The Stalker Between the Worlds: No Animals Are Safe

*Warning: Photographs and information in this ongoing series might be upsetting to some readers. Discretion advised.*

This is an ongoing series chronicling a few 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.

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"
Installment #10:  "Claiming Territory in the Weird Vortex"
Installment #11:  "Get Out!" 
Installment #12:  "Caught on Camera!"

No Animals Are Safe

The Walker was hoping for some calm in his slice of heaven in the South. He went for his daily walk, contemplating things going on in his life, pondering the next few months and his goals when a neighbor pulled up in his car to chat. It was a common thing on his walks to have someone coming or going and wanting to say "hi." It was part of what he loved about rural living.

"Be careful with your dog." The neighbor called out as he came to a rolling stop.

The Walker's puzzled expression must have prompted the neighbor to expand on that comment.

"Someone's been trying to steal dogs `round here. We talked to the officers the other day when they answered a call. I told `em I thought it was that really tall stranger fella, not from `round here. We've been seen walking around up here. Did you see him?"

The Walker straightened up, looking around, recalling the exceptionally tall silhouetted man he waved to years ago, someone that didn't belong there. 

"Officer said they found the guy who was doing it." He snorted. "I have a hard time believing that they magically had the guy when they didn't even know what they were looking for." The neighbor patted the side of his car, his arm dangling out the window. "Well, you just be careful with your dog. I doubt that's the last of it." And he rode off, leaving the Walker contemplating the tall outsider.

*

The Walker slowed down on his walk to note something out in the leaves. He walked over to spot a railroad plate and spike. He lifted his head and looked around the area. They were a good five miles minimum from the closest railroad. 

Why would someone carry it that far and just drop it out in the leaves? He shrugged and moved on.

But, that didn't stop the oddly noted changes in the area. A pipe above the ground was broken off at the welding line.

That it was broken off high up made for an odd leverage for the average person and why break it at all? And it was smack dab in the middle of the weird vortex area of strange offerings.

He noted it, but moved on. And, then, at the gate where lots of offerings had occurred, someone had pulled a hornet hive out of a gate post. 

The Walker was briefly reminded of other potential creatures that could harm him that were eliminated; wild dogs, wild boars, snakes....

*

Spring was winding to an end when the Walker came across a one-eyed raccoon. It was actually not the first one he'd found there. They had three one-eyed dogs in the area, as well. The creature was acting oddly and the Walker thought it might be dead. A vulture was swooping overhead. He poked it with a stick and it ran up the embankment to climb atop of a gutted out turtle shell. 



On the odd scale, this was up there!

It wasn't his intention to be overly curious, but the Walker had to slow down one day to see if there was anything there any longer, and the raccoon and the turtle shell were completely gone. Then, much to his surprise, the shell showed up again in the same spot, turned over to the right side this time.

*

The Walker heard a truck pulling up behind him and passing him on the roadway. He waved to his neighbor whose pack of dogs were chasing the truck. He squinted at the dogs he knew so well and then it dawned on him that several of the dogs had lame front legs. 

The Walker had always passed that off as dogs in the countryside getting into bad situations. But, like the one neighbor with one-eyed dogs, these pups all had one front leg that had been broken and healed lame. Could that many dogs fall into holes and break a leg? 

To his way of thinking, the Walker pondered if a dog that couldn't give chase well might be less of a threat....

*

One late spring morning, the Walker went into his shed to retrieve the magnet. He had replaced the heavy duty magnet that held the metal door open (it had been stolen by the Stalker years ago). The magnet sat way up high on the wall to hold the door. He entered the shed and turned to search for the magnet when to his utter amazement, it was gone! 

The Walker searched the floor, the walls, the bench. Nothing was missing, once again, except the magnet! He was surprised, but more angry. Why the heck didn't the Stalker want anything else in the shed? The last thing the Walker wanted was another mind puzzle about what the Stalker was and what its intentions were. 

*

In early June, the Walker headed up the roadway in his usual circuit.  The roads were clear and quiet and it was almost idyllic. He hoped summer proved to be late and gentle in the Deep South.

As the Walker turned and headed back down his route, he stopped and stared, mouth agape.

A dead baby beaver lay in the middle of the road where absolutely nothing had been as he walked by earlier. 

He stood there and studied it. It was a fresh kill and completely intact. It was not beaver country up in his hills. The closest waterways would be nearly 5 miles where a beaver might build dams and reside.

The Walker had to wonder as he pondered the offering, if it was some kind of gift for the exchange of the magnet. 

He lifted his head and looked around him with a feeling of unease. If that were so, the Stalker had watched him walk down the roadway, left the gift, and likely remained nearby to be sure it was found. He picked up his pace and headed home, pondering the idea of putting the game cam up in that area. 

*

On night, at the onset of summer, the Walker laid down to sleep, feeling thankful for a soft bed and a good night' sleep ahead.

During the night, the Walker awakened to a disorienting sight. His big dog was standing on the bed over him. What was he doing on the bed and standing there staring down at him? 

The dog made no sound, but shoved his nose under the Walker's arm as if desperate to bury and hide. Then, without warning the dog peed as if he lost all capacity to handle his bladder. 

Now, the Walker was wide awake, attending to the mess his strangely nervous dog had made. He got up, preparing to clean it up and then recalling what night it was...solstice with the full moon, first in decades. 

*

It was nearly autumn and the Walker took to his route as usual. He came up toward the trailer in the weird vortex. There had once been a trailer nearby that the person up and took off with it in the middle of the night. Then, the field housed some horses for a short time. Eventually, a trailer sat on the plot of land where someone kept taking down the mailbox. 

This time, as the Walker approached it, he realized the vehicles were gone, the place was sitting there, all the belongings in the area picked up and taken off. He kept a watch on it. They did not return.

*

The Walker stopped at the roadway on his usual jaunt. He studied deer bones with a hide, portions removed that might make good meals. 

He lifted his head and looked around. It wasn't there yesterday. Someone had to drop the carcass there. But why? Wouldn't a hunter just remove the good parts and leave the bones and hide in the woods for the animals? Why would they drive down a roadway and dump it? Nearby, something had peed near the carcass. 

It seemed rather like an offering and yet at the same time, marking an area....

*

One evening, the Walker's wife went to let the dog out when a stench struck her. She called for her husband the Walker poked his head outside and nearly gagged. The smell of death and rot was intense, his eyes almost watering from it. It permeated every breath. 

They slammed the door shut and he vowed he would find the carcass and move it tomorrow. Only, when tomorrow came, the smell was completely gone.

The Walker considered their property and felt the prickly sense the Stalker was active again. It was time to set up the game cam and keep an eye on his property....

*

The Walker was resolved to the fact that autumn was upon them and it might be a time the Stalker would be more active and agitated, as it seemed like it came alive with actions when the weather was more tolerable.

The Walker slowed down in the portion of roadway he referred to as the Vortex of Weirdness. The trees along the roadway had pink ribbons fluttering in the wind. 

He frowned, recalling the time he set up the game cam and captured the dark shadow triggering the camera there....

Past disturbance from game cam - where pink ribbons begin now -

Where did all the pink ribbons come from? And why put them in the Vortex of Weirdness? Rural neighbors certainly didn't go around gathering ribbons and tying them on the roadway trees. They had better things to do than mess with their quiet street.

The last time he saw something knotted up, it was the packing tape used to make a noose around the dead dog's neck.... The Walker cringed when he recalled that scene. Right there in that vortex area....

The Stalker walked the roadway. It had dropped the boar tails in the street, left numerous offerings, a footprint, urine, blood.... It walked the quiet street as if it owned the night. It seemed to have driven out yet another trailer family from the vortex, now it marked the area with ribbons, and was leaving offerings again. 

The Walker picked up his pace through the alley of strangeness and continued his walk, refusing to back down, as always. Over this many years of these happenings, he found himself resigned to share the lands with this element that was not going to leave. The only thing he could do, now that it was showing agitation again, was to set up the game cam. The only place he worried about it showing was his homestead. 

With a knot of resolution in his belly, the Walker plotted out his camera angles for the next two miles of the hike.