We saw my cousin in the woods chasing us even though he was home asleep.
Their grandma lived deep in the backwoods near a big, popular national park, up a gravel road so washed out you needed a decent vehicle to make it. The cousins lived with their moms in a trailer just below her place. Locals there know about the strange sounds, strange animals and strange disappearances around the park. The youngest cousin, the one who shared this, has had a few odd moments out there. This is the one that still gets to them.
Grandma was in the hospital with an aunt, so the oldest cousin was left in charge of the kids. He was the one they all looked up to, the kind of older cousin who'd mess with you but actually cared. They'd spent the day playing and planned to keep going after dark with hide and seek, tag and manhunt. As the youngest, guess who was always being hunted.
As it got dark they grabbed flashlights for manhunt. The youngest ran deep into the woods on the far side of the property and hid behind a log, got spotted, and everyone took off running, all the way to the very back of the property line, almost a mile from the house.
There, they ran into the older cousin. He looked at them and sort of growled. Thinking he'd joined the game, they all ran from him, back onto the gravel road. Behind them, he walked out of the tree line in a strange, almost gloating way. The kids raced into the house and started barricading the door to prank him.
They'd piled a few things against it and were noisily dragging the big coffee table over when the older cousin came into the living room from the master bedroom, rubbing his eyes. All the noise had woken him up, and he was mad. They told him about him chasing them in the woods. His eyes went wide. He sent them all to the bedroom and told them to stay there.
About twenty minutes later he came in and told them not to worry, it had just been him trying to scare them. They let it go and got on with the night.
About three years later, when the youngest was thirteen, he told them the truth. It hadn't been him. It was a skinwalker, he said, and he'd had his own run-in with it when he was their age.