Police Officer’s Terrifying Encounter With an Unknown Cryptid—A Disturbing, Unexplained Incident Story

The Face in the Shadows

You want to know why I don’t hunt anymore. Why I sold all my gear and refuse to step foot in the deep woods. Sit down, and I’ll tell you about the worst week of my life—why I’m probably the only person alive who can tell you what it’s really like to kill a Sasquatch.

This happened three years ago, but I still wake up in cold sweats, reliving every moment. I was a police officer then—eight years on the force—thought I’d seen everything. Domestic disputes, drug busts, bar fights, car accidents—you name it. Nothing prepared me for what I encountered that October night.

.

.

.

It started like any other shift. My partner and I were cruising the quieter parts of the county, just past midnight. The radio had been dead silent all evening, which was usually a good thing. But then, out of nowhere, dispatch crackled to life with a call that immediately put us on edge.

A woman, frantic, calling from somewhere near the forest boundary on the outskirts of town. She said someone was trying to break into her RV, clawing at the door, calling her out. But here’s the thing—she said the voice sounded all wrong. Not quite human. Then the call cut out abruptly, leaving us with nothing but static. That had never happened before. Usually, we’d get a disconnect, or the line would go dead, but this felt different.

My partner looked at me, eyes tense. We both knew—these kinds of calls in remote areas often meant trouble. Could be a domestic, a mental breakdown, drugs, or worse. We radioed back, confirming we were responding, and headed toward the coordinates.

The drive took about ten minutes, but it felt longer. We left the main roads behind, winding onto narrow dirt paths that barely qualified as roads. No streetlights, no houses—just dense trees pressing in on both sides. The headlights cut through the darkness, but everything beyond that cone of light felt like it was watching us.

My partner was driving, and I could tell he was feeling the same unease I was. We’d responded to calls in remote areas before, but this one was different. Maybe it was the woman’s trembling voice, or the complete silence of the woods. Either way, we were on high alert.

Finally, we reached the location. The first thing that hit me was how dead quiet everything was. No wind, no insects, no distant traffic—just this oppressive silence that pressed against my ears. About fifty yards ahead sat the RV. The door was wide open, and a warm glow spilled into the darkness. That’s never a good sign.

We parked our cruiser at a distance, drew our weapons, and approached on foot, hands resting on the holsters but not drawn. Protocol is to announce yourself first, see if you get a response. But as we got closer, it was obvious why no one was answering.

The doorframe was gouged—deep, savage scratches like someone had taken a garden rake to it. But these weren’t normal marks. They looked more like claw marks—massive, deep, and uneven. No normal animal could make such gouges. We drew our guns and went through the RV methodically, checking every corner, every closet.

What we found made my stomach turn.

The interior was trashed—furniture overturned, dishes smashed, pictures knocked off the walls. But it was the other stuff that really hit me. Thick, clear liquid all over the linoleum near the door—like egg whites, but with a smell I’ll never forget. Rotten meat, raw and tangy, with a metallic undercurrent that made my head spin. I’d seen plenty of crime scenes, but this was something else.

The liquid was pulled in several spots, like something had been moving around frantically. The bedroom was worse. Drawers torn open, clothes strewn everywhere, sheets pulled halfway off the bed, twisted and soaked with that strange liquid. It looked frantic—like someone searching for something, or maybe trying to pack in a hurry.

That’s when we saw the back door.

It was also wide open, and on the ground outside, we saw the first signs of what we’d come for: drag marks in the mud—long, deep grooves, like something heavy had been pulled away into the woods. These weren’t footprints, exactly. They looked like someone—or something—had been dragged. The marks led into the darkness, into the trees, about thirty feet away.

We called it in immediately—possible kidnapping, victim dragged into the woods, requesting backup. But the dispatcher told us the nearest units were at least twenty minutes out, and rescue wouldn’t arrive until dawn. If someone was hurt or in danger, twenty minutes might be too long. So, we made a decision: follow the trail ourselves.

I know some will say that was reckless—going into the woods at night, after what might be a dangerous suspect. But you have to understand—this was what we trained for. Someone might be dying out there while we waited for backup. We grabbed flashlights, guns ready, and moved into the darkness.

The woods swallowed us whole.

Into the Darkness

The trees closed in around us, blocking out the moonlight. Our beams of flashlight seemed pathetic against the blackness, like trying to illuminate a cathedral with candles. The trail was clear for about a hundred yards. Drag marks, broken branches, disturbed undergrowth. But then, suddenly, everything disappeared.

The signs just vanished into the undergrowth. No footprints, no broken branches, no blood. We swept our lights back and forth, trying to find some clue, but nothing. The forest was silent, unnaturally so. No sounds of animals, no wind—just a dead, oppressive hush.

My partner suggested splitting up, but I shut that down immediately. Rule one—never separate in unknown terrain, especially at night. We pressed on together, guessing which way the trail might continue.

Then I saw it.

A pale, elongated shape moving between the trees, barely visible in the faint moonlight. At first, I thought it was a person, maybe wearing light-colored clothes. But as it drew closer, I knew it wasn’t.

It was too tall—at least seven feet—and too thin, stretched out like someone had been pulled on a rack. Its skin was pallid, almost glowing, and completely hairless. No clothes—just that slick, waxy surface that rippled and shifted like it was made of rubber or clay that hadn’t dried yet.

And the face—oh God, the face.

It had features, sort of. Eyes, nose, mouth. But they kept changing—morphing—like a mask that was melting. One second, it looked almost human, and the next, it was something else entirely. Its head swiveled back and forth, those unstable, glowing eyes scanning the forest.

Its hands—long, spindly—ended in claws, black and sharp, like knives. It was making the voices I’d been hearing—multiple, overlapping, impossible to distinguish. Men’s voices, women’s voices, children’s—talking all at once, coming from that shifting mouth like a broken radio.

And it was looking for me.

I froze, trembling, behind the fallen log. Heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst. Every nerve screaming danger. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The creature’s eyes—those unnatural, shifting pools—locked onto mine.

It stopped about twenty feet away, and that’s when I saw it.

The thing’s face—if you could call it that—was a nightmare. Features that kept flickering—sometimes human, sometimes something else. The eyes, though, those eyes—glowing, intelligent, and filled with a hunger that made my blood run cold.

It let out a low, guttural sound—part growl, part scream, part something unearthly—and then started toward me.

The Fight or Flight

I raised my rifle instinctively, firing three shots in rapid succession. The impacts hit its chest, and I saw the fur rippling, blood spraying. But it didn’t go down. Instead, it staggered backward, then lunged at me with terrifying speed.

I fired again, leading my shots, trying to hit vital spots, but it was like trying to shoot smoke. It moved with unnatural agility, dodging behind trees, phasing in and out of sight. Its form flickered, like a shadow in the flickering lights.

It was trying to flank me, get behind me where I couldn’t see it. I spun, keeping my back pressed against the massive oak, heart hammering in my chest.

Then it roared—a deafening, primal scream that shook the ground. It charged.

I kept firing—my last rounds—aimed for the center mass, but the creature was relentless. Blood poured from multiple wounds, yet it kept coming, driven by rage or some primal instinct I couldn’t understand.

When it finally collapsed, it hit the ground with a force that made the earth tremble. But even then, I knew it wasn’t dead. It was trying to rise again, reaching out with that clawed hand, eyes blazing with fury.

I emptied my magazine into its head, and that finally ended it.

The forest went deathly silent.

The Aftermath

For a long moment, I just stood there, trembling, gun in hand. The smell of gunpowder mixed with that terrible musk—the smell of something unearthly, something wrong. The creature’s body was sprawled before me, massive and grotesque, yet eerily intelligent in death.

Then I heard it.

Whispers—many voices—coming from all directions. Not animal sounds. Not human. A chorus of whispers, overlapping, speaking in a language I couldn’t understand. But I knew—they were communicating.

And then I saw it.

A figure—small, pale, almost glowing—emerging from the shadows. It was a woman, or at least it looked like one. Tall, thin, with long, dark hair hanging over a face that was too perfect, too bright. She was smiling—big and wide, teeth sharp and gleaming.

She moved toward me with strange, floating steps, her eyes reflecting my flashlight beam with a mirror-like sheen. I froze, unable to breathe. My gun was still raised, but I didn’t dare shoot.

She spoke—words that sounded hollow, like they came from a deep well. Her voice was like a whisper in my mind, telling me she was lost, that she needed help. But her face—the smile—was wrong. Too wide. Too eager.

And her teeth—God, her teeth—were sharp, like knives.

The Horror

I don’t remember how long I stared at her. Minutes? Hours? All I knew was that I couldn’t look away. Her smile stretched wider, and her eyes flickered with something inhuman.

Suddenly, she lunged.

I fired blindly, the gun roaring in the silence. The bullet struck her shoulder, and she staggered back, but she didn’t fall. Instead, she giggled—a high, unnatural sound—and kept coming.

I turned and ran, stumbling through the woods, my mind a chaos of fear and confusion. Behind me, I heard her laughter—echoing, echoing—until I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

I didn’t stop until I burst out of the trees and into the open, where a patrol car finally pulled up. I collapsed beside the road, shaking, blood on my hands, my heart pounding out of my chest.

They found me that night, delirious, broken, and haunted. The woman was never found. No sign of her, no trace of her at all. The police dismissed it as a bizarre hallucination, a nightmare caused by exhaustion and trauma.

But I know what I saw.

The Truth

I’ve shown the photos I took that night—blurry, indistinct images of that strange figure. The authorities dismissed them. The story was buried. But I know the truth.

That creature—the thing that mimicked a woman—was real. It was out there, hiding in the shadows of those woods, waiting. And I killed it.

Or at least, I think I did.

Because I never saw that woman again. And I still wake up sometimes, sweating, haunted by her smile, her hollow voice, and the whispers that still echo in my mind.