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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Grandaddyspookybones on 2024-11-12 22:44:08+00:00.

Yeah, that’s right. I heard my name in the woods. If you’re Appalachian, you shuttered at the title of this alone. If you’re not, I’ll explain.

My grandfather went to be with the Lord a few years ago now. He grew up in a small wooden shack a mile off the road. There’s a small Hellfire Brimstone Pentecostal church off the main road. We attended there a few times with him for revivals but often times we would park there and walk to his small house. Along the road he would tell us all kind of spooky stories, which I’ll perhaps share one day. He also told us about all kinds of stories through his life, about his parents, and what it was like growing up in such harsh conditions.

The conditions I’m talking about is probably what you expect to hear coming from poor southerners in Appalachia. No power, cooking only over an open fire, etc. He also told us about how he would stuff hay through the cracks of the wood to try to provide some insulation against the harsh winters. The cabin wasn’t much, probably 150-200 sq ft. There were two bedrooms, and by that I mean one very large room where the family would gather/eat/bathe/ and the kids would sleep. The second room was where his parents slept. Along the creek bed near his house, there was a fresh spring you could get water, and there was a house attached to a school bus, where his uncle lived.

It’s been years since I had visited the house. Occasionally we would have family meals out there for a picnic, bringing friends to come see the place. Some land disputes got in the way as the land had been split and divided and drug addicts had got in the mix. Grandpa went up there often during the last few years of his life to tear down fences people put up trying to keep us out.

During those walks my brother and I used to take with Grandpa, he told us all kinds of superstitions, many of which I hold today. Examples would be to not show my teeth to a writing spider or to close an open pocketknife. He also would tell me about things like…hearing your name in the woods. In the words of Grandma, “there are haints and boogers in the woods”.

I was visiting Grandma lately and we were talking about Grandpa and the old cabin, and I got the itch to just go sit there for a bit and think. See Grandpa really was the greatest man I knew. I figure maybe if I could go sit on the steps to the old cabin, I could have some form of communion with him.

Now I didn’t make it clear at the beginning of this post, the road into the cabin was somewhat accessible in a vehicle, provided you have a 4WD, which I did, but it make more sense to me now why we always walked it. Grandpa wanted us to have that quality time. So when I got off the main road, I parked my SUV at the church, thinking back on the times I’d see Grandpa lifting his arms and praising Jesus, about how the first girl I had ever loved used to go there, and how the preacher man would be running around the congregation feeling that Pentecostal fire.

Getting out the car, I took a slow walk to the cabin. I enjoyed hearing the acorns under my boots pop and the leaves crunching, a few birds tweeting their familiar songs, and the water from the creek a short ways yonder.

When I made it to the cabin, I had a bag of mixed emotions, I suppose. I missed Grandpa a whole lot, I was angry that the methheads who lived nearby had littered the cabin with drink bottles, and I was bothered by the men who thought they should “restore” the property when all they did was take away the character of the place my Grandpa loved.

I went by the creek and there it was familiar. The school bus was still there, there was a bicycle wheel stuck in the ground that Grandpa would put a stick in when he was a young boy and roll around the property, and I filled my water bottle with some of that spring water. As far as I was concerned, that was holy water.

After kneeling down for a quick prayer and let a small cry out, I decided it was time to make it back to my car. That’s when I heard it….”Phillip”.

It was almost a whisper. Surely I hearing things, nightfall wasn’t too far away and I brushed it off as a small fear. But then again man’s voice, “Phillip”. I now noticed I couldn’t hear squirrels rustling in the leaf piles or the birds chirping.

I tried to think, that wasn’t any of my family’s voices. Grandma was the only one who knew I came here and she isn’t the kind of woman to use a phone to tell family I had came by the old house. It couldn’t have been any of the tweakers that lived on the edge of the property, none of them would know my name.

“Phillip”, came a tone that was giggling and somewhat sinister.

This was it, this is what my grandparents had told me about. These were haints and boogers trying to get me. I never knew what they meant by “get me” but I sure didn’t want to find out.

I paced quickly towards the car, mind you it’s only about a 15 minute walk. 10 if I jog.

“Phillip…….Phillip……PHILLIP”, the haint screamed.

My now I started jogging, this would save some time, and the sun was setting.

“Phiiiiiiiiiilip” came up the noise, like how a man will jokingly make the vibrato that a female opera singer has.

Lord only knows why I turned, I broke the rule and acknowledged it. “Who is there”, I asked.

“Phillip. Phillip, Phillip. Phillip. PHIIIIILIP”.

I closed my eyes and slapped myself a couple times, I was going crazy. None of this could be real.

Then I saw…something standing about 50 yards from me. It was the size of a short man, and he had on a devil mask and cape. Very cartoonish, like something someone would buy for Halloween. Holding one of those plastic red pitchforks.

A distorted mangled voice came from it, howling and laughing. “Oh ho ho Phillip”.

I know what you’re thinking, run. And that’s what I did. I ran. I only had maybe a quarter mile left to the car, I ran like never before and his thing was hot on my trail.

“Phillip” it sang out, “Phillllllip, Phillip. Phillip”, it cheered as it tackled me from behind. It quickly flipped me on my back and started digging into me. They were not hands……they were claws. Skinnier than a nun’s finger and sharper than nail it drove both into my chest, scratching me all up and down and singing my name, continuously.

The primal noises that came from it and gleeful cheers mixed with the fast breathing of my name had to have echoed the woods. It eventually wrapped the claws around my throat.

“Shhh Phillip huehuehue”. I could see the strain in its eyes and the pure hate this booger had. I chokingly reached for anything I could get and I managed to get a rock. With any strength I had in me, I swung the rock into its head. Plastic didn’t crumple from a Halloween mask though, the rock caused a bludgeoned dent, like when you know you hear bone get hit through paper skin.

As it rolled off me to howl , I managed to catch my breathe and get up. There I ran as hard as I could, there wasn’t much, I could see the car and the church. It took one last tackle at me and scraped my ankle on its way down, but I did it. I made it to the church parking lot.

The creature stopped where it was and wouldn’t enter the lot. It just kept stomping. Stomping and saying, “Come back Phillip, come back. Come back Phillip, come back. We need you Phillip”.

I climbed in my car and took off down the road, watching it dance by the moonlight in a circle with 3 others just like it.