The Watcher on the Ropes Course

Two years ago, I signed up for a wilderness survival camp hidden in the folds of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The camp was called Thornhaven, a name that felt more ominous than I’d like to admit. The first day was all about building fires and purifying water, but the second night, we were assigned to guard duty from 3 AM to 5 AM. Our mission: keep the wild boars away from the camp’s food storage. My buddy, Jake, and I took the shift with flashlights and a dull machete, laughing at the absurdity of it all.

The night was stifling, the kind of heat that clings to your skin. We were posted near the obstacle course, a sprawling web of wooden towers and rope bridges. The tallest structure was a wooden obelisk with a point so sharp it seemed to pierce the sky, a ‘flying fox’ zip line platform. We leaned against a tree, trading jokes to keep awake. I nudged Jake with my elbow. ‘If a demon shows up,’ I said, grinning, ‘I bet it’ll come for you first.’ He laughed, but then the air around us changed.

The temperature plummeted so suddenly that goosebumps erupted on my arms, and my breath fogged in the moonlight. The leaves on the ground began to rustle, but there was no breeze. Then a wind came from nowhere, howling through the ropes and making the whole structure groan like a wounded beast. The sky had been clear, but now clouds obscured the stars, and the temperature kept dropping. My joke hung in the air like a bad omen.

I looked up at the top of the flying fox platform, and there it was. A silhouette, humanoid but too tall, perched on the sharp tip like a crow on a wire. Its body was blacker than the night, and two red eyes, like smoldering coals, stared directly at us. My heart hammered. I wanted to run, but my legs felt like lead. ‘Jake,’ I whispered, ‘do you see that?’ He was frozen, his flashlight shaking, its beam trembling on the grass.

The wind died as quickly as it came, and the creature vanished. I exhaled, but the dread remained. ‘I need to wash my face,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I stumbled toward the latrine, a rickety wooden shack at the edge of the clearing. I splashed cold water on my face, and the shock helped. When I emerged, I looked back at the platform. The figure was gone. ‘Thank God,’ I thought. But as I turned toward the tents, I saw something else.

There, in the shadows between two cabins, another pair of red eyes glowed, then blinked out. A cold hand seemed to grip my spine. I ran back to the campfire, where Jake was already shaking. ‘We’re not alone,’ he said, his voice cracked. We didn’t sleep that night, but we told no one, fearing they’d call us crazy. The next morning, the camp leaders dismissed our nervousness as exhaustion, but I noticed the ropes on the flying fox were frayed, as if something had clawed at them.

A year later, I researched the area. I found old newspaper clippings about a Native American legend of a ‘sky wendigo’ that haunted the mountain, a creature that fed on fear and could appear as a shadow with burning eyes. Some locals believed it was an ancient curse, awakened by disturbances in the land. I haven’t returned to Thornhaven, and I never will. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I catch a glimpse of red eyes in the corner of my vision, and I wonder if it followed me home.