Things Nightmares Are Made Of

When you grow up in a small town you have a built-in sense of safety. Everyone knows everyone and everything. On a hot summer night when we were sixteen my friend and I encountered pure evil. We lost not only our sense of safety but were exposed to pure evil. It left us both very guarded and it taught me to be aware of my surroundings at all times. I had picked up my friend Liz and we had gone about three blocks from her house to a Circle K to gas up.

The store was on a large corner lot with the store being to the back of the lot and the gas pumps angled at the front corner edge of the lot right next to where two streets formed a T. Liz had gone to pay, and I was just finishing gassing up when she crossed the parking lot. I literally had just put my cap on and was going to place the hose back on the pump....it was dusk, and we saw car lights coming down the street in our direction so fast, in fact we commented on how fast they were going. I guess they noticed us standing under the lights at the pump and were in their sights - at a high rate of speed they swerved into the parking lot heading towards the back of my car. As they approached, we heard them yelling some really horrible and vulgar comments that we had never been exposed to. By the grace of God, we jumped in and truly just got our doors locked.

These men who were probably in their late 20s or older had jumped out of their car and were pulling at our door handles and we are sitting there terrified and screaming. Besides being so purely evil, it seemed like they were intoxicated or on something - they all had a dirty disheveled appearance...their behavior was what nightmares are made of for young girls....I didn't think to start honking the horn as the men were literally grinding and thrusting their bodies against our doors and pulling our handles all the while saying some really disturbing things. Two were on my side, one on hers and one at the back of my car. Our terrified screams fell on deaf ears. Evil never hears the pleas of those they intend to harm. We just wanted to get the hell out of there - I started my car and peeled out. At this point we are mixed crying and screaming but thought we were safe as we headed back to Liz's house.

In my rearview mirror I just couldn't believe I saw their headlights coming behind us. I screamed, "they are behind us." So now we are both screaming again...We couldn't stop at her house as we would have never gotten a chance to get in - her parents were not at home so we did not have that safety net and I think we were shaking so badly we knew we just never would have stood a chance to get that door unlocked.

They quickly were right on our bumper. At the end of the street was a stop sign. I ran it and almost caused a wreck. My car was in the right lane of the street the other car had gone into the left to avoid hitting us. Being a small town, of course we knew the people - we jumped out screaming and ran to them as the car with those four evil men quickly backed up and turned around. We knew they weren't local....our small town was on a main highway that connects those coming from the north to the coast. We had no real description of the car other than it being big, brown and old. The store clerk was unaware of what had transpired because after Liz paid, she was carrying out other duties since we had been the only customers at that time. Our Chief of Police said they would be looking but that he was confident they were just passing through and happened to see us...he felt they had taken the business route instead of staying on the main highway and just shook his head at what we had experienced. He told us the important thing was we were safe...but we felt anything but safe. We truly met with evil that day and I always prayed to keep anyone safe who crossed paths with any of those monsters.