Isle Royale National Park has always had a way of drawing
people back, something about its raw solitude and silence, the
way the thick spruce forests and dark glacial lakes seem to hold
their breath. Visitors typically mention the
wolves and moose, the chilly fog that shrouds the island most
mornings or the rocky coastlines battered by Lake Superior.
But ask about the remote fire lookout on Feldman Ridge, and
the conversations quickly change.
Park staff deflect, seasoned hikers shake their heads and
maps suddenly appear incomplete, with trails abruptly ending
before the Ridge itself. In the summer of 1998, I didn't
know anything about that lookout.
It was my first season as a Ranger on Isle Royale.
I'd studied biology, camped plenty, and was confident
handling isolated work. My partner, Aaron Hall, had been
a Ranger on the island before Army trained.
Efficient, quiet, he was the type who kept a meticulous log
book and rarely smiled unless he meant it.
We arrived at Feltman Ridge by float plane from Wendigo Station
on a crystal clear August morning.
The pilot banked hard, descending toward a small pond,
then glided gently to rest against its surface.
We climbed out, unloaded our gear, and stood, watching as the
plane lifted off again, the buzz of its engine rapidly fading
into the distance. As we turn toward the lookout
tower, a simple steel structure atop a rocky outcrop, I felt an
odd tightening in my chest. The isolation wasn't new, but
something about this Ridge felt more severe, emptier, like it
was detached even from the wilderness around it.
The first week passed smoothly. Aaron fell quickly into a
routine weather checks, patrols, radio logs.
At 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM, we made routine calls back to
headquarters, monotonous confirmations of our presence
and safety. I filled out my time, walking
trails and observing wildlife, but wildlife sightings were
sparse. Even the birds seemed reluctant
to settle near the Ridge. The silence was heavy.
I wrote about it in the log, half joking.
It's like someone turned off the volume up here.
Aaron glanced at my note, gave a non committal grunt, and went
back to his task. Then one night, it changed.
It was late 215 exactly according to the glowing face of
my watch, when a sudden burst of static tore through the handheld
radio resting on my bunk. I sat up sharply, heart
pounding. After a beat, a clear,
deliberate click echoed through the speaker, followed by several
seconds of empty silence, then another Click.
Aaron, I whispered, turning toward his bunk.
He lay motionless, staring up at the ceiling.
Atmospheric bounce, he muttered. Lake reflections, probably.
I wanted to believe him, but the timing felt wrong.
I didn't sleep again that night. The next morning, we walked the
Grace Creek Trail. The sky was overcast, turning
the trees a muted Gray green, blending into one another until
the woods felt endless. Aaron stopped abruptly, his
boots skidding slightly on the Moss covered stones.
You OK? I asked, glancing ahead.
He didn't respond. Instead he pointed downward,
eyes locked on the forest floor. Deep boot prints pressed fresh
into the soft Moss, unmistakable and heavy.
Beside them, bare footprints emerged, sinking even deeper
into the earth. Someone's out here, he murmured,
crouching down and brushing a hand against the imprint.
His eyes darted up, scanning the forest.
Is there a scheduled patrol? I asked.
Aaron shook his head slowly. No one's come through Wendigo
for days. Nobody should be here.
We exchanged uneasy looks. Aaron said nothing else,
straightened up, and started back toward the tower.
His pace quickened. I hurried after him, unable to
shake the feeling we weren't alone that evening.
As darkness settled in like ink seeping through water, we
checked the trail camera. It was set to detect lightning
strikes or wildlife movements. Aaron pulled the memory card,
loading it onto the rugged laptop.
We sifted through images, branches, empty forest, until
one shot froze Aaron mid scroll. At the edge of the camera's
range, half hidden behind a spruce, was a tall figure,
blurred slightly by motion. It seemed to be crouching, its
limbs unnaturally elongated. No gear, no backpack, no
discernible clothing. Just a dark silhouette caught
mid step. Aaron stared at it silently.
He was breathing slow and measured, jaw tightening.
What is that? I asked finally, my voice
strained. He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he zoomed in closer, the image pixelating into
uselessness. Probably just someone
trespassing, he finally said, not convincingly, but we need to
be careful. Keep your radio charged.
That night, Aaron slept with his boots on.
I lay awake listening to the silent forest outside, convinced
I could hear faint movements beneath the tower.
I kept checking the radio, half expecting another burst of
static or a slow, rhythmic click.
By dawn, nothing else had happened, but the feeling of
unease lingered, like smoke after a fire.
Aaron hardly spoke. Even at breakfast he seemed
tense, alert, his hand never far from the radio or the emergency
beacon clipped to his belt. As I stepped outside that
morning, scanning the tree line, I realized the silence had
changed. It wasn't just quiet.
It felt oppressive, as though the forest around Feltman Ridge
was holding itself absolutely still, waiting.
On the morning Aaron disappeared, the first thing I
noticed was how still the tower felt.
Usually, Aaron was awake before me, coffee brewing logs neatly
updated. Today, there was only silence, a
heavy, oppressive quiet that pressed in from all sides.
I glanced across the room. Aaron's bunk was empty, the
sheets untouched. His boots weren't by the door.
Unease prickled along my neck as I got up slowly pulling on my
jacket and stepping onto the deck.
Outside, a thin mist curled through the treetops, blurring
the forest below. Aaron.
I called, my voice carrying flatly through the trees.
Only silence responded. Back inside, I flipped through
the logbook. Aaron's last entry was brief,
time stamped at 2348 the previous night.
Heard movement again. Same area.
Going to check it out. We'll loop back in 20 minutes.
That had been nearly eight hours ago.
I reached for the radio, thumbing the transmitter.
Wendigo HQ, Feltman Lookout Ranger Hall is unaccounted for.
Please advise. Static crackled, empty and
mocking. After a few long seconds, I
repeated the message again. No answer.
Frustration and fear tightened in my chest.
I grabbed my gear, a radio flashlight, and errands spare
compass and set off down the Grace Creek Trail, retracing
yesterday's steps. The forest swallowed me almost
immediately, closing in tight enough to feel claustrophobic.
A mile down the trail, near the same spot we'd found the
footprints yesterday, my pulse quickened.
The ground here was disturbed. Moss flattened in wide,
irregular patches ahead. Something caught my eye, hanging
from a low hanging spruce branch.
Aaron's hat, its brim clean and free of any dirt or debris,
dangled gently from a small twig.
His Ranger badge, polished and gleaming as though freshly
cleaned, was pinned to the branch just below it.
The deliberate neatness turned my stomach cold.
Below, in the damp earth, fresh tracks pressed deeply into the
mud. Barefoot, long toed, larger than
anything I'd ever seen, they led into dense brush, snapping
branches and crushing foliage. Not Aaron's boots, not his
stride. Something heavier, My heartbeat
faster. Carefully, I removed Aaron's
badge and hat, slipping them into my pack.
A sudden rustle came from deeper within the trees, sharp and
abrupt. I froze, holding my breath,
straining my ears. Silence settled back heavily, a
silence so complete it seemed unnatural.
I backed away slowly, eyes fixed on the trees, until I reached
the trail again. By the time I returned to the
lookout, twilight had begun settling over Feldman Ridge.
Clouds thickened overhead, dulling the light.
I barricaded the tower door, wedging a chair beneath the
handle. The radio remained useless,
static or silence my only reward.
Panic clawed at my chest, forcing me to take steady,
measured breaths. After an hour of pacing and
failed radio attempts, I remembered the trail camera.
I retrieved the memory card with shaking fingers, plugging it
into the laptop and scrolling quickly to the latest shots.
The first few frames showed empty forest, the usual shadows
of branches and moonlight filtering through leaves.
Then my breath caught sharply in grainy black and white.
The figure stood directly beneath the tower, tall,
elongated arms, disproportionately long.
It was bent awkwardly, neck twisted as if to look upward.
Its face, or whatever passed for a face, was blurred, obscured by
shadow. Its body was thin and sinewy,
devoid of clothes or fur. My pulse thundered in my ears,
drowning out any coherent thoughts.
I stared at the screen, unable to blink or move, muscles
frozen. This was no trespasser.
This wasn't human. Suddenly, the radio in my hand
burst alive, a harsh blast of static nearly causing me to drop
it. My heart lurched painfully as a
familiar click echoed through the speaker.
Click. Silence, click.
My throat tightened. Aaron.
I whispered hoarsely into the microphone.
No response. Only another faint, rhythmic
click, like breathing, slow and deliberate.
Then silence again. The woods outside creaked as if
shifting underweight. Heavy footfalls, cautious and
deliberate, circled slowly around the base of the tower.
Each step resonated through the wooden structure beneath me.
I held my breath, listening closely, trying to track its
movements. A sudden, subtle pressure
changed in the boards directly beneath my feet.
Whatever it was, it had stepped onto the first rung of the
stairs. I gripped the radio desperately.
Wendigo HQ, Feldman Ridge. Emergency respond now.
I hissed urgently, voice shaking.
Only static returned. I tried again, over and over, my
voice growing louder, more frantic.
The creaking stopped abruptly. Silence returned, deep and
unsettling. I waited, ears straining, eyes
fixed on the bolted door. Then, slowly, carefully, the
handle of the door began to twist.
I raised the radio instinctively, as if it might
offer some protection. The knob halted against the
barricade. After a moment, it released,
springing back into place with a hollow, metallic clang.
The footsteps moved away, retreating slowly toward the
forest edge. After what felt like an
eternity, silence returned completely.
Still clutching the radio, I sank to the floor, staring at
the locked door. Hours passed as night dragged on
and exhaustion finally overwhelmed the fear, pulling me
reluctantly into a shallow, restless sleep filled with half
formed dreams of elongated limbs and silent forests.
When I awoke at dawn, the barricade was still intact.
The forest was silent again, empty and waiting.
But I knew deep in my gut that whatever had come last night
would return. I barely recognize the sound of
another human voice when the radio crackled at dawn two days
later. Dispatch to Feldman Ridge, come
in. Feldman Ridge, can you copy?
My fingers trembled as I keyed the mic.
My voice cracked, weak and hoarse.
Wendigo, Dispatch, this is Feldman Ridge.
Ranger Hall is missing. I, I need immediate extraction.
Copy that weather has cleared enough to get a boat out your
way. ETA approximately 2 hours.
Hold tight. The radio fell silent again.
Relief flooded through me, brief and fleeting, immediately
replaced by unease. Two hours seemed an eternity.
I packed my gear quickly, staying as quiet as possible.
Every sound, the zipper on my pack, the gentle scrape of boots
on wood, seemed magnified. The forest had settled into its
usual oppressive silence, though I no longer trusted it.
Occasionally, shadows shifted among the trees, tricking my
eyes into seeing things that weren't there.
Or worse, that were. When the distant hum of an
engine finally broke the silence, I rushed outside, pulse
racing below the Ridge. I saw the NPS boat slowly
approaching along the Lakeshore. 2 Park Rangers and a Coast Guard
medic stepped off onto the rocky bank.
They waved me down. I didn't hesitate, half running,
half sliding down the trail, desperate to leave the tower
behind. You OK?
One of the Rangers asked, giving me a quick once over.
I nodded, trying and failing to steady my breath.
Aaron's been missing for two days, I said.
There's something else out here. I don't know what it is, but
it's dangerous. The Ranger glanced at the medic,
exchanging an unreadable look. Let's get you out first, he said
gently. We'll come back with a bigger
crew. I glanced back toward the trees
as we boarded the boat. Even from the lake, Feldman
Ridge looked darker somehow, as if the woods themselves had
grown denser overnight. Two days later, after being
examined and questioned at Wendigo, I stood again on the
shore, watching a larger search party assemble.
They brought extra radios, dogs trained for tracking, and more
firearms than seemed typical for a missing person search.
The lead Ranger, Doug Kendall, a veteran supervisor, placed a
hand on my shoulder. We'll find Aaron, he promised
quietly, though his eyes betrayed skepticism.
Stay here and rest. I nodded mechanically.
I had no intention of going back up there.
Hours passed. Reports trickled in over the
radio, footprints found near Grace Creek, strange
disturbances in the underbrush, but no errand, no sign of anyone
alive. Late in the afternoon, Doug
radioed back, his voice oddly tense.
We found something by a small lake West of Feltman Tower.
Meet us at the dock. I hurried down to the dock to
meet the returning team. Doug's face was grim as he
approached, holding something bundled carefully under his arm
as he set it gently down. My stomach clenched and dread.
Aaron's uniform lay folded with precise neatness on the docks.
Weathered wood, shirt, pants, jacket, even his boots were
arranged meticulously, as if placed there by someone with
infinite patience. Atop the uniform sat Aaron's
radio, still powered on. I reached for it, hesitantly
pressing the playback button. The digital readout flashed
briefly, indicating a stored recording.
We leaned close, heads bowed, listening intently as static
crackled softly. For over a minute, there was
nothing. Then, clearly, slowly, and
Exhale breathed out a wet, deliberate, chilling sigh
directly into the mic. The sound trailed off, leaving
silence behind. The Rangers glanced uneasily at
one another. Doug shook his head, visibly
unsettled. Animal interference, he
murmured, but the tremble in his voice gave him away.
I swallowed hard, staring at the folded clothing.
That's no animal, I whispered. It was waiting.
It watched us. Aaron stepped off the trail, and
it took him. Doug stared at me, his jaw
tightening. You don't have to come back, he
said softly. This lookout, this area, it
won't reopen. Whatever this was, we can't risk
it. Again.
We stood silently, listening to the wind ripple across the
water. Feldman Ridge stood dark in the
distance, unchanged, silent and still.
In the weeks and months that followed, the tower was quietly
decommissioned. Aaron Hall's case file remained
open but uninvestigated. The island returned to normal,
as if deliberately forgetting what had happened.
But I never forgot. A decade passed before I finally
spoke publicly, an interview with a podcast dedicated to
wilderness mysteries. Even then, the words were
difficult. Whatever it was up there, it
knew us, I said quietly. It knew our routines, our
voices. It imitated our signals.
It waited until one of us got too close.
Aaron stepped off the path, and it took him, and it left that
uniform as a message, a warning for whoever came next.
I paused, taking a slow, shaking breath, remembering the sound on
that final recording. It was patient, it was silent,
and it was still there when I left Apache sick.
Greaves National Forest is vast enough to make a person feel
small, stretching over 2,000,000 acres of eastern Arizona's
rugged terrain. Most people picture it as
endless Pines and rolling hills, peaceful and quiet, a place you
go when you need to get away from civilization.
But fire can change things overnight, and when lightning
sparked the bare jaw burn last summer, it didn't just reshape
the landscape, it seemed to reshape something else,
something deeper. My assignment was
straightforward. After 27,000 acres had burned
through a remote section called Pigeon Hollow, the Forest
Service sent me in to monitor regrowth, wildlife movements,
and the overall recovery of the forest.
I'd done plenty of solo field work before, and I preferred it.
The isolation never bothered me. In fact, I craved it.
A week alone in the woods always cleared my head, but this time
felt different from the start. I arrived at my base camp in
early afternoon, setting up in an old Forest Service yurt.
Simple canvas stretched over a wooden frame nestled among
scorched ponderosas that loomed black and skeletal against the
clear Arizona sky. After stashing my gear and
checking, my GPSI made the rounds to the first set of trail
cameras installed a month earlier.
Camera station number one checked out fine images of deer
and bobcat clearly visible. At camera station number two,
however, something was off. The camera was intact, but the
strap had come loose and the whole unit had sagged downward.
Photographing nothing but dry earth.
I tightened it, replaced the batteries, and made a note.
Nothing alarming, just typical field work hiccups.
By the time I got back to camp, twilight had stained the sky a
bruised purple. Dinner was canned beans warmed
over a small propane stove, and afterward I logged my day's
observations into a battered notebook.
When darkness fully took hold, silence followed.
Deep, almost palpable. I fell asleep fast, worn out
from the long hike, but something pulled me awake hours
later. At first I lay motionless,
unsure what had disturbed me. The inside of the yurt was pitch
black, and beyond the canvas walls silence stretched in every
direction. Then the sound came again.
A long guttural scream so sharp it felt like metal scraping
metal. It rose, echoed and tapered off
into a horse broken cry. Almost human, but not quite.
I sat up straight, gripping my sleeping bag, adrenaline
flooding my veins. My mind scrambled for logical
explanations. Mountain Lion elk bugle,
distorted by distance, or maybe just some nocturnal predator.
I waited in silence, heart thudding painfully.
Another scream pierced the night, louder and longer than
before. Whatever made that sound was
miles off, but it carried a raw desperation that froze my blood.
I wanted to reach for my radio, or at least my pistol, but found
myself paralyzed listening as the sound faded into an
unnatural quiet again. Finally, after 20 minutes of
tense silence, I reached out slowly, picked up my GPS, and
marked the approximate direction E Northeast, deep within the
burned area of Pigeon Hollow. The morning couldn't arrive
quickly enough. At dawn, the sky lit a faint
pink above the charred ridgeline.
Still shaken, I set out early, eager to convince myself
everything was normal. The sun rose higher as I move
toward camera station #3 hoping the daylight would ease my
nerves. But when I reached the spot, my
unease only deepened. The camera was gone.
Not damaged, not vandalized, completely missing.
The heavy nylon mounting strap hung limp, frayed where it had
snapped. I checked the surrounding area
carefully, but there were no footprints, no animal tracks,
nothing indicating where the camera might have gone.
Frustrated, I continued on to camera station #4 deeper into
the burn scar. My boots crunched softly over
blackened pine needles and ash. Occasionally, patches of
untouched green peeked through, a hopeful sign of renewal that
now felt oddly out of place. Camera station number 4 was
missing too, this time with something stranger left behind,
a glob of melted plastic stuck firmly to a rock nearby.
No animal I knew of could cause damage like that.
Vandalism crossed my mind, but who would hike miles into a
burned out forest just to destroy trail cameras?
Back at camp that evening, I radioed my supervisor down in
Show Low. He took the information calmly,
almost casually, until I mentioned my exact location.
He hesitated, static crackling for a moment, then finally spoke
up. You might be near an old sight.
Lot of history out there. Stay aware.
He disconnected without elaborating, leaving me staring
blankly at the silent radio. Night fell quickly, despite the
growing apprehension in my gut. I climbed into my sleeping bag,
determined to get through the next few days calmly and
professionally. But the moment darkness
surrounded the yurt again, the silence no longer felt peaceful.
It felt like a trap. I woke early with the strange
sounds of the previous night still echoing in my ears.
Dawn felt like relief, but it was short lived.
After a quick breakfast of coffee and jerky, I loaded my
gear into a backpack and set out toward Camera station #2 hoping
the daylight might finally dispel my anxiety.
The air was crisp with lingering sense of char and pine.
A gentle breeze rustled through the burnt out forest, shaking
soot and ash from skeletal branches onto the trail.
I reached station #2 just after 8.
But something immediately caught my attention from a distance,
something dark against the brightening sky.
It was oddly vertical, stark against the backdrop of scorched
trees. Moving closer, my footsteps
slowed. The site came into clearer
focus, and disbelief crawled slowly up my throat.
An elk carcass stood upright against a large ponderosa pine,
its hind legs awkwardly folded beneath it, front hooves
dangling grotesquely forward. My mind struggled to understand
how this animal, easily £500 or more, could have ended up
positioned like that. The elk's fur was burned, singed
black around the shoulders and ribs, exposing patches of
blistered skin and raw flesh. Its neck twisted unnaturally,
head drooping forward. Flies buzzed in a dark, shifting
Halo around its skull. I stood still frozen, my pulse
accelerating. There were no drag marks, no
obvious blood splatter. No predator would do something
like this. No scavenger would prop an
animal upright as if displayed deliberately.
I circled carefully, examining the ground.
No human boot prints, no tire tracks, nothing but a scattering
of pine needles and charcoal fragments.
It was like the carcass had simply appeared, placed silently
in the night. My stomach churned.
I snapped photographs, quickly logged the GPS coordinates, and
retreated several yards, trying to slow my breathing.
The silence felt oppressive, the weight of something unseen
pressing from every direction. I turned back toward camp, eager
to report this anomaly immediately.
I'd spent years in forests, logging thousands of hours
tracking wildlife and cataloguing animal remains, but
nothing had ever left me feeling so inexplicably disturbed.
After returning to the yurt, I checked my radio.
It seemed functional, but my attempts to reach the Ranger
station in Show Low were met with static and silence.
Frustrated and unsettled, I sat on my cot, struggling to think
clearly. The previous night's scream
echoed once more through my mind, mingling with images of
the unnatural elk. Determined to regain control of
the situation, I decided to scout the perimeter of the camp.
I grabbed my backpack and binoculars and moved eastward,
where faint disturbances in the soil caught my attention.
Impressions subtle and irregular, leading toward a
stand of blackened trees and tangled brush. 20 minutes of
careful tracking led me to something hidden beneath the
dense Pines, a weathered, half collapsed wooden shed.
The structure was ancient, its roof sagging heavily.
Moss covered beams splintered and cracked from decades of
abandonment. A rusted USFS placard hung
loosely from one corner, faded letters barely legible.
I approached slowly, pulse pounding in my temples.
The wooden door hung crookedly on loose hinges.
Scratches covered it. Deep gouges sliced into the wood
at least 10 feet above the ground.
Claw marks wider than any Mountain Lion could leave.
Each slash radiated strength, like something had repeatedly
tried to claw its way inside. My heart skipped as I noticed
several metallic objects nailed to the center of the door.
I moved closer, dread forming cold knots in my stomach. 5 old
Ranger badges, each corroded and weathered, had been hammered
into place. I leaned in, examining them
closely. One read clearly US Forest
Service 1978. Another had the date 1996 etched
faintly beneath grime and corrosion.
The last one held no visible date or name, worn smooth by
time. I stepped back sharply,
breathing unevenly. Now.
What was this place? Why hadn't anyone warned me
about it before sending me out here alone?
Inside the shed, the shadows felt thick and impenetrable.
The smell of ammonia stung my nose, sharp and overpowering.
Against better judgement, I took a cautious step inside,
flashlight shaking in my hand. The beam revealed overturned
shelving, broken equipment, and a layer of dust disturbed by
recent movement. But there was nothing else, no
explanation, no obvious signs of habitation.
I retreated into daylight, relieved to feel fresh air
again. Quickly, almost desperately, I
set up a trail camera pointed directly at the shed door.
I wasn't leaving this spot without answers.
With the camera position securely, I hurried back to
camp. As daylight began to fade,
dinner passed intense silence, anxiety gnawing relentlessly at
my nerves. I radioed show low again, hoping
for some confirmation or guidance, but still nothing.
Just the eerie emptiness of static.
When darkness settled fully, I climbed into my sleeping bag,
exhausted but wide awake. Every Creek of the yurts canvas
walls sounded like footsteps approaching outside.
My hand rested tensely on the grip of my pistol beneath the
sleeping bag. At precisely 3:21 AM, the scream
tore through the night again, closer, louder, more visceral
than before. It echoed sharp and raw through
the blackness, ending abruptly in a choking gurgle.
Before I could move, something heavy slammed against the side
of the yurt, rattling the walls violently.
My breathing stopped. My heart hammered violently in
my chest, blood roaring in my ears.
I squeezed the pistol tighter, waiting for whatever came next,
but nothing followed. Nothing but silence and
darkness. I lay awake, eyes wide open,
every muscle trembling. Outside, the forest waited
quietly, as if holding its breath.
I didn't sleep another minute that night.
By the time dawn seeped through the canvas walls, exhaustion
burned my eyes and left me hollowed out.
Every muscle ached with tension. My fingers trembled as I pulled
on my boots, scanning the thin walls of the yurt, half
expecting to see claw marks or torn canvas.
Outside, the morning was deceptively quiet, clear skies
contrasting sharply with my lingering dread.
Grabbing my gear, I quickly started back toward the shed.
I had to retrieve the footage to confirm something real, anything
that would prove I wasn't losing my mind.
The forest around me felt colder somehow, emptier.
As I approached the shed, I halted abruptly.
The trail camera I'd placed just yesterday was gone, completely
missing. A chill moved slowly up my
spine, leaving my mouth dry and bitter.
No broken straps this time, no torn mountings.
Just empty space where I knew I'd set it securely.
I scanned the ground desperately, but there were no
tracks, no footprints, nothing except a faint, acrid scent
lingering in the air. Taking a steadying breath, I
stepped closer to examine the trees nearby.
The bark was scarred, freshly disturbed.
Dark smudges, muddy and high off the ground, smeared trunks as if
something large had passed through, brushing roughly
against them at shoulder height. Carefully, I reached out and
touched one smudge. It was still wet, gritty beneath
my fingertips. That's when I saw something
shift out of the corner of my eye, faint movement deeper among
the blackened Pines. I froze, instinctively gripping
my pistol. My breath shortened, caught
tight in my throat. Slowly, I raised my binoculars,
focusing between shadowed branches.
For a brief instant, a pale form darted between trees, hunched
but tall, far taller than any animal native to this forest.
My heart jumped painfully. Whatever it was moved in a
jerky, uneven rhythm, knees bent backward, unnaturally elongated
limbs folding and unfolding like some grotesque puppet.
It's pale skin gleamed softly, almost translucent beneath
patches of burnt flesh. Before I could steady my shaking
hands, the figure disappeared behind a cluster of dense,
charred trunks. My chest tightened as adrenaline
surged, urging me to run, to retreat, to escape.
But I needed evidence, something tangible.
I forced myself forward cautiously, approaching the spot
where the figure had vanished. There was nothing there now, no
sign of passage. Only silence, oppressive and
thick. Swallowing hard, I backed slowly
away, eyes darting around the burned landscape, my senses
straining for any sound, any movement.
I knew I had to leave. Returning to the yurt, I packed
hurriedly radioing the Ranger station repeatedly, frantic to
hear another human voice. But each attempt met static,
empty silence filling the tent. Abandoning hope of contact, I
threw gear into the truck, barely taking the time to secure
anything. Dust billowed behind me as I
fled down the winding fire roads towards civilization.
Hours later, shaking and exhausted, I reached the Ranger
station in Springerville. Barely coherent, I handed over
my secondary backup camera, something I'd almost forgotten
in my panic. Stashed at the bottom of my
pack, they downloaded the photos onto a battered computer
monitor, cycling through blurry images captured automatically
the day before. Most showed empty woods, motion,
blurred leaves, branches moving in the breeze.
Then one frame froze, the room silent.
There, in grainy darkness, was the shape I'd glimpse through
binoculars. Bent, low, distorted, hairless.
Its body twisted unnaturally, mid step captured, half blurred
and ghostly. Behind it, something else lurked
deeper among the Pines, pale limbs faintly visible in shadow.
The supervisor stared wordlessly, his face unreadable.
Eventually, he murmured something about needing to send
this to higher ups for identification.
I nodded numbly, too drained to protest, too afraid to admit
what I already knew. No one could identify this
thing. Weeks went by without updates.
Phone calls went unanswered, emails ignored.
Finally, frustrated and angry, I called one last time.
The supervisors voice was distant, almost mechanical.
The footage was corrupted, he explained flatly.
Sorry, nothing we can use. Thanks for your service.
I hung up slowly, gripping the phone tightly in disbelief and
anger. Within a month, I requested a
transfer, finding a quiet position near Prescott.
But the nightmares continued, waking me at exactly 3:21 AM,
cold sweat soaking the sheets, echoing screams trapped inside
my skull. Friends noticed how withdrawn I
became, how often I stared vacantly at the forested hills
beyond town, searching for movement among the trees.
Two years passed and I rarely spoke of Apache Sit Greaves.
Then one evening, in a dimly lit Ranger bar outside Globe, I
found myself nursing a beer alone, thoughts drifting back to
the forest, to things better left forgotten.
A younger Ranger approached, making small talk, the usual
exchanges about work and patrol roads.
Just before leaving, he leaned closer, eyes dark with something
like fear or recognition. Wordlessly, he slid A folded
napkin across the table and walked away without looking
back. Heart suddenly pounding, I
unfolded it, reading the five words scrawled hastily in pen.
It followed me home, too. I folded the napkin quietly,
slipping it carefully into my wallet.
The bar noise around me faded into a muffled hum, my hands
trembling slightly. I hadn't been back to Apache
Sitgreave since that day, hadn't dared return even in memory.
Yet every night since, when shadows stretched thin across my
bedroom wall, I swear I hear quiet footsteps outside my
window, waiting, listening. Patient.
Rocky Mountain National Park sprawls across some of
Colorado's most rugged terrain, stretching from lush valley
floors to the frozen crags of the high Alpine zone.
Most tourists stick to Bear Lake or Trail Ridge Rd. safely
distant from the steep and isolated terrain around Echo
Basin. It's beautiful country, of
course, open tundra dotted with Hardy grasses, jagged granite
ridges weathered smooth by relentless winds.
But it's also forbidding, the kind of place that subtly urges
visitors onward rather than encouraging them to linger.
That's exactly why Echo Basin sees so few visitors, and why
when hikers started reporting strange rhythmic noises, rocks
grinding together in patterns, they had immediately caught the
attention of my supervisors. I've been a Ranger here for two
years, long enough to respect the back countries
unpredictability, but confident in my ability to handle whatever
the wilderness had to throw at me.
So when they tapped me for a three day solo mission to check
out these disturbances, I didn't think much of it.
My hike started at the Lion Lakes trail junction.
From there I had to bushwhack up past Mahana Peak, climbing
steadily until the trees vanished entirely above
timberline. Wind became a constant
companion, pushing at my pack, whipping my jacket.
It was comforting in a strange way, proof I wasn't completely
alone. The basin itself came into view
as the afternoon sun dipped low, casting a burnt gold glow across
the rocky slopes. Echo Basin looked almost
peaceful at first, just a shallow bowl nestled between
jagged peaks. But the longer I looked at it,
the less welcoming it felt. Just a wind blasted bowl with a
featureless center. There was nothing remarkable,
just empty grassland encircled by granite ridges.
As the evening crept closer, I set my bivy sack up along a
rocky outcrop on the ridgeline overlooking the basin.
Clouds gathered overhead, but the forecast didn't call for
storms, just more relentless wind.
I took some quick notes, checked my GPS coordinates, and settled
in for a night that promised to be uncomfortable but routine.
By dawn, sleep had come and gone in brief, restless stretches.
I packed up quickly and made my way down toward the basin
center, the morning sky clear and untroubled.
It didn't take long before I found something that didn't
belong. At first, I thought the Cairns
might have been left by bored hikers, small stacks of rocks
marking trails or viewpoints. But as I approached, I felt a
cold unease settle in my gut. There were six of them, each
about waist high, perfectly arranged in an unnatural
hexagonal formation. They weren't just randomly piled
stones. Each Cairn was meticulously
balanced, every rock carefully selected and placed with
intention. Even stranger, the stones
themselves weren't the rough local fragments lying scattered
around the slopes. They were smoother, as if
polished by centuries of wind and water elsewhere, then
brought deliberately here. Each Cairn faced inward, toward
the precise center of the basin, aiming at a single low patch of
earth. I stood there, listening to the
wind whip around me and wondering who or what had put
them here. I took photographs from several
angles, noting GPS coordinates and radioing in a report.
Headquarters acknowledged my check in with mild curiosity,
but no alarm. After all, Cairns were odd, but
hikers sometimes built them. I didn't press the point,
though. Part of me felt a growing
reluctance to spend another night out here alone.
I spent the rest of the day searching for other signs of
human activity, discarded food wrappers, boot prints, fire
rings, but found nothing. As daylight faded, I climbed
back to my busy site, careful to set up on the Ridge safely
distant from those unsettling Cairns.
Dinner was quick and tasteless, eaten more out of habit than
hunger. Night fell quickly.
I listened to wind shriek and howl through the peaks above,
whipping across the ridgeline. The temperature plummeted and
frost crept across the bivvy. I tucked myself in tightly,
trying to find some comfort. Sleep drifted near, but never
fully arrived. Then, at precisely midnight, the
wind stopped. Not gradually, instantly.
One moment the Gale was there, and the next moment it vanished,
plunging me into unnatural silence.
My ears rang in the sudden vacuum, the absence of sound so
intense it pressed down like a weight.
I sat up slowly, heart hammering against my ribs, straining to
hear anything that would break this oppressive silence.
Minutes passed, impossibly long, and then came the sound,
grinding. It was faint at first, easy to
mistake for imagination, until it came again, distinct and
purposeful, the unmistakable scrape of stone sliding across
stone, rhythmic and slow, drifting up from deep in the
basin. My throat tightened.
The noise continued intermittently, sometimes
softer, sometimes sharper, but always deliberate.
My thoughts raced through rational explanations.
Rock shifting naturally, frost loosening debris, an animal
dragging something heavy across gravel.
But none seemed quite right. I reached for my flashlight and
quietly shifted forward to peer down into the basin.
Moonlight painted the landscape in shades of silver and shadow,
revealing nothing unusual. But as I strained a sea into the
gloom below, a sudden sound, sharply louder, echoed from
somewhere behind me. A single clear knock, like a
stone struck deliberately against another less than 20
feet from where I crouched. Every muscle in my body went
rigid. I waited for the next sound.
It never came. Instead, the basin remained
unnaturally quiet. The wind didn't return.
No animals stirred. Nothing moved but my own shaking
hands. It was going to be a very long
night. Sunrise finally broke over Echo
Basin, pale gold chasing away the oppressive darkness.
I crawled out of the bivvy, aching and chilled, my breath
fogging in the bitter morning air.
Despite the sunlight, the basin seemed just as silent and
lifeless as during the night, a stillness hanging thickly over
the terrain. Something felt fundamentally
different, as if the landscape had subtly shifted overnight.
Unable to shake the feeling, I quickly gathered my gear and
walked carefully back down toward the Cairns.
With every step, I glanced around, alert for movement.
Reaching the spot, my throat tightened sharply.
The Cairns had changed. Yesterday's six were now 8,
arranged in an even larger, tighter circle.
Each formation was angled inward with unsettling precision.
Their polished stones seemed impossibly smooth, almost
reflective in the stark sunlight.
I tried to convince myself that someone must have entered
overnight, built two more Cairns, and vanished without
leaving footprints or any other sign, but my gut knew better.
No human could have moved quietly enough to evade notice
so close to my camp, especially with the wind so conspicuously
absent. My camera's preview confirmed
what my eyes had noticed. Yesterday's photographs clearly
showed 6 Cairns, no ambiguity. Today, two additional ones stood
solidly in front of me. I documented everything
silently, fingers numb from more than just the morning chill.
When I radioed headquarters, I hesitated, then chose not to
mention the overnight changes. It sounded too strange, too
irrational. I told them conditions were
normal and promised another update by evening.
Determined to make sense of this, I set out toward the
center of the basin, toward the place all the Cairns pointed.
I kept a wary eye on the formations.
From down in the basin center, the Cairns remained visible,
looming like silent sentries along the Ridge above.
There were no animal trails here, no signs of any living
thing, just lickin frost, heaved gravel and stunted grass
struggling through thin Alpine soil.
Then I found it. A patch of rock, perfectly
smooth about 15 feet across. The surface felt strangely slick
beneath my boots, polished smoother than any natural
erosion could explain. It formed a shallow depression,
curving gently inward. Carefully, I knelt to touch it,
feeling a chill radiate from the polished stone, colder even than
the surrounding ground. This was the heart of Echo
Basin, the point toward which all Cairns aimed.
As I examined it, unease rippled through me again.
The quiet was overwhelming. In a place defined by howling
wind, its absence felt almost unnatural.
Silence draped over everything, heavy enough to press against my
chest, thickening each breath. When shadows began creeping
upward along the slopes, I reluctantly left the polished
depression and returned upslope, choosing a different, more
protected spot beneath a rock outcrop.
This would at least shield me from exposure, and perhaps from
whatever might be watching from the ridgeline.
I set up camp and pulled out my thermal camera, mounting it
carefully on a collapsible tripod aimed back uphill toward
the Cairns. If someone or something was
moving around at night, I'd capture proof.
At least that's what I told myself.
Night fell swiftly, plunging Echo Basin into cold blackness.
Stars appeared indifferent and distant.
I ate nothing. My stomach nodded tightly,
anticipation curdling in my chest.
Hours crawled by and exhaustion battled my stubborn
determination to stay awake. I must have drifted off, because
when I woke sharply, my watch glowed. 214 I strained to
listen, instantly aware of the familiar dreadful quiet
surrounding me again. But something else broke through
the silence, a soft scraping noise, rhythmic and very close.
Slowly, heart hammering in my ears, I turned toward the sound,
reaching silently from my flashlight.
Through the busy opening, I saw a tall shape standing,
silhouetted against the faint glow of Starlight.
It was slender and elongated, lacking clear joints or bends,
just impossibly smooth limbs stretching upward, towering
among the Cairns. As I stared in disbelief,
another scraping sound came from behind the figure.
Another form, equally slender, moved stiffly between two
Cairns, sliding deliberately sideways, almost gliding.
I held completely still, paralyzed by fear, the beam of
my flashlight trembling slightly.
Neither form approached. Instead, they stood perfectly
motionless, now, mimicking my own frozen posture.
Every move I made, they mirrored precisely.
If I shifted slightly, the tall shapes echoed me Exactly.
A sickening realization tightened my throat.
They weren't moving toward me only when I moved.
My heart pounded violently, sweat beating down my neck
despite the freezing air. For what felt like an eternity,
we remained locked in a tense stalemate, a silent game I
couldn't understand, couldn't explain.
Finally, desperation clawing at my chest, I slid carefully back
inside my bivvy, barely daring to breathe.
Outside, nothing stirred again. I stayed rigidly awake until
dawn, listening desperately, expecting at any moment to hear
that grinding, scraping sound begin again.
But silence held, unbroken and unbearable.
Dawn emerged, pale and cold, pushing back the shadows enough
to make the basin visible again. I hadn't slept, not a minute,
not even a momentary drift. My nerves were frayed from hours
spent listening, tense and unmoving for a sound that never
returned. My muscles ached as I climbed
stiffly out of the bivvy, eyes red rimmed from fatigue.
The ridgeline above the basin look different now, altered
somehow by the night. My chest tightened painfully as
I saw why. Cairns, dozens of them, now,
stood scattered across the slope in uneven rows.
Their polished stones glinted sharply in the early sun, each
one face down into the basin oriented directly toward my
camp. It felt like a silent, accusing
crowd had gathered overnight, observing me.
My resolve shattered. I shoved gear roughly into my
pack, disregarding careful folds or proper storage.
Panic edged my movements, pushing logic aside.
I needed out of Echo Basin. I needed distance, safety to
escape whatever had been observing me from the ridgeline.
As I hurriedly hiked upward toward the ridgeline path, I
paused briefly to glance back down.
The Cairns below stood motionless, rigid shape starkly
outlined against the sunlit slope.
A wave of nausea rose as I realized they appeared to have
shifted position slightly since I'd turned away moments ago.
I couldn't be certain. My exhaustion and anxiety
blurred reality and imagination, but waiting around to confirm
wasn't an option. I kept walking, legs pumping
steadily upward. Hours passed, intense silence.
My body moved mechanically, climbing, descending, navigating
by sheer instinct and muscle memory.
Echo basin faded behind me, but the quiet remained oppressive
and heavy. Nightfall overtook me quickly,
darkness closing in as I finally reached the lower trail
junction, miles away from the basin.
I didn't stop. I couldn't.
My flashlight beam cut through the blackness ahead, casting
sharp shadows onto trees and rocks at every turn.
I expected something tall and featureless to emerge silently
mirroring my desperate flight. The scraping began again, just
as faint, just as purposeful as before.
Somewhere distant but constant. A deliberate sound.
Stone sliding against stone, trailing quietly through the
forest. Panic surged again, forcing my
pace even faster. Branches whipped my face and
roots snagged at my boots, but I barely noticed, driven by the
relentless need to escape that persistent noise.
Finally, in the pale Gray of early morning, I emerged at the
trailhead. I stood panting in the parking
lot, hands trembling, lungs raw. My radio crackled sharply when
headquarters heard my breathless voice requesting immediate pick
up. The dispatcher asked questions I
barely answered, mind unable to form coherent responses.
Just send someone now, I repeated, voice rough with
strain. Two hours later, safely back at
park headquarters, I handed over my camera and field notes to my
supervisor in his small office, cluttered with trail maps and
reports. He flipped slowly through the
photographs I'd taken, occasionally glancing back at me
with concern. You mentioned structures?
He finally asked, his voice gentle, careful.
Yes, I whispered hoarsely. Cairns, Dozens of them.
Polished stones stacked high everywhere around me.
His brow furrowed as he turned the screen toward me.
My chest constricted sharply. In every image.
The basin was empty. No Cairns, no polished
depression, just open, barren terrain.
I appeared in several photographs, visibly disturbed,
standing alone on windswept ground.
Nothing else was there. I stared numbly at the photos,
unable to understand. My pulse hammered behind my
temples. Emily, my supervisor, said
quietly. It's been a tough few days.
I understand if you need some rest.
I opened my mouth to protest, but stopped.
What could I possibly say? My evidence had vanished, Only
the echoes of my memory remained, utterly insufficient
against empty photographs. Wordlessly, I unclipped my
Ranger badge and placed it on his desk.
He didn't argue, didn't press for explanation.
He simply nodded slowly, I sympathetic as I stepped out
into the afternoon sun. I left the park shortly after,
unable to remain close to Echo Basin, haunted by the memories
of stone and silence. I moved to a small cabin outside
Grand Junction, far enough to feel safe, or at least safer.
For months, my days passed quietly, working at an outdoor
gear shop, routine slowly dulling the worst edges of fear.
But then winter returned, bringing sharp cold and heavy
frost. One frigid night, the wind
stopped abruptly again, plunging my cabin into the deep silence I
remembered too well. I lay awake in the darkness,
every nerve strained. Just outside the window, a faint
scraping drifted softly toward me.
It was slow and rhythmic, the quiet, careful slide of stone
across stone. When morning came, I found a
single small Cairn perched perfectly on the porch railing,
its stones polished smooth. Hands shaking, I scattered the
rocks into the snow, destroying their pattern.
But a week later, two more appeared silent, waiting,
arranged precisely toward the cabin door.
Echo Basin had found me again, and this time there was nowhere
else to run. The Paiute have a name for the
land that stretches S from the town of Escalante.
They call it the Sleeping Rainbow, a place of power.
The Bureau of Land Management, my employer, calls it the Grand
Staircase Escalante National Monument, an almost 2 million
acre chunk of southern Utah that defies easy description.
It's a geologic layer cake of canyons, cliffs and plateaus so
vast and rugged that parts of it were the last places in the
continental United States to be mapped.
People come here to find solitude.
Sometimes the solitude finds them first, and they are never
seen again. My job is to try and prevent
that. The fluorescent lights of the
Escalante Interagency Visitor Center's briefing room hummed a
flat, monotonous tune that grated on my nerves.
It was a sound of forced order, a stark contrast to the chaotic
wilderness just beyond the building's walls.
Maps of the canyons of the Escalante were spread across a
large table, their topographical lines a web of complex wrinkles
like the skin of an old man, Leo Maxwell, 24, Deputy Miller said,
tapping A glossy photo of a young man with a meticulously
curated beard and the kind of confident smile that suggested
he'd never faced a problem money couldn't solve.
Last seen three days ago. His rental is at the Dry Fork
trailhead. Last Post on the gram was a shot
of the Canyon entrance caption going where the signal dies.
Looks like he found it. Bill Taggart, a volunteer with
Kane County Sr. who everyone called Sarge, grunted.
He was a relic from a different era of the Park Service, a man
whose face was a road map of sun and skepticism.
Another Instagram idiot comes out here with $10,000 of gear
and $0.10 worth of common sense. He looked at me, a glimmer of
something, Patronage maybe, A test in his eyes.
It's your show, chief. I hated that nickname.
It felt like a title I hadn't earned yet.
I cleared my throat, forcing a confidence I didn't fully feel.
This was my first search and rescue operation as Incident
Commander back in Zion. I was part of a well oiled
machine. Here I was the machine all
right? I said, my voice coming out
steadier than I expected. We'll start with a standard grid
search radiating from the trailhead.
Team Alpha, you're with me and Sarge.
Maya, you'll be on comms and drone Overwatch.
We'll focus on the Dry Fork Narrows, including Peekaboo and
Spooky. He's a photographer.
He'll have gone for the dramatic shots.
I laid out the protocols, the communication windows, the 48
hour timeline. It was all textbook out here.
The textbook was the only thing keeping you from becoming
another ghost story. The Utah sun was a physical
weight by midday. The air shimmered above the
slick rock and the heat radiated up from the ground, baking me
through the soles of my boots. We'd found nothing all morning
but empty water bottles and granola bar wrappers, the usual
detritus of tourists. The sheer scale of the place was
humbling. A person could vanish 10 feet
from the trail and never be found.
Late in the afternoon, I spotted it perched on a sandstone ledge
overlooking A50 foot drop. A high end Sony camera sat on a
small, neat stack of three flat rocks.
It was perfectly balanced, positioned like an offering on
an altar. Well, there's his camera, Bill
said, spitting a stream of tobacco juice near my boot.
Looks like he was staging a shot and took a tumble.
We should check the base of that Cliff.
But I couldn't shake a feeling of deep unease.
The lens cap was on. Who sets up a shot and then puts
the lens cap on? It felt wrong, staged.
We scoured the area below the ledge for two hours.
We found no tracks, no scuff marks, no sign of a fall,
nothing. We pushed on, following a dry
wash that snaked deeper into the monument.
The sun was beginning its slow descent, painting the Canyon
walls in hues of orange and deep Violet.
That's when Maya, the young volunteer on my team, called out
Ranger Jenkins. You should see this.
There, in the center of the wide sandy wash, stood a single
hiking boot. It was one of Leo Maxwell's
expensive Italian boots, standing perfectly upright as if
its owner had simply evaporated out of it.
It was filled to the brim with fine red sand.
And placed neatly in the center of the sand, like a candle on a
bizarre cake, was a single flawless stem of Indian
paintbrush, its Crimson petals a stark slash of color against the
pale sand. Bill stopped beside me, the
usual gruff commentary dying on his lips.
He just stared, a long, low whistle escaping his teeth.
Heat stroke. He finally mumbled, but the
conviction in his voice was gone.
Makes a man do strange things, starts shedding layers, gets
delusional. I nodded, but I didn't believe
it. There was a precision to this, a
deliberate artistry that felt chillingly sane.
This wasn't the work of a mind addled by heat.
This was a message. The sun had dipped below the
Canyon rim by the time we started our hike back to the
temporary base camp. The desert was descending into a
profound silence, broken only by the crunch of our boots on the
gravelly terrain. I was bringing up the rear, my
mind replaying the image of the flower in the boot, when I heard
it, A whisper as clear and close as if someone were walking
directly behind me. Sarah.
My blood ran cold. I spun around, my hand
instinctively going to the radio on my shoulder strap.
The trail behind me was empty. Far ahead, I could see the
bobbing headlamps of Bill and Maya, their voices a faint
murmur. I keyed the radio.
Bill, Maya, did one of you just call me?
Bill's voice crackled back, casual and unconcerned.
Negative, Chief, we're a good ways ahead of you.
You all right? I'm fine.
I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Wind must be playing tricks. But it wasn't the wind.
The wind winds and moans. It doesn't learn your name.
I stood alone in the gathering dark, feeling the immense,
ancient weight of the wilderness around me.
For the first time, it didn't feel empty.
It felt like it was watching. Day 2 dawned with a malevolent,
hazy sky that promised no relief.
We abandoned the heavily trafficked lower canyons and
moved N ascending onto the vast, broken expanse of the
Kaiparowitz Plateau. Up here, the world was
different. The friendly sandstone swirls
gave way to stark, angular cliffs and canyons that
fractured the earth like shattered bone.
The silence was heavier, the solitude more profound.
We were no longer in a park. We were in an ancient in
different place, and the strangeness from the day before
clung to us like the fine dust that coated our gear.
We found the second message at a fork in a narrow, unnamed
Canyon. It stood about two feet tall,
propped against a slab of sandstone.
At first glance, I thought it was a bundle of dried brush.
Then my eyes resolved the shape, and a cold knot formed in my
stomach. It was a humanoid figure,
crudely woven from sharp Yucca fibers.
Its arms and legs were unnervingly long and thin, bent
at odd angles. Tied to its chest with a
familiar looking black and red shoelace, a perfect match to the
one on Leo's remaining boot, was the bleach jawbone of a coyote.
It wasn't just a random construction.
It was a portrait. It was a warning.
Deputy Miller's voice crackled over the radio, tinny and
distant. Probably just some weirdo cult
crap. Ignore it and press on.
Bill spat. I'm thinking drug runners,
territorial markers. He said it with a confidence I
knew he didn't feel. Drug runners were a logical,
almost comforting explanation compared to the alternative that
was beginning to form in the back of my mind.
The auditory events started soon after.
They were no longer subtle whispers.
They were calculated attacks. Bill was scouting a high ledge,
checking for a possible route to the Canyon rim.
I watched him from below, a small figure against a massive
wall of rock. My radio clipped to my shoulder
strap, remained silent, but Bill's radio spoke to him.
His voice came over my receiver a moment later, tight with
confusion. Say again, Chief Ledge is
unstable. I keyed my mic.
Negative, Sarge. I didn't say anything.
You have a clear vantage point up there.
A long pause. My radio.
It was your voice, clear as a bell.
Told me to get down now. He scrambled down the rocks, his
movements clumsy with haste. When he reached us, he stared at
me, then at my radio, as if he could see the lie in its silent
plastic casing. It was you, He repeated, his
voice low. It said my name.
Later that afternoon, we were taking a break in the thin shade
of an overhanging Cliff. Maya, the young volunteer, was
quiet, her usual cheerful energy completely gone.
She looked exhausted, haunted. Without warning, a sound drifted
through the still air. It was faint but unmistakable,
the worried voice of a woman, a sound that had no place here in
this desolate wilderness. Maya, honey, is that you?
Why haven't you called me back? Maya went rigid.
The color drained from her face. She fumble for her satellite
phone, her hands trembling as she stared at the screen.
No missed calls. She whispered, her voice choked
with tears. How?
That was my mom. That was her voice.
The sound had come from everywhere and nowhere.
It hadn't echoed off the Canyon walls, it had simply manifested
in the air between us, a cruel and impossible auditory
hallucination we had all shared. I knew then I had to get
control. That evening, I gathered what
was left of my team. We're doing a comms check.
I announced, forcing a tone of authority.
With base camp and all teams now, I hailed the command post.
Team Alpha, this is IC voice check over.
My own voice sounded alien in the oppressive quiet.
A moment later, the reply came from my radio speaker.
Team Alpha, this is IC voice check over.
It was a perfect echo. Not a recording, but a live,
intelligent mimicry. Before I could react, the radio
spoke again, cycling through the voices of my team with chilling
precision. Bill Taggart.
Team Alpha, Check. It was Bill's gravelly tone,
identical in every way. Maya check Maya's soft, fearful
voice. Then a new voice entered the
sequence, A voice we'd only heard on a missing person
report. The cheerful, confident tone of
the dead Leo Maxwell. Check.
A thick, cold silence descended. No one breathed.
Then the radio crackled one last time, with a perfect imitation
of Deputy Miller's folksy drawl, dripping with a terrifying,
knowing malice. Y'all are in a whole heap of
trouble. That night no one spoke.
The campfire crackled, spitting embers into the darkness, but it
offered no comfort. Maya was huddled in her sleeping
bag, her face pale. Bill sat staring into the
flames, his skepticism finally burned away, leaving only a raw,
primal fear. He's not lost, I said, my voice
low but clear. The words felt like stones in my
mouth. Leo Maxwell is gone, and we're
not looking for him anymore. Bill looked up at me, his eyes
hollow. What are you saying, Sarah?
The camera, the boot, the effigy.
They aren't clues. He left behind their messages
for us. I took a deep breath, the theory
finally taking solid form. We're being studied, haunted by
something that uses our own voices against us.
It's trying to separate us, to make us panic.
This is its territory, and it's playing a game with us.
You're talking about a monster, Chief Bill whispered, the
nickname now devoid of any irony.
You've let this place get in your head.
Before I could answer, a sound cut through the night from the
high cliffs above. It was thin and reedy at first,
then rose in volume, a sound so deeply, fundamentally wrong for
this place that it stopped the very blood in my veins.
It was the sound of a baby crying, a desperate, lonely
whale that echoed off the unseen rock.
A perfect, calculated lure designed to prey on the most
basic of human instincts. It was the most inhuman sound I
had ever heard. The sound began on the morning
of the third day. It wasn't a whisper or a
disembodied voice from a memory. It was a raw, desperate scream.
And it came from the narrow, jagged mouth of a slot Canyon
the old timers called Brimstone Gulch.
Help me, I'm in here. My leg is broken.
The voice was Leo Maxwell's. It was filled with a perfect,
agonizing pain that would have sent any rescue team scrambling.
But we knew better. We knew what was making that
sound. Bill's face was a pale, grim
mask. Maya was shaking, her eyes wide
with terror. This was the final invitation.
This was the trap. My radio crackled.
It was Deputy Miller, his voice clear from the safety of the
command post miles away. I see.
We have audible cries, confirmed by two other teams.
You are to enter the Canyon and attempt to make contact.
It was a direct order, a lawful order.
It was also a death sentence. No, Bill whispered beside me.
Chief, don't. I looked from the dark slit of
the Canyon to the faces of my team.
I thought of the camera on the rocks, the flower in the boot,
the thing made of Yucca and bone.
I thought of the baby's cry in the night.
I raised the radio to my lips. Copy that command.
I lied, my voice betraying no emotion.
Team Alpha is proceeding into Brimstone Gulch.
I killed the transmission and turned to Bill and Maya.
My heart was a cold, heavy stone in my chest.
We're not going in. I said, my voice low and
absolute. We're going up.
We stick together, we trust the rope.
And no matter what you hear, no matter whose voice it is, you do
not look back and you do not hesitate.
You just climb. I reached up and clicked the
small recording button on the side of my helmet camera.
The tiny red light was a small act of defiance.
Turn yours on, Maya. She fumble with the switch, her
fingers trembling. What is it?
She whispered. Evidence, I said.
We didn't enter the Gulch. We found a steep, narrow chimney
on its outer wall and began to ascend toward the rimrock high
above. Below us, the desperate cries of
Leo turn to agonize screams of torment echoing up from the
dark, tight confines of the trap.
Then the real assault began. It was a chaos of sound, a
psychological carpet bombing. I heard the sharp twang of a
rope snapping right next to my ear, and my body tensed for a
fall that never came. My own rope was solid, secure.
A cascade of pebbles rained down, and I heard Bill's voice
yell ROCK, ROCK from above me. I flinched, pressing my body to
the wall, but when I glanced up, Bill was still climbing, his
face set, his mouth closed. He hadn't made a sound.
It was trying to make us react, to make us look away, to make us
second guess our gear, our partners, our own senses.
It wanted a moment of hesitation, A fatal mistake.
We were nearing the top, the morning light a pale band above
us, when the screams from the Canyon ceased.
A new silence fell, and in that silence it emerged.
It flowed out of the mouth of the slot Canyon below us and
began to climb the opposite wall with an impossible fluid grace.
It was tall, at least 7 feet, and slender.
Its skin was the color of bone, waxy and completely featureless.
There was no face, just a smooth blank canvas.
Its limbs were too long, bending at angles that defied anatomy as
its splayed 3 fingered hands found holds in the sheer
sandstone. It made no sound.
It simply climbed parallel to us, its head cocked.
Watching Maya made a choked, gasping sound.
The thing turned its blank face toward her, a smooth, pale Oval
in the dim light. Her helmet camera was pointed
right at it. Seeing us near the rim, so close
to escape, it finally took direct action.
It wasn't a roar or a charge. It was a cold, calculated move.
High above us it braced its long limbs and pushed.
A massive boulder the size of a truck tire dislodged from the
Cliff face and came crashing down, not at us, but at the rock
face just above us. Bill was the highest on the
line. He yelled a real warning this
time and swung his body to avoid the primary impact, but the
shower of debris that followed slammed into his position.
I heard the grinding screech of metal on rock as his anchors
failed. He shouted my name, a single
sharp syllable of shock and fear.
Then he was gone, his weight vanishing from the rope as he
plummeted into the blackness of the Gulch.
And from the creature on the opposite wall came a sound I
will hear in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
It wasn't a mimicry. It was its own voice, a series
of high pitched, rapid clicks, the sound of an insect magnified
1000 * a sound that was, in its own alien way, laughter.
The sun crested the horizon as Maya and I clawed our way onto
the rim. The creature was gone, retreated
from the light. The official story was clean.
Park Ranger Bill Taggart and missing hiker Leo Maxwell were
tragically killed in a sudden, unexpected rockslide and
Brimstone Gulch. My report and Maya's incoherent
statements were attributed to acute stress and trauma.
Stern faced men from the Department of the Interior
debriefed me in a sterile office.
They were polite, professional and their questions carried an
unmistakable threat. They confiscated our helmet
cameras and their memory cards. As part of the official
investigation, I signed the non disclosure agreement.
It was that or the end of my career, my reputation, my life
as I knew it. I was transferred to Denver to a
records management position, a desk job and exile.
Five years later, I was cataloging land use permits in a
Gray cubicle when a news alert flashed on my monitor.
Hiker missing in Grand Staircase Escalante.
My breath caught in my throat. That night, in my quiet apt, I
opened a locked file on my laptop.
I had known they would take the camera.
I hadn't trusted them. Before the climb, I had enabled
a Deep Woods satellite Relay app on my phone, an experimental
program that attempted to livestream helmet Cam footage to
a secure cloud server. The signal had been garbage,
cutting in and out, but it hadn't been a total failure.
I had a corrupted 17 second video file.
I composed a new e-mail, encrypted and routed through
three different countries. The recipient was a journalist,
a man famous for his relentless pursuit of inconvenient truths.
The subject line was simple. What's really in Grand Staircase
Escalante? The e-mail was short.
It told him everything. Attached was one small video
file. I hit send and I lean back in my
chair, closing my eyes. I pictured him in his office
late at night, a glass of whiskey in his hand, a cynical
look on his face as he reads a crazy e-mail from some anonymous
source. I see him click the attachment.
The video is shaky, the quality poor.
It's a blur of red rock and morning shadow.
Then, for 9 clear seconds, a pale, long limbed thing flows
into the frame. It turns its smooth, featureless
face toward the camera. The journalist's cynical smile
would vanish. The glass would stop halfway to
his lips. His eyes would widen, and in
that moment, he would believe the story was finally out.
The silence was about to be broken.