Flesh and blood monsters, part two

In my past I had run into a four legged flesh and blood monster, but that was nothing compared to the two legged beast I faced many years ago. It all happened in the late 80’s, in the summer before I would begin my junior year in high school. This was only about a year and a half after my parents and I had moved to a new location, about 30 miles from where I grew up. I was happy in our new home, as it was a bigger house with a bigger yard. The surrounding area was mostly rural, and we were on a dead end street so it was very quiet. I started a new high school in the middle of my sophomore year, which was kind of rough coming in the middle of the semester. The school sucked because it was largely an enclave where outsiders (especially nerdy kids like me) were unwelcome. But otherwise, things were going well. This rural area had roads that weren’t too busy and plenty of places to walk the dog. I’d take Frieda, our Chesapeake Bay retriever mix, on long walks thru woods, across fields and down country roads.

Our house was on about an acre of land, covered in trees, and the neighbors weren’t too awfully close. Behind the house was a field and a wooded area, and I would walk Frieda back there and sometimes I’d just wander around by myself. One day I came home from school and I noticed that something was going on behind our house. Something had disturbed that wooded lot, and I was curious as to what it was. First I noticed there had been some land clearing. Some of the trees had been cut down, and soon there would be a dirt road leading from the main road that went thru the field and into the woods. I took a walk back there (without Frieda), but because it was early spring it was quite muddy where the land had been cleared. As the days and weeks went by, I could see that something was being built. Ever so often I’d walk back there in the evening, long after any workers on the site had gone home. Eventually I watched as a house took shape, and I wondered how much more land would be cleared. This bothered me a lot because I was really liking having a nice wooded area to look out at from my bedroom window. In the house I grew up in, all I had to look at from my bedroom was the neighbor’s house across the street. And if I looked out the back windows, I was looking into another neighbor’s back yard. I dreaded coming home from school and finding a denuded hillside just beyond the edge of our yard. But of course there was nothing I could do about it. As spring turned into summer, ever so often I’d take a walk to see the progress on the house. Generally I’d go around twilight, as I could pretty well be sure I’d not run into anyone. Once, I went after dark, on a brightly moon lit night. I got a bit of a scare when a cop car came flying up the dirt road. I didn’t have time to run back to my house so I ducked down behind some brush. Luckily I remained undetected until the cop left. I had no idea who or what they were looking for. I was more careful after that, and I didn’t go over there as often. If I did go, I carefully checked to be sure there were no vehicles hidden behind the house or anywhere on the long gravel drive.

As a teenager I had explored at least a few abandoned houses, so checking out one that was under construction wasn’t out of character for me. Of course, like the abandoned properties, I really wasn’t supposed to be there at all. But I was still a kid at heart and I went pretty much wherever I wanted to go.

That summer, if I wasn’t walking Frieda or exploring this new house, I was out riding my trusty ten speed. I didn’t do as much riding as I did before I was able to drive, and the country roads in my new home were a bit less conducive to biking due to the lay out of the roads and the fact that there was actually more traffic on the main road. There were more blind curves and higher speeds, plus there was more truck traffic on the main road. But sometimes I’d go for an evening or weekend ride for old time’s sake. One of these evening rides would become my undoing….it would set the stage for a waking nightmare.