From Darkness to Light

This was written from Guatemala in July of 2005

Well, another strange report from Guatemala! There seem to be so many lately. Anyway, it happened last night while I was working in the house with the lights out, inside and out, with only the light from the computer screen on. As I’m working on the computer with my headphones on I became aware of a cat, or at least what I thought was a cat, letting out the most unholy screech and then rumbling, kind of a growl. This has happened several times but there have been two cats and a fight ensued. I just figured the one cat scared the other one off. No big deal. I continued working.

About 10 minutes later I heard what sounded like someone walking on the roof. But it sounded different, because it sounded like someone walking on a wooden roof, and the roof of this house is concrete tile. Unless they were wearing wooden clogs it shouldn’t have made that sound.

I hurriedly closed the computer screen to turn off the screen light and took off the headphones. It was unmistakable. It was definitely not an animal, at least not a four-legged animal and it was a bit unnerving in the pitch black house. I turned on the light in the upstairs bedroom thinking that would scare whatever it was as it realized someone was home and it would go away. But it didn’t. The noise continued, though somewhat haltingly. But it continued nonetheless.

As I continued to listen and wondered what to do I positioned myself by my bedroom window which was open allowing me to see the fence just a few feet beyond the house. I figured I would see whoever it was coming off the roof as they exited. But they didn’t exit. So I turned off the upstairs bedroom light and walked up the stairs to peer out the windows. Understand there are no window coverings in most of the house (people here use the backyard as a shower and toilet-little privacy is required).

This all was very interesting because I never noticed any urgency in the footsteps when I turned on the light inside. When I arrived at the top of the stairs and looked out the window nothing was there but absolutely someone was walking on the roof! I came down and turned on all the outside lights and then it stopped. This whole thing lasted only three or four minutes but it was interesting. But no big deal. I continued working for another half-hour and then went to bed at about nine o’clock.

I was awakened sometime in the night by the smell of food cooking. There is little ventilation in this house and I seriously doubt if the food smell came from outside since we have no neighbor on my bedroom side. And it’s never happened before. When the smell hit me it immediately woke me up and I thought maybe something in the kitchen was burning, no, make that cooking. It smelled good! As I got out of bed the smell suddenly vanished and at once I thought I had been dreaming. I got up anyway and walked into the kitchen; alas, there was no smell, no good food cooking. I looked around and went back to the bedroom. As I glanced at the clock it was only 10:15 and I had been in bed for only an hour. As I lay down to bed the smell came again and then dissipated as quickly as it had come. Oh well, no big deal. I went back to bed and slept like a baby till the morning.

In the morning I told a friend about this just as an afterthought and he told me an interesting story. His grandfather, his father’s father, when his father was 19 years old they were walking to the cornfield they worked with their dog and they passed by the house of a known witch\spiritist. Kind of the local witch doctor if you will. As they passed her house their dog, unbeknownst to them, entered through an open door and began ruining some food by eating it. When they returned that evening the lady was furious, and the grandfather offered to pay for the damages which he did. But she continued yelling and making a big scene.

When the grandfather and father got home the grandfather knew trouble was coming so he called a couple friends to come over that night. And sure enough in the middle of the night a large dog, very vicious, came to the house. As the men tried to beat it away the grandfather grabbed his rifle and shot next to the dog to scare it away. The dog ran off. The next day as the men walked by the woman’s house she came out and began yelling that they had tried to kill her the night before. The grandfather informed her that if she ever came back they would kill her. They had no more problems with her.

I asked my friend if he believed this story and he said yes. He said many people have talked about experiences like this where somebody who practices dark magic leaves their body and takes the body of an animal to attack or molest a neighbor. It’s kind of like putting a spell on them.

So then my friend tells me that about 10 years ago (he would be 18) his cousins who live near his house had a problem with cats walking on their tin roof almost every night, making a ruckus. When they tried to chase them away they noticed one very big cat the size of a small dog that was vicious and scared them all. That cat would walk on their roof for hours all night long. Finally, they rigged electricity to the metal roof that they could turn on from inside the house. When the cat came that night they threw the switch and stunned the cat. They pulled it down onto the ground and beat it with sticks until it was unconscious and then tied a rope around its neck to strangle it. Thinking it was dead, they went to get gasoline to burn it. Because there were other cats around the house making noise all three of them went to get the gas. When they returned the cat was gone. They went to bed.

A short time later Hector was awakened by the fire department volunteers who were at a woman’s house near his own. When they went to investigate the husband said his wife had fallen off a chair. But one of the fire department guys said it looked like she tried to commit suicide because she had rope burns around her neck. But he didn’t understand how she got black and blue marks all over her body as though she’d been beat. She was in bed for 15 days. Oh, and she was the granddaughter of the spiritist woman above. Go figure.

OK, that’s the story. Make of it what you will. Hector says he thinks the devil and his minion are trying to scare us off. I think that’s a bit melodramatic. But so many (so many) cool things happen here that I don’t understand. I’m just glad there were witnesses from America to the robbery or you would all think I made that up too!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 6:37 am and is filed under Strange Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.