Lighthouse Horror Podcast - I'm A Small Town Cop In Ohio. This is Why I Quit | Scary Stories

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

I saw something terrifying...      Story from Bryan Phipps Make sure to check out more of their work at u/BoyWithALoafOfBread                             Original Post: The Congregation : r/nosleep  Original YouTube link: I'm A Small Town Cop In Ohio. This is Why I Quit      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 a small town you've probably never heard of. It sits in the middle of a national forest. When I first got the job, I thought it'd be a great place to work. Until I heard this story about people going missing, until I found out about all the disappearances. It's best to keep out of these woods. Now, I've always wanted to be a police officer. My father was an Ohio State trooper.

In fact, his very first day of the academy was the day of the day, I was born. Even though law enforcement had always been his life, it wasn't what he wanted for me. He'd say that he actually wanted me to have a life, which I admit it did make sense. He wasn't around for much of my childhood. He was always working. Now, I was 23 and single when I entered the Dayton Police Academy. I had the advantage, if you want to call it that, of not having much of a personal life. When I graduated, six months later, I thought, I was the advantage of the day to the thought that my post would be in the Dayton area. So you can imagine my surprise. When I was shipped off to the other end of the state in Perry County, I was being assigned to the extremely small

town of Rendville, located right in the middle of Wayne National Forest. Given my age and lack of real world experience, I was sent to an area with a very small population. Very small, only around 50 or so residents. It was a quiet little place where everyone seemed kind and got along well. Hell, on the first day I arrived, they even held a town-wide potluck dinner for me. That was when I first met Sheriff Bailey, who'd started out as a park ranger in the area. He was an older man, if I had to guess, I'd say early 70s. But he still had the demeanor of an enthusiastic park ranger, wanting to teach tourists about the area rather than being responsible for law enforcement. Then again, from what I could see, there wasn't much crime. He told me that when it came right down to it,

this was the easiest job in the world. He also gave me a small history lesson about the town itself, which I was curious about. It wasn't every day you heard about a town being right in the middle of a national forest. According to him, the small town of Vrendiv, had begun in the early 1850s, but the Wayne National Forest wasn't officially established until 1992. Most people who visited the area tended to stay away from the town, which had become kind of isolated. After attending the meet and greet with the citizens, I made my way to the station and started going over the town's records, and I was surprised to find that there hadn't been so much as a parking ticket filed in the past 15 years. I could see from the map of the town,

the residents mainly lived in cabins, small houses, and a community of mobile homes. There was a dollar general, two Exxon gas stations, and the Mount Calvary Methodist Church, which also served as the local preschool and kindergarten. As one of only three officers, I'd be operating out of the local park rangers office where i'd also be living for the six months i was stationed there i'd honestly taken this post as a sort of vacation a quiet town with not much to do now that optimistic view of my first real job it came very quickly to an end this would turn out to be one of the darkest periods of my life and the ongoing nightmare would begin with the disappearance of Natalie Breyerwood. We got the call at the station around 5.30 in the evening. Her mother called in.

After Natalie never came back from a morning hike, she'd been expected at her parents' home for lunch, but she just never showed up. Natalie knew the area very well, but it's easy to get turned around in these woods, so they decided to call for help. I began my search in the area of the forest a quarter mile beyond Natalie's house. After about 20 minutes of walking through heavy brush and calling her name, I was met with nothing but silence. I was about to change my direction and move further towards the northeast when I heard a twig snap up ahead. Natalie, I called, and I was met with only silence. But I noticed it was more than her voice that was absent in these woods,

because as I stood there listening, I realized there were no birds chirping. No insects, buzzing. Only complete silence. Except for the fallen leaves crunching under my boot. Not only that, it was almost like being inside some sort of sound deprivation chamber. Because when I called out again, my voice fell flat and just faded away. It was a strange feeling, and then I heard, Natalie, I stood there frozen.

as I heard my own voice call out her name. But it wasn't coming from me. It was coming from where I'd heard the snapping twigs on the trail ahead of me. Hello? I asked. Who's there? Hello? A voice mimicked, this time coming from behind me. Who's there? It asked again. Now to my right.

reflexively thinking this was some kind of twisted ambush, I drew my service pistol. The unnatural silence was doing nothing to ease my nerves as I could hear my heart thudding in my chest. And I spun around when I heard a loud thump behind a large brush pile by some fallen trees. And I carefully made my way towards it through the silent woods. It wasn't until I saw a pair of white tennis shoes that the eerie, voices vanish from my mind. When going through the police academy, one of the things covered extensively is going over and analyzing body cam footage of dangerous wrecks and shootouts. Over the months, I'd probably seen a hundred corpses in various states of decay, to the point where I

came to be pretty desensitized to death in all its gruesome forms. But this, this was different, this was personal. I had just been speaking to her parents and assuring them that everything would be fine. She was just laying there in the dirt, surrounded by small broken branches. I tried to reason with myself that she may have just been knocked out

after falling from a tree. And when I checked for a pulse and I only felt that cold stiffness of rigor mortis, the reality of the situation hit me there weren't any cuts or gashes or any of her exposed skin but there was a decent-sized snapped tree branch a few feet away from her body what didn't make sense was this if the thump i heard was her falling she wouldn't be at this stage of decomposition and why did she climb the tree maybe being lost she was trying to get her falling she wouldn't be at this stage of decomposition and why did she climb the tree maybe being lost she was trying to get bearings? Find her way back, maybe. The hardest thing I've ever had to do was walk up to the Briarwood family and tell them about the loss of their daughter. I'll never forget the sound her mother made as reality set in. To call it crying or weeping would be wrong. It was like a howl that encompassed all the pain and suffering endured in a lifetime. The father just stood there.

he was in a state of disbelief. The death of Natalie warranted an investigation that was taken by the Ohio State Police. The body was transferred to the Monroe Medical Center for an autopsy, which revealed she died from blunt force trauma, most likely brought on by falling from a great height from one of the surrounding trees, combined with the fact that she landed on a broken root which pierced her abdomen. The whole thing was over in a matter of days when it was officially ruled in accidental death. And I have to confess, this is partially due to the fact that when I filed my report,

I decided to leave out the incident with the voices that I heard before finding her. At the time, I chucked it up to nerves and an overactive imagination. If only that had been the case. Her funeral was held at the Mount Calvary Methodist Church and nearly the entire town turned out to support the family. While we may grow accustomed to funerals of grandparents or older relatives, having a silver lining of a full life, here, this was not the case.

You only really focus on the life that's been taken. I didn't even know her and I still got choked up. I was one of the last to leave the graveside service, while most friends of the family gathered around the casket. I stayed in the back by the edge of the cemetery. To me, the family headed hard enough. The last thing they needed was to see the man that brought them the worst news of their lives. As the final mourners made their way out of the cemetery and on with their own lives,

I noticed another figure watching the scene from the opposite end of the gravesite. Wasn't much of a mystery, though. It was Mr. Shanta, the only Native American in town. Well, he didn't technically live in Renville. He stayed in a small cabin about five miles past the town line. Being the only two left, I was surprised when he motioned for me to come over. As I made my way across the cemetery, he took a quiet look around the area, making sure no one was watching us.

We need to talk, deputy. All right, what about? I asked. He took notice of two men, arriving to finish the job of burying the casket. Not here. He said nervously. It's about the Briarwood girl. You're the one who found her, right?

And with that, I started walking. walking back towards my patrol car. Sorry, I can't talk about that case, Mr. Shanta. You heard your own voice in the woods, didn't you? He asked. And that question froze me in place. As I turned back to meet his gaze, the expression on my face must have been all the answer he needed.

I was about to ask how he knew about that, but he just shook his head. Not here. We arrived at his cabin just as the sun was beginning to set. It was just a small little thing off a beaten dirt road that seemed to be cut right through the heart of the forest in the middle of nowhere. It gave me an ominous feeling given what we'd be discussing. The interior of the cabin was what you'd expect from a nomad living off on his own. It was only one room with a sleeping cot in one corner, a small kitchen.

kitchen area opposite the bed, and what served as a living room in the front hall of the cabin. Mr. Shanta motioned for me to have a seat in one of the two rocking chairs, while he placed some wood in the iron fireplace. Now, while it's been many years since he told me what he brought me there to say, I will summarize to the best of my ability. He told me a story of an old Shawnee legend, of when their tribe first began to settle the plight of the plight of plains of what we now know is Ohio. As he told it, almost 500 years before Europeans ever touched the shores of America, the Shawnee tribe from which he descended, claimed to have seen a star fall from the skies. A great fire ravaged the land, and it killed all the animals,

but it left the trees untouched. The people first believed it was a blessing on the land. thinking that the forest was a sacred place where they could live in peace. But when a small party ventured too deep into the woods, they were met with a terrifying reality. He said they were met by shadows of themselves. They heard their own words whispered to them through the trees and thought they were spirits of their ancestors. The voices welcomed them to stay and live within the whole.

holy forest that none of the surrounding tribes would ever find them. There was a catch, however. In order for them to live in the safety that these spirits would provide, there was a price. Once every generation, a person must be offered to the forest as a sacrifice. When the chief refused, half the tribe was swallowed up in one night. The Shawnee that survived. They fled, proclaiming the forest was cursed by demons. Now at the time, I will admit I thought it was nothing more than any superstitious Native American tale. But as he was telling the story, I started feeling nervous.

When he finished, I tried to poke holes in it by asking him how the town of Renville was able to exist without the people knowing about this. this haunted forest, and why he himself was still living here, if he believed this. He confessed that a tale that old was bound to have some details changed through the generations, but he pointed out that the forest itself was much larger than just the wood surrounding Renville. That's when he produced a dusty binder that had been kept in a trunk under his sleeping cot, and he gave it to me to look through, I saw it contained old newspaper clippings, going back to the late 1800s, of children and adults that had gone missing or been found dead

in the area of the Wayne National Forest. And as he'd suggested, the disappearances seemed to occur every 30 to 40 years. The forest finds its film. He told me in a grim tone. And no one else knows this? I asked. No. My people fled the area, long before your ancestors settled these lands.

My family returned a century ago, many decades after the town had already been established. But no one has ever asked, so I've had no reason to... to speak. When I asked him why he was telling me, he said it was because I was still an interloper to the area. The way he explained it, once you live in a place your entire life, you grow numb to the strangeness of things around you. He explained that only when a stranger comes into the mechs can they see the terrible

strangeness buried by years of acceptance. It was only after hearing this that I started to think back about my own experience in the woods. My mind drifted back to just before I found the body. The strange and almost alien silence of the night forest. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the whole time I'd been stationed here, I couldn't remember ever hearing insects. Not anywhere. Even in the park ranger's office.

I had never so much as heard the chirping of a bird. I hadn't heard deer, squirrels, or any animals. The part of the legend, where all life was burned away, except for the trees came back to my mind. And when I looked at his face, he nodded calmly. And in his eyes I saw my own belief. Seeing that reflected back to me, it was unsettling because this was absolutely crazy. I remember asking myself what possessed me, trying to rationalize the unfortunate death of that young woman,

by having it tie into some mystic mumbo-jumbo about possessed trees wanting to eat the townspeople every 40 years. I don't know if I was angry with Mr. Shanta for wasting my time with. this crazy story or angry with myself for actually starting to believe it. I shook my head and I rubbed my eyes like I was waking up from a bad dream. Not wanting to stay there a moment longer, I thanked him for his time and I walked out. He tried to get me to come back and talk some more, but I ended up just telling him there was no way in hell that something like that could be true. I told him we lived in the real world. There's not Santa Claus or an Easter bunny,

and there sure as hell wasn't a national forest haunted by evil demons that fell from the stars centuries ago. Now, while I admit that I was acting like a jerk, you got to understand I was angry. Angry at myself and a little scared about the fact that I was nearly convinced that this ridiculous, story might be true. Driving back to the station, I kept going over that nonsense. Did I get spooked? Yes, but I just chalked it up to still being stressed out about Natalie. It would be a 20-minute

drive down a dirt road before I reached the office. I decided to pull off to the side of the road to gather my thoughts. I shouldn't have gotten angry at Mr. Shanta. I made up my mind to a apologize the next time I saw him. It was about 9.30 at night now, and there wasn't a soul in sight. I got out and stood there, just looking into the forest, evil demons living in the trees, huh? Yeah, right. And just to vent my frustration, I pulled out my pocket knife, and I walked up to the nearest big tree, while it may have been childish, I carved my first and last initial. I carved my first and last initial into the bark mumbling about superstitious crap. What a load of shit, I said.

And then feeling something wet on the blade, I flipped up my flashlight to wipe it off. But when I saw what it was, I stood there frozen because it wasn't tree sap on the blade. It was blood. I aimed my flashlight at the tree. and I saw my initials with blood dripping from the letters, like I'd carved it into the skin of a person. What a load of shit! My voice said from deeper into the forest.

It startled me so much that I dropped the knife. Yeah, I know, right? My voice said from somewhere else in the woods. Who would believe a story like that? I could feel my heart beating harder and harder as a horrible laughter came from the trees in my own voice. Evil trees, like that could ever happen. This mocking tone was unmistakably coming from the tree directly across from me, the one I'd carved my initials into.

and I was just frozen there, petrified. Even now, looking back, it still seems like nothing more than a crazy story that could never happen. But it did. And what happened next was even worse. The tree's bark began to split right down the middle. As it started to open up,

there wasn't the wood of a trunk. It was pink flesh. Along the edges of the opening bark were rows of razor-sharp black fangs that extended out towards me. My whole body was still locked up. When I looked down and I saw roots from the ground starting to wrap themselves around my boots. I don't know what it was that snapped in my mind, but finally my reflex, and I unholstered my pistol and I fired four shots into the jagged mouth of the tree. With each shot, large chunks of pink flesh exploded outwards, but the moment they touched the

forest floor, they turned into nothing more than broken pieces of wood. The thing screamed in either pain or anger, but it wasn't in my voice, this time. It was the voice of something different, something foreign, something alien. It snapped its giant mouth, each time causing the black teeth to arch out towards me, like spider fangs aiming towards its helpless victim. Its massive branches tried to swing down and strike me, but thankfully they weren't long enough to make contact. And then I noticed that the surrounding trees began to move in unnatural ways, and I knew that if I didn't get out now, that I never would. So I unloaded the rest of my clip into the base of the tree, and I was able

to lift and snap my boots from the clutches of the roots. While it was clear that the tree I'd carved my initials into was badly damaged, the other trees began to open up, so I reloaded my pistol and I began firing again, backing up towards the patrol car. By the time I reached the car, I didn't even bother to pull out the shotgun. I just hopped in and floored it as fast as I could getting the hell away from there. I resigned from my position that very week. I never looked back. It's been a little over five years since then, and I got a position as a guard for a small casino, in Nevada. It's been a decent enough job, a lot less stressful than my time in Renoville. Given everything that's happened to me, as unbelievable as it may seem, I think I've been able to cope with it

pretty well. There are still some sleepless nights when I wake up in a bed in a cold sweat, still thinking I'm trapped there in the forest, about to be eaten by a giant flesh-eating tree from hell. But for the most part, I've been able to get by. I haven't set foot in Ohio since then, and I probably never will. And if you're wondering why I would move so far out into the desert? Well, if I'm being honest, the answer is pretty simple. I want to live the rest of my life without ever seeing a tree again.