The Rake: Farmstead

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I lived on a farm in rural Pennsylvania. We used to live in the type of place that's nice to live if you don't like doing very much. There isn't much around except woods, fields and old farmhouses. The event that I now believe involved the Rake occurred in the summer of 1999. Often my wife and I would stay up very late out on our porch listening to the radio and drinking after we put the kids to bed. At the time, we had one son, Joshua, who was 7 years old, and a daughter, Meagan, who was only 9 months old.
Usually on these nights we spent on the porch, my wife would check on the kids and then go to bed around 11 or 12. I would typically stay out till 12:30 or 1, just relax and watch the cattle from a distance.
I remember one night in particular, my wife had gone to bed, and I was left on the porch, listening to the radio, smoking a cigarette. I was watching the cows, when something caught my attention. I swore I could see something moving in the trees behind their pen. I knew it couldn't have been a deer, and for a while after I thought it was a person, since I saw it standing on two legs, like that of a normal human. I yelled at it to go away, and it got on all fours, and crawled away. I have to admit I was creeped out, but I just chalked it up to my imagination or too much booze. Still, I made sure to check that the doors were locked before going to bed.
The next morning, I woke up to find my cattle dead. Some of them had been gutted, others had been decapitated fully. How none of us heard this chaos the night before was beyond me. He must've done it after he knew we were asleep. I immediately called the police, but due to our remote location, it took them about 30 minutes to get here. The police didn't really help out much either, they said some sick person must've just came through and killed my cows. They promised to send someone who could get rid of the bodies.
I was terrified. If that thing could go through 12 cows, imagine what it could do to my family. My wife decided to take the kids to her parents house for the night since she feared that the "killer" of our cows would come back. I decided to stay, and told her I would be there tomorrow, with more supplies and items from our house.
I wanted to kill that thing. I decided to wait till the evening since I knew it wouldn't come out in the day. I walked down to the edge of the woods, near where I saw it the night before, and waited with my gun. After about an hour of waiting I was starting to get drowsy. I thought I saw something move deeper into the woods, and was instantly wide awake. What I thought was a deer turned out to be the creature. Somehow, it didn't notice me standing there. Up close I could see it's form better. It looked emaciated and starved, like that of a holocaust  survivor. It had extremely thin limbs with giant hands, and it seemed to have claws of some kind. I was so scared, I didn't know if I should shoot at it or run. If I shot at it, and missed, it could charge at me and take me out like nothing. If I ran, it would see me and for sure chase me down. Not knowing what to do, I shot at it and prayed I hit it. I heard it scream, a disturbing shrill scream that almost sounded like a dinosaur. To my surprise, it retreated back into the woods, instead of coming after me. I think I hit it in the chest, cause I noticed it had placed its hand there as it bolted away. I sat there in shock for a minute. Once it was out of my line of sight I made an escape towards the house.
I don't even know how I slept that night. I'm pretty sure I stayed awake for almost half the night. Still, that morning I packed what I could and got out of there as fast as possible. Eventually, my family and I did return to retrieve the vast majority of our items, but there was no sign of the creature. We stayed with my in-laws for a while, but eventually moved. As far as I know, the house is still there. We tried to sell it, but it just didn't sell. I decided to leave it to my kids. I figured by the time I'm dead, that thing will be too.
I wrote a friend who lives up where we used to a couple years back. He says the house has become overgrown, and abandoned since then. Rusted farm equipment sits in the barn, waiting to be used. The home has apparently become the site of satanic and occult rituals over the years. I couldn't say I cared. I'm not returning to that farm. If some idiot gets attacked by the creature I'm not taking responsibility for it. I never wanna see that place or that creature again.

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