It started to sound like multiple voices howling, yelling, and at some points laughing.
When the pandemic cost the teller their job in 2020, they went back to Humboldt County, where they'd lived for seven years in their twenties, to stay with friends and pick up seasonal farm work around Willow Creek. By October they had been there since July, and they went on a dinner date with another farm worker from just down the road.
After dinner the pair drove to a pull-off on a rocky beach on the Trinity River, planning to lie out under the stars. The teller's car was packed with camping gear. It started to rain, likely the first rain of the season, so they waited in the car for about an hour. When it stopped they decided to sleep there, folded the back seats down to make a bed, and set their things outside on the gravel: a tote of expensive camping gear, his backpack and his guitar.
Around 11:45 they were sitting in the back with the hatch open, facing the river, wrapped in blankets and talking. The fog was thick and there wasn't a light anywhere. From the rocky beach down by the water came a low, guttural growl.
It went on for about thirty seconds. At first it sounded almost like a didgeridoo, but it was clearly a voice, a gargling growl. Both of them were hit by a wave of fear at once. The teller found tears running down their face and said, "That's not human." The date yelled into the dark, "Hey, what are you doing down there?"
The growl stopped for a second. Then whatever it was screamed, a sound the teller had never imagined hearing. They slammed the hatch and lay down shaking. The sounds grew louder and multiplied into what seemed like several voices, high and low, howling, yelling and at times almost laughing. The teller compares it to a cross between a gorilla and a hyena. Then the sounds were all around the car. It felt like taunting. The voices seemed to go back and forth as if talking to each other, and there were loud thuds they couldn't place.
It seemed to last forever, though the teller thinks it was about five minutes. Then one of them was right at the rear passenger window, and they both screamed. The date shouted at the teller to drive. They dug the keys out of the blankets, scrambled into the driver's seat and, shaking so badly they could barely press the pedal, pulled away. The headlights came on, but they never saw anything.
They parked outside the friend's house and lay awake until sunrise, going over it again and again. Was it a prank? If so, it would have needed some kind of equipment. And whatever was out there had a presence. The date wanted to call the police.
In the morning they drove back expecting everything to be gone. Nothing had been touched: not the gear, not the guitar, not the cooler or the beer. There were no tracks either. The teller says they still dream about that night. They are grateful they were in the car and not a tent, and glad someone else was there, because they know how it sounds.