For The Terror By Night

My topic heading comprises part of a longer Biblical passage. Psalms 91:5 begins "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night . . . " Psalms aside, however, I've always maintained a healthy fear of the dark. In my youth, I shut the door to my bedroom closet lest I catch a glimpse of some beast hidden in the blackness there. Nightlights were mandatory in my part of the house.

Watching the occasional scary movie was a guilty pleasure that stoked the fears of my imagination. After watching Night of the Living Dead, I lie in bed afterwards wondering perchance where the closest cemetery just might reside. That was the only night I recall sleeping with the light on. Not just a nightlight, but a 100-watt overhead reading light that burned brightly till dawn.

Even as a young man, I was startled by the gruesome cinematic reality of the original Friday the Thirteenth. Not long after that movie, I married Wendy. Our post-nuptial retreat just happened to be a lonely cabin on a lake. Late night there I lie in bed hoping that the empty cabins around us would soon fill with people. How many guys wish for crowds on their honeymoon?

My most terror-filled night was not filled with dread of the supernatural, but of something real and most deadly. My boys and I did a father-son canoe outing with my high school buddy Bob in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota some years back. The Boundary Waters is a primitive wilderness area that beckons the hearty sort of camper who doesn't mind carrying his canoe and backpack overland through swamps, over rock outcroppings, and around trees fallen into the rushing waters.

We were not that hearty sort. That's something we found out a little late. After an arduous day paddling and portaging, we found a small camping spot. Dehydrated, badly bitten by mosquitoes, and too tired to build a fire, we pitched our threadbare tents among a stand of large trees that had survived a "storm of the century" two weeks before. That blowdown felled tens of thousands of trees, weakened many others and stranded many wilderness trekkers. We were among the first to enter the Boundary Waters after this storm.

Out the window of our four-man tent, I saw a trio of lodgepole pine trees, leaning on eachother as they swayed in the wind. If the wind was right, they swayed in our direction. Each time that happened, my heart rose in my throat. I could imagine them falling domino style on us as we slept. Then it became worse. Night fell. I could hear the trees cracking and groaning in the wind but could not see them. Unable to sleep, I heard the rising wind and the distant rumble of an approaching storm.

Rain fell hard, slapping the tent with each drop. Lightning flashed on our tiny refuge in the woods. Only the crash of thunder drowned out the ominous rustle of the large trees. I'm not sure when or if I slept that night. But at some moment I felt a slight trembling of the ground, accompanied by a muffled snapping--roots breaking. A tree was falling, a large one, very close. I held my breath as I heard it slowly break free and topple earthward. Only when it struck the ground did I exhale again.

The dawn light finally began to illuminate my surroundings in dusky fashion. To my surprise, that tree landed less than ten feet from our tent. It had already been leaning the night before, and I pitched our tent away from where it might fall. The only damage occurred when one of its branches impaled Bob's backpack lying on the ground. My boys never even heard it fall. They slept through all of it.

Some people have no respect for the dark.