Scrapped Story Ideas

↪What Dwells in the Woods

Hello, my name is Joseph, I'm a first year at University in Pennsylvania. Some crazy stuff has happened recently and I guess I feel like I need to document my experince so others won't have to suffer that same fate as what my friend did.

It all started when one of my friends, Richie, suggested that we should go on a weekend camping trip in the forest on the outskirts of town. Apparently the place was haunted or something but obviously they were just some dumb rumours...well that's what we first believed. Just the thought of what we had witnessed that weekend was enough to chill me to my very core. I still don't fully understand what I saw but one thing I do know is that it wasn't human.

It was mid October and we were all breaking off for a week long vacation. Richie had managed to convince me that camping in the middle of the woods would be a good idea. I was glad to know I wasn't the only one who was going though after David had agreed to tag along as well. We had all decided to take my car up to the site where we'd be camping so David and Richie met with me at my house on the friday.

Richie brought his four-man tent for us to use along with a big case of beers. David brought his baroque with plenty of food to feed us for weeks even though we were only going for a few days. It was supposed to be a great time.

We packed everything into the car then we were off on our way to the woods. The journey itself took around a hour and a half so it's wasn't too much of a drag.

When we arrived at our camping spot he hauled all of the stuff from the car's boot before starting to set everything up. While I helped David pitch the tent Richie went to gather some firewood for us to use later.

After about a couple of hours Richie still hadn't come back and I started to get worried. "Richie is sure taking a long time, should we go look for him?"

David looked into the deeper part of the woods then glanced back to me. "Yeah we should, he might have got lost."

Just as we were about to start searching for out missing friend Richie casually walked out from the woods holding a huge bundle of dry sticks and branches.

"Richie why the hell did you take so long?" David looked to Richie and sounded a bit annoyed.

"I was looking the best fire wood so I went further into the woods to find it." Richie replied with a smile on his face.

I let out a sigh. "Well at least you are here now."

It had chilled off quite a bit now and the sun was just setting in the distance causing the trees to cast elongated shadows across the dirt ground. The three of us where huddled around the newly sparked fire. The sound of crackling wood filled my ears and the flames illuminated the near surrounding environment.

We cracked open a couple beers and told some stories about good times in the past. David even started up the baroque and we all enjoyed greatly cooked food. It was fun.

When it was late we all went to sleep. It was pretty cold but it wasn't too unbearable, the sleeping bag helped keep in the small amount of warmth I had already. I closed my eyes and slowly drifted to sleep.

I was later woken up by a loud noise that sounded like a partly muffled scream. I quickly shot up with widened eyes before shaking David awake. "David...David wake up!"

David groaned before shuffling around and eventually sat up facing me. "What's wrong Joseph?" He rubbed his eye and yawned.

"Did you hear that noise just then, it sounded like screaming." I tried not to panic but it was clear that I was concerned from my tone.

"It was probably just the wind. Now go back to sleep." David rolled back onto his side and closed his eyes.

"No it wasn't. I-It sounded like a person. What if someone is in trouble?" I shook him again to prevent him from going back to sleep.

David sighed and sat back up. "Fine, let's wake up Richie then we can go check it out." He moved out of his sleepbag then went over to Richie's. "Err Joseph..?" David sounded worried.

"What's wrong?" I moved closer to him.

"It's Richie, he's gone. He must have stepped out." David turned his head to me with a hint of genuine concern in his expression.

We both quickly changed into warmer clothes and put our shoes on as we stepped out of the tent. We both had a flashlight to light our way ahead then we started to rush as we searched for Richie and the source of the eariler noise.

David and I split up to search more ground and it didn't take long for me to find something.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!" A loud scream left my vocal chords as I stepped back. What I saw was the corpse of Richie strung up against a tree like a horrifying decoration. His blood shot eyes were widened in fear and his skin was extremely pale. There was dark crimson blood spilt across the crisp leaves and there were sereval branches penetrating Richie's body. Just looking at the corpse made me sick to the pit of my stomach.

"Joseph what happened?!" David shouted out to me as he ran to my location. When he arrived next to me and saw the scene before us he almost became speechless. "Oh god this can't be real..."

As much as we both wanted this to just be a terrible nightmare we knew that this was our terrifying reality. Our friend who we had been laughing and joking with just a few hours previously was now laid dead before us.

David approached the body and checked for a pulse even though we knew it was hopeless, he was already gone. That scream I had heard was the last thing I heard of my friend.

"How is this right..?" David pulled his hand away from the body's wrist. Clearly something was odd about the body based on David's tone.

"What isn't right?" I managed to choke out despite the lump in my throat.

"The body isn't fresh, it's cold. He's been here for a long time." David glanced back at me. "He must have been here for at least 5 hours."

"B-but if that's true then how was Richie with us earlier..?" I could feel myself starting to tremble.

"That couldn't have been Richie but what else could it have been?" Even David was starting to get freaked out.

Just as we tried to wrap our heads around the whole situation a low inhuman growl could be heard from the darkness of the woods. A pair of glowing eyes peered at us and we instantly pointed our flashlights at whatever it was.

A humanoid creature that was hunched over on all four stared back at David and I. It's yellowed teeth looked like razors and it could probably tear us to shreds without any problems. Drool dripped from its mouth as it snarled maliciously.

The strangest thing was that fact the creature was wearing the same clothes as Richie but I had no time to thing about it since David had grabbed my arm and started to run from the creature with me.

The two of us panted heavily as we ran with all our might. The quick breathes and heavy footsteps of the pursuing creature were soon gaining on us. We had no time to think about anything else but escaping this creature.

"Quick to the car!" I shouted as we quickly approached my vehicle.

The two of us soon jumped in the car and locked the doors. I fiddled with the car keys in my extremely shaky hands then started up the ignition and swiftly drove out of there without looking back.

The next day the police couldn't find any signs of the creature or Richie's body and without any other leads the case soon went cold. A lot of people didn't believe what me and David had witnessed that night and I don't think they ever will but all I know is that we are not going to forget what happened any time soon. To this day I'm still haunted by the memory of Richie's corpse. There's a lot even I don't know about that day but one thing I do know is that I will never go back to those woods for the rest of my life.

Only recently had it dawned on me that the creature we saw must have been the Richie that was with David and I that night. That would mean that we were having friendly chats with something inhumanly. I still shudder thinking about it, I don't want to think of it anymore. I can only hope that no one else falls victim to whatever that thing was.