Hunter’s Terrifying Encounter With Unknown Cryptid – Disturbing Encounter Story

The Echoes in the Pines

Chapter One: The Callout

Damn it.

Listen, I know this sounds crazy. I’ve been doing search and rescue in the Southwest Mountains for eight years now, and I’ve seen everything you can imagine. Lost hikers in every possible condition—dehydrated, hypothermic, injured, delirious. But what happened to me back in March, just six months ago, still keeps me up at night.

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I’m telling you this because I need someone to know. Maybe because I’m still trying to make sense of it myself.

I’ve always been the practical type. Every problem has a logical explanation. Every mystery has a reasonable cause. That’s what made me good at my job. I could think clearly when others panicked. Follow evidence instead of assumptions. But this thing that happened, it shook everything I thought I knew about the world.

It started on a Saturday evening around six. My radio crackled to life. County dispatch had a missing hiker situation brewing: a thirty-four-year-old male hadn’t returned from a solo camping trip in one of our most remote wilderness areas. The guy was two days overdue and his truck was sitting empty at the trailhead. Brown hair, medium build, red jacket, blue backpack. Standard details.

The dispatcher offered to pair me with two other volunteers, but I declined. I always worked better alone. Faster movement, no need to coordinate, and I could trust my own instincts completely. After eight years of this work, I had my own rhythm and methods.

I grabbed my gear and drove ninety minutes to the remote trailhead, arriving just as darkness was settling over the mountains. The parking area was empty except for the missing hiker’s vehicle, a beat-up pickup that looked like it had seen better days.

I pulled my rifle from my truck—standard practice in an area known for mountain lions and black bears—then checked my GPS and headlamp batteries. This section of wilderness was notorious for its difficult terrain. Steep ravines cut through the landscape like scars, game trails crisscrossed in confusing patterns that could turn even experienced hikers around.

The main trail would take me about four miles into the backcountry, but I knew from experience that lost hikers rarely stayed on the marked path.

The forest felt wrong from the moment I started hiking. After eight years of night searches, you develop a sense for how the wilderness should sound after dark. There should be owl calls echoing off the canyon walls, the rustle of small animals in the underbrush, the distant yip of coyotes. Instead, I walked through an unnatural silence that seemed to press in around me. My headlamp cut through the darkness, illuminating the familiar rocky trail. But something was off. The silence was so complete it seemed deliberate, like every living creature in those mountains had suddenly decided to hold its breath. Even the wind had died, leaving the trees motionless against the star-filled sky.

Chapter Two: Voices in the Dark

About two miles in, my cell phone signal disappeared entirely. Not unusual for this remote area, but it always added to the isolation. I was truly alone out here, with only my radio for emergency contact—and even that was sketchy in the deeper canyons.

By ten, I’d reached a challenging section where the trail wound around a massive rocky outcrop. The terrain here was tricky, even in daylight, with loose stones and narrow ledges that required careful navigation.

I was picking my way across one of these rocky areas when I heard it—a clear human voice calling from the forest below.

“Hello.”

I stopped dead, listening. The voice had come from somewhere down in the trees, maybe a hundred yards off the trail. Relief flooded me. I’d found the missing hiker.

I called back, identifying myself as search and rescue, but got no response. The forest returned to its unnatural quiet.

A few minutes later, I heard the voice again. This time, it was closer, and the words chilled me: “I see you.” The voice seemed to come from a different direction than before, somewhere off to my left. I swept my headlamp beam through the treeline, searching for any sign of movement or reflection. Nothing—just dark tree trunks stretching into black shadows.

I called out again, loud and clear, identifying myself and asking if the person needed help. My voice echoed off the canyon walls and faded into silence.

No response.

Over the next hour, the voices continued. Sometimes I heard “Help me” from one direction, then “Over here” from somewhere completely different. The call seemed to move through the forest faster than any person could travel, appearing ahead, then behind, then off to either side.

The strangest part was how flat these voices sounded. When someone is really lost and frightened, you can hear the emotion—panic, relief, desperation. These calls had none of that. They were monotone, almost mechanical, like someone reading words from a script without understanding their meaning.

Then I heard something that made my blood run cold. The voice called my name. My full name. I had never given it during my calls. Only my role, never personally.

Chapter Three: The Tall Man

Following the sounds as best I could, I pushed through a thick stand of scrub oak. The undergrowth was dense, far off any established trail, and I had to force my way through. When I finally broke through into a small clearing, I stopped dead.

There, about fifty yards away, stood a figure waving at me.

The moment I saw it, every nerve in my body screamed warnings. Even from a distance, everything about this person was wrong.

The man was much taller than the missing hiker. The description said medium build, maybe five-ten, but this figure towered at least six and a half feet, maybe seven. He was thin, almost gaunt, like someone who hadn’t eaten in months. His clothes were dark, some kind of black or deep brown fabric that seemed to absorb my headlamp beam rather than reflect it. Definitely not the red jacket I was looking for.

But it was his movement that made my skin crawl. His wave wasn’t a normal greeting. Instead, his arm moved in slow, mechanical sweeps, like a metronome—up, down, up, down—with the exact same rhythm and arc every single time. The movement was so unnatural, so precise, it looked like he was a marionette being controlled by invisible strings.

I stood there for a moment, trying to process what I was seeing. Maybe the person was injured. Maybe that explained the strange behavior. Or maybe the hiker’s description had been wrong.

I approached slowly, keeping my rifle ready, but not pointing it directly at him. As I got closer, more details became visible in my headlamp, and each one made me more uncomfortable. His skin was pale, almost gray, with a waxy quality that didn’t look healthy. His eyes were the worst part—unfocused, staring not at me, but through me, like he was looking at something behind me that I couldn’t see. The pupils were dilated despite the bright light, and there was no reaction, no attempt to shield his eyes.

His features were sharp and angular in a way that seemed almost carved. Hollow cheeks, jawline so pronounced it created deep shadows. Lips thin and bloodless; when they moved to speak, I saw teeth stained dark, almost black.

When I was about twenty feet away, the man spoke in that same flat, emotionless tone I’d been hearing all night.

“I’ve been lost for days.”

No relief, no gratitude, none of the emotion you’d expect from someone found after being lost. It was like listening to a recording.

I identified myself again, explained I was looking for someone else—a man in a red jacket with a blue backpack. The tall man listened, never blinking, never reacting.

“Can you describe the person you’re looking for?” I asked.

“I see all the walking shadows,” he replied.

Nothing about this matched the missing hiker. But I was trained to help anyone I found. Maybe he was suffering from hypothermia or a head injury. I asked about his condition, whether he was hurt. He claimed he’d fallen and hurt his leg, gesturing vaguely. But when I asked him to show me, he walked a few steps—fluid, graceful, no limp, no sign of injury. If anything, his gait was too smooth, too controlled.

He pointed toward the dense forest, away from any trail, and said his camp was that way. The direction would take us deeper into some of the most remote and dangerous terrain in the area.

Every instinct I’d developed screamed warnings. But I couldn’t just abandon someone in the wilderness.

Chapter Four: Shadows and Riddles

I tried to gather basic information: “What’s your name?”

He stared at me for several seconds, head tilted, never blinking. Finally, he answered, “The trees know my walking.”

No indication he realized how strange his answer was. I thought maybe he was severely disoriented. I tried a different approach. “Where are you from? What city do you live in?”

Long pause. He stood motionless. Finally, “Before the moon turned sideways.”

Nothing made logical sense, but he delivered each bizarre response with complete seriousness, as if these were perfectly normal answers.

I tried again. “Are you hurt? You mentioned your leg. Can you show me?”

“The ground bit my shadow.”

“Do you have family looking for you?”

“They live in the spaces between words.”

“Do you have food or water?”

“I carried the silence in my hands.”

Each response was more unsettling than the last. Not confused or rambling—these answers had a strange poetic quality, like he was speaking in code or riddle. But his delivery was so mechanical, so devoid of human emotion, that it felt like listening to a computer trying to simulate conversation.

When I asked how long he’d been lost, he said, “Since the sky forgot how to be blue.”

His body language was the strangest part. No facial expressions, no gestures, no indication he realized anything unusual was happening. He kept his arms at his sides, standing perfectly still between responses. His breathing was so subtle I could barely see his chest move. When he did move, it was with that same unnatural fluidity.

I kept my rifle ready and maintained distance. Every response made less sense than the last, and his stare never seemed to focus directly on me.

Still, I couldn’t abandon him. I told him I’d escort him toward the main trail where we could get help. We began walking through increasingly dense forest. The man maintained that same unnaturally smooth gait, never seeming to tire, moving through underbrush without making any sound. No snapping twigs, no rustle of leaves—almost like he was floating.

Every few minutes, he would stop suddenly, head cocked as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. During these pauses, his entire body would go rigid, and he’d slowly scan the forest before continuing.

I began to notice we weren’t heading toward any trail I recognized. The man kept insisting we were going the right way, saying, “The shadows show me this way.” My GPS confirmed we were moving deeper into the wilderness, not toward any established path.

His responses grew stranger. When I asked if he had water: “I drank from the river that flows upward.” About food: “Hunger is a color I cannot taste.”

After about forty-five minutes, I stopped to check my GPS. We’d been walking in a rough circle, now deeper in the wilderness than when we’d started. When I looked up, the man had vanished.

Chapter Five: The Echoes Multiply

He was just gone. No sound, no movement, as if he’d never been there. I called out, sweeping my headlamp through the trees. No response, no sign he’d ever existed.

Then I heard it: “Hello,” from somewhere to my left, maybe thirty yards away. I spun, sweeping my light. The voice was identical to the strange man, that same flat, emotionless tone.

Then, “I see you,” from directly behind me. I whipped around, but saw nothing.

Then, “Help me,” from off to my right, and “Over here,” from ahead. The voices were coming from multiple directions simultaneously, not echoes, but distinct calls at the same time, all in that mechanical tone.

The voices multiplied rapidly.

“Where are you going?” from the left.

“The darkness is hungry,” from behind.

“I’ve been waiting,” from overhead, as if someone was calling down from the canopy.

Each voice was identical, all belonging to the man who had just vanished.

I started moving, trying to get away, but the voices followed. No matter which direction I went, they appeared ahead, beside, behind. Moving impossibly fast, appearing in locations no human could reach in the time between calls. The coordination was perfect, like multiple people working together with military precision.

But that was impossible. There was no way a group of people could have positioned themselves throughout this remote forest. Every voice was identical down to the smallest inflection.

“Don’t leave me,” came from directly in front of me. So close I should have been able to see whoever was speaking. I raised my rifle, shone my headlamp forward, but nothing—just trees and shadows and that terrible, persistent voice.

That’s when I realized, with dawning terror, that all the voices I’d heard throughout the night—the original calls that had led me off the trail, the responses from the missing hiker—had been the same voice. The same thing pretending to be a lost man, leading me deeper into the wilderness.

Chapter Six: The Shapeshifter’s Game

The voices began using my name. They knew things about me they couldn’t possibly know—my address, my wife’s name, details about my family.

“Your children miss you,” came from above and to the right, in that same horrible monotone.

“Your wife is sleeping alone,” echoed from behind.

Then I heard something that stopped me cold: my own voice calling back to me from the darkness. Perfect mimicry of my tone, my inflection, my speech pattern, saying, “Help me.” The disorientation was overwhelming. The thing could replicate not just human speech, but specific voices with perfect accuracy.

Every time I tried to navigate back toward the main trail, voices would appear ahead, as if herding me deeper. They seemed to be coordinating, working together to keep me moving away from safety.

I caught glimpses of movement at the edge of my vision—a tall figure slipping between trees, always just outside the reach of my headlamp. Through my rifle scope, I caught clearer glimpses. The proportions were wrong—limbs too long, movements too fluid, joints bending in ways human joints shouldn’t.

From different angles, the face seemed to change—sometimes human, other times something else entirely, features shifting in the shadows.

At one point, two of them moved in perfect synchronization, mirror images fifty yards apart, same gestures, same head tilts, same impossible gait. It was like watching one mind controlling multiple bodies.

As I watched, one of the figures noticed me. It stopped, turned, and stared straight at me with those reflecting eyes, then opened its mouth impossibly wide and made a clicking sound. Immediately, every other figure stopped and turned toward me, clicking in unison—a chorus of inhuman communication that echoed through the canyon.

I realized with growing terror these things were not just coordinating. They were operating as a single entity with multiple bodies, or possibly one creature that could exist in multiple places at once.

Chapter Seven: The Collection

I witnessed something that will haunt me for the rest of my life. As one of the figures moved between trees, it shifted—not just in position, but in form. Upright, then on all fours, limbs elongating and rearranging, bones cracking audibly as they reformed. The skull flowed like liquid, reshaping from almost human to canine to something else entirely.

Growing up in the Southwest, you hear stories—legends about creatures that can take on different forms, mimic human speech, lure people into the wilderness. Skinwalkers. Shape-shifters. Things that exist in the space between human and animal, between the natural world and something else.

But seeing it happen in front of me was different from hearing stories around a campfire.

The intelligence behind this thing’s actions became crystal clear. It hadn’t just been copying my voice—it had been studying me from the moment I entered the forest, learning my responses, my fears, my weaknesses. Every voice I’d heard was part of an elaborate psychological profile.

Another figure emerged, looking exactly like me. Not similar—identical. Same height, same build, same clothes, even carrying a rifle. Like looking in a mirror, except the reflection was thirty yards away.

But its eyes were wrong, reflecting light like an animal’s. When it spoke, the voice was mine, saying words I’d never spoken.

“You can’t escape what you are,” my double said, using my exact tone and inflection.

“The forest remembers everyone who enters.”

I turned to run and saw another figure—my wife, standing between two trees. Perfect reproduction of her face, her hair, her posture. But when she smiled, her teeth were wrong—too many, too sharp, rows like a shark’s mouth.

“Come home,” she said in my wife’s voice. “The children are waiting.”

Behind her, I saw what appeared to be my children, but their proportions were wrong—arms too long, heads tilted at impossible angles, waving with the same mechanical movement I’d seen before.

The creature was populating the forest with versions of everyone I cared about, creating a nightmare family reunion. Each figure was perfect in some ways, horribly wrong in others—like it had learned to copy the surface, but couldn’t understand the humanity underneath.

As I watched, the figures began to change. My wife’s face melted and reformed into my supervisor, then my neighbor, then faces I didn’t recognize but somehow felt familiar. The children shifted, becoming different people, different ages, sometimes different species. The creature had been collecting faces, voices, mannerisms—every person who had ever entered the forest and never returned.

It was showing me its collection.

Chapter Eight: The Final Chase

The voices became more sophisticated, targeting my emotions in ways that went beyond simple mimicry. I heard what sounded like my wife calling for help, my children crying, the creature using my memories and fears against me.

The creature finally showed itself clearly, stepping into a small meadow ahead. In the beam of my headlamp, I saw it was no longer trying to maintain a human appearance. It was massive, eight feet tall, limbs too long, joints bending impossibly, face shifting between human features and something else.

Its eyes reflected my light, intelligence unmistakable.

When it spoke, the voice was a mixture of all the voices it had used. It said my name, then added, “Your name tastes like copper pennies.”

When it began moving toward me, I raised my rifle and fired a warning shot. The sound echoed, but the creature just tilted its head curiously. I fired at center mass. The bullet seemed to pass through, or it moved in a way that made a solid hit impossible. The creature staggered, but showed no injury. I emptied my magazine, but nothing connected solidly.

After my last round, it retreated into the trees, but I could hear it circling the clearing. While I reloaded, it paralleled my movement, no longer hiding. When I tried to move back toward the trail, it rushed forward to block me. I fired again, but the bullets had minimal effect.

I started running, the creature pursuing. Sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, crashing through the underbrush at terrifying speed, leaping between trees, moving through the canopy like a massive predator.

Every few hundred yards, I stopped to fire, using the muzzle flashes to illuminate its form. Each time, it appeared less human, more monstrous.

The creature was toying with me, herding me away from the trail, enjoying the chase.

I used my last rounds to create noise and confusion, scrambling up a steep slope to reach rocky terrain. From a high outcrop, I could see distant lights and oriented myself toward the trailhead. The creature paced below, massive and wrong, calling up to me with various voices.

“The bullets sing lullabies to my bones.”

Chapter Nine: Escape and Aftermath

I began a desperate traverse across rocky ridges, staying in open areas. The creature paralleled my movement, sometimes climbing up, but uncomfortable in exposed terrain. My headlamp dimmed, battery dying, rifle empty.

The creature got close enough several times that I could hear its breathing—a sound unlike anything from human or animal. At one point, it grabbed my backpack, but I slipped free, leaving it behind. I fired my last shots to create a distraction and sprinted across the last slope toward the trailhead.

The creature gave chase, but fell behind on the steep rocks. I reached the familiar junction, headlamp barely functioning. Using the fading light, I navigated the final mile to the parking area, hearing the creature following on a parallel trail.

At the parking area, my truck waited, but the creature emerged from the trees. Now more animal than human, moving on all fours, form shifting in the dim light. It positioned itself between me and the vehicle.

As I approached, it made a final rush. I threw my empty rifle at it, managed to get inside the cab. It leaped onto the hood, pressing what might have been a face against the windshield, features shifting. Its claws left deep scratches in the metal as I started the engine and sped down the mountain road. It clung to the truck for hundreds of yards before falling off as I took a sharp turn.

I checked my mirrors the entire drive home, but never saw it again. I drove straight home, arriving at three in the morning, too terrified and confused to report the encounter.

Chapter Ten: The Truth in the Shadows

I told my wife I hadn’t found the missing hiker due to dangerous conditions and equipment failure. She accepted the story, though she commented on how shaken I looked. I spent the rest of the night checking doors and windows, unable to sleep.

The damage to my truck—claw marks in the hood, too large, too deep—told a different story. I claimed it was a deer collision, but I could tell she didn’t entirely believe me.

It took days before I felt safe leaving the house. I quit search and rescue without explanation. The missing hiker was never found. No body, no equipment, no sign of what happened to him. I have my suspicions, but I’ve never shared them.

The question that haunts me isn’t what that creature was, but what it wanted. It had multiple opportunities to kill me, but didn’t. It seemed more interested in studying me, perfecting its mimicry. Was I part of a test? Was it preparing for something larger?

I think about the missing hiker, how perfectly it learned to use his voice. How long had it studied him before he disappeared? What did it learn from him that it used on me? And most disturbing, what is it learning from all these encounters? What is it preparing for?

I’m sharing this story because people need to know these things exist, even if they don’t believe it. I used to be the skeptical type myself. But some experiences shatter your worldview so completely you have no choice but to accept a reality that’s stranger and more dangerous than you ever imagined.

If you’re planning to hike or camp in the remote Southwest, please be careful. Trust your instincts. If something feels wrong—if the forest goes too quiet, if you hear voices that don’t seem right, if you encounter someone whose behavior doesn’t make sense—don’t ignore those warnings.

I was trained, armed, and experienced, and I barely escaped. The thing I met is intelligent, powerful, and completely outside normal understanding of what’s possible.

The wilderness is beautiful, but it’s also home to things we don’t understand. Things that exist in the shadows between our world and something else entirely. Respect that boundary, because crossing it might cost you more than you’re willing to pay.

I still live in the same town, still drive past that trailhead sometimes. The missing hiker’s case is officially closed, his truck long gone. But I know the truth about what happened out there.

And I know that thing is still out there, too. Waiting in the darkness between the trees, learning, watching, preparing for the next person who ventures too far into its domain.

That’s my story. Make of it what you will. But if you ever find yourself alone in the wilderness and you hear your own voice calling back to you from the darkness—don’t go looking for answers.

Just run.

End.