The Fort nosleep

Have you ever had a gut feeling? Just a full on paranoia? Hair on the back of your neck stand up? Chill run through your body? A sense of deja vu? A dream that just seemed so real?

I have.

Let me tell you a bit more about myself and my family.

My father is paranoid. He always said, “Trust yourself. If you feel like it's wrong, then trust that something is wrong. Rely on yourself, and get away.” He taught me how to be quiet, to move quietly, to hide quietly. And to run when I could.

I am the youngest of three children, and the only girl. My brothers are five and eleven years older than me. We lived on the outskirts of a rural town, on a few acres edged by eucalyptus trees about 4 deep. The main roads end about half a mile away north and south of us, we just have a dirt access road that runs along our property. The properties surrounding us were open fields and orange groves. I spent many days and nights running wild on our property and the surrounding area. It was a time when that was ok.

One such night I was alone, exploring. I was about eight or nine. It was in the middle of summer, a dead heat night. The temperature was still in the mid to high 80s, and not even a slight breeze to stir the air. We had a fort in the treeline, about 200 yards from the main house, at the front of the property near the road. It was an old metal shed the boys decided to drag to the edge of the property, and wedge into the trees. They cleared a path from the inside of the property, through the trees, and right up to the door. There was only one path to the fort, only one way to get to it, and that was hidden by a tree branch. We had other forts, but this was one of my favorites at the time. Probably because I wasn’t supposed to be playing in it.

I have no idea why I was actually out there. I just remember when it started.

I was trying to put everything back they way it had been so my brothers wouldn’t know I had been there, when I heard someone walking down the dirt road. Thinking it was my brothers returning home, I hid in the shadows just inside the fort. I had a clear view of the road through the door. The whistling started right as the steps neared the edge of the property. I crept across the floor, hoping for a better view of the road. The trees and brush made it difficult, so I knelt down and leaned out the door. I saw a little movement and focused on that. I could see him. Or rather his silhouette. He slowed as he got closer to the fort. The whistling never changed, but the footsteps slowed. Whistling. Whistling. The boys don’t whistle. Unless it’s at girls. The don’t whistle songs.

That’s when I felt it. The need to run. My heart started racing, my skin felt clammy, every hair on my body was standing on end. I knew I needed to move, but I needed to be silent. I didn’t know who this was. Why they were here, in the middle of nowhere, off a paved road. Taking a late night stroll down a dirt road. Whistling. I slowly eased out the door. Tried to calm my racing heart with deep breaths, slowly in through the nose, slowly out through the mouth. I took one step, listened, the footsteps stayed the same pace, the whistling continued. Another step, listened, another, and another, until finally I reached the branch blocking the exit. I eased under it, barely touching a leaf. I could see the house now. I had to run, the footsteps were almost in line with the fort outside the property. If I ran, I would have to cross in front of the driveway coming from the dirt road. I would be in the open. If he ran faster, he would be upon me in no time. I had to run. There was no other option. If I waited, he would be at the driveway before me, and would then be between me and the house.

So I did it. I ran. I ran faster than I had ever, or will ever, run. I could barely hear the whistling behind me over the blood pounding in my ears. I ran to the front door, pulled it open, and ran inside. I slammed the door behind me. As I locked the deadbolt, I felt him try to turn the doorknob. I backed away and ran to the kitchen. My brothers sat at the island, my dad was standing at the dishwasher, and my mother at the refrigerator. They stared at me as I tried to catch my breath, and tell them someone was chasing me.

We heard a bang on the front side of the house, then the sound someone dragging something along the siding. Scratch, thump, scratch, thump. Starting at the front, circling the house. My dad grabbed his pistol from the hiding spot next to his chair in the living room, grabbed some bullets from the drawer in his side table. He loaded the gun as we all moved away from the back door. Dad flicked the inside lights off, leaving only the tiny solar lamp that barely illuminated the steps to to the door. We stared out the kitchen windows, into the back yard, waiting. The sounds were on the side now, any second, he’ll be in the back yard. Closer, closer, he’s in the back yard now, but it’s so dark, we can’t see him. We can hear him. Hear the whistling. It never stopped, never changed tempo. A few more feet and he’ll be at the door. My father moves me behind him and lines up a shot. We’re all holding our breath.

The motion sensor lights in the back yard flick on, bathing the patio in bright light. Nothing. No one there. My dad and my brothers run outside, nothing. They run to the front of the house, he isn’t there. But the handprints are. All along the side of the house is a thick line of dirt. Like someone dipped their hands in deep red adobe mud and drug their hand down the house. Down the front, down the side, down the back, right up to the edge of the steps. Where the noises ended when the lights came on.

My father is paranoid. And now I am too.

Submitted July 20, 2016 at 10:03PM by Cailinalainn85 http://ift.tt/29ON6y6 nosleep