The Cross

(Thanks to My Morning Jacket for helping me create this video)

Christmas has come and gone quicker than Michael Haywood's stint as Pittsburgh's head football coach, but the bowl season still gives us a chance to feel like we are living in a perpetual holiday world, especially considering ESPN uses a variation of "The Christmas Song" for Bowl Week.  I know Nick's list proves he is not a fan of traditional Christmas carols, but if I were to make a list of greatest Christmas songs, Andy Williams' classic would definitely make the cut (right behind Otis Redding and The Eagles).  However, there has always been a part in the song that I have never really understood, and it's "There'll be scary ghost stories..."  Now, if my inaugural post didn't show it, I'm a fan of all things scary, but unless the Smith family has just been missing out for all these years, I don't think Christmas is the time or place for scary stories (unless you spent the past Christmas Eve like I did by watching Silent Night, Deadly Night.  Not recommended, but I do recommend the original Black Christmas).  But in the spirit of the lyrics, I want to tell you one of the ghastliest moments of my life.

I went with some friends to my lake house (The Hydra) for New Years.  After we had set off a few fireworks (mainly Ty shooting Roman Candles directed at our friend Ken), we started a fire by the lake and sat down around it, deciding that this was the best time, if any, to tell ghost stories.  Little did the rest of the group know that I had snuck down a can of Color Flames, which is a sand-like substance that you can toss into the fire, changing it's color.  Think Are You Afraid of the Dark, because Lord knows that's what I was going for.  Anytime I tried to make the story seem more terrifying, I would throw the Color Flames into the fire for effect.  So without any more intro...I give you "The Tale of the Forbidden Cross."

(Color Flames)

I was a wide-eyed sixteen year old kid and was one of the first of my basketball buds to get their driver's license.  Without question, I was letting it go to my head and I thought that I was the coolest thing to ever hit The Woodlands, Tx (even if Danny Amendola was destined to make the NFL and Win Butler from The Arcade Fire lived there once).  My first car was a jet black 2000 Ford Explorer that my mom had driven for five years.  I took that thing everywhere, from the local Jack in the Boxes to a secret sand beach that a few of us found near a creek.  Taking adventures through the town was my forte and it was only a matter of time  until one day I heard about "the cross." (The actual history of the cross is subjective and I apologize in advance if I am in the wrong for treating a memorial cross like a haunted landmark.)

The original houses in The Woodlands were built in the 70s in a part known as Timberlakes-Timberridge.  Near the back of the neighborhood is a noticeable drop in the road that is frequently flooded and unsafe for houses.  However, there is a back road in the area, surrounded by towering, menacing trees and free of lights, houses, and people.  The nearly two-mile road is desolate and empty, with frightening things such as creaky bicycles and dilapidated pianos known to show up without warning on the side of the road.  There is no hint of civilization on this road, except for one man-made sign.  It's here that a man hung himself in the still of the night.


I gathered a group of six of us to head to the cross in my Explorer late one night to check it out.  One of the girls even joked that she was bringing a baseball bat because you never know what could be lurking in the dark woods.  I told her there was nothing to worry about.

When I rolled the car to a stop on the dark and lonely road, my friends were already thoroughly spooked.  Thinking I was so suave, I played the Halloween theme song on my iPod into the abyss (I was trying to impress one of the girls, probably.  Didn't pan out).  As I turned the ignition off, one of my friends bolted from the car to check out the cross in a challenge of masculinity.  However, he stopped dead in his tracks when a shadowy figure emerged from the woods.

(Whoosh.)

Terrified, the girls in the car sat in trepidation while the figure dressed in all black with a white mask walked slowly to the car, revealing a crowbar from his sleeve.  As he reached the passenger side, he tapped on the window with horrified precision.  Everyone in the car was with petrified with fear.  So much so, in fact, that no one noticed that a second man in black rush the other side of the car and begin to shake it ferociously.  One of the girls in the car tearfully exclaimed she was about to dial the police, but I told her that we could get out of there.  I fumbled with my keys, scrambling desperately to try to get the car to start.  This time though, my faithful Explorer was betraying me, refusing to start in the most inconvenient moment.  The group looked outside the car desperately, unsure of our next plan as our masked menacers terrorized our car.  And with one blink of the eye, they were gone, vanished beneath the car.

"I'm calling the cops," my tearful friend shrieked from the very back of the car.

"Don't do that," I said, opening the car door in a seemingly brave attempt to confront the dangerous duo.  My friends yelled at me to shut the door, but I refused, simply giving one of the monsters a helping hand to his feet.  I looked at my friends, who must have assumed I was about to join the two in a slaughter of the helpless passengers.  It wasn't until they removed their masks that the group finally realized what they had hoped for all along; two of my best friends and I had schemed the entire scare up.  Despite several moments of severe hostility directed at me, my friends hastily agreed that the practical joke was one of the most incredible plans we had ever devised.  My darkly dressed partners in crime jumped in the car and we were ready to drive off.  But much to my horror, my car wouldn't start.

(Whoosh.)

The Ford Explorer, the same car that had accompanied me for countless adventures, had actually died mere feet away from a haunted cross the memorialized a dead man.  Was it a coincidence?  We were now stuck in a pitch black hell, with no one within shouting distance to hear our cries.  I'd like to say we lived in an age where cell phones weren't used, but that's a lie that I'll conveniently leave in there for the story's sake.

Out of boredom, a few friends decided to walk down the path the led past the cross in an attempt to find the noose where the man hung himself.  I stayed behind, hoping against reason that someone would finally drive down the chilling road in the middle of the night.  I sat on the hood of my car for what seemed like an eternity, the crescent moon the only thing allowing me to see five feet in front of me.  About thirty minutes later, as I sat in the car talking to the girl I was failing to impress, a Godsend appeared out of nowhere in the form of a dilapidated truck with a broken headlight.  At first I was hesitant to flag the car down, knowing very well that the sketchier the car the more likely that it would be the last thing I saw.  However, the car came to a screeching stop right in front of my open hood, knowing exactly what I needed.

"Need a jump?" the voice from the car asked as I jumped out of the car.  The one headlight shone brightly in my face, disabling me from seeing the man in the car.  When he finally emerged, it was almost exactly what I had imagined--an old, mustached man with a trucker hat and a jean jacket.  He looked rough around the edges and from the look of his tired eyes, I could tell he had seen some things in his life.  I nodded and he immediately went to work.  Within a few minutes, the Explorer was up and running and the man simply shook my hand with an icy grip before disappearing into the night.

"Hey guys!  We're good to go!" I called into the woods.  My friends slowly walked back out into the road one by one, their arms folded to hide from the cool, windless night.  One of the initial tormentors looked at me like he had just been scared out of his shoes.  I gave him a quizzical look before he finally pointed behind him into the trees.  I followed his hand about fifteen feet high in the trees before I saw it.

The noose, gently swaying in the still moonlight.

(Whoosh.)

I looked back at the taillights of the car, looking very much like The Mothman.  I had to wonder, was the car that just helped me a Godsend, or a warning to stay away from Below?

(Whoosh.)

(Only about 1% of this is fictional.)

-PB - a good recommendation from my boy Kollin