Legend

Day Three The Nightmare

Day three of the trip. Even though I was calmer now the edge that I had yesterday was still with me. So I tried to be as quiet as possible to make sure not to startle anything. I zipped the tent and crawled out, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end as I found some of the craziest looking footprints I’ve ever seen in the woods. They looked more like hoofs rather than a foot. I could believe my eyes. These hoofs, if that’s what they were, had to’ve been fourteen inches long and seven inches wide. I know that sounds strange but, I know what I saw. No plaster casting mix either, so I couldn’t cast it. One thing I did notice when I got out of the tent as well, was how quiet it was outside. I was the only thing moving. No bugs, no birds, or squirrels making noice. Nothing I could’ve took a step and had it echo across the side of the mountain. Nothing was making sense anymore to me. What could make tracks look like that? Was it following us around the mountain? I had no answers, yet we needed some fast.

I started making breakfast and woke my wife while doing so.

“Good, your up.” I said while getting the plates ready for us to eat.

“What’s a matter babe?” She said looking on with concern.

“Look around us honey.” I told her pointing everyone around the tent and myself. Her eyes went really wide with awe.

“What came through here last night?” She asked me after seeing the tracks.

“I have no clue but, whatever it is has hoofs for feet.” I said back towards her direction. “I think we need to be heading back for the Jeep today. What do you think?”

She shook her head yes and we got right to work eating our food quick so we could get going. Still nothing had moved except us and this was starting to concern me. I didn’t want to let anything to happen to my wife but, I kept getting the feeling that her life was in immediate danger. Than I heard a snap of a limb breaking.

“What was that babe?” My wife asked worrisomely.

“I don’t know babe? Let’s just finish eating and go. Ok?” I asked her. She nodded her head in agreement. Next thing I know I heard my wife’s voice coming from the tree line about forty feet from us.

“Johnny,” whatever it was said. It didn’t sound right though. Whatever it was sounded like it was trying to imitate my wife but, almost sounding more like my wife over a radio frequency. It was so wrong and abnormal.

“Let’s move babe!” I told her as I grabbed her hand and we started down our trail. Moving at a pace as to not alarm the thing into coming after us. At first I was thinking that whatever this thing was must’ve been Sasquatch. A hairy ape man that was said to live in the woods in the Pacific Northwest region. However this is the Midwest. How could something like that live around here. Now I was thinking something else. While walking through the woods along our trail we started to notice something odd.

“Babe that’s the same tree we have passed three hours ago!” She exclaimed at me in a state of petrified disbelief.

“That can’t be? We haven’t turned off the normal trail at all. How can that be?” Is all I said while trying to figure out how this was possible. This just didn’t seem possible from any standpoint.

“It is though babe! We have been walking in circles! I want to go home!” She said welling up with tears. I walked over and hugged her tight.

“We will babe. I promise you.” I said trying to comfort her as she cried on my shoulder. I wanted to get my wife out of here. I knew already that she was in danger but, I couldn’t do anything about it. We were lost and couldn’t find our way out. I then heard a familiar voice.

“Johnny!” That same voice I heard before reigned out across the woods and valley beneath. I felt like I was stuck in a nightmare. I looked at my wife and wold her, “We need to move!” I grabbed her hand and we started running down the trail. We didn’t stop until we found our spring that we filled our canteens at. At this point, we were both out of breath from running so long. We made the trek from the top of the mountain down almost to the halfway point in a matter of an hour. To let you know how scared that meant we were, that trek going back down normally takes about four hours walking. We sat down and tried calming down. It was dark about now. The walking in circles took us about five hours. So, in all toll, we ended up using six hours of daylight that could’ve been used to get us back to the Jeep. We didn’t feel like lighting a fire tonight. We just curled up in the tent and listened. Hoping we wouldn’t hear the thing that chased us. While we needed to eat still, we didn’t feel like it. So afraid of the woods under the cover of moonlight. The quiet was the worst of it though. Not a sound had been made since late yesterday afternoon.

While under the cover of moonlight the creepy woods gave way to more of the feeling of being watched. Not knowing why this happened, my wife and I snuggled closer. When all of the sudden a loud snap of a branch reigned out over the valley. Nothing had moved, and nothing was making noice. Just a very sudden snap in the middle of the night. My heart was now pounding in my chest. I searched for more noice but nothing came. The woods were still and my heart ached over the thought of something jumping out at us. I kept holding onto my wife not wanting to let go. She held onto me as tight as she could as well. All of the sudden a loud roar reign out over the woods. It sounded like a combination of a woman screaming and grizzly growling. My wife and I both ran into the tent and turned the lights off. Both of us, still holding each other, remained silent for the rest of the night. While in the woods, yelling, growling, knocking, and scurrying went on thru the night.

It’s was about three in the morning now. Nothing had moved for about an hour. At this point we couldn’t go to sleep. We were wide awake and running off pure adrenaline. Scared, worried, terrified, pretty much any feelings of dread that you could think of, we felt. We were tired but, if we fell asleep, we knew that would be it. The adrenaline was to much though. We just were quiet and listened to every noice in the darkness of the woods. We were hoping that was the last of it. No hope prevented what was soon to come the next day though.