# 5 Appalachian Horror Stories to give you a crippling fear of nature

An episode of [CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492008134), 22 Apr 2025, 2 h 37 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/65648399/5_appalachian_horror_stories_to_give_you_a_crippling_fear_of_nature.mp3

CREEPYPASTA STORIES- ►0:00 "4th Special Forces Group encountered something in west Tennessee, it was pure evil" Creepypasta ►47:09 "I rented a cabin in the Appalachian mountains. I saw horrifying things" Creepypasta ►1:17:31 "Don't touch the skulls when in the Appalachians" Creepypasta ►1:37:20 "Don't Wear Red in the Appalachian Woods" Creepypasta ►2:25:00 "The Beast of the Appalachians" Creepypasta Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO- SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd... iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast... SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS- ►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON- ►Twitter: / creeps_mcpasta ►Instagram: / creepsmcpasta ►Twitch: / creepsmcpasta ►Facebook: / creepsmcpasta CREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪ ►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪ ►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪ This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: I'm part of the United States Special Forces, the Green Berets,
[0:06] Speaker 1: and have been for several years now. In my tenure,
[0:10] Speaker 1: I've deployed multiple times to Afghanistan, Iraq, a few months
[0:13] Speaker 1: in Syria, several African countries. I've been to all four
[0:18] Speaker 1: corners of the globe, and I've seen my fair share
[0:21] Speaker 1: of the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes
[0:24] Speaker 1: from being part of SOCOM. I've got plenty of stories,
[0:29] Speaker 1: some more interesting than others, but almost all of them
[0:32] Speaker 1: are heavily classified behind red tape that will never be
[0:35] Speaker 1: declassified until I'm dead and gone. However, there was an
[0:40] Speaker 1: incident a few nights ago that stuck out from all
[0:43] Speaker 1: the others, mostly because one Unlike all of our other
[0:48] Speaker 1: operations that tug us the combat zones across the distant hemisphere,
[0:52] Speaker 1: this one happened right at home in our own backyard.
[0:56] Speaker 1: The enemies weren't a foreign proxy, a group of insurgents,
[1:00] Speaker 1: it wasn't even human. Stuff from that night is still weird,
[1:06] Speaker 1: and it's not like Command is going to give us
[1:07] Speaker 1: any answers. Is the reason I'm bypassing everything I've been told,
[1:12] Speaker 1: disregarding and putting my ass on the line. Even if
[1:15] Speaker 1: I use false information and withhold names. Plenty of innocent
[1:20] Speaker 1: people have died, and as you'll find out, an upper
[1:23] Speaker 1: command would sooner bury it than acknowledge their deaths then
[1:26] Speaker 1: give their families closure. I don't have all the answers
[1:31] Speaker 1: of what happened in that Western Tennessee National Park, but
[1:34] Speaker 1: I do have enough to let people know the truth
[1:37] Speaker 1: semi truth anyways, for safety and privacy purposes, I stated previous,
[1:43] Speaker 1: I'm withholding a lot of personal information, such as names,
[1:47] Speaker 1: exact locations, and unit information, referring the smallest stuff that
[1:51] Speaker 1: I don't think even the scary three letter groups could
[1:54] Speaker 1: really trace, even if they cared. I hope they don't.
[2:00] Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm part of a so cam Green
[2:02] Speaker 1: Beret a team. You will know who the Green Berets are.
[2:06] Speaker 1: You should. My team is nicknamed Raider, a general theme
[2:11] Speaker 1: in our company naming things after warrior cultesque terms radar, artemis, barbarian, centurion, etc.
[2:20] Speaker 1: It's a ten man element. The team lead a way
[2:23] Speaker 1: too salty Georgian and captain with a warrant officer, a medic,
[2:27] Speaker 1: a com sergeant, and six weapons sergeants. Our captain decided
[2:31] Speaker 1: this way was best, considering we're all in one piece
[2:35] Speaker 1: after our last mission. He was right. Our weekend was
[2:40] Speaker 1: calm earned boring as we rotated on QRF Quick Reaction
[2:45] Speaker 1: Force for the month. QRF means that if someone somewhere
[2:51] Speaker 1: needs the green eyed bugeymen of the Western World, we
[2:54] Speaker 1: were ready to kit up and be there at a
[2:56] Speaker 1: moment's notice. It just so happened right when some of
[3:00] Speaker 1: us were getting ready to head to the bar and
[3:02] Speaker 1: have our two singular authorized beers of cure F Month
[3:06] Speaker 1: we were called. When we raced back to our cop
[3:10] Speaker 1: and got our stuff ready, the Captain came with some
[3:13] Speaker 1: surprising information. We'd be able to probably make it back
[3:17] Speaker 1: for those beers because we were heading to West Tennessee,
[3:22] Speaker 1: of all places. We didn't know what the status was yet.
[3:27] Speaker 1: Command didn't give us any information, what the op for was,
[3:30] Speaker 1: what weapons they had, what the layout of the area was.
[3:34] Speaker 1: Nothing but being CUREF Team raiders still kitted up and
[3:39] Speaker 1: we were at the HLZ in less than twenty While
[3:42] Speaker 1: we waited for our transport, the Captain finally got some information.
[3:47] Speaker 1: Apparently a facility in the middle of uninhabited restricted woods
[3:51] Speaker 1: of a national park had activated a distress signal. The
[3:55] Speaker 1: woods it was situated in was a large national park
[3:59] Speaker 1: in like said Western Tennessee, with a long history of
[4:03] Speaker 1: disappearances on It's now frequently closed and blocked off trails
[4:07] Speaker 1: and campsites. This raised a few questions. What was this facility,
[4:13] Speaker 1: Why was it in a national park? What happened to
[4:16] Speaker 1: need to roll out the angriest green beray team this
[4:19] Speaker 1: side of the East Coast to act as its back up.
[4:22] Speaker 1: Why were we going there when in an hour someone
[4:25] Speaker 1: in Libya or someone across Eurasia might need us to
[4:27] Speaker 1: back them up. The captain acknowledged all of these questions,
[4:32] Speaker 1: but assured us that's all he knew. He's been with
[4:35] Speaker 1: our team for years now, several deployments to the Box
[4:39] Speaker 1: and back, and he's always been straight with us. It's
[4:42] Speaker 1: how we knew he was lying. Our transport finally arrived
[4:49] Speaker 1: one hundred and sixtieth Sore Nights Talkers, an aviation unit
[4:53] Speaker 1: that's been around for nearly forty years, having dragged every
[4:57] Speaker 1: single kind of so communit to every single part of
[4:59] Speaker 1: the world. We expected the black hawk they brought, but
[5:03] Speaker 1: the armed escort of two birds that came with them
[5:06] Speaker 1: was a surprise. We were in domestic America. We were
[5:11] Speaker 1: going to Tennessee. Why were they here? Even with the
[5:16] Speaker 1: Nightstalkers flying at top speed across several states, it still
[5:20] Speaker 1: took a couple of hours to reach our landing point.
[5:23] Speaker 1: The inside of that bird going full throttle was deafening.
[5:26] Speaker 1: Even with the electronic headsets we were sporting. It was
[5:30] Speaker 1: ear splitting. And yet, while sitting next to the captain,
[5:35] Speaker 1: I could tell he was speaking to someone and a
[5:37] Speaker 1: different frequency. This was off because normally he'd go to
[5:42] Speaker 1: the consergeant and have to use the radio, but he
[5:45] Speaker 1: had a side channel filled in his radio talking to
[5:48] Speaker 1: someone writing down income in information. I was able to
[5:52] Speaker 1: peak over and saw some of the things he was writing.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Mascal close quarters up four no Blue four X. The
[6:02] Speaker 1: birds touched down in the middle of an empty parking
[6:05] Speaker 1: lot outside of the local ranger station. We filled out
[6:09] Speaker 1: to the open area. The birds took off. The captain
[6:12] Speaker 1: chimed in on our team net raider Romero, this is
[6:16] Speaker 1: radar lead. Get on the net and have them hold
[6:19] Speaker 1: orbit in case we need close air break. He then
[6:23] Speaker 1: broke transmission and talked to us, all raiders hold outside
[6:26] Speaker 1: and take up security. I'm going to get the damn Ragnar.
[6:30] Speaker 1: Prepare for a hasty s ramp brief. I just got
[6:33] Speaker 1: more information. We all took positions behind some of the
[6:37] Speaker 1: parked vehicles the rangers would use just to clear things up.
[6:42] Speaker 1: Our team was outfitted with GPNVG also known as quad nods,
[6:47] Speaker 1: four barwed night vision optics that provided an almost daytimelike
[6:51] Speaker 1: view of our surroundings. Couple that with our peqs mounted
[6:55] Speaker 1: on our rifles, allowing us to see and shoot anything
[6:58] Speaker 1: at night. The military says we own the night. The
[7:04] Speaker 1: tree line in front of us was a lit up
[7:06] Speaker 1: like a goddamn operator rave party. As the captain walked back,
[7:10] Speaker 1: nods down. As the ranger currently on shift followed him,
[7:14] Speaker 1: he keyed into our net and we could hear him
[7:17] Speaker 1: through our headsets. All raiders. This is lead. New information
[7:22] Speaker 1: states that the facility has suffered MOSCAL situation break. Moscal
[7:27] Speaker 1: means mass casualties. Enemy of four unidentified. However, outgoing net
[7:33] Speaker 1: during distress call indicates that OP four is extremely dangerous
[7:37] Speaker 1: and engages a close range break. There is no blue
[7:40] Speaker 1: foreur on site. I repeat man has stated there is
[7:43] Speaker 1: no blue for on site and we had to drop
[7:46] Speaker 1: any and all packs we see a few seconds past.
[7:51] Speaker 1: As the captain looked back to the park ranger, any
[7:54] Speaker 1: additional comments, range of clements. The man, maybe in his
[7:59] Speaker 1: mid forties, bolding. He scratched the back of his neck,
[8:03] Speaker 1: clearing his throat before speaking. I had a lot of
[8:07] Speaker 1: gunfire coming from down there. And don't split up. Whatever
[8:11] Speaker 1: you do in these woods, don't split up. Ah Medick laughed. Well,
[8:19] Speaker 1: that's just comforting. The captain nodded to the man as
[8:23] Speaker 1: he held back in Everyone watches sixes, twelves and fives.
[8:28] Speaker 1: Let's go. We picked up and moved out. Everyone had
[8:32] Speaker 1: their own kind of final moments, type of red in
[8:35] Speaker 1: a strill they did before they stepped under the path
[8:38] Speaker 1: into the woods. Same stuff we did stepping off out
[8:41] Speaker 1: of the fobs and compounds back east. I let out
[8:45] Speaker 1: one final breath of hot air in the cold our
[8:48] Speaker 1: Medig slapped the side of his helmet, hyping himself up.
[8:51] Speaker 1: The captain pulled out and kissed a small crucifixed necklace
[8:54] Speaker 1: from underneath his combat shirt. We headed down the pathway,
[8:59] Speaker 1: following the captain in a staggered column. Our Iyur lasers
[9:03] Speaker 1: scan the trees, rocks, and foliage around us, looking desperately
[9:08] Speaker 1: for any hostiles that lurked in the darkness. Though to
[9:11] Speaker 1: our paranoid readiness, nothing appeared, but something was definitely following us.
[9:20] Speaker 1: When we move through forest environments, you listen to the
[9:23] Speaker 1: animals around you, the crickets, the birds, the movement of animals,
[9:28] Speaker 1: and what direction they're heading, how fast moving down that path.
[9:33] Speaker 1: I couldn't hear a goddamn thing. It's common when you're
[9:38] Speaker 1: a group of heavily armed green men moving through a
[9:41] Speaker 1: forest at night that some of the squarels and birds
[9:43] Speaker 1: will run the hell away, but not the crickets or
[9:47] Speaker 1: the bird songs in the distance. There's a certain level
[9:51] Speaker 1: of ambience that animals will maintain even if they detect
[9:54] Speaker 1: humans around. There was none of that. Nothing not a cricket,
[10:01] Speaker 1: a bird, a cicada, and nothing. Silent professionals, it's in
[10:07] Speaker 1: our name. So when I could hear a friendly ten
[10:10] Speaker 1: meters ahead of me breathing as we moved through that
[10:13] Speaker 1: dead forest, it told me that something else was here
[10:17] Speaker 1: in the woods with us, her predator, and that the
[10:20] Speaker 1: forest was more afraid of it than us. After a
[10:25] Speaker 1: long stretch of marching down the trail, The captain held
[10:28] Speaker 1: a hand up signaling a halt. As it got down
[10:32] Speaker 1: to my part of the column, the middle section, he
[10:35] Speaker 1: called over the radio, this is lead on me time now.
[10:41] Speaker 1: We quickly rushed up to what we saw was a
[10:44] Speaker 1: metal chainling fence. Four of our weapon sergeants and the
[10:48] Speaker 1: medic took up security, covering the woodline behind us, as
[10:51] Speaker 1: I and the other remaining one went up to the
[10:53] Speaker 1: gates with the captain. The bark's trail carried on for
[10:57] Speaker 1: a few more meters before stopping dead into some tree.
[11:00] Speaker 1: The dirt bath broke off and formed a gravel one
[11:03] Speaker 1: that led into a sectioned off area behind a chainling
[11:05] Speaker 1: fence and gate AH no trespass. A sign hung high,
[11:10] Speaker 1: and just beyond the gate we could see a small
[11:12] Speaker 1: guard shack. The Captain tried to signal whoever might be
[11:16] Speaker 1: there by switching on the sure fire tag light and
[11:19] Speaker 1: his rifle, shining it and lasso waving it all over
[11:22] Speaker 1: the booth. However, upon stopping and centering in the doorway,
[11:27] Speaker 1: we saw a large amount of blood splashed on the
[11:30] Speaker 1: back wall and pulled over the room an arm laying
[11:34] Speaker 1: half way out the door frame. The captain looked at
[11:37] Speaker 1: the other weapon sergeant with us get yr kit. He nodded,
[11:42] Speaker 1: slinging his rifle as he dropped his assault pack, digging
[11:45] Speaker 1: out a small pair of bolt cutters. Each of our
[11:49] Speaker 1: weapon sergeants carried a different load out depending on what
[11:52] Speaker 1: we needed. One could be a gunner, another's a grenadier.
[11:57] Speaker 1: I can't name him, but breech Man, as I guess
[12:00] Speaker 1: call him, always carried a breech kit just in case.
[12:04] Speaker 1: He walked over to the lock. But just as he
[12:06] Speaker 1: got the blades of the cutter around the lock, we
[12:09] Speaker 1: heard it. It sounded like it came from everywhere and
[12:14] Speaker 1: yet far away at the same time. Maybe it was
[12:17] Speaker 1: the echo of the forest, or maybe something attributed to
[12:21] Speaker 1: its abilities. It sounded like a woman yelling in pain,
[12:28] Speaker 1: in agony, and yet the voice was half gargled, like
[12:33] Speaker 1: it was morphed with that of a dying animal, as
[12:36] Speaker 1: it had an underlying low tone pitch beneath it. It
[12:40] Speaker 1: got under the skin of everyone. Those pulling security immediately jumped, scanning,
[12:45] Speaker 1: or left right up and down. Hell, even the medic.
[12:50] Speaker 1: Big stocky dude grew up in Brooklyn played football before
[12:53] Speaker 1: he joined, meaning he was as yoked as all hell
[12:56] Speaker 1: when he got to our unit. The guy who once
[12:58] Speaker 1: stuck his finger into a man's neck to plug his
[13:00] Speaker 1: blood looked around nervously. The hell was that? Our weapon
[13:07] Speaker 1: sergeant with the forty six shook his head as he
[13:10] Speaker 1: scanned the far off terrain, muttering in a low voice,
[13:14] Speaker 1: some horror moving nonsense. Right now, I remember holding my
[13:19] Speaker 1: rifle's grip tight. Everyone was equally unnerved, everyone except the captain.
[13:28] Speaker 1: He just told us to press on for goodness sake,
[13:32] Speaker 1: loosen your jockstraps, let's go. He snapped the lock off immediately.
[13:37] Speaker 1: The captain and I moved in and cleared the small
[13:39] Speaker 1: booth as two more weapon sergeants and ar medic took
[13:43] Speaker 1: up Covering down the gravel road. It was a guard,
[13:47] Speaker 1: no name tape or company logo, decked out in a
[13:50] Speaker 1: black plate carrier, the plate carrier of which had been
[13:54] Speaker 1: torn into as a large hole covered the entire area
[13:57] Speaker 1: of his solar plaquesus which was now fragmented and broken
[14:01] Speaker 1: inside of his mulched upper body. No bullet entry, who
[14:05] Speaker 1: exit wounds, Just a large stab wound that looks like
[14:08] Speaker 1: he got ran through by a damned lamp post. My
[14:13] Speaker 1: breath still got caught in my throat. As I grunted
[14:15] Speaker 1: to clear it. The Captain stepped out of the small booth,
[14:19] Speaker 1: spitting hard into the grass, shaking his head. The medic
[14:23] Speaker 1: prodded him, what was it like? He grunted, walking to
[14:28] Speaker 1: the front of our formation. Doesn't matter, Doc. We formed
[14:34] Speaker 1: up and moved down the gravel road in a wedge column,
[14:38] Speaker 1: the captain and the three weapon sergeants in the front wedge,
[14:41] Speaker 1: the medic, me and two other weapon sergeants in the
[14:43] Speaker 1: back one the com sergeant in the middle. We entered
[14:47] Speaker 1: the facility lot immediately. The com sergeant linked up with
[14:51] Speaker 1: the captain and I could hear him alerting mane, this
[14:56] Speaker 1: is raider lead. We've reached the building. Though it makes
[15:01] Speaker 1: me wonder if he used the consergeant's radio to reach
[15:04] Speaker 1: our h que. Who was he talking to on that
[15:07] Speaker 1: other channel. The lot was clear and we got a
[15:11] Speaker 1: good look at the facility. It was a gray concrete rectangle,
[15:16] Speaker 1: maybe the size of a small gas station. Floodlights mounted
[15:19] Speaker 1: on the bottom illuminated the gravel lot up to the dense,
[15:23] Speaker 1: shadowy woodline that laid just beyond the chain link fence.
[15:27] Speaker 1: The woodline that was still quiet the mask old carnage
[15:33] Speaker 1: we were told about was present outside of the building.
[15:37] Speaker 1: Several guards, all in various states of mutilation, similar to
[15:41] Speaker 1: the gate guard, were strewn about the gravel lot. However,
[15:46] Speaker 1: unlike the gate guard, strangely, they were in heavier body armor,
[15:51] Speaker 1: with rifles capable of going automatic and spin brass everywhere.
[15:56] Speaker 1: Me and some of the other guys got online and
[15:58] Speaker 1: cleared out the back. Exasperated breaths and muttering came from
[16:02] Speaker 1: all of us. The captain chimed in, raiders on me
[16:07] Speaker 1: time now we hauled, asked back to him. As we
[16:11] Speaker 1: stacked up of the door. Flowing in, we were greeted
[16:15] Speaker 1: to a lobby torn up, furniture thrown everywhere, impact marks
[16:19] Speaker 1: from rounds hitting the concrete lined walls and ceiling. One
[16:23] Speaker 1: dead guard slumped against a red stained part of the wall,
[16:26] Speaker 1: the other in a crumpled heap. A woman at the desk,
[16:30] Speaker 1: not a guard, just the damned staff member, sat back
[16:34] Speaker 1: in a chair, her entire torso area torn apart. As
[16:39] Speaker 1: we passed by her and headed through the double doors
[16:41] Speaker 1: behind her, her empty dead eyes met mine. The com
[16:46] Speaker 1: sergeant eyed her as well as we moved through the door. Sir,
[16:51] Speaker 1: if she was unarmed, I can see that keep chattered
[16:55] Speaker 1: to a minimum. We cleared through the double doors to
[16:59] Speaker 1: be greeted by porcelain hallway leading into a set of
[17:02] Speaker 1: stairs heading to a sub level. The entire surface, ceiling, walls,
[17:08] Speaker 1: floor was lined with ceramic white tiles, ceramic white tiles
[17:13] Speaker 1: that were, like the rest of the scene so far,
[17:15] Speaker 1: stained with blood, guts, and even brain matter of the
[17:19] Speaker 1: unlucky guards laid out all the way down the stairs.
[17:23] Speaker 1: I counted eight seventeen so far. A flickering light could
[17:29] Speaker 1: be seen through the wire glass windows of the double
[17:31] Speaker 1: doors at the bottom. The captain ordered us to flow
[17:34] Speaker 1: in through both sides. We did. Pushing in, we could
[17:39] Speaker 1: see we entered into a t style hallway. It gets
[17:44] Speaker 1: a bit complicated here. Either end of the tee ended,
[17:49] Speaker 1: while the mid one shot forward far down into the hall,
[17:52] Speaker 1: leading into two reinforced blast doors at the very end.
[17:56] Speaker 1: Two immediate laps on either side were reinforced with more
[18:00] Speaker 1: wire glass, and despite several crates, impact marks, bullet holes,
[18:04] Speaker 1: and even holes made in the glass, they held this
[18:09] Speaker 1: stuff can't be blistered glass, and a comsergeant muttered, why
[18:14] Speaker 1: didn't they just take cover in there, the medic said,
[18:17] Speaker 1: the captain's side seems to be pointing to a surprise
[18:21] Speaker 1: attack from the inside embassies on surprise jackass. The medic
[18:26] Speaker 1: fire back, Well, sure, but it's just the door more.
[18:31] Speaker 1: The hallways outside were a mess of blood gore guards
[18:34] Speaker 1: thrown around as they were ripped apart, creating a mess
[18:37] Speaker 1: of bodies, weapons, and more spent brass. The laptecks had
[18:42] Speaker 1: the white coats stained with their own blood. My blood
[18:45] Speaker 1: and I think everyone else's started to run cold as
[18:48] Speaker 1: the pieces came together. Whatever killed them did so indiscriminately.
[18:56] Speaker 1: We formed a rolling tee heading into the hallway. I
[19:00] Speaker 1: was on the right, with the gunner taking center and
[19:03] Speaker 1: another guy on the left. The captain pushed forward, leading
[19:07] Speaker 1: us from behind The window labs ended half way with
[19:11] Speaker 1: two solid white doors near the double doors at the
[19:14] Speaker 1: end on either side, leading to closed off labs. The
[19:18] Speaker 1: captain had as pull guard on both of the side doors.
[19:21] Speaker 1: As the gunner aimed back down the hallway, everyone else
[19:25] Speaker 1: took up security wherever it was needed. The captain eyed
[19:29] Speaker 1: the door, feeling the cracks and lines of the blast door,
[19:32] Speaker 1: looking for gaps that didn't exist. Blood had slowly leaped
[19:37] Speaker 1: from the bottom, causing him to pick up his boot
[19:39] Speaker 1: and eye it. And yet no openings existed. An electronic
[19:46] Speaker 1: pad was positioned at the right side of the door.
[19:49] Speaker 1: The Captain eyed it. It was a hand scanner. I
[19:53] Speaker 1: didn't even think those actually existed, He jumped on the
[19:57] Speaker 1: private frequency. I keep mentioning, I'm at the doors, yeah,
[20:02] Speaker 1: at the fire end as a hand scanner. He waited
[20:07] Speaker 1: a few seconds of deafening silence. He made an internal
[20:10] Speaker 1: chuckle as he walked over to the dead body of
[20:12] Speaker 1: a guard kicking its arm. Got one right here, I'm sorry, repeat,
[20:18] Speaker 1: last alive. He rubbed his face, cursing under his breath. Damn,
[20:27] Speaker 1: He shook his head, turning on the white light of
[20:29] Speaker 1: his rifle and scanning the corpses. This place is a
[20:33] Speaker 1: goddamn slaughter Else, how am I going? A crash emanated
[20:37] Speaker 1: from the white lab door to the right of the
[20:39] Speaker 1: blast doors, the one I was covering. Everyone paused for
[20:44] Speaker 1: a second as the second weapon sergeant aimed his laser
[20:46] Speaker 1: at it. The captain turned his head, Amy's laser at
[20:50] Speaker 1: the door as he approached. Might have one and might
[20:53] Speaker 1: have up four? Wait one over the captain formed of
[20:58] Speaker 1: as the first man in the stack, an unusual practice,
[21:02] Speaker 1: but everyone else fell behind. I was the second man,
[21:05] Speaker 1: Two more made, third, and fourth. A weapon sergeant felt
[21:09] Speaker 1: the edges of the door, then tried the handle locked him.
[21:13] Speaker 1: Trying the handle must have alerted whatever was inside, because
[21:16] Speaker 1: a voice ballowed out, I I'm in here. Please, I'll
[21:21] Speaker 1: let you in. Just don't shoot. The doorman looked at
[21:26] Speaker 1: the captain, who nodded, might have blue four inside, stay sharp,
[21:31] Speaker 1: wait on me to fire. There wasn't supposed to be
[21:34] Speaker 1: any blue four in sight. The door's electronic lock opened.
[21:40] Speaker 1: The doorman grabbed the handle and pulled it open. As
[21:42] Speaker 1: the four of us entered the room, we pushed through.
[21:46] Speaker 1: The captain hunked left. I pushed forward. The other two
[21:49] Speaker 1: followed one of us respectively. Our lasers entered the room
[21:53] Speaker 1: and a pair of hands emerging from behind a lab table. Please,
[21:58] Speaker 1: the voice weakly shouted. The captain stormed over hands, now,
[22:03] Speaker 1: I'll shoot you. I swear to God if you don't
[22:05] Speaker 1: put your God's hands up. As the person stood up,
[22:10] Speaker 1: he saw the hands were connected to a scientist, possibly
[22:13] Speaker 1: late thirties, stringy hair with circular glasses, glasses that flew
[22:18] Speaker 1: off when the Captain closed the distance, shoving him against
[22:21] Speaker 1: the metal cabinet. Spittle flying from the bearded mouth behind
[22:24] Speaker 1: the envgs as he barked at him, ID, where is it?
[22:29] Speaker 1: Show it? The captain began roughly searching the lab tech.
[22:32] Speaker 1: As he pulled out his ID, he grabbed it, shoving
[22:36] Speaker 1: him to the weapon sergeant on his side of the room.
[22:39] Speaker 1: The lab tech was kicked down to his knees. The
[22:42] Speaker 1: captain jumped back on the frequency and back possible blue
[22:47] Speaker 1: flour prepare for ID code. He read it off in
[22:50] Speaker 1: phonetics before he got the response. He looked at the
[22:54] Speaker 1: weapon sergeant guarding the lab tech. Get his ass up, please,
[23:00] Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. I was just running
[23:02] Speaker 1: some chemical tests. We've got to get out of here.
[23:04] Speaker 1: Before the captain got in the man's face, shut up,
[23:09] Speaker 1: he did. You know what you've been doing? I know
[23:12] Speaker 1: what you've been doing out here. Open them doors now.
[23:17] Speaker 1: The man was shocked as the captain continued Open the
[23:21] Speaker 1: damn doors now. With a point from the Captain, the
[23:25] Speaker 1: weapon sergeant shoved the man forward into the door frame.
[23:29] Speaker 1: The man crumbled a little bit as the captain laughed,
[23:33] Speaker 1: take your sweet time, doctor, let's go. I picked him
[23:37] Speaker 1: up by his shirt collar and dragged him over to
[23:39] Speaker 1: the blast doors. The captain pushed him out of my grip,
[23:43] Speaker 1: shoving his face into the door. Hand on the scanner. Now,
[23:49] Speaker 1: as the captain grabbed the man by his wrist, the
[23:51] Speaker 1: laptick struggled to get free. Please, I don't have access.
[23:55] Speaker 1: I hurt my hand trying to hide. Let me go.
[23:59] Speaker 1: The winced at the side, a bit uncharacteristically of a
[24:03] Speaker 1: green beret, especially for a jaded as hell medic. He
[24:07] Speaker 1: spoke up, cap, come on. The captain just turned, staring
[24:13] Speaker 1: daggers into the man as he wrestled from the man's wrist.
[24:17] Speaker 1: Just wait till you'll see, I'm telling you. As the
[24:21] Speaker 1: man struggled against the captain, the weapon sergeant came up
[24:25] Speaker 1: from behind, shoving the man into the blast door, allowing
[24:28] Speaker 1: the captain to easily place it on the scanner. The
[24:31] Speaker 1: scanner lit up in a bright blue as several lines
[24:34] Speaker 1: traced and looked over his handprint, and then flashed green.
[24:38] Speaker 1: As the electronic lock of the blast doors began to
[24:40] Speaker 1: open up, the captain dropped the man. Well, goodness, gracious,
[24:46] Speaker 1: what do you know? The doors slowly pulled open. The
[24:51] Speaker 1: room was dark red. Flashing emergency lights flashed all around
[24:55] Speaker 1: as the sound of broken glass scraped against the door.
[24:59] Speaker 1: The stream of murc blue liquid mixed in with a
[25:01] Speaker 1: blood of several guard's bodies that were revealed as the
[25:04] Speaker 1: doorway leaked out into the hall. The captain grabbed the
[25:09] Speaker 1: lab take by the collar, dragging him to his feet.
[25:12] Speaker 1: You all know these men, doctor friends. The captain shoved
[25:17] Speaker 1: him through the doorway, the lap take slipping in the
[25:20] Speaker 1: fluids and glass, cutting his right hand with the WinCE.
[25:24] Speaker 1: We flowed in and Jesus, I said this at the start.
[25:30] Speaker 1: I've been all over. I've seen mass graves that terrace
[25:33] Speaker 1: cells have used in far off countries, filled with entire
[25:36] Speaker 1: villages worth of people. I've seen killed ends inside tunnel systems.
[25:42] Speaker 1: This surpassed all of that, every horror, every war crime,
[25:47] Speaker 1: multiple times over. A series of glass tubes lined the walls,
[25:54] Speaker 1: walls made out of monitors, hard drives, and computer systems.
[25:58] Speaker 1: The path of carnage through the pile of guards at
[26:01] Speaker 1: the doorway. That makes twenty four armed personnel that were
[26:05] Speaker 1: taken out by something. What really bothered me was that
[26:09] Speaker 1: in those murky green and blue glass tubes as big
[26:13] Speaker 1: as a refrigerator, connected to a poor at the top
[26:16] Speaker 1: and bottom tubes and wires inside connecting to The captain
[26:21] Speaker 1: shoved the lab tech into a glass tube. The pop
[26:24] Speaker 1: of the man's nose echoed off the empty area as
[26:27] Speaker 1: he grabbed his nose. Well, DOC, which one was it?
[26:31] Speaker 1: Which goddamn tube tube? What was he talking about? How
[26:37] Speaker 1: did he know who was on the frequency? The lab
[26:42] Speaker 1: tech spit out, blood leaking into his mouth. As the captain,
[26:45] Speaker 1: standing at six foot five a giant even amongst his
[26:49] Speaker 1: team brawny sof operators, picked him up by his collar
[26:52] Speaker 1: of his blue undershirt. I don't Two weapon sergeants ducked
[26:59] Speaker 1: out of the way as the captain got on his face,
[27:01] Speaker 1: shoving him against the left side wall, causing the monitors
[27:04] Speaker 1: and computer systems to beep and light up. Oh you
[27:09] Speaker 1: don't know, and yet your little hand opens the room
[27:12] Speaker 1: there you didn't have access to, he roared, abandoning all
[27:16] Speaker 1: silence and discretion. Now as the man began to sputter
[27:19] Speaker 1: and sob please please I, the captain gritted his teeth.
[27:26] Speaker 1: He quickly flipped up his nods and stared daggers into
[27:29] Speaker 1: the man's soul. How many people did you snatch off
[27:33] Speaker 1: that trail? How many? What kind of butchering you do
[27:36] Speaker 1: to those kids before you stuck him in there? Which
[27:39] Speaker 1: one escaped? Kids? Butchering? Something in my mind stopped, and
[27:48] Speaker 1: I switched on my rifle's tacklight. A heavy pit of
[27:52] Speaker 1: my stomach formed as I flashed it on the tubes.
[27:56] Speaker 1: There were people in those tubes. They were people. Wire
[28:02] Speaker 1: and tubes now poked into sea through and murky flesh.
[28:06] Speaker 1: As the bodies of the kidnapped floated, mutated, dissected, and changed.
[28:12] Speaker 1: One person's skin ran reptilian like up their left arm
[28:15] Speaker 1: before merging with a strange gaping hole in their chest,
[28:19] Speaker 1: their skull protruding out of their skin in their head.
[28:22] Speaker 1: My breathing stuttered a bit as I backed up a
[28:24] Speaker 1: few steps, glass crunching under my boots. Curses muttered by
[28:29] Speaker 1: the others in the room as we all began to look.
[28:33] Speaker 1: Another one's mouth was sealed at the front. Two more jagged,
[28:37] Speaker 1: missed upsets of teeth poked out either side. Their eyes
[28:40] Speaker 1: were sealed, skin covering defined sockets in their head. The
[28:45] Speaker 1: medic flashed his on one where their spines stuck out
[28:48] Speaker 1: through their back. The vertebrae was larger than a normal person's,
[28:52] Speaker 1: the bones sticking out inches longer in some areas. Jesus, man,
[28:58] Speaker 1: this is he gagged a bit, coughing as he looked away.
[29:03] Speaker 1: I had to pry my eyes away. My mind was
[29:05] Speaker 1: frying just looking at They'd better be dead. Oh, I
[29:10] Speaker 1: swear to the Lord himself if they ain't, the captain
[29:14] Speaker 1: said sternly, as the man sobbed and nodded. Yes. The
[29:20] Speaker 1: captain raised an eyebrow. You sure, yes, they died during surgery.
[29:27] Speaker 1: If you're lying to me, I swear to God I
[29:29] Speaker 1: will make you euthanize every single one. The captain shoved
[29:33] Speaker 1: the laptack forward into the center of the aisle. I
[29:36] Speaker 1: looked down, shaking my head as the images of those
[29:40] Speaker 1: things burned into the film of my brain. Where's she gone, doctor,
[29:46] Speaker 1: the captain said, sternly, squaring up to the man, who
[29:49] Speaker 1: sobbed as he shrugged. I I where is it? The
[29:56] Speaker 1: man continued to cry. He escaped. He killed everyone, hit
[30:02] Speaker 1: cut through the guards, hit cut through everyone, all of
[30:04] Speaker 1: my friends. This caused the captain to nearly bust the
[30:10] Speaker 1: blood vessel from the look he gave him, bawling on
[30:13] Speaker 1: his fist and driving the arm and knuckle of his
[30:15] Speaker 1: ugly glove into the gut of the lab tech. This
[30:18] Speaker 1: caused the smaller, weaker lab tech to buckle over, dropping
[30:22] Speaker 1: to his hands and knees, now favoring an injured hand
[30:25] Speaker 1: and probably a burst spleen. Your friends, Your friends, you
[30:31] Speaker 1: mean the friends I kidnapped a twenty two year old
[30:33] Speaker 1: girl and a fourteen year old son and turn them
[30:36] Speaker 1: into monsters. What about them? This earned only more sobs
[30:42] Speaker 1: from the lab tech as the captain turned hands on
[30:45] Speaker 1: his hips as he scoffed, he looked at the medic,
[30:48] Speaker 1: who only stared back through his nuds. The captain turned
[30:51] Speaker 1: to look at him. You got to the count of ten,
[30:55] Speaker 1: and if you don't give me a single whereabouts of
[30:57] Speaker 1: this thing, I would start grabbing tools, cutting your little
[31:00] Speaker 1: weasley ass up like he did to these kids. The
[31:04] Speaker 1: captain loomed over the man, grabbing him by his hair. Sir, sir, please,
[31:10] Speaker 1: the laptack pleaded one, two, three, The captain counted. Some
[31:18] Speaker 1: looked away, others shook their heads. There wasn't a man
[31:22] Speaker 1: in the room who wouldn't do what he did right
[31:24] Speaker 1: now after seeing them. It's hit in the woods. You
[31:31] Speaker 1: heard it. It did it freaky yell, just like ten
[31:34] Speaker 1: minutes ago. The captain laughed, letting go of the man's
[31:39] Speaker 1: hair as he whipped his head forward. Y'all hear that
[31:43] Speaker 1: HiT's in the woods. He pulled out his seventeen he's
[31:48] Speaker 1: nine milimeters sidearm, pulling the slide back a bit to
[31:51] Speaker 1: make sure he was chambered four five six. The man
[31:58] Speaker 1: stood up, and at this point I kicked out his
[32:01] Speaker 1: extended leg, dropping him back to his knees. The man
[32:05] Speaker 1: looked at me, then at the captain. You can't do this.
[32:10] Speaker 1: This is illegal. Before the captain could finish his count,
[32:15] Speaker 1: we heard it. It echoed all the way down the
[32:19] Speaker 1: facility halls, reverberating off the glass tubes in the room,
[32:24] Speaker 1: that half feminine, half monstrous cry. Except this time it
[32:29] Speaker 1: didn't come from far off mountains or trees. It came
[32:34] Speaker 1: from the stairs. Then the lights went out. I don't
[32:39] Speaker 1: know if it was prior damage to the facility or
[32:42] Speaker 1: electric works or something else, but they zapped out the
[32:46] Speaker 1: light in the halls, the lights on the stairs, the
[32:49] Speaker 1: light in the room, the electronics, the light in the tanks,
[32:53] Speaker 1: all of it. He cried out again, and this time
[32:58] Speaker 1: I think I heard it say help me. Anyone who
[33:03] Speaker 1: had their nods up flicked them down. All of us
[33:06] Speaker 1: trained our lasers down the dark hall beyond the door.
[33:09] Speaker 1: The slight shakiness of all the green lasers told the
[33:12] Speaker 1: same stories, all of the death, all of the stuff
[33:15] Speaker 1: in the tanks. It had everyone spooked. The captain came
[33:20] Speaker 1: up alongside me and the medic. He looked back to
[33:23] Speaker 1: the lab tack, you run, you die. The man swallowed
[33:30] Speaker 1: and smothered his misery. I I know, the captain corrected
[33:36] Speaker 1: him in a low tone. No, you really don't. The
[33:43] Speaker 1: creature cried out again, help me. The sounds of something
[33:52] Speaker 1: hard impacting the tiled floor sounded out as it approached
[33:56] Speaker 1: us through the dark. Abyss, more footsteps, then another cry,
[34:02] Speaker 1: help me. The gunner let out a shaky breath as
[34:08] Speaker 1: he cracked his neck. More footsteps, then another cry, help me.
[34:20] Speaker 1: It was maybe five meters from the doornail, Lord Almighty,
[34:25] Speaker 1: The captain muttered, I couldn't see much in that darkness then,
[34:30] Speaker 1: but I saw what everyone else saw. I saw enough.
[34:37] Speaker 1: Its body was easily six feet tall, too gigantic bony
[34:42] Speaker 1: man just like legs. They were dark from blood stepped
[34:45] Speaker 1: into the doorway. Its head was smooth, its large teeth
[34:49] Speaker 1: shining in the darkness, and its eyes glowed like an animal.
[34:54] Speaker 1: Its eyes glowed. He could see us. We all froze,
[35:02] Speaker 1: gread rifles trained on it, a damn machine gun trained
[35:05] Speaker 1: on it, a room full of green brays, the best
[35:07] Speaker 1: of the best, and everyone froze. The captain was first
[35:13] Speaker 1: the fire, slamming his trigger as he shot two twenty
[35:16] Speaker 1: three death into that crime against existence. The gunner opened
[35:21] Speaker 1: up as well, and then the medic. Two more weapon
[35:24] Speaker 1: sergeants also shot It, yelled at us, cried out like
[35:28] Speaker 1: an agonized woman pleading for help. Then it lunged, running
[35:36] Speaker 1: and slamming through a test tube. Glass flew everywhere, causing
[35:39] Speaker 1: several of us to shield our faces. As the water
[35:42] Speaker 1: flooded the floor and the deformed body that was inside
[35:46] Speaker 1: flopped down near our feet, A horrendous rotted smell filled
[35:50] Speaker 1: the air. Jesus the medics spotted out, gagging a bit
[35:54] Speaker 1: as he kicked it away. The creature now screamed as
[35:58] Speaker 1: a rifle went that it jumped in hear back top.
[36:01] Speaker 1: It leapt on top of him, shoving that bony mandible
[36:04] Speaker 1: into his left shoulder, pinning him to the ground as
[36:06] Speaker 1: he screamed, thrashing his elbow into the thing as he
[36:10] Speaker 1: kicked its stomach, but it didn't attack him. It just
[36:15] Speaker 1: eyed the scientist. He attempted to run for his life.
[36:20] Speaker 1: The thing jumped on top of him, pinning him face
[36:23] Speaker 1: first into the murky, wet floor. That's when I noticed
[36:27] Speaker 1: the six smaller human like arms on its torso. Its
[36:32] Speaker 1: maine mandible pinned him to the ground. The arms, some normal,
[36:36] Speaker 1: some with bony spikes for fingers, others just lined with
[36:40] Speaker 1: sharp teeth, began to rip into the man's back. The
[36:44] Speaker 1: lap tap screamed. His lab coat was torn open as
[36:47] Speaker 1: he began to dig down into his back. Some still
[36:50] Speaker 1: fired shots, but it didn't even react. It didn't even move,
[36:56] Speaker 1: just continued to tear into that vial. But pouse some gun.
[37:02] Speaker 1: The captain's voice lit up the coms as he and
[37:05] Speaker 1: the medic rushed to pick the man up and heave
[37:07] Speaker 1: him on the Captain's shoulders. We can't engage him here
[37:11] Speaker 1: outside now, he was right. It thrived on close quarters.
[37:18] Speaker 1: It rang guys through before they could piggered apart. We
[37:22] Speaker 1: all ran nerves, shot weapons hard from firing into a
[37:26] Speaker 1: thing that didn't react. The power off so we couldn't
[37:29] Speaker 1: close the blast doors. All we could do was run.
[37:34] Speaker 1: I nearly slipped on the glass as we bucked it
[37:36] Speaker 1: out of air, firing some desperate pot shots into the
[37:39] Speaker 1: lab with the gunner. The lab techs screams echoed throughout
[37:43] Speaker 1: the hallway as we booked it up the stairs. It
[37:46] Speaker 1: was going to be done with him soon. The gunner
[37:49] Speaker 1: and I covered the captain as we broke out into
[37:51] Speaker 1: the open air, the smell of rotten death replaced by
[37:55] Speaker 1: the open, piney air of the forest. Several men broke
[37:58] Speaker 1: out road flares, tossing them everywhere, giving us much needed
[38:02] Speaker 1: light in the form of greens, blues, reds, and purples.
[38:06] Speaker 1: The captain dropped the man behind a beaten up and
[38:08] Speaker 1: rex'edan as the medic began to patch him up. The
[38:12] Speaker 1: gunner deployed his bipod and aimed at the doors of
[38:14] Speaker 1: the facility from the car's hood. The captain positioned different
[38:19] Speaker 1: men to where they could all fire and the door
[38:21] Speaker 1: fir enough away from the thing's grasp rumera, getting that
[38:25] Speaker 1: damn net and calling that air. I took aim behind
[38:29] Speaker 1: a large suv with several others. We all aimed at
[38:32] Speaker 1: the door. The screaming had stopped. The silence was broken
[38:39] Speaker 1: by its bony mandibles as it rushed out into the
[38:42] Speaker 1: open air, and with all the flares and chemlights and
[38:45] Speaker 1: even the captain's tack light, we finally got a good look.
[38:50] Speaker 1: Its skin was a mix between pink from its exposed
[38:53] Speaker 1: muscles to a sea through clear layer covering of the parts.
[38:57] Speaker 1: Boney calcium like armor had formed over a lot of
[39:00] Speaker 1: its body, and its back to legs formed smaller mandible
[39:04] Speaker 1: like features at the back, and its head an exposed
[39:09] Speaker 1: skull all to human eyes peering out in a rage.
[39:13] Speaker 1: As its larger, unhinged jaw opened and it roared out
[39:17] Speaker 1: it's deafening cry at us. The gunner was the first
[39:21] Speaker 1: to open up. A blast of five fifty six tore
[39:25] Speaker 1: through the armor on its mandible, legs and torso. The
[39:28] Speaker 1: thing recalled at first and then hissed as it charged forward.
[39:32] Speaker 1: The captain ran from his place in front of the
[39:34] Speaker 1: cidan's side. The thing stuck its two large mandibles into
[39:37] Speaker 1: the roof badly denting it. The medic quickly covered the
[39:41] Speaker 1: wounded weapon sergeant, shielding him as the thing peered down
[39:44] Speaker 1: at the two. The captain quickly got its attention, aiming
[39:48] Speaker 1: fire at the back of its head. It roared with
[39:50] Speaker 1: a vengeance as it charged to the captain. He fell
[39:54] Speaker 1: back to the Zidan, running out of our line of
[39:56] Speaker 1: fire as the thing barreled towards us. The thing look
[40:00] Speaker 1: a mandible inside the hood, impaling it, and then another
[40:04] Speaker 1: just to my left. I circled around and behind it
[40:07] Speaker 1: as I fired. He cried out, blood now pouring from
[40:11] Speaker 1: its wounds as its calcium plating was cracked and falling
[40:14] Speaker 1: off in mass. The thing turned to me, and as
[40:18] Speaker 1: I flicked my hand forward to watow and laid into it,
[40:21] Speaker 1: it just bowled at me, shoving me to the ground.
[40:24] Speaker 1: It's smaller, dimlic hands reached for me as I kicked
[40:27] Speaker 1: them away. Its jaws snapped as I held my rifle
[40:31] Speaker 1: in the way, shielding my face as it gnawed on
[40:33] Speaker 1: the metal. The gunner then blasted a chunk of its
[40:36] Speaker 1: exposed skull away, staggering it as it turned. The captain
[40:40] Speaker 1: whipped his stock into the thing's head then back pedaled
[40:43] Speaker 1: as he fired off another burst of rounds. The thing
[40:47] Speaker 1: turned at him, roaring viciously. As the captain dropped his
[40:50] Speaker 1: empty mag he slapped in a fresh one as the
[40:53] Speaker 1: thing lunged at him, both mandibles raised. The glass exploded
[40:57] Speaker 1: out of the SUV's windows as the captain dropped levels,
[41:01] Speaker 1: firing into its stomach. As he circled out back into
[41:04] Speaker 1: the open, the creature roared as it went to move
[41:07] Speaker 1: for him again, but it couldn't. Its large mandibles were
[41:11] Speaker 1: stuck all the way inside of the vehicle. The captain
[41:15] Speaker 1: led his rifle hang slung on his front as he
[41:18] Speaker 1: reached for something in his kit and M sixty seven
[41:21] Speaker 1: fragmentation grenade get back. Everyone who was in the open
[41:27] Speaker 1: ducked for cover. The gunner and several weapon sergeants retreated
[41:31] Speaker 1: beyond a series of concrete jersey barriers. I ran and
[41:34] Speaker 1: slid behind the sa'dan, helping the medic to shield our
[41:37] Speaker 1: wounded battle body. I heard the distinct sound of a
[41:41] Speaker 1: spoon flying and the whistling of the grenade. The captain
[41:44] Speaker 1: vaulted himself over the car hood, with the con sergeant
[41:48] Speaker 1: covering his radio operator's head as they both went prone.
[41:52] Speaker 1: The explosion was thunderous. The shock wave of the grenade
[41:56] Speaker 1: shook everyone and even rattled me a bit from being
[41:59] Speaker 1: so close. Shrapnel and fragments flew everywhere, impacting the concrete
[42:04] Speaker 1: barriers the building. Any windows in the sedan that weren't
[42:07] Speaker 1: already broken were shattered. A few seconds passed as we
[42:12] Speaker 1: all hesitantly started to lift our heads, then dropped them
[42:17] Speaker 1: as the SUV's gas tank seemingly erupted and detonated and
[42:20] Speaker 1: go from the wrecking of fireballs so large if I
[42:23] Speaker 1: like the flames were touching my face. The captain popped up,
[42:28] Speaker 1: aiming on top of the hood of the car. Then
[42:30] Speaker 1: Eye and several others joined him, peeking from behind our
[42:34] Speaker 1: points of cover. As we looked to see if that
[42:36] Speaker 1: had done it. The suv was a burning skeleton, an
[42:42] Speaker 1: inferno from all of the ignited gasoline covering the frame
[42:46] Speaker 1: and the ground around it, and the beast as it
[42:49] Speaker 1: defiantly pulled its last remaining mandible its front left one
[42:54] Speaker 1: the only appendage had had left, and stumbled out from
[42:58] Speaker 1: the flames, Its skin popped, its muscles boiled, and with
[43:02] Speaker 1: all of the sea through skin and bone plating torn
[43:05] Speaker 1: and burnt off. It gazed around, its eyes ruptured and melted.
[43:12] Speaker 1: Help me. The gravel crunched as its charred and still
[43:20] Speaker 1: burning body slumped forward. The captain emerged from behind the
[43:24] Speaker 1: vic as only a few of us dared to approach
[43:26] Speaker 1: the thing. He lifted his nods, this time pulling his
[43:30] Speaker 1: M seventeen back up and aiming at the thing's head.
[43:34] Speaker 1: Three shots into the thing's head, the damaged and charred
[43:38] Speaker 1: skull caving in a circle of light illuminated us. As
[43:44] Speaker 1: the rotary blades of the black Hawk sounded out overhead.
[43:47] Speaker 1: I shouldered my face and lifted my nose to avoid
[43:50] Speaker 1: the spotlight blinding me up. Four actual down, building secure.
[43:58] Speaker 1: The ensuing hour was that was just shrouded in I
[44:02] Speaker 1: don't know mystery. I guess the captain went against prior
[44:07] Speaker 1: missions of telling us to go prone and poor security,
[44:10] Speaker 1: putting the gunner at the sedan by the gate, and
[44:12] Speaker 1: telling the rest of us to watch the woodline. When
[44:15] Speaker 1: the van showed up, that's when he told us to
[44:18] Speaker 1: chill out. They weren't really vans, they were more like
[44:23] Speaker 1: armored trucks. Now, for the sake of being classified and
[44:27] Speaker 1: remaining anonymous, I can't divulge a lot about them. I'm
[44:31] Speaker 1: definitely not saying the Black Shirts wearing black multicam combat
[44:35] Speaker 1: uniforms with kits, weapons and gear available. That would definitely
[44:39] Speaker 1: make them a private sector group. I'm not saying their
[44:42] Speaker 1: uniforms were sterilized with all patches, logos, and markers stripped.
[44:47] Speaker 1: I'm also not saying the hazmat suits looked way beyond
[44:50] Speaker 1: anything our mope system has. I'm not saying they brought
[44:54] Speaker 1: several metal cases in from their armored vics, and I'm
[44:57] Speaker 1: not saying they brought in advance of ailance drones with them.
[45:01] Speaker 1: I will say they weren't really hostile. Damn. One even
[45:06] Speaker 1: offered us a cigarette. The bird landed at the opposite
[45:09] Speaker 1: side of the building, the open lot, where they eventually
[45:13] Speaker 1: told us to head. We prepared our guy for CASEVAC
[45:16] Speaker 1: on a litter with a black Hawk and loaded up.
[45:19] Speaker 1: As the captain finished talking to some guy in a suit.
[45:23] Speaker 1: He was much shorter, maybe five eight. He bore the
[45:27] Speaker 1: look of a younger but still weathered man. His hair
[45:31] Speaker 1: was slipped back and had a hard part. A slight
[45:35] Speaker 1: bump underneath his sports coat told me he was armed.
[45:39] Speaker 1: The captain eventually joined us. As soon as the aviation
[45:42] Speaker 1: crew shut the door. He popped his helmet off, watched
[45:45] Speaker 1: to their anger, and slumped back in his seat. When
[45:49] Speaker 1: we touched base and got back to the cop our,
[45:52] Speaker 1: sister team Artemis replaced us on QRF. I've been thinking
[45:58] Speaker 1: about this for days now, about what those people did
[46:02] Speaker 1: to them in that lab or the captain said, they
[46:06] Speaker 1: kidnapped them, cut them up, changed them all for what
[46:13] Speaker 1: some sick fantasy who even owned the lab. There were
[46:17] Speaker 1: no US markings, no logos zip. Like I said before,
[46:24] Speaker 1: there's still a lot. I don't know, But what I
[46:27] Speaker 1: do know is that those guys got exactly what they deserved,
[46:31] Speaker 1: that thing crying out for help, pleading for us to
[46:35] Speaker 1: make it suffering end. The more I think about it,
[46:40] Speaker 1: the more it makes me sick. I don't know who
[46:43] Speaker 1: the hell those guys were that relieved us, but they
[46:46] Speaker 1: didn't have any markings. Some of them were speaking German,
[46:49] Speaker 1: if my memory serves. But whoever they are, I hope
[46:54] Speaker 1: they learn from their mistakes and never tamper with that
[46:58] Speaker 1: evil again. My life had turned into one of those
[47:13] Speaker 1: cliche country songs. I was divorced, broke, unemployed and annoyed
[47:19] Speaker 1: at the world. Five years down the drain with a
[47:23] Speaker 1: woman I thought I'd spent my life with, only to
[47:26] Speaker 1: come home one day to find it already packed and
[47:29] Speaker 1: half way out the door. The job loss came a
[47:32] Speaker 1: month later, and at that point I figured the universe
[47:37] Speaker 1: was just trying to kick me while I was down.
[47:40] Speaker 1: I needed space. No well meaning friends telling me to
[47:44] Speaker 1: focus on myself or find the silver lining. To hell
[47:49] Speaker 1: with all of that. I didn't want silver linings. I
[47:54] Speaker 1: wanted silence. So when I found a listing for an
[47:59] Speaker 1: off grid cabin in the Appalachian Mountains, it felt like
[48:02] Speaker 1: the perfect escape. It wasn't some cozy rental package with
[48:07] Speaker 1: the hot tub and a fire pit on Airbnb, just
[48:10] Speaker 1: a bare bones cabin buried deep in the mountains. The
[48:15] Speaker 1: description was short, remote off grid cabin in the Appalachian Mountains,
[48:22] Speaker 1: no service, no electricity for those looking to truly disconnect,
[48:28] Speaker 1: no reviews, and the pictures were blurry, but it looked beautiful.
[48:35] Speaker 1: I didn't even have an exact location, just a general
[48:38] Speaker 1: area and a contact number. Normally i'd be wary of
[48:43] Speaker 1: something that vague, but at that point I didn't care.
[48:49] Speaker 1: I booked it for a full month. The guy who
[48:54] Speaker 1: owned the place was weirdly insistent that I couldn't drive
[48:57] Speaker 1: there myself. He said the trails were too easy to
[49:00] Speaker 1: lose and that GPS was useless that deep in the mountains. Instead,
[49:07] Speaker 1: he arranged for a local guide to take me up.
[49:11] Speaker 1: It made perfect sense. Mountain roads, rough terrain, the risk
[49:15] Speaker 1: of getting lost didn't seem that strange. I met the
[49:21] Speaker 1: guide at a run down general store about an hour
[49:24] Speaker 1: outside the nearest town. He was already waiting when I
[49:28] Speaker 1: pulled into the lot, standing beside an old ATV with
[49:32] Speaker 1: a trailer hitched to the back. The guy looked like
[49:36] Speaker 1: he'd been living in the woods his entire life. Try
[49:39] Speaker 1: picturing a stereotypical park ranger that's been doing his job
[49:43] Speaker 1: for a few years too long. That kind of guy,
[49:48] Speaker 1: you the renter, he asked. I nodded, toss my backpack
[49:53] Speaker 1: onto the trailer that veus. He grunted, and climbed into
[49:59] Speaker 1: the ATV get in. The ride up was rough as hell.
[50:06] Speaker 1: The trail was barely more than an overgrown deer path,
[50:10] Speaker 1: full of sharp turns and sudden dips. After about an
[50:14] Speaker 1: hour of bouncing over rocks, and weaving through dense streek cover,
[50:18] Speaker 1: we hit a clearing with no more roads. This is
[50:23] Speaker 1: where we walk, he said, already unloading my gear. I
[50:29] Speaker 1: stared at him. How far is the cabin? A few miles?
[50:36] Speaker 1: I cried to my back, adjusted my jacket and followed
[50:39] Speaker 1: him into the trees. The hike took another hour, and
[50:46] Speaker 1: the deeper we went, the more I realized just how
[50:50] Speaker 1: far I moved this place was there truly was nothing here,
[50:55] Speaker 1: just solid forest pressing in from all sides. I expected
[51:01] Speaker 1: to hear birds, bugs, maybe a distant stream, but at
[51:06] Speaker 1: some point the woods got quiet, not in a normal way,
[51:13] Speaker 1: not in the peaceful, wow nature is so relaxing way,
[51:18] Speaker 1: I mean quiet. I noticed that the guide also hadn't
[51:22] Speaker 1: spoken in nearly half an hour. When the cabin finally
[51:28] Speaker 1: came into view, I exhaled. It was exactly what I wanted. Small, sturdy,
[51:37] Speaker 1: a simple two floor set up with a wood stove
[51:40] Speaker 1: and a creek near by for water, just me, the
[51:44] Speaker 1: trees and miles of untouched wilderness. The guide set down
[51:50] Speaker 1: my gear on the porch and adjusted his cap. You
[51:54] Speaker 1: will be fine, he said, finally, breaking the silence. Long
[51:59] Speaker 1: as you don't wonder too far. Then, without another word,
[52:05] Speaker 1: he turned and disappeared into the trees. The first few
[52:13] Speaker 1: nights were exactly what I needed. I woke up when
[52:17] Speaker 1: the sun came in through the windows, spent my days hiking, reading,
[52:21] Speaker 1: and just existing. I finally didn't have my ex wife's
[52:27] Speaker 1: lawyer blowing up my inbox. The first time I realized
[52:32] Speaker 1: how deep I really was in the mountains was on
[52:35] Speaker 1: the second night. I had stepped outside to do my business.
[52:39] Speaker 1: I was hit with a kind of silence you don't
[52:42] Speaker 1: get in normal life. It wasn't just quiet, it was absolute.
[52:49] Speaker 1: At the time, I figured it was just how the
[52:52] Speaker 1: forest worked. I read once that predators moving through an
[52:56] Speaker 1: area could cause sudden silences. Probably just the bear passing through, right,
[53:03] Speaker 1: So I shrugged it off and went to bed. By
[53:07] Speaker 1: the fifth morning, I started noticing things. It wasn't anything
[53:14] Speaker 1: obvious at first, just the sense that the landscape was
[53:18] Speaker 1: slightly different. The bushes by the tree line looked disturbed,
[53:23] Speaker 1: like something had moved through them, probably deer, plenty of
[53:27] Speaker 1: them in the area. But as I walked over, I
[53:32] Speaker 1: saw the dirt was churned up, like something had been
[53:35] Speaker 1: digging or shuffling around. Further along I found scratches and
[53:40] Speaker 1: a few trees deep ones. I ran my fingers along
[53:45] Speaker 1: the grooves. I had no idea what kind of Mark's
[53:49] Speaker 1: bare claws would leave, but I figured this must have
[53:52] Speaker 1: been a big one. That was the first time I
[53:56] Speaker 1: got that nagging feeling that weird. I got level discomfort
[54:01] Speaker 1: that something was off, even if my brain was trying
[54:05] Speaker 1: to logic its way out of it. I pushed it down. Bears, deer,
[54:12] Speaker 1: mountain lions. This was the wilderness. If I was going
[54:17] Speaker 1: to start jumping at every broken branch and disturbed bush,
[54:21] Speaker 1: I was going to drive myself crazy. So I went
[54:26] Speaker 1: back inside, made coffee and told myself to stop being paranoid.
[54:32] Speaker 1: But for the rest of the day I couldn't shake it.
[54:37] Speaker 1: By the twelve day, I was feeling at home in
[54:40] Speaker 1: the cabin. It was still eerily quiet most of the time,
[54:45] Speaker 1: but I convinced myself that's just how it was out here.
[54:50] Speaker 1: I'd been living off canned food and dried goods, but
[54:53] Speaker 1: I still had a good supply of vegetables, rice and seasonings.
[54:58] Speaker 1: I figured I'd treat myself to cook it something hot.
[55:01] Speaker 1: A big potter stew I knew cooking food outside was
[55:06] Speaker 1: a gambol in the wilderness. Even with scent blockers, it
[55:10] Speaker 1: wasn't fool proof. If an animal got a whiff of it,
[55:15] Speaker 1: I'd probably lose the whole thing, but at that point
[55:19] Speaker 1: I didn't care. Worst case, I'd be out of some food.
[55:25] Speaker 1: So I built up the fire in the stone ringed firepit,
[55:29] Speaker 1: set up my cast iron pot, and threw in everything
[55:32] Speaker 1: I had, let it simmer low and slow, covered it
[55:36] Speaker 1: with a heavy lid, and just to be extra safe,
[55:40] Speaker 1: wrapped the whole thing in a scent neutralizing tarp. Then
[55:45] Speaker 1: I went inside, stretched out in bed, and fell asleep
[55:49] Speaker 1: to the distant crackling of the fire. The next morning,
[55:56] Speaker 1: I stepped outside and the yard was completed, depletely destroyed.
[56:02] Speaker 1: At first, my brain couldn't even process what I was
[56:05] Speaker 1: looking at. The dirt had been torn up in massive swaths,
[56:10] Speaker 1: like something had been clawing or shoving at the ground.
[56:13] Speaker 1: Chunks of earth had been thrown in long, scattered arcs,
[56:17] Speaker 1: as if something had raked through it with oversized limbs.
[56:21] Speaker 1: The bushes near the tree line were flattened, smashed down
[56:24] Speaker 1: into the soil. Some of them were uprooted completely, lying
[56:29] Speaker 1: in mangled piles with their roots exposed. Several small trees
[56:34] Speaker 1: were bented on natural angles, their barks scraped away in
[56:37] Speaker 1: places I had expected to find it gone obviously, maybe
[56:42] Speaker 1: the pot knocked over the food licked clean. Instead, the
[56:48] Speaker 1: pot was shattered, split into pieces, scattered across the yard.
[56:55] Speaker 1: Chunks of food were everywhere, rice, carrots, potatoes neared into
[57:00] Speaker 1: the dirt like something had deliberately flung them around. It
[57:05] Speaker 1: looked like someone had picked up the entire pot and
[57:07] Speaker 1: slammed it into the ground over and over. I stood
[57:13] Speaker 1: there a long time, gripping the railing of the porch,
[57:17] Speaker 1: trying to wrap my head around it. A bear would
[57:21] Speaker 1: have eaten the food, even a raccoon would have at
[57:23] Speaker 1: least picked through it. This felt like something had been angry,
[57:28] Speaker 1: like it hadn't been looking for food, but throwing a tantrum.
[57:33] Speaker 1: I swore under my breath and ran a hand through
[57:35] Speaker 1: my hair, feeling annoyance outweigh the unease. I had been careful,
[57:41] Speaker 1: and now I was down an entire meal and a
[57:44] Speaker 1: good cast iron pot. Great, I muttered, bending down to
[57:50] Speaker 1: scoop up some of the mess. For the next hour,
[57:54] Speaker 1: I cleaned up, trying to convince myself it was just
[57:57] Speaker 1: some animal acting weird. I buried the ruined food deep
[58:02] Speaker 1: in the woods, scrubbed the yard down as best I could,
[58:05] Speaker 1: and sat on the porch as the sun sank below
[58:08] Speaker 1: the mountains. I wasn't scared exactly, just annoyed. The whole
[58:15] Speaker 1: thing fell like some bizarre prank, except there was no
[58:18] Speaker 1: one around here but me. Whatever had wrecked my yard,
[58:22] Speaker 1: throwing my food around and smashed my pot had done
[58:25] Speaker 1: it for no good reason, and now I was down
[58:29] Speaker 1: a solid meal and cooking equipment. I sat on the
[58:32] Speaker 1: porch for a while after dark, sipping from my flask,
[58:36] Speaker 1: staring out at the tree line. The night air was cool,
[58:40] Speaker 1: the forest stretching endlessly into blackness beyond the dim glow
[58:44] Speaker 1: of the cabin's lantern. I tried listening for anything. I
[58:51] Speaker 1: laughed dryly, shaking my head. That's when I thought I
[58:56] Speaker 1: spoke into the silence before finally heading into I bolted
[59:02] Speaker 1: the shutters, stoked the fire, and crawled into bed, still
[59:06] Speaker 1: smelling the faint scent of stew on my hands. And
[59:12] Speaker 1: then the noises started. It wasn't loud at first, just
[59:19] Speaker 1: a faint disturbance, something pressing into the earth outside the cabin,
[59:24] Speaker 1: a long, dragging sound. I lay completely still, eyes locked
[59:30] Speaker 1: on the ceiling, heartbeat, picking up another step, then another.
[59:39] Speaker 1: I wasn't just imagining it. Something was walking through my yard.
[59:45] Speaker 1: In all my nights i'd spent here, I had heard
[59:48] Speaker 1: nothing come this close to me. Yet the way of
[59:52] Speaker 1: the footsteps was deep, solid, not a small scavenger, something big.
[1:00:00] Speaker 1: I strained my ears trying to track its movement. It
[1:00:04] Speaker 1: was in the erratic rustling of a hungry animal. It
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: wasn't snuffling through the dirt looking for scraps. It was
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: just walking. I swallowed, forcing myself to stay calm. Of course,
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: it was back. Whatever wrecked my yard last night was
[1:00:25] Speaker 1: properly checking for more food. But there wasn't anything outside
[1:00:28] Speaker 1: this time. I smirked myself, rolling on to my side
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: and pulling the blanket up. Jokes on you. I closed
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: my eyes, listening as the footsteps circled the cabin closer,
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: now a slow, steady crunch of something huge pressing into
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: the soil. Then for a long moment, there was nothing,
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: so I fell asleep. When the sun finally climbed over
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: the mountains, I was itching for answers. I grabbed my boots,
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: stepped outside and just stared for a second. There, pressed
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: deep into the damp soil, were tracks, And first I
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: thought there were hoof prints, maybe from a deer or
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: an elk. But as I crouched down, my stomach tightened.
[1:01:32] Speaker 1: They were massive and wrong, the spacing, the weight distribution.
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: They weren't four legged. Whatever left these tracks had been
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: walking upright a bipedal. I traced my fingers along the
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: edge of one, feeling the way the dirt had been compacted,
[1:01:54] Speaker 1: Picturing the size of the thing that could leave Prince
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: this deep. My head buzzed with static. No, that didn't
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: make sense. I stood up, scanning the yard, following the
[1:02:09] Speaker 1: trail with my eyes. They led from the tree line
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: straight to the porch, and then they stopped, like whatever
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: made them had just disappeared. That night, I didn't even
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: try to sleep. I was done pretending this was normal.
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: Whatever had been com into my cabin wasn't just looking
[1:02:33] Speaker 1: for food. It was looking for me. So I stayed up,
[1:02:41] Speaker 1: killed the fire early, doused myself in scent blocker, and
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: sat in the darkness, knife in hand, waiting for it
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: to come back. On forty three am, the sound was distant,
[1:02:56] Speaker 1: a rhythmic crunch of heavy footsteps pressing into the dirt.
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: I gripped the knife tighter, barely breathing. It was back.
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: The footsteps approached the porch, and then wood groaned under
[1:03:13] Speaker 1: an impossible weight. Something was standing right outside. The floorboards
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: creaked a slow dragging in hail. It was breathing. I
[1:03:26] Speaker 1: could feel the weight of it through the walls, the
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: pressure in the air, like the whole cabin was shrinking
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: around me. I'd planned to peek through the window, maybe
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: even step outside and see what it was, but I
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: wasn't so sure in the moment, because whatever was standing
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: on my porch wasn't a deer or a bear or
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: anything else that belonged in these woods. It sounded huge.
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: I stayed completely still, every muscle lock, gripping the knife
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: as hard as I could. Then, just as suddenly as
[1:04:06] Speaker 1: it had come, it left. The weight pulled away from
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: the porch, the footsteps retreating back toward the trees. But
[1:04:18] Speaker 1: I knew somehow that it wasn't really gone, It was
[1:04:23] Speaker 1: just waiting for the right moment. I didn't sleep. I
[1:04:29] Speaker 1: just sat there in the dark, staring at the door,
[1:04:32] Speaker 1: knowing that I had no way out of these mountains
[1:04:35] Speaker 1: until the guide came back. I should have grabbed my pack,
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: walked until sunrise and never looked back. But I was
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: too afraid of getting lost, so I made a plan.
[1:04:52] Speaker 1: I wouldn't try to fight it, I wouldn't try to
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: see it. I would just hide. The following night, I
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: did everything I could to erase myself. I doused myself
[1:05:04] Speaker 1: in scent blocker, rubbing it deep into my skin, my clothes,
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: my hair. I piled furniture in front of the bedroom door,
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: not that I thought it would help, but it made
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: me feel safer. Then, gripping the only weapon I had,
[1:05:20] Speaker 1: a rusted, hunted knife i'd found in the cabin, I
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: squeezed into the wardrobe and pulled the door shut. I
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: sat in the dark, knees to my chest, breath slow
[1:05:32] Speaker 1: and controlled, and then I waited. This time, it didn't
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: make me wait long, and midnight I heard it. It
[1:05:49] Speaker 1: let out a sound like a hyaena choking on his
[1:05:52] Speaker 1: own laughter, then a loud bang. The door downstairs shattered inward,
[1:06:00] Speaker 1: the whole cabin shaking from the impact. Heavy footsteps, wood splintering,
[1:06:06] Speaker 1: furniture shattering. The thing wasn't searching cautiously anymore. It was
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: tearing through the cabin, breaking things apart. As it moved.
[1:06:17] Speaker 1: A deep sniffing sound filled the air, dragging in heals
[1:06:20] Speaker 1: like a dog trying to catch a scent. I pressed
[1:06:24] Speaker 1: myself deeper into the closet, tightening my grip on the knife.
[1:06:29] Speaker 1: The sniffing stopped for a long moment. There was silence, then,
[1:06:37] Speaker 1: from just outside the bedroom, a heavy creak. It was
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: at the door. I held my breath. I wanted to
[1:06:49] Speaker 1: close my eyes, to squeeze them shut and pretend I
[1:06:52] Speaker 1: wasn't there, but some horrible part of me needed to
[1:06:56] Speaker 1: see it. So I shifted slightly, just enough to peer
[1:07:02] Speaker 1: through the slats in the wardrobe door, and that's when
[1:07:07] Speaker 1: I saw it. It had a dock under the door
[1:07:11] Speaker 1: frame as it stepped inside, tarering easily eight feet tall.
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: Its body was a grotesque mixture of animals, as if
[1:07:19] Speaker 1: something had stitched it together from several different corpses. Its
[1:07:24] Speaker 1: arms were long, ending and disturbingly human like hands, except
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: the fingers were doubled, two sets of knuckles, each twisting
[1:07:34] Speaker 1: and crackling. Its body was covered in thick, matted fur,
[1:07:39] Speaker 1: except for its torso, which was strangely bare, pale, scarred
[1:07:44] Speaker 1: skin stretched tightly over its ribbed cage. A pair of
[1:07:49] Speaker 1: antlers curled from its skull, but they weren't symmetrical. One
[1:07:54] Speaker 1: was twisted, bent at the wrong angles, jotting out unnaturally.
[1:08:00] Speaker 1: Its jaw didn't match its face. The mouth was wide,
[1:08:04] Speaker 1: gaping too far, filled with teeth that didn't seem to
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: fit together. But it didn't seem to have any eyes.
[1:08:13] Speaker 1: Where its eyes should have been, there were only patches
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: of dark, sunken skin. It was safe to assume that
[1:08:21] Speaker 1: it was blind, but that didn't seem to matter. It
[1:08:26] Speaker 1: sniffed the air, turning its massive head in slow jerking movements,
[1:08:31] Speaker 1: its breathing deep and uneven. It knew something was here,
[1:08:38] Speaker 1: and it was angry. It took another step forward, shifting
[1:08:43] Speaker 1: its weight onto the wooden floorboards. The scent blocker was working,
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: but I didn't know if it would be enough. I
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: stayed still, silent, I didn't breathe. For a moment. I
[1:08:58] Speaker 1: thought I was safe. Then it lunged, not toward me,
[1:09:07] Speaker 1: but toward everything else. It roared, slamming its fists into
[1:09:12] Speaker 1: the walls, a catual furious sound frustration, twisting its movements
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: into wild, jerking violence. It ripped through the room, tearing
[1:09:23] Speaker 1: the bed apart, knocking over the dresser. I gritted my teeth,
[1:09:28] Speaker 1: trying not to flinch. Then its hands landed on the claset.
[1:09:34] Speaker 1: My breath hitched, the wardrobe shook. I pressed myself as
[1:09:39] Speaker 1: far back as I could, feeling the rough wooden panels
[1:09:42] Speaker 1: against my spine. The thing sniffed again, growled low in
[1:09:48] Speaker 1: its throat. Then it shoved the clauset over. I crashed
[1:09:54] Speaker 1: through the ground, tangled in wooden fabric, my knife slipping
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: from my fingers. For a single agonizing moment, I thought
[1:10:06] Speaker 1: this is it. But as I lay there, frozen, waiting
[1:10:11] Speaker 1: for teeth and claws and death, I heard it shuffle
[1:10:17] Speaker 1: and then it left. I don't know how long I
[1:10:25] Speaker 1: stayed there, lying in the wreckage, staring at the ceiling,
[1:10:30] Speaker 1: shaking so hard I thought my ribs might crack. Eventually,
[1:10:35] Speaker 1: the sun rose. I was out of the cabin before
[1:10:38] Speaker 1: the sun fully broke over the horizon. No hesitation, no
[1:10:43] Speaker 1: second guessing. I didn't care about my supplies, my food,
[1:10:48] Speaker 1: or the fact that I still had weeks left before
[1:10:50] Speaker 1: the guide was supposed to come back. I just grabbed
[1:10:54] Speaker 1: whatever I could carry, my backpack, a flashlight, a knife,
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: a bottle of water, and I ran. I didn't look back.
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: If I got lost, so be it. It was better
[1:11:08] Speaker 1: than waiting to get killed by whatever that thing was.
[1:11:12] Speaker 1: All I knew was that I couldn't be there. When
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: night fell again, I tried to retrace my steps, following
[1:11:20] Speaker 1: the same path the guide had let me down almost
[1:11:22] Speaker 1: two weeks ago. But the deeper I went into the woods,
[1:11:27] Speaker 1: the more uncertain I became. Everything looked different. The trees
[1:11:35] Speaker 1: felt denser, closer together, the trunks pressing in around me.
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: The light filtering through the leaves felt dimmer than before.
[1:11:44] Speaker 1: I tried to focus, tried to match landmarks in my head,
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: the rock formation I'd passed that on the way in. There,
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: fallen tree. Had it been on my left before or
[1:11:56] Speaker 1: my right? Doubt crept into my mind like rust. The
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: oppressive silence returned, and I thought back to that article
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: i'd read, how the entire forest goes silent when there's
[1:12:09] Speaker 1: a predator around. I wanted to believe it was an animal,
[1:12:14] Speaker 1: a bear, a deer, a goddamn crocodile, if that was
[1:12:18] Speaker 1: even possible, anything, But what I knew it really was.
[1:12:24] Speaker 1: I wiped the sweat off my brow and kept moving.
[1:12:30] Speaker 1: For whatever reason, it never showed itself during daytime. I
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: walked for hours, the sun climbing higher in the sky,
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: my legs burning from the effort, but no matter how
[1:12:43] Speaker 1: far I went, the feeling never left. I was still
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: being followed, not hunted in the way a predator goes
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: after prey. This was different. It was letting me tire out,
[1:12:59] Speaker 1: toying with me. All I saw were more trees and
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: behind me, just at the edge of my hearing that
[1:13:09] Speaker 1: awful sound. One moment, I was forcing my legs forward,
[1:13:14] Speaker 1: dragging my body through the thick forest, lungs burning with exhaustion.
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: The next, pure survival instinct took over. Branches whipped against
[1:13:24] Speaker 1: my arms, roots snatched at my boots. My breath came
[1:13:28] Speaker 1: and went, my vision blurred with sweat, and still the
[1:13:33] Speaker 1: feeling of being followed never left. The sun was lower now,
[1:13:40] Speaker 1: the trees stretching into elongated shadows, and just as I
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: thought I couldn't take another step, I saw it, the
[1:13:50] Speaker 1: break in the trees houses. I stumbled forward, my body
[1:13:57] Speaker 1: moving before my brain could process what I was looking at.
[1:14:02] Speaker 1: A small village, old buildings, wooden storefronts, a few houses
[1:14:07] Speaker 1: tucked between them, a church steeple rising in the distance.
[1:14:12] Speaker 1: It wasn't modern, not a row of houses with mailboxes
[1:14:16] Speaker 1: and street lights. This place felt old, weathered, like it
[1:14:22] Speaker 1: had been sitting here, untouched for decades. I didn't care
[1:14:26] Speaker 1: how strange it was, didn't care how it wasn't on
[1:14:29] Speaker 1: any map I had seen before. All I cared about
[1:14:33] Speaker 1: was that it was civilization. I had made it. I
[1:14:39] Speaker 1: was safe. Relief flooded me so hard I almost collapsed.
[1:14:45] Speaker 1: For the first time in hours, I felt something other
[1:14:48] Speaker 1: than sheer terror. I was out. I turned. I shouldn't have.
[1:14:56] Speaker 1: I should have kept walking, should have run straight into
[1:14:59] Speaker 1: that fiel, screaming for help. And that's when I saw it,
[1:15:06] Speaker 1: standing just beyond the tree line, a figure, motionless. The
[1:15:12] Speaker 1: last light of the sun stretched along across the dirt road,
[1:15:16] Speaker 1: painting the sky in shades of gold and deep violet.
[1:15:20] Speaker 1: And just as the final sliver of daylight dipped below
[1:15:23] Speaker 1: the mountains, it moved slowly. It got down to a
[1:15:28] Speaker 1: crouching position, like he was getting ready to run. The
[1:15:33] Speaker 1: first building I reached looked like an old general store.
[1:15:37] Speaker 1: The wooden sign above the door had long since faded,
[1:15:40] Speaker 1: but I didn't care what it was. I just needed
[1:15:44] Speaker 1: to find someone. I pushed through the door, the bell
[1:15:48] Speaker 1: above jingling as I nearly collapsed Inside. The air was
[1:15:52] Speaker 1: thick with the smell of dust and aged wood, dim
[1:15:55] Speaker 1: lantern light flickering from the walls. A few people stood inside,
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: men in odd work jackets, a woman behind the counter,
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: a boy sitting on the stool near the stove. They
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: all turned at the same time. Their expressions were blank,
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: not surprised or alarmed, but definitely curious. I gasped, trying
[1:16:21] Speaker 1: to catch my breath. My throat felt raw, my lungs burned.
[1:16:27] Speaker 1: I must have looked insane, covered in sweat and dirt,
[1:16:32] Speaker 1: shaking like I just crawled out of a grave. I
[1:16:36] Speaker 1: tried to speak, but my voice cracked. I I need help,
[1:16:42] Speaker 1: I managed, gripping the door frame. Something's out there in
[1:16:47] Speaker 1: the woods. They said nothing. No, what are you talking about? No,
[1:16:56] Speaker 1: slow down, son, No, that sounds crazy. Just silence. Then,
[1:17:04] Speaker 1: after a long pause, the woman behind the counter stepped forward.
[1:17:10] Speaker 1: She didn't even ask what I'd seen. She just looked
[1:17:15] Speaker 1: me dead in the eye and asked, calmly, carefully did
[1:17:23] Speaker 1: it follow you. If you ever end up in the
[1:17:34] Speaker 1: mountains after sundown, be careful, be respectful, and most importantly,
[1:17:41] Speaker 1: don't touch the skulls. The first time someone told me that,
[1:17:46] Speaker 1: I thought there were strange, superstitious folk. I just moved
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: to a little town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, looking
[1:17:53] Speaker 1: for a new start away from the busy cities I
[1:17:55] Speaker 1: lived in for all my life. A house with a
[1:17:58] Speaker 1: forest for a backyard and neighbors a mile or so
[1:18:00] Speaker 1: away sounded perfect at the time. It's what led me
[1:18:04] Speaker 1: to buying the property in the first place. Now I
[1:18:09] Speaker 1: think I regret that decision. Don't get me wrong. The
[1:18:13] Speaker 1: house is nice. It has a few problems, like a
[1:18:16] Speaker 1: creaking porch, and the kitchen's a bit too small for
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: my liking. But it's cute. Quaint is what the realtor
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: kept saying when she showed me the rooms, and I
[1:18:25] Speaker 1: agreed with her, even if it is a little small.
[1:18:29] Speaker 1: The real selling point was the acres of forest that
[1:18:31] Speaker 1: would be considered mine. I remember my first trip to
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: the town at the base of the mountain, a small
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: place where everyone knows each other. Naturally, some weren't sure
[1:18:42] Speaker 1: about me, but most are actually nice. Asking where I
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: grew up, what I did for work. No more questions
[1:18:50] Speaker 1: until the owner of the only grocery store in town,
[1:18:52] Speaker 1: mister Faraday, ask me if I planned on hiking in
[1:18:55] Speaker 1: the forest. Oh yeah, of course, I think, I laughed,
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: as he bagged at my groceries, eyeing me the entire time.
[1:19:05] Speaker 1: Of course, silly question, he agreed as he handed me
[1:19:09] Speaker 1: the bags, then continued, The forest is perfectly safe during
[1:19:12] Speaker 1: the day. Just get home once the sun starts setting.
[1:19:16] Speaker 1: You're asking for trouble with the wildlife, or you get
[1:19:18] Speaker 1: lost if it gets too dark. Anything in particular I
[1:19:22] Speaker 1: should worry about when we get black bears. Sometimes yell
[1:19:26] Speaker 1: at them, though, and they'll run, usually scaredy cats, the
[1:19:30] Speaker 1: lot of them, unless you find a mama moose, foxes,
[1:19:33] Speaker 1: wild boars, wolves. I paused in gathering at my bags
[1:19:38] Speaker 1: and repeated wolves. I thought wolves were extinct here in
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: the appellations. Mister Faraday shrugged and ignore my question, continuing
[1:19:46] Speaker 1: like I hadn't said anything. Be careflower there, always take water.
[1:19:52] Speaker 1: Be respectful. Don't be one of them city folk that
[1:19:54] Speaker 1: makes a mess of the place. See a flower and thing,
[1:19:57] Speaker 1: it's pretty. You take a picture and leave it alone.
[1:20:01] Speaker 1: Here's he enough anything else I should do? I wanted
[1:20:06] Speaker 1: to be nice and not just blow the guy off,
[1:20:08] Speaker 1: even if most of his advice was common sense. Then again,
[1:20:12] Speaker 1: I didn't doubt there had been trouble in the past
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: with some outsiders. It happened all the time of the
[1:20:18] Speaker 1: parks I would go to as a kid, jerks that
[1:20:20] Speaker 1: would come through and leave beer cans or cigarette PUDs everywhere.
[1:20:24] Speaker 1: He met my eyes staring for a second too soon
[1:20:27] Speaker 1: before he replied, if you see sculls or bones, don't
[1:20:33] Speaker 1: touch them. If they're in the way, you go around them.
[1:20:39] Speaker 1: I stared back, feeling uneasy as he suddenly smiled and said,
[1:20:44] Speaker 1: you come back soon. You hear our own specials every
[1:20:47] Speaker 1: week on fresh produice and meat. I should have listened
[1:20:51] Speaker 1: better to him. The first few times I ventured into
[1:20:55] Speaker 1: the forest. He was always in the late morning. There's
[1:20:58] Speaker 1: an old trail behind the house, overgrown but still usable,
[1:21:02] Speaker 1: and use it I did. The forest is beautiful. There
[1:21:07] Speaker 1: are all kinds of song birds and small animals, an
[1:21:09] Speaker 1: interesting plant life to see. I tried going in the
[1:21:12] Speaker 1: morning when it wasn't too hot. I made sure to
[1:21:15] Speaker 1: bring water and wore good hiking boots. Whenever I had
[1:21:18] Speaker 1: time for a walk before work. There is a point
[1:21:21] Speaker 1: in the trail where it branches off in two directions.
[1:21:23] Speaker 1: Then that is the point where I turned back around.
[1:21:26] Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted was to choose the wrong
[1:21:28] Speaker 1: path and end up hopelessly lost or unable to find
[1:21:31] Speaker 1: my way back. Then work changed my schedule, so I
[1:21:35] Speaker 1: started going in a late afternoon. I stared out longer,
[1:21:39] Speaker 1: just getting done with my hike as the sky was
[1:21:41] Speaker 1: bathed in pinks and orange. The sun no longer visible,
[1:21:45] Speaker 1: were giving just enough light. I never noticed anything different
[1:21:49] Speaker 1: between the morning and late afternoon hikes, other than less
[1:21:53] Speaker 1: birds singing. Then small things began to happen, little oddities.
[1:21:59] Speaker 1: There were easy to write off trees that had long
[1:22:02] Speaker 1: scratches down the trunks, the song birds quieting down at
[1:22:05] Speaker 1: the start of my afternoon hikes rather than towards the end.
[1:22:09] Speaker 1: I figured it was from the seasons changing, the night
[1:22:12] Speaker 1: getting longer and days shortening. I had to be quick
[1:22:16] Speaker 1: about my daily routine, only let myself get maybe a
[1:22:19] Speaker 1: mile into the forest before turning around. Even if I
[1:22:22] Speaker 1: didn't believe the townsfolk that had gotten more vocal about
[1:22:25] Speaker 1: being mindful of myself in the woods, I still didn't
[1:22:28] Speaker 1: want to get lost. Then I came across a deer scull.
[1:22:36] Speaker 1: It was in the middle of the path back to
[1:22:38] Speaker 1: my house, bleached and cracked, looking far too old. I
[1:22:43] Speaker 1: looked around the trees to see if anyone was around,
[1:22:46] Speaker 1: because it hadn't been there on my way up to
[1:22:48] Speaker 1: the mountain. I even called out nervous hello and got nothing.
[1:22:56] Speaker 1: The idea of leaving it where I constantly treaded made
[1:22:59] Speaker 1: me sick, so I grabbed a stick and carefully put
[1:23:02] Speaker 1: it through one of the eye sockets. I took a breath,
[1:23:05] Speaker 1: then tossed it off into the trees, watching it as
[1:23:07] Speaker 1: it hit the ground, before dropping the stick and quickly
[1:23:10] Speaker 1: make my way back home. That when the howling started.
[1:23:18] Speaker 1: It woke me up in the dead of night, a long,
[1:23:21] Speaker 1: lone howl off in the distance. I was confused, startled
[1:23:26] Speaker 1: because until that point I had never heard a wolf
[1:23:29] Speaker 1: howl before. That wasn't on TV. I didn't even know
[1:23:33] Speaker 1: if that's what it was. I laid there for a
[1:23:36] Speaker 1: while listening to it, then turn on some music to
[1:23:39] Speaker 1: drown it out and go back to sleep. For a week,
[1:23:42] Speaker 1: I would wake up in a cold sweat, and the
[1:23:44] Speaker 1: wolf would be singing away until I finally started going
[1:23:47] Speaker 1: to sleep with music. I asked about it the next
[1:23:52] Speaker 1: time I went into town, curious if anyone else heard it.
[1:23:56] Speaker 1: Nobody did. Mister Varaday shook his head and said he
[1:24:00] Speaker 1: hadn't heard any noise as he gave me change from
[1:24:02] Speaker 1: my groceries. The pharmacist told me it was probably just
[1:24:06] Speaker 1: a lonely or hurt animal, and I was looking for
[1:24:08] Speaker 1: some sleep aid. Even the waitress of the diner shrugged
[1:24:12] Speaker 1: and said, I haven't heard a thing, honey. Just make
[1:24:14] Speaker 1: sure to keep your doors locked. Always better to be
[1:24:17] Speaker 1: safe than sorry. The next time I went into the forest,
[1:24:22] Speaker 1: I made sure it was right after work so I
[1:24:25] Speaker 1: could enjoy a nice long stroll. The trees with the
[1:24:28] Speaker 1: scratches were closer to my home, but I shrugged it off,
[1:24:32] Speaker 1: figuring it was a bear or a moose. I did
[1:24:35] Speaker 1: my usual circuit, followed the trail until I got to
[1:24:38] Speaker 1: wear it branches off, and took a minor break, sitting
[1:24:41] Speaker 1: on a fallen tree to drink some water. As I
[1:24:45] Speaker 1: got up to start my way down, I noticed that
[1:24:48] Speaker 1: the forest had become quiet. I felt nervous. Glancing around
[1:24:52] Speaker 1: to look for a reason, like a bear stalking about,
[1:24:55] Speaker 1: but found nothing. At that point, I quickly headed back
[1:25:00] Speaker 1: home and nearly tripped over another skull, a moose schul
[1:25:05] Speaker 1: going off. The huge antlers still attached to the white bone,
[1:25:08] Speaker 1: perfectly preserved and staring in my direction. I looked around,
[1:25:13] Speaker 1: wanting to find out who was messing with me, but
[1:25:16] Speaker 1: I couldn't see anything but the trees and lush ferns.
[1:25:20] Speaker 1: I thought about picking it up and throwing it to
[1:25:22] Speaker 1: the side, but I took a deep breath and walked
[1:25:25] Speaker 1: around it, then began running back home. It appeared two
[1:25:30] Speaker 1: more times before I had had enough. On the third time,
[1:25:34] Speaker 1: I picked it up and threw it into the trees.
[1:25:38] Speaker 1: I didn't stay to watch where it landed, and the
[1:25:40] Speaker 1: moment I got home, I slammed the door and locked
[1:25:43] Speaker 1: up everything. I was shaking trembling in my kitchen after
[1:25:48] Speaker 1: locking the back door and dared to look out the window.
[1:25:53] Speaker 1: I didn't see anything, but I felt like something was
[1:25:57] Speaker 1: watching me. Howl didn't wake me up that night. The
[1:26:03] Speaker 1: sound of my porch creaking did. The groaning of wood
[1:26:07] Speaker 1: had my eyes snapping open as my heart leaped into
[1:26:10] Speaker 1: my throat. I laid in bed, unable to move, when
[1:26:14] Speaker 1: I heard a low growl near my window. The curtain
[1:26:17] Speaker 1: was drawn so I couldn't see outside, but I could
[1:26:20] Speaker 1: hear whatever it was. The sound was that of an animal,
[1:26:24] Speaker 1: but something didn't quite sound right. I tried to put
[1:26:29] Speaker 1: my finger on it. When the growling stopped for a second,
[1:26:32] Speaker 1: then a howl will rattled my windows and my bones.
[1:26:36] Speaker 1: I rushed to my bathroom, the only place in the
[1:26:39] Speaker 1: house that had no windows, and slammed the door shut.
[1:26:42] Speaker 1: Curling up in the bathtub, I didn't move until my
[1:26:46] Speaker 1: alarm rang as seven and the sun was shining through
[1:26:49] Speaker 1: the curtains. It kept happening every night. The porch would creak,
[1:26:57] Speaker 1: the growling would begin, then finally the how that lasted
[1:27:00] Speaker 1: until the sun came up. I had enough by the
[1:27:04] Speaker 1: fourth or fifth night and drove back to town, functioning
[1:27:07] Speaker 1: on a cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and caffeine. I had
[1:27:11] Speaker 1: to wait for the store to open, but the moment
[1:27:13] Speaker 1: it did, I sought out mister Faraday, who was stocking
[1:27:16] Speaker 1: some items on the shelves. He glanced at me and said,
[1:27:22] Speaker 1: you look like hell. If you need help sleeping, you
[1:27:25] Speaker 1: should see a doctor. Something keep showing up at my house.
[1:27:29] Speaker 1: I think it's that wolf I was telling you about.
[1:27:34] Speaker 1: He froze a slight tremor in his fingers before he turned,
[1:27:38] Speaker 1: calling Sarah, mind the front, I'll be back. He didn't
[1:27:44] Speaker 1: wait for a reply and instead headed to the back
[1:27:47] Speaker 1: of the store, motioning for me to come along. I
[1:27:51] Speaker 1: did so, following him through the door that led outside.
[1:27:55] Speaker 1: Once out in the two sunny morning, he lit a
[1:27:57] Speaker 1: cigarette and sighed, I told you to mind the bones.
[1:28:04] Speaker 1: I broke down at the point, lack of sleep leaving
[1:28:07] Speaker 1: me without a filter. It kept showing up. I ignored
[1:28:10] Speaker 1: it the first time, and it kept getting in my way.
[1:28:13] Speaker 1: What was it? At Moose schul there was another school
[1:28:17] Speaker 1: two weeks ago. It was a deer, but I moved
[1:28:20] Speaker 1: that with a stick a shake of the head. Still,
[1:28:24] Speaker 1: count son, what happened after you moved the deer? I admitted.
[1:28:30] Speaker 1: That's when the howling first started, but it was far
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: from the distance, easy to ignore something that had him
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: frowning but not interrupting until I finally asked, it's not
[1:28:43] Speaker 1: a wolf, is it? Mister Faraday looked at me for
[1:28:47] Speaker 1: a long time, then stubbed out the cigarette before reaching
[1:28:51] Speaker 1: for another one. I told you what not to do,
[1:28:54] Speaker 1: and yet you did it. Now you've got a mess
[1:28:57] Speaker 1: to deal with in my mouth so ready to demand.
[1:29:01] Speaker 1: He answered my question, but he kept going. Now listen here,
[1:29:06] Speaker 1: and you listen. You're going to buy some meat, the reddest,
[1:29:10] Speaker 1: bloodiest meat I have. Then go home and put it
[1:29:13] Speaker 1: in the fridge. When the sun is setting, You're going
[1:29:16] Speaker 1: to go into that forest with the meat and put
[1:29:18] Speaker 1: it on the path. The minute you do that, you
[1:29:22] Speaker 1: turn tail and run home. You don't look back, no
[1:29:26] Speaker 1: matter what sounds you hear or feeling you get. You
[1:29:29] Speaker 1: run and lock up tight, and it'll just go away,
[1:29:37] Speaker 1: just like that, I asked, feeling a tiny bit hopeful.
[1:29:42] Speaker 1: The next words, dash those hopes away. Nothing is guaranteed, son,
[1:29:48] Speaker 1: This is you trying to make amends. It doesn't mean
[1:29:50] Speaker 1: you'll be forgiven. Anger boiled in me, and I snapped
[1:29:55] Speaker 1: at him. I didn't even do anything. He shook his
[1:30:01] Speaker 1: head with a small frown and said, you showed disrespect
[1:30:05] Speaker 1: and acknowledged them. That's enough in a place like this.
[1:30:10] Speaker 1: I opened my mouth, but he brushed past me and asked,
[1:30:12] Speaker 1: you're gonna buy the meat or what? I ended up
[1:30:16] Speaker 1: doing so. I didn't know what else to do, and
[1:30:21] Speaker 1: figured why not just go along with it. I couldn't
[1:30:25] Speaker 1: explain anything else, so why not try to make amends.
[1:30:29] Speaker 1: I bought the bloodiest steaks I could and drove back
[1:30:31] Speaker 1: home in a daze. I set an alarm to ring
[1:30:34] Speaker 1: just before sundown and crashed my couch. Until then. It
[1:30:39] Speaker 1: was surreal walking out to the trail as the sun
[1:30:42] Speaker 1: began its descent, I noticed that more and more trees
[1:30:46] Speaker 1: had the strange scratches on them, and shuddered at the
[1:30:48] Speaker 1: idea of something or many somethings being so close to
[1:30:52] Speaker 1: the house. I walked about ten minutes of the path
[1:30:56] Speaker 1: before laying out the stakes. It was this disgusting the
[1:31:01] Speaker 1: blood collecting on the brown butcher paper, but I piled
[1:31:05] Speaker 1: them up, then looked around. I couldn't see anything, just
[1:31:09] Speaker 1: the usual trees, and decided to head back home. I
[1:31:13] Speaker 1: took a handful of steps when I heard it, a
[1:31:18] Speaker 1: low growling from behind me that had the hairs on
[1:31:21] Speaker 1: the back of my neck standing up. Heavy thumping followed
[1:31:25] Speaker 1: the growling, getting closer and closer and breaking me out
[1:31:29] Speaker 1: of my stupor. I got my feet moving again and
[1:31:32] Speaker 1: headed back to the house as the sound of teeth
[1:31:34] Speaker 1: ripping into raw meat met my ears. Once I was
[1:31:38] Speaker 1: at the end of the path, my home in sight,
[1:31:41] Speaker 1: I dared to turn my head before I ran back
[1:31:43] Speaker 1: to the house, scrambling up the porch and barely slamming
[1:31:47] Speaker 1: the door shut in time. It had been right behind me,
[1:31:51] Speaker 1: following like an obedient dog, Only it wasn't a dog,
[1:31:58] Speaker 1: not even a wolf. I had to braced myself against
[1:32:01] Speaker 1: the door as it slammed into the wood, growling and grunting.
[1:32:05] Speaker 1: I managed to lock it just barely before rushing to
[1:32:08] Speaker 1: the front door to make sure it was locked. As
[1:32:10] Speaker 1: swell it nearly beat me. I hit the door just
[1:32:14] Speaker 1: as it started to open and pushed my entire body
[1:32:16] Speaker 1: weight against it. It was barely enough to keep it out.
[1:32:20] Speaker 1: As I flicked the lock. I stumbled back, shaking and panting,
[1:32:25] Speaker 1: staring at the door as the growling began all over again.
[1:32:28] Speaker 1: This time, I followed it to the back porch and
[1:32:31] Speaker 1: peered through the window. It walked on fore legs, fingers
[1:32:36] Speaker 1: splayed out with long claws for nails, and covered in
[1:32:39] Speaker 1: black fur in some places, pale human skin in others.
[1:32:43] Speaker 1: As it walked the back legs bent unnaturally and made
[1:32:46] Speaker 1: a horrific snapping noise, the bones visible through the skin
[1:32:50] Speaker 1: and twisting with every movement. The head is the most disturbing.
[1:32:55] Speaker 1: A blooded muzzle that stretched out too much for a wolf,
[1:32:59] Speaker 1: eyes glowing red, and can open the mouth far too wide.
[1:33:03] Speaker 1: The bangs were all black and red, with blood too long,
[1:33:07] Speaker 1: too curved. When it closes its jaw, blood oozed out.
[1:33:12] Speaker 1: I stared at it, and it stared at me before
[1:33:15] Speaker 1: the lips peeled back into a sort of demented smile,
[1:33:19] Speaker 1: the growling stopping, and instead a new sound started, A sharp,
[1:33:24] Speaker 1: high pitched laugh human almost filled the air. I shivered,
[1:33:29] Speaker 1: ready to shut the curtains, when I heard more laughter,
[1:33:34] Speaker 1: and looked beyond it and froze with a sight of
[1:33:37] Speaker 1: more pairs of red eyes out in the forest. The
[1:33:40] Speaker 1: heckling grew in volume, echoing until it's all I heard.
[1:33:46] Speaker 1: Even now I still hear it. I hid in the
[1:33:51] Speaker 1: bathroom again, feeling like a child, and praying that my
[1:33:55] Speaker 1: doors and windows would hold. Once the sun came up
[1:33:58] Speaker 1: and I mustered up enough courage to get to my car,
[1:34:01] Speaker 1: I found dozens and dozens of skulls on my porch,
[1:34:04] Speaker 1: all different shapes and sizes, some bleached white, others black
[1:34:08] Speaker 1: with decay, some red, and others laying in pols of blood.
[1:34:14] Speaker 1: One of them was human. I wanted to run to
[1:34:18] Speaker 1: the car all those through the bones, but instead I
[1:34:22] Speaker 1: forced myself to carefully step over each and every one
[1:34:25] Speaker 1: of them. Once I got back into town, I sought
[1:34:28] Speaker 1: out mister Faraday. He listened quietly to my account, looking
[1:34:32] Speaker 1: disappointed and annoyed by the time I was done, and said,
[1:34:36] Speaker 1: I told you not to look now. You really made
[1:34:40] Speaker 1: a mess, not just for you, but for everyone. My
[1:34:45] Speaker 1: blood ran cold, and I asked, what do you mean
[1:34:49] Speaker 1: everyone heard them last night's son because of yours screw up.
[1:34:54] Speaker 1: He closed his eyes and knit a cigarette, even though
[1:34:56] Speaker 1: he stood in the paper good style. If I just leave,
[1:35:01] Speaker 1: just go back to where it came from. He shook
[1:35:05] Speaker 1: his head and flicked the ashes onto the ground, uncaring
[1:35:08] Speaker 1: of where they ended up. Then what what do I do?
[1:35:12] Speaker 1: You're going to clean up your mess. A hunting party
[1:35:16] Speaker 1: is gathering at the diner at sundown. You better be there.
[1:35:21] Speaker 1: I asked if you really thought they could be killed,
[1:35:23] Speaker 1: if it was possible, and he waved his hand and said,
[1:35:27] Speaker 1: we've done it before. Son, You're not the first one
[1:35:29] Speaker 1: to not listen. You won't be the last. But you
[1:35:33] Speaker 1: made the trouble. You better be ready to help get
[1:35:36] Speaker 1: rid of it. I swallowed hesitating, then dared to ask,
[1:35:43] Speaker 1: do people not come back from hunting all the time?
[1:35:50] Speaker 1: This time won't be any different, sundown, son, or will
[1:35:54] Speaker 1: not just be hunting them, but you too. We gathered
[1:36:00] Speaker 1: the diner and I've been given a shotgun and a
[1:36:02] Speaker 1: crash course on how to use it, shown how to
[1:36:04] Speaker 1: load it, told what not to do, and what to
[1:36:07] Speaker 1: watch out for. According to mister Faraday, who was around
[1:36:11] Speaker 1: for the last purge, the wolves of the Appellations is
[1:36:14] Speaker 1: what they call them. He's sticking close to me, he says.
[1:36:18] Speaker 1: Having a body nearby is important. It's say for this way.
[1:36:23] Speaker 1: The wolves like to drag people into the forest or
[1:36:25] Speaker 1: decapitate the victims. They collect their skulls, the bullets. I
[1:36:31] Speaker 1: have a supposed to be special blessed by the priest
[1:36:34] Speaker 1: and bathe in holy water, USTs something like that. I've
[1:36:39] Speaker 1: never hunted before. That's why I'm leaving this account in
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: case I don't come back. Hunting accidents happen all the time.
[1:36:49] Speaker 1: That's what the townsfolk will say if anyone comes asking
[1:36:51] Speaker 1: about me, or anyone that doesn't come back. The sun
[1:36:56] Speaker 1: hasn't said yet, given us time to prepare, and the
[1:36:59] Speaker 1: priest time to bless every polity can. But we can
[1:37:05] Speaker 1: hear them already, the wolves laughing again. It was just
[1:37:23] Speaker 1: another normal walk, And so it started anyway, a casual
[1:37:28] Speaker 1: morning stroll on the forested trail that ran behind my
[1:37:30] Speaker 1: parents' house. They owned a home and a couple acres
[1:37:34] Speaker 1: in the small town of Skyline, Alabama. At the time,
[1:37:38] Speaker 1: I was in between jobs and had been living with
[1:37:41] Speaker 1: them as I tried to get back on my feet.
[1:37:44] Speaker 1: Their property intersex with a winding trail that ran for
[1:37:48] Speaker 1: miles through some unkempt woods in the boonies. In the mornings,
[1:37:53] Speaker 1: the Appalachian hills would come alive with the songs of
[1:37:55] Speaker 1: birds and fluttering insects. The crimson sunrise would paint a
[1:37:59] Speaker 1: beauty portrait as it filtered down through the bristling leaves
[1:38:03] Speaker 1: of aspen and spruce trees. There was something about that
[1:38:06] Speaker 1: place that just made me feel at peace. It was
[1:38:10] Speaker 1: like all the stress and anxiety of modern day worries
[1:38:14] Speaker 1: just faded away. It was my zen place until the
[1:38:19] Speaker 1: day it was shattered forever. The day it happened, I
[1:38:25] Speaker 1: woke up a bit before dawn, had my coffee, and
[1:38:28] Speaker 1: went out for an early morning walk. The sun had
[1:38:32] Speaker 1: just begun to creep over the horizon when I left
[1:38:34] Speaker 1: the house. I hadn't planned on being gone any longer
[1:38:38] Speaker 1: than an hour, and had only been walking about fifteen
[1:38:41] Speaker 1: minutes when I noticed something strange. The path around me
[1:38:47] Speaker 1: was oddly silent, with the only noise coming from the
[1:38:51] Speaker 1: sounds of my own footsteps against the gravel. The usual
[1:38:55] Speaker 1: sounds of woodland creatures or wind gently rustling the trees
[1:38:59] Speaker 1: were absent. Everything was just completely silent. It didn't really
[1:39:05] Speaker 1: bother me at first, but the longer it went on,
[1:39:08] Speaker 1: the stranger it seemed. I finally stopped to try and
[1:39:13] Speaker 1: determine whether it was some auditory illusion of some kind.
[1:39:17] Speaker 1: I listened for any of the usual sounds, cars on
[1:39:21] Speaker 1: the highway a few miles out, lawnmower was fired up
[1:39:24] Speaker 1: by the neighbors, or just any noise at all, but
[1:39:29] Speaker 1: there was nothing, just silence. All of a sudden, I
[1:39:35] Speaker 1: began to feel light headed. My vision started swimming, and
[1:39:39] Speaker 1: my knees wabbled beneath me. The hairs of my arms
[1:39:43] Speaker 1: stood an end, and a cold sweat dampened my brow.
[1:39:47] Speaker 1: I didn't understand what was happening, but in seconds I
[1:39:52] Speaker 1: was struggling just to remain standing. Panics struck hard, and
[1:39:57] Speaker 1: I desperately reached for my phone, think king I was
[1:40:00] Speaker 1: having a medical emergency. I never managed to reach it,
[1:40:05] Speaker 1: and I just seemed to lose all control of my
[1:40:07] Speaker 1: body and fall face first to the ground. I still
[1:40:13] Speaker 1: don't know exactly what happened, but it must have been
[1:40:17] Speaker 1: a seizure or a fainting spell of some kind. What
[1:40:20] Speaker 1: I do know is that when I finally came to
[1:40:23] Speaker 1: I wasn't where I was before. The environment was pitch
[1:40:29] Speaker 1: black and suddenly cold. Only when I struggled and felt
[1:40:34] Speaker 1: my knee knock into something solid did I realize I
[1:40:37] Speaker 1: was awake. The sudden jolt struck right on the funny bone,
[1:40:41] Speaker 1: caused me to WinCE in pain. I tried to reach
[1:40:45] Speaker 1: my hand out to rub the aching nerve, but found
[1:40:48] Speaker 1: I couldn't. There was something restricting my movement, something cold
[1:40:54] Speaker 1: and covered in a sticky substance. My whole body was
[1:40:58] Speaker 1: pinned vertically again. The wall. Thankfully, the bines were not
[1:41:03] Speaker 1: entirely restrictive, and I managed to finagle the cell phone
[1:41:06] Speaker 1: out of my pocket. I flipped it open and the
[1:41:10] Speaker 1: light glowed in the dark. It wasn't much, but it
[1:41:14] Speaker 1: was enough for me to see where I was that
[1:41:17] Speaker 1: when the true dread set in. As far as I
[1:41:23] Speaker 1: could tell, I was in some sort of underground tunnel.
[1:41:28] Speaker 1: The blinds that restricted me looked almost like the roots
[1:41:31] Speaker 1: of trees. They felt different, though, more like dried mud
[1:41:35] Speaker 1: than plant. They were grayish in color and coated with
[1:41:39] Speaker 1: random splotches of this greenish black goo. It was sticky
[1:41:44] Speaker 1: like tree sap, and hung in gobs of tendrils from
[1:41:47] Speaker 1: all over that smelled truly foul. I almost had a
[1:41:51] Speaker 1: panic attack in that moment, as I realized I had
[1:41:54] Speaker 1: absolutely no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there.
[1:42:00] Speaker 1: My initial thoughts was that there was some weird cave
[1:42:03] Speaker 1: in or earthquake which somehow led me to ended up
[1:42:06] Speaker 1: where I did. I shined my phone up at the ceiling,
[1:42:09] Speaker 1: but saw only the rigid outline of the rocky walls,
[1:42:14] Speaker 1: no feisure or gaps I could have slid through, and
[1:42:17] Speaker 1: thus that potential explanation died a quick, unceremonious death. My
[1:42:24] Speaker 1: next thought was that I had been abducted by someone.
[1:42:27] Speaker 1: I thought about yelling for help, but if that were true,
[1:42:31] Speaker 1: then I doubted they would be likely to come to
[1:42:33] Speaker 1: my aid. I realized an explanation in that moment was
[1:42:37] Speaker 1: not nearly as important as actually getting out. I wiggled
[1:42:42] Speaker 1: back and forth a bit. It was clear that wasn't
[1:42:45] Speaker 1: going to be enough to escape. I shined the phone
[1:42:48] Speaker 1: around the corridor, using what space lighting it provided to
[1:42:52] Speaker 1: try and formulate a plan. I caught a break when
[1:42:55] Speaker 1: the light gleamed off some shining metallic object only a
[1:42:58] Speaker 1: few feet to my right. It was too far for
[1:43:02] Speaker 1: my hand to reach, and so I extended my right
[1:43:04] Speaker 1: foot out as much as I could. After struggling for
[1:43:08] Speaker 1: a few minutes, I finally managed to dig my heel
[1:43:11] Speaker 1: down on top of it and drag it back towards me.
[1:43:14] Speaker 1: I then managed to press it against the wall and
[1:43:16] Speaker 1: move it vertically so I could reach it with my hand.
[1:43:20] Speaker 1: It was some sort of bent iron rod. I don't
[1:43:25] Speaker 1: know how it had possibly gotten down there, but I
[1:43:29] Speaker 1: was none the less happy it had After slowly wedging
[1:43:32] Speaker 1: it into one of the ruts I managed to push
[1:43:35] Speaker 1: outward and cause it to crack. The roots or whatever
[1:43:39] Speaker 1: they were crumbled with relative ease. A few of them
[1:43:43] Speaker 1: broke away, and within a couple moments I managed to
[1:43:46] Speaker 1: push my arm free. Soon after, I managed to slide
[1:43:50] Speaker 1: my entire body up and out of the hole I
[1:43:53] Speaker 1: had created somehow. It was only then that I remembered
[1:43:57] Speaker 1: my phone was good for something besides shining crap light.
[1:44:01] Speaker 1: I dialed nine one one, but to no surprise, the
[1:44:05] Speaker 1: call didn't go through. That seemed another confirmation that I
[1:44:10] Speaker 1: was somewhere underground, but I had no way of telling
[1:44:13] Speaker 1: how deep. I realized then that in all likelihood, no
[1:44:18] Speaker 1: one was coming to find me. The time on my
[1:44:23] Speaker 1: phone read eleven forty eight a m. Meaning I'd been
[1:44:27] Speaker 1: out called for nearly six hours. I had most of
[1:44:30] Speaker 1: the same clothes on, a pair of tan cargo shorts
[1:44:33] Speaker 1: and my running shoes. The only thing missing was my
[1:44:36] Speaker 1: Crimson Alabama University Hoddy. After looking around, I saw no
[1:44:42] Speaker 1: sign of it. The air felt chilly and stagnant, and
[1:44:46] Speaker 1: I shuddered as I rubbed the goose bumps of my
[1:44:48] Speaker 1: exposed arms. Other than my thin layer of clothing I
[1:44:53] Speaker 1: also had my phone, leather multitool, keys, a back of
[1:44:56] Speaker 1: gum and chapstick. Not exactly a Wilderness of val experts
[1:45:00] Speaker 1: emergency pack. The corridor was unnervingly silent, devoid of any
[1:45:06] Speaker 1: cave ambience, now howling wind, leaking in cracks, or distant
[1:45:11] Speaker 1: drips of water, just silence, intrusive and all consuming. I
[1:45:18] Speaker 1: started to walk, squinting to try and maximize my ocular
[1:45:21] Speaker 1: reception under the mineral light of my cell phone. Each
[1:45:26] Speaker 1: footstep I took, I did so with the utmost caution
[1:45:29] Speaker 1: I was capable. It felt as though every sense in
[1:45:33] Speaker 1: my body had been hypercharged from the onset of adrenaline
[1:45:37] Speaker 1: and confusion. Before leaving the area, I had one last
[1:45:41] Speaker 1: look back at the root system that had formerly imprisoned me.
[1:45:45] Speaker 1: The thought struck me then, as I observed it from
[1:45:48] Speaker 1: further away, it almost looked like some sort of primitive cage.
[1:45:56] Speaker 1: The tunnel stretched on for dozens of yards. Along the
[1:46:00] Speaker 1: I started finding tufts of what appeared to be dried
[1:46:03] Speaker 1: grass and straw randomly strewn about. Beyond that, the tunnel
[1:46:08] Speaker 1: came to a bend to the left, and the trail
[1:46:10] Speaker 1: of grass continued towards it. Once around the corner, my
[1:46:14] Speaker 1: eyes were met with the sight of an open cavern.
[1:46:18] Speaker 1: In the waning light of my flip phone, it was
[1:46:20] Speaker 1: difficult to tell, but it was clearly of much greater
[1:46:23] Speaker 1: volume than the previous tunnel. In front of me was
[1:46:27] Speaker 1: a large pile of sticks and dried grass, similar to
[1:46:30] Speaker 1: that I'd seen earlier. Beyond that, the walls came to
[1:46:34] Speaker 1: a sort of arch that briefly narrowed two dozen yards
[1:46:37] Speaker 1: ahead of me before seeming to expand out again in
[1:46:40] Speaker 1: the next chamber. On top of the stone arch was
[1:46:44] Speaker 1: a structure almost resembling a natural limestone bridge that seemed
[1:46:48] Speaker 1: to connect two separate ledges some thirty feet above me.
[1:46:53] Speaker 1: Above that, there appeared to be another open space, but
[1:46:57] Speaker 1: once again my lack of proficient lighting made it difficult
[1:47:01] Speaker 1: to tell. I tiptoed into the first section of the cave,
[1:47:05] Speaker 1: keeping my head on a swivel. I reached the pile
[1:47:09] Speaker 1: of debris and decided to dig within it to see
[1:47:12] Speaker 1: if there was anything useful. After finding a long stick
[1:47:15] Speaker 1: a moment later, an idea blossomed in my mind. I
[1:47:20] Speaker 1: collected a few twigs and cut a long vertical strip
[1:47:23] Speaker 1: off my belt with my pocket knife. I then removed
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: both of my boots and socks, fashioned the socks into
[1:47:30] Speaker 1: a sort of pouch, stuffed them with grass and twigs,
[1:47:33] Speaker 1: and slipped it over the end of the stick. Once
[1:47:36] Speaker 1: it seemed suitable enough, I took out my pack of
[1:47:39] Speaker 1: gum popped a piece in while cutting the wrapper in
[1:47:41] Speaker 1: a way to make it one long strand of foil.
[1:47:44] Speaker 1: I bunched the foil into a cluster and popped the
[1:47:47] Speaker 1: battery out of my cell phone. I placed the torch
[1:47:50] Speaker 1: end in the pile of brush, then moved the foil
[1:47:53] Speaker 1: cluster beneath it carefully. I took the two ends of
[1:47:57] Speaker 1: the striped foil and pressed one into each of the
[1:48:00] Speaker 1: battery's terminals. In seconds, the strand began to smoke and
[1:48:05] Speaker 1: then burst into a small flame in the brush. The
[1:48:08] Speaker 1: flame tucked to the dry grass quickly, and I watched
[1:48:11] Speaker 1: the crimson hue dance along the pile. Thank you, boy, Scouts.
[1:48:16] Speaker 1: I don't know what I would have done without that
[1:48:18] Speaker 1: little trick. The second later, my makeshift torch ignited. The
[1:48:23] Speaker 1: flame grew stronger, penetrating further into the shadowy canopy around me.
[1:48:29] Speaker 1: The panic in my mind diminished ever so slightly as
[1:48:32] Speaker 1: the orange glow of the torch painted an encouraging trail
[1:48:35] Speaker 1: through the dark. As I turned to my left, my
[1:48:38] Speaker 1: torch glinted off of something upon the cave wall that
[1:48:41] Speaker 1: caught my eye. I thought for sure I'd seen it wrong,
[1:48:47] Speaker 1: but as it got closer, a series of distant shapes
[1:48:50] Speaker 1: came into view and the porous gray rock about four
[1:48:54] Speaker 1: feet off the ground were a series of cave paintings.
[1:48:58] Speaker 1: They started low and spread for at least a dozen
[1:49:01] Speaker 1: of feet up the side of the wall. There were
[1:49:05] Speaker 1: all sorts of things depicted. Most were little more than
[1:49:08] Speaker 1: scrawny stick figure drawings of people, but there were a
[1:49:11] Speaker 1: few of animals as well. One scene that stood out
[1:49:15] Speaker 1: from the others. Three tall figures were drawn above a
[1:49:19] Speaker 1: horizon line, and three shorter ones were drawn down below it.
[1:49:24] Speaker 1: The way the scene was centered on the wall made
[1:49:26] Speaker 1: it seem significant, but I didn't understand why the torch
[1:49:32] Speaker 1: was burning quickly, so I maneuvered forward into the large
[1:49:35] Speaker 1: open chamber beyond the archway. The wallen column above the
[1:49:39] Speaker 1: arch appeared to bridge the gap between two rising ledges
[1:49:43] Speaker 1: about thirty feet up. The way it was wedged made
[1:49:47] Speaker 1: it look like it was done so intentionally, like someone
[1:49:51] Speaker 1: carved it out of the rock. The roof of the
[1:49:54] Speaker 1: cavern beyond the structure appeared to curl upward, and I
[1:49:57] Speaker 1: wondered whether there was more to see. I stepped beyond
[1:50:01] Speaker 1: it and felt my jaw nearly hit the floor. As
[1:50:05] Speaker 1: I got my answer, the room beyond the arch transitioned
[1:50:11] Speaker 1: abruptly into an absolutely colossal chamber that appeared to extend
[1:50:16] Speaker 1: upward for at least several hundred feet. Suddenly it was
[1:50:20] Speaker 1: bright enough to see without the touch, and I knew
[1:50:23] Speaker 1: that meant light had to be filtering in from somewhere
[1:50:26] Speaker 1: at the top. That realization provided hope, but also disbelief.
[1:50:34] Speaker 1: How far underground was I The chamber branched out at
[1:50:39] Speaker 1: various points into countless winding passages, and pieces of rock
[1:50:44] Speaker 1: ran overhead as makeshift bridges, looking like enormous veins in
[1:50:49] Speaker 1: a massive stone organ. In the center was a massive
[1:50:53] Speaker 1: center spire of rock that seemed to stretch all the
[1:50:56] Speaker 1: way to the top. Many of the veins were connect
[1:51:00] Speaker 1: to it, making it seem like a sort of central anchor.
[1:51:04] Speaker 1: Something then suddenly moved a couple hundred feet up. I
[1:51:08] Speaker 1: didn't see what it was, but I heard pebbles shovel
[1:51:11] Speaker 1: and plunge from above. They hit the ground with thunderous clanks,
[1:51:16] Speaker 1: sounding like popcorn popping for a megaphone. Not knowing what
[1:51:21] Speaker 1: caused it, and not exactly yearning to find out, I
[1:51:25] Speaker 1: dugged back underneath the arch. I waited there for a
[1:51:28] Speaker 1: minute or so, but didn't hear any further noise. It
[1:51:32] Speaker 1: was clear then that I wasn't alone down there, and
[1:51:37] Speaker 1: metallically and shone that caught my attention from the brush
[1:51:40] Speaker 1: pile in front of me. After looking closer, I recognized
[1:51:44] Speaker 1: the distant shape of a long barrel jutting from underneath
[1:51:48] Speaker 1: the pile. Part of me couldn't even believe what I
[1:51:52] Speaker 1: was seeing, but as it got nearer and pulled it out,
[1:51:57] Speaker 1: things just got even stranger. It was a musket, old
[1:52:04] Speaker 1: school flintlock, kind like the one from the Manifest Destiny era.
[1:52:10] Speaker 1: It was in poor condition and obviously wouldn't be suitable
[1:52:13] Speaker 1: for self defense, except maybe a vulgar club, but that
[1:52:17] Speaker 1: wasn't what held my attention. If it was authentic, and
[1:52:22] Speaker 1: judging from the events rushed and the hide, it seemed
[1:52:25] Speaker 1: like it could have been, then it had to have
[1:52:27] Speaker 1: been nearly two hundred years old. After digging around for
[1:52:32] Speaker 1: a few more moments, I quickly stumbled upon other treasures,
[1:52:36] Speaker 1: an old leather belt and added a sneaker, a broken
[1:52:39] Speaker 1: machette and knapsack, and finally her bone. I dropped it
[1:52:45] Speaker 1: as soon as I realized what it was that I
[1:52:47] Speaker 1: was holding. It looked like a large thigh bone of
[1:52:50] Speaker 1: an animal, probably a horse or a moose, and extremely
[1:52:55] Speaker 1: worrying thought then into my head, one which sprauted goose
[1:52:58] Speaker 1: bumps along my arms. I glanced around at the environment,
[1:53:03] Speaker 1: seeing the large gathered pile of sticks and other things.
[1:53:06] Speaker 1: The way the bundles were arranged made it almost look
[1:53:09] Speaker 1: like it was some kind of nest. Even then, it
[1:53:14] Speaker 1: seemed like a ridiculous notion. The pile was at least
[1:53:18] Speaker 1: thirty feet in diameter. There's no creature on Earth that
[1:53:22] Speaker 1: makes a nest that big, at least not that I
[1:53:25] Speaker 1: know of. I couldn't calm my nerves after that thought,
[1:53:29] Speaker 1: and decided to just continue trying to move upwards and
[1:53:32] Speaker 1: reach the top and more importantly, the light. Once past
[1:53:37] Speaker 1: the pile, I found myself faced with this series of
[1:53:40] Speaker 1: three branching tunnels. One of them appeared to slope downward,
[1:53:44] Speaker 1: and after a moment of contemplation, I decided to just
[1:53:47] Speaker 1: take the one on the far left that veered up.
[1:53:51] Speaker 1: My torch began to dim, and I did everything I
[1:53:54] Speaker 1: could to maintain the flame for as long as possible.
[1:53:58] Speaker 1: My pocket soon began to run drive, and the cave
[1:54:01] Speaker 1: once again grew dark. After a couple more seconds, it
[1:54:05] Speaker 1: was a little more than smoldering ashes. Once again, I
[1:54:09] Speaker 1: found myself alone in the dark. I grabbed the cell
[1:54:14] Speaker 1: phone from my pocket and silently debated whether or not
[1:54:17] Speaker 1: to go back for more fuel. An aw or stench
[1:54:21] Speaker 1: then accosted my nostrils, like the malaise of a polluted
[1:54:24] Speaker 1: rolling tide. It smelled like sewage and rotten eggs. The
[1:54:29] Speaker 1: scent became so overwhelming that I found my eyes begin
[1:54:32] Speaker 1: to water and by all climb in my throat. Along
[1:54:36] Speaker 1: the noxious scent was an overwhelming sense of impending doom.
[1:54:41] Speaker 1: Like my olfactory senses had triggered some deep, primal fear
[1:54:45] Speaker 1: hidden deep within my subconscious I flipped open my phone
[1:54:50] Speaker 1: and prayed my gut was wrong. The light from it
[1:54:54] Speaker 1: barely made a difference, but it was enough to confirm
[1:54:57] Speaker 1: my worst fear. I nearly dropped the as the outline
[1:55:01] Speaker 1: of a decaying human hand became visible further down the corridor.
[1:55:07] Speaker 1: Out of instinct, I took a step back and covered
[1:55:11] Speaker 1: my mouth as I wretched. Unfortunately, there was no real
[1:55:15] Speaker 1: choice as I had from proceeding. I popped in a
[1:55:18] Speaker 1: fresh piece of gum and prayed that my eyes had
[1:55:21] Speaker 1: deceived me. As I stepped forward, it was even worse
[1:55:26] Speaker 1: up close than even my imagination had built it up,
[1:55:29] Speaker 1: to be partially skeletonized, hands and legs dangling with gangreen
[1:55:35] Speaker 1: ribbons of flesh attached to a rotten corpse seated against
[1:55:38] Speaker 1: the wall, black and intestine spewing from the gut like
[1:55:42] Speaker 1: dead worms from some grotesque, moldy fruit. The head was
[1:55:47] Speaker 1: missing entirely, and there was no indication as to where
[1:55:51] Speaker 1: it had gone. My instincts were all but begging me
[1:55:55] Speaker 1: to flee. I had every intention of doing so until
[1:55:59] Speaker 1: I saw a small knapsack on the ground beside the remains.
[1:56:04] Speaker 1: On a hunch it may provide something useful, and seeing
[1:56:08] Speaker 1: other person clearly no longer had any use for it,
[1:56:11] Speaker 1: I decided to take it. Once I lugged it onto
[1:56:14] Speaker 1: my back, I said a few parting words for the
[1:56:17] Speaker 1: nameless corpse and moved on as if it wasn't obvious.
[1:56:22] Speaker 1: Before that moment was when I truly realized the severity
[1:56:26] Speaker 1: of my situation. Before that, I had almost assured myself
[1:56:31] Speaker 1: that me waking up there was some kind of mistake,
[1:56:34] Speaker 1: a road coincidence. But after seeing that, I abandoned that rationale.
[1:56:40] Speaker 1: Anxiety constricted my mind as I wondered whether I had
[1:56:44] Speaker 1: been kidnapped by some perverse serial killer chained up like
[1:56:48] Speaker 1: a pig ready for slaughter whenever he thought to entertain
[1:56:51] Speaker 1: the notion. After putting sufficient distance between myself and the corpse,
[1:56:56] Speaker 1: I knelt down and popped open the knapsack. Inside I
[1:57:01] Speaker 1: struck gold with a flashlight, a box of matches, a
[1:57:04] Speaker 1: half full water bottle, a pack of granola bars, and
[1:57:07] Speaker 1: a few magazines. Those were all most welcome editions, but
[1:57:12] Speaker 1: muched my chagrin. There was nothing to identify who the
[1:57:15] Speaker 1: person was or how they gotten there. At least the
[1:57:19] Speaker 1: flashlights still had some juice left in it. I flicked
[1:57:22] Speaker 1: the switch and watched the flashlights sputter to life and
[1:57:25] Speaker 1: blaze a trail through the passage. The tunnel was pretty unremarkable,
[1:57:30] Speaker 1: appearing as just a long, whining passage that led upward.
[1:57:34] Speaker 1: Ever since the brush pile, I hadn't heard so much
[1:57:36] Speaker 1: as a single decibel of sound. I never really realized
[1:57:40] Speaker 1: how comforting background white noises until I was forced to
[1:57:44] Speaker 1: go without it. After a couple more minutes of walking
[1:57:48] Speaker 1: in utter silence, I reached another open chamber. Two more
[1:57:53] Speaker 1: branching passages lay further ahead and seemed to stretch in
[1:57:57] Speaker 1: nearly opposing directions. One branched out left and one right,
[1:58:03] Speaker 1: with both seeming to lead upwards. As I approached the
[1:58:07] Speaker 1: two passages, I then noticed there was another directly above
[1:58:11] Speaker 1: me and the ceiling. I looked up to see an
[1:58:15] Speaker 1: extending shoot stretched for countless feet above me. Even the
[1:58:19] Speaker 1: light of the flashlight was not enough to illuminate its
[1:58:22] Speaker 1: entire length. Obviously, I had no means of traversing the
[1:58:26] Speaker 1: vertical shaft, but the discovery made things even more mystifying.
[1:58:31] Speaker 1: I elected to take the left tunnel in hopes it
[1:58:34] Speaker 1: would lead to a high level of the cavern. Before
[1:58:37] Speaker 1: I could enter one of them, though, my footsteps disrupted
[1:58:40] Speaker 1: a pile of pebbles and sent them skittering outward across
[1:58:44] Speaker 1: the ground. I froze, cursing myself with the noise and
[1:58:48] Speaker 1: hoping nothing had been alerted by it. My mind was
[1:58:52] Speaker 1: flooded with a torrent of catastrophic thoughts. It felt like
[1:58:57] Speaker 1: breaking the silence within that place was somehow a grave
[1:59:00] Speaker 1: sin in and of itself. Luckily for me, there was
[1:59:03] Speaker 1: no other noises. The further I went, the less likely.
[1:59:09] Speaker 1: It seemed like the cavern was a natural formation. The
[1:59:13] Speaker 1: walls had almost pat and groove marks in them, as
[1:59:16] Speaker 1: if something had methodically, yet borishly dug them out. The
[1:59:20] Speaker 1: worrying thoughts manifested as I remembered the apparent nest from earlier.
[1:59:25] Speaker 1: Maybe this was a den of some massive, unknown creature.
[1:59:30] Speaker 1: For some reason, I thought of she Lob, the giant
[1:59:32] Speaker 1: spired of him, lord of the Rings, And obviously the
[1:59:35] Speaker 1: thought did not bring any comfort whatsoever. It seemed ridiculous,
[1:59:41] Speaker 1: of course, but darkness and silence can play cruel tricks
[1:59:45] Speaker 1: on a solitary mind. I hoped that's all it was,
[1:59:49] Speaker 1: and I did my best to suppress them and continue on.
[1:59:55] Speaker 1: I dropped a piece of gum at the entrance to
[1:59:56] Speaker 1: the next tunnel and continued walking. The idea was to
[2:00:01] Speaker 1: use the glint on the shiny wrapper from the flashlight
[2:00:03] Speaker 1: as a rudimentary map to help me find my way
[2:00:06] Speaker 1: back to where I started if it came down to that.
[2:00:10] Speaker 1: The more I went, though, the more I doubted and
[2:00:12] Speaker 1: hoped I would not have to resort to that tactic.
[2:00:17] Speaker 1: All sense of direction in that place was restricted to
[2:00:20] Speaker 1: a bare minimum. As with Even as short as I traveled,
[2:00:24] Speaker 1: I had no real sense of where I was in
[2:00:27] Speaker 1: relation to where I had started. The tunnel seemed to
[2:00:30] Speaker 1: bend and twist like an enclosed spiral staircase on an
[2:00:34] Speaker 1: endless incline. Finally, as I rounded yet another bend, I
[2:00:39] Speaker 1: saw a dull light breaching the other end. I ventured forward,
[2:00:44] Speaker 1: and once more the room elongated into that massive open chamber.
[2:00:50] Speaker 1: There were some unusual items spread across the ground there
[2:00:53] Speaker 1: as well, splintered pieces of wood, along with a half
[2:00:56] Speaker 1: destroyed wooden chair. There was also a scattering of copper
[2:01:01] Speaker 1: colored coins across the ground, but I didn't recognize the denomination. However,
[2:01:07] Speaker 1: one item stood out right away, an old rusted sword.
[2:01:15] Speaker 1: I made my way over and knelt to inspect it.
[2:01:17] Speaker 1: On the ground looked like an old cavalry saber from
[2:01:20] Speaker 1: the Civil War era. The hilt was rounded and encrusted
[2:01:24] Speaker 1: with bronze, and the metal blade had clearly seen better years.
[2:01:29] Speaker 1: It looked authentic like the rifle from earlier, but of
[2:01:33] Speaker 1: course that would lead to the quite elaborate conclusion that
[2:01:36] Speaker 1: it had been there for a couple hundred years. I
[2:01:40] Speaker 1: didn't think much about it in the moment, though, I
[2:01:43] Speaker 1: was just happy to have a weapon. Hello. A sudden
[2:01:49] Speaker 1: voice froze me up like a breeze in the dead
[2:01:52] Speaker 1: of winter. I killed the flashlight and dug down, Hello, anyone.
[2:02:01] Speaker 1: The ethery of voice sounded like a young girl calling
[2:02:04] Speaker 1: from somewhere within the cave. Her vocal inflection quite clearly
[2:02:08] Speaker 1: conveyed a terror, and I found my heart quiver. The
[2:02:12] Speaker 1: thought of a young girl alone in that place and
[2:02:14] Speaker 1: terrified was haunting, and my instincts demanded I tried to help.
[2:02:20] Speaker 1: I crept onward from the room and found myself once
[2:02:23] Speaker 1: more entering the massive chamber from earlier, this time on
[2:02:27] Speaker 1: a higher level. The cavern loomed large, like an ancient
[2:02:32] Speaker 1: empty tomb, and felt as though I were a single
[2:02:35] Speaker 1: aunt in an alien termite colony. Down below, I heard
[2:02:40] Speaker 1: the footsteps of the girl whimpering, and I approached the
[2:02:43] Speaker 1: ledge to try and spot her. The area beneath me
[2:02:46] Speaker 1: was shrouded in shadow, and I saw nothing upon first glance.
[2:02:50] Speaker 1: I debated upon turning my flashlight back on and shining down,
[2:02:54] Speaker 1: but some part of me wouldn't comply with the thought.
[2:02:59] Speaker 1: Like I knew it was the right thing to do,
[2:03:01] Speaker 1: but fear had constricted me. I wouldn't allow my hand
[2:03:04] Speaker 1: to cooperate. I peeked over the edge, waiting in darkness
[2:03:09] Speaker 1: to try and see her. Her hushed sobs and frantic
[2:03:13] Speaker 1: breaths met my ears, but I couldn't determine exactly where
[2:03:16] Speaker 1: they were coming from. I kept quiet and continued listening,
[2:03:21] Speaker 1: but something strange then happened. Her muffled cries changed pitch,
[2:03:29] Speaker 1: and suddenly morphed into what I can only describe as
[2:03:32] Speaker 1: a hooting, almost manic animal screech. It was the weirdest
[2:03:38] Speaker 1: thing I'd ever heard. Something then darted through the darkness
[2:03:42] Speaker 1: down below me. I couldn't tell what it was, but
[2:03:45] Speaker 1: it was quick. It disappeared in a split second, and
[2:03:49] Speaker 1: always forced to entertain the ridiculous notion. Maybe those sounds
[2:03:54] Speaker 1: were not mental signal distress. Maybe it was a lure.
[2:04:01] Speaker 1: I can't exactly say why that a nerving thought entered
[2:04:04] Speaker 1: my mind, but I picked up the pace A bit.
[2:04:07] Speaker 1: From then on, I crossed the fallen column to reach
[2:04:10] Speaker 1: a higher elevation of ledges, sneaking glances down below to
[2:04:14] Speaker 1: keep an eye out for her what of that thing was. Luckily,
[2:04:18] Speaker 1: I managed to cross without incident and kept maneuvering further
[2:04:22] Speaker 1: into the convoluted cave system. Every path which seemed to
[2:04:26] Speaker 1: incline upwards was the one I took. Every tunnel I took.
[2:04:30] Speaker 1: I left another piece of wrapped gum at the entryway,
[2:04:33] Speaker 1: and the pack continued to dwindle. Most corridors and rooms
[2:04:38] Speaker 1: I came to held very little of interest. Found a
[2:04:41] Speaker 1: few sparse piles of animal bones, as well as various
[2:04:44] Speaker 1: personal belongings scattered around. The items I found, in no
[2:04:48] Speaker 1: particular order, were an old briefcase, a torn pair of jeans,
[2:04:52] Speaker 1: the solo winter boot, a Chicago Cubs baseball hat, and
[2:04:55] Speaker 1: a lunch box with spoiled contents. All of it was
[2:04:59] Speaker 1: rather as an eye. But then I came to that room.
[2:05:04] Speaker 1: It was tucked away behind a large room that split
[2:05:07] Speaker 1: into several other paths. By this point I was at
[2:05:12] Speaker 1: least several hundred feet above where I had started. The
[2:05:16] Speaker 1: room itself was little more than a small, separate grotto,
[2:05:19] Speaker 1: with the items inside I found truly interesting. Most were
[2:05:24] Speaker 1: articles of clothing, shirts, jackets, pants, hats, and shoes of
[2:05:29] Speaker 1: all sorts, numbering in the hundreds. I also saw a cane,
[2:05:34] Speaker 1: a fishing pole, a baseball bat, a deflated football, and
[2:05:38] Speaker 1: a small drink coller. All the items in that room
[2:05:42] Speaker 1: seemingly had a single thing in common. They all were
[2:05:47] Speaker 1: either entirely or primarily red. It looked as though someone
[2:05:54] Speaker 1: had collected them over the years, and some of the
[2:05:57] Speaker 1: articles and items looked dec years old at the very least.
[2:06:02] Speaker 1: I kept my new saber clutch tightly as I waded
[2:06:05] Speaker 1: my way through the debris. I was then struck by
[2:06:08] Speaker 1: the epiphany that my suspiciously absent hoodie had also been red.
[2:06:14] Speaker 1: I looked around for it briefly, but didn't find it.
[2:06:18] Speaker 1: It got me thinking, though maybe red was the reason
[2:06:21] Speaker 1: I was there in the first place. Of course, I
[2:06:24] Speaker 1: knew by then that I was not alone in that cave,
[2:06:27] Speaker 1: and likely had been abducted to arrive there by someone
[2:06:30] Speaker 1: or something, maybe whatever had taken me didn't like red,
[2:06:35] Speaker 1: or maybe they were attracted to it. Back outside, and
[2:06:40] Speaker 1: I was once again met with another fallen column that
[2:06:43] Speaker 1: led up to another higher ledge. This one was different,
[2:06:47] Speaker 1: though incredibly steep and worn. There appeared to be no
[2:06:52] Speaker 1: easy way up and no other real path to follow.
[2:06:56] Speaker 1: I could see the light growing more luminous above me,
[2:06:58] Speaker 1: and knew the steep path was my only option to
[2:07:01] Speaker 1: reach it. I stashed the sword on the back of
[2:07:04] Speaker 1: my belt and began to climb. The rocks were slick,
[2:07:09] Speaker 1: and parts of them crumbled as I grabbed. I moved slowly,
[2:07:13] Speaker 1: trying to stay both alive and quiet as much as possible.
[2:07:17] Speaker 1: That the road was tough, but I pushed on. I
[2:07:22] Speaker 1: was nearing the halfway point when something stopped me dead
[2:07:25] Speaker 1: in my tracks. Somewhere far above, I heard the sounds
[2:07:29] Speaker 1: of pebbles tumbling down the cavern slopes. I looked up
[2:07:34] Speaker 1: and saw a dusty cloud of residue blossom off the
[2:07:37] Speaker 1: cavern wall. My eyes rapidly scanned the area above, but
[2:07:43] Speaker 1: I didn't see anything that could have caused it. I
[2:07:47] Speaker 1: was just about to continue when I spotted something strange.
[2:07:51] Speaker 1: The dull light was flickering in from above. Just barely
[2:07:55] Speaker 1: illuminating the cavern. It was in that mystical twilight canopy.
[2:08:00] Speaker 1: I saw it on the far wall. There was a
[2:08:04] Speaker 1: small spot where the light appeared to shimmer in an
[2:08:07] Speaker 1: odd fashion. I didn't understand what I was seeing at first,
[2:08:13] Speaker 1: and just stared at the odd image. It almost looked
[2:08:16] Speaker 1: like something translucent was partially obscuring the light, like an
[2:08:21] Speaker 1: impossible patch of water held together by some unknown force.
[2:08:25] Speaker 1: I must have blinked or something, because one moment it
[2:08:28] Speaker 1: was there and the next it was gone. A cold
[2:08:34] Speaker 1: chill crept down my spine, and I decided the best
[2:08:37] Speaker 1: thing I could do was just keep moving. After taking
[2:08:41] Speaker 1: a moment to level out my breath, I continued onward
[2:08:45] Speaker 1: and thankfully reached the next ledge. Once I huled myself up,
[2:08:50] Speaker 1: I peered back down over the ledge and saw the
[2:08:52] Speaker 1: chamber plunge downward into obscurity. By that point, I was
[2:08:58] Speaker 1: nearing the top where the light was coming from. I
[2:09:02] Speaker 1: just hoped that all the effort to get there would
[2:09:04] Speaker 1: be worth it. The room beyond that ledge was yet
[2:09:08] Speaker 1: another empty space, released I thought it was. Once inside,
[2:09:14] Speaker 1: my flashlight gleamed off of one of the walls and
[2:09:16] Speaker 1: illuminated several patterns on the rock. The entire thing appeared
[2:09:21] Speaker 1: haphazardly scrawled in some sort of black ink. It was
[2:09:25] Speaker 1: only when I backed further away from the wall that
[2:09:28] Speaker 1: I realized what it was. At first I saw only
[2:09:32] Speaker 1: squiggled lines, bloated ovals, and winding tubes. Then I saw
[2:09:38] Speaker 1: the ex carved into one side. A realization struck me.
[2:09:42] Speaker 1: Then it was a map. It was crudely made, but
[2:09:49] Speaker 1: after further examination I recognized that the X section was
[2:09:54] Speaker 1: similar to the cavern I was in. The paths drawn
[2:09:58] Speaker 1: also seemed to vaguely reflect the war I'd taken to
[2:10:01] Speaker 1: reach that point. My eyes grew wide as I made
[2:10:05] Speaker 1: the undeniable discovery that if the map was in some
[2:10:08] Speaker 1: way accurate, then I hadn't seen anything yet. The colossal
[2:10:13] Speaker 1: chamber I was currently in was only a tiny fraction
[2:10:16] Speaker 1: of the entire piece. I counted six or seven other
[2:10:21] Speaker 1: sections that were at least double the size. The end
[2:10:25] Speaker 1: of the portrait seemed to fizzle away, as if whoever
[2:10:28] Speaker 1: drawn it had not yet completed the entire thing. That
[2:10:32] Speaker 1: realization was staggering. Just how big is this place? I
[2:10:38] Speaker 1: took a picture of the diagram with my cell phone
[2:10:40] Speaker 1: and moved on. There were sudden noises and clangs far
[2:10:44] Speaker 1: off in the distance, and I decided to move towards
[2:10:47] Speaker 1: the light as quickly as I could. According to the
[2:10:50] Speaker 1: crude map, the way out of the labyrinth was near.
[2:10:54] Speaker 1: If it was anywhere near true proportions, then I was
[2:10:57] Speaker 1: about three fourths of the way there. I just had
[2:11:01] Speaker 1: a little bit higher to go, but the worst was
[2:11:05] Speaker 1: yet to come. I advanced on to yet another tunnel
[2:11:09] Speaker 1: and began the arduous climb upward. I could see the
[2:11:13] Speaker 1: light getting nearer and just hoped that there was an
[2:11:16] Speaker 1: actual means of getting out. Luckily, after rounding a few corners,
[2:11:21] Speaker 1: I came face to face with just about the most
[2:11:24] Speaker 1: beautiful thing I had ever seen. The exit In the ceiling.
[2:11:30] Speaker 1: There were several partial, transparent films of unknown material stretched
[2:11:35] Speaker 1: over holes. The light was gently beaming in from above,
[2:11:39] Speaker 1: and I knew it had to be a way out.
[2:11:42] Speaker 1: The only question was how was I going to reach it?
[2:11:47] Speaker 1: As the ceiling was well over twenty feet up. I
[2:11:52] Speaker 1: made my approach into the open cavern and stared upwards
[2:11:56] Speaker 1: at the patches of rock above me. There were grew
[2:12:00] Speaker 1: and indentations in the side of the wall, and I
[2:12:02] Speaker 1: thought m I used them to climb up. It looked possible,
[2:12:07] Speaker 1: but I didn't get the chance to try. Then, out
[2:12:12] Speaker 1: of the blue, I was suddenly struck in the chest
[2:12:15] Speaker 1: by something. The blow was sudden, completely unexpected and sharp.
[2:12:21] Speaker 1: I crumbled to my knees and held my ribs where
[2:12:23] Speaker 1: the blow had struck, feeling blood begin to spill from
[2:12:26] Speaker 1: several open wounds of my abdomen. I then heard a
[2:12:29] Speaker 1: sudden pit a batter of feet scampering by me. My
[2:12:33] Speaker 1: eyes frantically darted around the room, but I did not
[2:12:36] Speaker 1: see my assaulter anywhere, even though they had passed right
[2:12:40] Speaker 1: by me. It didn't make any sense. A plume of
[2:12:45] Speaker 1: dust was then disturbed above me. I looked up and
[2:12:49] Speaker 1: saw something I still cannot fully explain. It was the
[2:12:54] Speaker 1: same odd, shimmering anomaly of the light that I had
[2:12:57] Speaker 1: seen before. It was close to this time, perched just
[2:13:01] Speaker 1: above me on the ceiling, who was different than before,
[2:13:04] Speaker 1: though there was a distinct shape to it, at least
[2:13:10] Speaker 1: partially like it looked different than the area around it.
[2:13:15] Speaker 1: For any of those who played the Halo franchise, just
[2:13:17] Speaker 1: pictured the translucent silhouette of an active camo upgrade, and
[2:13:21] Speaker 1: that's basically how it looked, something that was either partially
[2:13:25] Speaker 1: cloaked or my eyes just weren't capable of fully perceiving it.
[2:13:30] Speaker 1: It then moved, and my heart dropped like a lead weight.
[2:13:34] Speaker 1: There was definitely something up there, and I had no
[2:13:38] Speaker 1: idea what it was. Its outline looked vaguely humanoid, but
[2:13:43] Speaker 1: it was hard to tell for certain. The saber in
[2:13:46] Speaker 1: my hand quivered as I held it out towards the thing.
[2:13:50] Speaker 1: The three separate wounds in my chest stung like hornet's venom,
[2:13:53] Speaker 1: and I realized then that the pattern of them almost
[2:13:55] Speaker 1: looked like something inflicted by claws. I just stared at
[2:14:00] Speaker 1: one another for the longest time before it suddenly made
[2:14:04] Speaker 1: this sort of hooting noise. I then watched as it
[2:14:08] Speaker 1: leaped several feet and then disappeared into the shadows. Things
[2:14:13] Speaker 1: fell silent once more, and I seized my chance. Freedom
[2:14:18] Speaker 1: was only a simple climb away, and with that in mind,
[2:14:21] Speaker 1: I made a scramble for it. I began my climb
[2:14:24] Speaker 1: up the wall. It was jagged and I felt rocks
[2:14:27] Speaker 1: puncture into my hands, but I didn't care. I just
[2:14:31] Speaker 1: had to get out. I was nearing the halfway point,
[2:14:35] Speaker 1: when suddenly something slammed into my back. The impact caused
[2:14:40] Speaker 1: me to lose grip and plummeted about ten feet back
[2:14:43] Speaker 1: to the cavern floor. I struck hard, with my head
[2:14:46] Speaker 1: bouncing off the solid dirt. The room wabbled around me,
[2:14:50] Speaker 1: and my head pulsed from the impact. Something then touched
[2:14:54] Speaker 1: down ahead of me. I tried to stabilize my vision
[2:14:58] Speaker 1: and clutched tightly under the rusted taber as my only
[2:15:01] Speaker 1: means of defense. As I rose to my feet, I
[2:15:05] Speaker 1: felt the thing slam into me. The two of us
[2:15:08] Speaker 1: fell and rolled under the dirt, wrestling and flailing about.
[2:15:13] Speaker 1: Its claws were like razors and prana like teeth tore
[2:15:16] Speaker 1: into my flesh like ribbons. I fought back and struggled
[2:15:19] Speaker 1: so am, managing to force the thing off of me.
[2:15:22] Speaker 1: I'd barely even see what I was fighting, But as
[2:15:25] Speaker 1: we broke apart and it tried to slink back into
[2:15:28] Speaker 1: the shadows, I saw blood shining on its torso I
[2:15:33] Speaker 1: stepped forward and slashed horizontally with the saber. I felt
[2:15:36] Speaker 1: the tips strike and tear through its translucent hide. It
[2:15:40] Speaker 1: seemed only like a minor wound, but the thing went ballistic.
[2:15:45] Speaker 1: I can't even possibly describe the multi lay cacophony the
[2:15:48] Speaker 1: thing reduced voices of animals all blended into random blurbs
[2:15:52] Speaker 1: of vocalized pain. It flailed about, wailing in a god
[2:15:57] Speaker 1: awful tone, as if suddenly driven to all what a
[2:16:00] Speaker 1: madness by what was honestly just a minor wound. In
[2:16:04] Speaker 1: sheer disbelief, I watched it suddenly leap, or perhaps stumble,
[2:16:08] Speaker 1: over the ledge and plummet to the chasm below. It
[2:16:12] Speaker 1: struck a hard squelch a second later, and the silence returned.
[2:16:19] Speaker 1: It didn't last, though, and before I even asked myself
[2:16:22] Speaker 1: what the hell had just happened, I heard something down below.
[2:16:27] Speaker 1: It began as a chorus of hoots, grunts, and indistinct noises.
[2:16:33] Speaker 1: I heard pebbles scuttling about, and the aggravated voices grow
[2:16:36] Speaker 1: in volume. There were more of them, many more of them.
[2:16:42] Speaker 1: The only option I had was the holes up above,
[2:16:45] Speaker 1: and so once more I dashed towards the rock wall.
[2:16:49] Speaker 1: I scrambled up as quickly as I could as the
[2:16:51] Speaker 1: horde of camouflage things climbed from the abyss below. I
[2:16:55] Speaker 1: heard them right beneath me. As I reached the hole
[2:16:58] Speaker 1: in the ceiling. Was some sort of thin film material
[2:17:01] Speaker 1: covering the hole, but luckily I was able to push
[2:17:04] Speaker 1: right through it. Daylight seared into my eyes as I
[2:17:08] Speaker 1: plunged upwards and burst out of the cave. The light
[2:17:12] Speaker 1: accosted my retiness, and it took a moment to adjust
[2:17:15] Speaker 1: after being locked in the darkness for so long. There
[2:17:19] Speaker 1: were boulders around me and trees in the distance, illuminated
[2:17:22] Speaker 1: by a setting sun. Just as I was about to
[2:17:25] Speaker 1: lunch outward, something grabbed a hold of my leg. I
[2:17:29] Speaker 1: felt clawse sinking into my leg and tearing to the flesh.
[2:17:33] Speaker 1: I kicked and fought back with all the strength I had,
[2:17:36] Speaker 1: refusing to be dragged back down into the cave without
[2:17:38] Speaker 1: a fight. My finger iuls cracked as I clung with
[2:17:42] Speaker 1: all my might under the ledge and kicked around wildly.
[2:17:45] Speaker 1: By some miracle, I felt the things grip relinquish on
[2:17:49] Speaker 1: my leg. I harbled to my feet as the chorus
[2:17:52] Speaker 1: of sounds wailed from below. My leg was blooded, but
[2:17:56] Speaker 1: the pain barely registered. Adrenaline had taken full control, and
[2:18:00] Speaker 1: I galloped into a run. I didn't care where I
[2:18:05] Speaker 1: was going, I just knew I had to get as
[2:18:07] Speaker 1: far away from there as possible. I don't think I've
[2:18:11] Speaker 1: ever ran for so long in my life. I heard
[2:18:14] Speaker 1: them following me, and I knew if I stopped for
[2:18:17] Speaker 1: even a moment, I was dead. It was dark before
[2:18:22] Speaker 1: I finally saw smoke wafting in the distance. With every
[2:18:26] Speaker 1: last ounce of strength I possessed, I dashed towards it.
[2:18:30] Speaker 1: The most beautiful sight I'd ever seen came to view
[2:18:33] Speaker 1: then as a simple wooden cabin. I yelled out, hoping
[2:18:39] Speaker 1: someone would hear my please and help me. Exhaustion and
[2:18:42] Speaker 1: loss of blood struck me then, and I collapsed within
[2:18:45] Speaker 1: a dozen yards of the home. My vision began to fade,
[2:18:50] Speaker 1: but I saw blurry outlines emerge from within the cabin.
[2:18:54] Speaker 1: Things went dark once again. The next thing I remember
[2:18:59] Speaker 1: was waking up in the hospital, greeted by the desperate
[2:19:03] Speaker 1: expressions of family and friends. It was so surreal. They
[2:19:08] Speaker 1: wept tears of joy, thanking God and others that I
[2:19:11] Speaker 1: had returned. Pardon me. Wondered then whether all the things
[2:19:15] Speaker 1: I've related here today were just nightmares or vivid hallucinations
[2:19:19] Speaker 1: of some kind of coma. But as soon as they
[2:19:23] Speaker 1: saw the extent of my injuries, I knew that wasn't possible.
[2:19:29] Speaker 1: I had apparently been gone for nearly twenty four hours.
[2:19:32] Speaker 1: When I was found. My body was covered in deep
[2:19:35] Speaker 1: cuts and lacerations. I had three broken ribs and a
[2:19:38] Speaker 1: partially ruptured spleen. Many of my wounds had been stricken
[2:19:42] Speaker 1: with infection, and it took weeks for me to heal.
[2:19:46] Speaker 1: It was not a fun time, but at least I
[2:19:50] Speaker 1: was alive. The doctors and police thought my injuries were
[2:19:54] Speaker 1: a result of an animal attack. They questioned me profusely,
[2:19:58] Speaker 1: but I took the coward's way out. I didn't tell
[2:20:03] Speaker 1: them much, only that outout hiking I was suddenly attacked
[2:20:06] Speaker 1: by something. Doesn't really explain the fact that I ended
[2:20:10] Speaker 1: up at the cabin, which was nearly fifteen miles away
[2:20:12] Speaker 1: from the trail I had started on, but that detail
[2:20:15] Speaker 1: didn't come up. It felt wrong to lie to them,
[2:20:19] Speaker 1: but I was paranoid that no one would believe me.
[2:20:22] Speaker 1: I didn't even know if I could believe myself. Ever
[2:20:26] Speaker 1: since that day, I've exhausted every possible rational explanation, but
[2:20:31] Speaker 1: they always come up short. The memories are just too vivid.
[2:20:35] Speaker 1: I still don't understand exactly how it all happened, But
[2:20:39] Speaker 1: I've learned a few things. After I got out of
[2:20:43] Speaker 1: the hospital, I started doing some research on all of
[2:20:46] Speaker 1: this phenomenon to try and see whether anyone had been
[2:20:49] Speaker 1: through something similar. The Appellations had known for cases of
[2:20:53] Speaker 1: mysterious disappearances. Dozens of cases have been reported over the years,
[2:20:58] Speaker 1: with many of them remaining until I don't know whether
[2:21:02] Speaker 1: they are all victimized by the same thing I was,
[2:21:05] Speaker 1: but I did notice one peculiar detail. Many of them
[2:21:10] Speaker 1: were reported to have been wearing a red article of
[2:21:12] Speaker 1: clothing when they were declared missing. In nature, red is
[2:21:18] Speaker 1: the color of danger. Many animals, like balls, have an
[2:21:21] Speaker 1: innate fear or dislike of the color. It makes sense
[2:21:24] Speaker 1: when you think about it. Blood is red fire too.
[2:21:29] Speaker 1: Oftentimes venomus, snakes, and insects will be partially or entirely
[2:21:33] Speaker 1: red in color. Many poisonous mushrooms and berries also follow
[2:21:38] Speaker 1: this pattern. I'm not positive, but I do believe red
[2:21:42] Speaker 1: has something to do with this. As for what those
[2:21:45] Speaker 1: things were, I really don't know. I've considered everything from
[2:21:51] Speaker 1: aliens to ghosts and inter dimensional creatures, but I don't
[2:21:55] Speaker 1: think anyone knows for sure. There's a local legend about
[2:21:59] Speaker 1: beings that supposedly live deep in the woods, hidden away
[2:22:03] Speaker 1: from people. Indigenous folklore in the area mentions them extensively,
[2:22:08] Speaker 1: but it sounds ridiculous. Fairies nothing like the qt tinker
[2:22:15] Speaker 1: Bell or Cosmo Wonder. According to legend, they are subterranean
[2:22:20] Speaker 1: creatures that stalk and drag their prey back into their burrows.
[2:22:24] Speaker 1: A lot of stories claim they live near rocks and boulders,
[2:22:28] Speaker 1: something which reminded me of the location I arrived in
[2:22:30] Speaker 1: after first exiting the cave. I didn't really buy into
[2:22:34] Speaker 1: this explanation until a friend of mine, who was a
[2:22:37] Speaker 1: Native American, mentioned one particular detail. Apparently, these beings are
[2:22:42] Speaker 1: allergic to steal. That may explain what happened to the
[2:22:46] Speaker 1: one that attacked me after I nicked it with that
[2:22:49] Speaker 1: old saber. Maybe the steel of the blade caused it
[2:22:52] Speaker 1: to have a reaction. As for their apparent ability to
[2:22:56] Speaker 1: cloak themselves, well, no one who have told this account
[2:22:59] Speaker 1: to honestly has been able to explain that. My same
[2:23:03] Speaker 1: friend who told me about the fairies admits that he
[2:23:05] Speaker 1: never really believed in them. They were just stories that
[2:23:09] Speaker 1: his grandfather used to tell him as a kid. Both
[2:23:12] Speaker 1: of us don't really know what to think now. Some
[2:23:15] Speaker 1: people say that all myths and superstitions are rooted in
[2:23:18] Speaker 1: something real. Real but benign stories passed from generation to
[2:23:23] Speaker 1: generation by word of mouth is spiced to have been exaggerated,
[2:23:27] Speaker 1: and thus eventually leading to the folklore we tell each
[2:23:29] Speaker 1: other around campfires. Maybe this time the myth doesn't need
[2:23:34] Speaker 1: to be exaggerated. Maybe the reason that the world scoffs
[2:23:38] Speaker 1: at these stories is because the truth is something very
[2:23:41] Speaker 1: good at hiding. I know how all of this sounds.
[2:23:46] Speaker 1: Trust me, every skeptical thought that has passed through your
[2:23:49] Speaker 1: mind while listening to this is probably something I myself
[2:23:53] Speaker 1: have considered at one point or another. If you choose
[2:23:57] Speaker 1: to write this off as no more than fiction, than
[2:23:59] Speaker 1: that is your decision. I've saved this for the end
[2:24:04] Speaker 1: because I know there are those who skim through to
[2:24:07] Speaker 1: see the conclusions. I want as many people to hear
[2:24:10] Speaker 1: this as possible. It's the only thing that really matters. Please,
[2:24:16] Speaker 1: don't wear red in the Appalachian woods or any other
[2:24:20] Speaker 1: woods for that matter. You may not believe in or
[2:24:24] Speaker 1: ever see the things I have, and honestly I hope
[2:24:27] Speaker 1: you never do. But just remember when you're out on
[2:24:32] Speaker 1: a trail in the middle of the woods, they see you,
[2:24:37] Speaker 1: don't provoke them, because even if you survive, you'll spend
[2:24:43] Speaker 1: the rest of your life knowing a truth that no
[2:24:46] Speaker 1: one will ever fully believe. Just like me, I swear
[2:25:03] Speaker 1: and the highest honor I can muster that everything in
[2:25:07] Speaker 1: this story is true, related as lucidly as possible, all true,
[2:25:13] Speaker 1: no matter how badly I wish it wasn't. There isn't
[2:25:18] Speaker 1: much to do in the rural parts of Pennsylvania, what
[2:25:21] Speaker 1: some call pennsyl Tucky. Like most parts of rural America,
[2:25:26] Speaker 1: popular pastimes include drinking oneself into a stupor and driving
[2:25:30] Speaker 1: unexpectedly nineteen eighty three Ford f one fifties double the
[2:25:35] Speaker 1: speed limit, down narrow, rarely maintain roads. Aye, However, occupy
[2:25:40] Speaker 1: myself when I can by hunting. It gets a bad
[2:25:45] Speaker 1: rap as a barbaric cruel practice. But I've always found
[2:25:50] Speaker 1: solace in the forest that is impossible to find in
[2:25:52] Speaker 1: the cramped, too close for comfort atmosphere of a small town.
[2:25:58] Speaker 1: This particular season, I was out in early November in
[2:26:02] Speaker 1: a forest in the foothills of the Appalachians, a few
[2:26:05] Speaker 1: minutes away from my home northwest of Harrisburg. It was
[2:26:09] Speaker 1: late in the fall season, and the steady flow of
[2:26:11] Speaker 1: foliage tourists what locals call leaf peepers, was beginning to
[2:26:16] Speaker 1: trickle to a stop. Some trees were still burning of
[2:26:20] Speaker 1: fiery red orange, but most were beginning to wither, foreshadowing
[2:26:24] Speaker 1: and unusually harsh winter. The falling leaves created a curtain
[2:26:29] Speaker 1: of decay which moved like a sandstorm in slow motion,
[2:26:33] Speaker 1: shrouding and isolating me from my surroundings and crunching softly
[2:26:37] Speaker 1: under every footstep. I paced my way through the temple
[2:26:42] Speaker 1: of red and gold, alert for the light footsteps of
[2:26:45] Speaker 1: my quarry white tailed deer. My Winchester thirty o six
[2:26:51] Speaker 1: swayed on my back as I walked. The gun was
[2:26:54] Speaker 1: overgi for a deer, but it doesn't paid to take
[2:26:58] Speaker 1: chances around bigger game like elk in Black Bear. This
[2:27:02] Speaker 1: forest was new territory for me, a refreshing change of
[2:27:05] Speaker 1: pace after paved trails and subdivisions began to encircle the
[2:27:09] Speaker 1: hunting grounds of my childhood. As I walked, I began
[2:27:13] Speaker 1: to light to my guard, losing focus on the wildlife
[2:27:16] Speaker 1: and becoming engrossed in the natural beauty of the area.
[2:27:21] Speaker 1: I became so distracted peering up at the falling leaves
[2:27:25] Speaker 1: that I tripped over a tree route snaking through the carpet.
[2:27:30] Speaker 1: I followed it with my eye to its termination at
[2:27:32] Speaker 1: the base of a massive, gnarled oak tree. The trunk
[2:27:38] Speaker 1: was huge, but the tree was squat, blackened with age,
[2:27:43] Speaker 1: and split down the middle, as if by an act
[2:27:45] Speaker 1: of God. This story could have ended then and there,
[2:27:51] Speaker 1: if not for a smell that wafted up to me
[2:27:53] Speaker 1: as I passed the tree. It wound its way up
[2:27:57] Speaker 1: from the tree's base out of a swale ground to
[2:28:01] Speaker 1: the raised path I was walking on, pushing the crisp
[2:28:04] Speaker 1: smell of the forest aside. My first thought was that
[2:28:09] Speaker 1: of a dead animal, which could mean a bearing the area,
[2:28:13] Speaker 1: so I circled the tree to take a look. There
[2:28:20] Speaker 1: was no carcass, but the scene at the base of
[2:28:23] Speaker 1: the tree resembled a homicide. Dark matted clumps of fur
[2:28:29] Speaker 1: dotted the undergrowth, and a viscous black fluid led from
[2:28:33] Speaker 1: the forest into a hollow, overshadowed by a titanic root
[2:28:38] Speaker 1: leading deep into the ground. The entire picture was punctuated
[2:28:43] Speaker 1: by the small, rank smell a thick, coppery scent, like
[2:28:48] Speaker 1: pennies mixed with death. I am not unused to gritty,
[2:28:53] Speaker 1: even downright disturbing scenes, but this scent made me wretch involuntarily,
[2:29:00] Speaker 1: and the den unsettled me deeply, as though I had
[2:29:03] Speaker 1: stumbled upon something no one should ever see. Shaken, I
[2:29:09] Speaker 1: moved back under the trail, and, against my better judgment,
[2:29:15] Speaker 1: resumed my search for a deer. The sun began to
[2:29:19] Speaker 1: beat down overhead with all the clarity of a winter's day,
[2:29:24] Speaker 1: shining a demanding light under the forest and weakening my resolve.
[2:29:29] Speaker 1: They just began to unpack my lunch when something began
[2:29:33] Speaker 1: to bother me. I couldn't put a finger on what
[2:29:37] Speaker 1: it was, but I felt antsy, for lack of a
[2:29:42] Speaker 1: better word, like I shouldn't be sitting still without even
[2:29:48] Speaker 1: knowing it. I began to scan my surroundings for something, anything.
[2:29:56] Speaker 1: I was returning to my lunch when it hit me.
[2:30:01] Speaker 1: The forest was silent, no birds chirping, no insects buzzing.
[2:30:08] Speaker 1: Even the rustle of trees in the wind had come
[2:30:11] Speaker 1: to an ominous standstill. As the meaning of this realization
[2:30:16] Speaker 1: began to sink in, and I got to my feet.
[2:30:19] Speaker 1: Two things happened in rapid succession. A sizeable branch snapped
[2:30:25] Speaker 1: a few hundred meters away, and an ungodly screech penetrated
[2:30:31] Speaker 1: the November air. I have never heard a sound like
[2:30:36] Speaker 1: it before or since. It was as though the earth
[2:30:40] Speaker 1: itself split and hell opened up just long enough to
[2:30:45] Speaker 1: sum up the suffering of the damned in one ear
[2:30:49] Speaker 1: splitting roar. Terrified, I bolted to my gun, leaned against
[2:30:54] Speaker 1: the tree, and began to scan the undergrowth. Something big
[2:30:59] Speaker 1: was moved through the forest floor, but I couldn't see
[2:31:03] Speaker 1: what it was thanks to the curtain of leaves falling
[2:31:06] Speaker 1: around me. I hastily made tracks back in the direction
[2:31:10] Speaker 1: I had come, forcing myself not to look back. After all,
[2:31:15] Speaker 1: what animal would actively stalk a human without even being provoked.
[2:31:22] Speaker 1: I had lost the sound of the creature and began
[2:31:24] Speaker 1: to loosen up a little when I was hit with
[2:31:27] Speaker 1: a bone chilling realization. The sounds of the forest had
[2:31:32] Speaker 1: come back behind me, but the trees in front were
[2:31:37] Speaker 1: a silent of the grave. Whatever I had encountered, probably
[2:31:43] Speaker 1: the same beast that had made the mess under the
[2:31:45] Speaker 1: oak tree had circled back in an attempt to trap
[2:31:50] Speaker 1: me truly scared. At this point, I scrambled off the
[2:31:55] Speaker 1: path into a rock gully, my back to a damp
[2:31:58] Speaker 1: rock wall. I crawled, without taking my eyes off the
[2:32:02] Speaker 1: path into a cave, hoping to hide my hype of
[2:32:06] Speaker 1: ventilation and chattering teeth from whatever was stalking me. Only
[2:32:12] Speaker 1: a few minutes had passed when I heard the crunch
[2:32:15] Speaker 1: of leaves and a deep, demonic snorting. It stopped on
[2:32:21] Speaker 1: the path above my hide away, and I held my breath,
[2:32:25] Speaker 1: willing my heart to stop so as to be completely silent.
[2:32:30] Speaker 1: The creature had begun to move on when my gun,
[2:32:33] Speaker 1: leaning against the rock, slipped off the slick surface. It
[2:32:39] Speaker 1: clattered to the ground, reverberating louder than an air raid
[2:32:43] Speaker 1: siren in the crisp auto MA are my heart sank?
[2:32:47] Speaker 1: As I heard steps make their way down the rocks
[2:32:51] Speaker 1: and closer to me. I crawled painfully, slowly towards my rifle,
[2:32:56] Speaker 1: every muscle in my body tight enough to burst. I
[2:33:00] Speaker 1: stopped to steady myself and heard breathing right outside the
[2:33:05] Speaker 1: cave opening. It was choked slavering breathing, unnatural breathing, which
[2:33:12] Speaker 1: inspired visualizations of twisted corruptions of human and beast, a
[2:33:17] Speaker 1: patchwork demon of animal and man. I reached for my
[2:33:21] Speaker 1: gun and came the closest to death I ever have
[2:33:25] Speaker 1: Because I outstretched my hand, so did it. Instead of
[2:33:30] Speaker 1: the smooth shellck of my rifle stock, my palm met
[2:33:34] Speaker 1: a coarse, ragged fur, caked with mud and attached to
[2:33:39] Speaker 1: a lanky, sinewy arm. The beast screamed, and as I
[2:33:45] Speaker 1: shouldered my rifle and fired blindly out of the opening,
[2:33:49] Speaker 1: I caught a glimpse of yellowed fang and one blood
[2:33:54] Speaker 1: red eye, an eye that reflected a hatred more ancient
[2:33:58] Speaker 1: than man, hatred that said, this is my forest. You
[2:34:04] Speaker 1: may have altered it through your presence, corrupted it, but
[2:34:08] Speaker 1: I was here before you, and I will be here after.
[2:34:14] Speaker 1: Human willpower paled in the face of such uncompromising malice,
[2:34:18] Speaker 1: and I shrank back against the rocks, robotically cycling bullets
[2:34:22] Speaker 1: out of the cave. I sat there, dead eyed, doing
[2:34:27] Speaker 1: this for a long time, overnight and well into the
[2:34:30] Speaker 1: next morning, over eighteen hours of working a bolt and
[2:34:34] Speaker 1: pulling the trigger. By the time I snapped out of
[2:34:38] Speaker 1: my adrenaline fueled haze, my mouth felt like a desert
[2:34:42] Speaker 1: and my fingers felt as though they were made out
[2:34:44] Speaker 1: of canvas, stretched over dust, shaking, I reached for my
[2:34:49] Speaker 1: water bottle and gulped down, spilling most of it down
[2:34:52] Speaker 1: my front. Praying the beast was long gone. I inched
[2:34:57] Speaker 1: my way out of the cave and ran as fast
[2:35:01] Speaker 1: as my rickety legs would carry me the two odd
[2:35:03] Speaker 1: miles back to my truck, leaving most of my gear behind.
[2:35:08] Speaker 1: Nothing pursued me, but the feeling of being hunted remained.
[2:35:14] Speaker 1: I drove back to town eighty miles per hour on a
[2:35:17] Speaker 1: dirt road, my eyes wide with fear and my hands
[2:35:21] Speaker 1: gripping the wheel with white knuckles, Unable to bear the
[2:35:25] Speaker 1: thoughts of my secluded home. I spent the night at
[2:35:28] Speaker 1: a motel in town with a bottle of cheap whiskey
[2:35:31] Speaker 1: and every light in the room turned on. The thought
[2:35:35] Speaker 1: of the creature would not exit my mind. Was it
[2:35:40] Speaker 1: a demon loosened on the earth by some divine mistake,
[2:35:44] Speaker 1: or just an animal acrypted lost the time and the
[2:35:48] Speaker 1: memories of the trees. I didn't really want to know,
[2:35:53] Speaker 1: but I couldn't and still can't let it go. The
[2:35:59] Speaker 1: fear events he subsided, But as I sit at home
[2:36:04] Speaker 1: thinking about this, I swear hand to God that I
[2:36:10] Speaker 1: can hear a howl echo through the trees and across
[2:36:15] Speaker 1: the mountains, telling me that I may never rest, never forget,

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