A Scream in the Dark

The last rays of the late-setting August sun set over the still dark waters of the small north Louisiana lake, and despite the damp heat Billy shivered slightly as he shifted slightly. He glanced uneasily at the other three boys. It had been their idea to camp out on a small island on this small private lake, located well back in the woods on a rural property belonging to his friend Roger’s grandfather.

The “island” scarcely deserved the name, as it was located within jumping distance of the western shore of the water, with three sides being surrounded by scarcely more than a ditch, no more than three to five feet wide this late in the summer. The landmass of the island was perhaps 30 feet by 40, with a small sweetgum tree, perhaps 20 feet tall standing on the northern end. Towards the middle was a clear flat area, with just enough room for a tent and a campfire. The rest of the island was grown up with a tangled mass of weeds giving way to cattails at the lower southern end.

Roger had camped out here many times before, as he was very much a country boy, and spent much time staying with his grandparents, whose house was on this same 160 acre property, but located much closer to the highway, a distance of perhaps just over half a mile. Billy on the other hand, was very much a city kid, and had never camped out at all, much less in a setting as spooky as this one seemed to him. The entire lake, which was entirely contained on the property, and covered perhaps 20 acres with water that in the daylight appeared a chocolatey brown, but in the fading light appeared almost black. Massive cypress trees ringed the shoreline, with gray wisps of Spanish moss hanging from their limbs, and knobby cypress knees protruding from the surface of the water all around.

Billy glanced sidelong at Roger, who was contentedly finishing off the hot dog he had just cooked over the little campfire, which though built as small as possible, was still giving off nearly intolerable heat. Besides Billy and Roger, who were both thirteen, the other two boys present were younger. Philip was Roger’s nine year old cousin, inflicted on them by Roger’s mother who had made his acceptance a condition of allowing them to stay the week in the tent. Joey was Billy’s 12 year old neighbor and friend. Roger had invited his friends to come stay with him for a week with his grandparents, and somehow the idea of spending the week camping on the island had been suggested. Joey was the most enthusiastic, although he was just as much a city slicker as Billy. Roger, who had stayed there many times, was always game to camp out, and Philip was just happy to be included with the “big” kids.

Billy had not openly objected, not wanting to be perceived as soft, but he was a bit concerned. Aside from the fact that he was a bit afraid of the dark even in his own backyard in town; he felt that there were some things to be legitimately afraid of on the island. For one, Roger had told him that on several occasions alligators had been seen in the lake, most recently the prior year. This being Louisiana, there was a full complement of snakes (including the infamous and venomous water moccasin), turtles (including giant snapping turtles), and a plethora of scary looking fish in the lake, such as long nose gar, numerous types of large catfish, and a prehistoric looking toothy monster that the locals called “grinnel”. Besides these water denizens, in the surrounding forests there were coyotes, wild hogs, bobcats, black bear, and even the occasional roaming cougar. Roger insisted that there was nothing to really fear from any of these, but Billy wasn’t so sure. As the sun dipped behind the jungle-like treeline, lengthening the shadows, and spreading an oppressive darkness on this, their first night out here; his mind ran wild. He thought of each of the aforementioned creatures, and considered that the short distance of water separating the island from the shore would be no obstacle to any of them.

For defense, their arsenal was limited. All the boys had pocketknives of course as boys do, and Roger had a slingshot made from an old inner tube; with which his skill was legendary. They also had a pair of battered BB guns, the one a Red Ryder, and the other an ancient Daisy pump action with a busted stock. An assortment of walking sticks that they had collected throughout the day rounded out the potential stock of weaponry.

Their original plan had been to survive off the land for the entire week, eating berries, fish, and whatever else edible they could pick, catch, or scavenge. However, in terms of edible berries, the most common in Louisiana are Dewberries and Blackberries. Wild Dewberries ripen early, and are not normally seen after May, while even the Blackberries are usually gone by this late in the summer. There were a few persimmon trees along the trail back to the lake, but persimmons are generally rather tart at the best of times, and certainly not pleasant until later in the fall. Joey, an avid reader of survival stories, had read that cattails were edible, and so decided to give it a try. He couldn’t remember what part of the plant was edible, so they tried the distinctive heads, on the grounds that they vaguely resemble a corn dog. Joey claimed to find them delicious, and actually ate several. Philip flatly refused to try it at all, and Roger ate a few bites, shrugged and said Joey was welcome to the rest. Billy took a deep breath and tried a small bite. Yuck! It tasted horrible. He quickly spat it out, and rinsed his mouth out from his canteen.

They had also tried to set some snares to catch rabbits or squirrels, but so far without any luck. They had a bit more success with the fishing option, catching 3 small bass and a half dozen bream. Roger pronounced all the bream but one too small for eating, and indeed after spending half an hour scaling and filleting, even the morsels yielded by the bass seemed pitifully meager. Thankfully, grandma, having foreseen this, had insisted they take a small Styrofoam ice chest that was well stocked with hot dogs, marshmallows, peanut butter and jelly, and of course most importantly a large zip lock bag of her famous chocolate chip cookies.

Having feasted on hot dogs and marshmallows, the boys settled back and enjoyed the fire, despite the fact that it was still nearly 90 degrees even with the sun down. The smoke, in the calm air around the island should have perhaps mitigated the mosquitos, and maybe it did, but it would have been hard to convince anyone, because as soon as it began to get dark, the mosquitos descended like an invading Mongol Horde. This swiftly caused an adjournment of the campfire session into the tent.

In Louisiana, there is rarely such a thing as zero chance of rain, but late August is one of the drier months, if 90-100% humidity at night can ever be considered dry. Thus, the boys had the rain fly off the tent, and were soon enjoying looking up at the stars through the screen top. Since the nearest town was about 35 miles away, the view of the sky was stunning, with more stars than Billy had ever imagined could possibly exist. Through the screen door of the tent, out across the lake along the pasture that bordered the other side lightning bugs flared constantly as they sought romance from their luminous mates. For a short while Billy was enjoying himself watching the stars and listening to the night sounds, but after a bit he became aware of a variety of noises that he was unable to identify. In fact it was a bit shockingly loud out, with seemingly millions of whippoorwills, frogs, crickets, and numerous unidentifiable creatures constantly emitting their distinctive sounds.

A whitetail doe and her fawn passed near the water’s edge for a drink, caught a whiff of the boys and their fire; snorted loudly and bounded away into the darkness, with her white flag of a tail flying, and the still-spotted fawn racing after. The deer had passed unseen by the boys, but the loud blowing sound was definitely noted, with some wild conjectures following as to its origin. Roger, no stranger to the local fauna, had immediately and correctly identified the sound, but suppressed a smile; and amused himself by egging on the others as their overactive imaginations began to play tricks on them.

“Maybe it was a fox?” said Joey, “I think they make a strange sound like that”. “Or a coyote perhaps”, said Billy, a bit pensively. A few moments later, actual coyotes cut loose with their distinctive yapping from quite a distance away, and all agreed that the previous sound had been nothing like that. Now the yard dogs back at the farmhouse added their voices in reply to the coyote, helping establish by their known distance that the coyotes were not anywhere near, despite the clarity of their howling in the still night air. “What if it was a bear”, wondered Philip, with a slightly worried look on his face. “Or even a cougar!” interjected Billy nervously.

At that, even Roger looked slightly worried. He alone knew that a cougar had been seen on a game camera on a hunting lease less than two miles from where they sat, and he had noted a large cat track several days prior on the other side of the lake. He had thought at the time that it was most likely just a large bobcat, but in the darkness, even he began to reconsider whether or not he had heard a deer blowing in alarm, or if it had been a snarling sound instead. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed, even to him that actually yes it had seemed a bit of a snarl. He decided to tell the others about the game camera, and the track he had seen. The more they talked, but more it seemed that yes, that sound could have only been made by one thing, and that was a cougar, maybe even a black panther that all the local folk tales spoke of!

After a few more minutes of quietly talking it over, Philip suddenly said, “I want to go to the house, right now!” Billy wholeheartedly agreed, but didn’t want to be the first of the older boys to call it quits. To his relief, Joey seconded Philip’s motion to leave right away, freeing Billy to vociferously concur. Roger, was still a bit reluctant, but country boy or no, he wasn’t staying out here with the cougars alone, so he agreed that they should all make a run for the house.

This presented a bit of a problem however. They had brought all their gear out on several trips on foot as well as bringing bicycles. The problem was, there were only three bicycles; which was obviously one too few for the amount of boys needing the fastest transport possible over the dark wooded trail up to the house. The trip to which, although only perhaps a half mile away as the crow flies, was nearly twice that distance on the winding trail through the woods. The other problem was that they only had two flashlights, and the batteries on one of those were clearly almost spent.

Discussion on how to allocate the scarce resources in terms of lighting and wheeled transportation continued for a few more minutes until it was abruptly interrupted by a horrifying SCRREEACH. The banshee like sound made Billy’s blood run absolutely cold. He was completely petrified in fear. Roger yelled out, “Run for your lives boys”, and they were off. Billy afterwards remembered leaping the short span to shore and clearing it with several feet to spare, landing right next to one of the bikes. He grabbed it, and not waiting to see what the others were doing, leapt astride, and began peddling as hard as he could. Roger and Joey had grabbed a bb gun apiece and for what little good it was worth, triggered several bb’s into the darkness as they ran; each dropping their weapons as they also seized a bike each, and hit the trail in hot pursuit of Billy.

Although they had traversed the trail many times during the day as they brought out their camping supplies, it had never seemed so long, and yet they had undoubtedly actually never covered it so quickly! As they rounded the final corner, almost in formation, rapidly sweeping into the front yard, past the surprised farm dogs Phideaux and Goofy, past the split rail fence, and up onto the porch; the brief panic and insanity induced by unreasoning fear began to fade, and they suddenly realized that they had left poor nine year old Philip to fend for himself, on foot with neither bike nor light.

At the exact moment they realized this, they also realized that someone was standing on the porch already. As they approached, they realized that… it was Philip. He had beaten them home on foot, (barefoot too, not having taken the time to mess with his shoes); and with room to spare! They used to say afterwards that if he could have been timed, he would have undoubtedly set the land speed record in the flying mile.

The next morning, grandpa was consulted regarding the presence of a cougar in the neighborhood. He smiled, shook his head, and said, “Boys, I doubt it was a cougar. We certainly have them, although they are rare, and the supposedly make some sort of screeching sound, but based on what you have described to me, I don’t think that is what it was”. Roger, stared at him suspiciously, “It wasn’t you hiding out there in the woods with one of those bull-roarer things that you have told me that y’all made when you were boys was it?” “No”, the old man grinned, “the only bull roaring I was doing was snoring in bed, and the bull roarer doesn’t sound like what you were describing anyhow”.

“No, what I believe that you heard was an owl!” “A screech owl?” queried Joey, “I have always heard that they sound eerie”. “Actually”, said grandfather, “a screech owl doesn’t really screech all that bad. It’s the barn owl that sounds like a woman being murdered in cold blood”. He paused, “My own grandfather told me that when a barn owl screeched, it raised the hair on the back of his neck where there hadn’t been a hair in forty years!” “I haven’t heard any in a while, we don’t see, or hear, them as much anymore. I reckon that’s what you boys heard out there though just the same, once you have heard it, you’ll never forget it”. Billy asked, “Are they very large?” “No”, said grandfather, “not at all, they are actually fairly small usually”.

That ended the camping expedition early. By mutual agreement, all four boys decided that they would just as soon stay in the house. However, after a night or two, former fears forgotten, they ended up going out and spending the final few nights on the island, this time uninterrupted by cougars or barn owls. None of them ever forgot that sound though, and the unspeakable horror generated by the ear-shattering soul-chilling call of a little old Louisiana barn owl!