Anyone else grow up with tales of the Bone Collector? I live in northern Vermont where the forests are deep with trees older than the state itself. It is said that there is a shadowy humanoid figure that roams the woods, wearing a sinister skull mask that conceals its face that feeds on the bones of those unfortunate enough to encounter it. Those who dare to venture into the forest alone at night may come across this creature, and once they do, they are never seen again. At many a backyard camp did such a tale get told when I was younger. I, and I’m sure like you dear reader, scoffed at the idea as just local legend but now I’m certain such a being is real and is a part of me and I it. I write after the fact of all what I’m about to tell you when I’ve been able to collect my thoughts and eat a meal to clear my head.
I like to think of myself as a journalist and certainly what I tell my parents but truthfully in the small town I mostly just write municipal announcements and obituaries for the local paper. I recently got to write an obituary for an old man, Craig Horn, who was considered quite the eccentric by the locals.
A self-proclaimed cryptid hunter, he had made it his mission to convince people there were monsters in the woods nearby. He mostly just pissed people off by not leaving things alone he should have. I had even seen him once at a town hall forum where he had to be pulled away by police for refusing to cede the microphone after raving a recent death was caused by a creature in the woods.
There was indeed an animal attack back then but nothing to indicate anything odd and the family did not like having the wack-job try to make something out of the death that wasn’t.
What caught my eye was that it was submitted by sister, his only named survivor, stating he had been killed by that which he sought. There was no mention of funeral arrangements and really that should have been the end of it. An old crazy man died, next. But something about the words used kept knawing at me, did he really die strangely? Something about the matter beckoned me to dig a bit more and plus it might make a good story.
I gave a call to my friend Pete at the local Sherriff’s office. He was another townie and we had grown up together. “Pete, got a question for ya.”
“Pfft no hi, no hey Pete, thanks for taking time out of my busy day to talk to you.”
I rolled my eyes, “Pete, what could possibly keep you busy in a place like this? A racoon get into someone’s basement again?”
“Hey, that trash bandit nearly took my face off. Alright, alright, what’s up.”
“I got in an obituary for that Craig Horn guy, know anything about it?”
A huff on the end of the line, “give me a sec and I’ll pull the file.” A few minutes went by before Pete responded again. “Let’s see here, Craig Horn, age 73, was found dead in the woods near his house. Apparently, a local called a deputy to do a wellness check after not seeing him for a week and found him face down in the dirt, looks like an animal mauled him, potentially after he died, but we’re waiting on the autopsy. Tragic but hardly notable, what’s your interest?”
I struggled a bit to answer as I wasn’t really sure myself, “Just got an odd obituary statement and that didn’t seem right, maybe there was a story to it.”
“Not sure what to tell ya, his place is up on Lake Road if you want to check it out yourself.” I hung up with Pete and couldn’t quite shake why this was even calling to me. The next day I set out to go find Craig’s place. After a scenic drive I found the cabin easily enough, tucked away in a clearing surrounded by thick trees and the door was unlocked.
The inside was musty and filled with dust. There was no active electricity, and the only light came from the windows. I looked around, but there was nothing of note. I was about to leave when I noticed an antique piece of furniture against the wall. It looked like an old-fashioned writing desk, and when I pulled open the drawer, I found a diary.
The diary was filled with scribbles and drawings that looked like they were made by a madman. I read through the entries, and my blood ran cold. The old man had described encounters with a creature known as the Bone Collector and memories of childhood campfire stories came flooding back. He claimed to have seen the creature several times and had even managed to get close enough to it to see its bone mask up close. Craig had done extensive research into the area and found a group of settlers had been caught in a merciless winter and had resorted to the unspeakable act of cannibalism to survive. He believed the bone collector was a spirit of the sin they had committed.
According to the old man’s diary, the Bone Collector had the ability to mimic human voices, and it would lure unsuspecting victims into the woods by calling out their name or using the voice of someone they knew. Once the victim was close enough, the Bone Collector would attack, tearing them apart and devouring their bones. There were sketches and photos of the creature when I was interrupted by a voice and I jumped at the unexpected presence.
It was an older woman who introduced herself as Craig’s sister. “Oh, you found Craig’s diary,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “I always knew Craig would meet his end trying to expose that thing, he was always obsessed with it. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.” I looked up at her, surprised to see that she looked just as old as Craig. “Did you know about the Bone Collector?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
She nodded gravely. “It’s been around for a long time. It’s a creature born of the darkest, most primal part of the human spirit. It feeds on the bones of those who have sinned, punishing them for their transgressions.”
I shuddered at her words, feeling a cold sweat break out on my forehead. “But how did Craig die then, it didn’t seem like he was such a sinner?” I asked, eager to get to the bottom of this mystery.
The old woman’s face turned grim. “He went looking for the Bone Collector,” she said. “He thought he could finally capture it, put an end to the madness once and for all. But the creature was too smart for him. Lured him deeper into the woods, and then it attacked him. It is not just those it views as prey that the Bone Collector kills, it is anyone who interferes with it.”
My heart sank at her words, feeling a sense of dread wash over me. “Is there anything we can do to stop it?” I asked, desperate for a solution.
The old woman shook her head sadly. “The Bone Collector is a force of nature, a creature that has existed since the beginning of man. It cannot be stopped, only avoided. You must never venture into the woods alone at night, and you must never listen to the voices that call out to you.”
I shivered at her words. “How do you know all this?”
The woman had entered the cabin and ran her fingers across a dusty bookshelf as if lost in thought. “Our damn fool of a grandfather, who built this very cabin, was obsessed with the legend. He would tell us tales of him as a boy and how those who entered the woods would be found dead or worse. Our father dismissed it all but Craig become entranced, it ate him up and in the end destroyed him.”
She walked back towards me as I examined the wrinkled lines in her face. “What do we do?”
“There’s nothing we can do,” she said with a sad smile. “Just stay out of the woods at night, and pray that the Bone Collector never comes for you.”
As I left the cabin, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me from the shadows. I turned back to see the woman had gone, there was no car around and I felt the hairs raise on my back. I made it back to my car without incident, but the drive back to town felt longer and more ominous than before.
Days turned into weeks, and I had tried to forget all about the Bone Collector nonsense until I received a call from Pete. “Hey, you might want to come down to the station,” he said. “We’ve got a lead in Craig Horn case I thought you might be interested in.”
My heart raced as I made my way to the station. When I arrived, I saw a man sitting in one of the interrogation rooms, his face hidden behind a hoodie. Pete motioned for me to join him at the table where the man sat handcuffed, and I could feel the suspect’s eyes following me as I walked past him.
“Who is he?” I asked in a hushed tone.
“He won’t say,” Pete replied. “But his wallet identifies him as a William Bardelson. Quick search says he was reported missing a few weeks ago after going on a hike. We found him lurking near Craig’s cabin with a some object in his pocket. When we asked him about it, he just started rambling about the Bone Collector. I figured we might have something more going on here.”
My mind raced as I thought about the old man’s diary and the stories Craig’s sister had told me. The suspect suddenly spoke, his voice low and gravelly. “I need to leave, I need to get our of here.”
I felt a chill run down my spine as I looked at him, his eyes wild and unfocused. “What are you talking about?”
“The Bone Collector,” he repeated. “It’s real, and it’s coming for me.”
“Whoa whoa, slow down there” Pete called out. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
The man’s hoodie dropped and a gaunt and pale man was underneath. “I’ve heard it chasing me, it knows my name, it calls to me in voices it can’t possibly know. This place, this forest is not safe, it’s coming for me, it’s coming for all of us!”
Pete rose to restrain the man but I gestured for calm. “Tell me, who are you, what were you doing up there?”
The man shook his head violently, “no names, must not gives names, it uses it to hunt you. I was in the woods, I was lost when it came for me. The creature, the creature wore a face of bone and it came for me in the forest. I ran so fast and yet it was there, behind every tree it was there waiting for me.”
I put my hands up “Whoa, slow down.”
The man became erratic and violently tried to get out from the handcuffs as Pete grabbed him and forced him back down. “The man in the cabin saved me, he shot at the creature and pulled me away. I must return this to him, he needs to have this!” The man’s wrists became bloody straining in the cuffs trying to get the piece of bone placed nearby.
I got up and walked over to the item sitting on a shelf. It was an inauspicious thing, a jagged piece of what appeared to be a broken antler. I walked over as the man struggled in his restraints to clutch the thing. It was smooth but covered in runes and glyphs. When I held it there was a feeling of unease that washed over me and I dropped it.
“What is this?” I called out.
The pale man was shaking, “It broke off the creature when Craig shot it, it broke off and I grabbed it. When Craig took me in, I showed it to him. He said this was it, this was the key to stopping the thing.”
Pete had moved to put cuffs on the man’s legs “Then why in the hell were you up there at the cabin, Craig’s been dead for quite a while.”
The man stopped thrashing and an unearthly calm washed over him as he stared off. “No, no, Craig said he’d stop it. He said he’d make sure it wouldn’t hunt me anymore.” He began to cry, “I needed to get this to him, he gave it to me, said it would protect me, but it now just took him instead.” The man looked at me, his eyes bored into mine. “You have to stop it, you have to save us!”
A few hours passed and the pale man was left in a holding cell catatonic. “Well that was an interesting evening” Pete called out to me as I sat nursing a coffee in the station. Pete walked about and grabbed the piece of broken bone fragment and the bench I was sitting on creaked as he sat next to me. “What do you make of this thing?”
I took the object and rolled it around my hand. There was something so unnatural about the thing, as if it shifted in and out of focus depending on how you looked at it. “Oh I’m not sure I’m my answers will come out sane.” I put the wretched feeling thing down and took a sip of my coffee.
My shoulder ached a bit as Pete slapped it. “Buck up, some nut job ramblings shouldn’t rattle ya so much. I see this stuff all the time, probably just drugged out or delirious from being out in the wilderness for so long.”
“Do ya think any of this could be real Pete?” I asked after a long pause.
Pete scoffed, “No, and shame on you for thinking it might be. Look, if it makes ya feel better I’ll grab a drink with ya downtown after my shift’s over. We can drown your fears.”
I just nodded sullenly. I didn’t think there was enough alcohol to forget everything going on.
I left the station into the cool night air. The sun was setting as I left the police station, holding the small bone fragment in my hand. The weight of it seemed to pull at me, and I knew that I had to find out more about it. I figured a walk would do me good as I meandered towards downtown. The streets were empty, which was hardly a strange occurrence in such a small town and my pace was one lost in thoughts. I couldn’t quite place it but something about the bone fragment and the found man’s words was clicking some memory of Craig’s diary.
As I walked down the street, I felt a strange sensation that I couldn’t quite place. It was as if something was watching me, following me. I instinctively quickened my pace, looking over my shoulder, but there was no one there. I tried to shake off the feeling, but it lingered. As I walked, I swear I could hear the echoes of footsteps behind me, and my fear grew with every passing moment when a voice called out to me.
A bit ahead of me on the street I recognized the old woman from the cabin, Craig’s sister. She was obscured in the dark just out of line of the streetlights. “It’s a bit late to be out and about don’t you think?”
My feet remained planted in unexplained terror. All that was in front of me was an old woman and yet every fiber of my being urged me to run. “Uh, yes, I mean no. What are you doing out here?”
The old woman stepped forward; her gait was unnatural. “I’m looking for something lost to me. Something you have.”
“Som…something I have?” I stammered out.
The old woman continued to approach me and caught the light as she did so. Her eyes were too wide, and her smile was too wide. Her skin was unnaturally pale, and the pungent odor of rotting meat emanated towards me. For all that was wrong, all that defied logic, the voice of a sweet old woman kept talk to me, “give me what you have.”
When my hand extended from my pocket holding the bone fragment I couldn’t tell you but there it was, outstretched into the night. What approached me was not a human hand but a gauntlet of bone. As I sat frozen, entranced in terror, the runes on the fragment began to glow as the bony claw inched closer to me.
Why and how I still couldn’t explain but something in my mind clicked, the memory I had been searching for. I didn’t understand it at the time but Craig’s diary had mentioned multiple times about using darkness to banish darkness. While I’m no person of willpower something snapped and the entrapment was broken, in a quick reaction I used the fragment and slashed at the bony hand just inches away.
There was an unearthly howl of pain as the creature in front me lost all pretense of disguise and the terrifying visage of the Bone Collector was revealed in all its malice and hate.
I ran. I turned and ran as fast my legs would carry me. There was no thought other than getting away, there was no thought other than to take one more step away from that thing. In the dark running feels like mud. Every step is a pain to draw and get to the next one.
As I continued to run, I saw a familiar face in the distance, my friend Pete. He must have been heading out to meet me. He was standing still, looking directly at me with an expression that seemed to be a mix of fear and concern. I thought to myself that he might be able to help me get away from the Bone Collector.
Pete gestured for me to come closer, but as I approached, something seemed off. His eyes were glazed over, and his movements were jerky and unnatural. As he got closer, his features began to distort and warp, and I could see that he was not Pete at all.
The creature before me was a twisted version of my friend, its skin stretched tight across its face, its eyes sunken and hollow. Its voice, when it spoke, was a twisted version of Pete’s voice, scratchy and rasping. “You can’t escape me,” it hissed, and I foolishly realized too late that this was just another disguise of the Bone Collector.
I stumbled back in fear as the creature advanced towards me, its hand extending towards my face. I could see that its fingers were elongated, bony claws, and I knew that if they touched me, I would be lost forever.
As I backed away, my foot caught on a rock, and I stumbled backwards. The creature was on me in an instant, its claws slashing towards me. I tried to fend it off, but it was too fast and too strong. Its claws raked across my chest, and I felt the searing pain of flesh being torn.
But then, my hand brushed against the bone fragment in my pocket, and I remembered Craig’s diary. I pulled the fragment out and held it up towards the creature. The runes on the bone glowed with an otherworldly light, and the creature recoiled in terror, its twisted form writhing in agony.
I took advantage of the creature’s weakness and stabbed it with all my strength, my heart pounding with fear and adrenaline. There was a blowback of what I can only describe as energy. It was hate, it was pain, it was hunger and malice, and surprising of all it was sadness, it was guilt and shame. It was the human condition of the most unspeakable sin that was committed to spawn the creature.
In gust the entity vanished, and I was left lying on the ground. I look down to see pools of crimson on my hands and chest. My vision became blurry as I bled out. My death certain I closed my eyes ready to expect the inevitable.
I woke up about a week later in the hospital bandaged to all hell. The nurse told me Officer Pete found me after leaving the station. No assailant had been caught but she assured me Pete was working full time to catch the culprit.
I just silently nodded my head taking it all in as pain reignited in my nerve receptors across my body. Something felt off though, something more than just pain. Something from me was missing.
“Nurse, nurse” I called out as she came over trying to keep me calm on the bed. “something isn’t right, I feel like something isn’t right.”
She gestured as best as possible to keep me lying flat and calm. “Look, I know this is difficult, you suffered massive lacerations across your chest and preformed some reattachment surgery.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry sweetie but you were missing part of a rib bone, but we found it lying next to you or most of it at least, it we cleaned it up but some of the scratches couldn’t come out.”
I panicked, “That wasn’t mine, you put something in me that’s not mine!” The bone fragment, they must have put the bone fragment in me as I thrashed opening up several wounds.
The nurse hit some sort of panic button and several other rushed in to hold me down and sedate me. As my eyes closed in the mayhem of it all I felt something. I felt not just hungry, but ravenous, like I had never eaten anything before. I looked at those holding me down and all I could think about was how delicious their bones must be.
https://imgur.com/a/iJ0Oa0H