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[Cudzie's "Wall of Cudzie" plays]

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When that wall of Kudzuexploded open in front of me, I was close enough to get hit

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with dirt and torn leaves.

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I'd been standing there, trying to figure out just how far those vines had crossed over

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onto my property when something inside that thick green tangle rose up right in front of

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me.

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The first thing that hit me was its size.

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Its shoulders were broader than my chest was long.

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Its arms hung low and heavy with muscle, and dark hair was matted with leaves and dust.

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In the face.

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That face.

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Flat nose, heavy brow.

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Dark skin showing under the hair.

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In the eyes?

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Well, they weren't animal eyes.

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And they were fixed on me.

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Thinking, deciding. And I already knew I was not looking at a man.

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[suspenseful music plays]

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[suspenseful music plays]

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[suspenseful music plays]

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[suspenseful music plays]

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[suspenseful music plays]

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My name is Travis.

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This happened in Eastern Kentucky in late of August, 2023, on the back edge of my property

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above the South Fork of the Kentucky River.

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My wife and I live on a few acres that used to be part of my grandfather's place.

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Behind the house the land slips down toward a brushy hollow.

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On the far side of the old fence line is my elderly neighbor's property.

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And by that summer his side had gotten overrun with Kudzu.

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If you've never dealt with Kudzu, picture a living green wall of vines.

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It swallows  fences, saplings, dead fall, houses, anything it can reach.

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By that point it had already pushed over onto our side in several places.

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And I knew if I didn't do something about it, quick,

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I was going to lose that whole edge of my property.

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So that afternoon after work I pulled on some old jeans, grabbed my gloves, a pair of

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loppers, some flagging tape and a measuring wheel.

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And I headed down to the back line to see just how bad it was and where the fence still

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ran.

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My wife, Megan, asked if she should come with me.

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I told her no, I didn't think I'd be gone very long.

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That was my first mistake.

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The second was, I got too close to that fence line.

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I realized the Kudzu looked a whole lot different from inside the woods than it had from the

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back yard.

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On the back porch it just looked overgrown, but up close it looked thick, heavy, built.

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Layer over layer of broad leaves and thick, ropey vines were thrown over the old wire, fallen

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timber and half dead saplings out there.

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It had already swallowed entire sections of the fence, whole.

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Bent little trees under the weight and in some places it looked less like plants and more

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like something that had been put together to hide, whatever was behind it.

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I started near the back corner by the shed and worked south along the line.

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Where I could still find fence, I tied an orange ribbon and where I couldn't, I cut just enough

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vine to trace the old posts from one to the next.

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It was hot work, gnats were thick in the low places there, sweat kept running into my eyes.

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And the farther I went, the more something started to feel wrong.

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Not because I was hearing something strange.

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Just the opposite, because I heard almost nothing.

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Not a single squirrel out there fussing, no crow's calling, no little birds working out

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their way through the brush.

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Just some bugs, my own clipping, my own breathing.

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Once I heard something shift inside the kudzu down along the line ahead of me, a rustle,

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then a heavier, dragging kind of sound.

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I stopped.

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My thought was deer.

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Kudzu was thick enough to hide one for sure and easy.

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I called out, expecting it to blow out of the kudzu and crash off through the hollow.

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Nothing.

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No movement, no deer, just stillness.

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And that was the first thing that got my attention.

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The second thing was the smell.

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At first I took it for low ground in August, green, wet, rank.

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But the smell was stronger.

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It wasn't rotten or dead.

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It was more like wet dog, some old sweat, and freshly broken plants all mixed in together.

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And it kept coming and going all around me on the air.

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I moved another fifteen yards and found where the fence disappeared completely under a mound

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of kudzu that had rolled over it like a big wave.

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I stood there, trying to decide whether it was even worth cutting into.

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If I hired someone, I needed to know if a machine could get in there, or if the whole thing

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was going to have to be cut by hand.

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Now that's when I heard vines pulling tight.

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I have never forgotten that sound.

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It wasn't leaves rustling or brush moving.

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It sounded fibrous, straining, like something heavy shifting inside a big net.

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I looked up.

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The whole face of that kudzu bank trembled.

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In a section maybe six feet wide, bowed outward.

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Instinctively I took one step back.

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For one split second I thought maybe a black calf had gotten loose somewhere and bedded

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down in there.

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Then my next thought was, I'm looking at a bear.

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But then that wall opened fully.

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And what stepped out was neither of those things.

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It stepped out bent slightly at first, dragging vines with it.

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Then it rose up into plain sight.

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I've already given you my first impression of it.

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But there are details that got burned deeper into my mind.

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The hair was not glossy or thick, like something out of a movie, like a costume.

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It looked very coarse, dirty, and it was matted down bad in some places.

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It was dark brown over most of the body, and a little lighter across the outer top layers,

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like where the sun had been hitting it.

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The chest had thinner hair on it, so you could see the skin and the outline of pecs underneath.

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The face was broad and hard, very real.

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And the hands.

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Well, I can still see those perfectly in my mind.

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It had one fist full of vine where it had ripped through to get out, and I could see

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the fingers separate, each, long, thick, strong looking.

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They were not paws.

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I looked at it, and it looked at me.

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I think I said something like, "Oh my God," I know I backed up.

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There was an old woven wire fence between us, already half flattened, and leaning every

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which way.

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The thing stepped right up to that fence, and it stopped there, like it was considering

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the problem in front of it.

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The problem being me.

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At that distance, twelve feet away, maybe?

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I could hear it breathing through its nose.

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I could see movement high in its chest and shoulders every time it drew a breath.

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There were bits of kudzu leaf stuck to one of its forearms.

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One side of its neck looked damp, like maybe from sweat or recent creek water.

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And then it made a strange sound.

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It wasn't very loud, but I heard it.

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It was like a grunt that was forced through close teeth.

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But it was loud enough I heard it, and every instinct in me told me to run.

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But the ground behind me was sloped, and I had already cut vines and saplings that were

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scattered all over the place.

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One bad step, and I'd have gone down hard.

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And some part of my brain knew if I turned my back on that thing I was done for.

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So I started backing up very slowly, clumsy, doing my best not to fall.

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I was trying not to look like prey.

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It tracked me with its eyes the whole time.

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Its head moved slightly as I moved.

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Then it did something that scared me worse than actually seeing it, something that turned

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my blood to ice.

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It looked past me, uphill, toward my house.

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And where we were through the trees, you could just make out a piece of my back porch.

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It looked up there, with meaning, for maybe a second or two.

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Then it slowly shifted its eyes back to me.

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And I swayed on my parents' graves.

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There was something in its expression that I still don't know how to explain, except

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it looked smug.

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It didn't look angry or startled or confused.

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It looked smug.

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It almost had a smile tugging at its lips.

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It lifted its chin just slightly at me.

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Like it was letting me know it knew something I didn't.

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It's hard to describe.

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But it was like it was telling me it knew exactly where I lived.

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Maybe even who was up there now.

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My blood was total ice.

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Because up until then I had only really been scared for myself.

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But right then I got scared for my wife.

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Before I could even process that, it put one hand on the leaning fence wire and stepped

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over it like it was nothing.

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Just one smooth step.

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Same as me or you stepping over a log.

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For one terrible second it seemed to be coming right at me.

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But it wasn't.

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It got over the fence and then angled away and started down the slope through the young

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maples and sycamore saplings and all the low brush.

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I watched as it walked away upright on two legs.

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No bear in the world moves like that.

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And no man moves like that in the woods either.

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It covered the ground in a way that didn't look hurried, but it was moving fast all the

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same.

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After maybe twenty yards or so where the slope dropped harder into the hollow, it lowered

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down slightly, pushed through the brush with one hand and disappeared.

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Gone.

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Just like that.

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I stood there frozen for probably ten or fifteen seconds unable to move.

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I don't know how long.

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I remember a breeze hit my sweaty skin and it made me shiver and that broke whatever

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spell I had been under.

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I turned and I moved uphill as fast as I could without falling.

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I didn't stop until I hit the back porch.

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Megan was sitting out there breaking some beams.

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She knew from the way I came up something was wrong.

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I ran up.

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I got on the porch and I'd been over trying to breathe.

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I put one hand on the railing to steady myself and the other hand was still hanging on to

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the pair of loppers.

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The first thing I did was turn around and look back toward the woods, afraid to have my

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back to it.

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A alarm at my state Megan got up and said, "What happened?"

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I caught my breath and I told her, "There's something down there."

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She said, "What?

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What do you mean?

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Like a bear?"

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I just shook my head.

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That was all I could get out at first.

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I was still having trouble breathing.

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She told me to sit down and she'd get me some iced tea.

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I shook my head now.

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I went in with her.

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I wanted my rifle.

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She looked at me strangely but she knew something was up.

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As she was inside getting the tea, I got my rifle and came back out to the porch.

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Truth be told, I didn't even want to be sitting out there.

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It didn't feel safe.

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I kept thinking about the way it had looked toward the house.

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And from where we stood, you couldn't have seen Megan from down where we were, but I couldn't

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shake the feeling that it knew someone else was still up here.

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That thought got inside of me and it stayed there.

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It's still there today.

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I sat on the porch with the rifle across my lap and I drank that whole glass of tea in

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just a couple of straight gulps.

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My hands were shaking bad enough, some of it ran down my chin and onto my shirt.

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When I could finally breathe and talk straight, I told her exactly what I had seen.

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She listened.

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She didn't laugh.

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She looked confused more than anything.

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We both grew up right there in and around Hydealburg.

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We'd heard of Bigfoot the same as anybody else had through TV and stuff, but that was always

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something that you heard about happening somewhere else, somewhere much farther away, not behind

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your own house in eastern Kentucky.

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But I couldn't lie to myself and I wasn't about to lie to her.

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I knew exactly what I had seen.

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If people around there want to call them wood-buggers, that's fine.

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I don't care, call them whatever you want, but they are out there.

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And what stepped out of that kudzu and looked at me that day could be only Bigfoot.

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A rose by any other name is still a rose.

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Megan listened to me and then asked if I wanted to call somebody.

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I remember looking at her and saying, "Who am I supposed to call?

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Bigfoot Busters?"

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And that was that.

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We stayed out there on the porch for quite a while, though I didn't feel comfortable, not

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even in pure daylight, even with the rifle on my lap.

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I kept staring at that far away tree line, half expecting something to step out into the

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yard.

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That evening I shut the driveway gate early, turned the flood lights on and spent most of

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the night sitting in the kitchen looking out toward that side of the property until my

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eyes burned.

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The next day at work I thought about it all day and I tried to reason it away, not because

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I thought I imagined it.

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I knew I had seen something.

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But my mind kept trying to force it into, some shape, something that I could live with better

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than Bigfoot.

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It was some trespasser, some hunter who shouldn't have been out there dressed up in a huge gilly

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costume.

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It was my mind just playing a trick on me of some kind.

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I went through a million explanations and all of them meant that I didn't see what I thought

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I saw.

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And by the time I was heading home I had just about talked myself and to go back down

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there alone and finishing what I had started.

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That's how much I had convinced myself.

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I was wrong in what I had seen.

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Now that notion lasted right up until I stepped out onto the back porch and looked down

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at the dark under those trees.

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I shivered inside.

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And I knew I hadn't gotten it wrong yesterday.

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Because every part of me still recognized that place as dark and dangerous.

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I never went back down there alone.

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Instead I hired a couple of guys with brush cutters to open that line up for me.

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I told them that I'd seen a black bear down there recently, and I wanted the area cleared

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back from the yard to the first bend where it dropped down into the hollow.

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That was my reasoning for staying with them the whole time and carrying a rifle.

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When they got near the place where I'd had that encounter, one of them shut his machine

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down and pointed into the cutback vines.

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He said, "Hey, Mr. You know there's something been laying in here?"

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I asked him what made him think that.

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He pointed again and he said, "Come on, take a look at it.

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It's all mashed down up under there.

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It's a big place, too."

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He and the other guy were both looking at it with great curiosity.

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I was about ten feet away.

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I just nodded and I never walked over to inspect it.

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I did not want to.

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I just told him, "Well maybe that's where that bear had been staying."

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Of course in my mind I knew better.

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I had never seen a bear bedding down in vines.

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It got enough opened up that we could finally see the line again and enough was cut back

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that the cudzu no longer felt like a wall waiting to split open.

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After that I worked out a treatment plan for what was crossing over onto my side and that

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was the practical end of that.

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But it was not the end of the thing itself because I still think about it.

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I can be standing in my kitchen and look out toward that side of the property at the back.

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And I think about how close I got before I ever knew anything was there.

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I think about that smell and I think about the size of it.

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I think about those hands.

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But more than any of those things, I think about the way it looked uphill toward my house.

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I think about that little chin lift.

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Smug expression.

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That one motion has stayed with me far longer and deeper than anything else.

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Much more so than just seeing it or hearing it breathe or watching it step over that fence

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like it was a log.

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Because that one look it gave me made it feel less like I had stumbled onto a wild animal

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and more like I had interrupted something very intelligent, intelligent enough to understand

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exactly what mattered to me, exactly how to threaten me without a word.

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That's the part that turns my blood ice cold.

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Now, there was a time when I could drive past Kudzu, waterfall hanging over the road cuts

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in great big green curtains and I would think it almost looked beautiful, especially down

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there in the fog in the early mornings.

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Not anymore.

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I see deep, thick, heavy cover for anything that wants to hide.

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I see hiding places.

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I see something big enough to stay hidden until it's too late and it's already on top of

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you.

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I do go check that side of the property.

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I just do it from farther off now and usually with somebody else around.

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I do not go pushing into thick vines tangled looking for fence posts anymore.

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I'll tell you that.

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And I never go without a rifle.

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Well, nance, that's all I've got.

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I don't have a blurry photo or some hair samples.

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I don't have any proof that I can hand anybody that this happened.

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Only my wife Megan knows how much this has changed me and my behaviors on this land.

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I wasn't out there looking for evidence of anything.

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I was just trying to mark a fence line and cut back Kudzu.

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I know though what came out of the vines that day.

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And if I live to be a hundred, I will never call it anything but a big foot.

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You've been listening to the Bukai Bigfoot podcast.

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Find more stories, hundreds more over on our YouTube channel.

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Just look for Buckeye Bigfoot.

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