roots and fell back into the ditch. I was
about to run like hell when as I got up,
I saw a creature standing over me. At the top
of the ditch bank. It was standing there just looking
at me. I just stared at this thing. It was
not making any threatening movements. It just looked at me.
Then I got really afraid. I guess the shock of
the moment was wearing off because I noticed the end
of my gun laying halfway off the edge of the bank.
The animal was standing on top of it. Then I
noticed it was a female. It made a grunting sound
that again was not threatening, but it still scared me
to death. It started grunting, not like a monkey, more
like a human imitating a monkey. It raised its arms
and pointed them at me, and then grunted again. Then
the fear meter went up one hundred notches because it
stepped off into the creek bed with me. I backed away,
keeping a distance between us. It moved towards me. I
backed up. It raised one of its arms again and grunted.
I was terrified and was about to turn and run
for my life. I wanted to slowly back up and
get a little more distance between us before I turned
and ran, and I backed into someone, another human. It
was my grandfather. He put his hands on my shoulder
and told me to be still. I know he could
feel me shaking. I was about to burst out crying,
but I held it together. I was so happy that
he was there. Then he leaned down and softly told
me to slowly move behind him. The creature just stood there,
looking at us. It had stopped its forward movement. Once
I was behind my grandfather, I felt more safe. He
asked me if I had any squirrels in my vest palates,
and I told him I had three. Hand them to
me now, he said, I reached back and found the
squirrels and handed them around his waist. My grandfather never
stopped looking at the creature. He took two or three
steps towards the animal and pitched the squirrels to the
creature's feet. The distance was only maybe fifteen or twenty feet.
The creature looked down at the dead game and looked
back at us. Then it reached down and gathered them
with one of its big hands. In a calm voice,
my grandfather told me to start backing up. When I did,
he was right with me, always keeping himself between me
and the creature. I started to turn around and walk,
and he squeezed my arm and said, don't turn your
back on this thing. Just keep backing up so we
can climb out of this ditch. I finally made it
to the bank and turned around and started to climb out.
As I was climbing out, he told me to get
his shotgun, which was laying on top of the bank,
to get ready to shoot if this thing came at us.
He told me not to shoot the animal, but to
shoot into the air. I found his gun and stood up,
clicked the safety off, and got ready. He slowly made
it up the bank. The creature still stood there with
the squirrels in her hand. In a few seconds, she
began to walk away down the creek bed. She walked
through the pool of water I had tried to avoid,
and then she disappeared around a bend ahead. Then we
heard her climb out, and I could see a dark
figure moving away from us through the woods until it
was out of sight. My grandfather asked me where my
shotgun was, and I pointed to it across the bank.
He cussed and jumped back down and across the ditch
to get it. Then we started walking out. He asked
me several times on the way out if I was
okay and had that thing done anything to me? I
told him I was fine. Then I asked him what
that thing was. He said he didn't know. We drove
home that afternoon, talking about it the whole time. I
finally asked him how he knew that I was in trouble.
He told me that he felt like following me that
day to see how good of a squirrel hunter I was.
I told him that I was sure glad that he did.
The rest of that Labor Day weekend was weird. On Monday,
the whole family showed up for the holiday and we
cooked fish outside. All the men were telling stories and
laughing and drinking beer, while all the women gathered together
and laughed all amongst themselves. Everything seemed back to normal,
But I will never forget that thing I ran up
on that day. I know what it was, but we
never talked about it again. In my grandfather's house,