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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Maleficent-Spell5621 on 2024-10-02 16:20:43+00:00.
When I was a young girl, my dad always told me about the time when he was walking home on a late summer evening. The sun had just went down behind the mountain, blanketing the whole holler in darkness. This was not your typical darkness, but a darkness that was deep enough to feel. The type that made you feel like you were being suffocated.
He was walking home with his father from his Aunt Bea’s house. She always cooked Sunday dinner for the whole holler. Family or not, you were invited if you lived on Laurel Branch. You were considered family, even if you came from different blood. You were blood bound by the branch.
Every Sunday was filled with the laughter of his uncles and great-uncles as they sat together, huddled in the back-yard shed. Cigarette smoke made the air hazy as their jokes lingered in it longer than they should. Sometimes, they would pass around a mason-jar of shine from Ole’ Opossum from the head of the holler. He wasn’t kin, but he was family, like I said.
The laughter wasn’t the only sounds, it was sometimes drowned out by the angelic singing of Aunt Bea as she made cornbread with her daughter in the kitchen. Sometimes, as my dad played with the other kids, they couldn’t keep themselves from runnin’ in the kitchen and pulling on Aunt Bea’s apron for a quick crumble of the bread before supper. The scent that wafted through the open kitchen window was too enticing for them to ignore.
This night was just like those nights that I described. Nothing out of the ordinary, except my dad’s momma stayed at home to nurse his sister who had a cold. My dad and his father were not going to miss the mess of fresh squash that Aunt Bea was frying that night. His momma told them to go on. There wasn’t nothing they could do. They’d just be bothering his sister coming in and out of the house.
They’d just finished up listening to Great-Uncle William’s last story of the night. It of course ended in some dirty joke that caused him to laugh great big and throw back his knee.
My dad was around fifteen at this time, and this was the first time he was allowed to spend more than a minute in the shed. Most of the time, he was shooed out by a cigarette gripped hand and told to go watch his cousins and sister. This time, he was welcomed. He’d even been allowed to get a tiny sup of the Shine that Ole’ Opossum had just made. He was walking on air. He never felt so grown up before.
His father gave one more wave to his sister and brother-in-law as they began the quarter-mile walk down to the homeplace. His father was the one to keep the old homeplace after the grandparents moved in with Aunt Bea to get extra care. They believed it should go to the eldest male, and he took it. He took good care of it too. The little white house stayed spick and span and the yard immaculate.
As they walked, his dad loaded him down with the leftovers covered in tin-foil that Aunt Bea had insisted they take to his momma and sister. He held the warm foil close to his chest as they went further and further into the belly of the holler. The homeplace was at the end of the holler, while Bea’s was two houses down from the top. In between was a thick patch of forest so dense that you couldn’t see a star in the sky past the leaves. There was a branch that ran next to the road all the way down the holler that contained a giant boulder on its bank that they called Rabbit Rock. My dad had always called it Rabbit Rock, and his father did too. That’s what that middle ground area was to them.
His dad cut through the now pitch-black darkness by lighting up a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Shew, I’m stuffed,” he said through the cigarette between his lips.
“Me too.” My dad replied.
“Now don’t be tellin’ your momma that I let ye come in the shed for some moonshine, ye hear?” He said as he let out a long breath of smoke, the only thing visible to him was the cherry of his cigarette glowing orange in the deep darkness.
“I won’t.”
“Better not, son.” He lovingly slapped his shoulder and gave it a hearty squeeze.
My dad felt like a man. He felt like he was growing up, and his father knew it. They could connect on a different level now. Something new.
They both continued walking in a comfortable silence that was filled with katydids singing their summer song. The darkness was different tonight. The past few nights had been clear of clouds, so the light of the moon could cast a low glow that would slightly penetrate through the trees. This night was clouded, and no light could reach. It was as if an invisible dome that deflected light was placed over the holler, cutting them off from the light of the moon forever.
My dad noticed this darkness as they slowly walked into the trees. It seemed to creep up on them like a slow sickness, kind of like the one his sister had right now. He suddenly lost any manliness that he had gained that night. This darkness made him a boy again. A boy who unspokenly walked a bit closer to his father. It felt significantly lonely walking being just the two of them. He was used to his momma and sister walking slightly behind them. Tonight the only thing behind him was the crawling sensation on his back that signaled something might be following him.
They trekked deeper into the wooded area, their boots kicking up dust on the dirt road. The further they went, the darker it got. It was to the point that they couldn’t see their hand in front of their own faces. The only thing keeping them from running off the road was the familiar feel of the dirt road under their boots.
“I’m gonna go out in the tater patch tomorrow to do some weeding and to keep an eye on those tater bugs. They’ve been eating all over them plants.” His dad said, breaking the silence.
He puffed on his cigarette, the only light around, shining like a lightning bug. Speaking of lightning bugs, there weren’t any. That was odd, and the deeper they went, the less they heard of the katydids and their constant buzz. It was actually gone now. This made the chill climb higher up my daddy’s spine. No light from the lightning bugs and no buzz from the katydids made the forest seem dark and devoid of all life.
“I’ll come help ye.” My dad replied, desperate for any noise.
“Mhmm.” His father hummed as he continued to puff on his cigarette.
“What happened to them katydids?” he asked, not able to hide his nervousness.
“They probably went to sleep, I guess. Your granddaddy used to say that a devil was passing through when it gets quiet like this.”
“You think that’s true?” My dad immediately regretted saying this. He knew his father would never let him back in the shed since he believed in tall-tales.
“Naw. Not unless the devil is a bobcat. That’s one thing that can make it this quiet.”
They continued to walk, but my dad kept that crawling on his back, convinced a bobcat was silently stalking them from behind. He would glance over his shoulder once in a while, but that didn’t help any. It was so dark it looked like staring into an oil pit. Thick. Dark. Nothing. Not even a shadow could be cast.
They walked in their new silence. A silence that was too quiet and uncomfortable. Suddenly, my dad’s darkness was disturbed by a wall. No, not a wall…It was warm, hairy, and filthy. He had run face first into something moving, no walking, the opposite direction. The feeling of matted fur, or maybe even hair, remained on his skin for far too long after losing contact. The smell was the worst, however. It assaulted his nostrils with a pungent odor, a cross between feces and rotten eggs.
“HMPHH!” It grumbled as it hit my dad. It seemed just as surprised as he did.
The tin foil leftovers of squash, beans, chicken livers, and cornbread crushed between them, letting a bit fall to the ground.
In the blackness, his father was unsure of what happened, but felt the hair and smelled the stench of the thing brush past. This was enough to show him how much danger they had literally run into. This was no animal or human he had ever encountered before.
Neither my dad or his had stopped walking during the whole ordeal. The only time they stopped was initial contact. Fear had propelled them both forward. The thing slid by and stopped at the dropped leftovers. It began eating with sickening and obscene noises. Both of them picked up their pace.
“What-” My dad was cut off by his father saying, “SHH! Keep walking.”
He did as he was told. He held the crumpled leftovers to his chest, the warm juices from the squash and beans seeping into his shirt. They both unspokenly increased their pace, almost to a light jog. They didn’t want to draw any more attention to them since it was occupied.
They got about fifty feet before they heard its slamming footsteps in the dirt behind them. It was coming towards them.
“Drop some leftovers behind you.” His dad urged.
“What?”
“Just do it!”
He did as he was told, once again, and threw a couple pieces of chicken behind him. The footsteps stopped and it began its stomach churning eating again. They picked up their pace again and kept going down the road. They had almost made it through the wooded area and past Rabbit Rock.
Another fifty feet had passed before they heard it running with an urgency. It sounded human. Like two feet rushing upon them. Like someone trying to attack.
“More!” His dad yelled.
He threw more chicken and some squash. His arm burned from how hard he threw hoping to backtrack the beast. More ri…
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