Category: Thirteenth Triad

Dream House

On February 24, 2024

Word Count: 6,500

I was so excited. My husband and I closed on an amazing house resting on twelve square miles of mostly forested land. We got a great deal on the real estate because the house was unoccupied for some time and needed a lot of cosmetic work. The foundation and frame of the home were strong and sturdy, but the outside of the house needed to be painted and re-sided in some places.

It was going to take us a lot of work, but it was going to be well worth it when we were finished. We would have a nice two-story home with a partial attic as well as a large swath of land. It still astounded me that we purchased such a great piece of realestate, and for ten thousand less than what I recently inherited after my father’s passing. Here we were only now moving in and we almost owned it free and clear.

The drive was a long one. We followed a highway to a smaller, local road, which we then took until we reached the long dirt road that was our driveway. The trees and the underbrush lining the semi-gravel road created a tunnel of vegetation which both amazed and scared me. It looked like something one might see in a horror movie.

The long corridor finally came to an end, and we could see our house up ahead near the top of a gentle hill. My excitement amplified when I saw the house that was going to be ours for the rest of our lives. I looked over to my husband and I could see the joy on his face as he stared at the gray building ahead.

Although we could have paid for everything outright, we decided to finance a small portion of the home purchase so we could keep enough money to buy all the things we were going to need to make this place look like a palace. This being our first trip out here since closing on the property, we had our truck mostly loaded with food, sleeping bags and other items one might take camping with them. We also had some of our tools as well as several firearms. Being out here in the forest along for the first time, we wanted to make sure we had protection from wild animals if we needed it.

When we pulled up to the house, my husband and I unloaded everything in the truck. We brought all of the cleaning supplies to the room on the second floor that would become a guest bedroom. Making that room livable would be the first priority in turning this shell into a home. Once we had a room in which to live, we could continue our repairs on the master bedroom and the rest of the structure.

One thing I thought very unusual about this house was that there were deadbolts with key holes on either side in every single door in the house. Even the doors to the closets had padlocks on them. I assumed the reason must be to keep out squatters and vandals that may cause damage to the building. Still, I could understand having locks on the exterior doors, and even the bedrooms, but it made no sense to me to have them in the closet doors as well.

Before helping me with the cleaning, my husband went outside to get the generator set up and running. Until we could get the power company to run us some lines out here, we would be dependent on the two generators we had. One would last for sustained use, but the other was only meant to be used in small doses. Eventually, our plan was to have solar panels on the roof to help supplement our electricity usage.

We spent the entire first day cleaning that one single guest bedroom. It would still need repainting, new carpeting, and furniture. Our bedroom furniture we would bring once the room was suitable for it. There was no point in bringing everything now as it would only become covered in dust as we cleaned. Our hope was to get the bedroom ready enough that we could at least bring up our bed. Although we had sleeping bags, I had no desire to sleep on the floor any longer than necessary.

There was so much dust accumulated in just the one room, we had to replace the filter to the shop vac half-way through vacuuming as it became clogged. We were able to get the room clean enough so that, along with an air purifier we brought with us, the room was safely habitable for the night.

We ate a dinner of sandwiches and chips from our cooler as we had no means of cooking until we were sure the gas lines and everything on the stove were in proper condition. We were a young couple, and this almost felt like we were out roughing it somewhere in the wilderness. It was rather romantic eating under the light of a kerosene lamp.

Once we finished eating, I did what little cleaning up there was to be done as my husband went downstairs to lock all the exterior doors. By the time he returned I had our sleeping bags laid out and our pillows on the floor. He did not bother locking any of the doors in the interior of the house as we really did not think it was necessary.

I was having a difficult time getting to sleep. It was probably because we were in a new and very rustic environment, but I could not shake the feeling we were being watched. I took my key – all the locks in all the doors of the house used a single key – and locked the bedroom door. I was not sure if my husband was still awake or not, but he did not move if he was still conscious.

The moon was only a few days away from being full, and there was not a cloud in the sky. The bright moonlight shone into our bedroom through the curtainless windows. Since I was already up, I decided to go look out the window and look at the natural scenery in the bright light of the moon. Standing not fifty feet from our house was a large deer or possibly an elk. My husband and I were both hunters, and never in my life had I seen a specimen as large as this one.

This massive deer appeared to be looking back up at me as I stood at the bolted window. It was just an animal, but I was positive it was aware of my presence. I was not sure if I wanted to know what it was thinking or not. As large as this thing was, I figured the animal must be an elk. They were not very common in this area, but they were known to be spotted here and there.

The thing really gave me the creeps. I could not help but feel like I was looking at something intelligent, something sinister. I thought about waking my husband so he could see it too, but I decided against it. In all reality, I was fairly certain it was simply being in this old worn-out house for the first night that had me a bit skittish. There was no point in keeping my husband from getting a full night’s sleep simply because I was spooked by some animal in our yard.

Climbing back into my sleeping bag, I tried to get the large animal out of my mind. It took me close to an hour, but I finally managed to get back to sleep. When my husband woke me it was eight o’clock in the morning. Apparently, he was up since before dawn. I wondered how long after I fell back to sleep it was when he awoke.

As we were having some fruit and milk for breakfast, my husband began telling me about seeing something out the window this morning when he got up. He told me it looked like a large man wearing a helmet crafted from the skull of a large-antlered deer. When I told him I saw the same thing, but it was not a man. It was an elk. He told me that could not be it. Whoever this was stood on two legs and had some sort of sickle in its hand. I again told him what I saw, but he insisted what he saw was no animal.

Could it be possible we were talking about the same thing, or did we see two different entities, two different beings out on our lawn watching the house?

Eventually my husband began to doubt what he actually saw, as his version of what was outside was very peculiar. It made much more sense that it was an elk outside than it was a large man wearing a helmet made from an antlered skull. We stopped talking about the subject as we prepared to clean the entrance hall and living room. The movers would be here in two more days to bring us the rest of our belongings, and we had to have a clean place for them to put everything.

The living room, along with a couple of other rooms, still had some furniture from the previous occupants. They were covered in sheets of cloth which were themselves covered in a thick layer of dust. As we got parts of the room cleaned, we removed the sheets so we could see what was underneath. Both of us were shocked to find the beautiful antiques hidden under the blankets of cloth. I was somewhat surprised the previous occupants did not take this furniture with them, but I guessed they were not as antique then as they were now.

We worked through the day and did not finish until it was dark. Without electricity and working lights, it was simply too difficult to try to clean in the dark. Once again, we retreated to what would eventually be a guest bedroom for the night. Yet again we feasted on sandwiches and chips. I could not wait until we got our propane tank filled and the gas lines tested. There was no need for heat, but hot water and a freshly cooked meal would be so nice right now. Someone was supposed to come to work on the gas lines in three days and someone else two days after that to try to get the well running. Until then, we would continue to eat sandwiches, chips and fruit for every meal.

We both woke with a jump and quickly climbed out of our sleeping bags when we heard something loud coming from downstairs. It was a loud bang, and we were not sure if it came from the inside or from the outside. Picking up the revolvers we were keeping beside us as we slept, my husband and I slowly walked to the window to see if there was anything out there. Before we reached the glass pane, we again heard the loud bang come from downstairs. This time we were both sure the sound was being made by something outside the house and not from the inside.

When we finally got to the window, we watched a large bull elk backing away from our front porch. The animal was trying to bust down our front door. If the door was a modern one and not a thick, hand-made door, the creature probably would have broken it open by now. Scratching its feet on the ground, it looked as though it was about to ram the door for a third time.

It must have somehow sensed us observing it, because the burly creature stopped kicking at the dirt and turned its head up to look at us. The bull elk stared at us as we kept our gaze fixed on it. I almost got the feeling the massive animal was trying to communicate something to us, but what that message was I could not say.

Being caught up in the animal’s gaze, it was hard to say how long we stared at each other. The elk shook its head, waving its massive antlers through the air, let out a snort, turned and ran back into the forest. My husband and I continued to stand at the window staring into the dark forest. We were both in something of a daze, our minds struggling to comprehend what happened.

When we finally came to our senses, my husband pointed out something I did not notice. It was approaching the middle of the month of May, and the elk still had its antlers. It should have shed them in the early spring, but here it was early summer and the elk still had not lost its antlers.

For the next hour, we discussed what we thought might be happening. Trying to think of a logical reason a large animal like that would be attempting to break into our home was next to impossible. We could not come up with any good, rational reasons the animal acted the way it did. There was no way we could know if the creature was trying to harm us, warn us or simply scare us away.

Whatever the animal’s reasoning was, we were both terrified. The thing was so large, I did not think it could even fit its rack through the front door if it did bust the door down. I could not imagine what could be inside the house that would cause it to try to break in. Bull elk were known for being aggressive, but that was always in the wild when someone invaded its territory. I never heard of one attacking a house.

As frightened as we were, we were even more tired than that. Spending the entire day cleaning that one room and eating such meager meals had us exhausted. We set the cases containing our hunting rifles beside our sleeping bags and undid the latches so we could get to them quickly if we needed to. Our holstered pistols were already close to our pillows.

Pulling our sleeping bags closer together after my husband secured the padlock, we climbed back inside and allowed ourselves to drift back to sleep. I was glad to see that it was already daylight when I woke up in the morning. My husband was sitting on the trunk containing all the clothes I had with me, having carried it over to the window. He had his hunting rifle out and resting in his lap. When he heard me beginning to stir, he placed his gun in its case and came over to me.

We were both frightened and searching for a rational explanation for what happened last night. There was simply no reason of which we could think that would cause that bull elk to try to break into our front door. Even if it was not trying to get into our house, we still could not find a reason for it doing what it did. Its behavior was very out of character for an elk. Being seasoned hunters, it deeply disturbed us to see the animal behave in a way so far outside of its nature.

The best explanation we could conceive was that the animal was sick, perhaps even rabid, and this was causing its strange behavior. If that was in fact the case, we may be looking at an outbreak in the forest animals. For right now we were going to be careful to avoid straying too far from the house or truck, and making sure we had a pistol on our hip while we were awake.

The damage to the door was not as serious as we expected. We thought we would find gouge marks made by the elk’s massive antlers, but there were no scratch marks at all. I did not understand how that hulking animal could bang against the door yet leave no signs of damage. It was almost like something was pounding against the door with fists rather than antlers.

My husband was convinced the loud banging simply came from where the creature was landing on the front porch. That would make sense because the banging could be amplified by the hollow underneath the old wooden veranda. Although that was a believable explanation, I was still unconvinced. There was nothing outside our house that we could see, so we decided to continue working on getting the house ready to store our belongings.

It took some back-breaking work, but we finally got the living room clean enough to store our belongings while we worked on the rest of the house. We were both very tired and weary from all the cleaning, but we moved into the entrance hall and started working there. There were only a few hours of sunlight left, so we did not get to clean for long before it got too dark to see what we were doing.

Although we heard nothing strange during the night, neither of us slept very well. Every little creature outside making noise made us think that elk was back. It was difficult to drown out the nocturnal animals because we were so afraid of that large antlered creature returning. Both of us woke several times and checked the window to see if that giant stag was stalking us for a third night.

As much as we wanted to sleep in the next morning, we had to get the entrance hall finished before the truck showed up with our things. We were not sure what time it would arrive, but it was supposed to be here sometime today. The living room was cleaned, and the existing furniture moved out of the way, but we needed to get the entrance hall clean so things did not get covered in dust as they were carried in.

Working through until lunch without taking a break, we got the bulk of the cleaning done. The ice in our large coolers was all melted, and we finished off what luncheon meat we had remaining. I hoped the movers would show up in their truck soon because one of us was going to have to go into town to get some more food and ice. It was quite dreadful living out of ice chest like we were, but hopefully we would not have to endure it for too much longer. Our gas should be fixed in a few days, and we could run a small refrigerator from the primary generator.

When two o’clock in the afternoon arrived and the truck was still not here, we decided to go ahead and drive into town. I did not want to stay here by myself, and my husband did not want me driving all the way to town alone. We left a note on the door and the key under a rock for them if they arrived before we returned.

After driving all the way to the end of the road leading up to our house, we turned onto the paved road and began driving to the nearest grocery market. We were only on the asphalt road for ten minutes before we discovered why the moving truck had not yet arrived. The truck was jack knifed and in the ditch. I supposed we were fortunate the trailer was not overturned. We simply had to hope they had our things strapped down securely enough for the accident they experienced.

The three men driving the truck saw us coming and began waving their hands in the air. My husband pulled over and the two of us got out to make sure the men were okay. None of them were injured, so that was fortunate. One man told us they already called for someone to pick up the trailer and take it the rest of the way, but it was not going to be until tomorrow before they arrived.

Another one of the men, a tall slender fellow, said they had rooms reserved at the motel in town, but as of now they had no way of getting there. My husband told them we could give them a ride since we were already going to town, but they would have to ride in the back of the pickup. They had no problem with this as they were beginning to think they were going to spend the night sleeping in the slanted truck.

Before we got back in the cab, the first man asked if there was some kind of carnival going on around here. He then began to tell us how they ended up perpendicular to the trailer facing down into the ditch. He said he was driving the truck, and this man ran out into the road and stopped. The man who came running out of the woods was wearing a helmet with antlers that looked like it was made from the head of a large deer.

The driver did not have time to stop. He slammed his brakes as they were heading into a slight curve, and the truck jack knifed. The next thing they knew they were in the ditch and the large man was nowhere to be seen. That was three hours before we found them.

Neither my husband nor I said a word for the rest of the drive into town. I now began to think my husband was telling the truth when he said he saw a man standing out on our lawn that first night. I was sure he saw the large elk because that was what I saw, but these men confirmed that there was someone running around this forest wearing furs and a helmet made from the head of some antlered animal.

First we dropped off the three movers at the only motel in this sparsely populated community, then we went to the grocery store. It was not until we were loading the groceries into the truck that we began to talk. As we made the hour-long drive back to our house, we discussed the strange situation in which we found ourselves. I wondered if there might be a wild man living in the forest, and perhaps our arrival upset him for some reason. Maybe since the house and land was abandoned for so long, the wild man got used to having the run of the area undisturbed. My husband said that, if we had any more strange occurrences tonight, we would get the authorities to come out here to see if they could find anything.

When we got back to our house, we carried in the coolers and took them upstairs to our bedroom. My husband then went back downstairs and locked every single door from the exterior doors to our bedroom. I was beginning to wonder if we were going to find a reasonable explanation for things or if we were going to have to live with this fear and anxiety for the rest of our lives.

This time we hung a large sheet over the window . It would not provide much protection, but it would keep anything from watching inside. As we did before, we kept our pistols and hunting rifles next to our sleeping bags in case we needed to defend ourselves. I would not worry about an elk coming into the house and making it up the stairs. There is no possible way the animal I saw could fit with those massive antlers. If it was a person wearing a mask, that was something that could get into our house to cause us harm.

I woke once during the night, and I felt incredibly tempted to go peek behind the sheet hanging over the window to see if anything was outside. As difficult as it was to fight the urge to look, I remained zipped up in my sleeping bag unmoving. I drifted back to sleep sometime later, but how long I could not say with any sort of certainty. When I again awoke, it was light outside. By the deep orange tone of the sunlight, I would say it was only minutes past dawn. I laid there in my sleeping bag until my husband began to stir.

Afraid to go outside by myself, I had my husband walk me to the outhouse. It would be several months still before we had indoor plumbing. We had a water pump and sinks, but no toilets in the house. There was no man or giant stag waiting outside for us, but there were elk tracks that appeared to circle around the house multiple times. As I relieved myself in the old wooden outhouse, my husband looked for any tracks indicating where the elk approached or departed from the house. The only tracks he found ran in circles around our new home.

We were incredibly on edge as we waited for the movers to bring our things so we could start making this house our own. For the most part we continued cleaning the living room and entrance hall, keeping our long guns close at all times. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the horn of the replacement truck as it pulled up to our house. They would not be here long, but I felt a lot better having three more rather large men with us.

As they relocated the contents of the moving truck into our large living room, I worked on doing what cleaning I could. I did not really want to open another room and let the dust it contained into the hall until I could close the living room first. Until then, I located as many of the boxes for the bedroom as I could and began to unpack the things we needed to have out for our use.

Once the movers got the bed and the dressers up the stairs to the guest bedroom, I started getting the room situated and organized. Finding the curtain rods and curtains, I was more than eager to get them hung. I knew the thicker curtains would not provide any more protection from something coming in the window, but it gave me a small measure of comfort at least.

It took me an hour to get the curtain rods hung, and as I was sliding the curtains on, I gazed out the window to the far edge of the clearing. Standing there was a large man dressed in animal skins. On top of his head rested a helmet made from the skull and antlers of a deer. He was very far in the distance, all the way out to the tree line, but I was sure that was what I was seeing.

Yelling out to my husband, I ran down the stairs with my pistol in my hand. Dashing out the door, I quickly made my way to the end of the porch. From there I should be able to spot the man again. My husband and the three movers ran outside with me, but when we got out to the porch there was nothing to see. The man yet again vanished without a trace.

Everyone was on edge as we all returned to our work. The movers saw the helmeted man standing in the road; he was in fact the reason for their accident. When I described what I could see, I literally saw shivers course down the spine of the driver. It was clear that my description of the strange man fell in line with what the movers saw. My husband looked like he saw a ghost as well. What I described was what he saw standing on our front lawn that first night we slept in this worn-out house.

This creepy figure was enough to encourage the movers to pick up the pace and get everything unloaded quickly. I did not really want them to leave when they were finished, but it was not like we had anywhere here for them to sleep. It was late afternoon when the three men climbed back into their empty truck and headed back towards town. The men acted as though they were trying to beat dusk, but I knew they were really eager to get away from our house and that spooky man who was apparently stalking our forest.

I was so glad to have a refrigerator running in the house finally. I was tired of eating from waterlogged containers floating in a cooler of melting ice. Someone should be out here from the gas company in two days to check all the lines and connections, and we had someone else who was supposed to come get our well running again.

If we did not get running water soon, I was going to have my husband drive me into town. I would rent a room at the motel if that was what I had to do to get a hot shower. We were here for three days already, and I had not showered since we left our former apartment. How people survived before running water is something I will never understand. I almost felt like going to take a bath in the pond that rested about a hundred yards from the house. We cleaned off the same way we did the last few nights, by wiping down thoroughly with a wet towel. Hopefully that would be the last night we had to do the sponge bath.

I felt a lot more comfortable sleeping in our own bed with nice thick curtains covering the window. Until we got heat and water, we used some older sheets rather than our newer softer ones because we did not want to get them filthy. Even though the sheets we used were older and rougher, it still felt a world better than being zipped into a sleeping bag.

My husband and I both were having difficulty getting to sleep, as neither of us could shake the urge to look out the window to see if that elk or if that barbaric man was standing out there. My husband, who normally fell asleep within minutes of hitting the bed, even stayed awake for nearly an hour before I began to hear him snore lightly. I was awake for at least half an hour longer than him.

We were awoken again by the sound of a loud bang. Unlike the noise we heard the previous night, this sound came from the roof. My husband and I were on our feet and armed in only seconds. I was clutching my revolver, but my husband grabbed his shotgun. He waved his hand abruptly in the air indicating to me that he wanted me to get lower to the floor. Once I was squatting on my feet, he knelt down to one knee and kept his shotgun pointed at the roof.

Trembling, I leaned my back against the side of the bed to help steady myself. We both expected to hear another loud bang on the roof, but we heard something else instead. Whatever landed on our roof began to walk around. It sounded as if it had a stride similar to that of a person, but we did not hear feet. We heard hooves. Something with hooves got onto our roof, and it was not difficult to notice there were only two steps, not four. Whatever was up there walked upright.

How it was walking on our slanted roof with hooved feet was something I could not say, but it terrified me beyond belief. There was a thud as the thing took a pause in its steps. When it again started walking, we could hear something scraping against the roof. In my head I saw the sickle-like weapon my husband saw that man in the horned helmet carrying scraping against the worn-out shingles of the roof.

My husband gently took me by the arm and helped me to the wall furthest from the window. I wanted to cry, but I kept myself composed. I could not aim my weapon properly through tear-filled eyes. Looking over to my husband, I could see he had his eyes focused intently on the curtain covering the windows. If the thing could get onto the roof, it could certainly get to the ledge right outside this room.

The thing continued to walk around on the roof for fifteen minutes or so and then stopped. As soon as we began to think it might be safe, the hard clunky hoof-steps resumed. Whatever was up there on our roof, I had no doubt it was playing with us, taunting us. This thing seemed to take joy in terrorizing my husband and me.

I could not help but wonder if this was one being, one creature doing this, or if there were many of them. I did not think there was really much of a possibility that this was one shape shifting entity stalking us, but I would not think anything with hooves would be able to walk on a roof with a pitch as steep as ours.

We endured this terror for perhaps thirty minutes or more before the hoof sounds finally came to a stop. My husband and I stayed where we were for at least another ten minutes as we waited for the hoof-steps to resume, but the silence continued. My husband was about to get up and check outside the curtain when we heard a loud thud on the other side of the window. I aimed my pistol at the heavy curtain, and my husband stood there with his shotgun planted firmly in his shoulder.

A few more minutes passed, and we began to hear the sound of metal tapping lightly on the glass. It did not sound like it was trying to break the glass or even testing its strength. I truly believed the unholy thing outside was deliberately trying to stike fear within us, as if it gained some sort of sick pleasure from tormenting others. Whatever the thing was, and whatever reasons it had for doing what it was doing, I was certain now that being was not human. There was no way a normal person could walk around on the steeply pitched roof as this thing did.

Suddenly there was a loud thud on the window, as if someone slapped it with their hand. That was the final straw for both of us, and my husband and I unloaded our weapons into the curtain. Something inhuman shrieked seemingly more from surprise than from pain. I dropped my pistol and picked up my husband’s as he reloaded his shotgun.

To my horror, my husband ran over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. All he saw was a large elk running in the distance, illuminated by the light of the full moon. I begged him to come away from the now shattered window. I begged him to come out of this vulnerable room to get to a safer room, but he was sure the thing was now gone. I told him it was gone at the time, but it could return, and would probably return with others.

After thinking about it for a minute, he agreed and we started gathering what we needed. I reloaded my pistol and handed my husband’s back to him. I threw my rifle over my shoulder and grabbed my shotgun. With our hands full and me carrying just about all the weight I could, we grabbed our sleeping bags and pillows. We could not carry any more than that. My husband unlocked the door, and we quickly made our way to the master bedroom.

It was rather pointless for us to bring our sleeping bags, as neither one of us could sleep after the ordeal we endured. We were so terrified something was going to now come into the house through the shattered window, it was impossible for either of us to get any rest. We continued to watch the locked door, waiting for something inhuman to force its way into the room in which we had ourselves barricaded.

Neither of us could talk. We could not think of anything to talk about except that thing or things that were terrorizing us so deeply. Both of us sat in absolute silence for the next several hours as we awaited the next sunrise. It was not until the sun began to peek over the distant horizon that we finally said anything.

We both agreed that whatever this thing was, whether or not it be animal or man, it was never going to leave us alone. That was probably the reason the previous residents abandoned the house with so many of their belongings still inside. The thing did not attack us directly, at least not yet, but it was probably only a matter of time before its actions became more violent. As much as we loved the house and the land, it was not something worth dying over.

Gathering what few things we could, my husband and I decided we had enough. Whatever this thing was, it was capable of feats far beyond the capabilities of any human. I was sure we would be unable to kill the beast. When we unloaded our firearms at the window, there was no way we could miss the creature. Even still, we did not appear to cause it any harm.

When we stepped out the front door, we could see that massive elk in the distance standing at the edge of the tree line. My heart raced and my stomach sank as I looked at the unnatural animal. I began to grow dizzy, and my husband had to assist me the rest of the way to our truck. As we climbed into the cab of our vehicle, more animals began to emerge from the dark forest and moved to join the elk in watching our exodus.

Within three minutes we were heading down the hill where the ground rose up on one side obscuring our view of the strange animals. Once we were to the bottom of the hill, we could see the tree line once again. Instead of seeing a motley group of animals standing there, we saw approximately a dozen people. All of them were dressed in animal skins and wore helmets made from the heads of animals. Terrified beyond measure, my husband drove us along the long driveway so fast I thought he was going to run us off the road a few times.

Never again did we return to that house. We tried to get the movers who brought our things out there to go and pick them back up, but the drivers refused to return to that place. Only having owned the land for slightly over a week, we put it back up for sale. Never again did we return to what was supposed to be our dream home.

Old Country Church

By Mychal Wilson

On December 8, 2023

In Aetet 5, Thirteenth Triad

Word Count: 5,802

Several friends and I, inspired by some videos we watched online, decided we were going to try our hand as amateur ghost hunting. There was an area at the end of a long-abandoned dirt road where several buildings, including two churches, still remained standing despite the fact all the other buildings there collapsed years ago.

The ghost town was one we visited on many occasions while we were growing up, but that was always during the daytime. Although we frequented the desolate hamlet many times, none of us ever had the nerve to step inside one of the buildings. Never in all the years I lived near this long-deserted village did we ever explore the overgrown area at night. Now we decided we were going to do both.

We planned our excursion for more than a week. Anthony came from a wealthy family, and it was not difficult for him to take several video recorders and cameras without being noticed. His parents were rarely home, and when they were home, they paid little to no attention to him.

Terry was into music, playing guitar in a band with some of the other local teens, and he had various audio recording devices he planned to bring with us. Some of his equipment would take a little setting up once we got there, but he had several handheld recording devices for us to use as well. We would have to get out there several hours before dark to make sure we had the time we needed to get everything prepared for our night in the small, deserted town.

I did not have much to provide as my family was not as well to do as those of my friends. One thing I did have was some good flashlights and a shotgun of my own. A gun would not do us any good if we really did encounter a ghost, but bobcats and such were known to roam the area. My shotgun would come in very handy if we were attacked by a wild animal.

All three of us were juniors in high school, and we were waiting for this last week to come to an end. As soon as our summer break began, we wanted to play our little game of ghost hunting in the old ghost town. We originally had our excursion planned to take place several weeks ago, but the seasonal rains ruined our plans. Since it was so close to the end of our school year, we decided to wait and do our investigating during the first week of our summer freedom.

No one was really sure why the small collection of buildings came to be abandoned. Families who lived in the region for generations all gave differing accounts. Some people said there was a sickness, and the people of the town thought it was something in the soil. Following several deaths, the rest of the townsfolk left. Others said it was something more sinister, a curse put on the town because of some evil they committed. Another rumor said the people simply began to move away. With no one moving in, the unused buildings began to decay, driving out the remaining residents.

Whatever the reason for the exodus of the town’s members, the crumbling buildings, small scattered trees, and tall grass made the place a creepy one to visit during the daytime. This was going to be the first time we ever went there at night. The anticipation made this last week of school pass miserably slowly, and it seemed like our vacation was never going to begin. The day finally came though, and we were already prepared to spend the night in the empty town.

We loaded all our equipment in Anthony’s truck and drove down the long-abandoned dirt road that headed into the center of the forgotten town. It was a rough ride and there was no way my or Terry’s cars would ever make it. Being that we walked the road as many times as we had, we knew how rough it was going to be. Everything was strapped down and cushioned to prevent anything from being damaged on the drive.

We chose a small house close to the two churches we decided previously would be a good place to set up our equipment. This house was constructed mainly using huge cedar logs and chiseled granite blocks making it probably one of the most stable buildings in this abandoned village. Most of our time would be spent in this building monitoring our equipment, so obviously we wanted to make sure we chose the safest building possible.

Anthony set up the cameras and video recorders and Terry set up the audio equipment in the same areas, running the wiring to our computers in our base camp. From there we could monitor multiple locations at once. As they set up their equipment, I strapped my father’s hunting cams to trees on opposite sides of the village. It was not difficult to set them so they were both looking down the middle of the ghost town.

Several hours passed as we got everything set up and working. We had to change out some of the cables after a frustrating hour of trying to figure out what was wrong with some of the connections. We did not get everything working as it should until thirty minutes before the sun set behind the tree line. I was glad we got everything working before dark. I did not want to have to bother with running cables through the grass filling the once populated roads of this old town in the dark. The task was difficult enough to pull off during the daytime; doing it at night would be incredibly frustrating.

Our night began with all three of us monitoring the audio and video surveillance we had set up in key locations throughout the town. Terry kept an eye on the audio readings while Anthony and I watched the computer screens for any sign of movement. We could see most everything on the outside, but we only had equipment set up in two of the buildings; the jailhouse and one of the two churches.

None of us knew what difference there was between the churches, such as the denominations or if one was for whites and one was for blacks. The two buildings were close to being identical, and the front entrance way to both were facing each other no more than twenty feet apart. We always thought that to be the most peculiar aspect of the whole town. The one notable difference between the two was one had an exterior basement door while the other was built completely above ground.

On one side of them, and behind the churches were the remnants of the homes that once held the residents of the town. On the other side was a wide courtyard with the jailhouse being opposite of that. It was our assumption this courtyard was probably where the gallows once stood. It was the only place in this town for something as large as that, but it seemed very odd the gallows would be right in front of the two town churches. There was one camera between the rows of houses looking toward the churches and another in front of what we think was a shop of some sort. This second camera watched the courtyard ranging from the churches to the jailhouse.

For the first hour following dark all we did was monitor the cameras and audio for anything. We were not only looking for things out of the ordinary. Our hope was to catch plenty of ordinary things to have to compare to anything we discovered outside the realm of ordinary. After that hour passed, we drew straws to see who was going to be the first one to walk around the town with a handheld video camera.

Anthony drew the short stick and therefore had the honor of being the first one of us to walk around this long-abandoned hamlet at night. We would not be able to review the contents of the handheld camera until we could remove the memory card and place it in one of our laptop computers. Terry and I kept an eye on the multitude of night vision cameras set up around town while our friend left to take his solo walk around the grass covered roads.

Keeping a red filter on the flashlight he was carrying so as not to interfere with the resolution of the night vision cameras, Anthony could not see very far, but it allowed him to see much better than having no light at all. Terry and I watched Anthony as he walked between the buildings, snaking up and down each passable road. We saw a few small animals on the monitors, some birds and several rabbits, but nothing that could remotely be called paranormal.

Anthony was far beyond relieved when he finally returned to what we called our base camp. He told us about how nervous he was walking around in the dark like that, not very able to see what was around him. He said he could swear he heard some voices coming from some of the buildings as he walked past them. I took the memory card from his camera and had its contents downloaded to my computer within minutes.

We spent the next half hour discussing what we wanted to do next. Watching through the footage Anthony captured in fast motion, we did not see anything unusual there either. This time we flipped a coin, and I was the loser. This whole expedition was initially my idea, and now I regretted ever having the thought. At first, I was sure there was nothing really out there, but I was beginning to doubt myself.

Was I only being brave until the day finally arrived?

Regardless of how scared I was, I could not let on to my friends or they would never let me live it down. I took the camera Anthony used on his excursion, and Terry prepared for me a small audio recording device I could carry with me. If Anthony really did hear some voices out there, we thought it might help to pick them up if I had an audio recorder with me. I really did not want to go out there walking around this place at night, but I did not feel I left myself with much of a choice.

Stepping out of the cobblestone house we were using as a base, I walked out into the dark night. I wished we were going out two at a time, but we needed two people to watch all of the audio and visual recorders we had set up throughout the small, abandoned town. I could not even say how many times I came to this village during the daytime, but the darkness made the crumbling buildings and weed filled roads seem so much scarier.

There was no moon shining out tonight, and the red filter on my flashlight did not allow me to see very far. The stars brightly filled the sky, but it hardly did anything to illuminate the ground. We planned for our little ghost hunting project for the darkest night we could.

Swallowing my mounting trepidation, I started out on the preplanned walking route. Every time I heard a frog croak, or a bird take flight, I nearly jumped out of my own skin. Throughout my childhood I spent plenty of time in the woods, even during the dark hours, so I should be used to the noises of the nocturnal animals.

Slowly strolling along the overgrown road, I scanned around the nearby buildings with my flashlight. I would feel much more comfortable without the red filter on the lens, but Anthony insisted it would blind the night-vision cameras. We spent too much time getting all that set up to go and blind everything with an unfiltered light.

It was rather hot out, and I would prefer to be wearing shorts. Out here at night though, I was afraid of getting ticks. My jeans, thick socks and heavy boots should keep the little blood suckers off of me. If we were only spending an hour or two out there, I would not worry about it. As it was, we were going to be out here all night, and that simply gave the pesky arachnids too much time to feast until they nearly popped.

My thoughts were interrupted when I thought I saw something moving to the left of me. Scanning around the area as best I could with the dim red flashlight, I did not see anything out of the ordinary. I was sure I saw something, but I assumed it must have been a bat fluttering down quickly to catch itself a snack. Possibly it was a moth I just happened to see momentarily out of the corner of my eye.

Continuing my walk through the town, I tried to pay as much attention to my ears as I did my eyes. Growing up in a small rural community, I spent more time in the woods than I did at home. I trained myself years ago to pay attention to my other senses, especially when in the woods at night. There were more than a few animals out here capable of mauling and killing three young men, which is why I was so glad I brought my shotgun with me.

Anthony did not want to carry it with him when he made his rounds, but I was not going to venture into this foreboding ghost town without some kind of protection with me. When I reached the far edge of the town, I felt like I was walking for hours. Looking down to my watch, I saw only ten minutes passed since I left the base camp.

I began to wind my way around some of the buildings. I knew this place quite well, but it was still difficult to get my bearings. Occasionally gazing up at the stars to make sure I was heading in the right direction, I weaved my way up and down the overgrown dirt roads in much the same manner as did Anthony. Some of the roads were buried underneath debris from the buildings, logs that somehow made their way into the edge of town, and brush growth. This made it feel more like walking through a hellish maze than it did during daylight hours.

I began to try and picture what life must have been like for the people of this small town. The oldest of the buildings were the ones that were still standing. Those were constructed from stone and large cedar logs. The newest buildings, the ones in the worst shape of all, were built sometime later from cut wooden planks. The latter just could not stand the test of time and collapsed, often falling over into the road. Thorns, vines and other vegetation grew out of the debris of these buildings, the foliage so thick in some places it completely obscured the rotting wreckage underneath.

What really made those people abandon their town like they did? Could it really simply be a matter of all the residents moving away and no one moving back in to replace them? Was it possible it was really something sinister like a curse on the town?

It would be impossible for me to count the number of times my friends and I discussed this. We shared all the stories we heard, and many times we added our own theories to the mix. I heard so many different tales about this crumbling place, I did not know what to think.

Raising the handheld video recorder up to my face, I wanted to get a circular scan of the area before moving on to the next abandoned street. Walking around here in the dark watching through the eyepiece of the camera would surely get me hurt, so I only held and scanned around with it until now. I nearly dropped the expensive video camera when I thought I saw something moving in between two of the still standing buildings.

Quickly, I removed the camera from my face to try to get a look with my naked eyes. There did not appear to be anything moving. The only thing between the two buildings was a tree whose branches shaded the roofs of both the decaying structures. Raising the eyepiece to my face once again, I examined my surroundings with the camera some more. Even with the night vision capabilities of the camera, I did not see anything between the walls of the buildings.

My heart was racing; the rush of blood caused my ears to roar, and sparks floated in my eyes. I needed to calm myself back down, but doing so in this setting was not easy. Finally convincing myself I probably saw an owl flying behind the other side of the structures, I continued along my way. Regardless of how many times I told myself there was nothing there, I could not get past that feeling I was being watched. I tried to explain that away as Anthony and Terry watching me on the monitors.

When I saw a light in the window of a two-story house, tilted and half covered in vines, I decided to head back to base camp. My full hour was not up yet, but I wanted to go see what was going on. We agreed when we first started planning this that only one of us at a time would be out walking around the town. It would be too easy for us to lose track of one another if two or more of us were away from base camp.

Once the building we used to house our equipment came into view, I zoomed in with the camera I carried to see if I could see anything going on. It was too difficult to say which, but I saw one of my friends run out of the base camp heading in the direction of the house with the illuminated window. Something had to be wrong. Relying on my own eyes once again, I tried to increase my pace as much as I could without serious risk of falling and hurting myself.

The light jog down the grass covered road felt like it took forever. As much as I wanted to get to my friends to help them with whatever was wrong, there was nothing I could do for them if I broke my leg. My whole body trembled with anxiety and panic as I reached the structure and turned into the door of the base camp. My breath was heavy and labored as I looked into the building to see both Anthony and Terry sitting there in front of the monitors. Both appeared as though they were a bit shocked over my abrupt return. Simultaneously my friends asked me why I came running back like I did.

“When I saw someone come running out of here, I thought something was wrong,” I replied in a quivering voice.

There was a brief pause, then in my confusion I asked them who it was that came running out of this building. Now sharing in my confusion, they both insisted there was no one else there; we were the only people in that building all night. They did not believe me that I saw someone, or something come bolting out of that door and down one of the crossroads. Despite my insistence, they simply did not believe me. They thought I was joking with them.

They were not going to listen to me, so I took the memory card out of the camera and put it in one of the computers. Skipping ahead to the last part of the video, I showed them what I saw when I came around the corner with the camera. This time Anthony and Terry both saw the clear image of a humanoid figure appear to exit the base camp and run south down the remnants of what was once a road.

All three of us stood there in silence for how long I could not say for certain. Almost as if on cue, all three of us looked out the door and then back to the monitor. We simply could not believe we actually caught something on camera, something that shows the image of someone who was not there. It was not there in any way we could understand.

“M-maybe someone should go check out that light you saw,” Anthony suggested.

“Hell no,” Terry whispered loudly. “There’s no way I am going out there by myself now.”

I offered up the option of all three of us going to check out that leaning house. That appeared to be, at least in that direction, where the spectral image was running. Terry was worried about leaving his and Anthony’s expensive equipment unattended, but it was either we all went, or no one was going to go. No one wanted to stay behind, and no one wanted to go out there alone.

I had no stake in the equipment, so that was not a worry of mine. We found something out here, and we knew where we could probably find it again. I insisted the equipment would be fine for the short time we would be gone. Each one of us was taking a camera and an audio recorder, so the only things we were really leaving behind were the computers.

As we slowly walked down the road, heading south toward the house in which I saw the light, each of us scanning with night vision cameras in search for anything our eyes could not see. I remarked in a soft whisper that we would need to go back over the other footage and see if Anthony and Terry missed anything on the monitors. Surely if my camera caught the image, so did the others. Neither one of them answered me, but that was probably because they were too scared to speak.

I had my shotgun tucked under my arm. The barrels were loaded but the chamber was not closed. I do not know what I thought it was going to do against a ghost, but I felt a small measure of security having it with me. I wished my friends were armed as well, but neither of their fathers hunted, so neither did they. I was the only one of the three of us who owned his own gun.

I thought I heard Terry whisper something to me from my right side, but I could not hear what he said. I got much closer to him and asked him what he was saying. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, very quietly telling me he did not say anything. I was sure I heard him say something, but I let the matter go. We were only a block away from the leaning house when I asked him what he said. I did not want to continue talking if I did not need to.

Thus far we did our best to stay as near the middle of the road as we could, but when we approached the leaning house, we veered in a little closer. I was walking in the center, more focused on holding my shotgun at the ready than looking through the camera. There was no longer a light on inside, at least not that we could see. I did not believe a light as bright as I saw earlier could be glowing and us not see it, even from outside.

Positioning ourselves in line with the front door of the tilted building, we slowly and cautiously made our way forward. At this point I had the barrels of my shotgun closed and ready to fire if necessary. It was difficult for me to carry my gun and look through the eyepiece of my camera at the same time. I wished took a camera with a display screen and not an eyepiece, but we were afraid this would produce too much illumination and give away our position. Using the night vision cameras seemed to be the only way to see the specters that appeared to roam the ruins of this old ghost town.

The doorway was quite narrow, and the building looked as if it could fall at any moment. With the mass of vines covering nearly half the structure, I am surprised it remained standing this long. With speed that bordered on the edge of stillness, we slowly crept forward, everyone watching with their cameras for anything out of the ordinary. The doorway was narrow, so if we were going to go inside, we would have to do so single file. At this point I really wished my friends were armed as well, because the gun should probably go in first. There would be no room to step past anyone to shoot otherwise.

It was not easy trying to keep my shotgun at the ready while holding the camera up to my face. The floor was a lot more solid than I expected it to be. It appeared the first story of this building was constructed from cedar logs, and perhaps the upper level was added later using cut wooden planks rather than logs. While the top of the house was obviously leaning, the lower floor seemed to retain its form.

I was happy when my friends entered the building with me. For at least a little while I was going to have to rely on what they could see and strapped the camera around my arm. It was much easier for me to hold the flashlight and keep a proper grip on my firearm than when trying to hold the digital video camera. As dark as it was in the building, the red filtered light provided me with plenty of light to see.

At one time this was probably a very nice home, even for its time. Cobwebs filled the entrance room and dust coated the hardwood floors. There were still paintings on the walls and decorations on the mantel, like whoever lived here fled and left everything they owned behind. Although the paintings, upholstery on the furniture and leather chairs all succumbed to the ravages of time, the overall structure seemed to be quite sound. I turned my shotgun toward the ceiling and was about to tell one of them to lead the way into the next room when they both ran.

They did not shout out any warning to me at all, they just turned and ran. It took me a few more seconds to react since they gave me no warning. By the time I turned towards the door, I saw both of them disappear down the old dirt street. When I started to run, something caught my left heel and pulled me hard to the ground. I tried to get back to my feet, but this unseen force instantly pulled me back to my face. When the thing began to drag me into the other room, I almost lost my shotgun. Scrambling as I was being dragged across the dusty room, I managed to gain a grip on the butt just as I was almost out of range.

When I again came to a stop, I tried to get back to my feet. This time I felt something pressing on my back, like someone’s large booted foot was holding me down. I tried to plead for help or mercy, but the dust stirred as I dragged across the ground choked me and made it impossible to speak. Something grabbed my hair and pressed my face into the splintery floor.

“They went off and left you,” I heard a hissing voice say into my ear. The hate and malice inside the voice was more than obviously apparent, and it made my bones turn cold with terror. “Friends? They left you to die.”

Suddenly the pressure on my back vanished and I no longer had anything holding my face to the ground.

I scrambled to my feet and ran out of the building as fast as I could. When I reached the grass and brush covered road, I could see my so-called friends in our base camp. It looked like they were trying to get the equipment together so they could leave. They were more worried about taking their precious computer equipment with them, but they did not care if they left me behind to die. Whatever tossed me around in that dark room surely had the strength to rip me apart, and they left me there.

A scowl covered my face as I began to walk towards the two people I never thought would leave me behind. Anthony and Terry were my friends since we were in the first grade, and when I was absolutely reliant on them to tell me if anything was coming, they fled and did not say a thing. Moving at a rapid pace, I managed to keep a solid footing even though I paid no attention to what was right in front of me.

When I was about fifty feet away from the base camp, I raised my shotgun and planted the butt firmly in the socket of my shoulder. Rage filled me as I thought about that melevolent force pulled me to the ground and drug me through the house. Pain from the splinters burned my stomach and chest, and I was not going to let these two get away with it.

Anthony was the first to see me. Initially he looked relieved, but then he saw the gun I had pointed directly at his chest. He began to explain that they did not know what to do, and they were so glad to see me okay. Although it was very hard for me to accept it, I can understand how they would feel completely helpless in that situation.

“Do you know what I could have done to you,” that sinister voice whispered seductively in my ear. “DO YOU!”

When that thing spoke to me again, the burning fury and hatred filled my soul once more. They were not going to get away with abandoning me and leaving me to whatever horrible fate awaited me. When that voice again shouted in my ear, I raised my shotgun and pulled the trigger. I watched Anthony’s sweatshirt tear open as the shot ripped at the flesh and bone in his chest.

I let his lifeless body crumple to the ground, and as soon as I had an opening, I let the second blast hit Terry in the lower chin and throat. The blast nearly severed his head from his body. Somehow, he managed to remain standing for a few seconds as his blood sprayed the inside of the base camp.

As Terry’s body finally toppled backwards, I quickly reached down and grabbed the camera Anthony dropped on the floor when I put a large gaping hole in his chest. Reluctantly raising it to my eye, I looked into the room in which the bodies of my former friends lay. Hunched over Anthony’s body was something, but what I could not say. It was not human, and I did not think it was a ghost because it did not look like it was ever human. The body was narrow, and its limbs extremely long. It glowed brightly under the night vision of the camera, and I was sure I could see what looked like fur outlining its body. The unholy creature had large eyes, and a gaping maw full of needle-like teeth.

“A-are you going to kill me now?” I inquired of the inhuman beast, my voice wavering as I tried to make myself breathe.

The invisible entity grabbed Terry by the foot, and using its other massively oversized hand, took Anthony by the head and started dragging them toward the door. I stepped out of its way to give it plenty of room, and when I did, I lowered the camera. There I saw my former friends’ bodies being taken away by some unseen force. I raised the camera back up to my head in time to see it turn and look back at me.

“You brought me these, so you can go,” it said. “I will let you live, but you can never tell anyone what you saw here.”

Every word the ghastly beast spoke stoked the flames of my anger, my rage. I was glad to see him dragging away the bodies of those two cowards who left me for dead. It was not only what the creature said. There was some power, some energy that increased my hate for those two beyond the scope of normal human emotion.

I knew from the tone of the creature’s words that this was not just a warning. It was telling me if I ever revealed what happened here tonight, it was coming for me next. Already once having the honor of feeling the super-human strength of this thing as it tossed me around like a rag doll, I took its warning very seriously.

I was furious my friends made me kill them like that, I was furious that thing was dragging them away, and now I was furious I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison for this. I considered taking my own life as I watched their bodies drag away into the night. That was when I glanced down and noticed the drag marks from the two corpses the demonic thing carried began to fade away. I turned to look around the base camp only to find the massive amounts of blood that spilled from the large wounds I gave my friends appeared to be absorbing into the walls and floors. It was as if the events were somehow covering up what happened.

Around the doorway of the base camp and beyond my footprints began to disappear. Now I finally knew what happened to this town. The invisible demon coaxed the people into killing one another. Those it let leave the town, it made sure to keep quiet. As was the situation with me, those people whose life it spared never told anyone what happened here. We were all afraid that, if we even uttered one word about it, the creature would take its revenge. That eldritch being told me it was letting me go, and it did. Before retrieving my trail cameras and walking through the forest to go home, I watched the thing that haunted this town for centuries drag the two lifeless bodies into the basement of that old country church.

Feature Image Created Using Gab AI Image Generator

Covered in Kudzu

By Mychal Wilson

On November 29, 2023

In Aetet 5, Thirteenth Triad, Vastness of Reality

Word Count: 8,937

I lived the entirety of my life in the steaming humidity of Louisiana, leaving the swampy state only on two occasions. An uncle in Mississippi passed in 1980, and I went to attend his funeral. The only other time I crossed the borders of my home state was to attend my cousin’s wedding in Arkansas. I never really figured I had any reason to go anywhere else; everything I knew and everything I needed was here.

Now, for most people, Louisiana seemed about twenty years behind the rest of the country. Most folks down here were set in their ways, and these values were typically instilled in their children as well. Racism and segregation were still quite prominent in my home state. Blacks stayed away from whites and the whites stayed away from the blacks.

Several colored fellows worked on the farm, but I did not care for them much. I never did. One of them always whined about reparations and his forty acres and a mule. Why should I owe him reparations? My family was poor up until the last few decades. My ancestors did not own any slaves, so I figured I owed them negros nothing. The only thing I owed them was a paycheck at the end of the week. Holiday, personal, and sick time were bonuses not rights.

Although I saw little change in race relations, or even the size of my town, I saw plenty of change in the forests. Kudzu vines took over acres upon acres of land killing everything in its path. It spread slowly, but it never stopped. Herbicides did not work and neither did fire. There was only one way to be rid of the engulfing plant. The roots had to be dug up, and this stuff rooted deep.

Areas where I used to hunt and play were now fields of vines. Snakes loved to nest in these areas, so it was always best to avoid them whenever possible. It was not easy to watch the country around me be overrun by the invading plant. Louisiana was flat enough without taking away all the forest lands. Some fool found the vine in China or something and brought it to the United States. The problem with the plant was that there were no animals and very few insects that fed on it here, so it grew unchecked. That damned idiot had no idea the plague he unleashed upon the southern states.

My father, a negro, a white fellow who worked on our farm, and I all spent the last week fighting back the vines with bush-hogs and controlled brush fires. It took a lot of work to keep the vines from overrunning our crops. Constant maintenance was required to keep the encroaching plant in check. If the problem continued to grow worse, we might need to hire some new hands just to deal with the vines. We did not turn a great profit every year, and hiring more workers would be a crippling financial slap in the face.

After showering that evening, I went downstairs where Momma and my sister had dinner ready. During the blessing, I could not keep my thoughts on the prayer. My mind drifted off to the days when my best friends, Scottie William, and I ran around playing in the woods. Much of that forest no longer existed, having been destroyed by the invading kudzu. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I almost missed the ‘amen.’

After I went to bed, I still could not get our childhood excursions into the woods out of my mind. Something within me clicked today as we fought the vines away from the corn fields. Something in my past wanted to come back to me. It was a sensation very similar to déjà vu. A memory was trying to resurface about something that happened in that forest, but I spent so much time romping around in the woods, it was impossible to pinpoint what was nagging me.

I tossed and turned all night. Normally I was a still sleeper, but when I woke up the next morning, my sheets were pulled loose and tossed around the bed. For the first few seconds after I awoke, I remembered my dream vividly. Before I was fully awake, I only remembered bits and pieces. By breakfast, I could not remember anything at all.

I spent most of that day driving the dirt roads that bordered our farmland. With it being early summer, the kudzu grew absolutely wild. We could not allow it to reach our fields, or we would never get rid of it. I found several places along our property that would be problems very soon. I called father on the CB radio to give him the locations where the creeping vines threatened our fields.

Tomorrow, we would have to spend the day cutting and burning the stuff. That meant taking even more people from their farming duties to fight away the increasingly problematic vines. If this kept up much longer, we might not be able to pull a profit this year. In my opinion, the state should be paying to deal with the problem. If it let the farms go under, Louisiana would go bankrupt.

All the while, that elusive thought nagged at me. I found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Whatever memory was trying to resurface never made it from subconscious to conscious thought. I did not know how I knew, but I knew it somehow involved Scottie and William.

Could it be something we found? Could it be something we did?

The memory tried to break through, but I could not conjure up the images. It drove me crazy. By the time I got home for the evening, I was stressed out and the muscles in my neck felt stiff with tension. All I did was drive all day, but I felt like someone had taken me through the ringer.

My mind wandered all throughout supper, and I found Father snapping at me several times. He wanted me to detail the kudzu problem around our fields; I just could not keep my mind on the conversation. That elusive memory tried to push its way out of hiding but could not quite get there. Dad grew impatient with me, slamming his hand on the table once as I began to drift.

I finally managed to get the ungraspable thought out of my mind long enough to give Daddy the location of the problem areas and the areas that needed the most immediate attention. My thoughts were otherwise occupied while I drove, and I was not sure of my memories. I told Father everything I remembered. I knew Saturday morning I would have to drive the dirt roads around the crop land perimeter to double check what I missed today.

On Monday, we pulled six men in all out of the fields to help us cut up and burn the vines. The kudzu wanted to take over, and we would fight it back to the bitter end. At twenty dollars an hour the task was going to be very expensive. In addition to that, there were a dozens of man hours diverted away from their regular duties. That put us even further behind and we had to get this harvest in on time. We still had another entire crop to plant after this one. Having to hire six more hands was really going to nip at our profit margins.

That annoying thought never left me alone. For more than a week, I tried to remember. Call it paranoia, but I was sure something strange was at work. I did not know what my two childhood friends did these days. I did not even know if they still lived in the state. Whatever it was my mind would not let me remember, I was sure they were somehow involved. I knew tracking them down was something I had to do.

I began to ask around. Scottie, William, and I shared a lot of other common friends. I still kept in contact with many of them. No one was sure what happened to them. The only information I did obtain always began with, “Well, I heard….” I uncovered no reliable information from anyone in town. The only thing I could think of to do was to call information and hope they were still in the nearby area.

It took me a lot of calling around, and I knew I would run up one hell of a phone bill, but I had to find them. After days of calling, I located my friend Scottie. He moved to Baton Rouge where he ran a modest but successful restaurant. William, I eventually found out, was doing time in prison. Apparently, he went to jail shortly after moving away from here.

William was being housed in a medium security prison located only forty-five minutes from the house. I called the unit to find out about their visitation hours. Visitation was only held on Sundays, so I planned to go see him after church this week. I hoped he could help provide information on my obscured memories. Perhaps he would tell me something to dislodge the thought from its niche in my subconscious.

That Sunday after church, I filled my thermos with coffee, ate a few buttered biscuits with jam, and got on the road. I wanted to make sure I did not arrive too late. I could not wait another week before I got the chance to talk to him. In the meantime, I tried calling Scottie. I spoke to his answering machine once. Every time I called after that, I let the phone ring five times and then hung up. If the phone picked up on his end, I had to pay the long distance charges.

William was shocked to see me, but I was not surprised. We had not seen each other in more than a decade. I only got one hour to visit with him, so I got straight to the point. I told him how fighting the kudzu seemed to pry loose some hidden memory. He gave me a quizzical look when I told him I thought he and Scottie were somehow involved. William tried, but he could not come up with anything helpful to tell me.

I asked him if he remembered seeing or doing anything that I would want to forget. He assured me we never saw any UFO’s or experienced any paranormal events my mind would want to hide. He did say something about the kudzu though.

Recently, William had a dream the vines climbed up to his cell and tore the metal mesh from his window. I did not get to ask him about anything else before an officer informed him his time was up and escorted him back to his cell.

What was it with the kudzu? I lived around the merciless plant my whole life, so why now did it take on a deeper significance? Why was William dreaming about it? What correlation did the vine have to do with my locked memory?

During my drive home, I felt a churning in my gut every time I passed an area defeated by the broad-leafed vines. The plant held significance of some kind. I found out only several years ago that snakes terrified me. A run in with a six foot long cottonmouth water moccasin nearly scared me to death. If someone else had not been there hunting with me, I would have probably been bitten and died. I became paralyzed with fear, and my hunting partner shot the snake before it could strike.

I called and left one more message on Scottie’s answering machine the following Tuesday. This time, I stressed how important it was that I speak with him. I had to unlock this puzzle, this mystery that rushed in on me like a tidal wave. If they did in fact have something to do with my strange feelings, I had to know what it was.

I had no appetite, so I skipped supper that night. Instead, I drove around the perimeters of our fields trying to somehow dislodge my memory. The setting sun painted the clouds a beautiful orange. I was fixated on the sunset when a significant memory returned to me.

I remembered emerging from the forest when I was a child. Scottie and William were there with me. We were running, terrified, but I could not recall why. I did not remember being chased. I did remember being terrified. We ran out of the woods and did not stop until we reach Scottie’s house. We hid in the closet of his room for the rest of the night.

My recollection ended there. I could only conjure that little piece of memory. I knew there was more, but for now it was still locked away in the back of my mind. What occurred before we emerged from the forest gasping and terrified, I could not remember. The weeks that followed were also lost to me. Why that was I did not know, but I knew it was very important that I remembered.

The next morning I received a welcomed surprise as I had my morning coffee. The mailman dripped our parcels through the slot in the door. When Sis walked by, she gathered it up and brought it into the kitchen. I thumbed through the envelopes she gave me when I saw one stamped with a prison unit number. William mailed out a letter to me only two days after we talked. I ate as quickly as I could without being rude and then took my mail out to the front porch.

As I anticipated, William wrote that he thought of more after I left. He too recalled the three of us fumbling out of the marshy forest and running along a gravel road. William was certain that we were running from something, but he could not remember what. Also in his letter, he talked about hiding in Scottie’s house because we were terrified that something was going to get us. He apologized because he could not remember more than this. If he thought of anything more, he would write me again.

I tried to remember where it was, what forest we were in when the event occurred. If I could find the location, I might just figure this all out. I went to see William again the following Sunday. I asked him if he could recollect where the incident happened. William said he was trying to make himself remember, but the location would not come to him. He realized he had gaps in his memory just as I did, so William and I kept in contact through the mail during the week. I began to visit him every Sunday after church. We hoped that, by working together, we would figure out what happened on that day.

When I came home from work Wednesday, Sis told me I missed a call from some guy named Scottie. I began to lose hope that I would ever track him down. Scottie told Sis he was in Germany for the past two months and called me as soon as he listened to my messages. I tried to call him back that night but he did not answer. We played a game of phone tag for the next ten days. Finally, I caught him at home.

We talked for close to an hour, mostly about what we have been doing over the last ten years. Finally, I brought up the topic and asked him if he could remember anything. He thought about it for a while, and I tried helping him along by telling him what William and I remembered. For a while, we talked about other aspects of our childhood, and then Scottie thought of something significant.

He told me that running out of the woods did not ring a bell, but he did summon up the images of hiding in his closet. Many nights, Scottie was terrified of falling asleep. He said he remembered always feeling like something was watching him at night, something dark and evil.

That was not all. Scottie could not remember why, but to this day he felt ill every time he went near what we used to call Baker’s Woods. He said even talking about it gave him the chills. Whenever he went anywhere near that area, he always had that sensation of being watched.

That must have been the place. Baker’s Woods was only located about six miles or so from Scottie’s childhood home. It seemed an awful long way for us to run, but children do have that energy and vigor that adults do not. I supposed if we were terrified enough, we could have run that distance without stopping. What we were doing out there, none of us could remember.

I began to think that something intelligent intentionally placed blocks in our memories. I found it very difficult to believe we all three forgot everything that happened in Baker’s Woods and for the weeks that followed. I thought possibly, if whatever we experienced was traumatic enough, we might have blocked out the memories on our own. That seemed very unlikely though.

I remembered emerging terrified from the forest, and William recalled hiding in Scottie’s closet from something we thought followed us. Although he could not say why, Scottie said Baker’s Woods terrified him to this day. In bits and pieces, I began to put that period of time back together.

The following morning I was to run some errands. The ice box and pantry were nearly empty. Normally Momma and Sis did the shopping, but there were other things that needed to be done. Parts for some of the farming machines waited for me at the hardware store. The parts had to be special ordered, and they were supposed to be here several days ago. Everything seemed to want to work against us trying to get this harvest in on time.

It took me about half an hour out of my way, but I decided to drive by Baker’s Woods while I was out. I passed Scottie’s old house and knew I would reach my destination soon. No one must have bought the house after Scottie’s family moved out. The roof fell in and weeds cracked and destroyed the concrete driveway.

I found myself subconsciously slowing down as I proceeded along my way. A dizzying sensation came over me, and butterflies filled my stomach. It was a long time since I came to this part of the parish, and I found an unknown fear overtaking me. I did not care. I had to put that day back together, and nothing would stop me from reaching Baker’s Woods.

Three miles before reaching the edge of the aforementioned section of forest, I noticed that damned kudzu taking hold in the area. That terrible plant was no less than a plague in this state. The wet, humid weather of Louisiana provided the perfect environment to allow the vine to thrive. Nothing fed on the vine; it was like a demon unleashed upon the south.

I reached the remnants of the wooden fence that once marked the edge of Baker’s Woods, and chill bumps covered my skin. Several acres of the forest succumbed to the kudzu, but a large portion was still heavy forest. I knew the key to unlocking those lost memories must lay out there somewhere. I wished Scottie and William were here to take this step with me, but I was going to have to go at it alone.

I pulled my truck over to the side of the road and parked. Removing my hunting rifle from the rack in my back window, I loaded it and threw the strap over my shoulder. I filled my pocket with what shells remained in the box and locked up the truck. Hesitantly, I crossed the road and entered that terrifying forest.

Wandering around for hours, I tried to relocate some of the landmarks I knew as a child. So much changed over the years, I could not tell one location from another. After several hours, I found the most unusual things. Lying on the ground, as if waiting for me, laid three objects at the base of an ancient maple tree. All three were cut from precious stone. I saw two small obelisks and a grayish colored pyramid.

Stone collecting was a hobby of mine, so I recognized the three items in front of me. The obelisks were cut from aventurine, one blue and one green. The pyramid was by far the most valuable of the three. This object was cut from a large piece of flawless larvakite which is more commonly called Nordic Moonstone. I never recalled seeing these before, but something about them seemed too familiar.

I reluctantly gathered the three precious stone items. Each one of them carved with designs, with some sort of artwork I never before saw. Examining them for a few minutes, I tried to figure out a way to make them fit in my pocket. The obelisks were every bit of eight to nine inches tall. At the base, the objects stretched three inches from one side to another. They were simply too large to fit into the pockets of my pants.

I removed my sweat drenched T-shirt and wrapped the items in a bundle. I did not know what I was looking for, but these objects were not here by accident. They sat atop recently fallen leaves, so they must have been put there very recently.

I was a seasoned hunter and a rather damn good tracker. I searched for signs of the individual who placed the artifacts for me to find, but I saw none. I saw no footprints or any disturbed leaves on the forest floor. After a thirty minute search, I found no broken twigs or bent branches on the underbrush that indicated anyone came through here recently. I found no trails leading to or heading away from the area. There was absolutely nothing that indicated anyone but me was here for a quite a long time. That was not right, and it greatly disturbed me.

It was well past noon, and I had not even begun my work tasks for the day. I took the bundled objects under my arm and started back to the road. Another hour elapsed before I finally found the road and reached my truck. Giving up on the search, I went to town to take care of my errands.

Daddy was furious when I returned with the parts. One of the machines was out of commission without the new parts. Because of my extended delay, we lost a whole day of work. We paid the two guys who run the machine to fart around all day doing nothing more than busy work. I tried to tell Daddy that things simply took a lot longer than we expected, but that was not enough for him. He kept me up that night until I finished replacing the damaged parts.

The sun set four hours before I finally finished the work. I took a long, hot, soapy shower to get the grease and grime off of my body. I do not know what time I made it to bed, but I passed out as soon as I hit the sheets. Thirty minutes after sunrise, Daddy woke me up and told me to come down for breakfast. He was not punishing me for yesterday; he only expected me to get up and do my job today.

That was one long workday, and I was glad when quitting time came. Momma told me I got some mail, and that it sat on the lamp stand by the front door. Before washing up, I went to grab my letters. Two pieces were junk mail, but the third envelope had a large stamp of a prison unit number along with the facilities location. It was another letter from William.

In his letter, he asked me if I ever remembered calling him White Willie. I could not imagine why we would have referred to him that way. He stated in his letter that one of the Negro images in his dreams called him by that name, and it brought in for him a rush of memories and emotions. He swore that we all called him that once, but I only remembered ever calling him William or Willie, not White Willie. It was my guess that he was called that sometime while in prison and the Negro in his dream only brought that memory back to the surface. It made no sense for Scottie and me to call him that. It was only the three of us running together as kids, and all three of us were white. I read over the letter several times, but no memories resurfaced of having ever called William by that name.

Scottie may have had some Mexican in him somewhere, but he looked like a white guy with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and well tanned skin. William was about as white as they came. His blond hair, blue eyes, and greater than normal height made him look like a Viking. I had some American Indian in me, somewhere around one quarter, but it did not show in my appearance. It simply made no sense for us to call William, White Willie.

Everyone spent the week putting in overtime. That included Daddy and me. Five days passed before I went back out to Baker’s Woods. I tried thinking, I tried sitting and writing, and I tried driving the roads around the fields again. Nothing helped to jar my memory. Something happened, something Scottie, William, and I all three forgot.

What could possibly be so traumatic to make three of us block it from our minds?

Sunday, after church and dinner, I drove back out to that place. The thought of venturing into the forest again terrified me much more than it did a week ago. This time, I wore my Smith and Wesson .357 magnum in a holster on my belt. My hunting rifle hung down my back held in place with a leather strap. In an old backpack, I carried the three stone objects, some granola bars for energy, and three bottles of water. I stood at the edge of the forest for fifteen minutes before I finally made myself enter.

The sun blazed in the cloudless sky, yet the forest was darker than on a heavily overcast day. I had a keen eye, and I kept a good watch all around me as I walked. Although I could not see anything, I could not shake the feeling I was being watched. I heard squirrels running through the dry leaves. I even heard a deer gently snooping in the distance. Other than my own, I heard no other footfalls that indicated someone was stalking me.

Rather than wandering around without aim as before, I headed straight in the direction of where I found the artifacts. I had a keen sense of direction, and it did not take me long to find my week old trail. I followed that straight to the former resting place of those three objects. I found the stirring I created as I searched for the person who put the objects for me to find. My tracks around this small area were clear as day, but I still found no tracks from the one who placed the items of precious stone.

I walked more than a mile further into Baker’s Woods. Suddenly, I saw something very familiar to me. A large circular area, probably fifty feet in diameter, sunk in the center eight feet from the ground level. Squatting in the center stood an ancient oak tree. This tree was unlike any other oak I ever saw. At its base, the trunk of the tree was five feet in diameter but only four feet tall. Large, thick branches sprouted out from the trunk, curving slightly so they remained four feet off the ground all the way around. As the ground sloped upward, so did the thick branches. An odd array of thick branches snaked out from the tree’s center. This was the perfect climbing tree for the three of us back in the day.

I clearly remembered the three of us kicked back resting in the tree. We played around in the woods and, when we grew tired, we came here to rest. The oak was every bit as large as I remembered it. It did, of course, have fifteen years to grow since I last saw it. Although I remembered spending a lot of time hanging out on this tree, nothing significant came back to me. Whatever happened that day, it did not involve our favorite tree.

As I began to walk away, an obscure memory came rushing in on me. Although I knew it was only ever Scottie, William, and I playing together; I seemed to have vague memories of a fourth friend. We never brought any of our other friends out here because we did not want to let the location of our hangout becoming public. I knew something was wrong. I had a strong feeling of a fourth member of our group, someone the three of us blocked from our memories. I turned back to look at the tree once again.

The way the sun beamed through the treetops, contrasted by the shadows of the branches, filled me with a terrible sensation of dread. Looking at the branches of the old oak, I was sure there was one more child that ran with us back when. That must have been the memory we all subconsciously forgot. Something happened to that fourth friend, of that I no longer had any doubt.

I recollected us carving our initials one of the branches, so I walked back to the tree and searched for our markings. I saw my initials, Scotties’ initials, William’s initials, and the initials of one other person. The unknown set of initials were marked W-J. Could this friend also have been named William? There was absolutely no denying there was one more child who ran with us when we were young.

Who was this fourth person and why didn’t anyone remember him?

After looking over those initials for several minutes, something in the back of my head told me to alter my course to walk to the South-West. I still did not know what it was I was looking for, but I knew it would be in that direction. Memories only returned in small bits and pieces. My memory of the fourth child and what lie ahead of me continued to elude any clear thought.

Before I continued forward, I removed the rifle from my shoulder and scanned ahead using the mounted scope. For a brief second, I thought I saw a Negro dart from the cover of one tree to another. I watched for a while, but I did not see him again. I through the high powered rifle back over my shoulder and removed my six-shooter from its holster. The pistol would be much easier to fire on the spur of the moment. Firing the rifle took some time to aim.

I approached the trees where I saw that black fellow, but I could not find any tracks at all. I thought perhaps that Negro was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. It was probably only the result of seeing that fourth set of initials. I tried too hard to remember our other friend, and now I was seeing people who were not there.

Then again, it could have been the person who left the three objects in my path for me to find. I never knew anyone light-footed enough to move around the leaf covered forest floor without leaving some sort of a sign.

The underbrush began to grow thick as I walked, and wild blackberries plucked on the threads of my clothing. These blackberry bushes were really only that in name. The berries that grew on these wild, thorny bushes were no larger than a pencil eraser. These were much more bitter than the cultivated blackberries that grew around the house. I made it about half of the way through the thicket when I though I heard whispers coming from behind me. I turned to see and old black man standing at a distance.

“Hey, you,” I yelled. “Hey, who are you?”

The man gave me no answer. He did not seem to react to my words at all. The old Negro looked like he could be the grandfather of the boy I saw earlier. I yelled at him again, asking him who he was. Again, the man made absolutely no reply.

I slung my rifle from my shoulder and planted the butt against my shoulder socket. I did not plan to shoot the man; I only wanted to get a good look at him through my scope. I shuddered when I saw the man’s magnified face. Something about him seemed more familiar than it should. I did not know many colored fellows, and I knew none that old. Still, somehow I knew that I knew him. I lowered my fire arm because I did not want to make him think I was going to fire. Using a gun’s scope to look around was not an uncommon thing to see around here. You just do not keep the weapon trained on the other person for very long. It was best not to give the other person the wrong idea.

When I brought my weapon down, the man was gone. I must have scared him. That was not my intention; I only wanted to get a better look at him. I yelled out that I meant no harm and apologized for pointing my gun at him. I told him that I only wanted to get a better look at him. I never got any reply from the man.

I waited another five minutes to see if I saw the man again. Eventually I gave up and continued through to the other side of the berry thicket. Once on the other side, I looked back once more. The old man was no where to be seen.

I wondered if maybe there was a colored family living in a house somewhere in the forest. Very rapidly, a feeling of paranoia built inside of me as I realized I was being watched. Did these people know something? If they did live out here, they would know of anything strange. Everyone around here tended to be superstitious people, especially the blacks. If there was something supernatural happening around here, they would surely have plenty of stories to tell. I found myself hoping I could get the chance to speak with them.

With no others within view, I continued my walk through the forest. I wanted to carry my rifle in my hands, but I did not want to appear threatening. I left my revolver in its holster as well. Having one of my weapons at the ready would make me feel much more comfortable. With these light-footed coloreds running around, having a gun ready would make me feel safer. If one of them wanted to shoot me though, I would never hear it coming. Anyone who could move around the forest like that could easily get the jump even on a seasoned hunter as me.

Keeping too much of my attention on what was around me and not in front of me; I tripped over a large stone and fell. It took everything in me to hold back my screams. I broke my big toe, and it hurt like hell. If I was carrying my rifle in my hands, it would be broken as well. I fell hard to the ground, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. With my rifle in front of me, I would probably have broken some ribs in addition to my toe.

I rolled over in a seated position. I was not too surprised when I saw a man about my age, another Negro, standing a hundred-fifty yards away. He stood almost directly in the way of my path. The man closely resembled the two other colored fellows I saw earlier. He must be the father of the boy and the son of the old man. The resemblance was so uncanny, there was no doubt they were closely related. When I rose to my feet and dusted the dead leaves off my clothes, the Negro was gone.

Those people were beginning to scare me. Why were they taunting me like this? If their intention was to make me worry, they most definitely succeeded. I wondered if they were trying to get me lost, trying to keep me off track. Maybe they were trying to walk me until I passed out so they could rob me. This was a thousand dollar rifle. That was a lot of money for these back woods blacks. Folks like these lived the same way they did a hundred years ago. A thousand dollars would go a long way for them.

That made me wonder if the boy really did leave these engraved objects for me to find. They had to be worth several hundred dollars apiece, if not more. I could not imagine them giving up such valuable objects if they had any inkling of what they were worth. Surely even these back-woods coloreds would know the objects were valuable just because of their beauty and flawlessness.

I wondered if they in fact did plant the objects for me to find. Maybe they wanted to draw me so deep into the forest, they could kill me and no one would ever find out. The animals would pick my body apart long before anyone could find me. If they did mean me harm, I resolved that I would not make it easy for them.

I went back to my thoughts about what William said in his letter. He thought we called him White Willie when we were kids. I wondered if that fourth kid, the kid with the initials W.J. was a colored kid. If his name was William too, we might have called him Black Willie. That could help explain why we called William what we did. That man, the one around my age, could possibly be Black Willie. Perhaps that was why he seemed so familiar to me.

I still had no recollection of a fourth friend, and I found it hard to believe that I ever had a colored friend at all. Regardless, something strange was going on here. I did not want to leave this forest until I figured out what that was.

Walking to where I saw that middle-aged Negro, I began calling out in a regular speaking volume.
“Willie, Willie” I said several times.

As before, I received no reply. They were really starting to piss me off. I grew very weary of this game of hide and seek. The next time I saw one of them, I would not take my eyes off of him until we were face-to-face.

I knew I only had an hour or two before I had to turn back. I was not going to get caught here in these woods at night. I needed to reach my truck before the sun set. I picked up my pace at the cost of making more noise. Trotting through the woods, I again found no tracks or footprints left behind by that colored man.

After another twenty minutes of walking, I saw a clearing in the forest up ahead. I got there to find the clearing was created by that plant from hell, kudzu. As much as I wanted to learn the truth, I decided this would be a good time to turn back.

When I swiveled about, I did not see any tracks. I saw no trail made by others, but even worse than that, I did not see any trail of my own. I gave up being quiet and careful, and I made a very obvious trail as I quickly walked the last part of my sojourn. A sense of horror filled me. It was as if nature herself worked against me. Perhaps these coloreds used some kind of voodoo magic to manipulate the forest into carrying out their bidding. What if they wanted me for a sacrifice for some pagan ritual?

I leapt back and involuntarily whimpered when the elderly Negro man appeared right before my eyes. One moment he was not there, and the next moment he was right in my path. He did not slop from behind a tree or brush; he appeared out of thin air.

I trained my high-powered rifle on him and yelled, “Don’t move old man.”

Despite my warning, he started to slowly walk toward me.

With my scope pinpointed on his chest, I yelled out again, “I mean it boy. I’ll blow a hole in your chest.”

He did not stop. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone else. It was the little black boy. He too slowly walked in my direction. I checked to my right and, sure enough, the middle aged Negro came toward me from that direction. I did not know what to do. I could not murder three unarmed people, especially not the child.

It soon became apparent they were not walking directly toward me. Rather, they appeared to be walking more toward one another. Being careful not to get too close to the vine infested area, I slowly stepped backward. The three really did not seem to be paying any attention to me. All three of them stared at the point where they would meet.

What happened next scared me more than ever before in my life. The three colored folks walked directly into one another, passing into each other like ghosts. This could not be possible, and I began to realize just how terrifying Baker’s Woods were. The three Negros merged and became something, something not human. It was difficult to explain or even believe. They stood inside one another, reminding me of those wooden Russian dolls. It was the most unholy thing, and now it walked directly at me. No wonder Scottie, William, and I ran out of here like maniacs all those years ago.

I fired two rounds, but the shots simply passed right through them. I fired two more shots and turned to run. The only place I had to go was in that kudzu filled clearing. I decided I would rather face snakes rather than the thing coming toward me.

The ropey vines caused me to trip several times. I could not run; I had to high-step my way through. At first, I thought it was a result of my panic, but I realized the stone objects were emitting a slight vibrating hum in my backpack. The closer I got to the center of the clearing, the louder the humming became. Eventually, it sounded like my pack was full of swarming bees.

The next thing I knew, the world instantly rose up around me. It became obvious I fell into a hole when I hit the hard floor below. Now, a radiance shone through my bag. I removed the two obelisks and the pyramid from the backpack to find all three of them glowing brightly. The relics produced enough illumination to light up the whole chamber.

I found myself sitting up in a large stone chamber. I glanced around the room and saw no other way out. The only apparent exit was through the opening above me. I tried to stand, but the pain in my right leg was unbearable; I broke it in the fall. Fear numbed the pain enough to keep me conscious, but there was no way I could stand. I did manage to pull my way out from under the hole above. I sat the items on the backpack and pulled that along with me.

I removed the remnants of my expensive rifle from my back and tossed it to the ground. The butt cracked and the barrel bent when I hit the floor. There was no fixing the gun at this point. Before tossing it away, I checked to see if the scope made it intact. One or more of the lenses shattered leaving the high-quality sight completely useless. At least I still had my revolver at my side.

Strange etchings covered the walls on either side of me. They did not resemble any American Indian symbolism that I knew, and I knew a lot on the subject. The beings depicted in the images appeared to be some form of two-legged, upright walking lizards. They did not look like alligators. They did not look like any reptile that lived around here. The creatures looked more like dinosaurs than anything else.

The scene seemed to depict some procession of the creatures. Above the creatures, carved among the clouds, were what I could swear were flying saucers. Along both sides of me, the lizard-men appeared to walk toward the back wall.

I tried to look behind me to see what was carved on the back wall. I involuntarily screamed. As I turned to look back, I twisted my broken leg. The excruciating pain was so intense, I thought I might black out. One thing and one thing only kept me conscious, and that was terror. I slid a good fifteen feet from the opening above, trying to reach the back wall. Following only seconds after my scream, the young black boy jumped down into the hole with me. He fell fast, but not as fast as he should. It almost appeared that he drifted rather than fell.

The boy slowly stepped toward me, and I moved away from him as quickly as I could. I did not know where I was going. Twenty more feet and my back would be against the wall. The boy was not three steps into the chamber when the younger man dropped in behind him. A moment later, the elderly Negro followed. I didn’t know what I was looking at. They were obviously not normal, but they looked every bit as human as me.

They drove me on backwards toward the wall behind me. None of the three moved any faster than I did. It felt like I shuffled my way back for eternity before my back hit a solid surface. I could go no further. I knew there was no escape. When I stopped, so did the boy. My body trembled with agony and fear. The younger man moved a few steps closer until he stood in the same space as the boy. The elderly man joined them until all three occupied the same place at the same time. Although they were not transparent, I could still see each one of them inside the other.

For the first time, I heard them speak. The three voices spoke in unison.

“Hey Bryan, where’s Scottie and White Willie?” the young boy asked.

At the same time the middle aged man said, “Why didn’t you guys ever come back for me?”

In a bitter and hateful tone, the elderly man said to me, “You sons of bitches. I guess it was okay to leave the black guy behind. You guys never did like hanging with a nigger did you?”

It was almost too much for my mind to take in. All three of the spoke different words, but I somehow knew they were all the same person. Black Willie, our old childhood friend, stood in front of me in three different stages of life. My brain found it difficult to process this paradox. Logic told me this could not be, yet there it was.

Black Willie, one of my best of friends, never came out of the forest with the rest of us. We left him here to this strange fate.

“I remember you now,” I said. “None of us could remember you. We tried, but we could not recall you ever having existed.”

All three Willies spoke again at the same time.

Just as hateful as ever, the elderly man said, “We agreed to put the keys in place together, but you honkeys chickened out.”

“I’m trapped here,” the middle aged Willie said. “This place is a doorway. When you guys didn’t put the other keys in place, it suspended me in this state. I have been trapped in this forest all these years.”

“Where did you guys go? I thought we were all spending the night at Scottie’s tonight,” the youngest Willie asked.

Every memory of our childhood chum returned to me. The four of us were best friends. We never did anything without the others. I remembered us playing in the woods and happening upon this chamber. The kudzu vines were not here then. We spent weeks trying to figure out how to get down there. Eventually we stole a long rope from one of the neighbors. Tying it firmly to a tree, the four of us climbed into the chamber. I remembered the four objects were the first things I saw, two pyramids and two obelisks.

The objects glowed like lamps; they glowed just like they did now. We examined the chamber, excited that we found something amazing. Black Willie said we would become famous because of this discovery. In the back wall – the wall upon which I rested – were four equally shaped holes as the artifacts.

The engraved murals on all of the walls showed an ancient race that used this room as a doorway to travel to another place. We argued and debated for a while, but eventually our curiosity won out. Each one of took an artifact and carried it to the back wall. We all agreed to count to three and then slide the keys into place. Scottie counted off for us but, when the time came, everyone hesutated but Black Willie. When he pushed the pyramid into place he became like a ghost. He was no longer solid. He was not there, but he was still there.

I remembered the room filling with a dozen or so ghostly images of the lizard beings. Scottie, William, and I dropped our keys and ran. We climbed up the rope as fast as we could. When we got back to ground level, we ran. We ran and did not stop until we reached Scottie’s house. We hid in his closet, but at that point none of us could remember why. It was as if our other friend was erased from existence.

Terrified, but not sure why, we hid in the closet for hours. Scottie’s mother eventually made us come out and sent White Willie and me home. By the next day, no memory of Black Willie or fleeing from the forest remained. We did not forget him; he no longer existed in normal time-space.

“What can I do?” I pleaded. “I’m so sorry. We didn’t come back because none of us remembered anything. I’m sorry my old friend, so-so sorry.”

“Hey, that’s cool,” the youngest Willie assured me. “You’re here now.”

“The other three keys must be put in place,” the Willie who was my age said in unison with his younger version. “If all four keys are put into place, the door will open and everything will go back to the way it was.”

Apparently, the three versions of Willie always spoke over one another. It strained my mind to comprehend what I experienced.

“You didn’t give a damn about me before. I’ve been trapped here for eighty years and now you suddenly care.”

I scooted my body around so I could see the back wall. The four holes were right above me, one of them plugged with a sunstone pyramid. I took the blue obelisk from the top of my backpack and reached up to slide it into place.

“No,” the youngest Willie yelled.

“All three keys must be put into place.”

“It’s about time you man up and do what you agreed to do sixty-eight years ago.”

Without hesitation, I slid the object into place. I felt the bonds holding together the atoms of my body break. In an instant my body became immaterial. I reached for another of the keys, but my hand passed through it like it was an illusion. Like Willie, I was no longer a part of the physical world.

I looked to Black Willie in hopes he could help me. My childhood friend was gone. Somehow, simply by conscious thought, I drifted upward out of the hole. I tried to run to my truck, but the farther away I made it from that chamber, the harder it was to hold onto my existence.

A few days later, Scottie received a phone call.

“Hey man, it’s me, Black Willie”

“Damn, I haven’t talked to you in ten years. What’ve you been doing all this time?”

“Listen, I have a strange question to ask you. When we were kids, do you remember ever having a friend named Bryan?”

“No, it was always you, me, and White Willie.”

No one remembered me. I was erased from normal time. Until Scottie and White Willie put their keys into place, I was doomed to this pit, this chamber covered in Kudzu.

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