2002-10-09 � a scare in the daylight

who's been walking in these woods?

Having determined that her back is on the mend, I took the wolf to the park this morning, returning for the first time in two weeks.

The wolf was ecstatic, snuffling joyously in all those familiar nooks and crannies, prancing merrily through the brambles, toting fallen branches, delighted to be back and free to roam.

I, on the other hand, feel a little melancholy. A little wobbly, somehow.

Maybe it's the weather. It's cloudy and cool today, the sky heavy with foreboding blue-gray clouds and a certain kind of unnamed menace. The leaves have only begun to turn and yet it feels more like late November than golden October.

Maybe I'm coming down with something. My throat is a little sore, my head stuffed up and what I fear are the beginnings of a cold are emerging.

Maybe i've been think too much about snipers in Maryland picking off women vacumning their cars and thirteen-year-old boys heading off to school.

Maybe that explains the weird event in the woods today, or rather, my reaction.

We were on the path to the old Orchard when something rustled in the bushes directly to my right.

Something large. Something with mass. Something that sounded as if it scuttled sideways, like a crab.

I froze in my tracks, head cocked, listening intently. Up the path about a hundred yards, the wolf did the same.

Nothing. No sound. No movement.

I tried to peer past the thick foliage into the shadows, tried to see what was there. Nothing.

I started walking again and had only walked a couple feet when I heard it again.

A large, crashing, scuttling something. Something unseen. Something sinister. Something, I feared, with teeth.

And then it snorted. A deep, rattling, ugly, down-in-the-throat sound. Wet.

I stopped. I peered. I edged forward, ducking to try to see through into the brush. Nothing. No sounds, no movement.

A bird hopped down the branch of a distant sapling. An acorn dropped from a tree somewhere. I bent and bobbed, lifting some of the foliage away in an attempt to uncover the mystery source.

Again, nothing. All was still and quiet.

And then the snorting sounded again, from somewhere just in front of me. There was more heavy rustling, that insidious scuttling noise, and the hair prickled on the back of my neck. The wolf , beside me now and peering intently into the brush, made a low growling sound and I was officially freaked.

I bolted down the path behind the wolf, afraid to look back. Afraid something awful was on our heels, that something foul would emerge from the brush and rear in vicious attack.

We hightailed it back to the car and stood, panting beside the car for a couple of minutes. The wolf, of course, seemed to recover her equilibrium faster than I did. It was so unsettling. I can't describe it. I don't know what it was, the thing snorting and scuttling unseen in the woods today. I don't think it was a dog. It sounded bigger than a raccoon or a skunk or even a badger.

And I'm not easily frightened, especially in broad daylight. I'm usually quite unshakable.

But something was making those strange noises. Something sinister. Something unnatural.

Something I'm hoping we don't encounter again any time soon.

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