Skinwalker Stories from Reddit

Story 3 : The Skinwalker

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.