Imagine your worst nightmare coming true.
Scary, right? Well for some people it's a lot
more terrifying. I live in a small town in the
north. It's your cliche.
Everyone knows everyone. John's Barbecue and Grill is
being held after church service on Sunday.
Kids playing hopscotch with the other three kids their age.
And of course, almost everyone is living the American Dream.
White picket fences surrounding A2 Story home with their kids
and dog. I say almost everyone because
some of us aren't so lucky. Yeah, sure, you could say I had
a rough childhood. It wasn't the worst though.
I still had a roof over my head and food to eat and some
friends. Well, behind my house there are
about 10 acres of land. Great for hunting, bad for
getting lost. My parents, the kind souls they
are, would let people hunt behind their house for free if
they'd like to. Many people did.
Of course, since it was free, the word went around town pretty
quickly and more and more people asked us to hunt.
As more people asked, we obtained a reputation.
Teens would say it's haunted, but the parents would make them
hush up and be friendly. Of course they were friendly.
A town that is so worried about their own reputation they get
obsessed over every conversation.
After working so hard they wouldn't let their children soil
it, The first Saturday night I returned home for winter break
was easily the most horrifying experience I had ever witnessed.
During my freshman year of college, I finally caught a
break. A winter night colder than an
icebox. Well, that's expected.
It's winter in the north. I was pretty bored and decided
to call my friends to hang out. I called Sammy, Charles and
Alex. That was a mistake.
Sammy, Charles and Alex were all bored and thought why not?
They came over to my house and after watching a few movies in
the living room, we all were bored.
We tried playing Monopoly but Charles cheated and ruined the
fun. Sammy jumped up like a kangaroo
and asked, do you want to go back into the forest back there?
Explore a little? No way.
First of all, it's way too cold out there.
Secondly, we could get lost super easily.
It's snowing, so we would probably lose our tracks and
never find our way out. And what if there's ghosts?
You know the reputation it has? Alex exclaimed.
Relax Alex, we don't know if there's any ghosts there or not.
Besides, we can just take some string or something so we don't
get lost. Charles replied.
Well, it'll be fun, right? Just a few minutes in there.
We'll be fine. We won't get lost.
I tried to convince myself it would be fun, although I had
always hated my backyard. I'm not a kid anymore, I can
face my fears. Plus, the rumors were just
immature teenagers trying to scare each other, right?
Danny, are you serious right now?
You hate that forest? Alex replied.
I know, I'm not a kid anymore, I can handle it.
Plus those rumors must have been just rumors to scare each other.
The last time I went into that forest was two years ago.
I didn't see anything noteworthy.
I said. OK fine, I'll go, but if we see
anything I'm the first one out of there.
Got it, Alex said. Great.
Yep, got it, Charles replied. OK, I said I may be scared but
I'm not going alone. It'll be fine.
Yeah, it'll be fun. I grabbed 4 spools of thick
string, green, red, blue and yellow and four flashlights.
We were walking outside when we realized how cold it was.
I checked my phone. The weather app says it's only
20°F, but it felt like maybe 12° if not less.
The snow was up to our ankles. Luckily we had boots.
It felt as if we were standing in a thick slushie.
Can we please hurry this up, I'm really cold, Alex said.
Yeah, aren't we all, Sammy? Charles and I replied.
We continued walking until we got to the tree line.
There were trees of all different sizes.
Large, compact, lanky, narrow, overgrown.
Any type of tree you could think of, it was there.
The numerous branches had thick, fluffy snow on it.
It was dark outside. In the forest it was always
dark, though. The innumerable branches blocked
any light from the moon and stars.
Today was no different. I don't know why, but it felt
much more isolated tonight. If it wasn't for my friends, I
wouldn't have even gone close to the tree line, let alone
actually go into the forest. Well, time to get this over
with. I gave everyone their respective
string color, Sammy blue, Alex yellow, Charles red, and me, I
had green. I tied the strings to a tree,
then to the person. The strings would allow us to go
about 3000 feet into the forest. That was more than enough for
us. As we all know it's colder than
an ice bath. I said.
Yeah, it's an ice box out here. I can feel my bones forming ice
flakes. Charles replied uncomfortably.
Sammy Snickers as Alex frowns. Well, which way are we going?
Want to split up? Sammy suggests.
Are you serious? I finally agree to come out here
and you're already joking. Alex replies disapprovingly.
Oh my Alex, take a chill pill. It was a joke.
I wouldn't want to lose you in this forsaken forest.
We'll stick together so let's hurry up and get walking.
Sammy says excitedly. We start walking but going very
slow due to the abundant amount of snow.
We're only about 20 feet from the tree line and the amount of
snow has doubled. It's now at our shins.
Well, I hope there isn't any additional snow further in.
It's pitch black, so I handed everyone a flashlight.
We continued walking until we hit a shallow river.
Must have only been a few inches.
I've never been this far into the forest.
I assume we're about 200 feet in by now.
My nose and ears are freezing, and I could barely feel my hands
through my leather gloves. What is that?
Alex says shakily. She sounds as if she's on the
brink of tears. What?
What's wrong? What do you see?
I turn around to try to find her, pointing my flashlight in
her direction. I almost dropped my flashlight.
Alex has already dropped hers. Charles and Sammy mutter under
their breath. Oh no.
A spindly humanoid creature is crawling on the riverbank.
It had penetrating yellow eyes, a mouth with teeth so sharp and
decayed the top of its head is caved in and appears to have
some sharp teeth protruding out of it.
The limbs were nothing but bones covered in pale white skin.
Our flashlights stopped working. What is that?
We dashed toward the tree line. It's so hard to run shin deep in
snow. Was I just imagining that
nothing in the world looks that scary?
Is the icy weather getting to my head and causing hallucinations?
I felt my heart beginning to race and my head ached.
My whole body felt uneasy and lightheaded.
Alex, Sammy, Charles, where are you?
I yelled. I could barely see.
Danny, is that you? Charles came out leaning against
the tree for support while trying to catch his breath.
Yeah, it's me. Did you see that thing?
Are you OK? Where are the others?
I felt like I was about to have a heart attack.
Are they OK? Did that thing take them?
I don't know what that was. We need to go back and search
for Sammy and Alex. A voice came out of the forest.
Don't worry, we're fine. Sammy replied.
Both Sammy and Alex came out holding each other's hands.
Alex, just like Charles, was propped up against a tree for
support. Let's get out of here.
I ran as fast as I could in knee high snow.
I saw something in the corner of my eye.
Is that a man in a cloak and a top hat?
No, the weather got to my brain. I'm seeing things now.
I arrived at the sliding glass back door.
Hurry. I yelled to Sammy and Alex.
Once they entered, I slammed it shut, locked it and closed the
curtains. I ran to turn on the heater and
put the teapot on to boil. We were all in hysterics.
That thing must have been a malnourished coyote.
Nobody wants to talk about it yet.
I guess that's understandable. I don't want to interrupt the
silence. Everyone just needs to gather
their thoughts and calm down. Well, don't just stand around
here. What was that?
Sammy cried. I, I don't know.
Obviously it was something like a ghost.
Alex replied. I'm going home.
Sorry Danny, I can't stay here. Charles said.
Yeah, I'm going to. Goodnight Danny, stay safe.
Sammy declared. Wait, please don't leave me here
alone. They can't just leave me here
alone with that thing, can they? I'm going with Sammy, I'm sorry.
Bye. Alex said, sounding panicked.
So they're just going to leave me just like that?
How could they? Fine, I'll just stay here, it
can't get me inside here. With the sounds of the door
closing, the teapot whistles sounding like a baby bird
screeching for food, I poured myself a cup of water and put in
tea and honey. I walk upstairs, sit on my bed,
recounting what had just occurred.
As I lay there, it feels more and more lonesome.
I decide to visit my parents old bedroom, expecting the dark
hardwood floors with matching furniture, a paperwhite
bedspread with floral laces on the edges, pictures framing the
walls with photographs of all the places they have traveled
to. Man, I miss them.
I miss their sweet vanilla scent.
It's only been seven months since their passing, but I still
think about them every day. When I'm about to open the door
it hits me. This intense feeling of dread is
clogging my senses. As I look up, I see it crouching
on the bedspread. Is that thing the thing that we
saw in the forest? Its eyes still that soul
stealing yellow. My head feels like it's about to
explode. I feel nauseous but I can't
move. Why can't I move?
Someone please help me, I need to get out of here.
I try to lift my leg but nothing comes of it.
After what seems like an hour, I can finally move.
I bolt to the bathroom, almost tripping my way there.
It's here too. This time it's standing, a
hungry look on its face while it reaches out its hand.
Those fingers. I can still envision those long
skinny fingers attached to them, or nails that were sharp as an
ice pick. It's skin looked as if it was
melting off. I could see the bones under its
melting skin. Under the pale white skin, it
was red. I ran to my room, luckily it's
not in there. I hid in my closet.
That's where I am now. I'm writing this.
I can hear it prowling around looking for me.
I know it will eventually find me.
This series of supernatural events I'm going to recollect to
you has been kept extremely confidential and non disclosed
for a good 15 years. I was involved with this
particular case back when I was a rookie, only being an officer
for about a year and a half. All areas and people I will
refer to in this story have had their names changed to protect
their identity as well as my job.
The first time I was introduced to this case was when my partner
and I were called to investigate a missing person.
The person who I will refer to as John was a camp host for one
of the campgrounds in our local forest which was a part of our
district. The person who reported him
missing was a middle-aged woman who worked at a local lodge.
We asked her a few basic questions such as how long he
had been missing, which were about two days, and how did she
know he was missing. She told us that he would always
come to the lodge for a pack of smokes each morning and had been
doing that for the past two months, so when he didn't show
up for two days in a row she became suspicious.
I then asked her how he acted and her response intrigued me at
the time when she said John was the quiet type, not saying much
to anyone other than the occasional hello.
He never brought food or supplies here and I didn't find
out why until one day I offered him a free gallon of milk that
was about to expire the next day and he gave me a disturbed look
as if I was trying to give him poison.
I soon figured out that he didn't trust food that he didn't
make himself. He was extremely antisocial and
I wouldn't be surprised if he went off to live in the woods by
himself. She answered a few more
questions pertaining to the case, but nothing I need to
inform you about. Soon after we finished
questioning her, we went to go check out the campground he was
in charge of, which was only about 5 miles from the lodge,
but on a winding dirt Rd. that went up the side of a mountain.
When we first arrived to the campground that John was in
charge of, we noticed that it had not been well kept and
maintained. The fire pits were full of ashes
and the bathrooms looked as if they hadn't been cleaned for
months, with many different substances and graffiti coating
their walls. After we surveyed the other
campsites and introduced ourselves to the families who
were camping there, we went to visit the man's trailer, which
was isolated at the end of the loop.
Surprisingly, his campsite was clean and had been taken great
care of. It was when we entered the man's
trailer that the smell hit us. It stunk so bad that I expected
to find him rotting away in there, but he was nowhere to be
found. I tried to turn on the lights to
see better and they flashed on for a fragment of a second but
quickly went out. That's when I realized the smell
must have been coming from the fridge.
Everything inside must have spoiled due to the power being
out. I went over to open it but wish
I never had because when I did the gust of wind that came from
within it literally caused my eyeballs to burn.
Being blinded for a moment I bent over and rubbed them
frantically. My partner came over wondering
what was wrong when his eye caught what was in the fridge.
Oh man, that's disgusting. He muttered as I lifted my head
to see what he was looking at through my red eyes.
There in the fridge was a carcass of a squirrel, a few
birds, and lastly what looked like chopped up pieces of deer
that still had fur attached to it.
Everything was rotting away and the flies that lingered in the
trailer swarmed the fridge with my partner, who I'll refer to as
Daniel quickly shut. We briefly looked around to see
if there was any evidence that could give us a clue what
happened to this man. Right before we were about to
leave, I saw the edge of what looked to be a book poking
through underneath the mattress. I grabbed it and walked out of
the trailer to escape that dreadful smell that had my eyes
still burning and watering. The book felt cold in my hand
even though the sun was blazing. Upon opening it, I felt the
world around me seemed to stop as the wind came to a halt.
Even the birds stopped chirping. Do you feel that?
Daniel asked me as he looked. About what?
I replied, wondering if he felt the same silence that I did.
Can't really explain it, but I feel as if something's watching
us. He said as his head twisted
about. I don't know if my mind was
playing tricks on me, but I felt that same eerie feeling.
Yeah, and did you hear everything go silent?
I asked back, wondering what was going on.
Uh huh, let's report back to the Chief and get out of here.
He said while walking back to the vehicle.
We then heard a raspy whistle cutting through the silence that
caused us to quicken our pace, trying to leave the area as fast
as we could. Glancing at the book in my hand,
I wondered what to do with it. I was supposed to turn it in as
evidence but decided to hold on to it for just a bit before
turning it in. I was honestly curious to see
what type of book this guy had because of how unusual he seemed
to be. Looking back now, I wish I would
have just turned it in as evidence because what I found
inside was sickening to the very core.
While my partner Daniel drove us back into town, I started to
read the book, which I soon found out was actually the man's
journal due to how everything was handwritten and some pages
had illustrations. It was all unsettling and off
the bat I could tell this man had some demons lurking inside
of his head. I will go more into depth with
what was written and drawn in the journal later, but as of now
I need to state that the chief that's over my department ever
found out that I stole this journal and then disclosed the
details of the case online without prior consent.
Then I could risk losing my job. So I hope no one recognizes this
because this case involved many people whose experiences and
testimonies of what happened will be shown Anyway, when we
get back to the station, we had already reported everything we
found out about this man over the radio and they were able to
properly ID him. The strange thing is that they
didn't have much on him since he'd been out in the woods for
so long. He only had one living relative
left, that was his mother. The only thing that we were able
to pull up under his name was that when he was 13, he
accidentally burned down his parents house during the night
due to unknown reasons. One account states that he said
he was performing a ritual of some sort.
Satanic or not. This missing person was unlike
any person I had ever investigated.
Since continuing to the main subject matter, this case
involving the camp host has been by far the most mysterious case
I had ever investigated. Everything that had happened up
to the point of when I stole the journal was the only shallow
part of the story. But little did I know that I
would soon find myself in the deep end of the pool.
What we found out there could cause any sane person to have a
mental breakdown. This was only the beginning of a
nightmare. To continue after the first part
of this, I'm going to be showing you the account we received from
one family in particular who were staying at the camp when
the camp host supposedly went missing.
This conversation was recorded and then transcribed and is
shown below. Officer Daniel, did you notice
anything strange before the camp host went missing?
Such as, did you see anyone else roaming around his campsite or
anything suspicious? The mother?
Well when we first got here we tried to introduce ourselves to
him and he just ignored us until we left.
He seemed mentally unstable and unfit to be maintaining this
campground and was often whistling with a raspy uneven
tone which got annoying when we were trying to enjoy the sounds
of nature. Also, one weird thing that was
during one of the middle of the nights we heard something that
sounded like hammering coming from outside our tent.
My husband went to investigate and we found the camp host
chopping firewood next to a roaring fire and it was about
3:00 in the morning. That was the last time we saw
him and there were many other strange things that went on
around the camp hosts campsite. Officer Daniel, Did he seem
intoxicated at all during any of this?
Maybe he was unstable, The father, we tried to avoid him
the best we could, so we aren't exactly sure if he was drunk or
anything like that. Officer Daniel, is there
anything else that you saw that we should be aware of?
The teenage son? I don't know if this pertains to
this case, but I went hiking with my younger sister up the
side of the mountain over there, and while we were hiking, we
found something. Officer Daniel, what did you
find? The teenage son?
Well, you see, I'm not exactly sure what it was, but someone
had definitely been doing something up there.
Officer Daniel, describe it please.
The teenage son, We found a patch of trees that had bones
strung up in their branches as if someone had tied it to them.
In the middle of the patch of trees were rocks that were
placed in a strange circular type thing, and in there was a
straight stick that held what looked to be some animal skull.
Around the circle posted on the trees were pictures of people.
I'm going to stop at this point in the interview because he had
many questions that were not essential to know, but what the
teenage son had hiked in on was what we investigated next.
By the time we were interviewing these people, search and rescue
had gone out into the forest but never found him.
They did find some random cigarette butts mixed in the
dirt which tied back to him buying a pack of them a day from
the lodge, so they thought they were close to finding him.
However, they still couldn't trace exactly where he went.
While search and rescue were doing this, my partner and I
were in charge of investigating the place that the teenager had
described to us. When we finally found it, based
on the description of how to get there from the boy, we took
pictures of the area. It was a strange place and the
random pictures of people posted on the trees all angled to where
any of them could be seen if you stood in the middle of the
rocks. I examined the photos, trying to
see if I could recognize any of the people when Daniel said.
Isn't that the girl that went missing in the woods last
summer? Walking over, I examined the
picture and it matched the photo of which our Police Department
put in the newspaper, wondering if anyone had seen her around.
Yeah, that's the girl, but why would someone put her picture
here? It just doesn't make sense to
me. You don't suppose that these are
all pictures of people who have gone missing?
Daniel asked as he looked around.
Only one way to be sure. Let's take a picture of each one
and send it back for analysis. Maybe this is some weird shrine
someone created, or it could just be a trophy shelf of
someone's victims. Who knows, we might just soon
find a picture of the man we are looking for up in one of these
trees. I responded while brushing my
stubby beard. Daniel agreed and we
photographed and documented the area.
While we sent this information in, I decided to read some of
what was written in the man's diary that I had taken from his
trailer. It was a random, disturbing
segment in a page from it and it goes as follows.
I need to appease it somehow, but I can't.
It's following me everywhere I go and there's near nothing I
can do about it. Every time I feel it get close
behind me, I dart around and nothing's there.
I see people in camp smiling and having the time of their lives,
not knowing of the evil I have just done.
This is what I couldn't understand in the man's writing
at the time was that he seemed as if someone or something was
trying to get him, but there was no evidence proving that this
was true. There was no forced entry into
the man's trailer. It was as if he just vanished
without a trace. Later, Daniel and I were
notified about who the pictures were of and the answer was mind
boggling. Every single one of those people
had gone missing in that forest area, ranging from 20 years ago
all the way up to present day. Either someone was being
insensitive and made this, or this could be a trophy case of
someone's victims whose disappearances were all blamed
on going missing in the woods. All I knew at the time was that
this case was beginning to grow far past than just the simple
missing person. Sometimes one person's
perspective is completely different from the other, even
if they are observing the same thing.
That is one rule I learned while being an officer.
Always be prepared to know that you aren't prepared at all.
For this post in the series, I'm going to read another submission
from the Missing Persons Journal that at the time of when this
occurred, gave me more insight to what truly happened to him.
But still, there lingers a mystery in the crevices John's
journal entry a month prior before going missing.
My mind spins at the possibility of what I can do now that I have
finally found the ingredients needed.
I write this in here as my heart races with excitement of the
powers I will soon possess on the things I'll be able to do
when I gain the strength of 10 men.
However, this ritual is still unclear and could backfire
terribly. But I will obey the rules given
and not cross my boundaries or lines.
My life depends on it. Next entry was the night before
he supposedly went missing. What I have done?
Jumping into something so stupidly, having people around
and to be caught off guard as I was.
The ritual was going perfectly until that camper came to
complain to me about chopping wood in the middle of the night
for the fire. He slowed me down and I wasn't
able to place the piece of wood in the fire at the exact time
for everything to work properly. And now I've unleashed a shadow
beast into these woods, one made-up of human misery born
from flames, who can only go by the same.
But as soon as it arose from the flames, it inhumanly darted into
the woods, escaping the words. I tried to mutter out, to cease
it from existing, but now there is nothing I can do to stop it.
It's hunger for a host is unquenchable.
I know that soon it will come for me, but I will be the first
of many if I do not write again. I bid this cruel world farewell.
This was the last entry in the journal, but the last one I
showed you in the previous post where he wrote about being
followed. So furthermore, these are some
of the last sentences he's ever written.
That thing is trying to get me, but I have no idea what it
wants. It wanders close to me at night,
out of sight, waiting for me to lay down my guard.
But it could have got me many times already.
But it hasn't, and I truly don't know why.
The only thing that I can imagine is this thing wants to
take over me, possessing me and gaining complete control of my
actions soon after. It would commit the most heinous
crimes that anyone could imagine.
If this would happen, it would probably destroy the shrine I
made to pay respect to the ones who've gone missing to the
wandering spirit I unleashed into the same forest about 20
years ago. All of those people gone because
of me, and I fear that if I don't maintain that shrine, they
will come back to haunt me. I have dug myself a hole too
deep to get out of and now I pay the consequences.
If someone finds this journal after I am gone.
Then you need to understand this.
That thing won't rest no matter what and can only be eliminated
by fire. Torch the forest for all I care
if that's the only way you can eliminate it.
Also, if I end up missing whatever you do, don't go
looking for me because it won't be me.
After reading that last sentence for the first time, my body ran
cold. But my young instincts kept
reminding me that most of the things that this guy wrote in
his journal didn't make any sense.
So as one of the pages had nothing but gibberish scribbled
on it with pictures of a human goat thing with a long snake
like tongue. So I took everything he wrote
with a grain of salt. In general, the book as a whole
just gave me bad vibes every time I held it or dealt with it.
After I finished reading through it and trying to understand
everything this man was talking about, I slipped the journal in
with the other evidence involved with the missing persons case.
No one even noticed because this forest was known too often to
have people go missing, which meant that cases like this one
weren't a priority. However, all these people going
missing made me think about when John wrote about releasing a
wandering spirit into the woods, and he made that strange shrine
that the teenager stumbled upon to try to appease the spirits of
the people who were taken by it. In my entire life, I never would
have thought that something this dark could occur in my hometown,
where I spent the majority of my youth playing in the same woods
because there's not much else to do in a small town like this
one. Being involved in this case made
me never want to do anything outdoors again because who knows
what's lurking out there among the trees.
All of this seems so crazy to me at the time, and the time and
effort put into the case was all meant to find some lunatic who
believes conjuring spirits and gaining powers through rituals
and other strange things like that.
Again, I was a young rookie at the time, and now I fully
understand that there's something in this world which
are best left alone and untouched because for all you
know, you could be getting yourself into trouble with a
much deeper force than you could possibly imagine like John did.
The next post will be my last of this personal story of mine
because I fear that my coworkers and other people I haven't told
you about yet will catch on to this and know it was me who
disclosed the information to the public.
This will be the Last Post involving this personal story of
mine because I've already been hearing rumors at work about
somebody who's leaking private information involving a case,
but I'm not sure if they think it's me or someone else.
The best thing for me to do is to end it here and lay low for a
while, but I hope the chief from my department is not reading
scary stories posted on the Internet so he won't find this.
With that out of the way, I must tell you how everything went
down those last fatal days when my partner and I were still
working on the case. With the days passing by and no
strong evidence showing what truly happened to this man being
brought to the table, this case was going to become cold and
even given up on and he would just be another missing person
ad in the newspaper. At the time I was sick of
dealing with this case, mainly because after we first went into
this man's trailer, I looked into his journal and there had
been strange occurrences and sensations that I felt randomly.
Some chilled me to the back of my spine.
This whole case was going down a rabbit hole leading everywhere
but nowhere all at once. We also had a clean up crew go
through and take down the shrine of the missing people's faces.
They threw away the stuff in the trees and scattered the rocks
formed into a circle, leaving the area in its original state.
While they were doing this clean up, there were reports of
hearing voices mumbling to them, but so quietly they couldn't
understand what was being said. However, there was one thing
that every single one of them heard clear as day, and it was
someone who was whistling in a raspy, uneven tone.
It started with one of them supposedly saying something like
hey if you can't whistle right then shut up.
Everyone was thinking one of them was doing it, but during
their lunch break when everyone had food in their mouths, they
heard it again. That's when they decided to cut
their lunch break and clean the rest of the area up because all
of them felt uneasy being there. It was after hearing those
accounts that the light bulb clicked in my head.
The family we questioned when the man first went missing told
me that he had an annoying whistle, but the hairs on my
neck stood up when I remembered hearing the faint whistle when
we were walking back to our vehicle after searching his
trailer. This guy must have been playing
tricks on us for his own amusement and probably enjoyed
seeing us get all turned around while trying to figure out what
happened to him. I told Daniel my story and he
was skeptical at first but soon understood where I was coming
from with my argument. We told the chief and he told us
to investigate one last time during the night and watch the
missing persons campsite to see if he's not sneaking back in the
middle of the night. The deal was that if we found
him the case would be dismissed, but if we didn't see anything
the case would become cold and all investigation involving it
would be terminated. We agreed and drove back to the
woods to stay the night patrolling the area.
It was a night that would scar me for the rest of my life.
While we were patrolling the area before the sun fully hid
behind the mountains, we talked to a few of the camper staying
on the campground and they seemed distressed.
We asked them what was wrong and they said they kept hearing some
whistling but couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
Even when they walked down to the lake, it seemed to follow
them. And because of this, they plan
to cut their vacation short and get out of here.
It probably made them feel more paranoid after hearing about
someone go missing here in the past week, especially when they
were constantly seeing officers from Search and rescue.
I responded saying if I were in your shoes, then that would be
exactly what I would do too. We talked a little longer, but
Daniel insisted that we needed to keep a better eye out for the
man just in case he returned. I understood, and we drove to
where we could see the man's camp trailer, but we're
stillwell hidden. That's when the waiting begun.
Until midnight. The full moon illuminated the
ground, causing our visibility of the man's trailer to still
work out without the need for a flashlight.
As we were sitting there, we noticed a few pine cones falling
from the trees nearby and bouncing off the ground below.
You think that's either a squirrel or a chipmunk knocking
those down? I asked while stretching and
letting out a yawn. It could be, I've seen chipmunks
knock them down quite often. Daniel responded as we gazed at
where they were dropping. That's when we heard something
snap and saw a large branch fall from the same tree the pine
cones were coming from. That has to be a bear cub or
something to break a branch that big.
I stated, wondering what was up there.
If that's the case then we have to get it out of the campground
so it won't hurt anyone. Daniel said as he opened his
side door and grabbed his heavy duty flashlight, big enough to
be considered as a weapon and shined it at the tree.
I couldn't see exactly where he was shining because I was still
in the vehicle, but Daniel pulled out his weapon and
started screaming. Sir, get out of the tree now.
I wondered what was going on, so I got out and saw where Daniel
steadily held his flashlight. How?
How did he get up there? The words fell out of my mouth
as we watched the man we were looking for at the top of the
tree clinging to the base. He didn't move at all, but his
eyes were illuminated by the flashlight and reflected bright
red. Sir, I won't tell you again.
Climb down from the tree, or if you're incapable of doing so,
please let us know. Daniel yelled with droplets of
spit falling out. The man didn't respond but just
stayed put, watching us intensely with those glaring
eyes. Suddenly the man jumps from one
tree to another and that's when we noticed that all he's wearing
is some tattered dirty blue jeans.
Daniel opened fire trying to get him down, but the man was so
swift with his movements that Daniel wasn't able to land a
shot. Let's follow him.
Daniel screamed as he ran after the man.
I followed closely behind with my weapon drawn, wondering what
was wrong with the man. Briefly we could see him jumping
from tree to tree and we continued after him, slowly
going deeper into the woods. Where did he go?
I said while breathing in gulps of air.
I don't know, you hear that? Daniel asked as he glanced
about, listening closely I could hear the faint sound of someone
whistling. He's got to be close by.
Daniel stated firmly while tightening his grip on his
weapon, closely listening to the raspy uneven whistling.
I said it's getting louder, that must mean he's out of nowhere.
The man pounced from one of the trees on top of me, he was
trying to bite me but I held him back the best I could but his
strength seemed inhuman. Daniel quickly shot the side of
him which caused him to dart off into the woods and he was
hunched over grabbing his wound just running as if nothing
happened. You OK?
Daniel quickly asked as he helped me to my feet and said
hurry, we can't lose him. I agreed and we followed his
bare footprints in the dirt that led to an open field covered in
dry yellow grass. In the middle of the pasture we
noticed a dark spot shining our lights at it.
It was the back of the man, slowly but swiftly we made our
way over to him, but when we got there we saw that he was shaking
and I asked sternly. Sir, please restrain yourself,
we aren't trying to hurt you. The man's eyes darted at me and
he muttered. Run.
That thing left me to rot and is in search for a new host.
Get out of here while you still can.
We need to get you out of here, we're not leaving now.
Please explain why you tried to attack us.
Daniel asked sternly, not knowing everything that I knew
about this man's dark past. At this point, the man's eyes
who were staring me down slowly started to move and stare at
something just past me. Not looking behind me, I grabbed
Daniel's arm and quickly yanked him towards where we came from.
He restrained and pulled his arm from my grasp, saying what are
you doing? We can't just leave him here.
Not knowing what to do, I looked back at Daniel and saw a dark
figure standing about 5 feet behind him.
There's something right behind you.
I screamed, trying to pull my weapon that seems stuck in its
holster. Daniel then said, turning
around. What do you mean there's
something? As he looked behind him, the
figure stayed still. Daniel drew his weapon and
looked back at me and I could sense fear in his eyes.
The man on the ground began muttering nonsense words which
seemed to anger this thing, which suddenly disappeared.
That's when the man on the ground started to kick his feet
and scream. Daniel looked at me and somehow
read each other's mind as we both darted back to the vehicle,
leaving the man there. As we ran.
We heard the screaming stop but not waiting for anything we
jumped into the car and drove back into town.
We got on the radio and reported back to the station on
everything that went down and they seemed in disbelief.
As we got back into the station there were people I had never
seen there before dressed in dark suits that interviewed us
on what exactly happened and once it was over they made us
promise not to tell anyone else about it.
After posting this, I guess I just broke that promise, but it
is what it is. Later I found out they closed
the campground down saying that it needed to be refurbished and
soon after there was a mysterious fire that swept the
area, burning everything into ashes in the newspaper.
It was blamed on a butt of a cigarette that was tossed into a
dry grass field. I knew that that was a lie and
that there was an intentional burning.
The fire was meant to eliminate that thing, but I don't think it
worked because a week later someone went missing in a part
of the woods nearby that was untouched by the flames.
We never solved this case because technically the man is
still missing, but I'm never going back into that area again.
It's been 15 years since I was last there and I will go the
rest of my life avoiding it. Some places need to be avoided
the same way some things don't need to be understood.
I will finish by saying that if you see a campsite closed and it
says that there's maintenance going on, don't believe it.
For all you know, there could be another beast lurking in the
mist. Be safe out there.
I'm a 17 year old guy currently living in Phoenix, AZ.
This incident took place around six months ago on an overnight
trip into the Superstition Mountains, which are about an
hour drive east of Phoenix. I'm not going to specify the
exact trail because I've been doing this stuff long enough to
realize what happens when you post stuff on the Internet.
Whether it's a good trail, abandoned mine, ghosts, or
whatever it may be, people come flocking and usually with a lot
of trash and loud music. Anyway, this particular trail I
was taking was an 8 mile loop through a Canyon.
Pretty simple in and out overnight trip.
I had planned to go with my friend, but a last minute cancel
on his part left me on my own. So with a packed bag and my car
ready to go, I decided to go on my own, not leaving the house on
time and some trouble navigating rough forest roads.
I didn't arrive at the trailhead until around 5:45, which for
those of you who don't backpack, this is a very big no no.
I had about a four mile hike until I arrived at my planned
camping spot and it was getting dark fast, so I figured if I
moved quick enough I could get at least two to three miles in
before I had to find a spot. This strategy left me hiking a
very dark trail on my own with about 15 miles of dirt Rd.
between me and anyone else. Hiking in the dark by itself is
scary, especially for where I was and being on my own.
Eventually it got so dark I could only see where my headlamp
was pointing and that's when I figured I needed to stop and get
my camp set up. Only using the headlamp as my
light source and trying to move fast, I ended up in a less than
ideal spot. There was some burnt pieces of
wood and the remains of a fire circle so it looked like people
had been there before, but definitely not recently.
My first priority was to get a fire going.
I scanned the area around me and was able to find some dry wood
and I got the fire going. I got my tarp set up and cracked
open a can of Chili Mac I had brought for myself and was very
much looking forward to eating. I was feeling good, my camp was
set up and my food was on the fire.
The feeling of uneasiness from the hike in had almost gone
away, but it was still there. Side effect of camping alone in
remote areas. To fully understand what
happened I have to explain how my camp was set up.
The site I had picked was a small clearing surrounded by
large pine trees with the trail about 30 feet to my left.
There was a small circle of light from my fire and
everything past it was pitch black.
I was sitting on the ground near my fire eating my dinner when a
small rock about the size of a marble was thrown into my camp.
I looked at the tiny rock in shock as I was positive I was
the only person on the trail that night.
I immediately turned my light and faced it toward the area
where I had seen the rock come from.
Due to the density of the Pines and brush, I could only see
about 10 feet. I spent the next 15 minutes in
disbelief as I scanned the tree line that surrounded me,
searching for what or whoever had thrown the rock, not daring
to stray too far from my fire. After sitting back down and
spending the rest of my time on high alert, I was able to
convince myself that I had somehow kicked the rock or it
had fallen from a tree. That night I awoke to the sound
of rustling leaves, barely audible, but still there.
I was still in a sleepy daze. As I listened, the rustling of
leaves got harder to hear and I assumed they were moving away
from me. I went to grab my handheld
flashlight that I had left next to me when I had fallen asleep,
but I soon came to realize that it was no longer there.
I stood up in my sleeping bag and ducked out of the tarp and
looked around. I was able to see a light off in
the woods. It couldn't have been more than
15 feet away. It was my flashlight laying on
the ground on a pile of leaves. The flashlight that I had left
sitting right next to me when I had fallen asleep a few hours
ago was now 15 feet away from me, past the tree line.
I quickly slipped my boots, clutched my knife in the other
hand, and keeping my head on a swivel, I weighed my options,
Stay here and wait out the night or attempt the three mile hike
back to the car in the dark. I figured that whatever or
whoever was out there with me was definitely going to have a
better advantage if I was on the trail without a light.
I decided to stay at the camp and waited out the night there.
Eventually it came back. I could hear it walking through
the woods. It was far off, but I could hear
it. It sounded like someone was
leisurely walking by, like they were on a stroll without a care
in the world. Sometimes it would walk far away
and I would lose the sound of its steps, but then it would
return, still faint as ever. This went on for about 3 or 4
hours until the steps got closer and closer.
Now they were about 7 feet from me.
At this point the fire had become very small as I had run
out of wood in my pile. The footsteps stopped and
everything went totally silent. I sat there still for two hours,
clutching my knife in my hand and praying I wouldn't hear
anything else. I stayed like that until the sun
cast enough light that I could see that I was alone in my
campsite. I packed my things and speed
walked the three miles down the trail I had taken.
I arrived at the empty dirt Rd. where my car was parked.
I nearly sprinted to my Subaru as I unlocked it, jumped in and
drove, not stopping until I had put at least 20 miles between me
and that place. I ended up in a gas station in
Apache Junction to buy some Red Bull but mostly just to see and
or talk to another person. As I exited the store I was able
to read something that was written in the dust on the back
window of my car. It said sleep well.
This story happened during my teenage years.
At 15 or 16 years old, I lived in a small town of 2000 people,
mainly surrounded by boreal forest in a region of Quebec,
Canada. This place was great as we often
saw deer and it was usually a quiet and safe place.
To give a bit of context, my house was located at the end of
a dead end St. and the only light source at night was my
house's. There was a single street light
at the end of the road, but it only lit up part of the street
and the forest behind it. We were a dog family.
I only had small dogs when I lived there.
Every day we needed to let them out to pee as all dogs do, but
at night they were almost impossible to see because of the
darkness. Our terrain was kind of big and
the light sources were weak. I was a gamer at the time and I
was often up late, so I was the one who needed to take the dog
out to pee at 2:00 AM because it stayed with me while I was
playing. One night I opened the door and
waited for my dog to do his thing while trying to look at
it. I was only able to see the
reflection of the light in its eyes when it looked at me.
I started to look around because there was sometimes deer
sleeping in the woods under the streetlight or wild turkeys
roaming around when a little dark spot caught my attention.
It looked like a human head coming out of the bushes, but I
wasn't able to see it because it was a bit in the dark.
I don't want my dog to run after whatever it was.
It had a tendency to run after wild animals so I called to it.
It didn't listen to me, but the thing in the bushes started to
crawl towards the street slowly. It looked like a human with thin
limbs and a normal body and a slightly long neck.
I started to freak out a bit and shook the treats cup so my dog
would hurry. It came inside running and I
shut the door as fast as I could.
I turned off the lights in my house so I could have a view of
what was outside. The strange animal crawled fast,
almost running like a dog with every limb broken as an
improvised crawling movement. The animal passed under the
light where I saw it had no fur, like a shaved animal.
It was disgusting. I was afraid and standing in the
dark. The animal ran towards the light
and continued on the street where I wasn't able to see it
because the house is in my neighborhood.
We're surrounded by trees. I locked the door and went to
sleep with my dog. I talked to nobody about it.
A couple months later I went to bed kinda early, 11:00 PM and
went to watch some videos on my phone.
They were gaming videos and I had earphones on.
A sound on the video was recurring and I thought it was
annoying, like a distant weird scream.
After a couple minutes the video finished and I went to see
another, but during the loading the sound occurred.
I took my earphones off and waited for the sound.
I heard it and immediately had tears in my eyes.
It was coming from my window. My room was at the 2nd floor so
I looked down in the forest to see if there was some movement.
The only light near the forest entrance was the moonlight and
an underwater light in our pool that emitted a small Halo around
it. I wasn't able to see anything,
but the sound occurred again. It was like a mix between a
distorted scream and a pig having its throat slit or a
strong pain whining from a dog. I looked down and saw an animal
that passed so fast that it was hard to really see, but I barely
saw a human sized animal with limbs crawling like a spider.
It wasn't running after anything, but the sound occurred
another time. It was the most horrible thing I
ever heard. I closed my window to choke a
bit by the sound of it. I heard it again three other
times and it stopped after that. I talked to my dad about the
sound and he told me it was probably a deer being attacked
by a wild animal. I was so scared of it I barely
walked in the woods at night the three following years before
moving in a city to go out of university.
Even to this day I never heard of an animal like that and it
made me really doubt my mental health at the time because I had
PTSD from a dog attack mid middle school and I sometimes
had light hallucinations when I games for too long like a black
shadow that disappears immediately or things like that.
There were barely any reports of wolves, coyotes or bears in my
area, and believe me, I made a lot of discoveries exploring the
forest in this town. I am posting this because I am
truly out of options. My employers refused to take my
reports and have even threatened termination of my contract.
If I bring these events back to the table again, the local
authorities are dismissive or even worse, accuse me of
substance abuse and mental instability.
I can't even tell my own family, lest they draw the same
conclusions. I wouldn't want to drag them
into this anyway. Hopefully some of you can help
me, or at least help me understand what's going on.
I have worked as a forester in the Appalachia for a logging
company that will go unnamed for nearly a decade now.
In that time, I have come to love my job, the woods, and the
freedom that accompanies both. But things have started to
change with my most recent assignment.
The woods used to feel so safe, so clean.
Now I can't stop my hands from shaking when I stand beneath the
green canopy. So we're all on the same page.
I'll walk you through the field work of my profession. 1st, the
company assigns me to attractive land they have recently
acquired. I do some less exciting prep
work in the office, satellite imaging, GIS, property analysis,
etcetera, and then I head out into the field.
Generally the sites are pretty far from the office, requiring
multiple hour drives and overnight camping.
I bring along some simple gear, tape measures, manual
colonometer and altimeter, bright neon orange marking,
spray paint, and my GPS, transmitter and marker.
All in all, a bunch of technical nonsense that lets me determine
the value of trees, which should be logged and which should be
left behind to ensure no permanent damage is done to the
forest. Simple enough.
It was early morning on September 21st, 2019 when my
office desktop pinged that I had an incoming e-mail.
Seeing that it was an assignment from corporate, I opened it up
and nearly let out a cheer in my cubicle.
The track that I had been assigned was a huge patch of old
growth forest located near the Mongahela National Forest in
West Virginia. For those of you who don't know,
an old growth forest is a wooded area that has not been disturbed
for hundreds of years. Allowed to grow and develop in
its natural state without intervention by farming,
construction or logging, many old growth forests haven't been
touched since the settlers arrived, and some even before
then. In any case, this was cause for
celebration. Old growth is increasingly rare
and amazingly beautiful, and I was the one assigned to explore
it. Of course this was bittersweet
seeing as I would be the last to see it in its UN despoiled state
before I gave the loggers the go ahead.
I spent the morning in my office packing my things and loading
them into the tiny white Ford Ranger, lovingly nicknamed
Piper, that the company had provided to me when I started
working for them. She was a rugged little thing,
having carried me through the mountains for almost a decade
without protest. Of course, she wasn't without
her quirks. Crank operated windows, a
rattling tailgate, and an AC that hadn't functioned since
2011. But I love that tiny little
truck. Piper and I set out around noon,
making good time on the four hour drive through the rugged
depths of West Virginia. We arrived at the old trailhead
that would deliver me to my tract late into the afternoon.
As I strapped my heavy backpack on and locked Piper up for her
stay at the edge of the woods, I breathed deeply, taking in the
heavy scent of the forest earth and the sound of the wind and
birdsong through the treetops. Giving my truck a pat on the
hood, I turned and made my way off the country Rd. and onto the
narrow dirt track that wound into the woods.
The hike to the old growth stand of trees took about an hour of
brisk trekking, the path becoming more and more overgrown
as I progressed. It was obvious this trail hadn't
been consistently used for years, probably decades.
Nearly to my destination, I happened to cross what should
have been the first sign that something was not right.
An ancient Sycamore tree stood in the center of the path.
Had it been any other species, I would have sidestepped and kept
plugging ahead. But sycamores had always been my
favorite trees, so I looked upwards to admire the old
beauty. About 12 feet off the ground,
twisted and woven through the tangle of white barked branches,
was a decomposing skeleton of a deer, scraps of fur and
mummified tendons the only things holding it together as it
dangled from the tree. I gasped and stepped back from
the initial shock, the staring skeletal visage of the old deer
being the last thing I expected to see.
My first thought was a Mountain Lion or a similar predator had
hauled the animal up there to feast upon.
Carnivores like that were pretty rare in the area, but I had
guessed it wasn't entirely out of the question, but my
confusion spiked and the rumblings of dread gestated in
my gut when I looked a bit closer.
It was difficult to tell due to the distance from the forest
floor and the amount of time the deer had been up there, but as I
squinted I started to notice something haunting the decrepit.
Animal remains were not simply jumbled up in the tree branches,
they were lashed into place by scraps of rope and cloth.
Someone had hauled the deer 12 feet up in the Sycamore tree and
tied its limbs and joints so it would stay suspended up there.
Directly beneath the nearly completely rotted animal, barely
visible due to age, was carved a simple O, presumably put onto
the bark by whoever took the time to create this macabre
installation. I was understandably shocked and
confused by this discovery, but the apparent age of the carving
and carcass ease my worries a little.
Whoever had done this obviously done their work months ago.
I resolved that until I happened to cross fresher work, I was
unlikely to run into anyone else out here in the woods.
Having reassured myself for the moment and excited to lay eyes
on the rare old growth, I carried on down the trail
towards my destination. I reached the edge of my
assigned stand around 6:30 at night, the old I'll maintained
trail terminating in a small clearing on the border of the
forest I hiked through and the secluded acres of old growth
that waited beyond. I gazed awestruck at what waited
for me. Ancient tree trunks that soared
stories high, capped with dense foliage that cast the Groves
beneath the Placid twilight. One of the defining features of
old growth is the lack of understory, smaller plants
robbed of the sunlight by the canopy above.
This means that you can see much further than you could in a
different forest, where brush and vines might block your view.
In the old growth ahead of me, I could see deep into the canopy
shaded woods, darkness enveloping the trees that grew
entwisted and gnarled shapes. Ancient beings shaped by
countless years into warped and beautiful lines.
I was nearly overtaken by the sight, a view so few people are
able to look upon in this modern age.
Even though I was nearly shaking with excitement to explore the
acres large stand of forest ahead of me, I knew that
daylight would not last much longer.
I would have to push off starting my work until the next
day, working quickly to pitch my tent and create a small stone
ring to act as a fire pit before nightfall overtook my new
campsite. The first night on the edge of
the old growth forest was so quiet.
As I lay tightly wrapped in my sleeping bag, staring up through
the vent net in the roof of my tent toward the stars above, I
heard almost none of the sounds one might expect from camping
deep in the woods. No night birds called.
No insects buzzed. The only sounds were the rushing
of the wind through the leaves and once, a mournful sound of an
owl hooting somewhere within the ancient Grove beyond the camp.
I sat there awake in eerie silence for nearly the entire
night, partially perturbed by the quiet but mostly entranced
by the beauty of the starlit sky.
Filled with excitement for the day to come, I eventually
drifted off to sleep around 2:00 AM.
At 5:30 in the morning, I was awoken by the electronic
chirping of my watch alarm signalling the start of my day.
Groggily sitting up, I immediately regretted not
forcing myself to sleep earlier. Yanking the zipper of my tent
flap and exposing myself to the chill morning air, I rose to a
stoop and began to exit my tent. As my head left the tent, I
stopped, frozen and staring. I was staring down the barrel of
a pump action shotgun clutched in the hands of a middle-aged
bearded man. He wore old flannel and denim, a
stained old baseball cap over the mop of Gray hair.
His face was cracked and split by intricate wrinkles, the
telltale aging endured by a man who had spent his life outdoors.
His Gray eyes squinted as he met my shocked gaze, lowering the
gun. Well, crap, I'm sorry, son, I
didn't expect anybody. What do you mean you didn't
expect anybody? I asked, anger boiling to the
surface as the shock of surprise ebbed away.
You walked into a campsite at 5:00 in the morning, why
wouldn't there be anybody here? His gnarled face didn't change
from its Stony demeanor. Look, boy, I said I was sorry.
No harm, no foul, right? He shrugged nonchalantly,
irritatingly dismissive of the fact that he had a loaded gun
pointed between my eyes mere moments ago.
He slung the weapon over his shoulder and extended a hand to
help me out of my tent. Most tents you find up here are
empty. It took a moment for what he had
said to sink in. What do you mean?
Like people come up here and dump their trashed old
equipment. Disappointment began to brew as
the thought of the old growth filled with trash entered my
mind. Nah son, nothing like that.
Just exactly what I said. The tents you find up here are
always empty. The names Randy.
Randy Davidson. This plot belonged to my grandpa
and his grandpa before him. His West Virginia draw was thick
and slow as he gestured toward the old growth stand.
Before Grandpa sold it to National Forest folks.
Eminent domain and whatnot. I furrowed my brow.
Not only had I had the shock of my life less than a minute ago,
now I was listening to the family history of some
Appalachian backwater dude. My patience grew thin.
So is that why you go around poking in other people's stuff,
scaring them when they wake up for old time's sake?
Randy squinted again, unimpressed with my impatience.
Look, boy, all I'm going to say is you better watch yourself out
here in these woods. Grandpa used to tell stories,
Was happy to have the feds take his land off his hands.
Just pack up and leave is my advice.
And with that, he turned and started walking away in the
direction he came from. I stood there in uneasy silence
and just watched him go. Was that a warning or a threat?
And what could he have possibly meant about empty tents?
His message had surprised and confused me as much as his
sudden appearance in my camp. The early morning light grew
brighter and the mist that clung to the ground burned away as I
gathered my things and prepared for my first foray into the old
growth stand. I nearly inhaled my breakfast,
excited to start my work. Then, pack filled and secured, I
stepped beyond the edge of the Grove.
The old growth was breathtaking. Ancient trees surrounded me as I
walked, dark twisting shapes disappearing into the shadowy
canopy high above. No underbrush cluttered the
ground, just stoic old boulders and thick sheets of soggy Moss.
The dense cover of leaves above cast the entire huge stand in
the eerie pall of cool shade. The heavy, earthy scent of loamy
earth and wet woods filled my nose and lungs.
Pristine silence filled the forest.
I set to work immediately, invigorated by my utterly
gorgeous surroundings. The noise I made was the only
sound that echoed through the ancient woods surround me,
joining the quiet wind and leaves above.
I identified species, measured trunk diameters, calculated
height and slope, judged quality timber from trees best left
standing. Dang, I thought to myself,
almost all of these trees were worth thousands of dollars in
timber as individuals. This stand of old growth alone
would likely net the company over $1,000,000 after harvest.
How had this place not been logged yet?
With a metallic rattle and aerosol hiss, I marked the trees
that would be best harvested with my flagging paint.
With the forest floor so clear of undergrowth, the bright
orange XS I sprayed on the tree trunks could be seen in the
distance in every direction, looming out of the darkness in
their obviously unnatural neon hue.
It felt strange to be painting this place so long left beyond
the reach of humanity. It was after 4:00 PM, when I was
finishing up the last sections of the stand I decided to work
on today. There was a small, low valley
near the center of the growth, edged by mossy boulders and
muddy slopes. I had nearly finished marking
the chosen trees in the valley when I came across something
hauntingly strange. As I rounded the massive trunk
of an old, beautiful red oak, I saw it sitting in the middle of
a tiny clearing, shaded by dark leaves.
Above was the rusted Hulk of an old RV.
The paint was chipped and peeled away almost to the point of
nonexistence, though there was still enough to make out the
classic script of Winnebago. The tires were flat, sacks of
rubber draped over rusted hubcaps.
Moss grew over the windows of the abandoned vehicle.
At least the glass hadn't been shattered and dropped away.
The side door hung open on failing hinges, revealing
nothing but inky darkness inside.
I slowly approached the derelict, wet Moss and leaves
squelching under my boots. How did this thing get down
here? There's no way it could have
driven down these slopes of the valley, and there weren't any
signs that it had fallen or crashed down there besides the
ravages of time. The old RV seemed undamaged.
I stepped within a few feet of the Winnebago's open door.
I fumble through my backpack and produced my flashlight, noticing
that the vehicle was ringed by a thick layer of heavy Gray mud.
Spurred by curiosity, I clicked my flashlight on and stepped on
board the ruined RV through the broken door.
As I did so, the eerie vehicle let out a wretched moan as the
twisted spring shifted for the first time and what likely had
been decades. I threw a glance back over my
shoulder into the forest, suddenly feeling watched.
All I noticed through the forest gloom were the neon orange XS I
spray painted on the trees, pointed at haphazard angles and
particularly hidden by gnarled trunks.
The interior of the RV was dark as night, even with the gloomy
daylight filtering through the small sections of broken
windows. The stark white beam of my
flashlight cut through the darkness, a circle of vision too
small for comfort. Something felt off the moment I
was inside. The cabin of the vehicle was
almost empty, driver and passenger seats devoured down to
metal frames by generations of vermin.
Crusty lichen encased the steering column.
The cup holders held two metal thermoses, the words #1 Dad and
#1 mom just barely visible through the years of Sylvan
filth that had accumulated upon them.
I turned my face to the main living space of the old wreck,
silence thick on the air and only cut through by the creaks
of the moldering floor beneath me.
The built in couch here had also suffered the same fate as the
cabin seats devoured by rats and insects searching for a nest.
Cupboards hung open near the low ceiling, cardboard boxes of food
within reduced to pulp and slurry by years of exposure.
I shone my needle of light across the room, noticing the
narrow door at the rear. It hung barely a jar, a crack of
darkness presumably leading to the R VS bedroom.
As I stepped closer, a stench of mildew and wet dirt grew almost
overpowering. With a groan of rusty hinges, I
pushed the door open. My body ran cold as my
flashlight beam settled on what waited beyond the doorway.
Shocked, my breaths came quick and shallow as I took in the
sight. The room held a bed mattress and
blankets, untouched by foraging pests, but stained a deep black
brown by mold and who knows what else.
Upon the bed was a heap of clothing gathered from a
suitcase, haphazardly left to rot on the floor around the bed.
The clothes were stained the same shade as the foul mattress.
I could make out at least 4 distinct sizes of clothing in
the pile, two adults and two children.
The stink of rotting vegetation was unimaginable.
My hand shook, bobbing my light as they did so, as I gazed at
the top of the pile. Atop the wet heap of moldy old
clothing was a dripping carcass of a deer, broken and twisted at
unnatural angles to allow the decaying thing to be propped up
in a pose like a man sitting cross legged.
Its head was bowed towards me, what was left of the meat
blackened by rot. Its eyes had long since gone,
leaving empty black sockets to stare into the dark.
The cluster of mossy and scattered bones by the headboard
revealed that this was merely the most recent animal left
there, the next in a long line of deer propped up in this mess.
Despite the dribbling animal wreckage before me, there was no
smell of rotting, just the only wretched and overpowering odor
of composting vegetation and decomposing fungus.
Acrid vomit filled my sinuses and I bolted to the door behind
me. As I stuck my head and shoulders
outside and prepared to retch, my eyes laid upon fresh horror,
the bright orange of my marking paint sprayed at half hazard and
distant angles as I had wandered the valley, all face towards me
in uniform stairs. Every XI had painted down there.
Look towards me, neon color cutting through the forest gloom
like electric eyes. The remainder of the food left
my stomach, replaced by ice water as I lurched forward and
vomited messily upon the mossy ground.
Leaning from inside the RV, bodies shaking with confusion
and terror, I wiped the tears from my eyes.
The smell of rotting wood still clogged my nostrils.
I stared at the splatter of fresh vomit below me, attempting
to comprehend what I was looking at.
The steamy bile was collecting in a footprint of the sticky
Gray mud. My shaky breath rattled in my
lungs as I stared. It was unmistakable, fresh
tracks in the mud that surrounded the RVA complete
circle that stalked around the vehicle.
They were deep pressed into the muck by something big and heavy.
The tracks took on a shape of 1/2 human foot, the long toes
and forefoot evident like the tracks of someone walking
barefoot and tiptoeing. What?
Even the partial footprints were bigger than the tracks I had
left. How would something so large
move so quietly around? The RVI hadn't heard a thing
from inside. I rose to trembling feet and
took a cautious step. Outside, the old growth was
utterly silent beyond my nervous panting.
The bright orange axis still stared in my direction, not one
where I had originally placed it.
Crap, I thought to myself. I stood, scanning the empty
forest floor and listening for any sounds to Pierce the quiet.
Seconds passed, feeling like an eternity, and then I bolted.
Fear pounded in my ears as I sprinted through the forest,
never once slowing as I made for camp.
The feeling of a cold, calculating look from unseen
eyes never left my back as I ran.
I skidded into my tiny camp on the edge of the stand as the sun
began to dim in the darkening sky, nearly collapsing with
exhaustion as the daylight that filtered through the trees above
began to decay. As I panted and gasped with
exertion, I surveyed my surroundings, my tent and fire
ring appearing untouched since I left this morning.
As dusk settled over the forest, my surroundings began to darken.
It wouldn't be long until they were black as the old growth at
my back. There was no way I could leave
tonight. Even if I wasn't petrified to be
out in the dark, there wasn't any chance I could find my way
back to Piper through the dark and unfamiliar woods.
My mind raced as daylight failed around me.
Do I set a fire and hope light and flames keeps whatever is out
there at Bay? Or do I sit in the darkness and
pray I stay hidden in the shadowy in silent camp?
There was no good options. I tensed up as I fought panic
from setting in. Eventually the primal instincts
of my cave dwelling ancestors kicked in.
Fire was the one tool that always served our kind against
darkness and the things that lurked within it.
I piled all of my firewood into the ring.
I wouldn't need it for another night.
And as the night fell, the glowing light of my bonfire lit
the forest around me. Faltering at the edge of the old
growth, my camp surrounded in firelight.
I climbed inside my tent and sealed the zipper shut.
I sat silently inside the thin nylon shell for hours, listening
as the wind made the only sound beyond the crackling of the fire
which glowed through the walls of the tent.
My hand shook and my spine prickled with nerves.
My teeth chattered despite the humid heat that clung to me,
Sweat dripping from my brow. I moved slowly to check my
watch. 3:30 AM. Less than two hours until I
could flee this place. I jolted as a sudden snap
shattered the silence. The sharp cracking noise
emanated not 20 feet from my tent and followed by Cicado
wrestling before sudden silence. My eyes were wide.
The quiet, nearly imperceptible wrestling came again.
Whatever was outside was still there.
I slowly grasped the zipper and pulled it with my left hand
while fumbling about with my right hand until it came to rest
upon my pocket knife. It was a feeble little thing,
but as a gift from my dad, it has always found its way into my
pack. With my little blade clutched
tight, I opened the door of my tent slowly to keep the zipper
quiet. I crept out into the night, the
chilled air shockingly cold as it connected with my overheated
and clammy skin. The bonfire still burned, though
it had run low as the night dragged on.
Silently surveying the camp before me, I searched for the
source of the hushed sound. Slowly, my eyes was drawn
upwards toward the bows of the trees.
Two eyes reflected in the fire light, staring back at me.
Shock gripped my heart, and it took all of my willpower not to
exclaim with fear and surprise. The eyes went to the side as if
judging me. With more quiet rustles, the owl
shifted on its branch, close enough to the firelight to
reveal its identity. Relief flooded my body as I let
out a quiet sigh. Then true terror took over me as
I noticed a huge shape in my peripheral vision.
I slowly turned my head, tears welling up in my eyes.
It sat waiting on its hunches barely 6 feet away from me,
dimly lit by the embers of the slowly dying fire.
At first I thought it was a huge man, a giant living in the
woods. But this thing was no human,
never could have been. It sat nearly curled in a fetal
ball, long arms clasped to scrawny legs and shoulders
hunched. Its humanoid form was covered in
greasy, pale skin, stretched taut over knobby bones and
joints. The things elongated arms and
legs were triple jointed digital grade, like the hind legs of a
malnourished hairless goat. Its arms ended in hands, each
bearing 6 long twitching fingers tipped with ragged and blackened
nails. Its legs terminated in feet that
may have been human if they were not twisted and deformed to
allow the thing to walk its mud and filth caked toes.
It carried an unbearable stench of fungus and compost.
But most horrible of all was its face.
Atop its neck rested its gaunt head, oily and pale skin
reflecting the guttering flames in the fire pit.
Its nose and chin were hideously long and crooked, not unlike the
jagged and pointed figures stereotypical of ancient
witches. Its mouth was wide, pulled back
to reveal black gums and long, blunt teeth that looked as if
they had been taken from a human jaw and stretched cartoonishly
to fit. Though it had no eyes, it stared
intently at the owl in the tree. The twisted and hulking creature
crouched beside me and slowly turned its head to face me.
Barely visible white orbs rolled and twitched and sunken eye
sockets. The thing stared silently at me
before raising a single finger to its drooling teeth.
It let out a quiet, gurgling breath.
Panic set my body ablaze. I scrambled to my feet, dropping
my tiny pocket knife in the mud. The owl let out a shrieking
protest as it took fight, spooked by the sudden movement.
As I stumbled backwards, starting my Sprint into the
pitch Black Forest, the thing rose to its feet on its try
jointed legs. The thing had to have been at
least 7 feet tall, but moved without making a sound.
As I turned it let out a hideous gasping screech, a sound laden
with ancient hate. I didn't look back, dashing
through the underbrush away from the old growth and leaving the
empty tent to join the others Randy had found.
I don't know if it followed me, it was so big, but it moved so
silently as I ran. I didn't see it, didn't hear it,
but the feeling of its look never left me.
I ran blindly in the dark, whipping branches and Bramble
thorns at my face and hands. Sweat drenched me, pulling in my
hiking boots. I didn't know how long I ran.
At some point I must have collapsed with exhaustion,
blacking out in the depths of the forest.
I woke up in the glaring shine of daylight filtering down onto
my face through the trees. My face and hands were caked
with dirt. 2 of my fingers were at least dislocated.
Rising on shaky legs, I began my blind trek into the unfamiliar
woods around me. Hopelessly lost, I walked for
hours, likely wandering in circles.
My face and hands ached with a dull, pulsing pain.
My skin itched and burned underneath.
Finally, I stumbled upon the forest trail, old and I'll
maintained. I couldn't believe my luck.
I had resigned myself to being lost, being alone and haunted
deep in the unsettled Appalachia.
Tears welled up as I hurriedly limped down the path, and I
nearly shouted with elation when Piper came into view.
Fumbling my keys, I managed to unlock her and climb inside,
slamming and locking the door behind me.
As I fired the ignition and the truck started up, the burning on
my torso intensified an awful itching sensation.
Grimacing, I quickly set to see what the cause of my discomfort
was. As I did so, a subtle stench of
old vegetation began wafting into my truck.
I felt cold eyes staring from the fringes of the woods.
I pulled my jacket open and the source of the itch across my
torso, spray painted there with marker paint, was a bright
orange X. The day I had been dreading
finally came. After months of denied reports,
quiet but heated arguments behind my boss's closed door,
and the most intense procrastination ever known to
man, the company sent me back to the old growth.
You have to believe me, I fought it, but in the end, my protests
were less than useless. I would have quit this job if I
could, but I have bills to pay, fees to keep my parents cared
for at their old age. There was nowhere to hide.
The neon orange marker paint that I had discovered sprayed
onto the Forester's X upon my torso had washed away easily
enough, but it had left behind an angry red rash of scaly skin.
The doctor told me that it was likely an allergic reaction to a
chemical propellant in the aerosol or a component of the
paint itself. The itching rash had faded over
time but never fully disappeared, the faintest ghosts
of the mark that haunted me just barely visible to those who
cared to look close enough. I had completed one or two
assignments since the experience I previously recounted for you
all working in Pennsylvania and around DC to mark up and measure
tiny stands of trees just outside the bustling suburban
corridors. Even in those miniscule Groves
of adolescent trees and shrubs, the green Grove of the canopy
sent shivers down my spine. I was a wreck in nearly every
sense of the word, and I don't think anyone who believed me
could blame me. The problem was that no one
actually did believe me. Not truly.
The e-mail from the company heads came on March 2nd, 2020.
When I saw it in my inbox, I sat silently staring in my cubicle
for agonizing minutes before finally resigning myself to cold
acceptance. I scanned the details with
defeat. Return to parcel Mononohalla
National Forest Work Imperative Multi $1,000,000 stake.
Depart immediately. The rest of that morning is just
a foggy blur, dragging myself through duties in preparation to
return to the place where I had encountered something I could
not explain, something I could not forget.
It must have been just before noon when Piper and I were
roaring down the Interstate towards the dreaded Grove, acres
of black woods and hidden things.
I shouldn't have gone. I have no recollection of the
four hour drive into the depths of West Virginia.
The next thing I knew, I was standing next to my truck,
engine clicking and popping as it cooled and settled with my
heavy pack slung over my shoulders.
Ahead of me loomed a narrow trailhead that led to a forest
the world had forgotten. With a shuddering breath, I
steeled myself and stepped into the woods.
The sensation was so strange my mind was caught in a vicious
wrestling match between feelings of terror and the comfort of
coming home. I absent mindlessly pawned at
the faded mark under my jacket. As I tramped along the winding
an undergrown path. Thoughts changed and changed
with my aching mind the things I had seen here, half remembered
and half unforgettable. The splendor of the unspoiled
forest around me, grinning teeth, the endless awe of the
old growth. I walked in a daze, like man
towards the gallows, or perhaps towards a holy relinquary.
By the time I walked around the old Sycamore tree, just a few
scant bones left lashing in its branches, I had regained my
senses. The sights and sounds of the
woods returned to me as I made it towards the old campsite.
I wiped away the watery stuff running from my nose.
It was just cold out here, only the first buds of the year
starting to appear on the branches of the trees.
This was about the time I began cursing to myself for coming
back out here, but it was far too late now.
Suddenly, I stepped out into the tiny clearing in which I had
once made camp. On the far end of the break in
the woods weighted the boundary of Old Growth.
Looming ancient trees cast in a shade of dark old leaves that
still clung to their storing branches in stark refusal to let
the sunlight desecrate the floor of the Grove.
Even in the latest days of winter and the earliest days of
spring, shadow ruled the old growth waiting ahead.
As I stared, a chill wind whispered from between the tree
trunks, stinging my face and whipping through the air.
A grim thought crawled through my mind.
Yeah, hello to you too. Pulling my gaze from the dark
boundary ahead of me, I surveyed the small clearing.
The ground was sodden and muddy with snowmelt.
The deitress of water was fading away with the season.
The shredded remnants of my old tent stood in half hearted
defiance of gravity, poles bent and broken in angles better
suited to modern art. Slowly pulling open the door
flap of the mostly collapsed tent, I saw that all of the
original contents were missing. My sleeping bag and backpack I
had carried out here previously, nowhere to be seen.
I just let the tent flap fall back.
There was no salvaging the nylon heap.
Just as Randy, the local who had accosted me the last time I was
here, had said, the tents you find here are always empty.
I turn around to check the fire pit less than a dozen feet
behind me. The stones were still there, but
not as I had left them, the rounded forest stones now
covered in crawling Moss and flaking lichen.
They were stacked in a perfect tower that came up to stomach
height, one on top of the other. They were balanced immaculately.
The slightest breeze should have been enough to upset the
delicate Cairn, but the stones did not fall.
Atop of the tower of stones, untouched by vegetation, age or
weather, was my pocket knife, dropped in the shock of my
previous encounter here. With a spiteful sniff, I
snatched the knife and gave the stones a small kick, letting the
tower crumble to a pile. I made camp in the clearing over
the next hour or so, pitching my new tent and reconstructing the
fire ring. I unfurled a large ball of twine
I had brought with me, attached aluminum cans to it as I laid a
trap wire perimeter around my little Oasis.
Setting an alarm like this would do little to help me should
anything go wrong during my stay here, but it eased my worry just
the same. Just as night fell, I sat by my
fire, listening to the silence of force that I knew all too
well. I awoke in my tent in the early
morning rays of the sunlight to the buzzing sound of my watch
letting me know it was time to work.
I went through my morning routine, had my breakfast, threw
my backpack on, stepped over my trap wire and marched as
stoically as I could to muster across the clearing towards the
waiting old growth. As I quietly stepped across the
mossy floor of the darkened Grove, I noticed one thing.
My work was gone. All of the bright orange X's I
had marked upon the trees that were meant to be harvested had
disappeared like the mist in the wind.
That paint was designed to last as long as the logging projects
may drag on, sometimes years, and I had sprayed it here merely
6 months ago. And now it was all gone.
The bark of the trees, barren of paint and gnarled and blackened
by hundreds of years, mocked me. Gritting my teeth, I began to
work. I toiled for hours that day in
the chilly March weather, the ancient forest around me silent
beyond the sounds of my work. Measuring, mapping, marking.
I went through my tasks quickly and robotically, never once
shaking the undeniable sensation of cold eyes on my back.
Maybe my fear made me more perceptive, or maybe the forest
and what waited within it simply chose to show me more than it
ever had before. Whatever the case, I saw things.
Rare sights that punctuated the hours within the stand.
Animal bones lashed to and dangling from branches that
towered over the muddy ground. A bright yellow Hunter's cap
soaked with water and stuffed into a gap between boulders.
The rusted lower frame and wheels of an old fashioned baby
carriage. A tangled pile of twine and
aluminum cans, new and untouched by age.
Or whether there was less than an hour of daylight left.
As I finished my first day of work, I rounded the thick trunk
of a massive honey locust. Stinging odor of the marker
paint was still wafting from the fresh XI had marked there.
Beyond the old tree was a steep forest pothole, perhaps a
sinkhole that had collapsed thousands of years ago.
It had dropped merely 5 feet down and maybe 10 feet across.
Drawn by some human curiosity, I peered over the edge.
The sides of the shallow pit were choked thick with roots and
sheets of Moss, creating a coiled mass of wet vegetation
that stacked downwards, dangling into the murky foot and half
rainwater and snow melt that collected at the bottom of the
white hole. The smell of stagnant water and
something far worse rose up to meet my nose, causing me to
recoil at the stench. A shiver ran down my spine as I
looked upon what floated in the pit below.
Fur, matted and oozing mud and rotting mold clung to bloated
meat. The extremities revealed the
darken and spongy remnants soaked through with the stinking
and stagnant water that filled the pool.
The horrid thing had at one point been a large dog, perhaps
a German Shepherd judging by the patches of fur.
Strapped across the dog was an old backpack I had left behind
the first time I came to the old growth.
The sharp sound of a snapping twig came from behind me and I
whirled to face the noise, sudden shock gripping my racing
heart. The man stood there, wrinkled
and weather beaten, face below a stained old cap.
I recognized Randy Davidson a split second before he spoke.
Well, I'll be gone. He drawled, recognition sparking
in his eyes as Gray as his hair. The remnants of the old rash on
my torso twitched dully. It's you again.
What are you doing back out? His question was suddenly cut
short as a massive pale shape lunged from the growing shadows
around us. The hulking white thing moved
soundlessly as it took Randy into the muddy ground.
He let out a gasp as the air was knocked out of him with inhuman
speed. It whipped around to face me and
my existence ran cold as I laid eyes on its all too familiar
grin and greasy flesh. The stench of the rotting Moss
wafted over me. Pale orbs twitched in their
membrane covered sockets as the horror struck in me, a single
triple jointed arm reaching out and bashing into my torso.
The thing hit with the strength of a feral beast, bolts of pain
shooting through my torso. The lightning fast strike sent
me skidding and stumbling backwards, the feeling of
weightlessness overtaking me as I tumbled into the pit at my
back. I was still attempting to get
air in in response to the creatures strike when I hit,
water stinking, liquid rushing in.
I have landed almost directly onto the dog.
I lurched upwards out of the shallow pool, alternatively
gasping for air. Adrenaline roared in my ears.
I could hear the sounds of struggle above crashing branches
and spattering mud, accompanied by Randy's voice of terror.
I scabbed at the slick Moss and roots around me, attempting to
haul myself out the short distance of the sinking pit.
Slipping on wet vegetation and collapsing mud, I managed to
drag my shoulders above the edge of the sinkhole.
I saw Randy struggling against the pale thing that stalked the
old growth, pinned to the ground with its hooked nose mere inches
from his face. I watched in horror as the thing
craned its neck downwards with an almost Serpentine sway,
joints creaking as it did so. It parted its long, blunted
teeth. His screams were muffled as the
thing leaned in. They held their struggling as I
hauled myself out of the pit. Then it craned backwards,
turning its face to meet my terrified stare.
Randy had a breath, its teeth clenched in a disgusting mockery
of a grin. I sat up on all fours at the
edge of the pit as it released Randy spectral grace, bellying
its monstrous size as it rose to its full towering height.
Joints and tendons creaked within its gaunt self as it took
slow and purposeful steps towards my prone form.
A deep cloaking click slowly emanated from the depths of it
as it reached towards me with its black fingernails when all
of a sudden I was yanked to my feet and dragged to the side.
It was Randy, coughing as he pulled my jacket collar.
Come on and run. He gasped, not letting go of me
as he began sprinting into the woods that surrounded us.
I pumped my legs to keep up the speed of terror propelling me.
We dove through the old growth, ancient trees seeming to twist
around us in the growing darkness.
Mud clotted our boots and threatened to pull us into the
ground with every step we took. I followed Randy, hoping he had
a destination and was not simply running into the woods in a
panic. Looking over my shoulder, I
could not see the thing following us, but I could hear
it somewhere in the gloom as it laughed and called noises like
the hellish fusion of a squealing pig in a cackling
lunatic. I don't know how long we fled
into the darkening night. The sun had disappeared
completely by the time we stopped, panting for a breath
and nervously eyeing the woods around us.
Randy kneeled over with his hands on his knees and waved a
finger past me. I turned to check what he was
pointing at and saw a dark shape blooming out of the darkness,
the blocky bulk of a lightless cabin.
I helped Randy towards the structure as he fumble around in
his pocket, producing and jangling a heavy laden key ring.
He seemed sluggish, as if the run had taken a steep toll on
him. We crossed the creaking porch
with haste. The cabin was a plain thing of
log Timbers, beaten and drained by weather and age until they
were desiccated in Gray. I stared grimly at the wooden
door, which bore a crude and obviously recent carving of an
ex. Randy put an old fashioned iron
key into the lock and pushed the door open.
Hurrying inside, I followed Randy Fumble ahead of me in the
darkness, rattling objects which I could not see.
I heard the telltale sign of laughter followed by a flash of
Flint, then after a few seconds, the flickering glow of a tiny
fire set dancing illumination to weakly fill the space around us.
The cabin was tiny, one room of maybe 15 feet on each side.
A small cast iron stove, caked beyond usefulness by thick
layers of rust, with an old pile of firewood at its side, stood
to my right. Directly ahead was a square
table on which rest an electric gathering of woodworking tools
and dining utensils in 1/2 hazard stacks, as well as the
flickering candle that Randy had lit. 2 stools waited, tucked
underneath the table's edge. At the back of the room was a
simple bed sheet stretched across the lumpy mattress,
almost entirely eaten by moths and mice.
Small glass painted windows glinted in the candlelight.
Everything was drenched in dust and a smell of mildew, obviously
untouched for years. Randy lurched past me, slamming
the door shut and ramming the lock closed.
As he moved close to me, I could smell foul sweat rolling down
his pores. Help me lock the shutters, he
said. I moved to oblige him, pulling
the heavy wooden shutters over the small windows and looping
the hook locks closed. He talked quietly as he worked
to close the windows on the other side of the cabin.
Great Grandpa's hunt and cabin came out here once or twice when
I was a kid with my old man to check on the property after my
grandpa sold it off. He paused to expel a hacking
cough. Lucky I even remembered where it
was. I glanced over my shoulder as I
moved to the final window on my side of the room.
Randy, what is this thing? Your guess is as good as mine.
I ain't never seen anything like it before in my life.
I heard him take a shaky breath. My granddad used to say
something wasn't right about these.
Woods would tell us things. My old man would spin them off
for spinning ghost stories. Well, what do we do now?
I never should have come back. The hinges creaked as I forced
the shutters against the window. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have.
Randy trailed off as he struggled with his own window
behind me. Randy.
I probed as silence began to grow.
As I slowly turned to see the cause of the quiet, a foul sound
and stench got to my senses. A wet, rumbling expulsion of gas
and a vicious spattering upon the ground and the burning odor
of sickness. Sulfur brought stinging tears to
my eyes. What?
Randy, are you kidding me? The angry words stopped as I
whirled around to face him. Randy stood facing me, shivering
in place. His face, gaunt and pale,
streamed with sweat and tears which ran down and pulled in his
deep wrinkles of his skin. Dark circles, the deep purple of
an old bruise, had formed under his eyes, which stared blankly
ahead. His nose dribbled with spit and
mucus. Randy whispered in a quiet well
Dang before going to the ground, sliding down the old Timbers to
lay against the cabin wall. Fighting back panic, I rushed to
his side. He rolled his head weakly to
face me. Oh my Randy, what's happening?
I took his sweat drenched hand in my own.
Granddad got sick like this, came back from the woods one
night, came back like this. Randy let out a slow cough.
Nobody ever knew what happened. He didn't even make it through
the night that it had got him. Nobody knew what he was talking
about. Help me.
As he spoke, the boards of the cabin porch let out a creak.
Randy let out a noise. Oh no, please.
He stared at me with begging eyes toward me.
Please get me. The X shaped rash on my torso
felt as if it were on fire. Slow, taunting, scratching
rattled along the floor with his free hand, Randy at my side.
His face was a shattered mosaic of pain and strenuous effort,
drenched in sweat of sickness. With a weak sound, he brought
his head up, clutched his pail and shaking fingers with my
pocket knife, the one my dad had given me long ago.
He pressed and folded the blade into my hand.
Please don't let me go like my grandpa did.
He softly baked the door at my back groaned as slow, even
pressure was applied. Randy's sorrowful, cloudy eyes
stared at me. My torso was a stinging matrix
of pain. I held my breath as I stared at
the little implement in my hand, then back at Randy.
There was a sharp pop and a clatter as the lock snapped and
fell to the floor behind me. He gasped for a final moment
before falling silent further, slumping soundlessly.
I kneeled there, sobbing as the floorboards behind me creaked
with a heavyweight. A click emanated directly from
above me. I closed my eyes.
A heavy hand came to rest on top of my head, inhumanly long
fingers stroking my face. I sat immobile as creaking
joints moved above me, more deep chittering, the sound of
dragging in a heavy thump. The hand left my head.
The sounds and creaking floorboards retreated towards
the door and then were replaced by the cracking of something
dragging across the forest floor, deeper into the old
growth. I sat in the cabin, eyes tightly
shut, until weak rays of sunlight warmed my back through
the open doorway. I opened my aching eyelids.
Randy was gone. He was pulled away, leaving
behind a dark trail which disappeared into the woods.
I rose to shaking feet. Mindlessly, I wandered the old
growth. I trudged, unfeeling and
unthinking. I must have stumbled circles
around the forest for hours. In the end, I found myself
staring at my truck, my fateful old Piper, through bleary eyes.
On the stark white paint of her hood smeared was a huge
forester's ex. A squealing cackle echoed
somewhere in the distance of the woods where the lines crossed.
In the center of the hood rest my pocket knife, clean and
folded. The world has all but forgotten
the old growth, but I never will.
So I've never really told anyone about this, and I don't really
know how to properly explain what I saw, so this is my first
and best attempt. My name is Zach and I moved to a
northwestern city in Washington state in early 2018 and I didn't
really know much about the area. I had recently gotten out of a
pretty bad relationship which actually led to me moving to
this new city. Best decision of my life by the
way. I lived with my mom and her
roommate for a while until I could get my own place and
everything was going pretty well.
I had a nice job, made some good money, and I had little to no
rent. Plus, I was making a lot of new
friends. One night, about two weeks into
my new move, my buddy, let's call him Jay, invites me to go
play some pool and have a few drinks.
It wasn't too late, maybe 9:30, so I happily accepted the
challenge, grabbed my phone, which I had unfortunately
forgotten to plug in when I got home from work, search for my
keys, and got in my car. 10 minutes later, after blasting
Blink 182 and some screamo music, I pull up to the bar.
My buddy is already outside and waiting for me, and I sat in my
car for a minute before I went to say what's up.
We played pool for a while that night, won a few games, lost a
few games before I felt like going home around 11:50 PM.
My buddy said he's going to stay and hang out with some people he
knew there and so I left to go get my car and readied my phone
for Google Maps to find my way home.
And no power. It had run down while I was at
the bar and I didn't know these streets very well, but I didn't
want to face the shame of walking back inside to tell my
friend that I didn't know how to get home, so I decided to chance
it. I mean, it wasn't even a 15
minute drive, it was pretty close by, right?
Wrong. I got lost.
About 10 minutes later, I realize I've taken a few too
many wrong turns and ended up in this residential area with
unfamiliar houses and streets. I kept driving on and on down
these streets trying to find a familiar landmark or familiar
street name so I could find my way home, but all I found was
more and more of these strange residential houses.
But then this weird fog started rolling in.
Now, fog isn't that uncommon in the Pacific Northwest, and I
know that, but this fog felt off.
It felt heavy. It was this light Gray color
with a hint of tan, and it was swirling.
It also stayed close to the ground and never really went
above the tops of the houses. What really freaked me out was
when I swear I kept seeing these small bipedal creatures running
along the houses, through people's yards, following my
car. I could never get a close look
at them to get perfect detail, but they were about two to three
feet tall, Gray oily skin, and had what looked like white hair
on their heads. These things were fast too, and
there were about six or seven of them.
They were just running through this fog, and the further I went
down these roads with them, the thicker the fog was.
No matter how slow or fast I was going, they kept following me.
Or was I following them? I could have been following
them. I mean, they were always at my
side and in front of me. I never saw them behind me.
Were they leading me somewhere? They were so mesmerizing, I just
wanted to keep following them just to see where they were
going. But I knew better than that.
Something felt wrong. I had to get out of there.
I got that weird 6th sense feeling of I shouldn't be here
right now right before something bad happens.
All of the sudden this dark Gray and white wolf came running out
of the fog right in front of my car.
I quickly slammed on my brakes, nearly crashing into one of the
parked cars along the street. This wolf just stood there in
the middle of the street looking at me and I swear we locked eyes
for what felt like hours. But then BAM, the wolf bolts
down the street and I instinctively follow.
I slammed the car in Dr. peeling out and began to follow this
wolf down side street after side street.
This wolf stayed right in the middle of the street the entire
time. It was crazy.
I had never seen anything like this in my life.
I didn't even think there were wolves in this area this close
to the city. It wasn't long before I noticed
that the fog had gotten lighter and eventually disappeared.
That was when I realized that I'm on the road that I recognize
that actually leads me to the direction of my house.
With a confused, amazed look on my face, I glanced back to where
the wolf was at, just to see it dart off into the forest, never
to be seen again. I got home safely that night and
to this day I still have no idea what I experienced that night.
MY2 buddies and I went on a hunting trip for Bull Oak last
November and we're having a great time to say the least.
That, however, would soon change after what we saw on the third
day. Now, I'm not one for
superstition and I don't believe in ghosts and all that, but what
we saw out there really changed my view about those sort of
things. The trip started out normally
after we parked our trailers at camp.
We got there a day before the hunt officially started so we
could settle in and get some scouting done.
Only Eric and I had licenses because Brian didn't draw this
year, but he wanted to come along with us anyway.
Brian also brought along his German Shepherd named Lucy,
which stayed back at camp with a leash that was connected to a
metal spike. The spike was so deep in the
ground that I wondered if he would be able to get it out.
I asked Brian and he just told me that his dog was so strong
that it had to be that deep. I enjoyed playing with Lucy.
She was always excited to see me and would greet me by jumping up
on her two legs and trying to lick my face.
Eric, however, was not amused by her and would constantly yell at
her to leave him alone. Anyway, the first two days we
saw so many cow elk in the valleys and on the sides of the
mountains that I thought for sure we would see some bulls out
there, but there were none among them.
It wasn't until the third day of the hunt that we saw a bull elk,
but it was too far away to take a shot at, and even if we were
able to hit it, it would take hours trying to pack that thing
out. So that evening we decided to
hunker down to some fallen trees and we're able to watch the
hillside. While we were surveying the
area, Brian spotted a coyote about 250 yards walking to a
small pond of water. Eric took out his binoculars to
take a closer look and he started to describe it, saying
that coyote, it ain't right looking.
It has a hunch on its back like a bear.
And it's jaw, oh man, it's jaw seems like it's broken and now
it's just drooping there like a fish.
Let me see those binoculars, I asked curiously with an
outreached hand. Eric handed them to me.
I took them and looked at the animal and said.
You're right, that thing's jaw is just hanging there.
Also, did you happen to notice its hair?
It's so long and unevenly dispersed.
I then handed the binoculars to Brian and he looked at the
coyote for a second and screamed.
Brian, shut up, we're hunting. Eric whispered harshly.
What did you see? I asked as I looked at his
shocked facial expression. Brian looked at his feet as he
muttered. I I saw my dog Lucy, but it
wasn't her. I don't know what that was.
It couldn't have been your dog. When I looked at it, it didn't
have a large black spot on its back or your dog strawberry red
sides and underbelly. I said in a plain yet confused
manner. Well, since we ain't going to
see anything out here because you scream like a baby, I'm
going to go put that coyote out of its misery.
A large shot followed and we saw the animal drop soon after.
It was a clean takedown and Eric was curious about seeing what
was wrong with the animal up close, so he started getting
ready to hike out. As he got his stuff together, he
said you probably just didn't get a good look at it.
Brian, your dog is fine. Brian stood up and he brushed
the dirt off himself and replied.
I swear I saw my dog, but an evil demented version of it with
human eyes. But you guys are probably right.
There's no way she could have had the strength to yank the
metal spike holding her back at camp.
Well, let's go find the truth about this animal.
I said somewhat excitedly as I started walking toward the
animal. It took us about 1/2 an hour to
hike over to it and we lost sight of the animals corpse as
we pass through some trees. Once we finally got to the spot
where the animal had dropped, there was nothing, just a puddle
of red. However the red was blackish and
very dense. Eric observed the scene and
started to scratch his head as he said there's no way it could
have just gotten back up and walked off.
I had an eerie feeling about the whole situation and Brian was
still afraid that it might have been his dog.
Eric, however, noticed a trail leading to the dark tree line.
Without asking, he started to follow it as he did.
Brian and I were both freaked out and just watched Eric as he
ran into the forest. He soon went out of sight and
Brian and I could not leave him there, so we waited.
I passed the time by taking a skinny stick and poking it
through the puddle of red. It smelled terrible, so much so
that my stomach convulsed and I threw up.
You OK? Brian asked as he put his hand
on my back. Before I could answer there was
a loud shot that echoed through the trees and we both looked at
the direction it came from. Must have found the animal.
I said as I spit into the grass. As soon as I said this we could
now see Eric and he was full on sprinting.
Run. He screamed as he ran at us.
I was able to ask him what happened, but Brian grabbed my
arm and yanked me towards where we had parked the truck.
Without hesitation, I ran. We soon made it back to the
truck. I looked back at Eric who slowed
down for nothing. I soon looked behind him and saw
nothing chasing us, so I opened the truck and got in without
worry. Eric then climbed in and told me
to hit the gas and go. I was so perplexed on what Eric
saw out there and I knew that he hardly ever got scared of
anything so this started to freak me out.
I started driving fast back to camp.
I don't know man, that was no animal.
I followed the trail and it stopped at the base of the tree
and I was wondering how a coyote was able to climb a tree, but
when I looked up I saw this hairy humanoid creature there.
It smelled so bad. Eric went on about how scary
that thing was and how he was done with this hunting trip and
wanted to go home. We soon pulled into camp and
mutually decided that we were going home.
I started to pack my things then felt like something was missing.
I then thought to myself, Lucy, where's Brian's dog?
She usually is always excited to see us back at camp.
She can't stop whining and barking to be set free.
As soon as I thought this, Brian started screaming and crying.
I ran over to where he was and his dog was gone.
However, on further inspection I noticed what Brian was looking
at. Something had pulled out the
metal stake in the ground. Brian just could not stop crying
and Eric ran over to see what was wrong and just stood there,
jaw dropped and frozen. Skinwalker.
Eric said in a low tone of voice as he looked in the distance.
He then screamed. It's a skinwalker.
I followed his gaze and saw an animal that looked like Lucy,
but it had human eyes and a sickly green glaze looking coat
of fur. Brian stopped crying and just
stood there, eyes locked on the beast.
Eric whispered with his voice quivering.
We all run to the truck on the count of three.
Just leave everything else. Brian and I slowly nodded and
agreed to the plan. OK, 321, Eric whispered sharply,
and we took off like a pack of gazelles for the truck.
We hopped in and as soon as we did, we saw the skinwalker lunge
at us and struck the truck on the right door with such a
powerful blow that it nearly tipped over the whole truck.
It didn't stop me whatsoever, and I drove out of there faster
than I ever have before. After that, none of us ever went
hunting again in that area. We never even went back to claim
our camping trailers and supplies.
It was too terrifying to think that what happened to Brian's
dog could happen to us and that thing would walk around in our
skin. Since that experience, I am now
a superstitious person. There are places in the Rocky
Mountains that are known by word of mouth as forbidden areas.
This is not because they are private property or owned by the
government, but rather because of what lurks in their mists.
Anyone stupid enough to wander into these areas, even
unknowingly, will be haunted, cursed, or most likely never
heard from again. Many cases of missing people in
the wilderness are people who have wandered into these
territories and who have never come back.
These restricted areas can be found all across the world in
diverse places. I heard of some of these
stories, and one mountain area in particular caught my eye.
The stories about it all varied in their description of the
creature that lived in there, but they all described the red
eyes and sound. It admitted exactly the same,
and some older people explained that that was all you could see
of the creature and the darkness.
However, the main thing that they focused on was the sound
that it made. Supposedly it was like a deep
clicking sound. It supposedly sent nerves
chilling up and down your spine. I was young, immature at this
point in my life, and so after hearing these stories, I was
very intrigued because I was always fascinated with the
supernatural. My entire life.
I had binge watched all of the TV shows that involved ghost
hunting, so I wanted to do some exploring for myself and act
like I was some famous ghost hunter.
And so I also took a camera with me into this supposedly
forbidden mountain area, among other simple hiking supplies.
I started in the early morning light on the trail.
I was not quite yet into the forbidden area when I saw an old
man with an antique looking cane off the side of the trail,
sitting on a decaying log. I nodded at him while keeping a
steady pace, trying to avoid conversation with the man, but
he asked me in an old scratchy voice.
Where are you headed, young man? You seem awfully eager to be on
your way. I stopped and replied, staring
at the man's wrinkled face. Nowhere in particular, just out
for a hike, that's all, really. The man sat there staring me
down for a while straightening his back and said I feel an evil
presence stirring within you. Your true intentions are not
what you have told me. I stood there perplexed by what
he said. I then thought to myself what is
this man talking about? I have no evil intentions.
The man then spoke before I was able to ask him a question.
Saying the path you choose is your choice, but I'm warning you
that whatever it is that you are pursuing on this trail, I beg of
you, may you please rethink it. Look here man, I have no evil
intentions and there's no darkness inside me.
I'm just going for a hike. I replied with a weirded out
tone. He who seeks after the forbidden
land seeks after darkness, and he who seeks after darkness will
surely become it. The man stated firmly as he used
his cane to stand on his feet. My insides begin to twist
because this man actually knew what I was doing up here.
But how? I have told no one about this
trip, so I asked who are you and how do you know where I'm going?
Young man, this is not important.
Listen to me when I tell you to turn around, for there is only
demise where you are headed. The man said as he began to
shuffle down the trail. What are you talking about?
I asked hesitantly, wondering what the man's background story
was. However, he did not reply and
continued down the trail. I looked down at my watch to see
how much time I lost by talking to the man.
Dang, was that really 10 minutes?
I said to myself as I quickly looked back to where the man was
walking and saw that he was gone.
He was far too slow to have gotten back to the tree line,
but there was no other explanation of where he went so
fast. I shrugged it off as some crazy
old guy in the forest trying to keep people from going on his
land that he's squatting on. He is probably growing some
illegal plants out here and is trying to scare people away from
finding it. It reminded me of some
scooby-doo story plot. I tapped my camera that I had in
my bag pocket and thought to myself how fun it would be to
expose this man and prove all the people scared by this
so-called forbidden land wrong. It would be a pleasure to yank
the mask off this old wrinkling man's face.
Time continued to pass and soon I was in the heart of the
restricted land that fell between the two mountains and
was mainly a rocky valley hidden under large ponderosa Pines.
The sun began to sink behind one of the mountains and I prepared
my camera to take the video of the man dressed as a monster.
I was so eager I could hardly maintain my composure, and I
even let out shivers of excitement.
It was at this time I thought I felt a cold chill tickle my
spine and a feeling of uneasiness came upon me.
The wind spun with darkness, entwined with its every twist
and turn. My heart began to pound with
every pump. I quickly looked up from the
camera on the rock and gazed around me.
I saw nothing out of the ordinary until I saw a dark
glowing red dot hidden behind a tree.
It looked bright red, and it reminded me of the description
of the monster. I shook off my nervous feelings
and got back to business. So I quickly turned the camera
on and faced it toward the tree. I last saw the red eye.
There was nothing there now. Huh, where did you go?
I whispered to myself as I zoomed in on the tree.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a dash of blurred light and
I turned swiftly and started recording.
I now saw 2 red eyes peering at me from a rock that was about 50
meters away. I once again zoomed in the
camera on the rock the creature was on and there was no red dots
on the cameras view, but strangely I could see them clear
as day with my eyes. Come on, pick this up.
I silently screamed at the camera while doing all the
adjusting I could on it, trying to get it to pick up the eyes.
After a few moments I looked up and the eyes were gone but a
faint sound began to echo through the trees.
Now I knew for sure that this was no animal but had to be the
creature or the man dressed like 1.
The sound began to become more clear and less faint.
It started to scare me with every clicking type sound that
cut through the already quiet breeze.
I made sure the camera was recording just in case I was
able to pick up the sound. I grabbed a stick that was lying
nearby and wielded it. The sound grew louder with every
aching moment, and my heart rate grew as it did.
Then, straight ahead of me, the figure with its red eyes with
black pupils was crawling towards me.
It was a humanoid figure with patches of fur covering parts of
its body, but the rest was a sickly pale skin with splotches.
My stomach shot up and I was frozen in fear.
I knew for sure that there was no crazy man dressed up as a
monster by how it moved so inhumanly.
As I stood there, the things clicking sounds grew louder and
more aggressive and slowly crawled toward me.
The only thing that I could think of was run, so I threw the
stick at the beast and sprinted back into the trail, leaving all
my gear but the headlamp I had on.
At this point the sun had gone down and no remnants of it
remained. I just ran, not looking back for
any reason. A loose rock rolled out from
under my foot, which sent me barreling down the side of the
Rocky Hill. My sleeveless legs and arms were
all cut up now. Behind me I heard rocks being
knocked down and branches snapping, and that awful sound
it makes grew louder. I thought about getting up and
running, but my ankle ached too much so I swiftly looked around
for any cover, but the only thing I could find that was
close enough was a Bush with dried up leaves.
I had no choice, so I curled up inside of it and turned off my
headlamp. My heart began to calm down as I
heard the creature become quiet. However, the things deformed.
Human face with holes for ears and a mouth large enough to
swallow a whole animal caught my gaze.
Its eyes glowed in the dark and I felt sick to my stomach
looking at it, so I closed my eyes and prayed it wouldn't find
me. After a few minutes of silence,
I chose to open them and the humanoid creature was there,
just staring at me. I met its eyes, and as I did, I
felt dread. All my nightmares popped into my
head at once. The only thing I could do was
scream. It then lunged at me and my
world went dark. The sun was shining bright in
the clear blue sky. I slowly opened my eyes and
remembered what had happened and I jumped to my feet.
I looked around me and thought I had gone to heaven.
There were beautiful trees, soft looking grass, and a cabin with
smoke coming out of it. I headed toward it and knocked
on the door. The old man answered with a
smile on his old wrinkly face. So how'd you sleep?
You've been out there for two days now?
The man asked while brushing his hair on his chin.
I replied in a confused tone and then asked what happened to that
creature. Well, I knew you'd be stupid
enough to not listen to me, so I followed you to make sure you'd
make it out safe. Well, at least most of you would
make it out safe. What do you mean by most of me?
I asked hesitantly. The man's smile went away as he
grabbed his cane and tapped my right leg.
I could see his cane hit my leg, but I felt nothing.
The old man cleared his throat and said.
Your leg is gone. If you haven't noticed, it's the
price you had to pay for going into that land.
Oh and you're one of the lucky ones young man.
Many people go missing in these parts and are never heard from
again. I stood there shocked as I
rolled up my pants to see a wooden leg up to my knee.
I was amazed that I haven't noticed until now.
I then asked as I saw that he had all of his limbs.
How do you go on that land and not get attacked the same way I
was able to get to you? That thing hates light, but only
natural light such as a fire, not artificial light.
Flashlights do nothing but edge on its curiosity.
The old man said while opening up a plastic cooler.
So I guess my leg was eaten by the time you were able to save
me? I asked as I examined my fake
limb. The man took something out of
the cooler and turned toward me. He was holding a leg when he
said no. My pet out there gets the
scraps, I get the tender parts.