River Monster

 

I am a keeper of the river. The Big Sandy flows behind my home and has for the 50 years that I've been on Earth. My grandmother taught me signs and portents. She taught me that if the birds hide in the trees during a rain that it will be a short rain, but if the birds are feeding in the rain, then it's going to rain a while. When the wind blows and you can see the back of the leaves, that a rain is coming. She also taught me something else. She taught me to believe dogs. For when a dog barks at nothing, he always sees what we cannot see. She taught me about a creature she called the River Monster. On moonless nights, she is silent, yet I can hear her. I can hear her in my soul. The fog rolls in on the river as white waves crashing on a distant beach. Black birds noisily seek their nightime home in the trees that hang low over Big Sandy as yellow eyes search for their next meal, the taste of blood fills each black heart. Vermin. The River Monster moves quickly through the sandy soil, causing bugs to skitter into tunnels in the sand and feral cats to squal in terror. The River Monster, as legend goes, feeds once a year around the end of October. A hapless victim, quite possibly a derilict or helpless deer, will fill her craw for a season. So she hunts and I can feel her awakening. My grandmother taught me, to keep me safe. When she hunts, the birds sound different, frantic with worry. The leaves on the riverbank trees will suddenly start to fall like drops of rain in a summer storm. The fog will start as whisps of smoke from a jack-o-lantern pumpkin then move in quickly as a blanket, covering the low brush along the shore. Dogs will bark at nothing. Signs and portents. As I am drawn to the top of the river bank, I know she is down there. Somewhere. It's time. Driven by a natural longing to feed, to satisfy her needs. The hairs on the back of my neck are signals of dread and fear. She is silent, yet I hear her. I also hear my grandmother's voice, "Be careful! One false move and you're next, my dear." Terror fills my soul as I search, for I have a longing to witness her beautiful horror, yet she eludes me. The fog is thick, rising upward from the water. Spiders have slung their webs from tree branch to tree branch and I can feel that I am wrapped in their stickiness, yet I continue on to my unknown reward. Sudden cat shrieks fill the cold night air and I feel the need to retch. Hoot owl warnings remind me of the question of "who" as in "who will be next". The darkness covers me in goose bumps, and envelopes me in his arms, yet I feel a thousand eyes on me. Two of those eyes are bulging and yellow, and staring straight at me. Stumbling down the hill, my movements quick and without any sense of direction, I find myself in her presence. Sheer terror and dread fill my God fearing soul, I know I have come too far, too close. Quick, ragged breaths are upon my neck, rage and hunger and desire are pouring toward me from black, souless heart. So I ran. I ran for my life screaming prayers to Heaven above for help, for safety, for freedom. Clawing the ground with nailess fingers, I surge upward on the hill, muscles burning and heart pounding. Terror induced screams fill the night air, coming from deep inside of me. My desire to live fills me with rage and fury and speed and I surge to the top of the dark, dank riverbank. Total exhaustion wraps around me as I reach the safety of my backyard. I cannot move, and I lay there as crickets again begin to sing their night songs. I never did see her, the River Monster that my Granny knew. My mind draws her form in my dreams, or nightmares. But I can feel her, her hot breath and her hollow eyes. She'll feed again next year, but I won't fall prey to her spell, I will not head to the river bank. Always remember this: if you live on the river, likely any river in any small town, stay away from it this time of year. The river holds secrets we do not want to know. And if your dog barks, listen to him.

143You, Vicki Burke Brown, Betty Grey and 140 others

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Encounter

 

Encounter

I am a keeper of the river. The Big Sandy flows behind my home and has for the 50 years that I've been on Earth. My grandmother taught me signs and portents. She taught me that if the birds hide in the trees during a rain that it will be a short rain, but if the birds are feeding in the rain, then it's going to rain a while. When the wind blows and you can see the back of the leaves, that a rain is coming. She also taught me something else. She taught me to believe dogs. For when a dog barks at nothing, he always sees what we cannot see. She taught me about a creature she called the River Monster.

On moonless nights, she is silent, yet I can hear her. I can hear her in my soul. The fog rolls in on the river as white waves crashing on a distant beach. Black birds noisily seek their nightime home in the trees that hang low over Big Sandy as yellow eyes search for their next meal, the taste of blood fills each black heart. Vermin. The River Monster moves quickly through the sandy soil, causing bugs to skitter into tunnels in the sand and feral cats to squal in terror. The River Monster, as legend goes, feeds once a year around the end of October. A hapless victim, quite possibly a derilict or helpless deer, will fill her craw for a season. So she hunts and I can feel her awakening. My grandmother taught me, to keep me safe. When she hunts, the birds sound different, frantic with worry. The leaves on the riverbank trees will suddenly start to fall like drops of rain in a summer storm. The fog will start as whisps of smoke from a jack-o-lantern pumpkin then move in quickly as a blanket, covering the low brush along the shore. Dogs will bark at nothing. Signs and portents.

As I am drawn to the top of the river bank, I know she is down there. Somewhere. It's time. Driven by a natural longing to feed, to satisfy her needs. The hairs on the back of my neck are signals of dread and fear. She is silent, yet I hear her. I also hear my grandmother's voice, "Be careful! One false move and you're next, my dear." Terror fills my soul as I search, for I have a longing to witness her beautiful horror, yet she eludes me. The fog is thick, rising upward from the water. Spiders have slung their webs from tree branch to tree branch and I can feel that I am wrapped in their stickiness, yet I continue on to my unknown reward. Sudden cat shrieks fill the cold night air and I feel the need to retch. Hoot owl warnings remind me of the question of "who" as in "who will be next". The darkness covers me in goose bumps, and envelopes me in his arms, yet I feel a thousand eyes on me. Two of those eyes are bulging and yellow, and staring straight at me. Stumbling down the hill, my movements quick and without any sense of direction, I find myself in her presence. Sheer terror and dread fill my God fearing soul, I know I have come too far, too close. Quick, ragged breaths are upon my neck, rage and hunger and desire are pouring toward me from black, souless heart. So I ran. I ran for my life screaming prayers to Heaven above for help, for safety, for freedom. Clawing the ground with nailess fingers, I surge upward on the hill, muscles burning and heart pounding. Terror induced screams fill the night air, coming from deep inside of me. My desire to live fills me with rage and fury and speed and I surge to the top of the dark, dank riverbank. Total exhausted wraps around me as I reach the safety of my backyard. I cannot move, and I lay there as crickets again begin to sing their night songs.

I never did see her, the River Monster that my Granny knew. My mind draws her form in my dreams, or nightmares. But I can feel her, her hot breath and her hollow eyes. She'll feed again next year, but I won't fall prey to her spell, I will not head to the river bank. Always remember this: if you live on the river, likely any river in any small town, stay away from it this time of year. The river holds secrets we do not want to know of.

And if your dog barks, listen to him.

1977 Flood

 

I graduated Prestonsburg High School in 1977 and I remember my senior year, just like most, as a season of dreams starting to be fulfilled.  It was a season of blooming, as I recall.  Don and I were dating.  Tennis was a real focus for me, I played tennis every single day.   I was a football statistician, a pretty big deal for a girl in Prestonsburg.   I also was a lifeguard at Archer Park, the biggest of all deals.  Oh I was one fine thing, driving around town in my faded red Toyota that sometimes wouldn't go in to reverse.  Often the football team would come to my rescue and push my car backwards out of my parking space at the high school.  In the winter months I worked at my dad's drug store which was also a hang out for the cool kids.  In the spring my grandmother fell and broke her hip.  Nannie was my mom's mom and she lived in a little apartment across the street from us.  Nannie had to be taken to a hospital in Lexington for surgery and of course mom went with her.  It was just  dad and I and the pets in our house in Blackbottom near the Big Sandy River.  In April 1977, the rain started to fall.  It fell hard for 4 days.  Black ominous clouds filled our skies for 4 days.  Prestonsburg received over 6 inches of rain, and I relied on my dad to calm me and tell me what to do with mom being away with Nannie.  On the day when it became clear that Prestonsburg was going to flood, we had to move all the merchandise at Fountain Korner.  The Burke brothers decided the safest thing to do was to carry all the contents from the store, every candy bar, camera, cosmetic, Coke, and Coumadin had to be hauled upstairs to the empty offices.  Dad let me bring my cat and my dog up to the store with me and let them stay in Ethel's office in the back. It was all hands on deck as items were pulled from peg boards, greeting cards were put in to boxes and carried up the steep stairs.  All the Fostoria glassware had to be carefully packaged. Easter was near, so the shelves were full with Easter baskets from Russell Stover candies.  All of those baskets had to be carried as well.  The glass bottles of the perfumes were delicate and had to be carefully packed.   Our merchandise was our life, our future and it didn't matter if they were ruined by flood mud or breakage.  The merchandise had to be protected.  

  I remember standing there and listening to the grown ups talking about the '57 flood.  High on the wall in the restaurant part of the store was a large clock.  I remember the grown ups saying that in '57 the water reached the clock.  I also remember seeing ambulances going by on Court Street taking the residents of Mountain Manor from the low part of town where it still sits to the old Prestonsburg General Hospital.  The hospital was near where Mountain Muse is now.  The residents of the nursing home were protected at the hospital.  As the day wore on we moved all that stuff up the stairs.  We were exhausted.  Dad told me that I needed to take Little Bit and Kitty and go on home, that I should park my powder blue Nova at Uncle Johnny's and walk home.  I did just that and I remember crying as I walked to Blackbottom.  Due to the nature of the neighborhood and the nature of flooding, the part of the neighborhood on University Drive floods before our property which is right on the river.  So my neighbors across the street had some water in their homes, but we didn't.  I nervously waited for dad to come home, I didn't want to be alone.  Thankfully dad made it home.  He had to park his car in the upper parking lot behind Kentucky/West Virginia Gas Company, which for the youngsters is that area upon the hill behind Wendy's.   Dad had to wade in flood water that was over University Drive and he had a black garbage bag full of money since the bank was closed.   It was a scary night for a 17 year old girl in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.  

We missed weeks and weeks of school my senior year.  The flood destroyed PHS gym floor.  We still had graduation services and we had to walk across a gym floor that was warped and twisted from the rushing water.  And right as the flood water went down and my mom was able to make it back home, my grandmother passed away alone in a Lexington hospital.