June, p.8
June, page 8
The whoops came again, and they were closer than before. I thought it sounded like they were by the shed. The thing by the window whooped in return, and I could hear footsteps coming from the shed to the window.
Oh great, I thought, they’re going to team up and start tearing my cabin apart. I wondered how many there were, how many bullets each one would take before going down, and if I had enough. Briefly, I considered opening the bathroom door with my gun raised and ready and to just start shooting. This seemed like a suicide plan, since I now knew there were more than one out there. Whatever they were, they were definitely social, and definitely wouldn’t take kindly to one or more of their own being shot.
So I scrapped that idea and just decided to play the waiting game. I knew from reading history books, especially the ones about war that my mom liked so much, that waiting and reacting to your enemy was a sure-fire way to lose a war, but there was literally nothing else I could do.
I heard more of the chatter coming from the window, and a response in a slightly different sounding voice. There were at least two of them. It suddenly occurred to me how weird this was that I was sitting outside my bathroom door listening to two creatures speak some weird-sounding foreign language. I wasn’t sure if they were actually talking, or if it was like dogs that would whimper and whine to communicate.
Far away I heard more knocks, and the chatter immediately stopped. I then heard heavy footsteps move away from the window, though I couldn’t tell if it was one or both of them, and return knocking from the treeline on my property.
They had better not be telling more of them to come, I thought. I wanted more than anything to shoot all of them in that moment. There probably weren’t enough bullets for the rifle to take them all down, and I certainly wasn’t a crack shot or anything, but I just wanted this nightmare to end. I didn’t want more of them to come to my property and do who knows what.
I could feel myself losing my grip. The thought of more of these things in close proximity to me made me feel like I was about to snap. It was then that I decided on a course of action, however wrong it might have been. Slinging my rifle over my shoulder, I walked into my parents’ room and grabbed the smallest rifle. I went to the drawer and grabbed the smallest bullets, labeled .22, and began loading them. It had one of those lever things where your hand grips it, like in Western movies. Once I had put about 15 of them in there, I worked the lever, and walked to my front door. I paused at the door itself and listened. Those things were still out there, I could hear footsteps and that weird chatter, but it sounded like it was still at the treeline. Perfect. I clicked the lock and threw open the door, stepping out into the moonlight.
My eyes were fixed on the treeline, and I could sort of see two tall, upright shapes standing there. They were perfectly still, no doubt looking at me. At that moment, abject terror gripped me. Why was I out here? Was this really a good idea? It didn’t matter anymore, I had set the wheels in motion.
“JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!” I screamed as loud as I could, aiming my rifle far above their heads. With a deep breath I squeezed the trigger. It broke sooner than I was expecting, based off my experience with my bigger rifle, causing the gun to jump backwards. The sound wasn’t as loud as my other one, but it was still deafening. I worked the lever and fired again, trying to keep my eyes on the figures at the treeline. The light from the barrel was relatively bright in the darkness, but not blinding by any means. It was bright enough to affect my night vision. I thought the figures were still standing there. Maybe they knew I was bluffing. I fired again, not seeing any movement from the trees. At that moment the thought occurred to me, maybe I should not be bluffing. I lowered the barrel a bit and pointed it directly at the shapes in the woods, but couldn’t quite bring myself to shoot them.
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
The one on the right started whooping. It was a slightly different tone than I was used to hearing, but that could be because I was outside with them now. The one on the left turned and disappeared in the trees, leaving the one on the right just standing there, I presumed staring at me. I could hear the trees rustle as one on the left walked farther into the woods.
“YOU LEAVE TOO!” I yelled, pointing my gun high up and firing again.
The remaining creature growled. It was a low sound, one that vibrated me to my core. I felt like I couldn’t move at that moment. It must’ve been the fear; nothing had ever growled at me before, certainly not like that. Everything in me screamed to turn around and go back into the cabin. But I almost felt like I was playing chicken with it. The first to flinch would lose, and I was tired of losing.
From my left side a rock came flying, hitting the cabin wall about three feet from me. The left side creature apparently hadn’t just left. I glanced quickly to where it had landed, realizing that rock might not have been the best terminology to use. It was more like a small boulder. I looked back up at the treeline, and the remaining creature had disappeared.
Panic gripped me. It occurred to me that I still knew nothing about these things. Maybe they could move silently through the forest if they wanted, and the times I had heard them were because they wanted me to. I remembered the other day – was it yesterday? - when I had been practicing my shooting and it had angered one of them. They didn’t like guns. I glanced at the rock, remembering that night when they had used the rock to keep my attention at the front of the cabin. They used rocks as a diversion.
They used rocks as a diversion.
I whirled around and ran into the cabin, slamming the door behind me and locking it just as I heard footsteps at the side of the porch. The thing hadn’t run after me this time, but it was almost like it was trying to sneak up on me. Okay, I thought, that had been a bad idea.
The doorknob to the outside turned. I just stared at it, somewhat petrified. This didn’t feel aggressive like the other times. It was almost . . . curious? I shook my head, quietly lowering my smaller gun to the floor and taking the big one off my shoulder. There was a bullet all ready to fire, so I didn’t work the bolt. I was scared out of my mind as to what this thing would do, but I also felt . . . calm? While I was scared, I didn’t feel the panicky terror that I had felt last time it was at my door. I had no idea what it wanted or why it was there. For some reason, though, it didn’t scare me out of my mind at that moment. Don’t get me wrong – I was still scared. I had no idea how to describe it, but it just felt different than before.
The knob turned again, the other way this time, and I once again lamented not having a lock on the knob itself. But I was sure glad that deadbolt was there, and that it seemed pretty sturdy. But I didn’t want the thing to get any confidence that it might be able to open the door. With my gun pointed at the front door still, I backed away slowly, carefully, actually removing my shoes so my socked feet would be quiet and it couldn’t tell where in the cabin I was. Maybe, just maybe, the thing realized from the fact that I didn’t shoot it, that I didn’t want to harm it, I just wanted it to leave me alone.
I finally sat down on the couch, again quietly as I could, and started trying to process everything. I decided that it would be a good idea to write down everything I had learned about them so I didn’t forget anything.
Assuming, of course, that I made it through the night.
Finally the thing stopped messing with my doorknob and I could hear it walking around my cabin. It was almost like it was going slowly, inspecting everything for some kind of weakness, but it wanted me to hear where it was. I got off the couch and started following its noises. It went to the bathroom area, but I didn’t open the door. It was staring in the window, I was sure of it, and I didn’t want it to see me. After a second, I heard it continue walking towards my room. I didn’t go in there, either, as the door was closed and I didn’t want it to hear me opening it. There was a small thud on the boards that were over the windows. Then a creak, like they were being pushed on.
It definitely wanted to come in.
I prayed that the nails would hold. The boards were being strained pretty hard, I could tell, but I didn’t hear any of the nails pop. Good, my great-grandpa’s nails were good quality. Finally, the creaking stopped, and I heard it move around to my parents’ room. I followed it inside this time, as I was fully intending on shooting it if it broke another of my windows.
There was a thunk of something hard against glass, but not breakage. The sound happened again, and I realized it was knocking on the window. I doubt it knew what knocking meant to us humans, but I found it a little funny. Not funny enough to laugh, but I did break a small smile. The knocking became slightly louder and I raised my gun to my shoulder, but then it stopped. I could hear it breathing heavily.
The thing took a deep breath and howled. This was a new sound; it was long, low, and slightly mournful. After the howl ended, it took another deep breath and started whooping again. Then I heard it run towards the front of the cabin. That scared me, as it had been walking slowly before then.
I ran with it, around the opposite side of the cabin from the bathroom. The footsteps stopped at the front door. I aimed the gun at the door again, luckily with my finger off the trigger, because right after I leveled the barrel, the thing hit my door so hard it almost shook the whole cabin. Then it howled again and I could hear it running towards the treeline.
What followed that was the most deafening silence I had ever experienced. The woods were completely silent, and I held my breath so I could hear any sound that might come, but none did.
After a minute, a cricket chirped near the bathroom window. It was like it was giving the all clear, because the forest came alive with the usual sounds I associated with being up here. I could hear birds, crickets, cicadas, even frogs. Being the experienced backpacker that I was, I knew that once the forest came back to life the large predator that was nearby had gone, so I let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto my sofa.
This had been, without a doubt, the longest night of my life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I woke up about mid-afternoon. My first thought was to write down what I knew, and try to figure out what I was dealing with here. I grabbed a notebook from the bookshelf, double-checked to make sure nothing was written in it, and a pencil that was nearby. Then I sat at my dining room table and started writing everything I could think of. These things were big, but they were quiet when they wanted to be. They seemed to walk on two legs. As I wrote each thing down and let my mind think on the whole experience so far, I started forming an idea as to what they were. But the idea was hard to solidify. My head hurt, and I was starving. Grudgingly, I ate an entire MRE, not too happy with my life in general at that moment, and just wanting to feel full. After I finished it, I sat and contemplated what to do. I wanted to stay alive, but I was just sick and tired of the whole situation. Also, I was sick and tired of MREs. My thoughts drifted to my parent’s closet. The fishing gear was in there.
“Good one!” My dad laughed as I yanked the rainbow trout out of the river. The fish flopped around on the end of my line. It was huge. “Bring that over here and I’ll show you how to kill and clean it!”
I walked over, holding my pole up high. My dad grabbed the fish and brought it down.
“Hey dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to be around forever, right?”
He stopped and looked up at me.
“No, I’m not.” He smiled at me, “though I wish I could be. You’re going to do some amazing things when you’re older.”
“Then how will I know how to do things when you’re gone?”
“That’s why I’m teaching you how to do everything I can think of now,” he moved a little closer to me, “so you take your knife . . .”
I didn’t know how to clean a deer, but I did know how to fish. And even though it wasn’t my favorite food, fish sounded pretty good after eating MREs.
Screw it, I thought, I’m just going to do it. I slung my rifle over my shoulder again, grabbed the fishing gear as well as my water container, and went to the door. This time, I wasn’t going to hesitate and make a big deal of the door again. I just turned the lock and opened it.
There were giant, human looking footprints all over the ground in front of me. The sight made me shudder. Ignoring them, I shut my cabin door and locked it, then walked towards the river. It wasn’t too far, farther than the spring I normally got water from, but the water was drinkable and it had fish. I started walking towards it, feeling a pit in my stomach when I got to the treeline.
I was standing in the exact spot I had seen those two last night. Their shadows flashed into my memory, giving me the chills. I was starting to figure out what I was dealing with, and it didn’t make me feel any better.
When I was little, probably too little looking back, my parents had shown me a movie that had scared me to death. It was about a family who hit a Bigfoot with their car on the way home from camping. I didn’t like it at all the first time, because the Bigfoot costume was super realistic and scary to a little kid, but I saw it again when I was a teen and thought it was pretty funny. When I saw those two shapes last night, their silhouettes were very similar to the one in the movie, though obviously not identical. I was pretty sure I was dealing with Sasquatches.
When I was a teen, around the time I watched that movie again, I became very interested in Sasquatch, to the point that I read everything I could about it. It was a flash in the pan type interest, and didn’t last beyond a week, but as I walked towards the river I started trying to remember what I had learned. It seemed like a lot of people didn’t think they were dangerous, more curious and even a little mischievous, but obviously nobody knew for sure. There were also a lot of reports of people just disappearing into the woods with no trace, sometimes even when they were just walking behind a group of people. Some people thought a Sasquatch had grabbed them, others said aliens or some kind of a portal . . . I don’t know, that stuff was always weird to me. So the conclusion I came to as I got to the river was that I was dealing with Sasquatches, there were more than a few, and I had no idea if they were dangerous or not. Wonderful.
I spent a couple of hours fishing uneventfully. Every so often I would stop and make sure I could still hear birds and insects and such, and I could, so I felt a little better. I had caught five fish total when I decided to head back. I had another couple of hours of light left and didn’t want to clean these things inside. Grilling them inside on my propane stove was going to be hard enough. Thinking about that made me groan out loud.
I had forgotten about boarding up the bathroom window.
It wasn’t a huge deal because they couldn’t fit in there, obviously, but I still wanted to board it up because I didn’t want anymore stinky, hairy arms reaching for me while I took care of my business. I put the fish in my bag and slung it over my shoulder, along with my pole, and started walking back, keeping up a good pace so I could get back with enough time to board up the window and clean the fish.
I was about halfway there when the forest quieted down significantly. Dread overcame me as I stopped walking and set down my fishing supplies, as quietly as I could, and pulled out my rifle. To my left, a twig snapped, making my head whip in the direction. I tried to steady my breathing and held my rifle in such a way that I could easily get it up and aimed if I needed to.
Heavy footsteps sounded in front of me and to my left. They were somewhat far away, so I couldn’t see anything in the thick foliage, but they were definitely there. My eyes tracked the area where the sound was coming from. I thought I saw a tree move, but that could have just been my eyes searching for movement where there was none. The walking sound stopped almost directly in front of me. I crouched in my spot, holding completely still, and wishing the thing would go away. After a moment, I heard the footsteps continue, until I couldn’t hear them anymore at all. I let out a breath, but continued in my crouched position until I heard the forest come back to life.
I picked my stuff back up and kept walking towards my cabin at the brisk pace I had started with. After a couple more minutes, I finally arrived. Fighting the urge to just run inside, I set my fishing bag down on the porch and walked over to the woodshed. I had left it unlocked, so it was easy to push open the door and grab another couple of boards. Juggling them while picking up the bag wasn’t easy, but I managed, holding it all in such a way that I could unlock the front door.
After I got inside I felt better, but it hadn’t been a bad excursion at all. I quickly boarded up the open window, leaving a gap so air could get through, but nothing else, and headed outside to clean the fish. As I worked I thought about my day and realized I hadn’t picked up any water. A small curse escaped my lips; it was too late now if I was going to get all the fish cleaned and ready before nightfall. I was also feeling very exhausted. This whole being nocturnal thing wasn’t going to work out for me, I decided. I needed to sleep normal hours and just trust my cabin and the fact that I was a light sleeper to keep me safe. That shouldn’t be too hard; I felt like I could sleep a week no problem at this point.
I finished cleaning the fish just before dark, so I went back inside, leaving the fish guts on the porch. This was basically asking for trouble, but a big part of me wanted to see what would happen. After I locked the door I started my camping stove, putting the fish on and grabbing the spices I kept in the kitchen. I was going to eat like a civilized human and I was going to enjoy it. My mental state needed this, though I felt a lot better after having been outside for most of the day. It helped alleviate the cabin fever quite a lot, actually. The next
