Kyawiley Wildthing

My Uncle Tony told me this story right before I left for basic training in 2008. In Genoa, West Virginia in Wayne County; my family owns a small farm. We only have a single cabin on the grounds, and it’s used for recreational purposes only. I’ve grown up hunting there along with my brother, my grandfather received the land by it being passed down from my great-great-grandfather who once lived in this extremely rural area. He once had a house there in the early 1900s but it was lost in a fire. In the late 1990s my grandfather decided to clean the 70 acres of land and build a cabin to escape from everyone and everything. But, even before these days, my family explored the land hunting and chopping the aged trees for firewood. My uncle Tony and his brother, before he joined the service, used to go camping beyond the area of my family’s farm, into an area they call the Kyawiley.

The Kyawiley is so rural, the roads can not be seen on maps and the road disappears into the creek and heads into the forest near the East Lynn Lake. Once, according to my Uncle Tony’s account, He, his brother and his best friend decided to go camping in the Kyawiley. They had built a cabin out in the wilderness which they stayed in when they went hunting in the fall, but they hadn’t visited the cabin since the past fall. They stayed there for a couple of nights when they started noticing sounds of an animal circling the cabin around 1 A.M. every night. My uncle, knowing the sounds of animals said that this creature made a sound he didn’t recognize. A deep slow breathing. He said at first they thought it was possibly a bear, but on the third night, something struck them all three as odd. What happened next, my uncle told me, to this day sends chills up his spine every time he enters the woods.

Around 1 a.m. they heard the same animal circling the cabin. But this time, it was extremely close. It got closer and closer and suddenly there was a silence. My uncle, his brother, and friend were tense over the situation needless to say, especially since the animal had stopped directly to the left of the cabin’s entrance. In the front of the cabin there was a porch. My uncle waited for 30 minutes but still there were no sounds of movement. After waiting my uncle was nervous, so he grabbed his gun and loaded it. Just as he loaded the last bullet, the animal stepped on the porch. This got all three men to jump to their feet. What was also peculiar was the fact it seemed as if the animal had two feet instead of four legs.

The creature took a step, and another. It stepped until it was directly in front of the door.

My uncle then shouted, “If you take one more step I’ll unload my gun on you.”

There was no sound. They waited for five minutes or so, and then whatever it was unfortunately took another step.

“I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t identify yourself I’ll shoot you, I promise!”, my uncle said.

No sound. Just the wind blowing and the crackle of the fire. After 15 minutes had passed my uncle decided to move into the next room of the cabin, just to be safe. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he decided to let whomever or whatever have a pass that night. But the creature had other plans. My uncle, his brother, and friend decided to just go to sleep in the next room and let the noise be left alone. Just as they went to sleep, the creature awakened them by walking on the porch, which creaked on it’s every step. The creaking stopped on the porch right in front of the window. My uncle had enough. He gave another warning, the same don’t take another step, but this time, the creature did take another step.

My uncle unloaded his gun through the window and he said you could hear the creature take from off the porch and tore through the woods. He, his brother, and friend in a rush of adrenaline tore out of the cabin after it. Following a fresh blood trail, and using coon lights, they followed the blood trail through the brush and cattail by the lake’s edge and then up a mountain. When they reached the top of the mountain, they were surprised to find an old building, possibly a schoolhouse or church left behind from when the old mining town of East Lynn was booming, before they flooded the town and created East Lynn Lake.

The blood trail led into a large hole on the side of the building. It was barely daylight now and they could see just enough to get the boards off the door to get inside the building. What they found was very peculiar and sends a lot of questions through my mind. Toward the back of the building the boards were torn from the structure and the dirt from the ground was visible. There was an imprint in the ground approximately 7 feet long. The imprint, my uncle said, reminded him of what you’d see when you look at a typical doghouse when a dog digs him a spot to sleep. An indention in the earth with no grass and nearly a foot deep. Around this large hole were animal bones, piled up. The blood trial was lost. Just as soon as they had made this discovery, it began to rain. My uncle, his brother, and friend were terrified. What animal would leave such a huge imprint in the ground. A wild dog? His answer would soon be answered a few years later.

After my uncle found this discovery, he and his brother decided they would not stay in the cabin they had built so deep in the woods. Instead they would stay at my farm, which was approximately 25 minutes away and it was also closer if something were to happen unexpectedly. Three years passed since they had the run in with the creature at the cabin and my uncle had not experienced any other paranormal activity over the past three years. But this year more unexpected things were going to happen, and a possible explanation for his earlier run-in was just around the corner.

My uncle said that while he was hunting, he met the border landowner hunting one day along the fence-line. The owner asked my uncle if he had seen anyone else on the land, and my uncle said no and asked why? The land owner stated that a few of his horses he has found, were not only dead, but their throat from their jawbone to their breastplate had been removed by some type of animal or person. My uncle said he would keep a lookout for anyone during his hunting trip and let him know by the end of his time hunting. A week passed, and it was time for my uncle to go home. He packed all his things up and headed to see the old man who owned the horses to tell him he hadn’t seen anything peculiar. He drove to the old man’s house, told him and headed out the gravel road towards Drift. My uncle then said as he passed the old man’s horse pasture, he noticed a horse at the fence-line which was panicking and letting out a horrible screech. He stopped his jeep and got out. Just then, he said as soon as he shut the door to his jeep, a creature jumped from off the fence-line and cleared the road in a single jump. It passed the lights of his jeep, so he got a clear look at its backside. He said it was about 6 feet tall with sharp claws and it was hairy with grayish fur. It wasnt humanlike, like a description of bigfoot, but it was no coyote or other predator. This creature was on two legs.

He swears this story is the truth, and I believe him after his service of a lifetime in the armed forces. He said he doesn’t have an explanation, but he feels the experience he had at the cabin, and the beast he saw clear a 15 foot road are one in the same. He hasn’t seen it since, and I haven’t saw anything of the sort, but he swears by this story, and it makes you wonder if the story of the Kyawiley Wildthing just may be true.