Lake Vermilion

Lake Vermilion is a true scary story about a group of friends who see something horrifying when they are camping in a cabin one night. It is based on a supposedly true story that actually happened to a user named MHop99.

The story you are about to read is TRUE and not made up in any way. One of my friends actually suffered a nervous breakdown after the incident and needed to go into counseling.

I had three really good friends and their names were Kevin, Ryan and Tommy. Every Summer, our parents would take us on vacation. We always stayed in a remote cabin in the forests of Minnesota. The cabin was located on a large island in the middle of Lake Vermilion.

Eventually, when we were old enough, our parents let us go to the cabin on our own for the first time. When we got there, we parked the car on a gravel road beside the lake. Then, we had to take a boat across the lake about a half mile to reach the cabin. There were a few other cabins on the island, but they were all at least half mile away.

The cabin was quite small and it only had a kitchen, a bathroom and 2 bedrooms. At night, it was pitch black. There were no street lights for miles and the only light came from the moon. There were no curtains on the windows, so when you were sleeping there at night, you could see the moon shining down on the trees and the lake outside.

On the third night of our trip, we set up a campfire by the edge of the lake. The moon was full and the pale white glow was shimmering across the lake. We were gazing up at the stars when all of a sudden we heard a splashing sound, as if something was moving about on the water.

Ryan suddenly stood up and pointed, saying “What the hell is that?”

We all looked in the direction he was pointing, peering into the darkness. After a while, I could make out what he was pointing at. I’ll never forget the feeling of terror that came over me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and goosebumps appeared on my arms. I was paralyzed with fear.

Out in the middle of the lake, there was a woman’s head. It was just floating there on the surface of the water, staring directly at us. She had pale white skin and long black hair that was matted across her face. The rest of her was submerged or not even there.

We tried to tell ourselves it was just a loon. They’re black and white birds that hunt at night, diving deep into the water. It didn’t look like a loon, but that’s what we tried to convince ourselves it was. We threw some more wood on the fire and tried to forget about it, but it still gave me the creeps.

About an hour later, I had to go to the toilet, so I walked down to the edge of the dock and peed into the lake. Looking out over the moonlit lake, I noticed the thing was still there, but now it was much closer. It still looked like a woman’s head and it still seemed to be staring right at me. Its face was still extremely pale, as if it hadn’t been out in the sun for years and I could easily make out some facial features… the eyes and the nose.

A feeling of incredible unease came over me as I realized it couldn’t be a loon. There was no way a loon could tread water for that length of time. There were no ripples around it either. It wasn’t moving at all. It was just standing there, stiff as a board, submerged in the water.

I immediately zipped up my pants and ran back up the dock to where my friends were, sitting around the campfire. I told them what I had seen, but none of them dared to go down the dock to take a closer look. We tried to tell ourselves it was just a log or a tree branch, jutting out of the water. I could tell everyone else felt uneasy too. None of us really believed that.

We went back into the cabin and shut the door, locking it behind us. It was very late and we needed to sleep. None of us mentioned the thing in the lake. We were all trying to avoid talking about it.

There were no curtains on the windows and as I was getting ready for bed, I couldn’t help taking one last look. Peering out the window, I could see the lake clearly, illuminated by the full moon, but the thing wasn’t there anymore. It had completely vanished. I let out a sigh of relief, thinking the log must have floated away or else it just sank below the surface. Or perhaps it had been a loon after all and it had finally flown away.

It was very hot that night and we had to sleep with the windows open. My friend Tommy and I slept in one bedroom and my two other friends, Kevin and Ryan, slept in the other bedroom. We left our bedroom doors open.

I was finding it hard to sleep. It was the middle of Summer and there wasn’t even a slight breeze. The heat was stifling. As I lay there, I thought I could hear someone walking around outside the cabin. I kept my eyes tightly shut and tried to tell myself it was just my imagination. It sounded like someone with bare, wet feet, pacing back and forth. I was trembling with fear, but I felt so weak, I couldnt move.

The footsteps sounded like they were walking up the steps to the cabin door. I wanted to shout out to my friends, but I was frozen in terror. Then, the footsteps turned around and sounded like they were running down the steps and towards the lake.

After a while, the footsteps faded away and there was only silence. I reached over and shook my friend Tommy. He was already awake and he claimed he had heard the footsteps as well. Just then, I was startled to see Ryan come running into the room. When he stepped into the moonlight, I could see his face and the expression on it was very disturbing.

“We need to leave,” he croaked.

“Why?” I asked. “What did you hear?”

“Let’s just go!” he insisted. “Let’s get to the boat! It’s time to go!”

He wouldn’t answer. He just ran back into his room. We followed him and found Kevin sitting on his bed, already packing up his things. Ryan was running around, frantically grabbing his stuff and stuffing it into a bag.

“What’s wrong!?” I demanded. “Ryan, what the hell is wrong with you?! Tell us!”

He just stopped in his tracks and stared at me. There was a haunted look in his eyes. I will never forget what he said.

He told us he was turning over in his bed to get more comfortable when he suddenly saw at the top right corner of his window. Someone was peeking in. As soon as he set eyes on it, the face vanished. He said all he saw was long black hair, hanging down the window, ghostly-white skin and one large eye staring at him.

When he said that, it chilled us to the bone. We realized that if the face was in the top right corner of the window, that meant the thing had to be damn near 8 feet tall… or else floating in mid-air. I felt like I was going to be sick.

“Let’s just go!” Ryan said in a very serious tone. “Let’s just go NOW!”

We all agreed and packed our stuff as quickly as we could. We grabbed our bags and ran out of the cabin, oausing only to lock the door behind us. As we scrambled down the front steps, I glanced to the side and saw footprints… bare, wet fooprints… in the dirt all around the cabin.

We ran down to the boat and threw our stuff in. We untied the boat from the dock and sped off. I looked back over my shoulder and stared at the island, but I didn’t see anything moving. However, I had the strangest feeling that someone or something was watching us.

When we finally reached the other side of the lake, we tied up the boat, stuffed our backpacks in the car and drove off. We had been driving for about 10 minutes when, out of the blue, Ryan suddenly broke down sobbing.

He kept saying over and over, “What was it guys? Oh God! What did I see?”

On the way, we called our parents to tell them what had happened. Ryan was freaking out and we didn’t know what to do. They told us to just get home safely and quickly. My friend’s dad went up to the cabin a few days later and said he saw nothing out of the ordinary. However, he did mention that there were bare, wet footprints all around the cabin which he thought was odd.

Whatever Ryan saw in the window really hit him hard. After his breakdown, he had trouble sleeping and ended up having to go into therapy. They gave him some pills to calm him down and allow him to get a decent night’s sleep. As time went on, he recovered and ended up being fine, but to this day, he still can’t sleep unless the curtains on his window are completely shut.

To this day, I still cannot explain what we saw in the lake that night. I never went back to the cabin. Tommy and Kevin have both gone back and everything was fine, but Ryan refuses to go back and, frankly, I’m with him.