A Scream in the Dark

A Scream in the Dark

 

            At ten years old, I had the huntin’ bug bad. I used to beg my mother to let me skip school so that I could hunt with my dad in the Carolina swamps. The deer were far from trophy sized, more like large swamp rabbits, but to me it didn’t matter. A trophy for me was a deer on the ground with my foot triumphantly resting on its shoulder as I posed for my picture. Dad would normally take the first week of deer season off from work while me and my brother slaved away at school praying the time would fly by so the weekend could begin.

            One Friday night my dad sat down at the dinner table still decked out in his hunting gear and began eating. Of course my brother and I were waiting intently to hear what type of day hunting he had.

“Man I stink.” Dad said sniffing himself.

Me and my brother still sat quietly, yet to touch our meal, waiting patiently for his story to begin.

“Babe, can you bring me the pepper?”

We continued to wait.

He stabbed at his dinner and then shoved in a mouth full.

Still, we waited.

He took a long pull on his iced tea.

Seriously dad?

“Sooo, did you see any?” I asked excitedly. We would be getting up early in the morning; dad always took us to the best spots to hunt, so my brother and I were dying to hear which area we would be hunting on in the morning.

“Yeah, seen a little doe but couldn’t get a shot. She was in some thiiick stuff.”

“We hunting there tomorrow?”

“Ain’t sure yet. Maybe.”

We started eating our meal. Odd that he didn’t bring up anything else of his trip. Something would always happen to him while he was out; whether it be falling down a hill, getting bit by a snake, or having ten thousand squirrels overhead that he would threaten to shoot out of the trees with a 12 gauged slug.

“Man I heard something weird this morning.”

Here we go.

“Scared the crap out of me.”

Wait. What?

This perked our ears up. Dad was invincible, he was a Marine. Nothing on this earth would bring the fear out of him.

“What was it dad?” Steve, my brother asked.

“Ain’t sure. Was sittin’ next to the swamp waitin’ for them deer to come out when the sun come up and there was this God awful scream out there in the swamp. The sun wasn’t up yet, so I just kept sittin’ there and waiting. A couple minutes later I heard that scream again. Sounded like a woman was out there just screamin’ like she was in one of those spooky movies when the maniac is chasin’ her. Creeped me out.”

Me and my brother looked at each other reading each other’s minds.

We hoped that wasn’t where we were hunting in the morning.

***

 

            The next morning we stepped out of dads’ Jeep and began our slow walk through the dark to our stands. The morning was overcast so not even the light from the stars and the moon were shining on the ground for us to see. Dad was using his red lens flashlight to navigate through the dark as my brother and I stumbled along trying to keep up. The thought of getting lost in the woods with the screaming terror about was enough to keep us on our dad’s coat tails.

            We finally reached a small oak grove where the trees opened up around us. Dad walked me down next to a large white oak and we went to work clearing a small spot for me to sit. He had taught me early to clear the leaves from around my position so if I had to move I did not make any noise. It also stirred up the dirt and would cover my human scent so the deer couldn’t smell me. We then broke off some small trees at the ground and made a quick blind around my area to help camouflage any movements my young self may do. My spot was set. I sat and got myself comfortable against the tree, ready for the herds of deer that I knew I would see. Dad double checked my little blind and then started walking away with my brother but stopped. He leaned over to me I assumed to wish me luck on the day but he said, “Hey, I almost forgot to tell you. This is about where I was at when I heard that scream. Good luck.”

 

What?

           

I listened to the sound of my dad and brother walking away from me until I could hear them no longer, left only with the sounds of the early morning and the beating of a drum in my chest. Every noise that I heard in the dark sounded as if someone was sneaking up on me. It was as if I was surrounded, movement was everywhere and everything sounded like it was out to get me. I couldn’t breathe, I was going to be drug into the swamp by the ghost of a dead woman and my family would never see me again. Oh Lord save me from the spook that is watching me from the swamp, I prayed. All the sounds seemed to die down at once. It became eerily quiet. She was here, I could feel it.

            A scream pierce the early morning air and caused me to jump from my blind and stand up. I wanted to run, she sounded so close, but I didn’t know where my dad and brother had gone. I slowly sat back down on the damp earth. Maybe she would go away and leave me alone. She screamed again. I closed my eyes tightly, I was going to be eating by this specter and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I did not hear her scream again after that. The sun slowly rose and lent its warm rays to me so I could stretch out my tensed muscles. No deer ever made their way up thru the swamps though I thought I did hear one crashing around off in the direction I had seen my dad and brother disappear in. About 8:00, dad and my brother came back over to where I was sitting to see if I had seen anything.

“I heard it dad!” I whispered loudly.

“Heard what?” Dad said, obviously playing me along.

“That woman screaming! She did it twice!” Dad started to laugh.

“Son, that wasn’t no woman.” He said smiling. “It was a bobcat. Let’s go get some coffee from the truck and warm up.”

I couldn’t get up. I wasn’t sure if ghosts were real, but I knew bobcats were real and I knew they had to be man eaters. Most defiantly man eaters and dad had left me by myself at its front doorstep! Like the walk into the woods, I hung tight to dads coat tails so the mad cat would not snatch me from behind and drag me into the swamps.

Later in life I found out that the crashing that I had heard was actually my dad. He threw a large rock out into the swamps to create some noise for me to react too. He was sitting in a spot that he could see me. He had always taught me that you only point your rifle when you are ready to shot and you are never ready to shot until you have identified your target. I had passed his test, rather than point my shotgun in that direction, I chose to sit terrified because the ghost of a woman was out to eat me and I knew a 12 gauged slug wasn’t going to stop her. But I had passed his test and learned my first lesson in telling a good huntin’ story.

Thanks Dad.