Speaker 1: I'm part of the United States Special Forces, the Green Berets,
and have been for several years now. In my tenure,
I've deployed multiple times to Afghanistan, Iraq, a few months
in Syria, several African countries. I've been to all four
corners of the globe, and I've seen my fair share
of the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes
from being part of SOCOM. I've got plenty of stories,
some more interesting than others, but almost all of them
are heavily classified behind red tape that will never be
declassified until I'm dead and gone. However, there was an
incident a few nights ago that stuck out from all
the others, mostly because one Unlike all of our other
operations that tug us the combat zones across the distant hemisphere,
this one happened right at home in our own backyard.
The enemies weren't a foreign proxy, a group of insurgents,
it wasn't even human. Stuff from that night is still weird,
and it's not like Command is going to give us
any answers. Is the reason I'm bypassing everything I've been told,
disregarding and putting my ass on the line. Even if
I use false information and withhold names. Plenty of innocent
people have died, and as you'll find out, an upper
command would sooner bury it than acknowledge their deaths then
give their families closure. I don't have all the answers
of what happened in that Western Tennessee National Park, but
I do have enough to let people know the truth
semi truth anyways, for safety and privacy purposes, I stated previous,
I'm withholding a lot of personal information, such as names,
exact locations, and unit information, referring the smallest stuff that
I don't think even the scary three letter groups could
really trace, even if they cared. I hope they don't.
Like I said, I'm part of a so cam Green
Beret a team. You will know who the Green Berets are.
You should. My team is nicknamed Raider, a general theme
in our company naming things after warrior cultesque terms radar, artemis, barbarian, centurion, etc.
It's a ten man element. The team lead a way
too salty Georgian and captain with a warrant officer, a medic,
a com sergeant, and six weapons sergeants. Our captain decided
this way was best, considering we're all in one piece
after our last mission. He was right. Our weekend was
calm earned boring as we rotated on QRF Quick Reaction
Force for the month. QRF means that if someone somewhere
needs the green eyed bugeymen of the Western World, we
were ready to kit up and be there at a
moment's notice. It just so happened right when some of
us were getting ready to head to the bar and
have our two singular authorized beers of cure F Month
we were called. When we raced back to our cop
and got our stuff ready, the Captain came with some
surprising information. We'd be able to probably make it back
for those beers because we were heading to West Tennessee,
of all places. We didn't know what the status was yet.
Command didn't give us any information, what the op for was,
what weapons they had, what the layout of the area was.
Nothing but being CUREF Team raiders still kitted up and
we were at the HLZ in less than twenty While
we waited for our transport, the Captain finally got some information.
Apparently a facility in the middle of uninhabited restricted woods
of a national park had activated a distress signal. The
woods it was situated in was a large national park
in like said Western Tennessee, with a long history of
disappearances on It's now frequently closed and blocked off trails
and campsites. This raised a few questions. What was this facility,
Why was it in a national park? What happened to
need to roll out the angriest green beray team this
side of the East Coast to act as its back up.
Why were we going there when in an hour someone
in Libya or someone across Eurasia might need us to
back them up. The captain acknowledged all of these questions,
but assured us that's all he knew. He's been with
our team for years now, several deployments to the Box
and back, and he's always been straight with us. It's
how we knew he was lying. Our transport finally arrived
one hundred and sixtieth Sore Nights Talkers, an aviation unit
that's been around for nearly forty years, having dragged every
single kind of so communit to every single part of
the world. We expected the black hawk they brought, but
the armed escort of two birds that came with them
was a surprise. We were in domestic America. We were
going to Tennessee. Why were they here? Even with the
Nightstalkers flying at top speed across several states, it still
took a couple of hours to reach our landing point.
The inside of that bird going full throttle was deafening.
Even with the electronic headsets we were sporting. It was
ear splitting. And yet, while sitting next to the captain,
I could tell he was speaking to someone and a
different frequency. This was off because normally he'd go to
the consergeant and have to use the radio, but he
had a side channel filled in his radio talking to
someone writing down income in information. I was able to
peak over and saw some of the things he was writing.
Mascal close quarters up four no Blue four X. The
birds touched down in the middle of an empty parking
lot outside of the local ranger station. We filled out
to the open area. The birds took off. The captain
chimed in on our team net raider Romero, this is
radar lead. Get on the net and have them hold
orbit in case we need close air break. He then
broke transmission and talked to us, all raiders hold outside
and take up security. I'm going to get the damn Ragnar.
Prepare for a hasty s ramp brief. I just got
more information. We all took positions behind some of the
parked vehicles the rangers would use just to clear things up.
Our team was outfitted with GPNVG also known as quad nods,
four barwed night vision optics that provided an almost daytimelike
view of our surroundings. Couple that with our peqs mounted
on our rifles, allowing us to see and shoot anything
at night. The military says we own the night. The
tree line in front of us was a lit up
like a goddamn operator rave party. As the captain walked back,
nods down. As the ranger currently on shift followed him,
he keyed into our net and we could hear him
through our headsets. All raiders. This is lead. New information
states that the facility has suffered MOSCAL situation break. Moscal
means mass casualties. Enemy of four unidentified. However, outgoing net
during distress call indicates that OP four is extremely dangerous
and engages a close range break. There is no blue
foreur on site. I repeat man has stated there is
no blue for on site and we had to drop
any and all packs we see a few seconds past.
As the captain looked back to the park ranger, any
additional comments, range of clements. The man, maybe in his
mid forties, bolding. He scratched the back of his neck,
clearing his throat before speaking. I had a lot of
gunfire coming from down there. And don't split up. Whatever
you do in these woods, don't split up. Ah Medick laughed. Well,
that's just comforting. The captain nodded to the man as
he held back in Everyone watches sixes, twelves and fives.
Let's go. We picked up and moved out. Everyone had
their own kind of final moments, type of red in
a strill they did before they stepped under the path
into the woods. Same stuff we did stepping off out
of the fobs and compounds back east. I let out
one final breath of hot air in the cold our
Medig slapped the side of his helmet, hyping himself up.
The captain pulled out and kissed a small crucifixed necklace
from underneath his combat shirt. We headed down the pathway,
following the captain in a staggered column. Our Iyur lasers
scan the trees, rocks, and foliage around us, looking desperately
for any hostiles that lurked in the darkness. Though to
our paranoid readiness, nothing appeared, but something was definitely following us.
When we move through forest environments, you listen to the
animals around you, the crickets, the birds, the movement of animals,
and what direction they're heading, how fast moving down that path.
I couldn't hear a goddamn thing. It's common when you're
a group of heavily armed green men moving through a
forest at night that some of the squarels and birds
will run the hell away, but not the crickets or
the bird songs in the distance. There's a certain level
of ambience that animals will maintain even if they detect
humans around. There was none of that. Nothing not a cricket,
a bird, a cicada, and nothing. Silent professionals, it's in
our name. So when I could hear a friendly ten
meters ahead of me breathing as we moved through that
dead forest, it told me that something else was here
in the woods with us, her predator, and that the
forest was more afraid of it than us. After a
long stretch of marching down the trail, The captain held
a hand up signaling a halt. As it got down
to my part of the column, the middle section, he
called over the radio, this is lead on me time now.
We quickly rushed up to what we saw was a
metal chainling fence. Four of our weapon sergeants and the
medic took up security, covering the woodline behind us, as
I and the other remaining one went up to the
gates with the captain. The bark's trail carried on for
a few more meters before stopping dead into some tree.
The dirt bath broke off and formed a gravel one
that led into a sectioned off area behind a chainling
fence and gate AH no trespass. A sign hung high,
and just beyond the gate we could see a small
guard shack. The Captain tried to signal whoever might be
there by switching on the sure fire tag light and
his rifle, shining it and lasso waving it all over
the booth. However, upon stopping and centering in the doorway,
we saw a large amount of blood splashed on the
back wall and pulled over the room an arm laying
half way out the door frame. The captain looked at
the other weapon sergeant with us get yr kit. He nodded,
slinging his rifle as he dropped his assault pack, digging
out a small pair of bolt cutters. Each of our
weapon sergeants carried a different load out depending on what
we needed. One could be a gunner, another's a grenadier.
I can't name him, but breech Man, as I guess
call him, always carried a breech kit just in case.
He walked over to the lock. But just as he
got the blades of the cutter around the lock, we
heard it. It sounded like it came from everywhere and
yet far away at the same time. Maybe it was
the echo of the forest, or maybe something attributed to
its abilities. It sounded like a woman yelling in pain,
in agony, and yet the voice was half gargled, like
it was morphed with that of a dying animal, as
it had an underlying low tone pitch beneath it. It
got under the skin of everyone. Those pulling security immediately jumped, scanning,
or left right up and down. Hell, even the medic.
Big stocky dude grew up in Brooklyn played football before
he joined, meaning he was as yoked as all hell
when he got to our unit. The guy who once
stuck his finger into a man's neck to plug his
blood looked around nervously. The hell was that? Our weapon
sergeant with the forty six shook his head as he
scanned the far off terrain, muttering in a low voice,
some horror moving nonsense. Right now, I remember holding my
rifle's grip tight. Everyone was equally unnerved, everyone except the captain.
He just told us to press on for goodness sake,
loosen your jockstraps, let's go. He snapped the lock off immediately.
The captain and I moved in and cleared the small
booth as two more weapon sergeants and ar medic took
up Covering down the gravel road. It was a guard,
no name tape or company logo, decked out in a
black plate carrier, the plate carrier of which had been
torn into as a large hole covered the entire area
of his solar plaquesus which was now fragmented and broken
inside of his mulched upper body. No bullet entry, who
exit wounds, Just a large stab wound that looks like
he got ran through by a damned lamp post. My
breath still got caught in my throat. As I grunted
to clear it. The Captain stepped out of the small booth,
spitting hard into the grass, shaking his head. The medic
prodded him, what was it like? He grunted, walking to
the front of our formation. Doesn't matter, Doc. We formed
up and moved down the gravel road in a wedge column,
the captain and the three weapon sergeants in the front wedge,
the medic, me and two other weapon sergeants in the
back one the com sergeant in the middle. We entered
the facility lot immediately. The com sergeant linked up with
the captain and I could hear him alerting mane, this
is raider lead. We've reached the building. Though it makes
me wonder if he used the consergeant's radio to reach
our h que. Who was he talking to on that
other channel. The lot was clear and we got a
good look at the facility. It was a gray concrete rectangle,
maybe the size of a small gas station. Floodlights mounted
on the bottom illuminated the gravel lot up to the dense,
shadowy woodline that laid just beyond the chain link fence.
The woodline that was still quiet the mask old carnage
we were told about was present outside of the building.
Several guards, all in various states of mutilation, similar to
the gate guard, were strewn about the gravel lot. However,
unlike the gate guard, strangely, they were in heavier body armor,
with rifles capable of going automatic and spin brass everywhere.
Me and some of the other guys got online and
cleared out the back. Exasperated breaths and muttering came from
all of us. The captain chimed in, raiders on me
time now we hauled, asked back to him. As we
stacked up of the door. Flowing in, we were greeted
to a lobby torn up, furniture thrown everywhere, impact marks
from rounds hitting the concrete lined walls and ceiling. One
dead guard slumped against a red stained part of the wall,
the other in a crumpled heap. A woman at the desk,
not a guard, just the damned staff member, sat back
in a chair, her entire torso area torn apart. As
we passed by her and headed through the double doors
behind her, her empty dead eyes met mine. The com
sergeant eyed her as well as we moved through the door. Sir,
if she was unarmed, I can see that keep chattered
to a minimum. We cleared through the double doors to
be greeted by porcelain hallway leading into a set of
stairs heading to a sub level. The entire surface, ceiling, walls,
floor was lined with ceramic white tiles, ceramic white tiles
that were, like the rest of the scene so far,
stained with blood, guts, and even brain matter of the
unlucky guards laid out all the way down the stairs.
I counted eight seventeen so far. A flickering light could
be seen through the wire glass windows of the double
doors at the bottom. The captain ordered us to flow
in through both sides. We did. Pushing in, we could
see we entered into a t style hallway. It gets
a bit complicated here. Either end of the tee ended,
while the mid one shot forward far down into the hall,
leading into two reinforced blast doors at the very end.
Two immediate laps on either side were reinforced with more
wire glass, and despite several crates, impact marks, bullet holes,
and even holes made in the glass, they held this
stuff can't be blistered glass, and a comsergeant muttered, why
didn't they just take cover in there, the medic said,
the captain's side seems to be pointing to a surprise
attack from the inside embassies on surprise jackass. The medic
fire back, Well, sure, but it's just the door more.
The hallways outside were a mess of blood gore guards
thrown around as they were ripped apart, creating a mess
of bodies, weapons, and more spent brass. The laptecks had
the white coats stained with their own blood. My blood
and I think everyone else's started to run cold as
the pieces came together. Whatever killed them did so indiscriminately.
We formed a rolling tee heading into the hallway. I
was on the right, with the gunner taking center and
another guy on the left. The captain pushed forward, leading
us from behind The window labs ended half way with
two solid white doors near the double doors at the
end on either side, leading to closed off labs. The
captain had as pull guard on both of the side doors.
As the gunner aimed back down the hallway, everyone else
took up security wherever it was needed. The captain eyed
the door, feeling the cracks and lines of the blast door,
looking for gaps that didn't exist. Blood had slowly leaped
from the bottom, causing him to pick up his boot
and eye it. And yet no openings existed. An electronic
pad was positioned at the right side of the door.
The Captain eyed it. It was a hand scanner. I
didn't even think those actually existed, He jumped on the
private frequency. I keep mentioning, I'm at the doors, yeah,
at the fire end as a hand scanner. He waited
a few seconds of deafening silence. He made an internal
chuckle as he walked over to the dead body of
a guard kicking its arm. Got one right here, I'm sorry, repeat,
last alive. He rubbed his face, cursing under his breath. Damn,
He shook his head, turning on the white light of
his rifle and scanning the corpses. This place is a
goddamn slaughter Else, how am I going? A crash emanated
from the white lab door to the right of the
blast doors, the one I was covering. Everyone paused for
a second as the second weapon sergeant aimed his laser
at it. The captain turned his head, Amy's laser at
the door as he approached. Might have one and might
have up four? Wait one over the captain formed of
as the first man in the stack, an unusual practice,
but everyone else fell behind. I was the second man,
Two more made, third, and fourth. A weapon sergeant felt
the edges of the door, then tried the handle locked him.
Trying the handle must have alerted whatever was inside, because
a voice ballowed out, I I'm in here. Please, I'll
let you in. Just don't shoot. The doorman looked at
the captain, who nodded, might have blue four inside, stay sharp,
wait on me to fire. There wasn't supposed to be
any blue four in sight. The door's electronic lock opened.
The doorman grabbed the handle and pulled it open. As
the four of us entered the room, we pushed through.
The captain hunked left. I pushed forward. The other two
followed one of us respectively. Our lasers entered the room
and a pair of hands emerging from behind a lab table. Please,
the voice weakly shouted. The captain stormed over hands, now,
I'll shoot you. I swear to God if you don't
put your God's hands up. As the person stood up,
he saw the hands were connected to a scientist, possibly
late thirties, stringy hair with circular glasses, glasses that flew
off when the Captain closed the distance, shoving him against
the metal cabinet. Spittle flying from the bearded mouth behind
the envgs as he barked at him, ID, where is it?
Show it? The captain began roughly searching the lab tech.
As he pulled out his ID, he grabbed it, shoving
him to the weapon sergeant on his side of the room.
The lab tech was kicked down to his knees. The
captain jumped back on the frequency and back possible blue
flour prepare for ID code. He read it off in
phonetics before he got the response. He looked at the
weapon sergeant guarding the lab tech. Get his ass up, please,
I don't know what's going on. I was just running
some chemical tests. We've got to get out of here.
Before the captain got in the man's face, shut up,
he did. You know what you've been doing? I know
what you've been doing out here. Open them doors now.
The man was shocked as the captain continued Open the
damn doors now. With a point from the Captain, the
weapon sergeant shoved the man forward into the door frame.
The man crumbled a little bit as the captain laughed,
take your sweet time, doctor, let's go. I picked him
up by his shirt collar and dragged him over to
the blast doors. The captain pushed him out of my grip,
shoving his face into the door. Hand on the scanner. Now,
as the captain grabbed the man by his wrist, the
laptick struggled to get free. Please, I don't have access.
I hurt my hand trying to hide. Let me go.
The winced at the side, a bit uncharacteristically of a
green beret, especially for a jaded as hell medic. He
spoke up, cap, come on. The captain just turned, staring
daggers into the man as he wrestled from the man's wrist.
Just wait till you'll see, I'm telling you. As the
man struggled against the captain, the weapon sergeant came up
from behind, shoving the man into the blast door, allowing
the captain to easily place it on the scanner. The
scanner lit up in a bright blue as several lines
traced and looked over his handprint, and then flashed green.
As the electronic lock of the blast doors began to
open up, the captain dropped the man. Well, goodness, gracious,
what do you know? The doors slowly pulled open. The
room was dark red. Flashing emergency lights flashed all around
as the sound of broken glass scraped against the door.
The stream of murc blue liquid mixed in with a
blood of several guard's bodies that were revealed as the
doorway leaked out into the hall. The captain grabbed the
lab take by the collar, dragging him to his feet.
You all know these men, doctor friends. The captain shoved
him through the doorway, the lap take slipping in the
fluids and glass, cutting his right hand with the WinCE.
We flowed in and Jesus, I said this at the start.
I've been all over. I've seen mass graves that terrace
cells have used in far off countries, filled with entire
villages worth of people. I've seen killed ends inside tunnel systems.
This surpassed all of that, every horror, every war crime,
multiple times over. A series of glass tubes lined the walls,
walls made out of monitors, hard drives, and computer systems.
The path of carnage through the pile of guards at
the doorway. That makes twenty four armed personnel that were
taken out by something. What really bothered me was that
in those murky green and blue glass tubes as big
as a refrigerator, connected to a poor at the top
and bottom tubes and wires inside connecting to The captain
shoved the lab tech into a glass tube. The pop
of the man's nose echoed off the empty area as
he grabbed his nose. Well, DOC, which one was it?
Which goddamn tube tube? What was he talking about? How
did he know who was on the frequency? The lab
tech spit out, blood leaking into his mouth. As the captain,
standing at six foot five a giant even amongst his
team brawny sof operators, picked him up by his collar
of his blue undershirt. I don't Two weapon sergeants ducked
out of the way as the captain got on his face,
shoving him against the left side wall, causing the monitors
and computer systems to beep and light up. Oh you
don't know, and yet your little hand opens the room
there you didn't have access to, he roared, abandoning all
silence and discretion. Now as the man began to sputter
and sob please please I, the captain gritted his teeth.
He quickly flipped up his nods and stared daggers into
the man's soul. How many people did you snatch off
that trail? How many? What kind of butchering you do
to those kids before you stuck him in there? Which
one escaped? Kids? Butchering? Something in my mind stopped, and
I switched on my rifle's tacklight. A heavy pit of
my stomach formed as I flashed it on the tubes.
There were people in those tubes. They were people. Wire
and tubes now poked into sea through and murky flesh.
As the bodies of the kidnapped floated, mutated, dissected, and changed.
One person's skin ran reptilian like up their left arm
before merging with a strange gaping hole in their chest,
their skull protruding out of their skin in their head.
My breathing stuttered a bit as I backed up a
few steps, glass crunching under my boots. Curses muttered by
the others in the room as we all began to look.
Another one's mouth was sealed at the front. Two more jagged,
missed upsets of teeth poked out either side. Their eyes
were sealed, skin covering defined sockets in their head. The
medic flashed his on one where their spines stuck out
through their back. The vertebrae was larger than a normal person's,
the bones sticking out inches longer in some areas. Jesus, man,
this is he gagged a bit, coughing as he looked away.
I had to pry my eyes away. My mind was
frying just looking at They'd better be dead. Oh, I
swear to the Lord himself if they ain't, the captain
said sternly, as the man sobbed and nodded. Yes. The
captain raised an eyebrow. You sure, yes, they died during surgery.
If you're lying to me, I swear to God I
will make you euthanize every single one. The captain shoved
the laptack forward into the center of the aisle. I
looked down, shaking my head as the images of those
things burned into the film of my brain. Where's she gone, doctor,
the captain said, sternly, squaring up to the man, who
sobbed as he shrugged. I I where is it? The
man continued to cry. He escaped. He killed everyone, hit
cut through the guards, hit cut through everyone, all of
my friends. This caused the captain to nearly bust the
blood vessel from the look he gave him, bawling on
his fist and driving the arm and knuckle of his
ugly glove into the gut of the lab tech. This
caused the smaller, weaker lab tech to buckle over, dropping
to his hands and knees, now favoring an injured hand
and probably a burst spleen. Your friends, Your friends, you
mean the friends I kidnapped a twenty two year old
girl and a fourteen year old son and turn them
into monsters. What about them? This earned only more sobs
from the lab tech as the captain turned hands on
his hips as he scoffed, he looked at the medic,
who only stared back through his nuds. The captain turned
to look at him. You got to the count of ten,
and if you don't give me a single whereabouts of
this thing, I would start grabbing tools, cutting your little
weasley ass up like he did to these kids. The
captain loomed over the man, grabbing him by his hair. Sir, sir, please,
the laptack pleaded one, two, three, The captain counted. Some
looked away, others shook their heads. There wasn't a man
in the room who wouldn't do what he did right
now after seeing them. It's hit in the woods. You
heard it. It did it freaky yell, just like ten
minutes ago. The captain laughed, letting go of the man's
hair as he whipped his head forward. Y'all hear that
HiT's in the woods. He pulled out his seventeen he's
nine milimeters sidearm, pulling the slide back a bit to
make sure he was chambered four five six. The man
stood up, and at this point I kicked out his
extended leg, dropping him back to his knees. The man
looked at me, then at the captain. You can't do this.
This is illegal. Before the captain could finish his count,
we heard it. It echoed all the way down the
facility halls, reverberating off the glass tubes in the room,
that half feminine, half monstrous cry. Except this time it
didn't come from far off mountains or trees. It came
from the stairs. Then the lights went out. I don't
know if it was prior damage to the facility or
electric works or something else, but they zapped out the
light in the halls, the lights on the stairs, the
light in the room, the electronics, the light in the tanks,
all of it. He cried out again, and this time
I think I heard it say help me. Anyone who
had their nods up flicked them down. All of us
trained our lasers down the dark hall beyond the door.
The slight shakiness of all the green lasers told the
same stories, all of the death, all of the stuff
in the tanks. It had everyone spooked. The captain came
up alongside me and the medic. He looked back to
the lab tack, you run, you die. The man swallowed
and smothered his misery. I I know, the captain corrected
him in a low tone. No, you really don't. The
creature cried out again, help me. The sounds of something
hard impacting the tiled floor sounded out as it approached
us through the dark. Abyss, more footsteps, then another cry,
help me. The gunner let out a shaky breath as
he cracked his neck. More footsteps, then another cry, help me.
It was maybe five meters from the doornail, Lord Almighty,
The captain muttered, I couldn't see much in that darkness then,
but I saw what everyone else saw. I saw enough.
Its body was easily six feet tall, too gigantic bony
man just like legs. They were dark from blood stepped
into the doorway. Its head was smooth, its large teeth
shining in the darkness, and its eyes glowed like an animal.
Its eyes glowed. He could see us. We all froze,
gread rifles trained on it, a damn machine gun trained
on it, a room full of green brays, the best
of the best, and everyone froze. The captain was first
the fire, slamming his trigger as he shot two twenty
three death into that crime against existence. The gunner opened
up as well, and then the medic. Two more weapon
sergeants also shot It, yelled at us, cried out like
an agonized woman pleading for help. Then it lunged, running
and slamming through a test tube. Glass flew everywhere, causing
several of us to shield our faces. As the water
flooded the floor and the deformed body that was inside
flopped down near our feet, A horrendous rotted smell filled
the air. Jesus the medics spotted out, gagging a bit
as he kicked it away. The creature now screamed as
a rifle went that it jumped in hear back top.
It leapt on top of him, shoving that bony mandible
into his left shoulder, pinning him to the ground as
he screamed, thrashing his elbow into the thing as he
kicked its stomach, but it didn't attack him. It just
eyed the scientist. He attempted to run for his life.
The thing jumped on top of him, pinning him face
first into the murky, wet floor. That's when I noticed
the six smaller human like arms on its torso. Its
maine mandible pinned him to the ground. The arms, some normal,
some with bony spikes for fingers, others just lined with
sharp teeth, began to rip into the man's back. The
lap tap screamed. His lab coat was torn open as
he began to dig down into his back. Some still
fired shots, but it didn't even react. It didn't even move,
just continued to tear into that vial. But pouse some gun.
The captain's voice lit up the coms as he and
the medic rushed to pick the man up and heave
him on the Captain's shoulders. We can't engage him here
outside now, he was right. It thrived on close quarters.
It rang guys through before they could piggered apart. We
all ran nerves, shot weapons hard from firing into a
thing that didn't react. The power off so we couldn't
close the blast doors. All we could do was run.
I nearly slipped on the glass as we bucked it
out of air, firing some desperate pot shots into the
lab with the gunner. The lab techs screams echoed throughout
the hallway as we booked it up the stairs. It
was going to be done with him soon. The gunner
and I covered the captain as we broke out into
the open air, the smell of rotten death replaced by
the open, piney air of the forest. Several men broke
out road flares, tossing them everywhere, giving us much needed
light in the form of greens, blues, reds, and purples.
The captain dropped the man behind a beaten up and
rex'edan as the medic began to patch him up. The
gunner deployed his bipod and aimed at the doors of
the facility from the car's hood. The captain positioned different
men to where they could all fire and the door
fir enough away from the thing's grasp rumera, getting that
damn net and calling that air. I took aim behind
a large suv with several others. We all aimed at
the door. The screaming had stopped. The silence was broken
by its bony mandibles as it rushed out into the
open air, and with all the flares and chemlights and
even the captain's tack light, we finally got a good look.
Its skin was a mix between pink from its exposed
muscles to a sea through clear layer covering of the parts.
Boney calcium like armor had formed over a lot of
its body, and its back to legs formed smaller mandible
like features at the back, and its head an exposed
skull all to human eyes peering out in a rage.
As its larger, unhinged jaw opened and it roared out
it's deafening cry at us. The gunner was the first
to open up. A blast of five fifty six tore
through the armor on its mandible, legs and torso. The
thing recalled at first and then hissed as it charged forward.
The captain ran from his place in front of the
cidan's side. The thing stuck its two large mandibles into
the roof badly denting it. The medic quickly covered the
wounded weapon sergeant, shielding him as the thing peered down
at the two. The captain quickly got its attention, aiming
fire at the back of its head. It roared with
a vengeance as it charged to the captain. He fell
back to the Zidan, running out of our line of
fire as the thing barreled towards us. The thing look
a mandible inside the hood, impaling it, and then another
just to my left. I circled around and behind it
as I fired. He cried out, blood now pouring from
its wounds as its calcium plating was cracked and falling
off in mass. The thing turned to me, and as
I flicked my hand forward to watow and laid into it,
it just bowled at me, shoving me to the ground.
It's smaller, dimlic hands reached for me as I kicked
them away. Its jaws snapped as I held my rifle
in the way, shielding my face as it gnawed on
the metal. The gunner then blasted a chunk of its
exposed skull away, staggering it as it turned. The captain
whipped his stock into the thing's head then back pedaled
as he fired off another burst of rounds. The thing
turned at him, roaring viciously. As the captain dropped his
empty mag he slapped in a fresh one as the
thing lunged at him, both mandibles raised. The glass exploded
out of the SUV's windows as the captain dropped levels,
firing into its stomach. As he circled out back into
the open, the creature roared as it went to move
for him again, but it couldn't. Its large mandibles were
stuck all the way inside of the vehicle. The captain
led his rifle hang slung on his front as he
reached for something in his kit and M sixty seven
fragmentation grenade get back. Everyone who was in the open
ducked for cover. The gunner and several weapon sergeants retreated
beyond a series of concrete jersey barriers. I ran and
slid behind the sa'dan, helping the medic to shield our
wounded battle body. I heard the distinct sound of a
spoon flying and the whistling of the grenade. The captain
vaulted himself over the car hood, with the con sergeant
covering his radio operator's head as they both went prone.
The explosion was thunderous. The shock wave of the grenade
shook everyone and even rattled me a bit from being
so close. Shrapnel and fragments flew everywhere, impacting the concrete
barriers the building. Any windows in the sedan that weren't
already broken were shattered. A few seconds passed as we
all hesitantly started to lift our heads, then dropped them
as the SUV's gas tank seemingly erupted and detonated and
go from the wrecking of fireballs so large if I
like the flames were touching my face. The captain popped up,
aiming on top of the hood of the car. Then
Eye and several others joined him, peeking from behind our
points of cover. As we looked to see if that
had done it. The suv was a burning skeleton, an
inferno from all of the ignited gasoline covering the frame
and the ground around it, and the beast as it
defiantly pulled its last remaining mandible its front left one
the only appendage had had left, and stumbled out from
the flames, Its skin popped, its muscles boiled, and with
all of the sea through skin and bone plating torn
and burnt off. It gazed around, its eyes ruptured and melted.
Help me. The gravel crunched as its charred and still
burning body slumped forward. The captain emerged from behind the
vic as only a few of us dared to approach
the thing. He lifted his nods, this time pulling his
M seventeen back up and aiming at the thing's head.
Three shots into the thing's head, the damaged and charred
skull caving in a circle of light illuminated us. As
the rotary blades of the black Hawk sounded out overhead.
I shouldered my face and lifted my nose to avoid
the spotlight blinding me up. Four actual down, building secure.
The ensuing hour was that was just shrouded in I
don't know mystery. I guess the captain went against prior
missions of telling us to go prone and poor security,
putting the gunner at the sedan by the gate, and
telling the rest of us to watch the woodline. When
the van showed up, that's when he told us to
chill out. They weren't really vans, they were more like
armored trucks. Now, for the sake of being classified and
remaining anonymous, I can't divulge a lot about them. I'm
definitely not saying the Black Shirts wearing black multicam combat
uniforms with kits, weapons and gear available. That would definitely
make them a private sector group. I'm not saying their
uniforms were sterilized with all patches, logos, and markers stripped.
I'm also not saying the hazmat suits looked way beyond
anything our mope system has. I'm not saying they brought
several metal cases in from their armored vics, and I'm
not saying they brought in advance of ailance drones with them.
I will say they weren't really hostile. Damn. One even
offered us a cigarette. The bird landed at the opposite
side of the building, the open lot, where they eventually
told us to head. We prepared our guy for CASEVAC
on a litter with a black Hawk and loaded up.
As the captain finished talking to some guy in a suit.
He was much shorter, maybe five eight. He bore the
look of a younger but still weathered man. His hair
was slipped back and had a hard part. A slight
bump underneath his sports coat told me he was armed.
The captain eventually joined us. As soon as the aviation
crew shut the door. He popped his helmet off, watched
to their anger, and slumped back in his seat. When
we touched base and got back to the cop our,
sister team Artemis replaced us on QRF. I've been thinking
about this for days now, about what those people did
to them in that lab or the captain said, they
kidnapped them, cut them up, changed them all for what
some sick fantasy who even owned the lab. There were
no US markings, no logos zip. Like I said before,
there's still a lot. I don't know, But what I
do know is that those guys got exactly what they deserved,
that thing crying out for help, pleading for us to
make it suffering end. The more I think about it,
the more it makes me sick. I don't know who
the hell those guys were that relieved us, but they
didn't have any markings. Some of them were speaking German,
if my memory serves. But whoever they are, I hope
they learn from their mistakes and never tamper with that
evil again. My life had turned into one of those
cliche country songs. I was divorced, broke, unemployed and annoyed
at the world. Five years down the drain with a
woman I thought I'd spent my life with, only to
come home one day to find it already packed and
half way out the door. The job loss came a
month later, and at that point I figured the universe
was just trying to kick me while I was down.
I needed space. No well meaning friends telling me to
focus on myself or find the silver lining. To hell
with all of that. I didn't want silver linings. I
wanted silence. So when I found a listing for an
off grid cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, it felt like
the perfect escape. It wasn't some cozy rental package with
the hot tub and a fire pit on Airbnb, just
a bare bones cabin buried deep in the mountains. The
description was short, remote off grid cabin in the Appalachian Mountains,
no service, no electricity for those looking to truly disconnect,
no reviews, and the pictures were blurry, but it looked beautiful.
I didn't even have an exact location, just a general
area and a contact number. Normally i'd be wary of
something that vague, but at that point I didn't care.
I booked it for a full month. The guy who
owned the place was weirdly insistent that I couldn't drive
there myself. He said the trails were too easy to
lose and that GPS was useless that deep in the mountains. Instead,
he arranged for a local guide to take me up.
It made perfect sense. Mountain roads, rough terrain, the risk
of getting lost didn't seem that strange. I met the
guide at a run down general store about an hour
outside the nearest town. He was already waiting when I
pulled into the lot, standing beside an old ATV with
a trailer hitched to the back. The guy looked like
he'd been living in the woods his entire life. Try
picturing a stereotypical park ranger that's been doing his job
for a few years too long. That kind of guy,
you the renter, he asked. I nodded, toss my backpack
onto the trailer that veus. He grunted, and climbed into
the ATV get in. The ride up was rough as hell.
The trail was barely more than an overgrown deer path,
full of sharp turns and sudden dips. After about an
hour of bouncing over rocks, and weaving through dense streek cover,
we hit a clearing with no more roads. This is
where we walk, he said, already unloading my gear. I
stared at him. How far is the cabin? A few miles?
I cried to my back, adjusted my jacket and followed
him into the trees. The hike took another hour, and
the deeper we went, the more I realized just how
far I moved this place was there truly was nothing here,
just solid forest pressing in from all sides. I expected
to hear birds, bugs, maybe a distant stream, but at
some point the woods got quiet, not in a normal way,
not in the peaceful, wow nature is so relaxing way,
I mean quiet. I noticed that the guide also hadn't
spoken in nearly half an hour. When the cabin finally
came into view, I exhaled. It was exactly what I wanted. Small, sturdy,
a simple two floor set up with a wood stove
and a creek near by for water, just me, the
trees and miles of untouched wilderness. The guide set down
my gear on the porch and adjusted his cap. You
will be fine, he said, finally, breaking the silence. Long
as you don't wonder too far. Then, without another word,
he turned and disappeared into the trees. The first few
nights were exactly what I needed. I woke up when
the sun came in through the windows, spent my days hiking, reading,
and just existing. I finally didn't have my ex wife's
lawyer blowing up my inbox. The first time I realized
how deep I really was in the mountains was on
the second night. I had stepped outside to do my business.
I was hit with a kind of silence you don't
get in normal life. It wasn't just quiet, it was absolute.
At the time, I figured it was just how the
forest worked. I read once that predators moving through an
area could cause sudden silences. Probably just the bear passing through, right,
So I shrugged it off and went to bed. By
the fifth morning, I started noticing things. It wasn't anything
obvious at first, just the sense that the landscape was
slightly different. The bushes by the tree line looked disturbed,
like something had moved through them, probably deer, plenty of
them in the area. But as I walked over, I
saw the dirt was churned up, like something had been
digging or shuffling around. Further along I found scratches and
a few trees deep ones. I ran my fingers along
the grooves. I had no idea what kind of Mark's
bare claws would leave, but I figured this must have
been a big one. That was the first time I
got that nagging feeling that weird. I got level discomfort
that something was off, even if my brain was trying
to logic its way out of it. I pushed it down. Bears, deer,
mountain lions. This was the wilderness. If I was going
to start jumping at every broken branch and disturbed bush,
I was going to drive myself crazy. So I went
back inside, made coffee and told myself to stop being paranoid.
But for the rest of the day I couldn't shake it.
By the twelve day, I was feeling at home in
the cabin. It was still eerily quiet most of the time,
but I convinced myself that's just how it was out here.
I'd been living off canned food and dried goods, but
I still had a good supply of vegetables, rice and seasonings.
I figured I'd treat myself to cook it something hot.
A big potter stew I knew cooking food outside was
a gambol in the wilderness. Even with scent blockers, it
wasn't fool proof. If an animal got a whiff of it,
I'd probably lose the whole thing, but at that point
I didn't care. Worst case, I'd be out of some food.
So I built up the fire in the stone ringed firepit,
set up my cast iron pot, and threw in everything
I had, let it simmer low and slow, covered it
with a heavy lid, and just to be extra safe,
wrapped the whole thing in a scent neutralizing tarp. Then
I went inside, stretched out in bed, and fell asleep
to the distant crackling of the fire. The next morning,
I stepped outside and the yard was completed, depletely destroyed.
At first, my brain couldn't even process what I was
looking at. The dirt had been torn up in massive swaths,
like something had been clawing or shoving at the ground.
Chunks of earth had been thrown in long, scattered arcs,
as if something had raked through it with oversized limbs.
The bushes near the tree line were flattened, smashed down
into the soil. Some of them were uprooted completely, lying
in mangled piles with their roots exposed. Several small trees
were bented on natural angles, their barks scraped away in
places I had expected to find it gone obviously, maybe
the pot knocked over the food licked clean. Instead, the
pot was shattered, split into pieces, scattered across the yard.
Chunks of food were everywhere, rice, carrots, potatoes neared into
the dirt like something had deliberately flung them around. It
looked like someone had picked up the entire pot and
slammed it into the ground over and over. I stood
there a long time, gripping the railing of the porch,
trying to wrap my head around it. A bear would
have eaten the food, even a raccoon would have at
least picked through it. This felt like something had been angry,
like it hadn't been looking for food, but throwing a tantrum.
I swore under my breath and ran a hand through
my hair, feeling annoyance outweigh the unease. I had been careful,
and now I was down an entire meal and a
good cast iron pot. Great, I muttered, bending down to
scoop up some of the mess. For the next hour,
I cleaned up, trying to convince myself it was just
some animal acting weird. I buried the ruined food deep
in the woods, scrubbed the yard down as best I could,
and sat on the porch as the sun sank below
the mountains. I wasn't scared exactly, just annoyed. The whole
thing fell like some bizarre prank, except there was no
one around here but me. Whatever had wrecked my yard,
throwing my food around and smashed my pot had done
it for no good reason, and now I was down
a solid meal and cooking equipment. I sat on the
porch for a while after dark, sipping from my flask,
staring out at the tree line. The night air was cool,
the forest stretching endlessly into blackness beyond the dim glow
of the cabin's lantern. I tried listening for anything. I
laughed dryly, shaking my head. That's when I thought I
spoke into the silence before finally heading into I bolted
the shutters, stoked the fire, and crawled into bed, still
smelling the faint scent of stew on my hands. And
then the noises started. It wasn't loud at first, just
a faint disturbance, something pressing into the earth outside the cabin,
a long, dragging sound. I lay completely still, eyes locked
on the ceiling, heartbeat, picking up another step, then another.
I wasn't just imagining it. Something was walking through my yard.
In all my nights i'd spent here, I had heard
nothing come this close to me. Yet the way of
the footsteps was deep, solid, not a small scavenger, something big.
I strained my ears trying to track its movement. It
was in the erratic rustling of a hungry animal. It
wasn't snuffling through the dirt looking for scraps. It was
just walking. I swallowed, forcing myself to stay calm. Of course,
it was back. Whatever wrecked my yard last night was
properly checking for more food. But there wasn't anything outside
this time. I smirked myself, rolling on to my side
and pulling the blanket up. Jokes on you. I closed
my eyes, listening as the footsteps circled the cabin closer,
now a slow, steady crunch of something huge pressing into
the soil. Then for a long moment, there was nothing,
so I fell asleep. When the sun finally climbed over
the mountains, I was itching for answers. I grabbed my boots,
stepped outside and just stared for a second. There, pressed
deep into the damp soil, were tracks, And first I
thought there were hoof prints, maybe from a deer or
an elk. But as I crouched down, my stomach tightened.
They were massive and wrong, the spacing, the weight distribution.
They weren't four legged. Whatever left these tracks had been
walking upright a bipedal. I traced my fingers along the
edge of one, feeling the way the dirt had been compacted,
Picturing the size of the thing that could leave Prince
this deep. My head buzzed with static. No, that didn't
make sense. I stood up, scanning the yard, following the
trail with my eyes. They led from the tree line
straight to the porch, and then they stopped, like whatever
made them had just disappeared. That night, I didn't even
try to sleep. I was done pretending this was normal.
Whatever had been com into my cabin wasn't just looking
for food. It was looking for me. So I stayed up,
killed the fire early, doused myself in scent blocker, and
sat in the darkness, knife in hand, waiting for it
to come back. On forty three am, the sound was distant,
a rhythmic crunch of heavy footsteps pressing into the dirt.
I gripped the knife tighter, barely breathing. It was back.
The footsteps approached the porch, and then wood groaned under
an impossible weight. Something was standing right outside. The floorboards
creaked a slow dragging in hail. It was breathing. I
could feel the weight of it through the walls, the
pressure in the air, like the whole cabin was shrinking
around me. I'd planned to peek through the window, maybe
even step outside and see what it was, but I
wasn't so sure in the moment, because whatever was standing
on my porch wasn't a deer or a bear or
anything else that belonged in these woods. It sounded huge.
I stayed completely still, every muscle lock, gripping the knife
as hard as I could. Then, just as suddenly as
it had come, it left. The weight pulled away from
the porch, the footsteps retreating back toward the trees. But
I knew somehow that it wasn't really gone, It was
just waiting for the right moment. I didn't sleep. I
just sat there in the dark, staring at the door,
knowing that I had no way out of these mountains
until the guide came back. I should have grabbed my pack,
walked until sunrise and never looked back. But I was
too afraid of getting lost, so I made a plan.
I wouldn't try to fight it, I wouldn't try to
see it. I would just hide. The following night, I
did everything I could to erase myself. I doused myself
in scent blocker, rubbing it deep into my skin, my clothes,
my hair. I piled furniture in front of the bedroom door,
not that I thought it would help, but it made
me feel safer. Then, gripping the only weapon I had,
a rusted, hunted knife i'd found in the cabin, I
squeezed into the wardrobe and pulled the door shut. I
sat in the dark, knees to my chest, breath slow
and controlled, and then I waited. This time, it didn't
make me wait long, and midnight I heard it. It
let out a sound like a hyaena choking on his
own laughter, then a loud bang. The door downstairs shattered inward,
the whole cabin shaking from the impact. Heavy footsteps, wood splintering,
furniture shattering. The thing wasn't searching cautiously anymore. It was
tearing through the cabin, breaking things apart. As it moved.
A deep sniffing sound filled the air, dragging in heals
like a dog trying to catch a scent. I pressed
myself deeper into the closet, tightening my grip on the knife.
The sniffing stopped for a long moment. There was silence, then,
from just outside the bedroom, a heavy creak. It was
at the door. I held my breath. I wanted to
close my eyes, to squeeze them shut and pretend I
wasn't there, but some horrible part of me needed to
see it. So I shifted slightly, just enough to peer
through the slats in the wardrobe door, and that's when
I saw it. It had a dock under the door
frame as it stepped inside, tarering easily eight feet tall.
Its body was a grotesque mixture of animals, as if
something had stitched it together from several different corpses. Its
arms were long, ending and disturbingly human like hands, except
the fingers were doubled, two sets of knuckles, each twisting
and crackling. Its body was covered in thick, matted fur,
except for its torso, which was strangely bare, pale, scarred
skin stretched tightly over its ribbed cage. A pair of
antlers curled from its skull, but they weren't symmetrical. One
was twisted, bent at the wrong angles, jotting out unnaturally.
Its jaw didn't match its face. The mouth was wide,
gaping too far, filled with teeth that didn't seem to
fit together. But it didn't seem to have any eyes.
Where its eyes should have been, there were only patches
of dark, sunken skin. It was safe to assume that
it was blind, but that didn't seem to matter. It
sniffed the air, turning its massive head in slow jerking movements,
its breathing deep and uneven. It knew something was here,
and it was angry. It took another step forward, shifting
its weight onto the wooden floorboards. The scent blocker was working,
but I didn't know if it would be enough. I
stayed still, silent, I didn't breathe. For a moment. I
thought I was safe. Then it lunged, not toward me,
but toward everything else. It roared, slamming its fists into
the walls, a catual furious sound frustration, twisting its movements
into wild, jerking violence. It ripped through the room, tearing
the bed apart, knocking over the dresser. I gritted my teeth,
trying not to flinch. Then its hands landed on the claset.
My breath hitched, the wardrobe shook. I pressed myself as
far back as I could, feeling the rough wooden panels
against my spine. The thing sniffed again, growled low in
its throat. Then it shoved the clauset over. I crashed
through the ground, tangled in wooden fabric, my knife slipping
from my fingers. For a single agonizing moment, I thought
this is it. But as I lay there, frozen, waiting
for teeth and claws and death, I heard it shuffle
and then it left. I don't know how long I
stayed there, lying in the wreckage, staring at the ceiling,
shaking so hard I thought my ribs might crack. Eventually,
the sun rose. I was out of the cabin before
the sun fully broke over the horizon. No hesitation, no
second guessing. I didn't care about my supplies, my food,
or the fact that I still had weeks left before
the guide was supposed to come back. I just grabbed
whatever I could carry, my backpack, a flashlight, a knife,
a bottle of water, and I ran. I didn't look back.
If I got lost, so be it. It was better
than waiting to get killed by whatever that thing was.
All I knew was that I couldn't be there. When
night fell again, I tried to retrace my steps, following
the same path the guide had let me down almost
two weeks ago. But the deeper I went into the woods,
the more uncertain I became. Everything looked different. The trees
felt denser, closer together, the trunks pressing in around me.
The light filtering through the leaves felt dimmer than before.
I tried to focus, tried to match landmarks in my head,
the rock formation I'd passed that on the way in. There,
fallen tree. Had it been on my left before or
my right? Doubt crept into my mind like rust. The
oppressive silence returned, and I thought back to that article
i'd read, how the entire forest goes silent when there's
a predator around. I wanted to believe it was an animal,
a bear, a deer, a goddamn crocodile, if that was
even possible, anything, But what I knew it really was.
I wiped the sweat off my brow and kept moving.
For whatever reason, it never showed itself during daytime. I
walked for hours, the sun climbing higher in the sky,
my legs burning from the effort, but no matter how
far I went, the feeling never left. I was still
being followed, not hunted in the way a predator goes
after prey. This was different. It was letting me tire out,
toying with me. All I saw were more trees and
behind me, just at the edge of my hearing that
awful sound. One moment, I was forcing my legs forward,
dragging my body through the thick forest, lungs burning with exhaustion.
The next, pure survival instinct took over. Branches whipped against
my arms, roots snatched at my boots. My breath came
and went, my vision blurred with sweat, and still the
feeling of being followed never left. The sun was lower now,
the trees stretching into elongated shadows, and just as I
thought I couldn't take another step, I saw it, the
break in the trees houses. I stumbled forward, my body
moving before my brain could process what I was looking at.
A small village, old buildings, wooden storefronts, a few houses
tucked between them, a church steeple rising in the distance.
It wasn't modern, not a row of houses with mailboxes
and street lights. This place felt old, weathered, like it
had been sitting here, untouched for decades. I didn't care
how strange it was, didn't care how it wasn't on
any map I had seen before. All I cared about
was that it was civilization. I had made it. I
was safe. Relief flooded me so hard I almost collapsed.
For the first time in hours, I felt something other
than sheer terror. I was out. I turned. I shouldn't have.
I should have kept walking, should have run straight into
that fiel, screaming for help. And that's when I saw it,
standing just beyond the tree line, a figure, motionless. The
last light of the sun stretched along across the dirt road,
painting the sky in shades of gold and deep violet.
And just as the final sliver of daylight dipped below
the mountains, it moved slowly. It got down to a
crouching position, like he was getting ready to run. The
first building I reached looked like an old general store.
The wooden sign above the door had long since faded,
but I didn't care what it was. I just needed
to find someone. I pushed through the door, the bell
above jingling as I nearly collapsed Inside. The air was
thick with the smell of dust and aged wood, dim
lantern light flickering from the walls. A few people stood inside,
men in odd work jackets, a woman behind the counter,
a boy sitting on the stool near the stove. They
all turned at the same time. Their expressions were blank,
not surprised or alarmed, but definitely curious. I gasped, trying
to catch my breath. My throat felt raw, my lungs burned.
I must have looked insane, covered in sweat and dirt,
shaking like I just crawled out of a grave. I
tried to speak, but my voice cracked. I I need help,
I managed, gripping the door frame. Something's out there in
the woods. They said nothing. No, what are you talking about? No,
slow down, son, No, that sounds crazy. Just silence. Then,
after a long pause, the woman behind the counter stepped forward.
She didn't even ask what I'd seen. She just looked
me dead in the eye and asked, calmly, carefully did
it follow you. If you ever end up in the
mountains after sundown, be careful, be respectful, and most importantly,
don't touch the skulls. The first time someone told me that,
I thought there were strange, superstitious folk. I just moved
to a little town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, looking
for a new start away from the busy cities I
lived in for all my life. A house with a
forest for a backyard and neighbors a mile or so
away sounded perfect at the time. It's what led me
to buying the property in the first place. Now I
think I regret that decision. Don't get me wrong. The
house is nice. It has a few problems, like a
creaking porch, and the kitchen's a bit too small for
my liking. But it's cute. Quaint is what the realtor
kept saying when she showed me the rooms, and I
agreed with her, even if it is a little small.
The real selling point was the acres of forest that
would be considered mine. I remember my first trip to
the town at the base of the mountain, a small
place where everyone knows each other. Naturally, some weren't sure
about me, but most are actually nice. Asking where I
grew up, what I did for work. No more questions
until the owner of the only grocery store in town,
mister Faraday, ask me if I planned on hiking in
the forest. Oh yeah, of course, I think, I laughed,
as he bagged at my groceries, eyeing me the entire time.
Of course, silly question, he agreed as he handed me
the bags, then continued, The forest is perfectly safe during
the day. Just get home once the sun starts setting.
You're asking for trouble with the wildlife, or you get
lost if it gets too dark. Anything in particular I
should worry about when we get black bears. Sometimes yell
at them, though, and they'll run, usually scaredy cats, the
lot of them, unless you find a mama moose, foxes,
wild boars, wolves. I paused in gathering at my bags
and repeated wolves. I thought wolves were extinct here in
the appellations. Mister Faraday shrugged and ignore my question, continuing
like I hadn't said anything. Be careflower there, always take water.
Be respectful. Don't be one of them city folk that
makes a mess of the place. See a flower and thing,
it's pretty. You take a picture and leave it alone.
Here's he enough anything else I should do? I wanted
to be nice and not just blow the guy off,
even if most of his advice was common sense. Then again,
I didn't doubt there had been trouble in the past
with some outsiders. It happened all the time of the
parks I would go to as a kid, jerks that
would come through and leave beer cans or cigarette PUDs everywhere.
He met my eyes staring for a second too soon
before he replied, if you see sculls or bones, don't
touch them. If they're in the way, you go around them.
I stared back, feeling uneasy as he suddenly smiled and said,
you come back soon. You hear our own specials every
week on fresh produice and meat. I should have listened
better to him. The first few times I ventured into
the forest. He was always in the late morning. There's
an old trail behind the house, overgrown but still usable,
and use it I did. The forest is beautiful. There
are all kinds of song birds and small animals, an
interesting plant life to see. I tried going in the
morning when it wasn't too hot. I made sure to
bring water and wore good hiking boots. Whenever I had
time for a walk before work. There is a point
in the trail where it branches off in two directions.
Then that is the point where I turned back around.
The last thing I wanted was to choose the wrong
path and end up hopelessly lost or unable to find
my way back. Then work changed my schedule, so I
started going in a late afternoon. I stared out longer,
just getting done with my hike as the sky was
bathed in pinks and orange. The sun no longer visible,
were giving just enough light. I never noticed anything different
between the morning and late afternoon hikes, other than less
birds singing. Then small things began to happen, little oddities.
There were easy to write off trees that had long
scratches down the trunks, the song birds quieting down at
the start of my afternoon hikes rather than towards the end.
I figured it was from the seasons changing, the night
getting longer and days shortening. I had to be quick
about my daily routine, only let myself get maybe a
mile into the forest before turning around. Even if I
didn't believe the townsfolk that had gotten more vocal about
being mindful of myself in the woods, I still didn't
want to get lost. Then I came across a deer scull.
It was in the middle of the path back to
my house, bleached and cracked, looking far too old. I
looked around the trees to see if anyone was around,
because it hadn't been there on my way up to
the mountain. I even called out nervous hello and got nothing.
The idea of leaving it where I constantly treaded made
me sick, so I grabbed a stick and carefully put
it through one of the eye sockets. I took a breath,
then tossed it off into the trees, watching it as
it hit the ground, before dropping the stick and quickly
make my way back home. That when the howling started.
It woke me up in the dead of night, a long,
lone howl off in the distance. I was confused, startled
because until that point I had never heard a wolf
howl before. That wasn't on TV. I didn't even know
if that's what it was. I laid there for a
while listening to it, then turn on some music to
drown it out and go back to sleep. For a week,
I would wake up in a cold sweat, and the
wolf would be singing away until I finally started going
to sleep with music. I asked about it the next
time I went into town, curious if anyone else heard it.
Nobody did. Mister Varaday shook his head and said he
hadn't heard any noise as he gave me change from
my groceries. The pharmacist told me it was probably just
a lonely or hurt animal, and I was looking for
some sleep aid. Even the waitress of the diner shrugged
and said, I haven't heard a thing, honey. Just make
sure to keep your doors locked. Always better to be
safe than sorry. The next time I went into the forest,
I made sure it was right after work so I
could enjoy a nice long stroll. The trees with the
scratches were closer to my home, but I shrugged it off,
figuring it was a bear or a moose. I did
my usual circuit, followed the trail until I got to
wear it branches off, and took a minor break, sitting
on a fallen tree to drink some water. As I
got up to start my way down, I noticed that
the forest had become quiet. I felt nervous. Glancing around
to look for a reason, like a bear stalking about,
but found nothing. At that point, I quickly headed back
home and nearly tripped over another skull, a moose schul
going off. The huge antlers still attached to the white bone,
perfectly preserved and staring in my direction. I looked around,
wanting to find out who was messing with me, but
I couldn't see anything but the trees and lush ferns.
I thought about picking it up and throwing it to
the side, but I took a deep breath and walked
around it, then began running back home. It appeared two
more times before I had had enough. On the third time,
I picked it up and threw it into the trees.
I didn't stay to watch where it landed, and the
moment I got home, I slammed the door and locked
up everything. I was shaking trembling in my kitchen after
locking the back door and dared to look out the window.
I didn't see anything, but I felt like something was
watching me. Howl didn't wake me up that night. The
sound of my porch creaking did. The groaning of wood
had my eyes snapping open as my heart leaped into
my throat. I laid in bed, unable to move, when
I heard a low growl near my window. The curtain
was drawn so I couldn't see outside, but I could
hear whatever it was. The sound was that of an animal,
but something didn't quite sound right. I tried to put
my finger on it. When the growling stopped for a second,
then a howl will rattled my windows and my bones.
I rushed to my bathroom, the only place in the
house that had no windows, and slammed the door shut.
Curling up in the bathtub, I didn't move until my
alarm rang as seven and the sun was shining through
the curtains. It kept happening every night. The porch would creak,
the growling would begin, then finally the how that lasted
until the sun came up. I had enough by the
fourth or fifth night and drove back to town, functioning
on a cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and caffeine. I had
to wait for the store to open, but the moment
it did, I sought out mister Faraday, who was stocking
some items on the shelves. He glanced at me and said,
you look like hell. If you need help sleeping, you
should see a doctor. Something keep showing up at my house.
I think it's that wolf I was telling you about.
He froze a slight tremor in his fingers before he turned,
calling Sarah, mind the front, I'll be back. He didn't
wait for a reply and instead headed to the back
of the store, motioning for me to come along. I
did so, following him through the door that led outside.
Once out in the two sunny morning, he lit a
cigarette and sighed, I told you to mind the bones.
I broke down at the point, lack of sleep leaving
me without a filter. It kept showing up. I ignored
it the first time, and it kept getting in my way.
What was it? At Moose schul there was another school
two weeks ago. It was a deer, but I moved
that with a stick a shake of the head. Still,
count son, what happened after you moved the deer? I admitted.
That's when the howling first started, but it was far
from the distance, easy to ignore something that had him
frowning but not interrupting until I finally asked, it's not
a wolf, is it? Mister Faraday looked at me for
a long time, then stubbed out the cigarette before reaching
for another one. I told you what not to do,
and yet you did it. Now you've got a mess
to deal with in my mouth so ready to demand.
He answered my question, but he kept going. Now listen here,
and you listen. You're going to buy some meat, the reddest,
bloodiest meat I have. Then go home and put it
in the fridge. When the sun is setting, You're going
to go into that forest with the meat and put
it on the path. The minute you do that, you
turn tail and run home. You don't look back, no
matter what sounds you hear or feeling you get. You
run and lock up tight, and it'll just go away,
just like that, I asked, feeling a tiny bit hopeful.
The next words, dash those hopes away. Nothing is guaranteed, son,
This is you trying to make amends. It doesn't mean
you'll be forgiven. Anger boiled in me, and I snapped
at him. I didn't even do anything. He shook his
head with a small frown and said, you showed disrespect
and acknowledged them. That's enough in a place like this.
I opened my mouth, but he brushed past me and asked,
you're gonna buy the meat or what? I ended up
doing so. I didn't know what else to do, and
figured why not just go along with it. I couldn't
explain anything else, so why not try to make amends.
I bought the bloodiest steaks I could and drove back
home in a daze. I set an alarm to ring
just before sundown and crashed my couch. Until then. It
was surreal walking out to the trail as the sun
began its descent, I noticed that more and more trees
had the strange scratches on them, and shuddered at the
idea of something or many somethings being so close to
the house. I walked about ten minutes of the path
before laying out the stakes. It was this disgusting the
blood collecting on the brown butcher paper, but I piled
them up, then looked around. I couldn't see anything, just
the usual trees, and decided to head back home. I
took a handful of steps when I heard it, a
low growling from behind me that had the hairs on
the back of my neck standing up. Heavy thumping followed
the growling, getting closer and closer and breaking me out
of my stupor. I got my feet moving again and
headed back to the house as the sound of teeth
ripping into raw meat met my ears. Once I was
at the end of the path, my home in sight,
I dared to turn my head before I ran back
to the house, scrambling up the porch and barely slamming
the door shut in time. It had been right behind me,
following like an obedient dog, Only it wasn't a dog,
not even a wolf. I had to braced myself against
the door as it slammed into the wood, growling and grunting.
I managed to lock it just barely before rushing to
the front door to make sure it was locked. As
swell it nearly beat me. I hit the door just
as it started to open and pushed my entire body
weight against it. It was barely enough to keep it out.
As I flicked the lock. I stumbled back, shaking and panting,
staring at the door as the growling began all over again.
This time, I followed it to the back porch and
peered through the window. It walked on fore legs, fingers
splayed out with long claws for nails, and covered in
black fur in some places, pale human skin in others.
As it walked the back legs bent unnaturally and made
a horrific snapping noise, the bones visible through the skin
and twisting with every movement. The head is the most disturbing.
A blooded muzzle that stretched out too much for a wolf,
eyes glowing red, and can open the mouth far too wide.
The bangs were all black and red, with blood too long,
too curved. When it closes its jaw, blood oozed out.
I stared at it, and it stared at me before
the lips peeled back into a sort of demented smile,
the growling stopping, and instead a new sound started, A sharp,
high pitched laugh human almost filled the air. I shivered,
ready to shut the curtains, when I heard more laughter,
and looked beyond it and froze with a sight of
more pairs of red eyes out in the forest. The
heckling grew in volume, echoing until it's all I heard.
Even now I still hear it. I hid in the
bathroom again, feeling like a child, and praying that my
doors and windows would hold. Once the sun came up
and I mustered up enough courage to get to my car,
I found dozens and dozens of skulls on my porch,
all different shapes and sizes, some bleached white, others black
with decay, some red, and others laying in pols of blood.
One of them was human. I wanted to run to
the car all those through the bones, but instead I
forced myself to carefully step over each and every one
of them. Once I got back into town, I sought
out mister Faraday. He listened quietly to my account, looking
disappointed and annoyed by the time I was done, and said,
I told you not to look now. You really made
a mess, not just for you, but for everyone. My
blood ran cold, and I asked, what do you mean
everyone heard them last night's son because of yours screw up.
He closed his eyes and knit a cigarette, even though
he stood in the paper good style. If I just leave,
just go back to where it came from. He shook
his head and flicked the ashes onto the ground, uncaring
of where they ended up. Then what what do I do?
You're going to clean up your mess. A hunting party
is gathering at the diner at sundown. You better be there.
I asked if you really thought they could be killed,
if it was possible, and he waved his hand and said,
we've done it before. Son, You're not the first one
to not listen. You won't be the last. But you
made the trouble. You better be ready to help get
rid of it. I swallowed hesitating, then dared to ask,
do people not come back from hunting all the time?
This time won't be any different, sundown, son, or will
not just be hunting them, but you too. We gathered
the diner and I've been given a shotgun and a
crash course on how to use it, shown how to
load it, told what not to do, and what to
watch out for. According to mister Faraday, who was around
for the last purge, the wolves of the Appellations is
what they call them. He's sticking close to me, he says.
Having a body nearby is important. It's say for this way.
The wolves like to drag people into the forest or
decapitate the victims. They collect their skulls, the bullets. I
have a supposed to be special blessed by the priest
and bathe in holy water, USTs something like that. I've
never hunted before. That's why I'm leaving this account in
case I don't come back. Hunting accidents happen all the time.
That's what the townsfolk will say if anyone comes asking
about me, or anyone that doesn't come back. The sun
hasn't said yet, given us time to prepare, and the
priest time to bless every polity can. But we can
hear them already, the wolves laughing again. It was just
another normal walk, And so it started anyway, a casual
morning stroll on the forested trail that ran behind my
parents' house. They owned a home and a couple acres
in the small town of Skyline, Alabama. At the time,
I was in between jobs and had been living with
them as I tried to get back on my feet.
Their property intersex with a winding trail that ran for
miles through some unkempt woods in the boonies. In the mornings,
the Appalachian hills would come alive with the songs of
birds and fluttering insects. The crimson sunrise would paint a
beauty portrait as it filtered down through the bristling leaves
of aspen and spruce trees. There was something about that
place that just made me feel at peace. It was
like all the stress and anxiety of modern day worries
just faded away. It was my zen place until the
day it was shattered forever. The day it happened, I
woke up a bit before dawn, had my coffee, and
went out for an early morning walk. The sun had
just begun to creep over the horizon when I left
the house. I hadn't planned on being gone any longer
than an hour, and had only been walking about fifteen
minutes when I noticed something strange. The path around me
was oddly silent, with the only noise coming from the
sounds of my own footsteps against the gravel. The usual
sounds of woodland creatures or wind gently rustling the trees
were absent. Everything was just completely silent. It didn't really
bother me at first, but the longer it went on,
the stranger it seemed. I finally stopped to try and
determine whether it was some auditory illusion of some kind.
I listened for any of the usual sounds, cars on
the highway a few miles out, lawnmower was fired up
by the neighbors, or just any noise at all, but
there was nothing, just silence. All of a sudden, I
began to feel light headed. My vision started swimming, and
my knees wabbled beneath me. The hairs of my arms
stood an end, and a cold sweat dampened my brow.
I didn't understand what was happening, but in seconds I
was struggling just to remain standing. Panics struck hard, and
I desperately reached for my phone, think king I was
having a medical emergency. I never managed to reach it,
and I just seemed to lose all control of my
body and fall face first to the ground. I still
don't know exactly what happened, but it must have been
a seizure or a fainting spell of some kind. What
I do know is that when I finally came to
I wasn't where I was before. The environment was pitch
black and suddenly cold. Only when I struggled and felt
my knee knock into something solid did I realize I
was awake. The sudden jolt struck right on the funny bone,
caused me to WinCE in pain. I tried to reach
my hand out to rub the aching nerve, but found
I couldn't. There was something restricting my movement, something cold
and covered in a sticky substance. My whole body was
pinned vertically again. The wall. Thankfully, the bines were not
entirely restrictive, and I managed to finagle the cell phone
out of my pocket. I flipped it open and the
light glowed in the dark. It wasn't much, but it
was enough for me to see where I was that
when the true dread set in. As far as I
could tell, I was in some sort of underground tunnel.
The blinds that restricted me looked almost like the roots
of trees. They felt different, though, more like dried mud
than plant. They were grayish in color and coated with
random splotches of this greenish black goo. It was sticky
like tree sap, and hung in gobs of tendrils from
all over that smelled truly foul. I almost had a
panic attack in that moment, as I realized I had
absolutely no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there.
My initial thoughts was that there was some weird cave
in or earthquake which somehow led me to ended up
where I did. I shined my phone up at the ceiling,
but saw only the rigid outline of the rocky walls,
no feisure or gaps I could have slid through, and
thus that potential explanation died a quick, unceremonious death. My
next thought was that I had been abducted by someone.
I thought about yelling for help, but if that were true,
then I doubted they would be likely to come to
my aid. I realized an explanation in that moment was
not nearly as important as actually getting out. I wiggled
back and forth a bit. It was clear that wasn't
going to be enough to escape. I shined the phone
around the corridor, using what space lighting it provided to
try and formulate a plan. I caught a break when
the light gleamed off some shining metallic object only a
few feet to my right. It was too far for
my hand to reach, and so I extended my right
foot out as much as I could. After struggling for
a few minutes, I finally managed to dig my heel
down on top of it and drag it back towards me.
I then managed to press it against the wall and
move it vertically so I could reach it with my hand.
It was some sort of bent iron rod. I don't
know how it had possibly gotten down there, but I
was none the less happy it had After slowly wedging
it into one of the ruts I managed to push
outward and cause it to crack. The roots or whatever
they were crumbled with relative ease. A few of them
broke away, and within a couple moments I managed to
push my arm free. Soon after, I managed to slide
my entire body up and out of the hole I
had created somehow. It was only then that I remembered
my phone was good for something besides shining crap light.
I dialed nine one one, but to no surprise, the
call didn't go through. That seemed another confirmation that I
was somewhere underground, but I had no way of telling
how deep. I realized then that in all likelihood, no
one was coming to find me. The time on my
phone read eleven forty eight a m. Meaning I'd been
out called for nearly six hours. I had most of
the same clothes on, a pair of tan cargo shorts
and my running shoes. The only thing missing was my
Crimson Alabama University Hoddy. After looking around, I saw no
sign of it. The air felt chilly and stagnant, and
I shuddered as I rubbed the goose bumps of my
exposed arms. Other than my thin layer of clothing I
also had my phone, leather multitool, keys, a back of
gum and chapstick. Not exactly a Wilderness of val experts
emergency pack. The corridor was unnervingly silent, devoid of any
cave ambience, now howling wind, leaking in cracks, or distant
drips of water, just silence, intrusive and all consuming. I
started to walk, squinting to try and maximize my ocular
reception under the mineral light of my cell phone. Each
footstep I took, I did so with the utmost caution
I was capable. It felt as though every sense in
my body had been hypercharged from the onset of adrenaline
and confusion. Before leaving the area, I had one last
look back at the root system that had formerly imprisoned me.
The thought struck me then, as I observed it from
further away, it almost looked like some sort of primitive cage.
The tunnel stretched on for dozens of yards. Along the
I started finding tufts of what appeared to be dried
grass and straw randomly strewn about. Beyond that, the tunnel
came to a bend to the left, and the trail
of grass continued towards it. Once around the corner, my
eyes were met with the sight of an open cavern.
In the waning light of my flip phone, it was
difficult to tell, but it was clearly of much greater
volume than the previous tunnel. In front of me was
a large pile of sticks and dried grass, similar to
that I'd seen earlier. Beyond that, the walls came to
a sort of arch that briefly narrowed two dozen yards
ahead of me before seeming to expand out again in
the next chamber. On top of the stone arch was
a structure almost resembling a natural limestone bridge that seemed
to connect two separate ledges some thirty feet above me.
Above that, there appeared to be another open space, but
once again my lack of proficient lighting made it difficult
to tell. I tiptoed into the first section of the cave,
keeping my head on a swivel. I reached the pile
of debris and decided to dig within it to see
if there was anything useful. After finding a long stick
a moment later, an idea blossomed in my mind. I
collected a few twigs and cut a long vertical strip
off my belt with my pocket knife. I then removed
both of my boots and socks, fashioned the socks into
a sort of pouch, stuffed them with grass and twigs,
and slipped it over the end of the stick. Once
it seemed suitable enough, I took out my pack of
gum popped a piece in while cutting the wrapper in
a way to make it one long strand of foil.
I bunched the foil into a cluster and popped the
battery out of my cell phone. I placed the torch
end in the pile of brush, then moved the foil
cluster beneath it carefully. I took the two ends of
the striped foil and pressed one into each of the
battery's terminals. In seconds, the strand began to smoke and
then burst into a small flame in the brush. The
flame tucked to the dry grass quickly, and I watched
the crimson hue dance along the pile. Thank you, boy, Scouts.
I don't know what I would have done without that
little trick. The second later, my makeshift torch ignited. The
flame grew stronger, penetrating further into the shadowy canopy around me.
The panic in my mind diminished ever so slightly as
the orange glow of the torch painted an encouraging trail
through the dark. As I turned to my left, my
torch glinted off of something upon the cave wall that
caught my eye. I thought for sure I'd seen it wrong,
but as it got closer, a series of distant shapes
came into view and the porous gray rock about four
feet off the ground were a series of cave paintings.
They started low and spread for at least a dozen
of feet up the side of the wall. There were
all sorts of things depicted. Most were little more than
scrawny stick figure drawings of people, but there were a
few of animals as well. One scene that stood out
from the others. Three tall figures were drawn above a
horizon line, and three shorter ones were drawn down below it.
The way the scene was centered on the wall made
it seem significant, but I didn't understand why the torch
was burning quickly, so I maneuvered forward into the large
open chamber beyond the archway. The wallen column above the
arch appeared to bridge the gap between two rising ledges
about thirty feet up. The way it was wedged made
it look like it was done so intentionally, like someone
carved it out of the rock. The roof of the
cavern beyond the structure appeared to curl upward, and I
wondered whether there was more to see. I stepped beyond
it and felt my jaw nearly hit the floor. As
I got my answer, the room beyond the arch transitioned
abruptly into an absolutely colossal chamber that appeared to extend
upward for at least several hundred feet. Suddenly it was
bright enough to see without the touch, and I knew
that meant light had to be filtering in from somewhere
at the top. That realization provided hope, but also disbelief.
How far underground was I The chamber branched out at
various points into countless winding passages, and pieces of rock
ran overhead as makeshift bridges, looking like enormous veins in
a massive stone organ. In the center was a massive
center spire of rock that seemed to stretch all the
way to the top. Many of the veins were connect
to it, making it seem like a sort of central anchor.
Something then suddenly moved a couple hundred feet up. I
didn't see what it was, but I heard pebbles shovel
and plunge from above. They hit the ground with thunderous clanks,
sounding like popcorn popping for a megaphone. Not knowing what
caused it, and not exactly yearning to find out, I
dugged back underneath the arch. I waited there for a
minute or so, but didn't hear any further noise. It
was clear then that I wasn't alone down there, and
metallically and shone that caught my attention from the brush
pile in front of me. After looking closer, I recognized
the distant shape of a long barrel jutting from underneath
the pile. Part of me couldn't even believe what I
was seeing, but as it got nearer and pulled it out,
things just got even stranger. It was a musket, old
school flintlock, kind like the one from the Manifest Destiny era.
It was in poor condition and obviously wouldn't be suitable
for self defense, except maybe a vulgar club, but that
wasn't what held my attention. If it was authentic, and
judging from the events rushed and the hide, it seemed
like it could have been, then it had to have
been nearly two hundred years old. After digging around for
a few more moments, I quickly stumbled upon other treasures,
an old leather belt and added a sneaker, a broken
machette and knapsack, and finally her bone. I dropped it
as soon as I realized what it was that I
was holding. It looked like a large thigh bone of
an animal, probably a horse or a moose, and extremely
worrying thought then into my head, one which sprauted goose
bumps along my arms. I glanced around at the environment,
seeing the large gathered pile of sticks and other things.
The way the bundles were arranged made it almost look
like it was some kind of nest. Even then, it
seemed like a ridiculous notion. The pile was at least
thirty feet in diameter. There's no creature on Earth that
makes a nest that big, at least not that I
know of. I couldn't calm my nerves after that thought,
and decided to just continue trying to move upwards and
reach the top and more importantly, the light. Once past
the pile, I found myself faced with this series of
three branching tunnels. One of them appeared to slope downward,
and after a moment of contemplation, I decided to just
take the one on the far left that veered up.
My torch began to dim, and I did everything I
could to maintain the flame for as long as possible.
My pocket soon began to run drive, and the cave
once again grew dark. After a couple more seconds, it
was a little more than smoldering ashes. Once again, I
found myself alone in the dark. I grabbed the cell
phone from my pocket and silently debated whether or not
to go back for more fuel. An aw or stench
then accosted my nostrils, like the malaise of a polluted
rolling tide. It smelled like sewage and rotten eggs. The
scent became so overwhelming that I found my eyes begin
to water and by all climb in my throat. Along
the noxious scent was an overwhelming sense of impending doom.
Like my olfactory senses had triggered some deep, primal fear
hidden deep within my subconscious I flipped open my phone
and prayed my gut was wrong. The light from it
barely made a difference, but it was enough to confirm
my worst fear. I nearly dropped the as the outline
of a decaying human hand became visible further down the corridor.
Out of instinct, I took a step back and covered
my mouth as I wretched. Unfortunately, there was no real
choice as I had from proceeding. I popped in a
fresh piece of gum and prayed that my eyes had
deceived me. As I stepped forward, it was even worse
up close than even my imagination had built it up,
to be partially skeletonized, hands and legs dangling with gangreen
ribbons of flesh attached to a rotten corpse seated against
the wall, black and intestine spewing from the gut like
dead worms from some grotesque, moldy fruit. The head was
missing entirely, and there was no indication as to where
it had gone. My instincts were all but begging me
to flee. I had every intention of doing so until
I saw a small knapsack on the ground beside the remains.
On a hunch it may provide something useful, and seeing
other person clearly no longer had any use for it,
I decided to take it. Once I lugged it onto
my back, I said a few parting words for the
nameless corpse and moved on as if it wasn't obvious.
Before that moment was when I truly realized the severity
of my situation. Before that, I had almost assured myself
that me waking up there was some kind of mistake,
a road coincidence. But after seeing that, I abandoned that rationale.
Anxiety constricted my mind as I wondered whether I had
been kidnapped by some perverse serial killer chained up like
a pig ready for slaughter whenever he thought to entertain
the notion. After putting sufficient distance between myself and the corpse,
I knelt down and popped open the knapsack. Inside I
struck gold with a flashlight, a box of matches, a
half full water bottle, a pack of granola bars, and
a few magazines. Those were all most welcome editions, but
muched my chagrin. There was nothing to identify who the
person was or how they gotten there. At least the
flashlights still had some juice left in it. I flicked
the switch and watched the flashlights sputter to life and
blaze a trail through the passage. The tunnel was pretty unremarkable,
appearing as just a long, whining passage that led upward.
Ever since the brush pile, I hadn't heard so much
as a single decibel of sound. I never really realized
how comforting background white noises until I was forced to
go without it. After a couple more minutes of walking
in utter silence, I reached another open chamber. Two more
branching passages lay further ahead and seemed to stretch in
nearly opposing directions. One branched out left and one right,
with both seeming to lead upwards. As I approached the
two passages, I then noticed there was another directly above
me and the ceiling. I looked up to see an
extending shoot stretched for countless feet above me. Even the
light of the flashlight was not enough to illuminate its
entire length. Obviously, I had no means of traversing the
vertical shaft, but the discovery made things even more mystifying.
I elected to take the left tunnel in hopes it
would lead to a high level of the cavern. Before
I could enter one of them, though, my footsteps disrupted
a pile of pebbles and sent them skittering outward across
the ground. I froze, cursing myself with the noise and
hoping nothing had been alerted by it. My mind was
flooded with a torrent of catastrophic thoughts. It felt like
breaking the silence within that place was somehow a grave
sin in and of itself. Luckily for me, there was
no other noises. The further I went, the less likely.
It seemed like the cavern was a natural formation. The
walls had almost pat and groove marks in them, as
if something had methodically, yet borishly dug them out. The
worrying thoughts manifested as I remembered the apparent nest from earlier.
Maybe this was a den of some massive, unknown creature.
For some reason, I thought of she Lob, the giant
spired of him, lord of the Rings, And obviously the
thought did not bring any comfort whatsoever. It seemed ridiculous,
of course, but darkness and silence can play cruel tricks
on a solitary mind. I hoped that's all it was,
and I did my best to suppress them and continue on.
I dropped a piece of gum at the entrance to
the next tunnel and continued walking. The idea was to
use the glint on the shiny wrapper from the flashlight
as a rudimentary map to help me find my way
back to where I started if it came down to that.
The more I went, though, the more I doubted and
hoped I would not have to resort to that tactic.
All sense of direction in that place was restricted to
a bare minimum. As with Even as short as I traveled,
I had no real sense of where I was in
relation to where I had started. The tunnel seemed to
bend and twist like an enclosed spiral staircase on an
endless incline. Finally, as I rounded yet another bend, I
saw a dull light breaching the other end. I ventured forward,
and once more the room elongated into that massive open chamber.
There were some unusual items spread across the ground there
as well, splintered pieces of wood, along with a half
destroyed wooden chair. There was also a scattering of copper
colored coins across the ground, but I didn't recognize the denomination. However,
one item stood out right away, an old rusted sword.
I made my way over and knelt to inspect it.
On the ground looked like an old cavalry saber from
the Civil War era. The hilt was rounded and encrusted
with bronze, and the metal blade had clearly seen better years.
It looked authentic like the rifle from earlier, but of
course that would lead to the quite elaborate conclusion that
it had been there for a couple hundred years. I
didn't think much about it in the moment, though, I
was just happy to have a weapon. Hello. A sudden
voice froze me up like a breeze in the dead
of winter. I killed the flashlight and dug down, Hello, anyone.
The ethery of voice sounded like a young girl calling
from somewhere within the cave. Her vocal inflection quite clearly
conveyed a terror, and I found my heart quiver. The
thought of a young girl alone in that place and
terrified was haunting, and my instincts demanded I tried to help.
I crept onward from the room and found myself once
more entering the massive chamber from earlier, this time on
a higher level. The cavern loomed large, like an ancient
empty tomb, and felt as though I were a single
aunt in an alien termite colony. Down below, I heard
the footsteps of the girl whimpering, and I approached the
ledge to try and spot her. The area beneath me
was shrouded in shadow, and I saw nothing upon first glance.
I debated upon turning my flashlight back on and shining down,
but some part of me wouldn't comply with the thought.
Like I knew it was the right thing to do,
but fear had constricted me. I wouldn't allow my hand
to cooperate. I peeked over the edge, waiting in darkness
to try and see her. Her hushed sobs and frantic
breaths met my ears, but I couldn't determine exactly where
they were coming from. I kept quiet and continued listening,
but something strange then happened. Her muffled cries changed pitch,
and suddenly morphed into what I can only describe as
a hooting, almost manic animal screech. It was the weirdest
thing I'd ever heard. Something then darted through the darkness
down below me. I couldn't tell what it was, but
it was quick. It disappeared in a split second, and
always forced to entertain the ridiculous notion. Maybe those sounds
were not mental signal distress. Maybe it was a lure.
I can't exactly say why that a nerving thought entered
my mind, but I picked up the pace A bit.
From then on, I crossed the fallen column to reach
a higher elevation of ledges, sneaking glances down below to
keep an eye out for her what of that thing was. Luckily,
I managed to cross without incident and kept maneuvering further
into the convoluted cave system. Every path which seemed to
incline upwards was the one I took. Every tunnel I took.
I left another piece of wrapped gum at the entryway,
and the pack continued to dwindle. Most corridors and rooms
I came to held very little of interest. Found a
few sparse piles of animal bones, as well as various
personal belongings scattered around. The items I found, in no
particular order, were an old briefcase, a torn pair of jeans,
the solo winter boot, a Chicago Cubs baseball hat, and
a lunch box with spoiled contents. All of it was
rather as an eye. But then I came to that room.
It was tucked away behind a large room that split
into several other paths. By this point I was at
least several hundred feet above where I had started. The
room itself was little more than a small, separate grotto,
with the items inside I found truly interesting. Most were
articles of clothing, shirts, jackets, pants, hats, and shoes of
all sorts, numbering in the hundreds. I also saw a cane,
a fishing pole, a baseball bat, a deflated football, and
a small drink coller. All the items in that room
seemingly had a single thing in common. They all were
either entirely or primarily red. It looked as though someone
had collected them over the years, and some of the
articles and items looked dec years old at the very least.
I kept my new saber clutch tightly as I waded
my way through the debris. I was then struck by
the epiphany that my suspiciously absent hoodie had also been red.
I looked around for it briefly, but didn't find it.
It got me thinking, though maybe red was the reason
I was there in the first place. Of course, I
knew by then that I was not alone in that cave,
and likely had been abducted to arrive there by someone
or something, maybe whatever had taken me didn't like red,
or maybe they were attracted to it. Back outside, and
I was once again met with another fallen column that
led up to another higher ledge. This one was different,
though incredibly steep and worn. There appeared to be no
easy way up and no other real path to follow.
I could see the light growing more luminous above me,
and knew the steep path was my only option to
reach it. I stashed the sword on the back of
my belt and began to climb. The rocks were slick,
and parts of them crumbled as I grabbed. I moved slowly,
trying to stay both alive and quiet as much as possible.
That the road was tough, but I pushed on. I
was nearing the halfway point when something stopped me dead
in my tracks. Somewhere far above, I heard the sounds
of pebbles tumbling down the cavern slopes. I looked up
and saw a dusty cloud of residue blossom off the
cavern wall. My eyes rapidly scanned the area above, but
I didn't see anything that could have caused it. I
was just about to continue when I spotted something strange.
The dull light was flickering in from above. Just barely
illuminating the cavern. It was in that mystical twilight canopy.
I saw it on the far wall. There was a
small spot where the light appeared to shimmer in an
odd fashion. I didn't understand what I was seeing at first,
and just stared at the odd image. It almost looked
like something translucent was partially obscuring the light, like an
impossible patch of water held together by some unknown force.
I must have blinked or something, because one moment it
was there and the next it was gone. A cold
chill crept down my spine, and I decided the best
thing I could do was just keep moving. After taking
a moment to level out my breath, I continued onward
and thankfully reached the next ledge. Once I huled myself up,
I peered back down over the ledge and saw the
chamber plunge downward into obscurity. By that point, I was
nearing the top where the light was coming from. I
just hoped that all the effort to get there would
be worth it. The room beyond that ledge was yet
another empty space, released I thought it was. Once inside,
my flashlight gleamed off of one of the walls and
illuminated several patterns on the rock. The entire thing appeared
haphazardly scrawled in some sort of black ink. It was
only when I backed further away from the wall that
I realized what it was. At first I saw only
squiggled lines, bloated ovals, and winding tubes. Then I saw
the ex carved into one side. A realization struck me.
Then it was a map. It was crudely made, but
after further examination I recognized that the X section was
similar to the cavern I was in. The paths drawn
also seemed to vaguely reflect the war I'd taken to
reach that point. My eyes grew wide as I made
the undeniable discovery that if the map was in some
way accurate, then I hadn't seen anything yet. The colossal
chamber I was currently in was only a tiny fraction
of the entire piece. I counted six or seven other
sections that were at least double the size. The end
of the portrait seemed to fizzle away, as if whoever
drawn it had not yet completed the entire thing. That
realization was staggering. Just how big is this place? I
took a picture of the diagram with my cell phone
and moved on. There were sudden noises and clangs far
off in the distance, and I decided to move towards
the light as quickly as I could. According to the
crude map, the way out of the labyrinth was near.
If it was anywhere near true proportions, then I was
about three fourths of the way there. I just had
a little bit higher to go, but the worst was
yet to come. I advanced on to yet another tunnel
and began the arduous climb upward. I could see the
light getting nearer and just hoped that there was an
actual means of getting out. Luckily, after rounding a few corners,
I came face to face with just about the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen. The exit In the ceiling.
There were several partial, transparent films of unknown material stretched
over holes. The light was gently beaming in from above,
and I knew it had to be a way out.
The only question was how was I going to reach it?
As the ceiling was well over twenty feet up. I
made my approach into the open cavern and stared upwards
at the patches of rock above me. There were grew
and indentations in the side of the wall, and I
thought m I used them to climb up. It looked possible,
but I didn't get the chance to try. Then, out
of the blue, I was suddenly struck in the chest
by something. The blow was sudden, completely unexpected and sharp.
I crumbled to my knees and held my ribs where
the blow had struck, feeling blood begin to spill from
several open wounds of my abdomen. I then heard a
sudden pit a batter of feet scampering by me. My
eyes frantically darted around the room, but I did not
see my assaulter anywhere, even though they had passed right
by me. It didn't make any sense. A plume of
dust was then disturbed above me. I looked up and
saw something I still cannot fully explain. It was the
same odd, shimmering anomaly of the light that I had
seen before. It was close to this time, perched just
above me on the ceiling, who was different than before,
though there was a distinct shape to it, at least
partially like it looked different than the area around it.
For any of those who played the Halo franchise, just
pictured the translucent silhouette of an active camo upgrade, and
that's basically how it looked, something that was either partially
cloaked or my eyes just weren't capable of fully perceiving it.
It then moved, and my heart dropped like a lead weight.
There was definitely something up there, and I had no
idea what it was. Its outline looked vaguely humanoid, but
it was hard to tell for certain. The saber in
my hand quivered as I held it out towards the thing.
The three separate wounds in my chest stung like hornet's venom,
and I realized then that the pattern of them almost
looked like something inflicted by claws. I just stared at
one another for the longest time before it suddenly made
this sort of hooting noise. I then watched as it
leaped several feet and then disappeared into the shadows. Things
fell silent once more, and I seized my chance. Freedom
was only a simple climb away, and with that in mind,
I made a scramble for it. I began my climb
up the wall. It was jagged and I felt rocks
puncture into my hands, but I didn't care. I just
had to get out. I was nearing the halfway point,
when suddenly something slammed into my back. The impact caused
me to lose grip and plummeted about ten feet back
to the cavern floor. I struck hard, with my head
bouncing off the solid dirt. The room wabbled around me,
and my head pulsed from the impact. Something then touched
down ahead of me. I tried to stabilize my vision
and clutched tightly under the rusted taber as my only
means of defense. As I rose to my feet, I
felt the thing slam into me. The two of us
fell and rolled under the dirt, wrestling and flailing about.
Its claws were like razors and prana like teeth tore
into my flesh like ribbons. I fought back and struggled
so am, managing to force the thing off of me.
I'd barely even see what I was fighting, But as
we broke apart and it tried to slink back into
the shadows, I saw blood shining on its torso I
stepped forward and slashed horizontally with the saber. I felt
the tips strike and tear through its translucent hide. It
seemed only like a minor wound, but the thing went ballistic.
I can't even possibly describe the multi lay cacophony the
thing reduced voices of animals all blended into random blurbs
of vocalized pain. It flailed about, wailing in a god
awful tone, as if suddenly driven to all what a
madness by what was honestly just a minor wound. In
sheer disbelief, I watched it suddenly leap, or perhaps stumble,
over the ledge and plummet to the chasm below. It
struck a hard squelch a second later, and the silence returned.
It didn't last, though, and before I even asked myself
what the hell had just happened, I heard something down below.
It began as a chorus of hoots, grunts, and indistinct noises.
I heard pebbles scuttling about, and the aggravated voices grow
in volume. There were more of them, many more of them.
The only option I had was the holes up above,
and so once more I dashed towards the rock wall.
I scrambled up as quickly as I could as the
horde of camouflage things climbed from the abyss below. I
heard them right beneath me. As I reached the hole
in the ceiling. Was some sort of thin film material
covering the hole, but luckily I was able to push
right through it. Daylight seared into my eyes as I
plunged upwards and burst out of the cave. The light
accosted my retiness, and it took a moment to adjust
after being locked in the darkness for so long. There
were boulders around me and trees in the distance, illuminated
by a setting sun. Just as I was about to
lunch outward, something grabbed a hold of my leg. I
felt clawse sinking into my leg and tearing to the flesh.
I kicked and fought back with all the strength I had,
refusing to be dragged back down into the cave without
a fight. My finger iuls cracked as I clung with
all my might under the ledge and kicked around wildly.
By some miracle, I felt the things grip relinquish on
my leg. I harbled to my feet as the chorus
of sounds wailed from below. My leg was blooded, but
the pain barely registered. Adrenaline had taken full control, and
I galloped into a run. I didn't care where I
was going, I just knew I had to get as
far away from there as possible. I don't think I've
ever ran for so long in my life. I heard
them following me, and I knew if I stopped for
even a moment, I was dead. It was dark before
I finally saw smoke wafting in the distance. With every
last ounce of strength I possessed, I dashed towards it.
The most beautiful sight I'd ever seen came to view
then as a simple wooden cabin. I yelled out, hoping
someone would hear my please and help me. Exhaustion and
loss of blood struck me then, and I collapsed within
a dozen yards of the home. My vision began to fade,
but I saw blurry outlines emerge from within the cabin.
Things went dark once again. The next thing I remember
was waking up in the hospital, greeted by the desperate
expressions of family and friends. It was so surreal. They
wept tears of joy, thanking God and others that I
had returned. Pardon me. Wondered then whether all the things
I've related here today were just nightmares or vivid hallucinations
of some kind of coma. But as soon as they
saw the extent of my injuries, I knew that wasn't possible.
I had apparently been gone for nearly twenty four hours.
When I was found. My body was covered in deep
cuts and lacerations. I had three broken ribs and a
partially ruptured spleen. Many of my wounds had been stricken
with infection, and it took weeks for me to heal.
It was not a fun time, but at least I
was alive. The doctors and police thought my injuries were
a result of an animal attack. They questioned me profusely,
but I took the coward's way out. I didn't tell
them much, only that outout hiking I was suddenly attacked
by something. Doesn't really explain the fact that I ended
up at the cabin, which was nearly fifteen miles away
from the trail I had started on, but that detail
didn't come up. It felt wrong to lie to them,
but I was paranoid that no one would believe me.
I didn't even know if I could believe myself. Ever
since that day, I've exhausted every possible rational explanation, but
they always come up short. The memories are just too vivid.
I still don't understand exactly how it all happened, But
I've learned a few things. After I got out of
the hospital, I started doing some research on all of
this phenomenon to try and see whether anyone had been
through something similar. The Appellations had known for cases of
mysterious disappearances. Dozens of cases have been reported over the years,
with many of them remaining until I don't know whether
they are all victimized by the same thing I was,
but I did notice one peculiar detail. Many of them
were reported to have been wearing a red article of
clothing when they were declared missing. In nature, red is
the color of danger. Many animals, like balls, have an
innate fear or dislike of the color. It makes sense
when you think about it. Blood is red fire too.
Oftentimes venomus, snakes, and insects will be partially or entirely
red in color. Many poisonous mushrooms and berries also follow
this pattern. I'm not positive, but I do believe red
has something to do with this. As for what those
things were, I really don't know. I've considered everything from
aliens to ghosts and inter dimensional creatures, but I don't
think anyone knows for sure. There's a local legend about
beings that supposedly live deep in the woods, hidden away
from people. Indigenous folklore in the area mentions them extensively,
but it sounds ridiculous. Fairies nothing like the qt tinker
Bell or Cosmo Wonder. According to legend, they are subterranean
creatures that stalk and drag their prey back into their burrows.
A lot of stories claim they live near rocks and boulders,
something which reminded me of the location I arrived in
after first exiting the cave. I didn't really buy into
this explanation until a friend of mine, who was a
Native American, mentioned one particular detail. Apparently, these beings are
allergic to steal. That may explain what happened to the
one that attacked me after I nicked it with that
old saber. Maybe the steel of the blade caused it
to have a reaction. As for their apparent ability to
cloak themselves, well, no one who have told this account
to honestly has been able to explain that. My same
friend who told me about the fairies admits that he
never really believed in them. They were just stories that
his grandfather used to tell him as a kid. Both
of us don't really know what to think now. Some
people say that all myths and superstitions are rooted in
something real. Real but benign stories passed from generation to
generation by word of mouth is spiced to have been exaggerated,
and thus eventually leading to the folklore we tell each
other around campfires. Maybe this time the myth doesn't need
to be exaggerated. Maybe the reason that the world scoffs
at these stories is because the truth is something very
good at hiding. I know how all of this sounds.
Trust me, every skeptical thought that has passed through your
mind while listening to this is probably something I myself
have considered at one point or another. If you choose
to write this off as no more than fiction, than
that is your decision. I've saved this for the end
because I know there are those who skim through to
see the conclusions. I want as many people to hear
this as possible. It's the only thing that really matters. Please,
don't wear red in the Appalachian woods or any other
woods for that matter. You may not believe in or
ever see the things I have, and honestly I hope
you never do. But just remember when you're out on
a trail in the middle of the woods, they see you,
don't provoke them, because even if you survive, you'll spend
the rest of your life knowing a truth that no
one will ever fully believe. Just like me, I swear
and the highest honor I can muster that everything in
this story is true, related as lucidly as possible, all true,
no matter how badly I wish it wasn't. There isn't
much to do in the rural parts of Pennsylvania, what
some call pennsyl Tucky. Like most parts of rural America,
popular pastimes include drinking oneself into a stupor and driving
unexpectedly nineteen eighty three Ford f one fifties double the
speed limit, down narrow, rarely maintain roads. Aye, However, occupy
myself when I can by hunting. It gets a bad
rap as a barbaric cruel practice. But I've always found
solace in the forest that is impossible to find in
the cramped, too close for comfort atmosphere of a small town.
This particular season, I was out in early November in
a forest in the foothills of the Appalachians, a few
minutes away from my home northwest of Harrisburg. It was
late in the fall season, and the steady flow of
foliage tourists what locals call leaf peepers, was beginning to
trickle to a stop. Some trees were still burning of
fiery red orange, but most were beginning to wither, foreshadowing
and unusually harsh winter. The falling leaves created a curtain
of decay which moved like a sandstorm in slow motion,
shrouding and isolating me from my surroundings and crunching softly
under every footstep. I paced my way through the temple
of red and gold, alert for the light footsteps of
my quarry white tailed deer. My Winchester thirty o six
swayed on my back as I walked. The gun was
overgi for a deer, but it doesn't paid to take
chances around bigger game like elk in Black Bear. This
forest was new territory for me, a refreshing change of
pace after paved trails and subdivisions began to encircle the
hunting grounds of my childhood. As I walked, I began
to light to my guard, losing focus on the wildlife
and becoming engrossed in the natural beauty of the area.
I became so distracted peering up at the falling leaves
that I tripped over a tree route snaking through the carpet.
I followed it with my eye to its termination at
the base of a massive, gnarled oak tree. The trunk
was huge, but the tree was squat, blackened with age,
and split down the middle, as if by an act
of God. This story could have ended then and there,
if not for a smell that wafted up to me
as I passed the tree. It wound its way up
from the tree's base out of a swale ground to
the raised path I was walking on, pushing the crisp
smell of the forest aside. My first thought was that
of a dead animal, which could mean a bearing the area,
so I circled the tree to take a look. There
was no carcass, but the scene at the base of
the tree resembled a homicide. Dark matted clumps of fur
dotted the undergrowth, and a viscous black fluid led from
the forest into a hollow, overshadowed by a titanic root
leading deep into the ground. The entire picture was punctuated
by the small, rank smell a thick, coppery scent, like
pennies mixed with death. I am not unused to gritty,
even downright disturbing scenes, but this scent made me wretch involuntarily,
and the den unsettled me deeply, as though I had
stumbled upon something no one should ever see. Shaken, I
moved back under the trail, and, against my better judgment,
resumed my search for a deer. The sun began to
beat down overhead with all the clarity of a winter's day,
shining a demanding light under the forest and weakening my resolve.
They just began to unpack my lunch when something began
to bother me. I couldn't put a finger on what
it was, but I felt antsy, for lack of a
better word, like I shouldn't be sitting still without even
knowing it. I began to scan my surroundings for something, anything.
I was returning to my lunch when it hit me.
The forest was silent, no birds chirping, no insects buzzing.
Even the rustle of trees in the wind had come
to an ominous standstill. As the meaning of this realization
began to sink in, and I got to my feet.
Two things happened in rapid succession. A sizeable branch snapped
a few hundred meters away, and an ungodly screech penetrated
the November air. I have never heard a sound like
it before or since. It was as though the earth
itself split and hell opened up just long enough to
sum up the suffering of the damned in one ear
splitting roar. Terrified, I bolted to my gun, leaned against
the tree, and began to scan the undergrowth. Something big
was moved through the forest floor, but I couldn't see
what it was thanks to the curtain of leaves falling
around me. I hastily made tracks back in the direction
I had come, forcing myself not to look back. After all,
what animal would actively stalk a human without even being provoked.
I had lost the sound of the creature and began
to loosen up a little when I was hit with
a bone chilling realization. The sounds of the forest had
come back behind me, but the trees in front were
a silent of the grave. Whatever I had encountered, probably
the same beast that had made the mess under the
oak tree had circled back in an attempt to trap
me truly scared. At this point, I scrambled off the
path into a rock gully, my back to a damp
rock wall. I crawled, without taking my eyes off the
path into a cave, hoping to hide my hype of
ventilation and chattering teeth from whatever was stalking me. Only
a few minutes had passed when I heard the crunch
of leaves and a deep, demonic snorting. It stopped on
the path above my hide away, and I held my breath,
willing my heart to stop so as to be completely silent.
The creature had begun to move on when my gun,
leaning against the rock, slipped off the slick surface. It
clattered to the ground, reverberating louder than an air raid
siren in the crisp auto MA are my heart sank?
As I heard steps make their way down the rocks
and closer to me. I crawled painfully, slowly towards my rifle,
every muscle in my body tight enough to burst. I
stopped to steady myself and heard breathing right outside the
cave opening. It was choked slavering breathing, unnatural breathing, which
inspired visualizations of twisted corruptions of human and beast, a
patchwork demon of animal and man. I reached for my
gun and came the closest to death I ever have
Because I outstretched my hand, so did it. Instead of
the smooth shellck of my rifle stock, my palm met
a coarse, ragged fur, caked with mud and attached to
a lanky, sinewy arm. The beast screamed, and as I
shouldered my rifle and fired blindly out of the opening,
I caught a glimpse of yellowed fang and one blood
red eye, an eye that reflected a hatred more ancient
than man, hatred that said, this is my forest. You
may have altered it through your presence, corrupted it, but
I was here before you, and I will be here after.
Human willpower paled in the face of such uncompromising malice,
and I shrank back against the rocks, robotically cycling bullets
out of the cave. I sat there, dead eyed, doing
this for a long time, overnight and well into the
next morning, over eighteen hours of working a bolt and
pulling the trigger. By the time I snapped out of
my adrenaline fueled haze, my mouth felt like a desert
and my fingers felt as though they were made out
of canvas, stretched over dust, shaking, I reached for my
water bottle and gulped down, spilling most of it down
my front. Praying the beast was long gone. I inched
my way out of the cave and ran as fast
as my rickety legs would carry me the two odd
miles back to my truck, leaving most of my gear behind.
Nothing pursued me, but the feeling of being hunted remained.
I drove back to town eighty miles per hour on a
dirt road, my eyes wide with fear and my hands
gripping the wheel with white knuckles, Unable to bear the
thoughts of my secluded home. I spent the night at
a motel in town with a bottle of cheap whiskey
and every light in the room turned on. The thought
of the creature would not exit my mind. Was it
a demon loosened on the earth by some divine mistake,
or just an animal acrypted lost the time and the
memories of the trees. I didn't really want to know,
but I couldn't and still can't let it go. The
fear events he subsided, But as I sit at home
thinking about this, I swear hand to God that I
can hear a howl echo through the trees and across
the mountains, telling me that I may never rest, never forget,