Audio
Something in the Woods
Transcript
Start of recording
Woman 1: “What’s some of the scariest things you’ve heard about, happening in the Batestown area?”
Charlie Reid: “Oh my, lord. I told you. I could tell you. I don’t wanna tell you, though.”
Woman 1: “Oh, okay”
Charlie Reid: “It’s – it’s – I was terrified. Well, I’ll tell you. There was this thing – are we still on?”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “Me and my brother – I must’ve been… seventeen or eighteen.”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “Cause he was still in school. I had just got out of school, and we used to night hunt, for deer. This was illegal at the time but this is a true story, and I’m telling you the truth, so… um. We went, uh, we would go out in the woods and, and be mindful this was just to eat; this was food.”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm, yeah”
Charlie Reid: “There wasn’t, you know, selling it to somebody. Okay, so we did that. Anyway, this particular day, up until that point – I’ve hunted in those woods all my life. Been in those woods, never heard anything like that. This particular day, we went into the woods it was, uh, it was January – I wanna say near the first, second or third – and it was unseasonably warm that day. Cause you had a warm – when he got off the bus he had a short-sleeve shirt and, uh… it was warm. And it got colder that night. So we went across the street from my mom’s house and there was this little… brook… that’s where the deer were coming at night, and, drink the water. Well, so all we needed – I had a shotgun, single barrel shotgun – and he had the light, and we just walked – and we’d just wait… it was dusk; you could still see. And we just – we never kept the light on, we just sat right there and we’d talk a little bit and twenty minutes later it’d be pitch dark.”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “Okay, so it was dark, and we thought we heard what was a deer coming towards us breaking grass. So, and I tapped him I said ‘there he is right in front of us cut the light on.’ And when he cut the light on, well, it was cold now, it was warm earlier and guess what happens when you’re by the water? Fog [laughs]. Couldn’t see a lick in front of us. And something screamed out – to this day, as – and then – that was the last day I’ve ever been in those woods – that particular day. Uh, it screamed and uh, I’ve hunted up there all my life. I’ve heard foxes make sounds, I’ve heard owls, I’ve heard bobcats… This thing had the most horrible, it was like a woman child scream to it… and we couldn’t see it and it was like breaking brushes coming towards us and I was like ‘oh my lord.’ So, we got back-to-back and we walked out of there and this thing – and like I said it’s fog all around us – it circled us as we were walking out and I’m like – I was too scared to shoot any direction cause it just circled and kept screaming. And uh, when we got back to our house, you know, my mom looked at me my dad - my dad looked at us and said ‘what in the world is wrong with you?’ he said, ‘you look like you seen a ghost’ and I was like ‘Daddy, there’s something out in those woods I’ve never heard of.’ And, so he told us we were crazy; he said there’s nothing out there, and, uh, we didn’t hear it anymore but we were scared to go back. We didn’t go back hunting for a long time, so… we got the nerve up maybe three weeks later and we went near where we could almost see the house, and we were back behind the house this time and we were spottin’ rabbits. This is still illegal but we did this. And you’d see a rabbits eyes at night with the flashlight and you’d shoot ‘em and you got a rabbit. Anyway, this thing screams out again. My brother takes, off, leaves me. He’s got the light and I’ve got like a single-barreled shotgun and I’m running – I’m like ‘wait a minute!’ – and I, I was mad at this time; I wanted to find out what this thing is. And I’m like ‘I don’t think this is a good idea; I don’t have no light, I can’t see this thing, it’s screaming’ and we get back and… I… get back to the house – my father, he comes out with his shotgun and he says ‘Where is this thing at?’ and I tell him I said ‘Daddy, it’s right back there by Mr. [Mulvey’s] house.’ And uh, there’s an old house – abandoned house – by our house, and you could hear this thing kicking up cans. We were shining flashlights; we couldn’t see a thing. You could hear – and all of a sudden it was like, this is during the time where you didn’t have to lock, uh, tie your dog up – must’ve been twenty dogs come right – and this thing walked right past, by our mailbox, and crossed the road, and like twenty dogs come up barking. I mean, ready to tear something up and lock brakes stops all of them, and it crossed over. Couldn’t see it. And this thing crossed over. And they didn’t go anywhere near it. So…”
Woman 1: “Hmm”
Charlie Reid: “Then, I called my brother, Walter, he came up there and we - and he had this big high-powered rifle and he was like ‘what is it?’ and I’m like, and I told him what it was and, and then it made the sound and – his first time hearing it – first time my father heard it, my mom heard it and they, they’ve lived there all their life – never heard anything like that, ever.”
Woman 1: “Wow”
Charlie Reid: “And uh, course everybody’s trying to tell me what it was and I was like ‘okay, whatever’ and we were imagining things. But it was, it was scary. And uh, so my brother sat up there and we were gonna sit in the front yard, see if this thing came back. He must’ve sat there for two or three hours so then his wife called him and says – cause he lived maybe a thousand yards from my mom’s house on the other side of the road… Something had taken their dog and broke its back and threw it underneath – and you can ask Walter [indecipherable] – underneath of his, uh crawl space. And we took the dog to the vet - it was paralyzed – and the vet said a cow or something had kicked this dog and paralyzed it. And he said ‘well how could it get under the house’ the dog couldn’t get under the house, it’s paralyzed. He said ‘well something threw him under there.’ [woman 1 exclaims] And I could go on and on, instances, but uh, even Mr. Jimmy, who was one of the oldest hunters up there… He used to tease us, and he says ‘y’all you crazy. [indecipherable] crazy’ and so – and then he heard it one night when he was coon hunting he says ‘there’s something out there.’ "
Woman 1: “Hmm”
Charlie Reid: “And uh, that particular time, uh, I don’t know why I took an interest into it but I was reading Potomac News and there was a, uh… on the marine corps base down here by Russell Road – that’s where they keep all of their, um, ordinance. You know… and you can’t go in there… not, you’re not allowed there. Anyway, an MP described, to the tee, to the newspaper that something was doing this screaming and like a woman and a child – and he shot at it and they, they got him out of the military and they thought he was going crazy. And that happened; that was in the newspaper.”
Woman 1: “Wow, when was that?”
Charlie Reid: “The Potomac News. In the 80s. 80s, had to be eight – no, seventy… three? Around ’73 – something like that?”
Woman 1: “Hmm”
Charlie Reid: “It was in the newspaper. There was like a little thing, like, you know ‘Marine discharged for firing [indecipherable]’ or what do you call it ‘claims he heard, um, animal voices’ or something like that. It was only like a little bit but I saw it.”
Woman 1: “[indecipherable] has anyone ever figured out what it is?”
Charlie Reid: “Not to this day. It has – of course nobody’s heard it anymore either. It, it, it was making noises like that for about fifteen-twenty years, and then it stopped.”
Woman 1: “Hmm”
Charlie Reid: “Yeah”
Woman 2: “And no one ever figured out – did you ever see any footsteps, or…?”
Charlie Reid: “Nothing.”
Woman 2: “Wow”
Charlie Reid: “That’s god’s truth. Freakiest… and from that day, I never went back in those woods, except for a couple times, uh, with a friend, and uh, when I used to go in – now, you’re talking to somebody that used to be joy free, going in the woods…”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “And now, I mean, I couldn’t go in those woods now the hair on the back of my neck would stand up. It, it freaked me out. It freaked me out.”
Woman 1: “Mm. Did anybody have any idea what that was?”
Charlie Reid: “No. I’ve heard people say, uh, it’s a coyote or it’s a bobcat or a panther or something like that.”
Woman 1: “What about a Bigfoot?”
Charlie Reid: “I – I contacted someone; there’s a Bigfoot website.”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “And uh, supposed to be some sightings here in Virginia. I wanted to talk – the guy never called me back so I’m like ‘pshh, whatever.’ But-”
Woman 1: “Cause you know in the sound that they play, you know, if you watch any of the, um, TV specials-”
Charlie Reid: “Mm hmm”
Woman 1: “The sound that they play…”
Charlie Reid: “Uh huh”
Woman 1: “Has kind of that…”
Charlie Reid: “Yeah. [phone rings] But you know, I watched programs and laughed at people and I said ‘They’re crazy. They’re making this up. The UFOs…’ but I lived that one. And let me tell you something, there, there is no doubt in my mind that whatever that is is unexplained or is something that mutated with something.”
Woman 1: “Yeah”
Charlie Reid: “Yeah… and one time I thought it was an owl.”
Woman 1: “Mm hmm”
Charlie Reid: “But, uh, no I want to libraries; I heard all the owls… every known owl [laughs] there was nothing near it so I was like ‘ugh, okay.’ So, um… I’m a true believer that it’s something that mated with something, up in there. Uh that’s just my belief. And you got all those shafts up in there; God only knows what could be hidden in those shafts. I don’t know.”
Woman 2: “Now when it walked across the street, then ducks, you didn’t – you still didn’t see anything?”
Charlie Reid: “Didn’t see it. We – nobody’s ever seen it.”
Woman 2: “Nobody’s ever seen it.”
Charlie Reid: “Closest we’ve ever come to seeing it was the, the night it was foggy and that thing screamed around us and made like a big circle. And it was ter– and it is – and the guy was telling me ‘it’s gotta be an owl’ and I said ‘how many owls can tear tree branches up like a big - Bigfoot coming out of the – out of the thing?’ I said ‘how many can do that?’ I said ‘how many bobcats can-’ Bobcats will run from you. They will stand on top, they will go up in the trees but they will go. They will stand there, as long as you don’t see ‘em, and they will jump out of trees and they’ll scream on their way away from you but not at you. You know, I said ‘and a panther-’ I would know, I said ‘panther, I’ve heard panther sounds and it aint – and it’s not a panther.’ This thing actually, you know, freaked me out and, and my brother – In fact, I uh, when I was in Spotsylvania, you know as a police officer, the kids wanted you, you know, to bring your parents to the, to the, do a show-and-tell. You had to tell them what you do or tell a story. So I said, ‘I can tell you about the thing I heard in the woods or a police story, what do you want?’ And they wanted to hear the thing in the woods and, and when I finished telling, all the kids’ mouths were open and one little girl was terrified. And I’m like [stammers] you know, and that happened. So… But that’s a true story. God’s truth. And, I’m not the fearful type – and I was kind of mad because I wanted to know what this thing was.”
Woman 1: “Sure.”
Charlie Reid: “And uh, you know you can ask my brother, he’ll tell you – Walter will tell you, cause he – everybody used to think that we were just, you know, making it up or, or imagining things until they heard it and they were like ‘I’ve never heard anything like it.’ "
Woman 2: “Wasn’t it Walter that told us there were bears out there? That he didn’t… yeah…”
Woman 1: “Well, he mentioned bears but be also implied that there was something else out there-”
Woman 2: [overlapping] “Yeah”
Woman 1: “that...”
Charlie Reid: “He didn’t say what though, did he?”
Woman 1: “He didn’t say what… He said if we come back…”
Charlie Reid: “He’s – he’s a little apprehensive like I am about saying it because I don’t want people to think I’m crazy. You know, like…”
Woman 1: “Well, look…”
End of recording
Description
Listen to an oral history from a descendent of a park family.
“Something screamed out. That was the last day I have ever been in those woods.”
Interviewee: Charlie Reid Interviewer(s): Arvilla Jackson and Sue Taylor
Date of Interview: 6/8/05
Duration
11 minutes, 36 seconds
Credit
Justine Rothbart
Date Created
08/02/2011
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