The Path No Longer Traveled
When I was about 10, we lived on the north shore of the Shuswap Lake in British Columbia. It was very rural with a population of approximately 400 spread out over 15 kilometers (10 miles) of beachfront with farms up in the hills.
There was just a store, a post office, and an ancient Indigenous trail that wound through the forest near where I lived. One afternoon, my parents and a friend of mine went for a walk along the trail. My friend and I ran ahead at one point, out of sight of everyone.
We were exploring the woods when we discovered something terrifying. We came across a man slumped over a rotting log with chickens pecking the ground around him and his face, too.
I can still feel the adrenaline blasting up my back as I type this, even though it happened 50 years ago. The figure slowly lifted its head and just looked at us with empty pecked-out eyes.
We both screamed and ran back to the adults. When my parents came to the spot with us, only the rotting log was there. Before the incident, I would play on the trail all the time.
To this day, I would not dare to walk that path by myself. Story credit: Reddit / (inlandviews)