Post by Rictras Shard on May 28, 2015 18:59:08 GMT -4
Here is a tale from my past. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
In my last thread, I mentioned my friend, Rick. When I was nineteen, his family lived in a house in another rural community on the island. Rick and I hung around together almost non-stop then, so I spent a lot of time at this house.
The first I heard about unusual happenings there came from Rick telling me about his father watching tv one night when his truck lights beamed through the living room window. Looking out, he couldn't see anybody in the yard, and it would be unlikely that anybody would be out walking late at night in an isolated area.
This incident would cause us some apprehension later on. We were driving down the highway that led to the road his house was on one night, when his car broke down. A quick check revealed that he would not be able to fix it on his own, so we resigned ourselves to a long walk.
The stretch of highway we had to traverse was about a mile and a half, then another two or three miles on the smaller road to get to his house. As with much of rural PEI, there was a lot of woods along the small road. Being morbid people, we didn't do ourselves any favours with the kinds of things we always talked about on the way to his house ("What would you do if when we get there, we see ourselves already there?").
Needless to say, we were doing a good job of spooking each other. About a mile down the small road, we were passing someone's house, when suddenly a horrific roar broke the silence. I think the two of us achieved escape velocity. When we eventually descended back to earth, we saw the source of the monstrous noise. The neighbour's poodle. How such a small animal made such an impressive noise, I don't know. We weren't sure whether to be amused or disgusted, but at least the rest of our journey was a bit less nerve-wracking.
For the next incident that happened there, a description of the bedroom Rick stayed in is needed. It was a large section of a mobile home that had been attached to the back of the house. It likely had a length of about twenty feet. At one end was his bed and two windows. Down the wall from his bed was the door, and opposite it, another window. The trees were very close. If you opened either of the windows near his bed and reached out, your hand would be in the woods. When I stayed over, I would sleep on the floor, by the wall with the window opposite his bed.
One other thing I should mention. The house had no basement, but it was on blocks that raised it slightly above ground level, enough that a person could crawl under there. There was a storage room we had to walk through to get to his bedroom, and for some reason, there was a hatch in that room that you could go through to get under the house. Perhaps it was originally meant to be a cellar door.
I am rarely able to get to sleep without tossing and turning for awhile, so Rick usually dozed off before I did. One night while I was waiting for slumber, I heard heavy breathing in the distance, but getting closer. I kept getting more and more nervous as it approached. The largest wild animal on the island is a coyote, and this sounded far bigger than that. Also troubling, I could hear no footsteps as it neared.
Eventually, it stopped right on the outside of the wall I was against, and sounded like it was breathing right through the window. I laid there, huddled to the wall, not daring to move or make a sound. I didn't look up, because if it was sticking its head in the window, I did not want to attract its attention.
Eventually, it moved on. I was a long time falling asleep that night. Thankfully, that sort of thing never happened again. To this day, I wonder what it was, but if I had looked, perhaps I might not be here now. It might have been something normal, I suppose, but I can't imagine anything normal on PEI that would have sounded like that.
And through it all, Rick didn't wake up. SOB.
In my last thread, I mentioned my friend, Rick. When I was nineteen, his family lived in a house in another rural community on the island. Rick and I hung around together almost non-stop then, so I spent a lot of time at this house.
The first I heard about unusual happenings there came from Rick telling me about his father watching tv one night when his truck lights beamed through the living room window. Looking out, he couldn't see anybody in the yard, and it would be unlikely that anybody would be out walking late at night in an isolated area.
This incident would cause us some apprehension later on. We were driving down the highway that led to the road his house was on one night, when his car broke down. A quick check revealed that he would not be able to fix it on his own, so we resigned ourselves to a long walk.
The stretch of highway we had to traverse was about a mile and a half, then another two or three miles on the smaller road to get to his house. As with much of rural PEI, there was a lot of woods along the small road. Being morbid people, we didn't do ourselves any favours with the kinds of things we always talked about on the way to his house ("What would you do if when we get there, we see ourselves already there?").
Needless to say, we were doing a good job of spooking each other. About a mile down the small road, we were passing someone's house, when suddenly a horrific roar broke the silence. I think the two of us achieved escape velocity. When we eventually descended back to earth, we saw the source of the monstrous noise. The neighbour's poodle. How such a small animal made such an impressive noise, I don't know. We weren't sure whether to be amused or disgusted, but at least the rest of our journey was a bit less nerve-wracking.
For the next incident that happened there, a description of the bedroom Rick stayed in is needed. It was a large section of a mobile home that had been attached to the back of the house. It likely had a length of about twenty feet. At one end was his bed and two windows. Down the wall from his bed was the door, and opposite it, another window. The trees were very close. If you opened either of the windows near his bed and reached out, your hand would be in the woods. When I stayed over, I would sleep on the floor, by the wall with the window opposite his bed.
One other thing I should mention. The house had no basement, but it was on blocks that raised it slightly above ground level, enough that a person could crawl under there. There was a storage room we had to walk through to get to his bedroom, and for some reason, there was a hatch in that room that you could go through to get under the house. Perhaps it was originally meant to be a cellar door.
I am rarely able to get to sleep without tossing and turning for awhile, so Rick usually dozed off before I did. One night while I was waiting for slumber, I heard heavy breathing in the distance, but getting closer. I kept getting more and more nervous as it approached. The largest wild animal on the island is a coyote, and this sounded far bigger than that. Also troubling, I could hear no footsteps as it neared.
Eventually, it stopped right on the outside of the wall I was against, and sounded like it was breathing right through the window. I laid there, huddled to the wall, not daring to move or make a sound. I didn't look up, because if it was sticking its head in the window, I did not want to attract its attention.
Eventually, it moved on. I was a long time falling asleep that night. Thankfully, that sort of thing never happened again. To this day, I wonder what it was, but if I had looked, perhaps I might not be here now. It might have been something normal, I suppose, but I can't imagine anything normal on PEI that would have sounded like that.
And through it all, Rick didn't wake up. SOB.