- [Chip] About five weeks ago,
a few of my newly made friends and I set off
on a camping trip.
We met due to our shared interest in joining
the fraternity, Kappa Sigma.
We met with the house members,
and from that point on we were considered recruits.
One of the rules of being a recruit
is that you are obligated
to only hang out with fellow recruits,
or members of the house.
Needless to say
we all became pretty close friends rather quickly.
Out of our group, Jasper and I,
my name is Chip,
were the closest.
Our third was Evan,
and our fourth wheel was Jake.
He was an overly eccentric class clown.
He couldn't take anything seriously if his life
depended on it,
and it would really test our patience.
A couple of days after the start of our
initiation we were told that we would need to
prove that we were tough enough,
and worthy of joining the fraternity.
To do so we would need to spend a weekend alone
out in the woods located about 20 miles out of the city.
Even though none of us were natives to the area,
we had all heard about the local rumors of the woods.
It was common knowledge around these parts that
the woods outside of town had some sort of dark
spirit looking over them.
Some referred to it as a demon,
some simply called it Mordayo.
There isn't much known about this creature,
other than it will eat you alive.
Closing in on the weekend we were set to head out
to the woods,
we were given a list of accepted supplies to take with us.
Pretty much we were allowed to bring our phone, a
knife, our toiletries, our own rations of food and water.
That should last the weekend,
and a pack to hold it all in.
No tents, no sleeping bags, no real flashlights,
just the basic supplies to live.
We were also introduced to Chris.
He was one of the seniors of the fraternity,
and was set to watch over us on our trip,
and make sure we followed all the rules.
By Friday we had our gear all ready to go,
and were set to head to the woods for our final
phase of initiation.
We met after classes had completed and loaded up
into Chris's Explorer to begin our weekend excursion.
We left city just as the sun was setting.
The drive itself was pretty uneventful,
Jake being his loud obnoxious self,
and the rest of us telling him to shut up.
Finally Chris just turned up the music to drown Jake out.
We drove for about another 20 minutes before we
started feeling the vehicle slightly stuttering.
Chris turns off the music and hushes us all,
intently listening for any sounds from the vehicle.
We arrived at the dirt road that leads to our destination,
and turn off the highway and start to drive down
it and into the woods.
We drive in silence for a few more minutes before
a huge smile creeps across Chris's face as he exclaims,
I hope you boys are ready for some fun.
The excitement once again outweighing any other emotion,
we all hoot out in near unison,
then the Explorers engine dies,
leaving us in an eerie silence.
Chris tries to turn the key.
Nothing but clicking.
Then all the power cuts off,
leaving us not only in in deafening silence,
but in complete darkness.
At that point Evan speaks up asking if we should
call a tow truck.
Chris tells him that we'll just let our house
know that we broke down,
and they'll come out to deal with it.
He gets his phone out and quickly realizes we
have no signal.
Well shit,
we should get serviced again once we get closer
to the campground up the road.
We'll just call there.
He tells us all to grab our gear and to get ready
for a small hike.
We do as instructed,
and the vehicle is secured before Chris puts the
keys under the rear wheel well for our housemates
to find when they arrive.
We start heading farther up the road,
and concluded it would be best if we use the
nearly full moon as our light,
as opposed to our cell phones
and drain the batteries before the weekend even started.
As we were making our way down the dirt road
towards the campground,
we hear a branch snapping in the woods off to our right.
(branch snapping)
We all do a quick glance,
but quickly come to the conclusion that it must
have been an animal.
We make it only a few more meters before we hear it again.
(branch snapping)
We decide to investigate a little further.
We walk up to the edge of the road and try to
look into the dense woods to locate the source of the sound.
The moon isn't providing enough light to see much
of anything off the road.
So we pull out our phones and use them to light
the woods the best we can.
Do you guys see anything?
Evan asked in a whisper.
I don't see anything.
It must have just been another animal.
We are in the woods after all,
Jake answers.
We kept looking for a few more seconds,
slowly scanning the area with our phones.
Come on.
Let's just keep going.
The campground isn't far,
Chris instructs.
Everyone except Jake turns off their phone again,
and we continue down the road following Jake as
he lights the way.
We finally see the campgrounds office lit up a
few hundred feet in front of us,
just as we hear one of the most bone-chilling
howls I had ever heard.
(bone chilling howling)
In unison we all freeze and start looking around.
Thoroughly spooked Evan shouts out that we should
hurry up.
Without another word we all start sprinting
towards the office.
We reached the door panting heavily and burst
inside like bats out of Hell.
Greeting us was the gaze of a middle-aged man
wearing overalls in a thermal jacket,
with a matching cap complete with the ear covers.
The man stood behind the counter with a
disturbingly fake smile plastered across his face.
His eyes shifted separately and deliberately on
each one of us.
After about 30 seconds of being eyed up by this
pasty woodsman,
Chris steps forward and breaks the silence.
Hey, we rented a site for the weekend.
We're just checking in.
The man didn't say a word.
He just kept slowly eyeing us up one by one.
The vibe I was getting from this guy was making
me think twice about staying out here.
Then I remembered we still needed to call our
house to have our vehicle checked out an update them.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket expecting to
have some sort of signal like Chris had assured us.
Nothing, not even empty bars,
just a slash through my data icon.
I nudged Jasper and showed him I had no service.
He checked his phone,
also out of service.
Jasper mentions it to Chris,
who too checks his phone to see that there is in
fact no service.
Hmm, I was just here a few weeks ago and I had a
pretty strong signal.
Hey buddy, you have a phone we can use?
The guy behind the counter finally showed some
sort of reaction,
although I really wish he hadn't.
He locked eyes with Chris and started to growl,
opening his mouth slowly as his growl intensified.
I was about to bolt out the door when all of a
sudden he stopped growling and his head snapped
back violently,
then returned to a normal position.
Hi, how can I help you?
He exclaims in a gleeful tone.
His creepy demeanor had been instantly replaced
by that of a normal cheery greeter.
We all exchanged confused glances before Chris
once again explained that we had the site reserved.
Oh yes, site 13's all yours.
Just head down the path and you'll see it on the
left side of the roundabout.
Awesome, thank you.
Also do you happen to have a phone we can use?
Our car broke down on the dirt road and we need
to let our friends know.
Of course, he replied,
retrieving the landline.
Chris grabbed the phone and let's our friends
know where the Explorer is,
where the keys are, and that we will need a ride
when we get ready to leave,
and that we have no cell service,
so we could be reached on the number that showed
up on the caller ID.
He hands the phone back to the man
and once again thanks him.
Just as we're walking out the door we hear him
once again start to groan.
(low groaning)
None of us even turned around.
We quickly left and headed down the path towards
our site,
intent on putting as much distance as we could
between us and him.
The park was set in a pretty basic layout.
One main path was sight sought to either side,
towards the end there is a loop where it
reconnects to the main road.
We reached the fork in the path and took the left
towards where our campsite was.
That was when we noticed how quiet the place was.
We hadn't seen any other people except for the
strange man in the counter since we arrived.
The lamps along the path started to become more
sparse as we were making our way farther down.
We all pulled out our cell phones and quickly
found our site,
and began to set up our camp.
Chris heads into the woods,
returning a couple minutes later with a bundle of firewood.
Chris pulls out a lighter and starts the fire
while we unpack our rations that we brought.
As we ate,
Chris insisted on telling us more about the
rumors of the land,
and why it was feared by so many locals.
For over a hundred years there have been stories
of these woods,
stories of families going on hikes and
disappearing without a trace,
stories of friends going camping,
just like us,
and then vanishing without a word.
They say there is a creature that watches over these woods.
No one really knows where it came from,
but everyone knows what it wants.
Blood, it craves the taste of human blood,
and will stop at nothing once the blood hunt has begun.
As far as we know,
there is nothing to deter the creature.
Once it started the hunt,
you might as well kiss your ass good-bye.
Over the years locals have given it a name, Mordayo.
Mordayo is easily one of the most feared
creatures in these parts,
and many locals will not even enter these woods.
Yet here we are,
sitting all alone in these woods,
in the dark,
in the middle of nowhere,
with no one that can help us if Mordayo shows up
for his blood hunt.
Chris warns us we have something very special
planned for the next day,
and we will need our rest.
Whether it be from all the excitement of the day,
or from our walk out to the camp,
we were all pretty beat and fell asleep quickly.
I woke to a nasty chill and realized the fire was
now nothing more than glowing embers.
The morning fog was so dense it felt like drops
were forming on my body as I gathered more
firewood and bark to get the fire going again.
Everyone started to wake up and we all huddled
around the fire trying to warm up.
It was not supposed to get this cold this weekend,
Chris said.
The forecast was clear skies and warm weather.
I laughed and told him that the weather is never reliable.
Always expect the worst.
I made my way over to my pack to get my toothbrush,
and my pack was gone,
along with everyone else's.
I was confused but came to the assumption that
one of our group must have hidden our stuff to
mess with us.
Okay, who's the wise guy?
Very funny, where is our stuff?
I asked the other guys.
All of them looked at me with a confused look,
then started eyeing each other.
Jake give us our shit.
It is pretty obvious it was you.
You're the only one childish enough to do it, Chris accuses.
Whoa man,
I may be responsible for a lot of the stupid pranks,
but I haven't done a thing since we started this trip.
My stuff looks like it's gone too.
How do we know it wasn't you?
Jake shoots back.
Well it sure wasn't me,
and neither Evan nor Chip would do it.
So is there any way an animal might have taken them?
Maybe they smelled the food and took off with the bags.
Let's take a quick look around.
Chris starts heading off into the woods,
followed immediately by us.
The fog was so thick it made visibility maybe 20
feet in front of me,
coupled with the fact that we were in a
supposedly looked after section of the woods,
it definitely caused some chills to travel down
my spine.
10 seconds later Chris calls out for all of us to
get the hell over to him now.
Look at this.
Chris trails off.
He's pointing at what once was my backpack.
It was shredded to bits,
and a few feet from the bag was someone else's bag,
also completely shredded.
I bend over and pick up what's left of my pack.
What in the hell kind of animal did this?
Nothing is in here.
See if anything's left in your pack.
Chris walks over and retrieves his.
Nada, this is so weird.
Well at least we have our phones.
We're just going to have to call off the rest of
the trip.
All at once when noticed Jake wasn't here with us.
We start calling out to him but a bone-chilling
silence is all we got in return.
We walked around for a good 15 or 20 minutes,
calling out his name,
pulling out our phones to see if we had signal,
and calling him some more.
No luck.
Maybe he just went back to camp, I suggested.
Yeah, let's head back that way,
Chris said.
Just call out for him as we go.
We make it back to the campsite and Jake is still
nowhere to be found.
Well shit.
I guess Evan and I all head up to the office real quick.
Chip, you stay here in case Jake comes back.
I agreed and watched them disappear into the
dense fog.
I stoked up the fire and waited,
occasionally calling out in hopes that Jake would
find us if he did happen to get lost.
I did this for probably 45 minutes before I
started to get concerned that I hadn't heard from anyone.
I got up and started weighing my options.
Do I go to the office and look for Chris and Evan,
or do I stay here in hopes that Jake will still
show up?
I was still debating on what to do
when a blood-curdling scream
broke through the once silent woods.
I could immediately recognize the scream as
belonging to Jake.
I started sprinting as fast as I could towards
where I thought the scream came from.
Then he emerges from the fog.
Then he stops.
He just stands there,
not making a sound,
just panting and looking like he will pass out at
any moment.
Jake what happened?
Where have you been?
His response still sends a shiver down my spine.
Mordayo is here.
What?
I asked in confusion.
Mordayo is real.
I saw it.
It was following me.
It has no skin.
It's a walking skeleton, dude.
It had antlers,
but was bipedal and had no skin.
No frickin skin man!
Wait, where are Chris and Evan?
Jake calm down.
Chris and Evan went to the office to call our
friends to come and get us.
Jake doesn't even wait for me to say anything else.
He starts taking off down the path towards the
camp office.
I quickly follow suit,
and within a few minutes we reach the office.
And it's locked with no signs that anyone is even around.
I told Jake I had no idea what we should do.
He brought up that if we hadn't seen them on the path,
or here,
then they either left without us,
or it found them.
We came to the mutual decision that we should
just start heading back down the dirt road
towards where the car had died.
Then we hear it.
(distant howling)
It's Mordayo!
Jake screams, taking off like a bullet down the road.
I am right on his heels,
as I hear an all-too-familiar voice let out a shriek.
I skid to a complete stop,
nearly losing footing on the loose gravel.
That was Evan.
We need to go find him.
We can't just leave him here.
I screamed at Jake as he disappeared into the fog,
not even slowing down in the slightest.
The next thing I know I'm dodging trees as I
sprint to find my friends.
(distant howling)
This howl stopped me in my tracks.
Evan is that you?
I take another step forward before for the first
time in my life,
I am frozen in place.
I tried to move my legs,
but I was paralyzed in fear over what was a mere
15 feet in front of me.
Evan was in fact in front of me,
laying on his back with his intestines oozing
over the side of his body.
That sight comes second to what I saw kneeling over him,
head down, chewing at his guts like someone would
eat a pie in a competition.
It had the animalistic features described in the
stories mixed with a human body.
Its face though,
it looked like someone had skinned a deer's head,
covered it in slime,
and added the most hideous teeth you could imagine.
Then to my utter horror and disbelief,
Evans head snaps to the side with enough force to
make the breaking of his neck echo through the trees.
He starts laughing and says,
you might want to run.
The blood hunt has begun.
As soon as his eyes broke my gaze,
I could feel my legs again.
I didn't stop running when I made it back to the road.
I didn't stop when I heard another terrifying
scream in the woods that I easily recognized as Chris.
For all I know he was dead already too,
and this thing was just using him as bait to lure me.
I finally caught sight of the Explorer we made it
here in.
I ran up to the wheel well where the keys were
and began frantically searching for them.
I couldn't find them anywhere.
In a last-ditch effort before I kept sprinting
down the road,
I went to the driver's side door and yanked the handle.
It opened immediately,
and I heard the familiar ding the vehicle makes
if a door is open while the keys are in the ignition.
I tried twisting the key.
(car stalling)
It tried to start,
but wouldn't turn over.
I had no idea if this thing is making its way
towards me,
but I was not going to wait and find out.
I hightailed it all the way back to the highway.
Once I reached it,
I finally slowed down to a walk and pulled out my
cell phone.
I powered it back on and finally had a signal,
and just long enough of a charge to call the
police to come and help me.
After about five minutes a couple of sheriffs
vehicles pull up next to me.
I tell them that they're not going to believe
what I have to say,
but I tell them everything.
They then proceeded to ask me if I was supposed
to be on any medications,
or if I had taken any.
These guys thought I was crazy,
and in a way I kind of wish that was the case.
At least that way I wouldn't have to go through
life knowing things like the Mordayo are much
more real than we would like to believe.
(shocking indication)