My favorite place to visit when I was a kid was my grandparents farmland in Wisconsin. We visited often because they only lived a couple hours away from us and we would typically spend the weekend. My grandfather had retired from farming, but he still kept some cows and rented out his fields to a younger local farmer who grew corn there most years. The remaining land is woodland. We often went on hikes to look for deer or other wildlife and to just see the beautiful country which I, as having grown up in the city, craved.
One thing that my grandfather, his relatives, and eventually me also used the land for was hunting. The land, full of thick forests and corn fields all around, was ideal for hunting deer. My grandfather had hunted deer on that land his entire life and he had always wanted me to hunt there once I was old enough as well. Eventually of course, I did and this story would not exist if I hadn’t.
And god, do I wish I hadn’t.
I started hunting when I was 13. There was a particular weekend set aside for youth hunters before the main season began. That year, I was set up in an old, broken down wagon that watched over a grass field surrounded by trees on all sides. That day, we hadn’t seen any deer until the sun had started to set. That was when I saw the first deer I would ever shoot.
It was such an exciting experience and getting a deer felt so satisfying. Also, it was a way I had been able to bond with my father and grandfather and I felt I had made them proud. I got to do something they had done their entire lives. The next couple years were of similar experience, I hadn’t had a reason to stop hunting, I loved it.
My feelings and excitement towards hunting were quickly killed off after what I experienced during one hunting season. I was about 16, and by this time I was too old to participate in the youth hunt weekend. I now had to hunt during the same time as everyone else, in the frigid cold middle of november.
My grandfather’s brothers all hunted on the same land and there was a sort of agreement that everyone who had hunted the land would take a share of the meat from the deer that anyone got. Everyone also had their sort of designated stands or places they would stay at during the day. We shifted around sometimes, but on this particular day I ended up back in the wagon stand I had been in previous years. I hadn’t seen a single deer all day and sitting around, freezing my ass off really killed the thrill of it all. I heard gunshots on and off all day, mostly very distant ones.
As the day approached nightfall, a crack broke through the frozen air. It came from somewhere in front of me, past the field and woods I was watching over all day.
It wasn’t far. It must have been on my grandfather’s land, and I knew both my grandfather and my father were set up in their own stands in that direction. Between me and them was a trial that went through the woods and opened up in another field. I had hoped it was one of them who had been able to get their deer and I was excited at the thought, as we hadn’t been having very much luck this year.
Not long after, only a few minutes or so, a doe jumped out from the treeline and dashed quickly across my field. It must have been running from the shot I had just heard, either along with the deer they had shot or having been spooked by the noise. I didn’t shoot this one. I was after a buck and I wasn’t going to waste my shot on a target moving so fast.
I hunkered down and waited to see if a buck would come out before nightfall. I was much more on edge and excited at the possibility now, I had heard a very close gunshot and finally seen a deer. Unfortunately my buck never came and I was left empty handed.
Disappointed, I gathered my things, climbed out of the wagon and made the long cold walk back through the darkness. I had to take the cows path from the pasture up to the bar that sat across from my grandparents’ house. This required walking on mud and manure that was luckily frosted over and too hard for me to sink into. I eventually made it back to see my grandfather and father outside. They were hooking up a small trailer to a four wheeler.
We exchanged our accounts of how our hunting went and I told my dad that all I had seen was the single doe from a while earlier. He let me know my grandfather was the one who fired the shot earlier and had gotten himself a nice buck; however, it ran far and they had spent hours tracking it. He said that they did find it, and he asked if I would come with and help pick it up.
I was more than happy to help. I was ecstatic for my grandfather who had been able to get himself a buck. I hopped on the trailer with my father and my grandfather drove up around the corner of their driveway to the gravel road. There was no sunlight left at this point and this was the countryside so the dark of night was, truly, dark. The only thing visible was what the lights of the 4-wheeler unveiled. After a couple minutes on the road, we took a left onto a trail through the woods. We kept on this trail for a while, I don’t remember how long exactly but I remember thinking of how deep in the woods we must have been with each tree we passed and each new shadow the headlights cast into the forest beyond. Eventually got to where they had left the deer.
It was nice, I remember that much. A good sized buck with 8 or 10 points. I congratulated my grandfather. I got closer and something was very off to me. Where the deer had a bullet wound. It was shot straight through the heart, a textbook shot. If you have ever hunted deer, you know that the heart is what you always aim for if possible. A deer can’t get far without a working heart, just as you or I. Somehow this thing was able to run an extraordinary distance after my grandfather had shot it so perfectly. It was from a .270 Winchester round and one specifically made for hunting as well. This didn’t make any sense to me.
Since they had already gutted it and brought it to the trail, all we had to do was load it up and bring it back to be stripped for meat. My grandfather took it to his brother’s house which was closer to that trail and where they were already cleaning up a deer someone else had shot that day. I was expecting to be given a task related to collecting the meat, such as labeling bags and bagging up the meat or something of the sorts but my father had something else he needed me to do.
My father told me he had forgotten his bag with his binoculars, ammo and some other items when he had left his stand to assist my grandfather in tracking down the deer he had shot earlier. I knew what stand he was in and I told him no problem, I would go grab his bag and be back in no time. I took my father’s truck.
My father had been set up in a stand on the corner where the massive, already harvested corn field met the trail through the woods and to the much smaller grass field where I had been set up in the wagon stand. It was impossible for me to drive the same way that I used to walk back when the sun had gone down earlier. The truck would have a rough time getting down the manure covered trail I had taken to get back and even then, it couldn’t get into the grass field or the trail after so I could get to the stand. I had to drive around the roads to the opposite side of the massie corn field and walk my way through it until I got to his stand.
I hadn’t driven my father’s truck before, so just the trip on the gravel roads was nerve racking enough. Once I had gotten around and saw the opening for the truck to pull in, I drove up so the headlights of the truck pointed straight ahead at the field. I realized I had greatly underestimated the size of the field. Leaving the headlights of the truck on to light up the field to at least some degree, I stepped out and began my very, very long walk across the field.
Given the brutal weather turned even colder with the sun down, I was still bundled head to toe. I want to mention this detail because along with the snow, my mobility was quite restricted and I could only walk so fast. I knew that there were bears in this neck of the woods, made evident by the trail camera my grandparents had.
I believe I was well within reason to still be carrying a rifle with me as I set out to retrieve my father’s bag. It was an old .30 semi-automatic carbine from world war two. Not the most powerful or accurate rifle, but I figured it would be the nicest to have if I needed to defend myself from something. I kept it slung around the front of me, using my right to hold it close and keep it from bouncing around and my left hand held a flashlight.
I watched just about every other step, as I had to traverse over little nubs of what was left of the stalks of corn that had previously populated the field. I alternated my view from the ground in front of me to the field and trees far ahead of me. The headlights from the truck cast a shadow from the remains of every stalk in the field and the trees beyond, leaving a million shadows cast on the field, pointed towards the woods. Even though I had lit the field nicely for myself, it still felt far too dark for my comfort.
The closer I got, the more I felt my ridiculous paranoia clouding my mind with random thoughts. I felt as though a wolf would come from the woods, flank around me and attack me from the side. I actually stopped in my tracks and panned around to look for something in the field to be moving towards me. I did this a few times on my way to the stand. Each time, there was nothing. It was completely illogical fear that made me look in the first place. I had no clue what was getting to me but it only got worse the longer I was out there.
I chalked it up to it being late, dark, and me being alone in an empty field and the vast forest in front of me. Who wouldn’t have some offsetting fears or imaginations? I found myself walking faster, stubbing the front of my boots into the ends of the corn stalks. I told myself that the faster I get the bag and get back, the sooner I’ll be relaxing in front of the television in my grandparents house and eating a nice warm meal.
No matter what I told myself, the paranoia didn’t stop. The scene before me combined with the cold weather surely didn’t help but neither did the dead silence in this field. Everything felt so dead out there. I couldn’t hear anything but the snow beneath me as my boots as I took each step. Not so little as a gust of wind accompanied me.
As I took another step, I could feel my foot pushed right back up as something moved beneath it quickly. The snow from the ground blew up like a land mine and something sprung from the ground. I shrieked like a child and jumped back, nearly tripping over the broken stalks behind me as I did so. A rapid fluttering noise came from whatever it was that had risen from the snow.
My paranoia felt horrifyingly justified, but only for a moment as I quickly saw what it really was. A bird. What made me think I was being attacked by some monster in the snow was just a bird. What the hell was it doing? What type of bird burrows in a corn field in the middle of winter like this?
I calmed myself and began walking again, letting a brief laugh at myself before once again, the paranoia settled back in.
More images crowded my head, an angry bear charging out of the woods to maul me to death, some sort of weird serial killer stalking me from the trees before coming out to chop me up. As quickly as I could shake these ridiculous scenarios I was making up left and right in my head, I could not dismiss the feeling of eyes.
The feeling like something was watching me felt all too real. It could have been anything, an owl, a rabbit, maybe even a deer. The thought that there was probably a creature of some kind watching me out in the woods that lay ahead of me was one that would not leave me.
As I approached the stand, I slowed my pace and pointed the flashlight ahead, at the base of the stand and the trail beyond. This is where the reach of the headlights seemed to end. The trail and woods on either side were too dark to see. Nonetheless, I approached the stand. Still, I was cautious of all the terrors I told myself could be hiding in the trees.
I approached the makeshift ladder for the stand. The build of it overall was quite nice, a wooden watchtower would be the best way to describe its appearance. It was about 15-20 feet tall and had a nice sort of bucket at the top, more than big enough for a couple hunters to sit comfortably for a day. I flung the rifle to my back and clicked off the flashlight before putting it in my left coat pocket but as I did so, I noticed something on the ground.
The snow was depressed, in a round sort of ball shape. I pulled my light back out and clicked it on. I thought I could tell what I saw looking at but in my head, I told myself I must be confused. I was only more confused when I clicked the flashlight back on. This mark in the snow resembled a deer track but it couldn’t have been, at least that’s what I told myself at the time. It wasn’t possible.
I was standing beside it but rotated my left foot to be parallel. This thing was nearly as long as my boot. Impossible. Was there a moose in these woods? It was definitely possible however, extremely unlikely. Was the track from a moose even this large? As one can imagine, this only heightened my paranoia.
I quickly glanced around me to see if by some off chance whatever left that was still nearby. Again, I hadn’t seen a thing. I put the flashlight back in my pocket and made my way up the ladder. Sure enough, my dad’s bag was sitting right at the top. I climbed my way up and into the little nest. I wanted to make sure he didn’t leave anything else lying around because there was no way in hell I would bring myself to make another trip out here tonight. There wasn’t anything, so I zipped up the bag and slung it around my left shoulder, adjusting to make sure I could still get the gun around to my front and that nothing was tangled.
I felt some sense of relief wash over me as the trip was half over. I just had to get back now. Being up in the stand gave me a sense of safety, something I wanted to hold on to. This made it hard to leave, but again I told myself it was just best to get this over with. I carefully swung myself around and got a good foothold on the top rung of the ladder and lowered myself to make the descent.
It was then that I first heard it.
A hysterical laugh burst out from behind me. I became as stiff as a board before quickly collapsing back into the stand from the ladder rolling around to look behind me. My heart felt as though it would break through my ribs as I began hyperventilating.
Wide eyed and rifle raised, I looked around on the ground below to see who the hell made that noise. The laughing, which had felt close already, I now realized was far off but approaching. Somewhere to the right, out in front of the stand and in the woods. I ducked beneath the boards of the stand, so I could just barely see above them, to the trail on the right.
What broke from the tree line made my panicking heart shut down and sink into my chest. Emerging first was the blue and red hat, one of those jester looking ones. The upper body was covered in a blue and red striped outfit, torn at the ends of the sleeves and at the legs. A clown. The detail that chilled me the most was its legs. The legs of a deer.
It had to have been no less than twenty feet tall and yet it was frightfully quiet. It didn’t make a loud crunch in the snow as it passed, it didn’t break any tree branches, and despite its immense size, it didn’t shake the ground as it ran. This immense abomination was able to move dreadfully quiet. The only thing that made its presence apparent was the giggle it couldn’t seem to stop.
It darted across the trail and into the dark woods beyond. I couldn’t make out its face because of the distance between us. I sunk into the stand, with the rifle now clutched and held tight as I tried to wrap my head around what I had just seen. Why, oh God, why a clown? I hated clowns, they absolutely terrify me. Why here? In the woods, in the middle of the night in november? This wasn’t possible, it had to be some sort of nightmare I assured myself but I was awake, this was real. All I could do was sit still and try to make sense of it.
I had to have sat in silence for ten minutes, wishing I were dead rather than there, with whatever this monster was. I covered my mouth so as to not scream, I was in complete shock and panic. Soon enough I heard it coming back, from somewhere straight behind me, the same laugh from off in the distance, becoming louder as it approached. I sank into the stand, laying flat and praying it wouldn’t come to me. It slowed its laugh, each chuckle slower than the last before it let out one, extraordinarily loud final bellow that echoed through the woods before it fell silent. I knew it had to still be there, and that it was coming but I didn’t expect how fast it did.
Across from me was a gap with the ladder. In only a split second, I saw its massive hand, if you can call it that, reach up and grip around a tree from across the path. A long, coal black hand with nails more closely resembling uneven claws. It stopped moving. What was it looking at? I heard a softer grunt before the hand moved away and I could hear the snow crunch as it shuffled to my left, out into the field. I heard another short giggle come from the field. I slowly got onto my knees and shuffled in the stand to the edge where I could poke my head over and see.
I saw it, standing still in the field, staring at the headlights of the truck, just like a deer might be caught in them. I could also see the thing in better lighting now. Getting a look only made it worse. I saw a massive cloud of breath escaping its lungs, lit up by the light from the truck. Its head bobbed up and down as its chest filled with air and excreted it. The legs remained still, as if they were rooted in the ground. The arms were massive as well. Despite the height of the creature, they hung low.
It just stood there for a few minutes and I was left in awe. I noticed there were other deer in the field. About four does, a few fawns and a smaller buck had all walked onto the field with this thing. They carefully observed the truck and headlights, but didn’t seem to have any sort of fear towards this horrendous creature standing among them. The deer acted as if it didn’t exist, as if it wasn’t a threat or was just one of them. It again started laughing with an impossibly deep voice. This still didn’t phase the other deer.
It turned and started barrelling towards the path again. I quickly ducked and waited for it to pass. This time it didn’t turn into the woods and kept on down the path. I layed back down. I was so shaken and afraid I again had to cover my mouth and use all the energy I had to muffle my uncontrollable whimpers. The tears running down my face felt freezing.
I had to think of a way to get out of here, but how? That thing could swing back around at any moment and who the hell knows what it would do if it caught me in the open field. I sat, head hung and eyes closed until I could calm myself to composure and contemplated my options. It seems to like the trails and open fields and I figured it had to be too large to be able to traverse through thick forest quickly.
I needed to take my chances through the woods. I could stick with them all the way to my grandparents house but it was going to be a long walk. Or, I could stay where I was. I concluded that this was not an option. Of how much I had seen it already and given that it was tall enough to just look into the stand if it felt curious, staying wasn’t safe. I liked this area too much. I made a plan to move once I was calm enough to get down the ladder safely, I thought I ought to sit like I was until then.
What felt like moments later I heard leaves crunch from below. I snapped my head up. I felt drowsy. Had I fallen asleep? Yes, somehow I had. I quickly regained my wakefulness after I reminded myself of the situation I was in. I popped my head back over the edge again to get a quick look.
As I was up, I felt something push against the back of my neck, like a light gust of wind. I saw the air come from the sides of my head, it was warm, like a breath. I snapped around, and found myself face to face with the monster.
It had its demonic hands gripping the corners of the stand and was peering right into it, right at me. I could finally see its wretched face. Wrinkly, crusted skin covered in pale white makeup. A long, bright red nose, the shape of a human’s but far too large. Eyes black and bright yellow just like a deer. The face looked like it was constructed in the pits of hell and let loose into the world above.
The second it realized I was looking back, its smile widened inhumanly wide,and its cheeks rose out of twisted excitement. With a row of shining white, sharp teeth and a disgusting black liquid dripping out of its mouth, it began laughing sadistically again and yet neither the mouth nor the throat seemed to show any movement. I screamed but reacted quickly. I brought the rifle to my shoulder and popped off a round right at its head.
The shot cracked through the night as I sat up quickly from the boards I had been resting on. Still in the stand, still sitting. I took a glove off and lightly touched the barrel of my rifle, realizing it wasn’t warm, I had not actually shot. None of that had happened. Relieved as I was and hopeful that it was all a vivid nightmare.
I was quickly disappointed.
The laugh boomed through the woods again, this time its voice sounded as if it was fragmented into many others. It sounded as if a choir of demons were laughing in sync with each other before a deep, booming voice from the distance spoke.
“Did I scare you, boy?”
Followed by another round of laughter. I had to move now. I retrieved my things and quickly made my way out of the stand, allowing myself to fall the last six feet. Picking myself up quickly, I took off into the woods across the trail. I dashed through the trees as quickly as I could, rifle still in hand. I heard the laughter emerge in the trail again behind me, It had reached the stand already.
It let it another shreking bellow into the night, this one much longer and louder than before. It was angry. Even with the distance I had put between myself and it, my ears were in pain after hearing it. I kept on running through the woods.I was surely dead at this point. That thing would find a way to get to me no matter how deep in the woods I ran. I cleared my head of these doubts and focussed on just running, my only chance. To my misfortune, it caught up quite fast. No more than a few minutes after I had left the stand and it was on my tail.
I didn’t hear it sooner because it was as quiet as a deer might be running through the woods would. When it got close, it couldn’t contain its excitement and broke out into another fit of laughter as it clawed at the trees, pushing them aside to catch up. I knew my rifle couldn’t do much to this thing but I had to try. I couldn’t see a thing in the darkness but I turned and started popping off rounds at its chest, the most obvious and hard to miss target I could pick. It was still a good thirty or fourty feet behind me, and there were a lot of trees between us. It didn’t seem to have an effect.
I turned and kept on for about thirty seconds before I was reminded that I couldn’t outrun it, and it was even closer now. I turned a corner and twisted to get a line of sight as I realized it had closed the distance between us. It tripped on something and fell, its upper body hanging on a big tree right above me with its right arm and head locked between a branch and the trunk.
It reached out with its right arm. I jumped back trying to escape the grab but I failed. Its hand fit around my entire torso as it jerked me up towards its face. The head was shaking like an angry dog as it opened its mouth wide again, I could see the hate in its eyes. For whatever reason, maybe a desperate last minute measure, I clicked on my flashlight and pointed it at this monster’s eyes. It tilted its head away in a fast jerk to escape the light of my flashlight.
Given this momentary opportunity, I raised the rifle still in my right arm and popped a few more shots off, this time at its head. I was tossed to the ground as it reacted. It fell from the tree and let out a loud, painful cry while covering its face with its hands. This made my ears feel as if they were about to explode. I picked myself back up and took off as fast as I could once again. I heard it get up, now crying and screaming in a more human voice as it ran off into the night once again.
I just ran as fast as I could and for as long as I could muster and you best believe I made a good distance running off of that much adrenaline. I only became more excited when I saw lights. They appeared to be some sort of yellow light, like that from headlights on a four wheeler or car, and I hoped that’s what they were. I picked up my past but then stopped myself in my tracks. When I got close enough to get a clear visual on the light source, my hope turned to even more dreadful confusion.
I saw a tent.
A tent like you might expect to see from an old carnival. It was striped black and white, up and down. It was round and came to a little point at the top. The lights had been strung all along the edges, at the top of the frame. Bright yellow light bulbs, each one, in order, shut off every so often and turned back on to give that sort of illusion that a ball was rolling through them.
What made even less sense was the ground it sat on.
There was a circular patch of perfectly green, even grass around the whole thing. There was not a single tree in this perfect little grassy disc out in the middle of the woods. I stepped onto the grass cautiously. I don’t know why I had such curiosity after having just escaped a monstrous abomination but it didn’t stop me from wanting to check out this tent. I approached the tent and then walked around to try and see if it had some sort of entrance. As I was coming around, I saw a huge beam of the same yellow light escaping what I thought had to be the entrance.
Right when I was about to go up and open it, I faintly heard the cries coming from the woods again. I jumped back into the trees and got low to the ground. I knew now that there was no outrunning this thing so I ought to wait and let it pass. Eventually it broke out of the trees and into the grass area right before me. Still gripping one hand over its face, it pulled open the entrance to the tent, unleashing a huge flash of light into the night. It climbed head first until it was miraculously all the way inside.
I just sat in silence and kept a close eye on the tent. After it had gone in, I didn’t hear any noises from the creature anymore. No cries, screams, horrid laughter or speaking. After a few minutes, the light bulbs on the tent shut off one by one and the light coming from inside faded until it was gone. I still layed there for another few minutes, left confused yet again.
Slowly, I climbed to my feet and started walking through the woods once again. I kept a more slow and steady pace. I wasn’t sure if this was over or if running was even the best option at this point so I just stuck with my slow, steady and quiet walk. Soon enough I found a road and followed it until I found my grandparents place again.
My grandmother was the only one there,she let me know my father and grandfather had gone out to look for me. I called up my father who, by some miracle, had a connection out there. I told him to get back. I had a long drawn out screaming match to tell them to get out of there as quickly as possible but I wasn’t listened to. Luckily they came back, perfectly fine but having seen nothing.
That night I tried to tell the truth and tell it as straight as possible to my family and they didn’t have much to say in return. I’m sure some of them felt I was losing my mind, and I suppose that conclusion would make sense. I was assured that if that tent was there and if there were any tracks left, we would see it in the morning.
I didn’t sleep that night for any number of reasons you might imagine. Despite having gone through what I had, I wanted to go back and find everything and prove I wasn’t crazy because the longer I thought about it, the less sense it all made. Maybe I did lose my mind. The next day we all went out and found absolutely no remnants of the creature and no mysterious tent or the plot of grass it sat on.
I don’t believe I’ll go hiking out on that land anymore, or maybe in any woods. I certainly don’t think I will ever hunt again. I have a profound fear of the forest at night that I have yet to shake. For a while I believed I was insane, but as I write this I realize I can’t be. I did shoot my gun that night, we found the brass. I was picked up by that thing. Everything about that night is still vivid in my memory. I saw everything so clearly and I will never forget it.
I don’t know if that thing has a tie to that land in Wisconsin or if it resides in other woods or maybe it isn’t bound to any forest. Maybe a time? Another condition of some sort? I am looking for answers but I have failed to find any that make any sense. If anyone has ever seen or heard of anything like this I need to know.
Please reach out.