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,