The following is a transcript of our interview with Kim Clara Masters, dated 15/6/2019:
“I want to say, before we go any farther, that I’m not one of those tinfoil hat wack jobs or hucksters that usually give cryptid sightings, I’m a real researcher. I’ve read books, and I know there’s a ‘I want to believe’ patch on my bag, but I swear, I’m just as skeptical as you.
We know there are animals out there that we haven’t documented, and we’ve caught cryptids before: the giant squid, the platypus… everyone thought those were fake, but they were real! What I’m trying to say is how hard is it to believe that I might have found something too?
Don’t look at me like that! I’m not crazy!
It happened while I was tracking in the woods near Port Coquitlim, I’d been following deer spoor all day, and decided to set up camp atop a hill and cook up some dinner. It was instant ramen, if you have to know. I ate a quiet meal and got ready for bed.
What?
So maybe I had something to drink, what’s your point? A couple sips of vodka never made anyone see a monster! A couple sips of vodka never gave anyone evidence!
Sorry, yes, I understand.
Yes, I digress:
I was just settling down with a book when I heard it: a soft rustle near my tent. I grab my camera, of course, and my lantern, and peaked out. It was a deer, obviously, nothing special about that. I managed to get a picture before it leapt off. The way deer move is weird, isn’t it? Like a marionette on strings?
Anyway, I setting back into bed, and not long after, I dozed off.
Have you ever heard a dying deer? Hell of a thing to wake up to.
It’s a sort of grunting, yelling sound. Awful, awful.
I didn’t move an inch in my sleeping bag, listening. It wasn’t right outside my tent, but it was close. In the moment I wasn’t sure what animal it was coming from, but I knew it was in pain. Animals don’t to cry like that while they’re happy. I listened until the wailing stopped, maybe ten minutes. I swear, it felt like an hour. Do you see my hand? Do you see how it’s trembling just thinking about it?
When I got the nerve up, I grabbed my lantern and stepped out. I’m not stupid, I know about mountain lions and stuff, but in the moment all I could think of was tracking that sound. You’re going to laugh, but I thought it might be a not-deer or something. I needed to know.
It wasn’t hard to find the source, a clearing just down the hill, next to a ravine. I saw the deer, that made me run back to the tent for my camera. It was hardly a Sasquatch, but dead deer are interesting enough for someone with my background in ecology.
I could tell from a distance that it wasn’t a natural death. I tell you, it was slaughtered. A ring of blood seeped out from its torso and it was legitimately ripped open. Getting closer I could see that the ribs were cracked inwards, like they’d been beaten in with force, and the insides were… well, on the outside.
I’m not a fucking idiot, I tell you! I didn’t get within twenty feet of the corpse, and I wasn’t going to risk encountering the cougar, or whatever it was that did this.
After snapping a couple pictures with my night cam, I decided to head back to camp. But the second I turned away I heard movement in the brush. I whipped around, swinging my lantern at the foliage. Two eyes reflected back. The tapetum lucidum was blue, like Caribou’s in the winter months. That gave me pause, because I know that cougar’s tapetum lucidum is green or yellow. I tell you, I know my shit. That wasn’t a cougar.
I stood dead still, watching, trying to figure out what I was seeing. It was summer, so a caribou’s eyes should be golden, and besides, Caribou never come down this far south.
As my eyes adjusted, I was able to make out a faint shape, like a crouching humanoid, but bigger. Its digits were long and grasping like a monkey’s. It was maybe seven feet tall, i don’t know, it was dark.
I thought it might be B’gwus– Sasquatch– so I slowly reached for my camera. I didn’t take my eyes off it, laying on the trigger and snapping as many photos as I could within a second or two. It didn’t move.
I wanted to look at the photos right then, but like I said, I’m not stupid. Returning the camera to my bag, I began backing away.
I stepped on uneven ground and tripped, falling to the ground.
More importantly, I broke eye contact.
As soon as I looked away, it started to charge, galloping across the ravine on all fours. From then, under the moonlight, I could see it was hairless.
I struggled backwards up the hill, but it was hopeless. It overtook me.
It’s huge, shovel-like palms pinned me down.
I kicked, I tell you, I fought. I don’t know what it was, but I wouldn’t let it kill me.
It was muscular, strong, it overpowered my attempts.
Holding me down with one fist it raised the other, preparing to crush my ribs in like with the stag.
I gripped the strap of my camera bag and swung it as hard as I could. It bashed the things face, hard. With the momentary distraction, I scrambled back, and knowing it was pointless to try running up the steep hill, I took off past it, towards the dead deer.
I nearly tripped over it, running, running, I just took off. Some primal force pushed me to run harder and further than I thought possible. I knew the thing was fast, I knew it would catch me.
I threw myself into a crawling blackberry, ignoring the thorns as I dug into the safety of the bramble.
I didn’t know how advanced its olfactory organs were, but I wasn’t going to risk it– I told you, I’m not stupid! I’m not crazy! I grabbed fistfuls of dry dirt, rubbing it up my arms and face.
I lay dead still. Praying the dirt would hide the stench of my sweat, and the blood spewing from the blackberry scratches.
I don’t know how long I was there. Hours, maybe? I don’t know what time our encounter happened, but I stayed put until sunrise. I’m not ashamed to say I urinated on myself, not willing to risk moving even an inch.
I waited, the thing could by corpuscular, I didn’t move until the sun was well into the sky.
Getting out of the brush was a lot more painful than getting in, without the pumping adrenaline I could feel every thorn.
When I got back to the ravine, the deer was gone, but I couldn’t care less, I ran for the hill and grabbed the camera bag. Smashed to pieces. It smashed the camera to pieces. All my records, my evidence, gone.
I returned to my tent, it was unharmed. I got changed and packed up, breakfast be damned. I walked all day and well into evening before I reached the nearest road. I’m lucky some poor local found me before I passed out.
They took me to hospital. I don’t remember much. They treated my infected cuts and I ended up in psych for a couple days.
Eventually I was released, they offered me a taxi home, but I had more important errands to run. I went straight to the first drugstore to open and tried to salvage the SIM card, but no such luck.
I’m not crazy, okay? It was there! Look in the bag, look at the camera! I might have lost the photographic evidence, but it was there!
I can’t live like this. I’ve been back almost three days and I can’t stand it… Everyone looks at me like I’m crazy! I need solid evidence. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I need to prove that it exists
Photographs of Masters’ damaged camera and scratches have been archived, along with records of their hospital stay. It is unknown what happened to Masters following our interview.