Scary Stories

[jbs2014]

My uncle's experience was the best story I can come up with at the moment. It's much better told in first person narrative, so ... read this in your best Sam Elliot voice.

Late 70s early 80s, I was cowboying at Eaton's Ranch in Wyoming. Beautiful, wild country with more than a few secrets hidden away in those mountains. We worked hard and played harder in those days. I was seeing this little gal, who later became my first wife and figured that a lakeside wilderness picnic and fishing expedition might be in order and just the ticket to impress this cutie.
We park the pickup at the trailhead and follow the stream up about a half mile with all the necessities on our backs, well almost all. Mort, my trusty blue heeler dog followed close. Camp is set up about 20 yards off the edge of the lake and we catch our limits of trout before dark and commence to cooking em up at the campfire. all in all, very romantic. As darkness settled in, our small fire the only light for miles, we all started feeling extremely uneasy. Now I've been guiding hunters, working forest service jobs and generally living in the mountains for years, so this uneasy feeling just don't set right, but being in a more amorous mood, I try to ignore it. It's not working. She feels it too. Mort's ears are erect and he's staring intently at the edge of the timber.
"Someone's out there" she says. Not some-thing, some-one.... Being a mountain ranch-raised gal, she's not the type to spook easy, and I'm immediately aware of the lack of weight on my hip, where the 44 mag Blackhawk typically resides. The image of it under the seat of the pickup flashes across my mind. "Almost all the necessities". We watch the edge of the timber and try to make out exactly what the hell is out there, or who... a figure, well, more of a presence moves parallel to the tree line real slow and stops again. Mort starts whining like he's scared. Didn't bark or yip, just a low whine. Trying to hope it's someone who just stumbled onto our camp and trying not to intrude, I holler out "Well don't be shy, come on in and have a drink!". No response. A little more movement, but nothing else. Then the wind starts to shift towards us and this God-Awful smell somewhere between rotting flesh and sh!t fills our nostrils and my plans shift immediately into how the hell we're going to get out of here. I tell the gal as soon as I get up, grab ahold of my belt and run. We have a long sprint on a dark trai the pitch black. I'm thinking to myself, we'll never make it. Whatever that thing is, it's big and not scared of us. I stand up, and she with me, hand firmly on my belt and we run. The figure steps into the Half-light, tall and big. We didn't waste any more time. In two steps, we were at a full sprint down the trail back to the pickup and the pistol under the seat.
Running hard through the dark, branches whipping at every piece of us, we could hear heavy footsteps behind us and across the stream.... gaining. We ran harder. It kept pace stride for stride, paralleling us across the water, snapping branches and ripping through the underbrush. Then, the sickening sound of water splashing and rocks shifting under heavy feet..... crossing towards us. We were close to the trailhead and I grabbed her hand off my belt and pulled her in front of me, my lungs were about to give out and she was as fast as I was anyhow. I told her not to stop no matter what. (Looking back, she wasn't going to argue the topic either way. She told me later, the thought to trip me along the way had crossed her mind. )
As she sped down the trail, I tried to keep up, legs and lungs about to give way, the steps were closing fast behind me and I was giving it all I had. I could feel the presence of a hand about to grab me the entire last 100 yards or so of the run. Any second was going to be my last. We burst off the trail and she was starting the pickup and throwing it in gear, I leaped in the bed on the move and Mort bailed in behind me. As the little truck peeled gravel and flicked on the headlights, we got outta there and back to the ranch in record time. We didn't say anything to anyone for years about that night, but it kinda bonded us together...for a while.
It rained hard for the next week and there was plenty of work to do at the ranch(that's what I told myself anyways), but dang it, all my gear was still back there. I eventually worked up the nerve to go back and get my stuff, this time loaded with a bit more iron. Getting back to the small lake and where our campsite was, not a scrap of anything we brought in was there. Bedrolls, fishing poles, skillet, everything was gone! I looked for a little bit, but that same uneasy feeling hit me again and I high-tailed it back to the road. Never went back.

That is one of the creepiest ones yet. And thank you for sharing it. What do you think it could have been?

All the more reason to have a good firearm at all times

 

[jbs2014]

When I was 16 I killed a buck about hour before dark. By the time me and my buddy got down to him it was dark and we started working him up. Well a fast moving light streaked across sky and stopped above us hovered for few minutes and took off super weird and silent

What state was that in? I have heard of similar stuff happening in Northern Utah.

 

[Coldfinger]

Seeing how it is Halloween this month and I love a scary story, can you all share some creepy experiences you have had while out hunting/ shooting in the woods? I don't care if it's Bigfoot, UFOs, or ghosts anything creepy is fine by me.

Try coyote hunting at dusk with no light just moonlit snow in a conifer swamp and have a great horned owl swoop down into you while blowing the call. I think my butt was thinking of outrunning my feet till I knocked him off course with the barrel. I've shot several charging animals from bears to wounded coyotes but an areal assault is spooky!!!!

 

[Barehandlineman11]

Western Oregon

 

[Barehandlineman11]

Had a friend disappear in western Oregon few years back.. like disappeared big huge search for weeks never found a gun clothing fowl play. He got dropped off opening morning and was supposed to meet up with group around noon never came back

 

[JJMoody]

That is one of the creepiest ones yet. And thank you for sharing it. What do you think it could have been?

All the more reason to have a good firearm at all times

You should hear him tell it! Still scares him. As certain members of my family have been known to spin a yarn, I withhold a firm assessment. He won't fully commit to being a Bigfoot believer, but he has one other encounter with a similar creature that just can't be dismissed as something more common. Just gives a solid shoulder shrug and says "Hell, I don't know"( again, Sam Elliot voice)

 

[JJMoody]

Had a friend disappear in western Oregon few years back.. like disappeared big huge search for weeks never found a gun clothing fowl play. He got dropped off opening morning and was supposed to meet up with group around noon never came back

Thats super-tough on everybody. Had a couple buddies go missing on the Salmon river during a spring bear hunt. We did get closure a couple weeks later though.

 

[jbs2014]

Had a friend disappear in western Oregon few years back.. like disappeared big huge search for weeks never found a gun clothing fowl play. He got dropped off opening morning and was supposed to meet up with group around noon never came back

What happened to your friend was unfortunate.

On the surface it sounds almost like that whole "Missing 411" phenomenon that I have read about. Pretty creepy stuff.

 

[Barehandlineman11]

We think it's cartel related... a ton of pot farms we found in there

 

[jbs2014]

We think it's cartel related... a ton of pot farms we found in there

I thought that stuff was legal in OR.

 

[Barehandlineman11]

Not at time it happened

 

[jbs2014]

Try coyote hunting at dusk with no light just moonlit snow in a conifer swamp and have a great horned owl swoop down into you while blowing the call. I think my butt was thinking of outrunning my feet till I knocked him off course with the barrel. I've shot several charging animals from bears to wounded coyotes but an areal assault is spooky!!!!

I almost shot a large owl in my yard once. It was late and I thought I saw something move through the sliding glass door. So I grabbed the 5.7 and stepped out to investigate. While outside I saw something in my peripheral so I oriented on it and had it lined up in my sights. That is when I realized it was a very large owl of sorts sitting on my fence. Glad I did not double tap it, not sure the neighbors would have appreciated the commotion.

 

[jbs2014]

Well thank you all for sharing. As I said in the OP I love a good scary story.

If you have any more I'd still love to hear them.

 

[26Reload]

Okay...a few years back was up north at 'the chicken coop bunkhouse'...whitetail hunt...tired from hunting..rolled into sleeping bag about 930pm...
Lite in dining area stays on all nite..soft..im in a bunk opposite dining...back was hurting..started getting sore..i moved to another position..looking past my feet..on the wall maybe 15" from my feet..was a black figure...shoulders and head..black as could be...i blinked and saw it slide to the left under the black trash bag covering the window...i thought about it for a few seconds..went back to sleep...next morning...got up walked over to the wall and checked for shadow cast from my hand within a foot and to a few inches...no shadow could be made to change the color on the wall unless I put my hand 'on the wall'......ive no doubt what it was...and there's other stories from there also....
Ghost......dang right they exist......