Hello all,
Originally I’m from West Virginia. I moved around between the Appalachian and the Midwest some as a kid.
Between the ages of 10-13 I lived in rule Kentucky in the foot hills of one of the oldest mountain ranges on the plant. I lived with my Dad and my Grams.
We lived in what we call a “holler”, think of it like a cul-de-sac in between a set of foothills. We lived in the middle of the neighborhood with nothing but family on both sides. No one lived across from us or behind us because of the foot hills. When I moved in, my grams had some rules I had to follow, at the time I chalked them up to hillbilly stranger danger. There were thing like don’t mess around with the wild animals, don’t go out into the woods alone, then they got a little weird, don’t whistle, if you here your name don’t answer and don’t go to it, and if you see someone in the woods you might know, no you didn’t and just come home.
This experience happened in August when I was 11. My Dad and I had a mowed path through the tall grass and berry bush’s to the left of the double wide we lived in. We camped out there a lot because it was close enough that we could check on my Grams.
Now when your in the woods things are louder then you think. You have animal life, bugs chattering, wind through the trees and grass. There was a stream that ran along the road you could easily hear. That night we added the camp fire to that list. My Dad decided to go back up to the house about a quarter mile to get more beer and to check on Grams. Before he left he told me not to mess with the fire. After a few minutes of watching the fire, things started to get quiet. Like real quiet. The wind had all but stopped, bug and animal sounds were all gone and the stream sounded like it was miles away. I was getting uncomfortable even though I’ve been left at the camp ground before like this.
Then I started to smell and taste it. It was in the back of my throat out of no where. This awful metal tang. After a few more moments of dread my Dad came back. He was mad right away, said he could small burning metal coming up the trail. He accused me of tossing beer cans in the fire. I told him a didn’t and even pointed to the fire to prove it. He said there was a storm coming in and we needed to get back home and he let it go. We left the tent and started our way back.
Now the very cool, but very weird thing about lightning in woods this dense is when the lighting hits it lights up everything like the middle of the day, well up until the front of the trees. After the first set of trees it’s pitch black. There are no street lights and unless you have lights on your property it’s completely black.
So it’s pitch black, lightly raining and other than the dim lights from the house windows, there’s nothing. I’m eating watermelon as one dose in August in the mountains when the first clap of lighting hits. Everything is as bright as it can be. After the second passes, it’s black as pitch aging.
Next clap of lighting comes and that’s when I kind of see it. On the porch, past the yard, over the stream, past the road and the ditch’s on either side just past the first line of trees I could see the silhouette of it. Then it goes dark. This is also when I can’t start to taste that same awful burning metal. I’m not really sure what I saw so I just kind of stay still. It’s a few moments before the lighting hits aging. The figure is now closer. Standing side by side to the trees. Then it’s back aging. I’m standing now. Not sure what to do.
It’s been 20 years, to this day, and I’ve tried, but could never fully describe what I saw. This things head wasn’t proportioned to its body. The arms were to long and the torso didn’t fit right. It was like if you asked a blind person to draw what a person looked like. It just didn’t look correct.
Once the lighting hit aging, the thing is standing in the middle of of the road.
Not wanting to see this thing get any closer I go inside. My Grams is doing dishes and ask why I’m inside. I tell her I think I saw something. She almost immediately gets my Dad on his feet, telling him to shut and lock all the windows and doors. My Dad, vaguely drunk obeys.
That night I sleep with her. The next day we discover the tent door is torn off. It didn’t look like an animal, things weren’t cut or shredded but looked like someone took and pulled it apart. My uncle who lived a mile or so up had all 8 chickens killed. Heads gone, no blood.
The next few weeks all the kids had to wait for the bus with an adult. My dad had to be late for work for almost 3 weeks. Anytime I tried to talk about it I just had the subject change. I just figured I was a kid and it wasn’t important or real. It wasn’t until years latter I finally understood.
I was in my early 20’s and some cousins were in town for Halloween. As I was telling this story my aunt get irate with me saying “don’t you tell them that, don’t you put that evil on them”. After I couldn’t help but think back on all the times I tried to talk about it and how I was shunned. My kid mind not realizing it wasn’t as simple as a subject change, but then actively shushing me. Once I started dipping my toes in Reddit I realized there was a name for this fucking thing, the same name my anti had called it that day at the party and other people have seen it. The Goatman.
What bothers me the most is how to this day I couldn’t describe any feature nor have I ever tasted that awful burning metal taste.
So friends, if you ever find yourself in the foot hills of Kentucky please remember my Grams rules.