I had quite the experience when I was 17.

I am now 26, but the events that unfolded remained forever burned into my memory, as if they happened yesterday.

My father and I had decided to make a weekend hunting trip to my family's hunting cabin.

The cabin is located on a 120-acre plot of

land in the middle of Mark Twain National Forest. We loaded up on Friday morning and made the drive

out to the cabin. It is extremely isolated. The closest house is roughly 10 miles away. The cabin

sits in a clearing and is surrounded by fairly dense forest on all sides.

We arrived around noon, brought everything inside, gassed up the electric generator, hooked it up,

and then decided it would be a good time to figure out where we wanted to set up our deer blind

and the stand we had brought along. I decided to go find a good spot for the blind, and my dad went to

set up the stand in a different area of the woods. I followed a small game trail for quite a while,

and eventually found a good spot. I spent some time setting up the blind and securing it so it would

be ready to go first thing in the morning. As I was finishing up, I became

very aware that something was watching me from the tree line about 25 yards away. At first,

it was just that uneasy feeling, hairs on the back of my neck standing up, catching glimpses

of movement. I saw something peek out from behind a tree and then duck back. Then I heard

a loud crashing sound as it ran off in the opposite direction. It freaked me out at first, but since I

didn't get a good look, I eventually convinced myself it was a deer or some other wild animal.

I returned to the cabin and told my dad what had happened, and we both laughed about it.

We made some dinner, bull crapped a little, and settled down to sleep at about 9 p.m.

Around 1.30 a.m., we both awoke to a loud crashing sound, like someone had thrown a large rock

onto the roof. We got up, listened for a few minutes, and heard nothing

...