The Encounter (Wednesday, September 20)
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. (1 Peter 5:8-9, NKJV)
Darkness is a place where shadows, fear, and those things unseen converge. Evil seems to not only lurk in the darkness, but it also appears to thrive there. Living in the interior of Alaksa, I have seen the effect of physical darkness on people. It can cause depression, fatigue, anxiety, and so many other physical and mental ailments. So many people I know spend the long winters here waiting for the physical and mental warmth that the sun brings.
I have also seen people deal with the effects of spiritual darkness. Even though Craig’s father had warned us that we were dealing with a spiritual issue, we were too stubborn and ignorant to take heed. While we couldn’t explain all that we had experienced at the House at the end of the Driveway, we just knew that there had to be a logical explanation. And we were still determined to find it!
It had been several weeks since we had last visited the House at the end of the Driveway. However, that time was filled with three unique experiences. We’ve already looked at Jackknifed and Tick Tock; this time we begin looking at perhaps the most troubling event related to the House at the end of the Driveway.
Craig and I agreed to spend the weekend at the Shiner’s house with Chad and his brother Dru. Chad’s parents were going to be gone for the weekend and didn’t want to leave the house empty as there had been several recent break-ins in the area. In other words, we were the security!
Their downstairs area was a great place to hang out. It had a tv and VCR (yes, I’m that old!), a pool table, and a nice patio to hang out on. That Friday evening included pizza, bath-towel boxing (if you know, you know!), and playing pool.
Let me take a moment to set the stage. The pool table was situated in the middle of the room, with a clear view of the patio door, and the windows looking onto the patio and the back yard. The patio extended several feet from the house. There was a small step from the patio down to the yard. The yard itself sloped down and ended in a six-foot chain-linked fence. On the other side of the fence was the home of their neighbor who had a couple of aggressive dogs. Anytime you stepped off the patio these dogs would immediately come to the fence, barking and growling. We knew this because Chad’s parents had warned us about these dogs, and because we decided to see how close to the fence we could get before being noticed by the dogs! We never made it more than a few feet from the patio.
The evening was uneventful, and the four of us settled into playing games of pool, eating pizza, and drinking soda. Around midnight someone noticed something strange in the windows looking onto the patio. We were all shocked at what we were looking at. There in the windows, about five feet off the patio were a pair of neon green eyes.
Our immediate thought was that this was the person breaking into houses in the neighborhood. We thought that we could catch him and become local heroes! We sent Dru upstairs with instructions to turn on all the outside lights when told. Chad was going to stand at the patio door, shouting out what he was seeing. Craig and I picked up the only “weapon” we could find, ski poles.
Craig and I, each with a ski pole in hand, went out the patio door, followed by Chad. Craig went to the right, towards the driveway and down into the backyard. I went a little to the left and down into the backyard. The plan was to trap this person between Craig on the right, me on the left, Chad behind us, and the fence at the bottom of the yard.
With each of us in place, Chad yelled for Dru to turn on the lights, and that’s when things got interesting.
Join us next time, for The Encounter, Part 2.
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