100. Stay Where You Are
In my late teenage years, I came into some money after my father died by suicide and I received an inheritance from him. At the time of my dad’s passing, he and my mom owned a cabin up in Oregon by Mount Bachelor. My mom had put it up for sale but it was going to be vacant for a month. I saw this as a chance to get away for a while and clear my head in light of all the things going on.
I quit work, packed up my snowboarding gear, grabbed my dog and headed up in my dad’s car (that he had willed to me) to the cabin. My first two days at the cabin were normal and nothing out of the unusual happened. Spent my days playing with my dog in the snow, snowboarding, and the evenings playing PlayStation or listening to music, drinking and smoking out on the balcony.
Had already stocked up on food, cigarettes, and liquor so I was pretty much a shut-in aside from the occasional out to hit the slopes. With my dog Midnight as company and DVDs/PlayStation as entertainment, I was quite content and started to feel relaxed after all the drama that had preceded my outing. The cabin itself was two floors, the bottom story had the living room and a side guest bedroom along with a small kitchen.
Upstairs had another two rooms along with a walkout balcony attached to the master bedroom. Most my time there was spent either in the living room, kitchen, or master bedroom. I never ventured into the other rooms and always kept the doors leading into them shut (open doors to dark rooms always creeped me out). Anyhow, the third day came around and I was going through my usual routine of playing with my dog, playing games and watching DVDs.
That day it was pretty heavy snowfall so I did not feel like trekking down the hill to the main road in my car and decided to stay in. That’s when things started getting a bit weird. In our area, there were only two other cabins adjacent to ours (maybe a block away from each other). All other cabins aside from these two were around a mile away from ours.
Surrounding us was mostly forest and very tall pine trees. Both these cabins were empty and from the past couple of days, I knew that no one was currently staying there. Around midday, while outside with my dog I noticed what looked like footprints in the snow around the area surrounding our cabin. It was still snowing so the footprints looked semi-fresh like someone had been there in the last 20 or 30 minutes before me.
I thought that maybe someone was staying in the cabin near me that I may not have noticed…maybe they were shut-ins like me…alright…whatever, the prints lead away from my cabin and they disappeared in the snow towards the denser part of the trees…disregarded the footprints and went back inside. Nighttime came around and decided to head to bed.
My dog was laying on the bed with me when I noticed his ears perk up to a standstill/listening position. This was followed by him quickly jumping off the bed and running downstairs to the living room. I lay in bed and stayed silent (I was kinda freaked out) and could hear him moving around downstairs back and forth.
After around five minutes he ran back upstairs to me and started to do his doggy dance for the sign that he had to pee or that he wanted to go outside. Shoot…well fine. I can’t say no to him so we both went downstairs to the outside driveway for him to do his thing. Only, he didn’t want to pee. As soon as we were outside he started to pull on his leash trying to drag me to where he wanted to go.
He kept looking into the dense part of the trees where the prints had been earlier. But he also kept sniffing the side of the house and looking up towards the roof. After he figured out that I was not going to go to where he wanted he sat himself down and just stared into the darkness…a bit unusual for him but alright, maybe there are forest animals out there that he wants to chase down.
I did not want to chance anything so I pulled him back inside and we both headed back upstairs. Around half an hour later, I was lying in bed when I heard what sounded like hooves walking on my roof. It was only a series of around six steps and I rationalized that it could be a pine cone falling from a tree onto the roof or maybe a kind-hearted forest animal running around.
But here’s the thing, the steps seemed to be spaced apart like a man length stride. It was really freaking me out. Midnight also heard the noise and was quick to run to the balcony screen door expecting for me to let him out. Alright, you know what, I’m a tough guy and at the time considered myself to be fairly well built and strong enough to handle myself.
So, I grabbed my coat and shoes along with my cigarettes and flashlight and went out onto the balcony. Screw it right? As soon as I was outside I lit up my cigarette and started canvassing the roof with my light…nothing there and the snow on top was undisturbed. Weird, must have been all in my head? What about the dog hearing the noise?
Maybe he was feeding off my fear or paranoia. I started to calm down and relax again. My eyes started to adjust to the darkness and I kept smoking and just staring at the stars and trees next to our cabin. That’s when I saw it. In a tree that was a little taller than our cabin and around 20 feet from the balcony, I saw what looked like a man crouched in a squatting position between two branches.
It was squatted on one branch and its arms were extended above its head holding onto the branch above it. Screw me…what the heck is that? I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing this thing and stood just staring and sat there motionless. I noticed the dog stand up and start pacing behind me and lightly barking at the same time.
The thing still did not move. I put my cigarette out and was debating on shining the light in the thing’s direction, but something in my head kept screaming not to. So I walked backward to the inside of the room and pulled the dog with me. Once inside I locked the door and shined the light in the thing’s direction but there was nothing there.
I shut the curtains to the screen door and retreated back to bed. But later on in the night, I heard light tapping at the screen door, like someone was tapping on the glass with their fingers. It was consistent and did not stop for nearly an hour. Midnight seemed to stare at the door but he wouldn’t go near it anymore. The weirdest part was that I had a feeling like someone was inviting me to open the door.
But at the same time, I kept hearing my dad’s voice in my head telling me to stay in bed and not do it. I listened to my dad’s voice and just stayed where I was. I passed out eventually and woke up in the morning and everything was normal. The rest of the week I spent there was non-eventful and nothing else out of the ordinary happened.