The Raven's Roost

questionoftheday asks: Do you have any scary stories or urban legends local to your area? Have you ever experienced them?

My answer: Allegedly there's the Florida Skunk Ape, so called because of its overwhelming skunky smell. The Skunk Ape is, I think, a bigfoot or sasquatch type of thing and yeah, people this far north have reported seeing them. Or smelling them, in some cases. I've had someone insist they smelled a Skunk Ape and not a skunk because, "Florida doesn't have skunks."

Sorry, bzzzzt! Florida is home to two species of skunk.

I don't think there are any more "interesting" local urban legends, or if there are I don't know them, since I didn't grow up around here. You'd think with a big military installation we'd have more UFO flap but sadly, no. Anyway, I am told if you want to see the sasquatch, there's one (or more) living up the highway in Jennings State Forest and they're active at dusk. Which, conveniently, is when the forest roads are closed. I mean, if I were a sasquatch, I'd wait until the park and such closed down for the night to go strolling about.

In winter when we have the windows open, I've heard some very odd things at night and written them off to wildlife being wildlife. But, could it be ... a Skunk Ape? (spoiler alert: it's not) Although among mundane animal activity the weirdest things I've seen were deer just strolling their little asses onto my porch to eat my goddamn salad greens right out of the pots, and that dog chase thing. One night I was up late, having gone to the bathroom and was going back to sleep when I heard, of course, fucking dogs. (not dogs fucking, I just dislike dogs and tend to describe any domestic canid as a fucking dog) I assumed that one of the neighbors was either hunting with his beagles or they'd gotten loose. Long story short, one of those beagles ended up running around in my yard being pursued by something much larger than it was, and almost as fast ... since it was close to a new moon I couldn't see what it was aside from "large dark animal shape" so it could have been another neighborhood dog, or something else. I wasn't about to go outside and find out, but I did head out once the sun was up and found no traces of a fight or anything on my property, so I have no idea what actually happened. Very weird though. The pursuing animal made no sounds, except deep, heavy breathing as it ran - and I'm talking maybe wolf sized at the largest, not a bear.