Twilight Zoned

Ever had one of those dreams that invades an important place from your childhood, turning it into a realm of foreboding and impending horror?

For most of my life, my aunt M— and uncle K— lived in a nice, quiet little hollow, hidden from the highway by a steep, rocky bank. They lived at the end of a long dirt road, past a few other houses, with a considerable chunk of property surrounding the main house, enough room for a large garage, space for my uncle to park at least a dozen vehicles to ply his trade as a freelance mechanic, and still have several fields of apple and pear trees in the back yard, a side yard reaching up into the woods at the base of the mountain, and even a couple up on the bank. There was also an old, bent apple tree in the front yard, propped up in several places over a picnic table, as it had grown too heavily to one side to support itself anymore. In spring, those trees would be all in bloom, buzzing with bees, and in autumn, all of the apples that M— had no room left for jarring or canning would fall to the ground, and the place would be buzzing with wasps and hornets instead. All summer, you could see the apples grow from blossoms to fully ripened, as well as go and play up along the bank.

The house itself dated back nearly a century, starting out as a two-room shack, and had been added on to by successive owners, even including a second floor by the time they lived there. By the last time I got to visit the place (summer 2003), they had even replaced the wood stove in the dining room with central heating and other upgrades. There was also an old outhouse behind the place, despite the fact that the house had a fully functioning bathroom for many years before they moved in. The house was built right up against the bank, with concrete steps leading up to a retainer wall behind it, on the same level as the outhouse. It was high enough that you could actually grab icicles off the edge of the roof in winter, and in the trench below there used to be several water storage tanks from before the house was connected to the local water lines. There were several other outbuildings, including a shed next to the outhouse that was used for everything from storage to a brief existence as a club house, a chicken coop (where M— would sometimes raise chickens), and a door leading under the bank that no one seemed to ever use for anything, possibly due to age and/or structural instability.

In those days K— was a volunteer firefighter, making his living from vehicle repair and local plowing and sanding during the winter, M— became the local babysitter after their own children left the nest, taking care of kids ranging from toddlers to grade school age, as well as my sister and I some summers when we were younger. Thus the place seemed to have a bottomless freezer of popsicles and endless pitchers of juice, and she was no slouch at baking, especially during the Holidays. It was also the natural place for family gatherings on that side of the mountains.

Though it’s been many years, it holds a special place in my memory, which made it a very creepy set-ting for something eldritch and disturbing to invade…

…A portal to the Twilight Zone is about the best way to describe it, just over the bank, on the other side of the highway.

Submitted for your approval: a bizarre border, to a foreboding realm where even the color drained out of everything, where the sky shifted starkly to a shade of grey that only exists in old black-and-white films. No one else who entered returned, and occasionally disturbing things would happen on this side of the line, when the twilight would press in a little further on our side of the line, as if reaching out to claim the last refuge of our everyday reality.

A group of locals found themselves trapped in the hollow, seeking refuge on my aunt and uncle’s grounds, for this invading space seemed to cut off the outside world, leaving us all trapped in the face of an advancing wall of darkness. I am part of the only group to enter this realm and return, and we are preparing to enter the Twilight Zone again, to make one last stand against this invasion, and some of my friends are preparing some kind of high-tech gear for me to equip, when things get worse.

Up on the bank, where some refugees are camping, a large truck, in the midst of backing up, becomes possessed by an unknown force, running over several people and smashing into several other vehicles that had been moved up there for shelter or something, while the driver can only cry out in alarm and warning and ultimately, horror. And all I can do is run away, hopping a couple gaps that don’t exist in the waking world, and retreating down to the lower level.

There is a horrible sense of shame accompanying this retreat, as the people here see us as heroes of a sort, and I have proven powerless against this truck without the equipment my friends are making, which is in one of the vehicles the truck smashes in its ultimately self-destructive rampage. Our numbers now greatly reduced by this assault, and I find myself unable to face the survivors, instead turning back to the wreckage above.

As one of the few who had seen it and lived to tell the tale, I know that the other side contains all the scary things from the Twilight Zone, and that even just moving around in the open can leave you subject to all manner of strange and surreal modes of attack. I know the only chance I have is sneaking through the debris and retrieving the gear my friends were making. Still wary of any more animated machinery, I manage to crawl into the camper my friends were working in.

I find no sign of them, nor any clue if they escaped or not.

There is a computer running, and I can see the display showing a bunch of upgrades made to what I now see is a suit of powered armor, which I proceed to don even as I look over the list of new features.

None too soon, I discover, as I look out to see some vast, shadowy form has entered the hollow, apparently seeking to wipe out the remaining survivors, and I am determined not to fail them this time.

By now, the Shadow has overtaken the entire hollow, shrouding everything in darkness, and draining the color out of everything, as it had on the other side of the rift, leaving my area a heap of broken silhouettes, which would immediately put my waking self in mind of Limbo (the video game). I quickly discover that one of the new features is a stealth mode that allows my to hide amidst the shadowy ruins, as well as a “mystery” weapon that is apparently my best chance to vanquish the Shadow and turn back this unreal invasion.

The last part is the Shadow moving about the hollow, looming over everything, its glowing eyes scanning the scenery, a deep, rumbling voice repeatedly challenging me, seeking to provoke me into revealing myself, even as I try to figure out how to use my mysterious new weapon against it. Knowing, in that way we just seem to know things in dreams, that this gift was no guarantee of victory, but merely a fighting chance…

…Much to my annoyance, though, I would never get to find out how this harrowing confrontation ended, as I was dragged awake by the neighboring building’s regular 4-am engine-revving contest. Which may well be part of why this dream still haunts me, even days later, that feeling of being faced with something monolithic and seemingly inexorable, as well as having failed those around me against something that failure might well be inevitable, like trying to hold back a tidal wave with your bare hands. At the same time, though there is also a sliver hope, the possibility that human ingenuity might yet invent a way to prevail, and turn the tide against the Unknown.

To say nothing of the way the setting itself, an important piece of my childhood imperiled, left me with a sense of being challenged on a very personal level. Of all the places for something like that to begin, it had to hit so close to home, as it always seems to happen in the Twilight Zone…