We parked for the night at a small turn out off State Route
89 A between Sedona and Cottonwood.
It was mid-october. We had spent the afternoon at
Crescent Moon picnic site and left after a short sprinkle that
made the air smell like creosote and wet dust.
The spot was flat, close to a dry wash with low brush.
I had two bars of service, enough to stream a little music
while we cooked. About 200 feet away there was an
older blue Sprinter. The man inside looked to be in
his 60s. He didn't wave.
He didn't bother us. We ate, put everything away, and
set up the bed. Our golden retriever should have
passed out after hiking. Instead, she lay with her chin
on her paws, staring at the wash like she was waiting on a cue.
I couldn't hear. Our van is a simple build bed
across the back drawers, under it a battery monitor that glows
soft blue by the kitchen. We keep shoes by the sliding
door and a headlamp in the map pocket.
I cracked the passenger window of fingers width for air and
clip the privacy cover over it. You can still see lines of
condensation form around the edge when the inside is warmer
than the outside. We tried to watch a show, but
the signal buffered, so we shut it down and talked instead.
Every few minutes a pair of headlights would sweep along
89-A and fade. When I stepped outside to brush
my teeth, the wash carried no sound back, no insect drone, no
rustle. Unless I made it, The dog stood
on the threshold and would not leave the step.
The sprinter's cabin light clicked on for a moment, then
off. I took it as a sign the older
guy was also settling down. We turned in around 10.
I lay on my side and watch the battery monitor.
The dog stayed at the foot of the bed, pointed at the wash.
I told myself she was keyed up from the drive.
My partner said the same. The van ticked as it cooled a
little. After 11, I felt the kind of
stillness that makes you hold your breath.
Not a dramatic thing, just the part of night where everything
drops. I was on the edge of sleep when
the dog let out a low sound from deep in her chest.
She didn't bark. She didn't even lift her head.
She slid off the bed, pushed with her shoulders, and crawled
into the dark space under the platform.
I called her name. She didn't come back out.
I eased the edge of the window cover up and fogged the glass
with two slow breaths out past the brush line.
I saw movement in the wash. It looked like a person at
first, because it was upright. But the gate was wrong.
There was no bounce. It cut left, then right, and it
did that faster than it should have.
The elbows hung low. When it leaned forward, each
shift of direction looked like a pivot, not a step.
I closed the cover and told myself not to dramatize it.
I have seen people run weird when they're tired.
I have seen shadows play tricks. I put my hand on the bed frame
and felt the dog's fur with my fingers.
She was trembling. The sprinter's cabin light
flashed once. Not long, just a single beat.
Then darkness again, like the man saw it too and decided to go
quiet. I listened for footsteps, for
gravel crunch from someone walking up our way.
What I heard made less sense. It came one step at a time, slow
in a circle, but each step sounded soft, like weight
pressed into thick padding. It went around the van, then
stopped by the passenger side. I slid my eyes to the edge of
the window cover. Condensation had gathered there.
A handprint formed high on the glass, 5 long fingers.
The palm was narrow. The prints lit a hair like
whoever owned it shifted to set weight.
I touched the faint smear with my fingertip.
It left a smell on my skin, like coins and hot metal.
Something tugged the rear doors. Not a pull and rattle.
It was a steady inward pressure, like a test.
The thin inner skin of the door flexed, barely enough to see,
but enough to feel through the bed frame.
I pushed my heels into the mattress, like that would help
somehow. My partner whispered that the
keys were in the cup holder and the shoes were by the door.
We kept our voices low, plain, the way you speak when there is
no time for anything else. I slid forward, felt for the
keys and put them in the ignition.
The starter turned over once and ground like the battery was
tired. My teeth went tight.
Then the engine caught, the van shook to life, and the
headlights punched out onto brush and red dirt at the edge
of the light cone. The shape straightened in one
fast line from the waist up. I froze, foot on the brake, and
felt the bed frame tap my calves as the dog scooted farther
under. The shape leaned again, slow,
like it was studying how we would react.
I put the van in drive and eased forward, careful not to spin the
tires in dust. I did not yank the wheel.
I didn't want to cut too sharp and get stuck at a bad angle to
the highway. The wash ran along our passenger
side. As I moved, the shape moved too,
always just outside of full light, keeping pace along the
brush like it had walked that ground a lot.
The sprinter's headlights came on behind us like someone threw
a switch with force. The older man pulled up close
enough that his beams threw our shadow ahead.
Then he slid left, accelerated, and took the lead.
He didn't honk or shout. He drove.
He kept his brights on and angled them across the wash as
he passed, like he was sweeping it.
For a second. The beam caught a section of
shoulder and a hand braced high against a branch at a height
that made no sense. Then the wash went black again.
I stayed on his bumper and let him choose the line.
Back to 89 A. My partner had one hand on the
dog. She said the dog's heart was
racing. Mine was, too.
As I climbed the shallow lip of the turn out to the shoulder,
the van gave a small twitch, like the back end reacted to
weight on the rear doors. It wasn't a hit.
It felt like that. Same steady pressure, but
lighter now than nothing. The wash dropped away and the
highway surface took us. I eased into the gap the
Sprinter made for us, and we picked up speed toward
Cottonwood. I checked the mirrors.
It felt wrong to look into that much dark, but I did it anyway.
There was only brush and night and our own light flare behind
us. We didn't speak for a few
minutes. The speed limit signs came and
went. The red rock walls fell back.
The older man never wavered. He kept in front, held a safe
pace, and took the exact path a person would take if the only
goal was getting 2 vehicles out fast without drawing attention.
I felt myself breathe all the way down in my ribs for the
first time. When the white and blue canopy
of a Chevron came into view. He pulled in.
We pulled in. He parked at an outside pump and
stepped down. He wore a denim jacket and work
boots. His hands were rough.
He looked at our dog, who had her head out now, and gave her a
nod, like he understood something about her that I
didn't. He didn't ask if we were OK.
He didn't ask for details. He said you saw it too.
I said yes. He walked to the back of his
sprinter and pointed at his rear door.
There was a long oily smear there at shoulder height, 5
faint tracks within it. He didn't make a speech.
He didn't try to scare us. He said I've seen it out by
Lloyd Butte. It's a skinwalker, don't camp in
the washes. He looked at me to make sure I
heard the last part. They used the cover.
I told him about our dog going under the bed.
I told him about the smell on the glass.
He nodded like those were pieces he recognized.
He said good dog and that was the only praise he gave.
We thanked him. He didn't ask for our names or
offer his. He climbed back in and drove off
without fuelling. The lot went flat and quiet.
We didn't get back on 89 A the way we had planned.
We went to Dead Horse Ranch State Park and found a site with
a pay box and posted rules and the kind of bathroom light that
throws a circle on the road. I backed in as straight as I
could and shut the engine off. The dog jumped onto the bed and
fell asleep so hard her paws twitched.
I lay there for a long time with my hand on her back, counting
her breaths. I felt the van cool.
I felt the beat in my fingers ease.
In the morning, after coffee and some normal air, I cleaned the
passenger window. The handprint was faint, but
there. The glass cleaner cut through
most of it in a few passes. The smell stayed longer, a metal
taste in the air that hung around the seat in the door
pocket even after I wiped them both.
I scrubbed once more and left the doors open for a few
minutes, the breeze from the river helped.
By the time we rolled out to find breakfast, the smell had
thinned to almost nothing. We didn't roadside camp near
Sedona. Again, not near any wash.
When we tell the story, we keep it short.
The details are real enough without extra shine.
The place exists, the turn out is there, the wash is there.
The dog hid, the door flexed, the older man helped.
Without fanfare. That is what happened.
If someone doesn't believe it, I don't try to push them.
I will say this, and I mean it. If your dog won't settle and a
Washington sits beside your rig like a ready path, move.
If the night goes quiet and stays that way, move.
And if you see a handprint high on your window with that coin
hot smell, do not wait to see anything else.
Get back to the road. I took the graveyard shift at
the Speedway on US 64 in Shiprock because rent doesn't
wait. It was late November.
The kind of wind that pushes dust across the lot and rattles
the thin metal around the car wash Bay.
Nights there are simple if you can stand being alone.
Keep the coffee hot, rotate the hot case, face the shelves, do 2
safe drops and mop before 4. My manager slept at home unless
something broke. My only company that night was a
high school kid named Evan who mopped floors for extra cash and
a black and tan stray that lived off what it could pull from our
dumpster corral. We didn't feed it, but we didn't
run it off either. If you've worked nights, you
know how the place settles into a routine.
Burnt coffee smell, the hum from the beer cooler, and long
stretches where the highway might as well be a dead river.
By 2:00 AM, the pumps were empty and the road was dark.
I was counting bills for a safe drop when the door chime dinged.
It's a pressure pad in the hinge.
No way for that sound to play unless wait hits the door.
I looked up, expecting a windblown tourist or someone out
for cigarettes. No one stood in the entry.
Both doors were closed. The air didn't move.
I came around the counter to check the aisles anyway, because
you do that even when you feel stupid for doing it.
The mop bucket near the bathrooms had a tight ring of
ripples moving out from center. That's not a draft, that's
something passing close enough to shake the water.
I stared at it until the ring faded out.
I walked back to the front windows to see if someone had
pulled in without me hearing over the cooler fans.
The stray was out by the dumpster corral at first, doing
its slow loop like usual. Then it stiffened and paced a
straight line to the front glass.
Its hair stood up. It took short backward steps,
locking eyes on the door like it couldn't decide whether to run
or hold. Then it backed away on those
same stiff little steps. I've seen that posture on dogs
before. That's not I smell food, that's
the hardwired program that says something is wrong and I don't
want my eyes on it. At 2:14 I saw a tall shape cross
under the canopy and stop at pump 8.
It set weight like a person fueling a car, only there wasn't
a car. Wind pushed dust through the
bright rectangle of light and around the island.
The figure just stood at the far pump lane, the height off
somehow, the width too narrow for the height, like someone
standing with shoulders tucked up.
I took one step toward the door and stopped.
The glass gave me a clean angle. No headlights on the highway, no
engine sounds. Just that shape holding a spot
where people usually stand with a nozzle in hand.
Want me to lock it? Evan asked from near the
bathrooms. He meant the interior deadbolt
on the right hand door we sometimes set when someone
camped outside for too long. Not yet, I said.
Finish the mop in front so we're not slipping if we have to move.
The shape wasn't at the pump. When I looked again, it was at
the ice freezer along the front wall.
No transition, just there. The lid of the chest shifted an
inch on its hinges and a thin fog bled out, like freezer air
does when you open it too fast. The lid came back down with a
soft contact, not the clack it makes when someone lets it drop.
I told myself to breathe steady. I reminded myself that eyes at
night miss things and glass reflections play tricks.
I moved two steps left to kill the glare from the hot case and
looked again. The freezer was closed.
The spot by pump 8 was empty. What got me next wasn't an
object moving, it was the way the window changed.
We have a long run of glass broken into panes by metal
mullions at 229. A chunk of that glass went dark
at the top third, the way it does when someone stands inches
from it on the other side and blocks the lights.
There was no face, just a vertical section of darker night
at the wrong height, held in place like someone was trying to
line up with the register. I took two steps back until the
candy rack covered me to the waist.
When you've been robbed once, and I have, you, remember
distances. The front mat to the counter is
about 15 feet. The counter to the bathroom hall
is 10. The office door is behind the
counter and unlocked until 3. Lock it, I said.
I heard the little click as Evan slid the interior deadbolt on
the right door. The handle jiggled half an inch,
like someone outside testing it. Then the door pressed in against
the latch. Not a slam, not a kick.
Just steady weight, the kind you feel with your palm on the glass
if you try to hold it shut while a strong person leans.
The rubber around the frame made a long dragging sound.
The metal handle gave a dry squeak.
I put my hand flat on the glass. You can feel load through that.
The door eased back and then pushed again, testing whether
pressure would grow into movement.
We have an intercom button at the register to talk to people
at the pumps. I hit it without thinking, the
way you do when you've told a dozen drunks to put the nozzle
back. Static came through the little
speaker by my left ear. Then a single breath.
Not a word. 1 drawn breath. Then it cut out.
I let go of the button. I didn't press it again.
I didn't want to be caught between the front and the back,
so I told Evan to bring the mop bucket behind the counter while
I checked the back door. He rolled the bucket toward me
and it clacked over the floor drain, sloshing.
Once I took the heavy steel bar we used to brace the back door
for deliveries and set it within reach on the floor by my feet.
I didn't want to be the guy who left the brace behind because it
seemed crazy to carry it inside. The scraping started under the
delivery dock at 2:48. If you've worked a dock, you
know pallet noises, you know hand trucks squeaks, you know
the slap of shrink wrap in wind. This was metal against
galvanized steel, slow and regular, like a thin hook
working its way along the underside of the roll up door.
Then came a hand over hand pattern up the corrugations.
You can hear weight settle on each rib if someone climbs a
door. The dock light above the door
dropped to half brightness when whatever was climbing reached
that height. Then the light returned as the
weight moved. The little photo cell clicked.
It did it again as the weight slid down, up, down.
Not fast, like it had time. I slid the steel bar into the
brackets on the back door and pushed until it bit the frame.
We weren't going out there. The plan was to hold the front,
keep sight lines and make noise if it tried the glass.
I killed half the interior lights to cut the reflections,
leaving the hot case and the counter lights so we could see
our hands and the register. When I came back to the front,
there was a smear on the outside of the beer cave door.
It was high, higher than I could touch without a stool, and it
looked like someone had dragged an oily palm across it.
The streak thinned out toward the end.
That's not a kids handprint, that's something long laid down
with pressure and then lifted away.
Do we call the police? Evan asked.
He put the mop handle down so he could keep both hands on the
counter. If I call and say someone is
outside and I can't describe a face or a car, they'll tell us
to lock up and wait. I said if it tries to come in, I
call. OK.
We stood like that for maybe a minute.
The windows were clean enough to see the entire lot.
The tall shape took each pane in order.
It would hold at one window until the dark strip matched the
mullions, then slide to the next.
There was nothing theatrical about it.
No banging, no breathing on the glass, just a body blocking
light where a body shouldn't be. The stray solved a piece of the
puzzle for me. I saw a flicker of movement in
the car wash Bay to the right. The dog had shoved itself into
the inside corner of the Bay by the cinder block, nose jammed
into the seam where wall met wall, body locked tight.
I called out softly. The dog didn't respond.
It didn't swivel an ear. It held the corner like the
corner was the only shape left in the world.
That made sense. That is how animals act when the
math of the space doesn't favor them.
At 3:30, the figure stood in the mouth of the car wash Bay.
It filled the opening like a person would fill a door.
If a person were too tall for the frame, then it bent.
Not a tilt of the head, not a slouch.
It folded from the middle until whatever counted as its head
lined up with my eye level at the register.
There was a long stretch of glass and concrete between us,
but it had done the geometry right.
I could feel that much. It held there, bent for a time
span that made my forearms tingle.
Evans said not to move. He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't say anything else. I picked up the steel bar and
brought it down hard on the drain grates along the tile seam
in front of the counter. The sound was as loud as you'd
expect. Metal on cast iron, a ring that
carries into every aisle. I did it again and again.
The shape didn't startle, It didn't twitch.
It just straightened in a single long step, not in increments,
and it was farther from the Bay than a single step should carry
a person. Another held beat, then nothing
at the Bay mouth. We watched the windows and saw
nothing for a long time. We didn't chase.
We stayed where we could lock the office door if the glass
gave way and get to the back hall if the front got blocked.
Every few minutes the right hand door took a small pull, as if
hands outside were finding the same deadbolt and testing for
play. The handle squeaked.
The seal on the frame made that long dragging sound again.
It stopped. When the poles came back.
They were the same. Steady, patient, not a show of
force. Testing, not trying.
At around six, the sky lifted a shade at the far end of the
highway and a diesel rattled onto the lot.
A guy in an old pickup climbed out with a thermos.
I watched something I didn't expect to watch, how the lot
wrapped around a normal person. When someone moves like a person
should move, the angles returned to the shapes.
You know. He paid for coffee, told me the
wind had chewed his eyes up and left.
The dog was no longer in the car wash Bay.
I stepped to where I could see the corner.
Nothing. I tried a soft call.
Again, no movement. My manager pulled in a little
after 7. He looked tired.
He always looks tired by the end of the month.
I told him the timeline. While he walked the lot, he
crouched at the back door and put a finger along 2 long
scratches cut into the paint under the latch.
The lines were parallel and clean, like someone had drawn
them with a slow firm hand. He stood and looked higher up at
the metal, about a foot above where I could reach even if I
stretched. A greasy smear had dried.
It wasn't a print you could read, not like a crime show.
It was a stretched hand shape from someone taller than we get
in there after midnight. He didn't crack a joke.
He's not really a joke guy anyway.
Next time call Navajo PD, he said.
Tell them you think it's a skinwalker.
They'll know what to do. He didn't make a speech or call
anyone else. He just said it like we were
talking about a natural gas leak or a stray cow on the highway.
He told me I could have day shifts if I wanted them.
I said yes before he finished the sentence.
I called the dog twice that afternoon when I came back for
my next shift, even though I knew better than to expect it, I
left an old hot dog on the step near the back door and checked
it at close. It had shriveled in the dry air.
No one ate it. There are parts of that night I
replay while I'm counting change in daylight.
The door pushing back with the kind of pressure you use to move
furniture. The climb on the corrugated
metal at the dock, weight settling on each rib like
someone doing a slow set of pull ups.
The way the light over the dock dipped at a fixed height and
came back when the weight dropped.
But the thing I think about most is the bend in the car wash Bay.
I work around bodies every day. I know how they hinge.
Whatever that was made its body meet my eye line like it was
matching numbers on a tape measure.
It did it without hurry. I didn't tell my family.
I didn't tell my friends. I don't like the look people
give you after stories like this.
I wrote this down to clear the line in my head between what I
imagined and what happened. The line is simple.
Wind pushed dust across the lot. The door chime dinged with no
one in the doorway. The mop bucket rippled like
something brushed past. The stray dog did what animals
do when the room stops making sense.
Something tall stood where only cars should be and tested the
door like a person who knew hardware.
I made noise with the only heavy thing I had, and it was enough
to get me to sunrise. That's all I have.
That and a pair of long scratches under a latch and a
smear higher than I can reach. I took the day shift.
The dog didn't come back. That's the whole story.
I'm not posting this for thrills, I'm posting it because
I learned to rule the hard way and I don't want you learning it
the same way. If you take the unpaved Rd. out
along the rim at Angel Peak Scenic Area off US 550 near
Bloomfield, NM and you plan to stay past dark, bring another
vehicle and park nose out. My spouse and I didn't break any
laws or mess with anything. We picked a bluff top pull out
in late October because the air was cool and the sky out there
looks clean enough to drink. I messed with landscape shots on
weekends, but this wasn't a big trip.
Cheap Lantern, enamel pot, paperbacks.
Our old forerunner knows that road.
It's got a ladder rack on the back that rattles when you climb
it 2 sites over. A family in a red pickup built a
quick camp. No music, no no noise, no
generators up and down the rim, just the wind coming in off the
Badlands and the smell of sage. We set up before sunset.
The shelters out there are simple roofs with a table under
them, open to the view. Angel Peak sat across a maze of
white and Gray ridges, like a flat topped island.
The light went orange, then purple.
I was stirring ramen when movement on the rim path caught
my eye. At first I thought jogger, which
didn't make sense out there, but people train on weird surfaces
all the time. Only this wasn't a normal run.
The figure moved low, torso level, arms quiet against the
sides, gliding more than stepping, no headlamp or
reflective anything. It traced the edge of the bluff
in a lazy arc and stayed there just far enough that I couldn't
make out details, just a shape that was always in motion.
I kept glancing up and losing it and then catching it again
farther along the rim. The ground out there breaks into
dips and small shelves, and the shape never changed pace for any
of it. It went up a small roll in the
ground without any check in rhythm and slid down the far
side like it was on rails. My spouse joked that maybe the
person was training for altitude races, and I shrugged, but I
kept watching. The family 2 sights over got
quiet. Their dad stood by the truck
bed, hands resting on the side, facing away from the view and
toward the same line of rim where I'd last seen the shape.
Dark took over between one breath and the next.
We turned the Lantern down to stretch the fuel.
Stars came on hard. I didn't want to fixate on the
Ridge path, so I did camp chores, stowed the bowls, shook
out the tarp, tied a loose line. The wind moved in uneven pushes
behind me. Small pebbles ticked down the
slope. I turned with the Lantern and
the sound cut off. I set the Lantern down and it
started again from farther left. After a minute it came from the
right, then behind the shelter post.
It wasn't constant, just a quiet, spaced out pattern that
drew a circle around us. Small rocks don't roll uphill,
and the slope didn't run all one way.
I told myself it was animals, there are plenty out there, but
it felt patterned, like something testing how close it
could get without being seen. I went around to the back of the
Forerunner to put the pot away. The dust on the bumper near the
ladder rack showed a mark I hadn't seen earlier.
You know how you can press your hand into dust and it leaves the
shape for a while? It looked like that, but wrong.
The palm was long and narrow, twisted a little like it had
jammed down to get grip. What got me were the knuckle
spots, more than there should have been, spaced in a way my
brain tried to turn into normal and couldn't.
I touched it with one fingertip and a little drift of powder
fell off the bumper. Hey, my spouse said, low from
the shelter. I think they're packing.
The family. Two sides over had moved fast
without making a show of it. The cooler was already in the
bed of the truck. The Dome tent that had been up
not long before was gone, rolled and strapped.
The dad stepped out into the common view line like he was
just stretching his legs. He looked right at me across the
space between our sights and shaped 2 words with his mouth
without sound. Car.
Now I didn't make a speech, I just said we're going to head
out and we started moving like we trained for it.
Lantern down to a low setting, chairs folded, sleeping bags
thrown into the back with no folding, stove tossed into the
bin without parts sorted. I kept the light pointed low,
not scanning for anything, just keeping the ground honest.
Down the slope, a dry scrape moved across stone and stopped.
The ladder rack let out a thin metallic note as the wind hit it
from a different angle. When we shut the rear hatch, the
family's truck was already idling.
No headlights yet. They were turned toward the road
and waiting. We pulled out first because we
were closer to the track. I kept the beams on their lowest
setting until the road dropped away from the rim.
The surface was the kind that turns into washboard if you
drive it when it's damp, and then it dries with ridges baked
in. The steering wheel hummed in my
hands. Harmless. 1/4 mile in, the road
dips through a shallow saddle before climbing toward the
entrance. As the forerunner nosed over
that dip, the back end sagged hard, like two people had
stepped onto the rear ladder. At once.
The steering went light. The front tires chattered on
gravel in a way I know well from loading too much weight in the
back. The metal in the rack gave off a
groan. I hadn't heard from it before.
What was that? My spouse said.
Not loud, just enough to confirm it wasn't my imagination.
I didn't want to stab the brakes and pitch the weight forward.
I feathered them. Whatever was on the rack
shifted. You can feel that through the
whole vehicle when you've done enough dumb camping loads.
You get the slide, the frame flex, the slight Yaw, then a
heavy drop hit the gravel behind us.
It wasn't a rock. Rocks bounce and scatter.
This was a one piece landing followed by a second lighter
thump. I looked in the mirror and saw
dust hanging low in the beams. Something long dragged along the
passenger side rear quarter panel as it regained balance.
The sound was clean and thin, like a screwdriver line across
paint. The family's truck behind us
tapped its brakes twice and gave us a little more space, enough
that if we needed to stop suddenly, we wouldn't get
pushed. I kept the speed steady and the
wheel straight. The shock passed the rack
rattled more than before. We came to the entrance sign and
the fork toward US. 550. I took it without looking
anywhere but the road. We hit the highway in a pair.
Hazards on. For the first few minutes, the
adrenaline ebbed in steps. 1st when we saw another set of
headlights coming from the South, then more when the first
town lights showed up ahead. We pulled into the big bright
lot by the gas station near US 550 and US 64 in Bloomfield.
The place was loud with regular life.
Teens laughing by a car. The chime from the convenience
store, The smell of fryer oil floating across the pumps.
That didn't make me feel safer, exactly, but it put distance
between US and the rim. The dad from the other side
walked to the back of his truck and angled the tail light under
the overheads. The red plastic had four gouges
carved into it, deep enough that you could wedge a coin.
The spacing was wrong for human fingers.
They curved inward, not down. He didn't make a scene.
He looked at me like this was business and said the only
sentence I've repeated word for word since that night.
Folks call it a skinwalker. Don't camp up their solo.
After Halloween, we checked our own rig.
The scratch started under the lower rung of the ladder rack,
tracked forward across the quarter panel, and ended at the
fuel door. It wasn't jagged like a branch.
It looked planned, a single movement, straight and
confident, not the flailing of something slipping.
The paint had a pale curl at the edge where whatever made the
line had lifted, tiny shavings as it went.
I set my fingernail in it and felt it catch.
We didn't fill up. We didn't talk with the family
about back roads or trails or who was from where.
They got in and pulled out, tail lights still bright but scored.
We booked a cheap room in Farmington with a bed that felt
like a board and ATV that buzzed.
I kept thinking about the weight on the rack and the way the
suspension had said the truth of it, the honest sag that happens
when something climbs where you didn't invite it.
I didn't suggest going back in daylight to look for tracks.
I didn't trace the scratch for an hour like a weirdo.
We slept badly and left early. Back home, I bought a small
bottle of compound in a pad and worked the quarter panel in the
shade of the carport. Most of it blended.
One thin mark stayed. Under certain angles you can't
see it under others it shows as a hairline under the clear coat,
like a faint heeled cut. We kept the Forerunner, we kept
camping. We didn't go back to that rim. 2
weeks later I pulled the rear hatch trim to quiet a new rattle
in the rack. The top bolts were shiny like
they'd been rubbed with fine grit, but only on the faces that
would get contact if something slid forward and then off.
That wasn't from any gear we carry.
We strap cans and boxes tight. You can say it was old damage
that I never noticed. You weren't the one who cleaned
those bolts last spring and locked them down with blue
thread compound. If you need a lesson out of
this, take mine. That rim feels safe because it's
close to a highway and because the sites look like regular
picnic spots. They are not a regular place
after the last of October. If you go anyway, don't stay
alone and don't get cute with your lights or your bravado.
Park so your nose points out. Pack before the sky goes black.
If you start hearing small rocks roll in separate places around
you and it sounds like nothing when you look, stop treating it
like a joke. The family who warned us didn't
owe us anything. They still hung back and watched
us out to the sign. People will tell you the story
is missing proof. That's fine.
Proof isn't what made me change my habits.
The scratch on the quarter panel taught me more than 100 pictures
could. The way the back end dropped
taught me enough for three trips.
The gouges in that taillight were wrong in a way that doesn't
leave your head once you've seen it.
Maybe it was a person trying hard to look like something
else. Maybe it was a trick of angles
and wind and nerves. Believe whatever lets you sleep.
Just don't stay up there alone after Halloween.
Here's the context so you know I'm not trying to tell a
campfire tale. I went to Northern Arizona
University and used Walnut Canyon like a gym with scenery.
It's close to campus, it's well marked, and if you're from
around Flagstaff, you learn to carry a light in a layer because
temperature drops fast in the evenings.
Late September a couple years ago, four of us tried to squeeze
in the Island Trail after class and still make it back before
the visitor center closed. I'd done it plenty.
I thought I knew which little sidetracks were just social
paths that led back to the paved section.
I was wrong enough that I don't cut unofficial trails anymore.
It was me, Maya, Ben, and Ty. I'm the one who actually reads
the maps. Maya carries a first aid kit and
knows how to use it. Ben's a strong guy but not great
on uneven rock. Ty jokes his way through every
hike and wore sneakers because it's only stairs.
We dropped down the island trail, looked at the Cliff
dwellings from a respectful distance, and started back up.
With that, the park closes soon. Push, you feel when the shadows
get long. At the top of the stairs, the
official route bends right and curls back toward the visitor
center. To the left, there's a thin,
obvious footpath that skims the rim through short brush and rock
shelves. It looked fresh, like a dozen
people had used it that day already.
I said it would cut 5 minutes off and spit us back on the main
path near the parking lot. No one argued.
The sun was gone from our side of the Canyon.
Air had gone from warm to jacket weather in about two minutes.
It didn't feel sketchy for the first couple 100 yards.
We could still hear the distant hum of I-40 and the rim up there
is mostly open rock with clumps of juniper and low oak starting
to turn. Then we walked past something
that shut tie up mid sentence behind a limestone lip.
There was a deer laid out like a lab specimen.
Not scattered, not dragged, not a coyote mess.
The rib cage was clean, like someone had scraped it and set
it down to dry. The spine was intact.
The hide was folded back in a neat line, like a jacket someone
had just taken off. There were no tracks or scuffs
around it that showed how it got there.
There was weirdly a fist sized rock balanced on one of the
exposed ribs, as if someone set it down like a paperweight.
I know enough to look for prints, and I did.
A couple feet away on a patch of powdery dust.
There were impressions that started out human shaped,
barefoot with clear heel, then ball.
They led away from the carcass and only away.
After a few steps. The angle shifted like the feet
were turning in. Then both feet pointed inward.
Then for six or seven steps the toe arcs faced the wrong way,
like whoever made them kept walking forward with feet
rotated so the Prince looked like they were headed back.
I've seen people mess around and walk backward for fun.
These weren't that. The stride length didn't change,
the weight transfer looked normal, the toast play was the
same. It felt like a bad magic trick
someone did without leaving the setup.
Ben said this is a Ranger thing, clean up.
He wanted it to be normal and I didn't blame him.
I looked for tire tracks or boot scuffs.
I didn't see any. Maya said very evenly.
We should keep moving and get back on the real trail.
No one disagreed with that either.
We didn't touch the rock on the rib cage.
We didn't touch anything. We just moved on a little faster
than before and closer together. About then I started noticing
something else. It wasn't loud.
It wasn't dramatic. It was just that when we
stepped, something stepped through brush off to our left at
the exact same pace, like a metronome you never turned off.
When we paused, it paused. When we angled around a rock,
whatever, it was adjusted in the same beat.
I tried to get a clean look and only got a partial every time.
An outline between trunks, a shoulder behind a boulder, a
vertical shape that never quite entered the security light area
that was beginning to glow from the maintenance side of the
property up ahead. We were in that annoying last
light where your eyes are still trying to squeeze detail out of
everything, and it wasn't giving us detail to squeeze.
I decided to test it because I needed something that wasn't
guessing. I picked up a rock about the
size of a softball and whipped it into the scrub where the
movement had just stopped. It landed with a muffled thump.
A heartbeat later, no more than that, a second rock clicked back
from what sounded like the exact same spot.
Not a big throw, just a quick sharp, here's yours back.
There wasn't enough time for a person to pick up the rock I
threw set and throw it back. The sound profile was the same
weight landing on the same kind of surface.
I don't mean that in a fancy way, I mean it sounded exactly
like the rock I threw, thrown back from the same patch of
ground. Immediately.
Ty said Nope, twice, and then stopped talking again.
Maya said, eyes forward. We did eyes forward, and that
worked until Ben stepped on a slanted basalt piece hidden
under grass and twisted his ankle.
Good. He went down hard.
The sound he made wasn't dramatic either.
It was an ugly, honest pain sound.
Maya was on him fast. She unrolled her ace wrap,
checked his foot for blood flow, laced the wrap tight, gave him
ibuprofen and told him not to test it yet.
We did the quick math of group movement.
I'd take point and set pace. Ty would trail me by 10 steps as
the relay. Maya would support Ben's bad
side and keep him from doing more damage.
We agreed to no running, no splitting up, and no stopping
except to listen and move together.
The thing in the brush liked the pace change and adjusted to it
like it had been doing drills with us all week.
If we paused, silence. If we took three steps, three
steps out there. Once, when I spun around fast
enough, I caught a shape that could have been a tall person
standing very still between two junipers, arms hanging low, head
tilted in a way that didn't match the posture of anyone I
know. It didn't duck, it just held
still until my eyes lost the outline.
We crossed another dust patch and there were two prints
waiting side by side with the toe arcs facing back the way
we'd come. No approach marks, no exit.
We stepped around them because none of us could handle the idea
of stepping in them. There's a chain link fence
around the maintenance yard and the staff buildings.
The security lights popped on as we got closer and I felt that
stupid rush of relief that you get when you can see something
human made and locked. We reached the nearest gate and
it was of course locked with a fat padlock.
There was a gap under the fence that a coyote would use.
I rattled the chain one time and stopped because the sound was
too loud for my nerves. Inside the fence I could see
stacks of lumber and a pale block building and one of those
green cart staff drive on the service roads.
Outside the fence, in the tree line that the lights didn't
quite reach, something stood and matched our position step for
step. If I took two steps to the
right, the silhouette did too. At first glance it read as
human. Then the longer I looked, the
more wrong the proportions felt. The arms hung lower than I
expected. The way the head turned was off,
like the neck started higher on the back than it should.
Some mercy showed up in the shape of a utility cart wine.
A staff guy in his 40s rounded the far end of the fence onto
the service Rd. He took in the situation, 4
hikers at a locked gate, 1 injured something lingering
outside the light and didn't waste time.
He waved at us hard to move down the fence to a service gate
around the corner. He didn't shout anything dumb
like what's going on, He just pointed to where he was headed
and kept moving. We started hobbling.
That's what it was, hobbling. Ben's adrenaline had worn off
and now the ankle was a throbbing problem.
As we moved, the silhouette outside the fence switched
posture, like someone changing from standing still to ready to
run. Then it broke into a smooth
Sprint parallel to us, keeping a strict distance from the light
line like there was tape on the ground.
It wouldn't cross. It didn't pump its arms right.
It just ate the ground in this easy, wrong way that made my
stomach drop because it looks strong without looking like it
had to try. It peeled into brush at the
corner where the fence turned and disappeared.
Right then. Ben lost it for a second, Not
screaming, panic breathing and a kind of sway I didn't like.
He went to a knee and put a hand on the ground.
I went to grab his other arm and felt something else get there
first from the fence line shadow.
It wasn't a yank. It was a strong, steady push at
his upper arm, like a careful lift you get from someone who's
steadying you. Except the pressure points
didn't line up with a normal hand.
The grip had too much spread between the fingers, the skin
contact was cold from shade, and the grip was strong enough to
leave a pattern. Before I even processed that it
wasn't mine, Ben lurched up like someone had hauled him by a
handle. He looked at me with this busted
expression and I shook my head because I didn't have an
explanation he could use. The maintenance worker met us at
the service gate with keys already out.
He opened, waved us through, closed it behind us, and didn't
look back more than once. He kept his voice steady and
low, the way people who actually deal with things keep their
voice when they know how fast a situation can go sideways.
He didn't tell a story, he didn't lecture.
He checked Ben's wrap, said good job on that, and told us to get
in the cart. The only extra thing he did was
point to the dust outside the fence as he swung the gate shut.
There were two clean impressions there.
Toe arcs wrong again, pointing back the way we had come while
the heels faced us. He said don't cut the trail
there. People have been warned.
Some things track you when you break rules.
That was it. Not a smile, not a spooky tone.
He drove us the back way to the lot.
He parked by the visitor center and watched while we got in the
car. He kept watching until our
headlights were on Walnut Canyon Rd.
He didn't wave or try to tell us more.
I respect him for that. At home, Ben showered and sent a
photo of his arm, even though we hadn't asked for one.
He had a bruise forming that night in the shape of a
handprint, except the fingers were long bars of pressure that
didn't match anyone in our group.
Maya measured it against her own hand.
Because she's like that. The finger spans were wrong.
That bruise took nearly three weeks to fade from the way the
blood had pooled under the skin. The ankle healed faster than
that. He still has a slight thickening
at the ligament if you press the wrong place.
We went back the next day to ask about hours and closures in a
normal way. The front desk told us the
posted times asked us to stay on the trail and said staff do
occasional patrols but can't be everywhere.
We didn't mention the carcass. I don't know why.
I think it felt like saying it out loud would make it sound
like a story we were telling for attention and none of us wanted
that. We hiked the official route and
didn't take any little side path, even the ones that clearly
just rejoined the main trail 20 yards later.
We didn't see anything weird. The wind made normal dry grass
sounds and our shoes scuffed rock like normal, and the only
other people around were a couple from out of state who
asked where the bathrooms were. It was just a park again.
Ben's bruise faded. He kept the ace wrap in his
truck after that. Ty bought boots.
Maya started carrying two headlamps so she could give one
away if someone asked. I stopped cutting trails
anywhere, even when I'm dead sure it just rejoins the main
one around a tree. I know the erosion argument and
I believed it before, but now I follow the rules because the
rules seem made to keep something else from noticing me.
I don't care if that sounds dramatic, it's simple risk
management. I've thrown rocks in the woods a
lot of times. I've never thrown one and had
the exact same weight answer me from the same patch of ground in
the same second. I've never seen footprints with
toes facing backward that didn't require someone to walk backward
to make them. I've helped friends up off the
ground. I have never felt a stranger's
hand help before mine reached their arm.
I don't use the word skinwalker lightly, and I don't pretend I
understand what that means to people whose traditions aren't
mine. I'll say the behavior fit the
way students around here use the word pacing, mirroring, matching
steps, and staying just out of clean view until it was
conveniently inhuman. You can call it a trespasser
messing with us, some tall trail runner, or a trick of distance
and stress. Pick what helps you sleep.
I'm not here to argue. I'm just telling you what
happened and what I learned, which is that a 5 minute
shortcut near closing isn't a shortcut if it puts you on
ground where someone has to come get you through a service gate.
If you hike near Walnut Canyon and you see a narrow track along
the top that looks like it'll save you time, use the official
one and be bored for an extra 5 minutes.
Bring a light even if you don't think you'll need it.
Wear shoes that won't fold your ankle.
And if you were the tall outline pacing us that night, or you're
anything like it, let's not meet.
I'm not trying to convince anyone, just putting down what
happened so I can stop replaying it.
Last November my little brother and I were doing a budget loop
through the southwest in a compact rental.
Cheap room to cheap room, cooler in the back seat, miles between
us and our inboxes. We had come down from Moab and
hit US 163 right as the sun started falling behind the
buttes near the Utah Arizona line.
We pulled into that famous pull out around mile marker 13 and
stood there longer than we meant to, jackets zipped, hands in
pockets, watching the red turn to rust and then to a flat kind
of Gray. A trio of tourists wished us a
good night and drove off. We were stubborn and stayed to
see the first stars. By the time we climbed back in
the car, it was fully dark. I eased forward to merge back
onto the highway and bumped over something I never saw, a thin
Shard maybe. The right rear tire thumped
twice then went soft. We rolled back into the pull out
because there was nowhere else to go.
We've both changed flats before. It wasn't a big thing at first,
just annoying. The trunk had the usual kit,
scissor Jack, lug wrench, compact spare, a reflective
triangle and a wax wrapped Rd. flare.
We set the hazard lights and I slid the Jack under the pinch
Weld, feeling around with my fingers until the saddle lined
up. My brother loosened the lugs 1/4
turn each in a star pattern, while I grabbed a rock to chalk
a front tire. There wasn't much traffic, an
occasional set of headlights way down the straightaway, then long
stretches of nothing. The air had that clean desert
cold, and then a smell drifted in between gusts that didn't fit
the temperature at all. It was metallic, like hot coins
mixed with the kind of damp hair smell you get when someone pulls
off a beanie after a long run. I told myself it was a semis
break somewhere far off, or maybe something on the car
warming up and kept cranking across the road.
A livestock fence ran parallel to the highway.
Beyond it was scrub and open space and the silhouette of
formations that are on every postcard rack in that part of
the country. The car's headlights threw a low
beam out and to the right. It wasn't enough to make the
world bright, just enough to outline the fence posts and cut
a soft edge onto the brush. While I pumped the Jack handle,
my brother stopped talking about the plan for the next day and
started looking past me the way a person does when they're
distracted by motion they can't quite pin down.
He didn't say anything for a minute, then said, Something's
pacing, man. He had one hand on the wrench. 1
boot against the tire. I swear it's keeping even with
the Jack handle. I kept cranking, telling myself
it was just my body making the car shift.
But when I paused to reposition, the sound of footfalls, light
clicks of gravel carried over the road also paused.
I started again. The clicks started again.
The pattern held up, down, up, down, a measured rhythm and
across the dark strip of asphalt.
Something matched its step for step.
My brother muttered. It's staying in the edge of the
lights. It doesn't want the full beam.
He said it like an observation, not like a guess.
We got the wheel off and I slid it under the rocker as a safety.
The smell got stronger. I felt it in the back of my
throat. My brother held the spare
upright, ready to go on, but he kept cutting his eyes toward the
fence line. I wanted him focused on the
lugs. I wanted me focused on the Jack.
Routine is a good anchor when you don't know what else to do.
I took the rotor in both hands, lined it up with the hub to make
sure nothing was binding, and that's when the car gave a small
off timed rock from the front. Not the lifted side, not from
us. It wasn't big, more like someone
had leaned their hip into the bumper.
The Jack didn't slip, but I put a hand on the quarter panel
without thinking and said, hey, it came out sharper than I
meant. Something long slid under the
front bumper from the darkness, and for a second I thought it
was a branch or a blown off trash bag because it was so flat
to the ground. Then it lifted just enough to
graze metal. I heard it more than I saw it.
A slow drag across the oil pan, a faint scrape that ended with a
ping near the cross member, like a fingernail flicking a spoon.
My brother's face went tight. Get away from under there, I
said, but I wasn't sure which one of us I meant.
He kept the spare in his hands. The smell rose again with it,
warmer and sharper. The car shifted that small
amount a second time. The lug wrench slipped in my
brother's grip and he barked a curse, knuckles leaving skin on
the asphalt. He shook his hand and laughed
once, because that's a thing you do when it hurts and you don't
want to say you're scared. There were headlights way down
the straight one, set maybe a mile out.
Not rushing, just coming. Whatever was under the front
pulled back. Not far, just enough that I
couldn't see any part of it in the narrow stripe of light.
My brother said it's moving toward the passenger side where
they won't catch it when they pass.
He said it like he was narrating a chess problem out loud.
Unhelpful and exactly right. I wanted to shout to the
oncoming driver to wave my arms, but it would have done nothing.
They were far, and we were two guys by a compact car with
hazards on. Nothing about that looks like an
emergency from a distance, and I didn't want to be the reason
anyone braked hard on an empty highway at night.
I tried to tell myself we were worked up over a coyote or a
stray dog that had learned to eat what people dropped, but
coyotes don't smell like hot pennies.
I told myself it might be a person who wanted to spook us,
but there hadn't been another car pulled over after the
tourists left. I told myself we were tired.
The steps on the far side of the road kept their rhythm with the
Jack handle, and when I stopped, they stopped.
The only new sound was a light ticking on metal somewhere low,
like nails testing for edges under the front fascia.
My brother swallowed and said, I'm not throwing this at it.
He had the reflective triangle in one hand and the unopened
flare in the other. He tore the wrapper with his
teeth because his knuckles were bleeding and the paper stuck to
them. I said don't throw it at the car
either. My mouth felt dry.
The headlights were closer now, a minute out, and whatever was
hugging the passenger side seemed to know it.
It stayed tucked into the blind wedge where the beam wouldn't
pick it up clean when the other driver passed, and all I could
see was the hint of a shoulder that didn't line up with the
length of the leg that followed it.
My brother jammed the flare through the bottom crossbar of
the triangle so it sat inside the frame.
I'm going past it, he said, and before I could argue he struck
the flare and got the angry hiss and bright light you expect from
those things. He sprinted a few steps and put
his shoulder behind the throw. He didn't aim at the shape.
He sent the triangle past it into the scrub so the light
landed beyond where it had been hiding and the red wash came
back at us. For a blink, the brush was lit
from behind. The fence posts were black
lines, and whatever had been tracking the car showed more of
itself than it had all night. Too long through the torso.
Knees that worked, then didn't, and then worked again.
Arms with too much reach. It flinched the way any living
thing flinches when a blast of heat and light hits at the wrong
angle. Not theatrical, just fast.
It didn't stand up or do a show of itself.
It peeled away from the triangle in a low lunge that covered more
ground than seemed possible, sank behind a hump of brush and
kept going. The smell thinned with it.
The oncoming car slid by us without tapping the brakes.
We didn't talk. He rolled the spare onto the
studs and I guided it with both hands.
He ran the lugs down, finger tight, then hit them in a star
pattern with quick pulls. I kept a boot under the Jack
handle and took the car down just enough to keep the wheel
seated while he finished. He gave the wrench two more
short turns. We dropped the Jack fully,
tossed the flattened tools into the trunk without caring about
neatness, and climbed in. The engine started right away.
I put the car in gear and we pulled out steady, not tearing
the doughnut apart with a panic launch.
The triangle burned red in my rear view as we came around it.
The light hit the front of our car from below, and I saw a row
of straight, fresh grooves under the plate bracket that hadn't
been there when we picked it up. We drove to Kayenta without the
radio. The heater was on high, the
highway was the highway black and painted, and that was a
comfort. When the first gas station
showed up, I kept going because I didn't want to stop until we
were in a hotel parking lot with floodlights and other cars.
We checked into a chain place and parked under the brightest
lamp we could find. The clerk didn't ask why two
guys were shaky voiced at the counter late on a weeknight.
He slid us our keys and told us where the ice machine was in the
room. We sat on the beds in our
jackets until the heat acclimated our bodies back to
normal. I washed the grid out of my
brother's knuckles in the sink and taped them with band aids
from our kit. He said he felt stupid for the
throw until he didn't, and then he said he felt stupid that it
worked. I told him he had aimed the
light where it counted. I'm not going to lie and say I
slept. I went downstairs around 2:00 in
the morning and watched the car from the lobby window.
Nothing moved except the occasional truck on the highway.
The parking lot felt normal. Concrete painted lines, a soda
can a few spaces over. At 8:00 we walked out with
coffee and knelt by the front bumper.
The gouges were there, 5 or 6 of them in a neat row beneath the
plate, evenly spaced deep enough to catch a fingernail.
The oil pan had a shallow scrape line that didn't line up with
any road debris I've ever seen. The spare held pressure.
We ate breakfast at the hotel and a local man who'd been
pouring his coffee at the same time ended up near us.
We didn't tell the story with drama, just the sequence.
Flat tire at mile marker 13 something pacing the fence line
in time with the Jack, the scrape under the front, the
flare in the triangle. He listened and nodded and
finally said quiet and matter of fact.
Don't stop on that road after dark.
People around here would call that a skinwalker.
Keep moving. He wasn't trying to scare us, he
wasn't trying to sell anything. He just said it like he had
heard it his whole life. We took US 160 W through Tuba
City and onto Flagstaff. We returned the car and didn't
bring up anything except the flat.
The agent crouched to look at the bumper and made the same
face anyone makes when they see damage they didn't expect.
He pointed at the gouges and said they'd have to add front
fascia to the bill. We signed the paperwork and
swallowed the extra charge. It came out to more than I
wanted to spend, but less than I would have paid to erase the
previous night. We left with that slip of paper
and the kind of relief that doesn't feel good, just empty.
If you want to pick it apart, there are places to do it.
Maybe a person was messing with us.
Maybe we both misread natural movement in low light.
Maybe the smell was something leaking.
I can say the steps matched the Jack handle in a way that felt
like someone timing us and the way it stayed just at the
threshold of the headlights looked intentional.
I can say the flare in the triangle trick put the light
where the blind spot had been and the reaction made sense.
If the plan was to avoid being seen.
I can say those grooves under the plate are real and I don't
know what tool makes them that clean from underneath on a
pulled off compact in the dark. That man at breakfast didn't try
to persuade us. He gave the only advice that
matters on a road like that. Don't stop after dark unless you
have no choice. And if you have to stop, push
the light past what's scaring you, not at it.
We added one rule to our trips after that night.
If the sun's down and the road is that empty, we keep rolling
unless something forces us off. If we do get forced off, we set
the flare where it lights the place a threat wants to use, not
where it can stay in the cut between what we see and what
someone else might see coming the other way.
It isn't a brave rule, just practical.
I can't prove anything beyond a charge on a credit card, a set
of grooves on a rental we don't have any more, and the way my
throat still tightens when I smell hot metal on a cold night.
But I'll tell you the same thing the man told us in Chienta,
because I think it's the right way to say it.
Keep moving.