Home After Dark

For most people, the idea of the unknown is a daunting concept. The fear of the unknown is the root for even our most deepest fears. The fear of the dark, the fear of strangers, the fear of being in a new place. We take comfort in what we know, yet begin to panic the second that knowledge is taken away. This is why so many of us find it difficult to meet new people in a new environment. This is why so many of us are uncomfortable when we leave town even for a few hours. This is why so many of us panic when darkness starts to protrude in and obscure our outside view of the world around us.

For a small town in the midwest, back roads are fairly common, as were the long drives along them through the night. Oftentimes, when nightfall lurks over the setting sun, most people find refuge inside their house for the night. For the few that aren’t fortunate enough to return home prior to the nighttime approach, it’s often a common goal to return home immediately or stay the night at a friend or family member’s house. Very rarely does anyone stay out after dark, especially in the deep woods, where the most secluded areas can be found.

The summer was just starting in Akron, with all the schools slowly releasing their students into the world for the next three months. Many students already had their entire summer planned out. Whether it be road trips, concerts, sports, new jobs, most students couldn’t wait for the summer to be in full blast. One student who had the next three months fully planned out was Sofie. Sofie was a young adult, who had just graduated high school the spring before. She and her boyfriend at the time, Jordan were in for an amazing summer, doing something fun every single day until school returned in the autumn months. The two of them nearly couldn’t contain their excitement.

Down in the valley near camp, is where one of the biggest concert halls in the country could be found. The day after their school let out, Jordan, Sofie, and most of their friends decided to go to a concert to kick off the summer right. Directly following the performance, people immediately began to return to their cars. Most people intended on returning home after the concert, but for a few teenagers, this was only the beginning of the night. For Jordan and Sofie, this was simply another fun night in the summer. They stayed after the concert with a bunch of their friends, listening to music, playing cornhole, and having a campfire just outside the concert hall. Sofie even gave Jordan new matching silver bracelets with their names on it for when they go back to school. The group talked for hours and hours about how fun this summer would be before they all leave to go back to school.

Finally, at around 1 o’clock in the morning, most of the attendees had left, leaving only the group by the fire.

“It’s getting late,” said one of Sofie’s friends. It was only then did Sofie look at her watch for the first time that night.

“Oh, yeah,” said Sofie, “I need to get home, I have to go to work in the morning!”

So the group decided to start saying their goodbyes then began departing one by one. Jordan and Sofie were the final ones to leave, as all of their friends left as the two of them put out the fire. At around 1:30, the two of them finally got into their car and began driving home. All of their friends lived up toward Cleveland, so the couple was on their own to make it back to their homes in Akron. The concert hall was deep in the valley, so they had at least a twenty minute drive through the woods until they finally made it back to the city.

As soon as Sofie got in the car, she quickly flipped the radio to her favorite station, and the duo blasted their favorite songs as they drove through the valley back home. After about three songs, the guys on the radio took over and began promoting their sponsors. These little breaks in the music were always frustrating to most listeners, as they often spit out nothing but garbage about their radio station or a new product founded locally that was always doomed to fail. Sofie already saw this coming, and she quickly tuned out the message and began looking at the trees passing until the commercial break was up.

“Did you hear that?” Jordan called over to her.

“Hear what?” asked Sofie.

“The guy on the radio; he said something about a guy escaping from somewhere.”

This immediately caught Sofie’s interest. For years she had been engrossed in true crime documentaries and television programs, so this situation was definitely intriguing to her. “Turn it up!” she said excitedly. Jordan did as such, and the two of them listened to what the broadcaster had to say. Most of the time, the broadcasters were in a rather energetic and lively mood, but for some reason, the broadcaster had a rather serious, almost monotonous tone to his voice.

“...An inmate has recently been believed to escape the asylum down in Cuyahoga Falls. He is extremely dangerous and unpredictable. If you believe you have seen the individual known colloquially as the Shadow Soldier, or have any more information to report, please refer any information to your local law enforcement agency immediately.”

“Dang,” Jordan said, “that doesn’t sound very good.”

“Really, Jordan? I thought it sounded absolutely incredible that a serial killer is now running around our town at night,” Sofie replied nervously. While these types of situations interested Sofie on television, it was a different story in real life. Instead of feeling excited about the summer, Sofie now only felt uneasy about the situation entirely. “Just try to get home as soon as possible,” she pleaded.

“I’m trying but I don’t really know where I’m going. The internet down here is terrible!”

This was true. The internet in the valley was far worse than any of the surrounding areas. It wasn’t long before the two of them lost their signal entirely, and they became hopelessly lost in the dark forest of the valley.

“What are we gonna do?” cried Sofie.

“Relax, I’ve got it under control,” responded Jordan as he pulled into a nearby parking lot. “We’re just gonna chill here until we can get a reception again.”

Sofie was not onboard with this idea. She had some churning feeling in her gut that something was going to go wrong in this parking lot. But, she decided to let Jordan do his thing and wait until they got better reception. The parking lot they were in was pitch black. The only lights in the parking lot were programmed to go out after midnight, as no one is usually out that late since the park closes at dusk. The only light in the lot was that emitted from their own car.

The two of them desperately tried to find any form of reception they could, but to no avail. After a while, Jordan’s phone died, leaving only Sofie’s phone with any chance to get home that night. It was already so late, but at exactly 2 o’clock in the morning was when the first sounds were heard.

They were so quiet that for a while, Jordan and Sofie didn’t even notice them. But after about five minutes, they grew just loud enough for Jordan to hear. The scratches.

“What was that?” Jordan asked suddenly.

“That’s not even close to being funny,” Sofie replied frustratedly.

“I’m serious!” Jordan said, “I swear that something just brushed up against the side of the car.” It was then that Sofie began to hear it.

“What was that?!” Sofie yelled, terrified.

“So...I’m not crazy, huh?” Jordan said jokingly.

“This isn’t funny, Jordan! What if something really is out there?”

“Relax, it was probably just a beaver or a raccoon or something, probably just wanted to get inside for the night.”

This thought comforted Sofie for a minute, but the scratches began to grow louder and faster. At first they were only happening about once every minute, but soon they picked up to a scratch every thirty seconds, then twenty, then ten. After a while, all they could hear was scratching. The scratching they heard wasn’t normal either. It didn’t sound like an animal trying to find shelter, the scratches were too long and forceful. It also didn’t sound like a key or as if someone was trying to vandalize their car. This sounded like something big was trying to get inside.

“That’s it!,” Sofie said after about twenty minutes, “I’m calling the police.”

“No, don’t!” Jordan said, grabbing her phone. “Your phone’s about to die! That’s the only chance of us getting home tonight! Do you want to stay in the woods all night?”

“Did you not hear the guy on the radio? He said to report any activity to the police immediately,” Sofie yelled back at him. “Plus, something is there, and I’m not about to get out to check.

“Look, let’s both look outside our windows and see if anything is there first. It was probably just an animal and it’ll quickly scurry away if we talk to it.”

Sofie was very reluctant to this idea, but she agreed in order to call the police. The two of them then rolled down their windows slowly and took a peek outside.

“Anything over there?” yelled Jordan.

“No…” replied Sofie, shaking.

“Okay, then you can call the police, but make it quick.”

Sofie didn’t miss a beat. Before her head was even back inside the car, she had already dialed 9-1-1 and waited for a response. All that she heard on the other line was a message saying that she had no reception where she was. At this point Sofie was fully in tears, and began to panic. Seeing Sofie in this state, Jordan felt that he needed to do something to make this situation better.

“Alright, I’m going to go to the other end of the field and back to see if anyone or anything is actually here or if we’re just going crazy.”

“Are you nuts?!” Sofie said, “Don’t leave the car! We need to stay safe!”

“Look, it’s fine, I’ll only be gone for a couple minutes.”

Before Sofie could argue any further, Jordan stepped out of the car and began walking into the darkness. After all, he had only said that he’d be gone for a couple minutes. A couple of minutes soon passed. Then another couple, then ten. After a while, Sofie looked at her watch again. Jordan had been gone for thirty minutes. At this point, Sofie was sobbing and decided she had enough. She quickly called the police station again and prayed for a response.

She then heard from the other line, “Hello, Cuyahoga Falls police department, what’s ypur emergency?”

Sofie tried to pull herself together and talk to the operator, “Hi, my name is Sofie, and I’m not entirely sure where I am right now, but my boyfriend and I got lost in the valley and he left the car but he’s been gone for thirty minutes and I’m not sure what to do…”

“You need to remain calm madam, we can track you on our phone, we can send an officer that way now if you’d like.”

What Sofie heard next made her blood run cold. Nothing had ever scared Sofie as much as that one single sound did that night. She began to hear scraping from the roof of her car.

“Yes, please send someone here as fast as you can!” she sobbed.

“Okay, I’ll just need for you to calm down, the officer is on their way, I can stay on the line for you if that will make you feel better.”

“Absolutely, please, I just don’t know where he is,” she said as the scraping above got louder.

“Excellent, the officer will be there shor---”

The other line went silent. Sofie looked at her phone. It had just died, and now Sofie was left alone in the woods at 3 o’clock in the morning with no way to contact anyone, and someone (or something) scraping at the top of the car.

Sofie was panicking for about thirty more minutes until a car pulled into the lot. The car quickly turned on its lights to let Sofie know they were there and she was safe. The officer didn’t immediately hop out to help her however. He remained in his cruiser and began talking on his radio about something. Whatever he was saying, Sofie was unable to make it out exactly. But she decided to stay put until the officer said anything to her.

After about ten more minutes another police car showed up. Then another, then another. Sofie couldn’t wrap her head around what was going on, and she was in a full panic at this point in the night. After the sixth car arrived, all the police officers exited their vehicles and simply stared at the car Sofie was in. Finally, one of the officers began to approach the car. When the officer reached the car, he knocked on Sofie’s window and asked her to reel it down.

“Hi, are you Sofie?” asked the officer.

“Yeah...” she responded, trembling.

“I’m officer Thomas, I’m here to help you out, okay?”

“What’s going on? What do you mean help me out? Where’s my boyfriend?” Sofie demanded.

“Don’t worry about any of that right now, okay? What I need for you to do for me now is to follow my instructions and everything will be alright. Is that clear?

Sofie nodded her head hesitantly in affirmation.

“I need you, when I open the door to you car, to run as fast as you can to the officers behind me. They’re here to help you as well. The only thing that I don’t want you to do, under any circumstances, is to look back. Just run to the officers as fast as you can and don’t look back.”

Sofie was horrified. What could be standing by her car that is so terrifically awful that the officer is requiring her to not look back? Regardless, sofie desperately wanted to leave the woods, so she slowly agreed.

“On the count of three, okay Sofie?”

“Okay…” Sofie muttered.

“One…”

Her heart was beating a thousand miles a minute.

“Two…”

The scraping on the ceiling only grew louder and louder.

“Three!”

The officer threw open the door, and Sofie began sprinting to the officers across the parking lot. She had made it about halfway to the police cruisers when curiosity got the better of her. She darted her head back only for a second, wanting to get a quick glimpse of whatever had been tormenting her for the past few hours. But what she saw was something that she never could have guessed.

Sofie dropped to her knees and shrieked in horror. What she saw behind her wasn’t a tree branch. It wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t the Shadow Soldier that had escaped from the asylum. What she saw looming over her car was a rope dangling from the road light hanging over their car. The rope was old and fraying, but sturdy enough to stay together. At the end of the rope was a grossly disfigured man that she did not recognize at first. The eyes were gouged out, the body was cut everywhere, the toes were all cut off. The man had all of his hair removed, and his clothes torn to shreds. He was missing an arm, and dangling from one leg upside down over the car. What horrified Sofie the most, however, was what she saw on the man’s one intact arm. Hanging from the wrist was a silver, engraved bracelet with Sofie’s name on it. This was Jordan dangling over the car, and the sound of the scratching wasn’t actually scratching at all. The rope was tied so low so that Jordan’s head would slowly brush and scrape above the roof of the car, without actually falling down onto it.

It’s because of these moments that people don’t go outside after dark. The unknown is a terrifying concept, and what lurks behind may actually be worse than anyone could have ever thought. Sometimes there really is no happy ending, and that’s just how the world works at times. Maybe there’s nothing hiding in the darkness. Maybe your eyes are just playing tricks on you. Or maybe, just maybe…you just need to return home after dark.