You could feel the earth literally shake with every running step it took.
In 1989 they spent a whole day mudding in the Royal Palm mudflats in Palm Beach County, near where they grew up in West Palm Beach, along with their partner, an older sibling and about seven friends. As everyone else headed home, the partner drove through one last 'small' mud hole for fun. It was not small. The truck sank, and it stayed sunk.
They were pregnant with their first, so they steered while the other nine pushed. For more than five hours they pushed, and that truck didn't budge. With nobody else left on the flats, they gave up and decided to wait for someone to pull them out in the morning. Three of them squeezed into the cab and the rest settled down in the bed.
At about 5 a.m., while they were still talking, they heard a rumbling growl and told everyone to hush. Then everyone heard it, getting louder and angrier. The partner grabbed the big KC spotlight from behind the seat, plugged it in and lit up the night.
Something behind a big bush ducked down and moved. Then it got angry. It stood straight up, let out a roar they can still hear more than thirty years later, jumped the bush and charged. They could feel the ground shake with every step. It was eight or nine feet tall and broad, like a really huge man covered in long, clumped hair, not fur, and the spotlight showed every bit of it. The smell was rotten and sour, and being pregnant made it so much worse.
What happened next, they put down to adrenaline. The two guys in the cab jumped out and shoved against the door frames with the engine running, and the seven in the back piled out screaming and pushed. With a sucking pop they still remember, the truck came free. Everybody threw themselves back in and they tore through the tight wooded turns like the devil himself was chasing them.
At a gas station on the main road they all sat in a row with their backs to the wall and didn't say a word. They called their parents and got dropped off one by one, still silent. The two siblings didn't talk about that night for about twenty-five years. When they finally did, and slowly brought the others in, it turned out every one of them remembered it exactly the same way.