It's Not Just Me, It's Bigfoot.

   My 15 year old niece moved in with me about a year after I'd moved to the lake house. I didn't like the idea of leaving her at home when I was at work on the night shift, but I trusted my neighbors to help should anything go wrong, and I was only 15 minutes away and had some flexibility to leave if she really needed me.

   At this point, I'd had a few strange things happen around the house, but I'd never mentioned it to her except once in a, sort of, joke. I think it went something like "Yeah, and there's a Bigfoot living in the woods."

   So one night, I get a call from Taylor who tells me she's scared and doesn't know what to do. She went on to tell me that she'd heard someone knocking at the side of the house and it was really loud.

   "Does it sound like it's over by the outdoor trash can," I asked. I'd heard it several times myself and suspected it was the same thing... er, or person.

   She told me it was at the corner of the house where the outdoor trashcan was, which was by the woods, but divided by a chain link fence and a storage building. The gate back there was always open since the driveway came in by that part of the house, so it wouldn't have been hard for someone to just walk right in. I, however, grew up with a stalker in my late teens and early twenties and had learned not to be afraid when I heard a bump in the night. I packed a gun when necessary and had an array of weapons for the more inexperienced users, like an aluminum bat or one of those kna-ives like Crocodile Dundee carried. I used to be into archery too, but that's more of a long range weapon. And anyway, that was in the storage building.

   So, I kind of laughed, trying to ease Taylor's fears, then told her it was probably just Bigfoot. I explained some of the things I'd heard before, and how every so often, the banging on the side of the house would happen. And like I was saying, I wasn't the fearful type, so that first time I'd heard it, I'd gone outside with the flashlight to check it out. The creaking screen door on the porch at the opposite corner probably alerted whoever or whatever it was, though I tried to be quiet. By the time I got around to creeping up to the back of the house, there wasn't anything there.

   Taylor thought it was amusing, the idea of a Sasquatch living in the woods, playing drums against the side of our house on lonely nights, but I told her I would come home real quick just to be on the safe side. I'd already instructed her on what to do should there be any real danger but we reviewed that as I headed out.

   When I got home, I noticed the trashcan lid on the ground, and not handle locked like I'd left it. I walked around the area with a flashlight, but of course, there was nothing out of the ordinary.

   Not that I'd thought it had been my mind playing tricks on me, but at least I'd gotten some confirmation that I wasn't just hearing things. After that, I told Taylor about some of the weird things that had been happening every so often. So, it became a joke whenever there was a place for it, "it's just Bigfoot." Get the book here!