The killer armed with knives on the Appalachian Trail is the story of literal nightmares.

Over the weekend, a group of hikers on the Appalachian Trail experienced a real nightmare: a man, acting erratically, began to approach hikers' tents and threatened to lull them into sleep. Gasoline and burn them to death. The group of four hikers met 30-year-old James Jordan on Friday night, while he "was acting disrupted and unstable, and that he was playing the guitar and singing" before the situation become much darker.

After uttering threats to burn them alive, hikers tried to escape, but Jordan approached them with a 20-inch knife. Two of the hikers ran away from the campsite while Jordan pursued them, but they were able to escape and call 911 at 2:30 in the morning. Jordan, however, returned to the campsite and attacked the other two hikers after an argument. He stabbed the male hiker in the upper body while the hiker was running away. The injured man was able to send an SOS signal from his phone, but when help arrived, he was already dead, according to court documents.

Meanwhile, Jordan sued the escaped hiker and was able to recover her after her fatigue. The hiker told the police that she had "raised her arms as if to surrender" and that Jordan had stabbed her several times. The woman fell to the ground and played death. When Jordan left her for dead, she was able to get away and get back on the trail and find the two other surviving hikers who helped her walk for six miles until she got home. They are able to call 911 at 3:12 in the morning. When the authorities returned several hours later, Jordan was found sitting with blood on his clothes and was arrested without incident.