Appalachian Girl Followed Two Children Into the Woods. Then, a Creature Followed Them to the Cabin: ‘It Smiled’

The Appalachian Mountains have a mystic allure, which attracts campers and hikers all year round. But the area is also notorious for paranormal activity and cryptid sightings, as one woman experienced and told Savana (@itssavanadarling) on TikTok.

Savana, in her popular ‘Tea After Midnight’ series, reads scary story submissions from her followers. The woman, who preferred to be anonymous, recalled a time she and her family camped in Conneticut, up in the Appalachian mountains. She was just twelve at the time, but her experience still sends shivers down her spine to this day.

The family of four rented out a wooden cabin for two weeks. In that cabin, the woman had her room that overlooked the woods. After she had finished packing, she begged her mother to go outside—she was eager to see wildlife, since she loved animals. Her mother agreed, and the woman grabbed some baby carrots to feed the animals with during her hike.

“As soon as I stepped into the woods, I felt a chill run down my spine,” the woman recalled. Something has shifted in the air. In that moment, she suddenly didn’t want to be outside anymore.

A strange creature in the Appalachian woods

Just as she started walking, someone yelled.

It almost scared her, but it was just the neighbors’ kids from the neighboring house. They befriended each other, and the woman called them Jack and Josh. Upon meeting these two other kids, she felt more confident in venturing further into the woods. Her initial unease disappeared, and they explored the area for about ten minutes until it started getting dark.

She told her new friends that she needed to go back, as it was already getting late. They ignored her and kept walking ahead. The woman repeated herself, but she received no response from the boys. Since she was afraid of going back alone, she kept following the boys into the woods. That’s when the feelings of dread crept back in—she felt like something was amiss.

After walking for a few more minutes, the skies had darkened quickly. She couldn’t even see the family cabin they were renting out. Then, the two boys stopped walking. Their heads turned in the same direction at the same time.

She looked, and it was a torn-down campsite. Beside one of the disheveled tents was a large, hunched-over figure. Its spine looked human, but it had fur on its shoulders. Jack and Josh were already making a run for it, and she followed, trying her best to get away from the creature. But when she looked back, it was already where she once stood, silently watching her.

She made it to the cabin, with her parents already outside, calling her name. They took her inside while she was frantically explaining the story. Her parents were going to lecture her about wandering off on her own, but she explained that she was with Jack and Josh, the neighbor’s kids.

But her parents looked horrified for some unexplained reason. Regardless, the trip didn’t end there, and her parents would go into town to buy groceries the next day.

It followed her home

She and her sister, who was eight at the time, stayed indoors. The siblings were watching TV when the power went out.

It didn’t scare her at first, because they were in an old cabin. Although she knew she had to power the generator up, something in her gut told her not to go outside. She looked out of the window from the kitchen first.

Her heart dropped. The creature from the woods was outside, and half of its body was hiding behind the tree, looking at the front door where she almost walked out from.

“I made eye contact with it, and I swear, it smiled. It was the worst smile I’d ever seen,” the woman said in her recollection. With her quick thinking, she grabbed her sister from the living room and ran upstairs into her room. She locked the door of her bedroom and called their mother. They stayed on the phone for an hour while she and her sister were hiding.

She heard scratching and knocking on her window, which would’ve been impossible, as it was on the second floor of the cabin.

Her parents finally arrived, and they packed their things. They called the cabin owner, telling them that they were no longer going to stay. The owner didn’t seem surprised.

The family drove off, but for a split second, she saw the figures of the two boys.

Who were Josh and Jack?

When the woman turned sixteen, her parents finally told the truth. They were told by a shop owner in town that the neighboring house once had a couple of sons. They disappeared into the woods for weeks, and when the police found the boys, their bodies had huge claw marks everywhere.

Whatever’s happening in those woods just can’t be explained.

(featured images: Eneida Nieves)

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