“I used to work in the city, and our company covered surrounding towns, including a couple of hundred thousand people with suburbs, woods, and a river valley. We had to respond to the fringe of our coverage area in another town one night, and after almost getting there, we wound up being canceled by first responders en-route. It was 4:30 AM on a Wednesday in autumn. The ride back to civilization is only a 20-minute trip, but it’s a long, straight road with dim streetlights and thick forest on both sides. I was riding in the passenger seat, mentally preparing to go home after a long night, when my partner asked, ‘Do you see that?’ and began to slow down.
I saw it only one hundred feet or so in front of us. A dog. A large dog. A large dog that’s silver/gray with little tufts atop of the ears, walking away from us ever so slowly. That beast had to be four feet at the shoulders. My partner slows to a crawl, thinking it’s hurt and maybe it has a tag or collar. Surely such a magnificent beast has an owner.
As we slowed to a crawl, something happened that I will never unsee. We’re creeping at about five miles per hour and gaining, I was on the passenger side, and the creature was on my side of the road. The plan was for him to put flashers on and for me to whistle or hoot to see if our new friend would leave in fear. We closed the hundred-foot gap to around 25-30 feet.
As we closed our distance, my partner and I simultaneously got a sense of dread. My blood turned cold. The giant dog stood up. The beast’s shoulders would put any football player’s to shame. It was a massive animal. My partner stopped the truck. The beast cocked its head ever so slightly to the left, revealing a single yellow eye shine, then turned to my side (right side) of the woods and bolted. It was over as soon as it started.
The thing that has always bothered me though is that little head tilt. I got the sense of dread before he stood up, it was almost telekinetic, if that makes any sense. I just got this feeling the dog was trying to say, ‘I know you mean well, move on, and I was never here.’
Then it vanished. We have a few black-bears around here, and they’re like big dumb bulbous puppies who are adorable to view from a safe distance. Whatever this mass of muscle and fur was, it was the wrong color and shape, and it had a lot of weight to be a black bear. My partner in this story doesn’t like to talk about the story much, but insisted, ‘It wasn’t any sort of bear.’
World’s freaky man, could have easily been sleep deprivation. But it’s stuck with me.”
