Louisiana, Missouri, July 11, 1972
“Catch him, Terry,” Wally Harrison shouted to his older brother. “We gotta catch him!” Wally’s five-year-old legs couldn’t run any faster.
The brown dog darted through the trees, out of sight.
“We can’t catch that dumb dog. We need to get Doris to come help,” said Terry, panting to catch his breath. He dropped to his knees.
Wally plopped down beside him. “Doris!” he yelled.
Terry slugged him on the arm. “She ain’t gonna hear us all the way out here. Come on.” He tugged at Wally’s sleeve and pulled him to his feet.
The boys trudged back toward the house. Before they made it all the way, Terry stopped. He grabbed his little brother’s arm, and Wally looked up.
On the other side of the house, near the treeline, stood a tall creature with dark hair covering its face.
The monster held something in its arms. Whatever it was, it was dead and full of blood.
A putrid stench wafted toward the boys, unlike anything they had ever smelled before.
Terry screamed. Wally started to cry.
Neither of them wanted to move, not sure what the thing would do.
Inside, Doris was cleaning the bathroom. She heard the panicked screams of her little brother. She ran to the door, yanked it open and hurried out. She saw a monster holding a dead dog. Dried blood matted the dog’s black fur.
“Hurry, come in!” she yelled to her brothers.
At her words, their feet were able to move again. They ran to her and to the safety of the house. The creature gave a loud roar and darted toward the woods.
Terrified, Doris went to find her father.
Priscilla turned the heat off under her frying pan and set down her spatula. She went into the living room and turned up the volume on the evening news. A local reporter was talking about the most recent development in the Momo case.
She mentally tallied the previous accounts. There’d been a man who reported being chased by a monster with red eyes. Two women on a picnic claimed it chased them to their Volkswagen and only left after they blared the horn. Another got a glimpse of it in his flashlight, and that’s not counting the school children who claimed to see it from their classroom window. Just last week, the report had been about the bus that arrived from the West Coast, filled with bigfoot hunters.
Today, though, the reporter talked about footprints. Clyde Penrod showed off the plaster imprint he’d made of the print he’d found. It was huge, with a big heel and three toes. The reporter admired his foresight to preserve the print.
Priscilla shook her head and turned off the television. The bigfoot sightings had put their little riverside town on the national map. The local Dairy Queen had even added a Momoburger to their menu. Momo sure had sparked up their town—but she didn’t believe in Momo.
To this day, Priscilla Giltner believes that Momo was a prank by some of her former students. But she refuses to mention any names. The attention that Momo brought to their quiet town was nothing but good.
Despite being harassed by kids at school because of her sighting, Doris Harrison stands by her experience. She and her brothers reported exactly what they had seen—no more and no less. Doris still doesn’t like to talk about the creature, but she knows that Momo was real. She saw and experienced it for herself.