Written by : u/Never_Look_Back

Year written : 2014

I don't consider myself to be a particularly superstitious person. That is to say, I get the occasional kick out of the horoscope, and my boyfriend and I like to humor the idea that spirits and poltergeists exist. We even joke about how we'd haunt people when we died and came back as ghosts. In fact, my boyfriend refuses to go anywhere near a Ouija Board. Refuses to even think of it.

"Why even tempt it?" he'd say. "Why would you want to taunt evil ghosts like that? Ghosts never play fair and if you piss one off, you're screwed!"

I don't think he was ever serious. Just precautionary.

But maybe he was right.

God, this all happened so recently, I'm still shaken. Can barely write about it now without my nerves acting up.

Ok, here it goes. A few weeks ago, my mom, sister, and I went to Colorado for an entire week of vacation. We were going to drive all over the state, visit the national parks and go horseback riding and whitewater rafting and so much more. I was excited. And I sorely needed a break from work, anyway.

We drove a grueling 16 hours out there, and spent our first day rafting down the rivers. After an extremely wet but exhilarating day, we drove to a ranch house to go horseback riding. We arrived at sunset, so it was too late to do anything, but we had all next day to ride the trails and see the sights.

The ranch was . . . dumpy, to put it nicely. It was all run-down with scraps of steel everywhere and the shoddy lodging cabins were in desperate need for repair. I swear the roof over our shack of a cabin was a giant piece of drywall with shingles stapled to the top. My sister and I thoroughly checked the place for spiders and bugs before we even thought of bringing our luggage inside.

It was only for the night, I reassured myself. Just one night in a dumpy shack on a rock-hard bed that probably had bed bugs under the sheets. I shuddered at the thought.

My mom tried to cheer us up. She had brought skewers and a pack of hot dogs to roast over the communal fire pit. Happy to get out of the shack, my sister and I made a nice cozy fire, and soon a few other visitors came out to sit around the fire and roast s'mores and share stories. We talked about where we were from, where we were going, and all our adventures along the way. Pretty soon the stories turned into tall tales and urban legends and the sort of stuff you'd usually tell around a bonfire.

That's when I spoke up. I loved stories, especially scary ones. And hey, we're out west, we're in Native American territory, why not liven the place up with my favorite local myth, the legend of the Skinwalkers.

Now, for the uninitiated, Skinwalkers are very evil, very dangerous beings. They were humans who gained the ability to take on the form of an animal by wearing its pelt, usually through very dark and taboo magic. I knew all this, and told my story. Who doesn't love a good ghost story, after all?

Everyone seemed to be enjoying it. I admit I took some creative liberties, really just retold an old werewolf story, but with a skinwalker as the monster instead. I improvised a lot of the story and added a few things that weren't in the mythos at all. I gave our beloved frightening skinwalker wide, crazed eyes with pinpoints for pupils with a matching insane smile. I made the skinwalker horribly misshapen, swollen joints and arms that were too long and legs that were too short and a head that never sat straight on its shoulders. I made it as terrifying as I could imagine.

No one minded. They actually really liked it! A man from Kentucky admitted the visuals alone were enough to creep him out. Victory in my book, if you ask me. And once I was done, everyone decided it was getting really late. Our firewood was dwindling and it was as good a time as any to turn in for the night. We packed up our skewers and s'mores, doused the fire, and headed to our little shacks.

I tossed and turned a lot trying to fall asleep. I couldn't get comfortable on that damn bed. A rock was probably cozier than that mattress. So against my better judgment, I got out of bed, and walked about the cabin. I reasoned that if I stayed up late enough, I would be so tired that I would fall asleep no matter what I was laying on. I think I briefly contemplated sleeping on the floor. I wasn't that desperate yet.

It was pitch-black outside. No lights from any nearby street lamps, no car headlights, hell, not even the cabin lights were on. And I don't remember seeing a single star. It was a bit creepy, but I shrugged off the shiver creeping up my back as simply the cold tile floor beneath my feet.

I did, however, find it odd there weren't any lights on at all on the property. You'd think there'd be a floodlight on the horse stables or in the main office, but no, nothing. That was really weird. I stepped outside in my flimsy foam flip flops to get a better look. I could barely make out the ranch. And for some stupid reason I decided to go walking around.

Eventually my eyes adjusted where I could see well enough to navigate. I paced up and down the road where the cabins sat and then circled around to the fenced in field where the horses were out grazing. Except there weren't any horses. Probably in the stables for the night, I reasoned. I shivered again. It was getting cold.

I turned around to head back to my own cabin. It was stupid of me to be out all alone at an obscene hour, I had realized. I needed to get to bed.

But when I turned, there was something in the middle of the road. Its shape was swallowed up by the surrounding darkness; I could barely make it out. But whatever it was, it was tall and thin. I shrugged it off as just a pole or something else and kept walking but then it *moved.*

I froze. My breath caught in my throat and I could barely breathe. I just imagined that, I said. I just imagined it, I'm freaking myself out, *get your fucking head straight!*

It moved again. My paralyzed throat managed to squeak out a pathetically weak whimper as my legs began to lose strength. I shivered violently against a cold that was building up inside of me.

My eyes began to focus on the impossibly dark figure standing against a barely visible sleet grey night. Now I could see it. It was . . . it was a person, but like nothing I had ever seen before.

Its arms were impossibly long. Its legs impossibly short. It had a torso far too long for its rail thin body and a head much too big for its pencil-thin neck.

Its right arm was sticking out to its side, swinging up and down. Its blockish head, rolled onto its left shoulder, jerkily twitched up and down, up and down. It didn't move other than that, just stood there, twitching, arms jerking up and down, head lolling around its shoulder. I still stood there like the dumbfuck I was. My cabin was a few hundred yards behind that . . . that *thing*. And I wasn't so stupid as to try to walk past it. My only option was to go around, behind the cabins and the stables and hope it didn't see me.

I forced myself to lift my foot off the ground to step backwards. My flipflop made a loud wet smacking sound as it cracked against my foot and I immediately froze in horror. The thing stopped too. It stood there perfectly straight, perfectly still, listening. I stayed as still as I could. My breath was shallow and panicked and I tried to force myself to slow my breathing before I started wheezing. My heart thundered in my chest, my whole body was shaking. But I didn't move. Neither did it.

I began to slowly, so goddamn slowly, bend over and slipped my feet out of those fucking flip-flops. My feet touched the dirt and the crumbly gravel, but at least now I could move silently. I spared a quick glance to the side to see where I was going. Two cabins were immediately to my right. I could slip between them with ease, disappear out of sight.

I only looked away for a second. When I turned back, that fucking thing was gone. It was fucking gone, it fucking knew I was there, it was coming for me, oh fuck! Yet I still couldn't fucking move! I was paralyzed, I couldn't move no matter how loud my head screamed *run run RUN YOU FUCK,* ***RUN!*** I heard something behind me. I turned instinctively, even though I knew fucking better I still turned the fuck around!

I was greeted with two bulging eyes, oh fuck, its eyes! Staring at me unblinking with two black pinholes for pupils and an insane smile that was stretched far too wide to be anything remotely human.

My paralysis broke as I stared at that fucking thing. I ran, I fucking *ran*, crying my eyes out, trying to scream but a horrible lead weight in my throat silenced me. My feet pounded on the dirt, I stomped over anything in my way! I trampled over a jagged rock, slicing my foot wide open. I ignored the pain, I ignored my body screaming in agony, I ignored my own blood pouring from the wound, I didn't care, I just *ran*!

I felt the cold creeping up my back, oh god, that cold! It was sinking right into my bones. I couldn't stop shaking or sobbing, and I didn't stop running until I burst into the cabin. I slammed the door shut, dead bolted the lock and leaped into my bed. I huddled under the blankets, hiding my head and there I gasped and shook for breath.

And I waited.

I didn't sleep that entire night. I was too scared, I couldn't get rid of that chill. All I thought about was that thing . . . standing there and twitching . . .

Morning finally broke and I finally allowed breath of relief. Whatever I had seen had not come for me, and now that it was light it could no longer take me by surprise. My mom noticed my bleeding foot and the blood I tracked through the cabin. I shrugged it off, said I cut myself the night before when we were making s'mores. I don't think she believed me, but she didn't push it.

We left not long after that. And as we left, I looked at the place where that thing once stood and I shuddered again. But there was nothing. I assured myself, there was nothing.

We said good-bye to the ranchers and to our companions, and I noticed the man from Kentucky who said had thoroughly enjoyed my story. He told me again how much he liked it. Said he was going to tell it to his own kids when he got home. They really liked scary stories, he said.

And as we drove away, his head rolled onto his left shoulder, and he smiled a wide, insane smile as he waved us good-bye . . .