Creepy true story's from Reddit

Tracks In The Snow

I don't talk much about my first marriage. But I'm 87 now and the doctor tells me my young man's heart has turned old and weak. I don't have many years left, so I feel like I have to tell this story for the sake of my second wife and our family.

It was 1955 and I had convinced a pretty girl named Ruth to elope with me. This wasn't some romantic notion dreamed up by two foolish young people. Her family was part of a religious denomination with very strict rules about how men and women interact. Her parents were dead set against some oil field roughneck marrying their daughter so we ran away to 10 acres and a nice little farm house in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

We made a new life in a new community. We both did what we could to get by. I harvested hay for local ranches, raised chickens, and I worked at a garage part-time in town. Ruth was an accomplished seamstress, but most of her time was devoted to our baby boy Sam. I have to admit, it was one the happiest times of my life.

But something disturbing happened in the winter of 55. Ruth had gone to church with a group of little old ladies who liked to fuss over Sam. He was a real heartbreaker just like his old man. I didn't care much for church though. I only went on Christmas and Easter, and that was at Ruth's insistence.

A fresh blanket of snow had fallen that night. I decided to sit at the kitchen table to drink my coffee and read the newspaper, but the scenic view of our field covered in pristine snow with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop was a beautiful and distracting vista. But as I stared out the window, I noticed the snow was not so pristine.

Coming across the field from a patch of woods was a set of footprints. This wasn't disturbing in itself. There were a few kids about two miles down the road. Kids sometimes don't respect property lines when they play. I know I didn't when I was little hellion. But these prints came in a straight line from the woods across the field and into my yard.

That made me suspicious. Whoever it was had come early in the morning because it didn't start snowing until after I had gone to bed. A few minutes later I had my coat on and I was out the door. The foot prints were odd. I couldn't tell if they were made from a bare foot or someone wearing shoes with worn out soles. It looked as if the guy's toes had made an impression and the heel was more like a stump than the heel of a shoe.

Maybe a homeless wild man had decided to snoop around my house. But another idea came to me. Ruth had been in contact with one of her cousins, and that cousin had told her that her parents had hired a private detective to find us. I didn't like that. In fact it made me angry. I considered myself a calm and reasonable person, but I could get mean sometimes. And the idea of someone spying on my family got my blood boiling.

I followed the prints and discovered they circled the house. Whoever it was had loitered at every window, peeking in on me and Ruth and our baby Sam as we slept. Then the prints veered to the back yard where the chicken coops are. It was here that my rising anger subsided and gave way to an uneasy feeling.

I saw large paw prints accompany the strange foot prints. They went around the chicken coops before meandering around the backyard. But they didn't really look like paw prints. Maybe I just wanted to believe they were paw prints for the sake of my own sanity. They were more like hand prints really. It was like someone had gotten tired of walking with their legs so they bent over like an animal to walk on all fours. The hands prints had fingers that were set wide apart and the ground under the snow sometimes showed marks like claws had dug in. And don't tell me it was a bear. The gait was all wrong and the prints were completely different.

I followed them to our well. That's where they stopped. We didn't use the well. When I bought the property I paid to have the local water district connect us so we'd have running water. In fact I had planned on covering up the well before Sam got older.