Dogman: A Grave Encounter

 THE STORY:

This story is not an easy one to tell. My family and I spent my entire childhood and then some on a private few acres in Alabama. The amount of supernatural and unnatural occurrences on that land could fill a book. Ranging from ghosts, demons, strange lights and sounds, just to name a few.

The worst of my experiences is one that I don’t tell many people. Telling people that you’ve encountered something outside of the norm doesn’t bode well in the best of times, and growing up in a family where most of my family suffered from drug abuse and alcoholism, I was afraid that would be the accusation. That I had followed the path of most of my family, and gotten on drugs. But I stand by the fact that I never did. I tried weed a couple times, and as an adult I drink about once every few months, and that’s it.

Still, I tried to forget this encounter, even trying to convince myself it was a dream. But I know better. I have shared another story, and it felt good, so I thought I would delve deeper and share the worst one. Hopefully with the same results. Another reason, and admittedly it’s not the main one, but maybe it can still help, is that hopefully this can inspire people to not immediately think that they’re crazy or alone when seeing things like this. It happens, and while society may not believe you, others have shared experiences and we’re all in this strange hole together.

So to get started, I have to say that I used to love the woods. I would constantly head out to the woods after school to simply explore. There were supposed to be old coal mines and caves out in the woods, and instead of being smart and avoiding them, I went looking for them. (Spoiler alert, I never found one). We also didn’t have internet cause at the time, it wasn’t common, and my mom and dad worked so no ride to my friends house, so my options for passing time was limited. Most of my experiences out in the woods were uneventful, but one freaked me out, and the other caused me to never go in the woods on that land again. I wouldn’t go outside at night for a couple years after this. My entire family can vouch that one. I used to walk to my grandmas all the time, since she lived in walking distance from our house (since it was family land). But after that experience, I never walked to her house once the sun was down.

Like any other evening, I was home from school, homework not done, and I was out in the woods exploring. I actually got home last off the bus, so it was around 5, seeing as how I got home at 4 and had been in the woods for a while. So the sun was setting, but I still had enough time to “play”. I was near the old graveyard that our land met at, i believe it was a civil war graveyard, or at least most of the people buried there were civil war veterans. It was extremely overgrown and abandoned.

I had my dog with me, her name was Tumor. Cause she was an extremely overexcited and playful dog that would literally dive head first off of our porch to come meet us when we got home, but she never landed on her feet. She would slam onto the ground, jump up and charge at us wanting petted, or food, I’m not sure. So my sister named her Tumor. So she was with me, and was ecstatic to be a part of the adventure that we did every day, but she acted like it was the first time. Around the graveyard, I kept looking for the supposed mine/cave entrance that my brother swore he had found, but didn’t see anything.

I started to climb up this big hill that actually peaked at the edge of the graveyard, when I smelled it. I can’t explain it, except to say that it smelled horrible. Like rotten meat, or decay. Tumor did too, and was being extremely still, staring up the hill, which was extremely unusual for her. She was usually the first to charge at unknown things, wether it be a deer or another dog. My initial thoughts were that someone threw out a deer carcass at the graveyard, it wouldn’t be the first time. I kept climbing, having to look down at my hand and feet to make sure I didn’t loose my footing. It was extremely steep and I would have to grab small trees that were poking out form the hill to keep from sliding.

Tumor then made this horrible, yelling bark that I hadn’t heard her make before, and then she rand own the hill. I didn’t get a chance to see where she went. I looked up and saw what I thought, for a split second, was a large dog looking down at me. But it didn’t take long to realize is was something else.

I was downhill, and not extremely tall, so I can only guess, but this thing stood 6 or maybe 6 and a half feet tall. It was up on its back legs, but I didn’t get a chance to analyze [whether or not the legs bent backwards like i’ve since heard in descriptions of similar sightings].

I stared at its eyes, and it’s teeth, and that’s all I remember. My legs gave out, I couldn’t breath, and I fell. I had never passed out before, and I’m not entirely sure that’s what happened here, but the next thing I know, I was at the bottom of the hill, scratched to hell from bushes, and feeling sick to my stomach. The sun was still up, but I feel like maybe time had passed? I’m not sure how long. The smell was still there, but I didn’t see the thing. I don’t remember every detail for the next hour or so. I know I somehow got to my feet, and I know I somehow ran home. It wasn’t far exactly, but in that moment, it could’ve been miles to me. I got home, and I cried.

Even writing this makes me emotional. I’m not entirely sure why, cause this thing, as horrifying as it was to be that close to it knowing it could’ve killed me, it didn’t do anything that I’m aware of. Not even growl. But I’m not sure if I just got shocked and passed out, or if I’m just a coward and the fear made me lose consciousness, all I know is that the fear itself wasn’t normal. I mean sure it was scary, but this was something else. It wasn’t like I had walked on an animal, it was like I had stumbled upon fear, and that’s all that existed.

I know this is a very story book way of describing it, but I find that writing it out like this makes it a little less real? Like it didn’t happen to me, it happened to this character in this story, and it helps me get through it.

Over a decade later, and I still get random waves of fear at night. Someone tried to break in our home months ago, but my mind wondered if it was that thing, and not a person. I have no reason to think that, other than the fear.

A detail that stands out, other than the fact that this was a large wolf or dog looking head on a very wide, fur covered body on two legs, was its eyes. It’s eyes were so black, that I don’t remember seeing pupils. It didn’t have the glowing yellow eyes or human looking eyes that I’ve read about. They looked black.

So sorry for the long story, and for the huge setting up part that went way longer than the actual event itself, I think I was procrastinating. Anyway, stay safe guy, keep digging that hole. And thank you for the opportunity to share this story.

___________________

FOLLOW UP THOUGHTS: 
I was a bit reluctant coming forth with this particular story cause of how outlandish it is. And honestly, I feel like people don’t believe me when I do tell them. But I’ll always remember it and know what I saw, no matter what anyone says. I find it interesting that for centuries, people saw werewolves and believed in them. Now hardly anyone believes, but they believe in Bigfoot. Now there are Bigfoot experiences with very few werewolf sightings. I believe that people see a giant hairy creature and instantly jump to Bigfoot instead of werewolf now, because of this. But what I saw was definitely more canine than ape or man
—
FOLLOW UP – LOCATION / AGE DETAILS:
I was living in Alabama, same place where I saw the strange light, and where my brother saw the white thang. So you could just say about an hour outside of Huntsville. As for my age, now again it’s been a while ago and I haven’t talked about it in for some time, but it was roughly the same time as the light. Maybe a few months in between. So I was a young teenager. I always say about ten years ago, but in truth I think it was a little more. My best guess is I was around 14 or 15? Sorry I can’t give an exact number, between life happening and just me kinda burying this, the details do kinda get buried in time. Also I wanted to add that Tumor was fine. She was at home waiting for me.

Oh, and I was close. Close enough that I could see it’s eyes. And smell it. But I didn’t hear it approach? I just had smelled something, Tumor made that screaming sound and ran, I looked up, saw it, and when I actually registered what I saw, I fell, and that was it. I would say maybe twelve feet or less? I’m not one hundred percent, but like I said, it was close