I've done seasonal work before, Firewatch gigs, Backcountry
surveying, property sits. I like the quiet.
The isolation never bothered me, and I've always found the desert
to be kind of peaceful in a way most people don't understand.
You either feel alive out here, or you feel like the place is
trying to erase you. There's not a lot of in between.
Last October I took a temp job watching over an old Ranger
outpost in southern Utah. Just a week, maybe 2.
Easy money. My handler Clint, told me the
place used to be an active fire lookout post until a lightning
strike took out half the tower frame and buckled the concrete
footings. They rebuilt part of it lower
down the Ridge and used it now and then for offseason
monitoring. Clint was this gruff ex jumper
with a limp and a voice like gravel in a blender.
He picked me up in a dust cake Silverado and drove me 3 hours
east of Kanab off pavement the last 20 miles.
No cell service, just miles of sagebrush, wind shaped rock and
that dead silence that sets in the further you get from
anything human. The outpost sat atop Horsehead
Ridge. No joke it looked like a spine
of rock ending in a crooked horse like crag.
From the front porch you could see everything, the wash below,
the red rock Bluffs to the West, and on a clear day, maybe even
the edge of the Arizona strip. The building itself, 2 rooms,
one barely more than a closet with a busted antenna, dented
generator, and a cot that smelled like a high school
locker room. The back door had a crack wide
enough for wind to sing through. Clint helped me haul in my gear,
gave me a key to the gun locker, just a flare gun and a rusted
hunting rifle, and warned me about scorpions nesting in the
corners. Then he clapped me on the
shoulder and said something I haven't been able to forget.
You hear knocks at night, don't answer right away.
Wait, listen first. He must have seen my face,
because he grinned, all crooked teeth and sunburnt lips.
Kidding, probably. Anyway, the last guy bailed
halfway through his first weekend.
Claimed he saw shadows moving in the rocks, but who knows?
Meth's a hell of a drug. With that, he tipped his hat,
got back in the truck, and disappeared in a storm of dust
down the winding trail. I didn't think much of it at the
time. Guys like Clint say creepy stuff
all the time, especially if you're green or new to the job.
It's part of the culture. Like hazing, but with more
coyotes and less beer. The first day was nothing.
I logged the generator hours, made some instant ramen, and
walked the perimeter with my flashlight.
The sunsets early this time of year, and by 7:00 PM the Ridge
was cloaked in purple shadows. It's the kind of darkness that
feels heavy, like it's pressing in.
I read until my eyes burned, cracked a lukewarm beer from my
cooler, and eventually decided to turn in early.
I wasn't scared, just tired. It was around 9:30 when I
noticed it. I'd stepped outside to take a
leak and cool off. The wind was dead still, no
rustling, no coyotes yipping in the distance, nothing.
And that's when I saw the stones.
Stacked about 20 feet from the porch steps was a small Cairn. 5
flat river stones balanced perfectly on top of one another.
It hadn't been there earlier. I'm not some city kid.
I always scan my surroundings and there sure as hell wasn't a
pile of rocks sitting right there.
When I'd done my walkabout before dinner, I walked over to
it. Nothing strange about the rocks
themselves, normal river stones, but the balance was too perfect.
Not like something you'd stumble into by accident.
Could have been a leftover marker, maybe from Clint, maybe
from the last guy, or maybe it had been knocked down in the
wind. Rebuilt it.
No, that's not how wind works. I should have knocked it over.
I almost did, but something in my gut said leave it, so I did.
I went back inside, made sure the doors were locked front and
back, and settled into the cot, my pocket knife under my pillow
like always. I didn't sleep well.
The wind picked up just after midnight, whistling through that
crack in the back door frame. It almost sounded like
breathing, that kind of ragged nasal inhale you hear when
someone's standing too close. I got up around 1:00 AM and put
a towel in the gap to muffle the sound.
That helped for a while. The rest of the night was
uneventful, but I swear when I woke up just before dawn, I
could still smell dust in the air.
Not normal dust. It had this metallic edge to it,
like wet pennies and dried blood.
I brushed it off first. Night nerves, sleep deprivation,
maybe even Clint's stupid don't answer the Knox joke rolling
around in my head. I got dressed, made some instant
coffee, and stepped outside to greet the sunrise.
The rock pile was gone. No stones, no tracks, no sign it
had ever been there. Just empty dirt and wind.
I told myself I wasn't going to let the rock thing get to me.
There had to be some explanation.
Maybe Clint came back and moved it as a joke, Maybe some old
Cairn had collapsed and I just didn't remember where it was.
I logged the missing stones in the Ranger notebook anyway, not
because I thought it mattered, but because something about
seeing it in writing made it easier to believe it actually
happened. If I was already starting to
imagine things, I wanted a paper trail to prove otherwise.
The day was quiet. I hiked about 1/2 mile down the
Ridge around noon just to get my legs moving and shake the weird
vibes from the night before. I didn't see a soul.
No fresh tire tracks on the fire Rd. no distant hikers.
Just a couple Jack rabbits and a snake sunning itself near the
edge of the wash. When I got back, I fired up the
generator to charge the lanterns.
The fuel read low even though I'd only run it twice, chalked
it up to age or a leak I hadn't found yet.
Around six PMI ate another ramen cup and boiled some instant
coffee. The sun dipped low behind the
crags, casting those long finger like shadows that crawl over the
hills until everything turns purple and blue and eventually
black. That's when the feeling came
back. Not fear exactly, but something
else. That prickling sensation you get
when someone's watching you from behind, like your body knows
before your brain does. Like your spine remembers
something you don't. I tried to shake it, sat by the
window with a paperback and let the coffee warm.
My hands told myself I was just wired from being alone.
I almost convinced myself. Until 8:43 PM.
Three knocks. Slow, steady, not loud, but not
timid either. I froze.
My first thought, honest to God, was Clint.
It sounded like the kind of prank a guy like him would pull.
Maybe he'd driven back up just to see if he could rattle me.
But then I remembered the road. No sound of tires crunching
gravel, no headlights, no engine, nothing.
I'd been sitting right by the window all evening.
If a truck had come up, I'd have seen it.
The knocks came again. I walked to the door and pressed
my ear to the wood. Whoever it was didn't say a
word. I thought about Clint's warning.
Wait, listen first. My gut twisted, but I pushed it
aside and peeked out the slit between the curtain and the
glass. There was a man standing at the
bottom of the porch steps, early 20s maybe.
Long dark hair stuck to the side of his face with sweat thin
build. Looked like he hadn't slept in
days. He wore a tattered denim jacket,
dirty jeans and boots so beat up they look like they were held
together by willpower alone. He was staring straight at the
door, not moving, not blinking, just standing there.
I opened the door halfway and leaned out.
You all right, man? He looked at me, eyes glassy and
sunken like he'd been walking through hell.
He licked his cracked lips and finally spoke.
My truck broke down. I walked from the wash.
His voice was low, dry, barely audible over the breeze.
The wash? I asked.
That's 5 miles easy. You didn't pass anyone.
He just shook his head. Something about him unsettled
me, but I stepped aside and gestured in.
Come in, I've got water landlines down, but I've got a
shortwave. He nodded once, almost
robotically, and walked inside. He didn't ask to sit, didn't
look around. He just stood by the fireplace,
arms stiff at his sides. I handed him a glass of water
and watched as he drank the entire thing in one long gulp,
like he hadn't had a sip in days.
You want food, coffee? I asked.
He didn't answer, just turned and stared at the window.
I tried again. You didn't see any cars out
there? No hikers, nothing.
Just silence. He wasn't twitchy or wild eyed,
he didn't seem high, but he also didn't seem right.
There was something vacant behind his eyes, something wrong
with how he held himself, like his body remembered being a
person, but the mind inside had forgotten how.
Where exactly did your truck breakdown?
I asked. He raised one hand slowly and
pointed E toward the Canyon rim past the wash.
About 5 miles. 5 miles in those boots in this heat.
He should have been dead on his feet, but he didn't even look
winded. Well, sit tight, I said.
I'll try the shortwave. I left him staring at the glass
and went to the corner table where the radio sat.
Twisted the dial, got nothing but static.
Reached for the clipboard to note the attempt, and when I
turned around he was gone. I hadn't heard him move.
No footsteps, no door creak, just gone.
I rushed to the front door, still locked, kitchen empty,
bathroom empty. The back door was still bolted
shut and the windows were too narrow for anyone to squeeze
through. I even checked the closet, half
expecting to find him crouched there like some sick joke.
Nothing. Just me and the wind.
I stood in the middle of the room for a long time, waiting,
listening. Eventually, I sat down.
I didn't turn off the lamp. I didn't touch my book.
I just stared at the fireplace for what felt like an hour,
heart still thudding like I'd run a mile.
Then the floorboards creaked behind me, Slow, measured,
deliberate. I turned.
He was back, sitting in the chair by the window, exactly
where he'd been before. Same posture, same
expressionless stare. Hey, where did you go?
I asked. He didn't look at me.
I took a step forward. Did you find your truck?
Did someone come get you? Still nothing.
Then he spoke, just three words, quiet, measured, like he'd
rehearsed them. There are others.
What others? I asked, but he didn't respond.
The room felt colder, the shadows heavier.
My skin prickled like a cold sweat was building under my
clothes. Are you hurt?
I asked, keeping my distance. He blinked slowly, then turned
to look at me for the first time since reappearing.
His lips barely moved. They walk too.
That's when the generator cut out.
The light flickered once, then everything went black.
I fumble for my flashlight and snapped it on.
When the beam hit the chair, it was empty.
He was gone again. No sound, no footsteps, no door.
Just vanished into thin air, like the air swallowed him.
That was the first time I felt something close to real fear.
I checked the back door again, still bolted.
Walked around the outpost with the flashlight.
Every corner, every Creek, every room empty.
But when I stepped outside with the light and scanned the dirt,
I found them. Footprints.
Bare, human, deep in the dust, circling the entire outpost in
wide loops. Long, narrow feet, no tread.
Toes spread like hands. There were dozens of them, and
they weren't mine. I didn't sleep that night, not
even a little after seeing the footprints.
Dozens of them, circling the outpost like coyotes around a
dying thing. I sat with my back to the closet
door and the hunting rifle in my lap.
It felt stupid, holding that old rifle, like it would matter if
whatever this was came inside, but it gave me something to
grip, something real in a place that was rapidly slipping away
from reason. I didn't call for help.
I didn't even try the radio again.
I don't think I really believed help would come anymore.
Not from Clint, not from the sheriff, not from anyone.
Whatever was out there, it felt old.
Older than Rhodes, older than the people who mapped them.
It was quiet until just after 4:00 AM.
That's when the shortwave crackled to life on its own.
Not with static, with a voice. It came through, faint, warped,
like it was buried beneath 10 layers of sand and time.
It walked too far. I stared at the receiver,
frozen. The voice came again, the same
words, but this time lower, more distorted.
Doesn't remember what it was. And then silence.
No click, no fade out, just gone.
I stepped away from the receiver like it might bite me, gripping
the rifle tighter. That's when I heard it.
The front door creaking open. Not slamming, not crashing, just
that slow, deliberate sound of old hinges turning.
I hadn't locked it. After everything that happened,
I never even thought to lock the damn door.
The air turned cold. Not desert at night cold.
Dead of winter inside your bones cold.
I crept into the main room and he was back, the stranger
standing in the open doorway. Same torn denim jacket, same
boots, same dark hair, though now it looked damp.
His back was to me, arms slack at his sides.
He wasn't moving. The porch light behind him was
flickering, casting his shadow long and distorted across the
floor, like it didn't quite belong to him.
I raised the rifle slowly, arms trembling.
And then he spoke. But his voice wasn't his.
It came out layered. 2 voices at once, 1 low and rasping like a
dying animal trying to speak. The other was high, almost
childlike. Too high.
I need help. I lowered the rifle.
Not because I wasn't afraid, because my arms just gave out.
He turned around slowly. His eyes were pitch black, not
dark black, no whites, no iris, just void.
And his mouth, it didn't open the way mouths are supposed to.
It stretched wide and long, cracking at the corners until it
split his face almost in half. He didn't scream, he didn't
lunge. He just stood there, mouth open,
staring at me. And that's when everything went
black. I woke up to the sun on my face.
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not eerie silence, just the normal kind.
Birds chirping, wind in the brush, the kind of morning peace
I used to like. The second thing I noticed was
where I was. I wasn't in the station.
I was standing barefoot 300 yards from the Ridge in the
middle of the open desert, arms at my sides, back perfectly
straight, staring directly at the horizon.
My lips were dry, my tongue swollen.
My eyes burned like they hadn't blinked all night.
I heard a voice behind me. Jesus.
Eric. Clint.
He jogged up, out of breath, grabbing my shoulder hard, like
he wasn't sure I was real. Are you hurt?
What the hell happened? I couldn't answer.
I didn't even know where to begin.
He brought me back to the outpost.
I walked, but I don't remember moving.
My feet were shredded from the rocks, blood smeared across my
heels and calves. When we reached the station,
Clint got even more tense. 2 perfect holes in the front door,
hunting rifle rounds fired from inside.
Did you shoot at someone? He asked.
I shook my head slowly, or maybe I nodded, I don't know.
I was barely hanging on inside, the place was in chaos.
The attic panel was nailed shut from the inside, the furniture
had been pushed against the walls.
The flare gun was on the floor by the window, unused, and the
shortwave still on, still humming.
Later, at the station in Kanab, the sheriff asked me questions.
I told them someone came to the door, that I let him in, that he
left, that I felt threatened, that I fired two shots through
the door. It wasn't a lie, it just wasn't
the truth either. They found no sign of another
person. No tire tracks, no boot prints,
no second mug, no name in the logbook, nothing.
Just me. They kept me for two nights in
the clinic, gave me fluids, told me I'd had a stress induced
dissociative event, that being alone out there for too long
sometimes does that to people. When I finally spoke to Clint, I
asked him one thing. You ever see anything up there?
He looked at me for a long time before answering.
There's a reason we stopped using that post, he said.
It wasn't the lightning strike. That's all he gave me.
A month later I left Utah. Move N change my number.
No contact with the agency, No more solo gigs.
I tried to forget, but sometimes when I'm driving through empty
country and the light hits just right, I'll look out toward the
horizon and I'll see someone standing out there, back turned,
head tilted slightly, waiting. And in those moments, the desert
smell hits me again, that strange mix of dust, copper, and
something older, something that doesn't belong in this world.
I don't know what I saw up on Horsehead Ridge.
I don't know if it was ever human, but I know this much.
Whatever it was, it walked too far, and it brought something
back with it. The camping trip was Mikey's
idea. We deserved a little vacation,
he had said, An opportunity to escape our cramped, cluttered
college house and commune with the great outdoors.
He had leaned into the center of our clump one night, the same
devious glint in his eyes that he always got whenever he was
about to drag us into trouble, and said, How about a trip up
the mountain? I don't know, Cynthia had
replied, a bottle of grenadine in one hand and a bottle of
Tito's in the other. I'm not very outdoorsy.
None of us are. My boyfriend, Josh agreed.
Oh, come on. Mikey urged, slinging an arm
around my shoulder. Catherine thinks it's a great
idea, right Kath? I looked around the room, at my
friends, at our messy, half hearted attempt at a pregame.
Autumn cuddled up against her girlfriend Sylvia, Josh and
Mikey bookending me on the lumpy couch.
I loved every part of that small, crappy house I shared
with my friends. The wall full of Polaroid
pictures, the TV we never got around to mounting, the cat we
adopted off the street curled up by my feet.
I was going to miss it all. We would all be graduating from
College in just a couple weeks and then our little gang would
be disbanding for the summer. It would be nice to spend some
quality time with friends before we all had to grow up and enter
the real world. Sure, I agreed, why not, Let's
go. Mikey fist pumped a little too
forcefully and sloshed his drink onto my jeans.
Autumn giggled and raised her cup.
What the hell, I'm in too. So even though we all preferred
the sanctuary of our dilapidated college house to the great
outdoors, we had moshed our half empty solo cups together and
agreed to a trip up the mountain.
After Friday classes surrendered their hold on us, our group of
five piled into Mikey's old van and took off into the mess of
patchy forest that surrounded campus.
The balmy April air and the gentle jostling of country roads
quickly put me to sleep as I rested my head on Josh's steady
shoulder. It was the kind of sleep that
never fully took hold, making me aware that I was going
somewhere, but completely unaware of where that somewhere
might be. When the jolting dip of a
pothole shoved me back into consciousness, we were on the
third hour of our journey. The old van shook as we climbed
the steep mountain toward the campsite, and the overgrown
gravel Rd. we were following looked as if it hadn't been
driven on in years. In the seats in front of me,
Autumn and Sylvia were looking out their respective windows,
admiring the deep ocean of trees that flew past us as we drove.
Eventually, our gravel path disappeared under a suffocating
layer of encroaching vines, and Mikey pulled the van to the side
of the road. Rise and shine, campers, he
called back to us. We're hiking the rest of the way
up. After an hour of trudging over
rocks weighed down by our heavy backpacks, we crested the
summit. The top of the mountain was
idyllic, a flat expanse of untrampled grass that felt like
it had been tucked away just for us.
The rocky ground plateaued out into a perfect clearing,
curtained off by a dense border of tall, tangled trees.
It felt like our own secluded paradise, high above the rest of
the world. I shrugged off my bag and
breathed in the clean forest air.
We had made it. We wasted no time setting up
camp. By the time the three tents were
pitched and the fire was built, we were all exhausted, but none
of us wanted to be the loser who went to sleep first, so we sat
around the campfire for hours, telling ghost stories and
cracking jokes. Somewhere in the middle of
Mikey's third story about Mothman, I turned to Autumn.
How did you find this campsite? Autumn, have you been here
before? No, I haven't, I just asked for
campsite suggestions on Reddit and someone suggested this
place. She shrugged, her blonde curls
bouncing over her flannel clad shoulders.
Because that's not sketchy at all.
Josh laughed. Autumn gave Josh a defensive
shove and he snatched her up into a playful headlock, their
embrace collapsing into a mess of giggles as Sylvia jabbed at
them both with a pointy stick she had claimed off the ground.
You've heard the stories about this place though, haven't you?
Sylvia asked us, arching an eyebrow.
You know, I grew up around here and my parents were always
telling us stories about the mountain.
They didn't want us coming up here.
They said there were always stories about hikers getting
lost in the forest and never being found.
That's it? Mikey asked.
The stories I heard were way more interesting.
I heard people used to live on this mountain, but they had to
evacuate the whole place because of some Chernobyl type
situation. Either that or a huge forest
fire wiped them all out. I can't remember.
I rolled my eyes. Mikey was never one for the
specifics. Where did you hear all that
nonsense on one of your weird conspiracy blogs?
Josh laughed. I actually don't think Mikey is
completely wrong this time. Look.
I pointed across the perfectly empty clearing to a lump in the
overgrown darkness that I had noticed while we were setting up
camp. It was a small pile of bricks,
the collapsed remnants of a wall that hadn't stood for a very
long time. Whatever building used to be
here, it was long gone. Sylvia shook her head.
I don't know anything about all that, but there was a small
commune that tried to live up here a while ago.
I don't remember exactly what happened, but they kind of just
fell off the radar. I think the police were looking
into it. Josh looked around the silent
clearing. Well, I don't know what happened
to them, but they're definitely not here anymore.
Maybe one day they all just vanished.
Autumn leaned in close, wiggling her fingers at us, letting the
flames of the fire light up her face dramatically before she
erupted into a drowsy fit of giggles.
OK. I chuckled, that's enough
conspiracy theory talk for tonight, let's head to bed.
I woke to the crackling sound of sausages cooking over the fire
and the pink light of morning piercing its way through the
mesh of my tent. I emerged from the tent to see
Josh, Autumn and Sylvia sitting around the fire, laughing and
poking each other with the skewered hot dogs they were
broiling. My stomach growled hungrily at
the sight of breakfast. Hey guys.
I greeted. Is Mikey still asleep?
He's going to be mad y'all are eating without him.
Josh turned to me, the fresh light of the morning haloing his
handsome face. I expected him to make a joke
about Mikey over sleeping. I expected him to pull me into a
tight embrace and to cook me some breakfast over the
campfire. I expected a smile, his eyes
crinkling in amusement. Instead, his eyes were
completely dead, void of any semblance of recognition.
I'll never forget that look he gave me.
That was the look that started it all.
And all these years later, I can still see his blank eyes when I
close my own. He quirked his head to one side
and asked. Who's Mikey?
I stopped dead in my tracks, the wet grass scratching at my
halted legs. Mikey.
I repeated. Where is he?
Is he still sleeping? What are you talking about,
Catherine? Sylvia asked, her sharp brow
cutting across her forehead. Who is Mikey?
They were just messing with me. They had to be messing with me.
I tried to wipe the dumb expression off my face and take
a breath. I felt a little stupid for
falling for their little charade.
It was so typical of Mikey to want to pull a prank on the
friend who slept in the longest. He was always the jester and I
was always the fool who worried and fretted over his stupid
antics. The only thing that surprised me
was how committed the rest of the gang was to acting out
Mikey's dumb idea of a prank. Usually one of them would have
cracked by now. I turned and stomped away from
my friends. I was tired and I wasn't in the
mood for whatever stupid prank they were trying to pull.
I unzipped the door to Mikey's tent and was met by an empty
interior. A mess of clothing, books, and
snacks littered the floor, but there was no Mikey inside the
lumpy sleeping bag. When I turned to rejoin my
friends, I expected to see stolen glances and stifled
laughter, but I was met with the same hauntingly blank confusion.
What are you doing? Autumn asked.
I threw my hands up in exasperation.
Well, he's not in his tent, so where is he hiding?
That's my tent. Josh said.
We agreed to bring 2 tents for the two of us because I'm such a
slob and you like your personal space.
Do you not remember? He was looking at me with such
confusion and concern that I had to look away, unable to meet his
falsely sincere eyes. This was so stupid.
I was always the gullible friend the others love to mess with,
always the butt of one of their stupid jokes.
No matter how stupid this prank was, their commitment had me
almost doubting my own memory. It was a nauseating sensation I
wanted to be rid of as soon as possible.
This would all be over faster if I just went along with the joke.
OK, very funny. I laughed, coming to sit next to
Josh on one of the logs that surrounded the fire.
If he wants to hide in the woods and try to scare me instead of
eating breakfast, that's his choice.
I turned to give Josh a kiss, but his face was still twisted
into a look of total bewilderment.
He looked so convincingly dumbfounded by my words that it
gave me the creeps. There was no hint of amusement
or playfulness behind his eyes, only emptiness.
Whatever weird joke was being played on me, he didn't show any
sign of being in on it. I averted my gaze toward the
flames, breathing in its smoke and letting the awkward silence
wash over our circle. Everything was so quiet.
Then we heard the screaming. It was faint, but all four of us
snapped our heads toward the forest, where we could hear the
cries echoing through the trees. They sounded like they were
coming from a short distance away, just past our clearing
down the other side of the mountain.
What the hell is that? Autumn asked, jumping to her
feet. It sounds like someone is crying
for help. Sylvia added a little nervously.
My first instinct was to call my friends out on their
increasingly dumb and elaborate prank, but the cries coming from
within the dense forest sounded too high pitched and pitiful to
belong to Mikey. It almost sounded like a wounded
animal or a baby was wailing out calls of complete and utter
desperation. I could just barely make out the
word help, but everything else about the cries rang out with an
eerie pitch that seemed entirely inhuman, like some creature
trying to mimic the cries of a child.
Whatever that thing was, it wasn't Mikey.
OK guys, this seriously isn't funny anymore.
Please just tell me if this is a joke or not.
I pleaded. Catherine.
Josh gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze.
We're just as confused as you are, I promise I'm going to
check it out. Autumn announced confidently,
stepping toward the tree line. It's probably nothing, but I
would feel horrible if someone actually needed our help.
Sylvia looked almost as nervous as I felt, but she hesitantly
let go of her girlfriend's hand and let her continue on toward
the woods. I didn't want to let Autumn go,
but I selfishly didn't want to be the one to step foot into the
woods. The noise stabbed at my ear with
an incessant drone that I wanted more than anything to end.
I just wanted the noise to stop. I was naive enough to believe
Autumn might be able to make that happen.
A sharp chill crawled its way up my spine as I watched Autumn's
body disappear between the twisted branches of the thick
forest. I looked down at the three
forgotten hot dogs broiling over the fire and my stomach twisted.
I had lost my appetite. Sylvia and Josh wanted to play
cards while they waited for Autumn to return, but I wasn't
in the mood. I faked a headache and retreated
from the group, stepping over the forgotten hot dogs and
slipping inside Mikey's tent. The crying from the woods had
faded to a dull weeping, but whispers could still be heard
cresting over the dense expanse of treetops.
I zipped Mikey's tent shut behind me, drowning out the last
of the wilting whimpers. I tried to distract myself by
flipping through some books that Mikey had brought.
Part of me was looking for some belongings of Mikey's to show to
the group, something that would remind them of his existence.
The other part of me was still in complete denial about what
was happening to us. The messy collection contained
mostly sci-fi novels, but the largest book was different.
It was large and leather bound, the worn edges of its pages
spilling out the sides. I flipped through a few pages
and was faced with scratchy scrawl and disturbing depictions
of creatures I could have never imagined.
I knew Mikey was into some weird stuff.
I was fairly certain he believed in Bigfoot, but this was a whole
different level of weird. I wanted to believe it was
another prank, something he had brought to show off around the
campfire to scare us all. But some of the pages had
bookmarks and notes in Mikey's handwriting scribbled in the
margins. It was pretty clear he was
taking what was written in this book seriously.
I turned through pages depicting woodland Yetis and wendigos of
increasing horror until my eyes felt itchy and my brain pulsed
with even more paranoia. When I reached the middle of the
book, a small stack of papers fell out.
They were printed out website pages of research Mikey had done
on our campsite. It was all there, information on
the missing hikers, the commune, and even some research on
settlers who had lived in this area.
I skimmed all the printouts and nothing seemed overtly strange
about the stories. It just seemed like a string of
bad luck to me. The thing I found the most odd
was Mikey's obsessive fascination with this place.
I pushed the papers away, curling up on Mikey's sleeping
bag and shutting my eyes. I didn't feel panicked, just
exhausted. What was happening around me was
so wrong that my brain had no choice but to reject it
entirely. Sleep found its way to me,
muffling my awareness for moments of fitful dreaming
before I would once again come back to myself and hear the
sounds of crickets and birds in my dreams.
I had no choice but to replay the sound we had heard in the
forest until even that found its way into my waking moments,
mingling discordantly with the chirping crickets.
It took me far too many dizzy, half conscious moments to
realize that the sound was no longer merely a remnant of my
dreams. It was real.
The screaming had returned. Josh and Sylvia were sitting on
logs playing a ferocious game of Go Fish when I rejoined them.
I had no idea how long I had been asleep for, but the sky had
already begun to soften into a dusty orange and my heart sank
when I noticed that autumn was nowhere to be seen.
Do you guys hear that? I asked.
The sound was still faint, but I was certain I could hear it
cresting over the mountain once again, the same quiet but
desperate calls for help echoing off the abundant sea of trees
that surrounded us. The incessant wailing drone
continued to roll over me, sending a new bout of nausea
through my body. Yeah, I hear it too.
Sylvia confirmed. Should one of us go check it
out, someone might be in trouble out there.
Yeah. Josh nodded in agreement.
I can go see what the problem is.
No, I shouted a bit too frantically.
I don't think anyone else should go out there until Autumn comes
back. Sylvia looked me dead in the eye
and asked. Who is Autumn?
Chills prickled at every inch of my clammy skin.
Autumn. I yelled.
Your girlfriend, She went into the forest hours ago and she
still isn't back. What the hell, Catherine?
Sylvia spat at me. Having to be the third wheel on
you and Josh's camping trip is bad enough without you making
jokes about me having some imaginary disappearing
girlfriend. Whatever joke you're trying to
make seriously isn't funny. I turned to Josh, hoping he
might back me up, but his usually supportive gaze conveyed
only disappointment, as if I was truly making a joke at Sylvia's
expense. It's not a joke.
I insisted. And you aren't 1/3 wheel.
The five of us all agreed to come on this trip together.
I pulled out my phone and frantically tapped at the
screen, attempting to produce some kind of evidence to support
my claims. Our group chat, or a picture of
all five of us together. Anything.
Anything that could prove to my friends and to myself that I
wasn't completely losing my grip on reality.
It was dead. Of course it was.
All our phones were probably dead by now.
The gravity of the situation I had been denying all morning
finally hit me. We were miles and miles away
from civilization. All our phones were dead, there
was something out there drawing us into the forest, and anyone
who crossed the tree line was being forgotten.
Autumn was gone, Mikey was gone, and Mikey had the car keys.
The insurmountable circle of trees that surrounded us felt
like it was closing in on me, flooding our once idealistic
campsite with a wave of dense, sticky dread that crept up my
spine and tightly wound around my throat.
I couldn't breathe. Whatever.
Sylvia rolled her eyes. I'll let you guys spend some
quality time together. I'm going to go on a long walk
alone. I wanted to reach out and stop
her, but my feet felt like they were rooted to the ground.
The sounds from the forest had faded once again, but the fear
they had awoken in me still pulsed through my arteries.
As I watched Sylvia's back sink into the tree line, I prayed
once again that this was all just some horrible prank.
Josh and I passed the remaining hours until sunset in silence.
We sat side by side on a log, watching the tree line that
Sylvia's body had sunk into. I could tell from Josh's pursed
lips and furrowed brow that he was upset and confused by my
crazed outburst, and he was worried about Sylvia.
He wouldn't look at me, He would only look straightforward at the
forest. I couldn't think of a single
thing to say. My body was paralyzed and my
brain was foggy. This all still felt to me like
some odd dream, nothing that could exist in our realm of
reality. I felt a tug toward the now too
silent forest. My friends were in there and I
was the only person left to save them.
Could I really just sit here and let them disappear?
Could I walk away from Josh and leave him to come in after me?
We sat there in silence, watching the forest as the sun
began to set and the orange sky began to burn into black.
The tension in Josh's face began to ease, the worried creases on
his forehead flattened out, and a thoughtless smile lifted the
corners of his lips. He had forgotten.
He had forgotten everything. The forest is so beautiful,
isn't it? He asked me.
I'm so glad we decided to take this trip together, just the two
of us. I told Josh I wanted to head to
bed early, and he agreed. As soon as I heard his breathing
become slow and even, I crept from our tent.
As silently as I could. I tiptoed around our mostly
abandoned campsite and tried to ignore how creepy our once
lively circle of tents now felt. As I rummaged through each of my
friend's belongings, looking for anything that could help Josh
and I get out of here, I felt like I was traipsing through a
ghost town. In the end, I found nothing.
The car keys were nowhere to be found, and the food and water we
had left would only last us another day or two at most.
I made my way back down the mountain, constantly tripping
and scuffing up my hands and knees as I tried to traverse the
massive boulders in the dark. After what felt like hours, I
reached the van. I pulled desperately at each of
the locked handles, but none of the doors budged.
I collapsed against the cool metal of the van and let myself
exhale a loud, frustrated sob. I felt completely and utterly
defeated. Whatever was going on within my
own broken, twisted mind or out in the dense shadows of the
forest was completely out of my control, and there seemed to be
no escape. I was so tired and confused.
I just wanted to sleep, but the fear of Josh wandering into the
forest while I slept kept me from closing my weary, drooping
eyelids. If he was all I had left, if the
rest of my friends were truly gone, the only thing I could do
was get him out of this forest alive.
I steeled myself and forced my shaking hands to pick up a rock
off the ground. I was readying myself to smash
through one of the vans windows when a faint wail made me
stutter. The sound was faint from where I
now stood, but it was undeniably present in the otherwise silent
forest. The screams had returned as I
scrambled my way back up the mountain, getting lost, tripping
and falling over my feet in the darkness, I realized the sound
was growing louder than ever, and even more high pitched and
pitiful sounding than I remembered.
I tried to follow the sound back to our campsite, but it seemed
to pulsate from every direction, bleeding through every inch of
the forest, making me completely unsure of where I was going.
Help. It cried over and over again
until the word tangled in on itself and lost all meaning.
When I finally reached camp, it was just in time to see Josh's
silhouette disappear into the tree line.
I screamed after him, but it was too late, he was gone.
I had only one choice left. I had to go in after him.
I sprinted past our deserted tents and into the dense tree
line. Twisted branches seemed to come
at me from every direction, scratching my face and arms as I
sprinted deeper and deeper into the dark forest.
Josh. Josh.
I called again and again until my voice turned hoarse and
unrecognizable. I could feel my breath becoming
more and more desperate and erratic, but I had no time to
rest or slow down. I had to find Josh before it was
too late, before he disappeared into the forest forever.
The mountain was steeper on this side, descending into a Cliff
that jutted out in odd, uncontrollable angles.
I hung onto the trees to keep myself upright, scanning the
impenetrable darkness for any signs of movement.
At one point I thought I saw something move out of the corner
of my eye, but when I scrambled my way over to the shape, it was
just another pile of fallen bricks, more remnants of what
had been lost on this mountain. My legs felt numb and
uncontrollable, and I was too disoriented to catch myself as
one of my ankles twisted and I fell blindly.
I could feel the impact of sharp rocks and branches as my body
flipped and rolled down the side of the mountain, stopping only
when my legs snagged under a boulder and pulled my limp body
to a halt with a jolt of excruciating pain.
I felt myself cry out with uncontrollable pain and rage.
I couldn't stop the pitiful sobs that racked my broken, mangled
body as I lay helpless in the dark, deserted forest.
I stared up at the beautiful starry sky and I blindly felt my
way down to my wound. I was met with hot, wet blood,
torn fabric, and something sharp.
I know now that I was feeling my protruding bone, but back then
my brain refused to even consider this.
I couldn't fathom it. I couldn't fathom any of it.
Tears stung my eyes. I was stuck, there was no way I
could make it to safety and everyone I had brought with me
onto this cursed mountain was now gone.
I cried and begged for help for what felt like eternity.
I screamed with pitiful high pitched desperation until my
words tangled in on each other and lost all meaning.
I don't know how long I was there alone on the side of the
mountain. It was probably only an hour,
but it felt like days. My wailing became subconscious,
just something that happened with every haggard breath I
took. I winced every time I heard the
pitiful, inhuman cries for help, but I could not seem to bring
myself to stop. All I could seem to do was
listen as the strange, broken creature continued to cry.
I didn't hear the sound of approaching feet until it was
almost on top of me. Then finally, a figure emerged
from between the trees. I thought my broken mind might
be playing tricks on me until the figure came closer and I
could make out a face. It was Mikey.
It was so odd I barely even recognized him at first.
He looked like a complete stranger or someone I had not
set eyes on in several years. He just stood there for a moment
staring at me and I wasn't even sure if he could see my face in
the darkness. I heard screaming.
He muttered so softly I could barely hear the words.
Mikey. I finally managed to croak out
into the empty air between us. It's me, Catherine.
He looked at me so strangely, none of his usual mirth
brightening his features, and for one horrible moment I was
certain he was going to open his mouth and ask Who's Catherine.
Instead, he scooped me up in his long arms and carried me back up
the mountain. We made it back to the campsite,
and I was certain I was imagining things when I saw
Autumn, Sylvia, and Josh emerge from their tents, bleary eyed
and confused at the sounds of Mikey's cries for help.
They had crowded around us, asking 1,000,000 questions.
I was somewhat aware of Josh's hands on my face, Sylvia's
shrill voice, but everything was muted behind the searing pain in
my leg and the ringing in my ears.
Everything was happening very fast.
I was jostled into Josh's arms and taken back down to the van.
We rode back to civilization, bringing only the bare
essentials with us. My friends were shouting and
crying in confusion, trying to talk to me, but I couldn't hear
anything they said in my mind. All I could hear were the
screams. I'm sure you can infer what
happened after that. Hospital, home, concerned
parents, concerned friends, psych evaluations, a college
graduation that I barely remember.
I existed in a dense smog for a while, sleepwalking my way
through a reality that never felt all that real to me.
I'll let you make your own theories about what really
happened on that mountain because your guess is as good as
mine. My friends all tell the story
the exact same way. We all went to sleep after
telling ghost stories around the fire.
Mikey woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my
screams. He found me collapsed with a
broken leg and carried me back to safety.
I was in shock and wasn't making much sense, but they all figured
I had sleep, walked into the forest, tripped, and fell.
The story makes sense, a lot more sense than my version
anyway, but I've never really been able to accept it.
The dissonance between our two distinct versions of what
happened caused a rift. I lost touch with my friends not
too long after we all graduated, and Josh and I broke up not long
after that. I know what happened to me isn't
their fault, but I couldn't separate them from it.
After that trip, we all looked at each other a little
differently. I know it's crazy, but some
small part of me still wonders if it was all some stupid prank
gone terribly wrong. Maybe Mikey wanted us to become
a part of the mountains lore. Maybe they were just trying to
mess with me and they took it way too far to a point they
could never be honest with me about.
There's one part of that theory that doesn't fit though.
The screams. My screams.
Either way, I wanted to write all this out.
Maybe get a few of your opinions on what you think could have
caused all this. Sleepwalking.
A stress induced psychotic break?
Like I said, your guess is as good as mine.
The only thing I do know is that it's been 10 long years since
that camping trip and I've never been the same since.
Still, my memory of that night is eroding with time and I
wanted to jot it down before I forget everything.
I hadn't seen Danny in over five years when he called me out of
the blue that January, said he was heading up to northern
Wisconsin for a solo trip, and asked if I wanted to tag along.
His voice was the same, too confident for someone with a
long history of half baked ideas, but I said yes anyway.
I needed a break, and something about the cold had always
cleared my head better than any vacation ever could.
We met up in Bayfield, a tiny town off Lake Superior southern
shore. The plan was to hike across the
frozen lake and check out the ice caves along the Apostle
Islands. The Park Service officially only
opens them when the lake ice is thick enough, but Danny wanted
to go deeper, beyond the marked caves and into spots that didn't
show up on the tourist maps. You know, the real ones, he
said, grinning. The stuff nobody sees.
The locals weren't thrilled about that idea. 1 old guy at
the gas station near our drop off said it had been a weird
winter, warmer than usual, unstable ice.
He told us to stick to the main routes and if we heard anything
strange, especially after dark, to stay in our tent and don't
follow it. I figured he meant wolves, or
maybe he was just trying to spook the out of towners.
We started from Myers Beach and trekked out across the frozen
surface of Lake Superior, dragging 2 sleds behind us
loaded with cold weather gear, food, a small camp stove and a
portable ice drill Danny insisted we bring.
The wind cut like broken glass and the sky was that grayish
white that makes it impossible to tell what time it is.
Still, it was beautiful in its own dead way.
After a few miles, the shoreline transformed.
The caves started as small crevices.
Then yawning mouths of crystal blue ice, like nature, had
carved out cathedral vaults in frozen time.
Some of the caves glittered with icicles the length of
streetlights. Others had spiraling formations
along the ceilings that looked like they were melting mid
scream. We made camp in a narrow inlet
near Swallow Point. No one else was out there.
It was too far from the main areas, and the ice had a habit
of cracking unpredictably this time of year.
Danny, of course, thought that made it perfect.
No crowds, no rules, he said. That night, just after we'd
crawled into our sleeping bags and zipped the tent, we heard
something. It wasn't the wind.
It was deeper, more drawn out, a low whale, like a scream that
had been drowned under 50 feet of water.
It echoed across the lake, bounced off the caves, and then
faded like it had never been there at all.
Danny laughed it off. Ice shifts, caves make noise.
That's science, man. I nodded, but my stomach didn't
buy it. I'd been in enough Backcountry
spots to know what natural sounds felt like.
That didn't feel natural. It felt aware.
The next morning, the sun never really came out, just a dim glow
behind clouds. We unzipped the tent and Danny
cursed under his breath. I stepped out after him and
froze. There were tracks in the snow
leading straight to our tent. They weren't boot prints.
They were off, long, narrow, like something walking upright
but dragging weight behind it, claw marks at the front of each
print, digging deep into the crusted snow.
No animal I'd ever seen moved like that.
The Prince circled the tent once, then disappeared toward
the caves. Danny stared at them, then
shrugged. Wolf dragging a deer, maybe Ice
plays tricks. They probably look weird because
of the snow melt, but the snow hadn't melted.
It was below 0 all night. Still, he convinced me to push
on. We packed light and went deeper
into a cave network on the far side of the point.
There was no trail, no signs, just a narrow opening barely
tall enough to duck into. Inside, it widened into a
winding corridor of ice that looked like it had been carved
by fire. Not water.
Smooth and black in places, rippling and jagged in others.
The deeper we went, the more I noticed the smell.
A thick wet stink, like rotting meat left too long in the sun.
Danny lit a headlamp and aimed it at the walls.
That's when we saw them. Symbols carved into the ice like
someone had taken a hot blade to it.
Circles, lines, rough shapes like stick figures with deer
antlers and hollow bellies. 1 figure had its mouth open wide,
almost cartoonish, but something about it made my spine go rigid.
Danny found what looked like a shaft in the back, just a hole
that disappeared down into blackness.
He dropped a rock into it, but we never heard it hit bottom.
He laughed, called it bad ass, and said we'd come back tomorrow
with rope. I didn't respond.
I just want it out of there. By the time we got back to camp,
it was already dusk. The sun bled out behind the
horizon like it was trying to escape, and the temperature
plunged. We cooked a fast dinner and
zipped into the tent before the wind kicked up.
I lay there for a long time, listening to it whistle and moan
across the lake. I thought I'd imagined it at
first, but then I heard it again.
Footsteps, crunching, snow, slow, heavy.
They circled the tent once, then stopped, and right outside the
nylon wall, barely a foot from my head, I heard breathing.
Shallow, wet, guttural. I held my breath and didn't move
a muscle. Danny was already asleep.
Whatever it was, it stayed there for what felt like hours, then
it left. When I finally slept, I dreamed
I was under the ice and something was tapping from the
other side, waiting to be let in.
I woke up to silence. Not the kind you get in nature,
the peaceful kind filled with birdsong or wind through trees.
This was wrong. It was too quiet.
Even the ice wasn't groaning like it had the day before.
It felt like the lake was holding its breath.
Danny wasn't in the tent. I scrambled out, boots half
laced and adrenaline already pounding through my chest.
I expected to see his orange parka near the gear pile, or
maybe him off relieving himself behind a snow bank, but instead
I found a trail of disturbed snow leading away from our site.
Not Prince, just a long erratic path, like something heavy had
been dragged. One of our sleds was gone, the
one with most of the meat packs. When Danny finally came back 20
minutes later and totally unaware of my near heart attack,
he was grinning like nothing was wrong.
Found some cool stuff up by that Ridge past the caves, he said,
like he hadn't just vanished before sunrise.
Tracks going toward the cliffs could be wolves.
He noticed the missing sled the same time I pointed it out, then
shrugged. Maybe wind caught it, or coyotes
got bold. I didn't believe that for a
second. We'd staked everything down, and
there were no prints, no claw marks, no blood.
Just that dragline veering toward the caves like something
had calmly taken what it wanted. We argued.
I told him we needed to head back, but he reminded me the
path to Myers Beach was iced over and cracking when we came
in. Even if we tried now, it could
buckle under us. We were trapped.
So instead we did something colossally stupid.
We went back to the caves. Danny was obsessed with the
shaft we'd found. He said there might be a
collapsed lava tube under the lake or some secret glacial
cavern. I didn't want to go back, but
the alternative was sitting alone at camp while something
circled our tent at night. We brought ropes, headlamps, a
handheld flare gun, and what was left of our food in case we
didn't make it back. By dark inside, it was even
worse than I remembered. The smell had intensified.
It was no longer just rot. It was sick, like a freezer full
of spoiled meat mixed with mold and sulfur.
I had to breathe through my scarf to keep from gagging.
When we reached the back chamber, something had changed.
There were bones now, dozens of them, stacked in a loose pile
near the shaft. Long bones, Deer, maybe, but
some were unmistakably human. One femur had what looked like
bite marks on it. Another still had a tattered
pant leg frozen to it. Danny finally hesitated.
Maybe, maybe we shouldn't be down here, he said, his voice
lower than usual. No crap, I whispered.
Still. He pulled out a flare, lit it,
and dropped it into the shaft. The red glow fell for what
seemed like forever, finally casting light on something
below. It moved, Just for a second.
I saw it. Something long and pale,
crawling across the floor like a spider with limbs that bent the
wrong way. I didn't get a clear look, but
it was enough to make every part of my brain scream.
Run. Danny started muttering.
No way. That's got to be a person.
Or a bear. Maybe it's just shadow tricks.
No, no man, that's not shadow tricks.
We backed out slowly. I refused to turn my back on the
shaft, convinced that thing could launch up at any moment.
Back at camp, things got worse fast.
Danny went quiet, didn't eat, curled up in his sleeping bag
and wouldn't respond when I talked to him.
His skin looked Gray under the lamp light.
Not frostbite, just wrong. His lips were cracked, his
breathing was shallow, but when I checked our thermometer it
read 42°F inside the tent, not hypothermic territory.
I offered him food, he pushed it away, then a few minutes later I
caught him gnawing on a frozen strip of meat like an animal,
mouth open, tearing with his front teeth, barely chewing.
When I said his name, he stopped, looked at me like he
didn't recognize me, then went back to chewing.
Around 2, AMI heard something outside.
Again. Footsteps.
Crunch, pause, crunch, pause. I reached for the flare gun.
The footsteps circled the tent. Then I heard a voice.
It was mine. It said my name in my exact
tone. Whispered right outside the
nylon wall. Then again, louder, more
strained, like it was learning. Then silence.
When I finally worked up the nerve to peek outside, there was
nothing but fresh snow and a trail of bare human footprints.
No boots, no animal tracks circling the tent again and
disappearing into the dark. I dragged Danny out the next
morning, convinced we couldn't spend another night out there.
I needed walls, a radio, a signal, the caves.
I realized we're at least shelter from the thing stalking
us, whatever it was, So we went back.
I set us up inside the wider chamber, away from the shaft,
used the sled to block the entry, built a small fire.
Even though I knew the smoke might draw attention.
Danny didn't speak for hours. When he finally did, it was a
whisper, soft, like he was remembering something.
I can hear it under the ice, he said.
I asked him what it sounded like.
He smiled too wide and said my voice.
When I woke up that evening, Danny was gone.
The Cave was quiet, too quiet. Near the back wall, drawn in
something that looked like blood mixed with ash, were words I'll
never forget. It wants the warm one.
I was alone, and I think whatever was down there had
decided I was next. I didn't move at first, I just
stared at the wall. It wants the warm one.
The fire had burned out. The Cave floor beneath me was so
cold it hurt to breathe. My hands shook, not from the
cold, but from something deeper, primal, like my body already
knew I wasn't alone anymore. Danny was gone.
That part had sunk in, but I wasn't sure if he'd walked out
on his own or if something had taken him.
I grabbed what gear I had left, my pack, the flare gun, three
actual flares, my flashlight, and unblocked the entrance.
I stepped out into the pale morning light.
It had snowed lightly while I slept, just enough to blurt
tracks. The wind was dead.
The lake stretched out Gray and flat like a frozen sheet of
steel. No movement, no sound, no birds.
Just behind me, The Cave let out a low groan.
Not from shifting ice. It sounded like a breath.
I turned and ran. I followed what I thought were
Danny's Prince. But they twisted, doubled back,
veered into places that made no sense.
Tight gaps in rocks, cracks in the lake ice that no human could
squeeze through. Whatever I was following, it
wasn't Danny anymore. The sun barely broke the clouds,
casting long, distorted shadows across the ice.
I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see him there or
it. Hours passed.
Then, near a collapsed section of shoreline ice, I found the
first real sign. A parka.
Danny's half frozen, stuck in the snow.
His boots were still in it. No blood, just empty.
And beside it, a print. One, Just one.
It looked human, but stretched, toes like claws longer than my
forearm. The ice under it had begun to
melt, even in sub zero weather. I backed away slowly and nearly
fell through a soft patch. When I looked back, the parka
was gone. I knew I couldn't stay out in
the open. I needed higher ground, or at
least a spot where I could see what was coming.
I climbed up a frozen Ridge near the edge of a broken cave,
flares in my chest pocket. As I crested the top, I finally
saw it. Down below Slytherin, between
shards of ice and drifted snow, was a thing.
Seven, maybe 8 feet tall went upright, but it moved mostly on
all fours. Emaciated, pale limbs, too long
and bent the wrong way, like an insect mimicking a person.
Its head looked human, almost, but its mouth hung slack and
split too far back on both sides.
Its eyes were gone, just black sockets, and on its head a crown
of twisted antlers, like dead branches strung with bits of fir
and tendon. It stopped moving and turned its
head toward me. Even without eyes, I knew it saw
me. It let out this sound like a
person inhaling and screaming at the same time.
Then it charged. I panicked and fired a flare
mist wide. The thing ducked and twisted
under the ark, impossibly fast. I ran.
Not back to the tent, not back to The Cave.
I just ran across the lake, praying the ice held.
The sun was higher now, which helped.
In the distance, miles away, I saw a snowmobile, bright orange,
a Coast Guard rescue unit. My beacon must have finally
transmitted through a gap in the clouds.
I waved my arms, screamed, fired a second flare.
The rider turned toward me, and that's when I heard it behind
me, barefootsteps slapping across the ice. close.
I turned. The Wendigo, Danny, whatever it
was now, was sprinting after me, its mouth opening wider than I
thought possible, tongue dragging against its chest,
leaving a trail of ice that hissed and melted.
I fired the last flare directly into its face.
The creature reared back and shrieked so loud I felt it in my
teeth. Its skin bubbled where the flare
hit, steaming like dry ice on fire.
It clawed at its head, and in that moment of weakness, the sun
crested fully over the Ridge behind me.
The creature let out a final hiss and collapsed into the
snow, limbs twitching, steaming. Then, as I watched in horror, it
sank through the ice, Not cracking it, not breaking it,
just slowly melting into it, like it belonged there.
Like it was returning. The rescue team got to me
minutes later. They thought I was suffering
from exposure. I told them what I saw.
They didn't believe me, but they didn't argue either.
They just nodded. And one of them, a bearded older
guy who looked like he'd worked this area for decades, leaned in
and whispered. You weren't the 1st and you
won't be the last. They never found Danny's body,
not even his Prince. The park closed the entire
section near Swallow Point indefinitely due to ice
instability. That's what they told the news.
I haven't gone camping since. Sometimes, late at night, I'll
hear wind outside my apartment window, a low, hollow howl.
And sometimes, just barely, I swear I hear my own voice
whispering from across the dark. By the time we reached Baxter
State Park, it didn't feel like the end.
It felt like the beginning of something we weren't supposed to
see. Sarah and I had been hiking the
Appalachian Trail for six months straight, NOBO northbound the
long way. We've been through heat waves in
Georgia, storms in Virginia, black flies in Vermont, and now
here. We were late September, 2 days
from finishing. The leaves in northern Maine
were already halfway to red and the air had that early bite to
it. Cold, clean and too quiet.
Most thru hikers finish earlier in the season.
By then, the trail was nearly abandoned.
We didn't see another soul for two days leading into Baxter.
Just Gray skies, empty trees and silence.
Mount Katadine loomed ahead, 5000 feet of bare rock and sharp
ridges. I dreamed about that summit
since Springer Mountain, but when we finally stood beneath
it, something in my gut twisted. The mountain didn't look
majestic. It looked ancient, like it had
been waiting for us. We checked in with a Ranger at
Catadine Stream Campground to confirm our rote.
He was in his 60s, thick beard, looked like the kind of guy
who'd seen things but never talked about them.
When we told him we were planning to summit via Knife
Edge and descend through Dudley Trail, he squinted through the
fog behind us and said. Knife Edge is open, but fog's
been thick lately. Be careful up there.
It's easy to lose the trail when the clouds roll in.
Some folks have gone missing this season 3, I think.
Missing how? I asked.
He shrugged. Gear left behind, campsites
still warm, no bodies, no radio contact.
Makes you hear things that aren't real.
Sarah raised an eyebrow at me. Like, OK, horror movie vibes.
But we thanked him and moved on. We camped at Chimney Pond that
night. The spot was perfect, nestled
against the east face of Catadine with a narrow Alpine
lake reflecting the sheer stone cliffs above us.
The silence was total. No wind, no insects, no birds.
Just cold in the distant sound of dripping water echoing off
the cliffs. I woke up sometime around 2:00
AM to the sound of branches snapping.
Not twigs, thick branches. Crunch, crack, pause.
Then again. I thought maybe it was a moose
or a bear, so I reached over to shake Sarah awake, but her eyes
were already open. She whispered.
Something's pacing out there. We waited in silence.
Nothing else came. When we checked in the morning,
there were no prints, just that eerie feeling in your chest when
you know something was close. Still, we geared up and started
our ascent. Knife Edge Trail is exactly what
it sounds like. A long narrow Ridge connecting
several peaks with sheer drop offs on either side. 1 misstep
and you're gone. It's not a trail you want to
rush. The fog started rolling in as we
reached Pomola Peak. At first it was just missed, but
within minutes the trail disappeared behind us in a wall
of white and visibility dropped to maybe 10 feet.
Wind gusted over the Ridge, howling through rock crevices
like something screaming far off in the distance.
We kept moving, careful and deliberate.
Sarah was ahead, her orange pack barely visible.
Then she disappeared, just like that.
I called out her name. No answer.
I waited, called again. Still nothing.
Then, from the fog ahead, I heard her voice.
Hey, back here, Flat, quiet, wrong.
I started walking toward the sound.
She called again. Hey, this way.
Except her voice was coming from the left, not the trail toward
the Cliff. I stopped and looked down.
Bare rock, 100 foot drop. And then I saw a figure, just
for a second, in the mist. My height.
My build back turned slowly, walking away from the trail, but
the backpack was black, not orange.
Then Sarah's hand grabbed my shoulder from behind.
Where the hell are you going? She snapped.
I turned. She was panting, pale eyes wide.
I heard you, I said. You called me.
She shook her head. No, I lost sight of you.
I've been calling for 5 minutes. You didn't respond.
We stood there in silence, surrounded by white, both trying
not to panic. Eventually we made it across
knife Edge, slowly and without talking.
We bevied just below the summit on a narrow, flat patch of rock.
It wasn't ideal, but it was flat and protected from wind.
We didn't eat much. We just stared out into the fog,
waiting for it to lift. It never did.
That night I woke again, but it wasn't noise this time.
It was the sound of my own voice, faint, just outside the
tent. Hey, back here.
I froze. Then it said again, Closer.
Hey, this way. I slowly unzipped the tent and
stuck my head out into the dark. Nothing.
Then, just at the edge of the fog, I saw bare footprints in
the gravel. Not boot prints, not animal
tracks. Bare feet.
Human, long, narrow. They circled the tent once,
twice, then disappeared into the stone.
I woke Sarah. We sat up until sunrise, staring
at the wall of fog, flares in hand.
She didn't say a word, just stared at her bare feet.
One heel had a fresh cut. She didn't remember leaving the
tent. When the fog started to clear
that morning, I finally stepped outside fully to look around.
That's when I noticed something wrong with the footprints.
There were two sets. One set came from the trail
behind us, boot prints mine. The other set came from the
woods, from nowhere, bare, humanish.
They circled our tent, then only one set left.
Sarah looked at me and asked quietly.
Did you come back inside last night?
I didn't answer because I wasn't sure.
The fog didn't lift. It retreated like it had just
been waiting for us to move on. We started our descent down the
Dudley Trail late that morning. It was a steep, winding scramble
over boulders slick with Moss and patches of snow that hadn't
yet melted. The knife edge was still behind
us, partially veiled in a cloud that clung unnaturally to the
Ridge. A ragged piece of sky broke
through over our heads, but the trail below was shaded and cold.
Sarah didn't talk much. She'd barely touched her food.
Her face looked gaunt, like she'd aged 5 years overnight.
Her lips were dry, eyes bloodshot.
Every time I checked on her, she was staring back up toward the
summit. We made it a few miles before
she stopped and sat on a boulder near a bend in the trail.
She pulled off her gloves and started rubbing her arms.
I feel like I'm freezing, she said.
Even with the layers, my chest, it's like it's hollow.
I checked her temperature. Her skin felt cold, ice cold,
even though she was bundled up tighter than me.
No visible frostbite, no fever, but she was shivering and
sweating at the same time. Something was wrong, but we were
still hours from shelter. We pushed on.
The farther we got, the more I noticed how wrong the woods
felt. There was no wind, not a single
bird. Even the snow melt streams were
silent. The trail twisted through a
gully lined with black spruce, and I couldn't shake the feeling
that something was watching us from the trees, always just out
of sight. Then Sarah started talking to
herself. At first it was just mumbling,
then whole conversations. Her voice would change mid
sentence, cadence, pitch, even accent.
I heard her repeat a full conversation we'd had two weeks
ago in Vermont, word for word. Then she said something I hadn't
said out loud, something I'd only thought in the tent back on
the summit. I didn't mention it, not yet.
We reached the Russell Pond shelter by late afternoon.
It was a lean to three wooden walls, open front, and a raised
platform barely big enough for two sleeping pads.
No one else around, no sign anyone had been there in weeks.
We unpacked, built a fire, and boiled what little water we had
left. That's when I noticed her shirt
lifted as she knelt by the fire. Scratches.
Not surface level, deep ones, three, maybe 4 long gouges
across her ribs, angling down toward her stomach, still raw.
What the hell is that? I asked.
She looked down like she hadn't noticed.
Touched them lightly, didn't flinch.
I, I think I scratched myself on a rock, she said.
Or branches, I don't know. It doesn't hurt, but the skin
around them was pale and shiny, like it was healing wrong.
She didn't want to talk after that, just crawled into her bag,
rolled away from the fire, and passed out.
I stayed up for a while. The fire crackled.
The sky above was perfectly clear, stars sharp and bright,
and that dead silence still pressed in around the trees.
Then I heard it again. Footsteps, slow, dragging,
coming from the woods behind the shelter.
Not boots, not hooves. Bare feet on frozen earth.
I grabbed the flare gun and held my breath.
The steps circled the shelter once, then again.
Then a voice. Sarah's voice.
Come on, it's OK, we can go now. But she was asleep right next to
me. I turned to look at her, still
bundled, still facing the wall. The voice came again, from the
woods this time. Come on, it's OK.
This time it wasn't just Sarah's voice.
It was mine too, layered, speaking at the same time like
it was practicing. I stayed still, trying to
breathe silently. The fire crackled louder.
The footsteps stopped. Then something sniffed, long and
wet, just behind the back wall of the shelter.
And then silence. I must have passed out at some
point. When I woke up, Sarah was gone.
The fire had gone out, ashes, cold.
Her pack was still there. Boots too.
I found her footprints in the snow leading away from the
shelter, and another set next to them, identical but spaced
wider, heavier. I followed them maybe a quarter
mile into the trees. I found her standing barefoot in
the snow, staring up at the canopy.
Her eyes were rolled back, lips cracked and purple.
She was whispering something. At first I thought it was just
gibberish. Then I heard it, My name, over
and over in my voice. I called out to her.
She turned her head slowly, like it took effort, and smiled.
Something was off. Her jaw hung too low, like it
was dislocated. Her skin was so pale I could see
the blue vein spidering beneath it.
Her fingernails were black at the tips.
Then she lunged. I didn't think I just fired the
flare gun. It hit her shoulder and exploded
in a burst of orange and red. She screamed, not in pain, but
like something had been burned awake inside her.
Her voice split, literally. The scream became 2 screams
layered over each other, one hers, 1 deeper, lower, older.
She dropped, convulsing in the snow.
I dragged her back to the shelter, heart hammering, every
nerve in my body screaming at me to run and not come back.
She was quiet for hours. When she finally came to, her
voice was hoarse. Her eyes were normal again.
She didn't remember attacking me.
She didn't remember leaving the shelter, but she said one thing
I can't forget. It's not me anymore.
I sat in that shelter until sunrise with the flare gun
gripped in both hands and Sarah curled up under 2 emergency
blankets, silent. She didn't sleep, neither did I.
She never said another word, just stared off into the trees
like she was waiting for something to step out and finish
what it started. By morning her skin looked paper
thin, you could see the bones in her hands.
Her breathing was shallow but not weak, controlled like
someone pretending to breathe like a person.
That was the moment I knew whatever had come down from that
fog wrapped mountain, it was inside her, watching through her
eyes, learning. I made a decision.
I packed my gear, gave her the last flare and told her I was
heading South to try and find help.
She didn't protest, just nodded once and whispered.
Don't let it take your voice. I didn't ask what that meant.
The trail out was no trail at all.
I was heading for the edge of Baxter State Park, maybe 20 to
25 miles away. No blazes, no markers, just
compass GPS, which barely worked and instinct.
By mid morning, the trees changed.
Birch gave way to fir, denser and twisted, the forest floor
coated with frozen Moss and icy mud.
The temperature dropped hard. My breath came out like smoke.
The quiet deepened, but now I could hear something under it.
A second silence, like the forest was waiting.
Around noon, I found the first sign.
A rabbit, frozen upright, mid hop, no wounds, eyes gone.
Skin frostbitten black, steam still rising off it in the cold.
100 feet further, Deer bones, clean, white, stacked neatly
against a tree like a shrine. The antlers were tied to the
branches above it, with strips of flesh hanging like wind
chimes. I started to run.
That night I found a structure. Not a Ranger station, exactly,
more like a field cabin log built maybe 10 by 10, with a
sloped tin roof and a rusted chimney.
No power, no radio, but it had a door that locked.
Inside, I found a journal. The pages were damp, curled with
age, but the ink was still legible.
A Ranger named Don Farrell had kept notes from the late 90s to
early 2000s. Most of it was trail conditions,
wildlife sightings, snowpack levels.
Then, starting in October of 2003, the entries changed.
October 11th, girl came off knife edge mumbling in French,
Said the mountain was whispering to her.
We flew her out, frostbite on her tongue.
October 16th found hiker boots frozen to stone.
No body, no Prince leaving October 20th.
Saw someone in the woods last night.
Looked like me. Didn't move right.
Closed station early this season.
The final page was torn halfway through.
They let the cold thing in. It wears the voice, remembers
the shape. It's waiting to feel warm again.
Don't let it near you. Don't let it.
That was it. That night I locked the door,
piled furniture against it, built a fire in the rusted
stove. I didn't sleep around 2 AMI
heard the crunch of snow outside, slow, deliberate.
Then a knock. Knuckle against wood.
Knock, knock. Then my voice through the door,
soft, almost kind. Hey, open up, it's me.
I didn't move. The knock came again, then
scraping like nails or claws, dragging in slow arcs across the
wood. Then silence.
I waited an hour before checking.
Nothing was outside, but the snow in front of the cabin had
melted in a perfect human shaped outline.
Bare feet, long fingers, a head crowned with antlers.
By morning I knew I couldn't outrun it forever.
I left the cabin before sunrise and headed toward the South
Branch Pond area. I'd heard there was a Ranger
outpost further South. As I crossed a frozen stream, I
felt it. Not wind.
Breath. On the back of my neck, I
turned. It was there.
Not Sarah, not anything human anymore. 7 feet tall, gaunt like
famine Incarnate. Gray skin stretched over bone
like wax over a skeleton. Its head looked carved from
frostbitten wood, antlers tangled with Moss and bits of
clothing. Its mouth open sideways,
splitting along the jaw, revealing a second set of black
teeth beneath and from its mouth.
My voice, so warm, so loud, it lunged.
I ran. I dropped the compass, lost the
trail. I sprinted through brush, fell,
scrambled over rocks it didn't chase like an animal.
It stalked, never touching the ground with more than two limbs
at once, gliding through the trees like a puppet in the wind.
I made it back to the frozen stream, the same one from
before. Thin ice, frigid water
underneath. I stopped in the center and
turned. It followed slowly.
I pulled the last flare from my pocket, struck it held it high.
Come on, I said in my voice. Come on.
It stepped onto the ice. Crack.
Another step of crack. I threw the flare at my own
feet. The fire hit the ice and
exploded in light and heat. The ice beneath me shattered.
My boots slammed into water, the stream swallowing me to my
thighs. The creature screamed.
It hit the water chest first, and steam erupted around it.
It flailed, skin sloughing off in the current, that awful
mimicry breaking apart as it screeched in voices not its own.
Sarah's mine, the Rangers. It tried to climb out, but the
current dragged it down and it sank, eyes still locked on me,
mouth still grinning. Then it was gone.
I crawled out of the stream, half frozen, half dead, but
alive. They found me.
Two days later, a Ranger patrol spotted me wandering near the
South trailhead. I don't remember most of it,
just heat packs, IV fluids, a hospital in Millinocket.
I told them what happened, that they didn't believe me, not
really. But they closed Knife Edge two
days later, said it was due to erosion.
That was a lie. Sarah was never found.
Three months later, I got a voicemail from a 207 number I
didn't recognize. Static than a voice.
My voice, it whispered, still not warm, and laughed.