Within Shadows of Oaks

Ian Kladaki, a coloradan teen, was a kind and caring individual, and was willing to help people if they needed it. He was well known in his school, and was often found hiking and climbing in his free time. If only he had known the fate that awaited him in the mountains.
It was a warm summer's day when local teen Ian and his friends, Henry, Laurel, and Steve, went missing. They had been out in the woods, hiking, when they suddenly disappeared. Several people claimed they wandered off the trail, and never returned. They were finally found about two months later, all but Ian.
When they were found, they were wandering around the woods, their clothes torn and ripped, and their skin cut and torn. They were muttering to themselves, eyes darting left and right, as if looking for something, someone who wasn't there. They would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, but during the day. They wandered aimlessly. After a year, two of them , Henry and Laurel, were admitted into the Longmont Institution for the Mentally Ill. Steve was admitted to enter the hospital, but had hung himself the night before. 
Finally, the police found Ians rotting body in the woods. Originally, they thought a cougar got to him, but then again, why would a cougar only take the hands and feet, as well as the boys head, when they usually eat the soft parts of an animal? there was too little evidence, and eventually, the case went cold.
About three years later, big game hunter and local police officer Rex Treximo, had reopened the case. He rented a small cabin in the middle of the mountains, and went searching in the dark woods for the rest of the poor boy's body. On the first night, when he was about to fall asleep, he heard a loud, anguished cry, as if some big animal had been hurt. It was a loud wail, and filled the night air with an eerie feeling when it stopped. Shaking, Rex composed himself and decided to search for the source of the dreadful howling, but found nothing. Must’ve been some animal, he thought. And so, he fell asleep.
Rex spent the second night searching in the bleary, foggy woods. He could hear the horrible wailing from the night before, but continued looking for the boy's remains regardless. He saw what he thought was a thin, tall person, but the thing scrambled away before he could try speaking to it. He attempted to follow the creature, but tripped on a rock, falling hard on his stomach. angered, he gave up his search, but noticed the eerie unfamiliarity of the woods around him,then noticed how the ground, instead of the dense, almost bare surface of the woods he had been searching in, was thick in pine needles, mushrooms, and stones. He felt as if time had slowed down, and everything that moved suddenly became a monster in the night.
On the third night, or maybe the fourth, he heard the wretched moaning once more, and suddenly froze in terror. The noise sounded almost human, and like it was tortured and broken. Surely, if it had been some animal making that horrid, painful noise, it would have died by now! He thought, but still, it continued, loud and clear through the night.
Eventually, on the fifth night, Rex found his cabin. He ran into the building, hungry and cold. He quickly grabbed some food from the freezer, and started to cook. He guzzled down water, thirstily, and fell asleep grateful that nothing had gotten him in the woods.
That morning, Rex heard something tapping on his window. He looked outside to see a human hand stuck to a stick knocking on it, and then waving at him. Rex shuddered. Surely, anyone who would do something like this had to be mentally disturbed. He quickly ran outside to catch the individual, but no one was there. The only evidence of the event was the smell of rot and a sticky, bloody handprint on the window.
On the sixth night, Rex cleaned the window, or at least tried to. He kept hearing that wailing in the woods and eventually followed the wretched sound. He was halfway down the trail when he saw it. The body was made out of large branches, and it stood at least eleven feet tall. It had a vaguely human shape, and human body parts were stuck to it. The skin near its mouth was peeled away almost to the nose, forming a grin, and one of its eyes was missing. He could see the maggots crawling around in the skin of its cheek. Its feet were bare, and its hands had large gaps and bits of bone sticking out from the skin. Its body was made of two thick pine branches, and its arms and legs were comprised of oaks. It turned to look at him, and revealed its horrible, rotting face. It reached toward the officer with its cold, dead hands, mouth open impossibly wide, and screamed the horrible, gut wrenching sound Rex had heard through the woods through the previous nights. Rex ran, not looking back, afraid of the thing that was watching him in the night.
On May 16th, 2007, Rex Treximo, a local police officer, was found dead in his cabin near the forest. His suicide note comprised a drawing of a large creature with human hands, legs, and feet. Its arms, legs, and its body were nothing more than thick, dark lines. Next to the drawing were four words.
“I found Ian Kladaki.”
Category:Beings
Category:Weird