MT. SHASTA

Archi: Last year in 2019, my friends and I went camping up in Northern California. My friend Gary heard about this Mountain called MT. Shasta. The lore behind the mountain is that there is a alien base deep inside the mountain. It's often referred to as "the magical mountain". It was also supposed to be the home of "the lost tribe of lemuria". I was just happy to get away for awhile. Gary was the real believer in all that. What I didn't know is that MT. Shasta has some of the deepest, thickest woods you can find. Also some of the most deadliest animals in the world. With all that in mind, my friends and I are already days deep into these woods. As we are hiking, my friend Nick " our navigator" was reading the map, he came to a complete stop. "That dosen't make any sense" he said. I could tell by Nick's face we were lost. The sun was going down so we decided to just set up camp. Everyone was a little on edge, being lost in all, who could blame us. That first night is when it began. We all woke up to the most nastiest, loudest growl we have ever heard. I quickly put more wood on the fire hoping to scare off the animal. We hear rustling in the trees off in the distance. Nick looks at me and says "its gotta be a bear". Gary shook his head, " Nah man that's aliens". I honestly wasn't sure what it was but I knew we were no longer safe. We hiked back the way we came the next morning but just ended up further into the woods. We were all exhausted when we decided to set up camp and get some rest. We were all running dangerously low on food and water. If we didn't find some kind of water run off we would die. The second night we hear that same growling noise. This time we were ready. We carved spears for all of us and we stood back to back. Our fire was bright so we could see a good distance away. That's when It ran From one tree to the other. Gary freaked out because I knew he saw what I saw. It was a large man about 10 feet tall. No clothes on him what so ever. Hair from head to toe. I was in disbelief. It couldn't be what I thought it was. Not a wink of sleep was got that night. That next day we finally came to an area Nick said looked familiar to him. I was so happy because we were finally going to get out of this nightmare. There was still one minor set back. It was about to be dark and we were unable to make it back to a main road in time. We had to set up camp because we didn't want to be caught out at night with that thing out there. My friends decided we all would take shifts look out in case the monster showed up for a third night. I took first watch and just my luck the creature came back again an hour into my watch. I screamed and hollered as loud as I could at the creature and my friends came running out of the tent. We watched with out spears as it just circled are campsite. We were all terrified when the creature ran straight for us. We tried to fight it off with our spears but It picked up Gary and ran with him screaming into the dark woods. We searched and searched for Gary all night but never found him. All I could do was keep playing back in my head the first 20 mins after Gary was taken. All we heard those first 20 minutes was the sound of Gary screaming for his life. Calling out are names. Calling for his parents. Screaming the last screams he would ever scream. We tried to follow the gut wrenching, moans and groans coming from Gary but never found him. Nick and I finally made it back to a main road. We got a lift back to our car and went straight to the rangers. The rangers looked for months but they never found Gary. I will never know what really happened in those woods or what grabbed my friend Gary. Maybe there is some kind of supernatural creature living in those deep woods of MT. Shasta. Thick, dense green forest, plenty of places to hide. I'm starting to understand why the locals refer to that place as "Big Foot Country"