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Nov. 29, 1971- It’s midnight, and something's out there, screaming in the dark, wailing and fucking shrieking like a banshee or something. I have the flashlight on, but I'm not brave enough to shine it out there. I'm afraid of what I'll see…maybe a rotted, grinning face with maggots squirming in its empty eye sockets...

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

It started about an hour ago. I was outside taking a piss when it rose sharply in the distance, quivering and breaking like insane laughter. My heart froze mid-beat and my stomach tightened. It fell away and came back again, this time sounding more like the crying of a sick infant neglected in its crib. I was so petrified I couldn't even move. I only ran back to the teepee when it came a third time, now seemingly from a totally different direction...and closer. I have no idea what it is. Maybe bobcats. I saw a documentary on them with Wilhelm once, and the host made note of their "unsettling nighttime calls." If that's what's out there, then unsettling ain't the word. It sounds like a ghost out looking for its lost head or something.

Nov. 30, 1971- I think someone's following me. Someone other than the police, that is. First there’re those footprints. I admit I'm no naturalist, but...they're too human, you know? I found some more this morning, and took one of my boots and socks off to compare: They matched exactly, except the size. (I still can't imagine who would be running around in the snow with bare feet.) And then today, around noon, I found a deer trail and was following it through a thicket. It was overcast, and the forest was in perpetual twilight. I kept hearing twigs snapping and snow crunching behind me, but I figured it was an animal...until a snowball hit me in the back of the head.

I whipped around so fast I nearly fell over. I thought I saw something dark disappear into the underbrush, but in hindsight it was probably nothing.

"Who’s there?" I demanded, but the only reply came from birds in flight.

I scanned the empty path. Nothing seemed amiss, but suddenly I had that uncanny being-watched feeling.

It couldn’t be a cop or a guardsman, I told myself; if anything, they would have shot me.

"Hello?"

An icy breeze swept the path.

For a moment I stood in place, my hand on the butt of the revolver, an old west sheriff wary to the danger of ambush. Who in the hell would be out in the middle of nowhere lobbing snowballs as people?

I didn’t like it at all. No matter if it was a playful hillbilly or the county constable, it was a person, and a person means only bad things.

I went on, and about an hour later, as I was about to stop for lunch in a little clearing, I clearly heard what sounded like a muttered cough. A sudden rush of fear shot through me like an electric shock, and I spun around.

Again, I saw nothing.

"W-who’s there?"

Nothing.

"I know you’re there." I pulled the gun out and took a shooter’s stance, feet wide apart, gun held out in both hands, "show yourself!"

A small animal crashed through the overgrowth.

I tried to shrug it off, but I couldn’t. I know I heard a goddamn cough out there. I spent the rest of the day watching over my shoulder and listening for anything odd. I stopped around 4:30 and threw a little matchstick teepee together. I’m exhausted. I wanna go to sleep so bad, but I’m kinda afraid to.

Later

It's somewhere on the wrong side of midnight, and that ghostly screaming is so damn close I swear I could see the source...if only I had the courage to look.

Nov. 31, 1971- The sick fuck left me a present! I found it this morning when I went out for a piss, a fucking raccoon lying in a pool of bloodstained snow, tangled in pink intestines, its dark eyes upturned and its little teeth overhanging its lips, sneering accusingly. I nudged it with my foot, and then looked warily out at the forest, crooked trees rising from sun-dazzled snowdrifts.

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