Monday morning, I was walking through the woods in the dark—because I’m insane—when I spotted several pairs of glowing eyes staring me down. I was wearing a beanie with a built-in LED light (spiffy!), which was obviously reflecting off them.
Needless to say, the creepiness factor was off the charts. October, by its very nature, is already spooky. The last thing I need is to find myself knee-deep in some real-life Blair Witch Project supernatural horror shit. And yet, I actually backtracked, retracing my steps to snap this photo.
Good hell, I really am crazy.
To be clear, I’m not saying these are demonic spirits unleashed from the bowels of hell to claim the soul of a writer with a lava lamp collection and a fondness for brandy old fashioneds. But I’m not not saying they’re demonic spirits unleashed from the bowels of hell yadda, yadda. I can think of a few possible explanations:
- Deer. They do like to congregate in this patch of woods, and in fact, this was almost the same exact spot where I had my run-in with a fearless fawn last summer. Probably the most logical explanation.
- Raccoons. Another strong possibility. Like deer, their eyes reflect back yellow light in the dark. They could have been perched in a tree watching me pass by.
- Reflectors. Maybe someone nailed plastic reflectors to some of the trees, though why they would be facing away from the trail is a mystery.
- Halloween Décor. Tara suggested somebody might have cut eye-shaped slits in TP tubes, stuck glow sticks inside, and scattered them in the woods to freak people out. If so, mission accomplished! This seems highly unlikely though. Glow sticks only last about 8 hours, and the trail through these woods (a half-mile loop at best) isn’t well-travelled. That seems like a lot of effort for a prank hardly anyone is likely to see. “All the more effective!” she insisted, and I can’t really argue with that.
- Demonic spirits unleashed from the bowels of hell to claim the soul of a writer with a lava lamp collection and a fondness for brandy old fashioneds. I’ve experienced too many weird, borderline paranormal events to rule anything out.
I pulled a few images from the internet to see which one most closely resembles what I saw. L to R: deer, raccoon, demonic spirit.
Honestly, it’s a toss-up. I need to take a quick stroll through there during daylight hours to at least rule out the reflectors and glow sticks.
If I come back speaking Latin and my head can spin around in 360-degree circles, first off, neat parlor trick! But also, we’ll have our answer.
It sure has been cool and gloomy lately. And I’m loving every second of it.
They’re forecasting a lot of rain starting Wednesday night and potentially lasting through the weekend. This would put a damper on our planned fall foliage sightseeing drive, but 98% of the state is still in a drought, so bring it on.
Speaking of, I love this clip from comedian Jim Gaffigan. I may never look at fall foliage the same way again.
We think it’s so beautiful. It’s the leaves’ hospice. I never thought of it in such morbid terms, but the dude isn’t wrong.
Mark My Words 
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