Archive 225 Bigfoot Discovered in Bat Cave

least at the time. I hope that to be true. It would just look over in my direction and smile as much as was possible. I'm not sure that it smiled often. It didn't look as if it had the capability, but it was sure giving it a good try. One thing I am certain of is that it was proud of itself and what it had done. That's why it

kept looking over while trying to smile. I'll tell you what it reminded me of, But it reminded me of the way my father used to look when he would park his mowing machine in the garage after he had finished with the yard each week and then go walk around on us law. My father was always so proud of the job that he had done each week after mowing the grass. He loved the way it looked when every blade of grass had been cut and all were the same height. Again, how everything in that moment was

just as it should be. That look on my father's face each week when he had finished was unforgettable and unmistakable. Well, that thing had the same prideful look on its mug each time it would look over in my direction. I can only tell you of what I was seeing at that moment, and I couldn't see all that well, but I could see better than I wanted to, and all honest see, I wish I had never seen any of

it at all. That thing was horrible. I don't think it to be out of place to call it an abomination, something that never should have existed in the first place. A talking like that will likely make some folks hot under the collar at me, But guess what, I don't care. The folks that would raise came with me were never in a position that I'd been in. So until you've walked in my shoes and all that Now I've watched PBS, and I'm not a complete dullard. I know the all creatures,

great and small thing and the sentiment behind it. Everything has a reason for being, and each one is special and unique and should be revered in one form or another. But this thing has no more business being around than mosquitoes or fire ants. And in my opinion, and it's just my opinion, the world would be better off without some things in it. And the thing I watched that was one of them. Sprawled out on the ground as long as some of those tiny electric cars that some

people drive. Now, that probably weighed more than those cars too. It wasn't just long. That thing was beefy and solid. It wasn't long and lean like a college basketball player. It was built, I mean like an NFL pass rusher, big thick ropy muscles flexed and quivered each time it moved. You could see them all pumped up under its fur.

This thing was bigger than Figno had been when he had been playing the Incredible Hult, much bigger, and Forigno was stacked when he had been doing all that, covered from crown to ankle bone with filthy, matted, coarse looking hair, that was knotted up in a dozen different places, like an old stray dog's hair would look before it thins

out and sheds its winter coat and the spring. And it stunk worse than an old dog too, smell like garbage as you had let sit inside the can too long before taking the bag out, that rich, sweet smell of meat that had gone south. That when you smell it, it really isn't too bad, but the longer you're around it, the worse it gets. That's the way this thing smelled. And trust me, it wasn't something else that drifted across me on that breeze. I know how right that thing was,

but I'll get to that in a minute. Thinking back on it as I'm writing this, I can still smell it in my memory enough that I can almost taste it, and when it comes that strong, I easily end up gagging. A couple of times. I've even had to heave up my breakfast. It's been months since the day I was there,

and I can still see it clear as day. It's lounging around, just looking about, sometimes directly at me, though it never knew I was there, or you wouldn't be hearing this story that thing had no the problem with killing. Also know that better than I want to. You could see it in its eyes, and that thing didn't take lip from anything. They were hard eyes, like everything it had ever seen was ever gonna see was beneath it or inferior to it, big and dark, yellowing, some as

if it was old. Maybe it was old. I don't know how anyone could tell. You couldn't go by how it moved, because it was spry enough. It didn't move its arms to waste something with old, worn out joints moved. If it had an edge, it scratched, real limber like, no matter where it had to reach, and some of those places were best forgotten, along with the smell. Now this thing had no shame. What it did have were hands, a big, strong, leathery looking hands that were covered with

that nasty hair on the backsides. Its feet were the same way. It may have gotten shorted on looks, but it made up with the foot size. Now I fell a pretty big shoe, but its feet were at least twice as white as mine and maybe twice as long. But out of everything that was so horrible but hypnotizing to look at, I think it's teeth or what held

my attention the most. The four in front corners of the top and bottom were sharp and long, like dog's teeth, and the rest were short and thick and blunted, just right for grinding against whatever meat or flesh Those sharp ones had ripped from something. Each one seemed about the size of my thumb. Before you say anything, no, all wasn't close enough to see them that well. One of its teeth was missing, and the space between the ones that remained looked about the width of my thumb. And now

I'm fine with guessing at it like that. If you want to know them more precisely, then you go find one and peel its lips back and you can take a look. That'll be your affair, but I won't be going with you. I've had my share and that was enough to do me. Now you have a fair idea of what it looked like. That was what I was trying to accomplish, and I've described it as best as I could without drawing you a picture on paper. And yes,

I have done that a couple of times. I haven't shown my drawing to anyone, mainly because I have no ability to draw. It looked like something an elementary school student might have drawn. But when I look at what I put on paper, I can see exactly what I was trying to draw, and it sends shivers up and down my spy. Anyone else might think I was doodling, but when I look at my drawings, they scare me to death. I bet you're wanting to know how I came to see one so well without it seeing me. Well,

that's what I'm going to tell you right now. Now. I'm not especially bright, not as dumb as some, but not as smart as a lot. I can't ever remember how to tell a joke, and I never have been much counted telling stories. But I'm not a liar, and I'll tell you what happened to me, and it'll be up to you if you want to believe me or not. Of all the things i'll lose sleep over being believed about, this isn't one of them. This is what happened, and

I know it did because I was there. I'm not what you might call a regular nine to five guy. It's not that I don't believe in working for whatever I want or might end up having. I just don't like being told what to do. There is something about following orders that I could never get beside now work, And to tell you the truth, I think I work harder than most because I'm always out hustling up something to do. I just don't go to the same job and do the same thing every day. I don't answer

to anyone for the most part. If I go without supper or a pack of smokes or new use when I need them, then it was all my fault for not trying a little harder. I don't take orders, but I don't blame anyone but me for my situations either. I'm as likely to be painting a house as I am to be chopping saplings out of a fence row. I've dressed stiffs in the basement of the mortuary, and the next day I handed out flyers in front of the Pigly Wiggily for a beauty salon. It's not the

easiest way to put dough in your pocket. But if I have enough to get bone, I don't have to work. If I don't feel like it now, I can go fishing instead. People locked in a cubicle can't do that whenever they feel like it, can They not without getting fired. I mean A while back, I was doing some work for the Italian man who owned a nursery. He's a real nice man, and he throws work at me whenever he gets these big pushes. He knows I work hard that I don't get bent when he says he doesn't

need me any longer. If he had hired someone to do what I was doing, he would either have to find them something to do when the job played out or fire them. And with me, he just RILs off a few bills and shakes my hand until the next time. It works well for the both of us. He had called me and said that he had two tractor trailer loads of rose bushes coming in, one trailer one week

and another the following week. Eight thousand rose bushes on each trailer that had to be pulled from one gallon pots and reset into two gallon pots so they could keep growing bigger. You ladies might think that roses are the best things since indoor plumbing, but after twelve or fifteen thousand, you won't care if you never see another god dang rose. The work was rough, but it paid well, so I was on the fence about it being my

last day doing that job. A bunch of us were sitting around eating a sandwich in the midday stoppage when mister big and Zoli came walking through with the man who was his foreman for the nursery. They were talking as they walked. Actually, mister big and Zoli was talking and James was listening. I wasn't eavesdropping, but I did hear him, and it was not hard to hear. Mister bigg and Zoli. I really like him, but I'd never take him fishing. He even says good morning at the

top of his lungs. So what do you think he was talking about, Well, he was talking about bat guano, that's droppings from bats. He had some plants coming in the next few days that really took to bat Guanoh, it's supposed to be really good fertilizer, but for the load of plants he had come and it was the very best. According to someone, he was warning a good bit, really badly. But the stuff was so expensive that he would lose money on his plants if he bought the

bat stuff. They were almost out of the shed we were all sitting in when I slid off of the world bench I was sitting on and ran down to catch up with them. I got them stopped, and I told them that I was sorry for interrupting them, but I could get them some batpoop if they really wanted some. It wouldn't be all nice and neat and bags like if they had ordered it. But I felt real sure I could get them ten or twelve five gallon buckets full if that would help them out. They looked at

me like I was crazy, but I just stood there. Well. We talked a bit, and they asked me where I could go get so much, but I wouldn't tell them that. And mister bigg and Zolie and James were both nice men. But if I told them where the stuff was, they would have sent a couple of guys and they could have gotten it for themselves without needing me at all. I had just found a new source for cash, and

I was keeping it to myself. James kept mumbling about how what I would bring would be pure and not mixed with filler and sand, how sixty gallons would be equal to twice or even three times at a bag they could buy, how it would go further and be a lot cheaper. In the end, we settled on a price per bucket, and that the nursery would supply the buckets and the shovel, and I promised to work through the weekend and bring them the stuff the monday coming up.

Those were two happy men walking away. I knew it was going to be kind of a nasty, gross job, but I was feeling pretty good myself as I went back to work on those damn rose bushes. Now, before I tell you the rest of this, I'll say one thing. I didn't tell those men where that backcrap was because I didn't want them going in and getting it, and that's what they would have done, and I wouldn't blame them if they did. For my own good, I kept

the location to myself. It's the same reason I haven't said the name of the town where I live in, and I'm not going to that's for my own good and yours. I listened as often as I can to Cam's program, and I like it, and that's why I sent this to him. But I read the comments from y'all sometimes, and I don't want to turn on the local radio one day and hear about some stranger from

Oklahoma or Pennsylvania getting torn to pieces or killed. If one of you curious types knew where the story took place, you'd be wanting to come and do some poking around. I don't need anyone in and up in the graveyard on account of what I saw, so trust me, you're better off stand right where you are and just listening to how things happen. Now, I'll get back to the story.

As I mentioned earlier, I like to fish. It's how I relax and come Saturday night, there isn't much anything better than a plate full of fresh fried fish with onion rings and iced tea. I have this place where I like to wet the hook because I always have the pond of myself, and I never leave out from there without a stringer full. It's real dark there, trees all around keep most of the water shaded out of the wind, and it's my kind of place. But it's as hard as pushing a chain to get there, and

that's why no one's ever there. Anyone with a fishing rod knows of it, but it isn't worth the hassle for them to get there. But I have a four x four square body that won't ever win a beauty contest, so I don't mind getting there back before Hector was a put the brains in the Highway department decided that a tunnel was needed to get from here to somewhere else faster, so they figured that going through a mountain

was better than going over or around it. What they didn't figure on was that the mountain wanted no part of it. Those crews didn't get more than halfway through before someone realized that they were spending more time fetching out all the mountain bits that had fallen during the night than they were spending on the actual digging and boring.

The machinery they kept having to throw away because of being crushed by fallout didn't swallow easily either, and the sixth man to die in that hole really tied the bow on all of it. They stayed long enough to shore everything up inside like they were going to continue the next day, and then everyone just split and never came back. Nature has been taking it back ever since. And the entrance to that tunnel that goes to nowhere isn't more than a couple of hundred yards from where

I like to fish. I expect you wouldn't have been able to hear yourself think down there when all the construction was going on, but it's quiet now. They closed up shop, chewed up the road on the way out so no one could go mess it around down there and set audios. But they hadn't counted on me, and how much I liked to fish. I don't guess they didn't figure on me being the nosy type, else they would have sealed that great hole up. The first day I found that pond was also the first day I

went snooping around inside. And that's how I knew about the bats. I can take her leaf snakes and spiders and rats and wasp I may not like them, but they don't bother me. But bats are a different thing altogether. I'd never cared one way or the other about bats, because I'd only ever seen a couple. But inside that tunnel, well that'll change your mind, all right, thousands of them hanging there, quivering and twitching, and the dern floor of

that tunnel near covered with their droppings. The first time I went in there, the smell was so rank that it made me sneeze. And I guess the racket woke them nasty devils up. They dropped off the roof and swarmed around, flying about one hundred miles an hour, not out of the tunnel, just around and around until they calmed down and they roosted again. I just squatted down

and covered my head. While it was going on. It had been like standing in the middle of a pile of leaves and someone switching on a leaf blower from every direction, except that the leaves and the tunnel could if they wanted to. Now I don't care if bats do eat mosquitoes. I hate the creepy little things, and I couldn't wait to get out of there. I only went back in a couple of times after that, and not very far either. I really didn't care if I

never went back inside again. They could have the tunnel, if I could have the pond. But then the idea of making good money for not a lot of work came up, and I started talking myself into going back in and staying in while I worked. It hadn't seemed so bad an idea when I was talking to James and mister Bigg and Zoli, but the more I thought about it later, the more I wished I had said nothing. But still, a deal is a deal. So I went that Saturday morning to shovel up sixty gallons of that mess.

I tried to be smart about everything, but trying was about as far as I got. If I had been on the ball, I would have left all my bucket at the entrance in the daylight. I could have filled up a couple and brought them out and got new buckets and some fresh air. But I was in a hurry to fill them and have done with this place. I knew the whole time that if this worked, mister big and Zoli wasn't going to hush until he had me bringing him buckets full every week. But I wasn't

going to worry about that until later. Instead of doing as I should have, I stacked all the buckets inside each other and slid the handle of the shovel through the wire loops, and I put that shovel on my shoulder.

I would have everything I needed. Once I got in deep where that stuff really covered the ground, I would have to make a half a dozen trips back in and out, but I could go as fast as I wanted, because the buckets would be full by then, and I would be done when I started fetching them back outside. I had new batteries in the spotlight that's attached to my ball cap that I wear when I go coon

hunting or catfishing. I was hoping that the light wouldn't bother the bat, since it would be pointed mostly straight down. The biggest part of the time I was going to have the light, and this seemed the best way to see in there. I wasn't worried about noise either. It wasn't like I was going to be digging through hard dirt.

I was just scooping up bat droppings. It was my plan to have those buckets filled and sitting in the back of my truck by early afternoon, and my reward for a job well done was my cooler with two sandwiches and three high life sitting on ice beside my favorite rod and reel in the truck. Twelve buckets of bat crap and me catching a few fish was going to make for a good day. The shoveling went better than I expected. The stuff was nasty and it made my nose burn, but it filled the shovel easily and

fell into the buckets quietly. If I moved my head wrong or too quickly, I could hear the bats above me and getting agitated at being disturbed, but I would face the light towards the ground and they would settle down again. And I stayed nervous the whole time, but as time passed, I learned how to operate in there

sort of live and let live situation. Everything went so well that after I had the buckets filled, I picked up one and used it to really mash the guano down and pack the other buckets as tightly as I could with the stuff so I could put more in each one. The buckets weren't heavy even after being filled,

so I tried to give mister Biggins only his money's worth. Finally, when I couldn't pack it in anymore, I reached down to get the first two buckets so I could haul them out, And that was when I heard the noises. It was a racket like I had never heard before. If you ask me while I was standing there in the dark what was going on, I'd have guessed that a pack of dogs were really having at each other the most awful growling and yelping you've ever heard. And there I was so deep in that tunnel that I

couldn't see the outdoors light or anything else. A ceiling full of bats were hanging over me. The most got awful fight up ahead of me. And there I was sitting in the dark with twelve buckets of bat droppings. I was figuring out what I was supposed to do next, and a scream came from up ahead, and then a roar, like from an animal in one of the old Tarzan films. It took everything I had not to add my own

droppings to the collection. And then everything went quiet. And if the bats had been disturbed by all the growling and bellowing, they weren't showing it. The only, and I mean the only reason why I picked up two buckets and started out was because I knew I didn't want to be in that tunnel come dark. When the bats started waking up and leaving. I didn't want to go back out, but I didn't want to stay either. I

didn't even want to go fishing any longer. I just wanted to go home and sit quietly with every damn light in the house on. I took ten or more minutes just getting back to where I could start seeing daylight again, even carrying a bucket in each hand. That I should have been back in five minutes or less, but I was doing some slow walking because I was really afraid. I didn't know what I was afraid of exactly,

but I was sure that I should be. The ground was soft thanks to the bat droppings covering everything, so I wasn't making any noise with my steps, and just as soon as I saw the first signs of light, I turned off the light attached to my cap. I didn't know if anything was up ahead, but if there was, I didn't want whatever it might be to know that I was in the tunnel. Even slower than before, I

continued to walk. I saw the hump against the tunnel wall, but it didn't register with me that it was anything, just a big, dark hump on the side of a dark tunnel. The light from outside spilled in, but only just so far. I could see shadowy outlines, but not any details. Like when the sun is first coming up in the morning, you can see but not all that well.

The difference was that the sun was already up as high as it was going to get, but it wasn't going to get any brighter inside that tunnel, at least not back where I was standing. So I took a deep breath of that file smelling air, and I started walking again, creeping. I inched my way closer and closer to the entrance of that tunnel, and I could feel the sweat rolling down my back, and there wasn't a

sound to be heard. Not even birds or breeze from outside was making any noise, and I just kept walking, seeing a little better with each step. I began to feel better because I wasn't seeing anything moving up ahead. Well that doesn't mean that I was skipping and whistling. I was still more scared and I had ever been, but seeing nothing up ahead was making me feel a little better. Whatever had made those terrible noises must have had their fracticing gone on, and nothing could have made

me happier. I didn't care what had made all that terrifying racket, and I didn't care if I ever knew or not. All I wanted was for the way to be clear so I could get finished and get out of that tunnel. If mister big and Zoli like what I brought to him, I would be glad to tell him where I had gotten that stuff now, and I wasn't planning on ever coming back here again. No amount of money was worth this. As I neared the opening and could more or less see. Movement caught my eye.

Everything was still mostly shadows and dark, but the light was making it possible to see outlines of things, and one of those outlines moved. I stood very still and I watched, but I did not see any more movement. It finally dawned on me that what I had seen was like when you stack a big pile of cloth or tarps up in a heap. Eventually a bit here and there is going to shift as the pile settles. That is what I believed to have happened. Something had been piled up in a heap while I was deeper

in the tunnel, and it was beginning to settle. That was what I had seen. Feeling better, I moved closer to see what the pile was. The pile of whatever it was stank worse than the bat droppings. As I drew near to it, I sat my buckets down and I pulled the collar of my T shirt up to cover my nose and mouth. I knew it wasn't going to help, but I did it anyway. I looked to the tunnel entrance and I studied it carefully. I wanted to make sure I was alone. Before I switched my

cap light back on. As bad as I wanted to be done with the work and away from there, I was awful curious about the huge pile that I couldn't see any details of. I switched the light on and bent my head down so that the light wouldn't shine on it, and then I stepped back, holding a hand over my t shirt covered mouth to keep me from screaming.

It was an animal, not just any animal. It was the biggest thing I had ever seen, like something in between a man and an ape, and it had huge patches of blood matting down its fur in a dozen different places. Its mouth was wide open, like it had been trying to holler when it died, and blood was staining its yellow teeth, and big gougers were torn in its body, and you could see dark blood pulled up on the ground from where it had dripped from the fur.

I watched its chest and I saw no movement at all, and there were no sounds of any kind coming from this thing. The eyes were still glads. I see, whatever this thing was, it was dead and it was obvious that it was. The First thing I wondered was what could have been strong enough to kill something so big, And then I remembered the carrying on that I had heard. Whatever this thing had been scrapping with had beaten it.

I don't know if the sound made me look to the tunnel entrance, or if I looked and then I heard the sound. But as I looked toward the light, while wondering about what had taken place, I heard the scrapping and rustling of something moving in the bushes and deadfall just outside. I stood there, frozen, but I did have enough sense to switch off my light. Nothing ever terrified me as badly as when I was plunged back

into darkness again. I've been on my own for many years, and that was the first time I could recall praying that someone would come and get me. I was so scared that I was having trouble breathing. It was as if I couldn't remember how. And then a giant silhouette ambled into view. It looked as though it could fill up the entire entrance to the tunnel. It couldn't. I mean, it was big, but it wasn't that big. It just

looked that way to me. It came walking in like it owned the place, but it was favoring something a hurt leg or a foot, or maybe it had some pain somewhere higher up. I didn't know, and I didn't care. I was guessing that it had been hurt during that fight. I was guessing about the fight too. What I was seeing was the only thing I could imagine being large enough to have taken down that thing at my feet. It might have won the fight, but it had suffered in the doing. So. You could tell by how it

was moving. It was looking deep into the tunnel, directly toward where that thing lay dead, and the next thing it was going to eventually see would be me. And I knew I didn't stand a chance against something that size, so when it turned its head to check behind it, I dropped immediately to the ground, and I used the dead thing as a shield or a barrier. I lay there on the ground that was covered in bat droppings, and I huddled up against that stinking animal for a

long time without making a sound. I was listening to hear what the other one was doing, but no sounds came from it. After a while, I crept up onto my knees and I peeked out over the dead body and the one that had come in had laid itself down in between where I was and the tunnel entrance, and it was just sprawled out there. I didn't know if it was tired or hurt bad or just guarding

its trophy after the kill. All I knew for sure was that the thing didn't know I was there, at least not yet, and that was the only good thing that had happened all day. I was guessing that I had enough of that bat smell on me from working that the thing up ahead couldn't smell me for three or four hours or so. I laid there. Every now and then I would hear it breathe loudly or growl or rumble, and it would shift its position now and then, but for the most part, it just sort of sat

there or laid there. I kept wanting to sneeze, but I would pinch my nose until the feeling went away. My throat and eyes were burning, and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get out of that tunneling back to my truck. At some point, I began asking myself if the thing up ahead might actually eat the thing that I was laying beside, and if it came back to do that. There was no way I

could remain hidden. I couldn't slip past the thing up ahead, and I couldn't go anywhere but further back into the tunnel. But that was a dead end filled with thousands of bats, and I really was starting to come unwound. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking, and honestly, I really wanted to cry. I was so scared and frustrated. And then I heard the thing up ahead of me began to grunt, and I watched as it rolled over on to its knees and heaved itself off the ground until it was

standing again. And when it moved forward, that is to say, it moved toward the dead one that I was hiding behind, I was sure that my life was about to be over. I didn't have any regret spring to mind, but I remember thinking that I would like a few more years, and that I didn't want to leave this world ripped apart, with all of my pieces scattered around for bats to

crap on. That big thing up ahead looked toward the dead one and bellowed or roared so loudly that I ducked my head and I prayed that it would stop. The sound bouncing off that tunnel wall was not just terrible, it was deafening. I don't know why it stood there and yelled some animal thing I'll never understand, I don't guess. But when it had gone quiet again, it turned and began limping toward the entrance. I watched it until I couldn't see it any longer, and then I listened until

I couldn't hear anything. That was when I finally stood for the first time in hours, and I started toward the entrance. I didn't run, but I didn't poke around either. I walked as fast as I could while listening. For all I knew, that thing could step back in the tunnel at any time. I reached the edge of the opening, and I squinted in the light, even though the sun was starting to fade a little. Only then did I

remember all those buckets of bat droppings. As far as I know, they're still sitting in there where I left them, because I didn't go back for a single one of them. When I saw nothing outside, I ran like the devil was after me, and I didn't stop until I reached my truck, and I climbed in and I tried three or four times turned the key before I could control my hands enough to start the engine, and I backed up so far and so fast that I set a pretty deep ding in my truck bumper against a tree.

But when I shifted into Ford, I wasn't caring about a dent in a galvanized bumper. All I cared about was getting home. I never ate that night after making it home. I didn't drink as many high lifes as I thought I might. All I did was sit there and tremble. After three showers, I could still smell the bat crap and that thing I had hidden behind. It was Monday morning before I started getting an appetite again. I stopped where I often did. I ate a bite

before driving over to see mister bigg and Zoli. He was all smiles until I told him that I didn't have anything for him. Now. I didn't lie and make up a story about why I had failed to come through. I just didn't say much of anything. He was quiet when he took the thirty dollars that I offered him for the shovel in the twelve buckets that I had not come back with. He didn't seem all that mad, but he hasn't called me about any other work since that day. I guess he was disappointed that I'll let

him down, but I can live with that. The fact that I was alive at all was enough for me. I haven't been back to my favorite place to fist since that day either. I don't know if I'm ever going to go back there. I thought about reporting what had happened to the wildlife people or the Sheriff's department. I didn't think they would believe me, not even enough to go in there and see for themselves. But if they did, I didn't want to take the chance of

someone not being as lucky as I had been. I guess someone could happen up on that place and do that bit of poking around, but I had never seen much sign of anyone one going down there, not much around the pond and none around the mouth of that tunnel. So I just stayed quiet to everyone until I decided to write it down and send it to Cam's program. The listeners here are about the only ones I thought might believe me. So that's my story. Think of it

what you will. I was not brave when it happened, and I was not brave enough to go back to try to hunt it down. I was scared, and I don't mind admitting it. You can all say or think whatever you want, but I know that you would have been scared too,