‘WE WERE SENT TO CAPTURE BIGFOOT, THEN THE WORST HAPPENED’ – Sasquatch Encounter Story
The Hunt That Should Never Have Happened
Chapter One: The Job Offer
I’m kneeling next to something that shouldn’t exist, hand on its still-warm shoulder, posing for a trophy photo. Eight feet tall, six hundred pounds of muscle and dark reddish-brown hair, lying dead in a forest clearing. We’d done it. Actually killed a Bigfoot. That was ten minutes ago. Now I’m running for my life through the Oregon wilderness and my three friends are screaming behind me. This is the horror story that started because of our stupidity. Three months ago, I went on a hunting job that was supposed to make me fifty thousand dollars richer. Instead, it cost me three friends and whatever peace of mind I had left. I’m the only one who made it out of those Oregon woods. And some nights I wish I hadn’t.
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It started with a phone call on a Tuesday afternoon in late August. I was at home fixing a fence post when my cell rang—unknown number. The voice belonged to someone who said he’d heard I was an experienced tracker and hunter. He wanted to meet the next day at a diner off Highway 26. Said he had a job opportunity that paid well. Real well. I showed up at noon like he asked. The guy was probably in his fifties, weathered face, expensive jacket that looked out of place. He got straight to the point. He owned twelve thousand acres of forest land up in the Cascades. He’d been planning to develop it for logging and hunting lodges. Except there was a problem.
His surveying crews kept getting spooked. Equipment destroyed overnight. Camps torn apart. Workers hearing screams in the middle of the night that didn’t sound like any animal they knew. Two of his surveyors had quit after finding footprints in the mud near their base camp. Footprints that were eighteen inches long, five-toed, and definitely not human. Then he said it plain as day. He told me he thought it was a Bigfoot. He pulled out his phone and showed me trail camera footage—something large and bipedal moving through the trees at night. Photos of destroyed equipment. A generator that looked thrown against a tree. A cooler ripped in half. Metal twisted like tinfoil. And the footprints—those prints were massive. He’d seen it himself once. Just a glimpse from about a hundred yards away through the morning fog. Big, covered in dark hair, moving through the brush like it owned the place.
What he wanted was simple. Capture it alive if possible—he could make millions off a live specimen. If capturing it wasn’t an option, eliminate the problem permanently. Either way, he wanted it gone so his crews could work in peace. The pay was fifty thousand dollars, split four ways between me and however many people I wanted to bring, plus bonuses if we brought it back alive. I sat there for a minute, coffee getting cold in front of me, thinking this was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. But fifty thousand dollars is fifty thousand dollars. And honestly, part of me was curious. What if it was real? I told him I’d think about it. He said he needed an answer by the end of the week.
Chapter Two: The Preparation
I called three guys I’d hunted with for years. We’d done everything from elk to bear together, spent weeks in the backcountry, knew how each other worked. If I was going to do this, I wanted people I could trust. We met at my place that Friday night. I laid out everything the landowner had told me, showed them the footage and the photos. At first, they laughed, made jokes about hunting Bigfoot, asked if we’d need special permits. But when I showed them those footprints, the destroyed equipment, and mentioned the money, they got serious fast.
We spent two weeks preparing. The landowner had agreed to fund our equipment costs, so we went all out. One of my buddies knew a guy who worked in wildlife management, and we borrowed heavy-duty tranquilizer guns, the kind they use for relocating problem bears or moose. We figured if this thing was real, we’d need serious stopping power that wouldn’t kill it outright. We also packed backup, high-powered rifles. I brought my .30-06. Another guy had a .308. If things went sideways, we wanted to be able to defend ourselves.
The rest of the gear was standard tracking equipment, but beefed up. Trail cameras with night vision and thermal imaging, heavy-duty camping gear, extra rope, cable restraints, nets designed for large game. We brought enough supplies to last two weeks in the field. Our plan was straightforward: set up a base camp, establish a perimeter with cameras, then do rotating patrols to track the creature’s movements. We’d identify its patterns, then set up an ambush with the tranquilizers. If we could put it down safely, we’d call in the landowner. If we couldn’t, well, we had the rifles.
We studied everything we could find online about reported Bigfoot behavior. Nocturnal, avoided humans, incredibly strong, wood knocking sounds, howls, rock throwing. We didn’t know how much to believe, but figured some of it had to be based on something real. For bait, we packed raw meat and fish—salmon, beef, anything with a strong smell.
Chapter Three: The First Encounter
By the third week of September, we were ready. We drove up to the property on a Friday morning. The access road was brutal—nothing but gravel and potholes for the last eight miles. When we finally reached the meeting point, the landowner was waiting for us in a battered truck. He handed over keys to a utility cabin about three miles into the property. Old but functional, one big room with bunks, a wood stove, and a propane stove for cooking.
The property itself was dense forest, steep terrain cut through with ravines and creeks, old growth timber mixed with thick underbrush, perfect for something to hide in. The landowner pointed out areas on a map where his crews had seen the most activity. He gave us a radio and said he’d check in every evening at eight. He also warned us to be careful. Whatever was out there was smart and strong. Then he drove off, leaving us alone with twelve thousand acres of wilderness.
We spent the first day scouting. We set up trail cameras at key points along game trails and near water sources. Right away, we noticed something strange. The forest was too quiet. Hardly any bird calls, no squirrels chattering. It felt wrong, like the wildlife knew to stay away from something.
Around midafternoon, we found our first piece of evidence. A tree with the bark stripped off about eight feet up the trunk. The marks looked like claw marks, but they were wrong—too wide, too deep, not like anything a bear would make. By evening, we’d set up our base camp back at the cabin. We established a watch rotation, two people awake at all times. We made dinner, checked our weapons, and settled in for the first night.
I took first watch with one of the guys. We sat outside the cabin listening to the forest, thermal imaging scanner within reach. But that night, everything was quiet. Dead quiet. Around one in the morning, we heard something moving through the brush—not close, maybe a hundred yards out, but big. Whatever it was, it wasn’t trying to be quiet. Branches snapping, heavy footfalls. We grabbed the thermal scanner and aimed it toward the sound. There it was—a heat signature, bright orange against the cool background. Bipedal, standing upright, over seven feet tall. It moved slowly around the perimeter of our camp, staying just inside the treeline. We could see it stop occasionally like it was watching us. The whole thing lasted almost an hour. We had our tranquilizer guns ready, safeties off, but we never got a clear shot. Around two-thirty, a sound echoed through the valley that made my skin crawl. A howl, but not like any wolf or coyote I’d ever heard. Too deep, too long, almost like it had words in it. Then another howl answered it from a different direction, maybe half a mile away. There was more than one.
Chapter Four: Stalking the Stalker
By dawn, the heat signature was gone. We checked the perimeter as the sun came up and found what we were looking for—footprints in the soft ground near where we’d built our fire ring. Five toes, humanlike, but massive. Eighteen inches long, just like the landowner had said. The prints pressed deep into the earth, at least five or six hundred pounds. We called everyone out to look. This was real. We weren’t chasing stories or hoaxes. Something was out there, and it had watched us all night.
We split into pairs to cover more ground. My partner and I followed a creek for about two miles. We found more evidence pretty quickly—broken branches at least ten feet off the ground, bent over like something large had pushed through. Scat that didn’t match any animal we recognized. Too big for a bear. Wrong composition. Then we found the structure. Crude but deliberate. Branches woven together and leaning against a rock face. A shelter definitely made by something with hands. Inside we found bones—deer, elk, all picked completely clean. Some looked fresh, others bleached by sun and weather. Whatever lived here had been using the spot for a while.
Around noon, we heard the wood knocking. Three sharp knocks echoed through the trees, then a pause, then two more knocks. Systematic, deliberate. We radioed the other team to check in. They’d heard it too from their position over a mile away. That meant whatever was making the noise was either moving fast or there was more than one of them communicating.
We set up our first bait station before heading back. Hung a dead salmon and some raw beef from a tree branch near the shelter. Installed a trail camera aimed right at it. If the thing came back, we’d have proof.
Chapter Five: The Night of Terror
The other team reported similar findings when we met back at camp—more structures, more prints, more signs of something big moving through the area. We downloaded the footage from the trail cameras we’d set up the day before. The photos showed something at the edge of multiple frames, always blurry, always just barely visible, but definitely there. Large, dark, bipedal, too big to be a person, wrong shape to be a bear standing up. The timestamp showed it had been circling our camp for hours after we’d gone inside.
We doubled our watch schedule. Around midnight, it started—rocks hitting the cabin, not pebbles. Fist-sized stones hitting hard enough to dent the metal roof. We grabbed flashlights and rifles and rushed outside. Something crashed through the underbrush, moving away fast. We followed the sound, but lost the trail about fifty yards out. When we got back to the cabin, we found our supply shed door ripped open. The latch was torn completely off. This thing was solid metal and it had been bent like cardboard. Our food stores were scattered everywhere. A cooler was torn in half, the contents dumped on the ground.
We spent the rest of the night reinforcing the cabin, nailed boards across windows, moved our gear inside, kept the rifles loaded and within reach. Nobody slept much. When dawn finally came, we found handprints on the cabin windows. Huge prints, fingers clearly visible in the dust on the glass. Easily twice the size of a normal human hand, maybe bigger than dinner plates. Looking at those prints, I realized just how strong this thing must be. We were done playing defense. We needed to find this creature and end it one way or another.
Chapter Six: The Ambush
First, we checked our bait station. The meat was gone, but the camera had triggered. We crowded around the screen as we scrolled through the images. Then we saw it. The creature reaching up for the bait. It was covered in dark reddish-brown hair, matted and thick. The face was partially visible in one shot, eyes reflecting the camera flash. Heavy brow ridge, flat nose, features that were almost human, but not quite. Definitely not a bear. Definitely not a person in a suit. This was real.
We followed the trail from the bait station, tracking disturbed vegetation and occasional prints. The trail led deep into a ravine with steep sides. The further in we went, the more evidence we found. More structures, more bones, clear signs this was its territory. The smell hit us before we saw the den site—musky, strong, almost overwhelming. We set up an ambush position, found a good spot in the brush about forty yards from what looked like the main structure. We waited from three in the afternoon until dark. Nothing showed. As the light faded and we prepared to leave, we heard movement above us on the ravine ridge. Something was up there, keeping pace with us as we hiked back toward camp. We couldn’t see it, but we could hear branches snapping, rocks sliding down the slope. The feeling of being herded was unmistakable. Whatever it was, it was smart. It wasn’t just avoiding us anymore. It was learning our patterns, watching how we moved, maybe even trying to control where we went.
We made it back to camp as full darkness set in. Everyone was rattled. This thing was more intelligent than we’d expected. Nobody slept. Throughout the night, the wood knocking came from multiple directions. The howls and screams echoed across the valley, closer than before. Something circled the cabin for hours. We could see them on the thermal scanner. Two heat signatures, both massive, moving in coordination. Around three in the morning, something hit the cabin wall hard enough to shake the entire structure. We fired warning shots through the windows, aiming high. The creatures retreated, but didn’t leave the area. We could still see them on thermal, hanging back in the trees, watching.
Chapter Seven: Kill or Be Killed
By morning, we were exhausted and on edge. When we went outside to check the perimeter, we found that our truck tires had been slashed. Long claw marks through the rubber, deep gouges in the sidewalls. We weren’t going anywhere. We tried to radio the landowner for extraction. He told us the access road had washed out from overnight rain. It would be at least two days before he could get a vehicle through to us. We were stuck. We argued for a while about what to do. Some wanted to wait it out, stay defensive. Others wanted to go on offense, end this before it ended us. These creatures were getting bolder. Eventually, they’d make a move we couldn’t counter. We decided we had to act.
Our new strategy was simple but risky. We’d use ourselves as bait. Set up in a clearing where we’d seen the most activity, create a kill zone with clear sight lines, and wait for the creature to come to us. The clearing we chose was about a quarter mile from camp, maybe sixty yards across, with good visibility in all directions. Two of us climbed trees on opposite sides of the clearing, good, sturdy pines about fifteen feet up. From up there, they’d have clear firing angles and overlapping fields of fire. The other two of us, including me, would stay on the ground as visible bait. We positioned ourselves near the center of the clearing with enough distance between us to avoid being taken out together but close enough to support each other.
Then we laid out the bait. Three large salmon fillets, maybe five pounds of raw beef, some venison. We hung some from low branches, left some on the ground. The smell was overpowering. Metallic blood mixed with fish oil. If there was anything within a mile, it would smell this. We did final weapon checks. Tranquilizer guns loaded and ready. Rifles with full magazine. Spare ammunition within easy reach. Everyone had their radio set to the same channel. The team leader went over the plan one more time. When the creature entered the clearing, we let it get to the bait before engaging. Hit it with tranquilizers first. If those didn’t work or if things went bad, switch to live rounds immediately.
Chapter Eight: The Kill
We got into position around noon. Then we waited. Waiting is the hardest part of any hunt. The first hour wasn’t too bad. We were alert, focused, ready. The second hour, the adrenaline started to wear off and discomfort set in. My legs cramped from staying low in the tall grass. By the third hour, I was fighting boredom. My back ached from holding position. Around four-thirty, one of the guys in the trees radioed down. He’d seen movement at the edge of his vision, maybe two hundred yards out. We all tensed up, weapons ready, but nothing appeared. False alarm.
Five o’clock came and went. We’d been in position for five hours. My whole body ached. I started thinking maybe this wasn’t going to work. Maybe the creature had learned to avoid obvious traps. Then around five-fifteen, everything changed. The forest went completely silent. Not gradually, but all at once, like someone had flipped a switch. The birds stopped calling. The insects stopped buzzing. Even the wind seemed to die down. That unnatural quiet that every hunter knows means a predator is near.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, quietly, scanning the tree line, looking for any movement. There on the northwest edge, maybe eighty yards away, something dark shifting between the trees. Too big for a deer, wrong shape for a bear. Then it stepped out. The creature emerged from the tree line like it owned the place. It stood at least eight feet tall, probably closer to eight and a half. The body was massive, easily six hundred pounds, maybe more. Broad shoulders that would have made a grizzly look small. Arms that hung down past its knees, thick with muscle. The entire body was covered in dark reddish-brown hair, long and matted, especially thick around the shoulders and chest.
But the face, that’s what got me. It was humanlike enough to be deeply disturbing. A heavy brow ridge jutted out over the eyes, flat nose, wide nostrils flaring as it tested the air. The jaw was pronounced, pushed forward, but the overall structure was closer to human than ape. No snout, no muzzle, just a face that looked like it belonged to something in between.
The creature moved into the clearing slowly. Each step was deliberate, cautious. It walked fully upright, bipedal, natural. The gait was smooth, coordinated. This wasn’t some dumb animal. You could see the intelligence in how it moved, how it paused every few steps to look around, to listen, to smell. It was about forty yards into the clearing when it stopped and turned its head directly toward where I was hidden in the grass. I froze, the creature’s eyes locked onto mine. For a second that felt like an hour, we stared at each other. Those eyes weren’t animal eyes. They were dark, almost black. But behind them, I could see awareness, thought, maybe even recognition that I was human, that I was dangerous. The look wasn’t aggressive or afraid. It was calculating.
My radio crackled softly with the team leader’s voice. One word: now. The two guys in the trees fired first. I heard the soft puffs of the tranquilizer guns, saw the darts hit. Two solid hits in the back and shoulder. Then I fired from my position. My dart caught it in the upper chest. Three good hits, enough tranquilizer to drop a full-grown grizzly. The creature roared. The sound was like nothing I’d ever heard—deep, resonant, powerful enough that I felt it in my chest. Not a bear roar, not a mountain lion scream, something else entirely, almost had words in it, like it was trying to express rage in a language I couldn’t understand.
For maybe three seconds, the creature stood there, looking down at the darts sticking out of its body. Then it started moving. Not running, not fleeing. It charged straight at us. I’d seen charging bears before. This was different. The creature covered ground in huge strides, each step eating up distance, its arms pumped like a sprinter’s. The speed was terrifying for something that big.
“Rifles!” someone shouted over the radio. I dropped the tranquilizer gun and grabbed my .30-06, flicked the safety off, brought it to my shoulder, found the creature in my sights. It was maybe thirty yards away and closing fast. I squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked against my shoulder. I saw the hit—a spray of dark blood from the creature’s chest. It didn’t slow down. I worked the bolt, chambered another round, fired again. Another hit. The creature kept coming. All four of us were firing now. The sound was deafening, rifles cracking one after another, brass casings flying. I put a third round into its chest, then a fourth. The creature was fifteen yards away when it finally started to slow. Its gait became uneven, stumbling, but it didn’t stop. It reached the other ground team member and swung one massive arm. The guy tried to dodge but wasn’t fast enough. The creature’s hand, big as a baseball mitt, caught him across the chest and sent him flying. He crashed into a tree trunk with a sick, heavy thud and crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
We kept shooting. The guys in the trees were firing, their shots coming down at an angle into the creature’s back and shoulders. Blood was flowing freely now, dark against the brown hair, soaking through and dripping on the grass. Finally, the creature staggered. Its legs buckled and it dropped to one knee. It tried to stand back up, got halfway, then collapsed onto its side. The massive chest was still moving, labored breathing, making the whole body rise and fall. We approached carefully, weapons up and ready. The team leader got there first, rifle pointed at the creature’s head. The creature’s eyes were still open, still aware. It watched us come closer, but didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Blood pooled beneath it, spreading across the grass.
Up close, it was even more impressive. The arms were as thick as my thighs, solid muscle under the hair. The hands had fingers and an opposable thumb, nails that were thick and dark. The feet were enormous, easily eighteen inches long, with toes that could grip. The face, half visible now as it lay on its side, looked almost peaceful. Eyes starting to glaze over as it died. The whole fight had maybe lasted thirty seconds. Felt like forever.
Chapter Nine: The Price
We checked on the guy who’d been hit. He was breathing but unconscious. When he came to a minute later, he was in bad shape—definitely broken ribs, probably concussed. His face was pale, eyes unfocused. We got him sitting up against a tree, gave him water, tried to keep him calm.
The team leader got on the radio to the landowner immediately. Told him we’d done it. Creature was down, but we had an injured man who needed medical attention as soon as possible. The landowner’s voice came back excited, congratulating us, saying he’d get someone out there first thing in the morning, medical helicopter if needed. He wanted photos, measurements, everything documented.
We turned our attention back to the creature. It had stopped breathing. Dead. We’d actually done it. Killed something that wasn’t supposed to exist. The reality of it started to sink in. This was real. This was proof. This was going to change everything.
The team leader pulled out a tape measure and we started taking measurements. Height: eight feet four inches from heel to top of head. Arm length: fifty-one inches from shoulder to fingertip. Hands: fourteen inches from wrist to tip of middle finger. Feet: eighteen and a half inches long. Estimated weight somewhere between six and seven hundred pounds. The numbers were staggering. We examined the body more closely. The hair was coarse, almost like horsehair with a thick underlayer of softer fur for insulation. The skin underneath was dark gray, almost black. The muscle definition was incredible. This thing was built for strength. The skull shape was different from both humans and apes, something in between. The teeth were omnivorous—molars for grinding plant matter, but canines that could tear meat.
Then someone suggested we take photos. Trophy photos like you do after any successful hunt. At first, it felt wrong. This wasn’t a deer or an elk. This was something else. But we’d done the job we’d been hired for, and the landowner wanted documentation. Plus, honestly, part of me wanted proof for myself. We positioned the creature on its back, arms spread out to show the size. I grabbed my phone and started taking pictures. Wide shots showing the full body, close-ups of the face, the hands, the feet, photos of the wounds. We took measurements next to it for scale. One guy insisted we do a classic hunter photo. The team leader knelt beside the creature’s head, rifle across his lap, one hand on the creature’s shoulder like you’d pose with a trophy buck. I felt weird about it, but took the photo anyway.
Then we rotated, everyone getting their turn. When it was my turn, I knelt down next to it, put my hand on its arm, felt the coarse hair and the still warm skin underneath. I looked at its face, really looked at it and felt a wave of something I couldn’t quite name. Sadness, maybe. Guilt. This thing had been alive an hour ago. Had probably been alive for decades, living in these mountains, avoiding humans, just trying to survive, and we’d killed it. But we’d been hired to do a job. It had to be done. That’s what I told myself as I posed for the photo.
We spent maybe ten minutes taking pictures from every angle, documenting everything. The team leader was excited, talking about how this was going to make history, how the landowner was going to be famous, how we’d all get recognition for this. The injured guy was sitting against his tree watching us, looking pale but alert. I was checking the photos on my phone, making sure we had everything when I heard it. A sound from the forest. Deep, resonant, carrying across the valley. A call. The same kind of call we had heard before, but closer. Much closer.
Chapter Ten: The Reckoning
We all froze. The call came again from a different direction. Another voice answering the first. They were communicating. Two of them, maybe more. Through the trees at the edge of the clearing, I saw movement. Something big shifting in the shadows. Then another movement from a different angle. My blood went cold. The team leader hissed. Weapons up.
We scrambled for our rifles. I’d set mine down to take photos. Had to grab it and check the magazine. Half full, maybe ten rounds left. I started pulling spare ammunition from my pockets. The guys in the trees were calling down over the radio, saying they could see heat signatures approaching from multiple directions. Then they came into view. Two creatures even bigger than the one we’d killed. The first one emerged from the northwest treeline, maybe a hundred yards out. It stood at least nine feet tall, broader across the shoulders, darker hair. The second one came from the east, slightly smaller, but still massive. They weren’t cautious like the first one had been. They were moving with purpose, walking fast, covering ground quickly.
When they saw us standing over the dead creature, they stopped for maybe five seconds. Nobody moved. We stared at them. They stared at us. The bigger one looked down at the body, then up at us. And I swear I saw the moment it understood. Saw the realization cross its face that we’d killed one of their own. Then it roared. The sound was rage incarnate. Pure fury. The other one joined in, both of them screaming at us. The noise was overwhelming, physically painful. Then they charged.
These creatures weren’t like the first one. They weren’t curious or cautious. They were angry, and they were coming fast. The bigger one was in the lead, arms pumping, each stride covering ten feet easily. The smaller one was flanking wide to the right, trying to cut off our escape route. We opened fire—all four rifles at once. My first shot hit the lead creature in the shoulder. Barely slowed it down. I worked the bolt, fired again, chest hit. It kept coming. The guys in the trees were shooting down at it, their rounds hitting its back and neck. Blood sprayed, but it didn’t stop. This thing was bigger, tougher, or maybe just too angry to care about bullets.
Fifty yards, forty. The creature was closing the distance faster than seemed possible. I fired three more shots in rapid succession. Saw at least two hits, but they didn’t do anything. Thirty yards. I could see its face clearly now. Eyes locked on us. Mouth open in a snarl showing teeth. This wasn’t defense. This was vengeance.
The team leader was shouting something over the radio, but I couldn’t process the words—just focused on working the bolt, chambering rounds, pulling the trigger. My magazine ran dry. I reached for a spare. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped it. Twenty yards. The thing was going to reach us in seconds. I got the magazine in, slammed the bolt forward, raised the rifle. The creature was so close I could smell it. That same musky smell, but stronger, mixed with blood and rage.
Then something in my brain just snapped. Every rational thought disappeared and was replaced by pure animal panic. Fight or flight—I chose flight. I turned and ran. Didn’t think about the team. Didn’t think about tactics or honor or the mission. Just ran.
Chapter Eleven: The Aftermath
I crashed into the underbrush at the edge of the clearing, branches whipping my face, thorns catching my clothes. Behind me, the shooting intensified. The team leader was yelling. Others were firing. Then someone screamed. I didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back. Crashed through bushes, jumped a fallen log, kept my feet moving. A branch caught me across the face. Felt blood, but didn’t slow down. Heard more shooting behind me, more screaming. Then a sound that wasn’t human—a roar of triumph mixed with something else, something awful.
I ran until my lungs were on fire, until my legs were shaking, until I couldn’t go any further. Maybe half a mile from the clearing, maybe more. I’d lost all sense of direction, just crashed through the forest in blind panic until my body gave out, collapsed behind a massive fallen log, curled up in the depression where the roots had torn out of the ground, pressed my face against the dirt and tried to breathe quietly. My heart hammered so hard I could hear it in my ears, feel it in my throat. Every breath was a gasping wheeze. I was covered in scratches, my face bleeding, my clothes torn, but I was alive.
Behind me, in the direction I’d come from, I could still hear sounds. Distant now, maybe just carrying on the wind. Gunshots, maybe three or four more after I’d stopped running. Then silence. Then something that might have been screaming, but I couldn’t tell if it was human or not. Then nothing.
I waited, pressed against that log, rifle clutched against my chest, listening. Minutes passed. The forest around me was silent. No birds, no insects, nothing. Just the sound of wind through the trees and my own ragged breathing. I knew I should go back, should check on the team, help if anyone was alive. But I couldn’t make myself move. Every time I tried to stand up, my legs wouldn’t work. My hands were shaking so bad the rifle rattled against the log. Pure terror had taken over and locked me in place.
More time passed. The light was fading. Sunset couldn’t be far off. I’d be stuck in these woods in full darkness soon. That thought finally got me moving. I couldn’t stay here. If those creatures came looking for me, I needed to be somewhere defensible. The cabin. I needed to get back to the cabin.
Chapter Twelve: The Living Prey
I forced myself to stand. My legs were weak, shaking, but they held. I checked my rifle. Still had six rounds in the magazine. I had one spare magazine in my pocket with eight more rounds, fourteen shots total. I pulled out my compass with trembling hands. The cabin was southwest of the clearing. If I’d run southeast, which felt right, then I needed to head west. But first, I had to know. The guilt was already eating at me. I’d abandoned my team, left them to die while I saved my own skin. I had to see what happened.
I changed course, heading back north. Used the compass and the fading light to navigate. My heart rate picked up again as I got closer. Started seeing landmarks. I recognized a distinctive boulder, a lightning-struck tree. I was close. I slowed down, moved from cover to cover, waited, and listened between each advance. Took over an hour to cover what was probably a quarter mile. The sun was setting, long shadows stretching across the forest floor.
I reached the edge of the clearing and stopped behind a thick cluster of bushes. Spent five minutes just watching, listening, looking for any movement. The clearing was visible through the branches, maybe forty yards away. I could see shapes, dark shapes on the ground. I crept closer. The shapes became clearer. Bodies. Multiple bodies lying motionless in the grass. I stopped again, watching for any movement. Nothing. The creatures were gone. The clearing was still and silent except for the wind.
I forced myself to keep moving. Emerged from the treeline into the clearing. The scene was worse than I’d imagined. I’m not going to describe it. Some things don’t need to be said. What matters is all three of my friends were dead. The violence that had been done to them was beyond anything an animal would do. This was rage. This was revenge.
The creature we’d killed was gone. Just gone. A blood trail led from where it had fallen toward the far side of the clearing, then disappeared into the trees. They’d taken the body, dragged it away. I followed the trail for maybe twenty feet before I stopped myself. I wasn’t going into those woods. I stood in the clearing as darkness gathered around me, looking at what remained of my team. The guilt hit me like a physical weight. These were my friends, guys I’d hunted with for years, guys who trusted me, and I’d run. When they needed me most, when we should have stood together, I’d turned and fled like a coward.
Chapter Thirteen: The Price of Survival
The sound of a branch cracking in the forest snapped me back to reality. I spun around, rifle up, heart in my throat. Nothing there. Just shadows moving in the wind. But it was enough. I couldn’t stay here. Those creatures might come back. I had to move. I gathered what I could from our gear scattered across the clearing—one rifle with a full magazine, extra ammunition from the team leader’s pack, stuffed my pockets until they were bulging. A water bottle. Energy bars. Emergency first aid kit. A flashlight. The trophy photos were on my phone in my pocket.
I took one last look at my friends. Wanted to say something, some kind of goodbye, but no words came. In the end, I just turned and walked away, heading toward where I thought the cabin was. The hike back was a nightmare. Full darkness had fallen, and I didn’t want to use the flashlight unless absolutely necessary. I navigated by moonlight, stumbling over roots, walking into low-hanging branches, falling twice and barely catching myself. Every sound was a potential threat. Every shadow could be something watching me. I kept thinking I heard footsteps behind me, heavy steps, keeping pace with my own. I’d stop and listen, hear nothing, start walking again, and the feeling would return. Several times I spun around, rifle ready, convinced something was right behind me. Nothing was ever there.
At one point I heard that wood knocking sound again. Three knocks, pause, two knocks, coming from somewhere off to my right. I froze, holding my breath, waiting for it to repeat. It didn’t. The walk that should have taken thirty minutes took over two hours. When I finally saw the cabin through the trees, I almost cried with relief. It was still standing, no signs of damage. I got inside and immediately barricaded the door, dragged a heavy table in front of it, stacked chairs, anything to create an obstacle. Did the same for the windows, created a fortress. Then I sat in the corner with both rifles, ammunition laid out within reach, and waited.
The night was endless. Every creak of the cabin settling, every gust of wind against the walls had me tensing up. I kept seeing shapes moving past the windows, kept hearing sounds outside, footsteps circling the cabin, heavy breathing just beyond the walls. Most of it was probably my imagination, but some of it felt real. Too real to dismiss. Around three in the morning, something hit the side of the cabin. Not hard enough to break through, but solid. A thump that shook the walls. I was on my feet immediately. Rifle aimed at where the sound had come from. Waited for another impact. Nothing came. Just that one hit, then silence. A test maybe, letting me know they knew where I was. I didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep, just sat there in the corner, watching the windows, listening, waiting for dawn.
When gray light finally started filtering through the gaps in my barricade, I felt a wave of relief so strong it made me dizzy. I’d survived the night. The creatures hadn’t come for me. Maybe they were satisfied with killing the others. Maybe they figured I’d learned my lesson. Or maybe they were just letting me go, giving me a chance to spread the story, to warn others to stay away.
Chapter Fourteen: The Warning
As soon as it was light enough to see, I started packing. Took only what I could carry: water, food, ammunition, first aid kit. Removed the barricade from the door, opened it slowly, checked outside. The morning was quiet. Normal forest sounds were starting up again, birds calling, squirrels moving through the trees. The unnatural silence was gone. I started walking, followed the access road this time, even though it was longer. The road felt safer somehow, more open, less chance of ambush. Eight miles to where it met the highway. Eight miles through territory that those creatures controlled. But I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way out.
I made good time, driven by fear and adrenaline. Kept the rifle in my hands the whole way, safety off, finger near the trigger. Kept looking over my shoulder, checking the trees on either side. Never stopped moving for more than a few seconds at a time. Around noon, maybe six miles in, I heard something in the trees paralleling the road, something large moving through the brush, keeping pace with me. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it—branches cracking, footfalls, the sound of something big pushing through undergrowth. It stayed maybe fifty yards off the road, matching my speed. I tried speeding up. It kept pace. Tried slowing down, it slowed, too. Whatever it was, it was following me, tracking me, making sure I left. Or maybe just toying with me, letting me know it could take me any time it wanted.
I kept the rifle pointed toward the sound, walking sideways down the road so I could keep watch on the treeline. The presence stayed with me for over a mile. Then, as I came around a bend in the road, it just stopped. The sound ceased. I waited, listening, but heard nothing more. Whatever it was had let me go. I was being allowed to leave. The message was clear. Get out and don’t come back.
Chapter Fifteen: The Aftermath
I reached the highway around four in the afternoon. The moment I saw pavement, cars, civilization, I nearly collapsed. My legs were shaking. My whole body was trembling. I found a spot where my phone had signal and made the calls. 911 first, told them there had been an accident, people were dead, gave them the location as best I could. Then I called the landowner, told him what happened, tried to explain about the two creatures, about the attack, about my friends. My voice kept breaking. At some point during the call, I started crying and couldn’t stop.
Search and rescue showed up within two hours. Police, paramedics, forest rangers. I led them back to the clearing. Took hours because they had to use the road and they moved slowly, carefully documenting everything along the way. By the time we reached the site, it was nearly dark again. They set up lights, started processing the scene. They found my friends’ bodies, confirmed what I already knew, started taking photos, measurements, collecting evidence. I sat on a fallen log and watched them work. Answered questions when they asked, described what happened, told them about the creatures, about the hunt, about everything. I could see in their faces they didn’t believe me.
One of the rangers found the massive footprints in the clearing, took photos, made casts, but footprints alone don’t prove anything. They found blood, too. Lots of it, both human and nonhuman. Collected samples, but blood evidence just shows something was there. They searched for the creature’s body, the one we’d killed. Found the blood trail leading into the forest, but no body. Followed the trail for maybe a hundred yards before it disappeared on rocky ground. Whatever took it had carried it away, left no trace, no body, no proof, just more questions and speculation.
The official investigation took three days. They interviewed me repeatedly, going over my story again and again, looking for inconsistencies. They brought in experts, wildlife biologists, forensic specialists. Everyone had theories. Most of them thought it was a bear attack, a large grizzly, or maybe multiple black bears working together. The footprints were dismissed as misidentified bear tracks. The blood evidence was inconclusive. Without a body, without clear photos of the creatures that killed my friends, they couldn’t prove anything else. My phone had the trophy photos, the pictures we’d taken of the creature we killed. I showed them to the investigators. They studied them carefully, brought in more experts to analyze them. The consensus was the photos were either faked or showed something else. Maybe a person in an elaborate costume, maybe an edited image. One investigator even suggested maybe we had staged a hoax and it had gone wrong. The idea was insulting and ridiculous, but I could see how they’d think that. Without the actual body, the photos alone weren’t enough.
Chapter Sixteen: The Survivor
I tried explaining how strong these creatures were. How the one we killed had taken multiple rifle rounds and kept charging. How it had thrown a grown man fifteen feet like he weighed nothing. How the two that attacked us after were even bigger, even more aggressive. None of it mattered. Without physical evidence, it was just a story. The forensic analysis of the scene supported a large animal attack. The claw marks, the bite radius, the pattern of injuries, everything was consistent with a bear or similar large predator. Case closed. Bear attack. Three hunters killed, one survived by fleeing. Tragic, but not mysterious.
The bodies were released to the families within a week. I went to all three funerals, sat in the back, didn’t talk to anyone, left as soon as I could. The families were devastated. Some of them blamed me for surviving when their sons and husbands didn’t. They didn’t say it directly, but I could see it in their eyes. The same question I kept asking myself. Why did I live when they died?
The landowner kept his word about the payment. Fifty thousand dollars appeared in my account two weeks after the incident. He also quietly put the property up for sale. When I called him to ask about it, he said he decided not to develop the land after all. Market conditions had changed. But I knew the real reason. He believed me. He’d seen the trail cam footage, heard the reports from his survey crews, knew something was out there. Three men were dead because he had hired us to deal with his problem. That was enough for him. The property sold six months later for significantly less than it was worth. I looked up the new owner out of curiosity. A conservation group that immediately placed the entire twelve thousand acres under permanent protection—no development, no logging, no public access. The land would stay wild. Maybe that’s how it should have been all along.
Chapter Seventeen: The Warning
The guilt is the worst part. It’s been three months now and I think about it every day, multiple times a day. The moment when I turned and ran, leaving my friends to fight alone. I’ve replayed that scene in my head thousands of times. Asked myself what I should have done differently. The answer is always the same. I should have stayed. Should have fought beside them. Even if it meant dying, too.
People tell me I did the right thing, that survival instinct kicked in and saved my life, that staying would have just meant four bodies instead of three, that I shouldn’t feel guilty for being alive. Logically, I know they’re probably right. Those creatures were massive, powerful, and enraged. We’d killed one of their own, and they came for revenge. Four rifles weren’t enough to stop them. My presence wouldn’t have changed the outcome. But logic doesn’t help with guilt. It doesn’t explain away the feeling that I’m a coward. That when it mattered most, when my friends needed me, I abandoned them. I can rationalize it all day long, tell myself I did what anyone would do. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m alive and they’re not.
The nightmares started immediately and haven’t stopped. I dream about the clearing almost every night. Sometimes I’m back there hearing the gunshots and the screaming while I run away. Sometimes I’m standing over the dead creature taking photos when the others attack. Sometimes I stay and fight and I watch myself die over and over in different ways. Sometimes the creatures don’t stop with my friends. They follow me through the forest, always just behind me, getting closer with each step until I wake up gasping and sweating. The worst dreams are the ones where I see their faces. My friends looking at me as I run away, calling for help that I don’t give. I know that’s not how it really happened. They were too busy fighting to watch me flee. But my brain doesn’t care about facts. It creates the worst possible scenarios and plays them on repeat every time I close my eyes.
I can’t work as a hunter or guide anymore. Can’t even go into the woods. My whole career, everything I’d built over twenty years, gone. I tried once about a month after it happened. A friend asked me to go deer hunting. Thought it might help me get back to normal. We drove out to his property, started walking into the treeline, and I made it maybe fifty yards before I had a full panic attack. Chest tight, couldn’t breathe, heart racing, hands shaking. Had to turn around and leave. Haven’t tried again since. I know what’s out there now. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, touched it, killed one, and learned that some things don’t die easy.
I wonder if they’re still out there. Those two that survived. I know they are somewhere in the vast wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. They’re still alive. Maybe they remember us. Maybe they learn from what happened. Maybe they’re more cautious now around humans. Or maybe they’re still angry. I’m writing this down because people need to know—not about the existence of these creatures. That’s for scientists or whoever to figure out. But about the danger, about what happens when you go looking for something that doesn’t want to be found.
We thought we were the hunters. We had the weapons, the plan, the advantage. But we were wrong. We were always the prey. From that first night when it circled our camp to the moment those two came charging out of the forest, we were never in control. Some things aren’t meant to be hunted. Some creatures have survived in the wild for generations by being smarter, stronger, and more dangerous than we give them credit for. We learned that lesson too late. My friends paid for it with their lives. I’m paying for it in a different way.
If you’re reading this and thinking about going into the deep woods looking for something unknown, don’t. The money isn’t worth it. The glory isn’t worth it. Nothing is worth what happened up there in those Oregon mountains. I close my eyes at night and I can still hear those footsteps. Heavy, deliberate, coming closer. Sometimes I wonder if they’ll find me again. If one day I’ll look out my window and see something massive standing at the edge of the treeline, watching, waiting.
That’s what I live with now. The knowledge that I survived something that killed better hunters than me. And the constant fear that maybe, just maybe, it’s not over yet.
For more chilling stories, remember: some mysteries in the wild are best left undiscovered.
