A mind is a terrible thing...

Once more, as I delve into the repressed memories of past terror in my life, I feel compelled to state that I do not believe in otherworldly visitations by ghosts or other such malarkey. The reason I keep saying this is for the benefit of my last story of the week, which I will post Thursday, which never fails to give me the creepy crawlies every time I think about it.

And of course, thinking never ceases to get me in trouble, because the brain is an odd creature. No matter how much you tell yourself everything can be coldly and rationally explained, your brain decides it’s going to mess with you just for fun. The following two stories are not necessarily spooky (which again, will be built up and saved for Thursday), but at the time provided a nice little jump start to the old fight-or-flight response when they happened.

Eek Number One—Back when I was at Auburn, I lived in a tiny little travel trailer at #41 Campus Trailer Court. This lot sat at the very bottom of a hill, and across the road from a huge pond. It was actually a sewage basin, but believe it or not, it never smelled bad, and had quite a crop of wildlife including all sorts of frogs and water birds. This is important for atmosphere of the story, though, because it did get sorta foggy down there at night, and the tall thicket of brush around the basin held all sorts of noisy animal things.

It was always pretty peaceful, in that sort of forgotten, back pasture that got turned into a trailer park way—lots of big trees, neighbors really quiet (except for that one semester when a group of loud-mouthed trash moved in next door and woke up every morning screaming at each other), and that was about it.

One night, I was wedged sideways on one of the narrow little couches having a conversation with my good friend Mr. Television. (Party animal I wasn’t) As I laid there, I heard a distinct rustle of dry leaves outside the wafer thin wall of the trailer.

Crunch…crunchcrunch.

I didn’t think too much about it at first, because, well, that’s just silly—crunch.

From the back of the trailer—crunch. Moving to the side opposite me. Crunch.

Oh this is nice—someone’s dickin’ around outside—probably one of my moron friends. Crunch. crunchcrunchcrunch. Back to the backside of the trailer.

Wait.

Wait.

Crunch right behind me again.

Alright, now this is getting stupid. I rapped on the wall of the trailer. No sound. Well, good!

crunch.

Alrighty now, this needed to be stopping pretty soon! I didn’t know if someone was just wandering around, or if they were trying to break into my storage shed, or trying to set the place on fire, or just trying to spook the crap outta me—whatever, they had managed to quite well do the latter. I flipped the light off and turned the TV off.

c……ru….nch.

Oh for pity’s sake. I grabbed my handy hogleg…

[We interrupt this narrative for a moment to point out the obvious—young, heavily armed, trailer-dwelling, white, Southern, conservative, male; quiet, tending to live away from others; well read; religious beliefs not part of mainstream; mechanically inclined—yes, I fit every possible bad stereotype.]

…mainly because I didn’t like the idea of NOT having it, and eased the door open.

It was dark, of course. And misty, of course. Little woods critters called to each other, of course. No one out. Trailers all around were dark. I stepped out onto the little concrete patio beside the trailer, straining to see back toward the shed…

WHHHHUUUOHHHHHHIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!! [Intended to replicate the sound of me squealing in panic like a small girl]

From behind, a cold wet THING had rubbed itself up against my pasty white hamstring—I whirled around and was met with the snotty wet nose of my neighbor’s golden retriever. STUPID F$#%^ G**$^ D*$# M(%^&^$( F$#^ C**&%# S($&##& STUPID BU*%%$#@ DA(&^^ DOG!

Yes, I had just relived the entire version of Jerry Clower’s story of Uncle Versie getting cold-nosed by a coon dog, minus the shotgun blast.

Small wonder.

Eek Number the Second—This one happened a few years ago after I was nice and married and moved into our first house in Irondale and was no longer a (serious) threat to society, and it’s not really creepy scary spooky, but is in a similar comic vein to the first.

I had to get up before sunrise one winter morning to go do construction observation on a job way down in south Alabama. I kissed all the still sleeping kids (only two at that time) and my wife. I eased downstairs and out the garage to where my truck was parked on the driveway. It really was a beautiful pre-dawn morning—cold, just a slight breeze. The trees back behind the house filtered the last bit of moonlight, with the tops of the naked branches standing out against the clear sky full of stars. It looked like a black and white engraving in a horror story book.

I turned to the door of the truck and fumbled a bit for my key.

WHooHOOOHHHHHOOOOO!!!!!

Who says white men can’t jump!?

I looked up behind me from where the noise came and saw the silhouette of a gigantic owl, perched up in the top of the sweet gum tree. I stood there for a moment and suddenly it launched out and swept down on perfectly silent soft wings, across the yard and disappeared into the woods across the street.

Just a bird, sure. But one that sure knew how to pick its moments.
posted by Terry at 1:57:00 PM