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If you hear screaming in the middle of the woods at night, do NOT investigate.
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 a game of Spades with my parents and little brother.
Though I loved all the hobbies I partook in, hunting was by far and away my favorite. I would hunt all sorts of critters when it was in season and spent 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’d 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 C 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 hunt not just 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 the tree stand I had been using for as long as I can remember and began to wait.
I must’ve 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 had only one shot, and aimed it directly behind his 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 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 back country, 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 a 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 had 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 doe 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 skinned the doe and began making jerky and venison steaks. That was a good night.
We would go hunting maybe once or twice every 2 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 in 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 heard 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 both out 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 stand. After some back and forth we decided it would be in our best interests to 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 (2 or 3 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 were 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 big 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 awaiting me.
I trudged and trudged through the underbrush, until finally I 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 8 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 thing 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’d it stop?” I wondered. I stood there, in the trees, dumbfounded, staring at this 8 foot tall creature that had just been wailing in the middle of the woods. I realize now what a fatal mistake I had made by not running home as soon 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 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 it’s 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 hoped the smell of meat and ice would help mask my scent to the being.
This is where I’ve been hiding for the last 2 hours. The creature has now found its way inside my house 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 3 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 find me eventually, 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.
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 a game of Spades with my parents and little brother.
Though I loved all the hobbies I partook in, hunting was by far and away my favorite. I would hunt all sorts of critters when it was in season and spent 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’d 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 C 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 hunt not just 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 the tree stand I had been using for as long as I can remember and began to wait.
I must’ve 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 had only one shot, and aimed it directly behind his 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 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 back country, 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 a 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 had 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 doe 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 skinned the doe and began making jerky and venison steaks. That was a good night.
We would go hunting maybe once or twice every 2 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 in 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 heard 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 both out 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 stand. After some back and forth we decided it would be in our best interests to 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 (2 or 3 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 were 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 big 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 awaiting me.
I trudged and trudged through the underbrush, until finally I 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 8 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 thing 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’d it stop?” I wondered. I stood there, in the trees, dumbfounded, staring at this 8 foot tall creature that had just been wailing in the middle of the woods. I realize now what a fatal mistake I had made by not running home as soon 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 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 it’s 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 hoped the smell of meat and ice would help mask my scent to the being.
This is where I’ve been hiding for the last 2 hours. The creature has now found its way inside my house 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 3 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 find me eventually, 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.
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