06-28-2020, 04:31 PM
This story is posted somewhere on ATS, but with that future being in question I will post it here again.
The story begins when I was maybe 10 years old. Now, I live in a farming community. My uncle at the time was a small farmer and rancher who had a coop full of chickens out back of his house. He had been losing chickens at a pretty worrying pace for several weeks, and was already on edge to catch whatever it was that was using his coop as a drive through. He suspected it was big, because it kept tearing through whatever wire he put up.
My uncle was a typical old-time farmer: not a very big man, but built like a fireplug and strong as an ox. He was straight-shooting and the exact opposite of dramatic; everything was logical to him and he tended to un-exaggerate. One night he awoke to a loud commotion behind his house. He grabbed his shotgun and headed out back to see the chickens raising hell and a hole torn into the coop. The moon was out and full that night, so he said he could see clearly.
He heard something towards the mountain and walked over to look. He described it as a wolf, but said it stood six feet tall at the shoulder (it was on all fours), and said he could make out something - he assumed a chicken - in its mouth.
He ran back inside and called my Dad (we lived a half mile away down the ridge). Dad took the call, then grabbed a few rifles and headed out the door. Mom pulled me back inside, as I wanted to go too. There were, as he later told me, a half dozen men from the area who showed up at my uncle's house that night to track down and kill this... thing. Six foot is way, way beyond the normal size for any wolf known, and especially for any wolves around here.
They started tracking. They followed the tracks across the field where my uncle had seen it, and into the mountain. From there, it climbed to the ridge and followed that ridge until it got behind our house; then it turned downhill. It left the treeline behind our house, cut through our yard, and then went back into the treeline at the other ridge (our place is where two ridges come together in the hollow). That ridge is a literal jungle; there are places there where even the deer have to go around the brush because it is so thick. The first ridge it crossed is easy to navigate: straight ridge, just go downhill if you get turned around and you'll come out in a few minutes. This second ridge, not so much. There are dips and hollows up there that will turn you around to where you can walk in circles for miles. I grew up in these mountains, used to spend days at a time living up there, and I have gotten lost in that mess more than once.
When Dad told me what had happened, I ran out back to see where it came through. I searched and found a fresh track in some stiff mud. It was definitely canine, but it was several times larger than any canine track I had ever seen.
We heard yipping, like from cubs maybe, on and off at night from that second ridge for a couple of years, but no one ever saw the critter, whatever it was, around our place again. The talk was that it was a timber wolf that had gotten here somehow, and probably died out.
Fast forward nearly ten years. I'm a young, cocky redneck full of spit and hellfire, tough as a pine knot and not afraid of anything. I would have waded through Hell on Sunday just to fight a circle saw armed with only a switch. A friend and I are driving by an old church in the area one night, and man, I gotta take a leak! So, since the area is abandoned there, I pulled off on the dirt shoulder to comply with nature.
My friend suddenly went, literally, ape-shit. He started screaming at me to get moving, don't stop, get the hell out of here! I had never seen him act that way before... he was usually a pretty gritty fellow himself. So, since he was about to have a damn aneurysm or something, I pulled out and went on to the abandoned gravel pit to do my business. As I drove, he told me why he was so scared:
A few year earlier, he had gone to that church with some other guys. There's a cemetery there with a local legend of a "glowing tombstone" (debunked by me... high phosphorous content and the moonlight can hit it through an opening in the canopy). They were going to see the glowing tombstone and rid the world of a few beers in the process. They stopped and got out, started walking toward the cemetery, and there it stood.
He described it as a wolf, standing behind one of the more prominent tombstones (it stands about 5 to 6 feet high), with its front paws resting on the top of the tombstone. He said they looked at each other for what seemed like several minutes, and it just stared back, slowly moving its head side to side. The boys ran back to their car, jumped inside, and all swore to never go there again at night.
OK, to be honest, I thought he was kinda funny. Sure, it reminded me of what had happened back at our place, but that critter was dead by now. I figured he had seen something he couldn't make out well and let his imagination run away with him. But a week or so later, I was home watching "The Howling" on videotape and he came up. He came inside and sat down, and the scene where the guy is changing into a werewolf was playing. I looked over and he was sitting there with his jaw dropped and pointing at the TV. He was terrified, white as a ghost! I asked him what was wrong and he said something like "You remember the thing I saw at the church? THAT'S IT!"
He wasn't as good a witness as my uncle was, admitted, but he was legitimately scared half to death.
Fast forward another decade or so. I'm dating my wife-to-be and home for a while. Lacking a suitable place with suitable privacy to do what all good rednecks do, we decided to head down to a secluded spot I knew on the river. There's an old abandoned barge there on a sandbar, connected by a single dirt road in. Nice, dark, secluded... perfect. So along with another friend and his girl, we head down there. I stay with the car while he takes his girl to the other end of the sandbar. I'm in the back seat trying desperately to steam up the windows when suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I stop, look around, but I don't see anything. My wife, however, felt it too and said there was something watching us. OK, both of us felt it, so I grab my gun (I kept a .357 Magnum under the seat loaded for bear) and stepped out of the car.
I didn't actually see anything... but folks, I have lived here in these woods all my life, and I know when something is watching me. There was something there among those trees. The closer I got, the more I felt it. And for once, even holding artillery, I was concerned. I called my friend, and we got out of there... haven't been back since.
One last fast forward, this time to maybe 15 years ago. My wife would take walks through our hayfields to stay in shape. The dogs went with her so I wasn't worried... we had a pit bull rescue and a stray basset hound that had adopted us... put those two together and they were a fighting machine! I knew they would protect her from anything that just happened to be there. She came across a dead rabbit... obviously killed by a predator, but not eaten. Then she found a squirrel a little farther away. All told there were several small dead critters arranged in roughly a circle. She suddenly felt like something was watching her and looked at the treeline. There it stood... a wolf, around six feet tall at the shoulder, on all fours, just staring at her.
The dogs suddenly weren't in a fighting mood. They got between her and it and started pushing her away, whining. These are dogs that would take on a bear and not lose... they were not known for being scared.
She said she watched it for a few minutes, unable to take her eyes off it. Then it turned and started trotting off. My wife ran back home, and wouldn't go back for a very long time.
There is something out here, and it looks/sounds like what is being discussed here. It's a type of wolf, huge, six feet tall at the shoulder on all fours, intelligent, and able to stand upright. It scares the hell out of anyone who sees it. It will kill livestock, but so far I have not heard of it actually attacking a human. It is normally shy and tends to avoid crowded areas. Dogs are terrified of it. Beyond that, I have no idea what this thing is.
I just know that it is.
TheRedneck
The story begins when I was maybe 10 years old. Now, I live in a farming community. My uncle at the time was a small farmer and rancher who had a coop full of chickens out back of his house. He had been losing chickens at a pretty worrying pace for several weeks, and was already on edge to catch whatever it was that was using his coop as a drive through. He suspected it was big, because it kept tearing through whatever wire he put up.
My uncle was a typical old-time farmer: not a very big man, but built like a fireplug and strong as an ox. He was straight-shooting and the exact opposite of dramatic; everything was logical to him and he tended to un-exaggerate. One night he awoke to a loud commotion behind his house. He grabbed his shotgun and headed out back to see the chickens raising hell and a hole torn into the coop. The moon was out and full that night, so he said he could see clearly.
He heard something towards the mountain and walked over to look. He described it as a wolf, but said it stood six feet tall at the shoulder (it was on all fours), and said he could make out something - he assumed a chicken - in its mouth.
He ran back inside and called my Dad (we lived a half mile away down the ridge). Dad took the call, then grabbed a few rifles and headed out the door. Mom pulled me back inside, as I wanted to go too. There were, as he later told me, a half dozen men from the area who showed up at my uncle's house that night to track down and kill this... thing. Six foot is way, way beyond the normal size for any wolf known, and especially for any wolves around here.
They started tracking. They followed the tracks across the field where my uncle had seen it, and into the mountain. From there, it climbed to the ridge and followed that ridge until it got behind our house; then it turned downhill. It left the treeline behind our house, cut through our yard, and then went back into the treeline at the other ridge (our place is where two ridges come together in the hollow). That ridge is a literal jungle; there are places there where even the deer have to go around the brush because it is so thick. The first ridge it crossed is easy to navigate: straight ridge, just go downhill if you get turned around and you'll come out in a few minutes. This second ridge, not so much. There are dips and hollows up there that will turn you around to where you can walk in circles for miles. I grew up in these mountains, used to spend days at a time living up there, and I have gotten lost in that mess more than once.
When Dad told me what had happened, I ran out back to see where it came through. I searched and found a fresh track in some stiff mud. It was definitely canine, but it was several times larger than any canine track I had ever seen.
We heard yipping, like from cubs maybe, on and off at night from that second ridge for a couple of years, but no one ever saw the critter, whatever it was, around our place again. The talk was that it was a timber wolf that had gotten here somehow, and probably died out.
Fast forward nearly ten years. I'm a young, cocky redneck full of spit and hellfire, tough as a pine knot and not afraid of anything. I would have waded through Hell on Sunday just to fight a circle saw armed with only a switch. A friend and I are driving by an old church in the area one night, and man, I gotta take a leak! So, since the area is abandoned there, I pulled off on the dirt shoulder to comply with nature.
My friend suddenly went, literally, ape-shit. He started screaming at me to get moving, don't stop, get the hell out of here! I had never seen him act that way before... he was usually a pretty gritty fellow himself. So, since he was about to have a damn aneurysm or something, I pulled out and went on to the abandoned gravel pit to do my business. As I drove, he told me why he was so scared:
A few year earlier, he had gone to that church with some other guys. There's a cemetery there with a local legend of a "glowing tombstone" (debunked by me... high phosphorous content and the moonlight can hit it through an opening in the canopy). They were going to see the glowing tombstone and rid the world of a few beers in the process. They stopped and got out, started walking toward the cemetery, and there it stood.
He described it as a wolf, standing behind one of the more prominent tombstones (it stands about 5 to 6 feet high), with its front paws resting on the top of the tombstone. He said they looked at each other for what seemed like several minutes, and it just stared back, slowly moving its head side to side. The boys ran back to their car, jumped inside, and all swore to never go there again at night.
OK, to be honest, I thought he was kinda funny. Sure, it reminded me of what had happened back at our place, but that critter was dead by now. I figured he had seen something he couldn't make out well and let his imagination run away with him. But a week or so later, I was home watching "The Howling" on videotape and he came up. He came inside and sat down, and the scene where the guy is changing into a werewolf was playing. I looked over and he was sitting there with his jaw dropped and pointing at the TV. He was terrified, white as a ghost! I asked him what was wrong and he said something like "You remember the thing I saw at the church? THAT'S IT!"
He wasn't as good a witness as my uncle was, admitted, but he was legitimately scared half to death.
Fast forward another decade or so. I'm dating my wife-to-be and home for a while. Lacking a suitable place with suitable privacy to do what all good rednecks do, we decided to head down to a secluded spot I knew on the river. There's an old abandoned barge there on a sandbar, connected by a single dirt road in. Nice, dark, secluded... perfect. So along with another friend and his girl, we head down there. I stay with the car while he takes his girl to the other end of the sandbar. I'm in the back seat trying desperately to steam up the windows when suddenly the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I stop, look around, but I don't see anything. My wife, however, felt it too and said there was something watching us. OK, both of us felt it, so I grab my gun (I kept a .357 Magnum under the seat loaded for bear) and stepped out of the car.
I didn't actually see anything... but folks, I have lived here in these woods all my life, and I know when something is watching me. There was something there among those trees. The closer I got, the more I felt it. And for once, even holding artillery, I was concerned. I called my friend, and we got out of there... haven't been back since.
One last fast forward, this time to maybe 15 years ago. My wife would take walks through our hayfields to stay in shape. The dogs went with her so I wasn't worried... we had a pit bull rescue and a stray basset hound that had adopted us... put those two together and they were a fighting machine! I knew they would protect her from anything that just happened to be there. She came across a dead rabbit... obviously killed by a predator, but not eaten. Then she found a squirrel a little farther away. All told there were several small dead critters arranged in roughly a circle. She suddenly felt like something was watching her and looked at the treeline. There it stood... a wolf, around six feet tall at the shoulder, on all fours, just staring at her.
The dogs suddenly weren't in a fighting mood. They got between her and it and started pushing her away, whining. These are dogs that would take on a bear and not lose... they were not known for being scared.
She said she watched it for a few minutes, unable to take her eyes off it. Then it turned and started trotting off. My wife ran back home, and wouldn't go back for a very long time.
There is something out here, and it looks/sounds like what is being discussed here. It's a type of wolf, huge, six feet tall at the shoulder on all fours, intelligent, and able to stand upright. It scares the hell out of anyone who sees it. It will kill livestock, but so far I have not heard of it actually attacking a human. It is normally shy and tends to avoid crowded areas. Dogs are terrified of it. Beyond that, I have no idea what this thing is.
I just know that it is.
TheRedneck