Camping Stories That Will Freak You Out

0:00Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary, BTW Group, voidware prohibited by law, CCNC, 21 Plus, sponsored by JambaCasino. Every day the world gets a little weirder and a lot more awesome. Cool stuff daily takes a look at everything from mining in space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is, well, basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know, you need it to know. Join us for cool stuff daily as we take a quick look at science, tech, and the, wait, what, stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner. Subscribe to cool stuff daily now because the future's happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. Hello, I'm Wilkins Stores all the time. Glad you are here. Let's get into it.

1:00A couple years ago we're in early spring. My cousin Cal invited me on a camping trip with her and two of her friends, Jessa and Mira, just a quick we camped out in the Appalachian footholds, nearer the edge of Kentucky where it boredos West Virginia. I'd been out that way before, but never this deep. We were way past the usual trails up near the old rage lines where everything feels older and quieter. Cal had found the spot for someone she worked with, apparently some half forgotten clearing with an old fire ring leftover from the days when forest crews used to pivot walk out there. We packed light tents, a couple coolers, a speaker, and whatever gave me her her bore from her dad's basement. It was almost smashed and smelled faintly of motor oil, but it worked. We hiked in late Friday morning, picking our way up a faded trail past an abandoned feeder road that was more ditched and path by then. Took us around four IOS to reach the spot. Nothing dramatic, just a flat clearing scattered with pine needles, mossy stones, and a collapsed log or two. But it had that feeling like we were standing somewhere nobody had touched in a long time. You could tell the trees hadn't been cut in decades. The air felt still in a way that made your voice sound louder than it showed.

2:02That first night was exactly what we wanted. Kale got a fire going, we kicked a can of chili and passed around this where Endus Applemoon changed she liberated from her uncle's pantry. We all pretended it didn't taste like regret on lighter fluid. Stupid jokes, dumb stories, one of those nights where the fire light makes you feel safe without really knowing why. I crawled into my tent just after midnight, cold but manageable. I remember thinking how loud the crickets were constant like static on an intense TV. What woke me up was this silence, not just quiet dead still. No wind, no bugs, no crunch of settling branches. It was like the whole forest hit mute. I kept my eyes shut for a second, thinking maybe it was just my brain re-adjusting after sleep. Then I heard it, a dragging sound, long and slow, something scraping across her. No rhythm, just this irregular pull, then stop, then pull again. Stop right at side my tent. I didn't move. Not even a breath. I just lay there, heart pounding so hard, I thought it might give me away. I didn't undepth the flap. I didn't call up. I just waited listening.

3:04But the sound never came back. Eventually, I must have passed out because the next thing I remember is morning light leaking through the tent walls. I did mention it a breakfast. Just figured it was an animal or maybe one of the others had gotten up and accidentally kicked something. When we were packing up later though, I saw the smoke in the dirt. Just one. Along shallow gouge, like something had been pulled through the clearing, it started by the old fire ring and ended maybe four feet from where my tent had been. No boot prints. No tracks. Just a single broken line in the dirt. The second night felt different before it, even got dark. KL kept saying she felt weird, kind of lightheaded. Mirror was shivering, even though it wasn't cold like the night before. We didn't drink that night. Didn't really joke around much either. Just sat around the fire, talking low like we were trying not to wake something. At some point around 10, the speaker started acting up, not just cutting in and out, skipping. Like someone was hitting plate and pause over and over. It sat and touched on the ground blinking.

4:04We all just stared at it until KL reached over and shouted off with it saying anything. Mirror went to bed early and KL followed not long after. I stayed up poking at the coals and trying to talk myself out of being on edge. The crickets were back, but they didn't sound right. Too many sudden pauses and then these weird synchronized stops like someone was flipping a switch off and on. I stood up stretched and had just turned toward my tent when I heard it. I cough. It came from just past the tree line, maybe 15 feet beyond the edge of the fire's glow. Not deep. More like someone clearing their throat. It wasn't loud, but it was sharp. Human. Then I called out hello. No response. I grabbed the flashlight, stepped up to the edge of the clearing and scanned the trees. The beam hit nothing but bark and empty branches. I didn't go past the perimeter, just stood there a bit, then turned and zipped myself into the tent like a kid hiding under the blankets. Next morning, I casually asked KL if she'd heard anything we were during the night. She gave me this look and said she thought she'd heard low voices like a muffled conversation somewhere nearby.

5:06Figured it was me and mirror talking, but mirrors were she'd been asleep the whole time. We all just kind of sat there after that, quiet. No one said what we were thinking, but it was clear none of us were comfortable staying another night. We decided to hike out that evening. Yeah, it'd be rough in the dark, but nobody wanted to wake up there again. We packed everything, doused the fire, and waited for the last calls to call before scattering the ring. KL went to grab her last bag from near the trees. That's when it happened again. The dragging. Not behind us this time, but across the clearing from the far side. Loud, deliberate. Scrape, post-scrape. We all turned toward the sound instantly. There was nothing to see, just the usual trees in dirt. What the sound was real. It felt too close and too slow to mistake. Mirror grabbed her pack without a word and started walking fast. KL and I fell in behind her, not bothering to scatter the fire stones or double check the site. We didn't stop. We were maybe half way back to the feeder road, like sore and boot covered in mud when we saw it. Something up ahead, just off the trail.

6:07At first, it looked like a person standing there with their back to us, but as we go closer, we realized it wasn't upright at all. It was something long kind of folded up in a brush stretched between two trees and this weird slumped angle like it had been dragged and left there. KL lifted her phone and flicked on the flashlight. The bean caught something pale and smooth. It was a top. Old stained and bunched up like someone had tried to pull it further but gave up. The end of it was tangled in low branches. For a second, none of us said anything. None of us touched it. We gave it a wide berth, staying in each other's line of sight the whole way back. No more talking until we hit the truck. Once the gravel road came into view, I felt my jaw unclenched for the first time in eyes. It wasn't until we were halfway back to town that mirror finally said what we'd all been thinking. I don't think we were supposed to be there. A week later, KL sent me a screenshot. Someone in a local missing person's group had posted a photo of something a hunter found near the same stretch of woods. It looked like a mixture of campsite probably used in the last few days.

7:07There were scraps of fruit wrappers, a hoodie, and the sole portable radio sitting in the dirt. But behind it, almost out of frame was a blurry blue tint. It looked just like the one mirror used. That was it. We swear we never talked about it anymore. My cousin Nate had been bugging me for years to join him on one of his real backpacking trips. I'd spent too many weekends sinking into the same old online rabbit holes crawling through dead message boards, half-reading weird survival stories and so-called true encounters with things people couldn't explain. Nate picked a spot, said it was one of his favorites, deep in the appellation backcountry, not even on most maps. We had to drive about three hours past anything resembling a town. Then another ironed down a dirt road that got steadily more suspicious the farther we went. We loaded up our packs and started hiking around midday. The trail, if you could call it that, was barely visible, just an error impression weaving through brush and roots, mostly climbing. Nate was in his element, moving confidently like he knew every bend while I trailed behind, trying not to dismantle. We passed a couple of those old metal trail markers nailed to trees, but most were rusted

8:08or barely visible, covered in moss was split by bark. After about five miles, we came to a clearing a decent spot quiet, ringed with tall hamlocks that blocked some of the wind. There was a block and fire ring in the center and a small, rotting pile of firewood nearby. Someone had definitely camped there recently. You could see where pine needles had been brushed aside and bits of burn foil were still caught in the ashes, but there was no sign of whoever it was. We set up under the trees and got a small fire going. Nate cooked beans and rice on his camp stove while I tried to get warm. It dropped fast once the sun dipped behind the ridge line. That first night was uneventful. A couple of all calls, maybe a fox sipping somewhere out in the dark, but nothing that set off any alarms. I think we were both asleep by 10. I woke up before dawn, probably five in the morning to the sound of movement outside. At first I thought it was Nate getting up to pee, but then I realized the sound wasn't close. It wasn't a person shuffling around near the tent. It was more like something pacing. Not heavy, not crashing around, just slow, measure crunching. I sat up and listened.

9:09Nate was still sipped into his sleeping bag next to me, breathing slow and steady. Definitely asleep. Ends up the tent just enough to peek out. It was still dark and I couldn't see anything, but the sound stopped like it knew I was listening, and then I heard something else. A dragging sound. Slow, steady, like something heavy was being pulled through the leaves. It moved in a white dark, just one big loop around the camp and then silence. No wrestling, no footsteps, just ed quiet. I lay back down and stayed still. I don't know why I didn't wake Nate. Maybe it was pride, or maybe it was that word part of your brain that tells you not to overreact, especially when you're out in the woods and you're supposed to act like everything's normal. I just told myself it was a deer or something. I tried to believe that. Later that morning we packed up our bags and hiked up to a nearby region it wanted to show me. The view was great tree cover tails rolling out in every direction like waves. For the whole time, I kept thinking about the dragging. I didn't bring it up. It felt dumb to say out loud. On the way back to camp, I spotted something

10:10maybe 30 feet off the trail. An old trail marker, half-buried in bark, the paint almost got. Faded red, not like the ones we'd passed earlier. It looked older. Forgotten. I pointed it out, thinking maybe Nate would find it interesting. He just glanced at it and said, yeah, there are a thousand dead trails out here. People used to log all through this range. That was it. No curiosity. No hesitation. Back at camp, something was off. Our fruit bags had been taken down from the bear line and placed on the ground. Not torn open. Not rummaged through. Just moved. Said they're carefully. They were still tight closed. No missing items. No teeth marks or scratches. Just sitting there like someone had looked inside and decided to leave it all. Nate assumed they'd hung them wrong and they fell, but I know they didn't. I double checked the knots. That's not something I screw up. That night, the temperature dropped again and we built the fire high. We sat close, not talking much. Around 10, I saw something flicker out in the trees.

11:13Like a flashlight beam, just a quick flash between two trunks, maybe 20 yards out. I looked at Nate. He'd seen it too. Think someone's out there. I asked. He didn't answer. Just kept looking into the trees. A few minutes passed. Then we heard a voice. It was soft, almost too quiet to catch. Just a few syllables at a time, repeating over and over. Female, maybe, but the tone was strange, flat. No emotion. No urgency. Like someone practicing a word they didn't understand. Nate stood up and shouted, hello? No response. Then the dragging sound again. Much closer this time. I could feel the weight of it, like whatever it was. It wasn't in a hurry. We didn't wait. We threw dirt over the fire and crawled into the tent. No lights, no talking. Just both of us sitting there, not even bothering with the sleeping bags. We each had a knife out and a can of bare spray. I held mine so tight my hand went numb. The dragging came right behind a tent. I could hear the individual leaves shifting, a slow scrape of weight moving through the brush.

12:15Then footsteps. Clear human-like footsteps. One, two, three, all the way around us in a wide circle. And then it stopped. We didn't sleep at all. Every small noise outside of me holding my breath. The air in the tent felt heavy, like we were waiting for something to come through the wall. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary. BTW Group, boy, we're prohibited by law. CCNC, 21 Plus, sponsored by JambaCasino. Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it. Asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices,

13:15and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast or ever you get your podcasts. At first light, we tore everything down in minutes. No breakfast, no coffee. Just packed on the left. About a mile down the trail, Nate stops suddenly. Shit, he said, my hatchet. I told him to leave it. He wouldn't. So he dropped his pack and jogged back. I waited 10 minutes. Then 20. I started walking back toward camp, calling his name. Nothing. Then I saw him. He was walking fast, eyes wide, no pack, no hatchet. Just him breathing hard. When I asked what happened, he didn't say a word. Just walked past me like I was even there. It wasn't until we were almost back to the car that he finally spoke. We don't talk about this, he said. I asked him again where he saw. What happened? He hesitated, then said the camp looked the same as we'd left it, except for two things. The fire pit had been mistacked perfectly.

14:16Fresh wood, dry kindling. Like someone had prepared it to light again. And inside the tent, carved into the nylon wall was his full name. Underneath it, one word's day. We got in the car and drove in silence. We didn't talk until we hit pavement. That was three years ago. Nate hasn't been camping since. He sold all his gear the following week. Tent stove boots, everything. Won't even go near the woods. Last month, a stumble across a thread on a backwards hiking forum. People were talking about strange encounters in the Appalachians. One post mentioned a dead zone near a ridge. Setgear gets reorganized. Campers here, movement at night. Someone circling their tent. A voice repeating itself in the dark. No one had replied. The person who posted it. They were used in aimless tape went to tree. I was 19 when it happened. That summer, three of my friends and I decided to go off-growth for a while. We planned out five days of backpacking in this barely documented patch of force near Ashburn, Virginia.

15:16Lyle was the gear guy. He brought the tent, the stove, and most of the tools. Marcus hit this old printed topo map and handled the rough planning. Nico, the last in our group, packed the med kit and emergency gear. I was in charge of the food. It worked. We liked to joke that we were a disaster waiting to happen, but somehow a group dynamic balanced out. We parked at the end of this dirt road that had more grass and gravel locked our phones in a glove box and double checked everything before heading out. It felt good in a wearer leap your way, walking into the woods with everything we needed strapped to our backs. No service. No schedule. Just trees and time. The first couple of days were honestly kind of perfect. The weather held up warm in the day, call that night. The forest was thick, but not hard to move through. We followed the stream most of the way, making it easy to refill our bottles and stay on course. No one talked much about it, but I think we were all relieved that it didn't feel like a survival show episode. It felt almost easy. On the second day, late afternoon, we stumbled across a stretch that looked like something out of a postcard.

16:18The land dipped into this little sloped clearing with big mossy rocks and flat patches of pine needles. A narrow creek ran through it, just deep enough to soak your feet. It fell untouched like no one had worked through in years. Lyle took one look and said, we should stay there two nights. Rest up, maybe fish. Everyone agreed. We got camp set up, cooked dinner, and sat around the fire until it got dark enough to matter. At some point, I grabbed the pot and headed down to the creek to wash off the last bits of our pasta mess. It was maybe 30 yards from camp, just far enough to feel alone. I was coached by the water scrubbing at the edges. When I heard something behind me, just a small crunch, like a foot pressing lightly into dry leaves. I turned fast, thinking Nico had followed me down, but there was no one there. Just trees and shadows. I stood still for a bit, listening. Nothing. No footsteps, no breeding, not even birds. It was like the forest had paused. When I turned back to the creek, the pot was gone. Fun. I blinked a few times, trying to convince myself I was just tired

17:18and looking in the wrong spot. I even padded the ground around me, like it had fallen into a weird crack between the rocks. But it hadn't claddered, hadn't rolled. It was just not there anymore. I climbed back up to camp, trying to stay calm, figuring I probably left it further up the slope without realizing. Lyle and Marcus were still by the fire, roasting the last marshmallow's. I asked a feeder of them had come down to the creek. They both looked at me like I was nuts. You see, RS? Lyle lost. Why would we? I told them the pot was gone. Not misplaced. Not lost. Just disappeared. It laughed at first and stopped when I didn't laugh back. Nico came out of the tent, rubbing his eyes and joined the search. We spent maybe 40 minutes looking. We checked every spot under logs around the rocks, even in the trees, in case some animal had dragged it. Nothing. Eventually we gave up. I was frustrated, but it was late and the fire was dying. We figured we'd deal with it in the morning, maybe fashion something out of foil if we had to.

18:18That night I woke up cold. Not the usual, slipped off the sleeping pad kind of cold, but bow and deep freezing. My bag was zipped all the way up, but I was still shaking. I sat up slowly, thinking maybe the tent had torn or shifted. Something felt wrong. The tent didn't feel like it was in the same position. That was the first thing. I unsypped the flap and stuck my head out. It was dark pitch black. No firelight, no moon. Just that they kind of dug this, wallows your depth perception. But I knew immediately the tent had turned. We'd set it up facing the creek. Now the flap opened toward the opposite direction, toward the woods, and it hadn't just spun in place. Everything around it had shifted. My boots were sitting a few feet away from where I had left them. Lyle's backpack had been flipped upside down, one of the straps torn loose. To bear back, the one we'd hung between two trees 10 feet off the ground was missing. Just gone. The rope was still hanging that like nothing had touched it. I woke the others. Lyle came out first, groggy and annoyed. But once he looked around, his mood changed.

19:21Nico looked at the gear, then at us, and didn't say anything. We talked through the possibilities. A person? Maybe. But none of us had heard anything. No voices. No lights. No breaking branches. Just silence. We packed up at first light and hiked up fast. No one said much, but you could feel the tension. We moved until we found a rocky ridge that opened up a bit less tree cover, more sky. It felt safer in a way. That night, it started to rain. We cooked on a flat stone under the top, trying to get back to normal. The mood lightened for a bit until Marcus looked up and said, didn't we hang four bags? There were only three. Mine was gone this time. Rice, trail mix, jerky, all of it. Marcus tried to play it off. Said I probably left his at the last camp in the rush. I knew I hadn't. I remember clipping it in myself. No one wanted to argue, but we all knew what it meant. That night, I barely slept. Every time a branch creaked of the top shifted in the wind, I found myself holding my breath.

20:22At one point, I heard something circling the edge of our camp. Not fast, just slow, deliberate steps through the brush. By the fourth night, Lyle suggested it would start keeping watch. One-nier shifts. Marcus took first. I had second. He woke me up around one, his face pale and drawn. He said he'd heard a voice somewhere down the slope, just out of sight. It only said one word, whispered real slow, closer. He didn't joke. He didn't smile. He just handed me the flashlight and went straight into his sleeping bag. I sat there, back against a rock, watching the woods. Everything was quiet again. Still. At some point, I caught a shape out of the corner of my eye standing between two trees. Tall. Still. Still. Not moving. I blinked and it was gone. I didn't say anything in the morning. Just told them the night was quiet. We broke camp early and decided to head back a day ahead of schedule. No one protested. About two Ios from the trail ed, Lyle stopped suddenly as for frozen mid-step.

21:23He was staring off to the right, where an arrow tree stood just off the path. There was something nailed to it. The pot. Hung at eye level. Dead center. Polished. Plain. Not a speck of suit. Like it had been scrubbed with steel wool. No one worked closer. No one touched it. We just kept walking. Back at the car, all four doors were unlocked. But nothing was missing. Not the phones. Not the wall. It's not even the least change in a cup holder and that was the last time I ever went camping. We picked a spot down near an arrow bend of deep hollow creek up past the gravel service roads in a shell creeper cell. We were a good twelfth of the tea miles from the nearest ranger station, way beyond cell range. There were three of us, me, my cousin Bailey and her fiancée Matt. Bailey and I grew up hiking those mountains. We'd done this stretch before, different loops over the years, but always the same general area. We bushrocks slept at Hanuk's during thunderstorms got and turned around and figured it out. This stuff never rattled us. Matt though, this was his first time out in real backcountry.

22:24No amenities, no cab ground. He'd done day hikes, sure, and I think he stayed in a cabin once with his friends. But nothing like this. No trail markers beyond the entry. No bathrooms. Just rocks, trees, and the sound of whatever was nearby. He asked a lot of questions, made jokes about bears, kept triple checking his gear, even though Bailey had packed half of stuff. The first night felt normal. Honestly, it was one of the smoother setups we've done. We paced tents close to a flat patch just about the creek's bend, maybe 20 yards from the water line. The trees around their grow close but not dense, so you get decent visibility without feeling exposed. We made a good fire, cooked some instant noodles, passed around a flask, and just let the night settle. Matt kept remarking how quiet it was, not in a scared way, just kind of impressed. It's weird, he said, how once the fire dies down, it's like the whole place excels. That stuck with me, not in a dramatic way, just the phrasing. By the second night, I noticed he kept bringing it up the quiet, but this time he didn't sound impressed anymore at more puzzle, still no bugs.

23:24He said, looking up from the fire, seriously, I haven't heard a single buzz. No mosquitoes, no moss hitting the tent, nothing. Bailey rolled her eyes and said, complain when you do get bit. But I got what he meant. The quiet wasn't peaceful anymore. It was flat hollow. Even out there you should hear something, especially by water. Frogs, crickets, owls, but there was nothing, not even the wind. We laughed it off again, but there was this undercurrent now, like a thin wire pulling tighter. That night something woke me up. I don't know what time it was. Late, definitely after midnight. I didn't hear anything, didn't dream anything weird. I just came awake like a switch flipped. I lay there a while, eyes open in the dark, waiting for something to tell me why I was up. That's when I noticed the sound. Water, not the creek, not the logo we'd fallen asleep to. This was different, sharper, closer. It sounded like a trickle at first, then steadier, like someone had turned on a faucet. Not a loud gush, just this controlled clean stream. Way too close.

24:25It had a rhythm to it, too exact to be part of the landscape. I set up and peaked through the tent flap. The via had burned down to the stole red ash ring. Fairly, and Matt's tent was sipped up. His boots were still up by the fire pit. Nothing looked off, but the water noise was louder now, almost deliberate, like it was being poured just behind me. I stepped out, didn't see anything. The creek was still 20 yards down. I crouched near the tent and held my breath. The sound didn't stop. It didn't change. It was like it didn't care I was listening. Eventually, I gave up trying to find it. I crawled back in and pulled the sleeping bag tighter. The noise followed me for a while into sleep, I think. It stayed in my head like tinnitus, just looping. The next morning, nobody said much. I didn't bring it up. Neto did Matt. But around lunch, while we were boiling water, he casually said, I think I saw something last night. Like out in the trees. He didn't push it, didn't make it a big moment. Just said it. Then stared at the steam coming off the pot.

25:25Bailey just rolled her eyes again. Probably a deer or one of your imaginary owls. His smile sort of. But that was it. No more jokes about the client. No more observations. Patience. That night, he built the fire higher than we usually do. Kept feeding it. I told him we didn't need that much heat. And he just said, yeah, but I want the light. He kept glancing down toward the creek, like something might be walking back up. It was after midnight when I heard the first zipper. His tent. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Victory Lane? Yeah, it's even better with Chamba by my side. Race to chambacasino.com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary. VTW Group, voidware prohibited by law. CTNCs, 21 plus sponsored by Chamba Casino. Every day, the world gets a little weirder. And a lot more awesome. Cool stuff daily takes a look at everything from mining and space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know you needed to know.

26:29Join us for cool stuff daily as we take a quick look at science, tech, and the wait, what stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner. Subscribe to cool stuff daily now because the future's happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. I figured bathroom break, but a few seconds later, I heard another zipper mine. From outside, I froze. My hands were under the blanket, but I could feel my palm sweating. I whispered, Matt, nothing. I sat up and looked out through the mesh. He was near my tent, not anywhere in the camp circle. But then I saw him standing about 10 feet away right at the edge of the clearing, facing the trees. Vax straight arms at his sides, just staring. I unzipped a little more and whispered again, Matt, what are you doing? He didn't move. Just lifted one hand, slowly, like he was motioning me to stop, not in a friendly way, just a slow, firm signal, like I wasn't supposed to follow. Then he took a step forward. They lose wars crack through the sands behind me. Matt, what the hell?

27:30She came out barefoot, hair messy, clearly half asleep and pissed. He didn't react, just kept walking one foot at time, like he wasn't the one moving, like something was walking through him. She ran to him and grabbed his arm. That's when he turned. Fast. Too fast. Too fast. I still don't know how to describe his face. It was his, but it was. His mouth was hanging open, not surprised. Just slack, like his jaw didn't belong there. His eyes were wide, too wide, and they didn't focus. Not on her. Not on anything. He mumbled something. A low, wet syllable. No words, just noise. Valy shook him hard. For a second, he blinked and then he dropped, like a puppet with the strings cut. We dragged him back into the tent. He didn't resist. He just sort of melted into the sleeping bag. Didn't say anything. Didn't move. I'll cold. He slept through the rest of the night. In the morning, he acted like nothing had happened.

28:33Thought we were joking. Said we must have dreamed it or misunderstood. Valy didn't argue. She just handed him her phone. She had taken a few pictures, trying to light the way with her screen when she'd run after him. One of them showed him clear rose day from behind and just over his shoulder, half invisible behind the trees. There was something else. It looked like skin. Human-shaped, but all wrong. Stretched between two trunks, thin and vain, like it had been peeled off and hung to dry. No head, no face. Just folds. Like it had collapsed and on itself and was trying to hold for. We didn't pack slowly. No breakfast, no idle talk. By 10, we were hiking out. But something was wrong with the trail. Landmucks were out of order. First, we passed that split bulldoge we saw on the first day, then a crooked birch with a rope swing, which we should have hit hours ago. Ely checked the topum at three times before saying, this doesn't make sense. We've been here already. We weren't just lost. We were looping on a marked trail. Matt stopped walking. Didn't say anything at first.

29:33Then he looked up the hill and whispered, I think we're being followed. I asked him why he thought that, but he just kept staring toward the tree line. We sit still, listening. That's when I saw it. A hand. A hand. Just the fingers slowly culling around a tree trunk maybe 30 feet up the slope. Not normal fingers. Too long. Too many joints. Each one moved like it had its own weight. Like it wasn't using bones. Matt didn't even look at me. Just said it's copying us. We didn't speak again. Just ran. We cut straight through the trees, pushing past limbs, climbing over rocks, smashing through into growth. I don't remember how long we ran. It felt endless. Then suddenly gravel. The sound of a car. We burst out of the woods like animals. Breathless. Covered in burrows and mud. Bailey flagged down the first pick of that past. The guy didn't ask many questions, just drove. They moved out of state within the month. Matt barely slept for weeks.

30:33Told Bailey he kept hearing water dripping in the walls. As for me, I went back once. Only to the edge. Just a look. The creek was there. Same bend. Same moss covered rocks. Same trees. But the trail? Done. My friend Jase came up with this plan for her. We can't hike along the stretch of the Appalachian Trail. His uncle on some property way out in the woods, three iros from where we lived in Tennessee and the land back right up to the forest. We could park the truck on his uncle's land and hike in from there. It sounded like a decent way to get out of town and unplug for a couple days. I'd done my fair share of camping. My dad hunts, so I grew up tagging along on drips. I was new to tents, fire starting, or hearing coyotes in a distance. But this would be my first time out there far with the other people nearby, no campground bathrooms or mock plots. Just us in the trail. There were three of us going. Me, Jase, and our friendily. We packed light just enough to get by. Sleeping bags, trail food, water filters, a camp stove.

31:34Jase had an old map his uncle gave him with some hand drawn trails and landmarks. We left early Friday morning, aiming to cover about six miles before nightfall. Nothing too intense. The weather looked good and while self-service dropped in a note, we had backup battery packs and a compass if we really needed it. That first day was fine. Long, sweaty, full of blisters and swatting at bugs, but overall fine. We made decent time. Around three in the afternoon, we hit the five mile marker and started looking for a place to set up. Jase remembered a spot from a hike he did once with his uncle, a clearing with an old stone chimney standing by itself. No house or anything, just the chimney left behind. It sounded cool and he said it wasn't much further. We found it after another half-hour. There it was. This tall, crumbling stone chimney, just sitting alone in a clearing like it was waiting for someone to finish building the house around it. It looked like it had been there forever. Moss along the sides, cracks running through the stone, nothing around it but trees and weeds. The strange part was how intact it was.

32:34Else the structure of the foundation completely gone. We pitched our tents a little ways back and got a fire going before it got too dark. It was quiet out there, not in the spooky way, just in that deep woods kind of way. No cars, no people, just burrs in the occasional square rustling around. By eight, we were sitting around the fire, passing a bag of trail mix and talking about school and summer plans. We weren't even trying to be tough guys, just felt relaxed like the kind of night where nothing could go wrong. Then we heard something in the woods, crunching leaves, maybe 20 minutes, 30 feet off to the side. They went quite mid-sentent and turned his head. We all sat still. The sun stopped almost immediately. We kind of laughed it off. Dear, maybe. Could have been a raccoon or something bigger. Normal four sons, but we were all just a little more aware after that. And I or so later, we heard it again. This time from behind us. Same type of sound. Slow, steady footsteps crunching the underbrush. Not the quick hops of a rabbit or the skittering of a raccoon. Just deliberate to careful steps.

33:36Just stood up and called out, hey, we're camping here. Nothing. We listened for a while. The forest stayed quiet. After a bit, we all pretended it didn't bother us and climbed into our tents. Nobody set anything about it, but I think we were all running through the same thoughts. Maybe a hike in nearby with some kind of animal just passing through. I woke up sometime around three in the morning. My bladder was screaming at me, but I really didn't want to leave the tent. I lay there for a while trying to walk myself back to sleep, but it wasn't happening. Eventually, I insiped the tent as quietly as I could and stepped outside. The fire had burned out. The clearing was pitch black. I didn't bother with the head on, just tearing down my phone light and shuffled about 10 feet away. That's when I heard it. This soft, rhythmic scraping sound coming from over by the chimney. I froze midstream. It was faint, but steady, like something being dragged across the stone. Not fast. Not loud. Just as slow, repetitive scrape. Over and over. I am my light to ward it, but couldn't see much.

34:36Just the outline of the chimney and a few twisted branches in the way. The sound stopped. And then there was something else. But whisper, not words exactly. More like someone exhaling, trying to get my attention. Just one lawn, drawn out breath coming from just beyond the chimney where the trees grew thick. My body reacted before my brain caught up. I turned around, sit back into my tent and later staring at the fabric inches from my face. I didn't sleep again that night. In the morning, nobody said anything. She suddenly acted normal. I didn't bring it up either. We just had our breakfast bars packed our gear and started off the ridge trail. We didn't see a single other person all day. Just trees, dirt, and silence. By early evening, we were back near the sand clearing. It made sense to count there again. We knew it. We had food stashed. I didn't like the idea, but I kept my mouth shut. That second night was worse. Sometime after one in the morning, I heard someone whispering my name through the tent wall. Hey, you're awake. It was Oly.

35:37Yeah, I whispered back. Something's out there. I sat up, where no response. I unsypped the flap and poked my head out. His tent was five feet away empty. I scanned the clearing with my headlamp, found him standing near the chimney, just standing there facing the trees. Stills a statue. When the light hit him, he turned his head. Thought I heard someone talking, he said. I told him to come back to the tents. He did it slowly. Near the other of us really slept after that. Next morning, Jace looked terrible. He said he'd spent the entire night dreaming about walking, not even walking anywhere, just the sensation of walking endlessly. Said his legs were sore, like he'd been moving the whole time. We joked he was sleep hiking, but the look on his face didn't match the joke. He looked like someone who hadn't rested at all. We packed up and decided to head back early. No one argued. About half a mile down the trail, I realized I didn't have my pocket knife. Thought I must have dropped it near the fire pit. Told them I jogged back and grabbed it real quick.

36:39They didn't love the idea, but I said 10 minutes tops. I cut back through the trail, slipped into the clearing and walked toward the fire pit. No knife. I turned toward the chimney and froze. There were footprints around it. There, long, narrow, way too long for any of us. And they didn't go anywhere, just circled the chimney in a perfect ring over and over. Then I saw the knife. It was stuck into the chimney, we'll halfway out blade first, wedged right between two stones like someone had driven it in there. I hadn't been near the chimney the night before. I hadn't touched it. I backed away slowly and walked out of the clearing. I scanning the trees the whole way, called up to Jasonily. Didn't say anything. We made it back to the truck by early afternoon and drove home without stopping. That night I had a dream. I was back in the woods, walking, but I wasn't choosing to. My legs were just moving on their own, pulling me toward the chimney. When I woke up, my cows ect in my boots were muddy. I haven't gone camping since. I was 21 when we decided to hike the raccoon ridge trails. Six days out in the Appalachians

37:40and a patch of wilderness people mostly forget about unless they grew up near it. No resorts, no overlooks, no casual Sunday hikers. Just trees, creeks, and a whole lot of quiet. There were five of us. Me, my older brotherly, his girlfriend Brenna and two of his college, but his Wes and Jonah. We'd done small little trips together before, but this one was supposed to be our real backpacking experience. Test our limits, get away from everything. We had decent gear. Tense, food, solar chargers, GPS units. We weren't exactly surviving on moss and bugs, but once we crossed the first bridge into Old Jack's fold, that's what the locals called that stretch phones, died completely. No signal, no stray boughs. Just a map, a compass, and Wes swearing he remembered the rep from a camping blog. At a third day, we've covered about 14 miles. We retired, but not wrecked. Joined Steph, feet blistered in spots. Everyone moved his slower, but still joking around. That night, we started looking for a place to camp earlier than usual. Jonah wandered off a main path for a bit

38:41and came back saying he'd found a good spot near a bend in a creek. Said it looked flat and dry. Plus, it was quiet. That pot stuck with me. How quiet it was. No buzzing. No frogs. Not even the usual rustle from squares or birds hopping through underbrush. The water moved, but even that sounded. Off-muted. Like the whole place was wrapped in insulation. The laugh and said it was like someone had hit mute in the woods. We all chuckled, but no one really followed upon it. We set up our tents in a little horseshape with the fire pit in the center, ate some salty trail fruit, boiled water for tea, and sat around the fire talking. Everyone but Jonah. He sat hunched a little forward, hands on his knees, just staring into the flames. He hadn't been himself all day. Slow to answer, barely touched his food. But now, he just looked blunt like the fire had taken him somewhere, and he hadn't come back yet, brennelled him over and asked kind of gently, you good luck she already knew. The ads adjourned, it didn't look at her, just they're just thinking in this strange underwater kind of voice. It sounded like him technically, but if you close your eyes,

39:42you might have thought someone was doing a slow-motion impression of him, it wasn't just what he said. It was how he said it like each word was being selected one at a time from a list. Like he didn't trust the sound of his own voice. We figured maybe he was dehydrated. Or just fried from hiking. They offered him water, but he waved it off. He went to his tent early, didn't even say goodnight. The rest of us stayed up a little longer. Talking about college stories, old inside jokes, stuff like that. But I kept glancing over at Jonah's tent. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Victory Lane? Yeah, it's even better with Chamba by my side. Race to chambacasino.com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary, VTW Group, voidware prohibited by law, CTNCs, 21 plus, sponsored by Chambacasino. Hey, I'm Josh Spiegel, host of the podcast, Lunatic in the newsroom. If you enjoy journalism that drifts into my old panic, wild overthinking, and a guaranteed nervous breakdown, Lunatic in the newsroom is for you. It's news like you've never heard before. The only newsroom with a panic button.

40:42You'll laugh, you'll cry, and gasp and horror as the show spirals completely out of control. It's not just news, it's emotionally unstable. Lunatic in the newsroom. Listen today. Something about it made me uneasy. The silence, maybe. Or how quickly he'd gone still. Around midnight, we heard something. It wasn't a crunch or a snap or any of the usual nighttime noises. It was movement smooth, slow, like something big was sliding along the brush, not crushing through it, gliding. Bleat turned on his headlamp, did a slow sweep, nothing, just trees, shadows, and the white blur of his beam bouncing off leaves. Then came the smell. Thicks sire, like rotting leaves and meat left out in the rain. It rolled in low and heavy like fog you couldn't see. It was grabbed his flashlight, circled around back where we thought the noise came from. He was gone from 83 minutes. When he came back, he looked pale. Joan is tense, he said. It's open. We all stood up fast, walked over. Flap was unsypt all the way and pinned back

41:43neatly like someone had tied it at way on purpose. Inside, his sleeping bag was empty. His pack was still there. Headlamp, water bottle, even his coat. The only thing missing were his boots. We called his name, nothing. Walked to the edge of the creek, checked the nearby game trail. No sign of him, no footprints, no splashes. If he'd gone out to pee, we would have heard something, seen something, but there was nothing. We didn't want panic, told our ourselves, maybe he wandered off to clear his head and got turned around. We left a lantern on, weighed it, slept in shifts, if you could call it that. Just before dawn, I heard something crunch, real footsteps this time, from the wrong direction. Not the trail, not the creek. From the victories behind us, the direction no one had gone. It was Jonah. He walked straight into camp, shirt torn down one side. I'm scratched up like he'd call through Bramble. His face was smudged with dirt, but his expression was calm too calm. He didn't say a word. He rushed over inside, where the hell did you go?

42:44Jonah didn't answer. He walked past all of us and sat back down by the dead fire, pit like we were still mid-conversation. Was crouched beside him and said, man, what happened? Trying not to sound scared, Jonah blinked once, then said, flat as paper, I wasn't supposed to come back. None of us knew what to say. The us come back from where? Joe looked up at him real slow and said, she's still out there. That was it. He lay down right down the dirt. Didn't explain. Didn't move. Didn't even pull his coat on. The next morning, he acted like nothing had happened. No memory of leaving a tent. No memory of the scratches. Laughed when we asked. Thought we were messing with him. But I checked his boots while he was eating. Kicked and dried mud, dark and packed and deep. But the insides, dry. No signs he'd been near the creek or stepped in anything wet. That night, we come two miles east closer to the trailhead. Still in the woods, but somewhere that felt a little less watched. Just after sunset, we heard the voice. A woman, not yelling, not whispering.

43:48Just calling Jonas' name, slow, measured. Over and over. It didn't echo. It didn't move around. It was just there, hanging in the trees. Every direction at once. Brenna started crying. They shouted back, thinking maybe someone was injured. But the voice didn't answer. Just kept saying Jonas' name. Similar to them, same tone. Thomas Rose didn't blink, didn't turn his head, like his body was still, but his ears were tuned to every syllable. After ten minutes, the voice stopped like a record being lifted off the turntable. We packed everything in silence, didn't even argue, just started moving. We hiked through the dock, made it five miles before our legs gave out, sat in a cold circle, packed against trees. No one slept. By mid-morning, we ran into a park ranger. Name Tagsad Maddox. First thing he asked was if we were the group camped down over. Said someone reported distant yelling the night before. We gave him the basics, didn't dramatize. Just facts. He didn't look surprised.

44:48Just nodded slowly and said, you camp near Old Bend. We nodded. He sighed and said that trail used to run through burial land. Stores go back a long way. Folks hearing voices. Coming back wrong. Then he said they call her the Crocodile Woman. He didn't say much more. He told us to stay on Mark Trails, avoid enlisted bends, and don't follow Game Pass no matter how flat they look. We ended the trip early, packed up, and drove home without a word. Jonas let the entire drive mumbling in his leap. We were four days into this week-long hiking loop for a quiet out of the way patch of forest down in Olden Halbert County. There were six of us, all in our mid-twenties, give or take a year. None of us were pros or wilderness survival experts. We just liked camping hiking, getting out of town. This time, we wanted something different. Off-grid. Real isolation. The trail we picked ran through a patch of land technically listed as a preserve, though I don't think it had been maintained in decades. The ranger, who signed off our permit, didn't even look up from Hadesk, just asked if we

45:48had our own gear and a beacon. Told us we wouldn't get sell-service past a second mile. Said we'd likely be the only ones out there. That sounded good at the time. The trail loop for Pine Forest, all dirt roads that were probably used for mining 50 years ago, and two fire towers so rested you couldn't get more than three steps up before the metal screened under your weight. It felt like stepping back in time. There weren't markers or signage past the first day. Just a worn path, barely visible through ferns and undergrowth. We were tired by the fifth day. Muscle sore, feet blistered, clothing crusted with dried sweat and trail dust, but we were still in it. The kind of tired that feels earned. That night we made camp done by a narrow creek just under a low ridge. The water barely moved. You could hear it trickle if you stood still. The air had a strange way to it like the silence was thicker than it should have been. No birds, no rustling, just stillness. I remember standing there, brushing my teeth and realizing I hadn't seen a single animal all day, not even a square. After we ate, we sat around a small fire.

46:50Everyone was too drained for real conversation. It was just the flick of flames and the occasional clink of metal cups. Then we'll decided to tell one of his appolation ghost stories as he called him. Half his ground for the used to tell him when he was a kid. He told us a few before, half folklore, half camp are nonsense, but that night they hid different. He talked about these old warnings from the area. Not just ghost or monsters, things that weren't supposed to have names. Creatures that mimic forces. Places that shifted a few walked through them twice. He said names had power out here and that if he said the wrong one out loud, it would find you. We all kind of laughed, but not too hard. There was a weird tension in the air that made everything stick a little harder than usual. He must have noticed, because then he said we should each make up our own scary story. Said it would confuse the spirits, like a joke spell, or a verse curse. Typical well joking around but half believing it. So we went around the circle one by one, making stuff up. Stores about hikers who vanished. Trails that looped back to the beginning no matter how far you walked.

47:50Weaded back, were speaking people. You know the type. When it got to me, I was already in my sleeping back kind of drifting off near the fire. I heard someone say your turn, Riven, and I sat up just enough to talk. I remember starting something about a guy who finds a cabin deep in the woods. One that shouldn't exist. That's it. That's the last thing I remember clearly. Next thing I knew, I was on my back, staring through the mesh of my tent at the stars. I was still mid-sentence. My mouth was open. The fire had burned low. I could hear myself talking, but I didn't know what I was saying. The words sounded like mine, but they didn't feel like mine. In, without thinking, I said, they all died. That's the end. And everything just stopped. Nobody moved. Nobody reacted. They were all just sitting there, completely still, like Stache's cut mid-blink. I sat up all the way. Jamie had tears silently running down her face, not crying, just leaking. Her hands were shaking a little. Nora was curled and on herself, this clenched in her lap, knuckles like truck.

48:54Even when it looked sick, like he was about to throw up or pass out. I asked what was wrong. Nobody answered. Later, after we'd all gone to our tents, I was put to Jamie. She was sharing with me that night. I told her I didn't remember what I'd said. She looked at me for a long time, then said, very quietly, he never opened your eyes. I asked again what I said. She didn't answer. Just turned her back. In the morning, Nora and Ellie were gone. They left a note on the back of a torn trail map. They said heading back, don't follow. That's all. They didn't take food. They didn't take the radio. Just their packs and barely enough water for a day. We stood around that note like it might explain something else if we stared lying enough. Nobody had a good idea what to do. It was two full days back to the trailhead, no matter which direction you walked. We decided to keep going forward. We figured that stick to the trail and make it out ahead of us. Or someone would find them. We hit the emergency beacon once, just in case. No signal. The next two days felt wrong.

49:55Not scary. Not dangerous. Just for all. No one said much. No one joked anymore. We'll barely looked at anyone. At night, we didn't build another fire. We just ate cold food in the dark and went to bed early. Like we were afraid of drawing attention. When we finally got back to the lot, Nora and Ellie's cars were still there. Dad kicked off the real search. Rangers. Helicopters. Dogs. Dogs. They found a girl six days later. 20 miles southeast of where they should have been. Way off trail. No shoes. Dehydrated. Cut all over their legs. Silent. They didn't talk. Not to the Rangers. Not to their parents. Not to each other. We waited weeks. I have expected someone to send a group text to try to piece it together. But nothing happened until Jamie ran into Ellie through a mutual friend. She asked her what happened out there. Ellie didn't say much, just one thing. She said, when I told that story by the fire, it wasn't random.

50:58It was like it knew her. Like I was describing things only she would have known. Childhood nightmares, places from her past, think she never told anyone specific names. And she said the worst part wasn't the details. It was the feeling that I wasn't telling the story that the story was telling me. I never remembered a word of it. We tried to get together once just to talk. Jamie left early. We didn't show it all. I think we were all hoping someone else would be brave enough to say what we were all thinking. I was 27 when I decided to go camping alone for the first time. Not car camping. Not a short hike from a trailhead to really out there. Deep woods. I just quit a job I couldn't stand, and I hadn't lined up anything new yet. So I figured I'd try to shake it off in the mountains. I'd hike in the southern appellations before, usually we can stuff. Nothing serious. For this time I picked a spot I'd marked a few weeks early using my guy app. No trail nearby. Just declaring I'd found on satellite view about eight miles from the road north west of a town called Elbridge. Middle of nowhere, basically. Attack light but smart tent compacts leaping back, it's more stove, water filter, headlamp,

52:01knife, book, and a few meals. I knew there wouldn't be any cell service once I got a few miles in. That was part of the point. It took me most of the afternoon to reach this spot. The hike in was tough and pots, some down trees, faint game trails, nothing marked. But it felt good to move. Quiet. I didn't see anyone else the whole way. No footprints, no voices, nothing. Just leaves and the occasional squirre crashing through brush like it owed somebody money. The clearing itself was almost too perfect. Flat ground, soft pine bed, small fire rings someone must have built a long time ago. Most covered rocks in a half circle around the edge. It felt like nobody had touched it in years. That first night was easy. I built a tiny fire heated up one of those fall dinners and watched the sky get darker between the tree branches. No word sounds, no animals creeping close. I turned in early, lay in my tent listening to the wind push through the trees. I think I was asleep before 9. I woke with the sun and in the tent to the soft golden spilling through the trees. It was dead quite except for the occasional woodbacker hammering somewhere off to the

53:03left. My legs were a little sore from the hike, but in a good way. I made coffee with the little camp stove stretched out on a rock and watched steam rise from the muck. Around mid-morning, I decided to hike out to a ridge I noticed on a topper map. It was another couple of miles from camped steeper terrain, but I figured I had time. It ended up being worth it in our trail, but it opened up to a view straight down to the river below. No houses, no boats, no roads. Just trees and water and sky. I stayed there for maybe 2 hours. Read a little. Wrote in my journal, mostly dumb stuff. I remember thinking I hadn't seen a single person since leaving the car, not even far off. Not a voice. Not a distant echo. It felt like the whole forest was holding it's breath. It was mid afternoon when I headed back, and that's when things started feeling off. When I stepped into the clearing, I stopped. My tent flap was open. Not all the way, just half way, like someone had started to unzip it, then decided against it. The fart was rulsely, like someone had touched it.

54:04I stood there for a long second, just looking at it, trying to remember if I'd left it that way, but I know I didn't. I'm not careless with that stuff, especially not in tick country. And it hadn't been windy. I checked the inside. Nothing was missing. My gear was exactly how I'd left it. My sleeping bag was still zipped. My food was sealed, but it didn't feel right. It felt like someone had been there. I didn't start a fire that night. Didn't want the light. Instead I got into the tent early and read by headlamp. My knife was within reach. I kept pausing to listen. Every little shift outside made my chest height, but there was nothing. No animals, no wind, just stillness. Then around nine I heard something. One foot step. Just one. It wasn't an animal. I've heard plenty of deer and rookies crashing around in the woods. They're loud, erratic. This was clean. One deliberate step on pine needles may be 15 feet from the tent. That soft crunch.

55:04I'm a stakeable. And then nothing. I didn't move. I barely breathed. Just lay the straining to hear something else. A second step. A cough. Anything. But there was only silence. Eventually I convinced myself it could have been a branch falling. Or my own mind. I must have stayed awake another eye before I finally fell asleep. Next morning I opened the tent and there was a stone flat smooth, light gray place right at the entrance where I would have stepped on it, getting out. It hadn't been there before. It was too centered, too clean. I stared at it for a long time. Then I picked it up and threw it as far as I could into the woods. I packed up fast, no breakfast, no second thoughts. I was supposed to stay another night, but my gut had already decided. I wandered out of those woods. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Victory Lane? Yeah. It's even better with Chamba by my side. Race to ChambaCasino.com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary. VTW Group. Void we're prohibited by law.

56:04CTNCs. 21 Plus. Sponsored by Chamba Casino. In a world of endless notifications, there could be an important one you're missing. Your kidneys may be signaling in SOS. With high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes, your kidneys could be warning you of early signs of damage, which may put you at higher risk for events like heart attack or stroke. But there's a simple test that can help spot a hidden signal. Ask your doctor about a urine test called UACR to help detect kidney disease and heart risk early. To learn more, visit detectthesos.com today. Put a mile into the hike back, I saw something I couldn't explain. After this side of the trail, maybe 30 feet in, was a structure. Just a lean to, made of thin branches, leaves bark slabs. Built low against a bulldo, like a crude little hut, not large enough to stand in. And here's what shook me. It hadn't been there on my way in. I was certain of that. The trail passed close enough that I would have seen it. This no way I missed it. I stepped off the path and crept closer. Head in front of the lean to, on a square of moss, was a pattern made of bones.

57:08Tiny ones may be rabbit or squirt, clean, arranged in careful lines and angles. Some kind of symbol, or maybe just decoration? I don't know. But they weren't scattered, they were placed. My stomach dropped. I didn't get any closer. Just turn and walk fast back to the trail, my pulse ticking up. The rest of the hike was dead quiet. No birds, no breeze, nothing moving. When I finally reached the car, I practically threw my gear into the trunk and slammed it shut. I stood there for a second, scanning the woods, expecting someone to step out. No one did, but I couldn't shake the feeling that someone had been watching me walk away. Back home, I tried to brush it off. I told myself someone else had been camping nearby, maybe a hunter or someone doing weird survivalist stuff. The bones could have been a prank. My cousin Adam had been trying to get me into backcountry camping for a while. I'd always dodged it, said that was too busy or didn't have the right gear. Which was partly true, but mostly it was just that the idea of being miles away from everything never really appealed to me the way it did to him. I liked the idea of nature more than I liked the reality of it.

58:09But that year, I don't know, I guess I just gave in. Life was loud. Work was draining. I figured a few quiet days off could might help us out in my head. We picked a weekend in the early October right after the last wave of leaf peepers, and before the hunters really started showing up. Adam knew a place out in Shava Hollow, deep in George Washington National Forest. No mark trails, no shelters, just pure off the map wilderness. He'd been out there once before, years ago, but only for day hike. The plan this time was two nights, three days, totally off trail. We popped at the end of a dirt road that barely counted as drivable and set off with our packs, boots, and a printout of the topographic map. The first day was mostly hiking. We moved slow, cutting through the brush, stopping every iron or so to adjust gear or drink water. We passed over two ridges, one stream, and what looked like an over-a-qual, maybe from some long abandoned property line. Around late afternoon, we found a decent clearing near a shallow creek. It was maybe 20 feet across, mostly flat, with enough space between the trees for our tents. No sign anyone else had camped there recently.

59:10No trash, no fire, no markings. Just a clean, empty spot tucked out of sight. That first night was an eventful, in a good way. The sound of the creek made it easy to relax. I fell asleep early, actually. Didn't even stay up for the stars. The next morning, after breakfast, Adam decided he wanted to try fishing up the stream. I wasn't in the mood as it still, so I figured I'd explore a bit. There was a ridge line to the west that looked like it might offer a view, so I grabbed my water bottle and headed out solo, just to stretch my legs. It took maybe an eye or to reach the top. Nothing too strenuous, but the terrain got messy thick under brush, and even rocks spots where it felt like the ground it with that warning. I followed a deer trail for a while, but even that vanished eventually. Just trees and more trees. This one I saw the first Karen. Just off the path, if you could call it that. Right in the middle of a half cleave patch. Six stones stacked with real care. Allens perfectly too. At first, I didn't think much of it. Hikers leave those sometimes to mark the way, but this one was odd.

1:00:11The rocks were wrong for the area. Hail grey, almost white, worn smooth like river stones. We were on a slope far from any water that would have shaped them like that. They didn't belong. Still, I didn't touch it. I just noted it and moved on. Then ten minutes later, I saw another one. Smaller, leaning slightly, but the same type of stones. This one was sitting in a little hollow, surrounded by pine needles and half-rotted locks. I started feeling uneasy. I told myself maybe Adam had built them on his last trip, just messing around. But he would have said something. And even if he had, what were the odds I'd find them that easily? That far apart? I kept going for another few minutes. Found a third one. This one collapsed, with two of the stones cracked and most covered tucked beside a tree that looked like it had been struck by lightning years ago. Its trunk had split in this jagged, a natural way, like something had forced it apart. I stood there for a long time, not really thinking about anything, just staring at it. That's when I realized how quiet the woods had gotten. No birds, no wind, not even the distant trickle of the creek.

1:01:13I hadn't even noticed it fade out. It just wasn't there anymore. It was like the whole forest was holding its breath. I turned around and started heading back. When I got back to camp, Adam was crouched by the fire pit, poking at it with a stick. He asked how the ridge was, and I said it was fine. I didn't bring up the gans. I don't know why. Maybe I didn't want to spook him. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it wasn't weird. We made dinner and settled in for the evening. That's when we noticed things weren't the same. The fire ring we built was slightly off-stones, shifted like someone had taken it apart and rebuilt it without really understanding the layout. Adam's fishing rod, which he left leaned against a tree, was lying on the far side of camp facing downhill, and met up one of those lightweight nylon covers that tied between trees for rain had to long, ragged her down the metal. It wasn't clean. It looked like it had caught on something sharp and been pulled. We both stood just staring at it. Adam asked if maybe it was a bear. I said maybe, but we both knew it didn't make sense. Bears don't move gear around.

1:02:14They don't stack stones, and they don't do it all without leaving prints. We talked about hiking out, but it was already getting dark. We decided to stay one more night and stick together, keep our knives close. We had a flare gun. We figured, however, or whatever was out there probably wasn't coming back. We were wrong. I crawled into my tent around 9, laid there for a while listening. Nothing. I must have dosed off because the next thing I remember is waking up with a strange awareness that something was off. I wasn't sure why at first. Then I heard it. Leaves. Crunching. Slowly. One step. Pause. Another step. They were moving in a wide arc around a camp. Not fast. Not quiet either. Just casual. Like someone walking deliberately, not caring if they were heard. My heart started pounding. I didn't move. Just lay there as wide open, hand-gripping the handle of my knife inside the bag. I kept waiting for a flashlight beam. I cough. Voice.

1:03:15Nothing. Then something touched my tent right near my head. Just a light pressure, like a hand pressing gently against the nylon, not pushing in, just resting there. Thing was maybe. I stopped breathing. It stayed like that for what felt like forever. Then the pressure moved, slid downward across the wall of the tent. Then it was gone. I didn't sleep the rest of the night. I just laid the frozen until the sky started getting light. When I finally enzip my tent, Adam was already up. He looked pale. He was talking. Just rolling up his sleeping bag, stuffing things into his pack like it was a fire drill. His tent had a long slushed on one side. Some kind of tear mine had, but lower near where his torso would have been while sleeping. He said he hadn't heard anything. We didn't eat. Didn't even boil water. We just packed up and left. About an hour into the hike, we saw something hanging from a branch over the trail. It was my bootlays, when I'd used to secure my top. Someone had taken it and breathed it into this strange little knot. Three loops, one long tail, all pulled tight and left dangling like a charm.

1:04:18It wasn't just weird. It felt deliberate like a message. Adam saw it too. We didn't stop. Didn't touch it. We just kept walking. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. The rush of racing, nothing beats it, but Jumpa Casino comes close. Jumpa's got fast spins, fun games, daily bonuses, and all the action you can handle. Now, that's a ride. Ready to hit the throttle? Get in the driver's seat and head to chumbachsino.com. Let's chumbach. Sponsored by Chumbach Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group Voidware prohibited by law, 21 plus turns and conditions apply. Hi, I'm Alicia, and I'm Stacy, and we make trashy divorces. Everybody's favorite, good podcast about bad relationships. Looking for something true crimey without the gore or the body count? We've been churning out funny, feisty, feminist episodes since 2019. So if you're looking to put some scandalous stories told well into your ears this summer,

1:05:18check out trashy divorces. Wherever you listen to podcasts, trust us. We've covered someone you love, or someone you love to hate. By the time we got to the gravel axis road, my legs felt like rubber. We sat in the coffer a few minutes, not saying anything. Then Adam started the engine, and we drove back to his place in total silence. I didn't sleep well for the next couple nights. It was three years ago. I haven't camped since. I was 22 when I went camping with my cousin Mitchell in the eastern part of the Appalachians. He was 23, lived a couple counters over, and had grown up with these hills practically in his backyard. Out of nowhere, he texted me one evening with this idea about getting away for a few days, so backcountry camping had helped him when things got heavy in his own life told me the solitude my claim I had. I didn't have a better plan, so I said yes. We met up just after some eyes through our gear into his beat-up SUV, and drove for where I was on back roads. Eventually, we ditched pavement for gravel and then gravel for dirt. He kept saying things like, almost there, and you're going to love the spot, but I noticed there wasn't a trailhead parking lot in sight.

1:06:21We left the car behind a row of trees and started hiking. Mitchell led the way, cutting through brush and ducking, and a branch is like he'd done it a hundred times. I just followed, hoping I wouldn't twist an ankle. He said the place we were going was marked on any park maps. He and a buddy had found that he is back while trying to escape some crowded trailheads. You had to go past a dried creek bed, then keep left after a collapsed section of locking road. It felt less like a hiking route, and more like following someone's memory, but I didn't question it. The way he talked about the place like it was a secret he only shared with people he trusted. It felt wrong to interrupt. By late afternoon, we set up camp at the edge of this stone rage, surrounded by dent trees and an even forest floor. The spot was beautiful in that wild, untouched kind of way. No old campfire rings, no beer cans, no boot prints. If anyone had stayed there before, it had been a long time ago. Mitchell got the fire going well and packed. I remember sitting on a log looking around and realizing how quiet it was. No distant traffic, no planes overhead. Even the birds weren't making much noise.

1:07:22It should have felt peaceful. Instead something about it made my skin crawl. That night I couldn't sleep. Mitchell was out cold as soon as he hit his sleeping bag, but I laid a staring at the roof of the tent, listening. One two or three in the morning, I hurried to footsteps. Not the random noises he'd get in the woods like ranchers settling or leave shifting actual steps slow, measured circling out a tent in a deliberate pattern I held my breath and listened however it wasn't heavy like a bear it wasn't stomping around the steps were light but careful like someone trying to stay quiet and just failing by a little Mitchell didn't stir I remember glancing over and seeing his silhouette motionless, breathing steady. I didn't move here though, it didn't even reach for the flashlight. I just lay there listening, every muscle locked up. I kept waiting for the sound to start again or to stop completely. Eventually I faded and the forest went quiet again. I must have dozed off after that because the next thing I remember it was morning and a tent was glowing with sunlight. Mitchell was already up boiling water over the fire like nothing had happened. I thought about telling him what I'd heard but stopped myself. Maybe I'd imagined it. Maybe it had just been a tear or when shifting something around.

1:08:25I didn't want to sound paranoid so I kept quiet. That day we went deeper into the forest following a rage that dipped into this overgrown basin. The trail was barely there and most of the time we were just moving through thick brush. There were these weird burns everywhere. Darker than normal, almost black in the shadows. The trees were tall and gnawed and nothing looked like a had grown in the right direction. It was dead quite again. No birds, no rustling, not even bugs. Then we found the structure. It was this short, rounded stone building tucked against the slope about 10 feet tall, partially collapsed, completely overgrown with moss. Definitely man-made, too small to live in. Maybe a root seller or an old smokehouse. Mitchell's eyes lit up when he saw it. He wanted to check it out right away. I said no. Something about it just felt wrong. The air around it was cold out like we walked into a refrigerator. And there was this smell shop and metallic, like where coins mixed with rot. Not the kind of rot you get from a dead animal. Something else. He went in anyway.

1:09:26Told me to stay put, which I was more than happy to do. I stood back and watched the doorway counting the seconds. He was inside from maybe 20. When he came out, he looked pale, shaken. Like he'd seen something he couldn't explain. I asked what was in there, and a first he just said, bones. I thought he meant animal bones, but then he added there were big, too big to be deer, flat teeth, and one of the skulls. Someone bore a hole right through the center. We didn't talk much after that, hyped back to camp mostly in silence. Rachel wasn't joking around like earlier. He didn't poke at the fire, a mess with his gal, like he usually did. That night, he barely touched his food. I asked him again what else he saw on the stone hut. He looked at me for a long second, then just said, I don't think we should have come out here. That night, I heard footsteps again. This time, they didn't just circle the tent. It stopped right outside. Then the zipper started to move. Slowly, just a few inches. Not enough to open the flap fully, but enough that I could hear the nylon shifting. I reached out toward my flashlight, and that's when Mitchell grabbed my wrist hard.

1:10:28He was awake, breathing fast, shallow. We didn't speak. We didn't move. We just listened. The zipper closed again, and then everything went quiet. We didn't wait for sunlight. As soon as it was bright enough to see, we started packing. No fire, no breakfast. We left behind anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. Mitchell didn't speak the whole time, just kept looking over his shoulder like he expected something to be standing there. On the way out, I asked him again what he saw in that stone building. He said there were carvings, symbols burned into the wooden beams, letters or shapes he didn't recognize, and something on the wall, a photo. Water-damaged, curling from moisture, but still visible faces. And one of them, he swore, looked like our grandmother when she was young. We kept walking, hoping to make it up before dark. But something was wrong. The trail didn't line up the way it should have. The dry creek bit? Come. Or maybe we passed another one that looked exactly like it. One mark started to blur together. It didn't feel like we were retracing our steps.

1:11:28It felt like the forest was shifting. We had to stop and set up camp again. That night was worse. Sometime around midnight, I woke up to the sound, low, rhythmic chanting coming from deep in the trees. A voice, steady and fast, saying something I couldn't understand. It was English. It wasn't any language I'd ever heard. Just syllables looping over and over, too fast to process. Mitchell sat both up right. Now we didn't argue, didn't plan. Just grabbed our packs, flipped on the headlamps, and started walking. For hours, we moved through the dark. The chanting got quieter, but it didn't stop until we were almost back to the logging road. By the time we hit the highway, the sun was coming up. That was the last time I saw Mitchell. Three days later, he drove his truck off a ravine along Route 17. The official report said he'd been drinking and fell asleep at the wheel. Mitchell didn't drink, not even at family parties, and he wasn't heading home. He was miles off his usual route, heading back toward the forest. After the funeral, I started getting calls from his number.

1:12:30No voice, just silence. Sometimes there was a sound soft shuffling, like someone adjusting in a tight space. I blocked the number. Then the voicemail started. Drian total. The first two were just empty. The third had breathing. Slow. Deep. Right up against the mic. I changed my number. I tacked a bag and left town. I'm writing this from a motel two states over. I'm not sure where I'm going next, but it won't be anywhere with walls that close me in. And I haven't camped since. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. The rush of racing? Nothing beats it. But Chumba Casino comes close. Chumba's got fast spins, fun games, daily bonuses, and all the action you can handle.

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