Something Terrible Is Coming When They Appear

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome Wirdos. I'm Darron Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. The vast
emptiness of Arizona can make the imagination do some crazy things.

(00:32):
But then add to that an odd, abandoned set of
dome like buildings graffitied with six six six, where dead
animals are found regularly, and the imagination might take you
past crazy and into terrifying. Mary Harris waited outside the
building where Adonna ram Burrows worked, and when he came out,

(00:54):
she pulled a gun and shot him at close range,
killing him instantly. She then walked off calmly as if
she had only tossed down and stepped on a used
cigarette butt, But the public was on her side once
her story was told. Weirdo family member Danny Ward tells
the true story of what happened to him on a

(01:14):
camping trip that turned terrifying. But first, throughout history, we've
assigned rolls of harbingers of doom to various creatures and people.
If a black cat crosses your path, it brings bad
luck with it. If you see your own doppelganger, you're
dangerously close to an untimely end. If the grim Reaper

(01:35):
makes an appearance, your time is up, and on and
on it goes. In small towns in and around the
United States and across the world, Creatures lurking in the woods,
sounds that could be heard at night are all signs
that something terrible is headed your way. These are what
are known as harbingers of doom, and there are some

(01:55):
horrifying events that have been linked to them over the years.
We begin there now. Bult your doors, lock your windows,
turn off your lights, and come with me into the
weird darkness. Have you ever been out on a late

(02:26):
night walk through the moors or whatever your local version
of the moors happens to be, and hurd a mournful cry?
Or have you been lying in your bed restless and
heard three knocks at your door? If so, supernatural beings
may be giving you warning signs about some impending doom
that's coming your way. Not every dark prophecy is directed

(02:49):
specifically at you, however, seriously get over yourself. Sometimes mysterious
beings from beyond our realm of understanding make themselves known
in order to warn humankind about a disaster that's about
to occur in our own backyards. There have been multiple
sightings of creatures like West Virginia's Mothman, who have predicted
catastrophic events throughout the twentieth century. To learn about all

(03:13):
the ways you can spot danger by using supernatural entities,
keep listening and make sure you stay inside. There's no
way around it. Harbingers of doom are the worst. First
of all, no one likes to be given a creepy
warning sign, and secondly, they're spooky is all get out.
None of the ghouls sent to deliver paranormal prophecies or

(03:36):
even remotely cuddly. They're all like bemon dogs or hags
who sleep in a river, or giant headless crows that
glide through noxious fumes. If you've seen any of these creatures,
you may want to start putting your last will and
testament in order. The Mothman may be the most well
known paranormal harbinger of doom in the world. This creature

(03:59):
was witness by multiple West Virginians throughout nineteen sixty six
and sixty seven prior to the collapse of the Silver
Bridge on December fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven. There's no argument
that the Mothman is something that you never want to see,
but there are disagreements about whether or not the creature
is simply a harbinger of doom or if it actually

(04:21):
causes the destruction that comes in its wake. The final
Mothman sighting occurred prior to the Silver Bridges collapse, leading
many to believe that all of its appearances were meant
to warn people about that incident. Some people have even
claimed to have seen the mothman near the bridge just
before it fell into the river, related but not necessarily

(04:43):
the same creature. Beginning in April nineteen eighty six, people
living near the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant began to see
a giant, winged creature that looked like a headless man
with piercing red eyes or at least piercing red dots.
Who saw the creature claimed to have experienced horrible nightmares
after seeing it coasting on the wind and after the

(05:06):
meltdown of the power plant on the morning of April
twenty sixth, nineteen eighty six, multiple workers who survived the
initial blast described seeing a large black birdlike creature with
a twenty foot wingspan, flying through the noxious smoke pouring
from the reactor. The bird was never seen again. Some
theorists believe that the black Bird of Chernobyl was in

(05:29):
fact the Mothman, continuing its foul work. Detroit has it
hard enough, Do they really need an evil sprite running
around town and causing mischief wherever it happens? The Nain
Rouge is a red, impish creature who kind of looks
like what you'd imagine a cartoon devil to look like.

(05:50):
The creature's been cited as early as the Battle of
Bloody Run in seventeen sixty three and as recently as
nineteen ninety six, when something in a nasty red coat
was seen fleeing the scene of a cat burglary. When
will the little red devils strike again? Only time will tell.
According to the legend, in the seventeenth century, a ship

(06:13):
named the Flying Dutchman was sailing around the Cape of
Good Hope when it ran into a storm. Rather than
batten down the hatches or head in the opposite direction,
the captain ordered the ship to continue sailing into the
inclement weather. The men were washed overboard and the captain
was cursed to sail around the world forever. Now, if

(06:34):
a seafaring person sees the flying Dutchmen while they're out
of port, then they know that something terrible is going
to happen to them. When it comes to spooky harbingers
of doom, the folks across the pond have creepy figures
that act as portents of natural disasters on luck. In Wales,
one of the most objectively magic islands of the United Kingdom,

(06:56):
the Syrow Eighth, which I'm sure I butchering the pronunciation for,
is said to be a sound heard by someone or
a group of people who are about to suffer a
terrible fate. It means the wailing, but that's not as
bad as coming face to face with the saih Raith,
a robed and hooded spirit. It was said that anyone
who runs into this Welsh wraith will either perish or

(07:18):
will have a family member pass. If you've looked at
the Internet in the last hour, then you know that
cats are constantly knocking stuff over and are typically complete jerks.
But you know what's worse than a regular cat, a
demon cat. Luckily, most of you will never have to
deal with the demon Cat unless you work in Washington,

(07:40):
d C. That is, And even if you work there,
you probably won't see the cat unless something terrible is
about to happen. The Demon Cat was allegedly cited the
night before the assassination of President Kennedy. Many think this
spooky cat is the spirit of a feline who was
brought into the basement tunnels of the Capitol buildings to
hunt rats and then never left. The myth of the

(08:03):
white deer is a twisty one, layered with conceits on
top of conceits. According to the Celtic people, if you
see the white heart, then something bad is about to
go down, like not just a toastubbing or whatever they
were talking about, imminent doom. The reputation of the white
Stag improved in the Arthurian age when it came to

(08:25):
represent the moment that Arthur and his crew needed to
leave for a quest. But no matter which legend you believe,
it's best to stay inside and avoid any areas where
you could run into an albino deer. If you see it,
stuff is going to go down one way or another.
Are you being haunted by members of your family that
have been long deceased. If that's the case, you should

(08:48):
probably start looking into your family's medical history or avoid
any form of public transit for the foreseeable future. Many
familial ghosts have been known to be a sign post
for future calamities. Basically, if you've been seeing the ghost
of your long deceased grandfather pointing at you and soundlessly screaming,
it's likely that you're about to suffer some kind of

(09:10):
terrible fate. Sorry. The black eyed ghosts, or they're better
known as the black eyed kids, sometimes the black eyed adults.
Anything with jet black eyes have been reported to be
a source of local misery from Texas to England. But
rather than just be spooky kids with black eyes that
wait around to push your car over sets of train tracks,

(09:32):
they may actually be messengers from beyond the grave warning
you that something bad is about to happen. The ghost
have been known to try and sneak into people's houses
through general trickery, but they also only show up when
a personal setback is about to occur. It's safe to
say that if you see something with solid black eyes approaching,

(09:55):
you should turn and walk the other way. Just a
general rule of thumb, One eerie legend from Ireland states
that prior to the demise of the head of the household,
a pack of foxes will congregate around the home. According
to Lady Gormanston in nineteen oh eight, at the time
Jennico William Joseph the fourteenth Viscount Gormanston was dying, foxes

(10:17):
were seen about the house and coming toward the house
for some days before his valet, who was sleeping in
his room, heard what he thought was a dog barking,
and on going over to the window, found that it
was a fox sitting under the window and barking. At
the death of Edward the thirteenth Viscount, the foxes were
also there. He had been rather better one day, but
the foxes appeared barking under the window, and he passed

(10:40):
that night, contrary to expectation. Thus we have the Gormanston foxes.
Try not to be distracted by how adorable they are.
If they do show up, you'll have some affairs to
get in order. Banshees might be the most underrated spooky
specter and the eerie Eerie catalog of ghouls and goblins.
It's said in Irish Lord that every family from the

(11:02):
aisle has their own personal banshee. I guess that would
be like a terrible guardian angel that lets out a
gruesome whale prior to one of the descendants passing. Usually
the whaling can be heard from miles away, and as
the sound of the ghostly woman's cries grow louder, the
moment of your demise grows closer. The hell hound, or

(11:25):
as it was known in folklore of Northern England, the
bar guest, is a kind of goblin dog with giant
teeth and claws that only appears in the night to
those who are about to shuffle off this mortal coil.
The bar cast has many variations across England, but the
strangest one is named Trash. Trash haunts Lancashire and as

(11:46):
backward facing feet that make a splashing sound when it walks.
At least it'll be hard for Trash to sneak up
on you. Moving on to Burtonsland, Scotland, and it is
honestly stupid, Hank. One of the spookiest ghosts is the
Green Lady of Sterling Castle, whose look is said to
bring death to anyone who catches her eye. Kind of

(12:10):
like a less forgiving Gorgun. According to local legend, the
Green Lady was one of Queen Mary's chambermaids who was
charged with keeping an eye over Mary as she slept. Unfortunately,
she fell asleep while on watch the night that Mary's
chambers went up in flames. The girl managed to save
her queen, but perished from injuries in the fire. The

(12:31):
Killaneg another word I'm sure that I'm mispronouncing, is a
Scottish spirit that's similar to a banshee and that its
cries signify that something terrible is about to happen, but
different in that the Kwanegg tends to stick to waterfalls, rivers,
and other small bodies of water. One old tale from
Scotland says the creature would leave its watery home and

(12:53):
visit the door of a family with an ailing member.
The ghoul's moans would let them know that it was
time to say their final goodbyes. Honestly, that's just kind
of helpful. And what is it with spooky the ghosts
and their affinity for the number three. One of the
most frightening harbingers of doom is the three knocks of Death.

(13:16):
It doesn't need a creepy monster to do its dirty work,
and it can happen at any time, day or night. Usually,
if you hear the three knocks, it means that you
or someone you know is an immediate danger. The fear
of the number three seems to exist without a specific origin,
but it's likely that the number three is seen as
a demonic presence mocking the Holy Trinity. That might also

(13:38):
be why we think bad things sometimes happen in threes.
Coming up, Mary Harris waited outside the building where Adonnerumburrows worked,

(14:02):
and when he came out, she pulled a gun and
shot him at close range, killing him instantly. She then
walked off calmly, as if she just tossed down and
stepped on a used cigarette butt. However, the public was
on her side once the story was told. But first,
the vast emptiness of Arizona can make the imagination do

(14:23):
some pretty crazy things. But then add to that an odd,
abandoned set of dome like buildings graffitied with the number
six sixty six, where dead animals are found regularly, and
the imagination might take you past crazy and into downright terrifying.
That story is up next on Weird Darkness. An Exit

(15:05):
in the middle of the desert, and it turn down
an endless road to nowhere. And then it comes into
view a cluster of giant, white and yellow semi hemispheric
domes poking up out of the desert like a copse
of giant, poisonous mushrooms, pulling to the side of the road.
Curiosity turns to unease. If Texas chainsaw massacre style villains existed,

(15:28):
this is the sort of place they would lay in wait.
The middle of nowhere, Arizona, utterly isolated, it's clear that
hundreds have climbed over the low barbed wire fence where
a broken plywood sign lies face up in the dirt.
It's covered in graffitied tags, but just visible beneath them
all the spray painted words welcome to Hell. This is

(15:52):
no haunted house or tourist attraction. The abandoned, never completed
domes of Casa Grande, an hour set mouth of Phoenix,
were intended to manufacture semiconductors in the seventies. The domes
have become a regular spot for local devil worshippers, as
well as curious ghost hunters and daring late night partygoers.

(16:14):
The front dome is shaped like a space ship. The
others are larger, as if a chain of half domes
were joined together in a caterpillar shape. There is a
white and yellow pattern on the outside where the concrete
shell has been destroyed to reveal insulation beneath. Graffiti is everywhere,
but in addition to the big block and grotesque cartoon faces,

(16:36):
are more pentagrams and six six sixes than you might expect.
What looks like a no trespassing sign. The letters are
obscured by black spray paint Warren's visitors away, but it's
clear that nobody pays any attention. There's even an Instagram
location filter here. There is trash everywhere, from lumps of

(16:57):
concrete to used fireworks, spray paint cans, and a near
universal carpet of broken glass. And then, in the middle
of a concrete forecourt between the two largest remaining structures,
a disturbing sight a dead pigeon with its chest cavity
cut open, and a half burned matchtick poking out satanic rituals.

(17:19):
Perhaps dead animals are regularly found here. According to Adam Forner,
co founder of a small group called the Casa Grande
Paranormal Investigations, Borner has visited Casa Grande four times so far,
twice on formal paranormal investigations. There have been dead bodies too,
he says, though I can't find any reports to support

(17:41):
his claim. On his first visit, in the dead of night,
Borner says he saw a spirit that almost looked like
the Grim Reaper. It was like black feathery flames in
a cloak. On another occasion, when asking questions into the
dark while listening to a spirit box, a device used
by ghost hunters to scan radio frequencies for fragments of

(18:02):
semi intelligible audio ghosts trying to communicate order, describes distinctly
hearing the words get out before a dust storm blew
through the dome. Whether you're a believer or not, the
site is decidedly creepy. As I walk around in the daytime,
I might add every footfall pings around these singular structures

(18:24):
half a dozen times, like a ricocheting bullet, combined with
the wind whistling through odd holes in the structures. The
natural sound effects of the place are as disorienting and
eerie as any horror movie score, and if the accidental
acoustics lesson doesn't float your boat. Then you could spend
hours reading through the endless graffiti to delve into the

(18:45):
minds of the occult and of the far right and
the downright freaks. There are swastikas of plenty. I had
some terrible things happened to me after visiting that place,
says foreigner. I'm thankful I spoke with ford Or after
my visit had enough chills down my spine walking around
without the need for visions of feathered and flaming visitors
from the afterlife. Finding that poor mutilated pigeon was more

(19:10):
than enough for me. On January thirty first, eighteen sixty five,
at Donnerum, Judson Burrows, a clerk working in the US
Treasury Building in Washington, d C. Was leaving for home
with another coworker when he was stopped by a woman

(19:31):
who had apparently been waiting for him. As witnesses later reported,
Burrows exited his office to where the woman was waiting,
and they spoke briefly. It was then that the woman,
twenty two year old Mary Harris, pulled out the gun
she was carrying and shot at Donnerum Burrows at close range.
Realizing that he was dead, she then walked off in

(19:53):
a perfectly businesslike manner and made no attempt to resist
when a watchman stopped her before she even exited the bill.
She was arrested and charged with murder that same day.
When police asked Harris about her reason for shooting Burrows,
the story she told would soon propel her into one
of the most sensational trials of the decade. In her

(20:16):
statement to police, she said that she was born in Burlington, Iowa,
and had met Burrows while working in a hat making
shop there. She was only nine years old at the
time and he was more than twice her age, but
they soon fell in love. Not only did he provide
her with money to continue her education, but he also
taught her how to pass in high society as would

(20:39):
benefit the kind of cultured wife that he wanted. When
Mary turned thirteen, Burrows asked her to go with him
when he started a new job in Chicago, but she declined. Instead,
they began a seven year correspondence during which Burrows made
repeated promises of marriage. No word on what Mary's immigrant
parents likely thought of all of this. In eighteen sixty three,

(21:03):
when Mary was twenty years old, she decided that she
was ready and moved to Chicago to be with Burroughs,
though the promised wedding never materialized. Soon afterward, Burrows announced
that he had found a new job as a clerk
in the US Treasury Department, and he promptly moved to Washington,
d C. Again, Mary was left to wait, though she
believed Burrows promised that he would send for her. Not

(21:26):
long after the move, Burrows stopped writing to her. Also
around this time, Mary received two letters from someone who
only gave his name as J. P. Greenwood, Though she
had no idea who wrote the letters, They apparently asked
Harris to meet him at a house of Assignation, an
old name for a brothel. When Mary showed the letters

(21:47):
to her then employer, Luisa Devlin, it was Devlin who
concluded that they had been written by Burrows as part
of a bizarre scheme to blacken Mary's reputation and to
call off the wedding. Though she didn't want to believe
that Burrows would do this, she soon learned he had
become engaged to another woman. According to what Mary would

(22:08):
later tell her doctors, the shock of this betrayal led
her to develop serious mood swings along with violent episodes
of hysteria. She also bought a gun, though she was
unclear whether she planned to use it on Burroughs or herself.
In January the following year, she went to the railway
station and purchased a ticket to Washington, d C. Apparently

(22:29):
without even bothering to bring any luggage. Immediately after arriving
in DC, she went straight to the Treasury Building to
confront Burrows directly. She then shot Burrows as soon as
he confirmed that he was about to be married to
another woman. While waiting for the case to come to trial,
two prominent lawyers, Joseph Haversham and Bradley Daniel Voorhees, offered

(22:51):
their services in her defense. While Mary had no money
to pay them, they both agreed to work pro bono
on her behalf, so there was no question about her
shooting Burrows. Her lawyers had her plead not guilty by
reason of temporary insanity. To build their case, the lawyers
read many of Burrough's letters to Mary in open court

(23:12):
so the jury could hear about his declarations of affection
and promises to marry her. The letters from J. P.
Greenwood were also introduced as evidence, along with Luisa Devlin,
who testified on Mary's behalf. The lawyers also brought in
different medical experts who testified on their client's behalf, including
doctor Charles Nichols, superintendent of Government Hospital and later President

(23:35):
of the American Psychiatric Association. It was doctor Nichols who
testified that Mary had been insane at the time of
the killing due to being crossed in love, as well
as suffering from painful dysminoria or menstrual problems. Another doctor
testifying on the role that Mary's female troubles played in
her crime was doctor Calvin Fitch, who confirmed the dyspmnoria

(23:59):
diagnosed and added that uterine irritability is one of the
most frequent causes of insanity. But the prosecution remained skeptical
about Mary's presumed insanity. Not only did she have a
clear motive for the killing, but she also demonstrated premeditation
by purchasing the gun before meeting Burroughs. The prosecution also

(24:21):
brought in their own experts, including Frederick May, m d.
Past Chair of Surgery Columbia College. It was Frederick May
who testified that Mary had shot Burrows while she labored
under a deranged intellect. Paroximally deranged produced by moral causes.
Also appearing for the prosecution was William P. Johnston, m d.

(24:42):
Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, Columbia College,
who stated, we consider an individual suffering from hysteria as
irresponsible for any act which she might commit. While they
questioned the dyspnoria diagnosis, the doctors did little to sway
the and it was hardly a surprise that the jury

(25:02):
only needed five minutes to declare Mary not guilty. Despite
her acquittal, Mary Harris still had to deal with the
notoriety from the trial. Not only was she forced to
travel under an assumed name as she returned to her hometown,
but she also had to deal with rumors about her
relationship with her defense lawyer, Joseph Bradley, despite his being

(25:24):
twice her age. Not only had she openly kissed Bradley
after the verdict, but he carried her out of the
courtroom since she was too overcome to walk on her own.
One wit wrote that Bradley would be in imminent danger
of being shot himself if he refused to marry his client,
whether due to the adverse publicity or the guilt of
killing Burroughs. Mary soon returned to Washington and became an

(25:48):
inmate at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital, where she would remain over
twelve years. Though there are no records remaining concerning her
time in the hospital, the few newspaper stories covering her
post acquittal suggests that she wasn't under any real constraint
and was considered a low risk inmate. She was even
allowed to leave the hospital for months at a time,

(26:09):
often visiting family or staying at nearby resorts. It likely
helped that both of her lawyers were politically prominent and
continued to have an active interest in her welfare. Finally,
Joseph Bradley, who had become a judge by that time,
managed to secure Mary's release from the hospital, to the
surprise of all his friends and colleagues, not to mention

(26:30):
that children from his first marriage. Bradley married his former
client not long after her release. Despite his literally being
twice her age he was eighty and she was forty,
and being in poor health, the marriage was a purely
a successful one, and they remained together until his death
in eighteen eighty seven. As to what became of Mary Harris,

(26:51):
Bradley after that, I haven't been able to determine. So
why was Mary Harris able to escape being convicted for
a honorum Judson Burrow's murder? For that matter, why was
the plea of temporary insanity accepted by a jury who
might have otherwise been justifiably suspicious of medical experts invoking
terminology such as painful dysminoria. Though the insanity defense continues

(27:17):
to be controversial even today, it was especially controversial during
the late nineteenth century as courts tried to grapple with
the Monoton decision in the UK and how it might
apply in the American justice system. Though there were numerous
cases in which the insanity defense was used, almost all
of them involved male defendants who were more easily dealt

(27:38):
with by the courts. Given that Mary faced the death
penalty for her crime, being a woman may have well
worked in her favor, especially considering no woman had been
hanged by the US federal government up to that time,
and the crime being committed in Washington, d c. Gave
it a federal jurisdiction. Considering the reluctance of the court

(27:59):
to hang the Harris there is a certain irony that
the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln took place while her
case was still coming to trial, and another woman, Mary Sarant,
went on trial for her role in the assassination conspiracy,
but there was no acquittal for her and she was
hanged just days before Mary Harris's acquittal. Perhaps Surrant's lawyers

(28:24):
should have gone with the dysmnoria defense. When Weird Darkness returns,
Weirdo family member Danny Ward tells the story of what
happened to him on a camping trip, a trip that
turned terrifying. It's a story called I Just wanted to

(28:48):
go fishing up next. I'd like y'all to know before

(29:12):
we go any further that this is one hundred percent
a true story, and to the best of my ability,
I'll share what happened that day without embellishing and without
bull Besides, truth is stranger than fiction sometimes. My name
is Danny. I'm forty six years old now, but at
the time of the incident I was only eighteen. It

(29:33):
had been a beautiful summer, hot and hazy, with afternoons
spent in my little nineteen eighty five Honda CRX traveling
around in a big triangle from my town north forty
minutes to my buddy Rick's place, then west to the
beach and girl watching, but only watching. We, unfortunately for us,
grew up in a rather stuffy congregation whose elders were

(29:55):
converted Mennonite and one Amish gentleman. Needless to say, if
time spent with them, there was little to no fun
to be had if you didn't like baseball or working
for fun. Rick and I made ourselves incredibly scarce. I
had a small, two door, two seater car that was
absolutely useless for going door to door. I would have

(30:19):
denied it to my dying breath, but I bought that
car just for that reason. I didn't have to worry
about elders hounding me for my car. It didn't seat
enough people. July twenty third, nineteen ninety three, it was
a Friday, hot, humid, stick to your back kind of weather.
I was stuck under an old Ford pickup sixty four

(30:41):
I think it was two wheel drive, had a three
point fifty one windsor, was flat black and went like stink.
It was my girlfriend's father's truck and we were just
finishing up with the linkage on the new to him
transmission that he installed earlier that week, Rick and my
girlfriend Shelley came out to the open shop to smiling
faces and cold beers in hand. They of course sat

(31:04):
down on old wooden chairs in the shop around the
old ford and supervised, cracking wise and generally not helping
in the least to button up this job any sooner.
We uh going to the beach, rick, I asked. Back then,
I was a big guy, about six foot four and
two hundred and seventy pounds, give or take, so this

(31:25):
question came out as a bit of a strained grunt
as I pulled myself out from out of the ford.
It was dirty, sweaty, and over hot. I'm a ginger,
so I do about as well in the heat as
a klondike bar does in the sun. Nah, man, I
don't have the cash for the beach. We got twenty
bucks till they get paid on Monday. How about your place?

(31:45):
Go hang out with your mom, Rick asked, sincerely, Sincerely,
My mom is awesome. All my friends know it too,
But it was a really hard time for us as
a family. My father had just died. It had been
a few months at this point, but a few months
versus the twenty one years of happy marriage did nothing
to assuage her grief. Of course, Nah, I don't think so.

(32:09):
Mom's neighbor Maria is having her over for dinner tonight
and a movie and whine. Tomorrow. They're going to watch
chick flicks and get drunk, I imagine, I stated, lightly
smiling at the thought. Very glad my mom had another
female friend around to talk with. Myself, I was a
selfish little jerk, as eighteen year olds tend to be.
My father and I did not get along. He may

(32:31):
have treated my mom like gold, but when Mom left
the room, or if she went to work, well, yeah,
I was enjoying my freedom. No more anger, no more violence.
I spent that summer almost entirely with my friend Rick
and his family. I avoided home at that point. There
wasn't a thing I could do for her. Well, there
were hugs. I'm the best hugger ever, apparently, but they

(32:54):
only save the wound for so long. Hers was a
deep hurt, a deep set. The sadness that back then
I didn't understand at all scared me a little, and
so my time was spent with the wrong fam for
a while. I wouldn't mind doing some fishing, Rick, you
know any decent places around here, I asked, wiping my
hands on a rag that rifled my hands in grime.

(33:17):
I realized this halfway through and tossed it aside, the
rag being the very definition of utility. Well, I know
that place. Not sure if the fishing's any good, but
it's a great spot to camp in, I'm told. Rick
shifted his lean to the other leg Shelley said nothing.
I already knew that if we were going away camping
that she wouldn't be able to go with us. She

(33:38):
already had plans with her mom for the weekend, and
boys weren't invited, and well no chaperone, so no Shelley. Myself,
I was happy it was just the two of us.
Is see, Rick and I were the baddies of our congregations,
so when we got together, we had fun. We played
rock music. Rick would buy us a single mickey to

(33:58):
split between us for the weekend. Yes, just one, don't judge.
Were kind of lame, but we still felt like we
were bad. We had a band. It was a fifties
sixties band, but it was a band. Yes, that was
the extension of our rebellion. We were like angels compared
to the worldly kids we knew from school. But well,

(34:20):
the elders didn't know the guys from school, so that
logic did nothing to strengthen our case. Sounds good to me,
Where is it? I asked, scraping oil from under a nail,
the blade appearing to paint the inside of the nail
white as the grime scraped away. Over in Walkerton, down
this old road that turns into a single track laying.
We can get the car back there, no problem. We

(34:41):
can pack everything into the Honda and drive right into
the site, Easy feasy. There's a big ring of sand
there where people parked to fish or roll a doobe,
lots of dirt bike trails to explore, two lots of
pan sized cats to catch. He smiled, trailing off a
bit of a wolf's grin briefly played across his face.

(35:02):
He was trying to sell this idea to me. I understood.
I'd been there. He was broken. This was his best,
cheapest alternative to the beach and more importantly, two ar
much sought after freedom catfish prime in. I pumped a
fist and winked at Shelley as I passed, brushing her
fingertips with mine as I passed her, have fun with

(35:24):
your mom shell. She smiled at me, blue eyes sparkling
in the sun, and turned to walk to the house.
I got a head in and wash up. I have
to head home to pick up the tent and my stuff.
I looked down at my watch. I could get home,
pick up all my stuff, stop at the grocery store,
and be back in an hour or so. That puts
me back here at noon. Half hour drive there. Oh yeah,

(35:46):
I'm Canadian, where we always seem to use time as
a measurement of distance rather than miles or kilometers in
our case. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled internal monologue.
Half hour two set up camp, walk the river, A
bit nice, All said and done. By the time we
set to enjoy our day, it'll only be mid afternoon.
The drive back to my mother's house was uneventful. I

(36:10):
remember the heat that day. I knew that unless we
found a deep hole in the river that afternoon, we
were going to be eating the hot dogs rick Mom
packed instead of catfish that I wanted. On a side note,
I love to fish. I love being out there in
the sun, basted in sunscreen, bobbing on the water with
a rod and reel in hand, cold bottle of water

(36:32):
and a cooler with you heaven. Unfortunately, what I just
described is fishing as an adult. This was fishing as
an eighteen year old kid whose entire paycheck went to fuel, insurance,
and music in that order. The gear was old, the
tackle older than I was, and I was worried and
anything over three pounds might destroy my rod for good.

(36:56):
In my tackle box, I had a small assortment of
hand me down lures from my MPa that would be
useless for catfish. But I realized I only had a
few hooks and sinkers, no bobbers for my preferred relaxed
fishing style, no river style weights. I sighed, Well, this
isn't gonna last me long, I grumbled out loud, finally

(37:18):
sitting down. Since arriving and unpacking the car. In truth,
I had forgotten a few things, but this kind of thing.
I just liked worms, but I had gone a different
way to get cheaper fuel along the way and forgotten
to stop and get the preferred night crawlers. Well, I
did have my little latrine shovel. Looks like I've got
some digin for bait to do. We had the tent

(37:40):
up fire pits sat up, gathered a bit of wood
from around the site to tidy it up a bit,
and park the car on the far side of the
clearing already, I grabbed my shovel and a margarine container.
I had my matches in and went out in search
of bait. While I was gone, Rick dragged in armload
after armload of driftwood that had been left high and
reasonably dry by this time in the spring flood area,

(38:03):
a low wide section of dogwood and river grass, cattails
and pussy willows that was long since dried up by
this time of the year. Dry tender and old dry
bark stripped limbs lay everywhere off the many trails. So,
because this was a large, roughly round area that we
were in, and this will become very confusing both to

(38:24):
read and write down, I'm going to go ahead and
describe things like a clock. Six o'clock is where the
river is, and the trail to it. Nine o'clock is
the narrow access lane we came in on in my Honda.
There are single track trails at eleven, two, three, and
four o'clock all the trails were sand and created by

(38:45):
dirt bikes, evident by the deep grooves cut into soft
spots and the inside of corners. Treil four angled back
to what was the high side of the old dam.
It was little used. The trees partially covered the trail,
and hawthorn reached across the path to snag you as
you walked. And I've said, just google hawthorn thorn, you'll

(39:07):
understand why I or anyone else saying wouldn't ride a
dirt bike in sand next to those I want to say,
for the sake of dramatic storytelling, that the place was creepy,
but in fact it was really pretty. Follow six o'clock
down to the water and it came to what used
to be the bottom of the dam. It was a wide,
flat area choked with Manitoba maple and willows. It was

(39:32):
mostly dead fall, though few adult trees left standing. Really
just the odd one broken trees everywhere, irregular old shoulder height,
wild grass and cattails, and a lot of fragmites and
invasive species in Ontario that grow just huge. Where we were,
they were hitting about the seven foot mark this time

(39:52):
of year. They grow thick and dense and have a
rather pretty feathery top that is filled with seeds. Thus
the problem with them once they take a foothold, watch
out native flora. On the other side of the river,
it was all conservation land that bordered farmland, so it
was all natural. Because of the conservation allowance on either

(40:12):
side of the waterways here in Ontario, it creates natural
pathways that species used to navigate around the large open
swaths of farmland. Around this old power dam where we
were fishing and camping was a large reserve that covered
all the area of the dam and needed to function
in the past. People have been using it for hiking, biking,
dog walking, and dirt biking for years. Down by the water,

(40:35):
it was very peaceful. There was the sound of water
gliding over the ever top old spillway, liquid sheets of
flowing water cascading down an old pitted concrete slope, brilliantly
green with moss on the edges and algae coating the
whole of the spillway all the way across. It was
very striking with the old stone, the brilliant blue sky,

(40:58):
and the shimmering layers and textures of greens. But it
was hot and it was going to get sticky. The
wind seemed to be picking up a bit, but I
suspected hot and muggy with a side of mosquitoes. Yes,
I thought, swinging randomly and wildly around me, chasing away
deer flies as I walked back to camp to get

(41:18):
my things to fish. It would be an exercise and
relaxation today, not catching dinner. It's too hot, I muttered
out loud and trailed off as a cicada started its
tell tale it's too hot for gingers out here. Drone
screaming its heart out to attract a mate and smack
ies deer flies deer flies during the day and mosquitos

(41:42):
at night. Welcome to anywhere in Ontario, yours to discover
the quickest way to a home hardware home depot and
hit up the sporting aisle for some muskole. I rethought
my previous assessment. Today would be a good day to
sit and sweat and smack bugs. And it was about
an hour in I gave up. I didn't get a bite,

(42:03):
I didn't even get a nudge. Rick was nowhere to
be seen, and this klondike bar was done. I got
up through decency to the wind and pulled off my
damp shirt. I waded out into the shallow river, loving
the cold water. It was about mid calf out in
the section I walked up river to I sat down
and cracked a can of soda. The water was belly

(42:25):
high and perfectly cool on such a hot day. I
could feel my temperature start to lower already nice. I
sat there and enjoyed my coke, loving the sounds around
me as I literally sat there a part of it.
Eventually I got up and made my way back to
the campsite. Must have been out there a lot longer
than I thought. The suns had about a handspan distance

(42:49):
over the tree line. I ditched my watch in the
car hours ago. I hated watches. By the time I
made it back to the site with fishing gear in
one arm and dry wood under my other, was already there.
He too, had added more wood to the pile, and
we both had a laugh at the pile we ended
up with. It was enough for a roaring bonfire, not
the small campfire we'd planned. In the years that followed,

(43:12):
I would often think of this, how much wood we had,
and how we were so very glad we had every
stick of it. Later Rick had been skunked as well,
but really, what do we expect midday hot sunny might
as well A packed a full cooler and hung out
in the river all day, inner tubes and maybe a
six pack for a change. That'd be nice. I made

(43:33):
sure everything in the tent was ready to go. Nothing
worse than trying to get into a sleeping bag in
the dark and a small tent. I'd like to give
myself a turn down service and make sure everything is
set out and ready for bed. Rick had a nice
sized fire going bare silver drift wood burning merrily, and
the ring of large smooth river stones that surrounded the
fire pit. I walked down the six o'clock trail aways

(43:57):
and cut two long willow branches to cook our hot
dogs and later some marshmallows that I'd brought. It was
a gorgeous evening. The sky at this time was the
color of a deep sapphire, gradually lightening down to where
the last of the sunset turned peach and dipped below
the horizon. The frogs sang, and crickets creaked. Bats flew

(44:18):
low overhead, a dozen of them maybe swooping and twisting
over the river, chasing and devouring the insects swarming there,
and I hope more than a few of the massies
buzzing around me. I remember, at the time, being young,
I had an apprehension to walking alone in the dark
in wild spaces. I wasn't too far from the river,
and I wasn't too far from the camp. Yet my

(44:40):
pace quickened when I realized it was getting hard to
see either place. There was a creepy vibe out here
at night. It was the long grass that sighed in
the wind, the dead branches that reared up out of
that grass, like the gray ribs of some long, dead,
twisted beast. I have trotted back to camp, glancing over
my shoulder as I went Yep, dang creepy. When the

(45:04):
sun went down, the fire burned bright and hot for
about an hour. We added some good dry hard wood
maple and looked to the fire and waited for it
to burn low. While we waited, we snacked on jerky
and drank cold pop we had chilled in onion bags
in the river. I popped the hatch on my civic
and turned up the car stereo. We probably had some

(45:26):
rock on. We were both fans of bands like ACDC,
led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton and Stevie ray Vaughan. I was
a guitarist and Rick played drums, and that night, as
we waited for the wood to turn to a cooking fire,
we played air guitar and hand tapped knees along with
the loud music, and I have to admit to a
couple of purposefully loud and off key sung crescendos in

(45:48):
the mix as well. The fire dropped a little lower
still as we finally broke out our little bottle of Rebellion,
a mickey of Johnny Walker red label. Rick cracked the
ceiling ring on the bottle and we each had a sip.
It's funny looking back, I grew up to like a
good Scotch despite that first blended bottle of crep always

(46:10):
go with a single moment. Rick put the bottle away
as we got things ready to cook. Rick had ended
up bringing homemade burgers that his mom also sent along
she could cook too. There were two homemade patties and
buns to go with them, as well as a pack
of eight huge hot dogs with buns and condiments. I'd
brought us some salads, the orange macaroni stuff that well

(46:33):
I'm not a fan of but Rick liked it, and
I'd also brought a nice potato egg salad that I
did really enjoy. Honestly, I had a good system worked
out with the Rick that his mom agreed with. I
paid for the gas and did the driving, and Rick
provided food and beverage. I just wanted some potato salad too.
The burger patties were almost two inches thick and five around.

(46:56):
I think the deal was still padded in my favor.
We placed the cook over the fire and let it
heat up before we threw on the burgers and a
couple of hot dogs each. I got the buns ready
to toast and set to the side. The burgers smelled amazing.
Wasn't five minutes till the smells of beef and pork
with garlic and onion sizzling over a bed of maple

(47:17):
coals could be smelled and my stomach did a big
old flip and growled. My mouth watered as those patties
hit the bond, and then my plate. Dinner was mostly silent.
We hadn't eaten much since lunch, so it didn't take
as long to destroy the food. Soon there was nothing
left but mangled napkins and crumpled soggy paper plates. I

(47:38):
got up to get the garbage bag we'd brought. I
tidied up and threw the bag in the hatchback. I
tossed another couple of small sticks onto the low fire.
It was proper dark now. The moon that night was
a waxing crescent, bright in the night sky, but giving
a little light this night. I can't see how long
we sat staring into the fire. Music still but quieter now,

(48:02):
almost like we were still inclined to obey some noise law.
We had another sip of whiskey, then packed up the
rest of the food into the back of the car
for the night. It was when I was walking back
to the fire, back to the ring of light, that
we heard the first out of place sound. Rick and
I had just walked up to each other. Rick had inhaled,

(48:24):
filling his lungs to speak, and was interrupted by what
sounded like the crack of a rather thick branch some
distance off. Rick quit what he was about to say
and stood quietly listening, as I was doing myself. The
sound was crisp and clear, about one hundred feet off
to my right in the dark, angling out towards the river.

(48:45):
We both stood still as statues, listening in the night,
just outside of the ring of firelight. Nothing. We walked
back to the fire and sat down. I got back
up and turned the stereo up a bit, popping the
hatch again. Maybe the music would scare off any raccoons
that were out there, or maybe uh, porcupine, I thought

(49:06):
I hadn't seen one of those yet. Honestly, those were
the animals I was most afraid of coming into camp.
Coyotes were few and far between, Wolves and bears were
non existent. This was southern Ontario. I had only ever
seen a handful of foxes in my lifetime. Even we
sat talking back and forth about music. Mostly we both

(49:26):
wanted to branch out from the fifties and sixties music
and start playing some of this grun stuff we were
just getting here in the country. We knew we could
get the gigs if we changed up what we were playing. Seriously,
we were only getting congregation gigs and anniversary dances, not
very exciting. There was a crash in the brush. The
sound came back from where the original snap came from

(49:49):
and brought my mind back to the present as well.
It was the sound of something pushing through brush and
grass and what sounded like three big sounds. Dear, it
was definitely a deer. It sounded a good size, moved
fast in the three big jumps. Scared the heck out
of us. You think it's a deer, Come down to drink,

(50:10):
I asked, side by side with Rick, looking off into
the dark. Rick didn't say anything that was really loud.
We could hear that easily over the music. I walked
back to the car and leaned in the open window.
It turned off the radio. I left the keys in
the ignition and rolled up both windows before dropping the
hatch and returning to the fire. By the time I

(50:32):
got back from the car, Rick had stoked up the fire.
He threw on more dry driftwood and more tender, getting
the flames high and hot. The bright fire made me
feel better. It took away some of the shadows that
pop up so willingly in the minds of eighteen year
old boys alone in the woods. A few minutes went by,
enough time that I had relaxed. I was just about

(50:53):
to sit down when the sound ripped through our little camp.
It was like the bottom limb of a large tree.
Had been cracked off, pulled down, and broken. The volume
of the sound made both of us start and half
duck down, but it was followed by the sound of
something bounding again away from the sound, but at the
same time toward us. We'll continue with the second half

(51:20):
of the story. I just wanted to go fishing when
weird darkness returns. I was just about to sit down

(51:42):
when the sound ripped through our little camp. It was
like the bottom limb of a large tree had been
cracked right off, pulled down, and broken. The volume of
the sound made both of us start and half duck down,
but it was followed by the sound of something bounding
again away from the sound, but at the same time
towards us. It stopped whatever it was about forty feet

(52:05):
out and well out of the circle of light from
our fire. Without saying a word to one another. Rick
ran back and threw more wood on the fire, while
I ran back to my car and grabbed two things
out of my camping pack, my machete and my shingling hatchet,
a tool with a nuraled hammer face on one side
and a toughly tempered hatchet blade on the other used

(52:26):
for splitting cedar shakes or splitting cedar shingles. Mine was
a stanley, I believe. I tossed the hatchet lightly to Rick.
He fumbled with a leather wrist strap a bit before
it settled comfortably into his hand. I held a machete
easily by my side, having owned things since I was
ten or so. That familiarity was not making me comfortable. However,

(52:47):
I could hear it in the dark, breathing, not out
of breath, but long, great, deep breaths, coming from the
shadows somewhere just behind the curtain That was the fragment,
the fragments from the south wall of this circle. We
were camped in with the south trail coming off the
seven o'clock area directly south. The frag mights nearest the

(53:08):
edge were the shortest, ranging up in size to seven
feet tall. In this area, it felt like ages, waiting
for something other than that breathing. I swear it's getting quieter. Stopped.
Then we heard footsteps, heavy steps, getting louder, maybe four

(53:28):
steps in total, four steps forty feet. I turned and
gave myself some ground. At the first hint of a sound,
ricked it the same, both of us, standing side by
side at the back corner of my civic We looked
up just in time to see shoulders disappearing into the
shadows through the seven foot fragmites. It went in just
far enough that we almost missed it, crouching down and

(53:50):
disappearing in the grass. Almost. Insert Shaggy's big swallow sound
and a zointz scoob here. Please, this was big. It
just kept running through my mind. I saw shoulders and neck.
It looked like a hairy stump. I had missed its face.
I had still been in the middle of turning around.

(54:12):
I'm glad I missed it. It was so tall and wide.
Oh my gosh, head and shoulders over that grass. I
realized Rick was talking to me from somewhere outside of
my nightmare musings, and I tuned back in. In the grass.
There you hear it? I think I can. I think
I can see the grass still moving. Rick whispered loudly,

(54:32):
the hatchet out in front of him, pointing. I shook
off my thoughts and concentrated towards where he said the
grass was moving. Yeah, maybe, yes, there was definite movement
that shouldn't have been there. It was still sitting there.
Why what was that we just stood there, not daring
to make a noise or move at all. I felt paralyzed.

(54:55):
It was unlike any feeling I've ever had in my life,
all the experience, the footsteps, I can't even describe the
way those footsteps sent the hair up my spine, bristling
and tingling with terror. That breathing I grew up with livestock.
This was the same sound as listening to a bull,
breathing deep and rumbling. And those frightening realizations only proceeded

(55:20):
the absolutely confusing and mind reeling sense of terror watching
something that night, with those big shoulders and a head
disappear into the grass and shadows only feet away from us.
You always hear people talk about the feeling they get
in these circumstances, the fight or flight reflex. Well, I

(55:40):
can tell you I haven't read a single author who
described it right. Yet. As I heard those big, heavy
steps coming close, bipedal steps, I flushed, My temperature went
through the roof. My heart was thudding hard and fast.
The worst part there was this feeling that came over
me when I saw that shoulder and neck, when I

(56:01):
saw the bulk of it, the seven foot reads ended
mid shoulder blade. I've read most described the feeling as dread,
but it isn't. I didn't feel dread. I felt certainty,
certain that I was lower on the food chain, certain
that should it decide to stand back up and walk

(56:22):
slowly out to meet us, we would die there that night.
I knew it too. I have no idea how long
we stood there, watching and listening, straining to hear anything
at all that might tell us what the thing was
up to. We could hear it doing something. Finally, the
weapons in our hands came up fast towards the sound.

(56:42):
Seconds later, there was another sound of movement behind us.
Rick turned to face that direction, leaning over and throwing
more wood on. Somehow naturally, I imagine, we had slowly
moved away from the car and closer to the fire.
Another deep thump and crash be heard again behind me
and in front of Rick, somewhere off in the shadows.

(57:04):
My god, are there two more? I could hear the
first thing moving deep in the grass. The tops of
the frag mightes, moving slowly at times, but jigging at others,
their movement exaggerated by the weighty feathers on top. It
was moving. I was zoned in on that swaying grass,
watching for any hint of movement. How is it so quiet?

(57:27):
Anyone that has been in the woods and tried to
move quietly through brush or grass knows that to be
silent and not show your quarry, whether that be a deer,
an enemy soldier, or a dude at the paintball range.
Where you are in your environment is dang hard to do.
It takes experience and practice and a bit of luck.

(57:47):
There was a crash off to my left that made
both Rick and myself turn, panicking towards it. My machete
cut left at the sound, striking up blindly as we
both fell over ourselves to both turn and meet whatever
was coming in from our left, while also moving back
around the fire for its added defense. I could see
the tip of my blade jittering along with my heartbeat.

(58:08):
It's dance, almost distracting me from looking past it to
the dark and now quiet scrub land in front of me.
I could see nothing, I could hear nothing aside from
my pulse in my ears and dang, even now the
steady hum of mosquitoes. I was so hot, adrenaline pumping
in me. I felt like I had just run the

(58:28):
two hundred meters while sporting a good ginger sunburn. There
wasn't a sound to be heard, just our panting and
anxiety and fear as we stood there, back to back
next to a roaring, big bonfire. Now all the wood
Rick had added in panic was now lit and being
gently fanned by a moderate breeze that had popped up.

(58:49):
Did you see anything, Rick, I asked, shakily, my voice
strained with fear. There's nothing. I don't see a thing.
They're crashing around and something that bit something. You should
see something, Rick almost poured out the words. They came
out of him in a rush, tinged with anger and
sincere confusion. I didn't say a thing. Not only did

(59:11):
I understand how he felt, but something else had stolen
my attention, And as I had listened to Rick's panicked musings,
I glimpsed something outside the ring of firelight, behind the
hawthorn in front of which our tent now sat, bobbing
in the breeze. The wind had been slowly increasing during
the evening. It was now enough to bend the grass

(59:31):
and move the limbs of the small trees around our
chosen campfire. The tree tops swayed in the winds above
the canopy, while sounds of heavy size reached down from
the branches far above and away from us. The fire
whipped up and it lit the whole of the clearing,
the tent by car and us next to the fire.
In the middle of the clearing, I tuned out Rick entirely.

(59:53):
There was a dark mass, a big dark mass, slowly
moving out from behind that hawthorn, come out of the grass.
It was so dark back there, though, the only way
I could see it was to look past it and
watch it move so very slowly out from the concealing
grass and into the cover of darkness. From my periphery.

(01:00:13):
It moved barely perceptible onto the path behind that swaying
hawthorn tree. Rick had fallen silent by this time. It's wrong, Danny,
I heard the sound come out of him, a voice
like that of a small boy wanting to know what's wrong,
but desperately wanting to be told everything is okay. I
remained very silent. The lower limbs of the hawthorn moved

(01:00:36):
up and down in the wind, bobbing lightly. My eyes
had never left the shadowy mound. I knew to be
that hulking thing we saw step into the grass. I
kept my machete blade up and then a guard position.
I had no idea how to use a blade for combat,
but figured it was best to have it between me
and him, with the pointy bit facing his way. Those

(01:00:58):
limbs moved slowly up and down. It was almost hypnotizing,
right up till the light reflected off its big eyes,
its big red eyes, once twice. By the third flash
of eyeshine, my heart had cranked right back up again.
My forehead was streaming and very shakingly. I told Rick

(01:01:20):
to go open the hatchback while I covered him. My
eyes never left that mass. As I heard Rick make
it to the car, it pop the hatch. While he
was still at the car, I called out, watched my
back and walked toward the tent. It was only ten
or twelve feet away, but it felt so far. But
more terrifying is it felt too close, too close to

(01:01:44):
the grass. But I was protected from that thing by
the hawthorne. There might have been something big and nasty
on the other side of that tree, but I knew
it would think twice before trying to get me through
the inch long barbed branches of that tree. I grabbed
the tent in one hand and I wrenched it clean
out of the ground from its pegs and back pedaled
fast to the car. There wasn't much in the tent,

(01:02:06):
but it was all we'd brought, so I figured it
was a smart move. Pack it all once in seconds
and get out of there. I did just that. I
back pedaled to the car so I didn't trip on
the trailing tent. Then I turned and just started stuffing
as much down behind the two front seats as I could.
Rick standing behind me, staring off under the hawthorn, watching
my back. There's a shadow back the That's all Rick

(01:02:29):
got out before I yelled, get in, and ran for
the driver's door like it was a Lemon style start,
slam door, punch, lock clutch, and turn the key. One
point five leaders of public menace, zinged into burbling life.
I threw it into reverse, dumped the clutch, and Dangier
backed into the hawthorn. I slammed it into first, kicked
the go button to the carpet, and peeled out of

(01:02:51):
that clearing. I had that car going as fast as
I could. Safety be damned. I remember hitting fourth gear
on a road that was no better than a once
well grated logging road. There was a section to this
track that narrowed to almost a width. Even my little
Honda couldn't make it through. I had to stop and
pull in my mirrors on both sides to even come close.

(01:03:14):
I'd finally spared a glance to the side mirror and
saw that I had moved it in. I then remembered
the narrow spot to the trail ahead we had crossed
the day before. Just in time, I was able to
slow down for those two trees ahead, hogging the edges
of the already narrow trail. I concentrated on getting my
car lined up just right, and I was through. Rick

(01:03:36):
and I screamed at the same time. Rick looked out
the back window as I glanced in the rear view.
It was the kind of scream that makes your voice
crack and slip into another octave or disappear altogether in
the red hellish glow of my car's brake lights. Jogged
up legs, just huge legs, It's all we could see
from the vantage of the low slung hatchback. Objects and

(01:04:00):
mirror did not need to be any freaking closer. I'd
like to thank the engineers of Honda at this time.
I beat the crap out of that thing the last
half mile through the bush to the road, slamming through gears,
hitting holes and branches and something else that tore my
air damn off. I didn't stop when we hit pavement.
I worked it through all five gears till I ran

(01:04:20):
out a road just outside of Walkerton. I pulled off
to the side, just short the stop sign to the
highway going into town and parked the car. What the
hell was that, Rick, I asked, genuinely wondering. We didn't
say another word. We sat a couple more minutes, doors
and windows still closed and locked. I drove Rick back

(01:04:43):
home that night, the signing I'd stay there and see
if I could salvage sleep from this messed up night.
His mom came into the living room where she heard
us come in the door. Although I loved his mom,
I sensed that she wouldn't understand this experience we'd gone through.
Rick and I stopped hanging out together shortly after. That
would have been about six months or so. I think

(01:05:04):
we just spent too much time together, got to arguing
a bit. A lot of the time, and it wore
us down for years. I didn't know what to make
of the encounter. It wrakled my mind and haunted me.
Could still see those shoulders in that neck in my
mind's eye, clear as day, and I could still feel
that animalistic fear it gave me in the pit of

(01:05:26):
my stomach and loins, the literal shrinking of your manhood
in the face of something primal and way bigger than you.
I got to have a flashback of that fear years
later at the Toronto Metro Zoo when a large silver
backed gorilla decided he didn't like the look of me
and charged the fence, pounding on the chain link and

(01:05:47):
tearing me back to that night in the bush in
an instant, a paralyzing fear. My wife at the time
wasn't sure why I had been so shaken. As the
gorilla walked slowly away, almost with a strut of machismo,
I saw those big shoulders of his flexing and pictured
his larger cousin stepping into that long grass in the
light of the fire. That face. Those eyes, if they

(01:06:12):
were red, they have fueled nightmares. Since I haven't camped
in a tent anywhere, but a campsite in a populated area.
Since for years my machete hung next to the door
of my camp or trailer because what if it didn't
seem to like blades? The fear was ridiculous. Knowing now

(01:06:33):
that there was most likely only one creature that employed
the use of thrown stones around us to scare and
distract fits with the behavior that's described in many bigfoot
encounters to us in our terrified state. It just sounded
like more things, more creatures coming in. Not once was
there any sort of vocalization, not a grunt, and we

(01:06:57):
were upwind to the thing to get a nosefull of
its cateristic offensive odor. But yeah, I think it was
a sasquatch. We actually did go back the next day.
I was way too curious. I had to go, I
had to see. We arrived there sometime around two pm
or so. It was bright and sunny and warm, but

(01:07:19):
I was cold inside. My head was on a swivel
the entire time from when I stepped out of my
car till I left again. We didn't find a thing.
We found the path through the grass it took to
get to our site. We found the limb a good
four inches thick of green wood snapped off about eighteen
inches from the trunk. We found the path into the

(01:07:40):
grass behind our tent and through to the area behind
the hawthorn. There were no tracks to be seen or
hairs clinging to anything, not that we would have known
to look anyway. It'd be a few years before I
admitted to myself what I had seen. Honestly, because of
my upbringing, I'd thought demon at first, but it always

(01:08:00):
bugged me. It didn't feel right. It was somehow the
wrong explanation, but I had no other theory at the time.
Fast forward twenty years, and well, that's my Sasquatch story.
It seems since that night I have devoured all I
can find to read on Sasquatch reports from all over
the world, from people of all walks of life, from

(01:08:21):
all cultures, books, movies, documentaries, fact or fiction. It was
the experience that cemented my love of the weird and paranormal,
and also reaffirmed my fear of the dark, that gripping
fear of what goes bump in the night. Thanks for listening.

(01:08:51):
If you like the shell, please share it with someone
you know loves the paranormal or strange stories. True crime
monsters or unsolved mysteries like you Do. All stories in
Weird Darkness Today are purported to be true unless stated otherwise,
and you can find source links or links to the
authors in the show notes. True Stories of Harbingers of

(01:09:11):
Doom is by Jacob Shelton for Rankers WTF. Arizona's Roadside
Horror was written by James Watkins for Osie. The Case
of Mary Harris is by Romeo Vitelli for Providentia. And
I Just Wanted to Go Fishing is from Weirdo Family
member Danny Ward, also known as the Happy Heathen. Weird

(01:09:33):
Darkness theme by Alibi Music. Background music in this episode
provided by Midnight Syndicate and is used with permission from
the artist. Weird Darkness is a production of Marler House Productions.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light. Asia sixty one, Verse one.
The spirit of God, the Master is on me because

(01:09:56):
God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news
the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives,
pardon all prisoners, and a final thought, stars can't shine
without darkness. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in

(01:10:18):
the weird darkness,

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