The Thing in the Deep Woods Chapter 1

When I was a kid, playing deep in the old woods behind our house, I heard a scream. It didn’t sound like an animal. It sounded like a soul being torn apart.

My dad grabbed me, dragging me toward the tree line.

"Don't look back! Just run!"

"It's coming out!"

I asked him what was coming out.

He shook his head, his face pale. "No one knows its name. Everyone who sees it dies."

Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks.

I looked up and saw a pair of massive, pale hands covered in white fur resting on my dad's shoulders.

My dad screamed one last thing: "Run!"

Then those hands dragged him backward into the darkness of the treeline.

Twenty years later, I built a hunting team to go back into those woods.

* * *

"Everyone who sees it dies."

That voice, intimate yet terrifying, echoed in my ears.

I spun around in the pitch-black space, trying to find the source. But there was nothing but a vortex of darkness, wrapping around my fear and grief, suffocating me.

A familiar sensation crept up behind me.

I turned and saw a massive hand dragging a silhouette into the abyss.

I couldn't see the face, but I saw the shoes. Blue and white Nikes. They stabbed into my heart like a knife.

I ran forward, desperate.

But the figure was dragged further away, disappearing into the void.

I screamed for him not to leave me.

The only answer was silence.

I tried to chase him, but a piercing shriek froze me in place.

"Run!"

I stood paralyzed. In the endless dark ahead, two blood-red eyes snapped open.

My heart spasmed violently. I felt like I was dying.

Those red eyes got closer.

A pale hand, covered in white fur, reached out from the shadows.

I screamed, "No!"

The next second, I jolted awake in my bed, my back drenched in cold sweat.

It took minutes for the trembling to stop.

That scene from when I was eight years old had haunted me for two-thirds of my life.

Every few days, I dreamed of it. My dad’s last cry for help.

For twenty years, I didn't have the courage to face those woods. Even passing by a cluster of trees made me feel like those red eyes were watching, waiting for me to step in.

It shouldn't have been him. It should have been me.

I spent twenty years researching what It was.

Folklore varied. Some called it a Devil Monkey, others a Wendigo, or a Skinwalker.

But like my dad said: "No one knows its name. Everyone who sees it dies."

No. That wasn't entirely accurate. My dad traded his life for mine.

I became the first person to see it and live.

Records of the creature went back over a hundred years. A group of trappers went into the deep woods. Only the guy left at the base camp survived. He heard a scream, and then his friends' heads were tossed out of the tree line.

It became a local legend. Hunting parties were formed, but for decades, nothing was found. It vanished as if it never existed.

Then, in the late 90s, it reappeared.

A group of hikers. The guide went to take a leak, heard a scream, and came back to five bloody corpses. The forest rangers searched for two weeks and found nothing.

The third time it appeared, it took my dad.

I told the police, but they found no trace.

But a plan had been brewing in my mind for twenty years.

I got out of bed, stood by the window, and made a call.

"Is the team ready?"

"This time, it's not getting away."