My brother and several of his friends are avid hikers. One of them, a young man named Joseph from Montana, related this tale to me after we all went for a hike near Lake Isabella, a local state park, and asked him about these weird scars on his left temple. I’m also retelling this story in my words because he’s an inebriated hick with the grammar of a two year old, but amusing and friendly nonetheless.

“In the back woods of montana, the trails are known to twist and turn, leading in all directions and sometimes leading to nowhere. The worst part is that sometimes, while you are hiking, the trees will block the sun and the fog will obscure the ground, and although the foliage is dense the trees themselves are not, leaving all kinds of different ways to wander. Once, while I was out hiking, I found myself in just such a situation. I had, on this occasion, also forgotten to take my compass. I wasn’t planning on being out more than an hour or two, so I hadn’t taken any of my usual hiking supplies. I wandered without knowing where I was going for at least four hours, and just as dusk came upon me I noticed an old, wooden cabin with smoke coming from the fireplace. I figured that it was probably some sort of ranger depot, so I immediately headed in that direction.

I opened the door and called out “hello?” but apparently no one was home. I walked inside after deciding that I needed to at least warm myself by the fire and that the owner, even if it wasn’t the rangers, would at least accept that. I must have fallen asleep next to the fire, because next thing I knew it was well after night had fallen. It was also very cold, and I noticed the fire had either been put or gone out. I looked around, but everything looked like I had left it. On the table, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before, however; a journal of some sort. It was open to July, 1943, and told a very sad story. It seemed that the owner of this diary had previously had a daughter, whom the author referred to as beautiful as morning dew and lively as the suns early light. (pratty as a field o’ buckwheat and live’y as sun is hawt)On the particular day retold by this diary, it seemed that the girl had gone out on her horse, and not come home. The writer had searched for her for hours in vain, eventually to find her at the bottom of a ravine, with her back broken and the horse on top of her. It seemed that something had spooked the horse and it had fallen into the ravine on top of the poor girl, crushing her completely. I dried a tear in my eye and turned to leave, but the door wouldn’t open. It wasn’t bolted or anything like that, it just seemed frozen stiff. I turned back towards the room, and noticed the most beautiful girl I had ever seen sitting in an old armchair. She smiled at me, and I felt like the luckiest man on earth. She said, in a voice as sweet as honey and as soft as silk “Come over here, handsome, it has been a while since last I had company.” Of course, being the red-blooded American stud I am, I went over to her. She smiled up at me, and reached her hands around my neck and began to pull me down upon her. I smiled, thinking about the incredibly kiss I was about to receive. I pulled her up from her seat, and that’s when I noticed the irregularity.

her body pulled up before her legs. It was odd, as if the two parts weren’t connected. She laughed, and clawed her hands into my neck, then drew her left hand back across my face, leaving me with the scars you see today. I threw her back, and it took everything I had PLUS the adrenaline pumping through my body, and she laughed as her back slumped behind her body, leaving her legs just standing there. She began to walk towards me, and to pull her body up using her hands, so I ran for the door and threw myself against it. It wouldn’t open, so I turned towards a window in the back and ran forward, throwing myself through the glass. I turned back around, and the cabin was there, but different. The roof had collapsed, and the chimney was half fallen over. The wood had all rotted, and the window frame had no glass left in it. I realized that the glass hadn’t cut me, because it was’t there. My next though was that it had all been a crazy dream or hallucination, but the cuts from her fingernails reminded me of the horrible truth. I wandered for two days before the rangers found me and took me to a hospital, and that’s when I decided to move out of Montana.”