The first time that any of us had heard the horrible screeching coming from the hill, we didn’t know what to make of it. The sun was starting to set witch on got our imaginations running. It sounded as if a little girl was screaming at the top of her lungs as it echoed throughout the town. We were in Jon’s backyard jumping on the trampoline on that cold October night but, when we heard this everyone suddenly stopped. No one was jumping, no one was talking. It was an eerie feeling. With Halloween the next day, we thought that it could have been a joke.
“Wha-What was that!?” Jon asked breaking the silence.
“I’m have no idea.” Jayson said with a shake in his voice, “Should we go check it out?”
“There is no way that you can get me to go check that out!” Nick said in a panic.
I looked over to the three of them and said “Really guys, that was just the wind” as I looked over my shoulder toward the distant hilltop as the sun was setting behind it.
“You’re crazy that was way too loud to be the wind and look,” Nick said as he stuck his finger into his mouth then pointed it to the sky, “it’s not even windy!” We all looked over at Nick, he was right, there wasn’t any wind.
“Hey guys we have some chili dogs ready if you want them!?” Jon’s mother said from the kitchen window. We all started to get off the trampoline quickly using food as an excuse to get inside. We all headed for the back door knowing that there was no explanation for the noise that we had heard. Once inside we each grabbed a chili dog and a drink. I took a glass of water while everyone else took a Mountain Dew, we then headed down stairs to watch some TV.
“O man, it’s hot down here,” Jon said as he walked down the stair, “let’s open the window.”
“OK, I’ll get it” I told him as I went over to the window and leaned over the couch toward the it. I put my glass down on the window sill to free my hand and then opened the window. I slammed down on the sofa and sighed. “So what are we going to do now?”
“Wanna play some Halo?” Nick said getting the controllers out from the cabinet underneath the TV.
“Ya, let’s see if mark is on,” Jon said turning the TV to the AV channel “, you want to set up that TV and play with jay?” He pointed toward the second TV that had my Xbox attached to it. I turned the couch 90 degrees away from the wall to face the TV so that Jayson and I could sit on the coach while playing. The couch slid easily on the tiled floor, I pushed the side of the couch up against the wall.
“Watch the glass!” Jayson said from across the room. The glass on the window sill was wiggling back and forth inching closer to the edge from the force of the couch hitting the wall. The glass slowly stopped wiggling.
“Phew, way to close man.” Nick said looking back at the TV.
“Ha, guess I don’t know my own strength,” I said as I jumped onto the couch with controller in hand, “is mark on?”
“Ya I sent him an invite but he’s playing a game right now so we can give him a few minutes.” Jon said as he was customizing his player. After about 3 minutes of waiting Mark had joined up with us.
“Hey guys, how’s it going?” mark said once he joined our game.
“Eh, alight.” Jon said.
“I’m doing pretty well” Jayson said.
“How do you think I’m doing?” Nick said jokingly.
“How are you doing mark?” I asked.
“Darn good if you ask me! Beat the Redskins in my football game today! Caught 3 touchdown passes!” Mark said ecstatically.
“Dude it’s the midget football league, calm yourself.” Nick said as he started the game up to look for matches online.
“Well still, I’m pumped!” Mark said ecstatically.
“Well I guess that’s a,” Jon started saying as there was a loud screech, the same noise that we had only heard 20 minutes before. All the lights went off, the wind blew forcefully through the window pushing the glass over the edge of the window sill causing it to crash on to the floor and break. The TV flickered and everything became dead silent for the second time. No one moved. No one said anything.
“What was that?” Mark said breaking through the silence.
“Um,” Jon said trying not to mention the horrible shriek, “glass fell from the window…”
“Not that! The loud scream!” Mark said interrupting Jon. We all paused not sure what to tell him; more importantly, we didn’t even have an explanation for the noise.
“Maybe you should just come over,” I said, “it might be easier to expl…” Before I could finish my sentence Mark was already logged off and on his way over.
“What are we going to tell him? We don’t even know what the heck that noise is!” Nick said while turning his Xbox off.
“We’re just going to have to tell him the truth, that we don’t know what the hell it is” Jayson said.
“We can’t do that, he’ll think we’re playing a prank on him. It’s the 29th. He’ll just say that we’re trying to get him worked up to scare the crap out of him when Halloween comes around.” Jon said as he was getting up to get the dustpan.
“No he heard it, I’m sure that he knows that we couldn’t make a noise like that one. That one was only about 20 minutes after the first one; maybe another one will happen so he knows that it’s not us. I mean, even if it doesn’t I’m sure he’ll believe us.” I said while turning off the Xbox and TV that Jayson and I were using. I looked over to Jon and he nodded his head to the door to the garage, I knew what he meant. He walked over to the door and opened it to walk outside. I followed him to the garage and closed the door behind me.
“Dude we have to figure this out, I don’t want my brothers to get completely freaked out about this” Jon said while pointing to the part of his house that Nick and Jayson where sill in.
“I know but what can we do, we don’t know what is making that noise or where its coming from” I said throwing my arms out in front of me.
“I know but I think I may have an idea.”
“Go on?”
“Well it was 20 minutes apart from the first one, so maybe it will do it again in,” John said as he reached into his pocket to check the time on his phone, “like 15 minutes.”
“I don’t see where you’re going with this?”
“Mark should be here in about five minutes; once he gets here we should split up into groups, you and I then the three of them.”
“And do what exactly?”
“Well me and you can head into the woods, since it’s almost dark now and you and I know the woods like the back of our hands; And then the Mark and my brothers can head maybe down the street on their bikes.”
“And what will this accomplish? Us getting lost in the woods?”
“No, we are going to see if we can get the direction of where the sound came from”
“OK i see where you getting at know, so if we don’t hear the noise as well then it’s coming from the from the east since we are going to be heading in the west toward the hilltop and for them since they will be heading the east it should be opposite, but what if he hear it the same?”
“We’ll I guess than it would have to becoming from north or south then?” Jon said almost questioning himself.
“But how will doing this help keep your brothers calm?”
“Knowing that their older brother is going to handle it, and maybe we can record it and prove that it’s an animal.” Jon said as he noticed mark coming up the drive way, He waved. “You run this by Mark, I’ll it by Nick and Jay quickly and grab some head lamps and my mom’s voice recorder, see if maybe we can figure out what it is.” Jon said as he went inside.
“So what’s going on?” Mark said as he peddled his bike up the me.
“Well it’s kind of hard to explain right now, but in short we have no idea” I told him while putting my hands in my pocket.
“What do you mean you have no idea?” Mark said questioning me.
“Like I said we don’t know, but we’re going to see if we can figure it out, it’s happened to us twice today with in about 20 minutes of each other.”
“So what does that mean.”
“Well we hope that means that it will happen in another 20 minutes so we are going to split up and see if we can get about where it’s coming from. We’re going to split up, you, Nick and Jayson are going to head up the street on your bikes and Jon and I are going to head into the woods as fast as we can.”
“So are we going a certain distance or something?” Mark said almost seeming forward to this.
“No I think we are just going to go until we hear the noise again.”
“OK well…” Mark said as Jon walked out of the basement with Nick and Jayson.
“Let’s move out,” Jon said throwing me a headlamp and a regular flashlight, “You guys are going to go to about East Street, when you reach that you guys can stop that should take you about 5 minutes to get to so you’ll have about 2 minutes until it should happen again stay there until either you hear it or I call you. Andy and I will head toward the west, were going to go for about the same time, we should make it about halfway to the hill.” Jon said as we walked to the opening of the garage. “O, and here,” he through a mini flashlight over to Mark, “My brothers each have one but if we have them why not use them if we have them? OK well let’s do this, 7 minutes to go.” Jon said as he took off running into the woods. I followed after him catching up quickly. I looked back and saw Nick, Jayson and Mark starting to ride up the street with lights on. Before Jon and I had entered the woods we both turned on our head lamps to see where we were running. Luckily the tails we had carved out in the woods early in the year to make a some forts and playing area for us while we played airsoft where still usable, overgrown, but usable. We ran at almost full speed down the trails, we knew we were heading down the right ones because we used them so often during the summer.
“OK we’ve got about two minutes so let’s stop up at that little tree fort” Jon said pointing his headlamp over to one of the many bunkers that we made.
“Sounds good to me,” as we slowed down and came to a stop below the fort, “Age before beauty, so after you.” I said with a smirk.
“O, piss off.” Jon said as he started up the stairs of the tree fort. “Let’s sit on the ledge outside of it so that we the walls can’t block any noise” Jon said once he got to the top of the stairs and instead of heading in went to the deck that we made around the tree house for people to use to look out into the woods and turned the recorder on.
“Good idea” I said as I climbed the stairs. “How much time do we have?”
“About one minute left” Jon said while staring off into the woods. One minute passed and we heard nothing but our own breathing, then two minutes, then five minutes passed and still we heard nothing. “I wonder if the others are hearing anything.” Jon said as he sat down leaning against the tree fort.
“Well let’s hope.” I said leaning on the railing. “Hey anyone out there!?” I screamed into the woods, no response came. “Well I guess it was worth a try.” I said as I joined Jon sitting down.
“Ya, well we should probably call the others now and see if anything’s happening with their end.” Jon said as he started to get his phone out.
“Man this sucks, we hear this thing twice when we don’t want to hear it and now when we are here waiting for it to happen it doesn’t. Kind of pisses me off. What time is it?”
“6:30, Jon said looking at his phone, “I guess that means it’s time to head back.”
“Alright you want to give the others a call while we rest, still kind of tired from that worthless run we did” I said as I slouched lower.
“Ha, OK,” Jon picked up his phone and started calling Nick and put it on speaker phone, “Hey nick, you guys getting anything over there?”
“Nah nothing here, kinda pisses me off” Nick said
“Ya I know what you mean dude.” I said.
“S..is….we…head….ck?” Nick said starting to fizz out.
“Nick you there?” John said
“I…nt…stand?” Nick said as the signal was lost on Jon’s phone.
“Hmm, that’s weird. I usually get great service out he..” I hit Jon to stop him from talking. “What the he..” I shh-ed him and pointed out into the woods.
“Do you hear any animals?” I said noticing that once the static on Jon’s phone started, so did the quiet. The animals were moving in the woods before; deers, raccoons, owls, crickets, you could hear all of them before but now silence. I took out the extra flashlight that Jon had given me back at his house. I turned it on and pointed it out into the woods. Mist. Once I turned the light on and was able to see further into the woods we saw that the ground about 30 yards from us was covered in mist.
“Is that all around us?” Jon asked getting up and looking to the side of the tree fort. He grabbed his extra flashlight and turned it on and pointed it toward the woods on the side of the fort. No mist. Jon ran to the other side of the tree fort and pointed his flash light in that direction. Again no mist. It was coming from one direction, toward the hill.
“Should we go now?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“What would cause this mist?” Jon asked as he looked back at me.
“Umm, I have no idea maybe a stream nearby or maybe…”
“We know there is no stream around here, we’ve walked these woods hundreds of times. The only streams are the opposite direction from here. ” Jon said cutting me off.
“Maybe just the humidity then?”
“It’s not humid at all right now so this shouldn’t be happening.” As Jon said that we noticed that the mist was moving closer to the tree house and was almost at the base of the ladder. We started hearing the loud scream, as it seemed to come closer to us with the ever moving mist. Jon and I both covered our ears and ran into the tree house and slammed the door shut. The screech wasn’t much softer from inside the tree house, but it was enough to talk.
“We need to get out of here!” Jon screamed so that I could understand him. Before I could reply the windows and door gave into the pressure of the sound from outside. The windows bust into shards of glass while the door swung open so hard it broke the top hinge. The pressure from the sound was pushing toward the opposite side. Jon pointed to the window on the opposite of the tree fort from the door and made a basketball shot hand motion with one hand as the other covered one of his ears. It took me a few moments to understand what he was trying to say. With no glass on the window frame anymore we were going to make a run for it. I nodded in agreement as Jon made his way to the window. The scream kept getting louder and louder as if whatever was making the noise was getting closer. Jon got up on the window sill and looked down to make sure the it was actually a make-able jump. Jon decided that it was and jumped. I looked out the window and saw Jon motioning to me with his head to follow him, his hands covered his ears as the noise kept getting closer. I got on the window sill and was about to jump when the pressure seemed to increase and pushed me out of the window. I feel to the ground. The wind was knocked out of me, but i wouldn’t let that stop me, I was too scared to worry about it now. I got up and Jon and I took off down the trail toward his house. Took us all of 4 minutes to reach it, almost twice as fast as we were getting to the tree fort. When we got back we noticed that Nick, Jayson and Mark where waiting for us in the garage. We could still hear the horrible screeching.
“Are you guys alright?!” Jayson asked as he motioned us to get inside.
“I think we’re good now” Jon said as we entered the garage. When Jon and I were clear of the garage door, Nick shut it so that some of the noise would be canceled out.
“What happened to you guys?” Mark asked us as we both laid out on the floor exhausted from running. We explained everything to them, from start of the mist to jumping out of the tree fort. After we were done telling the story, we noticed that the sound had stopped. Nick opened the garage door to confirm that it had. We all looked at each other, not sure what to do. We all decided to head inside and just try to relax our nerves.
“What the heck?” Jon said when he sat down.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I just sat on the recorder. Hey! Why don’t we see if we can hear anything from this?” Jon said getting up and setting the recorder on the table.
“I don’t really want to that freaking noise again!” I told him. But Jon had already rewound the tape, and started playing it. The recoding started with me talking as I made my way to Jon. A few minutes passed on the recording and then you could hear me get up and yell, “Anyone out there?”, we all froze completely still once we heard a soft but distinguishable “get away” from the recording. Jon stopped the recording. On that note we decide to not listen to the rest of the recording to not only save our ears but also our nerves.
Now even though it’s been a year since that time, we never finished the recording. We did some research over the next few months of the incident about the land around the hill. We found that about 10 years ago the owner of the land had taken a girl hostage and killed her and buried her on the hilltop. The authorities found her body 2 days after arresting the landowner. The landowner would later tell the police that the last thing he heard before killing the girl was her saying “get away” and then her screaming. Even after a year, we still hear the noise every once and a while and we no longer go anywhere near the tree fort as a sign of respect. The only thing we don’t understand was why it took 10 years for this to happen but then we read the paper earlier today and saw that the man who was sentenced for the girl’s killings was put to death earlier the same day that the screams started. We only took that as maybe his spirit is around that area and the girl was wording others out of the area.