I’m writing this quickly with the hope I maybe able to see another sunrise, however, this time I think my past may have finally tracked me down.
As a child I lived a somewhat chaotic lifestyle, my Dad was a writer so we moved wherever the wind blew for him. My mum was a teacher and when my Dad wrote his first successful novel she decided to take us out of school and home school so we could have the freedom to move around. It was nice to be able to see so many beautiful places but I never felt stable.
My Dad had some usual haunts here and there to go and write, usually for a few months, but there was a particular one that always stuck in my mind. It was a quiet little redwood cabin, a few miles out from Fargo in this huge, dense, redwood forest. We normally went in winter as it was the best place for my dad to work, craving isolation as writers do.
We flew to Fargo like usual and rented a car for our stay. We drove up the tight winding road towards the cabin with nothing but huge redwood trees surrounding us. I watched as the trees whizzed past whilst looking deep into the forest brush. You could see trunks fanning out for miles and beneath them all were large bushes, nettles grass and the like.
I looked closer than usual as I had this strange, unshakable feeling as if we were being watched. Sure enough, as I focused on the bushes and nettles I saw them moving like something was running through them fast. My heart sank to the floor as I saw what looked like a large shadow, jumping and running like a dog through the dense forest trying to keep up with the car.
I tapped my brother on the shoulder hoping he would look and see himself but he was too invested in his game to bother. So I sat there in the car, watching until weirdly enough the thing just stopped chasing us. I twisted around to look out the back and to my horror something crawled out of the forest and then stood up, all I could see was a quick glimpse of a looming shadow before it was out of sight.
Five minutes up the road and we had made it. My skin was crawling thinking about how close that creature was from the cabin. We walked up the path towards the cabin but stopped shortly after as the door was wide open.
We all walked inside to find the place completely trashed, furniture tipped, scratches and gashes all along the walls and floor, curtains ripped and all the doors open. My dad played it off, saying an animal must have broken and fought to get back out. My mum and brother agreed and got to work clearing up the place. When I saw the mess I knew that the creature that was following us did this.
The aura about the cabin had changed; it felt like something sinister was living close by. I broke down crying, scared out of my mind, as flashes of the shadow I saw entered my mind. I pleaded to everyone that we needed to go home. My mum came running over to comfort me and my dad tried to make me feel better by showing me all the different weapons he had to keep us safe, guns, bear traps and sensors, and it worked. I did start to feel better, this was a bitter mistake.
He went to work setting them all up putting extra protection around the doors and windows, by the time he was finishing up it was nightfall so we all went to bed. I was still on edge, however, the protection did make me feel better, so I crawled into my warm bed and drifted into slumber.
Weeks went by with nothing eventful happening, I started to feel more comfortable and would go on short walks with my family around the site. Until one night, I was woken in my sleep to the sounds of shuffling outside my window in the snow.
I looked around the darkness of my room half expecting something to be there, but there wasn’t. I had this eerie feeling, like I was being watched again. It’s a sickening feeling, like when you’re on a roller coaster and it races down an awfully high drop making your belly do summersaults. Except here you are not moving and you’re certainly not having fun.
I got out of bed to check the window, and as I walked over to it, I saw it. Steam on the window pane, like something had been breathing heavily onto it. At that point I should have called for my parents but I couldn’t. I had to go and see what caused it. I reached the window and peered outside, it was snowing extremely hard, so hard in fact I struggled to see the tree line which was only about two hundred feet away. It was an incredibly warming sight to tell the truth as I love snow. Then I proceeded to look down, all the warmth I currently felt was crushed.
Tracks, huge and grotesque, leading away from the window and into the snow storm. I followed them with my eyes, counting each step, looking for anything that could have caused them, until I found it. A shadow in the distance, it must have been at least 7 foot tall. My eyes trailed up its bony figure until I saw two glowing white lights at the top. It was only when it blinked I realized they were eyes, and they were staring straight back at me.
The door began to creak open behind me, I could have died on the spot from fright, I jumped back into bed and threw the covers over me. Creak, creak, creak… the floorboards next to the bed went, someone was walking on them and the sound was getting closer. Bam, a hand fell on the blankets and pulled them back, I screamed hysterically in sheer terror but the face that greeted me back was that of my brother.
My parents came bouldering in through the door, my dad shotgun in hand, and my mum pale as a ghost. Turns out my brother had come to wake me up to show me the crazy snow storm outside. I felt horrible for screaming in his face like that but the timing was just downright awful. I felt like telling them what I had seen, but after the panic subsided, Dad spoke to both me and my brother. He said that he and Mum have been talking. They want to leave the cabin as there have been a few leaks and some structural damage causing the cabin to be unsafe.
The weather will be getting worse and the last day to leave will be soon, before the storm picks up. I felt so relieved at this and shunted that urge to tell them aside now knowing we will be leaving soon. We stayed in the cabin all the next day and that night I had horrifically vivid dreams of what I had seen, safe to say I barely got any rest.
The dream of last night began the same, but as I replayed the event in my brain a few times it started to change, getting worse. The door didn’t open this time, and I looked into those white eyes. I then saw it drop into all fours and run away into the white snow storm. A strange urge filled me in that moment, an urge to follow it and I shook it off.
However I couldn’t shake it off, I fought that urge with everything I had but it was no use, it was like my body and mind were possessed by something stronger, I was now but a mere watcher to this nightmare. I walked into the living room, my Dad was passed out on the sofa so I had to be quiet so as to not wake him. Reaching the coat hanger I picked out my red mountain coat and slipped on my red wellies. I was about to do this, I was about to go out there in the storm and follow it.
I opened the door, a huge gust of wind and snow struck me in the face, whistling all around me and started flooding into the cabin. I quickly ran outside and shut the door. I put my hood up and began to walk down the porch steps and into the violent storm. The snow was smacking me in the face from all directions, the wind was howling something fierce and all I could do was watch through my eyes as I slowly made my way towards the forest.
I kept walking straight, looking around me revealed nothing but white, if I strayed even slightly left or right I would be completely lost in this horrendous storm and would most surely meet my demise. Thank god it was some sick, twisted dream. Despite my growing fears of getting lost I reached it, the forest. The beautiful red bark on the trees had now been completely covered in white along with the bushes, rocks and ground; it was like a different place altogether. I trudged into the forest, snow crunching below my feet.
The snow and wind eased as I walked further in, probably from the tree line and the dense forest providing some form of shelter. As I walked things moved around me, bushes, grass, nettles and it was not from the wind, it was from something extremely fast. The sounds came from all around and a thought stuck in my head, could there be more than one of these things?
I walked and walked, sounds filling my ears from all around but I dare not look, for who knows what I would have seen, so I kept my head down. Suddenly, I felt an awful crunch under my foot and it was not the snow, no this crunch was meaty. I stopped to look down, it was a fucking body, a human body, there under my feet peaking out the snow. It had been ripped to shreds, like it was some toddlers play toy.
Blood had covered the snow into dirty crimson red, hair, skin, clothing and even teeth littered the ground, all mixed in with the glistening crimson blood. The noises of running around me we’re picking up, these things we’re closing in. It took everything I had to get my legs to work again as they felt like jelly, and when I took control, I ran, like I had never ran before.
It was so hard with the snow working as a nasty resistance but I had no choice, I had to get away. I heard things from behind me like twigs breaking and low whispery voices, I kept glancing behind me expecting something to be following close behind ready to chase me down and rip me apart like the body I had seen, but nothing appeared.
Eventually the trees began to thin as the snow and wind grew louder and louder. It wasn’t until I bumped into something hard that I stopped, and re adjusted my vision. Standing before me was a huge gray rock about ten feet tall, I had to step back to look at it. It was gigantic and had strange writing all over, it was like someone had written in cursive but the language was not english, unfortunately I could not read it.
After staring at the rock, I decided to look around me to find myself in a large clearing. It explained why the wind and snow had picked up again. I looked around and on the floor I saw them. Smaller rocks and most of them had been stacked in mountain-like piles, some were small and some big and they covered the floor as far as the eye could see. It was extremely haunting and eerie, but the sight was also familiar. I racked my brain, putting my hand on my head.
Why was this familiar, it felt like the first time I had even seen it but at the same time weirdly not, and then it hit me. In history I had learnt about different cultures and religions, these mountain-like rock formations had come up a few times, they were cairns for the dead. It hit me that I was currently standing in a huge graveyard and felt extremely sick.
Looking back at the huge rock I realized that the writing etched all over it was names, probably of people that had died here and there had to have been hundreds, if not thousands. With a rush of pure emotion that I could not control, I dropped to my knees looking up at the great rock and cried, cried like never before, bowing low before it.
After a few minutes of crying, I heard a horrible, bone-chilling howl like a wolf but different, it was something much bigger. I stood back up pushing my back against the rock looking out into the snow storm
As I looked into the white storm I could see shadows, dashing all around me with ecstatic speed. My breathing became erratic and I began to hyperventilate, I struggled to keep my eyes open as the snow pounded into my face, but out of the white fog I saw a massive dog-like creature running my way and fast.
I put my arms up to shield my face, bracing for this thing to get me, rip me up to shreds tearing my insides apart but instead I found myself bolting awake at last out of the disgustingly vivid nightmare. I stared up at the ceiling dripping with sweat, my breathing was all over the place to the point I thought I was having an asthma attack. I started to pull myself together when I realised today was the day, we were finally going home out of this messed up place.
I got up, it was nice and bright outside, my Dad was already packing the car and I decided to go out and hopefully help to speed things up. After everything was sorted, I went back to my room, gathered my things, changed out of my pajamas and just as I was about to put on my socks I saw something that made my heart stop dead. There it was, the cut that I suffered in that nightmare, it was there, on my ankle just the same as in the dream, this couldn’t be real.
I ran over to the bed, the sheets were dirty and on the floor crumpled up, wet and dirty, was my red wellies and coat, it was all real. I gripped my chest, I was young but I felt like I was having a brutal heart attack. I wanted out. I needed to get out of this place fast. I ran outside screaming at my dad that we needed to get out of here and now.
At first he tried to console me but when he looked into my eyes something triggered in him. He ran inside shouting and running around frantically, not long after, my dad, mum and brother came running down to the car. My mum seized me and said everything would be fine, the next thing I knew we were in the car and driving off.
As we drove down that winding road, I saw what felt like hundreds of those glowing eyes watching us from the bushes as we left. I turned one last time, looking out the back window to see them all coming out on all fours from the bushes into the road. There must have been at least five of these creatures, they all slowly began to stand. Most of them were extremely tall and very bony, I couldn’t make up much detail as we were driving away but I swore I saw one of them lift it’s hand up to give me a very grotesque, slow wave. God that sight still sends chills up my spine.
My family actually did end up going to the cabin the next year but I stayed back with my Auntie, absolutely refusing to go. I would go as far as to say I would have rather died then return. My intuition was correct as when they came back they all looked petrified, my Dad said he would never, ever go back. My brother had cuts and bruises all over him and had to go a&e in Fargo, my mum was the only one that seemed normal.
I tried to ask my brother and Dad what happened but they vowed never to speak a word to anyone, I tried but they never wanted to experience what they saw again and I can somewhat relate to that feeling.
Quite a few years have passed now, I’ve got an amazing husband and two beautiful children and everything has been great, but the past can never lie still. Over the years done some research into what I saw and I believe it could have been the creature from native American legend, the Wendigo.
A creature known to stalk, play with and even control it’s prey into horrible deaths, some of the things I have found out about it truly make my stomach churn. It also lines up with the grave site I found, as the cursive writing and cairns line up with the native American language and traditions. Strangely, it appears on no map, not even on Google earth.
Like a disease my past is back, the scar on my ankle has mutated into some sort of weird looking symbol and the nightmares have returned. At night I hear them whisper like they did in the woods outside our bedroom window, I would always look but wouldn’t see anything.
Sometimes I would just stay there all night watching the tree line until the sunrises. Tonight I woke up again, the whispering was extremely bad and when I walked to the window I stopped dead. They were all there, standing tall against the moonlight, their faces long like horses, their skin gray and wrinkly, their eyes wide and white and their teeth, my god the teeth.
The closest thing I could say they looked like was a canine that had no lips to cover its vicious smile. The one in the middle slowly lifted its hand, if you could call them hands, they were more like razor sharp claws in the structure of a hand. It lifted it up, and this time there was no mistaking it, the thing waved at me.
They walked back slowly into the forest for the last time that night. Night approaches again and I have no idea what is going to happen, but if that body in the woods is anything to go by, I’m in for one hell of a night.
I was stupid to think the past would just lie.