28 Jan Skinned Tara

Posted at 13:06h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on January 28, 2026

“Skinned Tara”

Written by Justin Arthur
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 13 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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Looking from within the woods, I could see my ex-wife’s Camaro parked outside of what used to be our house. I could also see the truck belonging to my former neighbor, Trey.

The signatures on our dissolution paperwork were not even dry yet, but at this point, better him than me. I could deal with her taking the house, and me not even getting a chance to fight for what was mine. I made mistakes as well, mistakes I’m not proud of. Mistakes that had led me to drive all the way out to what used to be our home after a few drinks too many. She could keep every last acre of land if she wanted.

But damn it, she stole my grandpa’s cane. He raised me after my parents died, always looking out for me, always with that cane in hand. When she kicked me out, his cane had gotten left behind, mixed in with everything she had decided was now hers. Between the lawyers, the threats and everything else, it was trapped in those walls.

So tonight I had decided to break in and take it back. I knew the security systems in place, or rather, the systems we never set up. She had gloated about how I’d be too much of a coward to try anything, or she’d ruin my life even more, but that egg was firmly on her face. My own car was parked a mile back, hidden on a side road. Took a trail in the woods to avoid walking out in the open. No phone on me. Dark, face-concealing outfit cobbled together from different thrift stores, complete with gloves, paid in cash. A friend agreed to support an alibi. I’d get in, break some junk, take some jewelry, and make it seem like the cane was just a target of opportunity.

Seeing Trey’s truck alongside that woman’s only gave me pause. That just meant they’d be distracted. I could stomach her rebounding with the closest guy she could find for a few minutes.

I shuffled my way out of the woods toward the house, walking as if I belonged, looking about in case she actually did install some cameras. We had no pets to worry about; at least I had gotten to keep the cat. Soon, I was up at the front door, checking inside the false rock nearby and finding it empty. Oh, well. Then I noticed the door wasn’t completely closed. She was really hard on the rebound, wasn’t she?

I could hear my grandpa warning me to always shut and lock the door. He lived out in the country, not too far away from here.

“Whether country or city, you lock that door tight,” he said. “The woods in these hills are home to all manner of things you don’t want getting into the house.”

“Like what, Grandpa?” I had asked.

“Things older than even me,” he said. “Remember when we walked that trail, and I showed you the bent tree?”

A tree that had been grown that way on purpose; some sort of trailer marker back when Native Americans lived around here.

“Folks who grew them may be gone,” he continued, “but the things that followed them stayed behind and still use those guides. Just because most people nowadays don’t believe in them don’t mean they stopped existing.” He gestured with his cane. “That’s why I always have this. It was a gift from a friend I used to smoke with. None of them dark spirits will come at me so long as I have it.”

He kept it within arm’s reach every day of his life, until the morning he didn’t wake up.

Nowadays, I honestly feel like those dark spirits he’d talk about were circling me, too. If having that part of him back helped, I had to go for it. I pushed those thoughts to the side, nudging open the door and then moving it just enough to slip in before the squeaking hinges would give me away, pushing it back to where it had been before.

The house was a two-story deal, fairly big but not exactly a mansion. Spacious closets connected rooms and hallways, so I’d be able to sneak around and hide as I tried to figure out where she put it. But before I could begin my search, something ahead made me jump.

The kitchen lay past the foyer, the sliding door to the outside shattered, broken glass on the floor within.

Someone had hit this place first.

I gulped, wishing I had brought a knife instead of thinking it would look better if I were not armed with a deadly weapon should I be caught. Seeing that field of broken glass, feeling that cold wind blowing in, sobered me up in a hurry. The only thing keeping me from bailing was the thought of that cane, possibly in the clutches of some meth-head pausing his cooking deep in the forest to break into this house.

Screw making it look like a coincidence. Grab the cane, get out. How on earth did my ex and Trey not hear this, though? The acoustics were awful in the house, but they must have really been absorbed with each other. I focused on searching the ground-floor closets as stealthily as I could, listening for any stray footstep that might reveal one of the current residents or this mystery vagrant approaching me. Nothing found, nothing heard. Perhaps they had fallen asleep, and the other person was already gone, having taken the silverware or something to fence at a pawn shop?

I cursed under my breath. It wasn’t on the ground level. I’d have to risk going upstairs and disturbing the two lovebirds. I did my best to convince myself they were the only ones I’d find up there.

I moved to the staircase leading upstairs to the bedrooms, becoming aware of a stench that turned my stomach. That unmistakable metallic odor, only growing stronger as I tiptoed up the steps, body tightening with each slight creak and groan of the wood. First, it was hope that kept me going up, then I wasn’t able to tear my eyes away as I reached the top of the stairs.

A trail of blood ran the length of the hallway, from one bedroom to another. Furniture against the walls had been shattered to splinters, paintings knocked to the floor, red handprints throughout like some child deciding this corridor was the perfect place to practice fingerpainting. The bedroom to the right looked empty, but the master to the left…

God, the master to the left.

Bodies on the bed. Clothes ripped off their frames. Everything ripped off their frames. I could only barely recognize the woman I had lain beside every night. A memory resurfaced of an uncle who had come by to hunt on the property. He had dressed his deer while still there and said I should watch. I had been interested in hunting then.

That had changed after watching him do his work, and even from this distance, I had to struggle to keep the contents of my stomach down. I froze like a frog before a snake.

Then I managed to tear my eyes away from the bodies and saw what loomed nearby, looking into a mirror. I couldn’t make anything out about it. If it was even human. This thing stood on two feet and seemed to be wearing leather shoes with ragged clothing, but it was covered in blood. Pale strips like locks of hair trailed down its shoulders to its waist as it hunched over, looking in the mirror, like it was modeling for itself. Adjusting its posture, putting one of its filthy hands on the mirror to steady itself as it flicked back some of the strips hanging down its scalp back over its shoulder. It didn’t make a sound besides the lightest impression of its steps as it moved. It turned to the bed, grabbed something, and wrapped it around its neck like a scarf, something the same color as those strips.

I gagged when I saw the face staring at me, torn off the skull it had been meant to be on, barely recognizable if not for the beauty mark just beneath the left eye socket.

The beast stopped moving; the air in the house was dead. My heart nearly stopped as its head angled to look behind itself in the mirror.

A pair of massive, bloodshot eyes locked with mine.

A deep, throaty growl crawled its way out of the thing’s mouth before it pushed off the mirror, shattering it as it turned around and charged, strips of human flesh that had been affixed to its scalp flowing as it rushed at me. I darted down the hall away from it, reaching the other bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. The thing collided into the door a few seconds later, letting out another hacking cough of a yell as it slammed a fist into the wood, the entire door trembling from the force.

I stepped away, turning toward the closet and sliding it open while trying not to slip on the puddle of blood spreading from under the window, a cell phone lying in the fluid. I’m not sure which poor soul it was, but she or Trey had tried to get outside and clearly hadn’t been thinking straight as they worked the lock on the window. Even if they had gotten it open, that was a steep drop down, and whatever this thing was, no way would it have any qualms about jumping right after them. Even now, it still tried the door, me struggling to keep myself together as I heard the wood start to crack.

I hurled myself into the closet and shut it behind me, moving behind the walls of boxes in my search for the door on the other side. It had power, but I knew the house. It hadn’t picked up on me being on the ground floor while it had been trying on my ex-wife like she was a scarf, had it? Or had it just been too absorbed in what it had been doing?

I got behind the boxes as the door shattered inward, the thing charging into the room and pushing itself off the walls as it shot about, pulling furniture down and flipping the bed as it searched for me. Even as it wrecked the room, destroying everything, its own step was so light, delicate. It let out another harsh roar before making its way to the closet. I crawled into the adjoining room and shut the door behind me as I heard it rip the other door out of its track and throw it aside, its frustration growing as it met nothing but a wall of boxes.

Precious seconds. The door to the hallway was open, and I darted out of it to make my way down to the master bedroom. If I tried the stairs, it would hear the creaks and be on me within seconds; this thing did not move with the limitations of a normal person. I don’t know what this person could be on, but I’d heard enough stories about the right cocktail of illegal substances turning people into superhuman zombies to know I’d stand no chance if it caught me, especially with my car a mile away.

And I certainly didn’t want to entertain the notion of it being one of the dark spirits my grandpa had talked about all those years ago.

I struggled to keep myself from vomiting as I entered the room, making my way to the windows. Unlike the bedroom on the far side of the hall, one of these was near a drain pipe I could use to help me scale down without risking a broken leg, and it was the one with a broken lock that wouldn’t make any noise when I opened it. I eased it up, glancing over my shoulder every second as I heard the boxes in that closet get thrown around and torn to pieces, its throaty yells growing louder and more bestial as it searched for me.

Then a glance to the side. Tucked away by the bloodstained nightstand, stashed like the bat I had always recommended we keep at our sides in case of a home invasion. The head was styled like a bear, connecting to the wooden shaft. I remembered how it would rattle, an old, flimsy thing that Grandpa had cherished like a true third leg. His own little protective charm against everything life threw at him.

Through everything, at least I had found his cane. At least she had not thrown it out. Forgotten about in a corner, but Grandpa was there when I needed him. I snapped it up, feeling that worn metal bear in my hands. I squeezed it, listening to the thing as it burst from the closet into the adjoining room and started ripping its contents to shreds as well.

Then all noise ceased as the front door creaked open, the squeaky hinge going off with more effect than any burglar alarm system could ever have hoped to. Opened by someone who hadn’t had to practice sneaking into the house late at night on more than one occasion.

“This is the police,” said a voice. Suddenly, my biggest fear of the night felt more like my greatest salvation. I could take going to jail if it meant getting out of this nightmare. “Is anyone here? We received an emergency call, but it ended before enough details could be given.”

A hacking cry erupted from the center bedroom as the thing bounded out, pushing off a wall and landing into the hallway on all fours. It was closer now, and with its focus on the unfortunate cop downstairs, I could see more of it. I had been right about the strips attached to its bald scalp, but now I could see the faces and features on its ripped-up clothing, crudely stitched together. Yet the patchwork skin all matched each other, blending together as if the ragged trousers and top had all impossibly come from the same person.

And through it all, my ex-wife’s empty face gazed at me from its spot on the thing’s back, the rest of her encircling its neck. Even as I attempted to keep my stomach down, tears formed in my eyes.

“What the actual f–” The cop’s composure broke as he saw the nightmare that had murdered the two residents of the house, which launched itself down the staircase at him. I returned my focus to the open window as I heard gunshots crack through the dead night, then the officer’s cries mixing with the harsh calls of his assailant. A loud thump as he hit the ground, then his yelling cut off sharply. More shots as his presumed partner opened fire at the monstrosity now looming in the foyer. I tried the drain pipe.

It collapsed in my hands, a section pulling away from the house and clattering to the ground below, the noise obscured by the constant gunfire as the other cop unloaded everything he or she had at the nightmare. The ground looked so far away, sloping down from the house and leading into the woods.

The other officer was apparently lasting longer than the first, still yelling and trying to fend off the thing. I launched out of the room, hurrying down the stairs while the horror was still distracted. The dead cop lay right in the foyer, his throat torn open, his hands left up around it in a futile attempt to control the bleeding. I didn’t need to go over him, though. I could go out the broken kitchen door, sneak into the woods, and lose this thing there. Grandpa had shown me the trails around here. I knew them as well as the roads I used to drive on. This thing wasn’t some bloodhound that could track me down.

But it was still faster than me. By the time I had reached the bottom step, it was looming tall over the second dead police officer, its wide eyes glowing out in the middle of the dark night just past the house. Time froze for a moment, both of us statues locking eyes for the second time.

Then it let out a roar and charged at me, its long arms practically hurling itself back toward the house.

I darted back into the living room that connected to the foyer as it sailed into the home once more, stopping itself from colliding into a wall with one hand and bouncing off to face me. This was the nearest we had been yet, so close that the stench of the foul blood covering it wiped out any other scent I could possibly pick up. Faces looked at me from its torn rags, that all-too-familiar scarf still wrapped tight around it. Its jaw hung open, the entire face stained red. Was it also skinned? Or was it just so covered in blood, so ripped-up and ravaged by its own chaotic, frenzied behavior, I couldn’t tell? I could see at least one bullet wound in its shoulder, yet it barely seemed to notice that it had been shot. It stood several inches above me, its frame the sort of gaunt and thin like someone found in the back alleys of a rough city. Its large hands, with long fingers, ended in broken nails covered in filth and grime. A belt lined its waist, numerous stone knives and tools stashed under it, all of them stained red. It let out rapid pants like a dog as it stepped closer, curling up to strike.

As it launched itself at me, the hand holding my grandpa’s cane moved on its own and jabbed forward.

Wood shattered as the force knocked me back, my hand still gripping the head of the cane tight, feeling that bear in my hand as the thing let out another roar, trying to retreat. I yanked my hand back, and we stumbled away from each other.

The wooden shaft of the cane lay everywhere, much of it embedded into the shoulder of the horror from where I had stabbed it, surrounding a much deeper wound that complemented the gunshot. And now the bear was instead connected to a long, thin blade with little edge but a sharp point glistening with blood.

No wonder Grandpa had always felt safe with his cane nearby.

It let out another hacking cry as it attacked me again, but I forced it to back away with a swing of the sword cane. I had no idea what I was doing, but the wounds it had taken must have been catching up to it now, judging by how it favored the arm of the shoulder I had stabbed. It darted around me, and I struggled to keep up, turning about to face it again and again as it paced around me. Backing me into a corner. It charged at me, but this time I matched it, Grandpa’s cane ahead of me.

Its throaty coughs gave way to a piercing shriek as it impaled itself on the blade.

It collided into me, sending us both to the ground in a tangle of limbs, coating my black clothing in the blood that covered it. It clawed at me, broken nails tearing through my clothing as it tried to free one of its stone knives with its other hand, but I managed to push it off me and send it tumbling to the side. I got up, backing away as it continued to try to crawl on its side toward me, but with the sword cane firmly lodged in its chest, it was no use.

As its swiping claws slowed down, I moved over to it, forced it onto its back and pulled out Grandpa’s sword cane, feeling the bear in my hands as I brought it down into one of the thing’s eyes. Finally, it stilled. My ex-wife had moved from her spot stuck to its back, now lying on the bloody carpet looking up at me.

I grabbed a throw blanket from a nearby sofa and threw it over her.

I made my way out of the house in a daze, passing the empty police car with its lights still flashing, avoiding the abandoned vehicles for my ex-wife and Trey, and making my way into the forest. I found the first creek I could and stripped down, cleaning off every bit of blood on me in the frigid night air. It was a miserable walk to the car in such a state, but after everything else that had happened, I almost welcomed the possibility of dying of hypothermia.

Once back in the driver’s seat, I just sat there for a few minutes, letting myself break down and cry. I lost track of how long I did, but eventually I managed to compose myself enough to pull on some spare clothes I kept in the back for emergencies, my shaking hands starting the engine and carrying me home.

I burned the clothing I wore that night. My friend made good on his alibi when cops came by, questioning him about what happened. Given the monstrosity stretched out in the living room of the house, wearing the skins of multiple missing persons, they didn’t feel it particularly necessary to grill me about the events. I somehow kept it together throughout their questioning.

And now, whenever I go anywhere, I make sure I have that cane with me, a new shaft created to hide what it truly is. I’ve made a point not to dig deeper into who or what I had encountered, and I’ve never had to go through anything like that again.

If I do, though, I’ll feel that bear in my hand and know I’ll be safe, just like Grandpa was every day he spent out in those same woods.