Every summer, my four cousins, two brothers, and I would visit our grandparents in Idaho. Their 3 story home stood in the middle of the forest, a little way off from the town of McCall. Along with a few other massive houses, we felt isolated in a peaceful way with the surrounding nature. The house consisted of a main floor or living space, a top floor of rooms, and a den below for us kids to play games. The main floor's walls contained many windows to view the forest around us, and made us feel safe as we sat and watched movies every night in a theater of a living room. The top floor created the same feeling, but in several rooms where one could lay in bed and look out to see the trees. The den, however, being below ground level, had windows that were level with the dirt. Let's say that you could peer through the window and see someone's lower body walk along the length of the den. 

One evening, as my cousin Tom and I were walking around the house, we came across a path that lead further into the forest. Having been in the forest many times before, we thought it couldn't hurt to discover a bit more. We sprinted through the bushes in a race, and finally ran out of breath. We glanced around, not knowing exactly where we were, but we knew we could follow the path back.

Out of nowhere, my cousin suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!"

I turned around and spied a little wooden shack amongst the trees. It was elevated about a foot off the grounds by wooden planks, and it seemed stable enough to act as a garage. Curiously, we walked over to it and discovered someone definitely has been there recently. There was an axe with already chopped wood in a pile outside. I yelled if anyone was there, but there was no answer. The only noise was rustling of leaves and chatter of birds. We inched closer to the shack, wondering what resided inside. Reaching the front, we found the entrance was a big gap between the walls. There was no door but there was a mini staircase leading up and into the small structure. Knowing I was nervous, Tom said he would enter first. As I walked in behind him, we found a box with several bullets inside. Knowing nothing about guns, we guessed it might be for a hunter's gun. We didn't like the idea of it though, so we searched the rest of the shack which consisted of overalls, a bag of peanuts, and some crushed soda cans. Exiting the shack, Tom suddenly halted. 

He whispered, "There's someone on the side of the shack." 

My heart raced, thinking we would be in trouble for trespassing his little home. Tom carefully backed into the shack again and held the side of the entrance, along with me, glancing around the corner. The man was staring directly at the two of us with no expression on his dirty face. He was seriously built, and his face showed that he didn't take kindly to anyone near his equipment. His eyes map pearled to be raging. Tom didn't take any chances. He zoomed away back to the path, with me behind him. I looked back to see the man still staring, and making his way to the axe we saw, still stuck inside a thick log. 

"Hurry up!" Tom shouted from the trail. 

I made the rest of the run to the path, and we both, being extremely exhausted, speed walked back to the house. I sighed in relief as I flew through the back door into the massive garage. Tom locked in, and we made our way through the garage to the door into the house. We collapsed on a couch in the den.

Hours after, we still haven't went back in the forest. It was almost 12 and being tired as we were, Tom decided he wanted to go to bed. Hopefully, the man would forget about them and go about his regular business. That's what he wished would happen anyway. Leaving me alone, I suddenly felt afraid. I knew there was no way of him finding us, or even wanting to find us. As far as I knew, he was a man that just wanted kids away from him. Probably a grumpy middle aged man that didn't take kindly to strangers. Especially kids. To improve my mood, I turned on the tv to find any shows. Eventually the clock struck one, and there was nothing on for a 15 year old. I yawned, and finally decided to hit it. I shut off the light beside me, and suddenly I was in pitch darkness. Unknowingly, the lamp beside me was the only source of light in the house. Now, in completel black, I suddenly started to hyperventilate. I stayed calm, and dug my phone from my pocket. Getting off the couch, I made my way at a quickened pace through the main floor to the top of the stairs leading down to the den. Before getting there, however, I stopped at the window beside the houses front door. I peered through to find a big figure on the gravel driveway. He appeared to be looking up at the top floor's windows, with his head tilted up. I paused my breathing for some reason, thinking he would hear it. The figure moved down the driveway, towards the front door. Before the staircase up, though, he veered left to the side of the house with the garage. I sighed, thinking he had left. Hurriedly, and a little freaked out, I flew down the stairs to the den. Knowing that my brothers and Tom were down there, I felt more comfortable. With my phone light, I made my way to my bed. It was alongside the wall of the staircase, across from the wall of couches and the tv. Above, the window mentioned earlier was almost black, but I could still see trees and the thick grass. I settled under the blankets, and placed my phone on the nightstand beside. Looking up at the ceiling, I felt much safer than a few minutes before. Suddenly, a crunching sound penetrated my ears. I turned towards the window, and saw a brown shoe, covered in dirt. A pant leg extended up from the shoe, and another shoe appeared in front of the first. Someone was walking along the window, which was visible from the outside. Breathing softly, I waited for the worse to come. The person's legs bent down, and I saw the a head staring through the window. It was hard to tell where his exact facial features was, but with the moonlight shining through the window, the face of the axe man glanced down into the den with the same expressionless look. His face scanned the room, landing on the bed beside mine. It was the bed of my brother, who was not in the forest. The man scanned again, and landed on me. Apparently he could still see in the dimly lit room, because he halted as he spotted me. He held out the axe from the woodpile, and spun it in his hand. For me, I was frozen as a statue. I debated on whether to wake everyone up, but I decided against it. I was confident that the man was just messing around, and is having a good laugh. As I kept my eyes locked on him, a few moments more seemed to change his mind. He gave one last creepy smile, and stood up. I saw his feet as they walked along the window, then past it and out of sight. With that, I calmed myself down. I told myself it was a guy who only wanted to scare the kids, to keep them from messing with his stuff. And with the thought, I fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up alright and walked the stairs to the main floor. My cousin was waiting there, along with my younger brother. Tom motioned to sit next to him, so I did. He told me he wanted to go back to the shack, and see what else we could find. I affirmed him to drop the subject, but he managed to convince me to go back and see if the man was there. We quickly, in the early light of morning, threw on some shoes and headed to the path. We hid behind some bushes and spotted the shack again. The woodpile was gone. The axe, of course, was gone. We sprinted over to find everything. And I mean everything. Gone. Tables and the bullets were gone along with the clothes. The shack was completely empty, as if no one has set foot in it for years. We looked around the surrounding trees and bushes. No one except us were there. We looked at each other, confused. Then we ran back to the house. 

We never saw the man again, but when we left our grandparents, they called us after the flight home. She told me, rather than my brothers, that there was a guy who has been robbing the houses in their area. He usually got into the house, and threatened them with the axe until they gave him what he wanted. The week we were there, he injured a neighbor with a flesh wound, but other than that, no one has been hurt. Makes me wonder why he treated it as such a game. The way he gleefully wielded an axe and moved with ease scared the crap outta me and still does to this day.