19. ‘Come and find me.’
“When I was a kid hiking along a coastal national forest area with my friend and his dad, I went alone down an overgrown side trail to pee. I noticed a stench from the main trail that we figured was a dead animal somewhere nearby was getting more powerful as I went a short distance down that side trail. Stopped at a tree to do my business and found some trash scattered at the base of it and a cardboard sign leaned against it that read “Come and find me” with an arrow pointing further down the overgrown trail. At that point, the stench was so powerful that my nose was starting to burn.
Couldn’t pee with my mind freaking me out with all kinds of images of what the hell could be further down that trail, so I went back to the main trail and didn’t say anything to my friend or his dad about what I’d seen until I couldn’t hold my pee anymore and asked his dad to stop again so I could pee.
When we got back to town, he called it in to the local sheriff.
Don’t know what they found, if anything, but I can’t help but still imagine some suicidal man’s corpse or a bunch of dead animals a budding serial killer slaughtered and arranged somewhere down the trail.”
20. A group of cackling witches.
“I went camping in Big Sur, CA with one of my best friends. It was off-season and a Sunday night, so the place was practically empty. We picked a campsite about a half-mile walk to the ocean. It was in a huge open field surrounded by a lush forest. In the background were Limestone Mountains and you could hearing the crashing of the ocean’s waves. Very epic.
We spend the night around a campfire telling stories and eating. We’re both pretty experienced backpackers too — we are VERY diligent in ensuring we do not leave any trace of food by our site, and almost everything other than our essentials goes in the bear bag/box. I have my dog with me too (she’s ADA, so she was allowed on the site) — she’s leashed around one of the few trees in the field on a long metal leash and full harness. It’s a full moon out, and it was pouring beautiful blue light across the field. It was absolutely pristine and breathtaking.
Around 1AM, something spooks my dog. Now, she is used to the woods and has an incredibly calm demeanour. But, I mean, she is FLIPPING out, tugging hard on the leash like she is desperate to escape…and she does: she pulls so hard that her harness snaps and she goes bolting across the field into the wilderness. I lose my cool. I drop everything and bolt after her. I’m not thinking straight running into the woods at night: my only concern was getting her even if it meant risking my own safety.
I rescue her. I find her curled up in a random clearing in the woods, looking ashamed and terrified. Thank God she ran in a straight line, otherwise I would have been totally lost. I walk back carrying her and my heart is pounding furiously at the horror of the idea of her being lost in the wilderness forever. The thought now is still unbearable. I can feel her heart pounding too in my arms — she’s still terrified.
I’m no longer in a great mood. We all head to bed in my tent, but my dog won’t lay down. She refuses. Her ears are up and she’s staring intensely at the tent wall, as if she could see through it and she’s tracking something. It takes a while for my nerves to calm down from my chase earlier. I’m working hard at taking deep breaths and reminding myself that I’m prepared for anything that I could encounter. That my dog is simply spooked from maybe a raccoon. Maybe she’s just exhausted and acting up. And then I hear it: cackling. Like a high-pitched laughter that is full of a disgusting type of joy and it’s coming from outside my tent. Fuck deep breathing: my senses go on high alert, my body tenses up so tightly it’s like I’m about to break in half. I can’t even breathe.
And then I hear even more cackling, like a group of witches were doing something evil just yards away. It fills my hearing: laughing and laughing and more laughing. It’s loud and it just sounds so wrong. I can’t even bring myself to move to look at my friend. It’s like my entire body has given up. The laughs are then followed up with blood curling screams. It honestly sounded like somebody was being murdered: it was full of panic and horror and sadness. Dear God.
It could have been wolves or coyotes killing their prey. But it sounded so distinctly human — the laughter, the sobbing, the screams. Finally my friend says something: “What. What the fuck?” I even begin to laugh a little because the situation was so intense and wild, I had no idea how else to react. “I can’t handle this,” I say, and suggest that we bolt for the car. It’s a mile away, so we decide to stay out. We just listen to the laughter and screaming until it fades away. Even when it was over, I didn’t bother going to bed.
tldr: evil witches spooked my dog, and then murdered a child right outside my tent during a full moon ritual. Definitely just wildlife doing its thing tho.”
