The most terrifying night in the woods story I've ever told

today's story is a classic scary cabin in the forest story but with a very big plot twist at the end but before we get into that story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delibert in story format then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload once a week so if that's of interest to you the next time the like button is looking to adopt a pet tell them you just rescued a puppy and you'd love for them to adopt it and when they say yes go

ahead and drop your puppy off but don't tell them that your puppy is actually a hangry saltwater crocodile also please subscribe to our Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads okay let's get into today's [Music] story on the night of October 17th 2019 a 47-year-old woman named AA quintal stepped out of her family's cabin in rural Michigan to take her dog for a walk and have a smoke it was very late it was about 1:30 in the morning now this cabin where she was staying was very isolated

it was about a half mile away from any neighbors but AA actually enjoyed the Solitude you know she was surrounded on all sides by Forest and swamps and the Wilderness actually made AA feel a lot safer than when she was back home in the densely populated Detroit area where she live full-time and this was because just a few months earlier when she had been back home in Detroit she had been the victim of an unprovoked attack she had been out in the city around all these people in broad daylight and this guy came up to

her and just jumped her broke her nose gave her a concussion and then ran off but the scariest part of this attack was not the fact that she had been brutalized it was that this guy did not appear to have any reason to attack her he didn't know a and AA had not been robbed or anything it was like he just randomly identified her and attacked her and the guy had never been caught and so this ordeal had had such a profound impact on a that it really began to affect her health both mentally and

physically she started to just kind of Decline and on top of that she had been laid off from her engineering job and so now she was unemployed and seriously depressed and so recently when aa's Uncle had called her and offered to pay her to come out and live in this two-story family cabin and fix it up for the winter AA had jumped at the chance I mean not only would this solve her unemployment issue but also she loved this cabin it had been in her family for 75 years and some of her fondest childhood memories

were in this cabin and so she looked at this as a chance to kind of get away from the city and just be in her happy place and kind of reset and recover from the trauma of the attack and so for the past week aah and her boyfriend had been staying in this cabin and doing small repairs and cleaning it up but 2 days earlier her boyfriend had had to leave and go back to the city where they were actually fixing up another property a condo and so now it was just aah and her dog

but that was totally fine with a she liked being out here by herself so this was no big deal but tonight night she was feeling frustrated because she couldn't sleep about an hour earlier she had taken a pill to help her sleep but so far it hadn't worked and so she was feeling kind of wired and anxious and so she had decided to go on a walk with her dog and hopes that that would clear her mind and allow her to finally get some rest now these roads that surrounded this cabin were kind of small

and zigzaggy and you know there weren't any street lights I mean this is not exactly a good place to go for a nighttime walk but aidah knew this place like the back of her hand and she also carried a KNE mm pistol in her pocket you know just for protection and so after walking for a few minutes down one of these dark winding roads adah's dog stopped to relieve himself on a bush so as the dog was going to the bathroom Aah Just casually smoked and waited but at some point the dog just stopped going

to the bathroom turned slightly and began growling and its ears perked up and it was looking off into the darkness right ahead of them and so aah instinctively took her flashlight and raised it up and aimed it in the direction her dog was looking and right away the cone of light illuminated the two eyes looking right back at aah and immediately AA knew what she was staring at it was a mountain lion and so doing her best to stay calm a slowly reached into her pocket to pull out her gun but before pulling it out

the two eyes blink shut and then she heard it kind of turn and run off into the forest it was gone once aah was sure the mountain lion really was gone she breathed the sigh of relief and then very quickly tugged on her dog's leash they turned around and she hustled back towards the cabin when aah reached her cabin which was all lit up because she had left all the lights on before before she had left she jumped up the front steps she opened up the door she went inside with her dog and after letting

her dog off the leash she shut and locked the door then she grabbed her phone and texted her boyfriend to tell him about this mountain lion and then after hitting send you know aah felt relieved to be back in her cabin but at the same time she still felt very on edge I mean she had been you know just a few feet away from a mountain lion in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere but as AA was doing her best to calm herself down she heard this noise coming from outside the

living room window almost like twig snaap like somebody was walking past the window and so the way this cabin was set up is when you first walked inside you were in the kitchen and then the back half of the cabin was a living room then there were also stairs leading up to a second floor but from in the kitchen you had a clear line of sight into the living room and vice versa it was kind of like one big room with two functions and so from where AA was standing in the kitchen she could clearly

see the window in the living room where this noise had kind of come through but because the inside of the cabin was all lit up and the outside was dark you know from her perspective all she could see was a reflection on that window so to look outside that window to see what had made that noise she would need to get right up next to the window and so feeling pretty nervous at this point she walked across the cabin she made her way towards this window and then she pressed her face right up against the

glass to look outside but all she saw outside was just darkness I mean there was nothing out there and so AA stepped back from the window and started to wonder if maybe the sound she had just heard was maybe that mountain Li you know maybe it followed her back here you know that terrifying but at least she was inside but also she was thinking to herself you know mountain lions are not known for being aggressive towards humans and they wouldn't come up to her cabin like this and prowl around outside that's just not what mountain

lions do but aah didn't really have any other explanation and so she told herself you know it's got to be nothing you know there's nothing out there this is a safe place and so she kind of forgot about the noise and she took off her coat and put her stuff down and then she sat down on the couch in the living room turned on the TV and tried to relax but only about 20 minutes later when aah had finally relaxed and was even thinking about getting into her bed and going to sleep she heard another

noise coming from that same window in the living room and this time when she looked up and looked out that window despite the reflections inside the cabin she could clearly tell there was something moving outside of her cabin and it was definitely not a mountain lion it looked like a man and so AA had to stifle a scream and then instinctively she lunged for her gun on the coffee table and then darted behind the couch and crouched down to make sure whoever was out there couldn't see her and then you know with gun in hand

she began calling out to the person out there that hey I'm armed if you come in here I'm going to shoot you but it was just silence and then aah strained her ears to try to hear any sound that would give away where this person went you know where they still outside that window had they moved somewhere else but all she could hear was the sound of the wind whipping outside and an owl hooting off in the distance but then right as aah was starting to wonder you know did I really see somebody out there

you know is this all in my head that's when she heard the dis sound of footsteps on her front porch and so again aah had to stifle a scream and she darted to the other side of the couch you know preventing the person from the front of the house to seeing her now and she grabbed her phone and she was dialing 911 and she was about to hit call when she stopped herself and she began to wonder am I just totally overreacting here you know I don't know if there's somebody out there I could be

hearing things or maybe it's just like an animal or something and also deep down aah knew that ever since that attack in Detroit that summer that basically everything scared her and she was starting to wonder if maybe she was just being totally paranoid and there was nothing going on and she didn't want to embarrass herself by calling 911 and having them come out here and finding nothing and so AA decided she would call her boyfriend and so she called her boyfriend and as the phone is ringing she's listening intently for any other footsteps outside but

she can't hear anything and then her boyfriend you know he didn't pick up it's also like 2:30 in the morning at this point but her boyfriend doesn't answer and so after that she tries calling one of her friends and her friend does pick up and right away aah just began telling this friend about all the things that had happened that night you know from going out and seeing the mountain lion and then coming back in hearing the sound and now hearing the footsteps on the front porch and you know she was worried that maybe she

was just making it all up but she was still really scared and even though aah was trying to be composed as she was telling her friend her voice began to crack and she began to cry because she really was scared and the friend just said look I'm going to call the police on your behalf you know it seems like it's worth having them come out just to make sure you're really okay give me the address and I'll tell them where to go and so aah would give her friend the address but she told the friend

you know thank you but do not call right now just please stay on the phone for a minute and let me just do a quick investigation let me look out the windows you know and just really make sure that this is nothing before you call the police and the friend said you know okay you know look around but then I'm calling the police and so with her phone and her gun in hand aah very carefully creped out from behind the couch keeping a low profile you know staying below the sight line of all the windows

and she crept from the living room into the kitchen towards the front of the house and she walked over to the sink and she very slowly raised her head until she could just barely Peak through the window right above the sink that overlooked the front porch because remember that was the last place she had heard sounds from the front porch and so she very carefully Peaks and looks out the window and there's nothing there nobody's on the porch it's just empty Dark Forest she's safe a let out a relieved half cry half laugh and then

stood all the way up and felt totally ridiculous because clearly she had just imagined you know all these people wandering around the outside of her house and so she was about to tell her friend that hey sorry you know there is no issue here don't call the police but before she could get the words out aah happened to turn around and was looking back towards the living room and she froze because there in that same window she had heard those sounds coming from in the living room was now the Silhouettes Of Two Men clear as

day just looking in the window right at Ada and so acting purely on instinct a just raised her gun and aimed it at these two men and to her horror the two men also raised guns and aimed them right back at a and so aah just started firing her gun at the window and these men began shooting back at her and right before aah leapt to the ground she was pretty sure she hit one of the men in the head with one of her rounds and so she lands on the ground it's absolute pandemonium at

this point and her friend who's still on the phone is screaming like what's going on what's going on and All AA could think to do was yell out there's two men they're shooting at I think I shot one of them and the friend is screaming I'm going to call the police and then the line goes dead and aah who's crouched down behind the kitchen island at this point she realizes all the shooting is stopped it's now dead silent in the cabin and so for a second AA was thinking to herself maybe I managed to shoot

both of them and that's why it's quiet right now but then another thought began to enter her head that maybe she had only shot one of them and the other Survivor was moving into position to maybe Ambush her and so as she's running through what she's going to do she hears this horrible loud thumping sound right above her in the second floor of the cabin now aah knew at this moment she should just get her dog and run because if this second shooter has survived and has now come into her cabin and is upstairs that

means the forest is now clear and she can make a run for it but as she sat there by the island still clutching her gun you know in this beloved family cabin of hers she began thinking about the fact that ever since that attack in Detroit over the summer you know that had totally wrecked her life and made her scared of everything and so as she heard the sound of whoever this was marching around in her second floor she made a decision she was going to stand her ground and fight and so she took a

deep breath she stood up and with gun in hand she made her way to the stairs and began to go [Music] up it's no secret that a lot of the stories I've covered over the years are about real people who have been victims of just unspeakable violence and so that's why back in April of 2022 we decided to launch the Mr Ballin Foundation which was established to honor and support victims of violent crime and their families and so now over 2 years later I'm happy to report that you know with your help because none of

this would be possible without all of you we have been able to give $1.4 million to this group of people to these victims and their families who were often overlooked after the news story about whatever happened to them fades all donations that are made to the Mr Ballin Foundation literally 100% of them go out the door to the cause meaning if you give $10 that $10 is going to the victims it's going to their families this is one of the very rare nonprofits that can actually say that if you're interested in joining the Mr Ballin

Foundation community and contributing to this effort all you have to do is go to Mr bin. foundation and click on donate again just go to Mr bin. foundation and click on donate thank you again then to all our donors our listeners viewers all the people that made this possible we are genuinely changing the world thank you so much and now back to the [Music] story the police arrived at the cabin about 30 minutes later because aa's friend did call the police and she warned them that as far as she knew there could be at least

two gunmen there and maybe adaa had shot one of them she wasn't sure and so when the police arrived they showed up you know guns drawn and they walked up to the cabin and they searched the outside but there was nobody out there it was silent and then when they made entry into the cabin they saw clearly there had been a shootout I mean there were bullet holes all over the place broken windows but after searching the cabin top to bottom they didn't find anybody no Ada no shooters however they did find aa's terrified dog

inside of the cabin and the dog would be just fine now once the cabin was secured of any threats the police would do another comprehensive search looking for any evidence that would kind of tell them you know where a or these shooter had gone and during this secondary search they would find A's shoes and her cell phone on the roof of the cabin and they would also find her gun on the ground not far from the roof suggesting maybe she had fallen off the roof or jumped from the roof but they were kind of located

roughly in the same area and during this secondary search they wouldn't find aah or the gunman but they would find A's cell phone and her shoes on the roof of the cabin and they would also find aa's gun on the ground not far from where her shoes and cell phone have been found but that was it police immediately launched a massive search in the forest surrounding the cabin but despite looking all over the place they could not find any signs of a or her attackers police checked local hospitals to see if maybe the man that

a had shot had shown up seeking medical attention but as far as they could tell he hadn't and so pretty quickly the police theorized that maybe there were no gunmen you know maybe what really happened here is aa's boyfriend attacked her and he was responsible for whatever happened to her but when police checked on A's boyfriend it would turn out he had a rock solid Alibi he had been with A's adult son at the time aah had gone missing and A's own son said yes for sure he was with me he did not do this

but after that the police thought okay well maybe if aa's boyfriend didn't do this maybe he hired other people to hurt a but there was no evidence of any strange Financial transactions and as far as they could tell when they did some digging there was no Strife in a and her boyfriend's relationship so there was no clear reason why he would want to hurt her and so that lead also kind of fell flat police would confirm that a was attacked that previous Summer by this random guy in Detroit and so for a little while they

speculated that you know maybe this guy this attacker who had never been caught had maybe tracked a down to finish off the job but that seemed so far-fetched and just unlikely that that basically was shut down as well and as the days passed the evidence that was coming in only made the case more confusing for example there were all these bullets fired during this big shootout in the cabin and when they examined the actual bullets they extracted from the walls and the floor and the ceiling they were all from adah's gun however outside and inside

the cabin they found all these different shell casings suggesting that those bullets had been fired from different weapons I.E you know maybe the attacker weapons and so as the weeks passed by and a and her attackers were not found people began to speculate that you know maybe this was all an elaborate setup by a just so she could disappear or other people thought maybe she was abducted by aliens I mean there were lots of theories surrounding this but basically nobody knew what happened and then pretty soon the case just went completely cold that is until

December 21st 2019 so about 2 months after A's disappearance and on that day adah's family decided to drain a pond that was near that Cabin in the Woods at this point the family was so desperate for closure that they were prepared to do just about anything to find a and to figure out what happened to her and so even though this Pond had previously been searched by the police they drained this Pond and sure enough they find a she was deceased and her body was found about 300 yard away from the cabin and she was

covered in only about a foot of water now initially the speculation was well here you go you know she must have been chased out of her cabin by these attackers and she was shot and killed and this is where she fell but after a quick examination of her body it was clear she had no bullet wounds on her anywhere in fact she didn't even have any bruises on her or any major scrapes or or Cuts or anything so it didn't even seem like she had been in any sort of physical struggle at all before she

died in fact unless she had drowned it really just seemed totally unclear how she had died it was not until the medical examiner did A's autopsy that all this baffling evidence began to make sense it would turn out in the wake of that horrible random attack that AA had suffered over the summer that AA was actually doing far worse than she L on to her family and friends she had basically begun to cope with her trauma and anxiety with substance abuse and so on the night that she had died she was likely feeling totally stressed

out and anxious and she couldn't sleep as a result and so she had taken some Valium which is a fairly strong sedative and also some anti-anxiety medication but after taking those pills she still wasn't tired and so that was when she decided to you know go out for a walk with her dog to clear her head and have a smoke but it was not cigarettes that she was smoking she was smoking methamphetamine known simply as meth and meth is a very strong stimulant that people like because it makes feel very strong and confident and alert

which for a was a powerful antidote to the helplessness she was feeling all the time from the attack she had suffered that summer but one of the many downsides of meth is that it can make you extremely paranoid and so during her walk that night as she's smoking meth she sees a mountain lion which terrifies her and then after the mountain lion trots off it was like that jolt of adrenaline and fear from seeing the mountain lion didn't subside because of smoking meth it was like the meth sent her into this paranoia overdrive that she

couldn't escape from and so when a went back inside of her cabin she very likely did see people in her windows but almost certainly it was just her own reflection but again she's in this meth induced paranoid State and so instead of realizing it was her own reflection she thought it was like Intruders coming to get her and before long she'd raised her gun and thought the people outside were raising their gun back at her but again it's just her reflection and so when she was shooting she was basically having a shootout with herself and

then as for you know the strange noises she was hearing like the footsteps on the second floor very likely those were just natural sounds kind of happening outside she's out in the middle of a forest there's lots of noises that are totally natural at night but again you know she's in this paranoid State and so she went upstairs to confront the person and then didn't see anybody and then police theorized that she must have you know climbed out onto the roof to hide from these attackers and then at some point for reasons unknown she leapt

from the roof or climbed down or something leaving behind her cell phone and shoes on the roof she left her gun on the ground and then she ran off into the forest where she ultimately collapsed you know 300 yard away in a foot of water where she died not from drowning but from a combination of hypothermia and also a toxic combination of drugs in her system and so in the end the danger that AA was trying to escape was in her own mind before I became a professional strange dark and mysterious Storyteller I served in

the military and during my time in the military I had some pretty wild experiences but what I remember most about my time and service was not my own stories but rather the stories I heard from other service members keep in mind service members are sent to some of the most isolated and treacherous places in the world that very few people go to and so some of the stories that come out of those places are totally creepy and weird and even more than that a lot of these stories sort of stay in house they stay in

the military just because it's kind of a cultural thing you know people don't necessarily want to go out and tell the world about the totally unsettling and inexplicable thing they saw while they were deployed it's like people might think they were crazy but there's lots of stories like that and so if hearing some of those crazy military stories appeals to you well boy do I have a podcast for you it's called wartime stories and it's hosted by Luke lman who himself is a veteran he was a reconnaissance Marine which I can tell you is kind

of a big deal and so because he has access and placement he's been able to extract some of these stories from the military and he shares them on the show and if you wanted to kind of generalize the types of stories you're going to hear on this podcast it's like the strange dark and mysterious meets the battlefield and Beyond the wartime Stories podcast is free and it's available on any podcast platform so all you have to do is you know go to your favorite platform and look up wartime stories or you can search for Ballin

Studios because it's produced under Ballin Studios you click on the show give it a follow and boom you can start your bch new episodes drop every Monday so if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious well you got yourself a brand new weekly show so that's going to do it if you want more strange dark and mysterious content remember we have a whole host of strange dark and mysterious podcasts under the Ballin Studios umbrella we have the Mr Ballin podcast Mr ballin's medical Mysteries we have B time stories we have wartime stories we

have run full they are awesome they are free there are tons and tons of episodes out there to binge right now all you have to do is go to any podcast platform look up Ballin Studios and boom there you go thank you so much for all your support until next time see you