Just Creepy: Scary Stories - Disturbing & Terrifying Scary Stories Told In The Rain | Horror Stories To Fall Asleep To

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

These are 3 Disturbing & Terrifying Scary Stories Told In The Rain | Horror Stories To Fall Asleep To Linktree: https://linktr.ee/its_just_creepy Story Credits: ►Sent in to https://www.justcreepy.net/ ►Interesting-Fee-7306 ►Hindenburg Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:00:18 Story 1 00:39:18 Story 2 01:05:15 Story 3 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 #deepwoods #forest #scarystoriespodcast 💀As always, thanks for watching! 💀

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Ross, work your magic. Sanity is the ancient lie. It's a lie old as consciousness. Sanity is our imagined common denominator. That non-existent place we are said to converge. Insanity is as real as anything else. Consider what goes on in the privacy of your mind. How often does reality cease to measure up?

How often does the mystic seem to reveal itself, in feeling, in strange coincidence, in prophetic dreams? Probably you never talk about it. Probably you think you are alone in your suspicions. It's intensely subjective, unfortunately. An insanity defies documentation. Probably you will never find the name or explanation for the thing that visited you in the night. Probably you've decided that it's only you that's not quite wrong. right, thereby the lie prevails. This narrative of order is the myth. As Hunter S. Thompson said,

There is not such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment. All that to say, there is something wrong with the house on Maple Avenue. I wish I could explain it in a concrete way, but I'm scared the explanation exists beyond our scope of comprehension. So we must base our truth on instinct. That place isn't right. It's unsettling, like a black and white cartoon. It's the opposite of what a house ought to be. It is the opposite of home, the opposite of safe, the opposite of familiar. My family no longer owns the place. It was decided we could do better for a vacation house than an old mansion in small-town Appalachia.

You could not imagine my relief. I was sure I would die in that place someday. Sure it would catch me eventually. But I wish they didn't sell. Obviously it wasn't my decision, but still, I are. argued against it. I tried to make it a sentimental thing. We'd owned it as a second home since I was a toddler. It was practically part of the family, I said. Saying that made me cringe, the gross irony of the statement. Probably why the argument wasn't convincing. When that failed, I talked about the

investment. Think about what the property could be worth in 10 years. In today's market, it barely matters that a place might be haunted. Again, this was a weak attempt. Money wasn't an issue for my parents. Secretly, I was hoping to inherit the property. They could keep my trust fund, give it to someone who deserved it. Just let me have the house on Maple Avenue. Let that be my inheritance. Give it to me, so I can start demolishing the place. No half measures, locking the doors, and fencing it off wouldn't be enough. I was genuinely planning to bulldoze the house, chop down the trees and turn the grounds into a soulless parking lot. I'd sow the dirt with salt like the Romans did to old Carthage.

Believe me, it would be doing the world a favor. None of that is possible now, unless I'm ready to risk getting locked up on arson charges. The jury is still out on that, but I can write all of this down as a record of what happened that night. I'm aware that nobody is going to take this warning seriously. but when this happens to someone else, whatever poor soul the house is digesting now, maybe they'll know they aren't alone. These things are hard to say,

not the sort of topic that comes up in regular conversation. It's difficult enough mulling this over in the privacy of my mind. My memories fast turned to static. My sanity wants me to forget. This might be the end of me someday. I don't know if it's right for me to pass it on, to speak this into existence. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

The house on Maple Avenue stands a little way back from the street. Tall sycamores line the sidewalk. Across the street is a dense forest. It is very near the town. The town you might think abandoned, if not for the general upkeep. I don't remember seeing or interacting with the neighbors. Whatever industry built this place dissipated long ago. Tall, rusted skeletons of twisted,

pipes and eye beams and smokestacks rest darkly among the trees and in wide lots of grass and asphalt. Broken farm equipment lies abandoned in the fields. Amid scattered farms, a few small stores, the corporate supermarket chain, a tiny gas station operating out of pure necessity, the old Victorian houses lining Maple Avenue stand out from the woods, and the shacks, and the dingy ranchers, like Roman ruins in a medieval village. The house on Maple Avenue is not isolated in the quiet town on the street with the big sycamores. It isn't even the biggest and most impressive house on the street. But it seems to be.

It's strange I don't specifically remember any of her neighboring houses. The yard and gardens are not overgrown, yet the house seems perfectly comfortable in the surrounding woods. It is not a large house, not imposing by any conventional definition. Still, it looms over you. like a brutalist monstrosity. You could pass by driving down the street and never give the place a second look. It would pass by your window and be gone, forgotten.

Which is a chilling thought. How many places like this do we pass every day? Never considering their evil nature, simply because we are distracted by other things. I remember the first time is stepped inside. I remember thinking the windows on the front facade looked like eyes, and the door was like a mouth. Inside, the house came with all original furnishings and interior decor.

I shouldn't say original. I should say it was made to look like the original. This in itself was already disturbing to me. It reflected trends and styles that long predated my existence, the tastes of the dead. It was like spending a night in a museum or a graveyard. Grotesque bourgeois decadence my ex-girlfriend once called it. My God, she was the worst. I remember a giant floor-to-ceiling window at the landing between the first and second floor,

where the stairs swing around and rise to the opposite direction. The mirror was flanked on both sides by two stone cherubs, life-sized babies with wings, weird. There were also giant mirrors in the library and the master bedroom. There were these huge golden chandeliers in the dining room, the living room, and the master bedroom. My pretentious uncle told me once these chandeliers were worth 20 grand easily. Their designs were of some kind of mythological inspiration, Greek or Roman I'd imagine, based on the anthropomorphized goats and satyrs and gargoyles, holding up the glittering light fixtures.

I remember the hallway on the second floor, outside the master bedroom. I remember it, all furnished in a blazing red carpet, bizarrely combined in a satin wallpaper of equally ridiculous saturated. The entire hallway, floor to ceiling, all dripping red. So red, it dizzies the optic nerve. Imagine being trapped in a blood vessel. It's important I mention the paintings. They were probably originals, based on how valuable my pretentious uncle insisted they were.

By style and subject, they looked like something from the late 1800s, like Jane Austen characters. They were all dull-faced, with flat white skin, wide up. eyed, wide-mouthed. They have that quality old portraits have, the eyes following you. It was an interesting consistency. In every single painting, every figure was made to look directly at the viewer. Even when it isn't anatomically consistent, their bodies seem to contort in an unnatural way to keep the eyes facing outward. These paintings are stationed like gargoyles throughout the house, one in every bedroom, a few in the hallways, even one in the master bathroom. I resented that we kept them hanging.

Something about a porcelain-faced family looking over while you sleep chills the nerves. Let them whisper to each other in some dusty corner or the attic, I would say. There's something wrong with the house on Maple Avenue. It's a dollhouse, someone's idea of a house. It's a toothy grin, a clown's painted smile. It's the candy house from Hansel and Gretel, a frilly, gaudy thing, hiding in the dark wood, luring you in to be eaten. The place was a morgue back in the 70s.

We never learned much else about it, never even learned why it stopped being a morgue. It was on the market one day and my parents just on the opportunity. Wouldn't have been my choice. Once a place crosses that rubicon of playing host to the dead, it never returns to the hands of the living. What makes a haunted house? Houses are built for occupancy. That's their express purpose. If a house, or some part of a house,

is left abandoned by people, it will be occupied by something else. The incident happened on a Friday night sometime in late fall, I think November. I was a sophomore in college at the time, Penn State. The day before, I had suddenly found myself without a relationship, and without a place to spend the night. I'd caught my then-girlfriend cheating on me with my roommate. my roommate of all people. Imagine the audacity of stabbing someone in the back while sleeping in a bunk just below them. The inconvenience was the worst part. I would need to find a place to stay until student housing found me another room.

All that hassle with heartbreak on the side. My God, she was the worst. I resolved to make myself scarce that weekend. When my last class ended on Friday afternoon, I got in my car and drove off campus without a word to anybody. my parents' house in West Chester was too far of a drive, and I wasn't in the mood to explain my situation to them. But the house on Maple Avenue was barely a half-hour's drive from campus. It was a few hours before sunset when I arrived at the house.

The neighborhood was quiet, as always. No neighbors were visible as I drove in. The woods were filled with birds and deer and various other wildlife, but the sounds always seemed to fade as you got close. to the house, but my mind was elsewhere. There wasn't much reason to be nervous about the place in broad daylight. It was lucky I remembered the combination to the front door. I turned the brass knob and passed through the foyer. For some reason my mind caught in the image of a gaping mouth. The place felt big and empty. This was the first and only time I was completely alone in that

house. I was alone under high ceilings with twisting chandeliers and maximalist decor. It was difficult to relax. Already I was in a bad state. It occurred to me this was the first time a single person was alone in that house since who knows when. Nobody knew I was there, not my roommate, not my friends, not my parents. I'd retreated from society and relationships and found myself here. Predators like to isolate their prey from the herd. All the better if the target has a weak disposition.

The TV was in the least. living room. It was the one piece of modern tech in a place my grandmother would say was too old and too out of date. The TV and the couch would be my base of operations for the evening. It was a Friday night. Homework could wait, and I wasn't in the mood to socialize. I'd picked up some takeout on the drive down. This I laid out on the coffee table. I flipped on the TV. Takeout and Netflix is my guilty pleasure. It has the feeling of a divorced dad eating dinner in front of the TV. You also don't feel alone when characters are speaking in the background, which is totally irrational, by the way. Our brains may not know the difference between recorded voices on a sitcom or a podcast, but that doesn't make you any less vulnerable, any less alone.

Between the binge watching and the doom scrolling, the evening passed quickly. My former roommate and ex-girlfriend messaged me several times, where was I? What time was I getting back? we all needed to talk this through. All these messages were routinely ignored. Now and then I'd like a message out of spite. That made me feel better. And the house wasn't getting to me as you'd expect.

Between the media consumption and the interpersonal drama, my brain was fried, too worn down to be scared. Random noises were easily brushed off. It was the standard stuff anyway. A branch tapped the window. Water gurgled through the pipes. There were occasional creeks and groans I couldn't identify. It was probably the house settling.

Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was junkies trying to break in. Who the hell cared? The light through the windows turned gold, then red, then navy blue. Shadows grew and consumed. That's when I found myself spending much more time in my peripheral vision. I noticed something then.

From the center of the living room, where I was sitting, you could see directly into the adjacent hallway towards the foyer from the big mirror on the far wall. There was another mirror on the right that reflected the dining room and gave a glimpse of the kitchen and the servant's staircase. I thought about the huge mirrors in the library, the master bedroom, the second floor landing. There were a lot of mirrors in this house. But I suppose it would make sense anybody living in a place like this would have a massive ego.

That was one explanation. Another is that they were arranged strategically, like an early warning system, like security cameras. You would never be forced to turn a corner without knowing what was waiting on the other side. Maybe it wasn't about vanity. Maybe someone was being cautious. Once I read about this tribe in Southeast Asia, when venturing into the jungle, they would always wear masks with eyes and painted faces on the back of their heads. This is to deter predators. Tigers won't strike if they think you are staring directly at them.

Do you think mice know that hawks exist? What's a hawk to a mouse? Is it even comprehensible? Do they have a concept of flying? Could they imagine the power, speed, and agility of the thing that's hunting them? It can't be that often that a mouse survives the encounter. But as a species, they must know in some capacity. Hawks have been hunting them for eons.

So, on some instinctual level, the mouse knows the hawk, even if it can't grasp the idea of a hawk. We assume that humans have no natural predators. Maybe that's because we couldn't even imagine them, like the mouse and the hawk. It started to rain a little after dark. It started to thunder a little before midnight. I decided I needed a shower before turning in. I trudged up the stairs, past the mirror and the cherubs.

My reflection was shown to me, dark and vague in the pale light of the chandelion. I looked as crappy as I felt. The second floor bathroom and shower was down the hall on the left. Hot water is good to burn the pain away. I locked the bathroom door, even though that should have been completely unnecessary. A strong wind was blowing rain and branches against the window panes. There's a certain vulnerability one feels, being naked behind a shower curtain in an old porcelain tub in a big empty house. The bathroom was wide and spacious. There was a window on the far wall. The wind moaned outside, branches scratched at the glass,

shadows danced on the wall. The shower curtain was sheer enough to give you a degree of visibility, just enough to imagine amorphous shapes and shadows moving on the other side. To this day, I know I saw something past that curtain. Something in the combination of the lightning and the branches and my own imagination took the form of a gaunt figure with long hands visible directly on the other side of the curtain. In the split second of my blurry vision, it was standing there, watching.

The shape of it sent ice water through my veins. I audibly cursed and almost slipped in the tub, water and shampoo burning my eyes. Thunder rolled. The lights flickered. I splashed water in my face and tore the curtain aside, ready for a fight. Of course, there was nothing there. Nothing behind the shower curtain, nothing in the hallway as I stepped outside. To this day, I'm not sure. Maybe it was there. With me in that bathroom. Maybe my brain was trying to warn me.

Like I had caught the thing's scent, if you want to think about it that way. I stared at the mirror and slapped myself in the face, seeing the horror in my eyes, trying to force myself to snap out of it, cursing my paranoia. lighting flashed red on the wallpaper. The eyes on the paintings followed me as I headed toward the master bedroom, wrapped in a bathrobe like Hugh Hefner or Tyler Durden. Far as the paintings were concerned, this mansion belonged to me. I doubted they approved of that. Regardless, tonight, we were living like aristocracy. The bed was genuinely vast, a far cry from my dorm room.

The ceiling loomed high overhead, red velvet curtains draped over on. arched windows. The mirror stood on the wall, set between two windows. It made me look small, framed in a giant mirror on a giant bed in the wide bedroom in the big empty house. I felt like I should ring one of the servants to bring my tea, but I wasn't too keen to see who or what would show up. I wondered why this room felt distinctly cooler than the rest of the house. Must have been something to do with the central air system. Rain thrummed dull and rhythmic on the windows. The crisp air and warm blankets seemed to close in around me. I was fresh from the shower, and I was dead tired.

It was strange, me feeling anxious about the big empty house when I should have been worried over finding a new roommate and a new girlfriend. But I was here to forget all that, to forget this whole day ever happened. I jumped when I saw the painting on the left wall. It was next to the door, where you couldn't see walking in. The damn thing seemed to materialize out of thin air. It was a man, almost life-size, dressed all in black. His outfit looked like something out of the 1800s, like Abe Lincoln without the hat.

His hand was tangled in the bushy fur of a black goat. The goat's horns were long, twisting into crescent moons. It was facing the side and I could see its one eye. The eyes of the man and the eyes of the goat were painted to look exactly the same. Those eyes were demonic, budging white, and lined in red. They were staring right down at me. It didn't feel like staring at paint on a canvas. It felt like staring at something with a mind, something with intent, something that was staring

back. No way in hell I was sleeping with that looking over me. I thought of changing rooms. The voices in my head went into hysterical laughter at the idea. Look at this guy, so paranoid that he changes bedrooms because of the scary painting on the wall. Coward, no wonder she left you. Dragging myself out of bed, I took it off the wall and set it down facing the opposite direction. That felt better.

I tried falling asleep on the wide bed in the cold, dark room in the big, empty house. Lighting flashed periodically. In every flash, long fingers reached past the windows and along the walls. I found myself staring at a corner of the ceiling, far above my head. The ceiling was so high you could hardly see all the way up in the dark. It was like the walls ascended into nothing. There's a nice thought, sleeping with a deep black void over your head. I refused to close my eyes.

I kept checking the corners, surveying the mirrors, imagining things in the shadows. I was tired. Something wouldn't let me sleep. The high windows in the cold, dark room in the big empty house looked over the backyard and the gardens and woods beyond. In the day, you could see low mountains past the trees. You could still see them at night. Dark silhouettes against the stars. I thought about the depth of those woods.

I thought about the age of those mountains. I imagined sitting there at the window, all night in sleepless vigilance. What would you see if you watched long enough? Maybe you would see why we keep our eyes closed at night. Maybe you would see why our ancestors built fires against the dark. dark. Low thunder rolled in the distance. I think I drifted off around then. I did not sleep well that night. I barely remember if I slept at all. The barriers between consciousness and dreams were thin in those hours. Sleeping with one eye open would be the expression. But I did dream. I saw the

painting fall back from the wall, facing up. White-knuckled hands gripped the frame. A head and a face ascended from inside. The eyes were staring, screaming. Then I was falling. Then I saw a desolate landscape, a gray moor of heath and heavy wind. I saw a ruined house, a stone manor, burned and abandoned. I saw the crest, carved in stone, hanging over the shattered door. The crest was a red hand of six fingers, with the shape of a brick wall below, and two claymores crisscrossed over top. My dream turned chaotic. I saw snapshots, flashes, a black hegoat wandering the heath, a ring of figures around a high fire, a hooded face. I saw the masks of every form and type and expression. Some were those old Greco-Roman theater masks with the wide clown-like smiles or frowns. Many were the ornate

operatic things you see at a masquerade ball. They seemed to flicker as if in firelight. The expressions seemed to move, to smile, to speak. The eyes remained hollow and blank. At one point in the dream, I was awake again, or seemingly awake. I was in the master bedroom floating above the bed. I happened to look out the window. It was still dark. In the moonlight, through the curtains, I saw a man on the street riding a large black horse. He was staring at the house, staring at me. Then I saw the mob. I saw the pitchforks. and the torches, burning like little red stairs in the black countryside. I saw the manor, high and terrible, looming up on the hill. And in that hazy flash, in the weird dream world of things

that make no sense, the old manor took the exact shape of the little house on Maple Avenue. The gates were thrown open. The mob flooded the grounds. The revolutionaries came a knocking at the door. I didn't see much after that. The dream didn't seem to want to resolve itself. I had idea of disgust and depravity, with no image to inform the feeling. I felt the overwhelming decadence born of generations of wealth and idle isolation. I felt the horror and the revolutionaries felt, when they saw the true state of their moneyed elite and the hidden contents of that accursed manner. Then I saw the ruins again, freshly burned, a black stain upon the earth. The grounds in the land all around seemed gray and putrid.

It was utterly desolate, like the aftermath of Chernobyl. Red-faced preachers in black robes shouted at penitent masses, waving their holy texts, speaking of the Amalekites, of the consequences of Achaan and the fall of Jericho. The crest flashed again before my eyes. the red hand of six fingers. I saw the masks and the goat a final time. The images faded into a long, hollow scream. Then I was falling again, falling, falling until I sat straight up in a cold sweat. I woke with a gasp, like a hundred-pound dumbbell had dropped on my chest. I saw the time then.

It was 3.26 in the morning. It had been hours, a single thought smashing into my mind like a sledgehammer. Get out of the house. Get out of the house. I barely registered what I did next. Blurred and dazed. I tumbled out of bed. It was bitter cold. I crashed through the door.

Never occurred to me to get dressed. Get out of the house now. I want to be clear about something. I never saw or heard anything at that point. There were no physical manifestations. This was all a response to a feeling. That feeling was the deepest fear I have ever experienced. was visceral. It was in my bones. So when I say I didn't see anything, I don't mean it wasn't

real. This was beyond real. This was the light beyond the cave. In those minutes my brain's shallow interpretation of reality fell away. The veil tore, the glass shattered, the fog lifted, and there was only fear. Fear of something worse than death. Fear of something infinitely malicious, the hatred of all mankind, hatred beyond human comprehension. Imagine darkness so deep you can feel it, like a hot breath on your neck, like velvet. My brain was screaming in a blind panic. Something was chasing me. Something in the house was chasing me. I was alone, and I wasn't alone. Nobody knew I was there. Something was chasing me. There must have been some sort of explanation, but I would figure it out later. I had to get out of the house. So I ran. I ran like

a hunted animal. I ran through the red hallway, practically falling down the stairs, tearing past the cherubs at the landing. Reaching the bottom, I gripped the baluster and swung the corner. My shoulder slammed the doorframe as I stumbled into the living room. Adrenaline numbed the pain. The light in the living room was still on. The windows were black. The goadish chandelier swung lazily as if in a breeze. I briefly saw myself in the mirror. I barely recognized myself. My eyes looked like the eyes in that painting. Through the dining room I ran, the kitchen lay ahead, past a narrow hallway. The back door was in the kitchen. That was my escape. But something was waiting for me in the kitchen. I sensed it. My instincts repelled me as magnets of like polarity.

Memory called up the secondary staircase from the servant's quarters. A keen, pursuer would have predicted my escape route, assuming it was familiar with the house. It was waiting to cut me off, before I could get out through the back door. I reacted in a fraction of a second. It was too fast to consider my options, too fast to consider the stupidity of what I was doing. I sidestepped the kitchen, turned out of the hallway, and descended into the basement. The crooked wood stairs murmured under my feet. The basement was pitch black. I'd forgotten to turn on the light. My bare feet were naked on the dirt floor. The stone walls were cold to the touch. The basement was an unfamiliar place. I'd spent the last five years avoiding it. Fated memories

informed me that it was divided into several spaces. Most of these spaces were storage for random clutter. Somewhere was the laundry machine and a water heater. On the far end was the cellar. The cellar, I remember had these concrete steps that led up to an old hatch door and out into the backyard. The cellar was my last way out. Otherwise, I'd be in the house forever. I stumbled in the dark, bashing my hip on the stone wall. There was a crash as I knocked over a pile of boxes. I heard a sound like glass shattering. The noise reverberated through the house. My panic came roaring back. I turned. Nothing was behind me. I imagined long-fingered hands materialized. from the dark to encircle my neck.

A dim light flowed down from the basement stairs. I didn't remember leaving the door open. I ducked through an opening in the wall. Standing there at the bottom of the stairs felt suicidal. There was a long groan from the tangle of pipes just above my head. The fear was overwhelming, but running was impossible in this place. At any moment I could stumble over some old furniture or bash my head against the wall. It was the worst claustrophobia I have ever experienced.

It felt like slamming the gas and the brake pedal simultaneously. I walked with my hand following the wall. Again, I stopped when I came to a corner. Another thought materialized. I remember there was an opening to my left, just around the corner. This led into another storage room, on the other side of the wall. This storage room also had direct access to the bottom of the basement stairs. Meaning, if something had followed me down the stairs,

it would have gone straight and around, or it would have taken a sharp left. If it had gone straight and around, it would be right behind me. But if it had taken the left, it would have proceeded through the adjacent room and followed parallel along the wall, in which case it would be waiting in the opening, just around the corner. I took my hand away from the wall, stepping back. I did not breathe. My eyes were partially used to the dark now.

It was enough to spot straight ahead, my salvation. The opening to the cellar was on the far wall. I could make a break for it. I poised myself like a runner. If something was just around the corner, it would certainly see me. Maybe the thing had guessed my plan already, same as it predicted my escape through the kitchen. It knew me.

It was smarter than me. It knew this house. But I had this one opportunity. Eyeing the cellar, I broke into a full sprint. The terror roared upon me, howling back, a thousand times stronger than before. I ran with everything I had. Death snapped at my heels. A single misstep would have been my destruction.

At any moment I expected something to tear out my legs and send me herd first into the dirt. At any moment I expected hands to grasp my neck and cut off my momentum. My eyes and mouth gaped wide. Tears streamed down my face. I charged through the opening, tearing through the cellar. Then I laughed up the step. drunk on adrenaline, hardly conscious of what was happening. My full momentum was behind me when my shoulder connected with the wooden hatch.

There was a thud, a snap, and a crash. I tumbled out into the lawn. The grass was wet and cold on my arms and back. I scrambled back from the cellar's yawning door. Nothing emerged. On my feet now I ran barefoot across the lawn towards my car in the driveway. Sliding into the driver's seat, I locked the doors and turned the key. Just like that, the fear left me in a gasp.

My body deflated in a deep sigh of relief. I actually started laughing. This was all in my head. These things aren't real. Monsters aren't real. Ghosts don't exist. Houses aren't haunted. People are haunted.

I had taken all the anxiety and loneliness and pain in my head and projected into that house. Mental illness. Now that was certainly real. I definitely needed some kind of medication. It was all in my head. It was always in my head. For a long while I sat awake in the car. I was gasping for air, woefully out of shape.

My shoulder hurt. I reminded myself to go to the gym more often. The windows were glazed in fog. Maybe it was time to go back inside. I looked back at the house, rising in the dark with its sharp gables and dark windows. Fear repelled the idea of going back inside, and I didn't care to fight it anymore. I knew then I couldn't go back. It wouldn't be smart to risk another mental breakdown.

That was how I justified the feeling. My adrenaline began to crash into paralyzed exhaustion. I closed my eyes, not necessarily planning on sleeping in the car, but having nothing against the idea. I leaned my face against the cool glass. My heartbeat started to slow down, and everything faded away. It was just after dawn when I woke a second time. I groaned and sat up. In those first few moments, I was barely lucid.

The previous night's events were a blur. If I hadn't been waking up in my car, I might have assumed the whole thing was a dream. It felt like waking from a brutal hangover and trying to remember everything you did that night. I turned slowly in the driver's seat. That's when I saw the car window. I recoiled. My thoughts were still in a haze. The realization was slow to materialize.

Slowly I placed a shaking hand against the glass. A pale, wide-eyed reflection stared back at me. I jerked back. Then I pulled the lock and tumbled out of the car. The light was gray. Frost glistened on the grass. A thick fog hung around the car in the yard and the woods. The trees were like tall, dark scarecrows in the fog.

The house loomed high among their branches. For ages I stood there, frozen, overwhelmed and purple. primal terror. All rational thinking vanished out of my head. The world burned before my eyes. I lost all vestiges of thought, of consciousness. Only fear remained, the fear of a hunted animal. I realized what I was in that moment. I wasn't a person. I was prey. My mouth was agape. My paralyzed scream came out like a hollow moan. In the years since, I've had an echo of that feeling several more times. It's subtle. You could easily mistake. it without a point of reference, I'd describe it as a tinge of anxiety, a prickling feeling.

People often talk about feeling like they are being watched. Usually it is barely there, but in some places it's stronger. It's a Geiger counter. When I feel it hit me, I turn and go in the opposite direction until it fades away. Sometimes on long drives, it grows and grows and grips me for a while before fading again. In those instances, I keep my eyes forward and bear down on the gas. I never stop. I've traveled and been on the road since graduating college.

Never been able to hold down a job. Drug and alcohol abuse haven't helped. After a while, it felt parasitic to stay with my parents. That's what I tell people. Makes me seem like a better person. In reality, I was fed up trying to live with their disappointment. In my travels, I've kept a list. documenting the times that fear manifested itself.

Maybe I'm hoping to find a pattern. I felt its echo when I toured Auschwitz. It was strong once on the train through the Carpathian Mountains towards Bucharest. New Orleans was so bad I was forced to cut the trip short. One particular section of Rome is best avoided. Some of my worst moments have occurred when long drives take me through the mountains and woods of Appalachia.

But nothing compares to the terror of that night. the terror of that moment. Handprints. The car was covered in handprints. Every inch of it, the hood, the doors, the roof. Long, ragged scars stretched where it tried to pry back the metal. The door handles were loose from being pawed at relentlessly. One handle had been torn clean off.

Every part of my car had been clawed and pried and chewed and jerked and ripped. This was hunger. This was a craving I couldn't imagine. I saw the claw mrs. marks and the handprint on the window pane. I remembered sleeping with my face against the glass, one thing layer of glass. This vehicle was my shark cage. If I hadn't locked the doors, my horror grew as I studied the prints. They were nearly human. Nothing is worse than nearly human. The hands were twice the size of my own. The fingers were long and thin, amaciated maybe.

To this day, I swear there were six fingers on those handprints. The hands must have been caked in dirt, judging by the smudges they made. I try not to imagine from where the dirt came. A dusty attic, a muddy cellar, an open grave. The worst part was realizing I was not insane. I'd sensed it the whole time. Moments pass where I still sense it. But in that moment, standing there in the fog, that feeling broke the surface again.

The hunger was watching, staring, waiting. For some reason my mind went to the second-story window, the master bedroom, but I never looked back at the house. I got in my car, and I drove off, and I never looked back at the house. If I had, I think I would have seen it then, but I will never go back. You couldn't bribe, threaten, or force me within ten miles of that place. That feeling, I believe, is innate. Everybody has it, even if they can't place it.

It's an evolutionary adaptation. A survival response, a sixth sense. We've come to discount our fear, and we are paying the price. 50% of murders in the United States go unsolved, and 25% of missing persons are never found. We aren't the only intelligent species in this world, and the others aren't our friends. Our ancestors knew, somewhere in the void of mythic history.

They gave it names after all. You know its names. They knew the evil was out there, hunting us. But I discovered the truth then, in the house on Maple Avenue, and I haven't slept a full night since. We are but sentient apes wandering in a dark forest. We exist in the shadow of terrible cosmic entities, and we rest only in their momentary indifference. There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.

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the states. Montana, a word from several other languages across the globe, means mountain. This province of Bulgaria was known for its sublime mountain features and serene views and overlooks. I was staying in a city called Sophia, the capital city of Bulgaria. It's an ancient city set into the heart of the Balin wilderness. Rolling Green hills turn into the foundation for the Balin mountains, a towering stone wall of rugged beauty. Bulgaria is a nation of unwavering durability, and that long-lasting strength is perfectly reflected in the monumental structure of their mountain range. I spent the first couple of days just meandering around the city. I had never been to Sophia before and wanted to experience Bulgarian culture. The food was incredible. I found lots of

great stews and breads that claim to be from very old recipes. There were some more modern chefs in more modern restaurants, and they had fresh garden salads with wild herbs, fresh caught fish entrees, and even fried street food. Honestly, it kind of reminded me of Prague with the open-door policy of the downtown area, the beautiful people just walking around, lots of dark, stunning architecture, cool statues, and historic bridges. The city's motto was something like, ever-growing, never-aging,

which was really accurate. It was like a place stuck in time. During my trip there was something going on in Sophia. Not all the pieces had come together yet, but there was something about a crime spree, some folks on the run, stuff like that. It all seemed pretty contained, spoken about, and even published in local newspapers,

as if it were an ongoing burden with the same group of people. I just gave it very little thought. When I started speaking to folks in the area about my interest in backpacking through the Balin Mountains, I had some very stern fingers wagged in my feet, face. Some of the old-timers warned me there was a certain area that I should avoid. I should never enter any of the caves, no matter what the situation, do not go underground. It was weird, but I had my own theories as to why they were suggesting this. Bulgaria was heavily occupied

during the Second World War. I read there was a lot of old bunkers, old wartime storage facilities underground. I learned this because as a hiker, I needed to be privy to the dangers lurking in the area. This was the first time that landmines were on the list. Some of these people literally pulled out maps and showed me where not to go. I wished I had paid more attention to them. I looked, I smiled, I nodded, but I didn't really hear them as there was a language barrier. They were already being pretty vague. I packed up my equipment and hit the trail that appealed to me most the following morning.

At that trailhead, I found a number of people getting ready to make the ascent into the Balkans. Many of them were foreigners like me. It turned out this was a great tourist season for Sophia. As I stood alongside Asian, German, and other American tourists, it was good to hear some genuine Midwestern voices out there. As the group started departing, I realized most of them were going in the same direction. I didn't want to hike alongside anybody.

And a very steep, jagged cliff that caught my eye in the opposite direction followed the trail up the same way as the others for a time, before breaking off and taking the splinter trail through a couple of grassy bluffs. The trail that I was taking was much sharper, much steeper. The incline was quickly losing my breath. I metered my steps to maintain my energy and endurance. No sense in burning myself up in the first mile. As the morning went on, the rugged hillside turned into a much nicer jaunt through the boulder field,

which was situated on something of a plateau along the mountain. This range is huge. It stretches for miles and towers for thousands of feet. There are all manner of terrain features nestled into its bosom. Well, wouldn't you know it? The route that I decided to go on just happened to be taking me into the heart of the area that the locals told me not to go. By the time it was noon, I was getting ready to take a short break, soak in the views, have a small lunch maybe, and generally just catch my breath. Well, I got a lot of my own off the path, tucked myself into this little bowl atop some rocks, broke out my food, it was supremely quiet, beyond beautiful, bright, and not too warm, just perfect. As I sat there and ate,

I looked around. I thought I could hear footsteps approaching me from behind, and then on the left, the direction of the trail. After a bit, I turned to find somebody coming down from the summit. I watched him walk for a bit, wondering if I should shout hello to him. I figured it was another tourist, though they probably didn't want to be bothered. As he approached, I could tell that he was a local. He was wearing very plain clothing, looked filthy, and his boots were worn to almost nothing. He walked with this agitated gait that implied that he might be drunk or injured, maybe even starving. It's hard to tell. I just know that he was walking weird.

He trudged on by, continued downhill, disappeared, and eventually I couldn't hear him any longer. Seeing him, though, made me curious, and if I wanted to make good time and still see the top, I needed to get moving myself. I finished my food, packed up, and hiked higher up the mountain, opposite of the guy I just saw. After an hour or so, I started seeing cave systems all over, mouths left and right. I quickly remembered all those warnings from the old-timers. I realized where I was, and remembered the guy that I saw. What was he up to, being so dirty?

Maybe he was a caver or a miner or something like that. I followed up the path until it split, and for some reason, I could tell that there was a razor-thin offshoot where this guy had come from. It looked like a very worn path between some boulders. I could even see the dirty marks in the rocks where somebody regularly placed their hand to navigate the path. pass. I turned and wandered up that way myself. It led me through some trees, over a lopsided hill, until I saw a low cave mouth tucked into the base of the next descent of the mountain. It was all very clearly trafficked in and out, lots of dust and evidence of coming and going.

I walked over to it, knowing that guy was gone, but still had this uneasy feeling of being watched or at least seen. I felt exposed, out in the open. Either way, I went over to over to the cave and, to my surprise, I found this makeshift fire pit, sleeping area, some blankets, some carpets underneath, even an animal fur rug. It honestly looked cozy, clearly where that guy was living. I felt like I was snooping around or something, and I definitely shouldn't be. There was nothing really super alarming, but it just felt out of place. There was a pile of honeycombs, like harvested right out of the hive, being stored inside glass mason jars. There was a lot of it. It seemed to be the only guy's food source. There was a chair hammered

together with random wooden nails, and in the back chamber a collection of random things, a pile of different eyeglasses, a couple of handbags, purses, shoes, just all manner of random things. Now that part was creepy, so I bolted. I got back down to the main path, decided to keep going, and clear the summit, then started down the mountain face, straight shot for the trailhead. I still had to walk myself back into Sophia, so I had several hours of walking ahead of me. I'd say about halfway down, I encountered a couple coming up themselves. I waved, they waved back, but their motions seemed hurried, almost panicked. Once we got close, they said there'd been a man behind them, going in and out of the woods, even chasing them.

He screamed all this kind of weird stuff, threatened to throw them off a cliff. I gave them a description of the man that I saw earlier. They confirmed it was the same guy. The couple was Bulgarian, but not from Sophia. They weren't totally familiar with the area. After a minute of talking and surveying, they gathered their composure and decided to just press on. We set our goodbyes and parted ways. Now I was nervous.

I actually kept off the trail a little bit. this ended up being a really good idea, as when I came over that ridge, I saw the guy down below me. Fortunately, I could see another group of hikers, maybe a half mile down from him. I knew there were friendlies nearby, but still, I just wanted to keep as far away as possible from this guy. Staying off the path, I continued my descent, but in some odd twist of fate, the guy saw me. We locked eyes, and I knew something was up immediately. It looked weird, more than crazy. He started beelining right toward me, right up the side of the hill.

I smiled, raised my hand to him, and said hello down there in the most American accent that I could muster. It was my only move, complete confidence. It worked. He heard me speak and became agitated, then started marching the other way back toward the trail, muttering something underneath his breath. I couldn't make out all of it, but what I did hear was very very, hateful. Like I mentioned earlier, I'd planned this trip for a while, so I came to Bulgaria

with a rudimentary understanding of the language. Everything that guy said was about me. Relieved, I continued to boogie down the mountain as quickly as possible. Never caught up with those hikers as they were jamming out the miles even quicker than me. It seemed everybody who encountered that creep was on a mission to avoid him as well. The rest of my 10 days in Bulgaria, I didn't hike in that area again. I remembered some of what I read in the newspapers at the start. It was about some people missing in the mountains. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe that guy had something to do with it. The next year, a man was arrested for the murder of at least one woman. His preferred hiding spot was deep in the mountains in a cave near the first hiking trip, and I'm pretty sure that I saw that

guy. I was a young university student in 2009, fresh-faced and brimming with excitement about my life in a quiet town of Vadtrov. I hadn't been born here. I had moved here from a similar small town called Zaman to start my studies, and, in the process, moved in with my grandmother in this old house at the edge of town. Zan was further west, and I needed to be close to Vosta for my program. Also, Vadtrov was as close as I could get without paying rent. I had a daily commute of 90 minutes on the railway. The house was small and creaky, but had it its charm, an almost fairy tale quality, enhanced by the stunning views of the Wauken mountains that framed our horizon like a grand green tapestry. Every morning I'd wake up to the mist curling around

the mountain peaks, and every evening I'd watch the sun dip down below the ridges, casting the whole sky in shades of crimson and gold. Bulgaria is beautiful, but this was true storybook living, and I fondly remember those days. My days followed a comforting rhythm, classes at university, afternoons spent in the company of friends at the local cafe, and quiet evenings at home with my grandmother. She was a warm, gentle soul who would brew tea and tell me stories of her own youth, stories that seemed to emerge seamlessly with the serenity of the landscape just outside our window. I'd call my parents occasionally back in Zeman from time to time, sharing tales of my small-town adventures and the idyllic life that I was currently leading. I didn't tell them about those late nights

getting drunk with my classmates, but I'm sure they had some kind of an idea. But then one day, that idyllic routine was completely shattered. I'd come home after a long day, anticipating the usual tranquility of the old house, perhaps even a good meal prepared by my grandmother. I had a lot on my mind and a pile of assignments, so I was kind of checked out as I rounded the corner onto our street. I saw something that froze my blood. Yellow police tape fluttered ominously in the breeze. Traffic cones were strewn across the roadway. Police officers in dark uniforms swarmed the area, their voices carrying this undertone of urgency. Small groups of onlookers clearly were not letting anybody through.

My heart was pounding in my chest. I sprinted up the driveway, my thoughts racing the whole time. Something happened to my grandmother, had she fallen, or some kind of accident. My steps quickened as I reached our street, but the sight that greeted me next was far worse than any fear I could have conjured up. I approached a cluster of onlookers who all gathered at the edge of the police cordon. I caught fragments of hushed conversations, my name in a few of them. The whispers grew louder, sharper, more incessant.

A woman had been murdered in a bungalow across the street. My initial shock was like a cold slap to the face. This was Vodtrov, a small, close-knit community where the most exciting thing that usually happened was a neighbor's dog getting loose. I managed to squeeze through the crowd and make my way to the bungalow in question. The crime scene tape glowed starkly against the dimming sky, creating a grim boundary between the normal world and something far darker. The bungalow itself was a modest, picturesque place, an irony that stung sharply now, given the horror that had just occurred within its walls. This was as close as anybody could get.

The policeman quickly ushered me back to the sidewalk. They weren't taking any chances and had very little patience, actually threatening me for crossing the point. police line. I didn't say anything. It wasn't worth the trouble. I simply rejoined the crowd and waited for the order to be admitted to the neighborhood. The victim, a woman who'd been alone when it happened. Her family hadn't arrived until the following day. It turned out that the woman was part of a family who only used the bungalow on weekends and holidays, part-timers, but still a family. My grandmother knew them. They came to stay often and were always friendly during their visits. Personally, I hadn't met them, though the woman had come early to prepare the house for her husband and her daughter.

I imagined her, excited, hopeful, setting up the place for a weekend of familial warmth and togetherness, only to meet a brutal end instead. And on top of that, I wondered who it could be. They didn't have anybody arrested yet, so in theory, it could be anybody. I suddenly understood why they were being so harsh on the onlookers. From what I understood, she'd been killed the day before, after a somewhat bizarre phone call home to her daughter. After not answering the phone on the following day, the woman's husband and daughter came to check on her, only to discover her dead inside the house.

Her body was desecrated, a cross carved into her forehead, one of her breasts ruthlessly removed. Horrific, and not something the village had ever seen before. As the days continued to pass, I tried to piece together the fragments of that story. The local news was a buzz with all the details. Detectives had been brought in from Sophia, and the town was gripped by a mix of fear and curiosity. It was a long time before a man was apprehended. He wasn't a serial killer, just some man who had succumbed to a mental illness. Rumor spread.

He'd been in and out of prison, a fractured soul who once had lived a relatively, normal life, but had been torn apart by something completely sinister. He became a squatter, a hermit, living in the nearby caves. His existence was marked by aggression and violence. He wasn't caught until two years after her death. His traceless existence in the mountains made him nearly impossible to find. The whispers of the man, later dubbed the killer from the cave, traveled through the town like a chilling breeze. It was said he'd snapped completely, driven by some dark, unseen force. I heard from one of the officers, a friend of my grandmothers. He lived for years inside those caves, a wild-eyed figure who appeared only at the edges of the forest and the lives

of those unfortunate enough to cross his path. The atmosphere inside Vadtrov never returned to its old self. The air seemed to be heavier now, the shadows even darker. The people who lived in the neighborhood became more guarded, their conversations hushed. The memory of the murder lingered like a ghost among us all, an unwelcome specter in the everyday life of that town. I didn't follow the case closely after that. The initial shock had just proceeded into this quiet, gnawing discomfort that I preferred to ignore. I learned later that the man, the killer from the cave,

was not a figment of some collective paranoia, but a real threat who disrupted the lives of so many. His capture was the end of one chapter, but the unsettling nature of his existence left an indelible mark on the community. To this day, when I think back to those days in Vodroth, I remember the beautiful mountains, the warm conversations with my grandmother, and the creeping dread that seeped into our lives with that one brutal act. The town never quite felt the same again, neither did I.

The killer from the cave wasn't just a monster from the shadows. He was a reminder of how thin the veneer of safety can actually be, and how easily the everyday normal can be shattered by the unimaginable. I personally have seen my share of darkness in my years with the National Police Service. A few cases etched themselves into my mind as deeply as the one involving Mahala Larki, better known as the killer from the cave. I was a junior officer working in the outer provinces of Western Bulgaria back in 2009, a time when the shadows of this country seemed darker, more oppressive.

It was a case that stretched painfully over two years. years, testing my patience and resolve more and more each day. Lars' story began in obscurity. He was born inside a small village to a woman whose life had been marred by hardship. Her struggles with alcohol and mental distress were compounded by a car accident that left her in an even worse state. Her husband was even more injured, crippled from the incident itself. Mahail grew up amid this turmoil, and predictably had become a chronic thief. His crimes at the time were small but persistent. He was often in and out of prison, where his brother would come to visit him occasionally, asking

for money. In the early years of his release, Mahal kept a low profile, working at hotel complexes, but it wasn't long before his criminal tendencies resurfaced, leading to multiple incarcerations. When his probation ended, Ma's mental state deteriorated very rapidly. One day, in a fit of rage, he destroyed several vehicles at his workplace and then vanished into the mountain. When we questioned his brother and his coworkers, they all said the same thing. Mahal believed he wasn't cut out for normal life in society.

This was further confirmed by the note in his prisoner files. He was called an ideal prisoner, but a bad citizen. He just couldn't stay out of trouble. For years, Mahali lived in those mountains, squatting in various caves and empty homes. His hideouts were unstable and transient as he was. It also became apparent he had a chilling habit of using those hiding places as makeshift graves. When investigators later uncovered his primary cave, they found not just his personal belongings, but also items belonging to several missing persons.

The implication was grim. He had committed multiple murders before the crime in Vadtrov. His violent nature was confirmed by others he waylaid during his vagrancy. including sexual assault and even rape. The murder of Elena was a tragic culmination of Mahal's downward spiral. Elena was a woman of old country kindness, visiting her bungalow in Vadroff. Mahala had been squatting there for a week before Elena discovered him. In a surprising act of naivity,

Elena allowed Mahal to stay at her home, perhaps believing kindness could tame the savage nature of this complete stranger. It was also a form of old-world thinking that he, He was a good person, just simply down on his luck. Their interaction began benignly enough. Mahala, caught off guard by Elena's presence, initially tried to charm her with a request to make food. Over a simple meal, Elena began to scold Mahal for his unkempt appearance and lifestyle.

The scolding was mild at first, just a woman trying to make sense of a man that she didn't fully understand. But Ma's patience quickly wore thin. In a moment of volatile rage, he throttled Elena to death in her own bedroom, a tragic reminder of how quickly kindness can turn into peril. It turned out that Elena was a member of a certain religious subsect, and preached often. Mahali just turned out to be the wrong audience. When Mahal disappeared into the mountains after her murder, he was largely surviving on

whatever he could, primarily honey. His craving for theft, however, never abated. It was his insatiable need to steal that eventually would lead to his capture. The man had a knack for breaking into rich homes, cars, and even pickpocketing unsuspecting victims inside the city. He was a shadow, flitting in and out of luxury, a thief with a penchant for the extravagant. Bulgaria, being such an old country, has railways that tie all of the villages and cities together. Mahal was able to drift in and out of all manner of communities via these railways.

systems, sometimes even hopping on trains in the middle of the woods. He was crafty, stayed off the radar, and was nothing but a ghoul to the NPS for two years. Our task force was assembled to track down the elusive criminal. We sifted through the surveillance footage, piecing together Ma's movements. The video evidence showed him repeatedly appearing in the same affluent neighborhoods, his face gradually becoming familiar to us. Now with this information, we focused our efforts on searching the mountainous region where Mahali was rumored to be hiding out.

Hikers and transients had encountered a strange man in the mountains, and all the reports were pretty consistent. Everything was beginning to come together. The search was exhaustive. We combed through an endless network of tunnels and caves, each one more treacherous and claustrophobic than the last. The air in those tunnels was thick, combined with the dank, musty odor of neglect and decay. every step seemed to echo with the ghostly remnants of Mahal's past crimes.

Finally, we located him in a filthy den outside of Mesdra. The sight was unsettling, a disheveled, wild-eyed man sleeping amidst a heap of garbage, his face unrecognizable from his photographs. Mahal's sanctuary was this grotesque mockery of comfort, a refuge built from scraps. The moment of his apprehension was almost anticlimactic. We surrounded the den, and when he wovee. his eyes were vacant, as if he had resigned himself to his fate. We didn't even need to use force. He was too exhausted and broken to resist any of us. As we led him away, his gaze remained fixed

on the dark, streaked walls of his makeshift home, a man surrendering to the end of his pitiful existence. Mahali Larki was booked on multiple charges, the murder of Elena, numerous thefts, and even a handful of unsolved murders that haunted our records for years. The case was one of the most disturbing things I ever encountered, just a stark reminder of how thin the line is between normalcy and chaos itself. He was sentenced to two life terms at Sophia Central Prison. The killer from the cave became a dark legend, a cautionary tale of how the human psyche can unravel into something monstrous. To this day when I think about Mahalai Larki, it's with a heavy heart. His story was a harrowing journey from a troubled childhood

to a reign of terror. His crimes, a haunting reminder of the fragile veneer of civilization. In the quiet moments, when the world outside seems to grow still, I can almost hear the echoes of that dark past, a grim symphony of madness and despair that just never quite fades away. 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 the 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. I lived in Freiburg, Germany for most of my life. It's a beautiful city right on the edge of the black forest. Growing up, I naturally heard all of the... the old stories about the forest, tales of mischievous dwarves, mysterious glassmakers, and spirits that roam the woods. But to me, they were always just stories, at least until I had my own experience. I work as a freelance photographer, mostly doing nature shots for travel magazines and the like. Honestly, it's a dream job. I get to spend my days hiking through some of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe, camera in hand. The Black Forest has always been one of my favorite spots.

There's something about the dense, dark trees and the mist that often clings to the ground. It's atmospheric. To me, the eerieness can be relaxing. I had a commission from a hiking magazine to get some shots of the less traveled paths in the forest. They wanted to feature hidden gems for experienced hikers. I was thrilled. This was a chance to explore some areas I hadn't been to before. My usual hiking partner, Mark, couldn't make it at the last minute. Sorry, mate, he said over the phone. My kids got the flu. You going to be okay on your own?

I assured him I'd be fine. It's just a couple of nights. I'll stick to the plan and check in when I can. I set out early on a Tuesday morning in late October. There was a light fog hanging over the city as I drove towards the forest. I'd planned a three-day trip, staying at some of the more remote mountain huts along the trip. trail. The first day went smoothly. I hiked about 20 kilometers following one of the lesser-known trails.

The autumn colors were stunning, deep reds and golds of the beech trees contrasting beautifully with the dark green of the spruces and firs. I even got some great shots of the Bergbach waterfall, which was roaring from the recent rains. As evening approached, I made it to the first hut. The place was basic but comfortable enough. It had a few bunk beds, a small kitchen area, and most importantly, a roof over my head. The forecast had mentioned possible showers, and I could hear the wind picking up outside. But then I heard something else, a long, low howl echoing through the trees. I know what you might be thinking. Wolves, right?

And yes, I know they've been making a comeback in Germany, but in all my years hiking the black forest, never heard one. It sent a shiver down my spine. I tried to shrug it off, maybe it was just the wind, or maybe I was lucky enough to finally hear one of the newly returned wolves. But as I sat there, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I heard it again. It was closer this time. I'm not ashamed to admit I was a bit creeped out. I've spent plenty of nights alone in the woods, but something about this felt different, wrong. I made sure the hut door was securely locked and tried to get some sleep, but every little sound put me further on edge.

I must have dozed off eventually because the next thing I knew, it was dawn. The forest was quiet except for the usual morning bird calls. I felt a bit foolish in the light of day. I probably just let my imagination run wild last night. I packed up and set off, determined. to get some good shots. The path I was following was barely visible at times, all overgrown and rarely used. It was exactly what the magazine was asking for. As the day wore on, I began to feel this watched feeling. That feeling you get when the hairs on your arms stand up and you just know someone is out

there looking at you. It was that, but intense. Every time I turned around, there would be nothing there. I tried to focus on my work, but I kept finding myself glancing over my shoulder. The forest seemed darker somehow, the shadows deeper than they should have been. At one point, I could have sworn I saw something move just at the edge of my vision, but when I turned to look, once again, there was nothing there. By late afternoon, I was seriously considering cutting my trip short. The feeling of being watched only grew worse, and now I was beginning to hear things, the snapping of twigs, leaves rustling, always just out of sight. I checked my phone hoping to call Mark, or maybe even the local ranger, but of course, no signal.

Just my luck. I pushed on to the next hut, arriving just as it was getting dark. This one was even more isolated than the first, and as I approached I heard a splash from a nearby stream. What I saw then, I still have trouble believing, even now. standing in the stream, not 20 meters away from me, was something. At first glance, it looked like a man, tall, muscular, standing on two legs. But as I stared, unable to move, I realized it wasn't human at all. Its body was covered in thick, dark fur. Its face was elongated, almost like a wolf's snout,

with teeth that looked wickedly sharp, even from where I stood. Its eyes were amber, glowing in the fading light, and they were fixed right on me. For a moment, neither of us moved. I couldn't even breathe. Then, slowly, deliberately, it lifted its head and let out that same howl I'd heard the night before. I ran. I'd like to say I was brave, that I stood my ground or tried to document what I saw. But the truth is, blind panic took over. I just ran, leaving my backpack behind. I stumbled through the woods, tripping over roots and rocks, my lungs beginning to burn. I'm not sure if it was fear or my mind causing me to hear it, but I thought I could hear it behind me, these heavy footfalls, snapping branches.

I don't know how long I ran, it felt like hours. Eventually, I broke out of the tree line onto one of the main hiking paths. There were a few other hikers there, looking at me like I was crazy. I'm sure I looked that way. Whoa, are you all right? One of them asked. He was a big guy who looked like a serious outdoorsman. I babbled something about a wolf, pointing back the way I'd come from.

The hiker looked at his buddy, and the buddy looked back. A wolf here? His friend said, looking skeptical. I mean, maybe a dog. There's a village not far from... Eventually, I talked them into checking it out, probably more to humor me than anything else. They came back a few minutes later, shaking. their heads. Nothing there, friend, the first guy said. You sure you're okay? Do you need us to call

someone? I must have looked a real mess. They kept insisting on giving me a ride back to Freiburg. I think they assumed I'd had some kind of panic attack. This overworked city guy, not used to the forest, that sort of thing. I didn't correct them, though, but I didn't know what else to say. It took me a few days to work up the courage to go back for my gear, this time with Mark accompanying me when he was free, and we went in broad daylight. We found my backpack right where I dropped it. No tracks, though, no sign that anything else had been there. You sure you didn't spook yourself, mate? Mark asked me as we hiked back.

You know how creepy it is out here, especially when you're alone. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I still live here in Freiburg. I still work as a photographer, but I've learned my lesson about the black forest. I won't go back out there alone, and even in the middle of the city, I keep my doors and windows locked up tight.

To this day, I doubt what I saw. I seriously hope it was just a trick of the light, my mind twisting the forms and shadows of the branches and trees in front of me. Then again, there's no mistaking that howl. I truly believe that there. there is a werewolf or something very much like it lurking in the black forest.