It was a perfectly ordinary ride on a perfectly ordinary summer day. Just me and my Suzuki, El Mechon, out on the main trail at Riverlands in Turner. There were no other riders in sight, leaving me free to sail through massive puddles and climb muddy hills with abandon. If there’s a heaven up there in the clouds, it probably looks a lot like Riverlands a day after a rainstorm.
On my way out of the woods, I tend to take it easy, riding slower, enjoying the river and the sunlight coming through the canopy. It’s dirt-bike Zen and I crave it like a narcotic.
But on this perfectly ordinary day, something happened. A chill blew up my spine with all the suddenness of a summertime storm. Where moments ago I had been buzzing alone with grinning glee, I was all at once uneasy. No, more than uneasy. I was afraid, like a little boy who has to walk past a graveyard after dark. Completely irrational, it was. This stretch of sun-dappled woods I had ridden a hundred times before was suddenly a haunted house. A haunted house with trees and sun and a spectacular view of the Androscoggin.
Yup. Inexplicable. But every bit as real as the growl of the engine and the smell of wet earth. My ride back became less about Zen, more about escaping. Behind every tree I fancied I saw a grinning face with crazy eyes. Shadows danced everywhere like lunatics set free in the woods. This place that had felt uninhabited on the ride in now felt horrifyingly populated by a presence that had not yet made itself known.
And that’s the best I can do by way of describing it. Kids call that unseen thing The Bogeyman. The French warn of Bonhomme Sept-Heures, while old-timers talk about a goose walking over your grave.
It has no face, this thing, but its presence is enormous. It is A Bad Feeling and it will cause every hair on your body to stand at attention.
In the movies, there’s always that one girl who senses malevolence. She’s a Tiffany or an Amber or a Kaylee and she’s gorgeous and sweet. She’s also the one who strongly believes her friends should not go into those woods or into that decrepit old house where the witch used to live. But she’s surrounded by morons who never sense anything until the business end of a hatchet is whistling through the air above their heads. Her friends just want to get drunk, get stoned, have sex. And they’ll pay for ignoring Tiffany’s or Amber’s or Kaylee’s Spidey senses, oh yes they will.
So it was a spookerific trail ride out of the woods on that otherwise ordinary afternoon. For 15 random minutes, those woods were as haunted as any house in Amityville, that goose doing cartwheels on my grave. But when I was out, I forced myself to stop. I parked in a sandpit, turned the engine off and forced myself to look and listen.
Birds chirped. Somewhere along the river, a boat engine hummed. No Wendigo stomped out of the trees to identify itself. No voice arose advising me to get out. Nothing whistled over my head. I sat there for several minutes, kind of numb with a horror hangover, and then I drove away.
I told a few people about the experience. Talked about it, wondered over it and then put it out of my head.
Or thought I did. That very night (which was absolutely ordinary in every way) I woke up in the dark hours just before dawn. Heart racing, eyes wide, skin tingling with that primitive sense that tells us danger is afoot. There was no fuzzy confusion that usually marks the line between sleep and wakefulness. My head was clear and the one thought in it: It followed me home.
That was a bad moment, my friends, and one that was not quick to depart. Sometimes, the inexplicable, faceless fears are the most intense. They paralyze you in your bed. You don’t want to look anywhere for fear that you’ll see its face at last — at the window or peering out of the closet — and the sight of it just might kill you.
But of course dawn came and did what dawn is supposed to do — it drove away that fear like some heroic vampire hunter with a stake and a flask full of holy water. The unknown fear that followed me out of the Turner woods was gone and it never came back.
Until now.
It’s been two years since I turned into Ichabod Crane out there at Riverlands. I’ve ridden those trails dozens of time since and have encountered no phantoms. No weird feelings, just mud and rocks and roots. Miles and twisting miles of motorcycle Zen. Good times, a lot like heaven must be.
And then, this previous Saturday night, I awoke in the darkest hours of night and that feeling was upon me once more. Just like that, with no warning or explanation. Just that baseless fear and one uncomfortable thought: It’s back.
And it is. For three days, I’ve been uneasy, even in the light of day; even as I wander my perfectly ordinary house on a perfectly ordinary afternoon. Whatever I dragged home from the woods has come back, like a cold I just can’t shake.
Do the trails of Riverlands wind through an ancient burial ground? Did I inadvertently spin my tires on the long-vanished grave of an angry and spiteful spirit? I tell you, I’m not the superstitious sort (no, really) but if I did such a thing, I’d like to make amends to the bitter ghost whom I offended. My apologies, sir or madam, for disturbing your rest. I’d like to say that it won’t happen again, but come on.
Those trails are awesome!
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