mothuncle

[mothuncle]

There's something out in the woods and it's getting closer to my home. Goodbye for now.

I’m being stalked by this evil thing.

It could’ve easily snatched me away or wrapped up my house much like my neighbors, but it hasn’t yet. For whatever reason, it’s just been staring at me from the distant forest all night the last two nights. No web building sounds, which is what I’ve determined was what I was hearing the first three nights. Just sitting there, watching my home–watching me inside–shuffling from one room to the next.

The first night of being watched, I grabbed my Mossberg and sat in a chair facing the window, awaiting a charge from the arachnid. I thought for sure that would be my last night on Earth. I had ideations about how I’d go, being punctured by those unbelievable fangs over and over, chewed up in whatever sort of unimaginable mouth it used. I just hoped it would administer some sort of primitive venom, if the thing had been given enough time to evolve such a trait since the world's creation. It probably didn’t need venom though, given its size. I know the girl screamed long enough to infer there was no such mercy offered to its prey. I imagined those blank and unblinking eyes that watched me all night but up close. I imagined the smell of the giant thing. The weight of it crushing me.

That was the first night.

Sleep took me at some point. Maybe for a few minutes or an hour, I couldn’t tell. The eyes were gone and the day was breaking. I couldn’t believe I was still alive. The arachnid had retreated somewhere in that forest to sleep, at least that’s what I assumed.

Anger filled me and I felt rage I hadn’t felt since I was younger and more energized. I decided I was solely responsible for the destruction of this primeval harvestman. I don’t have much of anything left, anyway. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live on after witnessing the girl being consumed in front of me. I have just enough life left in me for this final task.

I spread out the hunting map I had taken from my neighbor's car and I began to study it with great care. I looked for formations that this thing would enjoy crawling into and resting in. There were nearby valleys, ravines, and one cave. I figured ravines may be too wet for the arachnid, valleys may ultimately be too exposed, but a cave could be the perfect home. It may be the very home it resided in for untold eons. The place where it felt the most comfortable. I marked the cave on the map and a few backup locations in case that fell through. I took a heavy dose of naproxen for my back pain, slung my rifle around my shoulder, and set off for the two mile hike to the mouth of the cave.

It was hard to imagine myself realistically trekking to the cave, but with the help of drugs and adrenaline, it was possible. The hike was long and strenuous, I was constantly battling thorns and vines. I had to backtrack several times to make sure I wasn’t getting lost. Occasionally, I’d look down and see patches of deep, narrow craters where the monstrosity had crawled. They were roughly on track to the cave’s opening the whole way. 

I was very vigilant of any webbing, as I considered any one strand a delicate decision. A strategic tripwire placement which ran into the nest of the arachnid. I saw some here and there, none I had to step over, luckily. The deeper into the woods I got, I could see more and more webbing all around. On the ground and in the trees, the thing had created a massively complex network of web. One big hunting net. Successfully maneuvering the strands meant adding more time to the hike, but it was still early enough in the day–or at least that was the logic I was operating under. I had no way of knowing how deeply this thing slept, or if it slept at all and simply just sat in its cave waiting for darkness. I knew regarding its web and tripping one of the strands, the beast had absurdly good senses at finding the exact spot that had been tripped. Other than that, I didn’t know if it could see or smell or hear all that well. I think it’s safe to assume it’s the unmatched apex of the animal kingdom, but everything is uncertain about this thing beyond its thirst for flesh.

After what must’ve been hours stalking around the forest, I finally came upon the cave.

The first tip that I’d arrived was not the hunting map’s assistance, but the amount of webbing surrounding the canopy above me. Next were the animal corpses being held in storage. Up in the trees, I saw dozens and dozens of deer bodies that had been rolled up into a bundle of web. Saving them for later? My eyes were then able to follow a more central tangle of web all leading towards a big dark opening in the Earth.

The mouth of the cave.

As I approached, I had to seriously watch my footing. Web now was covering much of the forest floor, all leading into the cave’s chasm, which was much larger than I expected. I thought of the potential lost souls who had previously journeyed into this nameless cave in search of adventure, only to be met with the spiny legs which would soon impale them. Who knows if anyone had been in there before, but it existed on the map, so it must’ve been surveyed at some point in history. They should’ve left it off the map.

I walked as close as I could to the cave to peer in. I was so scared at this point. My pain medication had worn off but I was in such a cloud of fright that I felt out of my body. I found an angle where I could look down into the chasm and it was a horrific sight. So much webbing, like a fortress of silk. Even though there was a screen of webbing over the cave, I could tell it went down deep. Very deep. I saw bones and random unidentifiable pieces of organic matter. Table scraps. 

It didn’t take long to confirm that this was in fact the place where the arachnid rested and not just some hideous safe-house. There was a wind coming from within the cave. Powerful wind. It flexed the webbing screen which largely covered the cave’s mouth. Breath. It was breathing, long and slow breaths. It sounded so large, the Earth itself could’ve been inhaling and exhaling from this orifice in its crust. The rancid air wafted up and I breathed it in. It smelled of decaying rot, metal, and some unfamiliar gastric odor.

The ancient thing was in there, awake or dormant, I was unsure. But it was in there, and so I had my confirmation of its whereabouts during the daytime.

I now had to return home without alerting it. This was only a scouting trip to find where it lived.

As I turned around to head back, I nearly gave myself away to the thing down below. In a mess of webs, dangling like a christmas ornament, was the deformed body of one of my neighbors, the father. His head was just a crushed mess of torn skin and insides, but one of his arms was hanging outside of the web-bundle and it had recognizable tattoos on it. I think his body was now just from the chest and up, the rest long digested by the cave dwelling thing. Poor man. 

I silently cried as I hobbled all the way back home, successfully avoiding capture again.

While the last remnants of light shone through the forest, I took an opportunity to sleep. I made sure to wake up before nightfall.

I prepared for night time by sitting in my chair right by the window and resting my rifle in my lap. I was unsure if the thing determined its attacks based on lapsed attention or if sitting and staring right back would provoke it, but I decided I didn’t want to take my eyes off it no matter what.

Sure enough, a few hours into the night, it came back. I heard it crawling this way, although I could tell it was trying to keep its volume to a minimum.

I couldn’t make the arachnid out directly, but once again I saw its eyes reflecting in the pitch black–staring at me.

I was shaking the whole night. I’ll admit I’m not the bravest soul, but I never flinched. Never moved from that chair the whole night. We just sat all night, staring at one another. I never detected a single movement from the giant thing. Not any sort of blinking from those reflective eyes. It was the longest night of my life.

When dawn began to bring color to the sky, the arachnid slowly backed up, eventually turning around and crawling quickly away from me.

Was it scared of me? Did it not understand our size differences? Who could know for certain. I was mainly grateful for another night. 

Now it is the present, and I’m writing this as I sit out on the deck. I love this deck. I love this house. I even love this godforsaken forest. It’s my home, and I’m heartbroken and terrified to be leaving it, but some of life’s problems are just bigger than an individual.

Today, after I write this, I will hike back out to the thing’s cave–and I will introduce it to something it may be too old to know of–fire. 

I have a few canisters of gasoline around here for my long-retired tractors and mowers. I’m going to bring as much as I can haul to the mouth of the cave and douse the ancient pest in it. Then, I will light a match and set it ablaze. I’m sure the thing will protest, and that’s when I’ll unload as much ammo as I can into its wretched body. I’m bringing two rifles to save on reload time.

I do not know if this attempt at its life will be successful. I do not know if I will survive. I don’t expect to.

I’m just waiting for the remainder of my pain medication to kick in and then I will set out.

I’m sorry to my neighbors. I’m not sure if there was anything I could’ve realistically done, but I’m still sorry all the same. I should’ve been more involved with the only people I had left in my little nook. I’m especially sorry to the girl, whose name I don’t even know, and how much she suffered because of an absent-minded decision I made in the heat of the moment. I should’ve been more careful.

To those who have read these accounts, I thank you for your time and your advice. I’m sorry I will not be calling the police or running away, there’s just no more room for a lost old man in this world. This holler was my home, and should I die today, I’d like to think it was because I sacrificed myself to defend this place I’ve called home for years now.

Do not try to seek this place out. I’ve attempted to keep my location as ambiguous as I possibly could. You may have your suspicions, but I cannot emphasize enough that this place has nothing for you. You do not want to come face to face with this arachnid. Should it survive my ambush, or god forbid it has young nested somewhere, you will want to be as far from this devil’s lair as possible. There are good natural barriers keeping this thing isolated from the rest of the world. It might not be too different from me–it might also consider this place the only home it’ll ever know. Do not persuade it to travel elsewhere.

I am scared, but I am ready. I’ve made my peace. I’m ready to see my wife, my parents, and my old friends again. In an ironic sort of way, this arachnid might be just the closure I need to punctuate my otherwise slow and rotting life.

I am scared, but I am ready.

Thanks for keeping me company.

My name is Jeb.

[mothuncle]

There's something out in the woods and it's getting closer to my home. The situation has become dire.

It’s been a day since my first entry, and a lot has happened in that time. I did not expect things to have escalated to the situation I am now in, but here we are. 

It all happened so fast.

Before I recount all the events of the past couple days, I wanted to thank those who provided advice to me. Sadly, I didn’t receive any sort of comfort from people having experienced such an animal before, although now I’m beginning to believe my experience is one-of-a-kind.

I saw someone suggest I call the police, and while that may be perfectly reasonable where you’re from, it’s more of an arduous task in my area. Like I mentioned in my first entry, I live beyond nowhere–and that was a choice my wife and I made a long time ago for our own betterment at that point. An unfortunate sacrifice for basically living off the grid is emergency services are much further from you. This proved to be a significant hardship during the last few months of my wife’s life, and an outrageously expensive one at that.

Regardless of the great lengths and costs of getting law enforcement out here, I’ll also add that I have no idea what they can do for me at this point. Where I left off in the last entry, I didn’t have anything concrete enough to warrant calling anyone out here. Now, as I write this, I’m in a much more dire predicament, and I do not want anyone else to be put in harm's way just for me.

Yesterday, around early afternoon, I hopped in my truck with the intention of going to see if my distant neighbors knew anything of those strange sounds I was hearing.

They were a younger and larger family from what I’d seen over the years. Three or four kids varying from kindergarten age to whatever age they decide to start coloring their hair. None of them were close to senior prom, I’d say. The father was an odd concoction of businessman and moonshiner, perfectly straight teeth and freshly cut hair contrasting with his aggressively camouflage getups. The mother looked a similar sort of way but even more of a parody of the outdoor trope. Think two models from New York doing a country music video. We’d briefly exchanged some meaningless words in the past, with my wife doing most of the talking.

As my truck bumped and struggled up the narrow inclining dirt road, I thought of what I might tell them.

Hey guys, how’s it been up here? Heard any of the monstrous noises coming from the woods lately? I was puzzled on how to deliver the true intentions of my spontaneous visit. I didn’t want to scare them or come off as a demented creep. 

The dirt road we both live on is a miserable excuse for a road, more like a glorified hiking trail. It’s wide enough for a standard truck but anything bigger would get tangled in the stubborn growth. I could’ve sworn it used to be a tad more spacious, though. This forest has always had designs on reclaiming our one connection to the rest of the world, but driving on it at this point it seemed to have the upper hand. It was hard to imagine my neighbors’ bulky designer trucks driving down this overgrown path.

Have they left home anytime recently? The thought darted through my mind and I ignored it quickly.

The rocky ride up to their property was all too short, and I still didn’t feel prepared as I passed their mailbox and slowly continued up their steep driveway. Their long and winding driveway offered a little relief, as they had a much more cared for gravel job done when they built their home. My truck appreciated the steadier terrain, but I was lost in my anxieties all the same.

As I rounded one bend after the next, I worried more and more that they’d hear me coming and think I was something nefarious. People out in the sticks love their guns and can often view their property as a sovereign nation of sorts. I can’t pass much judgement, I’ll sometimes reach for my Mossberg upon hearing the occasional mail truck before realizing. I just prayed to myself they wouldn’t be looking for target practice.

I rounded one final bend before I could see the roof of their lodge-style mansion. I slowed my vehicle speed down to a crawl, in hopes it conveyed a friendly intention. As I approached and saw more details of the house, I quickly slammed on the brakes.

Something was… covering much of their house. I couldn’t quite make it out or make sense of it. With great hesitance, I rolled up closer. Things never started making sense, sadly. Eventually, I parked my car right next to theirs, and I still didn’t understand. I got out and looked at their great big house, which was nearly entirely wrapped up in some giant sort of... web? The webbing was so thick that I couldn’t even see the parts of the house which were within its confines. The wrapping was so strong it had caused damage, cracking and warping the home’s corners.

I didn’t understand. Something automatic within me willed me to step out of the truck. As I walked around the scene, I discovered new findings. The left side of their lifted black truck was smashed in as if it’d been t-boned. The driver’s door was open but hanging from its hinges as if something ripped out the driver. I now saw traces of dried blood everywhere. As my eyes grew more accustomed, the more blood I picked up on. All over the interior of the totaled truck were splatters of blood. The truck windows that weren’t shattered were covered in it. The gravel driveway was a canvas for more. All over the place were long drag marks and coagulated puddles. Even on the sections of the gravel that appeared untouched, if I bent over and observed closer, I could see uncountable amounts of little droplets and dots of blood.

I couldn’t believe it.

These poor people were brutalized by that noisy thing out there and I’d been none the wiser. I had no idea how long ago this had happened, but it looked like it had all happened very fast when it did. There were absolutely no remains of any kind and I looked relentlessly for anything to help me understand.

I walked around the house to see if there was anywhere the horrible webbing had left an opening large enough for me to get in but I found no such error. I found another one of their cars though, a similarly lifted and bulky SUV that was also matte black. I tried the handle and the door opened right up. I looked inside and couldn’t find much besides what looked to be a hunting map of the general region. I had seen it before, something a bait and tackle shop about fifteen miles off sold at the register. Our little holler had just made the cut in the bottom right of the map. I figured a map of the area would be a good asset I didn’t have so I stuffed it in my pocket with my shaking hands. 

Beyond the map, there was not much left there that I could see would be of use. I think it’s accurate to say I was in some mild form of shock and bewilderment, and wasn't in the soundest of mind. Maybe that contributed to what I did next.

As I tried to walk calmly back to my truck, I had the thought that someone might still be stuck inside that house. What if some of the kids were still alive in there? I approached the mess of web and cleared my throat, calling out with my pitiful hoarse voice. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used it.

It took a few tries but after one of my calls, I heard a faint scream coming from inside.

Someone shouted. “Hello? Is someone out there?” 

I heard what sounded to be the voice of a young girl, maybe 14 or 15, inside.

“Yes! It’s your neighbor,” I yelped back. “Are you alright?”

“Oh my god thank god,” the girl cried back.

“What happened here?” I tried to position myself in a way where I could hear her better. I think she did the same.

“Something… I don’t know what… it was huge and it just… came out of the woods and attacked us,” the girl was sobbing through every sentence. “I think it… I think it killed my dad and my mom, maybe my sister and brother too. I was inside when it happened.”

“My god, I’m so sorry,” I searched for anything else to say, “I came up here on a hunch because I’ve been hearing the damn thing the last few nights. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what it is, I just want to get the fuck out of here already. It’s been days or maybe even a week. Please call someone. This stuff it wrapped the house in, it’s fucked everything up… all the power’s out in here.”

“I’ve got some grass shears in my truck, I can cut you out and we’ll get out of here, okay?” I was struggling to breathe. This poor girl had been through so much and all the while I’d been sitting out on my damn deck listening in.

“Please, just get me out of here, please. I’m so fucking scared,” the girl blurted out.

“Alright, I’m gonna get you out! Don’t you worry. I’ll be right back, okay?”

I wobbled to my truck and sifted through all my useless junk until I finally felt the handle of my rusty grass shears. I pulled them out and rushed back to the wall of webbing.

“I’m back! Where’s a good place to cut? I can hardly see through this stuff,” I asked urgently.

I waited some time and then heard a thumping sound a few feet to my right.

“This is a door right here,” she said as she continued to bang on the door that was invisible to me.

I took a long look at the web as I aimed my shears. Every strand was like a thick rope wider than my arm. Cutting this would be no easy task. I opened up the shears and struggled as they bit down on the sticky rope. I grunted and strained, undoubtedly injuring myself. Finally, I cut through one single strand. 

Upon the severing, I heard a long and deep rumble reverberate around the house and through the forest until it faded into the sound I was more familiar with after listening so closely the last three nights. The long plucking rumble. I had a feeling this webbing might’ve extended into the nest of the unknown thing, but I hoped it was the supposed nest it fled from the night prior and not its new home.

I looked down at my shears and they were an unusable mess of sticky web-like tar. I couldn’t even open them back up. They were so fused together by this absurdly strong substance. I panicked at the realization that I alone could not cut through this web and I’d have to go get help. I wanted to vomit just at the thought of having to tell this poor girl that information.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry–but I’m not gonna be able to cut through all this on my own. It’s just too thick,” I said helplessly. I began to see water in my eyes.

“What? No, please don’t leave me here! Do you have anything else you can use? Or a phone–do you have a phone on you?”

I began to pat my pockets with unnecessary force as if that would materialize the phone I left back at home. I know it’s probably ridiculous, maybe irresponsible sounding to younger people, but I never developed the habit of bringing it everywhere I go. For once, I wish I possessed that habit.

“I… no… I don’t have it on me. But I can go make the call and be back up here in no time, how’s that sound?”

“Fuck! Fine. I’m sorry, thank you. I just really want to get out of here. Please hurry,” she said with desperation.

“I’ll be right back, okay? You’re gonna be okay,” I shouted as I moved as fast as I could to my truck.

Stupid damn idiot.

I don’t want to write it, but I have no excuse. I’m the lucky one.

I got in my truck and started peeling out. As soon as I got some good speed, I heard the “little thunderous taps” except they were not at all little this time. With great volume and moving incredibly fast, I saw the massive thing running towards the house in my rear view mirror. I slammed on the brakes and looked out my window. Within seconds, it went from the woods to the exact location I had cut the single strand of web moments before. 

Something deep within me awoke, something that must be in all of us that lays dormant. I felt the primal fear of my ancient ancestors run through my veins like an administered drug as I watched this leviathan demolish its own web in seconds only to then move onto the house. It was not impressed by manmade structures. With a few stabs of its sickeningly long legs, it breached my neighbors house. Smashing into the lodge over and over until finally, the thing had enough room to cram its body inside to feast on that poor girl I had just promised would be set free.

I heard her screams. They were the worst thing I’ve ever heard. The screams of someone being chewed by something that we usually stomp on. It shattered me. The arachnid did not make any guttural noises one might expect from something so monstrously huge. It operated in silence. The only sounds it emitted were consequences of its immense size.

I could only bear so much torment before I sped off down the hill. Somehow, it didn’t follow me. It must’ve been satiated enough, or maybe it was looking forward to a future hunt. I don’t care to understand its logic.

This thing is nightmarish. I’ll try to describe what I saw. I understand how silly all of this may sound, but I don’t care. Believe me or don’t.

When it ran to the house, I first saw its extremely long and comparatively skinny front legs in my rear view. Then came the face. I had a side profile view so not the greatest but I made out two large fangs protruding from a hideous head. The fangs were like two swords. I saw that they had some dexterity to them, the fangs could move individually–maybe they were moving with excitement. The remainder of the legs were chunkier and more muscled. There was maybe some hair on them, but it was so disproportionate to normal sized animals that it was hard to tell if it was hair or some other terrible thing. The front two legs that were skinnier seemed to be incredibly sharp and fast. Those legs cut up the web and stabbed through the house. I’m guessing those are the limbs responsible for the hole-punched deer I saw. The body was ugly and beaten up, but in parts it was black and shiny like a widow spider. The overall size is probably not something I could faithfully judge, but it looked to be nearly half the size of my neighbors house which stood three stories and well over 3,000 square feet.

The beast altogether looked primordial, like it had been asleep for millions of years or more. I’m nothing but an old tired man, but that’s the only thing that would make sense to me. What I’ve been describing might fit the description of a spider, and it’s definitely something in that vein, but I believe it’s much older than the spiders we know. It’s something old, and where I live is one of the oldest pieces of land in the world. A land that predates trees. Maybe this ancient land harbored this arachnid until it finally woke up or hatched–I’ll never know. All I know is it’s here now and it’s violent. History must’ve kept this place a secret for much of time, and somewhere along the way we forgot what was here. Past civilizations would’ve seen this thing and declared it the devil. Maybe it is the devil, and all the religious texts changed his image to something more familiar, more comfortable. I don’t know.

What I know as I write this is that I’m all alone. That poor girl was the last one out here alongside me. I now know the second I cut that strand, that girl was dead no matter what. No matter who cut that first strand of web, she’d be dead. But I was the one who did it, and so I blame myself for it. Maybe if I called some brighter minds to come help, they would’ve instead cut a hole in the relatively untouched roof or found some other way, but they probably would’ve done the same thing I did. Who the hell would expect a giant spider to come from the woods? I just wanted to help.

I’m sitting in my den writing this. It’s getting quite late. I don’t know what else to do. I’d ask for more advice, but I’ve lost a lot of my willpower after the whole deal earlier today. I don’t know how to fight this thing. I don’t know how to call for help, I’m not about to bring this demon more food.

I don’t even know how to get in my truck and drive away, because I can see eight eyes shining through the forest like headlights–looking right at my house this very moment.

[mothuncle]

There's something out in the woods and it's getting closer to my home. I need your help.

First off, let me explain that I’m an older man. I live alone on some land out in some random holler nobody would ever care to know about. It’s a deep and dark patch of old growth forest. Older than God himself.

For many years, we had a farm out here. Ever since my wife passed on though, I let it sort of fall apart. There’s still a few chickens I take care of but they’re easy work. It’s very, very quiet and lonely out here. My only neighbors are about four or five miles up the single dirt road that leads out here and they’re set up even deeper in these woods. On a night where the clouds hang low, I can see the faint glow of their flood lights, otherwise they’re invisible from elevation changes and of course the dense forest.

Anyways, I’m not trying to give out too much information about myself because I’m nothing to write home about, but it’s important to understand I live beyond nowhere. 

It’ll help to understand this predicament I’m in.

I’m no superstitious man, I’m no nutcase trying to find the devil in the shape of a cloud–so don’t write me off as one when I share what I’m about to say.

The last few nights, I’ve been hearing something strange out in the forest. I’m not talking about the cries of a fox, the hoots of an owl, or the roar of my distant neighbors' obnoxious ATVs. This is something new, even to me. I’ve lived out in these woods or those woods my whole life, weird sounds happen. Sounds that trip something primitive within you and send you into a whirlwind of paranoia, but they always amount to some annoying critter. For the first time in my life though, I can say with the utmost confidence that this sound isn’t coming from any of it, nor is it Bigfoot. 

It started three nights ago. It was well past midnight when I was woken up by these odd noises that sounded like giant strips of velcro being ripped off somewhere in the woods. Sounds tend to reverberate through this valley I’m in, so I couldn’t get a good gauge of how far away it was. It sounded so bizarre that at first I thought I was still asleep or having some sort of auditory hallucination. As the rips persisted, however, I realized this was no fiction of my mind. I had the thought that maybe I wasn’t hearing the full spectrum of the sound inside the house, so I went out on the deck to try and get a better understanding of whatever the hell it was.

There was no new quality to the sound outside except that it was more clear. I sat out there and listened for a few minutes. It never stopped. Ripping and ripping and more ripping. I stared into the black expanse for minutes more, my eyes slowly adjusting enough to make out vague details of faraway trees. Atop a nearby hill a couple miles off and in between my neighbors and me, I was able to see trees swaying unnaturally. There wasn't any wind that night. The swaying trees moved independently of those next to it, which stood perfectly still. The ripping sound was coming from those swaying trees.

I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and I’m certainly not stupid enough to wander out into the night with my bum knees and crooked back. I went back inside.

The ripping persisted for another hour or so, and it was so consistent that eventually my ears grew accustomed to the odd racket. Sleep is hard to come by for me these days so I never went back to bed, instead I did some chores and watched some TV, trying to take my mind off of that noise. I must admit, it definitely got to me. Living out in the middle of nowhere my whole life, it isn’t easy to scare me. The foreign nature of this sound though, the swaying trees in accompaniment, it sparked some fear.

Whoever was out there was using a lot of power to sway those trees the way they were moving, and the fact I could hear those ripping sounds from a respectable distance spoke to how loud they must’ve been.

Were they using some kind of machinery? It must’ve been some sort of construction. But why at that ungodly hour? And why was the supposed site not being lit? Maybe something illegal. I really don’t know. I’ve been around all sorts of contraptions and equipment, none of them came close to resembling that stretching, ripping, sticking sound. I don’t know. If I’m being truthful with myself and speaking from the gut, the sound didn’t indicate anything man made or animal that I’d ever heard. But of course, it’s probably just something new I haven’t heard of.

The daytime offered a grace period to recuperate my mind and settle myself down. The sun shining on you always inspires logic or reassurance. Then came the second night.

The noise started at a similar time. This time, I was mostly already awake from my crowded midnight-mind. I was tossing and turning–paranoid–anxiously fearing but at the same time awaiting that sound to return. Sadly it did. It was the same sound. No closer and no farther. I waited in bed, hoping it would stop quickly, but it carried on and on and on.

I went and sat out on the deck and I began to study the noise. It was so consistent that I was able to break the sound down into sections to try and better understand what I was hearing.

The first, or what I perceived as the “first” sound, was a quieter thudding kind of noise.

Then a stretching or tearing sound, which followed quickly after the thud. Imagine the sound of duct tape being pulled but much, much louder and lower. This was what I originally characterized the entire noise as, but there was more to it upon listening closer.

A few seconds after the tearing was a third noise, which sounded like something being plucked, like a rubber band or a string being plucked but once again louder and lower than that.

Afterwards, a very low and bassy reverberation throughout the valley that at times buzzed the glass on my house and even rumbled in my chest.

That was the sound broken into parts, and it would repeat back, starting on the “thud” every 5 to 10 seconds. That was the strange part. It was inconsistent, implying all of this was being done manually by something out there.

Underneath those strange successions of noises was a seemingly random series of low tapping sounds, like little rumbles of thunder. 

The sound made my skin crawl all over again after truly appreciating the complexity of it. Once again, the sound lasted somewhere in the one to two hour duration, I was too transfixed to check times. When I wasn���t carefully listening, I was locking my eyes on the near-invisible trees which swayed to the sounds yet again. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to be the same trees that were moving the night before.

The remainder of the night felt claustrophobic, like the darkness outside was an all encompassing blanket which smothered me. I felt trapped with my frantic thoughts and whatever was making that noise out there. I laid awake the whole night, watching the sky slowly turn from pitch black to a sheet of midnight blue and from there an evermore inviting shade of blue which, after what felt like untold eons of agony, eventually brought in the brilliant oranges and reds of the rising sun. Day break at last. The comfort of trustworthy light and the sounds of other more comprehensible animals outside soothed me to a merciful sleep where I could dream about gentler things like my best friend and her wonderful smile.

I woke up sometime around noon to a sound I recognized for a change, but nonetheless wasn’t fond of. The sound of a dying animal.

Something was yipping and yelping out in the acres of tall grass I used to take care of. I struggled up and wobbled out onto the deck and strained my eyes for this new target. I saw something limping or dragging through the tall grass and it appeared to have just exited the forest. It looked like it was limping away from the hilltop where the sounds in the night came from. A logical fallacy, I know, but my mind was and still is desperate for any sort of conclusions.

I watched the animal–which now looked to be a deer–struggle across my field until, about halfway between the tree line and my home, the poor thing collapsed. I felt an urge to go and get a closer look despite the uneven terrain and high chances of snakes, ticks, and other pests looking for something to bite.

I grabbed my cane and wobbled my way to the fresh carcass. The grass wasn’t easy to navigate through and if I hadn’t already made a mental note of the surrounding trees, I doubt I would’ve been able to find the animal in the denseness of it all. The slight slope made my pathetic knees crack and my back begged me to turn around. Finally, I came across the animal, which was actually still gasping its last gasps as I arrived.

Blood gurgled from its mouth and the deer’s beady eyes looked nowhere before finally stiffening up and accepting death. The deer’s bottom half was mauled, skin dangling along with all sorts of innards that shouldn’t be seen. The injuries were not encouraging, as they were nothing I had ever seen before. Gored animals are not too uncommon out in the sticks, but the wound looked strange. I couldn’t for the life of me find any sort of bite marks or even scratch marks on the deer. No signs of a skirmish.

The more I looked at the mess, the more it looked like the deer had been eviscerated by one single blow, but this singular blow would have had to have been delivered by something huge. The giant gash looked as if a telephone pole grew legs and a thirst for blood and impaled this poor deer. A hole punched paper in a binder that was ripped off the ring.

The hind legs were mostly ripped away, with only the tops of the femurs still attached, one hanging by a piece of random cartilage. The deer was effectively ripped in half, yet somehow must’ve been so petrified that it possessed enough adrenaline to drag itself an impressive distance.

Maybe I read too much into it, trying to piece together something too fast. That deer could’ve been chewed on for hours by any sort of predator–but how had it remained alive and then left alone to retreat so far away? It didn’t make sense, at least not to me. I followed the trail of blood the deer had left behind to the horizon and of course it looked to be a straight line to the troublesome group of swaying trees from the nights prior.

It was going to be hard to convince me the deer was unrelated to those strange sounds and it still has me convinced as I write this.

I wish I had the mobility to follow that blood trail to its inception, but I just don’t anymore. Maybe my handicap saved me a similar fate, though.

The rest of that day was spent tending to the chickens and watching TV. I didn’t have an appetite so all I had was some tea at suppertime. I was filled with the deepest sense of dread as the sun dipped below the mountains, watching the brilliant oranges recede back into the cold midnight blue.

On the third night, last night, I was once again awoken by the thud, tear, pluck, and rumble of the mysterious thing out there.

It sounded the same as it did the last two nights. Something in the trees was working away–building something, destroying something, hole punching more deer–and it was nauseating to think of something so foreign that was so close to me and making itself at home.

Sleep wasn’t on the table, so I went out on the deck again. I sat out there, listening and watching. The same trees were swaying in unison with the strange noises. The clouds were hanging low last night and I was almost delighted to see the faint glow of my faraway neighbors' flood lights on the underbelly of the giant sheet of cloud.

I wonder if they can hear all this too, I thought to myself in an endless cycle.

Even if it was just a mere reflection of other people far off, it was a welcome sign of relief for me.

I got to listening to the sounds again, this time analyzing every part with as much attention as I could. The tearing was certainly the loudest, most gripping part–however, perhaps the best representation of this thing were the smaller sounds.

For instance, the quieter tapping noises, what were those? They were totally random with no predictable sequence. Chewing? I hoped not. That wouldn’t make sense, it’s still too loud for something like that. There was a lot of bassiness to the taps, like they were on the ground or on something that resonated a lot. Chewing also wouldn’t be so constant and so fast. These little taps were continuously underneath the tearing noises, like something supportive, some unknown kind of rhythm.

Even though my gut was stuck in the otherworldly, the superstitious virus that infects us all, my brain was still looking for something tangible.

Machinery was the leading theory on that front, some kind of operation out there run in the dark by questionable strangers.

But now, with the deer carcass and the almost organic nature of the sounds–even my brain was beginning to believe this sound was caused by something living.

The little thunderous taps underneath every other sound, the swaying in the trees, the time of night it occurred. Something nocturnal. Something with eyes and ears that moves around. Something that hunts, or kills if provoked. The little taps moving around in random beats. Like the footsteps of a crowd.

Legs.

As if my thoughts had been perceived by the thing in the woods, one of the swaying trees snapped and suffered some structural injury, bringing the canopy down enough for me to observe it from the deck. Followed soon after by a loud booming rumble which shook the surroundings, if only a tiny, nearly imperceptible amount.

The boom scared me so much I tensed up and threw my back out, sending me into agonizing pain. As I sat there uselessly gripping my back and gritting my teeth, I heard new sounds that seemed closer.

I looked up into the dark woods as I heard something massive skittering on the forest floor. I then heard trees snapping and heaps of leaves thrashing as if this thing was switching between ground and treetop effortlessly. I tracked the movement, starting from the hilltop as it quickly covered ground heading left into flatter terrain. Into the valley that I lived in.

I had no course of action in mind beyond observing. What could be done at that moment? I was frozen from pain and fear. Luckily, this thing didn’t reveal itself to me last night and, wherever it may have retreated, it had gone silent for the remainder.

Now, however, it's much closer to me. And that must be where it is now, because I’ve stayed out on the deck listening closely for most of the time since this happened last night or this morning, whatever.

Maybe I’m just descending into madness. The isolated nature of my life and my declining health, maybe it’s the perfect ingredients to send me into a paranoid delirium. But maybe not.

I haven't been able to consult with anyone on this. It’s just me out here. Well, me and my neighbors. And after whatever the hell happened last night, I’m beginning to think nothing around here is safe. Staring into the friendly glow of their lights last night got me thinking a lot about them. I can’t in good conscience continue on like everything is fine. I need to go up there and at least make some small talk and try to insert a breadcrumb of what’s been happening out here. Maybe they can help ease my mind about all this.

Later today, I’ll take my truck up to their place. They aren’t the most neighborly, but it just has to be done. I’ll be back on here within the next few days for some kind of update should anything else happen. The internet out here is dreadful, and I’m dreadfully ignorant about how to work it–be patient. If any of you have anything to offer up as well, I’m all ears. 

Please… if any of this sounds familiar to you, I’d really appreciate your input. 

I don’t know what to think right now.