I was born in nineteen sixty seven, the year that Roger Patterson shot the
famous Bigfoot film. I was a suburban ten year old living in a medium
sized Midwestern town with no knowledge of the film when my family moved to the
country. The year spent on our land in the adjacent two thousand acre wildlife
refuge gave me a great appreciation for nature. I know that if you sit
quiet enough for long enough and listen closely to the natural world, it will
always amaze you. The years following my childhood were spent outdoors as much as
possible. I've hiked and swam, and climbed and kayaked, bikes, be
lunked and backcountry camped on five continents. The world's deserts and rainforests and too
many mountain ranges to me and have been my playground. It taught me two
things. Don't look at the sky full of stars and tell yourself there is
no other life in the universe. And don't look at a planet full of
unexplored places and say that things like Bigfoot can't exist. Although I would never
have denied their existence, it didn't mean that I expected to see one.
The topic has always interested me movies and books and articles and web sites and
the like have always drawn me in, But to see one never thought about
that. My girlfriend, Carrie didn't have the advantage of a lifetime in the
wild. Hers was a much more conventional story. She graduated early from high
school and zoomed through college and got married and had three kids and explored nothing.
Three years ago, when we met, I opened those doors for her
and discovered that she had a natural inclination for the wilderness. It paved the
way for a lot of wonderful adventures together. Even while we were climbing mountains
in the dark to see the sunrise or swimming in the lagoons of extinct volcanoes,
Carrie never looked at the sky and thought the same things that I did.
She only giggled at the prospect of Bigfoot, and once she even suggested
that I exercise a little caution about that topic when speaking in certain circles,
saying we wouldn't want others to think you're as crazy as I know you are.
The irony of that statement would come back to haunt her. The Pacific
Northwest may not house the largest forests on Earth, but it certainly does not
fail to impress. It's been a favorite place of mind for a long time.
The Redwoods are unparalleled, so it was inevitable that Carrie and I would
eventually hike there. We took six days off from our responsibilities, put back
packs on our shoulders, and got on a plane. The first day was
spent gathering a couple of items that aren't allowed on airplanes. I learned a
long time ago to pack light and never check a bag. There's nothing worse
than arriving at base camp five days before your climbing gear does. On bigger
trips, we may ship supplies ahead, but on a little adventures it is
easier to buy a folding knife and one fuel sell for your camp burner after
arrival. In addition to this, we grabbed some fruit and smoked meat and
fish, and a few other items to keep us going over the next few
days. After a good night's sleep, we ventured out for the first day.
The unseasonably warm weather carried hints of smoke from the fires burning to the
north. The smell was constant, but it wasn't overbearing. The sky was
a surreal shade of orange draped over intermittent fogs and a constant smoky haze that
left us feeling like we had onto a movie set. It was unlike anything
we had ever seen. We hiked in northern California for four days, a
total of forty two miles, with only rare encounters with other hikers. Most
visitors to our national parks and wild places rarely go beyond half a mile into
the woods. Safer for them and better for me, was my opinion.
On our fifth and final day out, we decided to take the trail that
I had been on twice before. It's eight miles of not too difficult trail
that ends in a nice mile stretch along the Pacific coast. We started early
in conditions that hadn't changed in days. It was smoky and warm, and
it was orange. Having done well with our rations, we nibbled periodically on
whatever was left, knowing that our next meal would likely be in an airport
restaurant. Several miles in, at what was roughly the halfway point, came
across two bull elk. That's not uncommon to see Roosevelt elk on many of
these trails, and as long as you stay aware and give them adequate space,
it usually works out. These elk had decided to bed down twenty yards
from each other, directly in the middle of the footpath. We held up
behind a ten foot diameter redwood that was about the same distance from the elk.
Milling around for a bit, we talked, and we made enough noise
that the boys definitely knew we were there. They didn't pay us any attention,
though they were more interested in soaking up any light that made it through
the hazy canopy above. Because there didn't seem to be any immediate danger,
we waited and watched them a bit, and we contemplated an alternate route around
them. Four years earlier, I had come across some females and yearlings while
on this trail, and that ended with me and my hiking partner sitting ten
feet up in a tree and holding on for dear life while a bull smacked
the trunk below us for an hour. He was definitely making a statement that
I didn't care to have these two bulls repeat. Changing course in the redwoods
isn't as easy as one might think. Often, if you leave the trail
is to go straight up or straight down, and you simply don't step over
down redwoods unless you're Paul bunyon and worse. Sometimes it's fifteen feet up and
then fifteen feet back down through heavy foliage that includes ferns as big as cars.
And I've walked to within ten feet avelt more than on one occasion before
they reveal themselves. Everything is that big out there. I decided to try
and make the bulls uncomfortable by getting down on one knee and moving closer.
I had moved in several yards and they were now looking right at me,
but discomfort wasn't the expression on their faces. It wasn't working, so I
began to shuffle back a few feet when they simultaneous turned ninety degrees and abruptly
stood up. I no longer had their attention. Carrie stepped forward and put
her hand on my shoulder, and as the elk leaped off the path and
disappeared into the forest, crashing and breaking branches as they ran, I turned
and looked at her, and at that moment a strong smell wafted it in
and overpowered the smell of smoke. It was curiously familiar, but everything was
happening so quickly that I didn't process it. Carrie's grip on my shoulder got
suddenly tighter as her hand began to tremble. When I looked at her again,
what I saw scared me. Her eyes were wide and her face had
gone nearly white. She could see something that I couldn't. I didn't stand
up, but I turned back and looked to where the elk once lay.
And then it happened, with a sort of grunting sound and a tremendous leap,
A huge hair covered thing sprang from the ferns below the footpath and landed
not thirty yards in front of us. It was absurdly large, way bigger
than either of the bull elk that had stood there moments before. I knew
exactly what I was looking at. There was no doubt in my mind.
I was staring at the same thing Patterson filmed all those years ago, massive
and very dark brown, standing on two legs, attached to these giant feet,
and it was staring at us. First it looked at Carrie, and
then at me, and then back at Carrie again, and over and over
for what seemed like an eternity. I was frozen in fear. I wanted
to run, I wanted to scream, or to cry, or at least
close my eyes, but I couldn't do any of those things. Carries grew
up, tightened to the point that she was causing me pain, and then
she let go. She didn't step away, she remained directly behind me.
And then my girl friend did something I would never have imagined. I felt
her open the top compartment of my pack and remove one of the two apples
we save for the coast trail portion of our height. The apple sailed over
my head toward the beast that was staring at us, and it fell short
and rolled off the trail and out of sight. Well this seemed to anger
it, because it huffed once and then a second time, even harder.
I whispered again, and Carrie replied, what throw the other apple, and
throw it hard, I said. She reached for the apple, and I
saw the beast squint its eyes. The look we were getting was far more
intimidating than when it first landed on the trail. Carrie chucked the second apple
hard, and time crawled as I watched the apple sail toward the creature in
slow motion, heading straight for its head. It was definitely going to hit
it. For a second, I wondered how angry being hit by an apple
would make it, And then, with little effort and amazing speed, it
reached up and caught the apple about a foot from its neck and pushed it
into its mouth, all in one fluid motion. I was so taken aback
that I fell from my knees and was now sitting sideways on the ground,
and Carrie dropped to her knees next to me as we watched in amazement while
this bigfoot chewed the apple, huffed again in our direction, turned in the
same direction that the elk had gone, and with two big steps, disappeared
silently into the forest. It took several minutes before either of us caught our
breath and snapped out of it, but neither said a word. We communicated
by watching each other's breathing and nodding, and after a bit I gave her
a gentle smile and she answered with one of her own, and we clasped
hands and very quickly walked the last three and a half miles to the trailhead.
We didn't speak much on our journey home or for the next week.
Eventually we discussed it. I had to know what made her think to throw
the apples. She smiled and said the Dixie Cryptied guy. Oh no,
no, no, no, no no, don't blame anything on the Dixie
cryptied guy. Okay, all right, let me give back. The Dixie
Cryptied Guy told a story about a grandpa who gave a bigfoot his grandson's squirrels,
and it seemed to work for them. We still occasionally talk about what
happened that day. We've even shared the story with a few friends and family.
Neither one of us expected for that to happen. We both hope it
never does again. It's so far from our normal reality that it's hard to
process. I never tell anyone exactly where it happened. I don't want people
to go out there looking for these things. The woods are dangerous enough without
running around trying to find something for four or five times your size. And
my advice is to enjoy the stories and watch the movies, but hope that
you never make contact. Whatever man touches he destroys. Maybe the Bigfoot have
figured that out, and that's why they're so elusive. Oh that is that
is such a I don't even know how to describe that story. It's a
feel good story, scary at first, and then Carrie, his girlfriend apparently
was quick to think and heard a story that we had done on this podcast,
and it gave her an idea of what to do, and she chunked
in an apple. I think this is wonderful, man, what a great
story. Thank you so much. The man didn't he gives his girlfriend's name,
so I assume it's okay to say his name. I probably shouldn't do
this, but his name is Bernard. And this guy's an adventurer. I
mean, this guy's a real he's a real endorsement. He does all this
stuff all the time. How many cottoness did he say you? It probably
had a lot to do with him keeping as cool with the elk and with
this bigfoot creature. There's a wonderful story, Bernard. Thank you for sending
it. I enjoyed reading it so much. Thank you. Okay, this
is kind of a weird podcast. I have a Bigfoot story, a collection
of short stories by one man who is relating stories he heard when he grew
up about different things. Don't I think one of them is about a bigfoot
that the rest of them are just oddities that are very interesting and I love
reading it. And then we have a story about a Ouiji board, which
is kind of far fetched because so many things happened to this young boy or
young man in one day. That it's you have to suspend disbelief and just
enjoy the joy the story. I hate using that term because some politicians have
used that term, but you really do have to just kind of open your
mind and listen to the story for the sake of the story. I'm not
saying it is or isn't true. I don't make judgments on any of these
stories, but I'm gonna read it for you anyway. All Right, thank
you for joining the podcast. Let's get on with it. Hold on to
the old weaves. This isn't the most exciting bunch of stories, but they're
very interesting. All right, here we go. Okay, here's the email
that I got that has several stories in it that are I'll just read you
what he writes. Here are a few short tales, and they're true to
the best of my knowledge. You're welcome to use my name. The other
names are from people long gone or they had nicknames, and I hope you
can use these stories. Only one is about a booger s squatch and it's
a second hand story. But I notice that you sometimes like to tell stories
about other things that go bump in the night. So here we go.
The first story where is titled coach Whips. My mother used to tell us
about a cousin, and I can't recall the old gal's name, but let's
call her Myrtle. Myrtle was walking out under some trees and a pair of
coach whips snakes. Those are black racers, and they probably have other names.
They dropped from the tree and one encircled each of Myrtle's arms. The
snakes bit her and constricted so strongly that a male relative, I think his
name was Uncle Jim, had to sever the heads of the snakes to force
them to relinquish their grips. From then on, each season, when coach
whips shed their skin, Myrtle's skin would peel along her arms where the snakes
had attached themselves. When I was in my teens, a pair of the
same breed of shiny black reptiles took up residence under our house. My mother
knew they were non venomous, but was having none of it. She was
typically a very gentle, especially toward elders, children, and animals. However,
because of the old family tale. She was terrified of this particular breed
of snake. As I was about to step out the door, one of
them raced out in front under the house near the front porch, in hot
pursuit of a toad. I ran back in to fetch my shotgun, and
I got back to the porch around the same time as a snake. It
had missed its last meal, but paused to raise its head, likely at
my noise. The shot severed the thing's head. The snake's mate got into
a red oak tree in the backyard, and that one had startled my mother.
I again took up my shotgun while she pointed out where the equally startled
snake had fled to the branches. The shot killed that one, but its
death grip and some handy branches left it high in the tree well. I
didn't care. It was summer and I was prone to be sunburned, and
I went in. I was recovering from one of the second degree blisters on
my chest and shoulders and back at the time when I fired. The kick
from the twelve gates slammed into the pocket of my right shoulder. It removed
the top layer of flesh in the shape of the butt of the shotgun,
and it hurt noticeably. But in the end I'd been peeling like myrtle supposedly
was. Unfortunately it did not become a seasonal event. I'd finally learned to
avoid the sun. Okay. The next one of his tales is called Faye
Lights. Faye is a I think it's a Celtic word for fairy. My
mother related this story as her grandmother Campbell and Pearl had told her. I
heard it from my mother Eloise and Pearl. When my mother was about three
years old, around nineteen thirty, she became deathly ill with diphtheria. Her
mother, my Grandma Pearl, and her grandmother, great Grandma Sarah Campbell's stayed
up with her when the fever reached a critical point. Grandma Campbell was an
herbalist in a country doctor, and at the time all the other measures and
available remedies exhausted. All they could do was bathe her in cool water and
give her SIPs of water. They lived in a very small house or cabin,
and there were only a few windows, and they had my mother and
little Eloise on a bed near one of the windows to do everything. They
could to cool her fierce temperature. They'd all be giving up hope. In
the wee hours of the morning when a light appeared in the window above Eloise.
The light was a blue and white orb and it hovered for a moment
and then traveled to each window, clearly orbiting the little home. After the
third orbit, the light again paused at Eloise's window, and then neither winked
out or sped away from the window so quickly as to appear like it did.
Pearl described it as when you turn off the TV and the little light
shrinks down to that one little point and then it's gone. Those were the
days of TV sets with picture tubs. The light was the last visual bit
as the tube cooled. When the light was gone, Little Eloise's fever broke,
and by dawn she was drinking cups of water and was able to eat
a little. Maul had a tough life of work in raising her children,
her siblings first and then her own, and she managed to do it all
with a grin and genuine love for all of her charges. She had her
own light about her and could calm the most stressful situation and see with absolute
clarity. Though she typically withheld advice and allowed us to make our own stumbles.
Maybe it's in my mind, but when I look back at our regular
conversation, I recall the times that she bit back her instinctive comments. Perhaps
she didn't feel worthy of giving advice. She was brilliant, but other folks
had could vincet otherwise. Or maybe she feared that knowing the outcome would be
like cheating. This short tale is called the Original Golden Globes. Dad used
to tell us about a neighbor in Carmona, Texas who had a talent for
finding gold nuggets and old coins. Dad was born in nineteen twenty four,
and I never asked whether this was a story from one of his folks or
one he'd heard directly. But either way, it's had time to grow some
moss. It may have come from his grandparents, who lived in Stryker,
Texas. The man who was the subject of the tales would go off into
the woods, particularly the piney creek bottoms, and he would emerge with gold,
usually a small nugget, sometimes a small coin, invariably worn and of
no clear providence. When asked where he'd gotten the gold, the man would
say that he followed the lights and where they paused and then winked out,
He did and immediately find the treasure. The man was never wealthy. He
didn't produce the gold often enough to do more than live comfortably. He did
not have to work more than rural living required at the time, and spent
most of his time hunting and fishing and cracking out stories. Dad said that
many people tried unsuccessfully to track the man when he'd slip off into the woods
to look for the lights. No one else saw the lights, and speculation
was that the man had either discovered or stolen a small hoarde and visited it
from time to time to withdraw what was needed. This next tale is called
Man Stories. My buddy Man told me this story in the fall of twenty
twenty two. He was ninety two then and a Korean War veteran. He's
ninety three and he's still going better than me at the age of fifty nine.
He got the nickname Man when he was sixteen. Fellow had hired Man
and a buddy to remove some armadillos from near his home. Man took hold
of the creature's tailed and pulled while his buddy held the toast sack man eventually
yanked up the critter and tucked it away in the sack, and the temporary
employer proclaimed that only a real man could do that without getting a scratch.
Man is a wealth of information, and he shared several tales of my mother's
family who lived in Groveton, Texas. He used to deliver groceries to my
Grandma Pearl back in the nineteen forties. And his favorite tale other than the
ones about the Moon Mullikan, also a contemporary of my Dad, is about
Bud and Carol and the Coon Dog. Bud had an exceptional blue hound.
An acquaintance from Houston moved from the area for work and offered Bud a trade
he take the dog for his girlfriend, Carol. Bud readily agreed, and
he and Carol hit it off immediately. It was the start of a long
term marriage founded on love at first sight. About a month after the trade,
the acquaintance had to move back to the city and he offered to return
the hound to Bud, and Bud told him, I'll take the dog,
but you ain't getting my gal. The city dude was happy to get back
to town and hire pay in. Bud and Carol and Blue settled down in
their own blue heaven. Now, Carol was from Wisconsin or Illinois or one
of those Yankee states, and Man would say, signs vitriol simply his information.
All she wanted was an old Texas cowboy, and that's what Bud was.
She was exotic as far as Bud was concerned, and they were both
small stature like a matched pair. Okay, The next story is called one
Other Story because he earned it. Like most combat veterans, Man doesn't speak
much about the gory parts of war, though his definition of trauma is different
than the current one. He spoke about an incident at the end of the
fighting. Everyone was frozen in place, looking at the enemy, ready for
the battles to start again, but they didn't. The armistice held, and
after a few days he saw a soldier approaching from the enemy lines. He
got the man halted and turned out the man was an officer who had been
educated in California, and he spoke English. The man offered a bottle of
wine and spoke with Man and some of the other troops. They shared the
bottle. Of course, Man made the officer take the first drink. The
officer told them that he'd heard that the peace was true, and he hoped
that it was. He wasn't sure if the man was a Korean or a
Chinese national, but he concluded with I sure hope the man got back over
here. I think that was what he meant by visiting us and offering us
wine. I think he said he's hoping he came back to the United States.
But anyway, let's move on to the next story. This is called
Bartholomew's Bigfoot. Back in the summer of nineteen ninety, I worked for the
Sheriff and the People's Republic of Northern Virginia Soviet of Arlington. It was a
jail gig from seven pm to seven am, so we had time to visit
with our coworkers between rounds and other duties, especially after lights out. I
was working the fifth floor with Bartholomew. We'd hired on around the same time,
so we'd known each other for a few months. He and I were
what the inmates and many of our local coworkers called country asses. He was
from Central Alabama and I was from East Texas. Bartholomele had a great sense
of humor and was always joking with the other members of the shift. He
was serious about the job, he'd just liked to have fun, and I
wholeheartedly agreed it was the best way to approach life. One night I returned
from around during of which all our charges had been asleep or close enough,
and we sat and talked about our lives and our experiences. Because a person
may be known as a comedian by his fellows does not mean that he is
frivolous of mind or foolish. Bartholomele was certainly no exception. On that night,
we'd been talking about monsters, UFOs, and ghosts and hats. I
told him about my collection of books on the origins of monsters and myths.
Always found that knowing the origins of vampires and werewolves and bigfoot and and boogers
and lake monsters and aliens made them more interesting, rather than the reverse.
Eventually, he looked at me in the eye and he said, I want
to tell you something. Everybody thinks I'm joking when I tell this story,
but I'm not, and I'm trusting for you not to laugh at me.
I assured him that I understood that he was serious, and I would take
him at his word. As always, He said that there wasn't much to
it, but he'd seen a bigfoot when he was in his teen years.
We were both in our early to mid twenties at the time of this telling.
He had been out in the woods hunting and he hadn't seen anything all
morning. He was perched on a log at the foot of a large tree,
and he explained that his family was poor and had to hunt where they
could, mostly on the land where they had the owner's permission. He said
it got quiet and he started to feel uneasy. He started to look around,
and then he saw it. It was peering from around another large tree,
pretty close to him, and it was screened by some of the brush.
He said it just watched him, and it didn't move, and it
didn't make a sound. I noted that his eyes grew distant as he spun
this yarn, and he said it was big, mikey, like nothing else
in the woods. He said that he got scared, and he shook some
and even considered shooting it. Yet, even though it scared him, he
just didn't feel like that was the right thing to do. He brought his
gaze back to the present. I didn't know it was some kind of animal
or some kind of person, but it felt more like a person like it
was intelligent. He said that he watched for a moment, but when he
glanced down at the shotgun and then looked up again, the creature was gone.
He said that he too, was soon gone from those woods. We
talked a little more about it, and I had no reason to doubt him.
I granted him a little and then I asked him if that was why
he moved to the city. It was an attempt to lighten the mood.
But he looked at me with a neutral expression, and he said, yeah,
I missed my family, but I can't live out there anymore. I
had to hunt until I left home and food his food, but I stayed
out of them woods. Then he lightened up a little and smiled. Now,
white people catch enough crap when they tell these stories, And can you
imagine what a brother goes through? Well, I couldn't tell nobody, he
said, I knew that. When his accent returned, we were back to
a lighter conversation, and it was his turn to make the next round.
That was an excellent, excellent, excellent little series of stories, and I
want to appreciate it's Mikey Mikey is the writer, and I got this recently
and I just kind of just stumbled on it and I read through a couple
of these and I thought this is so interesting. I really want to get
it up. So now you have Mikey's stories. Mikey, thank you for
writing these. These are really good. I love these. These are just
well told stories. I didn't have to do anything to this email. I
just read it pretty much cold and didn't I didn't edit or change a comma
in this thing. It was really good, So I appreciate you, brother,
thank you for sending it. This is a story about a Ouiji board.
Now, I know y'all have heard a lot of stories about Ouigi boards,
and you think you know everything about a Wigi board, namely to stay
away from them. Even Neoma, who took a look at this thing,
she even says she had an experience that she's going to write for us a
with a Ouiji board. I think I remember playing with a Regiuigi board maybe
once or twice when I was younger, and of course with me, nothing
happens, so I don't have anything to report on a Wigi board. I
thought it was kind of stupid, but some people have really cool, not
cool dark experiences with Wigi board. So I'm going to read the stories kind
long, but I think it's pretty good. She said this would be good
for just one podcast, but I'm going to include it with these other stories.
All right, Here we go. Imagine a dark, secluded wood with
secret paths that wind and twist down into an eerie hollow, were still pools
of black water reflect an ominous moon. Picture a group of unlucky teens wandering
down these paths and finding themselves lost, clinging to each other and jumping at
every snap of a twig underfoot, while their flashlight batteries slowly drained until the
beams of light offer little more than a lightning. Bug murmuring in the distance,
faint and unidentifiable, raises heart rates to a primordial frenzy, joining the
environment melody of frogs and crickets and nightbirds and bats around the bend. The
murmuring becomes clearer, and their fear rises. It's chanting. The glow of
fire burns brightly through open patches in the dense vegetation, and they move closer,
and the forest thins and before them is an open field. They did
not know existed until that moment. Outside of a badly written horror movie,
that's rarely how it works. More often than not, you encounter the strange
and supernatural in your everyday life when you least expect it. Generally it goes
unnoticed. Once in a while, you might get an inkling of something nearby,
something you got too close to without seeing it. Goosebumps up and down
your arms, or raised hairs on the back of your neck are indicators of
those moments. Maybe those are the cases that drive you out to search for
it, pray that you never find it. We were a diverse group of
guys strung together by circumstance. Often find myself comparing my life to the movie
The Sandlight. You might have seen it. It's one of the best representations
of youth Back in those days. I was like the new kid Scott,
small, slightly off socially, didn't have many friends to begin with, and
usually the last one to get the joke. Sometimes I laughed just to feel
like I was part of the gang. Ours was a group of high school
kids, mostly juniors and seniors, and at sixteen, I was the youngest
because I started school when I was four. That was before they changed the
rule and made it mandatory to be five before September of the school year,
before you started. The other guys were always getting me in trouble. They
had more freedom, their curfews were later, and some of them didn't even
have restrictions at all. As usual, I was led blindly into a trap
to get me to disobey my parents. My best friend Buck, he had
asked me to sleep over at his house. It meant we could stay up
as late as we wanted and eat chips and dip and drink popa all night
long. So of course I was in. Buck's favorite movie was Top Gun,
and since we didn't have many movies on videotape, that's how we watched
them back then. I knew we'd be watching it for the one hundred and
fifth time. After that, we'd probably watch Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee.
It was a perfect guy's night. Buck always showed his best behavior to
my mother. Because of this, Mom loved him. Most of our moms
were that way, though, they all seemed to adopt each of us as
their own. We asked permission and Mom said yes, and all the arrangements
were made, or so I thought with Mike's arrival, my idea of a
good time quickly disappeared. He had a way of egging Buck into bigger and
better things, or to BBD as they called it. The Bigger better deal
was a stick that always ended up with me at the short end of it.
And then Eric and his brother Dave they showed up. Eric was by
far the most introverted member of our group, and that he generally talked the
least, and when he did speak, it was usually for his own selfish
gains. He was a schemer. Dave was a polar opposite. He was
the loudest, the most crass, and least caring member of the party.
As usual. As soon as Eric got there, he started hounding him to
contact his older brother, Roger, who was in college at the University of
Vermont studying genetics. We all looked up to Roger. He had his own
apartment, had the best music, and the most importantly, Roger was a
dungeon master. Secretly, we all counted on Eric to Pesterbuck into calling Roger
so that we could get a game going. Although I didn't think any of
us was self aware enough to realize that at the time, our characters were
an extension of ourselves. Buck was the paladin because he always strived for perfection,
and Mike was the shifty chevalier. I guess that's how you say that.
I guess that's how you pronounce that. A perfect match for him.
And Eric was the ranger. He was quiet, reclusive and Dave was a
loud and obnoxious board And as for me, I always had to play the
cleric always. Okay, I'm gonna stop reading this. Is this like the
Dungeons and Dragon I'm kind of lost on what game this is. Maybe some
of you guys know. You can let me know in the comments. Is
this Dungeons and Dragons or something else? I never played those games, so
I don't know what they're talking about, but I want to keep reading.
Oddly, this is how I made it into this ragtag group of guys.
Eric and I had an art class together, and one day I heard him
talking about playing D and D. Okay, that's Dungeons and Dragons to another
guy in our class. He was begging for another drawing of his character,
and that guy, Derek, was an incredible artist worthy of doing comic books.
Eric was describing his sword and how he wanted it to look in the
drawing, and when I decided I had to get in on the conversation.
Dungeons and Dragons, I ask man always wanted to play that game? Eric
and Derek were quick to share how awesome the game was, adventures and monsters
and of course, dragons. Derek pulled out out his art book and flipped
through the page after page of incredibly drawn at dragons and warriors and maidens.
Oh, the maidens. They looked great. His artwork felt like he could
step right off the page and into the real world. Derek said that he
didn't have a game going at the moment, but Eric said that the game
he played was always going, and they needed a cleric. And that's how
I'm at these guys. I was the last in the group, but somehow
most desperately needed. When Eric finally relented and called Roger, we were all
disappointed to find that he had other plans. A friend was in town from
Chicago, and we were so sure that he'd say yes that we all had
crammed into Mike's mother's car and we're circling the neighborhood near Roger's house so that
we could be close by when he gave us to go ahead. Now we
were driving and looking for something to do. Mike and Buck quickly began to
think of some other trouble that we could get into. Buck suggested that we
call Kelly. Kelly was a girl from school who we sometimes hung out with
in secret. It wasn't that we hid from her, or even that we
were ashamed of her in any way. It's just that Kelly was well,
she was different. She was an introvert who seldom left the confines of the
TV room in the back of the school library, where the school's broadcast equipment
was housed. We often played cards there. We talked and joked and went
on and on about our dungeons and dragons adventures. Kelly would laugh at us
and add her own comments that made her cool in our eyes, even if
she was a tied eyed girl who shared lots of stories about her hippie parents.
She had mentioned once that it would be cool if we all hung out
together outside of school, and she even assured us that her parents would be
cool with it too. So that night, Eric decided it was time to
put the imitation to the test. We headed toward the other side of town
that was known as the new North End, we passed by Ethan Allen Park,
which was dark and creepy looking under the setting sun. Long shadows crawled
from the tree line like fingers, ready to grasp anyone who got too close,
and if I had been more aware, I might have recognized the foreshadowing.
The miles of trails that penetrated those woods led to an old stone tower
that overlooked the city. Kelly's house set at the end of Ethan Allen Parkway.
She was glad to see us, and she was excited to finally have
us all hang out together. Her friend Mary was there, who we already
knew, and we were quickly introduced to a new girl in the school named
Amy. She had moved there so recently that she hadn't been to class yet.
We pulled together our money and we went to buy some chips and a
few two liter bottles of soda before officially beginning our evening of fun. It
started with several hands of hearts, followed by spades, which was typical of
what we did when we hung out at school. And we laughed and we
shared stories, and we gossiped, and we laughed some more. Somewhere between
the discussion about someone being interested in someone else, and a conversation about the
roles of wizards and magic and dungeons and dragons. Kelly and Mary began to
get excited and exclaimed that they knew magic. They informed us that they were
witches or wickens and they could do spells of all kinds. Well, it
all sounded so crazy to us, so naturally we didn't believe them. There
was a back and forth and involved a lot of nah, okay whatever,
mixed in with several no you can't, Yes we can. Before someone said
all right, you all prove it. In frustration, Kelly said, okay,
I'll show you. I'll prove that I'm a witch. It would be
the turning point of the night. Kelly showed us the art of casting spells.
She outlined the rules, of which there were only a few, and
then proceeded to work on one. As we all watched and listened, she
told us that she and her family were white witches. Now I don't contone
this on any levels, so I won't go into great detail here. I
will only say that she explained that the spell had to include a statement about
no harm coming out of any castings. No harm to anyone and no harm
to anything. She asked us for ideas that she could choose from in order
to work into her spell. We had all kinds of ideas. Make somebody
bark like a dog, turn Buck into a frog, and create bags of
money. They were all rejected, since we all jokingly considered Kelly a mooney.
We eventually agreed that her spell had to have something to do with the
moon. It was ten pm when she finished her spell. Ran outside to
see what she had done, but the moon wasn't even out that night.
She hadn't proven anything. We all had a good laugh and went back inside,
expecting to move on to another subject, but Kelly was embarrassed, I
think, and unwilling to let it go. She was determined to prove to
us that she was a witch. I've got a ouiji board, she stated,
and that brought us all into a loud clamor. We were all talking
on top of each other, and some were expressing excitement while others were showing
fear. I didn't know what a ouiji board was. As the youngest member
of the group, I really was less experienced than almost everything. But after
a lot of bickering, Buck, who was amused, said bring it out.
An uncomfortable feeling began to form in my gut as I watched Kelly and
Mary run around the house finding in lighting candles while systematically turning off all the
lights. Something was telling me this wasn't going to be good. And when
Kelly produced the board, we cleared the middle of the living room and she
put a pillow from the couch on the floor to set on. She seated
herself on one side of the board, and she told us that a boy
needed to sit opposite her. It works best if a boy and a girl
do it together. Buck jumped at the chance to get in on it,
and the rest of us moved closer to watch. And Kelly placed the planchet
on the board and put her hands on it, and Buck followed her lead
and did the same, lifting her fingers. She showed him how to be
in only light contact with it, and then she said it was important not
to push the planchet and reiterated that he should barely touch it at all.
Well, I thought this was a joke. I'm sure most of us did,
but even so, we remained quiet and watched as Kelly spoke first to
the board and then looked up to the ceiling and asked something to come and
talk to us. Several minutes passed, then nothing happened. Buck was smirking
at Kelly and chuckling to himself. He kept pulling his hands away from the
board as if to call bull on the whole thing. Kelly, who was
getting increasingly upset with him, warned him that pulling his hands away from the
planchet without first saying goodbye or intentionally moving it to the word goodbye on the
board was dangerous. Buck's grin faltered a little, and he laid his fingers
back on the board. The planchet jerked as if he had fallen into it.
I clearly saw it happen as if it was in slow motion. It
happened so quickly that I had to question if he even managed to touch it
at all before it moved. It jerked again and slowly fell into an early
rhythm of forming a figure eight in the middle of the board. I watched
Buck's fingers move a fraction of a second behind the action, as if he
were struggling to keep up with it. Likewise, Kelly's fan were ever so
slightly behind the piece, and the porner was definitely moving on its own.
Kelly started asking questions, and the planchet gave us answers. With whom are
we in contact? Kelly asked, The planchet slipped out of its figure eight
and slid with a sinister scraping sound to the letter B, another scrape to
E, and finally a third scrape to N. After that, it went
back to the figure eight motion Ben. Kelly asked, is your name Ben?
With another long scrape, it moved to the word yes at the top
of the board before returning to the figure eight. Love was in awe of
what I was seeing, and both Buck and Kelly wore expressions of shock and
surprise. They turned and looked at the rest of us while the planchet traveled
its little path, and their fingers, ever so softly followed a millisecond behind.
Kelly continued to ask the spirit questions. His name was Ben. He
was six years old. He had died in a stream in the woods while
he was out with his parents. Several times he said that he wanted to
play. Kelly kept trying to keep Ben in question and answer mode. She
asked for more details about his death and who his parents were the planchet was
speeding up. Maybe Ben was agitated by the questions when he only wanted to
play, and made circles around the board so fast that it no longer scraped,
but instead made a continuous swishing sound. It was moving at twice the
original speed, and something was happening, and we were all well aware that
this was not normal. Even Kelly, who we all thought had seen all
this before, was beginning to display apprehension. She paused her questions for a
moment, but managed to maintain her contact with the board, and whether her
head turned suddenly to the right. She asked, Ben, what do you
mean by it you want to play? And with a loud crack, all
the candles went out at once as the pointer shot across the room and slammed
into the kitchen cabinets. The girls led out a terrifying scream, while the
guys were all shouting holy shit. The room was completely dark now, Not
even the street lights outside were visible through the windows. The cabinet doors were
opening and closing in loud bangs. Someone made it to the light switch,
but only the kitchen lights came on. The living room lights were all lamps,
so we were all sitting in the dark, staring through the kitchen doorway
at a room in complete disarray, and the cabinet doors were still visibly swinging
to a stop, some half open and some close, some wide open.
And as a unit, we jumped from the floor and piled together onto the
couch. Everyone was Our faces were twisted expressions of cold fear. The same
question was repeated several times. What the hell just happened? Kelly smiled with
some trepidation. See I told you I was a witch, she said.
Suddenly everyone was talking at once. Nervous giggles and hysterical laughter punctuated every sentence
and phrase. I kept asking myself now what I wanted to go home?
I was too shaken and afraid of what I had just witnessed to stay there
any longer. But how could I go home? I was supposed to be
staying the night at Buck's house. Mike had the only car, so even
if I left, I probably wasn't going to have a ride. Well,
it was close to midnight by now. Kelly said her mom would be home
soon and that it would be okay if we all stayed the night. Well,
that wasn't okay with me. I had no desire to spend another minute
inside that house. I knew what I had seen was evil, and I
wanted no part of it. I found the courage to accept the humiliation I
knew was coming, and I faced the group, bracing myself for laughter and
teasing. I said I'm leaving. I gotta go. I expected a shower
of insults, but instead Dave stood up and said, I'm going with you.
Well he didn't know it, but at that moment, Dave was my
hero. No one made any side comment, so with nothing left to say,
we both turned and headed for the door. I was never happier to
hear the clicking of a door closing behind me than I was that moment standing
outside of Kelly's house. As we walked down the driveway and breathed in the
cool night air, the smiles returned to our faces. I hadn't realized that
we were supposed to have a full moon that night, or were we It
was definitely a full moon. In fact, it was abnormally bright outside.
Even for a full moon. It was more like daylight. The moonlight the
moon was huge and easily filling half the sky, and it was directly over
Kelly's house. We stood there, staring at it until the light came on
in our heads. No way. We both cried. The spell that Kelly
had cast earlier that night had called upon the moon, and it seemed like
the only answer. Dave and I walked down Hope Street and out of the
development. We made our way to Ethan Allen Parkway that was to take us
to the Avenue. We knew we had at least a six mile walk ahead
of us, and it was past midnight, but we had just had the
scare of our lives and the alternative was not an option. We walked on
and we kept repeating that there was no way that Kelly's spell had anything to
do with the moon. Now that was impossible, We decided to test out
her spell formula to prove for ourselves that it couldn't be. It was a
perfectly clear night, naturally clear. We decided what better way to test her
spell casting than to call lightning. It is what magic users and clerics do
in dungeons and dragons, They call lightning. I put together the spell I
had learned earlier that night, repeated the safety words that no one would be
harmed in any way, and I began bringing the spell to closure. I
raised my right hand, fingers outstretched and pointed up to the sky, and
as I was about to finish speaking, I raised my left hand, fingers
outstretched to another point in the distant sky, and my hand came to a
stop, and I uttered the final words as a bolt of lightning shot across
the sky from my right hand to my left hand. Feeling like the kids
who had just busted a window and didn't want to get caught, we muttered
a few unintelligible words to each other and we turned and ran. It was
as if the sky itself would give chase to us for having done such a
thing, and neither Dave nor I were in the best shape. We were
definitely the guys to be picked last in a neighborhood ball game, but at
that moment we were Olympians. We ran the length of Ethan Allen Parkway and
most of the way up the avenue. I was never so afraid in my
life. It was all crashing together in my mind, everything that happened that
night, the Luigi board, the candles, the cabinets, the moon,
the lightning that I myself had called for. It had all happened when we
had run as far as our supernaturally fear fueled bodies could carry us. We
were gasping for an air with each breath and begging it to fill our spent
and empty lungs. It felt like I would never breathe normally again. We
had made it to our high school, Burlington High on the Avenue, and
we were far enough now that we thought we could move slowly. Once we
could breathe normally again, we began to talk about all that happened, and
then Dave confided his reasons for wanting to leave with me. For a while,
he was in foster care, where he had a supernatural experience of his
own. He believed that the people he lived with were possibly satanic. Once
he got trapped in his bedroom when a dresser moved across the floor on its
own to block the door. He kept a teddy bear on that dresser,
and the teddy bear that he loved was floating across the room toward him with
its eyes glowing bright red. That confession bonded our friendship. It allowed him
to open up and tell me more of his demonic encounters over the years.
Since I couldn't go home that night. Dave said that I could stay at
his house, and since Eric was staying at Kelly's, I could sleep in
his bed. We got past the high school and we're now passing the lake
View Cemetery that ran between the school and Saint Joseph's Orphanage, and by now
Dave had stopped sharing his che y aldhood stories. We were almost to the
orphanage property when he had glanced over my shoulder to something behind me for maybe
a third or four time. Well, that was freaking me out enough that
I finally had a look for myself. Mentally, I was thinking to myself,
what the hell now? And I turned around. It was a small
craft, too small to be an airplane, hovering over the woods behind the
Orphanage. It couldn't have fit more than one person, and I guessed it
to be about the size of a hand glider. It wasn't Saucer's shape,
but it did look like it was metal, and it had wings. It
was snub nosed and looked like it ended abruptly after what might have been a
cockpit. There was hardly anything to it except for its wings. Clearly,
this thing was pacing us, flying parallel to us. As we reached the
building, we realized that it was going to fly behind the building, so
we sprinted the three hundred feed er so to the other end, and when
we got there, all we could see was the red glow of whatever was
making the wings move. It was flying away from us, and then suddenly
a shot off and was completely gone. After everything else we had experienced that
night, this did not scare us at all. We were both kind of
excited by the idea that we might have seen a UFO. Yes, it
was a crazy night. Dave's mom and sister were already asleep when we got
there, so we didn't bother to ask if it was okay for me to
stay the night. Dave said he would deal with it in the morning.
Now of sheer mental and physical exhaustion, we both passed out. Saturday morning
was no less crazy than Friday night. Dave explained what had happened the night
before to his mother. He gave her a lot more information than I had
expected. She was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, and it turned out
that she was into supernatural stuff and even admitted to being a witch when she
was a young girl too. While I was thinking, who the hell,
are these people? What did I get myself into? Kelly and her friend
Mary, and now Dave and Eric's mom all witches? Man? This was
too much. When Eric, Buck, and Mike showed up, they told
us that they met Kelly's mom and that she was pretty cool. And then
Dave went into full storytelling mode and laid out everything that had happened to us
after we left the house. Of course, he embellished everything to make it
all more dramatic. I didn't see a need for that. Living it was
drama enough for me. Weirdly, they believed everything except the UFO story.
It was the simplest, most real thing that had happened to us that night.
It flew, and it made noise, and it was probably far more
explainable than a super large moon casting spells and conjuring lightning on a perfectly clear
night. Eric and Buck told us how Kelly's mother backed her up about being
a witch. They were all witches. She even shared some stories of her
own and made them want to prove now whether or not the Ouiji board was
real. They questioned if Kelly was moving the planchet herself, maybe she had
planned the whole thing and her Mom was in on it, and the next
thing I knew, we were scrambling to see who had enough money to buy
a Ouiji board for ourselves. Well, I had fifteen bucks on me and
I had earned working part time for my stepfather. That was another aspect of
me being a part of the group. They were always asking me for money,
and at that time I really didn't notice the fact. I was too
excited to suddenly have so many friends. Mike had gone home after dropping off
Eric and Buck, so we had to walk the seven blocks to Castler's Toys.
They sold Halloween mask Here around had tons of magic tricks and costumes and
games and toys, and it was where we well. I bought all of
our dice for Dungeons and Dragons. We found a Ouiji board with the other
games, and it boasted that it was fun for all ages, acceptable for
ages seven and up, and it only cost twelve dollars a ninety five.
We made our purchase and rushed back to Dave and Erics to see what we
could summon. It was much cheaper version of Kelly's board. It was cardboard
coated and wax with a plastic pointer. We decided that it would do,
and Dave and Eric's mom warned us against using it, and foolishly we ignored
her. We all gathered around the board and tried to get it to do
what we had seen at Kelly's house, but it wasn't working. And then
someone remembered that Kelly said it works best with a boy and a girl touching
the pointer. We had to con Dave and Eric's younger sister into playing the
board with us. Mostly we made jokes and pushed the planchet around our shs.
Clearly nothing was happening. Eric decided he had had enough and he stood
up and headed out of the room, saying, this is a bunch of
bull crap, and magic is too unless you can make lights turn on and
off by themselves. We were all sitting on the floor, just as we
were at Kelly's house. No one was near the walls, no one that
was even close. As Eric said those last words of his statement, on
and off by themselves, he reached up to tap the light bulb hanging from
the center of the room. In the instant before he touched it, it
lit up so brightly that it exploded in blue glass everywhere. He jumped back
from it, The loud pop made us all jump, and then we turned
to the Ouiji board and the porner was beginning to turn in that familiar figure
eight pattern on its own. Well, that was it. We were done.
Dave, who was closest to it, kicked the porner across the room.
We gathered up the board and put it back in the box, and
we decided on the spot that we were done with everything to do with Wigi
boards, and we took it outside to throw it in the trash, but
that wasn't good enough, and then we decided to burn it. Dave and
Eric's mom reminded us how danger it was not to say goodbye when getting off
the board, but it was a little too late for that now. And
then she told us that the only person who could destroy the board was the
one who bought it, and with that she handed me the lighter and pointed
me in that direction. I was afraid. I was really afraid. It
was a stupid piece of cardboard and wax, but it was somehow ruining my
life. My views of the world had already altered greatly in the last twenty
four hours. I knew now that magic was not only real, but now
that I was introduced to demons and spirits and wigi boards and God only knows
what else. Lighting that board up would be a pleasure. Now. I
leaned over and held the lighter to the board, and I held it there,
waiting and watching for the flame, waiting for the wax to melt away
so the cardboard could ignite and incinerate. But nothing happened. No matter how
long I held the flame to the board, it would not burn. It's
not burning, I yelled to the others. Well we tried everything. Eric
went upstairs and grabbed a bottle of lighter fluid, even soaked it in the
stuff, and it wouldn't burn. It sat there, smoking, in defiance
of all natural laws. It took thirty minutes just to get it to slowly
smolder, and then, ever so faintly, the flames began to lick across
the edge of the board and it was finally catching fire. Thank God,
I thought. I celebrated a little bit as I watched, and then Dave
said, Brian, look at the flames. He pointed at the blue light
that was now beginning to engulf the board. They're following you, man,
Look, the flames are following you. Dave's mother told me to move to
the other side of the barrel. To my total horror, the flames were
acting like a porner, arcing and bending. I moved around Eric and Buck
and then passed by Eric's little sister, and the blue flames followed me whenever
I went. There was absolutely no wind. Didn't matter if I stood still
or jumped from one side to the other. Wherever I went, the flame
arked and pointed directly at me until the board burned up. This was my
introduction to the supernatural. Many more encounters would follow. About a year later,
I had an encounter with a dog man in Shelborn Beach, and at
that time I made the comment, perhaps we summoned the creature there at night.
Now, maybe you can understand why I felt that way. That night
when this all started, we were playing with fire, well witches and Luigi
boars and then actual fire. I'm a full blown born again Christian who wears
the full armor of God, and I believe everything happens for a reeon the
Lord blessed me, yes, bless me. With these crazy, fearful,
and maybe dangerous experiences in my life. I learned that magic is real.
There are demons and spirits and fallen angels, which is do have power.
All these things are real, but they are evil and seductive. It all
boils down to who you give credit to. It's not your own power,
no matter what you think, it's all a lie. God explicitly tells us
not to play with such things. Do not speak to witches, diviners,
or those who talk too familiar spirits. This is a warning for your safety,
so that they do not consume you. And consume you they will,
if not spiritually, perhaps literally. You see, none of these have power
outside of what the Lord God has given them, and he is the one
who makes all the rules. So if you can believe in magic, or
in spells, or in ghosts or demons or spirit or even UFOs, then
ultimately you have to come to the conclusion that the Lord God is worth believing
too. I don't know about you, but it's for me and my house,
we will trust the Lord. Whoo. That was a long, kind
of a rambling story. This guy had like crazy this this was a crazy
night for this guy. But it was written pretty good and it was kind
of an engrossing story. Every paragraph I went through I wanted to go man,
what's gonna happen next? So it was good and I think it was
worth putting on this podcast. I'm recording it. I'm looking at my timer
and I'm at forty three minutes. I messed up a few times. I'll
probably probably edited out five or six or seven minutes of it. But whoa,
that was long. Anyway, I appreciate the guy sending it. This
was a great story, and thank you for sending it. Hey, Hey,
once again, thanks for tuning in on this podcast. I appreciate you
so much. If you thought it was any good, hit the thumbs up,
leave a comment, maybe even subscribe, and come back for more.
I would appreciate it if you did, but only if you liked it.
We'll see you guys on the next podcast. Thanks a lot.