I’ve always had a love for camping and hiking. Something about the feel of being outdoors and with pure nature is comforting to say the least. I went by myself many times but most often with my girlfriend since she loved nature, which we had in common. This story took place on one of those times I was with my girlfriend.
It was a foggy Friday on which we had no plans and my girlfriend brought up the idea of camping, so of course I almost immediately agreed. We planned that we would take a hike through some woods that were about an hour drive away from us then set up camp. All seemed well. We packed our bags and walked since at the time we had no car, so it took us about three to two and a half hours.
When we arrived the sun was on the horizon and everything looked beautiful. We began to hike and all was fine except one eerie thing, my girlfriend kept saying she kept seeing something watching her from behind the trees quite far into the forest. I brushed this off as she was quite an anxious,paranoid person. After this she began to walk closer to me and everything seemed fine again. We got lucky and found a beautiful clearing deep in the heart of the forest. This place was great as it was a large open area with some fallen over trees in a square kind of formation in which we set up our tent.
We unpacked after setting up our tent and began to cook some food over a fire trying hard to get it to be perfect for us. We ate and decided we would have a talk, listen to some music, then get some good rest. We had a few interesting chats for some reason on pretty horrible topics like suicide and murder which for some reason we are into. We talked about a few certain people like the zodiac killer in which we had a long discussion over if the case would ever be solved or if it would linger in the back of our minds for the rest of our lives.
It was now 10 PM and we decided it would be great to get some sleep. We climbed into our premium sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep. I woke to see her leaving the tent and I asked “where are you going?” She responded with “bathroom break” but in a tone as of which she was going to cry. “Are you alright?” I asked solemnly. “Yeah I’m fine”. She proceeded to leave the tent without another word. Minutes passed, which then turned into 15 minutes. I decided to check on her.
I grabbed my flashlight and pulled myself out of the tent,still half asleep. All I could hear was a distant whimper coming from deep inside of the woods. I began to make my way to where I thought the noise was coming from. I froze. There right in front of me was my girlfriend, suspended from a rope which was tied into a noose. That wasn’t the worst part, half of her face was mauled brutally, flesh ripped bare from the bone. In her final breath she spoke to me. “I will always love you and stay away from the cave in the distance .” That was the last thing I heard from her before she died. Her body went limp in front of my very own eyes.
“The cave?” I thought in a panic. I turned to see a cave smeared and collapsed on by dirt. I had to investigate to see if the thing that did this to her was in there. I began to shake as I advanced towards the cave. What I saw still haunts me to this very day. A brutally deformed old man that didn’t seem fully human was crouched over half of my girlfriend’s face making horrible chewing noises while giggling. “You know?” He spoke. “I have watched you two since you first step foot on this land and knew that one of you guys would be explorative enough to find me”. “And you could have prevented this by just believing her when she said she saw something”. He said mockingly. I wasn’t going to stand there anymore.
I made a break for the way out of the forest stumbling onto our original path. I ran down it feeling something breathing on my neck hairs as I went. I sped up. I could hear that thing begin to lose energy as I could hear distant panting and shouting. “I’ll find you someday!” I heard. “You can join that stupid woman of yours in the futile void we call death!” I kept running. I eventually made it to a road where I hitchhiked home.
I told everyone what happened. They all believed me. Turns out there has always been a legend of a creature taking the form of an old man in that forest. What still gets me is that I could’ve prevented all of this just by saying a word. That image of my girlfriend mauled still stays with me now. Every time I sleep I swear I can make out an old man hunched in my room. Getting closer day after day.