31 Days of Spook – Mountain Trip to the Unknown

Today, we have a good one my fellow spook lovers. Todays tale is of horror, suspense and screams. This is another true story. This time it’s presented by both mom and dad. You see, many years ago they won a free trip to the great Georgia mountains. It was for four days and three lovely nights. What they don’t tell you is how secluded and how dark those mountain woods really are. They made a date, got directions and ventured out on their little adventure to the Georgia mountains. This picture of the woods is just a short snapshot of the actual long road they went on.

It curved around corners with nothing to see but woods on the left, right, front and behind you. They were told to buy groceries before going to the ‘cabin’ because at night no one really ventures out much. Heck dad said the translation of that really meant, “It’s a small town and everything ‘shuts’ down at dark.”

But look at these roads and how small they were. Mom was driving her SUV vehicle and thank goodness they didn’t meet anyone coming from the other way. Was that a good thing or bad thing? It did mean one thing though. They were truly going to be isolated in the woods by themselves… well maybe perhaps with a stray bear or too and other living animals of the woods. But, that’s horror story for another time. They eventually found the secluded cabin and it was a good thing too because it was getting dark… and cold.

The cabin was actually up on a hill. Mom said that it actually looked kind of spooky. What do you think? They brought in all of the groceries and tried to settle in for the night. Dad went outside alone to get some firewood. He didn’t stay outside alone for very long. He said he kept hearing rustling in the woods and strange knocking sounds. Was it Bigfoot? A bear? Spooks? He didn’t say anything to mom when he went back inside. He just started a fire in the fireplace and poked around the kitchen putting groceries up.

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By this time, mom was exploring the upstairs portion of the cabin and found the bathroom of her dreams… or any woman’s dreams is what she told me. An old fashioned claw foot tub off of the master bedroom. She yelled down to daddy that she was going to take a soak. She made a bubble bath and got into the tub to relax. The only problem with this tub was that the headrest was facing the door area of the room so your back is towards the door. It wouldn’t make sense to put your head where the faucet handles were. But on the other hand, it felt kind of strange with your back to the door so she shut the door. After a few minutes, she heard the door open and was just talking away to daddy about how nice and relaxing it was. She didn’t get a reply so she took the washcloth off of her eyes and turned around. No one was there. That bubble bath had to be the quickest in mom’s history. She went downstairs and didn’t say anything to dad knowing how easily he can get spooked.

They fixed their dinner, drunk some wine and put everything away. There was no television in this cabin but daddy had made a really nice fire. They sat on the sofa watching the flames, listening to the embers pop, snuggling and quietly talking. To the left of the fireplace was a small bathroom. They had left the door slightly opened with the light on behind it. Mom saw it first and she didn’t say anything. She saw a dark shadow move under the door. She watched it and after a few minutes she noticed daddy getting really still. Then he saw it. The dark shadow moved from left to right – so fast. Both of them froze and looked at each other not wanting to move. What had they gotten themselves into?

Mom slowly got up from the couch. She tip toed over to the bathroom door, camera in hand just in case she actually caught something mysterious behind the door. She looked at daddy. He held up his hands with three fingers.. slowing moving one down a minute at a time. Mom watched, took a deep breath, aimed the camera, opened the door and clicked away. OMP (oh my pig!) the suspense – Busted!

Let’s just say that it wasn’t Mickey Mouse with the white gloves. But it was a small, tiny, spooky creature of the night – a mouse. Isn’t he just so cute in that picture? I hope he had a good time because he scared the crap out of mom/dad that night. They both decided they had all that they could take that night and went upstairs to bed.

Mom loves old fashioned beds and this was as great as they came. What she didn’t count on was having dad push her on it – snorts. No really, this bed literally sat so high up off the floor – just check out the picture of the bed vs. the nightstand next to it. If you fell out of bed during the middle of the night, you would surely get a concussion… or something worse 🙂 Mommy said that daddy one time went to the other side of the bed and pulled her up on that mountain of a bed. They said their nightly prayers and laid there in that high bed. I didn’t say there was much sleeping going on and no it was anything fun – stop that – it was because they were scared out of their wits! Whatever daddy heard earlier outside started up again. The howling, the knocking and it had started to rain. They could hear the force of the rain hitting against the back window behind their bed. And every once in a while, the thunder would crack and the howling of some tortured animal could be heard vibrating throughout the little cabin. They could hear the pops of tree branches outside their window and the crash of a limb hitting the ground.

All of this with sounds of bumping in the bottom part of the cabin was just too much. Heck, neither one of them were going to go downstairs and investigate things that were bumping in the middle of the night. They both said their little friend the mouse could handle it all himself. There wasn’t much sleep had that night… unless you count clinging to each other out of fear as sleep. And that lovely rain that hit the window all night, it turned into snow. The next morning there was three inches of snow outside.

Needless to say those four days and three lovely nights turned into one overnight trip never to be forgotten. They left first thing the next morning leaving groceries and all. I think they set the world’s record and getting a car warmed up and snow off it to get off that mountain. Mom/dad learned a lot of lessons from this ‘free’ trip.

Lesson 1 – When something is free, it’s not really free if it includes spooks, strange noises and a mouse that doesn’t wear white gloves.

Lesson 2 – Never go to the mountains to a ‘secluded’ cabin in the middle of January.

Lesson 3 – The more the merrier on trips like this. Next time they win a ‘free’ trip that has two bedrooms, invite another couple. Why be scared witless by themselves?

Lesson 4 – This is the most important lesson learned – mom/dad learned that they are not so much mountain people. They much prefer the beach… with people…. hopefully living people at that.