Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods by Hal Johnson

Author:Hal Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Published: 2015-09-03T04:00:00+00:00

Whirling Whimpus

(Vertex sp.)

In the upper peninsula of Michigan, there lives a creature called a dungavenhooter, which resembles a crocodile with no mouth. It pounds its prey with its heavy tail until the poor victim is reduced entirely to a gaseous form, which the dungavenhooter then inhales through its enormous nostrils. All its sustenance comes this way, through the nose, like the Astomi in India.

I mention the dungavenhooter because the power of its tail to reduce a moose calf or a hiker to gas is unprecedented in nature; but the power of the whirling whimpus comes close. While the dungavenhooter requires time and multiple blows to gasify its prey, the whimpus can, in an instant, reduce a grown man to a consistency that is usually described as “syrup.” Being turned into syrup is not quite as bad as being turned into gas, dear reader, but it cannot be a pleasant experience.

The skill of the whimpus lies in its ability to spin at such a rapid velocity that it is almost invisible, resembling in this way the whirlwind that can only be detected by the pieces of leaf and dust swirling within. When the whimpus reaches its fastest rate of spin, it simply extends its long arms, and anything it touches instantly becomes syrup. Some call it slime or goo, but that is hardly appetizing. The greedy way the whimpus licks the stuff off its paws indicates that it must be syrup.

A whimpus usually feeds on deer and feral hogs, which abound in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee where it lives, but it will eat a human should one come across its path. Often these poor saps are declared missing, and, because search parties rarely look for syrup stains in their investigations, no trace of them is ever found. To call them lost is just wishful thing, as few are ever lost in the Cumberlands; they are merely the food of the whimpus.

You may have heard of Troop 2––5 of the paramilitary youth militia known as the Boy Scouts of America. Today Troop 2––5 is famous for being a ragtag band of mystery-solving boy sleuths, but back in the dark days of 1978, the troop was known for a camping trip that ended in tragedy: the loss of six scouts, most of whose bodies were never recovered. Five of these scouts were tenderfoots, and hardly missed, but the sixth, Beauregard Shagtemple, had earned the coveted merit badge in phrenology, and so search parties combed the area for weeks—to no avail.

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