Skinwalker Stories from Reddit

Story 8 : The Singing Skinwalker

Written by : u/CynicHappy

Year written : 2017

This story was told to me by one of my good friends, who's of Navajo descent on her father's side. It happened several years ago, when she was spending the last two weeks of summer visiting relatives on a reservation in New Mexico, and is by far one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.

My friend, Jessie, was twelve at the time and playing outside with her cousins. They were tossing a frisbee around, and one of the younger kids threw it too hard; it flew over the fence and was swallowed up by small grove of parched Bur Oak trees. Jessie, being the eldest, went to retrieve it, leaving her eleven-year-old cousin Ellie in charge until she got back.

The sun was setting, lighting up the sky in brilliant shades of orange, as Jessie made her way over to the grove. After some poking around, she found the frisbee caught in one of the tree's branches. As she climbed, she began to sing an old Navajo song, but paused when her body suddenly went cold.

That's exactly how Jessie described it to me: cold, as if she'd been dunked in ice water. You know that annoying scary story cliché of feeling like you're being watched? Well, it's only cliché because it's true. Jessie could feel a pair of eyes following her even when she looked around her and saw nothing. Seriously creeped out, she grabbed the frisbee and ran back to her grandmother's house, just in time to see the old woman step onto the porch and call for the kids to come inside.

The true horror didn't start until several hours later.

Jessie, her cousin Ellie, and Ellie's little sister Clara were asleep in their grandmother's guest room when Jessie woke up to the strangest sound she'd ever heard. She described it to me as a cross between radio static and the noise an old movie reel makes. At first, it sounded distant, but after a minute or two, Jessie realized it was getting closer.

Beside her, Ellie rolled over and muttered, "What *is* that?"

"Don't know," Jessie whispered.

The girls waited, holding their collective breath. By now, the sound was right outside the window, and Jessie realized it was *singing.*

At this point in her retelling of the story, Jessie went white and began glancing over her shoulder. She told me the song was the exact same one she'd been singing in the tree grove earlier. "It sounded so *wrong,*" she said, rubbing her arms as if a cold breeze had rushed by her. "Remember when we listened to that clip of the very first recording of a human voice? How weird it sounded?" When I nodded, Jessie added, "It was like that, but a little clearer. Somehow, that made it even worse."

Jessie and Ellie were both terrified, while Clara, unaware, slept on. Through the thin blue curtain over the window, they could see the dark shadow of something peering in at them.

To this day, Jessie can't explain what motivated her to get up and see for herself, since she was scared shitless. Ignoring Ellie's protests, she slid out of bed and walked across the room on shaky legs. As soon as she drew back the curtain, she regretted her decision.

Staring back at her was the most horrifying creature she had ever seen. It had the head of an emaciated deer, with antlers like dead tree branches and eyes so black they seemed to absorb the faint silver moonlight. It had a scrawny humanoid body with abnormally long arms and legs, and as Jessie stood there, caught in its hideous gaze, it raised a clawed hand and scratched at the window with a horrible screeching sound that made Jessie's skin crawl.

It was Ellie's scream that jolted Jessie out of her terrified stupor. She stumbled back from the window and landed on the carpeted floor. Clara woke up and began screaming too. Then their grandmother ran in and turned on the light.

The thing at the window had vanished, leaving behind three long scratches in the glass and three terrified little girls.

Jessie's grandmother managed to calm the hysterical children enough so they could tell her what had happened. As she listened, her age-weathered face became progressively paler. She hustled the girls downstairs to the living room and made up a bed for them on the couch. She then sat by them all night, and whenever one of them asked her what was going on, the old woman simply shook her head.

Needless to say, Jessie and her cousins didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Jessie's grandmother announced that everyone was to stay inside that day, no arguments. She looked so shaken nobody dared protest. Around noon, she called for a medicine woman to come and bless the house.

Later, after the woman left, Jessie marched into the kitchen where her grandmother was loading the dishwasher. "Tell me what that thing was," she said bluntly.

Her grandmother sighed and motioned for Jessie to sit down. "You have heard the legend of the skinwalkers, yes?"

Jessie frowned and nodded, vaguely recalling the story. "So that was a skinwalker?"

Her grandmother nodded. "Yes."

"Grandma," said Jessie as a light dawned, "I think it overheard me singing in the tree grove yesterday."

Her grandmother's dark eyes narrowed. "Why do you say that?"

"Because it was singing that same song. You know, the lullaby you used to sing to me when I was little."

Her grandmother was silent for a long time before whispering, "You are a very lucky girl, Jessica, but luck has its limits. From now on, you must be more careful."

The look in the old woman's eyes as she spoke those words still haunts Jessie to this day.

As I said earlier, that was years ago-seven, to be specific. Jessie has returned to the reservation many times, each without incident, but she has never set foot in that tree grove again, and probably never will.

Jessie's grandmother died this past March, at the age of eighty-seven, and Jessie later moved in with her aunt for the summer so she could help clean up the old house, which the family was going to rent out. She had been there for about a week when I went down there to visit her. On my first night, we sat on the porch and drank some beers, and I found my eyes drifting towards the tree grove.

"So that's where it all happened?"

Jessie shuddered and nodded. "Yep. Tomorrow, I'm taking you to the medicine woman and have her bless you."

"Is that really necessary?"

The look Jessie gave me nearly turned me to stone. "You think nothing will happen to you because you're white. But when you're in Navajo territory, you're in skinwalker territory. Take caution."

I nodded. "Yes."

That night, I swore I heard radio static outside the house. When I brought it up to Jessie the next morning, she didn't speak, but grabbed my arm and practically dragged me to the medicine woman, where I was blessed. Nothing happened for the rest of the trip, and I went back to the city unscathed.

I didn't post this here with the intention of teaching a moral, but I suppose if there *is* something to be learned from the story of the Singing Skinwalker, it's that there are things out there we can't explain. The look in Jessie's eyes when she recounted her experience told me everything I need to know. What she saw truly horrified her, and all I can say is, I'm grateful I didn't have to go through it myself.