My friends and I live where it's blisteringly hot in the summer,
so we got into kayaking and paddle boarding.
It's a natural remedy for the most brutal summer days.
Over the years we've come to prefer certain lakes, rivers,
and even annual events. The water community itself is
super cool and tight knit. They plan all kinds of dope
activities throughout the season.
One pretty cool thing that they do in our neck of the woods is
the night paddles and the vibe of these events can vary.
Some are planned as late night excursions downstream where a
team travels with minimal light at a nice slow pace, leaning on
their skills and each other for support to navigate the terrain.
This is considered a pretty dangerous pastime, but the folks
that organize it are top notch. Many are search and rescue
operators and they use these events for training.
The other type of night paddle is more like a rave on the
water. Everybody decks out their board
or kayak with all kinds of lights and glow sticks, even
glow in the dark paint. They bring inflatable rings and
rafts full of coolers, speakers, all the stuff you need to throw
a party. The rave night paddles were more
my style. I made sure to attend at least
one or two every year. Where we live, even at night,
temperatures can sometimes exceed 100°.
Well, as usual, my friends and I got invited to one of these.
We all agreed to go. I got my paddle board all decked
out and crafted some glow stick props for the night and prepped
all my gear. However, by the time of the
event, every single one of my friends had cancelled some
leading up to the day and the rest just failed to show.
They all had good reasons. I didn't take it personally, but
I was still fully committed to going solo.
I drove out to the parking lot, secured a space, and then
offloaded all my stuff, carrying what I needed down to the shore.
I wasn't drunk or high or anything.
I'd only have a few beers with everybody else once out on the
water as I had to pack up my own stuff and drive myself home.
That kind of thing was fun, but wasn't a reason to be
irresponsible. There were plenty of people in
the parking lot and along the shore down the waterway.
More would be showing up every hour.
You had to get there almost at sunset to get a decent parking
spot, otherwise you'd have to drag your gear for 1/4 mile just
to get to the water. I loaded up my paddle board and
set sail, neon tube lights lighting my way like a flagship
for a good time. Further down the river I could
hear dance music blaring and soon I joined the crowd in a
large, spacious body of water with enough room to fit a good
75 people or more. There were only about 20 or 25
so far, but there were girls dancing on paddle boards just
like mine, their bodies lit up with every manner of glow stick.
I cracked a beer and settled in with my feet in the water,
cheering and whooping to the music.
After an hour the place was nearly packed, brimming with
college age coeds floating in every direction.
I linked up with a few people I knew, being such a frequent
participant, and soon I fell in with a crowd of folks and felt
right at home. We drank a bit, played a little
floating beer pong under the rave lights, and danced our
asses off to the music. At one point I got in the water
a bit to cool off and enjoy the river.
I made a big show of falling backward off my board as the
punchline to a joke I made. When I fell into the water, I
felt something weird touching my back and shoulder.
It was only there for a second, soft and kind of slick, then it
swam away. I shot out of the water like a
bullet, caught off guard by whatever was underneath.
There was enough light and splashing that any fish or
snakes or whatever wouldn't be hanging around this pool.
If they were, they were literally hiding near the bottom
somewhere. Critters have never been a
problem at the night paddles I attended.
It was weird and I mentioned it, but we all pretty much just
brushed it off. It's a river.
It could be anything, even just some driftwood.
Regardless, it creeped me out. I decided I just wanted to get
out for a second. I needed to take a leak anyway.
I explained to everybody that I was going to hit the shore for a
minute. I grabbed my flashlight and
hopped off my board, deciding to wade over.
It was supposed to be quick, but I didn't take more than five or
six steps before I felt it again, this time on my shin.
I knew it was something near the bottom of the river.
It was moving out of my way at this point, weirded out.
I brought my other shin up to bang it off and it felt like my
leg touched an arm or something similar.
At this point I just thought it was a massive fish.
I got scared because I didn't really know.
I clicked my flashlight on and pointed it straight down.
To my complete shock and bewilderment, I saw a person
looking back up at me. He was in sparse snorkeling
gear, but I could make out the goggles, the mouthpiece, and he
even had fins on. I literally couldn't believe
what I was seeing. As I started to call my friends
over, the guy disappeared deeper into the water.
I called out and pointed. The others lit him up with their
flashlights too. At this point the guy knew he
was caught, came up and played it cool.
Everyone knew better though, they just started laying into
him. I guess this guy had been caught
a time or two at events like this.
He was the equivalent of a peeping Tom, watching girls
underwater, swimming around them without them even knowing, maybe
even touching them, who knows. He heard about these little get
togethers and decided it was a perfect place to get his rocks
off. The creepiest part of the whole
thing, at least for me, was that he would steal people's stuff
right off their paddle boards or kayaks and then like hold it for
ransom. It's very common for people to
lose all kinds of stuff, from glasses to wallets and keys,
phones, you name it, and for other people to find it later
along the shore or places in the river.
People have even found wedding rings years after they go
missing. Because of this, little groups
were created on social media to help return the lost items.
After these night paddle events, a bunch of people would post
their missing phones, wallets, whatever.
This creep would respond because he's the one who stole it.
He was the one collecting rewards from these people.
I knew a few people, specifically women, who had
gotten their phones back from this guy.
They all claimed that they were pretty sure someone had broken
into their phone. Like this guy was prying through
their personal stuff, texts, pictures, everything.
It's just a grim reminder that you can never be too careful.
You never know what kind of craziness people get up to, even
in the middle of the night in the middle of a river.
My name is Rob. For the past few years, I've
held the position of Deputy Team Leader at the Breen Mountain
Rescue Team here in Wales. The BMRT is an essential
emergency service in rural Wales, staffed entirely by
volunteers and funded by donations from the National
Lottery and members of the public.
Our work is not just restricted to mountain or wilderness search
and rescue for climbers and hill walkers.
Our skills are also deployed by the Welsh Police to search for
vulnerable or missing persons on assignments where we can employ
our specialist medical and rescue techniques.
I've seen some pretty wild things during my time in the
rescue team, some of which may be more distressing or
disturbing than others, some more than I care to admit.
However, there's only been one incident in my entire career
that myself and my colleagues have not been able to fully
explain. This is the story of that
incident. Mountain rescue teams can only
be called on the authority of the police.
A call is normally initiated by the local force in response to
A999 call or the report of a missing person.
The team can be, and usually is, called out at any time of day or
night under any conditions, even on New Year's Day and Christmas
Day. The relevant police personnel
will initially alert the rescue team by means of a pager or
message. A little outdated, I know, but
it reflects the slimmer than slim budget we're forced to work
with year in, year out. Once the volunteers receive
their I Will Respond message, the ball gets rolling.
A-Team leader or deputy team leader will then discuss the
details of the incident with the coordinating police officers and
decide on an appropriate rendezvous point and if any
additional assets need to be deployed.
These can include additional teams, tracker dogs or even
helicopter support if the situation calls for it.
So I'm sitting in the Drover's Arms pub with a few mates,
having just finished watching one of their younger brothers
represent their high school in a rugby sevens match.
Their team won, so spirits were high.
We've just finished some dinner and I'm about to get stuck into
my first pint of the evening when my beeper goes off.
I won't lie, I was a bit annoyed.
I'd really been looking forward to that pint, but we're
explicitly told to expect things like that.
Such is the life of a mountain Rescue volunteer.
Anyway, I let the lads know I had to leave, put my coat on and
began the 10 minute walk up to the small set of offices that
serve as the BMRT headquarters. It's early on a Sunday night,
most calls seem to happen around holidays and weekends, and the
place is empty. So I unlocked the doors, turned
on all the lights and walked down to my office to phone the
police liaison officer to get all the necessary details.
As I'm talking to the officer in question, my phone starts
lighting up with text messages from various other team members
telling me they're on their way. Everything was coming together
nicely, and the situation seemed to be a usual basic search and
rescue job. A couple of hikers went up into
the hills on Saturday, intending to camp overnight before heading
back down on Sunday afternoon, according to the person who had
called it in. The hikers hadn't returned on
schedule, nor were they answering any of their phones,
so they called us. Now, on more than one occasion
we've gotten calls from members of the public reporting missing
people who weren't actually missing at all.
Sometimes groups are slowed down by dodgy ankles or an upset
tummy or you know, something like that.
I get why someone might panic and it's always better to be
safe than sorry. That's why the BMRT exists in
the 1st place. So it always helps when the
person making the call knows a little about the missing persons
group, especially if they know the intended route so we can
retrace or follow it to the best of our ability.
That'll help us potentially find them nice and quickly, too, if
we can focus our search. We don't need helicopter
support, which saves us a huge amount of money.
I know that sounds callous, but we really do live and die on our
funding, so it's essential we keep the purse strings tight.
So I'm going through all the core details with the liaison
officer, determining the group's most likely whereabouts, trying
to figure out where they started and where they could have gotten
lost. We go through all the usual
stuff just like normal, then move on to the miscellaneous
details that can often aid a search.
These can include any medical conditions that might bring the
person into difficulty, age ranges, and things of that
nature. You'd be amazed how tiny,
seemingly insignificant details can help with the search, so
it's extremely important that we compile as much information as
possible, as quickly as possible.
Only when I pressed the liaison officer For more information
regarding the emergency call itself did she become awfully
coy. Very little in the way of
detailed information could be passed along regarding the
missing group. The only significant detail is
that the woman who had reported the missing was absolutely
distraught when she did so. The dispatcher had noted that no
matter what she did or said, she could not seem to reassure the
caller that their loved ones would be found.
The caller seemed convinced that the group of hikers was gone and
never coming back. Honestly, it's stuff like this
that has kept me in the BMRT for so long.
Being the hero that people so desperately need at what for
many is the lowest point of their lives thus far.
Less than an hour after the initial beeper messages, myself
and four additional volunteers had convened at the BMRTHQ,
ready to begin our search. Our route would take us over 16
miles of hills and mountains, roughly 5 hours of solid
walking, but it was likely we'd find the missing group of hikers
in a fraction of that time. At least that's what we told
ourselves initially. We did find something relatively
quickly, after only 45 minutes worth of hiking up gently
sloping trails, but it didn't fill us with confidence.
In fact, it did the very opposite.
We found a tent. An empty abandoned tent.
Being a BMRT volunteer sometimes means you're basically a
detective. You can use small pieces of a
puzzle to build up a larger picture of an overall situation.
What we had before us was an empty two man tent, but we were
looking for a total of 4 missing hikers.
What was clear was that whoever had set this tent up had been
able to make it down into the breed to report an emergency.
Only they hadn't. They'd apparently gone back up
the trail, but why would they do such a thing?
This escaped us completely. This was the first really
worrying sign. But what was obvious is that
they had done so without even wearing their hiking boots.
So they had climbed up the mountain barefoot in the middle
of the night. That's definitely not good.
This happened to be in the middle of March.
Not the coldest month of the year, but one which brings
strong winds to central Wales. Wind chill can lower ambient
temperatures by almost half and tends to be the cause of most
cases of hypothermia we encounter.
A hiker can look outside, see a sunny day and assume fine
weather, but once they're up a mountain, the wind can drop the
temperature into single digits and turn seemingly benign
situations into a deadly one. But it wasn't just hiking boots
that had been left behind either.
A fair amount of cold weather clothing had been left behind in
the tent, along with what appeared to be a significant
amount of food and water. It was at that point that any
hope of getting through this rescue without having to call in
helicopter support went right out the window.
Whoever was lost out here needed help, and quickly.
So we called it in and within a few minutes a search and rescue
helicopter had taken off from Neil Hall Hospital with the
intention of flying the length of our proposed route.
Our eye in the sky was on its way.
It was fully dark with no stars by the time we made the call,
and shortly afterward, we began to see red and white flashing
lights moving westward in the sky ahead of us.
The helicopters pilot and I exchanged greetings as they
tuned into our radio frequency, and I kept in touch with them as
best as possible as we advanced along our route.
What's more, it didn't take long before the copilot spotted
something unusual just about a mile or so ahead of us.
According to the helicopter's crew, they had spotted a person
running along one of the mountain trails in the opposite
direction we were heading. They had tracked the
individual's movement for a moment or two before losing
sight of them around a set of standing stones.
There are over 30 standing stones in the Beacon National
Park. Some of them are many centuries
old and wreathed in myth. It isn't known exactly how many
of the surviving standing stones are prehistoric.
Some appear to be memorial stones and others seem to have
had more than one function, either as boundary markers, way
marks on ancient trails, signposts, or even rubbing
stones for livestock. But whatever their purpose was,
we had our next rendezvous .1 that we would have to reach
quickly if we hoped to find our missing persons in good health.
It took about 45 minutes of hard hill climbing before we reached
the standing stones. They formed a high, rough circle
of about 5 huge chunks of granite, worn and misshapen by
the elements. According to the helicopter's
crew, the person they had been tracking had run off the trail
and into the standing stones before disappearing from view.
It was more likely that the helicopter had simply let the
person slip out of their Searchlight and lost track of
them. But why a person in peril would
run away from the rescue chopper and not towards it was a
complete and utter mystery to us.
I mean, yeah, stranger things have happened on previous rescue
attempts, but this little conundrum certainly left us
scratching our heads as we began to search for clues as to where
the person might have headed next.
After a minute or two of combing the area with only our personal
torches for light, one of the many team members called over to
me. Behind this standing stone, set
into a little hillock that was obscured from view, was a small
opening in the earth. I say small, but it was just big
enough for a fully grown adult to climb inside and what was
clear was that it was the perfect place for someone to
hide in and get away from the biting wind and rain.
I stuck my torch inside the opening and peered inside, only
then seeing how deep the passageway seemed to go.
Whales used to be a hub for the British coal mining industry and
the country is now littered with disused mining pits and shafts,
both ancient and modern. Knowing this full well, the
underground passage didn't strike me as unusual at first,
and I actually thought the missing hikers were lucky that
they might have come across something like this to shelter
them. I called out down the opening,
checking to see if anyone had slipped down the tunnel and had
gotten themselves stuck while trying to take shelter or
something like that. I received no reply.
I then called over to one of the other team members who had
happened to carry the majority of our climbing ropes.
We harnessed him up, staked climbing pegs into the earth
just outside the entrance, and began to lower him into the
opening to check for signs of life.
We lowered him down so far into the earth that I began to worry
about the prospect of getting him stuck, but thankfully we
didn't have to lower him any further before he found
something. He called out for us to pull him
up, alerting us that he had found an item of clothing that
possibly belonged to one of our missing hikers.
So we did just that. We pulled him back up, took the
item of clothing from him, and lowered him back down to
continue looking. As he did so, I took a quick
look at the jumper he had brought up and was struck by
something unusual about it. It looked old.
Really old. Clothing exposed to the elements
for long periods can end up looking pretty rough, but not
that rough. It appeared as though it had
been stuck down in that hole for far too long.
We didn't find anything else down that hole or the rest of
the mountain. We stayed up there until about
3:00 in the morning, long after our helicopter support had to
withdraw due to dwindling fuel. But we didn't find a single
thing. No more clothes, no more signs
of life, and no more bodies. The more it became clear that we
weren't going to find anything, the more I thought about how the
distressed caller seemed convinced that the hikers were
gone. She had no way of knowing that
whatsoever. Yet somehow she was right.
And that really didn't sit right with me at all.
Throughout the next week, two more search parties took to the
hills in hopes of finding a trace of our missing hikers.
Both came back empty handed. I expected reports of the
missing hikers to appear in local news publications.
Only they didn't. When I tried to find out why, I
was turned away by most police sources until one slipped that a
judge at the High Court of England and Wales had placed a
publication ban on the incident, meaning an order prohibiting
publication under Section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act in
1981 was in fact keeping all news of the incident out of
newspapers. But that's not what really
bothers me about this whole thing.
I mean, it's been confounding, sure, but it's another peculiar
detail surrounding the case that keeps me up at night.
The name stitched into the jumper we found down that hole
in the earth was Robert Williams.
I came to find out that this didn't match any of the names we
had been given regarding the missing hikers.
In fact, Robert Williams had been missing from a nearby town
of Neath since March of 2217, years before our missing hikers
were reported. Who was it that our helicopter
support had spotted before they disappeared among the standing
stones? Was it one of our missing
hikers, or was it in fact the long lost Robert Williams?
Regardless, I can't help but think I'll find the answers to
these questions at the bottom of that tunnel, hidden somewhere
among those standing stones. The Pacific Northwest is a
paradise for outdoor enthusiasts, and my boyfriend
Eric and I are no exception. The forests are so lush and
dense it's like walking through a jungle, coupled with the
breathtaking mountains in the ocean, turning it into a truly
one-of-a-kind area many of us just can't get enough of.
Eric and I try to get outside for a few miles at least once a
week and I swear we never see the same thing twice.
We met in college, bonding over our shared love of hiking,
backpacking, and paddle boarding.
If it happened outside, we both wanted to try it.
Our adventures had taken us to some of the most breathtaking
spots in the region. We've always found that our time
in nature just brings us closer together.
Having a mutual love and admiration for the outdoors only
nurtures the bond that we share, and it's been like that since
day one. That being said, there are some
activities we do more than others.
Day hiking has kind of become our go to hobby thanks to its
convenience and accessibility. Paddle boarding is fun but super
involved. Camping is great, but sometimes
requires a lot of time we don't always have available.
The more we adventure, the more we come to love one and done
trips that just burn up the miles as fast as possible.
We started as hobbyists and slowly whipped ourselves into
shape over time to the point that we actually had muscles and
pretty solid cardio. Hiking put us in the best shape
of our lives. We've explored countless trails,
each one offering a unique experience and a chance to
connect with the natural world. So when we heard about a natural
spring at the end of a long hike, we knew we had to check it
out. There are all kinds of
waterfalls, forgotten lakes, and lookout points we've hiked to.
Anything that we heard about the spring itself was rumored to be
a hidden gem, tucked away inside a secluded valley.
The hike would take all day, but the promise of a serene view and
chilly, clean water was too enticing to resist.
And all day didn't necessarily mean hard.
The trail itself actually had a pretty low rating in regard to
difficulty. We spent the week planning our
trip, pouring over maps and online guides, and preparing our
gear. Finally, the weekend arrived.
We set off early and eager to hit the trail.
As we drove to the trailhead, the excitement was building up
inside me. I love the sense of adventure
that comes with exploring a new trail, and the fact that this
one was a bit of a challenge in terms of length only added to
the allure. Eric and I had become
experienced hikers over the years.
We were confident in our ability to navigate the wilderness,
especially here in our own backyard.
We'd spent so much time in this area that we used to joke that
it was impossible for us to get lost.
Once we arrived at the trailhead, I felt this sense of
relief and adrenaline at the same time.
The parking lot was almost empty, a good sign that we'd
have the trail to ourselves. I have a bit of a complex when
it comes to our hiking. I don't like it to be a
spectacle. I don't like sharing every
little step of the path with people I don't know.
I know it sounds entitled, but I go the distance to just be
alone, not brushing shoulders with people, just trying to take
photos. We got our packs together,
loaded up on water and snacks, and immediately hit the trail.
The first mile or so was just stunning, like walking through a
jungle. The trees were tall and green,
their leaves rustling in the gentle breeze.
The trail itself was narrow and winding, but well marked, so we
made pretty good progress. But as we hiked deeper into the
woods, the trail began to get harder and harder to follow.
It splintered off in different directions, and in some places
it seemed to disappear altogether.
Eric and I exchanged a look at one point, our excitement
changing into curiosity. Bushwhacking a trail was nothing
new for us, and we welcomed the challenge.
We pulled out our little hand map and took a bearing, pressing
on. Hard to follow.
Trails aren't really uncommon here, or really anywhere, just a
factor of the terrain. Some areas encourage people to
wander in all directions and when this happens the trail gets
diluted and seems to go in every direction.
This had been the case in this area to the point that the main
trail turned into a ghost of itself and we really struggled
to follow it. We just pushed on with it and
did our best. After another hour or so we were
99% sure that we'd been successful.
The trail seemed to re establish itself along the correct route
deeper into the valley. Either way, the place was
breathtaking and had my attention pretty much held
hostage. I didn't care if we were lost.
The way back to the car was clear as day.
It would take miles and miles of unknown navigating for us not to
know where the car was. As we continued on the trail,
the beauty of the wilderness enveloped us once again.
The trees towered above their leaves rustling in the gentle
breeze. We walked hand in hand, taking
in the sights and sounds of nature.
There was water somewhere far off, like the echoes of a
waterfall, and it was carried up to us.
We lost ourselves in the woods, just soaked it in one beautiful
step at a time. Soon after this, we found
ourselves inside a small grassy clearing surrounded by three or
four different trails breaking off in multiple directions.
A large wooden sign stood in the center, but it was old and
vandalized. The letters were faded and
pretty much unreadable. This was a rest stop that we've
been counting on as it's well marked online.
Everybody said this was the intersection of many different
trail heads. One would lead to the spring,
one to the riverway, and several just went up towards a jagged
rock base that offered absolutely beautiful views.
The problem was we wanted the spring specifically, and without
the sign we didn't know which way to go.
Great. Eric said with frustration
etched on his face. Now what?
I pulled out our hand map, but it really wasn't much help.
The trail seemed to twist and turn in every direction.
It was pretty disheartening. Both thought the trail would
clean itself up and get more defined.
Alas, it was more diluted than ever.
Just then we noticed a man sitting on a log across the
clearing, dressed in worn hiking gear.
His face was weathered from years of exposure to the
elements. We shared a wave and Eric and I
approached him. He smiled pretty much right
away. Seemed friendly enough.
Like I mentioned earlier, I wasn't fond of approaching
strangers, but this was pretty much our only option in the
moment, so I was actually grateful to see a friendly face
out there, especially one that might have directions for us.
Hey there. Eric said, his voice almost
jolly. We're trying to get to the
spring, can you help us out? The stranger looked up at us,
his eyes squinting in the sunlight.
Ah, the spring. Yeah, it's a beauty.
Eric and I nodded. Can you get us there?
He asked. Yeah, sure.
He said. His face was weird, though.
He was kind of looking all around, not really making eye
contact when he said this. I didn't know what to think,
other than it was weird. Maybe he wasn't very social,
maybe there was a mosquito buzzing around his face.
Who knows? He said he had the directions,
and that's really all that mattered to me.
Great, I said, relieved. We're having a bit of trouble
finding it. The trails out here are pretty
unclear. The stranger nodded, his eyes
alight with a knowing look. Yeah, it can be tricky, but I
can help you out. The trail that you want is the
one to your left. It'll take you straight to the
spring. He pointed down the trail that
he indicated, giving additional directions.
Stay to the left, don't go over the boulder.
Stay left of that too. And when it forks, follow it
uphill, not downhill, even though the downhill side looks
more promising. He explained that we had to hike
a series of ascending switchbacks that would root the
hillside and then right to the spring, which was tucked back in
the furthest slot of the Canyon. Thanks.
Eric said, his voice grateful. How far is it, though?
The stranger's smile was cryptic in the moment.
Oh, it's not far, just a few miles.
You'll see some landmarks along the way, so keep an eye out for
an old oak tree with the carved initials.
That'll let you know that you're on the right path.
I don't know why, but I felt a shiver run down my spine as we
thank the stranger and continued on our way.
There was something about him, something unsettling that just
didn't quite add up. The more he spoke, the less he
looked at us. Once he did, he was looking at
my legs. It gave me the creeps.
I said thanks anyway and followed Eric down the path.
Super glad to have him with me. Otherwise, who knows with that
guy, he just had that energy of someone up to no good.
As we walked, the forest seemed to grow darker, the trees
twisting and turning in ways that seemed almost sinister.
I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched, that
unblinking eyes were trained on us from somewhere out in the
shadows. Eric.
I whispered, my voice barely even audible.
Do you hear that? He looked at me, his eyes
questioning. Hear what?
That right there, It's like crunch ING or something.
I could hear it somewhere behind us, inconsistent, distant
crunching off in the tree line. It sounded like walking, but I
couldn't tell if it was two legged or four.
It stood out to me because we hadn't heard or seen anybody
throughout this entire time, so a person all of a sudden hiking
parallel to us was pretty strange.
He shrugged, his expression reassuring.
It's the woods, babe. It's normal to feel a little
spooked. But I knew what I heard, and it
wasn't just the woods. Either way, I pressed on, eager
to put some distance between myself and whatever was
lumbering around behind the trees.
There are various predators out here, of course, snakes and
spiders, and Eric and I have had our fair share of encounters
with them. I didn't get the vibe that it
was any kind of animal like that around, though, as the birds and
bugs continued to bustle around making noise.
Usually, once a predator enters the area, everything moves on or
gets quiet. Whatever it was, I was the only
one who found it creepy. We hiked for another mile or so,
enjoying the terrain and views inside that area.
The sun was shining and birds were singing their sweet
melodies. But as we walked, that feeling
came back. The feeling of being watched.
Throughout this time, I kept looking behind us, and that's
when I saw him, the man from earlier, sneaking through the
brush, following us. Eric, look.
I whispered, tugging on his arm. He turned just in time to see
that guy creep back into the foliage.
What is it? He asked.
That guy from earlier. He's following us, I said, my
heart racing. I was sure that it was him.
He was a ways off, I'd say a good quarter mile, but the slope
we just climbed gave me a great vantage.
I pegged him the second I saw him.
You couldn't miss those scruffy clothes, that torn up red
backpack, same haircut and beard.
I mean, he was the only person we'd seen out here.
Who else could it be? Eric immediately shrugged it
off. Baby, he's probably just out
here hiking like we are. He has just as much right to be
out here as we do. I know what I saw, and I know it
didn't feel right. The guy was trying to keep
hidden at 1/2 Crouch, sticking close to the brush and branches.
I kept a close eye on the trail behind us, my senses on high
alert. This is exactly why I don't like
hiking with people I don't know. Another mile and we encountered
another couple hiking in the opposite direction to me for the
first time ever. It was a godsend they were using
the trail and going the opposite direction.
Looked totally normal. I was relieved to have
strengthened numbers, just in case that guy decided to pop out
waving a knife or something. We asked them how much further
the spring was. They looked at us with complete
confusion. You're not on the spring trail,
they said. This is the lookout trail.
It gets seriously steep. In about 1/2 a mile it starts to
climb up the Canyon wall. My heart immediately sank.
We'd been walking for close to two hours and now we were on the
wrong trail. We went back and forth with them
for a while just to clarify what they were saying and where we
were. Super disappointing, only added
more confusion and creepiness to the situation that I believe we
were in. I mean it's obvious right?
That guy back at the rest stop was not making eye contact with
us because he was giving us bad directions, or in other words,
lying out his ass. Now here was the real question,
was he just messing with us or was he setting us up for
something weird? I was grateful for the honesty
of the couple, as it told me they weren't involved with that
guy at all. Thanks for letting us know.
Eric said, his voice laced with frustration.
The other couple bid us farewell and then disappeared around the
bend. I gave them a brief warning
about that guy down there, just saying that he gave us bad
directions and that he was now coming up behind us.
They agreed it was weird and they would keep an eye out as
well. Eric and I stopped for a moment,
just taking inventory of where we were now, how far we'd gone.
I think Eric just wanted to settle and take the situation in
alone. I mean, we were out of options.
A lot of the day had gone by, so the spring was probably off the
table now we just needed to decide if we were committing to
the lookout point or turning back now for something else.
We wait our options for 10 minutes or so, long enough for
me to forget about scanning the trail.
And that's when we both heard it.
The shutter of a camera. It was so jarring that we
literally stopped talking and looked back at one another.
Went pale in the face, I could tell.
Now Eric was suddenly on board with the strangeness I've been
talking about. We both looked up to see that
stranger from earlier hiding behind the trees and branches.
He had a camera and he was snapping photos of us.
My blood immediately ran cold. And I know this sounds weird,
but stuff like this is literally my nightmare.
What a weird, creepy thing to do with people you don't know in
the woods. It implies a mindset that I
can't fathom. When I think about it, it still
makes my skin crawl. What the hell?
Eric exclaimed, his voice angry. He's normally a very level guy,
but I could tell he was seething and just ready to go ballistic.
Get away from us. I shouted, my heart racing.
I shouldn't have said anything, but I wanted to match Eric's
energy. Do my best to get this guy out
of here. The stranger didn't move, his
eyes just fixed on us with this unnerving intensity.
It's not like we were trapped or anything, but we were alone with
this guy in the wilderness and he was within 30 yards now.
He never said a single word, we just heard the shutter a couple
more times. Dude, what the hell is your
problem? Why did you give us bunk
directions? Eric asked this time.
The guy laughed a little, snapped another photo, and then
disappeared behind the tree trunk.
Remember, this is the Pacific Northwest.
The area that we found ourselves in was beyond thick, overgrown
to the point of jungle status. Huge leaves, blanketed branches.
This guy vanished like a ghost right in front of our eyes.
Now we were both officially creeped out and Eric did not
want to go off trail and risk getting injured or something.
With us being far from the car, we just turned around and
started that long slog back to the car.
It was something like 4 miles. We took this as a hard defeat,
but on the surface we were just glad to not have anything worse
happen. I don't know what that guy was
capable of. We didn't hear or see him again
after we turned around. We made it back to the parking
lot and didn't see another soul. We drove back home and theorized
what the hell that guy was about.
This all took place a few years ago and still to this day I
wonder why he took those photos and more importantly what he did
with them. It almost makes me ill thinking
there could be photos of me floating around out there.
Pictures that I'll never see. The sun fell below the mountains
as I settled into my solitary post atop Pine Ridge, my home
for the summer as a fire lookout worker.
I enjoyed the isolation, crisp mountain air, vibrant sunsets,
and the occasional rustle of wildlife in the underbrush.
A welcome reprieve from the chaos of the city.
This was my sanctuary, a small cabin with a panoramic view of
the forest, stretching endlessly in every direction.
As darkness took the forest, I turned on my oil lamp.
It's warm glow flickered against the wooden walls.
The radio crackled with static, a reminder that I was connected,
however tenuously, to the world below.
I kept my logbook nearby, jotting down the day's
observations and checking in with the Ranger station.
All clear, I reported, feeling a sense of pride in my
responsibility. But tonight felt different.
A dense fog rolled in as the sun sank, creeping up the trees like
a ghost swallowing the last hints of daylight.
I peered through my binoculars, scanning the sprawling woods
that now seem to swirl with shadows.
The sound of rustling leaves filled the air louder than
before, as if the forest was alive and whispering secrets I
couldn't quite decipher. Around midnight, my ease
exploded into full blown terror. It started subtly, a flicker at
the edge of my vision. I turned quickly, convinced I'd
see an animal or perhaps the wind playing tricks on me, but
there was nothing there. I returned to my logbook,
dismissing it as fatigue. Sleep had been elusive these
past few nights, and the shadowy edges of my mind were beginning
to fray. Then the first cold thump echoed
through the cabin. I held my breath.
It was followed by two more deliberate and rhythmic thumps.
Someone, something was knocking on the wooden exterior of the
lookout. Goosebumps prickled my skin as I
glanced around, my heart pounding.
The sound was organized, almost as if it was trying to get my
attention. Hello.
I called out, trying to sound unafraid.
Is anyone there? Silence yet.
The knocking resumed, louder, more insistent, each thwack
resonating through my bones. I peered out the small window,
straining to see through the fog.
The trees loomed like Sentinels, blocking any trace of movement.
Was it the wind? An animal?
Testing the boundaries of my sanity?
I returned to my desk, telling myself I was alone, and began to
write again, hoping to drown out the sounds.
But then I heard a soft voice whispering my name, barely
audible over the howling wind. Claire.
Chills cascaded down my spine. My name echoed in the emptiness,
its source lost to the night. Who's there?
I exclaimed, panic rising in my throat.
Show yourself. The answer came as the cabin
violently shook, rattling to the very foundation.
The knocking morphed into thunderous blows, as if
something immense. We're trying to breakthrough the
walls. I leapt to my feet, gripping the
table for stability, the lanterns flame dancing wildly,
threatening to extinguish. Stop it.
I shouted, eyes wide and frantically searching for
anything to explain this madness.
In my mind, I replayed every Horror Story I had ever heard
about Fire, lookouts, ghosts of past, Rangers, lost souls
wandering the woods seeking revenge.
I couldn't let those stories control me.
I had to remain calm. But the voices grew louder,
overlapping in a cacophony that filled my ears.
Claire, help us. We're trapped.
I stumbled back, heart racing, terror flooding my senses.
The air grew thick and heavy, the temperature dropping as if I
had entered a tomb. Against my better judgement, I
opened the door, desperate to confront whatever had invaded my
sanctuary. The fog swirled in, cold and
biting, wrapping around me like icy fingers.
Show yourself, I yelled into the void.
But all I saw were the intimidating silhouettes of
trees, their branches reaching out like skeletal hands
clutching at the sky. Then, in the dense fog, I
spotted them, figures emerging silently, pale and translucent.
Their faces were etched with anguish and fear.
They moved slowly toward me, mere shadows in the night, but
their eyes were piercing. I could feel their sorrow deep
within my chest. Please help US1 whispered,
echoing inside my skull. I stepped back, stumbling over
the threshold, my breath hitching.
What happened to you? I asked, desperation spilling
from my lips. Trapped.
The voice reverberated, a mournful chant that resonated
with the woods essence. We cannot leave, you must help
us. The figures advanced, and I
could feel their pain washing over me like a wave.
I realized then that they were lost souls, perhaps victims of
past fires or tragedy, forever haunting this landscape.
I wanted to run, to lock the door, but a force held me in
place, compelling me to listen. Tears filled my eyes as I
searched for words, something to ease their suffering.
What can I do? I asked, voice trembling.
They seemed to unite in a whisper, but I couldn't
understand it. Something about breaking a
barrier. Their voices, A haunting melody,
wrapped around my heart. The weight of their collective
grief bore down on me, and I thought about the fire season,
the control towers, and what I had learned.
That the woods were fragile, their spirits woven into the
fabric of nature. The only way to help them, I
realized, was through acknowledgement of their
existence and understanding of the life and death that occurred
in the very trees surrounding me.
Heart pounding, I returned to the cabin, moved to the center
of the room, and declared. I see you, I hear you, I
acknowledge your pain. I repeated it over and over, my
voice carrying into the emptiness.
Slowly, their forms began to dissolve, warmth flooding the
air, and the sorrow in their voices faded into a gentle,
whispering breeze. The voices turned into a murmur
and then slowly drifted away, leaving the cabin unbothered by
their long, haunting presence. As dawn broke, the fog lifted,
and I could see the sprawling expanse of the forest.
Exhausted, yet somehow relieved. I took a deep breath, knowing
that Pine Ridge would always carry the weight of those lost
souls, even as it stood guard over the living.
Some nights, as I sit alone in my lookout, I hear the rustle of
leaves and whispers in the wind, a reminder of that chilling
night. I learned to listen, not just
with my ears, but with my heart. And sometimes, when I'm in
solitude with my mind, the cries of the lost become an echo of
hope to those willing to hear. You should always remember there
are strange things in this world, but sometimes a small bit
of compassion can make everything OK, at least for the
time being. I know it's a bit of a
stereotype, but I've always heard it's hard to make friends
as an adult. I never really took this into
consideration until I was close to becoming a fat middle-aged
loner. I've lived in the same little
community for many years. After the kids moved out, it was
just me and the wife. Many of the guys I called
buddies had moved on to the city, gotten arrested, or simply
lost interest in being friends anymore.
Suddenly I had a lot of free time, lots of stuff I wanted to
do, but nobody to do it with. My wife and I have our own
hobbies and date nights, mainly going to the movies, but when it
came to outdoor recreation I was largely on my own.
My wife thinks activities like hunting and fishing are gross
and archaic. She's a girly girl and I love
her for it. About 10 years ago, I did the
unthinkable. I made a friend.
He was actually a guy I'd known around town, but one day at the
tackle shop we started exchanging info regarding
fishing spots and other stuff like that.
We decided to plan a trip out together.
We've been fishing buddies ever since.
My friend's name is Scott and my wife calls him my mistress,
which is pretty funny. Anyway, Scott and I are river
fishermen. We hit the lake sometimes if we
have the itch, but for the most part we stick to the moving
water. It's more fun and more isolated,
typically yielding a better catch too.
I compare fishing a lake and fishing a stream to driving an
automatic or a manual. Sure, they both get you from A
to B, but one of them is just more fun.
This particular trip was just like all the rest.
Scott swung by and scooped me up around 5:00 AM, just before
sunrise. We buzzed out of town and into
the woods. There are all kinds of old
logging and service roads that cut through the forest around
here, and Scott had the wise idea one day to get Google Maps
out to see which one got us closer to the river.
Not an actual parking lot near the stream, but a place we could
park along the road kind of in secret, then hike back to the
water itself. This way we'd come up on part of
the stream that others couldn't access, hopefully tapping into a
source of fish that were otherwise unknown.
Sure enough, he found a perfect little place way back in the
woodland where very few people knew the water cut through at
all. Man, I love this time of day.
Scott said, his voice low and gravelly as we drove down that
winding Rd. world. Still waking up and we're
already out here getting our day started.
I grunted in agreement, sipping at my coffee as the darkness
outside seemed to press in on us.
We've been coming out here for years at this point, but it
never really got old. There's just something about
being in motion when the rest of the world is still asleep.
It's like I know a secret that I can't share.
It's hard to explain, but I've always loved being an early
riser. Scott, not so much, but his love
for fishing overrides his laziness, so he gets his butt in
gear when he needs to. You know, I was thinking.
Scott said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
We should come back again tomorrow, before the holiday
weekend. I'd be down for that.
I replied, my eyes scanning the darkness outside.
But we'd have to find a way to make it work with our schedules.
As we drove, the trees seem to close in around us, their
branches creaking ominously in the wind.
Scott worked for the town. I own my own small business, so
throughout the week we stayed pretty busy.
Typical old guy stuff, you know? Almost there.
Scott said, looking out over the dash.
Hurry it up, I joked with him. Finally we arrived at the spot
where we usually parked. It was just this little hairpin
of a turn out, barely enough room to park his truck, but very
few people drove out this far, and it was still pretty early in
the morning. We didn't expect to see anybody
until the afternoon, if at all. We took a moment to bundle up in
the cab, put our fingers in front of the heater one last
time and took a final sip of coffee before we pushed out into
the wilderness. We unloaded our gear and started
the trek to the forest, our flashlights casting eerie
shadows on the trees. We went light, just a couple of
creel bags, our rods and whatever food and water we
packed ourselves for the day. It's easier to fish a stream
with light tackle, as you constantly find yourself moving
up and down the Creek, hopping rocks and maybe even climbing
trees just to get a little better vantage over the water.
I love this part. Scott said, his voice barely
above a whisper. It's like we're the only two
people in the world. I nodded, my heart pounding in
my chest. We walked in silence for a few
minutes, the only sound being the rustling leaves beneath our
feet. I'm not really afraid of
animals, or the dark, or anything for that matter, but I
am afraid of circumstances. That dark trek through the trees
was only a little unsettling for me, because if something bad
were going to happen, that'd be a damn good time for it to
happen. We each kept a firearm, most
outdoorsmen do, but it wouldn't be any use if a Mountain Lion
decided to stalk us through the dark, or if we accidentally
stepped into a snake pit. We did our best just to follow
that same little strip of terrain, trip after trip, year
after year, and hope for the best.
It had been working for us so far at least.
We stumbled along until we could almost hear water, which always
put my mind at ease. We were more than halfway at
this point. We used this big old ugly tree
as a kind of waypoint to let us know of our progress.
I lit it up with the flashlight and took in the gnarled old
form, that dead Gray trunk reaching up into a black maw in
the early morning sky. Then that's when we saw them.
A pair of boots, unlaced and upright, sitting at the base of
a tree. My heart skipped a beat as I
felt sweat come to life along my back and forehead.
In all the years that we'd been coming out to this area, we'd
never seen any evidence of another human.
Not Even so much as a piece of trash or a boot print.
Absolutely nothing. So to see something so personal
out there, it was really weird. What the hell?
Scott breathed, his eyes fixed on those boots.
He didn't move a muscle, almost looking like he was expecting a
person to jump out from behind the tree at any point.
I shook my head, my mind racing with possibilities.
Who would leave their boots out here and why?
It seemed like a delicate thing to just leave behind, especially
in the dark, but what did I know?
They could have been sitting here for a week, never to be
picked up again. It gave me this eerie feeling
that maybe something had happened to somebody out here.
We stood there for a moment, our flashlight beams fixed on the
boots. They seemed so out of place,
like a piece of a puzzle that just didn't quite fit.
Well, that's weird. Scott said finally, his voice
low and cautious. I nodded, my eyes scanning the
surrounding area. Yeah, it definitely is.
We looked at one another, and I could sense the unease in
Scott's eyes, but we didn't say anything more.
We didn't need to, we both knew this was something strange,
something that didn't belong in our little slice of wilderness.
We stood quietly and strained our ears for anything strange,
anything out of place. The silence stretched on for
what felt like forever, interrupted only by the
occasional chirp of a cricket or small bird waking up to the
early morning light. Let's just leave them.
Scott said finally, his voice decisive.
Maybe they belong to somebody, and they'll come back for them.
I nodded, and we continued our trek through the forest.
Now, as we walked, that silence seemed to grow thicker, like a
fog that clung to our skin. We didn't talk about the boots
anymore. We didn't need to.
I know we were both thinking the same thing, that it's something
strange, but ultimately, maybe it's nothing at all.
After all, it was just a pair of shoes.
It's not like we found a severed head or something.
Finally, we emerged from the trees and saw the river
stretching out before us, calm and peaceful.
The first rays from the sun glinted off the water like 1000
tiny diamonds. We stood there for a moment,
taking it in. Then we split up, each of us
finding our own spot to fish. We didn't go far.
I'd say maybe 50 feet or so, far enough that we wouldn't have an
issue getting our lines tangled, but also close enough that we
were both within earshot. As the day went on, we'd move
further and further from each other, sometimes a mile or two,
just to get all the good fishing that we could.
By midday we'd start working back towards one another, have
lunch, and then hit the river for another hour or two before
heading back to the truck. As I cast my line into the
water, I felt a sense of peace wash over me.
This was what I loved about fishing, the quiet, the
solitude, the sense of being completely alone in the world.
And yet, as I stood there, I couldn't shake that feeling that
I was being watched. I kept an eye on the other side
of the river, looking for anything along the bank that
just might be out of place. I imagined seeing footprints
scampering through the mud, but I didn't find anything.
Hey, Scott. I called out, my voice low and
casual. You see anything weird?
There was a pause, and then Scott's voice came back, equally
casual. Uh, no, man.
Just the usual, you know, fish, trees, water.
I nodded, even though he wasn't looking at me.
Yeah, me too. We stood there in silence for a
few minutes, the only sound being the gentle lapping of the
water against the shore. And then, without warning, a
fish bit my line. My heart skipped a beat, Just
like it does every time I get a bite.
Muscle memory took over from there.
Drop, hold, yank, reel. After a few good turns, I knew I
had him biting left, right down, up, before finally giving up and
letting me haul him in. Yeah.
I exclaimed, my voice loud and triumphant.
I got one. Nice, let's see it.
Scott's voice came back equally as excited.
I grinned, my heart pounding with excitement.
I hoisted it up and let Scott have a look, though it was only
about 12 inches long, not a trophy by any sense of the
imagination. It was proof that there were
fish here and they were biting. A good omen if you will.
I got it off the hook and released it per usual.
It's always been a little weird superstition of mine.
Let the first catch of the day go so he can tell the others
that were merciful. The hook is safe to bite.
I know it's silly, but it's just more old man thinking.
The sun came up, but Scott and I didn't move yet.
Catching a fish that early meant we were in the right place at
the right time, so we wanted to fish this pool raw before moving
on. I cast out a few more times and
tried some different jigging patterns but got nothing.
Scott, however, had a couple of bites and on the third landed a
decent sized trout, something like 18 inches.
I kept my line in, watching as he worked to get the hook free.
I wanted to see if he would put it on the trout line and keep it
or not. What happens next is one of the
weirdest things I've ever seen. As I watched Scott work the line
in the hook, I caught movement across the river in my
periphery. It was so quick and small that I
didn't even look over at first, but the moment it stirred, I
remember getting this dizzy, almost sick feeling.
I knew whatever was moving shouldn't be, and honestly I
think I was afraid to look. It was moving backward and
quickly disappearing into the foliage, and then it all went
still. This all happened in a matter of
a few seconds. Then, before I could shout any
kind of warning, something came flying out of the brush over the
stream and right at Scott. I thought it was a bird at
first, almost giving me a sense of relief, but as it started to
arch back towards the ground, I knew it was an object, a rock or
a stick, something like that. It hit Scott right in the chest,
and I could tell it scared the crap out of him.
He froze up, totally rigid from top to bottom, then dropped both
the fish and his rod and scrambled back from the water.
What the hell was that? I hollered over, setting my rod
down and slowly approaching. I pointed across the water.
It came from the other side of the river.
Scott took a moment to gather himself, then stood up and
scanned his little alcove. I think it was a rock.
He said as he looked around. Whatever it was, it was heavy.
Our eyes naturally wandered across the water, scanning for
anything and everything. I don't pack much heat when
we're out there, just this little snub 38 Special.
Even then, half the cylinder is full of snake shot.
If I came up on anything small I could take care of it, but much
more than a coyote, it's probably a goner.
Scott, on the other hand, carried his baby out there, a
wood handled stainless steel .44 magnum.
A real showstopper. He kept a hand on it as he
checked the surrounding area. We took another moment to
compare notes and I told him what I saw and he told me what
he felt. Whatever the case and whatever
happened, there was nobody to point a finger at.
We started entertaining weird theories.
Maybe some kind of rogue water current pushed a rock up and it
flipped out of the water. Maybe a raccoon threw one.
It was hard to be sure of anything when it happened so
fast. We went back to doing really the
only thing that we could, fishing the river.
This time we really didn't watch the water, just kept our eyes up
for anything weird. We stood a little closer to each
other this time. I wanted to mention the boots,
but I also didn't want to spoil the trip with fears and worries.
I kept my concerns to myself and just did everything I could to
enjoy the peace and quiet that would soon only be a Daydream.
However, I'd say maybe an hour later I caught a little
movement, a little disruption across the river that I almost
didn't look up for. Again.
Thinking about the incident earlier, I decided to look.
To my horror, I saw a sliver of a guy looking back at me.
He was shirtless, dirty, barely peeking around the tree trunk
across the river. I froze in place and did my best
to pretend not to see him. When I let my eyes flip back to
the guy, he was gone. Now I knew who threw that rock
earlier. I crept down to where Scott was
and nodded to get his attention. He came over and asked me what
was up. I think I just saw somebody
across the Creek. I said.
What Fishing? He asked, agitated.
He looked around and started scanning the area.
No, no, he looked like a kid and he didn't have a shirt on.
I clarified. How old?
Scott asked. I don't know, maybe 21?
We both looked back over the water.
There was nothing there. We agreed the whole thing was
weird, packed up and just headed downstream a bit.
This turned out to be a mistake. Truly, I wish we'd gone the
other way upstream. What we found downstream ruined
that trip and sent us packing. Back to the truck.
We came around a bend and saw this beautiful pool, one that we
fished often in one of the shallow sandy basins, though
there was what looked like gallons of blood all in the
water. Because the pool was so big,
Placid areas formed along the shores where the water moved a
little less, and so debris or whatever could actually choke up
there, much like the blood was doing.
We both stopped in place, looked at one another and just shook
our heads. At the foot of that shoreline.
I swear to God, there must have been 100 massacred fishes, all
sizes, all different species, all gutted inside out, some
smashed to a paste, others chopped up.
It took up the whole shoreline, the water, everything was
painted with blood and organs, and the gutted fish showed us
that whoever did this was human. No bear, no eagle, no animal at
the time would do this. It just creeped us the hell out.
We had a brief conversation, added everything up, and decided
it wasn't worth it. We packed everything up, turned
back into the woodland, and didn't even bother eating lunch
just to hopefully create a little more distance.
This wasn't the same route back through the woods that we
usually took, so we were a little off course, but still had
a pretty good idea of the direction we needed to go.
We kept a steady hand on our guns as we walked through the
trees, looking over our backs every few feet.
As we got closer, though, we had an itch.
Scott had mentioned it before, and we both wanted to walk over
to the old dead oak tree, see if those boots were still there.
It was only 10, maybe 20 minutes off course, so we redirected
ourselves and started cutting a path.
As I'm sure you can imagine, we got to the tree and there wasn't
any sign of those boots. In fact, there was evidence of
water in the dirt at the base of the trunk, like a person who was
wet from the waist down had been standing there.
We knew then that that person had crossed the river by foot,
had come back and got in his boots.
We chalked it up to a hunter or woodsman just having a rough
night. When we got back to the road, we
still hadn't seen anybody else. There were no cars parked near
us, so we really didn't know what to make of it all.
I mentioned calling it into some kind of agency, but Scott said
no, the guy was throwing rocks, he can find his own way back.
We left. Never saw that guy again, but I
can say that was the weirdest fishing trip of my life.
We ended up hearing later there had been this big college party
blowout a couple of nights before Search and rescue was
even called. Some of the guests took
hallucinogens, had wandered off and got seriously lost.
We thought maybe it was a leftover straggler from that,
but even then, what the hell was he still doing out there,
gutting fish by the dozen? The experience left us both
shaken and with a lot more questions than answers.
Every fishing trip after that, we were more cautious, more
aware of our surroundings, and frankly, less inclined to stray
too far from familiar waters. The wilderness had always been a
place of solitude and respite for us, but that day it revealed
a darker, more unpredictable side.
As we drove back home, the silence between us was thick,
each lost in our own thoughts. The usually lively banter about
our catches and the one that got away was absent.
Instead, there was a mutual understanding that we had just
experienced something out of the ordinary, something that neither
of us could easily brush off. In the weeks that followed, I
kept a keen eye on the local news, half expecting to hear
about a missing person or some bizarre incident in the woods
similar to what we had encountered.
But there was nothing. No reports, no follow-ups, no
closure. It was as if what we had
witnessed was isolated entirely to our own reality, a chilling
thought that made the woods seem even more vast and secretive.
Scott and I discussed the possibility of going back,
perhaps with more people, or even notifying the local
authorities to have them check the area.
But deep down, we knew that whatever had happened was
probably long gone, swallowed up by the dense, unyielding forest.
Our fishing trips continued, but we never ventured back to that
particular spot. The memory of those eerie
discoveries, boots, blood and all, was enough to keep us from
trying our luck there again. Eventually we found new spots,
new routines. The rivers and streams still
called to us, and we answered, but always with that lingering
unease in the back of our minds. The woods were no longer just a
backdrop for our angling adventures.
They were a reminder of nature's deep, abiding mystery, capable
of hiding stories and secrets far beyond what we could ever
hope to uncover.