Post by keninga on Dec 16, 2020 18:20:43 GMT
Now, back a number of years ago, about 1998, I was deer hunting with a friend of mine in Central North Carolina, Chatham County, to be exact. I was hunting with a good friend of mine on some property his family owned. If you know anything about central and eastern NC, it’s the number of hog farms in the area and certain times of the year, talk about stink?
We were in a beautiful area and we’d already scouted out where we were gonna hunt and we got on our stands and got settled. Come ten o’clock we decided to meet up and see if we couldn’t find a new spot for the late afternoon. We poured coffee and began looking at our maps and making a plan. All of a sudden, my buddy Bob looks at me and says, “You hear that?” I listened. I caught the faintest sound of what sounded like a man or a dog screaming or howling. “What the hell is that?” I asked.
We both just stood for a few minutes sort of talking about what it sounded like. Just then our third buddy came and rejoined us saying, “Hey, you guys hear that?” Like I said we were kind of taking a break, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking in normal tones. While the call, scream, whatever it was unusual, we very quickly blew it off. That’s a thing with youth is you can simply blow off what you don’t understand.
I suppose some twenty minutes has gone by and the three of us are pretty much on our way to a second location about a mile from where we are now. We’re taking a slow pace, as it is deer season, we take four or five steps and then pause and look and listen to see if we might have stirred something up. Any deer hunter is familiar with the cadence and how it’s important not to disturb other hunter’s hunts.
We came to an open section of woods, beautiful spot, large hardwood trees had formed a nice canopy over us, and you could see a couple hundred yards out all around. Just then came a second scream like before, powerful low frequency but clear not something we recognized. Then without warning our third buddy, Jake, let out a scream in response. Scared the bejeebers out of us both and we were trying to get him to stop but he bellowed like mad in reply.
Finally, Bob reached over and thumped him in the belly, which stopped him. He coughed and got all indignant. Then I said, “Dumbass, you have no idea what you responding to and if you hadn’t noticed that thing was closer than it was the first time.” Then he starts acting all hurt and indignant at Bob having thumped him and I told him to knock that crap off or he was gonna have to fight two of us.
Naturally, he started wanting to make light of the thing as a joke. I told him, “Let’s hope that’s how it winds up going down.” We didn’t know exactly where, whatever made that sound was, but it damn sure had a good idea where we were thanks to Jake. “Ok, let’s spread out a bit, 3 meters apart and move this way toward our next hunt spot. Jake, I don’t care if that thing starts playing, ‘Free Bird’ you keep your freaking mouth shut.”
We walked for a good thirty minutes and Bob said, “We aren’t far from where we want to be for the next hunt, but it’s way early for setting up. Let’s have seat and eat some lunch.” Sounded like a good idea. We had good visibility; it wasn’t like something was gonna sneak up on us. We made a small fire and boiled some water to make ramen noodles, a great staple, even today.
We’d gotten our stuff made up and ate and talked of hunting, and anything else that sort of came to mind and began putting out the fire putting stuff away when all of a sudden that scream came again, only it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away. Almost at the same time I noticed the air seemed to stop moving, and dead silence fell, not a sound from anything, and talk about eerie?
It was then the other guys looked like all the blood had dropped out of their faces. We could clearly hear the sound of something coming toward us, but we couldn’t see from where or what it was. Jake looked like he was about to cry and Bob didn’t look much better. Just then I realized we had weapons and we had survival gear, we could make a stand against whatever it was moving around us no more than about seventy yards out.
Just to our left was a about three trees which had fallen down and created a bit of cover. “I looked at the guys and said, “On my say so, grab all your stuff and get over to those trees, get inside of them and take up back to back to back positions. Ready? Go!” We took off and got inside the trees and took our guns up and were scanning about.
Apparently, our sudden movements had alerted it, but we needed to be under some sort of cover rather than out in the open like we were. Now, just as I started saying cover whatever area was in front of each of us a sudden rush of wind came in like a wave. I mean dead silence one minute than suddenly a wave of wind came through, not hard but it just seemed completely out of place. And an odor come in with it like nothing I have ever smelled, it was like concentrated body odor, if you ever been in a locker room that was not quite up to the standards of cleanliness of today then you know what I mean. Combine that with a smell of musk and you get what I mean. It was nasty and very strong, strong enough that I looked over at both my guys and we got tears in our eyes.
“You guys see anything?” They say they didn’t, but something stunk to high heaven. “Ok, I’m gonna try something.” I said, “Don’t freak out, and don’t panic. Remember, we have weapons and if we stay together, we’ll be fine.” They nodded affirmatively.
“Hey!” I shouted. “We’re over here and we’re armed.” I heard nothing. “Then I said, “You might get one of us, but I guarantee the other two will get you.” I tried to use a strong command voice like the police often use to help control a situation.” It was a bluff, but hey?
“We will leave and never return. I have some whisky for you as a sign of my word.” I was thankful I had my gifting pouch with me now; I’d gotten to the point I never left it at home any more, but almost left it at home today. Just wasn’t expecting this sort of complication. Suddenly comes an angry scream, like nothing I have ever heard in my life, like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. I was carrying my Marlin .444 rifle and I located the source, as best I could, then told my guys. “Put your fingers in your ears.” They did and I determined as best I could where the scream came from and took aim and fired. The report of the gun was deafening and now I couldn’t hear much of anything, but because I warned the guys, they still had their hearing.
Mine you, I wasn’t actually trying to hit the creature, just let it know we were armed and make it think twice about attacking.
Then I yelled out, “If you want to fight then let’s do it, if you want to let it go, then let’s do that, but we are leaving, with or without your permission.” I looked over at my guys, “You guys are my ears for now, I can’t hear anything.” Jake said, “I can hear something on two feet over near where you fired.” I asked, “Is it moving away, coming closer, what?”
“Seems to be circling over this way getting behind us like it doesn’t want us to go further in.” Bob said. In about ten or so minutes it had traversed around and behind us. It hadn’t made any more sounds. “Ok, guys, let’s head back out the way we came in, just head back toward the truck.” The guys looked at me funny, “Look guys, in about four hours, it’s gonna be getting dark and I do not want to be here when it is dark, with whatever thing that is out there all interested in us.”
I was turned and talking to Jake when all of a sudden Bob opened fired with his slug gun. “Bob! Bob! What are you shooting at?” His face had lost all its’ color and he looked at me and said, “It’s a devil.” He was racking to reload his shotgun. “A devil?” He looked at me, “I saw it step out, it looked like a wolf, but it was on two legs, like a man.” He looked like he might go catatonic on me. “Keep it together, it’s a Dogman. They are dangerous but they know what guns are and that we have them.” I was trying to be a cool as I could, so I didn’t freak the guys out. I have no idea if Dogmen know what guns are but, that was my story at that moment in time. Then I wondered for a moment what was gonna keep me from freaking out?
“Ok, we are heading back to the truck, we are going to walk at as quick a pace as we can, no running, no freaking out, and no one fire off a shot unless one is coming at us to attack us and let us know if you see it coming at us.” They looked like they weren’t sure. “Hey, you guys can stay here if you want and when dark comes my guess is, you’ll have very little chance of surviving.”
My ears were still ringing from the guns, but the guys got up and began moving back toward the truck. I estimated it wouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half to get to the truck and get away. Once we were in the truck there was gonna be no stopping us. “Bob, when we get to the truck, I want you to take up a position in the back and ride shotgun for us if something comes at us from the front then we’ll bang on the rear window.” He nodded.
No one talked; we just kept moving forward, however after about five minute I heard a call like a wolf you hear on the nature shows, long and drawn out. The sound of it made us all pause, as it sounded like the thing hadn’t moved. Then it called again, and again. Then all of a sudden, we heard another call from further away, like an answer. I had no way of knowing if the creature was calling for help or calling to locate, but I assumed it was him calling for reinforcements. I decided we needed to do our best to be gone from there before the Wolfman Cavalry arrived.
We made our way progressively, making sure we have our retreat covered and moving back as quickly as possible. Finally, with the Sun still up in the sky, we arrived at the truck, without a word Bob was in the back and Jake was in the passenger side. I only stopped long enough to drop my gear and put it in the back. I grabbed my pistol and two spare clips and set them on them on the seat next to me. I looked over at Jake and said, “Keep that shotgun loaded and ready to use if we have to.” He just looked like he was scared to the point of being frozen. I reached over and poked him, “Jake, we need you. You need to get in the game.” He nodded.
I later apologized to Jake over hot dogs for being hard on him, after all this was a hunting trip where the tables got turned and unless you’ve lived it, the level of fear can be debilitating. Not to mention, poor Jake had never heard of a Dogman, and Bigfoot was just a joke to him, and suddenly he was caught up in the middle of some stuff he’d never dealt with before in his life. I have to give him credit, he did good all things considered.
I cranked up the truck and began heading down the dirt road it had rained a day before so there was no choking dust to deal with, and suddenly Bob yelled to stop and beat on the back glass. I stopped and jumped out and asked what was up, all he could do was point. The look of shock that was on his face spoke volumes. There in the distance a good one hundred feet, maybe a hundred-thirty behind us was the “devil”. At least it sure looked like a devil. Ears turned up, snout clearly visible and standing way too tall to be a man, and while I have never actually seen a Bigfoot, I could see the proportion were all wrong for it to be one. I’m probably one of the few Bigfooters who’ve seen a Dogman and not a Bigfoot.
It just glared at us like it was saying, “Don’t come back.” It turned to the side and I could clearly see the profile. The head looked like a giant version of a German Shepard, only the teeth were more like what you’d see on a baboon. It had what looked like a longer neck and it tapper out to the shoulders. The upper body was heavily built and appear to be very muscular. The arms were long but not overly long, and it appeared to have hands like a human, only the fingers seemed longer than they should have been. I speculate that it might have had claws that gave it that appearance, but I’m guessing on this now. I did notice a short tail that seemed to hang down, I’m not sure why that detail seemed to stick out like it did, but I have learned you see some of the darnedest things when you’re scared. I could recall seeing it was on two legs but for the life of me I can’t say it it legs were like a human or a dog, I noticed the tail and can’t tell you about the legs, but that’s how it goes.
I got back in and drove like mad until we’d come out of the woods and returned to the small town of Silk Hope, NC which is a small unincorporated community consisting of several churches, a volunteer fire department, the local school and a little country store. I stopped and got out and grab the guys and said, “Ok, we didn’t see anything. Got it?” Then Jake said, “Are you kidding? We need to call the TV stations.” I looked at him and reminded him that the reason we had to escape was due to his dumbass returning a call he didn’t understand. “How well you think that will play on TV, Bro?”
“What that was, was a Dogman. Bigfoots I might take a chance on, but Dogmen are dangerous and might well eat you as look at you.” I said, “A what?” Jake looked at me like he didn’t understand. “Dude, you go to anyone, cops, TV, anyone, you are on your own. Don’t mention my name, don’t mention his name, and trust me, not a day after that goes out on the TV, you’ll be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut.” Then I paused and said, “I want a hot dog, you want a hot dog? Bob? Wanna hot dog? Hot dogs are on me guys.” We went in and chowed down on about a dozen hot dogs and a couple sodas each. I took them back to where we’d all met up and they got in their cars and I headed on home.
On Monday I came into work and was asking a buddy of mine about the hunting down in Chatham County. He said there were too many feral hogs in that area now and they’d pretty much driven the deer away from there. I just nodded, but as I recalled I didn’t see much of any sign of feral hogs. I had a feeling something else was working on that issue.
We were in a beautiful area and we’d already scouted out where we were gonna hunt and we got on our stands and got settled. Come ten o’clock we decided to meet up and see if we couldn’t find a new spot for the late afternoon. We poured coffee and began looking at our maps and making a plan. All of a sudden, my buddy Bob looks at me and says, “You hear that?” I listened. I caught the faintest sound of what sounded like a man or a dog screaming or howling. “What the hell is that?” I asked.
We both just stood for a few minutes sort of talking about what it sounded like. Just then our third buddy came and rejoined us saying, “Hey, you guys hear that?” Like I said we were kind of taking a break, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking in normal tones. While the call, scream, whatever it was unusual, we very quickly blew it off. That’s a thing with youth is you can simply blow off what you don’t understand.
I suppose some twenty minutes has gone by and the three of us are pretty much on our way to a second location about a mile from where we are now. We’re taking a slow pace, as it is deer season, we take four or five steps and then pause and look and listen to see if we might have stirred something up. Any deer hunter is familiar with the cadence and how it’s important not to disturb other hunter’s hunts.
We came to an open section of woods, beautiful spot, large hardwood trees had formed a nice canopy over us, and you could see a couple hundred yards out all around. Just then came a second scream like before, powerful low frequency but clear not something we recognized. Then without warning our third buddy, Jake, let out a scream in response. Scared the bejeebers out of us both and we were trying to get him to stop but he bellowed like mad in reply.
Finally, Bob reached over and thumped him in the belly, which stopped him. He coughed and got all indignant. Then I said, “Dumbass, you have no idea what you responding to and if you hadn’t noticed that thing was closer than it was the first time.” Then he starts acting all hurt and indignant at Bob having thumped him and I told him to knock that crap off or he was gonna have to fight two of us.
Naturally, he started wanting to make light of the thing as a joke. I told him, “Let’s hope that’s how it winds up going down.” We didn’t know exactly where, whatever made that sound was, but it damn sure had a good idea where we were thanks to Jake. “Ok, let’s spread out a bit, 3 meters apart and move this way toward our next hunt spot. Jake, I don’t care if that thing starts playing, ‘Free Bird’ you keep your freaking mouth shut.”
We walked for a good thirty minutes and Bob said, “We aren’t far from where we want to be for the next hunt, but it’s way early for setting up. Let’s have seat and eat some lunch.” Sounded like a good idea. We had good visibility; it wasn’t like something was gonna sneak up on us. We made a small fire and boiled some water to make ramen noodles, a great staple, even today.
We’d gotten our stuff made up and ate and talked of hunting, and anything else that sort of came to mind and began putting out the fire putting stuff away when all of a sudden that scream came again, only it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away. Almost at the same time I noticed the air seemed to stop moving, and dead silence fell, not a sound from anything, and talk about eerie?
It was then the other guys looked like all the blood had dropped out of their faces. We could clearly hear the sound of something coming toward us, but we couldn’t see from where or what it was. Jake looked like he was about to cry and Bob didn’t look much better. Just then I realized we had weapons and we had survival gear, we could make a stand against whatever it was moving around us no more than about seventy yards out.
Just to our left was a about three trees which had fallen down and created a bit of cover. “I looked at the guys and said, “On my say so, grab all your stuff and get over to those trees, get inside of them and take up back to back to back positions. Ready? Go!” We took off and got inside the trees and took our guns up and were scanning about.
Apparently, our sudden movements had alerted it, but we needed to be under some sort of cover rather than out in the open like we were. Now, just as I started saying cover whatever area was in front of each of us a sudden rush of wind came in like a wave. I mean dead silence one minute than suddenly a wave of wind came through, not hard but it just seemed completely out of place. And an odor come in with it like nothing I have ever smelled, it was like concentrated body odor, if you ever been in a locker room that was not quite up to the standards of cleanliness of today then you know what I mean. Combine that with a smell of musk and you get what I mean. It was nasty and very strong, strong enough that I looked over at both my guys and we got tears in our eyes.
“You guys see anything?” They say they didn’t, but something stunk to high heaven. “Ok, I’m gonna try something.” I said, “Don’t freak out, and don’t panic. Remember, we have weapons and if we stay together, we’ll be fine.” They nodded affirmatively.
“Hey!” I shouted. “We’re over here and we’re armed.” I heard nothing. “Then I said, “You might get one of us, but I guarantee the other two will get you.” I tried to use a strong command voice like the police often use to help control a situation.” It was a bluff, but hey?
“We will leave and never return. I have some whisky for you as a sign of my word.” I was thankful I had my gifting pouch with me now; I’d gotten to the point I never left it at home any more, but almost left it at home today. Just wasn’t expecting this sort of complication. Suddenly comes an angry scream, like nothing I have ever heard in my life, like nothing I have ever heard before in my life. I was carrying my Marlin .444 rifle and I located the source, as best I could, then told my guys. “Put your fingers in your ears.” They did and I determined as best I could where the scream came from and took aim and fired. The report of the gun was deafening and now I couldn’t hear much of anything, but because I warned the guys, they still had their hearing.
Mine you, I wasn’t actually trying to hit the creature, just let it know we were armed and make it think twice about attacking.
Then I yelled out, “If you want to fight then let’s do it, if you want to let it go, then let’s do that, but we are leaving, with or without your permission.” I looked over at my guys, “You guys are my ears for now, I can’t hear anything.” Jake said, “I can hear something on two feet over near where you fired.” I asked, “Is it moving away, coming closer, what?”
“Seems to be circling over this way getting behind us like it doesn’t want us to go further in.” Bob said. In about ten or so minutes it had traversed around and behind us. It hadn’t made any more sounds. “Ok, guys, let’s head back out the way we came in, just head back toward the truck.” The guys looked at me funny, “Look guys, in about four hours, it’s gonna be getting dark and I do not want to be here when it is dark, with whatever thing that is out there all interested in us.”
I was turned and talking to Jake when all of a sudden Bob opened fired with his slug gun. “Bob! Bob! What are you shooting at?” His face had lost all its’ color and he looked at me and said, “It’s a devil.” He was racking to reload his shotgun. “A devil?” He looked at me, “I saw it step out, it looked like a wolf, but it was on two legs, like a man.” He looked like he might go catatonic on me. “Keep it together, it’s a Dogman. They are dangerous but they know what guns are and that we have them.” I was trying to be a cool as I could, so I didn’t freak the guys out. I have no idea if Dogmen know what guns are but, that was my story at that moment in time. Then I wondered for a moment what was gonna keep me from freaking out?
“Ok, we are heading back to the truck, we are going to walk at as quick a pace as we can, no running, no freaking out, and no one fire off a shot unless one is coming at us to attack us and let us know if you see it coming at us.” They looked like they weren’t sure. “Hey, you guys can stay here if you want and when dark comes my guess is, you’ll have very little chance of surviving.”
My ears were still ringing from the guns, but the guys got up and began moving back toward the truck. I estimated it wouldn’t take us more than an hour and a half to get to the truck and get away. Once we were in the truck there was gonna be no stopping us. “Bob, when we get to the truck, I want you to take up a position in the back and ride shotgun for us if something comes at us from the front then we’ll bang on the rear window.” He nodded.
No one talked; we just kept moving forward, however after about five minute I heard a call like a wolf you hear on the nature shows, long and drawn out. The sound of it made us all pause, as it sounded like the thing hadn’t moved. Then it called again, and again. Then all of a sudden, we heard another call from further away, like an answer. I had no way of knowing if the creature was calling for help or calling to locate, but I assumed it was him calling for reinforcements. I decided we needed to do our best to be gone from there before the Wolfman Cavalry arrived.
We made our way progressively, making sure we have our retreat covered and moving back as quickly as possible. Finally, with the Sun still up in the sky, we arrived at the truck, without a word Bob was in the back and Jake was in the passenger side. I only stopped long enough to drop my gear and put it in the back. I grabbed my pistol and two spare clips and set them on them on the seat next to me. I looked over at Jake and said, “Keep that shotgun loaded and ready to use if we have to.” He just looked like he was scared to the point of being frozen. I reached over and poked him, “Jake, we need you. You need to get in the game.” He nodded.
I later apologized to Jake over hot dogs for being hard on him, after all this was a hunting trip where the tables got turned and unless you’ve lived it, the level of fear can be debilitating. Not to mention, poor Jake had never heard of a Dogman, and Bigfoot was just a joke to him, and suddenly he was caught up in the middle of some stuff he’d never dealt with before in his life. I have to give him credit, he did good all things considered.
I cranked up the truck and began heading down the dirt road it had rained a day before so there was no choking dust to deal with, and suddenly Bob yelled to stop and beat on the back glass. I stopped and jumped out and asked what was up, all he could do was point. The look of shock that was on his face spoke volumes. There in the distance a good one hundred feet, maybe a hundred-thirty behind us was the “devil”. At least it sure looked like a devil. Ears turned up, snout clearly visible and standing way too tall to be a man, and while I have never actually seen a Bigfoot, I could see the proportion were all wrong for it to be one. I’m probably one of the few Bigfooters who’ve seen a Dogman and not a Bigfoot.
It just glared at us like it was saying, “Don’t come back.” It turned to the side and I could clearly see the profile. The head looked like a giant version of a German Shepard, only the teeth were more like what you’d see on a baboon. It had what looked like a longer neck and it tapper out to the shoulders. The upper body was heavily built and appear to be very muscular. The arms were long but not overly long, and it appeared to have hands like a human, only the fingers seemed longer than they should have been. I speculate that it might have had claws that gave it that appearance, but I’m guessing on this now. I did notice a short tail that seemed to hang down, I’m not sure why that detail seemed to stick out like it did, but I have learned you see some of the darnedest things when you’re scared. I could recall seeing it was on two legs but for the life of me I can’t say it it legs were like a human or a dog, I noticed the tail and can’t tell you about the legs, but that’s how it goes.
I got back in and drove like mad until we’d come out of the woods and returned to the small town of Silk Hope, NC which is a small unincorporated community consisting of several churches, a volunteer fire department, the local school and a little country store. I stopped and got out and grab the guys and said, “Ok, we didn’t see anything. Got it?” Then Jake said, “Are you kidding? We need to call the TV stations.” I looked at him and reminded him that the reason we had to escape was due to his dumbass returning a call he didn’t understand. “How well you think that will play on TV, Bro?”
“What that was, was a Dogman. Bigfoots I might take a chance on, but Dogmen are dangerous and might well eat you as look at you.” I said, “A what?” Jake looked at me like he didn’t understand. “Dude, you go to anyone, cops, TV, anyone, you are on your own. Don’t mention my name, don’t mention his name, and trust me, not a day after that goes out on the TV, you’ll be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut.” Then I paused and said, “I want a hot dog, you want a hot dog? Bob? Wanna hot dog? Hot dogs are on me guys.” We went in and chowed down on about a dozen hot dogs and a couple sodas each. I took them back to where we’d all met up and they got in their cars and I headed on home.
On Monday I came into work and was asking a buddy of mine about the hunting down in Chatham County. He said there were too many feral hogs in that area now and they’d pretty much driven the deer away from there. I just nodded, but as I recalled I didn’t see much of any sign of feral hogs. I had a feeling something else was working on that issue.
