Speaker 1: I'm from southeast Texas and my encounter happened on land
Speaker 1: bordering the Big Thicket National Preserve along the Netches River.
Speaker 1: You described the swamplands of this area in Steve Lilly
Speaker 1: Number thirteen. My encounter happened forty miles away in a
Speaker 1: small town called Spurger. I've been in the woods hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing all my life and never had a strange
Speaker 1: occurrence until twenty twenty four. During the deer season. It
Speaker 1: was both seasons in December, and I was spending as
Speaker 1: much time in the woods as I could. It was
Speaker 1: a rare year when it snowed here in our area,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to bag a deer. I slept out
Speaker 1: into the woods at two PM and started walking to
Speaker 1: a big flat that I knew of where I thought
Speaker 1: some deer and hogs might be. And when I got there,
Speaker 1: the woods were dead silent. I didn't think much of it,
Speaker 1: so I just sat down and I waited. Fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred yards away, on the other side of
Speaker 1: the flat, I caught movement and I READI my Mossberg
Speaker 1: Model five hundred. I assumed I was looking at a
Speaker 1: hog because it was low to the ground and dark
Speaker 1: reddish brown. All of a sudden, this thing stood up
Speaker 1: on two legs. It was at least eight feet tall,
Speaker 1: and I was petrified. I had always believed in bigfoot
Speaker 1: and had listened to your podcast, but I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: one was standing right in front of me, only one
Speaker 1: hundred yards away. Just when I thought the creature was
Speaker 1: about to leave, I heard a loud whoop to my right.
Speaker 1: Then I watched the creature in front of me lean
Speaker 1: his head back, cup his mouth and whooped back. This
Speaker 1: scared the crap out of me, and I started running.
Speaker 1: I'm a state qualifier in the one mile run on
Speaker 1: the track and in the three point two mile run
Speaker 1: across country, but I haven't ever run as fast as
Speaker 1: I did in those woods that day. I made it
Speaker 1: to my four wheeler and I left, and I have
Speaker 1: never been back since. Thanks for listening to my story.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan. Thank you man. Thank you for
Speaker 1: being a fan and sending the letter in. This is
Speaker 1: a teenage boy who sent this in. I thought this
Speaker 1: was a good story. Thank you very much, sir. All right,
Speaker 1: all right, welcome to the podcast. I appreciate you clicking
Speaker 1: on the video. I really do appreciate it. Got a
Speaker 1: couple of things to say here. First, my brother works
Speaker 1: with a man. I was in my brother's office not
Speaker 1: too long ago, and this guy said are you Are
Speaker 1: you Cam Buckner And I said yeah. He said, you
Speaker 1: tell those stories on YouTube and a podcast, don't you.
Speaker 1: I said yeah. He said, my grandfather listens to your
Speaker 1: podcast as much as he can, really likes it. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, what's his name? He told so I
Speaker 1: wanted to say hi to Lynn Cornelius. Lynn is a
Speaker 1: champion archer. He's about my age, and he's had to
Speaker 1: put down shooting a bow because he's got back problems.
Speaker 1: And I hear he's gonna have to have his knee
Speaker 1: replaced pretty soon. I don't do this hardly ever. I
Speaker 1: don't say hi to people like you know, there's I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just don't think of it or whatever.
Speaker 1: But this man lives right here in my town. I
Speaker 1: want to say hi to Lynn. I haven't met Lynn,
Speaker 1: but I hope to meet him someday. Anyway, Lynn, thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate you. Okay.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to tell y'all is or
Speaker 1: ask you have y'all tried the new hamburger at McDonald's
Speaker 1: called the Big Arch. I'm not a big McDonald's fan.
Speaker 1: I kind of like their fish sandwiches. I like their
Speaker 1: French fries. My wife likes the frape's, the caramel frape.
Speaker 1: She's a freak for those things. She loves them. But
Speaker 1: she's like me, she doesn't really care for the food.
Speaker 1: But I had to try that Big Arch not too
Speaker 1: long ago, and it just didn't do anything for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great.
Speaker 1: I'm a Burger King guy. I love a double whopper
Speaker 1: with cheese. Also like a Wendy's triple Man. That is
Speaker 1: a delicious burger. I like five guys. I like hardyseburgers.
Speaker 1: I like the Sonic double cheeseburger. But my favorite is
Speaker 1: the Burger King Whopper. About once every two years, i'm
Speaker 1: real hungry and I get a triple whopper. Oh man,
Speaker 1: the more meat the better. Anyway, I was just thinking
Speaker 1: the other day while I was eating that Big Arch
Speaker 1: and not being very impressed. I wonder what you guys
Speaker 1: in the audience like to eat in fast foods. Let
Speaker 1: me know in the comments section. What's your favorite fast
Speaker 1: food is. I don't eat it much. I usually pick
Speaker 1: up something maybe once every two weeks or so. Sometimes
Speaker 1: once a week. I'll get something small, the double fishful.
Speaker 1: I like to get the fish file at at McDonald's
Speaker 1: and get them to put two pieces of fish it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good. Anyway, I'm just rambling. I was just
Speaker 1: wondering what y'all thought if y'all tried the big Arch,
Speaker 1: if y'all tried the new Whopper, you know, the new Whopper.
Speaker 1: The Whopper is new and improved. It's got real mayonnaise
Speaker 1: on it now. And they changed their bun, and I
Speaker 1: was worried the bun would be dusty, you know, dry
Speaker 1: and dusty and fall apart. But it's not. It holds
Speaker 1: together pretty good. Probably full of preservatives and things unhealthy
Speaker 1: for us, but it was really good. It's better than
Speaker 1: it was two months ago. Anyway, let me know what
Speaker 1: y'all like in the fast food realm. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get on with this podcast. Thanks for indulging my tangent.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. I think I've got three or four
Speaker 1: stories in this podcast. All right, here we go. My
Speaker 1: first encounter with sasquatch happened in the nineteen seventies when
Speaker 1: my family lived in southern Oregon, south of Grant's Pass,
Speaker 1: in a heavily wooded area. Our house set on a
Speaker 1: little dirt road in the woods at the base of
Speaker 1: a large mountain, with some cleared land for hay and
Speaker 1: sheep grazing. One evening, my brother and his friend volunteered
Speaker 1: to prepare dinner while my mom and I were in
Speaker 1: the living room watching TV. Down the short hallway, I
Speaker 1: could hear my older brother and his friend talking and
Speaker 1: laughing and having a good time. Suddenly they went silent.
Speaker 1: My mother called out to them, but got no response.
Speaker 1: We exchanged worried looks and quickly went down the hall
Speaker 1: to the kitchen to find my brother and his friend
Speaker 1: frozen like statues, paralyzed by fear, and staring at the
Speaker 1: kitchen window. I turned my head to see what they
Speaker 1: were looking at, and in an instant, my life changed.
Speaker 1: Looking into the kitchen was a ssquatch. It was tall
Speaker 1: enough to look into the window that was eight feet
Speaker 1: off the ground, and wide enough that its shoulder extended
Speaker 1: past either side of the frame. Its face was twice
Speaker 1: the size of a human's and so close to the
Speaker 1: window that it fogged the glass with each breath. Its
Speaker 1: skin was pale and its hair was gray and white.
Speaker 1: Its eyes shifted upward to my mom, who was standing
Speaker 1: directly behind me. Its curious stare turned hostile, and it
Speaker 1: began to snarl like a dog, its lips thinning and
Speaker 1: head lowering and a threatening posture. Its anger was clearly visible,
Speaker 1: and what I didn't know at the time was that
Speaker 1: my mom had been involved in witchcraft, the bad kind
Speaker 1: of witchcraft, the kind that summons dark things into your house. Somehow,
Speaker 1: the sysquatch sensed it about her, and it reacted. My
Speaker 1: mother was too scared to move. I turned to look
Speaker 1: at her, and when I looked back, it had disappeared.
Speaker 1: I stepped over to my brother and his friend to
Speaker 1: shake their arms, but their muscles were so tense they
Speaker 1: barely moved. I looked at my mother again and she
Speaker 1: was still frozen. I called out to her, but she
Speaker 1: wouldn't respond, so at that point I got a little scared.
Speaker 1: The three of them stayed that way for a couple
Speaker 1: more minutes before finally snapping out of it. For months
Speaker 1: after that event, I had to walk down that little
Speaker 1: dirt road alone to catch the school bus every morning.
Speaker 1: I was terrified of what I couldn't see, of what
Speaker 1: was watching me from the woods. But sometimes I could
Speaker 1: hear something else out there keeping pace with me, and
Speaker 1: I knew it was that sisquatch. Occasionally I could even
Speaker 1: see him out there, his grayish white outline clearly visible
Speaker 1: against the darkness of the forest. I saw him many
Speaker 1: times afterward, and eventually I grew comfortable with his quiet,
Speaker 1: distant presence. I got the impression that he was considerably older,
Speaker 1: a loner of sorts, and had taken a liking to
Speaker 1: me for some reason. After years of other sightings, I
Speaker 1: had the chance to interact with them. I bought a
Speaker 1: Native American finger flute at the old trading post in
Speaker 1: a nearby town, and one evening just over a month ago,
Speaker 1: I visited a spot where they've been coming regularly for
Speaker 1: the last few years, right before dark. I was given
Speaker 1: a small tour of the area and shown many signs
Speaker 1: of their visits. I left the flute lying on the
Speaker 1: picnic table on the hilltop and the woods and I
Speaker 1: sat in the vista area down below to wait for
Speaker 1: the Sasquatches to come and they did. At least four
Speaker 1: or five of them showed up that evening. We could
Speaker 1: hear their heavy footfalls crunching through the woods, each step muffled,
Speaker 1: sometimes breaking branches, along with the unusual knocks, whoops, and
Speaker 1: whistles and chirps and grunts and growls as they communicated
Speaker 1: with each other. Forty five minutes after after sunset, I
Speaker 1: heard the sound of a flute from atop the hill
Speaker 1: two hundred yards away. It was faint at first, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly loud as one of them started wailing on it.
Speaker 1: It was an incredible special thing to witness. I've been
Speaker 1: studying and researching them for forty three years now. I've
Speaker 1: been blessed to see sixty different sidequatches, and I've been
Speaker 1: blessed to hear them dozens of times more than that. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a short little dog story that I got a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. I thought it was really good. When
Speaker 1: the van door opened, my four great nephews and nieces
Speaker 1: rushed out like a tumbling waterfall. Excitedly, they ran into
Speaker 1: the house and yelled in unison, Mom, there's a dog
Speaker 1: in the front yard. Can we keep it? Please? Please?
Speaker 1: Can we keep it? Before their mom could answer, they
Speaker 1: were already petting the most pitiful looking dog you could imagine.
Speaker 1: This poor thing was dirty as a mud pie, and
Speaker 1: its hair was matted and knotted for months of neglect,
Speaker 1: and it smelled like last week's garbage. On closer inspection
Speaker 1: by their mom, it was determined that it was a female.
Speaker 1: She had crushed all over her eyes and ambled as
Speaker 1: if it were her last steps on earth, and with
Speaker 1: pleading eyes, all four kids begged their mother to keep
Speaker 1: her to them. It wasn't a dirty, stinking dog, it
Speaker 1: was a living creature who needed love. They named her Mercy.
Speaker 1: She got a good bath and a flee shampoo, and
Speaker 1: her hair was blow dried as if she were a queen.
Speaker 1: They made a bed for her with blankets, and she
Speaker 1: fell asleep. Mercy had had a rough life. Mom took
Speaker 1: her to the vet the next day and the news
Speaker 1: was not good. She was thirteen years old, probably blind,
Speaker 1: and had arthritis in her hips and legs. She also
Speaker 1: had an embedded chip she had belonged to someone. The
Speaker 1: chip information revealed the family's name and address. They were called,
Speaker 1: and after a brief conversation, they asked that the dog
Speaker 1: not be returned. They did not want her back. Their
Speaker 1: son had been in a terrible car accident and needed
Speaker 1: long term care, and caring for Mercy was too much
Speaker 1: for them. The poor dog had traveled fifteen miles from
Speaker 1: where her owners lived. She had suffered through cold nights
Speaker 1: and hunger and thirst, and somehow had stopped at the
Speaker 1: right house. Mercy lived two more years. Sophia, the youngest
Speaker 1: of the family, would wrap her up and carry her
Speaker 1: like a baby. She would sing to her too. The
Speaker 1: song went like this, I'm not gonna sing it, Mercy, Mercy.
Speaker 1: She likes to go to work, work, work, tork twork.
Speaker 1: I wish I could put a tune to that, but
Speaker 1: I can't sing. Mercy would be let out in the
Speaker 1: backyard to do her business, and as soon as the
Speaker 1: door was open, she would run out like a puppy
Speaker 1: with new legs. When she was ready, she would walk
Speaker 1: back in slower now, as the aches in her legs
Speaker 1: reminded her of her advanced years. For those fleeting moments, however,
Speaker 1: she remembered her puppy life. Eventually, she could not walk
Speaker 1: well and would stumble and lose her balance, and then
Speaker 1: she stopped eating, and it was decided to put her
Speaker 1: to sleep. There wasn't a dry eye in the house
Speaker 1: as she was taken to the vet for the last time.
Speaker 1: She was cremated, and her ashes are still with the family.
Speaker 1: That old dog couldn't have stumbled upon a more loving
Speaker 1: family that day. It's hard to say who was luckier, though,
Speaker 1: Mercy or the family who had the joy of loving
Speaker 1: her for the final years of her life. Oh what
Speaker 1: a good story. I just love these dog stories. Please,
Speaker 1: if you have a dog story, send me more. I
Speaker 1: know I've got probably a half a dozen left to do.
Speaker 1: And you know this isn't really a dog story channel,
Speaker 1: but I like throwing them in, so this is good
Speaker 1: for me. I don't know. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: thoughts on dogs, and I could go on and on
Speaker 1: about it, but they really are special animals. They're domesticated animals,
Speaker 1: and they absolutely need humans to survive. They need pack leaders.
Speaker 1: They're not like coodies or wolves or they are pack animals,
Speaker 1: but they need a human to lead them anyway. That's
Speaker 1: all I'm gonna say. I love this dog story, and
Speaker 1: I'm so glad this family took that dog in. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if a dog's old or young. You
Speaker 1: can give that dog a good home and a good
Speaker 1: life anytime you want so. Great story, great dog story,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. My current position is a federal
Speaker 1: swat officer on a specialized response team. It requires intentional
Speaker 1: omissions for personal safety and to maintain professional confidentiality. After
Speaker 1: fifteen years as a patrol officer and a SWAT operator,
Speaker 1: I thought I'd seen it all. I've tracked murderers deep
Speaker 1: into the woods. I've searched dope houses where the walls
Speaker 1: sweated rot, where mattresses crawled with bed bugs, and the
Speaker 1: air tasted like burnt chemicals and mold. I've locked eyes
Speaker 1: with men whose souls had already fled, pupils stretched wide,
Speaker 1: glassed over, staring straight through me. The physical scars, they're real,
Speaker 1: they're etched into my skin, But it's the memories that
Speaker 1: stay loud. It was October twenty eight, just after twenty
Speaker 1: three hundred hours. The world outside my cruiser was a
Speaker 1: mailstrom of wind and rain, the kind that feels like
Speaker 1: ice needles on your exposed skin, ord like it always
Speaker 1: does with that voice from dispatch, calm, professional reading from
Speaker 1: a glowing terminal, like she wasn't about to walk me
Speaker 1: into something I'll never forget. Sera nine oh four, respond
Speaker 1: to nine to one one, call possible livestock mauling, frantic
Speaker 1: elderly male, came the voice from dispatch. Normally I would
Speaker 1: chalk it up to a mountain lion, maybe a rogue
Speaker 1: black bear. That standard fair in the sticks within My
Speaker 1: cell rang and dispatch patched the original nine to one
Speaker 1: one audio recording to my phone. And I'll never forget
Speaker 1: that voice crackling through the rain. In the static, the
Speaker 1: old man was sobbing. He wasn't just afraid, he was broken.
Speaker 1: His breath hitched with every word. A sound that drilled
Speaker 1: into my bones, that was, he stammered, his voice thin
Speaker 1: and ready, like a wire about to snap.
Speaker 2: I've ever seen as black as pitch, eyes like fire,
Speaker 2: And the way it moved fast, it was too fast,
Speaker 2: like a shadow ripping through the air.
Speaker 1: He trailed off. His voice was brittle, as if speaking
Speaker 1: about it was enough to invite it back, as if
Speaker 1: the very air around him still vibrated with its presence.
Speaker 1: And then a choked, sob raw and desperate.
Speaker 2: God help me, I sound it made.
Speaker 1: I flipped on my emergency lights, the red and blue
Speaker 1: glow stuttered across the trees, stretching shadows out like limbs.
Speaker 1: I punched the address into my unit's GPS. The ranch
Speaker 1: set far outside of town, nestled against the base of
Speaker 1: a thick pine ridge, a pocket of isolation that cell
Speaker 1: towers barely reached. I drove and the rain intensified, a
Speaker 1: solid sheet of cold water, slicing down, clinging to the windshield.
Speaker 1: The wind screamed across the highway, a high pitched moan
Speaker 1: through the skeletal branches of the trees, like a living
Speaker 1: thing in agony. It took fifteen minutes to reach the turnoff.
Speaker 1: The old ranch road was little more than a muddy
Speaker 1: scar through the woods, winding deeper into the blackness. My
Speaker 1: tires slipped more than once, growing in protest, and I
Speaker 1: nearly got stuck for good at the final treacherous ben.
Speaker 1: When I finally pulled into the property, I turned off
Speaker 1: the lights, I killed the engine, and I stepped out.
Speaker 1: That's when I felt it static, that deep down, narrow
Speaker 1: level alertness. It's one they don't teach you at the academy.
Speaker 1: Not the edge of your seat adrenaline of a foot pursuit,
Speaker 1: not the sharp fear before a breach. No, this was different.
Speaker 1: It crawled under the skin like ice water. It was
Speaker 1: a sensation without a source, like the world had gone
Speaker 1: just one degree too quiet, effecating vacuum, Like the shadows
Speaker 1: were pressing closer than they should, not just dimming the light,
Speaker 1: but consuming it whole, like I wasn't alone, And if
Speaker 1: you felt it, you know exactly what I mean. Some
Speaker 1: officers get stuck with drunks. Others are magnets for DV calls.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 1: I get the ones where something doesn't line up, where
Speaker 1: the air feels heavier than it should, and the silence
Speaker 1: starts watching you. They call them suspicious circumstances. It's what
Speaker 1: they say when something's wrong, but no one wants to
Speaker 1: admit how wrong it is. It's a phrase dressed in
Speaker 1: sterile intent, meant to keep it clean and measured. But
Speaker 1: what it really means is this, You're not gonna like
Speaker 1: what you find. No other officer in this valley has
Speaker 1: responded to more of these than I have. It's not
Speaker 1: a badge of honor, it's a weight. The old ranch
Speaker 1: house was dark, a weather beaten shell of timber and
Speaker 1: rusted metal that looked like it had been abandoned decades ago.
Speaker 1: There was no porch lie, there was no movement. The
Speaker 1: only sign of life was the faintest flicker from a
Speaker 1: single window. Then the front door creaked open, groaning on
Speaker 1: rusted hinges. There stood the old man. He was a wraith,
Speaker 1: wrapped in a threadbare wool blanket that clung to him
Speaker 1: like wet paper, barely concealing his trembling. His eyes were white.
Speaker 1: They were dilated, darting frantically from side to side, like
Speaker 1: prey that knew the predator wasn't far off, that it
Speaker 1: was still lurking just beyond the periphery of his vision.
Speaker 1: They held a haunted, vacant look, as if he'd seen
Speaker 1: things no human was meant to see. Come this way,
Speaker 1: he said, his voice barely audible over the howl of
Speaker 1: the storm. He didn't speak again as he led me,
Speaker 1: stumbling rather than past the main barn and through a
Speaker 1: thicket of broken fencing and trample brush. It looked like
Speaker 1: a herd of stampeding elk hauld pass through the chicken
Speaker 1: coop looked like it had been hit by a bomb.
Speaker 1: Wooden slats were splintered outward, and jagged edges pointing accusingly
Speaker 1: at the stormy sky, as if something enormous had ripped
Speaker 1: its way in with a grotesque, unimaginable strength. Feathers bloodied
Speaker 1: and matted. It covered the ground in a wide, macabre art,
Speaker 1: and inside was carnage. There were dead chickens everywhere, their
Speaker 1: small bodies mangled beyond recognition, half eaten. Not the clean
Speaker 1: punctures of a bobcat or a blunt trauma of a bear.
Speaker 1: These birds had been shredded, torn apart, with deliberate, sadistic cruelty.
Speaker 1: I turned to question the old man, but he was
Speaker 1: already stumbling, his gaunt frame swaying toward the lamb pin.
Speaker 1: That's when the smell hit me. It was a suffocating
Speaker 1: wave of rot. It was musty, wet fur, and something else,
Speaker 1: something utterly alien and foul. It was sour, like spoiled meat.
Speaker 1: My stomach turned, and a burning acid rose in my throat,
Speaker 1: and I fought down the urge to vomit. The lamb
Speaker 1: pin was worse, far, far worse. The bodies of six
Speaker 1: young lambs lay strewn like broken dolls, their tiny limbs
Speaker 1: twisted at impossible angles. The air here was even heavier
Speaker 1: thicker with that awful, putrid stench. I dropped to one knee,
Speaker 1: the cold mud soaking through my uniform pants, to inspect
Speaker 1: the ground. There were no signs of a bear or
Speaker 1: a cat. The rain had softened the mud, making tracks
Speaker 1: easier to read. But what I saw chilled me to
Speaker 1: my core, a deep, bone aching dread that bypassed all
Speaker 1: my training. There were massive footprints, bipedal undeniably, but with
Speaker 1: long clawed toes like a monstrous canine. Some had an
Speaker 1: extra unsettling indentation at the heel, like a distorted human print,
Speaker 1: overlapping a wolf's, or perhaps a second digit. One track
Speaker 1: I estimated was nearly seventeen inches long. It sunk deep,
Speaker 1: suggesting an impossible weight over it, a crushing pressure no
Speaker 1: animal I knew could exert. Whatever it was, it walked
Speaker 1: on two legs, and it was immensely powerful. My heart
Speaker 1: hammered against my ribs. The old man, still trembling, pointed
Speaker 1: a skeletal finger toward the dense black tree line. It
Speaker 1: went that way, he whispered, It went into those pines.
Speaker 1: I told him to return to the house and lock
Speaker 1: the doors to barricade himself in. He hesitated, his eyes
Speaker 1: wide and vacant, staring pain asked me into the impenetrable
Speaker 1: darkness it watches, he said, his voice was cracking. It
Speaker 1: was a dry rasp. I see it in the tree sometimes,
Speaker 1: just the eyes, like fire, like hate. It knows when
Speaker 1: you're looking, it knows when you're not. He turned, then,
Speaker 1: slow and shuffling, a man utterly defeated, leaving me alone
Speaker 1: with storm and the black, silent pines that stretched into infinite,
Speaker 1: suffocating voids. I drew my glock nineteen, the familiar weight
Speaker 1: of small comfort, and turned on the flashlight. The powerful
Speaker 1: beam cut through the oppressive darkness and jagged arcs as
Speaker 1: I moved toward the woods, each step deliberate. My boots
Speaker 1: sucked into the thick, half frozen mud and moss. Rain
Speaker 1: flew sideways, hitting me in the ear and drumming a frantic,
Speaker 1: disorienting rhythm on the brim of my hat. The temperature
Speaker 1: dropped ten degrees in the span of twenty feet, an
Speaker 1: unnatural coal that seeped into my bones. Branches creaked above me,
Speaker 1: groaning under the weight of the wind, and pine needles
Speaker 1: fell relentlessly like icy rain. The underbrush clawed at my legs,
Speaker 1: like unseen hands tangling in my boots. And then I
Speaker 1: heard it. It was a growl. It was a low,
Speaker 1: resonant growl, not like a dog or a wolf, but deeper.
Speaker 1: And it rumbled in my chest, vibrating my ribs like
Speaker 1: a sub wolfer, a sound that seemed to come from
Speaker 1: the very earth itself, close yet diffused everywhere and nowhere
Speaker 1: at once. I pivoted toward the sore, sweeping the flashlight
Speaker 1: beam through the trees. There was nothing. Then a flash
Speaker 1: of motion to my right, so fast it was almost imperceptible.
Speaker 1: A shape. It was tall and broad, slipping between the
Speaker 1: ancient pines with horroring speed. I barely caught more than
Speaker 1: a blur. I saw long limbs and possibly black fur
Speaker 1: hunt shoulders that dwarfed the surrounding trees. It moved with
Speaker 1: a fluid, predatory grace that defies its massive size, a
Speaker 1: silent apparition in the raging storm. And I swung the
Speaker 1: light back and there was nothing. The spot where it
Speaker 1: had been was empty. The darkness had swallowed it whole.
Speaker 1: Sheriff's office, I called out. My voice sounded small and absurd,
Speaker 1: A feeble challenge thrown against something ancient and terrifying. And
Speaker 1: then the eyes. They were red and glowing, reflective like
Speaker 1: an animal's, but they were wrong, intensely intelligent and focused,
Speaker 1: a burning, malevolent gaze that pierced through the rain and
Speaker 1: the thick canopy, boring directly into my soul. They hovered
Speaker 1: seven maybe eight feet off the ground, twin embers of pure,
Speaker 1: unadulterated hate, no blinking, no shifting, just watching, a silent,
Speaker 1: unwavering stare that held me rooted to the spot, my
Speaker 1: breath catching in my throat. I could feel the heat
Speaker 1: radiating from them, an unnatural feeling that made the hair
Speaker 1: stand up on my arms and neck. I raised my clock.
Speaker 1: My hand was surprisingly steady, despite the tremor in my chest.
Speaker 1: The tritium sights glowed faintly green against the impossible red.
Speaker 1: And then a shriek, not a howl, not a roar,
Speaker 1: something been between something inhuman. It was sharp and filled
Speaker 1: with ancient, primal rage. It tore through the woods, vibrating
Speaker 1: through the trees, setting off distant coat He is in
Speaker 1: a chain reaction of terrified yelps and then silence. This
Speaker 1: sound was designed to instill terror, and it worked. Then
Speaker 1: it was gone. No sign of retreat, no crashing through
Speaker 1: the underbreath, just to absence, a sudden, complete void where
Speaker 1: the eyes had been. I stood there for what felt
Speaker 1: like an eternity, rain soaking through my vest and my uniform,
Speaker 1: and my weapon aimed at a ghost. My muscles ached
Speaker 1: from the tension, my eyes strained against the blackness. Every
Speaker 1: rational thought I had fled, replaced by a desperate, animalistic
Speaker 1: instinct to survive. I backed out, never turning my back,
Speaker 1: step by step, my flashlight high its beam, my frail
Speaker 1: shield against the dark. Back at my cruiser, I radioed
Speaker 1: it in. My voice was tight, trying to sound professional,
Speaker 1: but the words felt hollow. Back Up arrived in two
Speaker 1: younger deputies, their faces grim with sheared unease, and we
Speaker 1: searched the property for hours, but the rain had washed
Speaker 1: away what remained. The livestock bodies were still there, horrifyingly real,
Speaker 1: but no fresh signs of whatever had done it. It
Speaker 1: had simply melted back into the shadows from which it
Speaker 1: came back. At the Sheriff's office, we wrote it all down.
Speaker 1: We logged in the evidence, sterile, clinical document that could
Speaker 1: never convey the true horror. Of that night. I included everything,
Speaker 1: knowing it wouldn't matter, knowing it wouldn't change the label
Speaker 1: suspicious circumstance, possible livestock mauling. That's all it will ever
Speaker 1: be allowed to be.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I know what I saw, I know what I felt.
Speaker 1: But nothing, nothing has ever made me feel so helpless,
Speaker 1: so small, and as utterly, terrifyingly insignificant as whatever watched
Speaker 1: me from those trees that stormy night. The old man
Speaker 1: eventually left for good, the house and the property left
Speaker 1: to right and the unyielding embrace of the woods. Locals
Speaker 1: say it's cursed. Hunters avoid that stretch of forest now.
Speaker 1: Their dogs refuse to enter the tree line, whimpering and
Speaker 1: digging at the ground. And sometimes when I'm alone, when
Speaker 1: the wind house just right and the darkness presses in,
Speaker 1: I think about those eyes, and I wonder if they're
Speaker 1: still out there. Okay, thank you guys for listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. I actually had it ready to go yesterday
Speaker 1: and it was much shorter, but I got up this
Speaker 1: morning and added a couple of stories to it to
Speaker 1: make it a little longer. I didn't upload it because
Speaker 1: our internet was out. Some truck hit a pole we're
Speaker 1: on fiber optic internet. The whole city was out and
Speaker 1: they got it fixed pretty quick. This morning, I woke up,
Speaker 1: it was good, so I came out and recorded these
Speaker 1: two stories or this, yeah, the two stories I added.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. The next few podcasts will be
Speaker 1: just as frequent, but they might be a little shorter
Speaker 1: because I'm working on Steve Lilly number twenty, trying to
Speaker 1: kind of pour myself into that and get you a
Speaker 1: good podcast, a good Steve Lily story out. It's going
Speaker 1: pretty good and I think you're gonna enjoy it. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get it out by the end of March,
Speaker 1: so hang with me shorter podcast for a week or so,
Speaker 1: but after that we'll get right back into the longer podcast.
Speaker 1: I guess I never know what I'm gonna do. I
Speaker 1: just let the loose ends drag, know what I mean.
Speaker 1: How y'all get all right? You guys have a good week,
Speaker 1: and we'll see on the next week. Thanks