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Now it doesn't go super deep into the details, but it is mentioned, so it's up to you whether or not you want to skip these. But for those who still want to continue, let's begin. And remember to always stay hungry. I work for a company who does contract work exclusively for the US Forest Service in surveying areas for invasive plants and we basically travel all over the forest in Southern California, even in areas that were off limits to the public. So my crew at work is basically between five and six people every day, the same people for 10 hours a day, four days a week. Like I said before, we swept through the forest area by area, combing for invasive plants to track on GPS and remove. I remember one day when I had first started, we came across this abandoned day use area where there had obviously been some very sketchy stuff going on. We used to park the car in a turnout across from it and eat lunch and several cars would drive into the area over the curb because the main driveway was blocked with a big metal gate. People got out of their cars, some walking their dogs, some to take pictures, some for picnics, and some people just carried stuff and disappeared into the area for a while. We kind of skipped over the area because according to my boss, no invasive plants had ever been tracked in the day use area. So we never really went in there. Nevertheless, it was still sketchy as hell because we would constantly drive by and see people dumping things. What ended up happening was that the crew got called to another part of the forest for a while and we were probably out of that area for around a few months, only coming back sporadically. But we drove down that same road every day and we still saw cars parked there and stuff being dumped. So one day my boss tells us that we need to walk the almost 7 mile stretch of road that that day Usuria falls on. He asks for volunteers to cover the sides of the road which cuts through a narrow Canyon probably only 500ft W. The day use area was on the right side of the road so I volunteered to go right with two other coworkers with plans on checking the area out extensively. We took our tools with us which consisted of hoes, some folding saws and pulaskis, basically a two headed axe with a pick on the other end. Additionally, I was wearing my kukri knife on my belt. So we start walking into the day use area and I'm scanning all of the sites. There's a bunch of abandoned crap laying everywhere like refrigerators, some storage shelves and broken glass all over the place. There were also several holes in the ground that were perfect squares cut into the concrete and they went down pretty far. They weren't that big, probably about 4x4. So we keep walking back and I see these rags scattered on the ground that have some red stains on them. They were next to a big pile of dirt that was covered with stones and half of a skateboard that was sticking out of the top of the pile. There was a wooden cross nearby as well. And I'm just thinking is this a grave? So I called the other two guys over and I read the writing on the skateboard and it was the burial site of something that was once called Diamond. I couldn't make out the years on it, but the grave was big, maybe like three or four feet long. One of my coworkers thought it was an animal grave, but that didn't explain the bloody rags nearby. I chalked it up to a pet grave of someone that walked their dog to that area and moved on. We keep pushing through and I'm seeing tons of invasive plants everywhere. I'm reading off the names to my co worker who's putting them into the GPS unit when we see a building tucked into a corner of the day use area. So we walk back there and there's a tiny opening between the rocks, barely noticeable from the road and it turns out to be a whole nother canyon branched off. We check the map and sure enough, there's a canyon where all of these invasive plants could be coming from. After noting this in the gps, we go to check out the building. It's about the size of half of a shipping container and is clearly abandoned. The door was slightly opened so I reached out with the hoe and pried the door open. Pitch black. My co worker takes out his phone and shines the light in there and there was some weird crap in there. There were porn magazines scattered all over the floor, pillows and blankets, as well as children's clothing. I backed up and started walking back to the road and my co workers were giving me crap about it. But I'm not about to see what else might be in there when I get back. In view of the road, there's a truck in the day use area and it's not one of ours. I don't see anyone using the picnic areas. And the weird thing is the truck had driven over the curb to bypass the gate and was parked in a secluded area. It didn't look like anyone was in the truck or around it, so I just stayed in the clearing and waited for my coworkers. When they finally got to my spot, I had pointed out the truck to them and they said he was probably just hanging out in the old bathroom building, which was just off the road. They wanted to go in and check it out and I sure as hell wasn't going to leave them and be alone, so. So I followed them over. The building was kind of V shaped with male and female bathrooms on end as well as a storage room in the middle. They went into the men's room whose door had literally been kicked down by someone. And apparently there was a ton of porn and children's clothing in there too, with pillows and blankets. There was a small hole that had been cut into the wall leading into the small storage room. It sounded like they were going to try and crawl into the room from the bathroom to check it out. At this point, I was standing outside of the building on the other end of the door to the storage room. I kid you not. I heard the doorknob jiggle. At that moment, my co workers came running out of the men's bathroom and one of them grabbed his Pulaski, brought it up, and bashed the crap out of the door handle as well as the area around the door to the storage room. Ten, 15 seconds later, we see a man sprint out of the bathroom and run back farther into the day use area into that first building we explored. Apparently this is what happened. One of my coworkers stuck his head through the cutout hole in the men's bathroom looking into the storage area. It was pitch black, so he used his phone flashlight and lit the area up and he saw the man in there alone in the corner in the dark. There were boxes lined up on the shelves and pillows and blankets all over the floor. It startled him so much that he ran out, and the guy that was in there ran out as well. We ended up radioing some of the hotshot firefighters who had a station nearby for support, and they sent out a few guys and literally took a chainsaw to the door and set up a floodlight. And the whole room was filled with boxes of child porn magazines and children's clothing. We told them where the man ran off to in the other building, and so they went to check that out as well. Open the door, floodlights on. And the creepiest thing out of the whole experience was that that building actually went farther back into the dirt of the adjacent hills. The firefighters checked their topography maps and sure enough, there was a bunker. Ain't nobody going that far into that place. This is a story that my father has told me multiple times. My dad is a logger, specifically one who operates a tree saw, which is basically a giant machine that is capable of cutting down massive trees and cutting them to specified length, which means he spends a lot of time in the deep forests. The way my dad's logging crew was set up is that he would be told where he was supposed to cut down the trees and he would go do that and be paid based on the amount of trees he cut, not on how long it took him. So my dad used to work 16, 20 hour days constantly to get done as quickly as possible. And then the rest of the crew would come clean up the trees and then ship them to the mill. He used to work around 50% of the time alone and the rest of the time with another Tresol operator named Rennie. They would use radios to communicate back and forth when they were working together. This is relevant for later. Sorry for all the backstory, but this is the start to the story. My dad and Rennie were put on a new job site and were about 10 days in and everything was going as planned. But they were constantly hearing weird chitter chatter over the radio that was such poor quality, no words could be heard. And whatever radio channel they changed it to, it followed them. As they progressed through the job and went further up the mountains, the words from the radio slowly became more audible. Both of them agreed that based on the small parts of the conversations they could hear that something was wrong. They also started finding weird containers all over the place and signs that people had been there, people should not have been here. This was a two and a half hour drive up a mountain. They had to spend Three weeks clearing out the road so their trucks and equipment could make it up. They came to the realization that they're in a very secluded area with people who shouldn't be there. And the worst part is that they aren't scheduled to leave for about another week. They would only leave to refuel the fuel truck with gasoline for the machines. They would buy supplies and sleep in campers. One day, Rennie comes across a tent and he calls my dad over. They investigate the tent and find one lone sleeping bag and a duffel bag. They investigate the duffel bag and they find many pairs of children's underwear and things that appeared to be a rape kit, like rope, duct tape, sketched images of children being molested, and photographs of children that appear unaware that they're being photographed in the tent. They also find a small amount of food, which includes canned goods and an apple, which proves the tent has been occupied recently because there was no mold on the apple. They're now on the mountain alone, with which, at best case scenario, is just a really messed up individual. Rennie instantly wants to get the hell out of there, but my dad, being the hardest working person I've ever met, insists that they need to finish the job and then get out of there. They then decide that they will not talk over the radios except in cases of emergency and see if they can hear something over the radio. They are now in close enough range of whoever's been talking over the radio to hear the conversations between two men talking about collecting water and wood for the fire. Nothing abnormal, except for the fact that these guys don't freaking belong there and that the tent was undoubtedly theirs. At the end of the work day, my dad hears them on the radio talking about one of them collecting brush for a fire. My dad hops on the radio and attempts to communicate with them about what the hell they're doing. I believe he said, who are you and what the hell are you doing here? After this, the conversation between the men abruptly stops and they never pick up. That night, Rennie wakes up my dad and whispers for him to get his gun if someone's outside. My dad told me that the first thing he hears when he wakes up is the quiet shuffling of footsteps. My dad fumbles for his gun and finds it, but then he realizes that he doesn't freaking have it loaded and he has little clue on where his rounds are. And Rennie has nothing. And the thought of calling the police is absurd for multiple reasons. They hear a jiggle on the doorknob and it opens the camper is far enough off the ground to where you had to jump in and there's no ladder or footstool. It just stays open. And neither my dad or Rennie moves. They hear scratching right outside the door, though after four minutes of scratching, my dad can no longer take it and he nods at Rennie. He gets up quietly and he walks towards the camper door. And the second he reaches it, he's met with intense pain across his right eye all the way to his left cheek. He's been cut and he falls out of the camper hitting the ground hard. A man with a knife gets on top of him and he's soon being kicked in the top of the head by a man behind him. Rennie leaps out of the trailer and manages to get the man off my dad and my dad gets up and he realizes that the second man without the knife is running away and the man with the knife is scrambling away from Rennie and starts running alongside his accomplice. My dad and Rennie get into the truck and drive to the nearest hospital to treat my dad's cuts and they later report the events to the police. They both quit their jobs and two weeks later, as the rest of the logging crew was finishing up the job, one of them was found gagged, bound, raped and murdered and thrown into a ditch. No one has ever been convicted of these crimes. To this day. My dad can hardly see out of his right eye and the pupil is disfigured and looks more like a cat's eye than a human's. He suffers from PTSD from these events and he hasn't had a good night of sleep since. My name is Ben and I live in Australia. In the southeast of Australia lies the state of Victoria, and in that state lies the high country, an extremely vast and remote expanse of alpine mountains and valleys that's largely only accessible by four wheel drive and can take days to get in and out. The place is pretty popular with four wheel drivers, deer hunters and hikers. We four wheel drive there and this was the destination chosen to go camping for a few days with my partner and I. Her name is Jess. Some time away from the world beyond the reach of mobile phones. The four wheel drive was loaded up, list double checked, vehicle maintenance done, fuel loaded onto the roof racks. The police station closest to our destination notified of our trip. It's common for people to notify them as a safety measure, especially when not traveling in a convoy. Again, it's very remote and then off we went. We were headed to a place called Oneangatta Valley. A remote valley deep in the high country. A huge amphitheater type valley with alpine mountains rising high in every direction and a river running along the valley floor. Towards the end of the first full day of driving, we finally made our way back down the last track for the day, skirting the ridge and arriving at the valley floor. As the sun dipped below the mountains, we found a secluded spot to pitch our tent nestled in amongst the eucalyptus trees by the riverbank. It was mid week and off season, so we were the only ones in the valley that we knew of. After setting camp and having a meal by the fire as the sun went down, we snuggled together in our sleeping bags and in short order we decided to hit the hay. At some point in the night I woke up to a loud noise. I wasn't quite sure what I had heard, so from inside our tent I listened. Nothing. I must be going mad. No sooner had I thought I heard another noise. It sounded like something falling off our camp table and hitting the ground. I put it down to possums or wombats fossicking around common in the area and nothing to really worry about. Should have packed up after dinner, I thought to myself and then went back to sleep. Sunrise came and we slowly woke up needing to pee. I opened the tent and jumped out. Looking around, something just came over me. A chill. It wasn't the way we'd left it. Instead of seeing two chairs together by the fire where we were sitting, one of them was by the table and on the table was a loaf of bread that I swear I'd packed away again the night before, I walked over to the table to inspect. There was a half eaten piece of bread that was sitting there with a very obvious chop mark taken out of it. I flung open the tent and asked, were you up before me? Did you have some bread? No, was the answer. Jess got up and together we went through all of our stuff. Nothing was missing. As we went to check the four wheel drive vehicle, I noticed the footprints. There were a bunch of them all around the front of the car where the hood was. Most of the camp was covered in grass. This was one of only a few spots that was just dirt. Had someone tried to open it? Very distinct footprints. Not mine or my partner's. Perhaps they'd already been there. I asked myself. These camping spots are used intermittently and obviously we weren't looking around when we arrived the night before. With the sun setting, I don't think either one of us wanted to actually admit what we were both thinking. That someone had been creeping about our campsite in the night, far away from civilization. We discussed if opossum could have made the bite marks, argued about if one of us had left the bread out, and eventually discussed moving on and camping somewhere else. After much deliberation we decided to stay. I had the rifle in the four wheel drive, which I guess gave an over inflated sense of safety, which in hindsight was a very poor choice. As the day rolled on, the sun shining, and with nothing eventful happening, I decided to walk across the valley floor, an open field of subalpine grassland about 800 meters to an old ruin of an isolated homestead built by settlers who ran the cattle in the valley some 100 years ago. It's steeped in mystery. There's an old unsolved murder from 1917 that always captivates people. I read the plaque, took some photos and started wandering back to the camp. As I neared the halfway mark back to camp, I noticed Jess was walking across the field towards me. Must have gotten bored, I thought. As she approached, it was clear she was in a panic. Immediately she had started to tell me how she went down to the riverbank to wash the pots and pans and as she looked up she saw someone over the side of the river watching her from deep in the bushes. I had no reason whatsoever not to believe her. I asked her what he looked like and then she told me. An old man, 70s or thereabouts, scraggly looking and in old tattered clothes. Apparently the second she looked up, he turned and walked away, disappearing in the impenetrable bush. I couldn't comprehend it. How was anyone out here without a four wheel drive or a dirt bike? And how would anyone get to that side of the bank without first crossing over from our side? There's days worth of damn near impossible to walk through brush on the other side just to get where my partner saw him. We decided to jump in the four wheel drive and drive along the length of the valley, checking the dozen or so riverside camping spots as we went. I wanted to spot a camp, have my partner ID the guy and make sure that he wasn't creeping with our theory being that he may have been a hunter off in the bush after a deer. After making our way up and down the valley and not seeing anything, we drove back to camp at a loss to explain anything. As the sun started to set and with my partner and I quite shaken, I grabbed the rifle and sat in next to us as we cooked dinner and chatted. Having a few drinks to settle the nerves had we been spooked? Was it just that there's a lot of mystery surrounding the valley and the homestead murders? We talked a bit and we settled into a good foot warming in front of the fire. At some point Jessa needed to go to the bathroom so I was asked to come with her to the spa behind a tree where we placed the portable toilet about 50 meters from our camp. Considering everything that had gone on, it was a no brainer. Jess did her business and we turned around and came around the side of the tree and that's when we saw him. Standing at our camp about a meter from the rifle that I had sitting against the table was a man. He was old chick. Scraggly looking chick, tattered old clothes. Check. Jess squeezed my arm so hard I thought it was going to come off. Everything about her body language screamed this is the same man. As we got closer I could make out more odd things about him. He had part of a deer antler in his hand that looked like he had been whittling away at it and what looked like antler pieces carved to plug large holes in his ears, like stretchers but made of bone. The same goes for the bone looking buttons on his ratty old coat. He wore old leather shoes that looked homemade. Good day mate, he said. Screw me man. You. You gave us a freaking heart attack, I said. Officially crapping bricks. Where have you come from man? Everything alright? Just over yonder. You lot aren't hunting around here. Are you Looking directly at the rifle? Yeah man, we might. Why? There's no hunting around here. Not enough deer as it is. Well, we hadn't decided on it. Probably packing up anyway, I said as I edged my way towards the rifle. I should put this away anyway. Didn't mean to spook you man, I said looking for an excuse to get that rifle into my hands. It's all good. Guns don't spook me, he said. I didn't imagine they would. I picked the rifle up by the barrel and held it like a walking stick in an attempt to be non confrontational, breathing a sigh of relief. No offense but you caught us a bit by surprise. You gotta be the only one we've seen out here. Yeah, I saw you come in last night. Yeah, I freaking bet you did. I thought to myself, I've been coming up here for 40 years. It's a beautiful spot, isn't it? Takes a bit to get down into the valley. Hey yeah man, look, no offense but we're gonna hit the Sag soon. Do you need a lift back to Your camp? No, all good. Just out for a wonder before I tuck in for the night. Saw the fire and thought I'd say good day anyway, I better be on my way. And with that, he turned and walked off parallel to the river into the dark. No torch. That was officially enough to spook us beyond any ability to calm down. And we decided to pack up in the dark and head out, even if driving in the dark was a monumentally stupid idea in this part of the high country. We got into the four wheel drive and drove out, taking us along the valley floor. We didn't see a single fire, a camp, a vehicle, nothing. We just kept on driving. Halfway home, Jess, bored from the drive, flipped on the camera. No memory card. What the hell? After getting home and telling a few people what happened, a friend's dad, an avid bushman himself, was the one to officially freak us the hell out. Oh, you met the Button Man. The what now? I said, yeah, that's the Button Man. He's an old bushman who goes out into the high country for months at a time. Hunts with a spear, appears out of nowhere, scares people, has buttons made out of bone. There's a heap of people who've gone missing up that way. The cops keep looking but can't find a single trace. Campers, hikers. One camp was found burned to the ground and a car left abandoned. They can't find any evidence at all. A quick Google search confirmed it. The missing people, the Button man, the lack of evidence. Police set out into the bush and found his camp. Spoke with the man, but have nothing else to go on. There'll be a link in the description if you want to learn more about the Button Man. He's very real. Dozens have met him as he appears out of nowhere at their camp. But as for his connection to any of the missing people, only he knows we don't camp at that valley anymore. Hell, we don't camp at that side of the high country anymore. Anyways, that's our story on how we met the Button Man. I've had some weird stuff happen lately, reminding me of a strange encounter that I had about five years ago. It was spring here in Utah, meaning cold mornings that require a coat and usually scraping your windows before leaving. I lived in a relatively remote community west of the railroad tracks that lead to oil refineries in my area. Not exactly a busy area and very little housing where I lived at the time, though it's now a bustling community. One Friday morning, about 9:30, as I'm on my way to work. My usual route is blocked due to an accident being cleared up, so I take the quieter long route through the industrial park east of my house. I pass the only gas station on my way in and headed through the industrial park which is quiet except for diesel trucks and the rare car like my own. As I come over a small hill and over a set of train tracks I see a car pulled over to the side with its hood up and a guy just standing there next to the driver's side door looking at me as I broach the hill. The car was copper colored two door sports car from the late 70s or early 80s. Nissan I think. I'm usually good with cars but this guy distracted me and he looked straight out of the late 70s. I will never forget this guy. Blue jeans, white shirt, collar showing above his coat, tan work boots, darkish tan 70s style leather coat with wool showing at the collar, thick dark mustache and a John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever esque haircut. He was a bigger guy, probably in his mid-40s, around 6ft tall or just a bit over. He had a bit of a gut too, but clearly a thick dude who wasn't in bad shape. Hands in his pockets but his feet planted firmly and back straight like he was at parade rest. As I see him I slow down to see what the problem is and I start to pull over to get behind his car and see that he's staring at me the entire time. No nod of recognition or hand wave to signal me. No smile, just staring with his face perfectly flat, hands in pockets, not moving. I get this super creepy vibe and as I'm about to pull over I pull away and sped off instead. That's very unlike me. I stop to help people all the time, but this guy just gave me a bad feeling that I couldn't shake. As I look in the rearview mirror I see he's not moved but just turned his head a bit to watch me go and as I watch he turns back to steer west over the tracks for the next car to come along. I get to work and I'm really feeling bad that I didn't help the guy out, but I tell my boss and close friend about the encounter and he tells me he gets creeped out just hearing about it and that I should be glad that I trusted my gut instinct. I don't think about it much more and just get to work. On my way home that night I took that route back home to see if his car was left there just in case he had a real problem and sure enough, it was gone. Feeling relieved that he had at least gotten his car taken care of, I felt less bad about not helping some stranger because I got weirded out by his appearance and demeanor. For some reason I get home, go to sleep and think nothing of it. I worked Saturdays at the time and I always took the long way to work on Saturdays since I didn't have to worry about traffic come 9:30 the next day. I'm heading the same way to work that I took the day before, but because the industrial park is full of Monday to Friday tide companies, it's always a ghost town on the weekends and evenings. When I came home the previous night, I drove for 15 minutes in that area. Really low speed limits and it's a long road through and I didn't see another car on the road there. Even the gas station closes its inside operations on Saturdays and evenings after six. Nobody was ever around that area during off time hours. So I'm climbing the hill and sure enough, the same guy's there again. Same car, same spot, hood up and standing next to the driver's side door. If I hadn't been so creeped out by the guy the day before, I may not have noticed how eerily similar it was. Like he somehow hadn't moved since the day before. This time, however, he reacted to seeing me pulling a hand out of his pocket and trying to wave me down without moving his feet and clearly yelling something. I sped up. He clearly heard my tin can of a Toyota rev up and I kid you not, he put both hands up and moved as if to step in front of my car to block me. His face never changed the whole time, just the blank stare and semi frowned slit of a mouth as he had started to step in front of my car into the two lane road that I was on. Wide but two lanes. I swerved a little to avoid hitting him and kept going. Now here's the thing, that section of the road is straight for quite a ways and though I was really shaken up by the encounter, I looked in my mirror to see him just step back to his car and keep staring west, just like the day before. Like a stranger hadn't just swerved to avoid killing him and leaving him to his own devices. It was weird. I never saw him again after that, but I called my local police, of whom I personally know several officers, one of which is a neighbor. I was thinking maybe he really did have a problem at the time. A few things stood out to me though. Namely that the day before the gas station would have been open and if he didn't have a cell phone it was less than a block away and he would have had to have passed it in order to be on that particular stretch of road. No way you couldn't have seen it and been where he was supposedly broken down. I hadn't thought of it Friday, but it struck me hard on Saturday when I saw him again. Second it was the exact same everything. Car with the hood up outfit, even the shirt so far as I could tell the place and even the way he just stood waiting for the car to come from the west just over a hill where it had been hard to see in the spot until you were fairly close. And since I knew his car hadn't been left overnight, that felt very very wrong. Lastly, the dead look on his face when he tried to flag me down. I could see him clearly. I was going 25 miles per hour the speed limit in that particular spot and he didn't change expression when he saw me. It just went through the motions. That was probably the most unsettling part to me. It was like he knew what to do but not how to do it right emotionally. Also, he just turned back to steering immediately after I passed him. Later that day I asked one of my cop buddies if they ever came across the guy, but he hadn't heard anything and even later on I came to find out the cop on that route hadn't come across anybody when he stopped a bit later. It's a smallish town, not much happens there. Not emergencies are slow to be dealt with at best. My buddy told me. Thanks for calling in. Stranded motorists can really get hosed when nobody's around. But also good on me for following my instincts about the guy. Basically, if you feel creeped out by a stranded motorist, call the cops and they'll find help and help them. Long story short, I never saw the guy again and I hope I never do. Because whatever his game was, I know that his car wasn't just breaking down in the same conveniently hard to see spot repeatedly. Of all the creepy crap that I've seen in my life, that is still the one that comes to mind when it comes to unsettling and unnerving run ins. This is actually my stepmom's and her best friend's story. I have my own, but I'm so hesitant to drag some of them up. I'm hoping telling someone else's will help me open up to it a little more. My stepmom didn't really like us much, but she told my sister, who's three years older and I this experience she told us growing up, to scare us out of being stupid. It was my family. Stranger Danger Story My stepmom, we're going to call her Macy, grew up as a kind of privileged teen in the seventies and her mom had moved their family over here in the United States from England when she was about 9. She went to a pretty nice high school in a really nice town. Then she made friends with a girl named Lily who didn't exactly run with Macy's type of crowd, popular, stereotypical, etc. They really hit it off and Lily would take Macy out to do her type of things. Hiking, fishing, sailing. There's even a hilarious set of pictures of them camping. My stepmom has raccoon eyes and she looks like she hates everything. Anyways, because of Lily's influence, the two of them would do stuff like that a good amount. One Sunday they decided to go hike in some hills about an hour away. Maci put on what I'm sure were her extremely expensive hiking shoes and the two of them drove off into the hiking trails. Lily parked in this big clearing with makeshift parking spots, you know, like a piece of wood marking the head of a space. But there were no other cars there. This was only important in hindsight. They started hiking up the hill off the path because Lily had fancied herself as something of a badass. The hike was nothing extraordinary. If you asked my stepmom, she would just lament for 15 minutes about how sticky and buggy it was. Anyways, they reached the top of the hill when my stepmom was done. The polished pampered side of her was coming out and she groaned until Lily begrudgingly said okay. They would rest and then walk down again slower. They had been heading down the hill for maybe 10 minutes when Macy had started complaining again. Lily conceded to walking down the side of the road instead of the rough hiking trail. So there they are, probably looking like a couple of tools geared up for hiking and walking down a crappy road. And after not even five minutes, a truck pulled up next to them. It was red and rusty and just generally looked like a clunker. The guy driving rolled down the window and the girls looked in through the passenger side window. He had a big beard, a baseball cap pulled down, and long brown hair. He greeted them and even smiled through his beard, asking if they needed a ride. Macy described him as charming and even cute. Lily still says the moment he greeted them, her hackles went up. Despite her better judgment My stepmom convinced her to get in the truck. It's only a 10 minute drive down to the car, tops. The two girls opened the passenger's door to this rusty old thing and the guy directed them behind the seat to get into the back. They settled in and the truck started rumbling forward. Lily always said that was the point it hit. Or what a mistake they had just made. The back seat was clean enough, but there was a rope on the floor behind the driver's seat and four boxes of Saran Wrap hanging from under the passenger seat. It seemed creepy and weird, but Lily didn't want to freak my stepmom out, so she just kept her mouth shut. After 10 minutes, the woods didn't look any clearer and they hadn't seen another car the whole time. Lily asked how long he thought it would be. He said he was taking a different route down the hill and that he had to stop somewhere to get something first. That was it. The girls were 16 to 17 and Lily didn't want to press the issue. She was scared. She could remember his hair because she was sitting behind him. He looked like a woodsy guy, but his hair was super tangled and dirty. She noticed crusted mud on his collar and she tried to find something identifiable about him, but just got scared the more she picked up on the little details. He was youngish, strong looking and he had about one foot on both of them. So they didn't ask any more questions and he didn't offer any information and they just drove on. Several minutes after that, they had reached a tiny shack and log cabin looking place. Right there in the clearing of trees, there was an old stump where someone had been chopping wood and a huge axe stuck into the log. Lily was definitely on red alert now. The guy turned off the truck and slipped out of it, saying, I'll be right back. Don't get out. And he disappeared into the house. Lily tried to talk to my stepmom about how she was incredibly uncomfortable, but she mostly dismissed it. Lily started begging, increasingly freaked out, and finally put her foot down, demanding Maci exit the truck with her. So they got out and walked around the front of the vehicle. The house was about 50 yards in front of them. Why this guy would have left two young girls in the truck alone while going into the house is beyond me. But they wandered around, looking at it hesitantly. If this guy really was decent and just trying to give them a ride, it would be super rude to just run off, right? My stepmom had this strict upbringing when it came to manners. And a public Persona, and she saw it as an issue of that nature. So she actually started to head back to the truck, Opening the front door to climb in behind the driver's seat. Lily was pissed off and followed her to yell some more. On the driver's side door, half hidden under the seat, there was a big hatchet. It had dried red and brown stains covering the blade and it stuck to the floor under it. Lily, understandably totally lost her crab. And seeing it, my stepmom started getting hysterical. They decided that leaving was by far their best option at this point and just booked it off the side of the property into the trees. They bumbled around the trees for a little while until Lily was fairly confident that they were on their way back down the hill. My stepmom cried all the way down. Lily felt bad about it, but she was also completely freaked out that he would hear it and kept trying to calm her down. When they finally got back down to the bottom and saw the old wooden fence that surrounded the original parking area, they were relieved. But as they got closer, they saw it. The truck. It was parked on the other side of the gravelly makeshift lot, Just sitting there facing the other way innocently. They couldn't see if anyone was in it, and of course Macy wanted to run for the car, But Lily was super hesitant. She managed to calm down my stepmom, saying she wanted to wait before running out into the open to see what was out there. Remember, this is in the 70s, no cell phones, there was no ranger station or anyone around. The parking lot was big and empty and open, and who knows what would have happened if they decided to stroll across it. Thankfully, Lily convinced my stepmom to chill and the two of them hunkered down against a big tree hidden by the bushes and other trees. And they waited it out for what seemed to be a couple of hours. When dark started to fall, all of the animals started coming out and making noises. And my stepmom started getting antsy about this and bothering Lily, who was tired and moments away from giving in. She was just planning their dash to the car when they heard a clunk sound across the twilight lit lot. They watched as one of the back doors of their car swung open and then the bearded guy slid his way out of the backseat. He got out, shut the door, looked around at the surrounding woods for several moments, and then just walked back to his truck. The truck lumbered past their car and out of sight. Several minutes after watching him drive away, they sprinted to their car as fast as they could. Jumped in and peeled out before they had even shut the doors. If this guy is still alive, he's really old, but still, I don't ever want to encounter him.