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This was in June in Asheville, North Carolina. My boyfriend and my dog and I were camping along the AT along the river we were kayaking.

We had gotten done kayaking for the day and were relaxing at our campsite before dinner. Our site was only like 10 feet from the trail and the river was right beyond that. We had had some swims and other dramatic and stressful events while kayaking that day and needed to unwind and relax. We were running low on weed so we had just eaten some edibles because we are stoners and why not. My boyfriend was half asleep in his hammock that was at the river‘s edge and I was laying on a towel near the tent when a man came walking up to us blabbing about giving us his trash. I was at first confused, but he was wearing a backpack and a t shirt so i quickly realized he was a serious hiker on the trail and wanted us to take his trash for him, which is a pretty reasonable request. However, we were only a 5 minute walk down the trail and there was basic civilization, including a dumpster and what not, literally 5 minutes down the trail. I told him this because I’m sure he would rather just put it in the bin himself in that case, but he then pulled out a large bag of weed and said I could have some if I took his trash. I was A little confused but would never turn down free weed so I was like sure whatever we will throw out your trash for you. He gave me a small handful of nugs and threw his trash into our bag and I asked him some small stuff like “oh are you through hiking?” And whatever basic stuff. He said he was and had been for a couple months and asked if he could stay and drink a beer and I was like sure this guy seems like he really just needs to talk to some people or something and I wasn’t doing anything and he seemed normal enough, so why not.

I did think he might have only been there because I looked like a girl who was alone if he hadn’t noticed the hammock, but I thought at most he would be mildly disappointed he couldn’t hit on me or whatever. My boyfriend popped his head up at some point and the hiker did seem surprised to see him, which confirmed that he thought I was alone. He kept saying stuff like “oh don’t worry I’m not one of those creepy people” like ok dude I hope not. I was trying to be friendly and just ask some basic questions or about trail stories and the guy was answering normal enough.

My bf and I decided to smoke some weed in the style of gbs (probably “gravity bong” lol) out of the river and of course offered the guy some because he had given us the weed in the first place. He hits it and coughs a bunch and that’s when stuff gets weird. As a stoner we were used to seeing people get too high and act a little weird, but this guy was being incredibly strange. He talked and talked and talked but it was so quiet we couldn’t really hear a thing he said. I tried to seem interested and respond to stuff but I had no clue what he was saying. He was just staring at the river talking to himself and then occasionally looking at us like we were part of the conversation and we’d be like “oh right haha”. It was so strange and confusing. He also drank like 3 beers and 2 cigarettes during the time so it was not a short amount of time, this man would not leave.

He started talking to Siri on his phone when we stopped answering him and he was like yelling at siri calling her a bitch. At one point out of nowhere he goes “on a scale of 1 to 10 how much do I seem like a serial killer?” My bf and I looked at each other like we had both just had the same thought, that this guy had just gotten wayyyyy too creepy. We both nervously laughed and said “oh 1 (meaning not at all) for sure” and tried to act casual like it was definitely a joke or something but we were both thinking wtf. After that I said nope this guy is not welcome here and I got in the hammock and so did my bf and we kinda sat there talking to each other a bit and not really acknowledging the guy. He had said he was going to smoke one more cig and then leave, and I swear that was the longest cigarette I have ever witnessed in my life. It took him so long to finish it and I was just watching it get shorter and shorter hoping he would just leave already. He finally got up and put his stuff on and left, but it was almost dark so we knew he would not go far before setting up camp for the night too.

That night we thought for sure this guy would come back and kill us. Throughout the night people did walk by on the trail multiple times, but it was other people we had seen on the trail during the day (a couple that seemed to be on drugs and maybe lived up the trail) . We literally planned what we would do if he came back, which was grab the dog and jump in the river and float to the boat ramp down stream. Anyway, he didn’t end up showing up that night and we didn’t see him again, but it was enough to freak us out. It’s possible this guy was just lacking some social skills and had also been in the woods by himself for awhile, but it’s also possible that he really had some creepy shit going on, and I am definitely glad I wasn’t alone when he walked up.

Original post:

This story may be short, or it may be drawn out. I am recounting these events as I type as it was honestly one of the most horrifying things I have experienced, and it brings me genuine stress to think about. This happened maybe 2-3 years ago. I live in southern West Virginia, and have for my entire life. The woods and mountains surround every direction you look, and night time is a darkness that you can never dream of unless experienced.

I was with a friend, I'll call him Mark. Mark was at my house one evening, doing the usual things, watching UFC, playing xbox, etc. It was extremely late when we finally got bored and decided to go for a walk on a nearby trail to smoke a joint. This is not a particularly long trail, but it is very dense in the woods that surround it, and it is easy to get freaked out when thinking of your surroundings. We finally get to about halfway into the trail (about 30 minutes in), where we stop, pack our joint, and stand on the trail to chill and talk.

The forest is very alive tonight. There are always noises in the woods but the amount of animal activity for the time was unsettling (at this point it was probably past 1 am). This was strange and kind of eerie, but not alerting as any sort of predatory animal in the area may cause a disturbance. We finish smoking and continue our walk when almost immediately the forest falls dead quiet. And as soon as the forest goes quiet, there is a sounds. It almost sounds like a mocking, humanoid voice, shaky and uncertain. Almost like an old children's toy, like the ones with the crackly speakers and robotic voice, if you know what I mean. This immediately sets us off. We bolt directly down the opposite length of the trail, but the sound does not gain distance. It doesn't get closer, per say, but no matter how far we ran down the trail, this eerie voice remains the same volume, going over and over with no quieting or stopping. At this point, I am convinced that we are in genuine danger, something I have felt very few times. Finally, after sprinting for who knows how long, we exit the trail, grasping for breath and almost at the verge of tears of how frightening this was. We begin to exit the trail and about 5 minutes from the exit, there is a bone shaking, heart stopping, murderous scream from directly behind us. I know what a mountain lion sounds like. This was not an animal. This was not someone playing, or watching a movie. This scream sent birds flying from nests and made my heart drop into my stomach. It was the most genuinely depraved and violent scream that I have ever heard.

This is a true story that I have only told to maybe 3 people, all of whom seem to brush it off as false. I've never been a person to push for the existence of the paranormal or spiritual, but I genuinely believe I encountered something inhuman in those woods.

Edit: I know I will receive questions such as what the voice was possibly saying, or to explain the area and what happened after. I genuinely can not remember what the voice was saying, if anything intelligible. I don't know if I could understand it then, and I certainly can't recall understanding it after several years of blocking it out of my memory. All that I recall is that it was a fluctuating voice in pitch, shaking, almost just joining sounds together. After running from the scream at the end of the trail, we ran to the car which was only about 5 more minutes from the trail, so we got there relatively fast from sprinting.

Follow up comments from u/rach1874:

Oh wow I feel this in my bones. My uncle (mom’s brother) has had a farm in south east WV since the seventies, long before I came into this world. Mom is the oldest of 5 and my uncle built a bunch of houses on the farm so family could use it whenever. Some lived there and other, like my family, visited often.

My mom and older sister and I would go for weeks on end to spend time with family and I always loved it because I have a ton of cousins and was the baby for a long time so mostly I tagged along with my cousins and felt extremely safe like it was my happy place. I don’t really remember anything totally out of the ordinary when I was really little. Other than I remember an imaginary friend whom I exclusively played with at the farm, no where else, and we moved extensively for dad’s job so I’ve lived in many different places.

What I remember after age 5, was suddenly being old enough to not have to have someone walk me to and from other houses which I thought was so cool! So I used to explore. My uncles liked to bow hunt and had taken me a few times not too far into the woods so I was able to go back on my own and find their little tree platforms they had built to hunt from. I thought they were cool little treehouses.

Your story sounds a lot like the very last time I ever took off by myself in the woods without another family member with me. It was the winter, I wanted to be out in the snow and explore. So I found my way up the mountain (that is what I called it but in fact it was probably just a massive hill) and into the trees, I couldn’t find the spot I was looking for and got pretty frustrated with my 8 year old self. So I sat down by a creek to catch my breath and figure out where I was.

I couldn’t have been sitting more than about three minutes when something let out a scream I can only describe as blood curdling. I thought it was a fox most likely, until I heard another voice crying, just weeping and wailing and the sorrow was palpable.

My cousins had always told scary stories about Appalachia and I figured that they had followed me into the woods and were trying to scare the pants off me for shots and giggles. I called out like ok guys, not funny! Ok I’m going home. Enough! And followed my footprints in the snow as fast as I could back to the farm.

The screaming and crying didn’t stop, stayed consistent as I moved, which really made me convinced it had to be my cousins. I don’t think I heard words just crying and screaming. But it wasn’t pleasant.

Made my way back to the main house (my uncles house which was the biggest on the property and visible from the edge of the woods) and absolutely booked it, ran full tilt to get to the kitchen door. I remember getting through the door and slamming it behind me because I was a combo of terrified and annoyed that my cousins were playing a prank on me (the next closest cousin in age is 9 years older than me and so I was often the butt of pranks).
Well wouldn’t you know every family member was accounted for in the living room/kitchen. The older male cousins and my uncles were in the kitchen putting their snow boots and coats on to come look for me I had apparently been gone for several hours and they were worried.

According to my mom I was white faced, my hands were covered in scratches through my mittens, I guess I must have fallen or something. They were so worried I had disappeared. I should add I set off from my aunts to walk to my uncles and had decided to take a detour and didn’t tell anyone. Oops. I was 8, and really didn’t think about how that might be bad.

Mom said I looked like I had seen a ghost. I asked if anyone had come out to the woods to look for me, they said no we’ve been looking at the different houses and were just about to come look for you because they saw my footprints head into the woods.

I told them about where I went and what I heard and my uncle, whose property it was, said “ah oh shit, I think you probably ran into the witch.” I’m over here thinking oh some crazy lady lives in the woods and I probably stumbled near her cottage.

Nope. The witch was just what they called the unknown entity that roamed the woods, screaming, crying, mimicking people’s voices and just giving people a good old sense of doom and dread. No one had a straight answer about possible folklore or anything like that but all my older cousins had their own experiences with similar happenings over the years.

Scared the living daylights out of me and while I’ve been back to the farm over the years I can tell you I have never once set foot near the woods tree line. Even as an adult. I was grateful my family didn’t think I was crazy, but they said a general rule is not to be in the woods alone. So I listened. To my knowledge nothing physical ever happened with anyone and this entity, more of a prankster than anything. But oof. The Appalachia has some wild stuff.

I definitely remember some strange stuff happening during the week we had my aunts funeral when I was 21. And random voices or red eyes or smoke apparitions on the woods edge. But I never went to check them out after that one incident.

Edit: I should add that 100% of the family that was at the farm that trip was accounted for at my uncles house getting ready to come look for me. So if it was anything other than something supernatural, it was not from anyone staying at the farm.

I honestly think I would be WAY more freaked out if it happened to me now as an adult. Like I mentioned, pranks were common in my very fun loving family, so I really did think, at the time when I was running away, that probably my cousins were just being mean. LOL. But no, they were all suiting up to come look for me with my uncles because everyone was like "Where the heck is this tiny girl?!" when I wasn't in my usual hiding spots. They figured out I had headed to the woods because one of my cousins found snow tracks from my excursion.

Hadn't thought about that since I was like 21 and OP's post brought it back to me. Logically it could have been a squatter or something living in the woods. But enough family members insisted that there was something supernatural living in the woods that I think I'm leaning towards that myself.

It definitely made me more brave! I actually called my cousin after I posted this ( we are super close, he is 10 years older than me but he’s more like a big brother) and asked if he remembered this because I didn’t 100% trust my memory. He told me he remembered it vividly and how everyone was so scared and more scared when I mentioned the crying and screaming and that for the rest of the trip I had one of my older cousins with me at all times it scared them so much. It’s his dad’s farm and he told me that they still sometimes hear some crazy shit in the woods but mostly steer clear now.

As a child / young teen, I lived a very strange situation in the woods. I am not sure if this encounter may have been some kind of entity, or perhaps something different. I hope someone can give me more information about what happened to me and my friend.

I (F) was around 12 years old at the time and one of my best friends (let's call him Alex) must have been 10. Alex's father had purchased a large amount of forested land around 100km away from the city we lived in (Montreal, Canada). It was all forest when Alex's family acquired it; they cleared a little patch to build a house, and the rest was pure, unadulterated forest. Their land was cut in two by a dirt road that, if you followed it for several kilometers, let to a few houses. And their land was very different depending on which side of the dirt road you looked.

On the right side (where their house was), the forest was light and luminous - or at least it felt that way. It was not too dense, with little rolling hills. A lovely place to play.

On the left side of the road, though it was another story. First, there was a deep ditch, perhaps 2 meters deep, which then became a quite high and steep hill. Weirdly enough, all along the long road, the ditch was full of car parts. A set of car wheels here, a door there, a steering wheel way over there, all old and overgrown with moss. And over the steep hill, the forest gave off a really bad vibe. It had lots of very tall, dark coniferous trees, with almost black trunks, and the place seemed somehow devoid of light or life. Climbing the hill (which we seldom were willing to do because of the creeps it gave us), there was some sort of swamp there. When we were there, there was this strange pressure, we sensed a kind of animal instinct that told us to leave this place. The strange atmosphere was spontaneously obvious to both me and Alex, and we playfully called that side of the road "demon's forest".

One weekend day, probably in 2001 or 2002, my family and I came to visit Alex's family. Bored by the adults, my friend and I decided to go and play in the forest. Alex's father told us to watch out; there was an animal that had been rummaging in their trash bin and causing other nuisances. He said it was a dog that looked somewhat like a Rottweiler that surely belong to someone living up the dirt road - he warned us that we shouldn't interact with the dog if we saw it, as it didn't look healthy, as far as he could tell, or something was weird about it. He said it somehow looked diseased or contagious, or had patches of fur missing - can't remember exactly.

And so we set out on our walk. It was autumn and the leaves were pretty and golden, many having already fallen to the ground; it was a calm, slightly overcast windless day. The air was very still and calm. Alex and I decided to walk along the dirt road, with the pleasant section of the forest to our right, and "demon's forest" to our left.

We chatted while following the road as it was rising up a slope. As usual, we were slightly creeped out going up the road because of the weird vibes of the forest to the left side, but we were challenging ourselves to be brave and trying to not really think about how unsettling it felt.

A good distance away from their home, when it was already well out of sight, I noticed the first strange thing of the day.

Out of the steep hill on left side of the road, there was a very large and dark pine tree hanging over the road. Somebody had attached a pink ribbon to one of the branches (which was already strange, since this was the territory of Alex's family, and they had no daughters, or other little girls likely to hang around, or other people who may be owners of pink ribbons who were likely to hang out on this deserted road). The strange thing was, the ribbon was flailing strongly in the wind - its loose ends were flapping almost horizontally.

The thing is - it was a completely windless day. There was no wind to speak of.

The ribbon was within my reach, so I even touched it as it was flailing. I even licked my finger and held it in the air to check if I could feel any wind or air current at all, as my dad had taught me. The air was perfectly still. Yet the ribbon failed. I mentioned it to my friend. He seemed distracted and was younger than me and sometimes didn't catch on to what I said, so I didn't press the matter.

We continued our climb.

We reached a place where the hill on the left side of the road had a gentler slope and began further away from the road. In fact, it looked as if the hill was kind of carved out in a way that would have made it easy for us to climb to get into "demon's forest". It almost seemed as if the hill was carved in a sloping half-circle, like in a theater, and the road we stood on would have been the stage. It gave us a very clear, treeless view of the hillside, full of golden and red fallen leaves. The trees began at the top of the hill, maybe 9 meters higher. We stopped to admire the view - Canadian autumns are a sight to behold.

Alex suddenly got really excited. He thought he heard something in the "demon woods" up the hill and he really wanted me to pay attention. He explained that there are wild cats in that forest, they had spotted them with his dad. One of them had reportedly had kittens - kittens being one of the most exciting things in the world for kids our age, getting us all riled up... but somehow, my hackles were up and I could really relax, even thinking about adorable wild kittens.
He actually thought he had heard the cat meow in the forest, up the hill, close by. (I heard nothing of the sort and thought he was inventing it.) He vehemently suggested that we try meowing at it to see if it would respond - maybe it would even bring its kittens along and we could see them and play with them, he said. I hadn't heard any sounds at all and didn't really like his idea of screaming meows into the creepy forest. What kind of wild cat would respond to human children, anyway? Wouldn't it be obvious that we are not cats by the sound of us? That seemed like a dumb idea to me.

Before I could try to talk him out of it, he loudly meowed into the forest.

To my utter shock, the forest meowed back.

Alex was delighted. He meowed again.

Something in the forest answered again.

I was actually shocked, this didn't make sense to me. And it creeped me out. But I suspended my disbelief to see what would happen.

He kept doing meowing over and over - for every one of his meows, there was one coming back in response from the woods. Something felt off to me. Feral or wild animals didn't behave that way, even at 12 years old I realized that. And it wasn't an echo; the "cat" did not bounce back any sound that we threw at it except meows, which it reciprocated immediately - and anyway, there were no hard rocky surfaces around off of which sound could bounce off, everything was covered in a soft layer of sound-dulling leaves.

Alex got even more excited, "Listen!! The cat is coming towards us, she's coming to see us with her kittens!" To my surprise, he was right. There was a rustle of dead leaves coming from above us, from above the slope in the creepy forest. It seemed like the rustling was getting closer to us.

But it was way off. Because cats are small and light, and careful with their steps. They don't make a ruckus when they walk through the woods. But here, the rustling leaves sound was extremely obvious, along with the meowing. And in fact, it sounded more like... steps. Like someone with two legs walking in the leaves. And it was getting closer to us. My alarm signals were starting to go off with the wrongness of it all, while my younger friend was oblivious. He was calling it more vehemently, noticing that it was coming towards us.

Then I realized what seemed so wrong: the sound was coming towards us... but there was nothing to be seen. Right in front of us we had the gently sloping hill, treeless and clearly visible - anything coming from the forest should have been plainly exposed to view.

There was nothing.

No source for the rustling sound, nothing moving.

"Oh her kittens are joining her! Listen, there are more sounds! They're coming to play with us!"

He was right. The walking sound seemed to have multiplied and now came from various directions at once. Ever getting closer, with nothing being visible.

Something was way off - I wanted to leave. But Alex was getting mad at me - the kittens were almost here and he wanted to see them, he insisted. At this point is was extremely tense and fight or flight was activating from the wrongness of it all. We were alone and quite exposed on this "theater stage" to... whatever was getting closer to us, which was, more and more obviously with every moment, decidedly NOT kittens. I was on the verge to force him go run home.

And then, suddenly, I heard a very loud panting sound.

Right at my feet.

During the first millisecond, I got only mildly surprised - we had a huge husky at home. I was used to it panting next to my feet.

But then, a sense of profound dread downed on me as I realized that, obviously, my dog was not here. And it must be another dog, a very big one by the sound of it. Right at my feet.

I panickingly look down, ready to jump away from the dog that somehow got extremely close to me, almost on me, without my noticing.

Only there is absolutely nothing at my feet.

But I still hear the loud, breathy panting sound coming from there.

I whirl around, all 360 degrees, screaming. Where is it coming from??! There is NOTHING at my feet, or anywhere around me!

There is NOTHING there. Yet the sound is clearly there.

As I whirl about in a frenzy, I look up the dirt road we were following.

Around 100 meters away, of the top of the slope, I see a lone dog standing.

It looks somewhat similar to a Rottweiler, but in very, very bad shape. Extremely unkempt, with patches of fur missing, shaggy and dirty as heck, with some skin exposed where the fur is missing. It looks down at us, too.

Obviously, there is no way that I could hear it panting at that distance - and the source of the sound is at my feet.

At that point, the "flight" instinct wins insime me. I have never run as desperately and as fast in my whole life - thank goodness it was all downhill. Alex kept pace right beside me, terrified.

We made it home in one piece. We didn't walk in these woods anymore.
 ****
 I came back to Alex's place several times in my life. I never wanted to walk in the woods again.
 We had amazing parties at his house as teens. I was often there rather drunk and having a great time. But I always had this very stressful sensation when I went out of his house, especially at night. When I slept over there, I had these extremely strange experiences where, when I woke up, I sensed as if "something" was there and was observing me. In my mid-awake state, I even saw... something, floating near the ceiling. It had the sensation thay it was not an immediate threat, though - it was...observing. (I am not sure thay whatever "this" is was related to what happened on the dirt road.)
 
 We never discussed what happened that day.
 
 As I researched it now, I see that this land is historically Algonquin land. (Though one source seemed to say Mohawk.)
 
 If anybody can help clarify what happened, I would be thankful.