We know it's still winter, but here's a story that will send a chill down your spine during even the warmest summer months. This one comes from Lubec, and while we first heard it from Mary Wilkes, just last week we received another siting from Simon Bagwell. We'll start with Mary Wilkes' tale.
Mary tells us that all of the old-timers of Eastport know not to be on the shore during a full moon. She said she heard it from her grandmother, who said she had heard the story from her own mother. The fishermen and their families know that on nights of a full moon, the best thing to do is stay inside and lock the doors and windows.
There are reports of a shadowy figure, a man or a man-shaped thing. They say it walks along the shoreline and the nearby neighborhoods. The figure wears some sort of tattered brown robe and its hands appear to be mishapen, swollen things, looking more like lobster claws in the dark than hands. Mary says the old-timers will sometimes leave small baskets of fish, crabs, clams, or mussels out for this strange figure.
No one knows who or what this "lobsterman" is, but his regular appearance during the full moons for the past sixty years (at least) is cause for some concern. As of yet, no one has reported any nefarious actions by the so-called werelobster, but at least for the people of Lubec, they're not taking any chances.
Which brings us to Simon Bagwell. Simon says he's "an old duffer" who has lived just outside of Eastport in the little town of South Trescott his entire life. Last September, after the flatlanders had left for the summer, Simon was coming home from a night at a local watering hole. He was driving down the South Lubec Road, where the road winds real close to the shore, when his pickup got a flat tire. A real "popper" as he explained it. He pulled over to the side of the road, but didn't have a spare tire. It was late, and Simon wasn't too far from home, so he figured he'd just walk.
He hadn't gone too far from the truck when he heard something walking down along the shoreline. He thought it might be an animal of some sort, but whenever he stopped, the footsteps down on the sand seemed to stop as well, only to continue when he started up again. He called out, thinking it might be another person, but he got no response.
Simon kept walking, picking up the pace. Whatever it was down on the shore seemed to match his pace. Simon got to a place where the road started to pull away from the shore. As the ground turned from soft beach sand to harder gravel, Simon claims to have heard a scuttling sound, like a dozen little legs all clicking-and clacking over the ground. Simon started to jog but the thing matched his speed, coming closer and closer to him.
Simon ran as fast as he could, but he knew the creature was gaining on him. There was a salty, briny stench in the air, and suddenly the night seemed much colder than it should in early September. Just as he was sure the thing that followed him was about to reach him, headlights splashed across the road. It was a trucker heading north.
Simon whirled around quickly and saw a blur diving back into the darkness on the side of the road. It was huge, he said, larger than a man, and dressed in some kind of simple, ragged brown robe. Simon swears the creature had some sort of brownish-red shiny skin that looked, "like armor or a shell." Then it was gone.
"I don't know what it was," Simon said, "but I know it scared the pants off me. I ain't never seen nothin' like that in my entire life."
So if you're in the Lubec area during a full moon, be careful!
Stay safe out there, Maine!
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| Is this what Simon Bagwell saw? |
