Cryptid Hunting

Date: 9/24/2021

I was visiting my dad out at some big piece of land he ended up buying and living on. It was a heavily wooded area where little sunlight fell even during the day. A really eerie kind of place. I ended up settling in for a bit cause I was going to stay with him about a week or so. After I was done getting my things set and my room taken care of, he brought me downstairs into the living room and gave me a blackpowder rifle. I didn't know what it was for, but I soon found out. The next day he and I were sitting in a little side-room attatched to the side of the main house. Sort of like a screened in porch. Lots of windows and there was a door to the right of where I sat. My dad didn't tell me what the gun was for, but he just told me to get ready and steel myself. Evening wore on and my dad had given me a cardboard package of silver slugs and a tool to push the gunpowder down in the barrel. We were both posted to watch the foreboding treeline surrounding the house. Suddenly I saw a flash of blackness followed by a shot and some inhuman- yet eerily human- screaming. My dad had shot some sort of wendigo or skinwalker type creature. He told me that silver was lethal to them and that when they 'died' the floated up towards heaven only to be denied and brought back to earth again. They were effectively immortal. These things were quick, cunning, and terrifying. On one occasion my father was on the floor fixing his rifle and the door opened soundlessly behind him. I was the only one that saw it, and I yelled at him to turn around but he kept telling me to be quiet and refused. I slowly walked to the side to get an angle through the doorway. A tall, skinny, dark humanoid creature began to step through the doorway and I loosed a round into it, sending it screaming and hopefully dying. On one other occasion, my dad had to go outside for a moment while I watched him carefully. He was picking something up off the ground when I saw a flickering shape deep in the forest, speeding towards him. I started yelling and as it got closer I started screaming "WEREWOLF"! Dads eyes got wide and he started sprinting back towards the house. He wasn't going to make it I saw. The only thing I could do is take aim and hope to god I hit it. The werewolf crumpled to the forest floor and my dad stopped at its body to cut something off of it. He thanked me for my steel nerves and sharpshooting.