You’re in the woods, all by yourself. You look to your left, to your right, in front of you and behind you. There’s nothing there- nothing but trees and whatever lurks within them. You may know the area like the back of your hand, but now it’s a totally foreign place as you try to navigate through the brush in the dark of night. You sense that you are being watched. You can physically feel the weight of its eyes pressing down on your back. This is the feeling that for the past twenty-five years I’ve been living for.
My name is Art Vandeller and I’m an amateur crypto zoologist. I’ve spent the last quarter century tracking and hunting down creatures that mankind has yet to discover. Because of my hobby I have been deemed as “weird”, a “lunatic”, a “virgin for life”, etc. by my peers. Well they’re not going to think so when I single- handedly catch a Chupacabra or Sasquatch, or, I don’t know, the Loch Ness Monster!
My fascination with mystical animals began when I was fifteen years old. My father told me to repaint the old shed in the back yard. It had to have been the hottest day Florida has ever seen, and the fumes from the paint were the strongest I’ve ever smelled. After some time, everything began to spin and I felt very light-headed. I got a glass of water and sat down for a minute, but I was still in direct sunlight. So I went into the marsh behind the property line, where there was more shade. I found a dry spot to wait on while my head stopped spinning.
I sat in silence for a long time. Then something slipped into the water. I didn’t see what it was at first. It looked like it had scales, so I figured it was a reptile of some sort; maybe a small alligator. But when I went to investigate it I found that it was not an alligator at all. It was this three and a half foot frog-like creature. It wasn’t like anything else I’ve seen before. I swear to god the thing winked at me before it went back under water. When I told my friends and family about it they didn’t take me seriously.
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