Under a Pale Red Moon
The following is essentially a true story. The names have been changed to protect the foolish.
Chapter 1
There is something about being in the woods with growing things that seems that just being there is life as it was meant to be. Life is everywhere, and so is death. The natural cycle can be seen in the debris and smelled in the leaves. The leaves of spring smell of new life and the leaves of fall smell of a life well lived. The few leaves of winter smell of memories of glory past. Altogether, being in the forest puts things right in a person's life. Usually.
With this love of the forest and mountains in mind, two of my friends and I used to go camping and hiking about every two weeks and just soak up everything nature had to offer. However, once we got more than we anticipated. I had just finished high school and had not started classes at the local college, so one weekend just before my classes started in the spring we decided to hike through a small mountain range along the Alabama and Tennessee border. It was a beautiful place, but haunted in spots. We figured it would take us three full days to complete the hike and come out in a place where we could be reached by car.
In those days, telephones were rare in that part of the country and few houses were to be found along the highways and backroads. The nearest telephones were ten miles in each direction, as a crow flies, from the planned starting point of our hike. The way one had to travel it was more like fifteen. The area was pretty remote as there were no other houses in between and not many anywhere.
We checked the weather forecast and it was predicted to be sunny, with only a 20% chance of rain. It was perfect spring weather. It was cold enough in the mountains to need a fire at night, and about 65 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest part of the day. The sun was shining overhead and the fish were leaping in the small river. It was beautiful.
We had my father to drive us into the head of the valley to disembark.
"Where will I pick you up?", he asked.
"Do you remember the old mill along the creek up at Bryant's fork?", I asked him. "We will come down the mountain directly behind that abandoned mill hiking along the old creek."
Bryant's Fork was a small community back in a secluded valley. It had never been large and was much smaller now. It had served the mountain folk and farmers in the area since the Civil War. No one had lived in the mountains for generations and there were no jobs in that remote area. The old flour mill had closed down fifty or more years past and that was effectively the end of the small village. People moved away seeking employment and the few that remained had income from other sources. Even Mr. Baines, the owner of the only combination grocery and hardware store made a living from cattle in the flat lands way down where the valley broadened out.
"I'll see you boys in three days. If you are not there I'll call the police" my father said, half-jokingly.
"Better call the Boy Scouts, instead!" I laughed.
He let us out of the car and we started our hike at the head of the valley at the base of Marker's Mountain on the other side of the range from the little town. The head of the river flowed on one side out of the mountain, ice cold and rocky. Two tributaries flowed down from the mountain and joined it from the other side. One came down a beautiful laughing, silver waterfall. We started our hike along an old overgrown pioneer wagon road that ran alongside one of the bubbling tributaries. No one had lived in these mountains for over a hundred years, but one could still find a few of the old log homes, some still standing. Occasionally, one could find an iron horse or oxen shoe on the old wagon road.
We soon came upon an old Victorian house built back in the 1800's, sometime. We had seen it on a previous hike, dimly through the trees, like some waiting ghoul set for an ambush. It had three floors and was long abandoned. As it was getting on in the day, we decided to spend the night in the old house and hike up into the mountain at dawn the next day.
Tim was a dirty blond young man who was the darling of the sports field at school. He was two years older than I. Robert was a tall, lanky, swarthy young man who was a year older than Tim. He was a girl magnet with his dark good looks. I was the youngest, having nearly platinum blond hair, bleached by the sun and strong as a young bull from wrestling in high school. My name is Jake, but Robert often called me "Lars" because of my blond hair and muscular build. While Robert gathered firewood for the coming night, I went about scouting the house with Tim. It was a huge old house and it would have been a grand sight in its day. Now, however, it no longer had any paint or varnish. It was just brown, rough, weathered wood. It looked old, ancient in fact.
In one of the large rooms on the third floor, we found some old newspapers from just before the turn of the 20th Century.
"Hey, Tim. Look at this. The main story in this old paper is about an affluent family that lived in the area at that time. According to this the wife had lost her mind and killed her husband and two children with an axe."
"I wonder if this is the same house?" Tim wondered.
"I don't know but this picture looks like it and there could not have been too many such houses in this area. It is very likely," I replied.
We took our cool find downstairs to show Robert after nothing else of interest presented itself in the old house.
Have you ever experienced the waning of the day in mountain valleys? Darkness comes early in those mountain valleys as we were surrounded on four sides by peaks. By 3:00 in the afternoon it is already getting dark in those valleys, but is bright up on the mountains themselves. The sounds of the animal night shift were becoming noticeable in the quiet. Bats swooshed by overhead, varmints rustled in the leaves, and crickets began to sing.
As we sat on the front porch of the house, just enjoying the evening, watching the light die, I suddenly was startled by the sound of voices. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, as they seemed far away, but all around us. There were four people talking.
I whispered in alarm, "I hear people talking!"
Tim said, "Aw, you're crazy. There ain't nobody around for miles."
Suddenly, I saw him stiffen and his eyes grew wide. He said, "I hear them, too!"
It was eerie. We could hear them speaking as plain as day, but they were too distant to understand. What was worse, it sounded as though they were in the house with us! It sounded like they were in another room with the door closed. With our hearts pounding, we all grabbed our shotguns and started scouting the entire house, then, we started looking outside. We found nothing, nor did we hear the voices any longer. That was very strange.
We decided that there might be some hobos or moonshiners nearby, so we decided to rig warning tripwires and booby-traps all around us. We found some old string and some vines and ran them between the trees outside and put old cans with pebbles in them on the strings. We also put some old glass jars that we found on the strings so they would fall and break. These things would warn us if someone approached the house at night. But, talking it over, because the voices seemed to be inside the house, we rigged the windows of every downstairs room and every door, inside and out, with tripwires to warn us. I found a huge old log and two of us hefted it over the door of the room we were going to sleep in and rigged it with a tripwire. We barricaded ourselves inside and settled down for the night.
Feeling safe, I pulled out the hunting knife that I had been using to cut string and vines, carefully washed it with water from my canteen, and began cutting bacon into the pan for supper. The smell of bacon frying was a comforting thing and we began to calm down. However, later during the evening, we heard something moving about and when we looked out into the room where the noise came from, we saw nothing at all. We explored a bit and seeing nothing, we went back into our room and sat beside the fire, feeling disturbed.
"It was probably a rat or a 'possum,'' Robert said hopefully.
It was the time of the Pink Moon, but as I called it, the Pale Red Moon. It was so large, it was like a supermoon in the sky and bright enough that it blocked the view of Mars. The light of the full moon filtered through the old windows like eyes that had suddenly learned to see. Between the moon light and the fire we had going in the chimney, we had plenty of light to see and were comforted by that. We were like children fearing monsters under the bed, we decided. Finally, when things seemed to have settled down and we decided to go to sleep.
Suddenly, along about midnight, something set off the log trap leading into our area of the house! That log hit the floor with such force it jarred the floor in the room where we were sleeping. We jumped up, and grabbed our guns, but there was nothing in the door and no one smashed under the log! But, something set it off! We were now scared because none of the tripwires and booby-traps outside or on the widows had been disturbed.
"Whatever set off the log trap is in the house with us!", Tim exclaimed.
With hearts pounding and guns in hand, we set out with our flashlights to find whoever or whatever was in there with us. We searched the entire house, top to bottom and found nothing and no one.
"Shoot, there's no one here,'' I said. "Let's quit acting like girls and go back to sleep."
"Who's a girl?" Robert said.
"You're a girl," said Tim, laughing. That set off a brief wrestling match.
We finally fitfully tried to settle down and crawled back to our sleeping bags. Tim and I were lying next to each other, and Robert was just a short distance away closer to the fire in the fireplace.
As we laid there trying to sleep, suddenly something hammered on the floor between Tim and me, three times with such force it shook the room! "Bam! Bam! Bam! " It was like someone chopping something with an axe not 6 inches from our faces!
The Robert jumped up and said, "Get back!"
At that he fired a shotgun round through the floor. We all rushed outside and looked under the house with our flashlights and we could see the firelight from the hole the shotgun blast had made in the floor. But, there was not enough room under the house for a man to fit, nor was anyone or anything to be seen. That meant that whatever hammered on the floor was in the house with us!
Now we were really frightened and so at four o'clock in the morning we decided we had had enough of that haunted house and we packed up our gear, put out the fire, and high-tailed it out of there as if our pants were on fire. We went up that mountain in the dark, risking a broken leg or a fall, rather than spend one more minute in that place.
Chapter 2
Leaving that haunted house gratefully behind, we climbed the near vertical mountain side in total darkness. We had to grab onto trees or rocks to help pull ourselves up that part of the mountain. It was that steep. There was no sound but our labored breathing.
As we topped a ridge, the sky gratefully began to lighten. Have you seen those mountains? They are so incredibly beautiful. They are like medicine to the soul. We rested awhile, just soaking up the beauty before hiking on into the growing light.
Dawn came gloriously. From where we were sitting, we could look far down and see the river. We could look across and see the opposite mountain and some of the valley between. It was a breathtaking sight in the ever brightening light. The birds were singing gaily, declaring the glory of their Maker. There was a bit of a chill in the air up that high, and we soon forgot all about our stay in the house of ghosts.
"I don't think there were any ghosts," I finally said. The new environment giving me courage and returning some good sense to me.
"How do you explain that trap going off, and those voices?" Tim argued.
"I agree," said Robert, who was the oldest. "It was probably the old house settling. I don't know about those voices, though."
"That's easy," I said. "It was probably ginseng hunters on the opposite slope. You all know how sound carries in these mountain valleys."
Tim did not look convinced. "What about the chopping?"
"It was just the old house expanding in the heat of the fire. After all, it has been cold and that house long abandoned," I said logically.
"Perhaps," Tim said and I could see Robert was still thinking things over. As for me, I was certain that daylight and common sense had prevailed. At least I hoped so. That was a lot more preferable than there actually having been ghosts!
We hiked on, passing through a lovely hanging valley, with a good stream of cold pure water. There was an old log cabin, partially fallen in and a smoke house that was still standing. The deer had nearly licked away the foundation getting at the salt. We startled a couple of deer in the old apple orchard and watched them bound away, white tails waving their warnings.
Here the trail forked, one running to the right and the other to the left along the State border, or close to it. We took the left branch as it would eventually take us to our destination. We walked along a mostly level area where the trees covered the overgrown old road like a tunnel. The sunlight was dappled along out way and squirrels played gaily in the trees overhead.
We hiked on through the forest and about noon we came to an old cemetery. The mountain folk had buried their loved ones there. Most of the graves were from the 1800's. There was one or two from around 1900, but none later.
"I see this is the Marker family graveyard", Robert said.
"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," I said, "seeing as how nearly all of the graves have that name on the headstones." This elicited a rock hurled in the general direction of my head, which I had suspected and easily dodged it, chuckling all the while.
This was a relatively open, flat, grassy area on the mountain. We moved down past it and camped in a grassy area that was nearly an open meadow. The openness was only occluded by a few random old growth trees. There was a good spring and plenty of firewood. We were exhausted from no sleep the night before and the hard climb so we called it early that day. We had been hiking since four o'clock in the morning and it was now about noon.
"I can't go any farther," said Robert. "Let's make camp here and we can make up for it tomorrow."
It was a beautiful day. The sun was out and there were a few clouds drifting lazily across the sky. We broke out the tent and set it up. It would sleep 6 people, but was the only tent we had. Normally, we built our shelters when we camped, but for some reason we decided to lug the tent with us on this trip. Each of us took turns carrying it up the mountain because it was so heavy, being made out of green canvas as it was.
As we had been taught in the Boy Scouts, we dug a trench around the tent out of habit, just in case of rain, so the water would run off and not run into the tent. We also set up a 10x10 tarp at the front flap of the tent, about 5 feet off of the ground. We cut saplings to use for poles and sunk them deep into the ground. We then tied off the four corners with ropes stretched out and pegged into the ground. This gave us a strong shelter and a place for a covered fire for cooking and sitting if we needed to, just in case it rained. It was not expected to rain, but one never knew at that time of year.
We set up the main fire out beyond the tarp and wringed rocks around it to keep it contained. I broke out the axe and cut or broke up a stack of wood from the dead wood lying plentifully on the ground. I gathered more than we would need, since we planned to hike again on the next morning to our next stop in our planned 3 day trek. However, we had a habit of leaving a stack of firewood in case we returned to that site or someone else did. This was always a good habit and one that marked a thoughtful experienced camper from someone who wasn't.
I used my hunting knife to process some of the smaller firewood, such as making kindling and fuzz sticks for starting the fire. We got it built up and watched as the cheerful blaze sent happy sparks into the air. We sat around the fire, telling tales and just enjoying ourselves and each other's company. There is a lot to be said about good friends sharing time and experiences together. We cooked lunch and dozed. I used my hunting knife to open a can of food. This was in the days before all those dehydrated or pre-packaged lightweight meal packs.
Sitting around eating and feeling happy, Tim said, "Do you believe in Ghosts?"
Robert said, "I don't know, I think it is a possibility."
I snorted, "I don't, not at all." It is easy to be brave in the daylight.
"Well then, what do you think all of these people keep seeing when they say they've seen ghosts?"
I guess I was always reading too much and so I said, "I think time has holes in it. The future is not fixed, but the past is. I think people are seeing through windows or holes in time what went on in the past. If you notice, all of these so-called ghosts are always past. Sometimes they seem to get caught in a loop, or something, and repeat themselves over and over. I think people are seeing through windows in time and space and that proves it."
Tim said, "That's stupid."
Robert quipped, "Lars, your brains have become mush from reading too much."
I notice they brightened up at the thought that there were no ghosts, though.
Our idyllic camping did not last. Around four in the afternoon clouds began to gather. By 4:30 it began to rain, softly at first, and then harder. And then, it really began to rain.
"Quick, get everything under cover!" I yelled. Everyone scrambled to get wood and camping equipment under the dry cover of the tarp or tent.
About 5:00 it started raining so hard it was like the last days of Noah. We could not see trees 20 or 30 feet from our tent. It was as if someone had lowered a steel curtain around us and the temperature plummeted at least fifteen degrees.
Then the wind began to blow. It bent huge trees over sideways and howled like a damned soul in the depths of a burning hell. We could not hear each other yell.
The lightning flashed continually and the thunder rolled like some gigantic battle between artillery armies. The electricity could be felt in the air and the smell of ozone was in the air. The noise was deafening and the lightning terrifying.
The rain, thunder, lightning, and wind continued far into the night. It was a night filled with terror, for even though we had selected a partially sheltered place, the wind was still strong and howled like a shrieking demon. The thunder seemed to get worse, if that were possible. The tent bucked and quaked. We had to get out in the rain a few times and re-secure the lines early on, but later, we were too afraid to worry about it.
Water began to drip into the tent from the top and the trench no longer was able to hold back the water from below. Water crept into the bottom as the whole meadow was flooded ankle deep with rainwater. It was raining that hard.
At about 3:00 in the morning, Robert decided to poke his head outside to see what was happening and when he opened the tent, I saw it! The 10x10 tarp, 5 feet off the ground, had filled with water till the middle rested on the ground like some bulbous monster!
Too late, I yelled, "Watch out!"
His head contacted that tarp, already on the brink of bursting, and it let go with a "Whoosh!" A tidal wave of water washed into our tent, washing us all to the back and soaked everything inside that was not already wet. Cursing and shouting, we sought to untangle ourselves from soaked clothing and gear.
Oh, what misery, to be soaked with no place warm and dry to sleep, and a storm too violent in which to sleep! So, with the lightning playing over our heads and the rain lashing us like coach whips, we broke camp, and packed up. We decided that the ghost filled house was better than this storm beaten mountaintop at the moment as it was getting dangerous. We needed to dry out and needed a safer place to be while doing it. In the ink black darkness, we started down off the mountain into the lashing storm.
All the way the temperature was only a little above freezing and the trail was rushing knee to mid-thigh deep with torrents of water. The lightning continuously lit up the dark sky. Our flashlights gave out and we walked in Stygian blackness, feeling out way down the mountain with the trail only illuminated by the constant flashes of lightning. Since much of the trail was intersected by previously dry creek beds, there were times when the water was waist deep or more. Our legs would be washed out from under us and we would be torn down stream, bumping over rocks and logs for untold distances. It was a terrifying ordeal. We were worried that boulders and logs borne on the water would smash us to pieces.
We finally reached the bottom of the mountain, wet, and exhausted, well into the day. We crawled into that haunted house, too tired to care what we might face, and pulled off our wet clothes, built a fire to by which to dry them, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 3
We spent the remainder of the day and night sleeping and eating. It continued to rain all day and night like heaven itself was overfull of water. We had no further problems with ghosts during the night. Perhaps they were afraid of the storm, too.
Just at the crack of dawn on the following day, however, something shattered the window in the room where we slept! I jumped up just in time to see Robert outside the house throwing rocks. He was laughing his head off because he knew we would think it was the ghost. After all of our scares, I ran outside and chased him. His legs were longer and I could not quite get him.
"If I get my hands on you I'll skin you alive!" I shouted after him.
At that he threw a sizeable rock at me that just missed and laughed even harder. I finally gave up and went back to the house to wash and eat breakfast.
It was only then that we got a chance to take stock of our situation. By the light of a spring sun weakly filtering through a cloudy sky, we saw that the river below was out of its banks and even the valley beyond was under water. That did not bode well. We walked out to the road, which where we then stood, followed a ridge, so we were above the water. As far as we could see, there was water in the valley.
"Robert, I don't think we are going home anytime soon," I moaned.
"Yeah, I saw. Even the tributaries that run alongside have flooded the woods and meadows over by the falls," he said.
"Has Tim seen this?"
"I doubt it," I said, "because he did not want to get up when you threw the rock through the window."
We roused Tim and talked it over.
"We need to get to a telephone," Tim said matter of factly. "Our parents will be worried about us."
"Yeah," said Robert, "this has got to be all over the news. I wonder how bad it is?"
"It is a very long hike to a telephone. It's at least ten miles, but the way you'd have to go it is more like twenty," I pointed out.
"Well, you'd better get going, then," cracked Robert.
"Yeah, you are the youngest and so we just voted that you have to go. You better get going," Tim smirked.
They were happy that I was going. They would stay near the fire and stay warm. They laughed and laughed at me about it.
Now, as I said earlier, those ten miles were as a crow flies. It was more like fifteen or twenty the way I had to go. Further on, as I hiked, I had to climb up on the side of the mountain to get away from the water. Those mountains were so steep, we used to say the deer had legs on one side shorter than the other so they could walk. I had to climb over boulders, cross streams, and scramble my way holding on to the trees as I went.
It had turned a bit cool, even during the day. I hiked down to the paved road where it was above water and started walking towards the only home with a telephone. Off on the downhill side, all was under water. After I had gone about a mile and a half to two miles, I heard a car coming up behind me.
"Hey young man," said a rather grizzled looking gray haired man driving the car, "I just talked to your friends a few miles back. I can give you a ride to where the road ends."
I gratefully climbed into the old white Ford. He told me all the homes and everything in the valley in front of me were under water from the deluge, and the same was true behind me. The house with the telephone was situated up on the mountainside, so it was high and dry.
Soon, however, I realized I had made a terrible mistake. He was so drunk he could not see straight. He would careen over to the cliff face on one side, then hit his brakes hard, then careen over the other side, almost going over the cliff to the flood far below, before braking and swerving back, again. Down the road we went like that, with me praying and repenting of everything I could think of, if only God let me survive!
"Oh God!" I prayed fervently, "I am sorry for everything I have ever done wrong. Please let me get out of this car alive and I will never do those things again. I promise!"
Finally, we reached the flooded lower road and I gratefully got out of the car and climbed up a little way on the mountain and started off on foot. I still had about four and a half miles to go. So, I took my hunting knife out and cut a sapling and made a staff. Having a good knife with you is important. The side of the mountain was very steep, too steep for climbing, but going along its face with a staff was possible. It was grueling, hard work.
Along the way, I saw a couple of two story homes covered with water till only the chimneys stood above the flood, like lonely sentinels marking graves of the unknown. The water was that deep! Finally, I saw the house with the telephone, climbed the steep drive, and knocked on the door.
I knew my friends were laughing at me, thinking of how I was wet, cold, hungry, and tired, with another long hike to go in the other direction. All the while they were warm by the fire. But, I was to have the last laugh! When the man and woman opened the door and they saw my wet, bedraggled figure, they ushered me right inside and sat me down by the woodstove. I told them my tale and the woman brought me some clean clothes to put on, had me bathe, and washed and dried my own clothes.
Then she fixed up a huge breakfast of bacon, ham, biscuits, and red-eye gravy. That woman sure could cook, let me tell you! I must have drunk a gallon of coffee, too. They let me use the telephone to call my father. He was relieved we were alright because the news said there had been a tornado in the area. He said he could not get into the area, yet, due to the high water. It would take him two or three days to get close enough for us to walk out to the car and go home.
When my clothes were dry, still warm from the dryer, I hiked back the way I had come. I hated leaving that warm house and especially those biscuits. They packed me a bag of biscuits and ham. It's funny, but somehow I completely forgot to share them with my friends.
I turned and waved at them standing on the porch looking after me with concerned looks.
"You be careful, young man!" the wife said.
Her husband said, "It might be best to bring your friends back, here." I waved again and headed off.
When I reached the high road again, I started walking, and a long walk it was going to be, too. Suddenly, that old drunk in his old white car came into view. He stopped and offered me a ride. He was drinking still, and just driving up and down that small stretch of un-inundated road. I knew I shouldn't have done so, but I got in his car, anyway. Back we went, careening from death to death, and me all the time repenting again of everything I had ever done and asking God to spare my life.
I finally made it back to my friends and they were some put out when I told them about how I had been treated by that fine family. They were damp, dirty, and cold, I was clean, and full, and secretly had a stash of biscuits and ham the woman packed for me. They did not look too kindly at me. I guess it was my snickering.
Within two more days, the floodwaters had gone down enough that my father could get near enough to us, slowly. We had to hike a little distance out to the road to get to him, as the valley near the river was still under water. We finally, gratefully, saw his gray Buick. He and Robert's mother had slowly driven through the receding flood waters to reach us. They got as far as the road below the house and blew the horn until we appeared. We stashed our gear in the trunk and back out we went, slowly, creeping, the water halfway up the car, for many miles until we got out to the main highway safely.
"It sounds like you boys had quite an adventure," my father said upon hearing our tales. "It is a good thing you made it out unscathed. That must have been a tornado that nearly hit you up on the mountain. There were many in the area about then."
I quietly sat in the car for the remainder of the trip home, munching the last biscuit. I was thinking about that old house and the mountain behind it. Was it possible we disturbed something best left alone that day that led to that dangerous night on the mountain? I'm not sure, but I know I will never go camping under a pale red moon, again.
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