When I was fourteen, I made a friend who was
obsessed with ghosts or just about anything mildly
creepy. We live down the street from each other
and to the backs of our houses there is a rather
large wooded area that we often played in or rode
on ATVs. This also meant that we rode the bus
together and drove past those woods everyday, and
everyday I would stare out the window and down one
of the paths occasionally peeking a glance at what
I thought was another kid’s clubhouse they had
built in the woods.
When I told Dana, my friend,
about this we had to go check it out; of course
with the distinct intention of taking over the
place if it we found it to be useful.
Dana's stop
was first and I got off with him; then, throwing
our things onto his couch, we set off to the
woods.
There was a concrete drainage ditch we had
to cross to reach the other side and once we had,
I got the distinct feeling that we (or at least I)
were not welcome. I looked to Dana but he seemed
unmoved and eager to press on. So, sucking it up,
I followed him up the side of the hill over a path
the lay on the edge of the woods. He lead me to a
path that lead straight back to where we thought
the structure was and, after twenty minutes of
searching, we found an old burnt out shack laying
about thirty yards to the wire fence of someone
else's property. Dana glanced at me nervously but
stepped into the shack pulling me in behind him.
All across the floor debris and dirt covered what
little of the floor was left, but even more
disturbing than the shack itself were the
several dead birds (or bird pieces) that were strewn
about in a gruesome mess and I noted that the
majority of the birds appeared to have red
feathers.
Stepping back out I walked over to the
fence and was met with the roar of an angry ranch
owner telling me to get away from his property and
to stay out of the old shack. When I asked him
what it was, he told me that it was his
grandfathers smoke house. I turned to leave and
took one last look at the shack, it certainly
didn't look like a smoke house to me but I was not
about to press the man.
I called out to Dana,
wondering where he could have gone, but after
receiving no reply I grew frustrated and decided
to just meet him back at his house. Retracing the
winding path we took to get there I spotted what
appeared to be Dana's dark blond head moving
swiftly down one of the side paths. Deciding to
get even for leaving me I began to stalk my friend
deeper into the woods and soon began to wonder why
on earth he was heading deeper into the woods away
from his house and the shack.
Dana turned the
corner around the trees and I quickly ran to go
jump out at him to scare him. Grinning evilly I
jumped out into a large darkened clearing and to
my surprise found nothing, not a trace of my
friend. I called out to him laughing but when he
did not reply I got worried. I called again, and
received no reply. By this point I'm on the
verge of panic, concerned that my friend may have
hurt himself. I screamed his name at the top of my
lungs and to my shock and horror heard his faint
reply, all the way from the other side of the
woods towards the entrance we came through to the
shack. A chill went through me as I just realized
what had happened and without thought I began to
scream Dana's name at the top of my lungs, too
scared to move.
Within a few minutes he came
running around the corner, out of breath, and
looking panicked. After, we found our way to his
house I told him what happened; he in turn told me
that he could not find me after I left the shack
and that he had gone straight back to the entrance
to the woods to look for me.
Swallowing hard I
walked home the long way just to avoid being near
those woods. When I got home I went straight to my
room, careful to avoid all the windows that faced
the back.
I do not know what I saw that day but I have yet
to neither walk into those woods alone nor walk
away from whoever I am with nor have I actually
stayed for more that ten minutes without nearly
running away. Whatever or whoever they are for
some reason does not like me and I constantly feel
like I am being stared at even after four years.
Occasionally, I see a small stature figure run
past my fence at night but I usually just close
the curtains, not wanting to antagonize whatever
it is anymore than I already have. |