Something was standing right beside me in the dark.

I heard the grass move next to me as I peered out into the dark forest in front me.

At first, I almost dismissed it.

The sound was so quiet and brief that I wondered whether I had imagined it.

Then, it came again.

The rustling came from a patch of tall grass only a few feet away from where I was standing.

A second earlier, I had been scanning the meadow and the tree line beyond the kennels, convinced that whatever had the dogs so agitated was somewhere out there in the darkness.

The sound beside me made me realize that the dogs had not been staring into the distance at all.

Whatever had been holding their attention could be right here, only a few feet away from me.

I froze.

A jolt of adrenaline that tightened my stomach and sent a prickling sensation up the back of my neck was immediate and instinctive.

A moment earlier I had been investigating why the dogs were carrying on to frantically.

Suddenly, I was within striking distance of a mountain lion or bear.

Whatever had been holding the dogs' attention all evening was no longer a distant possibility hidden somewhere in the darkness.

It was close.

Very close.

I swung the flashlight toward the sound so quickly that the beam bounced across the grass.

Every stalk lit up in brilliant detail.

Drops of moisture sparkled white in the light.

Shadows twisted and shifted between the stems.

I searched desperately for eyes… a shape… a silhouette… anything.

There was nothing there.

At least, nothing I saw.

The fact that I could not see it somehow made the situation worse, though.

Had a deer bounded away, I would have laughed at myself.

Had a coyote appeared, the mystery would have been solved, but no real threat.

Instead, I found myself staring into a patch of illuminated grass while every instinct I possessed insisted that something was hiding there.

I backed away slowly without turning around.

My flashlight was trained on that spot in the tall grasses nearby where I had heard the faint sound.

Nothing.

When I returned to the trailer, relief washed over me.

I locked the front door for good measure.

The dogs continued to bark and carry on for another thirty minutes, but this time, I stayed inside the trailer just in case.

The following morning, I walked the area looking for some clue that might explain what had happened.

I searched the grass where I had heard the movement and examined the dirt roads and the edges of the meadow.

I looked for tracks, disturbed vegetation, scat, fur, or anything else that might identify our mysterious visitor.

But, I found nothing.

That may be the most unsettling part of the entire story.

Whatever passed through our property that night left so little evidence that, had the dogs not reacted the way they did, I would have questioned whether the encounter had happened at all.

Of course, there is another possibility.

Perhaps the mysterious visitor was not a mountain lion or bear at all.

Perhaps it stepped through a time portal hidden somewhere beneath the pines and vanished before I could identify it.

At the moment, that theory has exactly as much physical evidence supporting it as any other explanation I have managed to uncover.

If that possibility sounds like something you’d imagine, Gabriel Paulson's Jacob Lake Trilogy begins with a mystery every bit as strange as the one I encountered this weekend.

What starts as an ordinary camping trip quickly turns into a journey involving hidden portals, impossible discoveries, and the realization that reality may be far larger and far stranger than anyone suspects.

You can explore the Jacob Lake Trilogy here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FKQDZN6

And if you happen to discover a portal hidden somewhere in the forest, please let me know.

I still have a few unanswered questions about whatever was standing in that grass.

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MOVIE MONDAY

And this week, all of the puppy’s went for a walk in the forest. I’ve been waiting until they Candy Crush litter was fully vaccinated due to the recent illnesses we encountered. Yesterday was the first time out of their puppy nursery. They were so excited. You can watch it all by going to the Dire Wolf Project Learnistic App and then following this path:

Crafting the Dire Wolf —> Current Litters —> June 7, 2026

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Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.