I realized I hadn't taken a single breath.
The teller is a hunter, a fisherman and a first responder, trained to stay in control. He owns about ten acres up a holler in West Virginia: his house, the family junkyard, and a ridge that rises behind them for about a mile. Between the backyard and the junkyard is a strip of grass more than five feet tall. Every month or so he has to chase scrap thieves out of the junkyard, shouting the whole way.
In late August 2013 he got home from the late shift and, as usual, did some chores. At about 4:30 a.m. he flipped on the porch light and went out the back door to empty the cat's litter box into the tall grass. To his left, about thirty yards off and beyond the light, he heard the familiar thudding of a small group of deer running off. He startles them most nights.
He walked down the twelve steps, bent over and emptied the box at the edge of the grass. As he straightened up, something directly in front of him, no more than seven feet away inside the grass, stood up at the same time.
He wasn't worried. He assumed it was another thief, and he was already putting on his sternest face to start yelling. Then a large, dark head rose out of the grass, and then shoulders, and it kept rising. The three-quarter moon was behind it. It blotted out part of the ridge and part of the moon. He judges it at eight or nine feet tall and three times as wide as he is. He could make out no features, only that the moonlight bleeding around its edges showed hair or fur.
He froze, still holding the litter box. In his head he was screaming at himself to run, that it could just reach out and grab him, but his body wouldn't move. He has had three bear encounters, including a bluff charge, and never been afraid like this.
Then something arm-shaped swung across the top of the grass, and the shape narrowed. It took four or five of its steps before he understood it had turned and was walking away from him, clearly on two legs, toward the ridge. He couldn't move until it reached the foot of the slope.
Then he ran up the steps and inside, still clutching the litter box. His hands shook so badly he could barely work the deadbolt. Only when he told himself to breathe so he could open the gun safe did he take an enormous gasp and realize he hadn't breathed since he stood up. He took out his rifle and stood ten feet from the back door, aimed at it, waves of nausea washing over him, sure it would come back. He thinks it had been stalking the deer, and he had ruined its ambush.
It never came back. It made no sound except its footsteps, and he smelled nothing. He says he can't claim it was Bigfoot, only that it was no bear and no man. He had never told anyone. He says he used to find the idea of Sasquatch fun, and now he can't bear anything to do with it.