Creepy backpacker

One time I went camping in the mountains with my father and brother. We found a good spot not too far from the road, set up camp, and started gathering firewood.<br><br>While I was walking around and chopping up dead trees, I saw a guy in the distance with a big backpack, walking in my direction. I didn't think much of it, since there are some other campsites around and he was probably just headed there. I got back to our campsite, and I gave my dad the machete, and he said "gimme that thing before you hurt yourself."<br><br>As he took the machete from me, I heard rustling from a nearby thicket of bushes. A few seconds later the backpacker from earlier emerged from the thicket, and I was immediately startled because I hadn't realized he was that close. He looked at us for a second and my dad, being the nice guy he is, waved and said hi.<br><br>The guy waved back and kept walking. As he was walking away, I said to my dad "he sure is walking in a weird direction if he's trying to get to those campsites..." And my dad said "yea, especially since he came from the direction of the road." So we kind of forgot about it, thinking he was probably just a weirdo.<br><br>A couple hours later, when it was starting to get dark, my dad and brother went to look for more firewood. I stayed at the campsite to tend the fire, and after a while I heard rustling again, this time from behind the same thicket that the guy had emerged from. I didn't think much of it, I figured it was just a raccoon or something, but then I heard a very loud rustling that made me jump.<br><br>When I looked over at the thicket again, the backpacker was standing right behind it, staring at me. When he saw me looking, he immediately ran off into the woods. I called for my dad and brother and told them what had happened, and my dad got really pissed.<br><br>He told me to stay by the fire with the machete, and him and my brother went off to find the guy. After a while they came back and said they couldn't find him, and we all decided to go to sleep.<br><br>As we were trying to sleep, we could hear rustling off in the distance. It sounded like someone was walking around our campsite in a wide circle at a slow pace. Every once in a while the rustling would stop, and we could hear heavy breathing. He was scary and creepy and I hope I never see him again.<br> <br> <br>Post edited to fix a little grammatical error and spelling. Also, to add that we were in the mountains of NC.<br><br>Also, I want to add that if you get notifications for this post, it's because I posted it on a different account first and it didn't get any attention, and I know now that it's because I didn't use any keywords. I reformatted the whole post to make it more readable too. So if this somehow shows up on your r/letsnotmeet notifications, it's because it was posted before and you subscribed.<br><br>Edit: Since a lot of people seemed interested, I'll add some more context that I forgot. I was around 13 at the time (I'm 22 now) My brother was 10, and my dad was 42. We went camping in late summer/early fall, so the nights were a little chilly and the days were pretty warm (North Carolina).