My friends and I used to live really close to a national forest; it was just a 10-minute bike ride from my place. Living in a boring small town with nothing better to do, we often went exploring in the woods in our spare time. We didn't know directions or anything and didn't have cell phones with Google Maps either, so it definitely wasn't the safest hobby.
After years of going out there, though, we'd grown pretty accustomed to the area. Anyway, I was just 15 at the time, and it was the first day of summer break. My friend Jason and I were celebrating the start of summer by having a sleepover at my place.
We were probably just going to play Xbox all night, but just a little past 12 a. m. , the power cut out.
My dad woke up and tried to get it running again, but it looked like it was a neighborhood-wide outage, so there was nothing we could do about it. Neither of us were tired, though; we had literally just chugged energy drinks a half hour ago, planning on pulling an all-nighter. After a couple of minutes of being bored, though, Jason asked if we'd ever been in the forest at night.
It was a weird and random question, but it almost felt even weirder that we'd never actually been out there at night, despite having lived here and explored those woods for over a decade. Somehow, not a single time had we gone when it was dark. We grabbed my empty book bag and tossed a couple of flashlights in it, then rode our bikes to the spot where we usually entered the forest.
It was this dirt circle on the edge of the road that we'd always leave our bikes at. While we were there, we noticed a car parked further up the road. It was some old SUV, looking like it might have broken down, but all the lights were off, so we thought they'd abandoned it or something.
We tossed down our bikes and headed into the trees. When we entered, we immediately had to take our flashlights out because it was insanely dark inside the forest. The moonlight was bright enough to illuminate the area, but inside the forest it was just absolute darkness.
I don't even know why we were so intrigued by going here at night—I guess it was just because we'd never done it and we wanted to get a little adrenaline rush. It only took a couple of minutes for that rush to set in as we looked back and could no longer see where the road met the woods. It was cool to hear the forest ambiance at night, and obviously it was a little creepy too.
Our enjoyment seemed to dwindle down as we got further in, though, and I don't know about Jason, but I was getting a really unnerving feeling. It was like the adrenaline rush had faded, and now I felt like something was actually wrong for some reason. For several minutes, we walked in silence, listening to the now eerie and unnerving sounds of the woods around us as we moved our flashlights around.
Then we heard a stick snap to our left. The sound echoed through the woods, and both of us moved our flashlights toward it. In the beam of our lights, there was a guy standing maybe 40 feet away.
Jason and I froze, immediately knowing how odd it was for some older guy to be out here and unsure what he was up to. He had a black leather jacket on and a cap over his long hair. I remember his eyes vividly, though, as they were disturbingly wide open.
Somehow, it took a full 10 seconds of us staring at him and him staring at us before we noticed a shovel in his hand. Jason leaned over to me and whispered in a nervous voice, "I think we should go—like, right now. " That was enough to snap me out of it, and both of us hurried away, going back the way we came.
We covered our flashlights with our shirts to make them dimmer and less visible, just in case he was trying to find us. Eventually, we made it back to our bikes, though, and when we did, we noticed that the car parked up the road was now gone. We hopped on our bikes and rode straight back to my place.
I really wish we had told someone what happened; however, I'm sure that even if we did, nothing would have come from it. We couldn't see enough to know exactly what he looked like or even what kind of car he drove. After that night, I stopped going into those woods, as I think if we had stayed any longer or been any closer to that guy when we ran into him, we might not have made it back home.
I own a cabin in Idaho, right on the western edge of the Rockies. It's just a small place, nestled away in the forest by the mountains, that I go to a couple of times a year for short getaways. This was in 2019.
I had just driven 8 hours north to get to my cabin and arrived around 8:00 p. m. The last mile was down a dirt road that sometimes grows over, but luckily I made it with no issues.
I turned on the generator at the side of the cabin, then hauled my luggage out of the truck and up to the front door, unlocking it and getting inside. It was a little colder inside than I was expecting, and when I turned on the lights, I saw why. One of the windows in the back of the living room was broken; like, the whole glass part was shattered and all over the floor.
I was obviously really concerned, so I did a quick walk. throughout the house. Everything was in place; nothing was gone, and there were no signs that I could see of anyone having been inside.
So, I figured it had to have been an animal—maybe even a curious grizzly. Seeing as everything else was still in working order, I didn't worry too much about it and continued unloading my luggage. It was too late to run back into town to grab a replacement window, so I just nailed a throw blanket over the open window.
I went back outside one more time to get some firewood, threw it in the fireplace, and got the cabin nice and warm. I laid on the couch and opened a book, settling in for the night. With the broken window, I could hear the nature sounds from outside, and it was really peaceful.
It didn't take long for me to get sleepy; it was probably 11:00. I got up and refilled the wood so it would keep the place warm throughout the night, then shut everything off and went to the bedroom. I set an alarm for 7:00 a.
m. and drifted asleep. In the middle of the night, my body jolted awake, and I instantly sat up.
I looked over at my nightstand; it was 1:24 a. m. My heart was pounding, and it felt like I'd woken up from something sudden.
At this point, I didn't know if it was just a bad dream I had or something else. I was honestly really confused. The cabin was very quiet; all I could hear was the soft crackling of the firewood in the living room.
I got up from the bed and walked over to the door, carefully opening it and looking out. The red glow of the fireplace illuminated the cabin enough for me to walk through the short hallway. The first thing I saw was that the blanket had fallen from the broken window.
Then, I saw muddy boot prints on the blanket. I followed the tracks with my eyes, going straight from the window and into the hallway I was standing in. My heart continued pacing as I turned around and saw the prints going up to the bedroom door I had just come from.
I walked back toward the room and felt absolute horror set in as the boot prints went into the room and up to my bed. My mind was racing now, and I didn't know if this person had just come in and left for no reason or what the hell was going on. But after a closer look, there were no boot prints leading away from the bed.
My body felt numb for a moment as I almost uncontrollably knelt down and looked under the bed. Before I even fully bent down, I saw the outline of someone's hand. I immediately jumped back up; I was so terrified, I slammed my shoulder into the doorway trying to get out of there.
Frantically, I grabbed my car keys and bolted out the door. In the rush, I never got my phone, so I had to drive all the way into town to the police station. We didn't get back to the cabin until an hour after the incident, and whoever had broken in was gone.
I still don't know what the hell really happened that night. I think I must have woken up from them crawling underneath my bed and probably bumping into something, but why they were there to begin with or even why they broke in, I have no clue. This was five years ago, and after two years of being too afraid to go back to the cabin, I thought about selling it.
However, I couldn't have it on my conscience if something were to happen to whoever bought it, so I took the listing down. The cabin has been abandoned for the past five years, though I'm almost certain that during that time, it's had some unwelcome visitors. Back in 2021, I took a road trip to Maine.
I'd never been, but I had a few camping trails that I wanted to go on. I actually didn't even have a hotel booked; I pretty much just drove straight up there and parked at the trailhead, planning to spend the whole time camping. This was a really flawed plan, though, because I arrived a lot later than I was aiming for.
It was about 5:00 p. m. , and the trail to the campground said it was four hours long.
I brought a headlamp and everything, so I wasn't too worried, but it definitely would have been nice not to be rushed. It's also worth mentioning that no other cars were at the trailhead, so it was supposedly empty. I got going, walking as fast as I could without injuring myself.
Two hours in, the sun started coming down, and by 8:00, it had mostly set. So, I took a five-minute break to rest up before making the final stretch. I sat on a fallen tree just off the path and drank some water, then pulled my headlamp out.
As I did, I heard some leaves crunching behind me. I quickly turned on my light and shined it behind me, but there was nothing—at least nothing within the range of my light. As I looked out for a few seconds, the sound had stopped, and it was just quiet.
What I had heard sounded like footsteps, but I didn't hear enough of it to know what it was—probably just a deer or something, I thought. I got up and adjusted the headlamp to my liking, then continued down the trail. It got increasingly darker over the next thirty minutes or so; I could no longer see any landmarks or views in the distance.
The only thing visible was whatever was in the tunnel of light coming from my headlamp, so I was putting all my focus on making sure I stayed on. The trail was challenging, and I didn't lose my footing several times throughout the walk. Though I had to stop, thinking I heard footsteps again, every time I would look out and wait, I wouldn't hear anything.
I thought I was either going crazy or maybe being stalked by an animal. It definitely wasn't a good feeling, given my situation. When I reached the 4-hour mark, I started getting uneasy; I thought I'd be at the campground by now, and I didn't know how much battery was left on my headlamp, but it had to be getting low by now.
Then, as I continued to walk anxiously through the woods, I heard it again. This time, it was much closer and sounded exactly like a human footstep. I was almost 100% sure that that's what it was—enough to make me jump and turn abruptly.
No one was there; there were so many trees and bushes, though, and with my tiny headlamp on top of that, it felt like I really couldn't see anything. "Hello? Is someone out there?
" The insects' chirping only seemed to get louder, covering any subtle sounds of possible movement. I started backing up, still facing where I'd heard the sound from. After taking 10 or so steps back, there was a quiet footstep a little to the right.
I moved the light over, and as soon as I did, one of the bushes suddenly jerked and rattled all the leaves. For an instant, I saw someone's leg as they sprinted away further into the woods. I completely froze up.
After a few long seconds, though, I came back to myself and started hurrying away from that area. I found a spot a mile up the trail where I could hide out and discreetly camp for the night. I didn't get much sleep, but I never heard or saw the person again.
It was pretty clear that they were stalking me, and I wasn't trying to get any deeper into the forest. So, in the morning, I headed back to my car. As far as I know, they lost track of me.
Whatever their intentions were, it couldn't have been good. I bet if I'd made it to the campground, they either would have been waiting for me or would have arrived later in the night to do whatever the hell they were planning.
