Scary stories to tell

It Turns Out the Scratches Didn't Come from a Bear After All

My wife Steph and I have been together for about 2 year now. We met at a collage, and hit it off right away. Steph was orphaned when she was very young so she'd been raised by her grandfather until she went off to school and met me. I didn't know much about her grandfather other than he was extremely protective of her, almost verging on paranoid. Still, he passed away before I got the chance to meet him so I never really gave him much thought other than to comfort Steph.
That was, until we found out that he owned something like 900 acres of forest. Steph was his only living descendant, so she was given the deed, and a key ring pertaining to house that she'd never seen before. What a 23 year old girl was going to do with all that, I don't know. All I know was that when she told me about her new land I knew we had to go check it out.

As we drove up I asked her if she'd been to this house in the forest before. She said, "Listen, I didn't even know this land existed. I have no idea why gramps would keep it from me." It was pretty clear that she was still taking his death pretty hard. No wonder really, he'd basically raised her after all.

The drive up into the mountains from our college took a couple hours. The forest was thick with pine and oak trees growing close to the road. The further we got from civilization, the worse the roads got. Potholes, broken branches, and even grass had begun to sprout out in some places. Our plan was to stay the night at the house, but if that didn't pan out we'd brought a tent as well.

Our GPS had us turn off on a gravel road. This road wound and twisted around turns and rocky outcroppings. It was pretty clear that it was leading us down into a valley. After half an hour or so on this new road, we saw the house out in front of us.

The house had clearly been abandoned for decades. I had brought my camera with us, so I took a picture of it right as we stepped out of the car.

Here is a link to that picture

Steph was pretty clearly disappointed. "Well, I guess it was too much to hope someone would be caring for it all this time."

Stretching my legs after all that time in the car was really nice. Steph walked up to the house to check it out. I warned her that the ground might be rotted out, and to be careful. I started walking around the house, and took another picture. I'll link it here:

I came back to the house and walked in the front door. The inside was a mess, all rotten wood and dirt. I was honestly surprised it was still standing at all. I stuck my head back outside, and my eye caught on something. There was a tree growing just to the right of the house. I saw four long deep claw marks in it, a few months old at least. I raised my camera and took a picture.

That was when I heard Steph shriek. I ran back around to the front of the house and saw her standing in front of something rotten. When I took a closer look I saw it was a deer carcass. I told Steph that we were most definitely in bear country, then took a picture of the deer. Only thing was, it looked like the deer had been cut open with a bunch of razor blades. Bears don't normally do that. I'll link the picture here. Warning, this is a picture of a rotting deer body.

The sun soon set after that. We took out our tent inside the house and found a nice flat spot to set it up. I busted out my gas grill and made us a couple of hamburgers. We were sitting in our camp chairs inside the house, and feeling pretty good by the time it got completely dark. Steph was looking at me pretty amazed. I asked her why she was so surprised.

"It's just, I've never been camping before. It's different than I imagined." She looked down at her phone. "Less cell service at least."

I decided to ask some more about Steph's grandpa. "Why do you think he never told you about any of this? And why didn't he ever take you camping?" I asked.

"I don't know."

I went on for a while about how cool I thought the property was, plans for future parties with friends, bonfires, all that. Clouds had rolled in, so all the light was just from our little lantern I'd brought. Pretty soon we headed inside the tent, zipped up the door, and were ready for bed.

Steph had already fallen asleep when it happened.

All the sounds from outside, all the crickets and birds and owls, all stopped. In an instant. Laying in my sleeping bag inside the tent, the silence was deafening. That was when I heard it. A distinct clicking noise echoed out from the forest. I lay in silence, trying to guess what kind of animal might've made that sound. It was so loud that Steph actually woke up next to me and asked what it was. I told her I didn't know.

Then I heard the clicking noise again, extremely close. So close it seemed like it might be right next to the house. I slipped out of my sleeping bag, still inside the tent, and grabbed my camera. I walked up to the tent door, and zipped it down as quietly as I could. Then I stuck the camera out into the darkness, and took a picture.

In the flash I saw a hand reaching through the broken window of the house. It almost looked human, but it was deathly white, and had long claws extending from each finger. Through the window I saw what looked like a human silhouette with two bright yellow eyes staring in towards us. I can't be sure, but it looked like there was blood around its mouth. I pulled the camera back and zipped the tent door closed.

Steph sat up. "What is it?" She asked.

I moved next to her and covered her mouth with my hand. My heart was racing and I felt all the hairs on my body standing up. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Silence. For a long moment I heard nothing.

Then the clicking sound echoed out from where I knew the front door of the house was. Steph stared at me, her eyes clearly confused and afraid. She put her hand on mine and tried to pull it away, but I shook my head and didn't take it off.

Silence again. I strained to hear, but nothing. For what must've been two minutes I sat with my hand on Steph's mouth.

Then I heard the clicking from just a few feet outside our tent door. I have no idea how it got so close without making any sound. I froze for a moment. Then, as quietly as I could, I reached into my pants laying on the ground and pulled out my car keys. I hit the unlock button twice. My car's horn beeped loudly from where we'd parked in front of the house.

Silence again. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard the clicking from out where my car was parked in front of the house. The clicking echoed out a few more times, but each one was further and further away. After half an hour or so, the crickets started back up and the forest sounded alive again.

Steph stared at me. "What did you see?"

I told her to get dressed, and to be ready to run. We got dressed in the tent, and I opened the door. We ran to where my car was, jumped in it, and sped away. I didn't stop until we reached home.

Credits to worchester_st on Reddit