The Haunted Grove
The Haunted Grove is where paranormal horror fiction fans come to escape the everyday world through immersive, story-driven horror experiences.
We craft immersive scary stories that blur the line between reality and nightmare, perfect for late-night listening or satisfying your Creepypasta cravings. Our growing collection features everything from subtle psychological horror to full-blown supernatural encounters.
The Haunted Grove
Lost in the Woods with a Watching Clown: A Hiker's Nightmare
Have you ever felt that creeping sensation of being watched while alone in the wilderness? That primal fear that something is following you through the trees?
The Montana backcountry should have been a healing escape for our protagonist – a wilderness photographer seeking solace after a painful divorce. The majestic mountains, golden aspens, and crisp September air promised the perfect remedy for her broken heart. Instead, she stumbled into a nightmare beyond comprehension.
What begins with eerie circus music floating through midnight forests escalates into a heart-pounding game of cat and mouse. Mysterious balloons appear near her campsite without explanation. Her father's reliable compass spins wildly, refusing to point north. Technology fails as something unnatural closes in. The protagonist's childhood fear of clowns transforms from an embarrassing phobia into terrifying reality when she spots a white-faced figure watching her from the trail below – a figure whose painted smile hides something far from human.
The boundary between paranoia and the paranormal blurs as our hiker flees deeper into the wilderness. Who – or what – is this entity that seems to bend the forest around it? Why has it chosen her? And how is it connected to the strange ranger from the trailhead whose warning now echoes with sinister new meaning: "Don't make me come hunt you down."
This spine-tingling tale explores isolation, primal fear, and the vulnerability we face when separated from civilization. As you listen, you might find yourself checking over your shoulder, wondering what lurks just beyond your perception. Ready to test your courage? Turn down the lights, close your eyes, and join us for another journey into terror. Just remember – some trails are better left untraveled.
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Welcome. You've stumbled into the Haunted Grove podcast, the place where paranormal horror fiction fans come to escape the everyday through immersive storytelling. I'm Megan, your host and narrator for tonight's tale, and, trust me, it's a good one. So sit back, turn the lights down low and, whatever you do, don't look behind you. I've been running for hours, my legs are jelly and my lungs are on fire, but I can't stop. I've always hated clowns, ever since my fifth birthday, when my well-meaning parents hired one who followed me around the yard making balloon animals while I screamed. 25 years later, that fear has never faded. My ex used to tease me about it. For a wilderness photographer who's facedown grizzlies, you sure lose it over a little face paint. Now I'm 40 miles from my car in the Montana backcountry, completely alone and being stalked by one. I'm four days into what was supposed to be a peaceful solo trek through the wilderness. A chance to clear my head. After the divorce papers came through last month, my ex got the house in Missoula, most of our friends and even my darkroom equipment. All I kept was my camera gear, my dad's compass and enough self-doubt to fill the valleys between these mountains.
Speaker 1:The first day on the trail had been therapeutic. The September air was crisp, aspens turning gold against the evergreens. I had got some stunning shots of a bull elk silhouetted against the morning mist. I breathed easier out here, away from the sympathetic or accusing glances of friends who had chosen sides. It was going fine until the second night. I woke up around 3 am. At first I thought it was just the sound of the stream nearby, soft water over rocks and wind through the pines, the usual symphony of the wilderness. At night the quarter moon cast blue shadows through the mesh of my tent. But then I heard it off in the distance. It was music, circus music, a calliope playing a tune that seemed to twist through the trees like something alive. The notes hung in the air, discordant and warped, as if being played on instruments slowly breaking apart. It's not the wildlife and it can't be the radio.
Speaker 1:I'm miles from cell service and haven't seen a soul since the ranger at the trailhead three days ago. It was a tall, lanky man with a naturally perfect posture and a smile that never quite reached his pale blue eyes. You know people go missing in these woods, he said, checking my permit with hands that seemed too large for his wrists. His name tag read R Grinwell, but was slightly crooked, as if it had been hastily pinned on. Every year, search and Rescue finds abandoned campsites and no signs of the campers. He leaned in close. Don't make me come hunt you down, he said with a wide, forced smile. His teeth were perfect, too perfect, like they'd been painted on. I laughed it off. Rangers are always trying to scare solo hikers into being cautious, and I'd been backpacking in these mountains since I was a teenager.
Speaker 1:But now, lying in my sleeping bag as that music drifted through the darkness, his words returned with new meaning. I laid there in my tent, frozen, listening. The air grew dense, pressing against my skin like I was underwater. Eventually the music faded, but the heaviness remained. In the morning, the rising sun almost convinced me it was a dream, some bizarre auditory hallucination brought on by altitude and solitude.
Speaker 1:I packed up camp, made coffee on my little stove and tried to shake off the unease that was clinging to me like the morning dew, until I saw the balloon. It was tied to the pine tree beside my gear, bright red and gently bobbing in the breeze. The nylon string was knotted into a perfect bow against the rough bark. I told myself it was a prank. Some backpacker with a dark sense of humor. It had to be something rational. But I hadn't passed anyone else on the trail yesterday and these remote eastern paths rarely ever saw traffic this late in the season. And when I studied the ground next to my tent, the only footprints I found were my own no other boot marks, no broken twigs and no sign anyone had approached in the night.
Speaker 1:I remembered my camera. I could document this. I reached for my Canon, but when I tried to turn it on, the LCD display showed nothing. I removed the battery and replaced it, but nothing. Something made me check my compass, the reliable one that I'd had since Dad gave it to me for my first solo hike. The silver case was cool against my palm. As I flipped it open, the needle was spinning slowly at first and then faster, whirling around like a carnival ride. I shook it and tapped it. Nothing stopped the endless rotation. I tried to forget about it and just kept hiking following the trail markers.
Speaker 1:Instead, the day grew warmer, the sunlight streaming through the pine branches onto the needle-covered path. The forest was quiet, too quiet. No squirrels chattering, no birds calling, nothing, just the sound of my boots on the soil and my increasing rapid breathing. About an hour in, I stopped to rest beneath a massive Douglas fir. I felt a shift in the air, a cooling that didn't match the sunlit day, and then I heard something moving off-trail not the crackling of footsteps of an animal, but a soft, gliding sound like silk brushing against leaves. I turned and glimpsed a flash of vibrant color between the distant trees, a splash of red and yellow against the forest green and the nothing. Hello, I called my voice sounding thin. Is someone there? No answer, just unnatural silence. I quickened my pace, checking over my shoulder every few minutes.
Speaker 1:The trail climbed steeply, switching back up the ridge towards an overlook I'd planned to photograph, my lungs burned from the exertion and anxiety. At the top I found another balloon, blue this time tied to a gnarled juniper that clung to the rocky outcropping Beyond it. The valley stretched for miles, a rumpled green blanket dotted with beautiful little lakes. Any other time I'd be setting up my tripod, adjusting my polarizing filter. Now I just stared at the balloon bobbing cheerfully in the mountain breeze. I pulled out my water bottle trying to calm my racing heart as I drank.
Speaker 1:Movement caught my eye A figure on the trail, far below A splash of bright colors. I fumbled for my binoculars. It was a clown, tall with a white face and a grotesque red smile, standing motionless on the path I'd just climbed. He just stood there watching me. The forest seemed to bend around him, branches leaning away as if being repelled. Even through the binoculars I couldn't make out his eyes clearly, just dark hollows and that white face. And then he tilted his head, slow and bird-like, like he was watching something he couldn't quite understand One white-gloved hand raised in a cheerful wave. Every part of me screamed to run. So I did Off the trail, through the trees, down the other side of the ridge, where my map showed another path that would eventually loop back up to the trailhead. I crashed through the underbrush and slid down the slopes, jumped across a narrow stream. My pack caught on the branches. My arms were becoming scratched and bloody, but I didn't slow down.
Speaker 1:Hours later, exhausted and disoriented, I checked my compass again, still spinning the needle, a silver blur inside the glass. My phone had no signal and the GPS app showed only a blank screen. The sun had started to lower, lengthening the shadows across the forest floor. I was lost that night. I'd made camp beneath a granite overhang. I didn't even bother with the fire. Too exhausted, too scared of drawing any attention, my mind kept replaying the same questions what does it want? Why is it here? Why me?
Speaker 1:I wrapped myself in my sleeping bag, used my pack as a pillow and fell into a restless sleep filled with dreams of spinning compass, needles and bloody smiles. I was woken by the music again, closer now and something else Breathing, slow breathing, just outside my makeshift shelter, no footsteps or movement, just the sound of something sniffing the air. For hours, the air grew thick with a scent I couldn't identify Sweet but rotten, like fruit left out too long in the summer heat. I laid still barely breathing, clutching my useless compass like a talisman. The stone at my back was cold, but sweat soaked through my clothes.
Speaker 1:As soon as the morning light hit the trees, I ran. I didn't even grab my pack. I left everything except the clothes on my back, my water bottle and this useless spinning compass clutched in my fist. I had been running ever since. The forest has become a blur of green and brown. I scraped my face on low branches, twisted my ankle in a hidden hole, but I kept moving. The pain doesn't matter. Nothing matters except distance.
Speaker 1:I finally stopped at a creek to drink and catch my breath. There's no way he followed me this far. No way. I checked my compass again. It had finally stopped spinning. Now the needle was pointing directly behind me. A chill ran through me. Slowly I turned, looking over my shoulder. A branch snapped and I spun around, gripping the compass so hard. The glass cracked, but there was nothing there, just trees and shadows and silence.
Speaker 1:I bent over the stream and splashed cold water on my face. The cold shocked me back to clarity for a moment. This couldn't be happening. I've been a rational person my whole life. There had to be some explanation. I'm exhausted, I'm dehydrated. Maybe it was grief over the divorce manifesting in some bizarre way. As the ripples in the water started to still, I caught a reflection, not my own, a white face with a red smile standing behind me, but in the water the smile wasn't smiling anymore. The painted curves had dripped and run, revealing what lay beneath something that had only ever resembled a human face, and I realized the eyes weren't eyes at all, just gaping dark holes that seemed to swallow the light. My stomach dropped when I noticed the slightly crooked name tag R Grinwell. I didn't turn around, I couldn't. I just watched as his reflection, raised one gloved finger to his lips Shh. And then it spoke in a voice I recognized from days ago. I said don't make me come hunt you down.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Haunted Grove Podcast. If tonight's story drew you in, leave a review, share the scare and follow and subscribe for more immersive paranormal horror fiction stories. If you love spooky storytelling and want to support the show, consider joining the Midnight Club over on our Facebook page. Members get exclusive access to stories, behind-the-scenes content, early access to episodes and so much more. This isn't just a membership. It's where you belong. Until next time, sleep tight and, whatever you do, don't look too closely at the shadow in the corner of the room. You might just find it's looking back.