A group a National Guardsman are stationed near Ketchikan, Alaska. They are soon confronted by an 'unholy-sized' wolf that has been stalking the camp. The paw prints were said to be the size of pie plates.
The following account was recently forwarded to me:
"It was the winter of 1997 I believe. I was living in Ketchikan, Alaska and serving in the National Guard as an 11b. I loved it. As some may know a joint task force between all the branches of military began working on building a road on a nearby island; Annette Island. This was the fulfillment of a 50 or so year treaty the US made with the sovereign Indians in Metlakatla. This was a big project that I believe finished in 2007. Anyways, the Marines spent the first summer building the HQ. It was a series of plywood huts and the framework of a mess hall. When summer ended the huts were basically just sheds. There was no electricity or running water.
Well, me and five other members of my unit were called to Active Duty. We were tasked with living on the island for the winter and protecting the camp. Apparently the local native youth would hop from island to island vandalizing vacant logging camps and such. This was classified as a training mission, for budget purposes. It seemed like it would be a good time. Six month in the winter on a remote island living in a plywood hut.
At first things were somewhat rocky. There was only going to be four to five us on the island at a time with a weekend rotation every two or three weeks for one or two of us. It took a couple months before we had a real generator or propane to cook with, so we subsisted on MRE's three meals a day; for quite some time. The worst was that there was only one outhouse in the entire camp which was placed a few hundred yards from the camp. To make it even worse, the Native American's, for whatever reason, declared the ground sacred and we were not allowed to relieve ourselves on it. That means if we needed to take a leak or drop the kids off at the pool, we had to march on down to the outhouse, in the Alaskan winter.
For the most part I was loving it. We bonded together, told jokes, played push-up poker and overall just had a grand time roughing it. Well to make a long story longer, the heart of winter came and so did the snow...lots of snow. By that time we had these weird heaters that ran on diesel fuel, so we were quite cozy in the huts. However, the one facility left unheated was the outhouse, and not only was it freezing it was filling up. You see, the bay boat used to bring the port-a-potty truck had frozen over. By the third month of our stay the entire outhouse's contents were dangerously close to rising above the toilet seat. It was disgusting. It was freezing. It became my nightmare to use. Give me a slit trench over an outhouse any day of the week! Even now thinking of this massive frozen mound makes me cringe. I can still see the steam that would rise from the hole and out the vents of the port-a-potty after each use.
Anyways, despite the bizarreness of the outhouse, that is not the scary part of this story. One night as the four of us were laying around on our cots ready for bed a few of us were listening to a book on tape the Doc brought with him. I think it was Carl Sagan's "Contact." It was either that for entertainment or Art Bell's Coast to Coast radio show; the only English station we could get on the radio. If you don't know who he is, check it out. It is all about aliens, Bigfoot, and other paranormal stuff. Well, we heard noises outside. Now that may not seem scary, but let me tell you, we hadn't heard many noises night or day. There isn't a whole lot of action going on during the winter in the middle of nowhere!
At first we thought it might be some native kids come to goof off and tag the place or set it on fire. It seemed logical. Before we came to this island we had been given tours of nearby logging camps which were decimated. We were warned that this was what they would do to our camp, if we didn't protect it. Well if it was them, we were ready for them. Wait, no we weren't. Who am I kidding?! We would have wanted to lock and load and go on the offensive if wasn't for the fact we were there as a training exercise. That meant we didn't have ammunition. We had M-16's, but nothing to go in them!
Well, we were now no longer laying on our cots, instead we are getting dressed and discussing who it is that is going to go investigate with an unloaded rifle. Just then we heard the sounds come to our door. It was not human. We could hear them breathing, loud. Our Pfc. was the one who had been picked to lead the charge, but he flat out refused. None of us blamed him. We didn't want this to become some Alaskan version of Southern Comfort meets Predator, if you know what I mean. So, we all sat in silence for ten or so minutes until the huffing and snorting faded away. A few minutes after words we manned up and opened the door. We immediately saw in the snow the largest frickin wolf prints I have seen. I swear they were the size of a pie plate! Anything attached to those paws must have been the size of a small horse or at least a dining table.
So, about that outhouse. You remember, the one a few hundred yards away. Well, it used to be that if you woke up in the middle of the night and needed to drain yourself you would take the hike down to the outhouse. Not anymore. Instead we made a massive patch of yellow snow right next to the door. It became customary to open the door, point to the side, and melt some snow. There was no way on God's green Earth anybody was walking all the way to an isolated outhouse with those beasts out in the dark!
Our NCOIC, after spending a weekend in Ketchikan, brought back his diving light. This thing was the brightest flashlight I have ever seen. It made the night into day. Anyways, one night we were joking and smoking. We were teasing the Pfc. because he had to take a dump. It wasn't like he could just hang his ass out the door. That is one thing we didn't want to find come spring when the Generals and other dignitaries would be touring the place. Not at all. The Pfc. was starting to gather up the courage to actually head on down to the outhouse. Good for him! He got so far as to open the door, fully dressed for the freezing temperature. As he was about to walk out, the Sgt. flicked on his diving light and pointed it towards the outhouse. He was being nice and was going to light the way.
As that light poured down the hill we could make out the the outhouse and wouldn't you know it, standing next to the crapper was a wolf. It's eyes lit up like two little moons. It stared up towards us. It didn't move. Even though we were a good three hundred feet or so from it, the Pfc. hurriedly back-walked deeper into the hut. The Sgt. kept his light shined on this unholy-sized wolf until it started to overheat. That wolf saw us. It knew there was more than one of us. Yet, it did not move an inch. It just stood there staring at us as we stared at it. When the Sgt. turned off his diving light, it was still staring at us. It was us who had to break our gazes so that we could close the door. That wolf knew he was in charge. We knew it too.
To this day, books on tape give me the creeps." JJ
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