Dark House in the Woods

I have had several frightening encounters, but this one still disturbs me.

When I was a child, my family visited relatives whose house stood beside a large stretch of forest. The adults left for an evening outing, while several children stayed at the house. It began raining and became dark quickly.

We had a game called Vampire. One child hid beneath a thin mattress like a coffin and counted while the others hid in the dark house. My brother was the Vampire, and I was hiding nearby. During his countdown, lightning flashed. In the brief backlight, I saw a man with his face pressed against the living room window. He had his hands beside his face as if trying to peer inside.

I was frozen. My brother whispered for everyone to stay still. Another flash showed that the man had turned toward the front door. He was only a few feet away. My brother leapt over the couch and locked the door just as the man tried the handle.

My brother turned on the porch light and began switching on the house lights. He told me to lock the other doors and called for the other children to secure every window. I locked a side door and then the sliding glass door at the back. I remember my brother calmly telling me to close the curtain. I am not sure whether I saw the man outside that door, but I remember being terrified.

We tried to call for help, but the telephone line would not work during the storm. We also tried the family radio and could not reach anyone. There were no usable firearms in the house, so my brother stood watch with a BB gun that looked like a real rifle. Another child stayed near the phone, and another monitored the radio.

After a while my brother saw the man returning up the driveway. He opened the front door, stepped onto the porch, pointed the BB gun, and ordered him to leave. The person who appeared was actually a teenage cousin who lived down the road and had come to check on us. He stayed until the adults returned.

Later, when the story was discussed again, my brother confirmed that the stranger had moved around to the back of the house and had stood outside the glass door looking in while I locked it. We also saw the stranger in the front yard near a vehicle. When he could not start it, he walked into the woods and disappeared.

We never played Vampire again without remembering the man at the window.