From Barbara

From Barbara:

"In 1961, my friends and I were about eleven years old. We were camping with my father down by the old brook just outside of town the day after a horrible storm had hit. It was inside of a large forest made up of mostly evergreens in western Ontario. My little sister, Marsha had gone off exploring, she was only six. My friends and I were right behind her before one of my friends got the leg of her overalls caught in a fallen branch that looked like it came off of a lightning-struck tree. It cut her leg open pretty badly and she started crying, but I knew that if my sister kept going, she'd get lost. I told my other friends to go back to the camp site and get my father to help them. Meanwhile, I chased after Marsha. I called her name and I didn't know where she had gone to. I was eventually getting desperate and I could hear my dad and the other girls shouting my name. I even heard my brother looking for me and calling me, but they were all far behind. I remember turning around to tell them I was okay, then I tripped backwards and fell into a puddle. I was soaking wet, and when I stood up, my nose was suddenly filled with this nauseating stench. It was like the dead porcupine my Uncle Jim had found under his porch in the summer of '59. It was sickly sweet, but salty like sweat. Suddenly, I felt Marsha grappling my dripping wet hand. She said something that sounded like “suhdeeder” – almost like “sedate”, except with an “e” sound instead of the “a” sound and an “r” at the end. She kept repeating it, and I didn't know what it meant. It sounded like baby-talk to me. I can remember asking her what she was saying and she pointed towards a dark cluster of trees just beyond the puddle. I heard a slow rattling noise and between the trees stood this dark figure. It had a something like a beak, but I couldn't tell if it was part of its face or a mask. It was gripping the tree bark with its long, winding fingers. It cocked its head to the side and began twisting its long limbs in a sort of dance-like manner as they hung from its shoulders. I screamed, turned around and ran with Marsha back to the camp site. We never told our father what we saw.

Marsha recently passed away due to heart problems. I never talked to her about the incident since. I only specifically remembered it as of late from finding a diary entry from that camping trip. Though, I can still sometimes make out the face of the thing in the woods during my nightmares. I think it's one of those sights that personify childhood fears of boogeymen. In the diary, I called it the “seed eater”, which I guess, is the best way of translating Marsha's babbling. I wonder if it ever came back in her nightmares too."