Just Creepy: Scary Stories - 6 TRUE Scary Stories to Help You FALL ASLEEP (2024)

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Looking for a way to get a good night's sleep? Tune in to these 6 true scary stories that will send shivers down your spine and help you drift off to dreamland. From eerie encounters to chilling mysteries, these tales are perfect for those who enjoy a good scare before bedtime. So grab your blankets, turn off the lights, and get ready to be spooked in order to fall asleep peacefully. Sweet dreams...if you can! Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ Timestamps: 00:00 Into 00:00:18 Story 1 00:10:11 Story 2 00:21:42 Story 3 00:29:26 Story 4 00:34:00 Story 5 00:55:01 Story 6 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 #truescarystories 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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kayak and get your trip right. Bad advice? You talking to me? Kayak, got that right. Almost 10 years ago, my wife and I decided to go on a little hiking trip in southern Massachusetts, specifically the Miles Standish State Forest. We checked out a few options for cabin rentals and found one within our budget, then booked it for a weekend. It was a beautiful little place. It was a beautiful little place. not far from a heart-shaped pond with ready access to all the different hiking trails dotted around the park. Our first day was wonderful. We had a picnic over near college pond, followed by a basic campfire-style dinner back at our cabin. The daytime was beautiful, but the nighttime was intimidating, to say the least.

There were plenty of little campgrounds and cabins all over the forest, so it wasn't like we were in a particularly secluded place. but nighttime in the city is very different from nighttime in the woods, especially if you grew up and spent most of your life in the former. There's something very eerie about it, so much so that both my wife and I commented on it independently of one another. We weren't scared at all. We felt very safe out there,

so the feeling was something of a novelty, I guess, and not something that robbed us of any sleep. The second day was similar to the first. We did some hiking, had another Al Fresco lunch, and then returned to the cabin in time for dinner. But instead of eating at the cabin, we went over to Mibo, just south of Plymouth, for a fancy three-course dinner and a bottle of wine. We discussed taking a taxi to and from the Mibo complex, but I decided that I wanted to be fresh for the next morning, so I drove, and my wife drank the wine, which went down a little too well. By the time we got back to the cabin, she was so wasted that she dozed off the moment her head hit the pillow. I didn't begrudge her the chance to tie one on like that.

I thought it was funny, but it turned out to be very fortunate that only one of us drank that night, and I'll tell you why. After my wife passed out and was snoring, very loudly, I might add. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, and then climbed into bed. It was just before midnight at that time, and I set an alarm for seven-eight. A.M. God knows how long later, I woke up to what I assumed was my phone vibrating on the rustic wooden bedside table next to my head. I reached up to grab it, only to realize that it wasn't my phone making the noise. It was something else entirely. Something was softly scratching the wood at the other side of the cabin wall, almost right next to where I'd been laying my head. Now, while this

was very creepy for a second or two, I'm a rational enough person to realize that a sound like that is most probably some kind of animal, and having done my research, I knew all we had to worry about were snakes and possibly foxes or coyotes. There tend not to be any bears or mountain lions in this area of Massachusetts, or rather, the chances of encountering the former, at least, are extremely remote. It was the reason we chose the state forest in the first place, knowing it was one of the safer options for hiking. So, like I said, hearing the sound was startling, but not scary. At first, I tried to go back to sleep, hoping that whatever was making that scratching sound would just get bored and go away. I know a lot of animals scratched their

claws or teeth against wood as a way of filing them down or sharpening them, so I thought that it was maybe something small and non-threatening doing exactly that, but then the scratching started to move, and it sounded like it was coming from another section of wall, much higher up than before. I say much higher up. It was only maybe a foot or two higher, but in my head, whatever was making the sound went from, say, squirrel-sized to fox-sized. Again, this was fairly alarming, and I picked my head up off the pillow again, while I wondered if I should do anything. In the end, I climbed out of bed, went over to where I could hear the scratching, and then banged on the wall a few times to try and scare it off. And sure enough, that seemed to do the trick, and the sound of my fist against the wall didn't wake up my wife, so I climbed back into bed without saying a word. I swear I was right on the verge of drifting back off when the scratching sound started up again.

I realized that if I wanted to get anything resembling a good night's sleep, I'd have to head outside with my flashlight and really scare this thing off. So I climbed out of bed, put on some clothes, and then headed out into the dark with my light. I could hear whatever it was still scratching against the wood, but I wasn't in the least bit scared, as I figured it would just run away the first moment it saw the beam of my flashlight or heard my feet. It did exactly that, and I heard it running off into the darkness just before I turned the corner, but in place of the familiar four-legged cadence of a fox or a coyote, I heard the very distinct sound of something running with two feet, not four.

It wasn't an animal, it was a person. and right hand of God, that realization made for the creepiest moment of my entire life. That whole time, I thought everything was just fine, but there had been some freaking creep scratching something into the wood that whole time, and I'd actually tried to go back to sleep. I darted back into the cabin, grabbed the biggest, heaviest thing I could find, this skillet, and then ran back outside. I wanted to shout something brave and hardcore,

core, but the God's honest truth is, I was scared out of my mind. I could barely even keep a straight thought in my head, let alone figure out anything intimidating to yell, so I just ran around, spinning around like a top, shining the flashlight in every little shadow to make sure no one was about to creep up on me. Once I was pretty certain that the coast was actually clear, I ran back into the cabin, locked the front door, and then woke up my wife. She was still half drunk, but sobered up pretty quickly when I told her to keep her cell phone handy, just in case I needed her to call 911. I still don't know if it was just a dumb prank,

something kids vandalizing the cabins or deliberately trying to scare us, or something. It all depended on what they'd been scratching into the wall. That much was clear, but I was in no mood to just wander back out into the dark to go check right away. We just stayed put for a few minutes, my hand tied around the skillet's handle, and listened out for any voices, footsteps, or scratching. After a few minutes of silence, I finally crept out into the dark for two reasons. Number one, to make sure that we were truly alone again. And number two, to check out what the hell this creep had been doing to the cabin's outside wall.

I was scared, but I was also ready to cave in the skull of any foolish person enough to rush me. Thankfully, I didn't have to defend myself like that. but there was nothing reassuring about what I found scratched into the cabin. When I first saw it, it looked like either a zero or the letter O underneath a roughly scratched letter U or V. The result was that it almost looked like someone had tried to write V-O, but vertically instead of horizontally. No words immediately came to mind.

I mean, if it was a K and then an I, then maybe they were trying to write the word kill, in which case we should be concerned. But V-O? I had no idea what that might mean. Convinced it was nothing more than kids being stupid little vandals, I told my wife that it was safe outside, and she could come take a look at what the kids had been scratching. She seemed relieved to know that it was nothing too sinister,

and that we'd most probably remain undisturbed for the remainder of our stay. In fact, all we occupied our thought with for a minute or two was wondering if the owners would help themselves to our security deposit, if they discovered the damage. After my wife had gotten some clothes on, we both headed outside to check the damage. I shined my flashlight at it, showing her the weird V and O shapes, and watched a very visible look of fright come over her face. I asked her what she thought it was, and she asked how I couldn't see it.

To me, it was just weird shapes or letters, and to her, it was quite literally the devil. I'll be honest, I didn't really see it at first, and I thought, it was just her nerves talking, but her fright proved infectious, and when she decided that she didn't want to stay another night at the cabin, I was in no position to make her stay. I remember her saying, this has red flags all over it, we'd be morons not to leave now. And honestly, she was right. It didn't really matter who it was or why they'd been scratching something into the wall of our cabin. Our car was out front, and they could quite literally see, the cabin was occupied, and who the hell goes snooping around the woods in the

middle of the night like that anyway? No one with any good in mind, that's for sure. We packed our stuff, threw it all into our car, and then left as soon as we could. First, my wife called the cops to report what had happened, and then she left a message with the owner of the cabin explaining the situation. They were kind enough to refund our final night's stay and returned our security deposit in full, thus ruling out our bizarre conspiracy theory that the owners were trying to claim our security deposit. We still have no idea who or what was really going on that night. And honestly, I'm open to the suggestion that we just overreacted to some dumb prank or something. But having said that, I have no regrets about cutting our little vacation short because my wife is

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that meet even the most discerning cat standards. You're not picky, you're just perfectionists. Perfect Bistro, Mealtime Perfection for every cat. Have your human visit PerfectBistro. In the world of my family, the air was thick with stories of ghosts and spirits, woven into the fabric of everyday life, like the smoke from my grandmother's kitchen. Superstitions weren't just old wives' tales. They were lessons. Cautions passed down like heirlooms. I never bought into it, not like the rest of them. Maybe it was the science major in me, or perhaps the stubborn streak I'd inherited from a father who'd never met a problem he couldn't fix with a little elbow grease. and a lot of denial.

Our new apartment was a far cry from the sprawling, chaotic home where I grew up. That house was always filled with cousins and echoes of my grandmother's voice telling stories of the province she'd left behind. Now, it was just the five of us, in a cramped two-bedroom space in what you could call my father's childhood stomping grounds. Not exactly the big city, but not the countryside either. Somewhere in between, with enough reminders of both to keep my parents' feeling like they hadn't strayed too far from their roots.

My dad had managed to secure this place through a connection. A childhood friend turned landlord. It wasn't much to look at, the kind of place where you could touch both walls if you spread your arms out in the kitchen. But it was ours, and with it came a sense of starting fresh, even if we were surrounded by the familiar.

We'd all agreed that a smaller place would be less lonely without the constant buzz of extended family. there was a comfort in the closeness, the overlap of lives and conversations that made even this tiny apartment feel full. But as everyone settled into new routines, I found myself struggling to find my own space, both physically and mentally. Tonight, my family was out, likely reminiscing about old times, leaving me alone with my thesis. It was a beast of a paper, sprawling and stubborn, much like the family discussions that could start over dinner and stretch late into the night. I was examining the ecological impacts of agricultural practices, a topic as dense and complex as

my grandmother's superstitions, but grounded in data, not spirits. As I sat at our makeshift dining table that also served as my desk, I couldn't shake the feeling of the apartment being too quiet. Outside, the neighborhood lived and breathed with the distant sound of traffic and the occasional shout from a neighbor. Yet inside, it felt like I was cut off from the world, surrounded by walls that were too thin to hold out the chill of the evening. I glanced at the clock. It was getting late. The screen glare from my laptop was starting to strain my eyes, but the thought of taking a break felt like surrender. I could hear my dad's voice in my head, telling me to push through, that the work was worth the effort. It was that voice that had gotten him through decades of hard jobs and long nights.

It was supposed to get me through college. Then there was a knock at the door. Simple, straightforward, but something in the rhythm of it made me pause, fingers hovering over the keyboard. It was probably just a neighbor or a delivery, I reasoned, even as a threat of unease wove its way through my thoughts. Our new apartment didn't get many visitors, and those who did come usually called first. Hesitantly, I pushed back from the table and approached the door, the floor cold under my feet. The peephole offered a narrow view of the dimly lit hallway, empty, yet the sense of something waiting on the other side was palpable. Who's there? I called, not expecting an answer. Silence greeted me, heavy and expectant. I waited, heart pounding for something to break the stillness again.

The evening had already draped its dark velvet over the city by the time my family headed out, leaving me encased in the quiet of our apartment. I was alone, a state I was unaccustomed to in the usually bustling, cramped space. The solitude felt thick, almost suffocating, but I welcomed it as necessary for the deep dive into my thesis revisions. The silence of the apartment seemed to amplify every click of my keyboard as I tackled the feedback from my thesis advisor, a litany of critiques that required my undivided attention. I'd always been good under pressure, thrived under it, really, much like the hardy native grasses I was

writing about, which flourished in adverse conditions. Yet tonight my focus was repeatedly drawn away by the unfamiliar stillness of the apartment. Two hours into my work, my concentration shattered completely when a knock sounded at the door. A simple question followed, soft yet clear, in the comforting tones of my native language. Pue de Poe-de-po-ba-kong-pumas-ok. May I come inside? I froze, the cursor blinking on the screen as if in warning. No one ever stopped by unannounced, not here in the heart of my father's old neighborhood, where even the familiar faces from his past, respected the boundaries of privacy. compelled by a mix of curiosity and rising alarm,

I wheeled my chair over to the surveillance monitor we'd installed at the landlord's request. The screen showed the locked gate still firmly chained, no figure standing at the threshold where I had heard the voice. Hello, Po? Pue de Poba Kong Puma Sok? The voice came again, polite, almost pleading now. My skin prickled with a chill that had nothing to do

with the night air seeping in through the thin walls. Old superstitions flickered through my mind like the shadows dancing across the living room walls from the streetlights outside. My grandmother's tales, warnings really, about spirits that masqueraded as the lost or needy, seeking permission to enter, to cross thresholds uninvited. Always knock, she'd said, and announce yourself, Taupo, I am human. Yet here was this voice, devoid of of that crucial declaration. Its owner invisible to the electronic eye that should have seen everything.

My heart thudded painfully against my ribs as I backed away from the monitor, my eyes darting to the door where the knocks grew louder, more insistent. Something primal within me recoiled, instincts honed not by superstition, but by the evolutionary drive to survive. The knocking grew into a crescendo of urgency,

no longer a request, but a demand. Pue de Pue-Masok? I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. The apartment felt smaller, the walls closing in as if to shield me from whatever lay beyond that door. I edged towards the window, peering out into the night, searching for any sign of movement, any hint of the person who belonged to that voice. But the street was empty, bathed in the orange glow of the street lights, devoid of life. My thoughts raced, logical explanations battling the ingrained fears of my childhood.

It's just a prank, I told myself, a neighborhood kid messing with the newcomer. But the fear, irrational and deep-seated, held me rooted to the spot. I didn't respond. I couldn't. Instead, I retreated to the relative safety of the sofa, my gaze fixed on the door, listening as the knocks slowly faded, leaving only the pounding of my own heart in my ears. The silence that followed was as terrifying as the knocking had been. The banging intensified, each thud against the door reverberating like a drumbeat of impending doom in the otherwise silent apartment.

My breath hitched in my throat as I crouched behind the couch, the familiar fabric of the sofa rough against my palms, offering a meager sense of security against the relentless assault on the door. As the pounding grew louder, my thoughts scrambled, frantic, disjointed. My father's words about safety, always spoken with a stern protective edge, clashed with the ghostly warnings my grandmother whispered in my memories. In those stories, the spirits never just went away. They lingered, waiting for a slip, a sign of weakness. And here I was, showing plenty.

Pue de Poe-de-po-ba-A-Kong-Pumasok, the voice escalated, no longer polite, now tinged with an impatience that sent a chill down my spine. It was a demand, an ultimatum given with the expectation of being obeyed. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to vanish into the shadows of the room, as if by merely wishing, I could erase my presence from this entity's perception. But the darkness offered no refuge. The sounds grew only more desperate, more enraged.

A brief silence fell, so sudden, so absolute, that it buzzed in my ears. The hope that it had given up flickered within me, but it was quickly extinguished by a new noise, a subtle, sinister tapping. Not at the door this time, but chillingly close, at the window behind the curtain where I had stood moments ago. Tap, tap, tap. The soft sound mocked the terror that had driven me from the door, a psychological torture in its understatement. I curled tighter behind the couch, my eyes wide open now, staring at the fluttering curtain as if it were a flag signaling my demise. Why had I not listened? My grandmother's stories had taught us that some boundaries were not meant to be crossed,

that some doors should never be opened. Yet here I was, having left the front door unlocked, an invitation I hadn't meant to extend. I shuddered, realizing my mistake, the oversight that might cost me more than I could comprehend. The tapping continued, a steady rhythm like a heartbeat, sinking with my own accelerating pulse. Then, as abruptly as it had escalated, the tapping stopped.

The silence returned, oppressive, heavy with the weight of unspoken threats. I didn't move, didn't dare to breathe as minutes, or was it hours, ticked by, each second stretching into an eternity of fear. The front door rattled suddenly, a loud bang that might have been the wind, or something far worse. But it wasn't until I heard my parents' voices, strained with concern. and confusion that I allowed myself to believe it might be over. They found me there, a huddled mass of nerves behind the couch, unable to explain the terror that had seized me. The relief on their faces when they saw me alive was mingled with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of what they

couldn't understand. We never spoke in detail about that night. The apartment felt different afterward. Smaller, more confining, as if it remembered the siege. I couldn't shake the feeling that something had been there, and the knowledge that I had inadvertently invited it in haunted me. Sleep became elusive, chased away by the slightest noise, by the memory of that tapping, and despite the locks we changed and the thresholds we secured, I knew some doors, once opened, could never truly be closed again. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly, Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

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Visit Sephora to shop now. Rachel Parker, a plumber, was born. born on March 22nd, 1819, in Crawford County, Illinois. She was the second cousin of Cynthia Ann Parker and joined the rest of the Parker clan in their migration south to Texas before being captured in a raid that forever changed her family. She was described as a red-haired beauty of rare courage and intelligence and later married a man named Luther M. Plummer,

who somehow survived the raid that saw his wife taken into captivity. In the chaotic aftermath of the attack on Fort Parker, 17-year-old Rachel was seized by mounted warriors who also abducted her young son. She was no doubt violated during that night's camp, but later wrote that she never wished to revisit the subject in any of her literature. To narrate their barbarous treatment would only add to my present distress, she wrote, for it is with feelings of the deepest mortification that I think of it, much less speak or right of it. The only other occasion on which she spoke of her violation was to criticize those who claimed that, a good woman died before being soiled in such a way. Rachel said that anyone who

said that had clearly not been forced to run naked, tied by a rope to a horse, for a day or two in the sun. Given that she had more advanced education than her younger cousins, Rachel was able to write a detailed account of her time in captivity, which serves as a valuable insolable. into the culture and creed of the Comanche people. Yet, it also serves as a detailed account of their abject and unfeeling cruelty, especially when it came to things that might hinder their survival. During her captivity, Rachel gave birth to a healthy baby boy. For the first six weeks, the Comanchee allowed Rachel to nurse her newborn son, but then one day, a group of warriors surrounded her and stole her child from her arms. One of the warriors threw the baby to the

ground and beat it until it stopped moving. The warriors then gestured for Rachel to bury her now deceased child and then walked away. Believing her son was dead, Rachel began scraping a shallow trench in the dry earth beneath her, but as she did so, she noticed her little boy was still breathing. She attempted to nurse him back to health, but when the warriors heard the baby's cries and saw that Rachel had disobeyed them, they chose to make an example of her. Rachel's infant child was tied to a horse via a long rope and then dragged through a cactus patch until its tiny body had been quite literally torn to shreds. Rachel was then taken hundreds of miles north to the furthest reaches of the Comanche homeland, where she saw vast, wide-open spaces so desolate and

barren that they were almost maddening to behold. But after reaching the southern reaches of what is now southern Colorado, the land became lush and abundant with life. The warband that she was a prisoner of took her along to a giant Comanchee summit, one which included their close allies. She wrote that she had never seen so many people in one place before, nor imagine that there would be so many Indians scattered across the Great Plains. She was treated poorly at the gathering and was often jeered at by young Comanche boys. She also spotted many other Anglo and Hispanic American captives among the war bands, and such a large gathering provided a clear opportunity to show them off. Having picked up some of the Comanchee language, Rachel was able to eavesdrop

on certain conversations and was amazed to hear that their war chiefs intended to conquer the entirety of Central America. Rachel's maltreatment at the hands of her captives seemed to have peaked around the time of the Great Comanchee summit. She was guarded by the female members of the tribe, and as you can imagine, they came up with particularly cruel and degrading methods of humiliation. They routinely beat and tormented her, and by the time they departed from the summit, Rachel was bruised, battered, and itching for retribution. One day during a period of particularly intense abuse, Rachel snapped and launched herself at the younger of her two slave masters.

The attack was half revenge, half attempting to take her own life, but instead of killing her, the warriors seemed impressed with Rachel's display of defiance. At any second she expected a spear in the back, she wrote. but instead the warrior seemed amused and gathered to watch us fight. At one point Rachel managed to gain the upper hand and proceeded to beat the young Comanche woman until the blood ran from her mouth and nose. Her older slave master soon intervened and attempted to set Rachel a light by pushing her into an open fire.

She too was beaten half to death by the furious young captive, who bested both her mistresses in brutal fashion, yet refrained from delivering fatal blows. When the violence was over, Rachel and her Comanchee owners were taken before a tribunal of elders. Rachel thoroughly expected to be executed for her insolence, but instead, all the elders asked was that she repair the damage she had inflicted on her owner's tepee. Confused but continuously defiant,

Rachel said that she would only repair the damage if her owners helped her, and the elders agreed. She later claimed that one of the elder told her, You began with her, and you had a right to kill her, but your noble spirit prevented you. Indians do not have pity on a fallen enemy, but we show mercy to our family. By brutally attacking the two young women assigned to guard her, Rachel had not, in fact, angered the Comanchei.

She had earned their respect, and from then on, their treatment of her dramatically improved. Just over a year after she was captured, on June 19, 1837, the Comanche war band Rachel traveled with was approached by a group of Mexican merchants known as Comencheros. These roving traders knew the Great Plains better than any Anglo-American, and were one of the few groups to ever gain a free pass through the land they called Comanchea. The traders approached the war band, and the Comanchees sent out a small welcome party to begin negotiations. Rachel watched the exchange wondering what goods or services might be traded. Little did she know, she was who the Comancheros were looking for.

Rachel's father, who had survived the massacre at Fort Parker, had enlisted the the help of the Comancheros in tracking down his daughter, and finally, they had found her. That morning, Rachel did not know if she would live to see another sunrise. A few hours later, she was free. 17 days later, Rachel and the Comancheros arrived back in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was gaunt to the point of near starvation, covered with scars and sore, and her fiery red hair had turned a silvery gray, but she was alive. Sadly, Rachel Parker Plummer passed away just over a year later in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 1839. She was just 20 years old. Her death certificate stated that complications after childbirth were to blame for her demise, but her husband

insisted it was the trauma of Comanchee captivity, which slowly ate away at her. In reality, the already weakened Rachel had been suffering awfully during the unseasonable cold weather, and this was most likely what finished her off. But the fact remains. A once vibrant, outgoing young woman had been completely broken by her time in captivity, and although she'd seen and done more in her brief time on earth than most folks do in a lifetime, there's no doubt that she deserved so much more. We have an old legend in our family.

I don't know how true it is, but I guess that's why they call it a legend. It's been passed down from generation to generation. I know that much because my great aunt remembered my great-grandpa telling the story, too. So, I don't think it's something my grandpa just pulled out of thin air after a night of gin and Clint Eastwood movies. The story goes that some distance back, we had a Native American ancestor who was part of the Tonkawa tribe. They're located around Texas, Oklahoma, and maybe New Mexico, too. When my forefather was just a child, something terrible happened that caused him to leave his home and move up to Chicago. There he met a distant foremother, and the rest is literally history.

But the thing that caused him to up and move is one of the most awful things I've ever heard. Just a little backstory, the Tonkawa were a tribe mostly friendly with the United States and all its westward settlers. The other more dominant tribes in the area, the Comanche and the Apache, used to bully the hell out of the Tonkawa whenever they got the chance. So, they turned to the U.S. Army for protection and occasionally helped them track down Comanche as a kind of screw you to their old enemies. Then some other guys who liked to hunt Comanchee were called scalp hunters. These were mercenaries who would go and kill a bunch of Comanches and then bring back their scalps to big towns to swap them for cash. These guys would sometimes seek out Tonkawa camps as places

to rest and trade. Unlike some other more famous tribes, the Tonkawa were generally pretty stoked to see foreigners on the horizon, even if they did look like they were armed for bear. So, one day, a whole load of these hairy, stinky-looking dudes show up at our forefathers' camp and start making themselves a little too comfortable. They're eating the Tonkawa food, helping themselves to tobacco, and it's not long before they've overstayed their welcome. Eventually, one of the warriors approaches them and tells them to leave. The scalp hunters just opened up on them before anyone had a chance to defend them. themselves. Everything becomes chaos, and our forefather runs for his life, hiding out on the prairie

for a while until things blow over. Sometimes, he could actually hear the scalp hunters searching for him, but he stayed hidden until it was safe to come out. Hours later, our forefather trekked back to his village under the cover of darkness. It was easy to find. He could see it burning in the distance. He rushed over to search for any survivors, but what he saw was a vision of hell itself. Among the burning tepees lay the bodies of almost everyone he'd ever known, butchered in ways that gave him nightmares for the rest of his life. He never spoke about it in detail, but I can imagine the kinds of things he saw. The story goes that these particular scalp hunters were running a murderous kind of scam. They were being paid for Comanche scalps, but no one could

tell the difference between a Comanche scalp and that of any other Indian. No white man could tell the difference between an Indian scalp and a Mexican for that matter. So these guys were just on a murderous rampage all over the borderlands, killing whenever and whoever they pleased. Our ancestor had his entire life burned in a few hours, leaving him with nothing and no one. The story goes that he walked all the way to El Paso and almost died on the journey. He was so dehydrated and hungry that at one point he saw a buffalo keel over in the distance. He then rushed over, tore the animal's stomach open with his teeth, and started eating the half-digested mush in the buffalo's stomach. I honestly think I'd rather die than do something like that, but I guess I've

never been that hungry or thirsty before. He made it to El Paso, survived, and worked there until he had enough money to move north, and move he did. It seems crazy that he managed to pull something like that off, some orphaned Indian kid all on his own like that, in a place where they weren't very popular. It makes sense that he moved north as soon as he could. I'm not one of those people who flaunts my native heritage when it's so distant and obscure to me, but I'm very proud of my forefather, especially if he managed to pull off such an incredible feat of survival. Maybe I got a little of that in me too. Well, here's hoping anyway. I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more.

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Chosen Foods. Mother's Day has a way of sneaking up on you. But when it does, 1-800 flowers makes it easy to send mom something beautiful, thoughtful, and worthy of everything she does. Right now, with double blooms from 1-800 flowers, order one dozen roses and get another dozen for free. It's a bigger gesture with fresh, beautiful flowers arranged to make Mother's Day feel as special as she is. Make Mother's Day feel bigger with double blooms at 1-800flowers.com slash Spotify. That's 1,800flowers.com slash Spotify. One of my earliest memories is being in the playground at a new school, trying to make friends.

This was in year three, elementary school age for the Americans reading, and I came across a group of lads playing football. I asked one of them if I could join in, and he told me, yeah, but only if you just passed to me, it seemed like a fair deal, so I accepted. The next day, I asked the same lad if I could sit with him at lunchtime, and he said, yeah, but only if I can have your pudding, lofty or fair that time, but I agreed nevertheless. We then ate lunch in near silence. I didn't touch my pudding, assuming this lad was going to take it when he was good and ready. But when he'd finished his pudding, I offered him mine, and he suddenly

had a change of heart. He shook his head, pushed the little bull back in my direction, and we've been friends ever since. Walker, as I came to call him on account of it being his second name, was my best made all throughout primary school, and we ended up in the same secondary school too. I had my first pint with him, our first girlfriends were best friends, and he was part of almost every significant event in my teenage years in some form or another. We were finally separated by going to different universities, but we kept in touch, and he ended up moving back here for work once he'd graduated. He was there for me through all my breakups. He helped me move into my first real flat, and I was the best man at his wedding. The list goes on and on. I was there

for all the ups and downs of him and Kathy buying a house, having a baby, all that other grown-up stuff, and I was the first person Walker called about the accident. So it was early April when he rang me up at about 2 o'clock in the morning. I knew something was going on because of how late the call came, but I never could have guessed how terrible the news was. Kathy had been walking their daughter back from Playgroup when two Joyriders plowed into them at a zebra crossing, and their little girl was pronounced dead at the scene.

Kathy passed away in a hospital bed, fighting for her life, just a few hours later. Walker's whole world had been snatched away from him by two monsters in a BMW, and he was every bit as devastated as you can imagine. He was signed off sick from work, prescribed antidepressants, and then went to live with his parents because he just couldn't look after himself.

We all pitched in, looking after him, making sure that he stayed away from the drink and all that, but that was just about all we could do. Losing your wife and kid like that, just totally out of the blue. A person's got to get through that on their own, you know. And for ages, Walker just seemed paralyzed. and honestly I couldn't blame him. But then one day, I got a very surprising text from him that just said,

Are you up for some rambling? Just to explain, rambling was what we called the hiking and camping trips that we used to go on when we were younger. I think we always fancied ourselves as soldiers, but since we'd never be able to pass the piss test, wink wink, we settled for these epic rambles across the countryside, sometimes for a week at a time. We'd camp out in different locations every night, and then return home unshowered and stinking of campfire smoke, in between getting very unsober and telling ghost stories around the fire at night.

It was bloody good fun. We managed about five or six big and small trips before jobs and girlfriends started eating up all our time. But as much as I looked forward to the day that we got to go again, I thought it might have been a bit too soon. After talking it over, we settled on the second week of April, almost one year after the accident. I tried telling myself the timing of it was nothing but a coincidence, but at the same time, I completely understood if he wanted to get away from it all for a few days, especially around the one-year anniversary. There was always something quite soothing about our rambles.

If you're running out of food and water while exposed to the elements, there's no time to worry about problems you've got back in the real world. I didn't know how far that would extend into devastating grief, but in the short term, it definitely seemed to work. With him having something to focus his mind on, Walker seemed much more chipper. He was ordering camping gear online, testing it out in his mom's back garden, and with all the planning that we had to do, he was much chattier too. It was just like the old times in many ways, but with one distinct difference, aside from the obvious stuff. Walker had suggested a place for us to visit. Anyone reading this might be like, yeah, so what. But he never made any of the

decisions when it came to any of our rambling trips. After I took the lead in planning the first couple and they all went as planned, he decided to leave that side of things to me so he could focus on gear and getting us there. So when he told me he wanted to visit the Scottish Highlands, and in particular a place called Lenur, it made for a refreshing change. If I'm being honest, we'd never been to the Highlands before, so I was very keen to. go as it was. But Walker's zigzagging route included a lot of fresh water lakes, some hill walking, and a big dirty fry-up at the end of it, which to me sounded absolutely banging. The longest we'd ever been rambling for was a week, and since we were only just starting

back up again, it didn't really surprise me when he said that he only wanted to go for two days. I was just made up that he seemed to be getting back to himself again. But if I had known what he really had planned, I don't think I'd have ever gone with him. Every Everything seemed fine on the drive up to Loch Lomond. In fact, it was just like old times. We took turns driving, putting on old playlists, and generally reveling in a bit of nostalgia to kill time on the drive. Parking was easy and cheap, and then add some unexpectedly good weather for April into the mix,

and you had a great start to a properly epic hike. Considering it was his first time, Walker had done a standout job of planning our route, it took us over some incredible looking country. We must have hiked around for five or six miles, up and down a gently sloping hill, and then along a narrow river until we came to a small lock. The way down was very steep, and the river dropped off into a waterfall, which fed into the larger lake. It made for some banging scenery, and I knew immediately that it was going to be our first camping spot. I'd have patted Walker on the back if I didn't think it had sent him toppling down the slope. We found a nice flat grassy spot about 50 meters away from the water's edge, and then set up our little A-frame shelters facing one another.

Once we were set up, we brewed up some tea on our hexamine burners, and then set about gathering up firewood for the night. We were quiet while we worked, and I put this down to us both concentrating on the job of finding decent kindling. But afterward, Walker didn't seem to perk up again. I realized about halfway into cooking my dinner that he wasn't going to join me, but he said that he wasn't feeling hungry and would eat later on when the feeling came to him. But later came and went, and he still didn't seem to have anything to eat. We stayed up quite late too, and all we did was sit by the fire, swapping stories. But I didn't see so much as a morsel pass his lips.

When I turned into bed, Walker said that he'd only be staying up a little while longer to the stars. That didn't raise any alarm bells. But what did was when I woke up about six or seven hours later and found him still sitting by the fire. I'm not talking about sitting by the fire making a brew with bedhead, having obviously gotten at least a few hours kip. I'm talking about the same position, tent seemingly undisturbed, like he hadn't moved a muscle for hours on end. The first words out of my mouth when I scooched out of my shelter were, did you not get any sleep? He didn't need to answer me. The big black bags under his eyes said everything.

And it was around then that I started to realize that agreeing to the camping trip might not have been a good idea. I asked him if he was okay and actually laughed a little when he told me, a bit tired. I responded by asking him if he was really okay, before telling him that there was no shame in tapping out and going home if he really didn't feel up to it. In any other circumstances, if someone had given me some cryptic answer like, I just had lot on my mind, I'd have told them to bugger off and talk plain English. But in Walker's case, I knew what he was talking about, or rather, I assumed I knew. His response shut me up for a

minute, and when I finally thought of something else to say, I offered him some coffee to help perk him up a bit. He turned the offer down, saying his stomach was feeling a bit rough, and would stick to water for the time being. I left him to chill by the fire while I went to gather some more firewood, and while I was gone, I did some thinking. He turned down coffee. He turned down dinner the night before, and I didn't see any empty packaging or used mess tins when I woke up. This meant that Walker had either cleaned and stowed away all of his cooking gear and utensils immaculately, at that, or he hadn't eaten a single freaking thing in more than 24 hours. I stopped collecting firewood the second it occurred to me, and while I didn't go dropping what I'd already collected, I immediately

walked back to camp. In the nicest way possible, without trying to sound like his mom or anything like that, I told him he needed to eat if he was going to have the strength to hike it anywhere else. I felt for him, I really did, but he had to look after himself because being out in the highlands, miles from a road, was not the time to start intermittent fasting. I kept on rabbiting for a bit, generally just pleading with him to talk to me. Then, in frustration, I walked over to the to his rucksack, opened it up, and started rummaging around for his food supply. I rummaged and rummaged and rummaged some more before I realized that Walker hadn't brought any food. It wasn't just some oopsie-dazy either. He'd done it deliberately. But why? The obvious thing that came

to mind, and what just about scared the life out of me to think about, was the idea that he'd driven us out there so he could take his own life. To my infinite relief, he denied that was the case. but when he got all cryptic again, I told him that he could tell me what was going on, or I was leaving. It was a total bluff, but it worked. And that's when he told me, or partially told me what he had planned. There was no hike, no tour around the locks for a few days before a big dirty fry-up in Lochner. He, and I use his words, needed to do something for Kathy and the baby, and that's something involved not eating and not sleeping. He was okay to drink water, but only when he was really dying of thirst.

And when he'd refrained from eating and sleeping for three days, he was going to go into the waterfall. Remember the waterfall I mentioned? The one that we had to view from our campsite? Well, Walker said that there was a shallow alcove in the rock behind it. It was nothing big, just enough room for a single person to sit without getting too wet. And when I asked him how he knew, he told me that he'd verified during the night. everything was exactly how he said it would be.

And when I asked what it was, Walker said that he was too tired to explain. The only reason he partially explained what he was doing was that he needed me there, and he believed that if he didn't tell me, then I might have actually left. He knew what it looked like, a guy starving himself because he's tired of living or something. But he assured me that it wasn't like that. He needed me there to help him get back to the car when he was done. because chances were he'd be too weak to do it on his own. I remember sitting there by the fire for a minute or two,

stunned into silence, just trying to wrap my head about what Walker was telling me. When I finally got my thoughts together, I asked him why he needed to sit in that little alcove after three days of no food or sleep. I'd help him all right. I just needed to know why. Again, he just said something along the lines of,

it's for Kathy and the baby. And if I'm honest, That was as good an explanation as I needed. I had next to no idea what he was trying to do, but I knew that it would be hard, and probably dangerous too. But what else can you do when a friend asks you to do something like that, telling you that they can't trust anyone else to do it? There was no dragging him out of there.

Leaving him was just out of the question, and as much as it seemed like the best option, calling the emergency services felt like betrayal. Imagine someone putting all that trust into you, and you just turn around and have them locked up. I know that that's the emotional and not rational response, but in the moment, it just didn't feel right. There seemed like no other option but to do as he asked, and make sure that whatever he was going to put himself through, he made it out the other side okay. As it turned out, the first day of his fast was actually the day before we drove up, the second being the hike out to the waterfall. Walker did seem a bit tired out on the hike, but I just put that down to age, and a bad night's sleep or something.

So that second day we were in the Highlands, that was going to be the third and final day of no eating or sleeping, meaning his whole plan was going to be over and done by the early hours of the morning. It sounded like good news when I heard it, but it was still proper worrying to see him in such a rough state. It was a lack of sleep that really wore him down. You could watch his brain just frazzling from being awake for so long with sod-all to fuel it. And when he went to the toilet, his pee looked brown, not that unhealthy-looking dark yellow that you see after a summer's night in a beer garden. It was this sickly brown, like old whiskey or something.

I know it might seem a bit odd, fixating on his pee like that, but stuff like that, it's quite shocking when you've never seen it before. It wasn't just his body either. it was his mind. He started saying things twice, stumbling over words, and then skipping back to an early part of a conversation like he just lost his train of thought, and ten or twenty minutes hadn't gone by. And by the time the sun started to go down, I was ready for it to be over, but we had quite a way to go before that. I didn't get a wink of sleep that night either. I wasn't entirely convinced that Walker wasn't going to try and hurt himself in some way. I just had to trust that he wouldn't.

I quizzed him more and more as the night went on, but he became less and less in the mood for chat. However, he did tell me that he had been thinking about that night for months, and had gone over it in his head so many times that it bored him to think about, let alone talk about. He told me he understood how annoying that must be, but he would tell me all about it when it was over. But until then, I had to wait. When the time finally came, I walked him over to the waterfall, and he began to take off his clothes. I suppose that was always a given. He didn't want to get his only jacket and pair of boots soaking wet in the process,

but it was still bloody freezing out, and he was shaking like a dog as he passed me that last of his clothes. Over the sound of the waterfall, I heard him tell me that if he called out or wasn't back out within an hour, I was to go in and pull him out. He would be naked and soaking wet in the freezing Scottish night, and he would be in danger of getting hypothermia if he stayed exposed for too long. and that only added to all the anxiety. As he thanked me one last time, turned, and disappeared into the water,

exactly 27 minutes had gone by, when I first thought that I heard something over the sound of the waterfall. I remember straining my ears, thinking that they might have been playing tricks on me, but then I heard it again. It was barely audible over the sound of the waterfall, but it sounded an awful lot like a person. And then, suddenly, there was Walker. He was as white as a sheet, skinny as a rake, and shivering violently.

Then there were the noises that he was making, and my God, they were inhuman, not quite weeping, not quite screaming, all blunted by three days of no food or sleep. As soon as he reached the banks of the stream, he just collapsed, and I threw his jacket around him. He couldn't speak, he could barely move. And I did everything I could to drag him back to the fire and plonk him down next to it so he could properly warm me. up. I asked him if he could eat, and he nodded very weakly, so I threw a few cereal bars and a bottle of water in front of him. I had to actually feed him and bring the bottle to his lips to get him to eat properly. Walker ate slowly, with silent tears rolling down his cheeks, and I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't shed a few too. Once he had gotten a bit of food and

water in him, Walker asked me to help him into his tent so he could finally sleep. I made sure that he was dry, helped him into a few underlayers, and then eased him into a sleeping bag. I think he was asleep before I had even finished tucking him in, and I wanted nothing more than to climb into my own sleeping bag for some well-deserved rest, but when it came to it, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was trapped between being too tired to stay awake and too scared to fall asleep, but then the harder I tried to fight it, the easier it came. I don't know exactly what time it was at that point, but I remember there being a little creeping blue in the distant horizon. I closed my eyes for a second, and then the next thing I knew, it was full daylight.

My eyes burned, and I felt sick from how exhausted I was. But when I saw that Walker was still there, asleep and breathing, I knew everything was going to be fine. I tried to catch a few more hours, but an overactive brain, fueled by a disco nap, made that a no-go. I wanted to wake him up, make him eat a little bit more and get some coffee down him, but it was for selfish reasons. What I really wanted to know was what had happened in the waterfall, what he'd put himself through hell for, but God knows he needed the rest, and there would be plenty of time for questions on the way back. I suppose this piece is long enough as it stands, so I'll try to summarize that conversation as best I can. After getting Walker back into Locke Lomond's safely, we had a little

bit more food, bought Walker one of those big bottles of Lukazade so he could carry on replenishing on the drive, and then started on our journey back home. He didn't tell me much about what he'd done, or why he'd done it. He said that he was still taking it all in himself, but the long and short of it was this. He read something online about that waterfall, something about how old monks used to go there to have religious experiences. The story went that if you concentrated on praying for someone hard enough, someone who had already passed on. You could either hear them, see them, talk to them, or something to that effect. The only rule was that you had to sit there for three days with nothing but the water in front of you to drink. Obviously Walker had

tried to streamline the process for safety and convenience, thinking that as long as he drank a little of the water, he could do all the fasting and staying awake away from the waterfall itself. He'd been quite worried that it had ruined the process and therefore ruined the desired effect, but it didn't. According to Walker, the process had worked exactly as intended. I feel like I have to explain at this point. I'm not a religious person, and I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, or any of that uglie-boogly nonsense. I think Walker pushed himself to his physical and psychological limits and induced a kind of visual or auditory hallucination, And I think, deep down he knows that too.

The thing is he doesn't care, and I don't really blame him either. And as much as I'm not going to pretend to know how it worked, I understand why he wanted to do it, to have that opportunity to see or talk to a missed relative, even if it isn't real. I admit to seeing the appeal. Whatever happened, Walker started doing much better after the trip. Everyone put it down to finally getting back to the great outdoors,

and reliving a bit of his youth. We never told anyone what had actually happened. Walker didn't swear me to secrecy or anything like that, but he didn't have to, because whatever happened in that little alcove behind the waterfall, that's between him and his dearly departed. Transport your senses with Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, spritz on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp sea breeze

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What was once a breathtaking panorama of lush greens and earthy browns now turned into a shadowy expanse, enveloped in the creeping chill of nightfall. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles whitening. Beside me, Kate fiddled with the radio, seemingly oblivious to the eerie transformation of the landscape outside. Isn't this place just beautiful, even at dusk? She remarked, her voice filled with genuine awe. I forced a smile, my eyes scanning the darkness that stretched beyond the narrow beam of our headlights. Beautiful, yes, but fraught with a silent, unsettling atmosphere that clung to the back of my neck like a cold hand.

We should have driven through earlier, I muttered, my voice barely a whisper. I had heard stories about the Australian Alps, tales that locals whispered, warning against lingering in these parts after dark. Of course, I had dismissed them as nothing more than legends, until now. The road wound tightly between towering trees, their branches clawing at the fading light. As the darkness deepened, I flipped on the high beams, the road ahead becoming starkly visible in the harsh light. An uncomfortable silence fell between us, broken only by the soft hum of the car's engine

and the occasional crackle of the radio trying to catch a signal. To break the mounting tension, Kate connected her phone to the car's speakers and tapped play on a Spotify playlist, filled with 90s classics. The familiar strains of a radiohead song filled the car, and for a moment the normalcy of it all calmed my nerves. We sang along, our voices loud and slightly off-key, laughing at our attempts to hit the high notes. Just as I started to relax, a scream sliced through the night, cutting the music off mid-verse. It was sharp, desperate, and unmistakably human. My heart stopped. Kate turned down the music, her eyes wide with shock. Did you hear that? She whispered. I nodded my stomach nodding with fear. We listened, holding our

breaths, and there it was again. A long, agonizing wail that echoed through the trees. We have to see if someone needs help, Kate said decisively, reaching for the door handle before I could argue. Reluctantly, I killed the engine and grabbed the flashlight from the glove compartment. The air was cold and still as we stepped out, the silence oppressive, weighing heavily against my chest. The cries continued, distant yet distinct, pulling us forward. With each step into the forest, the underbrush grew denser, the trees taller, and the path less discernible. My flashlight beam danced over the ground, casting long, sinister shadows that twisted and turned with our movements. Kate marched ahead, determined, her own light bobbing ahead of me.

Hello? Where are you? She called into the darkness. There was a pause, then another scream, closer this time, infused with pain and fear. My instincts screamed at me to turn back, to flee the unknown dangers hidden by the night. But I couldn't leave, not when someone might be out there, hurt and alone. We pushed deeper into the woods, the darkness saw. swallowing us whole. Every sound seemed amplified in the silence, every snapped twig, a gunshot in the quiet. My heart pounded in my ears, a relentless drum urging me to flee. But beside me, Kate's resolve was unshakable, her steps steady and sure. It was then, in the suffocating blackness of the Australian Alps, that I began to understand the true meaning of fear. The darkness seemed to

close in around us, pressing against my chest with an almost physical weight. Each step forward seemed to lead us deeper into a realm where the knight ruled without mercy. Kate's flashlight sliced through the blackness ahead, her determined strides never wavering despite the chilling cries that continued to echo around us. Come on, we're close now, Kate called back to me, her voice tinged with urgency. I hurried after her, my own fear gnawing at me relentlessly. The deeper we ventured, the colder the air became, filling with a faintly. musty odor that made me want to gag. It was the smell of decay, of things long dead and forgotten.

Suddenly, the source of the screams became visible, a figure on the ground, shrouded in darkness. My pulse quickened as we approached, the beam of my flashlight trembling in my hand. Hello, can you hear us? Kate's voice broke the haunting silence, her light focusing on the figure that now seemed so terrifyingly still. As we did, drew closer, a gut-wrenching realization stopped me dead in my tracks. The figure on the ground wasn't human. It was something else, something grotesque that my brain struggled to comprehend. Its skin was pale, almost translucent, stretched taut over sharp angular bones. It turned slowly to face us, its eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. A scream of pure terror was ripped from

my throat as the creature unfurled itself, rising to an unneighed. natural height. Its mouth opened in a silent snarl, revealing rows of jagged, stained teeth. Kate stumbled backwards, her face pale with shock, but before she could turn to run, the creature lunged. Everything happened in a blur. I heard Kate scream, shrill and cut horrifyingly short. I saw the flash of movement as the creature pounced, its form a blur of limbs and twisted features. Panic seized me, primal and overpowering. I told you. I took, and it. I took to the turned and ran blindly back toward the path, branches whipping against my face as I broke through the underbrush. I didn't stop, not even to look back. My breaths coming in ragged gasps as fear

propelled me forward. Somewhere behind me, the sounds of a struggle continued, snarls and screams that seemed to chase me through the trees. My mind reeled, unable to accept what my eyes had witnessed. After what seemed like an eternity, I reached the car. Fumbling with the keys, my hands shaking uncontrollably, I managed to unlock it and throw myself inside. I started the engine on the first try, a small mercy in the night of terror, and sped away from the nightmare behind me. I didn't stop driving until the lights of a small motel appeared, a beacon of safety in the darkness. I checked in with a fake name, too scared to even consider the pot. possibility of being found. My room was a small musty space, but it was secure. I locked the door,

closed the curtains, and collapsed onto the bed, my body still shaking. Lying there in the flickering light of a single bedside lamp, I tried to make sense of the horror I had witnessed. Was it a skinwalker, a bunyip, or some other crypted? The question swirled in my mind, but no answers came. only one thing was certain. I would never forget Kate screams, and I would never forgive myself for leaving her behind in that dark, cursed forest.