Just Unlucky — the ultimate monster in the woods creepypasta
Listen up you social media morons — I will say this only once for your benefit. I am not a murderer and the police and prosecutors will not be pressing any charges. What happened was just an unfortunate incident I could not avoid. Anyway, this is basically the account I gave to the police and other interested parties at the time.
It all started when me and a couple of guys from work, Bob and Jim, decided to go on an overnight camping trip in the deep woods. Having grown up in the UK it was going to be a novel experience and one which I approached with some trepidation. Back there we have nothing like the forests here. Here you can get lost and die, whereas in England you can’t walk more than ten miles in a straight line without hitting a road. Plus, you have animals here which can kill you just roaming around looking for trouble. Now, I like and respect animals and get along well with them. I do not hunt and do not like animal cruelty. Nevertheless, that “respect” translates into me trying to keep as far away as possible from things like bears, and I have to say it was bears that worried me the most.
I was foolish enough to mention this in the diner where we parked up that morning to prepare for our expedition. I was talking about that YouTube video where some guy on a pedal bike is being chased by a bear, and mentioned that they are a seriously dangerous animal if they take a dislike to to you. I’m not sure if I could outrun one, and climbing a tree is not an option either. For good measure they can swim just in case you fancy that route of escape. I had been Googling what to do when faced by a bear and it did not reassure me. Bear spray and throwing it a sandwich seemed to be about the only options. Other than that, make a lot of noise so you don’t startle one unexpectedly.
A couple of the locals overheard me and decided to join in with their unwanted tales of horror, usually centered around “city folk” being mauled by bears, eaten by wolves, jumped on by elks or moose or just disappearing mysteriously. Of course, they noticed my British accent and started in on me as a “tea drinking pussy who has only run from angry badgers”. I was beginning to get pissed off, and had flashbacks of the movie “Deliverance” populated by the six fingered albino cousins of these guys. Bob and Jim seemed to find this hilarious and threw in their own collection of animals not to mess with, including copperheads and cottontails or whatever grotesque snakes inhabited these parts. Apparently I was safe from rattlers and alligators this far North. Hooray.
On the way out they shouted at me to watch out for rabid raccoons. Are they actually a thing? I gave them the finger.
However, they did say something I found interesting. It was that predators are looking for an easy meal so if you seem noisy and dangerous they will generally avoid you. On the other hand if a large herbivore sees you as dangerous it might attack you purely with the intention of killing you, and the best strategy is to run. But do not run from a predator — it will encourage them to chase you. Which all sounds good until you have to balance making a noise to frighten off mountain lions and shit like that or keep quiet and sneak about so you don’t worry something the size of a large horse with spikes on its head. I was beginning to regret this whole thing.
Our expedition was quite a modest endeavor. We were going to walk about ten miles downstream from the diner and camp overnight before returning, taking some food, drink and recreational chemicals with us for our mini party. So, we got our kit out of the van and started walking.
As soon as we had got into the woods I dropped my Bergen and got my bugout belt. If I was going to get chased by anything, it could have my pack to rummage through while I lightened up and ran. As I buckled up the guys looked on in amazement and added a snarky comment along the lines of “Holy Batbelt — its Captain Paranoid!”. I pointed out all the stuff I had on it was survival oriented, including an old fashioned compass, small medical kit, water purification straws and so on. Plus a pouch for my phone and wallet. No fucking bear is going to eat my wallet and cash cards. Bob did stop me at one point and say “No way in Hell — you will get us all jailed” when I showed him my signal flare. Not a great idea in a dry forest in late summer, I agreed, and put it back. So on we went, talking loudly to keep the bears away.
We descended slowly into the valley as it cut through increasingly steep sided rock walls, on a trail parallel to the stream. Everything went fine, and we found the place we had discovered from looking at Google Earth where the stream widened out and there was an open area with a pebble strewn kind of beach next to the water. By now it was about an hour before sunset, so we got out everything we needed for the night and started setting up. It was at that point I decided I needed to do what bears do in the woods and told the guys I was going downstream a bit further. They would definitely not have appreciated me being upstream. Nobody likes turds floating by their tents at night.
I walked about three hundred metres before I turned a bend and found a good spot. The rock walls had closed in somewhat and I was out of sight of the camp. Just as I was about to unbuckle and assume the position I heard something rush rapidly behind me. As I quickly spun around I caught a very brief glimpse of something big and fast disappearing into the undergrowth. Bear size.
If I needed a laxative this was shaping up just perfect. For around twenty second I just stood, looked and listened. Nothing, just the gentle sound of flowing water, but as I turned away I heard it move. Then the noise stopped again when I looked. Not good. I shouted something incoherent to try and scare it off, but still nothing. Walking backward I moved towards one of the rock walls and started to climb. It was a relatively easy ascent and there was a little plateau about five metres up. The problem was that after about ten metres in the wall rose again, this time as a gentle overhang. No way could I get up that, and now I was trapped — literally with my back against the wall. And I could hear it coming after me. I tried to stay totally silent, even breathing with my mouth open to keep the noise down. I even wondered whether it was one of the guys playing a prank, but decided they would have to be insane to try it. Maybe one of those hillbillies had followed us? I think I might have preferred a bear if that were the case. And then it appeared over the edge.
My first reaction was one of utter fear, complete with wobbly legs. It wasn’t a bear. It wasn’t anything I had ever seen anywhere, even on TV or the Net. It was a total fucking nightmare like a cross between a hyena and a gorilla, complete with open slavering mouth, yellow eyes, long teeth and even longer claws. If it had stood on its hind legs it would have been taller than me, and now it crept slowly forward like cats do when they see you wiggling your toes and you just know its not going to end well. I shouted at the top of my voice — “STOP- GO AWAY” as I pointed at it. Yes, just like you might at a bad doggie. But it did stop. And then everything happened at once.
It leaped towards me and there was an enormous concussion and pain in my right hand. My head felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool and the world went silent apart from a high pitched whining in my ears. I must have flinched and closed my eyes, because when I opened them this thing was sprawled out on its back with the top of its head missing and brains and skull fragments over the rocks. Clint Eastwood once said of the 44 Magnum that it could, quote “Blow your head clean off”. Well, only half true it seems. And a 340 grain plus P load is not fun to shoot without hearing protection and one handed. Or on any other occasion, for that matter.
I felt a mixture of emotions. I felt relief because there was no way this thing was going to get back up again like they do in horror movies. I felt worry because I might have permanently damaged my hearing. And I felt sick, not because of the mess in front of me but because I was aiming at center of mass and only hit the top of its head. And only because it jumped up. If I had flinched just a bit more it would have been snacking on me.
Keeping the revolver pointed at it I let my breathing return to normal and then moved to take a closer look. One hundred percent totally fatally killed dead and not even twitching, thank the gods. I holstered the gun and got my phone out. No signal, no surprise. I then photographed it from multiple angles. And did a little walk around video. It was at this point I heard the others shouting, sounding like if I was underwater. Everyone for miles must have heard the shot. They joined me a few minutes later after climbing up and took some selfies. None of us could identify what it was, except a rather nasty predator with what was a rather big brain, judging from the mess. A genuine cryptid. It was then that Jim mentioned maybe we ought to get out of there ASAP. People talk about cryptids like they are one off occurrences, like THE Loch Ness Monster not A Loch Ness Monster. If such a thing did exist, it would not be singular, there would be a whole bunch of them. Hence this thing likely had family and friends and there was a distinct possibility they might not be happy with what I had done to their boy (and yes, it was a male).
Long story short, we dropped everything and did a speed march through the night back to the diner without stopping, expecting to be ambushed every step of the way. Nothing happened, and we drove out of there, assuming that if this thing could track us by scent a 50 mile car journey would lose it. When we got back to Bob’s place we phoned the local sheriff — we did not want to read of everyone in the diner being massacred by mysterious animals. Then we posted all the pics on social media.
You all thought it was a joke didn’t you? A prank. Right up until a few days later someone used the GPS coordinates on the pics to go there to have a look. They brought back their own samples and video and now biologists and zoologists are having a field day sequencing its DNA to try and work out what it is and where it came from.
Yes, fame is mine. The man who provided definitive proof that cryptids are real — by blowing one away. I suppose it could have been worse — I might have shot Bigfoot and had its head mounted on my wall. The puritanical animal rights nuts are on my case big time.
So how do I feel about all this? Well I feel sorry for the cryptid. From it’s point of view it did everything right. It separated its prey from the group, herded it into an ideal killing ground, stalked it impeccably and pounced with precision. When it comes to Humans, the difference between being a prey animal and a member of the most dangerous predator species on the planet is a weapon. There was a monster in the woods, unfortunately for the cryptid.
It was just unlucky.
