This all happened last week. What I thought would be a nice holiday had quickly turned into a fucking living nightmare, the likes of which I had never seen before. And I have seen a lot of pretty messed up stuff in my time.
I was staying at a small, kind of remote little caravan park in a wooded area in Northeastern Scotland. I’m a police officer and I was off-duty, so I thought I would go and stay at my uncle’s caravan because the weather had been so nice. It had been really warm, and I just didn’t want to waste the summer away.
The caravan park was nice. It was very quaint and cozy and my neighbours seemed like alright people. I’d say there was about 50 or so people staying at the park, most of them couples or single. There was only about 3 families. So it was pretty quiet. It felt goddamn euphoric after spending so much time in the hustle and bustle of the big town that I was stationed in. I’ve never been an urban person, I was a country guy, born and raised. It would be a nice break from the stuff I’ve had to deal with. From domestic disturbances, drugged up assholes causing trouble, muggings, drug deals… God, it just felt so nice to just relax and ease my mind a bit.
The park was surrounded by a large hedge. On it’s left side, it was mostly hilly moorland and fields with treed hedges. On its right side, it was bordered by dense woodland. The morning after I had first arrived at the caravan park, I went into the woodland to take a few pictures, after the guy who was staying in the caravan next to my uncle’s, told me about a nice stream and the bird species that hung around it.
The woodland was very dense and many of the pathways were way overgrown, like the vegetation hadn’t been cut back for a good few years, my legs got stung to hell and back by fucking nettles. After that ordeal, I found the stream. It was very pretty, especially with how the sun beams glinted off of it’s surface. I saw a couple of bullfinches up in the trees and snapped a few pictures of them, and then I took a couple of pictures of the stream. I walked along the stream for a bit after that and found something weird at the base of a young birch tree.
It was a bunch of tiny skulls, likely from mice and voles. Now this normally wouldn’t be that unusual, because they could have just come from an owl pellet. But what made this weird, was they had been placed into a neat circle. I pondered on it a little, but then I just shrugged it off. I thought that someone with a morbid sense of humour might’ve done it to try and freak out passersby.
I continued on my woodland walk, snapping pictures and just admiring the beauty of the woodland. But it was very, very quiet. Too quiet. Not many birds were chirping away and singing for one. The only consistent noise was the running stream and the bushes and tree branches being rustled by a breeze. I thought that maybe it was the heat. It was pretty warm today, so maybe the birds weren’t being as active as a result.
Eventually I found a small clearing in the woods. At the edge of the clearing was a small oak tree, and hanging from one of its branches, were two gutted Tawny Owls, that had been strung up by their legs. I thought that it was a poacher, it had to be. Perhaps they had created that circle of skulls to scare people off from the area. I inspected the carcasses, they looked very fresh, probably only a day old and most and that meant the poacher was probably still in the area.
I reached into my pocket and retrieved my phone to alert the local police, but the signal was crap out here, so I couldn’t reach them. I’d have to tell the park manager about it when I got back, and they’d have to alert the police. I fucking loathed poachers. I’d dealt with a lot of scumbags in my time, but poachers were definitely on the list of things that I hated with a passion.
But as I would find out later, this wasn’t the work of a poacher. This was the work of something much worse. But I’ll get to that soon enough.
…
I told the park manager when I got back, and he had someone contact the police and they had said they would be on lookout. I went back to my uncle’s caravan after that, and just watched television for the reminder of the day. I would have drawn a few pictures of the woodland, but the whole ordeal with the dead tawny owls had soured my mood too much.
I got bored after awhile and decided to take a late afternoon stroll around the caravan park. As I passed by the children’s play area, I saw my neighbour, Richard, and he was pushing his daughter on one of the swings. He noticed me and called me over.
“How’d your walk go Gareth? Its frigging beautiful in there isn’t it.” He said.
“It started off nice but…” I asked him to come and sit with me at one of the benches, so that we were out of earshot of his daughter.
“There’s a poacher in the woods. I found two dead Tawny owls strung up on a tree.” I explained.
“Really?” Richard replied.
“I told the park manager to call the nearest police station and put them on alert.” I said.
“But Gareth you’re a copper. Can’t you go after the guy?”
I shook my head “No Richard. I’m off duty and I don’t know the woods around here that well. The local police have way more resources than me, so I think its best to leave it to them.”
Richard nodded “Yeah, your right there Gareth.”
“Its kind of creepy though ain’t it? Some dodgy, illegal stuff like that going on around here, right under your nose and you’re none the wiser. I mean some of the parents round here let their kids go play in those woods. Its really fucking scary to think about. I don’t let my Annie anywhere near those woods if I’m not around.” Said Richard, as he peered at the woodland beyond the hedge.
“That’s the smart thing to do, Richard. Too many freaks and dodgy types around nowadays.” I replied.
“Yeah. You’re right Gareth, big time.”
…
The sky had started to cloud over come evening, but it was still dry and warm, though not as humid as it had been during the day. I was laying on the sofa, lazily eyeing the tv, though I wasn’t really that invested in what I was watching. It was very quiet outside, there only seemed to be a couple of kids still out playing.
I eventually nodded off. I was probably asleep for maybe a half hour or so, before I was awoken by a series of loud, frantic knocks on my door.
“What the hell…” I said groggily as I hauled myself from the sofa and over to the door.
I opened the door and saw Mrs Vickerson standing on my porch. She looked terrified, and I noticed that she was bleeding from her upper arm.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“A man broke into our caravan. We though he was a homeless man but… he jumped at us and slashed my arm with a knife. My husband tried push him away but the man just grabbed hold of him and started slamming his head into fridge. I ran out of the caravan and came here because I heard you’re a police officer.” She said.
I thought that it must’ve been the poacher. Maybe he had run out of supplies and decided to sneak over here and break into one of the caravans.
“Mrs Vickerson, stay here, lock the door and call the police. There’s a first aid kit in the cabinet. Put some antiseptic on the wound and wrap some gauze around it okay. It’s not bleeding too heavily, so I don’t think a major artery has been punctured.”
I went over to the closet and retrieved my maglite flashlight. The thing was honestly more like a baton than a flashlight (especially since I attached a side handle to it), it was almost as long as my arm. It needed quite a few batteries, but it was very, very good as a weapon.
“Okay remember, lock the door and call the police.” I said as I headed out of the door.
“Be careful Mr Walters.” I heard her say just before I shut the door.
Richard was smoking on his porch. He spotted me and got up out of his deck chair.
“Hey Gareth where are you going?” He asked.
“Richard get inside your house and lock all of the doors and windows. Somebody’s broken into the Vickerson’s caravan and attacked them. I think it might be the poacher.”
“Oh shit. Be careful man, okay.” Richard said before running back into the house.
The jog to the Vickerson’s caravan was tense, because I didn’t know what the hell the guy was like and how he would behave. He could’ve been on some drug, and if that were the case, then I would likely have a lot of issues subduing him. Now I’m a fairly big guy. I’m about 6’3” and 194lbs. But when you add drugs or psychotic breakdown into the mix, even the scrawniest person can gain the strength of goddamn bear. I had seen a lot of examples of this “hyper adrenaline” strength in my time as a policeman.
I now stood in front of the caravan. All of the lights were on inside, and there didn’t appear to be any signs of a forced entry. None of the window’s were broken and the door hadn’t looked like it had been bashed in either. It was honestly like nothing had happened at all.
I stalked up to the front door, opened it slightly and peered inside. The living room looked empty, and didn’t look to have been ransacked either. Slowly and cautiously, I stepped into the living room and held my flashlight defensively, in case of a potential ambush. From what Mrs Vickerson had told me, the man had attacked her and her husband in the kitchen, so I moved over to the kitchen door. I put my ear up against the door, and heard nothing. I slowly turned the handle, and opened the door slightly.
Mrs Vickerson’s husband was laying face down on the floor. I surveyed the room for a couple of seconds and then I slowly entered. He had some bad bruising on his head, and a bit of blood. On the kitchen table, there was the intruder’s knife. It was weird looking. The handle looked like it had been roughly carved from wood and the blade looked like it was made from flint rather than metal. The blade looked like it had broken, and I could see a small bit of flesh stuck to the remaining piece of the blade.
I looked back down at Mr Vickerson. All five fingers on his left hand had been cut off.
“What the hell…”
This guy was a fucking madman. Maybe he wasn’t even a poacher at all. Maybe he was just one of those freaks who got off on hurting and killings things. He must’ve taken the fingers as some kind of trophy.
I grabbed a dish cloth and wrapped it around Mr Vickerson’s hand to stop the bleeding, it was all I could do for now until proper help arrived. I needed to find this psycho fast. Oh shit, there was probably still people out and about.
I dashed out of the kitchen, but then I stopped when I heard a loud bump come from the bedroom. Maybe the fucker was still inside the caravan. Maybe I had a chance to stop him here and now. I edged over to the bedroom door, making sure to make my footfalls as quiet as possible, so I wouldn’t alert the intruder. I needed to plan my course of action carefully. I couldn’t just go rushing in, screaming like a wild-man, because like I said before, I wasn’t sure what this guy was truly capable of. But from what I had seen of Mr Vickerson in the kitchen, I could make out a few things about this man. He was physically very strong, savage and likely sadistic.
I took a few deep breaths to calm my anxiety. I was scared, I admit it. I have dealt with a lot of scumbags, but this guy… I had never encountered someone like this before. But there were lives at risk here, I needed to do my job and stop this guy before he hurt even more people.
I stood beside the door and slowly and as quietly as possible, turned the handle. I peered through the crack, the room was completely dark. I switched on the flashlight and shined it into the room. I expected to see the intruder crouched on the bed, teeth bared, ready to pounce and start slashing at me. But I didn’t see anything. The room looked completely empty. Cautiously, I moved my hand over to the switch and turned on the lights.
Like the rest of the caravan, nothing looked like it had been ransacked. The entire room looked like it hadn’t been touched by anyone since morning. However, the window was wide open. Hanging on the frame, was a bloody piece of cloth, that looked like it had once been a part of Mr Vickerson’s shirt. I moved over to the window and peered out of it. The bastard must’ve legged it.
I felt a large hand grab the back of my head and then slam my head onto the window frame. Then the hand pulled me backwards and then thrusted me forwards towards the window. I toppled through the window, and collapsed on my back, onto the grass. I was dazed, I could barely see a few inches in front of me because my vision was so blurry. The intruder had known I was there all along. He must’ve heard me come in and set up a goddamn ambush.
My head killed. I weakly sat up and waited for my vision to clear up a little more. When it did, I glanced around for my flashlight and luckily, it had landed just a feet away from me. I snatched it up and pulled myself to my feet, and tried to ignore the pain in my head. I needed to be very careful and precise now. This guy was strong as hell. Christ, he’d thrown me around like I was a sack of feathers. I thought that he had to be on something.
I heard the front door of the caravan burst open. I ran to the front porch to try and catch the fucker off guard and bash his head in with the flashlight. But by the time I had gotten there, he was gone. I cursed to myself. I needed to find him fast, but he could be anywhere now. The local police were taking their sweet time getting here.
I patrolled along the road, listening and looking carefully for any sign of the intruder. But it was very, very quiet. For all I knew, the guy might’ve just slipped back into the woods. But then I saw two shapes approaching me from the darkness. It was a boy and a girl. The girl looked to be about 13 or 14 and the boy looked to be 7 or 8. The girl was pulling him by the hand. As they neared, I noticed that they both had blood on them.
“Please help us!” The girl rushed over to me, pulling the boy along with her.
“What happened? Are you two hurt?” I asked her.
“No… we’re okay. This isn’t… our blood. We were having dinner and we heard this loud noise come from outside. My dad went outside to see what had made it and… we heard him scream so my mum ran to the door and… this big guy just appeared and started slashing at her with a knife and… her blood got everywhere. I just grabbed my little brother and… we ran out the backdoor. You’re the policeman guy right?”
“Shit…”
This was all my fault. I should’ve been more cautious. I shouldn’t have let the fucker get the drop on me. Now these two kids had to see their parents get killed in front of them, all because of me. I needed to get them somewhere safe. But where?
“Run to the reception building okay? Tell them what’s happened. The police should be coming here soon. Can you tell me where your caravan is?”
The girl told me and then she and her younger brother ran off in the direction of the reception building. I rushed over to the caravan and found their father motionless on the grass. He was laying on his back, and his throat had been slit. The intruder must’ve gotten another knife from the Vickerson’s kitchen before he escaped. I stepped into the caravan, the kitchen to my right, the living room to my left. The lights in the kitchen were on, but the living room was dark.
The kids’ mother was laying on her stomach. Blood pooled around her. Unlike Mr Vickerson, the intruder hadn’t cut anything off of her, nor the father. I stepped over her body, and shined my flashlight into the living room. And I finally saw him.
He was tall and very powerfully built, his bare torso and arms very lean. His torso also looked like it had been painted. It was dotted with blotches, black and dark brown, probably to better camouflage himself in the night. He was wearing what looked like a cloak made out of red deer skin and his face was covered by a featureless wooden mask, and his green eyes glared at me through the eyeholes in the mask. And the man’s hair was long and of an auburn colouration. The only piece of clothing he was wearing that looked like it wasn’t out of the damn stone age was a pair of filthy tracksuits.
This guy wasn’t some crazy drug addict on a thrill kill. I didn’t know what the hell this guy was. God, the way he looked at me. It was like he wasn’t even looking at another human being.
I saw the knife in his hand, and he seemed to be sizing me up. I glared and raised the flashlight up defensively. He launched forward and swung the knife, but I quickly deflected it with my flashlight and knocked the knife from his hand. Then he tackled into me, and slammed me into the wall. I hit his back full force with the flashlight, but it took about four fucking hits to get him off of me. When his grip loosened I kicked him away.
I went to hit him with the flashlight again, but he caught my arm. I grappled with him, and it was like wrestling with a fucking chimpanzee because the guy was so strong. I kneed him in the stomach, but he didn’t react at all, and then he threw me across the room. I braced myself before I slammed into the wall, and my shoulder took the full force of it, so I wasn’t too badly winded. The intruder grabbed the knife up off the floor and charged towards me, but I kicked out with my feet and shoved him away, and he fell to the floor.
I heard police sirens off in the distance and the intruder did too. He leapt to his feet, bolted over to the open window and leapt out of it. I got to my feet, grabbed my flashlight and ran towards the window to pursue the intruder. But I saw him vault over the hedge and sprint towards the woods, a place that I knew I had no chance of following him.
…
The police came and I told them all that had happened. Mr Vickerson was in critical condition by the time he had been taken to the hospital and he died not long after. And the two kids were now orphans. The local police have now began a mass search of the woodland to try and locate the man, and so far, they have come up with nothing. I’m not surprised really, the guy likely knew those woods like the back of his hand. He knew all of the best places to hide and watch unseen.
I have been commemorated for my bravery in facing down with the man. But honestly, I don’t feel that great. This whole situation has seriously messed with my mind.
What the hell was that guy? Why did he cut off Mr Vickerson’s fingers? Why did he kill those kids’ parents? Why was he dressed up like a caveman?
Was he some person who had turned feral? Like in those movies, like The Hills Have Eyes or Wrong Turn? Or was he part of some primal tribe of humans who had never evolved and just stayed as savage cavemen? Is there an entire group of people like him, living in the woods around the caravan park?
Being scottish, this whole thing has kind of reminded me of the legend of Sawney Bean. Crap, what if this guy was one of his descendants? No, it can’t be. Weren’t they all killed. They might’ve also just been a legend anyway.