Creature Sighted

Creature Sighted

By Gumboot Rupert

If there's one thing that us Appalachian-born Americans know, it's that literally anything that even remotely seems out of the ordinary is the work of a paranormal creature, or conspiracy. However, the U.S. government hasn't been stealing live- stock from Berk County since the great Chicken War of 1879, so we can rule them out when discussing just what in the world has been yank- ing goats from local farmer Gromry Johnson's paddock. The abductions (3 in total as of today) occurred under the cover of night, but Johnson claims to have witnessed the second. "Something came out of the sky, no! The moon!" Johnson told me ex- citedly during our interview on his porch, populated with oodles of dusty machinery and decaying, rolled up rugs. "It was shaped like a man, but its arms were webbed to its sides like  a flyin' squirrel! Or a bat! Darn  tootin' you better believe I was run-  nin'! And the eyes!" Johnson paused for a long time after that, staring quizzically into the middle distance. When I asked him if something was wrong, he coughed directly onto my shirt. He made a visible effort to lean in so he would cough directly onto it. I still don't know why he did that. They glew [sic] like a pair a' flash- lights, they did! Like spotlights! Like when I was back in the Rock! Like Alcatraz, Rupert. They'd shine 'em on you while you were trying to do  your business out in the yard, and they'd say: 'hey, you have a toilet like, in your cell' and I'd go 'toilets ain't natural! They ain't American! They ain't worked a day in their lives!' and then we'd fight..." I didn't get much more from him on the creature after  that, other than that he coined the

Unfortunately, the rest of this article is unavailable at this time. It's possible that Johnson named it the Vulture.