I always thought scary bigfoot stories were for people who wear camo to the grocery store. Then my dad and I spent a weekend at his cabin in the Washington Cascades, and something in the trees learned his knock. I’d heard plenty of bigfoot horror stories from guys at the gas station. None of them were about a knock.
My dad’s cabin is a one-room place on a forest service lease up a gravel road east of Darrington. His father built it in 1961. No power, a wood stove, an outhouse, a hand pump for water. Dad goes up there to be alone. I’d been begging him for years to take me, and in November 2020, when we were both stuck at home and going a little crazy, he finally said yes.
Dad has a thing he does. Whenever he knocks on anything, he does “shave and a haircut.” Knock, knock-knock, knock, knock. Then he waits for you to say “two bits.” He’s done it on every door I’ve ever seen him walk up to. It’s the most dad thing about him.
The first afternoon, we split wood. Dad set a big round on the chopping block and before he swung, he rapped the top of it with the back of the axe. Shave and a haircut.
From somewhere up the hill behind the cabin, something knocked back.
The Knocks in the Trees
Two knocks. Hard, hollow. Wood on wood. Like somebody hitting a tree with a baseball bat. Two bits.
I laughed. I said, “Somebody’s up there.” Dad didn’t laugh. He was looking up the hill with the axe still on his shoulder.
He said there wasn’t anybody up there. The lease next to his had been empty for years. The road dead-ended a mile past us.
I said it was probably a woodpecker. Or a branch falling and hitting another branch. Sound does weird things in the mountains.
Dad said, “Sure.” Then he went inside and didn’t come out to split any more wood.
That evening, I went out to use the outhouse with a headlamp. On the way back, just to be funny, I knocked shave-and-a-haircut on the cabin door.
Two bits came back from the woods. Closer this time. Down the hill, toward the creek.
Dad opened the door, grabbed my jacket, and pulled me inside. He said, “Don’t do that.” He said it like I was eight years old.
What Scary Bigfoot Stories Get Right
The next morning, I went out to get firewood from the stack we’d split the day before.
It had been sorted.
When we split it, we’d just tossed the pieces into a messy pile against the side of the cabin. Now they were stacked. Neatly. Small pieces on the left, medium in the middle, big ones on the right. Like a kid lining up blocks.
There were no footprints in the mud around the stack. The ground was soft from the rain. Our boot prints from the day before were there. Nothing else.
I called Dad out. He looked at it for a long time. Then he said, “We’re leaving tomorrow morning instead of Sunday.”
I asked him if he’d heard knocks up here before. He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “Your grandpa used to say the trees out here talk back. He said it’s fine to listen. He said you never finish the knock.”
I asked what that meant. He said he didn’t know. He said Grandpa never explained it. He said it was just a rule, like don’t leave food out for bears.
I think about that a lot now. That my grandfather had a rule for it.
The Knock on the Wall
That night was cold and very dark. No moon. We played cards by the lantern and went to bed around ten. Dad slept in the bunk by the stove. I was on a cot by the window.
I woke up at 2:50 a.m. I know because I looked at my watch. The stove had burned down to coals and the cabin was freezing.
There was a smell. It came in around the window frame. Wet dog, but stronger. Like a wet dog that had rolled in something dead. It was so strong I could taste it.
Then I heard footsteps outside. Slow. Heavy. Something walking on the gravel along the side of the cabin. Each step was a long way from the last one.
It stopped outside the window by my cot. I could hear it breathing. Long, slow breaths, like a big animal. The glass was right there by my head. I didn’t move. I didn’t look. I don’t think I could have looked if I’d wanted to.
Then it moved along the wall to the door.
And it knocked.
Knock. Knock-knock. Knock. Knock.
Shave and a haircut.
Then it waited.
I heard Dad sit up in his bunk. I could just see him in the red light from the stove. He was looking at the door. He put his finger to his lips. Then he lay back down and pulled his sleeping bag over his head.
It knocked again. Same rhythm. Patient.
And waited.
It did that four times. Then the footsteps went away, down toward the creek, slow and heavy, until I couldn’t hear them anymore.
Leaving the Cabin
We left at first light. We didn’t make breakfast. Dad loaded the truck faster than I’ve ever seen him move.
Before we left, I walked around to the front of the cabin. In the mud by the door, there was one print. Just one, like whatever made it had stepped in the soft spot by accident and been careful everywhere else.
I’m not going to tell you how big it was. You’d think I was lying. I’ll just say I put my boot next to it, and I wear a size eleven, and my boot fit inside it with room around the edges.
I took a picture. I don’t show it to people.
Dad sold the lease the next spring. He said he was getting too old for the drive. I didn’t argue.
He doesn’t do shave and a haircut anymore. He knocks on doors like everybody else now. Two plain knocks.
Last Thanksgiving, my little nephew ran up to my parents’ front door ahead of everybody and knocked shave-and-a-haircut on it, because I’d taught him, because I thought it was funny.
My dad went white. He didn’t say anything. He just stood in the driveway, staring past the house at the trees on the hill behind it.
Waiting to see if anything answered.
If you like scary cryptid stories and the woods at night, read the trail cam horror story about a man in my dad’s jacket, our scary hunting stories post about a tree stand that kept moving, or a fake utility worker story from a Michigan winter.
Do you have scary bigfoot stories of your own?
Have you ever heard something knock back from the woods? Share your scary bigfoot stories, or any scary bigfoot encounters from a cabin or campsite deep in the woods, in the comments below.
How scary was it?
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