There’s something that screams at the bottom of my garden, and it’s Not Foxes! I know it’s not because I’ve seen it.
A month ago I moved into a new house with my wife. We’d been living in another town for a few years as it was closer to my work, but now that I’m working from home we decided to move closer to her parents. They were getting older and she worried about them being alone.
Although it was further away from my family and friends, I agreed as I knew how much it meant to her. We spent some time viewing houses in her home town until we settled on this one. Located at the bottom of a cul-de-sac on a small hill which was just on the border of the countryside, it seemed ideal.
The house itself was beautiful, and as soon as we stepped outside we fell in love with the garden and the views. The garden was a large, open space, covered in grass. At the bottom was a waist-high fence, leading to an overgrown patch of land that looked out across the rolling hills and the town below. There was a small public footpath that led through it, but the current owners assured us that it was quiet, no one used that old path.
The view was just gorgeous. We both imagined waking up to that each morning, the sun rising in the distance. I remember saying to her that I think this could be our forever home.
Without much more thought, we snapped up the house there and then, putting in an offer and making our plans to move in. Then last month we finally got the keys. We were so excited as we turned the key in the lock. Taking the obligatory pictures outside of the house for social media.
After a hard day of moving, we both made our way out into the garden to sit down and watch the sunset. It was beautiful, the sky was filled with yellows, reds and purples as the sun sank below the line of hills on the horizon. We both smiled, pleased at our new home, and the fact that we would be able to see these sunsets every day.
We spent the rest of the evening relaxing as best as we could when most of our possessions were still in boxes, before deciding to call it a night and get some sleep. We’d already unpacked our bedding, knowing it was going to be needed.
Settling down, I was reading a book on my phone, a horror novel about a group of people trapped on a snowy mountain. It was my nightly ritual before getting to sleep. My wife, on the other hand, had no such rituals. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. I smiled to myself, she must have been exhausted from the move.
After what seemed like only a few pages, I could feel my eyelids starting to become heavy as sleep called to me. Turning off my phone and putting it on charge, I got up and made my way over to the window to close the curtains. Taking one last look over the garden, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. The sun had long since set and had been replaced by a bright full moon, illuminating the whole garden in a pale white glow.
Sliding the curtains shut, careful not to make too much noise to avoid waking my wife, I slid back into bed and pulled the covers over myself, ready for a good rest.
I don’t know how long I’d been lying there with my eyes closed, but out of the darkness I was startled by a sound that set my teeth on edge. A scream. I sat bolt-upright in bed. Then I heard it again. It was loud, terrifyingly loud. It sounded like a woman was screaming at the top of her lungs.
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead as I turned towards the window. The curtains were still shut tight but the sound was still forcing its way through. It came again, a screeching, desperate scream like someone being attacked. I’d not heard anything like it before and I was terrified.
Then another sound came, this time it was lower, more guttural and animalistic. It was still a scream though. That same, ear-piercing screech, but with something more behind it.
I was too scared to look out of the window at whatever it was making the noises. I felt stupid, it was probably just foxes or something like that. I’d seen videos online where they make all sorts of noises you wouldn’t expect them to. I bet there was a den of them in that overgrowth somewhere, they were probably calling to each other.
I tried to rationalise it in my head. I’d grown up in quite an urban environment, so this house bordering the country was going to take a bit of getting used to. Undoubtedly I’d hear other animal noises at night as well, I thought.
Still, it was unnerving to hear that screaming, followed by the retort from the more animalistic scream. This went on for several minutes. Lying back down in my bed, I covered my ears to try and block it out, but they were so loud.
Then they just stopped. Abruptly, after the higher-pitched scream, they seemed to stop dead. They were finally done yelling at one another. I tried to shake off the unease that I’d felt, but I was too awake to sleep, too spooked by the sounds.
Looking over at my wife sleeping next to me, I could see her chest gently rising and falling. She was still sound asleep, unperturbed by the horrific screams I’d just heard. A selfish part of me wished they’d woken her up, that way I wouldn’t have to sit her alone. I felt quite vulnerable here in the dark in this new house. But I decided to let her sleep. I’d tell her about the noises in the morning, I thought to myself. They’d stopped anyway.
Morning broke and I was awoken from a very short sleep by the bright sunlight pouring into the room as my wife threw back the curtains, revealing the morning sun cascading over the hills and town below. She asked how I’d slept, her face hosting a chipper smile, ready for another day of unpacking in our new home. She’d always been a morning person, it was irritating sometimes but she always looked so happy first thing.
Groggily, I rolled over, meeting her gaze. I must have looked like hell as her face dropped. She gently sat down next to me on the bed, holding her hand in mine as she asked what was wrong.
I proceeded to tell her about the sounds I’d heard last night, about the high-pitched scream, about the guttural one that followed it. She looked at me with concern before explaining that it was most likely foxes. There were loads of them around here, especially in the kind of overgrown areas like the one behind our house.
“If you hear them again just try to ignore them, or if not then just lean out of the window and tell them to pipe down”, she said, that might scare them off. Chucking at the thought of leaning out of the window to shout at a couple of foxes like they were naughty teenagers, I kissed my wife and got out of bed, ready for a day of unpacking.
After another tiring day of moving boxes and putting things in cupboards, my wife and I made our way out into the garden again to watch the sunset. The same glorious view as the day before sprawled out before us, the sun dipping just below the horizon. I couldn’t seem to enjoy it, however. Staring into the overgrowth at the end of the garden, my mind was replaying the noises that I’d heard the night before in a loop, I couldn’t seem to shake them from my mind.
After a while, we went back into the house and went about our evening before making our way to bed. A nervous energy tingled at the base of my spine as I sat there, reading. What if the screaming came back again tonight? I didn’t want to have to sit through that again. Even if it was foxes, it was nerve-wrenching.
After reading for a short while, my wife turned out the light and rolled over to get some sleep, kissing me goodnight before she did so. I stayed up a while longer, sitting there in the darkness, illuminated only by the light of the Kindle app on my phone.
I was being stupid, I thought to myself, it was just foxes. They were just making noises to one another, probably having a dispute over territory or something. There was nothing to be scared of.
I waited a while longer in the silence, ears pricked for any sort of sounds from the outside. There was nothing, maybe the odd hoot of an owl in the distance, but certainly nothing like last night. Finally allowing myself to relax, I slid further under the covers and pulled them up to my chin, rolling over. After a while, I entered a soft, dreamless sleep.
Nothing happened after that night, there were no strange noises, no screams of foxes or anything else like that. I began to let myself forget about the sounds I’d heard on that first night. God knows I had enough stuff to worry about without thinking about those noises constantly. It wasn’t until about a month afterwards that the thoughts of them came flooding back.
It was a Saturday afternoon, the sun was beating down, and my wife and I were in the garden. We’d unpacked the majority of our things now and the house was finally looking like a home rather than a storage unit. A couple of our friends had come over to see the new place, they’d even bought their pet Alsatian with them, Thor. He was a beautiful dog, always full of energy and super friendly.
We were in the garden, tossing a ball for him to fetch, when suddenly he stopped dead, his body was rigid and his ears were twitching as though he’d heard something coming from the bottom of the garden. As my friend shouted to Thor to try and snap him out of his trance, he bolted, leaping over the waist-high fence in one bound and disappearing into the overgrowth behind it.
“I’ll go get him” I shouted back to my friend, noting the look of concern on his face. I hopped the fence and followed the path that Thor had trodden through the brambles and weeds. I could hear him off to my left somewhere, crushing his way through the dense foliage. It wasn’t until I was a good distance into the overgrowth that I realised exactly how much of it there was. It seemed to stretch on and on. Looking back over my shoulder I could see the house, it looked so far away, obscured by the large brambles.
I needed to get Thor and get back as quickly as I could, I didn’t want to spend longer here than I needed to. I pushed on through the overgrowth, forcing brambles and ferns aside as I gained momentum, getting closer and closer to the sounds of Thor.
Bursting through a particularly large fern bush, I found myself standing on the footpath that ran behind the back of the house. Being closer to it now, I noted how strange it was. Considering it hardly saw use it seemed well kept, the rampant overgrowth on either side was culled back, leaving a relatively clear path stretching off to my left and right. The gnarled trees overhead seemed oppressive, knitting their branches together in a tight mesh that distorted the sunlight. The whole atmosphere was oppressive and silent. No wonder people didn’t like walking down this path, it was eerie as hell.
A low growl from my left snapped me back into my senses. Thor stood in the middle of the path, staring off into the dense trees further towards the right side. His body was rigid, the fur on his neck and back standing on end. His teeth were bared as he growled again, his eyes fixed on that point deeper in the trees. He looked vicious. Like he was ready to destroy whatever was in that overgrowth if it dared to come near him.
I called him but he ignored me, not even registering my voice. It was unnerving, watching him. A shiver of unease gripped me as I couldn’t help but wonder what it was that had spooked him this much. Even following his gaze I couldn’t make anything out in the trees.
A sudden sense of vulnerability washed over me as I looked around, realising just how overgrown and dark this path was. The foliage on either side seemed suffocating, and I could only make out the top of my house from here, the garden well and truly hidden. Anything could be watching me from within the overgrowth.
I made my way towards Thor, calling out his name so as not to startle him. He was still fixated on that patch just beyond the path, his low growls rolling in his throat. As I drew level with him, I could better see the patch of foliage he was staring at. It looked like it had been recently disturbed. The ferns and brambles were less dense than the thickets on either side of it, as though they had been frequently pushed back to allow something through. The trees on either side had large gashes in them, as though someone had taken chunks out of them with an axe, but left them before the job itself was finished. They were lined in threes, looking like large scratch marks.
Odd, I thought to myself, making my way over and brushing my hand against the bark. I wonder why they left the trees rather than just finishing the job and cutting them down. Still, something was unsettling about the entire thing. The overgrowth seemed to absorb the light, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was being watched from just beyond the bounds of my vision.
“Come, Thor, let’s get out of here,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. Thor didn’t budge, still staring at the patch of overgrowth just beyond me with malicious intent. I made my way towards him and hooked my fingers under his collar, he gave no resistance, but still, he didn’t move.
As I went to stand up and lead him back towards the house, something brushed against my hair. I lept back with a start. I was already uneasy, so this unexpected interaction tipped me over the edge slightly. Thor didn’t react to my startled yell, he was still fixed on the spot, growling at the darkened overgrowth.
Taking a second to regain my composure, I looked up at the object that had caused me such alarm. Hanging from a tree branch was a small object, circular and wooden, it looked as though it had been made from sticks all bound together. It was around the size of a small coaster. Scanning the rest of the trees, my jaw dropped. There were loads of them. I’d not seen them before, the gloomy overgrowth masking them.
They looked like a small totem, something that a child would make. I assumed that they were made by some of the local children who used to play around here, maybe a marker for their den or something. It was odd but that was the only rational thing I could think of, either that or some kind of bird-scaring device. Still, looking at them creeped me out.
“Right, now we’re getting out of here!” I said to Thor, grabbing his collar again and leading him back towards the house. As I pulled, he came willingly. All the while he allowed me to lead him he was looking over his shoulder at that same patch and growling.
When I got back to the house we put Thor inside so that he didn’t get out again, but I could still see him, staring out of the patio window at that same spot that he’d been fixated on before. He didn’t move for the remainder of the time that our friends were here. He just stood by the back door, staring. It wasn’t until he was in the car as my friends were leaving that he seemed to finally forgo his obsession, although he was staring all the while until the car engine started.
My wife and I went back into the house and went about our nightly routine. All the while I couldn’t shake how Thor was acting from my mind. He’d been genuinely spooked, I’d never seen a dog do that before. Had he heard something down there? As if dredged from the recesses of my mind, the memory of those screams from the first night we moved in surfaced. I couldn’t help but wonder, could they be related to why Thor was so on edge, had he sensed something down there?
Shaking the thoughts off, my mind trying to make connections where there were none, we decided to go to bed. I was sitting there reading my book as usual, the room illuminated by the pale light of the full moon outside, when I heard that god-awful sound again.
My scalp tightened as I registered what it was. That same screaming that I’d heard on the night that we moved in. It resonated in my ears, bringing back all of the feelings of terror that I’d felt on that first night. Only this time it sounded different somehow. It still sounded like a woman screaming, but the tone and pitch were different.
As silly as it sounds, amidst the chaos of fear in my mind, my wife’s words surfaced “Just lean out of the window and tell them to pipe down”. It was stupid, I knew, but I couldn’t go through with another night of that terrible screaming.
Fumbling my way through the darkness of our bedroom towards the window, I could see the garden below bathed in that same pale light as last time, the overgrowth also illuminated with the brilliant moonlight. As I scanned it, looking for any sign of the foxes, I saw something that made the blood drain from my face.
There, on the path through the wasteland behind my garden, was a woman. She was bound with what looked like a thick, hempen rope. Her eyes were wide with terror as they darted around, her blonde hair falling across her face as she turned frantically. She was screaming at the top of her lungs.
Carrying her were what looked like a group of tall, darkly dressed strangers. I couldn’t make out many of the specifics around them, try as I might. They were dressed in thick black overalls that covered their entire person, leaving no discernable traits visible. Each appeared to be wearing a mask. I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be. It looked like a strange dog, almost like a fox but the proportions were off, and so was the shape.
I ducked down under the window, leaning against the wall. My heart was pounding in my chest. What the hell was this? What was I seeing? Panicked, I went to wake my wife, the overwhelming need for someone else to tell me this wasn’t happening racing through my mind. I was inches away from shaking her awake when I heard that woman let out another, ear-piercing scream. Stopping dead, my attention snapped back to the window and a new wave of fear rushed through me. I shakily made my way back over to it, needing to know the fate of this woman and her captors.
I knew I needed to call the police, to call someone who could help, but I was transfixed on the scene below. The sight before me paralysed my limbs, I was frozen with fear as I noticed what the group of masked people were wearing around their necks.
It was a totem, the same round disk made of sticks that I’d seen hanging from the trees on the path when I fetched Thor. They each had one, wearing it like some kind of religious medallion. I dreaded to think about what these people wanted. What they were going to do with that poor woman? I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t turn away.
They stopped part of the way down the path, in a place before the tree branches started knitting together. I could see them clearly from my window as they gently lay the woman down. They placed her in the centre of the path, then slowly began to back away.
I had no idea what was happening. Why had they gone to the effort of tying her up and carrying her down here only to leave her? Still transfixed on the scene, I was unable to move a muscle. Watching as the masked group backed away, their gazes set not on the woman in front of them, but on the darkness further down the path behind her. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease welling up in my stomach.
Then I saw something. From the patch of darkness further along the path, towards where I’d seen the totems and the marked trees, I could just about make out movement through the undergrowth. It seemed to be slowly making its way towards the woman on the floor. The masked group were still backing away as whatever it was approached.
There was an almighty cracking of branches and twigs coming from the direction of the movement, as though something large was making its way through the overgrowth. Images of that disturbed section of the path, the totems and the trees with the claw marks filled my mind. The overgrowth there had been disturbed, as though something had made it’s way through it regularly. I couldn’t help but shudder thinking about how close to this thing I could have been.
Mixed in with the sound of a large branch snapping was what sounded like a guttural, rolling growl. The noises seemed to be getting closer. I could see the odd flash of leathery grey, obscured by the thick branches. Occasionally what looked like red too, moved between the interknit trees. There was a clawing at the back of my skull. I didn’t want to see what this thing was, I was happier not knowing what lived in that space behind my house.
As it proceeded past the tangled branches and out into the uncovered path I could make it out clearly. What I saw made me question my sanity. The thing was large. Taller than a man. Walking on its hind legs, it must have been at least 8 feet tall, but it looked as though it could quite as easily walk on all fours if it wanted to. Its thick arms, coated in thin sparse red fur, were long and tipped with what looked like razor-sharp claws.
Its chest was thick, covered in the same thin fur that coated its arms and led to a thicker mane that ran down its back. It’s head looked like that of a fox, but warped into some kind of sick mockery of the animal. Its snout was long and scared, lined with large, razor-sharp fangs. Its eyes are wild and yellow, fixed on the now screaming woman with an intense hunger. Saliva appeared to be dripping from its open jaws.
A new jolt of terror coursed through me as I realised that the face of this thing, the warped, grotesque face, looked like the masks that the group were wearing. The masked group had all dropped to one knee when the creature made its way out of the tree line, almost as though they were bowing to it. These people couldn’t worship that thing, could they?
Just as my gaze was fixed on the creature, a shrill screech snapped my attention back to the woman lying bound on the ground. In the time that the group of masked figures had moved away, she’d obviously been able to turn over, where she’d seen the grotesque thing standing on the path in front of her. She was frantically thrashing against the rope that bound her now, trying as hard as she could to break free. Her eyes were unmoving, fixed on the terror before her.
As if to mock her, the thing crouched its enormous frame down on its haunches and brought its face close to hers before letting out a shrill screech. It was uncannily similar to the one she had just made, only with a more guttural, animalistic undertone.
The woman rolled onto her front, wriggling away from the thing as best she could. Panic fueled what was the only method of escape she could think of. I felt so helpless, just watching her futile attempts, but there was nothing I could do for her. Even if I were to call the police, what could they do against a creature like that?
She managed to make it a few feet before one of the masked figures got to their feet. They purposefully walked over to the bound woman before rolling her back to where she started her journey, back before the feet of the monster. The way they moved, it was like this whole thing was a ceremony to them.
With a burst of speed so quick I nearly didn’t register it, the thing wrapped its clawed hand around her ankle. She let out one last scream before she shot into the undergrowth and out of my sight, dragged deeper into the foliage by that horrific thing. I felt sick as I heard the creature scream again in response, mocking her final plea for help. Then everything went silent.
I stood there, dumbfounded as the masked figures began to file out of the path, each moving quickly as though they didn’t want to wait around to determine the fate of that poor woman. As though released from some kind of spectral grip, I could feel myself shaking. Unsteadily I made my way over to my bedside table and grabbed my phone, punching in the number for the police.
In less than an hour I was on my doorstep, telling two uniformed officers exactly what I’d seen. I didn’t mention the creature, thinking they’d just write it off as the ravings of a lunatic. But I told them about the masked figures and the bound woman, explaining that they’d taken her further into the woods but come back without her.
The officers exchanged perplexed, slightly disbelieving glances, before saying they would take a walk down the path behind the garden to check it out. As soon as they left I ran upstairs into the bedroom, in my haste waking my wife who looked at me with a mix of both concern and annoyance. I ignored her questions as to why I’d decided to wake her in the middle of the night, I was too concerned with the officers.
I could see them making their way down the path now from my window, their flashlights banishing the oppressive darkness of the path. Watching as they made their way further along, a sense of anxiety washed over me as they disappeared beneath the knitted branches of the overgrown trees. I stood there, staring with bated breath, my heart pounding in my ears.
What felt like hours passed before I saw the beam of the flashlight returning along the path. I breathed a sigh of relief as the two officers emerged from the overgrowth. But seconds later my heart dropped as I noticed they were alone, there was no one woman with them.
Rushing back downstairs, I hastily questioned them as they got to my front door. They explained that their search hadn’t turned up anything. No footprints, no marks from giant creatures, no nothing, just the overgrowth and a silent path. I asked them about the totems, to which they replied that they’d seen them but they were something that some of the kids in this area liked to make. Some kind of superstitious thing, one of them said, nothing to worry about.
A wave of despair washed over me, I looked at the officers. They must have picked up on the way I was feeling, as one of the officers put a hand on my shoulder, and with a look of pity on his face, said “It’s probably just foxes mate. You probably had a bad dream, and mixed with the noise those things make, it’s hard not to think of someone screaming. Try not to worry yourself about it”
I appreciated his attempt to calm me, but I knew what I’d seen, it hadn’t been a dream. Deeply disturbed by the night’s events and disheartened that the police couldn’t find anything and were dismissing my account, I bid the officers goodbye and went back inside.
It’s been about another month since then and I don’t know what to do, what if it happens again in a few days, I can’t go through it again and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Maybe I should just move?