I kept walking, as if I didn’t see what I just saw in the snow. A few paces later and a funny thing happened with my feet: they stopped walking forward. Call it curiosity, call stupidity…I found myself turning around and going back to the blood trail. It was dark out, so I wasn’t able to see much but what I could see, the trail of blood started with a few drops then got significantly “messier” as it got closer to the woods. Then, out of nowhere, I could a blood curdling scream. It sounded like a grown man too and, if I had to guess where it was coming from, it was coming from somewhere in the woods. I would come to regret my next choice: follow the trail.

      As soon as I was a foot or two on the other side of the tree line…there was blood EVERYWHERE. Whatever happened was gruesome, for sure. Given the nature of the situation, I was treading lightly. Both the crisp snowfall from that morning and dead branches would for sure let whomever know that they had a guest approaching. Again, it was dark and using a light would give up my location, thus I was using the full but dimly lit moon as my flashlight, so to speak. It was at about 60 yards when I finally saw what looked like a campfire off in the distance. Though I hadn’t heard a scream since that first was, I was on high alert as I approached the light.

      I broke through some brush to find someone’s campsite, absolutely soaked in fresh blood. You know it’s fresh when even the winter air smells like rusty iron. It made me gag something fierce. As I approached the single person tent, it felt time and the earth stood absolutely still. One big breath and I unzipped the tent to find what looked like a man. I saw what looked like a man because I could see what was left of his genitals and a small portion of his beard that was laying next to the body like some dirty shirt that had been discarded on the floor. Above the bloody mess was a note that simply read: I CAN SEE YOU.