295/365/Scary Stuff

To get to the college field station—an old cabin then—you needed a key to unlock the gate at the main road, then you drove in on a long single-lane dirt road, maybe a mile. Better take a car with some clearance. From the station, it was about a 5-minute walk down to the lake. You were in the middle of nowhere. It was dark at night, darker still in the woods. Owls and whip-poor-wills called. One night we heard strange sounds, strange enough to get spooked. Laughed nervously. Picked up the phone to call out. No dial tone. Dead. Stopped laughing. Then we heard chains dragging along one side of the house. We. freaked. out. (It was a well-played prank by Pierre.)