Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 6+ Hours Of Scary Stories | True Scary Stories For Sleep (Compilation)

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

These are 6+ Hours Of Scary Stories | 26 True Scary Stories For Sleep (Compilation) Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ Music by: 'Decoherence' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_AjpJL5I4&t=0s Business inquiries: ►[e-mail] #scarystories #horrorstories #horrorstory #camping 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash Spotify. apply. The story I'm about to share takes place on two different occasions. My grandparents live in rural Southern Ohio, near the edge of the Appalachian Trail. Growing up, you always heard ghost stories about what happens out there when the sun goes down. It's vital to describe the layout of my grandparents' property so everyone understands this story. My grandparents' house sits on five acres, surrounded by thick woods. On the property, seven different trails. lead around my grandparents' house, which we usually use for hunting and other activities. One day, my brother and I decided to walk the trails.

We enjoyed riding a four-wheeler and taking in the scenery that we always loved. My grandparents' property was incredibly secluded. There were no neighbors for miles, and the only property that backed up to theirs was owned by the government and was used for tree sanctuaries and nature preserves. There was a trail that we often used that split into two trees, two other trails. The trail to the left loops back around to the house, and the trail to the right takes you down to the creek where you can sit and watch all kinds of wildlife. My brother and I decided we wanted to go down to the creek and watch for animals, while also looking

for remarkable rocks that I love to collect. The only way to get down to the creek at the split is to walk, as the four-wheeler is too big to fit through the thick brush and trees on that specific trail. So we ditch the four-wheeler and and took off on foot. The trail down to the creek is about a mile long. The sun shone through the trees, and it was a crisp fall evening with a slight breeze. My brother and I wasted no time until we finally reached the creek. As I said, we walked alongside the water for about 15 minutes, looking for cool rocks. As we were walking, we stumbled across a broken down shed that neither my brother nor I had ever seen before. It's important to mention that my grandparents' property has markers letting

everyone know where their property begins and ends. Standing on the left side of the creek, the shed was on the opposite side. My brother and I looked at each other with confused looks, but eventually, my brother got distracted by something else and continued his walk down the creek, but not me. I felt myself fall into some sort of trance and felt as if I needed to go inside. I yelled for my brother to return and said, Jay, I think we should check this out some more. Something inside me wants to go inside. My brother has never really been a fan of anything remotely scary. Seeing this rundown shed that looked to be falling apart did not interest him. My brother told me, honestly, dude, this one just screams one of those scary movie situations, and I want no part of it.

We are not going in there. I chuckled because he was right. Something was telling me to go in there, but I also knew it probably wasn't the best idea as the sun was starting to set. My brother and I collected our rock findings and returned to the house. This next part happened the following weekend. My boyfriend came out to visit. While he was there, I mentioned that my brother and I had stumbled across a creepy shed on the property that we had never seen before.

He became highly interested as I described my desire to go inside. I told him how compelled I was by the building. That's all it took before we were out the door and returning to the creek. My brother stayed behind saying, If you guys don't come back, I told you so. My ex-boyfriend and I laughed. Yeah, right. We had overalls and flashlights as we didn't take the four-wheeler

and decided to walk the whole way down. We had flashlights because when we left, we knew we only had about two hours until the sun went down. Eventually, we made it down to the creek. We walked the same way my brother and I did the previous. week, and to my shock and disbelief, there was no shed there. I started frantically looking around saying, what, how? I swear it was here. My boyfriend at the time, and I decided to walk a little further, venturing away from my grandparents' house. Still, there was no sign of the shed anywhere.

We hadn't realized how long we had been out there, and the sun maybe had 15 more minutes of light left for the day. I was so determined to prove myself right that I had seen this. this shed with my own eyes. We pulled out our flashlights, jumped across the bank on the other side of the creek, and began walking back the way we came. I hoped I had just missed it on the way down as my ex and I were talking. The sun was completely down at this point. As we were walking and talking, everything fell silent, including my ex. We were mid-conversation, so I did the same when I heard him stop dead in his tracks. I started asking questions.

What is it? What's going on? What he said next sent chills down my spine. I want you to listen to me very closely. When I count to three, we are going to jump to the other side of the creek, and we are going to run as fast as we can and not stop at all until we get back. But don't look back. Don't say anything, okay?

My heart fell to my stomach, and I just didn't question him. I just prepared myself to run. One, two, three. We sprinted as fast as we could. I was in front of my ex, and I could hear him wincing in pain, but I heard more than just our running. There was something chasing us. We ditched the idea of running a mile back to the trail

and ran straight through the woods. When we returned to the house, we were gasping for air, covered in scratches from running through thick brush. We walked through the forest. We walked through the front door, and I was so shocked that I could not answer my grandparents' questions. My boyfriend was gripping his back and wincing in pain. My grandma lifted his shirt and looked at his back. There were three long lashes stemming from his shoulder down to his lower back.

It looked like something had swung at him or something and scratched him. I was in a shocked state, to say the least. From one Appalachian to another, don't go looking for something that you don't want to find. If anyone knows what this could have been, please let me know in the comments down below. This occurrence still keeps me up at night when I think about it. I used to work for a private investigations firm called AIS, which stood for Atlas Investigative Solutions. At the time, they were probably the most highly regarded private investigation firm in the UK. They only hired ex-military and former police officers, and even then, they were selective.

They invited you for an interview. an interview, discussed your service record and credentials, and were very thorough, they wanted the best. In return, they offered extremely generous wage packets. In 1991, an old pal of mine received a call from one of their recruitment officers not long after we had been discharged from the Army. Since he had promised to be more family-oriented post-discharge, he turned the roll down in favor of a local 9-to-5 job. Knowing I was a single guy more interested in patting my bank account than living an easy life, he put me in touch with the recruiter. I should tell you right now that about 60 to 70% of private detective jobs are extremely boring.

AIS might have been one of the most reliable and well-respected firms in the UK, but that didn't mean we were all off playing 007. The majority of our clients were upper-middle-class professional types, with the occasional celebrity or high society member requesting some discrete information gathering. The kinds of jobs we did for that lot were, for the most part, the same as any other type of people. Only instead of sitting in a car in a council estate waiting for someone's secret lover to turn up at a block of flats, you were sitting in a car outside some fancy three-story Victorian manner, waiting for someone's secret lover to turn up in a Rolls-Royce. The only difference was the location. But what were fairly unique to the upper classes

were what we at AIS used to call non-vulnerable missing persons cases. I personally dealt with half a dozen separate cases involving kids of wealthy parents going missing. I use that term very loosely because nine times out of ten, they were just going through a bit of a rebellious period and had run away from home. One girl ran off to live in an all-vegan commune in Hackney. The police went and found her, but she didn't want to go home. Since she was newly 18, there was nothing they could do about it. it. As long as she wasn't breaking the law, she was free to do as she pleased. But that didn't

wash with Mommy and Daddy. They wanted to know where their little girl was. So we'd tail them, keep tabs on them, hack their phones, and all sorts. Their parents would be shelling out tens of thousands every week for the privilege. Like I said, I must have worked six or seven of those jobs just on my own. So, when I was informed there was a missing person's case up for grabs, I thought it'd just be more of the same. But then, right away, I could tell this one was going to be different. The clients were based in my native Scotland, in a wee village called Crossley near Glasgow,

and this is partly why I was offered the job in the first place. I thought that since they were paying big money to have their missing person found, they'd be living in some country house with a range rover sitting out front, but I was wrong. They weren't in poverty or anything. They obviously led a relatively comfortable, life, but they weren't anywhere near the class of client that I was used to dealing with at AIS, nor was their missing person some spoiled brat who'd run off with their dad's credit

card. What they were was desperate. The missing person they wanted tracking was their son, a 21-year-old up-and-coming boxer who, for the sake of his family's anonymity, I will refer to only as Robbie. After he'd first gone missing, his parents had reported it to the police. But after months of investigation, the case hadn't gotten anywhere. It wasn't like they made a bit of progress, questioned a few suspects, and then the leads just dried up.

Robbie's parents said officers had been met with a complete wall of silence. No one had seen him. No one had spoken to him. And it was like he just walked out of his parents' house and disappeared into thin air. By the time I was called on to the job, a campaign set up by local volunteers had just run out of funding. the local police having only one officer working on the case, and only on a sporadic basis at that. Robbie's parents then managed to collect enough cash donations to get AIS involved,

which I can promise you was no small feat. And that's where I entered the picture. The first thing I did was get all the background information on the case, which included a fairly intimate profile of the missing person. Usually speaking, people who go missing have had something go wrong in their lives, be it drink, drugs, infidelity, or some other kind of addiction that either results in big debts or even bigger mistakes. But Robbie's parents insisted that he wasn't involved in anything like that at all. He never drank, he never smoked, he was religious about his diet. Everything in his life seemed to revolve around his potential career as a professional boxer. He kept himself out of trouble and had even gotten himself a job at a local pub so he could

save up some money to move to Glasgow, where he'd have access to some of the best boxing gyms in Scotland. What I'm trying to say is, there were no obvious warning signs with this young man at all, not until I asked if there had been any sudden changes, or if he'd met anyone new in the weeks or months prior. Robbie's mom told me that there was something she told the police very early on in the investigation that she felt they'd overlooked. They asked her the same question about new people appearing in Robbie's life before he disappeared, and this is what she told them. One evening, in the days just prior to his disappearance, Robbie had received a telephone call from someone his mom didn't recognize. This is back when a family tended to have just one

large telephone, which was usually kept in a fairly communal space. For young lads like Robbie, there was no such thing as privacy when it came to telephone calls. So when the phone rang that evening, his mom was the first to pick it up. She thought that she knew the voices of all her son's friends and trainers. He was a popular young lad and got a lot of calls from the likes of friends, coaches, teammates, and training partners. But his mom always asked who was calling and made patter with them any time they called back. She knew a great many of them by voice or demeanor, but she didn't recognize the man who called that evening. When she asked, the man simply told her, I'm calling from the pub.

He didn't give a name. He didn't sound particularly friendly either. He just asked for Robbie. His mom called him to the phone, and after a brief conversation, Robbie thanked the caller and hung up, but not before addressing him with the name Tony. Robbie's mom had never heard him mention anyone called Tony,

and that immediately struck her as unusual. Like I said, she thought she knew pretty much everyone in her son's life. She even knew most of the people he worked at the pub with, along with the names of a few regulars, because Robbie would often come home and chat about his shifts with her. He'd mentioned his boss and a few of his colleagues by name. He even had special nicknames for some of the regulars who came in. But at no point had he ever mentioned anyone named Tony, and if they were close enough that Tony was calling him at home,

she found it very strange that he'd never mentioned him before. Robbie's mom had mentioned this to the police not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions, and each time they told her the lead was a dead end. No one called Tony worked at the pub. None of the regular patrons recognized the name, and in the end, the police told her it was an insignificant detail, and they were taking their investigation in a different direction. Robbie's mom said that at the time, she accepted their decision, but as time went by, it started to bother her more and more.

And it bothered me too. To me, the Tony-shaped piece of the puzzle wasn't a dead end. It was a loose end. The Tony thing wasn't the only loose end, because from what I learned, the whole pub angle had been completely overlooked. Robbie had been due to work that night, but he never made it to the pub,

and the police decided whatever caused his disappearance occurred during the 30-minute walk between his home and his place of work. I understand why the police focus focused on that one stretch of road canvassing nearby houses for any potential witnesses, and why they only saw the pub as a place to gather information. But to me, it was definitely something we needed to take another look at, especially since the pub and this mysterious Tony character seemed to be connected in some capacity. After talking to as many of Robbie's friends as I could reach, which I'd initially thought would be my primary path of inquiry, I decided

to move on to the pub. But I couldn't just walk in, declare myself a private investigator, and expect people to give up previously undisclosed information. Instead, I'd have to set myself up as an unremarkable publican, so I could gather as much information as I could as covertly as I could. The money Robbie's parents raised had bought them two weeks' worth of my time, so knowing I'd be spending a lot of time in the pub he used to work in, I moved from the Glasgow Travelodge that I was staying in to a small bed and breakfast within walking distance. Then, over the next few days, I started showing my face around the pub. My cover story was that I was a recently divorced dad of two who was staying in a cheap bed

and breakfast nearby while trying to get back on my feet again. That way, it made sense for me to be hanging around the pub all day, nursing pints, and maybe putting a few quid on a horse race or two while I was there. It was that kind of lower-end country pub, pints, pies, and the odd punt from the compulsive gamblers sat in their wee corners, clutching the racing papers. And as much as I hate to say it, I actually fit right in. Having spent so long in the army, I was used to hanging around a dodgy pub or two, and being perched on a bar stool nursing a few pints was probably the best time on the job I've ever had.

It was actually quite a good laugh at times. The bar staff and regulars seemed like decent folk. But still, I kept my mind on the job and did as much listening as I could. I popped in and out for a few days, a pint around lunchtime, one in the late afternoon. Then I'd usually head back in the early evening when it was busiest. By my fifth day, I was getting quite a warm welcome from some of the regulars, and even the moody-faced barman seemed to soften up a bit. They were obviously getting quite comfortable with me,

which suited me loads because it meant that I could start asking the odd question without ruffling anyone's feathers. But as it turns out, I didn't need to ask any to hear Tony's name being mentioned. I was sat there Thursday night, pretending to watch whatever football they had on the telly, when this scruffy-looking bloke in a green parka walks into the pub. He says hello to one or two people, but only in passing, as he walks straight up to the bar with a very serious look on his face. He ends up standing right next to me as he gets the barman's attention. But then, thinking that he's just going to put in a drink order, the barman just looks at him as he's pouring a pint, as if to say, what are you having? The scruffy bloke then shakes his head, beckons him over, and then asks him,

is Tony going to be in tonight? He didn't whisper it by any means, but he clearly didn't want to broadcast his question to the whole pub. The only trouble was, he was saying, he was saying, he was saying it right next to the one person who had a vested interest in overhearing him. And as you can imagine, the second I heard that name, my ears pricked up. The guy asked after Tony, and in a similarly muted voice, the barman told him that Tony would be by later on that evening. The scruffy guy then asked the barman to pass on an apology to Tony if he saw him first. The barman just replied, Save it, I'm not the one you've got to impress.

And the way he said it, it was like his scruffy acquaintance was on the way to the gallows. After the quiet scolding from the barman, the scruffy fella scuttled out of the pub, looking very, very worried. And right away, I'm beginning to get an idea of who this Tony guy is. But again, I've changed his name to protect the innocent. He was obviously someone people were afraid of, which meant that Robbie's mom had no idea how right to be concerned she really was. Having heard Tony was stopping by later that night, I finished my pint, then ducked out for a few few hours to eat something, neck a few cups of coffee, and generally sober up a bit so I'd be fit to work. A few hours later, I was back on that very same bar stool, eyes peeled for anyone

who even looked like they might be Tony. I was halfway through my second pint, and becoming increasingly worried that the barman's tip might have been incorrect, when in walks a bloke that looked as wide as he was tall. He's got this massive gold watch on, all kinds of rings, a gold chain around his neck. He's obviously got a few quid, and he doesn't mind showing it off either. He also looked like he'd spent most of his life lifting weights, and not without a bit of help from the pharmacist, if you catch my drift. I had to wait until he got to the bar before I got actual confirmation, but as he strode through the bar, the way everyone looked at him behind his back told me, everything I needed to know. He gets to the bar, and I hear,

You all right, Tony? From the barman. Tony orders a Guinness, takes a seat down the bar from me, and then he and the barman start talking in low voices. But this time, because the pub is in a wee bit busier state and they're further down the bar, I have no idea what they're saying. I got the feeling that I was missing out on something I wanted to hear, but then again, I wanted everything that came out of his bloody mouth. So I stayed put, kept my eyes forward, and tried to pick up on what I could, which sadly wasn't very much. But then, after finishing his pint of Guinness, I heard Tony tell the barman, see you Sunday,

then off he went. I kept up my cover and popped in over the Friday and Saturday just to keep up appearances. Then come Sunday I was in the pub from the moment the doors opened, waiting for Tomiard. Tony to show up again. He walks in just after three, plants himself at the bar, then asks the barman to put the boxing channel on after ordering his pint of Guinness. The barman does as he's told right away, then for the next few minutes, Tony's glued to the TV above the bar, riveted by whatever boxing highlights were playing. Now, I happen to know a thing or two about boxing, enough to be able to use it as a means of striking up a conversation. But the thing that really

struck me in that moment was when I reminded myself that Robbie, my missing person, had been a passionate and dedicated boxer. I simply cannot overstate how much of a rush it is when it seems like a lead is coming together like that. And again, it proved how right Robbie's mom really was to be concerned about him. Her son and this Tony bloke were now connected in two ways. And considering the kind of esteem people held him in, I realized just how much of a balls-up the police had made in not following up the lead. So as I'm sipping my pint, I start making comments on the boxer's form, on their striking ability, stuff like that. I'm not directly addressing the Tony character. I'm just invoking that ancient publican tradition of talking loudly until

someone joins in the conversation. It probably sounds a bit mental now that I've typed it out like that, but it worked, and before long, me and Tony were having a bit of sporadic back and forth. I introduced myself, not offering up my real name but a variation on it, then bought him a pint when I'd finished off my own. He asked how I knew so much about boxing, and I told him another variation on the truth when I said that I used to help a friend train for fights back when I was in the Navy. It turns out he too was an amateur boxer back in the day,

and he retained a huge passion for it throughout his life. He then asked what I was doing out in Crossley, and I gave him the whole sob story about being freshly and busy, bitterly divorced. Tony looked fairly disinterested by the end of my explanation, so in an attempt to keep his interest, I asked him if he ever bet on matches. What with him knowing so much about boxing? He made a bit of a face and then said something like, that rubbish? No, not anymore. To keep the conversation going, I made out that I used to be quite a big-time gambler before I got married, and then I was planning on getting back into it now that the wife didn't have a grip

on my finances. He sort of rolled his eyes, but he was still with me when I asked him if he had any tips or anything, like any talented young boxers that he might know of. He then told me that the best piece of advice he could ever give me was not to gamble on professional boxing at all. According to him, it was all rigged, the refs were all paid off, the fighters all took dives, and were working from scripts, all to funnel money into the hands of the bookies. Maybe it's It's the cynic in me, but I can't say I didn't agree with him a wee bit. So, I asked him a very genuine question and quizzed him on what combat sports were fit to bet on.

He just sort of looked off at the telly for a while, not saying anything, then got this very sinister look about him. Tony was smiling, but he had this look in his eye, this wolfish, almost bloodthirsty look. He started telling me about these small-time kickboxing fights in Thailand that he'd been to, And how if he knew the sport, he could win thousands of US dollars a night betting on these tiny, 100-person spectator events on the outskirts of Bangkok. He said big fighters just do it for the money, but the smaller, up-and-coming lads who put way more emphasis on honor and skill, they quite literally fight for their lives.

A few wins in the lower divisions could mean getting their names on bigger and better cards, and the money they earned could end up catapulting their families out of poverty. According to Tony, was the purest form of fighting there was. Everything else was just theater. He seemed to know an awful lot about boxing outside of the actual sport. He knew about the gambling side, but he seemed to know a wee bit about the promotional side too. I then asked what he did for a living, as in if he was involved in that promotional side, or if he ran a gym or anything. He said he visited a gym, which was only too obvious from the looks of him, but that he hadn't been involved in organizing events for years and years. According to him, it was a lot of stress,

not too much money, and then added, I'll stick to the side of the TV screen, thank you very much. I took two things away from this part of our conversation. Number one, Tony didn't answer my question in that he danced around telling me what he did for a living. And number two, he was lying. I know it's a bit of a detective story cliche at this point, but you really do get a sense of when people are lying to you, and when Tony told me that he hadn't been involved in boxing promotions for years and years, I knew that wasn't true. Everything else he told me was correct, but that part wasn't. He was still involved in some capacity. He just didn't feel comfortable telling a stranger, which to me was basically like striking oil. I had my number one person of interest

connected to my missing person in more than one facet, and not only did I have a strong suspicion that he was lying to me, but I was 90% sure that he was involved in some kind of organized crime. Robbie needed money to move into Glasgow, and if Tony was involved in loan sharking, then that might well account for his disappearance. And by that, I don't mean like when he couldn't pay, they rolled him up into a carpet and chucked him in a lock. I mean, a lot of people get themselves into debt, then just voluntarily disappear, mainly because they're so afraid of the previously mentioned carpets. People do it with big banks too. They try all sorts of scams, they disappear, change their names, even fake their own deaths. So when some big former boxer is threatening to break

your legs if you don't get his money to him on time, voluntary disappearances are surprisingly likely. I wasn't 100% certain that Tony was loan sharking, but I wasn't about to ask him during that first conversation. When you're working with a cover story, those first contacts are all about winning trust. Push too hard, and you push them away. I had to wait until the next day to see Tony again, but when I did, I had a plan waiting. I told him that I'd love to buy him a pint, but I was skint. My soon-to-be ex-wife wouldn't let me into our joint account because we'd already signed the divorce papers, so until I could sell off some possessions, I was brassic. Any lone shark worth his salt would have seen that as a clear business opportunity, but all Tony did was

offer his sympathies before offering to buy me a pint instead. I accepted his offer, quietly taken aback that my Lone Shark theory had potentially been ruled out. Then I asked him if he just so happened to know anyone who might be interested in lending me a bit of short-term cash. Again, he shook his head and told me that he didn't know anyone who could help me. But then, after a pause, he asked me, Have you definitely got some money coming in on Friday? It was a very loaded question, but the thing that really got my attention was how Tony suddenly seemed to have a bit of that wolfish look about him, like the one he had earlier. I told him that yes, I definitely had some money coming in that Friday, which by that point was only the day after next. He then asked me, you definitely know

your boxing, eh? Enough to put money on it? Again, I told him yes, I knew my boxing, and most definitely enough to put a few quit on, at which point Tony's gaze became very intense, He looked me over for a few moments, then told me, If you want to make enough money to last you a good few years, be in the pub, closing on Saturday night, with a couple of grand in cash. And at that, he finished off his pint of Guinness and said his goodbyes, then walked out of the pub. I immediately informed my bosses that I had a huge potential lead regarding a person of interest,

and then told Robbie's parents that their suspicions regarding the mysterious Tony character had most definitely been warranted. The only problem was, I had no physical evidence that Tony's criminality was connected to Robbie's disappearance, only strong suspicions. We knew Robbie needed money. That was the only reason he was working in the pub. It was a stepping stone to something greater. So what if Tony had been the one to offer it to him, via some kind of illicit gambling operation?

Robbie could have gotten in too deep, made a bet that he couldn't honor, or he could have threatened to expose Tony's criminality after being duped out of his wages. There were a ton of possibilities, but like I said, I didn't have evidence for any of them. However, what I did have was a golden opportunity to gather said evidence by meeting Tony back at the pub at come closing time on Saturday. I didn't have any kind of secret or hidden cameras I could use, but I did have one of those small, old-fashioned dictation machines that I could place in the chest pocket of my jacket. That way, I could record any conversations we had and potentially obtain audio that would be of huge interest to the police. And that was the only surefire method that we had to get the investigation

into Robbie's disappearance back on track, and to make sure that it was headed in the right direction. It was an exciting moment, the first time in my career that I felt like a proper secret agent. But unfortunately for me, that midnight meeting would result in my second brush with almost certain death. As instructed, I made sure that I was at the pub before closing time on Saturday night. It was a nervous wait, but eventually, Tony showed up. However, instead of coming inside and sitting down at the bar like he usually did, he just caught my attention from the doorway and then beckoned me to follow him. I walked out of the pub with Tony to my front, and as we walked to his car, he turned his back to me, giving me the perfect opportunity to reach into my chest pocket

and switch on my dictation machine. The tapes were tiny, and only had about 45 minutes worth of recording time to them, but there'd be no switching it on in his car without raising suspicion, and he had eyes on me as we walked out of the pub, so I had to do it there and then, or not do it at all. As we walked to his car, I saw two bloke sitting in the back seat of a gray Mercedes. I'll be honest, this did ring some alarm bells, but there was also a chance that wherever we were going to gamble my cash, Tony thought it best to take some muscle with him. So, I walked over to his car, climbed into the passenger seat after giving the heavies in the back a nervous greeting, and then off we went towards our mystery destination. Obviously the first question I had for Tony

was, where are we going? He gave me one of those wolfish smiles and told me, you'll see. We kept on driving for a minute or two, and since I didn't know the area very well, I had no clue where he was taking us. And then, after the silence got a bit too uncomfortable, I asked him, are we going to bet on a boxing match? And he told me, could be, and then asked if I had it on me. Assuming he meant the cash, I lied, told him I did, patting a bulge in my jacket pocket that had a pair of rolled-up socks in it. Not exactly a Hollywood prop, but little bluffs like that can be very effective. I then asked him what kind of fight we were going to. Tony paused before speaking, and then asked if I remembered what he'd said about those Muay Thai fights in Thailand. I remembered exactly

what he'd said about those young, hungry fighters, and how ferociously they fought. Tony had also mentioned that some of those fights were unsanctioned events, sometimes organized between towns or villages, your best fighter versus ours, for honor, glory, and untold riches for those with the stones to risk their hard-earned money. And that's when it clicked. Tony wasn't taking me to a boxing match he knew was rigged. He was taking me to an unsanctioned, illegal boxing match that he had organized himself. I had to remind myself that I was recording the whole conversation, and since he was feeling talkative, I decided to ask some much more direct questions. Questions I remember asking him with this sort of feigned horror. It's not going to be

bare-knuckle, is it? Tony didn't say anything. He just nodded. I then asked if the fighters ever got hurt. He told me, combat sports can be dangerous. Sometimes people go down and they don't get back up again. Sad fact. And it was my turn to stay quiet. Not so much because of the brutal honesty behind Tony's words, but because I suddenly realized what had happened to the missing Robbie. A clean-cut, square-go lad like him would never have gambled his wages away. But what he might have done is accept an offer to fight in one of those matches if it meant walking away with a king's ransom in prize money, enough to move to Glasgow, enough to kickstart his dream sooner rather than later.

I thought I had the perfect opportunity to ask, and considering what Tony had just said, I felt like I was on the cusp of him admitting to being involved in Robbie's disappearance. But when I asked him if anyone had died in the ring recently, he told me, I think that's enough questions for now, don't you? And as he said that, I started to recognize some of the buildings we were passing, but they didn't make any sense at all. They would have meant that Tony had just driven us around in circles for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, only for us to end up right back where we started. I asked Tony again, where are you taking me? And once again, he told me, you'll see. And seconds later, we pulled up outside a building that I recognized in an instant.

It was the B and B that I'd been staying in. We sat there in the car for a second before Tony slowly turned in his seat to look at me. I kept up the act for as long as I could, asking if he was pulling some kind of wind-up on me, and his response made my blood run cold. We know who you are. I was scared, but I knew from my training that I had to stick to my story no matter what. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, that I was exactly who I said I was, but it was no good.

good. I was still trying to reason with him when one of the fellas in the back seat reached over my shoulder, grabbed the dictation machine out of my pocket, and then held it up for Tony to see. He took it, and then asked me, how many more of these have you got? And the heavy in the back seat must have seen me fiddling with something in my jacket pocket as I walked to the car. But at the time, all I was thinking in my fear-addled mind was, how the hell did they know? seeing as it was most likely pointless, I decided to stop lying and told Tony that the dictation machine was the only one I had with me. He then told me that we were going up to my room to have a chat, and if I said a word to anyone in the B&B, anyone who might be awake at that time, then he'd burn

the whole place down with me in it. We went up to my room, and while Tony's heavies ransacked the place, it was very surreal seeing them do it quietly. He told me to take a seat. He told me to take a seat. on the bed. Apparently, he and his boys had decided to do a bit of research on me before they committed to taking me to an illegal fight, and whoever Tony was connected to was a lot more capable and powerful than I could ever imagine. Tony started explaining that I'd caused him an awful lot of trouble. His routines would have to change. He wouldn't be able to go to the pub anymore, all because he knew he couldn't trust me not to tell my boss's everything. He said he might not have been able to stop me talking in the past, but he'd certainly be able to stop me from talking in

the future. And at that, one of his heavies pulled out a length of electrical cord from his jacket pocket as the guy started to fashion an improvised noose from the cord. Tony explained that killing me would bring a lot of unnecessary attention down on him and his business partners. But faking a scene where I had ended my own life, that would cause a lot less of a fuss. I remember him saying something like, a lot of ex-squaddies end up that way. No one would bat an eyelid if they'd found you hanging in a cupboard, would they? I can't overstate just how chilling that was, knowing that Tony and his partners somehow had access to my service records. But ironically, it was that little detail that may well have ended up saving my life. Back when I was in Northern Ireland,

one of my sections Land Rovers was caught in an IRA ambush near a place called Cross Maglain. I was wounded as we fought our way out of it, but two of my section mates lost their lives. The injuries I sustained resulted in my eventual discharge from the army, and apparently Tony had read all about it. He'd been ready to have me killed. He'd been ready to fake a tragic, self-inflicted end, but after reading about the incident in which I'd received a mention in dispatches, he decided it was bad form to kill someone who'd already cheated death once. He gave me some big speech about how we were both soldiers, and then war. Honorable soldiers don't just kill each other when the battle ends. The winners and the losers come to an agreement, and according to Tony, that's exactly what we were

going to do. We didn't so much come to an agreement as Tony imposed terms. The only reason he mentioned young boxers getting killed in those illegal fights was that he accepted certain people deserve to know what happened to their missing family members. They needed to accept that their loved ones weren't coming back, so that their hearts could mend, and they could move on with their lives. But that said, Tony was all I was ever going to get out of him, and if any of my colleagues decided to visit Crossley in the future, it was me that was going to pay the price. Tony and his boys didn't just know about my service record and who I worked for. They knew where my mom lived, any further attempts to interfere with their operation, and it'd be her that ended up

hanging in a cupboard with a wee note saying that she couldn't stand the arthritic pain anymore. That was obviously the bit which terrified me most, the idea that he might hurt my own mother. But the thing that really broke me was the fact that he knew her name, where she lived, and he knew about the medical condition she'd been struggling with for the better part of a decade. And even as someone who was immersed in the world of information retrieval, I was astounded at how Tony had been able to get his hands on all of that, information in just a few short days. That's round about the time that I realized Tony couldn't have been running the illegal boxing ring on his own. He must have had some very wealthy

and very powerful partners to get his hands on all my personal information so fast. For all I know, they hired one of AIS's competitors, which let me tell you, would have set them back an astonishing amount of money if they wanted to get their info in that kind of time frame. Then, after we shook on our little agreement, Tony and his heavy heavy, Robies left me in a ransacked bedroom, having taken all my notebooks and dictation tapes with them. I left Crossley with my tail between my legs, having been dramatically and unexpectedly outmatched. I told my boss is everything, that I'd been compromised, that my family was at risk, and to their credit they made arrangements to ensure their safety. But more importantly, to me, I told

Robbie's parents everything too. That hadn't been part of the deal between me and Tony, as I think he knew good and well that it was a term that I'd never accept. I told them that although I had no evidence of it, I knew for certain that Robbie had been manipulated into taking part in an underground boxing match, and I also told them that there was a very good chance that Robbie had sustained fatal injuries during one of those fights, and that the events organizers had then covered up his death. In all probability, his body would never be found, and his killers would never be brought to justice. And even with all the information I was able to forward to the police,

Tony would be on the run, knowing full well that his part in the operation had been compromised. I apologized to Robbie's parents over and over again for not being able to bring their son home, but they showed patience and strength of spirit. And that was the closest evidence I've come across for there being a big man upstairs. They told me what I'd done was enough,

that I'd brought them more answers and more closure than the police had in almost a year. year of investigating. It didn't matter to them that Robbie's killers mightn't face justice in life, because in their opinion, the justice they'd face in the great thereafter would be far greater than anything they'd have to suffer on earth. I was halfway through my third year at college, when I started to really understand the lay of the land. This was no ordinary college town. Nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains, the crisp, frost-bitten air of winter seemed to seep right into your bones, and the locals, or townies as we students called them, carried a

chill in their demeanor just as biting. The school was a speck of academia in a town that hadn't changed much in decades, a place where the mountains loomed over every shoulder and eyes followed you a bit too closely at the local stores. Most townies didn't care much for us students. We were interlopers, seasonal invaders in their steady, slow-paced world. They viewed us with a mix of suspicion and disdain, an undercurrent that was always there, though rarely spoken out loud. There was one place, though, where our worlds collided, the club. It was an old bar with a battered wooden sign and windows so fogged up with age and cigarette smoke that you couldn't see inside until you pushed through the door. On any given night, it thrumbed with a mix of Johnny Cance,

and the latest pop hits, a bizarre cocktail of old and new that somehow defined this town. It was frequented by both students and locals, a neutral ground, or so it seemed. I'd heard stories about one particular townie, a rugged guy who looked like he'd been chiseled out of the mountains themselves. He had a reputation. Saturday nights, he'd walk into the club with a storm cloud over his head, looking for trouble, and he almost always found it. Last weekend he'd plopped down uninvited at a table of students. The air had thickened, heavy with the imminent threat of violence that seemed to follow him like a shadow. Words were exchanged, none too friendly, and it didn't take long before fists did the talking.

The students ended up in the hospital. And the townie? He walked away Scott Free. The owner, a burly man with a graying beard and wary eyes, never interfered. Business as usual. As I sat in my dorm room, a small cramped space I shared with a buddy from back home, the story replayed in my mind. My dad, a stern man with a moral backbone that could withstand any storm, always told me,

Son, don't you ever let yourself be a victim. Stand up for what's right. Stand up for your friends. His words were a constant echo in my thoughts, a mantra that I couldn't shake off. That week, as the temperature dropped and the winds howled like the lonesome cries of the mountain, I made a decision. No more. We wouldn't cower. We'd confront. Preparation was key. I wasn't just going to walk into the lion's den without armor. I gathered old magazines, stacking them thick around my torso, securing them with electrical tape until I resembled a makeshift night. Into my jacket pocket,

I slipped an empty Coke bottle, just a piece of trash to anyone who saw it, but in the right hands, It was as good as a baton. Saturday night came with a vengeance, the cold biting harder than usual as if it too sensed the brewing storm. We headed to the club early, claimed a table with a good view of the door, and waited. The place filled up fast,

the air a mix of laughter, chatter, and the undercurrent of music that was too loud to allow for easy conversation. My heart beat a rhythm against the magazine armor, anticipation mixing with fear and a stubborn, unyielding resolve. Tonight's the night, I whispered to my friends, my voice steady. We teach that jerk a lesson.

The door swung open, letting in a gust of icy air, and there he was, silhouette framed like a gunslinger in an old western, Showtime. The moment he stepped through the door, the club's atmosphere thickened, like the pressure drop before a storm. He scanned the room, his eyes hard, unsmiling, a hunter gauging his terrain. My grip tightened around the beer glass, the cold sweat of it mirroring my own. He ambled over and without an invite, dropped into the chair next to me. The old wooden seat groaned under his weight as if it too protested his presence.

I kept my eyes on the amber liquid in my glass, watching the bubbles rise and burst, a momentary distraction from the tension building at our table. Well, look who decided to join us, I murmured, my voice edged with feigned cheerfulness. My friends stiffened, the banter dying on their lips as they eyed the intruder. He didn't say a word. His hand found my thigh, squeezing tight, a grimace of a smile on his face, as if enjoying the discomfort he elicited. The club buzzed around us, but at our table the silence was suffocating. You certainly aren't shy, I commented, laughter forced and hollow.

The bar quieted, the sudden drop in noise making my next move feel like a spectacle. With my free hand I pretended to adjust my cap, and as my hand came down, I flicked a pinch of Copenhagen snuff from my cheek right into his eye. He recoiled, cursing as his hands flew up to his face. Seizing the moment I drove my fist into his throat, an action as shocking to him as it was to me. He stumbled back, toppling the chair, a look of bewildered pain on his face. Take it outside, the owner barked, his voice cutting through the chaos. outside the cold hit us like a wall, but adrenaline kept the chill at bay. The townie was on his feet, fury etched across his features as he lunged at me. I dodged, the magazines taped to my chest

absorbing the brunt of his poorly aimed punch. My hand found the coke bottle in my jacket as he came at me again. This time, I didn't dodge. I swung, the bottle connecting with a sickening thud against his skull. He staggered, dazed, and that's when my friends joined in. The alley echoed with the sound of our boots against his body, the grunts and curses filling the air. He fell then, his cries cutting short as he curled into himself defenseless. The brutality of our actions, the rage and fear, mingled into a potent, toxic rush. We kicked until our breaths came heavy and harsh, until the distant wail of sirens pierced our fury. Let's go, I shouted, and we scattered the taste of violence bitter in my mouth.

Months later, I saw him again. He was by the bar, in a wheelchair, his body smaller, broken. Our eyes met, his flinching with a vulnerability that punched me harder than any fist could. I looked away, haunted by the memory of that night, by the justice and revenge we thought we served. Sitting there, staring into my drink, I felt the weight of my father's words. of the lessons on right and wrong had we crossed a line. The victory felt hollow, the lesson bitter, actions and consequences, they follow you, echo back in ways you can't predict.

And as I left the club that night, the chill wasn't just from the mountain air. It was from the realization of what we'd become, of what I'd become. A protector, a perpetrator. The lines had blurred, and the reflection in the glass wasn't one I recognized. anymore. I think the worst investigation I ever worked on seemed like a basic proof of infidelity job at first. We got a call from a client who suspected his wife was cheating on him with a colleague. He was often away on business and had harbored suspicions for some time. To gather solid evidence, he called us. Some of you might wonder why he didn't just set up nanny cams or go through her

phone. The explanation is simple, digital literacy. The client was a little. The client was in his 60s and his wife was in her 20s. He knew she was unfaithful, but he couldn't secure a clean break divorce without evidence to contest the prenuptial agreement. When he first suspected his wife of having her boyfriend over, he installed nanny cams to catch them in the act. Somehow, they figured out the cameras were there and changed venues to avoid getting caught. Next, he tried to sneak a look at her phone, hoping to guess the password and sift through her emails and such. She had it bricked before he even had a chance, and some tech kid wanted a hefty fee to bypass the security and retrieve the data. We charged him half that amount to obtain

photographic evidence of an intimate rendezvous, nothing salacious, of course, but incriminating enough to facilitate a swift and inexpensive divorce. The wife was clever. She avoided her boyfriend while her husband was in town, but, as the saying goes, when the cats away, the mice will play. To catch her, the husband planned a fake business trip, didn't leave the city, and stayed in a nice downtown hotel. He paid us to tail his wife while demanding updates every five minutes. That was me for five nights, following this woman and her boyfriend around the city, while my partner sat in the passenger seat taking pictures. Each night he'd take her to his condo in the suburbs, and every morning he'd drive her back home. They had no clue they were being followed.

especially at night when it was dark and they visited high traffic areas. I was on the night team, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Since the boyfriend drove the target home so early, my partner and I would be there to see it, bleary-eyed and wired on Dunkin coffees. But then, one morning, the boyfriend came out alone, looking like he hadn't slept a wink all night, but was somehow headed to the gym early,

dressed in a hoodie in shorts. After tossing a suspiciously full gym bag into the trunk of his car, they took off. At first, my partner and I joked about it. I woke him up, pointed to our guy, and probably made some inappropriate joke about how he and the client's wife had been up all night. We didn't grasp the significance of this deviation until much later that day. After spotting the red-eyed boyfriend walking out of his condo alone,

we handed over to the day team and went home for some rest. When we were ready to start again, I checked in with the day team, amazed to learn they were still parked outside the boyfriend's condo. He hadn't returned home from work, and as far as they knew, our client's wife hadn't left the condo either. Our day team thought the pair had a heavy night of drinking and dancing, among other things. But by 8 p.m., with neither the wife nor her boyfriend spotted, they began to suspect something was amiss.

They informed us, but we only really understood the situation, at about 8 p.m. I remember telling my partner, $20 bucks says he's back before dark, the guy must be running on fumes already. A few hours later, I was handing over that $20, still staring at the guy's empty parking spot. We didn't have anything else to do, but sit there, watching the condo for any sign of the wife.

She was our target, not her boyfriend, and if at any point we felt we needed to track him to find her, we deal with that as it came. So for the second night in a row, we sat outside the boyfriend's condo, bored out of our skulls. We were almost constantly in touch with the client and obliged to be frank about the status of our investigation. We had to level with him. There had been no sign of his wife or her boyfriend for 24 hours. He told us to keep him updated and left us to our work.

We waited all night, but still, there was no sign of either the target or her boyfriend. By that point, we suspected the wife had tricked us into waiting there while she sneaked out a back door. We called our boss, who agreed we should check out the client's home for any activity. There was no sign of anyone there, but soon after, it was no longer a problem. The day team took over for the next 12 hours, and it was our turn to rest. Come 8 p.m. at our handover, we learned there had been no activity at the client's house, or the boyfriend's condo. The day team had tried several other regular hangouts of the boyfriend and our client's wife, but there was no sign of them anywhere.

That meant 36 hours of no contact, which is not what our clients pay us for. But then, right as we were trying to think of a way to get back on track, we got a call from our boss. The client had reached out with some concerning news. His wife had been due to meet a friend for a dinner date but hadn't shown up. Equally concerned, her friend had called her husband, our client, saying, that she hadn't sent any cancellation and wasn't answering any calls. Obviously the loss of contact was concerning, but having one of her friends on the verge of reporting her missing suggested a whole other level of urgency was required. We had to make sure she wasn't still in the boyfriend's

condo. Since it was only a few minutes past nine, I figured I might catch the building superintendent to run an old scam on him and try to get a look inside. I told my partner to stay put, got out of the car, and walked right up to the apartment building. I tried to open the door without a key, and as soon as I started loudly trying, the superintendent came running to see who I was. I explained that I was looking for a friend of mine, how I hadn't seen him in a few days,

and how I was worried about him. The guy started giving me all that, I can't let you in without prior permission, but I turned the Hollywood up to 11, and started giving him a whole sob story about how my friend had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and was taking it really hard. I added that his mom was in the hospital with a busted hip,

having fallen down the stairs when she heard the news and fainted. I laid it on thick for the guy, said whatever tear-jurking thing came to mind, and in the end he agreed to show me into the boyfriend's apartment, so long as it was under his strict supervision. Mission accomplished, right? If the wife was in there, I could say that I was mistaken and that I must have given the wrong address. Sure, that was getting a little too close to the target for comfort, but these weren't your regular

circumstances anymore. The client wasn't just concerned for his wife's fidelity anymore. He had a bad feeling that she might have stolen a bunch of jewelry from him, then ran off with her lover after losing their tail. He hadn't told us that was a possibility before, but when he did, it made the situation time critical, so to speak. Anyway, we headed up the stairs to the second floor, and the guy let me into the condo that we had been staking out. He opened the door for me, reminding me that he was about to tail me everywhere. Then off we went into the TV room, the kitchen, and eventually the bedroom.

I went to open it and found the door was locked. I called out, not specifically to the wife, just to anybody, but no one replied. The guy then started saying how no one was home, but I started explaining how we definitely needed to get that bedroom door open. because I was scared that my buddy had done something terrible, either to himself or someone else. He said he didn't have the keys to the doors inside of these units, which was understandable. But then, as he was talking, he suddenly stopped. His eyes went wide, and he pointed down at my hand.

There was blood, like old, half-dried stuff, smeared across my lower fingers and palm, all from where I'd gripped the door handle. My adrenaline started pumping. I told the guy to call the cops because either they were going to have to arrest me for criminal damage or they were going to want to see whatever the hell was behind that locked bedroom door. I knew I'd have to stay anyway. I had freaking forensics all over my hands. So when the guy agreed to go get the cops,

I just hung out in the hallway outside and called my partner to let him know things had taken a real dark turn up there. We suspected the worst, but having it confirmed didn't make it any easier. The cops arrived with the whole team. They got the bedroom door open, and there she was, lying on the floor, strangled. We didn't find out until much later on, but the wife had actually tried to break it off with her lover after a night on the town. She thought one last blowout would soften the blow, but after too many cocktails, the guy wasn't anywhere near as level-headed as she figured he might be. Somehow, he came to the decision that if he couldn't have her, no one could. That morning, when we saw him wearing his workout gear and looking like he hadn't slept,

he'd murdered our client's wife less than an hour before we were sat there in our car, having no clue that a murder was happening less than 100 yards away. It makes me sick to think about, even all these years later, knowing that we were so close, but there was nothing we could have done to stop it. I heard lover boy went to prison for first-degree murder, and that the rich client remarried not long after. I have a ton of stories from my time as a private investigator, but that's by far the one that haunts me the most.

It was a hot summer night, and I couldn't believe we were actually doing this. We were heading to Payne Road, a place that everyone in North Carolina whispered about. The stories were all kind of scary, and honestly, I was a bit scared too, but I didn't want to show it in front of Angel and Robert. Are you sure about this?

I asked as we drove closer to our spooky destination. The car's headlights barely cut through the thick darkness of the rural road leading to the infamous bridge where it all happened. Come on, it'll be fun. Don't you want to see if the stories are true? Robert replied from the back seat. His voice full of excitement and a bit of mischief. Angel just smiled at me from the passenger seat,

her eyes sparkling with curiosity. The legend said that a long time ago, a man named Edward Payne did something terrible, on that bridge. They said he hurt his family and other people really badly, all to make some evil spirits happy. Now, people said that the bridge and the road were haunted by those spirits. As we drove, the road got narrower and darker. There weren't any streetlights, and the trees loomed over us like giant shadows. My hands were a bit sweaty as I gripped the steering wheel tighter. Finally, we saw the sign. Edwards Road. This was it. I was it. I

I turned down the road and my heart started to beat faster. We drove for a while, the car's engine rumbling quietly in the still night air. The road was bumpy and seemed to go on forever. Let's stop on the bridge and turn the car off, Angel suggested when we finally reached the old bridge. It was a part of the game, according to the stories. If you turned your car off on the bridge, it wouldn't start again because the ghosts were holding it back.

I parked the car right in the middle of the bridge and turned off the engine. We sat there in silence, waiting. One minute, two minutes. Nothing happened. The only sound was our breathing in the distant call of an owl. This is BS, I said, feeling a mix of relief and disappointment. See, there's nothing too. Before I could finish, Angel reached over and turned the key in the ignition.

The car made a clicking sound, but it didn't start. She tried again, still nothing. My heart dropped. Was the legend true? Maybe it's just the car, I muttered, trying not to sound scared, but my voice shook a little. Robert laughed from the back. Or maybe it's the ghosts. He joked, but I could tell he was a bit nervous now, too.

After a tense moment, I put the car in neutral, and we all got out to push it. It rolled forward slightly, and when I tried the ignition again, the engine roared to life. We all jumped back in, not wanting to stay a second longer. As we drove away from the bridge, I tried to laugh it off. See, no ghosts, just a little car trouble. But deep down, I wasn't so sure. The lights on the dash flickered oddly as we drove away, and the air felt colder. I glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting to see something or someone sitting in the back seat.

We decided to go further down the road, ignoring the uneaseless. feeling in our guts. I didn't know it then, but the night was far from over. Our adventure on Payne Road was just beginning, and things were about to get a lot scarier. As we drove deeper into the night, the eerie feeling we had on the bridge didn't go away. In fact, it got worse. The road twisted through dark woods that seemed to watch us as we passed. I kept driving, trying to focus on the road ahead, but my mind was stuck on the bridge and the car not starting. Let's turn around and go back, Angel suddenly said. I was surprised because she seemed the bravest out of all of us earlier.

Really? You want to go back there? I asked, my voice a little shaky. Yes, I feel like we miss something. Let's just take one more look, she insisted. Robert agreed, and even though every part of me screamed to just go home, I turned the car around. We were heading back to the bridge. As we approached, I felt a nod in my stomach. It was like something was pulling us back. something strong and not very nice. We parked near the bridge again, but this time we didn't turn off the car. We just sat there, staring at the dark road that crossed over the creek.

That's when we saw it. Right in the middle of the bridge was a perfect circle. It looked like it was glowing faintly, a soft white light that didn't make any sense. What is that? Robert whispered. I don't know, but I'm going to find out, Angel said before I could stop her. She got out of the car and started walking towards the circle. Angel, wait, I called out, but she didn't stop. It was like she couldn't hear me.

Robert and I looked at each other, scared, but knowing we couldn't leave her alone out there. We got out and hurried after her. As we got closer, the air felt cooler and the silence louder. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear anything else. Angel reached the circle and stood right in the middle of it. She looked back at us. her face pale and her eyes wide. It was like she was seeing something we couldn't.

Guys, I think we should go, Robert said. His voice barely a whisper. I nodded, feeling the same fear. I reached out and grabbed Angel's arm, gently pulling her away from the circle. Let's get back to the car. Now, I said. We all rushed back to the car, jumped in, and I hit the gas.

The car moved forward, and as we left the bridge behind, I didn't dare look back. As we drove away, the tension in the car was thick. Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Then, Angel's phone, which was lying on the dashboard, started to make weird noises. It was like a high-pitched screaming mixed with static. She grabbed it, trying to make it stop, but the noises only got louder. It won't turn off, she yelled over the noise.

Finally, after what felt like forever, the noises stopped as suddenly a sudden as they had started. Angel dropped the phone like it was hot, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I don't know what just happened, but I don't think we should ever go back there, I said, and for the first time that night, nobody argued with me. We drove in silence, each lost in our thoughts, wondering if we had really seen what we thought we'd seen, or if it was all just our imagination. But one thing was sure, none of us would ever forget what happened on Payne Road. I was a private detective in Michigan for four years, following a long career in law enforcement. Ironically, it was during what was intended to be four short, quiet years that I encountered

my most frightening and disturbing case. Our agency received a call from a woman who suspected her husband of having an affair. She said she knew he was lying when he claimed to be working late, but essentially said she couldn't deal with the emotional stress of personally uncovering the affair if one was indeed taking place. That's where I came in. If the client's husband was engaged in an extramarital affair, then it was my job to compile as much photographic evidence as possible before presenting said evidence to the client.

On the surface, it was pretty standard private investigator work, the kind of thing that makes up about 30 to 40% of all our time. but in actual fact, it was one of the most disturbing and mystifying events of my entire career. So, as I've already touched on, the client had already done some of the preliminary work herself. She was fine with him working late, and at first she was proud of him for sacrificing his time for the good of their children. But her real suspicions began when their rather active love life petered out before dropping off completely. Her husband then started to act increasingly withdrawn and seemed disinterested in pretty much anything that wasn't work-related.

She said that she tried talking to him, but he just brushed the whole thing off as if she were simply imagining things. Then, an incident where he proved a little overprotective of his cell phone proved to be the final straw, the client's husband seemed to descend into a minor panic at the prospect of her gaining unfettered access to it. Since she couldn't gain access to any of his devices, She decided to check in with his place of work to see if he really was working late.

When she found out that was a lie, she attempted to follow him one evening after he clocked out of work. But when she saw him driving toward the city limits, she didn't have the nerve to follow him. Her husband didn't work late every night, so we had to wait for a call from the client. But when we did, I got into position and then tailed him after he got out of work at around 5.30, just like his wife had said. He drove miles towards the city limits And then drove a few more miles out into the country Before turning down a dirt road

I didn't immediately follow him That's not something you'd ever do during a covert pursuit Not unless it was a life or death kind of situation If the dirt road had a dead end I could possibly give myself away So the thing to do was to keep going Pull over and then use Google Maps to see where the road led According to Google, the dirt road led to two places, the first being the next stretch of highway over,

and the other being some kind of industrial facility. At first, I figured the whole job had been a complete false alarm because if he was driving out to some industrial site, it was most likely work-related, right? But just to be certain, I started looking into the company that owned the site and how it might be related to the husband's employment. Figuring I might as well, since I was pulled pulled over and had my phone in hand, I saw that the site in question, according to Google, was permanently closed. While that didn't mean the husband was there for legitimate reasons, it did raise my suspicions a little.

So instead of just sitting there and peering at satellite images from 2013, I decided to double back, turn down the dirt road I'd seen the husband go down, and then go check out the industrial compound for myself. I pulled up outside the gates only to see a very derelict looking place. all rusted shipping containers and falling down warehouses. Again, it didn't preclude the possibility that the husband was professionally involved in some way, but I still didn't know if he was actually there. I couldn't see his car, and for all I knew, he'd carried on down the dirt road to that other stretch of highway.

I'd have to tail him again to get a concrete idea of where he was going. But luckily, that's exactly where the guy was headed. Next time I tailed him, he turned down the same. the dirt road, and I followed at a distance. Then, when we got to the chained-up gates of the derelict industrial compound, the husband stopped his car, and then got out just as I rolled past him. I could see him watching me out of my rear view, just standing next to his car, still as a statue, and he waited until I was way down the dirt track before he moved again. I managed to hover at the very end of the track long enough where it met the highway, that I caught a glimpse of

the client's husband driving his car into the derelict industrial complex. Then, when I circled back to take a look, the chain on the compound's gate had been locked again, but when I peered past its iron bars, there were no parked cars anywhere to be seen. I did a brief check of the fencing around the compound and found it all so rusty and dilapidated that breaking in would be relatively easy. Obviously we were in touch with the client at every stage of the investigation. But as you can probably guess, she wanted to know what was in that compound just as much as I did. Or more accurately, she wanted to know what her husband was doing there if he wasn't working in some capacity. The client was still insistent on getting conclusive

evidence, or at least proving once and for all that her husband wasn't being unfaithful. As a private detective, I had something of an advantage in this situation. When I was a cop, there was no way that I could just force my way onto private property like that, unless I could handle the whole heap of trouble that would be headed my way if I was caught doing so. But as a private investigator, the worst thing that could happen on the legal side of things anyways would be getting charged with trespassing by some cops. This obviously gave me a lot more operational maneuverability, and meant that I could get into the compound and finish the job

without having to worry about getting my ass fired. I didn't try to break into the compound until I'd received implicit instructions from the client. After all, a risk was still a risk, and I didn't want to take one unless I absolutely had to. But once we got the okay and a call saying the husband was working late again, I readied myself to collect the conclusive proof that the client was paying us for. I repeated the process of following the husband from his place of work to the abandoned industrial site. But then, instead of immediately following him to his apparent destination, I continued down the highway for around 10 to 15 minutes before doubling back towards the site. Whatever he was doing and whoever he was doing it with, I wanted to catch them in the

act, you know, not walk in on them setting up or just talking or whatever, and potentially jeopardize the entire investigation. It'd be a delicate operation, but it also perfectly illustrates why I was so reluctant to let go of my vocation, even after the standard retirement age. While many of my peers were content to move down to Florida Keys and spend their twilight years just fishing, I knew right from the second I even heard the word retirement that I'd miss the adrenaline rush that came with the sharp edge of detective work. I guess what I'm trying to say is I was actually pumped to break into that site, track down my target, and catch him in the act. Not so much out of any ill feeling towards him. I just wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. As I said, I waited around 20 to 30

minutes before parking my car on the dirt road, and then I searched for the weaker section of the fence that I'd spotted on my first time around. Then, after getting inside and armed with a flashlight, a video camera, I set about searching the derelict industrial site for any sign of the client's husband. The place was huge, blocks and blocks of old warehouses, and what appeared to be abandoned manufacturing facilities. But the gaps between them were wide enough to drive a vehicle down, and eventually I came across a group of them, all parked outside of this one gray stone building that looked different from the others. At this point, I switched on the video camera, making sure to get a shot of the husband's vehicle along with its plate. But just as I got the shot,

I started to hear something, real faint at first, but it got louder and louder as I approached the building. It was the sound of something crying out, and it sounded like pain, but it sounded muffled too, like either they were gagged or someone was covering their mouth with a hand. At that point, I slid my flashlight back into the holster on my belt and then grabbed my pistol instead. My heart rate was beginning to pick up, and although I wouldn't say that I was scared, I was extremely apprehensive. Like I said earlier, I thought the job was going to be your basic, tail them and tape them kind of deal.

So to hear those screams was to realize that this wasn't your basic private investigator work at all. This was something different. I remember creeping towards the front doors to the big concrete building and thinking to myself, this is a real dumb idea. There was a good chance that I'd be outnumbered and possibly outgunned too. God forbid. But the prospect of abandoning whoever was in there, screaming, that was something I couldn't

allow myself to do. I guess more out of practice than principle, but still, I couldn't. Just walk away. So I opened up the door, crept inside, and carried on walking very gently towards the source of the screaming, which appeared to be inside a room down a dusty, dark corridor. There was a pattern to it, too. The screams would start up. These skin-crawling growls and yelps.

then they'd die off again. In between the screams, I'd hear voices, some laughing, some talking, and then the screams would start up again, just as loud as before. I got closer and closer until eventually I'm right outside the room the screams are coming from. I took a breath, made sure my pistol was locked and loaded, and then burst into the room only to be greeted by something that looked like a scene from a horror movie. Surrounded by five men, a sixth had been tied to a chair, and by the looks of things they had been taking turns torturing him.

He'd been stripped to his underwear, had blood dripping from various cuts to his arms and legs, and there were also what looked like burn marks all over his body. The first thing I yelled was, State police, don't move! And that worked like a charm initially. I directed everyone who wasn't tied to a chair to stand facing the wall, except one, whom I ordered to untie the victim.

I told him not to look at me, but he didn't listen, and the second he saw my video camera, he knew that I wasn't with the cops. I mean, what kind of state cop works alone while carrying a goddamn video camera of all things? He might have figured out who I wasn't, but then again, I wasn't the one with the gun pointed in their face. The guy freed the captive victim from the chair, who was still gagged and could barely walk. They were mumbling something under their gag. Something at the time I figured was either thank you or some variation on that.

but I told them to save it until we were actually in the free and clear. The last thing I told those sadistic strangers was that they should stay put because anyone who came chasing after me would most likely be shot by my backup officers who were currently rushing to the scene. It was a total bluff, but only one of them knew it for certain, and he appeared to have way more sense than I gave him credit for because he stayed put with his buddies and opted not to get shot.

All I remember feeling is relief that the group, weren't heavily armed or that a shootout had interrupted as soon as I'd stormed the room they occupied. I still had no idea what was going on at that point, but I knew it was some majorly bad juju, and almost certainly the doing of some organized crime group, which meant that I wanted to get the hell out of there with the victim as fast as humanly possible. I got them to a hospital and stayed with them until the cops showed up so I could give a statement on what had happened. After that, it was time to talk to the client about what I'd seen, which I can assure you was not an easy process. I guess no one wants to find out that their spouse had been taking part in the brutal torture of another human being,

and that they're better off talking to a defense attorney as opposed to the divorce kind. But in this case, the client took it particularly badly. After that, she no longer desired to retain our services, so we parted ways after sending her a bill. I guess the reason that this one stays with me so much is not because I walked in on something so horrible. It's because I have no idea why it was happening. To this day, I've never heard anything about any Michigan torture case. I don't even know if the husband ended up getting arrested. All I know is that taking that job meant that I was in the right place

at the right time to save someone a whole world of life-changing torment. The moment I set my wheels on the winding path leading into the Cascade Mountains, I felt a weight begin to lift off my shoulders. It's strange how the open road and untamed wilderness can momentarily make you forget your troubles, even if those troubles involve a failing marriage and the harsh memories of a second deployment in Iraq. I drove my trusty 2004-F-150, a companion that had seen better days, but was as determined as I was to escape the noise of the world. The closer I got to the mountains, the more the landscape changed. The trees grew denser, the air cooler and fresher, and the air cooler, and fresher,

and the sounds of civilization faded away. It was just me, my thoughts, and the road. Turning off the highway onto an overgrown path barely noticeable from the road, I felt a thrill of adventure. This road looked like it hadn't seen visitors in years, exactly what I was hoping for. The path was narrow, and branches scratched against the sides of my truck

as if warning me to turn back. But I pressed on, driven by a need for solitude. The road ended in a quiet, field surrounded by dense woods with a small stream meandering through the middle. It was perfect. I parked my truck near the edge of the field and stepped out into the cool air. The silence was almost overwhelming, but it was exactly the kind of peace I needed. Setting up camp didn't take long. I unfolded my old camper shell in the back of the truck, pumped up the inflatable mattress, and threw some blankets on top. I gathered wood for a fire, thinking of how the crackling

flames would be my only company tonight. Once the fire was going, I sat back and cooked myself a decent meal of steak and potatoes, something I hadn't done in a long time. It felt good to take care of myself like this. As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with shades of orange and purple, I sat by the fire, a glass of single malt scotch in hand. I watched the flames dance and listened to the gentle sounds of the stream. Out here, away from everything, I could almost forget about the stress of my job, the pain of my marriage falling apart, and the chaos of life back at the base. It was in this moment, with the stars beginning to peek through the darkening sky,

that I felt good for the first time in a long time. It was just me and the wilderness, and it felt like I had the whole world to myself. I savored my scotch, each sip warming me against the cool night air, but the peace didn't last. Later, as I settled into my makeshift bed in the back of my truck, wrapped in blankets and ready for a night under the stars, I was startled by the sound of a growl outside. Heavy footsteps seemed to circle the truck and then a high-pitched scream shattered the silence of the night. My heart raced.

Reaching over, I grabbed my 38 special from where it lay within arm's reach. I had always carried it with me while camping, never really expecting to use it. Sitting up, I pressed my back against the cab of the truck, straining to hear more over the pounding of my heart. But as quickly as it had begun, the noise stopped. I peeked through the camper window but saw only the shadows of the trees swaying in the breeze. Maybe it was just my imagination, fueled by the isolation and the scotch. Trying to calm my nerves I told myself it was nothing,

just the wind or a deer perhaps. Despite my attempts to convince myself, sleep didn't come easy. I lay awake for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night, wondering if the peace I sought was just another elusive dream. That night in the Cascades taught me the meaning of fear in a way I hadn't known before, even with my time in Iraq under my belt. It was supposed to be a quiet retreat, a few days of solitude to clear my head. But as the darkness deepened around my campsite,

my sense of peace was shattered. I had barely dozed off when a sudden violent shaking of my truck jerked me awake. My heart thumped wildly as I sat up, disoriented and alarmed. The night was pitch black, the kind of darkness you only find far away from city lights. Outside, angry voices and loud bangs on my camper shell echoed through the air, turning the quiet night into a scene from a nightmare. Gripping my 38 special, I tried to steady my breath, listening to the chaos outside. Fear crept up my spine as I realized someone, or something, was deliberately trying to scare me, or worse. The voices grew louder, more menacing, and it seemed like the whole truck was being rocked by a storm. I knew I had to get out of there. With my heart in my throat, I crawled

through the small sliding window into the driver's seat. My hands shook as I fumbled with the keys, the noise outside growing louder and more frenzied. When I finally got the engine started, I slammed the truck into gear, ready to flee. As my headlights sliced through the darkness, I gasped. A circle of people in dark robes surrounded my truck, their faces hidden, shouting, and waving their arms. The sight of them, so unexpected and. and terrifying in their sudden appearance, froze me for a moment.

But fear overpowered shock, and I knew I had to act fast. Throwing the truck into reverse, I heard shouts as I backed away. The robed figures jumped aside, and I didn't wait to see if they would come after me. I turned the truck around and sped down the narrow mountain road, the trees blurring past as I pushed the pedal to the floor. My heart raced as I navigated the rough terrain, expecting at any moment to feel a hand on my shoulder. or hear the crack of a window shattering. But none of that came.

The road opened up, and the dense trees gave way to the clearer roads near the highway. Relief washed over me as I merged onto the main road, though my hands still trembled on the steering wheel. That's when the flashing lights caught me, a patrol car pulling me over. The officer approached cautiously. I rolled down my window, my breath still coming in short gasps, and relayed what had happened as best I could. His expression changed from suspicion to concern as he listened.

When I finished, he nodded slowly, his face grave. You stumbled onto the grounds of a local cult, he explained. They don't take kindly to visitors. You're lucky to have gotten away when you did. His words sent a chill through me. A cult, right here in these serene mountains, it seemed impossible, yet there I was, shaking and grateful for the presence of this officer. He let me go with a warning to stay.

clear of the area and suggested I find a safer place to spend the night. As I drove away, the adrenaline slowly faded, leaving behind a deep exhaustion. I couldn't shake the image of those robed figures, their hostile shouts echoing in my ears. I knew one thing for certain. My search for solitude would never bring me back to these mountains. The day we moved into the old house in Bitterroot, Montana, I could already tell something was off. The town was almost, the town was almost hidden from the rest of the world, with just a couple of gas stations, a church, a school that looked too quiet, and more bars than seemed necessary. The houses were spread out, each one looking like it had its own set of secrets.

I'm Alex, by the way. I was about thirteen when my mom decided it was time for a fresh start, away from the city and closer to the unknown. With our stuff packed in a rickety old moving truck, we rolled into town under a sky so wide and empty, it made me feel smaller than ever. Our new home wasn't new at all. It was a small three-bedroom house with peeling paint and a yard that looked like it hadn't seen a lawnmower in years. Mom tried to make it sound magical, like we were adventurers settling in uncharted territory, but all I felt was a chill down my spine as we stepped inside. The house was quiet, too quiet,

like it was holding its breath, waiting for something. Mom busied her. herself with unpacking, humming tunes to fill the silence. I wandered from room to room, my sneakers echoing on the hardwood floors. It should have felt exciting, a new place full of nooks and crannies to explore, but instead I felt eyes on me, watching. It made my neck tingle. I've always been into paranormal stuff, ghosts, hauntings, all of it. So, naturally, I tried to convince myself I was just imagining things. It's easy to creep yourself out when you're in a strange new place, right? But it didn't feel like my imagination. It felt like something was there, just out of sight. That night, as I lay in my new room surrounded by unpacked boxes

and the soft glow of my nightlight, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Every little sound made me jump, the house settling, the wind against the window, even the distant bark of a dog. It all felt like a warning. The next few days. weren't much better. I started noticing shadows that lingered a little too long, cold spots in the hallway, the faint smell of something burnt when nothing was cooking. I tried to tell mom, but she had enough on her plate and I didn't want to add to her stress. So, I kept it to myself. Curiosity got the best of me one evening, and I found myself pulling out an old Ouija board I'd brought along. I set it up in the living room, the candles flickering as my fingers hovered over the planchette.

Is anyone there? I whispered, half not wanting an answer. The planchette moved slowly, jerking towards yes. My heart raced. Was it just my imagination? I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. Just then, a cold breeze swept through the room, blowing out the candles. I sat there in the dark, heart pounding, feeling more alone than ever. The days began to blur together. Each one filled with whispers of the house's past. Mom said I was just adjusting, but I knew it was more than that. I could feel it, a presence, something lingering in the corners where the light didn't quite reach.

Settling in Bitterroot wasn't going to be easy. As I lay in bed that night, listening to the sounds of the house, I knew one thing for sure. We weren't alone here, and I needed to find out what was hiding in the shadows. Things in Bitterroot went from weird to downright creepy, real fast. It had been a few weeks since we moved into the old house, and I was starting to think that maybe I should have paid more attention to all those ghost stories I loved so much. They seemed a lot less fun when it felt like you were living in one. One night, I woke up feeling like someone had brushed their fingers across my arm. I sat up, heart pounding and flicked on my lamp.

There was nothing there, of course, but when I pulled back my sleeve, I saw them, light, scratchy marks on my skin. I didn't have my dog here to blame, and I certainly didn't remember scratching myself. It freaked me out, but who could I tell? Mom was already stressed enough, and I didn't want to scare my little brother Q or my stepbrother D. Speaking of D, he started seeing things too. More than once, he'd come running into my room, eyes wide as saucers, swearing he saw shadows moving in the hallway. Even Q, who usually dismissed our talks of ghosts as just Alex being weird,

couldn't deny the chill that seemed to settle over our home. It wasn't long before we all felt it, like eyes were always on us, watching, waiting. I decided to do something about it. I grabbed my flashlight and summoned all the courage I could muster, then headed to the one place in the house that always seemed the creepiest, the little crawl space in my closet. I remember pushing open the tiny door,

the hinges squeaking loudly in the quiet. My hand shook as I shone the, the light inside. The walls of the crawl space were covered in scratches and weird symbols that made no sense. It looked like someone had been carving them for years. The sight sent shivers down my spine. I quickly shut the door and backed away, my mind racing with questions. Who, or what, had made those marks. The days that followed were tense. We were all on edge, jumping at every creek and whisper of the wind. One evening, I was outside with deep, trying to catch a break from the stifling fear that hung over the house.

That's when we saw them, three figures standing at the edge of the backyard, just beyond the dim light of our porch. They were like shadows, but darker, with eyes that seemed to glow a faint, eerie yellow. I grabbed Dee's arm, my voice barely a whisper. Do you see them too? He nodded, and we both stood there, frozen in fear. After what felt like forever, we ran back inside, slamming the door behind us. We didn't go outside after dark anymore.

I spent the next few days pouring over old books and internet forums, trying to find anything that could tell me what was happening. I even tried some silly rituals I found online, anything to stop the feeling of being watched. But nothing worked. It felt like the shadows were getting closer, growing bolder. One night, as we all huddled to, together in the living room, mom finally opened up. She admitted she felt it too, the oppressive,

watchful gaze of something unseen. We decided it was time to face this together, as a family. Whatever was haunting our house, we were going to confront it. We weren't just going to be scared anymore. As I lay in bed that night, listening to the quiet whispers of the house, I knew one thing for sure. We were stronger together, and we were going to find out what was lurking in the shadows. The story I'm about to share with you happened to a friend of mine, and to this day it gives him chills whenever he recounts it. Through this tale will be taken to a land remote, but beautiful. For anonymity's sake, I won't name the town specifically, but I will mention that it's a small yet famous town in Greece. One place that my friend used to,

and still to this day, visits quite a lot. The encounter happened approximately 11 years ago, during one summer season, back when my friend Kay was still a young kid breezing through life with no care in the world like every kid his age. When summer rolled around and school stopped being a nuisance, he and his parents would travel to that town to visit Kay's grandma, who lived alone in an old but respectable house on the outskirts. Naturally, Kay, after having visited plenty of times before had become fast friends with the kids in the town, especially one in particular, whom I'll refer to as J. K and J spent day after day of summer playing around the town square, playing pranks on locals, and making childhood memories, the likes of which all kids make

during those tranquil months of the year. But one memory, one event, will stand out above the rest, not because it was extremely funny or undeniably enjoyable, but because it speaks of something unexplained, something foreign in that famous town of Greece. Approximately 80 years ago, a brutal event occurred during the 1st December of Greece's participation in World War II. That atrocity was carried out by the German army, who systematically destroyed several villages and towns in the region, killing inhabitants and burning homes as they move towards the town we speak of. Upon arriving on December 13, 1933, the Germans gathered all the inhabitants in the local school while proceeding to separate the women and children from

the men and boys over the age of 12. In an all too cruel decision, the men and boys were taken to a hillside near the town, where they were mercilessly machine-gunned and mass, despite the very few that managed to survive either by pretending to be dead or managing to run away. Almost 500 people lost their lives in a matter of seconds. After the executions, the Germans set fire to the town, destroying everything they could find. The school, along with many other buildings, was burned down as well, and only by a miracle did the women and children manage to escape the flames.

The survivors were left to deal with the devastating aftermath, including burying the dead and rebuilding their lives from the ruins. Of course, it's natural that such an event would scar an entire nation, let alone a small town. That's why, after the war, a monument was built upon the hill where all those men and boys were killed. It was a tranquil place, Kay thought, every time he visited, a hill overlooking the town, greenery all around. And he did that quite often, in fact, especially during late hours. In a town such as this one, there were not many things to look out for, if any. Children roaming around unattended was the norm, so Kay and Jay took that liberty a bit too far during the last.

days of Kay's stay in the town for summer. The two friends decided it would be quite adventurous to visit that hill, named the cross, especially late. Kay's parents weren't, and still aren't, strict at all, and curfew for him was not a problem. Jay's parents would pose a problem however, but Jay himself didn't think so. In the end, slipping out seemed to be a breeze. As the two friends walked towards the hill in the dead of the night, Kay could feel the atmosphere in the outskirts. It was as tranquil as ever. No cars, no people, no disturbances anywhere. Just him, his friend, and the night sky. It filled him with a sense of adventure he couldn't quite describe.

Yet, as the kids reached the slope and laid down their backpacks and extremely outdated cell phones for some music, the feeling washing over K a minute prior vanished as if it was never there. Jay had grown silent too, probably engrossed to. the views and tranquility. A silence stretched and stretched, causing Kay to feel uneasy. It was like he knew they weren't alone. The cross was always open to the public, as far as they knew, but nobody could be here at this hour, right? They weren't even trespassing or anything, and yet they felt out of place. Kay gulped at the realization and looked around. The story of that tragedy was no news to him, and it was fair to say he had heard it from his grandma more times

than he could count. She was only five years old back then, but the stories recounted to her by relatives always stayed fresh and sharp enough for storytelling. Despite knowing about the execution and the unjust deaths of 500 souls, Kay never associated that hill with regret or pain. It had never felt off before, like it did now. As his thoughts began to drift, Jay, the chatterbox, whipped his head around. What are you looking at? Kay stood frozen, and it didn't take long for Jay to notice. His eyes widened, body unmoving and stiff, and there it was, the figure of a man, clear as day, walking slowly yet deliberately towards the two boys. He was as plain as anyone else in the town, but wore a very outdated hat, the likes of which Jay's grandfather never parted with. The two kids

stared, not breathing as they watched the man make his way towards them, absolutely frozen in shock. It was a man, a normal man, but what was he doing here at this hour? Kay's mind was a mess, producing a thousand thoughts at once, and, at the same time, processing none. That's when Jay got up from his position and cried out like a wounded cat, grabbing his friend as he ran. Run! The two kids dashed down the hill, blindly, only by by miracle avoiding tripping over themselves or over some loose branches, heaving and panting, they stopped at the foot of the hill and turned back to look in relief. He didn't follow us. Who even was that?

Jay and Kay spoke in a frenzy, their hearts racing. When the two of them managed to catch their breaths, Jay, who for some reason had regained his vigor, turned back to his friend and said, Do you think we saw a ghost? Kay hesitated, thinking back to the visage of the man. He looked normal, he finally said, although barely convincing even himself. Yeah, I guess he did. As the two walked back home silently, deciding that was enough, Jay turned on his heel and waved.

See you tomorrow. I better get back before they catch on to me and lock me up till you leave. Kay wanted to chuckle at his friend's nonchalant attitude, but he couldn't find the courage. How was he so calm? Maybe that man really was normal. He nodded and went back home too. The next morning, everything seemed the same as ever, and while Jay acted normally when talking to the other kids in the square,

Kay knew last night wouldn't be the end of their adventure. Hey, want to go back there tonight? Sure enough, there was the proposal. Kay wanted to dissuade his danger-ignorant friend, but he knew better than to complain. This was Jay, after all. Do you really want to get possessed that bad? Nope, nobody's going to get possessed.

Jay shook his head. We might not have seen a ghost after all. Kay raised an eyebrow, amused that Jay had left his weird fixations aside for once. And who was that if not a ghost? Well, there must be an attendant around the monument. There is the chapel close by two, right? Kay was impressed,

seeing as how his friend brought up a valid argument instead of relying on the paranormal to boost their adrenaline. Could be, but how do we know if it is the attendant? We'll figure that out as we go. Let's just meet up around here later tonight, okay? Kay knew it was rather stupid to go back, yet he could also feel the sense of adventure from yesterday, rising within him once more.

Okay, let's do it. The two boys had an agreement, and the plan was sealed. Later that night, Kay and Dr. and Dr. K. Jay climbed up the hill just like they did the day prior, albeit a little more cautiously. Nevertheless, they reached their destination all the same. At this time, upon arriving there, Jay whispered, pointing at the figure of the man. It was, in fact, the same man they'd seen yesterday. Kay's heart pounded.

No doubt Jay's did too, but the two boys inched closer nonetheless. They had decided, after all, that they would try to take a closer look at the man if he didn't seem hostile towards them, and he didn't. Truth be told, as Kay got closer and closer to the man, the man seemed almost serene. He was sitting down in the grass, looking out in the open, not a care in the world. Upon closer inspection, his clothes,

although typical of the folk in such a small town, seemed rather old, and his hat even more so. As soon as Jay decided that was close enough, he swallowed down the lump in his throat and spoke. Uh, hello? There was a brief pause as he caught his breath. Do you work here? Upon hearing that question, the man finally turned towards the kid.

His face was simple, and his expression tranquil. But beneath his eyes, there was something almost sad, melancholic. I've worked everywhere around these parts, was his answer, simple and short. At first, it seemed evasive, but it was clear through his tone that he didn't intend to dodged the subject. He only seemed disconnected, like he didn't want to be there, but at the same time, he didn't know where else to go. Naturally, the two kids did not expect such a reply, and they stopped to think for a moment. Are you always here or just at night? Jay asked again, trying to get the same answer in a roundabout way. I need to go back to my wife and kids soon.

When the man spoke again, Kay's heart seemed like it had frozen in place. He couldn't explain why, but his hair stood up all at once, chills coursing through his body. We need to leave too, Kay spoke softly towards Jay, backing a few steps away and causing Jay to turn and look. He was hesitant, judging by the look he had in his eyes, but ultimately pressed on. Are you from around here? I am, always have been, the man replied, this time merely looking ahead towards the town, a longing, empty gaze piercing through the night all the way to the few lights in town. Are we disturbing you? Jay's last question left his throat unexpectedly, his eyes almost closing in anticipation.

They did. Without another word, Jay's body moved the same way as Kay's, as the kids shuffled away, their eyes wide and skin pale. When had the air grown so thick? The man didn't turn to look at them as they left. his eyes stayed fixed forward, his body unmoving. When they were out of sight, K and J could not hold back any longer, and ran down the cliff back towards town, barely managing not to scream.

When the two parted ways as always, even the energetic J had no snarky comment to make. They bid each other good night and went off on their way. Thank God they live so close by, Kay thought, after realizing what kind of dread he'd have to endure if he walked in the dark all alone for long, probably the same feeling of dread that did not leave him all throughout the night. The tranquil town didn't seem so peaceful in Kay's eyes anymore. The night seemed more eerie than ever, and the cross even more so. The next morning Kay talked about the cross with his grandmother, whose expression was that of more than just reprimand. Why did you go up there

so late? What did you see? Kay explained everything. The man, the atmosphere, his words, that chilling feeling at the end, that something just wasn't right, and that was when her words shattered all doubt within the young boy. There is no attendant up there. There's no man that would go up there at night besides you silly kids. Then what was it? Kay wanted to ask, but something told him he already knew the answer to that. All those men, 80 years ago, left behind many things, families, wealth,

all were taken away from them so unjustly. It's only natural they feel lost even after death. Kay was expecting his grandmother to explain to him how ghosts weren't real, how he was hallucinating or something like that. But instead, all her words did was reaffirm what he himself had deduced, that that man should not have been there because that man was dead. That man could not be anywhere else than the cross, because he could never leave and has never left.

A couple of days later, Kay left alongside. his parents to start up another school year in the city he grew up in. He and Jay spent a few more summers together and made countless other memories. Years later, Kay even visited the Cross Monument once again and kept going back to enjoy the view. But since that day, he always remembers to hold up a prayer for those that left and for those that couldn't. I have two stories about my grandma's haunted house, involving my cousin Haley and myself. Sadly, Haley passed away in 2014 in a terrible car accident, so she won't get to hear our stories told, but I'm sure she would have loved the idea of them being shared.

First off, Haley and I were always intrigued by ghosts, hauntings, demons. Anything you name it, we were interested in it. We watched a lot of horror movies and TV shows. Her father was big into horror as well, so he usually took us to the theater to see the latest horror movie. Haley and I even went as far as to create our own horror stories, along with drawing scary pictures to match. We loved the thrill of being scared together, often huddling under the blankets when things became a bit too scary for us.

It was mostly fun in games, except for a few instances. My mom never approved of our fascination with the paranormal. We came from a Catholic family that regularly attended church on Sundays and set our prayers every night. I had a lot of nightmares as a child, and she always blamed it on our creepy interests, which only makes sense. Although to this day, I blame most of my fears on our Catholic upbringing. Now, my grandma's house had a lot of religious idols around the place, and she was Catholic as well. I never minded them. It was normal for us to see a cross in every room. Even though our grandma was religious, she allowed us to watch all the scary movies and shows we could find. She would

tell us stories from time to time, one being about how she bought a Ouija board for my aunt for one of her birthdays. Our grandma never went into detail about the use of the board, but she did mention at one point that she had a witch come over to look at the board. I'm not sure why or what the witch did, but our grandma kept the board and hid it away in the attic. The attic door was one of those old-style pull-down stairs located in the back room of the house. The attic itself had two parts. Half was a room for storage where the Ouija board would be located, and the other half was made into a spare room with two beds. The only way to access the storage part of the attic was through a small wooden door with a sliding wood lock. The first story takes place when Haley and I were

around the age of 10. One day we were at our grandma's house during summer, taking a break from playing outside. My grandma was in the living room watching Judge Judy, as she always did in the afternoon. We came in to get some ice cream and went to the back room, where we would normally watch TV and movies. That day, we were watching a TV show about exorcisms. It was a violent story that had our full attention. Haley and I were glued to the TV, soon forgetting about the world around us. Out of nowhere, we heard a noise, a scraping sound coming from the wall next to the couch. Our trance broke, and we both quickly looked in the direction of the sound.

There was a cross hanging on the wall, but it wasn't just hanging there. It was slowly turning until it stopped directly upside down. Time seemed to slow down as we watched, but somehow it happened so fast too. Haley and I took off screaming, running to get our grandma. We were panicking as we tried to tell her what happened with the cross. Our grandma got up to check out the cross, and we followed reluctantly. We all made it to the back room to find the cross now lying on the floor. Our grandma picked it up, looking at it, she told us there was no way it could have turned

and hung upside down, for it had only been stuck to the wall with blue sticky putty. Haley and I looked at the cross in disbelief, wondering how this could have happened. I'm not sure if she ever believed us, but Grandma took the cross and went back to watch her show in the living room, leaving us alone in the back room. We never did get a solid answer to what happened. I'm still wondering about it to this day. Now this is about my second story. Fast forward a few years.

Haley and I were about 13 years old. Our cousins were staying the night at our grandma's house along with us. We were all huddled together in the back room watching one missed call. The movie had ended, and most of our cousins had fallen asleep during the film. It was late, so Haley and I decided it was time to go to bed. We wanted to sleep in the attic, so we pulled down the stairs that led up to the attic room with the beds. Haley had a hard time falling asleep, so she often listened to music before going to bed. We said good night to each other before she put her headphones on.

I fell asleep almost instantly. I was completely out when suddenly I woke up to all the air being knocked out of my chest. I couldn't breathe, so I quickly sat up in bed, only to see the small wooden attic door to the storage room being shoved open with such force it hit the wall. Haley had been awake still and saw everything. I caught my breath and looked at her. She screamed at me, asking if I was okay. I didn't say a word before climbing out of bed and rushing down the stairs as Haley followed me.

We found a different room where we slept on the floor. There was no way we were going to sleep in that attic. The next day we told no one what happened. We didn't even check to see if that old wooden door was still open. Once again we had no explanation for the event that happened to us. I'll never forget it either, the way the air felt like it was sucked right out of me, the way I gasped to catch my breath while seeing that door being flung wide open. The only thing I take from our experiences is that if you go looking for paranormal things,

you will not find them so much as they'll find you. My name is John Prescott, and I live in a small town called Pelham. It's a pretty place, especially in the fall when the leaves turn bright. orange and red. I teach history at the local high school, and I love telling stories about our town's past. But right now, I'm not feeling like telling any stories. Right now, I'm worried because something terrible has happened. It all started on a chilly autumn evening. The house felt extra empty and quiet, which isn't usual because it's normally filled with the sound of my daughter Emily laughing or talking. As I walked through the house, the old wooden floors

creaked under my feet. I forgot to turn off the coffee machine again, and the smell of burnt coffee hung in the air. It was just one of those days where everything felt off. Emily had stormed out earlier that day. We had a big argument about a sleepover she wanted to go to, but I said no. She yelled that she hated me before slamming the door. I thought she would come back after cooling down as she usually did. But hours passed, and there was no sign of her. My heart sank deeper with each tick of the clock. Outside the wind was howling, making the colorful autumn leaves dance wildly. It seemed like even nature was upset.

My wife, Sarah, looked as worried as I felt. We both hadn't slept well, thinking about where Emily could be. I kept looking at the door, hoping she would walk through it any minute, but she didn't. Sarah and I decided to call Chief Parker, the police chief of Pelham. He's a serious man who has always taken care of our town's problems. Soon, he was at our doorstep with a concerned look on his face. John, Sarah, I understand how tough this must be. We'll start searching right away.

Don't worry, we'll find Emily, Chief Parker assured us. Hearing his confident words made me feel a little better, but my stomach was still in knots. The whole town came together to help look for Emily. It felt good to see everyone caring so much. But as the sun's set with no sign of her, my hope started to fade. Pelham may look like a perfect postcard town, but it has its secrets. I've spent years digging into our town's history, and I know stories that never made it into the guidebooks.

Some of those stories are about blackwood forest, the thick woods that surround our town. Strange things have happened there, and now I feared Emily might have gone into that forest. That night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I had a strange vision. It was of a dark cave and Emily smiling, but there was something wrong with her eyes. It was just a flash, but it felt real. I knew then that I had to go into Blackwood Forest. Whatever secrets it held, I needed to find out if it had taken my daughter. I couldn't stop pacing, couldn't stop thinking. The house creaked, the wind howled, and somewhere deep in the forest, I imagined Emily was out there, waiting.

waiting for us to find her. And find her we would. I wouldn't rest until we brought her home, safe and sound. The next few days felt like a blur. Our whole town of Pelham was on edge, looking for any sign of Emily. The forest at the edge of town, Blackwood Forest, was a scary place, filled with old stories and legends that made even the bravest adults hesitate before entering. One morning, something strange happened.

who had disappeared from our town years ago started coming back. But they were different. They looked the same, but when you looked into their eyes, it felt like they weren't really seeing you. They stood at the edge of town, not really talking, just there. It was eerie, and it made everyone even more worried. Chief Parker called a meeting at the town hall. He explained that these people who had come back were a mystery and that we needed to be careful. We don't know what happened to them in the forest, he said. His voice serious and a little scared. That's when I knew this was bigger than just a search for Emily. Something strange was happening in Blackwood Forest. After the meeting, I went home and told Sarah about what the chief had said. We were both scared,

but we knew we had to keep looking for Emily. We couldn't just wait and hope she would come back like the others, not when she might be lost or scared. That night, I had another vision. It was clearer this time. I saw Emily sitting in a dark cave surrounded by shadows. She looked calm, but it was the calmness that scared me. Her smile didn't reach her eyes, which looked different, like they knew something they shouldn't. I woke up sweating and shaking. I told Sarah about the vision, and we decided it was a sign. We had to go to the forest and find that cave. Maybe it was the key to finding Emily and bringing her back to us. The next day, we gathered a group of volunteers. Some were friends, some were neighbors, and a few were brave souls who just wanted to help.

Chief Parker tried to talk us out of it, but when he saw we were determined, he agreed to lead the way. He knew the forest better than anyone. As we entered Blackwood Forest, a chill ran through me. The trees were so tall and close together that very little sunlight made it through. The deeper we went, the darker it got, and the more I felt like the forest was watching us. We searched for hours, calling Emily's name and looking for any sign of the cave from my vision. Just as we were about to give up for the day, one of the volunteers shouted, he had found something. It was a small clearing, and there, right in the middle, was the mouth of a cave. My heart raced as we approached it. This was it. This was the place from my vision. I felt both scary.

and hopeful. Could Emily really be in there? What if she was? What if she wasn't? As we stood at the entrance of the cave, I took a deep breath. Emily, I called into the darkness. There was no answer, just the echo of my own voice. But I knew we had to go in. We had to find out what had happened to my daughter. Whatever it took, I was ready. This was the moment we had been preparing for. standing at the entrance of the cave my heart pounded so hard i thought it might burst sarah chief parker and a couple of brave volunteers were with me we all shared nervous glances knowing we were about to step into the unknown this cave might hold the answers about emily and the other strange happenings around pelham with flashlights in hand we entered the cave the air inside was cool and damp and it sent shivers down my spine the walls were rough and covered in some areas with strange mossy growths that felt like they were watching us. As we moved deeper into the cave, I noticed weird symbols scratched onto the walls. They looked old, maybe even ancient.

These symbols, I whispered to Chief Parker. They look like the ones in those old town records I found. Chief Parker nodded, his face serious. Let's keep moving, he said. But everyone, stay close. We can't afford to get lost in here. The deeper we went, the more the atmosphere changed. It wasn't just dark. It felt heavy, like the air itself was pressing down on us. Every now and then, we would hear strange sounds echoing through the cave, sounds that didn't seem like they belonged to any animal I knew.

Then, it happened. As we rounded a corner, we saw a faint light ahead. It wasn't from our flashlights. It was different, eerie and blue. We approached slowly, and that's when we saw her. Emily was there, sitting cross-legged at the entrance of a smaller chamber within the cave. She looked up as we approached and she smiled, but it was not the warm, loving smile I remembered. This smile was different, almost too perfect. You found me, she said in a voice that echoed oddly against the stone walls. Emily! Sarah cried out, rushing forward, but I grabbed her arm to hold her back. Something was right." Yes, it's me, Emily continued, standing up.

Her movements were smooth, too smooth. But I'm not the same, Daddy, I've seen things, learned things, things that you wouldn't believe. I swallowed hard trying to find the words. Emily, we need to go home. We miss you. We need you. Emily tilted her head, considering my words as if they were a puzzle.

Home? She echoed. This is home now, the forest, the cave. They've shown me so much. Behind us, Chief Parker signaled us to be cautious. He whispered, John, we need to be careful. We don't fully understand what's happened to her. I nodded, understanding the risk.

Emily, whatever you've seen or learned, we can talk about it. Just come back with us. Please. For a moment, something flickered in Emily's eyes, a hint of the daughter I knew. I want to, Daddy. I really do, but I can't. Not yet. It was heartbreaking. Here she was, right in front of us, but still so far away. I stepped closer, reaching out to her. Then we'll wait. We'll be here when you're ready. Emily smiled again, that strange, unsettling smile. Thank you, Daddy. I love you. As we left the cave, leaving Emily behind for now,

the weight of the situation settled over me. We hadn't truly brought Emily back. But we had found her. And maybe, just maybe, there was still hope that one day she would return to us, truly herself again. As we walked back through the forest, the morning light began to filter through the trees. It was a new day, and with it came a new determination. We would find a way to help Emily, no matter what it took. It was late November, near Christmas. My two brothers, Colin and Tyler and I, were out cave exploring.

We would often venture into low-leveling. We often venture into local public caves and explore them until we reached a dead end, where it became humanly impossible to fit through some kind of hole. However, we did get bored of the same old caves, so this time we decided to venture out into other states. Living in Georgia, we took a road trip to Colorado and explored many caves. The locals we talked to had a bit of knowledge about where to find caves, and which ones were good and which ones were bad. A lot of the locals told us about one cave in particular, saying it was very dangerous but very fun to explore if you knew what you were doing. At 22, 19, and 17 years old, respectively, the word dangerous was all we needed to hear.

We gathered all the information about the cave's whereabouts, then headed out around 6 a.m. the next morning. It was easy enough to research because it was situated just inside the National Park, but could be easily accessed by a number of trails. depending on how far we wanted to hike. The locals gave us the rundown on where to park and walk in. Fast forward to when we arrive at the gravel parking lot for the trails. We were honestly expecting a decent amount of cars, but we only saw one beat-up station wagon that looked like it was from the 50s, with moss and weeds growing into it.

Kind of creepy. But you have to remember, this was a routine situation for us, wrapping our gear out in some seedy middle-of-now-where parking lot. It was all normal. We'd all seen cars in much worse shape. Some of them would literally be propped up on cinder blocks, windows blown out, engine stripped. People leave the craziest stuff behind at trailhead parking lots. It's weird. Some of them are so unkempt and rural that they just get left there for years and years at a time. So honestly, none of us really thought much of it and headed into the woods. The trail was plain as day. We double-checked

the terrain and direction against the map that we printed out. Everything matched up. Now that we had a location and we had a direction, and with all our gear packed, we could confidently step into the forest and start our journey. We got maybe 30 minutes into the woods, during that time discussing our emergency plan if something were to go wrong. That's when we heard this blood-curdling scream. It echoed through the forest from what sounded like a couple of miles away. We all kind of froze in fear, but a few minutes later, we started off again as if nothing had happened. Are we not going to talk about that? I said to them. Dude, it was probably just some stupid coyote, my older brother Colin said. Yeah, there are mountain lions out here too,

man. They make sounds like a woman screaming. It's pretty normal stuff, Tyler explained. That was enough for them. I, however, still had this apprehension. about venturing into an unknown area, especially with screams in the air. We've done a lot of hiking, lots of caving, but never have we just casually strolled by a noise like that. Regardless, we were already well into the wilderness. I couldn't just turn back by myself. That seemed more dangerous than anything else. I put faith into my brothers and the research and continued to follow them into the trees.

We got about an hour and a half into the hike and finally found the cave entrance that we we were looking for. Outside of it was what looked like somebody's bloody socks. I immediately pointed them out to my brothers. Dude, is that blood? I said, turning them over with a stick. It's clear as day that someone had been injured, and we hadn't passed anyone while walking along that trail. Somebody probably cut themselves in here without shoes on, or maybe even have blisters from walking around in boots. It happens, my younger brother said. And then they just left their socks here, I asked. Tyler hesitated before saying, yeah, I shook my head. Do you think they're still in the cave then? I asked. No way, Tyler said. Well, we didn't pass anyone on the trail

coming from the trailhead. We didn't hear anything but that scream. Now there's bloody clothes at the mouth of a cave. All of that isn't weird to you, I asked. There are like 10 trails that lead to this cave, Colin reminded me, always being the voice of reason. I bet they got injured, used their socks to stop the bleeding, then went back down a different trail to a different parking lot. Man, I don't know about this. I felt off since we entered this forest, I said, hoping that at least one of them would agree with me. But they both continued on as if nothing was there. They almost seemed irritated. Bro, stop being a wimp. We've been in at least a million caves at this point, and this one is no different than any of the others,

Colin snarked at me like I was ruining the trip for him. I was very off-put by this whole situation, but my brothers didn't really seem to care. So we turned on our headlamps and put on our hand-warmers in our thick jackets as we started off into this unknown cave. I was the last to go in. When I was entering, I felt the voice in my head telling me to turn around. I can genuinely say it was one of the strongest feelings I've ever felt,

and just like every horror movie, I ignored it and went in anyway. After about 10 or 15 minutes inside, it was very tight. We had to crawl, which I guess was no problem, seeing that we're all relatively small boys, none of us even over 160 pounds. I was actually the tallest at six feet, but was a skinny kid. I wasn't afraid of tight spaces. We laid down flat and began to shimmy through some of the more narrow passages. Some of them were tighter than the space beneath a kitchen chair,

maybe 12 inches square. To navigate, we had to inch our way through slowly, emptying every bit of our lungs to get us through. The only part about this that made me really nervous was that if something bad happened, there was no quick escape. This had always occurred to me since day one, and once we passed through one of these mouse holes, we were essentially trapped.

After crawling what felt like a mile-long rock tunnel, it finally opened up to a small cave room with two different holes leading. to two different parts of the cave. Tyler pointed to the ground on the right side of the cave entrance. There are a couple of droplets of blood. I froze up when I saw it, as it had to be related to the blood that we saw at the mouth of the cave. Again, this was something I'd never seen in my entire outdoor experience. Of course, I'd seen and found weird stuff deep inside caves, evidence of homeless encampments, piles of used syringes, batteries rigged together with wire. Literally,

all kinds of weird and strange stuff. Blood isn't strange. Blood is a true real-life warning. At this point, I'm thinking my brothers are dumbasses, and they will realize there's been enough signs pointing us away from this cave, and it's time to turn around, but they continued on as if nothing was there. Colin used a piece of chalk to mark the rock tunnel we just crawled out of to prevent us from getting lost on the way back. It was an old-school trick that we picked up from more experienced cavers. The chalk is bright enough to get your attention, but it's not permanent,

so it doesn't destroy the geology for others. Guys, this is not a good idea, I said. But I could tell right away neither of them cared. They were committed to what they could find down there, and I think the blood only helped to create more of a mystery inside their heads. Whatever weirdness that was going on was well above my pay grade, so all I could do was just try to explain that we needed to go back. Dude, here, take the car keys if you want to go.

Please do, but we're not going with you, Colin said. To avoid being left out, I continued on with them. It was also because I genuinely was afraid of whatever they might encounter down there, and I also felt we might have a better shot of making it out alive if we all stuck together. They tested both the holes, shown their flashlights as far down as they could go, before descending into the corridor to the left. It seemed more open and seemed to have more moving air, almost as if there was a light source deeper inside that tunnel.

As we went deeper inside this cave, my brothers started to get way ahead of me. While I was trying to catch up, I looked back to see the very dim light of the sun shining through the tunnel we crawled through, creating an inch-wide stream of light that hit the wall. Then, in the blink of an eye, it disappeared. I didn't stick around long enough to find out why. The tunnel we crawled through was super narrow with lots. of turns, there was no way for the sunlight to be seeping in. It had to come from something else, I thought. For a second, maybe some more cavers had come in behind us, and for some reason,

that was a comforting thought to me, so I just decided to stick with it. I caught back up with my brothers, and the further we got into this cave, the stinkier and stinkier it got. It smelled like dead animals had been rotting in that cave for months and months. I didn't even bother mentioning that weird beam of light that I saw. Literally, nothing was going to turn their knuckleheads around, not even the smell of certain death. At this point, I almost encouraged us to just hurry along. The quicker we reached the end of the tunnel, the sooner we'd turn around and spring for the surface. Still, we pressed on through that rotting smell as if we were actually inside the corpse itself. Around 30 minutes later, we got to the biggest opening I've ever seen

in a cave. We were all just admiring how beautiful it was. It had this huge crystal coming from the roof and a little murky blue pool of water underneath it. The smell of death let up greatly here, enough to make us think that we'd passed whatever chamber it was coming from. This area seemed fresh, crisp, like it had a vent to the surface directly. Whatever the case, we chilled out in there and enjoyed the cave for what it was. While we were all sitting there, just admiring the beauty of the cave, all three of us again heard that same blood-curdling scream echoed throughout the stonework. It felt like my eardrums had burst. Me and my brothers were all collectively holding our heads like we just got shot in one temple, and the bullet had gone out the other. There was no

confusing it. It was that same exact scream that we heard up in the woods when we first got to the trailhead. Whatever was making that sound was down here in the cave system with us. I know what you're all thinking because, well, I was thinking it too. This all sounds like the descent. The scream we heard, at least in the cave, wasn't as screechy as the one that was up top, but the one underground definitely sounded human. At this point, me and my brothers knew it was time to get out, and it took zero convincing this time. Our ears were still ringing from that sound. From the light of my headlamp, I could see both Colin and Tyler getting pale, misty-eyed as if they were probably realizing I was right the whole time and they were wrong. You could see the pieces falling into place just by watching them,

hearing the first scream, finding that bloody sock, the droplets of blood, now hearing that scream again, this time only a few hundred yards away. I had to say it, and I didn't say it aloud, but inside my head all I could think was, I told you so. As we headed towards the top of the cave opening. We all heard a voice behind us say, why leave? Followed by an indescribable sinister laugh. We were all bare crawling through the tunnel now. We could hear something crawling behind us. Now, I'll admit, it wasn't close, but it was close enough that we could hear it. It's really hard to explain unless you've experienced total darkness, as there is just no way to gauge the size of a room, or how far away something is when you can't see it. The dark, the dark, you're not. The dark,

The darkness itself is that oppressive. We could hear something scampering around the pool, trying to get back to the tunnel. But when we all looked back down the corridor, there was nothing there. But you've come so far, the voice carried up to us, sounding super hoarse and raspy, almost like a smoker. We scrambled all asses and elbows to create as much distance as possible. We ripped our shirts and shorts, even damaged our backpacks from how hard we were scraping around the rocks. By the time we got out of the tunnel, we were all bleeding from our heads and arms. The corridor spit us out in the room where it forked, where we had made that chalk mark

on the wall. Something or someone had very clearly smudged that chalk line with what looked like spit, or a sweaty hand, literally just rubbed it until it was barely visible. We all froze again when we saw this and kind of shared a look as if to ask which one of us did that. made a sound, nobody fessed up. I remembered the light from earlier, the one that I saw behind us. I thought for a second, somebody definitely followed us down. I quickly explained what I saw before, and they got pissed that I didn't say anything, and I had to remind them both that they weren't

listening to my caution this entire time. Why would they have listened to me then? We all quickly put it aside and got over it, and decided to barrel ahead as well. we knew the narrow, rocky tunnel that went the way up and out. It was a long slog of a crawl where we literally had to fully exhale to get around some of those hairpin corners. It was dark and suffocating. We kept thinking we could hear something behind us that entire time. Finally after a grueling blackout shuffle through the mouse holes, we spilled out into the

sunlight. None of us had service, so we couldn't call anybody for help. just decided to start hoofing it back towards the parking lot. We felt these gigantic steps, as if an earthquake was happening. We could literally feel the ground beneath us where that cave was rumbling. It's the craziest crap I've ever heard, let alone experienced. Tyler kept saying it had to be a collapse, it had to be a cave in, but there would be way more vibration if that were the case. Either way, we booked it through the trees and left that cave in bloody socks behind us. I think we got around half a mile down the trail when we encountered some locals

who were headed towards the cave. Once they saw us hustling, they started running back towards the parking lot as well. That same direction we were headed. We never exchanged a word. My brothers and I were pretty much out of breath. The panic on our faces just turned into this unspoken agreement. Everyone needed to run the other way. After 25 minutes of running, we made it to the car and got in, just took off. We got back to the main road and we were going at least 55. Things felt good for the first time in a while, peeling down a super narrow dirt road, AC blasting, water in hand, safe, intact. As we were ripping along though, we heard something in the woods. It was that same damn scream. It was far, far away, probably where the cave was. But we could hear it either way,

even over the rumble of the engine. It made us all sit forward immediately on edge. We didn't stop the car for another six hours. We called the local authorities, and though you would think they wouldn't believe us, they said they'd gotten several reports about weird sightings in the forest, especially around the mouth of that cave. They also told us that the station wagon parked in the gravel belonged to a 45-year-old hiker who went missing two years prior in those woods. Getting a rescuer back there was impossible, so it became a forest service problem, and they were pretty notorious for their cleanup time, so the car just sat out there, adding to the strangeness of the cave experience that we had.

We got home and hugged our parents. We have not gone caving since that day. It was and still is the scariest moment of my life. Me and my brothers say to this day, what if we would have stayed in that cave any longer than we would have stayed in that cave any longer than we did? And that's a question we'll never really have an answer to. What we talked about most is what happened. Whose sock? Who smudged away our chalk? Who was yelling down there? They knew English, so it couldn't be some kind of subterranean creature. You know, it couldn't be a monster.

Maybe a ghost? I don't know. Like the hiker that died in there or something. I don't know. ultimately, I think we all just chalked it up to a prank by another group of cavers who saw that we were kids. Like that old commercial says, the world may never know. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their crumudgeonly, Marcellus,

whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moments this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. This is a story that I've told to many friends and passers-by I've met on the trail. I'll admit it's not the scariest thing you'll ever hear, but it's one that creeped me out, and I was never fully able to explain it. Full disclosure, I'm a pretty accomplished hiker and backpacker. I know how to keep myself upright and out of trouble. This past year, I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail.

There was about 600 miles of the trail that I navigated completely alone, sometimes going days, almost a week, without seeing another human being. This is extremely isolated, so if anything wild happens, it's going to be a while until emergency services reach you, if they even do. On one of these sections, I was alone in northern California, slightly north of Mount Shasta. As I'm sure many of you know, Mount Shasta is a hotspot for all kinds of weird legends and room. going all the way back to the late 1800s. The original myth that I heard was that Shasta had this cave system that accessed some ancient underground city. Next, I think it was the story of Saint Germain, who allegedly hiked down the mountain sometime in the 1930s.

This led to some modern-day cult practices and followings. These are just a few of the crazy stories about the National Park area. I got to this beautiful spot and knew it was the best spot to set up my camp. It was gorgeous, views of woods in the valley below, mountains everywhere. I could see it raining on Mount Shasta, probably my favorite campsite in NorCal. I still remember the exact mile, and I have some footage of the site during the daylight. It's the exact kind of spot that goes viral on social media pretty much every day. I set up my tent, and after admiring the sunset, I went to bed.

I could see outside below the vestibule when I was laying down inside my tent. As I was trying to go to sleep, I saw this white light in the valley, maybe a quarter to a half mile away, not right near my tent or anything. I was not close to any towns in the Sierra Mountains, which were south of this area. I would see an occasional remote cabin in the woods, so I figured it was something to do with that. But there were zero access points or dirt roads, no forest clearings, just thick woods, surrounded by mountains. I looked at the light for a bit and tried to think of what it could be, but this is a pretty remote area, so I couldn't really think of anything. I was tired from hiking all day, so I didn't put much more thought into it.

I'll admit it was perplexing, though, because there wasn't anywhere for a car or a four-wheeler to bump around at. It couldn't be a handheld light. It was too bright, and it wasn't moving, so it couldn't be a helicopter making a crazy rescue landing. I'd be able to hear that from half a mile away, especially from this open terrain. After a while, I just gave up. It had no discernible features and was starting to drive me kind of crazy. I gave up the thought and just did my best to go to sleep. Fast forward a little later, I'm still thinking about the damn thing. I look out again and notice there's another light now.

It was an orange light slowly circling that white light. It was slowly morphing in shape as it I watched it for a long time, trying to understand what I was looking at. It had a very calm motion. It was almost mesmerizing. It wasn't like what a lot of people would claim to be an orb or any kind of UFO experience where it darts around and then vanishes. It was weird, but it was down on the ground. It wasn't zipping all over or disappearing, so I could watch it as long as I wanted to. This really disrupted that mystery and allure. I figured it had to be something human, something simple, something easily explained. I remembered all the silly stuff that I heard about Shasta over the years,

realized it could literally be a group of conspiracy hippies with glow sticks out in the trees at the foot of the mountain, crying out on mushrooms, trying to welcome the aliens. I actually laughed at that thought. Eventually I fell asleep, and it started raining around midnight. I looked out of my tent. and still saw both lights, one white, stationary, and one orange, morphing light. It wasn't circling around anymore, but I could see its shape was fluid. They actually seemed to be a little closer at that point, but being half asleep, I assumed my perception was definitely off.

I moved my bedding to the other side of the tent not to be tempted to look again. I woke up again around 4 a.m. to pee. I walked outside my tent and still, there they were, motionless. I tried to get a video, but due to the darkness and distance, it looked like another crappy video that didn't show anything. Very annoying and very disheartening. It's like whatever I was seeing was only for me. Again, I went back inside my tent, trying to forget about it. The next time I woke up was around sunrise. When I looked for them, both lights were gone. I didn't see the lights around sunset or sunrise, only in darkness and only in the dead of night. I know these might have been visible during sunrise or sunset too, or at least should have been if they'd been normal lights.

I'm sure there's some kind of explanation, but I genuinely have no clue what I was looking at. The really strange part of my story happened while I was packing, walking up camp, and preparing to move on. I heard an engine, which I guess isn't super uncommon. There are still planes and other stuff out there, way out in the middle of nowhere. This one was low and rapidly getting closer to me. Soon I spotted an unmarked helicopter roaming over the treetops. I say it was unmarked because that was the first thing that I was looking for, a symbol of some kind to tell me what their purpose was,

law enforcement, search and rescue, medical, something else. But like I said, no giveaways on that thing at all. It looked brand new, top of the line. dark windows, and moving very fast. It went right over to the spot where those lights were, hovered for about 15 minutes, just long enough to take a few photos. I'm pretty sure that's what they were doing. They did a few laps of the area, looked around, and then flew back the way they came. I mean it when I say it made me nervous to the point of being sick to see whoever was flying out there. To this day, I still have no idea what the correlation is. Either way, I packed up quickly

and moved on. That's all I could do near that area that I was camped out at. And to the right of the trail was some thick brush, maybe five to six feet tall. This was near the Shasta Trinity Forest area, maybe one to two days after I saw the lights in the woods. I was hiking alone. I noticed about 100 feet away from me the brush was being flattened by something, and it was moving very quickly. It was approaching the trail I was going to, and would end up right next to me if I continued on that pace. I couldn't see what was flattening the brush, but it had to be strong. It honestly reminded me of something you'd see in a Jurassic Park movie. I know how crazy that sounds, but it's the only way I can describe it to you. Anything in the creature's way was simply knocked to the ground,

small trees, bushes, grass, everything. I froze up. I assumed it had to be a bear, and I still think it was, but I didn't want to surprise it and have a really close encounter. Like I mentioned before, I know my way around the wilderness. Avoiding contact of any kind was the only way to be sure. As far as I could tell, this thing could only smell me, not actually see me. I had to try to even out the playing field somehow. I yelled stop as loud as I could, and it stopped completely. I remained still, waiting to see what was going on,

but everything was just totally still around me, really quiet everywhere, total silence. I got pretty unsettled. I started talking to whatever it was as I walked by, just kept saying things like, I'm going to be walking by you, and then I'll be on my way, friend. Hope you're having a good day. I kept walking, kept looking back,

but nothing moved on from that point forward. Like I said, it probably was a bear. Black bears are generally like big raccoons, and don't want to interact with humans. I've encountered a few bears. They always ran away when I told them, them to get lost. But the part that really gets me is this. As I explained, this was two days after I saw those lights, but I was only a few miles away from that same campsite. I stopped

to thoroughly explore the area and map them out for myself on the same day that I had that bizarre bear experience, or whatever it was. When I got back to my camp that evening, I was getting ready to tend to all my chores when I heard walking again. This time it was lighter. I looked up and saw a man. He was pretty far off, I'd say at least 50 yards, just pushing through the bush. He was well off trail, but didn't look lost or anything. He stopped when I looked at him. We both just kind of sized each other up in the moment. I said hey, and waved, but he didn't respond. He just turned and kept walking that same way right on by me. He would cast a glance in my direction every few steps. So I knew I wasn't crazy. There was a person there. What stood out most to me was his

attire. He didn't have a backpack, a bag on his shoulders, nothing, not even a fanny pack. We were like over 100 miles away from any kind of facility, so being out here empty-handed was almost a certain death sentence. The guy looked healthy, confident, strong, didn't have a care in the world. The other thing that really caught my eye was his clothing. It was all one solid color, gray, almost looked like he had a jumpsuit on. He had a clean haircut and black boots. He passed my camp and I didn't see anybody else, but I definitely had this weird feeling. I packed up and actually relocated just to have a better vantage on the area and so he didn't know exactly where I was. I'd make him work to find me again if that ended up being a desire of his. I put my camp up

on this little hilltop that had really good tree cover on all sides. I didn't pop my tent up but created a little makeshift shelter and hid my belongings as well. It was secure enough to my liking. I didn't see the guy. I didn't see anybody else, but that night I definitely saw flashlights way off in the trees. It had me on edge the whole time, especially whenever they angled in my direction. But thankfully for me, they never came too close. Whatever they were looking for, it was back where I camped before. I barely got any sleep that night, only passed out after the lights went out and everything got real quiet. I broke down camp at sunrise the next morning, what little of it there was, and set myself a sturdy, rigid schedule for the day. I wanted to put

the miles behind me and get out of this weird area, which had originally been my serene little vista. Now, it was plagued with all kinds of weird stuff, and I decided to put the miles. it definitely wasn't worth all this. As I beat feet all morning into the afternoon, I saw that same helicopter passed through the area several times, zigzagging into steeper areas. Fortunately, they never came past me, probably didn't even know I was out there. Eventually, I intersected with the main trail, caught up with some other hikers. After speaking with a few of them, I noticed that some had said how NorCal was a little unsettling. The SoCal Desert is very windy, and the Sierra Mountains have tons of flowering streams.

NorCal doesn't have as many streams or as much wind, so there's just this silence that pervades, which can honestly feel ominous, especially out there in the dark. That's my explanation for the feeling, at least, after going through the SoCal Desert, the Sierra Mountains, NorCal, Oregon, and Washington. NorCal was the only section that was a little unnerving to me,

and I did portions of each of these sections, alone. There's just something about that area, something about the time that I was there. Something was going on that warranted whatever activity was going on. The other hikers commented on the weird helicopter sightings, though none of them saw any silent weirdoes stalking the woods, nor any giant creatures pressing the foliage flat. It's doing the same thing that I'd seen it doing, just flying around real low, investigating from the air, then zipping out of sight. We spent some time comparing notes on all the weird stuff that we'd seen, but ultimately didn't come to any kind of logical conclusion.

We went our separate ways, and I finished my hike a little ahead of schedule. My creepy encounters were enough to speed me up out there for a while. After I returned home, I'd say maybe a full month later, I saw something online that caught my eye, a headline. It said a hiker had gone missing along the Pacific Crest Trail. I always find these stories pretty engaging as this is. is a lifestyle I live, and I feel like it could potentially happen to me, so I always follow these cases closely. You just never know what you might learn from somebody else's mistakes.

The person had vanished from the exact area I was in when I saw those lights, and the guy walking by my camp. They were pretty certain that that was her last known location. This person was never found, and after my experience, I really wonder what the hell happened to her out there, and how close it came to happening to me. I live next to two national parks. A few years ago, from June to July, there was a horrific fire that prompted evacuations in our area, including both parks.

My family had about three hours to pack everything of value. Luckily, we didn't end up having to evacuate. Still, the entire ordeal was a total mess and caused a lot of stress, damage, and danger. I had just gotten off work, as had my father. I told them we should really consider evacuating. At first, they weren't taking my advice, but when they saw the mountains burning, the whole face up in flames,

it looked like walking into Mordor, watching trees erupt into flames and fall into the inferno, right there, just a few miles away from us. Fortunately for my family and our home, the fires moved incredibly slow downhill, but with the amount already burnt, it was only a matter of time before it crept into the valley. There were displaced animals gunning through the streets, some of the craziest sights I've ever seen.

The first thing I did was gather all our legal documents, which took about half an hour. On top of that, I secured the photos and all the pictures of the family, all the paper valuables, sentimental or otherwise. You don't really think about what's valuable until you're forced to leave, and that's when you start picking and choosing. Suddenly, everything you have holds some kind of value. Next, I helped my sister pack and get through her panic attacks. She was around eight at the time, and it was absolutely heart-wrenching having to tell her that we couldn't take all her stuffed animals. She could only take a few.

I then had to talk her out of only bringing her stuffed animals, maybe packing some clothes or hygienic stuff too. I ended up packing a lot for her because she was just so sad. She finally settled on a few, one being an elephant that she got from an ambulance when she was four. Next, I checked on my other sister, who was oddly calm. She'd packed everything she wanted into a small bag. Looking back, I think she was just in total shock, like a fog of war type thing. Her eyes were glossed over, and she didn't really care about anything, didn't even react when she looked at the fire.

I think she was just overwhelmed, shelled up until it was finally over. I went to help my parents, but they told me that I needed to go pack. I ended up packing some of my expensive stuff like my purse collection, important items, and my artwork, and almost had a mental breakdown. That summer, I was on the top floor. I ended up overheating, having a full-blown panic attack, hyperventilating, sweating, heart beating hard enough to scare me. I realized just how many of us were under one roof, animals included,

and we could all die. Then I thought about everybody else. It was like my first existential crisis, was a pretty good time for one too. It helped kind of put everything into perspective. Next was packing up all of our animal stuff. At the time, we had 12 hens, two guinea pigs, and two dogs. I packed food for everybody and started getting everything together.

Harnesses, water bottles, food, bedding, hay, everything we might need for a couple of days. We'd have to restock on everything on the road if we were evacuated for any longer than that. By now, the fire was halfway down the mountain, still miles off but encroaching one stubborn inch at a time. I grabbed the guinea pigs, put them into the transport cage, and set them by the door. My dad took a trailer from his boss. I was not allowed to help load anything outside as I have life-threatening asthma, and it would have been bad with all the smoke in the air.

I could only sit inside and watch the window as the mountain burned more and more. My parents struggled to load up the rest of our animals. We eventually got everything moved and taken out, and by then it was nighttime. The fire had gotten to the base of the mountain on one side, just a sliver, getting ready to ignite the National Park just west of us. We were all exhausted and didn't have the energy to actually get inside the truck. I asked my parents if we could leave, but they said not yet. They wanted to see what was going to happen, if it would get contained or maybe even switch directions.

It was a hopeless thought, but they were adamant. They had weathered fires before, and they knew all the protocols. Everyone else was long gone, though. We didn't have many neighbors, just all rural farmers, ranchers and homesteaders, but my sisters and I, we knew they were all gone. We could see their trucks and trailers slowly caravan away on the main road. one by one. Even in the evening, we saw some headlights rolling through the dark towards town, the other direction. The mountain glowed like a giant ember. I have no idea how, but my sisters and I

all slept next to the front door that night. We just passed out one by one. What I do remember is hearing the doorknob jiggle. I was half asleep, but the sound was unmistakable. Being a kid, I just passed it off as a dream and kept on trying to sleep. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember it jiggling again that night, and I don't remember what time it happened. The fire was just mesmerizing. I have no idea why, but I was just in a trance. It was midnight, but the flames from the burning mountain lit up the sky. It was very eerie and haunting, almost beautiful. The orange flames, purple smoke, and the moonlight. Awful to say, I know, but it was like a painting. Around 2 a.m., I fell asleep again.

myself to sleep and watch the fire creep up towards us. I woke up several times and thought I was dreaming, but gradually the flames were being put out. The doorknob thing had happened well before all of this. I woke up very early. I'd say 6 a.m. the mountain was still burning, but the thousand-foot flames were completely gone. I woke everyone up, and we were all so grateful. A few of us were crying from joy. There was a constant downpour from choppers and planes. Fire teams had cut a tremendous fire line to keep everything from the housing. It ate up the flames, and they were starting to get a handle on it. Several local fire departments worked together to set up the fire line that night. That's what saved us. And in the end, thankfully, nobody died. One local

firefighter was severely burned, but he since recovered and is attending physical therapy. He was released from the hospital about a month or two ago. The night before, we were prepping for evacuation, a bucket helicopter had crashed. Again, thankfully, nobody passed away. One house and several government buildings were burnt. In total, 35 acres were burned. That's the most terrific thing I think I've ever seen. Though the scariest part happened the next day, and it had nothing to do with the fire, we were taking our time unpacking the trucks and the animals, making sure everything was accounted for. When my parents started fussing. I went to see what was going on. I went to see what was going on, and they were saying that someone had gotten into their truck overnight. Things were missing

from the glove box and the center console. I figured it was just stuff that had been misplaced during the night due to all the exhaustion and the work that we put in. They saw my logic and just kept unpacking, but kept an eye out for all the missing items. Just a little later, my sister came inside and said that she saw the neighbors were back. I went outside to see, but the driveway looked empty. How do you know they're back? I asked her. Guys, I saw somebody walking around over there, she explained. I thought that was weird because I never saw any vehicles return. Now it was my turn to keep an eye out.

I wouldn't have to for very long. It was sunset when we decided to call it a day and go in and make dinner. We'd all been out of the house helping with the animals, and when we got inside, we noticed that the back door was wide open. My mom told my sister and me to go close it, thinking it was us who had left it a jar, but we never used it once that entire day. When we stepped into the back room, which was like our laundry room, we saw a man half crouched in the corner, rifling through our stuff.

He was dirty, very tall, and scared the crap out of us. He had the beginnings of a beard and dark, beady little eyes. He bit his lip and smiled when he saw us. He might have even winked at us. We went screaming back into the main house while this guy darted, through the open back door and then out into the woods. We quickly explained what we saw, and my dad immediately chased after him, loaded gun and everything. To my knowledge, he never caught him, and I was the only one who got a really good look at him. It turned out that he was a hermit or a homeless

person who ended up in the area, maybe just an opportunist, and had been robbing the neighboring houses through the evacuation. What a genius idea, because he knew they would be empty. For whatever stupid reason this guy also decided to mess with our house in the middle of the day while we were all there. Thank God we all came inside when we did. The police told us he was a violent, violent man and had killed animals at the other properties nearby. Cats, fish, pets that people thought would be okay on their own for a few days while they fought the fire. Had we stumbled in on him alone, he might have killed us too. The creepiest part to me was that he stole food and supplies and valuable from the other houses. When we caught him, he was rummaging around in our dirty clothes hamper,

looking for our underwear, I assume, super gross, as this was a middle-aged man and we were all children. I tell you this story not to scare you, but to warn you. Never leave your stuff unattended or unlocked during an evacuation. There are professional thieves who target these areas, and I didn't know any better until I actually met one. My name is Alex, and I have always loved going on adventures by myself. This time, my heart was set on exploring the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. It's a place full of deep forests, mysterious trails, and wild rivers, exactly where my adventurous spirit feels at home. I packed my car with everything I might need, a tent, some food, my camera, and of course a good book to keep me company. The drive was long and peaceful. I rolled down

the windows and let the fresh air mix with my favorite music, feeling the city's noise fade away behind me. As I entered the Olympic National Park, the towering trees and cool air welcomed me like an old friend. After driving around for a while, I decided to make a stop in a small area called Kino. It wasn't a popular tourist spot, especially not in the off-season. I guess that's what made it perfect for me. I loved finding places where I could be alone with nature. where the only sounds were the rustling of leaves and the distant calls of birds. While driving through Kino, I spotted an ancient footbridge that arched over a river. It looked like something out of an old storybook.

I parked my car near the dead end of the road and got out to take a closer look. The bridge was made of old weathered wood and was covered in moss. It creaked a little as the wind blew through, and I felt a shiver run down my spine. Though I was curious about what was on the other side, the bridge looked like it might collapse if I tried to cross. Better safe than sorry, I thought to myself, and decided to admire it from a safe distance. It was unusually hot that day, and the river under the bridge looked inviting. I wasn't planning on swimming, but the cool water seemed too tempting to resist.

So, I made a quick decision. I backed my car up to the edge of the road, making sure it was facing the way out, just in case I needed to leave quickly. Then, I started to make my way through the thick brush. There wasn't any path, and the area was pretty rugged. I had to be careful with each step, pushing branches away and watching out for hidden roots. Finally, I reached the riverbank and looked around. I was completely alone, surrounded by nature's beauty. Feeling the heat, I decided it was time for a swim. I didn't have a swimsuit, so I just took off my clothes and got into the water in my underwear and bra. The water was cool and refreshing, a perfect escape from the heat.

As I swam, I tried to relax and enjoy the moment, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched. I looked around, half expecting to see a deer or a raccoon, but there was no one. I tried to ignore the feeling, telling myself it was just my imagination. After all, I was in the middle of nowhere, far from the usual paths that tourists or locals might take. But still, the feeling lingered, and soon it became too much. I decided it was time to head back. Little did I know. My adventure was about to take a startling turn. After deciding it was time to leave the water, I took a deep breath and prepared to head back to my clothes. The feeling of being watched hadn't left me the entire time I was swimming. As I turned around to climb. As I turned around to

climb out of the river, my heart almost stopped. There, standing on the other side of the river, was a man. He was tall, and looked like he hadn't been around people or a town for a very long time. He wore a rain poncho made out of animal skins, and his long hair was tangled with sticks and twigs. It seemed like he belonged to the wild, just like the deer and bears that lived in these woods. But the way he stared at me didn't feel right. We both just stood there. looking at each other. I was frozen in fear, not knowing what his next move would be. Suddenly, the man turned and started running towards the old footbridge I had decided was too dangerous to cross. My mind raced as I realized he was probably trying to get to my car.

Why else would he run towards the bridge unless he wanted to reach the road? Maybe he planned to disable my car, smash the windows, or do something else to trap me here. I knew I had to act fast. Panic took over, and I rushed to get out of the water. My clothes and shoes were on the riverbank, a good distance away. I tried to grab them as I ran, but my shirt got caught on some blackberry vines. The thorns scratched my arms, and I knew I couldn't waste time. With my heart pounding in my chest, I left my clothes behind and ran towards my car,

wearing only my soaked underwear and braw. The brush was thick, and the branches tore at my skin as I pushed my way through. through. I could hear the man whooping and cheering as he ran across the bridge. His sounds were wild and eerie, like he was enjoying the chase. It made me run faster, even though my feet were sore and bleeding from the blackberries and rough ground. As I neared my car, the fear of him catching up to me grew stronger. I imagined him reaching the car before me, waiting to confront me. I pushed myself harder, my breath heavy and my legs aching. Finally, I broke through the last of the underbrush and saw my car just a few yards away.

Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. I glanced back and saw him crossing the bridge, moving with an unnerving speed. It was like watching something from a horror movie, and I knew I couldn't let him get any closer. I sprinted the last few feet to my car, yanking the door open and throwing myself inside. My hands were shaking so badly that it took me a few tries to get the key in the ignition. Just as I started the car, I saw him step off the bridge, heading straight for me. I slammed the door shut, locked it, and hit the gas pedal just as he reached the hood of my car. He pounded on it with his fists, making me scream in fright.

I drove away as fast as I could, not daring to look back until I was sure I was far away. The sound of his pounding and the wild look in his eyes stayed with me as I drove, trying to escape not just him, but the terror that had gripped me by the river. As I sped away, my heart was still racing like a drum in my chest. Every part of me was shaking. I couldn't believe what had just happened. I had escaped, but it felt like the man was still chasing me. Every time I looked in the rearview mirror, I half expected to see his wild eyes and tangled

hair. The drive felt endless. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white. The road was bumpy and winding, and I was I was careful not to drive too fast and lose control, but I also didn't want to slow down too much. I kept thinking about how that man had pounded on my car, how he had whooped and cheered as he chased me. It was like something out of a scary movie, except it was real, and it had happened to me. As I drove, the adrenaline started to wear off, and I began to feel the pain from running through the brush and blackberries. My legs and arms were scratched up, and some spots were bleeding. I was still in my wet underwear, and the cool air made me shiver. I tried to focus on the

road and keep my mind off the pain and fear. I couldn't stop thinking about how close I had come to something really bad happening. What if I hadn't made it to my car in time? What if he had caught up to me before I could drive away? These thoughts made me drive even faster. After what seemed like forever, I finally saw signs of civilization, a gas station. A gas station. appeared up ahead. I pulled over, still trembling. I needed to calm down and check my wounds. When I got out of the car, I took a deep breath of the cool air. It helped a little, but I was still scared. I walked into the gas station and asked if I could use the restroom. Inside, I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was pale and my clothes, or what I had left of them, were torn and

dirty. I washed my face and tried to clean my scratches as best as I could. The water stung, but it was also refreshing. When I came out of the restroom, I bought some bandages and a bottle of water. The person at the counter gave me a strange look, probably because of how I looked, wet, injured, and scared. I didn't care. I just wanted to get home. The rest of the drive was quiet. I didn't turn on the music or roll down the windows. I just drove and kept an eye on the road. Every now and then I would glance in the rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the man. He was gone, but the fear he had instilled in me wasn't. When I finally got home, I was relieved but still shaken. I called my best friend and told them everything. They listened

and told me I was safe now, which helped a little. But as I hung up, I knew that what had happened would stay with me for a long time. I decided then that I would never go back to that place, and I would never go hiking alone again. The memory of that day, the fear and the chase, would haunt me, but I also knew I had learned something important about being careful and never underestimating the wilderness. We were heading to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that morning, and I was excited. It was supposed to be a fun family day out. My wife Heather was singing along to the radio, and I was driving, watching the road wind through the thick forest. But our daughter, Kylie, who is usually the loudest one of us, was silent.

Everything okay back there? I asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. Kylie didn't say a word, just stared out the window. I tried to make her laugh. You excited about visiting the park, honey? We might even see a bear. But she didn't smile or laugh, something was off. Kylie, honey? Heather turned in her seat to look at her. She shook Kylie's knee gently, trying to get her attention.

There's a man in the woods, Kylie said, her voice flat and serious. Of course there is, honey. It's a national park. I laughed, but Kylie didn't. She just frowned and looked back out the window. I sighed, feeling a bit worried now. The trees cast long shadows over the car,

and the sun was just peeking through, the leaves, making everything look golden and a bit mysterious. After a few more minutes of driving, I spotted a gravel turn off. Maybe Kylie was just grumpy from sitting in the car for too long. Heather and I felt stiff ourselves, and the thought of stretching our legs by a cool mountain stream sounded perfect. I turned the car into the small parking area next to a dusty pickup truck and grinned at Heather. Break time, I said. We both got out quickly, ready to enjoy a bit of her. But Kylie didn't move. She sat there, her arms crossed, a stubborn look on her face. This is a bad place. I don't want to, she declared. Trying to be patient, I nodded to Heather,

and we both reached into the car to help Kylie out. She kicked and screamed, not wanting to leave her seat. I was thankful I had trimmed her nails the night before because she was really putting up a fight. I glanced around, hoping nobody was watching us, worried they might think we were doing something wrong. There's a creek down there with big rocks and fish and waterfalls. I coaxed, trying to sound exciting. You're going to love it, Kai. Finally, Kylie stopped crying, but it wasn't because she was happy. She looked scared. Her face pale and her body suddenly limp. Okay, Daddy, let's go. It was the same tone she'd used when our plane hit turbulence last summer, so frightened she couldn't even cry. We walked down to the creek.

Heather running ahead and whooping joyfully, but I felt uneasy. The forest was too quiet, and Kylie's fear seemed to hang in the air. We found Heather by the water, laughing as she splashed her feet. It's so peaceful here, she said. Kylie sat quietly next to her, pulling at some moss. You're pretty quiet, champ, Heather said, messing up her hair. I'm listening to the man in the woods, Kylie answered in that flat voice again. My heart skipped a beat.

kids say weird things sure but this was different what man in the woods honey nobody's talking yes he is i can hear him he's talking inside my head kiley insisted heather and i exchanged worried glances the air felt cooler all of a sudden a bird fluttered overhead and we both jumped at the sound but not kiley she was staring at something across the creek her eyes wide and scared before we could stop her she was off scrambling across the rocks. It's amazing how fast a small child can move when they're scared. Heather and I rushed after her, but I slipped and fell into the cold water. By the time I got back on my feet, Kylie was already on the other side, heading towards something we couldn't see. Kylie! Heather called out and just in time, she grabbed Kylie's pink jacket, pulling her back just as she reached the ferns. Normally Kylie would have screamed, but this time she just giggled. Daddy got wet. Kylie, it is not okay to run off like that.

What's gotten into you? Heather demanded. He said it would be funny, Kylie replied, looking at us with an eerie calmness I'd never seen before. That's when I realized something very strange was happening, and it wasn't just Kylie's imagination. The forest seemed to be watching us, listening, and I didn't like it one bit.

We tried to shake off the weird feeling from earlier as we explored the creek. The water was cool and clear, and usually I'd be the first one to dip my toes in. But today, everything felt different, tense, like the woods were holding their breath. Kylie was still acting strange, hardly like herself at all. She kept whispering to herself and looking around as if she was listening to someone we couldn't see. I'm listening to the man in the woods, she had said. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it. Let's try to have some fun, okay?

I suggested, but my voice sounded forced, even to me. We walked along the creek, Heather trying to spot fish in the water, but Kylie's mood had cast a shadow over everything. Then, without warning, Kylie took off running again. She moved so fast it was as if something was pulling her along. Kylie, stop, I yelled, but she was already halfway across the creek. I chased after her, slipping on the rocks. The cold water splashed up around me. but I barely felt it.

My only thought was to catch Kylie before she disappeared into the trees on the other side. Heather was faster and managed to grab Kylie just in time. She was giggling again, looking at something we couldn't see. He said it would be funny,

she told us, pointing across the creek to an empty patch of ferns. This wasn't like any game I knew, and it wasn't funny at all. We sat Kylie down on a rock, trying to talk to her, to get through to her somehow, but she just kept saying she could hear the man talking to her in her head.

What was supposed to be a peaceful family outing was turning into something out of a nightmare. Just then, a woman appeared from the trees. She wore a ranger's uniform but looked like she had stepped out of a different time. Her badge said Maddie Corvin, and she talked like she thought it was still decades ago in 1975. You folks all right? Ranger Corvin asked, looking from Heather to me with a concerned frown. We're fine, just a bit rattled, Heather explained. Our daughter thinks she's hearing things, someone talking to her. Ranger Corvin nodded, not seeming as surprised as I expected.

This part of the park, it's old, full of stories. Some folks say it's haunted, she said, glancing around like she could see things we couldn't. We decided to follow Ranger Corvin back to the parking area to find my car keys, which I had lost during the chase. As we walked, the woods seemed to be able to see. to close in around us. The sounds of the creek faded, replaced by a too heavy silence. Even the birds had stopped singing. It felt like the forest itself was watching us, waiting. Every rustle of the leaves made us jump, but Ranger Corvin led us on, calm and steady.

Keep close, she warned. It's easy to get turned around here. Just as we reached a clearing, a large stag stepped out from between the trees. It looked at us with wild, unnatural, eyes, and for a moment I felt like it was the one Kylie had been talking to. It stood there, staring, then turned and walked back into the forest as silently as it had appeared. Kylie whispered something I couldn't catch, and when I asked her what she said, she just shook her head. We need to find those keys, I muttered, more to myself than anyone else, desperate to leave this place and its hidden whispers behind. After the stag disappeared back into the woods, everything felt even more unreal.

We've got to get those keys and get out of here, I said, trying to keep my voice steady for Kylie and Heather. Ranger Corvin led the way, her eyes scanning the ground for my lost keys. The forest seemed to grow darker, the trees taller and closer together as if they were leaning in to listen. I held Kylie's hand tightly, not wanting to let her out of my sight for even a second. Suddenly Kylie tugged at my hand and pointed, There, the keys, she exclaimed.

Lying among some leaves near a large rock, there they were. I breathed a sigh of relief and reached down to pick them up. But as I did, Kylie's gaze shifted past me, her eyes wide with fear. He's here, she whispered. Who, honey? Heather asked, her voice trembling a bit. The man in the woods, Kylie replied, staring into the dense trees. Ranger Corvin looked where Kylie was pointing. and then back at us.

We should move quickly, she said. Follow me and don't stray. We hurried after her, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched. The forest felt alive, aware, and not friendly. As we walked, the trees seemed to whisper secrets I couldn't quite hear, and shadows moved just at the edge of my vision. Just as we thought we were nearing the parking area, Kylie stopped and screamed.

In front of us, blocking our path, was the largest stag I had ever seen. Its eyes were wild, and it pawed the ground aggressively. No, no, no, Heather murmured, pulling Piley back. Ranger Corvin stepped in front of us, her body tense. The car isn't far. Run when I say, she instructed, her eyes never leaving the stag. But before she could say anything else, the stag charged.

Ranger Corvin shoved us to the side and we stumbled into the bushes. I heard her yell, then a loud crash. When I looked back, the stag was gone, and so was Ranger Corvin. Heather, take Kylie to the car, I said, my heart pounding. I'll find the Ranger. No, we stick together, Heather insisted. Her voice firm despite her pale face. So, we all moved together, calling out for Ranger Corvin.

We found her a few minutes later, leaning against a tree. It's gone, she panted. But we need to be careful. This forest, it's not right. We finally made it back to the car. I threw the keys to Heather. Get her safe. I'll help Ranger Corvin.

Be quick, Heather said, her eyes filled with tears. Ranger Corvin and I made it to a narrow path that led out of the thicker woods. What is this place? I asked her, looking back at the dark trees. Some say it's cursed, that the forest keeps things, and people, she replied, her voice low. but you got your family out, keep them safe. We reached the road, and I saw Heather and Kylie safe in the car, waiting. I thanked Ranger Corvin and ran to them, never looking back.

As we drove away, Kylie fell asleep, her head resting against the window. Heather held my hand tightly. Let's never come back here, she whispered. I nodded, glancing in the rearview mirror at the receding forest. The trees seemed to watch us go. and I felt a chill. Whatever lived in that forest, it was old, and it was waiting. But we were leaving, and we weren't coming back, ever.

My wife and I met when we were undergraduates in college. We had totally different majors, but I think the free-thinking lifestyle of being a student showed us that we both had a lot in common, especially in regards to morals, personal values, and where we both saw ourselves later in life. By the time we graduated, we had been dating for a year, and everything started moving much faster after that. We moved in together after graduating, and within another year, Mary was pregnant with our first child.

Let's fast forward another ten years. We're both working corporate jobs in the city, with a ten-year-old son named James and an eight-year-old daughter named Sylvia. This is pretty much where things kick off. The city had always felt suffocating, a constant dent. of noise and chaos that just wore us down. Mary and I would often daydream about escaping it all, finding a secluded spot where we could raise our kids in peace. It was a fantasy that we'd indulged in since our dating days back in college, and it only grew more appealing with time. I hated all of it, the commute, the mortgage, the endless taxes, and bills accrued purely from living in a high

demand area. My college experience turned me on to some radical thinking, mostly that of off-the-grid living self-sustained practices, not bending over for any local or national government. I work hard, and I feel like I should have something to show for it all. That's when fate intervened. Mary's father passed away, leaving her the family cabin in his will. It was a remote place, 75 miles outside the city limits, nestled in a small community on the mountainside. Some of the homes had lights and water, while others relied on generators and wells. Our cabin fell into the latter category. It was a small price to pay, though, the chance to live off the grid. It was a very humble cabin, something Mary's father and grandfather had built back in the day.

I'm talking the late 1950s. It really only had two rooms. They were big, though, with a small bathroom and then a larger house on the edge of the property. Being four of us in the family, this really wasn't ideal, but Mary and I had it in our heads that we could do some light remodeling, turn it into exactly what we both needed. The square footage was good. We just needed to convert it from less of a hunting headquarters and more of a family home. I was beyond excited to begin making changes to what I envisioned to be a perfect life. We packed up our lives and made the move, trading pavement for dirt roads, skyscrapers for towering trees. The cabin did need a lot of work, but we were both eager to put in the effort.

The kids, James and Sylvia, were excited to explore their new surroundings, and Mary and I were determined to make this new life a complete success. The truly beautiful part was that this wasn't any kind of huge investment for us. The cabin literally was handed over, deed and everything, so all we had to do was just pay to haul everything, a few hundred at most. Between our jobs and what we'd saved in the last 10 or 12 years, we had a healthy cushion to take our time and approach everything with this relaxed energy. It was ideal, truly, everything we'd been hoping for, and it all came at once.

The cabin itself was a charming but rustic affair, with creaky floors and a chimney that puffed up smoke like a grumpy old man. We spent those first few months cleaning and remodeling, trying to bring it back to the 21st century. My wife and I have wildly different skill sets, so while she took out the cobwebs and scraped the dust off everything, I knocked the paper-thin wall down that divided the home, cleaned up the residue, and then divided the master bedroom, which was more like a bunk room large enough to sleep ten grown men.

Then I put up two shorter walls, allowing for my wife and I to share a bedroom, then James and Sylvia to share one as well. This was all just temporary until I decided exactly how I wanted the floor plan to look. The kids would spend their days wandering through the wilderness, exploring the sparse neighborhood, getting to know the locals, but only when they weren't helping us. When we ran out of work for them to do, they'd check out the trails,

walked a few meager houses in the area. The community that we lived in was nothing of the sort, though. No gas station, no store, no hotels, nothing. No business. No commerce. One guy had a shed on his property that he called the supply shop. He kept extra stuff on hand and would sell it to folks in the area for a premium price. Things like nails, maple syrup, mason jars, mouse traps, that kind of thing. One day, as they were walking back from the mailboxes outside of town, they spotted a man

lurking in the trees. He was near a cabin, his face hidden behind a bushy beard and a mop of unruly gray hair. James and Sylvia exchanged a nervous glance. but the man didn't seem to notice them. He was too busy staring at our cabin. His eyes fixed on our little family home like a hawk on its prey. Who's that? James asked. His voice barely above a whisper. I don't know, but he's creepy.

Why is he watching our house? Sylvia said again. That's when they quickened their pace, eager to get back to the safety of our cabin. Once they were inside, they recounted everything to Mary and I, all while eerily looking out the window, over our shoulder as they spoke.

I just imagined every single average mountain man or off-the-grid type of person. I just chalked it up to a curious neighbor. Kids, it's just got to be some old hermit, I said, dismissing their concerns. He's probably just wandering around looking at his new neighbors. We've had power tools running over here for the better part of six weeks. Mary nodded in agreement. There are plenty of people like that up here. They just want to be left alone.

The kids accepted our explanation, but I could tell that they were still uneasy. They've always been city kids. This whole new world was full of unknowns. Seeing a big shadowy man off in the trees probably would have scared me at their age too, so I did my best to just be understanding. At the same time, I was trying to showcase what off-the-grid living requires, to be tough, rugged, logical, fearless. Our move was going to require a different outlook,

and I was more than happy to help them achieve that. I made a mental note to reach out to a few neighbors, clear the air, and hopefully put everybody at ease. As the days continued to pass, we settled into our new routine. The kids explored the woods. Mary tended to her budding garden, and I worked on fixing up the interior of the cabin. We'd occasionally see Marty.

That's what the kids started calling him, lurking around the edges of the property. He never approached us. He never spoke. But his presence was always felt. I learned that the kids had asked some others in the area about him, some of the neighbors that were a little more friendly. The story went that Marty had moved up here 20 years ago with his wife,

who died suddenly about five years prior. After her death, Marty turned into a complete recluse, stopped talking completely, and was only seen sporadically on his property or in the trees throughout the community. He apparently had enough know-how to keep himself alive and well on his own without ever having to venture back into town for any real supplies. He purchased gas when he needed it from the shopkeeper in town,

the guy with the shed, but besides that, Marty didn't need help from anybody. It was a slow-burning tension, though, one that simmered just below the surface. We tried to ignore it, focus on our new lifestyle, but it was hard to shake that feeling that we were being watched because, well, we were. Almost at any hour of the day, one of us could look outside and find that old man hiding in the trees, standing still to prevent us from potentially seeing him. At first it was something that I could explain away, but after three months of steady creeping, I didn't really know what else to make of it. One night, we heard the generator sputter, and then die.

Great, I muttered, getting up from the couch, just what we need. Mary then followed me outside where we stared at the dark shape of the generator right from our porch. Was this old thing very prone to breakdowns? Fortunately for us, we'd been lucky so far, but now, not so much. I had some skills in regard to woodworking, but electrical and mechanical problems. That's where my knowledge would start to dry up. I'd have to go back inside for a few tools, before I could actually even take a crack at it. Hey, I'll go take a look, I said, grabbing a flashlight from the kitchen counter.

Mary nodded, her eyes flickering towards the trees. Careful. I knew what she was thinking. Marty might be out there watching us, waiting for his chance. But I pushed the thought aside and headed out into the darkness. Little did I know, our lives were about to take a drastic turn. I squatted before the generator and started to work the exterior panel off so I could just look at the wiring. I also made a mental note to check the gas and the fuel cap.

Maybe, and hopefully, it was just something simple. Maybe the vibration of the machine had rattled the cap loose, made it shut down. I methodically went over everything until I found the problem was exactly what I was hoping for. A very, very simple fix. The issue, from what I was looking at, was that somebody had definitely messed with the generator. They loosened the cap, then yanked a handful of cables, unplugged the main power line to the house, and lastly, flicked the power line to the house. and lastly, flicked the power button off for good measure.

I checked the ground around the area but didn't find anything, didn't see any bootprints or any kind of calling cards. Then I checked the perimeter of the property, nobody. So I just called it a night and went back inside. I didn't mention any of my concerns to Mary or the kids, but I was certain that somebody had paid us a visit and sabotaged our only source of power. To say I was on edge was a drastic understatement.

It wasn't long until we had our next run-in with our neighbor. Mary and I were working on hanging the door in the kids' room, which was one of the last tasks that we had planned for our update. Next, we were going to refocus on the exterior work, getting some better furniture for each room to better serve the family itself. With the door installation almost complete, Mary and I exchanged a satisfied glance, our mind shifting to the next project on our list. But before we could even take a step back to admire our handiwork, the kids burst through the front door. Their faces pale and frightened. They were out of breath, talking a mile a minute about whatever just happened to them.

My wife and I did our best to calm them down, get them coherent, so we could figure out exactly what was going on. Dad! Dad! James exclaimed out of breath. Marty, Marty had a gun. He was pointing it at us. My heart skipped a beat as I started to put it all together.

Wait, what happened? Sylvia's eyes were wide with fear. We were walking in the woods, and he came out of nowhere. He chased us. Mary's voice was laced with concern. Are you kids okay? I didn't hesitate. Stay in the house.

I'll go talk to Marty. The kids nodded, still shaking, as I headed out into the cool mountain air. I knew exactly where Marty's cabin was, and I didn't need to follow a road to get there. The woods were dense, but I knew the root by heart, and I had this feeling I might run into Marty if I stuck to the trees because that's where the kids said they saw him the most. I trudged headlong into the wilderness, empty-handed, looking for the guy that kept messing with my kids. This conversation was long overdue, but the mountain of work that the cabin had demanded prevented me from ever going to even say hello. Now we were at an impasse as neighbors.

My suspicions were quickly confirmed just a couple of hundred yards in. Marty lurched from the underbrush, his eyes fixed on the ground. I called out to him, no response. Anger quickly flared up inside of me, messing with the generator, messing with my kids, and now he wouldn't even acknowledge me. Something primal just snapped in me, and suddenly I was over the edge. I found myself running, hollering out through the trees. Marty, stop right there, God damn it.

Finally, he turned around, his eyes narrowing at me. What do you want? He shouted back. I could see the shotgun in his hands. My heart began to race. Of course, he was armed. My kids had literally told me he had a gun, but for some reason,

I wasn't expecting that to be the truth. I guess I thought maybe it was just some kind of misunderstanding. No, he had a gun, and an illegal one at that. He held the remnants of a homemade sawed-off 12-gauge between his wrinkled hands. You need to stay the hell away from my family. You're scaring my kids, was all I said. Marty's face twisted into a snarl. Then you keep your damn kids on your property.

It's real simple. I took cover behind a tree, not wanting to get blasted. If you come near my property again or speak to my children again, I'm calling the sheriff. You're not welcome here. My kids have done nothing wrong to you. You want to make this into something. Fine. We'll make it into something. Marty's eyes flashed with anger, but he didn't move.

Keep your family away from my property. It's all I ask. With that, he turned and disappeared into the trees. I watched him go, my heart's still racing. I knew I had to protect my family, but I also knew that Marty was unhinged and very dangerous. I couldn't believe how heated that exchange was, and neither of us had really even communicated anything like a classic neighbor dispute. This was the kind of stuff that I wanted to move away from when I left the city, but here I was again, dealing with that same crap. I made my way back to the cabin, mind racing with worst-case scenarios. I flipped on all the external lights, grabbed my rifle, and loaded it up.

It was time to take matters into my own hands, even though I didn't. know exactly what that meant, but I knew that I needed to be ready for anything. This guy didn't hesitate to get crazy when the time called for it, so I figured I needed to do the same. As I placed the rifle on the mantle, Mary approached me, her eyes very worried. What happened out there? Mary's lost it. He's dangerous and we need to be prepared, I said, trying to sound calmer than I felt. The kids were watching, their faces pale. I knew I had to keep them safe, no matter what it took. I didn't make a big, boisterous show or anything,

but I just made sure the windows were covered, the doors were locked, flashlights placed near every door. I also made this little bugout bag for my family, just in case we had to take off for whatever reason. Hey, we'll get through this, I said, trying to reassure them. Stick together, we'll make it through. He's just an old man. He's not going to actually do anything.

But as I looked out into the darkness, that feeling that we were in danger grew and grew. Marty was out there, watching us, waiting for his next move. I remember it dawned on me then that I didn't even know why this was happening. Were my children really even that close to his property? I mean, have they been doing something else they weren't telling me about? I questioned them a bit, but they were adamant they hadn't done anything more than walk around in the woods. we all hung out in the living room for the rest of that night and slept in each other's company. The next morning, Mary and I went over our options and decided on a course of action.

Sitting around and waiting wasn't really on the table anymore. We decided to call the sheriff and make a report, as well as to get the scoop from any other locals. After making our call and explaining the situation, we were told that the sheriff would be out to our location within the hour. Our next move was my idea. I wanted to get any information on Marty, so I decided to approach some of the others that live nearby. I hopped in the truck and buzzed over to Walter's house. The guy with the shed out front he called the store. I went there because I knew this guy the most out of the people that lived in our area.

We were actually on a first-name basis, and on top of that, I knew for sure that he'd be home. He was the retired type, made being home a full-time. responsibility. He came out to greet me even before I got out of my vehicle. Hey there, need something from the shop? He called down, nodding to the shed. He was always looking to make a few bucks. Not today, Walter. I'm actually looking for information, I replied. Walter laughed and waved me up the steps. I don't really have a whole lot of knowledge, but I'll see if I can help, he said. I didn't waste any time, just got right into the thick of it. I told him about all the early run-ins with Marty, and how they were slowly escalating over time,

even about the generator mishap. I mentioned the gun, the property disputes, everything that I could remember. Walter just went stoic as he took it all in. Well, what do you think? I asked when I was finished. Well, Martin was never right after his wife died, he started. Then Walter went on to tell me his own story, filled in a lot of the gaps. It turned out that just before Marty's wife died, he started. died. The two of them were bickering a lot. Marty's drinking was at an all-time high, was cruising

into town every single day to hit a bar or pick up a case of beer. His wife was really the only one keeping him in check, and suddenly she was just dead. No story, no funeral. Marty was just telling everyone that his wife died last night. He didn't even seem that upset. Everyone living on the mountain thought that that was a little strange, but didn't know Marty well enough to question him anymore. The general consensus was that he murdered his wife. When the other residents reached out to law enforcement, they assured everyone that Marty reached out to them with the news as well.

Everything was copacetic on their end. Still, it was weird because no coroner came by, no body removal, nothing. Marty just said she was dead, and that seemed to be it. No one ever saw her corpse. This is when Marty's behavior got really erratic. He started to patrol the woods around his home. He'd gotten into a few pissing matches with other locals that lived up there. It was always the same thing.

Stay away from Marty's property. Don't come near Marty's property. Everyone else seemed to see a heartbroken, perhaps mentally unwell old man. I saw a guy trying to hide something. As Walter and I continued to talk, we put some pieces together, and he was inclined to believe me. When I said I had to go back to my house and meet the sheriff, Walter asked to go with so he could do his part and make a statement, and hopefully get everything figured out.

Neither of us were prepared for just how deep this grave went. The sheriff took everything down that we said, even offered up some of his own hearsay that he'd acquired over the last five years, and told us he'd be in touch. From our house, he went straight to Marty's, and from there, everything exploded. I don't know how it all occurred, but Marty ended up arrested by the end of the week. It turned out Marty's wife was found buried just under two feet of loose soil, and it definitely wasn't a beautiful or ceremonious burial. No, not at all. He'd dragged her body to the edge of his property line, posted a little dirt over, and called it a day.

The really telling part was the multiple bullet holes found in her bones. She'd clearly been shot to death. The whole story was this. Five years prior to my family moving out there, Marty and his wife were having a rough path. just like Walter described. What wasn't public was that Marty's wife was telling him that she was leaving. Going back to South Texas or New Mexico, somewhere along the border, was getting back together with an old boyfriend of hers. What she had with Marty had dried up. He was now just a miserable, drunk, bitter old man. Marty heard a threat one too many times,

decided to do away with the woman for good. What she didn't know was that Marty had actually killed the boyfriend she spoke of many, many years ago, like in 1981. There had been something of a love triangle between Marty and his wife and whoever this third man was. The wife originally was with the third man, but Marty wooed her away. Then they moved away, but before they did, Marty went back to that man's house, attacked him before shooting him as well. They left town, and miraculously, no one ever got fingered for that murder. After that, they lived a relatively normal life before deciding to move up on the mountain. Marty slowly but surely lost his mind over time.

We were living next to a guy who had killed not one but two people in his life and seemingly had gotten away with both. As the story rolled out over the next couple of weeks, we were blown away to bear witness to such a sick, mind-blowing event. What started out as our little daydream lifestyle quickly devolved into solving a multiple murder that stretched through the decades. I guess Marty had given himself up pretty much right away, much to the surprise of our little off-grid community.

The courts couldn't be kind to him, as he was every bit of 70. If it were any amount of time behind bars, it would be a life sentence, so that's what he was given. We still live in the cabin, and I've come to enjoy every aspect of our rural lifestyle. Mary homeschools the kids, and we're all very grateful to have to have to have. that whole Marty fiasco behind us. We didn't realize just how close we came to tragedy. The guy literally pointed a shotgun at my children and had the nerve to pull the trigger. It turns out it doesn't really matter where you live, the city or off-grid. There are still crazy people residing in both. I was a parole officer in the state of Utah for nine years, four months, and 18 days.

It was nothing like working as a correctional officer, but after a bad car accident in the spring of 97, it was one of the few options open to me that didn't include medical retirement. Many guys told me to take the medical, buy a boat, and start up that charter service idea that had served as a pipe dream for so many years. But frankly, that felt a little too much like giving up. On top of that, there was the fact that if I worked nine more years, I'd be entitled to a full pension, and I'd have all my treatment covered by the state. That last thing proved to be the deciding factor. Instead of walking off into the sunset with a big check and a bum leg,

I joined the Utah Department of Corrections as a parole officer. I worked hundreds, possibly even thousands of caseloads prior to my eventual retirement. And sadly, I think I only had a handful of stories that might interest you. Being a parole officer wasn't exactly action-packed, and it's always laughable when the movies present us as badass bounty hunters, when really were mostly just slow horses with a motley collection of dysfunctional appendages, with a few exceptions, obviously. I think I only had three or four major incidents in my whole parole officer career, but the incidents I did experience were just as intense, if not more so, than anything I experienced as a corrections officer, including the time that I almost lost my life to a man who, in another

life, could have been a cousin or a nephew of mine, maybe even a son. I first met Sean at the trailer park that he was calling his temporary home following his release from federal prison. The trailer park was part of the halfway home scheme that we were sort of running due to budget constraints, and all that extra freedom meant only the most promising of parolees got to stay there. Out of all these promising parolees that ended up calling the park home for a while, I'd swear that Sean was the most promising of them all. He was a former Marine flight mechanic, two tours of duty before the crap really hit the fan. Even so, the base he operated at got pummeled by insurgent rockets and mortars. I remember him saying, meaning that he came back stateside with a nasty case of what he

called the Shakes. I guess officially speaking, whatever Sean suffered from would be categorized as PTSD. But for whatever reason, he never called it that. He just said that he got to be. He got to be got the shakes sometimes, when he got to thinking about things too hard. He tried all kinds of medication, all kinds of therapy, but nothing ever worked. Then one day, out of pure self-destructive desperation, Sean smoked a bowl of meth at a party on Memorial Day weekend and found that it actually stopped his shakes. I don't know how something like meth came to have that kind of effect on him. If anything, I'd have assumed that it made his shakes worse, but surprisingly it had the

opposite effect. I guess, he said, it focused him like a laser, but brought the tremors down to almost nothing. Having discovered what he thought was the miracle cure for his shakes, Sean started using a little meth here and there, just whenever things got a little too rough, he said. Then he discovered it made him feel better, shiny and new, as he put it, and much more able to deal with all the bull crap of being freshly discharged from the Marine Corps, with nothing to show for it, but a glorified severance check. He started doing more and more, a little before work, a little after work, then in his free time, and then all alone whenever he was craving.

But then this obviously left Sean with a problem. One day, he found that he wanted to smoke more meth than he had money, but he also really didn't want to be that depraved drug addict, who spends his last few dollars on drugs. So instead, he goes to a meth cook, asks what he needs to be. to cook him a batch, and then goes around either stealing or buying everything on his little shopping list. He helps the cook with the batch, makes a bunch of mental notes, and then starts cooking his own for purely personal use, keeping the batches as small as possible. But just like when

he first started smoking, the amount that he was cooking got bigger and bigger, until eventually, he couldn't hide it anymore. Cops raided his cookhouse, Sean got arrested, and then he spent the next 12 years in a federal prison. He'd have gotten way longer if it wasn't for his military background, and his behavior as an inmate was impeccable. Had it not been for that, there's no way that he'd have been paroled nine years into the 18 the judge gave him. But I'm also guessing, in front of the judge, he showed a hell of a lot of enthusiasm for putting his life in order, because that's sure as hell what he showed me that first time that I met him at the trailer park. I thought that he was going to be the easiest case that I'd ever dealt with. He was itching to get his life back together,

and every time I stopped by his place, or we met for bacon and eggs at a nearby diner, his enthusiasm seemed to have only grown. A few months go by, Sean's well on his way to getting all the early release recommendations he needs, including my own, and I stopped by his place for a pre-arranged meeting, only to find that he's not there. I figured something must have been wrong for him to just pull a no-show like that. And unlike some other cases I've worked, I didn't assume that he was trying to duck me or play games. After building up a little trust, I tried giving him a call on his cell, and the first time the call went through, but when it suddenly and abruptly went to voicemail, I started to get this sinking feeling. Best case scenario, he was running late,

driving back to the trailer park, and didn't want to risk getting pulled over by talking on his cell. But then the next time that I tried to call him, it went straight to voicemail, no dial tone, like he quickly just turned off his cell between calls. Again, I get that sinking feeling. I liked Sean. I had high hopes for him, so the idea of him messing up all of his progress and ruining his chances of getting those recommendation letters. It made me feel like a scared parent. I didn't just leave right away. I walked back and forth in the dirt in front of his trailer, hoping to catch one of Sean's neighbors. He'd mentioned borrowing one of their trucks to get to and from his job,

so I mozied on around the trailer park, hoping that I might be able to talk to someone who knew him. I knocked on the doors of a few trailers, got no answer, and then finally, the last one I visited had someone home. I asked if they knew Sean, and they said yes.

Then, when I asked where he was, they started giving it the usual, whose business isn't of yours kind of. of thing. I explained that I was his PO and that he wasn't in any trouble, and I wanted to know where he was, because I was worried about him. It wasn't like him to miss a face-to-face. I wasn't making up some story to get him to talk, and I'd appreciated it very much if he could do me a solid and just tell me what he knew. I remember the guy gave me this look, like, you really don't know, do you? And then told me Sean's mom had died. He took it real bad,

An owner of one of the other trailers was out there drinking beer with him for a while, but Sean was pacing back and forth, making phone calls. And the next thing you know, a truck pulls up, Sean jumps in the back, and then off he goes. I ain't seen him since. I asked him how long ago this was, and my heart sank when the guy said Tuesday. So four days now, give or take. Four days, Sean could have been halfway across the country by then, and if he'd gotten some kind of terrible news,

there was no telling what he retreated to in order to cope. I couldn't blame him, but as I got back into my truck, I was praying to God. Please, just stick to booze, Sean. Stick to booze if you got to. The last thing I wanted to do was call it into my superiors then and there. If it were some scumbag who had been caught with some kitty pictures on his computer, I'd have come down on him like a stampeding steer. But as I've said already, Sean was far from some pervert scumbag. If I came down hard on him over one missed appointment, especially when it was due to a death in the family,

I'm not sure that I've been able to look myself in the mirror for a while. And the trouble was, leaving him to his own devices for too long, not to mention in a state of grief, he might not pass a urine test. Then, if that happened, he was definitely going back to jail to serve out the remainder of the sentence there, instead of doing it on parole. Obviously, Sean wasn't my only parolee during that period, so it's not like I could devote all my time to searching for him. But over the next few days, I kept calling his cell phone, kept stopping by his trailer, and most importantly, gave my cell number to the neighbor that I spoke to and asked him to keep his eyes peeled for me.

A few days later, I get a call on my cell, and it's the neighbor saying that he's just seen Sean and a few others entering his trailer. I thanked him for the info, but before I hung up, he warned me that they didn't look like the kind of folks who woke up bright and early for Sunday service, and then I might want to be careful if I was looking to arrest anyone. I definitely wasn't looking to make any arrests. I didn't even have the power to, but I did want to make sure that he was okay, and if these friends of his wanted to put themselves in the way of that, then that might pose a very big problem for myself. I drove over to the trailer park as quickly as possible, hoping to catch Sean before he did anything

that he'd lived to regret. When I arrived, all the curtains of his trailer were drawn, and music was so loud that I could hear it as I turned into the park and was thumping out of some kind of sound system inside. Now, just to be safe, I put on the bulletproof vest that I kept in my trunk, and then headed up to the front door of the trailer. I had to hammer on it just to be heard over the racket, and when someone opened up the door, not only was it not Sean, but they didn't look too pleased to see me standing in front of me. When the door opened up, it was a guy that looked like his daddy was Bigfoot, and his mommy was a skeleton, and to him, with all of the narcotics in his system, I guess I looked like the devil himself. He slams the door closed, and even over the loud

music, you could hear him scream, it's the cops. At first I found the guy's reaction to be kind of funny. Sure, I was wearing a vest and I had a gun on my hip, but I wasn't a cop, so I guess it was halfway to bringing a smirk to my lips as I peered around to a window and tried to peer through a crack in the curtain. Having these guys throw all their drugs in the chemical toilet would have most definitely been in their best interest, but the fact was, I wasn't there in that capacity. I was only there to talk to Sean. Everything else was secondary, and if they knew how understanding I was prepared to be, then I'm not sure that they'd have reacted so frantically at all. I started to call out, I'm not a cop, relax. I'm just

here to speak to Sean for a minute. But it didn't seem to do any good. I could hear the people inside scrambling around, cursing, saying things about the cops being outside. I repeated myself again, and that's when the first bullet smashed through the trailer siding. It all happened so quickly that at first, I wasn't quite sure what had happened. Or maybe I did, and I just didn't want to think that it was happening. I backed up upon hearing the sound, but the shot came through way below eye level, so I didn't see the bullet hole or realize what was happening until the next few shots came through. I remember throwing myself back off into the little wooden deck that led to the door, then feeling almost certain that I'd broken something when I landed on my back and shoulders.

I think I must have knocked the wind out of myself too, because there was a second there where I was scared that I'd been shot, but after seeing no entry wounds on the vest and seeing no blood on my shirt underneath, I pulled my sidearm and did the only thing I could, emptied the entire clip into the front of the trailer. There wasn't any time to consider the implications. I just had to scare them into keeping their heads down long enough for me to get back to my truck. I got there, but just in time to have someone shatter the windshield with a well-aimed shot, someone in the trailer had a solid view of the driver's seat, meaning there would be no getting in it or getting out of there without taking a bullet. I had to crawl underneath and then out the other side,

taking cover behind one of my truck tires. I then reloaded, dialed 911 on my cell phone, and then just lay there, peering out towards the trailer, hoping nobody came out the door in pursuit of me. Luckily, someone else had heard the shot, so uniformed officers arrived at least a minute or two faster than they would have from my call alone. But by the time they did get there, they noticed what I had around the same time I made my own 911 call, that Sean's trailer was on fire. The officers and myself that arrived figured everyone inside would have run before the flames got too bad. But from the perspective of those inside, they had no idea what they were facing. In their minds, if they ran outside, they'd have been shot to pieces, but staying inside and

trying to put the flames out, they stood a fighting chance. So as myself and the officers started moving on the trailer, someone inside pulls one of the curtains back, but the silhouette they made, including the gun in their hand, made them look like one of those training targets. And for the officers who arrived as my backup, they were just as easy to shoot. What followed was another prolonged gunfight, and as more shots went into the trailer, the less those inside were able to put the flames out. The fire grew, and the shooting died down. In the end, the fire department arrived far too late to save those inside from burning to death. I honestly don't know if any of them were still alive by the time they got there, but by the time the flames were out, everyone inside

were either burned to a crisp, or died of smoke inhalation, or a grisly combination of the two. It took the county coroner a hell of a long time to figure out who was who, as well as the exact cause of each person's death. Only one person died by gunshot, and that person was Sean. The coroners ID'd him through his Marine Corps dental records, but determined that he'd been dead before the flames got to him. There was no telling whose bullets were the ones to put him down, either mine or the cops that showed up after. But deep down, I think I know. I think I killed the one person that didn't really need my help. I think Sean would have gone through the grief of his mom's death. He might have gone off the rails, but I think her ghost would have dragged his

butt back on them again. I think I should have called in that first no-show meeting as and when it happened, and that way he could have gotten picked up long before I had the opportunity to empty my pistol into his trailer. He might have gone back to prison, maybe for a hell of a long time too, but at least he'd still be alive. There was a phrase I'd heard long ago that never made much sense until that day. The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions. I have an off-the-grid story, but not in the usual fashion. I never lived off-grid per se, but I existed off-grid for many years. As a young man, I dropped out of college and started hitchhiking around my state when I was around 18, which was also when I quit wearing shoes. I was a free-spirited type with long hair and covered in

these makeshift DIY stick-and-poke tattoos. As a musician at heart, I would just hit the road with a guitar or banjo and land wherever the wind took me. I did this until I was 21 or 22 and usually hitchhiked back and forth between my hometown in South Dakota, to Denver or Fort Collins, Colorado. These were happening places for a small town kid like me, ripe with drugs, cool people, and all kinds of different musical shows. I could catch a concert and make a few hundred dollars playing on the street in Denver, while high the whole time. This quickly became a ritualistic way of life for me in my most impressionable years.

I'll never forget the night that I met Chaz. It was a warm summer evening in downtown Denver. I was playing my guitar at the corner of 16th in Champa. I had just finished a set and was packing up my gear when I heard a voice behind me. This caught me off guard because it was a man. I figured I was about to be robbed. Usually the only people who lingered to talk after a short, were single girls, so it being a man was a little suspicious. Also, there had been a string of

muggings in the area, so I was extra cautious about whoever was behind me. Hey, pretty good. You play like a real musician does, he said. I turned around to see this tall, lanky guy with messy hair and a big wide grin carrying a battered old guitar case. It looked like he'd been on the road for a while too. I immediately let my guard down. In the moment, it felt like I was looking at in the mirror. I knew this guy just wanted to talk shop, maybe even buy me a beer, so I took the bait and ran with it. Hey, thanks, man, I said, shouldering my pack. I try my best. It's not easy out here. There's lots of stiff competition. We introduced ourselves and Chaz told me that he was a musician

too. We started talking about music, life on the road and everything in between. It felt like we had known each other for years and years. He was from Kansas, also from from a small town and got out of town the only way he knew how, playing music. He tried to start a few bands and failed, so hit the road as a solo gig, never looking back. Colorado cities were like a magnet at the time for wandering souls like ourselves, so it was purely happenstance that we just happened to meet up that night. Chas opened up the conversation only because he liked the way I picked the strings. From that night on, Chaz and I were inseparable. We spent the next three years traveling around the central U.S., playing music,

hitchhiking, and seeing all the sights we could see. We lived a colorful life, always on the move, never staying in one place for too long. We did this largely without phones or technology of any kind, just our instruments, some clothes, and whatever money we could scrounge up with our talent. Those years were incredible because we really got to learn how the other played, and by doing so, truly learned how to compliment one another. We got many high praises from people all over the country, but as the holidays would approach, we'd always make our way back to our respective hometowns to spend our time with friends and family. It was a ritual that we both looked forward to, a chance to recharge our batteries and get ready for another year on the road. We also like to hide out from those winter months. As Colorado and some of the other places we like to reside in

were pretty unforgiving during the cold season. Snow, ice, frigid temperatures. We lived on the street and didn't even wear shoes if we didn't have to. We weren't built or prepared for any kind of experience like that, so home retreat was always in order for some time around Thanksgiving. This year was no different than any other. I had just got back to my hometown, a small town in South Dakota, and was settling into my parents' old house,

looking forward to having a few weeks of relaxation, some good home cooking, and maybe even playing a few local gigs. I like to come home and really fine-tune whatever it was I'd been working on. That way, when I hit the road again in the spring, I'd be much sharper and ready for a whole set repertoire. Then, on a cold winter evening late in the season, my phone rang. It was Chaz. We usually didn't start making plans until March or April, so he was a little early to be reaching out.

I figured something was up. He had some kind of question or maybe just missed me. Whatever the case I answered and said hello. Hey man, how's it going? He asked his voice crackling with excitement. It's going, Chas, I replied laughing. Just enjoying my downtime. How about you?

I'm ready to hit the road soon, my friend, he said. Been studying these railroad maps all winter. and I think I found a way for us to get to a music festival down south. My ears perked up at that. A music festival. That sounded like the stuff of dreams. What a perfect destination for our reunion trip. The fact that it was in the south was a little off-putting, but who knows?

There are indie festivals all over the south. I quickly bit my tongue and waited to hear the rest of the details. Tell me more, I said. Curiosity peaked. And Chaz did. He explained that he had found a route that would take us away from my hometown to the festival grounds, all by train. We'd have to hop a few freight trains, but he was confident we could make it.

He went on that he actually caught a train back home when we split, and that's what gave him the whole idea. All right, so what kind of festival, I asked. Indy, New Wave, Sludge Pop, Beachbum, Crap, he said as fast as he could. Exactly what I wanted to hear. I was hesitant at first, but I mean Chaz's enthusiasm. was just unrelenting. Before I knew it, I was agreeing to meet him at the local train yard next month. He literally had everything planned out, from when he needed to depart, and when he would arrive, to which train he needed to hop on in order to be on time. Frankly, I was blown away,

super impressed with how much time he thought about this, and put into it. As we continued talking, I'll admit, something though, Chaz sounded different. almost like something was off. His voice was tighter, more urgent. There was almost a hint of desperation in his tone. I didn't know what to make of it, other than maybe he was just excited. I wanted to ask about how things were going at home. Maybe something was wrong for him to be so focused on hypothetical train schedules,

but I didn't want to pry. For being a road-ass hobo, he was kind of a private guy, like to keep his personal stuff to himself. He was my best friend, so I had nothing but respect for boundaries like that. So I pushed those thoughts aside. We were going on an adventure, and I couldn't wait to see what lay ahead. Chaz said he'd send me more information over the next couple of days, but for the most part, all the hard work was done.

I just needed to pack up my stuff, get some extra strings, and make sure my hands were in working order for the next eight months. I breathed a sigh of restlessness as I hung up, already ready for this trip. Little did I know, this journey would take us down a dark, dangerous path, one that would test our friendship and our resolve. But for now, all I could think about was the thrill, the ride, the rush of adrenaline as we hopped from train to train,

and the music that would bring us together in the end. I got myself and my belongings ready over the next few weeks, patched up my backpack and patched up my jeans, tuned all my strings, even picked up a few extra sets just in case. I had all kinds of weird routines that I did before hitting the road, meditating, exercising, weird stuff that prepared my mind and body for month after month of pretty rough living. I even fasted before I started my travels, just to shrink up my stomach and get ready

for these sparse meals. The day finally came, and it was time to meet Chaz at the rail station. It's a relatively open place for our own. obvious reasons. I assumed Chaz would be riding in on a train. I stashed my stuff so it wasn't obvious that I was a hobo, just wandered up and down the tracks looking for any sign of him. After an hour or so, I see a little dumpy SUV pull up down the way. Sure enough, Chaz pops out with all his stuff. He waves to the driver, who waves back, then departs back toward town. I go over and greet my best friend, ask him about why he hitchhiked instead of rode a train.

He explained the train schedules are rigid, and none were coming this way. The quickest and safest way to get here on time was to hitchhike, and so here he was. Whatever the case, I was just glad to see him. Now we were ready to get the show rocking. Come on, man. Let's move, Chaz whispered, his eyes scanning the train station. A ride is waiting. I followed him, my heart racing with excitement.

Been planning this for weeks, and finally we were about to hop our first train. together. We shouldered all of our stuff, instruments as well, and began that long jaunt down the tracks. I was sick with sweat, nervous as hell, fearing something bad would happen. I don't know why. I just heard about all kinds of crazy horror stories about train hopping, everything from run over accidents to getting teeth knocked out by railway workers, just kept close to Chas and watched my back as we walked. We made our way down the line, avoiding detection by hiding behind crates and stacks of luggage. Finally, we found a quiet car with an open door. In here, Chaz said, gesturing for me to enter. Dingey as hell, just a rough wooden floor with some hay here and there. The car was mostly full of

pallets, but they had a little room for us to hide our belongings and sit down, stretch out if we wanted to. We made sure to keep clear of the door, just in case anyone came back to check on the car before departure. We settled in. Our backpack stashed in the corner. I couldn't believe it. We were actually doing this. We were train hopping out of my hometown. It was dead silent in there, and there was no sign of any workers. So we just shot the crap in there while we waited. Chaz said it could be a couple of hours before it was time. We caught up for a bit, talked about it. our holidays, and then he filled me in on the festival and that train-hopping schedule. I was over the moon to be having such a discussion. The hour slowly passed by, but eventually, the train

rumbled to life. We chugged out of town, the scenery blurring by us outside through the crack in the compartment door. I scoot it out from the wall so I could get a better look at the terrain as it went by. I knew once we were clear for the long haul, I'd probably break out my guitar and start jamming as the country went by. It's almost like something out of a music video, made me emotional to even think about. Dude, this is amazing, I said, grinning at Chas. He smiled back, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

I told you it would be. You want to play some tunes, I asked. He shook his head and got this funny look on his face. Let's get high instead, he said. This was another commonality between us. Chaz and I both loved to get messed up. It was one of the things that brought us together in Denver all those years ago. I'll admit he was a little crazier than me, but I could hang with the best of them with almost any poison.

I figured he wanted to smoke some weed or pop some pills at the most, break out a ball of coke. Instead, he pulled out a drug that I had never used before, black, sticky heroin. I remember getting a jittery nervous feeling all throughout my body, and for some reason I instantly had to take a dump. scary and exciting, just like that train ride. I figured this would be a perfect place to experiment. Chaz did the honors, as I had no idea how to even prepare a shot of heroin. I just watched in awe.

He explained he started using on his last trip home, and it quickly became integral to his creative process. Loved playing music when he was high on it. He argued that all the greats used it during their prime, and frankly, I couldn't really argue. I wouldn't have anyway, as I loved it. I loved using too much to mess it up. After he hit me with it, I just remember blasting off, feeling like my body was tripping away underneath the train as it rocketed along the earth.

Such a euphoric sensation, truly indescribable, but that's what all us junkies say, isn't it? We start chasing that high, and it's never coming back, all that tacky Hollywood crap. It was honestly amazing, and I fell in love with that draining rush instantly. We rode in silence for a while, a while, watching the countryside roll by. We would talk occasionally, but mostly we were just zoned out

and enjoying the ride, both literally and figuratively. Anytime anything cropped up in my head that I thought I should be concerned about, but nothing like that ever came to me. No anxiety, no panic, nothing but bliss. The hours ticked by, and we got closer and closer to our next rail station. Then Chaz stood up, his eyes fixed on something outside. I looked and saw the sun had gone down quite a bit. Time to get out, he said, his voice low. We grabbed our packs and I followed him, my heart pounding. It was like all that stress from earlier had suddenly reappeared, now wanting to suffocate me. I gripped my guitar case with steady resolve, trying to quickly catch my breath and did my best to be quiet and alert. We jumped off the train as it moved to the next station. Our

feet pounding the gravel. If the train had been moving any faster, we both would have eaten dirt. There was a pile of rubble nearby, some kind of jackhammered concrete. If we had fallen headlong into that, we both would have cracked our skulls and died right there on the first stop. We made our way through the station, avoiding detection by hiding behind pillars and these little alcoves. Finally, we found the next train that we needed to be on. Chaz was seriously badass at reading trains. I don't even know what he was looking for, whether it be icons or serial numbers of some kind, but he found us the right train every time, without fail. We continued to repeat the process, hiding in a car, then waiting for the train to depart. This station seemed to have

much more in the ways of employees, though, as we could hear boots crunching on the gravel outside, occasional voices, shadows passing over the crack in the door. My heart was was slamming at this point, terrified that we'd be discovered. Not only were we traveling illegally, but we also had heroin, which I suspected would land us in even deeper crap. We stashed our stuff deep in the cart and hid out in the back corner. Eventually, somebody came over and pulled the hatch open, took a look into the car. With the new light, I could see a little better. When I looked over to Chas to see what we should do, I found him loading up another bullet full of heroin. I couldn't believe it, but I was honestly relieved. I wanted all this nonsense to

dissolve the second that needle hit my vein. He had us both dosed up by the time the train was rolling down the railway, and I could tell it was a higher amount this time. I was swimming, teetering on total detachment from myself and the world around me. This time, though, we nodded off again, the most stereotypical junkie behavior on the chart I know. I don't know how much time went by at least a few hours, and then our lives were messed up forever. Our peace was shattered when we awoke. We were being dragged off the train by rough hands, our bodies collecting a healthy array of splinters of various sizes, burying themselves deep all over our hips, stomach, chest, and neck. As I'm being dragged, my head is bouncing off every pallet corner around me,

taking me out of that heroin delusion right into a concussive state. What the hell? I protested. My words met with a punch to the gut. I tried to kick out, but someone caught my legs, and another person started drilling me in the groin with a closed fist. I lost all steam after that, could hardly breathe from the pain shooting through my body. Next, a boot found my face, and somebody did the favor of kicking my head in. Chaz and I were beaten mercilessly, our cries for help ignored by any and all that could hear them. They continued to drag us until we fell five feet onto the hard ground below, that further knocked the wind out of me as I felt like I was drowning.

Then came more fists, more boots. I looked up to recognize our assailants were the railway workers. They kicked our asses inside and out for another ten minutes before throwing all of our stuff into the dirt and telling us to get lost. We gathered up as much as we could and just limped our way out into the woods. Neither of us spoke as we stumbled into our next little town. We found a dingy bar where we bought some beer and cigarettes, then wandered the streets, searching for a place to hide.

It was pretty much our only option since getting removed from the train, just trying to recover as much as possible. We didn't know anyone in the town we were in, didn't even know the name of it, no cell phones, no tablet, no nothing, just clothes, drugs, and instruments. Eventually, we found an alley, dark and narrow. We wandered down a bit to get away from the businesses near the front of it, found a pretty dingy-looking dump in the back.

We collapsed onto the ground, our body's aching. It was pretty dark back there, even had a dumpster to help get us out of sight of everything else. You want to jam a bit? I said. Chas shook his head at me, his eyes dark. Rather get high, he said. My heart skipped a beat as I watched him look at. up the needle. I didn't want to do this, but Chaz reassured me, his voice low and persuasive, play music after we got that good and got that magic in us. I can now see how much of a toll this was

taking on him. Chaz had been using maybe a little longer than he let on, was gone, vainy, super pale. We shared that needle, the drug coursing through our veins like fire. I felt myself drifting away, my vision blurring again. We talked for a bit, but I really don't remember any of it. Again, he must have up the ante, because I was absolutely blasted to hell in that shot. We never even pulled our guitars out, never played a single note on that trip,

just did heroin three times, passed out in our own mess in the back of some crappy alley. When I awoke eight hours later, Chaz was still beside me, his eyes glassy and unfocused, his chest was still, and he was unnaturally pale. Chaz? I whispered, shaking him.

How long you've been up? He didn't respond. I thought maybe he was still high, so I shook him again. That's when I noticed how cold he was, the paleness, the chill on his skin. Something was wrong. Then I noticed the dried vomit on the side of his face, a touch of blood underneath his nose. I was looking at my best friend's dead body, literally, the syringe still in his lap. that sent us to the moon. Panic set in. I scrambled to clean up all the drug paraphernalia.

I couldn't be caught with this stuff. I didn't know what could happen to me, but I knew how much more heroin Chaz had in his stuff, and I would definitely test dirty if this turned into some kind of investigation. There's no way I was getting caught up in anything crazy like that, so I just did the only honest thing I could think of. I stumbled out of the alley with my heart racing, reported Chaz's body to the proper authorities. I did it anonymously, just saying I saw a young man laying in the back of the alley between such and such bars. I was in total shock, teetering on losing my grip on reality. I had the jitters from all the heroin, and I was absolutely starving for some kind of real food. I got a meal somewhere with my last few dollars and found a place to

spend the night. I got my stuff together, slept in a park hidden away in the dark, and cried the entire night. I knew I only had one option, to go back home. This was the worst-case scenario. The music festival wasn't even on my radar. Chaz overdosing was not part of the plan, and now I was thrown to the wind. He and I had courted chaos for the better part of three years, so that kind of thing catching up to us was partially expected. Still, it was a brutal thing to endure in a town I didn't even know, with zero access to any kind of resources. or any kind of support. I hitchhiked home, morning Chas every mile of the way. I didn't even know who to call to tell. We traveled together as companions, but I didn't know anything about his home

life or his family. I wasn't even sure of his last name or the town he actually lived in. I wish I could tell you that I got myself together after this whole experience, but I didn't. I actually got much, much worse for the next few years. I stopped traveling around as much, stayed home getting plastered every night. I gave up music, just started partying and getting tanked with my buddies. It was the only way to cope with the reality that I met out there. I did clean myself up, but only within the last couple of years, with the help of podcasts and YouTube channels like this one. The most interesting man I ever met in my life used to work as a tunneling contractor. I first met him when I was assigned as his parole officer after he was released 23 years into a 45-year prison sentence.

I quickly recognized him as one of the good ones. To me, there are two types of parolees. Those who are going to give me problems and those who aren't. They come in all shapes, sizes, and characters, but you can always categorize them into one of those two groups, and you can tell which one they will be from the moment you lay eyes on them. I figured Mike would be the troublesome kind, not so much because of what he had done. but because of whom he had done it to. Back in the late 80s, Mike worked as a tunneling engineer

for a major construction company in the Southwest. He worked on tourist attractions, mining sites, waste management sites, and even an R&D facility for a pharmaceutical company. He made great money, but then one day, Mike's boss told him that all the work was drying up

and his services would no longer be required. This left Mike in a difficult situation because he had a mortgage, credit card, and car payments to keep up with. And a seven-month-long crash in the regional construction business meant that he couldn't get a callback from any other company, let alone a sit-down with a CFO or a workable contract. As the prospects of defaulting and foreclosure started to loom large, Mike got a call from a guy asking if he was free to do some work.

Mike said it was like a bolt from the blue. He was ready to dig a tunnel to China if it paid enough to keep the repo, men away. However, the more he talked to the representative of his potential new employer, the more he realized it wasn't going to be like any other job. Mike offered to send over his license number, insurance, and bonding information, something 95% of employers would ask for before even discussing a project with a potential contractor. But the guy on the phone didn't seem interested. In a way that would have been creepy if it weren't for the friendly manner of offering work, the caller told Mike that they were familiar with his work, had done

their due diligence, and were ready to offer him the job once he'd signed a confidentiality agreement. In all the years Mike had been digging and blasting tunnels, no one had ever asked him to sign anything resembling a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement. So right away, he figured this particular job was going to be different. But when he heard what the rate of pay was going to be, He almost choked on thin air. The most he had ever been paid for a single day's work was about $800, which, as any contractor will tell you, is a solid amount,

especially during those first five to ten years of trading. But the job Mike was being offered by the guy who didn't seem to care if he was legit or not, was $2,000 cash in hand at the end of every single day. Mike said it was like a kiss on the cheek on one side, and a slap in the face on the other. $2,000 a day was good money, but in cash every day, it was way too good to be true. But at the same time, Mike wasn't in the position to turn his nose up at that kind of money, so instead of flat out refusing, he thought he'd play along, see what the job entailed,

and then make a definite decision at a later date. A few days later, the guy called him back and told him to drive out to the parking lot of some diner near Columbus, New Mexico. but he was to get there at 10 p.m., Mike showed up when he was supposed to, thinking that the job was going to be at the diner, but instead, he found a whole crew of guys standing around in the cold. When he got out of his car and identified himself, someone with an authoritative air about them told him to wait with the others. Sometime later, a long Greyhound-style bus showed up, and Mike correctly assumed that they would be traveling to the work site. what he didn't expect was for everyone to be given their very own blindfold. Obviously this made everyone pretty nervous, but they were reminded of the pay, and that they could walk away at any time they wanted.

The only condition was that they wear the blindfolds when traveling to and from the work site. Mike said a couple of guys actually walked back to their cars and drove away, which, in all fairness, is exactly what he should have done too. but as we've already covered, he had his plan laid out, so he got onto the bus, put on his blindfold, and then waited to be told to unmask. Mike said the bus must have traveled down a highway for a while because the ride was pretty smooth, but then that all changed when they turned down what was obviously some kind of side or dirt road. The journey continued for a little while, then the bus came to a stop, but instead of being

allowed to take off their blindfolds, Mike and the company were let off the bus still blindfolded, then walked all the way into some large building, before being allowed to demask. Mike said that the inside looked like a warehouse that had been gutted of shelving before all the floor paneling had been ripped up. Someone had already gotten to work digging a pretty deep hole. They just had to wait for the engineers to get there before really opening up the tunnel. Mike said that, aside from the real secretive nature of it all, it was a very professional operation. Whoever wanted the tunnel dug had all the right materials and machinery. They just didn't have the expertise. Before they got to work, someone asked why all the secrecy, and the group was told that it was a decision from corporate.

They operated in a viciously competitive market, and so certain security measures had to be taken to ensure their employer maintained an advantage. For the most part, this answer seemed to satisfy, But Mike said that there was still a handful, himself included, that had a feeling what they were doing wasn't strictly legal. And he was right. Mike said that he made close to $30,000 before one morning, as the bus rolled back into the diner parking lot just before dawn. A bunch of federal agents ambushed the bus, dragged everyone out, and arrested them on the spot. It turns out their task had been to dig a tunnel under the border with Mexico, and their employers had been the Juarez drug cartel.

In light of that, Mike and the rest of the guys he'd worked with were hit with a ton of different charges, big ones too, some of which implicated them as active members of an international drug smuggling operation. He got 45 years, but that's not really the story that I want to tell you today. You see, as crazy as that story is, it's not the most frightening one Mike ever told me. This one occurred during his first week in federal prison, when he found himself a very small and very new fish dropped into some very dark and stormy waters. Mike said that the first week or so in prison was the most terrifying of his entire life. He'd spent a long time in jail, and that all counted toward time served, but being busted to a federal lockup was when he finally gave up hope

that he might somehow be able to appeal some of the charges. The prosecution painted him as some hardened cartel operative who had put the nation's security at risk in exchange for personal gain. All the cash he earned was seized, and he liquidated all of his assets to buy the best defense attorney he could afford, but it was no good. And when his cell door closed shut on that first night in prison, it took everything in Mike's power not to break down and weep. You've got to remember he was only 24 at the time of his arrest, 25 by the time he got to federal prison. I'm almost 60 now, and looking back on 25, you're basically still half a kid. How Mike managed to get himself involved in such a hairbrained scheme to begin with is beyond me.

But even as someone with such a strong inclination toward law and order, I can't say Mike's punishment entirely fit the crime. Mike was scared, but he was an adult. He knew what he'd have to do to survive, and that was to get into the good graces of a pre-established group to gain safety in numbers. He did so as quickly as he could, and was told his timing was perfect, because anyone who showered alone became a target for Black Betty.

Betty wasn't the guy's first name. His last name was Betany or something like that, and he wasn't called Black because he was African American. He got that part of his nickname because he scared the living crap out of people. He was just shy of seven feet tall, I heard, but a lean 200 pounds in change. He was mean, he could fight. But the worst thing was that every so often,

Black Betty got a taste for his fellow convict. If you were in with a bunch of guys, you could shower together, and although Black Betty sometimes followed and just stood there watching, he didn't make a move on anyone. But then, if you weren't with anyone, and you were one of the stragglers who showered alone, Black Betty would follow them in and take them, as he said. Mike said that he didn't shower for days, not until he and his new buddies decided to head down to the showers together.

When the time came, Mike said that he was huge. hugely looking forward to it, as he had a bad case of stink ass, and underarms that smelled like hot death. But when it came to heading to the shower block, Mike was told that he was going alone. At first, he thought it was some kind of joke, but it wasn't. His new buddies, who all of a sudden weren't acting very much like his buddies anymore, were deadly serious. He was going to go first, and he was going to go alone.

And if he had anything else in mind, he could expect not to survive the next. night. Mike said he was stunned. It felt like a nightmare that he was going to wake up from at any moment. Only he didn't wake up because it wasn't a nightmare. It was actually happening, and he was screwed. He said he needed to take a shower, not wanted to, needed to, so he waited until a few other new fish headed down, looking scared and alone, and hoped that he would get lost in the crowd. And when I say crowd, I mean maybe two or three other convicts, aware of the threat Black Betty posed. Everyone tried to wash up as quickly as they could, but it wasn't fast enough.

Betty had seen them walking off to the showers and followed, soap and towel in hand. As soon as he appeared, everyone started rushing off, but Black Betty didn't pay them any mind. Instead, he had his eyes fixed on old Mikey Boy, and when he tried to slip past like the rest of the new fish, Black Betty blocked his way. Betty backed him all the way up to the back wall of the shower block, saying all this stuff that was making Mike's skin crawl, warning him that if he fought back, it was only going to make things worse. Mikey was thinking that there was no way that he was about to just give up and give in, but at the same time, there was no way that he was going to win a one-on-one fight with

Black Betty. But even so, the best option was to give it his best shot, and if Betty killed him in the process, well, there were worse fates than death. Mike's back was right up against the wall, and he was about to tell his would-be violator that he would die before he turned around when he saw this flash of movement over Betty's shoulder. Suddenly, someone hooked a towel around Betty's neck and then jerked it back, sending him slamming backwards into the tiled floor of the shower block. The impact cracked Betty's head open, and while his eyes were still rolling in their sockets,

the guys that had ordered Mike to shower alone appeared and stuck Black Betty so full of holes that he looked like a blood sponge by the time they were done. Before they departed, Betty's killers told Mike that, and I quote, you didn't see anything, which is exactly what he told the warden when he was dragged into his office later on that day. He was so traumatized by what he'd seen

that the warden and his top guys had no trouble believing the story. They knew it wasn't Mike who had stabbed Betty over 100 times. They just didn't know who did. When Mike wandered back onto the wing, the first people who wanted to talk to him were his buddies. They showered him in smokes, contraband, and all kinds of commissary. Mike said that they even had a plastic cup full of prison wine waiting for him to glug down, out of sight of the guards.

Long story short, they used him as bait. Betty wouldn't go for just anyone. Mike was his type, and it was either risk him or keep everyone at risk, because Betty wasn't just a habitual predator. He was an opportunistic one too. While Betty was around, no one was safe, but with Betty gone, Mike amounted to a cell-block hero. It was his arrival that had given them a golden opportunity to take Betty down, as they knew that Mike was the kind of new fish that Betty would have his eye on.

The thing was, Mike's buddies knew that if they let him in on the plan, there was a chance that he'd be too scared to go through with it, and so a little coercion seemed in order. Mike stayed with the group of guys for a long time before later being transferred to a medium security prison called Three Rivers, where he served out the rest of his sentence. Luckily, there was no one like Black Betty around to terrorize the inmates. To me, the idea of being used as bait to lure out a human animal is one of the most frightening concepts I can possibly think of. But while I've heard that ignorance is bliss, I think not knowing you're the bait might be even more terrifying. What's worse, Betty's killers floated the idea of only beginning their ambush once he was, shall we say, occupied with Mike.

That way they could ensure that he'd be suitably distracted, but it also meant condemning Mike to a truly nightmarish fate. Thankfully for him, they decided that they couldn't live with that, not by unanimous decision anyways, but they came to that decision all the same. Last time I spoke with him, Mikey was driving for Uber up in Dallas. He said he had a girlfriend and that she had a kid, and that he felt more and more like a father by the day. He's come a long way since digging tunnels in Mexico, and he's come a long way since being used as bait for a monster. There's so much strangeness, and so much can go wrong for a person out in the desert. It's no wonder places like this are considered some of the most dangerous in the world. There's no cover from the elements, no water, and everything in the dirt seems intent on hurting

or even killing you. This is a countdown to my most messed-up desert experience. Buckle up. To start off lightly, once on a remote dirt road in Joshua Tree, I saw a decomposing rattlesnake. I pulled over to inspect it. It was three to four feet long and had been dead for perhaps a week, still mostly intact. The snake had been run over, and I found it with its neck. turned sharply, biting its body. I tell you this story to put the desert into perspective for

those who haven't really experienced it. This rattlesnake preferred to break its own neck and commit suicide with a fatal bite rather than suffer under the sun. It's absolutely brutal to see. Next, I was in Butt Valley for a few months after the Death Valley Germans disappeared and explored some of the places they had been to. For those who don't know, the Death Valley Germans were a from Germany, a husband, wife, and two children. They were on a vacation trip through California when they decided to tour Death Valley, not fully understanding the dangers. After the father got them lost, he got their van stuck, and the family was forced to walk.

This all took place in 1996. They weren't found until 2009, by then reduced to nothing but bones bleached by the sun. These folks were simply unprepared for the harsh reality of the people, for the harsh realities of the desert. Stories like these need to be talked about and understood to prevent them from happening again. Too many day-trippers head out into seriously dangerous territory only to find themselves stuck, lost, or both.

Rescue services often don't even know where to begin searching for them without proper precautions, and attempts at retrieval are almost always too late. It was a shame because there were two well-equipped cabins they passed less than an hour's walk away, but they could have thrived for a month if necessary in the opposite direction. The wash is soft and sandy, and walking it was like walking down an escalator. On the few steep parts, it intersects with the road.

Eventually, the lights of the distant town of Shune are visible along that canyon as well. Instead, they made this grueling hike over an extremely difficult mountain range, expecting to run into guards that would be patrolling the remote military base they saw on the map, which in fact is actually a seldom used bombing range protected by its remoteness and inaccessibility. It's really remote out there, and occasionally spooky at night if you're all alone. When I went camping in that area, I could see fires burning off in the distance. Some looked like well-placed campsites, but others were smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, almost where one would expect a wildfire to be.

Instead, I would see little figures dancing around the flames, jumping and doing all manner of weird stuff. It looked almost ritualistic, barbaric. But I have to admit I was squinting through the dark for possible miles. Aside from those fire dancers, the noises were really weird too, hollers and chants echoing between the canyons and the rock bases. Nothing animalistic, but almost like they were singing. It's hard to explain.

It almost sounded like the wind when I heard it, just voices being carried on the wind. And since it's just rolling desert out there, the sound has this creepy way of carrying itself from one area to another. All this just to set the tone for the creepiest thing to ever happen to me, out in the desert after decades of scurrying around those dunes. One time, I was taking my young teen nephews out to a remote but well-known desert canyon for a weekend of quodding and exploring. I went on seasonal trips in the later months, starting to teeter into the winter. My nephews at the time were just boys, maybe eight and twelve years old, respectively. This was one of those trips to give my sister a break from her kids, but also to do my part as an uncle,

to make these boys into men. A little rugged dirt camping in the desert is a perfect recipe for such an endeavor. We zipped out of civilization quickly, disappearing into the California backcountry. As we were doing so, a ragged woman was walking down the road, which was all almost a mile from the canyon mouth to the paved road. Not in distress, but apparently grown bored with whatever party was happening in the hills and going to hitch a ride back to Barstow. The party favors are never running low, and casts of this variety weren't too uncommon, especially for this recreational area at the time. We weren't really in the sticks yet,

just barely off the main drag, so campers and day-drinkers would still be plentiful. There was no room to drive around her, so I slowed down and stopped a good distance away. She kept walking toward a motorhome at the same pace until she got to the bumper and just stopped, then stared at me with this ragged tweaker face. We looked at one another, engine still idling, as my nephews waited in the back for something to happen. Is she okay? One of them asked. I don't know, was the only thing I could reply with. Should we help her? Absolutely not. I said, very clearly. This wasn't a situation where you stopped, let alone open the door for someone with a face like that. Still, I understood where my nephews were coming from. They were good kids.

This woman did kind of look distressed, like someone you might reach a handout to help. After a minute or two, I was wondering if I was going to have to get out and move her so we could continue down the road. She had this determined look, then started marching around to the passenger side. as she was clear of the front, I gunned it and drove off before she could even start trying our doors. It was the most unexpected place to encounter this stereotypical, opportunistic urban junkie. It was clear as day the second she made that face that she was going to try to get in the car and do her best to force us to turn around and drive her back to the city. This lady had this dried up desperation, needing to get high again. We bolted by, and as I looked in my rear view,

I watched her throw her arms up in defeat, screaming all manner of crazy stuff back at us. But then she did something that I did not expect. She turned on her heel and started following us. Not quickly, but at the slow walk, the same she had before when we rolled up on her. She was in it for the long haul. I just remember swallowing and thinking there's no way she's going to be able to keep up, but damn, we were in a camper, not going very fast, and created a lot of dust, If she was persistent, she could probably find us.

I just hit the gas and mozied on toward the campsite. I knew the area well, much better than some barstow-bound methhead. We wound back into the desert, well out of sight of that woman, until we hit the spot that we'd call home for the next couple of days. It was well out of the way, totally out of view from the mini dirt road and other camping spots inside that area. We hadn't seen anybody else on our drive back there, so we knew we were set in regards to getting some alone time. Still, in the moment, I couldn't shake

the image of that crazy junkie lady turning and following us. Eventually I just lost myself in the chores of setting up camp, getting the fire pit ready, gathering wood, and when we were ready, setting up a makeshift area for us to relax, all that normal stuff. My nephews helped, of course, ignorant to the fact that that lady might still be out there looking for us. The day drifted by, and of course, I forgot about that entire encounter. In all honesty, we were something like 15 miles away from where we saw her, much further than she'd be willing to walk. I was sure of it.

Probably lost the nerve after a mile or two, turned back around, and headed the other direction. Either way, we were saddled up for the weekend, with no plans of moving. You'd be hard-pressed to find us out in the dark. We relaxed as the sun drifted away, leaving us with just the flames for light. The two dogs told spooky stories. I showed the kids what constellations we could see through the trees. We ate, relaxed a little more,

and just as I was starting to get tired, I heard something, the kind of thing you don't want to hear when you're all alone in the middle of the desert. Voices They seemed far off at first. But soon I could make out the cadence, the words. It sounded like two or three more people, a girl and at least one guy. I relaxed, thinking it was just some other campers out for a late-night stroll,

or maybe even coming back from the spring around the bend, where a little swimming could be done if wanted. I told you it was them, the voice screeched from just outside view. Me and the boys jumped at the sound, unsure of who or what was around us. Before I could even get up, she strolled into the firelight, pointing an accusatory finger directly at me. It was her, that tweaker that we had encountered on the road. I couldn't believe she found us, with company no less. Hey, uh, can we help you with something? I asked.

Yeah, you piece of crap, you left me out on the road. She screamed over the fire at me. So you come back to my camp and attack me? Get a grip and get the hell out of here, I explained in a stern voice. I had to make a show of this with the kids still wide awake. I gestured to my nephews and went on. I'm taking the kids out camping. I don't have time to play 20 questions with some lady who's standing in the middle of the road.

Better watch your mouth, boy, some guy said as he stepped out of the shadows, skinny, inked up and missing a good nine or ten teeth. He had cheap, shiny jewelry on his wrist and in his ears, looking like your average street wrapper, a piece of crap out of Fresno. or whatever part of California you're familiar with. I made it very clear to these people that I wasn't watching anything. This was my camp, my property, and my family. I wasn't obligated to help anyone out or do any favors for strangers in the woods. The fact that they had tracked me down was grounds enough for defense, or maybe just a call to the sheriff's office.

This didn't have the effect that I thought it would, instead of tucking tail and going back into the darkness, they doubled down, started screaming all kinds of threats and insults. I ushered both boys into the RV. We were quickly getting very upset before turning back and casually talking to the people. What I really was doing was packing up our loose belongings, all the stuff that mattered, and tucking it into the storage areas of the RV. The whole time, I was just pacifying, trying to talk but more as a dead. distraction. That was until Tweaker Dude picked up a rock, then threatened to smash my head in. At this point, I fronted like I had a gun, which I did. It was just inside the RV. I reached into

my back waistline, and that made the guy freeze up for a second just long enough for me to literally drive full bore through the door and inside the RV. I locked up behind me and ran for the driver's seat. By the time I got there, this idiot was smashing the outside of the RV with the rock. I was pissed, but I didn't have any other options other than flight. I fired up the engine, shifted, and then started that slow slog back to the main campgrounds. When the headlights lit up, I was in total shock. There were at least six or seven more tweakers all milling around outside the camp, waiting to see what happened. It dawned on me then that this was some kind of setup or something.

We were in the middle of a campsite robbery out in the middle of nowhere. I gunned it. At this point, there was no chance of me and the boys getting trapped out there with all of them. God knows what they'd do to us after they got us outside. The RV had a pistol with eight rounds in it, unchambered, as well as a 20-gauge single-barrel bird gun, also unloaded. The time it would take me to get into gear and load them up, they'd have all the windows smashed out and would be on top of me already.

Driving was the best and only option for us at the moment. I looked in the rear view as I swerved out of the campsite and, finally saw some good news, not a single person tried to follow us. We rambled onward, as the meager pile of belongings I'd left behind was enough to distract them all. There was a hammock, a couple of folding chairs, maybe even a small empty cooler, stuff I could easily replace. Besides, there wasn't a cost for protecting my nephews. They were obviously the top priority. We rambled out of the canyon as quickly as that RV would allow us. The boys finally calmed down once we left that chaos behind. Everything seemed to wind down. Stars twinkled overhead.

I tried to enjoy our escape as much as we could. Up ahead though, as we closed in on that paved roadway, I saw some headlights cutting through the brush. I figured I'd flash them with my brights and speak to them through the window if I could warn them about those thieves out in the campground tonight. To my utter surprise, it was a pair of sheriffs with the game warden in tow. They'd all received reports of a group of lunatics roaming the area. I confirmed everything that they had heard, told them exactly where they could find them, then proceeded on our way back home. There was no way I was going to make those kids sleep out there with the police combing the forest. It was better to go back to the lake or something, somewhere more populated and civilized. That's exactly what

we did, and that, folks, is my crazy desert tweaker story. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll be completely honest with you. I had next to no idea what I wanted to do with my life when I first applied to university. I'd always been interested in crime and police dramas, so I had an inkling that I'd end up doing something related to criminal justice. I just wasn't exactly sure what it would be. My mom had dreams of me being a barrister or an attorney here in the UK, but I didn't think I had the smarts for that kind of thing. I also didn't fancy anything too morbid, which put me at odds with almost everyone else on my course. Most of them wanted to get into forensics or CID, which is where you go to be a homicide detective or join the drug squad. On the other hand, I felt like

I wanted to do something more analytical, something impactful, but more behind the scenes. I know that makes me seem like some fussy little bugger, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking that. Yet if I can make one little correction, I think I was more like an indecisive little bugger. But a few years of study helped me see to that. The more I studied, the more I approached a kind of epiphany. Statistically, it's only a small portion of the population that commits crime, usually less than 10% of the country's overall population. Then, with certain crimes, that statistic is even smaller.

For example, with shoplifting, it's only something like 0.5%. of the British population that accounts for all incidents of shoplifting. That's only about 100,000 people out of a population of almost 70 million. My point is, it seemed like the best way to reduce certain types of crime was to focus on preventing re-offending, as opposed to imposing harsher sentences for said re-offending that would inevitably cause a person to sink deeper into criminality. Once I'd made my mind up about that, my ever-elusive career path lit up in front of me, and I took my first step on the road to becoming a probation officer. I volunteered with the Prison Advice and Care Trust when I was in my third year, an organization that provides support services to newly

released prisoners. I honestly just did it to get a taste of what it'd be like working with former prisoners, as I still had a few lingering doubts over whether or not I'd be any good at it. But when it came to applying for the trainee probation officer program following my graduation from uni, the Ministry of Justice practically bit my arm off owing to that prior experience. I spent six months attending a nearby learning development unit where I was taught the tricks of the trade. Then, after a series of rigorous computer-based tests, I was cleared as an officer of Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service. It was a bit surreal at first, especially when I told all my mates from back home about it. They couldn't picture me dealing with hardened criminals on a

daily basis, and honestly, neither could I. I did a load of conflict management and de-escalation training at the LDU, and it was all great training that I learned a lot from, but I also heard a couple of horror stories that served as examples of how not to tackle a tense situation with a client. And that's the word we were taught to use, client. Some think it's a much better term than probationer or ex-prisoner, in that it's a much softer, much more hopeful terminology. but it never really sat right with me. Client makes it sound like we're doing them a favor, when really, I think going straight

is them doing us the biggest favor possible. Anyway, my first few cases were massively challenging, but after that, I started to get the hang of things. I dealt with a lot of lads who had been caught in one little street fight on a drunken Saturday night. They weren't hardened criminals, and the last thing they ever wanted was to go back to prison, so getting them into work and sticking to root

we'd laid out was easy. Then there were people who had been in prison for dealing drugs. Those who had been in for lengthier stretches sometimes seemed like they genuinely wanted to get out of the game, but the ones who'd been in for three or four months for selling cannabis, you knew that they were going straight back to dealing no matter what you said or did for them. I had this one lad who said that he'd signed up to do bicycle deliveries for Uber Eats. I personally saw him whizzing all over town on two different occasions. I'd literally never seen anyone so keen on getting back into work, but then, when I checked with Uber Eats and gave them the bogus courier ID that he'd given me,

I discovered that he must have done a grand total of two or three deliveries before he started using his big green delivery bag as essentially a cover to go back to dealing. For the most part, that was about as exciting as it got. Clients trying to give you the runaround, having to chase down where they are and what they're doing. But I quickly came to prefer that more mundane sort of work, as the alternative was much, much worse. Every so often I was given one of two cases, a sex offender or a murderer. There were exceptions here and there, but when you're around someone who's taken a life, it's like there's a heaviness in the room.

I'm not talking about people convicted of things like manslaughter or death by dangerous driving, who are more often than not haunted by the people whose lives they've taken until the day they die. I'm talking about murderers, people convicted of killing in cold blood, or for money, or just for the sick, bloody thrill of it. One or two of them, I'd have never guessed were killers, without having seen their case file. And I think they were the creepiest of the lot because you could see why someone might trust them enough to put themselves in a vulnerable position. But the single creepiest client I've had so far was a sex offender. Now don't get me wrong, they're all frightening people in their own. way, but they're especially frightening if the offense has anything to do with children. Obviously,

I wasn't dealing with child killers or dangerous predators against children, because they tend to get whole life tariffs, and therefore no probation. But some of the clients that I did deal with who had been to prison for these offenses were just as sick, just as predatory, and just as creepy as the ones who'd killed. They just never crossed that line and took a life. I was about two and a half years, into my career, when my boss dropped by my desk with a caseload for me to work through. A caseload contains anywhere from a handful of cases to two dozen of them, sometimes even more. You can generally count on a bigger caseload to include a lot of low-priority clients, i.e. those released after serving sentences for relatively minor offenses.

You could get a drink-driving case, maybe someone who perjured themselves in court, which happens a lot more than you'd think, and all you had to do. to do was stop in with them every so often, have a chat and a cup of tea, and they'd always be sticking to their post-release goals. It'd be a time-consuming caseload, but generally not a stressful one. The stressful ones came when a caseload was only three or four files deep. And if it was that small, you knew what to expect, murderer or sex offender. And this caseload was no different. There were four cases, a murderer, a second murderer. a third murderer, and a sex offender.

As usual, my heart sank when I saw the words on that fourth file. Like I said, dealing with these types of people was always an unpleasant experience, but when the offense is related to the abuse or exploitation of children, it's doubly skin crawling. With some clients it pays to be emotional because when they see that you really give a toss about them, that they're not just a number or a statistic to you, they start to give a toss too. but every time I walked into a room with a convicted sex offender, I had to leave my emotions at the door.

It's not exactly an unconscious act either. In the past, I've had to actively pretend that the person in front of me was no different than any other client. I made no reference to what they'd done, focused entirely on their future, and kept whatever they'd been convicted of completely out of my head, because if even just for one small second you remind yourself that they prayed on a child, you just can't do your job anymore. And it's the process of switching off my emotions that I found myself repeating one morning on my first visit to the offender that I'd been assigned to.

Now, I'd get the sack if I used this bloke's real name, so I'll just call him Jimmy because, as repulsive as it is, this bloke had a very weirdly similar vibe to Jimmy Saville. He didn't have the hair or the chains or the track suit, nothing like that, but he had this let's be friends kind of vibe to him, along with this air of arrogance, like he'd forgotten where he'd just come from and why.

He was in his 50s and looked relatively harmless at first glance, but once you knew what he'd been convicted of, you realized just how dangerous he really was. Back when he was in his 20s, Jimmy had been working for a painting and decorating firm, and drove a small three-wheel van from job to job. One day, he sees an 11-year-old girl playing in the street with her mates after school. He calls her over and starts offering to teach her to smoke. Wild thing to do in this day and age. But it was the 70s back then.

So a very different time. Anyway, the girl says yes to the offer of being taught how to smoke, because again, different time, but is scared that her mom will see. Jimmy then gets her in his van and drives her off somewhere secluded. But then, he doesn't try to teach the girl to smoke. Instead, he tried to teach her to do something else. When the girl refused, Jimmy tied her up, beat the girl black and blue, and then kicked her out of his van and drove off. The girl walked two miles back into town, binding still around her wrists, and went straight to the nearest police station to make a report.

Jimmy was convicted on the testimony of the girl, her friends, and a passerby who'd said that they'd heard a girl crying in the parked van, but didn't think anything of it until the police made an appeal for information. That, along with a trove of indecent images found in his flat, landed Jimmy with almost 50 years in prison for each separate offense, and he got out after 35. My first meeting with him was the same as any other, a basic introduction to myself in the probation scheme, then a rough outline of what would be expected of him over the months to come. Obviously, clients are sometimes restricted from going near certain places, and in Jimmy's case, he was barred from anywhere where the last. it be kids. But then, the probation service very much takes a busy hands or happy hands approach to rehabilitation, and the way you keep a person from being tempted to go to set places is to make sure that they've got hobbies. I know it sounds daft. Give this creep a jigsaw

puzzle and he'll stop wanting to touch kids, but they've done studies on it, and if you keep these people occupied, if you can tire them out entirely, mentally or physically, the risk of long and short-term re-offending drops by 50%, which in our game is a significant number. So on the first visit when it came to briefly covering the whole hobbies thing, Jimmy mentioned that he'd taken up sketching in prison, and that he'd continued it post-release, as it kept his head straight, as he put it. I then asked if he had any drawings to show me, and he said that he did. A lot of lads will make out that they've got a hobby, or that they've taken up running, or any number of things, but when you call them on it,

they've yet to pick up the trainers, or yet to sign up for XYZ because they've been oh so busy post-release. But then Jimmy got up, walked over to the little coffee table in his living room, and then brought back a sketchbook of things that he'd been working on. He opened up the book, and right away, I was struck by how bloody good he was. There were all these horses, amazingly drawn ones too, in all kinds of different poses. I asked Jim if he liked horses, and he told me, Not really, they're just the hardest thing to draw. Draw a horse, and you can draw a human.

No problem. He mentioned a few other things about form and curvature, but I wasn't really listening at that point. I was completely dumbfounded by how good his drawings were. But then, considering that he'd been practicing for the better part of two decades, he was exactly as good as he should have been. Still, though, I was awfully impressed, and if he already had a hobby boxed off,

then it made my job a lot easier. If I could just use the drawing as proof of his extracurricular activities, it also gave me huge peace of mind too, because offenders have a recidivism rate that floats around 15%, depending on which studies you read, and that's always in the back of your mind when you're dealing with them. It could be your actions or your observations that send them back to prison before they get a chance to re-offend. But then, obviously, that's a hell of a lot of pressure. having a serial shoplifter go back on the rob, and the Gordon's gin company loses a tenor, have a kid toucher re-offend, and the victim deals with it for years, possibly even for the rest of

their lives. I kept a close eye on Jimmy, and although I won't say where, I managed to get him back into work. Everything appeared to be going okay, and for a while, I was half convinced that he really did want to go back on the straight and narrow, but at the same time, there were other things that made me suspect that he hadn't quite turned over a new leaf. He seemed to be trying a bit too hard to convince me that he was ready to live a normal life, and then whenever something in our discussions didn't go his way, it was like you saw his fake happy-go-lucky persona drop for a second, and you saw the real Jimmy underneath. It was that duplicity that made me want to keep a closer eye on him, and in situations like that, the devil can quite literally be in the

details. For example, the halfway house we placed Jimmy in was in this big old Georgian-looking building, and each of the rooms had these floor-to-ceiling windows. This meant that on the way in to have a chat with him, I could actually see into the living room of Jimmy's little flat there before I got to the front door. And then one day, as I'm walking in to see him, I spy him through the window doing another one of his drawings. But then, instead of a book with a gray cover like the one he'd showed me during the first visit, I could quite clearly see that the book that he was drawing in then had a sort of pinky purple cover. I think if it had been any other color, I might have missed it, but the distinctive hue just so happened to catch my eye. Once I was inside, it was down

to a motionless business as usual. But then, just as I was leaving, I asked him. Moved on to a new sketchbook, huh? But instead of showing me his latest work, he gave me this community. He gave me this confused look and then told me, no, I'm still working on the same one. I told him I was quite certain that he'd been drawing in a pink sketchbook as I caught a glimpse of him on the way in, but with the same bewildered expression, Jimmy claimed to have no idea what I was talking about. I knew that he'd been drawing in a different colored sketchbook. There was no way that I was mistaken. So I reminded him that hiding things or engaging in any kind of duplicity whatsoever was a very bad look for someone in his position. He put on that let's be friends attitude again,

and then invited me to search the flat for any sign of this non-existent pink sketchbook. I didn't call his bluff, not right away. If he was confident enough to invite me to search his flat, then he probably had a very effective hiding place, and although I had next to no idea what was in it, I knew at that point I had to find it. As I said earlier, if a client displays any kind of duplicitous behavior, it can speak volumes. In the case of that Uber eats cannabis dealer, the consequences can be minimal. But in the case of someone like Jimmy, incompetence on the part of a probation officer can spell disaster for an innocent member of the public. The only problem was, I couldn't exactly go throwing around allegations willy-nilly. Say I went to my bosses and told them,

I suspect a client is doing something rather sneaky, so I need officers to turn his flat upside down so I can find a notebook I'm not even certain is there anymore. And then the police don't find the book? I could lose my job. I'm not saying I want to live in a world where past and present prisoners don't have any rights and are denied a chance to turn their lives around. I respect the fact that I needed evidence of my suspicions, but sometimes bridging the gap between suspicion and accusation

can be very frustrating indeed, especially when it comes to someone as downright cunning as Jimmy. That took about six or seven weeks before I was able to catch him drawing in that little pink book again. I was in my car, binoculars in hand, which, by the way, was about the only time I ever felt like the trench coat wearing noir detective that I'd always dreamed about and read about when I was a kid. Then, once I was satisfied that he was using his little pink book, I gave him a quick call on my mobile as I continued to watch him. He actually jumped when he heard his phone going, and when he picked up. I saw him do that reverse werewolf transform of going from startled and moody-faced to greeting me like a long-lost friend. I told him that I'd been a right div and had messed up my diary and had double-booked for our meeting the next day.

I followed up by asking him, in the nicest way possible, if I could stop by for a chat, maybe in the next five minutes or so, because I was just around the corner. Jimmy said, Sure, no problem. And then we ended the call. I then watched as Jimmy closed the pink book, picked it up, and then walked off to a corner of his flat before bending down. Next time I saw him, there was no pink book in his hand. Wherever he was hiding it, it was in that particular corner that he just scurried off to before he appeared empty-handed. It made sense that he couldn't hide the book in his bathroom, as the moisture would probably ruin the pages or something. So it had to be in his living room somewhere, and it had to be down pretty low. The next time Jimmy was at work, I enlisted the help of two community support officers in a search of his flat,

with me instructing the pair of them to pay particular focus to that one corner of the room. About ten minutes later, after pulling up a loose section of carpet, one of the PCSOs called me over to a gap in the floorboards and asked me, Is this what you're looking for? It was the little pink book. In a weird way, I was actually quite excited to see what was in it. A lot of criminals try to reestablish connections when they leave prison, so there was a slim chance that there might be details of other active predators in that book,

which would get me a massive pat on the back if I turned it into my bosses. But if I'm being honest, nothing could have prepared me for what was in that book. About one-third of it was filled with incredibly detailed drawings of school-aged children, all bound and gagged by various means and in various positions. Much like the horses Jimmy drew, the pictures of the children were shockingly detailed and lifelike. Their little faces were either twisted up with pain or fear, or they stared back at their creator with wide, frightened eyes. But unlike the horse drawings, which were so unexpectedly impressive that they verged on awe-inspiring,

these drawings made me feel sick to my stomach. It was like I was holding a piece of radioactive material or something. Now I know that might sound a bit melodramatic to some people, but that's what it felt like to me. It was like I could feel all this hideousness just radiating off the book, like I wanted to seal it up and burn it and bury its ashes under 20 feet of earth. Whoever drew those pictures was a very, very sick person, and the idea that I'd been sharing cups of tea with him made me want to take a shower in hot bleach. I only got a good look at about two or three of the drawings before I slammed the book shut. My heart was pounding as I asked the support officers to hang around for a bit. Then I gave my boss a call to let him know what we'd found.

Seeing those drawings was probably one of the darkest moments of my entire life, but then knowing that I'd secured my evidence was one of the highlights, and it came with an adrenaline rush to match. Within the hour, regular uniformed officers were dispatched to Jimmy's place of work, and he was placed under arrest. Then he was promptly transported back to prison, to await the decision of the parole board. Once it was determined that he'd breached his license,

the board announced that he'd remain in prison for the remaining 15 years of his sentence, and that, thank Christ, was the end of my working relationship with Jimmy. Back at 45 Division, which is what we called HQ, it was Pats on the back all around for yours truly. I was the office favorite for about two weeks after, because it felt like we'd achieved something really significant.

Everyone, the parole board included, felt that Jimmy was almost certainly on the path to re-offending, and if he'd kept us all fooled and been allowed back into society, he could have done untold damage to any number of children, including those of the people we worked with. I think that's why the result was received so well. I'd diffused a ticking time bomb that could have blown up in just about anyone's face. In a way, that goes right back to why I joined the probation service in the first place. I'd found what I was good at, and what I was good at made a difference. I've spent countless days hunting in the southern Texas desert.

It's where my family is from, and I grew up dusting critters from 100 yards under the careful supervision of my pop and granddad. Over time, I became a solid hunter all on my own. I bagged just about everything you can along the border, and I've done every kind of trip that you can with family, friends, or even by myself. It's a fun, if not. therapeutic investment of my time and one that I've always really enjoyed. One trip haunts me though and it was about ten years ago.

My buddies Tim, Carrie and I decided to solo hunt for wild pigs, or boars, as some folks call them. We've been coming to this region for years and knew the terrain like the back of our hand. We were probably the best hunters out there among our immediate group of friends, which was one of the reasons we all wanted to go together to keep the dead weight off and to keep the dead weight off and just bring back trophies. Every afternoon we would compare the height and weight of our kills. The desert stretched out before us like an empty grave, sandy dunes rolling out in the distance. We set up camp in a secluded spot far from any prying eyes. This wasn't an area known for anything nefarious, but being in the middle of nowhere, especially near the border, you just

never know what could happen. So we learned early on that it's better to be safe than sorry. Besides, getting out away from the rest of the world was where we'd find good hunting. We all settled in for the night, passing a tinfoil wrap full of tamales around the fire. We heard a strange sound like nothing any of us had ever heard before. It started as a low hum, then rose to a piercing wine before dropping back down to a gentle whisper. We all exchanged uneasy glances but said nothing, yet it was as if we were all thinking the same thing. What the hell is that? It has to be just a coyote or something, Tim said,

finally breaking the silence. Yeah, or maybe it's a plane flying overhead, Carrie added, though we all knew it wasn't either of those things. That sound continued for a while, then abruptly stopped. We sat there listening to the silence, our ears straining to pick up any further noises. But there was nothing except the crackling of the fire and the occasional hoot of an owl in the distance. All right, well, I'm turning in, Tim said, standing up and dusting off his pants. Got an early start tomorrow, boys. Yeah, I guess I will too, Carrie said following suit.

I nodded, though I wasn't tired at all. I stayed up for a while just listening to the darkness, still wondering what that sound had been. But it didn't come back, and eventually I drifted off to sleep with my dreams filled with strange unsettling images. Like I said earlier, I've spent decades out in this region, hunting, camping, and generally just roughing it. I've never heard anything even close to that, and those dreams I had were even more unsettling. They were all more than likely unrelated, but at the time, I thought something was trying to speak to me through my thoughts. It kind of freaked me out. As I lay there, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched,

that something was out there waiting for us to venture into its domain. I quickly pushed that thought aside, telling myself I was just spooked. After all, we've been hunting in these woods for years and never seen anything out of the ordinary. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered, what if this time it's different? It has to happen sometime, right? We woke up in the morning, and everything was fine. We got up just before the sun when everything is suspended in that weird, hazy blue. Camp was intact.

there weren't any weird sounds, no signs of critters or humans alike. We brewed a pot of coffee and killed it immediately, then got our gear together for the hunt that day. Now, I knew how Tim and Carrie hunted. They follow ridgebacks at a slope and try to flush little herds of pigs out into the open. They'd walk with their backs to the sun, which was smart, but I wanted to be on my own, not just taking pot shots at pigs on the run. No, if I was going to out hunt either of these guys, I was going to have to take a different approach entirely. We all wished each other good luck, then wandered off in our separate directions. Tim went north and Carrie went west. I started hoofing at southeast, the exact opposite direction.

I wore full desert camo, but just the light stuff, nothing heavy or paramilitary, just enough to let me disappear from vision if I stumbled upon a herd. I was going light for this first hunt, as it was mostly just for scouting anyway. All I had on me was a seven-shot three, 57 magnum on my hip, binoculars, and a camelback water system. Just the basics. I moved along ahead of a plateau until it dipped away into this long, winding gully. Even in the early morning light, I could see it snaking off for at least a mile. This was the kind of terrain feature you might find some pigs in, especially with it being so long. There might be water or little ponds. pockets of cactus fruit to eat. I dropped down below the gully from the top lip so I could easily

look down inside of it rather than up and out. It allowed me a vantage point into the pockets of the ravine, but it also let me see the flatland on the other side. I kept my binoculars handy as I trailed along those badlands under the bright sky. Thirty minutes later, I wasn't seeing much sign of pigs. Then I heard some gunfire off in the distance. In the moment, it was kind of hard to tell which direction it had come from, but I thought maybe back west, the way my buddy had gone. It was possible he came upon something and decided to drop it. Part of me thought it sounded dead south, though, and the border was only a few miles away. It was kind of an uneasy feeling for a moment as I walked out in the open that gully wandered on.

I crossed it and started walking to the other side before eventually finding a little game trail through the brush. I abandoned the gully and followed the trail. Soon, there were some scat and scratch marks, all kinds of evidence of pig. I unlatched my holster and scanned the area, following the heaviest traffic trail. About half a mile later, I came up over a ridge and heard some rustling. Sure enough, a monster boar came around this huge boulder and gave me its broadside. I went still and let it wander before drawing and dropping that sucker right there in the dirt. It was almost a wide shot, but the thing was so big it was impossible to miss a killshot on,

especially that close. It wheezed a little, but went down in a second and died without much suffering. I was stoked. This thing must have weighed at least 300 pounds. I wasn't sure how I'd get it back to camp, but I'd killed it nonetheless. I was fairly certain I had those boys beat too, so I holstered my gun and got to gutting the thing. The quicker I got it broken down, the quicker. quicker I could haul it back to camp. About halfway through that field dressing, I heard something

off in the distance. My eyes peeled wide when I recognized the sound from the night before. The thing me and the fellas heard right before we went to bed. Some weird droning, whining and whispering, yelling too far away to understand it. Still so bizarre. After only a few minutes, I understood what it was. It got closer and closer until I could hear the whine of an engine, the chug of silver. Those whispers turned into lyrics from some rock song. It was a side by side, a razor. It was coming up on me fast. For some reason, I took a few steps back and tucked myself behind a little brush.

I wasn't totally hidden, but I was positioned in a way that I could disappear in a hurry if need be. The place we were at didn't really have a lot of off-roaders, a desolate but ugly area very far from anything else. else. Now, I had a feeling that whoever would be trouncing around here was probably a peacekeeper or a criminal. Just a minute later, that razor came blasting into the little clearing area where I shot the boar. It skidded to a stop, and I could see two guys and goggles looking around in every direction. They spotted the pig, looked up, and quickly spotted me. I waved. They undid their seatbelts and hopped out, at which point I noticed that they were both carrying AR-15s of some kind, scoped up

and everything. They yelled something over to me, but over the sound of that side by side I couldn't hear anything but my own heartbeat. The driver leaned over and killed the ignition so we could talk. I figured they were hunters too, looking to get directions to the herd that I just hit. Something to that effect. Hey there, you got a driver's license? The passenger asked me, the last thing I ever expected to be asked.

asked in the moment. Uh, what? You got ID. I furrowed my brow. Were they Border Patrol? I mean the short answer was definitely no. My wallet was back at camp, secured in my truck. The only thing I had was my hunting permit, a faded scrap of paper in my pocket.

Even then, it didn't really count as ID, as anyone's name could be on it. No. Guys with the Border Patrol or something? I asked. They sort of laughed, and that's when I sized them up, dirty, greasy, unkempt, wearing vests, but only in decoration. They didn't have plates behind them, just pockets full of cheap plastic magazines. I looked at the guns and saw they weren't anything special. Hell, even the razor was a piece of junk.

Nope, these were just two good old boys who lived in the middle of nowhere and fancied themselves agents of the law, or something to that effect. Now we're a little different from that, one explained. You got anything to tell us who you are? My first thought was of the three, 57 on my hip. Now it was my turn to laugh, but I thought better of it. I didn't want to make any moves and try to get smart. I just kind of shrugged and said, Nope, I'm a Texas resident, long-time local, just out on a pig hunt.

Then I gestured to that big, dead boar that was between us. Yeah, we heard that. He made a gimmie motion with his hand as he spoke. Gonna need you to hand that over until we can get your paperwork squared away. Now I really froze up. I was willing to stand and talk, but this was the moment that I drew a line in the sand, literally. I wasn't going anywhere, and I wasn't going to hand over any of my property to them either. This was all legal.

My gun was legal. Everything I was doing was well within the law. These pricks just felt holier than now and wanted to jam people up. likely looking for illegal immigrants. Silly of them. This area wasn't really known for that kind of traffic. Didn't matter to them, though. The situation wasn't going away.

I took a breath, then a single step backward into the brush. They did exactly what I figured they were going to do. Start to bring their barrels up. They looked startled, almost excited. This was probably a wet dream for guys like this. Every couple of desert rat clowns who saw themselves, as freedom fighters, resisting some kind of invisible enemy. Well, now I was the only enemy out there, and I wasn't about to get juked up by a couple of racist rednecks trying to be border

patrol. I took another step back and got a little brush between us. I was talking. I don't remember exactly what I was saying, though, probably something to the effect that they were out of line and didn't carry jurisdiction that anyone recognized. I remember my hand coming up to my handle on my but I didn't draw, just a comfort. Someone did draw, though. Three sharp reports leveled the area and sent birds and rabbits scattering in every direction. I turned to find Carrie standing up on a ridge that overlooked us, his own mini AR-15 pointed barrel up and smoking. He then waved a hand down to me to let me know it was all good. Then I saw Tim. He was much closer, only 50 or 60 feet away from our little standoff. He was posted up behind a boulder, looking down the iron side of that old military

surplus rifle that he used on these hunts. It was a tried and true man-killer, more than enough to punch a few holes inside these dweeps. Once Tim and I made eye contact, he slipped around from the boulder and started approaching me, never taking his rifle off the guys in their razor. What's going on? he asked. Nothing. I downed a pig when these fellas rolled up on me on their side by side. That racket sound familiar to you. Oh yeah, Tim nodded. Same stuff from last night, right? Yep, I said. Now remind me, what you boys need again? I wish I could explain the look on their faces, like a couple of kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I mean pale, blank faces, tears bubbling up and ready to cry. They bit off way more than they could chew, and they

immediately knew it. Nothing. We were just coming to check out that. That shooting is all, one of them stammered out. They explained that they lived nearby and had been dealing with all manner of different kinds of crime, whether from cartel members or just strangers passing through. We explained that we were hunters, and the only problem we were having with criminals was them right there in that moment. Ultimately, we just went our separate ways. We didn't hear that razor or their loud music for the rest of our trip. Nobody else bothered us.

It turned out that Carrie and Tim weren't having any luck, so when they heard me take my shot, they decided to come and see if anything had gone down. Just as they came over that ridge, the razor came skating up near me. That's when they jumped into action and decided to rescue me. Carrie took up that position on the high ground while Tim snaked down to me to put a gun in their face. Thank God they did that because those fellas rolled up on me ready to shoot, ready to tie me up and drag me behind their little off-road machine. The scary thing is, it happened.

It pays to have good friends. I once picked up a hitchhiker during my college years, and it turned out to be one of the weirdest days of my life. I was born and raised in the same town for 19 years, and only moved away for college to the big city, about an hour and 20 minutes away. After completing my freshman year, I packed up my dorm and hit the road for home.

where I planned to spend the next couple of months relaxing, and maybe working before the next semester began in the fall. The highway stretched out before me like a familiar friend, its twists and turns etched into my memory like a well-worn map. I had driven this route countless times, from my hometown to the city and back again, the miles blurring together like a well-rehearsed script. But on this particular trip, something different stood out, a lone figure standing on the side of the road, thumb outstretched in a futile bid for attention. He was almost standing on his tippy toes, really waving that arm out into the road. I had never seen anything like it, so I figured it was just his method of waving down a car.

At first I thought nothing of it, assuming he was another hapless soul trying his luck on the busy highway. But as I drew closer, something about the guy's demeanor struck a chord with me. He looked lost, not just stranded but genuinely adrift, like a ship without an anchor or rudder. His clothes were clean, if not a little rumbled, and his eyes held a hint of desperation that tugged at my sympathies. He couldn't have been much older than me, and for a moment I envisioned myself out there, desperate in the sun, hoping a kind soul might stop, even just for a second. Before I knew it, I was pulling over, tires crunching on the gravel shoulder. The hitchhiker's eyes lit up with gratitude as he approached my window.

As he got closer, I could start to see some finer details, young, right around my age, very clean as if he had showered that morning, but also very fidgety. Something was a little off about his demeanor. Hey, thanks for stopping, man, he said, his voice laced with relief. I'm just trying to get to the next town over. Had this stupid fight with my girlfriend. I need to get home before she, well, before she. she does something stupid. I raised an eyebrow, intrigued despite myself. Sorry to hear that,

I said, trying to sound non-committal, but I guess I am headed that way, so I can give you a lift. His face relaxed into a grateful smile. Thank you, man. I owe you one. As he climbed into the passenger seat, I couldn't help but notice the faint scent of sweat and anxiety clinging to him like a shroud. His eyes darted around my car, taking in the familiar surroundings with a mixture of curiosity and unease. He looked like an animal caught in a trap or something. I didn't really know what to make of it. So, uh, what's your name? I asked, trying to break the tension. John, he replied, his voice a little hesitant. And you are, I gave him my name, and that seemed to put him at ease, at least a little bit. As we pulled back onto the highway, the silence between us grew

thick and heavy, like a fog that refused to lift. I glanced over at John. His eyes fixed on the road ahead. His jaw clenched in a tight line. Something about this guy just didn't add up, but I quickly pushed that thought aside. It's the worst thing that could happen, right? It's only an hour away. So what happened with your girlfriend? I asked. John just looked over at me with pure disdain. It's not really any of your business, he said back. I nodded and bit my lip, already feeling like this was a huge mistake. Why the hell did I bother to pick him up anyway? I was a young man with relatively new age ideals,

and I thought I was doing a service for my fellow man by just giving him a ride. Looking back, it was stupid because I know I only picked him up because he was young, figuring young people were safer. The reality was, there was no one more dangerous or unpredictable than some 19- or 20-year-old kid. We wrote in silence for a bit. I felt put off. Like I had lost control of the interior of my own car. I felt like I was being held hostage by this guy's weird, brooding presence.

So I did the one thing I was good at. I kept talking. So, uh, your girlfriend, what's she going to do if she beats you home? John scoffed and shook his head. What won't she do, crazy lady? He said, looking out the window. She'll flip the whole place upside down, steal all my, crap, even the dog, and then break anything she doesn't see as valuable enough to take.

Damn, was all I could say. Yeah, so if you could hurry the hell up, that'd be great, John said, a little louder than necessary. I settled into my seat, rolled my new problem around in my head, and wondered how the hell I was going to deal with all this. There was probably no way to get him out of the car now that he was inside it, and it's not like I could call the cops to my car out here in the middle of nowhere over a person I voluntarily allowed to get in my vehicle. I had very limited options to deal with this crap, but I fancied myself a college student,

a pretty smart guy, so I resolved just to figure it all out as I punched the gas pedal, cruising from 65 to 75. The answer hit me. Do exactly as he said, just hurry up. We were already 15 minutes into the drive, well outside city limits, with less than half an hour of driving left.

I dropped him off the second we hit to, town and called it a wash. No harm, no foul. As I started hauling ass, he got a bit more normal. It was almost like I was on his level now. We started talking a little bit. He told me that he and his girlfriend were from Washington or somewhere far away, but had been scoping out my state to see if they'd enjoy living here. They were staying with John's cousin in some small town, out near where my hometown was while checking out the neighborhoods in the city. They had their disagreement. John's girlfriend left him on the side of the road. He walked to the edge of the city where the heat and nothingness took over, jammed his thumb out, and that's where I found him. I pressed a little further for some

juicier details, as I could tell this guy was a chronic jerk, wondering if he had done something to warrant being left behind. Sure enough, he totally copped to it. He said that while they were looking around at houses, they ran out of drugs, meth, I would assume, and she had a desire to re-up the supply. John wanted to keep looking at houses, still riding his high, and that's when it all started. Within an hour, they were having a shouting match, and apparently John slapped his girlfriend around a bit because she knew what she was saying. It was really unclear, kind of very vague, but the gist was that John claimed his girlfriend had some secret way of talking crap to him, because it was so hurtful he had a good reason to put hands on her. It was some of the most craziest stuff. It was

stuff I'd ever heard. The guy sitting next to me was like Joe Cool, literally bragging about smacking around a girl. I suddenly felt very guilty for bringing him closer to her at all. Still, I ponied up at a cool 80 miles per hour, rocketing to my hometown and hopefully away from this crazy situation. I didn't do much more talking those last 20 miles, just gripping and ripping the wheel as fast as my car could allow. I was going so fast that John was literally sliding around in the seat, gripping the handle above his head. We blew into town, and I drove to the first place I could think of, the local police department. It was an old brick building on the corner of Main Street, very inconspicuous. So I just talked a bit to distract John as I pulled in.

I shifted into reverse and quickly gestured to the building. Here you are, I said. The hell is this? He asked me. I thought you said you'd take me to my house. This isn't even the right town. Sorry, man. This is where I live. So it's as far as I'm going to go. I figure you might be able to get a ride or use a phone here. The hell, is this even a police station? He questioned. I nodded. I am not getting out of the car, he said with a smile. No way. Okay, fair enough. I wouldn't either if I was a woman beater piece of crap, I said, adrenaline in my voice, chest pumping hard. I'd never spoken to a stranger this way and honestly thought it was going to come to blows. What is that, what this is about, he questioned.

I told you to mind your business. I am minding my business. Now get the hell out of my car, I demanded. John nodded and looked around for an option of any kind. All he found was the door handle. You're lucky, you're smart too. If you pulled this crap anywhere outside of town, I'd saw your head off and, steal your car, he said with a smile.

it's what I did to the last guy. At this point, my legs were shaking. He was out of the car, so I wanted to quickly create that distance. I looked behind him at the police station, doing something of a pump fake to make him think that there were cops coming up behind us. It totally worked. He whirled around, and I punched the gas, backed up, and rolled onto the street, not even checking for traffic behind me.

I drove off, did circles through town for a bit, just to make sure there was no chance this guy saw the direction I went home in. He didn't really tell me or do anything crazy after that. He was in a police parking lot after all. He just stared me down, and that was the last time I ever saw him. The weirdest part of it all to me was that he didn't look or even really act like a drug addict. He could have passed for a totally normal guy, totally sober. It probably helped him when he needed to lie about whacking his girlfriend around.

I honestly hope that jerk never made it home. I spent 16 years in the Marine Corps, and when I got out around the 2017 holiday period, I felt kind of lost. I drove Uber for a while, helped an old platoon mate get his landscaping business up and running, and then dipped my toe into celebrity bodyguarding. But if working those jobs taught me anything,

it's that I'm just not a people person. Working with Marines is different. There was structure to it, discipline, And no offense to the general civilian population, but y'all are animals, not that Marines aren't. But driving people around, dealing with paparazzi, and having suburban housewives demand more respect than most Marine Corps officers, was a whole other level of ass pain. It got to the point where I was seriously considering moving into private security, which was something I promised myself I'd never get into.

But then, funnily enough, the ex-Marine I spoke to, who had a link to the industry, ended up suggesting something completely different. Once I heard it, I couldn't keep my mind off it. He said he knew a guy that had been in a similar situation, needed to transition back to civilian life, but more conventional jobs just weren't clicking for him. The guy worked a ton of different jobs, hated every one of them, then almost at random, he decided to try being a wilderness guide for a little while.

That was four years ago, His buddy had been a guide ever since, up near Marble Mountain, and said it was the best decision he ever made. I asked the ex-marine guy a whole bunch of questions about it, and he told me what he knew. He said his buddy basically worked for himself, set his own hours, and had the freedom to pick his own clients. Then all he did for a living was hike with folks, camp with them, and impart all the survival skills he'd learned in the military in the process. People paid him handsomely, too. It wasn't just some minimum wage thing. I guess his veteran status helped him out in that respect,

but he was making great money all the same. We talked about the whole private security thing too, but after we went our separate ways, it was the wilderness guide thing that really stuck in my mind. About three months later, I was driving up to Fresno for a job interview at a small veteran-owned wilderness tours company. The interview went great.

I impressed the boss enough to get me hired, and I've been at that place ever since. I guess the reason I'm telling you all of this is because I thought working up in Fresno would be the beginning of my quiet and peaceful life as a civilian. I'd done two tours in Iraq, one tour in Afghanistan, saw my fair share of casualties, and lost count of the number of times I've been shot at. I'll always be a Marine, but I was happy not to have that life anymore. I didn't want the violence, the craziness, or the dame. But in taking one particular job at this wilderness guiding company,

I somehow ended up having a brush with something far stranger, and far more frightening than anything I ever came across in the Marine Corps. It all started when my boss got a call from a solo hiker that will just call Chuck. Chuck wasn't the guy's name, but for a whole bunch of reasons, Internet crazies being just one, I'm going to change the names of some people in places to protect the affected. Chuck wanted to hide. Chuck wanted to hire a wilderness guide to take him to a certain hilltop out in one of the forests east of Fresno.

He wanted to hike out there, camp overnight, and then head back the way he came. The easiest route to the place was about 18 miles off road, and since Chuck wasn't an experienced hiker, I figured we could do around nine miles the first day, then make camp, then walk the other nine miles the next day before getting to the place he actually wanted to camp. He was in his mid-30s, wiery, and not the most athletic of people. So when we met for the first time to walk him through the journey we'd laid out for him, I knew that I'd made the right decision to take it easy on him.

We'd be gone for three nights. We'd provide everything he needed in terms of food, water, and equipment. All he needed to do was show up in suitable clothing, and we'd take care of everything else. That first meeting was a Tuesday afternoon, and it was an important one too, because if either of us decided that we wouldn't be comfortable guiding someone into the wilderness, then the hike was a no-go.

We never took anyone we figured would be in danger to themselves while out in the wilderness, not just because we were afraid of lawsuits, but because it's straight up irresponsible. But then, when Chuck stopped by the little strip mall office that we were operating out of, he seemed fine. He paid attention during the briefing, respected the fact that I had the final say when it came to keeping him safe. and was polite and well-spoken while he agreed to our other terms too. There wasn't a single warning sign that gave us any indication of what might happen or what he might do. And so that Friday morning, I met Chuck at the office,

and we drove down towards our line of departure together in my truck. We set off just after 6.30 in the morning, so neither of us were in the mood for talking on the drive out to the park. But after we got going on the hike, we got into a little small talk. Chuck asked about my time in the Marine Corps, and I told him a story or two, PG, 13 of course, so as not to freak him out or anything. After that, I asked what Chuck did, and he told me that he was some kind of professor, not the teaching kind, though. He was like the researching kind at a university.

He told me he specialized in physics, but I'll be damned if I could tell you exactly what he said. It was something like something, something theory, and I actually laughed out loud when he asked if I'd heard of it or not. He didn't figure I had, but he asked all the same. Then he gave me a little breakdown of the kinds of things he researched. Again, I can't say that I could ever recall any of it. It all sounded like mumbo-jumbo to me, but you could tell that he was a seriously intelligent dude, and that the work that he did was pretty important. Not long after, we got onto why he wanted to go out onto this particular hilltop. And for For the sake of ease, I'll just call it Beartooth Mountain. Generally speaking, we didn't ask

exactly why people wanted to visit this or that mountain, because the answer was usually a variation on. We heard it's got nice views. Bear tooth was no different. It had awesome views and was definitely much easier to get to than most other peaks. But I guess I just found myself curious if it had some kind of deeper significance to him. I feel like Chuck was open and honest with me right up until we hit that point of the conversation, because for the first time, I felt like his answer was a little dodgy. He said an uncle used to take him camping out that way when he was a kid, which on the surface sounded like a good enough reason. But if that was me, and I wanted to take my little nephew somewhere camping to introduce him to the great outdoors, Beartooth Mountain is so isolated

in such a tough hike that it's just about one of the last places I'd think to take him. Between Stanislaus, Yosemite, Sierra and Sequoia, the parks and forests around Fresno got to be home to at least a thousand different campgrounds, most of which are very family-friendly. So for the guy's uncle to march him all the way out to Beartooth, I figured that he was either ex-military or verging on abusive. But no, they got along great, and he wasn't any sort of veteran. Chuck just said that he and his family enjoyed the outdoors. Enjoying the outdoors is one thing, but making your kids march out into the deep woods over difficult terrain. That's like survivalist level kind of stuff. And like I said, Chuck didn't strike me as any survivalist. But you see, while I might have been thinking all of that,

I'm not dumb or rude enough to just come out and say it. If a client doesn't want me to know why they want to go someplace, and they decide to make something up on the fly to protect their privacy while remaining polite, then what kind of jerk would that make me to go and pry any further? So the way it went was more like him saying the thing about his uncle, me just being like, cool, all right, and then the topic of conversation just kind of naturally flowed onto other things. Chuck was pretty good company, actually,

at least for that first day and night anyway. Like I said earlier, he definitely wasn't used to the physical strain of hiking long distances, but he showed a heck of a lot of character. At times, I was in no doubt that we'd hit our nine-mile goal by day's end. And when we did, he was about ready to sleep standing up and was snoring by 9.30. And that was fine by me. I'd rather get an early night than stay up talking or drinking like some clients want to and end up paying for it in the morning. So after dousing the fire and

setting up a few bear alarms, I decided to get myself an early night too, thinking that the next day was going to be some more relaxed hiking. But I could not have been more wrong. The next morning Chuck was awake and ready to roll before I was, which was great. And as the day went on, he seemed to get more and more keyed up the closer we got to our destination. He was like a kid in the backseat of a car on the way to Disney World, basically asking me, are we there yet? Every half hour or so. Until finally, we hit the crest of a hill, broke through some trees, and there she was, Beartooth Mountain. Like I said, I've switched up some of the names here to save you any trouble. but Beartooth really did look like a big old bear's tooth, just this badass-looking mountain

with a sharply curved rocky peak. It's pretty common for clients to get excited about arriving at their destination, and if Chuck's story was true, then I understand why he was psyched to be reunited with a place that had all kinds of nostalgia about it for him. But to me that's not how he acted. It was more like a religious thing, like how I imagine a person would act if they saw something sacred. I kind of feel like if that was me, I'd have done a little vocal reminiscing or something, you know? Like, I remember this one time Uncle Bob said X, or this reminds me when Uncle Bob did Y.

But that whole time, Chucky never once brought up any kind of memory or story from his childhood. I was so curious at that period that I even asked him if any memorable trips came to mind, or if he had any particular treasured memories or anything like that. Not in a confrontational way, just, you know, making conversation. He gave me some wishy-washy answers like, oh, I guess it just feels good to be back. But by then, I could tell something was kind of off. Not so off I wanted to turn around or anything.

Like I said earlier, a client is entitled to their privacy, you know? I just hope that things wouldn't get any weirder. But boy, they did. I figured Chuck might have a particular place that he wanted to camp, so on the approach, I asked him if he had any place in mind. It turns out he did have a place in mind, a very specific place, and to find it, he pulled out a laminated computer printout that had a bunch of notes written on it in Sharpie. I could read maps well enough to know that I was looking at Beartooth Mountain and

the surrounding area, but then I had no idea what all the notes and stuff said. Some of it looked kind of like math. Other parts looked like some kind of shorthand. And before I could ask what any of it meant, Chuck pointed to a spot on the map that had a colored dot on it. There was a bunch of these colored dots all over the map, maybe ten or twelve of them, all spread out about a mile or two apart.

But Chuck pointed to just one and said that he wanted to camp somewhere around there. I told him I could take him to any spot he wanted, give or take about 50 yards. But I also wanted to know what all the colored dots meant. Chuck replied that they were all places he and his uncle used to camp back when he was a kid. And that was the point that I actually started buying into Chuck's story a little. I got an ex whose kid was real quiet and shy, but very organized and hyper-focused on whatever he was doing. I can't remember if there was a specific name for what he had, but I know that he was probably on the autism spectrum.

My point is, I figured Chuck might have been the same way, and that's why he seemed a little off. But once again, I was there in a professional capacity. So to get paid, I just had to get him to Beartooth and get him out again. If it wasn't impacting our safety, then it didn't really matter to me. So I got Chuck to the campsite he wanted. Then after studying his map a little to make sure that we were in exactly the right place, we set up our tents, made a campfire, and then made dinner. Once he knew we were in the right place, whatever the hell that meant.

Chuck seemed to calm down a little bit. But unlike the first night, when he crashed almost straight after dinner, he was still up around sunset when I myself was starting to get drowsy. We just talked till then, and not about anything in particular either, just this and that. And like I said, he seemed chilled out again. Nothing he did or said gave me any cause for concern. I felt like a new stepdad or something, telling him not to stay up too late. but he said he wanted to enjoy the night's sky a little and wouldn't be too tired come sun up.

I said all right, climbed into my tent and then went to sleep. A couple of hours later, I woke up to hear the sound of a tent unzipping. I remember sitting up just to make sure that it wasn't my own tent being unzipped and then realized that the noise must have been coming from Chucks. Now I cannot overemphasize how common it is for dudes to wake up in the middle of the night and need to take a leak. So 99 times out of 100, hearing someone's tent opening up after dark, is no reason to be concerned. But even so, I called out to Chuck to see if all was good, and he replied that he was fine before saying,

Thanks, man, I know this might sound kind of cheesy or whatever, but... The way he said it, it sounded real heartfelt, you know, like he really appreciated me looking out for him like that. I was half asleep at the time, so I just told him, No problem, buddy, and then went back to sleep, thinking it was nothing more than what it was. Nowadays I think he was thanking me for a whole lot more. The next morning, I woke up, put my boots on, and then the first thing I always do each morning when I'm on a trip like that is check on the client. I never just stick my head into their tent or anything,

and I don't unzip their tent if it's zipped up neither. I'll just stand outside, gently trying to wake them up. I called Chuck's name once, twice, then three times, and nothing even moves inside the tent. At that point, I'm starting to worry that Chuck has had some kind of medical emergency, so I kneel down, unzip his tent, and open up the flap to find that it's empty. I'm still trying to rationalize things, so I assume Chuck has gone for a walk or something. I don't see any boots, so I'm assuming that he's wearing them, and that he's off taking an early morning whiz or something.

So off I go, searching for Chuck, having to kind of mentally talk myself out of a panic. I circled the camp, calling out his name, but Chuck's nowhere to be found. So I walk a larger circle, calling out a little louder, and that panicked feeling is coming back as more and more time goes by. I keep walking that loop, mentally preparing myself for some kind of emergency, when something catches my eye. And at first, I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing, or actually, it was more like I didn't want to believe it. Between these two trees, about 50 yards down the slope,

was a pile of clothes, and it looked like they were sitting on a pair of boots, too. As you can imagine, my first thought that goes through my mind is, Chuck's gone nuts, stripped naked, and then walked off into the woods, which was not something I wanted to have to deal with. Someone going missing. That's bad, really bad. Someone going missing after taking off all of their clothes. I think we can agree that that's a whole other level of crap hitting the fan. So right after I see the clothes, and I'm 100% sure they're chucks, I start off on emergency procedures. So that's call the Rangers, call my boss, call everyone I possibly can, then get a head start on searching for our client. Situations like that are always time-critical, but then my situation was even more so,

for obvious reasons. So I went running back to where Chuck's clothes were and started looking for any signs of a trail. Now, here's where I'll admit that I've never been much of a tracker, so all I really did was walk off in the direction I figured he might have gone. But I didn't find anything but empty woods. I had to wait until the rangers showed up before we could cover any real ground. Then, by the time the cops and the search and rescue folks arrived, there was no reason for me to be there anymore. Once I'd given an officer a statement, I felt awful. Having a client go missing like that is the nightmare scenario for any wilderness guide. It's our one job to keep people safe, and when we fail at that one thing, it's like a punch

in the gut. I talked to my boss at length about the whole thing, and he gave me a week off to get my head straight. He was closing the office out of respect for Chuck's family, and since he was a big part of the volunteer search parties, there was only one other person to take on the workload. So better we just close and help out. I wanted to be there myself, but my boss, being the wise man that he is, told me it would be better if I stayed away and put my faith in the Rangers, the state S-A-R, and everyone else they

had out there looking for Chuck. I was just one. And what was one guy versus all kinds of helicopters, sniffer dogs, and specially trained trackers, who'd put even force recon guys to shame? I was told over and over again that it wasn't my fault, that I'd done everything right, and that I had nothing to feel guilty over. But then came the day when, even with the cops being so cool and respectful, I could tell people were starting to doubt my innocence.

The day the cops came to ask me a few questions, I figured it was just all follow-up stuff, or questions they hadn't thought to ask me yet, or whatever. But then there came a point during the questioning where I realized that I wasn't being looked upon as an innocent party anymore. I guess the detectives were just eliminating potential suspects. but it was pretty damn chilling, knowing that they were considering the possibility that it was me that was to blame for Chuck going missing. I actually said to them at one point, Look, I'm an open book, I got nothing to hide, and I'll come help with the search effort if you want me to.

They acted innocent, like they were only there to ask a few questions and nothing more. But I could tell that they were putting on the good cop routine, in hopes that I'd slip up and change my story. That way, they could just be just be. justify focusing on me as their number one suspect. I told my boss what was happening, or what I thought was happening, and he just told me to sit tight and ride it out. After that, I got pretty much all my info from him directly, and over the weeks that followed, this is what he told me.

I was only completely eliminated as a suspect when the cops found no DNA but chucks on his abandoned clothes, which suggested that he just got up in the early. hours of the morning, walked down the hilltop a little, and then walked off into the woods before taking off all of his clothes. The search and rescue tracker dogs followed his scent trail to a shallow stream, then lost it, suggesting that he washed himself in the water for some reason. Some suggested this was deliberate, as in he knew it would confuse the tracker dogs when it came time to look for him. But that made it seem like Chuck was in his right mind when he was walking

off through the woods without a stitch of clothing on him. And to the likes of me and my boss, Chuck must have totally lost his mind if he thought that he could do something like that, and not be in real danger. I asked my boss if the cops must have known something that we didn't about Chuck's state of mind. He said he had no idea, that he'd been involved in a couple of missing person cases before, and that Chuck's made no sense to him whatsoever. In the other two cases, the person was found safe and fine within 24 hours, and both involved were hikers who got a little too confident after wandering off the trails.

People figured that the same thing would happen with Chuck, as without any suitable shoes. There's no way that he couldn't have gotten so far that the search teams wouldn't pick him up, but that's the thing. No one found a single trace of him anywhere in the surrounding area. It was like he just dropped off the face of the earth. After a few weeks, the search was,

called off, and although California's Park Service promised that they'd continue to keep an eye out for him, people eventually just accepted that Chuck was gone. I tried to move on. I tried to just file it away with all the other bull crap I filed away over the years, but all the unanswered questions almost drove me crazy. I got a lot of closure with the stuff that I went through in the Marine Corps, and at least before I separated, the top brass were pouring a ton of money into counseling, psychologists, and all kinds of things to fix the mental wounds, and not just the physical ones. But that whole process of reconciling what's happened to you, that's all way easier when you have some actual answers. X was in a certain place, and then Y happened,

and Z was the result. But with the Chuck thing, nothing made sense. There were no answers. His disappearance was never solved, and thinking about it caused me a hell of a lot of grief for a long, long time. And on top of that, Chuck's not the only person to have gone missing in that area of the forest. There have been a bunch of unexplained disappearances in that area, and sometimes I can't help but wonder if they're somehow connected to Chuck's. On January 21, 1842, James and Esther Packer welcomed the first of their three children into the world. He was born in Pennsylvania's Allegheny County, not far from the city of Pittsburgh, and they named him Alfred.

When Alfred was around 10 years old, his father moved the family to Orange County, Indiana, where he found work as a cabinet maker. Alfred was slow to adjust to the sudden relocation, struggled to find friends among the local children, and developed profound melancholy as a result. Familiar relationships became strained, and during his 16th or 17th year,

Alfred left home in the middle of the night, leaving a note which read, never coming back. He rode to Minnesota and worked as a shoemaker for a few years, but in April 1861, the eruption of the fiery civil war would forever alter Alfred's fate. He enlisted in the Union Army during April of the following year and was assigned to Company F of the 16th Infantry Regiment, but was eventually discharged after just two years of service following a diagnosis of epilepsy. Alfred then traveled west in the hopes of finding his fortune,

and held a variety of jobs such as hunter, ranch hand, and wagon teamster. Yet, wherever he went, Alfred proved deeply unpopular with his co-workers, allegedly owing to his argumentative personality, his near-pathological lying, and his reputation for theft. By the time Alfred arrived in Utah territory, he'd discovered a profitable profession which suited his contempt for both authority and discipline, that of a wilderness guide. For thousands of years, Certain individuals have specialized in guiding unwary travelers across vast and perilous stretches of terrain,

and such people were mentioned frequently during the earlier chapters of American history. For instance, Lewis and Clark's 1804 expedition through the American West relied heavily on the knowledge of a Shoshone woman named Sakagawiya, and the likes of Jim Bridger and Kit Carson made their names trading on their knowledge of the Western frontier. A generation later, migrants seeking to flee the aftermath of the the Civil War, found that skilled wilderness guides were essential to surviving the journey west, and as a result, a capable guide could expect to make vast amounts of money. Alfred rather fancied the idea of becoming a self-employed wilderness guide, but in truth,

he was a dangerously inept navigator. He drew the eye of many a dissatisfied customer, and was responsible for at least two fully loaded wagon trains becoming lost on their way to Oregon. He was ignorant, obnoxious, and incompetent, yet the demand for wilderness guides was so high that despite his reputation, he continued to find paying work. One such group of potential employers was headed by a man named Robert McGrew, who intended to prospect for gold near a place called Breen Ridge, Colorado, in the winter of 1873. The party consisted of 20 men whose journey would take them from Utah's Salt Lake City to the San Juan Mountains, around 300 miles to the southeast. It would prove a hazardous journey, and the men were in dire need of a capable guide.

So, once they reached Provo, a man named George T.R. was sent out to find one. He returned with a 23-year-old prospector who just so happened to know the route to Colorado like the back of his hand. Yet this prospector was none other than Alfred Packer. Packer was not 23-year-old. years old. He was actually 31 in November of 1873, and as previously stated, he was relentless in his fabrication. Although Packer had a small degree of mining experience, he was no prospector, nor had he ever been to the San Juan Mountains, but sensing the desperation of McGrew's party, he saw an opportunity to profit. Packer told them that for the price of $25, around $700 in today's money, he could lead them to the gold country south of the Colorado territory. The group accepted,

and off they went. Almost immediately, Packer's incompetence became painfully obvious to McGrew and his companions. Those who made it to Colorado later said that Packer was not once, but twice, caught stealing rations from other travelers, but since it appeared that his services were indispensable, he was shown mercy each time. The group's slow progress also meant that by the time, by the time they reached the more hazardous sections of their route, they were beset by harsh winter weather. Heavy snow hid the path ahead, forcing the party to rely almost entirely on their compass for direction, and due to Packers' inexperience, it wasn't long before they became lost completely. When their rations ran out, the men ate horse feed. When the horse feed ran out,

they ate their horses. But in the third week of January 1874, the party came across an isolated island of salvation in the form of a Native American encampment. Chief Ure, also known as the White Man's friend, made his winter encampment in the Uncompagre Valley near modern-day Montrose. He was famous for his generosity to needy travelers, and supplied McGrew's party with food and lodgings, by which they could regain their strength for the journey to come. However, Chief O'Re strongly recommended that the party postponed their expedition until spring, since they were likely to encounter dangerous winter weather as they reached the San Juan Mountains. The natives knew that to undertake such a journey would be to risk certain death,

and Chief O'Rei offered to shelter their party until early spring, whereupon they could continue their venture in relative safety. The party of 20 convened to discuss their options, but 11 of them refused to accept the chief's offer. In their view, delaying their expedition until early spring would roll out the red carpet to other less risk-averse prospectors. Delay their journey, and they miss out on the lion's share of the gold. A few days following his arrival at Chief Ores camp,

Robert McGrue approached him with their final decision. Eleven of them would continue on towards the Los Pinos Indian Agency, which was the closest outpost to the camp. and proceed onward to Breen Ridge from there. Chief Ure stated that he respected the party's courage and provided them with food for their journey, as well as safe directions to bypass the mountains. However, just hours into their journey,

Alfred Packer announced that he had a better idea. Instead of bypassing the mountains by way of Indian territory, Packer proposed the group take a much more direct route through the mountains. Obviously, most of the party understood Packer was an incompetent navigator, but at this juncture, it seems their desire for enrichment outweighed any kind of common sense. Five of the party continued along the safer route, but six others, Packer included, decided to risk the snowy passes of the San Juan Mountains. Aside from Packer himself, the group consisted of Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, Frank Butcher Miller, George California Noon, and Israel Swan.

McGrew and a handful of his loyalists proceeded to aid Packers' group in their initial departure, but once the snows grew too deep for heavily laden packhorses, they unloaded Packers' supplies, and then headed back to Chief Ure's encampment. Packer and his party then continued along the Gunnison River and began climbing the higher paths which led into the mountains. But this, as many have reasoned, was pure insanity. The men had less than two weeks' rations, no snow shoes, no flinging. to light a fire and wore clothing that was thoroughly unsuited to the intense Colorado winter.

Finally, on April 16, 1874, a full 65 days following the departure of Packers' party, a lone figure stumbled out of the woods near modern-day Saguace, Colorado. As they sat eating breakfast, a group of Ute tribesmen spotted the man limping towards them. He carried with him a rifle, a knife, a steel coffee pot, and a satchel. When they rode out to meet him, they found a man on the verge of total starvation. It was Alfred Packer, who had somehow survived the journey into the mountains. The men sat him down at the table and gave him some food, but upon attempting to chew and swallow it, Packer promptly vomited.

The tribesman feared that Packer was ill with some kind of infectious disease, but he assured them that his condition was the result of prolonged starvation and that he was of no danger. The tribesman then asked Packer what had happened to lead him to starvation, and this is what he told them. Packer explained that he had been hired by five prospectors to guide them to Breckenridge. However, during the course of their journey, he began to suffer a terrible bout of snow blindness and began to lag behind. Packer then claimed that when it was clear that he could not continue, his employers abandoned

him, leaving him with nothing but a rifle, a few rounds of ammunition, and two cans of preserves. From then on, he had been forced to find his way back to civilization alone, and after exhausting his meager rations, had eaten roots, rosebuds, and even the leather of his own shoes to escape death by starvation. It made for one hell of a story, and most who heard it displayed a great deal of sympathy for the haggard-looking wanderer. Yet to other more senior members of the tribe, Packer's story did not match his condition. Packer had not been the first unwise traveler to have erred under the might of the Colorado winter, but others who'd emerged from the forests of the San Juan foothills had been so malnourished, they appeared skeletal.

Alfred Packer, on the other hand, looked relatively healthy, and the bloating around his cheeks and chin suggested that he'd been binging on cheap whiskey. Under the assumption that Packer was dead broke, the Indian agency's Justice of the Peace purchased his Winchester rifle for the generous price of $10. The filthy, pre-owned rifle could have been purchased for considerably less, but the money was partly intended to help poor Packer get back on his feet. Having seen enough horrors to last a lifetime, Packer claimed his days as a wilderness guide were over, and that he intended to return home to Pennsylvania. But upon his arrival in the nearby town of Saguace, Packer began a veritable spending spree. He purchased a horse for $70, spent $78

dollars on whiskey and tobacco in Otomir's general store, then dropped $100 to book the finest hotel room at Dolan's Saloon for the foreseeable future. The amount of money Packer spent is the equivalent of thousands upon thousands of dollars today, which raised the question. Just where exactly did an apparently destitute man get so much money, Packer remained in saguatch, spending like a sailor in Dolan's Saloon until one day, three men walked through its swinging doors. Packer recognized them in an instant. It was Preston Nutter, one of the nine men who had chosen to winter at Chief Ores camp rather than face certain death on the trail to the San Juan Mountains, and behind him stood two other members of Robert McGrew's original party.

Nutter approached Packer at his table and asked where the other members of his group were. Packer recounted his story of abandonment, but Nutter was skeptical. It would have been extremely unwise for men so unfamiliar with the region to have abandoned their only guide, even if they did display signs of incompetence. Sure, the men had been foolhardy to try and brave the Colorado winter, but they were not insane. Nutter also found it odd that Packer was given one of only two rifles the group was in possession of, even though he was already armed with a revolver. Yet the final straw came when Nutter noticed a skinning knife hanging from Packer's belt. It was a knife belonging to a man named Frank Butcher Miller, one of the five party members that accompanied Packer

on their final leg of the journey. When Nutter asked how Packer had come to be in possession of it, he claimed that Miller had simply stuck it in a tree, then walked off without it. Packer then claimed that after asking Miller if he wanted the knife, he was told he could have it. But Nutter didn't believe a word. He'd spent enough time with Frank the butcher, to know that he prided himself on his ability to cleanly and efficiently butcher an animal. He'd carried that same skinning knife with him on hundreds of hunts, and to say it was a precious possession would be a major understatement. Nutter knew something was wrong, terribly wrong,

and in the face of Packer's obvious deceptions, he became irate. He was said to have lunged at Packer, demanding he speak the truth, and since he was quite visibly the aggressor, He was tossed out of Dolans, then barred from entry until the week's end. Meanwhile, back in Colorado, the five-man splinter group who rode on towards the mountains rather than winter with Chief O'Re arrived at the Los Pinos Indian Agency. They were greeted by the agency's administrator, General Charles Adams, who told them he'd already met with a man named Packer, who claimed to have been abandoned by his fellow travelers.

Oliver Len Heiser, who headed the five-man group that did not contain Packer, claimed this was impossible. The prospectors Packer had been riding with were good, decent men, who would have never abandoned one of their number, no matter how much of a burden they were. Suspecting some kind of foul play, and knowing Packer to be a compulsive liar, Len Heiser convinced General Adams to have Packer arrested, but the general himself chose a far shrewder course of action. Adam sent a trio of soldiers out looking for Alfred Packer, but after finding him in Saguachi, they didn't simply put him in cuffs. The lead soldier initially consoled Packer regarding his recent tribulations, and complimented him on the survival skills it must have taken to make it down from the mountains alive. Packer was accustomed to such treatment by that point, and welcomed it graciously.

The soldier then informed Packer that they wished to hire him at a very generous rate to help recover the missing members of his party. Packer seemed reluctant at first, but following a reminder that proving his innocence to the authorities was a far superior option than vigilante townsfolk assuming his guilt, he agreed to join the search party. When he arrived back at the agency,

Packer was immediately brought before General Adams, who had allowed Len Heiser's party to witness his questioning. Adams demanded an explanation for the conflicting stories, but an indignant Packer repeated his claim that he'd been abandoned while snowblind and professed deep surprise upon learning his fellow travelers were missing. Adams then questioned him regarding his Sagwache spending habits, but Packer defended himself by claiming the money was a loan from a sympathetic citizen. Upon hearing this, General Adams dispatched another group of writers to Sagwachi,

who learned that not only had Packer not received any loan, but he'd been spotted with several different wallets during his stay in town. Following the rider's return and confirmation that Packer was lying, General Adams and Len Heiser's party began discussing what should be done. Yet as they debated, the arrival of two Ute tribesmen prompted an uproar in the camp. The two tribesmen had been hunting just a few miles from the Indian agency, and after reaching the crest of a hill, had come across strips of dried human flesh they'd found lying on a rock,

and nearby was the exact same trail Alfred Packer had used during his march for survival. When confronted with the strips of flesh, Packer appeared to break down completely and began begging General Adams for mercy. He then promised to make a full and frank confession. After reportedly stating, It would not be the first time that people have been obliged to eat each other when they were hungry. Packer claimed that after his party ran out of food, they began, and I quote, eyeing each other in a most unsettling manner.

A few days after this dreadful leering commenced, Packer claimed he left camp to gather dry firewood and returned to find four of his traveling companions, standing around the lifeless body of the fifth. Israel Swan, who was said to be the oldest of the five men, was killed instantly when he was struck from behind with a hatchet. In the process of dismembering Swan's body, Packer claimed the group found several thousand in cash on his person,

and after dividing the money between them, they began roasting and eating chunks of the dead man's flesh. The men ate well that night, so well that just two days later they were once again completely out of food and racked by ravenous hunger. They tried hunting and set snares for rabbits and other small game, but after fresh meat eluded them, a conspiracy was struck. Since Frank Butcher Miller still had a great deal of fat on him,

Packer claimed Shannon Bell, James Humphrey, and George Noon convinced him that it was the butcher's turn to be carved up. He too was murdered with a single hatchet blow to the skull, ambushed while stooping to pick up firewood. It was then that Alfred Packer acquired the butcher's skinning knife, fastening it to his belt before he feasted on its owner's still-warm cadaver. Packer then claimed that as the four remaining travelers pushed on towards Los Pinos, they became lost in a blizzard. Once again they became ravenously hungry, and this time it was James Humphrey's turn to be ambushed, butchered, and consumed.

Packer added that George Noon was murdered before Humphrey's corpse had even been stripped of all meat, and the killing was wanton. Now they had a taste for human flesh. Once the blizzard had cleared, Alfred Packer and Shannon Bell continued their journey towards Los Pinos. They agreed never to speak of their ghastly hunger, nor the manner in which it was sated. They would say that their companions died of exposure and that each was afforded a Christian burial. Packer also claimed that being the only two survivors of the five-man party, he and Bell made a pact that neither man would murder or consume the other.

According to Packer, it took just days for this pact to unravel. After three more days of trudging through the mountains, frost-bitten and exhausted, Packer claimed that he and Bell set up camp next to a lake near a large grove of hemlock tree. The two men managed to light a fire, but after a few hours of lying under their blankets and trying not to freeze, Shannon Bell went berserk. Packer claimed Bell threw off his blankets, screaming that he couldn't take it anymore. Then after snatching up his rifle, he lunged at Packer and attempted to bash in his skull. Packer described how he deflected the blow before striking Bell in the head with the hatchet, then fearing that he might starve to death before reaching civilization.

Packer cannibalized Bell's corpse and continued on his journey with the dead men's accumulated wealth. Following another day's walking, Packer claimed he mounted the crest of a hill. Upon spotting the Los Pinos Indian Agency in the distance, he threw away the remaining strips of human flesh, but admitted that he did so with, quote, a fair degree of hesitation. After listening to Packer's version of events in full, General Adams called for a discussion of the matter between, the surviving prospectors and agency officers.

This prospector stated they didn't believe a word of Packer's story and asked the general to aid them in the formation of a search party so that the truth might be uncovered. With agency clerk Herman Lauder at the lead, the five Utah prospectors followed a handful of agency officers for 50 miles across the hills, ironically with Packer acting as their guide. Then, after two weeks of searching the snowdrifts near Lake Fork, Packer announced that he was lost, forcing a frustrated Lauder to order the return to the agency.

However, at some point during the journey back, Packer armed himself with a knife and attempted to murder Herman Lauder. Fortunately, Lauder was able to defend himself, and after the other members of the search party restrained him, Packer was arrested. The failed attempt snuffed out any and all doubt that Packer was an innocent man, with General Adams ordering his immediate transportation to Saguachi's jailhouse. During this period of detention, Packer changed his story. He now claimed that after days of hiking with virtually nothing to eat, Israel Swan could go no further. They found a pine-shaded gulch next to a lake and set up camp. A short time after this, Packer asserted that Swan passed away from a combination of hunger and exposure. The following is an extract from his

signed confession. Old Man Swan died first and was eaten by the other five persons about ten days out of camp. Four or five days afterward, Humpf died and was also eaten. Sometime afterward, while I was carrying wood, the butcher was killed as the other two told me accidentally, and he was also eaten. Bell shot California with Swan's gun, and I killed Bell. I covered up the remains and took a large piece of his meat along and traveled 14 days into the agency. Bell wanted to kill me with his rifle, struck a tree, and broke his gun. Yet while he was in jail, observers challenged his credibility and noted that Packer, far from being a victim of cold or starvation, had set some kind of diabolical trap.

Finally, in August of 1874, an illustrator from Harper's Weekly was hiking near a place known as Slumgullian Pass, just two miles southeast of Lake City, Colorado. Upon spotting a pine-shaded gulch surrounded by hemlock trees, John A. Randolph believed he'd happened across a prime spot to rest. But as he got closer, he made a horrifying discovery. Five rotting corpses lay strewn around the gulch. Randolph made a quick sketch of the scene, then rushed to alert the sheriff in nearby Lake City, who now naturally was only too happy to receive news of the discovery. There was just one problem. From its description, the gulch was the site of the final confrontation between Packer and Shannon Bell, but according to his story,

Packer and Bell were alone, in which case, how had the bodies of the murdered and cannibalized men all come to rest in the same spot? The Lake City Sheriff rode out to what became known as Dead Man's Gulch, with around two dozen volunteers in tow. The scene that greeted them was the stuff of nightmares. One deputy noted that it appeared as if extreme violence had befallen the men. Frank Miller and Israel Swan's bodies were little more than skeletons, with almost every strip of flesh having been carved from their bones. The bodies of James Humphrey and George Noon lay rotting and flayed, with their legs having been butchered entirely. Both had received blows to the head, with the shape of the wounds indicating a hatchet had been used to dispatch them. Shannon Bell

lay with his arms to his sides, his hands skinned, with skeletal legs spayed out beneath him. Someone had smashed open the top of his skull and removed his brain entirely. No attempt had been made to consume bone marrow, nor had any of the men's organs been consumed. Packer had simply gone from man to man, stripping the soft, sweet, nutrient-rich muscle from their bones before eating it. The remains of the fallen prospectors were buried where they lay, and when word reached the Sagwachi County Sheriff, he sent half a dozen deputies to the jail to confront Packer, with their own. newfound evidence. But when they arrived at the makeshift prison cell on the outskirts of Sagwatch, Packer was nowhere to be found. In order to prevent his summary execution by

bloodthirsty vigilantes, the town sheriff decided that Packer would be held in a makeshift cell on a ranch owned by the county. The cell was little more than a dilapidated log cabin. At the time of Packer's arrival, it was almost completely unfit for human habitation. Prior to the discovery of the missing prospectors, Packer had been held there for months with no evidence, no bodies, and no formal charges levied against him. Yet while there were many who were only too happy to see Packer under lock and key, just as many saw his detention as unjust. Some bemoaned the extensive tax bill Packer's imprisonment racked up, while others argued

it was unconstitutional to incarcerate a man merely suspected of a crime. talk among the townsfolk appeared to have generated a great deal of sympathy for Alfred Packer because when the deputies arrived in late August of 1874, they found the cabin unguarded and deserted. Someone had helped Packer escape. As Saguachi's sheriff organized both professional and volunteer tracking teams, local citizens discussed theories on what had motivated Packer to murder and consume his traveling companions. Many believed that he simply attached himself to the party under the false pretense of being familiar with the area, and that ultimately, the men had died because of his incompetence. However, a much more popular theory involved Packer leading the

party of five into the mountains with a premeditated plan to kill and rob them. Preston Nutter and Oliver Lenheiser were highly vocal in their condemnations of Packer, and did their best to persuade the Saguachi townsfolk that the deaths were not some kind of tragic accident, nor was Packer a man of fortitude, who'd simply done what was necessary to survive. Yet surprisingly, the details of Packers' cannibalism were not the primary issue. By the late 19th century, the American public was familiar with the tragic tale of the doomed Donner Party,

delayed by a multitude of mishaps. The Donners spent the winter of 1846 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, mainly eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, or extreme cold. But in one case, two Native American guides were deliberately murdered for this purpose. News of such ghastliness spread fast among the American populace,

but after a lengthy national discussion, many expressed a great deal of sympathy for the donners. While many argued that they themselves would not have committed murder, very few were able to categorically state that they would not have resorted to cannibalism, if placed in the same dire circumstances. So in the case of Alfred Packer, the most pertinent question was, did his companions die as a result of his incompetence, or was greed the motivating factor? By early spring of 1883, Packer had been on the run for almost nine years,

despite being one of the most infamous individuals in the entire United States. There wasn't a single reported sighting of him for almost a decade. That all changed when a man named him. named Frenche Kazan arrived in the Wyoming state capital of Cheyenne. Frenchie was a traveling salesman who roamed from town to town, plying his trade from the back of a wagon, but Frenchie also happened to have been one of the original members of Robert McGrew's prospecting party who'd wintered at Chief Oray's camp during the winter of 1874. Frenchie's wagon pulled into Cheyenne in early March of 1883, and on Sunday the 11th,

he and several other traders set up along the thoroughfare to do business. with local townsfolk. Frenchi served dozens of customers that morning, many of whom were headed home from church. But when one man stepped up to his wagon and sought to peruse his goods, Frenchie found his face to be curiously familiar. Don't I know you?

French he asked. The stranger returned his gaze, revealing piercing blue eyes that Frenchie was certain he'd seen before. No, sir, he replied. What's your name? French he asked, studying the man's rough, dark ghost and how his shoulder-length hair was slick with pomade. John Schwarza, the man replied, clearly irritated by French's incessant inquiries.

Frenchie apologized, claiming he'd confused the stranger with an old acquaintance. Yet, in truth, there had been no such confusion. Frenchie Kazan was quite certain of the stranger's identity, and following the conclusion of their business, Frenchie rushed to the local sheriff's office and begged them to send a message to General Charles Adams of the Los Pinos Indian Agency. A dangerous fugitive was present in Cheyenne, one that had been wanted for murder for the past nine years, and his name was Alfred Packer. General Adams and a handful of agency officers rode day and night until they reached Cheyenne. Then following the confirmation of his identity, Packer was taken to Denver

by train. On March 16th of 1883, Packer explained that he'd only escaped from Sagwache, due to his fear of imminent vigilante justice, and expressed a desire to give a second, much more truthful account of how he survived his ordeal in the San Juan Mountains. Instead of claiming that the men were gradually eaten as they died off one by one, Packer now claimed that Bell had killed the others after ordering him to collect firewood. Packer departed in the morning, then returned in the late evening. According to the second of his signed confessions, this is what he found. I found Bell, who acted crazy in the morning, sitting near the fire, roasting a piece of meat

which he had cut from the leg of Miller. His skull was crushed in with the hatchet. The other three were lying near the fire. They were cut in the forehead with a hatchet. Some had two or three cuts. I got closer to the fire, and when Bell saw me, he got up with his hatchet and charged towards me. When I shot him sideways through the belly, he fell on his face.

I grabbed the hatchet and hit him on the top of the head. Packer claimed he then dropped the revolver in a patch of deep snow and lost sight of it. After that, he constructed a crude shelter out of stray logs and then hunkered down to wait out a heavy storm. He claimed days went by, his hunger growing ever more intense, until finally, he could bear it no longer. I tried to get away every day, but could not, Packer said. So I lived off the flesh of these men for almost 60 days. General Adams then asked Packer why he hadn't told the truth during his first confession. I was excited, Packer reportedly replied,

I wanted to say something, and the story as I told it came first to my mind. Finally, on April 6th of 1883, Packer pled not guilty at the opening of his trial in Lake City, Colorado. The prosecution claimed that the only logical explanation for Packer's actions was that the killings were premeditated, while the defense argued against him being a murderer and claimed cannibalism was essential to his survival. After seven days of testimonies and examinations, he was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Packer was eventually spared the death penalty due to a legal technicality. He might have cheated death a second time, but he was still legally culpable for the deaths of his traveling companions. A second trial was

held in Gunnison, Colorado, in June of 1886. Only this time, Packer was found guilty on five counts of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 40 years in prison. At the time, Packer's 40 years in prison constituted the longest custodial sentence ever handed down in the United States and had stunned the American public. He was encouraged to lodge multiple appeals

and sent letters to national newspapers claiming that he had been, and I quote, unjustly convicted by an unfair and unsympathetic judicial system, and by the ignorant conclusions and judgments of small-minded people. Eventually, on February 8th of 1901, Packer was paroled after serving 18 years of his 40-year sentence. Upon his release, he expressed a huge amount of gratitude towards a woman named Polly Pry. Polly Pry was the pen name of Leonie O'Brien, an ambitious young reporter with the Denver Post. Upon learning of Packer's military service, she used her platform to paint him as a courageous former soldier whose only crime was getting caught up with what she referred to as a regrettable

situation. She called him a victim of circumstance who did what he had to do to survive, but one who had been, quote, crucified for violating civilized sensibilities by having to resort to cannibalism. The column inches she dedicated to Packer prompted the launch of a petition, one which made it onto the desk of the Colorado governor, Charles Thomas. Thomas was initially reluctant to involve himself in the situation, but after months upon months of pressure... How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount, safe driver discount, new vehicle discount, storage discount, legacy...

How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. Sure. One of his final acts as governor was to have Alfred Packer paroled. under the condition he would not attempt to profit from his story. Six years following his release, on April 23rd of 1907, Alfred Packer passed away in Jefferson County, Colorado, age 65 years old. Some have cited his cause of death as being dementia, others blame a stroke, and while rumors abounded that he became a vegetarian before he died,

many reported Packer as living modestly and charitably during his final few years. Buried in Littleton, Colorado, Packer's grave, is marked with a veteran's tombstone, listing his original regiment from 1862. But while he might well lie in a soldier's grave, his reputation will always be that of a charlatan, a murderer, and a cannibal.