Night Shadow

Inherited Bungalow

My deceased Aunt Lorraine’s small farm was willed to me upon her death. The scanty acreage abutted the Fermilab near Batavia, Illinois, with a bungalow house and a small barn. A covered porch stretched across the entire front of the bungalow, and the barn sat in a semi-circle of sycamore and mulberry trees.

The original lands in this area of Illinois were prairie land with Yellow Indian Grass and wildflowers. As human development encroached, some of the grasslands were destroyed, fruit trees were planted, and the prairie turned into farmland. When the government bought the surrounding farms, they were not interested in her small patch that has a narrow, winding stream meandering through cottonwood, mulberry, and elm trees. Her place was too far from the planned building site of the Fermilab.

I adore the bungalow, but there is some strangeness to it. The floors inside tilt ever so slightly downward in the direction of the Laboratory, as proven by rolling marbles or pennies. I never see birds or squirrels, not even ants, come onto the front porch. I didn’t notice this when I moved in; it took me about two years to figure out what exactly was perturbing me. Sitting outside on hot August evenings, drinking homemade lemonade, swaying gently on the cushioned porch swing, I silently communed with nature. It was peaceful and quiet on the farm. Blue Jays and sparrows were always busy getting seeds from the sedge and the robins sang from the mulberry tree or sauntered across the small front yard, heads cocked as robins do. Dirt at the edge of the porch showed beetle trails and some signs of the abundant red ants. Jasmine climbs the arbor on a post of the porch, its heady fragrance flaring my nostrils; yet never did I see a bee, hummingbird, butterfly, or ant amongst its blooms, or crawling on the porch.

With binoculars, the Fermilab could be seen from the farm and in high school, my brother and I would cut through the lab property; it was a well-used shortcut to neighboring towns. We had never been inside the lab, but we knew it had begun as a Department of Energy physics and accelerator site. We didn’t know anything about quantum physics, but stories were eerily repeated about rabbits as large as foxes. If they were taking particles and accelerating them faster than the mind can imagine, what else could their experiments include? Rumors always have a basis in fact, don’t they?

Once Jeff and I saw a bobcat so large that he slammed on the car’s brakes to get a better look. The feline looked at us for a few seconds, then leaped a fallen tree and disappeared into the tall grass.

“Did you see that?” he asked. “Holy cow, yes!” I replied. We looked at each other with saucer-sized eyes.

“Are the rumors true, Jeff?” I had asked him. He was a senior and knew way more than I did.

“Well, Peg, I think it was a just a big ‘un, that’s all. Some animals are just larger than others, just like with people” he answered. I could tell by his posture and silence he was certainly disturbed by the sight, and I heard him later telling his friend Jimmy about it.

Walking the area alone I had found enormous caterpillars, some robins the size of pigeons, and gray squirrels that were far larger than a normal squirrel. Everyone had theories regarding the Fermilab, and I had heard my mom’s card club talking about some of their experiences while driving the cut-through road. One theory was that animal experiments were being done; another was that nuclear waste had somehow mutated the wildlife due to eating contaminated food or by something emitted into the air. Another theory was that some species the scientists were studying had escaped.

We didn’t know what all happened inside the buildings of the lab and only workers were allowed in. Press releases from the Fermilab only spoke of neutrinos and particles. Water leaving the lab had been found to contain tritium, a form of hydrogen. Of course, the government had “safe” levels for all toxins and the lab stated the tritium was below any toxic point and would cause no harm.

Still, Aunt Lorraine laughed at our theories and concerns about the lab. She had been on this land when they built the lab and had known some of the scientists and other employees. She was too busy growing and selling her flowering plants to stores and garden nurseries to pay attention to the wildlife surrounding her house.

Trent

I spotted him outside the window, on the porch steps, smiling and texting.

“I’m not telling you again, Trent! Get your behind out there and muck out the horse stalls. NOW!” I saw by the jerk in his shoulders I had startled him, my exact intent. Shoving the phone into his back pocket, he headed to the barn.

Before the days of texting, parents deliberately embarrassed their kids by yelling loudly so the friend on the other end of the phone could hear it. I missed those days; it’s a parent’s duty to embarrass their kids in quirky, creative ways to let them know we care.

Jenny, Trent’s older sister, had hated it when I picked her up from high school, music blaring, my body gyrating wildly to the music behind the steering wheel. Beep! Beep! Two short honks to get her attention and then I waved exuberantly. She immediately high-tailed it to the car in order to shorten her humiliation. Her best friend Kelly loved my performances, telling me so when Jenny wasn’t near. She also said Jenny pretended to be mad, but secretly loved how her crazy mother had made her a star at school. Hey, Jen, SO proud to help!

Trent is more introverted and doesn’t want any attention called toward him. I respected that in public, but in private we teased each mercilessly.

I see him walking out of the barn with a wheelbarrow full of mucked straw, dumping the steaming mess into the ever-growing mulch fertilizer pile. As I watch from the window, he gives me a thumbs-up, and I return it with an air kiss.

Entering the mudroom, he kicks off his old barn-mucking tennis shoes and washes his hands thoroughly in the kitchen sink. “Ma, are you OK if I go over to Mark’s now? Lisa and Robbie are coming over and we’re gonna watch some Netflix movies. There’s a horror marathon this weekend.”

“Ah-Ha, horror films ahead of Halloween. That sounds like fun! Need a ride?” He shook his head no, texting his friends he could go.

“I’ve got a ride; Lisa and Robbie will pick me up in ten.”

“Ok, can you be home by one a.m. please?” He nodded, still texting. At least I knew this male could multi-task! Could certainly come in handy when he hit the professional work world after college.

Quiet and calm, with no one to please but myself after Trent left, I sat down with a good book, appreciating some alone time. Fog was rolling in as the sun set, turning the evening eerie. The Great Horned Owls were calling to each across the pond, hoots echoing in the fog. Then the coyotes began their yipping and howling. These Eastern coyotes are bigger than the ones I saw in college on the West coast. Some people call these coydogs. Their howls always make me smile, while others complain about them. They exemplify an important part of nature to me…just don’t let your cats or small dogs outside to become a tasty meal.

I stepped out onto the porch to hear them better and was startled to find a coyote sitting two feet from the porch looking at me. A cat was crouched tight up to the bottom step, back arched, hissing. The coyote took a step in and the tabby vaulted onto the porch, facing her attacker. She looked at me, then leaped onto the railing. I was unsure how to help her. If I moved toward the steps, she might jump right into becoming dinner. Some Hoary Bats were flying overhead, strange and unusual for the end of October, but I figured they must be the last of the migrating ones. The Great Horned Owls began calling to each other again, while the cat was now up on the railing, watching me. The coyote had silently disappeared, so with the danger gone, I went to get some tuna for the tabby; returning, I realized she also had disappeared.

I went inside as my mobile phone rang; the caller ID showed it was Trent.

“Hi Honey.”

“Mom, I think I forgot to close the box stall and the barn door. I’m sorry, but would you check for me? I don’t want the foal to get out, or coyotes to get in the barn.”

“Sure Trent, no problem. Have fun. I’ll see you later - don’t be late.”

Stomach rumbling, I grab an apple on my way out to the barn. The fog is now thick and the heavy-duty LED flashlight in my hand did not do much to help me see. The light bounced off the fog like vehicle headlights do, slowing my progress. I heard scratching in the brush, probably birds or rabbits, or maybe mice. Looking to my left toward the pond, I saw yellow eyes looking back. Judging from their height, I figured it was deer. I stood still and saw movement, the eyes closer to the ground. “Yep, a grazing deer,” I thought. Suddenly, there were more eyes ahead, moving at about dog height.

“Hey! Get outta there!” I yelled and stomped my feet as I marched toward the barn. Had to scare off the coyote, or whatever it was. I didn’t have my BB gun with me. Damn, a stupid mistake. I wouldn’t shoot to kill wildlife, only to scare them off, but right now it didn’t matter. I was unarmed except for my bravado, so I continued to make myself look big, noisy, and scary. The eyes in front of me disappeared into the trees.

As I approached the barn, the motion detector light came on, and a football-like object zoomed past me, toward the pond. Scaring me, I gasped loudly, which then roused the roosting robins from the crab apple tree. They “chirred” and “tukked” their displeasure, taking off for a quieter site to spend their night.

Trent was right to warn me. The foal was wandering in the barn, and near the partially open door. Her mother was in the box stall nibbling on oats, whinnying softly. A movement to the right grabbed my attention. Two small coyotes were watching me from a standing stall opposite the mare. They had been planning on attacking the foal. I shooed the baby into the stall where Trent had laid fresh straw and had made a pile for the mare and foal to nest in, near one wall.

Turning to face the coyotes, I waved the LED light at them and threw a pail in their direction. They were out of the barn before I could blink. “Whew,” I let a long sigh out. After ensuring the mare had water, I walked outside, reveling in the hay smell of the barn. A low whirring sound caught my attention, but I didn’t see anything in the fog. I felt a bit spooked with the eerie mist enveloping all and making the sounds echo. Latching the barn door firmly, I went back to the house and made myself dinner.

Night Shadows

Something woke me. The TV was on; I had dozed off on the sofa. Checking my watch, I saw it was ten minutes to one. “What is that noise? Voices?” I murmured aloud. I got up and moved one blind slat to peek out. I sucked in air, startled, thinking “Who is that?” I saw one tall and one short person standing side by side in front of the barn. The fog had lifted but it was very dark. They must have been there for a while because the motion detector light wasn’t on. It came on for one minute with motion, then shut off. I squinted to see if I could see the two encroachers better, trying to decide if I should call 9-1-1 or get my BB gun.

The tall one put his arm around the shoulders of the short one and the light came on. It was Trent and Robbie, stock still, staring at the barn. What the heck is going on? The light went off. Readying myself to go out and call to them, I saw a movement high up on the barn. There was a vent window above the barn door. Apparently, the football I saw fly earlier had returned - a barn owl. He or she was intently staring down at the field near the barn. I followed its sightline and saw another owl perched on the fence pole. No wonder we never had mice! Many farms had barn cats, but I believe cats should always be indoors for safety. Owls kill more mice than cats... and outdoor cats tend to kill songbirds.

Soon afterward, I heard Robbie’s compact car driving away and my son came inside through the back door.

“Hi, Trent! Did you have a good time?”

“You didn’t have to wait up, Mom, I’m almost eighteen!” he admonished me.

“I wasn’t waiting up, Honey. I fell asleep on the sofa and heard you guys talking. Did you see the barn owls out at the barn?”

“Yeah, Mom, barn owls. Something else too.”

I sat up. He was standing near me now. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that we saw a humongous shadow to the right of the barn. It cast a shadow over the entire roof.”


“Huh? You can’t see a shadow when it’s dark, Trent.”

“OK. Never mind then. Guess it was the dark playing on our eyes or something. G’night Mom.”

His tone was irritated and filled with sarcasm toward his disbelieving mother. I sat on the sofa listening to the floor creak as he readied himself for bed, thinking about nighttime shadows.

“Oh!” I exclaimed out loud. I just remembered an incident in high school with Jimmy, Jeff, and Chrissy. We had gone trick or treating after plenty of verbal crap from Jimmy's parents admonishing us about how we ‘were too old to be asking for candy and how come we hadn’t just had a party.’ Ignoring them, we headed out. I was scantily dressed as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark; my boyfriend (and Jeff’s best friend) Jimmy was Dracula; Jeff was outfitted as The Joker and Chrissy was Harley Quinn. The adults loved our costumes but were quite stingy with the giveaways since it was a night really for the young kids. After one boring hour of collecting tiny, disappointing “treats,” we thought maybe we should do some “tricks.”

Off we went in Jimmy’s VW Bug, careening down the street toward the Fermilab grounds. Those days, the Lab didn’t yet have security or gate guards, so we parked the car in a dark spot and headed toward the front door of the building. Glass doors with the lab’s logo imprinted on them and the word ‘entrance’ in white lettering was before us, but Fermilab was all locked up for the weekend. We skipped around back, laughing loudly, crazy foolish teens under the almost full moon. This Halloween was warm, dry, and without a breeze. On weekdays, the back terrace allowed the employees to enjoy their break or lunch outside, depending on the weather. We sat on two concrete tables with attached benches enjoying the night and each other’s company. Each of us told a spooky story, trying to outdo the other; they had to be ones we hadn’t told before. A cloud from nowhere covered the moon suddenly, dropping the temperature. My Elvira dress was not suited to cold weather, and I insisted we go back to the car. After shaming me for my inability to “suck it up,” we stood to leave.

That’s when it happened. I remember it so clearly.

Something large flew past us kicking up dirt and leaves on the patio.

“What the hell was that?” Jeff yelled.

“Don’t know, but it sure as hell scared the shit outta me!” Jimmy replied.

Then it happened again, only this time it knocked Chrissy down.

“Hey! You all right?” I offered to help her up.

“Ouch! That hurt!” Chrissy mumbled.

All of a sudden, an enormous shadow fell across the terrace, engulfing us under its dark umbrella. Standing next to each other, we froze in fear as a black cloud became a circling vortex spinning dead leaves across the terrace. I loudly yelled to my companions, “Is this a Harry Potter movie for chrissakes?”

It wasn’t a movie or any kind of prank, it was all too real. It hit Chrissy again, ripping one boot off her, and we helplessly watched her spin like a top, and land on a concrete step. It turned toward Dracula Jimmy, but drew back, hunching up in the sky, strangely leaving him be. When Jeff tried to help Chrissy he was dragged by an invisible hand away from us.

The shadow changed shape and I saw wings spread, talons reaching for Jeff. I screamed to him to duck, and he escaped its attack, but now it focused on me. I glared at it, daring it to come. As if it had read my mind, it spread its wings to a width of probably fourteen feet and swooped in. Falling flat on my back, I scrambled back up and took off running as best I could in the long Elvira dress, feeling the vortex on my heels.

A streak of white, shadowed in brown, shot across the sky in front of me. Tripping, I dropped to the ground assuming the worst, but then noticed I was no longer being chased. The vortex had stopped; it had totally disappeared. Turning around, I high-tailed it back to the terrace where my companions were sitting in shock next to Chrissy. I shook Jeff’s shoulders, then hit his chest hard to bring him around. Dazed, he began mumbling that he was OK. Chrissy was fine but missing the boot, and Jimmy was standing stock still, arms spread wide like a bat, staring at the moon.

“What the hell was that?” Chrissy whispered. “Where did it go?”

“No idea.” I took her hand, and Jimmy came out of his batlike trance.

“Let’s get outta here,” my brother Jeff growled.

“I agree. Let’s go, now!” I gave Jimmy a shove toward his car.

My aunt’s house, closest to us, was dark; it was now after 1 am. “Shit, she’s sleeping,” Jeff mumbled. Jimmy decided to drive us back to his house where we phoned our parents and said we were all sleeping at Jimmy’s, to no objections. We didn’t go to sleep right away though. “We will never be able to prove anything we saw. There won’t be tracks or photos, there will be nothing!” I lamented.

The next day we went back near the Lab with binoculars. We saw leaves still scattered on the terrace and Chrissy’s shoe about four hundred feet from the terrace on a bush. The writing on the back glass doors was worn off in places as if hit by a sandstorm. None of this proved anything though.

I saw a front-page paragraph in the newspaper about a strange tornado-like wind and streaks across the sky reported on Halloween, but no damage was reported. The Fermilab said 'no comment' to the reporter's questions. A local weatherman attributed it to the Aurora Borealis which is sometimes seen in our area. I silently pointed to the article when Jeff walked past me. He read it, and our eyes locked in silent agreement. There’s no way that was the Aurora Borealis and no one has ever experienced it again.

Halloween

This Halloween, Trent was attending a party with friends, and I had dinner and drinks with my college roommate at a trendy bar in the nearby town of Geneva. Julie and I reminisced, catching up on our lives, careers, and kids.

Arriving home about 12:30 am, technically not now Halloween, I ensured the barn was latched and then stood on the porch for a minute. It was quite chilly this night and frost was expected in the next week. Once inside, all TV channels were marathons of horror movies. Too sleepy to watch one, I glanced out the kitchen window and saw the crescent moon, stunning in the clear dark sky. I was pondering my visit with Julie and heard a low, almost inaudible sound, so I stepped onto the back stoop, gazing at the starlit sky. Orion and the Big Dipper were visible, and some satellites crossed the sky. Looking toward the pond and then scanning the backyard, I gasped, heart-pounding and eyes wide. I saw a two-foot white face, its eyes blinking slowly. Then the creature began hiss-shrieking and a shadow descended. A gigantic barn owl mother was flying in with a dead possum to feed her chick. She was bigger than a Golden Eagle, bigger than a vulture. Holy shit! She was a mutant like The Hulk! Was that the white streak that ended the swirling vortex that night so long ago?

I knew now the shadow Trent and Robbie had seen was this oversized, mutated barn owl! My childhood observations hadn’t made things up; it was real, all the larger-than-normal wildlife and the never forgotten bobcat Jeff and I saw.

Of course, we would never know why or how any of this came to be. The government wouldn’t even discuss UFOs, let alone giant owls. I certainly wasn’t going to inquire and risk her being captured, killed, or caught for further experimentation.

Watching her big owlet begging for food, I jumped when something touched my leg. I slowly peered downward, afraid of what I might see, only to discover the tabby cat. She rubbed against me and trotted toward the porch, stopping to see if I was following. She came back and repeated her actions, and I did follow, keeping one eye on the huge mother barn owl. The cat could be a meal for her and her owlet too!

Tabby had dragged a torn saddle blanket from the trash pile to my front porch, and her four kittens were sleeping soundly, curled against the wall of the house. She let me scratch her head and settled down with her kittens. I watched as one of them began nursing and the others began to rouse. I decided to make her an “indoor cat,” and find good adoptive indoor-only homes for the kittens when weaned. Indoor cats lived longer and don't kill songbirds.

Tomorrow I would move them all inside to a large pen near the pellet stove, but tonight they would be in the barn. Using a huge furniture-moving blanket, I scooped them all up into it, and settled them into the straw in the barn, ensuring they could not get outside. I got the large dog kennel from the garage, reassembled it inside the barn, coaxed mom into it, set her kittens next to her, and latched it closed.

I put a note on Trent’s bedroom door that we had kittens in the barn and to be careful and went to bed. In the morning I found him petting the tabby’s head and talking softly to her and the kittens.

“Hi, Ma. I gave her some semi-cooked egg and a bit of that tuna you had open in the fridge.”

“Thanks for feeding her. I’ll go into town and get some cat food and other supplies. Sweetie, you know what I saw last night?” He raised his eyebrows. “The biggest baby barn owl ever…and an absolutely enormous, as in mutated enormous mother owl. I think that is the giant shadow you saw.”

“Whoa, that is freaky! I’ve been seeing big scratch marks around and just thought it was a dragged stick; I don’t know. How can an owl be super big? How big do you mean?”

“Oh, I guess maybe the size of two Golden Eagles?” I shrugged anxiously. Then, in unison, we both said, “the Fermilab!”

“Maybe. Who knows?” I mumbled. My head was slightly tilted with lips pursed as we looked at each other.

Using the back door, I grabbed my purse from the hook in the kitchen. “Trent, I plan to move the large metal pen near the wood chip stove in the front room; it’ll be warm and safe for all the kitties. I don’t want them outside.”

“I’ll take care of that while you get the food. The mama loves me, she’s already been on my shoulders,” he replied.

“Great! Put it where they can stay warm, but not too close.”

I climbed into the driver’s seat, my hand ready to turn the ignition key, but I noticed some jays on the porch and saw a gray squirrel run across the railing. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

Pressing speed dial #1 on my cell phone, brother Jeff answers, “Hi Peg, what’s up?”

“The spell is broken.”

“Huh?” he responded. I waited and after a long pause, voice lowered, he responded. “The spell at your house? What happened?”

We had been close our whole lives and he knew how weird my place was. Not spooky or haunted, just strange like those power-point places around the globe that make you feel dizzy and off-kilter. He had never seen creatures on the jasmine plant or my porch either. I had proven my point one weekend with a bird feeder. The one on a pole near the back door is regularly used. A second one hung on the front porch and no seed was ever taken.

I told Jeff about the shadow over the barn and the mother owl and her size. I mentioned the cat incident also. He broke in with “Holy Shit!” He didn’t question my story. He said he wanted to stake out the barn and see the mutant barn owl, so we planned for him to spend the following weekend with me.

“You know, Jeff, it began that long ago Halloween night - I think the streak in the sky was the mother of this current barn owl. She’s been out there a long time; maybe escaped from the Lab or mutated from the nuclear waste… they seem to feel safe staying hidden on my land and like being near the normal barn owls Trent saw. Oh, yeah, the cat that dared to leap onto my spooky porch has four kittens she is nursing so we are putting them all inside the house. I will forever tell these idiots who let their cats outside to catch mice that they just need to get some barn owls!” We laughed like only siblings do when sharing childhood memories.

I couldn’t wait until next weekend.

2/24/25 - this story is submited to KA Stefana's challenge Words From Our Past: