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You can call me Luke from up in the hills of West Virginia.

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Please, leave my name, my town, and the railroad's name out of it.

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There are only so many little tourist lines that run along our stretch of river, and I

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don't want any of them catching flak because of what I'm about to tell you.

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This happened on one of those Christmas train rides several winters back.

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As we chucked it along, there was something out there keeping pace with our little train.

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My wife, our nine-year-old son, our six-year-old daughter and myself, had booked the Christmas

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train as a treat with Christmas money sent from grandparents.

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Money had been tight that year, but we already had all the gifts for the kids covered.

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So we all thought maybe we would like the train ride instead of more presents.

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When we asked the kids, they voted to get the train tickets with the money from their grandparents.

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Now this railroad runs an old diesel locomotive, and there's a handful of 1950s coach cars,

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and it runs along a deep river gorge.

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In December, they rebranded it as a polar express run.

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Now they put lights on the outside, they serve cocoa.

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There are volunteers dressed as elves, you know, they go all out.

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You take a ride from the little deep hoon town up to a spot they call the North Pole.

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It's really just a train siding off in the woods with a bunch of small plywood buildings

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and some Christmas light set up.

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It looks like a tiny little elf town.

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Very cute.

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You can get out and walk around a bit, buy a few things, and then they take you back to town.

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We got the late run.

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It was leaving at 7.30pm, and it was supposed to get back a little after 10.

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It was the week before Christmas, and the first real cold snap of the year had come.

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In the daytime temperatures had been in the 20s.

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By the time we boarded, it was down to about 15 degrees.

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There was a fresh dusting of snow covering the banks and the trees.

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It was that powdery kind of stuff that squeaks under your boots.

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We had four seats lined together.

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Me and my daughter on the river side of the train and my wife and son across the aisle

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on the hillside side of the train.

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The car was warm, cramped, and very loud in a happy way.

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Kids were chattering about Christmas and Santa.

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Grownups were busy keeping them in line and listening to everything they had to say.

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Now, I'm a big guy.

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Bigger than those old train seats were built for.

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It was just a tad bit uncomfortable, but I knew I'd be fine, and it was just a few hours.

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And the kids were so pumped, it was all worth it.

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And once we got moving, and the cocoa came around, I was very relaxed.

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Volunteers in Elf hats walked up and down with trays of cocoa.

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Somebody read the polar express over the PA.

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And the kids, they were following along like little weird groupies shouting out parts of

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the story from memory.

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On the way up to the North Pole, I wasn't thinking about anything.

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I was just enjoying the atmosphere of happy children, adults, and a nice Christmas ambiance.

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We wound along the river, sometimes up on a bench cut in the hillside, sometimes right

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down at the water level.

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On our side I could see the river slipping along, patches of ice forming along the edges,

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and no heaped up on boulders as we passed.

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The train had a bunch of under-bodied lights.

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They're mounted so they don't blind you looking out, but they're bright enough to show off

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the deers, the trees, and the landscape as you pass.

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If you were the marketing type, you would call that winter magic.

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On the other side my wife and son had a view of rock walls and pines, the beam from the

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headlights raking across the tree trunks as we curved.

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We passed through a darker stretch where there were no houses, no road, just river on one

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side, and dark woods on the other.

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I remember thinking this would be a lonely place to break down.

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We'd gone maybe 40 minutes when the announcer said we were getting close to the North Pole.

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The train began to slow, the kids perked up.

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We rolled past a big bend in the river and then along a straightaway.

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Ahead you could see colored lights glowing through the trees.

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They'd really gone all out at the siding.

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They had a little post office, a toy shop, and they even had a little Santa's barn with

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real reindeer that you could pet.

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All of it was lit up with strings of Christmas lights and floodlights.

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The flood lights lit the whole clearing.

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And of course there were rows of little tiny elf shops where you could stop and buy things.

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Little small Christmas gifts, souvenirs of the train ride, and they sold specialty hot coffees,

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cocos, and pastries, things that probably made them more money than the train ride itself.

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The train pulled alongside at a crawl and finally stopped.

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The front of the train was almost to the end of the cleared area.

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Our car was more toward the middle.

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We could see the main cluster of north pole buildings from our windows plus the edge of

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the woods beyond.

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Over the PA came a voice that told the kids to be on the lookout for Santa.

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All the kids smushed up against the glass.

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They were all looking.

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Well, that's when I got my first look.

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Right behind the fake toy shop, the hill rises up again sharply.

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They'd cleared enough trees to make this display, but then there was a wall of dark trees and

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heavy woods.

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I was looking over at the toy shop, mostly because they had done a great job of painting

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it to look like an old company store.

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In my peripheral vision though, up there on that hillside I saw something shift.

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At first I thought it was just a shadow like maybe someone had moved a flood light down

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below.

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But it didn't move like a shadow.

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It moved like something that had been crouched and was now straightening up.

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It was up above the town display, maybe twenty or thirty feet up behind the buildings, standing

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between two pines where the flood light spill still reached.

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It was too tall and too solid to be any of the volunteers.

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It rose up and kept rising up until I could see ahead and shoulders well above that toy

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shop roof lying.

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What I saw was a massive silhouette with a thick upper body and a short sloped neck.

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All of it wrapped in some kind of a dark covering that looked more like an animal's coat

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than any kind of cloth.

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The flood lights didn't wash it out.

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Instead they highlighted it.

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Not caught along the edges of the arms and the shoulder line, giving clear definition

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to what I was seeing.

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It took one step forward, downslope, and then more of it came in to direct light.

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I want to be careful here.

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I did not see the face clearly that first time.

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The angle and the lighting was all wrong.

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But I saw enough to know I wasn't looking at someone in a costume.

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The shoulders were as wide as a door.

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The torso incredibly long.

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The arms were hanging almost to mid-thigh with the elbow bent in a strange place.

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The legs were thick like telephone poles.

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When it moved it had that smooth heavy gate that you see on big draft horses.

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Nothing bounced.

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It was just heavy weight settling and lifting again, solid and smooth.

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It stood there a moment, looking down at the train in the village.

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Then it took another step, then another, moving behind the fake toy shop and out at the main

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light.

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The whole time kids on the train were squealing and pointing at Santa who had just come

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out of the barn on the other side and was making his way over to the train.

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I looked around quickly and I saw that no one had been looking where I had been looking.

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I was gripping the underside of my seat so hard my fingers hurt.

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I told myself, "You're just seeing shadows of tree stumps that look like they're moving

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because someone's down there moving a light around."

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Then I told myself, "I was probably looking at a volunteer walking the hill in a heavy coat.

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I did think those things, but even when I did I knew they weren't right."

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Then the train whistled blue.

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Santa boarded the first car down the line.

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The focus in the coach snapped back to the main act.

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My daughter climbed into my lap and said, "Daddy, do you see him?"

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She meant Santa.

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I said, "Yes, I see something."

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Santa came down the train passing out candy canes and invited everyone to come visit his

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north pole.

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We all disembarked and walked to the little shops.

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The elves were stationed at the edges of town so no one wandered off.

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We spent maybe a half an hour at the little town, then we all were boarded up again.

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The whole time everyone else was enjoying the town.

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Me?

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I was looking behind the buildings for the shape I had seen.

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One supported back on the train and a head count done to make sure no one was missing.

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I had to came back through the train handing out bells to all the children.

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My mind was still on the shape, so much so that all the bells ringing constantly didn't

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bother me at all.

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When the train started to move again, creeping forward along the siding before we reversed

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direction, I cramed my neck to try and see at that hill again.

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By then whatever I had seen was gone.

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Just a flood lit little plywood village and a wall of trees behind it.

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I had almost convinced myself I had imagined it.

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Almost.

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On the way back they dimmed the inside carlight some.

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The kids were supposed to be settling down.

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There was now softer music playing.

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People were talking lower.

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Outside the world was mostly darkness sliding by.

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We backed down the siding.

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Some ease back out onto the main track and started the return run along the river.

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This time with the engine on the far end.

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From our car it still felt the same.

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We were in the middle and the river was still on my side, the hillside on the other.

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That's when we got to that long river curve I mentioned earlier.

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The train slowed there because of the bend.

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It felt the tilt of the car on the rails.

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You heard the flange squeal just a little.

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Those under body lights painted the river bank in a moving strip.

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I was about to turn and tell my son to settle down.

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He'd been kicking his sister.

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But that's when something flickered at the corner of my eye again.

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It was down low near the creek water.

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I turned my head and there it was out in the open moving with us.

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We were on a bit of an elevated grade with a shelf maybe six or eight feet down from the

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track level where the river bank flattened out before dropping to the water.

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On that shelf in the wash of lights there was a huge dark figure striding along in the

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same direction that we were traveling.

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There were no trees in the way.

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No pylons, just open bank, snow, rock, that was it.

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I saw it from the side, full profile.

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The light above cast enough glow that I could see texture in the hair on its arms as it

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swung.

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The pelt on it looked thick.

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Probably a couple inches long, combed by the wind so it lay in rough streams down its

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arms and back.

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It wasn't patchy or mangy, but very dense.

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The head was slightly forward on the shoulders.

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The back of it was very rounded.

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The forehead slanted back I could see that much.

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Then it dropped into a heavy brow.

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Below that I could just make out a broad nose that seemed to be pressed closer to the face

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than ours are.

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There were wide nostrils flaring a little as it breathed hard in the cold air.

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The mouth was in a straight line, no teeth showing.

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I can't give you any kind of eye color.

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The position of the lights and the angle were against me for that.

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But I know there were eyes sockets, a place for the eyes deep under that brow ridge.

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And once, when it flicked its gaze up toward the train car, I think there was a brief

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flint, like light touching wet glass.

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The arms, well I keep coming back to those because they were so wrong for any human frame.

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They swung low and easy.

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The hands opened.

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Fingers slightly curled.

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The elbow bend in a strange place for a human.

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And there were hands that were so big they could have wrapped around my whole head.

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It strived match the train's plotting speed.

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You know how trains feel when they're climbing or taking a sharp curve.

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Sort of a steady, tough plot.

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This thing walked like that.

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There was no wasted motion.

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Every step landed sure on the rocks and the frozen mud without a single stumble.

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For a moment my window and its path lined up perfectly.

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It felt like we were walking almost side by side, separated just by glass and maybe ten

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feet of air.

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My daughter was still half asleep on my shoulder.

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She didn't see it.

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My son was now craning his neck to look for deer on the other side.

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My wife was digging in her bag for some tissues.

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I looked around.

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No one else in that car was looking out the window in that moment.

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I couldn't believe it.

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"Look," I hissed at my wife, louder than I had meant to.

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She lifted her head quickly and turned.

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But by then we'd passed a stand of leafless saplings that flickered between us and the

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river breaking up the view.

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By the time we cleared those, the shelf had narrowed and the thing, the creature, the animal,

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whatever you want to call it, it was angling up slope toward the trees.

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My wife caught just a glimpse of motion.

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Later she would tell me, "It looked like a big guy to me in some kind of a parka cutting

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up the bank side."

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That was all she saw.

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"Me?" I saw more.

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I watched it lingered forward, planted a foot up on a higher rock, and go up the incline

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and two powerful steps that would have taken me six or seven.

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It used one arm to lightly touch a tree trunk, I think, just for a little balance.

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The muscles and the thighs and the calves, bunched and released under that coat.

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You could see the power in every move.

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At the top of the bank, right before the wood swallowed it, it turned its upper body, and

235
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:30,640
it looked back toward the train.

236
00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:32,640
It didn't just turn the head.

237
00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:37,400
It was the whole torso that twisted, like a person looking over their shoulder when they

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00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:39,880
hear a car behind them.

239
00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:45,080
In that motion I saw the breath that the back, the way the traps rose up toward the

240
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:48,400
skull, giving it that no neck look.

241
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:52,360
I saw one shoulder-blay roll under the hair.

242
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:55,320
And for a moment I'd swear it.

243
00:16:55,320 --> 00:17:01,200
It slowed its pace to stay in the light just a fraction longer, like it wanted to keep

244
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:07,560
looking at the train, all at up outside and inside, with all sorts of colored lights.

245
00:17:07,560 --> 00:17:11,600
Maybe it was interested in us inside the train too.

246
00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:16,760
Then there was a cut in the bank, and a cluster of thicker trees blocked the view.

247
00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:20,840
When we came past that, the shelf was empty.

248
00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:26,240
Just no one rock, and the faint impression of some disturbed ground that wouldn't have

249
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:31,960
been picked up by my eyes at all, except for what I had just seen.

250
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:38,840
I sat there breathing hard, my heart pounding against my ribs as I looked out into the night.

251
00:17:38,840 --> 00:17:43,080
Are you sure you're feeling okay, my wife asked?

252
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:46,760
I nodded because I really couldn't answer right then.

253
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:51,920
Now you might think that would all be enough, right?

254
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:53,840
Well it wasn't.

255
00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:58,880
Another ten minutes down the line, we went over an old steel trestle that crosses a smaller

256
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:00,560
side creek.

257
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:04,080
On the way up I'd hardly even noticed it.

258
00:18:04,080 --> 00:18:10,080
On the way back, every dark shape below us felt like some kind of threat to me.

259
00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:14,040
The train slowed to a crawl to cross that trestle.

260
00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:20,200
Looking down out of my window, I could see the creek waters, the ice forming at the edge.

261
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:24,640
There were a few boulders and some brush poking up through the snow.

262
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:30,000
As we passed over the middle of the span, I looked down at the creek below glittering

263
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:32,640
with the lights from the train above.

264
00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:35,400
Everything else was in deep shadows.

265
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:40,960
As the train moved over the creek slowly, the underbody lights hit the opposite bank, and

266
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:47,680
as we passed over to that side, I saw a darker shape there, crouched near the concrete supports

267
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,160
that stretched out to the bank.

268
00:18:50,160 --> 00:18:54,920
It was perfectly lit between the train lights above and the reflection of light from the

269
00:18:54,920 --> 00:19:01,000
creek waters, and there was a contrast of its dark body against the lighter concrete.

270
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:04,760
I didn't get the same detail as I did before.

271
00:19:04,760 --> 00:19:07,480
That shelf-siding was the clearest.

272
00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:12,600
But in that instant my brain said, "That's the same thing.

273
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:15,600
Same build, same way of moving."

274
00:19:15,600 --> 00:19:17,160
And you know what it is.

275
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:18,480
That's a big foot.

276
00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:22,840
There was nothing else in the world I could think it could be.

277
00:19:22,840 --> 00:19:28,000
I felt my stomach drop because I was certain it wasn't out there wandering the dark night

278
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:29,880
randomly.

279
00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:31,560
It knew where to go.

280
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:34,160
Where to stand to view the train?

281
00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:37,280
It knew all the quiet spots.

282
00:19:37,280 --> 00:19:38,680
This was its route.

283
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:41,560
We were just crossing into it.

284
00:19:41,560 --> 00:19:45,240
The rest of the trip back to town is kind of a blur.

285
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:50,520
I remember a lot of sleepy kids in the smell of cocoa everywhere.

286
00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:56,720
I pulled my kids closer to me away from the windows, which didn't go over well.

287
00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:01,000
They wanted to keep looking for Santa's sleigh out there on the dark night.

288
00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,920
I suddenly wanted them as far from those panes of glass as possible.

289
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:07,560
I caught myself listening.

290
00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:11,880
Again passed the engine and the clack of the wheels for anything that might be walking

291
00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:17,920
along the ballast outside the train or moving through the trees, as if I could have heard

292
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:19,800
it outside.

293
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:25,800
Once near the last curb before town I saw something really big crashing through the brush on the

294
00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:27,360
hillside.

295
00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:32,280
But that could have been an imagination or maybe just a deer.

296
00:20:32,280 --> 00:20:37,880
But I saw branches moving, the snow falling off of them before they settled back into place

297
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:39,600
and stopped moving.

298
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:41,720
It didn't matter.

299
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:44,560
My nerves were shot.

300
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:48,640
Back at the deep hoe everyone poured off the train happy.

301
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:52,920
Their cheeks bright from hot cocoa in the chill of the night air.

302
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:57,920
My son buzzed on about the bells and Santa and how he was going to tell all his friends

303
00:20:57,920 --> 00:20:59,480
at school.

304
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:02,720
My daughter Yond and clutched her little gift bag.

305
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:06,720
My wife had a small shopping bag with some of her purchases.

306
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:11,280
She bought a commemorative little ornament of the train ride and a few tiny stocking things

307
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:12,280
for the kids.

308
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,280
They didn't know she got them.

309
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:20,680
My wife looked over at me, over their heads and said, "You're white as a sheet.

310
00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:22,840
Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

311
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:27,360
"I'll tell you in the car," I whispered.

312
00:21:27,360 --> 00:21:33,160
In the parking lot, under the harsh lights, I gave her the full version, the North Pole

313
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:38,040
hillside, the river shelf, the trestle silhouette.

314
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:39,920
She listened without interrupting.

315
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:42,000
Her eyes getting wider.

316
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,440
Then they narrowed in that way she gets when she's trying hard to decide if something's

317
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:48,840
true or not.

318
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:53,200
When I finished, she looked back toward the tracks where the coaches were still unloading

319
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:55,320
people for the night.

320
00:21:55,320 --> 00:22:01,240
"Well," she said, "whatever it was, it's out there in the cold.

321
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:02,920
We are not.

322
00:22:02,920 --> 00:22:05,320
We are going home."

323
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:07,160
She wasn't being glib.

324
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:11,280
That's how my wife deals with things that she doesn't understand.

325
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:15,880
Me, I went home and I spent the next three nights waking up in the middle of the night

326
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:21,360
with my heart racing, seeing that dark form walking alongside the train in my head on

327
00:22:21,360 --> 00:22:22,360
repeat.

328
00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:28,880
Now, the next day, I did what more than a few people do after they see something like that.

329
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,600
I really tried to explain it away.

330
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:36,360
I thought, "Maybe it was just a big guy and some dark coveralls doing track maintenance

331
00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:40,240
and my mind somehow filled in all the rest."

332
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:44,940
So I called up the railroad office under the pretense of asking about ticket exchanges on

333
00:22:44,940 --> 00:22:48,320
sale and how soon for next year.

334
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:53,600
After a bit of small talk, I asked, "If they'd had any workers out near Myleposts so and

335
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:56,560
so, that night that we rode."

336
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:58,200
The lady said, "No.

337
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:02,920
Their maintenance crews were wrapped up for the evening before the Christmas train started,

338
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:06,000
you know, liability and all of that."

339
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,480
I drove up the highway that roughly parallels the river.

340
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,520
I found the curve I thought was the right one.

341
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,160
I pulled off at a little tiny overlook.

342
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:20,360
From up the road, the shelf didn't look like much at all.

343
00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:23,640
Just a strip of rock and some dirt and snow.

344
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,600
There was nothing on it but some coyote tracks.

345
00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:29,240
The trestle looked smaller in daylight, too.

346
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:34,560
But I could stand there on that shoulder and I could map out where the train would have

347
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:40,260
been, where the underbody lights would fall, and how that shelf would be the only place

348
00:23:40,260 --> 00:23:44,080
anything could walk without busting through brush.

349
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:49,880
It all lined up nice and clean, too clean for my comfort.

350
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,640
I didn't go scrambling down there to get looking for prints.

351
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:59,160
The snow had been drifting and melting since our ride, and honestly I didn't want to see

352
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:07,400
one of my kids' new favorite Christmas memories turn into some kind of a crime scene in my memory.

353
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:13,680
I told exactly two people besides my wife, my older brother, and a co-worker who hunts that

354
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,200
area.

355
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:19,680
My brother said, "Well, you've heard these stories on YouTube long enough?

356
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,760
I guess you got your own now, don't you?"

357
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:27,600
He wasn't mocking me, just being his normal blunt self.

358
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:33,840
My co-worker got real quiet and then said, "You mean down along that curve?"

359
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,360
My uncle won't fish there after dark.

360
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:40,760
He says something large and too legged used to throw rocks at him, and one time it came

361
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:42,520
out and charged him.

362
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,840
He took off, and it took his cooler of fish.

363
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:47,960
He says he won't ever go back there.

364
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,680
None of that made me feel any better.

365
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:56,240
And then about a week after I told my brother, he came back to me and asked if I thought that

366
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,720
it was on the lookout for loose children.

367
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,560
"Lose children?" I asked.

368
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:03,560
He said, "Yeah," he said.

369
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:08,520
He was checking around online and someone said, "They like to take children because they're

370
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:12,240
easier, and they taste better."

371
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:18,160
I had never hit my brother as an adult, but I came very close to it that day, just a reflexive

372
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:19,800
action.

373
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:25,400
That thought about eating children hit like a bolt of lightning, and it scared me to death.

374
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,560
It scares me to this day.

375
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,720
Though, far as I know, no one's ever gone missing through there.

376
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:36,880
So I want to believe it was interested in the train and all the lights.

377
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:41,760
I've had more than a few years to chew on it, and here's what I think.

378
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,720
You can decide for yourself what you want.

379
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:49,920
Whatever I saw, it wasn't some trick of light, so don't try to tell me that.

380
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,960
It wasn't a branch or a guy in a really bad suit.

381
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:55,160
This was big.

382
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:59,640
It was flesh and blood, and it was moving with purpose along a river bank, and it knew

383
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:01,560
it well.

384
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:06,240
It used the terrain the way we built the train line to use the terrain.

385
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:07,920
It used the flat spots.

386
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,920
It used the cut benches and the bridge abutments.

387
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:17,480
Passing the North Pole Elf Village, it stood up on that hill, and it watched the train fool

388
00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:20,920
of laughing children and adults.

389
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:26,440
On the way back, it walked that river shelf in plain view in the wash of those lights,

390
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,800
keeping pace with the train.

391
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:34,000
At the trestle it got in under the cover when the train rolled overhead.

392
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,080
But I saw it.

393
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,560
It knew just how and where to get the best view of us in the train.

394
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:46,640
It wasn't hiding exactly, but it wasn't showing itself in the open for all the world to

395
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,120
see, either.

396
00:26:49,120 --> 00:26:53,720
I am still stunned that I was the only person that I know of.

397
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:55,800
That saw it that night.

398
00:26:55,800 --> 00:27:00,720
But my wife said everyone else in the train was focused inside the train.

399
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:09,400
The kids, the story, Santa, very few were looking outside very much, especially on the way back.

400
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,000
I realized my wife was right.

401
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:17,040
So if you're out there and about this Christmas, or if you take one of those little Christmas

402
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:23,080
train rides that go along alonely and dark river at night, you should remember, it might

403
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:27,760
not be just Santa and the elves out there watching the train.

404
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:34,640
It could be something older, something out there walking its winter route, and you are

405
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,640
just crossing its path.

406
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,600
You've been listening to the Buckeye Bigfoot podcast.

407
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,960
Find more stories, hundreds more, over on our YouTube channel.

408
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:46,800
Just look for Buckeye dickfoot.

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00:27:46,800 --> 00:28:14,800
[ Silence ]