Local legends are ingrained in small-town histories all over the world, from haunted houses to monsters wandering the desolate swamps where the kids hang out on Saturday nights. My small town of 1,000 people was no different. The stories varied from person to person but one thing they all had in common was on the night of various astrological feats if you drive around the sprawling forest surrounding the town, you have a chance to become witness to a satanic cult performing their dark rituals. Everyone knows a friend of a friend who seen them, so the story fluctuates from them either killing humans or animals as a sacrifice, some say they wear poorly sewn up pieces of human flesh as clothes or pristinely white clothes that get dyed with their sacrifice, to the actual devil is leading the ceremony. As teenagers, my friends and I would all drive around and hunt for this group. The only thing we ever came across were what I could only presume to be altars of animal bones shaped like a deformed pentagram at various locations throughout. Being the skeptic that I was, I assumed that other local teens were just screwing around placing them, it wasn’t until the age of 27 when I was driving back to visit that I saw firsthand what it was all about.
On the early morning of June 21, 2016, I was driving from a city a few hours away to see my parents as my father had been sick lately and I needed to make sure he was alright. I remember I was near exhausted as I was driving down the old dirt road surrounded on either side by tall sprawling spruce trees. Thankfully, or maybe not, there was a full moon that night so I wasn’t engulfed in darkness as I went down the road. I was listening to my music at full volume so as not to fall asleep as I drove when I noticed those totems lining the road every 100m or so, looking carefully placed as if whoever had used a tape measure to make sure they were the perfect distance apart. I had chuckled to myself thinking how the teens kept up the facade and kept the myths of the town alive.
It wasn’t until I had crested a hill that I came face to face with the truth. Before me at the edge of the forest in a little clearing beside the road, was a group of black-robed figures, white pointy animal bones masked their face from peering eyes. Their torches light up the area showing they stood in a circle with something laying in the middle. With fascination, I stopped but they seemed to be oblivious to my presence as I rolled down my window and shut off my car to see what they were doing. Chanting rang to my ears in a language I did not know, this was a very fascinating sight as I had only seen this type of stuff in movies.
I watched for a few minutes as they raised their hands in the air, seemingly singing into the night. My heart started racing as I noticed one of them had a knife that from what I could see was made out of bone raised over his head. I assumed he was the leader due to the large antlers flowing out from the skull, shadowing his members in front of him. All I could think of was it was true, these people, whoever they were going to sacrifice some poor animal to their cause, that was until I heard a scream. Piercing out into the night air like an air raid siren as the knife came down. I was frozen in fear not knowing what to do, I needed to act but there were 6 of them and only one of me. If I was a braver man I would have stepped up no matter the consequences, but alas I was a coward who couldn’t even drive my car to go get help. I watched as they stabbed the women, blood splattering high enough I could hear it sizzling in their torches.
As the screaming stopped, the chanting stopped as well making the silence of the night deafening. I watched them one by one step into the circle and bend down. As they got back up you could see their masks were not white anymore but now painted in the blood of their victim. How could this happen, I thought it must be a prank of sorts but the murder looked so real. I stared at my lap in disbelief as I wracked my brain with all the possibilities of what I needed to do, this was when a low growl interrupted my thoughts. I looked towards them, noticing that they had formed a line and were staring at me with the big-antlered figure standing in the middle dripping blood onto the forest floor. I let out my own deafening scream as they moved forward. I was frozen in a panic not knowing what to do when a breeze hit my face through the window. This caused enough pause to my panic to realize I needed to close the window and make sure my doors were locked before they got close. I raced to do that and only made it in the nick of time before they had me surrounded.
I was in a fucked up situation, not knowing who these people were and just seeing what they were capable of. I started my engine but couldn’t get myself to drive away. Two of them stood in front of me, and what if they were kids playing a prank, I’d murder them if I drove forward, so I couldn’t do that at least just yet. I sat there watching as the two in front of me stepped aside and the presumed leader stepped in front of my car. He stood there, he seemed to be 7 feet tall with only black eyes visible out of his now red mask. As he raised his knife seemingly to challenge me, glass shattered behind my head. One of the cultists smashed my window and started to reach in to grab me. The other back window smashed and I knew I needed to leave, so I put my car into drive and floored it. Whoever these people were, I’m sure they weren’t teenagers because who would go far enough to damage property for a prank on a stranger.
I closed my eyes as I stepped on the gas, bracing for the inevitable bang that I would hear as this person’s body was hit by my car. That noise never came though, instead, a blinding searing pain erupted across my cheek which caused me to open my eyes in shock. The animalistic-looking person, who was now translucent as I would imagine a ghost to look, floated by my peripherals and out the back of the car as I continued forward. I put my hand on my cheek to see what had happened and my fingers became soaked before I came to a large gash as if I had just been cut by the knife they were holding. Not wanting to stop and check the wound out more I just got driving until I reached my parent’s house.
The cut ended up needing stitches, but with that and my car windows being broken it was at least better than losing my life. I filed a police report but left out the part of how that thing practically became a ghost so they didn’t think I was crazy. To this day, over 6 years later, they still have not found any sign of the cult or their crime. I am still haunted by nightmares of that night, and not sure how I even functioned for so long after that.
What might be the worse part in all of this is that I just walked outside my house and came upon one of those weird shrine things sitting on my front lawn, with no sign of how it got there. I’ve since destroyed it but this is right when I’m planning to go see my parents on July 13th, which happens to coincide with, and I in fact checked a buck moon. I’m at a loss for what I should do because they seem to be able to reach my house and know where I am, hell for all I know, they may have been following me all these years.