I have some time and god knows what’s going to happen to me tonight, so I might as well type this out and see if any of you can help me. I’m in the middle of the woods during a snowstorm, last thing I heard from the cops before my phone lines went dead was they’ll send someone up here when it’s safe, my best friend is missing, and there’s a god damn talking bear watching me from the woods. I have the doors locked and the windows barricaded because I think it’s been watching me all day. Luckily the internet is still up, but I don’t know for how long. I can hear it outside, occasionally “laughing” in this husky deep voice, and telling me I smell nice and shit. One of the last thing I heard it say is it will be coming tonight.
Sorry for rambling, I’m just terrified right now. Some context. James is an old friend of mine since middle school when he got detention for beating up this bully harassing me. He messed the bully up bad, knocking out a few teeth and blackening both of his eyes. I told the teacher the bully had started it and we’ve been best friends ever since. To say James preferred nature to the city would be an understatement. I think he has some kind of social anxiety because whenever he was forced to social gatherings like parties, weddings, and the like, the very next day he would be in the woods, either hunting or hiking. It was like therapy for him. And he had a gift with hunting where whenever he went out, he would usually come back with the biggest game I’ve ever seen. One time he made the news when he got a 12-point deer. To the layman, that’s a large set of antlers, and it was the day after he did jury duty! Something in him attracted the biggest animals around, and I don’t know if that has anything to do with what’s going on.
He had been involved in a lawsuit when his house collapsed on him. It crushed his left arm pretty bad and doctors had to amputate it. He got a good settlement out of it, due to the house being new and faulty construction being the culprit, and immediately set off for Alaska. He had a plan to retire in Alaska, and I guess the house collapse was enough to make him realize that his dreams can’t wait until retirement. And I’m sure the settlement helped realize that as well. He ended up moving to Kodiak, a city on an island by the same name that’s on the southern end of Alaska. But then he went a step further and made a cabin several miles into the woods. I gotta say, getting to the cabin is a bitch. Not only do you have to get to Kodiak by plane or ship, you drive on a precarious road about halfway to a small village called Chiniak, then take a dirt road detour through the mountains – with no guard rails protecting you from the drop, mind you – and THEN take a mile hike up and down a mountain to get to it. But the view of the ocean and woods, on a backdrop of the mountains… Man, I wish everyone could see it once in their lives. I’m not an outdoorsy person by any stretch of the imagination, but the first time I saw the view, I was in awe at what the world can look like at the right parts.
But you figure the logistics must be a nightmare, and they are. James convinced me to move to Anchorage. I would have gone to Kodiak, but I’m too in love with the city life’s conveniences to go that far. He has me on a… Salary. See, he regularly sends me money and once a month or two, I will bring him groceries. I pack up a Chevrolet Express with a sled and enough groceries and other necessities and get it on a ship to Kodiak. Then I drive out to the base of the mountain just before the hiking path over the mountain. James and I then load up the sled with as much as we can carry and bring it to the cabin. During summertime we can do this in one trip, but in wintertime, I can’t visit as much and so I bring more and sometimes can make 2-3 trips. Most of the time I’ll spend a night or two there. I’m not much of a fisher and I couldn’t tell you the difference between a pistol and revolver when it comes to shooting, but we make it work. Well… Usually alcohol helps.
Sorry again for the huge segue. Part of it was me reminiscing and a part of it was context for where I’m at. The last couple of times I visited, James mentioned being visited by a bear. Keep in mind, Kodiak bears don’t mess around. They’re the largest bears around, polar bears included. They’re not hypercarnivores like polar bears, luckily, so usually only attack due to territory reasons. This bear has piercing and intelligent golden eyes, which is what James said is how he spotted him. The bear’s eyes are golden rings that reflect light so well, you’d think they were glowing.
Anyways he said this bear would come at night. It made almost no noise and would just watch him from afar. He had been cooking dinner when he saw gold glints and that’s when he found the bear. “Jesus christ!” James shouted. The eyes were about 10 feet off the ground and just outside the lighting of the cabin so James couldn’t tell if it was on its hindlegs or what, but that it was a giant ass animal. He said it cocked its head to the side briefly, then walked away. It began showing up every other night, then every night. Each time, there wouldn’t be a noise, just those eyes in the darkness. They were always in the distance so he couldn’t gauge the full size of the bear. All around the house, it seemed to find a way to watch him. He could be in the basement and see its eyes through the window slits, watching him from the woods.
One time he was trying to get a cell phone booster working on the roof because blizzards made it impossible to call, when he caught the eyes of the bear. At this point, he had been on and off the roof trying to get it to work and was calling me to test it out. He hadn’t been able to get it to work, and the phone signal was crappy. But I still remember when he was talking with me and he mentioned the bear. At this point, he told me about the bear a couple times and we both figured it was just curious, but this was the first time he was outside when the bear appeared.
“Listen, I screwed it on right and it says to face the nearest cell tower, which is either Kodiak or Chiniak, but neither are wor – Oh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just, you remember the bear we talked about? Yeah that fucker is back. Maybe he has a den nearby? I don’t know.”
“Well be careful, if he’s as big as you say, I wouldn’t let him get close to the house. Remember my old neighbors, the Stanley’s? Just the other day a bear broke into their basement to get at the moose meat they had in cold storage. Those were metal doors padlocked, and it didn’t-”
“… You look nice.” The phone barely picked up a voice in the distance. It was unusually deep, like someone said it in the middle of yawning. The voice was strange and made me stop talking for a moment. I didn’t hear James for several seconds.
“FUCK-“ I heard James yell and then a series of bangs and rustling like he dropped the phone. “What the fuck!” I heard James again, this time a bit far away from the phone.
“James!” I yelled. The strange voice put me on edge, and some fear slipped into my voice. There was no response for several seconds.
“Hey you there??” James almost yelled in the phone, sounding out of breath. “God damn, that bear is something else.”
Apparently, he had been hearing a whispering in the woods while on the call with me. He heard someone ask why he’s on the roof while I was talking to him and leaned over the roof to try to see if someone was out there when he heard the voice clearly and loudly, the ‘you smell nice’ phrase I had heard. He looked over where he thought the voice came from and saw the eyes of the bear. But the bear wasn’t still like before. They were quickly approaching from the woods. It ran up to the side of the house and placed a heavy paw on the ladder he set up, which immediately collapsed under its weight. It was getting dark so he couldn’t see most of it, but as it was running forward, it passed by the light coming from the window. Its fur was black, which is strange because Kodiak bears are a subspecies of brown bears and share their coat coloring. The leg he saw was almost the same width as a door frame. But the bear’s head was off. It was much larger than most bears. He only got a brief look at the side of it but it was almost touching the ground. Remember, the bear’s head is around 10 feet from the ground, going by the initial estimates. It looked like it was trying to climb up the ladder when it broke. Something about that spooked the bear and it took off back into the woods. James remained up there and talked with me briefly as he tried to look around for the bear again. When he was convinced the bear wasn’t nearby, he jumped from the roof and booked it into the house. He had considered calling the cops, but what could he tell them? A bear approached his house and there might be someone walking in the woods? Despite that, I managed to convince him to call the cops once he hung up with me.
I tried calling him back a few hours later, but no answer. I tried several times that night. The cell reception out there is really bad for most of the year, and during winter it’s worse. When it is that bad, you will get ringing while the receiver has no idea you’re calling. With how bad the snow is, that idea lingered on my mind. I was already planning on visiting him next week, but decided I would try to get there ASAP. At this point I was in Washington as part of my job, and so knew it would be a while before I could get to James’ cabin. I got a flight back to Anchorage as soon as I could, but it still took a day for it to happen. I don’t know how to put it, but the voice I had heard put me in extreme panic mode. It barely sounded human, and if it was, that’s equally scary that someone was that close to a giant bear and still whispering to James. I made up my mind to go there and pick James up and bring him to my place to crash for a few days while we get it sorted.
I had finally managed to get to Kodiak and then made the drive to the hiking trail used to get to James’ house. I have to admit that when I first got there, I waited a bit and looked around, waiting for golden eyes to appear, but none did. I did bring a gun with me – a 9mm pistol. I know some hunting and gun aficionados will laugh at the thought of a 9mm being used against what might be the world’s largest bear. Honestly, I agree. But a 9mm was all I had for protection and anything else had a long wait time. And besides, 9mm can still do good damage, and if nothing else, the sound scares away most animals.
I started the hike and during it, heavy snow began. A blizzard was forecasted as a possibility, and I guess it hit earlier than normal. During the hike, I kept my eyes all around me. From what James had said, this bear makes no sound when walking, but its eyes were easily spotted. The walk, fortunately, was uneventful, though I couldn’t hear any animals in the woods. That’s not too surprising, as snow acts like a good sound dampener unless it freezes. But still, with what was going on, it was unnerving.
I get to the cabin as the snowstorm worsens, and at this point it basically is like fog hanging in the air and reducing visibility. I see that the front door is broken open, and I feel a chill that’s worse than the air around me. I enter the house and there’s no one. I call out for James and, thinking about the voice, if anyone else is in there. No response. I listen carefully for any sort of breathing, wood creak, anything. And it’s just dead silent inside besides the wind buffeting the side of the cabin.
From the entry way, you make a left turn to go into the living room, and the rug that’s normally in the entryway has been swept to the right and into the kitchen. The living room is chaos. The moose skin rug has been ripped apart, the table and couch flattened, and the inside wall facing the opposite the window has a tremendous depression in it that extends its entire length and height where wood has either bent or shattered. The ceiling had several support beams about 12 feet above the floor, which had been torn through, with their splinters filling in 3 large holes in the wood flooring, wide enough that I could have sat in the middle of them without hitting any of the edges.
The kitchen is largely intact, besides the entrance rug that found its way onto the stove. The fact that the kitchen was left alone was surprising to say the least. Bears go by scent a lot of the time, and I know James usually keeps fresh moose in the freezer and fridge. A bear would much prefer an easy meal to one that fights back, and with how good their noses are, there is little doubt they would have smelled the moose once inside.
‘The bear broke in and attacked James’ was my immediate thought. But there’s no blood anywhere. Bears aren’t exactly graceful hunters, and if James was attacked there should have been blood on the floor. No torn bits of clothing, no hair, no fur. I look in the backyard where James had been building a porch and said it would be done by the time I visited next. And I see the porch – completely destroyed. Splintered wood and metal railing litter the floor, with some intact wooden stakes upright, a couple with loosely connected bits of flooring. Had the bear tried to enter through the back? I was trying to piece together what happened when I heard something that hit me in the gut.
“You smell good.” It was the same voice I had heard over the phone, but louder and clearer. It must have been somewhere deeper in the woods. I quickly run to shut the front door, but remembered it was broken. In my panic to close and lock it as fast as possible, I basically slam it into the door frame with a loud thud. I was filled with immense regret and scared shitless at the fuck up. If the bear was wondering, now it knew; someone else now was in the cabin. Luckily the door had a deadbolt on the inside. For some reason, it wasn’t used when the door was broken through, and so both sections remained intact. I know it probably seems stupid, thinking a deadbolt could hold back a bear, but I had no other option. I lock the deadbolt and sat against the door, trying to pull my phone out of my jacket.
As I’m doing this, I look around, remembering James mentioning it had someone managed to spot him no matter where he was in the house. And sure enough… I see it through the living room window. It was looking at me from the edge of the house with only half the face visible. With how still it was, it took a moment to register an animal, when I realized something. He was fucking peeking at me, like some pervert! With how massive it was, how did I not see it when he peeked from the corner?? Was he watching me the whole time?
I’m paralyzed with fear, so am unwillingly seeing more of this monster. His fur is darker than a black bear’s and his eye was a glowing gold ring that hung in the upper portion of a tremendous shadow. I thought he was standing just outside the corner, but as I am frozen in fear watching him, I realize something that, to be honest, made me cry out a bit. He wasn’t stepping out from the corner. It was its head. His head extended to where it lightly brushed the ground. This immense shadow watching me could easily fit James or I inside it. And it’s half. Its. Face. I’m trying desperately to tell me body to move, when it speaks.
“It’s too cold to run, you better stay inside.” The same voice as over the phone, a deep unnatural tone. I don’t see teeth or a mouth, but the way the lower part of the shadow moved made me realize its lower jaw was moving. I scream. The connection of the voice to the bear somehow shattered the inability to move and I realize I am yanking at the pistol I have in the holster. The holster is a new one and I fumbled with it. As I do, the face withdraws from the corner of the building. I don’t hear it run away and honestly am not sure if it wasn’t just hiding behind the corner.
I guess I am glad it went away, because with the terror I had been feeling, I have no doubt I would have tried to shoot it through the living room window. I doubt it would have done much to it, but it would have shattered the window and exposed me to the blizzard outside.
I waited for several minutes before moving. My whole body felt heavy, possibly from adrenaline wearing off. I decide before I do anything, to call the police. My phone has absolutely shitty reception out in the cabin, but it still manages to connect. I tell the dispatcher on the other end where I am at and then that my friend had disappeared, and a bear was outside the house. The dispatcher asked me if I wasn’t sure James hadn’t just gone into town to escape the blizzard.
“He can’t, it’s impossible. He has no car.”
“Normally when a blizzard as bad as this is forecasted, many people living in the woods come into town and wait it out.”
“You’re not listening, I said he doesn’t have a car!”
“Calm down sir, I’m just trying to find the most reasonable answer here. He could have called someone to pick him up. It sounds like your friend disappeared, and with no one around to scare away that bear, it managed to get into the house, probably smelling food.”
“The bear is still here!”
“I understand that. Listen, bears don’t like dealing with people. It saw you were in the house, probably didn’t think it was worth the trouble to get into the house.”
“But it s-“ I cut myself off here. I was about to say it spoke to me, but there’s no way that would have helped my case. I was getting the feeling the dispatcher likely thought I was some tourist or something, dealing with wild animals the first time in my life.
“I will advise Kodiak PD of your situation, but with how the blizzard is, we likely won’t get anyone out there for a while. I recommend keeping your doors and windows shut – any open door or window can lose heat rapidly which is hard to get back. If you see the bear again, and you think it’s getting too close, bang on the window or shout at it. It’s just curious and that shou-“ The line went dead after that.
I look at my phone, and I see the no signal symbol on the screen. The wind picks up and I’m reminded that this blizzard is just beginning to pick up. Even without the bear, going outside and trying to make it to my car would likely be my death. It’s getting colder outside and the wind and snow are picking up. I’m trapped in this house and likely won’t be able to leave for some time. Luckily the fireplace has some wood next to it, and the cabin is well insulated so I can ration the wood out for several days. I am working out my next couple of steps when I hear a bizarre and deep “heh.”
The sound is like a single laugh, but there’s no actual emotion in it and it sounds closer to someone waking up from a deep sleep and trying to say their first word. I look around and see the bear again. It had retreated into the woods, making it hard to see it clearly. But even with the increasing snow, those eyes are unmistakable. It was staring at me, unmoving. There’s no curiosity behind that stare. Hell, it’s hard to even say there’s life behind that gaze.
Thankfully, I got more of my wits about me and know not to shoot the window out like a dumbass. A mixture of fear and bravery makes me directly face it. Perhaps part of the bravery is it is still a good ways away, but I still shout at it. “What the hell do you want??” I tried to sound brave as I shouted, but there’s no denying that I sounded scared shitless. For a second, I feel stupid, cause I just shouted while still inside the house with wood, glass, and 20 feet or so of outdoor weather between us. I could hear it, but it could be that that’s because it’s a huge fucking bear. I don’t know if it actually heard me, but even if it didn’t, it saw me trying to communicate with it. Because in response, the bear took a small step closer, and I almost fall through the kitchen floor as I instinctively step back. Then I hear the voice, through the blizzard and my own house, I hear it speak. “Getting dark. I’ll come in then.”
So yeah, I realized I am on a sharp timeline. It is indeed getting dark pretty fast. I don’t know why the bear hasn’t just barreled into the house and killed me. With how big it is, it seems like it would have no trouble breaking apart the building to get to me. It first appeared to James at night and made its move when James was on the roof when it got dark. But it also ran on small things like the ladder breaking.
My phone still doesn’t have a signal. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case for several days. I immediately start moving shit around to barricade myself in. I push furniture against the door and a dresser on the largest window. I managed to find some 2x4s lying around, likely from James’ porch project, as well as a hammer and some nails. I nail the boards over the back porch door. A part of me feels like a fool doing all this. Like I said, the bear is huge and everything I set up feels like it wouldn’t even make a difference in how fast it could get to me.
As I was barricading everything I could see, I could hear strange sounds outside. I had not heard this bear walk at all before then, but heard sounds like the wall creaking, as if under stress. I look at the huge indentation in the living room wall and can only imagine the bear pressing against a wall for some reason.
One last thing. I had went ahead and started working on the fire. I hadn’t realized how cold it was in the house due to the door being left open until I had barricaded the doors. I got a couple logs in it and a Firestarter brick. The brick’s fire started and there must have been some lighter fluid or gas in it previously as it ignited in a sudden flash. Just as it does, I hear a weird “Ah?” From outside. I turn around and I see it. I don’t know how I didn’t see it earlier as the shadow was blocking almost all light from the side of the house. But between two planks of wood against the kitchen window, its golden eye is watching me. No light coming from the window, just the golden ring, glowing by the illumination of the fire. It was looking at the fire, but then there was a small change in the eyes and I realized it was now watching me. Then it said something that has haunted me since: “He’s alive. Soon, you will too.” I was frozen in fear as it watched me for a second, before it ran off. This time I heard the footsteps, or more closely, felt them. Even with the snow dampening the sound, the first several steps rattled the house and caused the dishes in the kitchen to clank together.
So yeah, I’m really terrified and have no cell service. Luckily I still have internet due to a dedicated fiber optic line. I haven’t looked around the house much… So much happened so quickly, I felt like I have not had time to do anything besides barricading the house, but with how big it is, that probably was a waste of time. And now the sun is going to set in a couple hours. You can’t tell in the blizzard where exactly the sun is, but there’s a dampening of light bridging into twilight that gives you a rough estimate sometimes. As I’ve been typing this I’ve been wary of my surroundings and occasionally see a shadow move from the side of the house, and occasionally I hear terrible sounds outside… I think it’s scratching or chewing on parts of the house. I’ve seen coon hounds do that on a tree when they’re excited about a scent. And on occasion I’ll hear a sound like a laugh, but deeper and just a single syllable. And what it said stuck with me. Is James alive? Was it lying to me? If so, why? I’m filled with ideas and theories on what it means, none of it feels good.
I’m just hoping someone here has some sort of experience or advice that would help me get through the night. Just the night, at least.