House in the Woods

Most people grew up getting bedtime stories.  These bedtime stories are usually fun, heartwarming stories to help the child feel good before bed.  I didn't get those growing up.  If I got a story they were usually scary stories (maybe that's why I enjoy watching horror movies).  Over the next several posts I'm going to do my best to tell those stories so they don't get lost in time.

First I need to explain some things about my mother's background.  She is the second oldest of eight kids.  Her parents were migrant workers by trade and would travel where the work was.  Sometimes their "houses" were a little run down, in many instances barely livable.

Add this to the fact that us Mexicans are very superstitious, my mother had a lot of very creepy stories for us growing up.  She claims these are true stories and that they happened to her over the course of her childhood in various locations throughout the US, mostly in the south and midwest.

House in the Woods

As migrant workers my grandparents were sometimes given free places to stay to help offset some of the expenses.  One particular house they stayed at was a one bedroom shack in the middle of the woods. This shack, from the descriptions given to me, was essentially boards held together with some form of roofing.  There was no insulation, just a frame and a roof protecting them.  There were many holes in the walls and you could easily peer outside from the room.  The eight children stayed in the room while the adults stayed in the other room.

One particular night my grandparents had some guests over so they sent my mom and her siblings to the room a little early.  The children entertained themselves talking, joking and having a grand old time.  During all the fun and commotion my mom felt someone was watching them.  She looked around the room to find an eye peering through one of the holes in the wall.  She screamed, everyone turned and saw an eye looking at them.

At this point all the children began screaming in terror.  Their dad, my grandpa, became extremely pissed off at them.  He came storming into the room and started yelling at them.  When they explained what they saw my grandpa grabbed a gun and ran outside the house to look for the peeping tom.  The guests there also helped him search.  

After looking around the house and surrounding woods, they found nothing.  No footprints leading towards the house or away from the house.  The only thing they found were two hoof prints in the moist ground where the children had seen the eye.

To this day my mom firmly believes the devil was watching them that night.

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