Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Marcia Bodman. I live in a little country house off a back road outside Johnstown, Ohio. I’m 32 years old.
About three years ago, I lost my brother, Tom. He died in a car accident. The day we buried him, I thought the hardest part was behind me. But that night, as darkness settled over the fields, I heard his voice calling my name.
Except it wasn’t right. There was something off about it too hollow, too distant, like an echo filtered through static. I heard him call me twice that night.
I just lay there in bed, frozen. Maybe I was dreaming, I told myself. Maybe grief was playing tricks on my mind.
But deep down, I knew I’d never heard anything like that before.
The second night after the funeral, I was jolted awake by loud, frantic knocking at my back door at 3:00 in the morning. This wasn’t a normal knock. Whoever or whatever it was, pounded desperately, hard and fast, hitting the door again and again, as if in a panic.
I froze. Alone, I didn’t know what to do except lie there and hope it stopped. But it didn’t. For thirty-five minutes, the knocking kept going relentless, insistent.
Then I heard it again:
My brother’s voice, calling through the door.
“Marcia, help me… let me in…”
A cold dread washed over me. I knew it couldn’t be Tom. He was gone. The voice sounded like him but it was twisted, wrong, something hollow at its core. Every instinct screamed that whatever was outside wasn’t my brother at all.
But I still heard him begging at my door in the middle of the night.
I was terrified, but eventually that fear burned into anger. I sat up, walked slowly into the kitchen, and shouted at the door,
“Leave me alone! I know you’re not my brother!”
I was furious whatever was out there was trying to wear Tom’s voice like a mask, and I hated it for that. After I yelled, everything went silent. For two hours, there was nothing but quiet. Thinking it was finally over, I went back to my room, lay down, and managed to fall asleep.
The next morning, I went out to my back door to see if there was any sign of what had happened. That’s when I saw the scratch marks gouged into the wood. But what really made my skin crawl were the footprints human, but… wrong. The toes were too long, the feet too thin.
Something unnatural had stood right outside my door, trying to get in.
This is where things took a turn for the worse when things got truly creepy.
I was walking around my property, making a slow circuit of the house, when I noticed something strange: my car door was open. As I got closer, I saw odd, greasy smears on the door handle, like something with oily hands had tried to get in. Looking down, I spotted deer tracks in the gravel circling the car, as if whatever it was had been inspecting it.
But deer can’t open car doors.
There was a strange smell in the air, too damp, wet fur, mixed with something sour, almost like rotten meat.
That’s when I saw it for the first time.
Out by the tree line, a lone deer stood watching me. But there was something horribly wrong. It didn’t move right, its gait was stiff, jerky, unnatural. Its skin looked too tight in some spots, sagging in others, like it didn’t fit properly. The face was the worst wrong in all the details, contorted, as if something was struggling to remember how a deer was supposed to look.
It just stood there and stared.
A cold chill ran down my spine.
For the first time, I realized: whatever was out there, it was watching me and it wanted in.
I stared at the thing for several minutes, and it just stood there at the edge of the trees, watching me. Trying to shake it off, I decided to go about my day like nothing was wrong. I went back inside, made coffee, ate breakfast, and sat on my laptop to check on my candle shop orders.
I stepped out to my workshop, took inventory wax, labels, boxes making sure I had everything for the day’s shipments. I had errands to run in town and calls to make about expanding my workspace, since business was busy.
My schedule was packed:
- Orders to fill for my candle store customers
- Arrangements for the crew about the new workshop materials, framing, everything lined up
- The pond out back was being finished up for landscaping water, rock, and stone deliveries on the way
I spent the morning making phone calls and running through my checklist, pretending everything was normal. I hoped that if I kept busy, whatever I’d seen would just go away.
But deep down, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was still out there, watching and waiting.
While I was in town running errands, I grabbed a bite to eat and picked up extra supplies for my candle shop. Just as I was heading back to my car, my phone rang.
It was Ricky Johnson, the guy managing the pond work on my property.
He sounded uneasy.
He told me the crew had delivered some of the rocks and stones, but things took a turn. They all got spooked and said they’d be back tomorrow, early in the morning.
I pressed him for details.
"What do you mean, spooked?"
He hesitated, then said the workers saw something weird down by the pond. Something that didn’t look right, and it kept making a strange, high-pitched screaming noise. Whatever it was, it freaked them out enough to pack up and leave without finishing.
I sighed and told him that was fine, but I needed them back in the morning to finish the job. Ricky promised he’d see to it.
But even as I hung up, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever I’d seen by the woods earlier wasn't just watching me, it was chasing everyone away.
When I got home, it was 7:15 p.m. The place was empty, no one down by the pond, no one working on the workshop. It didn’t even look like any work had been done. The absence unsettled me, but they’d promised to come back in the morning.
Dusk was falling fast, so I went inside, locked the doors, and tried to distract myself with my laptop. But after a while, curiosity and dread got the better of me. I needed to see if that thing the not-quite-right deer was still out there.
I stepped into the yard, heart pounding, and looked out toward the tree line.
That’s when I saw it.
It was standing there, perfectly still then, slowly, it waved at me. Except it wasn’t just the deer anymore it was twisting, trying to look like my brother. And in my brother’s voice, warped but familiar, it kept calling,
“Come here, Marcia! I want to show you something!”
Terror rooted me to the spot. My mind went blank. I’d never seen or even imagined anything like this before.
I want everyone to understand: in that moment, I wasn’t just scared. I was emptied out, paralyzed, left without any sense of what was real or safe.
And as I stood there, I realized this wasn’t just a story that was happening to me.
There’s something I want everyone to remember: when you can’t understand what you’re seeing, the fear becomes so much worse. The unknown is terrifying. My mind raced with a thousand questions and none of them had any answers.
But even more powerful than the confusion was the feeling that settled over me a deep, gut-level certainty that this was something evil.
No one had to tell me.
My body just knew.
It was more than fear. My skin crawled, the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood up as if every part of me was trying to warn me to run.
That pure, primal dread told me one thing:
Whatever was out there, it wasn’t just wrong. It was dangerous and it was meant to scare me.
When it realized I wasn’t coming any closer, the thing dropped to all fours and started crawling toward me. Its movements were jerky and unnatural, just wrong.
That’s when panic took over.
I didn’t care about anything but getting away. I turned and ran for the house, heart pounding, slamming every door behind me, locking each one in turn.
I sprinted to my closet, pulled out my .45 mag handgun, and loaded it just in case. Then I rushed through the house, yanking curtains shut on every window so nothing could watch me from outside.
I slid the heaviest table in front of the front door, then dragged the refrigerator against the back door.
I wasn’t taking any chances. I was determined to keep whatever that thing was out.
I turned on the TV and sat down, desperate for any noise to drown out whatever was outside. I just couldn’t bear to hear it if it started calling to me again.
But nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.
This is where things went from terrifying to unbearable. I need you to understand when I was 21, I had a daughter, Julie. She was everything to me. She only made it to three years old before cancer took her from me.
That night, as I huddled inside, that thing outside started using her voice. It didn’t sound quite right off, like before but it was unmistakable. I heard my little girl’s voice at the front door:
“Mommy, I’m cold. Won’t you let me in?”
I broke.
I fell to my knees, sobbing, wrecked by grief and fear and the pure cruelty of whatever was out there.
I still didn’t know what I was up against, but I knew one thing: whatever it was, it was evil. And as I wept, my daughter’s voice kept pleading from the darkness:
“Mommy, I’m cold. Please let me in…”
I stood up, raised the gun, and aimed at the front door. My voice shook as I shouted,
“Get away from my door or I’ll shoot!”
But that only seemed to enrage it. The pounding grew louder so hard and violent I thought the door would burst off its hinges. The whole house rattled, and through it all, that twisted imitation of my daughter’s voice cried out,
“Mommy, let me in! I’m cold!”
Panicking, I fired twice through the door. The shots echoed in the silence, and for about twenty-five minutes, everything went still.
Then…the pounding started up again.
This time, I saw something move at one of the bullet holes, a long, gray finger with an impossibly sharp black nail, wriggling through the opening, searching.
And then, that voice came again.
Softer, mock-hurt, my little girl’s voice said,
“Mommy… you hurt me. Let me in.”
All I could do was stand there, gun shaking in my hand, praying for morning and wishing I’d never heard that voice at all.
It started pounding on the front door again even harder than before. I knew it was only a matter of time before it forced its way into the house. Heart hammering, I ran into the bathroom, slammed the door, and locked it. I shoved my dresser up against the door, double-checked the window, and yanked the curtain down tight.
I sat on the edge of the tub, gun in hand, trying to calm my shaking breath.
That’s when I heard it the unmistakable sound of wood splintering as the front door finally gave way. Heavy footsteps moved through the house, slow and deliberate.
Then, that warped version of my daughter’s voice echoed through the rooms:
“Mommy, won’t you come out here and play with me?”
I was furious at its cruelty using the voice of the person I missed most but deep down, I was terrified. I didn’t believe I’d survive the night; I was certain this thing would find me.
Soon, I heard it right outside my bedroom door. The doorknob started to rattle, the metallic scrape echoing in the dark.
I watched, helpless, as the knob slowly turned back and forth.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so close to giving up trapped, weapon ready, knowing that evil was just inches away.
Realizing the only way out was the tiny bathroom window, I forced it open, the frame biting into my skin as I squeezed through. I could hear the door behind me splintering, the creature shoving, shrieking, changing voices. My arms and legs scraped and bleeding, I tumbled outside and sprinted straight into the night.
Branches tore at my clothes as I bolted across the field toward my neighbor’s house, terror driving me faster than I’d ever run. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw it chasing me on all fours, caught halfway between beast and person, its features a nauseating blur of stretched skin, shifting eyes, and wild, predatory hunger.
I burst onto my neighbor’s porch and banged frantically on the door. He opened Acosta Field, a quiet man whose family had lived in these woods for generations. As soon as I blurted out what had happened, what I’d seen his expression changed to something grave and knowing.
He listened closely.
Then he nodded and said, "You’ve tangled with something you shouldn’t have a skinwalker. When you cleared that part of your land for the pond, you disturbed a place that wasn't meant to be touched."
He explained that in the old stories, some areas are sacred, even cursed as taboo to outsiders. By cutting down the trees and digging for the pond, I’d entered that territory uninvited. I had disrespected the land, walked right into a place meant to be left alone and now, the skinwalker was trying to drive me out.
All the fear, rage, and confusion in me turned to cold dread as I realized:
I hadn’t just run from something. I’d brought its wrath on myself.
Acosta wasted no time. He gathered herbs, drew protective symbols near his door, and sprinkled something pungent in the air. He told me to stay inside, whatever happened, and never, ever respond if the creature called my name again.
As midnight neared, a thick, unnatural fog rolled across the fields. Shadows twisted under the porch light. Then the scratching started first at the windows, then the walls, then the roof, metal claws screeching and scrabbling. We heard voices, dozens of them, sounding like everyone I’d ever loved and lost begging, weeping, screaming, calling me outside.
Acosta began chanting in a language I didn’t understand, his voice steady against the dreadful chorus. The house shook as the thing battered at the doors, howling with rage, sometimes a human scream, sometimes the cry of a wounded animal, sometimes a voice so perfectly like Julie’s that I sobbed behind my hands.
At the height of it, the air turned freezing cold. The scratching stopped dead silence fell. I looked up and saw it outside the window, face pressed to the glass, shifting, morphing from my brother to my daughter to a deer and back again. Its eyes shone yellow, and its hands were inhuman long, gray fingers tipped with black claws, twitching against the pane.
Acosta shouted louder, casting something at the glass. The creature recoiled, shrieking, skin bubbling and tearing, but it did not vanish. Instead, it melted back into the fog, leaving behind a jagged, unnatural smile that I could still see even with my eyes shut tight.
Dawn broke, pale and bitter, but the thing was gone. Acosta told me I could never go home, a curse stood on that land, one I’d called upon myself. I asked if it was over. He didn’t answer, just looked at me with eyes full of warning.
I left Johnstown that day, but sometimes, at night, I hear tapping on the windows voices begging to be let in. Sometimes I wonder:
Did I escape, or is it just waiting for me to make a new mistake?
Some doors, once opened, can never be closed.
Epilogue
It’s been months since I left that house behind. I moved far from Ohio, changed my number, and tried to forget everything that happened. But forgetting isn’t so easy, not when night falls and shadows gather just outside the reach of the light.
Sometimes I wake to the sound of gentle tapping at the window or the porch steps creaking under unseen weight. Some nights, I hear my brother’s voice, pleading and sad. Sometimes it’s my little girl, soft and cold, just outside the door.
I never answer.
I never look.
But old habits die hard. I keep the curtains drawn tight and sleep with my gun within reach, though deep down I know bullets can’t kill what’s already cursed.
I tell myself I’m safer now. That I’ve learned. That I’ve put the past behind me. But the truth settles in my chest every night heavy and cold as stone. Some things, once you’ve seen them, never really leave you.
All I can do is hope I made the right choice by running.
And pray, as the world goes silent and the voices call, that I never have to find out what waits for me just on the other side of the door.
Because I know now:
Some nightmares follow you home.