text: I'm a pretty realistic guy, I like to think I'm grounded in reality and listen to reason, but sometimes some things happen in the world that totally defy any way I can make sense of 'em. Strange, unexplainable things have happened to countless people since the dawn of man. I've lived a pretty normal country life- raising cattle, fishing, hunting, and loving the land. In my 28 years of life I thought I've read of and seen just about all there was 'round Tennessee, but it was all changed when I went fishing one day. I thank God every day I was able to escape the horrible nightmare made real because of that mystery. It all started with a cool spring morning I had planned a fishing trip on. I live on my own in the woods of northeastern Tennessee. There's a ranger station 'bout twenty miles south, but that's the closest to any other humans there are 'round here. I had planned to take my rod about eleven miles in northeast, to this remote lake deep in the woods. I always get great catches at this one lake. On this particular trip, I left my cabin on a Tuesday morning around 5:30. I stepped outside my door to a perfect and chilled morning. The only things breaking the serene silence were the occasional chirp of birds, or light rustling of wind through the trees. Though it was a bit of a cloudy day, I could see golden sunlight shimmering on the outlines of some clouds, through the trees, and the occasional dandelion seed or bug drifting in the air through the rays of warmth. I went behind my cabin to my backyard where I keep my dogs to check on 'em, give them their morning food. They were all asleep, except Mary, who was huddled in the southwestern corner of the yard, by my cabin and a big tree by the fence I built. It was like she was trying to press her body up against the corner of my cabin and the tree as much as she could. She looked scared, and was dartin' her eyes to random places in the woods. Mary was normally a nervous kinda dog, though sometimes she could be a good huntin' dog. I put her inside to make her feel better, I just assumed a wayward black bear had spooked her or somethin'. I had to pick up the poor girl and take her inside, she was shiverin' all over. No bears can get over or through the fence I built. Good 'n safe. I had built a good layer of concrete fer the ground of the fence so the dogs or nothin' else could dig under it, either. The cold morning air filled my lungs with confidence about the day, and I started down a well-worn path in the direction of the lake. About two or three miles away from the lake, I start to occasionally catch a faint whiff of a strange smell, something like a mix between some kind of ashes of something dead, and foreign spices or somethin'. I thought of how I had never smelled something like that before, not in the woods or anywhere else. I thought more about it as I strolled through the chilled morning woods, the early birds singing here and there. I pondered what it might be, because it creeped me out a bit, but I didn't let it distract me too much from my trip. As I neared the lake the strange smell became more frequent and apparent. When I came within sight of the woods line for the lake, I started to see thick fog, which is strange, since the thickest fog I've ever seen there is a few thin patches on the ground in the early mornings, but nothin' like this. I couldn't see much through this fog. I stepped through the woods and shrubs, through the woods line onto the small beaches of the lake. I briefly noted how eerily quiet it was that morning there. Even as I entered and prepared my canoe, with the rustling of oars, rods, and supplies, the sounds of preparation seemed muffled and quieter in some strange, unexplainable way. “Hmm, that's weird.” I said out loud, to test the sound of my voice there, but my voice still seemed its normal volume. The strange scent became more apparent around the lake, even though I still couldn't figure out where it was comin' from. After about an hour or so there, I had gotten used to the strange smell by then. Strangely I didn't get a single bite. I normally would've at least reeled in three or four by then, but the lake was eerily still and quiet, the morning fog quietly floating just above its glassy smooth surface. About an hour and a half or so later there is when the nightmare began.... I remember it so clearly. The terror of the experience etched it into my brain forever. None of it makes sense. I don't try to make sense of it anymore, I'll only lose more sleep over it. I don't ever even want to think about it ever again. Makes me stay up all night with my shotgun and dogs inside. I don't expect you to believe me, but what happened next is true as the sky is blue. I was actually feeling pretty comfortable and relaxed, reclining in my canoe with my fishing rod resting between my legs, hangin' off the side of my canoe, when I started to hear a strange, wet slapping noise off in the distance. Like a kid hittin' water with their open palm or somethin'. It had weird ploopin' sounds to it, like maybe it was a deer or something. That was my first thought. I wouldn't be too concerned about a deer swimming through the lake. I've never seen it happen, but I know that they do, and wouldn't be surprised to see it. Unfortunately, it wasn't a deer. Wish it was. It sounded like it started over on the northeastern bank of the lake, like whatever it was entered the lake and started to try to swim. I never heard it make any noise on the banks, or in the woods. The slappin' sounds were slow and random in pace. I sat up in my canoe and brought my line in and focused on the weird sound. It was made even weirder by the strange scent I had been smelling all day that day. I think it had something to do with that.... thing. I only smelled that scent that day. Never after that. Mary surely smelled it before I did. For a while, it sounded like whatever it was, was going in random directions, like it had no idea where it wanted to go. I was so concentrated on the weird sound that one moment I suddenly sneezed. The sounds stopped briefly, then to my horror they slowly got closer and closer to my canoe. Each slapping sound started getting a pattern to it, startin' to get about three to five seconds apart. I got weirded out pretty quick at that point, and decided to high tail it right outta there. I quickly closed up my tackle box, set my rod in the bottom of the canoe, and fished the kinda small oar out from under some nets. I repositioned myself and started to paddle back to shore, but I only managed to get a few strokes in, before a big splash shot up on the right side of my canoe and just 'bout shocked me half to death. The thing that entered the lake had somehow suddenly got right by my canoe, even though a couple moments before that I heard it makin' sounds 'bout 30 yards away. It shot up out of the water with a horrifying groan-like moaning kind of screaming. Sounded like a bear and a lion screaming at the same time. Looked like a bunch of melted piles of flesh of different animals stuck together, stretched in some places and lumped together in others, with a big gaping maw that stunk to high heaven. Instinct kicked in, and I kicked the thing as hard as I could in the face, or what I thought was a face, about two or three times, before realizing it didn't seem to do much good. Whatever it was swung a big lookin' arm around its right side and heaved the arm on the boat, which made it rock a lot. The big 'ol arm had a deer leg stickin' out of it that was wriggling and twitching. It had a couple of bear arms stickin' out of it, and to my horror, a few human ones too. All of it was somehow mushed and stuck together as one big lumpy abomination of an appendage. I didn't even try to get that good of a look at the thing, I was focused on survival and getting' the Hell outta there. The thing was lettin' out that smell I smelled from its mouth, 'cept it was a hundred times more putrid. It was so strong that I gagged and coughed at the stench. Its grip on the canoe was so strong it started to sink it and break it apart soon after it got ahold of it. I could hear my canoe quickly snapping here and there; I had the oar in my right hand, and hit it in the head with it, dropped it, and bailed. It seemed like the thing was pretty wrapped up in attacking the boat, like it thought I and the canoe were a single organism. I dove into the water and swam as fast as I had ever swam before in my life straight for shore. I heard the monster crushing and snapping my precious canoe apart, screaming horrible, low-pitched groans and moans through the fog. As soon as I got a footing on land, I turned in the water to see the monster slowly sinking back into the water towards me, chunks and parts of my canoe sticking out of it, looked like they were sinking into the thing's flesh.. Bubbles kept coming up from the water, what I assumed was the creature's wretched breath. I started running as fast as possible up the path through the woods to my cabin. I sprinted for miles then I sprinted some more. No way was I gonna look back wastin' time and get caught. I thought I heard the thing either get out of the water or was in the woods looking for me, or what it thought was the rest of the canoe, while I was running. I was too panicked and freaked out to really tell. When I made it to my cabin, my lungs were on fire and I was worn out from running constantly. I looked around and listened for it, but didn't hear anything. None of my dogs seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary, so that was a bigger relief for me. I got inside quick and had my shotgun at the ready for the next three days, didn't do anything without that shotgun within reach of my hands. I never saw of that creature again. Its smell lingered for about a day after the incident, but faded after that...