I went on my annual trip to West Texas, and what I saw made my blood curdle.
WARNING: This post contains the mention of the evil spirit known as a ‘skinwalker’. If discussion of this type of evil spirit makes you upset in any way, feel free to leave. I won’t be insulted.
I have always been a country boy for my entire life. Never have I ever lived inside of the city limits, let alone the county. Where I live, there is green everywhere, a creek is found less than 500 feet from my house, and over 1,000 acres of forest lies behind my house. I’m sure that you can infer that I have experienced a lot of life in the wilderness, much of it from my experience in the Boy Scouts of America. So whenever I go on my annual trip to the legendary West Texas, I am always prepared for the worst, but I was still horrified by the sight that I saw.
For those of you who do not know, Texas is a state in USA, and it has a very diverse landscape, ranging from plains to coastal regions to mountains and deserts (I live in the Coastal Plains region of Texas). Every 6 months, I go on a 1-week trip, by car, to the legendary Mountains and Basins region of Texas, the far west region of the state. Sometimes I go there for the amazing Davis Mountains (you should check it out), the historical Fort Davis (located near the Davis Mountains), or the McDonald observatory, but almost always I go there for Big Bend National Park, a mix of desert and mountains. With the exotic plants and the extraordinary scenery, it is a must-have for anybody who likes to see the true beauty of nature.
However, this isn’t always true. Sometimes things do go awry, ranging from getting lost in the desert to breaking your leg, alone, in the middle of the night in hostile cougar territory. Sometimes you are lost on a trail, your water supply dwindling; sometimes, you are ambushed by a bunch of frenzied javalinas. All of those things are nightmare fuel; however, even through all my years of experience in the area, nothing could compare to what I saw on this trip.
My friend and I had just met up at Panther Junction at Big Bend National Park. This friend is of Jumano Indian descent, and for privacy reasons, I will refer to him as 'Travis’. We go inside the building to change our shared campsite, as the wind is carrying the stench from the garbage cans near our campsite to our tents. We go wait in line, and the group in front of us is just two white men who look like they are in their 20s. One of them asks the lady at the desk for any good trails. “What kind of trail are you looking for?” The lady at the front desk said. “Uhh, we want a trail that will, uh, give us a view of a lot of the, uh, park,” the man replied. “Then the trail you are looking for is the Window Trail,” the woman said. “How much water did you bring?” “Uhh, we brought 2 bottles,” the second man replied. “2 packages of water bottles?” the woman asked. “Err, we brought 2 plastic bottles.” the first man said. The woman shook her head and said that they would need a lot more bottles of water to do the Window Trail. They said 'ok’ and walked off. Before leaving though, they turned to us and asked us if we knew any good trails. I told them that since they had hardly any water, they should get some more first, but once they did so, they should try out the Lost Mines Trail, as it gives a very good view of the surroundings. “Ok, cool.” the first man said. “Our names are Nick and Aydan. What are yours?” I told them my name and Travis’ name. “Nice meeting you bro,” Nick said, and he and Aydan then exited the building.
Travis and I got to our new campsite. We parked our vehicles in the allotted space and began to set up our tents. Once we finished setting up, I got out my light-weight stove and began to cook dinner.
After about 1 hour passed, I had finished cooking Travis’ and my dinner, and we ate. Afterwards, we began to discuss what we should do. After a brief conversation, we decided to go on the Emory Peak Trail, as that night was supposed to be a full moon, and the entire desert would be lit up in the moonlight.
Travis and I drove down in our separate vehicles to the trailhead and got out. We got out our backpacks filled with supplies, our hiking sticks, and our map and compass - just in case. When we were halfway up the trail, we encountered a middle-aged white man… just standing on the path with his hands covering his face. I asked him if he was okay, and we got no response from him. Travis simply muttered something about 'them crazy whites’ and said that we should just keep walking.
When we got to the top of Emory Peak, the moon had reached the very top of the night sky and the entire desert was illuminated by moonlight. The landscape was bathed with the moonlight and we could see all of our surroundings. It wasn’t like a moonlight in a dense forest where you could only see partially; we could see everything. After 15 minutes of this magnificent moment, Travis said that he was ready to go back down, and I agreed.
When Travis and I were close to the end of the trail - so close that we could see our vehicles - I noticed something odd. The same man we had saw earlier was leaning against the hood of my car - only he wasn’t covering his face anymore. We could now see the full view of his face. Massive dark rings were around his eyes - as if he had pulled a 3-day bender; he also had no eyebrows - that’s right - no eyebrows. The color of his irises were very dark brown - so dark that they seemed almost black. A massive blue vein pulsated across his forehead and left temple, he had an unnaturally long nose, and his lips were so pale, it didn’t seem like he had lips at all. “Isn’t it too late for you guys to be out here late at night?” He said in a raspy voice. The man then cackled, and a thin line of blood came out from his mouth. “Sir, I’d appreciate it if you’d get off of my friends car,” Travis said calmly; his deep voice booming. Now I didn’t say this earlier in this post, but Travis is a very big man with massive flowing black hair that went beyond his shoulders, as well as very dark irises. I would also like to say that Travis is seven feet tall, so the fact that the man continued to laugh at us was very unsettling. I saw Travis slightly pull up his shirt (which wasn’t tucked in), revealing a handgun, which he pulled out and aimed at the man. “Sir, please get off of my friend’s car.” Travis said.
I was a little shocked at the fact that Travis had a handgun with him that he had concealed with his untucked shirt, but now I knew that we had some protection. The man quietly got off my car and spat at us, narrowly missing my shoes by a few inches. I noticed that the man’s saliva was red. The man gave an evil look at Travis and flipped us off, before walking over to a car that I would consider to be 'shit-tier’. There was no paint on it, the windshield had a large hole on the passenger’s side, the trunk cover was missing, and the rear door that I could see had duct tape on a large section of it. The man got into the car, unsuccessfully tried to start up, cursed a lot, tried to start the car up a couple of times, and the engine of the car finally turned on and the man drove out of the area at a speed of around ~10 MPH. A lot of smoke came out from the exhaust tube, and I noticed a flat tire as he drove away. I got into my car and Travis got into his truck, and we proceeded to drive back to our campsite.
If the story ended there, it wouldn’t be scary. I didn’t clarify this, but my campsite that I share with Travis is about 30 minutes away from Emory Peak, so there was going to be some time spent driving across the desert. When I was 5 minutes down the drive back to the campsite, I looked in my rear-view mirror to make sure that Travis was still near me, and he was about 30 feet behind me. I looked back to the road, and saw a very large dog just inside my line of sight. “Hey Travis,” I said into my walkie-talkie that I keep in my car, “Do you see that big-ass dog up there on the road?” I’m not lying, that dog was as big as a German Shepard! “Run that thing over,” Travis said back. I was a little confused at first. Why should I run a dog over? “Run that thing over!” Travis said. I could sense fear in his voice. The dog was looking right at me. “Run it over!” Travis yelled, his fear emitting from the walkie-talkie.
By now I could see that the dog was too big to be a normal dog, and it was looking right at me! It was 3 times as big as a German Shepard, and it just… sat there! When I was close up to it in my car, it, I shit you not, stood up on its hind legs! The thing had massive clubbed hands with disproportionately large claws, and it opened up its snout, revealing large, sharp teeth. “RUN THAT THING OVER!!!!!” Travis yelled frantically. I began to floor the gas pedal, reaching 50, 70, then 80 MPH. Right when I was about to hit the thing, it leapt out of the way and gave out a demonic snarl that no animal known to man could make. By now I was going 90 MPH down the desert with Travis in his truck following suit right behind me.
Eventually, I got pulled over by a state trooper, who looked like he had Native American lineage in him. He began to write me a ticket when Travis pulled over right behind my car. The state trooper seemed confused to why a fellow Native American seemed to be pulling over in my aid. Travis hastily got out of his truck, went up to the man, and told him that we had seen a skinwalker. The cop paled, dropped the ticket, stammered out a warning about speeding, hastily got back into his state car, and booked it down the desert road. Travis told me to get back into my car and to get back to our campsite as quickly as possible, and to wait there in my car, with all the doors locked. I complied, and after a few seconds of waiting at the campsite, Travis got there. He got out of his truck and motioned for me to get out of the car. When I did, he told me to start packing up camp as quickly as possible.
After 5 minutes, Travis and I finished packing up camp. We had just finished putting our stuff into our respective vehicles when I heard a woman screaming from the distance! I was about to run over there when Travis firmly grabbed the back of the shirt and told me to not go to the source of the screaming. I asked 'why’, and he simply told me that evil spirits were over there. I wanted to go investigate, but after recalling the encounter with the horror on the road, all curiosities were quickly extinguished.
Me and Travis got home safely. Travis made some kind of wooden charm that would apparently ward off any evil spirit.
Fast-forward 3 weeks. I’m at Travis’ house, drinking a few beers and chatting with him outside, when he says that he needs to go take a shit. I wait outside, and then I notice a small black dachshund. It’s sitting at least 100 feet away from the house, yet its eyes are directed towards me. The dog then gets up, and I notice that it has unnaturally long legs for its size. Then, I notice that it doesn’t have a tail. Through my drunken haze, I dimly recall some lore Travis told me - a skinwalker in animal form doesn’t have a tail! This snaps me back to reality and I book it back inside of Travis’s house.
I find the bathroom that Travis is in, and I open it. “What the hell, man,” Travis said. “Can’t you see that I’m taking a shit right now?” I then tell him that I saw a skinwalker on his property. Travis paled, as the evil spirit that we encountered in West Texas 3 weeks ago had followed us back more than 800 miles! Travis got up, pulled up his pants, and left the bathroom without flushing the toilet. He went down into his cellar, and came out with a brown bag filled with salt. He went around the house sprinkling salt around the walls, doors, windows, and any other potential means of entry. I asked him why he was doing this, and he told me that this will keep out any evil spirit.
Once Travis finished the salt-barrier process, he went back into the cellar and came out with two painted wooden Native-American charms. He handed me one and told me to keep it with me wherever I go to ward off any evil spirits.
That was the last time I ever saw that dog… so far…
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