The year was 1969 and I was 11 years old. Like most boys of that age I had a large group of friends but my two closest pals were Rob and Neil. Rob was a year older and Neil a year younger. We called ourselves the three musketeers and could never agree who was D’Artagnan because he was the best looking and had the coolest name. We were inseparable and when we weren’t playing soccer we spent all our time in the nearby woods. These were privately owned and surrounded by a 6ft chain link fence but we knew where the holes were so access wasn’t a problem. Apart from an area that belonged to a scout troop we had free run of the rest which covered a substantial acreage. There were two small lakes, one on which the scouts paddled canoes, and one we considered to be ours.
There was a main trail that ran roughly through the middle and a myriad of smaller trials that ran off it like arteries ultimately leading to dead ends. We knew these woods better than anyone including the scouts who rarely ventured outside of their small and jealously guarded domain. We even built a den up in a suitably shaped tree that was our pride and joy despite constantly falling apart and leaking even in the lightest of rainfall. These were probably the happiest and carefree days of our lives. That is until one day when everything changed and something happened that has stayed with us for fifty years.
On that day Rob couldn’t go to the woods with me and Neil for some reason. He was probably grounded again so Neil and I set off with no plans other than just see what happens and who we meet. There were no mobile phones back then so a lot of meetings happened by luck or chance. We were ambling along the main trail through the woods making idle chat probably about what misdemeanour Rob may have committed to get grounded. Suddenly we both stopped dead in our tracks. About 20 feet ahead of us stood a boy who neither of us had seen approaching despite the trail being clear and straight at this point.
We should have seen him approaching about 100 feet away if he had been walking towards us which he must have been unless he had been hiding behind a tree and stepped out. If that was the case we might have had a problem to deal with. He looked older than us maybe around 14, lanky with fair hair. He wore a red shirt and jeans but no jacket which was odd because it was late November and getting pretty cold. He seemed to be holding something but he was too far away for us to make out what. My first thought was it might be a knife and we should just turn round and run. But that seemed illogical as in all the years we had played in these woods we had never had any such incident with a stranger.
I say stranger because neither of us recognised him which was unusual in itself because we knew everyone we encountered in these woods apart from perhaps the occasional scout but they always wore their uniforms. For what seemed an eternity we all held our ground just staring, unsure of what to do next. I stared at him intently in case I did know him from somewhere but maybe had just forgotten him but got nothing. Perhaps I wasn’t close enough. “Do you know him? ” I whispered to Neil not wanting the boy to hear me. Neil shrugged his shoulders “Dunno I don’t think so”. The standoff continued.
The boy was looking down at whatever it was that he was holding. It seemed to have some sort of light emitting from it but if it was a torch it was a weird looking one and why would he need it in daylight anyway the Woods weren’t that dark yet? He still seemed almost oblivious to our presence although he must have seen us. Neil was short and stocky with blonde curly hair and had a fearless demeanour. Literally nothing ever seemed to scare or phase him so it didn’t surprise me when he started walking towards the boy. I followed cautiously a few yards behind happy to let him take the lead. The boy looked up but said nothing. Now we were closer to him it was noticeable that there was something odd about his appearance.
It was like nothing I had ever seen before. Whilst he had normal features and an almost plain look about him it was almost as though he needed fine tuning like a very slightly blurry and out of focus TV picture. It gave him an ethereal appearance and I remember being really unnerved at this point and my first thought was “Jesus it’s a fucking ghost” and was ready to turn and run. The only reason I didn’t was because at that moment Neil broke the uneasy silence. “Hey are you OK are you lost?” He said in a strong voice. If he was nervous he was hiding it well. I wanted to talk to Neil about the boy’s weird appearance but we were too close to him now. The boy looked up and seemed slightly surprised by the question. “What? ”he responded in a quiet voice that was almost a whisper and frowned. “You seem like you are lost. Do you live round here?” Neil asked.
The Boy held a blank expression for a moment and then said something that meant nothing to either of us. “What?” Neil responded in a slightly agitated tone. All this time I had been staring at the Boy’s face. I was fascinated by the slightly unnatural texture of his skin and his ethereal appreance. I had to suppress my desire to touch his face for fear of a bloody nose. I just had this feeling that if I were to touch it it was not going to end well. If it bothered Neil as much as it was me he wasn’t showing it. He was just acting his normal self. “I just want go home” the boy said it almost as though he was talking to himself in a barely audible tone. He then appeared to say something else but again it made no sense. He kept looking at the object he was holding. “What the fuck is that?” Neil growled and made a move for it but the boy quickly pulled his arm away and stepped back.
Again he mumbled something incoherently and Neil snapped “Are you evenfucking English?”. The boy stared blankly for a moment as if he was processing what was a very simple question and then said “Yes” but almost as though he wasn’t sure. “I need to go home” he added. “If you’re lost maybe we can help you get home”. I said sensing Neil’s patience with the boy was wearing thin and feeling obliged to try and diffuse the increasingly tense situation. The boy looked around the woods still with a mildly confused expression and then stared back at me. “No,you can’t” he said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say so just shrugged and turned to Neil who just looked pissed off. “Fuck this, come on”. He had already turned around and started walking off as he mumbled “Fucking weirdo”.
I turned back to boy to give it one last try. “Are you sure we can’t help?“ I said. I couldn’t disagree with Neil there was something more than a little weird going on here and if ever anyone looked like they needed help it was this boy. But for all that for whatever reason he seemed reluctant to ask. I then realised why I felt the urge to try and help him. He wasn’t just confused and bewildered he was scared. But I couldn’t think of anything else to say and he was ignoring me and looking down at the object in his hand trying to do something with it. A whistle pierced the air and I turned to see Neil some way down the trail gesticulating wildly at me. That was the cue to cut my losses and leave.
I turned and made my way back over to Neil. ”Fucking freak“ he said. I thought for a moment ”Yeah, I guess so. What was going on with face? “ I said. ”Dunno, maybe he’s got the pox“ Neil chuckled and started swinging a stick at some nettles. I turned and looked back. The boy was still in the same place messing with the object. ” What the hell was he holding? “ I asked Neil as he continued hacking away. He stopped and looked at me seriously. ”I think it was a Ray gun“. He held the look for a moment and then burst into laughter. ”Come on let’s go to the den“ he said and marched off swinging the stick from side to side. I followed after him but turned round one more time. But we had turned a bend and the boy was out of sight…for now.
Later on we told Rob and some other friends about our encounter and some of them even went to see if they could find him themselves but didn’t. About a week later the three of us were back in the woods as usual. We had climbed up into our tree house and were thumbing through our secret stash of porno mags. ”I need a piss“ Neil got up and pushed the door open to climb down the tree. ”Fucking hell it’s him“ he blurted out. Rob looked up surprised. ”Who?” he asked. “The fucking weirdo” Neil shouted pointing into the woods. Rob and I tried to scramble to the door but in the confined space got in each others way and almost knocked Neil out of the tree. “Fucking dickheads” he cried out as he managed to grab a branch to save himself and used it to swing down to the ground.
Rob and I were squashed in the door frame looking out into the woods. Then I saw him in the distance. The same bright red shirt stood out like a beacon. “There look” I pointed him out to Rob. “Where?” he said in a frustrated tone. “There you blind twat” I screamed wanting desperately for Rob to see him in order to validate our story. Rob tried to squeeze past me to to get a look and in doing so broke the flimsy door off its rickety hinges and it fell out towards the ground. We heard a loud cry from Neil and both peered out over the edge cautiously. Neil was lying on his back in a star shape staring blankly upwards the broken door next to him. “I think he’s dead”. Rob said way too matter of factly. “Shit” was all I could muster.
We both just stared down at the prostrate figure when he slowly opened his eyes. He snarled up at us and slowly got to his feet dusting himself down. “Is he still there?” said Neil. “Who?” replied Rob. “Who do you think…the fucking weirdo” Neil shouted back. With all the commotion we had momentarily forgotten the boy. I looked out to where he had been and there in the distance was the red shirt still in the same position. “Come on let’s go.” I yelled at Rob and we scrambled down the tree to Neil who immediately took off running down the trail in the direction of the boy with Rob and I in hot pursuit.