One Creepy Crawly Story
Dug in my cache of stories and found a tale not shared before… and just in time for Jack-O-Lantern’s Creepy Crawly Day. The only problem with this one, it wasn’t Halloween.
It was the day after Christmas. My father had just left for an out-of-town meeting, which made it the perfect opportunity for my sister and I to go out clubbing. Our mother wasn’t as much of a stickler about our curfew. She was nothing like our father. Not only did he want us home before 2am, but he would often camp out at the window until we got home, and then punish us the following day by taking away our allowance if we missed our curfew. Once he even showed up at the club, oh how embarrassing, shouting out for my sister who darted through the crowd to avoid him seeing her. Luckily it was dark inside, and crowded, and the music was as loud as it was... coupled by the fact no one but her girlfriend knew her name.
But this night he was away. This was the year we got our double-breast maxi coats… DBs we used to call them. My sister’s was black, mine gray, and we couldn’t wait to dress up and jump in them.
So we go clubbing, leave the club… my guess is it was about our normal return home time… 3-4am… when as we were walking home this woman stopped her car and spat in this real eerie tone, “Girls, what are you doing out here this late!?! Get home and get home now.”
Right away both my sister and I start thinking about how we disobeyed our father. Feeling guilty, sharing how sorry we were, we picked up our pace. We were nearing a corner of the street that once we turned, would put us a few more blocks away from our front door, when all of a sudden this ‘thing’ appeared before us.
Okay now wait. Let me back up and better describe this thing. After the woman left us with the eerie message, in the far off distance it looked as if a white man was approaching. Given the neighborhood we lived in… and the time, it was odd, but not so odd that we gave it much thought. The eerie message was soaking up too much of our attention to question what we thought we were seeing. But as the man neared, we suddenly realized we don’t know what is approaching us.
The face obviously was painted, and it looked like fangs coming out of its mouth. Plus, it was wearing a black cape, with the widowed-peak black hair. Did I not mention it was the day after Christmas? We thought for sure we were seeing our first live vampire.
Without looking at each other, and surely without taking our eyes off the ‘thing’, my sister and I on cue began slowly counting to three. One… two… and we bolted around the corner on the count of three, just as simultaneously to us taking off, the thing spread its wings, making this hissing sound, taking off after us. We ran like Wilma Rudolph that night!
This story is not fiction. This actually happened. The thing didn’t catch us. We outran Count Dracula, or maybe Leroy the Vampire, praying every step of our run that our father was sitting by that window!
It was the day after Christmas. My father had just left for an out-of-town meeting, which made it the perfect opportunity for my sister and I to go out clubbing. Our mother wasn’t as much of a stickler about our curfew. She was nothing like our father. Not only did he want us home before 2am, but he would often camp out at the window until we got home, and then punish us the following day by taking away our allowance if we missed our curfew. Once he even showed up at the club, oh how embarrassing, shouting out for my sister who darted through the crowd to avoid him seeing her. Luckily it was dark inside, and crowded, and the music was as loud as it was... coupled by the fact no one but her girlfriend knew her name.
But this night he was away. This was the year we got our double-breast maxi coats… DBs we used to call them. My sister’s was black, mine gray, and we couldn’t wait to dress up and jump in them.
So we go clubbing, leave the club… my guess is it was about our normal return home time… 3-4am… when as we were walking home this woman stopped her car and spat in this real eerie tone, “Girls, what are you doing out here this late!?! Get home and get home now.”
Right away both my sister and I start thinking about how we disobeyed our father. Feeling guilty, sharing how sorry we were, we picked up our pace. We were nearing a corner of the street that once we turned, would put us a few more blocks away from our front door, when all of a sudden this ‘thing’ appeared before us.
Okay now wait. Let me back up and better describe this thing. After the woman left us with the eerie message, in the far off distance it looked as if a white man was approaching. Given the neighborhood we lived in… and the time, it was odd, but not so odd that we gave it much thought. The eerie message was soaking up too much of our attention to question what we thought we were seeing. But as the man neared, we suddenly realized we don’t know what is approaching us.
The face obviously was painted, and it looked like fangs coming out of its mouth. Plus, it was wearing a black cape, with the widowed-peak black hair. Did I not mention it was the day after Christmas? We thought for sure we were seeing our first live vampire.
Without looking at each other, and surely without taking our eyes off the ‘thing’, my sister and I on cue began slowly counting to three. One… two… and we bolted around the corner on the count of three, just as simultaneously to us taking off, the thing spread its wings, making this hissing sound, taking off after us. We ran like Wilma Rudolph that night!
This story is not fiction. This actually happened. The thing didn’t catch us. We outran Count Dracula, or maybe Leroy the Vampire, praying every step of our run that our father was sitting by that window!
Comments
Post a Comment