It came as a child. Not that we knew that at the time. The size it already was would have convinced anyone otherwise.
It set itself up on the side of town closest to the school and the old carpet store. Every night it went back to that pit before the forest line and sat there gurgling until morning. Somehow it seemed to fill the pit up as though it were a liquid, but when it moved around town it had distinctive plods of falling footsteps.
The town had a meeting to discuss what to do about it. This was during the shutdown days, so asking the state for help was out of the question. It was decided that it hadn't caused any harm, and as far as anyone could tell, only really existed to waddle around and look into windows all day before heading back to its pit. It was once spotted staring at its own reflection in the pond for the better part of an afternoon. I'm not sure it knew what it was itself, to tell the truth.
People were warned against interacting with it, especially during the nights. Some of the noises that came out of that thing once the sun set reminded me of an old monster flick. People listened, for the most part. Paid it no heed, gave it less and less mind as the weeks went by. It was just part of the town, one that many a postcard to distant relatives described in varying degrees of exaggeration.
It was Halloween, I think, or nearabouts. The Homecoming dance had gotten pushed back that year due to a mix up in renting the hall out to some union anniversary. Some of the kids had gotten into a big scrap at school and gotten banned from going to the dance. So while the rest of the town was reminiscing about old memories or forging new ones, a few of the kids had nothing better to do than to skulk about town with no supervision.
They eventually made it over to the pit, we gathered, some time after the sun had gone down. They must have been drawn by the gurgles and the rumbling that the thing was making. One of them must have gotten the great idea to start poking at it, or throwing rocks at it, like a brat at a zoo. Just a bout of healthy adolescence, their parents would have said.
We soon learned that adolescence was a universal trait.