Chapter 1
I was nine years old the first time I saw it. I was camping with my family, as we did every year at Sycamore state park on the far northeast side of Hatchet. I awoke in the middle of the night with the overwhelming urge to take a leak. Escaping my sleeping bag in the dark was not easy with finding the zipper, and unzipping. The zipper on the tent was a whole other obstacle. Without light, it was a trick, which got me whispering obscenities I had heard the older kids at school whispering. Finally, I broke out of the polyester prison I chose to lock myself in. Usually, you would go for some flip flops, or shoes of some kind as the terrain is treacherous. One could step on a pine needle, or God forbid the spiked son of a bitch that was the pine cone. But, this was serious. My back teeth were floating and holding it for even one more second was no longer an option. I waddled to the area 10 feet from the tent where the grass got long, in search of relief. It was a slightly overcast night, although the moon was clearly visible and lighting up my surroundings. It allowed me to check out the scenery as I was handling my business….and that’s when I saw it.
At first, I thought my eyes were fooling me, as they sometimes did in the hallway of our old house, in the middle of the night, when I got up to use the bathroom. I always thought I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye, and I would run full sprint back to my bed and bury my head in the covers as if it was a force field impenetrable by all things that wish me harm. Of course, in those cases, that was only my imagination. I thought this was the same kind of situation until my eyes started to focus more, and more the longer I stared. I couldn’t quite make out what it was, as it was under the tree overhang, away from where the light could reach. I heard the crumpling of plastic, like a potato chip bag. I rationalized with my adolescent mind, the thought of it being a raccoon, or maybe a bear that got into one of the other campsites’ food supply. Then it occurred to me that I better get back to the tent pretty quick, or I could be this thing’s next snack. That’s when it stepped toward me, into the clearing, which showered moonlight over its figure. I was paralyzed. Even now in my early thirties, I am terrified for my nine-year-old self every time I think of this creature. It was grotesquery beyond the farthest boundaries of the brains unlimited canvas. It looked directly at me with its cloudy, opaque eyes. Looking back now I realize it must’ve been blinded by cataracts, making it difficult to hunt, and gather anything to eat. They seemed to bulge from the side of its head like a goat. But this was no goat mind you…. Goats have fur. This thing had hair, but just a little and only sparingly in patches. As if it once was covered in fur, but then it somehow fell into a fire and singed most of it off leaving only small pubescent areas remaining, and it was located sporadically about its gangly, and gnarled, beast of a body. Goats walk on all fours…. What I was looking at came toward me on two hind legs, while occasionally touching its front legs on the ground as to keep its balance, like a gorilla would. Gorillas are strong, durable and heavy. Not frail and bent over like a hundred-year-old woman. The way it moved reminded me of Igor from the classic Frankenstein tale. It seemed to have its tiny elbows, and arms, locked to its exposed ribs. It’s bony, long-fingered, tattered clawed hands, hanging limp like a small dinosaur. I’m starting to make this creature sound cuddly now, but please let me continue. I know I said this was no goat, but it did have short horns like a goat would or horn, I should say…. as one had been broken off close to the skull leaving just a stump in its place. Its skin resembled the leather on the old catcher’s mitt my grandfather gave me before he passed away. Scarred and oily, worn and weathered. It appeared that he had hard, almost scaly parts to his skin as if the things attached to him were alien to its body and didn’t belong. This thing had been through some serious shit. Its mouth seemed to hang open unwillingly like its jaw had been broken and left to heal then broken about a thousand more times. Teeth looked pretty vicious … well, the ones it had anyway. It appeared as though he only had about five chompers left in what looked like a gingivitis infected black hole of a bear trap. Most likely the result of scrounging around campsites trying to gnaw its way through abandoned aluminum cans of pork, and beans. Snout resembled a pig’s, but smaller, and slightly upturned like a bat. Ears? They looked non-existent. Maybe over time, they were bitten off in random fights with forest predators? Something obviously broke that horn off, right? Well, as terrifying as this freak of nature appeared to be on this early fall evening standing outside the tent, where my family slept soundly and I urinated on myself unknowingly, I thought of my chocolate lab back home. He would look at me with his head slightly tilted, right as I was about to throw his tennis ball across the yard. Eyebrows raising and lowering…so curious. This disgusting creature looked at me the same way that night. I couldn’t help but feel sad about its existence. Then, just like that… it was gone.
