The Durango has been piling up the miles lately, bringing me from the local forest to confront multiple cryptohominids, out to West Virginia for a funeral and some fisticuffs. I recently found myself on the upper peninsula of Michigan, hot on the trail of the greatest cryptid that’s ever lived. The Reality Register gave me the company gas card, the address to an Airbnb, a stipend for some warm clothes at the Army Surplus store, and I was off to find the truth about Dogman.
Dogman is a creature that looms large in the imaginations of people who demand to know the truth, and he has such a long and storied history with so many credible stories and convincing photographs that there’s no point in recounting even the smallest portion of this mountain of evidence. He’s a 7 foot canine hominid with red eyes – he wields long claws and sharp fangs, though very few attacks are actually reported. Some say he uses infrasound to paralyze his quarry, and he is the unquestioned musclebound king of cryptids.
I set out to the small lakeside town, and decided to take advantage of some local knowledge. I checked out the local gas station, where I chatted up the rotund cashier, asking about the wolf’s head that topped his cane. He told me that he got the cane because it looks cool, and it was a constant reminder of the danger presented by Dogman, a cryptid that was well known to the area. Excitedly, I asked how I could see the legendary cryptid, and he told me that if I wanted to feast my eyes, it was simple: mow the lawn and then wait by a pile of clippings.
It was April in Michigan, so there was no chance of having fresh cut grass, and I certainly wasn’t going to do any yardwork at a rented house, so I asked for another option. Lettuce, he told me. I was confused, as I always assumed that a cryptid as virile and terrifying as the Michigan Dogman must be a carnivore. Why else would he have those cool muscles and sharp teeth?
My chubby three legged conversation partner said he didn’t understand it, but it always worked for him, and then offered to show me pictures of the beast on his phone. I declined to look, because it’s always awkward to look at pictures when someone else is holding the phone. I grabbed a premade salad, gathered up several gigantic cans of Twisted Teas and went back to the cabin.
I drained the final can as I pulled into the pea gravel driveway of the cabin. Placing the disgusting gas station salad out on the roof of the Durango, I went to go look in the woods across the street, poke the muzzle of the rifle into the underbrush and see what I could find. I left the car running and headed across the street. When I got to the treeline, I realized the dark forest was just too spooky for me to be out there by myself, so I headed back to the cabin and the safety it represented.
Much to my surprise, I saw a large dark form on top of my beloved Durango. It had tall ears, and its eyes shone red in the porch floodlights, snarling through green leaves of lettuce. It was tall, maybe not 7 feet, but it was close, and it crouched with strange proportions. I readied my weapon, and was about to fire when I remembered a cardinal rule of gun safety: be sure of your target and what is beyond it. I could have easily cut the beast down in a hail of gunfire, but I was worried about hitting the cabin. Would I be charged a repair fee if I damaged the siding? Worse, what if I hit a window? They’d definitely notice that.
The beast was eating vegetables, so it was clearly no threat to me. I threw down my rifle and threw a sweet spin kick in its direction. It staggered, and I proceeded to do what I love: physically assault cryptids. The details are unimportant, but by the end I had the creature subdued in a quivering ball of fur and blood. I grabbed its fur and rolled it to its back, and was shocked to discover that the legendary Dogman was actually a kangaroo! Its unconscious form showed no evidence of life, so I dragged it over to the lakeshore, and rolled it into the water near a public boat launch.
I’m not sure where the kangaroo came from, but I do know that the real Dogman is out there somewhere. Someday, I hope to meet him.
Mohammed Sinclair
