( I posted a less detailed version of this. i did not know this sub existed until now, have been dwelling on these memories and bits and pieces i missed.)
this happened twenty years ago, my mom was making me go on a trip to her boyfriends hunting lodge with a bunch of my other family. didn’t really know who owned it hahah just assumed. the school year had just ended, i was hoping to lock myself away in my room with my ps2 and play it all summer. but that wasn’t going to happen so when the time came to head out i begrudgingly shut off my ps2 and headed for the car parked in the driveway waiting to take us away.
the heat outside was palpable that summer with near 99% humidity it was an insufferable wall of misery that would wrap a moist grasp around you that would insure your comfort was non existent. as i got to the car and opened the scorching hot car door my moms boyfriend says to me “hey bud, ready for some fun this week!” his exited expression faded as he could see i was not in the mood, just then my mom got in the passenger side. as she sits down on the grey clothed seat she turned to me and said “ gunnar, you have everything ready for this week? your not missing anything right! swimming trunks, sun screen, bug spray ect.” i would tell her “yes i packed everything you told me to.” she gave me a smile and off we went to go connect with my other family and some family friends.
we rolled up to my cousins house they where out in the front of the house, an ugly looking brown that suited a bench more than a house. i got out of the car and walked up to my two cousins who where standing next to other adults talking about what kind of stuff we will be doing for the week, “hey Trent, Brandon thank god you guys are coming with.” “like we have a choice” they said at the same time. they were way more outdoorsy than me but we all wanted to play video games all day at that age hahahah and not like they had much of a choice my uncle was an outdoors man. he had a barrel gut that was made out of stone, liked to wear plaid. the sun was drenching us in its cosmic power. beads of sweat ran down my neck as i stood in the yard waiting for the double checks to be over. i waved to my two cousins as they passed us in their silver four door. on the road we go.
the lodge was nestled deep in a massive forest of pine, birch, and maple. the road went from smooth paved asphalt to rough and rocky gravel road. like a snake the road twisted and turned. the deeper we went into the forest the darker it would get as the canopy of the trees would block the sky. even the sounds of the woods seemed to loose their way in the gnarled branched and twisted bushes. you could tell the road was not well maintained or never at all because of the potholes that would pock the road almost the whole way to the lodge. my head bounced off the glass as i woke up outa the sorry excuse for a nap i took in the backseat. my Gameboy advanced had ran out of batteries half way through our trip in the middle of the elite four battle i was doing on my Pokémon ruby so i just looked out the window the rest of the trip. there in the distance past the birch trees was the lodge. it was like a beacon in the forest, for the canopy broke around the lodge and bathed it in sunlight almost like a last bastion against the darkness that was being cast by the forest. the closer we got the more boring the building got. it was unassuming. the front was kind of flashy with big wooden stairs leading to the front of the lodge. but all i could think of was if my cousins had any double A batteries.
i ran up to Brandon and asked him “hey Brandon do you have any batteries for my Gameboy !?!?” he replied “ sorry no our dad said no video games on this trip or we are going to get it and grounded for a month.” he wasn’t joking so we ended up playing cops and robbers or something like that for the rest of the day just outside the lodge. as the sun retreated and darkness set our family got a fire going in the back. i was a firebug as a kid and loved to watch the fire dance in the darkness it was mesmerizing. as we sat around the firepit and roasted marshmallows for smores. as the night went on less and less people stayed by the fire soon enough the fire was done and everyone was in the lodge for the night.
us kids had a big room that had three or four beds and two windows that you would find in a basement but this room was on ground level, found it weird even as a kid that the windows where so high up. we picked out whos sleeping where, and i ended up getting the bed closest to the door. the bed was directly in front of the door to the room, the door would have been around 4 feet from the bed. we sat in the room bullshiting for what felt like hours. my cousin Trent was standing on his bed pulling himself up a little to look out the window. he excitedly tells us to come over and look at what he sees! Brandon and me scramble over to see we grab the window sill and peer out into the woods and the way towards the only way to get in and out of here the gravel road. what we seen out in the woods was what looked like a cops or ambulance lights flashing in the distance. Trent said “ i hope no one is in trouble.” Brandon said “ i wonder if they are here for our parents?” and i said to them “ what are police doing out here?” but soon enough we would all change our minds about the lights. (mind you the room is dark as hell because if we have the lights on and my uncle is awake he would tan our asses.)
all while we are talking about the lights they are moving, growing ever more ominous they changed from the strobe like effect of a police/ ambulance to a more sinister eerily lingering miasma that had a gripping effect, looking at these lights was strange it felt like the light was looking back at you. it gave us all a bad feeling. as the light got closer it got more intense, we panicked and Brandon and me ran to our beds. if it was nothing and just some one with weird lights we didn’t want to get our asses a beating for that. but the feelings in our guts would not change and the knots would twist even more. we would all look at each other in fear, the silence would brake when all of a sudden the door starts to shake and raddle like mad, with the slit at the bottom of the door being filled with a blinding white light. at that moment my cousins would burst out crying and calling for their parents, i wasn’t crying but i was so terrified that i was on the verge of it and calling out for my mom as well. all while the door sounded like it was going to be ripped off its hinges. it was as if the being on the other side of the door had no idea what a door was yet was trying to get into the room. once the light and banging started we hid under our blankets ( those paper thin ones you find at nursing homes and jails LOL) and to be honest i thought it was our parents doing a horrible prank on us kids. this went on for what felt like 5 minuets but all of a sudden it stopped, no banging, no light….. no screaming.. the moment the banging stopped my cousins where silent, mid screams to absolute quite.
just then the door handle audibly turns ever so slowly, and the door creeks open. i lay there motionless hoping that whatever just opened the door will think that there was nothing in the bed. yeah fat chance. the bed shakes like there is something trying to put me on the ceiling, or maybe it was trying to get me out of the bed. but i would not leave the bed i held fast even though my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, legit never had my heart feel this way to this day. this went on for what felt like forever but if i was going to die in this place tonight i was going to look what ever was trying to kill me in the eyes as i go out fighting. in that moment i ripped the blanket off me ready to see some grotesque creature of the night that would torment me so. yet as i did that it stopped all together. and no sooner did i do that did i start sprinting to my moms room screaming all the way there and balling my eyes out. this time all the adults wake up and as i get to my mom i scream. “MOM WHY DID YOU NOT COME HELP, I WAS SCREAMING FOR YOU TO HELP ME MOM!” she looked so confused at me and i said “WE WERE ALL SCREAMING FOR HELP!!” and she looked at her boyfriend like what the fuck is going on?! she told me “honey we have all been sleeping and no one was screaming, we didn’t hear much of anything.” my cousins where still hiding under there blankets but out cold they had no memory of what happened. i was the only one who could remember anything. they couldn’t even remember parts of that day. i cant remember much after that pertaining the trip, i don’t know if we spent another day out there or not after that.
i know this was no dream, years after this happened once i got into high school. i got home after school and went up to my room and plopped on my bed, looking up at the pop corn ceiling. no sooner that i had started to relax BAM the bed starts to shake just like it did at the lodge, and the bed i had at that time had this huge wooden headboard, it honestly sounded like the floor was about to brake. i screamed “PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” and it immediately stops. i get up and fly down the stairs and my mom and grandma are in the kitchen, “did you guys hear all that banging?!?!” my grandma looks at me confused and says “we didn’t hear anything much.”
could this have been my brain trying to cope with trama? maybe, could be, our brains are some crazy organic computers. but this was sooooooo fucking real and nothing about it feels like a dream. in the moment it honestly felt like a horrible prank that adults were pulling on us kids but it wasn’t and it happening again years later but once i asked whatever was pulling that shit on me it stopped and to this day has never happened again. i always felt that because i was willing to face what ever was doing this to me it let me keep the memory to pass on to others.