It Wants Your Blood

#strigoifiles

There are going to be people who don’t want me to be saying this. But if there’s anyone out there who’s family member experienced the same thing we did, or something similar, I want you to know you weren’t the only one. I’m probably going to land in a lot of trouble for sharing what I’m about to tell you, But right now, I don’t care, I’m sick of everyone pretending like nothing happened.

My father was an operator for a special forces unit for the military in the late eighties. I won’t and can’t say which one he served.

It was July 28th, 1987. I’d just turned seventeen that week and we were supposed to spend the day as a family and go to the movies to watch Robo Cop. My dad always got a kick out of scifi movies, and we bonded over geeking and making fun of the characters.

Before it all happened, my father was a really cheerful guy. Always chatting with someone at the grocery store, serving people, both in and out of uniform.

And then, out of nowhere, the phone rings.

The phone calls had come before. Sudden deployments. Disappearances for a couple days or a week or so. They were always hard, and they always seemed to come when we had made plans.

It was my life though, I’d never known anything different, and me and mom managed it well enough.

But this time….Something was different.

My father didn’t say a word. Just stood there, eyes locked on nothing particular. He listened for maybe thirty seconds, and hung up without a word.

He didn’t look at me or mom. Just walked straight to the bedroom and shut the door.

When he came back out, he was already in uniform. Not the neat pressed BDU he wore for normal duty days. This was the other set — the one he only took on deployments he wasn’t allowed to talk about. No patches. No nametape. No unit insignia. Just blank, anonymous fabric. Mom asked what was going on. He just shook his head. Unsure, half muttering to himself.

“Said it was an SAP.”

I don’t think he meant for me to hear that. It wasn’t until years later, I found out an “SAP”, was a “Special Access Program.”

The kind of operation that was beyond just “top secret.”

But he didn’t elaborate. He drew me in for a big hug, the kind you give someone when you don’t know when they don’t know they’ll see you again.

My mom wanted to drive him to base, but he said no. Said someone was coming to get him.

Five minutes later, a dark SUV with government plates pulled into our driveway. Two guys I’d never seen before got out. They didn’t wear uniforms either. They didn’t smile. And Dad didn’t take the time to introduce them.

Dad took one last look back, and clapped me on the back and said “see ya bud.”

Then he was gone.

The first night was the worst. Usually Dad was able to call us before he heads out on the mission or operation, just to let us know he’s okay.

But this time there was nothing. No phone call. No update.

The house felt too big without him. Too quiet. The kind of quiet where you start imagining noises that aren’t there. The kind of quiet where even the hum of the refrigerator sounds wrong.

Four days later, I remember sitting out on the front porch, watching the sun set below the horizon. I knew I should get out of the house. Not let my father’s absence stop me from living my life. I remember thinking I should take my bike down to the convenience store. Do something. But I couldn’t make it past the front porch.

And then, from inside, was the distinctive sound of the phone ringing.

Not loud. Not dramatic. Just the ordinary house phone ringing the way it always did.

But I remember feeling frozen.

When I finally ran inside, mom had already answered it. I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end. But I saw the way Mom’s posture changed — the way her shoulders tightened, the way her face drained of color.

“Is he— is he alive?” she whispered.

A pause.

A long one.

Then she started crying — not the panicked kind, but the kind that comes when someone has been holding their breath too long.

She turned to me, and I’ll never forget the look on her face — relief tangled with fear.

She tells me that the caller didn’t give a name, didn’t confirm anything, just said ‘Your husband is stable. He is receiving treatment.’

She tells me they said he was injured. They didn’t say how. Just that he’s being treated. And that he’ll come home when he’s cleared.

“When he’s cleared of what?” I asked her.

Mom shook her head.

“They wouldn’t tell me.”

On the sixth day, mom was practically pacing the house with anxiety.

By the eighth day, the tension got so thick it felt like it was living in the walls. I barely slept. Neither did Mom.

I kept telling myself he’d walk through the front door any minute. That he’d ruffle my hair, joke about missing RoboCop, and promise we’d catch it next weekend. But deep down…I knew something was wrong.

Like I said, he was a special forces operator. Deployments were sudden, fast, and efficient. They went in, completed their mission, and returned home. He was never gone for more than a couple of days, maybe a week.

He was gone for almost thirteen days.

We hadn’t heard from anyone since that single, cryptic phone call. No updates. No warning. Nothing. So when we heard a car door shut, it didn’t feel real. It felt like we’d imagined it out of exhaustion.

Then, on the morning of day fourteen, came the knock. Mom opened it, and for a second, I thought my legs would give out. Two men, one in a military BDU, and one in a suit stood on our porch. Leaning heavily on one of their arms, was my father.

He looked smaller somehow. He looked pale, tired, like he hadn’t slept in weeks. His uniform hung on him

But there was something else I couldn’t place that was definitely different about him...

That's when I realized his arm, what was left of it, stopped above the elbow.

The fabric was pinned and wrapped, hiding the stump under layers of medical gauze and a rigid protective brace. I remember staring at that empty sleeve hanging off his shoulder and thinking it looked wrong, like a piece of him had just evaporated.

Dad wouldn’t meet my eyes.

But he was standing. He was alive.

“Dad?” I whispered.

He looked at me—really looked—but there was something… off. Something in his eyes I’d never seen before. An emptiness. Or maybe something he was trying very, very hard to hold back.

“Hey, bud,” he said softly.

He forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

As soon as the realization of what happened hit me, everything was a blur. Mom was clinging to my father, crying, and my father just stood there, looking like a ghost, while my mother demanded answers.

The man in the suit said this:

“all relevant information pertaining to your husband’s injury is classified. What we can tell you is that he suffered a biological-containment incident during a Special Access operation. He received immediate surgical intervention. The action taken likely saved his life.”

My father was never the same after that.

That should be expected. I knew he wasn’t ok. That wasn’t what made it so hard.

It's how he wasn’t ok that scared me.

All day, my father barely said a word other than to comfort us. No wisecracking jokes or warm fatherly comfort. His attempts to console us were very, very…tired. Like he was trying to comfort himself too.

But all day, my father was terrified. He practically watched the shadows lengthen, like he was afraid of them. Constantly flinching or reacting to the smallest sounds.

I remember it vividly. In everything that had happened, evening kind of snuck up on us, and the house began to fall dark pretty quickly. As the sun began to set below the horizon, my father suddenly began to tremble. He turned to my mother, grabbing her wrist and frantically whispered, “Get the lights.” My mother was confused at first, not understanding.

“Please, turn on the lamp. Please, do it now..!” he whispered.

Still confused, me and my mom ended up going about the house, turning on all the lights at his request. The chandelier, the lamps, the overhead lights. The outside porch light. Everything.

I kept trying to keep a brave face, but my father was absolutely terrifying me.

That night, he insisted, we close every curtain, and bolt every lock. He checked each of them himself.

But I think what scared me the most after that, was the nightmares.

It first happened two nights after he got back. I woke up to the sound of my father screaming in his sleep. Not shouting. Screaming. A sort of hoarse, agonizing scream like he was in pain. The first night he kept screaming and panicked “It wants my blood..! Oh, God, it wants my blood!!!!!”

It took my mother almost three whole minutes to make him up and calm him down.

This happened on and off for weeks. He’d be unable to sleep at night, for fear of the dreams and he’d sleep all day.

But even in the day hours he barely found rest. His sleep was a restless one, tossing and turning, moaning and mumbling to himself. Sometimes he’d just repeat this single word, over and over again.

“Feed.”

For the next couple of days, it felt like maybe things were calming down.

Not normal.

But calmer — like everyone was hoping if they didn’t talk about what was going on, maybe it would go away.

But my mom… she couldn’t let it go.

One night she sat beside him on the couch. The TV was on, but neither of them were watching it. Dad had his eyes fixed on the far wall, like he was staring at something only he could see.

Mom took a breath.

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked quietly.

Dad didn’t react. Not at first.

Just blinked. Slowly.

Like waking up from a long sleep.

“Not… not the classified parts,” she added quickly. “Just… Why you’re so scared of the dark. Why you won’t go near the windows. Why you’re not sleeping. I just want to understand.”

His throat bobbed, like he was swallowing something sharp. He silently pleaded with her to stop.

She reaches for his hand — the one he still had, and tells him she deserves to know what took you from us for thirteen days.

He pulled his hand away like her touch burned.

“Don’t ask me that.”

His voice snapped faster than she expected, harsher than anyone had heard from him.

She didn’t back down.

“What happened to your arm?”

Her voice broke on the last word.

“You came home without an arm, and you won’t tell me why.”

Dad squeezed his eyes shut so tight his whole face tightened.

He tells her he can’t.

“You *can*,” she insisted. “Maybe they won’t tell us anything, but you can. I’m not asking for military secrets. I’m asking why my husband wakes up screaming.”

His breathing grew uneven, shoulders rising and falling too quickly.

“Please,” she whispered. “Tell me what did that to you. Tell me what you saw—”

“NO!”

His outburst wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t a yell.

It was worse.

A sharp, broken snap that sounded like something tearing inside him. He’d never spoken to anyone like that, and he hasn’t since.

Mom froze.

Dad was shaking now — literally shaking — his fingers digging into the couch cushion like he was holding on for dear life.

He tells her she doesn’t want to know.

Mom tried again anyway. “Honey, I’m scared. We’re all scared. I can’t help you unless you—”

“It talked to me.”

The words tumbled out, raw and ragged. He stared at the carpet, eyes wide and unfocused, like he was reliving something he desperately wanted to forget.

“It talked,” he repeated, voice thin as paper. “Whispered. Like it was mocking me.”

The words all began tumbling out, like he’d been holding them in.

“It…It was like they were hunting us. Like…Like they could smell or hear us before we even went in. Then they just came out of nowhere. Descended on us. One of them knocked me down…and everything I said, it…repeated back to me. Mocking me, like it was toying with me. I threw up its arm to push it away and then it…Oh, God…Bit me.”

As he said this he visibly shuddered, and he began to cry.

“It…Was hungry…It…It wanted my blood. Rick shot it and grabbed me and pulled me out, but then one of the…Those monsters ...Oh, God, Rick…!”

Dad finally looked at her — really looked — and the fear and sadness in his eyes was something I’ve never forgotten.

“I’m the only one that made it out”

Mom shook her head slowly, trying to form words.

“I looked back at…that thing eating him and…” he whispered, voice cracking.

“It smiled at me..”

Silence.

Then he slammed his fist on the arm of the couch so hard the lamp rattled. “You wanted to know what happened!?” he barked. “*That’s* what happened! I watched a f*cking monster that shouldn’t exist looked me in the eyes and watched it slaughter my brothers!!”

Mom started crying, and then I started crying.

“And…And when they finally pulled me out…They cut it off. They…They didn’t want me to be infected.”

Dad sank back into the couch, defeated, exhausted, shaking uncontrollably and apologizing to me and mom, saying how sorry he was and how he didn’t want me to hear any of that.

My father did get better.

But he spent the rest of his life trying to heal.

Therapy helped. The nightmares slowly began to go away after a year or two, and slowly I saw the old him begin to come back. He started smiling again.

But they were always tired smiles. And for years afterward, our family always slept with the lights on, and he was never outside if it was dark out.

And he never talked about what happened ever again.

He died three years ago of heart disease.

He died tired. World weary. But happy, and surrounded by his family. I thought with his passing, maybe the shadow of…whatever the hell happened would be easier to forget.

But then I was sorting through his old gear.

I found his notebook. The one he always took with him on his missions. And it was filled with…The operation. Notes from the briefing.

I thought he was overseas. In some remote third-world country dismantling a terrorist cell or saving civilian hostages.

He was deployed to somewhere he called The Hellhole. A cave in the Germany Valley in West Virginia.

This whole time he was literally twelve hours away from us.

His journal’s filled with notes about something his bosses called “Carpathian Strigosa”, and a “non-terrestrial” viral agent. He drew with diagrams of the cave system, trying to figure out how they got ambushed.

Then there are the sketches of them.

Those demonic bastards that almost destroyed my family.

…I…Don’t even know what I’m looking at. They're human, but not human at the same time. Weird proportions that don’t make sense, these really weird almost animal-like ears…And these teeth. These needle-like fangs…

And yes, I KNOW this all sounds insane, but these things have wings like some sort of freaking draconian bat or something.

After some digging I learned Hellhole Cave was restricted to the public not long after his mission — for “bat conservation.”

Bat conservation.

Right.

My father lost an arm and half his mind because of something in that cave.

The military doesn’t want this story out.

The government doesn’t, either.

But I’m done being silent.

If anyone out there suffered knows what happened in the Hellhole Cave in 1987 — if anyone else lost someone or watched their family fall apart afterward —

If there is, please hear my words.

You are not alone. Your loved one’s sacrifice will not be silenced.

And I’m going to find out what really happened.