The Cabin at the End of Herrick Road. Derek Wachter
to him now. Craig swung the stick and struck the tree four more times again, but this time nothing. There was no reply. Craig’s smile turned into a frown as he swung the piece of wood into the tree four more times. No reply. Whatever was replying to the knocking Craig was doing was either gone or lost interest and would not reply back to his communication.
“Ugh…shit,” said Craig, sighing to himself. Perhaps the creature got close enough to see that it wasn’t communicating with a creature of its own kind. Perhaps it had seen or caught Craig’s scent through the forest and took off. Regardless though, Craig knew that he was communicating with a Sasquatch. But again, as times before, he couldn’t prove it. Craig dropped the stick on the ground again and reached into his pocket. Turning the flashlight on, Craig shined it back into the woods, hoping to catch some kind of evidence or maybe even a pair of reflective eyes in the darkness. There was nothing. Craig however did catch something different about the area though: the smell. There was such a pungent rotten odor that smelt very similar to body odor, mixed with decaying fish, mixed with skunk. The smell was terrible, and it hadn’t been there before. Craig had never smelt the creature but had found through studies and research that the smell that the creature emitted was awful. Craig took steps into the forest, looking for any kind of sign from footprints or hair in the area on the trees or branches. Craig found nothing in the area. Craig went back to his table with his equipment and grabbed his audio recorder. Craig began recording.
“The time is now approximately 9:10 p.m. at night. Temperature tonight has dipped down into the high thirties. After attempting wood knocking, I did get a reply back from something south of the camper in the deep forest. Each time the reply in knocking from the creature deep in the forest had drawn the animal closer until finally it stopped when it sounded very close. Perhaps whatever was doing the knocking had seen me or had smelt my natural body scent, because it had stopped in replying to my knocks. I would estimate that the knocking sound got as close to me as about fifty yards. Something else to make note of…the smell. After the replies to my knocking had finished, the smell in the area was the worst smell I have ever smelt in my life. I would have guessed a skunk had just sprayed its own scent in the area, but it smelt worse than just a skunk. It smelt as if it was a combination of skunk, decaying corpse, and body odor. The scent of the creature nearly causing me to vomit.”
Craig set the audio recorder back down on the table. Picking up the parabolic dish and headphones, Craig walked to the back of the trailer again. Craig placed the earphones on his head and powered on the parabolic dish. Craig pointed it in the direction of the forest. He was away from the river now; though he could hear it, the interference from the water wasn’t as bad as it was back at the table. Craig pointed the dish toward the forest, toward the darkness of the woods, and listened intently. Craig again did not hear the sounds of crickets chirping or toads croaking—the first telltale sign that a predator could be in the area. Craig at first did not hear anything with the dish, but then something did become audible in the headphones. In the deepest corner of the forest, Craig could hear it—a faint sound. Screams. Haunting sounds of screaming in the night, along with screaming and guttural groans. Craig thought the sounds sounded like what a mad man would make talking to himself. Then there was another sound. It sounded like someone trying to talk but very garbled and very unintelligible. Craig listened intently to the sounds he was picking up. It sounded as if they were coming from four distinct creatures as the vocalization in all four were different in volume, tone, and cadence. Craig listened to the audio sound for nearly twenty minutes as the sounds seemed to communicate with one another. Craig was astounded as it sounded as if the creatures were indeed communicating with one another. From the parabolic dish, Craig guessed that from how audible the sounds were, they could be approximately half a mile away—so close yet so far for Craig. But then as soon as Craig had found the sounds coming from deep within the forest, they were gone. Craig continued to try and find the sounds again with the parabolic dish, but they were gone. Disappointed and discouraged, Craig turned and walked back to the table with his equipment by the camper. Craig took his headphones off and set them on the table, along with the parabolic dish. Craig picked up the audio recorder, turned it on, and recorded the following:
“The time is now 9:47 p.m. I just finished trying a very unscientific approach, yet such a crude way of making contact with the creatures I believe worked and worked rather effectively. I had attempted the communication of tree knocking with the beings. After a few attempts at this old technique, I received a reply back that I would estimate to be approximately half a mile away from my position. As is the case most of the time, so close but yet so far away. At this time, I will play more audio sounds of the creature’s screams and vocal communications made from the creatures in the previous research investigations into the forest and toward the direction of the tree knockings.”
Craig turned the audio recorder off and set it back down on the equipment table. Craig turned the megaphone and amplifier back on and pressed play on the audio equipment. On the audio player, Craig turned the repeat option on so that the sounds of the creatures would loop over and over again. The sounds of high-pitched screaming and loud deep guttural bellowing blared through the megaphone into the darkness of the forest. It played repeatedly across the river water and through the forest. Craig stood back from the megaphone while the sound blasted from the device, penetrating through the darkness of the night. Craig sat down in a foldable lawn chair and listened intently. It amazed him how the vocalization sounds eerily sounded similar to that of a human, yet so animalistic. Craig tilted his head back and let out a yawn. Looking down to his wrist, Craig saw that it was late in the evening now: 10:29 p.m., and he was getting tired fast. He stood up from the lawn chair and walked over to the audio player. Craig turned the audio equipment off and grabbed the megaphone and amplifier. Craig placed the earphones over his head and pointed the parabolic dish into the forest and listened intently while staring into the forest. While looking into the forest, Craig thought he may have seen a pair of red, glowing orbs peering around the corner of a tree in the darkness, just around the border of the tree line. Craig paused for a moment, didn’t think much of the small lights other than probably fireflies, and listened into the woods, but he could hear nothing—not even the sounds of the insects. It was completely silent in the area again. Craig decided to call it a night and picked up his equipment from the table and stuck it in the storage compartment of the trailer, a large space next to the door that fit storage under the floor of the trailer. Once Craig had put all his equipment away for the night, he locked the door to the storage area with a padlock and entered into his trailer. He left the table outside the trailer. He was just going to turn around and put his equipment right back on the table for the next day anyway. Once Craig was in the trailer he shut and locked the door behind him. Craig turned on a small lamp in the trailer for some light. He took his jacket off and hung it up in the small closet of the trailer by the door. His dog, Max, was loyally sleeping on the foot of the bed of the trailer. Craig crawled onto the top covers of the bed fully clothed and, laying on his back, stared up at the ceiling of the trailer. While he lay there in silence, Craig thought to himself how incredible it will be someday when he can bring actual physical proof and evidence that the creatures he has spent so much time studying for the past couple years are real. Drowsiness began to creep into the eyes of Craig as he lifted his wrist up to his face and read the time. It was now 10:58 p.m., and Craig slowly slipped into a deep slumber.
*****
Thump! It was the sound that the loud bang on the outside of the trailer had made that had woke Craig up in the middle of the night. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and looked at his wristwatch. The glowing numbers on his wristwatch said that the time was now 2:12 a.m. He had slept for about three hours. Craig laid in bed still disoriented, trying to fall back to sleep when the sound of another loud thump was made that shook the trailer. Craig woke up and looked toward the windows in the front of the trailer. He wasn’t certain, but Craig thought that he had seen a pair of red glowing balls of light in the front window. Craig instantly sat up in bed but did not see the red glowing balls of light in front of the trailer anymore. Craig got up and out of bed and stood in the middle of the trailer looking around. His dog, Max, began to wake up too. Raising his head up, Max began to growl. The hairs on the dog’s back began to stand on end. Craig listened intently for another loud thump to come. He wasn’t disappointed. He heard another loud thump and the trailer rock on its wheels from whatever hit the side of the trailer. A light turned on from behind