[Mason whining]
My name is Mason.
It's been a lot of years since this happened, but I feel like I need to tell it.
I'm afraid that if I don't tell it now, I might not ever.
I'm going to drop us in right where it all started one night, then I'll back up and tell
you how we got to that point.
We were already in our tent that night.
I heard those heavy footsteps, and I froze so hard I was barely breathing.
It was quiet for a few seconds.
Then something touched the top of the tent.
It was a huge hand pushing down on the fabric.
It kept it there, waiting to see if we would do something.
My girlfriend Jenna was next to me in the tent.
I knew she was awake.
I heard a couple of small squeaks like she was crying, but trying to stay quiet.
I knew Tyler, my good friend, was sitting upright in the tent just like I was.
We neither one said a word or made a sound.
I couldn't see him in the darkness, but I knew he was looking at me because I was looking
at where he was over in the darkness.
Two or three heartbeats might have passed.
Then the hand eased off the tent.
I heard the sound of the nylon tent rustling as it pulled away.
Then we heard the footsteps leaving.
Big, heavy, steady.
All three of us were scared.
I can't lie.
Now, I'm going to go back and tell you why some footsteps and something touching our tent
scared us half to death.
It was in the middle of October.
It was great fall weather that weekend.
Me, my girlfriend Jenna and my good friend Tyler all wanted to go do an overnight camping
trip somewhere.
We were attending Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
And if you know that area, you know the way National Forest is right there.
We'd already camped and hiked a lot over the previous year and a half through there.
Tyler was the planner on this one though.
He had been there a year longer at university than me and Jenna, and he said that he knew
somewhere that he'd been to a lot in his first year with some other friends that he had
back then.
This was for me.
All I can tell you exactly about where this was is we started on Wildcat Hollow Trail and
we took the option for the longer trail.
At some point we left that trail at a particular spot that Tyler knew.
He knew it by some landmark on the side of the road, but dang, if I could tell you now
what it was.
Maybe some fallen logs?
Some rocks that had been placed there?
I don't remember.
I've lost track with Tyler over the years or I would ask him.
I never cared about where we left the trail because I for dang sure wasn't ever going to go
there again.
So the plan was that we would be camping in a non-designated place.
Tyler had been there a couple times, a couple years before, and he remembered it as an easy
in, easy out kind of hike.
He also said that it was very popular with a lot of the kids from the university, sort
of an underground place to go.
We parked at a pull-off late that afternoon.
We hiked in, and the hike was a little tougher than Tyler said it would be, and he kept saying
he didn't remember it being quite like that.
Finally we got to a clearing and Tyler was like, "Yeah, this is the spot."
I remember thinking, "Well, he sure wasn't sure we were going the right way."
I had trusted Tyler, but probably the last ten or fifteen minutes he seemed nervous,
and he said more than once, "Maybe his memory had been wrong.
Maybe he was going the wrong way."
So I was relieved when we came to this clearing.
We got to that spot, and it was just like he had described, and it did look perfect at
first.
We sat down our stuff and pulled some of our gear out and started to set up.
The area was great, a nice flat spot near a creek.
There was a ring of trees, with just enough open space for our tents.
There was an old fire ring there with some stones, and some fallen logs that could have
passed for seats.
It did have the look of a place that had been used a lot.
Then we'd been there a few minutes, and we saw tents in an adjoining clearing that we
hadn't seen at first.
There were two of them.
Cheap dome tents still staked down.
They weren't collapsed or anything at all.
They looked as if they had just been put up, like someone set them up that morning, and
walked away to go do something, planning to return.
Timer stopped so abruptly, I bumped into him.
What the heck, he said, and he pointed to the tents?
And there were two coolers we saw right near the fire ring.
One was half open.
A plastic bag of bread sat on top of it swollen from moisture.
A couple of folding camp chairs were knocked over.
We figured that somebody was already there, so we started to call out, "Hello, hello!"
And things like, "Anyone here?
Any campers out here?"
We never got an answer.
The first thing I registered before the fear started to land was the smell.
It wasn't like a garbage or a rotten food smell.
It was something kind of sour and a little bit animal.
It was faint, but it was there, coming and going when the wind shifted.
Me and Tyler walked over to the tents for a better look.
We saw then what we hadn't seen when we walked up.
The nearest tent had a long tear in the side, down low to the ground.
It was jagged and shredded, as if someone had been jerked up and back to get through.
It wasn't like a clean knife cut, but the stakes for the tent were still tight in the ground.
We thought maybe a bear had come through and a claw had torn through the tent.
But only one claw really didn't make sense.
But a bear doing this on its own did, so we went with that.
I saw Tyler was looking at the ground.
There were these impressions in the mud near the tent.
It had rained much earlier that day, just enough though to soften things.
At first I thought we were looking at boot prints, but they were too wide and way too long.
In the shape wasn't clean like a boot.
You could tell there were toes that had squished in the mud.
Boots don't show your toes.
Then Jenna called us to come look at something.
We go over to the other tent, and we see the tent zipper was half open.
The sleeping bag inside had been pulled toward the opening, the fabric bunched up around
the opening, as if someone had pulled the person that was in the sleeping bag out through
the opening, with the partial tent opening peeling back the sleeping bag fabric away from
them, leaving it all bunched up on the inside.
Another quick glance inside, and I saw a lanyard with a bunch of keys on it.
The entire looked at each other and were like, "This isn't right."
And I knew right then something bad was wrong here.
The torrentent, the abandoned stuff.
Whatever had happened here didn't end with someone strolling away calmly.
Nobody leaves a bunch of keys behind.
I know for sure I saw some Ford keys on there.
Jenna said we should leave.
I wanted to agree.
But what if whoever this was was still nearby and needed help?
What if they were out there on the forest?
So I said that.
And then Jenna said, "Fine, then let's leave and report it.
We don't have to play hero here."
She was scared.
I could see it.
Truthfully, I think we all were.
I was trying not to be though, so I said, "Let's check to see if anyone is still around.
Then we'll go and report this."
And whatever happens, we don't split up, okay?
We walked around for a bit and kept calling, but we never got an answer.
We called out a few more times, and then from across the creek, maybe 50 yards away, a big
branch snapped.
This wasn't some little branch snapping.
This was a big one.
You could tell by the crack of it.
There were a couple more big snaps sounding like they were coming closer.
In all of a sudden, none of us were thinking about the campers anymore.
Jenna was all like, "Please, please, let's go.
Can we please just go?"
Tyler was like, "Yeah, let's leave."
And we should have.
And that would have been the smart thing to do.
But it was already deep dusk.
The light was all but gone by then.
The trail back wasn't some simple stroll, and it would have been almost impossible in
the darkness.
We didn't come prepared for a long night full of hikes through tough elevations and other
dangerous areas.
We got together and had a quick huddle, and we decided we'd chance it anyway.
So we packed up our own gear quickly, shoving things everywhere without care.
The whole time I kept looking up and around, thinking I was going to see someone or something
coming at us from the shadows beneath the trees.
We were just finishing packing up when we heard the first "woop."
"I hate even writing that word."
It sounds so ridiculous like I'm copying what others have said, or I'm talking about some
weird sound effect from a movie.
But that is what it really was, a great big "woop."
It was long and drawn out.
It came from our left somewhere on the trail.
And we all stopped and looked around.
I'm telling the truth when I say I thought the hair on my arms and neck raised up.
My stomach flipped when another call answered from farther away, down across the creek.
And then, much closer to us, answered a third.
This one was lower and rougher sounding.
Tyler whispered, "We're leaving right now."
I wasn't arguing.
We grabbed the last couple things, shouldered our packs, and started down the trail at a pace
that could only be called reckless.
Leaves were sliding under our boots.
Branches snagged at our straps.
We were all looking over our shoulders.
Now, since he brought us then, and presumably could lead us out, Tyler was in front.
Jenna was in the middle, and I was making up the end, which you know had me on high alert.
And sure enough, only a few minutes in, I heard something behind us.
Big old footsteps.
Heavy enough that I heard when they hit the ground.
And it was coming closer.
I said for everyone to stop.
I heard something.
So we all stopped and we stood there on the trail, trying not to breathe too loud so we could
hear.
When we stopped, the footsteps did too.
My skin and hair were up marching all over my body again.
Worst thing was I couldn't see anything.
The trail behind us was nothing but a tunnel of trees and darkening shadows.
I was about to say, "Let's keep going."
When something hit a tree off to our right, he was a big hollow thud.
There was no mistaking it for some kind of a tree fall or a branch falling.
This was a hard hit.
Now whether a stick was thrown, a stone was thrown, or something was close enough to knock
wood and we heard it, I can't say.
All I know is something hit a tree trunk, maybe 20 feet from us.
Now we looked at each other and I made a motion to go, go, go.
So everyone started moving again, faster than before.
We heard another thud from behind us to the right again, but we didn't stop.
We didn't talk after that.
We just kept moving.
He was getting darker by the second, and then Tyler took a bad stumble over an upraised
route.
He went down on one knee with a sharp hiss.
Behind us the crunching was getting closer, steadily closing the distance.
We quickly helped Tyler up.
You could tell he was hurt.
His jaw was clinched, his eyes were wide.
Go, he malved.
We did, helping him go with us.
By the time we hit the creek crossing, it was almost full dark.
The water there wasn't high, but the rocks were slick.
We went across together with one of us on either side of Tyler.
Tyler though was the first one to get a look at the bank on the opposite side.
That's because we were looking everywhere else.
He was looking down.
Tyler stopped, so we stopped.
He was looking straight down.
It took a second to see because it was getting so dark, but right there in the shallow
mud was a print.
It was big, really, really big.
Toes pressed deep, and the heel sunk down deep into the mud.
We stared at it for a second, then we heard a big, breathy sound.
Best I can tell you what it was?
It wasn't like a huff or some kind of nose blow.
It was like when you've held your breath for so long, then you suddenly let it out.
You can't stop how loud it might sound.
We heard that not far behind us.
We turned to look across the creek.
When I did, I saw something darker than the darkness back in the trees, and it stepped
out toward the bank.
I can't even describe it.
Let's just say big, dark, and scary, and that does not even cover it.
I can't lie when I say it was the single most scary moment of my entire life.
In that split second, I don't think I ever said to myself that we're being followed by
a big foot.
I might have known it, but I didn't think it.
I was just thinking we had to get out of there.
I know I wasn't the only one that saw it.
We were all scrambling, then, slipping and catching ourselves, dragging each other like drunk
people up across that creek bank.
Once we were past the creek in the bank, we pushed as hard as we could.
But the fact is, we were in danger of getting lost now, in the worst kind of way.
There wasn't an exact trail to follow, and it was now getting dark, and it had been
years since Tyler had been there.
After all, he said, they always were able to find their way back by looking at different
landmarks.
But we couldn't see those in the darkness.
We didn't even know if we were going the right way.
And this is where the one necessary night happened.
Because for a while that trail runs along a ridge, and Tyler's ankle was shot, it was already
swelling, and it was so dark, we were all tripping over things and about to walk into
the trees.
We did have a headlamp, but the batteries were old and the beam kept dimming.
As I said before, we didn't go out there prepared for long night hiking.
The most we thought we would ever need a headlamp for was a simple call to go do nature's
business, not for a couple of hours out on the trail.
And the worst truth of all is this.
In that full darkness, with one person injured, and all three of us, close to pure panic,
sprinting blindly through those woods, could have killed us just as fast as whatever was
behind us.
So we found a small spot just off the ridge trail.
This wasn't exactly a campsite.
Just a flat patch of ground tucked between some rocks and young pines.
We found it purely by mistake.
The trailer said, "Let's stop here.
Just for the night, just for a few hours.
We'll leave at first light and we'll take turns on watch."
Now none of us wanted to stop.
None of us wanted to camp overnight, but there wasn't much else we could do was there.
We set our tent up mostly from touch and memory in record time.
We made no fire because we had nothing prepared for it.
We had no food and we did no talking.
We crawled into the tent with our shoes and clothes on, but I have to tell you, there was
something in me that did not want to be in that tent.
I remember the smell in there, too.
Denylawn, the sweat, the fear.
The condensation from our breath had already started to beat on the tent almost immediately.
Outside the woods settled into that nighttime hush.
Over just a few minutes, I thought maybe we had overreacted.
Maybe it was just someone out there messing with us.
Maybe it was an animal.
Maybe it was just our imaginations.
I had that false sense of security, and then we heard the footsteps again.
They were far off at first, but unmistakable.
They came in from the left and they kept coming closer.
Then it would go a little bit farther, then closer, then I realized it was circling the
sight.
It was mapping us out.
Me and Tyler had pocket knives, and all I had was a small hatchet that would be used
for firewood.
That's all the protection we had.
I held the hatchet across my chest in a death grip, while Tyler held his pocket knife in
his fist.
Now here's where I started this email.
This is where things really started going off the rails.
We heard the footsteps, and they came in right toward us, right at the tent.
The moon was rising and was opposite the plateau.
I bet in the daytime it would have been a breathtaking spot for a lookout.
But at that time, in the middle of the night, it was a terrifying setup with the moon's
half-light casting faint shadows, just enough to see, just enough to terrify, but not enough
to illuminate.
The shadow I saw wasn't like what you'd get if there was a full moon in the sky, but
it was enough that I knew it when I saw it.
That tent wall was a little lighter on that side because of the moon.
Then all of a sudden it went mostly dark.
Then Big was now blocking the moon light, except for the far left and the far right, and part
of the top of the tent where the light hadn't completely been blocked.
But dead center on the tent wall?
There was a tall, broad mass that darkened the tent fabric.
I saw the shadow was it reached out and pushed down on the top of the tent, testing it,
letting its hand bounce a couple times as it pushed it down.
I heard the sound of the nylon as it pulled its hand away.
The smell hit like a wave, wet animal, old earth, something coppery, like old blood that
was never cleaned off.
In the tent wall pressed in, not from the top this time, but from the side.
Something leaned close enough that I could hear, sniffing.
It was inhaling, like it was pulling our scent in through the nylon in Big,
deep long breaths through its nose.
We were all turned and watching that tent wall, none of us making a sound.
I'm not sure that I was breathing at that minute.
The pressure on the tent changed, shifted downward, and for a horrible second I thought it was
going to knock the tent down like a stack of cards.
But then it stopped, bouncing its hand against the nylon again.
Maybe it was deciding what to do or was waiting for us to react.
Maybe it just liked the feel of the nylon.
It had been taking in a lot of deep breaths, sniffing through its nose.
But I don't think it ever exhaled during that time, or if it did, I didn't hear it.
But at one point it exhaled right up against the tent.
I heard it, and worse.
I smelled it.
It was a stinking smell.
Worse than the worst halitosis breath you've ever smelled.
It was something so much worse.
I was gagging.
I thought, "Okay, well this is it.
We're goners."
But no, to my surprise, the footsteps began to back away.
It didn't leave, though, and it made sure that we knew it was still there from time to
time.
Sometimes something would hit the side of the tent.
It might have been a rock or a stick.
Sometimes it would come back, and I would hear the heavy footsteps circling again and again.
It paced.
Slow circles.
Sometimes close enough that the tent wall vibrated with each footsteps.
Sometimes it would go quiet for a very long time, lolling me into a sense of full security.
One time it had been quiet for more than half an hour, and I thought, "Maybe.
Maybe we should just leave everything, and we could make a run for it now."
I slowly unzip the side tent window to look out.
And I about had a heart attack when something big and hairy moved right in front of that
little window, blocking everything.
It seemed to be bending down, so I zipped it up quick.
I did not want to look at its face.
The hours crawled by.
None of us slept.
I stared at that tent wall and the zipper seam until my eyes burned in the darkness.
Just before dawn, the woods changed.
A faint grey light began to seep in.
The air became colder, crisper, cleaner.
The sounds of mourning started up again in the woods.
Cauchess at first, a simple bird call, but then came another, another, and then hundreds.
And it was like a switch had been flipped.
The footsteps were gone.
The dark shadowy shape was nowhere to be seen.
And we're not sure exactly when it left.
We waited for more than an hour after full sunrise before we tried to unzip the tent.
I was sure it was going to be right there waiting for us, just watching.
But nothing was out there.
And when I say we moved fast, I mean we moved fast to get out of there.
Tyler's ankle was pretty ugly looking by then, but he didn't complain.
We helped him and we just kept moving.
We reached the car mid-morning.
We got in, locked the doors, took a few deep breaths and sat there for several minutes
without talking.
After a while we talked and we all agreed we were going straight to the Ranger Station,
and we did.
The closest office was more than 20 minutes away.
We walked in looking like people who had just been pulled out of a ditch.
We were all muddy, white-faced, and Tyler was hobbling.
The Ranger behind the desk asked if we were okay.
Tyler told him about the abandoned campsite, the torn tents.
The keys still laying there, the tracks, and the sounds, the footsteps.
He tried to not sound crazy, but his voice kept rising and the words got faster and faster
as he talked.
And then he would stop, back up, calm himself, and try again.
The Ranger did not laugh.
He tip-notes, he asked exactly where we had been, and Tyler did his best to tell him, even
tried to show him on a map as best as he could figure.
He asked what time we found this campsite.
When we mentioned the tracks and the weird calls and the dark shadows shape, the man's expression
tightened a little bit just a fraction, like he didn't want to hear that part.
I'm sure he didn't write that part down.
He said they would send someone out right away and that we did the right thing, leaving.
He told us to not go back, but to stay available if they had more questions.
So we made sure to give all of our information to him where they could talk to us in Athens.
I then asked if there was somewhere that we could call and check back to find out about
the abandoned campsite and its owners.
He looked at me weird, paused a second, and then said something that has been stuck in my
head ever since.
You know, people just disappear out there.
Sometimes it's simple, and sometimes it isn't.
Either way, don't make yourself part of it.
Go on back and forget about all this.
Now before we left, we waited for a deputy who did show up, and he took a statement from
us before we did go.
They asked a lot of questions all over again, and we answered all that we could.
We asked him about how we could check up on the people from the campsite.
The deputy just said they'd look into missing person reports and check the site.
There were no other promises.
And he totally evaded an answer on how to check back.
I guess we would just have to call the Sheriff's Department.
But we all left having the feeling that they really didn't want us to.
They drove home in silence.
I wish I could tell you there was some clean resolution that we found out later that it
was just a bear that scared them off, and they were okay, or that it was some pranksters
from the university who set it up, knowing that lots of people go out there every weekend,
or that it was a couple who got spooked and left all their stuff behind.
No, I can't tell you that.
But all I can tell you is this.
I followed up a week later because it was eating me alive.
The Ranger station said the campsite had been located.
They confirmed it was abandoned.
They confirmed there were signs of animal interference as they called it.
That was the phrase they used, the exact phrase, animal interference.
They said if there was an actual investigation, it wasn't information that they could share.
I asked if they had found the owners or at least identified them.
There was a bit of a pause and then the Ranger said very carefully.
No, they have not been found.
But if you ever are out there and you see something like that again, you leave, you leave right
away.
And I want you to know you did the right thing.
And that was all you would give me.
I didn't even get that far though with the Sheriff's Department.
So here's what I'm left with.
Two tents standing like the people inside were torn out of their sleeping bags.
Important keys left behind.
Tracks with toes in the mud too big to be human.
And something that didn't act like an animal.
And no correlating missing people's reports that I've ever found.
But the biggest thing though is that none of it felt like some random animal thing that happened.
It felt deliberate.
It or they, because I believe there were at least three of them that night, they followed
us.
Then they spent the night circling us, testing us.
Now how or why we didn't end up like the other campsite people?
I'm not sure.
Maybe there were three of us, unless of them.
I don't know how many were in those other two tents, but maybe there were only two people,
or maybe there were just four women.
Who knows?
But believe me, I've thought about this every which way I can, and I can't put it together
or make it make sense.
This happened to me back in the 90s, back when I was at university.
But I don't think anything has changed to today.
If you do find an abandoned camp like that.
You leave, you leave immediately.
Do not stay poking around looking for the people.
Go, get out, and report it.
Because you don't know the situation.
And for all you know the trouble, might still be around.
It might follow you.
Whatever the case, just leave.
You had best, just leave.
Signed Mason.
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