I'm Devin, 22, from Erie. This happened over one weekend in late September in

Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania. We had just finished finals and wanted a cheap camp out near

Kinsua Creek. It was me, my girlfriend Mara and our friends Theo, Lena, and Owen.

On the way down US 6, we stopped at a roadside place outside Kane called Triassic Trails,

Titans of Deep Time.

That stop started everything.

I'm writing this because I need a record that isn't just what I replay in my head at night. I know how this

sounds. I'll stick to what we saw, what we heard, and what we did. I won't dress it up. Triassic

trails looked half dead. The parking lot was cracked and weedy. Inside were sun-baked posters,

a glass case with dead stink bugs, and a gift rack with

melted keychains. Most of the dinosaur figures were faded and chipped, one wasn't. It was an

acrocanthosaurus, big theropod with a ridge of spines down the back. The gums looked wet,

the teeth had a fine crazing like cracked glaze. The eyes were amber,

not cartoon-colored. There was a metal bass with a plaque about a sound demonstration that

was temporarily offline. Owen touched the bass and jerked his hand away. He said it was vibrating.

I put my palm on it and felt a faint hum under the metal. Not loud,

but there. A staff door nearby was locked with a chain, and the chain links were warm to the

touch like something had been behind the door recently. No employees were around. Outside, at the

edge of the lot, three stones were laid across a little footpath with even

spacing, as if someone had arranged them with a tape measure.

We laughed at that and got back on the highway.

We turned south at Kinzua Bridge State Park and took Forest Road 321.

...