I’ll tell another one.
It wasn’t as frightening as the other posts but I was an adult when this happened and I had a rifle, so that helped a bit.
This one happened when I was down in WV hunting on family land between Beckley and Dawson, much closer to Dawson.
We had a lot of family living there in different homes that were all in close proximity to each other with all of them having bordering land, except those that are split by interstate 64.
The building that we were staying in was built back in the 1800’s and there had been a few rooms added on over the years. A few years earlier it was a great place to stay since a relative was living there, 3/4’s of the way to the top of the mountain and only accessible by horse or ATV, all alone, other than his dog.
Creepy fact, the family that lived in that house during the flu epidemic in 1917 died, all of them.
The mountain quickly took back the home and I could star gaze looking through the roof while laying in bed. My Dad and I stayed in a sectioned off corner of the building that had two old nasty beds in it. The bed I used was situated along an interior wall and made it so that my head was against an exterior wall with a window ( of sorts ) right next to my head. The window was an old piece of storm door glass held in place by a few bent nails and not really an exact fit for the hole it was trying to fill but good enough to keep most of the bugs out.
My Dad was sideways along the other wall at my feet. An aisle way went between us to a glass storm door that led to the wrap around porch which surrounded both exterior walls of the room and had a 4 step staircase to the yard right at the corner leading down the path past our storm door.
The storm door had a tiny deadbolt that latched behind a tiny I bolt that was screwed into the wall. You probably understand by now that I’m making the point that the building isn’t exactly very tight or secure, though I have to admit that two of the three other exterior doors were actually doors and the fourth was another flimsy aluminum screen door. Since my Dad and I were the only ones staying there I’d just unload the chamber of my M1A (Socom 16 variant) and put that round back into the magazine and then click the mag back into the gun on a closed bolt.
You may be thinking it’s an odd choice for a deer rifle but I bought it because it was a neat civilian version of the M14 that my Pops carried as a Marine in Vietnam and he liked it. It ended up becoming a deer rifle because I like the .308 caliber for WV deer and I got tired of worrying about messing up my nicer rifles while 4 wheeling on the ATV through the woods to my blind.
My Dad carried his Rem700 in 7mm Mag that he used across the country since returning from the war. He always completely unloaded it and put it back into the case at night.
Sorry for the long intro, but I feel like it helps if you understand where I’m at when I try to tell the story.
Dad and I had been on the other side of the mountain at his uncles place having dinner. They played cards and drank some beverages.
I relaxed after a long day of hunting by the wood burning heater and slipped off the cold of the day. I actually hunt whereas the others usually sleep in their blinds from too long of nights at beer camp instead of deer camp.
We rode the 4 wheelers back to the camp well after dark, maybe 10:30 or 11:00.
The woods seemed off, but, I don’t live there and I admit that I’ve had very strange “ feelings” in these woods before that turned out fine so I ignored it.
My Dad had probably had 1 too many and was ready to sleep, while he was getting ready I walked out onto the porch, just outside the storm door to relieve myself. There’s NOBODY AROUND so I decided to just go off the side of the porch while looking out into the long unused mini apple orchard that had a creek running through it. While I was thinking that the place is absolutely beautiful I heard this sound, a scream or howl kind of mixed together, it was extremely unnerving.
The sound came from down the trail along the creek at the bottom of the mountain. As whatever it was wailed it was obviously moving in my direction giving an urgency to finish doing what I was doing.
I stood there doing my business wondering what the hell that sound was. It wasn’t a wolf, or a coyote, or a bear, or a mountain lion, or anything else I could think of. I remember thinking that it wasn’t Cousin Bert crying because he spilled the last of his moonshine and started to laugh to myself but just as I did that it happened again, except this time it was already more than halfway up the mountain, really, really close to where I was standing and heading directly towards us. It had only been a few moments, whatever it was had covered an unbelievable amount of ground, going uphill, in the pitch black of night quicker than I could do it on the ATV. This howl lasted longer than the first one but they both started out as a quieter yell that grows louder and more intense and then winds back down- the tone was so very creepy.
Obviously I decided that it was a priority to get my ass inside ASAP.
I went in and asked my Dad if he had heard it, he asked me what?
I told him I don’t know what it was but I know everything that it wasn’t and ran down a list of the obvious culprits.
Making a joke he asked me if it was Bigfoot, I laughed and while I was explaining that I don’t know what it was something HUMONGOUS ran up the stairs right outside my window and ran down past the storm door. It was so heavy that the entire place boomed and shook with the steps.
We both jumped and looked towards the door but didn’t see it go by in the dark through the glare of the light on the dirty glass. Whatever it was was definitely two legged, heavy, and FAST!
My Dad has been through a lot in life and I don’t think I had ever seen him scared but when he looked at me and yelled “ you got that rifle ready? “ I could see in his eyes that he was feeling the same way that I was, a real nice mix of confused, curious, and very worried.
It totally creeped me out!
I laid there awake all night waiting for something to yank me through that single pane of storm door glass right next to my head just like a Jack Links beef jerky commercial. Needless to say, I did get that rifle ready, for what, I don’t know. I’ll never know what it was but I can tell you that it ran on two legs and when it ran down that porch next to me it shook the building. I’m 6’3” and 230 pounds. When I tried to duplicate the run it didn’t even come CLOSE to causing the boom and shake that my mystery encounter caused. This thing ran up a mountain covering an unbelievable amount of ground in the time it took me to relieve myself and walk back in the door. It howled twice while still moving clearly indicating which direction it was traveling and didn’t seem to slow down to do it. All this in the dark before running along the porch and continuing to only god knows where.
I’ll ask you guys, have you ever seen a predator like a wolf, coyote, mountain lion, etc. keep running while it howled?
I sure haven’t
I told this story to my brother in law when I got home and he laughed and looked up a YouTube vid that was supposed to be Bigfoot howling. To my surprise it sounded exactly like what I heard.
Probably hunted for 25 years before that happened and 10 since, never had anything like that happen outside that one time.
I usually don’t tell people this tale because they’ll think I’m more crazy than I am but I figured you guys might get a laugh out of my encounter that lead to an extremely long night of terror laying in that ratty bed waiting for only god knows what to happen.
I can honestly say that it totally sucked then, but it’s funny now.
Any of you have something like this happen to you ?
