Skinned Animals
Scariest story I have is camping in northern Michigan with my dad. My grandma lived on lake in a house near Gaylord, MI which my parents and I would frequent every Friday through Sunday for well over a decade until my grandma sold the place.
Our routine would be to pack up all necessary equipment for a 3 day camping trip and fit it into our rucks. Grab the mountain bikes and head off to one of the state forests. We then would find a random two track leading into the woods, particularly we always aimed for those that looked like they haven't been driven on in years due to overgrowth. Find a place to park, offload bikes and leave. General made our own trail when we couldS Goal was to find a stream or river and set up camp in any clearing we could find. Usually ended up just in a clearing as we never went more than 10-15 miles from the truck.
One time we actually came across an old foundation of in assuming was once a home. No trail or road remotely near for miles. Right on a stream. Made of rocks about the size of a brick. There was a small wooden shack idk maybe 10 feet or so from the foundation, maybe 4 or 4 1/2 feet tall. I remember my dad had to bend over and I just hunched (I was just a kid!) to get inside.
Inside were rusted out gun barrels galore. Fishing poles, snow shoes, bedding, old pots and pans, etc. Clearly the area hadn't been used in a very long time. Just cool stuff for for a 12 year old kid.
We setup camp about 20 feet away. Caught a few bullfrogs and cooked them up for dinner along with some pan fried nachos on the small Coleman we had with those old school mini propane tanks. No light pollution. The night sky was amazing. Could see so many stars. To this day my favorite part of camping is after dark. That night shortly before we went to bed, we tied up all of our food and hung it up about 15 feet or so in the air over a branch like you see in movies. Keep bear and other animals out of it essentially. Our normal nightly routine.
Shortly after we zipper the tent up to get some sleep we started hearing grunting and huffing sounds coming from across the stream. Dad being a avid hunter says it's likely a deer or elk, maybe a bear. Which, we have seen all of these and more on our trips. Sound carries pretty far so dad wasn't too concerned. We hear it throughout the night but the sounds started getting almost baby like. The only way I can describe it is imagine a baby whining softly. Add this with very deep huffs and grunting. Periodically we would bear a high pitched, sharp but very short cry. Sounded to me like a baby screaming. Just creepy.
Throughout the night these sounds come and go. Dad loaded the Remington and I had my little 20 gauge small game ready to go just in case. (My first gun and my first time taking it with us on one of our trips) We eventually fell asleep.
We wake up to nothing too out of the ordinary except a stench of rotting meet, like a dead animal. We figured an animal died and we just could smell it on the wind. We would come across coyote kills sometimes or some other animals so we didn't think anything of it. We go outside to a beautiful sunrise and the sound of flies. Dad just figure we lost the food and the flies are on it now.
Dad walks around back by the food bag and stops abruptly and just says, I still remember it, very slowly a "what....the....fuck..." Behind our tent are three deer strung up, skinned and gutted. The deer were hung on three different branches on the same tree our bag was on, which was untouched. Each head was cut off and set on top of the guts. Each head was pointed directly at our tent. No one around. No foot prints, no blood trail, nothing. Just three deer, hanging by vine. Not twine or rope, vines. Dad grabbed the gun and went to try and spot tracks or blood. He is a phenomenal tracker and has been a guide on a few occasions for "experience" hunts in the U.P.. He found nothing. We heard nothing in the night either.
Creepy as shit. I was incredibly spooked. Dad was too as we packed up that Saturday and headed back the the truck. No incidents on the way back. Just a normal half day trip back the truck. Drove to DNR station and Reported it.
I just remember the guy looking at me, then my dad, shaking his head slowly and picking up the phone to call whoever and all he said was something like "another skinned animal sighting near the whatever steam." Clearly it happened before but what the hell. Dad never did find out if it was someone or something. The fact that my dad couldn't find any blood spotting or trails where those deer would have been dragged or hoof prints where they perhaps walked is what to this day said baffles him the most. We still talk about it over a beer every now and then. He also doesn't know where the vines came from because he looked all around the area and there were no trees with any vines anywhere around.
#Area/Woods #Unexplained #Animal/Deer