Nightfall With a Dogman

Before you begin your road trip, ask yourself, do you really need five full suitcases?

With the 2026 Kia Sportage X Pro's class-leading cargo space, you'll have room for what you

need.

Find out more at your local Kia dealer today.

Keep the adventure going.

Kia, movement that inspires.

Call 800-333-34K here for details.

Always drive safely and obey all traffic laws, comparison space on second-row legroom and

cargo space behind second-row seats in the subcompact SUV class, according to Kia

segmentation as of October 2025.

Warning.

The following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with

F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.

For Lauren, even.

Like your efforts are futile.

And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with

candidates who are just... fine.

F***.

Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that.

And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free.

Find zippercruder.com slash zip.

With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations.

Because we find the right people for your roles fast.

Which is our absolute favorite F word.

In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate

within the first day.

Fantastic.

So, whether you need to hire 4, 40, or 400 people, get ready to meet first-rate talent.

Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip.

Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.

Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled

with F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.

For Lauren, even.

Like your efforts are futile.

And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with

candidates who are just... fine.

F***.

Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that.

And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip.

With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your

roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word.

In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate

within the first day.

Fantastic.

So, whether you need to hire 4, 40, or 400 people, get ready to meet first-rate talent.

Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip.

Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.

I'm from Southeast Texas, and my encounter happened on land bordering the big, thicket

national preserve, among the next's river.

We described the swan plans of this area in Steve Lilly number 13.

My encounter happened 40 miles away in a small town called Spurger.

I've been in the woods hunting and fishing all my life and never had a strange occurrence

until 2024 during the deer season.

It was both season in December, and I was spending as much time in the woods as I could.

It was a rare year when it snowed here in our area, and I wanted to bag a deer.

I slipped out into the woods at 2pm and started walking to a big flat that I knew of, where

I thought some deer and hogs might be, and when I got there the woods were dead silent.

I didn't think much of it, so I just sat down and I waited.

15 minutes later, maybe a hundred yards away on the other side of the flat, I caught

movement and I readied my Mossberg Model 500.

I assumed I was looking at a hog because it was low to the ground and dark reddish brown.

All of a sudden this thing stood up on two legs.

It was at least eight feet tall, and I was petrified.

I had always believed in Bigfoot and had listened to your podcast, but I couldn't believe

one was standing right in front of me, only a hundred yards away.

Just when I thought the creature was about to leave, I heard a loud whoop to my right.

Then I watched the creature in front of me lean his head back, cup his mouth, and whoop

back.

This scared the crap out of me and I started running.

I'm a state qualifier in the one mile run on the track and in the 3.2 mile run across

country, but I have never run as fast as I did in those woods that day.

I made it to my four wheeler and I left, and I have never been back since.

Thanks for listening to my story, I'm a huge fan.

Thank you, man.

Thank you for being a fan and sending the letter in.

This is a teenage boy who sent this in.

I hope this was a good story.

Thank you very much, sir.

All right, all right.

Welcome to the podcast, I appreciate you clicking on the video, I really do appreciate

it.

Got a couple of things to say here first.

My brother works with a man, I was in my brother's office not too long ago.

And this guy said, dude, are you, are you a cam buttoner and I said, yeah, he said, you

tell those stories on YouTube and a podcast, don't you, I said, yeah, he said, my grandfather

listens to your podcast as much as he can, really likes it.

And I said, well, what's his name?

He told me.

So I wanted to say hi to Len Cornelius, Len is a champion archer.

He's about my age and he's had to put down shoot the bow because he's got back problems

and I hear he's going to have to have his knee replaced pretty soon.

I don't do this hardly ever.

I don't say hi to people like, you know, there's, I don't know, I just don't think of it

or whatever, but this man lives right here in my town.

I want to say hi to Len, I haven't met Len, but I hope to meet him someday.

Anyway, Len, thanks for listening to the podcast, I really appreciate you.

Okay, the other thing I want to tell y'all is or ask you, if y'all tried the new hamburger

at McDonald's called the big arch, I'm not a big McDonald's fan.

I kind of like their fish sandwiches.

I like their French fries, my wife likes the frappe, the caramel frappe, she's a freak

for those things, she loves them, but she's like me, she doesn't really care for the food,

but I had to try that big arch not too long ago and it just didn't do anything for me.

I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great.

I'm a, I'm a burger king guy, I love a double whopper with cheese.

Also like a Wendy's triple, man, that is a delicious burger.

I like five guys, I like hardies burgers, I like sonic double cheese burger, but my

favorite is the Burger King Whopper.

About once every two years, I'm real hungry and I get a triple whopper.

Oh man, the more meat, the better.

Anyway, I was just thinking the other day while I was eating that big arch and not being

very impressed.

I wonder what you guys in the audience like to eat in fast foods.

Let me know in the comments section what your favorite fast food is.

I don't eat it much, I usually pick up something maybe once every two weeks or so.

Once a week, I'll get something small.

The double fish, I like to get the fish filet McDonald's and give them to put two pieces

of fish on it.

It's pretty good.

Anyway, I'm just rambling, I'm just wondering what y'all thought.

If y'all tried the big arch, if y'all tried the new whopper, you know the new whopper,

the whopper is new and improved.

It's got real mayonnaise on it now and they changed their bun and I was worried the bun

would be dusty, you know, dry and dusty and fall apart, but it's not, it holds together

pretty good.

Probably full of preservatives and things unhealthy for us, but it was really good.

It's better than it was two months ago.

Anyway, let me know what y'all like in the fast food realm.

Alright, let's get on with this podcast.

Thanks for indulging my tangent.

Appreciate you.

I think I've got three or four stories in this podcast.

Alright, here we go.

My first encounter with sauce quashed happened in the 1970s.

When my family lived in southern Oregon, south of Grant's Pass, in a heavily wooded area,

our house set on a little dirt road in the woods at the base of a large mountain was

some cleared land for hay and sheep grazing.

One evening my brother and his friend volunteered to prepare dinner while my mom and I were

in the living room watching TV.

Down the short hallway I could hear my older brother and his friend talking and laughing

and having a good time.

Suddenly they went silent.

My mother called out to them but got no response.

We exchanged worried looks and quickly went down the hall to the kitchen to find my brother

and his friend, frozen like statues paralyzed by fear and staring at the kitchen window.

I turned my head to see what they were looking at and in an instant my life changed.

Looking into the kitchen was a sasquatch.

It was tall enough to look into the window that was eight feet off the ground and wide

enough that its shoulder extended past either side of the frame.

Its face was twice the size of a human's and so close to the window that it fogged the

glass with each breath.

Its skin was pale and its hair was gray and white.

Its eyes shifted upward to my mom who was standing directly behind me.

Its curious stare turned hostile and it began to snarl like a dog.

Its lips thinning and head lowering and a threatening posture.

Its anger was clearly visible.

What I didn't know at the time was that my mom had been involved in witchcraft, the

bad kind of witchcraft, the kind that summons dark things into your house.

Somehow the sasquatch sensed it about her and it reacted.

My mother was too scared to move.

I turned to look at her and when I looked back it had disappeared.

I stepped over to my brother and his friend to shake their arms but their muscles were

so tense they barely moved.

I looked at my mother again and she was still frozen.

I called out to her but she wouldn't respond so at that point I got a little scared.

The three of them stayed that way for a couple more minutes before finally snapping

out of it.

For months after that event I had to walk down that little dirt road alone to catch the

school bus.

Every morning I was terrified of what I couldn't see, of what was watching me from the woods.

But sometimes I could hear something else out there, keeping pace with me and I knew

it was that sasquatch.

Occasionally I could even see him out there.

His grayish white outline clearly visible against the darkness of the forest.

I saw him many times afterward and eventually I grew comfortable with his quiet distant

presence.

I got the impression that he was considerably older, a loner of sorts and had taken a liking

to me for some reason.

After years of other sightings I had the chance to interact with him, about a native American

finger flute at the old trading post in a nearby town.

And one evening just over a month ago I visited a spot where they've been coming regularly

for the last few years.

Right before dark I was given a small tour of the area and shown many signs of their visits.

I left the flute lying on the picnic table on the hilltop in the woods and I sat in the

vista area down below to wait for the sasquatches to come.

And they did.

At least four or five of them showed up that evening.

We could hear their heavy footfalls crunching through the woods, each step muffled, sometimes

breaking branches along with the unusual knocks, whoops and whistles and chirps and grunts

and growls as they communicated with each other.

Forty-five minutes after sunset I heard the sound of a flute from a top of the hill 200

yards away.

It was fainted first and then suddenly loud as one of them started wailing on it.

It was an incredible special thing to witness.

I've been studying and researching them for forty-three years now.

I've been blessed to see six different sasquatches and I've been blessed to hear them dozens

of times more than that.

Warning, the following zippercuda radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled

with F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated.

For Lauren even.

Like your efforts are futile.

And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people, only to get flooded with

candidates who are just fine.

F***!

Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that.

And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip.

With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations.

Because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite

F word.

In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate

within the first day.

Fantastic!

So, whether you need to hire four, forty, or four hundred people, get ready to meet

first rate talent.

Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip.

And finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.

Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Sure, you can post your job to some job board.

But then, all you can do is hope the right person comes along.

Which is why you should try Zippercruder for free.

At zippercruder.com slash zip.

Zippercruder doesn't depend on candidates finding you.

It finds them for you.

It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites

them to apply to your job.

You get qualified candidates fast.

So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zippercruder finds you what you're

looking for.

The needle in the haystack.

See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercruder get a quality candidate

within the first day.

Zippercruder, the smartest way to hire.

And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free.

That's right.

Free.

Zippercruder.com slash zip.

That zippercruder.com slash zip zippercruder.com slash zip.

Okay, here's a short little dog story that I got a few weeks ago.

I thought it was really good.

When the van door opened, my four great nephews and nieces rushed out like a tumbling waterfall.

Excitedly, they ran into the house and yelled in unison.

Mom, there's a dog in the front yard.

Can we keep it?

Please, please, can we keep it?

Before their mom could answer, they were already petting the most pitiful, looking dog you

could imagine.

The sport thing was dirty as a mud pie.

Its hair was matted and knotted for months of neglect.

And it smelled like last week's garbage.

On closure inspection by their mom, it was determined that it was a female.

She had crust all over her eyes and ambled as if it were her last steps on earth.

With pleading eyes, all four kids begged their mother to keep her.

To them, it wasn't a dirty, stinking dog.

It was a living creature who needed love.

They named her Mercy.

She got a good bath and a flea shampoo and her hair was blow dried as if she were a queen.

They made a bed for her with blankets and she fell asleep.

Mercy had had a rough life.

Mom took her to the vet the next day and the news was not good.

She was 13 years old, probably blind and had arthritis in her hips and legs.

She also had an embedded chip.

She had belonged to someone.

The chip information revealed the family's name and address.

They were called and after a brief conversation, they asked that the dog not be returned.

They did not want her back.

Their son had been in a terrible car accident and needed long-term care and caring for

Mercy was too much for them.

The poor dog had traveled 15 miles from where her owners lived.

She had suffered through cold nights and hunger and thirst and somehow had stopped at the

right house.

Mercy lived two more years.

Sophia, the youngest of the family, would wrap her up and carry her like a baby.

She would sing to her too.

The song went like this.

I'm not going to sing it.

Mercy, Mercy, she likes to go to work, work, work, torque, torque.

I wish I could put a tune to that, but I can't sing.

Mercy would be let out in the backyard to do her business and as soon as the door was

open, she would run out like a puppy with new legs.

When she was ready, she would walk back in, slower now, as the aches in her legs reminded

her of her advanced years.

For those fleeting moments, however, she remembered her puppy life.

Eventually she could not walk well and would stumble and lose her balance, and then she

stopped eating and it was decided to put her to sleep.

There wasn't a dry eye in the house as she was taken to the vet for the last time.

She was cremated and her ashes are still with the family.

That old doll couldn't have stumbled upon a more loving family that day.

It's hard to say who was luckier, though.

Mercy or the family who had the joy of loving her for the final years of her life.

Oh, what a good story.

I just love these dog stories.

Please, if you have a dog story, send me more.

I know I've got probably half a dozen left to do, and this isn't really a dog story channel,

but I like throwing them in, so this is good for me.

I don't know.

I have a lot of thoughts on dogs and I could go on and on about it, but they really are

special animals.

They're domesticated animals, and they absolutely need humans to survive.

They need pack leaders.

They're not like codis or wolves, or they are pack animals, but they need a human to

lead them.

That's all I'm going to say.

I love this dog story, and I'm so glad this family took that dog in.

It doesn't matter if a dog's old or young.

You can give that dog a good home and a good life anytime you want.

So great story, great dog story, thank you very much.

My current position as a federal SWAT officer on a specialized response team requires

intentional omissions for personal safety and to maintain professional confidentiality.

After 15 years as a patrol officer and a SWAT operator, I thought I'd seen it all.

I've tracked murderers deep into the woods.

I've searched dope houses where the walls sweated right, where mattresses crawled with bedbugs,

and the air tasted like burnt chemicals in mold.

I've locked eyes with men whose souls had already fled.

People stretched wide, glassed over, staring straight through me.

The physical scars, they're real.

They're etched into my skin, but it's the memories that stay loud.

It was October 28, just after 2300 hours.

The world outside my cruiser was a maelstrom of wind and rain, the kind that feels like

ice needles on your exposed skin.

It started like it always does with that voice from dispatch, calm, professional, reading

from a glowing terminal like she wasn't about to walk me into something I'll never forget.

Sierra 904, respond to 911 call.

Possible livestock mauling, frantic, elderly male, came the voice from dispatch.

Normally I would chalk it up to a mountain line, maybe a rogue black bear.

That standard fare in the sticks, but then myself rang, and dispatch patched the original

911 audio recording to my phone, and I'll never forget that voice.

Crackling through the rain and the static, the old man was sobbing.

He wasn't just afraid, he was broken.

His breath hitched with every word, a sound that drilled into my bones.

It was monstrous.

He stammered, his voice thin and really, like a wire about to snap.

Biggest thing I've ever seen, is black as pitch, eyes like fire in the way it moved.

It was fast, it was too fast, like a shadow ripping through the air.

He trailed off, his voice was brittle, as if speaking about it was enough to invite it

back, as if the very air around him still vibrated with its presence.

And then a chokesaw, raw and desperate, God help me, and found it made.

I flipped on my emergency lights, their red and blue glow, stuttered across the trees,

stretching shadows out like limbs.

I punched the address into my unit's GPS, the ranch set far outside of town, nestled

against the base of a thick pine ridge, a pocket of isolation that cell towers barely reached.

I drove and the rain intensified, a solid sheet of cold water slicing down, clinging to

the windshield.

The wind screamed across the highway, a high-pitched moan through the skeletal branches of the

trees, like a living thing and agony.

It took fifteen minutes to reach the turn-off.

The old ranch road was little more than a muddy scar through the woods, winding deeper into

the blackness.

My tire slipped more than once, groaning in protest, and I nearly got stuck for good at the final

treacherous bend.

When I finally pulled into the property, I turned off the lights, I killed the engine,

and I stepped out.

That's when I felt it, static.

That deep down, marrow-level alertness, it's one they don't teach you at the academy.

Not the edges you see the adrenaline of a foot pursuit, not the sharp fear before a

breach.

Now this was different.

The crawled under the skin like ice-water.

It was a sensation without a source, like the world had gone just one degree to quiet,

a suffocating vacuum like the shadows were pressing closer than they should, not just

dimming the light but consuming it whole, like I wasn't alone.

And if you felt it, you know exactly what I mean.

Some officers get stuck with drugs.

Others are magnets for DV calls.

I get the ones where something doesn't line up, where the air feels heavier than it

should and the silence starts watching you.

They call them suspicious circumstances.

It's what they say when something's wrong, but no one wants to admit how wrong it is.

To phrase dressed in sterile intent meant to keep it clean and measured.

But what it really means is this, you're not gonna like what you find.

No other officer in this valley has responded to more of these than I have.

It's not a badge of honor, it's a weight.

The old ranch house was dark, a weather-beaten shell of timber and rusted metal that looked

like it had been abandoned decades ago.

There was no porch lie, there was no movement.

The only sign of life was the famous flicker from a single window.

When the front door creaked open, groaning on rusted hinges, there stood the old man.

He was a rath, gone, wrapped in the thread, bare wool blanket that clung to him like wet

paper, barely concealing his trembling.

His eyes were wide, they were dilated and darting frantically from side to side.

Like prey that knew the predator wasn't far off.

Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haste

stack.

Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right

person comes along.

Which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free.

At zippercrooter.com slash zipp.

Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you, it finds them for you.

Its powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites

them to apply to your job.

You get qualified candidates fast, so while other companies might deliver a lot of hey,

Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for.

The needle in the haste stack.

See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate

within the first day.

Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire, and right now you can try Zippercrooter for free.

That's right, free at zippercrooter.com slash zipp.

That zippercrooter.com slash zipp, zippercrooter.com slash zipp.

This access to affordable credit helps me pay my employees, but I don't really need

it.

Infliction is killing me, but who cares, big retailers are making record profits.

That's why we support the Durban Marshall credit card bill.

See, things in credit unions help small businesses make payroll, and this bill would cut

the vital resources they need.

While increasing Megastore profits, they deserve it, don't they?

Stop the Durban Marshall money grab for corporate megastores paid for by the electronic payments

coalition.

It was still lurking just beyond the periphery of his vision.

The hell-dehaunted vacant look is if he'd seen things no human was meant to see.

Come this way, he said, his voice barely audible over the hull of the storm.

He didn't speak again as he led me, stumbling rather than walking past the main barn and

through a thicket of broken fencing and trample brush that looked like a herd of stampeding

elk had passed through.

The chicken coop looked like it had been hit by a bomb.

Wooden slats were splintered outward and jagged edges pointing accusingly at the stormy

sky.

As if something enormous had gripped its way in with the grotesque unimaginable strength.

Feathers, bloodied and matted, covered the ground and a wide macabre art.

And inside was carnage, there were dead chickens everywhere, their small bodies mangled beyond

recognition, half eaten.

Not the clean punctures of a bobcat or a blunt trauma of a bear.

These birds had been shredded, torn apart with deliberate, sadistic cruelty.

I turned to question the old man, but he was already stumbling as gaunt frames swaying

toward the lamppin.

That's when the smell hit me.

It was a suffocating wave of rot.

It was musty wet fur and something else, something utterly alien and foul.

It was sour like spulled meat.

My stomach turned and a burning acid rose in my throat, and I fought down the urge to vomit.

The lamppin was worse, far, far worse.

The bodies of six young lambs lay strung like broken dolls, their tiny limbs twisted

at impossible angles.

The air here was even heavier, thicker with that awful, putrid stench.

I dropped to one knee, the cold mud soaking through my uniform pants to inspect the ground.

There were no signs of a bear or a cat.

The rain had softened the mud, making tracks easier to read, but what I saw chilled me to

my core, a deep bone aching dread that bypassed all my training.

There were massive foot prints, bipedal, undeniably, but with long clawed toes like a monstrous

canine.

Some had an extra unsettling indentation at the heel like a distorted human print overlapping

a wolf's, or perhaps a second digit.

One track I estimated was nearly 17 inches long.

Some deep, suggesting an impossible weight over it.

A crushing pressure no animal I knew could exert.

Whatever it was, it walked on two legs, and it was immensely powerful.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

The old man still trembling pointed a skeletal finger toward the dense black tree line.

It went that way, he whispered.

It went into those pines.

I told him to return to the house and lock the doors to barricade himself in.

He hesitated, his eyes wide and vacant, staring past me into the impenetrable darkness.

It watches, he said, his voice was cracking, it was a dry rust.

I see it in the tree sometimes, just the eyes like fire, like hate.

It knows when you're looking, it knows when you're not.

Return then, slow and shuffling, a man utterly defeated, leaving me alone with the storm

and the black silent pines that stretched into infinite suffocating voids.

I drew my glock 19, the familiar weight, a small comfort, and turned on the flashlight.

The powerful beam cut through the oppressive darkness and jagged arch as I moved toward

the woods, each step deliberate.

My boots sucked into the thick half-frozen mud and moss, rain flew sideways, hitting me

in the ear and drumming a frantic, disorienting rhythm on the brim of my hat.

The temperature dropped ten degrees in the span of twenty feet, on a natural coal that

seeped into my bones.

Branches creaked above me, groaning under the weight of the wind, and pine needles fell

relentlessly, like icy rain.

The underbrush clawed at my legs like unseen hands, tangling in my boots, and then I heard

it.

It was a growl, it was a low resonant growl, not like a dog or a wolf, but deeper, and

it rumbled in my chest, vibrating my ribs like a subwoofer.

I sound that seemed to come from the very earth itself, close yet diffused everywhere

and nowhere at once.

A pivoted toward the sore, sweeping the flash-like beam through the trees.

It was nothing.

The inner flash of motion to my right, so fast it was almost imperceptible, a shape it

was tall and broad, slipping between the ancient pines with horrifying speed.

A barely caught more than a blur, I saw long limbs, and possibly black fur, hunt shoulders

that dwarf the surrounding trees, it moved with a fluid predatory grace that defies its

massive size, a silent apparition in the raging storm, and I swung the light back, and there

was nothing.

The spot where it had been was empty.

The darkness had swallowed it whole.

Sheriff's office, I called out.

My voice sounded small and absurd, a feeble challenge thrown against something ancient

and terrifying, and then the eyes, they were red and glowing, reflective like an animal's,

but they were wrong, intensely intelligent and focused, a burning, malevolent gaze

that pierced through the rain, and the thick canopy boring directly into my soul.

They hovered seven, maybe eight feet off the ground, twin embers of pure, unadulterated

hate, no blinking, no shifting, just watching.

A silent, unwavering stare that held me rooted to the spot, my breath catching in my throat.

I could feel the heat radiating from them, an unnatural feeling that made the hair stand

up on my arms and neck, and I raised my clock.

My hand was surprisingly steady despite the trimmer in my chest.

The tractium sites glowed faintly green against the impossible red, and then a shriek,

not a hail, not a roar, something been between, something inhuman, it was sharp and filled

with ancient primal rage.

They tore through the woods vibrating through the trees, the setting off distant codies

in a chain reaction of terrified yelps, and then silence.

This sound was designed to instill terror, and it worked.

Then it was gone, no sign of retreat, no crashing through the under breath, just absence,

a sudden, complete void where the eyes had been.

I stood there for what felt like an eternity, rain soaking through my vest and my uniform,

and my weapon aimed at a ghost.

My muscles ached from the tension, my eyes strained against the blackness.

Every rational thought I had fled, replaced by a desperate animalistic instinct to survive.

I backed out, never turning my back, step by step, my flash light hides, being my frail

shield against the dark.

Back at my cruiser, I radiated in.

My voice was tight, trying to sound professional, but the words felt hollow.

Back up arrived in two younger deputies, their faces grim with shared unease, and we searched

the property for hours, but the rain had washed away what remained.

The livestock bodies were still there, horrifyingly real, but no fresh signs of whatever had

done it.

It had simply melted back into the shadows from which it came.

Back at the sheriff's office, we wrote it all down.

We logged in the evidence, sterile, clinical document that could never convey the true

horror of that night.

I included everything, knowing it wouldn't matter, knowing it wouldn't change the label,

suspicious circumstance, possible livestock mulling.

That's all it will ever be allowed to be.

Now I know what I saw, I know what I felt, but nothing, nothing has ever made me feel

so helpless, so small, and is utterly terrifyingly insignificant as whatever watched me from

those trees that stormy night.

The old man eventually left for good, the house and the property left to rot, and the

unyielding embrace of the woods.

Locals say it's cursed, hunters avoid that stretch of forest now, their dogs refuse

to enter the tree line, whimpering and digging at the ground.

And sometimes when I'm alone, when the wind howls just right, and the darkness presses

in, think about those eyes, and I wonder if they're still out there.

Okay, thank you guys for listening to this podcast.

I actually had it ready to go yesterday, and it was much shorter, but I got up this morning

and added a couple of stories to it to make it a little longer.

I didn't upload it because our internet was out.

Some truck hit a pole, we're on fiber optic internet.

The whole city was out, and they got it fixed pretty quick this morning, and I woke up,

it was good.

So I came out and recorded these two stories, or the two stories I had.

Thank you for listening.

The next few podcasts will be just as frequent, but they might be a little shorter because

I'm working on Steve Lilly number 20, trying to kind of pour myself into that and get

you a good podcast, a good Steve Lilly story out.

It's going pretty good, and I think you're going to enjoy it, and I'm trying to get it

out by the end of March.

So hang with me, shorter podcasts for a week or so, but after that we'll get right

back into the longer podcast, I guess.

I never know what I'm going to do, I just let the loose ends drag.

No one to me?

How ya got?

Alright, you guys have a good week and we'll see you on the next one, thanks.

Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right

person comes along, which is why you should try Zip Recruiter for free.

At ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

Zip Recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.

It finds them for you.

It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites

them to apply to your job.

You get qualified candidates fast, so while other companies might deliver a lot of hay,

Zip Recruiter finds you what you're looking for.

The needle in the haystack.

See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate

within the first day?

Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire, and right now you can try Zip Recruiter for free.

That's right, free at ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

That ziprecruiter.com slash zip, ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

Having great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right

person comes along, which is why you should try Zip Recruiter for free.

At ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

Zip Recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you.

It finds them for you.

It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites

them to apply to your job.

You get qualified candidates fast.

So while other companies might deliver a lot of, hey, Zip Recruiter finds you what you're

looking for.

The needle in the haystack.

See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zip Recruiter get a quality candidate

within the first day?

Zip Recruiter, the smartest way to hire, and right now you can try Zip Recruiter for free.

That's right, free at ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

That ziprecruiter.com slash zip, ziprecruiter.com slash zip.

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an on air contributor

to CNBC.

And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing

the business world and our lives.

So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech

and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going.

They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your

colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your

podcasts.