There’s a story I have been wanting to tell for a while now. This is a tale that I have always been interested in telling, but I’ve never been able to find the right person or place to share it with. It wasn’t until recently that I learned about the existence of this forum through a close friend who was talking about it. By looking at what gets posted, lots of people have weird and unexplainable stories of their own, so, I feel this is the perfect place to talk about it.
I grew up and currently live in a small town in Pennsylvania. It’s the type of town that’s small enough to the point where everyone knows practically everybody. The town itself was never that interesting, only having a few places worth checking out such as these great Chinese and Mexican restaurants. Other than that, the only noteworthy thing about the town was that it was surrounded by a huge, dense forest. When I say that the forest is huge, I mean it. You could travel almost an hour out of town before you make it out of the woods.
The forest was also a very popular area to play in when I was a kid. Many of the kids in my neighborhood would always travel there to have stick fights and build forts. I remember that my friends and I would always go to a small stream located with the depths of the forest. We would always have bellyflop competitions and try to splash each other with water every time. Not to mention the countless times we would come across a cave that was built into the side of a small cliff and we would try to dare each other to go inside them.
Now to get to the actual story.
When I was, I believe about 9 years old, my friends and I wanted to build to small wooden fort we could hang out in inside the forest. After a few weeks of each of us getting the resources we needed, all 4 of us set off into the valley of trees in order to accomplish our goal. We spent about half an hour trying to find a spot that was flat enough to hold the foundation of our fort. Sadly, every area we discovered either wasn’t flat enough to our liking, or there was some kind of drawback to it.
A vivid memory I have was when we finally came across a perfectly flat patch of land we could use. We had just put down our materials, when there was a loud rustling sound in some nearby bushes. Being kids, our minds immediately assumed there was some monster hiding in them. Because of this, none of us wanted to go anywhere near the bushes. But we realized that if we wanted to build our fort in peace, we were going to have to drive out whatever was in the bushes. We all decided on playing rock paper scissors to figure out who would be the one to check them out. Unfortunately, it was me. When we finished the game, I picked up a nearby stick and slowly walked to the bush, which was still making rustling noises. I carefully and slowly reached my arm out with the stick, trying to poke out whatever was in there. I remember how my heart was beating at what felt like a thousand beats per second. I then finally thrust the stick into the noisy bush. When I did, a raccoon immediately jumped out in front of me, scaring me half to death. I luckily jumped out of the way before it could scratch at my weak and mentally recovering body. The raccoon went to another bush across from the one I had just got it out from. We all knew that we probably weren’t going to get the raccoon away from the area, and we all knew we didn’t want to share our fort with it either. We then went off with our supplies to find a better spot.
Luckily, we did. It was another flat area of land, however, unlike the last one, this area was next to a small stream. We all immediately knew this was where we wanted to build our fort. After putting down our materials, we checked to make sure there weren’t any unwanted critters nearby. Thankfully, the area was clear, and we began construction on our fort. It took the entire rest of the day to get the foundation fully set up. We all knew that weren’t going to build the entire fort all in that one day, but we didn’t realize how long just getting the foundation constructed was going to take. By the end of it, we were all pretty tired. As we were leaving for the day however, we all heard something that we never heard in the forest before. It was a loud and haunting scream that echoed through the trees that surrounded us. We all became confused and scared in that moment, not knowing what exactly was going on. The scream only lasted about another minute before the forest once again, was filled with silence.
We all looked at each other with faces that showed that all of us were scared. We got out of the woods as quick as we could after that. We eventually finished our fort and I remember all the great times we had in it.
But the screams never stopped. Every once in a while, you can hear one coming out of the woods in that loud and echoey tone that they all have. No one has ever figured out why they occur, even the police couldn’t find the source, even though they have wandered through the forest countless times. Nowadays, most people in town just ignore them, the screams are seen as nothing more than just a mere quirk that the town has.
Ever since that day, I have always had an interest in the screams. There was just something about them that always intrigued me, I could never put my finger on it. I remember correctly, I believe there was even a summer I wanted to go after and find the source of the screams myself. However, my friends never wanted to go, and I didn’t want to go by myself either as I didn’t want to get murdered or injured.
Anyways, I hope this story interests anyone who comes across this post. Feel free to ask any questions or share this story with others.
Now that I think about it, if there’s any interest, I might make a follow up to answer any questions or if I think of something that’s worth adding.