It was a dark and stormy night. I had taken a fall and landed not too far from the edge of a cliff. Being knocked out, I don't know how long I had laid there, perhaps three or four hours, my watch had been torn off by the fall along with most of my gear.
I was barely conscious when I heard a loud, deep base like yell from the air. The sound was accompanied by a semi truck horn from below the cliff from which I had almost rolled off, hours earlier. I gazed below, trying to focus my eyes, to see clearly. My head pounded from the fall I had taken. It was impossible to realize that the next few moments would change my life forever. What I saw, I kept secret for many years, mainly because I had a good job and I didn't want to lose it. Perhaps I shouldn't have kept silent, my silence has caused the death of so many animals and put a town at risk. At risk of what? I will let you be the judge. I will not come out and let my name be known. However, I will tell you what happened that night and the following days. You can be the judge.
I was able to witness a logging truck, filled full of Douglas Firs, hit a large object in the middle of the narrow dirt logging road. I thought it was a large stump at first sight, but the object, upon being struck, bounced into the air, almost flying, then fell into the canyon below. It was strange, because I could have sworn the object was purple and had wings, but I attributed the color to my blood stained glasses and the wings to my inability to see very clearly at the moment. What I did see was a cloud of dust from the semi as it's brakes were applied, the driver attempting desperately to miss the object in the road. At first the truck slid headlong into the object, then as the truck hit the thing, it must have dazed the driver of the truck, because the long semi abruptly swung left hitting the cliff wall, then jack knifing. The rear of the trailer, still sliding, slowing as it swung precariously near the edge of the right side of the road, one hundred feet above the steep, rocky walled valley below. Then as if in slow motion, the dirt road under the rear of the trailer gave way and the rig slowly, started moving, falling, trailer first over the edge of the road. It was as if something had clutched the back of the trailer and pulled it over the side of the logging road. I desperately tried to see through the cracked windshield of the semi before it too followed the rest of it's trailer over the edge of the road. Always, I will remember the sound of the twisting metal, as the truck slid down the valley cliff and crashed to the bottom. There was no explosion, no fire, just the sound of metal scraping against rock and echoing off the canyon walls. A few moments later, only silence and a small cloud of dust rose from the valley below me. I couldn't see the where the truck ended it's slide down the rocks, it had disappeared below the steep sides of the canyon. The forest was eerie, of all the things a person could think of after such a terrible accident, what I remember the most is the silence of the forest. There was no wind, no sound of birds, nothing. It was as if the time had stopped. The forest had ceased to be alive.
Reality finally set in. I thought of how I'm going to go down to see if the driver was still alive. No, that had to be crazy, no one could have survived such an event. I suddenly realized that I was sore and bruised everywhere. Now, my reality was coming back to me as I felt the wet blood on my forehead. I slowly moved my legs, thank goodness I could still move them. I slowly tried each of my other appendages, hoping I was still in one piece from my fall, how many hours before? Judging by the sun it appeared to be mid afternoon, the last I could recall it was ten thirty in the morning.
After assessing I was still in one piece, I cleaned my glasses and began looking for a way to the floor of the valley. It wouldn't have been easy without a very long rope and some experience in repelling. I had neither. I decided the best course of action would be to hike back out and get help. I had gone only about ten feet into the dense underbrush, when I heard and felt an unusually strong gust of wind. The forest was still unusually quite. I decided to sit down and enjoy the breeze, hoping it would give me a brief moment of refreshing before I began my hurried march to get help. As I sat in the dense brush, a large shadow came over my part of the forest. I gazed out and as incredible as it may seem, I witnessed a large purplish beast descend onto the very spot where I, only moments earlier, had laid. It had with it another beast, that was battered and not moving. To my horror, I realized that this second beast was the object the truck driver had hit on the road. My first thought was to rush up to the beast and ask if it would help me discover if the truck driver was still alive (Obviously, I had not recovered from my head wound, at that time). Fortunately, I regained my senses and decided not to go rushing up to this creature with my arms waving about.
Enough about me, I'm sure the reader would like to know what this creature looked like. It was purple. Yes, I know you already have guessed that from my earlier description, but when I say (or write) that it was purple. I mean it was really purple. It's skin, claws, hair, nostrils, everything about this creature was purple. Like a bad Jimmy Osmond dream. I have known people whom have disputed that their is such a color as purple, meaning that either purple is a shade of blue or a shade of brown. If any of them were to witness this creature, they would understand what the color of purple is. I couldn't describe it as a deep purple nor a dirty purple. Only a purple in it's purist form.
The creature stood about fifteen feet high when it was sitting, hunched over in front of me. I later discovered that this creature would measure an easy thirty feet from head to bottom, once it was airborne. I say bottom, because it didn't really have a tail. The head of the animal was unusually small compared to it's massive body, the beady purple eyes would remind anyone who has the misfortune of seeing them, believe that this creature could be of the raton family. While other characteristics of the head also had many features of the raton family, being of noteworthy comment is the long pointed ears from which protruded from the top of the creatures head. The nose was rather small. The most pronounced feature of the nose being it's unusual color of purple. I believe this is the only creature in the world that has a purple nose. The wing span of the creature looked very small, as if it couldn't fly with such a small wing surface. However, I later learned, once the creature was airborne, the wings extended out to form a wingspan of a good forty feet. The most disturbing feature of the large beast was it's hands. It appeared to have four sets of them. Perhaps I should clarify that to mean two sets of claws/hands on the wings, about mid way and another set on the torso, almost as if they were human. (I didn't notice the hands near the torso until another encounter with the large animal the next day.) The creature was very frightening to look at and could almost be a cross between a large bat and a excessively large furry human. I believe the most accurate description would be that given by some of the local towns folk, whom later had the misfortune of encountering the beast and naming it "Batsquatch".
Well, perhaps I've mentioned to much. My worst fears are that I will be traced by my email address and someone would know my location. Thus making me a laughing stock of my community and ending my rather prestigious position within the city. If you would like to hear more of the story, you may email me. However, should you make any attempt to trace my email address, I will deny everything.
The Believer