This is a night I remember as if it just happened. It was the late 80’s I’d say around ‘87, ‘88, I was a rebellious teen at the time so I was drinking heavily and hitting the hookah like it was an oxygen tank and I was on my last breaths. Memories were fuzzy and barely legible besides just blobs of color and a faint smell of marijuana but It was this night that still haunts me to this day.
It was a cool misty Halloween night when I encountered that.. thing. I went to a Halloween party at my friend Spencer’s house who lived not all that far but far enough away from me. It was a mile hike to get there but the quickest way to get to my friend’s house was to pass through a long forgotten cemetery in a pretty dense wooded area. Walking there was the easy part but getting home was the hardest as there were stumps, roots and low hanging branches that I had to avoid and well, being an arrogant teen then and not having any phones at the time, I didn’t bring any light source with me thinking I’d be fine, a few drinks wont get to me and i’ll be home by curfew.
I remember that night I got hammered because, being the stupid highschool burnout I was, I loved to party and get drunker than an Irishman on St. Patrick’s Day. It was nearing midnight and I needed to get back home. My friend offered to let me over for the night but being the stubborn drunken ass I was and knowing the wrath of my mother, I decided to walk home. The only things that were on my mind at the time was to make it home before twelve and try not to act drunk and stoned when I entered the house. I was making it through the woods seemingly at a good pace. I was dizzy, things were swirling and with no light and the ground being a bit wet from the mist, I tripped multiple times and twisted my ankle in the process.
I made it to the abandoned cemetery and I knew for sure I was halfway home. Everything began to slow and my ankle began to throb because it hurt so bad. I didn’t have that far to go and I had to trek it due to no one knowing where I was and no one knew the way I went to get to Spencer’s house. I was about halfway through the cemetery as I began to hear the sound of digging. It could have been my mind fucking with me but I could have sworn I saw a tall tattered dirty looking man. He seemed to be in his early 60’s, had short gray unkempt, greasy hair and was very skinny, nearly bone thin. I think the most stupid decision that I made in my life up to that point was when I decided to call out to him in the drunken stupor I was in. I called out “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ out here at this time o’ night?“. He ignored my call, deciding to continue digging in the hole he made. I guess I felt offended that he ignored me because this is exactly what came out from behind my teeth right after. “Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are ignoring me asshole?!”
As soon as that sentence slipped out of my lips, he stopped what he was doing and turned around to look at me. His face was skeletally thin with these small, sunken in glossed-over eyes and a mouthful of yellowed nearly blackened teeth surrounded by a big, gray, unkempt beard and mustache. The look of pure hate that he gave off brought me from my drunken state to completely sobered up with an intense fear crawling down my back. I was at a distance where he wouldn’t get me but, once I blinked he was charging towards me at full speed dragging a heavily rusted shovel behind him. I hobbled fast and tried to run past but the next thing I knew I was on the ground, my chest was heavy and I couldn’t breath. I clotheslined myself by a low hanging branch and now I’m on my back trying to get my breath back but it wasn’t coming back. I could hear the fast thunderous steps trailing close behind.
It was hard but with what strength I could muster, I got up and, not daring to look back, began to hobble out of the woods. The street was so close I could feel it. I never thought pavement could look so good. I was at the entrance when I was tackled to the ground with something being stabbed into my back. The putrid scent of rot permeated my nostrils before I was stabbed again in the back by this entity. I struggled to get up and to get him off. I managed to grab one of his legs and trip him down to the ground. I got on top of him and began to punch his ugly face with what strength I had left. I forgot to pin his arms before I was stabbed in the abdomen by what I see now was a sickle. I rolled off of him now spitting up blood as he began to drag me back to the cemetery.
I passed out due to the pain not too long after. I don’t remember hearing much after but when I woke up, I was in the hospital all bandaged up with large, stitched gash wounds all over my arms and abdomen. My family was there waiting for me to wake up which was a much needed sight after the previous night. My doctor came in a little bit after I woke up. She told me that I had broken my ankle and a rib which punctured my lung and that I had lost a part of my liver, a kidney and my gallbladder. She also told me that a stranger found me in the woods, not too deep in, all bloodied, beaten and cut up but noticed that I was still alive. To whoever it was that saved my ass, I owe you my life.
About a month after the incident, everything seemed fine again. The local news got their headline of the month, I became the popular kid in school for a bit, all was right with me and my family. Christmas time was around the corner and I had received a letter for an unknown person with an unknown address. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened it expecting to see a postcard from a family member or at least a card from a church, instead what was inside was a dirty, bloodstained page of notebook paper that read: “Your kidney was divine. Too bad I can’t say the same for your liver.”.