There’s Something in Alaska That Shouldn’t Exist
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Why is a bush pilot stranded at a remote Alaska lodge?
I made my living flying people to places they couldn't get to by road. Most of them were fishermen, although I carried just about everybody at one time or another. Plumbers, surveyors, people visiting family. Once, a woman with a wedding cake balanced on her knees, who was considerably more worried about the frosting than she was about the flight. There was a lot of ordinary work involved. You loaded bags, weighed freight, wiped spilled coffee off the seats, and explained why the weather at somebody's destination mattered more than the sunshine over their hotel. I liked that work. I liked knowing the lakes and the people who depended on them. Even after all those years, there were mornings when I couldn't believe I was getting paid to be out there.
I'm retired now. My name's Russell, and I was 51 when this happened. I've changed the names of the two employees who were with me. They agreed that I could tell it, but they have lives that don't need a bunch of strangers getting involved. I'm also leaving out the name of the lodge. I'll tell you it was on a small lake north of Iliamna, and that's as specific as I'm willing to be. What happened there cost one of those employees most of a year of work. It caused the other to leave Alaska. I stayed longer, although I stopped doing something I'd done without much thought for over 20 years. If a customer wanted me to remain overnight at an isolated property, I started finding reasons to turn the job down. People usually assumed I'd had a bad encounter with a bear.
I let them assume it. I knew how to describe a bear, and I could have given them a description that would have satisfied everybody. The problem was that all three of us had spent a considerable amount of time looking at this thing. Long enough to recognize particular injuries on its body. Long enough to watch it work out how to get into a building. I still can't tell you what it was. The flight was in the last week of September. I was operating out of Iliamna that season, flying a beaver on floats for a small outfit whose dispatcher knew me well enough to tell when I was pretending to be cheerful. Her name was Ruth. That morning she'd put a box of donuts on the counter because another pilot was having a birthday.
I remember taking two and putting the second in a napkin for later. By the time I ate it, I was sitting on a kitchen floor with a loaded shotgun across my legs. My assignment was a routine supply run with two passengers coming back. The lodge had closed to guests, and the last two seasonal employees were finishing the shutdown. I had plumbing antifreeze, replacement fittings, and some other maintenance items the owner wanted left there for the spring. The employees would unload the freight, finish draining the last guest cabin water line, and ride home with me. The main building's water and heat would stay on until we were ready to load their bags. Their names were Beth and Toby. Beth was 29 and had worked three summers at the lodge, mostly handling meals and housekeeping.
although everybody did a little of everything toby was twenty-five it was his first season there he'd maintained the boats and done the jobs that involved getting wet dirty or both i knew them from earlier flights beth always put the heavy bags nearest the dock before i arrived toby always asked if i wanted a hand then waited for instructions instead of grabbing a strut and deciding he understood aircraft those sound like small things when you spend a summer making the same trips they're the things you remember about people The forecast wasn't perfect, but the conditions along my route were good enough when I left. There was a system coming in, and we expected the weather to deteriorate later in the afternoon.
I had enough room to make the trip, complete the pickup, and be back before that happened, provided the forecast held. I also had a safe place to wait if it didn't. The lodge was stocked, heated, and occupied. Nothing about the flight required me to gamble on getting home. I took the lower route through the country west of the higher ground.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why is a bush pilot stranded at a remote Alaska lodge?
0:22–9:15
2
What strange animal was stalking the lodge before the storm?
9:15–14:34
3
What does the injured creature look like when it appears at the window?
14:34–23:22
4
How does the creature try to break into the lodge through the roof?
23:22–33:33
5
How does the creature drag Toby beneath the lodge porch?
33:33–49:55
6
What happens when the creature breaks through the lodge ceiling?
49:55–58:48
7
How do Russell, Beth, and injured Toby escape the collapsing lodge?
58:48–1:07:36
8
Was the mysterious Alaska creature ever identified after the attack?
1:07:36–1:14:32
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Just Creepy: Scary Stories
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