Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm a Ranger with The Forestry Service. I have a TERRIFYING story | Scary Stories

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

"This is my most TERRIFYING story..."       Story from NormalAlfalfa8523 Make sure to check out more of their work at u/NormalAlfalfa8523  Covert Art from huleebPRO              Original Post: I Went to a Local Trail for a Date…Things Aren’t What They Seem Here : r/scarystories  Original YouTube link: I'm a Ranger with The Forestry Service. I have a TERRIFYING story          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!

There's one rule that could save your life. Tell a ranger if you meet a lost child in the woods. Don't help the kid. Don't even talk to him. Just walk away and let us handle it. We don't want any more disappearances in this park. Think of your own, kids. I've worked with the National Park Service in Ohio for the last 20 years.

All these years dealing with rugged landscapes, weather emergencies, and lost or injured hikers have shaped me. Sure, working is difficult and it can be stressful, but I'd take it all instead of being stuck in an office inside all day. But despite my skills and love for the outdoors, something happened a few years back that shook me to my core. Even now, hearing reports of similar incidents, it just makes my blood run cold.

It was a chilly overcast day in early November. I just finished up some trail maintenance when a woman runs up to me. She looked like she'd been crying. Her clothes were dirty, and she appeared disheveled. I asked if she was okay. She stammered out a nearly incoherent sentence about a little boy who was lost in the woods. Finally, after she started to calm down, I got it out of her. She was hiking alone when she stopped because she heard faint crying.

She followed the sound to find a young boy who looked about five or six years old. He was just sitting on the ground crying. No one was with him, which was concerning. She approached him and asked if he was lost. He continued to cry, not answering the question. She knelt down next to him and patted his shoulder, attempting to comfort him, but nothing seemed to stop him from crying. Why don't you come with me, okay?

Let's look for your mommy and daddy," she said. He stood up and dried his tears then, and then walked with her in silence for a few minutes. She tried to get some basic information out of him, his name, his parents' names, when he last saw them. But he wouldn't say anything. The boy just kept saying that he lived in a house nearby. The problem with this was there were names. any house is nearby. The park, it's a very remote area. So the woman chalks it up to his age

and not understanding distances. She couldn't get any cell reception, so she tried navigating them back to a higher traffic area of the trail to find help. She reported that the young boy was very resistant to this. He kept trying to pull her deeper into the forest, babbling on about how his parents' house wasn't very far. The woman tried to persuade him to follow her, but he just wouldn't. She tried grabbing his hand to lead him. This didn't work. He yanked her arm so hard that she said it injured her shoulder. He had more strength than any kid his age and size possibly could, she said. At this point, the woman panicked. She yanked her hand. She yanked her hand free and then she just took off. It took her a long time to find her way back to the trail,

and then she ran into me. I hoped her find her way back, and I agreed to go look for the boy. Now, truthfully, I wasn't sure how much of her story I believed. I knew from experience that being out here alone, it can mess with your mind, compound that with exhaustion and dehydration, and you have a recipe for not seeing things as they are. However, if there was even the slightest chance that a little kid was out there lost, I was going to find him. You see, I had a personal experience with a missing person's case. My sister, Sky, had been missing for over three years at this point. She didn't go missing out in these woods, though.

She disappeared during an out-of-state road trip she'd been planning for months. It was her first trip by herself. it's the first step to achieving her dream of traveling the world solo. Unfortunately for me and our parents, there were very few leads. We'd spent countless months in the city where she was last seen. We continually worked with law enforcement to find something, anything, to go off of. But we eventually had to return to our lives with no real answers. and I never wanted any other family to go through what we have.

So I took off in the direction the woman described. And I looked around for almost an hour before giving up and heading back. There were no reports of a missing child in the area. So, again, I just figured it was her mind playing tricks on her. And just as I changed course, I heard a faint laughing. I paused. And carefully, I thought, Followed the sound a few yards until I found a young boy sitting on the forest floor playing

with rocks and twigs. Uh, hey there, I said as I approached him. What's your name? He glanced up at me, gave me a shy look, then went back to playing with the rocks and twigs. I gently tapped him on the shoulder. He stood up and tapped my arm back. Tag, you're it, he said.

I sighed and ran after him. Being in my early 40s, I knew it wouldn't be easy to keep up with him. And he darted in a zigzag pattern around the trees. I was running out of breath when I finally caught up to him. He darted into an opening in the rock and then disappeared from sight. It was the entrance to a cave. Oh, I cursed under my breath. The sun was already gone down and I was exhausted from a long day.

But I had to go in after him. I yelled out for him, warning him this wasn't a game anymore and caves aren't the best places to play in. Silence. I shined my flashlight around and I noticed tunnels branching off in different directions. I started with the one on the left. Now I wasn't very familiar with this cave system. Truth be told, caves they kind of gave me the creeps, silly as that sounds.

Something about being underground and cut off from the rest of the world. It was unnerving to me, and I walked through the darkness looking for any sign of the young boy. Every footstep of mine echoed. I eventually realized I stumbled into an open area of the cave system. I shined my flashlight around, trying to get a sense of the layer. out, and I noticed the light passed something white near the ceiling. Without thinking, I turned the light back onto it, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It had to be six feet long, and it had an even longer wingspan. It looked like a giant moth, but with humanoid arms and legs.

It was a sickly pale white all over. I couldn't see its face, and I pointed my flashlight back towards the ground, and I began to slowly back away. I could hear it begin to stir. To my horror, I heard a whoosh of air, and it began to fly towards me. And I just took off trying to outrun it. I could hear a loud buzzing noise from behind me. It was so loud. It made my ears ring. In all my years working with wildlife, this was not anything I'd heard before.

It sounded like a combination of an angry wasp and a human scream, and I don't mean a battle cry. It sounded like the kind of scream someone does when they're in massive pain or extremely terrified. The creature was gaining on me. I picked up a rock and I chucked it as hard as I possibly could. I heard a thud as it fell to the ground, still making that disturbing, screaming noise. I only got a quick look at its face, but what I saw, it'll never leave my mind. Glowing red eyes, no pupil, no iris, just beady red. bulbs.

I tore through the cave and I quickly climbed out the same entrance I came in. I stopped to catch my breath. What the hell did I just see? But just as I was getting my bearings, I saw the boy. He was climbing a tree. Hey, I yelled. He looked my way. So I know you're having fun out here,

But it's about to get dark and I'm sure your parents are worried about you. How about we go find him?" And to my surprise, the boy just nodded and climbed down. I tried to ask him his name, but he wouldn't answer. I asked where his parents were and he said they lived nearby. He pointed in a direction, I knew couldn't be right. There were no houses anywhere even remotely close to that part of the forest. And I told him to follow me.

And he did, at least at first. He quickly became distracted, though, by a stream. He ran over to it and started splashing and playing in the water. I tried to coax him out with some snacks I had left over, but he wasn't interested. You're still it, he said. And then he ran away, using the stepping stones of the stream. and I sighed and followed him. Unfortunately, I'm not as agile as I used to be.

And I slipped. I fell face first into the water, and I felt this sharp pain in my leg. And I saw a huge, yash, oozing blood that stained the water red. I cut my leg on a sharp rock. Damn it! I yelled. The boy had made it to the other side of the stream, this point. I looked up to see him running towards the trees. I need to find help, I thought. This kid

was not being cooperative, and there was no way I could get him out of here myself with this injury. I pulled myself out of the stream and into the grass beside it. I was struggling to figure out how I could even get myself back home now. I wrapped my leg with some first aid supplies I always carried with me. My phone had gotten wet. and it wouldn't even boot up. Even if I found any reception, I was out of luck. I was very angry with myself for getting into this situation. I knew better than to climb into uncharted caves alone, or to play stepping stone like I was a kid again. I tried to stand up and walk, but I only made it 20 feet before I fell again. It would be dark soon, I thought, and as I tried to catch my breath,

I noticed a bird chirping on a branch, but the sound, it wasn't quite right. It almost sounded like a tea kettle. Exhaustion was taking over me. I closed my eyes, and I buried my head in my hands when I reopened my eyes. I wasn't in the woods anymore. I could hear a tea kettle. I was indoors, in bed, in an un-obeyedged. unfamiliar home, and it was daylight now. I jumped and looked around. There was no one else in the room.

I went to sit up, and I noticed my legs still hurt, although not nearly as bad. It was neatly bandaged. There was a wooden walking stick next to the bed. I grabbed it, and I used it to take some weight off my leg as I stood up. I made my way out of the bedroom, and I looked around. The home was quiet, but it was clearly inhabited. It was a small, bright-looking cottage. Hello? I called out as I looked around. A few minutes later, I heard the front door open, and I jumped. A pretty blonde woman, who looked like she was in her 30s, walked in. Pretty was an understatement. This woman was stunning. Her presence gave off this warm and friendly aura.

She wore a light blue dress and carried a wicker basket full of berries and herbs that looked like. Hey, I'm glad to see you up, she said smiling. You were in bad shape when I found you yesterday. I'm Haven, by the way. Um, I'm Jason, I replied. We shook hands. I asked her how she found me, and she told me she was out for a walk when she noticed me.

According to her, I was unconscious, so she brought me back here to help me. I really appreciate this, I told her. But why didn't you just take me to the hospital? Haven gave me a quizzical look. Why would I take you somewhere that would charge you $1,000 to do something that I can easily do for free. Your leg's getting better, right? She asked.

I nodded. I gathered from our conversation that Haven is a modern-day hippie. She told me she never went to public school. She lived off the land instead of going to the store, and she doesn't trust modern medicine. I figured, based on what she was telling me, that she didn't even have a phone. I was right.

But she agreed to give me ride back into town, though she practically begged me to stay for breakfast first. I reluctantly agreed. She started cooking and she poured me a cup of tea. We talked some more, and I started to feel very drowsy. When I woke back up, I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. I was back in the bedroom I found myself in that morning. I looked at the window. It was dark now. The window was way too small for me to climb out of, so I quietly opened the bedroom door and looked around. The house was quiet. There was a door across the hall from mine, and I wondered if this was Haven's Room. I felt groggy, which made it very difficult to stay focused.

The front door was locked. Why would someone lock their front door from the inside? And then I heard a scratching noise coming from a closed door by the kitchen. I quickly snuck over, and I put my ear up to the door. Behind the thick door, I could hear a faint voice crying for help. I tried opening the door, but it was locked, and I began searching for the key, checking every drawer and cabinet. Finally, I found a ring of keys. I frantically tried several, and after what felt like I tried all of them, the lock moved. Then I opened it to see the boy from the woods.

He was sitting at the bottom of the basement stairs, crying. She locked me down here, he said. Okay, all right, I'm going to get you out of here. I whispered back. The boy continued to cry and refused to stand up and follow me. He walked farther into the basement, and so I had to follow him. The light was dimmed down there, but I could make out glass jars. There were dozens of them lining the shelves.

I crept closer, and I saw something floating in them. Small orbs of bouncy balls. And when I got closer, I realized what they were. They were eyes in various states of decay. What the hell had I walked into? I jumped back, and I noticed a hole in the ground towards the back of the basement. It had a thick rope dangling down into it. I touched the rope, and I noticed it had this odd texture.

And it took me a moment to realize. Why? It was woven together with human hair. The strands were of different colors and lengths. I couldn't even begin to imagine how much hair would be needed for this, and I started to tremble. Okay, this was insane. I'd had enough. I saw the boy crouched in the corner near the pit. I tried to pick him up, but he fought me off. But I was more direct with him this time. Look, it isn't safe here and we need to get out of here now, I said. The boy sank to the floor crying.

He started apologizing profusely. Why are you saying sorry? I asked, still trying to shush him. She makes me bring her people, he said. Who is she? I asked. Mom, he whispered. And my hand started shaking, then. What does she do when you get people?

I asked. The boy said nothing, and I pointed to the hole in the ground. I climbed back up the stairs as quickly as my injured leg would let me. And the door was now locked. I hobbled back down the stairs. I had no idea where the boy was at this point. It was like he had just vanished. The only other place he could be was a closet-like room on the side.

The door swung gently on a loose hinge. I peered in, and I saw what looked like suits hung up neatly in rows, covered in plastic. I turned on the light. These weren't suits, I realized. They were human skins. I stifled a scream. I closed the door, and I began retching. I sat on the floor for several minutes, trying to pull myself together.

Eventually, my breathing regulated, and I just started pacing, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Okay, I'm in a deranged stranger's basement, injured. This woman is so crazy that she uses her kid to lure people into her home so she can skin them. I don't even know where this house is other than it's a remote area in the woods. She freaking this lady kills people, skins them like animals, and then she puts their bodies in some hole in the ground. Why? I wondered.

As I paced, I noticed a desk stacked with books in the back of the basement. I sat down at the chair and began rifling through the books, hoping for some sort of clue that would get me to hell out of this mess. But the books only contained strange images, creatures I'd never seen before. One of them looked very similar to what I saw in the cave, system, the large humanoid moth creature. Another was a bipedal creature that had what looked like antlers, a giant mutant deer standing on two legs. The thing's fur was ragged and bones popped out of its sides in a way that looked very painful. Some of these creatures appeared more

humanoid than others. Some lived underwater or underground. But somehow the worst of them were the pages filled with drawings of humans. They looked like something out of a medical textbook. Each detail was rendered carefully from the smallest nerves to the organs. I heard the door at the top of the stairs budge then. And I shut the book and I dove behind a few barrels to hide. I tried to breathe as quietly as I could. Tim, yelled Haven. I heard her walk towards the little boy, and they began arguing.

It was on the other side of the room, but from what I could hear, she was demanding to know if he'd seen me. And he denied knowing where I was. She muttered something about. doing this herself and then walk to the closet. Curiosity got the better of me then, and I peered through the space between the two barrels. I saw her pulling out one of the human skins from its plastic cover and putting it on like a snow suit. I had to force myself not to gag at the sight of this. She began chanting something

I couldn't make out, and then the skin seemed to tighten around her. It wrapped itself around her body, and then it contorted itself in a new form. I watched as the seams disappeared, and the skin bulged and then solidified over itself. Haven now looked like a six-foot-tall, muscular man. She donned a pair of jeans and a flannel top. And a few moments later, I heard the front door open and shut. I waited several minutes before emerging from behind the barrels. Tim snuck up on me, causing me to jump.

I can help you. He whispered, I didn't feel I had much of a choice, so I agreed to follow his lead. He told me we would need to exit out of the hole in the ground, using the rope made of human hair. I didn't like this, but Tim motioned for me to follow him as he climbed down the rope. And I followed. Once we were underground, Tim advised me to turn down my flash. and to stay very quiet. I followed him down the dark, winding tunnels, and they seemed

to go on forever. As we kept walking, I thought I heard an extra set of footsteps, except they weren't coming from the cave floor, but rather from the wall behind us. I glanced upward, and on the side of the cave wall I could see something crawling. Although it was dark and difficult to see, I could make out that it was very large, at least seven feet tall, and with disturbingly human-like skin. The shape was far from human, though. The creature's body and head were flat. Its head was almost square-shaped, and it crawled on ten spindly legs.

It continued to climb the wall and scale the ceiling above us, and I held my breath as I carefully sped up. I didn't want that thing dropping on me. I wanted to ask Tim what the hell this thing was, but I didn't want to draw attention to myself. For now, it seemed to leave us alone and mind its own business. We continued walking in silence. I wondered how long it would be till we resurfaced. My leg was hurting again so I couldn't walk

fast. Even with the panic rising in my chest, I knew I had to stay focused to get out of here. I also began to wonder if I could really trust this kid. After all, it was him who had lured me here. I wondered if Haven actually was his mother at all. And was he even a kid? And then my thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected guest. A goat emerged from the cave behind me. It seemed to be wandering around the tunnels just like we were, whining as it was looking for a way out. Huh, how'd you get down here? I said, petting it.

Tim, who was walking in front of me, snapped back around. No, he said. He grabbed my arm and pulled me away. He sped down the tunnel with me, and I tried to ask, but all he would tell me was that that wasn't a goat, that I shouldn't trust the creatures in these tunnels. In the back of my mind, I wondered if that should include him. It wasn't long after that that Tim said we were close to the exit. And I took a deep breath.

He said we'd have to climb a bit to get out, but I did not mind. Finally, we reached an opening. There was a rock wall we would have to scale to climb out, but luckily it wasn't too steep. And just as I was bracing myself for the climb, I heard my name. It was coming from back inside the tunnels. I stopped to listen, and I heard it again more clearly this time. The familiar sound of it made my blood run cold. It sounded like Sky, my sister, my sister who never came home.

I turned and I began walking towards her voice, calling out to her. And Tim practically tackled me. And for someone who looked six years old, this kid was extremely strong. I protested, crying, telling him I just wanted to see my sister. I escaped his grip, and I ran towards Skye's voice. I imagined embracing her as she cried on my shoulder, telling me how much she missed me. And I would tell her that I was going to get us out of this horrible, godforsaken place and call our parents to tell them that she was alive.

I didn't see anyone as I walked towards the voice, but I couldn't stop. She sounded so close, you know, and I kept calling out to her until I saw something move in the darkness, and I ran as fast as my injured leg would let me. But as I came closer, I saw that it was far too tall to be sky. It was too tall to be anything human. I heard heavy breathing. It came closer until I could make out that it was eight feet tall in the light and coming down from the exit. This thing looked vaguely similar to a deer.

Its coat was mangy and some ribs were exposed, almost like it had begun to rod. I recognized it from the book on the desk. I can still smell it. It was like roadkill baking on a summer day. This thing shambled closer, still using my sister's voice to call me. Its coat was the color of her hair. Tim grabbed me then, pulling me to the exit. He hoisted me up the rock face.

I scrambled up as fast as I could with Tim helping my injured leg from below. Even halfway up, I could still smell that thing. The overpowering stench of it and my leg screaming in pain was starting to cloud my mind. We were nearly to the top. When I lost my grip and fell, my head hit the ground hard, I couldn't move and I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Jason, Jason, Tim said, trying to shake me awake. I wondered how we got down so fast before everything went black when I opened my eyes. It was daytime.

Buddy. Hey, buddy, can you hear me? A police officer stood over me. He introduced himself as Officer Hill. I was in the woods laying on the ground. I didn't know where I was, but there wasn't a pit anywhere near us. I sat up. My leg was still injured but wasn't bandaged. I heard the officer on a walkie-talkie saying something about EMS.

I still felt dizzy and very confused. I tried to tell the officer as much as I could, without sounding, you know, totally crazy. And it was then that I realized that Tim was nowhere to be seen. I asked him if he'd seen a small boy with me, but the officer just shook his head. He said a couple of hikers spotted me off trail. I was reported missing over two days ago, and they had search parties everywhere out looking for me.

No one had seen any sign of a boy. The paramedics arrived shortly after that, and I was beyond thankful to just get out of there. But as they were loading me up to the ambulance, a man approached the officer who'd been helping me. I overheard him say something about how his son ran away. And I recognized the flannel immediately. I stopped the EMTs, and I yelled out to the officer, warning me. him not to believe the man. The officer

looked at him, then back at May, and I heard him mutter something to one of the EMTs about a head injury. I beg them to listen if they wouldn't, and instead they shot me full

of sedatives and carted me off. Officer Hill went missing shortly after. They've never found him, As for Tim, I only hope that someday, maybe he'll learn to use his mother's magic. I'm still with the service, so he knows where to find me. And I owe him one.

So if he's ever ready to fight back, I'll be there with him.