I'm posting this from a throwaway account for reasons that will make sense later.

I'm not here to argue about beliefs or culture or what a skinwalker really is.

I'm just telling you what happened to me and my two friends in the Utah desert in late September a few years ago.

If you need everything to have a neat explanation or fit neatly into your worldview, you're probably going to think I'm lying.

I wish I was.

I grew up in Salt Lake and the desert was just always there.

Background.

You drive through it to get to Moab or Zion or Lake Powell.

You see photos of delicate arch tourists crowding around it for sunset, all that.

But what most people don't see are the huge stretches of nothing in between.

No services, no lights at night, dirt roads that go on for hours and don't show up on Google Maps.

That's where this happened.

It started as a Bros trip, the kind of plan you make half joking until someone actually pulls up the weather and you realize there's no reason not to go.

It was me, Ryan, and Miguel.

I'd known Ryan since middle school.

He's the kind of guy who collects hobbies.

Rock climbing, astrophotography, over landing, you name it.

He's the one who had the lifted Tacoma with all the recovery gear and the big rooftop tent.

So most of our adventures kind of revolved around whatever he wanted to try next.

Miguel was a friend from work, quieter, but he had this dry, dark sense of humor that made everything feel a little less serious.

He'd been going through a rough breakup, and when I floated the idea of getting out of town for a long weekend, he said yes before I'd even finished explaining.

The original plan was simple.

Leave Friday afternoon, drive down past Green River, cut off onto the BLM Rd.

somewhere between the San Rafael Swell and the Navajo Nation border.

Find a remote campsite and spend 2 nights under stupidly bright stars.

No crowds, no reservations, no Rangers, just us, a fire, and the kind of silence you can't get near the city.

We weren't total idiots about it.

We had extra water, Agps, paper maps, first aid radios, brand new tires on the truck.

I'd camped a lot and Ryan was almost annoyingly careful with safety.

We even had a PLB personal locator beacon in case something went really sideways.

Looking back, that almost makes it worse.

We did everything right and it still didn't matter.

The first weird thing happened at a gas station.

We stopped in Green River to top off because there's this unspoken rule in the desert, if you see gas, you get gas.

I went inside to grab some snacks and pay, and while Miguel was fawning over the beef jerky wall and Ryan was scoping out the cooler for drinks, I ended up in line behind this older guy.

He looked like somebody had carved him out of the land around us.

Weathered dark skin, deep lines in his face, Gray hair tied back under a sun bleached hat.

He had on a faded denim shirt with Pearl snaps and dusty work pants.

The kind of guy who could probably fix anything with baling wire and duct tape.

He glanced at the top O map rolled up under my arm, and then at the Jerry cans we were filling outside.

Y'all heading out past the highway?

He asked.

Just sort of casual.

Yeah, I said.

Just camping on BLM land.

Friend of mine knows some roads out there.

He shifted his attention to the window where Ryan was checking his tire pressure like he always did.

There's plenty of places closer, he said.

Why you got to go so far out?

I laughed a little.

Stars less people, you know?

He didn't laugh.

Instead, he said you stick to the main tracks.

You see something looks like a shortcut, You ignore it.

You hear somebody calling you after dark, You don't answer, Not even if it sounds like your mom.

That last part hit weird, like he'd taken a conversation we hadn't had yet and dropped it in the middle of the store.

I kind of smiled awkwardly.

OK, yeah, we'll be careful.

He finally looked straight at me and there was nothing playful in his expression.

You boys stay on the highway side of the line, he said.

Don't cross where you don't belong.

People go missing out there and don't get found.

Not because nobody's looking.

There's a very specific kind of chill that doesn't have anything to do with temperature.

I felt it then, standing there between racks of Pringles and off brand energy drinks.

He paid for his stuff and left without another word.

When I got back to the truck, I told Ryan and Miguel about it, expecting them to laugh.

Miguel did, but it was more of a that's creepy laugh than what an idiot.

Ryan just shrugged.

Old timers love to freak out tourists, he said.

Probably got a nephew in Search and Rescue wants to keep them busy.

Then he added.

Besides, we're not going that far.

We'll be fine.

We weren't tourists, but I didn't argue the point.

I shoved the weird interaction into the mental folder labeled Random Desert People and focused on the road.

That folder didn't stay closed for long.

We left pavement an hour later.

There's a certain satisfaction in that moment when the asphalt ends and the dirt begins.

The Tacoma ate up the washboard sections, dust trailing behind us like a comet tail.

We followed the main BLM road for a while, then cut onto a narrower track that led toward a low Mesa and a dry wash Ryan had picked out on satellite imagery.

You see this bend in the wash?

He said, pointing to a printed map he'd marked up.

Elevated on one side, Flat enough for camp.

Good line of sight all around.

If the clouds cooperate, we'll get the Milky Way right over that Mesa.

It really did look perfect on paper.

The landscape grew emptier the farther we went.

No power lines, no fence posts.

Just low sagebrush, scattered black brush, and the occasional twisted juniper.

The colors had that washed out late summer look, muted Reds and yellows and Grays that always makes the sky look even bigger.

We passed a couple of side roads, 2 tracks leading off toward nothing in particular.

A few had old sun faded BLM signs leaning at odd angles.

Some had no signs at all.

At one of those unsigned junctions, Ryan slowed automatically, eyes flicking between the dashboard GPS in the physical map.

Which one?

Miguel asked, leaning forward.

Left.

Ryan said.

The right one heads toward a dry lake bed that's basically a mud trap.

If it rains.

We took the left.

As the truck bounced over a shallow wash, I caught sight of a rusted out sedan half buried in sand off to our right.

It had no doors, no windows, and its roof was caved in.

A tumbleweed had claimed what used to be the back seat.

Something about it felt wrong, like it hadn't just been abandoned.

It had been left there on purpose.

I watched it vanish in the side mirror, a dark twisted shape against the bright sand.

Watch, we don't end up like that, I said, more to myself than anyone.

Ryan chuckled.

That's why I brought traction boards in a winch.

The road narrowed, squeezing between low, eroded ridges.

We crossed another wash, this one a little deeper.

The walls on either side rose up maybe 8 or 10 feet, crumbly sandstone and packed silt.

There were scratch marks along the sides, probably from cattle or deer, but they look disturbingly like claw marks in the fading light.

I didn't say anything.

By the time we reached the spot Ryan had chosen, the sun was maybe an hour from setting.

The wash curved in a lazy S shape, and there was a flat, slightly elevated area on the outer bend that looked like it had been used as a campsite before.

A blackened ring of stones marked an old fire pit.

Somebody had stacked a circle of rocks around it, and there were a few footprints, though they were too wind softened to read.

This is it, Ryan said.

Satisfied home for the next two nights, we got to work.

Miguel and I gathered Deadwood from the wash and nearby gullies while Ryan deployed the rooftop tent and awning.

The temperature dropped quickly once the sun brushed the horizon.

Desert heat bleeds away with the light and I could feel that sharp edge of night time creeping in even as the last rays turned the Mesa above us a deep rusty gold.

As I picked up a length of dry juniper, I noticed something half buried in the sand near a clump of grease wood.

It was a bundle of bones.

Not a skeleton laid out in any recognizable pattern, but a bunch of small bones, probably rabbit or something, wrapped up in what looked like dried weathered leather, tied with a strip of Yucca or sinew.

The whole thing was crusted with red dust and looked old, like it had been there a long time.

Someone had shoved it into the sand deliberately.

Hey, check this out.

I called.

Ryan walked over, wiping his hands on his shorts.

Miguel was right behind him, cradling an armful of branches.

The hell is that?

Miguel asked.

Probably some kind of, I don't know, kids idea of a creepy art project.

Ryan said, but his voice didn't sound as casual as the words.

He nudged it with the toe of his boot.

The bundle rolled a little and a few loose bones spilled out.

One of them was a lower jaw, tiny but unmistakably that of some small mammal.

The teeth were still intact.

It looks like those stick charm things from that movie, Miguel said.

Blair Witch.

Desert Edition.

If it was a movie prop, it'd be plastic, Ryan said.

This is real bone, probably from some predator's stash.

Coyote, Fox, They'll drag stuff around.

He scooped the bundle up with a Flat Rock and tossed it farther down the wash.

It hit the sand with a muted thud and lay there, a dark, lumpy shape against the pale ground.

Out of sight, out of mind, he said, dusting off his hands.

Let's get the fire going.

Sun's almost down.

I watched where it had landed for a second, longer than I meant to.

As the shadows lengthened, it seemed to sink into them, like the darkness was absorbing it.

Then Miguel called my name and I let it go.

I wish we'd taken that as the warning.

It was night in the desert.

Hits like a curtain drop.

One minute you can still see color, the subtle Reds and Browns of rock and dirt, and the next everything is either black silhouettes or Gray smears.

The stars come on gradually and then all at once, and the Milky Way looks fake, like someone smeared white paint across the sky.

We had the fire going strong by the time true darkness set in.

It crackled and popped, sending sparks up to join the stars.

We made burritos over the coals and drank cheap beer that somehow tasted expensive out there.

Miguel told a story about a Co worker who'd gotten lost on his way to the bathroom at a music festival and ended up sleeping behind a dumpster.

We laughed too loud, our voices bouncing off the invisible walls of the wash.

For a little while.

It was exactly the trip we'd planned.

The first sound was coyotes.

Or that's what we thought.

It started as a distant yipping, a high, excited chorus drifting across the empty land.

Pretty normal.

If you camp in the desert enough, you get used to coyotes as background noise.

But then it changed.

The yips stretched out, became long, almost human whales, not quite screams, but close enough that my brain had to work to convince itself it wasn't listening to a person.

There was something off about the rhythm, too, like the voices were trying to sync up and failing, overlapping in ways that made my skin crawl.

Miguel went quiet mid sentence, his beer halfway to his mouth.

Tell me that's not as freaky as it sounds, he said.

Ryan poked at the fire with a stick, eyes on the darkness beyond the circle of light.

Probably a pack getting worked up over a kill, he said.

They sound weird sometimes.

Another howl rose up, closer than the rest.

It started as a low, growling note and then cracked into a shrill half laugh, half scream that sounded nothing like any canine I'd ever heard.

It cut off abruptly, like someone had jammed a thumb on a mute button.

The wash swallowed the echo.

I realized I was gripping my camp chair harder than I meant to.

My knuckles were white in the firelight.

Yeah, Miguel said quietly.

That's not Sometimes they sound weird.

That's something else.

Desert's got good acoustics, Ryan said, forcing A grin.

Sound bounces in strange ways.

I had a campfire once where a donkey sounded like a demon.

Nobody laughed.

We sat there listening for another minute.

The chorus started up again, farther away this time, and I could tell Ryan was right about one thing.

The ground was doing something strange in the wash.

It seemed to come from One Direction and then another, like the voices were circling us without actually moving.

After a while, it faded.

We tried to pick the conversation back up, but it never really regained the same easy momentum.

The night pressed in around us, thick and watching.

I kept having the sensation that if I just turn my head fast enough, I'd catch something standing right at the edge of the firelight.

At some point, I realized Miguel's eyes had been flicking toward the same spot behind me every few seconds.

I turned casually, like I was stretching.

There was nothing there, just darkness and the vague outline of scrub.

You keep looking over there?

I said.

You seeing something?

He shook his head without meeting my eyes.

Just making sure I don't see something.

That didn't help.

Around 11, Ryan announced he was going to crash.

He climbed up into the rooftop tent, unzipped the flap, and disappeared.

The glow from his headlamps seeped through the fabric above us for a while, then clicked off.

I'm going to hit the bushes.

Miguel said, standing up and grabbing his own flashlight.

Desert etiquette.

You always announce when you're stepping out of camp at night, not because you expect something to happen, but because if it does, someone knows you didn't just wander off in your sleep.

You want me to tag along?

I asked.

I'll be fine if I'm not back in 5 minutes.

Assume I got eaten by those demon donkeys you guys were talking about.

He walked away, beam of light bouncing on the scrub, then slipping over the edge of the wash.

The sound of his footsteps crunched on the gravel for a few seconds, then faded.

I poked the fire and tossed on another piece of wood.

The flames leapt higher, chasing the shadows back for a moment before they crept in again.

That's when I heard my name.

Hey, Matt.

It came from behind me, a few yards away, Miguel's voice casual, like he was asking me to pass something.

I turned, expecting to see his flashlight coming back up from the wash.

There was nothing there, just darkness and the low, blank slope of the wash bank.

Yeah.

I called out, feeling stupid because maybe he was just out of sight behind a scrub patch.

Silence.

I waited.

The hair on the back of my neck started to rise.

Another minute passed.

The only sounds were the fire crackling and shifting, and the faint rustle of the breeze.

Mig.

I tried again, louder.

No answer.

I grabbed my own flashlight and stood up, my heartbeat ticking a little faster now.

Acting on pure habit, I called up to Ryan.

Hey, you awake?

Nothing at first.

Then the muffled sound of a zipper and Ryan's sleepy voice from inside the tent.

Huh.

Did Miguel come back up by you?

I asked.

I thought I heard him.

No, Ryan said he went to take a leak like 2 minutes ago, right?

He's probably just, you know, taking his time.

I stared into the dark where the voice had come from.

Yeah, I said probably.

I told myself I was being paranoid and that the weird howling earlier had put me on edge.

Then I told myself I was an idiot for standing around debating it instead of just walking 30 feet to check on my friend.

I stepped beyond the ring of firelight.

Immediately the temperature seemed to drop 5°.

The wash felt bigger, the sky taller.

The beam from my flashlight carved A narrow, shaky path through the black.

The sand at the edge of the wash still held our footprints from earlier.

I followed the more recent ones, Miguel's down the slope.

They were easy to pick out at first, a clear set of boot tracks leading toward a cluster of low shrubs.

Then they stopped.

There was a patch of bare, scuffed sand, like he'd spun around or shuffled, and then nothing.

No clear direction of travel, just the usual random pox of desert ground.

I swung the beam in a wider arc, trying to catch a line.

My mouth was dry.

Miguel.

I called.

I swear to God if you're messing with me, dude, relax.

A voice said behind me.

I almost dropped the flashlight.

I turned so fast I almost fell, beam slicing through the night.

There, halfway up the Bank of the wash was Miguel, silhouetted against the fire light.

He had one hand on his belt and the other lifted in a calm down gesture.

Jesus, I said, pressing a hand to my chest.

You scared the crap out of me.

When did you go back up?

He frowned.

Just now I went around that way.

He gestured off to the side.

I heard you say my name from up there, I said.

Like from that direction?

He shook his head.

Haven't said a word since I left.

Man, I was trying to pee in peace.

See any creepy coyotes?

I looked back at the spot where his footprints had ended, the scuffed patch of sand, the empty space beyond.

Nothing, I said.

Just nothing.

He stared at me for a second.

In the fire light, his expression looked different, too serious for Miguel.

You OK?

He asked.

Yeah.

I lied.

I'm fine.

Let's just get back by the fire.

We did.

We sat a little closer to the flames after that, like kids lining up around a night light.

We didn't talk about the voice.

I told myself I'd imagined it, that the wind had carried something weird, that my brain had filled the gaps.

It almost worked.

Around midnight, Miguel turned into He called up to Ryan, who mumbled something incoherent and climbed the ladder to the rooftop tent.

I stayed up a little longer, staring at the fire until it burned down to glowing coals.

The night sound settled into a low hum, distant insects, the occasional rustle of something small moving through the brush.

Just as I was about to douse the coals, I heard it again.

Hey, Matt.

Same voice, same casual tone, close enough that I should have been able to see the person speaking.

This time it came from the wash behind me.

I didn't turn around.

Every instinct in me screamed that if I turned, I wouldn't like what I saw.

Instead, I walked to the cooler, grabbed the water jug and poured it slowly over the fire.

The coals hissed, steam rising in a brief ghost before vanishing into the cold air.

The darkness closed in tighter now that there was no light to push it back.

Matt.

It was closer, just behind my right shoulder.

I climbed the ladder to the tent faster than I ever had before in my life, my palm slipping on the metal rungs.

I zip the flap behind me, heart pounding, and lay there in the dark, listening to my own breathing.

Nobody else said my name the rest of the night.

In the morning, I convinced myself it had been a dream.

It's amazing what daylight can do.

The same wash that had felt like the throat of some giant animal at night looked harmless in the pale sunrise.

The campsite, illuminated from a different angle, almost seemed smaller.

Ryan was already up, fiddling with his camera.

Miguel snored softly beside me until I nudged him.

Coffee.

Ryan asked, holding up the French press like a peace offering.

Please, I said as we drank.

I considered bringing up the voice thing, but something in me resisted.

Saying it out loud would make it real, and I wanted it to be anything but.

Instead, I pointed toward the sandy floor of the wash.

You see those?

I asked.

Tracks.

Not just ours.

Those were obvious boot prints from us, going back and forth, the patterns on Ryan's hiking shoes, Miguel's chunkier soles.

But there were others, Criss crossing in ways that didn't make sense.

Some looked canine paw prints with claws visible, maybe coyote.

But then there were longer, bare looking prints, almost human, but wrong.

Too long in the toes, the arch too narrow.

Some of them appeared to bend in a way a normal foot wouldn't, like the joint was a little too high.

Whoa.

Miguel said, suddenly very awake.

What the hell?

He hopped down into the wash, crouching near 1 of the clearer impressions.

His shadow cut across it.

Coyote, Ryan said automatically.

Maybe a dog somebody brought out.

Dogs don't have toes like that, Miguel said.

And what about that one?

He pointed a few feet away.

It was a handprint.

At least that's what it looked like.

4 long fingers, one shorter thumb, pressed into the damp patch where something had leaked from the bank after a rare rain, deep enough that whatever made it had been heavy.

The palm print was too long, The fingers were too thin.

Probably some kid messing around, Ryan said, but his voice lacked conviction now.

I mean, look where we are, campers off roaders.

Somebody got bored.

They'd have to be 7 feet tall with free cans, Miguel said.

And barefoot in cactus country.

I swallowed.

My tongue felt thick.

Animals don't.

I don't know, I said.

Maybe the mud deformed it.

Ryan straightened and stretched his back.

Look, if it bothers you that much, we can move camp, he said.

We've got all day, plenty of other spots.

Miguel looked at me.

You spooked.

I wanted to say yes.

I wanted to vote, to pack up and drive straight back to the nearest motel with solid walls and a bar downstairs.

Instead, I looked around at the wide open sky, the empty horizon, the glittering hint of the river in the distance.

I thought about how we'd planned this for weeks, how long it had been since I'd seen this many stars, how much it had meant to Miguel to get away from his apartment and its stale breakup atmosphere.

And, stupidly, I thought about the old man in the gas station, and how leaving now would feel like admitting he'd been right.

Nah, I said.

We're out here, we might as well enjoy it.

Let's just keep an eye out, yeah?

Ryan grinned.

See, that's the spirit.

Couple of weird tracks aren't going to ruin our weekend.

He raised his coffee mug in a mock toast.

To weird tracks and demon donkeys.

Miguel clinked his mug against ours.

And to not getting murdered by whatever left that handprint.

We laughed.

It didn't sound quite as genuine as the night before, but it did the job.

We decided to go exploring.

The plan for the day was to hike down the wash to where it intersected with what the map politely called a primitive Rd.

Basically 2 faint tire tracks cutting across the landscape, and then follow that toward a series of low sandstone outcrops.

Ryan thought they'd make good foreground subjects for his astrophotography later, and Miguel just wanted to see anything that wasn't his ex's couch.

We packed water, snacks, and a small day pack with essentials.

The sun was higher now, already promising heat, but a thin haze in the sky kept it from being brutal.

We followed the wash, stepping around the tracks we'd seen earlier.

They grew less distinct as we moved farther from camp.

Eventually it was just the usual scatter of animal prints and wind sculpted ripples.

An hour later, the wash widened and flattened.

Ahead we could see the faint line of the primitive Rd.

It was barely a suggestion of disturbed earth, but in a landscape this empty, that was enough.

Something else caught my eye before we reached it.

Off to the left, half hidden behind a low rise, was a structure.

Is that a Hut?

Miguel asked.

Old Hogan, maybe?

Ryan said quietly.

We walked toward it without really deciding to.

It was like the thing had its own gravity.

The structure was small, maybe 12 feet across, built from Timbers and packed earth.

The roof had partially collapsed and the doorway had no door, just a dark opening.

It looked old, but not ancient, like something that had been used within the last few decades, then abandoned.

There were no tire tracks or footprints leading to it that I could see.

Feels wrong to just like, go in.

I said.

We're just looking, Ryan replied, not touching anything.

Plus, there's no sign.

It's probably just an old line shack.

He said it like he wanted it to be true.

Miguel ducked through the doorway first, flashlight already in hand.

Even though enough light filtered through the gaps in the roof to see it was cooler inside.

The air smelled like dust and something else, something faintly sour like old sweat or animal Musk.

The interior was simple.

Packed dirt floor, a low wooden platform along one wall that might have served as a bed, A rusted stove in the corner, its pipe bent and broken where it used to go through the roof, a few cracked ceramic bowls on a makeshift shelf, and on the wall opposite the door, scratched into the dried mud between Timbers, was a symbol.

I don't know how else to describe it, except that it looked wrong.

It wasn't anything complicated, just a circle with four lines crossing through it at odd angles.

Not quite symmetrical, but the lines had been carved deep, over and over, like someone with all the time in the world had traced the same shape again and again until their hand bled.

Dried reddish brown streaks around the grooves suggested that might not be a metaphor.

Oh hell no, Miguel muttered.

This is how every found footage movie starts.

There were other marks too, words carved in English and another language I didn't recognize.

Some of the English ones had been partially scratched out, but a few phrases were still readable.

Don't listen, it knows names.

Stay out of the wash.

What the actual?

I started.

Ryan shined his light toward the bed platform.

Something glinted.

Guys, he said, you're going to want to see this.

On the platform, half buried under a threadbare blanket, was a small pile of objects, Trinkets, almost.

A couple of Polaroid photos, curled with age.

A lock of hair tied with red thread, a bone longer than the ones we'd found in the bundle back at camp, with notches carved into it.

Miguel picked up one of the photos.

The image had that washed out, overexposed look Polaroids get when they've been sitting around for years.

It showed a pickup truck parked in front of a low Mesa.

Two guys leaning against the hood, one holding up a beer, both mid laugh.

The sky above them was a brilliant blown out white.

The truck looked familiar.

Is that the same kind of Tacoma?

I asked.

Brian leaned closer.

Older model, but yeah, he said.

Same color even.

That's weird.

Miguel handed me the other Polaroid.

This one was darker.

Taken at night, it showed a campfire in the foreground, just like ours.

Beyond it, barely visible in the darkness, was the outline of a figure standing at the edge of the light.

Tall, thin limbs, just slightly too long.

The photographer had scribbled something along the bottom border, but it had smudged.

I could only make out a few letters.

Walk name, not him.

I shivered, despite the heat.

Let's put those back, I said, handing the photo to Miguel.

Wait, he said, squinting at it.

Doesn't that kind of look like back?

I repeated, sharper.

He hesitated, then nodded and laid both photos exactly where we'd found them.

Ryan set the bone and lock of hair down beside them carefully, like he didn't want to touch them any longer than he had to.

We stepped outside without needing to discuss it.

The sky felt too big again.

The sun staring down seemed a little harsher.

So Miguel said.

Who's ready to head back to camp and pretend we never saw that?

I thought you wanted to see a spooky old shack?

Ryan said, forcing a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

That was like, peak spooky.

I wanted movie spooky, Miguel said.

Corny, fake, lots of bad acting that was.

I don't know what that was.

I don't like that it knows names part.

That's weird, right?

Like specifically for us?

He looked at me pointedly.

Let's just not say our names out loud for a while, I joked weakly.

We'll be like Voldemort, He who must not be named.

Ha, Miguel said, without humor.

Cool.

I've always wanted to be a pronoun.

We followed the wash back toward camp, quieter now, every little sound a lizard skittering under a rock.

The wind shifting through the scrub felt amplified.

Halfway back, we found the bundle of bones Ryan had thrown the night before.

It was back in the wash, not where he'd tossed it, but almost exactly where I'd first found it.

Only this time, the leather wrapping had been cut open cleanly, and the bones were arranged in a little spiral on the sand.

In the center of the spiral, stuck upright, was a stick.

Impaled on the top of the stick was a tiny dried coyote skull.

Miguel swore under his breath.

Ryan went pale.

We didn't do this, he said.

Nope, I said.

We absolutely did not.

We stood there, the three of us staring at this little arrangement like it was a live animal that might leap at us.

This wasn't here when we left, Miguel said.

No, Ryan agreed, and nobody passed us in the wash.

We would have seen them, could have come in over the rim.

I suggested weekly, gesturing to the banks from up top.

Without leaving footprints?

Miguel asked.

Come on, man.

He was right.

The sand around the spiral was smooth, apart from our own prints at the edge.

OK, Ryan said, exhaling hard.

We're moving camp now.

Packing up a campsite you expected to stay in for days has a different energy when you're doing it because something unseen is messing with you.

We didn't talk much, we just moved.

Ryan collapsed the rooftop tent and stowed the awning with quick, efficient motions.

Miguel and I gathered gear, coiling ropes and tossing chairs into the truck bed.

I doused the fire pit with water, even though we weren't planning to use it again, because some parts of my brain were still operating on autopilot, and Smokey Bear is apparently one of them.

As I turned away from the fire pit, my boot caught on something.

I stumbled and looked down.

Embedded in the sand, half covered by ash, was another Polaroid.

For a second, my brain refused to process what I was seeing.

Then the image snapped into focus.

It was a close up of our campsite, Not like a random campsite that happened to look similar.

Ours, Ryan's Tacoma with its specific scratches in the custom bumper.

Our fire pit, our folding chairs, the ones we were literally packing up.

Even the blue cooler with the broken latch.

The angle suggested it had been taken from the opposite Bank of the wash.

Looking down, the sky was darker in the photo than it actually was at that moment, veering toward twilight.

Standing just beyond the circle of chairs, barely visible in the gloom, was a tall, thin shape, limbs lanky, head tilted at an unnatural angle, like it was listening.

The bottom of the Polaroid had fresh handwriting and black ink.

Don't let it answer for you.

I dropped the photo like it had burned me.

What?

Miguel asked, seeing my face.

I pointed.

He bent, picked it up, and looked at it, his face drained of color.

Ryan.

He called quietly.

You're going to want to see this.

Ryan came over, wiping sweat and dust from his forehead.

He took the photo, looked at it for about 3 seconds, then closed his eyes.

OK, he said.

His voice was very calm.

We're leaving.

Not just moving camp, we're leaving.

No one argued.

We threw the remaining gear into the truck.

Without bothering about organization.

Ryan climbed behind the wheel, Miguel took the passenger seat, and I squeezed into the back with the cooler and duffel bags.

The interior of the Tacoma felt weirdly small now, like the outside world had expanded and we were just a tiny metal bubble floating in it.

As we rolled away from the wash, I couldn't help glancing in the side mirror.

For a fraction of a second, I thought I saw someone standing where our fire pit had been.

Tall, ungracefully thin, head cocked, watching us leave.

Then the truck bounced, the angle shifted, and the spot was empty.

I didn't mention it.

If this were a movie, this would be the part where we find the main road blocked by a mysteriously fallen boulder or something.

Reality was subtler.

Ryan navigated by the GPS on the dashboard and the physical map on his lap.

The sun had climbed higher, and the haze that had softened its edges earlier was burning off.

Heat shimmered on the horizon.

Dust plumes from our tires trailed behind us, hanging in the still air.

We passed the junction where we turned left the day before.

Ryan slowed, checked the map, and turned right instead.

Main roads this way, he said.

Once we hit it, we're golden.

5-6 miles of dirt, then pavement.

No one argued.

We drove.

The landscape rolled past in monotonous waves, low ridges, stretches of flat, scattered scrub.

The road dipped into shallow washes and climbed out again, never more than two faint ruts in the sand.

The GPS showed a little Gray line, our route inching toward a thicker line that represented the main road.

After about 40 minutes, we crested a small rise, and I saw something ahead that made my stomach lurch.

The rusted sedan, half buried in sand, roof caved in tumbleweed in the back seat.

Didn't we pass that on the way in?

Miguel asked quietly.

Ryan didn't answer.

He slowed, pulled up beside it, and stopped.

The GPS still showed us heading toward the main road.

The little arrow ticked along cheerfully, ignorant of the fact that we were looking at the exact same burned out car we'd seen the day before from the other direction.

That's not possible, Ryan said.

Desert's got good acoustics, Miguel muttered.

Maybe the scenery bounces too.

Shut up, Ryan snapped, then immediately apologized.

Sorry, I just.

The main road should be less than two miles ahead, but we've been driving for almost an hour and this.

He gestured at the car.

It's like we just did a loop.

I said GPS can be off, Ryan said.

Map could be outdated.

Roads wash out new ones form it happens.

Does it happen in perfect circles?

Miguel asked.

None of us had an answer for that.

Ryan took a deep breath.

OK, he said.

New plan.

We backtrack all the way to where we left the main BLM Rd.

then follow that out.

No more side roads, no more shortcuts.

I thought of the old man at the gas station.

You see something?

Looks like a shortcut.

You ignore it.

Works for me, I said.

As long as we're moving.

We turned around.

The rusted sedan faded in the dust behind us.

30 minutes later, I saw it again.

Same car, same angle, same tumbleweed.

What the actual Miguel started, then stopped himself because there was nothing to finish the sentence with.

OK, now we're stuck in the twilight zone, he said instead.

Did we take a wrong turn?

We haven't had a turn, Ryan said tightly.

It's one Rd.

one.

I've been following the ruts.

There's nowhere to go wrong.

The GPS still showed us inching toward the main road.

If anything, we were closer than before, but the car in front of us didn't care what the GPS said.

Maybe there's more than one rusted sedan, I said.

Weekly.

Maybe.

Look, Miguel said.

He pointed toward the hood.

There, almost invisible under the dust, was a faint outline where some long gone owner had once stuck a decal and then peeled it off.

The adhesive had left a slightly darker shape that time and sun hadn't quite erased.

It was a circle with four lines crossing through it at odd angles, the symbol from the Hut wall.

I don't remember deciding to get out of the truck.

One minute I was in the back seat, the next my boots were sinking into hot sand.

The air felt heavier, the brightness of the sky pressed down.

We're not lost, Ryan said, more to himself than to us.

We can't be lost.

I have a compass.

I have a map.

I have.

He broke off from somewhere off to our right, faint but clear, came the sound of a woman crying for help.

Hello.

She called.

Please, someone.

Her voice was thin, ragged.

It carried on the still air, echoing slightly off the low ridges.

Miguel's head snapped in that direction that sounded like he started, then bit the rest of it off.

Like who?

I asked.

He stared at me, eyes wide, sweat beating on his forehead despite the dryness.

Nothing, he said, nobody.

I just.

It sounded familiar.

She needs help, Ryan said automatically.

If someone's hurt out here.

Wait, I said.

The memory of the gas station guy slammed into me like a wave.

You hear somebody calling you after dark?

You don't answer, not even if it sounds like your mom.

It wasn't dark.

The sun was very much up, but the feeling crawling up my spine didn't care.

We are not going after that, I said.

We don't know where it's coming from.

We don't know if it's real.

We're already turned around as hell.

The voice called out again.

Please, please, I can't.

My leg.

This time it sounded closer, and there was something else.

She wasn't out of breath enough.

I've heard people in real distress.

When you're hurt, when you're panicking, your words break in certain places, you gasp in the middle of sentences.

This voice didn't.

It was like someone had recorded a clip of a woman begging and was playing it on loop, adding little variations but never letting it slip into true chaos.

It's not real.

Miguel whispered.

The voice changed.

Matt, it called.

That did more to paralyze me than anything else.

It was a woman's voice still, but now it used my name.

Perfect pronunciation.

The way my mom said it when she was mad and trying not to sound mad.

The whisper in my ear the night before.

Hey, Matt, had been Miguel's voice.

This was the same cadence, the same casual familiarity, but mapped onto something else, like it had downloaded a new voice pack overnight.

Don't answer, Miguel muttered.

Don't say anything.

Don't, Matt, the voice called again.

Please, I know you hear me.

Why won't you help me get back in the truck?

Ryan said quietly.

He didn't have to tell us twice.

As soon as the doors slammed shut and he started the engine, the voice stopped.

Not faded, stopped like someone had hit pause.

We sat there, breathing hard, listening to the engine idle silence pressed in around us.

We're turning the PLB on.

Ryan said.

I don't care if this isn't life threatening yet.

We are obviously not thinking straight.

Something's wrong.

Let the cavalry come get us.

He reached for the glove compartment where he kept the orange locator beacon.

He froze.

He said what I asked.

It's not here, he said.

Check your bag, Miguel said.

Maybe you put it in there after we got to camp.

Ryan shook his head slowly.

No, I always keep it in the glove box every time.

I showed it to you when we left, Remember.

Yes, I said, my mouth dry.

He opened the center console.

Empty.

He checked the door pockets, the back seat, under the front seats.

Nothing.

It's gone, he said.

Something clicked in my brain then, a realization that came not as a thought, but as a cold, sinking feeling.

We weren't just being messed with.

We were being slowly, systematically stripped of exits.

I don't know how long we drove after that.

Time got weird.

The sun seemed to hang in the same position, never quite inching.

Toward afternoon, the GPS became less and less useful, its map loading blank tiles here and there, the root line glitching.

The compass on the dashboard spun lazily for a second at one point and then settled back in the same direction we'd been heading.

We passed landmarks that made no sense.

An outcrop shaped like a sleeping dog.

A lone dead tree with twisted branches.

A cluster of rocks that looked like someone had stacked them on purpose.

Then an hour later, we'd pass something that looked like the exact same outcrop tree rocks.

The rusted sedan appeared twice more.

Each time the symbol on its hood seemed darker.

The second time there was a Polaroid tucked under a Shard of broken windshield wiper, fluttering in the hot breeze.

Nobody wanted to get it.

We sat in the truck, staring at it like it was a snake.

Finally, Miguel swore, grabbed a bandana from his pocket, wrapped it around his hand like an oven Mitt, and snatched the photo without letting his skin touch it.

He climbed back into the truck, unwrapped it, and held it up.

It was another campfire shot, not ours this time.

Different chairs, different truck, different people.

Three of them.

Again, though, the faces were blurred with movement.

Standing just behind one of the chairs, it's hand resting on the back like it belonged there, was the tall, thin figure.

The eyes were the worst part.

They were too big and too round, and the pupil seemed to bleed into the surrounding iris.

Even though the photo quality was bad, they seemed to stare straight ahead.

Not at the camera, not at the fire, but out at us on the bottom of the photo, in the same black ink someone had written.

It can come as any of you, OK?

Miguel said.

So, fun question, how sure are we that we're all actually us right now?

It should have been the kind of joke he'd make normally, but his voice cracked on the last word.

I looked at him, then at Ryan.

Ryan looked back at both of us in the rearview mirror.

None of us said anything for a long moment.

Then Ryan forced a laugh that sounded like it hurt.

You've been with me since we left the house, he said.

And I've been with you.

If something swapped one of us out, when would it even have done it?

While we were all right there together.

Miguel opened his mouth, closed it, and then said.

What about last night?

We all thought of the same thing.

Miguel going to pee, his footprints ending in the wash.

The voice behind me.

I looked at Miguel.

He caught my glance and bristled a little.

What, you think I'm what?

A demon in a Miguel suit?

Come on, man, if I were one, I said slowly, choosing my words.

And I wanted to isolate one of us.

That's literally the exact scenario I'd use.

Get one person alone in the dark where it's hard to see details.

That's exactly what a demon in a mat suit would say.

He shot back automatically.

Ryan held up a hand.

Stop, he said.

We are not turning this into some paranoid freak out.

That's how people end up doing something irreversible.

We stay together, we don't wander off, we don't answer any voices that call us from anywhere we can't see.

We keep moving until we hit the main road or we run out of gas.

Those are the only options.

OK, Miguel said quietly.

OK, I echoed.

It wasn't OK.

The final twist didn't feel like A twist at first.

It felt like relief.

After what felt like hours of driving in circles, the road suddenly widened and smoothed out.

A sign appeared, an actual official metal BLM sign, not one of the faded wooden ones.

It had numbers on it that matched the main road on our map.

A few minutes later, we saw a pavement.

We went from dust to blacktop, like crossing some invisible border.

Ryan pulled over just long enough to get out and kiss the hood of his truck.

Miguel laughed, the sound a little too high, a little too close to crying.

I just sat there, staring at the stripe of Hwy.

stretching out in both directions.

Cars passed actual cars with people inside who had no idea what was happening a few miles off the road.

The normal world felt thin and fragile, like paper over something much bigger.

We hit Green River again around 5:00 in the afternoon.

The sun was finally starting to drop.

The town looked exactly the same as it had when we'd left.

There was one difference.

The old man from the gas station was sitting on the bench outside, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hands.

He watched us pull in with an expression that I can only describe as sad resignation.

When I got out of the truck, my legs stiff, he looked me up and down.

I told you to stay on the highway side of the line, he said.

We tried, I said.

My voice sounded hoarse.

We really did.

He shook his head slowly.

Think about that line, he said.

Is it ain't always where you think it is.

Ryan went inside to pay and to use the restroom.

Miguel leaned against the truck, staring at nothing.

I hesitated, then sat down on the bench next to the old man.

Can I ask you something?

I said.

You can, he replied.

Doesn't mean I'll answer fair, I said.

What do you know about?

I trailed off.

I didn't want to say the word out loud, half out of respect, half out of fear that it would hear about what's out there.

I finished.

Instead, he watched a pickup roll by on the highway.

I know there's places you don't go unless you have to, he said.

And if you do have to, you go with people who know the rules, not weekend Cowboys with rooftop tents and fancy cameras.

It's stung because it was accurate.

Whatever it was, I said it, it knew our names.

It took something it It likes names, he said.

Names are hooks.

You ever go fishing?

Yeah, I said you can sit there all day with a line in the water, but if you don't have a hook, you ain't catching anything.

That thing, it uses names like hooks, throws them out, sees who bites.

That's why you don't answer when it calls.

Not ever.

He sipped his coffee.

Sometimes, he added, you don't even have to answer.

Sometimes it just needs you to listen.

A cold, dead feeling opened up in my stomach.

I heard it, I said, But I didn't talk back.

Not, not after the first time.

Does that matter?

He looked at me for a long time.

Maybe, he said, maybe not.

Depends how long it's been watching you.

The world seemed to tilt for a second.

What do you mean?

I asked.

Instead of answering directly.

He reached into a shirt pocket and pulled out something small and white, a Polaroid.

He handed it to me.

It was old.

The colors were washed out, the edges yellowed.

It showed two people standing in front of a pickup truck, smiling at the camera.

The truck was older than the Tacomas we'd seen, but it had the same desert dust on it, the same BLM landscape behind it.

One of the guys in the photo was younger, with darker hair and fewer wrinkles, but his eyes were unmistakable.

It was the old man, the other guy.

For a second, I thought it was me.

The resemblance was close enough to make my heart stutter.

Same jawline, same messy hair, same crooked half smile.

But the clothes were all wrong for the era.

The truck was at least 30 years old.

The photo quality screamed late 80s, maybe early 90s, and the date scribbled in the corner back that up June 91.

That's my brother, the old man said quietly on the right.

That's me on the left.

We went out there when we were about your age.

Thought we knew everything, Thought we'd have some beers, chase some Jack rabbits.

Look at the stars.

He pointed with a shaking finger toward the background of the photo.

Just at the edge of the frame, half hidden behind the truck, was a tall, thin shape.

You see that?

He asked.

I nodded, throat tight.

We didn't, he said.

Not until years later.

I found this in a box after my mother died.

I saw that thing behind us, watching like it had always been there, like it was just waiting for us to figure out we weren't alone in the picture.

He took the photo back, tucking it into his pocket like it might bite next year.

He said my brother went back out there with some friends, didn't invite me.

I was mad at him for months, thought he was ditching me, you know, being an ass.

His fingers tightened around the coffee cup.

They never found him, he said simply.

Not a truck, not a shoe, not a bone.

Just gone like he'd never been.

The highway hummed.

I don't go past the line anymore, he said.

I sit here and I watch boys like you come and go, and I try to warn the ones who look like they might listen.

He looked me dead in the eyes.

You listened, he said.

Just not soon enough.

Ryan came out of the store then, keys in hand.

Miguel stubbed out his cigarette on the ground and kicked some gravel over it.

You guys ready?

Ryan asked.

Yeah, I said as I stood.

The old man grabbed my wrist.

His grip was surprisingly strong.

You still got all three of you?

He asked.

The question hit me harder than it should have.

Yeah, I said we're all here for now.

He murmured so softly I almost didn't hear it.

Life went back to normal after that.

Or it pretended to.

We drove home.

We dumped sand out of our boots and dust out of the truck.

We told people it had been a weird trip, without going into details.

We half joked about it for a while, turning it into a story we could tell at parties, smoothing over the edges.

Miguel moved on from his breakup.

Ryan started planning the next trip, this time to the coast.

I went back to work, back to my apartment, back to my routines.

For a while I convinced myself that what had happened was a combination of weird coincidences, bad navigation and sun fried brains.

That the voices had been illusions of sound, that the Polaroids were some elaborate joke left by other campers, that the tracks had been deformed by the wind.

The human mind is really good at building a fence between normal and unacceptable and locking the ladder away.

Then the dream started.

I'd wake up on the floor of that Hut, dirt in my mouth, the symbol carved into the wall pulsing like it was alive.

I'd hear my mom calling me from outside, then my brother's voice, then Miguel's, then my own, overlapping and twisting until I couldn't tell which was which.

I dream I was sitting by the fire at our campsite, only the chairs were all empty.

I'd feel eyes on me from just beyond the light.

When I turned to look, there would be a camera where Ryan should have been clicking on its own.

Snap it, snap, snap.

Each time a Polaroid would slide out and drift toward the fire, curling in the heat.

I'd wake up before they burned completely.

Heart pounding, the smell of smoke in my nose.

I told myself it was just my brain processing trauma.

Then one night, I woke up at 3:00 in the morning to the sound of my phone buzzing on the night stand.

I grabbed it automatically, expecting a spam call or some glitch.

No call, no notification.

The screen, though, was on, and the camera app was open.

The front facing camera pointed at me.

For a second I thought I'd somehow turned it on in my sleep.

Then I saw the thumbnail gallery at the bottom.

There were 12 photos, all of me sleeping.

Different positions, different angles.

The lighting changed slightly in each one, like they'd been taken over the course of hours.

In one, my mouth was half open, a line of drool on the pillow.

In another, my arm was flung above my head in every single photo.

Hovering in the darkest corner of my room was a tall, thin shape.

Its eyes reflected the phone's screen light.

Twin pale orbs.

The timestamp on the first photo

was 12:17 AM.

The timestamp on the last was 302.

AMI checked my door, still locked from the inside, the chain still latched.

I checked the windows closed, latched.

No signs of tampering.

My phone had been on my night stand the whole time, far enough away that I would have had to sit up and reach for it, which I clearly hadn't, judging by the photos.

I deleted them.

I don't know why.

Instinct, maybe?

As if getting rid of the evidence would somehow get rid of what they showed.

It didn't matter.

The next night, there were eight more.

I hadn't heard the phone buzz, I hadn't stirred, but there they were.

More pictures, more angles, the thing in the corner, always just far enough into the shadows that I couldn't see details, only shape.

I turned the phone off before bed.

After that I put it in the kitchen.

I still woke up to fresh photos.

Some mornings the phone mysteriously powered on again, battery slightly drained.

It stopped after a week.

Or maybe it just got bored taking pictures.

The last time we all got together in person, me, Ryan, and Miguel, was about six months after the trip.

We met at this bar downtown that had good burgers and decent beer.

Normal guy stuff.

The desert stuff came up pretty quickly.

It felt like it had been waiting just under the surface of all our small talk.

You guys still having weirdness?

Miguel asked.

Nightmares, I admitted.

Sometimes.

And this other thing with my phone.

Ryan stared at his drink.

Same, he said.

Not the phone thing, but the the feeling like something's in the room, just out of sight, like stepping into a spider web you can't see.

Miguel laughed, but there was no humor in it.

You know what's messed up, he said.

I started checking mirrors, like I'll be brushing my teeth and suddenly I'll think, what if my reflection doesn't move right, Has it?

I asked.

No, he said.

Not yet.

We all sat there for a second, absorbing the yet.

Then Ryan said.

I've been thinking about that Polaroid, the one that said it can come as any of us.

Miguel frowned.

Why?

Because, Ryan said slowly.

I haven't told you guys this yet, but after we got back, I found something in my gear in my camera bag.

Another photo?

I asked, stomach dropping.

He nodded.

I didn't take it, he said.

I know what's in my camera.

I manage my SD cards like a control freak, but when I plug the card in there, it was one extra shot.

What was it?

Miguel asked.

Ryan hesitated.

It was a picture of my bedroom, he said, taken from the corner by the closet.

I wasn't in it.

The bed was made, the curtains were open, light coming in.

Totally normal except for one thing.

What?

I asked.

Ryan took a long drink of his beer, like he needed liquid courage.

There was someone sitting on the bed, he said, back to the camera.

Same build as you, Matt, same hair, wearing clothes I've never seen you wear.

He met my eyes.

I called out your name.

He said in my empty apartment, like an idiot.

What happened?

I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.

Nothing, He said.

Nothing at all.

I deleted the photo.

But I haven't taken the battery out of my DSLR at night since then.

I don't want it pointing at anything.

Miguel shuddered.

So what, we're just stuck with this now?

He asked.

It followed us home like some kind of horror movie STD.

We don't even know what it wants.

I thought about the old man's analogy.

Fishing hooks, names.

I think it wants invitations, I said.

Opportunities.

Little cracks in the door, like answering when it calls, Ryan said.

Or going off by yourself, or ignoring a warning from someone who's seen it before.

It wasn't meant as an accusation, but it landed like one anyway.

We sat there, three guys in a noisy bar, surrounded by people who had no idea that a few miles off a Utah highway, there was a place where roads looped wrong and names were bait.

Eventually, the conversation drifted to safer topics.

Sports, work, plans for the holidays.

We hugged it out in the parking lot, like, why not, We might as well, Life is short.

Miguel joked that we should get matching.

I survived the Utah desert tattoos.

We laughed.

I watched them drive away and felt a familiar chill under my ribs.

2 weeks later, Miguel stopped answering texts.

At first I thought he was just busy.

People go through phases.

Then I saw his Instagram go dead.

No new posts, no likes, no stories.

I called him straight to voicemail.

I drove to his apartment.

His car was gone.

The manager said he'd moved out, left his keys in an envelope, paid up through the month.

He hadn't told us.

I called his mom, pretending I just wanted to catch up, she said.

She thought he'd gone to get some fresh air for a while, maybe down South.

He'd always like the desert as a kid, she said.

Weird place for a fresh start, she added.

But Diego always was a strange one.

Diego, I repeated.

Throne, Miguel, she corrected.

Sorry, we still slip sometimes.

He hated when we called him by his first name.

He's always gone by his middle name.

You know how kids are.

I hung up and sat in my car for a long time, staring at nothing.

Miguel's first name.

I had never heard it before, not once on the trip, not once in all the time I'd known him.

It felt like a very small thing, that missing piece of information.

And then I thought of the Hut wall.

It knows names.

And I thought of the Polaroid.

It can come as any of you.

And I thought of the voice in the wash sounding like him, saying my name.

Hey, Matt, if it knew his real name, the one he'd spent his whole life avoiding, the one he never answered to, what would that mean?

Would it be a deeper hook, or would it be the one thing it couldn't use?

I don't have a neat ending for this.

I don't know where Miguel is.

I don't know if he just took off without saying goodbye because he wanted a clean break from everything, or if something wearing his face is out there right now, sitting by somebody else's fire.

Learning new names.

I don't know why it seems content to just watch me, to take pictures while I sleep, to rearrange small things in my apartment when I'm not looking.

A mug slightly moved, a chair angled differently, a jacket on the wrong hook.

Maybe it's playing with its food.

Maybe it's just patient.

What I do know is this.

Sometimes, when I'm drifting off right in that thin space between awake and asleep, I hear my own voice Call My Name from somewhere just behind me.

Hey, Matt.

And every instinct I have screams to answer, to say what, or yeah, or even just make some noise to prove I'm not alone.

I don't.

I lie there, muscles locked, heart pounding, and I let the silence stretch out until the voice gives up.

At least, I think it gives up, because lately in the morning, I've been finding Polaroids tucked into strange places between pages of books in the silverware drawer under the doormat.

Always the same format, a picture of me unaware, doing dishes on my laptop, sitting on the couch.

And in every single shot, just at the edge of the frame is something tall and thin, half turned toward the camera.

The last one was different.

It was a picture of my front door, taken from the inside.

The chain was off, the deadbolt was unlocked.

In the fisheye distortion of the peephole, there was a face too close, too wide, like someone trying to look through from the other side.

The handwriting at the bottom said it's your turn to answer.

I moved apartments after that.

New building, new locks, no windows facing the hallway.

I changed my number.

I got rid of my smartphone and bought a dumb flip phone with no camera.

I stopped going on camping trips.

I started sleeping with the TV on.

The Polaroid still show up sometimes.

I'm not posting this because I think it'll fix anything.

I know how this sounds.

If I read it a few years ago, I'd roll my eyes and move on.

I'm posting it because maybe you're planning a trip.

Maybe you're looking at maps of Utah at all that empty space and thinking how cool it would be to get away from everything for a few days.

Maybe you've already gassed up the truck.

Maybe you've already told your friends.

Maybe you'll stop in a small town gas station along the way and some old guy will tell you not to go past the line.

Maybe you'll laugh it off, or maybe you'll listen a little sooner than we did.

If you go anyway.

If you ignore all of this and decide I'm just making stuff up for Internet points, do me one favor.

When you're sitting by your fire and you hear someone call your name from the darkness in a voice that sounds like someone you trust, don't answer.

Because the thing about skinwalkers isn't just that they can look like anything.

It's that once they know your name, they don't have to knock.

They're already inside the story and they're very, very patient.

I'm going to be careful about details.

I'll give real places and real logistics because that matters for credibility.

But I'm not giving exact coordinates, not naming the family, and not naming the specific Rd.

we turned off on.

If you know the area, you'll probably guess the general region anyway.

If you don't, you don't need a map to understand what happened.

This was in northwestern New Mexico.

A week long visit that stretched into 8 days because our exit got complicated.

Four friends, me, Jonah, Lila and Marin.

We were all late 20s early 30s.

We weren't thrill seeking kids.

We all had day jobs.

Lila shot photos for weddings and side gigs.

Marin was the always prepared one.

First aid kit, water filters, extra headlamps.

I was the one who recorded everything, not because I'm brave, but because I'm anxious.

Documentation makes me feel like I can control things.

If I write it down, if I capture audio, if I can explain it later, maybe it won't eat me alive.

The one thing that made this trip possible was that Marin had connections, not the I once took a class kind.

Her mom's side had family ties out there, and she'd grown up visiting.

She didn't present it like we were going to meet a tribe, which is the gross tourist way people talk.

She said we were going to visit her aunt and uncle, help out around the property, eat too much food, and get out in the open country for a few days because we'd all been burned out.

We drove from Albuquerque up through familiar highways, then W.

You know that feeling when the city drops away and the sky gets bigger every mile?

That was the vibe at first.

We stopped in Gallup for supplies.

We bought too much water, more ice than we needed, and a stupid amount of batteries because I'd read enough desert rescue stories to know better.

We filled up the tank, filled 2 Jerry cans, grabbed a cheap tarp and extra propane.

We had cell service in town.

Then it started to thin out like a radio station fading when you're driving away from the tower.

Marin's aunt and uncle, again I won't name them, lived outside one of those towns where the map shows a dot and a name, but the reality is wide distances in scattered homes.

The house was modest but cared for A couple of outbuildings, a wind worn fence line, a few animals, a truck that looked like it had been alive longer than some of us.

The kind of place where you can tell who you are by whether you pull up and start taking pictures or whether you get out and ask where you can help.

Her aunt hugged her like she was returning from war.

Her uncle shook our hands and looked at our gear with that polite expression adults have when someone shows them a hobby they don't understand.

We were welcomed, but also assessed.

I'm not saying that as a creepy thing, it was just real out there.

You don't let people wander your property without knowing what kind of people they are.

That first evening was normal in the best way.

Food, stories, practical talk.

We sat outside as the heat bled off into the dark.

You could see stars, like someone spilled salt across velvet.

Jonah tried to make jokes.

Lila took a couple photos until Marin gently nudged her.

Like, not now.

I recorded a few minutes of ambient audio, because I always do.

Wind, insects, distant dogs.

If you've never heard night out there, it's not silent.

It's layered.

The quiet is what happens between the layers.

At some point the conversation drifted toward where we wanted to hike.

We had a loose plan, A day trip to see rock formations, a night out camping on public land carefully, legally, and maybe a longer hike if the weather stayed stable.

I was the one pushing for a certain area because I'd seen it in photos online.

Jonah wanted the alien looking Badlands.

Lila wanted anything with good light.

Marin just wanted us to be respectful and not stupid.

Her uncle listened and then said very flatly, Don't go out at night.

Marin nodded like that was a normal reminder.

Like wear sunscreen.

Jonah laughed a little, because Jonah laughs when he's nervous.

We're not trying to get lost.

Her uncle didn't laugh back.

Not about getting lost.

I watched Marin's aunt's face, the way her eyes went down for a second, like she was putting a lid on something.

She said daytime is good.

Daytime is safe, Night time is for home.

Lila said something like we're city people, we'd be asleep anyway.

And Marin, bless her, didn't let it get weird.

She said we'll stick to day hikes and if we camp, we camp smart, we won't wander around.

Her uncle looked at each of us, 1 by 1.

Then he said if you hear someone calling your name and you don't see them, you don't answer, you come inside.

Jonah started to say something, then didn't.

I think we all felt the shift.

The air didn't get colder, but it got heavier.

The way it does when someone stops making conversation and starts giving rules.

I didn't ask about skinwalkers that night.

I didn't bring up that word.

I'd read enough to know that outsiders tossing it around is disrespectful at best.

But I did note it in my phone later.

Rule, don't answer name call if unseen.

Rule, no night walking tone serious.

Not joking.

That was day zero.

The setup.

The first real day was day one, and it started like the whole thing was going to be one of those trips you tell people about at parties.

Wide skies, good food, family, warmth, and a little spooky folklore if you want to frame it that way.

We woke up early because the family woke up early.

That's what happens when you stay with people who live by the sun.

Instead of alarms, we helped with small chores.

Nothing dramatic.

Carrying water, moving things, sweeping, helping prepare food.

The kind of helpfulness that also lets the family keep an eye on you and decide if you're safe to have around.

Late morning, we took a short drive to a nearby viewpoint.

Real roads, real signage, the kind of place you can find on a map.

If you look, the landscape out there has a way of making you feel like a tiny piece of lint on a huge table.

The ground looks simple until you get close and realize it's full of texture.

Stone scrub, dry washes, tracks, little lives moving under your feet.

This is where the First off thing happened and I almost didn't include it because it sounds like nothing.

But it mattered later because it was the first time we all stopped at the same moment.

We were walking along a dirt pull off area not far from the truck.

Jonah was messing with a drone, Lila was taking photos of the horizon line.

Marin was pointing out plants and telling us what not to touch.

I was recording audio and taking notes like a weirdo.

We heard something that sounded like a baby crying.

Not a coyote Yip, not a bird.

An actual baby cry.

Thin and sharp, the way it cuts right through your brain.

We all looked at each other.

Because it's the kind of sound your body reacts to, Jonah said.

Is there someone out here?

Marin's face changed.

Not panic, something more controlled.

She said no.

The crying came again, same cadence, like someone hitting play on a clip.

It wasn't moving closer, It wasn't moving farther.

It was just there, beyond a ridgeline, out of sight.

Lila lowered her camera.

That's a baby.

Marin didn't answer right away.

Then she said no, it's not.

Jonah started walking toward the Ridge.

Not far, 10 steps, maybe.

Marin grabbed his sleeve hard enough to stop him.

She said, Lo, no.

He looked at her like she'd slapped him.

What if someone left?

There's nobody, she said.

We're going back.

I wish I could tell you I listened immediately because I'm respectful and wise.

The truth is, I froze and just watched.

The crying happened 1/3 time.

It sounded identical.

Same length, same pitch, same break at the end.

Like a gasp, like a file on loop.

Marin didn't let it go further.

She didn't argue.

She didn't explain, she just guided us back to the truck with her body positioning the way people heard drunk friends out of bars.

Without making a scene, we got in and shut the doors.

The sound stopped.

That's the whole event.

No monster, no eyes in the dark, nothing you can point to.

Just a sound that made four adults act like kids who heard a door creak upstairs.

On the drive back, Jonah tried to rationalize.

It could have been a fox.

I heard foxes can sound like Marin cut him off.

Don't.

Her tone wasn't angry.

It was final.

Jonah looked out the window and didn't say much after that.

Back at the house, we didn't bring it up immediately.

We ate, we rested, we tried to keep the day normal.

But I noticed Marin talking quietly with her aunt in the kitchen, heads close.

I caught a word here and there, not enough to piece together.

Her aunt glanced toward the window a few times, like she was checking the yard without making it obvious.

That night, the dog started barking.

There were at least two dogs on the property, and a couple more that belong to neighbors within shouting distance.

Barking out there isn't constant, but when it happens, you hear it like a chain reaction.

It started around the time the sky fully went dark.

At first it was one dog, then another, then a burst of frantic barking that felt different.

Less there's a coyote and more there's something here.

I stepped out onto the porch without thinking, because I'm stupid like that.

The air was cool and dry.

The porch light made a small circle.

Beyond that circle, the yard was black.

You could see silhouettes of fence posts and the outlines of distant scrub.

The dogs were barking toward the far side of the property, toward a stretch where the fence line ran and then disappeared into open land.

I didn't see anything.

No movement, no eyes.

Just barking and the wind and my own heartbeat behind me, Marin's uncle said inside.

He wasn't raising his voice.

He didn't sound scared.

He sounded like someone telling a child not to touch a hot stove.

I went inside.

That was day one.

Mild, mostly normal.

The kind of day you'd forget if the week didn't stack on top of it.

Day 2 started with us pretending nothing happened.

We did chores again.

We helped.

We stayed busy.

The family didn't treat us like fragile visitors, they treated us like extra hands, which I appreciated.

It made it harder to fall into the we're in a spooky story mindset.

It grounded us.

Midday, Marin suggested a hike in a more populated area, still rural, still wide open but not isolated.

A place with occasional other vehicles, occasional other hikers.

I agreed.

Jonah agreed.

Lila agreed.

Nobody wanted to admit we were choosing safer because of a crying sound and barking dogs, but that's what it was.

We drove out, parked, and started along a trail that cut through low scrub and rock.

The light was hard, the kind that makes shadows sharp.

We had water, we had hats, We had AGPS unit Marin insisted on.

I had my phone and a handheld recorder.

Jonah brought the drone again and actually kept it in the case after Marin gave him a look.

About an hour in.

We found tracks.

I know how that sounds.

We found tracks is the oldest line in the book.

But I'm not talking about vague scuffs and sand.

I'm talking about a clean set of prints crossing a patch of soft dirt near a dry wash.

The soil there held impressions like clay.

They looked like dog prints, sort of, but wrong.

Too long.

The pads didn't look like a normal domestic dog.

The tow arrangement wasn't quite right, and here's the part that stuck with me.

The stride length was strange, like something that wasn't trotting on 4 legs but also wasn't walking like a person.

Marin crouched and stared for a long time.

Lila took pictures.

Jonah hovered behind us suddenly.

Not joking.

I recorded in a low voice.

Location, time, conditions.

I said out loud that they resembled canine prints but unusual morphology.

I was trying to sound like I was writing a field report because that's what I do when I'm unsettled.

We followed the tracks for maybe 30 yards until they hit rock and vanished.

That happens constantly out there.

Tracks appear and disappear because the ground changes.

It's not proof of anything, but it flipped a switch in my brain.

The crying sound yesterday, the barking last night, and now this.

Three small nothing things make a pattern if you're already primed.

We kept hiking.

We saw a couple other people later, which should have made me feel better, but it also made me feel stupid, like I was inventing a story in my head.

I wanted the week to be normal again, and I caught myself trying to force that.

On the way back, we heard our names.

This is where I need you to understand something.

It wasn't someone behind us on the trail yelling hey, it wasn't an echo from another hiker.

It wasn't Marin's aunt calling from the truck.

We were still a good distance from the parking area.

We were in a shallow cut between low ridges.

The wind was light, the sound carried clean.

It was my name, once from off to the right, then Jonah's name, once from somewhere behind us.

Then Lila's name, her full name.

Not just Lee from ahead, like someone was waiting around a bend.

It wasn't shouted, it wasn't conversational, it was the exact tone you use when you're trying to get someone's attention without alarming them.

Marin stopped walking so fast it was like she hit a wall.

She didn't answer, she didn't turn.

She put her hand up, palm out a universal stop sign.

Then she pointed forward and kept walking at the same pace, like we hadn't just heard anything.

Jonah whispered.

Is that you guys messing with?

Marin said, still not looking around.

Keep walking.

I did keep walking.

I didn't call back.

I didn't even clear my throat.

My mouth felt dry in a way that wasn't just desert dehydration.

It was that animal feeling you get when your body decides your prey and it's not interested in your opinions.

Lila was behind me.

I heard her breathing get shallow, like she was trying not to cry.

I wanted to reach back and touch her shoulder, but I didn't want to break the line of movement.

That's how it felt like if we broke the line, something would step in.

We got to the truck without anything else happening.

No figure stepped out.

Nobody ran at us.

Nothing jumped.

If you want fireworks, this isn't that kind of story.

It was a week of pressure, like something squeezing the room a little tighter every day.

That night I listened to my recordings.

I'm not an audio engineer, but I know enough to look at waveforms.

The name moments were there.

Clear peaks, distinct syllables.

I could hear my name, I could hear Jonah's, I could hear Lila's, I could not hear Marin's.

That detail bothers me more than any monster because if it was hikers, why no Marin?

And if it was my own brain, why did my recorder catch it?

Day three is when the family stopped treating our trip like a normal visit and started treating it like a situation.

That morning, Marin's uncle asked us where we went the day before.

Marin tried to keep it casual, but she didn't lie.

She said we hiked, we saw tracks, we heard things.

Her uncle's face stayed steady, but his jaw tightened.

He asked.

You answered.

Marin said no.

He looked at the rest of us.

I said no.

Jonah said no.

Lila nodded.

Her uncle walked out of the kitchen without another word.

A few minutes later, he came back with something in his hands, small bundles tied.

He handed one to Marin, one to his wife, one to himself.

He didn't hand one to us.

He didn't explain.

He didn't perform.

It wasn't for us, it was for them.

That's when I felt the line.

We were guests, and there were parts of this we weren't entitled to.

The day itself was quieter.

We stayed close to the house.

We helped more.

We didn't go off hiking.

We tried to occupy ourselves with practical work.

Jonah fixed a loose latch.

Lila helped cook, I helped with hauling and tried not to stare out windows.

Late afternoon, a neighbor came by, a man in a dusty truck, older than all of us.

He didn't get out right away.

He sat in the truck, talking to Marin's uncle through the open window.

I couldn't hear the words, but I could see the posture, serious, focused.

After the neighbor left, Marin's aunt told us No leaving tomorrow.

Weather.

We looked at the sky.

It was clear Marin didn't challenge it.

She just nodded.

Jonah opened his mouth like he was going to argue logistics, then closed it.

That night, the dogs didn't just bark, they howled.

There's barking that's territorial.

There's barking that's excited.

Then there's the sound a dog makes when its instincts are screaming and it doesn't have language for it.

It's a long rising note that turns into panic.

It started around midnight.

I know because I checked my phone the first time it woke me.

I got up and went to the window.

The yard was black.

The dogs were out there losing their minds.

Then, over the dogs, I heard something else.

A voice, not my name this time.

A voice talking in a low tone, like two people having a conversation just beyond the fence line.

I couldn't make out words, but I could hear the cadence, pauses, emphasis, the up and down pattern of speech.

I leaned closer to the glass.

The hair on my arms lifted.

Then the voice shifted.

It wasn't a smooth transition.

It was like a radio station snapping to a new channel.

Suddenly it was louder and nearer, and I could make out a sentence.

It said very clearly.

Open the door.

Not shouted, not demanded, just stated.

Like someone reminding you, You forgot something.

I didn't move, I didn't breathe.

I stood there with my hand on the curtain like a child frozen in a horror movie.

My brain tried to rationalize it.

Neighbor prank.

Someone lost.

But nobody sane says open the door at midnight in a place like that, and nobody says it in that calm, flat tone.

I backed away from the window and went to Marin's room.

I didn't knock loudly.

I tapped.

She opened the door immediately, like she hadn't been asleep.

I whispered.

I heard a voice outside.

She didn't ask what it said.

She didn't say Are you sure?

She just nodded once, like she'd been waiting for this moment to happen.

She said don't look.

I realized then that she'd been hearing things longer than we had.

She'd been on the edge all day because she knew the pattern.

We sat in the living room with the lights off.

We didn't talk much.

Jonah came out too pale and blinking.

Lila appeared wrapped in a blanket like armor.

We listened to the dogs until the dogs went quiet.

That was worse.

Silence out there isn't calming.

Silence means the alarm system stopped working.

After the dogs went quiet.

We heard footsteps along the fence line, slow, measured, then a scraping sound like something dragging a stick along wire.

Then nothing.

We stayed inside until dawn.

Nobody suggested we go check.

That alone tells you how real it felt.

In the morning, Marin's uncle walked the fence line with a flashlight and a shovel.

We didn't follow.

We watched from the porch.

He came back with his face set.

He didn't tell us what he saw, but he told us you stay close.

No going out.

Not today.

That was day three.

The first night we all heard it.

The first time it spoke in a way that felt aimed.

Day 4 was the day I started building a case in my head like an investigator would.

And also the day I realized a case doesn't protect you from fear.

I started doing what I do when I'm scared.

I made a list.

Events Day one crying sound loop like dogs bark at fence.

Day 2, unusual tracks, names called, recorded no Merin name.

Day three, neighbor consult, weather excuse, midnight voices open the door.

Dogs silenced fence scraping, possible explanations, human prank or trespasser, Predators, Coyote, cougar plus coincidence, Audio illusions, Wind echoes plus stress.

Something else.

I hated that last line.

Something else is where your brain puts things it can't label without sounding insane.

Midday, Marin's aunt sent us with her uncle to pick up supplies.

Real practical reason to leave the property and also a way to get us away from the house if something was circling it.

We drove into town, did the normal errands, groceries, hardware store, gas.

I watched Marin's uncle's posture in public.

He looked like a man carrying something heavy in his chest.

He didn't chat with strangers, He kept his eyes moving.

Not paranoid like a person seeing conspiracies, but alert, like someone scanning weather.

On the way back, as we passed a stretch of open land, we saw an animal in the road.

At first glance it looked like a dog, medium size coyote ish.

But it wasn't moving like an animal that's wary of vehicles.

It just stood there, facing us in the middle of the lane, head slightly tilted.

Marin's uncle slowed.

He didn't honk.

He didn't accelerate.

He didn't swerve.

He braked to a stop a safe distance away.

The animal looked at us.

I know that sounds like me projecting meaning onto a stair, but I mean it literally.

Its head was up, eyes on the truck still.

Then it opened its mouth and it made a sound I can only describe as a laugh that didn't belong to an animal.

Not a hyena whoop, not a coyote Yip.

A human.

Like exhale broken into syllables, like someone chuckling under their breath.

It was brief, it could have been anything if you heard it once in the wrong context, but after the week we'd had, it landed like a wait.

Marin's uncle whispered something under his breath in his language.

He didn't spit, he didn't shout.

He just said it like a prayer.

The animal stepped off the road slowly, like it was doing us a favor.

We drove on.

Nobody talked.

The entire truck felt like it was filled with a thick, invisible fog.

Back at the house, Marin's aunt asked.

Did you see something?

Marin's uncle nodded once.

Her aunt's face tightened.

She looked at us and said, You don't go anywhere now.

Jonah finally broke, not in a dramatic way, he just said quietly, What is happening?

Marin answered him in the only honest way.

I don't know.

Then, after a pause, she added.

But I know it's not nothing.

That night, the escalation was subtle but personal.

I went to bed exhausted from adrenaline.

I slept for maybe an hour.

Then I woke up because I thought I heard someone in the room.

I lay still.

The air felt wrong, too quiet, like the sound had been turned down.

I listened for breathing besides my own.

I didn't hear it.

I told myself I dreamed.

Then I heard a slow scratch against the outside wall near the window, like nails on stucco.

3 scratches, pause, 3 scratches.

I didn't move.

I didn't reach for my phone.

I didn't want the screen light to make me visible.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to control my breathing like I'd learned in anxiety therapy.

In Hold out, the scratching moved.

Not louder, not closer, just relocated.

Like whatever was making it was drifting along the wall to find a better spot.

Then, outside the window, I heard my own voice.

It said in my tone, Hey, open up, it's me.

That's the part that still makes my stomach go cold, even writing it, because it wasn't open the door in a flat stranger voice.

It was my voice using my casual cadence.

Like I'd stepped outside for something and came back locked out, annoyed.

It wasn't perfect.

The pacing was slightly off.

The way it said it's me had a strange emphasis, like it was repeating a phrase it learned without fully understanding it.

But the tambour, the basic sound, was mine.

I didn't answer.

The voice tried again.

Different phrasing.

Still mine.

Come on, man, let me in.

Then it stopped.

I didn't sleep the rest of the night.

In the morning I told Marin I didn't want to, but I did.

Her face didn't show surprise.

It showed resignation.

She said it learns.

That was all she said.

Day 5 was the day we made the decision that we should leave, and the day we realized leaving wasn't as simple as getting in a car and driving away.

We'd come for a week.

This was supposed to be the go out into the outdoors part.

The irony is we were barely leaving the property anymore.

We were prisoners of our own respect and fear.

By midday, Jonah was pacing.

Lila was quiet.

In that way people get when they're trying not to cry in front of others.

Marin was glued to her aunt and uncle, listening for cues.

I was tired and angry at myself for recording everything, but feeling powerless.

We sat down with her aunt and uncle, all of us in a straight conversation.

It wasn't dramatic, it was practical, Marin said.

We think it's better if we go.

Her uncle nodded immediately, like he'd been waiting for us to say it so he wouldn't have to.

Her aunt hesitated a fraction, then nodded too, but her eyes were sad, not offended, like she was watching something she couldn't protect us from.

Her uncle said.

You leave in the morning, not at night.

You go straight, no stops.

Jonah asked.

What about?

Her uncle cut him off, not unkindly.

No stops.

I asked, because I couldn't help it.

Is it a person?

Her uncle looked at me for a long time.

Then he said sometimes that answer is one I've turned over for months, like a stone in my pocket.

Sometimes.

Not always, not never.

Sometimes.

That afternoon, something happened that moved it from Erie to threat.

One of the animals, one of the families, was found dead near the fence line.

I'm not going to describe it in detail because it's not respectful and it's not necessary.

I'll keep it clinical.

There were injuries consistent with predation, but the pattern didn't match what Marin's uncle expected.

Not a clean kill like a cougar.

Not a scattered mess like dogs.

There was something methodical about it, like a demonstration rather than a hunt.

Her aunt stood over it with her hands pressed together, eyes shut.

Her uncle's face was hard.

He didn't let us get close.

He told us to go back inside.

The rest of the day felt like waiting under a low ceiling.

The sky was bright, the weather was fine, but everything felt compressed that night.

There was no scratching, no voices, no barking.

It was calm.

That calm was worse than noise because it felt like being watched by something that didn't need to announce itself anymore.

I did one thing I'm not proud of.

I set up my recorder near a window and hit record, hoping to catch something.

I told myself it was for evidence.

If I'm honest, it was also because I wanted proof that I wasn't losing my mind.

Around 2:00 in the morning, the recorder captured something.

Not a voice, not a name.

A low, rhythmic thump against the side of the house, like someone tapping wood with the flat of a hand.

Slow, patient.

It went on for almost a minute, stopped, then started again, closer to another wall.

No footsteps, no shifting weight.

Just the sound in the morning, Marin's uncle walked the outside perimeter.

He found prints in the dirt near the wall.

He didn't show us right away, but later when we were loading the car, he pointed with his chin and said, look, the prints were deep.

They looked like bare human footprints at first glance.

Heel arch toes.

But wrong.

Too long, too narrow.

The toes weren't shaped like toes.

They were like impressions of something imitating toes, and there were other marks nearby that looked like drag marks, like something had been pulled along the ground.

I took one photo and immediately felt like I'd done something rude, like photographing someone's grief.

I put my phone away.

Day 6 was supposed to be departure day, morning, load up, leave.

That was the plan.

The plan got interrupted by a simple mechanical fact.

The truck didn't start.

Marin's uncle's truck started fine.

Our vehicle, Jonah's SUV, did not.

It cranked and cranked and wouldn't catch.

Jonah popped the hood and started troubleshooting.

Battery was fine.

Connections looked fine.

We weren't mechanics, but we weren't helpless.

We tried simple fixes, nothing.

Marin's uncle came over, looked, tried once, then stopped.

He didn't keep cranking.

He said no.

Jonah said we can jump it.

Marin's uncle said no.

Marin tried.

We can take your truck.

Her uncle's eyes flick toward the road, then back to us.

No, her aunt said, gently, but firm.

Today you stay.

Jonah looked like he was going to explode.

You think something did something to the car?

Her uncle didn't answer directly.

He said sometimes it is a person.

The implications sat there.

A person could cut a line, A person could tamper.

A person could be hiding somewhere, enjoying the way we were stuck.

That explanation should have made me feel better.

Because it was human.

It did not.

A person doing this would mean we had a human predator in the area who knew the property and wasn't afraid of the family.

That's not comforting.

So we stayed.

Day 6 was the most psychologically brutal day because it was stagnant.

No hiking, no errands, no leaving.

Just being in a house with too many people and too much fear that nobody wanted to speak out loud.

I occupied myself by reviewing all the audio I'd recorded.

That's where I noticed something I hadn't clocked at the time.

The name calling sounds on day 2 had a faint second layer beneath them, like a whisper under the main voice.

Not words, just a breathy, irregular noise.

It sounded like someone trying to mimic speech without having the shape for it.

That evening, the neighbor came again.

He and Maren's uncle talked.

Then the neighbor left in a hurry.

Marin's aunt cooked, but nobody ate much.

The atmosphere was like a family waiting for storm news.

After dark.

The dogs barked again, but only once, like a warning.

Then they went quiet without building into panic.

We heard footsteps in the yard.

Not the soft scuff of an animal, the deliberate step of something with weight.

It circled the house, slow, measured, like it wanted us to know it could.

At one point, it stopped right outside the living room window where we were sitting.

We had the lights off.

We were pretending not to be there, like children hiding under a blanket.

Then it spoke in Marin's aunt's voice, right outside the glass.

It said Marin's name, the way her aunt said it when calling her in for dinner.

Warm, familiar.

Marin's aunt's hand flew to her mouth.

Marin's eyes filled.

Jonah clenched his jaw like he was biting back a scream.

Lila pressed her palms to her temples.

The voice outside repeated it.

Same cadence, same warmth, like it was testing the lock.

Marin's uncle stood up.

He didn't rush.

He didn't shout.

He walked to the center of the room like a man preparing to do something he didn't want to do.

He held one of those small bundles in his hand.

He spoke softly, not in English.

The voice outside stopped.

Then, from farther out in the yard, we heard something run fast, low to the ground, like a dog sprinting, but heavier.

The dogs didn't bark.

They didn't move.

They stayed silent like they were frozen.

No one slept much.

Day 7 was the day we got out, and it was also the day the experience peeked into something physical.

The neighbor returned early.

He brought tools.

He and Marin's uncle worked on Jonah's SUV for an hour.

They didn't let Jonah help much, which was probably smart because Jonah was shaky and angry.

Eventually, the SUV started like nothing had ever been wrong.

No dramatic fix.

No, this wire was cut.

Just it started.

That should have made me feel relieved.

Instead, it made me feel like someone had been holding a hand over our mouth and decided to lift it.

We loaded quickly.

We said thank you in a way that felt too small.

Marin hugged her aunt like she might never see her again, which I hated because it felt like turning a family visit into a horror movie ending.

Her aunt held her and whispered something I couldn't hear.

Her uncle walked us to the car and said very clearly, drive straight, if you hear something don't stop.

We promised.

We pulled out.

For the 1st 20 minutes nothing happened.

Rd.

sky scrub, the normal rhythm of leaving a rural area.

I started to unclench.

Jonah's shoulders lowered a fraction.

Lila stared out the window like she was trying to memorize the landscape so she could prove to herself it was real.

Then we saw something in the rear view mirror.

A vehicle, a truck, far back, but visible.

Dust trail, Jonah said.

Is that?

Marin said don't.

I didn't want to spiral into paranoia.

But the fact is, the truck stayed behind us at a consistent distance.

It didn't pass.

It didn't fall back.

It matched our speed like it was pacing.

Jonah, speed up a little.

The truck speed up.

Jonah slowed.

The truck slowed.

We drove for miles like that.

Then, on a stretch where the road curved and we had a Clearview ahead, we saw another vehicle parked on the shoulder, an old sedan with the hood up.

A person stood beside it, waving.

As we got closer, my stomach turned because the person wasn't waving with urgency like help.

They were waving slow, casual, like someone greeting a friend.

Then I recognized the person's posture, not the face, the way they stood with their weight slightly back, the tilt of the head.

It looked like Marin, not Marin in the car with us.

Marin standing on the shoulder, waving at us, smiling.

I'm telling you what?

My eyes registered.

I'm not saying it was physically her, but that's what it looked like at first glance.

And that's all it took to hit the panic button in my brain.

Lila made a sound like she was choking.

Jonah slammed his foot on the gas.

We didn't slow, we didn't stop as we passed.

I turned my head to spite myself and looked out the window.

It wasn't Marin, it was wrong.

The proportions were wrong.

The face wasn't right.

The smile was too wide, too still, like a mask held in place.

The figure didn't step into the road, it just watched us pass, waving slowly in the rearview mirror.

The truck behind us accelerated.

That was the moment it became a chase, but not the cinematic kind.

Not high speed swerving, just pressure.

The truck gained on us.

close enough that Jonah muttered.

This is real.

I checked my phone.

No service, Marin said very quietly.

Do not stop.

The truck got close enough that we could see the driver shape, but the windshield glare made it hard to see features.

It could have been anyone.

It could have been a neighbor, it could have been a random person, it could have been nothing.

That ambiguity was part of the terror.

Then the truck backed off suddenly, like it hit an invisible boundary.

It slowed and fell behind.

We kept driving.

We didn't celebrate, we didn't speak.

We just kept going until we hit a stretch of Rd.

where there were more cars, more signs, more of the normal world.

When we finally got signal again, Jonah's phone pinged like it had been holding its breath.

I looked at the time and realized my hands were trembling so hard I couldn't unlock my screen.

We got to gallop and didn't stop there either.

Not the way we planned.

We drove through straight to a busier area, a place with lights and people, and we checked into a motel that looked like every motel you've ever seen.

Bright lobby, soda machine hum, a normal clerk with tired eyes.

The normalcy made me almost cry.

That night, in that motel room with thin curtains and traffic noise, we finally talked.

Not in a dramatic group hug way.

In a flat, exhausted way, like people comparing notes after an accident.

Jonah admitted the car failure felt like sabotage, not mechanical.

Lila admitted she'd heard whispering under the name calls too, but hadn't wanted to say it out loud.

Marin admitted she'd seen things like this before in stories from family.

Not always as dramatic, sometimes just as warnings that certain places and times aren't for outsiders.

We didn't say the word skinwalker in that room.

We didn't have to.

The concept hovered like smoke.

The next day, day eight, we drove back toward Albuquerque and then home.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, which is what you want, but it also left room for your brain to replay everything like a film reel.

When I got home, I did what I always do.

I tried to turn experience into data.

I backed up all audio.

I labeled files with dates and times.

I made a timeline.

I mapped our routes roughly.

I looked up animal tracks, vocalizations, anything that could explain the baby crying sound.

I found plenty of plausible candidates.

Foxes can sound like human distress.

Coyotes can make weird calls.

Wind can do strange things in certain terrain.

Human predators exist everywhere.

But the plausible explanations didn't erase the recordings of our names, or the voice that sounded like mine, or the way the family responded with such practice.

Seriousness, like they'd been through a version of this before and knew exactly which rules mattered.

I also tried to talk myself out of it by saying we were primed outsiders in a vast place, feeding off each other's tension, interpreting normal sounds as threats.

That's a real phenomenon.

It happens, I believe in it.

The problem is, even if you account for psychology, you still have to account for behavior, ours and theirs.

I keep coming back to the uncle's sentence.

Sometimes it is a person because that sentence holds the whole thing in an uncomfortable balance.

If it was a person, then someone out there used voice, mimicry, staging, intimidation, and knowledge of the family to hurt us like livestock.

That's terrifying in a way that doesn't need the supernatural.

If it wasn't a person, if it was something else, then the family's rules weren't superstition, they were field craft, cultural survival, knowledge, a way to move through a landscape that includes things outsiders don't want to admit exist, whether those things are human or not.

I don't tell this story to claim I know the truth.

I don't.

I'm not a believer in the way people mean when they say that online.

I'm also not a debunker who thinks everything is solved by the word coyote.

I'm someone who spent a week in a place where the sky is big enough to make you feel small, and something used that smallness against us.

There's a quiet change that settled in me after that trip.

It's not that I'm afraid of the dark in my own house, it's that I'm more careful with the idea that the world is fully mapped.

Sometimes late at night, I'll be in my kitchen getting water and I'll hear my phone buzz with an old notification sound, and for half a second my body remembers that voice outside the window saying in my tone, let me in.

And I'll find myself standing very still, listening.

Not because I think something is there, but because part of me learned a rule that week and will never unlearn it.

If you hear your name and you don't see who's calling, you don't answer.

You go inside, you shut the door, and you let the night stay outside where it belongs.