The Screaming in the Woods

The American dream, for everyone it’s different. For some people, the dream is to be successful and to live in a big house on some hill in California. Mine is simple yet stereotypical yet simple, to live in the suburbs and live a quiet life with my family in a small neighborhood. Our house lives just on the outskirts of a town and our street is full of a bunch of nice people. My family and I easily became friends with everyone on our street once when we moved into our new house. Our house was in front of a dense forest full of green trees. The scene was so perfect and it was fitting my dream so nicely.

The first week of living at our new house was just wonderful, we just installed a new electric fence so that our dog, Smokey, could run and play with the kids outside. Sometimes the kids would run with the dog into the woods and play fetch with the dog by throwing sticks and watch Smokey try to weave through all of the brush and broken branches. I always told the kids to never go too far into the woods or they would get lost.

The eighth day of living in our new home was a strange day. As the kids ran outside with the dog, they tried running into the woods but Smokey stopped just outside of the woods and would not budge any further. He also looked terrified and he would let a small whimper out as he slowly backed away from the forest.

The kids tried pulling onto Smokey’s collar, but he would not move and the more they tugged on him, the more he tried to back away. So the kids went by themselves into the woods and I went over to Smokey to see what’s wrong. I knelt down next to him and I tired staring into the woods in the direction he was looking at but I could not see a thing.

As that day progressed, I called the kids inside because it was getting late. I sent them to bed and gave them their bedtime stories. I then went to go lay in my bed with my wife and I wrapped my arms around her as I drifted off to sleep.

It was about two in the morning when I woke up. What woke me up was a somewhat sickening sound. I got up out of bed and walked downstairs and I could hear the noise even louder. It sounded like an animal dying and the sound was coming from the woods behind our house. It did not sound like an animal I heard of and the screams sounded like whatever it was, was suffering a slow and excruciatingly painful death. The screams did not seem to stop and they were getting louder, and louder. With every scream increasing in volume, they each sounded more sickening than the last.

My heart sank and total dread went all over my body. The screaming just stopped and it was so sudden. At the same time however, I felt a great sense of relief. The screaming was just torture for me. So just trying to forget about what happened I just shook my head and I went back to bed.

I woke up the next morning and I told my wife about the experience I had the night before. She said that it probably was just an animal and I shouldn’t worry about it. It was about noon and I went outside with the kids to play with them and Smokey. I decided to go in the woods with the kids to go and play with them but as I was heading to the woods, Smokey again stopped at the edge but this time, he was barking intensely towards the woods. So this time I went out into the woods to see what was in there. I didn’t see anything and I even looked around for traces of any kind of attack on the animal I heard last night. So as I started walking back to the house and Smokey was still barking towards the woods. I told the kids not to go in the forest but my wife protested, telling me I had nothing to worry about and I was just being paranoid.

So that night I stayed awake all night. I waited and I waited to hear anything again and maybe I could find some answers. I began to dose off when suddenly the silence broke. I heard the screams coming from the woods again. I grabbed the shotgun and the flashlight from the garage and I began my sprint towards the woods. I entered the woods and the screaming was so intense. As I got further into the woods, I could hear that I was slowly getting closer to the screaming. My heart was pounding and cold chills of pure dread were enveloping my entire body. I could hear the screams getting closer and louder.

As I got to what was I thought about twenty feet away from the screaming, it all just stopped. Pure ear piercing silence completely filled my ears. My heart began beating faster thinking that whatever just attacked that animal will be coming for me next. So I began to run back to the house. I ran faster than I ever could before.

The more I ran the more afraid I became. I began thinking to myself that it was taking way too long to go back to house and I must be going the wrong way. I kept running for what felt like forever. I ran and I ran and I could not find the edge of the woods. I was lost. I was lost deep within the woods that is home to some terrible monster that I am still unsure as to what it is. The endless sight of trees and brush began to get to me. So I decided to let out a gigantic scream. As I let out my scream I felt nothing but just absolute fear. The screams I have been hearing from the woods, they were my screams. This entire time, all I heard was the screaming of me, lost in the woods.

I should have listened to what I said before, to not go far into the woods or else you could get lost.