Skinwalker Stories #29

Note from editor: The stories below contain the names of individuals. For the sake of privacy and anonymity, names have been changed or omitted.

Story 1:

I learnt a long time ago that Skinwalkers are not something to be trifled with. Quite the opposite in fact. They are terrifying and dangerous. My encounter happened in Oklahoma a few years back. I was working for this construction crew and we’d been hired to do some work on this cabin some rich dick wanted renovating. Simple enough work in that it was just some new inner walls new insulation, a new roof and some solar panels for off grid power. Other than being in the middle of literal nowhere, it wasn’t difficult work. It was two weeks work and solid pay, so it wasn’t much of an issue with us. That came on the third day of work. One of the guys on the crew, Jamie, was already there. That was odd on its own since he was always late, but what made it even odder was the way he was acting throughout the day. Then he just upped and disappeared around lunch time. Again, that itself was odd since he normally worked through lunch so we didn’t expect him to just disappear. Me and another one from the crew, Barry, went off to find him while the rest got on with the work. We went to the trucks but couldn’t find him and we were about to make our way back to the shed when Barry pointed something out. There was a trail of blood leading from the trucks into the forest. Obviously, we thought something happened to Jamie and followed the trail. It didn’t take us long to find out what happened to him. We found his body. From the looks of it, he had been there all night. Barry almost threw up at the smell of the body. I was about to tell him to run back and get the others when I heard Jake call out to us. But… he was laying dead in front of us. Then Barry screamed and I saw why. Standing in front of us was some twisted version of Jamie. It… didn’t look right or natural. It had his face, but it was all pasty and and flaking off. There were horns on his… its head and it had this open smile that showed fangs rather than normal human teeth. It was horrifying. It just stood there, staring at us while drooling. Neither of us are scared easily, but7 both me and Barry started running the moment it started walking towards us. Not fifteen minutes we returned with the rest of the crew and a few guns we kept in the trucks. That fucking thing was still there, eating Jamie! I was carrying one of the guns as was our boss. We both fired a few rounds at it, but it didn’t even notice them! Then the chief said something I couldn’t quite make out before firing another shot. It was hit and went down before getting up, howling/screaming at us before running away on all fours. It was still wearing his face through all of this. Jamie had been torn to shreds and his death was eventually ruled as an animal attack, but to this day I wouldn’t consider whatever that thing was an animal. I’d later ask the chief what he said before taking the shot, but he would refuse to ever talk about it. We managed to complete the renovations without any more issues, but I later found out that the guy who owned it went missing during a stay at the cabin. I never want to see that thing again.

Story 2:

I’ve always enjoyed camping in places where people ought not to go. Caves no one but me can get to, cliffs considered too dangerous by other experienced climbers and I even spent a night on top of Mount Everest. To say I make sometimes undeniably stupid decisions is an understatement. But this one time really had me fucked. There’s this bit of land in Arizona that is said to have belonged to some Native American tribe some time ago. It’s really barren, but there is this old house on there that seems to have been abandoned for decades if not longer. I’d long planned to stay there for a bit, and since the pandemic has kept everyone indoors I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to spend a week there. August comes round and I make my way to that old house. I enter through the front door and see it. There’s a coyote just inside. Great. I didn’t know there were coyotes in the area. I slowly back out and away from it, right up until it stood on it’s hind legs. This fucking coyote stood up onto its hind legs! Then it talked. “I’ve been waiting for you Julie. Why don’t you come on in.” I screamed and started running. I got maybe 200 yards away from the house before tripping over. I looked behind me and saw it leaving the house. It didn’t look like a coyote anymore. This is hard to explain, but it looked as if it were turning into me. I didn’t stay to get a good look as I got up and ran the one and a half miles back to my car (I’d hiked to the house). I managed to get away and never saw it again. But then again, I’m never going back to that house again either.