I sit here in a dingy hotel, next to a dead town, my shotgun is loaded and I’m strapped with gasoline, ready to head back into battle. The one true battle I’ve been needing to fight. As I wait for nightfall I want to tell you how I got here and why I need to do this.
As a child of 14, I lived next to a large forest, it was a huge expanse of woods that contained the town in its green embrace. My house was on the outskirts of town and my backyard was extremely close to where the deep woods began. I would walk through there during the day often, exploring the trails with friends, or just playing near the edge of the yard.
I never thought I would feel afraid of the forest, it had a strange vibe like it held dark secrets, but that didn’t alarm me when I was a child. My Mum, however, was very afraid of what she witnessed, one day I came home from school very tired, so I immediately went upstairs intending to head to bed, forgetting to tell my parents I was home.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I could hear what sounded like my Mum having a full-blown breakdown in her bedroom, the door was hanging open just enough to peek through. I crept up to the door and looked through the crack, I saw my mum facing away from the door, sitting on the bed, my Dad was next to her. She was weeping and shaking and when she spoke, she spoke with terror in her throat. It was truly hard to hear but I could just about make out what she was saying.
“I saw something in the forest last night, I woke up dazed, it was late and outside our window, I could hear what sounded like gagging, a low deep guttural cough followed then by a loud sucking, slurping sound, like when you suck a straw to get the last drops left from a drink. I got to the window with the understanding that it was probably an animal choking on its food, so I looked out the window towards the forest.
It took a while but I eventually saw where the noise was coming from. I could see a rough figure crouching low then two small glowing red lights in the darkness, they were not moving so I assumed it could have been an object reflecting light from the moon. It was only until I saw them blink that I noticed they were eyes and they were looking right at me. That did shake me up a bit but the horror sank in when the creature started to come out of the woods crawling on all fours onto our lawn. It was heading straight for our porch doors below, its goal was to get inside our house.
I was going to wake you but the creature stopped crawling and then started walking, it was huge, it must have been at least 7 feet tall and was bony, so bony, like a walking skeleton, it walked slowly to not make much noise. At this point, all I could make out was a shadow, I wished it would have stayed that way but when the thing got close to the doors, the back door light sprang online lighting up the whole backyard, including this lumbering monstrosity. I caught maybe two seconds in total before it sprinted back into the forest.
What I saw was unspeakably horrific, it had a nasty inhuman face, it was like a skull, and its eyes were just black circles with red pupils. It had a huge set of exposed teeth that looked like daggers, no lips, just teeth and there must have been 50 tooth’s top and bottom to complete its mouth. A gray wrinkly hairless skin was covering its bones, like a plastic wrapper. It raised its huge arms quickly to shield its face from the light and ran into the darkness of the forest.
Last night I struggled to sleep but when I did it was invaded by horrible nightmares of this creature, its dead, blank gray face with its nasty exposed teeth, watching our house with malicious intentions, waiting for a good time to strike. This morning when I woke up, I went straight out into the garden to check if anything was left behind, so I could prove to you it was real, and what I found made my head spin. The light that sprang to life has a nasty big crack over the screen, which I’m sure is new, luckily the light still worked but barely.”
My father is a scientific guy and doesn’t believe in things like the paranormal or monsters, he prefers rational thinking, and to him these things we’re virtually impossible to comprehend. “Sarah, you probably just had a bad dream, remember you use to tell me you had them a lot as a child, maybe it was just that…” He said that with confidence like he had just rationalized the impossible.
She shot him a stern look and fired back a response. “I never used to dream up monsters and I’ve never dreamed up something so vivid. I —” She was then cut off abruptly.
I accidentally moved the door forward with my knee causing them both to turn with speed and shock. My father immediately sighed when he saw me.
“Andy, by God you scared us, when did you get home?” I lied to them and said just a minute ago, they both looked at each other pleased that I may have not overheard their hidden chat. My father turned to my mother and quickly said, ‘let’s talk later in bed, we don’t want Andy overhearing this, it might scare him.’, Truth be told I was terrified already and regretted overhearing the nightmarish story.
I did end up heading to my room after, but I couldn’t sleep in the end and I was no longer tired, thoughts plagued my mind all day. “Could mum be telling the truth? surely such a horrid creature didn’t exist?” I had to find out for myself if this creature was real. I waited until the dead of night and crept downstairs towards the back doors, to my surprise my mother was already there peering outside, she was awfully pale. I said in a quiet voice as I came down the stairs.“Mum, what are you doing up?” I startled her by saying this, she turned around to face me, from her facial expression, I could tell she was angry.
“Andy!” She said in one of those loud but hushed tones, just enough to let anger out but not enough to wake anyone. “I could ask you the same thing.” She said it in an urgent voice this time.
I looked at her with regret and guilt on my face. “I overheard your story mum, I came home earlier than I said and heard pretty much the whole thing. Surely that thing you saw isn’t real right? It can’t be…” I said, but I knew the truth, I could tell by the terror in my mother’s voice when she told the story that she had seen something nasty.
“You shouldn’t have, it was an adult conversation and you are too young to hear those things, now go back to bed.” I outright refused and she was shocked at my rudeness, I told her I would feel better if I stood with her and see for myself if it was real, otherwise I’d be up all night. She sighed heavily and said fine, I walked next to her while she was looking out from the glass doors into the deep forest beyond our lawn.
We watched all night together but nothing appeared and we both went to bed feeling a little easier, that the thing may have just been a dream after all. A few days passed at this point and though the story stuck at the back of my mind, I started to play outside on the lawn out back and even walked the trail with my friend a few times, I felt at ease with it all, and lived on. Then my world flipped back upside down and the freedom was soon taken back from me.
It was a beautiful summer evening, the sun was just setting and we had people over for a big BBQ. I mostly played with friends outside all evening. It was so peaceful, my mother and father had just finished cleaning up and told me to come back inside as it was getting dark. I asked for just ten more minutes as I was practicing kick-ups and was so close to getting a hundred in a row.
They agreed and went back inside, they would normally close the doors to stop flies from getting in, but this time, my mother insisted the door was left open just in case. I heard rustling from a nearby bush behind me and it caused me to stop going for my goal. My heart was beating fast and visions of this monster flooded my mind but like a curious naive child, I walked towards it.
On the floor just beyond the brush was a dead carcass, it was mangled by something brutally, it was laying on its side, its face was smashed in and its guts were spewed over the forest floor like red ribbons. It looked like a scene from an animal documentary where the predator had tucked into its prey and shredded them to pieces, everything you could see was red with blood.
I stood and stared until something extremely strong grabbed my ankle and pulled, I screamed bloody murder instantly and I was dragged with force through the bush in front of me. All I could see was undergrowth and I could feel it shredding my clothes and skin like cheese on a grater. I could hear shouting in the background and an awful scream, followed by a horrid guttural snarl.
I had just come out the other end of the bush, when to my surprise the thing had let go, I could finally see the vivid, peaceful sky again. Sitting up and looking straight ahead I could see what dragged me running off into the forest and Mum was right, it was a horrid creature, absolutely massive, gray, and extremely boney like it was anorexic, it was running on all fours like a Panther and before I knew it, it disappeared, into the darkness of the forest.
The background noise that I heard earlier was from my parents and they came over immediately to help me back up off the damp woodland floor. My mother immediately grabbed me and held me close to her, she moved back for a second to assess the damage I had taken. It was funny because at the moment I couldn’t feel anything but when I looked in the mirror after the incident; the cuts, scrapes, and bruises were quite shocking, however, there was nothing more painful than the mark on my ankle where the thing had grabbed me, it was completely swollen and extremely hard to walk on.
Suffice to say she was shocked and started crying at the state of me. She then hugged me close again and I heard her say in my dazed state to my Dad. “Did you see that thing Fred, I told you it was real!” She said with serious panic in her voice. “I did but it just looked like an animal to me, maybe a large bear? I don’t know but it was something big.”
Doubt started to creep into his rational thinking. “Oh come on, it grabbed our child with such force it dragged him through this massive bush, how can an animal do that?” She couldn’t believe that he was doubting her still. “There are animals that can…” He said with a deflated ego and with that, we headed inside, shaken and afraid of what was to come from all this.
Weeks went by again, this time with more fear than the last and the thoughts stronger. I barely went outside and I certainly avoided that damn forest, I stayed off school for a few days to let my wounds heal. On the bus home from school when I recovered, my friend Ted asked me if I wanted to walk the trail after school, it was a lovely day but of course, I refused, however, my friend had already made up his mind as he was going to walk the trail still even if it meant doing it on his own.
He had done this quite a few times so to him this would be nothing out of the normal but he did not realize that the forest was changing, it had released something extremely dangerous. I warned him immediately about what I saw and what happened to me but I fear this just piqued his interest and wanted to go on a hunt for it.
To all my best efforts I failed to dissuade him and he did go that evening out onto the trail, he never came back and the guilt I still feel to this day eats me up inside. I should have agreed, maybe we stood a chance together but fear was controlling me and there was no way in hell I was going to step back into that forest. I told Mum straight away where he was going when I got home from school but his bus dropped him off quite a few minutes before my stop so when she called his parents had already said he has already headed out. It’s weird because I and Mum looked at each other after that call like we had just been given the news that a loved one had died, I can only imagine what could have befallen him when he walked the trail for the last time.
That night was tough. The guilt I felt was so strong, that it was impossible to sleep. What made it worse was it sounded like Ted was calling my name from outside. I lay there, thinking I was dreaming, but it continued and I realized this wasn’t a horrible dream, it was a real voice. It cried, “Please Andy, I’m scared, let me in, why did you not come with me, I’m so scared” I was frozen in bed as I listened to this strange voice that sounded like Teds but it sounded off like something was replicating his voice. It was belittling me, stabbing the knife of guilt further into my soul.
With great hardship I eventually gained the courage to look outside my window, to see if it was him. I cried at what I saw, I may have even soiled myself in pure fear, Ted was there but only his head as the creature was holding it in his hand by the hair like a lantern, it was truly grotesque. The sight of it alone is something that will plague even the strongest of men for eternity. To my sheer horror, it spoke to me through Ted’s voice, I could see its massive set of teeth moving slightly to show it talking.
After the mocking finished it spoke, in a low growl of a voice, “We will meet again soon young one, I’m sure you’ll taste delicious as he did”, drolling everywhere as it spoke. I winced in pain as my ankle started to hurt again. It felt like it was on fire and it caused me to bend down and lift my pajama bottoms to see what was happening. Everything looked normal aside from a large hand mark from the creature when it grabbed me but that should be gone soon, it soon stopped quickly after examining it.
I immediately looked out the window again, but this time there was nothing to greet me back, just an empty street, fast asleep for the night. Safe to say that night I didn’t sleep, how could you when seeing such a sight. For the rest of the night, I laid awake thinking about the creature and what it said, “We will meet again soon young one, I’m sure you’ll taste delicious as he did”, Its haunting voice echoed in my brain.
After a full night of thinking I concluded, light, It’s afraid of it. I thought about the time it tried to break into our house when it saw Mum. It ran from the light, it tried to break it on the same night to get in but the light still just about worked, in the end, saving us. I told Mum the information the next day and she also agreed it had to be light. That meant in the day we were safe but at night we would need to be on guard, especially after what it told me the night before. Mum had an idea of keeping the hallway lights on at night and just in case carrying flashlights on us to use if it did end up getting close.
There was a knock at the door, and mum answered. It was Ted’s parents and they looked worse for wear, Ted’s mum spoke in a very distraught voice and the guilt crawled up my body and tugged at my heartstrings.
“Hi Sarah, sorry to bother you… Have you or your Son seen Ted by any chance? I noticed you called yesterday to check up on him, he walked the trail as I said on the phone but he never came back.” She started to cry at this point, I would have no idea what to say in this situation but Mum must have thought about a response beforehand.
“I’m so sorry Carol, no we haven’t seen Ted lately, I called because Andy changed his mind about going on the trail with him and wanted to see if he could come, I wanted to see if Ted had left so he could join him and they could go together.” It was a great response, executed perfectly, and saved us from looking like crazy people if we told them the truth. Some things are just better left unsaid even though it hurt like a bitch to hear such a cruel lie.
” I see… Well please, if you do see him tell him to come home straight away” she said with heart.
“Of course Carol, have you called the*—*”, I stopped listening here as they started one of those adult conversations, this time I avoided it.
The night was approaching fast and we all prepared for sleep, leaving the hallway lights on to which Dad protested, but Mum gave him the glare, which normally meant move along before you start something you can’t finish. Mum tucked me in tonight which comforted me, gave me a large flashlight and I placed it down on the bed next to me. As she was tucking me in she said.
“I’ve spoken to Dad, I’ve told him I want to move. I don’t feel safe here anymore and I’m sure you feel the same, it’s wrong, you should feel safe and I won’t have it much longer so we’re looking to move as soon as possible.” I was quite shocked at what she said, I have lived here all my life and a change like that for a child is extremely overwhelming, but I also felt relief that this nightmare might finally end.
“Well anyway goodnight sweet boy, I hope you sleep well”.
“Night mum”. The door was left ajar to let some light fill the room, it was comforting and soon I fell into a deep sleep at last.
Sleep didn’t last too long and when I woke it was pitch black like I had woken up in a cave of nightmares. My ankle started to throb again violently, but that did not disturb me compared to the fact that the hallway light that was on before I went to sleep was now off. My room, which was lit before sleep from the hallway was now engulfed in darkness. I yelled for Mum immediately but to my growing despair, she didn’t respond. Then my despair jumped off a cliff when I heard the floorboards creaking downstairs, followed by a slow, soft creaking going up the staircase.
I was stunned with fear, I could do nothing my body and mind were all frozen in terror. I knew it was the monster and it must have found a way into the house but most of the lights were on. How would that even be possible? I tried to turn on my bedside lamp but it wouldn’t, I checked the plug quickly to see if it was in, and it was. I then realized it must have turned off the power, honestly, I could have just curled up and cried at this point but the fear was just too strong I had to do something.
By the time I was ready to act it was already upon me, I heard the creaking stop, my heart pounding now as the boney gray hand wrapped around the door as to open it. The fingers were ghastly long as were the nails that supported them, thick like daggers and you could see dried blood covering them.
“Go away I’m warning you…” I said it meekly as a child would, gripping the flashlight now as the thing came through into the room and it was grinning with pure pleasure, teeth gleaming in the small stream of moonlight coming from the window, drool dripping all over the floor. “Your mine this time child, you escaped me once but not this time, no one is here to save you. You children are always the tastiest morsels…” thoughts then flooded my mind of poor Ted walking that trail, loving life unknown to him that he would soon become this things pray, this pissed me off and everything I did after was for Ted.
I boomed “I said go away!” I grabbed my flashlight with everything I had clicking the button and pointing it straight at the thing, it didn’t work at first and the thing dashed towards me hissing in anger. I thought I was going to die so I shut my eyes, but with one final click, the flashlight finally burst to life covering this beast with beautiful light. It instantly felt the effects and threw up its disgusting arms to shield itself from the glowing brilliance of the light, with that I ran straight out of my room and to my parent’s room screaming and shouting all the way.
They woke immediately both shocked at the chaos, my Dad shot up grabbing his pistol nearby instantly, he did not question me this time and went into the hallway. I stood next to Mum completely dazed in fear.
I hated this night, truly this had to be the worst night of my life my Dad screamed at me and Mum.
“Run!!!!”, the thing was now running out the bedroom and into the hallway at full speed at Dad, hands raised, claws out, and ready for battle. My Dad raised the pistol and unloaded everything, all I could hear was the bangs, loud and fast, followed by a scream. I still hear that scream in my dreams waking me up at night like a terrible joke of an alarm clock.
Sad to say I blacked out for the rest of the night fear gripped me too strongly, the next thing I knew I was in the hospital, confused and incredibly scared but next to me was Mum sleeping silently in a chair next to me. Like she sensed my awakeness she bolted from her slumber and ran to my bedside crying with happiness.
“Andy, my sweet boy you’re awake at last” she grabbed my head and held it close to her.
“Mum where am I… what happened?”
“We was attacked…” she began to recite what happened last night to my absolute dismay, I hated books that ended with it was all a dream but at this moment I seriously wished that was the ending, I’m sad to say it is not.
“Dad is dead Andy, he saved us… I wished he believed us sooner” She burst into tears, my ears rang for a moment then I tuned back in and looked back at her, the words just slipped out from here.
“No… no! That can’t be, he’s so strong he would have been able to beat it.” Mum must have gotten word from the police that proved he was dead otherwise she would have agreed.
“He’s gone, son, I know it’s hard to accept but he is, listen we’re going to get out of here as soon as possible and go to stay with your Antie. Were not safe here anymore and I can’t stand another minute of this town.” She said that last bit with spite, I didn’t understand that at first, but later in life, she told me it was because the police did not believe her story and chalked it up to a home invader. They had similar deaths in the area like Dad and they thought it was linked to a possible serial killer.
Years went by and the suicide attempts racked up. I never did end up accepting what happened as Mum wanted me to. The time I hit 18 I was completely lost, outcasted with no friends or prospects, I was not religious but I prayed night after night for relief, and to my surprise one day it was answered.
One week away from the end of college I attended a job fair as a last-ditch effort for guidance and to my surprise, I found it, the army, and they were recruiting then and there. I spoke to one of the guys who sympathized with my story, I left out the whole monster part and said it like the police had, saving me from the shame. From there, time went fast, three months in I was training, then before I knew it I was deployed and deep into Afgan territory, and to my relief, around our base was nothing by yellow glorious sand.
The guys hated it but to me, it was heaven as there wasn’t a fucking forest in sight, my prayers felt like they had finally been answered. I had a direction, a purpose and in a twisted way, even though my life was actively in the line daily I felt safe, I was finally far away from that thing, and from here I grew in strength again.
To my surprise, on one of the days at the base, I received mail, which was normal from my mother but not my aunt. My heart sank when I saw it was from her, I knew something was up and I was right. It was a very emotional letter but the statement was that my mother had gone missing, she was walking home from work as usual to my aunt’s, she was last seen next to the woods and I fucking knew, that thing had got her.
God knows how but I knew… I knew somehow it got her. I felt lost again but this time I was pissed. A couple more months went by and I was shipped back home, the boys were scared after what we saw. Death, destruction but no, for me it didn’t faze me in the slightest, there are more disturbing entities than war and I had seen one of them. Back to the homeland we sailed, and when we got back it was time to disperse back to our family for some much-needed r and r.
My Aunt cried when she saw me and hugged me close, I felt emotionless, half expecting my mum to pop out as a surprise but no, just my Aunt but at least it was someone. I asked her what she knew about mum’s disappearance, we sat drinking near her warm fireplace while she elaborated.
“It’s my fault I should have written to you sooner, your mother had been acting very strange leading up to the disappearance, she said she heard voices and saw things but I could not confirm myself. She was saying the forest was calling out to her, that the beast was waiting, ready to strike at a moment’s chance. The night before the event, she claimed it got into this very house and tried to kill her scratching at the walls and doors like a wild beast. I was out at the time and again I saw little evidence to support what she was saying.
Then that fatal night she went to work like usual but she seemed different, she gave me a big hug and told me that she loved me and was so proud of her little sister, she has never said that before and it took me back, I just shrugged it off to her having a good day but I now realize she was saying goodbye. I checked my knife draw to find 1 missing, if this thing is real then she must have gone into the forest to fight it.”
The sadness I felt was immeasurable, she was crazy to do such a thing but at the same time, it showed strength and I now knew I had to do something. I gathered my things after she told me the story and left, my Aunt begged me not to go and that the police would look into it, but I was fed up, I needed to do something.
I grabbed the keys off the side of my Aunt’s car and promised her that I would give these back to her when I’m done and with that, I left. I stopped off at a gun store and bought a combat shotgun with bullets and filled up tanks with gasoline, then with speed and anger I headed back to that shitty town.
So here I sit in this hotel waiting for nightfall, next to town which is pretty much deserted except for some hardcore locals. My shotgun is loaded, two flashlights at the ready with plenty of battery, knives, a combat jacket, and most importantly a few tanks of gasoline.
Nightfall approaches, I hear a blood-curdling howl come from the woods near the hotel, the thing must know I’m here. I must end my story here, I will kill this thing even if it means sacrificing myself and setting that whole god damn forest on fire, it ends here. Learn from this, nature can be amazing and beautiful it can also be deadly, forests portray that contrast like no other. From afar they look breathtaking but within, the silence, emptiness, and stillness hide the nightmares we fear.
My name is Andy Thompson, I wish you all the luck in the world, thank you for hearing my story. Goodbye.