*Warning: Photographs and information in this ongoing series might be upsetting to some readers. Discretion advised.*
This will be an ongoing series chronicling a couple years' worth of encounters with bizarre, horrific, and taunting interplay between one innocent citizen and a stalker that defies description (at least in our known world).
This was an exceptionally well-documented series of events that may at times be too graphic or horrifying for some readers, but it is our hope that by sharing this experience, someone out there might recognize a set of circumstances that are similar.
We have advice to be given to anyone encountering what I am at a lack of words to accurately describe, so henceforth refer to it as…the stalker between the worlds.
**Links to prior installments are at the bottom of this post**
"Get Out!"
We will begin this installment with an incident the Walker wishes to share that happened a little over a year or so ago. In retrospect, he thinks it might significant -
The Walker and his wife were riding down the rural highway on their way home, just about there, and as the sun was setting, it shone on something on the highway ahead.
The Walker studied something large spread eagle, arms and legs extended outward (imagine Wylie Coyote when he fell off a cliff and hit the ground - legs spread). It was laid out, not like a four-legged creature would, but like a human.
By the look of the buzzards on the lonely roadway, it was covering some kind of carcass with its body, perhaps fighting for the roadkill.
By the look of the buzzards on the lonely roadway, it was covering some kind of carcass with its body, perhaps fighting for the roadkill.
Whatever it was startled, looked up and the Walker's eyes widened when he realized it had a snout. A tall snout, but narrow and long.
It leaped up, turned and hightailed it up the embankment to the forest with barely a few leaps on all four, launching itself. The hair was long and sort of stiff, moving en masse as it leaped. It was either fiery red hair or the setting sun was distorting the color.
Being a country boy, the Walker knew this was no bear. Not even close.
And as he passed by the carcass in the roadway, he realized it was a deer and that "thing" covered it easily. It was massive!
He studied his rear view mirror thinking about how close it was to his neighborhood, less than a mile!
It leaped up, turned and hightailed it up the embankment to the forest with barely a few leaps on all four, launching itself. The hair was long and sort of stiff, moving en masse as it leaped. It was either fiery red hair or the setting sun was distorting the color.
Being a country boy, the Walker knew this was no bear. Not even close.
And as he passed by the carcass in the roadway, he realized it was a deer and that "thing" covered it easily. It was massive!
He studied his rear view mirror thinking about how close it was to his neighborhood, less than a mile!
***
As the Walker took his daily constitutional along his rural roadways, he contemplated the strange creature that had bolted into the woods a year ago, not far from his neighborhood, and then recalled the three-toed prints he had found along his walk.
The Walker wasn't sure why he was recalling something that happened over a year ago, except that "thing" on the roadway unnerved him greatly and remained in the back of his mind as a loathsome creature capable of the actions in his rural southern neighborhood.
The Walker wasn't sure why he was recalling something that happened over a year ago, except that "thing" on the roadway unnerved him greatly and remained in the back of his mind as a loathsome creature capable of the actions in his rural southern neighborhood.
He frowned as he passed a bend in the road and contemplated the ground while he pondered signs of the Son-of-a-bitch as he had come to think of the "Stalker." It had to have hands. It tied up the dogs with duct tape rigged leashes. It carried the baby boars by their tails, it yanked rabbits' heads off easily....
But what the hell was that thing he saw up on the highway? He still couldn't think of a creature with those sorts of attributes. At least nothing he learned about in school or saw in the wilds of the hills and bayous of his home state.
When he began to approach the trailer, the Walker slowed down. That piece of land was cursed. It was right smack dab in the middle of the weird vortex.
Next door, a prior trailer years ago sped out during the night and never looked back. Then, this plot of land had a fence put up and some horses grazing. Then, the horses were taken out, and now a trailer with some folks living in it had planted itself there on that cursed ground. They even had just hooked up water and sewage.
But, just before the turn of the new year, they raced out at night, came back at the new year and got their belongings. And the mailbox had been knocked down. Not just knocked down, but crumpled too.
Next door, a prior trailer years ago sped out during the night and never looked back. Then, this plot of land had a fence put up and some horses grazing. Then, the horses were taken out, and now a trailer with some folks living in it had planted itself there on that cursed ground. They even had just hooked up water and sewage.
But, just before the turn of the new year, they raced out at night, came back at the new year and got their belongings. And the mailbox had been knocked down. Not just knocked down, but crumpled too.
Before they left, the folks had shored the mailbox back up.
The Walker shook his head. The mailbox was down again!
There was no sign the folks planned to come back again. And they had spent all that money on a trailer and hookups!
Of course, the Walker could have told them that was not a good place to try and live, at least not in peace.
*
The Walker stopped on his walk one day soon after the last mailbox spill, and studied some odd tracks that bounded up the embankment near where the headless rabbit had been left on a winter 2014 solstice. The tracks were odd and interesting.
When he went up the embankment, he found two of them side by side. It looked kind of like toes, but then it wasn't long, yet deep as if very heavy.
Whatever it was seemed like it leaped up the embankment with a couple prints very far apart and then landed on the balls of its feet at the top to launch into the woods?
He stood on the embankment and stared into the distance. The Walker, always trying to be a reasonably logical man, had to sort through his mind what he was dealing with.
He started down a list in the back of his mind -
Serial killer in the making? Well, the serial killer would be pretty peculiar. He'd have to be fine with killing things, nasty killings. Sure, any really hardcore serial killer could do that. But, what about using things from nearby instead of things from home, like the duct tape leashes on the dogs? What about coming into the Walker's shed and stealing the magnet without taking anything else? Or messing with the dog kennel and the dog food bowl? What was up with that? Serial killers didn't generally tinker or even try to show their kills and then take them away once they were seen to be replaced by bones. If there was a killer in their midst, he had killed only things that might harm the citizens like snakes, wild boars and stray dogs.
Bigfoot?
From what the Walker learned of Bigfoot, what this fellow was doing was a bit off the usual. Bigfoot don't generally kill and not eat. They also don't try to make interactions with one person. They aren't particularly harmful to dogs. In fact, some accounts had them taking in strays and running with them. It was possible it was some kind of rogue with no "clan," but what about the snout on the thing on the highway? Was it the same thing tormenting his area or something altogether different?
Dogman?
This concept could make the Walker chuckle nervously. A dogman! That was a thing of legends. But, sometimes legends had a way of being buried with truth, like the Natives talking about the great apes in Africa and then finally find they were true. What kind of freak of nature could create a man-walking, snouted, hair-covered dogman?
From what the Walker read of dogman, they didn't like people, were not social. In fact, they were downright misanthropic to the extreme, if not aggressive. Some of the three-toed tracks might make sense and the thing on the highway sure could make sense, but the Walker balked at the idea that something so preposterous could exist or even want to make contact with humans.
Skinwalker?
From what the Walker could gather straining his eyes late at night on the Internet, he found the skinwalker legends of Native Americans. The skinwalker was said to be a person with magical powers who could shift their shape into whatever suited their means. That concept gave the Walker a bit of a shiver. After all, this thing sometimes seemed human-like, other times dog-like....
And then, there were the howls. He and his wife both had heard the strange painful cries from the woods near the highway. What kind of creature made that sound? He'd lived there his whole life and never heard such sounds, not even a little bit similar to anything he knew.
From what the Walker could gather straining his eyes late at night on the Internet, he found the skinwalker legends of Native Americans. The skinwalker was said to be a person with magical powers who could shift their shape into whatever suited their means. That concept gave the Walker a bit of a shiver. After all, this thing sometimes seemed human-like, other times dog-like....
And then, there were the howls. He and his wife both had heard the strange painful cries from the woods near the highway. What kind of creature made that sound? He'd lived there his whole life and never heard such sounds, not even a little bit similar to anything he knew.
Then the Walker thought some more of his childhood and the legends. The South had talk of the Rougarou. Described as being basically a werewolf man, so far as the Walker knew of it, it was a legend to make children behave.
Still, as he studied the forests around him, suddenly his childhood stomping grounds seemed to hold ancient secrets and not of the Native American kind, but of something much older, something that believed, it owned the land....
*
The Walker stopped and watched from a distance. It was getting dim out, but he could see plenty well enough to see their lights as they came back out of the forest. The group talked among themselves and then reentered the dark forest without their flashlights this time.
The Walker squinted and thought about it. Why go get lights, go back in, and then come back, decide not to take lights and go into the fast darkening trees? The group came out again, climbed into their vehicles and took off.
The Walker squinted and thought about it. Why go get lights, go back in, and then come back, decide not to take lights and go into the fast darkening trees? The group came out again, climbed into their vehicles and took off.
And, even though it still was still hunting season, they didn't come back.
*
Just when he thought his walk was uneventful the next day and he was relaxed, the Walker came up to his back door at the kitchen and turned the knob to find it locked. The sliding latch inside had been slid closed after he left.
He pounded on the door until his wife emerged from the front of the house and slid it open for him.
"Whatcha lock me out for?" He asked.
"I didn't lock it. I just got out of the bath. I haven't been in the kitchen this morning, yet."
The Walker turned and studied the latch, sliding it open and closed. It was not an easy process, a simple shaking door would not slide it closed. A pit formed in his belly....
*
Prior Installments
Installment #1 "Walking Dead"
Installment #2 "Dem Bones"
Installment #3 "Too Close To Home"
Installment 4: "Encounter"
Installment #5: "Roadside Horror"
Installment #6: "Baffling Kills"
Installment #7: "Not By a Long Shot"
Installment #8: "There Is No End"
Installment #9: "Chaos Theory"
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