I’m not sure what’ll happen to me soon, but I wanted to make a post so that at least there’s a record of my night.
I’m at work, working an overnight shift. I’m fortunate enough to have worked my way into my dream job, and I love everything about it. I work in the film business. The road has been long, the work is hard, and the trials have been immense at times, but after years of pursuing “the dream” I’ve worked my way into the “glamor” of Hollywood.
Tonight, we’re shooting a big new movie deep in the woods of northern Massachusetts. I can’t say what movie, due to an NDA agreement, but hopefully anybody reading this that knows about it, will be able to pin point this to me.
Tonight I’ve been tasked with sitting and guarding our truck, occasionally running gear down to the set a mile away in the vehicle the production has provided me with. It’s been a lovely night, a bit chilly, but such is the case when fall begins to settle in here in New England.
Every so often I’ve heard the occasional animal rustling, the call of a nocturnal bird, and the crickets chirp over the dull roar of the generator that keeps the lights on in our truck. Other than running gear down to my crew, my duties include keeping the generator running so that the lights remain on. This is important so that other production vehicles running up and down the pitch black road can see me and our things, and safely drive around on their way to set for their respective duties as well.
Our truck is the only one on this particular stretch of forest road, and something about the light bleeding into a seemingly endless stretch of darkness is beautiful, surreal, and comforting.
I felt this way of course until the generator ran out of gas the first time. As soon as the generator fell silent and the darkness enveloped me fully, I heard a louder than usual rustling about 100 feet into the tree line. The steps sounded like a larger, heavier animal than I had been assuming might be near me. Heavy, plodding footsteps began to sound as though they were walking towards me, branches rustled, and I heard deep, long sniffing sounds, as though whatever was there had taken an interest in my direction.
I turned on my unfortunately low battery headlamp to try and see what was there, but as soon as I turned on the dim light, the moving stopped. I couldn’t see anything in the tree line, but quickly filled the generator back up with gasoline and got the lights back on.
After the generator began to roar once more, hours passed and I didn’t hear another thing from inside the forest other than the usual sounds of nature that had surrounded me before.
Alone at my post, enjoying what had begun to seem like my safe haven of light, I grew comfortable once more, chalking the noises up to it just being an animal that was frightened off by the sudden roar of the generator. I am in the forest after all and this is their home.
Then, the generator began to falter again. When the lights died, the footsteps began again from exactly where they had stopped. Branches rustled and snapped from what seemed like 10 feet in the air as the steps got closer and closer. As I reached for my headlamp again, I looked up.
About 20 feet away from me, and towering above me, were two eyes staring down at me. I froze, unable to bring myself to even turn on the light. The two eyes were like crimson colored cat’s eyes with a golden back light. Whatever those eyes belonged to stood motionless, and sniffed in deeply again. It’s eyes widened as it took another step in my direction.
I snapped back out of it and turned my light on, aiming it in the direction of whatever I was looking at. As my light turned on, the eyes vanished, like a shadow. It’s footsteps stopped too. Panicking, I hurried over to the generator and filled it with gas once more.
There wasn’t much left in the can, probably only enough for another hour or two of power at best. So, I turned the generator on and called my boss. Trying to remain calm, I told him we needed the fuel truck to swing by and refill our can. He told me he’d let the transport folks know and they’d be by as soon as they could.
That was about 90 minutes ago, and I haven’t seen a single other vehicle come this way. I hope they come soon. My headlamp seems to be dead now and the generator sounds like it’s running low on fuel again.