Hiii guys,
This is my first scary story about the Appalachian Mountains.
So let‘s jump right into tonight‘s story grap your favorite snack and settle in and let me tell you a scary Appalachian story - because of course this is The Last Snack After Midnight
Words: 1,5k
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I never believed the stories about the Appalachian Mountains.
People online called them cursed. Locals whispered about things that moved between the trees after dark. There were tales about missing hikers, strange noises, and old creatures that weren’t supposed to exist anymore. I thought it was all exaggerated folklore meant to scare tourists.
That was before I spent three nights alone in the mountains of West Virginia.
And before I realized something had been following me since the first night.
It started with a hiking trip I almost canceled. I’d been burned out from work, drowning in stress and sleepless nights, and I wanted silence. Real silence. No traffic. No phone calls. No people.
So I packed my tent, food, flashlight, and camera gear and drove deep into the Appalachians.
The deeper I went, the stranger the atmosphere became.
The roads narrowed until they looked forgotten by time itself. The trees grew impossibly tall, their branches tangling together so thickly they blocked the sunlight. Fog rolled through the forest in long pale ribbons, even though it was the middle of July.
By the time I reached the trailhead, it was almost evening.
There was only one other vehicle parked there: an old rusted truck covered in mud.
As I unloaded my backpack, I noticed an elderly man sitting on a bench near the woods. He wore dirty overalls and smoked a cigarette down to the filter. His eyes stayed fixed on the tree line.
“Headed in there alone?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just for a few days.”
He nodded slowly but didn’t smile.
“Don’t go off the trail after dark.”
I laughed a little. “Wasn’t planning to.”
“I mean it,” he said sharply. “If you hear somebody calling your name from the woods… no matter who it sounds like… you keep walking.”
A chill crept through me despite the summer heat.
Before I could respond, he stood up and shuffled toward his truck.
Then he stopped beside me one last time.
“And if you hear knocking,” he whispered, “hide.”
He drove away without another word.
I remember standing there in silence, watching the truck disappear down the road while the forest around me seemed to breathe.
I should’ve left right then.
Instead, I started hiking.
The first few hours were peaceful enough. Birds chirped overhead, and the trail wound through endless forests and rocky hillsides. But something felt… wrong.
The woods were too quiet.
No insects. No wind.
Just my footsteps.
I reached a clearing before sunset and set up camp beside a small creek. By nightfall, the darkness became absolute. The trees swallowed every trace of moonlight.
I sat beside my fire eating canned soup when I heard the first knock.
Three slow taps.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
I froze.
The sound came from somewhere deep in the forest behind me.
At first I thought it was another hiker. Maybe someone chopping wood.
Then it came again.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
Closer this time.
I stood up and shined my flashlight toward the trees.
Nothing.
Just endless black woods.
I told myself not to panic. Forests make weird noises all the time.
So I crawled into my tent and tried to sleep.
Around midnight, I woke to the sound of footsteps circling my campsite.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Slow. Deliberate.
My heart pounded so hard I thought I might throw up.
I grabbed my flashlight and unzipped the tent just enough to peek outside.
The footsteps stopped immediately.
The campsite was empty.
Then I heard breathing.
Not outside the tent.
Right beside it.
Heavy.
Wet.
Like an animal struggling to breathe through rotten lungs.
I couldn’t move.
A shadow slowly passed across the fabric of the tent.
It was tall.
Too tall.
Its head nearly brushed the low hanging branches above my campsite.
Then came the voice.
“Sunday…”
My blood turned to ice.
It sounded exactly like my mother.
My mother had died two years earlier.
“Sunday… help me…”
Every instinct screamed at me to run outside.
But I remembered the old man’s warning.
If you hear somebody calling your name… keep walking.
The thing outside circled my tent again.
“Please…”
Its voice warped halfway through the sentence, twisting into something inhuman.
I covered my mouth to stop myself from screaming.
The footsteps continued until sunrise.
The moment daylight broke, the noises stopped completely.
I packed my gear in under five minutes and got back on the trail.
I didn’t care about relaxing anymore. I just wanted to leave.
But after three hours of hiking, I realized something horrifying.
I was back at the same creek.
Same clearing.
Same campsite.
I checked my map over and over.
It made no sense.
I should’ve been miles away by then.
Panic started creeping into my chest.
I chose another direction and hiked faster.
Hours passed.
The woods became denser, darker.
Then I found the campsite again.
My tent tracks were still in the dirt.
That’s when I understood.
Something didn’t want me to leave.
The sun began setting again, and terror settled over me like a weight crushing my lungs.
I decided to keep moving through the night.
Big mistake.
Darkness in those mountains feels alive.
The trees looked wrong after sunset. Their branches twisted into shapes that resembled human limbs. Shadows moved where nothing should’ve been moving.
Around midnight, I started hearing whispers.
Dozens of them.
Soft voices drifting between the trees.
Some laughed quietly.
Some cried.
Some begged for help.
And all of them sounded human.
I kept walking.
Then I saw lights ahead.
Relief flooded through me.
A cabin stood in a clearing, glowing warmly beneath the trees.
An old woman sat on the porch in a rocking chair.
“You look lost,” she said kindly.
I nearly cried from relief.
She invited me inside and gave me hot coffee while rain hammered against the windows. The cabin smelled like old wood and smoke.
“You shouldn’t be out there at night,” she said.
“I know,” I muttered. “Something’s following me.”
She stared into her coffee silently.
Finally she whispered, “Did it speak to you?”
I nodded.
Her expression darkened instantly.
“You need to leave these mountains before sunrise.”
“What is it?”
She looked toward the window.
“Some people call them mimics. Others say they’re older than humans. The mountains are ancient. Older than bones. Older than history. There are things here that learned how to wear our voices.”
A loud knock echoed from outside.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
The woman went pale.
Another knock.
This time from the back door.
Then another.
From the walls.
From the windows.
The entire cabin filled with knocking.
The old woman grabbed my arm hard enough to hurt.
“Do not look outside.”
The knocking grew louder and faster until it sounded like dozens of fists pounding against the cabin.
Then came the voices.
“Let us in.”
“Please.”
“We’re cold.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
One voice sounded exactly like my younger sister.
Another sounded like my best friend.
Then came my mother again.
Sunday…”
I started crying.
The woman held a shotgun pointed at the door while the cabin shook violently.
Then everything stopped.
Silence.
A long horrible silence.
The old woman slowly peeked through the curtain.
Her face lost all color.
“It knows you now,” she whispered.
The front door exploded inward.
The thing that stepped inside was not human.
It unfolded itself through the doorway like a spider trying to imitate a man.
Its limbs bent the wrong direction.
Its skin looked stretched too tightly across its body.
And its face—
God.
Its face kept changing.
One second it looked like my mother.
Then my sister.
Then me.
Its mouth split open impossibly wide.
“Found you,” it croaked.
The old woman fired the shotgun.
The creature screamed — a sound so loud and unnatural I felt blood drip from my ears.
“RUN!” she shouted.
I ran into the woods while the cabin erupted behind me in chaos.
Branches slashed my face as I sprinted blindly through the darkness. Behind me I heard crashing footsteps moving impossibly fast.
The thing chased me for hours.
Sometimes it sounded close.
Sometimes far away.
But it never stopped.
Eventually I saw headlights through the trees.
A road.
I burst from the forest screaming and collapsed in front of a passing truck.
The driver slammed the brakes and jumped out.
It was the old man from the trailhead.
He dragged me into the truck without saying a word.
As we sped down the mountain road, I looked back toward the forest.
Dozens of figures stood between the trees.
Tall.
Motionless.
Watching us leave.
The old man finally spoke after several miles of silence.
“You heard it talk, didn’t you?”
I nodded weakly.
He stared at the road grimly.
“Then it’ll keep calling you.”
I didn’t understand what he meant until three nights later.
I was home in my apartment, lying in bed, trying to convince myself the whole thing had been some kind of mental breakdown.
Then I heard it.
Three knocks.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
Coming from my bedroom window.
I live on the seventh floor.
My blood froze.
Then came my mother’s voice from outside the glass.
“Sunday…”
I don’t sleep anymore.
Every night the knocking comes closer.
Every night the voices sound more desperate.
And last night, for the first time…
I heard my own voice whispering from the hallway outside my apartment.
“Let me in.”
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I still have Chills after this story🙈🙈🙈
If you have any personal scary stories you want to share, i would love to read them and write them in my next vlog. You can just write your Story in the comments. 💗💗💗
I hope you liked it and that you have a scary night💗🙈