Even the crickets were silent

Grasshopper Campground

(My writing was in worse condition at the time of writing and this was for an assignment, so making it in quick time was paramount. Rushed it! Had to separate it into paragraphs just now.)

I had gone to Grasshopper Campground, Montana.

The closest shard of civilization was an 8 room inn surrounded by nothing for miles. I expected to see elk, moose and bears, but the only large animal I saw was likely responsible for the lack of wildlife.

It was around a 10 hour drive and I was glad to be free from that horrid sitting position in the car, which had been parked by our campsite. The fresh air was plentiful, and so were the mosquitoes. There were plenty of my dad's friends and family that I hadn't seen before. I wasn't a huge fan of them, because of how stereotypical they were, drunkards, baseball caps, outdoorsmen, bad teeth and weird accents.

I looked for cool rocks, sticks and explored a bit with my stepbrother. Sure, I love technology, but I could do just fine without it. After an expedition on my own, I returned to the campsite to find the tents set up and the fire being made, with drunk hillbillies surrounding it like moths to a lightbulb. I knew better than to hang around that area, as the kids were annoying and I was tired of the adult's antics.

Just as I had that thought, I saw one of my father's friends with his shirt off, clearly drunk beyond previously known limits. He tried to activate his lighter, to which it gave no result, so he shrugged and tossed it into the fire. The butane in the lighter caused a tiny explosion, but luckily nobody was gravely injured. I chuckled a bit and thought "Who the hell let them make a fire?"

It had gotten a bit dark, and the mosquitoes had become more active than before, so I decided to sit in the car. I downloaded a few songs on my phone before we lost the wifi and listened to them. I turned off my phone to save battery, and after a while of deep thinking, I had a chilling feeling. I did not know where that feeling was coming from until I noticed it was silent, horribly silent.

All I heard was my own breathing and the slight movement I made as I looked around through the windows frantically. My eyes locked upon a shape between a few trees, straight ahead of me. I could only see a portion of it, but it was extremely pale and had thin limbs.

It looked like it was stumbling, as if it was struggling to stand. It was not going anywhere, and was facing me. I couldn't see a face, and I simply stared at it, completely frozen with wide eyes. I scrambled and took my phone out, taking a picture.

A little while after I took the picture, it was gone. I don't know when it left, or how long it had been gone, but it was no longer there. I simply watched the area it was for about 12 minutes, in shock. Eventually, I decided it was time to sleep, if that was even possible at this point.

After hastily leaving the vehicle and entering my tent, I crawled into my sleeping bag and laid there for a while with my eyes open.

After a bit, the headlights of a car shined through the tent, and although it was odd for a car to be going about right now, that was not what I was worried about.

The car's headlights allowed me to see a figure through the tent door. I was frozen, and everything was completely silent.

Even the crickets were silent.

I was horrified. I have no idea how long they were there, or how much longer they stood in front of the tent door after the headlights passed. Who was there, standing, in the middle of the night?

Now that I think about it, all the times I've seen this entity, it wasn't me catching it in the act of living its life in this forest.

Every time I encountered it, it was doing exactly what I was doing.

Standing there and watching.