The Thing in the Pines

(This story was told to me by JakobLmao on reddit, and will be told from his point of view.)

I've had a draft of this story set up for a while before I gained the courage to share it. It made me question... everything. My faith, my eyes, my friends, and worst of all, my sanity. I've decided it's time to let someone else know about this, maybe that will help me move on... at least, that's what I hope. For my sake, and maybe even yours.

I recently moved westward to Arizona. I am a devout Christian, and never once before this had I ever believed there was any entity in existence that we couldn't hunt down with our modern advancements. It's 2019, for Heaven's sake, if we want to find something, you'd figure that we could and would.

My story begins the 23rd of December, 2018. I was in Arizona at this point, a bit north of Phoenix. My friends and I, in our Christmas spirit, decided to head out north of town, about 5 or so miles into the forests. It was cold that night; some of my friends shivered and displayed obvious signs of being under dressed. I was layered fairly well, and yet still the winds and frigid cold punctured through my jacket and onto me. We wanted to make a bonfire that night, warm up, enjoy ourselves and a few drinks.

I knew as soon as I entered the car that something was off. I felt uneasy, sick, and something told me to just stay home. But I couldn't put my finger on just what, and ignored my looming feelings of anxiety. I picked up my friends and headed to the park as usual. I'm a huge nature lover, and always felt safe in the confines of the forest; I felt in control, at ease. But not tonight. It may sound cliche but... I'll be damned if it didn't feel like something was watching me. And when I had gotten far enough down the trail that turning back would be no hasty endeavor, it finally hit me why I felt so eerie.

That same year, during the prior summer, I had been here before. It's not a spot we usually go to, and thus I was not as familiar with it, nor were my friends. We were coming out for the same reason as we were in December: for a few drinks around a bonfire. I, however, hadn't had any spirits that night. It became my job to gather firewood. I didn't mind, a chance to survey the area around us wouldn't be too bad. Yet before I even left our site, things took a turn for the strange.

I was at the edge of the light cast from the small bonfire that I was to gather more fuel for. In the faint glow of the far trees, I caught the smallest sight of something dart behind a tall pine tree. I called back to my friends to ask if it wasn't out of the ordinary for people to be hanging around this spot. My query was met only with silence from them, as they drank on.

I took a few more steps beyond the comfort of the blaze, keeping my eyes affixed upon the shadowy entity behind the tall, dark trees. I could faintly make out that it had moved in a slight bobbing motion, like a buoy upon a tide. My immediate thoughts drew a blank as to why someone would be out here doing this; maybe I was seeing things, or it was just a prank of some sort. I opened my mouth to call out, maybe crack a joke, but was mortified when I realized I could not speak. Something inside of me prevented me from making any noise.

As swiftly as it came, the shadow shot off into the distance like a bullet. I fell back onto the ground, and kicked back like a spooked animal. My friends saw this and laughed, thinking I was drunk. I stammered out a line about what I had seen, but their only response was one of questioning looks that asked if I was stupid. For the rest of the night, I never dared to step beyond the beams of the bonfire.

As I walked down the trail on my frigid December hike, I remembered what I had seen and felt on that summer night, and my stomach dropped. My friends were slurring out Christmas carols and other drunk epiphanies and I knew they wouldn't listen to me even if I spoke out, so I prayed for the best and kept walking. That was my biggest mistake.

I hadn't been much drinking this night, either. I don't enjoy alcohol as much as some of my friends, and often I was the sober one responsible for herding them back home when the night was over. However, to calm my tense nerves, I relaxed and enjoyed some rum. It was Christmas, after all. And it worked - we were all having a good time, enjoying our festive feelings, and generally savoring the crisp forest atmosphere.

Soon, nature called, and, forgetting my prior ordeal, I began to walk away from the fire to relieve myself. I walked a fair 150 feet away, not wanting to be seen doing my business. I was never far enough away from the bonfire to not be able to hear my friend's voices echoing through the woodlands.

From behind me, my friend Corbin, who had come along for the festivities, called out my name. I'll admit that I was tipsy, but nowhere near enough to not be able to differentiate reality from drunken visions. I remember calling out to him in return, saying to hold on a second. I zipped up and returned from around the tree I was behind.

I don't know what it was, but it sure as all heaven above and hell below wasn't Corbin.

It took me a minute for my woozy mind to put this together, and to stop walking. I'm thankful that I did. This being stood tall, at least 6 to 7 feet. It eyes burned like fire. It moved from a doglike crouch position to standing tall. The moonlight of the cold night radiated off of it's dark, slender body with an inhumane sheen.

I began to sob, violently. My mind ran in panicked circles. Seconds felt like lifetimes as my world ground to a halt at the clawed feet of the beast that I was sure would take my life from me right then and there.

I did the only thing I could think to. I dropped to my knees and began to pray. This monster, to my petrified brain, had to be the devil himself; to imagine him as anything worse than what stood in front of me was impossible.

It did not like my plea to God. An unholy shriek of what I can only think to describe as someone singing loudly with lungs full of water rang out. I screamed in terror and with all the strength I could muster lunged backwards across the forest floor, running as fast as my legs could carry me. I fell a few times, I think, in sheer panic. I just couldn't manage to get my body to work properly when I knew that thing was near.

When I returned in a panicked craze to the fire, covered in dirt, sweat and tears, I managed to wheeze out what happened somewhat, through my sobs of fear. I could tell they doubted whether or not what I was desperately stammering to them was real or not. I think I was so purely and simply scared in that moment that I had a small seizure, because everything else is a blur. I remember stumbling back to the truck, leaving. I remember waking up the next day with a multitude of texts from friends, asking if I felt ok. And I remember the last I saw of the Thing while I made my frenzied flee.

When it smiled at me through the dark forest, and skittered back off into thin air.

I know I sound crazy. If I were you, I wouldn't believe me. But you don't have to. All you have to know is, for the love of God above and all that is holy, never forget that we aren't alone on this Earth.