Darkness I remember a lot from my childhood but for the life of me I wish I could forget that one strange night my family lived on a hill next to the elementary school in the sleepy little town in the hany Basin called Hines you'd be hardpressed to find it by name just follow Highway 395 to the malor National Forest until you hit Burns Hines is the town just to the South we might have been poor but we were also happy my father would plant a garden mid spring where we would get most of our food
in the Summer and Autumn while he was gone the money that was saved would be used for the occasional trip to Dairy Queen or A&W sometimes a surprise breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes at Ye Old Castle or the rare trip to to Pioneer pizza for dinner good times it happened after one of those sparse trips to Pioneer Pizza the sun had just dipped down below the Horizon when we pulled up the driveway I retreated the sun tea from the front porch as my mother unlocked the door I remember the orange flowers with the black spots
that were planted under the massive picture window in the dining room were open and facing Skyward I remember brushing my teeth next to my brother before we climbed into our bunk beds I remember being so quiet listening through the wall as my mother would say a bedtime story to my sister afterward she would kiss us good night just another day come to a close in that sleepy Oregon town where nothing ever happened until something happened thinking back there were red flags everywhere but us kids were too young to understand at the time my parents would
never wake us up in the middle of the night or allowed us to run around in the house I remember seeing the couettes standing in the dark how I could see them in the dark still bothers me as well as them being the same height I still can hear myself thinking they were mom and dad but Dad has always been taller than Mom I don't remember any voices but I remember them speaking to us kids telling us to go into the living room I look back on that night and want to scream a warning down
the hall I want to turn on the lights and see who they were what they were they were not my parents at this point I wonder if they were human the moon showed bright through that big picture window casting a faint shadow of the dining room table across the floor I could make out my sister's face if only just and I could see the color of my brother's pajamas even the dark blue Parts I I still couldn't make out anything about the strangers I can still feel myself wanting to refer to them as mom and
dad even as I saw the two behind us unaffected by the Moonlight as if they had been cut from reality leaving two black holes in reality cut in the shape of a bipedal form their arms and legs moved their heads moved but only the inky black couettes as if Warner Brothers had painted them there I remember one sitting awkwardly in a rusty orange colored chair and the other one taking a seat on the floral pattern sofa I remember seeing the colors of the chair and sofa and the strangers in their odd seated positions still nothing
more than black against the colors black arms and legs too long to be human jutting out at an odd angle before finding a joint and heading in another odd angle I hate that my mind still calls the mom and dad I remember them asking us to walk in a circle then run I do not remember a voice just the request as if all three of us had the same idea at the same time but it wasn't ours we walked then we ran in the living room in the middle of the night as we were observed
by the strangers I remember not wanting to wake up Mom and Dad but how would I wake them up if they were sitting right there asking us to run in the circle I stopped running asking myself how would I wake up Mom and Dad if they were sitting in the living room telling us to run in a circle unless they were not Mom and Dad I still don't know what was more terrifying a six-year-old me no longer running and staring at the unknown or realizing that the unknown had stopped watching my brother and sister and
was studying me intently they watched Without Eyes they spoke without voice none of my senses could tell if the strangers even existed but everything in my mind screamed back in fear they existed they were right there and all of their attention was directed to me that's the last thing I remember about that night my brother and sister don't remember it my mother and father don't either just me my father moved us to Fort Brag California 7 years later and Angels Camp California after that we had always been poor moving from town to town maybe one
step ahead of each lumber mill as it closed my mother and father struggled and my sudden fear of the dark was not as important as putting food on the table clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads I tried to forget and didn't talk about it anymore but prayed every night that we would be forced to move again so the strangers wouldn't find us I enlisted in the Navy at the age of 16 under the delayed entry program my mother was concerned that something would happen and my father was proud that I was
taking this next step in life so early I studied hard to work on Boomers and graduated top of my class they even traveled to Groton Connecticut to watch my graduation they were so happy for me that I didn't have the heart to tell them the truth I was still running away from the strangers I served aboard an higher class submarine for a few years thinking that thousands of cubic feet of water would be an excellent place to hide and if it wasn't a ballistic missile sub was the most secure place in the world I believed
I was right on both counts since the strangers never paid me a visit I acclimated to a normal life or at at least what passed for normal as a sailor in the United States Navy I met the love of my life at a restaurant in Oceanside and we were married after a six-month deployment I was lucky enough to come back into port a day before my son was born and again when my daughter entered the world I thought back to the times we spent as a family in Hines and did exactly what my family would
do when my father got home every Autumn but I didn't like being away from my family I left the Navy and found a job working at a mine outside of montose Colorado so I could be home with my family every night my memory of the strangers long forgotten in the life I had built with my family The Strangers never forgot about me it was close to midnight when I he the steady thumping of Little Feet I shot awake in a moment recognizing the sound and what it meant the old Terror filling my heart running in
a circle in the living room I ran for the bedroom door in a panic hoping Beyond hope I was wrong but my mind screamed I was right and there they were both of my children running in a circle as the strangers observed me intently seen Without Eyes speaking without voice black silouettes cut away from reality daring me to move as my children ran in a circle between us who I began to ask Mom and Dad the silent voice in my head replied no not again not with my children I screamed will you run away again
the voice mocked all the times I had prayed all all the times I hid all the times I had suffered and the time it took to forget worthless wasted lost no I replied I wouldn't run in fear I wouldn't freeze in Terror I wouldn't let them do to my children as they had done to me I lunged at the strangers and could filled their panic in my mind as my hands closed around one of the black settes then they would learn to fear me
