u/Maccaroni_cheez164

I have been very fortunate to have grown up where I have. I grew up in a lake community and was raised in a lakefront house. I will say it is quite different than your average neighborhood. Most of the people are older, as I was growing up, the only time I saw kids my age in my neighborhood was in the summer when parents would ship their children off onto the grandparents. Otherwise, seeing a classmate was seldom since most of them lived in neighborhoods far from the lake, neighborhoods with HOAs I guess. That is not to say I didn't appreciate being able to go tubing with neighbor's grandkids or play mermaids claiming to the other girls my mermaid tail was the best, but I would be lying if I said it didn't get lonely the other three seasons of the year.

Nonetheless, I try to focus on the perks such as the sunrise and the sunset on the lake every day, having a private dock, being the go-to hang out spot for hangouts which got me in with the "cool kids", and being able to go swimming (or ice skating depending on the season) whenever I wanted. That last one is a double-edged sword for when there isn't ice. The lake, which I will not disclose the name of just in case there are any daredevils or naysayers reading this, is prone to unusually aggressive swimmer's itch. I remember one time after having a water gun fight with the neighbor's grandkids in swimming area near the dock, I swear no less than 15 minutes after leaving the water that my skin felt as though it was on fire and there were welts all over my body. The grandkids also got it pretty bad; one girl had to be taken to the hospital because she scratched so furiously at her skin it started bleeding and would not stop scratching even with blood clumping under her fingernails.

We have a public beach too; a couple blocks away from my house. From what I hear the swimmer's itch is significantly worse there due to all the people stirring the water. Hence why, like any responsible beach, there is a sign posted throughout the summer that reads, "WARNING: Swimmer's Itch" followed by smaller text essentially saying shower or towel dry yourself immediately. The swimmer's itch is only a problem in the beginning of the summer. The city ends up putting some chemicals in the lake that will kill both the parasite and the lakeweeds it lives on to prevent the issue from continuing late into the summer.

Why am I telling you this, though?

Well, in recent years an issue has popped up that no chemical, no calamine lotion, or no towel can quell; muskrats. Muskrats are when you cross a beaver with a mouse physically but a hamster spiritually. Despite what Google may tell you, they are mean, very mean. Just like they swimmer's itch, the muskrats on my lake are unusually aggressive as well.

When I was growing up, I never saw a muskrat. Not once, seagulls were the main nuisance. About a little over a year ago, they just came into existence. It was not unheard of this to happen since we never used to have ducks either, but the ducks were gradual over the span of 5 years. In the case of the muskrats, they just appeared one day. Ten of them were spotted by the beach's public dock sitting on nearby the shoreline. They were reported to be watching the people fishing, one fisherman quoted as saying;

"It didn't feel like the geese or ducks who watch us, they do it out of caution because you know their babies or curiosity since they're birds, we probably look crazy to them. I know it sounds like I am someone who should be thrown in a loony bin, but I swear to the almighty lord above, I think those things were glaring rather than casually observing. I have never felt such disdain from an animal."

It was all over the local newspaper that the lake had muskrats. That isn't the strange part, within less than 2 months the lake had a population of at least 100 muskrats confirmed through reports of multiple people seeing them perched on their boat lifts, swimming near their bobbers, or one case the darn thing was being chased off the lawn by a man's cat. I do not think myself or the city officials could have remotely predicted how horrific these things would become.

It started with a Facebook post, on the city's page, it's designated for residents to post whatever they want about the city. A woman uploaded a video of a muskrat ripping out the throat of one of the Mallard ducks. In the video, the small beast lunged at the duck's throat. The duck thrashed its head and wings in an attempt to shake the creature off. It's panicked quacks soon became garbled by the sound of blood gargling in what remained of its throat. The muskrat hooked its claws as close as it could to the duck's shoulders given the creature's small stature. It was then the duck went limp as the watery gremlin pulled the carcass underneath the water.

I have heard of cases of muskrats eating ducks before, but this was a small thing, I mean even smaller than normal, likely a baby muskrat. It took down an adult duck and was strong enough to drag it underwater, against the duck's natural buoyancy. I mean not impossible, but it would be a Herculean task for most babies to take down adults, no matter the difference in species.

The events soon increased with the ducks, people would find pieces of the ducks in their yards, their shorelines, and on their docks. Sometimes the muskrats would not even eat the ducks. Multiple Facebook posts reported seeing muskrats swim towards the beach dragging mangled ducks in tow, only for them to let go of them and watch the dead ducks float to the shoreline amongst the bustling of people trying to enjoy a day at the beach.

It got to the point where remaining ducks were not seen in the water anymore; they would walk along the sidewalk or fly into town. I think they knew something was off. Soon, there were no ducks in the water. The same happened to the few loons on the lake then a good portion of the seagulls. A lake once teeming with waterfowl was barren, only things floating on the surface were the muskrats and the people.

I saw the dangerous jump from the muskrats attacking prey animals to fighting back predators.

My family and I were on a boat ride, taking in the sunshine on a clear day, the cool waters splashing on our faces as our boat gently sliced through the water. We stopped in front of the beach to people watch as Midwesterners do.

"Oh my gosh! Look! The bald eagle!", My mom exclaimed with excitement.

"Honey, we see the eagles every day. It's nothing new." My dad replied at the steering wheel of boat with a groan.

"Yeah, but rarely above the water anymore. Oh, I think it will try and grab a fish."

As my mom pulled out her phone to record the bald eagle swoop down for a fish, I looked to the water as I sat in the front of the boat. I saw a muskrat.

It was floating on the surface, half-submerged, its head tilted toward the sky with those disgusting black beady eyes. It seemed like it was waiting on the eagle. It started swimming towards where the eagle was circling above the water.

I saw another muskrat, followed by another before eventually counting 30 muskrats near and far away from our boat but all swimming toward the spot the eagle was going to swoop down on.

As soon as the eagle dove towards the water, all the muskrats dove underneath the surface in a synchronized fashion. I know I could not do anything but despite that fact, the realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't help but scream in horror of what was about to happen.

"NO!", I shrieked.

The second eagle's talons hit the water to try and grab a fish; two muskrats broke the surface of the water underneath the eagle and latched their mouths onto each foot of the bird. They dove down with a force which created small waves as the eagle was at what I would say is the bird equivalent of waist high in the water. The majestic animal gave a clear look of confusion.

It was then a hoard of muskrats jumped out of the water, encircling the eagle, like dolphins and swarmed the bird. The following sight was so grim that it only appeared in flashes in my mind. A ball of rodents pushing a large bird of prey into the water like some demented baptism into death. Broken feathers and chunks of meat flew all around the immediate area as the eagle switched between screaming bloody murder when it could get its head above water and silence when its head was forceful pushed back under. The wings of the bird thrashed, splashing up water but eventually the wings were but a faded memory as the muskrats consumed more and more.

I could hear my parents' terror even through my shocked daze.

"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!", My dad screamed as he stood up from his chair watching the slaughter in horror.

My mom turned her back to the event, dropped her phone onto the boat floor, and knelt down. She covered her face with her hands. Though, I could still hear her muffled voice repeat to herself frantically;

"Oh my god, I can't watch. Oh my god, I can't watch.", Over and over again.

The noise though, I will never forget the noise. You would think it would sound like growls or snarls like you would hear in movies? This was not that. The only description I could give of what I heard emit from those hellish rodents was a loud choir of pleasant humming throughout that ordeal.

Eventually, what remained of the bald eagle was nothing intact feet attached to a gored stomach area and directly above that, the area where the lungs and heart should have been picked clean down to the spine, the bones were pristine and looked bleached. The wings were gone, no evidence of them even existing in the first place. The only other part that remained in perfect condition was the head of the eagle, hanging loose holding on by mere muscle fibers of its back.

The group of muskrats, all bit onto the carcass before diving back under the surface, taking the body of the eagle with it.

It was only then I came out of daze to hear the screaming of people from the beach who also witnessed the event, the sounds of splashing as people ran out of the water, and crying children being comforted by the shaky voices of their loving parents.

"We are getting out of here! Mary! Lauren! Sit down or grab something!" My dad commanded as he firmly sat back in the chair, started the boat back up, and sped into a half-turn, straightening the boat's path back toward our house and dock.

I sat in my seat stunned as we sped out of there. They were like piranhas; this all felt like some messed up joke. Our peaceful lake was host to some creatures who didn't behave like how like normal muskrats. I mean muskrats are solitary by nature, yet they were working together? It felt like an intentional act against nature itself.

This wouldn't be the last occurrence of this unified attack. Posts on the city's Facebook page showcasing videos of them ganging up on dogs trying to cool off on a hot day, photos of people posting their encounters with them with deep bites and claw marks that sent them to the hospital. One person posting their trail cam showcasing a deer in the nearby woods getting swarmed by what looked like hundreds if not thousands of the rodents still emitting that melodic humming. The deer collapsed under the weight of the muskrats almost as though it were liquified, before being dragging it out of view of the camera. The deer never stopped screaming.

It all culminated when fatally attacked a 7-year-old girl on an outing with her family, out of respect I will not state the name of this child or exact details of her gruesome death. What I will say though is that this was a very busy day at the beach and based off the information I have been given, her death was fast, very fast.

The beach was promptly shut down after that as city officials tried to figure out what to do. Muskrats are a protected animal where I live so killing them out of season or in more populated areas could result in getting arrested, thrown in jail, and potentially charged with some bogus to go on a record.

Traps were allowed for when the muskrats started coming up to peoples' doors and killing outdoor pets on the land. However, just like their unusual aggression, they are unusually smart as well and the traps killed more chipmunks and squirrels than muskrats.

I don't go in the lake anymore and it has become a trend in my town to wear rubber or leather boots when you are out and about as to decrease the damage from the muskrats lunging at your ankles when trying to go to your car. I have seen grocery store workers fight off multiple muskrats with brooms or even sweeping them out of the stores.

I miss my watery slice of heaven, the one that you used to see people playing at the beach with water guns, beach balls, and floaties. The one that used to have people go tubing and water skiing on. The winter was not better either. Apparently, the muskrats would lunge out of the ice fishing holes at peoples' faces and a lot of people ended up having to get stitches, in the best scenario. Those who tried to ice skate or do a polar plunge, had similar endings to the ice fishermen.

I do not even think there are any fish in that lake anymore, I couldn't tell you. I am too scared I will get mauled to death if I even try to go onto the dock. The one I have been on over a thousand times in my life, that I will likely never set foot on again.

They are reopening the beach this summer. They are putting up a sign so that if someone dies, they cannot get sued as easily.

So, my warning to you is this. If you go to the beach this summer and you see a sign that says;

"WARNING: BEWARE OF MUSKRATS."

LEAVE.

I have been very fortunate to have grown up where I have. I grew up in a lake community and was raised in a lakefront house. I will say it is quite different than your average neighborhood. Most of the people are older, as I was growing up, the only time I saw kids my age in my neighborhood was in the summer when parents would ship their children off onto the grandparents. Otherwise, seeing a classmate was seldom since most of them lived in neighborhoods far from the lake, neighborhoods with HOAs I guess. That is not to say I didn't appreciate being able to go tubing with neighbor's grandkids or play mermaids claiming to the other girls my mermaid tail was the best, but I would be lying if I said it didn't get lonely the other three seasons of the year.

Nonetheless, I try to focus on the perks such as the sunrise and the sunset on the lake every day, having a private dock, being the go-to hang out spot for hangouts which got me in with the "cool kids", and being able to go swimming (or ice skating depending on the season) whenever I wanted. That last one is a double-edged sword for when there isn't ice. The lake, which I will not disclose the name of just in case there are any daredevils or naysayers reading this, is prone to unusually aggressive swimmer's itch. I remember one time after having a water gun fight with the neighbor's grandkids in swimming area near the dock, I swear no less than 15 minutes after leaving the water that my skin felt as though it was on fire and there were welts all over my body. The grandkids also got it pretty bad; one girl had to be taken to the hospital because she scratched so furiously at her skin it started bleeding and would not stop scratching even with blood clumping under her fingernails.

We have a public beach too; a couple blocks away from my house. From what I hear the swimmer's itch is significantly worse there due to all the people stirring the water. Hence why, like any responsible beach, there is a sign posted throughout the summer that reads, "WARNING: Swimmer's Itch" followed by smaller text essentially saying shower or towel dry yourself immediately. The swimmer's itch is only a problem in the beginning of the summer. The city ends up putting some chemicals in the lake that will kill both the parasite and the lakeweeds it lives on to prevent the issue from continuing late into the summer.

Why am I telling you this, though?

Well, in recent years an issue has popped up that no chemical, no calamine lotion, or no towel can quell; muskrats. Muskrats are when you cross a beaver with a mouse physically but a hamster spiritually. Despite what Google may tell you, they are mean, very mean. Just like they swimmer's itch, the muskrats on my lake are unusually aggressive as well.

When I was growing up, I never saw a muskrat. Not once, seagulls were the main nuisance. About a little over a year ago, they just came into existence. It was not unheard of this to happen since we never used to have ducks either, but the ducks were gradual over the span of 5 years. In the case of the muskrats, they just appeared one day. Ten of them were spotted by the beach's public dock sitting on nearby the shoreline. They were reported to be watching the people fishing, one fisherman quoted as saying;

"It didn't feel like the geese or ducks who watch us, they do it out of caution because you know their babies or curiosity since they're birds, we probably look crazy to them. I know it sounds like I am someone who should be thrown in a loony bin, but I swear to the almighty lord above, I think those things were glaring rather than casually observing. I have never felt such disdain from an animal."

It was all over the local newspaper that the lake had muskrats. That isn't the strange part, within less than 2 months the lake had a population of at least 100 muskrats confirmed through reports of multiple people seeing them perched on their boat lifts, swimming near their bobbers, or one case the darn thing was being chased off the lawn by a man's cat. I do not think myself or the city officials could have remotely predicted how horrific these things would become.

It started with a Facebook post, on the city's page, it's designated for residents to post whatever they want about the city. A woman uploaded a video of a muskrat ripping out the throat of one of the Mallard ducks. In the video, the small beast lunged at the duck's throat. The duck thrashed its head and wings in an attempt to shake the creature off. It's panicked quacks soon became garbled by the sound of blood gargling in what remained of its throat. The muskrat hooked its claws as close as it could to the duck's shoulders given the creature's small stature. It was then the duck went limp as the watery gremlin pulled the carcass underneath the water.

I have heard of cases of muskrats eating ducks before, but this was a small thing, I mean even smaller than normal, likely a baby muskrat. It took down an adult duck and was strong enough to drag it underwater, against the duck's natural buoyancy. I mean not impossible, but it would be a Herculean task for most babies to take down adults, no matter the difference in species.

The events soon increased with the ducks, people would find pieces of the ducks in their yards, their shorelines, and on their docks. Sometimes the muskrats would not even eat the ducks. Multiple Facebook posts reported seeing muskrats swim towards the beach dragging mangled ducks in tow, only for them to let go of them and watch the dead ducks float to the shoreline amongst the bustling of people trying to enjoy a day at the beach.

It got to the point where remaining ducks were not seen in the water anymore; they would walk along the sidewalk or fly into town. I think they knew something was off. Soon, there were no ducks in the water. The same happened to the few loons on the lake then a good portion of the seagulls. A lake once teeming with waterfowl was barren, only things floating on the surface were the muskrats and the people.

I saw the dangerous jump from the muskrats attacking prey animals to fighting back predators.

My family and I were on a boat ride, taking in the sunshine on a clear day, the cool waters splashing on our faces as our boat gently sliced through the water. We stopped in front of the beach to people watch as Midwesterners do.

"Oh my gosh! Look! The bald eagle!", My mom exclaimed with excitement.

"Honey, we see the eagles every day. It's nothing new." My dad replied at the steering wheel of boat with a groan.

"Yeah, but rarely above the water anymore. Oh, I think it will try and grab a fish."

As my mom pulled out her phone to record the bald eagle swoop down for a fish, I looked to the water as I sat in the front of the boat. I saw a muskrat.

It was floating on the surface, half-submerged, its head tilted toward the sky with those disgusting black beady eyes. It seemed like it was waiting on the eagle. It started swimming towards where the eagle was circling above the water.

I saw another muskrat, followed by another before eventually counting 30 muskrats near and far away from our boat but all swimming toward the spot the eagle was going to swoop down on.

As soon as the eagle dove towards the water, all the muskrats dove underneath the surface in a synchronized fashion. I know I could not do anything but despite that fact, the realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't help but scream in horror of what was about to happen.

"NO!", I shrieked.

The second eagle's talons hit the water to try and grab a fish; two muskrats broke the surface of the water underneath the eagle and latched their mouths onto each foot of the bird. They dove down with a force which created small waves as the eagle was at what I would say is the bird equivalent of waist high in the water. The majestic animal gave a clear look of confusion.

It was then a hoard of muskrats jumped out of the water, encircling the eagle, like dolphins and swarmed the bird. The following sight was so grim that it only appeared in flashes in my mind. A ball of rodents pushing a large bird of prey into the water like some demented baptism into death. Broken feathers and chunks of meat flew all around the immediate area as the eagle switched between screaming bloody murder when it could get its head above water and silence when its head was forceful pushed back under. The wings of the bird thrashed, splashing up water but eventually the wings were but a faded memory as the muskrats consumed more and more.

I could hear my parents' terror even through my shocked daze.

"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!", My dad screamed as he stood up from his chair watching the slaughter in horror.

My mom turned her back to the event, dropped her phone onto the boat floor, and knelt down. She covered her face with her hands. Though, I could still hear her muffled voice repeat to herself frantically;

"Oh my god, I can't watch. Oh my god, I can't watch.", Over and over again.

The noise though, I will never forget the noise. You would think it would sound like growls or snarls like you would hear in movies? This was not that. The only description I could give of what I heard emit from those hellish rodents was a loud choir of pleasant humming throughout that ordeal.

Eventually, what remained of the bald eagle was nothing intact feet attached to a gored stomach area and directly above that, the area where the lungs and heart should have been picked clean down to the spine, the bones were pristine and looked bleached. The wings were gone, no evidence of them even existing in the first place. The only other part that remained in perfect condition was the head of the eagle, hanging loose holding on by mere muscle fibers of its back.

The group of muskrats, all bit onto the carcass before diving back under the surface, taking the body of the eagle with it.

It was only then I came out of daze to hear the screaming of people from the beach who also witnessed the event, the sounds of splashing as people ran out of the water, and crying children being comforted by the shaky voices of their loving parents.

"We are getting out of here! Mary! Lauren! Sit down or grab something!" My dad commanded as he firmly sat back in the chair, started the boat back up, and sped into a half-turn, straightening the boat's path back toward our house and dock.

I sat in my seat stunned as we sped out of there. They were like piranhas; this all felt like some messed up joke. Our peaceful lake was host to some creatures who didn't behave like how like normal muskrats. I mean muskrats are solitary by nature, yet they were working together? It felt like an intentional act against nature itself.

This wouldn't be the last occurrence of this unified attack. Posts on the city's Facebook page showcasing videos of them ganging up on dogs trying to cool off on a hot day, photos of people posting their encounters with them with deep bites and claw marks that sent them to the hospital. One person posting their trail cam showcasing a deer in the nearby woods getting swarmed by what looked like hundreds if not thousands of the rodents still emitting that melodic humming. The deer collapsed under the weight of the muskrats almost as though it were liquified, before being dragging it out of view of the camera. The deer never stopped screaming.

It all culminated when fatally attacked a 7-year-old girl on an outing with her family, out of respect I will not state the name of this child or exact details of her gruesome death. What I will say though is that this was a very busy day at the beach and based off the information I have been given, her death was fast, very fast.

The beach was promptly shut down after that as city officials tried to figure out what to do. Muskrats are a protected animal where I live so killing them out of season or in more populated areas could result in getting arrested, thrown in jail, and potentially charged with some bogus to go on a record.

Traps were allowed for when the muskrats started coming up to peoples' doors and killing outdoor pets on the land. However, just like their unusual aggression, they are unusually smart as well and the traps killed more chipmunks and squirrels than muskrats.

I don't go in the lake anymore and it has become a trend in my town to wear rubber or leather boots when you are out and about as to decrease the damage from the muskrats lunging at your ankles when trying to go to your car. I have seen grocery store workers fight off multiple muskrats with brooms or even sweeping them out of the stores.

I miss my watery slice of heaven, the one that you used to see people playing at the beach with water guns, beach balls, and floaties. The one that used to have people go tubing and water skiing on. The winter was not better either. Apparently, the muskrats would lunge out of the ice fishing holes at peoples' faces and a lot of people ended up having to get stitches, in the best scenario. Those who tried to ice skate or do a polar plunge, had similar endings to the ice fishermen.

I do not even think there are any fish in that lake anymore, I couldn't tell you. I am too scared I will get mauled to death if I even try to go onto the dock. The one I have been on over a thousand times in my life, that I will likely never set foot on again.

They are reopening the beach this summer. They are putting up a sign so that if someone dies, they cannot get sued as easily.

So, my warning to you is this. If you go to the beach this summer and you see a sign that says;

"WARNING: BEWARE OF MUSKRATS."

LEAVE.

I have been very fortunate to have grown up where I have. I grew up in a lake community and was raised in a lakefront house. I will say it is quite different than your average neighborhood. Most of the people are older, as I was growing up, the only time I saw kids my age in my neighborhood was in the summer when parents would ship their children off onto the grandparents. Otherwise, seeing a classmate was seldom since most of them lived in neighborhoods far from the lake, neighborhoods with HOAs I guess. That is not to say I didn't appreciate being able to go tubing with neighbor's grandkids or play mermaids claiming to the other girls my mermaid tail was the best, but I would be lying if I said it didn't get lonely the other three seasons of the year.

Nonetheless, I try to focus on the perks such as the sunrise and the sunset on the lake every day, having a private dock, being the go-to hang out spot for hangouts which got me in with the "cool kids", and being able to go swimming (or ice skating depending on the season) whenever I wanted. That last one is a double-edged sword for when there isn't ice. The lake, which I will not disclose the name of just in case there are any daredevils or naysayers reading this, is prone to unusually aggressive swimmer's itch. I remember one time after having a water gun fight with the neighbor's grandkids in swimming area near the dock, I swear no less than 15 minutes after leaving the water that my skin felt as though it was on fire and there were welts all over my body. The grandkids also got it pretty bad; one girl had to be taken to the hospital because she scratched so furiously at her skin it started bleeding and would not stop scratching even with blood clumping under her fingernails.

We have a public beach too; a couple blocks away from my house. From what I hear the swimmer's itch is significantly worse there due to all the people stirring the water. Hence why, like any responsible beach, there is a sign posted throughout the summer that reads, "WARNING: Swimmer's Itch" followed by smaller text essentially saying shower or towel dry yourself immediately. The swimmer's itch is only a problem in the beginning of the summer. The city ends up putting some chemicals in the lake that will kill both the parasite and the lakeweeds it lives on to prevent the issue from continuing late into the summer.

Why am I telling you this, though?

Well, in recent years an issue has popped up that no chemical, no calamine lotion, or no towel can quell; muskrats. Muskrats are when you cross a beaver with a mouse physically but a hamster spiritually. Despite what Google may tell you, they are mean, very mean. Just like they swimmer's itch, the muskrats on my lake are unusually aggressive as well.

When I was growing up, I never saw a muskrat. Not once, seagulls were the main nuisance. About a little over a year ago, they just came into existence. It was not unheard of this to happen since we never used to have ducks either, but the ducks were gradual over the span of 5 years. In the case of the muskrats, they just appeared one day. Ten of them were spotted by the beach's public dock sitting on nearby the shoreline. They were reported to be watching the people fishing, one fisherman quoted as saying;

"It didn't feel like the geese or ducks who watch us, they do it out of caution because you know their babies or curiosity since they're birds, we probably look crazy to them. I know it sounds like I am someone who should be thrown in a loony bin, but I swear to the almighty lord above, I think those things were glaring rather than casually observing. I have never felt such disdain from an animal."

It was all over the local newspaper that the lake had muskrats. That isn't the strange part, within less than 2 months the lake had a population of at least 100 muskrats confirmed through reports of multiple people seeing them perched on their boat lifts, swimming near their bobbers, or one case the darn thing was being chased off the lawn by a man's cat. I do not think myself or the city officials could have remotely predicted how horrific these things would become.

It started with a Facebook post, on the city's page, it's designated for residents to post whatever they want about the city. A woman uploaded a video of a muskrat ripping out the throat of one of the Mallard ducks. In the video, the small beast lunged at the duck's throat. The duck thrashed its head and wings in an attempt to shake the creature off. It's panicked quacks soon became garbled by the sound of blood gargling in what remained of its throat. The muskrat hooked its claws as close as it could to the duck's shoulders given the creature's small stature. It was then the duck went limp as the watery gremlin pulled the carcass underneath the water.

I have heard of cases of muskrats eating ducks before, but this was a small thing, I mean even smaller than normal, likely a baby muskrat. It took down an adult duck and was strong enough to drag it underwater, against the duck's natural buoyancy. I mean not impossible, but it would be a Herculean task for most babies to take down adults, no matter the difference in species.

The events soon increased with the ducks, people would find pieces of the ducks in their yards, their shorelines, and on their docks. Sometimes the muskrats would not even eat the ducks. Multiple Facebook posts reported seeing muskrats swim towards the beach dragging mangled ducks in tow, only for them to let go of them and watch the dead ducks float to the shoreline amongst the bustling of people trying to enjoy a day at the beach.

It got to the point where remaining ducks were not seen in the water anymore; they would walk along the sidewalk or fly into town. I think they knew something was off. Soon, there were no ducks in the water. The same happened to the few loons on the lake then a good portion of the seagulls. A lake once teeming with waterfowl was barren, only things floating on the surface were the muskrats and the people.

I saw the dangerous jump from the muskrats attacking prey animals to fighting back predators.

My family and I were on a boat ride, taking in the sunshine on a clear day, the cool waters splashing on our faces as our boat gently sliced through the water. We stopped in front of the beach to people watch as Midwesterners do.

"Oh my gosh! Look! The bald eagle!", My mom exclaimed with excitement.

"Honey, we see the eagles every day. It's nothing new." My dad replied at the steering wheel of boat with a groan.

"Yeah, but rarely above the water anymore. Oh, I think it will try and grab a fish."

As my mom pulled out her phone to record the bald eagle swoop down for a fish, I looked to the water as I sat in the front of the boat. I saw a muskrat.

It was floating on the surface, half-submerged, its head tilted toward the sky with those disgusting black beady eyes. It seemed like it was waiting on the eagle. It started swimming towards where the eagle was circling above the water.

I saw another muskrat, followed by another before eventually counting 30 muskrats near and far away from our boat but all swimming toward the spot the eagle was going to swoop down on.

As soon as the eagle dove towards the water, all the muskrats dove underneath the surface in a synchronized fashion. I know I could not do anything but despite that fact, the realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't help but scream in horror of what was about to happen.

"NO!", I shrieked.

The second eagle's talons hit the water to try and grab a fish; two muskrats broke the surface of the water underneath the eagle and latched their mouths onto each foot of the bird. They dove down with a force which created small waves as the eagle was at what I would say is the bird equivalent of waist high in the water. The majestic animal gave a clear look of confusion.

It was then a hoard of muskrats jumped out of the water, encircling the eagle, like dolphins and swarmed the bird. The following sight was so grim that it only appeared in flashes in my mind. A ball of rodents pushing a large bird of prey into the water like some demented baptism into death. Broken feathers and chunks of meat flew all around the immediate area as the eagle switched between screaming bloody murder when it could get its head above water and silence when its head was forceful pushed back under. The wings of the bird thrashed, splashing up water but eventually the wings were but a faded memory as the muskrats consumed more and more.

I could hear my parents' terror even through my shocked daze.

"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!", My dad screamed as he stood up from his chair watching the slaughter in horror.

My mom turned her back to the event, dropped her phone onto the boat floor, and knelt down. She covered her face with her hands. Though, I could still hear her muffled voice repeat to herself frantically;

"Oh my god, I can't watch. Oh my god, I can't watch.", Over and over again.

The noise though, I will never forget the noise. You would think it would sound like growls or snarls like you would hear in movies? This was not that. The only description I could give of what I heard emit from those hellish rodents was a loud choir of pleasant humming throughout that ordeal.

Eventually, what remained of the bald eagle was nothing intact feet attached to a gored stomach area and directly above that, the area where the lungs and heart should have been picked clean down to the spine, the bones were pristine and looked bleached. The wings were gone, no evidence of them even existing in the first place. The only other part that remained in perfect condition was the head of the eagle, hanging loose holding on by mere muscle fibers of its back.

The group of muskrats, all bit onto the carcass before diving back under the surface, taking the body of the eagle with it.

It was only then I came out of daze to hear the screaming of people from the beach who also witnessed the event, the sounds of splashing as people ran out of the water, and crying children being comforted by the shaky voices of their loving parents.

"We are getting out of here! Mary! Lauren! Sit down or grab something!" My dad commanded as he firmly sat back in the chair, started the boat back up, and sped into a half-turn, straightening the boat's path back toward our house and dock.

I sat in my seat stunned as we sped out of there. They were like piranhas; this all felt like some messed up joke. Our peaceful lake was host to some creatures who didn't behave like how like normal muskrats. I mean muskrats are solitary by nature, yet they were working together? It felt like an intentional act against nature itself.

This wouldn't be the last occurrence of this unified attack. Posts on the city's Facebook page showcasing videos of them ganging up on dogs trying to cool off on a hot day, photos of people posting their encounters with them with deep bites and claw marks that sent them to the hospital. One person posting their trail cam showcasing a deer in the nearby woods getting swarmed by what looked like hundreds if not thousands of the rodents still emitting that melodic humming. The deer collapsed under the weight of the muskrats almost as though it were liquified, before being dragging it out of view of the camera. The deer never stopped screaming.

It all culminated when fatally attacked a 7-year-old girl on an outing with her family, out of respect I will not state the name of this child or exact details of her gruesome death. What I will say though is that this was a very busy day at the beach and based off the information I have been given, her death was fast, very fast.

The beach was promptly shut down after that as city officials tried to figure out what to do. Muskrats are a protected animal where I live so killing them out of season or in more populated areas could result in getting arrested, thrown in jail, and potentially charged with some bogus to go on a record.

Traps were allowed for when the muskrats started coming up to peoples' doors and killing outdoor pets on the land. However, just like their unusual aggression, they are unusually smart as well and the traps killed more chipmunks and squirrels than muskrats.

I don't go in the lake anymore and it has become a trend in my town to wear rubber or leather boots when you are out and about as to decrease the damage from the muskrats lunging at your ankles when trying to go to your car. I have seen grocery store workers fight off multiple muskrats with brooms or even sweeping them out of the stores.

I miss my watery slice of heaven, the one that you used to see people playing at the beach with water guns, beach balls, and floaties. The one that used to have people go tubing and water skiing on. The winter was not better either. Apparently, the muskrats would lunge out of the ice fishing holes at peoples' faces and a lot of people ended up having to get stitches, in the best scenario. Those who tried to ice skate or do a polar plunge, had similar endings to the ice fishermen.

I do not even think there are any fish in that lake anymore, I couldn't tell you. I am too scared I will get mauled to death if I even try to go onto the dock. The one I have been on over a thousand times in my life, that I will likely never set foot on again.

They are reopening the beach this summer. They are putting up a sign so that if someone dies, they cannot get sued as easily.

So, my warning to you is this. If you go to the beach this summer and you see a sign that says;

"WARNING: BEWARE OF MUSKRATS."

LEAVE.

I have been very fortunate to have grown up where I have. I grew up in a lake community and was raised in a lakefront house. I will say it is quite different than your average neighborhood. Most of the people are older, as I was growing up, the only time I saw kids my age in my neighborhood was in the summer when parents would ship their children off onto the grandparents. Otherwise, seeing a classmate was seldom since most of them lived in neighborhoods far from the lake, neighborhoods with HOAs I guess. That is not to say I didn't appreciate being able to go tubing with neighbor's grandkids or play mermaids claiming to the other girls my mermaid tail was the best, but I would be lying if I said it didn't get lonely the other three seasons of the year.

Nonetheless, I try to focus on the perks such as the sunrise and the sunset on the lake every day, having a private dock, being the go-to hang out spot for hangouts which got me in with the "cool kids", and being able to go swimming (or ice skating depending on the season) whenever I wanted. That last one is a double-edged sword for when there isn't ice. The lake, which I will not disclose the name of just in case there are any daredevils or naysayers reading this, is prone to unusually aggressive swimmer's itch. I remember one time after having a water gun fight with the neighbor's grandkids in swimming area near the dock, I swear no less than 15 minutes after leaving the water that my skin felt as though it was on fire and there were welts all over my body. The grandkids also got it pretty bad; one girl had to be taken to the hospital because she scratched so furiously at her skin it started bleeding and would not stop scratching even with blood clumping under her fingernails.

We have a public beach too; a couple blocks away from my house. From what I hear the swimmer's itch is significantly worse there due to all the people stirring the water. Hence why, like any responsible beach, there is a sign posted throughout the summer that reads, "WARNING: Swimmer's Itch" followed by smaller text essentially saying shower or towel dry yourself immediately. The swimmer's itch is only a problem in the beginning of the summer. The city ends up putting some chemicals in the lake that will kill both the parasite and the lakeweeds it lives on to prevent the issue from continuing late into the summer.

Why am I telling you this, though?

Well, in recent years an issue has popped up that no chemical, no calamine lotion, or no towel can quell; muskrats. Muskrats are when you cross a beaver with a mouse physically but a hamster spiritually. Despite what Google may tell you, they are mean, very mean. Just like they swimmer's itch, the muskrats on my lake are unusually aggressive as well.

When I was growing up, I never saw a muskrat. Not once, seagulls were the main nuisance. About a little over a year ago, they just came into existence. It was not unheard of this to happen since we never used to have ducks either, but the ducks were gradual over the span of 5 years. In the case of the muskrats, they just appeared one day. Ten of them were spotted by the beach's public dock sitting on nearby the shoreline. They were reported to be watching the people fishing, one fisherman quoted as saying;

"It didn't feel like the geese or ducks who watch us, they do it out of caution because you know their babies or curiosity since they're birds, we probably look crazy to them. I know it sounds like I am someone who should be thrown in a loony bin, but I swear to the almighty lord above, I think those things were glaring rather than casually observing. I have never felt such disdain from an animal."

It was all over the local newspaper that the lake had muskrats. That isn't the strange part, within less than 2 months the lake had a population of at least 100 muskrats confirmed through reports of multiple people seeing them perched on their boat lifts, swimming near their bobbers, or one case the darn thing was being chased off the lawn by a man's cat. I do not think myself or the city officials could have remotely predicted how horrific these things would become.

It started with a Facebook post, on the city's page, it's designated for residents to post whatever they want about the city. A woman uploaded a video of a muskrat ripping out the throat of one of the Mallard ducks. In the video, the small beast lunged at the duck's throat. The duck thrashed its head and wings in an attempt to shake the creature off. It's panicked quacks soon became garbled by the sound of blood gargling in what remained of its throat. The muskrat hooked its claws as close as it could to the duck's shoulders given the creature's small stature. It was then the duck went limp as the watery gremlin pulled the carcass underneath the water.

I have heard of cases of muskrats eating ducks before, but this was a small thing, I mean even smaller than normal, likely a baby muskrat. It took down an adult duck and was strong enough to drag it underwater, against the duck's natural buoyancy. I mean not impossible, but it would be a Herculean task for most babies to take down adults, no matter the difference in species.

The events soon increased with the ducks, people would find pieces of the ducks in their yards, their shorelines, and on their docks. Sometimes the muskrats would not even eat the ducks. Multiple Facebook posts reported seeing muskrats swim towards the beach dragging mangled ducks in tow, only for them to let go of them and watch the dead ducks float to the shoreline amongst the bustling of people trying to enjoy a day at the beach.

It got to the point where remaining ducks were not seen in the water anymore; they would walk along the sidewalk or fly into town. I think they knew something was off. Soon, there were no ducks in the water. The same happened to the few loons on the lake then a good portion of the seagulls. A lake once teeming with waterfowl was barren, only things floating on the surface were the muskrats and the people.

I saw the dangerous jump from the muskrats attacking prey animals to fighting back predators.

My family and I were on a boat ride, taking in the sunshine on a clear day, the cool waters splashing on our faces as our boat gently sliced through the water. We stopped in front of the beach to people watch as Midwesterners do.

"Oh my gosh! Look! The bald eagle!", My mom exclaimed with excitement.

"Honey, we see the eagles every day. It's nothing new." My dad replied at the steering wheel of boat with a groan.

"Yeah, but rarely above the water anymore. Oh, I think it will try and grab a fish."

As my mom pulled out her phone to record the bald eagle swoop down for a fish, I looked to the water as I sat in the front of the boat. I saw a muskrat.

It was floating on the surface, half-submerged, its head tilted toward the sky with those disgusting black beady eyes. It seemed like it was waiting on the eagle. It started swimming towards where the eagle was circling above the water.

I saw another muskrat, followed by another before eventually counting 30 muskrats near and far away from our boat but all swimming toward the spot the eagle was going to swoop down on.

As soon as the eagle dove towards the water, all the muskrats dove underneath the surface in a synchronized fashion. I know I could not do anything but despite that fact, the realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't help but scream in horror of what was about to happen.

"NO!", I shrieked.

The second eagle's talons hit the water to try and grab a fish; two muskrats broke the surface of the water underneath the eagle and latched their mouths onto each foot of the bird. They dove down with a force which created small waves as the eagle was at what I would say is the bird equivalent of waist high in the water. The majestic animal gave a clear look of confusion.

It was then a hoard of muskrats jumped out of the water, encircling the eagle, like dolphins and swarmed the bird. The following sight was so grim that it only appeared in flashes in my mind. A ball of rodents pushing a large bird of prey into the water like some demented baptism into death. Broken feathers and chunks of meat flew all around the immediate area as the eagle switched between screaming bloody murder when it could get its head above water and silence when its head was forceful pushed back under. The wings of the bird thrashed, splashing up water but eventually the wings were but a faded memory as the muskrats consumed more and more.

I could hear my parents' terror even through my shocked daze.

"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!", My dad screamed as he stood up from his chair watching the slaughter in horror.

My mom turned her back to the event, dropped her phone onto the boat floor, and knelt down. She covered her face with her hands. Though, I could still hear her muffled voice repeat to herself frantically;

"Oh my god, I can't watch. Oh my god, I can't watch.", Over and over again.

The noise though, I will never forget the noise. You would think it would sound like growls or snarls like you would hear in movies? This was not that. The only description I could give of what I heard emit from those hellish rodents was a loud choir of pleasant humming throughout that ordeal.

Eventually, what remained of the bald eagle was nothing intact feet attached to a gored stomach area and directly above that, the area where the lungs and heart should have been picked clean down to the spine, the bones were pristine and looked bleached. The wings were gone, no evidence of them even existing in the first place. The only other part that remained in perfect condition was the head of the eagle, hanging loose holding on by mere muscle fibers of its back.

The group of muskrats, all bit onto the carcass before diving back under the surface, taking the body of the eagle with it.

It was only then I came out of daze to hear the screaming of people from the beach who also witnessed the event, the sounds of splashing as people ran out of the water, and crying children being comforted by the shaky voices of their loving parents.

"We are getting out of here! Mary! Lauren! Sit down or grab something!" My dad commanded as he firmly sat back in the chair, started the boat back up, and sped into a half-turn, straightening the boat's path back toward our house and dock.

I sat in my seat stunned as we sped out of there. They were like piranhas; this all felt like some messed up joke. Our peaceful lake was host to some creatures who didn't behave like how like normal muskrats. I mean muskrats are solitary by nature, yet they were working together? It felt like an intentional act against nature itself.

This wouldn't be the last occurrence of this unified attack. Posts on the city's Facebook page showcasing videos of them ganging up on dogs trying to cool off on a hot day, photos of people posting their encounters with them with deep bites and claw marks that sent them to the hospital. One person posting their trail cam showcasing a deer in the nearby woods getting swarmed by what looked like hundreds if not thousands of the rodents still emitting that melodic humming. The deer collapsed under the weight of the muskrats almost as though it were liquified, before being dragging it out of view of the camera. The deer never stopped screaming.

It all culminated when fatally attacked a 7-year-old girl on an outing with her family, out of respect I will not state the name of this child or exact details of her gruesome death. What I will say though is that this was a very busy day at the beach and based off the information I have been given, her death was fast, very fast.

The beach was promptly shut down after that as city officials tried to figure out what to do. Muskrats are a protected animal where I live so killing them out of season or in more populated areas could result in getting arrested, thrown in jail, and potentially charged with some bogus to go on a record.

Traps were allowed for when the muskrats started coming up to peoples' doors and killing outdoor pets on the land. However, just like their unusual aggression, they are unusually smart as well and the traps killed more chipmunks and squirrels than muskrats.

I don't go in the lake anymore and it has become a trend in my town to wear rubber or leather boots when you are out and about as to decrease the damage from the muskrats lunging at your ankles when trying to go to your car. I have seen grocery store workers fight off multiple muskrats with brooms or even sweeping them out of the stores.

I miss my watery slice of heaven, the one that you used to see people playing at the beach with water guns, beach balls, and floaties. The one that used to have people go tubing and water skiing on. The winter was not better either. Apparently, the muskrats would lunge out of the ice fishing holes at peoples' faces and a lot of people ended up having to get stitches, in the best scenario. Those who tried to ice skate or do a polar plunge, had similar endings to the ice fishermen.

I do not even think there are any fish in that lake anymore, I couldn't tell you. I am too scared I will get mauled to death if I even try to go onto the dock. The one I have been on over a thousand times in my life, that I will likely never set foot on again.

They are reopening the beach this summer. They are putting up a sign so that if someone dies, they cannot get sued as easily.

So, my warning to you is this. If you go to the beach this summer and you see a sign that says;

"WARNING: BEWARE OF MUSKRATS."

LEAVE.

I have been very fortunate to have grown up where I have. I grew up in a lake community and was raised in a lakefront house. I will say it is quite different than your average neighborhood. Most of the people are older, as I was growing up, the only time I saw kids my age in my neighborhood was in the summer when parents would ship their children off onto the grandparents. Otherwise, seeing a classmate was seldom since most of them lived in neighborhoods far from the lake, neighborhoods with HOAs I guess. That is not to say I didn't appreciate being able to go tubing with neighbor's grandkids or play mermaids claiming to the other girls my mermaid tail was the best, but I would be lying if I said it didn't get lonely the other three seasons of the year.

Nonetheless, I try to focus on the perks such as the sunrise and the sunset on the lake every day, having a private dock, being the go-to hang out spot for hangouts which got me in with the "cool kids", and being able to go swimming (or ice skating depending on the season) whenever I wanted. That last one is a double-edged sword for when there isn't ice. The lake, which I will not disclose the name of just in case there are any daredevils or naysayers reading this, is prone to unusually aggressive swimmer's itch. I remember one time after having a water gun fight with the neighbor's grandkids in swimming area near the dock, I swear no less than 15 minutes after leaving the water that my skin felt as though it was on fire and there were welts all over my body. The grandkids also got it pretty bad; one girl had to be taken to the hospital because she scratched so furiously at her skin it started bleeding and would not stop scratching even with blood clumping under her fingernails.

We have a public beach too; a couple blocks away from my house. From what I hear the swimmer's itch is significantly worse there due to all the people stirring the water. Hence why, like any responsible beach, there is a sign posted throughout the summer that reads, "WARNING: Swimmer's Itch" followed by smaller text essentially saying shower or towel dry yourself immediately. The swimmer's itch is only a problem in the beginning of the summer. The city ends up putting some chemicals in the lake that will kill both the parasite and the lakeweeds it lives on to prevent the issue from continuing late into the summer.

Why am I telling you this, though?

Well, in recent years an issue has popped up that no chemical, no calamine lotion, or no towel can quell; muskrats. Muskrats are when you cross a beaver with a mouse physically but a hamster spiritually. Despite what Google may tell you, they are mean, very mean. Just like they swimmer's itch, the muskrats on my lake are unusually aggressive as well.

When I was growing up, I never saw a muskrat. Not once, seagulls were the main nuisance. About a little over a year ago, they just came into existence. It was not unheard of this to happen since we never used to have ducks either, but the ducks were gradual over the span of 5 years. In the case of the muskrats, they just appeared one day. Ten of them were spotted by the beach's public dock sitting on nearby the shoreline. They were reported to be watching the people fishing, one fisherman quoted as saying;

"It didn't feel like the geese or ducks who watch us, they do it out of caution because you know their babies or curiosity since they're birds, we probably look crazy to them. I know it sounds like I am someone who should be thrown in a loony bin, but I swear to the almighty lord above, I think those things were glaring rather than casually observing. I have never felt such disdain from an animal."

It was all over the local newspaper that the lake had muskrats. That isn't the strange part, within less than 2 months the lake had a population of at least 100 muskrats confirmed through reports of multiple people seeing them perched on their boat lifts, swimming near their bobbers, or one case the darn thing was being chased off the lawn by a man's cat. I do not think myself or the city officials could have remotely predicted how horrific these things would become.

It started with a Facebook post, on the city's page, it's designated for residents to post whatever they want about the city. A woman uploaded a video of a muskrat ripping out the throat of one of the Mallard ducks. In the video, the small beast lunged at the duck's throat. The duck thrashed its head and wings in an attempt to shake the creature off. It's panicked quacks soon became garbled by the sound of blood gargling in what remained of its throat. The muskrat hooked its claws as close as it could to the duck's shoulders given the creature's small stature. It was then the duck went limp as the watery gremlin pulled the carcass underneath the water.

I have heard of cases of muskrats eating ducks before, but this was a small thing, I mean even smaller than normal, likely a baby muskrat. It took down an adult duck and was strong enough to drag it underwater, against the duck's natural buoyancy. I mean not impossible, but it would be a Herculean task for most babies to take down adults, no matter the difference in species.

The events soon increased with the ducks, people would find pieces of the ducks in their yards, their shorelines, and on their docks. Sometimes the muskrats would not even eat the ducks. Multiple Facebook posts reported seeing muskrats swim towards the beach dragging mangled ducks in tow, only for them to let go of them and watch the dead ducks float to the shoreline amongst the bustling of people trying to enjoy a day at the beach.

It got to the point where remaining ducks were not seen in the water anymore; they would walk along the sidewalk or fly into town. I think they knew something was off. Soon, there were no ducks in the water. The same happened to the few loons on the lake then a good portion of the seagulls. A lake once teeming with waterfowl was barren, only things floating on the surface were the muskrats and the people.

I saw the dangerous jump from the muskrats attacking prey animals to fighting back predators.

My family and I were on a boat ride, taking in the sunshine on a clear day, the cool waters splashing on our faces as our boat gently sliced through the water. We stopped in front of the beach to people watch as Midwesterners do.

"Oh my gosh! Look! The bald eagle!", My mom exclaimed with excitement.

"Honey, we see the eagles every day. It's nothing new." My dad replied at the steering wheel of boat with a groan.

"Yeah, but rarely above the water anymore. Oh, I think it will try and grab a fish."

As my mom pulled out her phone to record the bald eagle swoop down for a fish, I looked to the water as I sat in the front of the boat. I saw a muskrat.

It was floating on the surface, half-submerged, its head tilted toward the sky with those disgusting black beady eyes. It seemed like it was waiting on the eagle. It started swimming towards where the eagle was circling above the water.

I saw another muskrat, followed by another before eventually counting 30 muskrats near and far away from our boat but all swimming toward the spot the eagle was going to swoop down on.

As soon as the eagle dove towards the water, all the muskrats dove underneath the surface in a synchronized fashion. I know I could not do anything but despite that fact, the realization hit me like a freight train. I couldn't help but scream in horror of what was about to happen.

"NO!", I shrieked.

The second eagle's talons hit the water to try and grab a fish; two muskrats broke the surface of the water underneath the eagle and latched their mouths onto each foot of the bird. They dove down with a force which created small waves as the eagle was at what I would say is the bird equivalent of waist high in the water. The majestic animal gave a clear look of confusion.

It was then a hoard of muskrats jumped out of the water, encircling the eagle, like dolphins and swarmed the bird. The following sight was so grim that it only appeared in flashes in my mind. A ball of rodents pushing a large bird of prey into the water like some demented baptism into death. Broken feathers and chunks of meat flew all around the immediate area as the eagle switched between screaming bloody murder when it could get its head above water and silence when its head was forceful pushed back under. The wings of the bird thrashed, splashing up water but eventually the wings were but a faded memory as the muskrats consumed more and more.

I could hear my parents' terror even through my shocked daze.

"HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!", My dad screamed as he stood up from his chair watching the slaughter in horror.

My mom turned her back to the event, dropped her phone onto the boat floor, and knelt down. She covered her face with her hands. Though, I could still hear her muffled voice repeat to herself frantically;

"Oh my god, I can't watch. Oh my god, I can't watch.", Over and over again.

The noise though, I will never forget the noise. You would think it would sound like growls or snarls like you would hear in movies? This was not that. The only description I could give of what I heard emit from those hellish rodents was a loud choir of pleasant humming throughout that ordeal.

Eventually, what remained of the bald eagle was nothing intact feet attached to a gored stomach area and directly above that, the area where the lungs and heart should have been picked clean down to the spine, the bones were pristine and looked bleached. The wings were gone, no evidence of them even existing in the first place. The only other part that remained in perfect condition was the head of the eagle, hanging loose holding on by mere muscle fibers of its back.

The group of muskrats, all bit onto the carcass before diving back under the surface, taking the body of the eagle with it.

It was only then I came out of daze to hear the screaming of people from the beach who also witnessed the event, the sounds of splashing as people ran out of the water, and crying children being comforted by the shaky voices of their loving parents.

"We are getting out of here! Mary! Lauren! Sit down or grab something!" My dad commanded as he firmly sat back in the chair, started the boat back up, and sped into a half-turn, straightening the boat's path back toward our house and dock.

I sat in my seat stunned as we sped out of there. They were like piranhas; this all felt like some messed up joke. Our peaceful lake was host to some creatures who didn't behave like how like normal muskrats. I mean muskrats are solitary by nature, yet they were working together? It felt like an intentional act against nature itself.

This wouldn't be the last occurrence of this unified attack. Posts on the city's Facebook page showcasing videos of them ganging up on dogs trying to cool off on a hot day, photos of people posting their encounters with them with deep bites and claw marks that sent them to the hospital. One person posting their trail cam showcasing a deer in the nearby woods getting swarmed by what looked like hundreds if not thousands of the rodents still emitting that melodic humming. The deer collapsed under the weight of the muskrats almost as though it were liquified, before being dragging it out of view of the camera. The deer never stopped screaming.

It all culminated when fatally attacked a 7-year-old girl on an outing with her family, out of respect I will not state the name of this child or exact details of her gruesome death. What I will say though is that this was a very busy day at the beach and based off the information I have been given, her death was fast, very fast.

The beach was promptly shut down after that as city officials tried to figure out what to do. Muskrats are a protected animal where I live so killing them out of season or in more populated areas could result in getting arrested, thrown in jail, and potentially charged with some bogus to go on a record.

Traps were allowed for when the muskrats started coming up to peoples' doors and killing outdoor pets on the land. However, just like their unusual aggression, they are unusually smart as well and the traps killed more chipmunks and squirrels than muskrats.

I don't go in the lake anymore and it has become a trend in my town to wear rubber or leather boots when you are out and about as to decrease the damage from the muskrats lunging at your ankles when trying to go to your car. I have seen grocery store workers fight off multiple muskrats with brooms or even sweeping them out of the stores.

I miss my watery slice of heaven, the one that you used to see people playing at the beach with water guns, beach balls, and floaties. The one that used to have people go tubing and water skiing on. The winter was not better either. Apparently, the muskrats would lunge out of the ice fishing holes at peoples' faces and a lot of people ended up having to get stitches, in the best scenario. Those who tried to ice skate or do a polar plunge, had similar endings to the ice fishermen.

I do not even think there are any fish in that lake anymore, I couldn't tell you. I am too scared I will get mauled to death if I even try to go onto the dock. The one I have been on over a thousand times in my life, that I will likely never set foot on again.

They are reopening the beach this summer. They are putting up a sign so that if someone dies, they cannot get sued as easily.

So, my warning to you is this. If you go to the beach this summer and you see a sign that says;

"WARNING: BEWARE OF MUSKRATS."

LEAVE.

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

For the sake of privacy, and for police investigation, I will not disclose my exact location. What I will disclose is that the state I live in, it isn’t unheard of to get moose but still remains fairly rare as compared to a state like Alaska.

That’s why despite never seeing a moose prior to my encounter, I still knew the basic rule of that “if you see a moose in the road, try to swerve away from it”. Aside from that fact, the only other information I knew about moose (obviously outside of the basics of that they are native to North America, etc.) came from my freshman year biology class in college.

My biology professor was an older eccentric lady who loved niche topics such as the effects of a specific brand of pesticide run-off on local lake plants, but I’m getting off track. One unit taught us that sometimes that moose will accidentally eat plants that have a snail or by extension deer poop on them and it will cause the moose to get a parasite. The parasite then causes what is called moose sickness, more commonly called brainworm. Brainworm causes symptoms such as walking in circles, stumbling, severe head tilt, decreased fear of humans, some degree of blindness, emaciation, and poor motor coordination before eventually dying from the parasite in their brain.

This was something my professor was passionate about since it was a more common occurrence for moose to develop brainworm due to rising temperatures pushing moose more southern into territories where these parasites thrive. I will never forget her showing us a video of a moose with a brainworm. It was sad, very sad.

Through the grainy YouTube footage, you could see suffering clear as day. It appeared to be a younger moose based off the lack of antlers and size compared to the small trees it should have towered over. The moose’s head was tilted so far to its right, it was nearly parallel to the ground it seemed like. It stumbled forward as if it were drunk, trying to gather its footing. After that, it spun in circles as you would see a dog do when chasing its tail. Before finally, stumbling back into the woods awkwardly. The narration of the video made it sadder.

“Oh that poor baby! Can’t we do anything, honey?” The voice that sounded like a sweet old southern woman asked as the moose disappeared into the tree line. 

“Nothing we can do, darling. We just gots to hope and pray it goes quickly.” Responded the voice of a gruff older southern man.

I assume this was a couple on vacation somewhere, how horrible to see something like this on vacation? I know it’s life but even then to see a baby animal suffering from a parasite that makes it brain and nervous system rot is still something probably they would want their money back for.

Something that sticks out to me more vividly than the uncoordinated gait or the sad narration of this couple were the moose’s eyes. You know that old saying that goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” When looking into the eyes of that creature, that saying was given merit. Eyes that should have conveyed thinking and feeling were now only black beads resting in skull of a creature being controlled like a puppet.

My encounter made me think about that video and those lessons from my strange yet well-meaning professor. In a sick way it was like foreshadowing only a taste of what was to come.

It was late May, my friend Addy and I had just left from seeing a movie. We are not big movie people overall but we make it a tradition to see a movie every other month just to do something other than play video games as a go to activity. We saw some schlocky horror movie, which was not a great movie, to put it politely. Yet it was still fun. Normally, Addy would be the one driving but I was the one driving that night. I’ll get to why in a bit. We left the movie theater at about a little after 10pm.

“Dude, the part where he stabbed the woman with umbrella and then opened it?! Bruh, of all the things why was that the choice?” Addy laughed.

“Man, I thought the ending was worse. You are telling me the Umbrella Man’s weakness is going indoors? Gosh, only with someone with too much free time would create this.” I replied.

We were walking towards my car when I could feel Addy give me pleading eyes in my peripheral vision. I knew what she wanted, it was fine and I do mean that.

“Fine…how could I say no to my bro.” I sighed. “BUT remember! Outside of the car! I don’t want the smell in there.”

“All good.” She replied “I promise I will be quick.”

I unlocked the car with the key fob, she ran towards the passenger side of the back seat door, opened it, and pulled out a drawstring bag. I could hear plastic and ceramic clanging against each other. She then sat criss cross on the parking lot ground. She pulled out a bowl and a grinder. Yep, my friend was smoking weed in the parking lot of a movie theater.

I walked around to the driver’s side of the car, got inside, started the car, and waited. I rolled down the passenger side window just a smidge so I could hear her, I’ve been spooked too many times by her face suddenly popping up silently. I hear the flick of the lighter and the sound of Addy inhaling.

This is why I was driving; Addy is someone who likes to indulge in marijuana every so often, I don’t mind it. I just am not a person who fancies weed much though I do not like the smell, especially in my car. I’ve gotten too many complaints from family members I’ve had to drive around that I now carry a can of Lysol just in case since I have found it to block out the smell better than most air fresheners. 

I heard Addy pack her stuff back up into her bag based on the clanging of ceramic and plastic. Followed by her footsteps getting closer. She opened the passenger door, sat in the seat, and gently placed her stuff in the back seat.

“Thanks man, you know I’ve had a stressful week at the hospital, so I appreciate it.” She commented.

“Of course, man, you know I would never judge. I have no right to even if I wanted to.” I replied.

“I just can’t believe it’s a 45-minute drive home.” She said as she buckled her seatbelt.

I buckled mine and put the car into reverse.

“I know but it was worth it for The Umbrella Man.” I joked.

I guess I should have mentioned earlier that our hometown is rural. I mean the closest hospital is 30 minutes away (under the best weather conditions that is) and a Walmart is an hour away. So, the drive anywhere fun is always a slog. That night I decided to take the backroads since I knew on Fridays nights the main roads would be a bit more…unforgiving. The backroads were always empty, even on Friday nights.

We drove about 25 minutes, just chatting about the movie, life, and how much we appreciated the other. We have always been each other's support system. I couldn’t imagine my life with Addy; she’s an incredible friend. The backroads were dark, having my headlights act as the only source of light for miles. It was closer to that 30-minute mark when “it” emerged.

I was going down a hill, back onto flat land when I started to see the silhouette of something, at first, I thought I was just seeing things because it was late and I was a little tired. The outline got bigger and more defined though which caused me to hit my brakes once I realized it was something. I fully stopped and my headlights illuminated the creature in front of me. It was a moose or at least something that looked like a moose.

It had the overall basics of a moose, the antlers, the build, and was about as big if not bigger than my car. There were traits that did not make it moose-like though. It had a head tilt heavily to its right, which shot memories of learning about brainworm through my head. It's eyes were milky white marbles slightly bulging out its head. The fur that was supposed to be a shiny brown was now a dull beige overtaken by bright green moss. This moss went all over its body from its hooves to antlers. The fur was unkempt, even by the standards of a wild animal. Its legs that were supposed to be straight by standard of regular moose photos were mildly bow-legged and had light splattering of dry dark blood. Its mouth slung slightly open and was constantly drooling.

I was in shock. I could feel the tenseness rise in the car once we both comprehended the creature in front of us. This didn’t look like an animal that should be alive, but it was there.

“Are you seeing-“

I cut Addy off before finishing her question.

“Yeah, I’m seeing it.”

“So my stuff-“

“No, it’s not laced.”

Though as messed up as it sounds, I wish in that moment her weed was laced because then that would mean what we were seeing wouldn’t be real.

That creature was an abomination of nature. We didn’t know what it wanted but we would soon learn.

The moose let out a noise that sounded like a distorted boat horn before charging at us with swift yet clumsy lunge.

“REVERSE IT!” Addy screamed.

Like second nature, my hand immediately put the car into reverse. I stomped on the gas pedal, and I twisted my body to look out the back windshield to make sure I didn’t ram into anything.

As we moved backward, I started to hear a loud clicking sound among the continued bellows of the beast. What was it? It sounded like…firecrackers? I would come to later realize this was the sound of its bones hitting against each other in its body as it was chasing after us.

“OH GOD HOW IS IT EVEN RUNNING?!” Addy shrieked in horror.

I could feel myself sweating and panicking, I knew I should have just shifted into drive and tried to maneuver around it but in the moment, rational decisions were not at the forefront of my mind. Not dying was at the forefront of my mind. I struggled to reverse the car back up the hill and it got slower, slower than what I hoped from my beloved car.

“It’s getting closer, it’s getting closer, it’s getting closer.” Addy hyperventilated repeatedly.

That distinct distorted bellow returned. It was so close that I just knew it reached us. A thrash against the hood of my car rang out. It felt like an earthquake, as if the earth was about to split open and swallow my car. The force was so strong that it somehow shut off everything in my car except headlights, which remains a mystery to this day. I turned forward now to witness something out of a serial killer’s wet dream. I looked out my front windshield to see the hooves of the moose bending the metal hood of my car. The force from the front hooves must have come down hard. I say this because the moose appeared to have given itself compound fractures (the type of bone break where the bone pokes out of the skin) on the front of its legs, where the bone met the knee joint. Burgundy blood seeped out like maple syrup from the wound onto the hood of my car. 

Addy and I must have been thinking the same thoughts, we both unbuckled our seatbelts. I let Addy crawl into the backseat first before following. From my view in the backseat, I saw the moose lift its broken legs off of my car and walk to the driver side. The car rolled forward until it reached flat land again. It was only then the headlights finally gave out. At that moment I noticed something, in one of two moments of complete clarity I had during this whole ordeal, the moose never breathed. It never made an indication of respirations even as it ran toward us. It was dead, it had to be. It was dead silent when it wasn’t screaming at us, that’s for sure. When the car rolled to a stop, I could hear my heartbeat in my chest, that’s how quiet it was.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Addy turned on her phone flashlight, briefly blinding me. She waved the phone around to scan the car.

“Are you ok?” She asked, voice shaking and face pale as a ghost. Before I could reply, the driver side backseat window was forceful smashed followed by a sound akin to the cracking of wood as the moose’s head was in the backseat with us. It had bloody jagged stumps on its head where the antlers were. It must have broken off its own antlers in the window frame while trying to reach us. The distorted bellow became higher in pitch; it was so intense it felt as though the sound was vibrating the car and inside of my own body.

Addy and I huddled toward the passenger side back door. The phone light revealing the various glass shards strewn about its face along with the stumps, one shard was deeply embedded in one of the pearls that were once its eyes. It felt like one of those jump scares from that schlocky movie we watched but only this time, it was actually terrifying. Not something trying to scare someone, something trying to kill someone. The blood from the glass shards seeped down its face mixing with those seemingly immortal strands of drool hanging from its gape mouth. I remember kicking at it from the passenger side corner of the back seat. Addy and I were screaming bloody murder. Both of us attempting to kick it, the kicks only seemed to madden it as much as it kept the thing barely away from us.

It was then, in the light of a phone flashlight, did I have my second moment of clarity that night, on the ground, I saw my can of Lysol.

Yes.

“Addy! Do you have your lighter?!” I asked in a panicked fashion as I reached for the can of Lysol while continuing to try and kick at the ugly mug of the beast.

“THATS YOUR CONCERN?! ITS IN MY-“, She stopped mid-sentence as I turned to show her the retrieved can of Lysol. She immediately caught onto my plan. She pulled the lighter of her pocket.

“Can you light it?”, I asked struggling back to the area where we cornered ourselves in the backseats, grabbing the door handle in preparation to open it.

She nodded while positioning herself better to get out of the car.

I opened the door and we both fell out onto the ground. Addy got up faster than me and helped me to my feet.

I could hear its bellows. I could hear the rattling of glass as I could only assume the sound was the creature pulling its head out of the backseat window while Addy helped me to stand.

I turned around toward the car to see it was crawling over the car with its mangled front legs, face, and head. No matter if the moose could actually see us or not it, it still felt like it was glaring at us. I could feel a primal instinct radiating off it the same way anger or fear does.

Addy held up the lighter.

I held the can of Lysol close to the lighter and started spraying.

A plume of fire shot towards the moose’s tilted head. It went up in an inferno immediately. It let out a noise that sounded like metal cutlery scratching against a glass plate amplified by a thousand. It thrashed its head against the roof of my car so violently, I thought it would collapse the barely holding ceiling of the vehicle. I threw the can of Lysol into the open backseat door we fell out of. We turned around and ran towards the tree line.

A loud boom soon followed as we made it off the road into the grass.

That high pitched noise from the creature only became more strained and somehow louder as it and my car were engulfed. I didn’t get to see it go up in flames, but I felt the heat as though it were daylight on my skin. I laid in the grass on the side of the road, exhausted from the ordeal. I never got to see the creature burn to death, only hear it fight for a life it did not have, and I don’t think I would want to see it burn even if I got the chance to again.

Addy was on the phone with the police. I just laid there panting heavily, my brain felt like TV static.

Eventually, after Addy got off the phone, she laid next to me in equal exhaustion. Soon we could hear the sirens in distance getting closer among the crackling of the fire maintaining its rhythm like a drum.

As I laid there, I had one insane thought going through my head. Not that of how am I going to explain this to the insurance company, the police, my family, or even how I was going to move forward with my life after seeing that thing. No, none of that. I only had this one thought.

“I can’t believe that’s the first time I have ever seen a moose in person”.

For the sake of privacy, and for police investigation, I will not disclose my exact location. What I will disclose is that the state I live in, it isn’t unheard of to get moose but still remains fairly rare as compared to a state like Alaska.

That’s why despite never seeing a moose prior to my encounter, I still knew the basic rule of that “if you see a moose in the road, try to swerve away from it”. Aside from that fact, the only other information I knew about moose (obviously outside of the basics of that they are native to North America, etc.) came from my freshman year biology class in college.

My biology professor was an older eccentric lady who loved niche topics such as the effects of a specific brand of pesticide run-off effects on local lake plants, but I’m getting off track. One unit taught us that sometimes that moose will accidentally eat plants that have a snail or by extension deer poop on them and it will cause the moose to get a parasite. The parasite then causes what is called moose sickness, more commonly called brainworm. Brainworm causes symptoms such as walking in circles, stumbling, severe head tilt, decreased fear of humans, some degree of blindness, emaciation, and poor motor coordination before eventually dying from the parasite in their brain.

This was something my professor was passionate about since it was a more common occurrence for moose to develop brainworm due to rising temperatures pushing moose more southern into territories where these parasites thrive better. I will never forget her showing us a video of a moose with a brainworm. It was sad, very sad.

Despite the grainy YouTube footage, you could see suffering clear as day. It appeared to be a younger moose based off the lack of antlers and size compared to the small trees it should have towered over. The moose’s head was tilted so far to its right, it was nearly parallel to the ground it seemed like. It stumbled forward as if it were drunk, trying to gather its footing. After that, it spun in circles as you would see a dog do when chasing its tail. Before finally, stumbling back into the woods awkwardly. The narration of the video made it sadder.

“Oh that poor baby! Can’t we do anything, honey?” The voice that sounded like a sweet old southern woman asked as the moose disappeared into the tree line. 

“Nothing we can do, darling. We just gots to hope and pray it goes quickly.” Responded the voice of a gruff older southern man.

I assume this was a couple on vacation somewhere, how horrible to see something like this on vacation? I know it’s life but even then to see a baby animal suffering from a parasite that makes it brain and nervous system rot is still something probably they would want their money back for.

Something that sticks out to me more vividly than the uncoordinated gait or the sad narration of this couple were the moose’s eyes. You know that old saying that goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” When looking into the eyes of that creature, that saying was given merit. Eyes that should have conveyed thinking and feeling were now only black beads resting in skull of a creature being controlled like a puppet.

My encounter made me think about that video and those lessons from my strange yet well-meaning professor. In a sick way it was like foreshadowing only a taste of what was to come.

It was late May, my friend Addy and I had just left from seeing a movie. We are not big movie people overall but we make it a tradition to see a movie every other month just to do something other than play video games as a go to activity. We saw some schlocky horror movie, which was not a great movie, to put it politely. Yet it was still fun. Normally, Addy would be the one driving but I was the one driving that night. I’ll get to why in a bit. We left the movie theater at about a little after 10pm.

“Dude, the part where he stabbed the woman with umbrella and then opened it?! Bruh, of all the things why was that the choice?” Addy laughed.

“Man, I thought the ending was worse. You are telling me the Umbrella Man’s weakness is going indoors? Gosh, only with someone with too much free time would create this.” I replied.

We were walking towards my car when I could feel Addy give me pleading eyes in my peripheral vision. I knew what she wanted, it was fine and I do mean that.

“Fine…how could I say no to my bro.” I sighed. “BUT remember! Outside of the car! I don’t want the smell in there.”

“All good.” She replied “I promise I will be quick.”

I unlocked the car with the key fob, she ran towards the passenger side of the back seat door, opened it, and pulled out a drawstring bag. I could hear plastic and ceramic clanging against each other. She then sat criss cross on the parking lot ground. She pulled out a bowl and a grinder. Yep, my friend was smoking weed in a parking lot of a movie theater.

I walked around to the driver’s side of the car, got inside, started the car, and waited. I rolled down the passenger side window just a smidge so I could hear her, I’ve been spooked too many times by her face suddenly popping up silently. I hear the flick of the lighter and the sound of Addy inhaling.

This is why I was driving, Addy is someone who likes to indulge in marijuana every so often, I don’t mind it. I just am not a person who fancies weed much though I do not like the smell, especially in my car. I’ve gotten too many complaints from family members I’ve had to drive around that I now carry a can of Lysol just in case since, at least I have found it, to block out the smell better than most air fresheners. 

I heard Addy pack her stuff back up into her bag based on the clanging of ceramic and plastic. Followed by her footsteps getting closer. She opened the passenger door, sat in the seat, and gently placed her stuff in the back seat.

“Thanks man, you know I’ve had a stressful week at the hospital so I appreciate it.” She commented.

“Of course man, you know I would never judge. I have no right to even if I wanted to.” I replied.

“I just can’t believe it’s a 45 minute drive home” She said as she buckled her seatbelt.

I buckled mine and put the car into reverse.

“I know but it was worth it for The Umbrella Man” I joked.

I guess I should have mentioned earlier that our hometown is rural. I mean the closest hospital is 30 minutes away (under the best weather conditions that is) and a Walmart is an hour away. So, the drive anywhere fun is always a slog. That night I decided to take the backroads since I knew on Fridays nights the main roads would be a bit more…unforgiving. The backroads were always empty, even on Friday nights.

We drove about 25 minutes, just chatting about the movie, life, and how much we appreciated the other. We have always been each other support system. I couldn’t imagine my life with Addy, she’s an incredible friend. The backroads were dark, having my headlights act as the only source of light for miles. It was closer to that 30 minute mark when “it” emerged.

I was going downhill back onto flat land when I started to see the silhouette of something, at first I thought I was just seeing things because it was late and I was a little tired. The outline got bigger and more defined though which caused me to hit my brakes once I realized it was something. I fully stopped and my headlights illuminated the creature in front of me. It was a moose or at least something that looked like a moose.

It had the overall basics of a moose, the antlers, the overall build, and was about as big if not bigger than my car. There were traits that did not make it moose-like though. It had a head tilt heavily to its right, which shot memories of learning about brainworm through my head. Its eyes were milky white marbles slightly bulging out its head. The fur that was supposed to be a shiny brown was now a dull beige overtaken by bright green moss. This moss went all over its body from its hooves to antlers. The fur was unkempt, even by the standards of a wild animal. Its legs that were supposed to be straight by standard of regular moose photos were mildly bow-legged and had light splattering of dry dark blood. Its mouth slung slightly open and was constantly drooling.

I was in shock. I could feel the tenseness rise in the car once we both comprehended the creature in front of us. This didn’t look like an animal that should be alive, but it was there.

“Are you seeing-“

I cut Addy off before finishing her question.

“Yeah, I’m seeing it.”

“So my stuff-“

“No, it’s not laced.”

Though as messed up as it sounds, I wish in that moment her weed was laced because then that would mean what we were seeing wouldn’t be real.

That creature was an abomination of nature. We didn’t know what it wanted but we would soon learn.

The Moose let out a noise that sounded like a distorted boat horn before charging at us with swift yet clumsy lunge.

“REVERSE IT!” Addy screamed.

Like second nature, my hand immediately put the car into reverse. I stomped on the gas and I twisted my body to look out the back windshield to make sure I didn’t ram into anything like a stop sign or another animal.

As we moved backward, I started to hear a loud clicking sound among the continued bellows of the beast. What was it? It sounded like…firecrackers? I would come to later realize this was the sound of its bones hitting against each other in its body as it was chasing after us.

“OH GOD HOW IS IT EVEN RUNNING?!” Addy shrieked in horror.

I could feel myself sweating and panicking, I knew I should have just shifted into drive and tried to maneuver around it but in the moment, rational decisions were not at the forefront of my mind. Not dying was at the forefront of my mind. I struggled to reverse the car back up the hill and it got slower, more slow than what I hoped from my beloved car.

“It’s getting closer, it’s getting closer, it’s getting closer” Addy hyperventilated repeatedly.

That distinct distorted bellow returned. It was so close that I just knew it reached us. A thrash against the hood of my car rang out. It felt like an earthquake, as if the earth was about to split open and swallow my car. The force was so strong that it somehow shut off everything in my car except headlights, which remains a mystery to this day. I turned forward now to witness something out of a serial killer’s wet dream. I looked out my front windshield to see the hooves of the moose bending the metal hood of my car. The force from the front hooves must have come down hard. I say this because the moose appeared to have given itself compound fractures (the type of bone break where the bone pokes out of the skin) on the front of it’s legs, where the bone met the knee joint. Burgundy blood seeped out like maple syrup from the wound onto the hood of my car. 

Addy and I must have been thinking the same thoughts, Addy and I both unbuckled our seatbelts. I let Addy crawl into the backseat first before following. From my view in the backseat, I saw the moose lift it’s broken legs off of my car and walk to the driver side. The car rolled forward until it reached flat land again. It was only then the headlights finally gave out. At that moment I noticed something, in one of two moments of complete clarity I had during this whole ordeal, the moose never breathed. It never made an indication of respirations even as it ran toward us. It was dead, it had to be. It was dead silent when it wasn’t screaming at us, that’s for sure. When the car rolled to a stop, I could hear my heartbeat in my chest, that’s how quiet it was.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Addy turned on her phone flashlight, briefly blinding me with the light in my face. She waved the phone around to scan the car.

“Are you ok?” She asked, voice shakily and face pale as a ghost. Before I could reply, the driver side backseat window was forceful smashed followed by a sound akin to the cracking of wood as the moose’s head was in the backseat with us. It had bloody jagged stumps on its head where the antlers were. It must have broken off it’s own antlers in the window frame while trying to reach us. The distorted bellow became higher in pitch, it was so intense it felt the sound vibrating the car and inside of my own body.

Addy and I huddled toward the passenger side back door. The phone light revealing the various glass shards strewn about its face along with the stumps, one shard was deeply embedded in one of the pearls were once eyes. It felt like one of those jumpscares from that schlocky movie we watched but only this time, it was actually terrifying. Not something trying to scare someone, something trying to kill someone. The blood from the glass shards seeped down its face mixing with those seemingly immortal strands of drool hanging from its gape mouth. I remember kicking at it from the passenger side corner of the back seat. We were screaming bloody murder. Both of us attempting to kick it, the kicks only seemed to madden it as much as it kept it barely away from us.

It was then, in the light of a phone flashlight, did I have my second moment of clarity that night, on the ground I saw my can of Lysol.

Yes.

“Addy! Do you have your lighter?!” I asked in a panicked fashion as I reached for the can of Lysol while continuing to try and kick at the ugly mug of the beast.

“THATS YOUR CONCERN?! ITS IN MY-“, She stopped mid sentence as I turned to show her the retrieved can of Lysol. She immediately caught onto my plan. She pulled the lighter of her pocket.

“Can you light it?”, I asked struggling back to the area where we cornered ourselves in the backseats, grabbing the door handle in preparation to open it.

She nodded while positioning herself better to get out of the car.

Opened the door and we both fell out onto the ground. Addy got up faster than me and helped me to my feet.

I could hear its bellows. I could hear the rattling of glass as I could only assume it was pulling its head out of the backseat window while Addy helped me to stand.

I turned around toward the car to see it was crawling over the car with its mangled front legs, face, and head. No matter if the moose could actually see us or not it, still felt it was glaring at us. I could feel a primal instinct radiating off it the same way anger or fear does.

Addy held up the lighter.

I held the can of Lysol close to the lighter and started spraying.

A plume of fire shot towards the moose’s tilted head. It went up in an inferno immediately. It let out a noise that sounded like metal cutlery against a glass plate amplified by a thousand. It thrashed its head against the roof of my car so violently, I thought it would collapse the barely holding ceiling of the vehicle. I threw the can of Lysol into the backseat door we fell out of. We turned around and ran towards the treeline.

A loud boom soon followed as we made it off the road into the grass.

That high pitched noise from the creature only became more strained and somehow louder as it and my car were engulfed. I didn’t get to see it go up in flames but I felt the heat as though it were daylight on my skin. I laid in the grass on the side of the road, exhausted from the ordeal. I never got to see the creature burn to death, only hear it fight for a life it did not have, and I don’t think I would want to see it burn even if I got the chance to again.

Addy was on the phone with the police. I just laid there panting heavily, my brain felt like TV static.

Eventually, after Addy got off the phone, she laid next to me in equal exhaustion. Soon we could hear the sirens in distance getting closer among the crackling of the fire maintaining its rhythm like a drum.

As I laid there, I had one insane thought going through my head. Not that of how am I going to explain this to the insurance company, the police, my family, or even how I was going to move forward with my life after seeing that thing. No, none of that. I only had this one thought.

“I can’t believe that’s the first time I have ever seen a moose in person”.

For the sake of privacy, and for police investigation, I will not disclose my exact location. What I will disclose is that the state I live in, it isn’t unheard of to get moose but still remains fairly rare as compared to a state like Alaska.

That’s why despite never seeing a moose prior to my encounter, I still knew the basic rule of that “if you see a moose in the road, try to swerve away from it”. Aside from that fact, the only other information I knew about moose (obviously outside of the basics of that they are native to North America, etc.) came from my freshman year biology class in college.

My biology professor was an older eccentric lady who loved niche topics such as the effects of a specific brand of pesticide run-off on local lake plants, but I’m getting off track. One unit taught us that sometimes that moose will accidentally eat plants that have a snail or by extension deer poop on them and it will cause the moose to get a parasite. The parasite then causes what is called moose sickness, more commonly called brainworm. Brainworm causes symptoms such as walking in circles, stumbling, severe head tilt, decreased fear of humans, some degree of blindness, emaciation, and poor motor coordination before eventually dying from the parasite in their brain.

This was something my professor was passionate about since it was a more common occurrence for moose to develop brainworm due to rising temperatures pushing moose more southern into territories where these parasites thrive. I will never forget her showing us a video of a moose with a brainworm. It was sad, very sad.

Through the grainy YouTube footage, you could see suffering clear as day. It appeared to be a younger moose based off the lack of antlers and size compared to the small trees it should have towered over. The moose’s head was tilted so far to its right, it was nearly parallel to the ground it seemed like. It stumbled forward as if it were drunk, trying to gather its footing. After that, it spun in circles as you would see a dog do when chasing its tail. Before finally, stumbling back into the woods awkwardly. The narration of the video made it sadder.

“Oh that poor baby! Can’t we do anything, honey?” The voice that sounded like a sweet old southern woman asked as the moose disappeared into the tree line. 

“Nothing we can do, darling. We just gots to hope and pray it goes quickly.” Responded the voice of a gruff older southern man.

I assume this was a couple on vacation somewhere, how horrible to see something like this on vacation? I know it’s life but even then to see a baby animal suffering from a parasite that makes it brain and nervous system rot is still something probably they would want their money back for.

Something that sticks out to me more vividly than the uncoordinated gait or the sad narration of this couple were the moose’s eyes. You know that old saying that goes, “The eyes are the window to the soul.” When looking into the eyes of that creature, that saying was given merit. Eyes that should have conveyed thinking and feeling were now only black beads resting in skull of a creature being controlled like a puppet.

My encounter made me think about that video and those lessons from my strange yet well-meaning professor. In a sick way it was like foreshadowing only a taste of what was to come.

It was late May, my friend Addy and I had just left from seeing a movie. We are not big movie people overall but we make it a tradition to see a movie every other month just to do something other than play video games as a go to activity. We saw some schlocky horror movie, which was not a great movie, to put it politely. Yet it was still fun. Normally, Addy would be the one driving but I was the one driving that night. I’ll get to why in a bit. We left the movie theater at about a little after 10pm.

“Dude, the part where he stabbed the woman with umbrella and then opened it?! Bruh, of all the things why was that the choice?” Addy laughed.

“Man, I thought the ending was worse. You are telling me the Umbrella Man’s weakness is going indoors? Gosh, only with someone with too much free time would create this.” I replied.

We were walking towards my car when I could feel Addy give me pleading eyes in my peripheral vision. I knew what she wanted, it was fine and I do mean that.

“Fine…how could I say no to my bro.” I sighed. “BUT remember! Outside of the car! I don’t want the smell in there.”

“All good.” She replied “I promise I will be quick.”

I unlocked the car with the key fob, she ran towards the passenger side of the back seat door, opened it, and pulled out a drawstring bag. I could hear plastic and ceramic clanging against each other. She then sat criss cross on the parking lot ground. She pulled out a bowl and a grinder. Yep, my friend was smoking weed in the parking lot of a movie theater.

I walked around to the driver’s side of the car, got inside, started the car, and waited. I rolled down the passenger side window just a smidge so I could hear her, I’ve been spooked too many times by her face suddenly popping up silently. I hear the flick of the lighter and the sound of Addy inhaling.

This is why I was driving; Addy is someone who likes to indulge in marijuana every so often, I don’t mind it. I just am not a person who fancies weed much though I do not like the smell, especially in my car. I’ve gotten too many complaints from family members I’ve had to drive around that I now carry a can of Lysol just in case since I have found it to block out the smell better than most air fresheners. 

I heard Addy pack her stuff back up into her bag based on the clanging of ceramic and plastic. Followed by her footsteps getting closer. She opened the passenger door, sat in the seat, and gently placed her stuff in the back seat.

“Thanks man, you know I’ve had a stressful week at the hospital, so I appreciate it.” She commented.

“Of course, man, you know I would never judge. I have no right to even if I wanted to.” I replied.

“I just can’t believe it’s a 45-minute drive home.” She said as she buckled her seatbelt.

I buckled mine and put the car into reverse.

“I know but it was worth it for The Umbrella Man.” I joked.

I guess I should have mentioned earlier that our hometown is rural. I mean the closest hospital is 30 minutes away (under the best weather conditions that is) and a Walmart is an hour away. So, the drive anywhere fun is always a slog. That night I decided to take the backroads since I knew on Fridays nights the main roads would be a bit more…unforgiving. The backroads were always empty, even on Friday nights.

We drove about 25 minutes, just chatting about the movie, life, and how much we appreciated the other. We have always been each other's support system. I couldn’t imagine my life with Addy; she’s an incredible friend. The backroads were dark, having my headlights act as the only source of light for miles. It was closer to that 30-minute mark when “it” emerged.

I was going down a hill, back onto flat land when I started to see the silhouette of something, at first, I thought I was just seeing things because it was late and I was a little tired. The outline got bigger and more defined though which caused me to hit my brakes once I realized it was something. I fully stopped and my headlights illuminated the creature in front of me. It was a moose or at least something that looked like a moose.

It had the overall basics of a moose, the antlers, the build, and was about as big if not bigger than my car. There were traits that did not make it moose-like though. It had a head tilt heavily to its right, which shot memories of learning about brainworm through my head. It's eyes were milky white marbles slightly bulging out its head. The fur that was supposed to be a shiny brown was now a dull beige overtaken by bright green moss. This moss went all over its body from its hooves to antlers. The fur was unkempt, even by the standards of a wild animal. Its legs that were supposed to be straight by standard of regular moose photos were mildly bow-legged and had light splattering of dry dark blood. Its mouth slung slightly open and was constantly drooling.

I was in shock. I could feel the tenseness rise in the car once we both comprehended the creature in front of us. This didn’t look like an animal that should be alive, but it was there.

“Are you seeing-“

I cut Addy off before finishing her question.

“Yeah, I’m seeing it.”

“So my stuff-“

“No, it’s not laced.”

Though as messed up as it sounds, I wish in that moment her weed was laced because then that would mean what we were seeing wouldn’t be real.

That creature was an abomination of nature. We didn’t know what it wanted but we would soon learn.

The moose let out a noise that sounded like a distorted boat horn before charging at us with a swift yet clumsy lunge.

“REVERSE IT!” Addy screamed.

Like second nature, my hand immediately put the car into reverse. I stomped on the gas pedal, and I twisted my body to look out the back windshield to make sure I didn’t ram into anything.

As we moved backward, I started to hear a loud clicking sound among the continued bellows of the beast. What was it? It sounded like…firecrackers? I would come to later realize this was the sound of its bones hitting against each other in its body as it was chasing after us.

“OH GOD HOW IS IT EVEN RUNNING?!” Addy shrieked in horror.

I could feel myself sweating and panicking, I knew I should have just shifted into drive and tried to maneuver around it but in the moment, rational decisions were not at the forefront of my mind. Not dying was at the forefront of my mind. I struggled to reverse the car back up the hill and it got slower, slower than what I hoped from my beloved car.

“It’s getting closer, it’s getting closer, it’s getting closer.” Addy hyperventilated repeatedly.

That distinct distorted bellow returned. It was so close that I just knew it reached us. A thrash against the hood of my car rang out. It felt like an earthquake, as if the earth was about to split open and swallow my car. The force was so strong that it somehow shut off everything in my car except headlights, which remains a mystery to this day. I turned forward now to witness something out of a serial killer’s wet dream. I looked out my front windshield to see the hooves of the moose bending the metal hood of my car. The force from the front hooves must have come down hard. I say this because the moose appeared to have given itself compound fractures (the type of bone break where the bone pokes out of the skin) on the front of its legs, where the bone met the knee joint. Burgundy blood seeped out like maple syrup from the wound onto the hood of my car. 

Addy and I must have been thinking the same thoughts, we both unbuckled our seatbelts. I let Addy crawl into the backseat first before following. From my view in the backseat, I saw the moose lift its broken legs off of my car and walk to the driver side. The car rolled forward until it reached flat land again. It was only then the headlights finally gave out. At that moment I noticed something, in one of two moments of complete clarity I had during this whole ordeal, the moose never breathed. It never made an indication of respirations even as it ran toward us. It was dead, it had to be. It was dead silent when it wasn’t screaming at us, that’s for sure. When the car rolled to a stop, I could hear my heartbeat in my chest, that’s how quiet it was.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Thump thump.

Addy turned on her phone flashlight, briefly blinding me. She waved the phone around to scan the car.

“Are you ok?” She asked, voice shaking and face pale as a ghost. Before I could reply, the driver side backseat window was forceful smashed followed by a sound akin to the cracking of wood as the moose’s head was in the backseat with us. It had bloody jagged stumps on its head where the antlers were. It must have broken off its own antlers in the window frame while trying to reach us. The distorted bellow became higher in pitch; it was so intense it felt as though the sound was vibrating the car and inside of my own body.

Addy and I huddled toward the passenger side back door. The phone light revealing the various glass shards strewn about its face along with the stumps, one shard was deeply embedded in one of the pearls that were once its eyes. It felt like one of those jump scares from that schlocky movie we watched but only this time, it was actually terrifying. Not something trying to scare someone, something trying to kill someone. The blood from the glass shards seeped down its face mixing with those seemingly immortal strands of drool hanging from its gape mouth. I remember kicking at it from the passenger side corner of the back seat. Addy and I were screaming bloody murder. Both of us attempting to kick it, the kicks only seemed to madden it as much as it kept the thing barely away from us.

It was then, in the light of a phone flashlight, did I have my second moment of clarity that night, on the ground, I saw my can of Lysol.

Yes.

“Addy! Do you have your lighter?!” I asked in a panicked fashion as I reached for the can of Lysol while continuing to try and kick at the ugly mug of the beast.

“THATS YOUR CONCERN?! ITS IN MY-“, She stopped mid-sentence as I turned to show her the retrieved can of Lysol. She immediately caught onto my plan. She pulled the lighter out of her pocket.

“Can you light it?”, I asked struggling back to the area where we cornered ourselves in the backseats, grabbing the door handle in preparation to open it.

She nodded while positioning herself better to get out of the car.

I opened the door and we both fell out onto the ground. Addy got up faster than me and helped me to my feet.

I could hear its bellows. I could hear the rattling of glass as I could only assume the sound was the creature pulling its head out of the backseat window while Addy helped me to stand.

I turned around toward the car to see it was crawling over the car with its mangled front legs, face, and head. No matter if the moose could actually see us or not it, it still felt like it was glaring at us. I could feel a primal instinct radiating off it the same way anger or fear does.

Addy held up the lighter, which now held a small flame.

I held the can of Lysol close to the lighter and started spraying it.

A plume of fire shot towards the moose’s tilted head. It went up in an inferno immediately. It let out a noise that sounded like metal cutlery scratching against a glass plate amplified by a thousand. It thrashed its head against the roof of my car so violently, I thought it would collapse the barely holding ceiling of the vehicle. I threw the can of Lysol into the open backseat door we fell out of. We turned around and ran towards the tree line.

A loud boom soon followed as we made it off the road into the grass.

That high pitched noise from the creature only became more strained and somehow louder as it and my car were engulfed. I didn’t get to see it go up in flames, but I felt the heat as though it were daylight on my skin. I laid in the grass on the side of the road, exhausted from the ordeal. I never got to see the creature burn to death, only hear it fight for a life it did not have, and I don’t think I would want to see it burn even if I got the chance to again.

Addy was on the phone with the police. I just laid there panting heavily, my brain felt like TV static.

Eventually, after Addy got off the phone, she laid next to me in equal exhaustion. Soon we could hear the sirens in distance getting closer among the crackling of the fire maintaining its rhythm like a drum.

As I laid there, I had one insane thought going through my head. Not that of how am I going to explain this to the insurance company, the police, my family, or even how I was going to move forward with my life after seeing that thing. No, none of that. I only had this one thought.

“I can’t believe that’s the first time I have ever seen a moose in person”.

I’ve never had roommates prior to this year, I’ve either lived with my family or alone. I’m a fairly introverted person, that isn’t to say I don’t like people because I actually do. Rather that, it’s just not how I recharge my battery so to speak. I like being alone but even I must confess living completely alone for this first time was extremely hard, my mental health issues worsened significantly at first but I got help and was able to fair ok the rest of my sophomore year. I was even able to bounce back academically.

I’m a junior now but have enough credits to graduate next spring from taking college classes in high school. My school has a weird policy where you have to live at least 1 year on campus (I don’t make the rules), hence why I choose my sophomore year because I wasn’t ready to make the leap yet my freshman year. However, after persevering through my first time on my own I decided to get a roommate. I looked online and found a person looking for two roommates near my college. Her name was Beth, she was an upcoming senior studying biology and planning to become a nurse. Her other roommates moved out to go to med school. So I applied and decided to meet her in person before finalizing anything. I met her and she was a 5 ft something blonde woman with brown eyes and pale skin that bordered on porcelain. As she gave me a tour of the apartment she explained that the other applicant to be the third roommate was actually a freshman and that she didn’t know too much about her other than she needs a place immediately and promises to be quiet as possible.

That was a red flag to me but at the same time I gave her benefit of the doubt. I understood that some people are just shyer and she did claim to be a freshman so maybe she’s just still learning how to navigate being on her own like myself. I left very impressed otherwise, I got my own bathroom and bedroom itself was spacious. I agreed and planned to move in August.

I remained in touch with Beth over the summer and we became friends through text and calls. She still informed me that she didn’t not know much about this third applicant other than her name, for the sake of safety and privacy we will call Sarah, and one photo of her. She texted me the photo. I do not know why but when I saw the photo, I got chills. Sarah was not even scary looking but something felt very off. She was tall, taller than both of us. Additionally, as mean as it feels to write, her hair was colored a deep red and it was long but damaged and fried, like it was dyed too many times. You could see her brunette roots. She wore glasses and was slightly tan but not extremely, just as though she went outside regularly.  She had icy blue eyes that made me feel weird, it gave me an uncanny valley feel when it should not have.

August came around though, my family and Beth helped me move in. Sarah and I were supposed to move in around the same time at 11am but by the time 2pm came around, still no Sarah. It wasn’t until 9pm did we get a banging on our door. Beth looked out the door peephole to see Sarah standing in the hallway. I was on the living room couch, Beth looked back at me in confusion and we shared equal confusion in a stare. She did open the door.

“Sarah?” Beth asked

Sarah stood at the doorway holding a single box, her figure was larger in person she had to duck down to enter in but even then her head was only inches from touching the ceiling. She carried the box to her bedroom, it was like she knew the place even though I know Beth had given her only minimal information such as the floor and address. My room had technically been decided from the start but we still wanted to make sure Sarah got a say when she got her at 11 but then she didn’t. She re-emerged from her room and stood were the little hallway intersects with the kitchen and living room area.

“Carry in more boxes.” She commanded with a surprisingly deep voice. That isn’t to say there anything wrong with having a deep voice as a woman, more so that sound of her voice was so absolutely mismatched to what she looked like that it somehow further pushed that uncanny valley feeling.

We walked with her to her car, her stepping in long strides. Her upper body behaved in a ragdoll-esque way, she seemed to be intentionally trying to hold up her torso rather than it just remaining upright naturally. We got to her car. It was a 2008 red Chevrolet Malibu. The trunk was open and contained only 4 other cardboard boxes. I peered into the vehicle itself and it was spotless as though no one had used it yet. No signs of life such as blanket, garbage, or coins anywhere in sight through the windows.

“Here.” Sarah said.

I quickly snapped my head back towards Sarah who dropped one of the cardboard boxes into my arms. It was heavy, I will be the first person to confess that I am not a physically strong person but even this seemed absurd given the sounds of metal hitting each other inside the box.

I looked over at Beth who also had a box into her arms, Beth was someone who actually did work out and I could see her straining, muscles tightening as she carried a box containing God knows what.

Sarah, holding another box, led the way back into the apartment but did not hold the door for us. We had to maneuver in uncomfortable ways to get the door open because we knew if we set either of the boxes down, we likely wouldn’t be strong enough to pick them back up.

When we did finally get back in, Sarah was no where in sight. We struggled up to the second floor only to see Sarah holding the box. She stood with a blank expression in front of the doorway, it wasn’t until we got in front of the door did she finally acknowledge us.

“I will get the last one.” She commented as she ducked back in, opening the door with her other hand. We followed her to her bedroom and set the boxes next to the first. The room was completely empty aside from a desk as Beth informed us we would have to bring our own beds, dressers, or chairs. As we observed her nearly blank room, she entered back into her bedroom.

“Sarah, where are you going to sleep? I hope my message about the furniture got through. I know my phone can glitch out sometimes. If not, you can sleep on the couch. I have some extra blankets.” Beth was cutoff by Sarah raising her hand to Beth in as an indication to stop as she had set down the final box.

“I got your message. I will have more things soon. Take this for now.” Sarah responded, she reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a wad of cash, it was neatly organized like a deck of cards. She handed it to Beth, the wad consisted of many 100 dollar bills. This was definitely more than enough to cover rent.

“Oh Sarah, thank you but rent isn’t due for two more-“

“Leave.” Sarah put one hand on each of our shoulders and pushed us out of her room into the hallway as though we weighed nothing. She then slammed the door so hard in our faces that I thought the hinges would somehow break.

Beth shot me a look of equal bewilderment and anger, I knew it was in reference to what happened. I responded with shrugging my shoulders as I gave her a complete look of bewilderment. We walked back to the living room and texted to each other about the situation.

Me: “WTH was that about lol”

Beth: “I have no clue, kind of rude she didn’t even say thank you. I’m more shocked how strong she is despite being so gangly.”

Me: “Dude I hope you aren’t body shaming our roommate lol. Those boxes were so freaking heavy tho fr.”

Beth: “IKR, what was in those? I do feel bad though that she didn’t have a bed or anything. Maybe that’s why she’s kind of being short. I mean I would be cranky if I had to sleep on the floor.”

Me: “Hey she gets the master bathroom or whatever the floor plan calls it. I mean hello, a bathtub. Meanwhile, we get two tiny little bathrooms on the other side of the apartment and we are right next to each other. She doesn’t have to worry about waking us up at night if she needs to pee lol. I think she will be fine”

Beth: “That’s true, I wonder why she moved in alone, I mean all families are different but it must be hard starting school alone.”

Me: “Maybe she wanted it that way for all we know. It is hard for me to give her benefit of the doubt after all of this BUT I mean I was on the verge of the sewer slide when I lived alone and now I’m happy as can be, sometimes it just takes an adjustment period. Maybe she’s never had to live with anyone outside of loved ones, people get weird. Maybe it’s hard for her to live with people but she needs to.”

Beth: “In this economy, I’m surprised the three of us can afford this but bro look at this wad of cash”

I looked up from my phone over to Beth, and waving the stack of 100 dollar bills in her hand, just barely holding it. I felt my jaw drop now fully comprehending the full size of the wad. My gaze returned to my phone.

Me: “Do you think she sells drugs?”

Beth: “Maybe, Idk.”

Me: “That’s concerning, what if she turns her room into a meth lab?”

Beth: “We’d probably die from the fumes or something. Breaking Bad type shi.”

Me: “Why are you so chill about this?”

Beth: “I’m a future nurse, I have dealt with people claiming they could see dead siblings in the corner of their rooms to people attempting to choke me out with a catheter they freshly ripped out. A roommate drug dealer is lower on the list of my concerns”

Me: “Well it is high, pun not intended, on my list of concerns.”

Beth: “Well, you let me know if she’s cooking meth.”

I put my phone down to meet Beth’s eyes, we both kind of had a look like the situation was as funny as it was awkward. We soon went to bed after that. The next couple of weeks were normal…except in regard to Sarah.

First, at the time of writing this, neither myself or Beth have ever seen her bring anything new in. Not groceries, not mail, not any new cardboard boxes, and especially no bed. Just always wearing the same backpack and carrying her car keys in her left hand. Second, I have only seen her eat a couple of times which we will get into later but she doesn’t cook, I mean it’s great because she doesn’t add to the dirty dishes but every so often she will just sit on the couch holding an empty glass plate and stare at the TV, sometimes on and sometimes off. She will just sit there for about 30-45 minutes staring into nothingness before getting up and walking back into her room with the plate. Third, she has very…I’ll just say it non-human behaviors. She eats spiders, we had a huge spider in the ceiling corner that neither Beth nor I could reach so we asked Sarah to squish it but instead she pinched it with her pointer finger and thumb and popped it into her mouth like a chip or a piece of candy and walked back to her room like it was nothing.

There’s more though, I woke up to get some water and she was in our fridge shoveling ice cubes from the ice maker into her mouth. Her mouth was more open than it should have been for a human, I don’t know how to describe other than it appeared broken. She side-eyed me as she continued to funnel ice down her gullet, I just stared in disgust? Horror? Awe? I stared in some intense emotion but it was just weird that she was not deterred by my presence. When all the ice was gone, she just shut the freezer door. She moved her hand up to her jaw and I heard the grinding of bones and teeth as I witnessed the jaw pop back into place with an audible crack. Put her finger up to her lips with a hushing motion and scurried back to her room like a cat chasing a laser pointer.

Then there’s the first time I saw her eat. I made the mistake of going to her room but I made the further mistake of opening her door. It was the morning and we all leave for classes around the same time. I wanted to make sure she was awake so I headed to her room and pushed the door open to see her crouching down shoving handfuls of dirt into her mouth using both hands from a pile of dirt directly in the center of her bedroom. I mean she was gobbling it down, her eyes darted to me. We made eye contact, she didn’t break eye contact, in each handful I could see nightcrawlers, roots, and other small bugs squirm around. She took a break to smile at me, her teeth stained blackish brown and had plant roots stuck in some teeth like a piece of salad.

She returned to “eating” and I swear to this day, that pile of dirt was gone in under a minute. She then licked the carpeted floor, I assume she was trying to get each and every particle of dirt. The beige carpet that should have been stained was seemingly saved by her attempts to savor each and every molecule of soil.

She stood up fully from the crouch, licked her hand and used that hand to wipe the dirt off her shirt and as she walked past me in the doorway she said

“Yummy yummy in my tummy”.

I wanted to laugh because I mean cmon what else are you supposed to do in this situation?

Beth also had weird experience as well. Beth had a story about how she saw Sarah eating the rocks outside of apartment building when she got home late one night after celebrating one of her other friend’s birthdays. She said she heard crunching noises in the darkness as she got closer to our apartment entrance, she said it sounded like a mix between biting into an apple and biting into hard candy. She turned her phone flashlight on and scanned the area with it, she eventually turned it towards the decorative rocks to see Sarah, completely naked staring at her. This is what Beth claims, but just keep in mind she also decided 3 Jagerbombs were a good idea that night, she said in one hand Sarah was holding a skinless rotisserie chicken and with the other she was shoveling decorative rocks into her mouth. She said Sarah paused and told her to “Go inside, that’s your best move.” Beth listened of course because what other choice would you make in that situation. 

The next morning Beth went to the building manager to tell him about the incident, he checked the security cameras only to find that while it was true Beth scanned the area with the flashlight and that the noises were picked up by the camera, there was no Sarah. No shadow, no rotisserie chicken. The building manager went out soon afterward and did find that almost half of the decorative rocks were either flat out gone or ground up into a fine powder.

Oh yeah, I also learned Sarah sleeps standing up. That’s great. I learned that by snooping one night. I know it isn’t right but after the ice incident, I thought to myself “If I’m gonna die anyway, I might as well die trying to learn something about my killer”. So I opened her door gently and quietly to see her room mostly empty still but her standing, with her arms crossed, sleeping or at least I think she was based off the drool and the sleeping mask. At this point it’s a mystery given what I have seen.

In her room was a single poster of an old crinkled One Direction promo on the wall closest to where she stood sleeping, an open cardboard box filled to the brim with dirt and plants. At her desk she did have a phone and a laptop that were both charging. You know what I found most strange despite all of this? When I continued to snoop further into her room, gently stepping as I explored. She was actually a student and she had a social life or least something like it. At her desk she had two different planners, one seemingly academic based off the list of checked off assignments and a class schedule but other planner had what I interrupted as nonsense. I’ll type a copy of what I saw in the non-academic planner below, this is from memory keep in mind:

Monday:

• Get the dirt off of the lawn
• Break his bones and throw them in the Denny’s dumpster
• Hide the child

Tuesday:

• Fly my turtle to the park and back
• Sit with the plate
• Burn it

Wednesday:

• Laundry
• Watch Beth in her sleep
• Lay an egg (Don’t crack it this time!)

Thursday:

• Watch his family mourn
• Amass the soil for consumption
• Trivia night with Xander and Ben at 7pm

Friday:

• Start the process again with his mother
• Harass Jeff at Home Depot for 2 hours (Give me my discount you bald beer gut baby man)
• Denny’s night! :)

I soon moved away from the planner, making my way slowly into the bathroom. In the bathroom, the bathtub I wanted so badly was packed full of cash, dollar bills crumpled but all 100 dollar bills. Before I could get a closer look at anything else, I felt a hand on my shoulder, it quickly tightened as it had made contact. I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck.

“Do not make this your concern, again.” It said.

In the blink of an eye, I was in the hallway again standing upright with a 100 dollar bill in hand.

Was I dreaming? Why didn’t she kill me if I wasn’t? Why does she eat dirt? What is her major?!

Everyday gets stranger, we want to kick her out but to be fair she never is late on rent and has even covered for me or Beth multiple times. Despite this, I can’t get that “Watch Beth in her sleep” task out of my mind since I saw it. We lock our doors when we sleep, how does she watch us?

I only have about a couple of months left. If anyone knows any better options for me to live other than with whatever Sarah may be, let me and Beth know. Otherwise, I plan on saving up to lock up my room better

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

Hey, this is an update since my last post about my roommate. There have been some events but no increase or decrease in the frequency, I guess just the weirdness is turned up in each interaction.

Sarah still scares me. There are some other things that I should have mentioned last time that I didn’t like for example how her hair color is always the same, it has been months and it is still bright red with brunette roots. She may have dyed it but since we never see her bring in anything directly (maybe she hides it in her backpack) we don’t know.

Beth had another strange encounter concerning Sarah. This is the first one during the day though. Beth’s class got cancelled due to a medical emergency with her professor (the professor is fine now, she just was exposed to something she was allergic to by accident during lunch). On the walk back to the apartment, specifically while approaching the entrance to the building, she heard a voice call to her.

“Bethany.” The voice beckoned.

Beth looked around again only to see Sarah’s tall frame crammed into her 2008 Red Chevrolet Malibu. Sarah was wearing dark sunglasses and Beth claimed Sarah’s knees were bordering on pushing up against her chest because she barely fit in the car. As Beth got closer, she realized Sarah was listening to whale noises or at least what sounded like whale noises through the radio. Beth eventually stood in front of the driver’s side door, Sarah looking up at her through her eyes behind shades.

“Sarah, what are you doing here isn’t there classes right-“ Beth was interrupted by Sarah.

“Hold out your hands, cup your hands. Do not drop this.”, Sarah growled.

Beth bewildered but intrigued cupped her hands in front of her, holding them out to Sarah. Sarah reached her balled hand towards Beth’s hands. She opened the hand, releasing various types of teeth. I know because we have them still in a plastic bag in the depths of the coat closet. Some appeared as though they were various human teeth, some still had blood and gum tissue on them meanwhile some were yellow, brittle, or basted in dirt. The human teeth were various types from incisors to molars to canines. The non-human teeth appears to be a range of dog, cat, and horse teeth (just based on the size and google searches).

Beth told me she wanted to puke, she was going into the medical field and had seen a lot but I don’t think it would be unfair to say if you were handed a handful of teeth by someone, the teeth varying per species, type, and the only way I can put it “freshness”. I highly doubt anyone besides maybe a dentist wouldn’t feel a little woozy.

Beth gave Sarah an awkward smile, a smile attempting to hide the disgust and cringe. Beth claims Sarah gave back a smile that was almost too big for a human face, that in face the smile extended beyond her cheeks up to her ears.

“T-thanks Sarah…I think?” Beth commented

Sarah reached her freakishly long arm up towards Beth to place her hand on her shoulder.

“Now you are tooth-ful” Sarah remarked.

Before Beth could respond, Sarah removed her hand from Beth’s shoulder, turned up the whale noises, started the car, reversed out of the parking spot and sped out of the parking lot.

I really don’t know how to feel about that interaction but I do know that sandwich bag we used to contain the teeth is filled to the top. The bag borders on bulging. We decided to keep them just in case it turns out the teeth are from someone she killed or dug up, you know evidence for the police.

I came into the apartment one day with all the lights off and the blinds closed, it was still day but it was raining outside so it was darker than usual outside. I flipped on the light to see an awful and strange sight.

Sarah was on all fours in the living room, she was staring at me with a blank expression. When I looked closer at her, I realized there was blood by and on her hands. There was blood immediately in front of her hands along with…small plastic chips? They were fingernails, HER fingernails.

“What in the world are you doing?!” I asked firmly.

Sarah shot me an angry facial expression, it shouldn’t have scared me but it did. I mean after my encounters with her, she was a true wildcard. She arched her back like a cat raising its hackles. Almost immediately as she did this action, it seems as though she stopped herself. She gathered her fingernails with both hands and stood up from her knees, showcasing her lanky frame. She walked over to me, cupping the fingernails.

She motioned for me to cup my hands out in front of me, out of fear she would shove them down my throat otherwise, I did so. She parted her hands above mine letting her fingernails and droplets of blood fall into my hands like a cascade. She lowered her bent down to have her eyes be at level at mine, she was inches away from my face. She placed her bloodied hand on my shoulder.

“I forgive, yet I will refuse to forget. Knock…on…the…door.”, she whispered into my face. Her breath smelled of dead fish. She backed up a little bit to give me that Cheshire Cat-esque smile Beth had informed me of in her interaction. She fully backed away before returning to all fours to gallop into her bedroom, following the closing of her door with a loud slam. She left a trail of blood from the living room to a little bit of the kitchen area to her bedroom.

I stood there holding fingernails that felt more like rocks more than something produced by a human. If it weren’t for Beth’s insistence, I would have chucked them out. Beth says keep them for DNA evidence for if and when they find a body.

Other than those two incidents, same old stuff you know. About every other week or so she clears out the ice in the ice maker. She still eats dirt based on our growing ant problem. She still is somehow loaded with cash but we don’t know how and from where.

I guess the only real thing we learned was her major. We learned through the school website that she is a plant science major, who is minoring in religious studies. That somehow both explains and does not explain the soil eating at the same time. Religious studies though? Seems very out of left field. I guess that is one of the last things of concern here but what do I know, I was gifted fingernails.

Link to Part 1 below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheCreeps/comments/1tda157/i_think_there_is_something_wrong_with_my_roommate/

Hello, my name is Robbie. This year I turn 65 years old. I worked as a firefighter for 30 years before recently retiring and I have seen horrors beyond comprehension. Charred bodies, people actively burning alive, an inferno engulfing entire buildings like a wave of hell thrashing down and to recoil towards the heavens. I will never forget the horror of that day, I’m ashamed that this terrifies me to this day and this event wasn’t even a heroic action, a face in the flames beckoning toward death, I wasn’t even a firefighter yet. It started the summer I graduated high school.

It was a different time back then. No cellphones or really electronic communication at all. I still had hair and I was in shape, as hard as my kids find it hard to believe. My buddy Ron had tragically lost his parents in a freak accident, it was really sad. His parents didn’t get to see him graduate. He was just done with the world, I had known him my whole life and through it all I’ve never seen him that depressed.

He wanted to get away from it all. So he decided he wanted to be a wild man, he wanted to live at his family’s cabin for the rest of his life. Live off the land, be one with nature. He invited me to join him and well I didn’t really have plans for after high school. I loved nature so I said yes. I let my folks know where we was going and we headed off.

Northern Minnesota, close to the Boundary Waters. The sounds of our big city became a distant noise, only the littering of bird and bug chirps became our noise pollution. It was beautiful, I’m not ashamed to say as a man that I felt so free being able to wake to such fresh crisp air and see the morning dew on all the plants as the world took its first big breath of the day.

Despite the remoteness, Ron’s family had neighbors up at there cabin or at least a neighbor. Joe, the neighbor, was raised in that cabin. His parents were super smart and homeschooled him. He wasn’t nearly as bright by his claims but he was a lot smarter than me and Ron. I mean we were weed-smoking jocks who drank like sailors on the weekends. Then Joe was some guy in the woods with geniuses for parents. They had moved away to take care of the paternal grandma with Alzheimer’s. Joe stayed behind to watch the cabin until further notice. He tagged along on a lot of our adventures. We’d hunt rabbits and spear fish in the nearby stream. We’d cook them in that wood-pellet stove. We had no running water, so we had to drive 45 minutes to the nearest town for drinkable water. We’d bathe in the closest lake, 3 seasons out the year. When winter came, it reeked I won’t lie. I stayed there 18 months with Ron and by extension Joe. I lost touch with Joe, I hope he is doing well these days wherever he is.

I remember about 5-6 months into my stay, that day. It happened. We needed water, drinking water. I mean we tried boiling the stream water once but we learned very quickly that it doesn’t work if you only got one outhouse. So, we decided to make the drive early in the morning to see the sky while it was pretty and so that we could enjoy that autumn air, nothing like in Minnesota. So we were heading toward the town. Ron in the passenger seat, Joe in the middle backseat like a little kid. Of course, I was driving. I love driving, the one thing I’m glad hadn’t changed from that day. We were shooting the breeze. 

Thirty minutes from the cabin, the clock read 7:37am. I blinked. That’s somehow the crime we committed blinking. So human, yet I still think about it. We all blinked and it changed our lives. I guess that’s why they say in the blink of an eye sometimes to refer to certain actions or events.

When I re-opened my eyes to see I was in the driveway of the cabin in park. Clock read 8:37am, the gauge on the gas had not changed, the odometer read the same. Even the same song was playing on the radio. Despite being half an hour a way within a blink an hour had passed and we ended up back in the cabin driveway.

I was in shock but as one does I tried to be rational. I thought to myself that maybe I had checked out mentally or maybe my memory was just that bad. When I looked over to Ron, his face was ghost white and looked at me back like our turns were in unison. I could hear Joe start to hyperventilate behind us.

“Rob, I swear if you drugged us or something.”, He snapped.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?! What is going on Ron?!”, I retorted back angrily. 

I mean I was starting to freak out. Maybe we made it a bigger deal than it was but I mean there was 3 of us in that car and not a single one of us know to this day, what happened within that hour, how we got back to the house, or what caused us to I guess for lack of a better way to say it “blackout” for an hour.

We both turned back toward Joe, his eyes so wide that I thought there were gonna pop out of his head, all the blood was drained from his face, and I swear if he had gotten a whiff of something rotten he would had thrown chunks into the back of my car.

“Joe, what happened within the last hour?”, Ron asked.

Joe began tearing up.

“I thought you knew!” He then unbuckled himself hastily and threw himself out of the car. Ron and I soon followed with getting out the car.

Joe went over to a tree and threw up.

“If this is one of your stupid pranks Rob, I swear. Don’t think I can’t fight you just because you’re my friend.”, Ron threatened.

I was getting really angry, I mean really angry.

“Says you, you need to shut your pie hole!”, I threatened back.

I mean we were arguing, I remember us pushing each other at some points and it eventually got to us grabbing each other’s collars.

Joe eventually got done throwing up and intervened.

“ENOUGH!”, he shouted.

We stopped moving but still held onto each other’s collars, heads directed at Joe who was leaning against a tree.

“Ok, clearly something happened. None of us remember the last hour, what we did, or how we got to the house. Let’s go through everything to see what happened and try to pin down a cause.” Joe remarked.

Ron and I let go of each other’s collars but I could tell he was still as mad as I was.

“Ok first let’s confirm, if the clock is right. Ron, go into the house and check the clock and there. Rob, you check the time in car. We will compare the two. It will at least let us know if the time is accurate.”, Joe explained.

Ron went into the cabin, while I headed back toward car. I opened the door and looked at the car’s clock. It now read 8:53am. We both returned to Joe who was now leaning against the car.

“What was the time in the house?”, Joe asked us both.

We replied at the same time.

“8:53am”, we said together.

I know it seems dramatic, but I got chills in that moment because it just confirmed that an hour had passed and we don’t know why or how or what.

“Ok, let’s check the trunk. Maybe we bought the water.” Joe remarked.

We headed to the trunk where I opened it only to reveal that it was still completely empty.

We then went over the same things I did in the car, the gas, the miles, and so on. We even checked the very position of each piece of trash.

We racked our brains for hours. We checked throughout that cabin to see if anything had changed.

Nothing out of place.

An hour just gone.

I know that may not seem terrifying but I just want you to imagine. You are sitting somewhere, maybe in class, maybe at work, or maybe even you’re walking around the aisles of a grocery store.

You blink.

When you reopen your eyes from that millisecond, you are suddenly somewhere else. Maybe at your house, a friend’s house, your school maybe. You look at your watch to see an hour had passed but you don’t have a clue what happened. You could have killed someone for all you know, you could have made a decision that could have ruined your life or one that maybe made it better and you would never know. Now imagine two of your closest friends, family, or loved ones experiencing the same thing at the same time as you in the same place. You would be just as lost as we were. 

We went over it for hours, all of our stories aligned except for one small detail.

“You guys didn’t see the bright light?” Joe asked.

It was now noon.

“What bright light? What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, we were talking about some old music. Then before I blinked I saw a super bright light. I mean blinding.” Joe claimed.

Ron and I looked at each other puzzled. Either this was some sick joke from Joe or he was cursed to see whatever caused that hour to fall out of existence.

We were so young, all of us freshly 18 years old. We eventually got the courage to get back in that car and drive because we needed water.

I swear I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, I had never felt so nervous driving in my life and I have driven emergency vehicles now, that was less stressful than this.

It felt like something was watching us while we drove. My hairs stood on end the whole drive there. Ron was trying to put on a brave face but he was sweating, his hands were shaky when he went to light his cigarette and remained shaky as he inhaled and held the hand with the cigarette out the window.

Joe was the worst of us though, you know that brace position they have you sit in when the plane might crash? He was like that there and back. I could hear his shaky breath despite the pounding in my ears. He was trying to control his breathing but it was a fight against instincts.

We made it to the gas station without issue, we gassed up, got our water and snacks, packed it up and left.

Ron and I relaxed a bit on the way back but even then I would say the most loose definition of relaxed. The radio was never on during either ride but on the way back it was somehow even more silent, a pin could have dropped and it would have sounded like a boom it was so quiet. Well, quiet outside of Joe’s breathing.

It still gets me nervous to this day. The not knowing. What did we do? I don’t even care if we had just drove back to the house and sat there. I don’t care if we won the lottery or saw Bigfoot. What still eats me inside is not knowing what happened to the three of us in that hour.

I remember we returned home and sat in the living room in complete silence for what felt like forever but it was probably 15-20 minutes.

I remember that night we got very drunk, well I did. I hate not knowing. It scared me.

The first month was still a little rough with the car rides but other than that each month just got better, the seasons, the nature, the experiences, the memories. It made whatever happened just feel like a nightmare. After about 18 months, I decided on my own to leave. I loved nature but I also knew I couldn’t stay there forever.

I remember getting in that car to leave. Seeing the two of them in my rearview mirror, waving me goodbye.

I had never felt so utterly alone in that car. Once again the heart beating in my ears got louder and louder. I just turned on the radio and went for it. I believe I was supposed to have a heart attack that day I left given my heart was practically bursting out my chest that whole way home but whether it was fate or choice, I’m too stubborn to die.

After I got back to my folks home, it wasn’t too long until I joined the military. Went to Cali for a bit, came back home, and became a firefighter. I got married, been married for 27 years coming up here. I have two beautiful children and I am fortunate to have a great home I can spend the rest of my life in.

Ron, eventually left that cabin and became a mechanic. Also got married but never had kids which is fine, his wife died two years ago though. Cancer is a horrible disease.

I still regular message Ron through the texts and with phone calls. Recently he sent me something very interesting.

Apparently a year before our strange event, a deputy named Val Johnson had a similar incident to ours but he seemed to have had it a lot worse than us.

I’m grateful for the life I have, I’ve seen horrors, I’ve seen tragedy that would make a person walk into an abyss and never come out. I have seen love, gave it, and received it. I have been at the lowest of lows and I have been on top of the world. I have seen life, I was there when both my children were born. I would be lying before the lord if I didn’t admit to that day being the most lost, the most vulnerable, the most terrified I have ever felt in my life. I think that’s why it has made it easier to do the things I done but I would be lying once again if I didn’t admit to wanting to know what happened during that hour.

I’ve never had roommates prior to this year, I’ve either lived with my family or alone. I’m a fairly introverted person, that isn’t to say I don’t like people because I actually do. Rather that, it’s just not how I recharge my battery so to speak. I like being alone but even I must confess living completely alone for this first time was extremely hard, my mental health issues worsened significantly at first but I got help and was able to fair ok the rest of my sophomore year. I was even able to bounce back academically.

I’m a junior now but have enough credits to graduate next spring from taking college classes in high school. My school has a weird policy where you have to live at least 1 year on campus (I don’t make the rules), hence why I choose my sophomore year because I wasn’t ready to make the leap yet my freshman year. However, after persevering through my first time on my own I decided to get a roommate. I looked online and found a person looking for two roommates near my college. Her name was Beth, she was an upcoming senior studying biology and planning to become a nurse. Her other roommates moved out to go to med school. So I applied and decided to meet her in person before finalizing anything. I met her and she was a 5 ft something blonde woman with brown eyes and pale skin that bordered on porcelain. As she gave me a tour of the apartment she explained that the other applicant to be the third roommate was actually a freshman and that she didn’t know too much about her other than she needs a place immediately and promises to be quiet as possible.

That was a red flag to me but at the same time I gave her benefit of the doubt. I understood that some people are just shyer and she did claim to be a freshman so maybe she’s just still learning how to navigate being on her own like myself. I left very impressed otherwise, I got my own bathroom and bedroom itself was spacious. I agreed and planned to move in August.

I remained in touch with Beth over the summer and we became friends through text and calls. She still informed me that she didn’t not know much about this third applicant other than her name, for the sake of safety and privacy we will call Sarah, and one photo of her. She texted me the photo. I do not know why but when I saw the photo, I got chills. Sarah was not even scary looking but something felt very off. She was tall, taller than both of us. Additionally, as mean as it feels to write, her hair was colored a deep red and it was long but damaged and fried, like it was dyed too many times. You could see her brunette roots. She wore glasses and was slightly tan but not extremely, just as though she went outside regularly.  She had icy blue eyes that made me feel weird, it gave me an uncanny valley feel when it should not have.

August came around though, my family and Beth helped me move in. Sarah and I were supposed to move in around the same time at 11am but by the time 2pm came around, still no Sarah. It wasn’t until 9pm did we get a banging on our door. Beth looked out the door peephole to see Sarah standing in the hallway. I was on the living room couch, Beth looked back at me in confusion and we shared equal confusion in a stare. She did open the door.

“Sarah?” Beth asked

Sarah stood at the doorway holding a single box, her figure was larger in person she had to duck down to enter in but even then her head was only inches from touching the ceiling. She carried the box to her bedroom, it was like she knew the place even though I know Beth had given her only minimal information such as the floor and address. My room had technically been decided from the start but we still wanted to make sure Sarah got a say when she got her at 11 but then she didn’t. She re-emerged from her room and stood were the little hallway intersects with the kitchen and living room area.

“Carry in more boxes.” She commanded with a surprisingly deep voice. That isn’t to say there anything wrong with having a deep voice as a woman, more so that sound of her voice was so absolutely mismatched to what she looked like that it somehow further pushed that uncanny valley feeling.

We walked with her to her car, her stepping in long strides. Her upper body behaved in a ragdoll-esque way, she seemed to be intentionally trying to hold up her torso rather than it just remaining upright naturally. We got to her car. It was a 2008 red Chevrolet Malibu. The trunk was open and contained only 4 other cardboard boxes. I peered into the vehicle itself and it was spotless as though no one had used it yet. No signs of life such as blanket, garbage, or coins anywhere in sight through the windows.

“Here.” Sarah said.

I quickly snapped my head back towards Sarah who dropped one of the cardboard boxes into my arms. It was heavy, I will be the first person to confess that I am not a physically strong person but even this seemed absurd given the sounds of metal hitting each other inside the box.

I looked over at Beth who also had a box into her arms, Beth was someone who actually did work out and I could see her straining, muscles tightening as she carried a box containing God knows what.

Sarah, holding another box, led the way back into the apartment but did not hold the door for us. We had to maneuver in uncomfortable ways to get the door open because we knew if we set either of the boxes down, we likely wouldn’t be strong enough to pick them back up.

When we did finally get back in, Sarah was no where in sight. We struggled up to the second floor only to see Sarah holding the box. She stood with a blank expression in front of the doorway, it wasn’t until we got in front of the door did she finally acknowledge us.

“I will get the last one.” She commented as she ducked back in, opening the door with her other hand. We followed her to her bedroom and set the boxes next to the first. The room was completely empty aside from a desk as Beth informed us we would have to bring our own beds, dressers, or chairs. As we observed her nearly blank room, she entered back into her bedroom.

“Sarah, where are you going to sleep? I hope my message about the furniture got through. I know my phone can glitch out sometimes. If not, you can sleep on the couch. I have some extra blankets.” Beth was cutoff by Sarah raising her hand to Beth in as an indication to stop as she had set down the final box.

“I got your message. I will have more things soon. Take this for now.” Sarah responded, she reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a wad of cash, it was neatly organized like a deck of cards. She handed it to Beth, the wad consisted of many 100 dollar bills. This was definitely more than enough to cover rent.

“Oh Sarah, thank you but rent isn’t due for two more-“

“Leave.” Sarah put one hand on each of our shoulders and pushed us out of her room into the hallway as though we weighed nothing. She then slammed the door so hard in our faces that I thought the hinges would somehow break.

Beth shot me a look of equal bewilderment and anger, I knew it was in reference to what happened. I responded with shrugging my shoulders as I gave her a complete look of bewilderment. We walked back to the living room and texted to each other about the situation.

Me: “WTH was that about lol”

Beth: “I have no clue, kind of rude she didn’t even say thank you. I’m more shocked how strong she is despite being so gangly.”

Me: “Dude I hope you aren’t body shaming our roommate lol. Those boxes were so freaking heavy tho fr.”

Beth: “IKR, what was in those? I do feel bad though that she didn’t have a bed or anything. Maybe that’s why she’s kind of being short. I mean I would be cranky if I had to sleep on the floor.”

Me: “Hey she gets the master bathroom or whatever the floor plan calls it. I mean hello, a bathtub. Meanwhile, we get two tiny little bathrooms on the other side of the apartment and we are right next to each other. She doesn’t have to worry about waking us up at night if she needs to pee lol. I think she will be fine”

Beth: “That’s true, I wonder why she moved in alone, I mean all families are different but it must be hard starting school alone.”

Me: “Maybe she wanted it that way for all we know. It is hard for me to give her benefit of the doubt after all of this BUT I mean I was on the verge of the sewer slide when I lived alone and now I’m happy as can be, sometimes it just takes an adjustment period. Maybe she’s never had to live with anyone outside of loved ones, people get weird. Maybe it’s hard for her to live with people but she needs to.”

Beth: “In this economy, I’m surprised the three of us can afford this but bro look at this wad of cash”

I looked up from my phone over to Beth, and waving the stack of 100 dollar bills in her hand, just barely holding it. I felt my jaw drop now fully comprehending the full size of the wad. My gaze returned to my phone.

Me: “Do you think she sells drugs?”

Beth: “Maybe, Idk.”

Me: “That’s concerning, what if she turns her room into a meth lab?”

Beth: “We’d probably die from the fumes or something. Breaking Bad type shi.”

Me: “Why are you so chill about this?”

Beth: “I’m a future nurse, I have dealt with people claiming they could see dead siblings in the corner of their rooms to people attempting to choke me out with a catheter they freshly ripped out. A roommate drug dealer is lower on the list of my concerns”

Me: “Well it is high, pun not intended, on my list of concerns.”

Beth: “Well, you let me know if she’s cooking meth.”

I put my phone down to meet Beth’s eyes, we both kind of had a look like the situation was as funny as it was awkward. We soon went to bed after that. The next couple of weeks were normal…except in regard to Sarah.

First, at the time of writing this, neither myself or Beth have ever seen her bring anything new in. Not groceries, not mail, not any new cardboard boxes, and especially no bed. Just always wearing the same backpack and carrying her car keys in her left hand. Second, I have only seen her eat a couple of times which we will get into later but she doesn’t cook, I mean it’s great because she doesn’t add to the dirty dishes but every so often she will just sit on the couch holding an empty glass plate and stare at the TV, sometimes on and sometimes off. She will just sit there for about 30-45 minutes staring into nothingness before getting up and walking back into her room with the plate. Third, she has very…I’ll just say it non-human behaviors. She eats spiders, we had a huge spider in the ceiling corner that neither Beth nor I could reach so we asked Sarah to squish it but instead she pinched it with her pointer finger and thumb and popped it into her mouth like a chip or a piece of candy and walked back to her room like it was nothing.

There’s more though, I woke up to get some water and she was in our fridge shoveling ice cubes from the ice maker into her mouth. Her mouth was more open than it should have been for a human, I don’t know how to describe other than it appeared broken. She side-eyed me as she continued to funnel ice down her gullet, I just stared in disgust? Horror? Awe? I stared in some intense emotion but it was just weird that she was not deterred by my presence. When all the ice was gone, she just shut the freezer door. She moved her hand up to her jaw and I heard the grinding of bones and teeth as I witnessed the jaw pop back into place with an audible crack. Put her finger up to her lips with a hushing motion and scurried back to her room like a cat chasing a laser pointer.

Then there’s the first time I saw her eat. I made the mistake of going to her room but I made the further mistake of opening her door. It was the morning and we all leave for classes around the same time. I wanted to make sure she was awake so I headed to her room and pushed the door open to see her crouching down shoving handfuls of dirt into her mouth using both hands from a pile of dirt directly in the center of her bedroom. I mean she was gobbling it down, her eyes darted to me. We made eye contact, she didn’t break eye contact, in each handful I could see nightcrawlers, roots, and other small bugs squirm around. She took a break to smile at me, her teeth stained blackish brown and had plant roots stuck in some teeth like a piece of salad.

She returned to “eating” and I swear to this day, that pile of dirt was gone in under a minute. She then licked the carpeted floor, I assume she was trying to get each and every particle of dirt. She did given that the beige carpet that should have been stained was seemingly saved by her attempts to savor each and every molecule of soil.

She stood up fully from the crouch, licked her hand and used that hand to wipe the dirt off her shirt and as she walked past me in the doorway she said

“Yummy yummy in my tummy”.

I wanted to laugh because I mean cmon what else are you supposed to do in this situation?

Beth also had weird experience as well. Beth had a story about how she saw Sarah eating the rocks outside of apartment building when she got home late one night after celebrating one of her other friend’s birthdays. She said she heard crunching noises in the darkness as she got closer to our apartment entrance, she said it sounded like a mix between biting into an apple and biting into hard candy. She turned her phone flashlight on and scanned the area with it, she eventually turned it towards the decorative rocks to see Sarah, completely naked staring at her. This is what Beth claims, but just keep in mind she was also decided 3 Jagerbombs were a good idea that night, she said in one hand Sarah was holding a skinless rotisserie chicken and with the other she was shoveling decorative rocks into her mouth. She said Sarah paused and told her to “Go inside, that’s your best move.” Beth listened of course because what other choice would you make in that situation. 

The next morning Beth went to the building manager to tell him about the incident, he checked the security cameras only to find that while it was true Beth scanned the area with the flashlight and that the noises were picked up by the camera, there was no Sarah. No shadow, no rotisserie chicken. The building manager went out soon afterward and did find that almost half of the decorative rocks were either flat out gone or ground up into a fine powder.

Oh yeah, I also learned Sarah sleeps standing up. That’s great. I learned that by snooping one night. I know it isn’t right but after the ice incident, I thought to myself “If I’m gonna die anyway, I might as well die trying to learn something about my killer”. So I opened her door gently and quietly to see her room mostly empty still but her standing, with her arms crossed, sleeping or at least I think she was based off the drool and the sleeping mask. At this point it’s a mystery given what I have seen.

In her room was a single poster of an old crinkled One Direction promo on the wall closest to where she stood sleeping, an open cardboard box filled to the brim with dirt and plants. At her desk she did have a phone and a laptop that were both charging. You know what I found most strange despite all of this? When I continued to snoop further into her room, gently stepping as I explored. She was actually a student and she had a social life or least something like it. At her desk she had two different planners, one seemingly academic based off the list of checked off assignments and a class schedule but other planner had what I interrupted as nonsense. I’ll type a copy of what I saw in the non-academic planner below, this is from memory keep in mind:

Monday:

• Get the dirt off of the lawn
• Break his bones and throw them in the Denny’s dumpster
• Hide the child

Tuesday:

• Fly my turtle to the park and back
• Sit with the plate
• Burn it

Wednesday:

• Laundry
• Watch Beth in her sleep
• Lay an egg (Don’t crack it this time!)

Thursday:

• Watch his family mourn
• Amass the soil for consumption
• Trivia night with Xander and Ben at 7pm

Friday:

• Start the process again with his mother
• Harass Jeff at Home Depot for 2 hours (Give me my discount you bald beer gut baby man)
• Denny’s night! :)

I soon moved away from the planner, making my way slowly into the bathroom. In the bathroom, the bathtub I wanted so badly was packed full of cash, dollar bills crumpled but all 100 dollar bills. Before I could get a closer look at anything else, I felt a hand on my shoulder, it quickly tightened as it had made contact. I felt a cold breath on the back of my neck.

“Do not make this your concern, again.” It said.

In the blink of an eye, I was in the hallway again standing upright with a 100 dollar bill in hand.

Was I dreaming? Why didn’t she kill me if I wasn’t? Why does she eat dirt? What is her major?!

Everyday gets stranger, we want to kick her out but to be fair she never is late on rent and has even covered for me or Beth multiple times. Despite this, I can’t get that “Watch Beth in her sleep” task out of my mind since I saw it. We lock our doors when we sleep, how does she watch us?

I only have about a couple of months left. If anyone knows any better options for me to live other than with whatever Sarah may be, let me and Beth know. Otherwise, I plan on saving up to lock up my room better.

For long as I remember I thought what I saw was normal, I thought everyone saw tiny little colored dots bouncing around in their vision all the time. Occasionally seeing after images of objects longer than they probably should, still or moving, and floaters popping out of thin air when looking at the sky making it harder take it in the beauty of the daylight.

I didn’t know this wasn’t normal, I just assumed everyone saw the world as though it was an old box TV with excessive static. It wasn’t until the Bryan Kohberger trial did I discover what I had wasn’t just an everyone thing. I realize how crazy this sentence is but unfortunately, at least to my knowledge at the time of writing this, he is one of the most well known individuals with visual snow syndrome. It was after watching the documentaries and the news that included mentions of the syndrome in regard to him did I start to look into whether this was something I had as well.

Sure enough, a couple months later I get slapped with the diagnosis of Visual Snow Syndrome (VSS). I did a lot of digging into it. There’s still a lot of unknowns with VSS. For you as the reader to get reference on what I see, I’ll use the information from the Visual Snow Initiative to help with visualization in your mind’s eye. I see colored static mostly though I have noticed recently it has become a more little dull, they are less bright neon but I don’t know if that’s even supposed to be possible, just keep in mind I am just reciting my own experience. Every mind with VSS is like a fingerprint, some can be extremely similar but still maintain a uniqueness that makes it distinguishable.

Additionally, I see medium particles with mild density bordering on medium density. This just means that the “dots” themselves are medium size but the density of them within my vision is lower to mid, I see images with only minimal fuzz or pretty clearly given my “box TV eyes”. I have noticed if I stare too long the dots become more noticeable or even sometimes big dots appear.

When comes to the other common symptoms, let us go down the list leading with the most surprising two. I am not light sensitive and I do not get migraines. Some people theorize that visual snow is just a permanent migraine but I only get headaches during weather changes or if I’m being super TMI before and during my period. I’m the only person I know that does not prefer the dark mode on their phone or laptop, I find it more strenuous to have a dark background when I am typing. Palinopsia, or afterimages, I would say is faint unless I am looking at illusions or staring at something for a long time then quickly look away. 

I do have entropic phenomena, plain and simple. Now when it comes to night blindness, this is the worst one for me. When the light in the hallway outside my bedroom is turned off at night, it just looks like a wall of black. Even when I have a nightlight plugged in the hallway socket, it only illuminates inches around its immediate area within the hall. My family says it practically acts as a lamp but they clearly have a different definition of a lamp than I do. Aside the nightlight providing a blip of light, I might as well be walking with my eyes closed. I can barely see my own hands or the flooring in front of me. That goes for many other parts of my house and a lot of new buildings when it’s dark. I think it was why I had a bedwetting issue when I was younger because even though the bathroom is less than 7ft from my bedroom. When I opened my bedroom door, I might as well been 60ft into an underground cave. All orientation had vanished.

It’s no longer a problem now, since I’ve gotten better at spatial awareness, remembering the location of light switches, and honestly just feeling out tactile landmarks like doorframes helps a lot. It still terrifies me though that anytime during the night if someone broke in, if someone was in front of me, I likely couldn’t see them. I probably wouldn’t have known they were there. If they were holding a flashlight in the darkness, it would be faint blur for the most part in the nothingness. I would probably just brush it off as another nightlight my family placed to try and help me. I would only know by hearing them breathe, the sound of their steps, the sound of a hammer being pulled back on a gun. Only then, I would know something was there.

I refer to my visual snow as “My dots” or “the dots” or I guess just “dots”. It’s how I’ve always known it, maybe should have been a sign that my vision wasn’t normal in the first place. I should clarify that other than my VSS I have no visual issues, 20/20 vision in fact NOR do I have any mental illness/conditions that would produce visual hallucinations. I’ve been checked many times to make sure I’m not off my rocker.

This leads into the strange nature of my visual snow as of late, the dots are forming figures in my vision. I mean I always saw shadow people in my peripheral but this new thing will be right in front of me and it isn’t shadows, it’s the dots. They move in a way they never have before.

It started one night when I was preparing for bed, I stayed up late watching YouTube videos. I eventually decided that sleep would be a better idea. I went out into the hall and felt for the light and flipped it on. Now being able to see I went to the bathroom, flipped the light on when I felt it, closed the door, used the toilet, washed my hands, brushed my teeth, and the used the toilet along with washing my hands afterwards one more time. I left the bathroom flipping the light switch off now approaching the hallway light switch. I flipped off that switch and turned towards my bedroom but midturn…I saw it.

At the end of the hallway, a figure stood, the dots were outlining something, more so someone. I realize these next couple of sentences will sound really silly or even out of place but it’s the only way I can describe what the dots were doing and well, have been doing with these “things” since. It was as though the dots were…rotoscoping whatever was actually standing there. For the people who don’t know what rotoscoping is, it would be better to look up a formal definition. I can only describe it as a “layer of animation over a real life film or video”.

The density of the dots increased presenting a humanoid figure in the distance, presumably at the very end of the hallway, past the kitchen area and dining table. In the usual darkness where the only thing I could see was the littering of the dots now allowed me to gaze upon a figure akin to a human man.

It was taller than me. Not to freakish degree but taller than any of my immediate family members. The dots gave a clear distinction of each individual finger on each hand, an outline of a nose, and a suggestion of clothes based on the intensity of dots in some areas like on the legs and torso but an absence of dots on the actual body parts. Only providing a vague silhouette of limbs and shapes you would usually see a basic line drawing of a human, no distinct features such as eyes or fingernails, only the inky blackness between the gaps that formed the lines.

Despite having no eyes, based on the position of its head and body it was staring straight at me. Whatever the figure was, it cocked its head to its left side like a confused dog.

I know I should have immediately noped out, I should have just pretended nothing was there and went back into my room. It’s not a justification for my actions but the utter shock of finally being able to see something, anything at all, not having to play a complete guessing game 24/7 every night to know where my own feet stood in the void. Additionally, I was also horrified not knowing if this was a burglar, a murderer, or maybe something my mind made up. All this caused a short circuit in my survival instincts and basic logic that would have made a normal person run.

I cocked my head to my left in equally shared confusion.

As soon as I did that, the figure straightened its neck and posture as though it had received some sense of clarity from my response. As though I had answered its call, that I had taken its bait.

It almost as immediately started walking away, not in a fast manner but…a knowing one. It had long strides, not inhuman but ones that reflected its height. Its head still locked onto me as it disappeared around the corner. The dots disappearing as the figure did. When the figure fully left the dots acted as particles in the wind being pushed behind it before rushing toward me as though the metaphorical breeze had changed directions. They became larger and larger before returning to normal size as they practically hit my face from a visual standpoint. They dispersed equal among my visual field and returned to their normal behavior after about a second or so.

When my vision returned to baseline, it was like a match being struck in my body, a rushing feeling of adrenaline, fear, and “nope” flooded my veins. My heart was pounding in my chest and it felt as though I had just plunged myself into cold water. 

I fully turned towards my room rushing inside despite it being within an arms length away from me. As soon as I entered, I slammed the door not caring about waking any of my family members and locked it with a fury.

I walked to my bed and fell onto it with a plop.

I felt relief as I felt those sheets and soft bed pressing against my face and stomach through the fabric of my own pajamas.

I laid there, tired but with my mind reeling.

The horror of the situation is knowing whether this was a processing issue between my brain and eyes or if something was there, being revealed to me through my dots, purposefully or accidentally.

I woke up the next morning and entered the kitchen to see my mom making her coffee and preparing her bagel with cream cheese.

“Well good morning!” She announced in a cheery tone.

“Well good morning!” I mimicked back.

She gently smeared cream cheese onto the toasted bagel.

“I heard your door slam last night, what are you upset about now?” She asked before biting into her bagel with a crunching noise.

“I’m not upset about anything.”

“Del, don’t lie to me. You never slam your door, not since you-“ It was at that moment her voice became muffled, shoved into the background, and my focus narrowed elsewhere. The figure, it returned. It came from the back room area (I know ha ha backrooms, not the time) of the house, going around the fridge and stopping to stand behind my mom, the whole time its head and “presumable” eyes locked onto me. It stood behind my mom with a menacing, intimidating energy being emitted into my very being. The dots creating the same outline as I saw last night, only in the light of day, it felt crisper. Somehow more human despite not being human at all.

“-and speaking of birthdays, your aunt’s birthday is today. Don’t forget to send her a text, Del.” As soon as she said my name, my focus snapped back to my mom as the figure loomed behind her.

“Delaney Marie! You need to listen to your mother when she is talking to you!” She playfully joked as she finished her bagel and now taking a sip from her cup of coffee.

The figure glided its hand from my mom’s shoulder to her elbow before returning its hand down to its side.

“Oh, a bit chilly today? I saw on weather app earlier it’s already in the 70s. Midwest weather though, what can you do?” She remarked with a shiver, having stopped mid-sip to respond to the strange pet.

The figure’s “eyes” remained locked onto me, trying to get a response. I tried ignoring it as best I could but I felt crazy, my visual snow was producing a suggestion of a living man. One that seemed to want to let me know that what I was seeing was real.

She returned to drinking her coffee turned around and walked right through the figure, the dots remaining on the figure, not dispersing as they did last night. It was like watching a badly edited film in real time because the dots encased this figure were unaffected by my mom walking directly through it, rather it seemed as though my mom was more affected.

I thought I was crazy when I saw remnants of the dots on my mom’s shoulder and all over the front of her shirt where she had walked through it. They behaved as visual snow but were…sticky?

I feel like I should be wearing aluminum foil on my head as I even write this.

She opened the fridge to put back her cream cheese container as she hurriedly continued to drink her cup of coffee.

She set down her cup in the sink.

“God, the AC must be working overtime I am freezing, brrrr.” She said, the figure locked onto me unmoving but serious in nature. I finally acknowledged it with a glance. Despite having no mouth, it felt as though it was smiling at me, it felt like it was mocking me.

I almost wanted to ask if she knew it was there, I know based off her actions that the answer was already no. I had felt lonely with VSS because I see the world from a lens very few others they can earnestly say they remotely understand. Now, I felt lonelier than ever somehow because it was just me and this taunt, this illusion, whatever it is. It made me feel like we were the only two things that existed.

It finally moved, placing its hands on the kitchen counter, leaning in towards me. It stared at me for what felt like forever. If you had asked me if time slowed in that moment, I would have answered yes.

The figure then dispersed, the same events with the winds of dots enlarging in my vision like a fist coming for your face before gradually returning to normal size and behavior. Only this time, I felt a cold, wetness around my neck and face. A chill like drinking water with mint gum, but all over my head and neck.

My mom turned her head to look at me, her eyes widened and she let out a chuckle.

“Oh my god how did I not see that earlier? What happened to your neck?” She asked with a slyness.

I felt myself give her a confused look before heading to the bathroom, I flipped on the light, and I looked into the mirror with horror. Various bruises at different healing stages formed a tight band around my neck. Some were black or brown while others were yellow or red. Forming different colored dots…like my dots?

Okay, there was something I left out earlier. A bit more embarrassing thing. My night blindness wasn’t the only reason I had a bedwetting issues as a child at night. When I was younger, I would have to face the wall to fall asleep because for some reason I felt as though there was a man standing behind me from the door, watching me sleep. In my strange child brain, I thought if I moved too much that the man would drag me out from under my sheets and kill me. Strangle me specifically. This was very unusual for me too since I was a naturally upbeat child, I never had any thoughts ever akin to this anywhere else not even at scary movies or when I was bullied. So whenever I needed to move, I did it in either slow controlled movements or extremely fast ones but only ever one movement at a time. I slept with the covers over my head, I was so terrified to get up out of bed. That I would lift the sheets to see a man standing waiting for me. Waiting for me to give him a reason to kill me. It was like I felt something standing there, something was watching me. Even though I never saw a man at that time, could I feel THIS figure there in the darkness of my bedroom? In the nights I did gather the bravery to get up and try to go to the bathroom, was it standing outside my door?

Was this string of bruises now lacing my neck something I subconsciously prophesied years ago from something I felt that I could now see? 

I was freaking out for the rest of the day. I prepared for bed before the sun went down. I laid in bed with my covers over my head. I felt like a sitting duck. My heart beats feeling more like a song than a finite rhythm. As night came, I swear I felt the figure, I felt him. For the first time in years, I swear I could feel something standing at my door inside my bedroom watching me. For the first time in years, I faced the wall giving back into my childhood instincts. One thing was different though, I felt someone sit on my bed. I knew it wasn’t any of my family members but it definitely sat close enough to me to convince me it was my dad or something. My back began sending signals to my brain that there was ice on my back, coldness in the feeling of a hand rested on my back like a pile of folded clothes. It was rubbing my back, each pet felt like being scrubbed with a dishrag left to soak overnight. I could feel myself containing a recoil as best as I could. This went on for minutes. It finally stopped, the potential hand lifted and the weight on my bed was gone. I still felt it standing there from a distance, I swear if it weren’t the humming of the ceiling fan I could have probably heard breathing.

The next morning I woke up to an art piece of bruises in the center my back like a Jackson Pollock painting due to the yellows, the reds, the browns, the blues, and the blacks in a concentrated mass. They didn’t even hurt, they were just there.

Ever since that night it has been harder and harder to fall asleep, I am paranoid now. I still see him or it or whatever’s there throughout the day. My dots outlining the figure following myself around or my parents around. I see its arms phase through cabinets to grab at things it can’t pick up, I see it standing behind me in the reflection when I brush my teeth. I can’t even use the toilet in peace it seems. It is the only thing I see now in the darkness. I miss only seeing the scattering of dots in my vision, the absence of life but now there’s something there always to take my dots to reveal itself, the only thing I can see among the lack of light. I think it’s just my visual snow being weird, I have started seeing more figures outlined by dots in public like animals and other humanoids and I think something that appeared like a family based on how they were perusing the aisles in the grocery store. I don’t know I just want it to stop. Why are my dots doing this now? What am I trying to be told? Does anyone know what is going on with me? Does anyone know what IT is?

Any suggestions?

I rent a home with 4 other people near our college and we think the rent is so cheap because of “The Man”. He’s a little less horrifying when you get used to him but definitely makes me question everything I thought I knew about the world. He gets extra weird at the end of the month and under other select circumstances, so we have a way for deciding who fights him when he starts going berserk on us.

“The Man” as we call him is this strange humanoid figure with features akin to a man but you know…bro’s got no balls, literally. He’s hairless and has three holes where a face should be, kind of like a bowling ball but the holes are more proportional to the size of his head. Additionally, he is entirely naked but appears as if he is made of wood or maybe even clay based off the texture but the sounds made when we hit him with objects, fists, or with kicks sounds more organic-ish despite the appearance of his skin.

The man always has his arms locked into specific positions, usually at his sides, when he is walking or running, only moving them when his feet are firmly planted. When he does walk or run, his legs move in unnatural ways. I would say it’s a split combination between a newborn horse taking its first steps and a drunk person stumbles to their Uber. The Man is highly resilient though, we’ve “killed” and buried this guy over 5 times now. Each morning after we bury him, when we are preparing to do whatever that day, we can see the dirt of the DIY burial start to shift before seeing his hand pop out like a zombie in a movie, grabbing at the soil to pull himself out. We’ve even started making bets on the exact time he will emerge, how fast he will crawl out, what he will do once he is out, and even how he will pull himself out. His record is 1 minute and 23 seconds for getting out of the ground, his earliest time to ever start crawling out is 5:32am with the latest ever being 11:49am and I guessed that he would pull himself with both hands last time we buried him.

Oh, I guess I should have introduced myself and my roommates. My name is Annette, I’m a psychology major. I live with Devin (Business major), Schuyler (Accounting major), Jamie (Education major), and Tom (Double Major in Biology and Chemistry). I won’t go into a big spiel about the intricacies of the dynamics so I’ll just give the basic rundown. Devin is a football player and couldn’t get into our school’s frat…somehow. Schuyler is the chill roommate, they mainly just watch anime and they get along with everyone pretty well. Jamie is pretty much “Elle Woods” from Legally Blonde but if she had TikTok and wanted to be a teacher. Then there’s poor Tom, he is the wannabe doctor fighting for his life. The smartest one here but my god, I’ve never seen a poorer diet or that dark of dark circles in my life prior to meeting him. 

I’m just trying to get a degree, then dip. I know it’s a little cringe to do these brief summaries of real people but it felt weird not saying anything about them given their importance to the situation.

Anyway to get back on track, The Man is about 6ft if not taller. He has a slim-lean build and he makes noises, bone-chilling noises. We’ve never heard him copy a specific voice but more so produce generic human sounds like crying, screaming, or yawning. What’s freaky is that even when he produces those sounds they stray from human somewhat. Either in overall volume being way louder than what is possible for a human to emit, garbled like he is gargling a liquid of some kind, or muffled like someone being smothered with a pillow. On the worst occasion it can be all three at once, he unfortunately has a habit of combining all three when he does his monthly crash out. We have started calling it “the triple threat” when he does that. He prefers copying animals or inanimate objects. I remember one time Tom told us The Man stood outside his window while he was cramming for an Ochem test and The Man wouldn’t stop making the sound of water dripping from a leaky faucet all night. When Tom looked out from the window, The Man had his “face” pressed against the glass, seemingly staring at him.

There are some perks to having The Man. He’s a free security system because what rational human is going to break into a house after they see him outside. The Man is friendlier during the day, you can go up and touch him. I remember Devin pushed him over once, The Man just fell like a mannequin, staying there until the sun went down. He seems fairly curious, he will watch Schuyler attend to their garden. Sometimes he will walk up to the sliding glass door and watch whatever is on the living room TV. We noticed he likes to watching cooking shows the most because he will start to produce various bird chirps, something he doesn’t do at any other show.

It’s the night when The Man goes from just some woodland anomaly to something out of a nightmare. For most of the month, he will employ various tactics that while being non-violent still very much test a person’s patience and sanity. He will switch up between exuding deafening loon, elk, and pig noises until sunrise throughout the month. At some point he will stack bringing animal heads and organs as an additional tactic. He then sprinkles in intimidation, he cycles between who he stalks and torments more intensely every month. Recently it’s Schuyler but if predictions are right, it’s either me or Devin next. He’ll stand at the window or follow you as much as he can, I hate it when he does the dog cries as he trails you, gives me goosebumps.

If you have to get something from outside or just go outside at all during the night, good luck. He chases you. You wouldn’t think something with such poor running form would be so fast and agile, maybe it has to do something with the night. Not sure. We usually have to pay Devin if we want to get something from outside at night since he’s the most athletic of any of us. We watch him, we even cheer Devin on like it’s a track event. I remember the one time he went out to pick up some pizzas we ordered (we don’t do any delivery services since the incident with the DoorDash driver, we tipped VERY generously). I kid you not when I say Devin juked The Man while holding 4 hot pizza boxes. Broke his ankles before dashing up the patio steps into the house while Tom opened and closed the front door for Devin.  The Man let out a horrid screech that still makes my blood run cold remembering how loud and visceral it sounded.

Then fight night, as we call it, arrives. We still do not know why but for some reason the night of the last day of every month. The Man starts tweaking, he will twitch throughout the day and make garbled noises that is comparable to “animalistic radio static”. His legs will act even stranger, the movements being more pronounced as he ambulates. As soon as that sun goes down, it’s game time. That’s when he gets violent. I remember the first month we were here, The Man bashed his head so hard against the side sliding glass door in the living room by morning it looked as though you could have folded the glass in half like laundry given how cracked it was. It was barely holding inside of the doorframe, let alone standing completely vertical.

He made the triple threat sound as he slammed against the door, I felt as though I was overhearing a murder. Some poor person being smothered to death, maybe drowning in their own blood too for all I know. It was so loud it sounded as if there was a murder happening inside my own bedroom. It was accompanied by the thuds of him headbutting glass.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud…the cracking of glass.

Thud…

Over and over again until the sun rose over the horizon like a knight in shining armor. The noise stopped and The Man left.

I felt crazy but Jamie brought it up, I felt relieved yet terrified knowing I wasn’t just imaging some nightmare noises. We did not see the man until later. We saw him earlier in month two, I’ll never forget the fear I felt seeing him walk from the treeline toward our house at sunset. Everyone was there, you could have heard a pin drop.

“What the fuck is that?” Devin remarked

“This has to be some sick joke, we are freshmen…maybe this a tradition..?”, Jamie added.

“I’m out, nope! I’m locking my door. See y’all on the news.” Schuyler barked as they walked to their bedroom, slammed, and locked the door.

I remained in stunned silence.

Tom just stared until he couldn’t take it and threw up into the trash that we use to act as a dividing line between the living room and kitchen.

The Man stopped, looked at us, and cocked his head to the side like a confused dog. Before slowly walking backwards back into the woods never breaking his gaze until he could no longer be seen.

The very next night we had a discussion about what we saw, to make an executive unified decision.

“I thought the rent was cheap because it’s an old house without air conditioning, not because there’s a demon thing on the property!”, Jamie yelled with panic

“Dude, is that why there’s been weird ass animal carcasses around campus? Everyone has been suspecting a bear but the answer has been in our backyard the whole time.”, Devin said 

“Why don’t we call the police? I mean, they’ll shoot it.”, Schuyler added

“Oh yeah and tell them a weird man thing may have been ripping off fox heads and smashed our door last month. It may have been a bad prank like Jamie said, I mean aside from the chemistry program this is a party school.”, Tom reasoned.

As soon as Tom finished that sentence, The Man appeared. Out of thin air, inches away from the new sliding glass door. Tapping on it with his pointer finger.

We all flinched back, escaping to the far end of the kitchen. We nearly huddled up out of fear (it felt like a cartoon but I mean what else were we supposed to do). Tom decided to be the first brave soul to approach the (thankfully locked) sliding glass door. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, shining it into the holes on The Man’s face. It was like shining a light into a cavern, the head was hollow. You could look into it like an jack’o lantern.

“Either I’m tripping or this is the best creature effects I have ever seen.”, Tom remarked. “By all definitions, its head is empty.”

Jamie soon followed suit, standing beside Tom.

“I could have told you that by just looking at the skin, I mean what part of strange cracks screams human?”

It was soon followed by Schuyler then Devin and then myself.

“What do you think it wants?”, Schuyler said

“Whatever it is, I’m actually ok with calling the police for once. In fact.”, Devin remarked as he took out his phone to dial 911, walking back into the kitchen. His conversation just became background noise as we fixated on the tapping.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The Man turned its head toward me and then pointed now making noises that sounded like labored breathing.

“Ok thank you.”, Devin said as he ended the phone call. “They should be here in 10. I don’t love them here but I will gladly take it over forest demon man any day of the week.”

As soon as the sirens got closer, The Man turned his head toward the approaching noise and positioned his arms as though he was posing for a painting. Arms still in position, he ran towards the garden and froze.

To make a long story short, the cop was convinced we were doing drugs and was convinced The Man was a statue in the garden. Even after many attempts and the reveal that Tom was actually recording the whole encounter with the flash on. The cop accused us of it being AI generated content and there was no way this could be real.

“Calling when there is not an emergency is an offense, a serious one. Don’t call again unless there’s a real emergency.”, the cop commanded before getting back into his car and driving off.

As soon as the cop was out of view, we saw The Man snapped his head toward me. I heard the triple threat and it full sprinted, arms still in position, legs flailing in unnatural ways.

I screamed bloody fucking murder. If I had pissed myself in that moment I could live with it. Soon we both fell to the ground, I tried pushing him off but The Man was surprisingly heavy, it was like trying to push a car up while lying underneath it.

He was throwing his head all different directions the loud noise made it impossible to think, only panic. It wasn’t until Devin hit him with a full tackle that I was able to be picked up by Schuyler and Tom who were now dragging me back into the house. Jamie ran for the front door to hold it open.

“HURRY! HURRY! HURRY! GET THE FUCK IN?!” She screamed, her eyes full of panic.

We got through the door, I was thrown onto the beanbag chair while Tom and Schuyler were trying to catch their breaths.

“SLAM THAT SHIT!” I heard Devin yell as he sprinted through the doors, Jamie followed suit taking the door handle with her and locking it. She quickly closed little blinds on the door window. This was the front door, so we had more confidence in its stability. You could hear him clawing and screeching at the door, being so loud that if you had told me he was behind me, I would have believed you.

For the next month, The Man tormented me. Mimicking chainsaw noises and screams every night directly outside my window, tapping at the glass, following me as far as he was willing to as I walked to school in the morning. He brought animal heads, so many. The straw the broke the camels back happened one night as I was closing my window, he threw in a dog head. Not some wild dog, the neighbor dog’s head. The neighbor’s dog is a service dog for epilepsy. The service dog vest was still attached somehow from the collar it had on its neck. I slammed my window shut with so much rage.

I wasn’t mad about it killing a service dog only because I know there was no way The Man knew what a service dog even was. I was mad because he was targeting unrelated people and animals, he did it as an intentional act to get my attention. To get under my skin. He got underneath it alright.

I walked out of my room with the dog head in hand, blood from the stump leaving a bloody trail as I entered the living room.

“Look at the gift he brought me tonight!” I said with anger, tossing the head onto the kitchen counter.

Jamie shrieked a horrible shriek and tears began running down her face. She ran to the kitchen counter.

“He killed the puppy! The sweet puppy!” She sobbed as she began petting the head

“Oh that’s new.”, Schuyler added with shock in their voice

“I need to kill him.” I said

“What?! You?! Kill the forest demon? This isn’t fiction, remember last time you got close and personal? You’d have better odds fighting me and Tom at the same time.”, Schuyler responded.

“Schuyler, that fucking thing.” I pointed at the side sliding glass door, The Man now standing there peering in on us, hands pressed against the glass. “It needs to go, I can’t afford to move out but I would rather die in the backyard of this shitty house than spent another month having it torment me. It’s starting to affect my grades now.”

Jamie calmed down but continued to pet the dog’s head.

“Shouldn’t we all kill it?” She asked

“Oh god I hope you aren’t proposing some weird ass avengers style team up. I would rather just let it get me then if that’s the case.” I responded

“Dear god no, think more so like a buddy system I guess. I’m not communicating it well. I just mean that given that Devin at his size and abilities is barely able to hold his own, I think power in numbers would at least increase our odds of killing it”

The Man’s head snapped toward the driveway, it started running that direction hands still positioned as though it were pressing against the glass.

My phone rang.

It was Devin, he was with Tom.

I picked up the phone.

“Yo.”, I said

“Hey I picked up Tom from study group, y'all ready?”, Devin asked.

I put him on speaker.

“Who’s got door duty this time?” Devin asked.

“I’ll do it.” Jamie answered. “It wants Annette too much now and I don’t trust Schuyler with the door anymore.”

“In my defense, it’s not my fault you choose to wear a scarf.”, Schuyler added.

“Ok, Jamie is on door, Annette is on catch, and Schuyler will be on hand duty. Ready Tom?”

“Hell no!”, Tom replied

“Let’s do this!”, Devin said with excitement.

We all got into position. Jamie was at the front door ready to open and close it. I lined up with as many pillows as I could gather quickly and the bean bag chair about 7 ft from the door standing and Schuyler stood to the right of me with the Swiffer Sweeper. We heard the car door open and shut with panic. The Man screamed as the sounds of footsteps got closer. Jamie pulled the front door open, Tom fell through first the doorway first. He tripped and slammed face first into the the beanbag chair scattering his books and papers all over the floor. Then came Devin, I could hear but not see him struggling with the creature.

“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”, He screamed. Based off the noises, Devin seemed to kick him down the steps and he let out a yelp like an injured dog.

Devin burst through the doorway landing on some pillows but mostly skidding his face and hands against the hardwood floor. Jamie slammed the door with fury but here’s where Schuyler comes in with the problem of The Man’s hands. I helped Jamie with the door. Schuyler started to push The Man’s hand out of the doorway with the Swiffer Sweeper. It was a struggle.

“I GOT IT! GO!” They barked as they finally managed to get the hand out the doorway. Me and Jamie used all our force to slam that door shut. Jamie locked it. Jamie, Schuyler, and I fell to the floor in exhaustion. We were all exhausted. I mean was this really worth $100 of rent a month?

We filled Devin and Tom in on the situation, Tom was kind enough to dispose of the dog head as best as he could given he couldn’t go outside, Devin started talking plans with us.

“Tomorrow is the last day of the month, we know that thing gets weird then. I think we all want it gone, especially Annette. We go out together. It’s fast but there’s only one of it and five of us. We are bound to at least do some damage.”

Tom returned into the living room area, wiping his hands with a towel.

“It can’t move its arms and legs at the same time which helps, but it can still move its head and change the position of its arms once it stops running around. I suspect the head maybe weaker since from we’ve experienced those limbs are practically rock. The head seems at least softer by comparison.”

We fell all fell silent for a minute, I’m not really sure why. I can only think because it was really sinking in that we could be fighting a losing battle.

“I don’t want guns in this house” Schuyler chimed in.

“I’m not entirely sure if a gun would work on him.”, I added.

“Do you think the Swiffer is much better?”, Jamie replied.

“Why don’t we just use the garden tools?”, Devin asked.

“MY GARDEN TOOLS FOR MY GARDEN?!”, Schuyler said with anger.

“He may have a good point.”, Tom claimed

We all turned our heads toward Tom.

“I know it’s kind of lame but to be fair most notable weapons were at one point in history farm tools if not still farm tools. I mean clearly it’s smart option here given it can sense some degree of danger. Remember the time with the cop?”

“Or the DoorDash driver.”, Jamie added. “Well when she reached into one of the holes on his face anyway.”

“Or the Mormons.”, I added.

“Or the Jehovah’s witnesses.”, Schuyler added.

“Or the solar panel guy going door to door.” We all said in unison.

“Why was he out at night anyway?” I asked

“Who knows? I’m more confused on why the Mormons were out that late?”, Tom responded.

We continued to talk and came up with the plan. I would act as bait but I would be given a shovel as defense. Devin and Jamie would be near the rear hiding behind the shed with a hoe (not Jamie) and a rake (not Devin). Schuyler and Tom would hide in the bushes, with a trowel and garden shears.

Tomorrow morning came and went, same with the afternoon, then nighttime…fight night.

I was so ready, I was thinking about it all day. I was scared, I was mad, I was horrified, I just wanted it to be done.

Everyone got into their positions at sunset. As soon as that sun went down and that streetlight went on. There he was.

The Man had positioned his hands as if he were carrying a sack of flour. He was locked onto me. I tightened the grip on the shovel. Then the triple threat noise rang out like a warning call and then his strange yet fast legs sprinted at me, flailing with agility. He was practically lunging to get at me.

“CMON!”, I screamed.

I swung the shovel straight for his neck, with all my force as there was a foot remaining between us. It felt like a hot knife through butter but made a sound like an axe hitting a tree. I closed my eyes during the swing. When I opened them after contact, I was relieved to see that thing stumbling back, black goo flooding out of its neck as it made those distressed pig sounds. He eventually fell face first into the ground with a stumble.

Silence…

“JUMP HIM!”, Schuyler screamed.

And oh boy did we wail on him. Everyone rushed in and started stabbing The Man with garden tools for a solid five minutes before stopping due to how mangled The Man became. His body now mangled as he had mangled so many poor animals.

I felt as though it was over, I know it was strange of me to smile but The Man had tormented me for a month. It was agony and I thought I was finally free.

We all laid on the grass exhausted.

“It’s…finally…over?”, I asked taking a breath between each word.

“I think so.”, Tom responded as he also breathed heavily. He then quickly got up and threw up into a bush before stumbling into the bush beside the puke bush.

We spent the next two hours partying inside, drinking, playing drinking games, playing Just Dance on the Nintendo switch, and finally using Jamie’s karaoke machine. We ended the night by burying The Man. Jamie thought it would be respectful, Devin thought it would be a good idea to piss on top of the fresh grave of The Man. We all went to bed for once without hearing anything outside. So peaceful.

The next morning despite being terribly hungover, it was all smiles because we thought the nightmare was over.

“Good morning everyone, do we want waffles or pancakes?”, Jamie asked with smeared mascara all over her eyes.

Schuyler took a huge swig straight from the Svedka bottle.

“Give a Redbull, I promise you it will change your-I mean my life”, They slurred while placing a hand on Jamie’s shoulder.

“Annette, how do you feel? I bet it was nice not having something watching you for once.”, Devin asked as he entered the kitchen area. Shaking a protein shake in his hand.

“It’s really nice but I guess in a weird way I’ll miss it, I know that’s weird but we don’t really know what he was doing for all we know we could be on his property.”, I replied.

“Well I says goodbye weird forest demon thing- I think I’ll see him in hell and when I do I’ll say I’ll say to him, remember when we killed you buddycakes.”, Schuyler slurred as they stumbled backward onto the beanbag chair.

It was a good energy it was a great vibe, the first time we have felt peace in months.

Then it came crumbling down as fast as it happened…

Tom, who was sprawled out on the living room floor awoke to the sound of Schuyler plopping into the beanbag chair and lifted his head toward the sliding glass door, looking out into the backyard.

“HOLY!”, Tom exclaimed as he quickly shot up.

We all quickly gathered to the side sliding door as we witnessed the dirt start to move and out came a hand followed by another then a head. The Man was pulling himself out, completely healed. Once he got to standing, he turned towards us and pointed directly at Devin.

“OH COME ON MAN!”, Devin yelled in anger walking back towards his room.

The Man then bolted back into the forest with his arms pinned at his sides.

So, now every month the person who get tormented gets to kill it. Schuyler is pumped, they even bought a scythe for this. It is a good anger release. We still don’t know he keeps healing. We have tried chopping The Man up, placing the limbs in different spots. We even did the dumpster once. He always returns, fully intact. I was planning on moving out but the guy who owns the place lowered the rent to $75 dollars. Scarily, at the same time, we noticed that The Man seems to be getting stronger. We can’t think of any particular reason as to why. I know we are trauma bonded for life now though. However, it nice to have people that would defend you to the potential bitter end.

I guess I could deal with 3 more years of this, I just hope we can figure out why The Man is getting stronger before something really goes wrong.

Hello,

I love Just the Dough Cookies’N Cream bites. I usually get them (and have only ever found them) at my local DG Market. However, recently they have just vanished. I even asked the workers and they are not sure why more stock has not come either. I was wondering if anyone on here knew a store aside from Dollar General that sells them. I’ve consulted Google but it keeps listing stores I have already checked and learned does not have them. If anyone knows where I can source these treats, I would appreciate it. Thank you!

Sincerely, someone who like Just the Dough Cookies’N Cream bites