(Not my story)

One I posted before–I’ll be the first to say that all this stuff could have taken place in my head……the mind is a freaky thing and can play some pretty trippy tricks on you. Sorry for the length………. Whenever I was scared as a kid my dad had always told me that in life, you should not be scared of ghost….fear the living because they can actually hurt you.

In my late teenage years I came into some money after my father committed suicide and I received an inheritance from him. At time of my dad’s passing he and my mom owned a cabin up in Oregon by Mount Bachelor. The cabin had been put up for sale since my mom could no longer afford the payments and renting it out was not covering the payments either. The cabin was set to go on the market for sale in less than a month and was in the process of finalizing all the paperwork with the Realtor and lawyer. So for that month’s time the cabin was not going to be rented out any longer and was going to be vacant. I saw this as a chance to get a way 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. Now this was our family cabin that my parents rented out throughout the year when we were not using it. I had keys to the cabin and also had the code for the alarms so I did not feel the need to stop at the rental management company and advise them of my stay. This has nothing to do with the coming story, but felt the need to mention it anyway.

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 as company and dvd’s/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 stories, bottom story had the living room and a side guest bedroom along with small kitchen. Upstairs had another two rooms along with a walk out 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 (his name was Midnight by the way and he also since passed) playing games and watching DVD’s. That day it was pretty heavy snow fall 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 where around a mile away from ours. Surrounding us was mostly forest and very tall pine trees(tall….this is important later on). Both these cabins were empty and from the past couple of days I knew that no one was currently staying there.

Gave enough background and am going to jump to the weirdness…. …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 foot prints looked semi fresh like someone had been there in the last 20-30 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 Midnight 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 down stairs back and forth. After around 5 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. Shit….well fine. I cant say no to him so we both went downstairs to the outside driveway for him to 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 were 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. But fuck this, 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 6 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. So 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 flash light and went out onto the balcony. Fuck 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 my head? What about Midnight hearing the noise? Maybe he was feeding off my fear or paranoia. I started to calm down and relax again. (by the way…I am shaking right now and my heart is beating hard as I am typing this next bit).

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 in between two branches. It was squatted on one branch and its arms were extended above its head holding onto the branch above it. Fuck me………what the fuck is that? I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing this thing and stood just staring and sat there motionless. I noticed Midnight 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 things direction, but something in my head kept screaming not to. So I walked backwards to the inside of the room and pulled Midnight with me. Once inside I locked the door and shined the light in the things 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 were I was. Passed out eventually and woke up in the morning and everything was normal. The rest of week I spent there was non-eventful and nothing else out of the ordinary happened. I totally admit that it could have been all in my head. A lot of stuff was going on at the time so I was pretty fucked up from all the drama.