I live in the marsh. My house sits up on the stilts right at the edge of where the trees stop growing and the marsh grasses take over. Beyond that is the river. It isn't a big marsh, maybe only a mile or two long. Once the river bends downstream, the trees move back in and come right up to its banks. But here where I live, there's an open marsh, only a few trees scattered here and there. It makes it so that I have to get into my flat bottomed boat and push
through the reeds and rushes if I want to run my trotlines. When the rains come in the spring or any other time of year, of the ice jams in the winter, the river comes right across that marsh a lot deeper than it normally would, and it floods all the way into the woods behind my house. For that reason, I don't keep a vehicle parked here at my house. I have a truck, but I keep it over at Miss
Harrison's house for when I need it. She owns the farm on the other side of the woods, and I've known her all my life, and she don't care. She keeps the keys in case she needs to move it or use it for something I don't need it myself. Very often, when I run my trout lines, I generally head right up on the river to Benson's Fish Market to sell what I caught. I don't need a truck for that. The market sits right on the river. My boat has a motor that'll
get me there as long as I stay close to the bank. I can trade fish for gas, and they provide enough of anything else I need right there at the market. And mainly I buy a powdered creamer for my coffee, cigarettes and my favorite candy bars. I only need the truck when I have to go do some real shopping for other things like coffee and cann goods and corn meal and flour and sugar and lord. It may not seem like much of a life for most folks, but it cuts me fine. I
never was good at making conversation. Television never interested me much. I got a portable radio that I played a little too often. It keeps me broke for having to replace the battery so often. That's about the only entertainment I ever enjoy. No one bothers me here, and I don't bother nobody it's quiet and peaceful. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, I go to my brother's house for dinner, and most of their kids and grandkids are loud and obnoxious.
The television plays too loud, and my sister in law complains too much about the way the kids act and how loud the TV is, which makes me wonder why she doesn't just turn it down and tell those kids to behave I have one niece that I like, though, and she checks in on me every now and then. She has one of those pocket phones that she never
sits down, and that irritates me. She drives all the way down here when she can get through, or she walks through the woods to get to my house, which is a good hilf a mile, and then rather than have a good visit, she sits out on the porch and whinds and complains because she can't get good service. Well, I tell her all the time to leave that blasted phone home when she comes, but every time she shows up she's got it with her. If she didn't bring me such a healthy
supply of Snickers bars, I tell her to stop coming all together. But I do like my Snickers bars, and it does my heart good to know that I've got one family member who cares enough to come all the way out here to check on me. A month ago, Bren, that's my niece, was sitting out on the porch watching something on the screen of her phone, and I caught a little bit in piece of what it was saying. It was talking about bigfoot. Now that's a topic I can talk about all
day long because I've seen them. Now, I know better than to tell most people about that. They come down here to my home and throw me in the back of one of those paddy wagons and haul me off to the funny farm if I did. But here was Brn sitting right in front of my porch, listening to some feller tell how he's been chased through the bayou by one What is that you're listening to? I asked her. Well,
it's a YouTube channel about bigfoot encounters. She said, oh. I answered, oh, I know, Uncle don She said, you don't believe in those things, but I do. I love this channel even if you don't. You gotta love these stories. I studied her for a minute, and I wondered if I should tell her what I knew. I mean, that poor girl has to walk through the woods to get to me. She might
not want to do that anymore if I started talking. I had to think hard on whether or not I wanted to give up such a good supply of Snickers bars, and finally I decided that it wouldn't hurt. She said she believed, But it's easy to say that when you don't have any proof one way or the other. I never said I don't believe, I finally said, as I looked sideways at her to gauge her reaction. There's things in these woods that people don't know about, like what she asked, in a
voice that was almost hesitant as mine. I stared out across the marsh, to where the river reflected sunlight like a great, big gold coin on the surface. I knew I'd started something, but there was still time to back out if I wanted to. But did I really want to? Uncle, don tell me what you know? I guess I wanted to, because I said, I know there's creatures in these woods. I gestured over my shoulder toward the trees on the other side of the house, and I know that
sometimes they come here, they try to get in. I watched her eyes open wide and the colored drain out of her face. Her mouth worked for a few seconds, like she wanted to say something but didn't quite know how. I let her stew like that, half hoping I'd piqued her interests, and half hoping I'd scared her into changing the subject. Are you telling me that I walked through sasquatch infested woods when I come to see you? She said, I had to be careful here. There was a time when the
answer would have been a straightforward yes. But in the last few years I hadn't seen no bigfoot. I still had something trying to get into the house at night. Sometimes when I'd get back from running my trout lines, there'd be signs around the house. But to say I'd seen bigfoot or anything indicating that's what it was any more recently than five years ago, wellou would be a lie. And what I've been seeing, well, theyre just ain't a
name for that. I gave myself time to think about what I was going to say next. There was no point scaring her too bad. Uncle, don have you seen any recently? Now? Not recently? A fool would have known that wasn't going to satisfy her. So when she started in asking more questions. I settled back and smiled the way. She turned off that blasted pocket phone and tucked it away, and then I began my tail. Now you know your daddy and me grew up on this place, I said.
She nodded, well, even when we was kids, there were things around this place. It didn't make much sense. She got up off the wood stump I'd set up on the porch for a makeshift stool, and she came over and sat beside me on my glider. It squealed a little at the added weight before resuming the gentle back and forth motion that I was gliding it through with my feet. We were twelve before we got our first glimpse of those culprits. I continued. Back in the nineteen fifties, when I
was a kid, this old cabin was where we spent our summers. My daddy had bought the land for Miss Harrison's daddy and spent a whole summer building it up on stilts to keep it out of the water. I was seven and my brother Steve was ten the first time we spent the night out here. The cabin wasn't quite done yet, so Daddy found a small rise in the marsh grass and set us a tent up. Being young boys, Stevie
and me wanted to sleep out under the stores. The mosquitoes nearly drained us dry before we gave up and got inside the tent with Mom and Dad. That must have been around midnight. By one o'clock, we were ready to leave the tent and get into daddy's nineteen fifty one suburban and go home. Thankfully, it was a dry summer, so we'd been able to drive it right up to the house. There'd be plenty of times in the coming decades when that was not possible. It all began when we were awakened by some
thing hitting the tent. Now this wasn't little tapping sounds or even something as minor as acorns. Whatever was hitting the tent was the size of baseballs, and each hit sounded with a muted thud as it sent the canvas walls flying inward. Every hit brought a cry of fear from us kids. Daddy kept telling us to hush, but there comes a point when the terror out weighs of common sense. We were on that side of the scale. Mama was
having a hard time of it. Too. She kept her hand pressed to her mouth to prevent herself from screaming and pushing us boys over the edge. But one look into her eyes, even inside that dark tent, it was obvious that she was as scared as us, maybe even more. I guess I was too young to remember how the whole night went. But when the sun came up, we crawled out of that tent and we found hedge apples all around us on the ground. Well, Daddy mumbled something about their the
weren't no hedge trees being anywhere around us. Mama didn't hesitate. She started packing up camp. We ate breakfast back at the house that morning. Brand broke in then and told me that her daddy had already told her that story before, and she never did believe it. Even if she did, it never occurred to her that the camp he was talking about was my place. Now. I could see the questions forming in her mind as she sat and waited for me to tell her more. Yeah, this is the place.
I guess you never put two and two together, me living here all these years, with your grandparents dying before you were born. She nodded at me. Now I'm going to be flat out honest with you, After that first night in the tent, I never thought my daddy would ever come back here. It was a bit of a surprise to me and your daddy when we
moved in for the summer the following year. That's when I explained to her how the camp was close enough to town that we could live here all summer and my daddy could still get up every month and drive to the mill and work. Well. After a few weeks we got overworrying what might be out in those woods, ready to chuck some more hedge apples at us. The kids are that way. Curiosity trump's common sense every time. Mostly the woods behind the house were swamps. Like I said, between me and the river
is a marsh. That's a whole lot of exploring for two little boys to do, and by the end of that first summer we knew every inch of it. Over the next few years, we made this area our kingdom, and we played cowboys and Indians and Robinhood and pirates and explorers. We fought rattlesnakes and grizzly bears and evil sheriffs and greedy princes, and captured ships and battle lines all around us. Cabin and not once did we see or hear
anything that would remind us of that first night in the tent. It was the summer after I turned twelve before we had anything happen that brought back the memories of those hedge apples. We're far enough south that summer can be miserable,
being pretty much surrounded by water. There's always more humidity in the air than oxygen, and the mosquito swarm into the big hole, hordes of vampire colonies that sweep you off your feet and fly away with you to a place where they can drink your blood without having to fight off the big ones. For that reason, me and Stevie always slept on the screened in front porch where there was a bit of a breeze. I still like to sleep out there when it gets too hot. Daddy and Mama had a bed in the
back room with windows on two walls to keep them cool at night. It must have been early August, and we knew that our time here and what we always called the river House was running out. In another week or so, we'd have to head back to town and get signed up for school. And Stevie was fifteen by then. He knew he'd be getting his driver's license come the end of school year, so he was looking forward to going back and getting started. I didn't see the rush. If it was up to
me, we'd live at that river house year round. But it wasn't up to me. I was resigned to my fate. But I wanted one last adventure. So one night, while we were laying out there on the cots, I told Stevie that we should sneak out of the house and go down to the river. Now. I love my brother. He's always been exactly the kind of big brother he should be. He looked out for me when we were kids, and he kept the bullies off my back. I was a scrawny, wiry kid with a cock eyed walk due to my spine not
being completely straight. He had a lot of bullies to chase away. But when it came to doing anything risky, it was always me who started it, and it was always him who said we shouldn't ought to do that. It wasn't me, So I wasn't too surprised when he said I should roll over and go to sleep, and he wasn't too surprised when I told him I refused to do that. It took a little coatsing and begging, but he finally sat up on his cot and yanked on his shorts and t shirt.
I jumped up as soon as he did, and was already waiting at the door by the time he got his shoes on. He stopped to tie his, and I never did. It was a dry summer, which meant we wouldn't need a boat to get down to the river. There were high spots in the marsh, and if you know the path, and we knew it by heart, you could walk all the way down without too much trouble. I stepped in a muck hole once, but I got free without losing my shoe, and Stevie turned down the wrong path right after that, so
we got a little off track. But it wasn't long before we were down there on the river bank, throwing rocks in the river and watching the moonlight dance off its surface. We're here, Stevie finally said, now, what do you want to do? I hadn't thought that far ahead, and since we didn't bring the oat down, we weren't going to go out in the water. But I had a foot covered in mud and I needed cleaning,
and it was a hot night. Let's go skinny dipping. I said, you'd have thought Stevie, being the reasonable one who never took chances, that he'd have said no way, But he didn't. Instead he went to shucking off his clothes. I shimmied out of mine, and we were waste deep in river water in no time. The moon was full enough and reflecting off
the water enough that we could see pretty well all around us. The trees at the edge of the marsh were dark, and the marsh grass was high and held its secrets, but there in the water it was almost like daylight. We got to playing and splashing and having a good time until we lost track of time, so I don't know how long we'd been down there when the first big splash happened in the water. Donnie, look over there, a big fish jump, Stevie cried. I spun around to look where he
was pointing, in time to see another big splash. This time we were both looking right at it when it happened. We knew immediately that it wasn't a fish. It was a rock, and someone had thrown it there. We both turned and looked back at the bank, thinking our daddy had got up and found us gone. We knew we were in trouble, but Daddy wasn't standing on the bank. There was no one there. Another big splash of water flying up at us when another rock landed right in front of both
of us. It must have come from the bank, but we didn't see anyone. I looked over at Stevie and his eyes were as big as mine. We were both remembering another night when hedge apples was thrown at us. I don't mind admitting that I was a bit scared now, and we could see the roof of the cabin from where we were, but that was no comfort. In fact, it was the opposite. We were painfully aware of just how far from home and from safety that we were. Stevie started moving
toward the bank, and I thought he must have been crazy. I wasn't about to get close enough to find out what unseen creature was attacking us. We'd gone to the drive in the weekend before and came to camp for summer and seen invisible invaders, And as far as I was concerned, there was a Martian hiding in those reeds and it was going to catch us and eat us like a catfish. Where are you going, I screamed, I'm going home. Stevie yelled back from the bank, where he was already grabbing up
his clothes and shoes. Well. I took one more look around at the black tree line, the deep shadowy pockets of the marsh, and the narrow bank before screaming, wait for me. We started back up the path to the house. That it did run. Stevie was older than me, and he didn't have to deal with a crooked spine. It wasn't long before his
outline vanished into the marsh grass. And my heart was pounding by then, and I felt my legs getting weak, like they didn't want to do what I was telling them to do. Behind me, I heard what sounded like a bulldozer tearing through the grass. Stevie, I screamed, hold on. I could still hear my brother somewhere ahead of me. He was running and grunning and maybe even crying, but I couldn't quite place where he was.
I could hear what was behind me, too. It was breathing deep and making funny mumbling sounds, and I was having trouble breathing, like the wind had been knocked out of me. Now I opened my mouth to yell from my brother again, but the words would not come. I lost the will to fight right about that, and slowly, as if someone had forgotten to wind the clock, I began to stop running until I was standing still in the path, and I dropped my shoes at my feet. All around me
I could hear funny, grunting noises. I was surrounded. There was more than one. Please don't let it hurt, I prayed when I accepted that I was about to die. At that moment, the reeds in front of me burst open and Stevie stepped through. He grabbed my arm and jerked me forward, and the sounds around us got louder and closer, but Stevie never
let go on my arm As he dragged me back to the house. We reached the rise where the tall grasses died away and Daddy's suburban sat parked in the yard, and the loud scream of the screen door popped and the sound echoed across the marsh as we looked up and saw Daddy come out onto the steps with a shotgun in his hand. He fired around into the air and we turned to see what he was shooting at. That was when we saw it. It looked like a giant man with long arms all covered in hair.
It stopped right at the edge of the tall grass and looked at me and Stevie menacingly, like it wanted to eat it us. But somehow it knew it wasn't gonna win against that fire stick in my Daddy's hands. Well, we stared back at the strange beast. What is that thing? We both said at the same time. We'd never seen anything like it outside of a gorilla we saw once at the Saint Louis Zoo. But this thing looked more like a man than a gorilla. It wasn't walking bent over on its
hands. It was standing upright and walking on two legs. It stared at us, and we stared back at it. Daddy raised his gun again, and the damn thing turned around and disappeared into the grass so fast we couldn't rightly tell which direction it went. Daddy might have seen it from his vantage point, but me and Stevie couldn't tell. But we could hear other animals moving in the grass too. I was a scrawny kid, so that grass
always seemed taller to me back then. But the truth is, my brother was a head take than me. Even he couldn't see where those things were, And later we decided they surely had to go down on all fours to disappear like that. Now, seven years later I went to the movies and I saw that Patterson film. It was the first time I ever heard the word bigfoot that I can remember. It didn't look quite like what we saw that night at the river House, but it wasn't that far off either,
And all of that happened here. Brent asked it, sure did, I answered, Did your daddy ever tell you that story before? No? She said, I don't guess he ever would have. We never talked about it again, He and I, Uncle don Why did you stay here if those things are here? I didn't quite know how to answer that question. What could I say? Over the years, those things have come right up to
the house and banged on it more times than I care to count. They used to stand on the edge of the woods sometimes where we could see him, But after that first night they never seemed all that threatening. We had guns on us everywhere we went for a while. Mama wanted to sell this place, but Daddy insisted this was his property, and there wasn't no smelly apes gonna chase him out. Once I got out of school, I started spending more and more time here. Daddy died first, and Mama followed soon
after. Stevie was a career soldier who didn't marry till late in life, and I figured once he came home and got married and started having kids, he'd want a place to bring him. Stevie never wanted anything to do with this place. It became mine by default. Those things always stayed out in the woods and the marsh grass and always give him plenty of room. I guess you could say we got used to each other. For lack of a good answer, I shrugged my shoulders and Brin studied the floorboards on the porch
for him, and then looked out across the marsh to the river. And then she looked right at me, and she asked what happened to them? I didn't understand her question at first. When I sat there staring at her with a blank look on my face. She said, you said, not lately? Where did they go? Yeah? I did say that. I leaned my head back, looked up at the ceiling, wondering if I should tell her more I was at that crossroads again where I didn't know if I
wanted to say more or not. I guess someone should know. These new things ain't nowhere near as respectful of boundaries as the Bigfoot were. They come to the house at night, but they scratch at the screens and claw at the boards in a way that makes me think they're trying to figure out a way in, and when they figure it out, there won't be much I can do to stop them. They're not as big as the Bigfoot, but I think they're a lot meaner. When I was a kid, there was
a man around town they called Shorty. Fellers always around town like to pick on him. Well, one day they cornered him and they were really going to give him what four There were five of them and one of Shorty, But when the last punch was thrown, it was Shorty who came out on top. Now, my daddy told me to learn from that. He said, it ain't the size of the dog in the fight, Signe, it's the size of the fight and the dog. Well, I think these things
have a lot more fight in them than those Bigfoot. Ever, did I've seen them lately? They stand out at the edge of the trees, and they watched me with eyes so angry. I can feel their hatred. I was scared of the Bigfoot when I was a kid, but I got over that. I'm scared of these things now, and I think I always will be in the end. I looked at Brent and I said, nobody really knows. I'm sitting here on my porch tonight and writing this all out in
my notebook. I hope if someone finds it, they'll read it and know what happened to me. I won't be here to tell em. Those things are standing out in the grass and they're watching me, and the sun is going down, and once it gets dark, I doubt I'll have much longer to live. Please God, don't let it hurt