Demons of the Woods

"I'm a trail guide and backpacker. Years & miles. Seen lots of shit. I can't explain everything I've seen in the wild but I can tell you this: you will see things out there that defy explanation &, you'll spend the rest of your life wondering about them.




If you ever take word of caution, take this like your life depends on it: Don't go into the wild alone. Don't stray from your camp at night. Don't answer or seek out anything that calls you mysteriously in the night. DO NOT believe everything you see with your own eyes.


I need to repeat that, Like your life depends on it: Do not believe things, especially 'out of place' 'people', voices, or suspicious things that you see, even with your own eyes, especially when your gut & instincts are warning you.


There's something out there, something that scares grown men even like me, something we won't talk about but it's real, has no consistent form, and it lures you.




If you are a wild thing & a hunter of human beings, there's no better hunting ground than our busiest national & state parks. Note I said busiest. If you are a hunter of opportunity, then there's no better prey than the young, the weak, the old, the alone.


There's something out there, so old, so skilled, so clever & cunning, not just a being but a species, that has or have developed a specialized survival skill: luring & preying on lost or solitary humans.




Can a predator in the natural world lure, trap, summon or even hypnotize their prey? A quick google search should yield you hundreds of examples of such species in the animal, fish, bird, and insect kingdoms.




What I submit, if exist such a species, old as man, who's success depended on the successful hunting of humans, not only would it be very clever and good at it by now, but we'd have no record or memory of it in our history, just as no insect has probably ever survived an encounter with a trapdoor spider.


I submit their hunting approach is case by case. They're lure different depending on their human prey's age, strength and size, but what I submit is that our oldest natural predator, an undiscovered predator, is still operating due to it's skill of being able to read us like a book, hit us with lure (a lure I've distinctly recognized several times, particularly at night, just beyond the glow of the campfire) lead us into a trap, to never be seen or heard from again.




People I submit a thing exists, something's out there, a species, that's not too unlike Stephen King's "It".




I've felt the lure, tasted it, smelled it. It's the smell of food when you're hungry, company when you're lonely, music where there should be none, beauty where there's danger.


Nothing can explain the sensations, but deep down you'll feel it, in your gut. Something's not right. Something's waiting. Something's watching.




Ask any man who's survived long enough alone in the wild. There's a Siren like hunter out there. It'll own you dead to rights, if you don't listen to your gut."