This story goes way back to 1998 when I was 16 years old. I was with my 2 other friends, who I will call Ben and Jake for privacy reasons. So it was a late summer evening on a Saturday, and I was sitting in my room listening to some 80s rock as teenagers back then would do. I got bored after some time and went outside to meet Ben and Jake. We were chilling in Ben´s garage for a while and drinking beer and smoking some pot. We got bored pretty quickly and went out to do some teenage shit.
I remember we were walking down this narrow path by the woods and down towards a lake. Back in the late 90s, there was a popular hangout spot for teenagers there, so we were hoping for seeing some other kids there. When we arrived there was no one there except the sound of the crickets out in the tall grass. We sat for a while on a bench and just talked for about 15 minutes when Jake wanted to go to an old fishing hut by the lake. We all agreed on going inside and exploring it.
We entered the hut. While Jake and Ben were walking around and breaking shit I couldn´t shake the feeling of being watched. We went upstairs where there was an old wooden boat lying there, with a fishing net over it. We were kind of checking it out when all of a sudden we heard the wooden door to the hut creak open. We could hear heavy footsteps entering down below, followed by heavy breathing. We all stopped dead in our tracks and almost held our breaths. There was around a 5-second break that felt like an eternity when suddenly a man spoke in a drunken voice.
Stranger - I know you´re heeere… Ha Ha
The heavy footsteps started to walk towards the stairs as the old floor creaked underneath. Jake went inside the wooden boat, and the rest of us followed. We put the fishing net over our heads and didn´t move. The man arrived upstairs, and we could hear him stumbling around.
Stranger - I can hear youuu! Ha Ha
We were sitting dead still but I could feel the fear in all of us. The man was walking around and moving stuff. I was thinking of a plan to escape without being caught, but we literally were like sitting ducks.
Suddenly we could feel the fishing net being ripped off.
Stranger - HERE YOU ARE!
Jake reacted the fastest and pushed him away so the man fell onto his back. We all ran like hell out of there and through the tall grass into the woods. We could hear the man give a chase but gave up, probably due to his drunken state.
We all went back to Ben´s garage and fell onto the couch of exhaustion. Jake then told us that the man dropped a knife when he fell to the floor. We all just sat in shock for the rest of the night.
To this day I can´t help myself but wonder what would happen if Jake didn´t push the man.