In 1979 I went to a family reunion with my aunt and uncle in Middle Tennessee.

On the way there we talked a little about a strange thing that happened to us while we were

out hunting frogs one night.

We heard chatter and huffing and then it paced us out of the woods,

whatever it was. With that on our minds, we joined the rest of the men sitting around the front yard

at my great-uncle's house where the reunion was taking place. My uncle turned to my great-uncle,

and he said, tell us about what you saw that night you were out raccoon hunting.

Right away, my great-uncle got a look on his face that I'd never seen before.

It was a mix of bewilderment and fear.

He turned away like he didn't hear what my uncle asked him.

And then his son said,

Go ahead, Dad, tell him what we saw.

You tell him, my great uncle said under his breath. All right, I'll tell the story, his son said,

and he began. At that time, my dad was 67 years old. He'd spent his whole life out in the woods

hunting mostly quail and raccoons.

That night they were headed out to the land behind their house.

The property had recently been sold and the new owner had bulldozed the old fence line and put in a new wire fence.

They had three dogs, two walkers and a red bone. The fence was on an incline that the dogs

couldn't get over, so they had to put them over. The son handed the 22 rifle to his dad

and he crossed the fence, and then my great uncle handed the rifle over and he crossed two. Up the hill, 25 yards from the old fence,

was a brush pile. They walked in that direction and then let the dogs off the leads and they

began sniffing around the pile. They had only just begun to smell the awful stench coming from it

...