The Smiling Man From the Woods

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[00:01:03] We didn't even have time to crouch back down. I mean, we both just kind of had our hands out, like we were bracing ourselves for whatever this was to come hurtling into this cabin and find us. Some places hold memories, and others hold something much darker. What started as an innocent adventure into the woods led to an encounter that would haunt Mallory for years.

[00:01:30] A silent figure, impossible movements, and a smile that should have never been seen. This is the story of what she found, and what found her. My name is Edwin, and here is Mallory's true scary story. My great-grandmother, Cece, died on Valentine's Day in 2001.

[00:02:01] When we lost her, you know, we lost some knowledge and a generation that we can never get back. Cece still to this day is probably one of the sweetest, nicest, most genuine people I've ever known. I was extremely close with her, but her death didn't really come as a surprise. The doctors had already prepared the family that, you know, she was probably going to pass. She was 93 and had been in poor health for about a year.

[00:02:36] She had five children, one of them being my grandfather on my dad's side. None of them wanted her property. They decided to sell, but my dad, he could not imagine this property not being in the family anymore. So he decided to buy it. They put up a really big fight. They did not want to sell it to him or the family. For my dad, this was really upsetting. So he fought really hard for it, and finally they decided to sell.

[00:03:07] The reason my dad wanted this property so bad is because of Cece's husband, my great-grandfather, Ronald. He would have been my great-great-great-grandfather. He was a sharecropper and worked and lived on the property. His son also was a sharecropper and lived on the property. It wasn't until Ronald, my great-grandfather, that he was able to buy the land.

[00:03:34] To be able to pay the mortgage, he had to work half the year in the fields harvesting the crops, and then he worked the other half the year on the barges. He sacrificed a lot to buy this land, and his biggest dream was to give something back to his children one day, a legacy of sorts. Ronald bought the property in his early 20s right after marrying Cece.

[00:03:59] He worked for about 20 years harvesting the crops and then working on the barges before he was finally able to get the farm where it was profitable enough that it supported his family. They say it was somewhere around, like, his late 40s is finally when he will actually be home with his family. He died about 30 years before Cece.

[00:04:23] Now, at the time of his death, he had an extremely profitable cattle farm and the biggest dairy farm in the state. But almost immediately after his death, they sold the cattle and the farm was abandoned. For 30 years, this entire property had just been abandoned and neglected other than the farmhouse and just this really small area surrounding it.

[00:04:50] The farmhouse itself was built by my great-great-grandfather, and it took him about 20 years to finish it. It's still to this day one of the most beautiful homes I've ever seen. The farmhouse sits on 180 acres, and it's covered in oak trees. This entire farmhouse was built out of oak. Just by looking at it, you can tell that so much craftsmanship and love went into it. There's so much detail, molding, and just a lot of character.

[00:05:20] It's a very rural farm town, so the closest neighbor from the farmhouse is like four miles down the road. So when I would visit Cece, she really only had one rule, and that was do not leave the yard. There was one time I can remember disobeying that rule.

[00:05:44] We had gone over there after church on a Sunday, and my parents and her were talking at the table. I was outside playing in the backyard, and about 50 yards behind the farmhouse is this really old fence surrounding the pasture. And I had chased—I want to say it was a butterfly—into this pasture. I remember my parents yelling at me, I was going to stay for a little while with her, and I waved bye to them.

[00:06:12] The next thing I hear is Cece just screaming at me, and I immediately start running towards her. And even back then, she was old, but she was running right at me, and it's the only time I've ever seen panic and fear on her. I had never seen her like that before. And at the time, I kind of took it as she was just this overly cautious grandmother.

[00:06:41] I loved and respected her so much, and I had never seen her that way that I just—I always obeyed her, and I never again wandered outside of that yard. My favorite thing about visiting her were her stories. The very first one that I can remember her telling me, and I would always beg her to tell it to me, was the boy who cried wolf. And she would always end it by saying,

[00:07:05] If you tell lies, no one will believe you when it truly matters, and when danger is lurking in the darkness. She was real big on remember that whatever you say has meaning. And I still, to this day, it was like that was cemented into me. As I got older, Cece's stories got darker. All of them had a moral lesson to teach. And looking back on it, I really want to say the biggest lesson she was trying to teach me was to be honest, brave, kind,

[00:07:36] but most prevalent, to listen to the wisdom and warnings of your elders. That day that I wandered into the pasture, a place that I had explicitly been told not to go, I was more concerned with how erratic and frantic her behavior was. I didn't really think about what she was saying to me in that moment. She was saying, Do you know what could have happened to you? I told you to never go past that fence. You have no idea what's out there.

[00:08:06] If he finds you, you'll wish you wouldn't have been so foolish. Years later, those words came back to me, and I realized she knew exactly what was out there and was trying her hardest to protect me from that evil. And it's honestly where this whole story begins.

[00:08:31] It was in May of 2001, three months after her death, my parents moved my brother and I into the farmhouse. My brother was 12, and I was 10 at the time. Immediately, my dad began clearing the overgrowth, starting with the pasture. Once it was cleared, it started to tell this story. Scattered all across the pasture were tractors, large farming equipment, harvesting equipment.

[00:09:00] And it was like whoever had last used it stopped whatever work they were doing, walked away, and never came back. Later, we found out exactly what happened. At the very back of the pasture was a large three-story barn, which still to this day is the biggest barn I've ever seen. The third floor, there was a small dwelling. That's actually where my great-great-grandfather had lived with his wife and son while they were building the farmhouse.

[00:09:31] Directly behind the barn, on the other side of the fence, there was this really large pond that was full of catfish and other fish. Surrounding that pond were just woods. Before the land was abandoned, those woods were actually land that the cattle had used for grazing. So the woods were smaller, but they had a ton of overgrowth. So it was in August. We were getting ready to start back school.

[00:09:57] My dad had finally worked his way back to the woods behind the pond, and he had cleared them enough that my brother and I were able to finally walk through them and explore a little bit. At the very back of those woods, there was this huge, very wide and deep ditch that cut the property completely in half. On the other side, there were just more fields that were surrounded by more woods.

[00:10:22] We told our dad about the ditch, and he was like, actually, your great-grandfather built a bridge that allowed him to cross over into the back fields with his tractors and equipment when he was harvesting. And it was a few days later, he drove us back there, and he was just showing us the property. He pointed to the very back tree line behind these fields, and he said that when he bought the place, he was told there was a fence in those woods that marked our property line.

[00:10:50] All summer, we had played in that barn, explored it, fished. We had a lot of fun, so we were like, yeah, we're going to go find that fence. My dad had bought a full-wheeler just so he could get around on the property easier with all the work that had to be done. He had given us permission to drive it, so we drove it back one day to the back tree line. And immediately, we realized there was no way we were going to make it into those trees, into the woods with the foil. It was just too overgrown.

[00:11:22] We parked in the middle of the field, right at the tree line, and went on foot. We walked a pretty long distance, I would say at least 20 minutes, before we finally found the fence. And it was halfway lying down due to a lot of overgrowth, limbs, things like that, that had fallen onto it. About 20 feet on the other side, the woods actually opened up to more farmland.

[00:11:49] To the right, you could actually see the end of the fence, and then again, that edge of the fence opened up to more farmland. These woods were much older. You could tell these trees were very old. They were four or five feet wide. Very tall, huge canopy. The woods were a little bit brighter here, but we decided that we were going to walk to our left and see if we could find the other end of this fence.

[00:12:17] We walked for a very long ways, probably 30 minutes. And of course, we were having to make our way around fallen tree limbs and fallen trees. You know, a lot of overgrowth, thorny bushes, which really got in our way, so we had to walk around. The farther we went, the darker the woods got. And we both started to get this eerie feeling. And at one point, we talked about turning back. But we were like, no, let's just do it. Let's find it.

[00:12:47] Let's see how far across this goes, how big the property is, and then we'll head back. Eventually, we found the end of it. If you live out in the country, you know that it's very loud. There's always some sort of animal, insects, trees, wind. And there's always some sort of noise. But the only thing we could even hear was the crunching of leaves under our footsteps.

[00:13:16] This was really eerie. So as soon as we saw it, we decided to head back. So we were walking at a left angle so we could try to make it out the same way we had come in so we could get to the full wheeler. We were about halfway back when, to our right, there was a break in the trees that opened up to a clearing. We got really excited about this, so we decided to go and investigate.

[00:13:43] The closer we got, we could tell that there was a structure sitting at the back of this clearing, completely covered in vines and brush. Once we got almost right up to it, there were little slivers of the building that you could see through the vines. We immediately could tell that this was a cabin. It was sitting at the back of this clearing, so we walked to the left and we found the front of it. It had two windows on the front.

[00:14:12] To the left corner was a window. The front door was right beside it, and then the other window was almost directly in the center of the cabin. We decided to see if it was open, so we ripped all the vines down and the door handle turned, but the door was stuck in the frame. So we had to use our shoulder and ram it a few times before it finally opened up.

[00:14:39] The first room that we were looking into was very narrow. It was a kitchen, and as soon as you walked in, there was this huge hole in the floor. It looked like someone had fallen through it. There was a window on the back wall that had been broken, and there was this huge tree limb that was growing through it.

[00:15:00] There was a stove, a really old refrigerator and cabinets on the left wall, and then a small table with two chairs in the back corner. And then on this right wall, there was a door, and it was probably two to three feet after you walked in was this door. And when you opened it, it was a bedroom. Immediately to the left, there was another door, which wouldn't open.

[00:15:25] When we were approaching the cabin, you could see a limb had fallen through the roof. We knew that this must have been where the roof had caved in at, not allowing us to open the door. So we assumed it was a bathroom because it was smaller. The room didn't have a lot in it. There was a bed in the left corner facing us. There was this really old, tattered, moth-eaten blanket hanging over the back window.

[00:15:50] In front of the bed, there was a really old, deep freeze that was this really ugly yellow color and rusted. And on top of the freezer were crates full of deer antlers and bones. In the right corner was a small dresser and just miscellaneous junk just all over the room. We investigated, went and opened the cabinets in the kitchen and looked around. And we thought this was a really cool find. We were excited about finding this.

[00:16:20] But you could tell whoever had lived here had been very poor. So there wasn't really anything interesting. But we did talk about maybe cleaning it up, fixing the hole in the floor, making it a little clubhouse. I was checking around the bed and I looked underneath it and I found like a treasure trove. For a 10-year-old, it was like I had found treasure. There were a lot of leather luggage, suitcases, really vintage ones.

[00:16:48] There was also a large wooden chest that had this really intricate carving on the top of it. We pulled it all out and as we started going through it, at 10 years old, this wasn't my first thought, but my brother said it, that it was shocking that someone would leave these items behind because it was obvious whoever had lived here was poor. These were antiques in someone's, you know, prized possessions.

[00:17:18] There were official looking documents, stacks of bound letters, rings. There was an emerald ring, a diamond ring, a lot of gold rings, necklaces. There was a ruby necklace. My brother found a deer knife that he thought was really cool. The handle was made out of some sort of bone or deer antler and it had a leather sheath that was monogrammed to someone's name.

[00:17:43] There was an old baby blanket that looked like it had been knitted and just all sorts of things. And as we're sitting there going through it, I hear something from behind the cabin and I'll shoot my head up and look towards my brother. He's looking straight at me, so I know he must hear it too. And we listen as something is approaching the back of the cabin.

[00:18:10] It sounded like footsteps and leaves crunching underneath them. Something I think is important to note here is the fact that we live in the country. Our first thought should have been, that's a deer, a hunter, a raccoon. It shouldn't have alarmed us, but as soon as we heard it, we both became terrified.

[00:18:37] The air had shifted and it was like somehow instinctually we knew that whatever was approaching was not something good. We were sitting on the floor just listening as it approached the back of the cabin and started to walk around to the left side where the kitchen was. It had made it about halfway around when my brother kind of pulled on me and he pulled me into the corner of this room we were in.

[00:19:06] He grabbed the door handle and pulled the door towards us kind of to hide us. Both of us were just crouching in the corner of this room. Just on the other side of this wall where we're crouched at is this door that we had left open. And we listen as the footsteps come in front of the cabin, in front of that open doorway and just stop. I looked at my brother and his eyes were big and I could tell he was panicked.

[00:19:33] I mean, we just crouched there for what seemed like forever. My legs were burning and they were hurting. One of my feet was going numb. That panic was really starting to rise when we heard the footsteps walking away in the opposite direction from in front of the cabin. Immediately I could see this like relief kind of wash over my brother in the moment. But we did not move.

[00:20:03] We didn't stand. We didn't do anything until those footsteps faded away and finally disappeared into the distance. We finally stood and we were shaking our legs out and stretching. My brother began to say something and he got about two words out. And it was in a very low whisper. He wasn't being loud at all. When he was cut off by the sound of those leaves again.

[00:20:32] Except this time they were coming from the left side of the cabin and they were no longer walking. It was sprinting straight back towards us. Within mere seconds, these footsteps had stopped back in front of that open door. We didn't even have time to crouch back down. I mean, we both just kind of had our hands out.

[00:20:57] Like we were bracing ourselves for whatever this was to come hurtling into this cabin and find us. What it was going to do, we didn't know. But it just seemed wrong and that whatever that was seemed way too fast. I can remember thinking, how could something so fast stop so abruptly? And I remember questioning myself, like maybe it ran by. Maybe I'm just imagining things. Maybe it was just a deer.

[00:21:24] But slowly my brother grabbed my wrist and he slowly pulled me back down into a crouched position behind the door. Once more, we just crouched there for forever until that panic and fear in me had rose so much I had to do something. So I slowly started walking backwards, still in the crouched position, and positioned myself under the window. My brother, he was giving me this motion like, no, no. And I kind of just gave him this motion like, it's okay. You know, I've got to do this.

[00:21:57] Slowly I peeked up over the edge of this window. And this window was dirty. It had dust and mold all over it. But you could see shapes and colors. Not a lot of details, but you could see outside enough. Where I was positioned under this window, I was too close to the door. So I couldn't see, you know, if something was in front of it. So I crouched back down and walked to the very left side of this window.

[00:22:26] And again, just slowly peeked out of the corner. Immediately I saw a very tall figure standing in front of the door. It was dressed in what looked like all black. And it was just standing completely still. Slowly I eased myself back down. And I started pointing towards where the open door was behind where my brother was. And I was mouthing to him, someone's out there.

[00:22:56] And he mouthing back, who? And I just gave him this little motion like, I don't know. Very slowly, once more, I eased up. And just barely with my right eye, I'm peeking at this figure standing in front of this door. Within a few seconds, the head snapped towards me and upwards.

[00:23:26] I didn't even think about it at the time, but whatever it was must have been kind of looking, had its chin pointed down a little bit. Because when it snapped its head towards me and then up, I could see white, like the bottom of a face. I could tell it had on a black brimmed hat. Not like a top hat, like a short hat with a black brim on it. So I could only see the bottom part of the face.

[00:23:52] And again, the window was dirty, so it wasn't a lot of detail. But I could tell whatever this was was smiling. Immediately, I jerked myself down. Not really worrying about being quiet anymore. I rushed over to my brother. And I just leaned into him and squeezed my eyes shut, just preparing myself. He was tapping on me and kind of shaking me. Finally, I peeled my eyes open.

[00:24:21] I looked up at him and I was like, someone's out there and they saw me. And he said, who is it? And I was like, I don't know who it is. And he's like, what are they doing? I said, they're just staring. Again, we just crouched there in that corner until my brother said, we have to get out of here.

[00:25:12] I started to panic. I said, no. I had begun to cry a little bit at this point. And I said, no, he's standing in front of that door. He's going to catch us. He's going to stop us. And he said, look, this is why I want you to go first. That way, if he tries to do anything, I'll jump on him. You know, I'll fight him. And then I had a whole new fear arise. Like, well, what if he hurts you? He said, just run home and get mom and dad. I agreed to this. But every time he would tell me to go, I couldn't go.

[00:25:40] It was like I was just frozen in fear until he just screams as loud as he can, go from behind me. So I sprinted, jumped out the doorway, and I just ran as fast as I could out of those woods. I kept listening for something behind me from my brother. But over my own heart pounding in my ears and the leaves crunching underneath me, I was hitting limbs and trees.

[00:26:11] I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't discern between, you know, if that was my footsteps or my brother's or someone was chasing me. So finally, I yelled out my brother's name. And through breath, he said, I'm here, and just told me to keep running. It wasn't much longer. We ran out of the tree line back into the field. Because at some point, I had realized I'm running in a straight angle. I need to go at this left angle.

[00:26:38] We did make it back into the field, but it was more into the very far corner. Once I made it into the field, I didn't stop. I continued running for about another 20 to 30 feet before I finally got that nerve to look behind me. But all I saw was my brother. I came to a stop, and I turned towards the tree line. And I put my hands on my knees, and my brother did the same. And I just kept glancing up towards the tree line to make sure something wasn't going to come rushing out towards us.

[00:27:09] I said, did you see anybody? And he said, no, did you? I said, no. I remember standing up, and I put my hands behind my head. And I just kept scanning the tree line. And I said, that just doesn't make sense, because we would have heard someone walk away. You know, the entire floor of these woods were covered with leaves. You couldn't step anywhere without making a sound. We both were trying to catch our breath, and we kept looking.

[00:27:38] And for some reason, I find it very strange the things we do in certain moments. But I remember I just started laughing hysterically. And then my brother started laughing. And he said, we're so stupid. He was like, it was probably a deer or a raccoon. And even though I knew what I had seen, I was somehow in that moment convincing myself that he's right. We were just foolish that, you know, I have an overactive imagination. And to our right, the four-wheeler was a pretty good bit away.

[00:28:07] So we started making our way towards it. And the whole time, I'm glancing over my shoulder and towards the tree line. We were pretty close when I looked to my left into the tree line. Not from behind me, from where we had come from. I mean, directly beside me. And a few feet in this tree line is a dark silhouette. And it's a tall man.

[00:28:36] I remember I just froze. And this is like a common theme that began to happen for me. It was, I would just seem to freeze. Like I couldn't move. I could think. And I would be screaming at myself internally to move, just do anything. And for some reason, I just couldn't. I would just be frozen there. My brother, he had kept walking. He realized I had stopped. And he looked back and he said, what is it?

[00:29:03] And all I could do was just slowly point towards this figure inside the tree line. And I took a few steps backwards. And when I did, this figure matched my footsteps. And he walked forward and out of the tree line. And this was about the time I realized that it was getting dark. The sun was beginning to set. And the woods were very dark.

[00:29:31] And with him stepping out, I could see a few more details that I couldn't before. He had on a brown leather coat that hit right above the knees. A white button-up with a vest over it. He had on slacks and some boots. And a black brim hat. But it was casting a shadow over his face. And his chin was dipped. I could tell at this time.

[00:30:00] So all I could really see was the bottom part of his face. Again, I instinctually took a few steps backwards. And he just matched those steps again. And slowly, his head began to raise. His lips were in a line, like a fine line, kind of pressed together. He began to smile. And that smile just grew and grew and grew until it seemed to spread from ear to ear.

[00:30:30] And the skin on his side of his face, on his cheeks, was hard to explain it. It was like it was crinkled and crunched up. It was just wrong. His skin seemed wrong. And I couldn't see his eyes. But that smile, it was unnatural. Finally, I hear my brother scream at me. And he yanks on my arm. And we just take off to the four-wheeler. We get on.

[00:30:59] And he starts to drive away. And I never took my eyes off of this man. Not once. I was terrified to look away. Like somehow, if I did, he would be quite up honest when I saw him again. So I did not look away until we had crossed the Britain Bridge across the field. And we had to turn around a bend. And we were going down the field road, which was kind of like a decided property.

[00:32:09] Not waiting. It was like a decided property. It was like a dream. And it was like a dream. Once we got home, we immediately told our parents about it. And my dad got my grandfather and my uncle to go with him. And they went out looking for someone. And they never found anyone. They did find the cabin. And my grandfather told me that his mother, who was my great-grandma Sisi, her sister had actually lived in the house.

[00:32:38] At that point, that was about all the information I had on her. My dad, you know, he tried to chalk it up to, you know, it's probably just someone out there hunting or walking through the woods. But it didn't make sense even for us back then because we lived four miles from anyone. And those woods were so overgrown. I slept with my brother probably for about two weeks after this. He had bunk beds.

[00:33:06] But eventually, you know, my mom and dad said, You're too old to be in your brother's room. You need to sleep in your own bed. Nothing happened. You know, we didn't see any boogeyman or hear anything. So I kind of just forgot about it, honestly. It was the same year. It was 2001. It was fall. And it was a Sunday afternoon. And this was kind of a tradition for us. We would come home from church. My mom would make us lunch.

[00:33:36] And we would go and fish out of the back pond. We had been out there for a couple of hours when my parent mom and dad said, Hey, we're going to go to the house and start dinner. And me and my brother, we decided, you know, we want to stay out here and fish and play some more. And she said, Well, you're going to have to walk home. You know, we're going to take the four-wheeler. I said, you know, we said, That's fine. We'll walk home. It was about 200 yards from the house. It was a pretty long distance. But for us, we didn't care. So we stayed out there.

[00:34:05] And the sun was getting ready to set. So we packed up all of our fishing gear and started to head back towards the house. We went through the back gate of the fence. And we were passing the barn when I had this bolt of fear just shoot through me. It was like electricity just all through my body. I remember it hurt. And I just froze in place. And slowly I turned around and looked back towards the pond.

[00:34:36] My eyes started to scan the tree line. And just a few feet within these small woods behind the pond was this tall silhouette from before. My brother, I remember he kind of rushed up behind me. And he's like, What's wrong? What is it? And I was like, He's in the trees. And so he looks back towards the pond. He's telling me, We need to go run.

[00:35:06] Again, my feet felt cemented to the ground. I remember just yelling at myself internally to go, to quit being so stupid, to turn around and run. But I couldn't make myself do it. Slowly, he began to walk out of the tree line. And this time, he just had this huge smile on his face already. My brother jerked me. And we ran.

[00:35:35] I didn't even look behind me this time. I just ran all the way home. Again, we told our mom and dad about seeing this man. And they went and looked. They never said they didn't believe us. But something told me they didn't. It just didn't seem right. The way they responded to it. That night would be the first night that I experienced anything at the house.

[00:36:04] One of the things my mom hated the most about the house when we first moved in was my grandmother had no blinds, only curtains. But she had this very specific blind she was picking out. It was pretty expensive. So she was buying it slowly, room by room. So my room only had a curtain on it. Living out as far in the country as we did, there were no streetlights. We had two pole lights on the property. One was about 100 yards from the house.

[00:36:32] And the other one was at the back left of the house. My room was positioned at the back left. So that light kind of would cast this glow onto my window. I had fallen asleep that night. And I'm not sure what made me wake up. But I was just jolted awake. Again, I was just frozen. I remember I was laying on my side facing the window.

[00:36:58] And I watched as a shadow began to grow and kind of cross my bedroom. Slowly, my eyes went to where the window was. And I watched as a shadow just started to walk across and then stop directly in the center of it. Underneath the window was a little bedside table. Almost like someone was using their knuckle. There was a knock on the window.

[00:37:27] And then another. And another. And another. And they began quicker. They seemed paced out at first. And then they became very quick until there was a pounding. It was like someone was banging on my window. And I can remember thinking that they were going to bust it out. Like they were going to break this window. And then it just stopped.

[00:37:53] And then I watched as the shadow began to recede back to the way it had come. My bed was up against the wall right beside this window. Almost directly behind where my head was on the outside of the house. I began hearing something like scratching. Or maybe clawing. And then it continued to climb up the side of the house.

[00:38:23] It stopped where the wall met the ceiling. And it was just this kind of steady scratching and clawing noise in that one area. And then I heard my name. But I heard my name in my grandmother's voice. She had this way of making me feel so comforted and at ease. And when I heard my name, I knew it was her.

[00:38:51] And I immediately felt very calm and at ease. There was this screaming. It was like someone was shouting. But it was more like a screech. I don't know if there's an adequate way to describe it. And it was just so loud. I took both of my hands and just clasped them over my ears. And I just started screaming.

[00:39:21] My brother ran in my room first and flicked on the light. And, you know, he was screaming, are you okay? What's wrong? And then my parents came in. I told them what had happened. And my dad did go outside and look. But they assured me that it was just a really bad dream. That, you know, dreams can be very vivid. And that's all it was. There's too many instances like that to really go through them all.

[00:39:47] But I think the worst thing about it was I never knew when they would happen. And they never happened in the same way. They were always so different. That went on probably for a few months. You know, maybe it would be a few nights in a row. And then it would be weeks before something happened. It was right after my 11th birthday. It just stopped completely. I didn't have another experience until I was 14.

[00:40:19] It was February. And there was this big snow that had come. And our cousins were staying the week with us because they had let out for the weather. Two of my uncles had come over with their kids and their four-wheelers. And we would hook our big inner tubes up to the back. And our dads would ride us around on them, trying to knock us off into the snow. We had been riding all afternoon. And my cousins and I, we were playing out at the pond, which had frozen over.

[00:40:49] And my uncle pulls up and he tells them to get on, that they need to go. And my dad kind of yells at me to say that, you know, he'll be there in a second. And after they leave, I start to walk back towards the house. So I walk through the back fence. And I'm probably 20 yards from the back of the barn. When something catches my eye from the loft. Standing to the right, halfway in the shadows, was the figure of this man again.

[00:41:19] I couldn't see all that detail like I did before, but I could see his smile. It was like it almost seemed to glow in the dark. His teeth were so bright. And as soon as I saw him, I just began to run towards my dad and I was screaming. Once more, my dad and my other uncle, they went to the barn and started investigating. Didn't find anything, no evidence or footsteps.

[00:41:46] This is when it began to really affect the relationship I had with my family and my parents. My dad was pretty upset with me. He really thought that I was just looking for attention or making things up. And, you know, he said, you're too old for this. It's not okay to scare us this way. If you want attention, there's a better way to get it. My mom had cooked dinner for us all. And there was about nine of us sitting around the dining room table.

[00:42:16] And where the dining room table was, there was a huge window that looked out the backyard and into the pasture. I was sitting facing the window and my dad was catty-cornered to where I was. And I kept telling myself, just don't look out there. Don't look. But when I looked up, I saw him standing right at the fence, 50 feet from where we are.

[00:42:44] It's pretty dark at this time, so I can only see a silhouette. I must have gotten lost, kind of frozen, because I hear my dad yell my name. You know, I jerk my attention towards him. And he's mad at me. You know, he thinks I'm ignoring him, that I'm being ugly. And this happened once more at the table. I had looked up and looked over my cousin's shoulder, and he was a few steps closer. And I remember all I kept thinking was, he's closer. He's closer.

[00:43:13] Because even though I had heard things outside of my room or outside of my window, I had never seen him. But I was seeing him right in my backyard, and that's all I could think is, he's closer. And they were trying to talk to me and ask me questions. And so my dad yells at me, and I ended up getting dismissed from the table. He thought I was being disrespectful. And I remember just being so afraid and not wanting to leave that table.

[00:43:42] Not wanting to go to my room, not wanting to be alone, but I did. It wasn't long after that that my mom came in, and she said, What is going on? This isn't like you. And I just broke down, and I told her the exact truth. She goes over to my window, and I remember I had blinds put on at this point. So she opens the curtains, pulls up the blind, and she kind of pointed towards the backyard. And she's like, nothing is out here.

[00:44:10] I looked. There wasn't anything. And that just made me break down harder. And I was like, I promise. Something was out there. Something is out there. My brother, he had kind of started to clam up around me as well. He had experienced things, too, but not like I was. That was when I made a decision that I couldn't tell them, because they were going to think I was crazy or looking for attention or worse.

[00:44:55] Things got worse for a while. I would see him standing in the dark corners of my room, and when I cut the light on, he wouldn't be there. Which began to make me feel crazy. Like, is this really all in my head? Do I have something wrong with me? My brother, he got really upset with me, and he said, it's you. You know, nothing ever happens. I never see it. I never experience anything unless I'm around you. You know, I remember him saying, I don't know what you did,

[00:45:25] but as long as I stay away from you, he stays away from me. That really hurt because I was so close with my brother. But again, all this went on for a few months, when again, it just, it all stopped. I was 16. My brother moved out of the house. He had just turned 18. He graduated high school. And he had worked really hard to get into college and get a scholarship. And he didn't even wait for the fall. He left and went to summer school.

[00:45:55] And I remember things had been better for a long time. But when he left, it was like I knew something was about to happen. I could feel it. And I started asking my dad for a dog. I begged him for a dog. And he told me, he said, I will buy you a dog, but I will not feed it. I won't take care of it. And it can't sleep with you. You know, it needs to have rules. It needs to learn to obey. So we'll put it in a crate, a kennel. And as long as you can agree to that, I'll get you a dog.

[00:46:25] And I was so excited. So I picked a pretty big one. At night, I would leave this dim lamp on, on the desk in my room. And I would also leave my closet and bathroom light on with the doors like halfway shut. I was terrified of the dark. It was a Saturday afternoon and I had fallen asleep early. So I hadn't cut my lights on and my dog kept falling asleep on the bed with me. I woke up and it's pitch black. It's midnight. So I immediately get up, go to the bathroom

[00:46:55] and switch the light on. And, you know, it disoriented me. My eyes were still trying to adjust, but I used the bathroom and I closed the door a little bit. And I was walking around the foot of my bed when my knees and chins hit something, which I immediately knew was my dog. And I told it to move and to get up on the bed, but it just sat there. So I walked around it and climbed up on the bed. And as I was climbing on the bed,

[00:47:22] I listened as he was scurrying across my room, kind of to the other side of my bed and then back across. And I had already started to lay down at this point. So I looked down to my footboard, kind of to the edge, and I could just see a dark mass. Then it moved back out of sight. I was becoming a little frustrated, like, get up here, come lay down. But he was acting weird,

[00:47:52] just kind of scurrying across my floor. So I turned my back towards the edge of my bed and I quickly fell back asleep. I woke back up to my dog whining, very loud whining, and he never did that. It was coming from the very foot of my bed. So I kept telling him to get up on the bed and I was becoming really frustrated. And finally, I was just like, you know what, forget it, just sleep on the floor. I started to fall back asleep

[00:48:22] when I heard the whining coming from directly behind my head. Then I felt the bed shift right behind me. My dog did have this thing where he would lay his head on the edge of my bed, which I thought was really cute. And I would take my hands and place it on both sides of his face and kind of ruffle his cheeks right under his ears. And so kind of frustrated and groaning,

[00:48:50] I roll over onto my back and while I'm rolling, I'm grabbing for my dog's face. And immediately when my hands grab what I think is my dog, I know immediately something's wrong. This is not my dog. It was wrong. It was leathery and bony. I don't know how to explain it, honestly. I don't know if words, if there's words for it.

[00:49:19] But immediately my eyes shot open and I looked and it's this smiling man's head. His hat is on, but I can see his eyes for the first time ever. They're wide open and they were so white and his pupils were black and they're so small. And he had that big smile all across his face from ear to ear. And I can remember just, as soon as I stood up off the bed,

[00:49:49] he stood up. And it is so hard to explain what I saw because it doesn't even make sense if you're thinking about the human body. But he stood, but his head didn't. It's like his head stayed, rested on the bed and then slowly his head like moved up his body. And I'm just screaming as loud as I can. Both of my parents, they actually came running out of their rooms asking what's wrong. And I followed them back to my room and my dad's looking around

[00:50:19] and immediately from the look they're giving me, I can tell that they're worried. Like, oh no, like she's doing this again. And so immediately I just go, you know what? The dog fell asleep on the bed with me. It must have been the dog. You know, it must have scared me. I'm so sorry. I think I just had like a really bad nightmare. I could tell that kind of eased their tensions a little bit and everything seemed okay for a minute. But that was the starting point

[00:50:48] of things going really bad in my life. I started making some really bad decisions because I didn't want to be at home. Nothing ever happened unless I was on that property. And I had just got my driver's license so I spent the night with friends a lot. Even if they told me I couldn't, I would go spend the night with a friend. Sometimes I would just go sleep in the parking lot of, you know, the grocery store or wherever I could, honestly.

[00:51:17] Every time I was at home after that, something would happen. Not always as terrifying as what happened that night, but still terrifying. My parents really just thought I was like this rebellious teenager that I was making all the wrong decisions. You know, they were really big about, you're so smart and you're so bright. You have a great future ahead of you. You know, why are you throwing it away? You know, why are you behaving this way? There's a lot more

[00:51:46] to how upset they were with me when this all began. We did go to the doctor a few times and I think it was more scary thinking about them thinking I was crazy. They did not believe in this supernatural aspect of what we were experiencing. I began this behavior when I was about 16 years old and when I was about 17, I was breaking my mom and dad's heart and especially my mom. So I decided to suck it up.

[00:52:16] I didn't want to hurt them because I do. I have really amazing parents. That last year, I began to think it was mind over matter. Like maybe if I could control it and go to church and maybe I was allowing it to do this to me. But the last experience I had at the house was the most disturbing for me. My dad is terrified

[00:52:46] of thunderstorms. He was involved in a tornado when he was younger. And so when we moved into the farmhouse, he had a storm shelter built at the very back of the house. And so you had to go out the back door and it was the door to, it was like a storage room, but there was like a door in the floor that would open up. The thunder and rain had woke me up a few times, but my dad came in my room and he switched the light on. He said, there's a tornado warning, get to the storm shelter. So I got up

[00:53:16] and put my shoes on and as I'm walking out of my bedroom, all the lights go out. Quickly, I'm rushing through the kitchen when, again, I get this bolt of fear that runs through me, but it was like immediately I was bolted to the floor. I could not move. I remember my eyes were just kind of scanning the room. It was pitch black in the house, but I felt like a body was pressed up against the back of me and then I feel

[00:53:45] this hot breath on my neck and on my ear and at first I could not understand anything that it was saying and for a very long time, for years, I really thought that maybe it was just gibberish. But now, I really do believe that it was a different language. this really raspy, low, deep voice. You are mine.

[00:54:15] And it just continued to say that to me. Again, the whole time I'm fighting with myself, it was like I hated myself in these moments because I could not make myself move. I finally began to run and I ran outside to the storm shelter and my dad's not out there. My mom's not out there. So, frantically, I run back into the house, into my parents' room and my parents are asleep in bed and I wake my dad up and I'm like, Dad, why are you in bed?

[00:54:45] Why are you not in the storm shelter? And him and my mom are looking at me like I'm crazy and he's like, I never woke you up. I couldn't understand it in the moment because I had seen my dad, I had heard my dad but also, in that moment, I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that whatever this entity or thing was that he would even know that about my dad because that was the first storm like that that we had experienced in the house.

[00:55:16] There's a lot of things about that that really disturbed me. I actually still have thought to this day, why do I call him a man? It's not a man. I think for me, it's just easier to process it in that type of language. I guess it's a little bit easier for me to process that way. You know, I used to think that he smiled because I was scared. I don't know why I would think that but I would, I would think he's happy that I'm afraid.

[00:55:50] After that, I did the same thing my brother did. I worked really hard in school. I got a scholarship and I got out of the house. I went to summer school. Still to this day, I don't really talk to my brother a whole lot but I did follow in his footsteps in a lot of ways. My parents were really proud of him and he never came back to the house after he left. He left immediately after high school and they never really held that against him. They understood. So,

[00:56:19] I went to summer school as well. I graduated college early. I went to med school just like him because med school took up so much of my time. I never wanted my parents to feel like I was avoiding them or like I didn't want to be around them. It gave them a reason to be proud of me without it seeming like I didn't want to be around. When I was 27 years old my grandfather my dad's dad was dying and my dad calls me up and he's like

[00:56:49] look you have not seen him ain't going on 10 years. He's about to die you need to come and see him. I had like a little break so I came home immediately you know he looked so different you know 10 years had done a lot but he he cried almost the whole time and right before I was I was getting ready to leave and he just started saying I'm so sorry and I said for what and he's like I'm so sorry I didn't do more to keep y'all out of that house

[00:57:19] and away from that land. He said I should have never let your dad buy it and I should have said something way before now. He said I was a coward and I remember just being so blown away and shocked by it because even though my brother had experienced things I didn't talk to him anymore so it's not like I had someone to I never had I had someone that I even felt comfortable enough sharing these things with and he was letting me know he knew exactly what I was talking about

[00:57:49] you know that night that we first saw this man out in the woods and he went with my dad back there he knew and that was hard for me it made me really angry I left but I decided to come back it was about a month later and I decided I'm going to go back and see him and he told me way more he said that his little brother so he died young the things I did know about him is he was a drug addict he was an alcoholic

[00:58:18] and he had been in and out of prison and I can remember my mom and dad talking about you know they couldn't understand why everyone took up for him because he was such a horrible person you know why did they defend him what my grandfather was telling me is that they all experienced things so there were three boys and two girls so both of his sisters both of his brothers they all saw it they all experienced it but it was the youngest his little brother

[00:58:47] that really got the rough end of it all and he ended up dropping out of high school very early I think I think he was 14 or 15 when he dropped out and he just had a really really rough life a really tragic life the oldest brother he was actually the only one that had gotten a college degree before my father I've never to this day met him he didn't even come around when his mom was dying

[00:59:17] my grandfather died a few months after that they asked my brother to speak at the funeral and see my brother has four kids now and they're all little and he's married when I saw him at the funeral things seemed a little bit better he started calling me we would text more but there was an event happening and I think it was a holiday maybe like Thanksgiving and I didn't come in for it and he calls me and he's so upset with me

[00:59:47] and he's like why you know you're breaking mom's heart you know she wants all of us to be together why won't you come here and I was like you know exactly why I won't come there I remember I just ended up getting very frustrated with him and I hung up on him I actually got the number the oldest brother's number and I called him and I left him a voicemail I told him who I was whose daughter I was and that I would love to talk to him and just ask him to please call me back and I ended up calling him three separate times leaving him

[01:00:16] basically the same message I'm gonna say about two three months had gone by I hadn't heard anything so I called him one last time and I left him a voicemail and I said you know I told him who I was that I really needed to talk to him that I thought me and him had very similar experiences growing up and that I really would love to talk to him and get his insights and maybe he could answer some of my questions it was maybe two days later

[01:00:46] I mean it was really quick turnaround he did call me and as soon as I answered you know he didn't say hello nothing he just said do not call me again I do not want to talk to you if you call me again I'm going to press charges for harassment then he just hung up on me so that was the only interaction I've ever had with him after I graduated med school that was about a year later I decided that I wanted to go talk to these sisters see if they would

[01:01:15] tell me anything so I drove in and I sat down with the first one and she didn't want to talk about her big brother who was the oldest or the little brother but she said I married a man that's not very nice and doesn't really love me but it was a hell of a lot better than living in that house she's like I just wanted to get out but she didn't want to answer any more questions I really didn't push her because I did understand it you know I just kept thinking man when you get away from it you know I could see why you would never want to

[01:01:45] go back down that road again it was the other sister that told me a lot more and I met with her a couple of different times just like the first sister she told me that she also married a man that wasn't really kind but it gave her a way to get out of the house and not have to deal with it anymore and she said that's all I wanted I just wanted out of the house she told me a lot more about the cabin Cece's sister had married a very successful man he had built

[01:02:15] a business out of nothing but they he really came down on his luck so Cece and my great grandfather Ronald said you know what we got a lot of property we'll build you a little cabin anywhere on the property so they picked that little clearing out in the woods and they said that almost immediately after moving in she got very sick she died this very painful horrendous death that they just kept praying that

[01:02:44] that she would go that God would take her that because it was that bad she said that the doctor had told them that she was probably hallucinating because when she started to get sick she started to talk about someone being in the room with her someone watching her something lurking in the darkness and a smiling man I mean all of it was important but that really stood out to me because I'm like okay this is real there were so many times throughout the years

[01:03:14] that I really doubted my sanity there were so many circumstances as well that you could give a reasonable explanation for some of it you could find okay maybe this is what it was which I tended to do and it's one reason why I went down a career path of science and facts that seemed a lot more comforting to me they said about a week after Sissy's sister had died they had gone out to the cabin

[01:03:44] to check on her husband because he took it really really hard and he came to the door but he quickly rushed them away they said he didn't seem well but they were like he just must be grieving but they said two more weeks had gone by they had gone out there but he wouldn't answer the door so two weeks later they broke down the door and they found him dead in his bed they said the strangest thing of it was his mouth was as wide open as it would go

[01:04:14] like his jaws were as wide as they could possibly go and his eyes were nothing on his body to suggest that anything had harmed him or he put up any sort of fight one of the last things that I asked her was if her mother knew if Cece knew and she said yes she knew and that was hard for me I wonder if that's a big reason why my grandfather and the

[01:04:44] other sister didn't want to talk about her either because she was such an amazing woman it was bizarre that she would have just stayed in that much as she loved her kids and just how amazing she was you know she wanted to protect and then I said did he did he or whatever this thing was ever hurt any of y'all and she said no she said he never hurt us it was like he made us hurt ourselves and that's kind of this conclusion I came to was

[01:05:13] that's what whatever this is does it's like he wants to destroy not only your life but how you feel about yourself how you think about yourself which again it's so hard to wrap my head around it like what what's the purpose or meaning of it all

[01:05:43] I'm 35 now like I said I'm married now and I have two kids and I refuse to let them come here I would always have a good excuse for why they couldn't come if it was a two kids with them and I said yeah that's fine they own a small farm with chickens and they have animals

[01:06:13] and they said can you house sit for us make sure the animals are fed and the house is taken care of and I have never experienced anything else and somewhere around the time I was probably 25 26 they actually burned the back cabin down they had gone out there and it was falling in and so they tore it down and they had it burned and I kind of had it in my head that maybe whatever was out there that's the source of it and that was the end of it that kind of stopped it and my parents had never said anything

[01:06:43] never experienced anything it's like they had the direct opposite kind of like my grandfather and my grandmother it's like they became one with the land they loved this place it's their refuge their home they could never imagine leaving and they have found such great success being here which I kind of wonder if that's the irony with all of it but they were gone and it

[01:07:13] big family room and then there's two steps up that go into a dining room that's open to the kitchen it was probably like midnight 1am and we were having a few drinks my husband got up so he could make us some more the dining room light was off but the kitchen light was on there's double doors in the dining room it was almost because those lights were off the windows on the kitchen so you could see the cabinets and

[01:07:42] the refrigerator and my husband walking back and forth in the kitchen I was looking on my phone and we had a movie on the TV and I was going back and forth but every now and then I would look up as I would see his reflection passing out of my peripheral vision about the third time I glanced over there I don't know what it was but again I had that shock of terror go through my entire body it hurt so bad I could feel it in my toes and I screamed his

[01:08:12] name and he didn't say anything and then I screamed it again nothing and the third time it was like this frantic as loud as I could screaming at him and he kind of rushed in there and popped his head and he yelled three times he was there in the kitchen and I was like yeah it's okay

[01:08:42] I just I don't know I just got scared I just wanted to make sure you were okay so he goes back in the kitchen to finish making these drinks and I couldn't help but just keep glancing at those double doors and I was like all of a sudden my eyes just adjusted and right outside was the silhouette of this tall man on the other side of these doors and I didn't behave like I did like I used to instead I just told

[01:09:12] myself I am not going to be afraid of this whatever this is I am not going to let it control me so I just looked away I just looked away from the double doors and my husband came back down there I guess I was behaving a little differently a little more quiet he kept asking me if I was okay and I was like yeah I'm fine but directly behind his head are two smaller windows that

[01:09:49] like you're not going to let it do this you're not going to do this this is where I truly believe that whatever this is that must be what it wants maybe it feeds off of fear and terror and destruction I decided after that okay I can't let my kids and my husband keep coming here I don't need to be coming here and that was

[01:10:20] but it was just a few months ago I went in for my mom's birthday my brother was here again I made up an excuse for my kids and husband couldn't come with me he kind

[01:10:51] and he got really defensive and I was like that's the only thing I can think of you have not talked to me in years but you only care about me being here seeing her whenever y'all are visiting and I was like you basically abandoned me when we were younger and let me deal with this all by myself and I was like you have no idea what that did to me I do think

[01:11:21] in that moment it hit him I don't think he realized that that's what he was doing or maybe that was even a fear of his and he didn't admit it but I do think that that is a lot of it is maybe he feels safer with me there like he's protected somehow the cabin that we had found all of those old vintage leather suitcases the wooden chest it was a few

[01:11:51] years ago I went through all of it I was kind of curious and there's a lot of really vintage photos really cool photos of my great jacket that hit about mid thigh maybe a little bit longer a white button up shirt

[01:12:21] he did have on a tie and maybe a vest it's the way he's standing you can't really tell and then boots and he has this black hat on but you know from what I gather from other people I was lucky enough to have a lot of great grandparents growing up and like I figure out a lot of things but apparently that type of a western wear I would almost like that's how they put it was kind

[01:12:52] of common not specifically that outfit but every time I think back to the details of what he was wearing I think back to that photo my dad nothing serious and then I started to bring up a few different scenarios and a few different

[01:13:22] things just to dip my toe in the water she was just staring straight up at the ceiling not saying anything but she had this look on her face like she was really deep in thought but she wanted to tell me something but didn't know how to say it so I asked her have you ever experienced anything and she said do you remember when you were younger and you told us about the noises outside your window the tapping and scratching and then she kind of hesitated and she said a man that

[01:13:52] smiled at you now I was really taken back by this and I was a little afraid of where it was going I was quiet for a minute and then she

[01:14:22] inside of it and that's the only part that was completed and that's where she was looking up at and you know I hear this stuff in the attic and your dad assures me it's just mice or a raccoon like maybe even a squirrel but I know it's more than that and every now and then I catch the silhouette of a man and sometimes I just see a smile in

[01:14:52] she just continued like I love this house I love this land and I can't imagine not living here I can't imagine living anywhere else it's my home and she just kind of cut herself off and she started to cry and she said have we messed up here I really felt for her in

[01:15:23] you you not missing anything and she is like what do you mean by that I was like I think you know exactly what I mean you said enough that you must know how can you still believe I was lying or looking for attention even my brother told you and you know I

[01:15:53] so happy that my mom sees it now but I hate the fact that it's taking her experiencing something to get to that point and that's the first step I think because he does love her they've been married for 42 years now so I pray that maybe he does see it or maybe he just finally believes this

[01:16:33] some things never leave even when you do what really happened in those worlds and who or what was watching them all those years if you enjoyed this story make sure to leave a review and tap follow so you don't miss next week's episode a huge thank you to Mallory for sharing her story with us and if you want to share a story with our community go to true

[01:17:24] scary