Monster of the Month

December 2025

🌑 Shapeshifters: Horror in the Woods & the Research Behind the Myth

“The Thing That Wears My Brother’s Skin”

A first-person horror story about a creature that takes familiar faces.

I used to think monsters announced themselves—teeth, claws, a snarl in the dark. Movies had trained me to expect a certain visual language of danger. Real monsters, I learned too late, prefer the familiar. They wear the faces that make you lower your guard.

By Mearl Tucker

I used to think monsters announced themselves—teeth, claws, a snarl in the dark. Movies had trained me to expect a certain visual language of danger. Real monsters, I learned too late, prefer the familiar. They wear the faces that make you lower your guard.

I live in a small Alabama town just off County Road 12, where the river braids through the woods like a silver vein. My brother, Caleb, and I grew up exploring those woods. We built forts, got lost, got found, bloodied our knees, and pretended we were invincible. It’s funny—looking back now, I’m not even sure the last time I was with him. Truly him.

It started two weeks before he disappeared.

He came home from a fishing trip at Miller’s Bend later than expected, soaked to the bone, claiming he fell in. Caleb was clumsy, so none of us questioned it. But when he peeled off his wet shirt, his skin looked wrong—not discolored exactly, just… smooth. Too smooth, like it had healed over every scar he’d ever earned. Even the big one from when he broke his arm falling out of the old hickory tree. I stared at his forearm, confused.

“Did you—did you do something to your scar?”

He blinked at me slowly, a strange, deliberate motion. “Guess it just healed,” he said. Then he smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

I told myself I was being dramatic.

Over the next few days, his behavior grew stranger. He mimicked our father’s speech patterns perfectly, parroting phrases with an uncanny rhythm. At dinner one night, he copied my laugh—exactly. Not like an impression. Like a recording.

“Cut it out,” I told him, forcing a smile.

He stared at me with that unnervingly blank expression. “Just trying it on,” he said.

Trying what on?

The night before he vanished, I woke up to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door. Slow. Heavy. Too heavy to be his. I sat up in bed, heart pounding, and watched my doorknob twitch.

Just once.

Then footsteps retreated.

I didn’t sleep again.

In the morning, Caleb was gone. His bed empty. His shoes missing. His phone left charging on the nightstand as if he’d simply dissolved into air.

The official search lasted three days before the sheriff suggested he “wandered off.” The unofficial search—the one fueled by panic, grief, and desperation—never stopped.

But what terrified me most wasn’t the fact that Caleb disappeared.

It was that he came back.

Not immediately. Not loudly. He didn’t burst through the door, sobbing about being lost. He didn’t call for help. Instead, I saw him three nights later, standing at the edge of the woods behind our house, illuminated by the backyard floodlight.

He wasn’t facing me. He was facing the house, perfectly still, as if studying it.

“Caleb?” I whispered through the crack in my bedroom window.

His head snapped toward me with a speed no human neck should allow. My breath hitched. His face was my brother’s face. Every freckle, every contour. But the eyes—those were wrong. Too large. Too reflective. Like the eyeshine of a deer caught in headlights.

He lifted one hand and crooked a finger, beckoning.

I stumbled backward, knocking a lamp off my nightstand. When I looked up again, he was gone.

The next morning, I didn’t tell my parents. They were falling apart as it was. Instead, I went into the woods alone, armed with a flashlight and my phone. I don’t know what I hoped to find—a trail, footprints, a discarded piece of clothing?

I found none of that.

But I found him.

At Miller’s Bend.

He stood ankle-deep in the river, facing upstream. His clothes were dry. His hair unmussed. As if the water ignored him.

“Caleb,” I whispered, stepping toward him.

He turned slowly this time, like he was practicing being human again.

“Not… Caleb,” he croaked.

My legs gave out and I stumbled backward onto the muddy bank. He stepped closer, the water rippling oddly around his ankles—the wrong direction. Like it flowed away from him.

“What are you?” I choked out.

He tilted his head too far. “Needed… shape.”

“What did you do to him?”

For a moment, his face flickered—not physically, but through expression. As if hundreds of faces strained beneath the surface, pushing forward and retreating.

“He… fit,” it said.

I bolted.

Branches lashed at my face, roots snagged my boots, but adrenaline turned me into something fast, primal. When I reached home, I locked every door, every window, every vent.

It wasn’t enough.

That night, something tapped on my window. Slowly. Rhythmically. Five taps. Pause. Three taps. Pause. Five taps. It sounded like knuckles made of stone.

I hid under my bed with my hands over my ears. But the tapping grew louder, more insistent, until—

Silence.

Then I heard it.

My mother’s voice.

“Sweetheart,” she called softly. “Come out. Your brother’s home.”

But she wasn’t awake—her room was on the other side of the house. She couldn’t be outside my window.

“Let me in,” the voice said. “It’s me.”

The glass creaked. Not from opening. From pressure. From something pressing its face against it.

“Let me wear your shape,” it whispered. “You fit too.”

Something primal inside me snapped. I screamed, loud enough to wake the whole house. Lights flicked on. My father burst into my room. When he threw open the curtains, nothing was there—no footprints in the dew, no sign of anything approaching.

But I know what I heard.

I know what I saw.

My parents think I’m traumatized. The sheriff thinks I’m hallucinating from grief. Caleb is still listed as missing, though the woods whisper a different truth every time the wind moves through the trees.

Sometimes I see “him” again at the tree line, standing too still. Studying the house. Studying me.

I’ve started sleeping with the lights on.

But no matter how bright it is, I can still hear his voice in my head:

You fit too.
You fit too.
You fit too.

And I know the thing wearing my brother’s skin is still out there.

Waiting.

PART TWO — INVESTIGATIVE ARTICLE / RESEARCH DOSSIER

THE SHIFTING UNKNOWN: A DEEP DIVE INTO SHAPESHIFTER SIGHTINGS ACROSS THE AMERICAN SOUTH

By Marla Jennings, Staff Reporter, The Southern Sentinel

Published: November 2025

Introduction

Shapeshifters are often relegated to folklore—creatures of myth, rumor, and late-night campfire stories. Yet recent reports across the American South suggest a troubling pattern: multiple cases of individuals vanishing near rivers, forests, and rural roads, only to be “seen” again days or weeks later exhibiting unnatural behavior.

These sightings are not isolated. Over the past decade, at least 43 cases in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and northern Florida involve witnesses describing loved ones returning “different”—with altered speech patterns, mismatched memories, or uncanny mimicry.

Authorities dismiss such cases as stress responses or misidentification.

Locals are less convinced.

Part 1: Historical Accounts of Shapeshifters in the Region

Native oral histories contain some of the earliest mentions of morphing entities. The Choctaw Nation spoke of the Nalusa Falaya, a shadow-skinned being capable of imitating human voices to lure people into the swamps. The Muscogee (Creek) told stories of the Este-catee, or “man-hunters,” who wore the appearances of friends to lead victims astray.

Early settlers recorded similar accounts. A 1798 diary entry from a homesteader in Clarke County, Alabama, describes:

“A creature wearing the face of my cousin knocked upon the door. Yet my cousin had been dead a fortnight. Its eyes were wrong—black as tar and reflecting the moonlight like glass.”

During the Civil War, Confederate troops reported strange impersonators who wandered through camps, silent and grim. More than a dozen official records describe soldiers encountering “mirrored men” who never blinked.

In most cases, those who followed such figures into the woods were never seen again.

Part 2: Modern Witness Testimonies

The Sentinel has conducted over 60 interviews with individuals who claim to have seen shapeshifters—or what they believe to be them—within the last five years.

Case 1: Miller’s Bend Disappearance (2024)

The disappearance of 19-year-old Caleb H., near Miller’s Bend in Alabama, remains unsolved. His sister reported seeing him near the woods days after he was officially classified as missing. Deputies attributed the sightings to grief-induced hallucinations.

But a neighbor’s trail cam captured what appears to be Caleb standing motionless in the treeline at 2:14 a.m. His facial features are blurred—not from motion blur, but as if smudged. Wildlife experts consulted by The Sentinel could not explain the anomaly.

The Sheriff’s Department declined to comment.

Case 2: The Tallassee Mimic (2021)

Multiple residents claimed that a local man returned from a boating trip “not himself”—speaking with odd cadence, forgetting important personal history, and mimicking gestures seconds after others performed them.

His wife reported that the man avoided mirrors, refused to bathe, and once stood outside her bedroom door for hours without moving.

He vanished again three weeks later.

Case 3: The Seven Bridges Impersonator (2023)

A teenage girl hitchhiked home after her car broke down on Seven Bridges Road. A pickup truck stopped, driven by what she recognized as her uncle. But halfway home, she noticed “he never blinked, not once.”

She jumped out of the moving vehicle.

Her uncle was confirmed to be out of state on a business trip at the time.

Part 3: Scientific Explanations—Possible or Nonsense?

Skeptics argue that shapeshifters belong in the realm of fiction, not investigation. But several scientific fields offer theoretical frameworks that could explain at least some of the reported behaviors.

1. Biomimicry in Nature

Animals such as octopuses, cuttlefish, and certain insects demonstrate advanced camouflage abilities. The mimic octopus can impersonate up to 15 species with alarming accuracy. While no mammals demonstrate this ability, some scientists believe unknown species could potentially evolve complex mimicry.

2. Neurological Mirroring

Humans are wired to mimic one another subconsciously—a mechanism tied to empathy. Extreme cases of echopraxia or echolalia can cause individuals to copy speech or movement involuntarily. While this doesn’t explain physical transformation, it offers insight into the unsettling “copying” behaviors reported.

3. Environmental Toxins

Several rural regions contain old mining sites or industrial runoff that can cause neurological disturbances. Visual hallucinations, paranoia, and distorted perception may account for some sightings.

4. Cryptid Hypotheses

Cryptozoologists propose that shapeshifters may be a yet-undiscovered species capable of shedding or altering skin layers, similar to amphibians or reptiles. Some reference ancient cave paintings in Alabama’s Cathedral Caverns depicting humanoid figures with multiple overlapping faces.

Part 4: The Missing Persons Connection

According to FOIA-obtained records, more than 2,800 adults and children have gone missing in Alabama alone over the last decade. While most cases have rational explanations, at least 76 remain unsolved with unexplained last sightings near rural waterways, wooded areas, or abandoned structures.

Interviews with families reveal eerily consistent patterns:

• The missing person often returned briefly before vanishing again.

• They behaved strangely—emotionless, stiff, quiet, or overly observant.

• They mimicked speech or expressions with uncanny precision.

• Their skin appeared “too smooth” or “stretched wrong.”

• They attempted entry into homes late at night.

One mother reported:

“He came to the door asking to be let in, but he called me by my full name, the one no one uses. And he smiled like he had just learned how.”

Authorities dismiss these claims as trauma responses.

But trauma does not explain trail cam footage, footprints that abruptly stop, or the rising tide of identical sightings across four states.

Part 5: Expert Opinions

Anthropologist Dr. Leigh Roman

“The idea of shapeshifters is universal—cultures across the world describe beings that steal, copy, or wear human identity. When a myth appears globally, it often points to a shared human experience or a misinterpreted phenomenon.”

Wildlife Biologist Terrence Vale

“We can’t rule out an undiscovered species. The Southern wilderness contains enormous areas where humans rarely tread. We don’t know everything that lives in those woods.”

Psychologist Dr. Lila Grimes

“It is entirely possible for group fear to reinforce itself, leading to pattern recognition where none exists. However… the consistency of these reports is statistically unusual.”

Part 6: Theories, Folklore, and the “Skin Borrowers”

Southern folklore contains a lesser-known entity referred to as Skin Borrowers:

Creatures that require a “shape” to survive.
Creatures that lure people to rivers or swamps.
Creatures that mimic voices with chilling accuracy.
Creatures that wear the dead.

Elders in certain communities warn against answering when you hear someone calling your name at night—especially near water.

“If it wants in,” one elderly source said, “it won’t knock like a person. It’ll knock like it’s practicing.”

Conclusion — The Unanswered Question

Are shapeshifters real? Science offers no firm proof—yet. Law enforcement dismisses the claims. Families fear ridicule. And witnesses often remain silent.

But the sightings continue.

Last week, a hunter near Miller’s Bend submitted a photo to The Sentinel. The image—grainy, poorly lit—shows a figure standing at the tree line.

It looks exactly like a young man who vanished in early 2024.

Exactly.

Except for the eyes—too reflective, too wide, staring directly at the camera.

Authorities claim it’s a hoax.

Maybe they’re right.

Or maybe something else is wearing familiar faces in the Alabama woods.

Watching.
Learning.
Waiting for the next shape that fits.