← Southern Cannibal's Scary Stories
Southern Cannibal's Scary Stories
5 TRUE Scary & Disturbing Camping & Hiking Horror Stories | Episode 586
00:44:07
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Warning the following stories are pretty dark and disturbing. The stories today will mention the death of a human as well as brutal details about the death of animals. If that's something you don't want to hear, listen to something else. And if you're already, let's continue. And remember to always stay hungry. I was hiking in the Olympic National Forest a few years ago by myself and my two dogs. We were four days in, around 20 miles at least as a crow flies from even a known mountain road. I was camping at around 7k feet that night, or right where the tree line started thinning out. So when we got to the campsite, a big open meadow on top of a secondary mountain, it was about an hour from the sunset. My big dog usually runs around within proximity of the camp as I had put the tent up and make dinner, etc. But I noticed this time was a little different. He kept staring up this steam tree filled mountainside, tail straight up and barking. Not the bark when he sees marmots, not the excited oh you guys are so lucky because I'd rip you all apart if my master wasn't here. High pitched barks, but more like unsure, concerned barks. Now the day before I had a note left under a rock at the last landmark saying that there was a problem bear in the area that was harassing a party of campers just a few days ago. And I myself had seen big cat tracks the day before, so I was rightfully concerned that this may be a bit more than just ground squirrels. I Decided to go climb some of the boulders at the foot of the hill. While I took my time looking up the hillside for movement before I went to hang my beer bag up there. They were the only trees around to hang the back. I didn't see or hear anything, but my dog kept quietly whining like there was something up there. So while still concerned, I started hiking up this steep hill to hang the back. It was so steep I had to use the trees to balance and lean against so I didn't go tumbling down before making another five, six step push to the next tree I could lean against. Anyway, I'm slowly making it up to this hillridge, hopping from tree to tree to keep my balance. Then I get about 100ft up the hill and I hear a whole lot of big movement about 50ft in front of me. My dog immediately goes from a deep low growl to a savage slobber flying everywhere, tight barking. Now my heart starts pounding out of my chest and I start to panic. A million thoughts go racing through my head in the matter of seconds because if this is a bear, my dog is going to try and save me, in which he will most likely die and I'm stuck here. If I have to get off that hillside fast, I am almost 100% going to trip and fall off the 1215 foot cliff onto the boulders below. Like literally hundreds of five 20 foot boulders. So yeah, I'm feeling pretty screwed about now. Then I hear my other little dog start barking and freaking out down at my campsite which was just out of my sight. I had her zipped up in my tent so she didn't wander off while I was away. So yeah, I'm absolutely panicking at this point. A few seconds after I kinda snap back to it and I take another few seconds to start to put my survival priorities in order and I call my dog back to me. He comes and sits against my feet as my back is against a tree. So I'm kinda pinned and stuck there for a moment. But my dog was seemingly trying to separate me from something up there. So I let him lean against me while I tried to collect myself. This is when I realized that I had completely forgotten that I had my headlamp on. I reached up so fast to turn my headlamp on and I basically punched myself in the face. I'm having some serious adrenaline dumps going right now. So much that my knees are starting to shake. I get my lamp on and peer up the hillside. I figured I'd at least get a reflection of eyes or whatever's up there, hearing nothing. But I had just heard something. We both did. And whatever it was didn't get away or sound like it made it too far. I knew something was there. So I'm kinda just steadfast at this point. I need to know what is up there because I have to sleep here tonight. And, you know, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere alone. Better to face it than just wait like a sitting duck all night long was my thought process. So, yeah, as I'm looking up this hill, and at one point, my dog lunges forward, unpinning me. He does a fake bluff charge up the hill about 15ft. And I mean, he's snarling and foaming at the mouth at this point. As he does this, I finally see movement. Something moving up and breaking the line of the horizon. And sunset. My dog's bluff made whatever it was below its cover. So I'm zeroed in. I called my dog back and silently watch. And what I made out made my heart completely stop. There was a man crouched about 75ft directly in front of me, Wearing no camo clothes, but some raggedy crap with a hood that blended into the environment perfectly. It was actually almost like a makeshift ghillie suit, but with his face fully exposed. I couldn't see his eyes, and his face was covered in dirt or something. But I knew we were staring right at each other at that moment. So I stare for what seems like minutes. No words. I felt like I was trying to subconsciously convey that I was going to stand my ground. I wanted him to know that I saw him, but I guess I was just too shaken up to speak. As I'm staring, my little dog back at the campsite started to bark her head off again, like she was scared. I also had to get off that hill before it was totally dark or I could be seriously hurt or risk dying trying to get back down. So carefully, I start heading down the hill with my dog, who doesn't want to leave but listens periodically. I would stop with my back against a tree holding me up and look in that direction again, just to make it even more clear. I saw him. And eventually I make it down to the boulders at the bottom. By the time I finally jumped down and hit the boulders, my little dog had finally stopped barking. I could only see the top of my tent from the bottom of the boulders. I thought that she was barking just to bark. Dachshunds tend to do that, or at least barking back at my dog. But when I get there, My little dog had somehow gotten out of the tent and was walking around the camp growling, with her tail sticking straight out, still trying to hold it together. I thought, okay, maybe she just got her nose between the zippers and worked her way out. But I was positive that I had zipped it so the zipper tab and openings was at the very top of the tin door, out of reach. So in a mixture of being terrified, pissed off, and the feeling of needing to do something, I reached into my day bag and pulled out my 40. I fired a single shot into the air as the sun was setting, climbed into my tent without eating, and I lay with my gun next to me until first light. As soon as the sun came up, I was packing up my crap and leaving, heading back down the mountain. It sucks. It was all downhill back, but I still couldn't cover the ground to get back to my car in one day. It was dark by the time I made it to the last camp, about four miles from my vehicle. But thankfully there were other people there. We sat around a fire they made, and I felt pretty relieved and safe. They start to tell me that they're planning to head that way, where I was the night before, in the morning. So I tell them my story in detail. Needless to say, we're both walking back to our cars in the morning. Screw all that. The thing that still creeps me out to this day, though, is when I get home and start reading reviews of the same hike I was on. Other people had similar experiences like mine as well. Even a man found dead from a fall around the same boulder range two years ago. And a woman found murder just last year. I don't think I'm ever going back. This started when I was at my childhood friend's apartment for what was supposed to be a fun little movie night. We hadn't hung out in a while and we were catching up. Her place was cozy, a little disorganized, and full of girly decor. We were in our comfiest sweatpants, about to watch princess movies. Her apartment isn't the most tidy. Things are a bit scattered around, but it's clean and so authentic, which always made me feel at home. We decided on ordering pizza for dinner. She mentioned that Sherwood, someone I hadn't met yet, would be bringing the pizza over. At first I wasn't happy to hear that. I thought that meant that she had invited other friends, a boy over to join us, which wasn't what I had in mind, but I was in for a surprise. Sherwood turned out to be just our Delivery guy for the night. He wasn't joining us when he got to the apartment. There was this awkward air about him. He was obviously nervous, fumbling a bit with the pizza boxes and not quite making eye contact. My friend introduced us quickly, and it was clear from her overly thankful demeanor that Sherwood did a lot more for her than just fetch dinner. After handing us the pizza, there was this brief moment of forced small talk. My friend was super nice to him despite his awkwardness. He wasn't the best conversationalist and seemed really out of place. Then Sherwood asked for my number. I was in a tough spot because our mutual friend was sitting right there, so I just gave it to him. Yeah, we chatted for maybe five minutes before my friend gave him a cue to leave with something like, thanks so much for dropping this off. And he seemed to get the hint. We both gave him a hug before my friend said something like, well, drive safe, giving him another kind of cue to leave. When I asked my friend what that was all about, she basically explained that Sherwood was her unpaid personal assistant. He did her grocery shopping, he dropped off pizza, and he did all this other stuff too. I think Sherwood was just a really lonely guy, desperate for interaction, especially female interaction. My friend and I were both young and immature back then. We were about 23, but. But I think we both knew something was seriously wrong with Sherwood. It was a little hard to articulate because we couldn't point out exactly what his problem was. Sherwood started a group chat with my friend and I. He just sent a meme or two every week. It felt like he was trying to stay relevant without being intrusive. Maybe he was used to being sidelined or even blocked by other girls. In the past. It felt like he was trying to make me remember him, but I'm also carefully trying not to give me a reason to block him too. I can't speak on his behalf. That's just what it felt like. Sherwood also offered help with errands the first time I said thanks for asking, but no. He asked every weekend after that. One day, I made the mistake of actually accepting his help. I knew better. I had recently found a great deal for a new washing machine on Craigslist, but I had no idea how to pick it up and install it. When I mentioned it in the chat, Sherwood excitedly volunteered to take care of the whole thing. He handled the whole pickup and installation like a total champ, which saved me so much hassle. I tried to pay him for his efforts because I wanted to show appreciation, but he wouldn't accept Any money? I insisted. Eventually, he suggested that I could repay him by joining him for a hike. Like what? I was uneasy about this. It felt a bit too personal and almost like it could be mistaken for a date. But Sherwood framed it as nothing more than a friendly outing, like a transaction. To balance out the favor, I agreed to the hike. I rationalized it by telling him that it was a fair trade for installing the washing machine and that it was genuinely a form of payment, especially since I didn't think he had too many friends. This hike felt like maybe a way for him to have some companionship. I thought it might be nice helping him. Part of me was still uneasy about spending time with him in such an isolated setting. The day of the hike, Sherwood picked this trail that was nearby. I'd been there before. It's gorgeous. As we walked along together, he had chatted about ordinary things like work, the weather, and his hobbies as well. Everything seemed normal until he suggested that we go off the main path to see something special that he wanted to share with me. Like, what could that even mean? Well, we reached the secluded spot, and there was. How do I explain this? Well, there was a dead body. My heart pounded so violently as Sherwood stood there, so eerily calm and nonchalant. The casualness in his demeanor made me feel even more uneasy. It felt like he wasn't just showing me a dead body, but also revealing this darker side of himself. It smelled bad, but not like in the movies. I didn't know how long it had been there. I am not a biologist, but my guess is that it had smelled a lot worse before, but now it had gone down. At that moment, I mumbled some excuse about needing to get back quickly and started walking briskly towards the main path. I was urging Sherwood to follow me. I thought maybe this was just some twisted mind game, like a way to intimidate me or show me that he wasn't just some harmless little boy. Maybe he was trying to send me a message that said, you should know I'm familiar with things like this. Oh, there's another possibility. Maybe he just wanted me to think about him more. Sometimes when I talk to people, I feel like they only notice me for the time that we're together, and then they won't think of me again until the next time we meet. It's very possible Sherwood felt that way with me, and maybe he thought showing me a dead body would make him less forgettable. I really have no idea. But on the surface, he seemed oblivious to how inappropriate this was. As we walked Back together. I was in full fight or flight mode, instinctively looking around to see if there were other hikers or rangers, anyone who could make me feel like I wasn't alone. The moment I had spotted someone else on the trail, I called out. Not to expose Sherwood, but just asking for directions back to the parking area. I wanted to make sure Sherwood and I wouldn't be left alone together. I asked this gentleman to walk us back to the parking lot. I wasn't going to take no for an answer. I kept pretending like I was confused about his directions and eventually he agreed to just walk us there. Getting help from that guy was my way of re anchoring myself to safety and normality while I was still under the shock of what Sherwood had just shown me. We got to the parking area. There I called my friend and I told her I was with Sherwood. I suggested he could drop me off with her and that we'd be there in 20 minutes. Sherwood agreed. That was my way of making sure that if anything happened, it was on the record that Sherwood was the last person to have been with me. Also, I immediately texted my friend what had happened to get that on the record too. When I got to her apartment, we said thanks to Sherwood and kindly told him to go away. I had already told her through text, but then I had started to go into all of the details. The fact that the body had insects, the fact that the face was decomposing but still recognizable, etc. Her reaction was pure terror. Not just about the dead body, but also how nonchalantly Sherwood had treated the whole situation. She confessed that she had always sensed something was off about him, even though she had never imagined anything this disturbing. We both agreed that we needed to remove Sherwood from our lives. She admitted that she felt stuck and she had become too reliant on Sherwood just to fire him cold turkey. We planned out how we would do was this gradual phasing out plan. We would limit our interactions to times when others were present. We would slowly reduce our responses to his texts. I would never ask for his help again, and my friend would ask for less and less help. Sherwood kept texting during the weekends, offering to run errands or asking if we needed anything. To which my friend would reply, I'm trying to work on being more independent, but you've really been such a good help. Eventually, as my friend had started dating someone new, she had introduced Sherwood to her boyfriend. Sherwood never contacted her after that. I had called the cops the same night of the incident, but it was a while before we heard more news about it. At least a full month later, a news report confirmed discovering a dead body in that area where Sherwood had taken me hiking. They made an arrest not of Sherwood, but of this other guy that Sherwood followed on Instagram. I have no idea if Sherwood was connected to the murder. Reflecting on everything, I think there's one clear moral of the story. Trust your instincts. It was almost 20 years ago that this happened. It's an old story and I'm pretty sure no one is in imminent danger. My family has some property that backs up decarson National Forest in New Mexico. It's been in the family for years and my sister and I both spent our summers up there. It's gorgeous. Nice and green, cool mountain air in the summer. It was always a relief to get up there and away from the dusty ranch. My dad was ex military and having two daughters, let's just say we did lots of outdoor stuff. He taught us survival skills and how to defend ourselves. We hunted and fished and did lots of camping and hiking. To us it was always a fun time, but I guess he felt the need to pass on his skills to us. We spent several weeks in the summer up there hiking with them and exploring the old cabins, mining communities, and checking the Big Ditch project that was built for the Red river back in the late 1800s. I think that's the correct date for that project, but I'm not quite sure. Anyways, it's a really great place to hike with some beautiful high mountain lakes, streams, lots of wildlife. You get the point. This happened when I was in college and my younger sister was still in high school. My dad was still at home having to work and would come up every few weeks to spend time with us. We were up there with our mom and she mainly spent time in town or around the property, painting. We spent our time on the jeep trails or hiking and sleeping. It was late June, maybe early July I think, and we decided that we were going to go hike up to Lost Lake. It's one of my favorite lakes up there because if you look at it from a certain angle, it looks like a heart. We set off in the morning and we were prepared and we both had a small hammock we planned to set up once we got to the lake so we could just enjoy the area for a while. I will admit to being an outdoor type and swear when it's quiet enough you can hear the trees talk. We also both always carried a knife when we hiked. My dad always insisted we have something just in case an accident happened or if we just needed it. The hike was going good. Since the summer cabin is pretty far up the valley. We just sat out on foot to the trailhead. To get to Lost Lake, you take another trail that goes up to Middle Fork Lake. Then you break off that trail for Lost Lake. We ran into a few other hikers, but they were going to Middle Fork Lake. And we were pleased because it looked like we could possibly have Lost Lake all to ourselves. It's a pretty good hike with some long switchbacks at the end, but totally worth it because the lake is just beautiful. And it's a very pretty emerald green in color. Well, we got there and we saw that we did have the lake to ourselves. We hiked around the lake and decided to hike back for a bit to find a good spot to set up our hammocks. We walked into the tree line, and the first thing my sister said was, do you smell that? And yep, I did. It was a dead animal with the strong scent of blood. We had both done lots of hunting, and we knew that smell well. And that's when I saw it. It was a deer carcass. But what was around it is what disgusted me. Placed around the deer carcass in a circle were its organs, entrails, etc. But it wasn't like it was being cleaned. It's like they were placed in a certain arrangement with little piles of rocks between everything. Now I know how some people get disgusting with their kills. And I've had some guys try to gross me out, but I don't fall for crap like that. But this made me uneasy. It wasn't just being cleaned. It was like it was set up in a certain meaning, or it had meaning. I stepped back from the weird circle, and then my sister started to say my name, but stopped. Because then we see the guy who had done this. He looked like he had just climbed out from inside the deer because he's covered in blood and he doesn't have much clothing on. At first I thought he didn't even have anything on. But honestly, I didn't try and check him out much. He was standing back away from his gruesome little circle, just standing close to a group of trees that were pretty close together. He was maybe 20ft from us. I think that he was maybe trying to hide, but not sure. But my dad had always taught us that if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we didn't feel in control to do everything in our power to try to take full control of the situation, do something that's going to take the other person by surprise. Don't do what they expect you to do. So this was raging through my brain, and I also could tell my sister was about to freak the hell out. So I stepped up and said, hey, pretty good kill you got there. Did you use a bow? The guy just stood there, his eyes all crazy wide like he was stoked out of his brain on planet Pluto. So I'm thinking, great. We ran into this guy getting his hunt on, and he had lost it and was getting blood crazy with his deer. He was staring me down and I was staring right back, and my sister was getting ready to run. I still don't know what came over me, but I then put my hand on my knife that I kept on my waist just to show him that I wasn't completely helpless. I don't know why I did it, but something told me to let him know that I wasn't going to back down or be afraid. I kept eye contact with him, and I would guess that he was maybe in his early 30s, but I'm really bad at guessing people's ages. He was pretty dirty, though. You could tell that with even all the blood he had everywhere. I started to back off and my sister had moved behind me. So I spoke again and said, so you have a great hunting day. Again, the crazy man didn't say a thing. Just stood there like he was a statue or something, or like he thought I couldn't see him if he didn't move or make any sound. We moved back to the lakeside again and then booked it around the lake. My sister stayed up front and she was shaking pretty badly. I was mainly pissed off at first because if he wanted to get all crazy in the woods with his deer, then he should have gone further back up in the forest. We got back to the trailhead and we had stopped to get our bearings and looked at each other. I was scanning the forest line just to make sure we weren't being followed, and my sister was just in shock. We started down the trail pretty fast, and I was hoping I could keep my sister together until we could at least reach the Middle Fork Lake trail or that we would even run into some more hikers. But the odds weren't good on this particular trail because you have to get an early start on the Lost Lake Trail. And by now it was late morning noon. We were making good time and hadn't even discussed what we saw. Just started hiking back down. I started to get that feeling when you just know you aren't alone. I Kept checking, but I didn't see anything or even really hear anything. At first my sister refused to look back and just kept going. But I felt that I had to keep checking to make sure that the idiot wasn't following us. That's when the first stuff came flying at us. It was some small pebbles, but it really pissed me off because it was obvious someone was throwing them at us and it could have only been him. My sister was almost running at this point. But I'm a mouthy smart aleck. I blame the Texas upbringing. And dang it, this was my forest. I had grown up here and those were my lakes, my trails, and I wasn't about to let some crazy dude ruin it for me. I started yelling back that he needed to go back to his deer and leave us alone. At this point, my sister's telling me to shut up and just come on. And I'm thinking, no way. This guy is just trying to scare us. The pebbles stopped and then we started hearing barking and growling noises. My sister then said, now he's growling at us. And I just told her to get down on the trail and ignore it. He was behind us pretty much the whole way, growling and making these barking noises every once in a while. But I never caught a glimpse of him. Once we got close to where the trail joined with the Middle Fork trail, he seemed to back off. I never caught sight of him behind us, but I could hear him and I just knew he was there. We started down the rest of the trail. My sister refused to stop or look behind her, so I kept checking every so often. I didn't see anything or hear anything. We started to discuss what had happened and she felt like he was very sinister and felt like we had been in a dangerous situation. I felt like he was just getting his kicks out of scaring two girls. I mean, he had to have heard us coming around the lake. We weren't being quiet. It was the opposite because there are black bears up there and we would always be pretty loud while hiking, hoping to scare off any bear in the area so we wouldn't come up on one. To this day, she still thinks he was sinister and I think he was just trying to scare two girls and was getting his kicks out of it. We told our parents and my dad didn't like what he heard. He did teach us some more up close defense skills after that day and he forbid us from ever hiking alone or just the two of us again. We didn't hike up that trail for several years with anyone. It really freaked out. My sister and I just didn't like remembering a time where I was scared in the forest that I considered my own. I didn't know it at the time, but after we had gotten back to the house and told my mom she had called some neighbors and a few of the men hiked up there the next day to check things out. They did find the deer carcass and some empty hiking packs like what day hikers use, but they were empty. They also found a rustic campsite further back in the woods that had been cleared out as well. Preamble I am a late 20s female and this happened fairly recently. Nothing bad happened to me, but I'm really lucky it didn't and it easily could have There's a conservation area that I used to like to walk in regularly. It's beside a golf course near an ordinary subdivision just off a busy road and is pretty popular with dog walkers and photographers. The conservation area is fairly well maintained and alerts its users that there are hidden cameras everywhere. My point in bringing attention to all of this is to say that by all accounts this is a very safe, vanilla urban wooded area in a populated area. One big thing about me is that I really like isolation to recharge. I dislike crowded trails and by convention going off peak hours or when the weather is unpleasant, not dangerous, but unpleasant. For example, when it's too cold, lightly raining, foggy, etc. I stay safe, but I like there to be as few people around as possible in a city in daylight. I don't feel like I'm taking any risks by doing this. The first encounter there was one day I went at around 4pm or so on a frigid rainy Monday in November. On days like that there are maybe only one or two dog walkers, but today there was no car in the parking lot except for a dirty blue pickup truck with a man sitting in it. I noticed that he was looking at me, but that didn't really bother me. I was just happy to see the trail was empty. On this particular day I went to the area to practice my navigation skills. I was learning how to use a compass at the time, and it's good to practice that skill in an area that you won't get lost in. So I decided to go off trail to a big pine plantation, which is a big open area with large mature pine trees. If you're not familiar, it's not a hiking area or really interesting in any way, and definitely off trail. You wouldn't get there unless you really wanted to get there. So I Pick my first landmark and sight it using my compass. And I'm pacing towards it. I find myself about halfway there when I hear rustling through the bushes. And I turn around to see the man from the dirty blue pickup truck there entering the pine plantation. Mid 50s white man, a little pudgy, wearing a baggy beige cardigan and blue slacks. I feel pretty alert at this point. Feels out of place somehow. I take note, but pretend to keep walking around with my compass because I don't want to seem weird. I look at him, he pretends to ignore me. I'm getting a really bad gut feeling about the situation for some reason at this point, and I feel like he's following me. But I have an anxiety disorder, so I try to not freak out for zero reason and. And I don't want to ruin my relaxation time. I mean, it's just a guy walking around. No big deal. To see if he's following me, I pivot 180 degrees and I walk directly towards the trail again. And he's still following me. I walk through the bushes onto the trail, still following me. At this point, I was freaked out. The pine plantation entrance is only about 50ft on the trail. So this guy would have walked 50ft, entered the pine plantation, and then decided that was it for the day. Bad odds. Yeah, he was definitely following me. I quickly exit the trail and when I'm leaving the parking lot, I see that he's still looking at me. I take the long way home. The experience freaks me out and I only visit the area once before the second encounter. Now on to the second encounter. This time I want to go bird watching. A week prior, I had seen an owl in the same pine plantation and I wanted to see it again. I was practicing navigation again. I had seen it about an hour before sundown, so I figured that was a good time to try and see it again in the same area. I checked the parking lot and there was no blue pickup truck. But there were two other cars with men. One was a red sedan with heavily tinted windows and it looked like the other one was empty, so I went on the trail again. Today is muddy, wet and cold. Area should be totally empty. Good. Unfortunately not. So about 20ft on the trail, I hear footsteps behind me. I don't like when people walk behind me, but it's not a crime and I'll lose them soon. When I go to the pine plantation, I'm sure you know where this is going. When I walk on the pine plantation, there is the same rustling of the bushes from before and when I turn around, I see the same man from before. I feel a wave of terror and dread overcome me. Alone in a muddy forest with a possible stalker. But it's still so calm and it feels so mundane. To confirm my fears, I walk over to the area where I saw the owl just last week and pause to look for it. Who do I see next to me? The same freaking guy from before. I'm terrified at this point and every part of me is screaming, run. So I walk as fast as I can to the trail again. I pass some other random guy in the same pine plantation and smile at him. Just totally on autopilot. He smiles back. It wasn't until I was in the parking lot where I get freaked out that there was a second person in the same pine plantation. Could they have been connected somehow? I stop briefly in the parking lot and take out a small notepad to quickly write down the license plates of the two cars. This allows the original man to catch up to the parking lot. I'm booking it out on foot out of the parking lot, and he yells towards me, hey, can I give you a ride? And I just shake my head and keep walking. As I walk away, he begins to follow me in his car. He waits at the intersection to see which direction I'm going in, and I decide to walk in a busy park to lose him. He pulls into a nearby hidden driveway and just stares at me. And then he takes out his phone to presumably take a photo of me. He notes what direction I'm walking in. Then he does a U turn and drives fast the other way. I took the long way home, filled out a police report, and the police opened an investigation on it. I have not gone back to the conservation area since. And this experience has definitely left me with an ongoing nervousness about being alone. Doubly more because I do not know who the second guy is. I passed him so quickly. I only know that he was about mid-50s, had glasses, and he was bald. The police unfortunately told me there's nothing they can really do at this point. So the best I can do is stay vigilant and to try not to let it freak me out too much. Unfortunately, this has totally ruined my love for going out into the wilderness alone. Nothing bad happened, but I think that was more because I was able to escape and lose him before anything happened. This is truly the scariest, most horrible thing that has ever happened to me. I've never been so petrified in my life. To this day, I still don't know who this man was what he was trying to do, or if he still is where I saw him. I'm sorry for how long the geographical description is. I just want everyone to understand how secluded I was when this happened and how badly it could have ended if it wasn't for my parents. I was back home for the summer for the first time in a year after starting uni. Our home was and still is just outside of a small town with forests all around. There was also a small man made lake which diverged from a river that ran for miles through the forest and ramified into a few streams. East of the lake near my home, there was a small grassy path that led to the river following a stream. It was a long walk, but one I used to go on often as a child. I knew the forests there well. I knew where I could cut through the dense trees to meet the stream. The walk I would go on always led me off the path which turned northwest slowly, so away from the stream and then took a sharp turn to the west. After a few miles of walking, at which point the stream was hidden quite deep into the forest. I'd continue to walk north and follow the stream through the forest to get into the river, then follow the river west to get to the lake. It's easy to get lost in this forest because the terrain isn't just a slope down to the water. It goes up and down and you end up completely surrounded by trees. I'd spent many days wandering around there alone or with my dad over the span of 18 years, never seeing anybody else in the forest. I went there twice that summer, both times alone. Ish. The first time I left in the morning, I walked along the path away from the stream to the sharp bend, then come back into the forest. I reached the stream after an hour or so. As I was running my hands in the water, I had heard a bell from far away coming from the north. Something was making a bell ring fervently and periodically, which I found strange. I listened well, wondered if it was just a lost hunting dog and started moving towards the sound. Yeah, I bloody know I'd be the first person to die. But I was heading north anyway, so what the hell. I realized that it couldn't have been an animal. I could tell that the bell was way too heavy because of how clear the sound was to be on a collar. I kept moving and the bell was moving away from me. It stopped completely after five minutes. The stream wasn't big enough or strong enough to carry a bell that could have been enclosed in a tent or something. And the river was too far. Still. I thought of everything, but nothing really explained the sound apart from one obvious thing which I just didn't feel comfortable with for some reason. I knew it had to have been a person. I stopped thinking about it and just walked on normally until I found a badger. A bloomin dead one, carefully decapitated. It had obviously been done with a knife. It was still fairly fresh. The body was still limping and there wasn't too much smell coming from it. The wound was full of maggots, but I knew that happened soon after exposure. The sound of the bill had been following the stream. So had I. So the badger was put there, maybe even killed there, at least decapitated while I was walking that way, I suppose. I don't know really. Nothing else happened that day. One week later I went back for the second time that summer and the last time ever. I left home at around 6pm I made it to the stream and then walked to the river in an hour. Then decided to go back the way I came because it was getting late and was raining quite heavily. The sun set at around 9pm I was walking as fast as I could. The sound of the rain in the trees was surreal and loud. I was somewhat trotting with my head down for a while through the clearest and most open part of the forest when I bumped into something heavy. The smell was sickly. It was the decomposing body of the badger with his head strung to his front paws. That area looked a bit like a ham because of the way it was tied. Just swinging from a tree like an almost literal load of bollocks. It was this putrid bag of stench, wet and dripping green liquid. I had started gagging. I had some sort of mucus textured fluid in my hair. It was repulsive. At first I just stared at it, slightly gobsmacked. Then I started fidgeting violently because I felt like I was drenched in its juices. I was soaking from the rain. My senses became confused. It felt like a bucket of ice cold water had been thrown over me when I realized that I'd walked the same way to get to the river. So someone had strung up the body after I'd passed it on the way there. Someone knew that I'd seen it. So was someone watching me. And running around the forest were the faint sounds of the branches breaking around me, not animals. I looked around and started jogging. I was half running, half walking away from the stream back towards the path for a while when I heard the bell Again, I proceeded to call my dad while running. I told him to meet me on the path where it sharply turns west. It was the closest part of the path to me and I told him to go as fast as he could and that someone was in the forest. I can't explain the feeling I had. It was like I just crapped out my intestines and stomach. I literally felt the hairs on my neck rise despite being soaked. It was dark. I jogged as fast as I could. I was panicking because the path was still a bit far away. Just too far to feel safe. It was still raining. Every single sound was muffled. I felt like everything was further away than ever before. The bell went on for way longer than the last time. On and off. I felt like it was surrounding me. At one point, the fear, combined with my compromised hearing and the fact that I couldn't flipping breathe properly was making me slightly lose my sense of direction. I was automatically heading southwest, but I really wasn't sure what I was even doing. I was breathing like a dang horse, coughing my lungs up, kind of crying out loud like a toddler does. Tripping over leaves and twigs like an idiot. I stayed on the phone with my mom, who was on her way with my dad. I kept hearing sounds, but I wasn't sure what they were. My mom was screaming on the phone at the same time that they were on the path, that I needed to run, that my dad had gotten out and that he was heading east from the path bend. I was terrified. So I went into survival mode. I was doing the half running, half speed walking thing again because I was so out of breath. Then I heard branches break clear, footsteps for the first time from down in the forest, and the bell ringing louder. I didn't want to, but I looked over my shoulder. That's when I saw what was in the forest with me. A tall figure creeping in my direction at the very end of the clearing, ringing this bell slowly in front of his stomach. I could tell he was staring straight at me. Now, I don't know if I had a hidden secret sprinting ability or instinctual adrenaline induced superhuman powers, but when I tell you I ran for my life, I freaking didn't look back even once. I screamed as much as I could. I lied. I'm on the phone with the police right now. They're on the path. Dad, I can see you. I'm here. I wanted to yell, dad, please, where are you? But I kept that to myself. I felt like something awful was going to happen. I felt like the man was right behind me. I kept telling myself not to look back. I was gasping and wheezing, crying so hard and screaming for my dad. I felt shivers on my neck and then switched off. I just ran. I even dropped my back and only realized that I didn't have it anymore. When I was in the car, I felt like my phone was my only way home. Things no longer felt real. It was like my legs were moving by themselves. I didn't know if the man was still following me. I could only hear my own heart beating in my ears. In the bell. I finally heard my dad shout my name. And I knew that he was coming my way and that he could see me because of the intonation of his voice. I pretty much lunged at him. When we got to each other, my dad heard the bell too. My mom could hear it on the phone. She was waiting with the car, ready to leave fast. And we got the hell out of there. I never went back and I'm never going to again.