1974

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned, for years but, one night a candle burned in the window. I sit outside on a make-shift seat, looking at the house. It made me afraid. Dad and my uncles built a fire. Mother went inside and fumbled to find stuff by candlelight. The seat was two logs that had fallen. I sat with dad and cousins, watching the fire burn. I love watching the fire and listening to the stories. Their stories are enchanting and horrifying. I swish my feet back and forth and think there might be snakes and jerk my feet up. The leaves on the ground, the weeds, and the vines enhances the sense, "We shouldn't be here." I don't remember ever being comfortable around this house.

The dark woods around us gave a deep in-the-jungle feel. I visualized a Gorilla or a giant lizard pushing through the bush and attacking us. I told my dad. He said. "It will be fine. There are no boogers. You do need to watch out for snakes." I said, "Snakes! Wait, snakes are not that bad." I remember playing with a few garter snakes. I start to look on the ground for snakes. It was a nice break for me, a much-needed distraction.

That year had been traumatic enough. We had one traumatic event after the other in 1974. My dad's car wreck, job loss, then he fell off the roof of a building. Then, being evicted by the wicked witch of Hurts Creek.

We had to move and grab what we could to get out the door. We lived hand to mouth. This Load-and-go-moment was one of many. My parents used the words "settle down." But we were anything but settled. My dad decided he would fix up my mom's old family house. I remember the horror when they told me that's where we were going. The sight of this place terrorized me as a young child. Tonight, I am sitting here around a fire glaring at this place.

You see, we live deep in the woods of Kentucky. Many creatures live in the woods of Kentucky. I happen to be a monster connoisseur, reading about anything and everything, alien, demon, monster, and zombie, that I could get my hands on. My favorites were the comics, aliens taking over the universe, and zombies eating people's brains. In this house, however, scary books would take a back seat. This place is a horror show waiting to happen, vines drooping over the back of the house. Then there were the murders.

We live not far from Land Between the Lakes and the mysterious murders of 1974. That left several bodies hanging in trees. Police officers were in shock after seeing the murder scene. They tried to talk on camera but couldn't speak audibly. One said, "That's a little girl." He then pointed to a disemboweled figure in a tree.

I couldn't believe my eyes, watching the News. The News Ancor was distraught and showed the unfiltered live scene. No one spoke after seeing that on TV. We all walked around in disbelief. The shaky signal of evening news would come on. Moments before, the Land Lord showed up demanding money we didn't have that night. We made our escape. The next day the murders were all over the evening news. I sat next to my dad and uncles and prayed I didn't see something horrible. They briefly talked about the News but saw the other kids, and I was getting frightened and quickly stopped.

Mother had dashed off with her sisters returning later saying. "We will have electric tomorrow." She said, "I will cook dinner tomorrow!" Mom would cook large dinners. She had twelve brothers and sisters, and they all showed up (Somehow, I don't remember that many people before we moved, but once we settled in, they came in groves).

So I found out I had Forty (Yes, I said Forty) First cousins (which still blows my mind today), and my uncles all love guns while my aunts would gather around the kitchen table and talk. I was grateful for these events because there were no lights. It was the darkest dark I had ever seen. Sometimes it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The evening wore on, and almost everyone left.

My Grandmother would not allow anyone with a gun in the house. So all "gun stuff" had to go on in the basement. Where they would gather and talk, laugh, and tell stories. The remaining women were in the kitchen with mom, and the men were in the basement with dad. Mom shouted at me, "Go get your dad!"

I then peeked out the window, and dread came over me. I could see that night was falling. I was afraid of the dark and not afraid to admit it. Fear of stepping on a snake and this hill is called Copper Head Road (Not to be confused with the song, By the way). Because my grandpa found so many Copperhead Snakes in one day, I think he said there were Fourteen, and then my cousin found Eleven Two weeks later, and there has been a steady stream of them since and Rattlesnakes). There were no flashlights in the house.

I get off the couch. Flip the porch light on, step outside, and step down from the porch. To my utter horror, there was someone (or I thought it was someone). I scared it (I'm not sure what it indeed was). It scared me. It fell backward. I saw its arms fly out to catch itself as he went down. Then it looked me dead in the eyes; the light was funny. His eyes were bright orange same as in a heating stove where the ambers are red hot, only beautiful and far apart. I tried to scream, and there was no wind in my body to scream. He did too. Then he flipped over just like you or me would and started running on all Fours. I had never seen anything like that before. What on earth am I seeing? Is it even human? It was my height, and I am about 5' 2"? I had watched the movie "Bat People" on TV in the '60s. Sure it wasn't something like that, was it? It is hairy all over! I distinctly heard it switch from four feet to two feet, and it ran uphill faster than anything I had ever encountered before or since.

I finally moved enough to figure out I could move. That's when I dashed to the basement to get my dad. He knew something wasn't right because of my heavy breathing and frightened look. "What's wrong, son?" I explained what I had just encountered. I said this man was standing there! He wasn't having that.

He ran to the house, grabbed his shotgun, and promptly shot in the air. Then he gave me that "You're not pulling my leg" look. He stood with me and listened to me for a minute. He grew more sure as I talked. I was being honest with him. The next few days, we stood guard, watching every move in the bushes and listening to the radio to see if there was a jailbreak or if some stranger was on the loose, and there was nothing.

Years later, I saw this video of a creature they called Bigfoot and was dumbfounded. I have several times been out in the woods and had tiny rocks thrown at me, which perplexed my mind. I had never heard of Bigfoot or Sasquatch, so that was alien to me. My friends would walk up the hill to spend the night and swear someone was walking along with them, yet none of us ever got hurt. Fast forward years later.

I walked outside in a dashing to go to the grocery store (I could drive now), and I met with my father bewildered and noise coming out of the woods like nothing I had ever heard before in my lifetime or since. My only words were, "Still doubt me?" He never called me a liar again. When he told the story, he made sure he noted my trying to say to him about it years prior. My friends, this is a true story. I can't tell you with one-hundred percent accuracy what I saw that evening. My therapist, however, is convinced I saw Bigfoot. She gets a thrill when I talk about it (I still think I sound crazy when I tell people). The scary part, people go missing. We don't know why. Fifty years later, everyone stays inside and locks their doors. Anyone that has heard the story knows there was no proof of the Beast of Land Between Lakes. Reports say people see things like hulking beasts that walk on two legs even now. We hear things, strange things. We don't tempt fate and go outside anymore.