Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

A listener writes “I do want to preface this by saying that from a very early age, I have always had a love for the outdoors. My parents signed me up for cub scouts when I became old enough, and that transitioned into the Boy Scouts. But even when I wasn’t scouting, I would beg my grandpa and dad to bring me camping, hunting, and fishing.

Both were very competent and capable outdoorsmen who taught me a lot about the outdoors. Setting traps, making makeshift shelters, and starting fires without an available flame are all options. By the time I turned 16, which is when this story takes place, I was camping alone on weekends. My family owns about 2,000 acres of land in Louisiana, and a creek runs through the northernmost tip of the property. There are no access roads to this creek big enough for a car to get to, and portions of it are so grown up that riding any kind of ATV through it is possible, but it’s going to be a slow pace. When I’d go solo camping, this is the area I’d be going to; it was secluded and essentially untouched by other humans, but it offered the calmness of the outdoors that I love. One of my favorite spots to camp at the time was in this area. The creek horseshoed around this peninsula-like section of woods.giving me three sides to fish on and any predators only one real way into my camp. A lot of the times when I would go solo camping for a night or two, I’d leave all of my unnecessary items behind and opt for a more “basic” experience. Like, I’d leave my tent, sleeping bag, jugs of water, and stuff like that behind and bring a hammock, chlorine dioxide tablets, a collapsible fishing pole, fishing line, and tackle, and a ferro rod only. I say all this now because it’ll really help better understand the situation later. Ok, on to the encounter.

In the summer of 2009, I had this bright idea that I wanted to really test my skills by camping alone with the most basic of supplies for a full month. My only obstacle to this idea was my parents. I asked mom if I could, and she of course said, “Just ask your dad.” So I went to dad and explained my idea, and after some lengthy compromising, he agreed under the conditions that I brought at least 4 days’ worth of emergency food, a weather band radio, a flare gun with at least 2 flares, I had to tell him where I would be camping, and he got to come check on me every 3-4 days so he could tell my mom I was still alive. I felt that was fair and began packing my bags for the hike to my favorite camping spot. I packed the basics I felt I would need, like my hammock, ferro rod, kindling, trail snacks, water tablets, solo stove, a water-proof tarp, mosquito netting, paracord, and, of course, the stuff my dad wouldn’t let me leave without. I had plans of leaving at first light the next morning for this long walk, but that night I was too excited and restless to sleep. I think I got maybe 2 hours of sleep the whole night. The rest of the time was spent watching out my bedroom window for the sun to come up, and as soon as I could see the ground outside my window, I was up, dressed, and out the door. It was at least a four-hour hike from my house to my designated camping spot if I went at a snail’s pace.but I wanted to enjoy the hike in, so I set a pace that would have me at my campsite by early afternoon.

About an hour into the hike, I had to pee really badly, so I walked off the trail about ten feet to relieve myself, and as I walked back to the trail, I saw a large stick lying on the ground and thought it would make a decent walking stick, so I bent down to pick it up. As I grabbed it, I heard a loud but quick snapping sound and then the rustle of leaves, like something big was running away from me through the woods. I looked in the general direction of the noise but saw nothing, so I assumed it had to be a deer or hog that got startled by me and took off. I blew it off and began hiking toward my camp site.

About an hour before I reach my camp, I start to feel slightly hungry and decide it would be ok to take a small break, chew on a granola bar, and have some water, so I find a nice shady spot under a beech tree and begin to eat my snack as I looked around the woods to see if I could find any birds or squirrels playing in the trees. But, to my surprise, the woods were completely silent; there were no birds chirping, squirrels darting through the trees, or anything other than a light breeze here and there, barely enough to move the leaves on the trees.I found it odd, but not strange. I had just stopped, so I figured anything in the area was probably waiting to see what I would be doing before it made noise. I finished my snack and sat for about another five minutes when this very strong, pungent smell hit me. My first thought was, “Ah, there’s a skunk near by,” because at the time that was the only animal I could think of in this area that could produce such a horrid smell. I attempted to sit longer, but the smell became so overwhelming that I went ahead and started to finish off my hike.

As I get within what I felt was one hundred yards of my camping spot, I begin scanning around me for potential small game trails, so I kind of have an idea where I might want to set some small traps. As I’m looking, I notice a large cypress tree that has a large portion of its bark rubbed off. I played it off as a buck rubbing its horns on the tree, not really paying attention to the fact that the rub mark is over my head by at least 6 inches. I get to my camping spot around 1-2 p.m. and begin setting up. I hang the hammock and mosquito netting, clear out a large enough ring for a fire area, and then begin scrounging around for suitable firewood for the night. I always like having all that stuff settled before I go do anything else, because I’ll lose track of time and be wandering around in the dark trying to find firewood if I don’t. Once the camp is set up and ready to go, I grab my fishing gear and head down to the creek to get a few hours of fishing in. I fish for several hours and catch enough for dinner that night, so as the sun is beginning to creep in behind the trees and the woods are starting to darken, I decide it would be a good time to head back to camp and get a fire going. I get the fire going and cut a couple of sticks to hang the fish on to cook. As the fish is cooking, I’m facing toward the elbow of the horseshoe the creek makes around my campsite.

Directly across the creek from me, I hear a branch break and a large splash in the water. I think “ah, a tree branch just fell in the water,” but as I’m thinking this, a low but very audible “whoo-eeh” comes from the same direction. The sound wasn’t anything I’ve heard before, but being excited about the camping trip I was getting to take and really just being lost in that happiness, I played it off as being a bullfrog and went on about my business. But it wasn’t until maybe 30-45 seconds after the sound that I heard what sounded like someone tapping a wooden yard stick against a tree. It was like a soft knock, followed by a second and another soft knock.I was like, “Yeah, ok, it’s just the wind causing the trees to sway; they’re just popping from the movement.” I was able to put it all in the back of my mind and pass it off as nonsense stuff long enough to eat and get settled in by the fire.

The year before this, Les Stroud’s book Survive! had come out, and I will admit I was slightly addicted to the book. I read it cover to cover at least four times between first getting it as a Christmas gift and this camping trip, and since I was so intrigued by the book, I brought it and a notepad with me so I could read it and jot down notes at night while I was winding down. I’m about ten to fifteen minutes into reading this book when this ear-piercing scream echoes from way off in the distance. It sounded like it was at least three to four miles away. It sounded like a woman being murdered in the woods.

It startled me a good bit, as I was pretty focused on the book and note-taking. But I remembered that Grandpa and Dad always talked about there being panthers that would wander through this area every now and then, but they would stay away from a campsite as long as there was some source of light, like a fire. So I just grabbed a few more pieces of wood, threw them on the fire, and went back to reading the book. About five minutes later, the scream happened again, but this time it sounded way closer, like at least 2 miles if not closer. And I remember sitting and thinking, “Okay, the panthers are coming this way, but it sounds like they’re making ground pretty quickly.” Maybe it was closer before, but the echo through the trees made it sound further away than it was. Either way, it probably won’t bother me once it sees the fire. After the second scream, the rest of the night was pretty calm. I turned in early after the long hike in; I was pretty tired. I left the fire burning just in case the panther managed to wander close enough that it wouldn’t walk directly into my camp.

I woke up about fifteen minutes before the sun came up, put a few more pieces of wood on the fire, and grabbed some beef jerky I had brought for breakfast. As I’m sitting by the fire, slowly waking up, I begin to notice what sounds like heavy breathing. like someone is breathing super forcefully out of their nose. I know deer do this when they sense danger from a distance, and I assume it’s figuring out that I’m danger and is blowing at me, and I just kind of blow it off.

By the time I finish my breakfast, the sun is up enough that I can see well enough to make it back down to the creek and splash some water on my face to kind of help me wake up some more. I know I’m low on firewood and figure it would be a good idea to spend an hour or so collecting a decent stock pile before setting off to do that. But as I’m doing it, I start smelling the same pungent odor I smelled the day before on my hike in, and I mumble jokingly, “The skunks are following me.”I continue to collect the firewood, but slowly the feeling of being watched begins to come over me.

Not like all of a sudden I felt like I was being watched, like at first I thought I felt like something was watching me, then I kind of felt like I was being watched by something that was definitely watching me, and I began to scan around me to see if I could see someone or something watching me, but I couldn’t see anything but trees. I go back to collecting firewood and try to put it in the back of my head, but the longer the feeling is there, the more it’s replaced by this overwhelming sense of fear and dread. Like I shouldn’t be here right now and I should probably leave, but in my head I’m talking myself down as if I’m overthinking the situation, saying that there’s nothing out here that I haven’t already seen before and I’ll be alright if I just finish collecting firewood and you can walk the bank of the creek for a ways and clear your mind.

Once I was convinced I had enough firewood to sustain me for a day or two, I walked northward along the bank of the creek, just taking in the woods around me. I get about a mile from camp and begin hearing a grunting sound coming from ahead of me. Thinking it’s a wild boar and not really wanting to have to face a pissed-off pig with razor-sharp teeth, I turn around and head back in the direction of the camp, but in a more western direction, so as I’m walking, I’m kind of paralleling the camp at an angle and will eventually cross the path I took walking into the camping area. As I’m getting closer to camp, I’m scanning the ground again for more small game signs because I still have it in mind to set up a couple traps. And I do see several rabbit and raccoon tracks, but I also begin seeing what I can only describe as “ball prints.” It looked as if someone was taking something the size of a billiards ball and slightly indenting the ground with it every seven to eight feet in a straight line.

I looked at the track and followed it in the direction I thought it came from and in the direction I thought it was going, and I soon realized it was either going toward or coming from the area where my camp was set up. So I began following the track toward my camp to see how close whatever or whoever it was had gotten, and when I reached the point where the tracks kind of stopped, I was more than a little surprised to find they stopped about fifty yards from where my campfire was. Because I could clearly see the campfire, I became more concerned about the feeling of being watched. There was nothing major blocking my view of the fire. The hammock was a little harder to see, but you could see it if you craned your neck just slightly to the left.

After the discovery of the tracks and how they stopped within enough distance from camp that I could’ve easily been seen by whoever or whatever it was, I became a little on edge. After all my years out here with my grandpa and dad, this wasn’t something I had seen, and I didn’t know how concerned I should be about finding these tracks. I spent the rest of my day near the camp, not really venturing out except to do a little fishing to try and clear my head and collect water to purify for drinking. I didn’t hear anything throughout the day but would still get wiffs of the pungent odor, and every so often I would get nervous like I was still being watched. I tried pretty hard to keep it all in the back of my head and rationalize it as me overreacting to being alone in the woods, but it still had me a little nervous.

The day passed by and the sun began to go down again, so I began working on cooking more fish for dinner. I set the fish on the sticks over the fire, and as the smell of the cooking fish began to fill the area around the fire, the feeling of being watched hit me like a truck running over me, and the loud breathing from that morning started up again. I’m listening, trying to act like I don’t notice it, but as I’m listening, I’m quickly realizing the sound is coming from the same direction the ball prints had stopped at. I’m very concerned at this point, because whatever it is is obviously big, but it’s also very good at remaining quiet while it moves, and now I have food cooking, and I’m assuming it smells it and might be just as hungry as I am. I remember when dad made me pack the flare gun in case I ran into an emergency and needed him or my grandpa to come help or get me. So I grab my bag, pull the flare gun out, and load a flare into it with the intention that if this thing comes close enough to see it and I deem it a threat, I’ll use the first flare to shoot at the thing to try and scare it off, and then try to reload fast enough to shoot the second flare into the air and hope my dad, grandpa, or one of my uncles that lives close by sees it and comes to investigate.

I grab my fish off the sticks and begin to slowly eat, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. As I’m eating, there’s a splash in the creek, and I hear the “Whoooeeh,” but this time it’s not soft or low; it’s very loud and very vocal, almost immediately followed by the loud scream I had heard the night before behind me, about 200 yards away, and then what I can only describe as a freight train plowing through the woods behind me. I jump and turn a full 360, trying to see what the hell is running through the woods behind me, realizing it’s running away, not toward me, but in such a way that it’s heading toward the creek. So almost in the opposite direction as my camp.After what felt like an eternity listening to this train destroy the forest around me, I hear a “UGHN”-like grunt and then a splash and a rush of water, like a sumo wrestler had just performed a cannonball into the creek, and immediately began trying to run through the water before the loud crashing started up again on the opposite side of the creek. At this point, I don’t feel like I’m being watched; I KNOW I’m being watched, and I’m trying to process all of what just happened and figure out my next move, including whether I should fire a flare to get someone out here to help me. But something in my brain told me, “Whatever it is, they’re obviously not trying to harm you and are at least scared enough of you to run away.” You should be alright.” and I believed it.

I spent several hours just listening for more sounds, hoping whatever it was didn’t come back, and trying to figure out in my head what it was. At some point, I don’t know why or how I came to this conclusion, but I rationalized it as being just deer. The one was blowing at me because it stumbled upon the camp, and the “whooo” sound was one that just had a really funny bleat. The one blowing ran in fear after the panther screamed, and it ran the way it did because it was stuck between me and the panther, and that’s why it went across the creek to the other side. I’m trying very hard to convince myself that it’s nothing, and at some point the convincing worked enough that I felt like I could probably get a few hours of sleep as long as I made sure the fire was big enough that it would burn most of the night and deter anything from coming into the camp.

I end up falling into a very light sleep and waking to just about any little sound. If wood popped in the fire, I would snap awake and look around, expecting to see something in the camp. I finally fall asleep and wake up shortly after the sun rises.

I’m exhausted and have made up my mind that if today and tonight go like yesterday and last night, I’ll cut the trip short and hike back home the following day. I get up, add wood to the fire, and begin my morning routine of beef jerky and a water splash to get my day going. As I’m walking back to the camp from the water splash, I hear what sounds like something walking through the woods toward me. It’s not as big as whatever that thing was the night before, but it’s making a considerable amount of noise. I kind of freeze as the fear from the night before begins to come over me. A few moments pass when I notice two sets of legs walking through the bushes and realize it’s my dad and uncle. I raise my hand in greeting as my uncle’s face finally becomes visible and ask if they want some beef jerky or water. My dad asks for coffee, knowing I didn’t bring any with me. I walk back to the fire and sit down, waiting for my dad’s usual “Well, you’re not dead, so I guess I can go home.” comment, but this time he surprised me with “Your grandpa called this morning worried about you.” He said he had a dream you were in trouble and wanted me to come check on you. I sat for a moment, a little confused, before saying “I’m fine” and popping another piece of beef jerky in my mouth. My uncle looks at me and says, “You look like shit. Did you stay up all night?” I just kind of shrugged and said, “I had a hard time falling asleep last night, but I’m alright.” He switched his gaze from me to my dad as if to say “Something’s up,” but looking at my dad’s facial expression, I could tell dad already knew I was hiding something, so he asked, “Did you see those weird foot prints on the trail?” In my head, I’m going “by the trail?” “They were 20 yards off the trail yesterday, not on the trail!” but I said, “No, I haven’t been over there this morning; I just woke up.” As they looked at each other and then back at me, I think my father and uncle could tell I was struggling to hide my concern about the strange prints on the trail.My dad asked, “Have you seen any weird prints at all?” and at this point I know he’s onto me, so I answer honestly with “Yes, I found some that looked like someone was walking on tennis balls yesterday.” My uncle said, “Tennis balls?” “The ones we saw look like someone was walking on the side of the foot.” I answered, “No, what I saw looked like balls.”

Dad then asked me to show them where the prints were that I found, and as we were walking toward the prints, my uncle said, “How the hell didn’t you notice these prints or what made them?” “Do they go directly past your camp?” pointing out that the tracks went past the edge of the camp toward the creek before disappearing at the bank of the creek. I become a little more shaken up, but I try harder to hide it because I know if my dad sees me too scared, he will make me cut my camping trip short. I said, “Let me show you the balls” and continued walking to where the ball prints had stopped. Dad bent down to look at them, obviously just as confused as me, but said, “Whoever it is, they’re walking on their heels.” “Are you sure you haven’t seen or heard anyone around your camp?” I answered with a “no, sir, being this close, I would’ve heard them coming close to camp.”

Dad looked at me like he didn’t believe me for a few moments before saying, “I think you should come back to the house until we figure out who’s out here messing around.” I guess my uncle noticed the frustration come over my face and said, “I’ll stay with him tonight; if nothing happens, I’ll come by and tell you in the morning, but if anything happens, I’ll bring him home with me.” My dad seemed ok with this idea but was still a little concerned about the situation, and the prints agreed. My uncle said he was going to walk back with my dad and get a pistol and his sleeping gear for the night, and that he would ride his ATV in as far as he could and walk the rest of the way so that he would be back in a few hours. While he was gone, I said I’d go get some more firewood, even though I didn’t really need it, and set up some snares and deadfalls for some small game.

After my dad and uncle left, I did collect more firewood and go and find some spots to set up some traps, but I was done before my uncle got back, so I decided to set up some fishing yo-yos and a few drop poles while I waited. As I’m setting up the yo-yos on the right (north) side of the camp, I hear a massive splash on the far side of the creek around the other side of the horseshoe and immediately jump up. I’m looking over the bank and down the creek to see if I can see anything that might’ve made the sound. Looking down the creek, I noticed the waves, whatever they were, coming around the creek’s elbow curve; I say waves because they were much larger than a ripple.I slowly start walking toward the area where I think the sound is coming from, hoping it’s just a tree that fell into the water and not some crazy person that’s having their fun at my expense.

But when I get to where the splash would’ve been, there’s nothing. No visible prints on either side of the bank, no tree, no more ripples or waves—it’s all calm. Baffled and kind of scared, I turn around and walk back toward camp when I hear rustling coming from the trail. I think, “Oh great, it’s got me in its view, and I have no real chance of escaping now that I’m cornered.” But to my relief, the sound was just my uncle making it back with all of his gear. I help him get set up, and he comes down to the creek and helps me set up a few more yo-yos and the drop poles. As we’re setting up one of the poles, I hear my uncle sniffing really rapidly, like he’s trying to smell something. I look up at him to see he’s grimacing, like what he smelled didn’t appeal to him. He says, “That damn skunk must be around.” I give it a little sniff and recognize the smell from the previous two days and say, “Yeah, it’s been around here for the past two days.” We leave it at that and finish setting out the drop poles.

With the last remaining daylight, my uncle says he’s going to fish, and I tell him I’m going to go check my traps and that I’ll be back in about thirty minutes or so. He says OK and walks down the bank with his fishing gear in hand, and I start walking toward my first trap. As I’m making my way around the empty traps, I start feeling like I’m being watched again. But I put it in the back of my mind and checked the last few traps only to find them empty, and I thought to myself. “It’s kind of foolish to be trying to trap something that might be full of parasites this time of year.” So as I’m walking back to camp, I set off the dead falls and pick up the snares because I don’t want to kill something that I might not be able to eat.

When I get back to camp, I see my uncles still fishing, and I decide to join them with what remaining sunlight I have. We catch enough to feed us both and make our way back to the fire. My uncle finally broke the idle chitchat after we ate and sat around for a minute talking about school this past year and what I had planned to do after graduating high school with “Ok, tell me what happened.”Confused, I ask, “What do you mean, what happened?” He looks at me directly in the eyes and says, “Barrett, I’ve been around you since the day you were born.” I know you almost as well as your parents. Now tell me what happened. “What caused those tracks?” I looked down at the fire in silence, not sure how to answer him. He asked again, “Barrett, what made those tracks?” I looked at him and said, “I don’t know Uncle Toby.” I heard something blowing last night, then a scream, and whatever was blowing took off running into the creek. “I thought it was a deer that had been scared off by a panther.” Now he looked confused and said, “Blowing?” and a scream?” I said, “Yes, sir, it sounded like a deer does when it senses danger and blows.” The scream sounded like a woman being murdered.

I’ve heard the scream two nights in a row and the blowing twice yesterday. I could tell he was thinking over my sound descriptions and the correlations I had to the sounds; he kind of looked off and said, “Yeah, it could’ve been a deer and a panther.” as if he was not one hundred percent convinced but wasn’t sure himself what else it could’ve been. After that, I said I was tired and went and laid in my hammock. My uncle stayed up and listened for what I figured were the noises I had heard.

I eventually fell asleep and was surprised to realize I had slept all night without an issue. I wondered when I woke up if what had been around the camp the first two nights was gone, or if it had seen I wasn’t alone anymore and decided to move on. My uncle stayed most of the day with me; I guessed to see if anything would happen, and around 2 p.m., when nothing had happened, he told me he was going to head back and let my dad know nothing was wrong. He asked if I wanted to go with him, but after the uneventful night I had with him there, I was more confident that whatever was around the first two nights had moved on and felt more at ease with continuing my camping trip. I helped him get his stuff packed up and asked him if I could keep the cast iron skillet he had brought to fry fish with, then watched him leave before making my way down to the creek to check my drop poles and yoyos. I found two poles with a nice-sized catfish on each one and got excited at the luck of getting to keep the skillet and having fish to fry in it. I skin the catfish away from camp to avoid attracting unwanted guests in the middle of the night and begin frying them.As the fish are frying, I grab my bottle of water tablets and, out of habit, give it a light shake, causing them to give off a small maraca-type sound. Almost immediately, it sounds like something shakes a tree limb and tries to mimic the sound I just made with the bottle. I begin to freak out in my head, like, “Oh my god, whoever was here the nights before is back now.” They waited for Uncle Toby to leave, and now they’re back!

I remembered my uncle had left me his Maglite, so I grabbed it and began shining it toward the noise, but the light landed on a possum that had climbed into a tree and was shaking the branches as it crawled across it, much to my embarrassment. I let out a short sigh of relief, because as soon as my body relaxed, the ear splitting scream from the previous two nights came from across the creek, and this time it sounded extremely close, so I spun quickly on my heels, shining the light in the direction of the sound. As the light pans across the opposing wood line, I think I spot eye shine for a second and quickly pan back, but I can’t find the source again. It was there, whatever it was, and then it either closed its eyes or went behind a tree. I quickly reach into my bag and grab the flare gun. I’m fully prepared to just shoot in the air and hope someone can get to me in time. But as I’m pulling it out of the bag, I hear whatever was across the creek begin running away from me. I’m still very freaked out, but at the same time, I’m not sure what it is. For all I know, I could’ve just spooked off a panther, and everything is alright now. As a result, I hesitate to fire the flare.I don’t want to use it for no reason at all. I finally calmed myself down enough to eat, but I kept the flare gun in my lap just in case I needed to shoot it quickly and wasn’t fumbling around trying to get to it.

As I’m eating, I’m having a back and forth debate in my head about how I was so excited for this camping trip and some how, after years of doing this alone, I’ve scared myself so bad that I can’t even enjoy the camping trip. I keep telling myself that everything will be fine and that I’m just overreacting to normal, natural things that I know exist and will not harm me.  And I sit for the entirety of my dinner having this back and forth argument in my head, and when I’m done eating, my rational side says, “See, you just ate a whole meal, and whatever that was didn’t come back.” but the fight or flight side of me is going, “How do you know it didn’t come back?” and I know for a fact that if I fire this flare off, it’s going to take anyone who notices it at least 30 to 45 minutes to get to me by ATV or on foot. So even if I were to need help, it might be too late to get to me regardless. I convince myself to just stick it out one more night, pack up tomorrow morning, hike back home, and hope nothing happens between now and then. I didn’t really sleep that night. I’m too scared to sleep because I keep hearing strange noises in the dark, and the last thing I want to do is go to sleep and give whatever or whoever it is a chance to surprise me.

So I pick up a book and start reading, I have the flare gun and my uncle’s light in my lap, and I’m trying to detach myself from the situation without actually detaching myself from it. And several hours go by with me reading this book; I’d reread pages 9–10 times. just trying to drag the time by, waiting for something to go wrong. I eventually hear a stick break across the creek from me. When a normal stick is broken or stepped on, rather than a full-grown tree, I get the impression that I am being watched. I have a very strong feeling that I’m being watched. I decide if I’m going to be scared of something. I want to know what or who is scaring me. I plan to slowly reach for the light and the flare gun, and once I know I have a firm enough grip on both, I’m going to quickly turn the light on and shine it on whatever it is.

To this day, I wish I had never done that and just left it be. As soon as that light came on and I fixed it on the area I thought the noise was coming from, I felt like someone had hit me in the chest with a sledge hammer. I couldn’t catch my breath, I couldn’t think straight, and I was trying to process what was in front of me. This thing was huge; it had to have been every bit of 10 feet tall, and at some point between me hearing the stick break and me shining the light on it, it had crept down the bank of the creek and was standing in the water, staring directly at me. It didn’t kick a rock in the water, it didn’t splash a foot into the water, it made no sound other than that stick breaking, and as soon as that light hit it, it looked super agitated.

Get that damn light out of my face. But I couldn’t; I was frozen there, staring at something that I didn’t think could really exist in this world. It wasn’t supposed to be real; it was supposed to be a crazy story conspiracy theorists made up to scare people. But it was very real, and it was right there in front of me, and I had obviously just pissed this thing off by exposing where it was. I sat there for what felt like hours, but it had only been a handful of seconds when it let off this low, guttural kind of huffing growl.

The sound scared me but kind of snapped me out of my state of shock, and I don’t know if it was a reflex or my body taking control and saying we’ve got to do something, but as soon as it let out its little growl, I felt my finger squeeze the trigger of the flare gun and I heard the loud pop and whiz of the flare being shot into the air. As soon as that flare left the gun, this thing’s eyes went from pissed off at me to concerned as he watched it go into the air. As soon as he saw it going up, he turned and ran back up the bank. He didn’t look back at me; he just pivoted a little, took two steps up a 10-foot bank, and disappeared into the trees. As he’s running up the bank, I hear something running behind me. I turn to see what’s behind me, but all I see are tree branches swaying as whatever was behind me ran away from me.

The whole ordeal felt like it took all night to occur, but in reality it probably lasted maybe forty-five seconds to a minute and a half between the stick breaking and the flare gun being fired. I knew someone was bound to see that flare, as it was still pretty early in the evening. So I quickly reloaded the flare gun just in case I had to make some sort of last stand because it felt like these things were flanking me and getting ready to make their move when I caught the one coming into the water. I didn’t believe for one second that they would be completely deterred by that flare going off. As I’m sitting there waiting, I can hear two ATVs coming through the woods in the distance. I know they’re close, but I also know they have to walk through the woods—one of these things just ran through there—to get to me. I recognize one of the ATVs as my grandpa’s and remember that he always kept a loaded pistol in a holster he had tied to the handle bars. I remember shouting as loud as I could, “Papaw, bring your pistol, bring your pistol,” hoping he would hear me.I want to run toward them so bad, but I know whatever I assumed was sneaking up behind me could possibly be between me and them, and all I have is a flare gun. Sure, it might scare him off again, but what if it calls my bluff and decides to finish what it set out to do? I remember being so scared that I started to cry as I waited, and after waiting for so long, I heard my uncle shouting my name through the woods as they were getting closer. As soon as I felt they were close enough, I clung to the light and flare gun and just ran as hard and as fast as I could toward my uncle’s voice, leaving everything I had brought with me where it was. As soon as I reached them, I shouted “run,” not thinking that my 70-year-old grandpa wasn’t a track star. As I try to run past them, my uncle reaches out and grabs me, dragging me to a stop and shouting, “Barrett, what’s wrong?” “What is it?” I just screamed, “Where’s my dad? I want my dad.” and tried to run, but my uncle’s grip kept me in place, and now my grandpa is yelling, “He had to run to town for your mom; tell us what happened, Barrett?” I shout again, “Just take me to my dad. I’ll tell you when I’m out of these damn woods.” I was fully expecting to be scolded for swearing in front of my uncle and grandpa.

I guess they realized that I was too scared to be there anymore and eventually relented and brought me home. The whole way back, I was scared to death. Whatever was in the creek was in the wood line waiting to snatch me off my uncle’s ATV, and I remember screaming at him to hurry up and hurry up and him screaming back that he couldn’t because the trail was too curvy. We finally made it back to the house, only to discover that Dad had not returned.As soon as my uncle’s ATV came to a slow enough speed, I jumped off and bolted into the house, almost giving my mom a heart attack at the sound of the door busting open and me screaming and crying. As my uncle and grandpa walked in, I slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and balled my eyes out. Mom came running into the kitchen, shouting what had happened.But I couldn’t answer her; I was still way too shocked and scared to fully believe what had happened. All I could do was bury my face in her stomach, hug her waist, and cry. It took several minutes for them to finally calm me down, and I don’t think I fully calmed down until I could clearly hear Dad’s truck pulling into the driveway. Dad walked in to see my mom, grandpa, and uncle all huddled around me, asking me what happened, and immediately joined in with “Barrett, what happened?” My uncle says, “I was sitting outside with Dad when I saw the flare going up.” We got to him as fast as we could; he met us on the trail in a full sprint, crying and screaming to get him out of there. But I’m still a little rattled and having a hard time speaking. I finally let go of Mom so she could get me a glass of water to try and calm me down. After sitting for a moment, collecting myself, and letting the water calm me down some, I finally look at my dad, who asks, “Barrett, tell us what happened.” So I tell him everything from start to finish. When I finally finish, I’m crying again because I’m still having a hard time coping with the whole situation, and I’m having an even harder time convincing myself that what I saw is actually what I saw.

No one really says anything after I finish recounting the story, mostly because I was so visibly shaken that no one wanted to question me. My mom finally broke the silence with, “Okay, lets get you laid down in your bed and let you relax.” I didn’t really want to go lay down, but I knew Mom was only trying to help, so I went and laid down, asking her to leave my bedroom light on, because there was no way I was laying in a dark room after what just happened to me. I lay in bed for a long time listening to the muffled talk of my parents, grandpa, and uncle discussing what I told them. I heard my dad say he would go the next day and get my stuff and see if he could find anything, only to have my mom protest with “did you not see how scared he was?” There is obviously something out there. You’re not going to get his stuff alone.” My grandpa and uncle volunteered to go with my dad after my uncle got home from work, and mom seemed a little more ok with that but still very much against it. The next day, when they got back from getting my stuff, they were a little shaken up themselves.

Whatever was out there had destroyed my camp; my hammock and mosquito netting were ripped; the firewood I had collected was scattered around the camp; my bag had been slung around; and all the stuff in it was scattered across the camp and down the bank. My uncle found my book at the edge of the water, soaked, with pages torn out and scattered all over the place. This shook me even more because all I could think about at the time was “what if I hadn’t fired that flare?” And then I really got to thinking, “What if I hadn’t of heard that stick break?”

To this day, I won’t go camping alone, and even if I go in a group, I have a very hard time sleeping and will not sleep without a continuous fire burning to produce some form of light. Thirteen years later, I’m scared of the dark and won’t sleep in a dark room; even with my wife in the bed with me, I have a light on in the hallway outside our room all night and two night lights plugged in in the room. I still go hunting, fishing, and camping, but never alone anymore. I try to not let the experience ruin my love for the outdoors, but it is definitely harder for me to enjoy it if I’m not within walking distance of a trail or road. I won’t venture into deep forests anymore, in a group or alone. And I’ve never gone back to that camping spot again. I don’t know what was happening that night or what their intentions were. I can only speculate that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to end well, and I don’t even want to know what would have happened if it weren’t for me being alert enough to hear that stick breaking. I said I wish I would’ve never cut that light on to see what I saw, but I feel like that moment really prevented something serious from happening. If I would’ve played it off like I had stupidly done all those times leading up to that moment, I might not be here today.

I’m only assuming their intentions weren’t good. I can’t say for certain they weren’t just having a good time. Again, I really struggled with typing all of this out and deciding whether or not I should send it. I still get a little emotional when I think about all that has happened and how stupid and naive I was to let it get as far as it did. I learned that gut instinct is there for a reason; it’s not just a suggestion. If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate you taking the time to read my story, and at least listen. I know it’s long and at some point you asked yourself “why didn’t you just leave.” and I can’t figure that out myself. But I do appreciate you giving us a platform to tell our story. I’m available through email if you have questions.”