Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm A Ranger For The US Forest Service. This Is A WARNING | Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

WARNING     Story from ervanlerpton Make sure to check out more of their work at u/ervanlerpton   Original Post: I used to think I wanted kids : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I'm A Ranger For The US Forest Service. This Is A WARNING      For more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel: Lighthouse Horror | YouTube  Patreon: Lighthouse Horror | Patreon Merch: lighthousehorror.com  Music: Lucas King - YouTube Myuu - YouTube  Incompetech Darren Curtis Music - YouTube  Thank you for listening to this scary story! If you enjoyed this new creepypasta story, please check out some of my other horror stories. We'll be uploading new episodes every week, featuring ghost stories, haunted encounters, mysteries, true stories, creepypasta, and anything supernatural and paranormal. Don't miss out on the thrill and suspense that await you in each episode!

I'm here to give you a warning. Whatever you do, don't hike the Rock Ridge Trail. Now, I've seen plenty of strange things since I started working here. There was a time I saw a row of eight stars moving in a uniform single-file line across the night's sky. Clark and I were on an extended trip into the backcountry at the time, and both of us went to bed that night believing, with 100% certainty that we had seen aliens The next day, we decided to pack up our tools in gear and hightail it back to base camp. We dropped our bags and whipped out our phones as soon as we entered Wi-Fi range,

only to find that they were just the SpaceX Starlink satellites. Another time, there was a family who claimed that they'd been attacked in their sleep. They peeled out of the parking lot before I could ask what happened. When checking the campsite, I found a partially destroyed drawing. in the fire pit. It looked like it was drawn by one of their kids. It depicted the two parents holding hands with their heads hung low. The sun had drawn himself looking frightened in a tent while winged skulls bit down on the sides of the tent. He's probably going to be afraid of camping now, never knowing it was just some wild horses getting curious. They tend to wake people up

by biting the signs of tents. From the end of the end of the same. inside, it is truly terrifying. I mean, you can imagine a floating mouth with human-looking teeth and gums biting your tent. That would make anyone hide in their sleeping bag. But now, there's something going on that I can't explain. I'm writing this not expecting anyone to believe me. They told me not to tell anyone, but I feel as though it's my duty to do so anyway. It all started on a day like this. I was outside. by the visitor station watering the flowers, when I saw a hiker emerge from the woods at the clearing.

The first thought that ran through my mind was, when he got to go, you got to go. But he wasn't going to the bathroom. No. As soon as he went in, he came right back out. He looked around desperately for a moment, then beeline to the visitor center. I'd messed up and forgot to lock it while I was working outside. Now, I thought the glass would shatter the way he flung the door open. He didn't listen, as I shouted after him that we were closed,

instead slamming the door shut behind him. I tried the door, but he'd locked it. I fumbled with my keys, looked through the glass, and I took a closer look at the man who'd run inside. No, don't open it. He said, although muffled by the door, they followed me. Now the only thing on my mind was bears or maybe bees.

I turned around to look for what was chasing him, and I saw nothing. And then I looked back through the glass to try and get a better look at him. And he looked terrible. Sunk in eyes, hysterical hair. And he looked dehydrated, seeing an opportunity. He opened the door, grabbed me by the collar, and dragged me. me forcefully into the building. I fell to my knees and had to pull in my feet at the last second before he slammed the door, even though he was talking to me. He never took his eyes off the parking

lot. I could get a good look at him now, and he looked like he'd been out in the woods for weeks. His shirt was torn, and his skin was covered in scrapes and bruises. Had he been running through a briar patch, off-trail, shirtless? He was bleeding from too many places to count. I started to speak, but he interrupted me by putting his hands together and begging. Please don't make me go back outside. Okay, okay, you can stay. Just tell me what happened, I said, trying to calm him down.

Wait, wait, you don't understand. The bathroom doors. They don't go all the way to the ground. There's enough space for them to get through. He said, racing around the room, trying to check the seals on the windows. What exactly is going to get through? I asked. What do you mean? He grabbed my shoulders.

His breath reeked as he spat. I was attacked while I was sleeping. I got your Friday. They trapped me in the tent. I don't know what they were. Needles. I couldn't believe my eyes. Yeah, it was needles poking through the tent walls.

They hurt so bad. I started to feel weak. I had to run. Needles? I escaped his grasp and reached over the desk for the phone. I crushed so many of them with my hands. He continued, while I'd. I dialed 911, and I told them we needed an ambulance.

I looked back over at him, and he did not look good. He lost balance, bracing himself against the wood panel wall, and then he slid like a rag doll to the ground, just barely missing the water fountain. I rushed over, and I moved him carefully until he lay flat on the carpet, confirming a pulse. Major Clark came running inside, his eyes growing wide, when he saw an unconscious body on the floor. What happened? He said, rushing over to help the hiker. I don't know, I said. He said he was attacked.

These wounds, they don't look like anything I've seen before. What was he attacked by? He asked. All over his skin, were scratches and unidentifiable bites. He looked like he was allergic to them, whatever it was. Maybe it was vampire bats for all we knew. Clark disappeared into the office, returning quickly, with hands full of alcohol and gauze bandages.

We treated the hiker's wounds as best we could, and then waited with him on the floor, feeling useless. I spent much of those hours rethinking all my life choices. Why was I even here? But there had been nowhere else for me to go. My parents had kicked me out. I was coasting, they said. On my 24th birthday, there were no candles. You need to face real life as an adult, they said.

I couldn't afford rent, and I didn't want to go into a lifetime of debt to go to college. But they wouldn't listen. Instead, they gave me three months. So I applied to hundreds of jobs. Nobody was hiring. The amount of times I read the words three to five years relevant experience required on an entry level job posting was discouraging. When the email from Rockridge Park came in, I could hardly read it because my hands were shaking.

I had interviewed with this ranger named Clark for a position working for the Forest Service. He explained how we would do everything together. backcountry hiking to eating meals. He talked for a long time about how I could expect to work hard, cleaning campsites, and updating the trails to prevent erosion. But truthfully, the only words I ever really heard him say were North Carolina. It didn't matter what this job was. North Carolina was about as far away from home as I could imagine. This was an escape. So I accept. So I accept Clark emailed me a list of items the Forest Service would provide, basically food and shelter, my new home.

And a few days later, I was throwing my whole life and whatever backpacking gear I could find into my car. I hugged my mom, but my dad would hardly look at me. The lingering memory of their concerned faces as I backed out of the driveway never left my mind as I drove the hundreds of miles east. to North Carolina. I've lived my whole life in Utah, so witnessing the environment change on the drive, it felt like a religious experience. The world out here, it's just so much more green, and the biodiversity is truly astounding. But that all feels like a lifetime ago. The

wounded hiker shook me to my core. The EMT told us he needed blood immediately. It wasn't the wounds or the desperation in his eyes. It was the unknown. What had left all those bites all over him? The next morning, Clark and I set out to investigate his campsite. There were a few possible places he could have camped, and he'd chosen a campsite near the swimming hole, just a few miles down the Rockridge Trail.

It's one of our most popular campsites, surrounded by a quiet brook, feeding into a small pond where you can swim. The hiker had left everything behind. His gear was all about after the aftermath of some fierce battle. His pack was tossed against a tree, with all his food still sealed inside the bear canister. Clothes were still hanging from a tree limb to dry.

His tent flap was open, the zipper moving lightly in the breeze. I looked inside, and I wretched. from the smell. I took a step back, covering my nose with my shirt, steeled myself for a corpse, and I looked back inside. Now, bear with me for what I'm about to tell you next, because it was like nothing I've ever seen. Inside the tent was a face, not a body, a face, too small to be human, but it was human. It was deflated, laying flat, like a cheap latex Halloween mask, but it was too real to be a costume. The eyes were gray and glassy, and the nose lay at a concave angle where you could see nose hairs. The only thing I can

compare it to are those melted clocks from that surrealist painting, the persistence of memory. The thing that still haunts me most, though, it was the hair. Patchy, wiry, human hair. A beard coming from oily skin. I yelled for Clark to come look. I was shocked, backed up too far, and I lost my footing on a tree stop. What did you find?

He said, dropping a tarp the camper had left behind and sprinting towards me. I pointed to the open door of the tent. Clark pulled the flap back slowly, took one look inside, ducked away from the tent, and vomited. It was the smell, I think. I'm aware of what decay smells like. This wasn't like that. We took a second to calm down.

Holding his breath. Clark grabbed a stick and fished the face out of the tent. We stood a few feet away, not knowing what to make of it. The face was attached to a small body. You could make out individual parts like a leg here and wings there. It was completely destroyed, but we could tell that it wasn't human, too big to be a bird or insect, but it somehow had the parts of a bird or insect.

Whatever it was, the hiker had fought and killed it, smashing the small body. But the human-looking face remained. We didn't know what else to do, and it was getting dark. So we left. The long walk back to civilization started in silence. I don't think either of us felt like attracting unwelcome attention in these woods. There was something big going on here. It couldn't have been his face, right?

I mean, the hiker's face? I wondered if Clark was thinking what I was thinking, that it had almost looked like the guy who'd been attacked. The narrow beams of light from our headlamps guided our way, providing little comfort as we trudged on back to the parking lot. We were a few miles down the trail when Clark and I stopped to drink water. I was deep in my own head thinking about getting in my car, calling the police, and leaving. "'Promise not to be mad?'

Clark said. I swallowed a gulp of stale water from my bottle. Let me guess. You made a perfect replica mask of that guy's face, and you put it in the tent to scare me, right? And then you emptied a backpack full of dead animals into it for the realistic smell. He didn't smile, though. No, I found something else.

I wasn't going to tell you because I thought you're mad, but it doesn't make sense to keep this from you. I'm scared, and I'm sorry. I just don't want to be the only one who knows about this in case something happens, he said. And I braced myself for what would come next. I found something in the pie. next to his camp, Clark said.

Removing his pack, unzipping the largest compartment, and then he pulled out a t-shirt that was wrapped around something. He pulled the shirt back to reveal an elongated black rock. The light from my headlamp reflected off the smooth surface. It was perfectly smooth and pill-shaped, about the size of a football. Clark told me to touch it, and I laid my palm against it. It was warm, alive. We have to bring some evidence back.

No one will believe us if we don't, Clark said. We should have burned it, Clark. I replied. We can't burn it. If it's some new species and it's coming after hikers, it's our duty. as stewards of the environment and for the safety of the visitors to tell people. Clark replied, how noble of you, I said. If it was up to me, we'd take that thing out of your pack, lay it on the ground, and stomp on it,

I said. I don't care if an alien embryo pops out in the sludge, we need to kill it before it hatches. See, I knew you'd act like this, he replied. He wrapped it back in the T-shirt, and he closed his pack before I got any bright ideas. I fell behind on the trail. I'd set my peace. I stayed far enough behind Clark to at least be ready if the creature hatched. If I was behind him, I could at least see it coming and grab something to defend myself.

I thought the whole thing was short-sighted and dangerous. Evidence was not on my list of priorities at the moment. We didn't even know what this thing was. I walked as fast as I could without overtaking him. And finally, we made it back. The egg went straight into the drinks cooler. We closed the lash and then stacked no less than six six. cinder blocks on top. I started packing. I had made my decision hours ago on the hike.

This is not smart and I do not want to be any part of it, I said. While Clark watched with a worried face, you should come too. You can leave. I'm not going to try to stop you, he started, but at least wait until morning, all right? The dirt roads are risky to drive at night. If you got stuck or took a wrong turn, you could be weaving the switchbacks all night. Also, I don't think we should split up. He said. And he had a point. At the very least, I didn't think we should split up.

We'd witnessed something today that couldn't be explained, and we were both unsettled. I finally decided to stay on the condition that both of us leave early in the morning together. shook on it, then Clark poured us both a drink. Whiskey. He disappeared for a moment into his room, opened a wooden case I'd never seen before that was stashed away. He brought out some cigarettes. I'd quit smoking, but I took one anyway. We drank more than we should have, while going wild with our theories. I don't remember most of them now, but we circled around a few major points. We guessed that maybe the face was actually a replica mask he'd made himself using skin from some animal. Maybe he got some weird thrill out of wearing it?

I don't know, but that didn't even explain the smell. Or maybe this guy hated his twin brother with an acid hatred that poisoned every moment of their lives. Maybe he resented his brother for having the same face? I don't know. He was paranoid and disturbed, so he'd murdered him, throwing his body into the pond? We laughed. This was crazy.

We were letting our crazy imaginations run wild. I mean, in reality, the guy seemed pretty normal to me. Shook up, sure, but normal. Clark stumbled over to the logbook, where guests check in and reserve campsites. Okay. Well, we can put that one to rest. Looks like he didn't check in with a twin brother. He smiled. Lost balance, but managed to catch himself. I watched his inebriated finger scroll slowly down a list of names until he said, At least no one on this list. And then he paused and read silently to himself.

Well, wait a minute. Oh, shit. No, no, no, this can't be right. I jumped out of my seat, joining him at the logbook. His finger pointed at the long list of names, and two most recent log-ins had not logged out. Two names, Rachel and John, from Tennessee. Checked in Friday.

Destination. Rock Ridge. Ridge. And it was Sunday night. Most backpackers arrive on a Friday and are back at their cars Sunday morning. These hikers never checked out. The Rock Ridge Trail is a 10-mile loop. The overlook, where most backpackers decide to set up camp, is halfway at about five miles there and back. Clark and I looked at each other, and he broke the silence first. Sobering up is for the fishes, he said. Taking one more swig.

We started packing immediately. Mechanically filling water bottles, throwing energy bars into our day packs. A five-mile hike is not too long for us even at night. We'd done this exact hike hundreds of times. We'd spent weeks out there, living out of a base camp and working each day on maintaining the trail. I cursed when I realized I hadn't plugged in my head lamp to charge. We didn't have any weapons, but I thought we looked very resourceful when we finally landed on a pickaxe and bear spray.

For a second, I almost laughed at the image of us gearing up, about to set off into the dark to rescue some poor, unaware hikers. I needed to sober up now. It's always eerie to hike at night. having such a narrow cone of vision, it's just unsettling, whether you know the area or not. You can't see anything, but everything else can see you. A hiking trail is barely a refuge from the elements. In fact, bears and moose have been known to use them, just as humans. Clark and I clicked on our headlamps, both using red lights to avoid losing night vision.

We started walking as fast as we could without wearing ourselves out. The moon lit our path until we reached the trailhead, where trees would swallow us whole for several hours. The hike was long. It felt very different at night, like the landmarks were further away. Everything kind of blended together. Our headlamps cast light over looming tree limbs, and beetles scattered from the trail in front of our boots. Something cracked a stick just beyond the trees, but we just kept moving. At one point,

I heard Clark say to himself, Miles before Smiles, it was an old hiking mantra, usually said by people who were tired. At least we were sober now and able to take in the gravity of our situation. I felt disoriented when we arrived at the base of the hill, when you're about five miles deep on Rock Ridge Trail, you'll emerge from a densely wooded area, and you'll find yourself in a clearing at the base of a hill. It's a stunning spot. The views are amazing. It's one of my personal favorites.

A popular spot for hikers to stop and have a break, partly because it's beautiful during the day, and partly because you can see what lies ahead. You're going to climb a hill, a huge hill. The elevation change at this point in the trail is higher than any other point in the park. You can stop here to fortify yourself. Clark and I were drinking water when we saw them. The campers were staying at one of the more popular campsites, the one near the ridge. The light coming from their tent was flickering on and off.

We stared at the light, both quickly recognizing the pattern. Then three short flips again. SOS and Morse Code. We sprinted up the mountain. And I was completely out of breath as I got closer to their tent. There was this mysterious buzzing noise like a helicopter that was very far away. And as I got closer, it began to sound more like a horsefly does when it flies close to your ear. but ten times louder.

Finally, I crested the last rock step, and I turned my head to point the light at the tent. The buzzing was coming from inside. There was an erratic battering against the inner walls of the tent. It sounded like wings. And just then, the girl inside saw my light and screamed for help. I ran. Clark was right behind.

me as we approach the tent. And the sound was so loud now. The tent was covered with a separate outer waterproof layer known as rainfly, like one tent set up over a small tent to keep the rain out. I unzip the outer door, and what was inside will haunt me for the rest of my days. They were like giant, flying insects. They hovered between the inner and outer tent, like hummingbirds, their wings beating against the material. If they saw the opportunity, they would poke their needle-like mouth through the mesh window, aiming to make contact with a poor hiker's skin.

The needles made sense now. On their backs, they had large sacks filled with red liquid, probably blood. The beating of their wings was so... loud, and they sensed me behind them, retracted their needles from the tent walls with surgical precision, and then flew off into the night. I tried to follow them with my light, but I lost them in the trees. They were too quick.

Their wings moving at a speed I would not have thought possible for their size. I mean they looked like hummingbirds or dragonflies when they flew, like they could move at any angle, forward, back, or diagonal. I opened the tent flap again, and the hikers were both inside. I asked the girl, who I assumed to be Rachel, if she was okay. She was clutching a sleeping pad halfway deflated, and had been using it to bat away the needles as they repeatedly lunged for her skin. She was panicked, completely traumatized. The boy was passed out behind her. I whispered that it was going to be okay, instructed her to stay put and that I'd be right back. Clark and I searched the clearing. Our lights bounced from one tree to the other. We waited for the sound

of wings. We didn't know much, but at least we knew they were either too far away for us to hear or they'd landed. And then Clark startled me when he grabbed my arm. I looked to where his headlamp was pointing. He was illuminating a low tree branch about 10 feet high. The creature was perched there like an owl. I thought I would lose my mind just looking at it. A human face sat there on an insect's body. It had this dull expression. The face did not blink, and the pupils didn't dilate in the light. It was like a face that was missing the crucial essence that it takes to look human. Its body was segmented, all black like an insect, and it just sat there, grooming its front legs with its back legs.

The wings were folded back, resting behind it. The transparent material reflected off our headlamps, flashing. The eyes never once turned to look at us. And then suddenly, we heard the sound of wings closing in on us. We braced ourselves, not wanting to take our light away from the creature. the beating of wings got closer and closer and then stopped. Another one had landed in the same tree, the weight of its body causing tremors down the branch. And both creatures stayed totally still as we watched them from below.

I didn't know what to do. It was just quiet for a moment. Broken only when the hikers screamed from inside the tent. For the love of God, kill them. And at that moment, they all moved together. They descended from the tree to the ground, leaves scattering as they landed. They started walking towards us. They looked like crickets when they walked on the ground, but crickets with blank human faces,

twitching and cocking to the side as they approached. I was terrified, but I felt the weight. of my pickaxe in my hand. I'd carried it all this way, after all. And just then, Clark disappeared. The things kept coming closer and closer, the light never leaving them for a second. They were just a few feet away now, and I realized that they had the faces of the boy and the girl in the tent. It was uncanny. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The creature was. on the right, even had blue eyes like the girl. The creature approaching on the left had a strong jaw and dark rims around its eyes, like the boy. I braced, ready to swing the pickax down with all my

strength. I was sure one of them was going to start running at me, and I'd miss it, and it would scurry up my leg. And then it would stab me through the heart with its needle mouth and extract my DNA and mimic my face. But they didn't. They just kept walking towards us slowly. All together, they were nearly within my range when they opened their mouths wide. And if they spoke then, I would have screamed. I couldn't move.

And I saw a black snake, like an elephant's trunk, emerge from the back of their throats. Just then, Clark heaved this boulder. It went through the air in slow motion, making direct contact with the bug imitating the boy. The boulder smashed down on top of it, a direct hit. The other insect, the one imitating the girl, skittered away into the trees.

I looked back at the injured creature. It was trying to escape McKee. mechanically, like an insect stuck to a glue trap. And I brought my pickaxe down on its face. It stopped moving. Clark and I looked at each other. Where'd the other one go? I asked.

Eyes darting from tree to tree. I don't know, but keep looking. They can run as fast as they can fly, Clark replied. The second insect skittered towards my feet. too fast for me to swing my pickaxe. I swung, missed, and jumped into the air at the last second to avoid it running up my legs. The creature ran underneath me and disappeared again into the trees.

We heard it fly, then stop. Fly then stop. Clark and I stood back to back, me holding my pickaxe and Clark wielding bear spray. I looked up and it was directly above me. It dropped onto me from the trees. I ducked so it didn't land on my face, but it was so heavy and its talons dug into my back. I dropped my pickaxe and started reaching behind me. I was just trying to tear it off.

I caught its wings and I pulled as hard as I could, throwing it to the ground. It tried to fly away. but Clark immediately started dousing it with bear spray. It was stunned and disabled. It started hopping away blindly, but we caught up to it. Clark jumped onto it with both his feet, crushing it beneath him. It was like he jumped into a rain puddle. Blood splattered everywhere.

But there was no time to lose. I asked the girl if she could walk and she said, And we abandoned the campsite, Clark carrying the unconscious boy in his arms, and we set away on the long trek back. I could start to see their wounds as the morning light came through the trees. They were both covered in those same bumps that the first hiker had been. Perfect raised circles with a single spot of blood in the center. They looked like huge mosquito bites. My mind went wild on the long walk back.

These creatures, they took on the likeness of the animals they drank the blood of. It had to be some old-world evolutionary advantage that a long extinct creature would have. I shouldn't be telling you any of this. But that all happened a few weeks ago. The park has been closed since then, but I still feel like it's my duty to warn any would-be hikers. A team came out. They were probably from the government, but I don't really know. They wouldn't tell me anything.

Their vans were unmarked, but they did wear uniforms. The uniforms had this weird symbol I didn't recognize, like a circle with an arrow pointing inwards. I dug around on the Internet, and I found a website for this, an organization called the SCP. That stands for secure, contain, protect. We showed them our cooler where we stashed the egg that Clark had found. It had already hatched and was bashing around inside the cooler. But luckily, the cinder blocks held. I watched as the SCP people drilled a hole in the top of the cooler. The black snake from the bug's mouth tried to get through, but the team

quickly fed a clear tube through the hole. They filled the cooler with some liquid, and the cooler went silent. They carted that off, but not before wrapping it three times with what looked like regular duct tape. They told us to hold back, that we couldn't go with him, but Clark and I insisted that we needed to show them the swimming hole where we found the egg. When we got there we didn't waste time. They put on scuba gear, many of them going into the water. We waited. When they came out, they spoke amongst themselves for a while. They walked us back into the woods, and then they gave a signal to a man with a detonator. They were very thorough. They told us that they have ways of killing the queen. They said the nest shouldn't bother us anymore.

and that it's even safe to swim. But I am not so sure. Sometimes, when I look out the window at night, I think I see my own face hovering just outside the glass, looking back at me. This is a warning. Do not hike the Rock Ridge Trail.