My Secret Nightmare Shape shifters have the ability to physically transform into another form or being. Sounds like a big slice of baloney doesn’t it? But as I slowly edge into my golden years there’s a deeply disturbing memory that has stayed with me all my life. And when I think back on that night so long ago I still can’t come up with a logical explanation for what my sister and I saw. I grew up in Stephenville, a small town on the west coast of Newfoundland, probably one of the safest places in the world for a child to grow up. Ours was the last house on Queen Street Extension and our beautiful back yard was the forest. Our home was quiet and peaceful and we knew the forest around our house like the back of our hands. There was a little lane next to the house that led to our friends’ place and we’d travelled back and forth along that lane a thousand times. It was a dirt road rarely traversed by cars and we knew the location of every protruding stone; we had the scrapes and bruises on our knees to prove it! Since there was no traffic on the road, it was a great place for determining who the fastest runner was and we always managed to garner a few new scrapes during our races. There was an open field about halfway between our house and our friends’ place and we used to play there, in fact we had to walk through that field in order to get to the path that led through the trees down to our favourite swimming hole in Warm Brook. We’d pick wild strawberries along the way, enjoying the sweet smell of clover in the beautiful field under the warm summer sun. My secret nightmare happened one night in the summer that I was twelve years old. My sister and I and our two friends planned to sleep out in the yard in Dad’s big army surplus tent that night. He helped us set it up that afternoon and everything was ready to go for a fun night sleeping outside with our friends. We couldn’t wait til it got dark! After supper my sister and I did the dishes and then hauled on our sneakers to meet our friends on the road beside the field. Mom and Dad told us not to run, as it was getting dark and we might trip and fall. We assured them we wouldn’t and headed off, chatting and laughing along the way. And then the nightmare began… Into the deepening dusk we skipped the stars to light our way We’d travelled that road a thousand times but usually in the day We weren’t afraid of the dark at all but we’d never forget that night Who could forget the nightmare of a horrifying fright When the night sky claims the daylight and eyesight’s not the best Shadows can play tricks on you as the sun sinks in the west Halfway down the familiar road in an open field we knew Something suddenly appeared in the dark changing shape as it grew Frozen with fear we couldn’t move nor could we utter a word Then a terrible shriek shattered the night like nothing we’d ever heard In blinding fear with pounding hearts we ran as fast as we could Scared to death that if we fell we’d be gone for good We didn’t dare to look behind as we fled from the great unknown For all we knew whatever it was might have followed us home We’d planned spend the night in a tent, set everything up that day But now we knew without a doubt, in the house we were going to stay I never told a single soul; who’d believe me anyway But nightmares haunted me for years ever since that day Do shape shifters really exist in this world? Can such things possibly be? I know with certainty that they do and my sister will agree! My sister and I saw exactly the same black shadowy entity that night and the ear-piercing screech we heard was real. When we first saw it, we thought it might have been a bear standing on its hind legs as they often do. But this thing was way too big and in only a few seconds it changed shape a number of times. Whatever it was it appeared menacing and we weren’t about to stick around and find out what might happen next. All the way home I didn’t dare look over my shoulder and the knot of fear in my stomach was nauseating. I really thought I wasn’t going to make it home at all, because I had a sickening feeling that whatever it was, it preyed upon fear. Even writing this story down gave me goose bumps, because even though I haven’t thought about that night in years, as I put the nightmare into words the memory of that experience was as vivid as the night it happened.   Submitted By: Nancy Crossman