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[Cell phone ringing]

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My name is Kevin, and I won't name the exit or the town where this happened, because

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well, it might hurt their little motel business, and it's a small, family-run place, and

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they were genuinely nice folks, and none of what happened had anything to do with them.

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I'm going to give you a quick version of what happened, then I'll give you the not-so-quick

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version. You can take your pick of what you want to use if any of it or all of it.

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This happened on Christmas night a few years back. We were stranded at this tiny motel

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along I-90 because of snow. It was already shaping up to be a downright, not so great Christmas

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as it was, but then I went out to have a cigarette, and I felt like I stepped into the twilight

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zone. Let me put you into the scene. We were somewhere in Wyoming on I-90, tiny,

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momma-pop-style motel. It's around 11 o'clock on Christmas night. The snow was supposed

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to hold off, but it had dumped on us earlier that day, and so we stopped. We had spent

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a long day just sitting inside the motel. My wife was in the room, and I decided to step

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outside for a smoke. I was also going to call my brother because I wasn't getting much

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soft-own reception in the room. I go out. I'm standing in the corner of the motel's

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L shape. It blocks the wind and the snow off of me, and I'm not right outside anyone's

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room seeming like I'm creepy. It's also where the opening is to get ice, and there are

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some snack machines in there. But it's really cold, and it's a damp out there, which, as

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you know, makes the cold feel much worse. I finished one cigarette quickly, then I lit

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another, and dialed up my brother. While I'm talking to my brother, I'm looking across

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the recently plowed parking lot, not looking at anything in particular. At the end of the

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parking lot, there are these big mounds of snow where the plow pushed them up. Beyond

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that, there were some dumpsters and some dark fields with a few trees. I'm just standing

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there, staring at nothing out there. Then all of a sudden something big steps over one

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of the plowed snowmounds. It stepped over it the way we would step over a cement curb. One

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leg came over, then the other. It crossed to the far side of the lot, went behind a row

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a parked pickup truck, then it walked straight under the tall pole light that holds up the

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motel sign as well. In that light, I see it from head to about mid-thigh, broad shoulders,

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long arms. There was nothing there that said, "This is not real." There was no zipper line

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front or back. No flapping loose suit pieces. There was nothing. What I saw was solid. It

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takes maybe five or six steps across that lane, and it never looks at me. Then it slides

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behind the dumpster enclosure, and it kept going toward the dark tree line. This whole thing

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took maybe ten seconds. My brother is still talking in my ear about the next day. My brother

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is talking to me, and then he asks me suddenly if I'm still there. All I say to him is, "Yeah,

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I am, but it's really something out here tonight." Finally, I hang up with him, put my cigarette

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out in the snow, pick it in the first cigarette butt up, and I head back to the room. But inside,

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I was shaking. Now that's the whole incident in just a couple paragraphs. You can use that

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as is or use the next part with it as well, which tells some of the other parts of the story

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which may or may not be interesting. It's up to you.

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Now that year Christmas plans got sideways on us. My wife and I live in eastern South Dakota.

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Her folks are over in western Montana. Most years we do the long drive in two days. We split

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it up somewhere in Wyoming and spend the night, and we show up at their house the next day,

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usually, by noon. But that Christmas, a big plain storm came in sooner than the weatherman

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promised. We made it into Wyoming just fine late on the 24th, and we figured we'd be

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able to beat the worst of it into Montana on the 25th. That was the plan. Mother Nature,

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however, had other ideas. We got up and we started traveling, but then things were getting

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really bad on the road. By noon, on Christmas Day, the wind kicked up. Snow went from pretty

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to—you can't see the semi in front of you in about twenty minutes. They shut down the

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interstate at the next big town west. Big marquee signs started flashing. Road closed,

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returned to town. There were state troopers that were parked across the on-ramps, lights

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going. Our kids were grown at this time, so they didn't make the trip with us that year.

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It was just me and my wife. We got off the exit with everybody else, and we limped into

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town on heavily packed snow roads. Every chain hotel out by the interstate was already filled

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up. One of the locals directed us to an older motel that was farther down into town, actually,

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just on the other side of town heading out. It was one of those motels that actually still

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have keys and mismatched curtains. Half the sign out front was burnt out. There was no

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"oh" in motel. It just said "im tell." We didn't care as long as it was clean, and we

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had been assured it was a very clean establishment. And for what it's worth, it really was, if a

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bit shabby. Inside the motel office they had a little fake tree on the counter, and there

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was a pot of coffee that I'm pretty sure had been there since before Christ was born. You

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could smell the coffee scorch all the way across the office. The lady at the desk looked

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very tired, but she was incredibly kind to us. Before I could even say a word, she said,

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"Don't worry, we're offering a lower-stranded rate tonight for everyone." Now I could have

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afforded the standard rate just fine, and I said that to her, but she shook her head and

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said, "No, you get the stranded rate." I have to say it was nice to meet someone with

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some kindness on Christmas. I had to wonder, too, if those chain motels out there by the interstate,

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do you think they were being so kind and offering stranded people lower rates? I bet

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not. The place there wasn't empty exactly, but it wasn't full either. There were a couple

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of work trucks, a mini van with Florida plates, and there was a U-Haul out in the parking lot,

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too. Everyone I saw looked very tired inside the lobby. My wife and I got checked in, and

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we hauled up our bags to the second floor. Microwave the leftovers that we had in the cooler,

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and we called our families just to say, "Mary Christmas, folks, but we're stuck in Wyoming."

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By about ten that night my wife was out cold. The TV was on low. The little heater in the

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wall was rattling loudly. Me? That was restless. I'd been sitting in that motel all day watching

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TV. There was nothing to do. Plus, I never sleep well in motels or hotels. And I had a lot

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of other things unrelated to all of this going through my mind that night. And I was afraid

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that my tossing and turning would wake up my wife. So I went out for a cigarette, and I was

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going to make a phone call to my brother. I do not smoke around my wife anymore, so I

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keep my smoking to these little outdoor exiled trips. I grabbed my jacket, my lighter, and

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my phone to call my brother. He and his wife were already there at my parents back home,

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and I figured I'd at least hear some familiar noise.

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The motel was an L-shape around the parking lot. Two stories, that was all. I was at the inside

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corner of the L, down by the ice machine room in the stairs. The parking lot had been plowed

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into several lanes. There was a big pile of snow pushed up all along the far edge of the

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lot, maybe two and a half, three feet high. It was running in a line in front of a scrubby

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field. Beyond that, there was a short drop. Then there were some cottonwood trees, and

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some were past them. There was supposedly a creek, though I never saw it.

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Right outside my door was one of those yellow wall lights. It buzzed and threw a blast of

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dim light out onto the concrete walkway, and into the first two parking spaces. Out in

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the middle of the parking lot was a tall, pole light that shared space with the broken motel

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sign. That one was bright and white light. It lit up the whole far lane where the pickups

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were parked, and a little of the snow-broom far beyond. I leaned against the block wall,

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cupped my lighter up against the wind, lit my cigarette, then called my brother. He answered

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on the second ring.

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"Well," he said, "how's Christmason? Whatever cow town does her family live in?"

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I said, "Well, we're not there, but where we are, it's pretty windy." And I proceeded

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to tell him how we were stranded. After that we did the usual talk, "House-mom,

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house-dad, what did all the kids get? What did you get?" He had the game on mute in the

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background. I could hear the commentators when he unmuted to check a replay, and the muffled

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clink of dishes came from my parents' kitchen under all of it. It all sounded very warm,

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very far away, and I had a pang of regret.

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While we were talking, I'm looking around without really seeing anything. I was watching

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the exhaust drift off the trucks. Noticing the way the snowflakes seemed to glitter as

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they crossed that pole light. Just those kinds of things, nothing in particular. I'd been

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out there maybe three, four minutes. My hand was just starting to ache from the cold, holding

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the cigarette, and that's when I heard a heavy sounding noise like crunching in the snow.

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It wasn't loud. It was just a big thunk in the snow with a crunch. I knew what I was hearing

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wasn't snow falling off a roof or something falling off of a sign. This was a heavy-weighted

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sound, like a footsteps. It came from my left, over by the end of the building in that snow

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berm. I turned my head that way out of habit more than fear. And I saw movement right at

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the top of that snow berm. At first I thought it was somebody climbing over from the field side,

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like maybe some guy had been out walking his dog and he cut through there. But then

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the somebody straightened up and kept straightening up.

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What I saw was one leg come over the snow berm, then the rest of it came.

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Imagine watching somebody step over a large guardrail, except the thing they're stepping

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over is about three feet of plowed snow, and they don't use their hands to balance as they

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go over. It just brought the leg up and over and planted the foot down on the far side

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of the snow berm in the lane behind the trucks. Then the second leg followed. It was smooth

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with no wobble or awkwardness. That was the point that my brain woke up.

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This thing wasn't bundled up like a person would be out in that frigid cold. There was no

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puppy coat outline, no hat, no swinging parka hem. From the side it looked like one continuous

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dark shape. Shoulders were wide, elbows hanging low, and were placed oddly on the arm compared

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to a human. The head wasn't perched square on top of the neck. It came slightly forward,

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like the way you would see somebody lean when they're carrying a heavy pack on their back.

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Only there was no pack. And the height. Well, I'm not going to sit here and give you a

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number. I didn't walk over there with a tape measure. I will say this, when it walked

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under that pole light, the top of its head came up into a part of the motel sign that

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I've never seen a person reach before. It wasn't as tall as the whole fixture, but it was

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high enough up that if somebody was going to replace the lights and the O that went dark

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in motel. Well, that's about where the top of the ladder would be if you were going

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to go up there and change that bulb. I saw a cross into the far lane behind the line

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of trucks, walking parallel to the building. I lost sight of its legs a couple times

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where the trucks blocked my view, but I could see the upper half the whole way. One truck

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had a chrome toolbox in the bed, and the reflection in that metal jumped and slid as it went

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by. It took long strides. Not herring, yet it was still covering a lot of ground. The arms

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were swinging, but I wouldn't say they were flailing about. It seemed to be a natural part

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of the balance walk. It never turned its head my way. Not that I ever saw. It just moved

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like it had a route, and it had walked it before and knew right where it was going and paid

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no mind to anything around it. I realized after a second that my brother was talking into

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my ear, and I hadn't said anything in far too long. Maybe I made some kind of noise because

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he asked, "Hey, are you still there?" I came back to where I was standing in my head and I

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said, "Yeah?" Then my voice came out real thin. "Hey, hang on a sec." I stepped away from the

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wall light just a little, maybe just a couple feet, like I was getting out of my own glare,

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and that would help with the light out there. That pulled my line of sight more toward the

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middle of the parking lot. Right then, the thing came into the clear again under the pole

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light. For about three seconds I had the clearest view of it. The head, the shoulders, the

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arms, the chest, all the way down to mid-thigh. The light hit from above and in front of it,

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so the shadows ran down its backside, and there was texture I could see. I could see the

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hair along the arms and over the shoulders. I knew that wasn't smooth fabric, and it didn't

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have that shaggy fake look, like fake fabric fur does. This had a shine to it under the light.

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I've never seen really nice fabric fur. This wasn't shaggy like a costume either. It laid

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down in lines and patterns that seemed natural against the body. You could see where it

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bunched up at the elbows as the arms swung. The shoulders were, "Well, I don't know. They

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were big, but not like Jim weightlifter big." It was more like "heavy equipment build"

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"big." Those shoulders were, I guess, meant to carry weight. That's the best I can tell

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you. There were no jacket seams at the shoulders. No zipper line down the front or the back. No

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bulge from a hood. There were no loose flapping costume pieces around the legs or the arms. All

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I can say is everything was solid, and even more so against the heavy winds. I think a costume

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would have looked pressed up against someone's body in those heavy winds. But not this. This

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was perfectly solid. It took three more steps, past the light, and then headed for the dumpster

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enclosure. The motel had one of those wooden fences around the dumpsters. Maybe about chest

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tied to me. This thing walked behind it, and I saw the top of its back for a couple of

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beats, then just the top of the head. Then nothing. It never came back into view on the other

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side. Past that fence is that scrubby field in the trees. It melted into that like it had

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never been in the light at all. A car went by out on the frontage road right then, tires

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crunching on the packed snow that had not been cleared yet. That ordinary sound brought

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me back to myself. My brother was still on the phone. Hey, what is it?

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"Cab, are you okay? Did you fall?"

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"No," I said. "No, I just... It's just really something out here tonight. That's all I can

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say." I know how that sounds. I didn't know how to start that conversation, though. Not

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over the phone with a cell phone delay and a house full of relatives that were probably

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listening in. What was I going to say? "Hey, yeah, listen, man. I just watched something

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huge walk past the motel under the lights, and man, it was close enough to see its arm swinging.

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Was I going to say that?" "No, no, I wasn't. No, thank you. Not while I'm three states

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away, and my only right home is sleeping upstairs."

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But we finished our call, and I don't remember what I said for the rest of that call. I know

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I walked up and down that little stretch by the ice room, just to keep my legs moving,

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to stay warm, and to think. I like to pace when I think. And as I did so, I smoked a couple

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more cigarettes that I really didn't need.

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For the record, I did not go over there with a flashlight and a camera hunting for footprints,

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not then, not in the morning. I'm just not that kind of person. And honestly, I was tired.

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That lot had been plowed pretty hard. The lane that it crossed was a mix of packed snow

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and sand underneath, and it was all chopped up by tires and boots. "If there were prints,"

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I had no interest in them. Plus the temperature was dropping, and fast. I had a warm bed upstairs

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with a beautiful wife sleeping. "I got back to the room, and my wife woke up enough to

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ask. Is it cold out?"

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"Yeah," I said, "real cold."

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I laid there in the darkness next to her for a long time, listening to the wall heater

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click on and off, thinking about that head-to-thigh silhouette that I saw under the sign light.

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I kept wanting to rewind it in my mind, pause it right in the middle, scrutinize it, think

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about it. I mean, do you ever do that? Like your brain is some kind of a DVR, and if you

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replace something enough, you're going to find the exact frame where you can look at it,

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and suddenly everything will make sense.

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The next morning, everything looked less dramatic. The sun was trying to burn through the

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low clouds. Snow-plows had gone by through the night. The lot was messier, more rudded, and

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looking a little worse for the wear with the melt-off. They were tire-tracks everywhere,

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and a couple sets of boot prints leading to and from the dumpsters. If there was anything special

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mixed in there into the melting snow, I couldn't pick it out, but I also wasn't trying very

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hard.

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The interstate reopened around noon. We settled up with the nice desk lady in the office, thanked

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her for the stranded rate, and we got back on the road. From the outside, it was just one

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more story we would have. Hey, remember that Christmas we got snowed in and had to stay

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at that little motel?

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But for me, it was something else. I didn't tell my wife the full story until we were back

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home, maybe a week or so later. We were unloading the car in our driveway when I finally stopped

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and said, "You know, I saw something that night behind the motel, I mean." She asked what

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I meant. So I described it the same way I've described it here. No more, no less. She

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listened. She didn't laugh or snicker, and all she said was, "I can't believe you're

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just now telling me this." And really, that was the end of our discussions. I didn't go

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online to tell my story. I wasn't calling all kinds of people about it either. I've been

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sitting on this for a few years. It felt too plain to be worth all the drama of reporting.

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It wasn't some campground being raided or stalked, and there was no creature screaming at

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me in the night or threatening me. It was just a big, unknown something, using a parking lot

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as a shortcut on a winter's night when the weather had conveniently kept most people

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out of the area. Every Christmas we remember this motel stay. And I, I always remember the

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big foot that I saw. In lots of ways, the sighting really doesn't make sense. I mean, for our location

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at the time, but it is what I honestly saw, and it's where I saw it. I now have a small two-foot

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tree that I put up every year. It's decorated with all kinds of little big-foot ornaments

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that me and my wife have found over the years. It's in my home office, so no one sees it

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when they come over. But I look at it every day during the Christmas season, and I remember.

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My biggest regret is that I didn't have a better look at that big foot. So that's my sighting.

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Nothing wild, but it's what I saw. So I go online looking around, and somehow I found you.

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I got to listening to your channel, and I was hearing all kinds of folks tell their stories

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that sounded kind of like mine. Not all of them were wild or scary. And I figured, well,

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maybe this belongs with some of those other stories. Well, that's my Squatch Miss story,

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Nancy. Nothing that's going to scare people to death. No screams or weird smells, and there

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were no big tracks all over the place. It's just my honest moment. Me and Bigfoot on Christmas

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night. Though only one of us knew there were two of us there. If you use this on your show,

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just call me Kevin. And be sure to tell folks if they're ever stranded on Christmas in a

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half-empty motel out in the middle of nowhere. Be sure to look up from their phones for just

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a second every now and then, because when the lot goes quiet, you might be missing something

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out there. You never know who else might be stretching their legs on a Christmas night.

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You've been listening to the "Buck Eye Bigfoot" podcast. Find more stories, hundreds more,

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over on our YouTube channel. Just look for "Buck Eye Bigfoot."

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