There's No Place Like Home...

This month's RPG Carnival is about 'Spooky Spots' ...

http://ofdiceanddragons.com/october-2013-blog-carnival-spooky-spots/

First, thanks to Scot Newbury for hosting this month and the interesting topic!  Reading the post reminded me of a really spooky experience I had one night ... at home.  Very spooky.

I grew up in an upper class neighborhood about sixty miles north of New York City.  We had been living there for about five years by the time this occured, and nothing in particular ever struck me as spooky in the least.   Oh there was the copperhead snake in the front yard one time, but that's just scary, not spooky. 

One night I was sitting in my bedroom.  I wasn't doing anything memorable, just some studying for a math exam coming up later in the week.  I looked up at the window in front of my desk.  It was reflecting the light from my desk lamp.   Beyond was darkness, as the sun had set about an hour earlier.   I recall a very faint dark blue line sillouetting the treeline on the road that passed in front of my house, and the road itself was obscured by shadows and trees but I could dimly make it out as a dark gray line.  It was, as I recall, a clear night and windless. 

As I gazed at the window for some reason I began to get the impression that there was something out on the road; a darker than shadow shape perhaps, standing, or squating there across from my window.  It gave me the impression of being rather large, the size of bear maybe?  I turned out my light.  But nothing stirred. I couldn't actually see anything.  It seemed to be squating on the road and remained motionless except for what I thought was a slight swaying.  It gave me the distinct feeling that it was watching me.   Staring into my bedroom.  I had no idea how long it had been there.  I suddenly got very tense.

Then for some reason I can't explain I got the impression it wasn't a bear at all.  Or a person.  Or anything I'd ever encountered before.  Perhaps there was a faint sound that came from the road, I don't know.  Suddenly all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, and I got goosebumps over my whole body.  Whatever it was on the road in front of my house was far larger than a bear.  I have no idea why but I felt that it had droped down from the sky.  I would have sworn that it had wings.  Again, perhaps because I heard something that sounded like the slow flapping sound of giant wings, the way a bird on the ground might do to steady itself against a wind.  But there was no wind.  A sweat broke out on my neck and head.  I began having trouble breathing.  I stared as hard as I could into the darkness.  I couldn't see anything.  Only that sound coming in through the bottom of the window.  And the feeling, that horrible feeling, that something very large, and very old and very, very evil was standing on the road with it's eyes directly on me.  I had the impression that it had come with the specific intent to land in front of my house on Silver Lane and stare at me.  For some ... horrible reason.

Then, as suddenly as that, it vanished.  I didn't see any movement on the road, or hear whoosh of air, but the sound was no more and the darker than dark patch that seemed to move slightly from side to side returned to a normal patch of shadow on the road.

It was one of the most frightenning experiences I've ever had.  It turned my normal, safe and cozy family home into one of the spookiest places I'd ever known.   For one short dreadful moment that night.  After that it never happened again, and my home returned once more to it's cozy normal state, although I don't think I slept a wink for several days afterwards.   I never sensed whatever it was again ... except once, many years distant when I was hiking in the mountains of California nestled around a campfire with an old wizardish friend of mine.  But that's fare for another story, another time.   Right now I have to go shake off this memory and have a drink.