We Explored a Ghost Town in the Mountains, Now Something is Hunting Us | Part 2
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Hi. Sorry, did I startle you? When you're used to hearing a certain type of commercial, something like this can, well, take you by surprise. That's kind of how it is with the Lexus RX, a vehicle that has continued to defy expectations for over 25 years. From the first luxury vehicle of its kind, to the first hybrid luxury vehicle, to the only plug-in hybrid worthy of the RX name, we understand you want more than the everyday SUV. And isn't being understood an amazing feeling?

Haley came tottering out of the warehouse we were going to make camp in as Kyler and I came sprinting up. She didn't look injured, but it was getting darker every minute, and I couldn't see her clearly. "Our stuff is gone," she said in a sob. "We're gonna die out here!" Without a word, Kyler moved into the abandoned warehouse, turning on the crappy little light he had attached to the camera.

I followed behind him and saw that what Haley said was true. Our packs were gone, and there were gouges in the floor that hadn't been there before. "Are those claw marks?" Kyler asked. "We need to go," I said. "Guys!" Haley shouted. We rushed back outside and found Haley looking up the valley toward the sawmill. "What?" Kyler asked.

"I saw something," Hailey said, pointing a finger up toward a half-collapsed building on the opposite side of the dirt thoroughfare. Kyler shifted the camera, shining the light toward the building. My bones turned to ice as my eyes picked out a strange figure out of the rubble. It looked to me like a cross between a bear and a man, although it didn't have any fur, only pale, sickly, and saggy skin over its formidable but oddly melted-looking body.

It was only there for a moment, moving just a split second after the light touched it, and it moved fast, disappearing back beyond the piles of rubble and into the darkness. "Did you see that?" Hailey asked. "Its eyes," I said. "Did you see its eyes?" They were yellow and black, the irises diamond-shaped. Yet, foreign as they were, they seemed somehow familiar to me. "This isn't happening," Kyler said. "What the fuck was that?"

"It was big," Ailey said. "Big as a person." "Those eyes," I said. There was a thud from behind us, followed by a strange shriek that shadowed my frozen bones. Suddenly, all three of us were running through the ghost town, toward the trail that would eventually lead to Kyler's SUV. We ran as fast as we could, but I was certain that something was chasing us. And as soon as I found out, I was right.

Stop! I gasped, gripping the stitch in my side as I stumbled to a stop, huffing, lungs feeling two sizes too small. Haley heated me, putting her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. But Kyler, who had run track in college, kept going. I watched the camera light bounce down the wooded trail as he ran, shouting over his shoulder for us to keep up.

We had left the ghost town behind, but not far behind. I figured we were maybe 50 yards into the woods, which meant we'd sprinted over 100 yards. That was pretty good for someone like me, who hadn't run since gym class in high school. Then again, when you think a murderous creature is chasing you, it's not hard to push yourself. I shouted for Kyler to stop and wait for us, but it came out weak. I was still trying to catch my breath.

So as I watched his light grow smaller, illuminating the trees that crowded the trail, I dug into my pocket and pulled my phone out. With shaking hands, it took me a long moment to find the flashlight app. And when I did, I spun around in a circle, shining the light, looking for yellow eyes with diamond-shaped irises in the woods. I found none, and I didn't see anything following us along the trail. Haley crowded close to me, still huffing and puffing.

I looked down the trail and shouted, "Kyler! Stop!" The light was still visible, but it looked like Kyler was rounding a bend in the trail, putting trees between us and him. It didn't look like he was stopping. Suddenly, the light shot up a few feet into the air and then fell to the ground before coming to rest, shining back toward us along the trail. All I could see was the light now. I couldn't see Kyler anywhere. My throat clicked as I swallowed. "Kyler?"

What happened? Haley asked. Did he trip? I wanted to believe that's all that had happened, but I didn't think so. I looked over my shoulder, back up the trail, then back down toward the camera light. It still hadn't moved. Shit, I said. Kyler! Haley screamed. We looked at each other, and I noticed that she'd pulled her phone out and had her flashlight on now too. You have service? Haley looked at her phone and shook her head. You? No, I said.

We both stared at the camera light. It still hadn't moved. "Maybe he dropped it and kept running?" I said. "Without a light?" Hailey said. I looked over my shoulder, shining the light back behind me. Now that we were tucked deeper into the valley, the wind wasn't so bad. But it still rustled the tops of the trees, creating a constant soundtrack of distant movement. "Do we go back?" I asked finally.

Haley hesitated for a moment before saying, "No way, we gotta get back to the car." "Kyler has the keys," I said. "I guess we have to find Kyler." We started forward, but Haley ducked over and grabbed a heavy fallen branch from the ground. Thinking that was a good idea, I grabbed a wedge-shaped rock with a pointed edge. We eased forward together, taking turns looking behind us and into the woods on either side.

Before we'd gone ten yards, the sides of my head around my ears started to feel sore because I was straining to listen so hard. The rustling treetops, I knew, would make it difficult for us to hear something approaching unless it was being really loud. We would only hear it when it got close, and I wasn't at all confident in my ability to use the rock gripped tightly in my right hand. We paused five yards from the camera and shined our lights around, looking for any sign of Kyler.

It was hard to see beyond the camera, because the bright light was still on, shining in our faces. Our phone flashlights were no match for the camera light. "Kyler?" Haley called out, no answer. I stepped forward, shoved my phone in my pocket with the flashlight still on, and picked up the camera as I aimed the device down the trail. The light picked out a figure floating above the trail. No, floating wasn't right, hanging.

As comprehension spread through my brain like poison, I stepped involuntarily back, unable to take my eyes off the figure. It was Kyler. He'd been strung up over the trail, arms outstretched and fastened to adjacent trees with ropes. His legs were fastened together and also tied to trees on each side of the trail. At first, I thought it was another rope that hung from him in dripping loops, but my mind corrected me with a silent scream that said they were intestines. His intestines.

They emerged from under the hem of his shirt, so I couldn't see the wound that was surely there. I was distantly thankful for this small mercy. The trail beneath his feet was covered in blood, and some still dripped from his soaked hiking boots. His chin rested on his chest, but it looked as if his eyes were still open. Staring blankly down at the trail a few feet in front of him, Haley whimpered and coughed and spit what I realized was a small amount of vomit she'd thrown up into her mouth.

"Oh Christ," I said. "Oh God." Kyler moved suddenly, his upper body jerking to the left while his legs jerked to the right. This opened up the massive gash in his stomach, causing the rest of his intestines and other blood-slippery internal organs to spill out in a macabre avalanche.

Knowing I could do nothing else but run, I spun around and started up the trail. But as I did, something jumped up from the ground just in front of me. I realized only after I was flying through the air that it was a tripwire. I dropped the camera and the rock on reflex to break my fall. Something hit me in the back of the head as I tried to get up. I fell back down.

Haley screamed, and I looked through blurry eyes to see the creature from the ghost town attacking her. Its melted body seemed to shimmer, rubbery skin reflecting the light from Haley's phone, which she still held in one hand despite the creature being on top of her. As I caught another glimpse of those eyes, I realized why they were familiar, and I remembered where I had seen them before. Then a second figure stepped in front of me, and I stared up at him in shock.

"Milo?" I asked, just a split second before he smacked me in the side of the head with a branch.

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An icy breeze seemed to flow constantly through the old mine shaft. I could tell by the echoes and the earthly smell and the feeling of closeness that we were in the mine. That, and the fact that I was being shoved along in a mine cart. My hands were tied tight behind my back, my legs were tied together, and I had a hood over my head. Ailey's whimpers came from somewhere in front of me. I came out of my head injury stupor slowly, memories of past shoots floating through my mind.

About a year ago, shortly after we hired Milo on, we'd done an episode in an abandoned blast furnace in Pennsylvania. For the episode, Milo had crafted a rodent-like costume that Largo had worn. That's where I recognized the eyes from. That's where I'd seen them before. Apparently, Milo had reused them to create this bear creature costume. So Milo was behind this. He had faked getting attacked in the sawmill

Ever since, he had been running around in the dark, orchestrating this whole thing. There was only one thing I didn't know. Who the hell was in the creature costume? For a moment, I thought it was Largo. After all, I hadn't seen him die with my own eyes. But I quickly dismissed that thought, remembering how real his head felt. It wasn't Largo. He was dead. It was someone else.

As the minecart I was in slowed and then stopped, I got quickly to my knees and doubled over, shaking my head until the hood fell off. I glanced up to see that we were in a large section of the mine, near the top of a crest. Battery-powered work lights made the place as bright as a supermarket. It looked as if the miners from way back when had broken into a pre-existing cavern with a high ceiling. Milo was ahead of me, leaned over a second minecart,

He was fixing a noose around Haley's neck while she sat hooded and whimpering in the minecart. The other end of the rope was affixed to a small device on the ceiling overhead. As I looked closer, I realized the device the rope was attached to was itself attached to a metal cable that ran over the minecart tracks, like a zipline cable. I followed the cable with my eyes and saw that it ended directly over what looked like a broken minecart track bridge.

The broken bridge had been built over a crevasse about 20 feet wide. The tracks on this side stuck out a few feet over that dark hole before terminating. The reality of what Milo was planning settled on me with all the comfort of a coat made of fire ants. Milo would shove the mine cart, with Haley in it, down the gentle slope and toward the broken bridge. Once the cart had reached the chasm, the runner above would stop.

The minecart would fall into the pit, but Haley wouldn't. She would fall maybe a foot into the crevasse before the rope went taut again, but I doubted it would break her neck. It seemed like a lot of trouble just to hang someone. I sensed movement to my left and looked over to see the bear creature standing directly beside me. "Boo!" A man's voice issued from somewhere inside the costume, causing me to flinch.

The creature stood up and removed his head, revealing the head of a blonde-haired man with wide eyes, puffy cheeks, and thick lips. He guffawed as he looked at me. "Pow'd shit your pants, didn't you?" This had drawn Myla's attention, who looked over at us. "Hey, Heath," he said to me in his studious, sincere voice. "How's it hanging? Have you enjoyed the show so far? Best one yet, right?" Hayley turned to look at us. The noose around her neck caused her cheeks to bunch up over her jaw.

She had tape over her mouth, a swollen shut left eye, and blood coming from both nostrils, creating dark runnels over the silver tape. The fear I saw in her face hit me like a hammer blow, and I suddenly came back to my senses, surprised I had been so coldly analytical when looking at the noose and the zipline runner.

I lurched toward the big blond man, but since I didn't have the use of my hands, I lashed my head out toward him, hoping to headbutt him. He was too quick, stepping back easily and tossing the costume head down and then punching me in the jaw before I could even compute what was happening. Blood seeped into my mouth as pain erupted in the side of my face. Several of my teeth were out of position, and the inside of my cheek felt like it had been attacked with a cheese grater.

I fell back into the minecart, barely able to see over the lip with dazed eyes. Milo studied me for a moment and then shook his head. "Okay, she's ready, Dersham."

The blonde guy, Dersham, switched spots with Milo. The small-statured 18-year-old stood next to my minecart, watching as Dersham grabbed Hailey's. He leaned over, flexed, and shoved the cart as hard as he could, which was plenty hard. Hailey screamed against the duct tape as the cart wheeled noisily down the slope, picking up a little more speed as it went toward the broken bridge.

I shouted and threw myself against the front of the minecart, but it was an ineffectual reaction, and Milo knew it. Dersham stepped off the track and moved to the side, taking a couple of steps down the rocky slope. The rope followed along on the runner overhead as Haley approached the drop-off. Then it went taut as the minecart tumbled off the track and down into the crevasse.

In a split second of pure horror, I realized Milo had also tied a rope around Haley's legs, the other end of which he'd tied to the cart itself. So as the cart fell into the black maw, the rope around her neck yanked, but probably not hard enough to kill her. A half second later, the cart had fallen far enough to yank on the rope tied around her legs, and the cart was heavy.

There was a popping sound, and Haley's head came off. Or rather, her head stayed where it was, and her body came off, the weight of the minecart completely severing her spine like it was made of old sun-rotted twine. Soon, her body was gone from view, falling into the pit. Her head swung for a moment, the weight of her skull causing the head to flip over, hanging upside down before it, too, fell into the chasm.

Dersham and Milo stared at the swinging noose for a long moment while I fell back into the minecart and threw up on myself. "Holy shit!" Milo said. "That was amazing! I didn't really expect her head to pop off like that! Woo!" "Do you think we got it?" Dersham said. "Oh, we got it. From three different angles we got it. Fuck yeah, man! Best abandoned haunts video yet!" I suddenly realized what Milo was planning.

I got back up to my knees and looked down at the well-lighted broken bridge. I hadn't noticed the tripod set up to the side before, but I saw it now. And there was another one on the right side of the track. A third was set up partway up the slope. There were three cameras. "You're going to post this on our channel?" I asked him. Milo looked at me like I was a mentally challenged infant. "Yeah, of course. It'll get taken down. Oh sure, eventually."

but not until it's all over the internet. People will think it's fake at first, of course. After all, this is the kind of stuff we do. Maybe not this graphic, but it's what we do. By the time anyone figures out it's real, it'll be too late. I told you, practical is always better. And there's nothing more practical than the real fucking thing. Now him, Dersham said, grabbing the swinging noose with a hooked branch, like an over-large cane, and pulling it back in.

Okay, but I gotta get him ready first, Milo said. We'll do one leg and both arms this time, Dersham smiled. His arms will rip out. I don't know, Milo said with a similar smile. I think the arms might hold. I think the leg will rip off. If we did both legs, sure, no question. His arms would come off. But one leg? I'm guessing the arms will hold. That's my bet. Fine, Dersham said. Let's just do it.

Who the fuck is this guy? I asked, gesturing at Dersham. He's my friend, Milo said with a pout. My partner.

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Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install. Hall of Fame's son? They're the number one online retailer of

It took the two of them 10 minutes to get my arms tied to the rope attached to the zip line overhead, mostly because I fought back any chance I got. By the time they had another rope attached to my right leg in the mine cart, I had a broken nose, several missing teeth, and my left eye was swelling shut.

There wasn't enough slack in the rope to bring my hands down past my chest, so I sat in the minecart with my arms cocked in front of my face. "Good?" Milo asked as he finished securing my wrists. "Yeah," Dersham said, finishing up with my right ankle. "Wait," I pleaded. "Just wait. I never did anything to you, Milo. I was always nice to you, wasn't I?" Milo's eyes went wide behind his smudged glasses. "Is that what you think this is about?"

"Some kind of revenge or something?" He shook his head. "No, no, no, my friend. You've got it all wrong." "Okay, so what's it all about?" I asked. "Why are you doing this?" Milo looked at me with those wide eyes for a good, long time. So long, his eyes went out of focus. And while he looked at me, I was busy trying to work some slack into the rope around my right leg with the toe of my left boot. It didn't seem to be working.

Finally, Milo smiled and his eyes came back into focus. "Does a guy need a reason to kill?" Dersham bellowed out laughter as he got behind the cart and gave it a good shove. Suddenly, I was barreling toward the broken bridge, the runner skimming along the wire overhead. I screamed as I neared the end of the track. Then my arms were yanked up over my head and the cart was falling into the dark crevasse, and my scream cut off as my right leg was wrenched by the cart.

I heard something snap and tear, but it was like I was hearing it happen to another person. There was no pain. Not right away. I swung above the crevasse, thinking I was dead, until I heard Milo and Dersham arguing. Finally, I put my chin on my chest and looked down. I still had my right leg. It hadn't been ripped off, but my right foot was gone. I bent the leg at the knee and looked at the place where my foot should have been.

The gory stub there poured blood, which quickly disappeared into the darkness below. "I knew I should have tied it," Milo said. "I told you to get it tied on the leg, not the ankle. Get him back in here. We'll do it again." The pain came suddenly and with the force of a freight train. It was so breathtakingly shocking that I couldn't scream.

I couldn't do anything but swing there by my arms, the runner on the wire above moving a little with each swing, back and forth, away from the stop and then back to it. Then Dersham was there with his stick, pulling me back toward him while Milo fusted him from up at the top of the slope, talking about how they'd have to go get another minecart from near the mine entrance. Maybe that was why Dersham was distracted. Maybe it was because he thought I was too injured, too in shock to do anything.

Whatever the cause, he gave me an opening, and I took it. As he lowered the curved stick and reached one hand out to grab me by an upstretched arm, I kicked both legs out, one to either side, and hooked them around the backs of his knees. Unbearable pain erupted from my bloody nub as my right calf made contact with the back of his left knee. Darshan, standing as he was on the edge of the chasm, felt this.

He jerked back, letting go of me and whipping his upper body back away from the deadly drop. As he jerked away from me, I yanked my legs back, pulling with my arms and shifting my hips. Dersham tried to step back, lifting one foot off the rocky ground, but instead of moving his leg backward, my intervention caused it to whip forward and up.

With only one leg on the ground and his upper body moving backward, Dersham fell back, twisting, turning, trying to get away from the edge of the chasm. But I had done enough. I had pulled his legs enough, and as I swung back out over the black maw, Dersham's torso hit the edge of the pit. The weight of his legs pulled him back into the crevasse as his arms scrambled for purchase. Milo was suddenly there, on his knees, next to the edge of the pit, grabbing Dersham's wrists.

Dismay darkened my heart as I swung, shoulder joints aching madly, sickening pain radiating from my still-bleeding ankle joint. I got you! Milo yelled, gripping Dersham's wrists. But Dersham was still panicking, kicking his legs frantically on the vertical wall of the pit. As a result, he continued to slide backward until his armpits were flush against the edge of the chasm. Stop kicking! Milo yelled.

Dersham shifted his grip, reversing his hands from the gritty ground so he was grabbing Milo's forearms. Milo shifted down so he was lying on his stomach, his body acting as a counterweight. But Dersham was still kicking. "Hey, Dersh!" Milo said and not quite yell. "It's okay, I got you, stop kicking!" Dersham's legs slowed and then stopped. There was really no great area for purchase. I could see from where I hung out over the maw.

The wall wasn't smooth, but there were no shelves large enough or horizontal enough to provide a foothold. So Dersham rested his feet as best he could on downward jutting crags, taking at least a minuscule amount of his weight off the much smaller Milo. "Okay," Milo said, panting. "Now, I want you to ease one leg up and over the lip here. Do you think you can do that?" Dersham nodded, his chin nearly hitting the rocky ground between his outstretched arms.

"Now listen to me, Dersh," Milo said. "I mean ease it up. Don't throw it up. If you make a fast movement, you're liable to fall because I don't weigh nearly what you do, okay? Slow movements only. Slow. We'll get you up. I promise." I blinked, my eyes suddenly burning with sweat. I was finding it harder and harder to keep my mind on track. I was losing too much blood.

Still, I managed to think one thing repeatedly while Milo talked. "Fall, fall, fall, fall you bastards, fall!" "Okay," Milo said, shifting his hips back away from the edge as best he could, and then digging the toes of his boots into the hard, gritty ground. There wasn't much purchase there at all, but it was all he could do. "Go ahead!" Dersham eased his right leg up, bending it slowly.

but the shift was enough to drag him and Milo an inch or two closer to the edge. "Wait!" Milo said. "Wait! Put your foot back where it was!" Dersham did as he was told. Milo licked his lips and looked around, glancing up at me briefly but not really seeing me. Then he looked back at Dersham.

Okay, listen. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to let go of my arms and... No! Dersham cried. I'll fall! You won't fall, Dersh. I promise. All you need to do is hold on while I get a rope. I can loop the rope around one of these support beams and then help pull you up.

Dersham shook his head violently, which caused his left foot to slip off its tentative hold. Both men slid away from safety. "Dersh!" Milo cried. But Dersh wasn't listening. He was panicking again. He started kicking his feet, trying to find purchase, his fingers digging into Milo's forearms. They slid some more, and Milo jerked himself up, pulling his knees under him to try and slow the slide. "Dersh, stop!"

They slid more. "Fall, fall, fall, fall you bastards, fall!" Milo cried. Dersham screamed for help, then there was no saving them. Dersham was too heavy, Milo too light. They slid into the chasm. Dersham going feet first and Milo going head first. Then I was watching them fall. Dersham still clasping Milo's forearms. They were shouting, screaming, crying. They disappeared into the sharp darkness.

A moment later, I heard the crunch of them hitting the bottom. I let out a harsh bark of laughter as I looked down into the blackness. Then I rallied my strength and worked my way back along the zipline by jerking myself up with my arms and whipping them forward to move the runner back towards safety. When my one remaining foot finally touched the ground between the minecart tracks, I lost consciousness. It couldn't have been for long, but it was enough to make me realize I was running out of energy.

Standing there, a foot or so from the chasm, I lifted my right leg and pressed the bloody nub against the inside of my left calf to slow the bleeding. The pain I felt was only second to the pain that came shortly after the foot had been ripped off. I'm not ashamed to admit that I stood there and cried for a little while. I thought about how much it would take for me to make it off the mountain alive. But I cried. I didn't think I could do it. I still don't, but I'm going to try.

I guess I didn't really need to tell you about all that stuff with Milo and Dersham. You saw all that. You saw what they did to Haley. What they did to me. You saw them fall. You saw me work my way over here. You saw me try to get my hands out of these goddamn ropes. You saw me search for something that could help me out of them. At least, I'm guessing you saw. For all I know, this camera I'm talking into now was zoomed in on the broken bridge behind me.

Zoomed in to capture the disgusting execution of Haley and the attempted execution of me. I don't know. I can't see the display screen to know what all this camera is capturing. But one thing I do know is it's capturing audio. So that's why I'm doing this. It's important that you know what happened. Because if I die up here, there needs to be a record of what exactly happened. I know someone will come looking eventually. We told several people we would be coming up here.

but they won't expect us back for a day or two yet. So that's why I'm telling you this. Well, that and the fact that I don't have any energy to do anything else. I can't get out of these goddamn ropes, and my leg is still bleeding pretty good. But telling the story has helped keep me from giving up. It has helped keep me sane for at least a little while longer. But I'm tired now. I'm really tired. And it's a tiredness I've never felt before. It feels… final.

So I think I'll go to sleep for a while. I think it'll be a long while, but I'm tired and I've tried everything I can think of, but the ropes are just too fucking tight and without my hands. Anyway, that's the story. That's what happened. I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore, but maybe if I wake up, I'll find a way out of here. Maybe.