I sat by the fire and exhaled slowly before taking in the cool night air. The fire danced and crackled along to its natural rhythm and the hidden army of crickets soon took up their famous chirp. This time used to be my favorite part of camping, just immersing myself in the calm solitude these mountains never failed to provide while watching dusk fade to night was always the perfect way to end a long day spent in the woods. I was deep in thought when something pulled me quite violently out of my thoughts and filled me with dread, I felt like I was being watched. The crickets had stopped and been replaced by a low, almost musical, humming that seemed to come from all around my camp, just outside the firelight. I peered into the inky abyss between the trees illuminated by my fire, attempting in vain to find the source of this noise. I have a history of occasional auditory hallucinations, usually before and after sleep, so I chalked it up to exhaustion and decided to turn in for the night.
After kicking out my fire, which was already burning low, the humming seemed to slowly get louder and closer but I still thought it was only a hallucination at the time so I ignored it and continued over to my tent. By the time I was zipped up in my sleeping bag, the humming was nearly deafening so I sat curled up in the fetal position at the bottom of the sleeping bag with my hands clutched over my ears. The noise was still growing closer, to the point where I felt it more than heard it, the sound of a freight train thundering all around my camp, vibrating the very earth I was laying on. It got closer and closer, louder than I thought possible, and just when I thought surely my eardrums would give out from the pressure and I would be deaf, it stopped. At this point, I was too shaken to move or really do anything, no way I could make it to my car, so I sat there shaking and crying, eventually drifting off to sleep.
When I woke up, the events of the night before were completely off my mind. I lazily started a fire to make breakfast and coffee and it wasn’t until the coffee was halfway brewed and I was absent-mindedly staring into the open flame that the trauma I had experienced the night before slowly started seeping its way back into my thoughts. I sat down next to the fire and contemplated the events of the night before. No hallucination I have ever experienced has ever been louder than a normal speaking voice, and perhaps more importantly, I felt the ground shake with my whole body and my hallucinations have never been more than auditory. I knew logically that it couldn’t be a simple hallucination but at the time I was a strict skeptic and another explanation eluded me so I decided to continue my camping trip. Not only that but I already took the time off work and wouldn’t get another chance to come out here for a while so I desperately didn’t want to shorten my already limited time camping. After deciding to ignore the events of the night before, I enjoyed my camping trip like any other. I hiked, fished, and even went for a very cold swim in the nearby lake, my trauma, almost entirely forgotten in the light of the day, was easy to ignore without any physical evidence or lasting damage.
By the time I made my way back, the shadows had grown long and the sunlight had grown orange so I immediately started getting a fire going when a familiar dread crept its way back into my psyche with its accompanying hum. I quickly turned away from my unfinished campfire to scan the treeline for an unseen observer and caught movement in the corner of my eye, but naturally, by the time my head snapped over, there was nothing to see but trees and fading sunlight, and the faint sound of humming. Cold terror shot down my spine and voices that didn’t feel like mine filled my head with the words “go away” in a panicked voice. I may have had a history of hallucinations but this was simply too much, I was going home. I started taking down my tent, hoping to get cleaned up before the sun left me alone in the dark, but the feeling of dread was growing worse and the sun was fading faster than I thought it would. I was still struggling to fit everything in the bag with shaking hands when I looked up to watch the last holdouts of sunset fall beneath the horizon and felt a much worse sense of dread settle deep within me.
I saw a tall figure creeping towards me through the trees in the post-sunset light, pale and upright but too far away to make out details beyond that. The humming noise grew with the approach of the mysterious creature, causing me to freeze in place for a couple of seconds before grabbing for my keys and bolting to my car, but not before noticing the thing take off towards me as soon as I moved for my keys. I was enveloped by the ever-present humming that terrified me the night before, but in the moment it felt only comforting, like an old friend who had my back. I pulled open the door to my car and felt something sharp graze my shoulder as I slid in and slammed the door. I looked out my window and this thing was running full tilt at my car but only moving backward, something was not only keeping it at bay but actually pushing back this white thing that so threatened my life and so injured my shoulder. The buzzing was as loud as it had ever been before and the space in front of the creature was blurry, obstructing my view, but I had no time to contemplate the implications of these facts. I yanked my car into drive and broke every speed limit on the way home, I still don’t know what that thing was, but I’m thankful for whatever made that buzzing noise, I think it saved my life. I’m also not too broken up about leaving my camping supplies behind, I’m sticking to the city from now on.