[Crying]
My story isn't probably one that fits your call for Squatchmas stories, but it did happen at Christmas, so I'm gonna send it in to you. I grew up with a mom and dad that struggled to make the penny stretch, and it was never harder than at Christmas for them. I grew up with the understanding that I probably wasn't going to get a lot of the things I asked for because although everything came from Santa, mom and dad still had to pay for it.
And we did that for all the weeks leading up to Christmas by paying a bill to Santa at K-Mart's layaway counter. That's correct. Mom explained that K-Mart was Santa's finance people. That's how it was when I was growing up. It wasn't glamorous, but my mom tried hard to give us kids a fabulous Christmas with what little she had. So my mom did layaway every year. She would take me with her sometimes, and I can still see it like a snapshot in my memory.
Her thin winter coat smelling like fresh laundry soap. Her hands all red and rough from work. Her face serious at the counter as she carefully counted out the money. I didn't understand all the stress behind her then. I just knew it meant I would be getting some kind of gifts from Santa that year. So when I got older and I had my own kids and money got tight, like it does, especially in the early years,
well, I did the same thing and I headed straight to Walmart layaway. This was when they still had it. The year that this happened, everything was rough on us. My hours had gotten cut at work and my husband, Mark, while he still had steady work that didn't mean it was easy when you've got two kids in a mortgage. I paid good on the layaway all the way through October, but mid-November things happened. A sick kid, car repair.
I paid the bare minimum on the layaway just to keep it going, but then we were almost to the date that all layaways had to be out, and mine was nowhere near paid off. After a few sleepless nights I decided to put off a bill to pay that layaway. I'm not proud to say it, but that's what I did. All I had to do was go pay it and pick it up. It should have been simple. It was December 20th, late afternoon, the last day for layaway pickups.
I was feeling sick to my stomach wondering how on earth was I going to pay that bill that I put off to buy out my layaway? And wouldn't you know it? That's when the snow started to top it all off. It was nothing terrible at first, just a few flakes coming down. My husband Mark had the kids at home. They were supposed to be baking cookies together. I was supposed to be gone an hour tops. "Don't you take any backroads? They're starting to get slick." He told me as I pulled on my boots.
"I won't," I said, as I fought off the kids begging to come along with me. But I already knew I was probably going to take some backroads. It was quicker, less people. I always did." But I should have listened to him. Walmart was the usual Christmas season zoo. Parking a lot, reddit was slush. Carts abandoned everywhere and people looking stressed and being grumpy. The layaway pickup took forever.
There was one young employee at the counter handling a line that should have been handled by at least three people working it. I stood there clutching my receipt nervously, waiting my turn. When my boxes finally came out, two big ones and a smaller one, I felt my throat tighten with that weird mix of both relief and pride. I did it. It was going to hurt later on, but there was going to be Christmas for my kids.
I loaded the boxes into my trunk, got in the car, turned the heat up and let out a big sigh. Then my phone buzzed. It was Mark. "Hey, how's it going?" he asked. I had been gone twice as long as I was supposed to be. "Now, there were really long lines, but I have it," I said, and I couldn't stop the smile in my voice. "I have it. I've got the kids' Christmas." The kids were in the background yelling about whose turn it was to shake the sprinkles on the cookies.
"Good," Mark said. "You be careful coming home. I heard on the TV it's getting pretty slick out there. I will," I promised, and I minted. The first part of the drive home was fine. Traffic lights normal. Then I did the thing I always do when I want to shave a few minutes off my drive. I took the turn that leads out of town and into the quieter roads. I felt like I needed that calm after being in the Walmart zoo. This road was familiar, comforting, even.
Corn fields on either sides, they were now flat and white. A few scattered houses, a line of woods that follows the creek like a dark seam through the landscape. "Now, my car is reliable most days. Nothing fancy. It's not new. But it had gotten me through many years of life." But that night it decided I needed just a little more stress. It started off small. It looked like the lights were getting a little bit dimmer, but I thought maybe it was just my eyes playing a trick on me.
Then I thought the dash lights were getting dimmer too. I turned the heater fan down, thinking maybe it was just the cold making everything sluggish. Then a little tiny icon lit up on my dash. It was the battery symbol. I was scared at it for a second, confused, because in my head battery light meant battery. And my car had been starting final week. In fact, this battery wasn't even a year old. I didn't know then what I found out later.
I didn't know that the alternator was the real problem, that it wasn't charging the battery as I drove. The car had been basically living off whatever juice was left in the battery, like some poor flashlight fading. All I knew in that moment was this. A warning like "Hamon in the winter" on a back road and my stomach dropped. I told myself it's probably just a sensor. It's a glitch. It isn't real. It's something small.
I said a million prayers. I talked to my car and begging it to just get me home, please. A mile later the headlights looked, well, noticeably, dimmer. Then the heater fan slowed. I could hear it. It was like it was losing strength. The air that was coming from the vents got weaker and weaker. My chest tightened. I turned the radio off completely, as if silence could give the battery more life.
But I shut off the seat warmer too. I shut off everything I could trying to be smart, trying to stretch what was left at the battery. But the battery light stayed on. In the power steering started to feel heavier, like the car was suddenly tired and it wouldn't cooperate well. A minute after that another warning light blinked and the dashboard went a little more dull like the whole car was slowly dimming. And that's when I knew, deep down, I wasn't going to make it home.
The road out there is straight for long stretches, then it bends around fields and dips near a creek. In summer, it's nothing, but in winter that road can be a trap. By now the snow had thickened. Twilight was turning into night. The woods were closing in on one side and the open feel on the other looked endless and empty. Then the car jerked once, like it hiccuped. The dash lights flickered, the headlights dimmed even further, and then it all went dark.
And then the engine was losing power, like it was trying to run on fumes that weren't even fuel anymore. The steering wheel had no power in it. I eased off the gas and kept my wheel steady, hoping maybe I could limp to someone's driveway or a house or somewhere with a porch light. But out there, there's a stretch where you can go a couple miles without seeing anything human. The engine was slowing. I looked ahead and saw only flurries in my headlights and an empty ribbon of road.
I had enough momentum to just coast over to the shoulder, but out there, saying the word "shoulder" is being generous, it's just a narrow strip of packed snow before the ditch drops off. I eased the car as far over as I dared without sliding down into the ditch. The headlights were gone now. I tried to click my hazard lights on. They blinked barely a few times and they went dark too. The engine sputtered, and it was gone. I turned the key, often on again, hoping against hope.
But it was nothing but a clicking silence. I stared ahead at the empty road and felt a heavy dread and hopelessness settle around me. I banged my head on the steering wheel. Then I checked my phone, 12% battery. I could kick myself for not having plugged it in earlier. I picked it up and I called Mark immediately. He picked up on the second ring. "Hey, everything all right?" "No," I said. "It isn't." The car died, and I'm on... I had to stop and think.
I was so stressed I didn't remember what road I was on. I'm on County Road 6, just past Miller Bend, right before the Creek Bridge. There was a pause on the other end of the line. I heard his voice change. It was less casual, more focused. "Are you safe?" I'm on the shoulder of the road. The car just... I don't know, Mark. It just went dead. And now it won't start. The headlights are out. Dash lights are out. Then it just all went dead. The battery light came on though.
I think the battery's dead. I was rambling and I knew it. "Okay, okay, calm down," he said. Calm down. I'm coming. Let me get the kids together, and I'll be right there. "Okay," I said. I felt utterly defeated right then. "I'm coming," he repeated firmly. "Now how far are you from the bridge?" "Not far," I said. "Couple minutes before you get to it." "All right, listen, that's about 20 minutes from here with this weather. Maybe a little longer," he said. "My heart squeezed." "Mark, the kids."
"Well, I have to bring them," he said, already thinking ahead. "Your mom's not close enough, and I'm sure not leaving them here alone." "Listen, I'll get them rounded up, strapped in, and we'll come there." "Of course he would. Of course he had to bring the kids." And that's what made this all feel so much heavier. Because now it wasn't just me in this predicament. It was my husband and my kids having to drive out into worsening weather to rescue me. Because I made a foolish choice.
"Okay, I whispered." "You stay in the car," Mark said. "Keep the doors locked, and don't get out unless you absolutely have to." "I won't, I promised." "I'm leaving now," he said. "I love you." "I love you, too," I said, and my voice cracked because I hated that I had created this situation with one stupid shortcut. I should have listened to him. The call ended. I looked at my phone. It was down to 11%. I sat there on the verge of tears.
I felt the cold creeping in through the car doors without the heater running. Then I tried the ignition again in desperation. Nothing, not even a cough. Because the battery was done, fully drained, dead as a stone. I didn't know the term "alternator" mattered that much until the next day when the mechanic said it, like it was really obvious. That night all I knew was. I was stuck, and my car wouldn't even give me a single flashing hazard light to let another motorist passing know I was there.
I was not in a good spot. At first the waiting was just waiting, minutes ticking. I watched the clock on my phone and counted the minutes like it would somehow speed them up. The snow was falling. The light had faded. The world went from grey to the darker grey to that deep winter blue that occurs right before full darkness. After about five minutes I saw headlights far behind me. Relief swept through me. Until I realized they weren't coming my way.
They passed in the opposite lane, slow, and the driver did not even glance over at me. I think they didn't think anyone was in the car. There were no lights. I watched as their taillights vanished, and the road became empty again. That's when my nose picked up something. He was faint at first, a musky smell, damp, and earthy. He was carried in with the cold that was seeping through the car doors. I frowned, sniffed again.
When I told myself it was probably some fluid that was leaking from the engine, and that's probably what my whole problem was. But my stomach tightened anyway. Because what I smelled didn't smell like gasoline or coolant or oil, or anything mechanical. It smelled like wet animal. I reached over and checked the door locks again, just to make sure they were locked. And I saw movement on the wood side of the road. At first it looked like a shadow just shifting between the trees.
But shadows don't move against the wind like that. Then an impossibly tall shape eased out from the tree line. Its dark shape against the bright snow, visible even in semi-darkness. For a split second my brain tried to label what I was seeing as a human, a man, maybe a hunter, someone just out there walking in the snow. But let's be real, no one walks out there like that, not in that kind of weather, not without a flashlight, not without a coat. And no man is built like what I was looking at.
This had to be close to seven feet tall, maybe more. The shoulders were so wide I don't even know a number. When the shoulders looked wrong they looked rolled forward and the arms hung low. I saw it was covered in hair. This wasn't some coat. It was dark hair with snow clinging to it. It looked wet, clumped and heavy. I stared in horror as the shape came very close to my car. Then it stopped and just watched. My mouth went dry. I could hear my breathing loudly in the car fogging up the glass.
The shape took a few more steps forward. I began fumbling for my phone and then I stopped. I had only an 11% battery. Mark was on his way. I wasn't about to drain my phone filming some shaky video at night and then have no way to call for help if I should need to. So I held the phone in my lap like a lifeline and did nothing else. The shape stepped forward again. This time it moved into clear view, mere yards from my car. I could see it better now.
It was massive, solid, big, all those words and all the others you can find in the dictionary like them. It's chest was thick. This neck was heavy. Its head sat low on the collar bones and the head looked like a huge coconut in the face. I don't want to exaggerate the face. I saw it in less than ideal light, but I could see a wide nose and a heavy brow bone. I couldn't see the eyes clearly through the snow, but they weren't glowing or anything weird.
They were higher than they should have been and they were very wrong for any normal thing that you could name. And it was looking at my car like it was a puzzle. It approached the car slowly walking along the ditch line toward my rear bumper, staying partly in the shadows, using the uneven terrain to its advantage. I turned my head and watched it through my mirrors because the rear window was frosting and it was getting hard to see through.
The shape moved behind the car and for a moment it disappeared completely from you. And that was the worst moment, not seeing it. I clutched the steering wheel tightly. Then the car rocked. Just a little, just a little gentle sway at first. Honestly at first I thought it was just a gust of wind. But then the car rocked again in a heavier way. I felt the hard bump of something being placed on the car to rock it. It might have been its hand, a hip, something.
I steered forward frozen to frighten to look. Then the car rocked a third time, much harder than the first two. That sure was not the wind moving my car. When I heard a low sound over the wind, it sounded like a strange, huffing sound, a sound of frustration. I hit the horn reflexively thinking I can make it go away. But I got nothing. Of course, the battery was dead. The lights were dead. Everything that made noise or light on that car was dead. My throat tightened so hard it hurt.
The rocking stopped for a few seconds. Then it started again. This time harder. The car shifted and snow slid off the roof in a soft rush. I was checking all my mirrors because I couldn't see it. It was getting darker by the second and I was becoming terrified. I was looking at the other mirrors when I turned to check the driver's side mirror and I had a horrible shock. It was right there. It space up close to the glass, mere inches from my own. I screamed in terror and surprise.
When I did that, I saw a hand come up, dark and big, fingers too long, and it pressed against the window. The fingers moved against the glass, testing it as if it didn't understand what glass was. It seemed puzzled. The hand left a wet smear on the glass. It was wetness and dirt and grime mixed with melting snow. Then the face appeared again, close enough that the glass fogged where its breath hit. I leaned as far away from it as my seatbelt would let me.
The features were there in pieces, the brow ridge, the nose, mouth shape, hair stuck to the side of its face. It leaned in and stared through the glass like it was trying to understand what it was looking at and how on earth was it supposed to get inside. I hit Mark's number on my phone again with trembling fingers, praying the call would connect fast. The shapes hand moved against the window again, tapping two soft taps, testing the invisible barrier. Then it pressed inward.
I saw and heard the glass flex in its frame under the pressure. If it had pushed harder, it would have broke through. Luckily it stopped and it moved around to the passenger window. I tracked it through the car interior, my head turning like I was tracking a predator, which I honestly believe I was. Then it put its hands on the top of the door frame where it met the top of the car. It began rocking the whole car like it was testing it, like it was checking. Can I tip it? Can I pry it?
Can I open it like this? It was like the car was some kind of container and I was the food inside. That thought hit me so hard. I almost thought I was going to throw up. My phone finally connected and Mark's voice came through strained. "Hello?" "Mark," I hissed. "There's something out here." His voice snapped instantly. "What? What do you mean?" "It's," I started to speak, but my voice broke. I don't know Mark, it's big. And it's outside the car. It's touching the windows and rocking the car.
It's trying to get in. "Are you joking?" He demanded. And I could hear the kids in the background, little small voices asking questions. "No," I whispered, tears spilling hot down my face. "I'm not joking, Mark. It's rocking the car." "Well, what is it?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. Deep inside I did know, but I did not want to say that word at this point. I was looking, and I saw the face press near the passenger window again, its eyes catching the faint glow from my phone's screen.
I don't know, Mark, but it is not a person. Mark swore hard, and I heard him breathing fast. "I'm ten minutes out," he said, "maybe less. Keep the doors locked." "I can't even honk," I said. The battery's dead. Everything is dead. "Okay," he said quickly. "Listen, just talk to me. Stay on the line if you can. I'm coming." I heard my son's voice in the background, sounding small. "Is mom okay?" That almost broke me.
I didn't want my kids hearing any of this, and I didn't want any of them driving right into it. "Mark," I whispered, "the kids." He stopped me and he said, "Don't worry, they're with me, they're fine." Then in a tight voice he said, "I didn't have a choice but to bring them. Just a tight, we're coming." The call crackled, and it dropped. My phone flashed, 7%.
I stared at it like it had been trade me, then I looked up because the car was rocking again, hard enough that my body swayed in the seatbelt. The shape was at the back of the car again, just out of sight, hidden in the blind spot. Now the car rocked in the opposite direction. Instead of being rocked from side to side, it was going up and down. I looked in the mirror and it had its hands on the trunk of the car, and it was bouncing it. Then it stopped, and the car settled.
Then I heard a metallic creek from something on the rear. I don't know, but it sounded like it pulled on something. My stomach turned to ice. What was it? The bumper? The loose taillight? I didn't know, but I felt sure it was testing, pulling, learning. The shape came back into view at the driver's side, and I saw its hand go to the door handle. It was feeling it, testing it. I think it knew what to do, because then it curled its fingers around and pulled. The door didn't open.
It got mad and it kept pulling harder and harder. I thought it was going to rip it right off. The car shifted slightly from the effort that it was putting out. Then the hands lit up the window, pressed flat like it was going to start slapping the glass. That's when I started yelling. I yelled out into the empty darkness, because it was nothing else left for me to do. No horn, no lights, no engine, nothing to scare it off. Just my voice. "No," I screamed, "no, go away."
It paused, looking in at me. Its head tilting slightly as if it was surprised I could make sound. Then it stepped away just one pace, like it was thinking about it. It calculated. But it didn't leave. It stared at me. It's big chest heaving. It was like looking at an angry bull about to charge. Then it moved to the front of the car and stared at the car like it was studying, "Where best to attack it now?" It pushed down on the hood a few times.
It seemed puzzled by the up and down motion of the car. Minutes crawled by. It would pace around the car sometimes. Move a few steps away, then come charging at it, running right to a stop, right next to the car, like a bluff charge. One time it came right up to my window, just inches away. It leaned in close to the window. Its nose almost touching the glass. Its breath fogging up the window. To say I was terrified is the biggest understatement of my life.
I had a fear that my husband would show up, and it would attack him and the kids. My mind was all over the place. I just couldn't see how this was going to end. It was now touching, testing, pulling, pushing on everything it could. Windows, mirrors, trunk, door handles, door seams. It was going for everything it could. It didn't feel like random touching. It felt methodical, like it was testing, learning.
I sat there rigid, hands braced on the steering wheel like I could somehow keep the car from being rocked apart by will alone, that maybe if I sat there quiet, it would go away. At one point it shoved the passenger's side so hard the car shifted enough that snow fell off the roof and the whole vehicle slid. The shape pressed its hand to the driver's window again. The glass fogged from its breath. It was so close I could see the texture of hair clumped with snow.
The curve of the knuckles, the wet sheen where the hair parted. It tapped the glass once, then again. I looked away. It tapped harder. I looked back. It started pushing on the glass. The window creaked. I yanked my phone up and tried Mark again. My thumb shaking so badly I nearly dropped it. Before it connected, the shape stood up and turned its head toward the road behind me, like it had heard something. I held my breath and listened through the wind. At first I didn't hear anything.
But then I did. He was faint, an engine, a car for sure. No, our minivan. Relief hit me so hard my vision blurred. The shape out there heard it too. Its posture changed. It wasn't panicked, but it was alert. It looked like it was deciding whether to stand its ground or go hide for a bit. Then headlights appeared in the distance. They were swinging around a bin, cutting through the snowfall like two white knives. The shape backed off toward the tree line, but it didn't run.
I'm certain it thought that this car would pass, like the other had, and then it could start again. The van came closer. I recognized it as ours by the way. One headlight was slightly brighter than the other. When the van pulled up behind me, Marx high beams lit the whole world up. And for a split second, the shape was fully visible at the edge of the woods. Tall, broad, dark hair, upright and beastly looking. It looked angry. But it stood there still as a statue, watching. I saw it.
I know he did, because I heard him yell something through the closed windows. It was pure disbelief and anger. The kids were in the van, too. I saw their faces as silhouettes in the back seat, little heads craning, trying to see. Suddenly Mark backed up, drove around and repositioned his van in front of my car, so the big that was lit up at the headlights even more, then he laid on the horn. Now either the light or the horn, or maybe the combination of both made it move.
It stepped back into the tree line with a smoothness that made my skin crawl. It disappeared into the darkness of the trees, and the night swallowed it up. Mark jumped out of the van with a flashlight in one hand, and something in the other. I think it was a tire iron, whatever he had in the van that he could grab. He ran to my driver's side window, his face white. Are you okay? He shouted through the glass. I nodded hard, sobbing now, because the tension finally had somewhere to go.
It was right here, I gasped. It tried the handle. It was trying to get in. I know. I saw it, he said, his voice low and fierce. I saw it. He glanced toward the woods like he expected it to step back out. Then he leaned in close, his eyes scanning my door in my window. Did it break anything? No, I said. He looked at me fiercely. We're getting you out of here now. He got a toaster out of the back of the van and hooked it to my car. Thank God he had one. But that was Mark for you.
He was the kind of man who keeps practical things in the van because, well, he grew up around people who always needed something. He attached it while I kept watch on the woods. Then he said, "Get back in the car. Put it in neutral. I'm going to try to slowly pull you out of here. I don't think I can drive all the way home like that, but I can get you away from that." And he motioned to the woods. "I nodded and did," as he said. Mark got back in the van, east forward, and the strap went taught.
My car lurched, the tires fighting against Pac-Snow. Then we began slowly rolling. I held my breath as we passed through the darkest areas, certain that Bigfoot would follow. We rolled until we hit an intersection about a mile away. It was wider and had a good street light. Mark came to my car, told me to steer over to the shoulder, and he would unhook me. So that's what we did. Then we quickly transferred the boxes from my car into the back of the van.
The kids were so shook up, they never noticed. I locked my car and got in the van. The moment I climbed into that warm mini-van with my kids, I was shaking and almost cried with relief. Mark got in the driver's seat, put the van in gear, and started driving. We would come back with daylight, with a toe and with help. But right then, all I wanted was distance. We didn't talk much on the ride home.
The kids kept asking questions, but Mark kept answering the soft, but firm, "Laters, we'll talk about this later, kids, quiet down." The heater was blasting, the wipers fought the snow, and the road felt endless. When our house finally came into view, the porch-like glowing, the windows warm, I felt a relief so strong it actually hurt. Inside, Mark sat the kids down and turned on cartoons like it was any other normal night. Then he pulled me into the kitchen.
He helped me buy my shoulders and looked at me. "What happened?" he said quietly. "Tell me exactly what happened." So I did. I told him about the battery light, the dimming headlights, the dead horn, the way the car went silent, the shape of the tree line, the hands on the glass, the door handle, the car rocking. As I spoke, my voice kept catching, and I hated it because I'm not a fragile person. But this was way out of the norm for anyone, I think.
Mark's face got harder the more and more I talked. When I finished, he exhaled slowly and said, "It was trying to get in, wasn't it?" I nodded, tears spilling down my face. He looked down at his hands for a second. "I did see it," he said. I saw it standing there when we pulled up. It looked pretty pissed off that we were there. All I could do was nod. Then softer he said, "I'm so sorry." I was surprised. "For what?" I asked.
"I'm sorry for letting you take the back roads," he said, even though it was not his fault. I'm sorry for not coming with you. I'm even more sorry for not running that errand for you." "Stop," I said. You told me not to take those back roads. But he wasn't the kind of guy to say, "I told you so." Instead he just hugged me tight and said, "It's okay, it'll be all right, I promise." We went back the next morning with daylight in a tow truck.
The road looked very normal in daylight, and that really messed with me. It looked like any other winter-backed road, fields, woods, it was quiet. And I thought about how many times I had traveled that road through the years. It always just looked normal. But it would never look normal to me again. And I swore I would never travel that road again if I never had to. And when we reached my car, the marks were still there.
One smears on the driver's window, a streak on the passenger side glass, a dull patch where something had pressed hard, a dent in the back of my trunk. There was a faint arc where the car had rocked enough. You could see the snow was gone. The mechanic later said it very plainly. The alternator wasn't charging. The battery drained all the way down and once it hit bottom, well, everything died, lights a horn, all of it. Just bad timing, he said.
I just stared at him because bad timing felt like another understatement of my life. Mark stood there staring at the window, Mark's, his jaw clenched, and then he said real low. It was real. Again, all I could do was nod. We got the car toad, we got the alternator replaced, and life kept moving the way life does. But it never went back to normal as before. Because now I was aware what lurked the back roads and hidden the woods.
So if anyone listening is ever tempted to take a shortcut, especially on a dark winter's night, don't do it. Go ahead and drive the extra five minutes, because sometimes those back roads are empty for a reason. You've been listening to the Buckeye Bigfoot podcast. Find more stories, hundreds more, over on our YouTube channel. Just look for Buckeye Bigfoot. [BLANK_AUDIO]