text: Eleven years ago, it was summer break, and I just completed my first year of college. Instead of staying on campus, I decided to pack a bag and drive home for a few months. I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity for free rent and groceries. Plus, I wanted to see my high school friends again. After a month of doing the same thing every weekend, we were desperate for new ideas. Being the paranormal nerd that I am, I saw this as a chance to suggest a ghost hunting night out. Surprisingly, everyone was on board. The next question was, where should we go? After some quick Google searches, I found a forum that talked about a “haunted” park that was only 20 minutes away from us. Since the park closed at 10 PM and was regularly patrolled by cops, the forum suggested that night-time visitors should park in the nearby neighborhoods and walk to park entrance, to avoid being noticed. Easy enough we thought. We packed our flashlights and headed out to the park around 10 PM. In the car, I told them all about the history of the park and reported hauntings. *According to the forum thread, an axe murderer used to wander the woods at night, killing any unsuspecting night-time visitors. Although only 3 bodies were discovered, the actual number of victims who had fallen prey to his axe is still unknown to this day. Since then, it has been rumored that if you go to the park and walk the paths during a full moon between the times of 9:30 PM and midnight, mysterious balls of lights can be seen dancing around the woods. Some say you are left mesmerized by the dancing lights and unconsciously driven deeper into the woods. The further you go, the lights disappear and are replaced by insidious laughter and moaning screams. If you are really quiet and still, footsteps in the woods can be heard. The longer you remain standing, the closer the footsteps sound and are soon accompanied by heavy breathing. And if you are brave enough to wait until the footsteps are inches away, a feeling of dread and evil will wash over your body like a wave of thick fog before everything goes completely silent.* *People may go as far to say that these woods are cursed. Similar to the Japan’s Aokigahara forest, these woods have also driven hopeless souls to their end. For the finale, if you stand on one of the seven bridges, whispers of an apparition formed by the traveling mist above the water will develop in front of you. But no one has stuck around long enough to know what would happen next...* Before we even parked our car, everyone was already creeped out. As suggested by the forum, we parked in the neighborhoods and walked to the entrance. Luckily, the streetlamps did a good job illuminating the way, but they stopped before we reached the park’s entrance, leaving us in complete darkness. The first thing we did was cross a bridge into the woods. No one wanted to risk seeing an apparition quite yet, so we didn’t stand still for very long. I can’t remember if the moon was full, but we didn’t see any lights dancing around the woods as we walked down the paths. The more I think about it, I actually think there was no moon that night, because it was pitch dark. I remember laughing about how we couldn’t have picked a darker night. After about 30 minutes of walking through the woods with no sightings, we exited onto a beach that bordered Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful, warm night so we hung out on the beach for about an hour, gossiping, laughing, and telling ghost stories while we threw rocks into the water. Eventually, we decided to walk back to the car. On the way back through the woods, I distanced myself from everyone to see if I could catch something on my camera. I stood still on the path as my friends walked ahead of me. When they were far enough to where I couldn’t hear them talking, I decided to start walking again. But right before I left, I turned around to take one last picture of the path we were leaving behind... As soon as the flash went off, I heard a child giggle from the thicket of trees right next to me and I heard fast paced footsteps heading my way. My heart sunk to my stomach and I immediately had this feeling of dread take over my entire body. Within seconds, my fight or flight instincts kicked in and I took off running at top speed. It didn’t take long for me to catch up with my friends, but I didn’t stop there. I knocked over one of my friends and I kept running until the sickening sensation wore off. I stopped and turned around to see my friends running up behind me as well. I reached out to the one I knocked over to apologize and I felt her entire body shivering. *Why didn’t you say something?!* Was the first thing she said to me. *Let’s continue walking. I want to leave.* I apologized as we quickly walked back to the car and I told them what happened to me. Apparently, something similar happened to them too. After I knocked over my friend, the others helped her up. As they stood still for a few seconds, making sure nothing was dropped, they heard someone or something softly say “Come...,” which they almost blew it off as the wind. But what scared them the most was the sound of feet crunching the rocks into the dirt, heading their way. That’s when they took off running too. Maybe it was our imagination. Maybe we weren’t the only people ghost hunting that night. But I can honestly say that I have never encountered anything that has come close to giving me that same sense of dread.