The Cryptid

Something took my father.

I didn’t see it happen, but I knew he had been abducted. My father had warned me about this. He and I had been out there alone for as long as I can remember, and we only had each other. Now I was alone.

When I awoke that morning, he wasn’t in his usual spot. He wasn’t anywhere. I waited a short time to see if he would return, but I knew deep down that something was wrong. I had to go find him.

We lived in a small clearing in the forest. I knew the surrounding area well enough to search within a wide radius of our home, if I had to. After scanning the perimeter, I spotted some tracks leading into the dense woods not far from me. They were just as he described: large footprints, long and narrow like ours, and unlike any woodland animal we’d ever seen. I felt an intense churning in my stomach at the sight of them. My worst fears had been realized.

Shaking with fear and anticipation, I walked in the direction of the first tracks. Strangely, they disappeared almost as soon as they had started. Within a few yards they faded into obscure patches of dirt that I couldn’t distinguish from anything else. I had a general sense of where they could be headed, but it was more unnerving to see the tracks disappear than to see any in the first place. How could they have vanished like that?

I continued to trek deeper into the woods. I didn’t have a plan, and that realization added to my fear. As I walked along, I wondered what I would do when confronted with the creature. I imagined running as fast as I could, or trying to surprise it with an ambush. If nothing else, I could hope to find my father lying somewhere and try my best to carry him back if he was still alive.

This whole situation was a nightmare. My father told me he had seen something at the fringes of the trees over the past few days. He seemed paranoid and overcautious about the slightest movements outside. He even brought up the rumors we had all heard about: the monster that walked upright through the forest. I chose to remain willfully ignorant. If I didn’t know about it, it couldn’t hurt me.

I trudged through the dense foliage without direction or reasoning. All I had to go on was a sense of where my father might be, and that sense was really just a wild guess. After what I assumed was miles of walking, I came across another sign of what happened. There in a thick trench of mud were two brown clumps of what I can only describe as animal hides that were tied up together. They were completely deformed and sunken into the mire. What in the world could have done this?

In a heightened state of anxiety once again, I increased my pace and continued forward with a total disregard for my own safety. I was closer to my father, I had to be. He was the only companion I had out here, and without him I would have nothing.

I nearly brought my strides to a run, hoping that moving forward would keep my better judgment from stopping me in my tracks. I knew I had little chance against the beast, but a little chance was more than enough if I could see my father again.

Time had flown by in my terror, and it was already getting dark. An entire day of searching brought me deep into unfamiliar territory. I thought the situation couldn’t be worse, until I was stopped by something even more shocking than what had already happened.

A bright light illuminated the forest around me and then shot up into the sky. It was white with a blueish glow and moved so erratically that I could only stare in stunned silence. In almost the same instant, it vanished.

I trembled violently and crouched in place. I was dealing with powers beyond what I could imagine. But after regaining my composure at some length, I remembered more words from my father.

“They say that sometimes when the creature is nearby, you’ll see the blinding lights. You’ll be frozen in place and lose track of where you are and what you were doing. Then they’ll flash into the night sky, and vanish.”

The rumors were more real than I ever dared to imagine. Seeing movement among the trees, a tall dark figure walking upright like us. Flashing, unpredictable lights that dart in and out of existence. And the inexplicable sounds the creature makes that put fear into the heart of any who hear it.

The sounds! Almost as soon as I remembered this detail, a blood-curdling yell emanated from just beyond where I was standing. My heart rate shot up to near fatal levels as I shuddered in horror. I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that the creature was nearby, and I could only hope that my father was too.

Only adrenaline propelled me forward in that moment. I sprang through the trees and dashed forward towards the source of the sound. I rushed to a clearing that was within sight and with the remaining daylight, I saw the outline of two figures on the ground. One was my father. The other was the beast.

I immediately ran to my father and began to help him up. There was blood on him, and he was clearly injured. The creature was mere feet away from us, but was not moving. My father must have incapacitated it somehow.

“What happened here?” I asked breathlessly.

My father sat up slightly and looked me in the eyes.

“It found us. But it’s over.”

He slowly stood up with a struggle as I helped him get to his feet. He took a large rock, limped over towards the thing, and dashed it one final time to ensure its defeat.

None of it was remotely believable. Nothing that happened that day was something that I could have ever imagined. And yet we stood there in silence with the creature between our feet.

“This is what the legends talked about. It’s real. And now it’s dead,” he said.

I walked my father over a good distance away from the scene. We sat for a few minutes and caught our breath. After making sure his injuries were not critical, I cautiously asked him to describe what had happened.

“It found our home and took me in the night. All I remember is seeing it approach, blacking out, and waking up much later in some kind of constraints. It dragged me behind it for miles.”

That’s why I couldn’t see many tracks along the way. My father had been dragged along behind the beast and it obscured the evidence of where they had gone.

“I saw some hides tied together on the way, did the creature have anything to do with that?”

“They say the creatures have those with them as a form of protection when they travel. They wrap them around their feet. Maybe it’s a superstition,” he explained. “I couldn’t tell what purpose it had for them, but it lost them while pulling me along. They became stuck in the mud and it must have decided it was easier to move on without them.”

“Okay,” I paused, “but what about the blinding lights? And the yell I heard right before I saw you?”

He looked utterly bewildered. “It had a stick with it that shot light out of the end. I’ve never seen anything like it. We heard you coming closer and it began to swing it around, back and forth and over its head. Maybe as some kind of warning.”

I looked at him, completely speechless.

“And when I regained enough strength to help myself in any way, I took the opportunity. I lunged at it while it was looking for you and was able to take it down. It screamed unlike anything we’ve ever heard.”

I nodded and looked to the ground. That scream would haunt me for the rest of my life.

“I didn’t believe you before. Everything you had warned me about. I’m sorry”, I said.

“Now you know,” he said coldly. Changing his demeanor, he looked up.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said.

I looked at him again and managed the smallest smile.

“Father, I think we’re the first of our kind to ever see one this close.”

“I think you’re right, son,” he said, and gave a smirk. “A real human. And we have the evidence with us right here.”