It was our town festival, aptly named Grantsville days. The
small town in Maryland has a festival once a year and it
lasts for three days. I was walking around the park grounds
with my friends, we were no more than eleven at the time,
and everything seemed perfect.
It was a beautiful sunny day in June, and the atmosphere of the festival was jubilant.
You could almost say that it was too perfect. As my friends and I walked, we realized that we had
to alleviate some pressure that had been growing in our
bladders, due to drinking lemonade and soda all day. As it
is a festival and usually has a large turnout, naturally
the latrines were all occupied. So we all proceeded to a
nearby alleyway, seeking our relief.
As each one of my friends finished they exited the way they came in. I
however was left, apparently alone in the alley. Keep in
mind it is daylight, and even though I was in an alley it
was still well lit. It was then that I saw it standing
alone and very still at the far end of this dead end
alley. A shadow roughly the size of a full-grown man stood
there, a fortress unto himself, and silent as the night. It
was then that I noticed the alley had grown slightly dim,
but the surrounding world was full of life and light.
Something just seemed wrong about the whole thing,
so I cried out to him, “This is a happy place! You don’t
belong here! Get out!” No signs of movement, or that he
even heard me for that matter, just stillness. So I again
cried to the shadow, “leave this place, you are not welcome
here!” Being my dream, I expected compliance, but nothing
of the sort came, just his motionless form. Finally, now
very irritated and completely aware of the dream state I
was in a commanded the creature to leave, but nothing. At
last a low, rumbling, and almost synthetic voice sounded
from the being. “THIS IS MY WORLD, YOU GET OUT!”
With that I snapped back to reality and my living
room floor. I was still twelve, in fact I had just turned
the day before, and it was still the post birthday party
sleepover. Wow, I thought to myself, what a nightmare. It
would soon come to my attention though that my nightmare
was a reality.
There are six of us, you see. We’ve been friends
literally since our births. Our mothers were friends
growing up and stayed friends after our arrivals. As I’m
sure you understand I can’t use their real names, but I
will tell of their stories.
Firstborn was Landon, born May 21, 1982. Next was Brian born two days later in the same
year and hospital. Third was David he was born June 29. Chris followed him only by a few days being born July
sixth. Next was Tate, born August 29 of the same year, and
finally I was born only 2 weeks after Tate on September 14.
As we grew into men, we attended all the same
schools, classes and played the same sports. We shared all
the same experiences, even the most eerie. Our group of six
was inseparable. We were once described as the most
charismatic and unique group of individuals that the
describer had ever met.
I sincerely hope you get the point about my friends
and I because it is the very center of this story.
So let me pick up where I left off.
I was just
coming out of the bathroom from wiping my face with a cold
washcloth when I saw it for the first time. Quite possibly
one of the most terrifying things a twelve-year-old boy
could see; His nightmares become reality. I could not
believe what I was seeing even now it’s difficult, but
experience has taught me the truth. My five best friends
all on cots on my living room floor, and standing above
each of them was a shadow. I call it a shadow, because I
have no other way to describe them. They weren’t like a
traditional ghost, being a white translucent mist. They
were something different entirely. Totally black, like the
embodiment of night, exuding a malevolent presence, and
there they were five of them hovering above each one of my
friends.
I stood there, just awestruck and horrified,
completely speechless. It was then that each one of my
friends snapped to an alert state, the kind that one
attains only after a terrifying experience. I have since
realized the order in which they awakened was chronological
according to birthday, with the exception of my own. As
they roused one by one the shadows disappeared. Everyone
saw them with the exception of Tate, but he still knew what
had happened. We sat there, for a moment thinking about
what had happened, still much too afraid to talk about it.
Eventually Brian broke the silence with, “what the hell was
that?” No one knew, but we each shared a story of the dream
we just had; All different with the exception of the end.
Ever single dream ended the same. It was me who posed the
question if everyone had seen them upon waking or not.
Now all this seems like a churched up version of a
twelve year old conversation, but believe me, we were not
regular pre-teens. We were and have always been above
normal intelligence, and each personality complimented the
other. That’s one of the things that still defines us and
still makes us unique.
Well, they all confirmed they had except Tate, but
he still knew there had been something there. At first they
were going to let it go as coincidence and tricks of light
in a dark room, but the fact remained that I had seen all
of them and as each person woke they saw one less than
before.
After that we never spoke of it again until
recently.
Last Christmas we had all come together again
after a long separation, but this time we all brought our
girlfriends. After spending a few days together the girls
became friends and began to talk and go out on their own.
Unbeknownst to us they were talking about the one dark
thing they found we had in common, the SHADOW. Apparently
they had all seen each of our dream-stalkers and began to
share stories. Finally the girls approached us about it,
now realizing that they weren’t hallucinating when they saw
them, they had newfound courage about the subject. They
asked us about it on Boxing Day. (The day after Christmas)
It had been nearly a decade since the incident and none of
us had ever spoken of it to anyone since that night. That
is until now.
We explained to them what we knew and when we
discovered it. All of us got a really eerie feeling that
night, and it stuck. So, on new years, when all of our
families got together, we decided to question them about
it. We, meaning our girlfriends and us separated our
mothers from the crowd and began asking questions and
telling stories.
David’s girlfriend started her story first, and
that’s when it happened; Six mutual looks of concern on six
mother’s faces, we all noticed it. Many others followed
from the girls and finally came ours. After that there was
silence about the room for a time, and finally Sharon,
David’s mother broke the monotonous stillness of the moment
and said, “I suppose it’s time to tell them.”
She started off by saying it had happened our whole
lives, but they hoped we’d never see them. Apparently it
started shortly after my birth when the group was complete,
on the same night. Sharon called my mother in the middle of
the night to tell of what she’d seen, a dark figure
hovering above her baby’s crib. My mother already being
awake at the time said the same thing had just happened to
her. A few more calls ensued and before any of them
realized it, they had a phenomenon. As the years passed
they continued to see the figures haunting their boy’s in
the night. Each time always on the same night and each time
the women prayed the boys would never notice or the things
would just go away.
They never did! They still follow us to this day and no one
can figure out what they are, but their appearance always
follows a major change in our collective life. Who knows
what they are or why they stalk, but one thing is for sure,
I know I’m not alone, ever!
WHERE LIGHT FEARS TO TREAD
When she finally retrieved the flashlight after fumbling
around in the dark for a while; she got quite a scare.
Because where her beloved boyfriend once sat; now only
darkness seemed to fill his space. All around she could
hear whispers and the occasional gust of wind, “but that’s
impossible isn’t it?” she thought. They were in a house
and, as far as she knew, were the only ones there. Where
did he go? He must be playing some kind of a trick. No
more than a minute ago she had seen him sitting right there
on the couch, not even fifteen feet away. Now he was gone!
No, that just wasn’t possible, was it? She would have heard
him move in such close proximity. Especially with those new
hard wood floors, she definitely would have heard him move.
Something wasn’t right about this. She had been in power
outages before, but none were like this. As she took an
emotional step back, to look at the whole situation, she
knew for certain things definitely were not right here. For
one thing, theirs was the only house that lost power,
because the lights from the other houses could still be
seen through other windows. Why would their house be the
only one to lose power? The only way that could have
happened is if someone was messing around with the terminal
down the street. All houses on this street were connected
to that one terminal, and the cables from there went
underground, so there was no real reason for it, that she
knew of. The whispers and breeze could easily be explained
away due to a state of heightened emotion. She might have
actually been able to believe that she was stirring herself
into a frenzy if it were not for that one piece of
irrefutable evidence.
She was standing no more than four
and a half meters away from her boyfriend, pointing a
flashlight at him, and he simply wasn’t there. It’s not
like there was nothing there, because there was most
certainly something there, or she’d have been able to see
the other side of the couch and the wall. The best way she
could describe what she was seeing is, Darkness. More
specifically it was the embodiment of that nearly
intangible thing. That’s about the best way it can be
described. It was just a place where the light could not
penetrate and did not reflect.
As she thought about it, she
had seen this before, but not like this. Before it just
hovered and watched, but now it seemed to be interacting.
Erin considered herself to be quite spiritually sensitive,
and in all actuality, she was, but she had never felt or
experienced anything like this. Before when she
experienced “the Darkness” it gave of a very threatening
air, much like that of a dog protecting its master would.
Now it gave her nothing, it seemed so preoccupied that it
didn’t even seem to notice she was there. The only thing
that kept her from running was Allen’s dog, the titanic
looking rottweiler, she too was just staring in amazement
of what was happening. Just then the lights came back on
and there he was in the exact same spot as before, reading
his book and looking as if nothing spectacular had just
happened.
That’s the way my girlfriend saw this last experience with
the shadow. To me it was more like a dream. In fact, I
thought I had fallen asleep. It was a typical winter night
in Hawaii, (calm, warm, slightly overcast you know the
type) and I was catching up on some of my reading when it
happened. It’s hard to explain the feeling of being asleep
and knowing you’re asleep. Only those who have actually
experienced it could possibly know. It’s like hanging in
between two worlds, totally conscious that both exist and
not knowing which one to live in.
Anyway, like I was
saying, I had just fallen asleep after reading some
material about sword forging, not the most interesting
material in the world as you can imagine, and I was
debating whether or not I was going to stay asleep. That’s
when it happened, everything went dark and all that existed
in my mind were two voices, my own, and that one voice I’ve
always known and would recognize anywhere, the voice
of “the Darkness.” It’s hard to explain what was really
said, but there were a lot of images mixed with words.
Like, “The bridge the warrior of God must walk shall be
reinforced by the blood of the dead.” This was coupled by
an image of myself holding up a decrepit looking wooden
bridge along with many men from ages past. Another
being “The brothers of the soul shall awaken the fight.”
That one came with images of my own memories. Again I saw a
picture of the canyon where the bridge was, except this
time it was filled with more bodies, and the voice said, “
The beast has killed millions and before the end millions
more will die.” I feel like I shouldn’t even be telling
this to people, because it’s particularly hard for me to
believe. If my girlfriend hadn’t seen what she had, this
documentation probably wouldn’t even exist. Anyway back to
the “dream,” there were a lot more cryptic messages like
that, and at the end of the “dream” the voice said, “It is
almost upon us, be safe until then.” That’s when I woke up
and saw my girlfriend and my dog staring at me like I had
just grown another leg.
From that point I decided to call my friends, who, by the
way, are not easy to get in touch with, even for me. They
all described similar experiences. Almost from the moment I
called they started talking about it and asking questions.
We decided to get together after that and have a nice,
relaxing weekend. We did get together, but we didn’t talk
about it at all. Up until this point everything has been
normal.
If anyone has anything to say
or any possible explanations feel free to contact me.
Contact me here: dhetrick3@aol.com
Submitted From: Dale, MD, USA
