"I began to hear someone walking maybe 100 feet behind me. Whatever it was matched my pace. I slow down, it slows down. I stop, it stops. This went on for hours."
The following account is a report received by a cryptid investigator in Virginia:
"I grew up in a densely forested rural area in Southwest Virginia in Russell County. Like most kids my age (10 at the time of this story), I spent much time playing in and around the woods. One day, my best friend and I found a creek while exploring different deer trails through the woods.
This creek we happened on was a scarce find and the perfect spot for us to play. It was wide and deep enough to swim around in and had nice, soft mossy banks on either side to rest on after we had tired ourselves out. The water was cool and clear, with no copperheads, and no mosquitoes because the water was constantly running. We were psyched. After a few hours of swimming, we had to walk back home for lunch but made plans to pack lunch the next day so we could have a picnic on the creek banks and spend the whole day there.
The next morning we set out for the woods at around 1 pm, planning to have the picnic first and swim after. We entered at the same spot we had the previous day and followed what we thought was the same deer trail. It was not. At the point where we should have found the creek, we walked into a small clearing that was covered in huge, thick ferns. We had definitely never walked past this before. So, being both hungry and tired of walking, we decided to eat in the clearing. We laughed and played around there for a while, spitting watermelon seeds at each other from our lunch. It was an absolute blast and we were both in wonderful, giddy moods. That all changed, however, as soon as we packed up and set back out to find the creek.
As we walked on the woods started to feel darker and colder, we got skittish and I noticed my friend kept whipping her head around to look behind us. After about a half hour of walking, we came upon what looked like an entire overgrown bathroom. The sink, toilet, and bathtub are all arranged together and covered in ivy. It’s pretty common to find weird ruins of old homes like this in the middle of the woods, so we just walked on and made jokes to lighten the mood.
After another hour of walking and not seeing anything we recognized, we started to panic. Instead of trying to reach the creek we were now just trying to find our way back home or out of the woods, at least. I told her we should follow the sun and eventually, we would come up on a road or someone’s property where we could find help. She insisted on another way and we began yelling at each other out of fear and, let's be honest, little girl bossiness. I told her if she thought she was so right she should just go her way and we would see who got out first, so we split up. Now as an adult, I fully acknowledge I was a stubborn brat, and also, an idiot. The worst possible thing we could have done.
Not ten minutes after splitting up I began to hear someone walking maybe 100 feet behind me. Thinking it was my friend deciding to go my way after all, I slowed down so she could catch up to me. Instead, whatever it was matched my pace. I slow down, it slows down. I stop, it stops. This went on for hours. The whole time I was going back and forth on whether or not it was in my head or there was really something following me. I picked up a big stick, swung it a few times to make sure it was sturdy if I had to hit someone, and trucked on.
As it began to get dark, I came upon something that made my heart sink into my stomach. It was the same old ruined bathroom we had stumbled into earlier in the day. I had just walked in a huge circle, for hours, despite being 100% sure I was following the setting sun west the entire time. Confused and frustrated, I sat down on a log and just screamed my little heart out while smacking my whoop-ass stick repeatedly into the ground. As I tried to collect myself, I heard the footsteps again walking up on me from behind. I called out my friend's name as loud as I could. No answer. Then, after a short pause, the steps began to run towards me. I jumped up and booked it as fast as I could in the opposite direction.
Now, this is the truly horrifying part which I typically omit while telling people this story. As I was sprinting through the darkening woods, I began to hear what I thought were church bells. I looked up to see the darkest, deepest cloud I have ever seen in my life. In the middle, it was so black it was like looking into the night sky, and the dark grey around it seemed to be swirling. It gave me a horrible feeling to look at, almost like the nausea you get when looking through binoculars for too long. What sickened me further was that I realized the sound of the bells was coming through the hole in the cloud. They were deafeningly loud, I mean really booming out of this thing. When I realized this I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt a sense of absolute and overwhelming dread that has gone unmatched in all my 30 years on this planet. Something in my head began screaming that if I did not run away from whatever that cloud was no one would ever see me again, I would be gone. I did not want to run toward the thing chasing behind me either though, so I made a sharp right and took off away from both.
It was now completely dark and I was running blindly through the woods, smacking through branches, wheezing, and tripping every few feet for what seemed like another hour. Until I smacked into something low and flew over it, hitting the ground so hard all the air in my lungs was knocked out of me. As I lay there trying to recover, I realized I couldn’t hear the bells anymore. Then my eyes adjusted more to the dark, and I realized what had just made me go head-over-heels was an old fence. Grabbing hold of it I prayed it would lead me to a farm, and sure enough it did. I walked up over a hill about a mile to the back of the farmhouse, explained what had happened, and the farmer graciously gave me a ride back home.
I was covered head to toe in scrapes, oozing blood, and more exhausted than I had ever been in my life, but I was finally safe. It was passed 9 pm when I finally walked through my front door. My friend had gotten back shortly after we split and figured I had as well, so hadn’t told anybody I was lost, and my family just figured I was still out after dark, which wasn’t uncommon for me. They were shocked when I walked in beat up and crying. Nobody had been looking for me at all. To this day I wonder how long they would’ve waited to come find me if I hadn’t been lucky enough to find the fence and if it would’ve been too late." B
NOTE: I wonder who or what was following the young girl in the woods? The characteristics of its stopping and starting are typical of Bigfoot activity. The dark cloud ringing like a church bell is similar to other phenomena I've heard and read in the past, though I have no idea if it was a distant bell echoing or not. Very strange account. Lon
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