It follows

I made a horrible mistake. One that I know will haunt me for what is left of my life.

Ever since it started, I’ve seen nothing but carnage and misery. Animalistic murders. Missing infants. Entire families disappearing overnight.

And now I know I’m next.

It started 2 week ago.

I had recently moved from Maryland to Florida, but I drove back up to Maryland for a weekend hunting trip with my cousin Jared. I left Thursday night and drove straight through until Friday morning — fifteen exhausting hours on the road. I spent the rest of Friday passed out

Saturday morning, Jared and I woke up around 4 A.M. We grabbed our .308 hunting rifles, made a quick breakfast, and headed out to the hunting land. By 5:30, we were already high up in a tree stand overlooking a baiting station deep in the woods.

Most of the day was uneventful. I saw squirrels, rabbits, and a few smaller animals, but I came for a white-tailed deer. We stayed out there until just before sunset.

It was getting dark and that’s when I barely saw it, Something large and brown like a deer stood near the edge of the baiting station.

I lifted my rifle and looked through the scope.

“Do you see that?” I whispered.

Jared raised his binoculars and stared for several seconds.

“I… can’t tell what the hell that is, i woudnt risk it” he muttered.

I should have listened to him.

But after driving all the way from Florida, I didn’t want to go home empty-handed. I centered the crosshairs where it would of hit a deer in the heart and slowly squeezed the trigger.

The rifle cracked through the woods.

Then came the scream.

A wet, gargled shriek that sounded almost human.

It sent a chill straight through my body.

Jared immediately looked at me with a mixture of confusion and terror. For one terrible second, I thought maybe I shot another hunter.

But we knew that thing wasn’t human.

We climbed down from the stand and found a thick trail of blood leading into the woods. We followed it for about thirty yards before darkness swallowed the trail completely.

Neither of us wanted to keep going at night.

The drive back home was dead silent. Jared kept both hands locked on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead the entire ride.

When we finally got back, he spoke quietly.

“That thing shouldn’t exist.”

I nodded slowly.

“You think it was goatman?”

Jared shook his head. “I don’t know. But without a body, nobody would ever believe us.”

We didn’t hunt again that weekend.

I left for Florida early Monday morning. Somewhere in South Carolina, exhaustion finally hit me, so I stopped at a cheap roadside motel for the night.

Tuesday morning, before sunrise, I loaded my bags into the truck. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I caught sight of a tall shadowy figure standing near the edge of the property.

At first, I thought it was just some homeless addict wandering around.

But something about it felt wrong.

The way it stood there.

Watching me.

I drove the rest of the way back to my house to Winterview, Florida. The place sat near the woods, but it wasn’t isolated enough to make me nervous.

For about five days, everything felt normal again.

Then the Amber Alerts started.

The first one reported a missing infant and his mother from a nearby county. Police suspected the father.

The next day, another alert came through. A two-month-old baby girl and her entire family had vanished overnight.

Then four more alerts hit my phone the following morning.

Entire families disappearing after dark.

A few days later, they found the bodies.

Or what was left of them.

The victims had been torn apart. Limbs missing. Flesh shredded. And the infants…

The infants had been partially eaten.

From that point on, I carried my pistol everywhere.

Soon the disappearances reached my town. Streets filled with police cruisers. Helicopters circled overhead at night. Officers searched the woods constantly.

Then, suddenly, it all stopped.

No new disappearances. No murders.

A week later, the police announced they captured the killer — a petty criminal named Johnathan Taylor with a long history of severe mental illness. They were seeking the death penalty.

For the first time in days, I finally felt relief.

I still hadn’t connected the pieces.

Then, right after sunset, I heard a sharp tap against my window.

I looked up.

At first, all I could see was glowing red lights staring through the darkness.

I flipped on the porch light.

And froze.

They weren’t lights.

They were its eyes.

The thing standing outside my window looked like an abomination. Its face was twisted between human and goat, stretched into something unnatural. Its body looked broken — like it had been run over repeatedly and healed wrong every single time. Bones jutted beneath uneven flesh. Its massive horns curved upward like something demonic.

And it looked so angry.

My hand shook as I drew my pistol.

But the moment I raised it, the creature vanished back into the darkness.

I called the police immediately and told them I saw something strange outside my house.

They searched the property for nearly an hour and were close to giving up when one of the dogs found a severed baby’s arm lying in the woods behind my home.

The next morning, crime scene investigators flooded the area. They uncovered shredded clothing, tiny shoes, and more human remains scattered throughout the treeline.

The police said they’d need DNA testing to confirm the identities.

But I already knew.

I found hoofprints outside every window of my house.

The police didn’t believe a word I said about the creature. Instead, they began treating me like a suspect because of everything found behind my property. Now they follow me whenever I leave the house.

But tonight… none of that matters anymore.

For the past two hours, I’ve heard a baby crying outside my back door.

The police stopped answering my calls.

And I know it’s waiting for me.

I know it’s coming inside tonight.