The Thing on the Roof

I was living in a small, fairly rural town in 1996. A few blocks north east of my house was another neighborhood bordered off by a large, weed filled field. In the middle of the field was a small, abandoned farm house that had been declared a historical site. It was a two story building that was run down and boarded up. I passed it all the time and never gave it much thought.

One night some friends and I had a case of small town boredom and went looking for something to do. We just so happened to be passing by that field when one of my friends stopped and shrieked. It startled the hell out of us. He went sheet white and just kept asking if we had seen "that". We all looked around, but it was dark and I couldn't see much beyond the lamp posts every half block or so. He was animatedly pointing at the farm house at the far end of the field. He had not regained any color and his eyes were practically bulging from his head.

We kept trying to calm him down, but he was hyper ventilating and begging to leave. At this point he was sobbing and no one could get him under control. Another friend was trying to see what all the fuss was about and made a move into the field towards the farm house.

This elicited a shrill cry of, "NO!" from our other friend who was still freaking out. It was so loud and so desperate that it stopped all of us in our tracks. He was clawing at my arm. He was trying to pull me back and he was begging us to leave.

I took one more hard glance in the direction of the field, but I didn't see, or hear anything out of the ordinary. For the sake of my friend we agreed to leave. We quickly made our way back down the street and around the corner from the field. After a few more blocks the field was completely out of view, but my friend was still wigged out. He wouldn't talk about what spooked him, and we didn't want to press it and make it worse.

We walked him home and he apologized sheepishly before heading inside his house. I stole one more glance at him as he shut his front door and our eyes met briefly. He looked haunted. Whatever he saw had scared him to his core and you could see it in his eyes.

The truth is that his fear was contagious. We were all a little shaken up. I had never seen him that way. None of us had. He was usually the "tough" one of our group. We all decided to call it a night at that point. I was relieved to go home.

The next day, when the sun was high in the sky a few of us got together and decided to go try and see if we could figure out what had upset him so bad. He wouldn't come along, and I can't say I blame him.

We approached the field once again. This time with cars passing by and a busy park a block away we figured that we should be pretty safe if we ran into any squatters, or anything at the farm house.

We made our way through the heavy brush in the field and eventually came to the base of the farm house on the back side of the building. In the day light it didn't look ominous. It just looked like a run down building. It looked sad. All of the windows were boarded up. My friends spent some time trying to see in through the cracks, but they said it was too dark inside to really make anything out.

We made our way around to the other side. There was no front door. It was long gone. In it's place were a couple of boards nailed to the frame of the door. It was not much of a deterrent. You could easily duck underneath them to get inside. That is exactly what my friends did. I was about to follow suit, but I caught a flashing memory of my friends eyes the night before and that made me decide not to go in.

I made up an excuse about checking out more of the outside, but the truth is I did not want to go in there. The place just didn't "feel" right to me.

For 10 minutes I could hear them moving through the place. The floor boards creaking with each step. At one point I said, "be careful" and the reply I got was, "fuck off." This was typical banter among us and it made me feel better that they were still cracking jokes.

Eventually one of my friends came out and joined me on what used to be the front porch. He shrugged and told me that the small rooms on the first floor were pretty much empty. We sat there and cracked jokes about it while we waited for our other friend who was still inside trying to navigate the rotten wood on the staircase that lead upstairs.

We could here him cussing as he struggled up the broken steps. Neither one of us thought he should be trying to climb those stairs, but he insisted. I remember at that point leaning back from the shade to let the sun hit my face. It was a hot day, but that house felt cold.

It didn't occur to me at the time. Just now, in hindsight, as I look back on it.

He eventually made it to the top floor, and we looked in at him while he stood at the upstairs railing and joked about making it up there.

What happens next is sort of a blur, and I'm not sure if I can recount all the events myself. I have tried to piece it all together in my head over the years, but it all happened so fast I'm not sure what really transpired. I spoke to my friends about it only once a couple years later, and I got cussed out for even bringing it up. Something happened to my friend on the top floor of that house.

I had turned away from the house for just a fleeting moment, and in that brief time there was a loud crash, the sound of glass breaking all at once. By the time I got turned around to see what was going on my friend was launching himself over the railing from the top floor in a total panic. He hit the ground hard, but before I could ask if he was alright he was up again, limping, and slamming his way through the boarded up entryway.

He didn't wait for us. He kept running right past us ignoring the obvious limp he received in his fall. We took the hint and sprinted after him. Even with his limp I was struggling to keep up. We didn't stop until we were almost back to my house.

we were all out of breath, hands on knees, and looking over our shoulders. Nothing but the heat of the day and the neighbors sprinkler greeted us.

We asked him what the hell happened back there. The only line he ever spoke to me on the subject was right then. All he said was, "There is something up there and its not human." We pressed him for more details, but he wouldn't budge. He was just as spooked as our friend before him.

I asked around, and even went as far as to check the local library for more information about the place. There were no records of anything strange. It was all mundane details of the land ownership. The historical records were pretty clinical. No stories, just build dates, and permit information.

The next year that field, and the farm house were removed and the land was turned into a small shopping center. Today there is no sign the field, or the house ever existed. If it was a historical site no one seemed to put up any kind of a fight about it.

I haven't seen those friends in years. We grew apart after that. It happens. I have since moved to a different state. My parents still live in that town, but its grown and a much different place now.

I ran into the friend who had the first encounter a couple years ago surfing Facebook. Of course I was curious, but I didn't feel right asking him about it, so I kept it to small talk. We messaged back and forth for awhile about our lives. Typical catching up stuff. Towards the end of our conversation he asked, " Do you remember that night in the field?"

It caught me off guard, because he was never willing to bring it up before. I just answered with a simple "yes."

The next thing he typed was, "I'm not crazy. It was watching us from the rooftop, and it was big."

He signed off right after that. I haven't spoken to him since. I can tell you one thing for sure. I am grateful every single day that I did not see whatever it was they saw.

#Creature/Humanoid #Unexplained #Area/Country #Area/Woods #Creature/Humanoid/Bigfoot