3 Skinwalker Horror Stories 59:42

This podcast brought to you by Ring. With Ring cameras, you can check on your pets to catch them in the act. Izzy, drop that. Or just keep them company. Aw, I'll be home soon. Make sure they're okay while you're away. With Ring. Learn more at ring.com slash pets. Turn here. My brother said from the front seat. Where? Carmen asked. Right here?

There was a narrow dirt track on the right, barely visible in the SUV's headlights. "Yes! I said turn, goddammit!" Marvin reached out and yanked the wheel to the right. Carmen yipped and slammed on the brakes. I reached out from my seat behind Carmen and grabbed hold of Jupiter to keep the big dog from jumping up front, as he often did when my brother and his girlfriend were fighting. But as soon as I touched the bull mastiff's collar, a rumbly growl emanated from deep in his chest.

He looked at me, hanging jowls twitching in the beginnings of his snarl. I took my hand off Jupiter's collar, and the growling stopped. He was my brother's dog through and through. There was no doubt about that. Meanwhile, in the front seat, Carmen was pouting. "This is why I hate driving when you're like this," she said. "You always get so mean, and I hate driving at night."

"Well, excuse me, but I was fucking shot in the goddamn leg, okay? Pardon me if I'm not Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky right now. So if you don't mind, your highness, just drive where I tell you to drive." Carmen ducked her head and peered out the windshield into the dusty desert landscape. The road Marvin wanted her to go down was barely a dirt track. It looked like it simply disappeared into the dark desert, and I could understand why Carmen was confused about going down there.

It seemed like it wouldn't lead to anything at all. "'Are we sleeping in the car again tonight?' Carmen finally asked, still not moving the vehicle.

I could see my brother getting angry, his face going patchy with pink marks under his splash of freckles. "I told you I have a goddamn plan!" He exploded, reaching across, gripping Carmen by the neck and screaming into her ear. "Now fucking drive where I tell you to drive! Stop it!" I shouted, lurching forward and grabbing Marvin's arm, trying to pry his hand off Carmen's neck. Jupiter started growling again, and I half expected the dog to attack me at any moment.

But my sudden outburst surprised Marvin enough to divert his attention. He released Carmen and looked back at me, his face red with surprise and anger. I let go of his arm and started to move back, but Marvin backhanded me across the face before I could get out of his reach. "Get out!" he said, pointing at my door. "Come on, Marv," Carmen pleaded. "He's just a kid." "Jane, get the fuck out of this car right now," Marvin said, ignoring his girlfriend.

Jupiter stared at me, seeming to enjoy the turn of events. I grabbed my backpack, which contained all my worldly possessions, and got out of the SUV. A cool wind blew bits of desert sand across my feet. A moment later, the SUV moved off down the dirt track. I watched it go until it wasn't anything more than a set of red tail lights in the distance.

shaking my head and fighting back a mix of anger, dejection and sadness. I started off down the track, hoping it wouldn't be a long walk to wherever it was my brother was going. The SUV disappeared beyond a low hill, so I pulled my phone out and turned the flashlight on. My shoes crunched on the loose and gritty earth, which soon became the only sound other than the occasional breeze. A howl from the darkness to my right caused my spine to straighten.

I stopped walking and pointed my flashlight that way, seeing nothing but little desert shrubs and cactus plants. It's just a coyote, I told myself, but it didn't sound like any coyote I'd ever heard before, and I'd heard plenty. Swallowing, I forced myself to keep walking, picking up the pace this time. Another howl came again, this time from closer. It was followed by a series of screaming yips that seemed to come from all around me. I hurried along, nearly jogging,

Off to my right, a blur of movement streaked through the night just beyond the reach of my flashlight. I only caught a glimpse of it, but the image that stuck in my mind was one of a coyote running on its hind legs. It was running fast! I broke into a full sprint, legs pumping and arms pistoning. I rounded the low hill behind which the SUV had disappeared and saw the vehicle some 50 yards away, headlights still on and illuminating a ramshackle one-story house.

As I reached the SUV, I stopped and turned around, swallowing huge gulps of air, sweeping my light around. I looked for any sign of whatever I'd seen, but saw nothing and heard nothing. I turned and looked into the SUV, seeing that only Carmen was inside, still sitting in the driver's seat. She looked over at me as I opened the front passenger door. Her pretty face was streaked with tears.

"I was just going to come get you," she said, wiping her cheeks. "There's something out there," was what I wanted to say, but it suddenly sounded so juvenile in my head. Of course there wasn't anything out there. Well, maybe some coyotes, but certainly not any that ran on their hind legs. "Are you okay?" I asked, shrugging off the frightening encounter. "You better go inside. You know how he doesn't like us talking to each other while he's not around."

I nodded sadly, shut the door, and then walked up to the house. The front door was unlocked, and Marvin already had a camping lantern set up in the living room. The place was a dusty mess, but there was still furniture around, which was good. Marvin came limping into the living room from the hall, his right leg tied with a bandage just above the knee. Jupiter followed along behind him.

My brother glared at me as he moved into the adjacent dining room and pulled a chair out from the table, setting his flashlight down as he sat in the chair. "Help me clean this," he said. "Where's the first aid kit?" I asked. He pointed. "In my bag." I opened his bag to reveal the stacks of money he'd taken during the robbery. I had to dig past it to find the kit. When I did, I brought it over to him. "Whose house is this?" I asked. "Doesn't matter," he said. "It's abandoned." "Why though?"

It looks like they just up and left one day. The hell should I know? Indians are stupid and superstitious. Something about an evil spirit haunting the house. I don't know. It's all bullshit. I thought about my experience outside and suppressed a shiver. We're still on Navajo land? I asked. What did I just say? Well, I know there's a Hopi reservation too. Just... Just shut up and help me clean the bullet wound.

He took off the bandage and separated his ripped jeans so I could access the wound. I cleaned it and gave him a new bandage. Carmen walked inside as we were finishing up. She moved directly to the couch in the living room, dusted off the cushions, and sat down. I looked at Jupiter, who sat next to Marvin's chair, staring up at me accusingly. "How long are we going to stay here?" I asked. "Couple of days, until everything blows over."

Another one of those strange howls sounded from outside. "What was that?" I asked, pulse rising. "Just a coyote," Marvin said, but I could see the slightest hint of fear in his face as he said it, and I could tell he didn't believe the words himself. My eyes shot open, my heart feeling like I'd just been flat out sprinting again, but I hadn't been. I'd been asleep. I was lying on the couch in my sleeping bag,

The living room was completely dark, Marvin having taken the camping lantern into the bedroom with him and Carmen. Another thump sounded and I looked up at the ceiling. Something was on the roof. A scratching sound came again, followed by the thumping of heavy footsteps moving toward the back of the house. Suddenly, Jupiter started barking from the bedroom. "God damn it, Tom!" Marvin yelled. A moment later, I heard the bedroom door open.

Jupiter came lumbering out, still barking as he headed for the front door. "Jane, let Jupiter out!" Marvin called. I didn't say anything. I just hunkered down into my sleeping bag and stared at the ceiling. The scratching and thumping had stopped, at least as far as I could tell. Jupiter's thundering barks were certainly loud enough to cover the sounds up. "I know you can hear me!" Marvin called. "There's something out there!" I said.

Yeah, no shit. Let him out and he'll chase it away. And let him back in when he comes back. I heard the bedroom door slam shut. After getting out of my sleeping bag, I grabbed my phone and turned the light on. Jupiter was still going nuts, barking and scratching at the door. I went up to the window, which, like all the others, was covered in cardboard. It was one of the first things Marvin had commanded Carmen to do after she came in.

I eased a corner of the duct tape and pulled the piece of cardboard box aside to peer out into the night. I saw nothing but the SUV and the dark desert. Swallowing, I stepped over and opened the door. Jupiter bolted straight out, his paws kicking up dust as he ran barking into the night. I shut the door and locked it. When I was back in my sleeping bag, I stared at the ceiling and listened hard.

Jupiter's barking faded as he got further away from the house. And I swear I heard the big dog yelp in pain just before the barking stopped altogether. "Where's my dog?" Marvin slapped me awake. I opened my eyes to see him looming over me, face patchy with anger. "I let him out like you said." "I also told you to let him in. Why didn't you let him in?" I looked over toward the front door, which was standing wide open, allowing a column of bright sunlight entry into the otherwise dim house.

"He didn't come back," I said. "I never heard him. Where is he?" "I don't fucking know!" Marvin snapped. "That's the problem, you idiot!" "I would've heard him if he came back and scratched at the door. I would've heard him." "Yeah?" Marvin asked. "Well, you didn't because he's not here. God knows where he went. So you're going to have to go find him. Get your ass up!" I got out of the sleeping bag and looked outside, seeing that the SUV was gone. "Where'd Carmen go?"

"To get groceries. Now go find my fucking dog, dipshit!" I pulled on my shoes, my stomach growling at the thought of food. Knowing there would be no arguing with Marvin, I trudged out into the desert, going the way I'd seen Jupiter go last night. Although it wasn't nearly as scary as it had been in the dark, I still felt a heaviness about the place. I felt like I was being watched, and by something or someone who didn't have any good intentions.

After coming near the road we turned off of last night and seeing no sign of the dog, I wandered right toward a series of rocky bluffs in the distance. It took me over half an hour to reach them, calling for Jupiter every so often. I saw no sign of the dog, although I did see what looked like coyote footprints on the ground, large ones. I wondered if Jupiter had gotten himself killed by a pack of coyotes. Without thinking too much about it, I headed toward a small cave at the base of the rocky bluff.

As I approached the cave, I heard a buzzing sound from nearby. After a few more steps, I saw a small cloud of flies around a dead animal. Approaching cautiously, I brought the animal into view, gagging as I saw that it had been completely skinned. It was kind of hard to tell what it was without the fur, but by looking at the paws, I determined it was a dog. A dog about the size of Jupiter. There was a long and slow scratching noise from inside the nearby cave.

A sound like someone dragging a stick along a rocky wall. Backing away from both the cave and dead animal, I said, "Hello? Who's there?" The scratching stopped for a moment before starting up again. I turned around and ran, sprinting just as I had last night. And I didn't look back until I stopped because I was out of breath and had an ache in my side. Of course, there was nothing behind me but empty desert. Still, I hustled the rest of the way back to the secluded house.

By the time I got there, I decided I wouldn't tell Marvin about the dead animal that may or may not have been Jupiter. I knew nothing good could come of it, so I just told him I couldn't find the dog. By then, his mood had mellowed, and he just said that the dog would come back when he was ready. I didn't think Jupiter would ever be back, but I agreed with him.

An hour later, Carmen arrived with the groceries. Mostly non-perishable stuff, but also a small cooler with ice and sandwich supplies. We all ate and then lounged inside the house, playing cards or napping as the day wasted away. Since there was no water in the house, we had to do our business outside.

I made sure to go out to pee before it got completely dark and decided if I needed to go during the night, I would just pee in a cup and toss it the next day. Going outside after dark was the thing I wanted to do least in the world, and I wasn't the only one. Both Carmen and Marvin got increasingly worried as the day dwindled and Jupiter didn't come back.

Of course, Marvin wouldn't admit it, and he tried to cover up his fear with bluster and jokes. It didn't work. I could see right through him. And when Jupiter finally did show up again, it was the beginning of the end. I just didn't know it at the time. Even if I had, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently. I heard Jupiter bark in the middle of the night. The noise caused my skin to tighten and my throat to thicken.

I didn't move from my spot on the couch. I simply stared through the darkness at the front door. A moment later, there was a scratch at the door, and then another, and another. Jupiter barked again. "Go away," I whispered. The bedroom door opened and heavy footsteps approached. "The hell are you doing?" Marvin shouted. "Don't you hear him?" I didn't answer. I just stared at the door as Marvin stepped to it. My whole body went stiff with fright.

My brother opened the door, and Jupiter trotted in like he'd just gone out to pee. "Good boy," Marvin said, kneeling down to hug and pet the dog. I sat up and watched the dog follow Marvin down toward the bedroom. Jupiter glanced back at me, his eyes flashing white for the briefest of moments. Then they were both gone, and I heard the bedroom door close. I stayed where I was, unmoving, knowing I wasn't wrong about Jupiter.

I'd seen his mutilated body out in the desert near the cave. I'd seen it. This was impossible. When 15 minutes passed and nothing happened, I laid back down on the couch and tried to go back to sleep. I wasn't able to sleep, not while I was in the house with Jupiter. So I decided to go sleep in the SUV. As I was pulling my shoes on, I heard the bedroom door open softly.

Holding my breath, I stood up and looked at the dark rectangle of the hallway entrance, waiting for Jupiter to appear walking on his hind legs. When Cameron came sulking into the living room, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I saw the look on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked. She shook her head. "That's not Jupiter." Hearing her speak the words that had been rattling around in my head gave me a sickening jolt of terror. "I was going to sleep in the SUV," I said.

Carmen just stared at me for a long moment. Then she said, "What about Marvin? I'm afraid something bad will happen to him." I stared down the hall, not wanting to go anywhere near that dog. "Please, Gene," Carmen said. "Can you please try to get him, or try to get the dog out of here?" As much as I didn't want to go to the bedroom, I knew she was right. I didn't like the way my brother treated me or Carmen, but he was still my brother. I couldn't just leave him in there with that thing.

I moved to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, then headed haltingly down the hall. The bedroom door was open, and I started to shake as I approached it. A sound like fast, heavy breathing emanated from the room. I stopped at the door and peered inside, chest contracting and heart spasming as I took in the scene. Jupiter loomed over my brother, who was lying on the bed. But it wasn't Jupiter. Not really.

His hind legs were longer and thicker than they should have been, and his front legs were extended into human-like hands with sharp claws. My brother's eyes were open and full of terror. He stared at me, but he didn't say anything and he didn't move. I quickly realized it was because he couldn't. Jupiter turned his head toward me, looking at me with a half-human, half-dog face. His eyes darted from me to something against the wall just inside the bedroom. I looked down and saw that he was looking at the backpack with the money in it.

and I suddenly understood. Jupiter, or whatever was posing as Jupiter, turned back to Marvin. The creature opened its jaws wide and lowered them toward my brother's head. Saliva dripped from sharp teeth, hitting Marvin's face. The only part of Marvin that moved were his eyes. They darted from me to the creature looming over him, but I knew there was nothing I could do.

The creature closed its jaws on my brother's face, the teeth puncturing skin, and then cracking the facial bones underneath in a sickening symphony of horrible sounds. I dropped the knife, reached inside the room, and grabbed the backpack. Then I turned and ran down the hall. "Do you have the keys?" I asked Carmen. She nodded. "Let's go!"

"What about… he's dead!" I shouted, nearly crying now. "And we will be too if we don't go!" Carmen spared one last glance down the hall and then followed me outside into the night. The next morning, I walked into a hospital on the other side of the Navajo reservation from where we'd been holed up. I found the Navajo man's room the man Marvin had shot during the robbery. He was in stable condition but unconscious as I stepped inside. I looked at his face for a long time

at his long black braids and his olive skin. And I wondered if he'd somehow sent that creature after my brother. I didn't know enough about what they called skinwalkers to understand how they operated or why they did certain things. But giving the money back to its rightful owner seemed like the only thing to do. It also seemed like the right thing to do.

So I left the backpack on a chair next to the man's bed and I walked out of the hospital knowing I would never see my brother again and hoping I would never see Jupiter again. I got home at 10 till midnight, yawning as I eased the car into the carport next to my wife's truck. I was going to eat a snack and then sleep for about 12 hours if I could.

I'd just worked back-to-back doubles at the casino, so I was running on about six hours of sleep in the last 48. As I stepped out of my car, I heard my wife, Maya, calling my name. "Alton!" It was very faint, and it sounded like it was coming from out back. "Maya?" I called into the night. "Where are you?" There was no answer. I grabbed my backpack and moved through the carport into the backyard.

Maya had inherited the property from her parents. So we had a good chunk of Navajo Nation land, which meant our nearest neighbors were a 15 minute walk away. I looked out at the chicken coop, but saw no sign of my wife. As I turned to go inside, thinking I was just hearing things or that Maya was calling from inside, I heard her voice again. There was no mistaking it. She was out there somewhere. I pulled my phone out and turned the flashlight on. "Maya? Where are you?" No answer.

Hiking my backpack higher onto my shoulder, I walked out to the chicken coop and I shined my light at the rugged, desert landscape. There were shrubs and bushes dotting the relatively flat ground, but I saw no sign of my wife. There was a dry steam bed about 30 yards away, and I thought maybe she'd fallen into it and hurt herself. But that didn't seem like Maya. She was comfortable outside, and she was about 10 times tougher than me.

Still, I moved toward the steam bed, calling her name every few steps. She answered me once, her voice sounding close but somehow distant at the same time. An uneasy feeling settled on me as I moved farther from the house. Slowing, I approached the steam bed, shining my light into it from afar. Suddenly terrified of what I would find in there. It was certainly deep enough to hide an animal or a human.

As I crept closer, I brought a person into view. It was a man, crouching in the steam bed with his back to me. As far as I could tell, he was completely naked and sickeningly skinny. The knobs of his spine seemed to stretch his skin, and his ribs were clearly visible, like he was in the process of becoming nothing but a skeleton. His long and greasy black hair hung down, nearly reaching the ground.

and he seemed to be working on something with his hands, his shoulder blades sliding back and forth under his skin. It took me all of two seconds to comprehend what I was seeing, but I had yet to move past comprehension to any sort of coherent action. The fact that I was shaking with fear didn't help. Suddenly, the man stepped away moving his arms and went completely still. "Alton, help me!" he said in my wife's voice. Then his head began to turn toward me, and he started to stand up.

"Alton?" The voice came from behind me, snapping me out of my paralysis and prompting me to look over my shoulder. Maya, dressed in a robe, was standing near the chicken coop. The back porch light was on, illuminating her from behind. I faced forward again and looked into the steam bed. It was empty. There was no man. There was nothing there. "What are you doing, babe?" Maya asked, stepping up beside me. I shook my head. "I don't know."

I thought I heard your voice out here, and then there was… nothing. I'm just exhausted." Maya moved in front of me and grabbed my hand, looking at me with her depthless brown eyes. "You heard my voice?" she asked. "Are you sure?" I could see the fear in her face, and the last thing I wanted to do was scare her, so I shrugged it off. "I must have heard you calling from inside the house or something." "I don't know." "I wasn't calling from inside the house," she said. "I was asleep."

I only woke up a minute ago when I heard you calling my name. Like I said, I'm exhausted. Maybe I was sleepwalking. Maya didn't look convinced. She peered at the steam bed and beyond. Then she turned and headed back to the house, bringing me along by the hand. When we got back inside, she sat me down at the kitchen table and gave me a look I'd never seen before. Like I said, my wife was tough.

Although we'd only been married for about a year, we'd been together for almost five. And in all that time, I'd never seen the frightened look on her face that I saw as we sat in the kitchen. "Tell me everything," she said. "Don't leave anything out. Start when you first heard the voice." "Are you messing with me right now?" I asked. "Trying to freak me out? I'm telling you, it's nothing to worry about. I'm just tired."

Maya sighed and stood from the table, walking over to the kitchen window to peer out into the backyard. "I haven't really told you a lot about my culture," she said. "Not just because I spent my youth rejecting that culture, but also because it's not common for us to talk to outsiders about some things." She turned back to me. "And I'm not trying to make you feel like an outsider, because you're my family now, and I'm your family, and that will never change."

But there are some things that you wouldn't understand, no matter how much I explain them to you. There are some things that you would probably scoff at and deny for lack of evidence. But I'm telling you right now that I've seen things that shouldn't exist. I've experienced dark things that I never want to talk about. So I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Because this is Navajo Nation land, and there are things here that aren't anywhere else in the world, and they can be very dangerous.

I stared at Maya, convinced that she was being sincere with me, and after a moment, I told her everything from when I got home to when she came out and startled me. I told her about the man I thought I'd seen and about how he had spoken in her voice. Her face went white as I spoke, and she sat down at the table again. When I was done, she swallowed noisily and then leaned forward and grabbed my hands. "We need to leave." "Leave?" I asked. "You're joking, right?"

"No, I'm not joking. We need to leave tonight. We need to get off the res." "I, uh, I'm exhausted." "I'm not leaving." "I don't know what you think this is, but I guarantee you we're not in any danger." "Please, Alton," she said. "Please, let's just go to a hotel for tonight. Please. Then we can go see a Hathothli tomorrow." "A what?" "A medicine man. Shaman. Hathothli. Just what exactly do you think is happening?" I asked.

"Do you really believe that I saw a man out there who was imitating your voice?" "Yes," she said. "Yes, I really do. But I'm not asking you to believe me. I'm simply asking you to listen to your wife. She's asking you to do her a favor. Will you do that?" I smiled a tired smile. "Fine, but you're driving. Wake me up when we get there," I said, settling into the passenger seat as my wife turned her truck around in the driveway.

Since we lived on the res, it was at least an hour to the nearest off-res hotel. Maya didn't say anything. She looked cautiously around as she hit the gas and we headed down the long dirt road toward the edge of our property. I relaxed and turned my head to gaze out at the night, hoping that the rocking of the vehicle would help me get to sleep. The little bushes and shrubs illuminated by the passing headlights came in and out of view quickly, but there was something moving out there.

something just beyond the glow of the headlights, barely visible as it kept pace with the truck. I squinted, trying to see it better. It shot toward the car, moving faster than anything I'd ever seen before. As it came close to my window, a move which took less than a second, I saw that it was a strangely deformed coyote running on its hind legs. Its body reminded me of the man I thought I had seen in the stream bed, but if only he'd somehow transformed into a half-man, half-coyote.

It ran straight up to my window and peered inside, still running, easily keeping pace with the truck. "Don't look at it!" Maya screamed, but I couldn't help it. I stared into its eyes, but they weren't the yellow eyes of a canine. They were the deep brown eyes of a human. Suddenly, a kaleidoscope of images passed through my brain, erasing reality and sending me spiraling into a world of confusion and fear.

I couldn't make any sense of any of the pictures because they were too fast for comprehension. A crunching pain erupted in my head, and I came back to myself. Panic scratched at my chest as I took in my surroundings. Somehow, the truck had flipped. I hung upside down, strapped in with my seatbelt. The windshield had smashed inward along with the roof, and I could taste blood in my mouth.

I looked over at Maya, who was also strapped in with her seatbelt. Her arms hung limply down and her eyes were closed. "Baby," I said, shaking her. "Baby, are you okay?" She didn't answer. I reached up toward my pocket, trying to get my phone, but it was impossible given the way I was hanging. Bracing myself with one arm, I unclipped the seatbelt and fell to the ceiling. Then I crawled out onto the desert dirt, reaching for my phone as soon as I was out of the truck.

I dialed 911 and then sat up, checking myself for serious injuries as the phone rang. "911, what is your emergency?" "Yes, hello," I said. "We've been in a car accident. We're..." I froze, feeling a presence directly behind me. "Sir?" Slowly, I turned to look over my shoulder. The man coyote crouched just behind me, grinning or snarling, or both.

He held out one of his hand paws, which had a small pile of powder in the strange-looking palm. Before I could react, he blew the powder into my face. I inhaled some of the foul-smelling powder, and a moment later, my body stopped listening to my brain. I flopped down onto my back, no longer able to hold myself up. The phone fell from my hand, but I could still hear the operator asking if I was there and telling me there was help on the way.

I could do nothing but stare off to my left, because that was the way my head had come to rest. All I could see was the back of the truck and the desert beyond it. The coyote man had disappeared from my vision. I couldn't speak, and I couldn't move, and all I wanted to do was shout Maya's name. For all I knew, the coyote man was doing something to her just ten feet away, and I was helpless to stop it. The man who'd been crouching in the stream bed approached me where I was lying on the ground in the desert again.

His elongated snout moved as he talked in my wife's voice. His flesh shifted, legs and arms transforming from human limbs to coyote limbs and back again as he walked. "Please wake up, baby," he said in Maya's voice. "I can't lose you. I can't. I'm sorry this happened." He stopped, standing over my paralyzed body, grinning his vulpine grin.

Then, moving so fast he was a blur, he swiped down at my abdomen with one claw-tipped hand. I managed to move my head to look down, seeing four deep gashes across my stomach. My intestines bulged out of them amid torrents of blood. I screamed and reached for the wounds, opening my eyes to see that I was in a hospital room. "Baby, it's okay," Maya said from next to me, standing from her seat to grab my shoulders. "You're okay!"

I gazed up into her face as the scream died in my throat and reality reasserted itself. Breathing heavily, I pulled her into a hug. "You're okay," I said. "I thought that thing did something to you. I'm okay," she said, sniffling. She was crying. I pulled away, lying back down in the bed. The movement made me lightheaded and I felt like I was going to vomit. I felt like absolute shit.

My skin was clammy, my limbs ached, and my head pounded. "Jesus!" I said. "What happened? How are you feeling?" Maya asked, sitting back down in her seat but still crying. "I feel terrible," I said. "Must have hit my head during the crash or something." Maya shook her head, wiping tears from her cheeks. "Do you remember what happened? How we crashed?" I searched my memory, but I still couldn't accept what I'd seen.

The coyote creature running on its hind legs and then blowing powder in my face simply seemed like a part of my nightmare. "No," I said. "I don't remember." "You don't remember any of it? Like that coyote running alongside the car?" My throat thickened, but I said nothing. "And you don't remember reaching over and yanking the steering wheel out of my hands, causing us to hit that rock and flip over?" I studied my wife's face, unable to help the flare of anger I felt.

"That's not funny," I said. "That's not funny at all." Maya grabbed my hand. "Baby, I'm not kidding. That's what happened. Remember I told you not to look in its eyes? But you did. And it took over for a second. It took over your body just for a few seconds. It really happened." I pushed my head back into the pillow. "This is ridiculous. Why do you insist on giving in to these superstitions?"

"You're the one being ridiculous," Maya snapped, standing up from her chair. "How many times do you have to see something to experience it before you accept it as truth?" I stared up at her, speechless. "It doesn't matter," she said. "You stay here. I'm going to take care of it. I think I know who's behind this." She stormed out of the room. I called after her and got out of bed, yanking the IV line out of my arm.

But before I even made it to the door, I got dizzy and collapsed to the cold tile floor. When I managed to get up again, she was long gone. I called Maya for the tenth time after waking up. Seeing that it was dark outside the hospital room window, she didn't answer. Just like she hadn't answered the nine other times I'd called. I had grown so worried that I tried to leave the hospital after she didn't answer for the third time.

but I hadn't even made it down the hall before a nurse saw me and made me get back into my bed. I wouldn't have been able to make it outside without collapsing anyway. When I asked the nurse what was wrong with me, why I felt so sick, she told me they were still doing tests. Now, the hospital was relatively quiet. My phone said it was just after 10 o'clock. I still couldn't get a hold of Maya.

"Screw it," I said, swinging my legs out of bed and pulling the IV line out again. I looked in the wardrobe and found my clothes, but it took me a good five minutes to pull them on because I kept having to stop and rest. When I was fully dressed, I realized I didn't have a vehicle at the hospital. I would have to get a ride home, and it would be an expensive one. Still, I ordered the Uber and wobbled my way to the door. I peered to my left in the hall, seeing that the corridor was empty.

Then I turned my head and met the gaze of a coyote standing on all fours not 15 yards away in the middle of the corridor. The animal gazed at me with its deep brown eyes. Human eyes, I realized with increasing alarm. It pushed off with its forelegs, standing up on its hind legs and then it started toward me. As it came, it transformed, shifting until it looked like the half-man, half-coyote I saw while Maya drove us away from home.

I ducked back into the room, shutting the door and feeling around for a door lock. There wasn't one. I had no way to lock the door. With my mind reeling, I looked around the room for something to use as a weapon. The only thing that looked halfway decent was the metal stand that held the IV bag. I ripped the bag off and tossed it aside, then picked up the stand. My head swam and I felt like the room was spinning. Even just holding the lightweight pole up was draining what little energy I had left.

Something was seriously wrong with me, and all I could think was that it had to do with the powder the creature blew in my face last night. Maybe it was designed to weaken me so the creature could kill me easily. I cursed myself for not believing my wife. I was going to die because I couldn't accept the truth. The door handle turned, and the door swung open. The werewolf-looking creature stepped into the room and shut the door behind it, staring at me with its human-looking eyes the whole time.

I backed away as the creature moved toward me. My back hit the corner of the room as the creature strolled around the bed, closing in on me.

Holding the pole in front of me, I thrust it as hard as I could toward the creature's face. He batted it away with one hairy, clawed hand. It clanked as it hit the floor. With his other hand, he slashed at me, mauling my face. I grunted in pain and slid down the walls of the floor, too weak to do anything but die. The creature gripped my shoulders with his hand paws to hold me still. His teeth-filled mouth opened wide as he prepared to bite down on my skull.

I fought feebly to get him off me. But he was too strong, and I was too weak. I felt his teeth settle on either side of my forehead. They squeezed, and I could only manage a small whimper as I felt the pressure increase on my skull and the teeth sink through my skin.

Suddenly, Maya's voice erupted in my head, yelling in Navajo, saying what sounded like two or three words. Ka'ai tala ele! Sure, I was hallucinating. I just kept my eyes closed and waited for the end, but the teeth pulled away from my head, and I realized that Maya's voice wasn't in my mind. Ka'ai tala ele! She was in the room, standing just inside the door, repeating those same words again and again. Ka'ai tala ele!

I looked at the creature just as he collapsed to the floor in front of me, spasming as his limbs morphed insanely between human and coyote. He let out a fearsome and pain-filled scream that undulated between that of a human and a beast. Maya kept speaking those words, and the creature kept spasming until he stopped moving and stopped morphing.

He settled on the floor as a thin human man of native descent. "Ka'ita la'alei!" I stared down at him, seeing that not even his chest was moving anymore. He was dead, his brown eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling, a coyote skin draped across his back and head. "Are you okay?" Maya asked, stepping over the dead man, helping me up. Despite the wounds on my face and head, I felt much better than I had. I no longer felt sick.

just injured and scared. "Who is that?" I asked as we moved to the other side of the bed. "A shaman that my ex hired to kill you," Maya said. "What? Why?" "Because he wanted me and my land, and he didn't like that a white man had married me," she said. "I had met her ex once before, and he certainly wasn't a fan of me, but to kill me? I couldn't comprehend it." "He hired this guy to kill me?" "Yes," she said.

"How did you stop him?" I asked. "What were you saying?" "The only way to truly kill one of them is to say their name." "That's it? You just have to say their name?" Maya nodded. "But not the name that everyone knows. Their true Navajo name. That's why I was gone all day. I had to track down someone who actually knew his real name and then convince her to give it to me. Our true names are powerful, so we keep them secret. This is why."

I nodded, staring down at the dead man. "Powerful is right. Wait, why didn't he just kill me yesterday after the crash? He wanted it to look natural," Maya said. "That's what they usually do. They use dark magic to make people sick, so when they die, it looks like it was from natural causes. My ex must have heard that I was going around looking for a name, so he sent the ye-maled-lushi here to finish you off."

I stared at my wife, still trying to wrap my head around how close I'd come to death. If you hadn't got here when you did, I know, she said. But I did. We were silent for a few long moments, holding onto each other as we stood next to the bed. Are you feeling better? She asked. Yes, I said. But I just have one question. What's that? You have a whole other name that you've never told me? Maya smiled slyly.

As I stepped into the meeting room at the back of the tribal police station, all heads turned toward me. The man speaking, who I assumed was the chief of police, paused for a moment when he saw me walk in. There were only eight people in the room, nine including me, and the chief's eyes darted from me over to a young cop in the opposite corner of the room. Some sort of wordless communication passed between them, and the young native man moved immediately toward me.

At first, I thought the guy was coming over to introduce himself and give me the rundown on what was happening. After all, I was the FBI agent sent to the reservation to help them deal with the recent spate of murders. I made eye contact with a young guy who was dressed in a tribal police uniform. He glared at me and then shifted past me. Heading out the door I'd just come through. "Some welcome," I thought.

turning to listen to the last of the chief's words as he wrapped up the meeting. "Okay, you all know what to do. Let's go." The police officers, all of them native, turned and headed for the door. I had an inkling that the brass decided to send me out here because I was Hispanic. I had brown skin and dark hair, so maybe my new agent in charge thought to himself, "Close enough." Or maybe that was just my cynicism talking.

Either way, the amount of melanin in my skin certainly didn't provide a warm welcome from the tribal police members. No one even acknowledged my presence until I stepped in front of the chief, a large man with a thick face and dark, wide-set eyes. "Excuse me, Chief Herbert," I said, proffering my hand. "I'm Special Agent Galvan." Herbert shook my hand. "I appreciate you coming, Special Agent Galvan, but we have this under control.

"You're going to apprehend a suspect right now?" "That's right," Herbert said, releasing my hand and stepping around me. I moved along behind him. "I'll come with you." "No need," I laughed. "I'm afraid I need to insist. Otherwise my boss will chew my ass. Just tell him we were already gone when you got here." We stepped out of the station and into the warm evening. The sun was approaching the western horizon, but the desert sunset wouldn't start for another half hour or so.

The other police officers were pulling on vests and readying weapons next to their vehicles. I followed the chief to his car. The young man who'd left the room earlier was sitting in the driver's seat with the engine running.

"Just let me grab my vest and I'll come with you," I said as Herbert opened up the passenger door. He spun around and pointed one thick finger at my face. "We don't need your help, okay? We have this under control. You would only get in our way. Now stay here and wait for us to get back." Herbert got quickly into the vehicle and slammed the door. The vehicle lurched as the driver hit the gas. I turned around and hustled to my SUV, seeing that the front left tire was completely flat.

There was a gash in the rubber. I suddenly realized what that wordless communication between the chief and the young guy had been about. Feeling swollen with anger, I ran over to the last Tribal Police SUV just as it was pulling out of its spot.

I jumped in front of the vehicle, forcing the driver to stomp on the brakes. "Put it in park!" I shouted at the man in the driver's seat. Another Navajo man sat in the passenger seat. Both of them stared out at me with a mixture of surprise and anger. "Get out of the way!" The driver shouted out his open window. I reached for my weapon on my hip, but didn't pull it out. "You're officially obstructing a federal investigation. I can and will have you brought up on charges if you don't put it in park and let me in the vehicle."

The two men glanced at each other, defeat and disappointment coming over their faces. After a moment, the driver put it in park and rested his hands on the wheel. I eased around and slipped into the back of the SUV. Since it was a police vehicle, the back seat was blocked off. I knew I would have to get one of the men to let me out whenever we got to our destination. But I was just taking things one step at a time and trying not to let my anger get the better of me. The driver stared at me in the rearview mirror.

"Okay, you can go now," I said. "You should have listened to the chief," the man said. "It was for your own good." "You can go now," I said. "I don't want to miss the action." The man made a "tss" sound, put the SUV in gear, and drove off. Twenty minutes later, we turned onto a paved driveway in a wooded area of the reservation. I had finally pried the two officers' names out of them while we drove. The driver was Gad, and the passenger was Marcus.

As we made our way up the long driveway toward a house I couldn't yet see, Gad looked at me in the rearview mirror again. "Please, just stay back while we go inside. We have experience dealing with these kinds of things. I've been on many raids, believe me." "Not like this," Marcus said gravely, shaking his head. "Not like this at all." I looked between the two men. "If you keep me locked back here, I will file charges. I promise you that."

Up ahead, the rest of the police vehicles were arrayed in a clearing next to the driveway. As soon as we were in formation at the back, the radio crackled to life. "Let's do this," the chief said. A brilliant orange sunset splashed the sky behind us, making the land ahead gloomy but not yet dark. At the back of the convoy, Gadd hit the gas to keep up with the other vehicles. After driving for another half mile, we came into a large clearing with a lavish three-story house in the middle.

Two of the SUVs rolled around to the back, while the other two came to a rocking stop at the front of the house. Marcus and Gad jumped out, rifles in hand. "Let me out!" I shouted, banging on the window. Gad hesitated, but he let me out. "Just stay close to one of us," he said. I pulled out my weapon as the five of us ran toward the front door. One of the other officers, whose name I didn't know, had a tactical shotgun.

As we reached the ornate wooden front door, we all posted up to one side while the man with the shotgun stepped up and fired two breaching rounds through the door where the hinges were. He kicked the door, sending it crashing down onto the entryway floor, and then he stepped aside. We all ran in. The place smelled like there were dozens of rotting bodies inside, making me gag.

I could hear shouting from the back of the house and something that sounded like growling just a moment before gunfire started. Someone yelled over the radio. We all moved through the house, heading toward the back. The man with the shotgun had come in last and he was behind me.

As we turned down a dark hallway, I heard a grunt and then a crash from behind me. I spun around, and time seemed to stop as I saw something I couldn't comprehend. The man with the shotgun was jammed up against the wall, impaled by a set of deer antlers that were still attached to a deer's head. Only it wasn't like any deer I'd ever seen. It was huge, and its fur-covered body was vaguely humanoid, like something from the island of Dr. Moreau.

The man writhed. His feet were off the ground as he spit up blood and gripped the antlers as if trying to pull them out of his abdomen. "Bo!" Gad said, shoving me aside, moving toward the creature. The thing whipped its head toward us, sending the cop flying through the air. Gad managed to duck, but the guy crashed into me and we both went down. I looked up to see that the deer creature was gone. "There's two of them!" Gad yelled into his radio as he ran after the creature. "Two of them!"

Marcus appeared and ran after his partner. I eased the man off of me and knelt next to him. "Skinwalker," the man said, reaching into his pocket, retrieving a dagger made out of bone. He handed it to me. "Help them kill it." I took the bone knife and stared at it, still not able to process what I'd just seen. When I looked back at the man, his eyes were closed and he was limp. I felt for a pulse but found none. Gunfire still echoed around the house, coming from two different locations.

It wasn't over. I stood and ran toward the nearest commotion, pistol in my right hand and bone knife in my left. I came to a large kitchen that was now a mess of shattered glass, splintered cabinets, and broken appliances. Just beyond the kitchen was a dining room where Chief Herbert stood, looking down at something on the floor. His chest heaved as he pointed his weapon down. I moved closer, bringing the whole scene into view.

Two tribal policemen were busy stabbing a large and slightly deformed coyote with bone knives similar to the one I now held. Nearby, the young cop who'd slashed my tire lay amid a smashed dining room table, his throat torn out. The two men stood up from the coyote, their knives dripping in blood, and stepped away. I watched as the coyote morphed, turning into a native man with stab wounds and bullet wounds all over his body. I swallowed. This was impossible.

"Let's go," Herbert said, suddenly noticing my presence. "Where's the other one?" I realized that the house was silent, but I couldn't remember when that had happened. "I don't know," I said. "Marcus and Gad went after it. Him," Herbert said. "Not it. Him. They're people. Evil people." I followed Herbert and the other two cops as we moved through the house. Listening for any sounds, Herbert tried to get Marcus and Gad on the radio, but they didn't answer.

After clearing the downstairs, we headed up to the second floor. The smell of rotting flesh grew worse. We found Gad in the hallway. He'd been torn in half. His intestines spilled out across the hallway, and it looked like he'd died while trying to scoop them back into his abdomen. Herbert and the other two cops cursed under their breath, but they kept going. We cleared various rooms, most of which had strange symbols painted on the walls and odd items hanging from the ceilings.

They all had animal skins in them, along with dead animals that hadn't yet been skinned. We came to the main bedroom at the end of the hall and peered through the open double doors. Marcus sat on the floor about ten feet inside the bedroom, his back to us, slumped forward. Marcus, Herbert whispered, no answer. A clatter of hooves behind me set my heart beating into my throat. I spun around just in time to see the deer creature running down the hall on all four legs, moving faster than I could fathom.

As the antlers pierced my chest and lifted me off the ground, I felt as though I'd been shot while wearing a ballistic vest. Something I'd experienced before on a raid. But I wasn't wearing a vest, and I hadn't been shot. I'd been impaled!

The creature drove me back and slammed me into one of the other police officers, hitting the man to the ground. The creature trampled the man, snapping his bones and crushing his organs before going after Herbert. Finally getting over the shock of what had happened, I realized I still had the knife in my hand. I stabbed down, piercing the deer's left eye. It screamed as the bone popped the eye, a sound more human than animal. It whipped its head, throwing me off the antlers and sending me crashing into a dresser.

But apparently, it had been enough. Herbert and the one remaining cop attacked the creature with their bone knives, stabbing and stabbing until the thing collapsed, and then stabbing some more. Consciousness seeped slowly away along with my blood. But before I left the world forever, I saw the deer creature turn back into a man. A dead man, just like me.