In the stillness of the night, when the moon hung heavy and full, casting eerie shadows upon the forest floor, I found myself unwittingly drawn into a realm where the line between reality and the supernatural blurred.
It was a night like any other, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and the distant echo of laughter fading into the darkness behind me.
Little did I know, as I ventured deeper into the woods, that I was about to embark upon a journey that would shake the foundation of my beliefs and shatter the illusion of safety I had always found solace in.
This story is a recall of my encounter with a Wood Demon.
The Demon In The Woods
As a teenager, reckless and filled with the invincibility of youth, I paid little heed to the warnings whispered among the townsfolk about the sinister presence lurking within the forest’s depths.
Tales of evil spirits and ancient curses were dismissed as mere superstition, the fanciful imaginings of those who dared not tread beyond the safety of their hearth.
In high school, I lived in a house about 200 yards from acres of dense woods. We were the original Mountain Bikers back in the 1980s.
My friends and I would ride our street bicycles through the woods, jumping over dirt mounds and wiping out muddy areas.
We also would catch Crayfish in the creek, and later on, as we became teenagers, we would drink beer in the woods. Some of the older kids had three-wheeler ATVs, and we heard rumors that Police would chase them out of there, even though I had never seen this happen before.
It’s sad now; hundreds of acres of those woods had been removed to make room for new home developments.
But back in the 80s, it was my playground.
I often cut through the woods to get to the other side of them. Before I had a car, I would cut through the woods to get to my High School, my friend’s house, or the local convenience store.
My only other option would be to walk, skateboard, or ride my bike around them, which could sometimes take upwards of an hour.
Being a natural Type A personality, I almost always chose the shortest route to my destination. So, being younger and a bit naïve, I never hesitated to take the easy way of cutting through the woods.
The Dark Path Through The Woods
The “dark path,” as we called the woods, was a massive assortment of oak, hickory, locust, and beech trees as far as the eye could see. It was rumored that a peculiar family (the Morris’s) once lived in the woods in the mid-1700s.
I wondered why anyone would want to live in the woods. Forests were an excellent place to make your home because of the abundance of wild game, native plants, and livestock, which had a vast assortment of natural foods like pecans, walnuts, and wild fruits.
One sunny day in 1984, I accidentally stumbled upon the ruins of the old Morris House, or what was left.
In the 1960s, teenagers accidentally burned down most of the old Morrison place while partying in the house. A kerosene lamp was to blame.
The Morrisons abandoned their ancestral home around 1935. At least, that was what I was told by people in the neighborhood where I lived. No one knew why a family back in the woods would abandon their ancestral home.
They even left most of their furnishings as it seemed they left in a hurry.
I remember some of the older folks in the neighborhood telling me to stay out of the woods, especially at night. Did I ever listen to them? Nope. Did I mention I am stubborn when someone tells me not to do something?
When I was younger, I was not much of a drinker; I usually could drink three or four drinks max, and I was done. One night back in 1989, I attended a party that one of the older kids had at his apartment. They had beer and lots of girls there, too.
That night I had about six too many, and I began to feel queasy, which sucked because one of the older girls was hitting on me “big time.”
I began feeling like I would throw up, and all I wanted was some fresh air. So, I decided to go outside and breathe in the crisp autumn air. “Wow, that worked; I feel better,” I thought. Maybe I’ll go back inside and see if that older girl still wants to “hook up.”
As soon as I walked back into the apartment, I felt queasy again, and my head spun. “Shit,” I thought to myself. So, I went back outside to try to make myself feel better.
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I’m Walking Home By Myself At Night
The party was about two miles from my home, and I decided to leave and start walking. I didn’t even bother telling anyone inside that I was going. I couldn’t care less about the distance between the cool autumn breeze and the “beer buzz” I had.
After about 45 minutes of walking home, I had a “Frodo” choice. I could cut through the woods and be home in about 15 or 20 minutes or go a long way, which meant walking around the woods and being home in another 45 minutes.
It was late, I was tired from the walk, and my beer buzz was wearing off. I thought, “screw it,” I’ll go through the woods tonight, order a pizza from Dominoes when I get home, and catch the USA Up All Night on the boob tube.
I began walking towards the little street that takes you to one of the main entrances into the woods.
On that same road is an old Art Center, once the home of Lillian Holt, a religious educator and amateur painter. The original Victorian farmhouse, which still stands, now accommodates The Holt Center for the Arts.
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Through The Woods, I Go – The Demonic Entity In The Woods
As I approached the entrance to the woods, I suddenly recalled another tale about the woods that one of the neighborhood kids had told me. The story went that a secret cult would practice black magic witchcraft in the forest at night, especially on weekends.
It is alleged that supernatural energies are most potent in the forest, and it’s also an excellent place to heighten the senses—something to do with wood sprites.
The old witchcraft cult was practiced in the woods for centuries; some say it is as old as the forest itself. It is usually held around the full moon when the energies are the strongest.
Besides that beautiful tale, the occultists would summon dark entities and sacrifice animals. Cats, I believe.
“Great, I thought to myself. What kind of sicko does that anyway?”
There was no more time for judgment; I had to go through the woods because I was getting so tired that I thought I might pass out. Maybe the Center for the Arts building is open, and I could catch some zzzs there.
No, I am so close to home, I have to go for it.
I began walking towards the woods entrance, and all my psychic alerts were on full blast. My eyes are wide open, my ears are perked, and I have my adrenaline on the backburner if I need to “book out of there.”
It was so dark here, and I could barely see five feet in front of me. I remembered to look at what I could see of the Moon as a guidance system.
I had walked that trail dozens of times as far as navigating through there, and I knew I could do it in the dark even though it would be much slower.
My main concern was to look for any bonfires in the woods. I was told that the occultists would burn fires to summon demons. As far as I could see, it was freaking dark in there, not even a lightning bug in sight, and there was no fire, that was for sure.
To begin with, the forest had a certain dark mystique, like the woods in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.
It was just a dark, mysterious place at night. At this time, I am at least halfway through the woods, and it feels like I have been there for over an hour when probably only 20 minutes have passed.
Have you ever noticed that your mind has the most paranoid thoughts imaginable when you are alone, dark, and quiet? Well, that was what my mind was doing that night.
“Man, I wish I had a flashlight on me,” I thought.
I am still on the path, but I cannot tell. One way to know if I was off the track would be if my clothes got snagged on sticker bushes. From what I could tell, I was not getting caught on any.
Next, I heard rustling in the trees, like a squirrel scampering around in the branches.
“What the hell was that?” I stopped immediately, frozen more with fear.
“There it is again.” A sound I had never heard before. No, it wasn’t a dog, cat, or fox. It was a low, gravelly sound like Bruce Springsteen with laryngitis. I almost always carried a knife back then, but not that night.
“Are you kidding me,” I thought to myself. There it goes again. I was trying to figure out where the sound was coming from while walking again at a much faster pace without going into full panic mode.
It sounded like the gravelly sound was coming from above me, like up in a tree, from where I was walking. Maybe it’s an owl. I didn’t know an owl could sound like that, but there have been sightings of the Great Grey Owl in these woods.
Yeah, that’s what that is: an owl. Whew, all is well again, or at least I thought. Next, I heard the sound again above me, and it sounded like something was falling from the tree, like a branch or something. So, I looked up to see what it was.
A shadowy figure was behind me, maybe twenty-five feet up in the trees. My eyes were well-adjusted at this point, and it looked like the grim reaper, wearing a shredded black cloak and yellow piercing eyes with a shimmer to it.
The shadowy figure descended from the trees and thumped to the ground; it landed fifteen feet behind me. It was tall, over 7 feet easily. It signaled me to come to it like it wanted to show me something, but I had other intentions.
I ran like Carl Lewis in the ‘88 Olympics through the woods, straight out of there, into my house and bedroom. I looked out my window to see if anything was there. Thank God, I didn’t see anything.
No one was home at my house that night; my parents were down the beach, so I stayed awake until morning. I never told anyone about my experience in the woods, thinking that story would be better kept to myself until now.
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