The Church - Nostalgia is an interesting thing. We love to think back and remember the fun carefree idles of our past, moments and adventures that make up our youth. But remembering and recreating are two very different things. Where one is a nice way to glimpse the world of our childhood selves, the other tends to remind us of the time gone and the ways in which both we, and the world, have changed. Sometimes, maybe even often, not for the better…Footprints in the Ice - Why is the tree line at night such a scary thing to stare into? Is it because it’s so hard to decipher what's in there, to make out any distinct shapes? Maybe it’s the knowledge that there is bustling life in the inky blackness beyond, a world just out of our sight? Or is it because the darkness there seems to be looking back, staring just as intently at us as we at it? Of course, the truth is, it’s all three and we know it.
I’m your host Cull and this is Backwoods Creepy.
Nostalgia is an interesting thing. We love to think back and remember the fun carefree idles of our past, moments and adventures that make up our youth. But remembering and recreating are two very different things. Where one is a nice way to glimpse the world of our childhood selves, the other tends to remind us of the time gone and the ways in which both we, and the world, have changed. Sometimes, maybe even often, not for the better.
Our first tale is called The Church.
Why is the treeline at night such a scary thing to stare into? Is it because it’s so hard to decipher what's in there, to make out any distinct shapes? Maybe it’s the knowledge that there is bustling life in the inky blackness beyond, a world just out of our sight? Or is it because the darkness there seems to be looking back, staring just as intently at us as we at it? Of course, the truth is, it’s all three and we know it.
Our second tale is called Bare Footprints in the Ice.
Alright folks, thanks for listening to Backwoods Creepy - Strange Encounters in the Forest. The first story is from an unknown original poster and the second was courtesy of BoobeiusHagrid. Send me your story to backwoodscreepypod@gmail.com. Ideally your story truly happened to you and is 1000 words at least. You can also dm or message me on Twitter and Instagram @backwoodscreepy.
https://linktr.ee/backwoodscreepypod
As always, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and spread the word! To support the show and help keep the content rolling go to Patreon and search Backwoods Creepy. As a Patron you’ll get episodes early, special Patrons only content, and more. patreon.com/user?u=90835879
Music and SFX - A Hand In The Dark by Underbelly and Ty Mayer courtesy of YouTube Free Studio Library
Thanks for listening and remember to take only pictures, leave only footprints, and always trust your gut!
I’m your host Cull and this is Backwoods Creepy
Musical Interlude
Nostalgia is an interesting thing. We love to think back and remember the fun carefree idles of our past, moments and adventures that make up our youth. But remembering and recreating are two very different things. Where one is a nice way to glimpse the world of our childhood selves, the other tends to remind us of the time gone and the way in which the world has changed. Sometimes, maybe even often, not for the best.
Our first tale is called The Church.
I grew up in Ohio in the 70s and me and my childhood friend Joe were outside whenever we could manage it. Joe lived on a farm that bordered a pretty big forest and my parents would drop me off on Friday morning and we’d stay in the woods all weekend. We’d only come out for school. We loved pretending we were frontiersmen; we’d build shelters, traps, practice making fire with sticks, the whole nine yards.
When we got to be in high school, we got this notion to pull a Stand By Me. This was based on the movie of the same name that had just come out. The idea was that we’d walk the railroad tracks out in the country, and instead of looking for a dead body, we’d find cool bridges to fish from, and camp a little ways off the tracks. Of course we knew this was dangerous and we’d likely be trespassing, but hey, we were kids.
We had a lot of fun. We found beautiful rivers, we discovered bridges no one went to. We fished. We hid from trains. At night we camped in woods just off the tracks and made small hidden fires. Nothing bad ever happened. It was idyllic. In fact, it was so fun we did it multiple times. Never had a problem.
After high school me and Joe went our own ways. We both left home, but always stayed in touch and always tried to coordinate visits so we’d see each other occasionally.
Well one summer in the mid 90s it worked out that we were both in town for about a week. We’d do stuff with family during the day, and at night we’d either catch drinks at a bar or sit outside Joe’s house around a fire and talk about the old days. One night, me and Joe got to talking about our “Stand By Me” trips and, well, nostalgia and beer are a hell of a mix.
Soon we decided to take a day, walk the rails, camp one night and walk home. The day came and we started out early in the morning. We had my wife drop us off in our old spot where we used to start off - right outside our hometown. She thought this was absolutely crazy and made sure to mention it. When she pulled away, Joe suggested that instead of walking the usual route, we take the opposite direction - just to be adventurous. We knew the land well, we had a map, so I gave a “What the hell” and off we set.
The day went fine.
It was fun, and a little sad - but in a good way. We found a bridge and sat on the edge, smoked a joint, and moved on.
We had no fishing gear, but we brought some canned food and other stuff. Before night started to set in, we picked a spot to camp. It was a thick forested area, trees on every side of the train tracks so you felt like you were in a tunnel. We had brought small hammocks to sleep on, but before we set them up we decided to do a little scouting of the perimeter.
Now, this is what we used to do in the old days too. We’d walk the area around a little bit to make sure some dude’s house wasn’t just over a hill and we weren’t actually just camping in their yard.
We walked maybe a hundred or so feet into the woods and up a small incline. We figured if we didn’t see anything from on top of this short hill, we’d be fine. But when we got to the top, we saw an old building down at the bottom, about a hundred yards into the woods. It was barely visible.
We debated what to do. We both assumed it was a sugar shack or something, because there didn’t appear to be a clear road into it. From where we were, there didn’t look to be anyone in it either.
All was quiet, no movement could be seen. No lights.
We decided to walk a little closer just to make sure.
We came down the hill very slowly and as we neared the building we saw it wasn’t a sugar shack at all, it was an old church.
It looked like it had been abandoned for years. It was a squat, sagging building with wooden planks black from years of moss and rot. A cross stood on top of the place, weathered and black.
None of the windows had glass and there were no doors, just open doorways. We got close enough to see inside. There were rows of pews and a built up section in front for a preacher to stand on. We didn’t go all the way in, we didn’t want to.
Beyond all that, there was no sign of anyone else. No footprints, no paths, no roads.
It was an abandoned church.
We left immediately and went back up the hill to the spot we’d picked to camp. Having a hill between us and the church made us feel better, but we were still a little uneasy. We chalked it up to the natural creepiness of seeing a church in the middle of the woods. Besides, at this point it was dusk and we just decided to rig up our hammocks and go to sleep and move on out in the early morning.
Night set in, and as we lay in our hammocks and shot the shit, we began to hear something in the direction of the church.
“Do you hear that?”
“The fuck is that?”
“It sounds like...people singing.”
And it did, it did sound just like singing.
We both slid right out of our hammocks and hunkered down, straining to hear more. We listened for a minute or two, and the singing continued but it wasn’t getting louder. Finally we decided to creep back up the hill and see if we could spy where the sound was coming from.
We could still move quietly in the woods, it was second nature for us. The moon was barely out but it threw enough light so you wouldn’t walk right into a tree. We didn’t use flashlights as we crept slowly up the hill and we didn’t talk. When we got to the top we saw a light in the distance. It was coming from the church.
And the singing was coming from inside.
Joe and I put our heads close together and had a hushed conversation that boiled down to “Can you believe this shit?”
The light looked to be candlelight from the way it flickered, and though we tried, we couldn’t make out what was being sung. It sounded like church music, but in another language. We sat and watched for a while, trying to see who was in there, but we only saw occasional shadows. We had no intention of getting closer either, we had about a football field length between us and we aimed to keep it that way.
The singing continued for a bit, and then it stopped. After that, a booming male voice began to chant. I was already freaked out, but this voice thoroughly scared the shit out of me.
It sounded like some old testament preacher you see in movies, but again it was like he was speaking in a different language because we couldn’t understand a word. Eventually it got to where the single male voice would say something and then a bunch of voices would answer in song. This lasted for a while and then they all broke into this long, sustained wail that just kept getting louder. It got so loud and so...disturbing that I covered my ears. Then it stopped.
At this point I was just getting ready to say “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” when Joe put a hand on my shoulder and hissed “They’re coming out!”
We were far enough away that we couldn’t make them out really well, but what we could see was a line of figures walking out the open doorway, all holding hands in single file. We could see some of them had flashlights. They began to sing again, and the light from the flashlights began to move toward us and the hill.
We booked it back down to our campsite, grabbed our shit and ran to the tracks. Once there, we ran down the tracks in the direction we had come from. After a few minutes, we stopped and looked back.
We saw lights coming down the hill. They were moving erratically like whoever was holding them was running.
We ran in spurts as fast as we could. We eventually stopped seeing the lights and came to a road. By our map we knew a small town was about fifteen minutes down it, and we walked there, got to a 24 hour gas station and called my wife to come get us.
My wife and other friends all just thought it was kids messing around, but I heard those voices and they sure as hell didn’t sound like kids to me.
Not sure who those people were, but it was definitely the creepiest thing that happened to me out in the woods.
Musical Interlude
Why is the treeline at night such a scary thing to stare into? Is it because it’s so hard to decipher what's in there, to make out any distinct shapes? Maybe it’s the knowledge that there is bustling life in the inky blackness beyond, a world just out of our sight? Or is it because the darkness there seems to be looking back, staring just as intently at us as we at it? Of course, the truth is, it’s all three and we know it.
Our second tale is called Bare Footprints in the Ice
I’ll keep this short and sweet.
A few years back, we were having a brutally cold winter.
The snow had frozen into ice and covered everything. It was pitch black in the backyard when I went to let my dog outside one last time before bed that evening. As we exited the house from the sliding door of the walkout basement and onto the lower deck, I felt that something was off.
Our house backs up to some woods, so I was accustomed to hearing noises from wildlife in the night. This night was different. Nothing made a sound except the arctic cold wind, and I had the feeling I was being watched.
The entire time my dog was in the backyard, I looked around nervously, expecting a coyote or other predator to pop out of the tree line. My dog did his business, but afterward stopped and stared at a corner of the woods until I got creeped out and called him back inside.
I quickly locked the sliding door and shut the curtains, unable to shake the uneasy feeling I had outside. After double and triple checking all the locks in the house, I went to bed.
Around 3:00 in the morning, I hear the muffled sound of my dog barking from the basement two floors below. I got up, stumbled down three flights of stairs and found him standing at the basement sliding door. He was peeking his head through the closed curtains, barking his head off with the hairs standing up all along his back.
I tried calling him away from the door, but he wouldn’t let up. I dreaded peeking out the curtain to see what he was barking at after the uneasy feeling I had earlier in the night. Finally, I held my breath and swiped the curtain aside. I peered into the inky blackness, but saw nothing to cause any
alarm.
A wave of relief washed over me.
I figured it must’ve been a deer or raccoon in the yard that set him off. He whined at the door for a few more minutes until I bribed him upstairs with a dog cookie. I went back to bed and wasn’t disturbed again.
That is, until the morning when I went to the basement to let out the dog.
I opened the sliding door and walked out onto the deck as he bounded into the snow. My blood ran as cold as the subzero morning temperatures when I looked down. There, frozen into the ice on the deck, was a set of bare human footprints.
They were very clear; I could make out each toe on the person’s foot. The prints were large and appeared to be from an adult male.
Looking around, I noticed they started at the base of the deck, went to the sliding door and the window of the basement living room, then they seemed to disappear off the side of the deck.
I had my snow boots on, so I walked around the yard but I could find no trace of the footprints in the snow once they left the deck.
Keep in mind the daily temperatures that winter barely made it above 0 F, and the wind chill made it feel close to 20 below.
Frostbite would set in within a matter of minutes for anyone walking around barefoot, especially in the dead of night.
I never experienced anything like that again, but I did adopt a second dog shortly thereafter.
Alright folks, thanks for listening to Backwoods Creepy - Strange Encounters in the Forest. The first story is from an unknown original poster and the second was courtesy of BoobeiusHagrid. Send me your story to backwoodscreepypod@gmail.com. Ideally your story truly happened to you and is 1000 words at least. You can also dm or message me on Twitter and Instagram @backwoodscreepy.
As always, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and spread the word! To support the show and help keep the content rolling go to Patreon and search Backwoods Creepy. As a Patron you’ll get episodes early, special Patrons only content, and more.
Thanks for listening and remember to take only pictures, leave only footprints, and always trust your gut!