Screaming or howling in Johnson County, Illinois

I have had two encounters, both when I was about 15, both occured in the wooded hills near the home where I grew up. The first incident was at an abandoned cabin where four friends and I hiked to one night. Three of my friends were on the porch when they ran inside screaming,"We gotta get the hell outta here, we just saw SOMETHING". They were frantic and when I finally got them to tell me what they saw, I didn't believe them at first. Until I saw the two "macho" guys about to cry. They said it was about 7' tall, dark hair and sort of hunched over. They heard it in the woods to the left and saw it run across the trail into the woods to the right. Needless to say, we got the hell out of there and never went back to the cabin at night. The second incident occured about six months afer that. I was staying the night at my friend's house, Sheila, who was one of the three people who saw the "bigfoot". She lived about 3/4 of a mile from the cabin. At about one or two A.M. we both had to pee and decided to just go ot the back door so we wouldn't wake her parents. The back yard was a field of head high weeds that had grown up about five feet from the door. When we had almost finished "doing our duty", we heard strange noises like nothing we ever heard before. It sounded like growling, snorting and huffing and was about 30 feet away. It seemed like forever that we stood there listening to it. Either we were trying to figure out what was out there, or couldn't believe what we were hearing ( my pants were still around my knees). Then it started to run towards us, it definitely had two feet. It came crashing through the weeds and sounded like a person running but with heavier footfalls. We ran for the door not looking back (I personally didn't want to see it). It still was chasing us as we slammed the back door, too close for comfort. When we slammed the door, I could smell something terrible in the air. We ran into her room and a couple of minutes later we heard it outside her window. We woke her parents but they didn't believe us and we could not find any prints around the back yard or her window. I guess because the ground was dry. I know what I heard and my friend beleives what she saw and heard. No one will ever change our minds. In the first incident, it was either oblivious to our presence or was running away. In the second incidence it was chasing us, its intent not known but it probably wasn't going to have a pleasant conversation with us.