The Scream

I had a significant amount of struggling to decide what story I wanted to write about first. I’ve got an abundance of stories to tell, but this is the first one. The first story I’ll post, the first story to set the mood.

So what better choice than the scariest night of my life, right?

I was 18 at the time, and totally down with hanging with the cool kids (aka the “gutter punks”[aka the “homeless” guys]). My friend (non-gutter punk) and I decided to go to the party another friend (also non-gutter punk) with two friends (gutter punks). The location of the party was out in the middle of nowhere where all the super-rich people who had a shit ton of money had their giant houses built away from each other because even rich people can’t stand to be close neighbours with rich people.

The drive out there required going down a long stretch of road that had a shit ton of trees on the left side, and a shit ton of open field (no mounds, bushes, trees, places to hide) on the right.

There were also no lights of any kind, and the moon was not very bright and the only real light being from the car’s headlights.

The guttermen were in the back seat, I was driving, and my non-gutterman friend was in the front. During the drive, the gents in the back stated they desperately needed to pee, so it made complete sense to pull over since the road was empty as fuck and let them pee on the side of the road.

While we were pulled over, my friend and I were staring out the front chatting while staring out the windshield. Suddenly a man ran across the road in front of us, coming from the left treed area and running towards the field. He had his arms in front of his face and was running in a slightly hunched position. 

He was completely black, like a shadow. As he crossed in front of us, he turned and looked at the car, and his eyes were glowing red.

This was obviously a shadow person. As soon as he’d exited the beam of the headlights, he was gone. Just disappeared. The field to the right was open and you could see a toddler running across it, let alone an adult sized anything. But there was nothing.

The guys got back in the car at that point, and my friend and I had decided not to discuss what we saw, and I DROVE THE FUCK OUT OF THERE SO GODDAMN FAST continued on to my friend’s house.

The party was uneventful, nothing supernatural, nothing scary (other than a whoooole bunch of drunk teenagers) and nothing worth mentioning, so we’ll move on.

That evening (or the next morning, depending, it was about 2am), I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. The house we lived in was very large and several floors, and the bedroom I chose was the tiny basement bedroom, because it was furthest away from my parents. This is what the layout of the floor my room was on looked like:

I also slept on a futon on the floor under the window, because that’s what the cool kids were doing. Sleeping on futons on the floor.

I digress. I was at that moment of falling asleep, right when you know you are going to fall asleep, but you’re not asleep yet and I heart the most horrifying noise. I heard a child scream. Not just a yell in anger or attention, but a full-on, blood curdling scream of terror. Whoever screamed was so terrified and scared that it broke my heart. Based on the noise, I also knew where they were standing when they screamed. Right here:

My first thought was to immediately get up and run to the child and make sure they were ok, to console them. I started to sit up in bed, and then I remembered. *I* was the only child in the house. And I was 18. My parents were several floors (2) above me and on the opposite side of the house, and the three of us were the only people in the house. I suddenly had a terrifying thought:

Whatever screamed was trying to get me out of the house.

I had a second terrifying thought:

Whatever screamed was IN the house. And it was trying to get me to leave my room.

I lay in my bed, freaking the fuck out. An intense feeling of dread started to smother me. I didn’t move, I barely breathed. I didn’t want whatever was out there to hear me and come in. That’s when I started hearing noises outside my window. It was 2 very distinct “voices” talking to each other, and there was a scratching at my screen window. The voices were not talking in English, or any language I am familiar with. They were talking in what sounded like garbled gibberish, one voice higher than the other. I continued to lay there in complete frozen terror. They couldn’t see me, because I was on the floor on my futon under the window (thank God!).

I finally decided to call someone, so I grabbed my phone. I was about to call my parents and get my dad to come rescue me, but then I realized that whatever was outside my door could easily get either of my parents, should I call for help. I then thought I should call the police. But what would I say to them?

Hey, can you send someone to my house? A child that’s not really a child screamed in my basement and there’s two unknown entities outside my bedroom window scratching at my screen. You’ll be here in 5? K, cool!

Yeah, no. As I continued to debate my situation and what I should do, the fear got to be too much, and I passed out. I awoke a few hours later to the faint rays of the rising sun’s light coming through my window curtains. The dread and fear was gone, so I did what any rational 18 year old girl would do. I grabbed my blanket and pillow and ran up to my parent’s bedroom and curled up in a crying ball on the floor by my mom’s side of the bed and fell asleep, comforted by the knowledge that if there was something in the house, it would stay away if I were in my parent’s room (or eat them first and I could get away…). When my parents woke up, I told them what had happened. My father didn’t believe me (obviously) as he was science based, if he couldn’t see it or touch it, it wasn’t real. He played along however, and went downstairs to look out my bedroom window and check the patio just outside it.

Prior to the events of the previous evening, the spot right outside my window was graced by a Norfolk pine tree in a pot, weighing about 40-50lbs (it was a failed attempt at a “live Christmas tree”). That morning, the pine had been thrown across the balcony and lay just on the other side of the patio door (furthest from my window). My window screen had been pulled off and there were slashes in it. My dad’s logic?

Oh, maybe a raccoon did it!

Because the raccoon folk are known to throw pine trees, rip off window screens, and speak to each other in gibberish languages while doing it.

Needless to say, I did not buy that. And I never slept down there again. I promptly moved back into my old room that was up beside my parent’s bedroom and remained there until I moved out of that house. I’ve never found out what was in our house that night, or what was outside my bedroom window. I’m not sure if I ever want to know, either.