How legends are born August nineteen ninety seven. Tires have a way of always going flat when it's raining. Engines won't turn over, brakes don't function, and fuel gauges always lie when it's raining. It may not be the case for anyone else, but for Mike it was universally true, especially after sunset. It was the first rule of tribal for him. The front passengers tire had fulfilled that rule with perfection. The rein saturated his hair and it had
begun to work its way down his neck like icy fingers. As he stood on the roadside deliberating his options. He could pull the jack out of the trunk and change the tire himself, or he could get back into the car and call the number on his insurance at and wait for someone to come and
change it for him. He glanced up and down the unmarked blacktop. It was walled in on both sides by a thick mat of old growth trees that sprung out of an undergrowth of thorny brambles, twisted vines, and poisonous plants, all of which sat, he was sure, on a carpet of leaf matter and riding branches. In some places the forest came up to the edge of the road and formed a canopy over it, and others that withdrew a
dozen feet or more to reveal small patches of tall grass. He had pulled his car to a shaky halt at a point where a grass oasis was ending, but where the trees had not yet moved forward enough to form the canopy. He shrugged. It didn't matter. There was room to work whether it was him or some other guy. His flashlight had a base that allowed him to set it on the end so it could act as a lantern. He had a set of road flares, but he didn't see the need for him.
He'd been driving this road for the past hour and hadn't seen a single vehicle. The only houses he had passed look abandoned. If it weren't for the power lines overhead, he would have assumed that this road led to nowhere, despite the fact that his GPS assured him that he was headed in the right direction. Ultimately, he decided that he could have the tire changed and be on his way long before anyone would be able to reach him. He
walked back to the truck and pressed the open button on his keyfob. It took some manipulating to remove the jack from its position on top of the spare. Then it took a little more elbow grease to withdraw the donut from the wheel. Great a donut. A gust of wind pushed the brain hard into his face. He looked down the road again, hoping against hope that someone would happen along. Even if they and changed the tire for him, the company would be nice. He had a sudden need to know that he was
not the only human left on the face of the earth. There were no headlights cutting through the driving rain. He turned to look back up the other direction. A boult of lightning split the sky open with a loud crack. The light momentarily turned the whirl from black to deep shades of green and gray, and for a second, for less than that, the dark outline of a figure stood out on the edge of the trees where the road turned and disappeared around the bin. Mike caught his breath in shock. Who would be
out walking in this weather? Who would be out here this late? He looked down at his watch to confirm that it was well after ten pm. The digital face red eleven forty three pm, and his eyes squinted as he tried to focus on the spot where the figure had been, but it was too dark. And shaking his head, he told him hseelf that he had
imagined it. Maybe it was a tree that only looked human. He sighed again, and he was getting tired of hearing himself do that, and he picked up the jack and carried it in the tire up the side of the car. Then, realizing that he had left the lug wrench in the trunk, he started back to get it. Another lightning bolt lit up the night and he turned quickly, hoping to see that same figure and identified as a
tree or a road sign. He wasn't quick enough. Grabbing the tire iron, he moved back up through the front passenger quarter panel and he knelt down, turning the flashlight up on its base and sitting it on the ground beside him. As he did so, he put that figure out of his mind. There was a tire to be changed. He hadn't done this himself in quite some time. He had to think about where to place the jack. Then he had to let the jack back down because he had forgotten to loosen
the lug nuts first. A few minutes later, he was crawling around on the ground trying to find the lug nut that he had lost when it fell off before he was ready, and he held the lantern high, hoping that it would reflect off the nut. When he heard the growl stopping, his eyes went immediately to the trees seven feet away from him. Black on black looked back at him. It was so dark and raining so hard that he
could barely make out more than deep shadows on top of deeper shadows. Anyone, anything, could be lurking only feet away and he wouldn't know it. Panic swept over him. He hadn't removed all the lug nuts yet, much less the tire. It would take time to put the other tire on. He would have to turn his back on the woods to do so. He thought for a minute that he could get in the car and lock the doors and wait until daylight. That would be the safest thing to do. With
a little effort, he managed to get up on his feet. Yes, he would get in the car and wait until daylight, at least until the blasted rain stopped. His hand reached out to feel for the car behind him, while his eyes continued to scan the tree line for the source of the growl. Blindly, he let his hand lead him around to the front. He backed off the shoulder onto the road and worked his way clumsily to the driver's side and behind him. From the other side of the road, he
heard a loud snap. Someone was stepping on a twig. The relief of not being alone spread across his face in the form of a smile. Even as he turned to see who was back there, A set of eyes stared through sheets of driving rain at him, glowing from some internal light. He looked up at them, gauging their height to be somewhere around seven or eight feet off the ground. This was not a human being, This was an animal, and lightning struck and in the stroving light he saw it. It
wasn't an animal, this was a monster. Mike let out a cry of alarm. His hand groped for the car door, wrenching it open, and he spun around and tried to dive inside. He felt the claws tear through the skin on his back, and he felt the blood flowing down his spine, and he felt the first bite, then the second. He knew he was being consumed. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was ten am the next morning when the squad car pulled up behind
the abandoned car. The officer called in the out of state plates and took the relevant information before getting out to investigate. He was silently grateful that the rain had passed and the sun was shining. Daylight was infinitely better than a
dark, stormy night, especially when it came to these Mississippi backroads. He made his way up the passenger side of the car to look at the jack and tires on the ground, and he turned and looked at the trees behind him, wondering if perhaps the owner of the vehicle had wandered into the woods to relieve himself. A cold shiver traced his spine, feeding the goose bumps that blossomed on his arms. He knew he was being watched. His eyes
scan the entire tree line, and nothing moved. No sounds emerged from the vegetation, no animals scurrying, no insects chirping, no birds singing. For several seconds, he stood in anticipation of something that he couldn't quite explain. Something was beyond his line of sight. Something was going to burst from the trees at any moment, and his hand slid to his holster. He released a long breath and then inhaled, slowly and deeply. It was coming,
and mentally he ran through his training, preparing himself for something. In a sudden explosion of sound, the zircadas erupted into a wall of song that nearly knocked him off his feet. His knees gave way to the shock, and he fell back against the side of the car. A bird flew overhead and landed in a tree and began to sing. And somewhere a squirrel was barking. Something crashed through the undergrowth deep inside the forest. It was moving away
from him. The world had slipped into and then out of a trance. It was over. Several deep breaths later, the officer's heart began to beat at a slower pace, and he resumed his investigation. He turned around and looked into the passenger's window. The back seat held a toat full of small boxes and brochures. A suit hung from the hook over the door traveling salesman. He noted a wallet tucked into a cupholder between the seats, but the
passenger's door was locked, so he moved around to the other side. His hand touched something sticky on the door handle, and he pulled it back to in gate. His fingers had a dark, gelatinous substance on them, and he thought it resembled a mashed earthworm at first. Putting his fingers to his
nose, he smelled it a sickly metallic scent assailed as nostrils. He knew instantly what it was, and placing one hand on his gun and looking around, he reached up with the other and pressed the button on the mic clipped to his shoulder strap dispatch, we have a situation. April nineteen ninety nine prom was a blast. It was held at the country club, the inside
of which most of the graduating class had rarely seen. Strapless and brilliantly colored prom dresses glittered in sequined accents, and black tuxedos boasted cumber bunch to match their date's attire. Gausy yellow clouds of fabric dotted with rhinestones where draped over the walls of blue Materi burial in celebration of the themes story night, the air was choked with a scent of petulian musk was centrist undernoes and grocery store
carsages tacky as it was. For the teenage girls in attendance, it was paradise, and for the boys it was a promise of paradise, they would find later that night. Gareth was not an athletic kid. His grades were a solid sea, and he worked part time at the local McDonald's, at which he made just enough money to put gas in his truck and pay for the constant repairs that the nearly fifteen year old vehicle was always in need of.
He had already applied for and been offered a job on the ground's maintenance staff at the university, something that allowed his father to quip our boys going to college to anyone who would listen. Most of them didn't get the joke. Courtney was Gareth's co worker at McDonald's, she said, gaving her money to pay for classes at the community college, where she planned to join the
nursing program. She was much more interested in a career as a hairstylist, but her mother was a nurse's aid and she dreamed of her daughter taking the next step up the ladder, and Courtney didn't want to let her mother down. The two went on their first date shortly before Christmas break, and by Valentine's Day she was wearing his class ring. He proposed during spring break,
and she accepted. They planned to marry shortly after she received her associate in nursing, and their parents smiled knowingly and said silent prayers of gratitude that their children had at least the good sense to wait. Courtney wore a black sinquine gown, similar to that worn by Rachel Lee Cook, and She's all that. Most of the girls had chosen dresses reminiscent of that movie. None of them looked as good in them as the actresses whose bodies were fully mature at
the time of filming, and Courtney was no exception. Gareth was happy that she had chosen black. It meant he could dress more like his hero James Bond. As they walked off the dance floor, having danced to I Don't Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith every time the dj had played it, Gareth took Courtney's hand and drew her through the door and out the Fouryer, let's get out of here, he whispered, as he leaned in to kiss her neck. We can't she protested. She wanted to leave too, but
she didn't want to seem rude with her friends. I'm tired, Let's go, Gareth insisted. Courtney looked over her shoulder at the dance floor. It was much less crowded than it had been earlier. They wouldn't be the first to leave, and they certainly didn't want to be the last. Okay, let me go in and grab my purse and say goodbye. Gareth pulled a small black velvet clutch out of his pocket. Courtney looked down at it and
giggled when he purchased it. She had thought she'd be lucky to get her lipstick in a comb in it. Now she was glad that she'd chosen the small bag. She looked up at Gareth with a dazzling smile and nodded her head. They rushed out the door, like a pair of inmates making a prison break. Gareth was pulling his truck onto a small gravel drive that led down to the lake. They hoped it would be vacant. The little parking spot at the end of the road wasn't big enough to accommodate more than a
couple of vehicles. Anyone who parked there, would leave their running lights on so anyone else could see them in time to turn around at the one wide spot in the road, and as they approached that point, they both heaved a sigh of relief. It was vacant. Most of the kids could be crowding into the local hotel that night. Someone would get a room and six other couples would join them. There would be no privacy, a lot of underage drinking, and an eventual call to the cops. Gareth and Courtney,
as an engaged couple, saw themselves as being above all that. Besides, it would be the popular kids, Keaton Evers and Jetta Davies would be there with their court and toe, and neither Gareth nor Courtney would be welcome. Well, this spot was much nicer. The moon was full and the sky was clear, and the water was smooth as glass. The radio drowned out the strained silence around them. They pulled up to the water's edge and turned
off the truck. Gareth knew the battery would be dead if he left the truck running lights on, so he decided to chance it and go completely dark. They got out and Courtney walked down to the water while Gareth pulled a blanket out from behind the driver's seat. He went to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate. He opened the cooler that he stowed back there earlier and pulled out a couple of Baccardi breezers. Hey, he called,
holding one for Courtney. She turned and exclaimed, where did you get those? As she walked over to take the one he was offering. I took him from dad's refrigerator out in the garage. He won't miss him. He only keeps him around from when mom decides to come out and have a drink with him. He slid up to the tailgate and added, which is never Courtney tilted hers up to take a long drink, but had to stop short when it dribbled down her chin onto her dress. Damn it, she said.
Gareth chuckled as if he were much older and a much more experienced drinker before doing the same shit. He wiped the droplets of red fluid away from his white shirt. Courtney, too shine polite to insult her boyfriend without right laughter, turned her attention to the surrounding woods. It's quiet out here tonight, isn't it. It's too early for the bugs, Gareth said, still it's quiet. They sat quietly for a few minutes, and Gareth finished his
first drink and reached for another. Courtney had barely touched hers. Gareth, it feels weird out here, she complained. Eighteen year old boys, no matter how much they might think otherwise, do not hold their liquor well, nor do they understand the importance of pacing themselves. Gareth swallowed the second bottle in one long gulp before tossing it into the woods. Don't be stupid, he said. We're all alone. You're not used to being alone, that's
all. Courtney was not convinced. She surveyed the edges of the little clearing with wide, frightened eyes. It doesn't feel alone, she said, after a few minutes. It feels like someone's watching us. No one's watching us, court He told her, sitting down the third bottle that he had already consumed half of. We're as alone as it gets. Did you hear about that guy whose car they found out on Root seven? She asked. That's just a myth, Gareth said, dismissively, a story they tell to scare
kiddies. No, it isn't, Courtney countered, my dad's cousin was married to the cop that found the car. What I mean is the story about the guy's a myth. Gareth argued, I know they found the car, but they never found him. He probably got tired of trying to change a tire in the rain and walked away from it. Courtney considered this before saying I know something that the public doesn't know. She waited for Gareth to take the bait, and when he finally turned and looked at her as if to
say what, she said. My dad's cousin told my dad that they found and she paused to find the right words. They found body tissue on the side of the car. Gareth's eyes widened for a minute. He stared at Courtney while trying to determine if she was lying or telling the truth. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought she was being honest, but his thoughts were being processed through three alcoholic beverages. He mentally argued that police officers
don't share information like that, even with their spouses. He had seen enough CSI to know that cops don't talk period. Hey, he said, in a soft, mildly slurred voice, I brought a blanket. His hand reached behind him to feel around. Let's lay down. Courtney wanted to say no, let's leave, but she was suddenly aware that Gareth was no longer in any condition to drive, and with a sigh, she accepted that lying down
was a better option than driving headlong into another vehicle and dying. She took the blanket and stood up in the bed of the truck to spread it out. She didn't see the eyes watching them from a mere twelve feet away. Gareth staggered to his feet and turned around to watch Courtney for a moment before the sudden urge to relieve himself sent him into the bushes. He caught his foot on a clump ofvines as he stepped inside the tree line that sent him
sprawling forward onto his hands and knees. The thorns of a wild rose pierced the palms of his hands, and the fabric of his pants ripped. His stomach, already struggling with the amount of alcohol that he had consumed, lurch and expelled its contents. Gareth. Courtney called her you all right, Yeah, yeah, he answered, not bothering to hide his disgust. I just tripped well, it sounds like you're sick, she said. He opened his mouth to deny that he had just vomited, but a low growl stopped him.
His head shot up and he looked all around him. What what's that? He muttered? What Courtney asked. Gareth didn't answer. He was looking frantically around him, trying to find the source of the strange growl. It wasn't a growl, really, it was something between a hiss and a rumble, and he couldn't think of any animal that could make a sound like that, Gareth, Courtney couldn't hide the concern in her voice. She stood up
and stared in the direction Gareth had gone. It was too dark to see anything beyond the clearing, and the shadows beyond the trees swallowed that little light the moon provided. Gareth, she yelled. Panic was setting in even before she caught sight of the eyes. Three sets of them stared back at her. The tallest pair, a good seven feet off the ground, blinked slowly, and Courtney felt every muscle in her body tense and then convulse. She
opened her mouth to scream. She needed to tell Gareth that he was surrounded by something, to warn him but Shaq had sucked the air out of her lungs, and all she meant it was an odd sort of huff. And then something flew out of the tree line and hit the side of the truck with a loud thump. Cautiously, she leaned forward and looked over the edge of the truck to see what it was. Gareth's head stared up at her, his eyes wide as mouth opened in a scream that he was not giving
time to vocalize. Courtney screamed. Then two long, agonizing whales of terror echoed across the lake as three hair covered bipedal beasts stepped out of the woods and advanced on her. In the last second, when it was already too late, she turned and tried to run, and then they pounced. An hour later, two other young promgoing couples made their way down to the gravel road to the lake. They didn't see headlights when they reached the turnaround points,
so they continued on. The truck parked on the beach surprised them. Common courtesy dictated that they quietly backed their vehicle out and leave the first to arrive alone. But teenagers never think in terms of courtesy. Wouldn't it be fun to sneak up on the unknown couple with their flashlights and surprised them. Wouldn't it be fun to see the shock looks on their faces when they caught them making out or war. They'd all have a great laugh watching the unsuspecting
couples scurrying to right themselves. It would serve them right for not leaving their running lights on. It wasn't fun. No one laughed, and all four of them would spend years in counseling to help them accept and understand the scene that greeted them that night, November two thousand and seven. Eli had hunted the woods around the family farm since he was a kid. There'd always been stories of buggers and werewolves, but he never believed them. It was all
bs. In his book, the ain't no monsters out here, he would tell those foolish enough to broach the subject, if there where, I'd have seen them by now. He insisted that he had hunted every square foot of that land that belonged to his family, in most of the woods on the surrounding farms, But every now and then someone would come along and claim they had seen something that didn't make sense. They tell stories of being chased out by something too big to be a human, but clearly on two feet.
Some of them were hikers and kids playing around the woods. Eli figured they weren't country folks, so they probably didn't know the difference between a squirrel and a bobcat. Once in a while, it was a hunter who made those claims to them. Eli always asked, why didn't you shoot it? You had a gun. He enjoyed making fun of those yahoos, A bunch of scaredy cats with big imaginations and little common sense. That's all fighting good for
them, he would tell anyone who would listen. Leaves more room for me to hunt. There were a few times when he heard things that he couldn't identify. A couple of times he felt like someone was watching him. Once he found himself walking a little faster because he felt like he was being followed. But he was alone when that happens, and no one ever knew about it. He certainly wasn't going to tell anyone. And then last week he
came to check his deerstand and it was knocked down and torn apart. At first, he thought it was another hunter who thought he didn't have permission to be on his land. He was pretty mad about that. He told himself he'd catch up with that guy who did it, and he's going to tear him up. That was before he noticed the claw marks on the tree. Eli tried to run his fingers along the marks, but they were further apart than he could spread his fingers. It gave him a cold chill. There
were no bears in the area, hadn't been in decades centuries. Maybe the marks were far enough up the tree that he had to climb up to reach them. No dog or coad he could get up that high. He supposed he could have been a bobcat, assuming bobcat's got as big as tigers. He didn't have an answer for that. By the time Eli got home, he had convinced himself that the marks were left behind a some sort of practical joke by SOB who tore down his stand. He figured someone knew he had
a prime location and they wanted to scare him off. Well, it wasn't going to work. He had to make a special trip halfway across the state on Saturday to get a new stand. But he'd be damned if he was going to let some so and so run him out of his favorite spot. While he was there, he picked up a trail cam. It took him half the night, but he figured out how to use it, and the next time someone came along and tried to tear up his stuff, he'd know
exactly who it was. Sunday morning, sleep deprived and ill tempered, Eli pulled up to the gate and parked his truck. It would be a fifteen minute walk in and he was tired as hell. Deer season opened the following weekend, though, so he didn't have a choice. He couldn't miss work, and there wasn't enough daylight after work to drive out and do it during the week, and before he could get to the trees, he'd have to
cross a pasture. After that he'd have to cross a narrow stream. Even when it rained, the water was never more than shin deep and it hadn't rained in weeks. Then he worked his way into the woods, and that was the hard part. He had to follow a game trail that was lined with briars. He wasn't one hundred yards in when he began to feel like he was being watched, and after what happened to his tree stand, he was sure it must be the same son of a bitch. He was now
watching him now. He thought about raising his hand up high and flipping them the bird, but he couldn't quite tell what direction they were watching from. He didn't want to look like an idiot. Another fifty yards and he thought he heard a twig. Snap's a deer. He stopped and looked around. Looked like something moved, but it disappeared behind a tree before he got a good look at it. He was hoping it'd be a big ten point buck er. Maybe it was that irregular he caught sight of a couple of weeks
ago. He was twenty five yard yards from the tree where he planned to put the stand when he heard the first howl. He stopped dead in his tracks. What the hell? He ran through a mental list of animal calls. None matched it. He had taken only a few steps when the second howl sounded closer this time again, he stopped and ran through the possibilities.
He couldn't come up with a match. Feeling more than a little easy now, he glanced around him and mumbled something about nobody chasing him out of these woods. He'd been hunting here for too long. This was his turf. This is my turf, he yelled, and he moved on ten more yards, and the sound of something moving off to his left brought his head around with a snap. This time he got a little more than a glimpse. Like a sleepy child. He rubbed his eyes, unable to comprehend what he
had seen. It wasn't a deer. It was moving on two legs, but it was too big to be a man. Turning to look back in the direction he was moving, he saw another one, and it too was
standing on two legs, and it was standing directly in his path. In the early morning mist, it was difficult to make out any real detail, but he was sure that he was either looking at the tallest man he had ever seen, wearing a heavy fur coat, or he was seeing a Eli wasn't the kind of man to admit even to himself that he was afraid. He knew the tree he was headed for was closer than his truck, but he also knew that thing was standing between him and his tree before he could
turn and head back to the truck. Though he had to convince himself that it wasn't because he was scared. Maybe he forgot a tool he didn't check his bag before he left. Maybe he left it sitting on the bench at home. That was it. He may as well walk back out and do this later. Slowly he turned and again and to retrace his path. And it followed. He knew it followed because it wasn't bothering to be quiet about it. And worse yet, it was moving faster than he was. It
wouldn't be long before it caught up with him. He stepped up his pace, and his heart was beating hard now, and his breath was coming in short bursts. He felt his hand sweating inside his gloves, the stand feeling heavier by the minute. It was getting closer. Don't run, he whispered to himself. Don't run, don't run, do not run. He broke into a run. It wasn't a conscious decision to drop the stand. One minute it was in his hand, and the next it wasn't. The thing
behind him was closing the gap. He was sure he could feel its hot breath on the back of his neck, and he jumped the stream and ran out into the pasture. Halfway across, he realized he didn't hear it anymore. He stopped and turned to look it wasn't there. He bent over a little and put his hands on his knees. He needed to catch his breath and slow his heart rate. After a few seconds, he allowed himself to look back at the tree line. It looked like it always had, no
giant, hairy monsters in sight. And a laugh escaped him between his breaths, and then it built into an all out laugh. Elie, you the biggest iddiot on the planet, he said out loud, And you got a good imagination with the kind of steely determination, only a fool and muster. He stood up right and marched right back into those woods. He paid three hundred dollars for that tree standing. By God, he wasn't going to let
it lay out there in the woods and rite. As he worked his way back down to the creek, he realized that he could hear birds singing. It was odd, couldn't remember hearing birds earlier. A squirrel ran up a tree barking. He hadn't heard any squirrels before either. Maybe he had seen something, but if the birds and the squirrels were moving around and making noise, it was a sure sign that whatever it was was gone. Now he had walked the trail for two hours from the pasture to the tree three times.
He hadn't located the lost stand yet. The trail cam was in his backpack, which was still on his back, but the tree stand had vanished. He wished he could remember exactly where he had dropped it. It's funny how fear can make a man do things he can't remember. He was frustrated, and he screamed out several loud expletives. Angry and feeling more tired than ever, he gave up. The only thing left to do was to go round up his buddy Roy and bring him out to help him search for it.
His stomach was growling and his feet were starting to hurt. He put his head down and he started the long walk back to his truck. On the way back, he thought about the events of the morning, and he wondered what he had seen, if he had even seen anything. His best to remember if he had heard the birds and the animals in on the first trip, and as a hunter, surely he would have noticed their silence, silence cold. Fear twisted or not in his stomach when he realized that it
was silent. Now, you just yelled, dummy, he told himself. You probably scared everything off. That had to be it. It wouldn't hurt to walk a little faster, though, just in case. He could hear the babbling water of the stream ahead of him. Wouldn't be long now. The pasture was on the other side of it, and his truck was on the other side of that. He'd go home and have a good hot meal, maybe watch a little Sunday football, and take a nap in his recliner.
He had to put this all behind him. He was starting to sound like those scaredy cats down at the cafe. For Pete's sake, Eli hadn't been paying much attention. He was too tired, and too furious, and too frustrated to use the wilderness skin that he had spent a lifetime honing. There was no telling how long that thing had been standing in the path ahead of him. He looked up and it was just there. It was closer now than it had been before. It had the head of a dog.
Insanely, it had the head of a dog. His eyes were unlike any eyes he'd ever seen on any dog, wolf, or even a coyote. They could have been human, or they could have been animal, but in them. He saw intelligence and hatred. Now what was he going to do? It blocked his path to the truck behind. There was nothing but woodland all the way to the river five miles away. He looked to his left, thinking maybe he could go around it, but to his horror, another
creature stood a dozen yards away from him. Had it always been there? He turned to make his escape to the right, but another stepped out from behind a tree there and as he spun ou around to run and the only direction left, he came face to face with the biggest one of all. This one was on all fours and clearly it was stalking him. With a yelp, he backed up a step. He was surrounded, and they closed in on him with a slow, measured movement. Something in their actions told
him they were enjoying this. It was almost as if they were smiling. They're real, Eli cried, I can't believe they're real. They were the last words he would ever speak. When is the story just a story? Is a fool the one who believes without solid evidence, or the one who became a believer at the cost of his own life. They say there is some truth in all legends, no matter how far fetched they may be. Some legends have a little more truth than others.