I’ve been fortunate in my life to not have had many creepy encounters. But this is one that still chills me to the bone and makes my stomach knot. Let’s go back to 2003.
I was 12 years old, poised to start a new school year, enjoying the last few weeks of summer break. This was an exciting year, because my mom had bought a new home for us to live in. She raised my 9-year-old sister and I as a single mother, since our father had long since chosen alcohol and heroin over being a husband and parent. She’d put in long hours and overnight shifts as an armed correctional officer at a nearby prison. Her job was night watch, in one of the towers, keeping watch of the perimeter, with orders to take down anyone who crossed the gun line. Her weekends off were for sleep and recovery from working five 12’s a week. But it was worth it for her to provide a real house for us to grow up in, like the one she was raised in.
Our new abode was a two-story country house on an acre of land in our rural North Carolina hometown, nestled halfway into a grove of pine and oak. There were hardwood floors, huge rooms, and a cozy feel that still reminds me of the smell of Thanksgiving dinner. The house sat atop a small hill that merged with a residential street below, with a single streetlight that would bathe half the house in a blue glow every night. My sister and I each had a room upstairs, while Mom had the master bedroom downstairs. My sister’s room overlooked the side of our yard with the carport and shed. My room, opposite hers, overlooked the street, and a huge magnolia tree covered in sweet-smelling ivory blooms that grew in the side yard just beyond my window. I used to reach out of my window and pluck one of the blooms off of the tree to keep in my room, its sweet scent filling the air as it shriveled into a husk.
At night, we’d open the windows to let the cool air of the evening come in. That night in particular, I woke up for no particular reason. I didn’t need to pee, and I wasn’t thirsty. But something roused me from my slumber and compelled me to gaze out of the window. The pale blue light of the street lamp was soft and serene, casting an ethereal glow on my window sill. The cool wind blew gently, rustling the branches of the magnolia tree. I climbed out of bed and walked over to peer outside, and froze in my tracks in what I can only describe as cold-blooded panic.
Beneath the blooms and leaves, barely visible in the shadows of the branches and thick trunk, was the tall, lean outline of a man. He was shrouded in darkness. I couldn’t make out his age, his hair color, what he was wearing, or any details of his face. But somehow, even without seeing his eyes, I knew he could see me. Because as I stood there, frozen in place looking down at him, he stood there unmoving, looking up at me.
‘Go wake Mom. Go, go wake Mom. Go, NOW!’
I screamed at myself internally for what felt like ages before I was finally able to unlock my petrified form and race downstairs to my mother’s room. I shook her awake and whispered, “Mom. There’s a man outside. He’s under the magnolia tree.”
My mother’s eyes went from half-lidded with sleepiness to fully alert in less than a second. She sat straight up in bed and told me in a low voice, “Stay quiet. Don’t turn on any lights.” She reached under the pillow on the empty side of her bed and pulled out a silver pistol that gleamed in the gentle light from outside. That pistol kept a permanent home under her pillow. My sister and I were mindful of it as we had been for years, careful not to disturb its resting place. I respected that pistol. I respected its power. More so than that, I respected the powerful woman before me, seeing it in her hand with her finger around the trigger.
My mother is by no means a small woman, but that night she moved from her room through the house like a panther on the prowl. She went silently on bare feet down the hall, through the kitchen, to the window of the dining room, where the magnolia tree stood outside. Using the barrel of pistol, she just barely pulled back a layer of the lace curtain and watched for what felt like several minutes. I stayed a few feet behind her, assessing her reaction. Maybe the man had gone. Maybe there was nothing there after all.
The sharp click of a freshly racked pistol echoed through the silence and sent a fresh wave of fear through my body. He was still there, and mom saw him. She was gone from the dining room window in a flash, and before I could catch up, she was at the front door. I raced into the hallway behind her to see her standing on the porch, only her back in view, both hands raised straight ahead in front of her.
The shot rang through the night like a thunderclap, followed by the sound of dead leaves being crunched under feet, and then by the pounding of those feet on the pavement of the street. Two police officers walked the yard dutifully about an hour later, but there was no trace of the trespasser, or even any evidence that he’d been there. My stomach churned as I realized that someone could appear and disappear without a trace, and that serve and protect didn’t mean much if they couldn’t get to you before the intruder could. My sister and I stayed in mom’s bed with her for the rest of the night. I eventually drifted off, snuggled in their warmth. But when I woke again a few hours later, mom was still awake, arm under my sister’s head, watching the bedroom windows.
I never saw that man again after that night. Or at least, not that I was aware of. He saw my face, illuminated by light from the street lamp, but to me, he will always be a nightmarish dark figure staring up at me from under the magnolia tree. In turn, my mother reminded me that night that she wasn’t just a mom, cooking and cleaning and checking out homework. She was also a warrior, our shield, a survivor trained by the hardships of life. Not to mention, an expert marksman who rarely missed.