Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.

In the late 90s, I spent a lot of my time at Lake Mead, near Las Vegas.  It was a great time to be in my twenties and I can recall many, many fantastic adventures at the lake, from riding my motorcycle along the winding, roller coaster blacktop that looped along the west side of the water to weekly jet ski and wakeboarding afternoons , zipping along the shoreline, jumping wakes and swimming. It was during one of these mid-summer jaunts that I had one of those what I’m going to call a ‘Last House on The Left’ moments.

After an exhausting day of boating along the east side of Lake Mead, we settled down in a deserted cove and set up tents. What had started out as a large group outing had been reduced (through cancellations and no shows) to only a few people. With the sun rapidly going down, tents were set up with only the creepiness of sandstone, craggy canyons and the distant lights of Vegas around us.

No campfire had been started, so the few of us that remained sat around in the twilight, beers in hand, talking about the day’s events, laughing. Nothing could have steeled us for what happened next.

 In the distance a small voice laughed maniacally and said “I can see you”. The laughter stopped and we looked at each other with a mixture of confusion and fear. If I had heard it just myself, I easily could have chalked it up to imagination. But we all heard it. Staring silently at each other we heard it again, laughter and a distant voice letting us know we were seen. We jumped simultaneously, as if we were enjoying a funhouse horror film. But this wasn’t followed by the relief and laughter horror film jump-scares give you. We were absolutely terrified, peering into the growing darkness, squinting into a canyon where God knows what lurked. “I can see you”, the squeaky voice came again. It sounded like a child, no more than 4 or 5, playing a game, then nothing. Everyone sat in bemused silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then all the terror was relegated to the back of our conversation. There,  but not on the surface, hiding between the nervous, twittering dialogue of unimportant conversation. At least twenty minutes slithered by, achingly slow. Was it all just a shared piece of imagination?

Then the laughter came again, like the roar of a gunshot. Was it closer? It was definitely closer! In fact was it in the nearby tent? I had visions of an inbred, overall wearing, Nevada Test Site radiated creature with a gunny sack tied over its head. All the while, bobbing said head, misshapen and hairless, back and forth. And for a little extra horror, I’m sure it was defecating on my sleeping bag.

My testosterone must have overtaken my brain at this point, because I charged the tent without even a rock to protect myself. The door was already unzipped. This added to the surety that we were about to be killed and eaten by this unseen creature. I threw open the flap and saw….nothing, nothing at all. There was nobody in the tent at all. I went inside,  throwing sleeping bags and pillows around. And I heard it, clear as day. “HAHAHAHAHAHA, I SEE YOU”! Whatever it was, it was right there in the tent with me! I looked around frantically, half-expecting the little fetish doll from Trilogy of Terror to come flying out of the darkness of the corner of the tent to spear me. Then I saw it. A little clown doll poking out from under an air mattress. What the Hell? I touched it and a small squeaky voice said “hahahahahaha, I see you”. If there was ever a time I may have urinated on myself, it was right then. I walked out of the tent with the little bastard in my hand and laughter erupted like a prehistoric volcano. Mystery solved and everyone relieved, we went on to have a great night, free of creepy-voiced devil dolls.  

There’s no real moral to this story, just a great memory of an absolutely freaky night over a decade ago. Although soon I’ll share the story of one of the people who was there that night and how she could ruin absolutely any movie.