The beast was transported separately from the other circus animals on a specially built, ironclad wagon.

But somewhere in the tangled swamps outside the small southern Mississippi community of Chatawa, the train derailed and crashed. When people came to the site they found all the circus animals dead and the ape-man's wagon destroyed. The beast was nowhere to be found.

At a small lake a few kilometers from the railway track lays a convent, St. Mary of the Pines. Five days after the train crash, one of the nuns saw a large humanoid figure lurking through the undergrowth across the lake from the convent. Her testimony became the origin of the legend of the

CHATAWA MONSTER.

Most of Chatawa's current residents are well aware of the myth but do not profess to believe in any monster. However, there are still people in the area who feel observed and uneasy when they are out in the rugged terrain. People who believe that the vast forests are hiding something, that it's not just natural forces moving out there. They speak of the surroundings as having "open doors" to other dimensions of reality, that things happen in the forests that cannot be explained. Strange claw marks high up on tree trunks, vines and dense thickets that have grown over the footpaths overnight, felled trees on the roads after windless nights. Many of these people believe that the monster is still out there. They hear his footsteps and ragged breath behind them when they find themselves in the forest. They are burdened with his demons that haunt their dreams at night.