The Culling of the Pines

It was July 2013, and I was 15, a Life Scout in Troop 77. My dad, a scoutmaster with a penchant for ghost stories, had guided our troop of 14 boys through the dense, ancient forests of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We’d hiked over 50 miles in ten days, sleeping in canvas tents pitched on beds of pine needles, not hammocks. Our destination was a secluded valley known as ‘The Cradle,’ a place where the trees grew twisted and the local lore spoke of the ‘Pine Cullers’—men who, during the logging boom of the 1800s, went mad in the isolation and turned to unspeakable practices.

On the third night, we heard the first sounds: the snapping of twigs, the rustle of dry leaves, but no sign of any animal. My dad, always eager to experience the paranormal, called it ‘the forest waking up.’ The other scouts, a mix of excitement and unease, whispered around the campfire. But I noticed our junior patrol leader, a quiet kid named Marcus, would stare into the darkness beyond the firelight, his eyes wide.

By the fifth night, the sounds grew closer. We started finding strange marks on the trees—deep gouges, as if made by long claws or a knife. On the sixth morning, we discovered our food bags, which we’d hung from a high branch, torn open and scattered. The foul stench of rotting meat clung to the campsite. My dad, trying to keep morale up, said it was likely a bear, but his voice wavered. That evening, as we sat around the fire, Marcus spoke for the first time in days: ‘The Cullers want us to leave. They’re counting us.’ We all laughed nervously, but the laughter died when we saw the expression on his face—he was staring at the tree line, where a figure stood motionless, almost blending with the bark.

We blinked, and it was gone. Panic threatened to set in, but my dad, with his gruff voice, ordered us to stay calm and get some sleep, promising double guard duty. I was paired with Marcus for the second watch, from 2 AM to 4 AM. We sat back to back on a fallen log, our flashlights sweeping the darkness. The sounds were everywhere—footsteps that seemed to circle us, low whispers that sounded like pine needles scraping together. Marcus’s flashlight flickered, and in that instant, I saw not one, but several figures at the edge of our sight, all with long, thin arms that hung almost to their knees.

My heart hammered. I wanted to run, but my legs were frozen. Marcus grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. ‘Don’t move,’ he hissed. ‘They’re looking for the weakest.’ Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the figures withdrew. The forest fell into an eerie silence. We didn’t wake anyone until dawn.

We tried to leave that morning, but the trail markers we had followed were gone. Roots and branches had been twisted to create a confusing maze. We spent the entire day wandering, and by dusk, we were hopelessly lost, exhausted, and low on supplies. That’s when the real terror began. The figures returned, not as silhouettes but as gnarled, wood-skinned beings with hollow eyes, their fingers like splintered branches. They moved slowly, deliberately, herding us deeper into the forest.

We found an old, abandoned logging camp—a few collapsed cabins and a rusted saw. Forced to take shelter, we barricaded the door of the largest cabin with broken beds and chairs. Outside, the creatures circled, scraping their hands against the walls, whispering our names. My dad, trying to keep us calm, began to tell a story to distract us, but his voice cracked when he mentioned that the Cullers were said to skin their victims and leave the husks hanging from the pines.

One of the younger scouts, a boy named Timmy, started sobbing. The noises outside grew louder, almost mocking. Then, a voice, clear and cold, came from just outside the door: ‘Let the boy out, and we’ll let the rest go.’ My dad, with a tremor in his voice, demanded a sign. The door shook violently. Timmy, in his terror, unlocked the barricade and ran. We heard his scream, then silence.

As the hours dragged on, we huddled in the dark, listening to the occasional scratchings. At dawn, the creatures were gone. Timmy was never found, but we discovered his shirt hanging from a nearby pine, ripped to shreds, with a strange pattern of sap and blood. A rescue team eventually found us, but we were all changed. My dad never spoke of what happened, but he sold all his scouting gear and never went camping again. I still see those figures in my nightmares, always counting us, always waiting. The forest had its culling, and it took a piece of all of us that day.