I walked around outside one fall afternoon. The stars were vibrant and night sky simply gleaming with the shine of beauty like I hadn’t seen in the city. I was so happy that my parents booked a cabin in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
I remember well the night of September 22, for my life was changed forever. As I walked around the woods near a small stream I had that feeling of being watched. I chalked it up to my imagination running wild since I had never gone far out of the city.
I glanced one way down the stream and saw the light of the moon flickering across the ripples of water. I glanced the other direction and saw something in the shadows. My heart raced with fear. My body unable to move, as if I were frozen. I mustered up a shyness spoken word, “Hello”. Suddenly the figure stood up as that of a large man and dashed deeper into the woods.
My mind was running wild but I found the courage to run myself back into the cabin with my parents. I tried to explain to them what I saw but they brushed me off as if it were a deer or some animal getting a midnight drink of water.
Moving forward into the night I couldn’t sleep. I would frequently get up to look out the windows. After a few times of this I brushed it off, but something told me to look again. I saw a figure emerge from the wooded area. Walking towards a nearby cabin just a couple hundred yards away. I looked on thinking it was a cabin goer that spooked me earlier, but something seemed different.
I watched on with anticipation and fear. The figure stood on the back porch of the cabin, peering in windows. I went to wake my parents and explain to them what was happening, but again I was brushed off as having a wild imagination. Just as they were telling me to lay back down. We heard a loud scream from the cabin nearby.
My dad rushed to call the police while mom grabbed hold of me in fear. After dad got off the phone we waited in the bedroom with the dresser pushed in front of the door. Probably 15 minutes went by. Waiting for the police to get to our location. Then we heard the footsteps outside, coming up the staircase. Our eyes wide and fixed on each other as we heard the smashing of glass from the living room. Fear filled out eyes and minds. Dad pushed mom and I into the closet and started shouting for him to leave us alone.
The man came and began kicking the door to the bedroom. In our haste to hide we had forgotten to actually lock the door. What happened next was a huge struggle between my dad and this man to keep him out. He started flailing about with a hammer at my dad, striking him multiple times. Just as my dad collapsed to the floor, shots rang out through the house. The police had just arrived and shot the man dead.
My dad was in critical shape and wound up succumbing to his injuries a week later in the hospital. As for the cabin on the hill, a newlywed couple, were both killed with hammer blows to the skull. And for my dad’s killer, he was linked back to sound 17 murders for the same thing. That night was almost my last, but my dad died a hero in my eyes.