Ghosties, ghoulies, and things that go "bump".

[The Grand Nudger]

I won't go into the mountains alone at night, and I won't go at all without a rifle.  I have a deep seated and visceral fear of what may be in the dark.  I can't make it to the end of my driveway to take the trash up without my entire body on edge, looking out of the corners of my eyes into the treeline.  I won't ever look behind me..I pathologically avoid looking behind me.  I listen, though.  I can move my ears independently...it makes my kids giggle, but I got good at it swiveling them around out of quiet terror.  I would be startled...but not completely surprised, if a fucking werewolf came bounding out from the creek bed.  I;m not even remotely kidding..this is how convincing my general fear of the shit in the woods at night is.  My greatest irrational anxiety, is that the thing that doesn't go bump behind me, where I won't look..is wendigo..and I'll never hear it coming. I even remind myself to warcry, to turn and face and roar. So maybe I'll scare whatever isn't, or at least someone will know somethings happened to me - so the things that aren't only surprise one person on my watch. I make little mock roars under my breath, in the back of my throat, while I'm quickstepping towards the porch. If I was the type to analyze it, I'd say the thing that isn't is me, the thing behind me is me, that thing that swoops in and snatches is me. It's growling at me, when I growl at myself. The question becomes..do I avoid looking at the windows because of what might be behind them, or what I'll see reflected?

I don't believe in ghosts or spirits, but my mind can't help but wander to things that go bump.   I got circled once in Kosovo by something that none of us could see with nvgs...now..I chalk that up to us looking too high, we were looking for a man when it was probably a feral child.  I would've shot the little fucker if I'd seen him...my fear predates that incident, so it;s probably for the best that I didn't..or it -would- be a ghost story.  

Speaking of ghosts.  My favorite ghost story is one that I don't believe in, but that many people in Tampa Bay do.  It's a variant of the lady in grey modified by the vanishing hitchhiker.  In this case, a grey sweatshirt.  Last seen trying to thumb a ride across the Skyway Bridge, a popular place for suicide attempts due to it's height - 410 feet at center - at least 200 people have jumped.  The old bridge was struck by the freighter blackthorn, sending a bus in the water on a rip tide.  36 dead.  The new bridge was built beside it. . A blonde girl in her early twenties is said to thumb a ride at the north end..southbound lane, where traffic slows to a crawl through the toll.  Disheveled, wet as if recently showered.  She never says a word.  However, as you reach the central span, where the ascent is the steepest, about 2 and a half miles from shore (and 2 more until the other side)...she begins crying, and before you summit, she's gone.