Crawlers
I had never heard of "crawlers" until today, when I posted a story in response to a post in r/paranormal. Someone told me about this sub, and after reading a few stories here, I think y'all may appreciate my tale.
My friends and I used to camp a lot in the El Dorado National Forest. We had a spot along Sopiago Springs we used to camp at a lot.
One weekend, we decided to go for a three day foraging camp. We brought in MREs in case we couldn't find anything, some guns, and some supplies to set up shelter, but that's about it. First night was chill, we cooked a bunch of crawdads and a squirrel my buddy shot, drank a few beers we'd brought, and slept fine.
Next day, something felt off to me. One of my friends who was with me and I had had some really creepy experiences in this part of the forest in the past, and it felt a bit like those; forest was dead silent, and you felt like something was watching you.
I grew up in the woods so I know the signs of a predator, but this felt different than a bear or a mountain lion.
When night fell, my friends went two hundred yards or so up the stream to do some stuff, and I was alone in camp. The feeling got even stronger, so I built up the fire nice and big and grabbed a gun.
I kept hearing faint voices from the woods in the opposite direction of where my friends went. They were low, indistinct sounds, but they were creeping me out majorly, and my buddies had taken the only two flashlights (poor planning in hindsight).
As I peered out into the darkness, I caught a glimpse of something moving fifty yards or so out in the trees. I snapped the rifle to my shoulder and got the scope on it. It was pretty dark, and the only light was from the fire, but I could see the outline of what I was aiming at.
It looked human, but was on all fours, and its arms seemed a lot longer than they should. It stood a bit like an ape but very low to the ground. I only saw it for a second before it loped off deeper into the woods.
After I lost track of it, I'd hear light rustling in different directions around the camp; leaves scuffling, the occasional twig breaking. Always away from where my friends went, in the 180% on the other side of the camp from their departure.
I got the sense that whatever it was, it was stalking me.
I kept the fire high and was staying sharp looking out into the woods, but I didn't see it again.
My buddies came back about ten minutes later to find me a paranoid wreck glassing the treeline with the scope. I told them what happened and they got quiet, then told me the reason they came back when they did is they started hearing the same shit I did over by where they were at and it spooked them.
We spent the second night of our trip with a big ass fire and three lookouts. Nobody slept that night. In the morning we broke camp as quick as we could and high tailed it out of there. We never camped in that spot again.