Aaron Miller
Appearances
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I sprinted wildly through dense underbrush, crashing blindly through branches and brush. My lungs burned, breath ragged, but terror pushed me forward. Suddenly, a jolt of recognition and despair slammed through me. I burst through the trees, stumbling into the clearing of my campsite again. My feet slid to a halt, heart sinking. I hadn't escaped, I'd looped right back.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The tent stood silent and empty, the smoldering fire ring casting weak embers. But the creature was gone. Only the freshly gouged stone marks remained, deeper than before, arranged like twisted handprints clawing into the earth itself. I staggered forward, legs weak, head spinning. My mind screamed for logic, but logic had no foothold here. Then a faint crackling noise drew my attention.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It came from the ground near the fire pit, my trail camera, blinking faintly, its battery indicator nearly drained. Shaking, I lifted it, rewinding to the last captured footage. On the small glowing screen, my stomach turned cold. I saw myself sleeping next to the dying fire. Then, slowly, from the darkness behind the tent, the creature emerged.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Pale, gaunt, horrifyingly tall, it moved with alien grace. The creature paused, looming over my sleeping form, head tilted at an impossible angle. It seemed to study me, no eyes, just those hollow sockets, mouth hanging slack. Then the footage distorted, glitching wildly before cutting to black. I dropped the camera, staggering backward. There was no more denying it.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I was prey, trapped by something impossible in a place that defied all understanding. Despair flooded through me, limbs trembling, the reality crashing in that there might be no escape from this loop. I retrieved my radio from the tent floor, battery nearly drained, my fingers fumbling desperately. Pressing the transmit button, I spoke in a voice I barely recognized. Raw. Pleading.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
This is Aaron Miller. Please. I need help. I can't escape. Something's here. Something not human. I'm trapped in a loop on the CDT south of Gibbons Pass. Coordinates frozen. Compass useless. Please, someone. Static crackled violently. For a brief second, a distorted voice came through the interference. Aaron, we hear you. Stay calm. Sending. Then silence. Around me, darkness closed tighter.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A faint scraping echoed through the trees once more, growing closer, purposeful. It had returned. It always would. With no other choice, I turned and ran again, stumbling blindly through the darkened trees, knowing deep down it wouldn't matter. Whatever force had trapped me here had no intention of letting me go. The forest stretched endlessly, looping cruelly back upon itself.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The coordinates hadn't budged since the last check nearly two hours ago. That didn't make sense. I'd been steadily gaining altitude for at least two miles, yet the device said otherwise. I frowned, checking the signal strength. Full bars, clear satellite connection, but the coordinates stubbornly remained the same. Has to be a glitch, I muttered, slipping the device back into its holder.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
As exhaustion overtook me, I realized the terrible truth. I'd never leave this place, and neither would anyone who followed. I'd grown up fishing these mountains, learning the winding streams and hidden hollers of the Smokies from my dad long before he passed. Now, at 32, these woods felt more like home than anywhere else. More real. More truthful.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ben, my best friend since elementary school, needed something real, something true. His marriage had collapsed, his career stalled, and the frantic pace of Knoxville life had driven him to a place where he needed silence more than advice. We'd chosen Hazel Creek, deep in the Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee side, for two reasons. First, solitude.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Hazel Creek is remote, only accessible by canoe or a grueling hike, shielded by a rugged, silent wilderness. Second, trout. I'd stumbled upon an old fly-fishing guidebook from the 80s at a flea market, its pages brittle and yellowed.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
On a whim, I'd bought it for three dollars, and in one of its margins, in faded ballpoint pen, were the words, unmarked runoff, wild brookies, coldest water this side of hell. I'd never heard of it, but the idea stuck. We paddled quietly across Fontana Lake, our gear minimal and purposeful. From the moment we hid the canoe among the pines, the terrain challenged us.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Unmarked and unkept, the wilderness clawed at us with dense underbrush and tangled rhododendrons, like hands determined to turn us away. Ben struggled behind me, swatting at branches and cursing softly, his frustration clear. Why not just fish Hazel Creek itself? Ben finally grumbled. It's right there. It's famous for trout, isn't it?
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Famous trout mean fishermen, I replied, stepping carefully over fallen logs. This runoff isn't even named on newer maps. We'll have it all to ourselves. He sighed heavily but trudged on. Eventually the land flattened, and through a narrow break in the thick woods, we saw water glinting in the sun. The runoff was narrow, perhaps six feet wide, with a steady current trickling between rocks.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Despite its modest size, the water was shockingly cold, clearer than glass, and nearly silent. It ran perfectly straight through a shallow valley, as if sliced by a giant's blade. Ben knelt to scoop a handful of water, splashing his face. Jesus, he sputtered, shaking his hands. It's like ice. My eyes drifted to the shore. I paused.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
something wasn't right a dead rabbit lay beside the stream eyes wide fur untouched as i examined it closer my pulse quickened its body was strangely intact almost peaceful but something crucial was missing Blood. No bite marks, no wounds, just pale skin beneath the fur. A few yards upstream lay another, a raccoon, then a squirrel, each drained the same way.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ben approached peering over my shoulder. What happened to it? I shook my head. I don't know. They all look like this. We walked slowly upstream. The trees pressed in tighter. The daylight faded into a muted green beneath the thick canopy. The air grew cooler, heavy and still. Every animal we found lay bloodless and untouched by scavengers or insects.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I felt a creeping unease, like something hidden had been disturbed by our intrusion. This doesn't feel right, Ben whispered. His face was pale now, eyes nervously darting to the shadows beneath the trees. I didn't answer, pushing forward stubbornly, driven by an inexplicable urge to understand what we'd stumbled upon. After another mile, the source of the stream emerged abruptly ahead.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It happens sometimes in the mountains. Magnetic anomalies, rock interference, signal shadowing. Nothing to worry about, or so I told myself. I glanced up at the trail ahead, still rising, still twisting back and forth like a serpent. But the landscape was somehow identical to what I'd already passed through. Large boulders, twisted fallen logs, familiar clusters of larch trees.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My breath caught. Embedded into the hillside stood an unnatural concrete structure, a slab half covered by moss and dirt, anchored by twisted rebar, rusted deep red from decades of exposure. From beneath the structure flowed the runoff, sliding through a thin horizontal gap just above the ground. Ben's voice quivered, barely above a whisper. Luke, what the hell is this doing out here?
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I don't know, I murmured, feeling the hair stand on my neck. There aren't supposed to be buildings or dams this far into the backcountry. As the sun dipped lower, the forest dimmed further, shadows growing longer, deeper. The stillness intensified, oppressive and strange. It wasn't merely quiet, it felt devoid of sound, as if the woods themselves held their breath. Ben shifted anxiously.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
We shouldn't camp near here. Let's head downstream, I agreed, reluctantly breaking my gaze from the unsettling concrete wall. We quickly set up camp a half mile back, beneath an overhang of rock, where the forest seemed slightly less oppressive. But even here, the silence chased us, thickening as dusk settled into darkness.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
As the fire crackled, Ben stared nervously into the darkening woods, eyes reflecting the flickering light. I keep thinking something's moving out there, he whispered, shifting uncomfortably. Just shadows, I replied, though I felt it too, a constant silent pressure from the darkness beyond. Sleep came fitfully, disrupted by sudden jolts of awareness, ears straining to hear what wasn't there.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Deep into the night, I woke suddenly, eyes snapping open. Above the gentle rustle of wind, something else hummed, a faint mechanical vibration, steady and alien, echoing from upstream. I sat motionless, heart hammering, listening until it faded. Morning couldn't come soon enough.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Morning broke slowly, and despite the weak daylight filtering through the dense canopy overhead, the chill remained stubbornly in the air. I woke to Ben already awake, staring silently upstream. eyes tired and dark-ringed. "'You heard it too, didn't you?' he asked without turning toward me. "'That humming sound?' I stretched stiff limbs, shaking off uneasy dreams.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
"'Yeah, I couldn't tell where it was coming from.' We packed quickly and wordlessly, each eager to move and dispel the uneasy quiet that still clung to the forest." The runoff stream guided our path, its waters whispering over stones, clearer and colder with each step we took upstream. The animal remains persisted, birds, another rabbit, each as bloodless and untouched as the last.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The sight never became easier. My stomach churned uneasily, my mind desperate for rational explanations. Finally the stream narrowed abruptly, flanked by steep rock faces tangled with roots and moss. Around the next bend, I froze. Built into the side of the ravine was a stark, unnatural concrete structure, looming silently like some forgotten relic from a war long past.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
rusted iron bars jutted from the stone bent and twisted sealing whatever lay within the run-off trickled steadily from a narrow horizontal opening beneath the wall ben stood beside me mouth slightly open eyes wide what is this luke I shook my head slowly, trying to fit this into what I knew of the mountains. I've never heard of anything like this being out here, not on any maps I've seen.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Cautiously, we stepped closer. My heart thumped heavily in my chest. The structure was massive, solid concrete, weather-stained and partly covered by moss, decades old at least. A faint mechanical hum drifted from somewhere inside, stronger now, vibrating gently through the soles of my boots. Maybe an old dam, or some kind of waterworks?
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I shook off the uneasy feeling. All forests can look similar when fatigue sets in. By noon, the shadows deepened slightly, despite clear skies overhead. I stopped to eat lunch, leaning against a boulder that jutted from the ground at an odd angle. As I bit into a granola bar, a strange feeling of familiarity hit me.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ben suggested nervously, but the words felt thin, inadequate. I circled the structure, searching for a clue. Nearby trees, bare of bark, stood silently, stripped smooth as bone. Amid thick brush at the edge of the clearing, something metallic caught my eye. I stepped closer, brushing aside vines and dirt to reveal a rusted steel hatch, half buried beneath soil and vegetation.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Faded letters stenciled onto its surface read, USGS, Authorized Personnel Only. Ben peered over my shoulder, reading aloud quietly, U.S. Geological Survey. What would they have done out here? I shrugged uncertainly. Monitoring, maybe. Some old research station or something abandoned. Ben knelt and tested the hatch handle cautiously. It moved slightly, the ancient hinges squealing in protest.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ben, I don't think— But he'd already wrenched the hatch open fully, revealing a steel-wrung ladder descending into absolute darkness. Cold air flowed upward, carrying a damp, metallic odor. I'll just take a quick look, he said hurriedly, pulling his headlamp from his pack and clicking it on. Ben, wait. We don't know what's down there. He waved off my concern impatiently.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I'll be back in ten minutes, just want to see. Before I could object again, he swung himself onto the ladder and descended into the blackness, his light fading quickly as he dropped down, rung by rung. A sense of dread rose steadily in my gut as his steps echoed, then gradually fell silent. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Ben? I called down the hatch.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My voice bounced hollowly against unseen walls. No answer came. The humming suddenly stopped, the forest falling utterly silent. I strained my ears into the silence below, listening. A sound scraped briefly, like fingernails against concrete, quick and sharp. Then silence again. I knelt, peering into the darkness, heart racing. Ben, answer me, man! Nothing, just the gaping, empty dark.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
An hour passed, panic now clawing at my nerves. I debated following him, but hesitated. The darkness below felt thick, unnatural. Every instinct screamed at me to stay put. I paced helplessly, heart pounding, searching the clearing for any sign of Ben, praying he'd emerge smiling, joking about getting lost.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
but he never did as night began to fall again my anxiety deepened into despair i built a fire next to the hatch desperate for its small circle of flickering light shadows danced wildly around the clearing deepening the darkness beyond From the corner of my eye, a flash of color broke through the gloom. I turned sharply, squinting into the woods.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Far off between trees, a strange red glow flickered, moving slightly, wavering like a distant lantern. Every hair on my neck rose. Ben? I called weakly. But I knew immediately it wasn't him. The glow hovered a few moments longer before blinking out suddenly, plunging the forest back into total darkness.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My heart thundered as I retreated closer to the fire, shivering not from the cold but from dread. Something watched me from the shadows, unseen but undeniably present. All I could do was sit vigilantly by the fire, eyes fixed upon the open hatch, listening as the silence stretched endlessly into the night. Dawn arrived cold and muted, slipping into the forest without fanfare.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
This particular rock, angular and leaning precariously as if it would topple under its own weight, seemed strangely recognizable. But that was impossible. I'd been ascending for hours, and there had been no loop on the map. I pulled out my compass, hoping for reassurance. Instead, the needle spun lazily, drifting between random directions before finally settling on south.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I had barely slept, half dozing in fits by the dying embers, my eyes fixed anxiously on the open hatch. Every minute felt like an hour. Every hour felt like eternity. Ben had vanished without a trace, leaving only unanswered questions echoing inside that concrete darkness. Desperation overcame my fear as daylight strengthened.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ignoring the scream of instinct in my head, I gripped my flashlight tightly and leaned cautiously over the edge of the hatch. The latter descended into black water, flooding the space that had been empty just hours before. My stomach turned sharply. There had been no rain, no sound of flooding overnight.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
ben my voice broke as it echoed down into the water-logged void i climbed down two rungs holding my breath shining the flashlight into the murky depths there was nothing but dark water stagnant and cold the surface still as glass i reached out brushing my fingers against it Immediately, a cold shock jolted through my body, intense enough to wrench a startled cry from my throat.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Panicking, I nearly lost my grip on the ladder, scrambling desperately back up until I was safely above ground again. Staring numbly at the hatch, I knew something was profoundly wrong, unnatural. I moved instinctively upstream, half running, half stumbling, seeking clarity, or a source, or just an escape. But the runoff abruptly stopped.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
no spring no creek no source the stream-bed simply ended dry as bones at a flat stone basin my mind raced none of this made sense geologically or practically the water simply appeared beneath that concrete wall no rational explanation fit i felt sick disoriented I retreated downstream, but the woods quickly became unfamiliar. Paths I was sure I'd traveled turned unfamiliar and confusing.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My name is Aaron Miller, and I've hiked hundreds of miles alone through some of America's wildest country. Solitude never bothered me. It energized me. I was a wildlife photographer by trade, so hiking solo was less a hobby than a profession. I'd trekked through Glacier, explored Yellowstone's backcountry, and navigated the Bob Marshall Wilderness without incident.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Hours passed. The sun rose higher, scorching now as if mocking the earlier cold. My head spun from thirst and exhaustion, lips cracking painfully. Night crept in mercilessly. settling over the forest once more i tried to build another fire hands trembling uncontrollably but managed only the smallest flame i huddled close shivering feeling vulnerable beneath endless dark branches
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Hours crawled by, paranoia setting in, eyes darting toward every rustle and snap from the forest around me. Then came a distinct sound, a dragging, stumbling noise, slow and deliberate. My breath halted, heart thudding painfully. From the gloom, a figure appeared, pale moonlight illuminating just enough to recognize a familiar shape. Ben? My voice cracked again, tentative, almost pleading.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
He walked stiffly, unnaturally upright, face vacant and pale, eyes staring forward blankly, seeing nothing. I stumbled back in horror as he drew closer, feet dragging limply. His mouth hung slightly open, dried blood crusted around cracked lips. He looked drained, hollow, a twisted imitation of my friend.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
ben i shouted desperately hoping somehow to break him free of whatever terrible trance held him captive he halted sharply head tilting slightly as if listening to something distant then without warning he turned sharply away disappearing silently into the darkness again Terror surged through me. Without thinking, I bolted blindly through the trees, fleeing from whatever he'd become.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Branches tore my clothes and scratched my skin raw. My ankle twisted painfully, sending me sprawling face-first into a bed of pine needles. Pain exploded up my leg. Whimpering, I dragged myself beneath a thick bush, lungs heaving, heart hammering painfully. Minutes blurred into hours as I lay hidden, terrified to move, listening desperately for signs of pursuit.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Morning found me dehydrated and disoriented. The next days blurred together, wandering, staggering aimlessly, hallucinating vividly from hunger and thirst. Faces appeared in shadows, whispers floated from nowhere, my sense of time and place fractured. Somehow, after days I couldn't count, I stumbled out onto the rocky shoreline of Fontana Lake.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I turned, pointed it in various directions, walked several feet, nothing changed. South every time. What the hell, I muttered, anxiety creeping into my chest. Magnetic interference from mineral-rich mountains was one thing, but a compass stuck facing south no matter where I pointed it was alarming. Something wasn't right. I fumbled again with my GPS. Still, no change in coordinates or elevation.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Sunlight stabbed painfully into my eyes as voices called to me urgently, the world spinning into incoherence as I collapsed onto sharp stones. When consciousness returned, I lay in a sterile hospital room, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, harsh and disorienting. Doctors hovered, asking questions I couldn't answer, words tangled in my throat, too large, too painful to utter.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My tongue felt thick, my voice lost in that dark void below ground. Eventually someone pressed a small pad of paper into my trembling hands, urging me gently to write, to say something, anything. My hand shook violently as I gripped the pen. The image of Ben's empty, pale face burned deeply into my mind. I stared helplessly at the paper, heart-clenching painfully,
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
with great effort i scrawled one single trembling word drained the nurses exchanged nervous glances whispering quietly later rangers visited their questions careful probing they claimed no structure existed where i described no hatch no run-off like i remembered They seemed uneasy, hesitant, as though my memories frightened them.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Late at night in my hospital bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, I knew with chilling certainty they'd never find Ben, or understand what we'd uncovered. I couldn't explain it, even to myself. Only the emptiness remained, deep and cold inside me, a wound I feared would never heal.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
And as I drifted into restless sleep, I felt an irresistible pull toward the runoff, toward that unnatural darkness beneath the smoky mountains, knowing somewhere deep inside it wasn't done with me yet. I've spent most of my life wandering these forests.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The Allegheny National Forest, sprawling along the Pennsylvania-New York border, has been my backyard, playground, and hunting ground for as long as I can remember. My name is Cal Mayfield, and alongside my closest friend John Hart, I've mapped just about every deer trail, fishing hole, and hidden hollow tucked among these thick woods.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
John's always been the cautious one, the guy who'd double-check maps before heading out and pack extra batteries every time. I tended to wing it more often than not, relying on instinct and stubbornness to see us through. In late October, just a week after an unusually fierce storm had ripped through the forest, John and I decided to scout a new deer hunting spot near Minister Creek.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Branches and trunks littered the ground, making old trails nearly impassable. We'd been at it all morning, fighting through briars and waist-high undergrowth to map out alternative routes. Cal, check this out. John knelt beside a gnarled spruce, pulling away a thick layer of moss and decaying leaves. I stepped closer, squinting at the rusted corner of something metal jutting from the forest floor.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Do not enter. John frowned, running a hand over the sign's corroded surface. Ever heard of this? I shook my head, scanning the woods around us. The silence pressed heavily on my ears. Nothing, not even old maps ever mentioned this. Digging deeper, we uncovered two more identical signs, each equally weathered.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
They had bolt holes punched through the metal, as though they'd once hung prominently from a fence or post. Cold War era, maybe? John said, his voice low. A testing site or fallout shelter? I've read about weird military installations tucked away up here. I shrugged, but a strange discomfort crawled beneath my skin. Doesn't explain why nobody ever talked about it.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Folks around here usually gossip about every old cabin or still site. Think we should look further down? John asked, glancing toward a shallow depression ahead of us. I hesitated, then nodded. Curiosity was always my weakness. We slid cautiously into the gully, damp earth slipping beneath our boots.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
frustrated i rebooted it hoping it was just a software error when it came back online my stomach knotted same coordinates same altitude no change at all it was as though i hadn't moved in hours despite knowing i'd covered significant ground I considered backtracking, but when I turned around, the trail I'd just climbed seemed foreign and vaguely menacing. An irrational unease settled over me.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It wasn't long before we stumbled onto the remnants of an old service road, now fully reclaimed by brush. We followed it downward, branches clawing at our sleeves, until we reached the hollow's floor. Ahead, partially obscured by ivy and moss, loomed a collapsed tunnel mouth. Its concrete archway sagged inward, blocked by debris and twisted lengths of iron grating.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Thick iron chains hung from rotting wooden posts nearby, their rusted links ending in sturdy loops, like restraints or anchors. John kneeled, examining the chains. Who the hell locks up a tunnel this thoroughly unless they're trying to keep something inside? I didn't have an answer. Stepping closer, I peered into the darkness beyond the collapsed entrance.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The air smelled stale, tinged with iron and mildew, heavy enough to make breathing uncomfortable. My gut tightened inexplicably. "'I don't like this,' John said quietly, shining his flashlight into the debris-filled gap. "'Feels wrong.' As if in response, somewhere in the forest behind us, a dog barked sharply. John startled, turning quickly. You hear that? I nodded slowly, straining my ears.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The sound echoed faintly through the hollow, a frantic yelping, short bursts, separated by uncomfortable pauses. But the echoes didn't seem natural. They lingered strangely, never fading or shifting position, trapped somewhere between trees and stones. Sounds lost, John whispered. Maybe a coyote, I offered, but we both knew that wasn't quite right. Coyotes howled, whimpered.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
This barking felt mechanical, repetitive. John glanced nervously back at the tunnel. We've marked the spot on GPS. Let's head out, maybe come back better prepared tomorrow. I didn't argue. The hollow's unnatural quiet unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. We climbed back up the steep bank, neither speaking much. I could feel John's unease as strongly as my own.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
That night at camp, miles from the hollow, we huddled closer to our small fire. Neither of us felt like talking. The image of those quarantine signs, rusted warnings buried and forgotten, nagged at me like an itch.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
just before midnight as the forest pressed close around our camp the distant barking drifted faintly through the trees once again it was no closer than before yet it was clear and sharp as if we hadn't moved at all john met my eyes his expression haunted neither of us voiced the thought that passed silently between us
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Whatever had happened in Warden's Hollow in 1962, we'd just stumbled into something that was meant to stay buried. Morning came slowly, gray and heavy. Sleep had avoided me for most of the night, and when I woke to the pale dawn filtering weakly through the canvas tent walls, John was already sitting up, poring over an old forestry map. Shadows ringed his eyes.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
We've got to go back, John muttered without looking up. He was tracing a finger along faded lines, his other hand holding the rusted quarantine sign we'd brought back. I couldn't find anything about that place online, not even a passing mention. I groaned softly and pushed myself upright, stretching stiffly. "'Feels like maybe there's a reason it was buried and forgotten, John.'
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
He glanced sharply at me. "'Exactly. That's why I need to know what they were hiding.' Reluctantly, I agreed. John was rarely reckless, so his quiet urgency unnerved me even more. Within an hour, we'd packed flashlights, ropes, spare batteries, and an air quality sensor John had borrowed years ago from a mine safety course.' He'd always insisted on being prepared for any situation.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
This time, I was thankful for his caution. The air felt colder as we returned to Warden's Hollow. Fog settled thickly along the gully's floor, making the twisted iron chains around the tunnel look even more sinister. John approached the entrance slowly, carefully probing the air inside the gap with the sensor. He squinted at the dial and shook his head.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I shook my head, annoyed at myself for letting imagination take control. This was still the CDT, a marked, mapped, and thoroughly explored route. I was a rational, experienced outdoorsman, not someone prone to panicking over minor technical issues. Pushing forward seemed the best choice. Eventually the ridge would crest and I'd have a clear vantage point. So, I pressed on.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It's stale down there, John said softly, but it's breathable, just not for long periods. let's make it quick i said hoping i sounded more confident than i felt we crawled through the partially collapsed entrance debris scraping against our backs a sense of entrapment tightened in my chest until the tunnel opened slightly allowing us to stand hunched beneath cracked concrete arches
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My flashlight beam cut weakly through the gloom, illuminating a side passage carved roughly into the stone wall. John edged forward first and I followed closely, my heart hammering unevenly. Inside, old military crates lay scattered, their wooden frames splintered and rotting. Nearby, rusted oxygen tanks lay clustered, many dented as if thrown aside in haste.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A pile of twisted metal frames resembling cots sat slumped against one wall. "'This place looks like it was abandoned in a hurry,' John whispered. He lifted the air sensor again, checking the dial nervously. "'Fifteen minutes, tops. Then we're out.' I nodded, tension tightening my jaw."
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
At the passage's end was a junction room lined with metal lockers, their doors hanging ajar or fallen entirely off their hinges. John moved carefully toward one still upright. He shone his flashlight into it, then reached inside slowly. Jesus, he breathed, lifting out a cracked and deteriorating gas mask. Behind it was a damp clipboard, pages stuck together from water damage and age.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Carefully, he peeled a sheet loose. He read aloud, voice hushed, tense. Specimens still viable, no breach since 9, 14. Rangers rotated monthly, do not exceed 20 minutes outside airlock. My mouth went dry. Specimens? John's flashlight moved restlessly, illuminating a dark opening in the corner of the junction room.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It was narrow, smooth-edged, and angled sharply downward, almost like a chute or ventilation shaft. It wasn't built with concrete or steel. It looked as if it had been burrowed or melted directly into the rock. I approached hesitantly, peering down. The darkness felt bottomless, oppressive. Then I heard it, soft at first, rhythmic scraping deep within.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It echoed up faintly, the distant sound of metal dragging slowly across stone, deliberate and unceasing. Did you hear that? John's voice was strained, his flashlight trembling slightly. I nodded slowly. Let's go. We've seen enough. John didn't argue. As we turned back, I caught something else in my flashlight's beam. Small boot prints etched freshly into the dirt beside us.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Narrow, delicate prints, like those of a child, leading directly toward the shaft we'd just investigated. John noticed them too, his eyes wide with disbelief. Those weren't here when we came in, he whispered harshly. Move! I urged, voice cracking. Panic edged into my bones as we stumbled hurriedly through the debris-filled passage. Every step toward the tunnel mouth felt impossibly slow.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Behind us, I imagined something unseen rising silently from that dark shaft, following quietly. We burst into open air, gasping, sucking in clean breaths. The sky was overcast, the afternoon oddly quiet. John leaned forward, hands on his knees, struggling to steady his breathing. ''Specimens,'' John repeated numbly, staring blankly toward the gaping mouth of the tunnel.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
They kept something locked down there. The forest around us stayed silent, a heavy unnatural hush blanketing the hollow. I shuddered involuntarily. We report it. I finally managed, gripping John's shoulder. We'll head out at first light tomorrow and tell someone at the ranger station. John didn't respond. His eyes remained fixed on the dark entrance behind us, lost in thought.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
as we climbed back to camp dusk seeped into the forest shadows growing long and tangled by nightfall john was mumbling quietly to himself by the camp-fire endlessly flipping through the damp clipboard pages eyes wild i lay awake staring into the blackness of the tent feeling a creeping certainty that we had disturbed something long forgotten and deliberately buried and that john might not let it rest until he knew exactly what it was
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The next few hours felt like a dream, or perhaps more accurately, a nightmare. The terrain never changed significantly, despite my climbing. Switchbacks became monotonous repetitions of themselves. Trees, rocks, and the steepening path appeared identical to what I'd already traversed.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I jolted awake to cold morning light filtering through the tent. A chill prickled down my spine when I realized I was alone. John's sleeping bag lay crumpled, his gear neatly stacked in the corner. But John himself was gone. My gut twisted painfully. Something felt deeply wrong. Scrambling outside, I called John's name into the crisp dawn air. Only silence answered.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My heart began racing as I glanced around frantically. His shotgun was missing along with his headlamp. Dread gripped me. I knew immediately where he'd gone. In desperation, I dialed the ranger station. A sleepy voice answered, bored until I mentioned the quarantine signs in the hollow. Suddenly the line crackled strangely, then went silent. Hello? I shouted into the phone. Nothing but dead air.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Panic surged. Without thinking further, I grabbed my pistol, extra batteries, and a handful of flares, then raced down the slope toward Warden's Hollow. The forest seemed to close in around me as I approached the collapsed tunnel entrance. John's headlamp lay abandoned just inside the gap, still lit, pointing directly into the suffocating darkness. My breath caught, heart hammering. ''John!''
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I shouted. Only echoes returned, ignoring every screaming instinct I crawled inside, flashlight shaking in my grip. The tunnel stretched deeper than I remembered, less obstructed. Soon, I was standing beneath cracked concrete arches, their surfaces slick with moisture. Footprints, drag marks, scuffed along the dirt floor, vanishing into the shadowed corridor ahead. My throat tightened.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I had no choice but to follow. After a few careful steps, I noticed the walls changing. Rusted rebar jutted outward, bent strangely, while overhead, ancient ductwork snaked through the gloom. My pulse quickened as the corridor opened into a larger chamber. The room was lined with rusted medical equipment. Broken monitors lay toppled.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
glass shattered across damp stone along one wall a shattered observation window stared blankly into an empty space beyond opposite were several heavy containment doors each marked with faded torn yellow tags impossible to read clearly in the weak light
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
john i whispered barely able to speak the air felt heavier colder here thick with decades of stale decay a sound behind me a faint shuffle snapped my head around fear surged hot and bitter as i swung my flashlight toward a narrow passage i'd overlooked Footsteps padded softly along stone, accompanied by the rhythmic hiss of breath filtering through masks. My blood turned to ice.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
At the passage's edge, figures emerged, stiff, motionless silhouettes in ancient military fatigues, their faces hidden behind cracked, dirt-stained gas masks. They stood rigidly, staring in unison, heads slowly turning toward me in perfect mechanical synchronicity. I stumbled backward, panic overwhelming reason.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I placed deliberate markers along the trail, stones stacked conspicuously, distinct pieces of brightly colored flagging tape wrapped around branches. Yet no matter how far I climbed, I seemed trapped in the same stretch of forest. As evening approached, darkness seeped into the valley beneath the thick branches, shadows spreading like ink.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Desperation gripped me as I darted into a small side room, slamming shut a rusted metal door. My breath came in ragged gasps. Turning sharply I saw John slumped against a wall, his face pale, eyes staring blankly ahead. John! I rushed to him, gripping his shoulder. He barely registered my touch, whispering incoherently. They were never allowed to leave. Cal, he rasped weakly.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
His eyes flickered with frightened clarity. They don't breathe air like we do. They need us down here. A loud pounding echoed suddenly against the door, shaking it violently. My heart seized in terror. They were trying to get inside. "'Come on!' I yelled, dragging John upright. He stumbled, nearly collapsing again, but adrenaline lent me strength.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Supporting him, I wrenched open another door, escaping down a side passage I prayed would lead out. The tunnel narrowed sharply, oppressive stone pressing close. I half-carried, half-dragged John toward a faint glow ahead. We burst outside just as dawn bled weakly through clouds." Gasping, lungs heaving, we fell onto damp grass. Behind us the tunnel lay silent and dark, exuding menace.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The forest remained utterly still, its unnatural quiet returning immediately. John lay trembling, staring blankly at the pale sky. He murmured softly, lost in nightmares I couldn't see. Two days later, after leaving John safely in the hands of emergency responders, I returned with a team of forest rangers. But the hollow was unrecognizable.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The tunnel was gone, collapsed completely, buried beneath fresh dirt and rock. The rusted quarantine signs had vanished. Even my GPS marker had somehow been erased, leaving no trace the place had ever existed. When I asked one ranger about the quarantine zone, he hesitated, eyes clouded with unease. That part of the forest, he said quietly, glancing away. It's always been off the record.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Some places are better left unremembered. That night, alone at our campfire, I threw the faded maps and my hunting logbook into the flames, determined to erase the memory myself. But as the papers turned to ash, something metallic glinted among the embers. Reaching carefully into the cooling ash, I lifted out a small, rusted key. My stomach twisted as I read the inscription, WARDEN'S ACCESS ZONE B
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Staring numbly at the key, I knew the forest would keep its secrets. And now, I was part of them. My name's Derek Hanley, and I've been working wildfires for over 15 years, long enough that the scent of scorched pine and hot ash lingers permanently in my memory. When lightning storms rolled across the San Juan Mountains near Telluride, sparking small, manageable blazes.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I figured it would be routine work. Mop-up operations, containment sweeps, making sure nothing reignited. The usual, predictable stuff, exactly how I liked it. We'd just finished containing the main blaze near Trout Lake, and were on a mop-up patrol near Black Ridge when dispatch radioed a standard recon task. but nothing's ever routine in places like these, not really.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A chill ran through me as I radioed the nearest ranger station. My voice was tight and measured, masking the anxiety I felt. This is Aaron Miller, solo hiker on the CDT south of Gibbons Pass, I began. My coordinates aren't updating. My GPS is frozen. Compass is acting erratically. Elevation unchanged despite hiking steadily uphill.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
By early afternoon, my crew had split up to cover more ground, and I was alone, picking my way through charred brush on a densely wooded ridgeline. The fire had passed through, yet the air felt heavy and damp instead of hot and dry, strangely cooler than it should have been.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Something about the wind felt off too, swirling unpredictably, drawing smoke uphill instead of letting it disperse naturally. Curiosity nudged me to follow the odd smoke flow higher. Cresting the ridge, I saw a cluster of structures below, tucked beneath dense spruce and pine. The forest here should have been scorched to sticks, but the trees surrounding these buildings stood untouched by flames.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It was unnatural. The blackened earth abruptly ended a few feet from wooden cabins and a central lodge, all perfectly intact. Ash drifted lazily downward like gray snowflakes settling in silence. There were no signs or trail markers leading into this camp, just the remains of an old wooden gate. My gut tightened.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Camps in these mountains were logged with the Forest Service for emergencies and fire prevention. But I knew every registered site in this region. This wasn't one of them. I approached cautiously, boots crunching ash underfoot. The cabins looked old, untouched by modern maintenance, yet sturdy, as if the fire had avoided this place intentionally. It made no sense. Wildfires don't discriminate.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A faded wooden plaque hung above the largest building's entrance. Camp Blackridge. The paint peeled away, weathered and forgotten. Pushing open the lodge door I stepped inside, instantly greeted by the stale scent of musty canvas, wood smoke, and something faintly sour. Sunlight filtered through ash-dimmed windows, revealing a room arranged as a dining hall.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Tables and chairs neatly aligned as if campers might file in at any moment for lunch. Children's drawings were still pinned to the far wall, fluttering gently as I passed. Yellowed paper curled at the edges, scribbled pictures of mountains, stick figure campers, and bright smiling suns. Then my eyes settled on one picture set apart from the rest.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It was crudely drawn by a child's unsure hand, a bear engulfed in flames, orange and red scribbles encircling its body. but the eyes unsettled me most they weren't animal eyes they were human staring out with startling realism they looked directly at whoever observed the drawing as if trying to communicate something unspoken the hair on my arms rose a chill tracing down my spine i turned quickly
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
scanning the room as a creeping unease settled over me. Everything felt wrong. The place was like a snapshot frozen in time, waiting. Unnerved, I reached for my radio. Dispatch, this is Hanley on Black Ridge. I found some kind of abandoned camp here. No fire damage to structures, but the location wasn't marked on our maps. Looks untouched.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Static crackled before the dispatcher's voice emerged, hesitant and unusually tense. Repeat your location? Camp Black Ridge, west side of the ridge near Trout Lake. It's intact, but looks like it's been abandoned for decades. Any records on this place? Silence stretched uncomfortably. Just as I was about to repeat myself, the voice returned, cautious. Hanley, confirm again. Black Ridge.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I'm not sure what's happening, but I'm going to set up camp and reassess in the morning. Static crackled back at me. After an unsettling pause, a distant, slightly distorted reply came through. Copy that, Miller. Coordinates received. Signal clear. Keep radio handy overnight. I made camp quickly, picking a spot beside a familiar boulder, despite my unease.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Confirm dispatch. Black Ridge. Names on the lodge here. Another pause, longer this time, as if a conversation happened far from the mic. When the dispatcher spoke again, their voice was low, almost hesitant. "'Hanley, we've—we've warned teams not to go near that ridge since the late 1980s.' I stared at the radio, baffled. "'Warned? Why? Was this area quarantined?' Again, silence.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Then static filled my ears, layered thickly, drowning out the dispatcher's voice. beneath it barely audible but clear enough i heard what sounded like choking coughing strained raw then it cut off completely dispatch i said sharply can you repeat no answer suddenly the lodge felt tighter the dimness oppressive
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I turned to head back outside, intending to regroup with my crew when I caught movement in my peripheral vision. A brief flicker near the window. I turned sharply. Nothing. But the shadows outside seemed to shift subtly, whispering between the untouched trees. Anxiety tightened my chest. I hurried back toward the trail I had followed in, but froze at the edge of the camp. The path was gone.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Before me, there was only dense, unburned forest where charred ground should have been. I spun around, searching desperately for the trail I knew I'd taken, but it had vanished as completely as if it had never existed. The air was too still, the silence profound, broken only by my own heavy breathing. Joe? Mike? Anybody copy? My voice echoed uselessly through the trees.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The radio crackled, still transmitting only faint static and the occasional cough. I stared helplessly at the forest surrounding Camp Black Ridge, swallowing down my rising panic. There had to be a rational explanation. There always was. But logic faltered here, in the cold quiet beneath the ashes, where something long forgotten had started to wake.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I stood frozen at the edge of Camp Black Ridge, staring into the trees where my trail should have been. Every instinct screamed at me to stay calm, to breathe and reassess. But the landscape had betrayed me entirely, shifted into something unrecognizable. The scorched earth I'd walked through minutes ago was lush, thick with untouched trees and tangled undergrowth. Nothing made sense.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Shaking myself loose from paralysis, I pulled out my GPS, desperate for some tangible anchor to reality. The coordinates were stuck, numbers frozen in place as though etched permanently onto the screen. I tapped it harder, panic creeping into my chest. But the digital numbers remained unchanged, mocking my disbelief. My compass spun slowly in my palm, indifferent to direction.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
North became south, east rotated lazily to west, the needle wobbling as if magnetized by something invisible nearby. I checked my watch. 3.12pm. But shadows were deepening too quickly, the daylight retreating faster than nature allowed. I needed another route, another landmark, anything to ground myself. The camp seemed to be drawing me inward, though every bone in my body resisted going back.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Still, curiosity pulled me back toward the cabins. Maybe I'd missed something, some clue to my situation, something logical.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
near the edge of the largest cabin an old clipboard hung crookedly from a rusted nail faded paper curling at the edges i lifted it carefully the yellowed sheet dated in faded blue ink july nineteen eighty seven a roster of children's names filled the paper each neatly handwritten in shaky script
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
By firelight, the rock's shadow stretched out, resembling something misshapen and ominous.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Halfway down the list, one name was violently scratched out over and over, nearly tearing through the page. Colby. My pulse quickened. Colby. Something about the repeated destruction of the name felt deeply personal. Angry. Disturbed, I set the clipboard down, turning toward a nearby cabin labeled Counselors. The door creaked open, hinges protesting sharply. Inside the cabin was small, cramped.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A dusty mattress sagged against the far wall. I spotted an old journal discarded on a makeshift shelf, its cover cracked and brittle. Flipping through brittle pages, I paused at an entry marked July 16, 1987, ink smudged by hurried handwriting.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
the forest around me was strangely silent no wind rustled the leaves no birds called it felt unnatural oppressive just before i turned in i radioed one more time my voice dropping to a tense whisper despite myself i don't know if you're hearing this clearly but something feels off i'll check again at first light
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
more kids missing today it started when colby began feeding that bear we told him to stop but he insists the bear talks to him he says it knows things the kids believe him they're curious but the bear it's not right something's changed out there I swallowed hard, my throat dry. Suddenly the absurdity of being trapped here felt darker, more dangerous.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Behind me, somewhere outside the cabin, faint laughter drifted in. A child's high, ringing laugh, playful yet distant. i moved swiftly toward the sound stepping outside pulse drumming in my ears footprints small barefoot appeared in the thin layer of ash leading away from the cabins toward a shack i had not noticed before nestled further back under thick trees the laughter had stopped
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I approached cautiously, my boots crunching softly. The shack was crude, wooden planks hastily nailed together, the door ajar. Inside the air smelled stale, heavy with decay. Dozens of teddy bears sat arranged neatly in a circle on the floor, soot-covered, their button eyes dull and unblinking. They surrounded a dark hole in the wooden planks, gaping downward into the earth. My breath quickened.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Near the edge, I spotted a faded Polaroid, curled and half-melted. Children sat smiling in this exact shack, clutching those same bears. One face, centered, had eyes scratched out violently, revealing rough white paper beneath.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
i leaned closer heart thudding then from beneath the shack came a low growl slow and wet a guttural sound resonating through the planks something large stirred breathing heavily labored and moist as though struggling through fluid filled lungs my blood ran cold I stumbled backward, nearly falling over a pile of burned wood stacked by the entrance. Fear surged, primal and raw.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Bursting out into the open again, I raced toward higher ground, away from that shack and whatever lingered below it. My breath tore at my throat as I climbed, desperately seeking clarity or escape. When I finally risked a glance back, a figure moved at the camp's edge, a shape that chilled me to the bone.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
It stood partially hidden by the shadows of spruce branches, silhouetted and motionless at first glance. A bear, I thought at first, but it wasn't right. Its limbs were elongated, awkwardly proportioned,
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
patches of its fur were missing revealing burned flesh beneath raw and mottled and the eyes those horrible humanlike eyes watched me with a dreadful intelligence the creature took a slow step forward upright its stance disturbingly human
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
another step shambling stiffly toward me arms hanging limp long and thin at its sides i dove behind a tree heart pounding in my ears pulse frantic i waited pressed against rough bark praying for silence forcing myself to slow my ragged breathing the minutes stretched painfully
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
when i finally risked another glance the creature was gone but darkness had swallowed the valley and down at camp black ridge faint flickers of orange light danced from cabin windows as though lanterns had been lit by invisible hands my chest heaved shadows shifted between the trees amorphous shapes drifting silently purposefully
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I lay in my sleeping bag, staring at the thin fabric of my tent, heart thrumming rapidly. Rational explanations slipped away like sand through my fingers. Tomorrow, I promised myself, things would look clearer. They didn't. I awoke to daylight filtering through the tent, dim and gray. It wasn't the crisp mountain morning I'd expected. It felt diluted, washed out somehow.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Behind me, close enough to feel breath on my neck, a familiar voice whispered hoarsely. Unmistakably, my teammate Joe's voice. Derek? I spun, stumbling backward, ready to shout with relief, but the darkness stared emptily back at me, Joe nowhere to be seen. Only fresh footprints in the ash, small and bare, led silently away into the trees. And again I was alone.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My watch read past midnight, the glowing digital numbers a pale beacon in the oppressive darkness. I hadn't slept, couldn't sleep, not here, not now. My throat felt raw, parched from hours of shallow breaths and whispered curses. I'd rationed the last of my water, sipping sparingly as the shadows thickened around me.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I was exhausted, nerves frayed, senses heightened to every rustle and snap of twigs in the blackness. Desperate to ground myself in some semblance of reality, I stumbled back down toward the old dock area, hoping for a clearer route back to familiar terrain. Near the collapsed dock, something caught my eye, a rusted metal sign partially buried beneath rotted timber and ash.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Kneeling down, I scraped away dirt with trembling fingers. The faded lettering emerged like an accusation. U.S. Forest Quarantine Area, July 1987. A chill crept up my spine. Quarantine? There had been no records of any quarantine in these mountains. Not officially. Yet here it was, stark and undeniable. Someone had buried this place deliberately, kept it hidden. Why?
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Dragging myself upright, I turned toward the nearest cabin. Perhaps answers lay somewhere inside, anything to unravel this madness. Pushing open the swollen door, hinges creaking, I stepped cautiously into a dusty interior. In the corner was an old footlocker, its latch rusted but unlocked. My pulse quickened. Lifting the heavy lid, I peered inside.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
There were three VHS tapes labeled neatly in faded ink. Feeding 1, Feeding 2, and Shut Down. Beside them lay an ID card in a cracked plastic sleeve. I held it closer to my flashlight, my breath hitching as I read the name. Supervisor Richard McAllister, U.S. Forest Service Missing, July 1987. My gut tightened, nausea rising. This place had taken people before.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I shoved the card into my pocket, grabbing the tapes as evidence, though they felt useless without a way to view them. I moved swiftly back outside, the cool night air only slightly easing my tension. Then my radio crackled softly from its holster, startling me. I hurriedly pulled it out, adjusting the knob, hopeful for clarity. Dispatch, this is Hanley. Do you copy? Please confirm.
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4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The static surged, replaced by a strange modulation, tones shifting slowly, methodically. Then a distorted voice, strained and deliberate, emerged from the static. Return to line. Do not acknowledge them. Do not follow. I stared dumbfounded at the radio, the transmission fading back into silence. Before I could respond, movement caught my attention.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A subtle shifting in the darkness near the shack I'd fled earlier. Shapes moved through the trees, small and hesitant. pale figures stepping cautiously from behind trunks. Children, dressed in outdated summer clothing, untouched by ash or fire. Their faces were expressionless, eyes blank, unseeing. They watched me silently, forming a rough semicircle around the shack.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My throat tightened painfully. I staggered backward, limbs trembling, unable to speak. They did not advance, only observed with empty stares, a silent congregation guarding the darkness. Panic surged. I turned and bolted downhill, crashing through brush and branches, desperate for escape.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
i rolled over checking my watch just past nine my phone lying beside my sleeping bag still read seven twelve a m frozen like the gps i sat up quickly a surge of nausea rising outside the tent the forest remained impossibly silent No rustling leaves, no bird calls, no distant trickle of water. Only a heavy, unnatural quiet.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Breath ragged, pulse roaring in my ears, I nearly collapsed when distant lights pierced through the trees, headlamps unmistakably modern. Hey, hey, I shouted hoarsely, stumbling out onto a cleared firebreak where a hotshot crew stood in astonishment, their gear scattered around them. Derek, one shouted, stepping closer, his face shocked and confused. What the hell, we thought.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
You've been missing two days. I grabbed his shoulders, dizzy with relief. Two days? No, I just got separated a few hours ago. The camp, Black Ridge, it's just up there. They exchanged uneasy glances. Camp. Derek, there's nothing up there. Just trees and ash. We saw your flare about an hour ago. We thought you were hurt or delirious. No, I insisted, voice shaking. I found buildings.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
An old camp from the 80s. Kids went missing there. A quarantine. Derek, there's nothing, another firefighter said quietly. We swept the area twice. It's empty. I turned, determined to prove them wrong, leading them back uphill through tangled brush, retracing my steps precisely. But as we crested the ridge, I stopped cold, my chest clenching painfully. The camp was gone, there was nothing.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
No cabins, no lodge, no burned bear drawings. Only ash-covered rocks, fire-scorched earth, and quiet, empty forest. "'I swear it was here,' I whispered, my voice breaking. They watched me with sympathetic eyes, murmuring reassurances, gently guiding me back down the trail. At base, I filled out the incident report meticulously, documenting everything in careful detail."
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Two days later, the record vanished completely, wiped clean from the system. My attempts to follow up were met with silence or dismissive shrugs. Finally, an older fire captain approached me privately, his eyes heavy with unsaid history. "'Derek, let it go,' he muttered quietly. "'Black Ridge. It's closed for a reason. Always has been.'
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
But the Continental Divide Trail had a different aura, especially where it sliced through the rugged Bitterroot Mountains along the Montana-Idaho border. It was wild, remote, and notoriously disorienting. I'd begun this particular section at Chief Joseph Pass. It was early October, the air was crisp and clear, and larch trees shimmered gold amid the dark green of the pines.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
days passed quietly but my sleep remained fractured by nightmares of dark woods and silent children then one evening i received an unmarked envelope in the mail hands trembling i slid out a single photograph aged yellowed showing smiling children in front of the camp black ridge lodge
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
at the center stood a small boy his eyes grotesquely large filled with a haunting familiarity in his hand he clutched a tattered teddy bear one arm missing my blood froze as i flipped the picture over reading words scrawled roughly across the back he stayed you didn't heart pounding i shoved the photo into the fireplace hands shaking violently
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Flames curled around it hungrily, paper blackening swiftly. As the image crumbled into ash, from behind me came a faint sound, drifting from my kitchen speaker, coughing, raw and tortured, identical to the static-filled transmission on Black Ridge. I spun around staring at the darkened speaker. It was off, unplugged.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Yet the coughing continued, echoing softly through my home, impossibly familiar, impossibly real.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I stepped out carefully, half expecting the landscape to have changed overnight. But the same cluster of larch trees stood watch, and that tilted boulder was still positioned exactly as I'd seen it yesterday. I moved toward the campfire ring I'd hastily constructed on a patch of flat bedrock. Ashes lay cold, undisturbed. I crouched, running my fingers through the remnants.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
No heat, as if I hadn't built a fire at all. Yet I clearly remembered the flames, the flickering warmth that had briefly calmed my nerves. Pulling my GPS from its holder, I stared at the screen. Still unchanged. Still mocking me with impossible numbers. I rebooted it again, desperate now. When it returned, the coordinates were exactly the same as before, unchanged since yesterday morning.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A rush of anger surged through me. I tightened my grip until my knuckles whitened, resisting the urge to smash it against the nearest rock. I'll figure this out, I whispered to myself, barely audible. Methodically, I packed camp, placing trail cameras around the area as markers. Each camera faced outward, programmed to record any movement.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
If something strange was happening here, I'd at least capture evidence of it. Then, with forced confidence, I set off again.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
i moved uphill cautiously careful to observe every feature every twisted tree limb every angular stone to mark my path i tied strips of bright orange flagging tape around branches every fifty yards or so counting each step deliberately one hundred yards two hundred five hundred Yet the elevation felt stagnant. I could swear I was climbing. My legs ached with the effort.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
But the view behind me didn't match that effort. When I glanced backward, the trail markers glowed neon bright against the shadowed forest. Ahead, the landscape never shifted significantly. My breathing quickened, anxiety tightening my chest. After almost two hours, dread settled over me like a heavy cloak.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Ahead, an orange flagging tape dangled limply from a branch, fluttering faintly as if mocking my efforts. It was my own tape, I recognized the sloppy knot I'd hastily tied earlier. Somehow, despite careful navigation and ascending steadily, I'd circled back to the exact same place. I sat down hard on a fallen log, pulse hammering in my ears. How was this even possible?
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
No mapped trail here formed such a perfect invisible loop. I pulled out the map and unfolded it frantically, my fingers trembling. The path was straightforward, ascending clearly to a defined ridge. No loops, no intersections, nothing that explained this impossible circuit. I'm stuck, I said aloud, my voice sounding thin and distant in the unnatural silence.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Panic edged closer, like a predator pacing in the darkness. I stood abruptly, determined to break the cycle. Picking a new direction, I marched straight uphill, ignoring the trail altogether, pushing through thick underbrush and fallen logs. Branches clawed at my clothing, scraped my face, but I pressed on. After another half hour, relief swelled briefly in my chest.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I seemed to be making real progress, finally breaking free. But that relief was short-lived. Ahead, the trees thinned slightly. I stumbled into a small clearing. My stomach lurched as I recognized the angled boulder and the faint circle of ashes from my morning fire.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
my campsite exactly as i'd left it hours earlier greeted me silently mocking my efforts a crushing despair settled in this wasn't possible it couldn't be the fading daylight cast strange elongated shadows across the campsite I sank down by the fire pit, hands shaking uncontrollably. Then, somewhere behind me, a faint movement caught my eye. My heart seized in my chest.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My goal was straightforward. Three days hiking southbound toward Lemhi Pass. The first few hours passed without issue. I adjusted my pack, kept my camera accessible, and moved at a steady pace, feeling confident and alive as the forest thickened around me. By mid-morning, the trail had become a relentless climb, switchbacks carved steeply into loose shale and gravel.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I turned slowly, dread pooling in my stomach. Far back among the trees, a shape moved briefly, large, quick, but utterly silent. No sound of snapping twigs or brushing leaves accompanied it. I squinted, trying to track it through the fading light. But whatever it was had vanished as swiftly as it appeared. I stepped closer, peering into the dimness.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Something deep in my bones warned me to turn away, to retreat, to hide in my tent. Instead, I pressed forward, desperate for answers. About twenty yards from camp, I froze. A fallen log lay gouged by massive claw marks, fresh, deep, and disturbingly spaced. No bear or mountain lion I knew could have left something like this. Instinctively, I backed away, returning quickly to my campsite.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I grabbed the radio, fumbling the controls as panic took hold. This is Aaron Miller. Can anyone hear me? My voice shook uncontrollably. I'm trapped out here. Something's wrong with the trail. I keep looping. I... I'm being tracked by something.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
static crackled sharply then silence aaron miller repeat your coordinates a distant voice finally broke through distorted by static we're trying the radio died abruptly leaving nothing but the heavy silence around me my breathing came in ragged gasps as darkness enveloped the forest completely
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I built another fire hurriedly, piling branches until flames flickered high, casting shifting shadows across the campsite. I took comfort in the illusion of safety it provided, though deep down, I knew it offered none. Before crawling into my tent, I whispered into my trail camera, desperation evident in my voice, ''If someone finds this, something isn't right out here. I'm not alone.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
I don't know what it is, but it knows I'm here.'' I zipped my tent shut, clutching a knife tightly. Sleep came reluctantly, plagued by strange half-dreams of being watched, hunted, and trapped in an endless loop. When I awoke again it was pitch black, and I knew instantly something was standing just outside the tent.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My eyes snapped open in total darkness, heart hammering as adrenaline surged through me. Outside the thin nylon walls of my tent, something shifted slowly, weight pressing softly against the ground, audible but unidentifiable. I remained utterly still, barely breathing, every muscle rigid. The cold grip of dread coiled around my spine as I strained to pinpoint the location of the sound.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
A faint scraping noise began, low, rhythmic, like stone dragged slowly against stone. My pulse thundered in my ears. Carefully, inch by inch, I reached toward the zipper of my tent, my knife clutched so tightly my knuckles burned. A thin slice of moonlight leaked through the opening, illuminating the quiet forest beyond. I edged closer, peering through the narrow slit.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Shadows played oddly across the familiar campsite, distorted by faint moonlight. The fire I'd built earlier had burned down to smoldering coals, but the sound, the scraping, continued steadily, just beyond my line of sight. Forcing myself to move, I unzipped the tent slowly, silently, and leaned forward just enough to look out. At first, the darkness revealed nothing unusual.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Then my eyes adjusted, and I saw it. Something large crouched low near the edge of my camp, barely distinguishable from the night around it. My breath caught sharply in my throat. It wasn't shaped like any animal I knew. Even crouched, it appeared unnaturally tall, long-limbed, and emaciated.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
My thighs burned slightly with exertion, but I embraced it. This was why I was out here, to push my boundaries and capture images of untouched wilderness. I paused to check my progress on the Garmin GPS clipped to my chest strap. That was when I first felt something was off. According to the GPS, my elevation was exactly 7,552 feet.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
Its pale form was ghostly against the shadows, hunched forward, elongated fingers rhythmically gouging into solid stone. My stomach tightened with nausea. The sound I'd heard, it was digging effortlessly into bedrock, carving deep clawed grooves as though it were loose soil. My breath shuddered as I eased backward into the tent, heart pounding in pure terror.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
The creature paused abruptly, its posture shifting slightly. My blood froze. Had it heard me? Its head turned with unnatural smoothness, revealing an elongated face marred by deep hollows where eyes should have been.
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
empty cavernous sockets stared directly toward me sensing knowing though it had no eyes to see a strangled gasp escaped my lips before i could silence it in that instant the creature lunged upright with unnatural agility towering far taller than i'd expected
Just Creepy: Scary Stories
4 Scary DEEP WOODS Stories to Listen to While Outside
i scrambled backward desperately kicking away from the tent's entrance panic blinded me as my hands grasped wildly for anything to defend myself the thing's footsteps were silent yet i felt its presence closing in heavy and overwhelming frantically i yanked open the back flap of my tent and staggered out into the darkness behind me abandoning gear shelter everything