The Florala Bayou Cryptid

In the Summer of 2009, I was living in Southern Alabama on the Alabama/Florida border, very close to Eglin Air Force Base.

My (former) fiancé and I decided to go to the movies in Dothan, which was about an hour's drive from where we lived. In order to get to the theater, we had to take some back roads and highways, and on the way back from the movies later that night, we were nearing the outskirts of our town.

There were a lot of cypress trees that lined the road in that area, and two bodies of water, known to have alligators, lined either side of the road. The curtains of Spanish moss adorned the cypress trees, and suddenly, a very strange creature hopped in front of our vehicle.

My (former) fiancé slammed on the brakes.

The bright head lamps were on, and it was a clear night, so I got a good look at the animal. It froze in the light. Stunned. I could see that it stood on hind legs with a somewhat bowed stance. It looked almost like a small kangaroo in the legs, but was hairless. It was between three to three and a half feet tall with mottled flesh that was like a pig's.

Sort of like a hairless cat. It had grey-black spots in some areas but no fur at all. To make matters even more strange, the creature had wide bug-eyes that were rimmed in red, and a canine-looking snout with long teeth.

As I stared at it, my (former) fiancé turned to look at me.

"Do you see that thing?" he asked.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I'm not sure, but it's creepy. I've never seen anything like it."

We watched as the creature got its bearings and bounded across the remainder of the road, into the swamp on my side of the vehicle.

I asked, "Do you think it's a Chupacabra?"

My (former) fiancé gasped. "You might be right," he said."

"And the military base isn't too far away either."

Like this story? This account of mine is fully published in a book collection of weird and creepy tales entitled True Ghost Stories and Hauntings, Volume 3 from Barb Shadow! Barb has a new collection she's presently collecting submissions for, as well - in case you might be interested.

You can apply and submit your own creepy tales to From the Shadows Publishing right here: https://fromtheshadowspublishing.com/upcoming/upcoming-2

The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2025 so make sure you go flood Barb with all your stories and see if yours makes this fall's anthology! I know I was stoked when I saw my submission make last year's collection JUST IN time for Halloween!

BLURB: Have you ever had a ghostly encounter? A brush with the unexplained? True Ghost Stories and Hauntings, Volume 3, is a collection of paranormal experiences by people just like you.

A woman unearths human bones and, inadvertently, wakes the dead.

A little girl wishes for her doll to come alive and is terrified when it climbs out of its carriage.

A boy runs through the shadow of a man with a top hat, only to be pushed down the stairs.

And an entity with no face wraps itself around a woman, showing her hideous, blood-red visions.

These are a few of the more than 150 hair-raising encounters included in the latest collection of True Ghost Stories and Hauntings. Paranormal investigator Barb Shadow compiled this volume of the unexplained to give a glimpse at what sometimes steps from the shadows.

The dead have a lot to say – perhaps we should listen.