- LC
OCTOBER 17th, 2009 - THE BLACKSTONE VALLEY CRYPTID
Who’s afraid of the big bad cryptid?
Well, if you live in Blackstone Valley, Pennsylvania, you’ve got good reason to be afraid. This little woodsy town was the site of the bloodiest cryptid massacre our nation has ever seen (and possibly the only one - although we have our suspicions about Bigfoot). Before we get into the gory details, though - and trust us, they are gory - let’s talk about the monster at the heart of it all.
For generations, the residents of Blackstone Valley have shared their surrounding forest with a mysterious entity they refer to as “the Skulker.” Their reports are pretty consistent. The cryptid is supposedly six feet tall, covered from head to toe in prickly brown fur, and has huge yellow eyes that glow in the night like headlights. Always glimpsed from afar, the Skulker seems easily spooked, and will dart into the trees to hide if spotted.
The Skulker gained mainstream popularity in 2006, when a Blackstone Valley insider leaked its existence to various tabloids. The cryptozoology community was abuzz with excitement, and believers flocked to Blackstone Valley in droves, hoping to capture evidence of the creature for their various blogs and TV shows. None succeeded. But the internet loved the Skulker all the same, and in lieu of actual footage or photographs, many artists tried their hand at bringing the cryptid to life.
But you know what they say: it’s all fun and games until your favorite cryptid goes on a murder spree. (They say that, right?)
On September 6th, 2008, a search party entered Blackstone Forest to track down Simon Chen, a seven-year-old kid whose mother was part of the film crew for the reality show “Truth Hunters: Cryptid Nation.” The search was spearheaded by local sheriff Jim Brennan and Mr. Truth Hunter himself, ex-military man (and paranormal TV heartthrob) Lance Graves.
Lance would never leave those woods. He and fourteen other civilians were brutally murdered that day, their bodies so savaged that they were never shown to the public. Sheriff Brennan claimed that the search party had been attacked by a feral bear. The prevailing theory, however, is that the sheriff was lying through his teeth, and his statement to the press was meant to cover up the Skulker’s involvement in the whole bloody mess.
We may never know the truth. Any footage captured that day was destroyed in the massacre, and the Blackstone Valley locals are sticking to their “feral bear” story. Very few investigators have braved those woods again (I guess the threat of violent dismemberment is a powerful deterrent) and those who’ve tried have come home empty-handed. The Blackstone Valley case seems deader than the fifteen victims at its center.
But who are we to ignore a challenge like that?
*****
My beaten-up minivan has ferried us to a number of undisclosed locations over the last year, but Blackstone Valley may be one of the most isolated. It’s a small town, only accessible from a winding dirt road that cuts through a low valley into acres of dense forest. Within the town borders, there’s a smattering of houses and campers, the odd gas station and convenience store, a single-story church, a police station and, well, not much else.
We pulled up next to this sturdy wooden building with a sign that read TRADING POST above the door. Tom and I had come prepared for a little hiking, of course, but it’d be good to scout out some local businesses and stock up on anything we might have forgotten.
The inside of the trading post was a camper’s wet dream: shelves with tents and mess kits and water bottles and trail mix and maps and fishing rods and all sorts of outdoorsy knickknacks. Two teenagers that looked similar enough to be twins were browsing through a row of flashlights near the back. Otherwise we were the only customers. Tom went straight to the disposable cameras, while I greeted the tall, skinny clerk working behind the counter. The nametag pinned to his t-shirt read JESSE.
“Afternoon!” I said. “My friend and I are going on a hike later, and we’re looking to stock up on snacks and supplies and stuff.”
The clerk didn’t reply at first. He stared at me shrewdly, like he’d taken one look at the two of us and dismissed us as “lousy tourists.” Which, you know, would be fair if so. He cleared his throat and frowned.
“Woods aren’t good for hiking,” he said. “Too dangerous. A bunch of people die in there every year.”
“Oh yeah, we know,” I replied. “Thing is, we’re doing some research for this blog of ours, and we’re looking into those deaths. We heard some kind of monster might be responsible.”
The twins in the corner looked up sharply, and the clerk’s eyes narrowed. Okay, note taken: no Skulker talk around the townies.
“That was a wild bear,” he said. “It’s always bears and coyotes and things like that. You step foot in those woods, you’re just asking for trouble.”
“Believe me, we totally understand,” I said. “But we came all this way, and we’d really like to explore a bit, so… do you have any recommendations for how to stay safe on the trail?”
I thought he’d respond with a zinger like you can stay safe by getting the fuck out of town. He certainly looked angry enough to fling some language our way. But instead, he surprised me by saying, “Hmph. I guess I could ask the sheriff to go with you. For protection, you know. My brother works down at the station and he could put in a good word.”
The bell on the front door jingled as the twins left hastily, muttering to each other under their breath.
“Yeah, that would be great!” I said. “Much appreciated, thank you.”
Jesse smiled, even though he clearly didn’t want to. He told me he’d call his brother, and in the meantime we could browse for what we needed. Tom and I ended up grabbing several packs of trail mix, a compass, a flashlight each, and enough bug spray to drown a whole swarm of mosquitoes. Jesse rang us up silently, and when we left, I could sense him watching us from behind.
I know, I know, the foreshadowing wasn’t exactly subtle, and we could have easily listened to the creepy locals and turned back before it was too late, muahaha! But giving up on a case isn’t our style. Especially a case with this much juicy potential.
*****
Two hours later, we met Sheriff Jim Brennan at the border of Blackstone Forest. He was an imposing sort of guy: tall and stern and dressed to impress, with a tan trench coat draped over his shirt and tie. Like Jesse, he didn’t exactly look happy to see us. But he was a generous guide, if a bit gruff, telling us he’d take us down a few marked trails before it got too dark. He’d brought a flashlight and a holstered pistol, but he said it was just a precaution, and hopefully he wouldn’t need to use it.
I did feel better having him at our side. Tom and I aren’t the biggest fans of guns, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, but a pistol was a much better defense against a rampaging cryptid than my dinky little pocket knife. We hefted our backpacks and followed him into the woods, following a trail of tree trunks flecked with red paint dots.
The town itself had felt isolated, but these woods were like another world entirely. We’d plunged into a shadowy treescape with no sound except our crunching footsteps, the twittering of distant birds, and the occasional whistle of wind. The trail was bumpy and uneven, and several times we had to clamber over chunks of smooth black rock (probably where Blackstone Valley had gotten its name).
Tom kept the camera rolling the entire time, even though he wasn’t capturing much. For a forest supposedly full of dangerous feral animals, the woods felt surprisingly empty. Nothing except the occasional rabbit or chipmunk darting away from us into the underbrush. I pulled out our trail mix and got to munching - not because I was hungry, but because the sound of chewing helped fend off that eerie quiet.
By now it was starting to get dark, the sky sinking toward the gloomy gray of early evening. Sheriff Brennan pulled out his heavy duty flashlight to give us a bit of extra light. I was getting antsy. The sheriff had told us he would take us back to town by nightfall, and so far we’d gotten nothing of value from this little trek. I glanced at Tom. It was time to stop taking notes and start asking questions.
He turned the camera in the sheriff’s direction. “So, a lot of people have reported seeing a creature in this forest,” he said. “Some people call it the Skulker. Have you ever seen this thing yourself?”
Brennan shined the flashlight toward the camera, his face as stern as ever, but said nothing. He didn’t seem interested in debating with us or refuting the usual folklore, as Jesse had. He just kept marching forward along the trail.
I tried again. “We heard about the massacre that happened here last year,” I said. “It’s so horrible, what happened to all those people. Do you think the Skulker could have done it?”
Instead of answering, Brennan went still, shining his flashlight off the trail. “Thought I heard something,” he said. “You boys stay here. I’ll be right back.” He pushed through some underbrush and left the trail, but not before placing an ominous hand on his holster.
“Well, shit,” Tom said. “I thought he was here to protect us. What if something leaps out and mauls us while we’re waiting for him to get back?”
“This could be our chance,” I said - quietly, in case Brennan could still hear us. “It’d be risky, sure, but he’s given us a chance to do a little snooping without him. As long as we follow the trail, we should be fine.”
Tom looked unsure, but before I could convince him further, we heard the loud snap of a branch breaking behind us. We spun around, Tom brandishing his camera, me brandishing my Swiss army knife, both of us woefully unprepared for whatever monster would come lurching at us out of those trees - but it wasn’t the Skulker. It was the pair of teenage twins from the trading post. They had the same bushy brown hair, the same baseball caps and jeans and sweatshirts, but one was a boy and one was a girl. The girl clutched her own video camera in one tense hand.
I started to say something, but the boy shushed me before I could. “You need to get out of here now,” he whispered. “Brennan left you here on purpose. He wants you to get lost and starve out here. That’s what he does with everyone who gets too nosy about the Skulker.”
It was so dramatic that I couldn’t help but laugh. “Uh, yeah, sure. Brennan may be kinda stiff, but he was helping us. He wouldn’t just leave us to die.”
“Oh come on, wake up!” the girl hissed. “Brennan’s got more to hide than just the Skulker. If you start asking too many questions, if you get too close to the truth, then yes, he will kill you. Letting you starve in the woods is the ideal option - loads of people go missing here every year, you must know that - but if you try to get back to town, you’ll be gunned down on sight.”
She looked so scared, so damned earnest, that I wondered if she wasn’t making this up. The smirk faded from my face. This had to be some kind of teen prank bullshit. Right?
“Okay, sure,” Tom said. “Let’s say you’re telling the truth. How are we supposed to get out of here then?”
“Brennan will have his men watching the main trails,” the boy said. “But we know these woods better than anyone, and we can go off-trail to get you back in your car. Then you need to get the hell out of here as fast as you can.”
I didn’t want to believe these kids, but the more they spoke, the more I felt my stomach churn. “But, like… why would he want to kill us?” I asked. “What’s the point?”
The girl looked solemn. “Brennan has blood on his hands already,” she said. “The whole town does. After that massacre, they finally got the outsiders to leave them alone, just like they wanted. And if they have to kill to protect their privacy, they’ll do it. Don’t think they won’t.”
This was at least shaping up to be quite a story, bullshit teen prank or not. So I looked at Tom, and he shrugged, and we let the twins lead us off the trail and into the tangle of overgrown foliage that made up the rest of Blackstone Forest. Our flashlights cut through the darkening night. We’d be risking our necks without the light, but I couldn’t help but wonder if we were advertising our location to whoever - or whatever - wanted to harm us.
“I’m Nick, by the way,” the boy said as we hiked our way forward. “Nick Jensen. This is my sister, Hallie.”
“Don’t make small talk, just move,” Hallie growled.
We all took her advice, trying not to speak a word as we climbed over mounds of black rock and squeezed our way between the thick line of trees. It seems hard to believe, looking back now, but the time stamps on Tom’s camera tell us we spent more than a few hours trudging through the forest. The sky had gone completely dark, and in the shadows of the night, it wasn’t hard to believe we’d wandered into some real dangerous territory. Murderous sheriffs were one thing. There was every possibility the Skulker was lurking somewhere out here too - a great hulking creature who may (or may not) have slaughtered fifteen people already.
Eventually the trees began to thin, and I didn’t need the twins to tell us we were getting close. Hallie gestured for us to turn off our flashlights. I wasn’t thrilled about being plunged into darkness, but she pressed a button on her handheld camera, activating night vision mode. We crept forward carefully, following the glow of her little green screen.
“The parking lot is just up ahead,” Nick whispered, and as if to prove his point, a pair of car headlights burst into life in front of us. We all ducked into the underbrush before we could be spotted. My heart was pounding, but Tom and the twins seemed to be holding it together. He and Hallie pointed their cameras at the source of the light.
The headlights turned off, only to be replaced by what looked like a huge floodlight. It was impossible to see anything past it. Whoever had driven out here didn’t make themselves known right away, but then a police radio crackled with words we couldn’t make out. Tom let out a sharp breath at the sound.
Footsteps crunched on gravel, and two figures came into view. It was hard to see them in the floodlight’s glare, but one of them appeared to be Sheriff Brennan. The other was a shorter man, wearing an eyepatch and a leather coat. He was also wielding the biggest fucking rifle I’d ever seen in my life.
Nick tapped me on the shoulder, and I saw that Hallie was leading Tom away, still crouched down to avoid the floodlight. We moved slowly and carefully back into the forest, leaving the quietest of footsteps on the crinkly leaves. No one spoke until we’d put so much distance between us and the floodlight that it was barely a speck in the distance.
“Who the fuck was that?” I whispered.
Hallie shrugged. “FBI, we think. We keep seeing him around town, and he’s all buddy-buddy with the police. We try to stay away from him as much as possible.”
“Never mind that guy,” Tom said. “How are we supposed to get to our car if they’re guarding the parking lot?”
“There are other ways around,” Nick replied. “But they involve some risky climbing, and I don’t know if I’d feel safe doing that in the dark.”
“We’ve got a few campsites set up out here,” Hallie said. “The sheriff doesn’t like us being out in the woods, so we found some hidey-holes where we can lie low and spend the night if we have to. I think our best move now is to hide out ‘til morning and take the climbing route when it gets light enough to see.”
I definitely hadn’t been expecting us to rough it in the woods overnight, but what choice did we have? We followed the twins as they led us back into the heart of the woods and down into a little valley, where a curtain of hanging moss hid the entrance to a deep, low cave. Hallie ushered us inside, looking warily behind her.
“Why do you two spend so much time in the woods, anyway?” I asked her. “Isn’t it supposed to be dangerous?”
Hallie didn’t look at me when she answered. “The real danger’s back in town,” she said. “We come out here to protect anyone looking for the Skulker.”
“But… the Skulker is dangerous. It killed all those people last year, didn’t it?”
Now she was looking at me. Well, more like glaring at me. “No. You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
Tom crept up to us, camera still rolling, keeping low to avoid bonking his head on the cave ceiling. “Do you know what actually happened, then?” he asked. “You know who’s behind the massacre?”
“Not entirely,” Nick said. He’d emerged from the back of the cave, where two sleeping bags had been laid out across the stone. “We weren’t there. But we had friends who were, and they told us enough.”
“The Skulker never kidnapped that kid,” Hallie said. “He just ran into the woods to play, and the Skulker protected him. That asshole, Lance whatever, he didn’t care that it was being gentle, he just saw a big hairy monster and wanted to kill it. So the sheriff killed him first. And then everyone who saw it happen had to go too.”
“The townies killed the outsiders,” Nick said. “Not the Skulker. The public never saw the bodies because then they’d know the victims were strangled, shot, and stabbed - not mauled by a wild animal.”
“No fucking way,” Tom breathed.
“Are you sure your friends weren’t making up stories?” I asked. “Because this… god, if this is true…”
“Sure as we can be,” Hallie said. “And now it looks like the FBI is helping to cover up the story, and they’re letting the rumors about the Skulker spread to keep people away. There are still people who come investigate, though. People like you guys.”
“Brennan and the police don’t want the truth getting out there,” Nick said. “They just want everyone to leave them alone. So me and Hallie, as soon as we hear there are outsiders in town, we do what we can to protect them.”
“It doesn’t always work,” Hallie said. The two of them looked at each other somberly. “Some people get in too deep, and Brennan deals with them. But most of the time we’re able to convince people to leave town before things get that bad.”
“Are you worried about Brennan finding out what you’re doing?” I asked.
“We think he has some idea already,” Nick said. “But we’re townies. He’s not going to hurt us, even if he doesn’t like us meddling. All he cares about is making sure our town’s secret doesn’t get out there.”
“But you just told us the big secret,” I said, suddenly wary. “If we make it out of here tomorrow, what happens next? How are we supposed to keep this whole thing quiet?”
Hallie’s face grew stony. “Honestly, don’t. Tell the world if you want. Post it on your blog. Maybe people will believe you, maybe they won’t. But we’re tired of covering this up.”
Tom and I shared a long, pensive glance. I had a feeling we were both grappling with the same decision. But we still had to survive the night, and the next morning, and whatever came after that, and there was no point in deciding anything until Blackstone Valley was safely in our rearview mirror.
“Get some rest,” Nick said, gesturing to the sleeping bags. “Hallie and I will keep watch.”
We reluctantly did as he said. I, for one, was pretty sure I wouldn’t sleep a wink all night. But I guess when you’re fatigued enough, even anxiety can’t keep you awake, because I drifted off at some unknown hour of the morning. The cave was dark and cold, and even quieter than the woods outside.
I’m still not sure if I dreamed this or not. At one point in the night, I opened my bleary eyes, and saw the twins standing outside the mossy entrance of the cave. They weren’t alone. Besides their dirty pairs of sneakers, I could see a set of furry brown feet from my vantage point. Their voices mingled with a low crooning, like a bestial lullaby, and the sound was so soothing that I was asleep again before I knew it.
*****
“Wake up, dammit!”
Rough hands jostled me awake, and I sat up in my sleeping bag, nearly bashing my head on the ceiling. Hallie was shaking me by the shoulders. On the other side of the cave, Nick was doing the same with Tom.
“What’s going on…?” I mumbled.
“Brennan’s not waiting for you to starve out here,” she said in a panicked, quiet voice. “We just saw him patrolling the forest, looking for you.”
Well, shit. I was wide awake now. “What do we do?” I asked, climbing out of the sleeping bag.
“Hallie and I can distract him,” Nick said, joining us with a very tired-looking Tom. “We can get him far enough away for you to make a run for it. Just head east until you hit the river, then climb up the rock face and keep going until you hit a clearing. The parking lot will be a mile to the left from there.”
“What if he catches you?” I asked. I didn’t want anything to happen to these kids.
Hallie pulled a little green compass out of her pocket, stared at the needle for a moment, then drew her mouth in a firm line. “Don’t worry about us,” she said. “We have a backup plan.”
“The tent?” Nick asked, and she nodded.
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you” felt insufficient, given just how much these two had risked their necks to keep us safe. But “thank you” was all I had, so that’s what I offered them. I said it with a slight lump in my throat.
“Wait five minutes, then go,” Hallie said. “And good luck.”
Then she and her brother were gone, slipping past the mossy curtain and into the forest. We listened as their footsteps faded away. When the five minutes had passed, we gripped our bags and crawled outside. Tom, ever the professional blogger, already had his camera up and running.
And then we were running too. It was gray and cloudy, so we couldn’t follow the sun, but luckily Hallie wasn’t the only one who had brought a compass (thank you, Trading Post Jesse). We ran across uneven stretches of dirt and fallen leaves, with twisted roots sticking out that threatened to trip us up constantly. We ran through low-hanging branches and bits of tangled foliage. We ran and ran and didn’t stop, even when we heard a loud, animal roar bellowing from the forest behind us.
“What the fuck was that?” Tom asked, breathing heavily.
“It must be the Skulker,” I panted, but I wasn’t quite sure I believed it. I could still picture those furry feet outside the cave, could still hear that gentle crooning lullaby.
The rest of our great escape went off without a hitch, incredibly enough. We found the river Nick had mentioned, climbed up the harrowing rock face (it was maybe fifteen feet tall, but it felt like fifty), stumbled into the clearing outside the forest, and booked it all the way back to the parking lot. The sheriff’s police car was still there, but Brennan himself was nowhere to be seen, and his gun-happy FBI friend was happily absent. We climbed into the minivan and peeled it out of there. I’d kind of expected the tires to be slashed or something, but nope. Maybe Brennan had assumed we’d never get this far. I stepped on the gas, and we rumbled down the winding dirt road - away from Blackstone Valley, its threatening townsfolk, and its dark, horrific, bloody secret.
*****
Of course, things get much less secret when you post them to the internet for the whole world to see. Tom and I struggled with this decision for a while, once we were safe at home and could actually process everything that had happened. We didn’t want to put Nick and Hallie in danger by spilling the beans about the Blackstone Valley massacre. In the end, though, we decided to share the truth. Hallie had asked us for that much.
This wasn’t our weirdest case - not by a long shot. But it was definitely our scariest one. I don’t think Tom or I have ever put ourselves in such a dangerous situation. And the kicker, of course, is that we didn’t have a bloodthirsty cryptid to blame. Just a bunch of ordinary humans, driven to ordinary human violence.
Is the Skulker real? We’d like to think so. Did it actually kill those fifteen people? It’s looking less and less likely. The story Nick and Hallie told us is almost too horrifying to believe, but at the same time, it rings true. It would be nice to blame all the darkness and death in the world on monsters. But what do you do when the monsters are as human as you or me?
Tom and I, we don’t have the answer. We’re not sure anyone does. The best thing we can do is follow the facts, as we’ve always done, and try to peel back the curtain of the unknown.
What you do with the truth is up to you.
– The Weird Brothers
/gallowshill13
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