Snook - Scary Skinwalker Reddit Stories

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Join the Patreon! For bonus videos, exclusive livestreams, discord and more! https://www.patreon.com/SnookYT⁠ These were some Scary Skinwalker Reddit Stories! These stories were so creepy! What was your favorite story? And would you like to see me make similar videos in the future? Leave your thoughts down below in the comment section, and make sure to like and subscribe! Credits! Go give some support to these talented authors! Live-active-2738 -https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/154g93v/if_you_hear_screaming_in_the_middle_of_the_woods/Keinnea - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/olzh6h/dont_touch_the_skulls_when_in_the_appalachians/Frequent-Cat - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/gfensr/i_hunt_skinwalkers_for_a_living/Mobbing - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/16e3295/my_friend_went_into_the_woods_during_a_hike_what/Pentyworth223 - https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1qt6wkj/i_didnt_believe_the_white_deer_rule_until_it/ I was granted permission to use all of these stories. Make sure to check out all of the original authors. Timestamps!0:00 | Intro2:07 | If you hear screaming in the middle of the woods at night, do NOT investigate17:30 | Don't touch the skulls when in the Appalachians38:59 | I hunt skin walkers for a living59:39 | My friend went into the woods during a hike. What came back was not him.1:34:48 | I didn't believe the white deer rule until it followed me home.2:00:36 Make sure to subscribe to the Patreon for early access videos and many more perks! Also! Go follow me on Spotify and Instagram! Yes, my voice is human. The channels subscriber goal is 1 million, so subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up guys and welcome back to the channel. And today we're getting into some scary Skinwalker Reddit stories. And oh boy, do I have some scary, terrifying, creepy, and just downright disturbing. Skinwalker stories for you guys today. So make sure to stick around. And I appreciate you guys stopping by. It means the world to make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel. The channel's subscriber goal is 1 million subscribers before the end of the year. So please subscribe. I would love for you to join the community. And if you are already subscribed, then you're the best. And also, you guys have just been loving the heck out of these Skinwalker Stories.

So if you'd like to see more in the future like this and Skinwalker Stories, make sure to comment down below and let me know. And to be honest, the Skinwalker Stories, the Wendigo Stories, the Forest Ranger stories, and that just vibe in general are some of my favorites. So I would love to keep reading stories like this. this and making videos like this. So make sure to comment down below and let me know and show some love. And also if you want a weekly bonus video where I read some of the most explicit confessions and stories from fans I can't put on YouTube, make sure to check out my Patreon

where you also get weekly exclusive live streams where I read stories live and interact with you guys. And also, if you want exclusive Discord access and many, many more perks, check out my Patreon. It's $5 a month. I think you get your values worth out of it. I wanted to make sure you guys get value if I do make a Patreon. And so I'd appreciate it if you guys checked it out. It really does. Me in the World. And you can find the link in the first link in the description and in the pinned comment. I appreciate you guys so so much. If you show some love there. And if you are a fan, then you'll love it. And also make sure to check out my Spotify and Instagram. And that's enough yapping and self plugs for now. I'm super excited to get into these stories. So without further

ado, sit back, relax, grab a drink or grab a snack, and without further ado, let's get into some scary Skinwalker Reddit stories. If you hear screaming in the middle of the woods at night, do not investigate. Written by Live Active 2738. I was always a solitary kid growing up. I grew up on the outskirts of my little town that I grew up in and never really had any friends. I would hang out with someone here and there, but for the most part, I stuck to myself, even in high school. Because of my voluntary solitude, I found time to invest in hobbies like fishing, hunting, and playing cards. I used to always love games of spades with my parents and little brother.

Though I loved all the hobbies I partook in, hunting was by far in a way my favorite. I would hunt all sorts of critters when it was in season, and spent out of the same. hours just to hunt something. See, the fun part of it wasn't the fact that I just killed something. It was the fact that I had outsmarted the animal and beaten it. I now had a trophy to signify my victory, and I thirsted for this sense of victory. Nothing even came close to the euphoria supplied to my brain when I came home with a fresh kill under my belt. I would sometimes spend days out in the wilderness to hunt. And I would get lost out there, out in nature, with nothing but the sounds of the other creatures that inhabited the woods in which I was choosing to steal life away from.

Due to my love for hunting and fishing, I never found time to do much schoolwork. I passed all my classes with at least a sea and graduated high school. But further education was not something destined for me. I was convinced hunting was my calling. After high school, I began to not just hunt for pleasure, but for work too. There was a company close by to my hometown that made deer jerky, and was looking for hunters that could deliver them the meat. Of course, me, the self-proclaimed lover of such activities, applied for this position, and after a week of waiting, got the job. I was to begin as of right then and there, so I grabbed my gear and went out to the woods and set up shop up in a tree. I have been using for as long as I can remember and began to wait.

I must have sat in that stand for hours, because soon the sun was beginning to set. It was summer, though, so I knew I had some time before I was shrouded in darkness. That's when I saw him. A male buck pranced into view all the way on the horizon. I sat there watching it, mesmerized by how it moved. It calmly paced the forest floor, bending over here and there to eat some grass or berries, until finally it came to the creek that I had set my stand up near to. It stood for a moment, looked around, and dropped its head to take a much-needed sip of water.

This was it, the moment I had been waiting for. I raised my rifle, knowing I only had one shot and aimed it directly behind its front shoulder. I took a deep breath. Bang. My shot was perfect. It traveled directly through the Buck's heart and killed him on the spot. My heart swelled, as again I knew I won. All this waiting was not in vain.

I nearly flew down the steps to my stand and rushed over to the buck. His eyes were still open. I was glad it was instant, so that he wouldn't have to suffer. I picked him up, and soon I was back home. I called the company, and soon they had someone come over to my house and pick up my latest kill. I thanked the man as he left and shut my door, feeling prouder than ever. I knew that this is what I was going to do for the rest of my life. A few years passed by and I continued doing what I loved.

And eventually I received enough money from hunting that I moved away from my hometown and moved to West Virginia. As I heard that the hunting there was great. I wanted to live out in the backcountry as I wanted to be able to hunt all the time. And I found a place where I could do just that. There was an old cabin not too expensive that sat right in the woods. Not too far away from my town. Maybe a 15 or 20 minute drive, so not completely isolated. But the town it's close to is not exactly bustling, so it's not urban either.

I liked it very much, and made a couple of friends in town. Most liked hunting, but only one ever wanted to come with me to hunt. His name is Brian. Brian's a good guy and a young one, too. He's just about my age, give or take a few years older, but we get along well, and we've gone hunting multiple times. The only difference between us is that he's got a full family. Wife, kids, the works, even has a golden retriever. He's a lucky guy, I'll tell you what.

Good shot, too. Glad he's my partner. I'd set up my tree stand maybe a week after buying the cabin out in the woods. and maybe a month after that, is when Brian and I first went hunting together. We sat up in that stand for hours, waiting for something to turn up. Eventually, a dough showed up,

and we did our thing and carried her back to my cabin. At this point, I had learned enough about the making of jerky to know how to do it myself. And with the help of Brian, we skin the dough and began making jerky and venison steaks. That was a good night. We would go hunting maybe once or twice every two weeks, but I would go hunting almost every night. At this point, I had found another company somewhat close by, maybe an hour away.

That again needed hunters to gather meat and send it to them. So once again, I applied and got the job. Everything seemed to be going well. I was good at my job, and it paid well. because I was up in that tree stand for so long, almost every night, I knew just about every sound in the woods. From the elk yells to mountain lion screams to foxes and coyotes. You give me a noise out in those woods, I could tell you exactly what animal it was,

and sometimes which gender it was. That's what made this certain night so different. Like usual, I was up in my stand. and I heard a scream. I played it off like it was nothing, because it probably was nothing. Except this scream was different. It sounded similar to something I've heard before,

but I couldn't put my finger on it. Brian was with me, and he couldn't figure it out either. Usually we don't really care about these noises, as it's not exactly our business to worry about every little sound we hear in the woods at night. However, this noise was just wrong. Something was not right with this scream. And after a good 10 minutes of sitting through it and thinking through every animal it could be, Brian and I decided that we would go check it out.

After all, we were armed and both good shots. And if it was a mountain lion, we figured it would run away if it hurt us coming. We got down from the stand and began our walk. towards the direction of the scream. After a minute or two, we could tell we were getting closer because the noise was getting louder. It seemed almost echoing

through the trees, and I won't lie when I say, it freaked us out both a little. However, we trudged onward and eventually, after another minute of hiking, we stumbled upon a clearing, where we saw what the noise was emanating from. It was a huge, elk standing in the middle of the clearing, just screaming out into the night. We looked at each other

and through the relieved look on Brian's face, I could tell he still shared the same uneasiness that I was feeling. We turned to look at the huge elk still wailing and deciding to let it be, walked all the way back to the tree stand. After some back and forth, we decided it would be best to just call it a night and just go home. When we hunted at night, Brian usually stayed in the guest room in my cabin, as it was usually late when we got done. Two or three in the morning, and he didn't want to wake his children or wife up coming home. So he crashed at my place. However, even though we are far away now from the elk. It seemed as though it had followed us and was just as loud as ever. This freaked us both out a little bit, but we figured if we went to sleep, it would all be over in the morning. So we did.

But it wasn't the ending. When we woke up, the scream had disappeared. We were relieved and Brian said his goodbye and left for his home. I did my normal routine, went into town and waited until dusk before going back out into the woods and into my stand. I was still a tad bit unnerved from last night, but I figured this would help me get my mind off of it. And it did, until around midnight when I heard a scream again. This time, however, the scream really sounded wrong, like, really wrong.

I could tell this was not the same scream from last night, but it again was not an animal I could put my finger on. I hoped and prayed it would go away, but it didn't. The screaming persisted and persisted until I couldn't take it anymore. I had to find out what the hell was screaming in the dead of night. I set out in the same direction as last night, expecting for the worst to be waiting for me. I trudged and trudged through the underbrush until finally I had reached the clearing from the night prior. where the scream had reached its peak.

What I saw, however, shook me to my core. There was no elk this time, like I had expected. No, there was a figure standing in the middle of the clearing, facing away from me. I froze, unable to comprehend what I was witnessing. This thing was massive. At least eight feet. feet tall and I couldn't tell if it was human or something else.

I'll admit it. I was terrified. I had never seen something like this before and I was ready to book it away from there. I didn't want whatever this was to see me though. So I backpedaled as slow as I could, staring at this thing for as long as it was in view. As soon as it was just on the horizon, it stopped screaming. Again, I froze.

Why did it stop? I wondered. I stood there in the trees, dumbfounded, staring at this eight-foot-tall creature that had just been wailing in the middle of the woods. I realized now what a fatal mistake I had made by not running home as soon as I saw this thing. As I stood there, this thing turned around,

and my body was struck with fear. Though I was at least 300 yards away from this thing, it stared directly at me. And I knew, it knew, I was there. Its yellow's eyes pierced daggers into my heart as it got down on all fours and began wailing once more, starting to gallop towards me.

I stood there frozen for another moment before booking it. I knew all the shortcuts to my house and I took them all, knowing I may not have much time left. I sprinted faster than I have ever sprinted, hearing its echoing cries in the distance. It's growing intensity only proving I was going too slow.

As the sound grew louder than ever, I saw my house. I fumbled with my keys to get to the one that opened my front door, and as I reached the porch, I found it. I unlocked the door and shut it as soon, and I reached it. The cries were right outside, and I knew whatever this thing was, it was on my porch, searching for a way to get inside. Terrified, I hid in my freezer,

where I hope the smell of meat and ice would help mask my scent of the bean. This is where I've been hiding for the last two hours. The creature has now found its way inside my home and I can hear it moving around upstairs, tracking any signs of me. I am in the basement and in the cooler, so hopefully it won't find me in here.

I tried texting Brian, to get over to my place, but my messages haven't been going through. And given it's three in the morning, I doubt he'd see them anyways. I have no idea if this thing will go away in the morning, but right now it's my only hope that I have. If it doesn't, then it will eventually find me. And who knows what it will do then. If you're seeing this, please, I'm begging you.

Please heed my advice. if you hear screaming in the middle of the woods at night, do not investigate. And before we move on to the next one, I know I mentioned it in the intro, but make sure to check out my Patreon where you get an extra bonus video weekly where I read some of the most disturbing confessions

and stories I've received from fans that I can't put on YouTube, and also you get an exclusive weekly live stream and also exclusive access to my Discord. I'd love to see you guys over there. We're also, it's easiest for you guys to submit your confessions and stories to me. And so you guys are top pick if you're in the Discord. But anyways, it's $5 a month. It's, you know, the same prices as the coffee, basically. And you get, basically, you get four videos bonus weekly and also four exclusive live streams weekly. I think you get your money's worth out of it. I'd love to see you over there. The link is in the pinned comment and the description.

Anyways, on to the next story. Don't touch the skulls when in the Appalachians, written by Kenya. If you ever end up in the mountains after sundown, be careful. Be respectful and most importantly, don't touch the skulls. The first time someone told me that I thought they were strange, superstitious folk. I just moved to a little town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. looking for a new start away from the busy cities I lived in for all of my life. A house with the forest for a backyard and neighbors a mile or so away sounded perfect at the time.

It's what led me to buying the property in the first place. Now, I think I will regret that decision. Don't get me wrong. The house is nice. It has a few problems like a creature. porch and the kitchen is a bit too small for my liking, but it's cute. Quaint is what the realtor kept saying when she showed me the rooms, and I agreed with her. Even if it is a little small, the real selling point was the acres of forest that would be considered mine. I remember my first

trip to the town at the base of the mountain, a small place where everyone knows each other. Naturally, some weren't sure about me, but most were actually quite nice. Asking where I grew up, what I did for work, normal questions until the owner of the only grocery store in town, Mr. Faraday, asked me if I planned on hiking in the forest. Well, yeah, of course, I think I laughed as he bagged up my groceries, eyeing me the entire time. Of course, silly question. He agreed as he handed me the bags, then continued. The forest is perfectly safe during the day. Just get home once the sun starts setting.

You're asking for trouble with the wildlife, or you'll get lost if it gets too dark. Anything in particular I should worry about? We get black bears sometimes, yell at them, though, and they'll usually run away. "'scarty cats, the lot of them unless you find a mama. "'Moose, foxes, wild boars, wolves.' "'I paused in gathering up my bags and repeated, "'Wolves? I thought wolves were extinct here in the Appalachians.' "'Mr. Faraday shrugged and ignored my question,

"'continuing like I hadn't said anything. "'Just be careful out there. always take water be respectful don't be one of them city folk that make a mess of the place see a flower and think it's pretty you take a picture

and leave it alone easy enough anything else I should do I want it to be nice not just blow the guy off even if most of his advice was common sense then again I didn't doubt there had been

trouble in the past with some outsiders It happened all the time in the parks I would go to as a kid, jerks that would come through and leave beer cans or cigarette butts everywhere. He met my eyes, staring for a second too soon before he replied. If you see skulls or bones, don't touch them. If they're in the way, you go around them. I stared back, feeling uneasy as he suddenly. smiled and said,

You come back soon, you hear? I run specials every week on fresh produce and meat. I should have listened better to him. The first few times I ventured into the forest, it was always in the late morning. There's an old trail behind the house, overgrown but still usable and use it I did. The forest is beautiful.

There are all kinds of songbirds and small animals and interesting plant life to see. I tried going in the morning when it wasn't too hot. I made sure to bring water and wore good hiking boots whenever I had time for a walk before work. There is a point in the trail where it branches off in two directions, and that is the point where I turn back around. The last thing I wanted was to choose the wrong path and end up hopelessly lost or unable to find my way back. Then work changed my schedule, so I started going in the late afternoon. I stayed out longer, just getting done with my hike as the sky was bathed in pinks and oranges,

the sun no longer visible but giving just enough light. I never noticed anything different between the morning and late afternoon hikes, other than less birds singing. Then small things began to happen. little oddities that were easy to ride off. Trees that had long scratches down their trunks. The songbirds quieting down at the start of my afternoon hikes rather than towards the end. I figured it was from the seasons changing.

The night's getting longer and days shortening. I had to be quick about my daily routine, only letting myself get maybe a mile into the forest before turning around. even if I didn't believe the townsfolk that had gotten more vocal about being mindful of myself in the woods. I still didn't want to get lost. Then I came across a deer skull. It was in the middle of the path back to my house, bleached and cracked, looking far too old. I looked around the trees to see if anyone was around because it hadn't been there on my way up the mountain. I even called out, a nervous, hello, and got nothing.

The idea of leaving it where I constantly treaded made me sick, so I grabbed a stick and carefully put it through one of the eye sockets. I took a breath and tossed it off into the trees, watching as it hit the ground before dropping the stick and quickly making my way back home. That's when the howling started. It woke me up in the dead of night. A long, lone howl off in the distance. I was confused, startled,

because until that point, I had never heard a wolf howl before that wasn't on TV. I didn't even know if that's what it was. I laid there for a while, listening to it, then turned on some music to drown it out and go back to sleep. For a week, I would wake up in a cold sweat. and the wolf would be singing away until I finally started going to sleep with music. I asked about it the next time I went into town.

Curious if anyone else heard it. Nobody did. Mr. Faraday shook his head and said he hadn't heard any noise as he gave me change for my groceries. The pharmacist told me it was probably just a lonely or hurt animal when I was looking for some sleep aid. Even the waitress at the diner, shrugged and said,

Haven't heard a thing, honey. Just make sure to keep your doors locked. Always better to be safe than sorry. The next time I went into the forest, I made sure it was right after work so I can enjoy a nice long stroll. The trees with these scratches were closer to my home, but I shrugged it off,

figuring it was just a bear or a moose. I did my usual circuit, follow the trail until I got to where it branches off and took a minor break. sitting on a fallen tree to drink some water. As I got up to start my way down, I noticed that the forest had become quiet. I felt nervous, glancing around to look for a reason like a bear stalking about,

but found nothing. At that point, I quickly headed back home and nearly tripped over another skull. A moose skull. Going off the huge antlers still attached to the white bone. perfectly preserved and staring in my direction. I looked around, wanting to find who was messing with me, but I couldn't see anything but trees and lush ferns. I thought about picking it up and throwing into the side,

but I took a breath and walked around it, then began running back home. It appeared two more times before I had enough. On the third time, I picked it up and threw it into the trees. I didn't stay to watch where it landed, and the moment I got home, I slammed the door and locked up everything. I was shaking, trembling in my kitchen

after locking the back door, and dared to look out the window. I didn't see anything, but I felt like something was watching me. A howl didn't wake me up that night. The sound of my porch creaking did. The groaning of wood had my eyes snapping open as my heart leapt into my throat.

I laid in bed, unable to move when I heard a low growl near my window. The curtain was drawn so I couldn't see outside, but I could hear whatever it was. The sound was that of an animal, but something didn't quite sound right. I tried putting my finger on it when the growling stopped for a second, then a how rattled my windows in my bones. I rushed to my bathroom, the only place in the house that had no windows and slammed the door shut,

curling up in the bathtub. I didn't move until my alarm rang at seven and the sun was shining through the curtains. It kept happening. Every night the porch would creak. The growling would begin, then finally the howls that lasted until the sun came up. I had enough by the fourth or fifth night and drove back to ten. town, functioning on a cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and caffeine. I had to wait for the store to open, but the moment it did,

I sought out Mr. Faraday, who was stocking some items, was on the shelves. He glanced at me, then said, You look like shit. If you need help sleeping, you should see the doctor. Something keeps showing up at my house. I think it's that wolf I was telling you about. He froze. A slight tremor in his fingers before he turned, calling,

Sarah, mind the front. I'll be back. He didn't wait for a reply and instead headed to the back of the store, motioning for me to come along. I did so, following him through a door that led outside. Once out in the too sunny morning, he lit a cigarette, then sighed. I told you to mine the bone. I broke down at that point.

Lack of sleep, leaving me without a filter. It kept showing up. I ignored it the first time and it kept getting in my way. What was it? A moose skull. There was another skull two weeks ago. It was a deer, but I moved it with a stick. A shake of the head.

Still counts, son. What happened after you moved the deer? I admitted that's when the howling, first started, but it was too far off in the distance, too easy to ignore. Something that had him frowning, but not interrupting until I finally asked, it's not a wolf, is it? Mr. Faraday looked at me for a long time, then stubbed out the cigarette before reaching for another one. I told you what not to do, and yet you did it. Now you've got a message. to deal with. I opened my mouth, so ready to demand he answered my question, but he kept going.

Now listen here, and you listen. You're going to buy some meat, the reddest, bloodiest meat I have, then go home and put it in the fridge. When the sun is setting, you're going to go into that forest with the meat and put it on the path. The minute you do that, you turn tail and run home. You don't look back no matter what sounds you hear or feeling you get you run and lock up tight and it'll just go away just like that i asked feeling a tiny bit hopeful the next words dashed those hopes away nothing is guaranteed son this is you trying to make amends it doesn't mean you'll be forgiven anger boiled in me and i snapped at him I didn't even do anything.

He shook his head with a small frown and said, You showed disrespect and acknowledged them. That's enough in a place like this. I opened my mouth, but he brushed past me and asked, You're going to buy the meat or what? I ended up doing so. I didn't know what else to do and figured, why not just go along with it?

I couldn't explain anything else, so why not try to make amends? I bought the bloodiest stakes I could and drove back home in a days. I set an alarm to ring just before sundown and crashed on my couch until then. It was surreal, walking out to the trail as the sun began its descent. I noticed that more and more trees had these strange scratches on them and shuddered at the idea of something or many somethings, being so close to the house. I walked about 10 minutes up the path before laying out the stakes.

It was disgusting. The blood collecting on the brown butcher paper, but I piled them up and looked around. I couldn't see anything. Just the usual trees and decided to head back home. I took a handful of steps when I heard it, a low growling from behind me that had the hairs on the back of of my neck standing up. Heavy thumping followed the growling, getting closer and closer and breaking me out of my stupper. I got my feet moving again and headed back to the house as the sound of teeth ripping into raw meat met my ears.

Once I was at the end of the path, my home is in sight. I dared to turn my head before I ran back to the house, scrambling up the porch and barely slamming the door, door shut in time. It had been right behind me, following like an obedient dog. Only, it wasn't a dog. Not even a wolf. I had to brace myself against the door as it slammed into the wood, growling and grunting. I managed to lock it, just barely before rushing to the front door to make sure I locked it as well. It nearly beat me. I hit the door just as it started to open and put it.

pushed my entire body weight against it. It was barely enough to keep it out as I flicked the lock. I stumbled back, shaking and panting, staring at the door as the growling began all over again. This time I followed it to the back porch and peered through the window. It walked on all four legs. Fingers sprayed out with long claws for nails and covered in black fur in some places.

Pale human skin and skin. others. As it walked, the back legs bend unnaturally and make a horrific snapping noise, the bones visible through the skin and twisting with every movement. The head is the most disturbing, a bloodied muzzle that stretches out too much for a wolf, eyes glowing red, and can open the mouth far too wide. The fangs are all black and red with blood, too long, too curved, closes its jaw, blood oozes out. I stared at it, and it stared at me before the lips peeled back into a sort of demented smile. The growling stopped and instead a new sound started. A sharp, high-pitched laugh, almost human, filled the air. I shivered, ready to shut the curtains when I

heard more laughter. I looked beyond it and froze at the side of more pairs of red eyes out in the forest the heckling grew in volume echoing until it's all i heard even now i still hear it i hid in the bathroom again feeling like a child and praying that my doors and windows would hold once the sun came up and i mustered up enough courage to get to my car i found dozens and dozens of skulls on my porch all different shapes and sizes, some bleached white, others black with decay, some red and others laying in pools of blood. One of them was human. I wanted to run to the car, bulldozed through the bones, but instead I forced myself to carefully step over each and every one of them. Once I got back into town, I sought out Mr. Faraday. He listened quietly to my account. Looking disavis, looking disavis,

disappointed and annoyed by the time I was done and said, I told you not to look. Now, you really made a mess. Not just for you, but for everyone. My blood ran cold and I asked, What do you mean? Everyone heard them last night's son because of your fuck up. He closed his eyes, then lit a cigarette,

even though we stood in the paper goods aisle. What if I just leave? Just go back to where I came from. He shook his head and flicked the ashes onto the ground, uncaring of where they ended up. Then what? What do I do? You're going to clean up your mess,

a hunting party is gathering at the diner at sundown, you better be there. I asked if he was really thinking it could be killed. If it was possible and he waved his hand and said, we've done it before son you're not the first one not to listen you won't be the last but you made the trouble you better be ready to help get rid of it i swallowed hesitating then dared to ask do people not come back from hunting all the time this time won't be any different sundown son or we'll just not be hunting them but you

You too. We're gathered at the diner, and I've been given a shotgun, and a crash course in how to use it, shown how to load it, told what not to do and what to watch out for. According to Mr. Faraday, who was around for the last purge, the wolves of the Appalachians is what they call them. He's sticking close to me. He says having a buddy nearby is important. It's safer this way. The wolves like to drag people into the forest or decapitate their victims.

They collect the skulls. The bullets I have are supposed to be special, blessed by the priest and bathed in holy water or something like that. I've never hunted before. That's why I'm leaving this account in case I don't come back. Hunting accidents happen all the time. That's what the townsfolk will say. if anyone comes asking about me or anyone that doesn't come back. The sun hasn't set yet, giving us time to prepare in the priest's time to bless every bullet he can,

but we can hear them already. The wolves are laughing again. I hunt Skinwalkers for a living. Written by Frequent Cat. For the public, my com. contact details aren't available. If they were, I'm sure I'd be hit up with many false calls, both on purpose and accidental.

My number is reversed for the higher-ups who piece together if my service is needed, and last night, it was. Publicly, there were a number of disappearances reported around a little hiking trail in Utah. A terrible thing, but not too uncommon. However, on the social media of the recently missing family and friends, there were some statuses that caught my higher-ups attention. Some of them posted that during a memorial at the edge of the trails. They felt they could hear their dearly beloved voice calling to them from the thick of the woods,

though they took this as a sign from God and hoped that this meant the missing would return. The people monitoring their personal pages felt otherwise, and that's where I came in. Skinwalkers are dangerous. In terms of raw strength, they outmatch us in almost every way, but it's their cunning that truly makes them the apex predator they are. I was called in to investigate as soon as I could. When I arrived, the police were there. The colorful lights bouncing around like a rave show. Leaning against the cars were a number of beat cops. Sent there for the satisfaction of the locals that something was being done.

I could tell they had a disdain the moment I approached. As this meant their quest, night of fooling around was to be disturbed with actual work. Trails closed, one said. A tone of finality to the. the words. I was called in to investigate. I shot back. That's our job. Let us handle things here. You can just go home, he replied. The exasperation in his tone told me he wanted me to just leave. Afraid I can't do that. I sighed. With that, he just stared at me. I could see the gears grinding in his head, along with his teeth. He gestured for me to join the rest of the

them and I informed them everything I was legally allowed to divulge that I was sent there from higher orders and they were to let me do my job. However, a hitch I always run into is verifying the authority. You see, the paperwork I come in with always has no contact information for obvious reasons. But this means I am always faced with skepticism. In the end, I was met with a compromise. I could go in, but I was to take one of them as a partner to keep an eye on me, and my gun was to be confiscated. I begrudgingly agreed, knowing that this was the best I was going to get if I wanted to go in that night. I was left to go into the thick of the woods with my new, partner in crime. Austin. If I thought the guys back at the cars were begrudgingly in talking to me,

Austin was practically dragging his heels. It seemed obvious that he had the lowest seniority, as he never even had a chance to protest about this arrangement. How long are we going to be out here? He groaned, as long as we need to, I said back. Quiet and than him. We've searched the trails a dozen times over. You're not going to find anything, he protested. You don't know what I'm looking for. I shot back. Still a lower tone. What are you looking for then? He whined, his voice carrying through the trees. With the way things were going, anything within a mile was going to hear us clearly. He had no tact for being inconspicuous, but but I knew asking him to be quiet would be met with more questions, so instead I tried a

different approach. Have you heard of Skinwalkers? I asked him. Breaking him out of interrogation? Of course, they're a popular legend around these parts. They're often told to warn hikers not to wander too far. Do you know where they come from? Old native legend.

Do you try to scare me or something? Correct. The legend stems more specifically from the Navajo, a southwestern Native American tribe I shot back, ignoring his question. He scoffed at this, seemingly not wanting to hear more, but I continued. In the Navajo language, the word skin walker is ye, Naglushi, and translates to he who walker. on all fours.

He grunted at my ignorance of his hints for me to shut up. However, when I talked, he didn't. And I spoke in a much softer tone than he did. I knew he needed stimulation to stop moaning. He was obviously bored and uninterested, so I decided to keep him distracted with a tail. I used to walk some of these trails when I was younger. I grew up rural, so hiking was the number one pastime for a lot of friends and I.

I started. Yeah, yeah, a lot of people did. Some pretty popular walks around these parts, he bemused. Not yet interested in my words. Well, this carried over to my adult life. When the stresses of my job got me down, I'd take to the trails in woods to calm myself. It was my form of medicine. You'll be surprised the amount of kind of spirits you can bump into when in nature.

It seems to bring out the best in people. That must be what she saw in me. I met her during a walk, nothing grand, just doing what everyone takes for granted in a densely wooded area. And she was jogging the same trail. We stuck together for the rest of the way and were in. separable ever since. Two years later, I called Regina, my wife. Hmm, Austin grunted, still not pulled in, but was now at least quiet. When we had our kid,

Davis, I passed down this love for nature to him. He caught the bug as hard as I did his age, and we bonded as a family during our outings. We knew the land west. We knew the land west, too well. So we decided to trails off to a lesser walked area. Our sense of adventure was at full swing. We knew we were more than experienced enough to look after ourselves. We had many tools to help us if we fell too far from society. But getting lost wasn't our downfall. I carried on. At that last statement, Austin's brow furrowed. Now, I knew I had his attention, though he didn't say anything. I felt he wanted me to go on.

We'd set up camp. It was quiet, a serene place at first, but it was because of that solitude that the sound of a twig-snap pulled us from our trance. The more creaks and crunches we heard, the more we realized. how unnatural the silence was. It was an overbearing pressure that was only broken by the slowly approaching sounds of snaps. The closest we heard, it was the perimeter of our camp, and it stopped. We eventually settled down, but we never lost the feeling of being watched. I could hear the breaths through Austin's nose, whether it was from,

from exertion or anticipation of the story, he would probably never tell me the truth. The day after, things felt tense. We carried on with our excursion, but our backs always felt prickled with feelings of tension. It only took one lapse of judgment, and it was ironically when nature called. My son, Davis, just wanted to go potty.

He told us he needed to go before sleep, so we let them out. Autopilot in full swing after a heavy set of mental fatigue. It didn't take us long to realize our error, and that was all it took. We slipped out of our tent and consciously made our way to our designated toilet area, and Regina quietly called out for Davis.

He didn't answer. All that could be heard was our increasing breathing as panic started to set in. but it was quickly broken by a meek voice calling out. I paused. Purposefully. I could feel Austin's gaze on me while he waited for more. Something I withheld.

Eventually, he burst out saying, what happened next? Seemingly out of impulse. I smiled, lavishing his attention, and carried on. It's okay, Regina. I'm right here, Davis exclaimed, dovially, as he slowly stepped half into the light of the campfire. Thank God, Regina soothed, rushing over to scoop him up in her arms. By the time I realized what jarred me, it was too late. What fun I was having, scaring this fully grown man, was gone by this point. This is the part of the story I hear.

hated telling the most. I didn't even wait for a response before going on. Davis's arm shot out, sharper than they had any right to be, and pulled her torso first into the darkness behind. Watching this, I froze. The words Davis spoke ringing in my head. Davis never called us by names. I was kicking myself that I should have known sooner. I gritted my teeth, even though I've told this story many times before to prepare people for what may come. It never got easier to tell. Still, I felt obligated to finish my story. I wanted to go after them. I wanted to rush in and pull them back from the brink of wherever they were. They supported this idea.

Regina and Davis whining out for me to come to them, to save them, to join them, but their cadence was off. Their emotions absent. I knew it was a trap, so I just dropped down and wept. All that lay after I finished the tale was silence. Austin's pace slowed out as his mind deliberated on the information I spoon-fed him. I could practically see the cogs turning in his head while he weighed the words I said on his scales of skepticism. Another toll on his mind was that I distracted him enough to the point that we were far into the appointed trail I was to investigate.

When I figured he'd reached an acceptance that he was stuck with me, I started asking questions about the case. I asked about the victims, where they went missing, when it happened, what's been found. I got them to put pockmarks on my map. And that gave me some set areas to search. And search we did, to the moans and compliments from Austin for two hours. I did my best to ignore them and was quite casual in my work, until I found something small and white poking from the ground quite a ways away from the trail. A small piece of bone.

I immediately hushed him in a serious tone, and he took note, a reaction that was seemingly instilled by the mood I set earlier. I inspected it carefully, trying to figure out its origins. The serious look on Austin's face washed away immediately when he saw what I was looking at. He got worked up over that? A piece of chicken bone? I ignored him while I surveyed the, ground for more. He sighed and resigned himself to just stand there, but I had a new objective.

Follow the trail of bone fragments. There were more scattered in one particular direction, and if I was careful and observant, I would find another piece, then another, then another. Eventually, I found its origin, a body. However, it was not recently. It was not recently, departed. The body before me, clad and torn, colorful ribbons of hiking gear, had been there for a number of months, maybe years, old, and decayed. The cop turned his head at this. Great. More paperwork. He must have been thinking. Finding a body this old is nothing but a headache for authorities. A cold investigation of wasted time lay before his feet. But I could recognized the work of a skin walker anywhere. Knowing Austin would not take what I told him 100%

seriously, I gave him the most simplest of instructions. Austin, I want you to keep a lookout for something that looks like a hollowed out dog. Can you do that for me? Sure, uh, whatever. He sighed in acceptance. I took to investigating the body closer. The skin had been removed, completely was the first thing I noticed. But when I inspected the bones, I noticed they have been scraped away, not nod or chewed, but scraped. Oh no, I thought. Quick, I yelled to Austin, and I reached into my pack, put it on. I held out a mask, similar to the one I was putting it on myself at the same time. I was obviously met with apprehension, but my tone got to him on top of my own urgent actions, and he followed suit, and just in time too, as an ominous obsidian cloud

blew in around us. I forcefully covered my face in reaction. What is this, Austin blurted, muffled by the mask? Though I could tell he wouldn't believe me, I told him that Skinwalkers make poisons from bodies. I knew he'd deny the part about the Skinwalker, but he couldn't deny the danger around him. I slipped my hand behind me and pulled out my small blade, a needle-thin, steak-like dagger. A crisp sheen flickered from its polished silver metal. I squinted over to see Austin withdraw his pistol. I knew it wouldn't work. However, I didn't want to discourage him, since I knew it had still help as a distraction at best. What I also saw was that he didn't cover his face when the cloud blew in. Something I felt I shouldn't have had to tell him, but he didn't figure it out in time.

He was screaming in pain, rubbing the dust from his eyes, only making it worse since his arms and hands must have been coated by now. Before I had a chance to help him, he darted away, trying to get out of the cloud. A rookie mistake. I left after him at a more cautious pace. I eased my way to where he went, following his panic. shouting. The juxtaposition of not believing what I told him to being attacked seemed to have been sent him in a bit of a frenzy. Though his skepticism was still apparent as he called out to his assailant like they were a human. Give yourself up and you'll be shown proper treatment, he screamed. A terrible bluff. I got him over here, he heard me say, which flipped his mood immediately.

Thank God they're going to pay for this, he said threateningly, threw a grin and shot him. off towards my voice, except it wasn't me who said that. I didn't get a chance to stop him, before I heard him jump into a nearby bush, followed by horrific screaming. It echoed around and faded away at frightening speed, further into the wooded area, away from where I was, trying to avoid me coming into help. At that, I stood up, sighed, while stretching my aching limbs from all that. sneaking and got to work knowing I wouldn't be disturbed I casually made my way around

and set up my wards all around the main trail I saw some side trails but ignored those that sheepskates only paid for the main trail so they only get the main trail when I made my way to the edge of the trail ready to call it quits I saw them two familiar figures with fresh smears of red on their faces and hands my fist clenched at the side of them. They don't have to do any threatening movements to provoke me because they know how to get to me. After all these years,

they consistently taught me with the skins of Regina in Davis. Tattered, barely held together, but I recognized them regardless. It was dawn by the time I was done. I emerged from the trail and met with the other police officers from before. They had less energy to challenge me this time, as they seemed tired from their long night of escapades.

I told them I was done and grabbed my stuff. They asked where Austin was, and I told them, he said he'd head back to meet me not long ago in an innocent tone, acting oblivious to everything that went down. I used their confusion as a chance to, to slip away and headed back. I informed the higher-ups that there shouldn't be a problem at that specific trail anymore, and that I'm open for any more work they send my way.

But I didn't tell them the gritty details. That's the secret with my job. 99% of the time the Skinwalker never gets killed. I mean, they're damn near impossible to kill. You either have to burn their hidden skin, which they make damn well impossible to find, whisper their original human name, but that's often lost to the aethers of time, or somehow overpower them and kill them with silver, which I mean, good luck with that if you want to try. I've been around so long because I've been smart.

I just work on cutting down their hunting grounds, one trail at a time. My friend went into the woods during a hike. What came back was not him. Written by Mobibig. There was something off about Max as he came back. Popping into view between the pines and coming to join us on the trail. There was a rigidness to his step. A tension in his body that made him look like some puppet played by strings.

He paused for a moment to glance back over his shoulder and into the woods as if to scan his surroundings before getting back on track. The rest of the group was mired in conversation and small talk, so no one seemed to notice the oddity of his movements as he joined the pack. His face was expressionless as he came by my side and just as silent despite the rocky terrain he had just traversed. not a huff nor a puff escaped his lungs i suddenly felt a chill at the back of my neck as our eyes met and i spoke up with unease max you uh you're right there man he stood still for a moment that same blank expression on his face before a sudden smile drew across it it was like someone was yanking at the sides of his mouth to force out the smirk It was strained and every bit as wrong as his walk had been. He replied with a voice that seemed to echo within. The movements of his mouth just barely not matching the words that came out.

I'm prime, man. Let's get back to it, yeah? Prime. Now, that's not a word you don't hear many say at all outside of math class. I was about to respond when a sudden jerk pushed his body forwards and he joined the band that got right back on marching. Busy talking, no one bothered to do more than glance back and really take a look at him. No one except me. It was maybe 15 minutes of walking later.

Max was silent as he kept pace along the edge of the group, dragging his right foot behind him as he moved with that same jerky in uncanny motion. No one seemed to pay him much attention as they talked. The conversation flowing from subject to subject as easily. as the wind. We came to a halt once again as Josh went into the tree line to take a piss. There was a general chorus of huffing and groaning as he disappeared between the foliage. Only Max kept silent. Eyes locked onto Josh, following him with jerky motions of his neck. That was when I thought I heard something from deep in the woods behind me,

A sudden rustling in the underbrush as movement cut through the darkness. I could just barely make out some kind of shape moving far off within the woods, illuminated by the occasional rays of moonlight that broke through the canopies. The forest had gone quiet, but for the chatter behind me, nothing but the gentle rush of wind as the birds and insects fell silent. Max was gone by the time I turned back around to see what the boys were up to. Daniel, Jack, Nick, and Logan were all standing side by side, talking about some TV show. I can't recall exactly.

Everyone was in their place but for Max and Josh. I was just about to ask Daniel where Max had gone when another sound came from the tree line, and Josh appeared from behind a boulder. A ray of moonlight was upon his face so I could see that familiar blank expression that stretched across it. The same jerky motions seemed to pull and push his limbs to and fro as one foot dragged behind. That same unnatural smile drew across his face as he stepped onto the dirt trail and met my gaze. He raised one rigid hand to wave when I heard a whispering in the woods behind me once again. It was Max, standing at the edge of the trail behind me.

He too had a smile plastered on his face as he, stared in my direction. Fifty yards behind him. A couple of bushes were rustling at the edges of the tree line. By all accounts, he had traveled that distance in the split second between when I'd heard the noise and when I'd turned around to face him. I was mouthing out a startled, hello, when he walked past me and joined Nick and Jack, throwing an arm around the ladder, as the pack got to walking again. Much of the stiffness had disappeared from his movements and his words sounded almost natural as he spoke, and I listened in from the side. Yet he only spoke in yeses and knows, and his mouth still didn't manage to move quite

right when he looked at it for long enough. Josh, on the other hand, was a mere image of Max from earlier, sudden and jerky in his steps and dragging a foot behind as he moved, somehow noticed by no one. No one but me. We had already come into view of the campsite a couple of minutes later. I was by Jack's side. I and Max and Josh as I walked. The forest had grown quieter still as we had approached the campsite.

Even the wind seemed to be dying in the air. The lake lay visible at the side of the trail. Through a sparse line of willows that marked its shore. It too had gone quiet. The gentle sloshing of waves replaced by a surface eerily still, reflecting the full moon like a perfect mirror. The conversation was plentiful, but all I could hear was the sound of Josh pacing a few meters behind me, the sound of his foot dragging across the dirt. It seemed to get closer if I didn't look over my shoulder for long enough. Every time I glanced back, he would be looking away.

Every time I looked away, his eyes would whip around and lock right onto my back at the edge of my vision. That damn, crooked smile would stretch across his face when I tried talking to him. He would answer with that echoing voice.

Turning away, I tapped Jack on the shoulder, feeling those eyes digging into my back. Hey, bro, I don't know if this is like weird to ask, but you think Max had been acting a little strange? He paused for a couple of moments at the question, glancing to his right where Nick, Daniel, and Max were arguing over video game balance. Max seemed mostly silent,

looking off into the tree line between his short words and nods. Jack replied, "'Nah, man, it's not weird, but there isn't really anything wrong with him, I don't think.' He turned towards the trio again before continuing. I don't know. Maybe he's walking a little weird, but he, like, hit his ankle around the pond earlier, right? Unsatisfied, I nodded and was turning away to face forwards when something caught my eye. It was Max, his dead eyes staring right into my own.

I shook my head and quickly looked away. I could feel two sets of eyes watching me as we arrived at the case. campsite. The fire was blazing in the fire pit as we held out our marshmallows over the flames, watching them char and melt into the sticks. Josh was sitting in front of me, going back and forth between staring up at the stars and losing his gaze in the fire pit. To my left, there was Max, eating his marshmallows with sudden, fierce bites as if it was raw meat and not fluffy sugar he was Biden into. All around, the boys were tired from a long day's march, huddling around the fire in a cozy and intimate kind of silence, unaware of the strangeness in the air. I broke it by addressing

Josh. Yo, dude, you remember that time we snuck a raccoon into the admins room? When was that shit? It was, I gave a tiny pause, pretending to be trying to remember as I waited to see if he would say something. It was two weeks or something before the midterms, right? He softly nodded his head, yes, looking up from the fire with that creepy smile. I continued. Who was that guy they pinned it on anyway? They said they'd seen him on a security camera snooping around, the time of the crime, or some bullshit like that. I smiled at him between sentences and he mirrored it.

His uncanny smirk widening to match my own. mechanically, as if on a prompt. What was his name? Oh yeah. It was Tony Elkins, that Indiana kid. Giving a forced chuckle, he repeated after me. Oh yeah, it was Tony Elkins, that Indiana kid. I gave him one last smile before turning away to pretend to look at the lake.

Really, I was facing a way to hide the fear that I felt creeping up from my stomach and into my face. There had been no raccoon incident, and there certainly hadn't been no Tony Elkins from Indiana. I finally let myself admit the gut-wrenching truth. Whoever was sitting across from me was not my friend Josh, and whatever was pretending to be Max was not really Max. It's strange how mundanely the impossible becomes reality. One moment the world makes sense, simple and ordinary-like everyday life. The next, it's all changed. All the while, nothing's really changed.

The stars still shine in the night sky and the ground is still solid beneath your feet. Yet really, it all has. Suddenly, there's just a little more to everything, a secret to every corner. Suddenly, there's no end to the universe. I caught Josh's eyes staring into me when I turned back. eyes that were like two black holes piercing through the dancing flame between us Daniel Nick Logan and Jack were all calmly eating their marshmallows unthinking and hazy like in a dream they were talking of games and girls of schools and jobs

none of them saw the silent panic in my eyes I then turned my attention towards Max His marshmallow branch was twisting in his hand in a jagged motion. His fingers were both snappy and completely lethargic in their movements. Clumsy like a left hand trying to write. His marshmallow was a melty, gooey ball of sugar, as he lifted it straight out of the fire and popped it into his mouth. I'm pretty sure I heard the spit in his mouth sizzle on contact. He made no reaction.

Watching him chew on the marshmallow, I noticed that his stubble was gone. His face, shaggy and unkempt mere hours before, suddenly spotless. I looked down to see that his arms were just as bare. In the shine of the flame, I noticed something else that sent shivers down my spine. His skin was wrong. It looked like plastic, pulled tot over his bones. There was Matt finished to his flesh, almost sanded over, that was unlike any person that I'd ever seen. His skin was rubber.

Despite myself, I reached for to touch it. My arm trembling as silence seemed to weigh down on everything. My fingers brushed past his forearm. He felt like spandex against my touch, stretching like gum beneath my hand, looking up and meeting his gaze. I saw the hollow of his eyes, a darkness in his pupils raging inside, about to burst open into a dark flame. I think I saw a tremor starting on the arm I was touching, something akin to an earthquake approaching from within when Nick interrupted. Well, you ladies have fun and enjoy the fire. I'm going to head out and gather some more firewood. Max's arm was

pulled away when I turned back around. His eyes suddenly calmed, staring into the stars. I watched Nick slowly walk away from the fire and into the tree line, lit by the somber moonlight. Panic raged through me as I watched him disappear into the woods. In a sudden motion, I grabbed a flashlight and shot up to my feet. I'm going to go take a piss, you guys. Try not to miss me too much. The eyes of Josh and Max watched me as I first went behind a boulder at the edge of the campsite and then followed Nick's entry into the woods. You don't really understand the darkness that lurks within forests at night until you've seen it with your own eyes. Under the cover of the canopies, it starts getting dark the moment the sun descends onto its afternoon arc.

The air shifts suddenly as the shadows grow long and crooked. It is practically at night around 4 p.m. And it only gets darker from there. By the time the moon is out in shining, the forest is a pitch black that flashlights can scarcely even shine through. The branches of the trees were like a deep ocean as I looked for Nick, swallowing the flashlights glow so it reached only a few yards ahead. I was following the faint sound of footsteps that echoed from somewhere in front of me.

I pursued the noise silently, not daring to call out to my friend as the weight of the forest silence seemed to bear down on me. I had been walking for maybe only a minute, but it had felt like hours in the maze of the trees. That was when I heard it. Help! A voice called out meekly from a clearing that opened up before me. It was Max's voice. repeating that same word over and over like a broken record. Identical, each and every time.

I approached the edge of the clearing where I saw Nick. He was maybe 15 meters to my left, walking on the grass towards the opposite side of the clearing from where the pleas echoed. Help, the voice called out one last time as the pleading came to a stop. The air seemed to hold its breath as the forest skil. a heartbeat and everything stood in silence. Nick came to a sudden halt in the middle of the clearing,

staring, straining his eyes to see something at the edge of the tree line. The quiet stretched on as dread built up in my guts, a hollowness from deep within as my subconscious prepared for something terrible. It was a man in khaki shorts and a red t-shirt that appeared. The moonlight was cast upon his face, its face, its head, really, for it had no face, featureless and smooth, like rubber. He had the synthetic no face of a mannequin. He raised an arm, jerking it with the suddenness of a string that had snapped. He waved, so snappy in its motion that it felt like my eyes were skipping frames. He put one leg forward and then another. Moved. moving in a broken motion that could scarcely be considered walking.

Nick was frozen in place, as was I, watching this thing approach my friend. Ten yards away, and then nine, eight yards away, and then maybe only seven. The creature seemed to move in slow motion, in inevitable calamity. It grabbed Nick by the shoulders, as my friend suddenly seemed to break away from his trance.

He struggled against the thing. Grip, but it was to no avail. It held him in place everlessly with one hand, clasped over his shoulder like an iron vice. That was when Nick started screaming. They were distorted, horrible shrieks as his shoulder blade crunched between the creature's fingers. His head whipped around frantically, eyes wide with terror as he looked for anything that could help him. His eyes met mine as his face spun in my direction. He started to start to be. He started to be in my direction. He started shouting in between his wails of pain. Matt, Matt. That was when the creature clasped its other hand over his mouth. His shouting and screaming fell to a muffled murmur as it forced Nick to face itself.

He struggled, jerking his head left and right, tried to avoid its gaze. Yet slowly, the creature made him look. Nick tried to clench his eyes shut for a few moments, hoping against everything that would all just go away. The thing patiently waited. It's no face staring into him as he finally opened his eyes. I saw a crease forming at the sides of its head, running from ear to ear as something shifted underneath its latex skin. The crease slowly opened up as the top and bottom of the mimic's head separated.

A gaping ma' appeared, revealing an abyss, surrounded by rose, and rows of iron teeth, protruding up from its charcoal gums. That's when Nick started screaming again. His wails growing louder, breaking through the creatures at clasped hand. His eyes widened as did the thing's mouth, growing as large as golf balls in his panic.

His legs shook down below and kicked away at the thing, powerless to do anything as its iron grip held him in place. all the while the thing's mouth just kept widening it had just about split its head in two when it came to a stop with a springy click the world once again seemed to skip a heartbeat right then all was silent for a moment like the stars above looking into the thing's mouth i could see that the abyss inside was lit up it was like the night sky mesmerizing and infinite as as a billion, billion stars spun in the void. Nick, too, appeared peaceful for a moment as he looked into his killer's maw. That was when the jaws closed. It happened too fast for my eye to register. One moment it was open, and then it wasn't anymore.

Nick's body convulsed for a few moments as the creature grinded its teeth against one another, crunching as he chewed through the spine. Nick's limp body met the ground with a hollow thud. A wet sloshing painted the ground as blood poured out from where his head had been. The creature cocked its head back before swallowing Nick. Its throat bulged, stretching like plastic as my friend's head traveled down into its stomach. A few moments had passed when it started convulsing. Shivers running up.

and down its body as it seemed to seize. Its face was blurring, moving and shifting beneath the skin as a face seemed to take shape. First, it was a not-like nose that rose to the surface and then two hollows that slowly turned into eyes. Its flesh rippled in waves as its clothes too changed shape, in oscillations of color like a chameleon. It's flesh rippled. It's furtled in waves. It's took only a moment, and then it was done. It had become Nick. It shuddered one last time, skin bulging and collapsing before he settled into its final shape. It got to walking then, startling me out of the horrified trance I had fallen into. I stumbled back and fell into a bed of bushes. My heart skipping a beat as the rustling of the leaves blew past the silence. I saw my

friend's face whip in my direction. It took a couple of rigid paces forward, pausing by an old, weathered-looking pine trunk. The moonlight was cast from behind him, hiding his face in shadows as I looked at him through the leaves. He paused for a moment, or maybe an hour. It was hard to tell. My heartbeat against my chest like a hammer as the blood echoes against my eardrums. I clenched my eyes shut, preparing to feel its death grip grabbed me by the shoulder when I heard its feet shift. His neck jerked around and his legs started leading him back to our campsite. Nick's headless body lay against the ground, slowly gushing blood through his esophagus. It dangled with the steady flow of the blood, shining underneath the moonlight.

It was only Max and Nick around the fire by the time I mustered up the courage to find my way back to the campsite. Their faces were cast in shifting shades of orange and red. The flames dancing in the reflection of their eyes. Max was sitting on a cooler with a log to his side and on the log, the key to Daniel's pickup truck. He seemed even livelier than before. Tossing and catching a marshmallow in the air as I approached and sat on a little. log to his side. He greeted me jovially. Matt, my man, how long you've been pizzen for, dude? You got prostate cancer or something? He laughed at his own joke, catching the marshmallow

before popping it into his mouth. He smiled as he chewed on it and I gave him a meek nod. As I looked at him then, all I could see were those jaws closing around Nick's neck, looking over the fire at his mimic. I could almost see how his body would look with its head missing, how the blood would be gushing, shining crimson in the firelight. Forcing myself to look away, I swallowed hard before turning towards Max and speaking up. So, where's everyone gone, man? They ain't gotten snatched up by some Sasquatch, I hope. The forced chuckle felt horrible as it came out of my mouth, leaving me feeling exposed on all sides. These things weren't stupid, right?

They must have known that I knew. They were just toying with me, leading me along until a jaw would suddenly close around my neck. Matching my chuckle, Max laughed. Nah, man, Josh just took them out to gather firewood. He looked over to Nick. Big guy over here apparently came up with nothing. Nick looked up from the fire.

His face stretched with that uncanny smile. Yeah, man, my bad. They'll find some for sure. The silence hung in the air again as chilly winds washed ashore from the lake, staring into the fire. I could see them eyeing one another with furtive looks. In between the cracks of the fire, I thought I could hear silent mutterings coming from their mouths.

Strange clicking sounds unlike any human language. I felt exposed like a lone tree atop a wind-swept hill, death blowing around me with the wind, surrounding me from every angle. The firelight was shining on the metal of the keychain, dancing and tempting. Fear felt tight at the back of my throat like a scream that wanted to escape.

I pushed it down and got onto my feet. I'm going to get myself a Coke from the car. You guys want anything or nah? Nick's head snapped up as I walked behind Max, eyeing the keys to his side. I was reaching down to get them when I felt him gripped my arm. He was looking up at me. Face split between the flames and the shadows of the night.

The smile on his face had none of the uncanniness it had before. The inhumanity of it was replaced by an east, evil that felt much too human instead. He spoke. Why don't you sit down, Maddie Boy? His hand felt like an iron around my wrist as he dragged me back to the seat. Nick was sitting upright on his log, as straight as an arrow as he watched with a hunger that could have devoured words whole.

I let out a long sigh, a sudden upwell of emotions rising from deep within me. tears slowly trickled down my face as I looked back up to meet Max's hollow eyes. You aren't going to let me go, are you? That's when I saw a crease forming at the edge of his mouth. Stretching from ear to ear as his face started to blur. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the same thing happening to my right. I had pretty much resigned myself to my fate when I saw it. A single red axe.

dug into a log between me and Nick. The fire shined upon its silver edge as it glowed as my last hope. The stairs were showing between Max's teeth already, a fractal painting of nebulae and the plane of the galaxy. I felt almost at ease then, staring into that death. I thought of the late nights I would spend on the roof of my grandfather's farmhouse. I remembered how people, the wind had been, rushing past my face like the comets did the sky. For a moment, death felt like

coming home. It was a metallic click that broke me out of my trance as Max's head snapped back, with a courage that seemed to swell out of thin air. I lunged for the axe and felt the handle between my hands. The world fell to silence. All I knew was the wood against my palm as the weight of the metal rushed through the air. The world seemed to spin. The wind rushing past as the axe met my foe. With a loud crunch, the blade launched itself into Max's neck. A black, tar-like liquid rushed out of the wound as I let go of the weapon as it swayed in the air,

sticking out of the dark flesh. His gaping maw slowly closed as his body fell off of the log and met the ground with a thud. The black blood pulled on the ground and flowed against his face as he lay dead. His blank expression double with its reflection upon the liquid surface. Sound slowly returned to the world as I turned away. The wind suddenly seemed loud as it blew by my ears and carried with it the death stench of the newly felt corpse. The axe suddenly felt as light as a feather. In my hand as adrenaline finally caught on to what was happening and rushed.

through my veins. My heart was beating against my chest so hard I could feel veins bulging in my neck. Nick was to my right, frozen mid-bite as it realized what had just happened. With a sudden clicking sound, his plastic skin undulated. His body shaking as he lunged up at me. His hand stuck just a few inches from my leg, biting into a log, crushing the wood like it had been made from cardboard. Jumping away, I yanked the axe free from the mimic's corpse and raised it over my head,

bringing it down on his elbow. It broke clean off with a crunch as black liquid gushed from the newly formed stump. The clicking sound from before turned into an animal whaling that threatened to best my eardrums. His sawed-off hand was still moving, dragging itself across the first in my direction, leaving a trail of black in its wake. Stepping backwards, I squashed it like a bug as the mimic wung once again. It whipped through the air, scrapping by my torso, marking my back with a dark burning wound. I brought the axe down on its shoulder, separating its good arm from its body.

Its wound seemed to squirm as its muscle fibers slithered over one another like dark worms. The creature lunged again, blood sprained from its gaping wounds. A streak of it hit my face as he swung the stump in my direction. I caught it mid-air with a swing of the axe, connecting to its torso with a wet thud. He collapsed on top of me as we came tumbling down on the grass, yanking the axe free from its chest. I shoved it beneath its jaw, ramming the handle across its throat as jaws tried to bite down. Gone was the night sky between them, only the abyss remaining in the mimic's mouth. Despite its two missing hands, the creature's strength was immense, and its jaws were creeping

closer and closer to my face. Its drool dropping down on my face, burning my skin on contact. Jerking its head downwards, it bit off the tip of my nose, tearing it away in an instant with its jagged teeth. The pain was blinding, nearly breaking my grip on the handle. Holding the axe with one arm against the creature's onslaught, I reached the arm. out with my right hand in desperation, grasping for anything that could save me. I could feel its breath, like death itself wafting down from its mouth, stinging my eyes as its mouth opened and closed

inches from my face and my hand found purchase on a rock. With the last of my strength, I brought it to the mimic's head, ramming it against his head over and over and over again. Wet thuds gave way to a hollow banging, which slowly turned to crunches as I cracked its skull. Its maw was wide open, wrapped around my head at last, a split second from closing around my face when my final blow brought it down to the ground. It laid there for a few moments before the growing pool of its dark blood touched my face and jolted me upright, burning like acid. Both mimics lay dead by my side, soaked in blood. shining with the light of the dying flame. The adrenaline had mostly worn off by the time I got to the car.

It was a strange calm driving through the pines, with death mere minutes in my past. It was maybe an hour later that I had reached the edge of the National Park. That's when it all came back crashing down. I got out of the car and fell down onto the dirt, clutching my stomach as its contents spilled on the road. I fell away from my sick and collapsed on the ground by the pickup side. The crunch of bones as the axe had met the creature. The sound of flesh tearing as the mimic chewed on Nick's neck. That damn smile as Max came back from the woods and joined us on the trail.

It all played through my mind at a hundred miles an hour as I lay down, looking up at the stars. Despite everything that had happened, they shined on like they always had. and it always would, silent and eternal in their celestial seats. I laid there for maybe half an hour, letting the night sky calm me before a sound from the forest woke me back up. I listened in close, looking deep into that forest that held death inside, meek sounding and seeming to echo. It was a help that came from between the pines. A moment later, the sound was multiplied all.

around me as the forest boomed with noise. Staggering back to the pickup, I grabbed a flashlight from the passenger seat. Slowly I shined it across the tree line. There were hundreds of them standing at the edge of the forest. Their no faces shined smooth with the light as my trembling hands led the flashlight from left to right. Their arms shot up to their sides, waving all in unison. They took a step forward, creeping closer from all directions when I ran back into the car. I heard their steps coming closer and closer as I fumbled with the keys against the ignition. I pressed down on the gas with all my might as the engine roared to life. I drove away, on and on and on that night.

The sun was poking up from between the mountains as I pulled into a motel. I had survived. It's been years now that this tale has been in my past. Sometimes I'll see something out of the corner of my eyes as I'm driving on the interstate. Maybe a meek voice from between the pines. Maybe it'll just be in my head, but I'll know to look away and drive on. If there's anything you take away from this tale, let it be just that. If, for whatever reason, you should find yourself face to face.

with something without a face asking for help don't be a good samaritan just walk on and away walk on and you may just live to tell the tale i didn't believe the white deer rule until it followed me home written by penteworth two two three i didn't tell anyone i was going that far in That's the part I keep circling back to. Like, if I admit it out loud, it'll make sense why nobody came looking until the sun was already going down. I just texted my brother, heading up early, back by afternoon. No pin drop, no ridge name, no, if I don't answer, call someone. I'd hunted these mountains since I was a kid.

I didn't think I needed the safety net. And I'd heard the stories everyone around here has. You grow up with them like you grow up with black ice and copperheads, something you respect more than you believe. Don't whistle after dark, don't follow a voice off trail. If you see a white deer, you let it walk. Most people say that last one like a joke. like they're teasing you for being superstitious.

The old guys don't say it like a joke. The old guys say it like they're warning you about a sinkhole. I went anyway. It was the first Sunday in December. The kind of damp cold the Appalachians do best. No movie snow, just fog laid in the haulers and wet leaves that never fully dry. I parked at a pull-off Forest Service Road, 83. where the gravel was chewed up by trucks and the brown sign for the trailhead had a sticker slapped over it that said hell is real in block letters like somebody thought they were funny

i threw my pack on checked my headlamp and stepped into the dark i carried a 308 i'd had since i was nineteen nothing fancy a rifle i trusted i had a small kit cat tourniquet a pack of quick clobes lock gauze athletic tape a mylar blanket i'd never opened two game bags a cheap GPS unit with a breadcrumb feature a knife i'd sharpened the night before while watching football i did everything right that's what makes it so hard to explain i was about two miles in when the world started to lighten The sky didn't turn pretty. It just went from black to charcoal. The ridge I was climbing ran like a spine, steep on both sides. The kind of place where your boots slide on dead leaves and you grab saplings to keep from skating downhill. I moved slow on purpose. I didn't want to sweat and freeze.

The woods had that quiet that isn't quiet. Owls further off, a squirrel shaking a branch, somewhere water moving over rock, the kind of soundscape you stop noticing because it's been your whole life. Then I saw it. Not right away. Not like it stepped out into a clearing. It was a pale shape between two hemlocks, half hidden by Mountain Laurel. At first I thought it was a fallen birch. Then it lifted its head.

and my brain made the jump. A deer. A buck. White. Not kind of light or cream-colored. White like bone. White like a sheet hung out to dry. It stood still long enough for me to count the points.

Eight, maybe ten. And I felt that stupid. Sharp spike of adrenaline that hit to Hunter when something rare walks into your sights. I remember thinking, Is it legal? Not like I'd studied the rags of albino deer. Who does?

My mind did what minds do when they want something. It grabbed for excuses. A deer is a deer. It's not like I'm shooting an eagle. I eased the rifle up. Rested against the trunk of an oak. And look through the scope. The buck was facing slightly away, head down, picking at something under the leaves.

I could see the line off its back, the shoulder, the clean curve of its neck, the shot was there. I squeezed. The recoil thumped into my shoulder. The buck jolted, kicked once, and went down hard. No sprint, no crashing through brush, just down. I stood there for a second in that weird. vacuum after a shot where you're listening for follow-up sounds something bolting something dying out of sight there was nothing i walked up slowly rifle still shouldered because habits keep you alive

the fog was thicker down around where it fell cold moisture beated on everything my sleeves the laurel leaves the bucks hide so when i got close it's white coat looking looked already sick and darkened in patches, like the woods were trying to claim it back before I even touched it. I could smell the metallic edge of blood before I saw it. It lay on its side like it had been placed there. The eye facing up was open. That eye is the thing I think about most.

It wasn't red like people always say with albinos. It wasn't glowing. It wasn't supernatural. It was cloudy, milky, like cataracts. The lashes were pale too, almost invisible. It made the buck look old, sick, wrong. I knelt beside it and put my hand on its neck out of habit. Warmth was leaving fast.

The fur felt thin, not sparse exactly, just not as. as thick as you'd expect in December. I should have stopped right there. I should have listened to that discomfort. Instead, I did what I came to do. I rolled it slightly and started fuel dressing. You don't need the gritty details. Just know this.

When I opened it up, the smell wasn't right. Not the normal warm, musky gut smell. This was sharp, sour, like ammonia, like something had been fermenting inside it. I paused, knife in my hand, and looked around. The woods had gone silent, not gradually, not like it's early and birds aren't up. It was like someone had turned down a dial. No squirrel, no water, no little movement. sounds just my breathing in the soft scrape of my glove against hide.

A branch snapped to my left. Not a small twig, a branch, heavy enough that it made that thick cracking sound. I froze. Knife still in the deer. I waited. Nothing moved. No deer bounding away, no bear huffing. No human voice.

Just fog hanging between trunks. Then it snapped again Further back, same direction Like something taking a step And not caring if it made noise My heartbeat climbed And my brain did that dumb thing Where it tries to be reasonable

To keep you from panicking Another hunter? Bear? You're keyed up I pulled my knife out And stood, rifles still slung I shouldered it Thumbed off the safety

And called out Hey, my voice didn't carry it like it should have. The fog swallowed it immediately. No answer. I looked down at the buck. I looked at the open cavity and that wrong chemical stink. I looked back at the trees. I made a choice that felt stupid in the moment and feels even dumber now.

I decided to hurry. Finish what I'd started and get out of there. I bent down again, working faster, hands getting slick, trying to keep my breathing steady. That's when my hand slipped, and the edge of the knife slipped and hit my palm. Not deep enough to hit anything major, but enough that blood welled up immediately, warm and dark against my glove. It stung in that clean, sharp way that makes your stomach flip. Jesus, I hissed, clenching my hand.

As soon as my blood hit the leaves, something in the woods answered. They sound like a wet click. Not a bird call, not a squirrel, not a twig. A wet, deliberate click. Like someone tapping their tongue against the roof of their mouth. It came from behind me. I spun, rifle up. fog, trunks, laurel, nothing.

Then another click. Same sound. Closer. My skin crawled. Every hair under my hat tried to stand up. I started backing toward the ridge, away from the deer, and my boot slid on wet leaves.

I caught myself on a sapling, and my injured hand smeared blood down the bark. The sapling shook hard. Not from me. me from something else grabbing it. I yanked my hand back and that's when I saw it. Not all of it, just enough for my brain to latch on to the worst parts. A shape behind the laurel, tall and narrow.

Too tall. It wasn't a deer. It wasn't a bear. It was standing, but it didn't stand like a person. It leaned forward like it had forgotten what balance was. and there was a smell. Rotten meat and something chemical underneath. Like bleach left too long in a closed room.

I raised my rifle and tried to find a clean line through the branches. The shape shifted. There was a pale flash. Bone? Hide? I don't know. And then it was gone. Like it dropped out of view without making a crash.

The click sounded again, this time off to my right. like it had moved without moving. I took another step back and felt the ground give. My heel hit wet rock and slid. My knee bent wrong. I went down hard and pain shot on my leg like an electric wire. I bit down on a noise because screaming feels like permission in the woods. My ankle was on fire.

I tried to stand and it buckled immediately. Hot, sick pain that told me it was sprained bad at best. Fog moved in front of me. The trees didn't, but the fog did. In a way that suggested something big had just passed through it. Click. I didn't try to be brave. I didn't try finishing the deer.

I didn't try to reason with it. I grabbed the rifle, grabbed my pack strap, and started dragging myself uphill. The ridge was behind me if I could get up there. I could at least see further. Fog sits and hollers. On the ridge, you can sometimes get above it. Sometimes. I moved like an idiot, half crawling, half hobbling,

using saplings like crutches. Every time my ankle took weight, stars burst behind my eyes. My hand was still bleeding. I wrapped it in gauze while moving. That clumsy one-handed bandage job you learn in safety courses and never think you'll need. The clicking didn't follow in a straight line. It popped up wherever I looked away. Behind me, then to the left, then in front, faint, like it was circling,

and every time it clicked, it felt like it was listening for what I'd do. At one point I heard something else, and it almost made me cry from relief because it sounded human. A voice far off calling my name, Ethan. My name is Ethan. Nobody should have been up there calling my name. The voice didn't sound like my brother or my friends. It didn't sound like any of the guys I hunt with. It sounded flat, like someone reading a word off paper they'd never seen before. Ethan.

It came from down the slope, from the direction of the white deer. I didn't answer. I kept moving. The ridge was steeper than I remembered. The laurel was thicker. That happens when you're bleeding and hurting. Everything becomes more difficult. I hit a patch of bushes that closed around me like a cage.

The branches clawed at my jacket, at my face. I had to push through. Rifle held close to keep it from snagging. The leaves were waxy and cold against my skin. That's where it hit me. Not a dramatic leap, not a roar. Just weight slamming my shoulder from the side. Hard enough that I went down in my rifle.

banged against a rock. I rolled, trying to bring the barrel up and saw something. A blur of pale and dark, long limbs, too many angles. It was on me and off me in a second, like it didn't want to wrestle, like it just wanted to hurt me and see what I did afterward. Pain exploded across my upper back, a burning rake like claws dragging through fabric and skin. I screamed then. I couldn't help it. I kicked, swung the rifle like a club, and felt it connect with something that wasn't wood. It made a dull, fleshy thump. The thing clicked right in my ear. Then it was gone.

I scrambled for the rifle. Finger shaking so badly, I almost dropped it. My scope was smeared with mud. I wiped it with my sleeve and peered through. Fog, leaves, nothing. My back felt wet under my shirt. warm. It wasn't just a scratch. It was bleeding. I forced myself up, ankle screaming, and shoved out the bush onto a narrow deer trail that cut along the ridge. I knew that trail. I'd seen it before.

I led toward an old logging road if he followed it far enough. I took three limping steps and my GPS chirped in my pocket. I yanked it out and saw my breadcrumb line. It wasn't straight. It looped. It doubled back on itself twice. There were sections where it looked like I'd stood in one spot for minutes, wandering in small circles. I had no memory of doing that. Click. This time the sound came from ahead of me.

I lifted the rifle, aimed at nothing, and fired. The shot cracked through the fog like a bomb. Birds exploded out of the tree somewhere, finally breaking that unnatural hush. And then, for the first time since the white, deer dropped, I heard the woods again. Wind, a distant creek, a squirrel chattering in outrage. The click stopped. Not like it moved away, like something closed a mouth. I didn't wait to see if it worked. I limped down the trail like my life depended on it because it did. I kept the rifle up,

safety off, thumb wide around the stock. The logging road appeared like a miracle, a wide strip of old gravel and mud cutting through the trees, runned by ancient tires, I could have hugged it. The moment I stepped onto it, my phone buzzed. One bar. I hit call on 911 before the signal could vanish. The operator answered, and I almost sobbed hearing a real person. I told her my name, that I was injured, that I was on a logging road off a ridge, that I needed help. I gave her coordinates of the GPS, voice shaking, breath coming in white bursts. She asked what happened. I started to say bear because that's what you're supposed to say. Bears are rational. Bears are explainable. But my mouth didn't form the word. All I managed to say was something attacked me.

She told me to stay where I was. Help was on the way. She asked if I could see my view. I couldn't. I was still a mile or more from the pull-off downhill. So I did the only thing I could do. I started limping down that road toward my truck with my phone in one hand and my rifle in the other, talking to her like it was a rope tied around my waist. Halfway down I heard a voice again. Not the operator. Not in my ear. In the woods beside the road, just out of sight, moving with me. Ethan I stopped dead

My phone crackled Signal wobble Then the operator came back clear Asking me to keep talking Asking me to describe my injuries To keep pressure on the wounds In the trees something shifted Leaves moved like a tall body

Passed through them without pushing through Don't go The Woods voice said It wasn't pleading It wasn't angry It sounded like someone repeating a phrase they'd heard once and weren't sure they got right. Don't go. I raised the rifle toward the brush and yelled,

Back off! My voice came out ragged, desperate. The clicking started again, right at the edge of the road. Then stopped. Then started again two steps farther down the ditch, like it had paced me without ever fully showing itself. The pull-off came into view a few minutes later. My truck sat there like it had been waiting for me the whole time.

I climbed in. Hands slick with blood. And locked my door so hard I almost snapped the key in the ignition. I drove until I had full bars and sirens behind me. At the hospital, they cleaned me up. Six stitches in my palm. A sprained ankle so bad the doctor whistled when he saw the swelling. four long gashes across my upper back that needed butterfly closures and a lecture about infection.

The nurse asked what did it. I said, I fell. She looked at me for a long second, then asked very casually, why do your scratches go inward? I didn't answer. I didn't have one. Two days later, a game warden called me. Polite, professional, asked where I'd been hunting.

what I'd taken if I'd recovered the animal. I lied at first. I said I'd missed. He was quiet for a moment and then said, We got a report of a white deer being shot up on that ridge. My stomach turned over. He said, we're going back up tomorrow morning. You're coming with us.

We need to locate the carcass. I tried to get out of it. I told him I was injured. I told him I didn't want to get into trouble. He didn't threaten me. He didn't raise his voice. He just said, You're the one who called 911

from a logging road back there, right? We found blood on the gravel. So I went. Three of us, the warden, another officer, and me, limping and sweating, even in the cold. They were armed and not with rifles. Sidearms, radios, practical confidence. men who didn't believe in anything they couldn't tick it.

We found the spot where I'd parked. Followed my tracks in. Easy to do because mine turned into a messy drag line. Boot scuffs and handprints in the leaves. We reached the general area where I remembered the buck dropping. The fog was gone that day, blue sky above bare branches. The woods looked normal, which made my skin crawl worse than the fog had. We found the deer, or what was left of it.

No scavenger mess, no coyote tearing, no bear-drag trail. It lay in a shallow dip under Laurel like it had been put back. The hide was peeled open, cleanly along the belly. But not like a field dress, like something had opened it from the inside. The ribs were split outward. The cavity was empty. But there was no blood pool, no organs scattered, no gut pile from my work, just a clean, hollow carcass. And the head, the head was turned toward the trail, toward where we stood.

The cloudy eye stared right at me. The officer beside the warden muttered, What the hell? The warden crouched, touched the edge of the hide with his glove, then stood quickly. Like he'd touched something hot. He didn't look at me when he spoke. He just said, we're leaving. We didn't take pictures.

We didn't tag it. We didn't argue about legality. We turned around and walked out like the woods had suddenly become someone else's property. On the way back, the warden's radio crackle, once. The wardens radio made that quick open mic pop. Somebody's button brushing a jacket, a burst of static, then dispatch came through. Normal voice, slightly annoyed, saying something like Unit 12, you're keyed up. And under that, faint like it was riding the same frequency for half a second was my name. Ethan. Not clear, not booming, not a ghost yelling through a

speaker, just a flat syllable bleeding through the static like someone else had keyed up at the same time. The warden stopped walking. He stared at his radio like it had grown teeth. He clicked his own mic and said, Dispatch, repeat last transmission. Dispatch answered, confused. Unit 12, I didn't call for Ethan. Are you? Are you with someone? The other officer looked at me like he, like he was trying to decide if I was messing with them. The warden didn't say anything else. He shut the radio off. We didn't speak until we hit the trucks.

He didn't write me a ticket. He didn't even mention the deer again. Before he got in his vehicle, he finally looked me in the eyes and said, if you ever see one like that again. He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. I haven't hunted. since. I tell people it's because of my ankle. I tell them I don't have time. I tell them meat prices

just aren't worth it. The truth is simpler. Every once in a while, when I'm alone, when the house is quiet and the heater kicks on and the vents tick as they warm, I hear a wet, deliberate clicking sound in the dark hallway outside my bedroom. And the worst part is my dog hears it too. He lifts his head, ears flat, eyes fixed on the doorway, and he won't move until the sound stops. If you hunt in the Appalachians and you ever see a white deer, do yourself a favor.

Let it walk. Some things don't belong. to you, even if you can kill them. And all right, guys, that wraps up some scary Skinwalker Reddit stories. I really hope you enjoyed today's video. I loved every single story in this video. I mean, they were scary, but, you know, it's entertaining. They're scary and they're creepy, and I just absolutely can't get enough of the Skinwalker

sort of vibe. You know what I mean? It's just, like, very unique, and I understand why you guys love it. And so make sure to comment down below and let me know if you'd like to see more videos like this in the future. And also make sure to check out my Patreon. I appreciate everyone who stops by over there. You get exclusive bonus videos and exclusive live streams. And you also get to join the Discord.

And anyways, I just want to say thank you guys so, so much for watching. It truly does mean the world from the bottom of my heart. Your guys' support is just unbelievable. I mean, I can't believe we are one of the top podcasts on YouTube and also one of the top podcasts on Spotify. It's just crazy, and your guys' love means everything. I'd be nothing without you guys. You guys are just the best, and if you enjoyed this video,

I'm sure you'll enjoy some other videos on the channel, so go check out some other videos on the channel. I'm sure you'll like them. And anyways, that's enough yapping. Thank you guys. Once again, so much for watching, and this is Snook. and I'll see you next time. Bye.