Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - I'm a Park Ranger, and Something with Antlers Is Standing Outside My Cabin

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Over 80 exclusive bonus episodes are waiting for you. Unlock them now with a 7-day FREE TRIAL of ⁠Dr. NoSleep Premium⁠. Cancel anytime. No commitment. Just go to patreon.com/drnosleep to sign up. BetterHelp: Sign up now and get 10% off at⁠⁠ betterhelp.com/dns⁠⁠. Quince: Go to ⁠⁠quince.com/dns⁠⁠ for free shipping and 365-day returns. * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 18. Listener discretion is advised.  #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a park ranger. Maybe it was the idea of being a hero to some lost tourists or trapped cavers. Or maybe I just realized from a very early age that I wasn't cut out for work in an office. I needed to feel the sun on my back and the breeze and my hair to look out over a great expanse of wilderness and not see a single trace of human civilization. Or so I thought back then. Well, maybe I just thought the uniform looked cool. In the end, the reasons don't matter.

As sure as water flowing downstream, I was set on the course that led me here, to the Arville National Forest. That isn't the real name of this place, but it will have to do. What's important is that we're talking about nearly two and a half million acres of land, bordered by nothing but dusty two-lane roads and dying small towns. Tourists mostly come in just three times a year, spring break, midsummer, and a few weekends in October for the fall colors. During the rest of the year, the local economy depends on a trickle of vacationing families and rugged backpackers. They rent the log cabins, buy ice and

beef jerky from the general store, and eat at Molly's greasy spoon diner on the park border. Occasionally, they get heard or go missing, and that was where Leroy and I came in. This was my first position with the park service, whereas Leroy had been working in the Arville National Forest for years. When we first met at the cabin that would become my family's new home, the difference between the two of us was striking. Leroy wore his rugged khaki outfit, like he'd been born in it, and he moved with the quiet confidence of a man for whom life, held no more surprises. I, on the other hand, had gotten turned around on the back roads and arrived late, even though I had left early. My wife Tracy had spent the drive looking skeptically

out at the endless forest, while our four-year-old daughter Emma was throwing a tantrum in the back seat because her bag of chips was the wrong color. Leroy didn't even turn around as we pulled up the gravel driveway. He stood on the small hill beside the cabin, watching the woods. If he noticed how nervous I was, he didn't seem to care. He just smoothed out his thick gray beard, shook my hand, and gave me the keys like he couldn't wait to be gone. Once Leroy saw my wife and daughter climbing out of the SUV, however, his attitude changed. He wanted to know what the hell they were doing here. He'd specifically requested that the ranger sent to this post be a single man without any family ties.

ties. When I gently reminded him that hiring requirements like those were discriminatory, he just snorted and waved us inside. Suddenly, Leroy wanted to stick around and give us a grand tour. The cabin had been built in the 70s, and it showed. The walls were yellow pine, the floors were covered in puke green carpet, and the brown linoleum in the kitchen was peeling. Leroy gestured around at the place as if to say, this is what you get when it's paid for by the government. What he really wanted to show us turned out to be a backup generator and the floodlights. The cabin had well water and a septic tank, but was hooked up to the grid for power.

The problem was that ice, a windstorm, or even a fallen tree could knock it out for days. Leroy patiently explained how to set up the generator and use it to run the line. lights. They needed to be kept on all night, he insisted. No exceptions. I told him that sounded to me like a waste of money. He told me that I should learn to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told. If I gave him just one little reason, Leroy warned me, he would send me in my little family packing. With his tour finished, Leroy handed me a map of the park, a schedule, and a bag containing my work uniform. The rest of my issued equipment was waiting for me at the ranger station 15 miles to the south.

Leroy would see me there on Monday morning. If I survived the weekend, he smirked. I wasn't completely sure that he'd meant it as a joke. On his way out the door, Leroy stooped down in front of Emma and glared at her with his flinty, gray-blue eyes. I moved protectively toward my daughter, but she didn't run to me like she usually did when strangers interacted with her. Instead, she waited patiently for whatever the old man had to say.

Hey, kid, Leroy began. Your daddy ever talked to you about how to stay safe in the woods? Emma nodded. What do you say? Stay where an adult can see you. Don't touch plants and animals you don't know. If you get lost, sit down and scream. I was proud of my girl, but Leroy said nothing.

Then he added, and don't go outside after dark, right? Emma nodded again. Leroy ruffled her feathery blonde hair and walked out of the living room, letting the rusty screen door slam behind him. It was a hell of a welcome to my new job. And as it turned out,

it was just the beginning of what the Arville National Forest had in store for me. Our SUV was stuffed to bursting, not only with everything we needed for the move, but also with groceries. The nearest real grocery store was almost an hour away, and Tracy had insisted that we stuck up. By the time we'd finished unpacking, the sun had set. All we wanted was to eat some hot soup and crawl into bed. Only Emma had any energy left. While Tracy and I ate an exhausted silence, she swung her feet and sang along to attune that, for all I knew, she had invented herself. I had just stretched and announced that it was time for bed when she sprang out of her chair and gripped my hand.

The lights! Emma shouted. I didn't know what she was talking about at first. Not until I remembered Leroy's commandment about keeping the house illuminated after dusk. Outside of the cabin windows, the night seemed as black as the bottom of the ocean. If I flicked the switch on now, what might I see? pushing thoughts of pale-grining faces and tall spindly things with too many legs out of my mind I did as my superior had asked suddenly the small yard around the cabin was as bright as day

the forest's branches were bone white in the blazing light i thought i could even hear the electricity hum nothing moved outside not even a squirrel what i wondered again was the point of all this, to serve as a marker to anyone lost in the woods, to frighten away wild animals, thieves, or something else. I was too tired to care. Leroy had been right all along, I realized. What did it matter what the lights were for? I wasn't paying for them, and turning them on was, apparently, just another part of my job. After a final look out the window, I closed the blinds and went to bed. When I arrived at the ranger station the next morning, Leroy was having coffee with Betty Brock, a 50-something Native American woman who was sheriff of one of the dying counties

that bordered the park. I recognized her from the re-elect Sheriff Betty campaign signs that I'd seen everywhere on our drive-in. I had to hand it to her. She was persistent. To get elected sheriff as a woman out here, I figured you had to be. McCammon, he's going to be the new deputy ranger around these parts. Him and his family just moved in yesterday. There it was again, that weird emphasis on my wife and child. The sheriff and Leroy exchanged a dark look, but before I could ask what it was about, she offered me some of the donuts she'd brought.

I turned her down, admitting I was trying to watch my carbs. Sheriff Betty just laughed. then told me I'd regret it. And she was right. Leroy put me through my paces that morning. I never imagined that a pot-bellied old man would be able to move so fast. While Sheriff Brock minded the comms at the Ranger Station, Leroy took me on a hike to the most critical trouble spots in the Arville National Forest.

The cliff top overlook where people kept falling while trying to take a selfie. The narrow ravine that always got hit with a river. flash floods after a heavy rain. The sight that chilled me the most was a deceptively calm creek near a busy picnic area. It was connected to a series of cave systems and beneath its smooth dark surface

that water flowed fast and cold. Every year, a few families ignored the danger no swimming signs. As a result, they never saw their children again. Leroy and I peeled off our boots and plunged our aching feet into the refreshingly cold water. Just as he'd said, the current was deeper and faster than expected.

There's one other thing you should know, Leroy added. Rabies has been a problem out here for a while. The State University sends researchers every now and again, but so far, whatever they're doing has it done jack shit to solve the problem. So if you see any of the wildlife acting strangely, Just, uh, keep your distance, okay? I thought back to what I taught Emma. Don't touch plants and animals you don't know.

And a shiver went up my spine. Picture this. It's late at night. You're scrolling, and suddenly you find exactly what you've been looking for. You add it to your cart, maybe browse a little more than head to checkout, only to realize you don't have your wallet. But then you see it, that purple shop pay button. And just like that, you're done in the car.

seconds. That's the power of Shopify. It supports millions of businesses and drives 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from major brands like Mattel and Jimshark to entrepreneurs just getting started. With Shopify, everything you need is in one place, from customizable store templates to built-in AI tools that help write product descriptions and enhance your images. It also makes marketing easy with integrated email and social campaigns. And if you get stuck, Shopify's award-winning customer support is there for you 24-7. See less cards go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash DNS. Go to Shopify.com slash DNS. That's Shopify.com slash DNS. At dusk, we drove back to

the Ranger Station and Leroy's ancient dusty truck. On the way, he told me I'd kept up better than he'd expected. You might just be able to hack it out here after all, he said. I took it as a compliment. We were about to turn into the station when a massive black shape bolted across the road. Leroy threw on the brakes cursing. We skidded to a halt in a cloud of burning rubber. The thing that had cut in front of us, however, was already gone.

When I asked Leroy what it was, he said he thought it might be a bear. That wasn't what it looked like to me. Its limbs had been too long, its body too emaciated and stretched. It hadn't looked like any animal I had ever seen. If it was a bear, I joked, it must have been a hungry one. Leroy didn't laugh. He kept drumming his fingers on his service weapon while we closed down the station and locked the gate.

By the time I began my drive back to the cabin, his nervousness had infected me as well. The darkness beyond my headlights felt infinite. I kept expecting that thing to run out in front of my SUV as well. If it did and caused an accident, who could I call? There wasn't much cell service out here. I told myself to stop it. I was driving faster than usual,

eager to get home and make sure whatever that thing had been, it wasn't in the living room of the cabin feasting on my family. As I turned the corner of the gravel road, I was relieved to see that the floodlights were on. Tracy and Emma didn't understand why I was so upset. They'd had a great day decorating Emma's bedroom, exploring the yard around the house, and making homemade pizza for dinner.

Maybe it was just first-day jitters. Maybe that thing in the road really had just been a starving black bear. The thought didn't make me feel any safer. I could tell Tracy and Emma were concerned. So we did my best to put on a brave face, to laugh and joke around the dinner table like usual. Fake it till you make it, told myself. And by the time we got around to doing dishes, I felt like myself again. The place and situation might have changed, but we were still the same happy family we'd always been.

All it took was a single phrase spoken by my daughter as she looked out the rear window to shatter that illusion. Daddy, there's a man with antlers in her backyard. I sat down the plate in my hand and hurried to her side. The tree line, however, was just as barren as always. Had she seen a deer or something? I knew that kids often let their imaginations run away with them, especially in new environments. But after the day I had, it was the last thing I needed to hear.

Are you sure, honey? I asked. Emma had already moved on to something else, making her Barbie fly through the air like Superman. She just looked up at me and shrugged. So much for the man with antlers, I thought. But even after an exhausting day and a hot shower, I struggled to fall asleep. In my dreams, I was being hunted down the now familiar trails of the Arval National Forest by a bright-eyed black beast that looked like something out of a medieval painting of hell.

Cartoonish, danger no swimming signs glared down at me from the skeletal trees as I ran. I could see Sheriff Brock up ahead, standing with her back to me. When I spun her around to warn her about the beast, I saw that she had been dead for a while now. Her head, hacked off and replaced by that of a deer. The rotting animals bloated, purple tongue wriggled. Maggots driveled down its chin onto my boots. The sheriff's corpse held out a rectangular pink box. The deer head said in a gravelly voice.

Once a donut? I woke, drenched in a cold sweat. Tracy was snoring softly beside me. It was 4 a.m. Only three hours left until my shift started at the Ranger Station. Knowing full well that I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, I tiptoed into the kitchen to make coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. I looked out the window at the floodlit woods while I ate.

Of course, there was nothing there. What else had I expected? Leroy and I worked in turns, only seeing each other at the Ranger Station for a few hours at the beginning or end of a shift. We'd give a report on the day's incidents that were usually none, chat a bit about the weather, then go our separate ways. We also rotated who was on call overnight. Since I had a family to take care of, Leroy generously took five nights per week, while I only took two. Not that any calls ever came in, but still, it was a relief knowing that I wouldn't be dragged out of bed because of some drunken college students who had set their tent on fire.

On my drive home that Friday evening, I caught a glimpse of a long dark shape loping along the side of the road. Despite being encased in the protective steel cage of my SUV, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Was this the thing we had almost crashed into, on my first day? As I slowed down, I realized that it was no horror movie monster. It was a very large, very wet stray dog. It watched me pass with mournful golden eyes, as though hoping that I might have a spare T-bone steak to toss out the window. I considered stopping, then remembered Leroy's warning about rabies and changed my mind. Sorry, buddy, I thought, as it disappeared from the rear view. Better luck next time. Maybe it was that unexpected encounter which gave me another

bout of insomnia that night. It wasn't until the sky began getting brighter that I finally switched off the floodlights. I sat down to doze in a saggy green armchair. Annoying, I thought, how those branches kept scratching against the window panes. I would need to trim them back this weekend. I sat up with a start. There were no trees that close. to the cabin. I rushed to the wall and slammed on the floodlights. The yard was empty. But there were a pair of large, greasy handprints on the living room window. Even worse were the scratches above them. Just the sort that could have been made by a pair of antlers scraping against the glass while something tried to open the latches. Vagrants? A prank? Something even more sinister?

her. I washed off the filth before Tracy and Emma woke up and decided not to mention what I'd found. I didn't want to scare my family before I knew what I was dealing with, but I did remind my wife where I kept my spare service weapon and its ammunition. I was more concerned about Emma, who loved the woods and played near them every chance she got. It stormed all that weekend, but I can't say that I minded. It gave me an excuse. to keep Emma inside. By Sunday afternoon, all of us were going stir-crazy inside the cabin. So we put on our rain gear and took a walk along the edge of the forest. I should have been relieved to get out of the house, but I couldn't relax. I kept imagining

some horrible creature lurching out of the undergrowth to drag my child away. Emma, oblivious, splashed through the puddles and her knee-high rain boots. She had gotten a short distance ahead of me when she let out a shriek. Slipping in the muck and wet grass, I came running, only to discover she was excited about having seen a salamander. The weather was an omen of things to come. The days were getting shorter. The nights cooler.

The weather was damp and overcast. By the time the leaves began to change, I thought I had to handle on my role at the Arville National Forest. Even Leroy seemed begrudgingly proud of me. On the last Friday in September, the weather was beautiful again, like a last gasp of summer. And Leroy dropped by the station to send me home early. I'll take over, he said kindly. Take the wife and kids for a spin around the park this weekend.

Show them that there's more to this place than just mud and rain. I drove home with the setting sun at my back, the wind in my hair, and the radio blaring. I was excited to share the good news with my family. twirling the keys in my hand, I skipped up the driveway and snuck around to the cabin's backyard, where I was sure Emma would be playing. What I saw there stopped me in my tracks. Emma wasn't alone. Despite the twilight gloom, I could see clearly that she was playing with a large, dark-haired dog. I recognized those sad golden eyes. It was the same animal I'd seen trotting along the road. When I approached, it gave Emma's hand one final lick and bounded

off into the woods. Tracy waved at me from the cabin window where she was drying dishes. Furious, I barged inside. Tracy didn't understand why I was angry. The dog had been coming by for weeks now, she said, and it had taken a liking to Emma right away. It didn't have a collar, but it wasn't mangy or sickly looking. And as far as aggression was concerned, she'd never heard it so much as bark. Emma didn't have any playmates out here, Tracy reminded me, and the company was doing her good. My wife put a hand on my shoulder. It was fine, she insisted. Emma was right here in the backyard, and from the kitchen, she could keep an eye on her the whole time. I wasn't convinced, but I also didn't want to separate my daughter from her new friend.

If I drove the dog away for no good reason, I was sure that Emma wouldn't understand. Besides, my wife was watching, and if she noticed any unusual behavior from the animal, she could get Emma to safety right away. Confident in my decision, I spread a map out across the rickety kitchen and started planning our excursion through the park. We left the cabin Saturday morning at dawn and didn't return until nightfall, worn out from all the walking and sunshine. The day had been just as perfect as Leroy had promised.

I'd introduced Tracy and Emma to all my favorite spots, including some hidden ones that I doubted more than a handful of people could find. Weed splashed in creeks, scrambled up mossy rocks, and peered over the edges of waterfalls, and now all three of us were ready for bed. While Tracy unloaded the SUV, I headed straight for the cabin. The sun was setting earlier every day, and I scolded myself for not having been home to turn on the floodlights. As I turned the key in the lock, I heard a sort of snort. It seemed to come from right behind me, and was exactly the sort of huffing sound a deer might make. Almost as a reflex, I shoved open the door, stuck my hand inside, and slammed on the light switch.

When I turned around, however, all I saw was Emma staring at me from the back seat. He didn't look happy to see you, Daddy. Emma commented later that night, as I helped her change into her pajamas. Who, honey? The man with the antlers. My blood ran cold, but I finished putting Emma to bed before rushing to talk to Tracy. My wife was curled up in the sagging green armchair, sipping tea with a blanket on her lap. Another sign of cold weather coming.

When I asked her if she had seen anyone standing around the cabin, however, she just looked confused. She wanted to know if anything was wrong. I told her that I wasn't sure. How could I explain what I'd been noticing lately without sounding insane? Only one thing was clear. Whatever was happening in the Arville National Forest seemed to be targeting me and my family. And to make matters worse, it seemed to be escalating.

What would I find next time, Emma's man with antler standing over me as I slept? The floodlights apparently played a role in keeping whatever it was at bay. But I needed more information. It was time for me and Leroy to have a little chat. As it turned out, that was easier said than done. When I arrived at the Ranger Station the next Monday morning, I found Sheriff Betty Brock, not Leroy, waiting for me. She had come bearing bad news.

The night before, emergency services had received a call from someone claiming to be a wounded hiker. The Ranger Station was nearest to the scene, and Leroy, the only one on duty that. night had sprung into action. When he hadn't checked in by dawn, two deputies were sent down the trail he'd taken. They found Leroy lying unconscious at the bottom of a ravine. It wasn't clear exactly what had happened, but it had rained overnight, and it was possible that he had slipped on the same slick steep trail where the hiker had supposedly been injured. His head wound was severe, and the lower temperatures brought on by the rain put him at risk for hypothetically

for hypothermia. Leroy was a tough old bastard, Sheriff Brock admitted, but he didn't exactly take care of himself, and the outlook wasn't good. He'd been taken to a hospital two hours away for treatment, but remained in a just a tragic accident? Maybe. Things started to get strange. Less than an hour before Sheriff Brock's visit to the Ranger Station, a woman named Hannah Malick had come in about her missing son, Tyler. He and two of his friends had left for a backpacking trip on Friday, and she hadn't heard from him since. It worried her, especially considering that her son was constantly on his phone.

When Sheriff Brock ran his information, she discovered that Tyler's number was the same one that had made the emergency call the night before. When she replayed the call for his mother, however, her face went pale. The garbled, gravelly voice on the other end of the line sounded nothing like her son. Despite the bizarre circumstances, my training kicked in. Apparently, we had three missing teenagers on our hands. Before I could make any preparations, Sheriff Brock held up a hand.

The boys were fine, she told me. They had gotten home late that afternoon, not suffering from anything worse than a few scratches and a bad hangover. When she'd asked Tyler about the distress call, however, he had no idea what she was talking about. He had lost his phone on their first day out. I asked Sheriff Brock what she thought it all meant. She told me to pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down. This place wasn't always called the Arville National Forest, Betty sighed.

In the language of my people, it has a different name, an old and wicked one. a name that means red waters. In those days, we made our living as fur traders. Helts were valuable, and the settlers wanted access to the territory where we trapped and hunted. They didn't dare to risk open war. There were too few of them and too many of us,

and we knew the land too well. Then their leader, a man called James Arville, proposed a trade. In exchange for a season's supply of furs, the children of our chieftains would be sent to a school down river, where they could learn the settlers' ways. It was a trap. All who attended the meeting were killed hideously, even the infants.

And the place where all that butchery happened, it's now a picnic area. You've heard how the creek there is connected to a cave system, right? Our people say that the tribe learned of the massacre, when they saw their family members bloody, shattered bodies rising up from the stream, Red waters, get it? Of course, all of that is ancient history. What isn't is what happened next. The chief had brought his youngest children to the exchange,

but left his three eldest behind, two boys and one girl. The three of them swore revenge at any cost. Legends say that they offered their soul to the spirit that dwelt in the caverns below. If only it would grant them the strength, strength to bleed Arvo and his people until there was nothing left. There are some who believed that the spirit took the deal.

The trio became immune to hunger and thirst, to exhaustion and cold, and to any mortal weapon. They say that they had the strength of wild beasts, that they could change their shape, see in darkness as though it were daylight, and appear or disappear at will. With such powers at their disposal, it wasn't long before their vengeance was complete. The settlers' records claims that James Arville and his family were attacked by a pack of starving wolves and eaten alive. As you can imagine, in my people's tradition, the story is a little different, but the conclusion

is the same. If it was wolves that killed the Arvils, they must have been strange animals indeed. See, they stripped the flesh from the Arville's bones until there was nothing left, but left their faces perfectly intact, staring up in terror at the winter sky. It was only afterwards that the siblings understood the awful price they would pay for their victory. Even the people who they had avenged now shunned them, sickened by their powers, and by how they supposedly maintained them.

There were rumors about secret rituals, about the consumption of human beings. human flesh. The trio came to hate the light. They withdrew to damp, dark places where no human eyes could witness the extent of their gruesome transformation. There they wait, lonely and hateful as ghosts, until their hunger drives them back to the surface. Or so they say. Sheriff Brock downed what was left of her coffee, slammed her mug down on the desk, and looked disappointedly at the empty donut box beside it. She stood and strode over to the huge map of the park on the wall, running her fingers across its elevation lines as she spoke. If there was some kind of pattern, if we knew where or when they were going to strike, it would be different. We could close off

sections of the park, shut down on certain days of the year, but they're totally unpredictable. Almost as unpredictable, you might say, as a massacre. Of course, certain times and places see more activity than others. As you might have guessed, they avoid bright light. They only move around at dusk after nightfall, or during truly bad weather. That's probably what saved Leroy. The clouds broke and the sun came up before they could finish the job. The creek, the cliff top, the ravine.

Those are the worst areas. How many of those supposedly missing? kids do you think got dragged down by a cold hand beneath the water? How many of those hikers fell to their deaths while running from something inhuman? You probably took what Leroy told you about the accidents and disappearances at face value, didn't you? Didn't even bother to look up the statistics behind them? Or notice how excessive they seemed to be? Sandra, your predecessor, wasn't like you. She was meticulous, a go-getter, a real white night. She'd spent some time overseas in the military, and she thought that qualified her to handle our little problem once and for all.

She said she had a theory about where the trio hibernated, and she wanted Leroy and I to go in with her, along with all the firepower we had. I'm a politician, not a soldier, and old Leroy had seemed too much to imagine that they could be stopped. We turned her down, so she went in alone. Officially, your predecessor abandoned her post. Unofficially, Leroy found her body stretched between two trees on the clifftop. Just like with James Arvel, they'd stripped the meat from everything except her face. The pair of us gave her a decent burial. But you'll have to forgive me if I don't tell you where.

Sheriff Brock turned, scanning my face for a reaction. Thunder rumbled. I peeked out the window. It was too late in the season for a summer storm, but the dark, towering clouds on the horizon didn't appear to have gotten the memo. Does the legend say that one of those three siblings can transform into a deer?

I asked carefully. The eldest brother, Betty nodded. They say he valued speed above all things. The youngest, who valued strength, could transform into a bear. And what about the sister? A bitter smile crept across the sheriff's face. She was more clever.

She chose an animal that was both quick and strong, but that would also appear unthreatening to humans. They say that she could take on the form of a large, dark-haired dog. I was sprinting to my SUV before I even knew what I was doing. Emma! I shouted. Not sure who I was addressing. The sheriff?

The horrors in the forest? God? Under the circumstances, any of them would have made sense. I peeled out of the parking lot, startling a family of four who were packing away their picnic and anticipation of the storm. As sheets of iron-gray rain began falling from the sky, Betty Brock's words echoed in my ears. They only move around at dusk after nightfall,

or during truly bad weather. It was still mid-morning, but I figured the storm would still be able to be. qualify. I wanted to be wrong. I just didn't think that I was. I called Tracy's number frantically as I drove, but the phone kept slipping in and out of surface like always. Previously, the bad reception had been annoying. Now it might be deadly. I was driving like a maniac, far too fast for these winding mountain roads. I skidded around corners and sloshing waves of water, the steering wheel loose and useless in my hands. But I didn't dare slow down. I checked the

my phone, hoping that one of my calls had gotten through. No such luck. A sound as loud as a freight train whistle jolted my attention back to the road. I had drifted into the opposite lane, and a logging truck was heading straight for me. I slammed the wheel hard to the right, fish-tailing onto the shoulder, but managing to avoid a crushing death by a few inches. My knuckles were white on the wheel, my breathing ragged, but I aimed my tires back at the road and kept accelerating. Through the curtains of water, I could see. see red and blue lights behind me. Sheriff Brock.

She wasn't here to pull me over, I realized. She had come to provide me with an escort, to make sure that I reached the cabin as quickly as possible. The rain was so heavy, though, that I doubted her flashing lights would make any difference. I had never seen such a storm. Branches swayed and cracked in the wind. The windows of the old general store,

the only other structure between the ranger station and the cabin, had gone dark. That could only mean one thing. The power was out. Would Tracy know to turn on the floodlights, even though it was still technically daylight? Would she remember how to use the gas-powered generator? Everything depended on the answer. As I turned up the gravel driveway, my fears were confirmed.

Battered by the storm, the lightless cabin looked abandoned. There was no sign of any deer-headed monster or of any ravenous bear-like thing. But that might have been because they were already inside. I ran to the cabin, leaving the engine running. A dark shape shifted on the other side of the screen door, almost like it was waiting for me. Go on, I'll cover you! Sheriff Brock shouted out the window of a cruiser. She threw on a rain slicker and drew her sidearm.

What's wrong? Tracy asked through the screen door. It was her, of course. She must have come to the door when she heard us coming. There's no time to explain. Where's Emma? She's in the kitchen, playing with Coco. With who?

Sorry. I know you said not to. but we gave the dog a name. We actually brought her inside. Coco's behaving great, and she just looked so wet and miserable out in the rain. I pushed my wife aside and ran to the kitchen, or tried to. I was still unfamiliar with the cabin,

and with no illumination, it felt like a different place entirely, like something out of a nightmare. As I slipped on Emma's toys and crashed into the furniture, gunshots rang out behind me. Despite the danger ahead, instinct made me glance over my shoulder. The gaunt monster,

The monstrosity lumbering toward Sheriff Brock looked less like a black bear and more like a child's nightmare drawing of one. Her bullets sank harmlessly into its matted, rain-drenched fur. A child's high-pitched shriek broke through my fear and reminded me why I was here. To protect Emma! My daughter was screaming. In the kitchen, a wild-haired figure rose from the floor. The gloomy light streaming through the window reflected in its golden eyes, and on its sharp, horribly dog-like teeth.

Its fingers, multi-jointed in many times too long, stretched toward a knife on the countertop, and then everything became blindingly unbearably bright. The generator rumbled, its noise briefly drowned out by an inhuman whale from the kitchen. The window shattered as a twisted form, neither entirely human nor entirely canine, flung itself backwards through it. I looked to the living room where my wife stood over the generator, panting. For a brief second, I caught a flash of another figure-stableness. standing behind her. A tall, muscular man with a deer's head. It held the tomahawk to her neck,

nicking it just enough to draw blood. Then flickered and was gone. Tracy's hand flashed to her throat. It came away stained red. Did something bite me? She asked. I didn't know how to respond. Emma sat on the kitchen floor amidst broken glass, shaken but unharmed. The screen door swung open, making us all jump. A few more seconds in this place. would have needed a new ranger and a new sheriff. Betty Brock grumbled. What was that thing? Tracy wondered.

A bear? I guess you could say that. I checked the gas reserves. Even if the power stayed out, we had enough to keep the generator running for a long while. I felt like laughing, like celebrating. But I soon learned the same harsh lesson that those three cursed siblings had so many years ago.

Victory always comes with a price. When Sheriff Brock got back in touch with her deputies, she discovered that Leroy's condition had taken a turn for the worse. As the clouds began to clear, we all piled into my SUV and followed her cruiser to the hospital. Even then, even before we knew, the drive felt like a funeral procession. Sheriff Brock went straight to the front desk to ask after Leroy,

but as it turned out, I learned about his death before she did. A pair of orderlies passed by me in the hall, gossiping. Poor bastard, one was saying. He almost pulled through. And did you see those gashes in the back of his head? I mean, they almost looked like they were made by a tomahawk. I don't expect anyone to believe this story,

especially after I've changed so many of the names and dates. But if by chance you rent a cabin or go camping in one of our lovely national forests, do yourself a favor and keep the lights. on. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the story, be sure to follow or subscribe and share the show with a fellow horror fan. I'll see you in the next one.