51. Something Doesn’t Feel Right
I was camping alone at a nearby lake in my late teens. I grew up hiking and camping so I was used to the noises and calls animals make in the woods at night. Sometime after I fell asleep, long enough for the small fire to die to embers, I woke up with this immediate awareness that I was not alone. I couldn’t hear much over the bug noises of summer, but then I heard voices off behind me.
I slowly threw as much dirt and rock onto what was left of the fire and waited. It sounded like someone whispering or talking low. I strained my ears, but the harder I listened the more everything began to meld together. At one point it sounded like they were to my left, then minutes later, directly to my right. And once it sounded like the voices were tuning in and out like a radio; kinda quiet, then suddenly louder. I laid there motionless for hours.
I fell asleep for a few hours after the sun was starting to come up. When I woke again, I packed up and crept back out of those woods. Just did not feel right. Haven’t felt it since, thankfully.