Rabid Memories #2 - My Cousin's Bigfoot Story
During most of my high school years I lived with my family in a large two-story house on a street called Chestnut. The house itself is unremarkable, yet my relationship with it, and the houses on either side, (which my family has also lived in) are stuff of many stories. At one time during my many years in the Chestnut houses my family lived in the middle house, my cousin Donnie’s family lived in the house to the west, and my Uncle Mark’s family lived in the house to east. It was during this time that my cousin Kelly and I often ran together. Kelly had a room in the front of his father’s house and I spent many hours there, hanging out, playing D&D, and listening to heavy metal bands like Megadeth, Metallica, and Savatage.
There was one night in particular when a large group of my cousins, who all lived close and made up the bulk of my friends during those years, were gathered in Kelly’s room. Kelly was telling us about his adventure from the night before. Incense burned and Ozzy’s Killer of Giants was humming softly on the large stereo (I seem to remember a lot about the music that was playing at different times when I hung out with Kelly. It makes me understand the subtle influence he had on me during those years).
“Mike and I took our ladies out to the movies in Olney last night,” Kelly began. “On the way home we decided to stop at Red Hill [state park] to take a piss and look at the stars.”
I am not sure if all of my cousins were aware that Kelly’s “take a piss and look at the stars” was code for “smoke weed and make out” but I knew. I remember smiling at the thought of the girl that Mike took on this little escapade. Mike was a good friend of mine in high school. He only went on the date as a favor to Kelly, but he was never too particular about the women he was around once they were semi-alone together. Well, Kelly’s girlfriend’s friend was a brutish looking girl. She could have picked Mike up and broke him in half. I never asked him how he faired that night, but I have always wondered if what came next wasn’t just a ploy to get out of the dark woods and away from the girl he was sharing the backseat of Kelly’s Olds with.
Kelly’s Olds was the biggest car I have ever ridden in. He called it The Hate Tank, and it lived up to its name. We would put nine people in that car sometimes, four in the front and five in the back. It was like an old Sherman with two family-room size couches for seats.
“We pulled into the park,” he continued. “And found a nice out of the way place to park the car, out in the field by the old cross. It wasn’t lit up and there was only the slightest sliver of a moon.” Kelly raised his right hand for effect, “You could see every star in the sky.”
“I had to piss bad, so Mike and I headed to the edge of the woods. We stood a few feet apart and after a few seconds I hear Mike say ‘did you hear that?’ I tell him I hadn’t heard anything, but then, a small grunting sound, kind of like a cross between a pig and a gorilla floats out of the woods toward me. It’s coming from a ways inside the tree line and it sounds like it is getting closer.
I try to hurry myself along. Fuck, I shouldn’t had that second coke.
The noise keeps getting louder when all of a sudden something fucking huge steps out of the woods on the other side of Mike.”
Kelly stands up and stretches his arm over his head. Then, he steps onto his armchair to bring his hand high enough over his around five-foot high head. “I mean this fucker had to be seven, seven and a half feet tall. It towered over Mike.”
“I screamed; get the fuck back to the car! I didn’t even tuck and zip up. I just let it hang as I high tailed it. I could hear Mike freaking out behind me and that wild grunting getting faster and faster, louder and louder as I pushed myself into a dead run.”
“The girls had their faces plastered to the windows, looks of shock and terror in their eyes. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see what would put that look on their faces.”
I really don’t know how the other guys in the room were feeling at this time. I believe, because I felt the heavy tension and I know how I was shaking, that we were all on the edge of our seats. Each of us were remembering the times that we had hiked, camped, and even looked at stars in Red Hill park. A place that we believed was safe, and yet, here was proof that something large and menacing roamed the hills and valleys looking for the right time to step out of the woods and spring.
“I heard a howling grunt from my right,” Kelly sat back into his chair and flashed his eyes to the right like he couldn’t get the scene out of his head. “And there, moving to cut me off from the car was a second large body, crouched almost into a four footed run.
We got to the car first, and the girls, screaming incomprehensibly, both popped the doors open just in time for Mike and me to dive in!”
The one behind Mike hit the car in the driver’s door as a found the ignition and turned the key. The other pounded down on the hood. Julie (the girl in the back with Mike) was crying and screaming hysterically and I took a quick look back to see nothing but hairy flesh inches from her face with just the car window separating them.
I kicked that fucking car into drive and…”
At this exact moment a woman’s scream broke the silence outside of the house. A long and loud wail that sounded like someone was being ripped apart by the very creatures Kelly was describing. We all jumped to are feet. We bolted from the room toward the terror. It seemed we were charged by the group of family that we had around us. I felt like we should have been there the night before. Together we could have made a stand against whatever evil thing had chased Kelly and Mike out of Red Hill State Park.
When we hit the front porch I had a vague feeling of what it must be like to be in a posse or a gang. Two jumped down off the porch and stood ready, two more went left and down the steps, Kelly and I stood at the top of the stairs looking over the heads of the people below.
A girl lay in my parent’s yard. My mom bent over her trying to calm the screaming that was still piercing the night sky.
I pushed through and ran up to the huddled figures. The screaming stopped and the girl just lay there in my mother’s arms crying and whispering. Her name was Jodie, she lived above Kelly and she had stayed with my family off and on for the previous year. Someone had come by to tell her that her biological mother had suffered (I believe) a heart-attack earlier in the night. They just drove up, delivered the news, and drove away, leaving her screaming from the sudden fear, the anxiety of not knowing what to do, and the idea that she might not see her mother again.
My father and I picked her up and carried her into our house. The group of cousins broke off and went home. Later, I asked Kelly for the rest of the story, but the magic was gone. All he could say was “We got out of there, man.”
“What do you think they were?” I asked him-something evil in the woods, demons haunting the forest?
“It was some Bigfoot, man.” He told me. “I had heard of them being out in Red Hill, but I never believed till now. There is strange shit in the world, my friend.”